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 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 
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 Form No. 513 
 
 
 
 
CRITICAL 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS, 
 
 CONTRIBUTED TO 
 
 THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES, 
 VOL. II. 
 
 XT 
 
 LONDON 
 
 PRINTED FOR 
 
 LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, 
 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 
 1843. 
 
London : 
 
 Printed by A. Spottiswoode, 
 
 New -Street-Square. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 Page 
 
 Burleigh and his Times - - - - 1 
 
 War of the Succession in Spain - - - - 35 
 
 Horace Waljsole - - - - - 98 
 
 William Pitt, Earl of Chatham - - - - 146 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh - 200 
 
 Lord Bacon ---.._ 280 
 
 Gladstone on Church and State - - - 430 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/detairs/criticalhistoric02maca_0 
 
CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS 
 
 CONTRIBUTED TO 
 
 THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 
 
 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. (April 1832.) 
 
 Memoirs of the Life and Administration of the Right Honour- 
 able William Cecil Lord Burghley, Secretary of State in 
 the Reign of King Edward the Sixth, and Lord High 
 Treasurer of England in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 
 Containing an Historical View of the Times in which he 
 lived, and of the many eminent and illustrious Persons with 
 whom he was connected ; with Extracts from his Private and 
 Official Correspondence and other Papers, now first pub- 
 lished 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 
 
 VOL. II. b 
 
 <Z-5 
 
2 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 thousand closely printed quarto pages, that it occu- 
 pies 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 Dr. 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 labour, the labour of thieves on 
 the treadmill, of children in factories, of negroes in 
 sugar plantations, is an agreeable recreation. There 
 was, it is said, a criminal in Italy, who was suffered 
 to make his choice between Guicciardini and the gal- 
 leys. 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 not 
 the most amusing of writers, is a Herodotus or a 
 Froissart, when compared with Dr. 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 pro- 
 duces three times as many pages as another man; and 
 one of his pages is as tedious as another man's three. 
 His book is swelled to its vast dimensions by endless 
 repetitions, by episodes which have nothing to do with 
 the main action, by quotations from 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 sup- 
 porting a paradox. Of the rules of historical per- 
 spective, he has not the faintest notion. There is 
 neither foreground nor background in his delineation. 
 The wars of Charles the Fifth in Germany are detailed 
 
BUELEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 6 
 
 at almost as much length as in Eobert son'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 most 
 unjust to deny that Dr. Nares is a man of great in- 
 dustry 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 re- 
 positories. 
 
 Neither the facts which Dr. Nares has discovered, 
 nor the arguments which he urges, will, we apprehend, 
 materially alter the opinion generally entertained by 
 judicious readers of history concerning his hero. Lord 
 Burleigh 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 principles, though not inflexible, 
 were not nlore relaxed than those of his associates and 
 competitors. He had a cool temper, a sound judg- 
 ment, 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 at the gaming table to one of his 
 friends. He accordingly bored a hole in the wall which 
 separated his chambers from those of his associate, and 
 at midnight beHowed 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, the like merry jests," says his old 
 biographer, " I have heard him tell, too long to be 
 here noted." To the last, Burleigh was somewhat 
 
 b 2 
 
4 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 jocose ; and some of his sportive sayings have been 
 recorded by Bacon. They show much more shrewd- 
 ness than generosity, and are, indeed, neatly expressed 
 reasons for exacting money rigorously, and for keep- 
 ing it carefully. It must, however, be acknowledged 
 that he was rigorous and careful for the public advan- 
 tage, as well as for his own. To extol his moral cha- 
 racter as Dr. Nares has extolled it is absurd. It would 
 be equally absurd to represent him as a corrupt, 
 rapacious, and bad-hearted man. He paid great atten- 
 tion 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 without hazarding her 
 favour, never put to the rack any person from whom 
 it did not seem probable that useful information 
 might be derived, and was so moderate in his desires 
 that he left only three hundred distinct landed estates, 
 though he might, as his honest servant assures us, 
 have left much more, " if he would have taken money 
 out of the Exchequer for his own use, as many Trea- 
 surers have done.'' 
 
 Burleigh, like the old Marquess 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 supremacy of Henry the 
 Eighth. He was subsequently favoured and pro- 
 moted by the Duke of Somerset. He not only con- 
 trived to escape unhurt when his patron fell, but 
 became an. important member of the administration 
 of Northumberland. Dr. 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, 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 5 
 
 we confess, hardly satisfies us. We are much of the 
 mind of Falstaff's tailor. We must have better as- 
 surance for Sir John than Bardolph's. We like not 
 the security. 
 
 Through the whole course of that miserable in- 
 trigue which was carried on round the dying bed of 
 Edward the Sixth, Cecil so demeaned himself as to 
 avoid, first, the displeasure of Northumberland, and 
 afterwards the displeasure of Mary. He was pru- 
 dently 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 language 
 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 con- 
 sented not thereto. Yea, he openly opposed it ; 
 though at last yielding to the greatness of Northum- 
 berland, in an age when it was present drowning not 
 to swim with the stream. But as the philosopher 
 tells us, that, though the planets be whirled about 
 daily from east to west, by the motion of the primum 
 mobile, yet have they also a contrary proper motion 
 of their own from west to east, which they slowly, 
 though surely, move at their leisure; so Cecil had 
 secret counter-endeavours against the strain of the 
 court herein, and privately advanced his rightful in- 
 tentions 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 dif- 
 
 b 3 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 ficulties 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 contrivers. In the 
 meantime, Cecil quietly extricated himself, and, having 
 been successively patronised by Henry, by Somerset, 
 and by Northumberland, continued to nourish under 
 the protection of Mary. 
 
 He had no aspirations after the crown of martyr- 
 dom. He confessed himself, 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. Dr. Nares, whose sim- 
 plicity passes that of any casuist with whom we are 
 acquainted, vindicates his hero by assuring us that 
 this was not superstition, but pure unmixed hypocrisy. 
 " That he did in some manner conform, we shall not be 
 able, in the face of existing documents, to deny ; while 
 we feel in our own minds abundantly satisfied, that, 
 during this very trying reign, he never abandoned 
 the prospect of another revolution in favour of Pro- 
 testantism." In another place, the Doctor tells us, 
 that Cecil went to mass " with no idolatrous inten- 
 tion." Nobody, we believe, ever accused him of ido- 
 latrous intentions. The very ground of the charge 
 against him is that he had no idolatrous intentions. 
 We never should have blamed him if he had really 
 gone to Wimbledon Church, with the feelings of a 
 good Catholic, to worship the host. Dr. Nares speaks 
 in several places with just severity of the sophistry 
 of the Jesuits*, and with just admiration of the in- 
 comparable letters of Pascal. It is somewhat strange, 
 therefore, that he should adopt, to the full extent, the 
 Jesuitical doctrine of the direction of intentions. 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 7 
 
 We do not blame Cecil for not choosing to be 
 burned. 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 with- 
 out scruple the lives of others. One of the excuses 
 suggested in these Memoirs for his conforming, during 
 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 these moderate persons, and 
 " appears," says Dr. Nares, " to have gone greater 
 lengths than any imputed to Lord Burleigh." We 
 should have thought this not only an excuse, but a 
 complete vindication, if Cecil 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 practise them for his 
 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 Cecil attained the 
 highest point of power and favour, an Act of Par- 
 liament 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 consistent with the character of a 
 zealous Protestant. He was sent to escort the Papal 
 Legate, Cardinal Pole, from Brussels to London. 
 That great body of moderate persons who cared 
 more for the quiet of the realm than for the contro- 
 verted points which were in issue between the 
 Churches seem to have placed their chief hope in the 
 wisdom and humanity of the gentle Cardinal. Cecil, 
 it is clear, cultivated the friendship of Pole with great 
 
 b 4 
 
8 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 assiduity, and received great advantage from 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 occasion 
 against him. Yet he did not lose the esteem even of 
 those sterner Protestants who had preferred exile to 
 recantation. He attached himself to the persecuted 
 heiress of the throne, and entitled himself to her 
 gratitude and confidence. 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 greatness. He was sworn in 
 Privy-councillor and Secretary of State to the new 
 sovereign before he left her prison of Hatfield; and 
 he continued to serve her during forty years, without 
 intermission, in the highest employments. His abilities 
 were precisely those which keep men long in power. 
 He belonged to the class of the Walpoles, the Pelhams, 
 and the Liverpools, not to that of the St. Johns, the 
 Carteret s, the Chathams, and the Cannings. If he 
 had been a man of original genius and of an enter- 
 prising spirit, it would have been scarcely possible for 
 him to keep his power or even his head. There was 
 not room in one government for an Elizabeth and a 
 Richelieu. What the haughty daughter of Henry 
 needed, was a moderate, cautious, flexible minister, 
 skilled in the details of business, competent to advise, 
 but not aspiring to command. And such a minister 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 9 
 
 she found in Burleigh. No arts could shake the 
 confidence which she reposed in her old and trusty 
 servant. The courtly graces of Leicester, the brilliant 
 talents and accomplishments of Essex, touched the 
 fancy, perhaps the heart, of the woman ; but no rival 
 could deprive the Treasurer of the place which he 
 possessed in the favour of the Queen. She sometimes 
 chid him sharply; but he was the man whom she 
 delighted to honour. For Burleigh, she forgot her 
 usual parsimony both of wealth and of dignities. For 
 Burleigh, 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 Burleigh 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 
 naughty heirs of the Fitzalans and the De Veres 
 humbled themselves to the dust around him. At 
 length, having survived all his early coadjutors and 
 rivals, he died full of years and honours. His royal 
 mistress visited him on his death -bed, 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 Burleigh 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 decided superiority and 
 aspired to universal dominion. In the year in which 
 Burleigh was born, Charles the Fifth obtained the 
 imperial crown. In the year in which Burleigh 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. 
 
10 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 The life of Burleigh 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 commencing. He 
 lived to see that schism complete, and to see a line of 
 demarcation, 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 pro- 
 perly 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 
 princes and nobles 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 patronage of Frederic, of Cathe- 
 rine, of Joseph, and of the grandees of France, 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 cen- 
 tury, was zealously encouraged by the heads of that 
 very church to which liberal studies were destined to 
 be fatal. In both cases, when the explosion carne, it 
 came with a violence which appalled and disgusted 
 many of those who had previously been distinguished 
 by the freedom of their opinions. The violence of 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 11 
 
 the democratic party in France made Burke a tory 
 and Alfieri 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 per- 
 secutor. In both cases, the convulsion which had 
 overthrown deeply-seated errors, shook all the princi- 
 ples on which society rests 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 con- 
 fiscated. Every part of Europe swarmed with exiles. 
 In moody and turbulent spirits zeal soured into ma- 
 lignity, or foamed into madness. From the political 
 agitation of the eighteenth century sprang the Jaco- 
 bins. 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 Kniperdo- 
 ling robbed and murdered in the name of Christian 
 liberty. The feeling of patriotism was, in many parts 
 of Europe, almost wholly extinguished. 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. The great masters of fleets 
 and armies were ofTen reduced to confess, like Milton's 
 warlike angel, how hard they found it 
 
 f( 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 
 
12 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 times, between state and state, but between two om- 
 nipresent 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 be- 
 longed 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 Austrian and Prussian hussars to Paris. 
 The Irish or Italian democrat saw no impropriety in 
 serving the French Directory against his own native 
 government. So, in the sixteenth century, the fury 
 of theological factions suspended all national animosi- 
 ties 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 genera- 
 tion, were produced by the spirit of democracy. But, 
 when we hear men zealous for the Protestant religion 
 constantly represent the French Revolution as radi- 
 cally 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 Revolu- 
 tion, 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 scan- 
 dalous than those of Hebert, mummeries scarcely less 
 absurd than those of Clootz, and crimes scarcely less 
 atrocious than those of Marat, disgrace the early his- 
 tory of Protestantism. The Reformation is an event 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 13 
 
 long past. That volcano has spent its rage. The 
 wide waste produced by its outbreak is forgotten. The 
 landmarks which were swept away have been re- 
 placed. The ruined edifices have been repaired. The 
 lava has covered with a rich incrustation the fields 
 which it once devastated, and, after having turned a 
 beautiful and fruitful garden into a desert, has again 
 turned the desert into a still more beautiful and fruit- 
 ful garden. The second great eruption is not yet over. 
 The marks of its ravages are still all around us. 
 The ashes are still hot beneath our feet. In some di- 
 rections, the deluge of fire still continues to spread. 
 Yet experience surely entitles us to believe that this 
 explosion, like that which preceded it, will fertilise 
 the soil which it has devastated. Already, in those 
 parts which have suffered most severely, rich culti- 
 vation 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 Keformation in England is full 
 of strange problems. The most prominent and ex- 
 traordinary 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 the Eighth, the religion of the state was 
 thrice changed. .Protestantism 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 per- 
 sonal inclinations of the sovereign. Nor was this all. 
 An established church was then, as a matter of course, 
 a persecuting church. Edward persecuted Catholics. 
 Mary persecuted Protestants. Elizabeth persecuted 
 
14 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 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 factions in its 
 turn offered to the government. We had neither a 
 Coligny nor a Mayenne, neither a Moncontour nor an 
 Ivry. No English city braved sword and famine for 
 the reformed doctrines with the spirit of Eochelle, 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. Nei- 
 ther sect could obtain from an adverse sovereign even 
 a toleration. The English Protestants, after several 
 years of domination, sank down with scarcely a 
 struggle under the tyranny of Mary. The Catholics, 
 after having regained and abused their old ascendency, 
 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, suppressed 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 very simple, but by, no means 
 satisfactory. The power of the crown, it is said, was 
 then at its height, and was in 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 monarchy. And 
 such undoubtedly it appears to a superficial observer. 
 
BUELEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 15 
 
 Elizabeth, it is true, often spoke to her parliaments 
 in language as haughty and imperious as that which 
 the Great Turk would use to his divan. She punished 
 with great severity members of the House of Com- 
 mons who, in her opinion, carried the freedom of 
 debate too far. She assumed the power of legislating 
 by means of proclamations. She imprisoned her sub- 
 jects without bringing them to a legal trial. Torture 
 was often employed, in defiance of the laws of Eng- 
 land, for the purpose of extorting confessions from 
 those who were shut up in her dungeons. The 
 authority of the Star-Chamber and of the Ecclesias- 
 tical Commission was at its highest point. Severe 
 restraints were imposed on political and religious 
 discussion. The number of presses was at one time 
 limited. No man could print without a license ; and 
 every work had to undergo the scrutiny of the Pri- 
 mate, or the Bishop of London. Persons whose 
 writings were displeasing to the court were cruelly 
 mutilated, like Stubbs, or put to death, like Penry. 
 Nonconformity was severely punished. The Queen 
 prescribed the exact rule of religious faith and disci- 
 pline; 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 tjie hostile parties spoke of 
 the time of Elizabeth as of a golden age. That great 
 Queen has now been lying two hundred and thirty 
 years in Henry the Seventh's chapel. Yet her me- 
 mory 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 popu- 
 lar government, under the forms of despotism. At 
 first sight, it may seem that the prerogatives of Eliza- 
 
16 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 beth were not less ample than those of Louis the 
 Fourteenth, that her parliaments were as obsequious 
 as his parliaments, that her warrant had as much au- 
 thority 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 authority of Louis rested on the support of his 
 army. The authority 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 govern- 
 ment. These were the means, and the only means, 
 which she had at her command for carrying her de- 
 crees 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 am- 
 bitious noble raised the standard of revolt, she could 
 have recourse only to the train-bands 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 prepar- 
 ations which Philip was making for the subjugation 
 of the realm, the first person to whom the government 
 thought of applying for assistance was the Lord 
 Mayor of London. They sent to ask him what force 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 17 
 
 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 means to be misgoverned with 
 impunity. The English in the sixteenth century 
 were, beyond all doubt, a free people. They had not, 
 indeed, the outward show of freedom ; but they had 
 the reality. They had not as good a constitution as 
 we have ; but they had that without which the best 
 constitution is as useless as the king's proclamation 
 against vice and immorality, that which, without any 
 constitution, keeps rulers in awe, force, and the spirit 
 to use it. Parliaments, it is true, were rarely held, 
 and were not very respectfully treated. The great 
 charter was often violated. But the people had a 
 security against gross and systematic misgovernment, 
 far stronger than all the parchment that was ever 
 marked with the sign manual, and than all the wax 
 that was ever pressed by the great seal. 
 
 It is a common error in politics to confound means 
 with ends. Constitutions, charters, petitions of right, 
 declarations of right, representative assemblies, elec- 
 toral colleges, are not good government ; nor do they, 
 even when most elaborately constructed, necessarily 
 produce good government. Laws exist in vain for 
 those who have not the courage and the means to 
 defend them. Electors meet in vain where want 
 makes them the slaves of the landlord, or where 
 superstition makes them the slaves of the priest. Re- 
 
 VOL. II. c 
 
18 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 presentative assemblies sit in vain unless they have at 
 their command, in the last resort, the physical power 
 which is necessary to make their deliberations free, 
 and their votes effectual. 
 
 The Irish are better represented in parliament than 
 the Scotch, who indeed are not represented at all.* 
 But are the Irish better governed than the Scotch? 
 Surely not. This circumstance has of late been used 
 as an argument 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 contend- 
 ing 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 proceedings, 
 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 encroach- 
 ments of wealthier and more powerful neighbours, 
 such a people cannot be long oppressed. Any govern- 
 ment, 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 
 
 * It must be remembered that this was written before the passing of 
 the Reform Act. 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 19 
 
 their wishes known through constitutional organs. 
 But some influence, direct or indirect, they will 
 assuredly possess. Some organ, constitutional or 
 unconstitutional, they will assuredly find. They will 
 be better governed under a good constitution than 
 under a bad constitution. But they will be better 
 governed under the worst constitution than some 
 other nations under the best. In any general classi- 
 fication of constitutions, the constitution of 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 an 
 European publicist would call a Constitution, the 
 sovereign generally governs in conformity with certain 
 rules established for the public benefit ; and the sanc- 
 tion of those rules is, that every Afghan approves 
 them, and that every Afghan is a soldier. 
 
 The monarchy of England in the sixteenth century 
 was a monarchy of this 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 sovereign. 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 Commons 
 as they would have chid>a pack of dogs. People do 
 not sufficiently consider 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 
 
 c 2 
 
20 BUKLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 thoroughly discontented, instead of presenting requi- 
 sitions, holding large meetings, passing resolutions, 
 signing petitions, 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 had no regular 
 army which could, by its superior arms and its 
 superior skill, overawe or vanquish the sturdy Com- 
 mons of his realm, abounding in the native hardihood 
 of Englishmen, and trained in the simple discipline of 
 the militia. 
 
 It has been said that the Tudors were as absolute as 
 the Caesars. Never was parallel so unfortunate. The 
 government of the Tudors was the direct opposite to 
 the government of Augustus and his successors. The 
 Caesars ruled despotically, by means of a great stand- 
 ing army, under the decent forms of a republican 
 constitution. They called themselves citizens. They 
 mixed unceremoniously 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 of 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 remained 
 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 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 21 
 
 Oriental prostrations, 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 White- 
 hall 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 im- 
 mediately surrounded the royal person, and engaged 
 in the hazardous game of ambition, were exposed to 
 the most fearful dangers. Buckingham, Cromwell, 
 Surrey, Seymour of Sudeley, Somerset, Northumber- 
 land, Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex, perished on the scaffold. 
 But in general the country gentleman 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 Lamise, 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 excesses 
 were easily pardoned. For the nation was proud 
 of the high and fiery blood of its magnificent princes, 
 and saw, in many proceedings which a lawyer would 
 even then have condemned, the outbreak of the 
 same noble spirit which so manfully hurled foul 
 scorn at Parma and at Spain. But to this endurance 
 there was a limit. If the government ventured to 
 adopt measures which the people really felt to be 
 oppressive, it was soon compelled to change its 
 course. When Henry the Eighth attempted to raise 
 a forced loan of unusual amount by proceedings of 
 unusual rigour, the opposition which he encountered 
 was such as appalled even his stubborn and imperious 
 
 c 3 
 
22 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 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 
 religion 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 dis- 
 posed 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 restor- 
 ation of the abbey lands. She found that her sub- 
 jects would never suffer her to make her hereditary 
 kingdom a fief of Castile. On these points she en- 
 countered 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 con- 
 form to it, it was evidently because the people cared 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 23 
 
 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 dif- 
 ference between the hostile sects worth a struggle. 
 There was undoubtedly 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 revolution 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 of James the First, 
 a majority of the population of England were Catho- 
 lics. This is pure assertion ; and is not only unsup- 
 ported by evidence, but, we think, completely dis- 
 proved 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. Eushton 
 says that, when Elizabeth came to the throne, the 
 Catholics were two thirds of the nation, and the Pro- 
 testants only one third. The most judicious and im- 
 partial of English historians, Mr. Hallam, is, on the 
 contrary, of opinion that two thirds were Protest- 
 ants, 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 were 
 really two to one, they should have borne the 
 government of Elizabeth. We are at a loss to con- 
 ceive how 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 
 
 c 4 
 
24 BUELEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 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 insurgents were speedily put down and 
 punished. The Kentish gentlemen who took up arms 
 for the reformed doctrines against Mary, and the great 
 Northern Earls who displayed the banner of the Five 
 Wounds against Elizabeth, were alike considered by 
 the great body of their countrymen as wicked dis- 
 turbers of the public peace. 
 
 The account which Cardinal Bentivoglio gave of 
 the state of religion in England, well deserves con- 
 sideration. 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 estimated 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 religion, 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 irreligious. 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 resembling 
 that of those Borderers whom Sir Walter Scott has 
 described with so much spirit, 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 25 
 
 " Who sought the beeves that made their broth 
 In England and in Scotland both/' 
 
 And who 
 
 ft Nine times outlawed had been 
 By England's king and Scotland's queen." 
 
 They were sometimes Protestants, sometimes Catho- 
 lics ; 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 Eoman 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 sub- 
 sequently effected by Henry the Eighth. The House 
 of Commons, in the reign of Henry the Fourth, pro- 
 posed a confiscation of ecclesiastical property, more 
 sweeping and violent even than that which took place 
 under the administration of Thomas Cromwell; and, 
 though defeated in this attempt, they succeeded in 
 depriving the clerical order of some of its most op- 
 pressive privileges. The splendid conquests of Henry 
 the Fifth 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 authority of the Popedom. A considerable 
 reaction took place. It cannot, however, be doubted, 
 that there was still some concealed Lollardism in 
 England ; or that many who did not absolutely dissent 
 from any doctrine held by the Church of Kome were 
 jealous of the wealth and power enjoyed by her 
 ministers. At the very beginning of the reign of 
 
26 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Henry the Eighth, 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 
 tribunal. The London juries, he said, entertained 
 such a spite to the Church that, if Abel were a priest, 
 they would find him guilty of the murder of Cain. 
 This was said a few months before the time when 
 Martin Luther began to preach at Wittenburg against 
 indulgences. 
 
 As the Keformation 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 regulate, and 
 occasionally to arrest, the movement. 
 
 To many persons it appears extraordinary that 
 Henry the Eighth should have been able to maintain 
 himself so long in an intermediate position between 
 the Catholic and Protestant parties. Most extra- 
 ordinary 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 Protest- 
 ant, but was, like its sovereign, midway between the 
 two sects. Henry, in that very part of his conduct 
 which has been represented as most capricious and 
 inconsistent, was probably following a policy far more 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 27 
 
 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 Koman 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 Kome. Their spirit rose 
 against the interference of a foreign priest with their 
 national concerns. The bull which pronounced sen- 
 tence 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, 
 for example, in public worship, and the communion 
 in both kinds, were undoubtedly popular. On the 
 other hand, the early lessons of the nurse and the 
 priest were not forgotten. The ancient ceremonies 
 were long remembered with affectionate reverence. 
 A large portion of the ancient theology lingered to 
 the last in the minds which had been imbued with it 
 in childhood. 
 
 The best proof that the religion of the people was of 
 this mixed kind is furnished by the Drama of that age. 
 No man would bring unpopular opinions prominently 
 forward in a play intended for representation. And 
 we may safely conclude, that feelings and opinions 
 which pervade the whole Dramatic Literature of a 
 generation, are feelings and opinions of which the men 
 of that generation generally partook. 
 
 The greatest and most popular dramatists of the 
 Elizabethan age treat religious subjects in a very 
 
28 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 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 
 Eomish 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 reverence. Almost every member 
 of a religious order whom they introduce is a holy 
 and venerable man. 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 creditable 
 part to the Friar. The partiality of Shakspeare for 
 Friars is well known. In Hamlet, the Ghost com- 
 plains 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 tremen- 
 dous storm in the theatre at any time during the reign 
 of Charles the Second. They were clearly not written 
 by a zealous Protestant, or for zealous Protestants. 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 29 
 
 Yet the author of King John and Henry the Eighth 
 was surely no friend to papal supremacy. 
 
 There is, we think, only one solution of the pheno- 
 mena 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 their race, con- 
 tinued to unite with the rites learned from their con- 
 querors 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 
 conscience, as she spake concerning God's holy ordi- 
 nance and institution of matrimony." Burleigh pre- 
 vailed on her to connive at the marriages of church- 
 men. But she would only connive ; and the children 
 sprung from such marriages were illegitimate till the 
 accession of James the First. 
 
 That which is, as we iiave said, the great stain on 
 the character of Burleigh is also the great stain on the 
 character of Elizabeth. Being herself an Adiaphorist, 
 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 fond- 
 ness for much of the doctrine and much of the cere- 
 monial of that church, she yet subjected that church 
 to a persecution even more odious than the persecution 
 
30 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 with which her sister had harassed the Protestants. 
 We say more odious. For Mary had at least the plea 
 of fanaticism. She did nothing for her religion which 
 she was not prepared to suffer for it. She had held 
 it firmly under persecution. She fully believed it to 
 be essential to salvation. 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 wholly a Catholic. There 
 is an excuse, a wretched excuse, for the massacres of 
 Piedmont and the Autos de fe of Spain. But what 
 can be said in defence of a ruler who is at once in- 
 different and intolerant? 
 
 If the great Queen, whose memory is still held in 
 just veneration by Englishmen, had possessed suf- 
 ficient virtue and sufficient enlargement of mind to 
 adopt those principles which More, wiser in specu- 
 lation than in action, had avowed in the preceding 
 generation, and by which the excellent L'Hospital 
 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 esta- 
 blishing perfect freedom of conscience throughout 
 her dominions, without danger to her government, 
 without scandal to any large party among her sub- 
 jects. The nation, as it was clearly ready to profess 
 either religion, would, beyond all doubt, have been 
 ready to tolerate both. Unhappily for her own glory 
 and for the public peace, she adopted a policy from 
 the effects of which the empire is still suffering. The 
 yoke of the Established Church was pressed down on 
 the people till they would bear it no longer. Then a 
 reaction came. Another reaction followed. To the 
 tyranny of the establishment succeeded the tumul- 
 tuous conflict of sects, infuriated by manifold wrongs, 
 
BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 31 
 
 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 which had been framed for the protec- 
 tion of the established church were abolished. But 
 exclusions and disabilities still remained. These ex- 
 clusions and disabilities, after having generated the 
 most fearful discontents, after having rendered all 
 government in one part of the kingdom impossible, 
 after having brought the state to the very brink of 
 ruin, have, in our times, been removed, but, though 
 removed, have left behind them a rankling which 
 may last for many years. It is melancholy to think 
 with what ease Elizabeth might have united all con- 
 flicting sects under the shelter of the same impartial 
 laws 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 heartburnings, the persecutions, 
 the conspiracies, the seditions, the revolutions, the 
 judicial murders, the civil wars, of ten generations. 
 
 This is the dark side of her character. Yet she 
 surely was a great woman. Of all the sovereigns 
 who exercised a power which was seemingly absolute, 
 but which in fact depended for support on the love 
 and confidence of their subjects, she was by far the 
 most illustrious. It has often been alleged as an 
 excuse for the misgovernment of her successors that 
 they only followed her example, that precedents 
 might be found in the transactions of her reign for 
 persecuting the Puritans, for levying money without 
 the sanction of the House of Commons, for confining 
 men without bringing them to trial, for interfering 
 with the liberty of parliamentary debate. All this 
 may be true. But it is no good plea for her suc- 
 cessors ; and for this plain reason, that they were her 
 
32 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 successors. She governed one generation, they go- 
 verned 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 
 principles of her government, that those who followed 
 her were likely to learn the art of managing un- 
 tractable subjects. If, instead of searching the records 
 of her reign for precedents which might seem to 
 vindicate the mutilation of Prynne and the imprison- 
 ment 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, some- 
 times 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 the First had been in her place when the 
 whole nation was crying out against the monopolies, he 
 would have refused all redress. He would have dis- 
 solved the Parliament, and imprisoned the most popular 
 members. He would have called another Parliament. 
 He would have given some vague and delusive pro- 
 mises of relief in return for subsidies. When en- 
 treated to fulfil his promises, 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 Com- 
 es 
 
 mons would have been more unmanageable than that 
 which preceded it. The tyrant would have agreed 
 
BUELEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 33 
 
 to all that the nation demanded. He would have 
 solemnly ratified an act abolishing monopolies for 
 ever. He would have received a large supply in 
 return for this concession; and within half a year 
 new patents, more oppressive than those which had 
 been cancelled, would have been issued by scores. 
 Such was the policy which brought the heir of a long 
 line of kings, in early youth the darling of his coun- 
 trymen, to a prison and a scaffold. 
 
 Elizabeth, before the House of Commons could ad- 
 dress 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 per- 
 formance 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 en- 
 hanced 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 the First gave up 
 half the prerogatives of his crown to the Commons ; 
 and the Commons sent him in return the Grand Ke- 
 monstrance. 
 
 We had intended to say something concerning that 
 illustrious group of which Elizabeth is the central 
 figure, that group which the last of the bards 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." 
 
 VOL. II. D 
 
34 BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 We had intended to say something concerning the 
 dexterous Walsingham, the impetuous Oxford, the 
 graceful Sackville, the all-accomplished Sydney; con- 
 cerning Essex, the ornament of the court and of the 
 camp, the model of chwalry, the munificent patron 
 of genius, whom great virtues, great courage, great 
 talents, the favour of his sovereign, the love of his 
 countrymen, all that seemed to ensure a happy and 
 glorious life, led to an early and an ignominious 
 death ; concerning Ealeigh, the soldier, the sailor, 
 the scholar, the courtier, the orator, the poet, the 
 historian, the philosopher, whom we picture to our- 
 selves, sometimes reviewing the Queen's guard, some- 
 times giving chase to a Spanish galleon, then answer- 
 ing 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, of 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, our article may 
 swell to a bulk exceeding that of all other reviews, 
 as much as Dr. Nares's book exceeds the bulk of all 
 other histories. 
 
35 
 
 WAR OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 
 (January 1833.) 
 
 History of the War of the Succession in Spain. By Lord 
 Mahon. 8vo. 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 at- 
 tractive 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 magnatum. Yet we must 
 acknowledge that, though our political opinions are 
 by no means aristocratical, we always feel kindly 
 disposed towards noble authors. Industry and a 
 taste for intellectual pleasures are peculiarly respect- 
 able in those who can afford to be idle and who have 
 every temptation to be dissipated. 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 in- 
 ferior to the work which now lies before us. He has 
 undoubtedly some of the most valuable qualities of 
 a historian, great diligence in examining authorities, 
 great judgment in weighing testimony, and great 
 impartiality in estimating characters. We are not 
 
 D 2 
 
36 lord mahon's war of 
 
 aware that he has in any instance forgotten the 
 duties belonging to his literary functions in the feel- 
 ings of a kinsman. He does no more than justice to 
 his ancestor Stanhope; he does full justice to Stan- 
 hope's enemies and rivals. His narrative is very 
 perspicuous, and is also entitled to the praise, sel- 
 dom, we grieve to say, deserved by modern writers, of 
 being very concise. It must be admitted, however, 
 that, with many of the best qualities of a literary 
 veteran, he has some of the faults of a literary novice. 
 He has not yet acquired a great command of words. 
 His style is seldom easy, and is now and then un- 
 pleasantly 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 sub- 
 ordinate, 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 an English word than 
 a French word; but it is better to use a French word 
 than to misuse an English word. 
 
 Lord Mahon is also a little too fond of uttering 
 moral reflections in a style too sententious and ora- 
 cular. 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 Che- 
 dorlaomer ; but it has now been for many generations 
 considered as a truism rather than a paradox. Every 
 boy has written on the thesis " Odisse quern Iceseris." 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 37 
 
 Scarcely any lines in English Poetry are better known 
 than that vigorous couplet, 
 
 i( 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 those faults, is a valuable addition to our historical 
 literature. 
 
 Whoever wishes to be well acquainted with the 
 morbid anatomy of governments, whoever wishes to 
 know how great states may be made feeble and 
 wretched, should study the history of Spain. The 
 empire of Philip the Second 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 completely 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 a sum near ten 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 
 
 d 3 
 
38 lord mahon's war of 
 
 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 Eome, was suffering 
 painfully from the want of luxuries which use had 
 made necessaries. While pillars and arches were 
 rising to commemorate the French conquests, the 
 conquerors were trying to manufacture coffee out of 
 succory and sugar out of beet-root. The influence 
 of Philip on the continent was as great as that of 
 Napoleon. The Emperor of Germany was his kins- 
 man. France, torn by religious dissensions, was 
 never a formidable opponent, and was sometimes a 
 dependent ally. At the same time, Spain had what 
 Napoleon desired in vain, ships, colonies, and com- 
 merce. 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 dis- 
 tributed by her. During many years of war, her 
 commerce was interrupted only by the predatory 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 39 
 
 enterprises of a few roving privateers. Even after the 
 defeat of the Armada, English statesmen continued 
 to look with great dread on the maritime power of 
 Philip. " The king of Spain," said the Lord Keeper 
 to the two Houses in 1593, " since he hath usurped 
 upon the kingdom of Portugal, hath thereby grown 
 mighty by gaining the East Indies : so as, how great 
 soever he was before, he is now thereby manifestly 
 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 neigh- 
 bour to the Queen's isles of Jersey and Guernsey, 
 ancient possessions of this crown, and never conquered 
 in the greatest wars with France." 
 
 The ascendency which Spain then had in Europe 
 was, in one sense, well deserved. It was an ascend- 
 ency which had been gained by unquestioned supe- 
 riority 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 cha- 
 racter which Yirgil 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, " regere imperio populos," was not better 
 understood by the Romans in the proudest days of 
 their republic, than by Gonsalvo and Ximenes, Cortes 
 and Alva. The skill of the Spanish diplomatists was 
 renowned throughout Europe. In England the name 
 of Gondomar is still remembered. The sovereign 
 
 d 4 
 
40 LORD MAHON S WAR OF 
 
 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 re- 
 quired 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, dis- 
 played a fertility of resource, and a talent for nego- 
 tiation and command, to which history scarcely affords 
 a parallel. 
 
 The Castilian of those times was to the Italian what 
 the Roman, in the days of the greatness of Rome, 
 was to the Greek. The conqueror had less ingenuity, 
 less taste, less delicacy of perception than the con- 
 quered; but far more pride, firmness, and courage, 
 a more solemn demeanour, a stronger sense of honour. 
 The subject had more subtlety in speculation, the ruler 
 more energy in action. The vices of the former were 
 those of a coward; the vices of the latter 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 of those 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 cepit." 
 The slave took prisoner the enslaver. The old Cas- 
 tilian 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 Me- 
 nander. 
 
 In no modern society, not even in England during 
 the reign of Elizabeth, has there been so great a num- 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 41 
 
 ber 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. 
 Eoscan 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 Men- 
 doza, 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 pro- 
 consuls 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 daemon, horribly 
 malevolent, but withal most sagacious and powerful. 
 " They be verye wyse and politicke," says an honest 
 Englishman, in a memorial addressed to Mary, " and 
 can, thorowe ther wysdome, reform and brydell theyr 
 owne natures for a tyme, and applye their conditions 
 to the maners of those mjen with whom they meddell 
 gladly e 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 pur- 
 poses, 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 
 
42 LORD MAHON S WAR OF 
 
 as Arminius would have used about the Komans, or 
 as an Indian statesman of our times might use about 
 the English. It is the language of a man burning 
 with hatred, but cowed by those whom he hates ; and 
 painfully sensible of their superiority, not only in 
 power, but in intelligence. 
 
 But how art thou fallen from heaven, 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 
 Kome of Gallienus and Honorius presents to the Eome 
 of Marius and Csesar. 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 Kousillon, and Franche 
 Comte. In the East, the empire founded by the 
 Dutch far surpassed in wealth and splendour that 
 which their 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 pro- 
 vinces 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 colonies. The Spanish 
 empire was still, 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 the Fourteenth. 
 The American dependencies of the Castilian crown still 
 extended far to the North of Cancer and far to the 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 43 
 
 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 ma- 
 nufactures, had been driven into exile by stupid and 
 remorseless bigots. The glory of the Spanish pencil 
 had departed with Velasquez and Murillo. The 
 splendid age of Spanish literature had closed with 
 Solis and Calderon. During the seventeenth century 
 many states had formed great military establishments. 
 But the Spanish army, so formidable under the com- 
 mand of Alva and Farnese, 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 
 the Second, had been the terror of the Atlantic and 
 the Mediterranean. The arsenals were deserted. 
 The magazines were unprovided. The frontier for- 
 tresses were ungarrisoned. The police was utterly 
 inefficient for the protection of the people. Murders 
 were committed in the face of day with perfect im- 
 punity. Bravoes and discarded serving-men, with 
 swords at their sides, swaggered every day through 
 the most public streets and squares of the capital, 
 disturbing the public peace, and setting at defiance 
 the ministers of justice. The finances were in fright- 
 ful disorder. The people paid much. The govern- 
 ment 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 
 
44 lord mahon's war of 
 
 frantic measure produced its never-failing effects. It 
 destroyed all credit, and increased the misery which 
 it was intended to relieve. The American 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 accumu- 
 lated in the offices, while the Ministers were concert- 
 ing 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 individuals 
 deriving their chief income from mines, whose yearly 
 produce is uncertain 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. Nothing could be more uncertain 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 be- 
 lieve that this case is very similar to that of the 
 American mines. Some veins of ore exceeded ex- 
 pectation ; some fell below it. Some of the private 
 speculators drew blanks, and others gained prizes. 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 45 
 
 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 the Fourth and Charles 
 the Second, in a steady course of improvement ; 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 them- 
 selves into one cause, bad government. The valour, 
 the intelligence, the energy, which, at the close of the 
 fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
 had made the Spaniards the first nation in the world, 
 were the fruits of the old institutions of Castile 
 and Arragon, institutions eminently favourable to 
 public liberty. Those institutions the first Princes 
 of the House of Austria attacked and almost wholly 
 destroyed. Their successors expiated the crime. The 
 effects 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 time 
 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 
 
46 LORD mahon's war of 
 
 the last years of liberty. Thus the Augustan age was 
 rich in great minds formed in the generation of Cicero 
 and Caesar. The fruits of the policy of Augustus 
 were reserved for posterity. Philip the Second 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 the 
 sixteenth century gave to Europe, was scarcely felt 
 in Spain. In England, Germany, Holland, France, 
 Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, that shock had pro- 
 duced, 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 Kome, 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 pretensions to the scrutiny of reason, 
 and availed herself more sparingly than in former 
 times of the aid of the secular arm. Even when per- 
 secution was employed, it was not persecution in the 
 worst and most frightful shape. The severities of 
 Louis the Fourteenth, 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 pro- 
 duced in Spain had been to make the Inquisition more 
 vigilant and the commonalty more bigoted. The 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 47 
 
 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 childish things, the Spaniard still thought as 
 a child and understood as a child. Among the men 
 of the seventeenth 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, Charles, second of the name, 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 
 childless ; 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 ag- 
 gravated 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 the Fourteenth. 
 The Dauphin would, therefore, in the common course 
 of inheritance, have succeeded to the crown. But the 
 
48 lord mahon's war of 
 
 Infanta had, at the time of her espousals, solemnly 
 renounced, in her own name, and in that of her pos- 
 terity, all claim to the succession. This renunciation 
 had been confirmed 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 renounced her claims to the Spanish crown ; 
 but the Cortes had not sanctioned the renunciation, 
 and it was 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 the Third, and was there- 
 fore first cousin to Charles. No renunciation what- 
 ever 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 Arch- 
 duke Charles, the Dauphin, in favour of Philip Duke 
 of Anjou. 
 
 Soon after the peace of Kyswick, William the Third 
 and Louis the Fourteenth determined to settle the 
 question of the succession without consulting either 
 
I 
 
 THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 49 
 
 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 were 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 councillors was to avert the dismemberment of the 
 monarchy. In the hope of attaining this end, Charles 
 determined to name a successor. A will was accord- 
 ingly framed by 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 de- 
 scend 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. The equivalent in view was the province 
 of Lorraine. 
 
 Arbuthnot, some years later, ridiculed the Partition 
 Treaty with exquisite humour and ingenuity. Every 
 body must remember his description of the paroxysm 
 of rage into which poor old Lord Strutt fell, on hear- 
 ing that his runaway servant Nick Frog, his clothier 
 John Bull, and his old enemy Lewis Baboon, had 
 come with quadrants, poles, and inkhorns, to survey 
 his estate, and to draw his will for him. Lord Mahon 
 speaks of the 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 
 
 VOL. II. E 
 
50 LORD MAHON S WAR OF 
 
 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 con- 
 cluded 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 Nimeguen to the wel- 
 fare 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 welfare 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 pacification of Christendom, 
 the people of Poland, of Norway, of Belgium, and of 
 Lombardy, were allotted to masters whom they ab- 
 horred. 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 rulers. But it will be diffi- 
 cult to prove that the stipulations which Lord Mahon 
 condemns were in any respect unfavourable to the 
 happiness of those who were to be transferred to new 
 sovereigns. The Neapolitans would certainly have 
 lost nothing by being given to the 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, an union with France 
 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. 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 51 
 
 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 dis- 
 memberment it was scarcely possible to make a peace- 
 able arrangment. If any dismemberment was to 
 take place, the best way of effecting it surely was to 
 separate from the monarchy those provinces 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 kingdoms of Castile and Arragon, 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. 
 
 That England and Holland had a right to interfere 
 is plain. The question of the Spanish succession was 
 not an internal question, but an 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, England 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 attempting to put, not 
 merely the passive Flemings and Italians, but the re- 
 luctant Castilians and Asturians, under the dominion 
 of a stranger. The danger against which the Parti- 
 tion Treaty was intended to guard was precisely 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 insufficient 
 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 Sicily and the Milanese than 
 that she should be governed by a Bourbon. 
 
 e 2 
 
52 lord mahon's war of 
 
 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 
 cooperate 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. The 
 Spanish ambassador at the court of London was 
 directed to remonstrate with the government of 
 William; and his remonstrances were so insolent that 
 he was commanded to leave England. Charles re- 
 taliated by dismissing the English and Dutch ambas- 
 sadors. 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 maritime 
 powers. 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 suc- 
 cess by the factions which surrounded the miserable 
 King. On the side of the Imperial family was the 
 Queen, herself a Princess of that family. With her 
 were allied the confessor of the King, and most of the 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 53 
 
 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 specimen of the French 
 aristocracy in the clays of its highest splendour, a 
 finished gentleman, a brave soldier, and a skilful 
 diplomatist. His courteous and insinuating manners, 
 his Parisian vivacity tempered 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, niggardly 
 German, made himself and his country more and 
 more unpopular every day. 
 
 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 Car- 
 rero had learned in the exercise of his profession the 
 art of exciting and soothing such minds ; and he em- 
 ployed that art with the calm and demure cruelty 
 which is the characteristic 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. 
 
 e 3 
 
54 lord mahon's war of 
 
 Several persons were accused of having bewitched 
 him. Porto Carrero recommended the appalling rite 
 of exorcism, which was actually performed. 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 provisions by a monopoly. 
 The government looked after this most delicate con- 
 cern as it looked after every thing else. The partisans 
 of the House of Bourbon took advantge of the negli- 
 gence 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 ad- 
 visers of the crown should be forthwith dismissed. 
 The mob left the palace, and proceeded to pull down 
 the houses of the ministers. The adherents of the 
 Austrian 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 the Fifth, he 
 was haunted by a strange curiosity to pry into the 
 secrets of that grave to which he was hastening. In 
 the cemetery which Philip the Second had formed 
 beneath the pavement of the church of St. Lawrence, 
 reposed three generations of Castilian princes. Into 
 these dark vaults the unhappy monarch descended by 
 torch-light, and penetrated to that superb and gloomy 
 chamber where, round the great black crucifix, were 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 55 
 
 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, unseen for eighteen years, those fea- 
 tures over which corruption seemed to have no power, 
 and rushed from the vault, exclaiming, " She is with 
 God; and I shall soon be with her." The awful sight 
 completed the ruin of his body and mind. The Es- 
 curial became hateful to him ; and he hastened to 
 Aranjuez. But the shades and waters of that delicious 
 island-garden, so fondly celebrated in the sparkling 
 verse of Calderon, brought no solace to their unfortu- 
 nate master. Having tried medicine, exercise, and 
 amusement in vain, he returned to Madrid to die. 
 
 He was now beset on every side by the bold and 
 skilful agents of the House of Bourbon. The leading 
 politicians of his court assured him that Louis, and 
 Louis alone, was sufficiently powerful to preserve the 
 Spanish monarchy undivided, and that Austria would 
 be utterly unable to prevent the Treaty of Partition 
 from being carried into effect. Some celebrated 
 lawyers gave it as their opinion that the act of renun- 
 ciation executed by the late Queen of France ought 
 to be construed according to the spirit, and not accord- 
 ing to the letter. The letter undoubtedly excluded 
 the French Princes. The spirit was merely this, that 
 ample security should be taken against the union of 
 the French and Spanish crowns on one head. 
 
 In all probability, neither political nor legal reason- 
 ings would have sufficed to overcome the partiality 
 which Charles felt for the House of Austria. There 
 had_ always been a close connexion between the two 
 
 e 4 
 
56 lord mahon's war of 
 
 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 Car- 
 rero employed those terrors with true professional 
 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 monarchy ? 
 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, con- 
 sidered 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 irresolute. 
 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. Then 
 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 com- 
 mission of known sin. He was defrauding his relatives. 
 He was bequeathing civil war to his people. He 
 yielded, and signed that memorable Testament, the 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 57 
 
 cause of many calamities to Europe. As he affixed 
 his name to the instrument, he burst into tears. 
 " God," he said, " gives kingdoms and takes them 
 away. I am already one of the dead." 
 
 The will was kept secret during the short remainder 
 of his life. On the third of November 1700 he ex- 
 pired. All Madrid crowded to the palace. The gates 
 were thronged. The antechamber was filled with 
 ambassadors and grandees, eager to learn what dispo- 
 sitions 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 government 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 obligations 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 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 intellectual character resembled his 
 own, he could not 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 
 
58 lord mahon's war of 
 
 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 magnificence of 
 Versailles. His grandfather was as imperious and as 
 ostentatious in his intercourse with the royal family 
 as in public acts. AH 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 
 further than the manners. The Dauphin, the Duke 
 of Berri, Philip of Anjou, were men of insignificant 
 characters. They had no energy, no force of will. 
 They had been so little accustomed to judge or to act 
 for themselves that implicit dependence had become 
 necessary to their comfort! The new King of Spain, 
 emancipated from control, resembled that wretched 
 German captive who, when the irons which he had 
 worn for years were knocked off, fell prostrate on the 
 floor of his prison. The restraints which had en- 
 feebled 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 grandfather was all activity. Louis 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 59 
 
 had no reason to fear a contest with the Empire 
 single-handed. He made vigorous preparations to 
 encounter Leopold. He overawed the States-General 
 by means of a great army. He attempted to soothe 
 the English government by fair professions. William 
 was not deceived. He fully returned the hatred of 
 Louis ; and, if he had been free to act according to 
 his own inclinations, he would have declared war as 
 soon as the contents of the will were known. But 
 he was bound by constitutional restraints. Both his 
 person and his measures were unpopular in England. 
 His secluded life and his cold manners disgusted a 
 people accustomed to the graceful affability of Charles 
 the Second. His foreign accent and his foreign at- 
 tachments were offensive to the national prejudices. 
 His reign had been a season of distress, following a sea- 
 son of rapidly increasing prosperity. The burdens of 
 the late war and the expense of restoring the currency 
 had been severely felt. Nine clergymen out of ten 
 were Jacobites at heart, and had sworn allegiance to 
 the new dynasty, only in order to save their benefices. 
 A large proportion of the country gentlemen belonged 
 to the same party. The whole body of agricultural 
 proprietors was hostile to that interest which the 
 creation of the national debt had brought into notice, 
 and which was believed to be peculiarly favoured by 
 the Court, the monied 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 
 danger of a counter-revolution, were disposed to 
 thwart and mortify the sovereign by whom they 
 were, nevertheless, ready to stand, in case of necessity, 
 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." 
 
60 LORD MAHON'S WAR OF 
 
 Every thing in England was going on as Louis 
 could have wished. The leaders of the Whig party 
 had retired from power, and were extremely unpo- 
 pular on account of the unfortunate issue of the Par- 
 tition 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 the Second died at St. Germain's. Louis 
 paid 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 by 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 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 61 
 
 was raised by the city of London, and echoed and 
 reechoed from every corner of the realm. William 
 saw that his time was come. Though his wasted 
 and suffering body could hardly move without sup- 
 port, 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 engaged 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 
 preparations were made for war. 
 
 Before the commencement of active hostilities 
 "William was no more. But the Grand Alliance of the 
 European Princes against the Bourbons was already 
 constructed. " The master workman died," says Mr. 
 Burke ; " but the work was formed on true mechanical 
 principles, and it was as truly wrought." On the 
 fifteenth of May 1702, war was proclaimed by concert 
 at Yienna, 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 coa- 
 litions were, in respect of territory, wealth, and popu- 
 lation, 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- 
 many, and in the Netherlands, great means were at 
 the disposal of great generals. Mighty battles were 
 fought. Fortress after fortress was subdued. The 
 iron chain of the Belgian strongholds was broken. 
 By a regular and connected series of operations 
 
62 LORD mahon's war of 
 
 extending through several years, the 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 de- 
 pendence on each other. The turns of fortune re- 
 semble those which take place in a dream. Victory 
 and defeat are not followed by their usual con- 
 sequences. 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 de- 
 cided by the peculiarities of the national character. 
 
 When the war commenced, the young King was in 
 a most deplorable situation. 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 contrast between the dex- 
 terity 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 Yery different 
 opinion, and Louis was very seldom mistaken in his 
 judgment of character. " Every body," says he, in a 
 letter to his ambassador, " knows how incapable the 
 Cardinal is. He is an object of contempt to his 
 countrymen." 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 63 
 
 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 in- 
 creased 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 sluggish nature was susceptible. His grandfather 
 consented to let him have a wife. 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, accordingly, 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 princess 
 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 Maintenon; 
 and the appellation was well deserved. She aspired 
 
64 lokd mahon's war of 
 
 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 she became 
 so powerful, that neither minister of Spain nor am- 
 bassador 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 coax- 
 ing, 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 sepa- 
 rate himself from his wife, and to repair without her 
 to his Italian dominions, which were then menaced by 
 the Emperor. The Queen acted as Eegent, and, 
 child as she was, seems to have been quite as compe- 
 tent to govern the kingdom as her husband or any of 
 his ministers. 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 65 
 
 In August 1702, an armament, under the com- 
 mand 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 
 farmers advanced money. The peasantry were formed 
 into what the Spanish writers call bands of heroic 
 patriots, and what General Stanhope calls a u 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. Bellasys, the 
 English general, embezzled the stores. Lord Mahon 
 imputes the ill temper of Sparre to the influence of 
 the republican institutions of Holland. By parity 
 of reason, we suppose that he would impute the pecu- 
 lations of Bellasys to the influence of the monarchical 
 and aristocratical institutions of England. The Duke 
 of Ormond, who had the command of the whole ex- 
 pedition, proved on this occasion, as on every other, 
 destitute of the qualities which great emergencies 
 require. No discipline was kept; the soldiers were 
 suffered to rob and insult those whom it was most 
 desirable to conciliate. Churches were robbed ; images 
 were pulled down ; nuns were 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 America had 
 just arrived in Europe, and had, in order to avoid his 
 
 VOL. II. f 
 
66 lord mahon's war of 
 
 armament, repaired to the harbour of Vigo. The 
 cargo consisted, it was said, of more than three mil- 
 lions sterling in gold and silver, besides much valuable 
 merchandise. The prospect of plunder reconciled all 
 disputes. Dutch and English, admirals and generals, 
 were equally eager for action. The Spaniards 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 unload at 
 Cadiz, and at Cadiz only. The Chamber of Com- 
 merce at Cadiz, in the true spirit of monopoly, refused, 
 even at this conjuncture, to bate one jot of its privi- 
 lege. The matter was referred to the Council of the 
 Indies. That body deliberated and hesitated just a 
 day too long. Some feeble preparations 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 sol- 
 diers 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 
 destroyed came an order in due form allowing them 
 to unload. 
 
 When Philip returned to Madrid in the beginning 
 of 1703, he found the finances more embarrassed, the 
 people more discontented, and the hostile coalition 
 more formidable than ever. The loss of the galleons 
 had occasioned a great deficiency in the revenue. 
 The Admiral of Castile, one of the greatest subjects 
 in Europe, had fled to Lisbon and sworn allegiance 
 to the Archduke. The King of Portugal soon after 
 acknowledged Charles as King of Spain, and prepared 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 67 
 
 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 stern, cold, Brutus- 
 like virtue in the manner in which he discharged the 
 duties of a soldier of fortune. His military fidelity 
 was tried by the strongest temptations, and was found 
 invincible. At one time he fought against his uncle ; 
 at another time 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 fron- 
 tier 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, 
 who were commanded by Lord Galway, in check 
 through the whole campaign. On the south, however, 
 a great blow was struck. An English fleet, under Sir 
 George Rooke, having on board several regiments com- 
 manded by the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, appeared 
 before the rock of Gibraltar. That celebrated strong- 
 hold, 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. 
 
 e 2 
 
68 loed mahon's war of 
 
 A few English 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. Kooke proceeded to Malaga, gave battle in 
 the neighbourhood of that port to a French squadron, 
 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 most extraordinary cha- 
 racter of that age, the King of Sweden himself not 
 excepted. Indeed, Peterborough may be described 
 as a polite, learned, and amorous Charles the Twelfth. 
 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 
 negotiations, 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. His 
 weaknesses had not only brought him, on more than 
 one occasion, into serious trouble ; but had impelled 
 him to some actions altogether unworthy of his humane 
 and noble nature. Eepose was insupportable to him. 
 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. No attendants 
 could keep up with his speed. No bodily infirmities 
 could confine him. Old age, disease, imminent death, 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 69 
 
 produced scarcely any effect on his intrepid spirit. 
 Just before he underwent the most horrible of sur- 
 gical operations, 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 sufferings 
 which seemed sufficient to bring the most robust man 
 to the grave. Change of employment was as neces- 
 sary to him as change of place. He loved to dic- 
 tate 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, liberal 
 to profusion, courteous in his dealings with enemies, 
 the protector of th^e oppressed, the adorer of women. 
 His virtues and vices were those of the Round Table. 
 Indeed, his character can hardly be better summed 
 up, than in the lines in which the author of that 
 clever little poem, Monks and Giants, has described 
 Sir Tristram. 
 
 "His birth, it seems, by Merlin's calculation, 
 Was under Venus, Mercury, and Mars ; 
 His mind with all their attributes was mixed, 
 And, like those planets, wandering and unfixed. 
 
 " From realm to realm he ran, and never staid : 
 Kingdoms and crowns he won, and gave away : 
 
 F 3 
 
70 LORD MAIION'S WAR OF 
 
 It seemed as if his labours were repaid 
 
 By the mere noise and movement of the fray : 
 
 No conquests nor acquirements had he made ; 
 
 His chief delight was^ on some festive day 
 
 To ride triumphant, prodigal, and proud, 
 
 And shower his wealth amidst the shouting crowd. 
 
 " His schemes of war were sudden, unforeseen, 
 Inexplicable both to friend and foe ; 
 It seemed 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 encumbered, 
 When overmatched, entangled, and outnumbered." 
 
 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 magnifi- 
 cently during the voyage at his own expense. From 
 Lisbon the armament proceeded to Gibraltar, 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 misgovernment of Philip had excited great 
 discontent throughout this province. The invaders 
 were eagerly welcomed. The peasantry flocked to 
 the shore, bearing provisions, and shouting, " Long 
 live Charles the Third." The neighbouring fortress 
 of Denia surrendered 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. 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 71 
 
 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 the Archduke. The Prince 
 of Hesse Darmstadt, who, in the reign of the late King 
 of Spain, had been Governor of Catalonia, and who 
 overrated his own influence in that province, was of 
 opinion that they ought instantly to proceed thither, 
 and to attack Barcelona. Peterborough was ham- 
 pered by his instructions, and found it necessary to 
 submit. 
 
 On the sixteenth of August the fleet arrived before 
 Barcelona ; and Peterborough 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 exten- 
 sive, that thirty thousand men would scarcely have 
 been sufficient to invest them. The garrison was as 
 numerous as the besieging army. The best officers 
 in the Spanish service were in the town. The hopes 
 which the Prince of Darmstadt had formed of a general 
 rising in Catalonia were grievously disappointed. The 
 invaders were joined only by about fifteen hundred 
 armed peasants, whose services cost more than they 
 were worth. 
 
 No general was ever in a more deplorable situation 
 than that in which Peterborough was now placed. 
 He had always objected to the scheme of besieging 
 Barcelona. His objections had been overruled. He 
 had to execute a project which he had constantly 
 represented as impracticable. His camp was divided 
 into hostile factions, and he was censured by all. 
 The Archduke and the Prince blamed him for not pro- 
 ceeding 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 
 
 f 4 
 
72 lord mahon's war of 
 
 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 
 where there was no chance of obtaining any ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 At length, after three weeks of inaction, Peter- 
 borough announced his fixed determination to raise 
 the siege. The heavy cannon were sent on board. 
 Preparations were made for reembarking 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 twelfth of Sep- 
 tember there were rejoicings and public entertainments 
 in Barcelona for this great deliverance. On the fol- 
 lowing morning the English flag was flying on the 
 ramparts of Monjuich. The genius and energy of one 
 man had supplied the place of forty 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 ; but 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 Avails of Monjuich. There 
 they halted till daybreak. As soon as they were 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 73 
 
 descried, the enemy advanced into the outer ditch to 
 meet them. This was the event on which Peter- 
 borough 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 out- 
 works, 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 wait- 
 ing for this reinforcement, news arrived thafc 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 their former 
 position. 
 
 The Prince of Hesse had fallen in the confusion 
 of the assault ; but every thing else went well. Stan- 
 hope arrived; the detachment which had marched 
 out of Barcelona retreated; the heavy cannon were 
 disembarked, and brought to bear on the inner for- 
 tifications of Monjuich, which speedily fell. Peter- 
 borough, with his usual generosity, rescued the 
 Spanish soldiers from the ferocity of his victorious 
 army, and paid the last honours with great pomp to 
 his rival the Prince of Hesse. 
 
74 lord mahon's war of 
 
 The reduction of Monjuich was the first of a se- 
 ries of brilliant exploits. Barcelona fell ; and Peter- 
 borough 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 beau- 
 tiful 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 guaranteed 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 now declared in favour of Charles. 
 Tarragona, Tortosa, Gerona, Lerida, San Mateo, threw 
 open their gates. The Spanish government 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. His 
 officers advised him to be content with this extra- 
 ordinary success. 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 surrendered to the mere terror of 
 his name ; and, on the fourth of February 1706, he 
 arrived in triumph at Valencia. There he learned 
 that a body of four thousand men was on the march 
 to join Las Torres. He set out at dead of night from 
 Valencia, passed the Xucar, came unexpectedly on 
 the encampment of the enemy, and slaughtered, dis- 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 75 
 
 persed, or took the whole reinforcement. The Valen- 
 cians could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw 
 the prisoners brought in. 
 
 In the -mean time the Courts of Madrid and Ver- 
 sailles, exasperated and alarmed by the fall of Bar- 
 celona 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 the Fourteenth, appeared before the 
 port of Barcelona. The city was attacked at once by 
 sea and land. The person of the Archduke was in 
 considerable danger. Peterborough, at the head of 
 about three thousand men, marched with great rapidity 
 from Yalencia. 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 made war after the fashion of the 
 Minas and Empecinados of our own time. He 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. Hq saw, however, that the only hope 
 of the besieged was on the side of the sea. His com- 
 mission 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 pro- 
 bable that the whole French fleet would have been 
 
76 LORD mahon's war of 
 
 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 Eoussillon. Peterborough returned to 
 Valencia, a place which he preferred to every other in 
 Spain ; 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 Peter- 
 borough had obtained on the eastern coast of the 
 Peninsula had inspired the sluggish Galway with 
 emulation. He advanced into the heart of Spain. 
 Berwick retreated. Alcantara, Ciudad Kodrigo, and 
 Salamanca fell, and the conquerors marched towards 
 the capital. 
 
 Philip was earnestly pressed by his advisers to 
 remove the seat of Government to Burgos. The ad- 
 vanced 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 mean time the invaders had 
 entered Madrid in triumph, and had proclaimed the 
 Archduke in the streets of the imperial city. Arra- 
 gon, ever jealous of the Castilian ascendency, followed 
 the example of Catalonia. Saragossa revolted without 
 seeing an enemy. The governor whom Philip had 
 set over Carthagena betrayed his trust, and sur- 
 rendered to the allies the best arsenal and the last 
 ships which Spain possessed. 
 
 Toledo had been for some time the retreat of two 
 ambitious, turbulent, and vindictive intriguers, the 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 77 
 
 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 the 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 To- 
 ledo without opposition. The Queen Dowager flung 
 off that mournful garb which the widow of a King of 
 Spain wears through her whole life, and blazed forth 
 in jewels. The Cardinal 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, &nd 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 Spanish people. There is no coun- 
 try in Europe which it is so easy to overrun as Spain : 
 there is no country in Europe which it is more diffi- 
 cult to conquer. Nothing can be more contemptible 
 than the regular military resistance which Spain offers 
 to an invader ; nothing more formidable than the 
 energy which she puts forth when her regular military 
 resistance has been beaten down. Her armies have 
 long borne too much resemblance to mobs ; but her 
 
78 lord mahon's war of 
 
 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 
 surprise : 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 extin- 
 guished, 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. Cata- 
 lonia, Arragon, and Valencia had acknowledged the 
 Austrian Prince. Gibraltar had been taken by a few 
 sailors ; Barcelona stormed by a few dismounted dra- 
 goons. The invaders had penetrated 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 the 
 most sanguine must relinquish all hope, the national 
 spirit awoke, fierce, proud, and unconquerable. The 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 79 
 
 people had been sluggish when the circumstances 
 might well have inspired hope; they reserved all 
 their energy for what appeared to be a season of 
 despair. Castile, Leon, Andalusia, Estremadura, rose 
 at once ; every peasant procured a firelock or a pike ; 
 the allies were masters only of the ground on which 
 they trod. No soldier could wander a hundred 
 yards from the main body of the invading army 
 without imminent risk of being poniarded. The 
 country through which the conquerors had passed 
 to Madrid, and which, as they thought, they had sub- 
 dued, was all in arms behind them. Their commu- 
 nications with Portugal were cut off. In the mean 
 time, 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 the Queen. l 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 qnly twenty houses, sent us fifty 
 pistoles." 
 
 While the Castilians were every where arming in 
 the cause of Philip, the Allies were serving that cause 
 as effectually by their mismanagement. Gal way staid 
 at Madrid, where his soldiers indulged in such bound- 
 less licentiousness that one half of them were in the 
 hospitals. Charles remained dawdling in Catalonia. 
 Peterborough had taken Kequena, and wished to 
 march from Valencia 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 
 
80 LORD MAHON's WAR OF 
 
 shores of the Mediterranean, reading Don Quixote, 
 giving balls and suppers, trying in vain to get some 
 good sport out of the Valencian 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 eva- 
 cuate Madrid ; and, when the whole force of the Allies 
 was collected at Guadalaxara, it was found to be de- 
 cidedly inferior in numbers to that of the enemy. 
 
 Peterborough formed a plan for regaining posses- 
 sion 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 vexatious 
 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 commis- 
 sioned by the Archduke to raise a loan at 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 Valen- 
 cia, and arrived in that province, leaving about ten 
 thousand prisoners in the hands of the enemy. 
 
 In January 1707, Peterborough arrived at Valencia 
 from Italy, no longer bearing a public character, but 
 merely as a volunteer. 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 Archduke; 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 81 
 
 and the armies of the House of Bourbon would be 
 resisted by the whole population. In a short time 
 the enthusiasm of the Castilians might abate. The 
 government of Philip might commit unpopular acts. 
 Defeats in the Netherlands might compel Louis to 
 withdraw the succours which he had furnished to his 
 grandson. Then would be the time to strike a deci- 
 sive blow. This excellent advice was rejected. Pe- 
 terborough, who had now received formal letters 
 of recall from England, departed before the opening of 
 the campaign ; and with him departed the good for- 
 tune of the Allies. Scarcely any general had ever done 
 so much with means so small. Scarcely any general 
 had ever displayed equal originality and boldness. He 
 possessed, in the highest degree, the art of conciliating 
 those whom he had subdued. But he was not equally 
 successful in winning the attachment of those with 
 whom he acted. He was 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 generals 
 whose fortune and reputation were staked on the 
 same venture with his own. The English govern- 
 ment 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 intelligence chiefly by means of 
 love affairs, and filled his despatches with epigrams. 
 The ministers thought that it would be highly impo- 
 litic 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 ve- 
 teran, a man who was in war what Moliere's doctors 
 were in medicine, who thought it much more honour- 
 able to fail according to rule, than to succeed by 
 innovation, and who would have been very much 
 
 VOL. II. g 
 
82 LORD MAHON S WAR OF 
 
 ashamed of himself if he had taken Monjuich by 
 means so strange as those which Peterborough em- 
 ployed. This great commander conducted the cam- 
 paign of ] 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 moun- 
 tainous province of Catalonia was the only part of 
 Spain which still adhered to Charles. 
 
 " Do you remember, child," says the foolish woman 
 in the Spectator to her husband, " that the pigeon- 
 house fell the very afternoon that our careless wench 
 spilt the salt upon the table?" "Yes, my dear," 
 replies the gentleman, " and the next post brought us 
 an account of the battle of Almanza." The approach 
 of disaster in Spain had been for some time indicated 
 by omens much clearer than the mishap of the salt- 
 cellar ; an ungrateful prince, an undisciplined 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 
 Marlborough 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 con- 
 ceive, 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 Marlborough. Staremberg, a methodical 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 83 
 
 tactician of the German school, was sent by the em- 
 peror to command in Spain. Two languid campaigns 
 followed, during which neither of the hostile armies 
 did any thing memorable, but during which both were 
 nearly starved. 
 
 At length, in 1710, the chiefs of the Allied forces 
 resolved to venture on bolder measures. They began 
 the campaign with a daring move, pushed into Arra- 
 gon, defeated the troops of Philip at Almenara, 
 defeated them again at Saragossa, and advanced to 
 Madrid. The King was again a fugitive. The Cas- 
 tilians 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 Austrian prince. It was necessary 
 to hire a few children to shout before him in the 
 streets. Meanwhile, the court of Philip at Valladolid 
 was thronged by nobles and prelates. Thirty thou- 
 sand 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 
 oif 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 how the Allies could have 
 maintained themselves, through so unpropitious a 
 season, in the midst of so hostile a population. Charles, 
 whose personal safety was the first object of the gene- 
 rals, was sent with an escort of cavalry to Catalonia 
 
 G 2 
 
84 loud mahon's war of 
 
 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 distinguished 
 by the filthiness of his person, by the brutality of his 
 demeanour, by the gross buffoonery of his conver- 
 sation, and by the impudence with which he aban- 
 doned 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 serious disasters which the armies 
 of the House of Bourbon had sustained. 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, Yendome was all himself. He set 
 out from 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, " ima- 
 gined that they had any foot within some days' march 
 of us ; and our misfortune is owing to the incredible 
 diligence which their army made." Stanhope had 
 but just time to send off a messenger to the centre of 
 the army, which was some leagues from Brihuega, 
 before Yendome was upon him. The town was in- 
 vested 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 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 85 
 
 bayonet against overwhelming odds. They burned 
 the houses which the assailants had taken. But all 
 was to no purpose. The British general saw that 
 resistance could produce only a useless carnage. He 
 concluded a capitulation ; and his gallant little army 
 became prisoners of war on honourable terms. 
 
 Scarcely had Yendome signed the capitulation, when 
 he learned that Staremberg 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. Yendome 
 reaped all the fruits of the battle. The Allies spiked 
 their cannon, and retired towards Arragon. But even 
 in Arragon they found no place of rest. Yendome 
 was behind them. The guerrilla parties were around 
 them. They fled to Catalonia; but Catalonia was 
 invaded by a French army from Eoussillon. At length 
 the Austrian general, with six thousand harassed and 
 dispirited men, the remains of a great and victorious 
 army, took refuge in Barcelona, almost the only place in 
 Spain which still recognised the authority of Charles. 
 
 Philip was now much safer at Madrid than his 
 grandfather at Paris. All hope of conquering Spain 
 in Spain was at an end. But in other quarters the 
 House of Bourbon was reduced to the last extremity. 
 The French armies had undergone a series of defeats 
 in Germany, in Italy, and in the Netherlands. An 
 immense force, flushed with victory, and commanded 
 by the greatest generals of the age, was on the borders 
 of France. Louis had been forced to humble himself 
 before the conquerors. He had even offered to abandon 
 the cause of his grandson ; and his offer had been re- 
 jected. But a great turn in affairs was approaching. 
 
 The English administration which had commenced 
 the war against the House of Bourbon was an admi- 
 
 g 3 
 
86 LORD MAHON S WAR OF 
 
 nistration 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 recog- 
 nising, 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 Pro- 
 testant 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 oppo- 
 nents than by their old associates. Those ministers 
 who were zealous for the war were gradually con- 
 verted to Whiggism. The rest dropped off, and were 
 succeeded by Whigs. Cowper became Chancellor. 
 Sunderland, in spite of the very just antipathy of 
 Anne, was made Secretary of State. On the death of 
 the Prince of Denmark a more extensive change took 
 place. Wharton became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 
 and Somers President of the Council. At length the 
 administration was wholly in the hands of the Low 
 Church party. 
 
 In the year 1710 a violent change took place. The 
 Queen had always been a Tory at heart. Her religious 
 feelings were all on the side of the Established Church. 
 Her family feelings pleaded in favour of her exiled 
 brother. Her selfish feelings 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 bedchamber 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 SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 87 
 
 the Kevolution. The wisest members of the govern- 
 ment 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 discourse, insisted that the preacher 
 should be impeached. The exhortations of the mild 
 and sagacious Somers were disregarded. The im- 
 peachment was brought; the doctor was convicted; 
 and the accusers were ruined. The clergy came to 
 the rescue of the persecuted clergyman. The country 
 gentlemen came to the rescue of the clergy. A dis- 
 play of Tory feelings, such as England had not wit- 
 nessed since the closing years of Charles the Second'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 his absence been put in nomi- 
 nation for Westminster, was defeated by a Tory candi- 
 date. The new Ministers, finding themselves masters 
 of the new Parliament, 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 constantly been led to victory, 
 and for whom it was impossible to find a substitute, 
 was now, whatever he might formerly have been, a 
 Whig general. If Marlborough were discarded it 
 was probable that some great disaster would follow. 
 Yet, 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 
 
 G 4 
 
LORD MAIION'S WAR OF 
 
 pause for a moment," says he, "to observe how much 
 the course of a century has inverted the meaning of 
 our party nicknames, how much a modern Tory 
 resembles a Whig of Queen Anne's reign, and a Tory 
 of Queen Anne's reign a modern 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 such 
 should be the case. The worst things of one age often 
 resemble the best things of another. A modern shop- 
 keeper'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 
 modern 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 with Claren- 
 don ; and Clarendon was quite a democrat when com- 
 pared 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 Revolu- 
 tion, 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 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 89 
 
 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 cust-alorum 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 dif- 
 ference as ever between justices and nurses, senior 
 wranglers and wooden spoons, members of Parliament 
 and children at charity schools. In the same way, 
 though a Tory may now be very like what a Whig 
 was a hundred and twenty 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 overtake 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 un- 
 changed. Through the whole of that great move- 
 ment, which began before these party-names existed, 
 and which will continue after they have become obso- 
 lete, 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 Kome, the expulsion of the 
 Stuarts, the reform of the Representative System, are 
 successive stages, there have been, under 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 contemporaries, and those who 
 gloried in being no wiser than their great grand- 
 fathers. It is delightful to think that, in due time, 
 the last of those who straggle in the rear of the great 
 march will occupy the place now occupied by the ad- 
 vanced guard. The Tory Parliament of 1710 would 
 have passed for a most liberal Parliament in the days 
 
90 LORD MAHON'S WAR OF 
 
 of Elizabeth ; and there are at present few members 
 of the Conservative Club who would not have been 
 fully qualified to sit with Halifax and Somers at the 
 Kit-cat. 
 
 Though, therefore, we admit that a modern 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 modern Whig. Have the 
 modern Whigs passed laws for the purpose of closing 
 the entrance of the House of Commons against the 
 new interests created by trade? Do the modern 
 Whigs hold the doctrine of divine right? Have the 
 modern Whigs laboured to exclude all Dissenters from 
 office and power? The modern Whigs are, indeed, 
 at the present moment, like the Tories of 1712, de- 
 sirous of peace, and of close union with France. But 
 is there no difference between the France of 1712 
 and the France of 1832? Is France now the strong- 
 hold 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 Arch- 
 bishop 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 born in the seventeenth century, and 
 that they were therefore ignorant of many truths 
 which are familiar to the men of the nineteenth cen- 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 91 
 
 tury. 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 true that 
 they did not allow to political discussion that latitude 
 which to us appears reasonable and safe ; but to them 
 we owe the removal of the Censorship. It is true 
 that they did not carry the principle of religious 
 liberty to its full extent; but to them we owe the 
 Toleration Act. 
 
 Though, however, we think that the Whigs of 
 Anne's reign were, as a body, far superior in 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 im- 
 portance. But the historian lies under no such ne- 
 cessity. 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, tljen, that, on the great question 
 which divided England during the last four years of 
 Anne's reign, the Tories were in the right, and the 
 Whigs 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 Utrecht and the War Party. 
 The Commons were for peace ; the Lords were for 
 vigorous hostilities. The Queen was compelled to 
 choose which of her two highest prerogatives she 
 
92 lord mahon's war of 
 
 would exercise, whether she would create Peers, or 
 dissolve the Parliament. The ties of party super- 
 seded the ties of neighbourhood and of blood. The 
 members of the hostile factions would scarcely speak 
 to each other, or bow to each other. The women ap- 
 peared at the theatres bearing the badges of their 
 political sect. The schism extended to the most 
 remote counties of England. Talents, such as had 
 seldom 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 inexhaustible 
 fertility of fancy, and his graceful simplicity of style. 
 In the front of the opposite ranks appeared a darker 
 and fiercer spirit, the apostate politician, the ribald 
 priest, the perjured lover, a heart burning with hatred 
 against the whole human race, a mind richly stored 
 with images from the dunghill and the lazar-house. 
 The Ministers triumphed, and the peace was con- 
 cluded. Then came the reaction. A new sovereign 
 ascended the throne. The Whigs enjoyed the con- 
 fidence 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; Boling- 
 broke and Ormond were compelled to take refuge in 
 a foreign land. The wounds inflicted in this des- 
 perate conflict continued to rankle for many years. 
 It was long before the members of either party could 
 discuss the question of the peace of Utrecht with 
 calmness and impartiality. That the Whig Ministers 
 had sold us to the Dutch ; that the Tory Ministers 
 had sold us to the French; that the war had been 
 carried on only to fill the pockets of Marlborough ; 
 that the peace had been concluded only to facilitate 
 the return of the Pretender; these imputations and 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 93 
 
 many others, utterly unfounded, or grossly exag- 
 gerated, 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 conclusion at which we have 
 arrived. 
 
 The dangers which were to be apprehended from 
 the peace were two ; first, the danger that Philip 
 might be induced, by feelings of private affection, to 
 act in strict concert with the elder branch of his 
 house, to favour the French trade at the expense of 
 England, and to side 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 chime- 
 rical. 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 or affinity. 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 live long ; his 
 heir was an infant in the cradle. There was surely 
 no reason to think that the policy of the King of 
 Spain would be swayed by his regard for a nephew 
 whom he had never seen. 
 
94 lord mahon's war of 
 
 In fact,- soon after the peace, the two branches of 
 the Honse of Bourbon began to quarrel. A close 
 alliance was formed between Philip and Charles, lately 
 competitors for the Castilian crown. A Spanish 
 princess, betrothed 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 commanding 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 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 inefiicacy of such 
 renunciations. The French lawyers declared Philip's 
 renunciation null, as being inconsistent with the fun- 
 damental law of the realm. The French people would 
 probably have sided with him whom they would 
 have considered as the rightful heir. Saint Simon, 
 though much less zealous for hereditary monarchy 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, 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 95 
 
 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 ex- 
 tinct, 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- Yiciosa, 
 inherited, by the death of his elder brother, all the 
 dominions of the House of Austria. Surely, 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 might be, King of France. The certainty of 
 the less evil might well be set against the chance of 
 the greater evil. 
 
 But, in fact, we do not believe that Spain would 
 long have remained under the 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 French province. Though 
 they were no longer masters abroad, they were by no 
 means disposed to see foreigners set over them at 
 home. If Philip had attempted to govern Spain by 
 mandates from Versailles, a second Grand Alliance 
 
96 lord mahon's war of 
 
 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 grandfather ; 
 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 illustration. 
 The chances of failure it is difficult at this distance of 
 time to calculate 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 pros- 
 pects 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 ma- 
 jority of the nation was decidedly hostile to them. If 
 they had persisted, if they had obtained success equal 
 to their highest expectations, if they had gained a 
 series of victories as splendid as those of Blenheim 
 and Ramilies, if Paris had fallen, if Louis had been a 
 prisoner, we still doubt whether they would have 
 accomplished their object. They would still have had 
 to carry on interminable hostilities against the whole 
 population of a country which affords peculiar facilities 
 to irregular warfare, and in which invading armies 
 suffer more from famine than from the sword. 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 97 
 
 We are, therefore, for the peace of Utrecht. We 
 are indeed no admirers of 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 
 inferior in intelligence to decent shopkeepers or 
 farmers of our time. Parson Barnabas, Parson Trul- 
 liber, 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 Revolu- 
 tion. It is true that the means by which the Tories 
 came into power in 1710 were most disreputable. It 
 is true that the manner in which they used their 
 power was often unjust and cruel. It is true that, 
 in order to bring about their favourite project of 
 peace, they resorted to slander and deception, without 
 the slightest scruple. It is true that they passed off 
 on the British nation a renunciation which they 
 knew to be invalid. It is true that they gave up 
 the Catalans to the vengeance of Philip, in a manner 
 inconsistent with humanity and national honour. 
 But on the great question of Peace or War, we can- 
 not but think that, though their motives may have 
 been selfish and malevolent, their decision was bene- 
 ficial to the state. 
 
 But we have already exceeded our limits. It 
 remains only for us to bid Lord Mahon heartily fare- 
 well, and to assure him that, whatever dislike we 
 may feel for his political opinions, we shall always 
 meet him with pleasure on the neutral ground of 
 literature. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
98 
 
 HORACE WALPOLE. (October 1833.) 
 
 Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, to Sir Horace 
 Mann, British Envoy at the Court of Tuscany. Now first 
 published from the Originals in the possession of the Earl 
 of Waldgrave. Edited by Lord Dover. 2 vols. 8vo. 
 London: 1833. 
 
 We cannot transcribe this titlepage without strong 
 feelings of regret. The editing of these volumes was 
 the last of the useful and modest services rendered 
 to literature by a nobleman of amiable manners, of 
 untarnished public and private character, and of cul- 
 tivated mind. On this, as on other occasions, Lord 
 Dover performed his part diligently, judiciously, and 
 without the slightest ostentation. He had two merits 
 which are rarely found together in a commentator. 
 He was content to be merely a commentator, to keep 
 in the background, 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 . 
 duty to see no faults in the writer to whom he faith- 
 fully 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 epi- 
 cures as the Strasburg pies among the dishes de- 
 scribed in the Almanack des Gourmands. But, as 
 the pdte-de-foie-gras owes its excellence to the diseases 
 of the wretched animal which furnishes it, and would 
 be good for nothing if it were not made of livers 
 preternaturally swollen, so none but an unhealthy 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 99 
 
 and disorganized mind could have produced such 
 literary luxuries as the works 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 capri- 
 cious of men. His mind was a bundle of inconsistent 
 whims and affectations. His features were covered 
 by mask within mask. When the outer disguise of 
 obvious affectation was removed, you were still as far 
 as ever from seeing the real man. He played innu- 
 merable parts, and over- acted them all. When he 
 talked misanthropy, he out-Timoned Timon. When 
 he talked philanthropy, he left Howard at an im- 
 measurable 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 what- 
 ever was little ^eemed 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 super- 
 intend a private press, to preserve from natural decay 
 the perishable topics of Ranelagh and White's, to 
 record divorces and bets, Miss Chudleigh's absurdi- 
 ties and George Selwyn's good sayings, to decorate a 
 grotesque house with pie-crust battlements, to pro- 
 cure rare engravings and antique chimney-boards, to 
 match odd 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 
 
 h 2 
 
100 WALPOLE'S LETTERS T(3 SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 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 in- 
 dulged in the recreation of making laws and voting 
 millions, he returned to more important pursuits, to 
 researches after Queen Mary's comb, 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 every thing in which Walpole busied himself, 
 in the fine arts, in literature, in public affairs, he was 
 drawn by some strange attraction from the great to 
 the little, and from the useful to the odd. The poli- 
 tics in which he took the keenest interest, were politics 
 scarcely deserving of the name. The growlings of 
 George the Second, the flirtations of Princess Emily 
 with the Duke of Grafton, the amours of Prince Fre- 
 deric and Lady Middlesex, the squabbles between 
 Gold Stick and the Master of the Buck-hounds, the 
 disagreements between the tutors of Prince George, 
 these matters engaged almost all the attention 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 
 Kensington Palace and Carlton House, he fancied that 
 he was engaged in politics, and when he recorded that 
 gossip, he fancied that he was writing history. 
 
 He was, as he has himself told us, fond of faction 
 as an amusement. He loved mischief: but he loved 
 quiet ; and he was constantly on the watch for oppor- 
 tunities of gratifying both his tastes at once. He 
 sometimes contrived, without showing himself, to dis- 
 turb the course of ministerial negotiations and to 
 spread confusion through the political circles. He 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 101 
 
 does not himself pretend 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 ac- 
 cusations, and their recriminations, as a malicious boy 
 enjoys the embarrassment of a misdirected traveller. 
 
 About politics, in the high sense of the word, he 
 knew nothing, and cared nothing. He called himself a 
 Whig. His father's son could scarcely assume any other 
 name. It pleased him also to affect a foolish dislike 
 of kings as kings, and a foolish love and admiration of 
 rebels as rebels: and perhaps, while kings were not 
 in danger, and while rebels were not in being, he 
 really believed that he held the doctrines which he 
 professed. To go no further than the letters now 
 before us, he is perpetually boasting to his friend 
 Mann of his aversion to royalty and to royal persons. 
 He calls the crime of Damien " that least bad of 
 murders, the murder of a king." He hung up in his 
 villa an engraving of the death-warrant of Charles, with 
 the inscription " Major Charta." Yet the most super- 
 ficial knowledge of history might have taught him 
 that the Restoration, 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 desirable 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 helmets at Strawberry 
 Hill, merely for show. He would just as soon have 
 thought of taking down the arms of the ancient Tem- 
 plars and Hospitallers from the walls of his hall, and 
 
 h 3 
 
102 WALPOLE's LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 setting off on a crusade to the Holy Land, as of acting 
 in the spirit of those daring warriors and statesmen, 
 great even in their errors, whose names and seals 
 were affixed to the warrant which he prized so highly. 
 He liked revolution and regicide only when they were 
 a hundred years old. His republicanism, like the 
 courage of a bully, or the love of a fribble, was strong 
 and ardent when there was no occasion for it, and 
 subsided when he had an opportunity of bringing it 
 to the proof. As soon as the revolutionary spirit 
 really began to stir in Europe, as soon as the hatred 
 of kings became something more than a sonorous 
 phrase, he was frightened into a fanatical 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 some 
 modern orders bind themselves to redress the wrongs 
 of all injured ladies. He had been fed in his boyhood 
 with Whig speculations on government. He must often 
 have 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 Sedgemoor, 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 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 103 
 
 the Third. He was a Whig by the accident of here- 
 ditary connexion ; but he was essentially a courtier ; 
 and not the less a courtier because he pretended to 
 sneer at the objects which excited his admiration and 
 eriYj. 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 Eoyal 
 Authors. He pryed with the utmost anxiety into 
 the most minute particulars relating to the Royal 
 Family. When he was a child, he was haunted with 
 a longing to see George the First, and gave his mother 
 no peace till she had found a way of gratifying his 
 curiosity. The same feeling, covered with a thousand 
 disguises, attended him to the grave. No observation 
 that dropped from the lips of Majesty, seemed to him 
 too trifling to be recorded. The French songs of 
 Prince Frederic, compositions certainly not deserving 
 of preservation on account of their intrinsic merit, 
 have been carefully preserved for us by this con- 
 temner of royalty. In truth, every page of Walpole's 
 works bewrays him. This Diogenes, who would be 
 thought to pre/er his tub to a palace, and who has 
 nothing to ask of the masters of Windsor and Ver- 
 sailles 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 con- 
 sciousness produced one of the most diverting of his 
 ten thousand affectations. His busy idleness, his in- 
 difference to matters which the world generally re- 
 gards 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 
 rate power, wealth, and fame at their true value, 
 and whom the conflict of parties, the rise and fall of 
 
 H 4 
 
104 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 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 of rhinoceros-skin. 
 
 One of his innumerable whims was an extreme un- 
 willingness to be considered a man of letters. Not 
 that he was indifferent to literary fame. Far from it. 
 Scarcely any writer has ever troubled himself so 
 much about the appearance which his works were to 
 make before posterity. But he had set his heart 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 perfections. He did not like to have 
 any thing 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 tried to find out some way of writing 
 books, as M. Jourdain's father sold cloth, without de- 
 rogating from his character of Gentilhomme. " Lui, 
 marchand? C'est pure medisance: il ne 1-a jamais 
 ete. Tout ce qu'il faisait, c'est qu'il etait fort obli- 
 geant, fort officieux ; 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 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTEES TO SIR HORACE MANN. 105 
 
 pour de l'argent." There are several amusing instances 
 of Walpole' s feeling on this subject in the letters 
 now before us. Mann had complimented 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 any thing so unfashionable as the im- 
 provement 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, calling 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 Maga- 
 zines." This folly might be pardoned in a boy. But 
 a man between forty and fifty years old, as Walpole 
 then was, ought to be quite as much ashamed of play- 
 ing at loo till three every morning as of being that 
 vulgar thing, 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 superciliousness and apathy of a man of 
 ton. 
 
 His judgment of literature, of contemporary lite- 
 
106 WALPOLE'S LETTEKS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 rature especially, was altogether perverted by his 
 aristocratical feelings. No writer surely was ever 
 guilty of so much false and absurd criticism. He 
 almost invariably speaks with contempt of those 
 books which are now universally allowed to be the 
 best that appeared in his time ; and, on the other 
 hand, he speaks of writers of rank and fashion as if 
 they were entitled to the same precedence in litera- 
 ture 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, War- 
 burton, Collins, Akenside, Gray, Dyer, Young, War- 
 ton, Mason, or some of those distinguished men, were 
 in the list. Not one of them. Our first writers, it 
 seems, were Lord Chesterfield, Lord Bath, Mr. W. 
 Whithed, Sir Charles Williams, Mr. Soame Jenyns, 
 Mr. Cambridge, Mr. Coventry. Of these seven per- 
 sonages, 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 seats in the House of Lords, 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 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 107 
 
 Sir Charles Williams are now read only by the curious, 
 and, though not without occasional flashes of wit, 
 have always seemed to us, we must own, very poor 
 performances. 
 
 Walpole judged of French literature after the 
 same fashion. He understood and loved the French 
 language. Indeed, he loved it too well. His style is 
 more deeply tainted with Gallicism 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 Caracci painted." " The 
 impertinent personage!" " She is dead rich." "Lord 
 Dalkeith is dead of the small-pox in three days." 
 " It will now be seen whether he or they are most 
 patriot." 
 
 His love of 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 free-masons of fashion recognised 
 each other in every capital from Petersburgh 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 dis- 
 regarded. 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 illustration of the intellectual relation in 
 which the two countries stand to each other. The 
 great discoveries in physics, in metaphysics, in politi- 
 cal science, are ours. But scarcely any foreign nation 
 except France has received them from us by direct 
 communication. Isolated in our situation, isolated by 
 our manners, we found truth, but we did not impart 
 
108 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 it. France has been the interpreter between England 
 and mankind. 
 
 In the time of Walpole, this process of interpreta- 
 tion was in full activity. The great French writers 
 were busy in proclaiming through Europe the names 
 of Bacon, of Newton, and of Locke. The English 
 principles of toleration, the English respect for per- 
 sonal liberty, the English doctrine that all power is 
 a trust for the public good, were making rapid pro- 
 gress. There is scarcely anything in history so in- 
 teresting as that great stirring up of the mind of 
 France, that shaking of the foundations of all esta- 
 blished opinions, that uprooting 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 doc- 
 trines 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 here- 
 sies of Provence. A wise man would have seen with 
 regret the excesses into which the reformers were 
 running; but he would have done justice to their 
 genius and to their philanthropy. lie would have 
 censured their errors; but he would have remem- 
 bered 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 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 109 
 
 as incompatible with all law, all property, and all 
 civilisation, he would have acknowledged that the 
 subjects of Louis the Fifteenth 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 English writer of the eighteenth 
 century, he troubled himself little about the portents 
 which were daily to be discerned in the French litera- 
 ture of his time. While the most eminent French- 
 men 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 in- 
 finitely 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 the Fourteenth, 
 and of every profligate woman of quality who had 
 carried her train of lovers backward and forward from 
 king to parliament, and from parliament 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 less enthu- 
 siasm than of that abject thing, Crebillon the younger, 
 a scribbler as licentious as Louvet and as dull as 
 Rapin. A man must be strangely constituted who 
 
110 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 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 Comtesse de 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 dunce. The admirer of the Sopha 
 and of the Lettres Atheniennes 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 Vol- 
 taire and Rousseau were clever men; but he took 
 every opportunity of depreciating them. Of D'Alem- 
 bert he spoke with a contempt which, when the in- 
 tellectual powers of the two men are compared, seems 
 exquisitely ridiculous. D'Alembert 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 qualities to 
 which the writings of Walpole owe their extraordinary 
 popularity. 
 
 It is easy to describe him by negatives. He had 
 not a creative imagination. He had not a pure 
 taste. He was not a great reasoner. There is 
 indeed scarcely any writer in whose works it would be 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. Ill 
 
 possible to find so many contradictory judgments, 
 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 repeat- 
 edly transcribed and intended for the public eye. 
 We will give an instance or two ; for, without in- 
 stances, readers not very familiar with his works 
 will scarcely understand our meaning. In the " Anec- 
 dotes 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. He might have mentioned the 
 loss of the most munificent and judicious patron 
 that the fine arts ever had in England, the troubled 
 state of the country, the distressed condition of 
 many of the aristocracy, perhaps also the austerity 
 of the victorious party. These circumstances, we 
 conceive, fully account for the phenomenon. But 
 this solution was not odd enough to satisfy Wal- 
 pole. He discovers another cause for the decline of 
 the art, the want of models. Nothing worth paint- 
 ing, 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 wi- 
 thered the trees ; as if the civil wars had blotted out 
 the expression of character and passion from the 
 human lip and brow ; as if many of the men whom 
 Vandyke painted, had not been living in the time of 
 the Commonwealth, with faces little the worse for 
 wear ; as if many of the beauties afterwards por- 
 trayed by Lely were not in their prime before the 
 Restoration ; as if the garb or the features of Crom- 
 well 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 
 
112 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 of Kneller. In the Memoirs, again, Walpole sneers 
 at the Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Third, 
 for presenting a collection of books to one of the 
 American colleges during the Seven Years' War, and 
 says that, instead of books, his Royal Highness ought 
 to have sent arms and ammunition, as if a war ought 
 to suspend all study and all education, or as if it were 
 the business of the Prince of Wales to supply the 
 colonies with military stores out of his own pocket. 
 We have perhaps dwelt too long on these passages ; 
 but we have done so because they are specimens of 
 Walpole's manner. Everybody who reads his works 
 with attention will find that they swarm with loose 
 and foolish observations like those which we have 
 cited ; observations which might pass in conversation 
 or in a hasty letter, but which are unpardonable in 
 books deliberately written and repeatedly corrected. 
 
 He appears to have thought that he saw very far 
 into men ; but we are under the necessity of altogether 
 dissenting from his opinion. We do not conceive that 
 he had any power of discerning the finer shades of 
 character. He practised an art, however, which, 
 though easy and even vulgar, obtains for those who 
 practise it the reputation of discernment with ninety- 
 nine people out of a hundred. He sneered at every- 
 body, put on every action the worst construction 
 which 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 sate to him as soon as he 
 had sketched their faces, and to paint the figure and 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 113 
 
 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 ob- 
 vious 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 con- 
 temporaries from a general survey of what he has 
 written concerning them, we should say that Pitt 
 was a strutting, ranting, mouthing actor, Charles 
 Townshend an impudent and voluble jack-pudding, 
 Murray a demure, cold-blooded, cowardly hypocrite, 
 Hardwicke an insolent upstart, with the under- 
 standing of a pettifogger and the heart of a hang- 
 man, Temple an impertinent 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 Townshend 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 re- 
 presented 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- 
 
 VOL. II. I 
 
114 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 ment. When he chose to be humane and magna- 
 nimous, — 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 he did not 
 choose to be intimate with Mr. Pitt. And why? Be- 
 cause Mr. Pitt had been among the persecutors of his 
 father ? Or because, as he repeatedly assures us, 
 Mr. Pitt was a disagreeable man in private life ? Not 
 at all ; but because Mr. Pitt was too fond of war, and 
 was great with too little reluctance. Strange, that a 
 habitual scoffer like Walpole should imagine that 
 this cant could impose on the dullest reader ! If 
 Moliere had put such a speech into the mouth of 
 Tartuffe, we should have said that the fiction was 
 unskilful, and that Orgon could not have been such a 
 fool as to be taken in by it. Of the twenty-six years 
 during which Walpole sat in Parliament, 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 sin- 
 cerely attached, Conway, was a soldier, was fond of 
 his profession, and was perpetually entreating Mr. 
 Pitt to give him employment. In this, Walpole 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 a 
 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 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 115 
 
 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 imagina- 
 tion, we should say that with the Sublime and the 
 Beautiful Walpole had nothing to do, but that the 
 third province, the Odd, was his peculiar domain. 
 The motto which he prefixed to his Catalogue of 
 Koyal and Noble Authors might have been inscribed 
 with perfect propriety over the door of every room in 
 his house, and on the titlepage of every one of his 
 books; "Dove diavolo, Messer Ludovico, avete pig- 
 liate tante coglionerie ? " In his villa, every apart- 
 ment is a museum; every piece of furniture is a 
 curiosity; there is something strange in the form of 
 the shovel; there is a long story belonging to the 
 bell-rope. We wander among a profusion of rarities, 
 of trifling intrinsic value, but so quaint in fashion, or 
 connected with such remarkable names and events, 
 that they may well detain our attention for a mo- 
 ment. 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 be- 
 longing 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 man- 
 nerist whose manner has become perfectly easy to 
 
 i 2 
 
116 WALPOLE'S LETTEES TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 him. His affectation is so habitual and so universal 
 that it can hardly be called affectation. The affecta- 
 tion 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 per- 
 ception of points of analogy and points of contrast 
 too subtile for common observation. Like them, Wal- 
 pole perpetually startles us by the ease with which he 
 yokes together ideas between which there would 
 seem, at first sight, to be no connexion. 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 
 allusions, 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 tire- 
 some. In his books there are scarcely any of those 
 passages which, in our school days, we used to call 
 skip. Yet he often wrote on subjects which are 
 generally considered as dull, on subjects which men 
 of great talents have in vain endeavoured to render 
 popular. When we compare the Historic Doubts 
 about Eichard the Third with Whitaker's and Chal- 
 mers's books on a far more interesting question, the 
 character of Mary Queen of Scots ; when we compare 
 the Anecdotes 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 su- 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 117 
 
 periority, not in industry, not in learning, not in accu- 
 racy, 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 anti- 
 quarian learning he abandons to others, and sets out 
 an entertainment worthy of a Roman epicure, an 
 entertainment consisting of nothing but delicacies, 
 the brains of singing birds, the roe of mullets, the 
 sunny halves of peaches. This, we think, is the great 
 merit of his romance. There is little skill in the 
 delineation of the characters. Manfred is as common- 
 place a tyrant, Jerome as commonplace a confessor, 
 Theodore as commonplace a young gentleman, Isabella 
 and Matilda as commonplace a pair of young ladies, 
 as are to be found in any of the thousand Italian 
 castles in which 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 carries the action forward. 
 The excitement is constantly renewed. Absurd as is 
 the machinery, insipid as are the human actors, no 
 reader probably ever thought the book dull. 
 
 Walpole's Letters are generally considered as his best 
 performances, and, we think, with reason. His faults 
 are far less offensive to us in his correspondence 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 
 
 I 3 
 
118 WALPOLE's LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 a manner as in his Memoirs. A writer of letters 
 must in general be civil and friendly to his corre- 
 spondent 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 lose caste 
 as a gentleman. There was nothing vulgar in writing 
 a letter. Not even Ensign Northerton, not even the 
 Captain described in Hamilton's Bawn, — and Walpole, 
 though the author of many quartos, had some feel- 
 ings in common with those gallant officers, — would 
 have denied that a gentleman might sometimes cor- 
 respond 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 im- 
 proved 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 
 disguised art. We are never sure that what appears 
 to be art is not merely habit which has become 
 second nature. 
 
 In wit and animation the present collection is not 
 superior to those which have preceded it. But it has 
 one great advantage over them all. It forms a con- 
 nected 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 fur- 
 nishes much new information concerning the history 
 of that time, the portion of English history of which 
 common readers know the least. 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTEES TO SIR HORACE MANN. 119 
 
 The earlier letters contain the most lively and in- 
 teresting 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 Eobert " the 
 glory of the Whigs." 
 
 Sir Robert deserved this high eulogium, we think, 
 as little as he deserved the abusive epithets which 
 have often been 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 the portrait by Smollett. 
 
 He had, undoubtedly, great talents and great vir- 
 tues. He was not, indeed, like the leaders of the 
 party which opposed his Government, a brilliant 
 orator. He was not a profound scholar, like Carteret, 
 or a wit and a fine gentleman, like Chesterfield. In 
 all these respects his deficiencies were remarkable. 
 His literature consisted of a scrap or two of Horace 
 and an anecdote or two from the end of the Dic- 
 tionary. 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 di- 
 lated on his favourite theme with a freedom which 
 shocked even that plain-spoken generation, and which 
 
 i 4 
 
120 WALPOLE'S LETTEES TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 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 ac- 
 quainted than any man of his day with what it con- 
 cerned him most to know, mankind, the English 
 nation, the Court, the House of Commons, and the 
 Treasury. Of foreign affairs he knew little; but 
 his judgment was so good that his little knowledge 
 went very far. He was an excellent parliamentary 
 debater, an excellent parliamentary tactician, an ex- 
 cellent 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 thirty 
 years seen nothing but the worst parts of human 
 nature in other men. He was familiar with the malice 
 of kind people, and the perfidy of honourable people. 
 Proud men 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 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 121 
 
 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 distinc- 
 tion. The contests of parties in England had long 
 been carried on with a ferocity unworthy of a civi- 
 lised people. Sir Robert Walpole was the minister 
 who gave to our Government that character of lenity 
 which it has since generally preserved. It was per- 
 fectly known to him that many of his opponents had 
 dealings with the Pretender. The lives of some were 
 at his mercy. He wanted neither Whig nor Tory 
 precedents for using his advantage unsparingly. But, 
 with a clemency to which posterity has never done 
 justice, he suffered himself to be thwarted, vilified, 
 and at last overthrown, by a party which included 
 many men whose necks were in his power. 
 
 That he practised corruption on a large scale is, 
 we think, indisputable. But whether he deserves all 
 the invectives which have been uttered against him 
 on that account may be questioned. No man ought 
 to be severely censured 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 {he man who gives three hundred gui- 
 neas 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 was returned, in the only way 
 in which he could be returned, for East Retford, for 
 Liverpool, or for Stafford. Walpole governed by 
 corruption because, in his time, it was impossible to 
 govern otherwise. Corruption was unnecessary to 
 the Tudors : for their Parliaments were feeble. The 
 publicity which has of late years been given to par- 
 liamentary proceedings has raised the standard of 
 morality among public men. The power of public 
 
122 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 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 Parlia- 
 ment 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 constitu- 
 tion was oligarchical. Its deliberations were secret. 
 Its power in the State was immense. The Govern- 
 ment 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 com- 
 menced 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 prero- 
 gatives of the Crown were more strictly limited than 
 ever ; and those associations in which, more than in 
 its legal prerogatives, its power had consisted, were 
 completely broken. No prince was ever in so help- 
 less 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 para- 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 123 
 
 mount, 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, those 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 re- 
 sponsibility. The constituents were not, as now, 
 daily apprised of the votes and speeches of their re- 
 presentatives. 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 legis- 
 lators from superstitious veneration, by dishonest 
 legislators for their own selfish ends. They had 
 been an 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 abso- 
 lutely necessary in times when the Privy Council 
 was in 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 Par- 
 liament 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 
 
124 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 have been enough to have both Crown and people on 
 his side. The Parliament had shaken off the control 
 of the Eoyal 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 circumstances, the 
 country could be governed only by corruption. Bo- 
 lingbroke, who was the ablest and the most vehement 
 of those who raised the clamour 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 ques- 
 tion is, whether it would not have been worse than 
 the disease. The fault was in the constitution of the 
 Legislature; and to blame those ministers who ma- 
 naged 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 Wal- 
 pole 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, quieta non 
 movere. It was indeed the maxim by which he ge- 
 nerally regulated his public conduct. It is the maxim 
 of a man more solicitous to hold power loDg than to 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 125 
 
 use it well. It is remarkable that, though he was at 
 the head of affairs during more than twenty years, 
 not one great measure, not one important change for 
 the better or for the worse in any part of our insti- 
 tutions, marks the period of his supremacy. Nor was 
 this because he did not clearly see that many changes 
 were very desirable. He had been brought up in the 
 school of toleration, at the feet of Somers and of 
 Burnet. He disliked the shameful laws against Dis- 
 senters. But he never could be induced to bring 
 forward a proposition for repealing them. The suf- 
 ferers 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, pro- 
 mised, and did nothing. At length, the question was 
 brought forward by others, and the Minister, after a 
 hesitating and evasive speech, voted against it. The 
 truth was that he remembered to the latest day of 
 his life that terrible explosion of high-church feeling 
 which the foolish prosecution of a foolish parson had 
 occasioned in the days of Queen Anne. If the Dis- 
 senters 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 re- 
 spect to other questions. He knew the state of the 
 Scotch Highlands. He was constantly predicting 
 another insurrection in that part of the empire. 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 establish the authority of 
 law through the furthest corners of the Island. No- 
 body knew better than he that, if this were not done, 
 great mischiefs would follow. But the Highlands 
 
126 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 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 com- 
 pliance with the absurd outcry of the Irish. It was 
 thus that he frittered away the Porteous Bill to 
 nothing, for fear of exasperating the Scotch. It was 
 thus that he abandoned the Excise Bill, as soon as he 
 found that it was offensive to all the great towns of 
 England. The language which he held about that 
 measure in a subsequent session is strikingly charac- 
 teristic. 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 regard to the Spanish 
 war is the great blemish of his public life. Arch- 
 deacon 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 
 administration of Walpole," says the biographer, 
 " present any uniform principle which may be traced 
 in every part, and which gave combination and con- 
 sistency to the whole ? Yes, and that principle was, 
 The Love of Peace." It would be difficult, we 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 127 
 
 think, to bestow a higher eulogium on any statesmen. 
 But the eulogium is far too high for the merits of 
 Walpole. The great ruling principle of his public 
 conduct was indeed a love of peace, but not in the 
 sense in which Archdeacon Coxe uses the phrase. 
 The peace which Walpole sought was not the peace 
 of the country, but the peace of his own administra- 
 tion. During the greater part of his public life, 
 indeed, the two objects were inseparably connected. 
 At length he was reduced to the necessity of choosing 
 between them, of plunging the State into hostilities 
 for which there was no just ground, and by which 
 nothing was to be got, or of facing a violent opposi- 
 tion in the country, in Parliament, and even in the 
 royal closet. No person was more thoroughly con- 
 vinced 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 impossible 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 praise to which he is fairly entitled is this, that 
 he understood! the true interest of his country better 
 than any of his contemporaries, and that he pursued 
 that interest whenever it was not incompatible with 
 the interest of his own intense and grasping am- 
 bition. 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 submit to his ascendency was turned out 
 or forced to resign. Liberal of every thing else, he 
 was avaricious of nothing but power. Cautious every 
 
128 WxYLPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN, 
 
 where else, when power was at stake he had all the 
 boldness of Richelieu or Chatham. He might easily 
 have secured his authority if he could have been in- 
 duced to divide it with others. But he would not 
 part with one fragment of it to purchase defenders 
 for all the rest. The effect of this policy was that 
 he had able enemies and feeble allies. His most dis- 
 tinguished 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 attack 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 en- 
 thusiasm of the Cavalier, the enthusiasm of the 
 Roundhead. The Tory gentleman, fed in the com- 
 mon-rooms of Oxford with the doctrines of Filmer 
 and Sacheverell, and proud of the exploits of his 
 great grand-father, who had charged with Rupert at 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 129 
 
 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 pre- 
 tence of assailing the existing administration, was 
 in truth assailing the reigning dyifasty. The young 
 republican, fresh from his Livy and his Lucan, and 
 glowing with admiration of Hampden, of Russell, and 
 of Sydney, hastened with equal eagerness to those 
 benches from which eloquent voices thundered nightly 
 against the tyranny and perfidy of courts. So many 
 young politicians were caught by these declamations 
 that Sir Robert, in one of his best speeches, observed 
 that the opposition consisted of three bodies, the 
 Tories, the discontented Whigs, who were known by 
 the name of the patriots, and the Boys. In fact 
 almost every young man of warm temper and lively 
 imagination, whatever his political bias might be, was 
 drawn into the party adverse to the Government ; 
 and some of the most distinguished among them, 
 Pitt, for example, among public men, and Johnson, 
 among men of letters, afterwards openly acknowledged 
 their mistake. 
 
 The aspect of the opposition, even while it was still 
 a minority in the House of Commons, was very im- 
 posing. Among those who, in Parliament or out of 
 Parliament, assailed the administration of Walpole, 
 were Bolingbroke, Carteret, Chesterfield, Argyle, Pul- 
 teney, Wyndham, Doddington, Pitt, Lyttelton, Bar- 
 nard, 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 safety of Walpole. 
 It was at last his ruin. The leaders of the minority 
 knew that it would be difficult for them to bring for- 
 ward any important measure without producing an 
 
 VOL. II. k 
 
130 WALPOLE'S LETTEKS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 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 Fre- 
 deric. The two parties had cordially joined in calling 
 out for a war with Spain: but they now had their 
 war. Hatred of Walpole was almost the only feeling 
 which was common to them. On this one point, 
 therefore, they concentrated their whole strength. 
 "With gross ignorance, or gross dishonesty, they re- 
 presented the Minister as the main grievance of the 
 state. His dismissal, his punishment, would prove 
 the certain cure for all the evils which the nation 
 suffered. What was to be done after his fall, how 
 misgovernment was to be prevented in future, were 
 questions to which there were as many answers as there 
 were noisy and ill-informed members of the opposition. 
 The only cry in which all could join was, ' Down with 
 Walpole!' So much did they narrow the disputed 
 ground, so purely personal did they make the ques- 
 tion, 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 in- 
 separably bound up with his, he probably would, 
 even after the unfavourable elections of 1741, 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 asso- 
 ciates might expect advantageous and honourable 
 terms, the ministerial ranks began to waver, and the 
 murmur of sauve qui pent was heard. That Walpole 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTEKS TO SIR HOEACE MANN. 131 
 
 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. 
 
 " Ch' i' ho de' traditor' sempre sospetto, 
 E Gan fu traditor prima che nato." 
 
 " His name," said Sir Kobert, " 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 dis- 
 pirited and refractory followers. When he could no 
 longer retain his power, he compounded for honour 
 and security, and retired to his garden and his paint- 
 ings, leaving to those who had overthrown him 
 shame, discord, and ruin. 
 
 Every thing was in confusion. It has been said 
 that the confusion was produced by the dexterous 
 policy of Walpole; and, undoubtedly, he did his best 
 to sow dissension amongst his triumphant enemies. 
 But there was little for him to do. Victory had 
 completely dissolved the hollow truce which the two 
 sections of the opposition had but imperfectly ob- 
 served, even while the event of the contest was still 
 doubtful. A thousand questions were opened in a 
 moment. A thousand conflicting claims were pre- 
 ferred. It was impossible to follow any line of policy 
 which would not have been offensive to a large por- 
 tion of the successful party. It was impossible to 
 find places for a tenth part of those who thought 
 that they had a right to office. While the parlia- 
 mentary leaders were preaching patience and con- 
 fidence, while their followers were clamouring for 
 
 k 2 
 
132 WALFOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 reward, a still louder voice was heard from without, 
 the terrible cry of a people angry, they hardly knew 
 with whom, and impatient, they hardly knew for 
 what. The day of retribution had arrived. The 
 opposition reaped that which they had sown. In- 
 flamed 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 which they could not 
 lay. They had made the public mind drunk with 
 calumny and declamation. They had raised expecta- 
 tions which it was impossible to satisfy. The down- 
 fal of Walpole was to be the beginning of a political 
 millennium ; and every enthusiast had figured to him- 
 self 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 enjoyed during the last 
 years of Queen Anne, would immediately return. It 
 would have been impossible to satisfy every body. 
 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 grievous 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 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTEES TO SIR HORACE MANN. 133 
 
 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. Constantly talking in magnificent 
 language about tyranny, corruption, wicked ministers, 
 servile courtiers, the liberty of Englishmen, the Great 
 Charter, the rights for which our fathers bled, Timo- 
 leon, Brutus, Hampden, Sydney, they had absolutely 
 nothing to propose which would have been an im- 
 provement on our institutions. Instead of directing 
 the public mind to definite reforms which might have 
 completed the 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 gross abuse, 
 and without whicji 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 very ground that the 
 Parliament had long been a grossly corrupt body. 
 
 k 3 
 
134 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 The security against malpractices 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 them 
 were in themselves harmless. But none of them 
 would 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 administra- 
 tion, sent up to their representatives. A more de- 
 plorable collection of follies can hardly be imagined. 
 There is, in the first place, a general cry for Wal- 
 pole'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 
 sufferings to the war into which they had driven 
 Walpole against his better judgment. He had fore- 
 told the effects of his unwilling concession. On the 
 day when hostilities against Spain were proclaimed, 
 when the heralds were attended 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 mut- 
 tered, " They may ring the bells now: they will be 
 wringing their hands before long." 
 , Another grievance, for which of course Walpole 
 and corruption were answerable, was the great export- 
 ation of English wool. In the judgment of the sa- 
 gacious electors of several large towns, the remedying 
 of this evil was a matter second only in importance to 
 ths hanging of Sir Robert. There were also earnest 
 injunctions that the members should vote against 
 standing armies in time of peace, injunctions which 
 
 % 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTEES TO SIR HORACE MANN. 135 
 
 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 re- 
 currence of their bribes and their ale. We feel firmly 
 convinced that the repeal of the Septennial Act, 
 unaccompanied by a complete reform of the con- 
 stitution of the elective body, would have been an 
 unmixed curse to the country. The only rational 
 recommendation which we can find in all these in- 
 structions is, that the number of placemen in Parlia- 
 ment 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 without other re- 
 forms, secret bribery would probably have been more 
 practised than ever. 
 
 We will give one more instance of the absurd 
 expectations which the declamations of the opposition 
 had raised in the country. Akenside was one of 
 the fiercest and most uncompromising of the young 
 patriots out of parliament. 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 preeminence of Dry den. 
 But, whatever be the literary merits of the epistle, 
 we can say nothing in praise of the political doctrines 
 which it inculcates. The poet, in a rapturous apos- 
 trophe to the spirits of the great men of antiquity, 
 tells us what he expected from Pulteney at the mo- 
 ment of the fall of the tyrant. 
 
 k 4 
 
136 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 " 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 stint the young Duke of Marl- 
 borough to a bottle of brandy a day, and to prevail 
 on Lady Yane to be content with three lovers at a 
 time. 
 
 Whatever the people wanted, they certainly got 
 nothing. Walpole retired in safety ; and the multi- 
 tude 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 Com- 
 mons. Wool, we believe, was still exported. " Pri- 
 vate life " afforded as much scandal as if the reign of 
 Walpole and corruption had continued; and " ardent 
 youth " fought with watchmen and betted with black- 
 legs 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 com- 
 pelled 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 profound and extensive learning. He 
 was familiar with the ancient writers, and loved to 
 sit up till midnight discussing philological and me- 
 trical questions with Bentley. His knowledge of 
 modern languages was prodigious. The privy coun- 
 cil, when he was present, needed no interpreter. 
 He spoke and wrote French, Italian, Spanish, Portu- 
 guese, German, even Swedish. He had pushed his 
 researches into the most obscure nooks of litera- 
 ture. He was as familiar with Canonists and 
 Schoolmen as with orators and poets. He had read 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 137 
 
 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 remark- 
 able testimony to the extent and accuracy of Lord 
 Carteret's knowledge. " It was my good fortune or 
 prudence to keep the main body of my army (or in 
 other words my matters of fact) safe and entire. The 
 late Earl of Granville was pleased to declare himself 
 of this opinion ; especially when he found that I had 
 made Chemnitius one of my principal guides ; for his 
 Lordship was apprehensive I might not have seen that 
 valuable and authentic book, which is extremely 
 scarce. I thought myself happy to have contented 
 his Lordship even in the lowest degree : for he under- 
 stood the German and Swedish histories to the high- 
 est 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 ora- 
 tory 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 ad- 
 ministration, and had acquired considerable influence 
 over the mind of George the First. The other Mini- 
 sters could speak no German. The King could speak 
 no English. All the communication that Walpole 
 held with his master was in very bad Latin. Carteret 
 dismayed his colleagues by the volubility with which 
 he addressed his Majesty in German. They listened 
 with envy and terror to the mysterious gutturals 
 which might possibly convey suggestions very little 
 in unison with their wishes. 
 
138 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 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 sig- 
 nalised himself at the head of that party till, after the 
 retirement of his old rival, he again became Secretary 
 of State. 
 
 During some months he was chief Minister, indeed 
 sole Minister. He gained the confidence and regard 
 of George the Second. He was at the same time in 
 high favour with the Prince of Wales. As a debater 
 in the House of Lords, he had no equal among his 
 colleagues. Among his opponents, Chesterfield alone 
 could be considered as his match. Confident in his 
 talents and in the royal favour, he neglected all those 
 means by which the power of Walpole had been 
 created and maintained. His head was full of trea- 
 ties 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 eccle- 
 siastical preferment of 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 and benefices will go 
 to those who have more leisure." The prediction was 
 accomplished. It would have been a busy time in- 
 deed in which the Pelhams had wanted leisure for 
 jobbing ; and to the Pelhams the whole cry of place- 
 hunters and pension-hunters resorted. The parlia- 
 mentary 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 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 139 
 
 rival, meanwhile, conscious of his powers, sanguine in 
 his hopes, and proud of the storm which he had con- 
 jured up on the Continent, would brook neither su- 
 perior 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 every thing down before it. The period of his 
 ascendency was known by the name of the " Drunken 
 Administration;" and the expression was not alto- 
 gether figurative. His habits were extremely con- 
 vivial ; and Champagne probably lent its aid to keep 
 him in that state of joyous excitement in which his 
 life was passed. 
 
 That a rash and impetuous man of genius like Car- 
 teret 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 under- 
 stand why he should have been generally unpopular 
 throughout the country. His brilliant talents, 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 connexion 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 desperate, 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 en- 
 joyed success with so exquisite a relish, or submitted 
 to defeat with so genuine and unforced a cheerfulness. 
 
140 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 Ill as he had been used, he did not seem, says Horace 
 Walpole, to have any resentment, or indeed any feel- 
 ing except thirst. 
 
 These letters contain many good stories, some of 
 them no doubt grossly exaggerated, about Lord Car- 
 teret ; how, in the height of his greatness, he fell in 
 love at first 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 Eanelagh ; 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 Me- 
 moirs, Horace Walpole, after passing in review all the 
 great men whom England had produced within his 
 memory, concludes by 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.' 7 
 
 Carteret fell ; and the reign of the Pelhams com- 
 menced. 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 revenge. 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 disposition to acquiesce 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 141 
 
 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 byword of derision. 
 Horace Walpole scarcely exaggerated when he said 
 that, in those times, the most popular declaration 
 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 rebellion of the 
 Highland clans. The alarm produced by that event 
 quieted the strife of internal factions. The suppres- 
 sion of the insurrection crushed for ever the spirit of 
 the Jacobite party. Room was made in the Govern- 
 ment 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 small 
 portion of that formidable opposition of which he had 
 been the leader in the time of Sir Robert Walpole. 
 Almost every man of weight in the House of Com- 
 mons 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 oppo- 
 sition. This singular good fortune, denied to the 
 ablest statesmen, to Salisbury, to Strafford, to Claren- 
 don, to Somers, to Walpole, had been reserved for the 
 Pelhams. 
 
 Henry Pelham, it is true, was by no means a con- 
 temptible 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 parliamentary tactician, a good man 
 
142 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 of business. Like his master, he distinguished him- 
 self try 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 de- 
 corous. Walpole 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 encounter was from members 
 of the Government of which he was the head. His 
 own paymaster spoke against his estimates. His own 
 secretary-at-war spoke against his Eegency Bill. In 
 one day Walpole turned Lord Chesterfield, Lord Bur- 
 lington, and Lord Clinton out of the royal household, 
 dismissed 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 his Excise 
 Bill. He would far rather have contended with the 
 strongest minority, under the ablest leaders, than have 
 tolerated mutiny in his own party. It would have 
 gone hard with any of his colleagues who had ven- 
 tured, on a government question, 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 pa- 
 tience 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 corruption and wicked 
 ministers from the other side of the House. 
 
 We wonder that Sir Walter Scott never tried his 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 143 
 
 hand on the Duke of Newcastle. An interview be- 
 tween his Grace and Jeanie Deans would have been 
 delightful, and by no means unnatural. There is 
 scarcely any public man in our history of whose man- 
 ners and conversation so many particulars have been 
 preserved. Single stories may be unfounded or ex- 
 aggerated. But all the stories about him, whether 
 told by people who were perpetually seeing 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 
 Walpole and Smollett 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 ambassa- 
 dors. The other passed his life surrounded by printers' 
 devils and famished scribblers. Yet Walpole'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 Newcastle 
 pushes his way into the Duke of Grafton's sick room 
 to kiss the old nobleman's plasters. No man was 
 ever so unmercifully satirised. But in truth he was 
 himself a satire ready made. All that the art of the 
 satirist does for other men, nature had done for him. 
 Whatever was absurd about him stood out with 
 grotesque prominence from the rest of the character. 
 He was a living, moving, talking caricature. His 
 gait was a shufiling trot ; his utterance a rapid 
 stutter ; he was always in a hurry ; he was never in 
 time; he abounded in fulsome caresses and in hys- 
 terical 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 pro- 
 
144 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 bably invented at coffee-houses, but all exquisitely 
 characteristic. " Oh — yes — yes — to be sure — An- 
 napolis must be defended — troops must be sent to 
 Annapolis — Pray where is Annapolis?" — "Cape 
 Breton an island ! wonderful! — show it me in the 
 map. So it is, ^sure enough. My dear sir, you 
 always bring us good news. I must go and tell the 
 king that Cape Breton is an island." 
 
 And this man was, during near thirty years, 
 Secretary of State, and, during near ten years, First 
 Lord of the Treasury ! His large fortune, his strong 
 hereditary connexion, his great Parliamentary inter- 
 est, 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 with- 
 out reserve to one object. He was eaten up by am- 
 bition. His love of influence and authority resembled 
 the avarice of the old usurer in the Fortunes of Nigel. 
 It was so intense a passion that it supplied the place 
 of talents, that it inspired even fatuity with cunning. 
 " Have no money dealings with my father," says 
 Martha to Lord Glenvarloch; "for, dotard as he is, 
 he will make an ass of you." It was as dangerous to 
 have any political connexion 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 brother. 
 Under the disguise of levity he was false beyond all 
 example of political falsehood. All the able men of 
 his time ridiculed him as a dunce, a driveller, a child 
 who never knew his own mind for an hour together ; 
 and he overreached them all round. 
 
 If the country had remained at peace, it is not 
 impossible that this man would have continued at the 
 head of affairs without admitting any other person to 
 a share of his authority until the throne was filled by 
 a new Prince, who brought with him new maxims of 
 
walpole's letteks to sir HOKACE MANN. 145 
 
 Government, new favourites, and a strong will. But 
 the inauspicious commencement of the Seven Years' 
 War brought on a crisis to which Newcastle was al- 
 together 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 poli- 
 tical world was changed. 
 
 But that change is too remarkable an event to be 
 discussed at the end of an article already more than 
 sufficiently long. It is probable that we may, at no 
 remote time, resume the subject. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
146 
 
 WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 (January 1834.) 
 
 A History of the Right Honourable William Pitt, Earl of 
 Chatham, containing his Speeches in Parliament, a con- 
 siderable 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. Francis Thackeray, 
 A.M. 2 vols. 4to. London: 1827. 
 
 Though several years have elapsed since the publica- 
 tion of this work, it is still, we believe, a new publica- 
 tion to most of our readers. Nor are we surprised 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 employment, it is said, 
 has a tendency to injure some one or other of the 
 bodily organs of the artisan. Grinders of cutlery 
 die of consumption ; weavers are stunted in their 
 growth; smiths become blear-eyed. In the same 
 manner almost every intellectual employment has a 
 tendency to produce some intellectual malady. Bio- 
 graphers, 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 dis- 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 147 
 
 temper 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 
 accomplishments 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 
 are assured that we ought to find many charms in 
 such lines as these : — 
 
 " Midst all the tumults of the warring sphere, 
 My light-charged bark may haply glide ; 
 Some gale may waft, some conscious thought shall cheer, 
 And the small freight unanxious glided* 
 
 Pitt was in the army for a few months in time of 
 peace. Mr. Thackeray accordingly insists on our con- 
 fessing that, if the young cornet had remained in the 
 service, he would have been one of the ablest com- 
 manders 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 of 
 moral excellence, the just man made perfect. He 
 was in the right when he attempted to establish 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 excellent minister. 
 He was in the right when, being in opposition, he 
 maintained 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 New- 
 castle, when he coalesced with the Duke of Newcastle, 
 when he thundered against subsidies, when he lavished 
 subsidies with unexampled profusion, when he exe- 
 crated the Hanoverian connexion, when he declared 
 
 * The quotation is faithfully made from Mr. Thackeray. Perhaps 
 Pitt wrote guide in the fourth line. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 thackeray's history of 
 
 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 connexion 
 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 redeemed by some noble passages, the 
 effect of which is increased by the tameness or extra- 
 vagance of what precedes and of what follows. His 
 opinions were unfixed. His conduct at some of the 
 most important conjunctures of his life was evidently 
 determined by pride and resentment. He had one 
 fault, which of all human faults is most rarely found 
 in company with true greatness. He was extremely 
 affected. He was an almost solitary instance of a 
 man of real genius, and of a brave, lofty, and com- 
 manding 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 
 partisans often complained that he could never obtain 
 admittance to Lord Chatham's room till every thing 
 was ready for the representation, till the dresses and 
 properties were all correctly disposed, till the light 
 was thrown with Rembrandt-like effect on the head 
 of the illustrious performer, till the flannels had been 
 arranged with the air of a Grecian drapery, and the 
 crutch placed as gracefully as that of Belisarius or 
 Lear. 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 149 
 
 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 pas- 
 sions, quick sensibility, and vehement enthusiasm for 
 the grand and the beautiful. There was something 
 about him which ennobled tergiversation itself. He 
 often went wrong, very wrong. But, to quote the 
 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 excite- 
 ment, have been tempted to ruin his country, but 
 who never would have stooped to pilfer from her, a 
 man whose errors arose, not from a sordid desire of 
 gain, but from a fierce thirst for power, for glory, 
 and for vengeance. History owes to him this attesta- 
 tion, that, at a time when anything short of direct 
 embezzlement of the public money was considered as 
 quite fair in public men, he showed the most scrupu- 
 lous 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 aristocra- 
 tical connexion, not, like Bute, to the personal favour 
 of the Sovereign, but to the middle class of English- 
 men, that he inspired that class with a firm confidence 
 in his integrity and ability, that, backed by them, he 
 forced an unwilling court and an unwilling oligarchy 
 to admit him to an ample share of power, and that 
 
 l 3 
 
150 THACKERAY'S HISTORY OF 
 
 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 reputation 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 
 Kegent Orleans, by the advice of Saint- Simon, pur- 
 chased for upwards of two millions of livres, and 
 which is still considered as the most precious of the 
 crown jewels of France. Governor Pitt bought es- 
 tates 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 Oak- 
 hampton. 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 residence 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 me- 
 chanical part of his art. All true Etonians will hear 
 with concern that their illustrious schoolfellow is 
 guilty of making the first syllable in labenti short.* 
 The matter of the poem is as worthless as that of any 
 college exercise that was ever written before or since. 
 There is, of course, much about Mars, Themis, Nep- 
 
 * So Mr. Thackeray has printed the poem. But it may be cha- 
 ritably hoped that Pitt wrote labanti. 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 151 
 
 tune, and Cocytus. The Muses are earnestly entreated 
 to weep over the urn of 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 tor- 
 mented 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, without having received much 
 benefit from his excursion, and continued, till the 
 close of his life, to suffer most severely from his con- 
 stitutional malady. 
 
 His father was now dead, and had left very little 
 to the younger children. It was necessary that 
 William should choose a profession. He decided for 
 the army, and a cornet's commission was procured 
 for him in the Blues. 
 
 But, small as his fortune was, his family had both 
 the power and the inclination to serve him. At the 
 general election of 1734, his elder brother Thomas 
 was chosen both for Old Sarum and for Oakhampton. 
 When Parliament met in 1735, Thomas made his 
 election to serve for Oakhampton, and William was 
 returned for Old Sarum. 
 
 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 reign- 
 ing house, had been united in support of his adminis- 
 tration.. Happily 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 Sunder- 
 
 l 4 
 
152 thackekay's history of 
 
 land's administration. When the South-Sea Company- 
 were voting dividends of fifty per cent., when a hun- 
 dred 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 philosophers turned gamblers, when a 
 thousand kindred bubbles were daily blown into 
 existence, the periwig company, and the Spanish-jack- 
 ass-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 people, in the frenzy of 
 their rage and despair, clamoured, not only against 
 the lower agents in the juggle, but against the Ha- 
 noverian favourites, against the English ministers, 
 against the King himself, when Parliament met, 
 eager for confiscation and blood, when members of 
 the House of Commons proposed that the directors 
 should be treated like parricides in ancient Rome, 
 tied up in sacks, and thrown into the Thames, Wal- 
 pole 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 from Parliament on 
 account of his disgraceful conduct regarding the 
 South-Sea scheme. Craggs was saved by a timely 
 death from a similar mark of infamy. A large 
 minority in the House of Commons voted for a severe 
 censure on Sunderland, who, finding it impossible to 
 withstand the force of the prevailing sentiment, 
 retired from office, and outlived his retirement but a 
 very short time. The schism which had divided the 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 153 
 
 Whig party was now completely healed. Walpole 
 had no opposition to encounter except that of the 
 Tories; and the Tories were naturally regarded by 
 the King with the strongest suspicion and dislike. 
 
 For a time business went on with a smoothness 
 and a 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 ex- 
 cept on private bills. 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 room here and there for a Tory not unfriendly 
 to the House of Brunswick, Walpole might have 
 averted the tremendous conflict in which he passed 
 the later years of his administration, and in which 
 he was at length vanquished. The Opposition which 
 overthrew him was an Opposition created by his own 
 policy, by his own insatiable love of power. 
 
 In the very act of forming his Ministry he turned 
 one of the ablest and most attached of his supporters 
 into a deadly enemy. Pulteney had strong public 
 and private claims to a high situation in the new 
 arrangement. His fortune was immense. His pri- 
 vate character was respectable. He was already a 
 distinguished speaker. He had acquired official ex- 
 perience 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 
 resigned a valuable place, and had followed the for- 
 tunes of Walpole. Yet, when Walpole returned to 
 power, Pulteney was not invited to take office. An 
 angry discussion took place between the friends. The 
 minister offered a peerage. It was impossible for 
 Pulteney not to discern the motive of such an offer. 
 He indignantly refused to accept it. For some time 
 he continued to brood over his wrongs, and to watch 
 
154 thackeray's history of 
 
 for an opportunity of revenge. As soon as a favour- 
 able 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 de- 
 bate were of the first order ; his knowledge of foreign 
 affairs was superior to that of any living statesman ; 
 his attachment to the Protestant succession was un- 
 doubted. 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 childhood. 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 per- 
 secuted by the same House of Commons. They had, 
 after the death of Anne, been recalled together to 
 office. They had again been driven out together by 
 Sunderland, and had again come back together when 
 the influence of Sunderland had declined. Their 
 opinions on public affairs almost always coincided. 
 They were both men of frank, generous, and com- 
 passionate natures. Their intercourse had been for 
 many years affectionate and cordial. But the ties 
 of blood, of marriage, and of friendship, the memory 
 of mutual services, the memory of common triumphs 
 and common disasters, 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, 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 155 
 
 not Townshend and Walpole, but Walpole and Towns- 
 hend. At length the rivals proceeded to personal 
 abuse before a large company, 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 col- 
 leagues, was prevented. But the disputants could 
 not long continue to act together. Townshend re- 
 tired, and, with rare moderation and public spirit, 
 refused to take any part in politics. He could not, 
 he said, trust his temper. He feared that the recol- 
 lection of his private wrongs might impel him to fol- 
 low the example of Pulteney, and to oppose measures 
 which he thought generally beneficial to the country. 
 He therefore never visited London after his resigna- 
 tion, but passed the closing years of his life in dignity 
 and repose among his trees and pictures at Kainham. 
 Next went Chesterfield. He too was a Whig and 
 a friend of the Protestant succession. He was an 
 orator, a courtier, a wit, and a man of letters. He 
 was at the head of ton in days when, in order to be at 
 the head of ton, it was not sufficient to be dull and 
 supercilious. It was evident that he submitted im- 
 patiently to the ascendency of Walpole. He mur- 
 mured 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 supremacy was 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 Cobham, Lord 
 
156 thackeray's history of 
 
 Marchmont, Lord Clinton, were at the same time dis- 
 missed from the service of the Crown. 
 
 Not long after these events the Opposition was re- 
 inforced 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 follow- 
 ing year, broke out in Scotland, had been 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 course 
 of years all the footsteps are turned the same way, 
 that all the most eminent of those public men who 
 agreed with the minister in their general views of 
 policy left him, one after another, with sore and irri- 
 tated minds, we find it impossible not to believe that 
 the real explanation of the phamomenon is to be found 
 in the words of his son, " Sir Robert Walpole loved 
 power so much that he would not endure a rival.' 7 
 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 person 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 no cause for jealousy, 
 or from clever adventurers, whose situation and 
 character diminished the dread which their talents 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 157 
 
 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 cha- 
 racter, and that nothing but such a character could 
 drag down such parts ; and Winnington, whose pri- 
 vate morals lay, justly or unjustly, under imputations 
 of the worst kind. 
 
 The discontented Whigs were, not perhaps in num- 
 ber, but certainly in ability, experience, and weight, 
 by far the most important part of the Opposition. 
 The Tories furnished little more than rows of pon- 
 derous foxhunters, fat with Staffordshire or Devon- 
 shire ale, men who drank to the king over the water 
 and believed that all the fundholders were Jews, men 
 whose religion 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 elo- 
 quence of these zealous squires, the remnant of the 
 once formidable October Club, seldom went beyond a 
 hearty Ay or No. Very few members of this party 
 had distinguished themselves much in Parliament, or 
 could, under any circumstances, have been called to 
 fill any high office ; and those few had generally, like 
 Sir William Wyndham, learned in the company of 
 their new associates the doctrines of toleration and 
 political liberty, and might indeed with strict pro- 
 priety be called Whigs. 
 
 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 poli- 
 ticians felt all the enthusiasm which the name of 
 liberty naturally excites in young and ardent minds. 
 They conceived that the theory of the Tory Opposition 
 and the practice of Walpole's Government were alike 
 
158 thackeray's history of 
 
 inconsistent with the principles of liberty. They 
 accordingly repaired to the standard which Pulteney 
 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 Eussell, the one sect 
 which, amidst the corruptions generated by time and 
 by the long possession of power, had preserved invio- 
 late the principles of the Revolution. Of the young 
 men who attached themselves to this 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 Oppo- 
 sition, and particularly to that section of the Oppo- 
 sition in which the young statesman enrolled himself. 
 The Prince of Wales was gradually becoming 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 estimation 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 expect from him is 
 that he will not discard them. But, if he joins the 
 Opposition, all his associates expect that he will pro- 
 mote them; and the feelings which men entertain 
 towards one from whom they hope to obtain great 
 advantages 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 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 159 
 
 what they already have. An heir-apparent, therefore, 
 who wishes to enjoy, in the highest perfection, all the 
 pleasure that can be derived from eloquent flattery 
 and profound respect will always join those who are 
 struggling to force themselves into power. This is, 
 we believe, the true explanation of a fact which Lord 
 Granville attributed to some natural peculiarity in the 
 illustrious 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 something of the matter ; for he had been 
 a favourite with three successive generations 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 com- 
 munication 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 inclined to attack the reigning family, yet con- 
 sidered the introduction of that 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 
 
160 thackeray's history of 
 
 for office and for revenge, did not scruple to serve the 
 purposes of a faction hostile to the Protestant succes- 
 sion. The appearance of Frederick at the head of the 
 patriots silenced this reproach. The leaders of the 
 Opposition might now boast that their course was 
 sanctioned by a person as deeply interested as the 
 King himself in maintaining the Act of Settlement, 
 and that, instead of serving the purposes of the Tory 
 party, they had brought that party over to the side of 
 Whiggism. It must indeed be admitted that, though 
 both the King and the Prince behaved in a manner 
 little to their honour, though the father acted harshly, 
 the son disrespectfully, and both childishly, the royal 
 family was rather strengthened than weakened by the 
 disagreement of its two most distinguished members. 
 A large class of politicians, who had considered them- 
 selves 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 Stuart. 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 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 161 
 
 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 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 his- 
 torian," says Mr. Thackeray, " describes Mr. Pitt's 
 first speech as superior even to the models of ancient 
 eloquence. According to Tindal, it was more orna- 
 mented 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 content 
 to think. Did Tindal, who first used it, or Arch- 
 deacon 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 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 Anatomie 
 Vivante, and more slender than Daniel Lambert. 
 
 Pitt's speech, as it is reported in the Gentleman's 
 Magazine, certainly deserves Tindal's compliment, 
 and deserves no other. It is just as empty and 
 wordy as a maiden speech on such an occasion might 
 be expected to be. But the fluency and the personal 
 
 VOL. II. m 
 
162 thackeray's history of 
 
 advantages of the young orator instantly caught the 
 ear and eye of his audience. He was, from the day 
 of his first appearance, always heard with attention ; 
 and exercise soon developed the great powers which 
 he possessed. 
 
 In our time, the audience of a member of Parlia- 
 ment is the nation. The three or four hundred 
 persons who may be present while a speech is de- 
 livered may be pleased or disgusted by the voice and 
 action of the orator; but, in the reports which are 
 read the next day by hundreds of thousands, the 
 difference 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. His fame out of doors depended 
 entirely on the report of those who were within the 
 doors. In the Parliaments of that time, therefore, as in 
 the ancient commonwealths, those qualifications which 
 enhance the immediate effect of a speech, were far more 
 important ingredients in the composition of an orator 
 than at present. All those qualifications Pitt possessed 
 in the highest degree. On the stage, he would have 
 been the finest Brutus or Coriolanus ever seen. Those 
 who saw him in his decay, when his health was broken, 
 when his mind was untuned, when he had been removed 
 from that stormy assembly of which he thoroughly 
 knew the temper and over which he possessed un- 
 bounded influence, to a small, a torpid, and an un- 
 friendly audience, say that his speaking was then, 
 for the most part, a low, monotonous muttering, 
 audible only to those who sate close to him, that, 
 when violently excited, he sometimes raised his voice 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 163 
 
 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 culti- 
 vated 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 
 disconcerted a hostile orator by a single glance of in- 
 dignation or scorn. Every tone, from the impassioned 
 cry to the thrilling aside, was perfectly at his com- 
 mand. It is by no means improbable that the pains 
 which he took to improve his great personal advan- 
 tages had, in some respects, a prejudicial operation, 
 and tended to nourish in him that passion for the- 
 atrical 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 contem- 
 poraries, 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 pre- 
 pared discourses were complete failures. The ela- 
 borate panegyric which he pronounced on General 
 
 m 2 
 
164 thackeray's histoey of 
 
 Wolfe was considered as the very worst of all his 
 performances. " No man," says a critic who had 
 often heard him, " ever knew so little what he was 
 going to say." Indeed his facility amounted to a 
 vice. He was not the master, but the slave of his 
 own speech. So little self-command had he when 
 once he felt the impulse, that he did not like to take 
 part in a debate when his mind was full of an im- 
 portant 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 lived. 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, with the exception of Mr. Stanley, whose 
 knowledge of the science of parliamentary defence 
 resembles an instinct, it would be difficult to name 
 any eminent debater 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 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 165 
 
 minister of the Crown in the House of Commons, 
 should never have attained to high excellence. He 
 spoke without premeditation ; but his speech followed 
 the course of his own thoughts and not the course of 
 the previous discussion. He could, indeed, treasure 
 up in his memory some detached expression of a hos- 
 tile orator, and make it the text for lively ridicule or 
 solemn reprehension. Some of the most celebrated 
 bursts of his eloquence were called forth by an un- 
 guarded word, a laugh, or a cheer. But this was the 
 only sort of reply in which he appears to have ex- 
 celled. 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. Wal- 
 pole, 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. Some 
 of Pitt's quotations and classical stories are too trite 
 for a clever schoolboy. But these were niceties 
 for which the audience cared little. The enthusiasm 
 of the orator infected all who heard him ; his ar- 
 dour 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 
 
 m 3 
 
166 thackeray's history of 
 
 Government ; and Walpole determined to make an 
 example of the patriotic cornet. Pitt was accord- 
 ingly dismissed from the service. Mr. Thackeray 
 says that the minister took this step, because he 
 plainly saw that it would have been vain to think of 
 buying over so honourable and disinterested an oppo- 
 nent. 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 
 Walpole 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, 
 that Walpole gained very few over from the Opposi- 
 tion. Indeed that great minister knew his business 
 far too well. He knew that for one mouth which is 
 stopped with a place, fifty other mouths will be in- 
 stantly opened. He knew that it would have been 
 very bad policy in him to give the world to under- 
 stand that more was to be got by thwarting his 
 measures than by supporting them. These maxims 
 are as old as the origin of parliamentary 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 clamoured 
 for war with a vehemence which it is not easy to re- 
 concile with reason or humanity, but which appears 
 to Mr. Thackeray worthy of the highest admiration. 
 We will not stop to argue a point on which we had 
 long thought that all well informed people were 
 agreed. We could easily show, we think, that, if any 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 167 
 
 respect be due to international law, if right, where 
 societies of men are concerned, be anything but 
 another name for might, if we do not adopt the doc- 
 trine of the Buccaneers, 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. 
 u I have seen," says Burke, " and with some care 
 examined, the original documents concerning certain 
 important transactions of those times. They per- 
 fectly 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 prin- 
 cipal actors against that minister, and with those who 
 principally excited that clamour. None of them, no 
 not one, did in the least defend the measure, or 
 attempt to justify their conduct. They condemned 
 it as freely as they would have done in commenting 
 upon any proceeding in history in which they were 
 totally unconcerned." Pitt, on subsequent occasions, 
 gave ample proof that he was one of those tardy 
 penitents. But his conduct, even where it appeared 
 most criminal to himself, appears admirable to his 
 biographer. 
 
 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 and those 
 persons who were most nearly connected with him 
 acted in a manner very little to their honour. They 
 attempted to come to an understanding with Walpole, 
 
 m 4 
 
168 thackeray's history of 
 
 and offered, if he would use his influence with the 
 King in their favour, to screen him from prosecution. 
 They even went so far as to engage for the concur- 
 rence 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 su- 
 perfluous if the great leaders of the Opposition could 
 be gained. 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 story which is sup- 
 ported by strong testimony, 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 Opposition, and none more than Pitt. 
 He was not invited to become a placeman ; and he there- 
 fore 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 im- 
 placable 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 might give evidence, true or 
 false, against the Earl of Orford. This bill Pitt sup- 
 ported, Pitt, who had himself offered to be a screen 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 169 
 
 between Lord Orford and public justice. These are 
 melancholy facts. Mr. Thackeray omits them, or hur- 
 ries 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 which 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 fa- 
 miliar to his eloquence, sole minister, wicked minister, 
 odious minister, execrable minister. The chief topic 
 of Pitt's invective was the favour shown to the German 
 dominions of the House of Brunswick. 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 Wyndam 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 repu- 
 tation of being decidedly the best hater of her time. 
 Yet her love had been infinitely more destructive 
 than her hatred. More than thirty years before, her 
 temper had ruined the party to which she belonged 
 
170 thackeray's history of 
 
 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, pre- 
 dicted the fate of her vast property. 
 
 " To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store, 
 Or wanders, heaven-directed, to the poor." 
 
 Pitt was then one of the poor ; and to him Heaven 
 directed a portion of the wealth of the haughty Dow- 
 ager. She left him a legacy of ten thousand pounds, 
 in consideration of " the noble defence he had made 
 for the support of the laws of England, and to pre- 
 vent the ruin of his country." 
 
 The will was made in August. The Duchess died in 
 October. In November Pitt was a courtier. The Pel- 
 hams had forced the King, much against his will, to 
 part with Lord Carteret, who had now become Earl 
 Granville. They proceeded, after this victory, to form 
 the Government on that basis, called by the cant name 
 of " the broad bottom." Lyttelton had a seat at the 
 Treasury, and several other friends of Pitt were pro- 
 vided for. But Pitt himself was, for the present, 
 forced to be content with promises. The King re- 
 sented 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 facili- 
 tate his admission to office. He resigned his place 
 in the household of Prince Frederick, and, when Par- 
 liament 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 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 171 
 
 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 Gran- 
 ville. They had traced his intrigues in many quar- 
 ters. 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 ad- 
 mitted 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 irresistible, 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. 
 He could only mutter that it was very hard that New- 
 castle, 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, 
 
172 thackeray's history of 
 
 therefore, of making their new ally Secretary-at-War, 
 as they had intended, they appointed him Yice- 
 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 derived 
 from his place. He was allowed to keep a large sum, 
 which, even in time of peace, was seldom less than one 
 hundred thousand pounds, constantly in his hands ; and 
 the interest on this sum he might appropriate to his 
 own use. This practice was not secret, nor was it con- 
 sidered as disreputable. It was the practice of men of 
 undoubted honour, both before and after the time of 
 Pitt. He, however, refused to accept one farthing 
 beyond the salary which the law had annexed to his 
 office. It had been usual for foreign princes who 
 received the pay of England to give to the Paymaster 
 of the Forces a small per cent age 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 warmest admiration throughout 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 Opposition 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 connexions or his general 
 line of conduct are often obscure; but disinterested- 
 ness in pecuniary matters everybody can understand. 
 Pitt was thenceforth considered 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. 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 173 
 
 Eight quiet years followed, eight years during 
 which the minority, which had been feeble ever since 
 Lord Granville had been overthrown, continued to 
 dwindle till it became almost invisible. Peace was 
 made with France and Spain in 1748. Prince Fre- 
 derick died in 1751; and with him died the very 
 semblance of opposition. All the most distinguished 
 survivors of the party which had supported Wal- 
 pole and of the party which had opposed him were 
 united under his successor. The fiery and vehement 
 spirit of Pitt nad 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. He 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. Pel- 
 ham 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 occa- 
 sional 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 dis- 
 tinguished person far surpassed 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 
 
174 thackeray's history of 
 
 great in stirring times. His heart was a little cold, 
 his temper cautious even to timidity, his manners 
 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 his wishes was 
 the judicial bench. The situation 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 some of the most 
 powerful members of the great Whig connexion. 
 His parliamentary talents were of the highest order. 
 As a speaker, he was in almost all respects the very 
 opposite of Pitt. His figure was ungraceful ; his face, 
 as Reynolds and Nollekens have preserved it to us, 
 indicated a strong understanding; but the features 
 were coarse, and the general aspect dark and lower- 
 ing. 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 questions, he has perhaps never been sur- 
 passed except by his son. In reply he was as 
 decidedly superior to Pitt as in declamation he was 
 Pitt's inferior. Intellectually, the balance was nearly 
 even between the rivals. But here, again, the moral 
 qualities of Pitt turned the scale. Fox had undoubt- 
 edly many virtues. In natural disposition, as well as 
 in talents, he bore a great resemblance to his more 
 celebrated son. He had the same sweetness of tem- 
 per, the same strong passions, the same openness, 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 175 
 
 boldness, and impetuosity, 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 doc- 
 trines of which were, that political virtue is the mere 
 coquetry of political prostitution, that every patriot 
 has his price, that Government can be carried on only 
 by means of corruption, and that the state is given 
 as a prey to statesmen. These maxims were too 
 much in vogue throughout the lower ranks of Wal- 
 pole's party, and were too much encouraged by 
 Walpole himself, who, from contempt of what is in 
 our day vulgarly called humbug, often ran extra- 
 vagantly and offensively into the opposite extreme. 
 The loose political morality of Fox presented a re- 
 markable 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 the confidence of 
 the nation was worth having. While things went on 
 quietly, while there was no opposition, while every 
 thing 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 Parliament was broken up into fac- 
 tions, 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 un- 
 expectedly. " 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 
 
176 Thackeray's history of 
 
 yoked together and reined in so many turbulent and 
 ambitious spirits was withdrawn. 
 
 Within a week after Pelham's death, it was deter- 
 mined 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 dis- 
 posed to concede? Was a mere drudge to be em- 
 ployed? 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 very want : he could not build a wall." 
 
 Newcastle's love of power resembled Cutler's love of 
 money. It was an avarice which thwarted itself, a 
 penny-wise and pound-foolish cupidity. An imme- 
 diate outlay was so painful to him that he would not 
 venture to make the most desirable improvement. If 
 he could have found it in his heart to cede at once 
 a portion of his authority, he might probably have 
 ensured the continuance of what remained. But he 
 thought it better to construct a weak and rotten 
 government, which tottered at the smallest breath, 
 and fell in the first storm, than to pay the necessary 
 price for sound and durable materials. He wished to 
 find some person who would be willing to accept the 
 lead of the House of Commons on terms similar to 
 those on which Secretary Craggs had acted under 
 Sunderland, five-and-thirty years before. Craggs 
 could hardly be called a minister. He was a mere 
 
THE EAKL OF CHATHAM. 177 
 
 agent for the minister. He was not trusted with the 
 higher secrets of state, but obeyed implicitly the 
 directions of his superior, and was, to use Doddington's 
 expression, merely Lord Sunderland's man. But 
 times were changed. Since the days of Sunderland, 
 the importance of the House of Commons had been 
 constantly on the increase. During many years, the 
 person who conducted the business of the Government 
 in that House had almost always been Prime Minister. 
 Under these circumstances, it was not to be supposed 
 that any person who possessed the talents necessary 
 for the situation, would stoop to accept it on such 
 terms as Newcastle was disposed to offer. 
 
 Pitt was ill at Bath ; and, had he been well and in 
 London, neither the King nor Newcastle would have 
 been disposed to make any overtures to him. The 
 cool and wary Murray had set his heart on profes- 
 sional objects. Negotiations were opened with Fox. 
 Newcastle behaved like himself, that is to say, child- 
 ishly and basely. The proposition which he made 
 was, that Fox should be Secretary of State, with the 
 lead of the House tof Commons ; that the disposal of 
 the secret-service-money, or, in plain words, the busi- 
 ness 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 New- 
 castle, " when he was at the Treasury, never told any- 
 body 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 Llouse of Commons ; and it was there- 
 
 VOL. II. is 
 
178 thackeray's history of 
 
 fore unnecessary for him to confide to any other per- 
 son his dealings with the members of that house. 
 " But how," said Fox, " can I lead in the Commons 
 without information on this head ? How can I talk 
 to gentlemen when I do not know which of them have 
 received gratifications and which have not ? And 
 who," he continued, " is to have the disposal of 
 places ?" — " I myself," said the Duke. — " How then 
 am I to manage the House of Commons?" — " Oh, let 
 the members of the House of Commons come to me." 
 Fox then mentioned the general election which was 
 approaching, and asked how the ministerial boroughs 
 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 returned from Bath he affected great 
 moderation, though his haughty soul was boiling with 
 resentment. He did not complain of the manner in 
 which he had been passed by, but said openly that, 
 in his opinion, Fox was the fittest man to lead the 
 House of Commons. The rivals, reconciled by their 
 common interest and their common enmities, concerted 
 a plan of operations for the next session. " Sir Thomas 
 Robinson lead us ! " said Pitt to Fox. " The Duke 
 might as well send his jack-boot to lead us." 
 
 The elections of 1754 were favourable to the ad- 
 ministration. 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, 
 
THE EAKL OF CHATHAM. 179 
 
 times which would call for abilities very different 
 from those of Newcastle and Kobinson. 
 
 In November the Parliament met ; and before the 
 end of that month the new Secretary of State had 
 been so unmercifully baited by the Paymaster of the 
 Forces and the Secretary at War 'that he was 
 thoroughly sick of his situation. Fox attacked him 
 with great force and acrimony. Pitt affected a kind 
 of contemptuous tenderness for Sir Thomas, and 
 directed his attacks principally against Newcastle. 
 On one occasion, he asked in tones of thunder whether 
 Parliament sat only to register the edicts of one too- 
 powerful subject? The Duke was scared out of his 
 wits. He was afraid to dismiss the mutineers ; he 
 was afraid to promote them ; but it was absolutely 
 necessary to do something. Fox, as the less proud 
 and intractable of the refractory pair, was preferred. 
 A seat in the Cabinet was offered to him, on condition 
 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 con- 
 nexion 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 negotia- 
 tions 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; 
 
 n 2 
 
180 thackeray's history of 
 
 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 Frederic the 
 Second had set his heart on the electoral dominions 
 of his uncle, Eussia 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 prog- 
 nosticate the approach of a tempest. Newcastle en- 
 countered strong opposition, even from those whom 
 he had always considered as his tools. Legge, the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, refused to sign the 
 Treasury warrants which were necessary to give 
 effect to the treaties. Those persons who were sup- 
 posed to possess the confidence of the young Prince of 
 Wales and of his mother held very menacing language. 
 In this perplexity Newcastle sent for Pitt, hugged 
 him, patted him, smirked at him, wept over him, and 
 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 
 levee; he should be brought into the Cabinet; he 
 should be consulted about 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 the 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 from the line which 
 he had traced out for himself as to* give that treaty 
 his support. " Well, and the Russian subsidy," said 
 Newcastle. " No," said Pitt, " not a system of sub- 
 sidies." The Duke summoned Lord Hardwicke to 
 his aid ; but Pitt was inflexible. Murray would do 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 181 
 
 nothing. Robinson could do nothing. It was neces- 
 sary to have recourse to Fox. He 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 ex- 
 pectation 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. The debate 
 on the address was long remembered as one of the 
 greatest parliamentary 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. His eloquence threw into the 
 shade every orator except Pitt, who declaimed against 
 the subsidies for an hour and a half with extraordi- 
 nary energy and effect. Those powers which had 
 formerly spread terror through the majorities of 
 Walpole and Carteret were now displayed in their 
 highest perfection f before an audience long unaccus- 
 tomed to such exhibitions. One fragment of this 
 celebrated oration remains in a state of tolerable pre- 
 servation. 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 re- 
 jected by a great majority; and Pitt and Legge were 
 immediately dismissed from their offices. 
 
 During several months the contest in the House of 
 Commons was extremely sharp. Warm debates took 
 place on the estimates, debates still warmer on the 
 
 n 3 
 
182 Thackeray's history of 
 
 subsidiary treaties. The Government succeeded in 
 every division ; 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 Parlia- 
 ment or the country. 
 
 The war began in every part of the world with 
 events disastrous to England, and even more shame- 
 ful 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, and suc- 
 ceeded 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 remembered 
 the days of Excise and of South- Sea. The shops 
 were filled with libels and caricatures. The walls 
 were covered with placards. The city of London 
 called for vengeance, and the cry was echoed from 
 every corner of the kingdom. Dorsetshire, Hunting- 
 donshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Somerset- 
 shire, 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 towns 
 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 angry and sullen 
 despondency, almost unparalleled in history. People 
 have, in all ages, been in the habit of talking about 
 the good old times of their ancestors, and the de- 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 183 
 
 generacy of their contemporaries. 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 Eegicide Peace. It 
 was universally read, admired, and believed. The au- 
 thor fully convinced his readers that they were a race 
 of cowards and scoundrels; that nothing could save 
 them ; 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 contented with the sacrifice 
 of Byng. 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. 
 The new Secretary of State had been long sick of 
 the perfidy and levity of the First Lord of the Trea- 
 sury, and 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 amount of 
 pension, two thousand a year, six thousand a year. 
 
 n 4 
 
184 THACKERAY S HISTORY OF 
 
 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 Justice- 
 ship, 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 ex- 
 cluded from the new arrangement. 
 
 The Duke was now in a state of ludicrous distress. 
 He ran about chattering and crying, asking advice 
 and listening to none. In the mean time, the 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 administration 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 succeeded in making an arrange- 
 ment. 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 commis- 
 sion. 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 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 185 
 
 Lord Temple were treated with rudeness by the King, 
 and found but feeble support in the House of Com- 
 mons. 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 obtain- 
 ing a seat after his acceptance of the seals. So desti- 
 tute was the new Government of that sort of influence 
 without which no government could then be durable. 
 One of the arguments most frequently urged against 
 the Reform Bill was that, under a system of popular 
 representation, men whose presence in the House of 
 Commons was necessary to the conducting 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 to have remembered that, under the old system, 
 a great man called to power at a great crisis by the 
 voice of the whole nation was in danger of being ex- 
 cluded, by an aristocratical cabal, from that House of 
 which he was the most distinguished ornament. 
 
 The most important event of this short adminis- 
 tration was the trial of Byng. On that subject pub- 
 lic opinion is still divided. We think the punishment 
 of the Admiral altogether unjust and absurd. Trea- 
 chery, cowardice, ignorance amounting to what law- 
 yers have called crassa ignorantia, are fit objects of 
 severe penal inflictions. But Byng was not found 
 guilty of treachery, of cowardice, or of gross igno- 
 rance of his profession. He died for doing what the 
 most loyal subject, the most intrepid warrior, the most 
 experienced seaman, might have done. He died for 
 an error in judgment, an error, such as the greatest 
 commanders, Frederic, Napoleon, Wellington, have 
 often committed, and have often acknowledged. Such 
 errors are not proper objects of punishment, for this 
 
186 THACKERAY S HISTORY OF 
 
 reason, that the punishing of such errors 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 expected 
 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 know- 
 ledge 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 Bonaparte ; " imgaine that 
 you are assisting a poor girl in the Faubourg St. An- 
 toine." This was surely a far wiser course than that 
 of the Eastern king in the Arabian Nights' Enter- 
 tainments, who proclaimed that the physicians who 
 failed to cure his daughter should have their heads 
 chopped off. Bonaparte 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 
 ever had in his service so many military men fit for 
 the highest commands. 
 
 Pitt acted a brave and honest part on this oc- 
 casion. 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 Com- 
 mons, Sir," said Pitt, " seems inclined to mercy." 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 187 
 
 " 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 compliment 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 pompous, but 
 respectful. The First Lord of the Admiralty was 
 grossly impertinent. 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 Mi- 
 norca, and his Majesty's behaviour at Oudenarde, in 
 which the advantage was all on the side of the 
 Admiral. 
 
 This state of things could not last. Early in April, 
 Pitt and all his friends were turned out, and New- 
 castle 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 freedom 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 oppor- 
 tunity of showing his power and gratifying his re- 
 sentment ; and an opportunity was not wanting. 
 The members for many counties and large towns had 
 been instructed to vote for an inquiry into the cir- 
 cumstances which had produced the miscarriage of 
 
188 thackekay's history of 
 
 the preceding year. A motion for inquiry had been 
 carried in the House of Commons, without opposition ; 
 and, a few days after Pitt's dismissal, the investiga- 
 tion commenced. Newcastle and his colleagues ob- 
 tained a vote of acquittal; but the minority was 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 
 inquiry might have ended in a censure, if not in an 
 impeachment. 
 
 Pitt showed on this occasion a moderation and self- 
 government which was not 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 King, 
 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 ex- 
 clusion on all his rivals, on the* most powerful noble- 
 man 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 ele- 
 ments generally predominated. The confidence and 
 admiration of the nation might make a statesman 
 formidable at the head of an Opposition, might load 
 him with framed and glazed parchments and gold 
 boxes, might possibly, under very peculiar circum- 
 stances, 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 could not depend 
 on a majority in the people's own House. The Duke 
 of Newcastle, however contemptible in morals, man- 
 ners, and understanding, was a dangerous enemy. 
 His rank, his wealth, his unrivalled parliamentary 
 
THE EAKL OF CHATHAM. 189 
 
 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 members 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 high and generous motives. He was, 
 in the strict sense of the word, a patriot. He had 
 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 Yiolet Crown, as a Roman loved the 
 City of the Seven Hills. 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." i 
 
 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 every thing in the state. A strong 
 oligarchical connexion, a great borough interest, ample 
 patronage, and secret-service-money, might, in quiet 
 times, be all that a minister needed ; but it was un- 
 safe to trust wholly to such support in time of war, 
 of discontent, and of agitation. The composition of 
 
190 thackeray's history of 
 
 the House of Commons was not wholly aristocratical ; 
 and, whatever be the composition of large deliberative 
 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 support 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 
 hoarding. Neither of them had power enough to 
 support himself. Each of them had power enough 
 to overturn the other. Their union would be irre- 
 sistible. 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 consistency ; 
 and something was necessary for the preservation of 
 his popularity. He did little ; but that little he did in 
 such a 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 ; but, during the greater part of 
 the discussion, his language was unusually gentle. 
 
 When the inquiry had terminated without a vote 
 either of approbation or of censure, the great obstacle 
 to a coalition was removed. Many obstacles, how- 
 ever, remained. The King was still rejoicing in his 
 deliverance from the proud and aspiring minister who 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 191 
 
 had been forced on him by the cry of the nation. 
 His 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 pro- 
 mise, never to coalesce with Pitt, was meditating a 
 new perfidy. Of all the statesmen 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 unpopular men in 
 England. Then, again, Newcastle felt all that jea- 
 lousy of Fox which, according to the proverb, gene- 
 rally exists between two of a trade. Fox would cer- 
 tainly intermeddle with that department which the 
 Duke was most desirous 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 trea- 
 chery 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 between 
 them, or to form a Government without them. At one 
 time he applied to Lord Waldegrave, an honest and 
 sensible man, but unpractised in affairs. Lord Walde- 
 grave had the courage to accept the Treasury, but 
 soon found that no administration formed by him had 
 the smallest chance of standing a single week. 
 
192 THACKERAY'S HISTORY OF 
 
 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 submitted to be the footmen of the 
 Duke of Newcastle, his Majesty submitted. The in- 
 fluence of Leicester House 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 Godolphin. 
 
 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 con- 
 tinuance 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 had 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 government to the deliberations 
 of which he was not summoned. 
 
 The first measures of the new administration were 
 characterized rather by vigour than by judgment. 
 Expeditions were sent against different parts of the . 
 French coast with little success. The small island of 
 Aix was taken, Rochefort threatened, a few ships 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 193 
 
 burned in the harbour of St. Maloes, and a few guns 
 and mortars brought home as trophies from the for- 
 tifications of Cherbourg. But soon conquests of a 
 very different kind filled the kingdom with pride 
 and rejoicing. A succession of victories, undoubtedly 
 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 Louisburg fell. The whole island of Cape Breton 
 was reduced. The fleet to which the court of Ver- 
 sailles had confided the defence of French America 
 was destroyed. The captured standards were borne 
 in triumph from Kensington Palace to the city, and 
 were suspended in St. Paul's Church, amidst the roar 
 of guns and kettle-drums, and the shouts of an im- 
 mense 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 Guadaloupe; then Ticonderoga; then Nia- 
 gara. The Toulom squadron was completely defeated 
 by Boscawen off Cape Lagos. But the greatest ex- 
 ploit of the year was the achievement of Wolfe on. 
 the heights of Abraham. The news of his glorious 
 death and of the fall of Quebec reached London in 
 the very week in which the Houses met. All was joy 
 and triumph. Envy and faction were forced to join 
 in the general applause. Whigs and Tories vied with 
 each other in extolling the genius and energy of Pitt. 
 His colleagues were never talked of or thought of. 
 The House of Commons, the nation, the colonies, our 
 allies, our enemies, had their eyes fixed on him alone. 
 
 Scarcely had Parliament voted a monument to 
 Wolfe when another great event called for fresh re- 
 
 VOL. II. o 
 
194 thackeray's history of 
 
 joicings. The Brest fleet, under the command of 
 Conflans, had put out to sea. It was overtaken by an 
 English squadron under Hawke. Conflans attempted 
 to take shelter close under the French coast. The 
 shore was rocky: the night was black: the wind was 
 furious : the waves of 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 disposed 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." Two 
 French ships of the line struck. Four were destroyed. 
 The rest hid themselves in the rivers of Britanny. 
 
 The year 1760 came ; and still triumph followed 
 triumph. Montreal was taken ; the whole province 
 of Canada was subjugated ; the French fleets under- 
 went 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 founded 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 Carnatic, 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 Kussia and Austria. Yet even on the 
 Continent the energy of Pitt triumphed over all diffi- 
 culties. Vehemently as he had condemned the prac- 
 tice of subsidising foreign princes, he now carried 
 
THE EAEL OF CHATHAM. 195 
 
 that practice farther than Carteret himself would 
 have ventured to do. The active and able Sove- 
 reign of Prussia received such pecuniary assistance 
 as enabled him to maintain the conflict on equal 
 terms against his powerful enemies. On no sub- 
 ject had Pitt ever spoken with so much eloquence 
 and ardour as on the mischiefs of the Hanoverian 
 connexion. He now declared, not without much 
 show of reason, that it would be unworthy of the 
 English people to suifer 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 
 Germany. By taking this line he conciliated the 
 King, and lost no part of his influence with the nation. 
 In Parliament, such was the ascendency which his 
 eloquence, his success, his high situation, his pride, 
 and his intrepidity had obtained for him, that he took 
 liberties with 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 at- 
 tempt, 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 Ayes 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 million s, 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. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 thackeray's history of 
 
 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 sol- 
 diers 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 com- 
 plete and humiliating defeat at Minden. 
 
 In the mean time, the nation exhibited all the signs 
 of wealth and prosperity. The merchants of London 
 had never been more thriving. The importance 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 delusive. It must be owned that 
 some of our conquests were rather splendid than use- 
 ful. 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 con- 
 templated 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 mini- 
 sters, paid for treachery, defeat, and shame, was long 
 and severely felt by the nation. 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 197 
 
 Even as a war minister, Pitt is scarcely entitled to 
 all the praise which his contemporaries lavished on 
 him. We, perhaps from ignorance, cannot discern 
 in his arrangements any appearance of profound or 
 dexterous combination. 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 com- 
 mand. Plis temper was enterprising; 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 received. The success of our arms 
 was perhaps owing less to the skill of his dispositions 
 than to the national resources and the national spirit. 
 Bat that the national spirit rose to the emergency, 
 that the national resources were contributed with 
 unexampled cheerfulness, this was undoubtedly his 
 work. The ardpur of his soul 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 every thing, to play double or quits to the last, to 
 think nothing done while anything remained undone, 
 fail rather than not to attempt. For the errors of 
 rashness there might be indulgence. For over-cau- 
 tion, 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. 
 
 o 3 
 
198 thackeray's piistory of 
 
 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; 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 Com- 
 moner, 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 Par- 
 liament 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 Catho- 
 lics not cruelly persecuted. The Church was drowsy 
 and indulgent. The great civil and religious con- 
 flict which began at the Keformation 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 convulsed by faction, a throne 
 assailed by the fiercest invective, a House of Commons 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 199 
 
 hated and despised by the nation, England set against 
 Scotland, Britain set against America, a rival legis- 
 lature sitting beyond the Atlantic, English blood shed 
 by English bayonets, our armies capitulating, our 
 conquests wrested from us, our enemies hastening to 
 take vengeance for past humiliation, our flag scarcely 
 able to maintain itself in our own seas, such was the 
 spectacle which Pitt lived to see. But the history 
 of this great revolution requires far more space than 
 we can at present bestow. We leave the Great 
 Commoner in the zenith of his glory. It is not im- 
 possible that we may take some other opportunity 
 of tracing his life to its melancholy, yet not inglo- 
 rious close. 
 
200 
 
 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. (July 1835.) 
 
 History of the Revolution in England in 1688. Comprising 
 a View of the Reign of James the Second, from his Acces- 
 sion to the Enterprise of the Prince of Orange, by the late 
 Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh ; and completed 
 to the Settlement of the Crown, hy the Editor. To which 
 is prefixed, a Notice of the Life, Writings, and Speeches of 
 Sir James Mackintosh. 4to. 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 unknown 
 name. But it is to no purpose. All the lines of that 
 venerable countenance 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 impartiality. But we are 
 
 * In this review, as it originally stood, the editor of the History of 
 the Revolution was attacked with an asperity which neither literary 
 defects nor speculative differences can justify, and which ought to be 
 reserved for offences against the laws of morality and honour. The 
 reviewer was not actuated by any feeling of personal malevolence : for 
 when he wrote this paper in a distant country, he did not know, or 
 even guess, whom he was assailing. His only motive was regard for 
 the memory of an eminent man whom he loved and honoured, and who 
 appeared to him to have been unworthily treated. 
 
 The editor is now dead ; and, while living, declared that he had been 
 misunderstood, and that he had written in no spirit of enmity to Sir 
 James Mackintosh, for whom he professed the highest respect. 
 
 Many passages have therefore been softened, and some wholly 
 omitted. The severe censure passed on the literary execution of the 
 Memoir and the Continuation could not be retracted without a violation 
 of truth. But whatever could be construed into an imputation on the 
 moral character of the editor has been carefully expunged. 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 201 
 
 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 com- 
 parison between this work and another celebrated 
 Fragment. Our readers will easily guess that we 
 allude to Mr. Fox's History of James the Second. 
 The two books relate to the same subject. Both were 
 posthumously published. Neither had received the 
 last corrections. The authors belonged to the same 
 political party, and held the same opinions concerning 
 the merits and defects of the English constitution, 
 and concerning most of the prominent characters and 
 events in English history. Both had thought much 
 on the principles of government ; yet they were not 
 mere speculators. Both had ransacked the archives 
 of rival kingdoms, and pored on folios which had 
 mouldered for ages in deserted libraries; yet they 
 were not mere antiquaries. They had one eminent 
 qualification 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 he owed part of his suc- 
 cess as a historian to the observations which he 
 had made as an officer in the militia and as 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 Trea- 
 sury bench and at Brookes's during the storms which 
 
202 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 overthrew Lord North and Lord Shelburne, 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-house. In this 
 respect Mr. Fox and Sir James Mackintosh had great 
 advantages over almost every English historian who 
 has written since the time of Burnet. Lord Lyttel- 
 ton had indeed the same advantages; but he was 
 incapable 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 speaking, we have little difficulty 
 in giving the preference to that of Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh. 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 historian. 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 scandalously 
 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 winning 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 con- 
 stant effort, a tug up hill. Nature, or habit which 
 had become nature, asserted its rights. Mr. Fox wrote 
 debates. Sir James Mackintosh spoke essays. 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 203 
 
 As far as mere diction was concerned, indeed, Mr. 
 Fox did his best to avoid those faults which the habit 
 of public speaking is likely to generate. He was so 
 nervously apprehensive of sliding into some colloquial 
 incorrectness, of debasing his style by a mixture of 
 parliamentary slang, that he ran into the opposite 
 error, and purified his vocabulary with a scrupulosity 
 unknown to any purist. " Ciceronem Allobroga 
 dixit." He would not allow Addison, Bolingbroke, 
 or Middleton to be a sufficient authority for an ex- 
 pression. He declared that he would use no word 
 which was not to be found in Dry den. 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 Eome ; and their 
 fastidiousness was censured by Horace, with that 
 perfect good sense and good taste which characterize 
 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. " Carent," said Poli- 
 tian, " quae scribunt isti viribus et vita, carent actu, 
 
 carent effectu, carent indole Nisi liber ille 
 
 prgesto sit ex quo quid excerpant, colligere tria verba 
 
 non possunt Horum semper igitur oratio 
 
 tremula, vacillans, infirma Quseso ne ista 
 
 superstitione te alliges Ut bene currere non 
 
 potest qui pedem ponere studet in alienis tantum 
 vestigiis, ita nee bene scribere qui tanquam de pra> 
 scripto non audet egredi." — " Posthac," exclaims 
 Erasmus, " non licebit episcopos appellare patres re- 
 verendos, nee in calce literarum scribere annum a 
 Christo nato, quod id nusquam faciat Cicero. Quid 
 
204 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 autem ineptius quam, toto seculo novato, religione, 
 imperiis, magistratibus, locorum vocabulis, asdificiis, 
 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 phrase- 
 ology 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 on his guard against those more serious 
 improprieties of manner into which a great orator 
 who undertakes to write history is in danger of fall- 
 ing. There is about the whole book a vehement, 
 contentious, replying manner. Almost every argu- 
 ment is put in the form of an interrogation, an ejacu- 
 lation, or a sarcasm. The writer seems to be ad- 
 dressing 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 honourable 
 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 inspir- 
 ation, foaming, screaming, choked by the rushing 
 multitude of his words. 
 
 It is true that the passage to which we have re- 
 ferred, 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 consummate master of the whole art 
 of intellectual gladiatorship, whose speeches, imper- 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 205 
 
 fectly as they have been transmitted to us, should be 
 studied day and 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 penetrated, and, if we may venture on the 
 expression, made red hot by passion. 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 philosophy. 
 He distinguished himself highly in Parliament. But 
 nevertheless Parliament was not exactly the sphere 
 for him. The effect of his most successful 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 produced by his most splendid 
 and elaborate orations. His luminous and philoso- 
 phical 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 ex- 
 quisite 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 
 
206 
 
 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 fami- 
 liar, 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 but transitory impressions, 
 and to excite the minds of five hundred gentlemen 
 at midnight without saying any thing that any one 
 of them will be able to remember in the morning. 
 His arguments were of a very differ ent texture from 
 those which are produced in Parliament at a moment's 
 notice, which puzzle a plain man who, if he had them 
 before him in writing, would soon detect their fallacy, 
 and which the great debater who employs them for- 
 gets 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. Every thing was 
 there ; and every thing was in its place. His judg- 
 ments on men, on sects, on books, had been often and 
 carefully tested and weighed, and had then been com- 
 mitted, each to his 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 any thing 
 that was not to be found in that immense storehouse. 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 207 
 
 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 privilege 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 mo- 
 ment. He seemed to be recollecting, 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 re- 
 quiring to be fashioned by thought and discussion. 
 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 Scotch- 
 man. He did not find, but bring. You could not 
 cry halves to any thing 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 impartial 
 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 extreme austerity of Mr. Hallam takes away 
 something from the pleasure of reading his learned, 
 eloquent, and judicious writings. He is a judge, but a 
 hanging judge, the Page or Buller of the High Court 
 of Literary Justice. His black cap is in constant 
 requisition. In the long calendar of those whom he 
 has tried, there is hardly one who has not, in spite of 
 evidence to character and recommendations to mercy, 
 
208 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 been sentenced and left for execution. 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 of the most notorious 
 offenders. He had a quick eye for the redeeming 
 parts of a character, and a large toleration for the 
 infirmities of men exposed to strong temptations. 
 But this lenity did not arise from ignorance or 
 neglect of moral distinctions. Though he allowed 
 perhaps too much weight to every extenuating cir- 
 cumstance that could be urged in favour of the trans- 
 gressor, he never disputed the authority of the law, 
 or showed his ingenuity by refining away its enact- 
 ments. On every occasion he showed himself firm 
 where principles were in question, but full of charity 
 towards individuals. 
 
 We have no hesitation in pronouncing this Frag- 
 ment decidedly the best history now extant of the 
 reign of James the Second. It contains much new 
 and curious information, of which excellent use has 
 been made. But 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 plumbs, 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, 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 209 
 
 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 
 intractable materials of which the valuable and in- 
 teresting 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 length, and at the 
 same time of equal merit. We find in it the dili- 
 gence, the accuracy, and the judgment of Hallam, 
 united to the vivacity 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 cir- 
 culating 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 Nollekens was to Canova, or Law- 
 rence 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 
 
 VOL. II. p 
 
210 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH'S 
 
 real model which he did not make, and which he 
 cannot alter. Yet his is not a mere mechanical imi- 
 tation. The triumph of his skill is to select such 
 parts as may produce the effect of the whole, to bring 
 out strongly all the characteristic features, and to 
 throw the light and shade in such a manner as may 
 heighten the effect. This skill, as far as we can judge 
 from the unfinished work now before us, Sir James 
 Mackintosh possessed in an eminent degree. 
 
 The style of this Fragment is weighty, manly, and 
 unaffected. There are, as we have said, some ex- 
 pressions 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 lite- 
 rature, a fearless champion of English liberty, Thomas 
 Burnet, Master of the Charter-House, and author of 
 that most eloquent and imaginative work, the Telluris 
 Theoria Sacra. Wherever the name of this cele- 
 brated 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 edite this volume, and who, 
 not content with deforming Sir James Mackintosh's 
 text by such blunders, has prefixed to it a bad Me- 
 moir, 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 old Greek proverb, which tells us 
 that half is sometimes more than the whole. Never 
 
HISTORY OE THE REVOLUTION. 211 
 
 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 deface so line 
 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 want- 
 ing. 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 
 to praise in his work. Whatever may have been the 
 intention with which he wrote, the tendency of his 
 narrative is to convey the impression that Sir James 
 Mackintosh, from interested motives, abandoned the 
 doctrines of the Vindiciae Gallicae. Had such charges 
 appeared in their natural place, we should leave them 
 to their natural fete. 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 title-page is made the vehicle of the im- 
 putation. Under such circumstances, we cannot help 
 exclaiming, in the words of one of the most amiable 
 of Homer's heroes, 
 
 " 'Nvv rig EvrjeiriQ HarpoicXfjog c)£i\o7o 
 
 M.yrj(ra(rO(i)' iraaiv yap eTriarraro /xeiXi-^og eivai 
 Zd)6g eu)V vvv o* av Qavarog kclI M.o~ipa /ct^avet." 
 
 We have no difficulty in admitting that, during 
 the ten or twelve years which followed the appear- 
 
 p 2 
 
212 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH'S 
 
 ance of the Vindicice Gallicce, 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 desti- 
 nies of mankind had not been shaken? Was there 
 one observer to whom the French Revolution, or re- 
 volutions 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 Legisla- 
 tive Body was driven from its hall at the point of the 
 bayonet ? We do not speak of light-minded and 
 enthusiastic people, of wits like Sheridan, or 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 Spenser, 
 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 zeal- 
 ous of republicans, has gone so far as to say that 
 Mr. Burke's work on the Revolution had saved Eu- 
 rope. 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 
 Sophismes Anarchiques. 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 pull- 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 213 
 
 ing down aristocracy, they never saw that their doc- 
 trines tended to produce an evil a hundred times 
 more formidable, anarchy; that the theory laid down 
 in the Declaration of the Eights 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 put forth by men with no 
 food in their bellies, with rags on their backs, and 
 pikes in their hands. He praises the English Parlia- 
 ment for the dislike which it has always shown to 
 abstract reasonings, and to the affirming of general 
 principles. In M. Dumont's preface to the Trea- 
 tise on the Principles of Legislation, a preface writ- 
 ten under the eye of Mr. Bentham, and published 
 with his sanction, are the following still more re- 
 markable expressions : "M. Bentham est bien loin 
 d'attacher une preference exclusive a aucune forme 
 de gouvernement. II pense que la meilleure constitu- 
 tion pour un peuple est celle a laquelle il est ac- 
 
 coutume Le vice fondamental des theories 
 
 sur les constitutions politiques, c'est de commencer 
 par attaquer celles qui existent, et d'exciter tout au 
 moins des inquietudes et des jalousies de pouvoir. 
 Une telle disposition n'est point favorable au per- 
 fectionnement des lois. La seule epoque oil Ton 
 puisse entreprendre avec succes des grandes reformes 
 de legislation, est celle ou les passions publiques sont 
 caimes, 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 tons, 
 le bouleversement de Tautorite, les revolutions de 
 propriete et de pouvoir." 
 
 To so conservative a frame of mind had the excesses 
 of the French Revolution brought the most illus- 
 trious reformers of that time. And why is one person 
 
 p 3 
 
214 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH S 
 
 to be singled out from among millions, and arraigned 
 before posterity as a traitor to his opinions, only 
 because events produced on him the effect which they 
 produced on a whole generation ? People who, like 
 Mr. Brothers in the last generation, and Mr. Perci- 
 val in this, have been favoured with revelations from 
 heaven, may be quite independent of the vulgar 
 sources of knowledge. But such poor creatures as 
 Mackintosh, Dumont, and Bentham, had nothing but 
 observation and reason to guide them ; and they 
 obeyed the guidance of observation and of reason. 
 How is it in physics ? A traveller falls in with a 
 berry 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. He of course 
 changes his opinion, pronounces this delicious food a 
 poison, blames his own folly in tasting it, and cau- 
 tions his friends against it. After a long and violent 
 struggle he recovers, and finds himself much ex- 
 hausted 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 cau- 
 tion, 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 in- 
 consistent, because he had repeatedly altered his 
 judgment ? If he had not altered his judgment, 
 would he have been a rational being ? It was ex- 
 actly 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 which affairs might take. 
 At first the effect was the reform of great abuses; 
 and honest men rejoiced. Then came commotion, 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 215 
 
 proscription, confiscation, 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 menaced the independence of every 
 state in Europe. And yet again a little while, and 
 the old dynasty returned, followed by a train of emi- 
 grants eager to restore the old abuses. We have 
 now, we think, the whole before us. We should 
 therefore be justly accused of levity or insincerity if 
 our language concerning those events were constantly 
 changing. It is our deliberate opinion that the 
 French Revolution, in spite of all its crimes and 
 follies, was a great blessing to mankind. But it was 
 not only natural, but inevitable, that those who had 
 only seen the first act should be ignorant of the 
 catastrophe, and should be alternately elated and de- 
 pressed as the plot went on disclosing itself to them. 
 A man who had held exactly the same opinion about 
 the Revolution in 1789, in 1794, in 1804, in 1814, 
 and in 1834, would have been either a divinely in- 
 spired 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 
 contemporaries changed so little. The rare modera- 
 tion and calmness of his temper preserved him alike 
 from extravagant elation and from extravagant de- 
 spondency. 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 entered 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-Castlereaghing Cas- 
 
 p 4 
 
216 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH^ 
 
 tlereagh, Pantisocratists, Ultra- Tories, heretics, per- 
 secutors, 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 an intolerance which in any person 
 would be censurable, but which is altogether unpar- 
 donable in men who, by their own confession, have 
 had such ample experience of their own fallibility. 
 We readily concede to some of these persons the 
 praise of eloquence and of poetical invention ; nor are 
 we by any means disposed, even where they have 
 been gainers by their conversion, to question their 
 sincerity. It would be most uncandid to attribute 
 to sordid motives actions which admit of a less dis- 
 creditable explanation. We think that the conduct 
 of 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 
 Saturnian age. It was natural that the rage of their 
 disappointment should be proportioned to the ex- 
 travagance of their hopes. Though the direction of 
 their passions was altered, the violence of those pas- 
 sions 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 temper of Sir James 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 wrought such havoc all round 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 217 
 
 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 convul- 
 sion which overset almost every other understanding, 
 he was indeed so much shaken that he leaned some- 
 times in one direction and sometimes in the other; 
 but he never lost his balance. The opinions in which 
 he at last reposed, 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 he had defended with youthful ardour 
 and with more than manly prowess against Mr. 
 Burke, and those to which he had inclined during 
 the darkest and saddest years in the history of mo- 
 dern 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 the Editor has ventured to assert in the very 
 advertisement to this work. " Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh," says he, "was avowedly and emphatically a 
 Whig of the Revolution: and since the agitation 
 of religious liberty and Parliamentary reform be- 
 came a national movement, the great transaction of 
 1688 has been more dispassionately, moie correctly, 
 and less highly estimated." If these words mean any 
 thing, they must mean that the opinions of Sir James 
 Mackintosh concerning religious liberty and Parlia- 
 
218 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH'S 
 
 mentary reform went no further than those of the 
 authors of the Revolution ; in other words, that Sir 
 James Mackintosh opposed Catholic Emancipation, 
 and approved of the old constitution of the House of 
 Commons. The allegation is confuted by twenty vo- 
 lumes of Parliamentary Debates, nay by innumerable 
 passages in the very fragment which this writer has 
 defaced. We will venture to say that Sir James 
 Mackintosh often did more for religious liberty and 
 for Parliamentary reform in a quarter of an hour 
 than most of those zealots who are in the habit of 
 depreciating him have done or will do in the whole 
 course of their lives. 
 
 Nothing in the Memoir or in the Continuation of 
 the History has struck us so much as the contempt 
 with which the writer thinks lit to speak of all things 
 that were done before the coming in of the very last 
 fashions in politics. We think that we have some- 
 times observed a leaning towards the same fault in 
 writers of a much higher order of intellect. We will 
 therefore take this opportunity of making a few re- 
 marks on an error which is, we fear, becoming com- 
 mon, and which appears to us not only absurd, but as 
 pernicious as almost any error concerning the trans- 
 actions of a past age can possibly be. 
 
 We shall not, we hope, be suspected of a bigoted 
 attachment to the doctrines and practices of past 
 generations. Our creed is that the science of govern- 
 ment 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 phy- 
 sical 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 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 219 
 
 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 monas- 
 teries, to make war on Saracens. But time advances ; 
 facts accumulate; 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 and to reflect the 
 dawn. They are bright, while the level below is still 
 in darkness. But soon the light, which at first illu- 
 minated only the loftiest eminences, descends on the 
 plain, and penetrates to the deepest valley. First 
 come hints, then fragments of systems, then defective 
 systems, then complete and harmonious systems. The 
 sound opinion, held for a time by one bold speculator, 
 becomes 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 advancing in 
 knowledge, and not seeing any reason to believe 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 reformers : we are on the side of progress, From 
 the great advances which European society has made, 
 during the last four centuries, in every species of 
 knowledge, we infer, not that there is 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 us to look 
 forward with sanguine hope to the future prevent us 
 
220 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 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 contempt, 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 de- 
 vise better places of confinement than Mr. Bentham's 
 Panopticon, and better places of education than Mr. 
 Lancaster's Schools. As we would have our de- 
 scendants 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 Re- 
 form Bill because Lord Somers did not see the neces- 
 sity of Parliamentary Reform ; who would have op- 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 221 
 
 posed the Revolution because Ridley and Cranmer 
 professed boundless submission to the royal preroga- 
 tive ; and who would have opposed the Reformation 
 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 
 sciolist who speaks with scorn of the Great Charter, 
 because it did not reform the church ; of the Reforma- 
 tion, 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 un- 
 amiable temper ; and, if it should ever become gene- 
 ral, 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 hope of 
 truth is a service of peril. Who will undertake it, if 
 it be not also a service of honour ? It is easy enough, 
 after the ramparts are carried, to find men to plant 
 the flag on the highest tower. The difficulty is to 
 find men who are ready to go first into the breach ; 
 
222 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 and it would be bad policy' indeed to insult their re- 
 mains because they fell in the breach, and did not live 
 to penetrate to the citadel. 
 
 Now here we have a book which is by no means a 
 favourable specimen of the English literature of the 
 nineteenth century, a book indicating neither exten- 
 sive knowledge nor great powers of reasoning. And, 
 if we were to judge by the 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 po- 
 litical science. Yet not so : for men who are able to 
 make discoveries are generally disposed to make al- 
 lowances. Men who are eagerly pressing forward in pur- 
 suit of truth are grateful to every one who has cleared 
 an inch of the way for them. It is, for the most 
 part, the man who has just capacity enough to pick 
 up and repeat the commonplaces which are fashion- 
 able in his own time who looks with disdain on the 
 very intellects to which it is owing that those com- 
 monplaces are not still considered as startling para- 
 doxes 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 
 Oate's story about the forty thousand soldiers, dis- 
 guised as pilgrims, who were to meet in Gallicia, and 
 sail thence to invade England, who would have car- 
 ried a Protestant flail under his coat, and who would 
 have been angry 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 salu- 
 tary effects of their exertions. The men to whom 
 we owe it that we have a House of Commons are 
 sneered at because they did not suffer the debates of 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 223 
 
 the House to be published. The authors of the Tole- 
 ration 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!' 7 
 
 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 
 
 Holland : Columbus and Gama went to their graves 
 
 in ignorance of the fact. He has heard of the Geor- 
 
 gium 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 press 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 Montague 
 
 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 and more agreeable preservative should be 
 
224 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 discovered. It is thus that we ought to judge of the 
 events and the men 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 justice 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 who 
 complains of the men of 1688 for not having been 
 men of 1835 might just as well complain of a pro- 
 jectile for describing a parabola, or of quicksilver for 
 being heavier than water. 
 
 Undoubtedly we ought to look at ancient transac- 
 tions by the light of modern knowledge. Undoubt- 
 edly 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 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 225 
 
 every venerable name ; and this evil assuredly calls 
 for vigorous measures of literary police. But the 
 proper course is to abate the nuisance without de- 
 facing the shrine, to drive out the gangs of thieves 
 and prostitutes without doing foul and cowardly 
 wrong to the ashes of the illustrious 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 morality in former ages. In the work before 
 us, Sir James Mackintosh speaks with just respect of 
 the Whigs of the Revolution, while he never fails to 
 condemn the conduct of that party towards the mem- 
 bers 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 sonle of his works, appears to consider 
 politics, not as an experimental, and therefore a pro- 
 gressive science, but as a science of which all the 
 difficulties may be resolved by short synthetical ar- 
 guments drawn from truths of the most vulgar no- 
 toriety. 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 investigation with eminent ability 
 and success. We know no writer who takes so 
 
 VOL. II. Q 
 
226 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 much pleasure in the truly useful, noble, and philo- 
 sophical employment of tracing the progress of sound 
 opinions from their embryo state to their full ma- 
 turity. He eagerly culls from old despatches and 
 minutes every expression 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 past times ought to be 
 written. It is thus, especially, that the annals of our 
 own country ought to be written. 
 
 The history of England is emphatically the history 
 of progress. It is the history of a constant move- 
 ment of the public mind, of a constant change in 
 the institutions of a great society. We see that 
 society, at the beginning of the twelfth century, in 
 a state more miserable than the state in which 
 the most degraded nations of the East now are. 
 We see it subjected to the tyranny of a handful 
 of armed foreigners. We see a strong distinction 
 of caste separating the victorious Norman from the 
 vanquished Saxon. We see the great body of the 
 population in a state of personal slavery. We see 
 the most debasing and cruel superstition exercis- 
 ing 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 know- 
 ledge. In the course of seven centuries the wretched 
 and degraded race have become the greatest and most 
 highly civilised 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 
 
HISTOEY OF THE REVOLUTION. 227 
 
 created a maritime power which would annihilate in 
 a quarter of an hour the navies of Tyre, Athens, 
 Carthage, Venice, and Genoa together, have carried 
 the science of healing, the means of locomotion and 
 correspondence, every mechanical art, every manu- 
 facture, every thing that promotes the convenience 
 of life, to a perfection which our ancestors would 
 have thought magical, have produced a literature 
 which may boast of 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 improvement. The history of England is 
 the history of this great change in the moral, intel- 
 lectual, 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 delight- 
 ful 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 know- 
 ledge, the mart of all trade. The Charter of Henry 
 Beauclerk, the Great Charter, the first assembling of 
 the House of Commons, the extinction of personal 
 slavery, the separation from the See of Rome, the 
 Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus Act, the Re- 
 volution, the establishment of the liberty of unlicensed 
 printing, the abolition of religious disabilities, 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 me- 
 morable events unless we look at it in connexion 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 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, Koundhead 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, divided our 
 country, distinguished himslf on the right side, is 
 entitled to our gratitude and respect. 
 
 Whatever the 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 our own country, but in half 
 the monarchies of Europe, 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 consequences 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 his- 
 tory 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 successive wave rushes forward, breaks, and 
 rolls back ; but the great flood is steadily coming in. 
 A person who looked on the waters only for a moment 
 might fancy that they were retiring. A person who 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 229 
 
 looked on them only for five minutes might fancy that 
 they 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 impos- 
 sible 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 regu- 
 larly follows every advance and 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 ex- 
 ample, we compare 1794 with 1660 or with 1685, we 
 cannot doubt in which direction society is proceeding. 
 
 The interval which elapsed between the Restoration . 
 and the Revolution naturally divides itself into three 
 periods. The first extends from 1660 to 1678, the 
 second from 1678 to 1681, the third from 1681 to 
 1688. 
 
 In 1660 the whole nation was mad with loyal ex- 
 citement. 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 
 coincided 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. Eli- 
 zabeth, after the destruction of the Armada, or after the 
 abolition of Monopolies, had not excited a thousandth 
 part of the enthusiasm with which the young exile 
 was welcomed home. He was not, like Louis the 
 
 q 3 
 
230 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 Eighteenth, imposed on his subjects by foreign con- 
 querors ; 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. 
 The return of the ancient princes was inseparably asso- 
 ciated in the public mind with the cession of extensive 
 provinces, with the payment of an immense tribute, 
 with the devastation of flourishing departments, with 
 the occupation of the kingdom by hostile armies, with 
 the emptiness of those niches in which the gods of 
 Athens and Rome had been the objects of a new 
 idolatry, with the nakedness of those walls on which 
 the Transfiguration had shone with light as glorious 
 as that which overhung Mount Tabor. They came 
 back to a land in which they could recognise nothing. 
 The seven sleepers of the legend, who closed their 
 eyes when the Pagans were persecuting the Christians, 
 and woke when the Christians were persecuting each 
 other, did not find themselves in a world more com- 
 pletely new to them. Twenty years had done the 
 work of twenty generations. Events had come thick. 
 Men had lived fast. The old institutions 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 Avon by exploits which had 
 seemed likely to make the banishment of the emi- 
 grants 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 Burgundy, a Britanny or a Guienne. 
 The France of Louis the Sixteenth had passed away 
 as completely as one of the Preadamite worlds. Its 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 231 
 
 fossil remains might now and then excite cuiiosity. 
 But it was as impossible to put life into the old insti- 
 tutions as to animate the skeletons which are em- 
 bedded 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 marriage. 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 Merovingian. 
 He might substitute the white flag for the tricolor ; 
 he might put lilies in the place of bees; he might 
 order the initials of the Emperor to be carefully 
 effaced. But he could turn his eyes no where with- 
 out meeting som^e 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 country- 
 men, 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 recon- 
 
 Q 4 
 
232 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 ciliation among ourselves. Our great internal ques- 
 tions had never been mixed up with the still greater 
 question of national independence. The political doc- 
 trines of the Roundheads were not, like those of the 
 French philosophers, doctrines of universal appli- 
 cation. 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 other- 
 wise, no neighbouring country was then susceptible 
 of the contagion. The language in which our dis- 
 cussions 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 had, therefore, no reason to fear that 
 their subjects would follow the example of the En- 
 glish Puritans, and looked with indifference, per- 
 haps with complacency, on the death of the monarch 
 and the abolition of the monarchy. Clarendon com- 
 plains bitterly of their 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 Cromwell 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 Commonwealth, chose to bind up its 
 cause with that of the wanderers who weie playing 
 in the garrets of Paris and Cologne at being princes 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 233 
 
 and chancellors. Under the administration of Crom- 
 well, England was more respected and dreaded than 
 any power in Christendom ; and, even under the 
 ephemeral governments which followed his death, no 
 foreign state ventured to treat her with contempt. 
 Thus Charles came back, not as a mediator between 
 his people and a victorious enemy, but as a mediator 
 between internal factions. He found the Scotch 
 Covenanters and the Irish Papists alike subdued. He 
 found Dunkirk and Jamaica added to the empire. 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 
 national 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 inau- 
 guration 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 aris- 
 tocracy had on the affections of the people. One 
 
234 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 member of the House of Commons went so far as to 
 say that, unless their Lordships were peaceably re- 
 stored, the country might soon be convulsed by a war 
 of the Barons. There was indeed 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 distin- 
 guished 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 Seymour of Sude- 
 ley, 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 parliamentary 
 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 
 arbitrary measures, shown so much eagerness and 
 pertinacity as the Commons. But still they had op- 
 posed those measures. They had, at the beginning 
 of the discontents, a common interest with the people. 
 If Charles had succeeded in his scheme of governing 
 without parliaments, the consequence of 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 as much at his 
 mercy as those of the merchants or the farmers. If 
 he had obtained the power of imprisoning his subjects 
 at his pleasure, a Peer ran far greater risk of incurring 
 the royal displeasure, and of being accommodated 
 with apartments in the Tower, than any city trader 
 or country squire. Accordingly Charles found that 
 the Great Council of Peers which he convoked at 
 York would do nothing for him. In the most useful 
 reforms which were made during the first session of 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 235 
 
 the Long Parliament, the Peers concurred heartily 
 with the Lower House ; and a large and powerful 
 minority of the English nobles stood by the popular 
 side through the first years of the war. At Edgehill, 
 Newbury, Marston, and Naseby, the armies of the 
 Parliament were 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 reestablished ; 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 inju- 
 diciously depressed, and it was in consequence un- 
 duly exalted. From the day when Charles the First 
 became a prisoner had commenced a reaction in 
 favour of his person and 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 Restoration 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 doc- 
 trines 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 the excellent law passed in the 
 first session of the Long Parliament, with the ge- 
 neral consent of all honest men, to ensure the fre- 
 quent meeting of the great council of the nation. 
 
236 SIK JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 They might probably have been induced to go fur- 
 ther, and to restore the High Commission and the 
 Star Chamber. All the contemporary accounts re- 
 present the nation as in a state of hysterical excite- 
 ment, 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 Eed-nosed Noll. That tenderness 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 tra- 
 veller in remote countries, and round every Protestant 
 congregation 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 
 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 1678 the whole 
 face of things had changed. At the former of those 
 epochs eighteen years of commotion had made the 
 majority of the people ready to buy repose at any 
 price. At the latter epoch eighteen years of mis- 
 government had made the same majority desirous to 
 obtain security for their liberties at any risk. The 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 237 
 
 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 con- 
 ditions, all its dearest interests, on what a man it had 
 lavished all its fondest affection. On the ignoble na- 
 ture of the restored exile, adversity 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 acquainted 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 ingra- 
 titude, 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 in- 
 capable 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 interests 
 was all simulated ; but, from a certain easiness which 
 had no connexion 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 
 
238 SIR J MIES mackintosh's 
 
 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. Sauntering was, as 
 Sheffield expresses it, the true Sultana Queen of his 
 Majesty's affections. A sitting in council would have 
 been insupportable to him if the Duke of Buckingham 
 had not been there to make mouths at the Chancellor. 
 It has been said, and is highly probable, that in his 
 exile, he was quite disposed to sell his rights to 
 Cromwell for a good round sum. To the last, his 
 only quarrel with his Parliaments was that they often 
 gave him trouble and would not always give him 
 money. If there was a person for whom he felt 
 a real regard, that person was his brother. If there 
 was a point about which he really entertained a 
 scruple of conscience or of honour, that point was 
 the descent of the crown. Yet he was willing to 
 consent to the Exclusion Bill for six hundred thou- 
 sand pounds ; and the negotiation was broken off 
 only because he insisted on being paid beforehand. 
 To do him justice, his temper was good ; his man- 
 ners 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 long in recovering from the in- 
 toxication of loyalty. They were then, as they are 
 still, a brave, proud, and high-spirited race, unac- 
 customed to defeat, to shame, or to servitude. The 
 splendid administration of Oliver had taught them to 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 239 
 
 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 Aurung- 
 zebe, 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 obe- 
 dience. 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, promiscuous 
 dancing, cards, fairs, starch, or false hair. But gross 
 profaneness and licentiousness were regarded with 
 general horror ; and the Catholic religion was held 
 in utter detestation by nine tenths of the middle 
 class. 
 
 Such was the nation which, awaking from its rap- 
 turous trance, found itself sold to a foreign, a des- 
 potic, 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 an- 
 cestors 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 subordination to France, 
 against a country which seemed to be the last asylum 
 
240 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 of civil and religious liberty. They saw Ireland dis- 
 contented, and Scotland in rebellion. They saw, 
 meantime, Whitehall swarming with sharpers and 
 courtesans. They saw harlot after harlot, and bas- 
 tard after bastard, not only raised to the highest 
 honours of the peerage, but supplied out of the spoils 
 of the honest, industrious, and ruined public creditor, 
 with ample means of supporting the new dignity. 
 The government became more odious every day. 
 Even in the bosom of that very House of Commons 
 which had been elected by the nation in the ecstasy 
 of its penitence, of its joy, and of its hope, an oppo- 
 sition sprang up and became powerful. Loyalty 
 which had been proof against all the disasters of the 
 civil war, which had survived the routs of Naseby 
 and Worcester, which had never flinched from se- 
 questration and exile, which the Protector could 
 never intimidate or seduce, began to fail in this last 
 and hardest trial. The storm had long been gather- 
 ing. At length it burst with a fury which threat- 
 ened 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, after 
 twelve years of misgovernment, 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 preserved in full vigour 
 
 (S The unconquerable will 
 And study of revenge, immortal hate, 
 With courage never to submit or yield, 
 And what is else not to be overcome." 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 241 
 
 Then were again seen in the streets faces which 
 called up strange and terrible recollections of the 
 days when the saints, with the high praises of God in 
 their mouths, and a two-edged sword in their hands, 
 had bound kings with chains, and nobles with links 
 of iron. Then were again heard voices which had 
 shouted "Privilege" by the coach of Charles I. in 
 the time of his tyranny, and had called for " Justice" 
 in Westminster Hall on the day of his trial. It has 
 been the fashion to represent the excitement of this 
 period as the effect of the Popish plot. To us it 
 seems clear that the Popish plot was rather the effect 
 than the cause of the general agitation. It was not 
 the disease, but a symptom, though, like many other 
 symptoms, it aggravated the severity of the disease. 
 In 1660 or 1661 it would have been utterly out of 
 the power of such men as Oates or Bedloe to give 
 any serious disturbance to the government. They 
 would have been laughed at, pilloried, 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 lending to such a consummation. So- 
 ciety was one vast mass of combustible matter. No 
 mass so vast and so combustible 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 
 Oates' s 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 reestablishing the Catholic religion in 
 England, and that from some of the absurd day- 
 dreams of the zealots with whom he then associated 
 he may have taken hints for his narrative. But we 
 do not believe that he was privy to any thing which 
 deserved the name of conspiracy. And it is quite 
 
 VOL. II. r 
 
242 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 certain that, if there be any small portion of truth in 
 his evidence, that portion is so deeply buried in false- 
 hood 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 contem- 
 poraries did not at first possess. We have nothing to 
 say for the witnesses, but something in mitigation to 
 offer on behalf of the public. We own that the cre- 
 dulity which the nation showed on that occasion seems 
 to us, though censurable indeed, yet not wholly in- 
 excusable. 
 
 Our ancestors knew, from the experience of several 
 generations at home and abroad, how restless and en- 
 croaching was the disposition of the Church of Kome. 
 The heir -apparent of the crown was a bigoted member 
 of that church. The reigning King seemed far more 
 inclined to show favour to that church than to the 
 Presbyterians. He was the intimate ally, or rather 
 the hired servant, of a powerful king, who had already 
 given proofs of his determination to tolerate within 
 his dominions no other religion than that of Eome. 
 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 de- 
 stroyed almost all his papers. A few letters, how- 
 ever, have escaped the flames ; and these letters are 
 found to contain much alarming matter, strange ex- 
 pressions about subsidies from France, allusions to a 
 vast scheme which would " give the greatest blow to 
 the Protestant religion that it had ever received," and 
 which " would utterly subdue a pestilent heresy." It 
 was natural that those who saw these expressions, in 
 letters which had been overlooked, should suspect 
 that there was some horrible villany in those which 
 
PIIST0RY OF THE REVOLUTION. 243 
 
 had been carefully destroyed. Such was the feeling 
 of the House of Commons: " Question, question, 
 Coleman's letters ! " was the cry which drowned the 
 voices of the minority. 
 
 Just after the discovery of these papers, a magis- 
 trate who had been distinguished by his independent 
 spirit, and who had taken the deposition of the in- 
 former, is found murdered, under circumstances which 
 make it almost incredible 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 myste- 
 rious subject, we incline to the opinion that he was 
 assassinated, and assassinated by Catholics, not as- 
 suredly 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 pecu- 
 liarly likely to be found in a persecuted sect. Some 
 of the violent Cameronians had recently, under similar 
 exasperation, committed similar crimes. 
 
 It was natural that there should be a panic ; and it 
 was natural that the people should, in a panic, be un- 
 reasonable and credulous. It must be remembered 
 also that they had not at first, as we have, the means 
 of comparing the evidence which was given on dif- 
 ferent trials. They were not aware of one tenth part 
 of the contradictions and absurdities which Oates had 
 committed. The blunders, for example, into which 
 he fell before the Council, his mistake about the per- 
 
 r 2 
 
244 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 son 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 de- 
 serters by whom governments are informed of con- 
 spiracies are generally bad men. His story was strange 
 and romantic ; but it was not more strange or roman- 
 tic than a well-authenticated Popish plot, which some 
 few people then living might remember, the Gun- 
 powder treason. Oates's account of the burning of 
 London was in itself not more improbable than 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 cen- 
 tury, two kings of France and a prince of Orange had 
 been murdered by 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 Eome. The characters of 
 some of the accused persons stood high ; but so did 
 that of Anthony Babington, and that of Everard 
 Digby. Those who suffered denied their guilt to the 
 last ; but no person 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 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 245 
 
 Sydney, of Rosewell, of Cornish, of all the unhappy 
 men, in short, whom a predominant party brought to 
 what was then facetiously called justice. Till the 
 Revolution purified our institutions and our manners, 
 a state-trial was merely a murder preceded by the 
 uttering of certain gibberish and the performance of 
 certain mummeries. 
 
 The Opposition had now the great body of the 
 nation with them. Thrice the King dissolved the 
 Parliament; 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 and passion would have been his ruin. 
 His levity and apathy were his security. He re- 
 sembled one of those light Indian boats which are 
 safe because they are pliant, which yield to the im- 
 pact of every wave, and which therefore bound with- 
 out danger through a surf in which a vessel ribbed 
 with heart f 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 go on 
 his travels again for any body or for any thing. His 
 easy, indolent behaviour produced all the effects of 
 the most artful policy. He suffered things to take 
 their course ; and if Achitophel had been at one of 
 his ears, and Machiavel at the other, they could have 
 given him no better advice than to let things take 
 their course. He gave way to the violence of the 
 movement, and waited for the corresponding violence 
 of the rebound. He exhibited himself to his subjects 
 in the interesting character of an oppressed king, who 
 was ready to do any thing to please them, and who 
 asked of them, in return, only some consideration for 
 his conscientious scruples and for his feelings of 
 
 r 3 
 
246 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 natural affection, who was ready to accept any mini- 
 sters, to grant any guarantees to 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 gradually 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 
 attempt to make a son of Lucy Waters Xing of Eng- 
 land 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 in 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 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 247 
 
 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, 
 Culpeper, 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 the 
 House of Commons, he stopped and turned back that 
 tide of loyal feeling which was just beginning to run 
 strongly. The son, quite as little restrained 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. In- 
 stead 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 impro- 
 bable that he would have ended his life in exile. He 
 took the sure course. He employed only his legal 
 prerogatives, and he found them amply sufficient for 
 his purpose. 
 
 During the first eighteen or nineteen years of his 
 reign, he Had been playing the game of his enemies. 
 From 1678 to 1681, his enemies had played his game. 
 They owed their power to his misgovernment. 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 Par- 
 liament. 
 
 Nevertheless, while this flux and reflux of opinion 
 went on, the cause of public liberty was steadily gain- 
 ing. There had been a great reaction in favour of the 
 throne at the Restoration. But the Star-Chamber, 
 the High Commission, the Ship-money, had for ever 
 
 r 4 
 
248 
 
 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 1681 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 tyranny restored to the cause of li- 
 berty 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 be- 
 headed. 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 
 or 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 unques- 
 tioned preeminence. The glory of being farther 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 249 
 
 behind the age than any other portion of the British 
 people, is one which that learned body acquired early, 
 and has never lost. 
 
 Charles died, and his brother came to the throne ; 
 but, though the person of the sovereign was changed, 
 the love and awe with which the office was regarded 
 were undiminished. Indeed it seems that, of the two 
 princes, James was, in 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 remo- 
 delled boroughs gave him a parliament such as Eng- 
 land had not seen for a century, a parliament beyond 
 all comparison the most obsequious that ever sate 
 under a prince of the House of Stuart. One insur- 
 rectionary movement, 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 ventured to 
 whisper even the mildest censure on Jefferies. Ed- 
 mund Waller, emboldened by his great age and his 
 high reputation, attacked the cruelty of the military 
 chiefs ; and this is the brightest part of his long and 
 checkered public life. But even Waller did not ven- 
 ture 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 the Four- 
 teenth. 
 
 By what means this vast power was in three years 
 broken down, by what perverse and frantic misgo- 
 vernment the tyrant revived the spirit of the van- 
 quished Whigs, turned to fixed hostility the neutrality 
 
250 SIK JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 of the trimmers, and drove from him the landed 
 gentry, the Church, the army, his own creatures, his 
 own children, is well known to our readers. But we 
 wish to say something 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 has said much with which we can 
 by no means concur. 
 
 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 states- 
 man ever had in view. His object was to free mil- 
 lions of his subjects 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 purpose. A very in- 
 genious man, whom we believe to be a Catholic, 
 Mr. Banim, has written a historical novel, of the 
 literary merit of which we cannot speak very highly, 
 for the purpose of inculcating this opinion. The 
 editor of Mackintosh's Fragment assures us, that 
 the standard of James bore the nobler inscription, 
 and so forth ; the meaning of which is, that William 
 and the other authors of the Revolution were vile 
 Whigs who drove out James for being a Radical ; 
 that the crime of the King was his going farther in 
 liberality than his subjects; that he was the real 
 champion of freedom ; and that Somers, Locke, New- 
 ton, 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 follows. If it can be shown that 
 James did sincerely wish to establish perfect free- 
 dom of conscience, we shall think his conduct de- 
 serving of indulgence, if not of praise. We shall 
 not be inclined to censure harshly even his illegal 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 251 
 
 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 excuse encroachment on the part of 
 a king. But it can be proved, we think, by the 
 strongest evidence, that James had no such object in 
 view ; and that, under the pretence of establishing 
 perfect religious liberty, he was trying to establish 
 the ascendency and the exclusive dominion of the 
 Church of Rome. 
 
 It is true that he professed himself a supporter of 
 toleration. Every sect clamours for toleration when 
 it is down. We have not the smallest doubt that, 
 when Bonner was in the Marshalsea, he thought it a 
 very hard thing that a man should be locked up in 
 a gaol for not being able to understand the words, 
 " This is my body," in the same way with the lords 
 of the council. It would not be very wise to 
 conclude that a beggar is full of Christian 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 quarter when a 
 bayonet is at his throat. The doctrine which, from 
 the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been 
 held by all bigots of all sects, when condensed into a 
 few words, and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is 
 simply this : I am in the right, and you are in the 
 wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to 
 tolerate me ; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. 
 • But when I am the stronger, I shall persecute you ; 
 for it is my duty to persecute error. 
 
 The Catholics lay under severe restraints in Eng- 
 land. 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 magis- 
 
252 sm james mackintosh's 
 
 trates of Amsterdam ; and the author of the Con- 
 tinuation 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 insin- 
 cerity 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 him. But we know 
 most certainly that, in 1679, and long after that 
 year, James was a most bloody and remorseless per- 
 secutor. After 1679, he was placed at the head of the 
 government of Scotland. And what had been his 
 conduct in that country ? He had hunted down the 
 scattered remnant of the Covenanters with a barbarity 
 of which no other prince of modern times, Philip the 
 Second excepted, had ever shown himself capable. 
 He had indulged himself in the amusement of seeing 
 the torture of the Boot inflicted on the wretched 
 enthusiasts whom persecution had driven to resist- 
 ance. After his accession, almost his first act was to 
 obtain from the servile parliament of Scotland a law 
 for inflicting death on preachers at conventicles held 
 within houses, and on both preachers and hearers at 
 conventicles held in the open air. All this he had 
 done for a religion which was not his own. All this 
 he had done, not in defence of truth against error, 
 but in defence of one damnable error against another, 
 in defence of the Episcopalian against the Presbyterian 
 apostasy. Louis the Fourteenth is justly censured 
 for trying to dragoon his subjects to heaven. But 
 it was reserved for James to torture and murder for 
 the difference between two roads to hell. And this 
 man, so deeply imbued with the poison of intolerance 
 that, rather than not persecute at all, he would per- 
 secute 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 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 253 
 
 panther, would not, we are told, have persecuted for 
 the sake of the milk-white and immortal hind. 
 
 And what was the conduct of James at the very 
 time when he was professing 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 prerogatives, and many prerogatives 
 which were not legal, for the purpose of forcing his 
 subjects to conform to his creed ? While he pre- 
 tended to abhor the laws which excluded dissenters 
 from office, was he not himself dismissing from office 
 his ablest, his most experienced, his most faithful 
 servants, on account of their religious opinions ? For 
 what offence was Lord Rochester driven from the 
 Treasury? He was closely connected with the Royal 
 House. He was at the head of the Tory party. He 
 had stood firmly by James in the most trying emer- 
 gencies. But he would not change his religion, and 
 he was dismissed. That we may not be suspected of 
 overstating the case, Dr. Lingard, a very competent, 
 and assuredly not a very willing witness, shall speak 
 for us. " The King," says that able but partial writer, 
 " was disappointed: he complained to Barillon of the 
 obstinacy and insincerity of the treasurer ; and the 
 latter received from the French envoy a very intel- 
 ligible hint that the loss of office would result from 
 his adhesion to his religious creed. He was, however, 
 inflexible; and James, after a long delay, communi- 
 cated 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 un- 
 pleasant 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 ; 
 
254 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 and such, as we learn from the despatches of the 
 Papal Nuncio, was really the effect. " Pare," says 
 D'Adda, writing a few days after the retirement of 
 Kochester, " pare che gli animi sono inaspriti della 
 voce che corre tra il popolo, d' esser cacciato il detto 
 ministro per non essere Cattolico, percio tirarsi al 
 esterminio de' Protestanti." Was it ever denied that 
 the favours of the Crown were constantly bestowed 
 and withheld 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 ob- 
 tained from them all that he asked ? 
 
 Who again was his closest ally ? And what was 
 the policy of that ally ? The subjects of James, it is 
 true, did not know half the infamy of their sovereign. 
 They did not know, as we know, that, while he was 
 lecturing them on the 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 peaceable, 
 industrious, and skilful artisans in the world. But 
 the English did know that the two princes were bound 
 together in the closest union. They saw their sove- 
 reign with toleration on his lips, separating himself 
 from those states which had first set the example of 
 toleration, and connecting himself by the strongest 
 ties with the most faithless and merciless persecutor 
 who could then be found on any continental throne. 
 
 By what advice again was James guided ? Who 
 were the persons in whom he placed the greatest con- 
 fidence, and who took the warmest interest in his 
 schemes ? The ambassador of France, the Nuncio of 
 Rome, and Father Petre the Jesuit. And is not this 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 255 
 
 enough to prove that the establishment of equal tole- 
 ration was not his plan ? Was Louis for toleration? 
 Was the Vatican for toleration? Was the order of 
 Jesuits for toleration? We know that the liberal 
 professions of James were highly approved by those 
 very governments, by those very societies, whose 
 theory and practice it notoriously 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 sin- 
 cerity, to believe that all at once those governments 
 and those societies had changed their nature, had dis- 
 covered the criminality of all their former conduct, 
 had adopted principles 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 imprisoning and 
 burning, the religious order which, in every contro- 
 versy in which it had ever been engaged, had called 
 in the aid either of the magistrate or of the assassin, 
 should have become as thorough-going friends to re- 
 ligious liberty as Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jefferson, or 
 that a Jesuit-ridden bigot should be induced to dis- 
 semble for the good of the Church ? 
 
 The game which the Jesuits were playing was no 
 new game. A hundred years before they had preached 
 up political freedom, just as they were now preaching 
 up religious freedom. They had tried to raise the 
 republicans against Henry the Fourth and Elizabeth, 
 just as they were now trying to raise the Protestant 
 Dissenters against the Established Church. In the 
 sixteenth century, the tools of Philip the Second 
 were constantly preaching doctrines that bordered on 
 Jacobinism, constantly insisting on the right of the 
 people to cashier Kings, and of every private citizen 
 to plunge his dagger into the heart of a wicked ruler. 
 In the seventeenth century, the persecutors of the 
 
256 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 Huguenots were crying out against the tyranny of 
 the Established Church of England, and vindicating 
 with the utmost fervour the right of every man 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 Komish 
 casuists, joined their party, and taken a share in 
 Northumberland's revolt, or in Babington's conspi- 
 racy? Would he not have been assisting to establish 
 a far worse tyranny than that which he was trying 
 to put down? In the same manner, a good and 
 wise man would doubtless see very much to con- 
 demn in the conduct of the Church of England 
 under the Stuarts, But was he therefore 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 rod of whips to a 
 rod 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. His 
 Protestant subjects had all the security for their rights 
 of conscience which law and solemn compact could 
 give. Had that security been found sufficient? And 
 was not one such instance enough for one generation ? 
 
 The plan of James seems to us perfectly intelligible. 
 The toleration which, with the concurrence and ap- 
 plause 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 poli- 
 tical artifices. We have seen it employed a hundred 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 257 
 
 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 Commons by the unsparing use of eject- 
 ments, and who had, through their whole lives, op- 
 posed every measure which tended to increase the 
 power of the democracy, abusing the Reform Bill as 
 not democratic enough, appealing to the labouring 
 classes, execrating the tyranny of the ten-pound 
 householders, and exchanging compliments and ca- 
 resses 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 utterly frantic and 
 hopeless as it has generally been thought ; and we 
 are sure that, if he had been allowed to gain his 
 first point, the people would have had no remedy 
 left but an appeal to physical force, Avhich would 
 have been made under most unfavourable circum- 
 stances. 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 he hoped 
 to obtain a law, nominally for the removal of all 
 religious disabilities, but really for the excluding of 
 all Protestants from all offices. It is never to be for- 
 
 VOL. II. s 
 
258 SIR, JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 gotten that a prince who has all the patronage of the 
 state in his hands can, without violating the letter of 
 the law, establish whatever test he chooses. And, 
 from the whole conduct of James, we have not the 
 smallest doubt that he would have availed himself of 
 his power to the utmost. The statute-book might 
 declare all Englishmen equally capable of holding 
 office ; but to what end, if all offices were in the gift 
 of a sovereign resolved not to employ a single heretic ? 
 We firmly believe that not one post in the govern- 
 ment, 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 military 
 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 per- 
 son 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 been made, as Sunderland threatened, by bestow- 
 ing coronets on a whole troop of the Guards. 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 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 259 
 
 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 reestablishment 
 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 can- 
 not 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 professions 
 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 vengeance of the conquerors would have been 
 terrible and unsparing. 
 
 But James was stopped at the outset. He thought 
 himself secure of the Tories, because they professed to 
 consider all resistance as sinful, and of the 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 natural. But the 
 confidence which he placed in the loyal assurances of 
 
 s 2 
 
260 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 the High Church party was the most exquisitely lu- 
 dicrous 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 deadliest injuries and insults to 
 everybody who says that revenge is sinful ; or that 
 he may safely intrust all his property without secu- 
 rity to any person who says that it is wrong to steal. 
 Such a character would be too absurd for the wildest 
 farce. Yet the folly of James did not stop short of 
 this incredible extent. Because the clergy had de- 
 clared that resistance to oppression 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 quite forgot that, when 
 they magnified the royal prerogative, the prerogative 
 was exerted on their side, that, when they preached 
 endurance, they had nothing to endure, that, when 
 they declared it unlawful to resist evil, none but 
 Whigs and Dissenters suffered any evil. It had 
 never occurred to him that a man feels the calami- 
 ties of his enemies with one sort of sensibility, and 
 his own with quite a different sort. It had never 
 occurred to him as possible that a reverend divine 
 might think it the duty of Baxter and Bunyan to 
 bear insults and to lie in dungeons without murmur- 
 ing, 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 foi' 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 sus- 
 picion that, if he adheres to them, he is very likely 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 261 
 
 to be a beggar or a martyr. Yet it seems strange 
 that these truths should have escaped the royal mind. 
 Those Churchmen who had signed the Oxford De- 
 claration in favour of passive obedience had also 
 signed the thirty-nine Articles. And yet the very 
 man who confidently expected that, by a little coax- 
 ing and bullying, he should induce them to renounce 
 the Articles, was thunderstruck when he found that 
 they were disposed to soften down the doctrines of 
 the Declaration. Nor did it necessarily follow that, 
 even if the theory of the Tories had undergone no 
 modification, their practice would coincide with their 
 theory. It might, one should think, have crossed 
 the mind of a man of fifty, who had seen a great deal 
 of the world, that people sometimes 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 Eight 
 Reverend Father in God after the fashion of Nero, 
 in the hope that he would continue to obey on the 
 principles of Paul. The King indeed had only to 
 look at home. He was at least as much attached to 
 the Catholic Church as any Tory gentleman or clergy- 
 man could be to the Church of England. Adultery 
 was at least as clearly and strongly condemned by 
 his Church as resistance by the Church of England. 
 Yet his priests could not keep him from Arabella 
 Sedley. While he was risking his crown for the sake 
 of his soul, he was risking his soul for the sake of an 
 ugly, dirty mistress. There is something delightfully 
 grotesque in the spectacle of a man who, while living 
 in the habitual violation of his own known duties, is 
 unable to believe that any temptation can draw any 
 other person aside from the path of virtue. 
 
 James was disappointed in all his calculations. His 
 hope was that the Tories would follow their principles, 
 and that the Non- conformists would follow their in- 
 
 s 3 
 
262 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 terests. Exactly the reverse took place. The great 
 body of the Tories sacrificed the principle of non- 
 resistance to their interests ; the great body of Non- 
 conformists rejected the delusive offers of the King, 
 and stood firmly by their principles. The two par- 
 ties whose strife had convulsed the empire during 
 half a century were united for a moment; and all 
 that vast royal power which three years before had 
 seemed immovably fixed vanished at once like chaff 
 in a hurricane. 
 
 The very great length to which this article has 
 already been extended makes it impossible for us to 
 discuss, as we had meant to do, the characters and 
 conduct of the leading English statesmen at this crisis. 
 But we must offer a few remarks on the spirit and 
 tendency of the Revolution of 1688. 
 
 The editor of this volume quotes the Declaration 
 of Right, and tells us that, by looking at it, we may 
 "judge at a glance whether the authors of the Revo- 
 lution achieved all they might and ought, in their 
 position, to have achieved ; whether the Commons of 
 England did their duty to their constituents, their 
 country, posterity, and universal freedom." We are 
 at a loss to imagine how he can have read and tran- 
 scribed the Declaration of Right, and yet have so 
 utterly misconceived its nature. That famous docu- 
 ment is, as its very name imports, declaratory, and 
 not remedial. It was never meant to be a measure 
 of reform. It neither contained, nor was designed to 
 contain, any allusion to those innovations which the 
 authors of the Revolution considered as desirable, 
 and which they speedily proceeded to make. The 
 Declaration was merely a recital of certain old and 
 wholesome laws which had been violated by the 
 Stuarts, and a solemn protest against the validity of 
 any precedent which might be set up in opposition to 
 those laws. The words run thus : " They do claim, 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 263 
 
 demand, and insist upon all and singular the premises 
 as their undoubted rights and liberties." Before a 
 man begins to make improvements on his estate, he 
 must know its boundaries. Before a legislature sits 
 down to reform a constitution, it is fit to ascertain 
 what that constitution really is. This is all that the 
 Declaration was intended to do ; and to quarrel with 
 it because it did not directly introduce any beneficial 
 changes is to quarrel with meat for not being fue}. 
 
 The principle on which the authors of the Eevolu- 
 tion 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 Declaration 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 preroga- 
 tive. 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 misgovernment, before proclaiming 
 the new sovereigns, months would have been lost in 
 disputes. The coalition which had delivered the 
 country would have been instantly dissolved. The 
 Whigs would have quarrelled with the Tories, the 
 Lords with the Commons, the Church with the Dis- 
 senters; and all this storm of conflicting interests 
 and conflicting theories would have been raging 
 round a vacant throne. In the mean time, the greatest 
 power on the Continent was attacking our allies, and 
 
 s 4 
 
264 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 meditating a descent on our own territories. Dundee 
 was preparing to raise the Highlands. The authority 
 of James was still owned by the Irish. If the authors 
 of the Revolution had been fools enough to take this 
 course, we have little doubt that Luxembourg would 
 have been upon them in the midst of their constitu- 
 tion-making. They might probably have been in- 
 terrupted in a debate on Firmer' s and Sydney's - 
 theories of government by the entrance of the mus- 
 queteers 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 Revolu- 
 tions 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 considered as libe- 
 ral. But they were not dreaming pedants. They 
 were statesmen 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 re- 
 ference 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 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 265 
 
 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 he- 
 reditary 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 
 conditions, their attachment to him would in all pro- 
 bability 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 ex- 
 pressed, was perfectly understood by both parties, and 
 for the performance of which the country had secu- 
 rities far better than all the engagements that Charles 
 the First or Ferdinand the Seventh ever took in the 
 day of their weakness, and broke in the day of their 
 power. The article to which we allude 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 
 
266 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 as a mere change of dynasty, beneficial to a few aris- 
 tocrats, 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. 
 
 Foremost in the list of the benefits which our 
 country owes to the Revolution we place the Tole- 
 ration Act. It is true that this measure fell short of 
 the wishes of the leading Whigs. It is true also that, 
 where Catholics were concerned, even the most en- 
 lightened 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 com- 
 plete abolition of that absurd and odious test which, 
 after having been, during a century and a half, a scan- 
 dal to the pious and a laughing-stock to the profane, 
 was at length removed in our own time. The immense 
 power of the Clergy and of the Tory gentry frustrated 
 these excellent designs. The Whigs, however, did 
 much. They succeeded in obtaining a law in the 
 provisions of which a philosopher will doubtless find 
 much to condemn, but which had the practical effect 
 of enabling almost every Protestant Non-conformist 
 to follow the dictates of his own conscience without 
 molestation. Scarcely a law in the statute-book is 
 theoretically more objectionable than the Toleration 
 Act. But we question whether in the whole of that 
 vast mass of legislation, from the Great Charter 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 267 
 
 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 Revo- 
 lution 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 Divi- 
 nity who conceives 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 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 Episcopa- 
 lians; 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. 
 To the contest between the Scotch nation and the 
 Anglican Church are to be ascribed near thirty years 
 of the most frightful misgovernment ever seen in any 
 part of Great Britain. If the Revolution had pro- 
 
268 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 duced no other effect than that of freeing the Scotch 
 from the yoke of an establishment which they de- 
 tested, and giving them one to which they were at- 
 tached, 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 alteration in the mode 
 of granting the supplies. It had been the practice 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 economical and pacific, he might reign many 
 years without once being under the necessity of sum- 
 moning 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, enable the 
 sovereign to imitate the extravagance of Nero or 
 Heliogabalus, to raise great armies, to carry on ex- 
 pensive 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 esti- 
 mated to produce twelve hundred thousand pounds 
 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 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 269 
 
 these taxes considerably exceeded a million and a half; 
 and the King who, during the years which imme- 
 diately followed his accession, was perpetually in dis- 
 tress, 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 mil- 
 lions over and above what the ordinary expenses of 
 civil government 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 in 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 fluc- 
 tuating 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 any thing 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 Parlia- 
 ment. But if that experiment should fail, if the 
 people should be of the same mind with their repre- 
 
270 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 sentatives, lie would clearly have no course left but 
 to yield, to abdicate, or to fight. 
 
 The next great blessing which we owe to the Kevo- 
 lution is the purification oi the administration of 
 justice in political cases. Of the importance of this 
 change no person can judge who is not well ac- 
 quainted 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 imputed to any pri- 
 soner 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 parliaments of France, 
 the condemnation of Lally, for example, or even that 
 of Calas, may seem praiseworthy when compared with 
 the atrocities which follow each other in endless suc- 
 cession, 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 
 offensive to the government, he was at once sent to 
 the Bastile or to Vincennes. But in England, at 
 least after the days of the Long Parliament, the King 
 could not, by a mere act of his prerogative, rid him- 
 self of a troublesome politician. He was forced to 
 remove those who thwarted him by means of per- 
 jured witnesses, packed juries, and corrupt, hard- 
 hearted, brow-beating judges. The Opposition natu- 
 rally retaliated whenever they had the upper hand. 
 Every time that the power passed from one party to 
 the other, there was a proscription and a massacre, 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 271 
 
 thinly disguised under the forms of judicial proce- 
 dure. 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 Eevolution, an unclean public 
 shambles, to which each party in its turn dragged its 
 opponents, and where each found the same venal and 
 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 inno- 
 cent. The juries were nominated by the sheriffs. The 
 sheriffs were in most parts of England nominated by 
 the Crown. In London, the great scene of political 
 contention, 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 wer*e to be the issues of life and death for the 
 coming year. On that day, nobles of the highest 
 descent did not think it beneath them to canvass and 
 marshal the livery, to head the procession, and to 
 watch the poll. On that day, the great chiefs of par- 
 ties 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 of a foe. 
 In 1681, Whig sheriffs were chosen; and Shaftesbury 
 defied the whole power of the Government. In 1 682, 
 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. Sydney 
 
272 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 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 hazard- 
 ing their own necks and the fortunes of their children. 
 This was the course adopted by Sir William Temple, 
 by Evelyn, and by many other men who were, in 
 every respect, admirably qualified to serve the State. 
 On the other hand, those resolute and enterprising 
 men who put their heads and lands to hazard in the 
 game of politics naturally acquired, from the habit 
 of playing for so deep a stake, 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 merely for ofiice, 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 sim- 
 plicity 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 devolution set us free. 
 The law which secured to the judges their seats during 
 life or good behaviour did something. The law sub- 
 sequently passed for regulating trials in cases of 
 

 HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 273 
 
 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 principle of giving a great chance of escape to 
 the accused, whether innocent or guilty. This, how- 
 ever, 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 that Reign of 
 Terror, for such it was, which preceded the Revolu- 
 tion. 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 evi- 
 dence, to the satisfaction of all parties, of the highest 
 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 
 falling within the legal definition of treason. All those 
 attempts have failed. During a hundred and forty 
 years no statesman, while engaged in constitutional 
 opposition to a government, 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 distinguished leaders of Op- 
 position 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 important was the full establishment 
 of the liberty of unlicensed printing. The Censor- 
 ship which, under some form or other, had existed, 
 with rare and short intermissions, under every go- 
 vernment, monarchical or republican, from the time of 
 
 VOL. II. t 
 
274 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 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, im- 
 perfectly and unskilfully executed. The authors of 
 those improvements sometimes, while they removed 
 or mitigated a great practical evil, continued to re- 
 cognise 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 necessity of compromising differences of opinion, 
 the power and violence of the party which was alto- 
 gether hostile 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 changes which the Revolution 
 produced in our laws. The changes which it pro- 
 duced in our laws, however, were not more important 
 than the change which it indirectly produced in the 
 public mind. The Whig party 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 magis- 
 trates, even by the highest of all, it may lawfully be 
 
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 275 
 
 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 propagating a class 
 of opinions which most governments are interested 
 in discouraging, a government which looked with 
 complacency on all speculations favourable to public 
 liberty, and with extreme aversion on all speculations 
 favourable to arbitrary power. There was a King 
 who decidedly preferred a republican to a believer in 
 the divine right of kings ; who considered every at- 
 tempt to exalt his prerogative as an attack on his 
 title ; and who reserved all his favours for those who 
 declaimed on the natural equality of men, and the 
 popular origin of government. This was the state of 
 things from the Revolution till the death of George 
 the Second. The effect was what might have been 
 expected. Even in that profession which has gene- 
 rally been 'most disposed to magnify the prerogative, 
 a great change took place. Bishopric after bishopric 
 and deanery after deanery were bestowed on Whigs 
 and Latitudinarians. The consequence was that 
 Whiggism and Latitudinarianism were professed by 
 the ablest and most aspiring churchmen. 
 
 Hume complained bitterly of this at the close of 
 his history. " The Whig party," says he, " for a 
 course of near seventy years, has almost without in- 
 terruption enjoyed the whole authority of government, 
 and no honours or ofiices 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 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 established many gross falsehoods, which it is unaccount- 
 able how any civilised 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 pro- 
 pagated and read as if they had equalled the most 
 celebrated remains of antiquity. And forgetting that 
 a regard to liberty, though a laudable passion, ought 
 commonly to be subservient to a reverence for esta- 
 blished government, the prevailing faction has cele- 
 brated 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 patron- 
 ised by the English Court and the English ministry, 
 during the first half of the eighteenth century, was of 
 that kind which courtiers arid ministers generally do 
 all in their power to discountenance, and tended to 
 inspire zeal for the liberties of the people rather than 
 respect for the authority of the government. 
 
 There was still a very strong Tory party in 
 England. But that party was in opposition. Many 
 of its members still held the doctrine of passive obe- 
 dience. But they did not admit that the existing 
 dynasty had any claim to such obedience. They 
 condemned resistance. But by resistance they meant 
 the keeping 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 establishment, could oppose 
 with more earnestness every proposition for arming 
 the executive with extraordinary powers, or could 
 pour more unmitigated abuse on placemen and cour- 
 tiers. If a writer were now, in a massive Dictionary, 
 

 HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 277 
 
 to define a Pensioner as a traitor and a slave, the 
 Excise as a hateful tax, the Commissioners of the 
 Excise as wretches, if he were to write a satire full 
 of reflections on men who receive " the price of bo- 
 roughs 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 demo- 
 cratic than a Whig. Yet this was the language which 
 Johnson, the most bigoted of Tories and High Church- 
 men, 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 de jure. The servile theories of the 
 latter did not prevent them from offering every mo- 
 lestation 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 favour- 
 able to popular rights than to monarchical power. 
 What took place at the first representation of Cato 
 is no bad illustration of the way in which the two 
 great sections of the community almost invariably 
 acted. A play, the whole merit of which consists in 
 its stately rhetoric, a rhetoric sometimes not unworthy 
 of Lucan, about hating tyrants and dying for free- 
 dom, is brought on the stage in a time of great poli- 
 tical 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 
 
 t 3 
 
278 SIR JAMES mackintosh's 
 
 liberty. The Tory secretary of state presents 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 de- 
 clamations of both parties. But when we compare 
 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 pro- 
 digious 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, seventy or eighty years 
 before, books had been publicly burned by order of 
 the University of Oxford for containing the dam- 
 nable doctrine that the English monarchy is limited 
 and mixed, we cannot deny that a salutary change 
 had taken place. " The Jesuits," says Pascal, in 
 the last of his incomparable letters, " have obtained 
 a Papal decree, condemning Galileo's doctrine about 
 the motion of the earth. It is all in vain. If the 
 world is really turning round, all mankind together 
 will not be able to keep it from turning, or to keep 
 themselves from turning with it." The decrees of 
 Oxford were as ineffectual to stay the great moral 
 and political revolution as those of the Vatican to 
 stay the motion of our globe. That learned Uni- 
 versity 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 dis- 
 cussions 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 political philosophy of England began to produce 
 
HISTOBY OF THE KEVOLUTION. 279 
 
 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 con- 
 clude by advising all our readers to study Sir James 
 Mackintosh's valuable Fragment, and by expressing 
 our hope that they will soon be able to study it with- 
 out those accompaniments which have hitherto im- 
 peded its circulation. 
 
 t 4 
 
280 
 
 LORD BACON. (July 1837.) 
 
 The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England. 
 A new Edition. By Basil Montagu, Esq. 16 vols. 8vo. 
 London: 1825—1834. 
 
 We return our hearty thanks to Mr. Montagu for this 
 truly valuable work. From the opinions which he 
 expresses as a biographer we often dissent. 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 re- 
 searches 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 con- 
 stantly overflows from his lips and his pen. Those 
 who are acquainted with the Courts in which Mr. 
 Montagu practises with so much ability and success 
 well know how often lie 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 
 
LORD BACON. 281 
 
 claim to be indulgently treated than that under the 
 influence of which a man ascribes every moral excel- 
 lence 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 are 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 idola tribus. Hence 
 it is that the moral character of a man eminent in 
 letters or in the fine arts is treated, often by con- 
 temporaries, almost always by posterity, with extra- 
 ordinary 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 for- 
 gotten. 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 
 
282 LORD BACON. 
 
 readers; and they 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 about a person whose society 
 we like, and from whom we have received favours ; 
 how long we struggle against evidence, how fondly, 
 when the facts cannot be disputed, we cling to the 
 hope that there may be some explanation or some 
 extenuating circumstance with which we are un- 
 acquainted. Just such is the feeling 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 ex- 
 posed to no danger from the occurrences by which 
 other attachments are weakened or dissolved. Time 
 glides on ; fortune is inconstant ; tempers are soured ; 
 bonds which seemed indissoluble are daily sundered 
 by interest, by emulation, or by caprice. But no 
 such cause can affect the silent converse which we 
 hold with the highest of human intellects. That 
 placid intercourse is disturbed by no jealousies or 
 resentments. These are the old friends who are 
 never seen with new faces, who are the same in 
 wealth and in poverty, in glory and in obscurity. 
 With the dead there is no rivalry. In the dead there 
 is no change. Plato is never sullen. Cervantes is 
 never petulant. Demosthenes never comes unseason- 
 ably. 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 sensibility and imagination 
 should entertain a respectful and affectionate feeling 
 
LORD BACON. 283 
 
 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 to be 
 regarded with respect or affection. Some writers, 
 whose works will continue to instruct and delight 
 mankind to the remotest ages, have been placed in 
 such situations that their actions and motives are as 
 well known to us as the actions and motives of one 
 human being can be known to another; and unhappily 
 their conduct has not always been such as an im- 
 partial judge can contemplate with approbation. But 
 the fanaticism of the devout worshipper of genius is 
 proof against all evidence and all argument. The 
 character of his idol is matter of faith ; and the pro- 
 vince of faith is not to be invaded by reason. He 
 maintains his superstition with a credulity as bound- 
 less, and a zeal as unscrupulous, as can be found in 
 the most ardent partisans of religious or political fac- 
 tions. The most decisive proofs are rejected; the 
 plainest rules of morality are explained away; ex- 
 tensive and important portions of history are com- 
 pletely 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 during many 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 bio- 
 grapher 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 
 
284 LORD BACON. 
 
 failed to produce a most valuable history of a most 
 interesting portion of time. But this most ingenious 
 and learned man, though 
 
 ' f 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. The great Avvocato del 
 Diavolo, while he disputed, with no small ability, the 
 claims of Cyprian and Athanasius 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 talents and acquirements, 
 indeed, can never be too highly extolled, and who was 
 by no means destitute of amiable qualities, but whose 
 whole soul was under the dominion of a girlish vanity 
 and a craven fear. Actions for which Cicero himself, 
 the most eloquent and skilful of advocates, could con- 
 trive no excuse, actions which in his confidential cor- 
 respondence he mentioned with remorse and shame, 
 are represented by his biographer as wise, virtuous, 
 heroic. The whole history of that great revolution 
 which overthrew the Roman aristocracy, the whole 
 state of parties, the character of every public man, is 
 elaborately misrepresented, in order to make out 
 something which may look like a defence of one most 
 eloquent and accomplished trimmer. 
 
 The volume before us reminds us now and then of 
 the Life of Cicero. But there is this marked differ- 
 ence. Dr. Middleton evidently had an uneasy con- 
 sciousness of the weakness of his cause, and therefore 
 resorted to the most disingenuous shifts, to unpardon- 
 able distortions and suppressions of facts. Mr. Mon- 
 tagu's faith is sincere and implicit. He practises 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 
 
LOKD BACON. 285 
 
 his own. It is not till he comes to reason from facts 
 to motives that his partiality shows itself; and then 
 he leaves Middleton himself far behind. His work 
 proceeds on the assumption that Bacon was an 
 eminently virtuous man. From the tree Mr. Montagu 
 judges of the fruit. He is forced to relate many 
 actions which, if any man but Bacon had committed 
 them, nobody would have dreamed of defending, 
 actions which are readily and completely explained 
 by supposing Bacon to have been a man whose 
 principles were not strict, and whose spirit was not 
 high, actions which can be explained in no other 
 way, without resorting to some grotesque hypothesis 
 for which there is not a tittle of evidence. But any 
 hypothesis is, in Mr. Montagu's opinion, more probable 
 than that his hero should ever have done any thing 
 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 correctly to estimate his 
 character. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that Francis Bacon 
 was* the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, who held the 
 great seal of England during the first twenty years 
 of the reign of Elizabeth. The fame of the father 
 has been thrown into shade by that of the son. But 
 Sir Nicholas was no ordinary man. He belonged to 
 a set of men whom it is easier to describe collectively 
 
286 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 fortunes, 
 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 produced. Before their time 
 the division of labour had, in this respect, been very 
 imperfect. Those who had directed public affairs 
 had been, with few exceptions, warriors or priests; 
 warriors whose rude courage was neither guided by 
 science nor softened by humanity, priests whose 
 learning and abilities were habitually devoted to the 
 defence of tyranny and imposture. The Hotspurs, 
 the Nevilles, the Cliffords, rough, illiterate, and un- 
 reflecting, brought to the council-board the fierce and 
 imperious disposition which they had acquired amidst 
 the tumult of predatory war, or in the gloomy repose 
 of the garrisoned and moated castle. On the other 
 side was the calm and subtle prelate, versed in all 
 that was then considered as learning, trained in the 
 Schools to manage words, and in the confessional to 
 manage hearts, seldom superstitious, but skilful in 
 practising on the superstition of others, false, as it 
 was natural that a man should be whose profession 
 imposed on all who were not saints the necessity of 
 being hypocrites, selfish, as it was natural that a man 
 should be who could form no domestic ties and che- 
 rish no hope of legitimate posterity, more attached to 
 his order than to his country, and guiding the politics 
 of England with a constant side-glance at Eome. 
 
 But the increase of wealth, the progress of know- 
 ledge, and the reformation of religion produced a 
 great change. The nobles ceased to be military 
 chieftains ; the priests ceased to possess a monopoly of 
 
LORD BACON. 287 
 
 learning ; and a new and remarkable species of poli- 
 ticians appeared. 
 
 These men came from neither of the classes which 
 had, till then, almost exclusively 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 members of the aristocracy. They 
 inherited no titles, no large domains, no armies of 
 retainers, no fortified castles. Yet they were not 
 low men, such as those whom princes, jealous of the 
 power of a nobility, have sometimes raised from 
 forges and cobblers' stalls to the highest situations. 
 They were all gentlemen by birth. They had all re- 
 ceived a liberal education. It is a remarkable fact 
 that they were all members of the same university. 
 The two great national seats of learning had even 
 then acquired the characters which they still retain. 
 In intellectual activity, and in readiness to admit 
 improvements, the superiority was then, as it has 
 ever since been, on the side of the less ancient and 
 splendid institution. Cambridge had the honour of 
 educating those celebrated Protestant Bishops whom 
 Oxford had the honour of burning ; and at Cambridge 
 were formed the minds of all those statesmen to whom 
 chiefly is to be attributed the secure establishment 
 of the reformed religion in the north of Europe. 
 
 The statesmen of whom we speak passed their 
 youth surrounded by the incessant din of theological 
 controversy. Opinions were still in a state of chaotic 
 anarchy, intermingling, separating, advancing, re- 
 ceding. Sometimes the stubborn bigotry of the 
 Conservatives seemed likely to prevail. Then the 
 impetuous onset of the Reformers for a moment car- 
 ried all before it. Then again the resisting mass 
 made a desperate stand, arrested the movement, and 
 forced it slowly back. The vacillation which at that 
 time appeared in English legislation, and which it 
 
288 LORD BACON. 
 
 has been the fashion to attribute to the caprice and 
 to the power of one or two individuals, was truly a 
 national vacillation. It was not only in the mind of 
 Henry that the new theology obtained the ascendant 
 one day, and that the lessons of the nurse and of the 
 priest regained their influence on the morrow. It 
 was not only in the House of Tudor that the husband 
 was exasperated 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 reflecting mind. 
 
 It was in the midst of this ferment that the minds 
 of the persons whom we 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 staid in Eng- 
 land, 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 impetuosity 
 of theologians, but with the calm determination of 
 statesmen. They acted, not like men who considered 
 the Romish worship as a system too offensive to God, 
 
LORD BACON. 289 
 
 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 unimportant, and 
 who were not restrained by any scruple of conscience 
 from professing, as they had before professed, the 
 Catholic faith of Mary, the Protestant faith of Edward, 
 or any of the numerous intermediate combinations 
 which the caprice of Henry and the servile 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 leaning 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 reso- 
 lutely, how gloriously they directed the politics of 
 England during the eventful years which followed, 
 how they succeeded in uniting their friends and sepa- 
 rating their enemies, how they humbled the pride of 
 Philip, how they backed the unconquerable spirit of 
 Coligni, how they rescued Holland from tyranny, 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 im- 
 possible 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 the 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 countrymen. 
 
 There were, doubtless, many diversities in their 
 intellectual and moral character. But there was a 
 strong family likeness. The constitution of their 
 
 VOL. II. u 
 
290 LORD BACON. 
 
 minds was remarkably sound. No particular faculty 
 was preeminently developed; 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 pro- 
 minent 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 characterized rather by 
 vigilance, by moderation, and by firmness, than by 
 invention, or by the spirit of enterprise. 
 
 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 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, these politicians were under the 
 necessity of taking a part in the theological contro- 
 versies on which the dearest interests of kingdoms 
 were then staked, they acquitted themselves as if their 
 whole lives had been passed in the Schools and the 
 Convocation. 
 
 There was something in the temper of these cele- 
 brated 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 par- 
 liament attacked their influence. No mob coupled 
 their names with any odious grievance. Their power 
 
LORD BACON. 291 
 
 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 pre- 
 ceding and of the succeeding generation. Burleigh 
 was minister during forty years. Sir Nicholas Bacon 
 held the great seal more than twenty years. Sir 
 Walter Mildmay was Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 twenty-three 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 dif- 
 ferent also was the fate of Essex, of Raleigh, and of 
 the still more illustrious man whose life we propose 
 to consider. 
 
 The explanation of this circumstance is perhaps 
 contained in the motto which Sir Nicholas Bacon in- 
 scribed over the entrance of his hall at Gorhambury, 
 Mediocria Jirma. 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 osten- 
 tatious 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 characterized the successful courtiers 
 of the generation which preceded them, and of that 
 which followed them. Only one of those whom we 
 have named was made a peer; and he was content 
 with the lowest degree of the peerage. 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 
 
 u 2 
 
292 LORD BACON. 
 
 morals were without 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 An- 
 thony 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 Musce Eton- 
 enses. 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 theolo- 
 gian. She corresponded in Greek with Bishop Jewel, 
 and translated his Apologia from the Latin, so cor- 
 rectly that neither he nor Archbishop Parker could 
 suggest a single alteration. She also translated a 
 series of sermons on fate and free-will from the 
 Tuscan of Bernardo Ochino. This fact is the more 
 curious, because Ochino was one of that small and 
 audacious band of Italian reformers, anathematized 
 alike by Wittenberg, by Geneva, by Zurich, and by 
 Rome, from which the Socinian sect deduces its origin. 
 
 Lady Bacon was doubtless a lady of highly culti- 
 vated mind after the fashion of her age. But we 
 must not suffer ourselves to be deluded into the belief 
 
LORD BACON. 293 
 
 that she and her sisters were more accomplished wo- 
 men 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 sixteenth 
 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 gaoler. But surely these complaints have 
 very little foundation. We would by no means dis- 
 parage 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 Greek and Latin could 
 read nothing, or next to nothing. The Italian was 
 the only modern language which possessed any thing 
 that could be called a literature. All the valuable 
 books then extant in all the vernacular dialects of 
 Europe would hardly have filled a single shelf. Eng- 
 land did not yet possess Shakspeare's plays and the 
 Fairy Queen, nor France Montaigne's Essays, nor 
 Spain Don Quixote. In looking round a well-fur- 
 nished library, how many English or French books 
 can we find which were extant when Lady Jane Grey 
 and Queen Elizabeth received their education ? Chau- 
 cer, Gower, Froissart, Comines, Rabelais, nearly com- 
 plete the list. It was therefore absolutely necessary 
 that a woman should be uneducated or classically 
 educated. Indeed, without a knowledge of one of the 
 
 u 3 
 
294 LORD BACON. 
 
 ancient languages no person could then have any 
 clear notion of what was passing in the political, the 
 f literary, or the religious world. The Latin was in 
 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, 
 and being universally known to the learned and the 
 polite, it was employed by almost every writer who 
 aspired to a wide and durable reputation. A person 
 who was ignorant of it was shut out from all ac- 
 quaintance, 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 verses, with 
 Erasmus's dialogues, with Hutten's epistles. 
 
 This is no longer the case. All 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 pro- 
 ductions of Athenian and Eoman genius are indeed 
 still what they were. But though their positive 
 value is unchanged, their relative value, when com- 
 pared with the whole mass of mental wealth possessed 
 by mankind, has been constantly falling. They were 
 the intellectual all of our ancestors. They are but a 
 part of our treasures. Over what tragedy could 
 Lady Jane Grey have wept, over what comedy could 
 she have smiled, if the ancient dramatists had not 
 been in her library ? A modern reader can make 
 shift without G^dipus and Medea, while he possesses 
 Othello and Hamlet. If he knows nothing of Pyrgo- 
 
LOKD BACON. 295 
 
 polynices and Thraso, he is familiar with Bobadil, 
 and Bessus, and Pistol, and Parolles. If he cannot 
 enjoy the delicious irony of Plato, he may find some 
 compensation in that of Pascal. If he is shut out 
 from Nephelococcygia, he may take refuge in Lilliput. 
 We are guilty, we hope, of no irreverence towards 
 those great nations to which the human race owes 
 art, science, taste, civil and intellectual freedom, 
 when we say, that the stock bequeathed by them to 
 us has been so carefully improved that the accumu- 
 lated 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, — translations from the an- 
 cient languages, of course, included, — are of greater 
 value than all the books which at the beginning of 
 that period were extant in the world. With the 
 modern languages of Europe English women are at 
 least as well acquainted as English men. When, 
 therefore, we compare the acquirements of Lady Jane 
 Grey with those of an accomplished young woman of 
 our own time, we have no hesitation in awarding the 
 superiority to the latter. We hope that our readers 
 will pardon this digression. It is long ; but it can 
 hardly be called unseasonable, if it tends to convince 
 them that they are mistaken in thinking that the 
 great-great-grandmothers of their great-great-grand- 
 mothers were superior women to their sisters and 
 their wives. 
 
 Francis Bacon, the youngest son of Sir Nicholas, 
 was born at York House, his father's residence in the 
 Strand, on the twenty-second of January 1561 . The 
 health of Francis was very delicate : and to this circum- 
 stance maybe partly attributed that gravity of carriage, 
 and that love of sedentary pursuits, which distin- 
 guished him from other boys. Everybody knows how 
 much his premature readiness of wit and sobriety of 
 
 u 4 
 
296 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 certain 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 philo- 
 sophers than it has ever received. These are trifles. 
 But the eminence which Bacon afterwards attained 
 makes them interesting. 
 
 In the thirteenth year of his age he was entered at 
 Trinity College, Cambridge. 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 after 
 the admission of Francis Bacon. The master was 
 Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, a 
 narrow-minded, mean, and tyrannical priest, who 
 gained power by servility and adulation, and em- 
 ployed it in persecuting both those who agreed with 
 Calvin about Church Government, and those who 
 differed from Calvin touching the doctrine of Ke- 
 probation. He was now in a chrysalis state, put- 
 ting off the worm and putting on the dragon-fly, 
 a kind of intermediate grub between sycophant and 
 oppressor. He was indemnifying 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 him the praise of having rendered about this 
 time one important service to letters. He stood up 
 manfully against those who wished to make Trinity 
 College a mere appendage to Westminster school ; and 
 
LORD BACON. 297 
 
 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. The 
 evidence on this subject, however, is hardly sufficient 
 to prove what is in itself so improbable as that any 
 definite scheme of that 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 conviction that the system of academic 
 education in England was radically vicious, a just 
 scorn for the trifles on which the followers of Aris- 
 totle 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 valu- 
 able 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 
 
298 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 pursuits, 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, and did all 
 that they could decently do to keep him down. It 
 has never been alleged that Bacon had done any 
 thing to merit this dislike ; nor is it at all probable that 
 a man, whose temper was naturally mild, whose man- 
 ners 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 ser- 
 vice and of doing him irreparable injury. The real 
 explanation, we believe, 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 
 
LORD BACON. 299 
 
 was that his own greatness might descend to this 
 favourite child. But even Burleigh's fatherly par- 
 tiality could hardly prevent him from perceiving that 
 Robert, with all his abilities and acquirements, was 
 no match for his cousin Francis. This seems to us 
 the only rational explanation of the Treasurer's con- 
 duct. Mr. Montagu is more charitable. He sup- 
 poses 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 Bur- 
 leigh'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 comfortable 
 provision which should have been exposed to no risk. 
 And it is 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 Ms superior talents, we have not the 
 smallest doubt. In a letter, written many years 
 later to Villiers, he expresses himself thus : " Coun- 
 tenance, 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. He was the most promising and 
 accomplished young man of his time. His father 
 had been the brother-in-law, the most useful col- 
 league, the nearest friend of the Minister. But all 
 this availed poor Francis nothing. He was forced, 
 
300 LOKD BACON. 
 
 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 quick- 
 ness, 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 
 a great wit and much learning ; but in law showeth 
 to the uttermost 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 fore- 
 runner 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 mulier 
 puisne, and confounded the right of free fishery with 
 that of common of piscary. 
 
 It is certain that no man in that age, or indeed 
 during the . century and a half which followed, was 
 better acquainted than Bacon 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 
 
LORD BACON. 301 
 
 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 loved to mark his dislike of the 
 showy, quick-witted young men of the rising gener- 
 ation, 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 be- 
 came a bencher of his Inn ; and two years later he 
 was appointed Lent reader. At length, in 1590, he 
 obtained for the first time some show of favour from 
 the Court. He was sworn in Queen's Counsel extra- 
 ordinary. But this mark of honour was not accom- 
 panied by any pecuniary emolument. He continued, 
 therefore, 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, we fear, bordered on meanness, 
 the morose humours of his uncle, and the sneering 
 reflections which his cousin cast on speculative men, 
 lost in philosophical dreams, and too wise to be 
 capable of transacting public business. At length 
 the Cecils were generous enough to procure for 
 him the reversion of the Registrarship of the Star 
 Chamber. This was a lucrative place ; but, as many 
 years elapsed before it fell in, he was still under the 
 necessity of labouring for his daily bread. 
 
 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 
 
302 LORD BACON. 
 
 appear in his writings characterized 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 were 
 generally happy and apposite, but which were pro- 
 bably not least pleasing to the taste of that age when 
 they were such as would now be thought childish or 
 pedantic. It is evident also that he was, as indeed 
 might have been expected, perfectly free from those 
 faults which are generally found in an advocate who, 
 after having risen to eminence at the bar, enters the 
 House of Commons ; that it was his habit to deal with 
 every great question, not 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 mind. Ben Jonson, a most unexceptionable 
 judge, has described Bacon's eloquence in words, 
 which, though often quoted, will bear to be quoted 
 again. " There happened in my time one noble 
 speaker who was 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 empti- 
 ness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member 
 of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His 
 hearers could not cough or look aside from him with- 
 out 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 imagine that the House 
 of Commons was then almost inaccessible to strangers. 
 It is not probable that a man of Bacon's nice observa- 
 tion would speak in Parliament exactly as he spoke 
 in the Court of Queen's Bench. But the graces of 
 
LORD BACON. 303 
 
 manner and language must, to a great extent, have 
 been common between the Queen's Counsel and the 
 Knight of the Shire. 
 
 Bacon tried to play a very difficult game in politics. 
 He wished to be at once a favourite at Court and 
 popular with the multitude. If any man could have 
 succeeded in this attempt, a man of talents so rare, 
 of judgment so prematurely ripe, of temper so calm, 
 and of manners so plausible, might have been expected 
 to succeed. Nor indeed did he wholly fail. Once, 
 however, he indulged in a burst of patriotism which 
 cost him a long and bitter remorse, and which he 
 never ventured to repeat. The Court asked for large 
 subsidies and for speedy payment. The remains of 
 Bacon's speech breathe all the spirit of the Long Par- 
 liament. " The gentlemen," said he, "must sell their 
 plate, and the farmers their brass pots, ere this will 
 be paid ; and for us, we are here to search the wounds 
 of the realm, and not to skin them over. The dangers 
 are these. First, we shall breed discontent and en- 
 danger 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 his- 
 tories, 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 manner. Indeed, many an honest 
 member of the House of Commons had, for a much 
 smaller matter, been sent to the Tower by the proud 
 and hot-blooded Tudors. The young patriot conde- 
 scended to make the most abject apologies. He ad- 
 jured the Lord Treasurer to show some favour to his 
 poor servant and ally. He bemoaned himself to the 
 Lord Keeper, in a letter which may keep in coun- 
 tenance the most unmanly of the epistles which Cicero 
 
304 LORD BACON. 
 
 wrote 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, ac- 
 complished, eloquent, brave, generous, aspiring ; a 
 favourite who had obtained from the grey-headed 
 queen such marks of regard as she had scarce vouch- 
 safed to Leicester in the season of the passions ; who 
 was at once the ornament of the palace and the idol 
 of the city ; who was the common patron of men of 
 letters and of men of the sword ; who was the common 
 refuge of the persecuted Catholic and of the persecuted 
 Puritan. The calm prudence which had enabled 
 Burleigh to shape his course through so many dangers, 
 and the vast experience which he had acquired in 
 dealing with two generations of colleagues and rivals, 
 seemed scarcely sufficient to support him in this new 
 competition ; and Bobert Cecil sickened with fear and 
 envy as he contemplated the rising fame and influence 
 of Essex. 
 
 The history of the factions which, towards the close 
 of the reign of Elizabeth, divided her court and her 
 council, though pregnant with instruction, is by no 
 means interesting or pleasing. Both parties employed 
 the means which are familiar to unscrupulous states- 
 men ; and neither had, or even pretended to have, any 
 important end in view. The public mind was then 
 reposing from one great effort, and collecting strength 
 for another. That impetuous and appalling rush 
 with which the human intellect had moved forward 
 in the career of truth and liberty, during the fifty 
 years which followed the separation of Luther from 
 
LORD BACON. 305 
 
 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. Eng- 
 land, Scotland, the Northern kingdoms were on one 
 side; Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, on the other. 
 The line of demarcation ran, as it still runs, through 
 the midst of the Netherlands, of Germany, and of 
 Switzerland, dividing province from province, elec- 
 torate from electorate, and canton from canton. France 
 might be considered as a debatable land, in which the 
 contest was still undecided. Since that time, the two 
 religions have done little more than maintain their 
 ground. A few occasional incursions have been made. 
 But the general frontier remains the same. During 
 two hundred and fifty years no great society has 
 risen up like one man, and emancipated itself by one 
 mighty effort from the superstition of ages. This 
 spectacle was common in the sixteenth century. 
 Why has it ceased to be so ? Why has so violent a 
 movement been followed by so long a repose ? The 
 doctrines of the Reformers are not less agreeable 
 to reason or to revelation now than formerly. The 
 public mind is assuredly not less enlightened now 
 than formerly. Why is it that Protestantism, after 
 carrying every thing before it in a time of compara- 
 tively little knowledge and little freedom,,,, should 
 make no perceptible progress in a reasoning and t61e J> 
 rant age ; that the Luthers, the Calvins, the Knoxes, 
 the Zwingles, should have 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 to us 
 one of the most curious and interesting problems in 
 history. On some future 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 
 
 VOL. II. x 
 
306 LORD BACON. 
 
 party, to borrow the language of the Apocalypse, had 
 left its first love and had ceased to do its 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 de- 
 prived 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 strug- 
 gling 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 concern- 
 ing 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 consi- 
 deration, 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 
 
LORD BACON. 307 
 
 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 mourn- 
 ful, a shameful end. 
 
 In 1594 the office of Attorney-General became 
 vacant, and Bacon hoped to obtain it. Essex made 
 his friend's cause his own, sued, expostulated, pro- 
 mised, threatened, but all in vain. It is probable that 
 the dislike felt by the Cecils for Bacon had been in- 
 creased by the connexion 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,' 7 
 said Sir Kobert, " the Queen has determined to ap- 
 point 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 
 
 x 2 
 
308 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 Kobert, 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 abi- 
 lities 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 Ni- 
 cholas Bacon had done no service to the State. Cecil 
 then hinted that, if Bacon would be satisfied with the 
 Solicitorship, that might be of easier digestion to the 
 Queen. " Digest me no digestions," said the generous 
 and ardent Earl. " The Attorneyship for Francis is 
 that I must have; and in that I will spend all my 
 power, might, authority, and amity ; and with tooth 
 and nail procure the same for him against whomsoever ; 
 and whosoever getteth this office out of my hands 
 for any other, before he have it, it shall cost him the 
 coming by. And this be you assured of, Sir Robert, 
 for now I fully declare myself; and for my own part, 
 Sir Robert, I think strange both of my Lord Treasurer 
 and you, that can have the mind to seek the prefer- 
 ence 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 compa- 
 rison between them." 
 
 When the office of Attorney-General was filled up, 
 the Earl pressed the Queen to make Bacon Solicitor- 
 
LORD BACON. 309 
 
 General, and, on this occasion, the old Lord Trea- 
 surer professed himself not unfavourable to his 
 nephew's pretensions. But, after a contest which 
 lasted more than a year and a half, and in which 
 Essex, to use his own words, " spent all his power, 
 might, authority, and amity," the place was given to 
 another. Essex felt this disappointment keenly, but 
 found consolation in the most munificent and delicate 
 liberality. He presented Bacon with an estate, worth 
 near two thousand pounds, situated at Twickenham ; 
 and this, as Bacon owned many years after, " with 
 so kind and noble circumstances as the manner was 
 worth more than the matter." 
 
 It was soon after these events that Bacon first 
 appeared before the public as a writer. Early in 
 1597 he published a small volume of Essays, which 
 was afterwards enlarged by successive additions to 
 many times its original bulk. This little work was, 
 as it well deserved to be, exceedingly popular. It 
 was reprinted in a few months ; it was translated 
 into Latin, French, and Italian ; and it seems to have 
 at once established the literary reputation of its 
 author. But, though Bacon's reputation rose, his 
 fortunes were still depressed. He was in great pecu- 
 niary difficulties ; and, on one occasion, was arrested 
 in the street at the suit of a goldsmith for a debt of 
 three hundred pounds, and was carried to a spunging- 
 house in Coleman Street. 
 
 The kindness of Essex was in the mean time in- 
 defatigable. In 1596 he sailed on his memorable 
 expedition to the coast of Spain. At the very 
 moment of his embarkation, he wrote to several of 
 his friends, commending to them, during his own 
 absence, the interests of Bacon. He returned, after 
 performing the most brilliant military exploit that was 
 achieved on the Continent by English arms during 
 the long interval which elapsed between the battle of 
 
 x 3 
 
310 LORD BACON. 
 
 Agincourt and that of Blenheim. His valour, his 
 talents, his humane and generous disposition, had 
 made him the idol of his countrymen, and had ex- 
 torted praise from the enemies whom he had con- 
 quered.* He had always been proud and headstrong; 
 and his splendid success seems to have rendered his 
 faults more offensive than ever. But to his friend 
 Francis he was still the same. Bacon had some 
 thoughts of making his fortune by marriage, and 
 had begun to pay court to a widow of the name of 
 Hatton. The eccentric manners and violent temper 
 of this woman made her a disgrace and a torment 
 to her connexions. But Bacon was not aware of 
 her faults, or was disposed to overlook them for 
 the sake of her ample fortune. Essex pleaded his 
 friend's cause with his usual ardour. The letters 
 which the Earl addressed to Lady Hatton and to her 
 mother are still extant, and are highly honourable to 
 him. "If," he wrote, " she were my sister or my 
 daughter, I protest I would as confidently resolve to 
 further it as I now persuade you:" and again, " If 
 my faith be any thing, 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, hap- 
 pily for Bacon, was unsuccessful. The lady indeed 
 was kind to him in more ways than one. She re- 
 jected him; and she accepted his enemy. She married 
 that narrow-minded, bad-hearted pedant, Sir Edward 
 Coke, and did her best to make him as miserable as 
 he deserved to be. 
 
 The fortunes of Essex had now reached their height, 
 and began to decline. He possessed indeed all the 
 qualities which raise men to greatness rapidly. But 
 he had neither the virtues nor the vices which enable 
 men to retain greatness long. His frankness, his 
 
 * See Cervantes's Novela de la Espahola Inglesa. 
 
LOED BACON. 311 
 
 keen sensibility to insult and injustice, were by no 
 means agreeable to a sovereign naturally impatient 
 of opposition, and accustomed, during forty years, to 
 the most extravagant flattery and the most abject 
 submission. The daring and contemptuous manner 
 in which he bade defiance to his enemies excited their 
 deadly hatred. His administration in Ireland was 
 unfortunate, and in many respects highly blamable. 
 Though his brilliant courage and his impetuous 
 activity fitted him admirably for such enterprises as 
 that of Cadiz, he did not possess the caution, patience, 
 and resolution necessary for the conduct of a pro- 
 tracted 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 accom- 
 plished, he was in no sense a statesman. The mul- 
 titude indeed still continued to regard even his faults 
 with fondness. But the Court had ceased to give 
 him credit, even for the merit which he really pos- 
 sessed. The person on whom, during the decline of 
 his influence, he chiefly depended, to whom he con- 
 fided his perplexities, whose advice he solicited, whose 
 intercession he employed, was his friend Bacon. The 
 lamentable truth must be told. This friend, so loved, 
 so trusted, bore a principal part in ruining the Earl's 
 fortunes, in shedding his blood, and in blackening his 
 memory. 
 
 But let us be just to Bacon. We believe that, to 
 the last, he had no wish to injure Essex. Nay, we 
 believe that he sincerely exerted himself to serve 
 Essex, as long as he thought that he could serve 
 Essex without injuring himself. 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. 
 
 x 4 
 
312 LORD BACON. 
 
 " For," says he, " I did as plainly see his overthrow 
 chained as it were by destiny to that journey, as it is 
 possible for a man to ground a judgment upon future 
 contingents." The prediction was accomplished. 
 Essex returned in disgrace. Bacon attempted to 
 mediate between his friend and the Queen; and, we 
 believe, honestly employed all his address for that 
 purpose. But the task which he had undertaken was 
 too difficult, delicate, and perilous, even for so wary 
 and dexterous an agent. He had to manage two 
 spirits equally proud, resentful, and ungovernable. 
 At Essex House, he had to calm the rage of a young 
 hero incensed by multiplied wrongs and humiliations, 
 and then to pass to Whitehall for the purpose of 
 soothing the peevishness of a sovereign, whose tem- 
 per, never very gentle, had been rendered morbidly 
 irritable by age, by declining health, and by the long 
 habit of listening to flattery and exacting implicit 
 obedience. It is hard to serve two masters. Situated 
 as Bacon was, it was scarcely possible for him to shape 
 his course so as not to give one or both of his em- 
 ployers 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 the fortunes of another, 
 he was in danger of shaking his own. He had dis- 
 obliged both the parties whom he wished to reconcile. 
 Essex thought him wanting in zeal as a friend : Eliza- 
 beth thought him wanting in duty as a subject. The 
 Earl looked on him as a spy of the Queen ; the Queen 
 as a creature of the Earl. The reconciliation which 
 he had laboured to effect appeared utterly hopeless. 
 A thousand signs, legible to eyes far less keen than 
 his, announced that the fall of his patron was at hand. 
 He shaped his course accordingly. When Essex was 
 brought before the council to answer for his conduct 
 in Ireland, Bacon, after a faint attempt to excuse 
 
LOED BACON. 313 
 
 himself from taking part against his friend, submitted 
 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 nobleman, 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 one of those conjunctures which 
 show what men are. To a high-minded man, wealth, 
 power, court-favour, even personal safety, would have 
 appeared of no account, when opposed to friendship, 
 gratitude, and honour. Such a man would have 
 stood by the side 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 scaf- 
 fold, would have employed all the powers of his intel- 
 lect 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 disgrace 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 suffi- 
 cient to procure a verdict. He employed all his wit, 
 his rhetoric, and his learning, not to ensure a con- 
 viction, — for the circumstances were such that a con- 
 viction 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 crime, and which, therefore, though they could 
 not justify the peers in pronouncing an acquittal, 
 might incline the Queen to grant a pardon. The 
 Earl urged as a palliation of his frantic acts that he 
 was surrounded by powerful and inveterate enemies, 
 that they had ruined his fortunes, that they sought 
 
314 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 pre- 
 tence. He compared Essex to Pisistratus 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 ungrate- 
 ful 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 represented as idle pretexts. 
 It is painful to go on with this lamentable story. 
 Bacon returned a shuffling answer to the Earl's ques- 
 tion, 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 un- 
 necessary 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 allu- 
 sion 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 un- 
 
LOKD BACON. 315 
 
 reasonable feelings 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 autho- 
 rity. 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 him- 
 self as a mere secretary, 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 cburse of these transactions appears to 
 Mr. Montagu not merely excusable, but deserving of 
 high admiration. The integrity and benevolence of 
 this gentleman 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 obligations 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 very far below Bacon's personal 
 
316 LORD BACON. 
 
 and hereditary claims. They were favours which 
 had not cost the Queen a 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 this Mr. Montagu felt. " What perhaps was her 
 greatest kindness," says he, "instead of having hastily 
 advanced Bacon, 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 ad- 
 vancement 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 spunging-house for a debt 
 of three hundred 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 little further. He might 
 have maintained that Bacon was excusable in re- 
 venging 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 
 
LORD BACON. 317 
 
 of the public not to destroy his own hopes of ad- 
 vancement, 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 con- 
 tradiction. 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 fellow-creatures in some high 
 situation. And there is a possibility that Bonner 
 may have been a good Protestant who, being con- 
 vinced that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the 
 Church, heroically went through all the drudgery 
 and infamy of persecution, in order that he might 
 inspire the English people with an intense and lasting 
 hatred of Popery. There is a possibility that JefFeries 
 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. 
 There is a possibility that Thurtell may have killed 
 Weare only ii\ order to give the youth of England 
 an impressive warning against gaming and bad com- 
 pany. 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 some- 
 what strange to us, when we consider how Bacon 
 afterwards used power, and how he lost it. Surely 
 
318 LOKD BACON. 
 
 the service which he rendered to mankind by taking 
 Lady Wharton's broad pieces and Sir John 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. 
 
 Mr. Montagu maintains that none but the ignorant 
 and unreflecting can think Bacon censurable for 
 any thing that he did as counsel for the Crown, 
 and that no advocate can justifiably use any dis- 
 cretion 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 an- 
 other, 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 vir- 
 tuous men have conformed, and are daily conform- 
 ing. If, therefore, Bacon did no more than these 
 rules required of him, we shall readily admit that 
 he was blameless, or, at least, excusable. But we 
 conceive that his conduct was not justifiable accord- 
 ing 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 
 
LOKD BACON. 319 
 
 cases, advocates were both entitled and bound to 
 exercise a discretion. It is true that, after the Revo- 
 lution, 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. u Things will never be well done," said 
 Mr. Foley, " till some of that profession be made ex- 
 amples." " We have a new sort of monsters in the 
 world," said the younger Hampden, " haranguing 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 execu- 
 tion. 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 Bishops, 
 because they were allowed counsel. But he main- 
 tained 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 
 
320 LORD BACON. 
 
 common sense that, if they did not exercise such a 
 discretion, they would be a more hateful body of men 
 than those bravoes who used to hire out their sti- 
 lettoes in Italy. 
 
 Bacon appeared against a man who was indeed 
 guilty of a great offence, but who had been his bene- 
 factor and friend. He did more than this. Nay, he 
 did more than a person who had never seen Essex 
 would have been justified 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 pro- 
 fessional duty could, in any case, have required of 
 him would have been to conduct the cause so as to 
 ensure a conviction. But from the nature of the 
 circumstances there could not be the smallest doubt 
 that the Earl would be 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 tempta- 
 tion 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 now 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 ruin 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 
 
LOKD BACON. 321 
 
 required without reminding a jealous sovereign of 
 the League, of the barricades, and of all the humilia- 
 tions which a too powerful subject had heaped on 
 Henry the Third? 
 
 But if we admit the plea which Mr. Montagu urges 
 in defence of what Bacon did as an advocate, what 
 shall we say of the " Declaration of the Treasons of 
 Robert Earl of Essex? " Here at least there was no 
 pretence of professional 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 that he was not 
 answerable for the matter of the book, and that he 
 furnished only the language. But why did he endow 
 such 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 Old- 
 mixons, of Kenricks, and of Antony Pasquins. But 
 was it for Bacon v so to prostitute his intellect? Could 
 he not feel that, while he rounded and pointed some 
 period dictated by the envy of Cecil, or gave a 
 plausible form to some slander invented by the das- 
 tardly malignity of Cobham, he was not sinning merely 
 against his friend's honour and his own? Could he 
 not feel that letters, eloquence, philosophy, were all 
 degraded in his degradation? 
 
 The real explanation of all this is perfectly obvious ; 
 and nothing but a 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 meekness his high civil 
 honours, and the far higher honours gained by his 
 
 VOL. II. Y 
 
322 LORD BACON. 
 
 intellect. He was very 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 turneth away wrath. He was 
 never charged, by any accuser entitled to the smallest 
 credit, with licentious habits. 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 — coldness of heart, and meanness of spirit. He 
 seems to have been incapable of feeling strong affec- 
 tion, of facing great dangers, of making great sacrifices. 
 His desires were set on things below. Wealth, pre- 
 cedence, titles, patronage, the mace, the seals, the 
 coronet, large houses, fair gardens, rich manors, massy 
 services of plate, gay hangings, curious cabinets, had 
 as great attractions for him as for any of the courtiers 
 who dropped on their knees in the 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 un- 
 graciously repulsed, had thanked those who had re- 
 pulsed him, and had begun to sue again. 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 before her, 
 and implored forgiveness in terms better suited to a 
 convicted thief than to a knight of the shire. For 
 these he joined, and for 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 
 
LORD BACON. 323 
 
 pleaded that cause as long as he thought that he could 
 plead it without injury to himself. But when it be- 
 came evident that Essex was going headlong to his 
 ruin, Bacon began to tremble for his own fortunes. 
 What he had to fear would not indeed 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 profes- 
 sional 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 
 now assisted by acute mental suffering. The piti- 
 able melancholy 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 kne^v that she was surrounded by men who 
 were impatient for that new world which was to begin 
 
 y 2 
 
324 LOKD BACON. 
 
 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 mounted 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 insensibility 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 harangued, and a nervous, 
 drivelling idiot, who acted. If he had been a Canon 
 of Christ Church, or a Prebendary of Westminster, it 
 is not improbable that he would have left a highly 
 respectable name to posterity ; that he would have dis- 
 tinguished himself among the translators of the Bible, 
 and among the Divines who attended the Synod of 
 Dort ; and that he would have been regarded by the 
 literary world as no contemptible rival of Vossius and 
 Casaubon. But fortune placed him in a situation in 
 which his weaknesses 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 amus- 
 
LORD BACON. 325 
 
 ing. 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 
 Eobert 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 gentle- 
 men who, on the coronation-day, received the honour, 
 if it is to be so called, of knighthood. The handsome 
 maiden, a daughter of Alderman Barnham, soon after 
 consented to become Sir Francis's lady. 
 
 The death of Elizabeth, though on the whole it im- 
 proved Bacon's prospects, was in one respect an un- 
 fortunate event for him. The new King had always 
 felt kindly towards Lord Essex, 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 mani- 
 fest itself by marks of respect towards Lord South- 
 ampton. That accomplished 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 de- 
 voted 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 ap- 
 proaching deliverance. With that crowd Bacon could 
 not venture to mingle. The multitude loudly con- 
 demned him; and his conscience told him that the 
 multitude had but too much reason. He excused 
 
 y 3 
 
32G LORD BACON. 
 
 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 be considered 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 against 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 contemporaries. But the unfavourable 
 impression which his conduct had made appears to 
 have been gradually effaced. Indeed it must be some 
 very peculiar cause that can make a man like him 
 long unpopular. His talents secured him from con- 
 tempt, his temper and his manners from hatred. 
 There is scarcely any 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 phi- 
 losopher, to the genius which has made an immortal 
 
LORD BACON. 327 
 
 epoch in the history of science, Waller had indeed no 
 pretensions. But the mind of Waller, as far as it ex- 
 tended, coincided with that of Bacon, and might, so to 
 speak, have been cut out of that of Bacon. In the qua- 
 lities which make a man an object of interest and vene- 
 ration to posterity, they cannot be compared toge- 
 ther. But in the qualities by which chiefly a man is 
 known to his contemporaries there was a striking simi- 
 larity between them. Considered as men of the world, 
 as courtiers, as politicians, as associates, 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 distin- 
 guished 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 : u There needs no more to be said 
 to extol the excellence and power of his wit and plea- 
 santness of his conversation, than that it was of mag- 
 nitude 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 reconcile him to those whom 
 
 y 4 
 
328 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 suf- 
 ficient 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 leniently 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 became 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 
 Scotland. 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 deci- 
 sion of the judges, a decision the legality of which 
 may be questioned, but the beneficial effect of which 
 must be acknowledged, was in a great measure attri- 
 buted to his dexterous management. While actively 
 engaged in thQ 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 expanded into the De 
 
LORD BACON. 329 
 
 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 
 mean time the Novum Organum was slowly proceed- 
 ing. 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 admira- 
 tion of his genius. Sir Thomas Bodley, the founder 
 of one of the most magnificent of English libraries, 
 was among those stubborn Conservatives who consi- 
 dered the hopes with which Bacon looked forward to 
 the future destinies of the human race as utterly 
 chimerical, and who regarded with distrust and aver- 
 sion 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 noints, and in all proposals and plots 
 in that book, Bacon showed himself a master-work- 
 man;" 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 contempla- 
 tions of the means to procure it." In 1612 a new 
 edition of the "Essays" appeared, with additions 
 surpassing the original collection both in bulk and 
 quality. Nor did these pursuits distract Bacon's 
 attention from a work the most arduous, the most 
 glorious, and the most useful that even his mighty 
 powers could have achieved, *" the reducing and re- 
 compiling," to use his own phrase, " of the laws of 
 England." 
 
 Unhappily he was at that very time employed 
 
330 LORD BACON. 
 
 in perverting those laws to the vilest purposes of 
 tyranny. When Oliver St. John was brought before s 
 the Star Chamber for maintaining that the King had 
 no right to levy Benevolences, and was for his manly 
 and constitutional conduct sentenced to imprisonment 
 during the royal pleasure and to a fine of five thou- 
 sand pounds, Bacon appeared as counsel for the 
 prosecution. About the same time he was deeply 
 engaged in a still more disgraceful transaction. An 
 aged clergyman, of the name of Peacham, was accused 
 of treason on account of some passages of a sermon 
 which was found in his study. The sermon, whether 
 written by him or not, had never been preached. It 
 did not appear that he had any intention of preaching 
 it. The most servile lawyers of those servile times 
 were forced to admit that there were great difficulties 
 both as to the facts and as to the law. Bacon was 
 employed to remove those difiiculties. He was em- 
 ployed to settle the question of law by tampering 
 with the judges, and the question of fact by tor- 
 turing the prisoner. 
 
 Three judges of the Court of King's Bench were 
 tractable. 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 re- 
 semblance to some of the highest virtues which a 
 public man can possess. He was an exception to a 
 maxim which we believe to be generally true, that 
 those who trample on the helpless are disposed to 
 cringe to the powerful. He behaved with gross rude- 
 ness to his juniors at the bar, and with execrable 
 cruelty to prisoners on trial for their lives. But he 
 stood up manfully against the King and the King's 
 favourites. No man of* that age appeared to so little 
 advantage when he was opposed to an inferior, and 
 was in the wrong. But, on the other hand, it is but 
 fair to admit that no man of that age made so credit- 
 
LORD BACON. 331 
 
 able a figure when he was opposed to a superior, and 
 happened to be in the right. On such occasions, his 
 half- suppressed insolence and his impracticable obsti- 
 nacy 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 delared that it was a new 
 and a 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,' 7 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 dex- 
 terity was successful; and Coke, sullenly and reluc- 
 tantly, followed the example of his brethren. But in 
 order to convict Peacham it was necessary to find 
 facts as well as law. Accordingly, this wretched old 
 man was put to the rack, and, while undergoing the 
 horrible infliction, was examined by Bacon, but in 
 vain. No confession could be wrung out of him ; 
 and Bacon wrote to the King, complaining that 
 Peacham had a dumb devil. At length the trial 
 came on. A conviction was obtained ; but the charges 
 were so obviously futile, that the government could 
 not, for very shame, carry the sentence into execu- 
 tion; and Peacham was suffered to languish away the 
 short remainder of his life in a prison. 
 
 All this frightful story Mr. Montagu relates fairly. 
 He neither conceals nor distorts any material fact. 
 But he can see nothing deserving of condemnation 
 in Bacon's conduct. He tells us most truly that we 
 ought not to try the men of one age by the standard 
 of another ; that Sir Matthew Hale is not to be pro- 
 nounced a bad man because he left a woman to be 
 
332 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 practice 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 the First 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 that Coke, who had himself been Attorney- 
 General during thirteen years, who had conducted a 
 far greater number of important state-prosecutions 
 than any other lawyer named in English history, and 
 who had passed with scarcely any interval from the 
 Attorney- Generalship to the first seat in the first 
 criminal court in the realm, could have been startled 
 at an invitation to confer with the croAvn-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 
 
LORD BACON. 333 
 
 common, though a most culpable practice, in the 
 judges, to listen to private solicitation. But the 
 practice of tampering with judges in order to procure 
 capital convictions we believe to have been new, first, 
 because Coke, who understood those matters better 
 than any man of his time, asserted it to be new ; and 
 secondly, because neither Bacon nor Mr. Montagu 
 has shown a single precedent. 
 
 How then stands the case? Even thus: Bacon 
 was not conforming to an usage then generally ad- 
 mitted 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 attempting 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, unhap- 
 pily, we see that he did not scruple to exert his great 
 powers for the purpose of introducing into those in- 
 stitutions 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 the First the propreity 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 exe- 
 crated 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 
 
334 LORD BACON. 
 
 dangers which then threatened the government 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 ordinary 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 posi- 
 tively 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 law- 
 fully 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 persisted 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 mini- 
 sters 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.* 
 
 * Since this Review was written, Mr. Jardine has published a very 
 learned and ingenious Reading on the use of torture in England, It 
 has not however been thought necessary to make any change in the 
 observations on Peacham's case. 
 
 It is impossible to discuss, within the limits of a note, the extensive 
 question raised by Mr. Jardine. It is sufficient here to say that every 
 argument by which he attempts to show that the use of the rack was 
 anciently a lawful exertion of royal prerogative may be urged with 
 equal force, nay with far greater force, to prove the lawfulness of 
 
LOKD BACON. 335 
 
 Bacon -far behind his age ! Bacon far behind Sir 
 Edward Coke ! Bacon clinging to exploded abuses ! 
 Bacon withstanding the progress of improvement ! 
 Bacon struggling to push back the human mind! 
 The words seem strange. They sound like a contra- 
 diction 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 deceivers of our spe- 
 cies, all the founders of arbitrary governments and 
 false religions, had not been extraordinary men, as if 
 nine-tenths of the calamities which have befallen the 
 human race had any other origin than the union of 
 high intelligence with low desires. 
 
 Bacon knew this well. He has told us that there are 
 persons " scientia tanquam angeli alati, cupiditatibus 
 vero tanquam serpentes qui humi reptant : " # and it 
 did not require his admirable sagacity and his exten- 
 sive converse with mankind to make the discovery. 
 Indeed, he had Wly to look within. The difference 
 between the soaring angel and the creeping snake was 
 but a type of the difference between Bacon the phi- 
 losopher 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 admiration or with un- 
 mixed contempt. But those only judge of him cor- 
 rectly 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 
 
 benevolences, of ship- money , of Mompesson's patent, of Eliot's imprison- 
 ment, of every abuse, without exception, which is condemned by the 
 Petition of Right and the Declaration of Right. 
 * De Augmentis, Lib. v. cap. 1 . 
 
336 LORD BACON. 
 
 have been far before his age and far behind it, in one 
 line the boldest and most useful of innovators, in an- 
 other line 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 
 philanthropy, 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 Sen- 
 tences had no rich reversions in his gift. Far dif- 
 ferent 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 prosper- 
 ous 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 
 pandar, happy in a fair wife, could obtain a more cor- 
 dial 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 am- 
 bition was crowned with success. His sagacity early 
 enabled him to perceive who was likely to become the 
 most powerful man in the kingdom. He probably 
 
LORD BACON. 337 
 
 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 botli, like most men who are constitu- 
 tionally brave, were open and unreserved. Both were 
 rash and headstrong. Both were destitute of the 
 abilities and of the information which are necessary 
 to statesmen. Yet both, trusting to the accomplish- 
 ments which had made them conspicuous in tilt-yards 
 and ball-rooms, aspired to rule the state. Both owed 
 their elevation to the personal attachment of the 
 sovereign ; and in both cases this attachment was of 
 so eccentric a kind, that it perplexed observers, that 
 it still continues to perplex historians, and that it 
 gave rise to much scandal which we are inclined to 
 think unfounded. Each of them treated the sovereign 
 whose favour he enjoyed with a rudeness which 
 approached to insolence. This petulance ruined 
 Essex, who had to deal with a spirit naturally as 
 
 VOL. II. z 
 
338 LOED BACON. 
 
 proud as his own, and accustomed, during near 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 friend- 
 ship, 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, ex- 
 cept 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 repre- 
 sentatives 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 conferred favours than towards one 
 from whom he has received them. Essex loaded Bacon 
 with benefits, and never thought that he had done 
 
LORD BACON. 339 
 
 enough. It seems never to have crossed the mind of 
 the powerful and wealthy noble that the poor bar- 
 rister whom he treated with such munificent kindness 
 was not his equal. It was, we have no doubt, with 
 perfect sincerity that the Earl declared that he would 
 willingly give his sister or daughter in marriage to 
 his friend. He was in general more than sufficiently 
 sensible of his own merits ; but he did not seem to 
 know that he had ever deserved well of Bacon. On 
 that cruel day when they saw each other for the last 
 time at the bar of the Lords, Essex taxed his per- 
 fidious friend with unkindness and insincerity, but 
 never with ingratitude. Even in such a moment, 
 more bitter than the bitterness of death, that noble 
 heart was too great to vent itself in such a reproach. 
 
 Yilliers, 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. Yil- 
 liers was little more than a boy, a younger son of a 
 house then of no great note. He was but just en- 
 tering 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 competitors. 
 The countenance and advice of a man so highly dis- 
 tinguished as the Attorney- General must have been 
 an object of the highest importance to the young 
 adventurer. But though Yilliers was the obliged 
 party, he was far less 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 Lord 
 Brackley, was appointed Keeper of the Great Seal. 
 
 On the seventh of May, the first day of term, he 
 
 z 2 
 
340 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 pur- 
 suits 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 mis- 
 managed. 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 do- 
 minant on the Continent, the Protestant religion 
 and the liberties of the Germanic body trodden 
 under foot. Meanwhile, 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 pro- 
 ceeded from tenderness for his people. But the truth 
 is that, while he had nothing to spare for the defence 
 of the natural allies of England, he resorted without 
 
LOED BACON. 341 
 
 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 of all share in the guilt. 
 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 func- 
 tions with the greatest caution and impartiality. He 
 had declared that he " would walk in the light," 
 " that men should see that no particular turn or end 
 led him, but a general rule." Mr. Montagu would 
 have us believe ^hat Bacon acted up to these pro- 
 fessions, and says that " the power of the favourite 
 did not deter the Lord Keeper from staying grants 
 and patents when his public duty demanded this in- 
 terposition." Does Mr. Montagu consider patents of 
 monopoly as good things ? Or does he mean to say 
 that Bacon staid 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 to be the original of Massinger's 
 Overreach, and to Sir Francis Mich ell, 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. 
 
 z 3 
 
342 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 viler than 
 even those for which they were given, for the wreak- 
 ing 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. He 
 wrote to inform the King, that he " had considered 
 of the fitness and conveniency of the gold and silver 
 thread business," " that it was convenient that it 
 should be settled," that he " did conceive apparent 
 likelihood that it would redound much to his Ma- 
 jesty's profit," that, therefore, " it were good it were 
 settled with all convenient speed." The meaning of 
 all this was, that certain of the house of Villiers were 
 to go shares with Overreach and Greedy in the 
 plunder of the public. This was the way in which, 
 when the favourite pressed for patents, lucrative to 
 his relations and to his creatures, ruinous and vex- 
 atious 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 confine- 
 ment for disobeying his tyrannical edict. It is need- 
 less to say more. Our readers are now able to judge 
 whether, in the matter of patents, Bacon acted con- 
 formably 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 
 
LORD BACON. 343 
 
 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 Buckingham's interference 
 was, as might have been expected, successful. 
 
 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 jus- 
 tice, that he should think more about those who were 
 bound to him by private ties than about the public 
 interest, all this was perfectly natural, and not alto- 
 gether 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 
 
 z 4 
 
344 LORD BACON. 
 
 by a wild freak of fortune to the first influence in the 
 empire, that he should have bestowed any serious 
 thought on the principles which ought to guide ju- 
 dicial decisions? Bacon was the ablest public man 
 then living in Europe. He was near sixty years old. 
 He had thought 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 saga- 
 city 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 de- 
 fect 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 en- 
 gaged in Chancery suits. The amount of the plunder 
 which he collected in this way it is impossible to esti- 
 mate. 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 go- 
 verned by the Crown. The prospects of the Lord 
 Keeper were bright and serene. His great place ren- 
 dered the splendour of his talents even more con- 
 spicuous, 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 
 
LORD BACON. 345 
 
 might mutter. The austere Puritan patriot might, 
 in his retreat, grieve that one on whom God had be- 
 stowed without measure all the abilities which qualify 
 men to take the lead in great reforms should be found 
 among the adherents of the worst abuses. But the 
 murmurs of the suitor and the lamentations of the 
 patriot had scarcely any avenue to the ears of the 
 powerful. The King, and the minister who was the 
 King's master, smiled on their illustrious flatterer. 
 The whole crowd of courtiers and nobles sought his 
 favour with emulous eagerness. Men of wit and 
 learning hailed with delight the elevation of one who 
 had so signally shown that a man of profound learn- 
 ing 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 should 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 time after his elevation, he 
 showed himself a little wanting in that wariness and 
 self-command to which, more than even to his tran- 
 scendent 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 in- 
 juries which, when a young man struggling into note 
 and professional practice, he had received from Sir 
 Edward Coke, were such as might move the most 
 placable nature to resentment. About the time at 
 which Bacon received the Seals, Coke had, on account 
 of his contumacious resistance to the royal pleasure, 
 been deprived of his seat in the Court of King's 
 
346 LORD BACON. 
 
 Bench, and had ever since languished in retirement. 
 But Coke's opposition to the Court, we fear, was the 
 effect not of good principles, but of a bad temper. 
 Perverse and testy as he was, he wanted true for- 
 titude and dignity of character. His obstinacy, 
 unsupported by virtuous motives, was not proof 
 against disgrace. He solicited a reconciliation with 
 the favourite, and his solicitations were successful. 
 Sir John Villiers, the brother of Buckingham, was 
 looking out for a rich wife. Coke had a large fortune 
 and an unmarried daughter. A bargain was struck. 
 But Lady Coke, the lady whom twenty years before 
 Essex had wooed on behalf of Bacon, would not hear 
 of the match. A violent and scandalous family 
 quarrel followed. The mother carried the girl away 
 by stealth. The father pursued them, and regained 
 possession of his daughter by force. The King was 
 then in Scotland, and Buckingham had attended him 
 thither. Bacon was, during their absence, at the 
 head of affairs in England. He felt towards Coke as 
 much malevolence as it was in his nature to feel 
 towards anybody. His wisdom had been laid to 
 sleep by prosperity. In an evil hour he determined 
 to interfere in the disputes which agitated his enemy's 
 household. He declared for the wife, countenanced 
 the Attorney-General in filing an information in the 
 Star Chamber against the husband, and wrote letters 
 to the King and the favourite against the proposed 
 marriage. The strong language which he used in 
 those letters shows that, sagacious as he was, he did 
 not quite know his place, and 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 fa- 
 vourite received the news of the Lord Keeper's 
 interference with feelings of the most violent resent- 
 
LORD BACON. 347 
 
 ment, 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 apologized submissively for his inter- 
 ference. 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 connexion. Having given these proofs of con- 
 trition, he ventured to present himself before Buck- 
 ingham. 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 highest 
 civil functionary in the realm, and the most eminent 
 man of letters in 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 foot-boys, 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 a reconciliation 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 
 
348 LORD BACON. 
 
 passions which had for the first time in his life 
 mastered his prudence. He went through the forms 
 of a reconciliation with Coke, and did his best, by 
 seeking opportunities of paying little civilities, and 
 by avoiding all that could produce collision, to tame 
 the untameable ferocity of his old enemy. 
 
 In the main, however, Bacon's life, while he held 
 the Great Seal, was, in outward 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 occa- 
 sion some of the happiest of his rugged rhymes. All 
 things, he tells us, seemed to smile about the old 
 house, " the fire, the wine, the men." The spectacle 
 of the accomplished host, after a life marked by no 
 great disaster, entering on a green old age, in the 
 enjoyment of riches, power, high honours, undi- 
 minished 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 interesting 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 
 
LORD BACON. 349 
 
 study. On such occasions, a few young men ot 
 distinguished talents were sometimes the companions 
 of his retirement ; and among them his quick eye 
 soon discerned the superior abilities of Thomas 
 Hobbes. It is not probable, however, that he fully 
 appreciated the powers of his disciple, or foresaw the 
 vast influence, both for good and for evil, which that 
 most vigorous and acute of human intellects was 
 destined to exercise on the two succeeding genera- 
 tions. 
 
 In January 1621 Bacon had reached the zenith of 
 his fortunes. He had just published the Novum 
 Organum ; and that extraordinary book had drawn 
 forth the warmest expressions of admiration from the 
 ablest men in Europe. He had obtained honours of a 
 widely different kind, but perhaps not less valued by 
 him. He had been created Baron Verulam. He had 
 subsequently been raised to the higher dignity of 
 Viscount St. Albans. His patent was drawn in the 
 most flattering terms, and the Prince of Wales signed 
 it as a witness. v The ceremony of investiture was 
 performed with great state at Theobalds, and Buck- 
 ingham condescended to be one of the chief actors. 
 Posterity has felt that the greatest of English phi- 
 losophers 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 grati- 
 tude, 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 con- 
 structed intellect that has ever been bestowed on any 
 
350 LORD BACON. 
 
 of the children of men. A sudden and terrible 
 reverse was at hand. A Parliament had been sum- 
 moned. 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. It may be doubted however 
 whether, if he or his ministers had been at all aware 
 of the state of public feeling, they would not have 
 tried any expedient, or borne with any inconvenience, 
 rather than have ventured to face the deputies of a 
 justly exasperated nation. But they did not discern 
 those times. Indeed almost all the political blunders 
 of James, and of his more unfortunate son, arose 
 from one great error. During the fifty years which 
 preceded the Long Parliament a great and progressive 
 change was taking place in the public mind. The 
 nature and extent of this change was not in the least 
 understood by either of the first two Kings of the 
 House of Stuart, or by any of their advisers. That 
 the nation became more and more discontented every 
 year, that every House of Commons was more unma- 
 nageable than that which had preceded it, were facts 
 which it was impossible not to perceive. But the 
 Court could not understand why these things were so. 
 The Court could not see that the English people and 
 the English Government, though they might once 
 have been well suited to each other, were suited to 
 each other no longer ; that the nation had outgrown 
 its old institutions, was every day more uneasy under 
 them, was pressing against them, and would soon 
 burst through them. The alarming phenomena, the 
 existence of which no sycophant could deny, were 
 ascribed to every cause except the true one. " In 
 my first Parliament," said James, " I was a novice. In 
 'my next, there was a kind of beasts called under- 
 
LORD BACON. 351 
 
 takers/' 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 Par- 
 liament gave him more trouble than either the first or 
 the second. 
 
 The Parliament had no sooner met than the House 
 of Commons proceeded, in a temperate and respect- 
 ful, 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 op- 
 pressed 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 influence 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 EarJ. of Kutland. But the difficulties 
 were great. The Earl was haughty and impracti- 
 cable, 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 conscience of 
 the daughter. For these services he had been re- 
 warded with considerable preferment in the Church ; 
 and he was now rapidly rising to the same place in 
 the regard of Buckingham which had formerly been 
 occupied by Bacon. 
 
 Williams was one of those who are wiser for others 
 than for themselves. His own public life was unfor- 
 tunate, and was made unfortunate by his strange 
 want of judgment and self-command at several im- 
 portant 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 
 
352 LORD BACON. 
 
 defending the monopolies, to find some foreign em- 
 bassy for his brother Sir Edward, who was deeply 
 implicated in the villanies of Mompesson, and to leave 
 the other offenders to the justice of Parliament. 
 Buckingham received this advice with the warmest 
 expressions of gratitude, 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 apprehensions. His 
 talents and his 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 ap- 
 pointed to inquire into the state of the Courts of 
 Justice. On the fifteenth of March the chairman of 
 that committee, Sir Robert Philips, member for Bath, 
 reported that great abuses had been discovered. 
 " The person," said he, " against whom these things 
 are alleged is no less than the Lord Chancellor, a man 
 so endued with all parts, both of nature and art, as 
 that I will say no more of him, being not able to say 
 enough." Sir Robert then 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 
 
LORD BACON. 353 
 
 of the hangers-on of the Chancellor that a present of 
 one hundred pounds would expedite matters. The 
 poor man had not the sum required. However, 
 having found out an usurer who accommodated him 
 with it at 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 a killing decree" was pronounced against 
 him. Another suitor of the name of Egerton com- 
 plained that he had been induced by two of the Chan- 
 cellor'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 mes- 
 sage to the Commons, expressing his deep regret that 
 so eminent a person as the Chancellor should be sus- 
 pected of misconduct. His Majesty declared that he 
 had no wish to screen the guilty from justice, and 
 proposed to appoint a new kind of tribunal, consisting 
 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 de- 
 part 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 pre- 
 sent. Overwhelmed with shame and remorse, and 
 abandoned by all those in whom he had weakly put 
 his trust, he had shut himself up in his chamber from 
 the eyes of men. The dejection of his mind soon dis- 
 ordered his body. Buckingham, who visited him by 
 the King's order, " found his Lordship very sick and 
 
 VOL. II. A A 
 
354 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 re- 
 mained in his bed, refusing to see any human being. 
 He passionately told his attendants to leave him, to 
 forget him, never again to name his name, never 
 to remember that there had been such a man in the 
 world. In the mean time, fresh instances of corrup- 
 tion were every day brought to the knowledge of his 
 accusers. The number of charges rapidly increased 
 from two to twenty-three. The Lords entered on the 
 investigation of the case with laudable alacrity. Some 
 witnesses were examined at the bar of the House. A 
 select committee was appointed to take the depositions 
 of others; and the inquiry was rapidly proceeding, 
 when, on the twenty-sixth of March, the King ad- 
 journed the Parliament for three weeks. 
 
 This measure revived Bacon's hopes. He made 
 the most of his short respite. He attempted to work 
 on the feeble mind of the King. He 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 Parliaments? 
 Would God's anointed, accountable to God alone, pay 
 homage to the clamorous multitude? "Those," ex- 
 claimed Bacon, "who now strike at the Chancellor 
 will soon strike at the Crown. I am the first sacri- 
 fice. I wish I may be the last." But all his elo- 
 quence and address were employed in vain. Indeed, 
 whatever Mr. Montagu may say, we are firmly con- 
 vinced 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 over the Parliament to pro- 
 cure an acquittal in so clear a case of guilt. And to 
 
LORD BACON. 355 
 
 dissolve a Parliament which is universally allowed to 
 have been one of the best Parliaments that ever sat, 
 which had acted liberally and respectfully towards 
 the Sovereign, and which enjoyed in the highest de- 
 gree the favour of the people, only in order to stop a 
 grave, temperate, and constitutional inquiry into the 
 personal integrity of the first judge in the kingdom, 
 would have been a measure more scandalous and 
 absurd than any of those which were the ruin of the 
 House of Stuart. Such a measure, while it would 
 have been as fatal to the Chancellor's honour as a 
 conviction, would have endangered the very existence 
 of the monarchy. The King, acting by the advice of 
 Williams, very properly refused to engage in a dan- 
 gerous 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 ad- 
 mire that Prince's conduct, we really think that his 
 advice was, under all the circumstances, the best ad- 
 vice that could have been given. 
 
 On the seventeenth of April the houses reassembled, 
 and the Lords resumed their inquiries into the abuses 
 of the Court of Chancery. On the twenty-second, 
 Bacon addressed to the Peers a letter, which the Prince 
 of Wales 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 thirtieth, he de- 
 livered a paper in which he admitted, with few and 
 unimportant reservations, the truth of the accusations 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 corruption, and do renounce all de- 
 fence." 
 
 The Lords came to a resolution that the Chan- 
 cellor'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 Southampton, the common friend, 
 many years before, of Bacon and Essex, performed 
 their duty with great delicacy. Indeed the agonies 
 of such a mind and the degradation of such a name 
 might well have softened the most obdurate natures. 
 " My Lords," said Bacon, " it is my act, my hand, 
 my heart. I beseech your Lordships to be merciful 
 to a broken reed."- They withdrew; and he again 
 retired to his chamber in the deepest dejection. The 
 next day, the sergeant-at-arms and the usher of the 
 House of Lords came to conduct him to Westminster 
 Hall, where sentence was to be pronounced. But 
 they found him so unwell that he could not leave his 
 bed ; and this excuse for his absence was readily ac- 
 cepted. In no quarter does there appear to have 
 been the smallest desire to add to his humiliation. 
 
 The sentence was, however, severe, the more severe, 
 no doubt, because the lords knew that it would not 
 be executed, and that they had an excellent oppor- 
 tunity 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 incapable of 
 holding any office in the State or of sitting in Parlia- 
 ment ; and he was banished for life from the verge of 
 
LOED BACON. 357 
 
 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 joy and through torment, through glory and 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 after- 
 wards 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 had 
 thought that Bacon had a good defence, they would 
 have prevented him from making it. What conceiv- 
 able motive had they for doing so ? Mr. Montagu 
 perpetually repeats that it was their interest to sacri- 
 fice Bacon. But he overlooks an obvious distinction. 
 It was their interest to sacrifice Bacon on the sup- 
 position of his guilt ; but not on the supposition of 
 his innocence. James was very properly unwilling 
 to run the risk of protecting his Chancellor against 
 the Parliament. But if the Chancellor had been 
 able, by force of argument, to obtain an acquittal 
 from the Parliament, we have no doubt that both the 
 King and Yilliers would have heartily rejoiced. They 
 would have rejoiced, not merely on account of their 
 friendship for Bacon, which seems, however, to have 
 
 a A 3 
 
358 LOED BACON. 
 
 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 Chancellor because 
 they were unable to avert his disgrace, and unwilling 
 to share it. Mr. Montagu mistakes effect for cause. 
 He thinks that Bacon did not prove his innocence, 
 because he was not supported by the Court. The 
 truth evidently is that the Court did not venture to 
 support Bacon, because he could not prove his inno- 
 cence. 
 
 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 judicial 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 innocent, 
 must be a monster of servility and impudence. Ba- 
 con was, to say nothing of his highest claims to re- 
 spect, a gentleman, a nobleman, a scholar, a statesman, 
 a man of the first consideration in society, a man far 
 advanced in years. Is it possible to believe that such 
 a man would, to gratify any human being, irreparably 
 ruin his own character by his own act? Imagine a 
 grey-headed judge, full of years and honours, owning 
 with tears, with pathetic assurances of his penitence 
 and of his sincerity, that he has been guilty of shame- 
 ful mal-practices, repeatedly asseverating the truth of 
 his confession, subscribing it with his own hand, sub- 
 mitting to conviction, receiving a humiliating sentence 
 and acknowledging its justice, and all this when he 
 has it in his power to show that his conduct has been 
 irreproachable ! The thing is incredible. But if we 
 admit it to be true, what must we think of such a 
 
LORD BACON. 359 
 
 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 pre- 
 sents were not taken as bribes. 
 
 Mr. Montagu brings forward many facts in sup- 
 port 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, forgot decorum 
 so far that he ventured to designate the learned persons 
 who presided in that court, as 3ao-*xSja£ %a>po<payoi>s, 
 Plutarch and Diodorus have handed down to the 
 latest ages the respectable name of Anytus, the son of 
 Anthemion, the first defendant who, eluding all the 
 safeguards which the ingenuity of Solon could devise, 
 succeeded in corrupting a bench of Athenian judges. 
 
 A a 4 
 
360 LORD BACON. 
 
 We are indeed so far from grudging Mr. Montagu the 
 aid of Greece, that we will give him Rome into the 
 bargain. We acknowledge that the honourable se- 
 nators who tried Verres received presents which 
 were worth more than the fee-simple of York House 
 and Gorhambury together, and that the no less ho- 
 nourable senators and knights who professed to 
 believe in the alibi of Clodius obtained marks still 
 more extraordinary of the esteem and gratitude of the 
 defendant. In short, we are ready to admit that, 
 before Bacon's time, and in Bacon's time, judges were 
 in the habit of receiving gifts from suitors. 
 
 But is this a defence? We think not. The rob- 
 beries of Cacus and Barabbas are no apology 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 Oates and 
 Dangerfield. Mr. Montagu has confounded two 
 things which it is necessary carefully to distinguish 
 from each other, if we wish to form a correct judg- 
 ment of the characters of men of other countries and 
 other times. That an immoral action is, in a parti- 
 cular society, generally considered as innocent, is a 
 good plea for an individual who, being one of that 
 society, and having adopted the notions which prevail 
 among his neighbours, 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 gene- 
 rally 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 respectable people as an innocent and bene- 
 ficial traffic, he went, largely provided with hymn- 
 books and handcuffs, on a Guinea voyage. But the 
 
LORD BACON. 361 
 
 circumstance that there are twenty 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 discoveries 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 many others have done the same. We 
 should be ashamed of spending so much time in 
 pointing out so clear a distinction, but that Mr. Mon- 
 tagu 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 gene- 
 rally considered as innocent ; and we admit that he 
 has made out his point. But this we defy him to do. 
 That these practices were common we admit. But 
 they were common just as all wickedness to which 
 there is strong temptation always was and always will 
 be common. They were common just as theft, cheat- 
 ing, perjury, adultery have ' always been common. 
 They were common, not because people did not know 
 what was right, but because people liked to do what 
 was wrong. They were common, though prohibited 
 by law. They were common, though condemned by 
 public opinion. They were common, because in that 
 age law and public opinion united had not sufficient 
 force to restrain the greediness of powerful and un- 
 principled magistrates. They were common, as every 
 crime will be common when the gain to which it 
 leads is great, and the chance of punishment small. 
 But, though common, they were universally 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 
 
362 LORD BACON. 
 
 then entertained concerning 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 be- 
 fore 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 forci- 
 ble rhetoric of the brave old bishop. We shall select 
 a few passages as fair specimens, and no more than 
 fair specimens, of the rest. " Omnes diligunt munera. 
 They all love bribes. Bribery is a princely kind of 
 thieving. They will be waged by the rich, either to 
 give sentence against the poor, or to put off the poor 
 man's cause. This is the noble theft of princes and 
 magistrates. They are bribe-takers. Nowadays they 
 call them gentle rewards. Let them leave their colour- 
 ing, and call them by their Christian name — bribes." 
 And again; " Cambyses was a great emperor, such 
 another as our master is. He had many lord depu- 
 ties, lord presidents, 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 fol- 
 lowed 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 laid his skin in the chair of judg- 
 ment, that all judges that should give judgment 
 afterward should sit in the same skin. Surely it was 
 a goodly sign, a goodly monument, the sign of the 
 judge's skin. I pray God we may once see the skin 
 in England." " I am sure," says he in another ser- 
 
LORD BACON. 363 
 
 mon, " this is scala infer ni, the right way to hell, to 
 be covetous, to take bribes, and pervert justice. If a 
 judge should ask me the way to hell, I would show 
 him this way. First, let him be a covetous man ; let 
 his heart be poisoned with covetousness. Then let 
 him go a little further and take bribes ; 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 perverting 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 my Lord Chancellor himself, to Ty- 
 burn with him." We will quote but one more pas- 
 sage. " He that took the silver basin and ewer for 
 a bribe, thinketh that it will never come out. But 
 he may now know that I know it, and I know it not 
 alone; there be more beside me that 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. 
 For what needeth bribing where men do their things 
 uprightly ?" 
 
 This was not the language of a great philosopher 
 who had made new discoveries in moral and political 
 science. It was the plain talk of a plain man, 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 ex- 
 posed the misdeeds 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 " Llave 
 
364 LORD BACON. 
 
 at them, Father Latimer." It is plain, from the pas- 
 sages which we have quoted, and from fifty others 
 which we might quote, that, long before Bacon was 
 born, the accepting of presents by a judge was known 
 to be a wicked and shameful act, that the fine words 
 under which it was the fashion to veil such corrupt 
 practices were even then seen through by the common 
 people, that the distinction on which Mr. Montagu 
 insists between compliments and bribes was even then 
 laughed at as a mere colouring. There may be some 
 oratorical exaggeration in what Latimer says about 
 the Tyburn tippet and the sign of the judge's skin ; 
 but the fact that he ventured to use such expressions 
 is amply sufficient to prove that the gift-taking 
 judges, the receivers of silver basins and ewers, were 
 regarded as such pests of the commonwealth that a 
 venerable divine might, without any breach of Chris- 
 tian charity, publicly pray to God for their detection 
 and their condign punishment. 
 
 Mr. Montagu tells us, most justly, that we ought 
 not to transfer the opinions of our age to a former 
 age. But he has himself committed a greater error 
 than that against which he has cautioned his readers. 
 Without any evidence, nay, in the face of the strongest 
 evidence, he ascribes to the people of a former age a 
 set of opinions which no people ever held. But any 
 hypothesis is in his view more probable than that 
 Bacon should have been a dishonest man. We firmly 
 believe that, if papers were to be discovered which 
 should irresistibly prove that Bacon was concerned 
 in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, Mr. Mon- 
 tagu 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 
 
LORD BACON. 365 
 
 evidence, when the proceeding against Lord Bacon is 
 itself the best evidence on the subject? When Mr. 
 Montagu tells us that we ought not to transfer the opi- 
 nions of our age to Bacon's age, he appears altogether 
 to forget that it was by men of Bacon's own age that 
 Bacon was prosecuted, tried, convicted, and sentenced. 
 Did not they know what their own opinions were 1 
 Did not they know whether they thought the taking 
 of gifts by a judge a crime or not ? Mr. Montagu 
 complains bitterly that Bacon was induced to abstain 
 from making a defence. But, if Bacon's defence re- 
 sembled 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 con- 
 sider such practices as those in which they had de- 
 tected him, as at all culpable. Mr. Montagu's pro- 
 position may indeed be fairly 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 some- 
 what improbable. Will any person say that the 
 Commons who impeached Bacon for taking presents, 
 and the Lords who sentenced him to fine, imprison- 
 ment, 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 seek- 
 ing occasion to ruin Bacon, and that they therefore 
 brought him to punishment on charges which they 
 themselves knew to be frivolous. In no quarter was 
 there the faintest indication of a disposition to treat 
 
366 LOKD BACON. 
 
 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 credit- 
 able 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 con- 
 victed, 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 man among our readers. Demosthenes noticed 
 it with contempt more than two thousand years ago. 
 Latimer, we have seen, treated this sophistry with 
 similar disdain. " Leave colouring," said he, " and 
 call these things by their Christian name, bribes." 
 Mr. Montagu attempts, somewhat unfairly, we must 
 say, to represent the presents which Bacon received 
 as similar to the perquisites which suitors paid to the 
 members of the Parliaments of France. The French 
 
LORD BACON; 367 
 
 magistrate had a legal right to his fee ; and the 
 amount of the fee was regulated 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 corruptly, because he employed 
 the agency of men of rank, of bishops, privy coun- 
 cillors, and members of Parliament ; as if the whole 
 history of that generation was not full of the low 
 actions of high people ; as if it was not notorious 
 that men, as exalted in rank as any of the decoys 
 that Bacon employed, had pimped for Somerset, and 
 poisoned Overbury. 
 
 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 Com- 
 pany of Apothecaries and the Company of Grocers. 
 Bacon, in his Confession, insisted strongly on the 
 circumstance that he had on this occasion taken a 
 present publicly, as a proof that he had not taken it 
 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 in- 
 sists 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 
 
368 LOKD BACON. 
 
 on that occasion acted openly, because lie was acting 
 honestly. He was not on that occasion sitting judi- 
 cially. He was called in to effect an amicable arrange- 
 ment 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 
 circumstances, may be questioned. But there is no 
 ground in this case for accusing him of corruption. 
 
 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 that he received a present pub- 
 licly. The natural inference is that in all the other 
 cases mentioned in the articles against him he received 
 presents secretly. When we examine the single case 
 in which he alleges that he received a present pub- 
 licly, 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 appear- 
 ance, 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 influ- 
 enced Bacon's judgment, as he had decided against 
 them." 
 
 The truth is, that it is precisely in this way that an 
 extensive system of 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 
 
LOED BACON. 369 
 
 has his quid pro quo. He is not impelled either by 
 interested or by vindictive motives to bring the trans- 
 action 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 prac- 
 tises corruption, as we fear that Bacon practised it, 
 on a large scale, and has many agents looking out in 
 different quarters for prey, it will sometimes happen 
 that he will be bribed on both sides. It will some- 
 times happen that he will receive money from suitors 
 who are so obviously in the wrong that he cannot 
 with deceDcy 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. 
 
 The memorable case of the Goezmans is an example 
 of this. Beaumarchais had an important suit de- 
 pending before the Parliament of Paris. M. Goezman 
 was the judge on whom chiefly the decision depended. 
 It was hinted to Beaumarchais that Madame Goezman 
 might be propitiated by a present. He accordingly 
 offered a purse of gold to the lady, who received it 
 graciously. There can be no doubt that, if the deci- 
 sion 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 
 malevolence, 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 daunt- 
 
 VOL. II. B B 
 
370 , LORD BACON. 
 
 less effrontery, and of such eminent talents for con- 
 troversy 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 dis- 
 closures ruinous to himself. We could give other 
 instances. But it is needless. No person well ac- 
 quainted 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 pronounced 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 him a pension of twelve 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 nobleman of that generation, and which was cer- 
 tainly 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 mag- 
 nificence to which he had been accustomed in the 
 time of his power and prosperity. No pressure of 
 distress could induce him to part with the woods of 
 
LORD BACON. 371 
 
 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 the road, exclaimed with 
 surprise, " Well ; do what we can, this man scorns to 
 go out in snuff." This carelessness and ostentation 
 reduced Bacon 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 vexations, 
 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. 
 
 But, whatever might be his pecuniary difficulties or 
 his conjugal discomforts, the powers of his intellect 
 still remained undiminished. Those noble studies for 
 which he had found leisure in the midst of profes- 
 sional drudgery and of courtly intrigues gave to this 
 last sad stage of his life a dignity beyond what power 
 or titles could bestow. Impeached, convicted, sen- 
 tenced, driven with ignominy from the presence of 
 hi's Sovereign, shut out from the deliberations of his 
 fellow nobles, loaded with debt, branded with dis- 
 honour, sinking under the weight of years, sorrows, 
 and diseases, Bacon was Bacon still. " My conceit 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 he 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 Bacon rendered to letters during 
 the last live years of his life, amidst ten thousand 
 distractions and vexations, increase the regret, with 
 
 b b 2 
 
372 
 
 LOED BACON. 
 
 which we think on the many years which he had 
 wasted, to use the words of Sir Thomas Bodley, " 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 
 Eomance. He made extensive and valuable additions 
 to his essays. He published the inestimable Treatise 
 De Augmentis Scientiarum. The very trifles with 
 which he amused himself in hours of pain and lan- 
 guor bore the mark of his mind. The best collection 
 of jests in the world is that which he dictated from 
 memory, without referring to any book, on a day on 
 which illness had 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 impos- 
 sible for him to return to Gray's Inn. The Earl of 
 Arundel, with whom he was well acquainted, had a 
 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 
 Easter-day, 1626. His mind appears to have 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 
 
LORD BACON. 373 
 
 to mention that the experiment of the snow had suc- 
 ceeded " excellently well." 
 
 Our opinion of the moral character of this great 
 man has already been sufficiently explained. Had 
 his life been passed in literary 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 expressed with singular brevity, 
 energy, dignity, and pathos, a mournful conscious- 
 ness that his actions had not been such as to entitle 
 him to the esteem of those under whose observation 
 his life 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 bene- 
 factors of mankind. So at least we understand those 
 striking words which have been often quoted, but 
 which we must quote once more ; " For my name and 
 memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and 
 to foreign nations, and to the next age." 
 
 His confidence was just. From the day of his 
 death his fame has been constantly and steadily pro- 
 gressive ; and we have no doubt that his name will be 
 named with reverence to the latest ages, and to the 
 remotest ends of the civilised world. 
 
 The chief peculiarity of Bacon's philosophy seems 
 to us to have been this, that it aimed at things alto- 
 gether 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, "Omnium 
 gravissimus error in deviatione ab ultimo doctrinarum 
 fine consistit."f " Nee ipsa meta," says he elsewhere, 
 
 * Novum Organum, Lib. 1. Aph. 81. \ De Augmentis, Lib. 1. 
 
 BB 3 
 
374 LOKD BACON. 
 
 " adhuc ulli, quod sciam, mortalium posita est et de- 
 fixa."* 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 philoso- 
 phers, 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 enjoy- 
 ments and the mitigating of human sufferings. It 
 was " the relief of man's estate." f It was "commodis 
 humanis inservire."J It was " efficaciter operari ad 
 sublevanda vitas humanas incommoda." § It was 
 "dotare vitam humanam novis inventis et copiis."|i 
 It was " genus humanum novis operibus et potestati- 
 bus continuo dotare." ^f This was the object of all his 
 speculations in every department of science, in natu- 
 ral philosophy, in legislation, in politics, in morals. 
 
 Two words form the key of the Baconian doc- 
 trine, Utility and Progress. The ancient philosophy 
 disdained to be useful, and was content to be sta- 
 tionary. It dealt largely in theories of moral per- 
 fection, which were so sublime that they never could 
 be more than theories ; in attempts to solve insoluble 
 enigmas ; in exhortations to the attainment of un- 
 attainable frames of mind. It could not condescend 
 to the humble office of ministering to the comfort of 
 human beings. All the schools contemned that office 
 as degrading; some censured it as immoral. Once 
 indeed Posidonius, a distinguished writer of the age 
 of Cicero and Caesar, so far forgot himself as to enu- 
 merate, among the humbler blessings which mankind 
 owed to philosophy, the discovery of the principle of 
 
 * Cogitata et visa. t Advancement of Learning, Book 1. 
 
 % De Augmentis, Lib. 7- Cap. 1. § De Augmentis, Lib. 2. Cap. 2. 
 || Novum Organum, Lib. 1. Aph. 81. IT Cogitata et visa. 
 
LORD BACON. 375 
 
 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 dis- 
 claims 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 uses of metals. She teaches us to 
 be independent of all material substances, of all me- 
 chanical contrivances. The wise man lives according 
 to nature. Instead of attempting 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 win- 
 dows, tubes for diffusing warmth equally through all 
 parts of a building, short-hand, which has been car- 
 ried 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 : philo- 
 sophy 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, instrumento- 
 rum 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 
 much resemble several expressions in the Novum Or- 
 ganum. " We shall next be told," exclaims Seneca, 
 " that the first shoemaker was a philosopher." For 
 our own part, if we are forced to make our choice 
 
 * Seneca, Epist. 90. 
 B B 4 
 
376 LORD BACON. 
 
 between the first shoemaker, and the author of the 
 three books On Anger, we pronounce for the shoe- 
 maker. 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 anybody from being 
 angry. 
 
 It is very reluctantly that Seneca can be brought 
 to confess that any philosopher had ever paid the 
 smallest attention to anything that could possibly 
 promote what vulgar people would consider as the 
 well-being of mankind. He labours to clear Demo- 
 critus 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 phi- 
 losopher that he either wins a race or invents a 
 machine. No, to be sure. The business of a phi- 
 losopher was to declaim in praise of poverty with 
 two millions sterling out at usury, to meditate epi- 
 grammatic 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 di- 
 vine beauty of virtue 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 de- 
 lightful 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 quae nunc edo, et in iis 
 quae in posterum meditor, dignitatem ingenii et no- 
 minis mei, si qua sit, saspius sciens et volens projicio, 
 
LORD BACON. 377 
 
 dum commodis humanis inserviam ; quique architec- 
 tus fortasse in philosopliia et scientiis esse debeam, 
 etiam operarius, et bajulus, et quidvis demum fio, 
 cum baud pauca qua? omnino fieri necesse sit, alii 
 autem ob innatam superbiam subterfugiant, ipse sus- 
 tineam et exsequar."* This philanthropic 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 plea- 
 sure or pain to the meanest, is the great characteristic 
 distinction, the essential spirit of the Baconian philo- 
 sophy. 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 referred tainted the whole body of 
 the ancient philosophy from the time of Socrates 
 dbwnwards, and took possession of intellects with 
 which that of Seneca cannot for a moment be com- 
 pared. 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 
 constantly maintained that the earlier Greek specu- 
 lators, Democritus in particular, were, on the whole, 
 superior to their more celebrated successors, f 
 
 * Be Augmentis, Lib. 7« Cap. 1. 
 
 t Novum Organum, Lib. 1. Aph. 71. 79' De Augmentis, Lib. 3. 
 Cap. 4. De principiis atque originibus. Cogitata et visa. Redargutio 
 philosophiarum. 
 
378 LORD BACON. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 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 its 
 fruits, our opinion of it may perhaps be less favour- 
 able. 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 in- 
 tellect. We find among their writings incomparable 
 specimens both of dialectical and rhetorical art. We 
 have no doubt that the ancient controversies 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 gente 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 
 
 * Novum Organum, Lib. 1. Aph. 73. 
 
LOKD BACON. 379 
 
 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 pedes- 
 trian may show as much muscular vigour on a tread- 
 mill 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 
 acknowledge 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 
 with the surly centurion in Persius, " Cur quis non 
 prandeat hoc est ?" What is the highest good, whether 
 pain be an evil, whether all things be fated, whether 
 we can be certain 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 ques- 
 tions 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 such disputes could add nothing to the 
 stock of knowledge. The human mind accordingly, 
 instead of marching, merely marked time. It took as 
 much trouble as would have sufficed to carry it for- 
 ward; 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 be- 
 
380 LORD BACON. 
 
 queathed to another, to be again transmitted with 
 large additions to a third. Where this philosophy 
 was in the time of Cicero, there it continued 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 of ingenuity, of zeal, of industry. 
 Every trace of intellectual cultivation was there, 
 except a harvest. There had been plenty of plough- 
 ing, 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 im- 
 portance of that study. But why? Not because it 
 tended to assuage suffering, to multiply the con- 
 veniences of life, to extend the empire of man over 
 the material world; 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 exer- 
 cise. It was made subsidiary to the art of disputa- 
 tion ; and it consequently proved altogether barren of 
 useful discoveries. 
 
 There was one sect which, however absurd and per- 
 nicious 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 
 
 * Seneca, Nat. Qucest. prcef. Lib. 3. 
 
LORD BACON. 381 
 
 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 improvements 
 were to be expected in the arts which conduce to the 
 comfort of life, 
 
 (i Ad victum quae flagitat usus 
 Omnia jam ferme mortalibus esse parata." 
 
 This contented despondency, this disposition to ad- 
 mire 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 Pro- 
 gress. 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 philosophy. Century after century 
 they continued to repeat their hostile war-cries, Virtue 
 and Pleasure ; and in the end it appeared that the Epi- 
 curean 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 ought to be inscribed : 
 
 ec O tenebris tantis tam clarum extollere lumen 
 Qui primus potuisti, illustrans commoda vitae." 
 
 In the fifth century Christianity had conquered 
 Paganism, 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, though with great pomp and solemnity, — 
 we quote the language of Bacon, — was the ill-starred 
 alliance stricken between the old philosophy and the 
 new faith.* Questions widely different from those 
 
 * Cogitata et visa. 
 
382 LORD BACON. 
 
 which had employed the ingenuity of Pyrrho and 
 Carneades, but just as subtle, just as interminable, and 
 just as unprofitable, exercised the minds of the lively 
 and voluble Greeks. When learning began to revive 
 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 under- 
 took 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 
 inventor of gunpowder appears to have been contem- 
 porary with Petrarch and Boccaccio. The inventor 
 of printing was certainly 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 themselves, or than 
 those ancient writers of whom they were the en- 
 thusiastic votaries. 
 
 At length the time arrived when the barren philo- 
 sophy 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 
 
LORD BACON. 383 
 
 many creeds. It had survived 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, like 
 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 
 philosophical research, did much towards destroying 
 that blind reverence for authority which had prevailed 
 when Aristotle ruled alone. The rise of the Floren- 
 tine 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 good. But anything was better than 
 the old habit of unreasoning servility. It was some- 
 thing to have a choice of tyrants. " A spark of 
 freedom," as Gibbon has justly remarked, " was pro- 
 duced by this collision of adverse servitude." 
 
 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 be- 
 tween 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 chiefs of the schism treated 
 the Peripatetic philosophy with contempt, and spoke 
 of Aristotle as if Aristotle had been answerable for 
 all the dogmas of Thomas Aquinas. " Nullo apud 
 Lutheranos philosophiam esse in pretio," was a re- 
 
384 LORD BACON. 
 
 proach which the defenders of the Church of Rome 
 loudly repeated, and which many of the Protestant 
 leaders considered as a compliment. Scarcely any 
 text was more frequently cited by the reformers 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 be struggled for by pretenders. 
 
 The first effect of this great revolution was, as 
 Bacon most justly observed*, 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 compositions of the Au- 
 gustan age, regarded with loathing the dry, crabbed, 
 and barbarous diction of respondents and opponents. 
 They were far less studious about the matter of their 
 writing than about the manner. They succeeded in 
 reforming Latinity; but they never even aspired to 
 effect a reform in philosophy. 
 
 At this time Bacon appeared. It is altogether in- 
 correct to say, as has often been said, that he was the 
 first man who rose up against the Aristotelian philo- 
 sophy when in the height of its power. The au- 
 
 * De Augmentis, Lib. 1. 
 
LORD BACON. 385 
 
 thority of that philosophy had, as we have shown, 
 received a fatal blow long before he was born. Se- 
 veral speculators, among whom Ramus is the best 
 known, had recently attempted to form new sects. 
 Bacon's own 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 
 coepit tanquam aspera et barbara."* The part which 
 Bacon played in this great change was the part, not 
 of Robespierre, but of Bonaparte. The ancient order 
 of things had been subverted. Some 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, 
 they 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 also in object. Its object was the good of man- 
 kind, in the sense in which the mass of mankind always 
 have understood and always will understand the word 
 good. " Meditor," said Bacon, " instaurationem phi- 
 losophise ejusmodi quae nihil inanis aut abstracti ha- 
 beat, quseque vitse humanse conditiones in melius 
 provehat." f 
 
 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 
 important subjects with those of Plato. We select 
 Plato, because we conceive that he did more than any 
 
 * Both these passages are in the first book of the De Augmentis. 
 f Redargutio Philosophiarum. 
 
 VOL. II. C C 
 
386 LORD BACON. 
 
 other person towards giving to the minds of specu- 
 lative men that bent which they retained till they 
 received from Bacon 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 important 
 advantage. The study of the properties of numbers, 
 he tells us, habituates the mind to the contemplation 
 of pure truth, and raises us above the material uni- 
 verse. 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 arith- 
 metic of the later Platonists, and laments the pro- 
 pensity of mankind to employ, on mere matters of 
 curiosity, powers the whole exertion of which is re- 
 quired for purposes of solid advantage. He advises 
 arithmeticians to leave these trifles, and to employ 
 themselves in framing convenient expressions, which 
 may be of use in physical researches.^ 
 
 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 geo- 
 metricians, he says, will not understand him. They 
 have practice always in view. They do not know 
 
 * Plato's Republic, Book 7. t ® e Augmentis, Lib. 3. Cap. 6. 
 
LORD BACON. 387 
 
 that the real use of the science is to lead man to the 
 knowledge of abstract, essential, eternal truth.* In- 
 deed, 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 extraor- 
 dinary power on mathematical principles, f Plato 
 remonstrated with his friend, and declared that this 
 was to degrade a noble intellectual exercise into a low 
 craft, fit only for carpenters and wheelwrights. The 
 office of geometry, he said, was to discipline the mind, 
 not to minister to the base wants of the body. His 
 interference was successful ; and from that time, ac- 
 cording to Plutarch, the science of mechanics was 
 considered as unworthy of the attention of a philo- 
 sopher. 
 
 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 diame- 
 trically opposed to that of the ancient philosophers. 
 He valued geometry chiefly, if not solely, on account 
 of those uses, which to Plato appeared so base. And 
 it is remarkable that the longer Bacon lived the 
 stronger this feeling became. When in 1605 he wrote 
 the two books on the Advancement of Learning, he 
 
 * Plato's Republic, Book 7. 
 
 t Plutarch, Sympos. viii. and Life of Marcellus. The machines of 
 Archytas are also mentioned by Aulus Gellius and Diogenes Laertius. 
 
 cc 2 
 
388 LORD BACON. 
 
 dwelt on the advantages which mankind derived from 
 mixed mathematics ; but he at the same time ad- 
 mitted that the beneficial effect produced by mathe- 
 matical study on 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. When, near 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 mathemati- 
 corum." Assuming the well-being of the human 
 race to be the end of knowledge*, he pronounced 
 that mathematical science could claim no higher rank 
 than that of an appendage or an auxiliary to other 
 sciences. Mathematical science, he says, is the hand- 
 maid of natural philosophy; she ought to demean 
 herself as such ; and he declares that he cannot con- 
 ceive by what ill chance it has happened that she 
 presumes to claim precedence over her mistress. 
 He predicts — a prediction 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 mathematics. 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 inadvertence. His own 
 treatise was before him. From that treatise he de- 
 liberately 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 explanation. 
 Bacon's love of those pursuits which directly tend to 
 improve the condition of mankind, and his jealousy of 
 
 * Usui et commodis hominum consulimus. 
 
LORD BACON. 389 
 
 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.* 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 Koman 
 matrons who swallowed abortives in order to preserve 
 their shapes, takes pains to be barren for fear of 
 being homely. 
 
 Let us pass to astronomy. 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 ?"f "I 
 think so," answers his young friend Glaucon : "to 
 know something about the seasons, the months, and 
 the ^ears 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 Socrates considers as 
 of little value. The appearances which make the sky 
 
 Compare the passage relating to mathematics in the Second Book 
 of the Advancement of Learning with the De Augmentis, Lib. 3. 
 Cap. 6". 
 
 t Plato's Republic , Book 7. 
 
 C C 3 
 
390 LORD BACON. 
 
 beautiful at night are, he tells us, like the figures 
 which a geometrician draws on the sand, mere ex- 
 amples, mere helps to feeble minds. We must get 
 beyond them ; we must 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 astronomy which should set forth the nature, the 
 motion, and the influences of the heavenly bodies, as 
 they really are. J 
 
 On the greatest and most useful of all human in- 
 ventions, the invention of alphabetical 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, 
 in his opinion, soon became indispensable to those who 
 used it, which made vigorous exertion first unneces- 
 sary, and then impossible. The powers of the intellect 
 would, he conceived, have been more fully developed 
 without this delusive aid. Men would have been com- 
 pelled to exercise the understanding and the memory, 
 and, by deep and assiduous meditation, to make truth 
 
 * De Augmentis, Lib. 3. Cap. 4. t Astronomia viva. 
 
 "£ " Quae substantiam et motum et influxum ccelestium, prout re 
 vera sunt proponat." Compare this language with Plato's, " t« §' ev tu> 
 
LORD BACON. 391 
 
 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 in- 
 formation 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.f Indeed they are in 
 perfect accordance with the whole Platonic system. 
 
 Bacon's views, as may easily be supposed, were 
 widely different. J 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 extra- 
 ordinary 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 man- 
 kind. 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 of much 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 to be of 
 very disputable advantage. § He did not indeed 
 object to quick cures for acute disorders, or for inju- 
 ries produced by accidents. But the art which resists 
 the slow sap of a chronic disease, which repairs frames 
 
 * Plato's Phcedrus. f Quinctilian, XI. 
 
 % Be Augmentis, Lib. 5. Cap. 5. § Plato's Republic. Book 3. 
 
 c c 4 
 
392 LORD BACON. 
 
 enervated by lust, swollen by gluttony, or inflamed 
 by wine, which encourages sensuality by mitigating 
 the natural punishment of the sensualist, and pro- 
 longs 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 of the art of medicine 
 ought, he said, 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, for severe 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 philosophy. 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 iEsculapius, 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 valetu- 
 
LORD BACON. 393 
 
 dinarian 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 Timseus 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 philoso- 
 pher 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 men 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 com- 
 mencement of the Dialogue on Laws, lays it down 
 as a fundamental principle that the end of legislation 
 is to make men virtuous. It is unnecessary to point 
 out the extravagant conclusions to which such a pro- 
 position 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 pur- 
 pose of promoting virtue. The view which he has 
 given of the end of legislation, and of the principal 
 
 * De Augmentis, Lib. 4. Cap. 2. 
 
394 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 quern leges intueri atque 
 ad quern jussiones et sanctiones suas dirigere debent, 
 non alius est quam ut cives feliciter degant. Id net 
 si pietate et religione recte instituti, moribus honesti, 
 armis adversus hostes externos tuti, legum auxilio ad- 
 versus seditiones et privatas injurias muniti, imperio 
 et magistratibus obsequentes, copiis et opibus locu- 
 pletes et norentes 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 ene- 
 mies; the maintaining of internal order ; the establish- 
 ing 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 opi- 
 nion between the Greek and the Englishman. Plato 
 thought a preamble essential ; Bacon thought it mis- 
 chievous. Each was 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 con- 
 vinced the reason nor touched the heart, must be a 
 most imperfect law. He was not content with de- 
 terring 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 obedi- 
 ence 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. He really seems to have believed that, by 
 prefixing to every law an eloquent and pathetic ex» 
 
 * Be Augmentis, Lib. 8. Cap. 3. A ph. 5. 
 
LORD BACON. 395 
 
 hortation, he should, to a great extent, render penal 
 enactments superfluous. Bacon entertained no such 
 romantic hopes ; and he well knew the practical in- 
 conveniences of the course which Plato recommended. 
 " Neque nobis," says he, " prologi legum qui inepti 
 olim habiti sunt, et leges introducunt disputantes non 
 jubentes, utique placerent, si priscos mores ferre 
 possemus .... Quantum fieri potest prologi evitentur, 
 et lex incipiat a jussione."* 
 
 Each of the great men whom we have compared 
 intended to illustrate his system by a philosophical 
 romance; and each left his romance imperfect. Had 
 Plato lived to finish the Critias, a comparison between 
 that noble fiction and the New Atlantis would pro- 
 bably have furnished us with still more striking in- 
 stances than any which we have given. It is amusing 
 to think with what horror he would have seen such 
 an institution as Solomon's House rising in his re- 
 public ; with what vehemence he would have ordered 
 the brewhouses, the perfume-houses, and the dis- 
 pensatories to be pulled down ; and with what inex- 
 orable 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 with what he requires while he continues to be 
 man. The aim of the Platonic philosophy was to 
 raise us far above vulgar wants. The aim of the 
 Baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants. 
 The former aim was noble ; but the latter was attain- 
 able. Plato drew a good bow ; but, like Acestes in 
 Virgil, he aimed at the stars ; and therefore, though 
 there was no want of strength or skill, the shot was 
 
 * De Augmentis, Lib. 8. Cap. 3. Aph. 69. 
 
396 LORD BACON. 
 
 thrown away. His arrow was indeed followed by a 
 track of dazzling radiance, but it struck nothing. 
 
 " Volans liquidis in nubibus 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 ex- 
 ercising boundless dominion over the finest of human 
 languages. The philosophy of Bacon began in ob- 
 servations and ended in arts. 
 
 The boast of the ancient philosophers was that their 
 doctrine formed the minds of men to a high degree 
 of wisdom and virtue. This was indeed the only 
 practical good which the most celebrated of those 
 teachers even pretended to effect ; and undoubtedly, 
 if they had effected this, they would have deserved 
 far higher praise than if they had discovered the most 
 salutary medicines or constructed the most powerful 
 machines. But the truth is that, in those very matters 
 in which alone they professed to do any good to man- 
 kind, in those very matters for the sake of which they 
 neglected all the vulgar interests of mankind, they 
 did nothing, or worse than nothing. They promised 
 what was impracticable ; they despised what was 
 practicable ; they filled the word 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. The 
 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 
 
LORD BACON. 397 
 
 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 tooth- 
 ache just as little as their neighbours. A philosophy 
 which should extinguish cupidity would be better 
 than a philosophy which should devise laws for the 
 security of property. But it is possible to make 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. From the testimony 
 of friends as well as of foes, from the confessions of 
 Epictetus 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 
 neighbours, 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 every year makes an addition to what Bacon 
 called "fruit." They cannot deny that mankind 
 have made, and are making, great and constant pro- 
 gress in the road which he pointed out to them. 
 Was there any such progressive movement among 
 the ancient philosophers ? After they had been de- 
 claiming eight hundred years, had they made the 
 world better than when they began? Our belief is 
 that, among the philosophers themselves, instead of a 
 progressive improvement there was a progressive de- 
 generacy. An abject superstition which Democritus 
 or Anaxagoras would have rejected with scorn added 
 the last disgrace to the long dotage of the Stoic and 
 Platonic schools. Those unsuccessful attempts to 
 articulate which are so delightful and interesting in a 
 child shock and disgust us in an aged paralytic 5 and 
 
398 LORD BACON. 
 
 in the same way, those wild 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, cutlery, 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 during many hundreds of years, a vast 
 moral amelioration must have taken place. Was it 
 so? Look at the schools of this wisdom four centu- 
 ries 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 phi- 
 losophy confessed, nay boasted, that for every end but 
 one it was useless. Had it attained that one end? 
 
 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, Socrates posed 
 Protagoras and Hippias ; during those thousand years 
 a large proportion of the ablest men of every genera- 
 tion has been employed in constant efforts to bring to 
 perfection the philosophy which you teach ; that phi- 
 losophy has been munificently patronised by the 
 powerful ; its professors have been held in the highest 
 esteem by the public ; 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 
 
LORD BACON. 399 
 
 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 war- 
 rior; 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 
 has 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 intercourse, 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 
 run ten knots an hour against the wind. These are 
 but a part of its fruits, and of its first fruits. 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 durable fame chiefly to this, that 
 all those powers received their direction from common 
 sense. His love of the vulgar useful, his strong sym- 
 pathy 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 
 
400 LORD BACON. 
 
 system no cant, no illusion. He had no anointing 
 for broken bones, no fine theories definibus, no argu- 
 ments 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, 
 sickness, 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 mankind that they should be 
 eradicated. The plan of eradicating them by conceits 
 like those of Seneca, or syllogisms like those of Chry- 
 sippus, was too preposterous to be for a moment 
 entertained by a mind like his. He did not under- 
 stand what wisdom there could be in changing names 
 where it was impossible to change things ; in denying 
 that blindness, hunger, the gout, the rack, were evils, 
 and calling them a7ro7rporiyixsva ; in refusing to ac- 
 knowledge that health, safety, plenty, were good 
 things, and dubbing them by the name of ahafyopa. 
 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 Ihwrrjg, a mere common man. 
 And it was precisely because he was so that his name 
 makes so great an era in the 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 Epic- 
 tetus and a disciple of Bacon should be introduced as 
 fellow-travellers. They come to a village where the 
 
LORD BACON. 401 
 
 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 sur- 
 vivors are afraid to venture into the cavern. The 
 Stoic assures them that such an accident is nothing 
 but a mere aTroTrpoyiy^vov. The Baconian, who has 
 no such fine word at his command, contents himself 
 with devising a safety -lamp. They find a shipwrecked 
 merchant 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 himself, and repeats the whole 
 chapter of Epictetus 7rpog rovg ttjv onropiav fisSoixoTag. 
 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 illustrations 
 of the difference between the philosophy of thorns and 
 the philosophy of fruit, the philosophy of words and 
 the philosophy of works. 
 
 Bacon has been accused of overrating the import- 
 ance of those sciences which minister to the physical 
 well-being of man, and of underrating the importance 
 of moral philosophy ; and it cannot be denied that 
 persons who read the Novum Organum and the De 
 Augmentis, without adverting to the circumstances 
 under which those works were written, will find much 
 that may seem to countenance the accusation. It is 
 certain, however, that, though in practice he often 
 went very wrong, and though, as his historical work 
 
 VOL. II. D D 
 
402 LORD BACON. 
 
 and his essays prove, he did not hold, even in theory, 
 very strict opinions on points of political morality, he 
 was far too wise a man not to know how much our 
 well-being depends on the regulation of our minds. 
 The world for which he wished was not, as some 
 people seem to imagine, a world of water-wheels, 
 power-looms, steam-carriages, sensualists, and knaves. 
 He would have been as ready as Zeno himself to 
 maintain that no bodily comforts which could be 
 devised by the skill and labour of a hundred genera- 
 tions 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. " Co- 
 gitavit," says Bacon of himself, " earn esse opinionem 
 sive aestimationem humidam et damnosam, minui 
 nempe majestatem mentis humanae, si in experimentis 
 et rebus particularibus, sensui subjectis, et in materia 
 terminatis, diu ac multum versetur : praesertim cum 
 hujusmodi res ad inquirendum laboriosee, ad medi- 
 tandum ignobiles, ad discendum asperaa, ad practicam 
 illiberales, numero infinitaa, et subtilitate pusilhe 
 videri soleant, et ob hujusmodi conditiones, gloriae 
 artium minus sint accommodataa."* This opinion 
 seemed to him " omnia in familia humana turbasse." 
 It had undoubtedly caused many arts which were of 
 the greatest utility, and which were susceptible of the 
 greatest improvements, to be neglected by speculators, 
 and abandoned to joiners, masons, smiths, weavers, 
 
 * Cogitata et visa. The expression opinio humida may surprise a 
 reader not accustomed to Bacon's style. The allusion is to the maxim 
 of Heraclitus the obscure ; " Dry light is the best." By dry light, 
 Bacon understood the light of the intellect, not obscured by the mists of 
 passion, interest, or prejudice. 
 
LORD BACON. 403 
 
 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 atten- 
 tion 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 im- 
 provements 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 
 understandings. He acted like a wise commander 
 who thins every other part of his line to strengthen 
 a point where the enemy is attacking with peculiar 
 fury, and on the fate of which the event of the battle 
 seems likely to depend. In the Novum Organum, 
 however, he distinctly and most truly declares that 
 his philosophy is no less a Moral than a Natural Phi- 
 losophy, that, though his illustrations are drawn from 
 physical science, the principles which those illustra- 
 tions are intended to explain are just as applicable to 
 ethical and political inquiries as to inquiries into the 
 nature of heat and vegetation.* 
 
 H^e frequently treated of moral subjects ; and he 
 brought to those subjects that spirit which was the 
 essence of his whole system. He has left us many 
 admirable practical observations on what he somewhat 
 quaintly called the Georgics of the mind, on the 
 mental culture which tends to produce good dis- 
 positions. Some persons, he said, might accuse him 
 of spending labour on a matter so simple that his pre- 
 decessors had passed it by with contempt. He desired 
 such persons to remember that he had from the first 
 announced the objects of his search to be not the 
 splendid and the surprising, but the useful and the 
 true, not the deluding dreams which go forth through 
 
 * Novum Organum, Lib. 1. Aph. 127- 
 DD 2 
 
404 LORD BACON. 
 
 the shining portal of ivory, but the humbler realities 
 of the gate of horn.* 
 
 True to this principle, he indulged in no rants about 
 the fitness of things, the all-sufficiency of virtue, and 
 the dignity of human nature. He dealt not at all in 
 resounding nothings, such as those with which Bo- 
 lingbroke pretended to comfort himself in exile, and 
 in which Cicero vainly sought consolation after the 
 loss of Tullia. The casuistical subtleties which occu- 
 pied the attention of the keenest spirits of his age had, 
 it should seem, no attractions for him. 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." f Nor did 
 he ever meddle with those enigmas which have puzzled 
 hundreds of generations, 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 re- 
 sembling 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 clus- 
 ters, 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 philosophers ought, he said, to set themselves 
 vigorously to work for the purpose of discovering 
 what are the actual effects produced on the human 
 
 * De Augmentis, Lib. 7. Cap. 3. 
 f De Augmentis, Lib. 7. Cap. 2. 
 
LORD BACON. 405 
 
 character by particular modes of education, by the 
 indulgence of particular habits, by the study of par- 
 ticular books, by society, by emulation, by imitation. 
 Then we might hope to find out what mode of train- 
 ing 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 Avhich were 
 apparently written under the influence of strong de- 
 votional 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 con- 
 sider 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. But con- 
 troversies on speculative points of theology seem 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 Nestorians. He lived 
 in an age in which disputes on the most subtle points 
 of divinity 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 
 
 * De Augmentis, Lib. 7- Cap. 3. 
 D D 3 
 
406 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 dwelt long on the end of the Baconian 
 philosophy, because from this peculiarity all the other 
 peculiarities of that philosophy necessarily arose. In- 
 deed, 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 de- 
 tected some fallacy in the syllogistic reasoning which 
 had been in vogue before his time. This notion is 
 about as well-founded as that of the people who, in 
 the middle ages, imagined that Virgil was a great 
 conjurer. Many who are far too well informed to 
 talk such extravagant nonsense entertain what we 
 think incorrect notions as to what Bacon really effected 
 in this matter. 
 
 The inductive method has been practised ever since 
 the beginning of the world by every human being. It 
 is constantly practised by the most ignorant 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 di3y 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 in- 
 ductive method ; but it is not true that he was the 
 first person who correctly analysed that method and 
 explained its uses. Aristotle had long before pointed 
 out the absurdity of supposing that syllogistic reason- 
 
LOBD BACON. 407 
 
 ing could ever conduct men to the discovery of any 
 new principle, had shown that such discoveries must 
 be made by 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 prac- 
 tical value to that analysis of the inductive method 
 which Bacon has given in the second book of the 
 Novum Organum. It is indeed an elaborate and cor- 
 rect 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 con- 
 formity 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 minced 
 pies on Monday and Wednesday, and I was kept 
 awake by indigestion all night." This is the com- 
 parentia ad intellectum instantiarum convenientium. 
 u I did not eat any on Tuesday and Friday, and I was 
 quite well." This is the comparentia instantiarum in 
 proximo quce natura data privantur. " 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 instantiarum 
 secundum magis et minus. " It cannot have been the 
 brandy which I took with them. For I have drunk 
 brandy daily for years without being the worse for 
 it." This is the rejectio naturarum. Our invalid 
 then proceeds to what is termed by Bacon the Vinde- 
 miatio, and pronounces that minced pies do not agree 
 with him. 
 
 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 
 
 d d 4 
 
408 
 
 LORD BACON. 
 
 Bacon greatly overrated its utility. We conceive 
 that the inductive process, like many other processes, 
 is not likely to be better performed merely because 
 men know how they perform it. William Tell would 
 not have been one whit more likely to cleave the apple 
 if he had known that his arrow would describe a 
 parabola under the influence of the attraction of the 
 earth. Captain Barclay would not have been more 
 likely to walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours, 
 if he had known the place and name of every muscle 
 in his legs. Monsieur Jourdain probably did not 
 pronounce D and F more correctly after he had been 
 apprised that D is pronounced by touching the teeth 
 with the end of the tongue, and F by putting the 
 upper teeth on the lower lip. We cannot perceive 
 that the study of Grammar makes the smallest differ- 
 ence 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. Doctor Robertson could, undoubtedly, 
 have written a luminous dissertation on the use of 
 those words. Yet, even in his latest work, he sometimes 
 misplaced them ludicrously. No man uses figures of 
 speech with more propriety because he knows that 
 one figure is called a metonymy and another a synec- 
 doche. A drayman in a passion calls out, " You are 
 a pretty fellow," without suspecting that he is utter- 
 ing irony, and that irony is one of the four primary 
 tropes. The old systems of rhetoric were never re- 
 garded 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 prse- 
 ceptis omnibus, non ut ea secuti oratores eloquentise 
 laudem sint adepti, sed quse sua sponte homines elo- 
 quentes facerent, ea quosdam observasse, atque id 
 egisse ; sic esse non eloquentiam ex artificio, sed arti- 
 ficium ex eloquent! a natum." We must own that we 
 
LORD BACON. 409 
 
 entertain the same opinion concerning the study of 
 Logic which Cicero entertained concerning the study 
 of Rhetoric. A man of sense syllogizes in celarent 
 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 intellectual feat, the Organum of Aris- 
 totle can scarcely be 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. 
 
 What 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, thgugh everybody is constantly performing 
 the process described in the second 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 pro- 
 cess described by Bacon, and the dupes of Mesmer 
 through a different process. The compar entice and 
 rejectiones of which we have given examples will be 
 found in the most unsound inductions. We have 
 heard that an eminent judge of the last generation 
 was in the habit of jocosely propounding after dinner 
 a theory, that the cause of the prevalence of Ja- 
 cobinism was the practice of bearing three names. 
 
410 LORD BACON. 
 
 He quoted on the one side Charles James Fox, 
 Kichard Brinsley Sheridan, John Home Tooke, John 
 Philpot Curran, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Theobald 
 Wolfe Tone. These were instantice conv ententes. He 
 then proceeded to cite instances absentice 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 England we still have a King and a 
 House of Lords ; but the Americans are republicans. 
 The rejectiones are obvious. Burke and Theobald 
 Wolfe Tone are both Irishmen ; therefore the being 
 an Irishman is not the cause of Jacobinism. Horsley 
 and Home Tooke are both clergymen ; therefore the 
 being a clergyman is not the cause of Jacobinism. 
 Fox and 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 induc- 
 tion 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 evidently is not 
 in the kind of instances, but in the number of in- 
 stances ; 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 
 
LORD BACON. 411 
 
 theory about Jacobinism had enlarged either of his 
 tables a little, his system would have been destroyed. 
 The names of Tom Paine and William Wyndham 
 Grenville would have been sufficient to do the work. 
 
 It appears to us, then, that the difference between 
 a sound and unsound induction does not lie in this, 
 that the author of the sound induction goes through 
 the process analysed in the second book of the Novum 
 Organum, and the author of the unsound induction 
 through a different process. They both perform the 
 same process. But one performs it foolishly or care- 
 lessly ; the other performs it with patience, attention, 
 sagacity, and judgment. 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 
 described. But these rules are too general to be of 
 much practical use. The question is, What is a pre- 
 judice? 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 
 iaolum specus, the unreasonable pertinacity 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 be- 
 lieving 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, un- 
 happily, they are questions to which no precise answer 
 can be returned. 
 
412 LORD BACON. 
 
 We think then that it is possible to lay down accu- 
 rate rules, as Bacon has done, for the performing of 
 that part of the inductive process which all men per- 
 form 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 perform- 
 ing of that part 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 acute- 
 ness 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 draftsman 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 Dry den, or in that very able 
 writer, the Archbishop of Dublin, 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 mis- 
 taken as to this point will now hardly be disputed. 
 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 researches which require 
 the constant use of induction. 
 
 It will be seen that we do not consider Bacon's 
 
 * Novum Organum, Praef. and Lib. 1. Aph. 122. 
 
LOKD BACON. 413 
 
 ingenious analysis of the inductive 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 undoubtedly 
 analysed it more minutely than any who preceded him. 
 He was not the person who first showed that by the 
 inductive method alone new truth could be discovered. 
 But he was the person who first turned the minds of 
 speculative men, long occupied in verbal disputes, to 
 the discovery of new and useful truth ; and, by doing 
 so, he at once gave to the inductive method an im- 
 portance 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 which was accessible by that 
 road alone. By doing so he caused that road, which 
 had previously been trodden only by peasants and hig- 
 glers, to be frequented by a higher class of travellers. 
 That which was eminently his own in his system 
 was the end which he proposed to himself. The end 
 being given, the means, as it appears to us, could not 
 well be mistaken. If others had aimed at the same 
 object with Bacon, 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 per- 
 suade 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 Aqui- 
 nas would never have thought that his barbara and 
 baralipton would enable him to ascertain the pro. 
 
414 LORD BACON. 
 
 portion 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 me- 
 thod, the only method, even the ancient philosophers 
 and the schoolmen themselves being judges, by which 
 new truth can be discovered. 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, in his phrase, 
 not interpreters, but anticipators of nature. They had 
 been content with first principles at which they had 
 arrived by the most scanty and slovenly induction. 
 And 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 decla- 
 mation 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 " assensum subjugare, 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. 
 
 * Novum Organum, Lib. 1. Aph. 29. 
 
LORD BACON. 415 
 
 Bacon has remarked* that, in ages when phi- 
 losophy was stationary, the mechanical arts went on 
 improving. Why was this? Evidently because the 
 mechanic was not content 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? Evidently because the object of 
 the mechanic was to mould things, whilst the object 
 of the philosopher was only to mould words. 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 the 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 with- 
 out careful induction. Those speculators, therefore, 
 did not perform 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 im- 
 portance of what Bacon did for inductive philosophy 
 has ever been overrated. But we think that the na- 
 ture of his services is often mistaken, and was not 
 fully understood even by himself. It was not by fur- 
 
 * De Augmentis, Lib. 1. 
 
416 LORD BACON. 
 
 nishing philosophers with rules for 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 uninterest- 
 ing 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 extra- 
 ordinary, may be done ; an indisposition to believe 
 that anything extraordinary has been done. In these 
 points the constitution of Bacon's mind seems to us 
 to have been absolutely perfect. He was at once the 
 Mammon and the Surly of his friend Ben. Sir Epi- 
 cure did not indulge in visions more magnificent and 
 
LORD BACON. 417 
 
 gigantic. Surly did not sift evidence with keener and 
 more sagacious incredulity. 
 
 Closely connected with this peculiarity of Bacon's 
 temper was a striking peculiarity of his understand- 
 ing. With great minuteness of observation, he had 
 an amplitude of comprehension such as has never yet 
 been vouchsafed to any other human being. The 
 small fine mind of Labruyere had not a more delicate 
 tact than the large intellect of Bacon. The Essays 
 contain abundant proofs that no nice feature of cha- 
 racter, no peculiarity in the ordering of a house, a 
 garden, or a court-masque, could escape the notice 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. Fold 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, 
 though 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 off 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 in the globe. But while 
 we are looking at England we see nothing of France ; 
 and while we are looking at France we see nothing of 
 Germany. We may go to the Atlas to learn the 
 
 VOL. II. E E 
 
418 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 Mar- 
 tinique, or of England and Canada. On the globe we 
 shall not find all the market towns in our own neigh- 
 bourhood ; but we shall learn from it the comparative 
 extent and the relative position of all the kingdoms 
 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 pro- 
 vince." In any other young man, indeed in any other 
 man, this would have been a ridiculous flight of pre- 
 sumption. There have been thousands of better ma- 
 thematicians, astronomers, chemists, physicians, bo- 
 tanists, 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 tivelve-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 departments of knowledge. 
 
 The mode in which he communicated his thoughts 
 was peculiar to him. He had no touch of that 
 disputatious temper which he often censured in his 
 predecessors. He effected a vast intellectual revo- 
 lution 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 controversial character. All those 
 works might with propriety have been put into the 
 form which he adopted in the work entitled Cogitata 
 et visa : " Franciscus Baconus sic cogitavit." These 
 are thoughts which have occurred 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 
 
LORD BACON. 419 
 
 steel, but with chalk ; for that the only exploit which 
 they had found necessary for the purpose of taking 
 military 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 enemy. She found 
 no difficulty in gaining admittance, without a con- 
 test, into every understanding 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 has himself remarked, the difference between his 
 school and other schools was a difference so funda- 
 mental that there was hardly any common ground on 
 which a controversial battle could be fought ; and, 
 secondly, because his mind, eminently 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 
 weapons of logic, he adorned her profusely with all 
 the richest decorations of rhetoric. His eloquence, 
 though 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 of Hudibras. Indeed, he pos- 
 sessed this faculty, or rather this faculty possessed 
 him, to a morbid degree. When he abandoned him- 
 self to it without reserve, as he did in the Sapientia 
 Veterum, and at the end of the second book of the 
 De Augmentis, the feats which he performed were 
 not merely admirable, but portentous, and almost 
 
 * Novum Organum, Lib. 1. Aph. 35. and elsewhere. 
 E E 2 
 
420 LORD BACON. 
 
 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 devil must be in him. 
 
 These, however, were freaks in which his ingenuity 
 now and then wantoned, with scarcely any other 
 object than to astonish and amuse. But it occasion- 
 ally 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 most striking instance 
 which at present occurs to us. In the third book of 
 the De Augmentis he tells 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 philosophia 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 progress than when it 
 has reached its height. This, says he, is true in me- 
 dicine. It is also true in morals ; for we see that the 
 example of very abandoned men injures public mo- 
 rality less than the example of men in whom vice has 
 not yet extinguished all good qualities. Again, he 
 tells us that in music 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 in- 
 creased by the antiperistasis of its opposite ; and that 
 it is the same in the contests of factions. If the 
 making of ingenious and sparkling similitudes like 
 these be indeed the philosophia prima, we are quite 
 sure that the greatest philosophical work of the nine- 
 teenth century is Mr. Moore's Lalla Rookh. The 
 similitudes which we have cited are very happy simi- 
 
LORD BACON. 421 
 
 litudes. 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 one of 
 the most singular facts in the history of letters. 
 
 The truth is that his mind was wonderfully quick 
 in perceiving analogies of all sorts. But, like several 
 eminent men whom we could name, both living and 
 dead, he sometimes appeared strangely deficient in 
 the power of distinguishing rational from fanciful 
 analogies, analogies which are arguments from analo- 
 gies which are mere illustrations, analogies like that 
 which Bishop Butler so ably pointed out, between 
 natural and revealed religion, from analogies like that 
 which Addison discovered, between the series of Gre- 
 cian gods carved by Phidias and the series of English 
 kings painted by Kneller. This want of discrimina- 
 tion has led to many strange political speculations. 
 Sir William Temple deduced a theory of government 
 from the properties of the pyramid. Mr. Southey's 
 whole system of finance is grounded on the phamo- 
 mena of evaporation and rain. In theology, this per- 
 verted ingenuity has made still wilder work. From 
 the time of Irenaaus and Origen down to the present 
 day, 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 distin- 
 guish analogies proper, to use the scholastic phrase, 
 from analogies metaphorical.* It is curious that 
 Bacon has himself mentioned this very kind of delu- 
 sion among the idola specus ; and has mentioned it 
 in language which, we are inclined to think, shows 
 that he knew himself to be subject to it. It is the 
 vice, he tells us, of subtle minds to attach too much 
 importance to slight distinctions ; it is the vice, on the 
 
 * See some interesting remarks on this subject in Bishop Berkeley's 
 Minute Philosopher, Dialogue IV. 
 
 E E 3 
 
422 LORD BACON. 
 
 other hand, of high and discursive intellects to attach 
 too much importance to slight resemblances ; and he 
 adds that, when this last propensity is indulged to 
 excess, it leads men to catch at shadows instead of 
 substances.* 
 
 Yet we cannot wish that Bacon's wit had been less 
 luxuriant. For, to say nothing of the pleasure which 
 it affords, it was in the vast majority of cases em- 
 ployed for the purpose of making obscure truth plain, 
 of making repulsive truth attractive, of fixing in the 
 mind for ever truth which might otherwise have left 
 but a transient impression. 
 
 The poetical faculty was powerful in Bacon's mind, 
 but not, like his wit, so powerful as occasionally to 
 usurp the place of his reason, and to tyrannize over 
 the whole man. No imagination was ever at once so 
 strong and so thoroughly subjugated. It never stirred 
 but at a signal from good sense. It stopped at the 
 first check from good sense. Yet, though disciplined 
 to such obedience, it gave noble proofs of its vigour. 
 In truth, much of Bacon's life was passed in a vision- 
 ary world, amidst things as strange as any that are 
 described in the Arabian Tales, or in those romances 
 on which the curate and barber of Don Quixote's 
 village performed so cruel an auto~de-fe, amidst build- 
 ings more sumptuous than the palace of Aladdin, 
 fountains more wonderful than the golden water of 
 Parizade, conveyances more rapid than the hippogryph 
 of Euggiero, arms more formidable than the lance of 
 Astolfo, remedies more efficacious than the balsam of 
 Fierabras. Yet in his magnificent day-dreams there 
 was nothing wild, nothing but what sober reason 
 sanctioned. He knew that all the secrets feigned by 
 poets to have been written in the books of enchanters 
 are worthless when compared with the mighty secrets 
 which are really written in the book of nature, and 
 
 * Novum Organum, Lib. 1. Aph. 55. 
 
LORD BACON. 423 
 
 which, with time and patience, will be read there. 
 He knew that all the wonders wrought by all the 
 talismans in fable were trifles when compared to the 
 wonders which might reasonably be expected from 
 the philosophy of fruit, and that, if his words sank 
 deep into the minds of men, they would produce 
 effects such as superstition had never ascribed to the 
 incantations of Merlin and Michael Scot. It was here 
 that he loved to let his imagination loose. He loved 
 to picture to himself the world as it would be when 
 his philosophy should, in his own noble phrase, " have 
 enlarged the bounds of human empire."* We might 
 refer to many instances. But we will content our- 
 selves with the strongest, the description of the 
 House of Solomon in the New Atlantis. By most of 
 Bacon's contemporaries, and by some people of our 
 time, this remarkable passage would, we doubt not, 
 be considered as an ingenious rodomontade, a coun- 
 terpart to the adventures of Sinbad or Baron Mun- 
 chausen. The truth is that there is not to be found 
 in any human 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, everything that 
 can be proved to lie beyond the mighty magic of in- 
 duction and of 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 
 
 * New Atlantis. 
 E E 4 
 
424 LORD BACON. 
 
 did not appear till late. In general, the dev elopement 
 of the fancy is to the developement 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 perfec- 
 tion 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 hap- 
 pens that the fancy and the 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 re- 
 semblance to the history 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, 
 
LOED BACON. 425 
 
 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 sculp- 
 ture, 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 productions 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 con- 
 temn 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 di- 
 gested. Reading maketh a full man, conference a 
 ready man, and writing an exact man. And there- 
 fore if a man write little, he had need have a great 
 memory ; if he confer little, have a present wit ; and 
 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 con- 
 tend." It will hardly be disputed that this is a pas- 
 sage to be " chewed and digested." We do not believe 
 that Thucydides himself has anywhere conrpressed 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 
 
426 LORD BACON. 
 
 of the change : " Prosperity is the blessing of the Old 
 Testament ; adversity is the blessing of the New, 
 which carrie th the greater benediction and the clearer 
 evidence of God's favour. Yet, even in the Old Tes- 
 tament, 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 describing the 
 afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Pros- 
 perity is not without many fears and distastes ; and 
 adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see 
 in needle-works 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 
 otherwise 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. 
 
LORD BACON. 427 
 
 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 extraor- 
 dinary mind are found there in the highest perfection. 
 Many of the aphorisms, but particularly those in which 
 he gives examples of the influence of the idola, 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 dis- 
 cerning followers of the new philosophy, has, in one 
 of his finest poems, compared Bacon to Moses stand- 
 ing 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 him a goodly land, 
 a land of promise, a land flowing with milk and honey. 
 While the multitude below saw only the flat sterile 
 
428 LORD BACON. 
 
 desert in which they had so long wandered, bounded 
 on every side by a near horizon, or diversified 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 capi- 
 tals, 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 contemplate his life. Yet 
 without so turning back it is impossible fairly to esti- 
 mate 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 di- 
 plomatic 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 mean time he took an 
 active part in every Parliament ; he was an adviser 
 of the Crown ; he paid court with the greatest as- 
 siduity and address to all whose favour was likely to 
 be of use to him ; he lived much in society ; he noted 
 the slightest peculiarities of character 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 
 founding of a new philosophy, the imparting of a new 
 direction to the minds of speculators, this was the 
 amusement of his leisure, the work of hours occasion- 
 ally 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. 
 
LORD BACON. 429 
 
 " 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 fulfilled a large part of his own magnifi- 
 cent predictions. He would have led his followers, 
 not only to the verge, but into the heart of the pro- 
 mised land. He would not merely have pointed 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 been able to esteem their 
 illustrious benefactor. We should not then be com- 
 pelled 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 ser- 
 vility of the boldest champion of intellectual freedom. 
 We should not then have seen the same man at one 
 time far in the van, 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 to the 
 great work of interpreting nature was among the last 
 Englishmen who sold justice. And we should con- 
 clude our survey of a life placidly, honourably, bene- 
 ficently passed, " in industrious observations, grounded 
 conclusions, and profitable inventions and discover- 
 ies*," with feelings very different from those with 
 which we now turn away from the checkered spec- 
 tacle of so much glory and so much shame. 
 
 * From a Letter of Bacon to Lord Burleigh. 
 
430 
 
 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 (April 1839.) 
 
 The State in its Relations with the Church. By W. E. Glad- 
 stone, Esq., Student of Christ Church, and M.P. for 
 Newark. 8vo. Second Edition. London: 1839. 
 
 The author of this volume is a young man of un- 
 blemished character, and of distinguished parliamen- 
 tary talents, the rising hope of those stern and 
 unbending Tories, who follow, reluctantly and mu- 
 tinously, 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 
 abilities and his demeanour have obtained for him 
 the respect and good will 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 of the public should go with him to his trial. 
 
 We are much pleased, without any reference to the 
 soundness or unsoundness 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 op- 
 posite 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-in- 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 431 
 
 formed 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 intre- 
 pidity, he soon finds that, even under such circum- 
 stances, it is possible to speak 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 sophistically, 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 Plu- 
 tarch, wrote a defence 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 second time, and still less the third time ; and 
 now it seems to me to be no defence at all." " My 
 good friend," said Lysias, " you quite forget that the 
 judges are to hear it only once." The case is the 
 same in the English parliament. It would be as idle 
 in an orator to waste deep - meditation and long re- 
 search 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 pearls 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 of the best quality, when a very inferior article 
 will be equally acceptable. Why go as deep into a 
 
432 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 question as Burke, only in order to be, like Burke, 
 coughed down, 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 Bacon, 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 encourage 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 in- 
 vestigation of truth, are habitually employed in 
 producing arguments, such as no man of sense would 
 ever put into a treatise intended for publication, 
 arguments which are just good enough to be used 
 once, when aided by fluent delivery and pointed lan- 
 guage. The habit of discussing questions in this way 
 necessarily reacts on the intellects of our ablest men ; 
 particularly of those who are introduced into parlia- 
 ment at a very early age, before their minds have 
 expanded to full maturity. The talent for debate 
 is developed in such men to a degree which, to the 
 multitude, seems as marvellous as the performances 
 of an Italian improvisator 'e. But they are fortunate 
 indeed if they retain unimpaired the faculties which 
 are required for close reasoning 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 apothe- 
 cary in a country town, or from a minister in the 
 Hebrides, than from a statesman who, ever since he 
 was one-and-twenty, had been a distinguished debater 
 in the House of Commons. 
 
 "We therefore hail with pleasure, though assuredly 
 not with unmixed pleasure, the appearance of this 
 work. That a young politician should, in the inter- 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHUKCH AND STATE. 433 
 
 vals afforded by his parliamentary avocations, have 
 constructed and propounded, 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 creditable to 
 him. We certainly cannot wish that Mr. Gladstone's 
 doctrines may become fashionable among public men. 
 But we heartily wish that his laudable desire to pene- 
 trate beneath the surface of questions, and to arrive, 
 by long and intent meditation, at the knowledge of 
 great general laws, were much more fashionable than 
 we at all expect it to become. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone seems to us to be, in many respects, 
 exceedingly well qualified for philosophical investiga- 
 tion. His mind is of large grasp ; nor is he deficient 
 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 dis- 
 torted by a false medium of passions and prejudices. 
 His style bears a remarkable analogy to his mode of 
 thinking, and indeed exercises great influence on his 
 mode of thinking. His rhetoric, though often good 
 of its kind, darkens and perplexes the logic which it 
 should illustrate. Half his acuteness and diligence, 
 with a barren imagination and a scanty vocabulary, 
 would have saved him from almost all his mistakes. 
 He has one gift most dangerous to a speculator, a 
 vast command of a kind of language, grave and ma- 
 jestic, 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 of Clouds 
 affected the simple-hearted Athenian. 
 
 w yfj rov ^diyfxaroQ, ujq lepbr, kol (tejxvov, /ecu reparwdeg. 
 
 When propositions have been established, and no- 
 thing remains but to amplify and decorate them, this 
 
 VOL. II. F F 
 
434 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 dim magnificence may be in place. But if it is ad- 
 mitted into a demonstration, it is very much worse 
 than absolute nonsense; just as that transparent 
 haze, through which the sailor sees capes and moun- 
 tains 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 work 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 materials 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 re- 
 coil from the horrible practical inferences to which 
 his theory leads, he is reduced sometimes to take 
 refuge in arguments inconsistent with his funda- 
 mental 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 throughout with ex- 
 cellent taste and excellent temper ; nor does it, so 
 far as we have observed, contain one expression un- 
 worthy of a gentleman, a scholar, or a Christian. 
 But the doctrines which are put forth in it appear 
 to us, after full and calm consideration, to be false, 
 to be in the highest degree pernicious, and to be such 
 as, if followed out in practice to their legitimate con- 
 sequences, would inevitably produce the dissolution 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 435 
 
 of society : and for this opinion we shall proceed to 
 give our reasons with that freedom which the import- 
 ance of the subject requires, and which Mr. Gladstone, 
 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 guard ourselves 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 at- 
 tacking 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 pro- 
 perty, because he denied that the right of the rector 
 to tithe was derived from the Levitical law. It is to 
 be observed, that Mr. Gladstone rests his case on 
 entirely new 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 Ecclesi- 
 astical Polity, and rejoices that the latter part of that 
 celebrated work " does not carry with it the weight of 
 Hooker's plenary authority." He is not content with 
 Bishop Warburton's Alliance of Church and State. 
 " The propositions of that work generally," he says, 
 " are to be received with qualification ; " and he 
 agrees with Bolingbroke in thinking that Warbur- 
 ton's whole theory rests on a fiction. He is still less 
 
 F F 2 
 
436 GLADSTONE ON CHUKCH AND STATE. 
 
 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 subject, and " put forth much 
 questionable matter." In truth, on almost every 
 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 question, 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 tem- 
 poral 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 
 interests be or be not superior in importance to tem- 
 poral interests; but whether the machinery which 
 happens at any moment to be employed for the pur- 
 pose of protecting certain temporal interests of a 
 society be necessarily such a machinery as is fitted 
 to promote the spiritual interests of that society. 
 Without a division of labour the world could not go 
 on. It is of very much more importance that men 
 should have food than that they should have piano- 
 fortes. 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 importance that the knowledge of re- 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHUECH AND STATE. 437 
 
 ligious truth should be wisely diffused than that the 
 art of sculpture should flourish among us. Yet it by 
 no means follows that the Koyal 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 academy of arts, and the 
 worst possible society for the promotion of Christian 
 knowledge. The community, it is plain, would be 
 thrown into universal confusion, 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 arbi- 
 tration, 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 human being, be 
 he idolater, Mahometan, Jew, Papist, Socinian, Deist, 
 or Atheist, naturally loves life, shrinks from pain, 
 desires comforts which can be enjoyed only in com- 
 munities where property is secure. To be 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 
 
 ff 3 
 
438 GLADSTONE ON CHUKCH AND STATE. 
 
 no religion, wish to be protected ; and therefore it 
 will hardly be disputed that men of every religion, 
 and 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 intellect, 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 his 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 which a large part of our race has, 
 ever since the dawn of regular history, been deplorably 
 in error. 
 
 Now here are two great objects : one is the protec- 
 tion of the persons and estates of citizens from injury; 
 the other is the propagation of religious truth. No 
 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 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 439 
 
 Avidely 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 govern- 
 ments 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 intelligence 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 to ttoLv in physical science." If 
 government be indeed to irav 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 
 playground, fcx. 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 expenses, and stint us to a cer- 
 tain number of dishes of meat, of glasses of wine, and 
 of cups of tea ? Plato, whose hardihood in specu- 
 lation 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 corporate" capacity, to 
 profess a religion, to employ its power for the propa- 
 gation of that religion, and to require conformity to 
 that religion, as an indispensable qualification for all 
 
 f f 4 
 
440 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 civil office. He distinctly declares that he does not 
 in this proposition confine his view to orthodox go- 
 vernments, 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 to do so, " we cannot," 
 he says, " but regard the fact as aggravating the 
 case of the holders of such creed." " I do not scruple 
 to affirm," he adds, " that, if a Mahometan consci- 
 entiously 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 ex- 
 tension all proper and legitimate means ; and that, if 
 such Mahometan he a prince, be ought to count 
 among those means the application of whatever in- 
 fluence or funds he may lawfully have at his disposal 
 for such purposes." 
 
 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 admit 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 employ- 
 ment in Italy, before we admit that the Dutch Go- 
 vernment 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 argu- 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 441 
 
 ments by which Mr. Gladstone has, as he conceives, 
 established his great fundamental proposition : — 
 
 " 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 withholden or abused. Now this 
 property is, as it were, realized, is used according to the will 
 of the owner, when it is used for the purposes he has or- 
 dained, and in the temper of mercy, justice, truth, and faith 
 which he 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 this, 
 that every association of human beings which exer- 
 cises any power whatever, that is to say, every asso- 
 ciation of human beings, is bound, as such association, 
 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 permanently entertained in the human 
 breast without continual reference to God. The 
 
442 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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 ca- 
 pacity, to profess some one faith, to have its articles, 
 and its public worship, and its tests. That this con- 
 clusion, and an infinite number of other conclusions 
 equally strange, follow of necessity from Mr. Glad- 
 stone's principle, is as certain as it is that two and 
 two make four. And, if the legitimate conclusions be 
 so absurd, there must be something unsound in the 
 principle. 
 
 We will quote another passage of the same sort : — 
 
 " "Why, then, we now come to ask, should the governing 
 body in a state profess a religion? First, because it is com- 
 posed 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 anything but 
 sinful and punishable in themselves. And whenever we 
 turn our face away from God in our conduct, we are living 
 
 atheistically In fulfilment, then, of 
 
 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, he moves at his word ten 
 thousand subject arms ; and because such energies are thus 
 essentially public, and wholly out of the range of mere indi- 
 vidual 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 consti- 
 tute 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 reason- 
 ing agents for the nation, in their conjoint acts as such. And 
 therefore there must be attached to this agency, as that with- 
 out which none of our responsibilites can be met, a religion. 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 443 
 
 And this religion must be that of the conscience of the go- 
 vernor, 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 im- 
 mediately 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 
 sick 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 Birmingham Railway Com- 
 pany, 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, 
 because 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 de- 
 votion. The Railway Directors must offer prayer 
 and praise in their public and collective character, in 
 that character wherewith they constitute the organ 
 
444 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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 at- 
 tached 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 Presbyterian, 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 pro- 
 position? We are sure that he would not; but we 
 are sure that to this proposition, and to innumerable 
 similar propositions, his reasoning inevitably leads. 
 
 Again, — 
 
 " 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 per- 
 sonality 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 facts like these we may rest, without resorting 
 to the more technical proof which the laws afford 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 respon- 
 sibility ? .... A nation, then, having a personality, 
 lies under the obligation, like the individuals composing its 
 governing body, of sanctifying the acts of that personality by 
 the offices 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 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 445 
 
 very imperative may be doubted. Is it not perfectly 
 clear, that this argument 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 technically a 
 corporation or not, which has not this collective per- 
 sonality from which Mr. Gladstone deduces such ex- 
 traordinary consequences ? Look at banks, insurance 
 offices, dock companies, canal companies, gas com- 
 panies, hospitals, dispensaries, associations for the 
 relief of the poor, associations for apprehending male- 
 factors, associations of medical pupils for procuring 
 subjects, associations of country gentlemen for keep- 
 ing 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 argument will not 
 apply as well as to the State? In all these combina- 
 tions, in the Bank of England, for example, or in the 
 Athenaeum club, the will and agency of the society 
 are one, and bind the dissentient minority. The 
 Bank and the Athenaeum 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 Athenaeum is a 
 person to the butcher and the wine-merchant. If the 
 Athenaeum keeps money at the Bank, the two socie- 
 ties are as much persons to each other as England 
 and France. Either society may pay its debts honestly ; 
 either may try to defraud its creditors; either 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 Mr. Gladstone's words, " deny their responsi- 
 bility, or their need of a religion to meet that respon- 
 
446 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 sibility?" Joint-stock banks, therefore, and clubs, 
 "having a personality, lie under the necessity of 
 sanctifying that personality by the offices of religion ;" 
 and thus we have "a new and imperative ground" 
 for requiring all the directors and clerks of joint-stock 
 banks, and all the officers 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 propo- 
 sition, without ever reflecting that it includes a great 
 deal more. The fatal facility with which Mr. Glad- 
 stone 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, and about conjoint action, 
 when the only conjoint action of which he is thinking 
 is the conjoint action of citizens in a state. He first 
 resolves on his conclusion. He then makes a major 
 of most comprehensive dimensions, and, having satis- 
 fied himself that it contains his conclusion, never 
 troubles himself about what else it may contain : and, 
 as soon as we examine it, we find that it contains an 
 infinite number 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 members 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 
 before put, a member of a stage-coach company, he 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 447 
 
 would, in that capacity, remember that " a righteous 
 man regardeth the life of his beast." But it does not 
 follow that every 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 cooperation. It is equally evident 
 that there cannot be efficient cooperation, 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 ad- 
 mirable in our social system than the facility with 
 which thousands of people, who perhaps agree only 
 on a single point, can combine their energies for the 
 purpose of carrying that single point. We see daily 
 instances of this. Two men, one of them obstinately 
 prejudiced against 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 organized. Many of them 
 abound with frightful abuses. But it seems reason- 
 able to believe that the worst that ever existed was, 
 on the whole, preferable to complete anarchy. 
 
448 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 Now, reasoning from analogy, we should say that 
 these great corporations would, like all other associa- 
 tions, 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 pro- 
 vide that nobody who was not a fellow of the Society 
 of Antiquaries 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 Literary 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. Where shall 
 we find more complete unity of action than in an 
 army ? Where else do so many human beings im- 
 plicitly 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 laid 
 upon them ? If Mr. Gladstone has made out, as he 
 conceives, an imperative necessity for a State Reli- 
 gion, much more has he made it out to be impera- 
 tively necessary that every army should, in its 
 collective capacity, profess a religion. Is he prepared 
 to adopt this consequence? 
 
 On the morning of the thirteenth of August, in the 
 year 1704, two great captains, equal in authority, 
 united by close private and public ties, but of dif- 
 ferent creeds, prepared for a battle, on the event of 
 which were staked the liberties of Europe. Marl- 
 borough had passed a part of the night in prayer, 
 and before daybreak received the sacrament according 
 to the rites of the Church of England. He then 
 hastened to join Eugene, who had probably just con- 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 449 
 
 fessed himself to a Popish priest. The generals con- 
 sulted together, formed their plan in concert, and 
 repaired each to his own post. Marlborough gave 
 orders for public prayers. The English 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 mean time, the Danes might 
 listen to their Lutheran ministers ; and Capuchins 
 might encourage the Austrian squadrons, and pray 
 to the Virgin for a blessing on the arms of the Holy 
 Koman 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 in- 
 terest, 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 com- 
 mand 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 
 
 VOL. II. G G 
 
450 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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 best of the argument ; and if so, what follows ? 
 Even this : that all Mr. Gladstone's general principles 
 about power, and responsibility, and personality, and 
 conjoint action, must be given up ; and that, if his 
 theory is to stand 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 intrusted 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 combinations which we call States ? We 
 firmly believe that it is the case with some states. 
 We firmly believe that there are communities in 
 which it would be as absurd to mix up theology with 
 government, as it would have been in the right wing 
 of the allied army at Blenheim to commence a con- 
 troversy 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 they who they may, who hold supreme power in 
 the state, to employ that power in order to promote 
 whatever they may deem to be theological truth. 
 Now, surely, before 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 govern- 
 ment, proposing to itself the propagation of religious 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 451 
 
 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 i&sa, or abstract conception 
 of a government, of course with allowance for the evil and 
 frailty that are in man, and then in examining whether there 
 be comprised in that i§ea a capacity and consequent duty on 
 the part of a government to lay down any laws, or devote any 
 means for the purposes of religion, — in short, to exercise a 
 choice upon religion. 
 
 Of course, Mr. Gladstone has a perfect right to argue 
 any abstract question, provided he will constantly 
 bear in mind that it is only an abstract question that 
 he is arguing. Whether a perfect government would 
 or would not be a good machinery for the propagation 
 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 directions, 
 without considering that his conclusion rests on a 
 false hypothesis, and that his projectiles, instead of 
 flying away through infinite space, will speedily re- 
 turn 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 
 
 G G 2 
 
452 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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, however, admit that, if a government 
 were, for all its temporal ends, as perfect as human 
 frailty allows, such government would, therefore, be 
 necessarily qualified to propagate true religion. For 
 we see that the fitness of governments to propagate 
 true religion is by no means proportioned to their 
 fitness for the temporal ends 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 excel- 
 lent condition, made his country respected throughout 
 Europe, and endeared himself to the great body of 
 the people whom he ruled. 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 reli- 
 gious restraints in his practice. Take the Czar Peter, 
 the Empress Catherine, Frederick 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, above the 
 average of merit. Considered as theological guides, 
 Mr. Gladstone would probably put them below the 
 most abject drivellers of the Spanish branch of the 
 house of Bourbon. Again, when we pass from in- 
 dividuals to systems, we by no means find that the 
 aptitude of governments for propagating religious 
 truth is proportioned to their aptitude for secular 
 functions. Without being blind admirers either of 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 453 
 
 the French or of the American institutions, we think 
 it clear that the persons and property of citizens are 
 better protected in France and in New England than 
 in almost any society that now exists, or that has 
 ever existed ; very much better, certainly, than in the 
 Roman empire under the orthodox rule of Constan- 
 tine and Theodosius. But neither the government of 
 France, nor that of New England, is so organized as 
 to be fit for the propagation of theological doctrines. 
 Nor do we think it improbable that the most serious 
 religious errors might prevail in a state which, con- 
 sidered merely with reference to temporal objects, 
 might approach far nearer than any that has ever 
 been known to the ISsa 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 favour- 
 able to orthodoxy than to heterodoxy ? A nation of 
 barbarians pours down on a rich and unwarlike em- 
 pire, 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 Yenice, usurps per- 
 manent and hereditary power. It is in events such 
 
 gg 3 
 
454 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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 go- 
 vernments which have become settled, we find no 
 great security for the orthodoxy of rulers. One ma- 
 gistrate 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. We see some sort of connexion between 
 the very worst of them and the temporal well-being 
 of society. But it passes our understanding to com- 
 prehend what connexion 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. Gladstone, 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 
 Reformation, 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 propagation of his 
 own religion, it will follow that, for one ruler who 
 has been bound in conscience to use his power for the 
 propagation of truth, a thousand have been bound in 
 conscience to use their power for the propagation of 
 falsehood. Surely this is a conclusion from which com- 
 mon sense recoils. Surely, if experience shows that a 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 455 
 
 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 di- 
 rectly 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 or 
 fear, to judge for themselves, we should see little 
 reason to apprehend that his interference in favour of 
 error would be seriously prejudicial 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 will not satisfy Mr. Gladstone. He would have 
 the magistrate resort to means which have a great 
 tendency to make malcontents, to make hypocrites, 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 propa- 
 gate their opinions by excluding all dissenters from 
 all civil offices. That is to say, he would have go- 
 vernments 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 interest of truth ; 
 but if rewards and punishments serve the interest of 
 truth, it is by mere accident. It is very much easier 
 to find arguments for the divine authority of the 
 Gospel than for the divine authority of the Koran. 
 
 G G 4 
 
456 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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 liberty 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, unless we have 
 greatly misunderstood him, think it his duty, if he had 
 the power, to revive the Test Act, to enforce it rigor- 
 ously, and to extend it to important classes who were 
 formerly exempt from its operation. 
 
 This is indeed a legitimate consequence of his prin- 
 ciples. But why stop here? Why not roast dissenters 
 at slow fires. All the general reasonings on which 
 this theory rests evidently lead to sanguinary perse- 
 cution. If the propagation 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 ; if the constitutional power of 
 governments extends, as it most unquestionably 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 go- 
 vernment ought to stand to the people be, as Mr. 
 Gladstone tells us, a paternal relation, we are irre- 
 sistibly led to the conclusion that persecution is jus- 
 tifiable. 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 ir- 
 religious 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 dis- 
 play the precocity of his talents by expressing impious 
 opinions before his brothers and sisters, we should 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 457 
 
 not much blame his father for cutting short the con- 
 troversy with a horsewhip. All the reasons which 
 lead us to think that parents are peculiarly fitted to 
 conduct the education of their children, and that 
 education is a principal end of the 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 prero- 
 gative of punishment, so eminently paternal, to be 
 withheld from a paternal government? It seems to 
 us, also, to be the height of absurdity to employ civil 
 disabilities for the propagation of an opinion, and 
 then to shrink from employing other punishments for 
 the same purpose. For nothing 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 be inflicted, except for the sake 
 of some good. It is mere foolish cruelty to provide 
 penalties which torment the criminal without pre- 
 venting the crime. Now it is possible, by sanguinary 
 persecution unrelentingly inflicted, to suppress opi- 
 nions. 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. Glad- 
 stone to point out a single instance in which the sys- 
 tem which he recommends has succeeded. 
 
 And why should he be so tender-hearted? What 
 reason can he give for hanging a murderer, and suf- 
 fering a heresiarch to escape without even a pecuniary 
 mulct? Is the heresiarch a less pernicious member 
 of society than the 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 
 
458 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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 murderer, 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 con- 
 sistent. 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 government 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 government to guard, 
 can escape from the obvious consequence of his doc- 
 trine, we do not understand. The world is full of 
 parallel cases. An orange-woman stops up the pave- 
 ment with her wheelbarrow, and a policeman takes 
 her into custody. A miser who has amassed a million 
 suffers an old friend and benefactor to die in a work- 
 house, 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 stop- 
 ping 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 Caesar 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 Theo- 
 dosius persecutes the Arians, and with equal reason. 
 Shall an insult offered to the Cesarean majesty be 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHUECH AND STATE. 459 
 
 expiated by death; and shall there be no penalty for 
 him who degrades to the rank of a creature the 
 almighty, the infinite Creator ? We 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 pur- 
 pose of either propagating or exterminating the doc- 
 trine of the consubstantiality of the Father and the 
 Son." " Not so," says Mr. Gladstone. " Caesar is 
 bound in conscience to propagate whatever he thinks 
 to be the truth as to this question. Constantius is 
 bound to establish the Arian worship throughout the 
 empire, and to 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 
 lays on Athanasius a fine of a single aureus, if 
 Theodosius imprisons an Arian 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 speculations of our own, to administer 
 
460 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 pains and penalties to our fellow-creatures, whether on 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 
 encouragement 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 Mr. Gladstone says, 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 Tes- 
 tament as to all interference 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 authorize 
 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 refer- 
 ence to the wound inflicted by Peter on Malchus. 
 They were addressed to Pilate, in answer to the 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 461 
 
 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 dis- 
 senters, to their property, their liberty, and their lives. 
 Mr. Gladstone's humane 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 Chris- 
 tians became strong enough to persecute down to a 
 very recent period. A dogma favourable to toleration 
 is certainly not a dogma quod semper, quod ubique, 
 quod 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 were the first who 
 called it in question. We will not pretend to say 
 what is the best explanation of the text under con- 
 sideration; 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 drawn at a hun- 
 dred other places as well as at 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 
 
462 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 in the Star- Chamber, might have said, " I pronounce 
 for the pillory; and, indeed, I could wish that all 
 such wretches were delivered 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 meum 
 non est de hoc mundo ; 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 con- 
 stant supervision over religious opinion." And hence 
 he infers, that u 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. Gladstone's theory ? What ! 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 intrinsically qualified to judge of the 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 463 
 
 comparative enormity of any theological errors ! The 
 government so ignorant on these subjects that it is 
 compelled to leave, not merely subtle heresies, dis- 
 cernible only by the eye of a Syril, or a Bucer, but So- 
 cinianism, 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 he now pronounces to be so unfit for theological 
 investigations that it cannot venture to punish a man 
 for worshipping 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 inconsis- 
 tency. 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 to km 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, Arminians and Calvinists, Episcopalians 
 and Presbyterians, Sabellians and Tritheists, Ho- 
 moousians and Homoiousians, Nestorians and Euty- 
 chians, Monothelites and Monophysites, Psedobaptists 
 and Anabaptists. It is for him to rejudge the Acts 
 of Nice and Kimini, 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 ftlioque shall or shall not have a place 
 in the national creed. When he has made up his 
 mind, he is to tax the whole community in order to 
 pay people to teach his opinion, whatever it may be. 
 He is to rely on his own judgment, though it may be 
 
464 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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. Gladstone may choose to call it persecu- 
 tion or not, will always be felt as persecution by those 
 who suffer it. He is, on account of differences often 
 too slight for vulgar comprehension, to deprive the 
 state of the services of the ablest men. He is to 
 debase and enfeeble the community which he governs, 
 from a nation into a sect. In our own country, 
 for example, millions of Catholics, millions of Pro- 
 testant Dissenters, are to be excluded from all power 
 and honours. A great 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 Budhist, for a day ; because 
 really a government cannot understand these matters, 
 and ought not to meddle with questions which belong 
 to the Church. A singular theologian, indeed, this 
 government! So learned that it is competent to 
 exclude Grotius from oflice for being a Semi-Pelagian, 
 so unlearned that it is incompetent to fine a Hindoo 
 peasant a rupee for going on a pilgrimage to Jugger- 
 naut. 
 
 " 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 consider- 
 ations which bind a government to submit a religion to the 
 free choice of the people would therefore justify their en- 
 forcing its adoption." 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 465 
 
 Granted. But it is true that all the same con- 
 siderations which would 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 elo- 
 quence 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. Glad- 
 stone 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 burned 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 the gaze of 
 nations, while you are doomed to neglect and ob- 
 scurity. If you have a son of the highest promise, 
 a son such as other fathers would contemplate 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 to lead, as you 
 have led, the abject life of a Roman or a Neapolitan 
 in the midst of the great English people. All those 
 high honours, so much more precious than the most 
 costly gifts of despots, with which a free country 
 decorates its illustrious citizens, shall be to him, as 
 they have been to you, objects not of hope and vir- 
 
 VOL. II. H H 
 
466 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 tuous emulation, but of hopeless, envious pining. 
 Educate him, if you wish him to feel his degradation. 
 Educate him, if you wish to stimulate his craving for 
 what he never must enjoy. Educate him, if 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 fine 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 
 were 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 incon- 
 sistency even in a man of Mr. Gladstone's talents. 
 The truth is, that every man is, to a great extent, 
 the creature of the age. It is to no purpose that he 
 resists the influence which the vast mass, in which he 
 is but an atom, must exercise on him. He may try 
 to be a man of the tenth century: but he cannot. 
 Whether he will or no, 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 no 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 westward, 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 performance. It is the 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 467 
 
 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 him- 
 self : 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. Glad- 
 stone has shrunk 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 detest paternal governments in general, 
 shall admit that the duties of the government of 
 India are, to a considerable extent, paternal. There, 
 the superiority of the governors to the governed in 
 moral science is unquestionable. The conversion of 
 the whole people to the worst form that Christianity 
 ever wore in the darkest ages would be a most happy 
 event. It is not necessary that a man should be a 
 Christian to wish for the propagation of Christianity 
 in India. It is sufficient that he should be an 
 European not much below the ordinary European 
 level of good sense and humanity. Compared with 
 the importance of the interests at stake, all those 
 Scotch • and Irish questions which occupy so large a 
 portion of Mr. Gladstone's book sink into insigni- 
 ficance. In no part of the 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 arid pernicious laws. Surely, 
 
 hh 2 
 
468 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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 a fortiori 
 the duty of the government to use its power and its 
 revenue in order to make seventy millions of idolaters 
 Christians. If it be a sin to suffer John Howard or 
 William Penn to hold any office in England, because 
 they are not in communion with the Established 
 Church, it must be a crying sin indeed to admit 
 to high situations men who bow 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, the Cave of Adullam, 
 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 
 indulgence 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 exag- 
 geration to maintain it as the part of such a govern- 
 ment as that of the British in India to bring home to 
 the door of every subject at once the ministrations of 
 a new and totally unknown religion." The govern- 
 ment 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 limit- 
 ation 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 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 469 
 
 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 does he pay most respect 
 to the opinion of the least enlightened people? Why 
 does he withhold the right to exercise paternal au- 
 thority 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 number of persons 
 advanced to a higher grade of civilisation, exercise the powers 
 of government over an immensely greater number of less cul- 
 tivated 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 agree- 
 ment, not of natural ordinance." 
 
 Where Mr. Gladstone has seen this treaty we can- 
 not 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 Eow, that it is not to be found in any of 
 the enormous folios of papers relating to India which 
 fill the book- cases of members of Parliament, that it 
 has utterly escaped the researches of all the historians 
 of our Eastern empire, that, in the long and interest- 
 ing debates of 1813 on the admission of missionaries 
 to India, debates of which the most valuable part has 
 been excellently preserved 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. 
 
 h h 3 
 
470 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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 what- 
 ever not to deal with Bengal as she deals with Ireland. 
 She may set up a Bishop of Patna, and a Dean of 
 Hoogley ; 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 without 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 ter- 
 ritory 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 applying Mr. Gladstone's 
 theory to India, because, if so applied, it would in- 
 evitably destroy our empire, and, with our empire, 
 the best chance of spreading Christianity among the 
 natives. This Mr. Gladstone felt. In some way or 
 other his theory was to be saved, and the monstrous 
 consequences avoided. Of intentional misrepresent- 
 ation we are quite sure that he is incapable. But we 
 cannot acquit him of that unconscious disingenuous- 
 ness 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 ab- 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 471 
 
 horrence by all his school. Accordingly, he caught 
 at the notion of a treaty, a notion which must, we 
 think, have originated in some rhetorical expression 
 which he has imperfectly understood. There is one 
 excellent way of avoiding the drawing of a false con- 
 clusion 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 conse- 
 quences 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 another. 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 sys- 
 tem 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 con- 
 tract, 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 
 
 h h 4 
 
472 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 not required to maintain order on the north of the 
 Tweed, that the anniversary of the Battle of Bothwell 
 Bridge is not regularly celebrated by insult, riot, and 
 murder. We could hardly find a stronger argument 
 against Mr. Gladstone's system than that which Scot- 
 land 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 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 unknown. In 
 spite of a mutual aversion as bitter as ever separated 
 one people from another, the two kingdoms which 
 compose our island have been indissolubly joined to- 
 gether. 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, an 
 union which resembles the union of the limbs of one 
 healthful and vigorous body, all moved by one will, 
 all cooperating for common ends. The system of 
 Mr. Gladstone would have produced a union which 
 can be compared only to that which is the subject 
 of a wild Persian fable. King Zohak — we tell the 
 story as Mr. South ey 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 brain. Zohak pulled 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHUECH AND STATE. 473 
 
 them away, and tore them with his nails. But he 
 found that they were inseparable parts of himself, and 
 that what he was lacerating was his own flesh. Per- 
 haps we might be able to find, if we looked round the 
 world, some political union like this, some hideous 
 monster of a state, cursed with one principle of sen- 
 sation 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 on the left to keep in 
 countenance his brother on the right. 
 
 But we must proceed in our examination of his 
 theory. Having, as he conceives, 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 question what religion a govern- 
 ment ought to prefer, and he decides this question in 
 favour of the form of Christianity established in Eng- 
 land. 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 
 formularies, claimed for herself ; far beyond what the 
 moderate school of Bossuet demands for the Pope ; and 
 scarcely short of what that school 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 
 
474 GLADSTONE ON CHUKCH AND STATE. 
 
 Protestant Europe, to be a monstrous abuse. He de- 
 clares 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 religious 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 the use 
 of fire that will not burn down 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 sub- 
 jects, and yet to come to exactly the same conclusions 
 with each other and with the Church of England. 
 J&id for this opinion he gives, as far as we have been 
 able to discover, no reason whatever, except that 
 everybody 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 mathe- 
 matics vary directly as each other." On this un- 
 questionable fact he constructs a somewhat question- 
 able 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 affirm- 
 ative 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 genuineness of the 
 Icon Basilike f The state of the exact sciences proves, 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 475 
 
 says Mr. Gladstone, that, as respects religion, " the 
 association of these two ideas, activity of inquiry, and 
 variety of conclusion, is a fallacious one." We 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 do not think either the one analogy or the other 
 of the smallest value. Our way of ascertaining 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 pro- 
 duces unity, and that free inquiry on moral subjects 
 produces discrepancy. There would undoubtedly be 
 less discrepancy if 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, and the nature of moral evidence, con- 
 tinue 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 evi- 
 dence, with judicial questions, for example, and 
 with political questions. All the judges will 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 wonder- 
 ing and bemoaning himself, because people who agree 
 in thinking that two and two make four cannot agree 
 
476 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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; the course of the Romanist, 
 who interdicts private judgment because of its inevi- 
 table inconveniences ; and the course of the Protestant, 
 who permits private judgment in spite of its inevitable 
 inconveniences. Both are more reasonable than Mr. 
 Gladstone, who would have private judgment with- 
 out 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. Gladstone 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. 
 
 When Mr. Gladstone says that we " actually re- 
 quire 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 ex- 
 presses himself with more energy than precision. No- 
 body loves discrepancy for the sake of discrepancy. 
 But a person who conscientiously believes that free 
 enquiry is, on the whole, beneficial to the interests of 
 truth, and that, from the imperfection 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 ten 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 ten thousand 
 thieves ? What must be the mass of wealth, where 
 the fragments gleaned by lawless pilfering rise to so 
 large an amount ? St. Kilda would not support a 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 477 
 
 single pickpocket. The quantity of theft is, to a 
 certain extent, an index of the quantity of useful in- 
 dustry and judicious speculation. And just as we 
 may, from the great number of rogues in a town, 
 infer that much honest gain is made there; so may 
 we often, 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 convictions of truth. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone seems to imagine that most Pro- 
 testants 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 conclusion. If there be any 
 Protestants who hold notions so absurd, we abandon 
 them to his censure. 
 
 The Protestant doctrine touching the right of pri- 
 vate judgment, that doctrine 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 con- 
 ceive 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 1500? If not, why 
 are we to believe that there is such a body in the 
 year 1839? If there was such a body in the year 
 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 re- 
 
478 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 formation did not destroy, but successfully main- 
 tained, 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 autho- 
 rity. But this is little more than saying that the truth 
 is the truth. Nor is truth more true because it comes 
 in an unbroken series from the apostles. The Nicene 
 faith 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 be only consequent upon our con- 
 viction of the 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 England 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 Pro- 
 vidence 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 England is the true Church 
 because she has the succession ; and that she has the 
 succession because she is the true Church. 
 
 What evidence, then, have we for the fact of the 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 479 
 
 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 de- 
 fended by Oxford against Kome. 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, so far back as the time of the Con- 
 quest. There remain many centuries during which 
 the history of the transmission of his orders is buried 
 in utter darkness. And whether he be a priest by 
 succession from the Apostles depends on the ques- 
 tion, whether, during that long period, some thou- 
 sands 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 par- 
 ticular 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 so- 
 
480 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 cieties scattered through the Roman empire held their 
 spiritual authority by virtue of holy orders derived 
 from the Apostles, cannot be proved by contemporary 
 testimony, or by any testimony which can be regarded 
 as decisive. The question, whether the primitive 
 ecclesiastical constitution bore a greater resemblance 
 to the Anglican or to the Calvinistic 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 
 not go in favour of 'prelacy. And if he looked at the 
 subject as calmly as he would look at a controversy 
 respecting the 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 later attestations, however 
 numerous, could but very imperfectly supply. It is 
 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 some- 
 times by a profligate woman on her paramour, some- 
 times by a warlike baron on a kinsman still a strip- 
 ling. We read of bishops of ten years old, of bishops 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 481 
 
 of five years old, of many popes who were mere boys, 
 and who rivalled the frantic dissoluteness of Caligula, 
 nay, of a female pope. And though this last story, 
 once believed throughout all Europe, has been dis- 
 proved by the strict researches of modern criticism, 
 the most discerning of those who reject it have ad- 
 mitted that it is not intrinsically improbable. In our 
 own island, it was the complaint 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 exercised 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 ecclesiastics discipline, ilia 
 ubique pro consuetudine Christiana sseva subin- 
 troducta barbaries," are the expressions of St. Ber- 
 nard. We are, therefore, at a loss to conceive how 
 any clergyman can feel confident that his orders have 
 come down correctly. Whether he be really a suc- 
 cessor of the Apostles depends on an immense num- 
 ber of such contingencies as these : whether, under 
 King Ethelwolf, a stupid priest might not, while 
 baptizing 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 proselytes ; 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 
 
 VOL. II. I I 
 
482 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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 sufficient reason to 
 allow ordination made without a bishop. Where 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 suc- 
 cession, 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 per- 
 son will think the supposition by any means impro- 
 bable, 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 without having ever been 
 baptized. That such an event might happen, nay, 
 was very likely to happen, cannot well be disputed by 
 any one 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 Sun, and held 
 The sharpest-sighted spirit of all in Heaven." 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 483 
 
 Now, this unbaptized impostor is evidently no suc- 
 cessor of the Apostles. He is not even a Christian ; 
 and all orders derived through such a pretended 
 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 common 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 ? Suppose that St. Patrick, for exam- 
 ple, 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 not conceivable 
 that such a circumstance may affect the orders of 
 many clergymen now living? Even if it were pos- 
 sible, which it assuredly is not, to prove that the 
 Church had the apostolical orders in the third cen- 
 tury, 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 de- 
 scent of his own spiritual character. And if this were 
 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 any one may fail, not one should be wanting, 
 this to me is extremely improbable, and even cousin- 
 german to impossible. So that the assurance hereof 
 
 ii 2 
 
484 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 is like a machine composed of an innumerable multi- 
 tude of pieces, of which it is strangely unlikely but 
 some will be out of order ; and yet, if any one be so, 
 the whole fabric falls of necessity to the ground : and 
 he that shall put them together, and maturely con- 
 sider all the possible ways of lapsing and nullifying 
 a priesthood in the Church of Rome, will be very 
 inclinable to think that it is a hundred to one, that 
 among a hundred seeming priests, there is not one 
 true one ; nay, that it 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 succes- 
 sion. And, after all, if Mr. Gladstone could prove 
 the apostolical succession, what would the apostolical 
 succession prove? He says that "we have 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." 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 con- 
 demns much truth? And is it not quite clear, that 
 as far as the doctrines of the Church of England 
 differ from those of the Church of Rome, so far the 
 Church of England conveys the truth through a 
 broken series ? 
 
 That the founders, lay and clerical, of the Church 
 of England, corrected all that required correction in 
 the doctrines of the Church of Rome, and nothing 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 485 
 
 more, may be quite true. But we never can admit 
 the circumstance that the Church of England pos- 
 sesses the apostolical succession as a proof that she 
 is thus perfect. No stream can rise higher than its 
 fountain. The succession of ministers in the Church 
 of England, derived as it is through the Church of 
 Kome, can never prove more for the Church of Eng- 
 land than it proves for the Church of Kome. But 
 this is not all. The Arian Churches which once pre- 
 dominated in the kingdoms of the Ostrogoths, the 
 Visigoths, the Burgundians, the Vandals, 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 succession. 
 Now if, of teachers having apostolical orders, a vast 
 majority have taught much error, if a large propor- 
 tion have taught deadly heresy, if, on the other hand, 
 as Mr. Gladstone himself admits, churches not having 
 apostolical 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 pri- 
 vate 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 charac- 
 teristic of the Church of England, that she is one in 
 body and in spirit, we are compelled to differ from 
 
 ii 3 
 
486 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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 Presbyterian ; 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 
 Cameronian, 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 dis- 
 qualification for high preferment, if not for holy 
 orders? Look at the questions which Archbishop 
 Whitgift propounded to Barret, questions framed 
 in the very spirit of William Huntington, S.S.* And 
 then look at the eighty-seven questions which Bishop 
 Marsh, within our own memory, propounded to can- 
 didates for ordination. We should be loth to say 
 that either of these celebrated prelates had intruded 
 himself into a Church whose doctrines he abhorred, 
 and that he deserved to be stripped of his gown. Yet 
 it is quite certain, that one or other of them must 
 have been very greatly in error. John Wesley again, 
 and Cowper's friend, John Newton, were both pres- 
 byters of this Church. Both were men of talents. 
 
 * One question was, whether God had from eternity reprobated cer- 
 tain ; and why. The answer which contented the Archbishop was 
 " Affirmative, et quia voluit." 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 487 
 
 Both we believe to have been men of rigid integrity, 
 men who would not have subscribed a Confession of 
 Faith which they disbelieved for the richest bishopric 
 in the empire. Yet, on the subject of predestination, 
 Newton was strongly attached to doctrines which 
 Wesley designated 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 distin- 
 guished 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. 
 Gladstone tells us that the Regium 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 them- 
 selves, 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 Supralapsarian had, 
 under Whitgift's primacy, left a large estate at the 
 disposal of the bishops for ecclesiastical purposes, in 
 the hope that the rulers of the Church would abide 
 by Whitgift's theology, 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 differ- 
 ences of opinion respecting the operation of the sacra- 
 ments are held by bishops, doctors, presbyters of the 
 Church of England, all men who have conscientiously 
 
 i x 4 
 
488 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 declared their assent to her articles, all men who are, 
 according to Mr. Gladstone, ordained hereditary wit- 
 nesses 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 discuss- 
 ing 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 differ- 
 ing 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, dis- 
 pense 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 establishment. 
 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 practical 
 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. Glad- 
 stone represents as her distinguishing glory, that it is, 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 489 
 
 in fact, a bundle of religious systems without number. 
 It comprises the religious system of Bishop Tomline, 
 and the religious system of John Newton, and all the 
 religious systems which lie between them. It com- 
 prises the religious system of Mr. Newman, and the 
 religious system of the Archbishop of Dublin, and all 
 the religious systems which lie between them. All 
 these different opinions are held, avowed, preached, 
 printed, within the pale of the Church, by men of un- 
 questioned integrity and understanding. 
 
 Do we make this diversity a topic 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 pos- 
 sessed 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 spec- 
 tacle of a hundred sects battling 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 ? He 
 objects to the vote for Maynooth, because it is mon- 
 strous 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 colony will go to the main- 
 tenance of an Arminian or a Calvinist, of a man like 
 Mr. Froude, or of a man like Dr. Arnold. It is a mere 
 
490 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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. Gladstone'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 Chris- 
 tianity? The principle, that a ruler is bound in con- 
 science to propagate religious truth, and to propagate 
 no religious doctrine which is untrue, is abandoned as 
 soon as it is admitted that a gentleman of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's opinions may lawfully 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 individual and no government 
 can justifiably propagate error for the sake of pro- 
 pagating error. But both individuals and govern- 
 ments 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 this ; with what degree of imperfection 
 in our machinery must we put up ? And to this ques- 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 491 
 
 tion 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 together than that the promise of the year should 
 be blighted. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, we see with deep regret, 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 de- 
 sires, 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 committed a sin? 
 Has he not acted like a good master and a good 
 Christian ? Would Mr. Gladstone accuse him of 
 " laxity of religious principle," of " confounding truth 
 with falsehood," of " considering the support of reli- 
 gion 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 occa- 
 sioned by a wound received in defending his master? 
 
492 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 Should we not then say that the master had only ful- 
 filled a sacred obligation of duty? Now, Mr. Glad- 
 stone 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 attendants, or employ a chaplain of a dif- 
 ferent creed to vex his departing spirit with a contro- 
 versy 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 recon- 
 sider 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. 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 493 
 
 It is much easier to pull down than to build up. 
 Yet, that we may give Mr. Gladstone his revenge, we 
 will state concisely our own views respecting the 
 alliance 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 pro- 
 perly 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 con- 
 trivance of human wisdom, from the highest to the 
 lowest, is likely to answer its main end best when it 
 is constructed 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 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 pursue 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 sacrifice of its 
 efficiency for that end, it can pursue any other good 
 
494 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 end, it ought to do so. Thus, the end for which a 
 hospital is built is the relief of the sick, not the beau- 
 tifying of the street. To sacrifice the health of the 
 sick to splendour of architectural effect, to place the 
 building in a bad air only that it may present 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 mon- 
 strous. But if, without 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 
 work, 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 Ra- 
 phaels and Domenichinos. But it by no means follows 
 that it is improper for a government 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 govern- 
 ment may have at its command resources which will 
 enable it, without any injury to its main end, to pur- 
 sue these collateral ends far more effectually than 
 any individual or any voluntary association could do. 
 If so, government ought to pursue these collateral 
 ends. 
 
 It is still more evidently the duty of government 
 to promote, always in subordination to its main end, 
 every thing which is useful as a means for the attain 1 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHUKCH AND STATE. 495 
 
 ing of that main end. The improvement of steam 
 navigation, for example, is by no means a primary 
 object of government. But as steam vessels are use- 
 ful for the purpose of national defence, and for the 
 purpose of facilitating intercourse between distant pro- 
 vinces, and of 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 propriety engage the care of the 
 government. That the people should be well edu- 
 cated is in itself a good thing; and the state ought 
 therefore to promote this object, if it can do so with- 
 out any sacrifice of its primary object. The education 
 of the people, conducted on those principles of mo- 
 rality which are common to all the forms of Chris- 
 tianity, is highly valuable as a means of promoting 
 the main object for which government exists, and 
 is on this ground well deserving the attention of 
 rulers. We will not at present go into the 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 
 
496 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 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 Evan- 
 gelical. 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 in- 
 struction and consolation as will, in his opinion, be 
 most useful to them. 
 
 We should say the same of government. Govern- 
 ment is not an institution for the propagation of re- 
 ligion, any more than St. George's Hospital is an 
 institution for the propagation of religion : and the 
 most absurd and pernicious consequences would fol- 
 low, 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 fol- 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 497 
 
 lows 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 hy- 
 pothesis, admit of no satisfactory solution. 
 
 All persecution directed against the persons or 
 property of men is, on our principle, obviously inde- 
 fensible. For, the protection of the persons and pro- 
 perty 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 de- 
 prive it of a part of its effective strength in all con- 
 tests with foreign nations. Such a course is as absurd 
 as it would be in the governors of an hospital to 
 reject an able surgeon because he is an Universal 
 Eestitutionist, 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 go- 
 
 VOL. II. K K 
 
498 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 vernment. 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 protection of which government 
 exists. Here the secondary end is, at present, incon- 
 sistent 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 authorities 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 un- 
 dignified. 
 
 Supposing the circumstances of a country to be 
 such, that the government may with propriety, on 
 our principles, give religious instruction to a people ; 
 we have next to inquire, what religion shall be taught. 
 Bishop Warburton answers, the religion of the ma- 
 jority. 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 given without exciting 
 most serious discontent, and endangering those in- 
 terests, the protection of which is the first object of 
 government. But we never can admit that a ruler 
 can be justified in helping to spread a system of 
 opinions solely because that system is pleasing to the 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 499 
 
 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 propa- 
 gate, 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 Antinomian- 
 ism, and between the confines of Popery and those 
 of Presbyterianism. In our opinion, that religious 
 instruction which the ruler ought, in his public capa- 
 city, 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 will, of course, believe that his own reli- 
 gion 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. He may 
 prefer the doctrines and government of the Church 
 of England to those of 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 sur- 
 plice or a single line of a liturgy would be the signal 
 for hooting and riot, and would probably bring stools 
 and brick-bats 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 
 
 kk 2 
 
500 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 may learn ; and it is idle to talk of the duty of teach- 
 ing truth in ways which only cause men to cling 
 more firmly to falsehood. 
 
 On these principles we conceive that a statesman, 
 who might be far indeed from regarding the Church 
 of England with the reverence which Mr. Gladstone 
 feels for her, might yet firmly oppose all attempts to 
 destroy her. Such a statesman may be too well ac- 
 quainted with her origin to look upon her with super- 
 stitious 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 non-conformists 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 Kome, 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 her 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 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 501 
 
 portion would fall under the influence of spiritual 
 mountebanks, hungry for gain, or drunk with fana- 
 ticism. While he would with 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 perhaps 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 Doddridges 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 go- 
 vernments 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 find 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. 
 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 expe- 
 dient to give a public maintenance to the Catholic 
 clergy of Ireland; and he would deeply regret that 
 no such measure was adopted in 1829. 
 
 In this way, we conceive, a statesman might, on 
 our principles, satisfy himself that it would be in the 
 
502 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 highest degree inexpedient to abolish the 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 establised 
 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 gene- 
 rally 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 magis- 
 trate, after sacrificing order, peace, union, all the 
 interests which it is his first duty to protect, for the 
 purpose of promoting 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 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 503 
 
 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 that a 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 doubtless 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 mitiga- 
 tion 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 an- 
 tagonists 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 engross 
 him, as to leave him no leisure for literature and phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 END OE THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
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