temporal nobility was not a necessary part of the Reformation, any more
than the confiscation of the estates of the church and the emigrants was a
necessary step in the progress of freedom in France. In both cases, the
iniquitous spoliation was the result of human wickedness mingling with the
current, and taking advantage of the generous effort for religious or
civil emancipation on the part of the many, to render it the means of
achieving individual robbery for behoof of the few. The Reformation might
have been established in the utmost purity in Great Britain, without one
shilling being diverted from the service of the church, or the maintenance
of the poor, and with the preservation of a fund large enough to have
provided for the permanent support of the unfortunate, and the progressive
extension of the Established Church, in proportion to the increase and
wants of the inhabitants. In like manner, the Revolution might have been
conducted to a successful and probably bloodless termination in France,
without the unutterable present misery and hopeless ultimate prostration
of religion and freedom, which resulted from the confiscations of the
Convention, and the division of all the land in the kingdom among the
peasants. In neither case are we justified in stigmatizing the cause of
freedom, on account of the dreadful excesses which were committed by the
selfish who joined in its support; but in both we must acknowledge the
impartial justice of Providence, which has made the iniquity of men work
out their own appropriate and well-deserved punishments, and has made it
to descend to the third and fourth generations from those who committed or
permitted the deeds of injustice.
The power of the oligarchy, which resulted from the Revolution of 1688,
and the unbounded corruption by which, for seventy years afterwards, their
power was maintained, has been less the subject of observation or censure
by subsequent writers, for the very obvious reason that the popular party,
who had gained the victory at the Revolution, were during all that period
in power, and they have been in no hurry to expose or decry these
degrading, but to them most profitable, abuses. It is probable that they
never would have been brought to light at all, but would have quietly and
irrevocably sapped the foundations of the British character and of British
greatness, had it not been that, fortunately for the country, the incubus
of corrupting Whig aristocracy was thrown off by George III. and Lord
Bute, in 1761, and cast down by the same monarch and Mr Pitt, in 1784;
and, in their rage and disappointment, they exposed, when practised by
their opponents, the well-known, and, to them, long profitable abuses, by
which the government, since the Revolution, had been carried on. It is the
revelations on this subject which have recently issued from the press,
which have cast so broad, and, to the philosophic historian, so important
a light on the history of the first two-thirds of the eighteenth century;
and among them, the letters and memoirs of Horace Walpole occupy a
distinguished place. Certainly it was far from the intention of that able
and witty annalist to illustrate the unbounded abuses, so long practised
by Sir Robert Walpole and the Whigs who preceded him, nor the vast
blessings conferred upon the country by George III. and Lord Bute, who
first broke through the degrading spell. We have heard little of this view
of the subject from the able and learned Whigs who have reviewed his
works. Yet it lies on the very surface of things, and little need be said,
and still less learned, to show that it is there that the turning-point
and great political moral of the history of England, during the eighteenth
century, is to be found.
The truth on this subject could not so long have been kept out of view,
had it not been that, till very recently, no historian at all worthy of
the name has approached the subject of English history during the
eighteenth century. The immortal work of Hume, as all the world knows,
comes down only to the Revolution of 1688; and of the subsequent period,
down to that when his history was written, in 1760, he has told us only
that the monopoly of offices, places, and opinions, by the dominant Whig
party, had been so close and uninterrupted, that it had well-nigh rendered
it impossible to arrive at the truth on the subject. Smollett, whose
continuation of Hume is to be seen in every bookseller's window beside its
great predecessor, is wholly unworthy of the honourable place which
chance, and the neglect of others, have hitherto assigned it. Admirable as
a novelist--at least as that character was understood in those
days--graphic, entertaining, humourous--Smollett had none of the qualities
necessary for a historian. He was neither a soldier nor an orator, a poet
nor a philosopher. The campaigns of Marlborough, the eloquence of Chatham,
were alike lost upon him. He was neither warmed by the victory of Blenheim
nor the death of Wolfe: the adventures of Charles Edward and the disasters
of Saratoga, were narrated with the same imperturbable phlegm. As to
philosophic views of the progress of society, or the social and political
effects of the Revolution of 1688 and the Reformation, the thing was out
of the question: it neither belonged to his age nor character, to dream of
any thing of the kind. He was, in his history at least, a mere
bookseller's hack, who compiled a very dull and uninteresting work from
the information, scanty during his period, which the _Annual Register_ and
_Parliamentary History_ afforded. If a greater annalist than he do not
arise to do justice to his merits, the fame even of Marlborough will never
descend, at least in its full proportions, to future generations.
It is deeply to be regretted that Sir James Mackintosh did not complete
his long-cherished design of continuing Hume's history. No man, since
Hume's time, possessed so many qualifications for the undertaking. To an
incomparable talent for depicting character, and a luminous philosophic
mind, he joined great erudition, extensive knowledge, and a practical
acquaintance both with statesmen and ordinary life. Though he was a party
man, and had early taken, in his _Vindiciae Gallicae_, a decided part
against Burke, in apology of the French Revolution, yet he possessed great
candour of mind, and had magnanimity enough, in maturer years, to admit,
that he had been far led astray in early life by the inexperience and
ardour of youth. When a man possesses this equanimity and justice of mind,
it is wholly immaterial to what political party he belongs, and with what
preconceived opinions he undertakes the task of narrating events. Truth
will shine out in every page--justice will preside over every
decision--facts will inevitably lead to the correct conclusion. It is
perverted genius, skilful partisanship, imagination brought to the aid of
party, and learning dedicated to the support of delusion, which is really
to be dreaded. Mackintosh's mind was essentially philosophical: this
appears in every page of his Life by his sons--one of the most interesting
pieces of biography in the English language. His characters of statesmen,
orators, and poets, in England during the eighteenth century, chiefly
written at Bombay, or during the voyage home, are perhaps unparalleled in
our language for justice and felicity. They show how richly stored his
mind was; how correctly his taste had been formed on the best models; how
vast a stock of images, comparisons, and associations, he brought to bear
on the events and characters which he passed in survey. He had not a
poetical mind, and was destitute of a pictorial eye. His history,
therefore, never would have been adorned by those moving scenes, those
graphic pictures, which are the life and soul of the highest style of
history, and which have given immortality to the writings of Livy,
Sallust, and Tacitus. But the eighteenth century, though by no means
destitute of events calling for such imaginative powers, has perhaps less
of them than any equal period in English history. What is mainly required
for it is a philosophic mind, to appreciate the effects of the great
convulsions of the preceding century, and an impartial judgment, to
discern the causes which were preparing the still more terrible
catastrophe of the nineteenth. Mackintosh possessed these great and
valuable qualities in a very high degree; and his history, if he had
succeeded in completing it, would unquestionably have taken its place with
those of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. The thing really to be lamented is,
that the time which Providence allotted to him, and which was amply
sufficient for the completion even of so great an undertaking, was wasted
amidst the attractions and frivolity of high London society; and that,
more even than the heroic Swede in captivity, he was
"Condemn'd a needy suppliant to wait,
While ladies interpose, and slaves debate."
Lord Mahon has conferred essential obligations on English history. He has
brought to the annals of the British empire during the eighteenth century,
qualities nearly the reverse of those of Mackintosh, but which are,
nevertheless, not less essential than those of the Scotch philosopher, for
a right appreciation and correct delineation of the period. He is a
scholar, a gentleman, and a man of the world. Possessed of great knowledge
of his subject, vigorous application, and a classical turn of expression,
he has united to these qualities those, in historical writers, still
rarer, of a practical acquaintance with statesmen, both in Parliament and
private life, and a thorough knowledge of the leading public characters,
both military, literary, and dignified, of his own time. Every one must
see what valuable qualities these are, for a correct appreciation and
faithful narrative of the history of England during the eighteenth
century--great part of which was not distinguished by any enthusiasm or
impulse in the public mind, and during which the springs of events were to
be found rather in the intrigues of the court, the coteries of the
nobility, or the cabals of Parliament, than in any great movements of the
people, or mighty heaves of the human mind. In truth, no one but a person
moving in the sphere and possessed of the connexions which Lord Mahon
enjoys, could either obtain the knowledge, or understand the real springs
of events, during a great part of the period he has embraced in his work.
But still the history of the eighteenth century remains to be written.
Lord Mahon has remarkable talents as a biographer; his account of the
Rebellion in 1745, and subsequent adventures of Charles Edward, is not
surpassed in interest by any thing in the English language, and is justly
referred to by Sismondi, in his _History of France_, as by far the best
account of that interesting episode in British history. But his _History
of England_ are "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire," rather than history
itself. We want in his pages the general views drawn from particular
facts, the conclusions applicable to all ages, which mark the philosophic
historian. His volumes will always occupy a distinguished place in English
literature, and will prove of essential service to every succeeding writer
who may undertake to treat of the period which they embrace; but the
mantle of Hume is destined to fall on other shoulders.
Walpole's correspondence and memoirs, in many respects, are highly
valuable, and will always be referred to, as throwing much important light
on the parliamentary and court transactions of the middle of the
eighteenth century. They develope much that was known to no other man, at
least to no other with whose writings we are yet acquainted, who has left
any record of his information to future times. In this respect, his
memoirs are invaluable. It is astonishing how much information there is
afloat in the higher political circles, in every age, which is generally
known at the time to all who frequent them, which, on that very account,
perishes altogether with that generation. No one thinks of committing it
to paper any more than they do the stages to London, or the names of the
months in the year, or the usual forms of society--because every one knows
them. Thus the information, often of essential value to future
historians, perishes like the beauty of the women which has adorned the
age, unless some garrulous gossip, in his correspondence or memoirs, has
been trifling enough for his age, and wise enough for the next, to commit
it to paper. Horace Walpole was that garrulous gossip. His correspondence
with Sir H. Mann, embracing altogether a period of twenty years, which had
previously been published, and his _Memoirs of the Reign of George III._,
which have recently appeared, contain an account, tinged no doubt by
strong party feelings, but still an account of a very long and important
period of English history; and abound not only in curious facts,
interesting to the antiquary or the biographer, but contain many important
revelations of essential value to the national or general historian of the
period.
The praise of these volumes, however, must be taken with much alloy.
Horace Walpole was a man of the world and a courtier; he had quick natural
parts and much acquired discernment. He was a good scholar, was fond of
antiquities, and a passionate admirer of curiosities, which he collected
with indefatigable industry, and no small success, from every quarter. He
had lived too long in the political and the great world not to have
learned its selfishness and appreciated its heartlessness; not to have
become acquainted with many political secrets, and seen enough of
political baseness. He had considerable powers of observation, and
occasionally makes a profound remark, especially on the selfish tendencies
and the secret springs of the human heart. His characters are all drawn
from the life; and often with great power both of observation and
expression. But he had not sufficient steadiness of thought or purpose to
achieve any thing considerable, or draw any important conclusions even
from the multifarious information of which he was master, or the powers of
observation which he possessed. There was nothing grand or generous in his
composition. No elevated thoughts, no lofty aspirations, no patriotic
resolves, are visible in his writings. Political _insouciance_ was his
prevailing habitude of mind; an invincible tendency to "_laissez aller_"
the basis of his character. But he did not lie by and observe events, like
Metternich and Talleyrand, to become embued with their tendency, and
ultimately gain the mastery of them; he let them take their course, and in
reality cared very little for the result. He was an epicurean, not a
stoic, in politics. His character approaches very nearly to that which
common report has assigned to Lord Melbourne. He had strong party
attachments, and still stronger party antipathies; he seems to have
devoutly swallowed the creed so common to party men of every age, that all
those on his side were noble and virtuous, and all those against him, base
and selfish. He had much of the wit of Erasmus, but he had also a full
share of his aversion to martyrdom. But we shall find abundance of
patriotic declamation, cutting invective, and querulous complaint. The
misfortune is, that the declamation is always against the triumph of the
Tories; the invective against the astuteness of Lord Bute; the complaint
against the disunion of the Whig leaders, or the Tory influences at court.
There is class of readers considerable among men, numerous among women, in
whom the appetite for scandal is so strong, that it altogether overleaps
the bounds of time and faction, and seizes with nearly as much avidity on
the private gossip of the past as of the present age. With such persons,
the next best thing to discovering a _faux pas_ among their acquaintances,
is to hear of it among their grandmothers; the greatest comfort, next to
laying bare political baseness in their rulers, is to discover it in the
government which ruled their fathers. We confess we do not belong to this
class. We have little taste for scandal, either in the male or female
great world. We see so much of selfishness, envy, hatred, malice, and all
uncharitableness, around us, that their details have not only entirely
lost the charm of novelty, but become absolutely sickening by repetition.
To such readers the first volume of Wraxall's Memoirs must be a precious
morsel. We never doubted that the anecdotes he told were in the main true,
from the moment we saw the _Quarterly_ and _Edinburgh Reviews_ combined
in running him down. Nothing but truth could have produced so portentous
an alliance. They combined in saying that what he said was a libel.
Doubtless they were right, upon the principle, that the greater the truth
the greater the libel. To such readers we would strongly recommend the
_Memoirs and Correspondence of Walpole_. They will find a mass of scandal
adequate to satiate the most voracious appetite; evidence of general
corruption sufficient to satisfy the most vehement political opponent.
It is in the evidence which these volumes afford, of the general
corruption of Great Britain during the greater part of the eighteenth
century, that, in our humble opinion, the most valuable lesson of
political wisdom is to be found which that period conveys. We rise from
the long series of his amusing volumes with the firm conviction, that in
his days all parties were base, and all statesmen in a certain sense
corrupt. They absolutely render the common story credible, that during the
days of Sir R. Walpole, when the members of Parliament were invited to
dine with the prime-minister, each found a L.500 bank-note under his
napkin, when he took it off his plate at dinner. At any rate the long, and
in many respects beneficent, reign of that veteran statesman was
maintained entirely by patronage and corruption. Horace Walpole himself
tells us that it was commonly said, at the accession of George III. in
1761, that the country was governed by two hundred noblemen, who received
more from the government than they gave to it. The influence of these two
hundred noblemen, in their respective counties or boroughs, was maintained
by the most unsparing use, sometimes of actual bribery, always of
government patronage, to secure the adherence of every political partisan,
even of the very lowest grade. With truth it might be said of England at
that time, as it was of France before the Revolution, that "no one was so
great as to be beyond the hatred of a minister, nor so little as to escape
the notice of a comptroller of excise." Every office in the state, from
the prime minister down to the humblest _employe_ in the post-office or
customs, was conferred to secure the fidelity of political supporters.
Liberality to opponents, the public good, fair dealing, the claims of long
service to the country, destitution, charity, noble descent, patriotic
conduct, were alike scouted, and by common consent banished from the
consideration of public men. Political support was the one thing needful;
and to secure it nothing was grudged, without it nothing was to be got.
Johnson's well-known definition of an exciseman, shows the profound
indignation which this universal and unsparing system of corruption
excited, among the few resolute and generous spirits which its long
continuance had left in the country. We heard nothing of the evils of this
system from the Whigs, during the seventy years subsequent to the
Revolution, when it was practised by themselves; but we have heard enough
of it from them since that time, when the state machine they had erected
has been worked by their opponents.
The Emperor Nicholas said to the Marquis Custine, with much bitterness and
some truth--"I can understand a democracy, where the popular voice is
every thing, and the magistrates implicitly obey its mandates. I can
understand a despotism, where the monarch's voice is every thing, and the
people merely obey his commands. But a constitutional monarchy, where the
people are mocked by a show of liberty which they do not possess, and
bribed into submission by corruption, by which they are really
degraded--that I do not understand, and I hope in God never again to see
it. I had enough of it in the government of Poland." Amidst all the
blessings of a limited and representative monarchy, which no one who
surveys the mighty empire of Great Britain can dispute, there is, it must
be confessed, some truth in this caustic remark. Walpole has told us of
the astonishing extent to which corruption was carried in his day, by Lord
Bute and the Tories, who got possession of the corrupting government in
1761, which the Whigs had been constructing since 1688. The untoward issue
of the war, which terminated in 1749 in the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the
disgraceful commencement of the Seven Years' War, unjustly expiated by
the blood of Byng, gloriously redeemed by the genius of Chatham; the
disasters of the American contest; the frequent defeats of the first years
of the Revolutionary war, afford decisive evidence how deeply this
degrading and corrupting system had entered into the vitals of the nation
during the eighteenth century. Every one knows that America was lost in
consequence of the imbecility and selfish views of the commanders, whom
the corrupt system of government in Great Britain had raised to the head
of affairs. On several occasions, they might, with a little energy, have
terminated the war with glory to themselves and their country. The
disasters of Flanders, in 1793 and 1794, were in a great measure owing to
the same cause. During peace, influential imbecility is constantly rising
to the head of affairs, and the consequences immediately appear on the
first breaking out of hostilities. Nothing but the pressure and disasters
of war, can drive government out of the inveterate vice of purchasing
parliamentary support by the promotion of incapable and improper persons.
The Whigs, since they were driven from the helm of affairs in 1761, have
been constantly declaiming against this system, which they themselves had
introduced and matured during the preceding seventy years; and the clamour
they raised at last became so violent, that it brought about the great
organic change of 1832. But no sooner were they again seated in power,
than the same system was not only pursued by them, but extended: patronage
was augmented in every possible way; a new machine for influence, adapted
to the time--that of commissions--was introduced and largely worked, and
promotions in every department were rigidly confined to political
partisans. It has been a frequent subject of complaint against the Tory
government, both before the Revolution of 1832, and on their return to
power in 1841, that they were too liberal to their opponents, and
forgetful of their friends, in the dispensing of the public patronage; and
we have only to take up the Red Book, to see that this praise or
imputation justly belongs to them. But no man alive ever heard of a Whig,
during the ten years they were in power, being accused of giving any thing
to a Tory. The saying, which had passed into a proverb during that period,
that "the Whigs could do with impunity many things to which the Tories
could never set their faces," proves how rapidly this degrading system of
official corruption was again spreading, during the Whig tenure of power,
in domestic government. The disasters of Affghanistan, the shaking of our
power in India, the abortive first two years' hostilities with China, show
with what dreadful danger it was attended to our external power and even
national existence.