(_Edinburgh Review_, January, 1834.)
Though {194}several years have elapsed since the publication of this
work, it is still, we believe, a new publication to most of our readers,
is or 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 then’ growth;
smiths become blear-eyed. In the same manner almost every intellectual
employment has a tendency to produce some intellectual malady.
Biographers, translators, editors, all, in short, who employ themselves
in illustrating
(1) _A History of the Right Honourable William Pitt, Earl of
Chatham, containing his Speeches in Parliament, a
considerable Portion of his Correspondence when Secretary of
State, upon French, Spanish, and American Affairs, never
before published; and an Account of the principal Events and
Persons of his Time, connected with his Life, Sentiments,
and Administration_. By the Rev. Francis Thackeray, A. M. 2
vols. 4to. London: 1827.
{195}the lives or the writings of others, are peculiarly exposed to the
_Lues Boswelliana_, or disease of admiration. But we scarcely remember
ever to have seen a patient so far gone in this distemper as Mr.
Thackeray. He is not satisfied with forcing us to confess that Pitt was
a great orator, a vigorous minister, an honourable and high-spirited
gentleman. He will have it that all virtues and all 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,