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work, DR JOHN GILLIES, historiographer to his majesty for Scotland, published The History of Ancient Greece, its Colonies and Conquests, two volumes, quarto, 1786. The monarchical spirit of the new historian was scarcely less decided than that of Mr Mitford, though expressed with less zeal and idiomatic plainness. The history of Greece,' says Dr Gillies, exposes the dangerous turbulence of democracy, and arraigns the despotism of tyrants. By describing the incurable evils inherent in every republican policy, it evinces the inestimable benefits resulting to liberty itself from the lawful dominion of hereditary kings, and the steady operation of wellexecuted with considerable ability and care; a sixth edition of the work (London, 1820, four volumes, 8vo.) has been called for, and it may still be consulted with advantage.
It was usual at Athens for execution very soon to follow condemnation-commonly on the morrow; but it happened that the condemnation of Socrates took place on the eve of the day appointed for the sacred ceremony of crowning the galley which carried the annual offerings to the gods worshipped at Delos, and immemorial tradition forbade all executions till the sacred vessel's return. Thus, the death of Socrates was respited thirty days, while his friends had free access to him in the prison. During all that time he admirably supported his constancy. Means were concerted for his escape; the jailer was bribed, a vessel prepared, and a secure retreat in Thessaly provided. No arguments, no prayers, could persuade him to use the op-regulated monarchy.' The history of Dr Gillies was portunity. He had always taught the duty of obedience to the laws, and he would not furnish an example of the breach of it. To no purpose it was urged that he had been unjustly condemned-he had always held that wrong did not justify wrong. He waited with perfect composure the return of the sacred vessel, reasoned on the immortality of the soul, the advantage of virtue, the happiness derived from having made it through life his pursuit, and, with his friends about him, took the fatal cup and died.
Writers who, after Xenophon and Plato, have related the death of Socrates, seem to have held themselves bound to vie with those who preceded them in giving pathos to the story. The purpose here has been rather to render it intelligible—to show its connexion with the political history of Athens-to derive from it illustration of the political history. The magnanimity of Socrates, the principal efficient of the pathos, surely deserves admiration; yet it is not that in
In 1799 MR SHARON TURNER, a solicitor, commenced the publication of a series of works on English history, by which he has obtained a highly respectable reputation. The first was a History of the Anglo-Saxons, the second a History of England during the Middle Ages: in subsequent publications he has continued the series to the end of the reign of Elizabeth; the whole being comprised in twelve volumes, and containing much new and interesting information on the government, laws, literature, and manners, as well as on the civil and ecclesiastical history of the country. From an ambitious attempt to rival Gibbon in loftiness of style and diction, Mr Turner has disfigured his history by a pomp of expression and involved intricacy of style, that often
narrative. This defect is more conspicuous in his border on the ludicrous, and mar the effect of his latter volumes. The early part of his history, devoted to the Anglo-Saxons, and the labour, as he informs
to suit the modern style of thought and argument in which philosophical subjects are presented.
which he has most outshone other men. The circumstances of Lord Russel's fate were far more trying Socrates, we may reasonably suppose, would have borne Lord Russel's trial; but with Bishop Burnet for his eulogist, instead of Plato and Xenophon, he would not have had his present splendid fame. The singulars, of sixteen years, is by far the most valuable. Mr merit of Socrates lay in the purity and the usefulness Turner has also published a Sacred History of the of his manners and conversation; the clearness with World, in two volumes: this book is intended to which he saw, and the steadiness with which he prac-view of the chief facts and reasonings on the creaafford to young persons a selected and concentrated tised, in a blind and corrupt age, all moral duties; tion, intellectual design, and divine economy of the the disinterestedness and the zeal with which he de-world, conceived and expressed in such a manner as voted himself to the benefit of others; and the enlarged and warm benevolence, whence his supreme and almost only pleasure seems to have consisted in doing good. The purity of Christian morality, little enough, indeed, seen in practice, nevertheless is become so familiar in theory, that it passes almost for obvious, and even congenial to the human mind. Those only will justly estimate the merit of that near approach to it which Socrates made, who will take the pains to gather as they may from the writings of his contemporaries and predecessors-how little conception was entertained of it before his time; how dull to a just moral sense the human mind has really been; how slow the progress in the investigation of moral duties, even where not only great pains have been taken, but the greatest abilities zealously employed; and when discovered, how difficult it has been to establish them by proofs beyond controversy, or proofs even that should be generally admitted by the reason of men. It is through the light which Socrates diffused by his doctrine, enforced by his practice, with the advantage of having both the doctrine and the practice exhibited to highest advantage in the incomparable writings of disciples such as Xenophon and Plato, that his life forms an era in the history of Athens and of man.
DR JOHN GILLIES-MR SHARON TURNER• WILLIAM COXE-GEORGE CHALMERS.
While the first volume of Mitford's history was before the public, and experiencing that degree of favour which induced the author to continue his
WILLIAM COXE (1748-1828), archdeacon of Wilts, was the author of various historical works of a very elaborate character. His Memoirs of the Life and Administration of Sir Robert Walpole, published in 1798, in three quarto volumes, was the first tolerable account of any part of our history subsequent to the accession of the house of Hanover. It was followed by Memoirs of Horatio Lord Walpole, in which there was a view of the times between 1678 and 1757. These works derive a great value from the mass of original papers published in connexion with them, though the author's style is heavy and inelegant. His History of the House of Austria, 1807, and his Memoirs of the Kings of Spain of the House of Bourbon, 1813, were almost the first English works in which an acquaintance was displayed with the materials of European history extant in other languages than the French and Latin. Archdeacon Coxe also published the Life and Select Works of Benjamin Stillingfleet, and the Life and Papers of the Duke of Marlborough.
Resembling Turner and Coxe in the vastness of his undertakings, but inferior as a writer, was GEORGE CHALMERS (1744-1825), a native of Scotland, and originally a barrister in one of the American colonies before their disjunction from Britain. His first composition, A History of the United Colonies, from their Settlement till the Peace of 1763, appeared in 1780, and from time to time he gave to the
world many works connected with history, politics, and literature. In 1807 he commenced the publication of his Caledonia, of which three large volumes had appeared, when his death precluded the hope of its being completed. It contains, a laborious antiquarian detail of the earlier periods of Scottish history, with minute topographical and historical accounts of the various provinces of the country.
WILLIAM ROSCOE (1753-1831), as the author of the Life of Lorenzo de Medici, and the Life and Pontificate of Leo X., may be more properly classed with our historians than biographers. The two works contain an account of the revival of letters, and fill up the blank between Gibbon's Decline and Fall and Robertson's Charles V. Mr Roscoe was a native of Liverpool, the son of humble parents, and while engaged as clerk to an attorney, he devoted his leisure hours to the cultivation of his taste for poetry and elegant literature. He acquired a competent knowledge of the Latin, French, and Italian languages. After the completion of his clerkship, Mr Roscoe entered into business in Liverpool, and took an active part in every scheme of improvement, local and national. He wrote a poem on the Wrongs of Africa, to illustrate the evils of slavery, and also a pamphlet on the same subject, which was translated into French by Madame Necker. The stirring times in which he lived called forth several short political dissertations from his pen; but about the year 1789, he applied himself to the great task he had long meditated, a biographical account of Lorenzo de Medici. He procured much new and valuable information, and in 1796 published the result of his labours in two quarto volumes, entitled The Life of Lorenzo de Medici, called the Magnificent. The work was highly successful, and at once clevated Mr Roscoe into the proud situation of one of the most popular authors of the day. A second edition was soon called for, and Messrs Cadell and Davies purchased the copyright for L.1200. About the same time he relinquished the practice of an attorney, and studied for the bar, but ultimately settled as a banker in Liverpool. His next literary appearance was as the translator of The Nurse, a poem, from the Italian of Luigi Tansillo. In 1805 was published his second great work, 'The Life and Pontificate of Leo X.,' four volumes quarto, which, though carefully prepared, and also enriched with new information, did not experience the same success as his life of Lorenzo. The history of the reformation of religion,' it has been justly remarked, 'involved many questions of subtle disputation, as well as many topics of character and conduct; and, for a writer of great candour and discernment, it was scarcely possible to satisfy either the Papists or the Protestants.' The liberal sentiments and accomplishments of Mr Roscoe recommended him to his townsmen as a fit person to represent them in parliament, and he was accordingly elected in 1806. He spoke in favour of the abolition of the slave trade, and of the civil disabilities of the Catholics, which excited against him a powerful and violent opposition. Inclined himself to quiet and retirement, and disgusted with the conduct of his opponents, he withdrew from parliament at the next dissolution, and resolutely declined offering himself as a candidate. He still, however, took a warm interest in passing events, and published several pamphlets on the topics of the day. He projected a history of art and literature, a task well suited to his talents and
attainments, but did not proceed with the work. Pecuniary embarrassments also came to cloud his latter days. The banking establishment of which he was a partner was forced in 1816 to suspend payment, and Mr Roscoe had to sell his library, pictures, and other works of art. His love of literature continued undiminished. He gave valuable assistance in the establishment of the Royal Institution of Liverpool, and on its opening, delivered an inaugural address on the origin and vicissitudes of literature, science, and art, and their influence on the present state of society. In 1827 he received the great gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature for his merits as a historian. He had previously edited an edition of Pope, in ten volumes, which led to some controversy with Mr Bowles, as Mr Roscoe had formed a more favourable, and, we think, just estimate of the poet than his previous editors.
MALCOLM LAING, a zealous Scottish historian, was born in the year 1762 at Strynzia, his paternal estate, in Orkney. He was educated for the Scottish bar, and passed advocate in 1785. He appeared as an author in 1793, having completed Dr Henry's History of Great Britain after that author's death. The sturdy Whig opinions of Laing formed a contrast to the tame moderatism of Henry; but his attainments and research were far superior to those of his predecessor. In 1800 he published The History of Scotland from the Union of the Crowns on the Accession of King James VI. to the throne of England, to the Union of the Kingdoms in the reign of Queen Anne; with two dissertations, historical and critical, on the Gowrie Conspiracy, and on the supposed authenticity of Ossian's Poems. This is an able work, marked by strong prejudices and predilections, but valuable to the historical student for its acute reasoning and analysis. Laing attacked the translator of Ossian with unmerciful and almost ludicrous severity, in revenge for which, the Highland admirers of the Celtic muse attributed his sentiments to the prejudice natural to an Orkney man, caused by the severe checks given by the ancient Caledonians to their predatory Scandinavian predecessors! Laing replied by another publication-The Poems of Ossian, &c. containing the Poetical Works of James Macpher son, Esq. in Prose and Rhyme, with Notes and Illustrations. In 1804 he published another edition of his History of Scotland, to which he prefixed a Preliminary Dissertation on the Participation of Mary Queen of Scots in the Murder of Darnley. The latter is a very ingenious historical argument, the ablest of Mr Laing's productions, uniting the practised skill and acumen of the Scottish lawyer with the knowledge of the antiquary and historian. The latter portion of Mr Laing's life was spent on his paternal estate in Orkney, where he entered upon a course of local and agricultural improvement with the same ardour that he devoted to his literary pursuits. He died in the year 1818. Mr Laing's merit,' says a writer in. the Edinburgh Review, as a critical inquirer into history, an enlightened collector of materials, and a sagacious judge of evidence, has never been surpassed. In spite of his ardent love of liberty, no man has yet presumed to charge him with the slightest sacrifice of historical integrity to his zeal. That he never perfectly attained the art of full, clear, and easy narrative, was owing to the peculiar style of those writers who were popular in his youth, and may be mentioned as a remarkable instance of the disproportion of particular talents to a general vigour of mind.'
or pretence; but the style of the great statesman, with all the care bestowed upon it, is far from being perfect. It wants force and vivacity, as if, in the process of elaboration, the graphic clearness of characters necessary to the historian had evaporated. narrative and distinct perception of events and
SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.
As a philosophical historian, critic, and politician, SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH deserves honourable mention. He was also one of the last of the Scottish
JOHN PINKERTON (1758-1825) distinguished himself by the fierce controversial tone of his historical writings, and by the violence of his prejudices, yet was a learned and industrious collector of forgotten fragments of ancient history and of national anti-The sentiments and principles of the author are, quities. He was a native of Edinburgh, and bred to however, worthy of his liberal and capacious mind. the law. The latter, however, he soon forsook for literary pursuits. He commenced by writing imperfect verses, which, in his peculiar antique orthography, he styled 'Rimes,' from which he diverged to collecting Select Scottish Ballads, 1783, and inditing an Essay on Medals, 1784. Under the name of Heron, he published some Letters on Literature, and was recommended by Gibbon to the booksellers as a fit person to translate the Monkish Historians. He afterwards (1786) published Ancient Scottish Poems, being the writings of Sir Richard Maitland and others, extracted from a manuscript in the Pepys Library at Cambridge. His first historical work was A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians, or Goths, in which he laid down that theory which he maintained through life, that the Celts of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, are savages, and have been savages since the world began! His next important work was an Inquiry into the History of Scotland Preceding the Reign of Malcolm III., or 1056, in which he debates at great length, and, as Sir Walter Scott remarks, with much display of learning, on the history of the Goths, and the conquests which he states them to have obtained over the Celts in their progress through all Europe. In 1796 he published a History of Scotland During the Reign of the Stuarts, the most laborious and valuable of his works. He also compiled a Modern Geography, edited a Collection of Voyages and Travels, was some time editor of the Critical Review, wrote a Treatise on Rocks, and was engaged on various other literary tasks. Pinkerton died in want and obscurity in Paris.
CHARLES JAMES FOX.
CHARLES JAMES Fox (1749-1806), the celebrated statesman and orator, during his intervals of relaxation from public life, among other literary studies and occupations commenced a history of the reign of King James II., intending to continue it to the settlement at the revolution of 1688. An introductory chapter, giving a rapid view of our constitutional history from the time of Henry VII., he completed. He wrote also some chapters of his history, but at the time of his death he had made but little progress in his work. Public affairs, and a strong partiality and attachment to the study of the classics, and to works of imagination and poetry, were continually drawing him off from his historical researches, added to which he was fastidiously scrupulous as to all the niceties of language, and wished to form his plan exclusively on the model of ancient writers, without note, digression, or dissertation. 'He once assured me,' says Lord Holland, that he would admit no word into his book for which he had not the authority of Dryden.' We need not wonder, therefore, that Mr Fox died before completing his historical work. Such minute attention to style, joined to equal regard for facts and circumstances, must have weighed down any writer even of uninterrupted and active application. In 1808 the unfinished composition was given to the world by Lord Holland, under the title of A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second, with an Introductory Chapter. An appendix of original papers was also added. The history is plainly written, without the slightest approach to pedantry
Sir James Mackintosh.
metaphysicians, and one of the most brilliant conversers of his times-qualifications apparently very dissimilar. His candour, benevolence, and liberality, gave a grace and dignity to his literary speculations and to his daily life. Mackintosh was a native of Inverness-shire, and was born at Aldouriehouse, on the banks of Loch Ness, October 24, 1765. His father was a brave Highland officer, who possessed a small estate, called Kylachy, in his native county, which James afterwards sold for £9000. From his earliest days James Mackintosh had a passion for books; and though all his relatives were Jacobites, he was a stanch Whig. After studying at Aberdeen (where he had as a college companion and friend the pious and eloquent Robert Hall), Mackintosh went to Edinburgh, and studied medicine. In 1788 he repaired to London, wrote for the press, and afterwards applied himself to the study of law. In 1791 he published his Vindicia Gallica, a defence of the French Revolution, in reply to Burke, which, for cogency of argument, historical knowledge, and logical precision, is a remarkable work to be written by a careless and irregular young man of twenty-six. Though his bearing to his great antagonist was chivalrous and polite, Mackintosh attacked his opinions with the ardour and impetuosity of youth, and his work was received with great applause. Four years afterwards he acknowledged to Burke that he had been the dupe of his own enthusiasm, and that a melancholy experience' had undeceived him. The excesses of the French Revolution had no doubt contributed to this change, which, though it afterwards was made
the cause of obloquy and derision to Mackintosh, seems to have been adopted with perfect sincerity and singleness of purpose. He afterwards delivered and published a series of lectures on the law of nature and nations, which greatly extended his reputation. In 1795 he was called to the bar, and in his capacity of barrister, in 1803, he made a brilliant defence of M. Peltier, an emigrant royalist of France, who had been indicted for a libel on Napoleon, then first consul. The forensic display of Mackintosh is too much like an elaborate essay or dissertation, but it marked him out for legal promotion, and he received the appointment (to which his poverty, not his will, consented) of Recorder of Bombay. He was knighted, sailed from England in the beginning of 1804, and after discharging faithfully his high official duties, returned at the end of seven years, the earliest period that entitled him to his retiring pension of £1200 per annum. Mackintosh now obtained a seat in parliament, and stuck faithfully by his old friends the Whigs, without one glimpse of favour, till in 1827 his friend Mr Canning, on the formation of his administration, made him a privy councillor. On the accession of the Whig ministry in 1830, he was appointed a commissioner for the affairs of India. On questions of criminal law and national policy Mackintosh spoke forcibly, but he cannot be said to have been a successful parliamentary orator. Amid the bustle of public business he did not neglect literature, though he wanted resolution for continuous and severe study. The charms of society, the interruptions of public business, and the debilitating effects of his residence in India, also co-operated with his constitutional indolence in preventing the realisation of the ambitious dreams of his youth. He contributed, however, various articles to the Edinburgh Review, and wrote a masterly Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy for the Encyclopædia Britannica. He wrote three volumes of a compendious and popular History of England for Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia, which, though deficient in the graces of narrative and style, contains some admirable views of constitutional history and antiquarian research. His learning was abundant; he wanted only method and elegance. He also contributed a short but valuable life of Sir Thomas More (which sprung out of his researches into the reign of Henry VIII., and was otherwise a subject congenial to his taste) to the same miscellany; and he was engaged on a History of the Revolution of 1688, when his life was somewhat suddenly terminated on the 30th of May 1832. The portion of his history of the Revolution which he had written and corrected (amounting to about 350 pages) was published in 1834, with a continuation by some writer who was opposed to Sir James in many essential points. In the works of Mackintosh we have only the fragments of a capacious mind; but in all of them his learning, his candour, his strong love of truth, his justness of thinking and clearness in perceiving, and his genuine philanthropy, are conspicuous. It is to be regretted that he had no Boswell
to record his conversation.
[Chivalry and Modern Manners.]
[From the Vindicia Gallicæ.]
The collision of armed multitudes [in Paris] terminated in unforeseen excesses and execrable crimes. In the eye of Mr Burke, however, these crimes and excesses assume an aspect far more important than can be communicated to them by their own insulated guilt. They form, in his opinion, the crisis of a revolution far more important than any change of
government-a revolution in which the sentiments and opinions that have formed the manners of the European nations are to perish. The age of chivalry is gone, and the glory of Europe extinguished for ever.' He follows this exclamation by an eloquent eulogium on chivalry, and by gloomy predictions of the future state of Europe, when the nation that has been so long accustomed to give her the tone in arts and manners is thus debased and corrupted. A caviller might remark, that ages much more near the meridian fervour of chivalry than ours have witnessed a treatment of queens as little gallant and generous as that of the Parisian mob. He might remind Mr Burke that, in the age and country of Sir Philip Sidney, a queen of France, whom no blindness to accomplishment, no malignity of detraction, could reduce to the level of Maria Antoinetta, was, by' a nation of men of honour and cavaliers,' permitted to languish in captivity, and expire on a scaffold; and he might add, that the manners of a country are more surely indicated by the systematic cruelty of a sovereign, than by the licentious frenzy of a mob. He might remark, that the mild system of modern manners which survived the massacres with which fanaticism had for a century desolated and almost barbarised Europe, might perhaps resist the shock of one day's excesses committed by a delirious popu
But the subject itself is, to an enlarged thinker, That sysfertile in reflections of a different nature. tem of manners which arose among the Gothic nations of Europe, of which chivalry was more properly the effusion than the source, is, without doubt, one of the most peculiar and interesting appearances in human affairs. The moral causes which formed its character have not perhaps been hitherto investigated with the happiest success.
But to confine ourselves to the sub
ject before us, chivalry was certainly one of the most prominent features and remarkable effects of this system of manners. Candour must confess that this singular institution is not alone admirable as a corcontributed to polish and soften Europe. It paved rector of the ferocious ages in which it flourished. It the way for that diffusion of knowledge and extension of commerce which afterwards in some measure supplanted it, and gave a new character to manners. commerce has overthrown that feudal and chival Society is inevitably progressive. In government, rous' system under whose shade it first grew. In religion, learning has subverted that superstition whose opulent endowments had first fostered it. Peculiar circumstances softened the barbarism of the middle ages to a degree which favoured the admission of commerce and the growth of knowledge. These circumstances were connected with the manners of chivalry; but the sentiments peculiar to that institution could only be preserved by the situation which gave them birth. They were themselves enfeebled in the progress from ferocity and turbulence, and almost obliterated by tranquillity and refinement. But the auxiliaries which the manners of chivalry had in rude ages reared, gathered strength from its weakness, and flourished in its decay. Commerce and diffused knowledge have, in fact, so completely assumed the ascendant in polished nations, that it will be difficult to discover any relics of Gothic manners but in a fantastic exterior, which has survived the generous illusions that made these manners splendid and seductive. Their direct influence has long ceased in Europe; but their indirect influence, through the medium of those causes, which would not perhaps have existed but for the mildness which chivalry created in the midst of a barbarous age, still operates with increasing vigour. The manners of the middle age were, in the most singular sense, compulsory. Enterprising benevolence was produced by general fierceness, gal
lant courtesy by ferocious rudeness, and artificial gentleness resisted the torrent of natural barbarism. But a less incongruous system has succeeded, in which commerce, which unites men's interests, and knowledge, which excludes those prejudices that tend to embroil them, present a broader basis for the stability of civilised and beneficent manners.
Mr Burke, indeed, forebodes the most fatal consequences to literature, from events which he supposes to have given a mortal blow to the spirit of chivalry. I have ever been protected from such apprehensions by my belief in a very simple truth-that diffused knowledge immortalises itself. A literature which is confined to a few, may be destroyed by the massacre of scholars and the conflagration of libraries, but the diffused knowledge of the present day could only be annihilated by the extirpation of the civilised part of mankind.
[Extract from Speech in Defence of Mr Peltier, for a Libel on Napoleon Bonaparte, February 1803.] Gentlemen-There is one point of view in which this case seems to merit your most serious attention. The real prosecutor is the master of the greatest empire the civilised world ever saw-the defendant is a defenceless proscribed exile. I consider this case, therefore, as the first of a long series of conflicts between the greatest power in the world, and the ONLY FREE PRESS remaining in Europe. Gentlemen, this distinction of the English press is new-it is a proud and a melancholy distinction. Before the great earthquake of the French Revolution had swallowed up all the asylums of free discussion on the continent, we enjoyed that privilege, indeed, more fully than others, but we did not enjoy it exclusively. In Holland, in Switzerland, in the imperial towns of Germany, the press was either legally or practically free. Holland and Switzerland are no more; and, since the commencement of this prosecution, fifty imperial towns have been erased from the list of independent states by one dash of the pen. Three or four still preserve a precarious and trembling existence. I will not say by what compliances they must purchase its continuance. I will not insult the feebleness of states whose unmerited fall I do most bitterly deplore.
reason, the refuge of oppressed innocence and persecuted truth, have perished with those ancient principles which were their sole guardians and protectors. They have been swallowed up by that fearful convulsion which has shaken the uttermost corners of the earth. They are destroyed, and gone for ever! One asylum of free discussion is still inviolate, There is still one spot in Europe where man can freely exercise his reason on the most important concerns of society, where he can boldly publish his judgment on the acts of the proudest and most powerful tyrants. The press of England is still free. It is guarded by the free constitution of our forefathers. It is guarded by the hearts and arms of Englishmen, and I trust I may venture to say, that if it be to fall, it will fall only under the ruins of the British empire. It is an awful consideration, gentlemen. Every other monument of European liberty has perished. That ancient fabrie which has been gradually reared by the wisdom and virtue of our fathers, still stands. It stands, thanks be to God! solid and entire-but it stands alone, and it stands in ruins! Believing, then, as I do, that we are on the eve of a great struggle, that this is only the first battle between reason and power-that you have now in your hands, committed to your trust, the only remains of free discussion in Europe, now confined to this kingdom; addressing you, therefore, as the guardians of the most important interests of mankind; convinced that the unfettered exercise of reason depends more on your present verdict than on any other that was ever delivered by a jury, I trust I may rely with confidence on the issue-I trust that you will consider yourselves as the advanced guard of libertyas having this day to fight the first battle of free discussion against the most formidable enemy that it ever encountered!
DR JOHN LINGARD, &c.
lished in 1819 three volumes of a History of England DR JOHN LINGARD, a Roman Catholic priest, pubcontinued his work in five more volumes, bringing from the Invasion by the Romans. He subsequently down his narrative to the abdication of James II. To talents of a high order, both as respects acuteThese governments were, in many respects, one of ness of analysis and powers of description and narthe most interesting parts of the ancient system of rative, Dr Lingard added unconquerable industry Europe. The perfect security of such inconsiderable and access to sources of information new and imand feeble states, their undisturbed tranquillity portant. He is generally more impartial than Hume, amidst the wars and conquests that surrounded them, or even Robertson; but it is undeniable that his reattested, beyond any other part of the European sys-ligious opinions have in some cases perverted the tem, the moderation, the justice, the civilisation, to fidelity of his history, leading him to palliate the which Christian Europe had reached in modern times. atrocities of the Bartholomew massacre, and to Their weakness was protected only by the habitual darken the shades in the characters of Queen Elizareverence for justice which, during a long series of beth, Cranmer, Anne Boleyn, and others connected ages, had grown up in Christendom. This was the with the reformation in the church. His work was only fortification which defended them against those subjected to a rigid scrutiny by Dr John Allen, in two mighty monarchs to whom they offered so easy a prey. elaborate articles in the Edinburgh Review, by the And, till the French Revolution, this was sufficient. Rev. Mr Todd (who published a defence of the chaConsider, for instance, the republic of Geneva; think racter of Cranmer), and by other zealous Protestant of her defenceless position in the very jaws of France; writers. To these antagonists Dr Lingard replied but think also of her undisturbed security, of her pro- in 1826 by a vindication of his fidelity as a histofound quiet, of the brilliant success with which sherian, which affords an excellent specimen of calm applied to industry and literature while Louis XIV. controversial writing. His work has now taken its was pouring his myriads into Italy before her gates; place among the most valuable of our national hiscall to mind, if ages crowded into years have not tories. It has gone through three editions, and has effaced them from your memory, that happy period been received with equal favour on the continent. when we scarcely dreamed more of the subjugation of The most able of his critics (though condemning his the feeblest republic in Europe than of the conquest account of the English Reformation, and other pasof her mightiest empire, and tell me if you can ima- sages evincing a peculiar bias) admits that Dr Liagine a spectacle more beautiful to the moral eye, or gard possesses, what he claims, the rare merit of a more striking proof of progress in the noblest prin- having collected his materials from original histo ciples of civilisation. These feeble states, these mo- rians and records, by which his narrative receives a numents of the justice of Europe, the asylum of peace, freshness of character, and a stamp of originality. of industry, and of literature: the organs of public not to be found in any general history of England