(July 1835)
_History of the Revolution in England, in 1688. Comprising a View of the
Reign of James the Second from his Accession to the Enterprise of the
Prince of Orange, by the late Right Honourable Sir JAMES MACKINTOSH;
and completed to the Settlement of the Crown, by the Editor. To which
is prefixed a Notice of the Life, Writings, and Speeches of Sir James
Mackintosh. 4to. London: 1834._
[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
“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.]
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 not ashamed to own
that we approach this relic of a virtuous and most accomplished man
with feelings of respect and gratitude which may possibly pervert our
judgment.
It is hardly possible to avoid instituting a comparison between this
work and another celebrated Fragment. Our readers will easily guess that
we allude to Mr. Fox’s History of James the Second. The two books relate
to 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 success 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 Treasury bench and at Brookes’s during the storms
which 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 Lyttelton 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 Mackintosh. Indeed, the superiority of Mr. Fox to Sir James as
an orator is hardly more clear than the superiority of Sir James to Mr.
Fox as a 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 constant effort,
a tug up hill. Nature, or habit which had become nature, asserted its
rights. Mr. Fox wrote debates. Sir James Mackintosh spoke essays.
As far as mere diction was concerned, indeed, Mr. Fox did his best
to avoid those faults which the habit of public speaking is likely
to generate. He was so nervously apprehensive of sliding into some
colloquial 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 expression. He declared that he
would use no word which was not to be found in Dryden. In any other
person we should have called this solicitude mere foppery; and, in spite
of all our admiration for Mr. Fox, we cannot but think that his extreme
attention to the petty niceties of language was hardly worthy of so
manly and so capacious an understanding. There were purists of this
kind at Rome; and their fastidiousness was censured by Horace, with that
perfect good sense and good taste which characterise all his writings.
There were purists of this kind at the time of the revival of letters;
and the two greatest scholars of that time raised their voices, the one
from within, the other from without the Alps, against a scrupulosity so
unreasonable. “Carent,” said Politian, “quae scribunt isti viribus et
vita, carent actu, carent effectu, carent indole... Nisi liber ille
praesto sit ex quo quid excerpant, colligere tria verba non possunt...
Horum semper igitur oratio tremula, vacillans, infirma... Quaeso ne
ista superstitione te alliges... Ut bene currere non potest qui pedem
ponere studet in alienis tantum vestigiis, ita nec bene scribere qui
tanquam de praetscripto non audet egredi.”--“Posthac,” exclaims Erasmus,
“non licebit episcopos appellare patres reverendos, nec in calce
literarum scribere annum a Christo nato, quod id nusquam faciat Cicero.
Quid autem ineptius quam, toto seculo novato, religione, imperiis,
magistratibus, locorum vocabulis, aedificiis, cultu, moribus, non aliter
audere loqui quam locutus est Cicero? Si revivisceret ipse Cicero,
rideret hoc Ciceronianorum genus.”
While Mr. Fox winnowed and sifted his phraseology with a care which
seems hardly consistent with the simplicity and elevation of his mind,
and of which the effect really was to debase and enfeeble his style,
he was little on his guard against those more serious improprieties of
manner into which a great orator who undertakes to write history is
in danger of falling. There is about the whole book a vehement,
contentious, replying manner. Almost every argument is put in the form
of an interrogation, an ejaculation, or a sarcasm. The writer seems
to be addressing himself to some imaginary audience, to be tearing in
pieces a defence of the Stuarts which has just been pronounced by an
imaginary Tory. Take, for example, his answer to Hume’s remarks on the
execution of Sydney; and substitute “the 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 inspiration, foaming, screaming,
choked by the rushing multitude of his words.
It is true that the passage to which we have referred, and several other
passages which we could point out, are admirable when considered merely
as exhibitions of mental power. We at once recognise in them that
consummate master of the whole art of intellectual gladiatorship, whose
speeches, imperfectly 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 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 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 philosophical 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, or a scene, or on a transparency, the
exquisite finishing which we admire in some of the small Dutch
interiors, would not squander his powers more than this eminent man too
often did. His audience resembled the boy in the Heart of Midlothian,
who pushes away the lady’s guineas with contempt, and insists on
having the white money. They preferred the silver with which they were
familiar, and which they were constantly passing about from hand to
hand, to the gold which they had never before seen, and with the value
of which they were unacquainted.
It is much to be regretted, we think, that Sir James Mackintosh did not
wholly devote his later years to philosophy and literature. His talents
were not those which enable a speaker to produce with rapidity a series
of striking but transitory impressions, and to excite the minds of five
hundred gentlemen at midnight, without saying anything that any one of
them will be able to remember in the morning. His arguments were of a
very different 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 forgets within half an hour, and never thinks of again.
Whatever was valuable in the compositions of Sir James Mackintosh was
the ripe fruit of study and of meditation. It was the same with his
conversation. In his most familiar talk there was no wildness, no
inconsistency, no amusing nonsense, no exaggeration for the sake of
momentary effect. His mind was a vast magazine, admirably arranged.
Everything was there; and everything was in its place. His judgments
on men, on sects, on books, had been often and carefully tested and
weighed, and had then been committed, each to its proper receptacle,
in the most capacious and accurately constructed memory that any human
being ever possessed. It would have been strange indeed if you had asked
for anything that was not to be found in that immense storehouse. 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 moment. 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 requiring 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 Scotchman. He did not find, but
bring. You could not cry halves to anything that turned up while you
were in his company.
The intellectual and moral qualities which are most important in a
historian, he possessed in a very high degree. He was singularly mild,
calm, and 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, 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 circumstance that
could be urged in favour of the transgressor, he never disputed the
authority of the law, or showed his ingenuity by refining away its
enactments. On every occasion he showed himself firm where principles
were in question, but full of charity towards individuals.
We have no hesitation in pronouncing this Fragment decidedly the best
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 plums, and no suet.” There is perhaps too much
disquisition and too little narrative; and indeed this is the fault
into which, judging from the habits of Sir James’s mind, we should have
thought him most likely to fall. What we assuredly did not anticipate
was, that the narrative would be better executed than the disquisitions.
We expected to find, and we have found, many just delineations of
character, and many digressions full of interest, such as the account of
the order of Jesuits, and of the state of prison discipline in England
a hundred and fifty years ago. We expected to find, and we have
found, many reflections breathing the spirit of a calm and benignant
philosophy. But we did not, we own, expect to find that Sir James could
tell a story as well as Voltaire or Hume. Yet such is the fact; and if
any person doubts it, we would advise him to read the account of the
events which followed the issuing of King James’s declaration, the
meeting of the clergy, the violent scene at the privy council, the
commitment, trial, and acquittal of the bishops. The most superficial
reader must be charmed, we think, by the liveliness of the narrative.
But no person who is not acquainted with that vast mass of intractable
materials of which the valuable and interesting part has been extracted
and condensed can fully appreciate the skill of the writer. Here, and
indeed throughout the book, we find many harsh and careless expressions
which the author would probably have removed if he had lived to complete
his work. But, in spite of these blemishes, we must say that we should
find it difficult to point out, in any modern history, any passage of
equal length and at the same time of equal merit. We find in it the
diligence, 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 circulating libraries than
the last novel.
Sir James was not, we think, gifted with poetical imagination. But that
lower kind of imagination which is necessary to the historian he had
in large measure. It is not the business of the historian to create new
worlds and to people them with new races of beings. He is to Homer
and Shakspeare, to Dante and Milton, what Nollekens was to Canova, or
Lawrence to Michael Angelo. The object of the historian’s imitation
is not within him; it is furnished from without. It is not a vision of
beauty and grandeur discernible only by the eye of his own mind, but a
real model which he did not make, and which he cannot alter. Yet his is
not a mere mechanical imitation. 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 expressions which seem to us harsh, and some which
we think inaccurate. These would probably have been corrected, if Sir
James had lived to superintend the publication. We ought to add that the
printer has by no means done his duty. One misprint in particular is so
serious as to require notice. Sir James Mackintosh has paid a high and
just tribute to the genius, the integrity, and the courage of a good and
great man, a distinguished ornament of English literature, a fearless
champion of English liberty, Thomas Burnet, Master of the Charter-House,
and author of the most eloquent and imaginative work, the Telluris
Theoria Sacra. Wherever the name of this celebrated man occurs, it is
printed “Bennet,” both in the text and in the index. This cannot be mere
negligence. It is plain that Thomas Burnet and his writings were never
heard of by the gentleman who has been employed to edit this volume,
and who, not content with deforming Sir James Mackintosh’s text by such
blunders, has prefixed to it a bad Memoir, has appended to it a bad
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 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 fine a Torso, we cannot
pretend to conjecture. We read that, when the Consul Mummius, after
the taking of Corinth, was preparing to send to Rome some works of the
greatest Grecian sculptors, he told the packers that if they broke his
Venus or his Apollo, he would force them to restore the limbs which
should be wanting. A head by a hewer of milestones 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 fate. We would not stoop to defend Sir James Mackintosh
from the attacks of fourth-rate magazines and pothouse newspapers. But
here his own fame is turned against him. A book of which not one copy
would ever have been bought but for his name in the title-page is made
the vehicle of the imputation. Under such circumstances we cannot help
exclaiming, in the words of one of the most amiable of Homer’s heroes,
“Nun tis enieies