LIBRARY OF THE U N I VLR.S ITY or ILLl NOIS PRESENTED BY Professor Harold N. Hillebrand 1948 Mil isao V.3 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/criticalhistoric03nnaca_1 CRITICAL, HISTORICAL, AND MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS AND POEMS. BY THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. VOLUME m. NEW YORK: AMERICAN BOOK EXCHANGE, Tribune Building. 1880. Yr> ] I CONTENTS. PAGE. The Life a^b Writijn^gs of Addisoi^. {Edinburgh i^emez^;, July 1843.) 7 Barere. {Ediiiburgh Review, April 1844.) ... 79 The Earl of Chatham. {Edinburgh Review, October 1844.) 160 FrAjN^cis Atterbury. {EncyclopcEdia Britannica, De- cember 1853.) 239 John Bunyan. {Encyclopcedia Britannica, May 1854.) 253 Oliver Goldsmith. {Encyclopcjedia Britannica, Feb- ruary 1856.) 266 Samuel Johnson. {Encyclopaedia Britannica, Decem- ber 1856.) 280 William Pitt. {Encyelopcedia Britannica, January 1859.) 814 James 1 370 Charles I. . . . • 375 Archbishop Laud 375 Charles II 376 The Earl of Clarendon 380 Louis XIV 384 The Cabal 385 Thomas Osborn, Earl of Danby . . • .387 Sir William Temple 389 George Savile, Viscount Halifax . . . .390 Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland . . . 393 The Duke of Monmouth 396 Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester . • . 399 Sidney Godolphin . . 400 Francis North, Lord Guildford • . • . 400 Judge Jeffreys 402 iv CONTEKTS. PAGE. The Last Days of Jeffreys 406 Richard Baxter 410 William Vknn . .411 Jon^ Locke 413 Archibald, Earl op Argyle 417 Richard Talbot, Earl op Tyrcois^nel . . . 423 Catharine Sedley 424 William III., Mary II., and Bishop Burnet . . 428 John Dryden 444 The Duchess op Marlborough 446 Aubrey de Vere, Earl op Oxford .... 448 Charles Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury . . . 449 Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset . . .451 William Williams, Solicitor General , . . 453 Henry Sidney, Brother op Algernon . . . 454 schomberg 455 John Lord Lovelace 456 Antonine, Count op Lauzun 458 The First Ministry op William III. . . . 459 Unpopularity of William III 463 Popularity of Mary II 466 Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury 468 The Count of Avaux 471 Cruelty of Rosen at the Siege op Londonderry. 472 Sir James Dalrymple 474 Lord Melville 477 Carstairs • • 478 The Marquess of Ruvigny 479 The Duke op Schomberg 479 Admiral Torrington 481 Avarice op Marlborough 483 Ken, Bishop op Bath and Wells . • . .484 Charles Leslie 486 Dr. William Sherlock .486 George Hickes 493 Jeremy Collier 493 Henry Dodwell 495 Kettlewell and Fitzwilliam 497 TiLLOTSoN, Archbishop of Canterbury . . . 498 Aldrich and Jane 501 Edmund Ludlow 503 CONTENTS. V PAGE. Sir Robert Sawyer ....... 505 Caermarthen 508 Sir John Lowther 508 Sir John Trevor 510 The Princess op Denmark (Queen Anne) and her Favorites 511 George Fox 517 William Fuller 522 John, Earl of Breadalbane 527 Robert Young 529 Grandval . 538 John Bart 541 James Whitney 542 Anne Bracegirdle and Lord Mohun . . . 543 Charles Blount 545 Dean Swift • . . 553 The Lord Keeper Somers ...... 556 Charles, Earl of Middleton 558 William III. at the Battle of Landen . . . 560 William Anderton 561 Charles Montague . . . . . . . 565 Thomas Wharton 569 Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer . 572 Paul Foley 576 Elizabeth Villers - . 577 Death of Mary II . 577 Policy of Marlborough after the Death of Mary. 583 Robert Charnock and his Accoiviplices . . . 585 Marshall, the Duke of Villeroy . . . • 588 The West Indies. {Edinburgh Review, January 1825.) 590 The London University. {Edinburgh Review, Feb- ruary 1826.) . . . 616 Social and Industrial Capacities of Negroes. {Ed- inburgh Review, March 1827.) 644 The Present Administration. {Edinburgh Review, June 1827.) . 685 vi CONTEOTS. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. VGB. Epitaph on Henry Martyn. (1812.) .... C87 Lines to the Memory of Pitt. (1813.) . . . G87 A Radical War-Song. (1820.) 688 The Battle of Moncontour. (1824.) .... 690 The Battle of Naseby. (1824.) ..... 691 Sermon in a Churchyard. (1825.) . . . . 693 Translation from A. V. Arnault. (1826.) . . 696 Dies Ir^. (1826.) 697 The Marriage of Tirzah and Ahirad. ' (1827.) . 698 The Country Clergyman's Trip to Cambridge. (1827.) 712 Song. (1827.) 714 Political Georgics. (March 1828.) .... 715 The Deliverance of Vienna. {Winter's Wreath, 1828.) 717 The Last Buccaneer. (1839.) 722 Epitaph on a Jacobite. (1845.) 723 Lines written in August, 1847 723 Translation from Plautius. (1850.) . . . 727 Paraphrase 729 Inscription on the Statue of Lord William Ben- tinck. (1835.) 730 Epitaph on Sir Benjamin Heath Malkin. (1837.) . 730 Epitaph on Lord Metcalfe. (1847.) .... 731 Pompeii. (July, 1819.) 732 The Armada 741 The Cavalier's March to London .... 745 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. Preface 747 Horatius 763 The Battle of the Lake Regillus .... 780 Virginia 803 The Prophecy of Capys 815 MACATJLAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. VOLUME III. ESSAYS. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON.* {Edinburgh R&view, July, 1843.) Some reviewers are of opinion that a lady who dares to publish a book renounces by that act the franchises apper- taining to her sex, and can claim no exemption from the utmost rigor of critical procedure. From that opinion we dissent. We admit, indeed, that in a country which boasts of many female writers, eminently qualified by their talents and acquirements to influence the public mind, it would be of most pernicious consequence that inaccurate history or unsound philosophy should be suffered to pass uncensured, merely because the offender chanced to be a lady. But we conceive that, on such occasions, a critic would do well to imitate the courteous Knight who found himself compelled by duty to keep the lists against Bradamante. He, we are told, defended successfully the cause of which he was tlie champion ; but before the fight began, exchanged Balisarda for a less deadly sword, of which he carefully blunted the point and edge.f * The Life of Joseph Addison. By Lucy Aikin. 2 vols. 8 vo. London, 1843. t Orlando Furioso, xlv. 68. 8 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. Nor are the immunities of sex the only immunities which Miss Aikin may rightfully plead. Several of her works, and especially the very pleasing Memoirs of tlie Reign of James the First, have fully entitled her to the privileges enjoyed by good writers. One of those privileges we hold to be this, that such writers, when, either from the unlucky choice of a subject, or from the indolence too often produced by success, they happen to fail, shall not be subjected to the severe dis- cipline vrhich it is sometimes necessary to inflict upon dunces and impostors, but shall merely be reminded by a gentle touch, like that with which the Laputan flapper roused his dreaming lord, that it is high time to wake. Our readers will probably infer from what we have said that Miss Aikin's book has disappointed us. The truth is, that she is not well acquainted with her subject. ISTo per- son who is not familiar with the political and literary history of England during the reigns of William the Third, of Anne, and of George the First, can possibly write a good life of Addison. Now, we mean no reproach to Miss Aikin, and many will think that we pay her a compliment, when we say that her studies have taken a different direction. She is better acquainted with Shakspeare and Raleigh, than with Congreve and Prior ; and is far more at home among the ruffs and peaked beards of Theobald's than among the Steen- kirks and flowing periwigs which surrounded Queen Anne's tea table at Hampton. She seems to have written about the Elizabethan age, because she had read much about it ; she seems, on the other hand, to have read a little about the age of Addison, because she had determined to write about it. The consequence is that she has had to describe men and things without having either a correct or a vivid idea of them, and that she has often fallen into errors of a very serious kind. The reputation which Miss Aikin has justly earned standi so high, and the charm of Addison's letters is sc great, that a second edition of this work may probably b' required. If so, we hope that every paragraph will be revised, and that every date and fact about which there can be the smallest doubt will be carefully verified. To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as much like affection as any sentiment can be, which is in^ spired by one who has been sleeping a hundred and twenty years in Westminster Abbey. We trust, however, that this feeling will not betray us into that abject idolatry wdiich we have often had occasion to reprehend in others, and which THE LIFE AND WHITINGS OF ADDISON. 9 seldom fails to make both the idolater and the idol ridiculous. A man of genius and virtue is but a man. All liis powers cannot be equally developed ; nor can we expect from him perfect self-knowledge. We need not, therefore, hesitate to admit that Addison has left us some compositions which do not rise above mediocrity, some heroic poems hardly equal to Parnell's, some criticism as superficial as Dr. Blair's, and a tragedy not very much better than Dr. Johnson's. It is praise enough to say of a writer that, in a high department of literature, in Avhich many eminent writers have dis- tinguished themselves, he has had no equal; and this may Avith strict justice be said of Addison. As a man, he may not have deserved the adoration which he received from those who, bewitched by his fascinating society, and indebted, for all the comforts of life to his generous and delicate friendship, worshipped him nightly, in his favorite temple at Button's. But, after full inquiry and impartial reflection, we have long been convinced that he deserved as much love and esteem as can be justly claimed by any of our infirm and erring race. Some blemishes may undoubtedly be detected in his character ; but the more care- fully it is examined, the more will it appear, to use the phrase of the old anatomists, sound in the noble parts, free from all taint of perfidy, of cowardice, of cruelty, of ingrati- tude, of envy. Men may easily be named, in whom some particular good disposition has been more conspicuous than in Addison. But the just harmony of qualities, the exact temper between the stern and tlie humane virtues, the habitual observance of every law, not only of moral recti- tude, but of moral grace and dignity, distinguish him from all men who have been tried by equally strong tempta- tions, and about whose conduct we possess equally full in- formation. His father was the Reverend Lancelot Addison, who, though eclipsed by his more celebrated son, made some figure in the world, and occupies with credit two folio pages in the Biographia Britannica. Lancelot was sent up, as a poor scholar, from Westmoreland to Queen's College, Ox- ford, in the time of the Commonwealth, made some progress in learning, became, like most of his fellow students, a violent Royalist, lampooned the heads of the University, and w^as forced to ask pardon on his bended knees. When he had left college, he earned a humble subsistence by read- ing the liturgy of the fallen Church to the families of those 10 MACAULAy's MISCELLAN^EOUS WRITmGS. Bturdy squires whose manor houses were scattered over the Wild of Sussex. After the Restoration, his ioyalty was re- warded with the post of chaplain to the gari-ison of Dunkirk. When Dunkirk was sold to France, he lost his employment. But Tangier had been ceded by Portugal to England as pari of the marriage portion of the Infanta Catharine ; and to Tangier Lancelot Addison was sent. A more miserable situation can hardly be conceived. It was difficult to say whether the unfortunate settlers were more tormented by the heats or by the rains, by the soldiers within the wall or by the Moors without it. One advantage the chaplain had. He enjoyed an excellent opportunity of studying the history and manners of Jews and Mahometans ; and of this oppor- tunity he appears to have made excellent use. On his return to England, after some years of banishment, he published an interesting volume on the Polity and Religion of Barbary, and another on the Hebrew Customs and the State of Rab- binical learning. He rose to eminence in his profession, and became one of the royal chaplains, a Doctor of Divinity, Archdeacon of Salisbury, and Dean of Lichfield. It is said that he would have been made a bishop after the Revolution, if he had not given offence to the government by strenuously opposing, in the Convocation of 1689, the liberal i:>olicy of William and Tillotson. In 1672, not long after Dr. Addison's return from Tan- gier, his son Joseph was born. Of Joseph's childliood we know little. He learned his rudiments at schools in his father's neighborhood, and was then sent to the Charter House. The anecdotes which are popularly related about his boyish tricks do not harmonize very well with what we know of his riper years. There remains a tradition that he was the ringleader in a barring out, and another tradi- tion that he ran away from school and hid himself in a wood, where he fed on berries and slept in a hollow tree, till after a long search he was discovered and brought home. If these stories be true, it would be curious to know by what moral discipline so mutinous and enterprising a lad was transformed into the gentlest and most modest of men. We have abundant proof that, whatever Joseph's pranks may have been, he pursued his studies vigorously and suc- cessfully. At fifteen he was not only fit for the university, but carried thither a classical taste and a stock of learning which would have done honor to a Master of Arts. He was THE LIFE A^^^D WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 11 entered nt Queen's College, Oxford ; but he had not been many months there, when some of his Lathi verses fell by accident into the hands of Dr. Lancaster, Dean of Magda- lene College. The young scholar's diction and versification were already such as veteran professors might envy. Dr. Lancaster was desirous to serve a boy of such promise ; nor was an opportunity long wanting. The Revolution had just taken place ; and nowhere had it been hailed with more deliglit tlian at Magdalene College. That great and opulent corporation had been treated by James, and by his Chan- cellor, Avith an insolence and injustice which, even in such a Prince and in such a Minister, may justly excite amazement, and which had done more than even the prosecution of the Bishops to alienate the Church of England from the throne. A president, duly elected, had been violently expelled from Ids dwelling : a Papist had been set over the society by a royal mandate : the Fellows who, in conformity with their oaths, had refused to submit to this usui-per, had been driven forth from their quiet cloisters and gardens, to die of want or to live on charity. But the clay of redress and retribu- tion speedily came. The intruders were ejected : the venerable House was again inhabited by its old inmates : learning flourished under the rule of the wise and virtuous Hough ; and with learning was united a mild and liberal spirit too often wanting in the princely colleges of Oxford. In consequence of the troubles through which the society had passed, there had been no valid election of new mem- bers during the year 1688. In 1689, therefore, there was twdce the ordinary number of vacancies ; and thus Dr. Lan- caster found it easy to procure for his young friend admit- tance to the advantages of a foundation then generally esteemed the wealthiest in Europe. At Magdalene Addison resided during ten years. He was, at first, one of those scholars who are called Demies, but was subsequently elected a fellow. His college is still ])roud of his name : his portrait still hangs in the hall ; and strangers are still told that his favorite walk was under the elms which fringe the meadow on the banks of the Cher- well. It is said, and is highly probable, that he was dis- tinguished among his fellow students by the delicacy of his feelings, by the shyness of his manners, and by the assiduity w'th which he often prolonged his studies far into the night. It is certain that his reputation for ability and learning stood high. Many years later, the ancient doctors of Mag- 12 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. dalene continued to talk in their common room of his boy- ish compositions, and expressed tlieir sorrow that no cojDy of exercises so remarkable had been preserved. It is pro])er, however, to remark that Miss Aikin has committed the error, very pardonable in a lady, of over- rating Addison's classical attainments. In one department of learning, indeed, his proficiency was such as it is hardly possible to overrate. His knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down to Claudian and Pru- clentius, was singular!}^ exact and profound. He understood them thorougidy, entered into their spirit, and had the finest and most discriminating perception of all their peculiarities of style and melody ; nay, he copied their manner with ad- mirable skill, and surpassed, we think, all their British imitators who had preceded him, Buchanan and Milton alone excepted. This is high praise ; and beyond this we cannot with justice go. It is clear that Addison's serious atfention during his residence at the university, was almost entirely concentrated on Latin poetry, and that, if he did not wholly neglect other provinces of ancient literature, he vouchsafed to them only a cursory glance. He does not appear to have attained more than an ordniary acquaintance with the political and moral writers of Rome ; nor was his own Latin prose by any means equal to his Latin verse. His knowledge of Greek, though doubtless such as was, in his time, thought respectable at Oxford, Avas evidently less than that which many lads now carry away every year from Eton and Rugby. A minute examination of his works, if we had time to make such an examination, would fully bear out these remarks. We will briefly advert to a few of the facts on which our judgment is grounded. Great praise is due to the Notes which Addison ap- pended to his version of the second and third books of the Metamorphoses. Yet those notes, while they show him to have been, in his own domain, an accomplished scholar, show also how confined that domain was. They are rich in apposite references to Virgil, Statins, and Claudian; but the}^ contain not a single illustration drawn from the Greek poets. Now, if, in the whole compass of Latin literature, there be a passage which stands in need of illustration drawn from the Greek poets, it is the story of Pentheus in the third book of the Metamorphoses. Ovid was indebted for that story to Euripides and Theocritus, both of whom lie has sometimes followed minutely. But neither to EurijD- THE LIFE AND WEITINGS OF ADDISON. 13 Ides nor to Theocritus does Addison make the faintest al- lusion ; and we, therefore, believe that we do not wrong him by supposing that he had little or no knowledge of their works. His travels in Italy, again, abound with classical quotas tions happily introduced ; but scarcely one of tliose quota- tions is in prose. He draws more illustrations from Auso- nius and Manilius than from Cicero. Even his notions of the political and military affairs of the Romans seem to be derived from poets and poetasters. Spots made memorable by events wdiich have changed the destinies of the Avorld, and which have been worthily recorded by great historians, bring to his mind onl}^ scraps of some ancient versifier. In the gorge of the Appenines he naturally remembers the hardships Avhich Hannibal's army endured, and proceeds to cite, not the authentic narrative of Polybius, not the pic- turesque narrative of Livy, but the languid hexameters of Silius Italicus. On the banks of the Rubicon he never thinks of Plutarch's lively description, or of the stern con- ciseness of the Commentaries, or of those letters to Atticus which so forcibly express the alternations of hope and fear in a sensitive mind at a great crisis. His only authority for the events of the civil war is Lucan. All the best ancient works of art at Rome and Florence are Greek. Addison saw them, however, without recalling one single verse of Pindar, of Callimachus, or of the Attic dramatists ; but they brought to his recollection innumer- able passages of Horace, Juvenal, Statins and Ovid. The same may be said of the Treatise on Medals. In that pleasing work we find about three hundred passages extracted with great judgment from the Roman poets ; but we do not recollect a single passage taken from any Roman orator or historian ; and we are confident that not a line is quoted from any Greek writer. No person, Avho had derived all his information on the subject of medals from Addison, would suspect that the Greek coins were in historical inter- est equal, and in beauty of execution far superior, to those of Rome. If it were necessary to find any further proof that Addi- son's classical knowledge was confined within narrow limits, that proof would be furnished by his Essay on the Evidences of Christianity. The Roman poets throw little or no light on the literary and historical questions which he is under the necessity of examining in that Essay. He is, therefore, 14 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. left completely in the dark ; and it is melancholy to see how helplessly he gropes his way from blunder to blunder. lie assigns, as grounds for his religious belief, stories as absurd as that of the Cock-Lane gliost, and forgeries as rank as Ireland's Vortigern, puts faith in the lie about the Thunder- ing Legion, is convinced that Tiberius moved the senate tc admit Jesus among the gods, and pronounces the letter of Agbarus King of Edessa to be a record of great authority. Nor were these errors the effects of superstition ; for to superstition Addison was by no means prone. The tn;th is that he was writing about what he did not under- stand. Miss Aikin has discovered a letter from wliich it ap- pears that, while Addison resided at Oxford, he was one of the several writers whom the booksellers engaged to make an English version of Herodotus ; and she infers that he must have been a good Greek scholar. We can allow very little weight to this argument, when we consider that his fellow-laborers were to have been Boyle and Blackmore. Boyle is remembered chiefly as the nominal author of the worst book on Greek history and philology that ever was printed ; and this book, bad as it is, Boyle was unable to produce without help. Of Blackmore's attainments in the ^ ancient tongues, it may be sufficient to say that, in his prose he has confounded an aphorism with an apophthegm, and that when, in his verse, he treats of classical subjects, his habit is to regale his readers with four false quantities to a page. ^ It is probable that the classical acquirements of Addison were of as much service to him as if they had been more extensive. The world generally gives its admiration, not to the man who does what nobody else even attempts to do, but to the man who does best what multitudes do Avell. Bentley was so immeasurably superior to all the other schol- ars of his time that few among them could discover his superiority. But the accomplishment in which Addison excelled his contemporaries was then, as it is now, highly valued and assiduously cultivated at all English seats of learning. Everybody who had been at a public school had written Latin verses ; many had written such verses with tolerable success, and were quite able to appreciate, though by no means able to rival, the skill with which Addison imitated Virgil. His lines on the Barometer and the Bowling Green were applauded by hundreds, to whom the Dissertation on THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 15 the Epistles of Phalaris was as unintelligible as tlie hiero- glyphics on an obelisk. Parity of style, and an easy flow of numbers, are com- mon to all Addison's Latin poems. Our favorite piece is the Battle of the Cranes and Pigmies ; for in that piece we discern a gleam of the fancy and humor which many years later enlivened thousands of breakfast tables. Swift boasted that he was never known to steal a hint; and he certainly owed as little to his predecessors as any modern writer. Yet we cannot help suspecting that he borrowed, perhaps unconsciously, one of the happiest touches in his Voyages to Lilliput from Addison's verses. Let our readers judge. " The Emperor," says Gulliver, " is taller by about the breadth of my nail than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders." ^ About thirty years before Gulliver's Travels appeared, Addison wrote these lines : " Jamque acies inter medias sese arduus infert P3\oineadiim di\ctor, qui, majestate verendus, Iiicessiiqae gravis, reliquos snperemiiiet omnes Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam." The Latin poems of Addison were greatly and justly admired both at Oxford and Cambridge, before his name had ever been heard by the wits who thronged the coffee- houses round Drury-Lane theatre. In his twenty-second year, he ventured to appear before the public as a writer cf English verse. He addressed some complimentary lines to Dryden, who, after many triumphs and many reverses, had at length reached a secure and lonely eminence among the literary men of that age. Dryden appears to have been much gratified by the young scholar's praise ; and an interchange of civilities and good offices followed. Addison was probably introduced by Dryden to Congreve, and was certainly pre- sented by Congreve to Charles Montague, Avho was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the Whig party in the House of Commons. At this time Addison seemed inclined to devote himself to poetry. He i^ublished a translation of part of the fourth Georgic, Lines to King William, and other performances of equal value, that is to say, of no value at all. But in those days, the public was in the habit of receiving with applause pieces which would now have little chance of obtaining the Kewdigate prize or the Seatonian prize. And the reason is 16 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. obvious. The heroic couplet was then the favorite measure. The art of arranging words in that measure, so that the lines may flow smoothly, that the accents may fall correctly, that the rhymes may strike the ear strongly, and that there may be a pause at the end of every distich, is an art as mechani- cal as that of mending a kettle or shoeing a horse, and may be learned by any human being who has sense enough to learn. But, like other mechanical arts, it was gradually improved by means of many exjDeriments and many failures. It was reserved for Pope to discover the trick, to make him- self complete master of it, and to teach it to everybody else. From the time when his Pastorals appeared, heroic versifi- cation became matter of rule and compass ; and, before long, all artists were on a level. Hundreds of dunces who never blundered on one happy thought or expression were able to write reams of couplets which, as far as euphony was con- cerned, could not be distinguished from those of Pope him- self, and which very clever writers of the reign of Charles the Second, Rochester, for example, or Marvel, or Oldham, would have contemplated with admiring despair. Ben Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very small man. But Hoole, coming after Pope, had learned how to manufac- ture decasyliable verses, and poured them forth by thou- sands and tens of thousands, all as well turned, as smooth, and as like each other as the blocks which have passed through Mr. Brunei's mill in the dockyard at Portsmouth. Ben's heroic couplets resemble blocks rudely hewn out by an unpractised hand with a blunt hatchet. Take as a speci- men his translation of a celebrated passage in the ^neid : ** This cliild our parent earth, stirred up with spite Of all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write, She was last sister of that giant race That sought fo scale Jove's court, right swift of pace, And swifter far of wing, a monster vast And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed On her huge corpse, so many waking eyes Stick underneath, and, which may stranger rise In the report, as many tongues she wears." Compare with these jagged misshapen distichs the neat fabric which Hoole's machine produces in unlimited abun- dance. We take the first lines on which we open in his ver- sion of Tasso. They are neither better nor worse than the rest : " O thou, whoe'er thou art, whose steps are led, By choice or fate, these lonely shores to tread, No greater wonders east or west can boast THE LIFE ANT> WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 17 Than yon small island on the pleasing coast. If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore, The current pass, and seek the further shore." Ever since the time of Pope there has been a glut of lines of this sort, and we are now as little disposed to ad- mire a man for being able to write them, as for being able to write his name. But in the days of William the Third such versification was rare; and a rhymer who had any skill in it passed for a great poet, just as in the dark ages a per- son who could write his name passed for a great clerk. Ac- cordingly, Duke, Stepney, Granville, Walsh, and others, whose only title to fame was that they said in tolerable metre what might have been as well said in prose, or what was not worth saying at all, were honored with marks of distinction which ought to be reserved for genius. With these Addison must have ranked, if he had not earned true and lasting glory by performances which very little resem- bled his juvenile poems. Dryden was now busied with Virgil, and obtained from Addison a critical preface to the Georgics, In return for this service, and for other services of the same kind, the veteran poet, in the postscript to the translation of the jEneid, complimented his young friend with great liberality, and indeed with more liberality than sincerity. He affected to be afraid that his own performance would not sustain a comparison with the version of the fourth Georgic, by "the most ingenious Mr. Addison of Oxford." "After his bees," added Dryden, "my latter swarm is scarcely worth the hiv- ing." The time had now arrived when it was necessary for Addison to choose a calling. Everything seemed to point his course towards the clerical profession. His habits were regular, his opinions orthodox. His college had large eccle- siastical preferment in its gift, and boasts that it has given at least one bishop to almost every see in England. Dr. Lancelot Addison held an honorable j)lace in the Church, and had set his heart on seeing his son a clergyman. It is clear, from some expressions in the young man's rhymes, that his intention was to take orders. But Charles Mon- tague interfered. Montague had first brought himself into notice by verses, well timed and not contemptibly written, but never, we think, rising above mediocrity. Fortunately for himself and for his country, he early quitted poetry, in which he could never have attained a rank as high as that Vol. III.— 2 18 macaulay's miscellaneous aykitings. of Dorset or Rochester, and turned his mind to official and parliamentary business. It is written that the ingenious person Avho undertook to instruct Rasselas, prince of Abys- sinia, in the art of flying, ascended an eminence, waved his wings, sprang into the air, and instantly dropped into the lake. But it is added that the wings, which were unable to support him through the sky, bore him up effectually as soon as he was in the water. This is no bad type of the fate of Charles Montague, and of men like him. When he at- tempted to soar into the regions of poetical invention, he altogether failed; but, as soon as he had descended from that ethereal elevation into a lower and grosser element, his talents instantly raised him above the mass. He became a distinguished financier, debater, courtier, and party leader. He still retained his fondness for the pursuits of his early days ; but he showed that fondness not by wearying the public with his own feeble performances, but by discovering and encouraging literary excellence in others. A crowd of wits and poets, who would easily have vanquished him as a competitor, revered him as a judge and a patron. In his plans for the encouragement of learning, he w^as cordially supported by the ablest and most virtuous of his colleagues, Lord Chancellor Somers. Though both these great states- men had a sincere love of letters, it was not solely from a love of letters that they were desirous to enlist youths ol high intellectual qualifications in the public service. The Revolution had altered the whole system of government. Before that event the press had been controlled by censors, and the Parliament had sat only two months in eight years. Now the press was free, and had begun to exercise unpre- cedented influence on the public mind. Parliament mei annually and sat long. The chief power in the State had passed to the House of Commons. At such a conjuncture, it was natural that literary and oratorical talents should rise in value. There w^as danger that a Government which ne- glected such talents might be subverted by them. It was therefore, a profound and enlightened policy which led Mon- tague and Somers to attach such talents to the Whig party, by the strongest ties both of interest and of gratitude. It is remarkable that in a neighboring country, we have recently seen similar effects follow from similar causes. The revolution of July, 1830, established representative gov- ernment in France. The men of letters instantly rose to the highest importance in the state. At the present mo- THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 19 ment most of the persons whom we see at the head both of the Administration and of the Opposition, have been Pro- fessors, Historians, Journalists, Poets. The influence of the literary class in England, during the generations which fol- lowed the Revolution, was great, but by no means so great as it has lately been in France. For, in England, the aris- tocracy of intellect had to contend with a powerful and dee})ly rooted aristocracy of a very different kind. France had no Somersets and Shrewsburies to keep down her Ad- dison s and Priors. It was in the year 1699, when Addison had just com- pleted his twenty-seventh year, that the course of his life was finally determined. Both the great chiefs of the Min- istry were kindly disposed towards him. In political opinions he already was what he continued to be through life, a firm, though a moderate Whig. He had addressed the most polished and vigorous of his early English lines to Somers, and had dedicated to Montague a Latin poem, truly Virgilian, both in style and rhythm, on the peace of Rys- wick. The wish of the young poet's great friends was, it should seem, to employ him in the service of the crown abroad. But an intimate knowledge of the French language was a qualification indispensable to a diplomatist ; and this qualification Addison had not acquired. It was, therefore, thought desirable that he should pass some time on the Con- tinent in preparing himself for oflScial employment. His own means were not such as would enable him to travel: but a pension of three hundred pounds a year was procured for him by the interest of the Lord Chancellor. It seems to have been apprehended that some difliculty might be started by the rulers of Magdalene College. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote in the strongest terms to Hough. The State — such was the purport of Montague's letter — could not, at that time, spare to the Church such a man as Addison. Too many high civil posts were already occupied by advi^n- turers, who, destitute of every liberal art and sentiment, at once pillaged and disgraced the country which they pretended to serve. It had become necessary to recruit for the public service from a very different class, from that class of which Addison was the representative. The close of the Minister's letter was remarkable. "I am called," he said, " an enemy of the Church. But I will never do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of it." This interference was successful ; and, in the summer of 20 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. 1699, Addison, made a rich man by his pension, and still re- taining his felloAVship, quitted his beloved Oxford, and set out on his travels. He crossed from Dover to Calais, pro- ceeded to Paris, and was received there with great kindness and politeness by a kinsman of his friend Montague, Charles Earl of Manchester, who had just been appointed Ambas- sador to the Court of France. The Countess, a Whig and a toasl, was probably as gracious as her lord; for Addison long retained an agreeable recollection of the impression which she at this time made on him, and, in some lively lines written on the glasses of the Kit Cat Club, described the envy which her cheeks, glowing with the genuine bloom of England, had excited among the painted beauties of Ver- sailles. Lewis the Fourteenth was at this time expiating the vices of his youth by a devotion which had no root in reason, and bore no fruit of charity. The servile literature of France had changed its character to suit the changed character of the prince. No book appeared that had not an air of sanc- tity. Racine, who was just dead, had passed the close of his life in writing sacred dramas ; and Dacier was seeking for the Athanasian mysteries in Plato. Addison described this state of things in a short but lively and graceful letter to Montague. Another letter, written about the same time to the Lord Chancellor, conveyed the strongest assurances of gratitude and attachment. " The only return I can make to your Lordship," said Addison, " will be to apply myself entirely to my business." With this view he quitted Paris and repaired to Blois, a place where it was supposed that the French language was spoken in its highest purity, and where not a single Englishman could be found. Here he passed some months pleasantly and profitably. Of his way of life at Blois, one of his associates, an Abbe named Philippeaux, gave an account to Joseph Spence. If this ac- count is to be trusted, Addison studied much, mused much, talked little, had fits of absence, and either had no love af- fairs, or was too discreet to confide them to the Abbe. A man who, even when surrounded by fellow countrymen and fellow students, had always been remarkably shy and silent, was not likely to be loquacious in a foreign tongue, and among foreign companions. But it is clear from Addison's letters, some of which were long after published in the Guardian, that, while he appeared to be absorbed in his own meditations, he was really observing French society with that niE LIFE AND WlilTINGS OF ADDISON. 21 keen and sly, yet not ill-natured side glance, which was pe- culiarly his own. From Blois he returned to Paris ; and, having now mas- tered the French language, found great ])leasure in tlie society of French philosophers and poets. He gave an ac- count, in a letter to Bishop Hough, of two highly interesting- conversations, one with Malbranche, the other with Boileau. Malbranche expressed great partiality for the English, and extolled the genius of N^ew^ton, but shook his head when Hobbes was mentioned, and was indeed so unjust as to call the author of the Leviathan a poor silly creature. Addi- son's modesty restrained him from fully relating, in his let- ter, the circumstances of his introduction to Boileau. Boi- leau, having survived the friends and rivals of his youth, old, deaf, and melancholy, lived in retirement, seldom went either to Court or to the Academy, and was almost inacces- sible to strangers. Of the English, and of English litera- ture he knew nothing. He had hardly heard the name of Dryden. Some of our countrymen, in the warmth of their patriotism, have asserted that" this ignorance must have been affected. We own that we see no ground for such a supposition. English literature was to the French of the age of Lewis the Fourteenth wdiat German literature was tc our own grandfathers. Very few^, w^e suspect, of the ac- complished m.en who, sixty or seventy years ago, used to dine in Leicester Square with Sir Joshua, or at Streatham with Mrs. Thrale, had the slightest notion that Wieland was one of the first w^its and poets, and Lessing, beyond all dis- pute, the first critic in Europe. Boileau knew^ just as little about the Paradise Lost, and about Absalom and Ahitophel ; but he had read Addison's Latin poems, and admired them greatly. They had given him, he said, quite a new^ notion of the state of learning and taste among the English. John- son will have it that these praises were insincere. " Noth- ing," says he, " is better known of Boileau than that he had .'in injudicious and peevish contempt of modern Latin ; and therefore his profession of regai'd was probably the effect of his civility rather than approbation." Now, nothing is heU ter know^n of Boileau than that he was singularly sparing of compliments. We do not remember that either friendship or fear ever induced him to bestow jDraise on any compo- sition which he did not approve. On literary questions, his caustic, disdainful, and self-confident spirit rebelled against that authority to which everything else in France bowled MACAULAy's J^riSCELLANEOUS VVKITINGS. clown. lie had the spirit to tell Le\yis the Fourteenth firmly and even rudely, that his Majesty knew nothing about poetry, and admired verses which were detestable. What was there in Addison's position that could induce the satir- ist, whose stern and fastidious temper had been the dread of two generations, to turn sycophant for the first and last time ? Nor was Boileau's contempt of modern Latin either injudicious or peevish. He thought, indeed, that no poem of the first order would ever be written in a dead lan- guage. And did he think amiss ? Has not the experience of centuries confirmed his opinion ? Boileau also thought it probable that, in the best modern Latin, a writer of the Au- gustan age would have detected ludicrous improprieties. And who can think otherwise ? What modern scholar can honestly declare that he sees the smallest impurity in the style of Livy ? Yet is it not certain that, in the style of Livy, Pollio, whose taste had been formed on the banks of the Tiber, detected the inelegant idiom of the Po ? Has any modern scholar understood Latin better tlian Frederic the Great understood French ? Yet is it not no- torious that Frederic the Great, after reading, speaking, writing French, and nothing but French, during more than half a century, after unlearning his mother tongue in order to learn French, after living familiarly during many years with French associates, could not, to the last, compose in French, Avithout imminent risk of committing some mistake which would have moved a smile in the literary circles of Paris ? Do we believe that Erasmus and Fracastorius wrote Latin as well as Dr. Robertson and Sir Walter Scott wrote English ? And are there not in the Dissertation on Lidia, the last of Dr. Robertson's works, in Waverley, in Marmion, Scotticisms at which a London apprentice would laugh ? But does it follow, because we think thus, that we can find nothing to admire in the noble alcaics of Gray, or in the playful elegiacs of Vincent Bourne ? Surely not. Nor was Boileau so ignorant or tasteless as to be incapable of appreciating good modern Latin. In the very letter to which Johnson alludes, Boileau says — "Ne croyez pas pourtant que je veuille par la blamer les vers Latins que vous m'avez envoyes d'un de vos illustres academiciens. Je les ai trouves fort beaux, et digues de Vida et de Sannazar, mais non pas d'Horace et de Virgile." Several poems, in modern Latin, have been praised by Boileau quite as liber- ally as it was his habit to praise anything. He says, for' THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 23 example, of the Pere Fraguier's epigrams, that Catullus seems to have come to life again. But the best proof that Boileau did not feel the undiscerning contempt for modern Latin verses which has been imputed to him, is, that he wrote and published Latin verses in several metres. Indeed it hap- pens, curiously enough, that the most severe censure ever pronounced by him on modern Latin is conveyed in Latin hexameters. We allude to the fragment which begins — * Quid iiumeris iterum me balbiitire Latinis, Loiige Alpes citra natum de patre Sicambro, Musa, jubes ?" For these reasons we feel assured that the praise whicli Boileau bestowed on the Machince Gesticulantes^ and the Gerano-Pygmceomachia^wm sincere. He certainly opened himself to Addison with a freedom which was a sure indi- cation of esteem. Literature was the chief subject of con- versation. The old man talked on his favorite theme much and well, indeed, as his young hearer thought, incom- parably well. Boileau had undoubtedly some of the qualities of a great critic. He wanted imagination ; but he had strong sense. His literary code was formed on narrow principles ; but in applying it, he showed great judgment and penetration. In mere style, abstracted from the ideas of which style is the garb, his taste was excellent. He was well acquainted with the great Greek writers ; and, though unable fully to appreciate their creative genius, admired the majestic simplicity of their manner, and had learned from them to despise bombast and tinsel. It is easy, we think, to discover in the Spectator and the Guardian, traces of the influence, in part salutary and in part pernicious, which the mind of I3oileau had on the mind of Addison. While Addison was at Paris, an event took place which made tliat capital a disagreeable residence for an English- ma /i and a Whig. Charles, second of the name. King of S|)ain, died ; and bequeathed his dominions to Philip, Duke of Anjou, a younger son of the Dauphin. The King of France, in direct violation of his engagements, both with (jreat Britain and with the States-General, accepted the be- quest on behalf of his grandson. The house of Bourbon was at the summit of human grandeur. England had been outwitted, and found herself in a situation at once degrading and perilous. The people of France, not presaging the calamities by which they were destined to expiate the per- fidy of their sovereign, went mad with pride and delight. 24 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. Every man looked as if a great estate had just been left him. " The French conversation," says Addison, " begins to grow insupportable ; that which was before the vainest nation in the world is now worse than ever." Sick of the arrogant exultation of the Parisians, and probably foresee- ing that tl 3 peace between France and England could no^ be of long duration, he set off for Italy. In December, 1700,^ he embarked at Marseilles. Ashe glided along the Ligurian coast, he was delighted by the sight of myrtles and olive trees, which retained their verdure under the winter solstice. Soon, however, he encountered one of the black storms of the Mediterranean. The captain of the ship gave up all for lost, and confessed himself to a capuchin who happened to be on board. The English heretic, in the mean time, fortified himself against the ter- rors of death with devotions of a very different kind. How strong an impression this perilous voyage made on him, ap- pears from the ode, " How are thy servants blest, O Lord ! " which was long after published in the Spectator. After some days of discomfort and danger, Addison was glad to land at Savona, and to make his way, over mountains where no road had yet been hewn out by art, to the city of Genoa. At Genoa, still ruled by her own Doge, and by the nobles whose names were inscribed on her Book of Gold, Addison made a short stay. He admired the narrow streets overhung by long lines of towering palaces, the walls rich with frescoes, the gorgeous temple of the Annunciation, and the tapestries whereon were recorded the long glories of the house of Doria. Thence he hastened to Milan, where he contemplated the Gothic magnificence of the cathedral with more wonder than pleasure. He passed Lake Benacus while a gale was blowing, and saw the waves raging as they raged when Virgil looked upon them. At Venice, then the gayest spot in Europe, the traveller spent the Carnival, the gayest season of the year, in the midst of masques, dances, and ser- enades. Here he was at once diverted and provoked by the absurd dramatic pieces w^hich then disgraced the Italian stage. To one of those pieces, how^ever, he was indebted for a valuable hint. He was present when a ridiculous play on the death of Cato was performed. Cato, it seems, was * It is strange that Addison should, in the first line of his travels, have mis- dated his departure from Marseilles by a whole year, and still more strange that this slip of the pen, which throws the whole narrative into inextricable con- fusion, should have been repeated in a succession of editions, and never detected by TickcU or by Hurd. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 25 in love with a daui^hier of Scipio. Tlie lady had given her heart to Ctesar. The rejected lover determined to destroy himself. He appeared seated in his library, a dagger in his hand, a Plutarch and a Tasso before him; and, in tliis position, he pronounced a soliloquy before he struck the blow. We are surprised that so remarkable a circumstance as this should have escaped the notice of all Addison's biog- raphers. There cannot, we conceive, be the smallest doubt that this scene, in spite of its absurdities and anachronisms, struck the traveller's imagination, and suggested to him the thought of bringing Cato on the English stage. It is well known that about this time he began his tragedy, and that he finished the first four acts before he returned to Eng- land. On his way from Venice to Rome, he was drawn some miles out of the beaten road by a wish to see the smallest independent state in Europe. On a rock where the snow still lay, though the Italian spring was now far advanced, was perched the little fortress of San Marino. The roads which led to the secluded town were so bad that few travel- lers had ever visited it, and none had ever published an account of it. Addison could not suppress a good-natured smile at the simple manners and institutions of this singular community. But he observed with the exultation of a Whig, that the rude mountain tract which formed the terri- tory of the republic swarmed with an honest, healthy, and contented peasantry, while the rich plain which surrounded the metropolis of civil and spiritual tyranny was scarcely less desolate than the uncleared wilds of America. At Rome Addison remained on his first visit only long enough to catch a glimpse of St. Peter's and of the Pantheon. His haste is the more extraordinary because the Holy Week was close at hand. He has given no hint which can enable us to pronounce why he chose to fiy from a spectacle which every year allures from distant regions persons of far less ♦ taste and sensibility than his. Possibly, travelling, as he did, at the charge of a Government distinguished by its en- mity to the Church of Rome, he may have thought that it would be imprudent in him to assist at the most magnificent ■ rite of that Church. Many eyes would be upon him ; and he might find it difiicult to behave in such a manner as to give offence neither to his patrons in England, nor to those among whom he resided. Whatever his motives may have been, he turned his back on the most august and affecting 26 macaulay's miscellaneous writtxgs. ceremony which is known among men, and posted along the Appian way to Naples. Naples was then destitute of what are now, perhaps, its chief attractions. The lovely bay and the awful mountain were indeed there. But a farmhouse stood on the theatre of Herculaneum, and rows of vines grew over the streets of Pompeii. The temples of Paestum had not indeed been hidden from the eye of man by any great convulsion of nature; but, strange to say, their existence was a secret even to artists and antiquaries. Though situated within a few hours' journey of a great capital, where Salvator had not long before painted, and where Vico was then lecturing, those noble remains were as little known to Europe as the ruined cities overgrown by the forests of Yucatan. What was to be seen at Naples, Addison saw. He climbed Vesu- vius, ex])lored the tunnel of Posilipo, and wandered among the vines and almond trees of Capreae. But neither the wonders of nature, nor those of art, could so occupy his attention as to prevent him from noticing, though cursorily, the abuses of the government and the misery of the people. The great kingdom which had just descended to Philip the Fifth, was in a state of paral3^tic dotage. Even Castile and Aragon were sunk in w^retchedness. Yet, compared with the Italian dependencies of the Spanish crown, Castile and Aragon might be called prosperous. It is clear that all the observations which Addison made in Italy tended to con- firm him in the political opinions which he had adopted at home. To the last, he alv/ays s])oke of foreign travel as the best cure for Jacobitism. In his Freeholder, the Tory fox- himter asks what travelling is good for, except to teach a man to jabber French, and to talk against passive obedi- ence. From Naples, Addison returned to Rome by sea, along the coast which his favorite Virgil had celebrated. The felucca passed the headland where the oar and trumpet were j)lriced by the Trojan adventurers on the tomb of Misenus, and anchored at night under the shelter of the fabled ])ro- niontory oi Circe. The voyage ended in the Tiber, still overhung with dark verdure, and still turbid with yellow sand, as when it met the eyes of ^neas. From the ruined port of Ostia, the stranger hurried to Rome ; and at Rome he remained during those hot and sickly months w^hen, even in the Augustan age, all who could make their escape fled fi'om mad dogs and from streets black with funerals, to THE LIFE ANB WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 27 gather the first figs of tlie season in tlie country. It is prob- able that, when he, long after, poured forth in vei'se his gratitude to the Providence which had enabled him to breathe unhurt in tainted air, he was thinking of the August and September which he had passed at Rome. It was not till the latter end of October that he tore him- self away from the masterpieces of ancient and modern art whicli are collected in the city so long the mistress of the world. He then journeyed northward, passed through Sienna, and for a moment forgot his prejudices in favor of classic architecture as he looked on the magnificent cathedral. At Florence he spent some days with the Duke of Shrews- bury, who, cloyed with the pleasures of ambition, and impa- tient of its pains, fearing both parties, and loving neither, had determined to hide in an Italian retreat talents and accom- plishments which, if they had been united with fixed principles and civil courage, might have made him the foremost man of his age. These days, we are told, passed pleasantly ; and we can easily believe it. For Addison was a delightful com- panion when he was at his ease ; and the Duke, though he seldom forgot that he was a Talbot, had the invaluable art of putting at ease all who came near him. Addison gave some time to Florence, and especially to the sculptures in the Museum, which he ])ref erred even to those of the Vatican. He then pursued his journey through a country in which the ravages of the last war were still dis- cernible, and in which all men were looking forward with a dread to a still fiercer conflict. Eugene had already de- scended from the Rhaetian Alps, to dispute with Catinat the rich plain of Lombardy. The faithless ruler of Savoy was still reckoned among the allies of Lewis. England had not yet actually declared war against France ; but Manchester had left Paris ; and the negotiations which produced the Grand Alliance against the House of Bourbon were in pro- gress. Under such circumstances, it was desirable for an English traveller to reach neutral ground without delay. Addison resolved to cross Mont Cenis. It was December ; and the road was very different from that which now re- minds the stranger of the power and genius of Napoleon. The winter, however, was mild ; and the passage was, for those times, easy. To this journey Addison alluded when, in the ode which we have already quoted, he said that for him the Divine goodness had warmed the hoary Alpine hills. It was in the midst of the eternal snow that he composed MACAULAy's miscellaneous WKITINGS. his Epistle to his friend Montague, now Lord Halifax. That Epistle, once widely renowned, is now known only to cu- rious readers, and will hardly be considered by those to whom it is known as in any perceptible degree heightening Addi- son's fame. It is, however, decidedly superior to any English composition which he had previously published. Nay, we think it quite as good as any poem in heroic metre which appeared during the interval between the death of Dryden and the publication of the Essay on Criticism. It contains passages as good as the second-rate passages of Pope, and would have added to the reputation of Parnell or Prior. But, whatever be the literary merits or defects of the Epistle, it undoubtedly does honor to the principles and spirit of the author. Halifax had now nothing to give. He had fallen from power, liad been held up to obloquy, had been impeached by the House of Commons, and, though his Peers had dismissed the impeachment, had, as it seemed, little chance of ever again filling high office. The Epistle, written at such a time, is one among many proofs that there was no mixture of cowardice or. meanness in the sauvity and moderation which distinguished Addison from all the other public men of those stormy times. At Geneva, the traveller learned that a partial change of ministry had taken place in England, and that the Earl of Manchester had become Secretary of State. Manchester exerted himself to serve his young friend. It was thought advisable that an English agent should be near the person of Eugene in Italy ; and Addison, whose diplomatic educa- tion was now finished, was the man selected. He was pre- paring to enter on his honorable functions, when all his pros- pects were for a time darkened by the death of William the Third. Anne had long felt a strong aversion, personal, political, and religious, to the Whig party. That aversion appeared in the first measures of her reign. Manchester was deprived of the seals, after he had held them only a few weeks. Neither Soraers nor Halifax was sworn of the Privy Coun- cil. Addison shared the fate of his three patrons. His hopes of employment in the public service were at an end ; his pension was stopped ; and it was necessary for him to support himself by his own exertions. He became tutor to a young English traveller, and appears to have rambled with his pupil over a great part of Switzerland and Germany. At this time he wrote his pleasing treatise on Medals. It TliJi: LITE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 29 was not published till after his death ; but several distin- guished scholars saw the manuscript, and gave just praise to the grace of the style, and to the learning and ingenuity evinced by the quotations. From Germany Addison repaired to PTolland, where he [earned the melancholy news of his father's death. After passing some months in the United Provinces, he returned about the close of the year 1703 to England. He was there cordially received by his friends, and introduced by them into the Kit Cat Club, a society in which were collected all the various talents and accomplishments which then gave lustre to the Whig party. Addison was, during some months after his return from the Continent, hard pressed by pecuniary difficulties. But it was soon in the power of his noble patrons to serve him effectually. A political change, silent and gradual, but of the highest importance, was in daily progress. The acces- sion of Anne had been hailed by the Tories with transports of joy and hope ; and for a time it seemed that the Whigs had fallen never to rise again. The throne was surrounded by men supposed to be attached to the prerogative and to the Church ; and among these none stood so high in the favor of the sovereign as the Lord Treasurer Godolphin and the Captain General Marlborough. The country gentlemen and the country clergymen had fully expected that the policy of these ministers would be directly opposed to that which had been almost constantly followed by William; that the landed interest would be favored at the expense of trade ; that no addition would be made to the funded debt ; that the privileges conceded to Dissenters by the late King would be curtailed, if not with- drawn ; that the Avar with France, if there must be such a war, would, on our part, be almost entirely naval ; and that the Government would avoid close connections with foreign powers, and, above all, with Holland. Bat the country gentlemen and country clergymen were fated to be deceived, not for the last time. The prejudices and plosions which raged without control in the vicarages, in catnedral closes, and in the manor-houses of fox-hunting squires, were not shared by the chiefs of the ministry. Those statesmen saw that it was both for the public interest and for their own interest, to adopt a Whig policy at least as respected the alliances of the country and the conduct of the war. But, if the foreign ])olicy of the Whigs were 80 ]N[ACAULAy's MISCELLAXEOUS AVRITINGS. adopted, it was impossible to abstain from adopting also their financial policy. The natural consequences followed. The rigid Tories were alienated from the Government. The votes of the Whigs became necessary to it. The votes of the Whigs could be secured only by further conces- sions; and further concessions the Queen was induced to make. At the beginning of the year 1704, the state of parties bore a close analogy to the state of parties in 1826. In 1826, as in 1704, there was a Tory ministry divided into two hostile sections. The position of Mr. Canning and his friends in 1826 corresponded to that which Marlborough tnd Godolphin occupied in 1704. Nottingham and Jersey were, in 1704, what Lord Eldon and Lord Westmoreland were in 1826. The Whigs of 1704 were in a situation resembling that in which the Whigs of 1826 stood. In 1704, Somers, Halifax, Sunderland, Cowper, were not in office. There was no avowed coalition between them and the moderate Tories. It is probable that no direct communication tend- ing to such a coalition had yet taken place ; yet all men saw that such a coalition was inevitable, nay, that it was already half formed. Such, or nearly such, was the state of things when tidings arrived of the great battle fought at Blen- heim on the 13th August, 1704. By the Whigs the news was hailed with transports of joy and pride. No fault, no cause of quarrel, could be remembered by them against the Commander whose genius had, in one day, changed the face of Europe, saved the Imperial throne, humbled the House of . Bourbon, and secured the Act of Settlement against for- eign hostility. The feeling of the Tories was very different. They could not indeed, without imprudence, openly express regret at an event so glorious to their country ; but their congratulations were so cold and sullen as to give deep dis- gust to the victorious general and his friends. Godolphin was not a reading man. Whatever time he could spare from business he was in the habit of spending at Newmarket or at the card table. But he was not ab- solutely indifferent to poetry ; and he was too intelligent an observer not to perceive that literature was a formidable engine of political warfare, and that the great Whig leaders had strengthened their party, and raised their character, by extending a liberal and judicious patronage to good writers. He was mortified, and not without reason, by the exceeding badness of the poems which a})peared in honor of the battle THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 31 f . of Blenheim. One of these poems hjis been rescued from oblivion by the exquisite absurdity of three lines. " Think of two thons.ind ^^eiitleineii at least, And each man nioiinted on his caperinro(luced an outbreak of public feeling scarcely less violent than the outbreaks which we can ourselves remember in 1820, and in 1831. The country gentlemen, the country clei-gymen, the rabble of the towns, were all for once, on the same side. It was clear that, if a general election took place before the excitement abated, the Tories would have a majority. The services of Marlborough had been so splendid that they were no longer necessary. The Queen's throne was secure from all attacks on the part of Lewis. Indeed, it seemed much more likely that the English and^ German armies would divide the spoils of Versailles and Marli than that a Marshal of France would bring back the Pretender to St. J imes's. The Queen, acting by the advice of Harley, determined to dismiss her servants. In June the change commenced. Sunderland was the first who fell. The Tories exulted over his fall. The Whigs tried, during a few weeks, to persuade themselves that her Majesty had acted only from personal dislike to the Secretary, and that she meditated no further alteration. But, early in August, Godolphin was surprised by a letter from Anne, which directed him to break his white staff. Even after this event, the irresolution or dissimula- tion of Harley kept up the hopes of the Whigs during an- other month : and then the ruin became rapid and violent. The Parliament was dissolved. The Ministers were turned out. The Tories were called to office. The tide of pop- ularity ran violently in favor of the High Church party. That party, feeble in the late House of Commons, w^as now irresistible. The ]>ower which the Tories had thus suddenly acquired, they used with blind and stupid ferocity. The howl which the whole pack set up for prey and for blood ap]')alled even him who had roused and unchained them. When, at this distance of time, we calmly review the con- duct of the discarded ministers, we cannot but feel a move- ment of indignation at tlie injustice with which they were treated. No body of men had ever administered the gov- ernment w^ith more energy, ability, and moderation ; and their success had been proportioned to their wisdom. Tliey had saved Holland and Germany. They had h ambled France. They had, as it seemed, all but torn Spain from the house of Bourbon. They had made England the first power in Europe. At home tliey had united England and Scotland. They had respected the rights of conscience and the liberty of the subjects. They retired, leaving their THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 51 country at the lieiglit of prosperity and glory. And yet they were pursued to tlieir retreat by such a roar of obloquy as was never raised against the government which threw away thirteen colonies, or against the government which sent a gallant army to perish in the ditches of Walcheren. None of the Whigs suffered more in the general wreck than Addison. He had just sustained some heavy pecuni- ary losses, of the nature of which we are imperfectly in- foimed, when his Secretaryship wns taken from him. He liad reason to believe that he should also be deprived of :he small Irish office which he held by patent. He had just re- signed his Fellowship. It seems probable that he had already ventured to raise his eyes to a great lady, and that, while his political friends were in power, and while his own fortunes were rising, he had been, in the phrase of the ro- mances which were then fashionable, permitted to hope. But Mr. Addison, the ingenious writer, and Mr. Addison the Chief Secretary, were, in her ladyship's opinion, two very different persons. All these calamities united, how- ever, could not disturb the serene cheerfulness of a mind conscious of innocence, and rich in its own wealth. He told his friends, with smiling resignation, that they ought to ad- mire his philosophy, that he had lost at once his fortune, his place, his fellowship and his mistress, that he must think of turning tutor again, and yet that his spirits were as good as ever. He had one consolation. Of the unpopularity which his friends had incurred, he had no share. Such was the es- teem with which he was regarded that, while the most vio- lent measures were taken for the purpose of forcing Tory members on Whig corporations, he was returned to Parlia- ment without even a contest. Swift, who was now in Lon- don, and who had already determined on quitting the Whigs, wrote to Stella in these remarkable words : " The Tories carry it among the new members six to one. Mr. Addison's election has passed easy and undisputed ; and I l^elieve if he had a mind to be king he would hardly be re- fused." The good-will with which the Tories regarded Addison is the more honorable to him, because it had not been pur- chased by any concession on his part. During the general election he published a political Journal, entitled the Whig Examiner. Of that Journal, it may be sufficient to say that Johnson, is spite of his strong political prejudices, pro- U. ILL im 52 MACAULAy's miscellaneous WIUTIXGS. noimced it to be superior in wit to any of Swift's writings- on the otlier side. When it ceased to appear, Swift, in a letter to Stella, expressed his exultation at tlie death of so formidable an antagonist. " lie miglit well rejoice," says Johnson, " at the death of that which he could not have killed." " On no occasion," he adds, "was the genius of Addison more vigorously exerted, and on none did the su- periority of his powers more evidently appear." • The only use which Addison appears to have made of the favor with which he was regarded by the Tories was to save some of his friends from the general ruin of the Whig party. He felt himself to be in a situation which made it his duty to take a decided part in politics. But the case of Steele and Ambrose Phillipps was different. For Phillipps, Addison even condescended to solicit, with what success we have not ascertained. Steele held two places. He was Gazetteer, and he was also a Commissioner of Stamps. The Gazette was taken from him. But he was suffered to retain his place in the Stamp Office, on an implied understand- ing that he should not be active against the new govern- ment ; and he was, during more than two years, induced by Addison to observe this armistice with tolerable fidelity. Isaac Bickerstaff accordingly became silent upon politics, and the article of news which had once formed about one third of his paper, altogether disappeared. The Tatler had completely changed its character. It was now nothing but a series of essays on books, morals, and manners. Steele therefore resolved to bring it to a close, and to commence a new work on an improved plan. It was announced that this new work would be published daily. The undertaking was generally regarded as bold, or rather rash ; but the event amply justified the confidence with which Steele re- lied on the fertility of Addison's genius. On the second of January, 1711, appeared the last Tatler. At the beginning of March following appeared the first of an incomparable series of papers, containing observations on life and litera- ture by an imaginary Spectator. The Spectator himself was conceived and drawn by Addison ; and it is not easy to doubt that the portrait w^as meant to be in some features a likeness of the painter. The Spectator is a gentleman who, after passing a studious youth at the university, has travelled on classic ground, and has bestowed much atttmtion on curious points of antiquity.. He has, on his return, fixed his residence in London, and THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 53 aas observed all the forms of life which are to be found in that great city, has daily listened to the wits of Will's, has smoked with the philosophers of the Grecian, and has mingled with the parsons at Child's, and witli the politicians at the St. James's. In the morning, he often listens to the hum of the Exchange ; in the evening, his face is constantly to be seen in the pit of Drary Lane theatre. But an in- surmountable bashfulness prevents him from opening his mouth, except in a small circle of intimate friends. These friends were first sketched by Steele. Four of the club, the templar, the clergyman, the soldier, and the mer- chant, were uninteresting hgures, lit only for a background. But the other two, an old country baronet and an old town rake, though not delineated with a very delicate pencil, had some good strokes. Addison took the rude outlines into his own hands, retouched them, colored them, and is in truth the creator of the Sir Roger de Coverley and the Will Honeycomb with whom we are all familiar. The plan of the Spectator must be allowed to be both original and eminently happy. Every valuable essay in the series may be read with pleasure separately; yet the five or six hundred essays form a whole, and a whole which has the interest of a novel. It must be remembered, too, that at that time no novel, giving a lively and powerful picture of the common life and manners of England, had appeared. Richardson was working as a compositor. Fielding was robbing birds' nests. Smollett was not yet born. The nar- rative, therefore, which connects together the Spectator's Essays, gave to our ancestors their first taste of an exquisite and untried pleasure. That narrative was indeed constructed with no art or labor. The events were such events as occur every day. Sir Roger comes up to town to see Eugenio, as the worthy baronet always calls Prince Eugene, goes witli the Spectator on the water to Spring Gardens, walks among the tombs in the Abbey, and is frightened by the Moliawks, but conquers liis apprehension so far as to go to the theatre when the Distressed Mother is acted. The Spectator pays a visit in the sunmier to Coverley Hall, is charmed with the old liouse, the old butler, and the old chaplain, eats a jack caught by Will Wimble, rides to the assizes, and hears a point of law discussed by Tom Touchy. At last a letter from the honest butler bi'ings to the club the news that Sir Roger is dead. Will Honeycomb marries and reforms at sixty. The club breaks u}) ; and the Spectator resigns his 54 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. functions. Sucli events can hardly be said to form a plot j yet they are related with such truth, such grace, such wit, such humor, such pathos, such knowledge of the human heart, such knowledge of the ways of the world, that they eliarin us on the hundredth perusal. We have not the least doubt tliat if Addison had written a novel, on an extensive plan, it Avould have been superior to any that we possess. As it is, he is entitled to be considered not only as the great- est of the English essayists, but as the forerunner of the great English novelists. We say this of Addison alone; for Addison is the Spec- tator. About three sevenths of the work are his ; and it is no exaggeration to say, that his worst essay is as good as tlie best essay of any of his coadjutors. His best essays approach near to absolute perfection ; nor is their excellence more wonderful than their variety. His invention never seems to flag ; nor is he ever under the necessity of repeat- ing himself, or of wearing out a subject. There are no dregs in his wine. He regales us after the fashion of that prodigal nabob who held that- there was only one good glass in a bottle. As soon as we have tasted the fii-st sparkling foam of a jest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh drauglit of nectar is at our lips. On the Monday we have an allegory as lively and ingenius as Lucian's Auction of Lives ; on the Tuesday an Eastern apologue, as richly colored as the Tales of Schere- zade ; on the Wednesday, a character described with the skill of a La Bruyere ; on the Thursday, a scene from com- mon life, equal to the best chapters in the Vicar of Wake- field ; on the Friday, some sly Horatian pleasantry on fashionable follies, on hoops, patches, or puppet shows ; and on the Saturday a religious meditation, which will bear a comparison with the finest passages in Massillon. It is dangerous to select where there is so much that deserves the liighest praise. We will venture, however, to say, that any person who wishes to form a notion of the ex- tent and variety of Addison's powers, Avill do well to read at one sitting the following papers, the two Visits to the Abbey, the Visit to the Exchange, the Journal of the Iletired Citizen, the Vision of Mirza, the Transmigrations of Pug the Monkey, and the Death of Sir Roger de Cov- erley.^ The least valuable of Addison's contributions to the *Kos 26, 329, 69, 317, 159, 343. 517- These papers are all in the first seven volumes. The eighth must be considered a separate work. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 55 J Spectator are, in the judgment of our age, his critical ])apers. Yet his critical papers are always luminous, and often in- I genious. The very worst of them must be regarded as creditable to him, when the character of the school in Avhich he had been trained is foJrly considered. Tlie best of them were much too good for his readers. In trutli, he was not so far behind our generation as lie was before his own. No essays in the Spectator were more censured and derided than those in which he raised liis voice against the contempt with wliich our fine old ballads were regarded, and sliowed the scoffers that the same gold whicli, burnished and polislied.^ gives lustre to the ^Eneid and tlie Odes of Horace, is mingled with the rude dross of Chevy Chace. It is not strange that the success of the Sj^ectator should have been such as no similar work has ever obtained. The number of copies daily distributed was at first three thou- sand. It subsequently increased, and had risen to near four thousand when the stamp tax was imposed. That tax was fatal to a crowd of journals. The Spectator, however, stood its ground, doubled its price, and, though its circulation fell off, still yielded a large revenue both to the state and to the authors. For particular papers, the demand was immense ; of some, it is said, twenty thousand copies were required. But this was not all. To have the Spectator served up every morning with the bohea and rolls was a luxury for the few. The majority were content to wait till essays enough had appeared to form a volume. Ten thousand copies of each volume were immediately taken off, and new editions were called foi It must be remembered that the popula- tion of England was then hardly a third of what it now is. The number of Englishmen who were in the habit of read- ing, was probably not a sixth of what it now is. A shop- keeper or a farmer who found any pleasure in literature, was a rarity. Nay, there was doubtless more than one knight of the shire whose country seat did not contain ten books, receipt books and books on farriery included. In tliese circumstances, the sale of the Spectator must be con- sidered as indicating a popularity quite as great as that'of the most successful workb of Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Dickens in our own time. At the close of 1712 the Spectator ceased to appear. It was probably felt that the short-faced gentleman and his club had been long enough before the town ; and that it was time to withdraw them, and to replace thorn by a ney 66 macaulay's miscellaneous writings, set of characters. In a few weeks the first number of the Guardian was published. But the Guardian was unfortu- nate both in its birth and in its death. It began in duhiess and disappeared in a tempest of faction. The original plan was bad. Addison contributed nothing till sixty-six num- bers had appeared ; and it was then impossible to make the Guardian what the Spectator had been. Nestor Ironside and the Miss Lizards were people to whom even he could impart no interest. He could only furnish some excellent little essays, both serious and comic ; and this he did. Why Addison gave no assistance to the Guardian during the first two months of its existence, is a question which has puzzled the editors and biographers, but which seems to us to admit of a very easy solution. He was then engaged in brino-inG: his Cato on the stasje. The first four acts of this drama had been lying in his desk since his return from Italy. His modest and sensitive nature shrank from the risk of a public and shameful failure ; and, though all who saw tlie manuscript were loud in praise, some thought it possible tliat an audience miglit become impatient even of very good rhetoric, and advised Addison to print the play without hazarding a representa- tion. At length, after many fits of a])preliension, the ])oet yielded to the urgency of his political fi-iends, who hoped that the public would discover some analogy between the followers of Csesar and the Tories, between Sempronius and the apostate Whigs, between Cato, struggling to the last for the liberties of Rome, and the band of patriots who still stood firm round Halifax and Wharton. Addison gave the play to the managers of Drury Lane theatre, without stipulating for any advantage to himself. They, therefore, thought tliemselves bound to spare no cost in S(^enery and dresses. The decorations, it is true, WDuld noi have pleased the skilful eye of Mr. Macready. Juba's "waistcoat blazed with gold lace ; Marcia's hoop was wortliy of a Duchess on the birthday ; and Cato wore a w4g worth fifty guineas. The prologue was wa'itten by Pope, and is undoubtedly a dignified and spirited composition. The part of the hero was excellently played by 13ooth. Steele undertook to pack a house. The boxes were in a blaze with the stars of the Peers in Opposition. The pit was crowded with attentive and friendly listeners from the Inns of Court and the literary coffee-houses. Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Gov- ernor of the Bank of England, was at the head of a power- THE LIFE AND WliiTINGS OF ADDISON. 57 fnl body of auxiliaries from the city, warm men and true Whigs, but l>etter known at Jonathan's and Garraway's than in tlie haunts of wits and critics. These precautions were quite superfluous. Tlie Tories, as a body, regarded Addison witli no unkind feelings. Xor was it for their interest, professing, fis they did, profound I'everence for law^ and ])rescri])tion, and abhoi'rence both of popular insurrections and of standing armies, to appropriate to themselves reflections thrown on the great military chief and demagogue, who, with the su])port of the legions and of the common peoj^le, subverted all the ancient institutions of his country. Accordingly, every shout that was raised by the members of the Kit Cat was echoed by the High Churchmen of the October ; and tlie curtain at length fell amidst thunders of imanimous applause. The delight and admiration of the tow^n were described by the Guardian in terms which we might nttribute to ])ar- tiality, were it not that the Examiner, the organ of the Min- istry, held similar language. The Tories, indeed, found much to sneer at in the conduct of their opponents. Steele had on this, as on other occasions, shown more zeal than taste or judgment. The honest citizens who marched under the orders of Sir Gibby, as he was facetiously called, prob- ably knew better when to buy and when to sell stock than when to clap and when to hiss at a play, and incurred some ridicule by making the hypocritical Sempronius their favor- ite, and by giving to his insincere rants louder plaudits than they bestow^ed on the temperate eloquence of Cato. Whar- ton, too, who had the incredible effrontery to applaud the lines about flying from prospei'ous vice and from the power of impious men to a private station, did not escape the sar- casms of those who justly thought that he coidd fly from nothing more vicious or impious than himself. The epi- logue, Avhich was written by Garth, a zealous Whig, was severely and not unreasonably censured as ignoble and out of place. But Addison was described, even by the bitterest Tory writers, as a gentleman of wit and virtue, in whose friendship many persons of both parties were happy, and \vhose name ought not to be mixed up w^ith factious squab- bles. Of the jests by which the triumph of the Whig party was disturbed, the most severe and hnppy was Boling- broke's. Between two acts, he sent for Booth to his box, and presented him, before the whole theatre, with a purse 5S macaulay's miscellaneous wkitings. of fifty guineas for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual Dictator. This was a pungent allusion to the attempt which Marlborough liad made, not long be- fore liis fall, to obtain a patent creating him CajDtain General for life. It was April ; and in April, a hundred and thirty years ago, the London season was thouglit to be far advanced. During a whole month, however, Cato was performed to ovei-flowing houses, and brought into the treasury of the tlieatre twice the gains of an ordinary spring. In the sum- mer the Drury Lane company went down to the Act at Ox- ford, and there, before an. audience which retained an af- fectionate remembrance of Addison's accomplishments and virtues, his tragedy was enacted during several days. The gownsmen began to besiege the theatre in the forenoon, and by one in the afternoon all the seats were filled. About the merits of the piece which had so extraordinary an effect, tlie public, we suppose, has made up its mind. To compare it with the masterpieces of tlie Attic stage, with the great Englisli dramas of the time of Elizabeth, or even with the productions of Schiller's manhood, would be absurd indeed. Yet it contains excellent dialogue and declamation, and, among plays fashioned on the French model, must be allowed to rank higli ; not indeed with Athalie or Saul ; but, we think not below Cinan, and certainly above any otlier English tragedy of the same school, above many of the plays of Corneille, above many of the plays of Voltaire and Allieri, and above some plays of Racine. Be this as it may, we have little doubt that Cato did as much as the Tatlers, Spectators, and Freeholders united, to raise Addi- son's fame among his contemporaries. The modesty and good nature of the successful dramatist had tamed even the malignity of faction. But literary envy, it should seem, is a fiercer passion than party spirit. It was by a zealous Whig that the fiercest attack on the Whig tragedy was made. John Dennis published Remarks on Cato, which were written with some acuteness and with much coarseness and asperity. Addison neither defended himself nor retaliated. On many points he had an excel- lent defence ; and nothing would have been easier than to retaliate ; for Dennis had written bad odes, bad tragedies, bad comedies : he had, moreover, a larger share than most men of those infirmities and eccentricities which excite laughter; and Addison's power of turning either an absurd THE LIFE AND WBITIXGS OF ADDISON. 59 book or an absurd man into ridicule was unrivalled. Addi- son, however, serenely conscious of his sujoeriority, looked with pity on his assailant, whose temper, naturally irritable and gloomy, had been soured by want, by controversy, and by literary failures. But among the young candidates for Addison's favor, there was one distinguished by talents from the rest, and distinguished, we fear, not less by malignity and insincerity. ro])e was only twenty-five. But his powers had expanded to their full maturity ; and his best poem, the Rape of the Lock, had recently been published. Of his genius, Addison had ahvays expressed high admiration. But Addison had early discerned, wliat might indeed have been discerned by an eye loss penetrating than his, that the diminutive, crooked, sickly boy was eager to revenge himself on society for the unkindness of nature. In the Spectator, the Essay on Criticism had been praised with cordial warmth ; but a gentle hint had been added, that the writer of so excellent a poem would have done w^ell to avoid ill-natured per- sonalities. Pope, though evidently more galled by tiie censure than gratified by the praise, returned thanks for the admonition, and promised to profit by it. The two writers continued to exchange civilities, counsel, and small good offices. Addison publicly extolled Pope's miscellaneous pieces ; and Pope furnished Addison with a prologue. This did not last long. Pope hated Dennis, whom he had injured without provocation. The appearance of the Remarks on Cato gave the irritable poet an opportunity of venting his malice under the show of friendship ; and such an oppor- '♦:unity could not but be welcomed to a nature which was iuiplacable in enmity, and which always preferred the tor- tuous to the straight path. He published, accordingly, the Narrative of the Frenzy of John Dennis. But Pope had mistaken his powers. lie was a great master of invective and sai'casm ; he could dissect a character in terse and son- orous couplets, brilliant with antithesis: but of dramatic talent he was altogether destitute. If he had written a lampoon on Dennis, such as that on Atticus, or that on Sporus, the old gi-umbler would have been crushed. But Pope writing dialogue resembled — to borrow Horace's imagery and his own — a wolf, which, instead of biting, should take to kicking, or a monkey which should try to sting. The narrative is utterly contemptible. Of argument there is not even the show ; and the jests are such as, ii 60 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. they were introduced into a farce, would call forth the hisses of the shilling gallery. Dennis raves about tlie drama ; and the nurse thinks that he is calling for a dram. " Theie is," he cries, "no peripetia in tlie tragedy, no change of fortune, no change at all." "Pray, good Sir, be not angry," says the old woman ; " I'll fetch change." This is not exactly the pleasantry of Addison. There can be no doubt that Addison saw through his officious zeal, and felt himself deeply aggrieved by it. So foolish and spiteful a pamphlet could do him no good, and, if he were thought to have any hand in it, must do him harm. Gifted with incomparable powers of ridicule, he had never, even in self-defence, used those powers inhumanly or un- courteously ; and he was not disposed to let others make his fame and his interests a pretext under which they might commit outrages from which he had himself constantly abstained. He accordingly declared that he had no con- cern in the Narrative, that he disapproved of it, and that if he answered the Remarks, he would answer them like a gentleman ; and he took care to communicate this to Dennis. Po])e was bitterly mortified ; and to this transaction we are inclined to ascribe the hatred with which he ever after regarded Addison. In September, 1713, the Guardian ceased to appear. Steele had gone mad about politics. A general election had just taken place: he had been chosen member for Stock- bridge ; and he fully expected to play a first pai-t in parliar ment. The immense success of the Tatler and Sj>ectator had turned his head. He had been the editor of both those papers, and was not aware how entirely they owed their infiuence and popularity to the genius of his friend. His spirits, always violent, were now excited by vanity, ambi- tion, and faction, to such a pitch that he every day com- mitted some offence against good sense and good taste. All the discreet and moderate members of his own ])arty regretted and condemned his folly. " I am in a thousand troubles," Addison wrote, " about poor Dick, and wish that his zeal for the jniblic may not be ruinous to himself. But he has sent me word that he has determined to go on, and that any advice I may give him in this particular will have no weight with him." Steele set up a political j^aper called the Englishman, which, as it was not sup]»orted by contributions from Addi- son, completely failed. By this work, by some other writ- THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 61 ings of the same kind, and by tlie airs wliicli lie gave him- self at the first meeting of the new Parliament, he made the Tories so angry that they determined to ex])el him. The Whigs stood by him gallantly, but were unable to save liim. The vote of expulsion was regarded by all dispassionate men as a tyrannical exercise of the power of the majority. But Steele's violence and folly, though they by no means justified the steps which his enemies took, had completely disgusted his friends ; nor did he ever regain the place which he had held in the public estimation. Addison about this time conceived the design of adding an eighth volume to the Spectator. In June, 1714, the first number of the new series appeared, and during about six months three papers were published weekly. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the Englishman and the eighth volume of the Spectator, between Steele without Addison and Addison without Steele. The Eng- lishman is forgotten, the eighth volume of the Spectator contains, perhaps, the finest essays, both serious and play- ful, in the English language. Before this volume was completed, the death of Anno produced an entire change in the administration of j^ublic affairs. The blow fell suddenly. It found the Tory party distracted by internal feuds, and unprepared for any great effort. Harley had just been disgraced. Bolingbroke, it was supposed, would be the chief minister. But the Queen was on her death-bed before the white staff had been given, and her last public act was to deliver it with a feeble hand to the Duke of Shrewsbury. The emergency produced a coalition between all sections of public men who were at- tached to the Protestant succession. George the First Avas proclaimed without opposition. A Council, in which the leading Whigs had seats, took the direction of affairs till the new King should arrive. The first act of the Lords Justices was to appoint Addison their secretary. There is an idle tradition that he was directed to pre- pare a letter to the King, that he could not satisfy himself as to the style of this composition, and that the Lords Jus- tices called in a clerk who at once did what was wanted. It is not strange that a story so flattering to mediocrity should be popular ; and we are sorry to deprive dunces of their consolation. But the truth must be told. It was well ob- served by Sir James Mackintosh, whose knowledge of these times was unequalled, that Addison never, in any oflicia] 62 MACAULAy's MISCELLAK^EOUS WRITTXG8. flocumtMit, affected wit or eloquence, and that his despatches are, without exce])tion, remarkable for unpretending sim- plicity. Everybody who knows with what ease Addison's finest essays were produced must be convinced that, if well turned phrases liad been wanted, he would have had no diffi- culty in finding them. We are, however, inclined to beUeve, that the story is not absolutely without a foundation. It may well be that Addison did not know, till he had con- sulted experienced clerks who remembered the times when William the Third was absent on the continent, in what form a letter from the Council of Regency to the King ought to be drawn. We think it very likely that the ablest statesmen of our time. Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Pal- merston, for example, would, in siinilar circumstances, be found quite as ignorant. Every office has some little mys- t(n*ies which the dullest man may learn with a little atten- tion, and which the greatest man cannot possibly know by intuition. One paper must be signed by the chief of the department ; another by his deputy : to a third the royal sign manual is necessary. One communication is to be reg- istered, and another is not. One sentence must be in black ink, and another in red ink. If the ablest Secretary for Ire- land were moved to the India Board, if the ablest President of the India Board were moved to the War Office, he would require instructions on points like these ; and we do not doubt that Addison required such instruction when he be- came, for the first time, Secretary to the Lords Justices. George the First took possession of his kingdom without opposition. A new ministry was formed, and a new Parlia- ment favorable to the Whigs chosen. Sunderland was ap- pointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; and Addison again went to Dublin as Chief Secretary. At Dublin Swift resided ; and there was much specula- tion about the way in which the Dean and the Secretary Avould behave towards each other. The relations which ex- isted between these remarkable men form an interesting and pleasing portion of literary history. They had early at- tached themselves to the same political party and to the same patrons. While Anne's Whig ministry was in power, the visits of Swift to London and the official residence of Addison in Ireland had given them opportunities of know- ing each other. They were the two shrewdest observers of their age. But their observations on each other had led them to favorable conclusions. Swift did full justice to the THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 63 rare powers of conversation which were latent under tlie basliful deportment of Addison. Addison, cn the other hand, discerned much good nature under the severe look and manner of Swift; and, indeed, the Swift of 1708 and the Swift of 1738 were two very different men. But the paths of the two friends diverged widely. The Whig statesmen loaded Addison with solid benefits. They praised Swift, asked him to dinner, and did nothing more for him. His profession laid him under a difficulty. In the state they could not promote him ; and they had reason to fear that, by bestowing preferment in the church on the author of the Tale of a Tub, they might give scandal to the public, which had no high opinion of their orthodoxy. He did not make fair allowance for the difficulties Avhich pre- vented Halifax and Somers from serving him, thought him- self an ill used man, sacrificed honor and consistency to re- vcmge, joined the Tories, and became their most formidable champion. He soon found, however, that his old friends were less to blame than he had supposed. The dislike with which the Queen and the heads of the Church regarded him was insurmountable ; and it was with the greatest difficulty that he obtained an ecclesiastical dignity of no great value, on condition of fixing his residence in a country which he detested. Difference of political opinion had produced, not indeed a quarrel, but a coldness between Swift and Addison. They at length ceased altogether to see each other. Yet there was between them a tacit compact like that between the hereditary guests in the Iliad. "Ey^ea 6* aW-qXojv aXeiafxeOa /cat 5t* SfiiXov noAAoi fxev yap e/u.ol Tptoe? fcAetroi T* iniKovpoif Kreivetv, 6v Ke ^eoq ye iropj] Kai nocral Ki\ei(aj IIoAAol 6' a5 crol 'Axatoi, evaLpefx-eVy 6v K€ 8vvy}ai, It is not strange that Addison, who calumniated and in- sulted nobody, should not have calumniated or insulted Swift. But it is remarkable that Swift, to whom neither genius nor virtue was sacred, and who generally seemed to find, like most other renegades, a peculiar pleasure in at- tacking old friends, should have shown so much respect and tenderness to Addison. Fortune had now changed. The accession of the House of Hanover had secured in England the liberties of the peo- ple, and in Ireland the dominion of the Protestant caste. To that caste Swift w^as more odious than any other man. 64 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. He was hooted and even pelted in the streets of Dublin ; and could not venture to ride along the strand for his health witliout the attendance of armed servants. Many whom he had formerly served now libelled and insulted lum. At tliis tim(i Addison arrived. He had been advised not to show the smallest civility to the Dean of St. Patrick's. He had answered, with admirable spirit, that it might be neces^ sary for men whose fidelity to their party was suspected, to hold no intercourse with political opponents ; but that one who had been a steady Whig in the worst times might venture, when the good cause was triumphant, to sliake liands with an old friend who was one of the vanquished Tories. His kindness was soothing to the proud and cruelly wounded spirit of Swift ; and the two great satirists re- sumed their habits of friendly intercourse. Those associates of Addison whose political opinions agreed with his shared his good fortune. He took Tickell with him to Ireland. He procured for Budgell a lucrative place in the same kingdom. Ambrose Phillipps was provided for in England. Steele had injured himself so much by his eccentricity and perverseness, that he obtained but a very small part of what he thought his due. He was, however, knighted ; he had a place in the household ; and he subse- quently received other marks of favor from the court. Addison did not remain long in Ireland. In 1715 he quitted his secretaryship for a seat at the Board of Trade. In the same year his comedy of the Drummer was brought on the stage. The name of the author was not announced; the piece was coldly received ; and some critics have ex- pressed a doubt whether it were really Addison's. To us the evidence both external and internal, seems decisive. It is not in Addison's best manner; but it contains numerous passages which no other writer known to us could have pro- duced. It was again performed after Addison's death, and, being known to be his, was loudly applauded. Towards the close of the year 1715, while the Rebellion was still raging m Scotland, Addison published the first number of a paper called the Freeholder. Among his po- liti(5al works the Freeholder is entitled to the first place. Even in the Spectator there are few serious j^apers nobler than the character of his friend Lord Somers, and certainly no satirical papers superior to those in which the Tory fox- hunter is introduced. This character is the original of Squire Western, and is drawn with all Fielding's force, and THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 65 witli a delicacy of which Fielding was altogetlicr destitute. As none of Addison's works exhibit stronger niai'ks of liis genius than the Freeholder, so none does more honor to his moral character. It is difficult to extol too liighly the can- dor and humanity of a political Avriter whom even the ex- citement of civil war cannot hurry into unseemly violence. Oxford, it was well known, was then the strongliold of Tory- ism. The High Street had been repeatedly lined witli bayo- nets in order to keep down the disaffected gownsmen ; and traitors pursued by the messengers of the Government had been concealed in the garrets of several colleges. Yet tJie admonition which, even under such circumstances, Addison addressed to the University, is singularly gentle, respectful, and even affectionate. Indeed, he could not find it in his heart to deal harshly even with imaginary persons. His foxlumter, though ignorant, stupid, and violent, is at heart a good fellow, and is at last reclaimed by the clemency of the King. Steele was dissatisfied with his friend's moderation, and, though he acknowledged that the Freeholder was ex- cellently written, complained that tlie ministry played on a lute when it was necessary to blow the trum})et. He ac- cordingly determined to execute a flourish after his own fashion, and tried to rouse the public spirit of the nation by means of a paper called the Town Talk, which is now as utterly forgotten as his Englishman, as his Crisis, as his Letter to the Bailiff of Stockbridge, as liis Reader, in short, as everything that he wrote without the help of Addison. In the same year in which the Drummer was acted, and in which the first numbers of the Freeholder appeared, the estrangement of Pope and Addison became complete. Ad- dison had from the first seen that Pope was false and ma- levolent. Pope had discovered that Addison was jealous. The discovery was made in a strange manner. Pope had written the Rape of the Lock, in two cantos, without suj^er- natural machinery. These two cantos had been loudly ap- plauded, and by none more loudly than by Addison. Then I*ope thought of the Sylphs and Gnomes, Ariel, Momentiila, Crispissa, and TJmbriel, and resolved to interweave the Rosi- crusian mythology with the original fabric. He asked Ad- dison's advice. Addison said that the poem as it stood was a delicious little thing, and entreated Pope not to run the risk of marring what was so excellent in trying to mend it. Pope afterwards declared that this insidious counsel first opened his eves to the baseness of him who gave it. Vol; III.— 5 66 macaulay's miscellaneous ^vIlITI^v^s. Now there can be no doubt that Pope's plan was most ingenious, and that he afterwards executed it with great skill and success. But does it necessarily follow that Addi- son's advice was bad ? And if Addison's advice was bad, does it necessarily follow that it was given from bad mo- tives ? If a friend were to ask us whether we would advise him to risk his all in a lottery of which the chances were ten to one against him, we should do our best to dissuade him from running such a risk. Even if he w^ere so lucky as to get the thirty thousand pound prize, we shoidd not ad- mit that we had counselled him ill ; and we should certahily think it the height of injustice in him to accuse us of having been actuated by malice. We think Addison's advice good advice. It rested on a sound principle, the result of long and wide experience. The general rule undoubtedly is that, when a successful work of imagination has been pi-oduced, it should not be recast. . We cannot at this moment call to mind a single instance in which this rule has been trans- gressed with happy effect, except the instance of the Rape of the Lock. Tasso i*ecast his Jerusalem. Akenside recast his Pleasures of the Imagination, and his Epistle to Curio. Pope himself, emboldened no doubt by the success with which he had expanded and remodelled the Rape of the Lock, made the same experiment on the Dunciad. All these attempts failed. Who was to foresee that Pope would, once in his life, be able to do what he could not himself do twice, and what nobody else has ever done? Addison's advice was good, but had it been bad, why should we pronounce it dishonest ? Scott tells us that one of his best friends predicted the failure of AVaverle3^ Her- der adjured Goethe not to take so unpromising a subject as Faust. Hume tried to dissuade Robertson from Avriting the liistory of Charles the Fifth. Kay, Pope himself was one of those who ])rophesied that Cato would never succeed on the etjige, and advised Addison to print it without risking a re])resentation. Rut Scott, Goethe, Robertson, Addison, had the good sense and generosity to give their advisers credit for the best intentions. Pope's heart was not of the same kind with theirs. In 1715, while he was engaged in translating the Iliad, he met Addison at a coffee-house. Phillipps and Budgell were there ; btit their sovereign got rid of them, and asked Pope to dine with him alone. After dinner, Addison said that he lay under a dhiiculty which he wished to explain. " Tickell/' THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISOX. he said, " translated some time ago the first book of the Iliad. I have promised to look it over and correct it. I cannot therefore ask to see yours ; for that would be double dealinc^." Pope made a civil reply, and begi^ed that his second book might have the advantage of Addison's revis- ion. Addison readily agreed, looked over the second book, and sent it back with warm commendations. TickelTs version of the fii*st book apj^eared soon alter this conversation. In the preface, all rivalry was earnestly disclaimed. Tickell declared that he should not go on with the Iliad. That enterprise he should leave to powers which he admitted to be superior to his own. His only view, he said, in publishing this specimen was to bespeak the favor of tlie public to a translation of the Odyssey, in which he had made some progress. Addison, and Addison's devoted followers, pronounced both the versions good, but maintained that Tickell's had more of the original. The town gave a decided preference to Pope's. We do not think it worth while to settle such a question of precedence. Neither of the rivals can be said to have translated the Iliad, unless, indeed, the word trans- lation be used in the sense which it bears in the Midsummer Night's Dream. When Bottom makes his appearance with an ass's head instead of his own, Peter Quince exclaims, " Bless thee ! Bottom, bless thee ! thou art translated." In this sense, undoubtedly, the readers of either Pope or Tickell may very pro])erly exclaim, " Bless thee ! Homer ; thou art translated indeed." Our readers will, we hope, agree with us in thinking that no man in Addison's situation could have acted more fairly and kindly, both towards Pope, and towards Tickell, than he a])pears to have done. But an odious sus]>icion had sprung lip in the mind of Pope. He fancied, and he soon firmly believed, that there was a deep conspiracy against his fame and his fortunes. The work on which he had staked his reputation was to be depreciated. The subscrip- tion, on which rested his ho])es of a competency, was to be defeated. With this view Addison had made a rival trans- lation ; Tickell had consented to father it; and the wits of Button's had united to puff it. Is there any external evidence to support this grave accusation ? The answer is short. There is absolutely none. Was there any internal evidence which proved Addison C)8 MACAULAV'S M rSCET.T.AXEOUS WHTTIXGR. to he the antlior of this version ? Was it a work which Tickell was incapable of producing? Surely not. Tickell was a Fellow of a College at Oxford, and must be supposed to have been able to construe the Iliad ; and he was a better v ersifier than his friend. We are not aware that Pope pre- tended to have discovered any turns of expression peculiar to Addison. Had such turns of ex])ression been discovered, tliey would be sufficiently accounted for by sup])Osing Ad- dison to have coiTCcted his friend's lines, as he owned that lie had done. Is there anything in the character of the accused persons which makes the accusntion probable? We answer confi- dently — nothing. Tickell Avas long after this time described by I'ope himself as a very fair and worthy man. Addison had been, during many years, before the public. Literary rivals, j^olitical opponents, had kept their eyes on him. But neither envy nor faction, in their utmost rage, had ever im- ]uited to him a single deviation from the laws of honor and of social morality. Plad he been indeeci a man meanly jeal- ous of fame, and capable of stooping to base and wicked arts for the purpose of injuring his competitors, would his vices have remained latent so long? He was a writer of tragedy: had he ever injured Rowe ? He was a writer of comedy : had he not done ample justice to Congreve, and given valuable help to Steele ? He was a pamphleteer : liave not his good nature and generosity been acknowledged by Swift, his rival in fame and his adversary in politics ? That Tickell should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable. That Addison should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable. But that these two men should have conspired together to commit a villany seems to us improbable in a tenfold degree. All that is known to us of their intercourse tends to prove, that it was not the intercourse of two accomplices in crime. These aro some of the lines in which Tickell poured forth liis sorrow over the coffin of Addison : *' Or dost thoii warn poor mortals left behind, A task well suited to thy gentle mind ? Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend, To me thine aid, tlioii f^uardian ^ieiiius, lend. W' hen rai^e misguides me, or when fear alarms, When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms, In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart. And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart; Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before, Till bliss shall join, nor death shall part us more.** TUK LIFE AM) WKITIXGS OF ADDLSOX. 00 In what \\oi-(ls, sliould like to know, d'nl this guar- dian genius invite liis pupil to join in a plan such as the Editor of the Satirist would hardly dare to ])ro])ose tu the Editor of the Age ? We do no accuse Po])e of bringing an accusation which he knew to be false. We have not tlie smallest doubt that he believed it to be true; and tlie evidence on which he be- lieved it he found in his own bad heart. His own life w\as one long series of tricks, as mean and as malicious as that of which he sus])ected Addison and Tickell. lie was all stiletto and mask. To injure, to insult, and to save him- self from the consequences of iujury aiul insult by lying and equivocating, was the habit of his life. He published a lampoon on the Duke of Chandos; he was taxed with it; and he lied and equivocated. He published a lampoon on Aaron Hill ; he was taxed Avith it ; and he lied and equivo- cated. He published a still fouler lampoon on Lady Mary Wortley Montague ; he was taxed with it ; and he lied wn'th more than usual effrontery and vehemence. He puffed him- self and abused his enemies under feigned names. He robbed himself of his own letters, and then raised the hue and cry after him. Besides his frauds of malignity, of fear, of interest, and of vanity, there were frauds which he seems to have committed from love of fraud alone. He had a habit of stratagem, a pleasure in outwitting all who came near him. Whatever his object might be, the indirect road to it was that which he preferred. For Bolingbroke, Pope imdoubtedly felt as much love and veneration as it was in his nature to feel for any human being. Yet Pope w^as scarcely dead Avhen it wms discovered that, from no motive except the mere love of artifice, he had been guilty of an act of gross perfidy to Bolingbroke. Nothing was more natural than that such a man as this should attribute to others that which he felt within himself. A plain, probable, coherent explanation is frankly given to h m. He is certain that it is all a romance. A line of con- duct scrupulously fair, and even friendly, is pursued towards him. He is convinced that it is merely a cover for a vile intrigue by which he is to be disgraced and ruined. It is vain to ask him for proofs. He has none, and w^ants none, except those which, he carries in his own bosom. Whether Pope's malignity at length provoked Addison to retaliate for the first and last time, cannot now be knowm with certainty. We have only Pope's story, which runs 70 MACAULAY's miscellaneous WKITINGS. thus. A pamphlet a])peared containing some reflections Avhich stung Pope to the quick. What those reflections wei-e, and whether they were reflections of whicli he had a riglit to complain, w^e have now no means of deciding. The Earl of Warwick, a foolisli and vicious lad, who regarded Addison with the feelings witli wliich such lads generally regard their best friend^^, told Po]>e, truly or falsely, that this pamphlet had been w^ritten by Addison's direction. When we consider wliat a tendency stories have to grow, in passing even from one honest man to another honest man, and when we consider that to the name of honest man neither Pope nor the Earl of Warwick had a claim, we are not disposed to attach much importance to this anecdote. It is certain, however, that Pope was furious, lie liad already sketched the character of Atticus in prose. In his anger he turned his prose into the brilliant and energetic lines which everybody knows by heart, or ought to know by heart, and sent them to Addison. One charge which Pope has enforced with great skill is probably not without foundation. Addison was, we are inclined to believe, too fond of presiding over a circle of humble friends. Of the other imputations which these famous lines are intended to convey, scarcely one has ever been proved to be just, and some are certainly false. That Addison was not in the habit of " damning with faint praise " appears from innu- merable passages in his writings, and from none more than from those in which he mentions Pope. And it is not merely unjust, but ridiculous, to describe a man who made the fortune of almost every one of his intimate friends, as " so oblioincc that he ne'er oblis-ed." That Addison felt the sting of Pope's satire keenly we cannot doubt. That he was conscious of one of the weak- nesses with which he was reproached is highly probable. But his heart, we firmly believe, acquitted him of the gravest part of the accusation. He acted like himself. As a satirist he was, at his own w^eapons, more than Pope's match ; and he would have been at no loss for topics. A distorted and diseased body, tenanted by a yet more distorted and diseased mind ; spite and envy thinly disguised by sentiments as benevolent and noble as those which Sir Peter Teazle ad- mired in Mr. Joseph Surface ; a feeble sickly licentiousness ; an odious love of filthy and noisome images ; these were things which a genius less powerful than that to which we owe the Spectator could easily have held up to the mirth THE LIFE AND AVKITIXGS OF ADDISON". 71 and hatred of mankind. Addison had, nioreov^er, at his command, otlier means of vengeance Avhich a bad man would not have scrupled to use. He was powerful in tlie state. Pope was a Catliolic ; and, in those times, a minister would have found it easy to harass the most innocent Cath- olic by innumerable petty vexations. Po])e, near twenty years later, said that " through tlie lenity of the government ah)ne he could live with comfort." " Consider," he ex- claimed, " the injury that a man of high rank and credit may do to a private person, under penal laws and many other disadvantages." It is pleasing to reflect that tlie only revenge which Addison took was to insert in the Freeliohler a warm encomium on the translation of the Iliad, and to ex- hort all lovers of learning to put down tl>eir names as sub- scribers. Tliere could be no doubt, he said, from the speci- mens already published, tliat the masterly hand of Pope would do as much for Homer as Dry den had done for Virgil. From that time to the end of his life, he always treated Pope, by Pope's own acknowledgment, with justice. Friendship was, of course, at an end. One reason which induced the Earl of Warwick to play the ignominious part of talebearer on this occasion, may have been his dislike of the marriage which Avas about to take place between his mother and Addison. The Countess Dowager, a daughter of the old and honorable family of the Middletons of Chirk, a family which, in any country but ours, would be called noble, resided at Holland House. Ad- dison had, during some years, occupied at Chelsea, a small dwelling, once the abode of Nell Gwynn. Chelsea is now a district of London, and Holland House may be called a town residence. But, in the days of Anne and George the First, milkmaids and sportsmen Avandered between green hedges, and over fields bright with daisies, from Kensington almost to the shore of the Thames. Addison and Lady Warwick were country neighbors, and became intimate friends. The great Avit and scholar tried to allure the young Lord from the fashionable amusements of beating Avatchmen, breaking Avindows, and rolling Avonien in hogsheads doAvn Holborn Hill, to the study of letters and the practice of virtue. These Avell meant exertions did little good, hoAvever, either to the disciple or to the master. Lord Warwick grew up a rake ; and Addison fell in love. The mature beauty of the Coun- tess has been celebrated by poets in language which, after a very large alloAvance has been made for flattery, Avould lead 72 MA CAUL ay's ]M1SCELLANE0US WRITIXdS. US to believe tliat slie was a fine wuiiiau ; and her rank doubtless heightened her attractions. The courtship was long. The hopes of the lover appear to have risen and fallen with the fortunes of his party. His attachment was at length matter of such notoriety that, when he visited Ire- land for the last time, Rowe addressed some consolatory verses to the Chloe of Holland House. It strikes us as a little strange that, in these verses, Addison should be called Lycidas, a name of singularly evil omen for a swain just about to cross St. George's Channel. At length Chloe capitulated. Addison was indeed able to treat with her on equal terms. He had reason to expect preferment even higher than that which he had attained. He had inherited the fortune of a brother wdio died Gover- nor of Madras. He had purchased an estate in Warwick- shire, and had been welcomed to his domain in very toler- able verse by one of the neighboring squires, the poetical foxhunter, William Somervile. In August, 1716, the news- papers announced that Joseph Addison, Esquire, famous for many excellent works both in verse and prose, had esi^oused the Countess Dowager of Warwick. He now fixed his abode at Holland House, a house which can boast of a greater number of inmates distinguished in political and literary history than any other private dwelling in England. His portrait still hangs there. The features are pleasing ; the complexion is remarkably fair ; but, in the expression we trace rather the gentleness of his disposition than the force and 'keenness of his intellect. Not long after his marriage he reached the height of civil greatness. The Whig Government had, during some time, being torn by internal dissensions. Lord Townshend led one section of the Cabinet, Lord Sunderland the other. At length, in the spring of 1717, Sunderland triumphed. Townshend retired from office, and was accompanied by W alpole and Cowper. Sunderland proceeded to reconstruct the Ministry ; and Addison was appointed Secretary of State. It is certain that the Seals were pressed upon him, and were at first declined by him. Men equally versed in official business might easily have been found ; and his col- leagues knew that they could not expect assistance from him in debate. He owed his elevation to his popularity, to his stainless probity, and to his literary fame. But scarcely had Addison entered the Cabinet when his health began to fail. From one serious attack he recovered THE LIFE AND WUITIXGS OF A]>I)ISoX. 73 in tlie autuiiiu ; and his recovery was celebrated in Latin verses, worthy of his own pen, by Vincent Bourne, who was then at Trinity College, Cambridge. A relapse soon U ok place ; and, in the following spring, Addison was ])revented by a severe asthma from discharging the duties of his ])Ost. He resigned it, and was succeeded by his friend Craggs, a young man whose natural parts, though little improved by cultivation, were quick and showy, whose graceful ])erson and winning manners had made him generally acceptable in society, and who, if he had lived, would probably have been the most formidable of all the rivals of Wal]>ole. As yet there was no Joseph Hume. The Ministers, there- fore, were able to bestow on Addison a retiring pension of fifteen hundred pounds a year. In what form this pension was given we are not told by the biographers, and have not time to inquire. But it is certain that Addison did not va- cate his seat in the House of Commons. Rest of mind and body seems to have re-established his health ; and he thanked God, with cheerful piety, for having set him free both from his office and from liis asthma. Many years seemed to be before him, and he meditated many works, a tragedy on the death of Soci-ates, a transla- tion of the Psalms, a treatise on the evidences of Christianity. Of this last })erformance, a part, which w^e could well spare, has come down to us. But the fatal comj^laint soon returned, and gradually pre- vailed against all the resources of medicine. It is melan- choly to think that the last months of such a life should have been overclouded both by domestic and by political vexations. A tradition which began early, wdiich has been generally received, and to which we have nothing to oppose, has represented his wife as an arrogant and imperious woman. It is said that, till his health failed him, he was glad to escape from the Countess Dowager and her magnif- icent dining-room, blazing with the gilded devices of tlie House of Ilich, to some tavern wdiere he could enjoy a laugli, a talk about Virgd and Boileau, and a bottle of claret, with the friends of his happier days. All those friends, however, were not left to him. Sir Ivichard Steele had been gradu- ally estranged by various causes. He considered himself as one who, in evil times, had braved martyrdom for his po- litical principles, and demanded, w^hen the Whig party was triumphant, a large compensation for w^hat he had suffered when it was militant. The Whig leaders took a -very differ- 74 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. ent view of his claims. They tliought that he had, by his own petuhuice and folly, brought them as well as himself into trouble, and though they did not absolutely neglect him, doled out favors to him with a sparing hand. It Avas natural that he should be angry with them, and es])ecially angry with Addison. But wliat above all seems to have disturbed Sir Richard, was the elevation of Tickell, who, at tliirty, was made by Addison, Under Secretary of State ; while the Editor of the Tatler and Spectator, the autlior of the Crisis, the member for Stockbridge who had been per- secuted for firm adiierence to the House of Hanover, was, at near fifty, forced, after many solicitations and complaints, to content liimself with a share in the patent of Drury Lane theatre. Steele himself says, in his celebrated letter to Con- greve, that Addison, by his preference of Tickell, ''incurred tlie warmest resentment of other gentlemen ; " and every- thing seems to indicate that, of those resentful gentlemen, Steele was himself one. While poor Sir Richard was brooding over what he con- sidered as Addison's unkindness, a new cause of quarrel arose. The Whig party, already divided against itself, was rent by a new schism. The celebrated Bill for limiting the number of Peers had been brought in. The proud Duke of Somerset, first in rank of all the nobles whose origin per- mitted them to sit in Parliament, was the ostensible author of tlie measure. But it was supported, and, in truth, de- vised by tlie Prime Minister. We are satisfied that the Bill was most pernicious; and we fear that the motives which induced Sunderland to frame it were not honorable to him. But we cannot deny that it was supported by many of the best and wisest men of that age. Nor was this strange. The royal prerogative had, within the memory of the generation then in the vigor of life, been so grossly abused, that it was still regarded with a jealousy which, when the peculiar situation of tlie House of Brunswick is considered, may perhaps be called immoder- ate. The particular prerogative of creating peers had, in the opinion of the Whigs, been grossly abused by Queen Anne's last Ministry; and even the Tories admitted that her Majesty, in swamping, as it has since been called, the Upj)er House, had done what only an extreme case could justify. The theory of the English constitution, according to many high authorities, was that three independent pow- ers, the sovereign, the nobility, and the commons, ought con- TIJK LIFE AND WIUTIXGS OF ADDISON. 75 stantly to act as checks on each other. If tliis theory were sound, it seemed to follow that to put one of these powers under tlie absolute control of the other two, was absurd. But if the number of peers were unlimited, it could not well be denied that the U])per House was under the absolute control of the Crown and the Commons, and was indebted only to their moderation for any power which it might be suffered to retain. Steele took part with the Opposition, Addison with the Afinisters. Steele, in a pa])er called the Plebeian, vehemently attacked the bill. Sunderland called for he!]) on Addison, and Addison obeyed the call. In a paper called the Old Whig, he answered, and indeed refuted Steele's ai-guments. It seems to us that the premises of both the controversialists w ere unsound, that, on those premises, Addison reasoned well and Steele ill, and that consequently Addison brought out a. false conclusion while Steele blundered upon the trutli. In style, in wit, and in politeness, Addison maintained liis superiority, though the Old Whig is by no means one of his happiest performances. At first, both the anonymous opponents observed the laws of propriety. But at length Steele so far foi-got him- self as to throw an odious imputation on the morals of the chiefs of the administration. Addison replied with severity, but, in our opinion, with less severity than was due to so grave an offence against morality and decorum ; nor did he, in his just anger, forget for a moment the laws of good taste find good breeding. One calumny wliich has been often repeated, and never yet contradicted, it is our duty to ex- pose. It is asserted in the Biographia Britannica, that Addison designated Steele as "little Dicky." This asser- tion was repeated by Johnson, who had never seen the Old Whig, and was therefore excusable. It lias also been repeated by Miss Aikin, who has seen the Old Whig, and for whom therefore there is less excuse. Now, it is true that the words "little Dicky" occur in the Old Whig, and that Steele's name was Richard. It is equally true that the words " little Isaac " occur in the Duenna, and that New- ton's name was Isaac. But we confidently affirm that Addi- son's little Dicky had no more to do with Steele, than Sheridan's little Isaac with Newton. If we apply the Avords little Dicky " to Steele, we deprive a very lively and inge- uious passage, not only of all its wit, but of all its meaning. Little Dicky was the nickname of Henry Norris, an actor of 7G macaulay's miscellaneous WKiTrx(;s. remarkably small stature, but of great humor, who played the usurer Gomez, then a most popular part in Dryden'a ^ Spanish Friar.^ The merited reproof which Steele had received, though softened hy some kind and conrteous expressions, galled him bitterly. He replied with little force and great acrimony ; but no rejoinder appeared. Addison was fast hastening to his grave ; and had, we may well suppose, little disposition to prosecute a quarrel with an old friend. His complaint had terminated in dropsy. He bore np long and manfully. But at length he abandoned all hope, dismissed his physi- cians, and calmly prepared himself to die. His works he intrusted to the care of Tickell, and dedi- cated them a very few days before his death to Craggs, in a letter written with the sweet and graceful eloquence of a Saturday's Spectator. In this, his last composition, he al- luded to his approaching end in words so manly, so cheer- ful, and so tender, that it is difhcult to read them without tears. At the same time he earnestly recommended the interests of Tickell to the care of Craggs. Within a few hours of the time at which this dedication was written, Addison sent to beg Gay, who was then living by his wits about town, to come to Holland House. Gay went, and was received with great kindness. To his amaze- ment his forgiveness was implored by the dying man. Poor Gay, the most good-natured and simple of mankind, could not imagine what he had to forgive. There was, however, some wrong, the remembrance of which weighed on Addison's mind, and which he declared himself anxious to repair. He was in a state of extreme exhaustion ; and the parting was doubtless a friendly one on both sides. Gay supposed that some plan to serve him had been in agitation at Court, and had been frustrated by Addison's influence. Nor is this improbable. Gay had paid assiduous court to the royal *We will transcribe the whole paragraph. How it can ever have been mis- understood is unintelligible to us. *' But our author's chief concern is for the poor House of Commons whom he represents as naked and defenceless, when the Crown, by losiiig this pre- rogative, would be less able to protect them against the power of a House of Lords. Who forbears laughing when the Spanish Friar represents jittle Dicky, under the person of Gomez, insulting the Colonel that was able to fright hiin out of his wits with a single frown ? This Gomez, says he, dew upon him like a dragon, got him down, the Devil being strong in him, and gave him bastinado ort bastinado, and buffet on butfet, which the poor Colonel, being prostrate, suffered with a most Christian patience. The improbability of the fact never fails to raise mirth in the audience ; and one may venture to answer for a British House of Commons, if we may guess, from its conduct hitherto, that it will scarce be either so 'tame or so weak as pur author supposes." THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OP ADDISON. 77 family. But in the Queen's days he had been the eulo- gist of Bolingbroke, and was still connected witli many Tories. It is not strange that Addison, wliile heated by conflict, should have thouglit himself justified in cd)structing the preferment of one whom he might regard as a political enemy. Neither is it strange that, when reviewing Ids wliole life, and earnestly scrutinizing all his motives, he should think that he had acted an unkind and ungenerous part, in using his ])owei- against a distressed man of letters, who was as harmless and as helpless as a cliild. One inference may be drawn from this anecdote. It appears that Addison, on his death-bed, called himself to a strict account, and was not at ease till he had asked pardon for an injury which it was not even suspected that he had committed, for an injury which would have caused disquiet only to a very tender conscience. Is it not then reasonable to infer that, if he had really been guilty of forming a base conspiracy against the fame and fortunes of a rival, he would have expressed some remorse for so serious a crime? But it is unnecessary to multiply arguments and evidence for the defence, when there is neither argument nor evi- dence for the accusation. The last moments of Addison were perfectly serene. Ilis interview with his son-in-law is universally known. " See," he said, "how a Christian can die." The piety of Addison was, in truth, of a singularly cheerful character. The feel- ing wliich predominates in all his devotional writings is gratitude. God was to him the all-wise and all-powerful fiie]id who had watched over his cradle with more than maternal tenderness ; who had listened to his cries before they could form themselves into prayer; who had preserved his youth f rom« the snares of vice ; wlio had made his cup run over with worldly blessings ; who liad doubled the value of those blessings, by bestowing a tliankful heart to enjoy them, and dear friends to partake them ; w^ho had rebuked the waves of the Ligurian gulf, had purified the autumnal air of the Campagna, and had restrained the avalanches of Mont Cenis. Of the Psalms, his favorite was that wdiich represents the Ruler of all things under the endearing hnage of a shepherd, whose crook guides the flock safe, through gloomy and desolate glens, to meadows well watered and rich with herbage. On that goodness to which he ascribed all the happiness of his life, he relied in the hour of death with a love which casteth out fear. He died 78 macaulay's miscellaneous writing s. on the seventeenth of June, 1719. He had just entered on his forty-eighth year. Ilis body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was borne thence to the Abbey at dead of night. The choir sang a funeral hymn. Bishop Atterbury, one of those Tories who had loved and honored the most accomplislied of the Whigs, met the corpse, and led tlie procession by torchliglit, round the shrine of Saint Edward, and the graves of the Plantagenets, to the Cliapel of Henry the Seventh. On the north side of that Chapel, in the vault of the House of Albemarle, the coffin of Addison lies next to the coffin of Montague. Yet a few months ; and the same mourners passed again along the same aisle. The same sad anthem was again chanted. The same vault was again opened ; and the coffin of Craggs was placed close to the coffin of Addison. Many tributes were paid to the memory of Addison ; but one alone is now remembered. Tickell bewailed his friend in an elegy which would do honor to the greatest name in our literature, and which unites the energy and magnificence of Dryden to the tenderness and purity of Cowper. This fine poem was 2)refixed to a superb edition of Addison's works, which was published, in 1721, by sub- scription. The names of the subscribers proved how widely his fame had been spread. That his countrymen should be eager to possess his writings, even in a costly form, is not wonderful. But it is wonderful that, though English litera^ ture was then little studied on the continent, Spanish Gran- dees, Italian Prelates, Marshals of France, should be found in the list. Among the most remarkable names are those of the Queen of Sweden, of Prince Eugene, of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, of the Dukes of Parma, Modena, and Guastalla, of tlie Doge of Genoa, of the Itegent Orleans, and of Cardinal Dubois. We ought to add tliat this edition, though eminently beautiful, is in some important ])oints defective ; nor, indeed, do we yet possess a complete col- lection of Addison's writings. It is strange that neither his opulent and noble widow, nor any of his powerful and attached friends, should have thought of placing even a simple tablet, inscribed with his name, on the Avails of the Abbey. It was not till three gen- erations had laughed and wept over his pages, that the omission was supplied by the public veneration. At length, in our own time, his image, skilfully graven, appeared in Poet's Corner. It represents him, as we can conceive him, BaKERE. 70 clad in his dressing gown, and freed from his wig, step])ing from his parlor at Chelsea into his trim little garden, with the account of the Everlasting Club, or the Loves of Ililpa and Shalum, just finished for the next day's Spectator, in his hand. Such a mark of national respect was due to the unsullied statesman, to the accomplished scliolar, to the master of pure English eloquence, to the consummate painter of life and manners. It Avas due, aV)ove all, to the great satirist, who aloue knew how to use ridicule without abusing it, who, without inflicting a wound, effected a great social reform, and who reconciled wit and virtue, after a long and disastrous separation, during which wit had been led astray by i3rofligacy, and virtue by fanaticism. BARERE.* (Edinburgh BevieiOj April, 1844.) ious atten- .y by a man .its, and who rash and ma^ mch an appeal -;an perform no able to our own power extends, id benefactors of nto our considera- tion this copious apology lor uit; n^v. Bertrand Barere. We have made up our minds ; and we now purpose to do him, by the blessing of God, full and signal justice. It is to be observed that the appellant in this case does not come into court alone. He is attended to the bar of public opinion by two compurgators, who occupy highly honorable stations. One of these is M. David of Angers^ Member of the Institute, an eminent sculptor, and, if we have been rightly informed, a favorite pupil, though not a kinsman, of the painter who bore the same name. The other, to whom we owe the biographical preface, is M. * 3Umoires de Bertrand Barere ; publics par MM. Hippolyte Carxot, Membre do la Cliarabre des Deputt^s, et David d' Angers, Membre de rinslitut : prece^lea d'une Notice Historiqiie par H. Carxot. 4 tomes. Paris : 1843. 78 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. on the seventeenth of June, 1719. lie had just entered on his forty-eighth year. Ilis body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was borne thence to the Abbey at dead of night. The choir sang a funeral hymn. Bishop Atterbury, one of those Tories who had loved and honored the most accomplislied of the Whigs, met the corpse, and led tlie procession by torchlight, round the shrine of Saint Edward, and the graves of the Plantagenets, to the Cliapel of Ileniy the Se\ entli. On the north side of that Cliapel, in the vault of the House of Albemarle, the coffin of Addison lies next to the coffin of Montague. Yet a few months ; and the same mourners passed again along the same aisle. The same sad anthem was again chanted. Tlie same vault was again opened ; and the coffin of Craggs was placed close to the coffin of Addison. Many tributes were paid to the memory of Addison ; but one alone is now remembered. Tickell bewailed his friend in an elegy which would do honor to the greatest name in our literature, and which unites the energy and magnificence of Dryden to the tenderness and purity of Cowper. This fine poem was prefixed to a superb edition of Addison's works, which was published, in 1721, by sub- scription. 1 his fame had eager to possc wonderful. Bi ture was then li dees, Italian Pre in the list. Am of the Queen of ► Duke of Tuscany Guastalla, of tlie L of Cardinal Dubo though eminently beautiful, is in some important ])oini.s defective ; nor, indeed, do we yet j^ossess a complete col- lection of Addison's writings. It is strange that neither his opulent and noble widow, nor any of his powerful and attached friends, should have thought of placing even a simple tablet, inscribed with his name, on the walls of the Abbey. It Avas not till three gen- erations had laughed and wept over his pages, that the omission was supplied by the public veneration. At length, in our own time, his image, skilfully graven, appeared in Poet's Corner. It represents him, as we can conceive him, BaRERE. 70 clad in his dressing gown, and freed from his wig, step])ing from his parlor at Chelsea into his trim little garden, with the account of the Everlasting Club, or the Loves of Ililpa and Shalum, just finished for the next day's Spectator, in his hand. Such a mark of national respect Avas due to the unsullied statesman, to the accom])lished scliolar, to^ the master of pure English eloquence, to the consummate painter of life and manners. It was due, above all, to tlie great satirist, who aloue knew how to use ridicule without abusing it, who, without inflicting a wound, effected a great social reform, and who reconciled wit and virtue, after a long and disastrous separation, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy, and virtue "by fanaticism. BARERE.* {Edinburgh Revieio^ Aprily 1844.) This book has more than one title to our serious atten- tion. It is an appeal, solemnly made to posterity by a man who played a conspicuous part in great events, and who represents himself as deeply aggrieved by the rash and ma- levolent censure of his contem])oraries. To such an appeal we shall always give ready audience. We can perform no duty more useful to society, or more agreeable to our own feelings, than that of making, as far as our power extends, reparation to the slandered and persecuted benefactors of mankind. We therefore promptly took into our considera- tion this copious apology for the life of Bertrand Barere, We have made up our minds ; and we now purpose to do him, by the blessing of God, full and signal justice. It is to be observed that the appellant in this case does not come into court alone. He is attended to the bar of public opinion by two compurgators, who occupy highly honorable stations. One of these is M. David of Angers^ Member of the Institute, an eminent sculptor, and, if we have been rightly informed, a favorite pupil, though not a kinsman, of the painter who bore the same name. The other, to whom we owe the biographical preface, is M. * ]\Umolres de Bertrand Barere ; publics par MM. Hippolytr Carnot, Membre do la Chambre des Deputt^s, et David d' Angers, IVlenibre de riiistitiit : prece^lea d'une Notice Historiqiie X)ar H. Carnot. 4 tomes. Paris : 1843. 80 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. Hippolyte Carnot, member of tlie Chamber of Deputies, anv3 son of the celebrated Director. In the judgment of jM. David and of M. Hippolyte Carnot, Barere was a deserving and an ill-used man, a man who, though by no means fault- less, must yet, when due allowance is made for the force of circumstances and the infirmity of human nature, be con- sidered as on the whole entitled to our esteem. It will be for the public to determine, after a full hearing, whether the editors have, by thus connecting their names with that cf Barere, raised his character or lowered their own. We are not conscious tliat, when we opened this book, we were under the influence of any feeling likely to pervert our judgment. Undoubtedly, we had long entertained a most unfavorable opinion of Barere ; but to this opinion we were not tied by any opinion or any interest. Our dislike was a reasonable dislike, and might have been removed by reason. Indeed our expectation was, that these Memoirs would in some measure clear Barere's fame. That he could vindicate himself from all the charges which had been brought against him, Ave knew to be impossible; and his editors admit that he has not done so. But we thought it highly probable that some grave accusations would be refut^ed, and that many offences to which he would have been forced to plead guilty would be greatly extenuated. We were not disposed to be severe. We were fully aware that tem]:)tations such as those to which the members of the Convention and of the Committee of Public Safety were exposed must try severely the strength of the firmest virtue. Indeed our inclination has always been to regard with an indulgence, which to some rigid moralists appears excessive, those faults into which gentle and noble spirits are some- times hurried by the excitement of coniiict, by the madden- ing influence of sympathy, and by ill-regulated zeal for a j)ublic cause. With such feelings we read this book, and compared it with other accounts of the events in which Barere bore a part. It is now our duty to express the opinion to which this investigation has led us. Our opinion then is this : that Barere approached nearer than any person mentioned in history or fiction, whether man or devil, to the idea of consummate and universal de- pravity. In him the qualities wliich are the proper objects of hatred, and the qualities which are the pro])er objects of contempt, preserve an exquisite and absolute harmony. BARERE. 81 In almost every particular sort of wickedness he has had rivals. His sensuality was immoderate ; but this was a fail- ing common to him with many great and amiable men. There have been many men as cowardly as he, some as cruel, a few as mean, a few as impudent. There may also have been as great liars, though we never met wifh them or read of them. But when we put everything together, sensuality, poltroonery, baseness, effrontery, mendacity, barbarity, the result is something which in a novel we should condemn as a caricature, and to which, we venture to say, no parallel can be found in history. It would be grossly unjust, we acknowledge, to try a man situated as Bar^re was by a severe standard. Nor have we done so. We have formed our opinion of him by comparing him, not with politicians of stainless character, not with Chancellor D'Aguesseau, or General Washington, or Mr. Wilberforce, or Earl Grey, but with his own colleagues of the Mountain. That party included a considerable number of the worst men that ever lived ; but we see in it nothing like Barere. Compared with him, Fouche seems honest ; Billaud seems humane ; Hebert seems to rise ^nto dignity. Every other chief of a party, says M. Hippolyte Carnot, has found apologists : one set of men exalts the Girondists ; another set justifies Danton ; a third deifies Robespierre : but Barere has remained without a defender. We venture to suggest a very simple solution of this phenomenon. All the other chiefs of parties had some good qualities ; and Barere had none. The genius, courage, patriotism, and humanity of the Giron- dist statesmen more than atoned for what was culpable in their conduct, and should have protected them from the in- sult of being compared with such a thing as Barere. Danton and Robespierre were indeed bad men ; but in both of them some important parts of the mind remained sound. Danton was brave and resolute, fond of pleasure, of power, and of distinction, with vehement passions, Avith lax principles, but with some kind and manly feelings, capable of great crimes, but capable also of friendship and of compassion. He, there- fore, naturally finds admirers among persons of bold and sanguine dispositions. Robespierre was a vain, envious, and suspicious man, with a hard heart, weak nerves, and a gloomy temper. But we cannot with truth deny that he was, in the vulgar sense of the word, disinterested, that his private life was correct, or that he was sincerely zealous for his own system of politics and morals. He, therefore, Vol. III.— 6 82 MACAULAY S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. naturally finds admirers among honest but moody and bitter democrats. If no class has taken the reputation of Barere under its patronage, the reason is plain : Barere had not a single virtue, nor even the semblance of one. It is true that he was not, as far as we are able to judge, originally of a savage disposition ; but this circumstance seems to us only to aggravate his guilt. There are some unhappy men constitutionally prone to the darker passions, men all whose blood is gall, and to whom bitter words and harsh actions are as natural as snarling and biting to a fero- cious dog. To come into the world with this wretched mental disease is a greater calamity than to be born blind or deaf. A man who, having such a temper, keeps it in subjec- tion, and constrains himself to behave habitually with justice and humanity towards those who are in his power, seems to us worthy of the highest admiration. There have been in- stances of this self-command ; and they are among the most signal triumphs of philosophy and religion. On the other hand, a man who, having been blessed by nature with a bland disposition, gradually brings himself to inflict misery on his fellow-creatures with indifference, wdth satisfaction, and at length with, a hideous rapture, deserves to be regarded as a portent of wickedness; and such a man was Barere. The history of his downward progress is full of instruction. Weakness, cowardice, and fickleness were born Avith him ; the best quality which he received from nature w^as a good temper. These, it is true, are not very promising materials ; yet, out of materials as unpromising, high sentiments of piety and honor have sometimes made martyrs and heroes. Rigid principles often do for feeble minds what stays do for feeble bodies. But Barere had no principles at all. His character was equally destitute of natural and of acquired strength. Neither in the commerce of life, nor in books, did we ever become acquainted with any mind so unstable, so utterly destitute of tone, so incapable of independent thought and earnest preference, so ready to take impressions and so ready to lose them. He resembled those creepers which must lean on something, and which, as soon as their prop is removed, fall down in utter helplessness. He could no more stand up, erect and self-supported, in any cause, than the ivy can rear itself like the oak, or the wdld vine shoot tc heaven like the cedar of Lebanon. It is barely possible that, under good guidance and in favorable circum- stances, such a man might have slipped through life without BARERE. discredit. But the unseaworthy craft, which even in still water would have been in danger of going down from its own rottenness, was launched on a raging ocean, amidst a storm in which a whole armada of gallant ships w^as cast away. The weakest and most servile of human beings found himself on a sudden an actor in a Revolution which convulsed the whole civilized world. At first he fell under the influence of humane and moderate men, and talked the language of humanity and moderation. But he soon found himself surrounded by fierce and resolute spirits, scared by no danger and restrained by no scruple. He had to choose whether he w^ould be their victim or their accomplice. His choice was soon made. He tasted blood, and felt no loath- ing : he tasted it again, and liked it well. Cruelty became with him, first a habit, then a passion, at last a madness. So complete and rapid was the degeneracy of his nature, that, within a very few months after the time when he had passed for a good-natured man, he had brought himself to look on the despair and misery of his fellow-creatures with a glee resembling that of the fiends whom Dante saw watching the pool of seething pitch in Malebolge. He had many associ- ates in guilt ; but he distinguished himself from them all by the Bacchanalian exultation which he seemed to feel in the work of death. He w^as drunk with, innocent and noble blood, laughed and shouted as he butchered, and howled strange songs and reeled in strange dances amidst the car- nage. Then came a sudden and violent turn of fortune. The miserable man was hurled down from the height of power to hopeless ruin and infamy. The shock sobered him at once. The fumes of his horrible intoxication passed away. But he was now so irrecoverably depraved that the discipline of adversity only drove him further into wicked- ness. Ferocious vices, of which he had never been suspected, had been developed in him by power. Another class of vices, less hateful perhaps, but more despicable, w^as now developed in him by poverty and disgrace. Having ap- palled the whole world by great crimes perpetrated under the pretence of zeal for liberty, he became the meanest of all the tools of despotism. It is not easy to settle the order of precedence among his vices ; but we are inclined to think that his baseness was, on the whole, a rarer and more marvellous thing than his cruelty. This is the view which we have long taken of Barere's character ; but, till we read these Memoirs, we held oui 84 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. opinion with tlie diffidence which becomes a judge who has only heard one side. Tlie case seemed strong, and in parts unanswerable : yet we did not know what the accused party might have to say for himself ; and, not being much inclined to take our fellow-creatures either for angels of light or for angels of darkness, we could not but feel some suspicion that his offences had been exaggerated. That suspicion is now at an end. The vindication is before us. It occupies four volumes. It was the work of forty years. It would be absurd to suppose that it does not refute every serious charge which admitted of refutation. How many serious charges, then, are here refuted ? Not a single one. Most of the imputations which have been thrown on Barere he does not even notice. In such cases, of course, judgment must go against him by default. The fact is, that nothing can be more meagre and uninteresting than his account of the great public transactions in which he was engaged. He gave us hardly a word of new information respecting the proceedings of the Committee of Public Safety ; and, by way of compensation, tells us long stories about things which happened before he emerged from obscurity, and after he had again sunk into it. Nor is this the worst. As soon as he ceases to write trifles he begins to w^rite lies ; and such lies ! A man who has never been within the tropics does not know what a thunderstorm means ; a man wlio has never looked on Niagara has but a faint idea of a cataract ; and he who has not read Barere's Memoirs may be said not to know what it is to lie. Among the numer- ous classes which make up the great genus Mendacium^ the Mendacium Vasconicum^ or Gascon lie, has, during some centuries, been highly esteemed as peculiarly circum- stantial and peculiarly impudent ; and, among the Mendacia Vasconica^ the Mendacium Barerianum is, without doubt, the finest species. It is indeed a superb variety, and quite throws into the shade some Mendacia which we are used to regard with admiration. The Mendaciiim Wraxalliamim^ for example, though by no means to be despised, will not sustain the comparison for a moment. Seriously, we think that M. Hippolyte Carnot is much to blame in this matter. We cat: hardly suppose him to be worse read than ourselves in the history of the Convention, a history which must in- terest him deeply, not only as a Frenchman, but also as a son. He must, therefore, be perfectly aware that many of the most important statements which these volumes contain BARERE. 85 are falsehoods, such as Corneille's Dorante, or, Moliere's Scapin, or Colin d'Harleville's Monsieur de Crac would have been ashamed to utter. We are far, indeed, from holding M. Hippolyte Carnot answerable for Barere's want of verac- ity ; but M. Hippolyte Carnot has arranged these Memoirs, has introduced them to the world by a laudatory preface, has described them as documents of great historical value, and has illustrated them by notes. We cannot but think that, by acting thus, he contracted some obligations of which he does not seem to have been at all aware ; and that he ought not to have suffered any monstrous fiction to go forth under tlie sanction of his name, without adding a line at the foot of the page for the purpose of cautioning the reader. We will content ourselves at present with pointing out two instances of Barere's wilful and deliberate mendacity ; namely, his account of the death of Marie Antoinette, and his account of the death of the Girondists. His account of the death of Marie Antoinette is as follows : — " Robespierre in his turn proposed that the members of the Capet family should be banished, and that Marie Antoinette should be brought to trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal. He would have been better employed in concerting military measures which might have repaired our disasters in Bel- gium, and might have arrested the progress of the enemies of the Revolution in the west." — (Vol. ii. p. 312.) Now, it is notorious that Marie Antoinette was sent be- fore the Revolutionary Tribunal, not at Robespierre's in- stance, but in direct opposition to Robespierre's wishes. We will cite a single authority, which is quite decisive. Bonaparte, who had no conceivable motive to disguise the truth, who had the best opportunities of know^ing the truth, and who, after his marriage with the Archduchess, naturally felt an interest in the fate of his wife's kinswoman, distinctly affirmed that Robespierre opposed the trying of the Queen.* Who, then, was the person who really did propose that the Cnpet family should be banished, and that Marie Antoinette should be tried? Full information will be found in the Moniteur.'f From that valuable record it appears that, on the first of August, 1793, an orator, deputed by the Com- mittee of Public Safety, addressed the Convention in a long and elaborate discourse. He asked, in passionate language, how it happened that the enemies of the republic still con- * O'Meara's Voice from St. Helena, ii. 170. t Moniteur, 2d, 7tli, and 9tli of August, 1793. 86 maoaulay's miscellaneous writings. ♦^Inued to hope for success. " Is it," he cried, " because we iiave too long forgotten the crimes of the Austrian woman ? Is it because we have shown so strange an indulgence to the race of our ancient tyrants ? It is time that this unwise apathy should cease ; it is time to extirpate from the soil of the Republic the last roots of royalty. As for the children of Louis the conspirator, they are hostages for the Republic The charge of their maintenance shall be reduced to what is Lecessary for the food and keep of two individuals. The public treasure shall no longer be lavished on creatures who have too long been considered as priAdleged. But behind them lurks a woman who has been the cause of all the dis- asters of France, and whose share in every project adverse to tlie revolution has long been known. National justice claims its rights over her. It is to the tribunal appointed for the trial of conspirators that she ought to be sent. It is only by striking the Austrian woman that you can make Francis and George, Charles and William, sensible of the crimes which their ministers and their armies have commit- ted." The speaker concluded by moving that Marie An- toinette should be brought to judgment, and should, for that end, be forthwith transferred to the Conciergerie ; and that all the members of the house of Capet, with the exception of those who were under the sword of tlie law, and of the two children of Louis, should be banished from the French territory. The motion was carried without debate. Now, who was the person who made this speech and this motion ? It was Barere himself. It is clear, then, that Barere attributed his own mean insolence and barbarity to one who, whatever his crimes may have been, was in this matter innocent. The only question remaining is, whether Barere was misled by his memory, or wrote a deliberate falsehood. We are convinced that he wrote a deliberate falsehood. His memory is described by his editors as remarkably good, and must have been bad indeed if he could not remember such a fact as this. It is true that the number of murders in which he subsequently bore a part was so great that he might well confound one with another, that he might well forget what part of the daily hecatomb was consigned to death by himself, and what j^art by his colleagues. But two circumstances make it quite incredible that the share w^hich he took in the death of Marie Antoinette should have escaped his recollection. She was one of his earliest victims. She BARE RE. 87 was one of liis most illustrious victims. The most hardened assassin remembers the first time that he shed blood ; and the widow of Louis w^as no ordinary sufferer. If the ques- tion had been about some milliner, butchered for hiding in her garret her brother who had let drop a word against the Jacobin club — if the question had been about some old nun, dragged to death for having mumbled what are called fa- natical words over her beads — Barere's memory might well have deceived him. It would be as unreasonable to expecl him to remember all the wretches w^hom he slew as all the l^inches of snuff that he took. But, though Barere murdered many hundreds of human beings, he murdered only one Queen. That he, a small country lawyer, who, a few years before, would have thought himself honored by a glance or a word from the daughter of so many Caesars, should call her the Austrian woman, should send her from jail to jail, should deliver her over to the executioner, was surely a great event in his life. Whether he had reason to be proud of it or ashamed of it, is a question on w^hich we may per- haps differ from his editors ; but they will admit, we think, that he could not have forgotten it. We, therefore, confidently charge Barere with having written a deliberate falsehood ; and we have no hesitation in saying that we never, in the course of any historical re- searches that we have hapi^ened to make, fell in with a false- hood so audacious, except only the falsehood which we are about to expose. Of the proceeding against the Girondists, Barere speaks with just sincerity. He calls it an atrocious injustice per- petrated against the legislators of the republic. He com- plains that distinguished deputies, who ought to have been readmitted to their seats in the Convention, were sent to the scaffold as conspirators. The day, he exclaims, was a day of mourning for France. It mutilated the national representation ; it weakened the sacred principle that the delegates of the people were inviolable. He jDrotests that he had no share in the guilt. " I have had," he said, " the patience to go through the Moniteur^ extracting all the charges brought against deputies, and all the decrees for arresting and impeaching deputies. Nowhere will you find my name. I never brought a charge against any of my col- leagues, or made a report against any, or drew u]3 an im- peachment against any." * ♦Vol. n. 407. 88 macaulay's miscellaneous weitings. Now, we affirm that this is a lie. We affirm that Barere himself took the lead in the proceedings of the Convention against the Girondists. We affirm that he, on the twenty- eighth of July, 1793, proposed a decree for bringing nine Girondist deputies to trial, and for putting to death sixteen other Girondist deputies without any trial at all. We affirm that, when the accused deputies had been brought to trial, and when some apprehension arose that their eloquence might produce an effect even on the Revolutionary Tri- bunal, Barere did, on the 8th of Brurnaire, second a mo- tion for a decree authorizing the tribunal to decide without hearing out the defence ; and, for the truth of every one of these things so affirmed by us, we appeal to that very Moni- teur to which Barere has dared to appeal.^ What M. Hippolyte Carnot, knowing, as he must know, that this book contains such falsehoods as those which we have exposed, can have meant, when he described it as a valuable addition to our stock of historical information, passes x)ur comprehension. When a man is not ashamed to tell lies about events which took place before hundreds of witnesses, and which are recorded in well-known and acces- sible book, what credit can we give to his account of things done in corners ? No historian who does not wish to be laughed at will ever cite the unsupported authority of Barere as sufficient to prove any fact whatever. The only thing, as far as we can see, on which these volumes throw any light, is the exceeding baseness of the author. So much for the veracity of the Memoirs. In a literary point of view, they are beneath criticism. They are as shallow, flippant, and affected, as Barere's oratory in the Convention. They are also, what his oratory in the Con- vention was not. utterly insipid. In fact, they are the mere dregs and rinsings of a bottle of which even the first froth was of but very questionable flavor. We will now try to present our readers with a sketch of this man's life. We shall, of course, make very sparing use indeed of his own Memoirs ; and never without distrust, ex- cept where they are confirmed by other evidence. Bertrand Barere was born in the year 1755, at Tarbes in Gascony. His father was the proprietor of a small estate at Vieuzac, in the beautiful vale of Argeles. Ber- trand always loved to be called Barere de Vieuzac, and flat- tered himself with the hope that, by the help of this feudal * Moniteur. 31st July, 1793, and Nonidi, first Decade of Brurnaire, in the year 2. BARE RE. 89 addition to his name, he might pass for a gentleman. He was educated for the bar at Toulouse, the seat of one of the most celebrated parliaments of the kingdom, practiced as an advocate with considerable success, and wrote some small pieces, which he sent to the principal literary societies in the south of France. Among provincial towns, Toulouse seems to have been remarkably rich in indifferent versi- fiers and critics. It gloried especially in one venerable institution, called the academy of Floral Games. This body held every year a grand meeting, which was a sub- ject of intense interest to the whole city, and at which flowers of gold and silver were given as prizes for odes, for idyls, and for something that was called eloquence. These bounties produced of course the ordinary effect of bounties, and turned people who might have been thriving attorneys and useful apothecaries into small wits and bad poets. Barere does not appear to have been so lucky as to obtain any of these precious flowers ; but one of his performances was mentioned with honor. At Montauban he was more fortunate. The Academy of that town bestowed on him several prizes, one for a panegyric on Louis the Twelfth, in which the blessings of monarchy and the loyalty of the French nation were set forth ; and another for a panegyric on poor Franc de Pompignan, in which, as may easily be supposed, the philosophy of the eighteenth century was sharply assailed. Then Barere found an old stone inscribed with three Latin words, and wrote a dissertation upon it, which procured him a seat in a learned Assembly, called the Toulouse Academy of Sciences, Inscriptions, and Polite Literature. At length the doors of the Academy of the Floral Games were opened to so much merit. Barere, in his thirty-third year took his seat as one of that illustrious brotherhood, and made an inaugural oration which was greatly admired. He apologizes for recounting those tri- umphs of his youthful genius. We own that we cannot blame him for dwelling long on the least disgraceful portion of his existence. To send in declamations for prizes offered by provincial academies is indeed no very useful or dignified employment for a bearded man ; but it would have been well if Barere had always been so employed. In 1785 he married a young lady of considerable fortune. WTiether she w^as in other respects qualified to make a home happy, is a point respecting which we are imperfectly informed. In a little work, entitled Melancholy PageSy 90 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. which was written in 1797, Bare re avers that his marriage was one of mere convenience, and that at the altar his heart was heavy witli sorrowful forebodings, that he turned pale as he pronounced the solemn " Yes," that unbidden tears rolled down his cheeks, that his mother shared his presentiment, and that the evil omen was accomplished. " My marriage," he says, " was one of the most unhappy of marriages." So romantic a tale, told by so noted a liar, did not command our belief. We were, therefore, not much surprised to dis- cover that, in his Memoirs he calls his wife a most amiable woman, and declares that, after he had been united to her six years, he found her as amiable as ever. He complains, indeed, that she was too much attacked to royalty and to the old sujDcrstition ; but he assures us that his respect for her virtues induced him to tolerate her prejudices. 'Now Barere, at the time of his marriage, was himself a Royalist and a Catholic. He had gained one prize by flattering' the Throne, and another by defending the Church. It is hardly possible, therefore, that disputes about politics or religion should have embittered his domestic life till some time after he became a husband. Our own guess is, that his wife was, as he says, a virtuous and amiable woman, and that she did her best to make him happy during some years. It seems clear that, when circumstances developed the latent atrocity of his character, she could no longer endure him, refused to see him, and sent back his letters unopened. Then it was, we imagine, that he invented the fable about his distress on his wedding day. In 1788 Barere paid his first visit to Paris, attended reviews, heard Laharpe at the Lycaeum, and Condorcet at the Academy of Sciences, stared at the Envoys of Tippoo Sahib, saw the Royal Family dine at Versailles, and kept a journal in which he noted down adventures and specula- tions. Some parts of this journal are printed in the first volume of the work before us, and are certainly most charac- teristic. The worst vices of the writer had not yet shown themselves; but the weakness which was the parent of those vices appears in every line. His levity, his inconsistency, his servility, were already what they were to the last. All his opinions, all his feelings, spin round and round like a weathercock in a whirlwind. Nay, the very impressions which he receives through his senses are not the same two days together. He sees Louis the Sixteenth, and is so much blinded by loyalty as to find his Majesty handsome. "I BARERE. 91 fixed my eyes," he says, " with a lively curiosity on his fine countenance, which I tliought open and noble." The next time that the king appears all is altered. His Majesty's eyes are without the smallest expression ; he lias a vulgar laugh which seems like idiocy, an ignoble figure, an awk- ward gait, and the look of a big boy ill brought up. It is the same with more important questions. Barere is for the par- liaments on the Monday and against the parliaments on the Tuesday, for feudality in the morning and against feudality in the afternoon. One day he admires the English consti- tution : then he shudders to think that, in the struggles by which that constitution had been obtained, the barbarous islanders had murdered a king, and gives the preference to the constitution of Bearn. Bearn, he says, has a sublime con- stitution, a beautiful constitution. There the nobility and clergy meet in one house and the Commons in another. If the houses differ, the King has the casting vote. A few weeks later we find him raving against the principles of this sublime and beautiful constitution. To admit deputies of the nobility and clergy into the legislature, is, he says, neither more nor less than to admit enemies of the nation into the legislature. In this state of mind, without one settled purpose or opinion, the slave of the last w^orld, royalist, aristocrat, democrat, according to the prevailing sentiment of the coffee-house or drawing-room into which he had just looked, did Barere enter into public life. The States-General had been summoned. Barere went down to his own province, was there elected one of the representatives of the Third .Estate, and returned to Paris in May 1789. A great crisis, often predicted, had at last arrived. In no country, we conceive, have intellectual freedom and political servitude existed together so long as in France, during the seventy or eighty years which preceded the last convocation of the Orders. Ancient abuses and new theories flourished in equal vigor side by side. The people, having no constitutional means of checking even the most flagi- titious misgovern men t, were indemnified for oppression by being suffered to luxuriate in anarchical speculation, and to deny or ridicule every principle on which the institutions of the state reposed. Neither those who attribute the down- fall of the old French institutions to the public grievances, nor those who attribute it to the doctrines of the philoso- phers, appear to us to have taken into their view more than 92 MAOAULAy's miscellaneous WRTTmGS. one half the subject. Grievances as heavy have often been endured tv^itliout producing a revolution ; doctrines as boki have often been propounded without producing a revolu- tion. The question, whether the French nation was alien- ated from its old polity by the follies and vices of the Viz- iers and Sultans who pillaged and disgraced it, or by the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau, seems to us as idle as the question whether it was fire or gunpowder that blew up the mills at Hounslow. Neither cause would have sufficed alone. Tyi'^^^^y may last through ages where discussion is suppressed. Discussion may safely be left free by rjilers who act on popular principles. But combine a press like til at of London with a government like that of St. Peters- burg ; and the inevitable effect will be an explosion that will shake the world. So it was in France. Despotism and License, mingled in unblessed union, engendered that mighty Revolution in which the lineaments of both parents were strangely blended. The long gestation was accomplished ; and Europe saw, with mixed hope and terror, that agoniz- ing travail and that portentous birth. Among the crowd of legislators which at this juncture poured from all the provinces of France into Paris, Barere made no contemptible figure. The opinions which he for the moment professed were popular, yet not extreme. His character was fair ; his personal advantages are said to have been considerable ; and, from the portrait which is prefixed to these Memoirs, and which represents him as he appeared in the Convention, we should judge that his features must have been sti-ikingly handsome, though we think that we can read in them cowardice and meanness very legibly written by the hand of God. His conversation was lively and easy ; his manners remarkably good for a country law- yer. Women of rank and wit said that he was the only man who, on his first arrival from a remote province, had that indescribable air which it was supposed that Paris aloncj could give. ELis eloquence, indeed, was by no means so much admired in the capital as it had been by the in- genious academicians of Montauban and Toulouse. His style was thought very bad ; and very bad, if a foreigner may venture to judge, it continued to the last. It would, however, be unjust to deny that he had some talents for speaking and writing. His rhetoric, though deformed by every imaginable fault of taste, from bombast down to buf« Eoonery, was not wholly without force and vivacity. He had BARERE. 93 also one quality wliicli, in active life, often gives fourth-rate men an advantage over first-rate men. Whatever he could do he could do without effort, at any moment, in any abun- dance, and on any side of any question. There was, indeed, a perfect harmony between his moral character and his intel- lectual character. His temper was that of a slave ; his abili- ties were exactly those which qualified him to be a useful slave. Of thinking to purpose he was utterly incapable ; but he had wonderful readiness in arranging and expressing thoughts furnished by others. In the National Assembly he had no opportunity of dis- playing the full extent either of liis talents or of his vices. He was indeed eclipsed by much abler men. He went, as was his habit, with the stream, spoke occasionally with some success, and edited a journal called the Point du Jour^ in which the debates of the Assembly were reported. He at first ranked by no means among the violent re- formers. He was not friendly to that new division of the French territory, which was among the most hnportant changes introduced by the Revolution, and w^as especially unwilling to see his native province dismembered. He was entrusted with the task of framing Reports on the Woods and Forests. Louis was exceedingly anxious about this matter; for his majesty was a keen sportsman, and would much rather have gone without the Veto, or the prerogative of making peace and w^ar, than without his hunting and shoot- ing. Gentlemen of the royal household were sent to Barere, in order to intercede for the deer and pheasants. Xor was this intercession unsuccessful. The reports were so drawn that Barere was afterwards accused of having dishonestly sacrificed the interests of the public to the tastes of the court. To one of these reports he had the inconceivable folly and bad taste to prefix a punning motto from Virgil, fit only for such essays as he had been in the habit of com- posing for the Floral Games — " Si canimas sylvas, sylvse sint Consule digniie.'* This literary foppery was one of the few things in which he was consistent. Royalist or Girondist, Jacobin or Impe- rialist, he was always a Trissotin. As the monarchical party became weaker and weaker, Barere gradually estranged himself more and more from it, and drew closer and closer to the republicans. It would seem that, during this transition, he was for a time closely connected with the family of Orleans. It is certain that ho 94 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. was entrusted with the guardianship of the celebrated Pa- meha, afterwards Lady Edward Fitzgerald ; and it was as- serted that he received during some years a pension of twelve thousand francs from the Palais Royal. At the end of September, 1791, the labors of the National Assembly terminated, and those of the first and last Legis- lative Assembly commenced. It had been enacted that no member of the National Assembly should sit in the Legislative Assembly ; a prepos- terous and mischievous regulation, to which the disasters which followed must in part be ascribed. In England, what would be thought of a Parliament which did not contain one single person who had ever sat in parliament before ? Yet it may safely be affirmed that the number of English- men who, never having taken any share in public affairs, are yet well qualified, by knowledge and observation, to be members of the legislature, is at least a hundred times as great as the number of Frenchmen who were so qualified in 1791. How, indeed, should it have been otherwise ? In England, centuries of representative government have made all educated people in some measure statesmen. In France the National Assembly had probably been composed of as good materials as were then to be found. It had undoubt- edly removed a vast mass of abuses; some of its members had read and thought much about theories of government ; and others liad shown great oratorical talents. But that kind of skill which is required for the constructing, launch- ing, and steering of a polity was lamentably wanting ; for it is a kind of skill to which practice contributes more than books. Books are indeed useful to the politician, as they are useful to the navigator and the surgeon. But the real navigator is formed on the waves ; the real surgeon is formed at bedsides ; and the conflicts of free states are the real school of constitutional statesmen. The National Assem- bly had, however, now served an apprenticeship of two la- borious and eventful years. It had, indeed, by no means finished its education ; but it was no longer, as on the day when it met, altogether rude to political functions. Its later proceedings contain abundant proof that the members had profited by their experience. Beyond all doubt, there was not in France any equal number of persons possessing in an equal degree the qualities necessary for the judicious dii-ection of public affairs ; and, just at this moment, these legislators, misled by a childish wish to display their own BARERE. 95 disinterestedness, deserted the duties which they had half learned, and whicli nobody else had learned at all, and left their hall to a second crowd of novices, who had still to mas- ter the first rudiments of political business. When Bare re wrote his Memoirs, the absurdity of this self-denying ordi- nance had been proved by events, and was, we believe, ac- knowledged by all parties. He accordingly, with his usual mendacity, speaks of it in terms implying that he had op- posed it. There was, he tells us, np good citizen who did not regret this fatal vote. Nay, all wise men, he says, wished the National Assembly to continue its sittings as the first Legislative Assembly. But no attention was paid to the wishes of the enlightened friends of liberty ; and the generous but fatal suicide was perpetrated. Now the fact is, that Barere, far from opposing this ill-advised measure, was one of those who most eagerly supported it ; that he described it from the tribune as wise and magnanimous ; that he assigned, as his reasons for taking this view, some of those phrases in which orators of his class delight, and which, on all men who have the smallest insight into poli- tics, produce an effect very similar to that of ipecacuanha. " Those," he said, " who have framed a constitution for their country are, so to speak, out of the pale of that social state of which they are the authors ; for creative power is not in the same sphere with that which it has created." M. Hippolyte Carnot has noticed this untruth, and at- tributes it to mere forgetfulness. We leave it to him to reconcile his very charitable supposition with wdiat he else- where says of the remarkable excellence of Barere's memory. Many members of the National Assembly w^ere indemni- fied for the sacrifice of legislative power, by ap23ointnients in various departments of the public service. Of these fortunate persons Barere was one. A high Court of Appeal had just been instituted. This court was to sit at I/ari^ : but its jurisdiction was to extend over the whole realm ; and the departments were to choose the judges. Barere was nominated by the department of the Upper Pyrenees, and took his seat in the Palace of Justice. He asserts, and our readers may, if they choose, believe, that it was about this time in contemiDlation to make him Minister of the In- terior, and that, in order to avoid so grave a responsibility, he obtained permission to pay a visit to his native place. It is certain that he left Paris early in the year 1792, and passed some months in the south of France. 96 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. In the mean time, it became clear that the constitution of 1791 would not work. It was, indeed, not to be ex])ected tliat a constitution new both in its princi}3les and its details would at first work easily. Had the chief magistrate en- joyed the entire confidence of the people, had he performed his part with the utmost zeal, fidelity, and ability, had the representative body included all the wisest statesmen of France, the difficulties might still have been found insuper- able. But, in fact, the. experiment was made under every disadvantage. The King, very naturally, hated the con- stitution. In the Legislative Assembly w^ere men of genius and men of good intentions, but not a single man of experi- ence. Nevertheless, if France had been suffered to settle her own affairs without foreign interference, it is possible that the calamities which followed might have been averted. The King, who, with many good qualities, was sluggish and sensual, might have found compensation for his lost pre- rogatives in his immense civil list, in his palaces and hunt- ing grounds, in soups, Perigord pies, and Champagne. The people, finding themselves secure in the enjoyment of the valuable reforms which the National Assembly had, in the midst of all its errors, effected, would not have been easily excited by demagogues to acts of atrocity ; or, if acts of atrocity had been committed, those acts would probably have produced a speedy and violent reaction. Had toler- able quiet been preserved during a few years, the constitu- tion of 1791 might perhaps have taken root, might have gradually acquired the strength which time alone can give, and might, with some modifications which were undoubtedly needed, have lasted down to the present time. The Eu- ropean coalition against the Revolution extinguished all hope of such a result. The deposition of Louis was, in our opinion, the necessary consequence of that coalition. The question was now no longer, whether the King should have an al>solute Veto or a suspensive Veto, whether there should be one chamber or two chambers, whether the mem- bers of the representative body should be re-eligible or not ; but whether France should belong to the French. The in- dependence of the nation, the integrity of the territory, were at stake ; and we must say plainly that we cordially ap- prove of the conduct of those Frenchmen who, at that con- juncture, resolved, like our own Blake, to play the men for their country, under whatever form of government their country might fall. BAREBE. 97 It seems to iis clear that the war with tlie Continental coalition was, on the side of France, at first a defensive war, and therefore a just war. It was not a war for small ob- jects, or against despicable enemies. On the event were staked all the dearest interests of the French people. Fore- most among the threatening powers appeared two great and martial monarchies, either of which, situated as France then was, might be regarded as a formidable assailant. It is evi- dent that, under such circumstances, the French could not, without extreme imprudence, entrust the supreme adminis- tration of their affairs to any person whose attachment to the national cause admitted of doubt. Now, it is no re- jDroach to the memory of Louis to say that he was not at- tached to the national cause. Had he been so, he would have been something more than man. He had held absolute power, not by usurpation, but by the accident of birth and by the ancient polity of the kingdom. That power he had, on the whole, used w^ith lenity. He had meant well by his people. He had been willing to make to them, of his own mere motion, concessions such as scarcely any other sover- eign has ever made except under duress. He had paid the penalty of faults not his own, of the haughtiness aiid am- bition of some of his predecessors, of the dissoluteness and baseness of others. He had been vanquished, taken captive, led in triumph, put in ward. He had escajDcd ; he had been caught ; he had been dragged back like a runaway galley- slave to the oar. He w^as still a state j)risoner. His quiet was broken by daily affronts and lampoons. Accustomed from the cradle to be treated with profound reverence, he was now forced to command his feelings, while men who, a few months before, had been hackney writers or country attorneys sat in his presence with covered heads, and ad- dressed him in the easy tone of equality. Conscious of fair intentions, sensible of hard usage, he doubtless detested the Revolution ; and, while charged with the conduct of the war against the confederates, pined in secret for the sight of the German eagles and tlie sound of the German drums. We do not blame him for this. But can we blame those who, being resolved to defend the work of the National Assembly against the interference of strangers, were not disposed to have him at their head in the fearful struggle which was approaching? We have nothing to say in defence or ex- tenuation of the insolence, injustice, and cruelty with which, after the Adctory of the repul3licans, he and his family were Vol. III.— 7 98 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. treated. But thi-s we say, that the French had only one alternative, to deprive him of the powers of first magistrate, or to ground their arms and submit patiently to foreign dictation. The events of the tenth of August sprang inevitably from the league of Pilnitz. The King's palace was stormed ; his guards were slaughtered. He was sus- pended from his regal functions ; and the Legislative As- sembly invited the nation to elect an extraordinary Conven- tion, with the full |)owers which the conjuncture required. To this Convention the members of the National Assembly were eligible ; and Barere was chosen by his own de]3art- ment. The Convention met on the twenty-first of September, 1792. The first proceedings were unanimous. Royalty was abolished by acclamation. 'No objections were made to this great change ; and no reasons were assigned for it. For certainly we cannot honor with the name of reasons such apothegms, as that kings are in the moral world what mon- sters are in the physical world ; and that the history of kings is the martyrology of nations. But, though the dis- cussion was worthy only of a debating-club of schoolboys, the resolution to which the Convention came seems to have been that which sound policy dictated. In saying this, we do not mean to express an opinion that a republic is, either in the abstract the best form of government, or is, under ordinary circumstances, the form of government best suited to the French people. Our own opinion is, that the best p'overnments which have ever existed in the world have been limited monarchies ; and that France, in particular, has never enjoyed so much prosperity and freedom as under a limited monarchy. Nevertheless, we approve of the vote of the Convention which abolished kingly government. The inter- ference of foreign powers had brought on a crisis which made extraordinary measures necessary. Hereditary monarchy may be, and we believe that it is, a very useful institution in a country like France. And masts are very useful parts of a ship. But, if the ship is on her beam-ends it may be necessary to cut the masts away. When once she has righted, she may come safe into port under jury rigging, and there be completely repaired. But, in the mean time, she must be hacked with unsparing hand, lest that which, under ordinary circumstances, is an essential part of her fabric should, in her extreme distress, sink her to the bottom. Even so there are political emergencies in which it is neces- BARERE. 99 sary that governments should be mutilated of their fair pro- portions for a time, lest they be cast away forever; and with such an emergency the Convention had to deal. The first object of a good Frenchman shotild have been to save France from the fate of Poland. The first requisite of a government w\as entire devotion to the national cause. That requisite w^as wanting in Louis ; and such a want, at such a moment, could not be supplied by any public or ])rivate vir- tues. If the King were set aside, the abolition of kingship necessarily followed. In the state in which the public mind then was, it w^ould have been idle to think of doing what our ancestors did in 1688, and what the French Chamber of Deputies did in 1830. Such an attempt would have failed amidst universal derision and execration. It would have disgusted all zealous men of all opinions; and there were then few men who were not zealous. Parties fatigued by long conflict, and instructed by the severe discipline of that school in which alone mankind wall learn, are disposed to listen to the voice of a mediator. But w^hen they are in their first heady youth, devoid of experience, fresh for exer- tion, flushed with hope, burning with animosity, they agree only in spurning out of their way the daysman who strives to take his stand between them and to lay his hand upon them both. Such was in 1792 the state of France. On one side w^as the great name of the heir of Hugh Capet, the thirty-third king of the third race ; on the other side w^as the great name of the republic. There w^as no rallying point save these two. It w^as necessary to make a choice ; and those, in our opinion, judged well who, waiving for the moment all subordinate questions, preferred independence to subjugation, and the natal soil to the emigrant camp. As to the abolition of royalty, and as to the vigorous prosecution of the war, the whole Convention seemed to be united as one man. But a deep and broad gulf separated the representative body into two great parties. On one side w^ere those statesmen who are called, from the name of the department which some of them represented, the Girondists, and, from the name of one of their most con- spicuous leaders, the Brissotines. In activity and practical ability, Brissot and Gensonne were the most conspicuous among them. In parliamentary eloquence, no Frenchman of that time can be considered as equal to Vergniaud. In a foreign country, and after the lapse of half a century, some parts of his speeches are still read with mournful admiration. 100 macaulay's miscellaneous avritings. No man, we are inclined to believe, ever rose so rapidly tc such a height of oratorical excellence. His whole public life lasted barely two years. This is a circumstance which dis- tinguishes him from our own greatest speakers. Fox, Burkb, Pitt, Sheridan, Windham, Canning. Which of these cele- brated men would now be remembered as an orator, if he had died two years after he first took his seat in the House of Commons ? Condorcet brought to the Girondist party a different kind of strength. The public regarded him with justice as an eminent mathematician, and, with less reason, as a great master of ethical and political science ; the philos- ophers considered him as their chief, as the rightful heir, by intellectual descent and by solemn adoption, of their de- ceased sovereign D'Alembert. In the same ranks were found Gaudet, Isnard, Barbaroux, Buzot, Louvet, too well known as the author of a very ingenious and very licentious romance, and more honorably distinguished by the gener- osity with which he pleaded for the unfortunate, and by the intrepidity with which he defied the wicked and power- ful. Two persons whose talents were not brilliant, but who enjoyed a high reputation for probity and public spirit, Potion and Roland, lent the whole weight of their names to the Girondist connection. The wife of Roland brought to the deliberations of her husband's friends masculine courage and force of thought, tempered by womanly grace and vivacity. Nor w^as the splendor of a great military reputa- tion wanting to this celebrated party. Dumourier, then victorious over the foreign invaders, and at the height of popular favor, must be reckoned among the allies of the Gironde. The errors of the Brissotines were undoubtedly neither few nor small; but, w^hen we fairly compare their conduct with the conduct of any other party which acted or suffered during the French Revolution, we are forced to admit their superiority in every quality except that single quality which in such times prevails over every other, decision. They were zealous -for the great social reform which had been effected by the National Assembly ; and they were right. For, though that reform was, in some respects, carried too far, it was a blessing well worth even the fearful price which has been paid for it. They were resolved to main- tain the independence of their country against foreign in- vaders ; and they were right. For the heaviest of all yokes is the yoke of the stranger. They thought that, if Louis BARERE. 101 remfiinecl at their liead, they could not carry on with the requisite energy the conflict against the European coalition. They therefore concurred in establishing a re])ublican gov- ernment ; and here, again, they were right. For, in that struggle for life and death, it would have been madness to tr.ist a hostile or even a half-hearted leader. Thus far they went along with the revolution.ary move- ment. At this point they stopped ; and, in our judgment, they were right in stopping, as they had been right in moving. For great ends, and under extraordinary circum- stances, they had concurred in measures which, together with much good, had necessarily produced much evil ; which had unsettled the public mind ; which had taken away from government the sanction of prescription ; which had loosened the very foundations of property and law. They thought that it was now their duty to prop what it had recently been their duty to batter. They loved liberty, but liberty associated with order, with justice, with mercy, and with civilization. They w^ere republicans ; but they were desirous to adorn their republic with all that had given grace and dignity to the fallen monarchy. They hoped that the humanity, the courtesy, the taste, which had done much in old times to mitigate the slavery of France, would now lend additional charms to her freedom. They saw with horror crimes, exceeding in atrocity those which had disgraced the infuriated religious factions of the sixteenth century, perpetrated in the name of reason and philanthropy. They demanded, with eloquent A^ehemence, that the authors of the lawless massacre, which, just before the meeting of the Convention, had been committed in the prisons of Paris, should be brought to condign punishment. They treated with just contempt the pleas which have been set up for that great crime. They admitted that the public danger was pressing; but they denied that it justified a violation of those principles of morality on which all societ} Jests. The independence and honor of France were indeed to be vindicated, but to be vindicated by triumphs and not by murders. Opposed to the Girondists was a party which, having been long execrated throughout the civilized world, has of late — such is the ebb and How of opinion — found not only apologists, but even eulogists. We are not disposed to deny that some members of the Mountain were sincere and ])ublic-spirited men. But even tlie best of them, Carnot 102 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. for example and Cambon, were far too unscrupulous as to the means which they employed for the purpose of attam- mg great ends. In the train of these enthusiasts followed a crowd, composed of all who, from sensual, sordid, or malignant motives, wished for a jieriod of boundless license. When the Convention met, the majority was with the Girondists, and Barere was with the majority. On the King's trial, indeed, he quitted the party with which he ordinarily acted, voted with the Mountain, and spoke against the prisoner with a violence such as few members even of the Mountain showed. The conduct of the leading Girondists on that occasion was little to their honor. Of cruelty, indeed, we fully acquit them ; but it is impossible to acquit them of criminal irresolution and disingenuousness. They were far, indeed, from thirsting for the blood of Louis ; on the contrary, they were most desirous to protect him. But they were afraid tliat if they went straight forward to their object, the sin- cerity of their attachment to republican institutions would be suspected. They wished to save the King's life, and yet to obtain all the credit of having been regicides. Accordingly, they traced out for themselves a crooked course, by which they hoped to attain both their objects. They first voted the King guilty. They then voted for referring the question respecting his fate to the whole body of the people. Defeated in this attempt to rescue him, they reluctantly, and with ill-suppressed shame and concern, voted for the capital sentence. Then they made a last attempt in his favor, and voted for respiting the execution. These zigzag politics produced the effect which any man conversant with public affairs might have fore- seen. The Girondists, instead of attaining both their ends, failed of both. The Mountain justly charged them with having attempted to save the King by underhand means. Their own consciences told them, with equal justice, that their hands had been dipped in the blood of the most in- offensive and most unfortunate of men. The direct path was here, as usual, the path not only of honor but of safety. The jninciple on which the Girondists stood as a party was, that the season for revolutionary violence was over, and that the reign of law and order ought now to commence. But the proceeding against the King was clearly revolu- tionary in its nature. It was not in conformity with the BARERE. 103 laws. The only plea for it was, that all ordhiaiy rules of jurispi'iidence and morality were suspended by the extreme public danger. This was the very plea which the Mountain urged in defence of the massacre of September, and to which, when so urged, the Girondists refused to listen. They therefore, by voting for the death of the King, con- ceded to the Mountain the chief i^oint at issue between the two parties. Had they given a manful vote against the capital sentence, the regicides would have been in a minority. It is probable that there would have been an immediate appeal to force. The Girondists might have been victorious. In the worst event, they would have fallen with unblemished honor. Thus much is certain, that their boldness and hon- esty could not possibly have produced a worse effect than was actually produced by their timidity and their stratagems. Barere, as we have said, sided with the Mountain on this occasion. He voted against the appeal to the people, ' and against the respite. His demeanor and his language also were widely different from those of the Girondists. Their hearts were heavy, and their deportment was that of men oppressed by sorrow. It was Vergniaud's duty to pro- claim the result of the roll-call. His face was pale, and he trembled with emotion, as in a low and broken voice he an- nounced that Louis was condemned to death. Barere had not, it is true, yet attained to full perfection in the art of mingling jests and conceits with words of death ; but he already gave promise of his future excellence in this hio;h department of Jacobin oratory. He concluded his speech with a sentence worthy of his head and heart. " The tree of liberty," he said, " as an ancient author remarks, flo Ir- ishes when it is watered with the blood of all classes of tyrants." M. Hippolyte Carnot has quoted this passage, in order, as we suppose, to do honor to his hero. We wish that a note had been added to inform us from what ancient author Barere quoted. In the course of our own small reading among the Greek and Latin writers, we have not happened to fall in with trees of liberty and watering pots full of blood , nor can we, such is our ignorance of classical antiquity, even imagine an Attic or Roman orator employ- ing imagery of that sort. In plain words, when Barere talked about an ancient author he was lying, as he generally was when he asserted any fact, great or small. Why he lied on this occasion we cannot guess, unless indeed it was to keep his hand in. 104 macaulay's miscellaneous avritln^gs. It is not improbable that, but for one circumstance^ Barere would, like most of those with whom he ordinarily acted, have voted for the appeal to the people and for the respite. But, just before the commencement of the trial, papers had been discovered which proved that, while a mem- ber of the National Assembly, he had been in communica- tion with the Court respecting his Reports on the Woods and Forests. He was acquitted of all criminality by the Convention ; but the fiercer Republicans considered him as a tool of the fallen monarch ; and this reproach was long repeated in the journal of Marat, and in the speeches at the Jacobin club. It was natural that a man like Barere should, under such circumstances, try to distinguish himself among the crowd of regicides by peculiar ferocity. It was because he had been a royalist that he was one of the foremost in shedding blood. The King was no more. The leading Girondists had, by their conduct towards him, lowered their character in the eyes both of friends and foes. They still, however, main- tained the contest against the Mountain, called for ven- geance on the assassins of September, and protested against the anarchical and sanguinary doctrines of Marat. For a time they seemed likely to prevail. As publicists and ora- tors they had no rivals in the Convention. They had with them, beyond all doubt, the great majority, both of the deputies and of the French nation. These advantages, it should seem, ought t'O have decided the event of the strug- gle. But the opposite party had compensating advantages of a different kind. The chiefs of the Mountain, though not eminently distinguished by eloquence or knowledge, had great audacity, activity, and determination. The Conven- tion and France were against them ; but the mob of Paris, the clubs of Paris, and the municipal government of Paris, were on their side. The policy of the Jacobins, in this situation, was to sub- ject France to an aristocracy infinitely worse than that aris- tocracy which had emigrated with the Count of Artois — to an aristocracy not of birth, not of wealth, not of education, but of mere locality. They would not hear of privileged orders ; but they wished to have a privileged city. That twenty-five millions of Frenchmen should be ruled by a hun- dred thousand gentlemen and clergymen was insufferable ; but that twenty-five millions of Frenchmen should be ruled by a hundred thousand Parisians was as it should be. The quali BARERE. 105 fication of a member of tlse new oligarcliy was simjily that he should live near the hall where the Convention met, and should be able to squeeze himself daily into the gallery dur- ing a debate, and now and then to attend with a pike for the purpose of blockading the doors. It was quite agreeable to the maxims of the Mountain that a score of draymen from Santerre's brewery, or of devils from Ilebert's printing house, should be permitted to drown the voices of men com missioned to speak the sense of such cities as Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Lyons ; and that a rabble of half-naked por- ters from Faubourg St. Antoine should have power to annul decrees for which the representatives of fifty or sixty de- partments had voted. It was necessary to find some pre- text for so odious and absurd a tyranny. Such a pretext was found. To the old phrases of liberty and equality were added the sonorous watchwords, unity and indivisi- bility. A new crime was invented, and called by the name of federalism. The object of the Girondists, it was asserted, was to break up the great nation into little independent commonwealths, bound together only by a league like that which connects the Swiss cantons or the United States of America. The great obstacle in the way of this pernicious design was the influence of Paris. To strengthen the in- fluence of Paris ought therefore to be the chief object of every patriot. The accusation brought against the leaders of the Giron- dist party was a mere calumny. They were undoubtedly desirous to prevent the capital from domineering over the republic, and would gladly have seen the Convention re- moved for a time to some provincial town, or placed under the protection of a trusty guard, which might have over- awed the Parisian mob ; but there is not the slightest reason to suspect them of any design against the unity of the state. Barere, however, really was a federalist, and, we are in- clined to believe, the only federalist in the Convention. As far as a man so unstable and servile could be said to have felt any preference for any form of government, he felt a preference for federal government. He was born under the Pyrenees ; he was a Gascon of the Gascons, one of a peo- ple strongly distinguished by intellectual and moral char- acter, by manners, by modes of speech, by accent, and by physiognomy, from the French of the Seine and the Loire ; and he had many of the peculiarities of the race to which he belonged. When he first left his own province he had 106 macaulay's miscellaneous avritings. iittained his thirty-fourth year, and had acquired a high local reputation for eloquence and literature. He had then visited Paris for the first time. He had found himself in a new world. His feelings were those of a banished man. It is clear also that he had been by no means without his share of the small disapjDointments and humiliations so often experienced by men of letters who, elated by provincial applause, venture to display their powers before the fastidi- ous critics of a capital. On the other hand, whenever he re- visited the mountains among which he had been born, he found himself an object of general admiration. His dislike to Paris, and his partiality to his native district, were there- fore as strong and durable as any sentiments of a mind like his could be. He long continued to maintain that the as- cendency of one great city was the bane of France, that the superiority of taste and intelligence which it was the fashion to ascribe to the inhabitants of that city were wholly im- aginary ; and that the nation would never enjoy a really good government till the Alsatian people, the Breton peo- ple, the people of Bearn, the people of Provence, should each have an independent existence, and laws suited to its own tastes and habits. These communities he proposed to unite by a tie similar to that w^hich binds together the grave Puri- tans of Connecticut and the dissolute slave-drivers of New Orleans. To Paris he was unwilling to grant even the rank wliich Washington holds in the United States. He thought it desirable that the congress of the French federation should have no fixed place of meeting, but should sit sometimes at Rouen, sometimes at Bordeaux, sometimes at his own Tou- louse. Animated by such feelings, he was, till the close of May, 1793, a Girondist, if not an ultra-Girondist. He exclaimed against those impure and bloodthirsty men who wished to make the public danger a pretext for cruelty and rapine. Peril," he said, " could be no excuse for crime. It is when the wind blows hard, and the waves run high, that the anchor is most needed ; it is when a revolution is raging, that the great laws of morality are most necessary to the safety of a state." Of Marat he spoke with abhorrence and contempt ; of the municipal authorities of Paris with just severity. He loudly complained that there were French- men who paid to the Mountain that homage which was due ::o the Convention alone. When the establishment of the Revolutionary Tribunal was first proposed, he joined him- B A HERE. 107 self to Vergniaud and Buzot, who strongly objected to that odious measure. " It cannot be," exclaimed 13arere, " that men really attached to liberty will imitate the most fright- ful excesses of despotism ! " He proved to the Convention, after his fashion, out of Sallust, that such arbitrary courts may indeed, for a time, be severe only on real criminals, but must inevitably degenerate into instruments of private cupidity and revenge. When, on the tenth of March, the worst part of the population of Paris made the first unsuccessful attempt to destroy the Girondists, Barere eagerly called for vigorous measures of repression and pun- ishment. On the second of April, another attempt of the Jacobins of Paris to usurp supreme dominion over the re- public was brought to the knowledge of the Convention ; and again Barere spoke with warmth against the new tyranny which afflicted France, and declared that the people of the departments would never crouch beneath the tyranny of one ambitious city. He even proposed a resolution to the effect that the Convention would exert against the demagogues of the capital the same energy which had been exerted against the tyrant Louis. We are assured that, in private as in public, he at this time uniformly spoke with strong aversion of the Mountain. His apparent zeal for the cause of humanity and order had its reward. Early in April came the tidings of Du- mourier's defection. This was a heavy blow to the Giron- dists. Dumourier was their general. His victories had thrown a lustre on the whole party ; his army, it had been hoped, would, in the worst event, protect the deputies of the nation against the ragged pikemen of the garrets of Paris. He was now a deserter and an exile ; and those who had lately placed their chief reliance on his support were compelled to join with their deadliest enemies in execrating his treason. At this perilous conjuncture, it was resolved to appoint a Committee of Public Safety, and to arm that com- mittee with powers, small indeed when compared with those which it afterward drew to itself, but still great and formid- able. The moderate party, regarding Barere as a repre- sentative of their feelings and opinions, elected him a mem- ber. In his new situation he soon began to make himself useful. He brought to the deliberations of the Committee, not indeed the knowledge or the ability of a great states- man, but a tongue and a pen which, if others would only supply ideas, never paused for want of words. His mind 108 macaulay's miscellaneous writing s. was a mere organ of communication between other minds. It originated nothing; it retained nothing; but it trans- mitted everything. The post assigned to him by his col- leagues was not really of the highest importance ; but it was prominent, and drew the attention of all Europe. When a great measure was to be brought forward, when an account was to be rendered of an important event, he was s^ener- ally the mouthpiece of the administration. He was there- fore not unnaturally considered, by persons who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and above all by foreigners who, while the war raged, knew France only from journals, as the head of that administration of which, in trutli, he was only the secretary and the spokesman. The author of the History of Europe, in our own Annual Regis- ters, appears to have been completely under this delu- sion. The conflict between the hostile parties was meanwhile fast approaching to a crisis. The temper of Paris grew daily fiercer and fiercer. Delegates appointed by thirty-five of the foi'ty-eight wards of the city appeared at the bar of the Convention, and demanded that Vergniaud, Brissot, Gaudet, Gensonne, Barbaroux, Buzot, Petion, Lou vet, and many other deputies, should be expelled. This demand was disapproved by at least three-fourths of the Assembly, and, when known in the departments, called forth a general cry of indignation. Bordeaux declared that it would stand by its representatives, and would, if necessary, defend them by the sword against the tyranny of Paris. Lyons and Mar- seilles were animated by a similar s|)irit. These manifesta- tions of public opinion gave courage to tlie majority of the Convention. Thanks were voted to the j^eople of Bordeaux for their patriotic declaration ; and a commission consisting of twelve members were appointed for the purpose of inves- tigating the conduct of the municipal authorities of Paris, and was empowered to place under arrest such persons as sliould appear to have been concerned in any plot against th(i authority of the Convention. This measure was adopted on the motion of Barere. A few days of stormy excitement and profound anxiety followed ; and then came the crash. On the thirty-fii-st of IVIay the mob of Paris rose ; the palace of the Tuileries was besieged by a vast array of pikes ; the majority of the depu- ties, after vain struggles and remonstrances, yielded to vio- lence, and suffered the Mountain to carry a decree for the BARERE. 109 Ruspeiision and arrest of the deputies whom the wards of the capital liad accused. During the contest Barere had been tossed backwards and forwards between the two raging factions. His feelings, languid and unsteady as they always were, drew him to the Girondists ; but he was awed by the vigor and determina- tion of the Mountain. At one moment he lield high and firm hmguage, complained that the Convention was not free, and protested against the validity of any vote passed under coercion. At another moment he proposed to conciliate tiie Parisians by abolishing that commission of twelve which he had himself proposed only a few days before ; and himself drew up a paper condemning the very measures which had been adopted at his own instance, and eulogizing the public spirit of the insurgents. To do him justice, it was not without some symptoms of shame that he read this docu- ment from the tribune, where he had so often expressed very different sentiments. It is said that, at some passages, he was even seen to blush. It may have been so ; he was still in his novitiate of infamy. Some days later he proposed that hostages for the per- sonal safety of the accused deputies should be sent to the departments, and offered to be himself one of those hostages, nor do we in the least doubt that the offer was sincere. He would, we lirmly believe, have thought himself far safer at Bordeaux or Marseilles than at Paris. His proposition, however, was not carried into effect ; and he remained in the power of the victorious Mountain. This was the great crisis of his life. Hitherto he had done nothing inexpiable, nothing which marked him out as a much worse man than most of his colleagues in the Con- vention. His voice had generally been on the side of moder- ate measures. Had he bravely cast in his lot with the Giron- dists, and suffered with them, he would, like them, have had a not dishonorable place in history. Had he, like the great body of deputies who meant well, but who had not the courage to expose themselves to martyrdom, crouched quietly under the dominion of the triumphant minority, and suffered every motion of Robespierre and Billaud to pass unopposed, he would have incurred no peculiar ignominy. But it is probable that this course was not open to him. He had been too ])rominent among the adversaries of the Mountain to be ad- mitted to quarter without making some atonement. It was necessary that, if he hoped to find pardon from his new 110 MACAULAy's ISnSCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. lords, he should not be merely a sile^it and passive slave What passed in private between him and them cannot be accurately related ; but the result was soon apparent. The Committee of Public Safety was renewed. Several of the fiercest of the dominant faction, Couthon for examj)le, and St. Just, were substituted for more moderate politicians ; but Barere was suffered to retain his seat at the Board. The indulgence with which he was treated excited the murmurs of some stern and ardent zealots. Marat, in the very last words that he wrote, words not published till the dagger of Charlotte Corday had avenged France and man- kind, complained that a man who had no principles, who was always on the side of the strongest, who had been a royalist, and who was ready, in case of a turn of fortune, to be a roy- alist again, should be entrusted with an important share in the administration.^ But the chiefs of the Mountain judged more correctly. They knew indeed, as well as Marat, that Barere was a man utterly without faith or steadiness ; that, if he could be said to have any political leaning, his leaning was not towards them ; that he felt for the Girondist party that faint and wavering sort of preference of which alone his nature was susceptible ; and that, if he had been at liberty to make his choice, he would rather have murdered Robespierre and Danton than Vergniaud and Gensonne. But they justly appreciated that levity which made him incapable alike of earnest love and of earnest hatred, and that meanness which made it necessary to him to have a master. In truth, what the planters of Carolina and Louisiana say of black men with flat noses and woolly hair was strictly true of Barere. The curse of Canaan was upon him. Pie was born a slave. Baseness was an instinct in him. The impulse which drove him from a party in adversity to a party in prosperity was as irresistible as that which drives the cuckoo and the swal- low towards the sun Tvhen the dark and cold months are approaching. The law w^hich doomed him to be the humble attendant of stronger spirits resembled the law which binds the pilot-fish to the shark. " Ken ye," said a shrewd Scotch lord, who w^as asked his opinion of James the First, Ken ye a John Ape? If I have Jacko by the collar, I can make him bite you ; but if you have Jacko, you can make him bite me." Just such a creature was Barere. tn the hands of the Girondists he would have been eager to proscribe the ^ See the PuUiciste of the 14th July, 1793. Marat was stabbed on the evening of the 13th. BARERE. Ill Jacobins ; he was just as ready, in the grip of the Jacobins, to proscribe the Girondists. On the fidelity of sucli a man the heads of the Mountain could not, of course, reckon ; but they valued their conquest as the very easy and not very deli- cate lover in Congreve's lively song valued the conquest of a prostitute of a different kind. Barere was, like Chloe, false and common ; but he was, like Chloe, constant while possessed ; and they asked no more. They needed a service which he was perfectly competent to perform. Destitute as he was of alL the talents both of an active and of a speculative statesman, he could with great facility draw up a report, or make a speech on any subject and on any side. If other peoi)le would fur- nish facts and thoughts, he could always furnish phrases ; and this talent was absolutely at the command of his owners for the time b'4ng. Nor had he excited any angry passion among those to whom he had hitherto been opposed. They felt no more hatred to him than they felt to the horses which dragged the cannon of the Duke of Brunswick and of the Prince of Saxe-Coburg. The horses had only done ac- cording to their kind, and would, if they fell into the hands of the French, drag with equal vigor and equal docility the guns of the republic, and therefore ought not merely to be spared, but to be well fed and curried. So was it with Barere. He was of a nature so low, that it might be doubted whether he could properly be an object of the hostility of reasonable beings. He had not been an enemy; he was not now a friend. But he had been an annoyance ; and he w^ould now be a help. But, though the heads of the Mountain pardoned this man, and admitted him into partnership with themselves, it was not without exacting pledges such as made it impossible for him, false and fickle as he was, ever again to find ad- mission into the ranks which he had deserted. That was truly a terrible sacrament by which they admitted the apos- tate -into their communion. They demanded of him that he should himself take the most prominent part in murdering his old friends. To refuse was as much as his life was worth. But what is life worth when it is only one long agony of remorse and shame ? These, however, are feedings of which it is idle to talk, when we are considering the con- duct of such a man as Barere. He undertook the task, mounted the tribune, and told the Convention that the time was come for taking the stern attitude of justice, and for striking at all conspirators without distinction. He then 112 macaulay's miscellaneous whitings. moved that Buzot, Barbaroux, Petion, and thirteen other deputies should be placed out of the pale of the law, or, in other words, beheaded without a trial ; and that Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne, and six others, should be impeached. The motion was carried without debate. We have already seen with what effrontery Barere has denied, in these Memoirs, that he took any part against the Girondists. This denial, we think, was the only thing wanting to make his infamy complete. The most impudent of all lies was a fit companion for the foulest of all murders. Barere, however, had not yet earned his pardon. The Jacobin party contained one gang which, even in that party, was pre-eminent in every mean and every savage vice, a gang so low-minded and so inhuman that, compared with them, Robespierre might be called magnanimous and merciful. Of these wretches, Hebert was perhaps the best representative. His favorite amusement was to torn-tent and insult the mis- erable remains of that great family which, having ruled France during eight hundred years, had now become an ob- ject of pity to the humblest artisan or peasant. The influ- ence of this man, and of men like him, induced the Com- mittee of Public Safety to determine that Marie Antoi- nette should be sent to the scaffold. Barere was again sum- moned to his duty. Only four days after he had proposed the decrees against the Girondist deputies he again mounted the tribune, in order to move that the Queen should be brough t before the Revolutionary Tribunal. He was improving fast in the society of his new allies. When he asked for the heads of Vergniaud and Petion he had spoken like a man who had some slight sense of his own guilt and degradation : he had said little ; and that little had not been violent. The oflice of expatiating on the guilt of his old friends he had left to Saint Just. Very different was Barere's second ap- pearance in the character of an accuser. He now cried out for blood in the eager tones of the true and burning thirst, and raved against the Austrian woman with the virulence natural to a coward who finds himself at liberty to outrage that which he has feared and envied. We have already ex- posed the shameless mendacity with which, in these Memoirs, he attempts to throw the blame of his own guilt on the guiltless. On the day on which the fallen Queen was dragged, al- ready more than half dead, to her doom, Barere regaled Robespierre and some other Jacobins at a tavern. Robes- BARERE. 113 pierre's acceptance of the invitation caused some surprise to those who knew how long and how bitterly it was his na- ture to hate. " Robespierre of the party ! " muttered Sauit Just. "Barere is the only man whom Robespierre has forgiven." We have an account of this singular repast from one of the guests. Robespierre condemned the sense- less brutality with which Hebert had conducted the pro- (teediugs against the Austrian woman, and, in talking on that subject, became so much excited tluit he broke his plate in the violence of his gesticulation. Barere exclaimed that the guillotine had cut a diplomatic knot which it might have been difficult to untie. In the intervals between the Beaune and the Champagne, between the ragout of thrushes and the partridge with truffles, he fervently preached his new political creed. " The vessel of the revolution," he said, " can float into port only on waves of blood. We must begin with the members of the National Assembly and of the Legislative Assembly. That rubbish must be swept away." As he talked at table he talked in the Convention. His peculiar style of oratory was now formed. It was not alto- gether without ingenuity and liveliness. But in any other age or country it would have been thought unfit for the de- liberations of a grave assembly, and still more unfit for state papers. It might, perhaps, succeed at a meeting of a Prot- estant Association in Exeter Hall, at a Repeal dinner in Ireland, after men had well drunk, or in an American oration on the Fourth of July. No legislative body would now en- dure it. But in France, during the reign of the Convention, the old laws of composition were held in as much contempt as the old government or the old creed. Correct and noble diction belonged, like the etiquette of Versailles and the solemnities of Notre Dame, to an age which had passed away. Just as a swarm of ephemeral constitutions, demo- cratic, directorial, and consular, sprang from the decay of the ancient monarchy; just as a swarm of new superstitions, the worship of the Goddess of Reason, and the fooleries of the Theo-philanthropists, sprang from the decay of the an- cient Church ; even so out of the decay of the ancient French eloquence sprang new fashions of eloquence, for the understanding of which new grammars and dictionaries were necessary. The same innovating sjoirit which altered the common phrases of salutation, which turned hundreds of Johns and Peters into Scaevolas and Aristogitons, and which expelled Sunday and Monday, January and February, Vol. III.— 8 114 MACAULAY S MISCELLANEOUS WKITIXGS. Lady-day and Christmas, from the calendar, in order to substitute Decadi and Primidi, Nivose and Pluviose, Feasts of Opinion and Feasts of the Supreme Being, changed all the forms of official correspondence. For the cahn, guard- ed, and sternly courteous language Avhich governments had long been accustomed to employ, were substituted puns, in- terjections, Ossianic rants, rlietoric worthy only of a school- boy, scurrility worthy only of a fishwife. Of the phrase- ology which was now thought to be peculiarly well suited to a report or a manifesto, Barere had a greater com- mand than any man of his time, and, during the short and sharp paroxysm of the revolutionary delirium, passed for a great orator. When the fit was over, he was considered as what he really w^as, a man of quick apprehension and fluent elocution, with no originality, with little information, and w^ith a taste as bad as his heart. His Reports were popu- larly called Carmagnoles. A few months ago we should have had some difficulty in conveying to an English reader an ex- act notion of the state papers to which this appellation was given. Fortunately a noble and distinguished person, whom her Majesty's Ministers have thought qualified to fill the most important post in the empire, has made our task easy. Whoever has read Lord Ellenborough's proclamations is able to form a complete idea of a Carmagnole. The effect which Barere's discourses at one time pro- duced is not to be wholly attributed to the perversion of the national taste. The occasions on which he rose were fre- quently such as would have secured to the worst speaker a favorable hearing. When any military advantage had been gained, he was generally deputed by the Committee of Pub- lic Safety to announce the good news. The hall resounded with applause as he mounted the tribune, holding the de- spatches in his hand. Deputies and strangers listened with delight while he told them that victory was the order of the day : that the guineas of Pitt had been vainly lavished to hire machines six feet high, carrying guns ; that the flight of the English leopard deserved to be celebrated by Tyr- taeus ; and that the saltpetre dug out of the cellars of Paris had been turned into thunder, which would crush the Titan brethren, George and Francis. Meanwhile the trial of the accused Girondists, w^ho were under arrest in Paris, came on. They flattered themselves with 1 vain hope of escape. They placed some reliance on their inncoence, and some reliance on their eloquence. BARERE. 115 They thought that shame would suffice to restrain any man, however violent and cruel, from publicly committing the flagrant iniquity of condemning them to death. The Rev- olutionary Tribunal was new to its functions. No member of the convention had yet been executed ; and it was prob- able that the boldest Jacobin would shrink from being the first to violate the sanctity which was supposed to belong to the representatives of the people. The proceedings lasted some days. Gensonne and Bris- sot defended themselves with great ability and presence of mind against the vile Hebert and Chaumette, who appeared as accusers. The eloquent voice of Vergniaud was heard for the last time. He pleaded his own cause and that of his friends, with such force of reason and elevatioji of sentiment that a murmur of pity and admiration rose from the audi- ence. Nay, the court itself, not yet accustomed to riot in daily carnage, showed signs of emotion. The sitting was adjourned ; and a rumor went forth that there would be an acquittal. The Jacobins met, breathing vengeance. Robes- pierre undertook to be their organ. He rose on the follow- ing day in the Convention, and proposed a decree of such atrocity that even among the acts of that year it can hardly be paralleled. By this decree the tribunal was empowered to cut short the defence of the prisoners, to pronounce the case clear, and to pass immediate judgment. One deputy made a faint opposition. Barere instantly sprang up to support Robespiei-re — Barere, the federalist ; Barere, the au- thor of that Commission of Twelve which was among the chief causes of the hatred borne by Paris to the Girondists ; Barere, who in these Memoirs denies that he ever took any part against the Girondists ; Barere, who has the effrontery to declare that he greatly loved and esteemed Vergniaud. The decree was passed ; and the tribunal, without suffering the prisoners to conclude what they had to say, pronounced them guilty. The following day was the saddest in the sad history of the Revolution. The sufferers were so innocent, so brave, so eloquent, so accomplished, so young. Some of them were graceful and handsome youths of six or seven and twenty, Vergniaud and Gensonne were little more than thirty. They had been only a few months engaged in public affairs. In a few months the fame of their genius had filled Europe ; and they were to die for no crime but this, that they had wished to combine order, justice, and mercy with freedom. 116 MACAULAY^S MISCELLANEOUS AVRITINGJI. Their great fault was want of courage. We mean want of political courage — of that courage which is proof to clamor and obloquy, and which meets great emergencies by daring and decisive measures. Alas ! they had but too good an opportunity of proving that they did not want courage to endure with manly cheerfulness the worst that could be in- flicted by such tyrants as St. Just, and such slaves as Bar ere. They were not the only victims of the noble cause Madame Roland followed them to the scaffold with a spirit as heroic as their own. Her husband was in a safe hiding- place, but could not bear to survive her. His body was found on the high road near Rouen. He had fallen on his sword. Condorcet swallow^ed opium. At Bordeaux the steel fell on the necks of the bold and quick-witted Guadet and of Barbaroux, the chief of those enthusiasts from the Rhone whose valor, in the great crisis of the tenth of Au- gust, had turned back the tide of battle from the Louvre to the Tuileries. In a field near the Garonne was found all that the wolves had left of Petion, once honored, greatly in- deed beyond his deserts, as the model of republican virtue. We are far from regarding even the best of the Girondists with unmixed admiration ; but history owes to them this honorable testimony, that, being free to choose whether they would be oppressors or victims, they deliberately and firmly resolved ratlier to suffer injustice than to inflict it. And now began that strange period known by the name of the Reign of Terror. The Jacobins had prevailed. This was their hour, and the power of darkness. The Con- vention was subjugated and reduced to profound silence on the highest questions of state. The sovereignty passed to the Committee of Public Safety. To the edicts framed by that Committee the representative assembly did not venture to offer even the species of opposition w^hich the ancient parliament had frequently offered to the mandates of the an- cient kings. Six persons held the chief power in the small cabinet which now domineered over France — Robespierre, St. Jus^, Couthon, Collot, Billaud, and Barere. To some of these men, and of those who adhered to them, it is due to say that the fanaticism which had emancipated them from the restraints of justice and compassion had emancipated them also from the dominion of vulgar cupidity and of vulgar fear ; that, while hardly knowing w^here to find an assignat of a few francs to pay for a dinner, they ex- liAKKKK 117 pended with strict integrity the immense revenue which they collected by every art of rapine ; and that they Avere ready, in support of their cause, to mount the scaffold with as much indifference as they showed when they signed the death-warrants of aristocrats and pi'iests. But no great party can be composed of such materials as these. It is the inevitable law that such zealots as we liave described shall collect arround them a multitude of slaves, of cowards, and of libertines, whose savage tempers and licentious ap- petites, withheld only by the dread of law and magistracy from the worst excesses, are called into full activity by the hope of impunity. A faction which, from whatever motive, relaxes the great laws of morality, is certain to be joined by the most immoral part of the community. This has been repeatedly proved in religious wars. The war of the Holy Sepulchre, the Albigensian war, the Huguenot war, the Thirty Years' war, all originated in pious zeal. That zeal inflamed the champions of the church to such a point that they regarded all generosity to the vanquished as a sinfui weakness. The infidel, the heretic, was to be run down like a mad dog. No outrage committed by the Catholic war- rior on the miscreant enemy could deserve punishment. As soon as it was known that boundless license was thus given to barbarity and dissoluteness, thousands of wretches who cared nothing for the sacred cause, but who were eager to be exempted from the police of peaceful cities, and the discipline of well governed camps, flocked to the standard of the faith. The men who had set up that standard were sincere, chaste, regardless of lucre, and, perhaps, where only themselves were concerned, not unforgiving; but round that standard were assembled such gangs of rogues, ravishers, plunderers, and ferocious bravoes, as w^ere scarcely ever found under the flag of any state engaged in a mei'e tem- poral quarrel. In a very similar way was the Jacobin party composed. There was a small nucleus of enthusiasts; round that nucleus was o^athered a vast mass of io:n»^ble de- pravity ; and in all that mass there was nothing so depraved and so ignoble as Barere. Then came those days when the most barbarous of all codes was administered by the most barbarous of all tri- bunals ; when no man could greet his neighbors, or say his prayers, or dress his hair, without danger of committing a capital crime; when spies lurked in every corner; when the guillotine was long and hard at work every morning ; when 118 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. the jails were filled as close as the hold of a slave-ship ; when the gutters ran foaming with blood into the Seine ; when it was death to be great-niece of a captain of the royal guards, or half-brother of a doctor of the Sorbonne, to express a doubt whether assignats would not fall, to hint that the Eng- lish had been victorious in the action of the first of June, to have a copy of one of Burke's pamphlets locked up in a desk, to laus^li at a Jacobin for takin<>: the name of Cassius or Timoleon, or to call the Fifth Sans-culottide by its old superstitious name of St. Matthew's Day. While the daily wagon-loads of victims were carried to their doom through the streets of Paris, the Proconsuls whom the sovereign Committee had sent forth to the departments revelled in an extravagance of cruelty unknown even in the capital. The knife of the deadly machine rose and fell too slow for their Avork of slaughter. Long rows of captives were mowed down with grape shot. Holes were made in the bottom of crowded barges. Lyons was turned iuto a desert. At Arras even the cruel mercy of a speedy death was denied to the prisoners. All down the Loire, from Saumur to the sea, great flocks of crows and kites feasted on naked corpses, twined together in hideous embi'aces. No mercy was show^n to sex or age. The number of young lads and of girls of seventeen who were murdered by that execrable government is to be reckoned by hundreds. Babies torn from the breast were tossed from pike to pike along the Jacobin ranks. One champion of liberty had his pockets well stuffed with ears. Another swaggered about with the finger of a little child in his hat. A few months had sufliced to degrade France below the level of New Zealand. It is absurd to say that any amount of public danger can justify a system like this, w^e do not say on Christian principles, we do not say on the principles of a high morality, but even on principles of Machiavellian policy. It is true that great emergencies call for activity and vigilance ; it is true that they justify severity which, in ordinary times, would deserve the name of cruelty. But indiscriminate severity can never, under any circumstances, be useful. It is plain that the whole efticacy of punishment depends on the care with which the guilty are distinguished. Punisli- raent which strikes the guilty and the innocent promiscuously operates merely like a pestilence or a great convulsion of nature, and has no more tendency to prevent offences than tlie cholera, or an earthquake like that of Lisbon, would 13ARERE. 119 have. Tlic energy for which the Jacobin administration is praised was merely the energy of the Malay who maddens himself with opimn, draws his knife, and runs a-muck through the streets, slashing riglit and left at friends and foes. Sucli has never been the energy of truly great rulers ; of Eliza- beth, for example, of Oliver, or of Frederic. They were not, indeed, scrupulous. But, had they been less scrupu- lous than they were, the strength and amplitude of their minds would have preserved them from crimes such as those which the small men of the Committee of Public Safety took for daring strokes of policy. The great Queen who so long held her own against foreign and domestic enemies, against temporal and spiritual arms ; the great Protector who gov- erned with more than regal power, in despite both of royal- ists and republicans ; the great King who, with a beaten army and an exhausted treasury, defended his little domin- ions to the last against the united efforts of Russia, Austria and France ; with what scorn would they have heard that it was impossible for them to strike a salutary terror into the disaffected without sending school-boys and school-girls to death by cart-loads and boat-loads ! The popular notion is, we believe, that the leading Terrorists were wicked men, but, at the same time, great men. We can see nothing great about them but their wick- edness. That their policy was daringly original is a vulgar error. Their policy is as old as the oldest accounts which we have of human misgovernment. It seemed new in France and in the eighteenth century only because it had been long disused, for excellent reasons, by the enlightened part of mankind. But it has always prevailed, and still prevails, in savage and half savage nations, and is the chief cause w^hich prevents such nations from making ad^^ances towards civilization. Thousands of deys, of beys, pachas, of rajahs, of nabobs, have shown themseh-es as great masters of statecraft as the members of the Committee of Public Safety. Djezzar, we imagine, was superior to any of them in theii new line. In fact, there is not a petty tyrant in Asia or Africa so dull or so unlearned as not to be fully qualified for the business of Jacobin police and Jacobin finance. To behead people by scores without caring w^hether they are guilty or innocent ; to wring money out of the rich by the help of jail- ers and executioners ; to rob the public creditor, and to put him to death if he remonstrates ; to take loaves by force out of the bakers' shoj^s ; to clothe and mount soldiers by seizing 120 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. on one man's wool and linen, and on another man's horses and saddles, without compensation ; is of all modes of gov- erning the simplest and most obvious. Of its morality we at present say nothing. But surely it requires no capacity beyond that of a barbarian or a child. By means like those which we have described, the Committee of Public Safety undoubtedly succeeded, for a short time, in enforcing pro- found submission, and in raising immense funds. But to enforce submission by butchery, and to raise funds by spoliation, is not statesmanship. The real statesman is he who, in troubled times, keeps down the turbulent without unnecessarily harassing the well-affected ; and who, when great pecuniary resources are needed, provides for the public exigencies without violating the security of property and drying up the sources of future prosperity. Such a states- man, we are confident, might, in 1793, have preserved the independence of France without shedding a drop of innocent blood, without plundering a single warehouse. Unhappily, the Republic was subject to men who were mere dema- gogues and in no sense statesmen. They could declaim at a club. They could lead a rabble to mischief. But they had no skill to conduct the affairs of an empire. The want of skill they supplied for a time by atrocity and blind violence. For legislative ability, fiscal ability, military ability, diplo- matic ability, they had one substitute, the guillotine. Indeed their exceeding ignorance, and the barrenness of their invention, are the best excuse for their murders and robberies. We really believe that they would not have cut so many throats, and picked so many pockets, if they had known how to govern in any other way. That under their administration the war against the Eu- ropean Coalition was successfully conducted is true.. But that war had been successfully conducted before their ele- vation, and continued to be successfully conducted after their fall. Terror was not the order of the day when Brussels opened its gates to Dumourier. Terror had ceased to be the order of the day when Piedmont and Lombardy were conquered by Bonaparte. The truth is, that France was saved, not by the Committee of Public Safety, but by the energy, patriotism, and valor of the French people. Those high qualities were victorious in spite of the inca- pacity of rulers whose administration was a tissue, not merely of crimes, but of blunders. We have not time to tell how the leaders of the savage BARERE. 121 faction at lejigth began to avenge mankind on each other ; how the craven Hebert was dragged wailing and trembling to his doom ; how the nobler Danton, moved by a late re- pentance, strove in vain to repair the evil which he had wrought, and half redeemed the great crime of September by manfully encountering death in the cause of mercy. Our business is withBarere. In all those things he was not only consenting, but eagerly and joyously forward. Not merely was he one of the guilty administration. He was the man to whom was especially assigned the office of j»ro- posing and defending outrages on justice and humanity, and of furnishing to atrocious schemes an appropriate garb of atrocious rodomontade. Barere first proclaimed from the tribune of the Convention that terror must be the order of the day. It was by Barere that the RevoUitionary Tribunal of Paris was provided with the aid of a public accuser worthy of such a court, the infamous Fouquier Tinville. It was Barere who, when one of the old members of the Na- tional Assembly had been absolved by the Revolutionary Tribunal, gave orders that a fresh jury should be summoned. " Acquit one of the National Assembly ! " he cried. " The Tribunal is turning against the Revolution." It is unnec- essary to say that the prisoner's head was soon in the basket. It was Barere who moved that the city of Lyons should be destroyed. " Let the plough," he cried from the tribune, " pass over her. Let her name cease to exist. The rebels are conquered ; but are they all exterminated ? No weak- ness. No mercy. Let every one be smitten. Two words will suffice to tell the wdiole. Lyons made war on liberty ; Lyons is no more." When Toulon was taken Barere came forward to announce the event. " The con- quest," said the apostate Brissotine, " won by the Moun- tain over the Brissotines must be commemorated by a mark set on the place where Toulon once stood. The national thunder must crush the house of every trader in the town." When Camille Desmoulins, long distinguished among the re- publicans by zeal and ability, dared to raise his eloquent voice against the Reign of Terror, and to point out the close analogy between the government which then oppressed France and the government of the worst of the Caesars, Barere rose to complain of the weak compassion which tried to revive the hopes of the aristocracy. " Whoever," he said, is nobly born is a man to be suspected. Every priest, every frequenter of the old court, every lawyer, every 122 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. banker, is a man to be suspected. Every person who grum* bles at the course which the Revolution takes is a man to be suspected. There are whole castes already tried and con- demned. There are callings which carry their doom with them. There are relations of blood which the law regards with an evil eye. Republicans of France ! " yelled the renegade Girondist, the old enemy of the Mountain — " Re- publicans of France ! the Brissotines led you by gentle means to slavery. The Mountain leads you by strong measures to freedom. Oh ! who can count the evils which a false com- passion may produce?" When the friends of Danton mus- tered courage to express a wish that the Convention would at least hear him in his own defence before it sent him to certain death, the voice of Barere was the loudest in oppo- sition to their prayer. When the crimes of Lebon, one of the worst, if not the very worst, of the vicegerents of the Committee of Public Safety, had so maddened the people of the Department of the North that they resorted to the des- perate expedient of imploring the protection of the Conven- tion, Barei-e pleaded the cause of the accused tyrant, and threatened the petitioners with the utmost vengeance of the government. " These charges," he said, " have been sug- gested by wily aristocrats. The man who crushes the enemies of the people, though he may be hurried by his zeal into some excesses, can never be a proper object of censure. The proceedings of Lebon may have been a little harsh as to form." One of the small irregularities thus gently censured was this : Lebon kept a wretched man a quarter of an hour under the knife of the guillotine, in order to torment him, by reading to him, before he was despatched, a letter, the contents of which were supposed to be such as would aggra- vate even the bitterness of death. " But what," proceeded Barere, "-is not permitted to the hatred of a republican against aristocracy ? How many generous sentiments atone for what may perhaps seem acrimonious in the prosecution of public enemies ? Revolutionary measures are always to be spoken of with respect. Liberty is a virgin whose veil it is not lawful to lift." After this, it would be idle to dwell on facts which would indeed, of themselves, suffice to render a name infamous, but which make no perceptible addition to the great infamy of Barere. It would be idle, for example, to relate how he, a man of letters, a member of an Academy of Inscriptions, was foremost in that war against learning, art and history BAKEBE. 128 wliich disgraced the Jacobin government ; how lie recom- mended a general conflagration of libraries ; how he pro- claimed that all records of events anterior to the Revolution ought to be destroyed ; how he laid waste tlie Abbey of St. Denis, pulled down monuments consecrated by the vener- ation of ages, and scattered on the wind the dust of ancient kings. He was, in trutli, seldom so well employed as when he turned for a moment from making war on the living to make war on the dead. Equally idle would it be to dilate on his sensual excesses. That in Barere, as in the whole breed of Neros, Caligulas, and Domitians whom he resembled, voluptuousness was mingled with cruelty ; that he withdrew, twice in every de- cade, from the work of blood to the smiling gardens of Clichy, and there forgot public cares in the madness of wine and in the arms of courtesans, has often been repeated. M. Hippolyte Carnot does not altogether deny the truth of these stories, but justly observes that Barere's dissipation was not carried to such a point as to interfere with his in- dustry. Nothing can be more true. Barere was by no means so much addicted to debauchery as to neglect the work of murder. It was his boast that, even during his hours of recreation, he cut out work for the Revolutionary Tribunal. To those who expressed a fear that his exertions would hurt his health, the gayly answered that he was less busy than they thought. " The guillotine," he said, " does all ; the guillotine governs." For ourselves, we are much more disposed to look indulgently on the pleasures Avhich he allowed to himself than on the pain which he inflicted on his neighbors. " Atque utiiiam his potius nngis tota ilia dedisset Tempora saivitite, claras qnibus abstulit urbi lUiistresque animas, impune ac viiidice imllo.** An immoderate appetite for sensual gratifications is un- doubtedly a blemish on the fame of Henry the Fourth, of Lord Somers, of Mr. Fox. But the vices of honest men are the virtues of Barere. And now Barere had become a really cruel man. It was from mere pusillanimity that he had perpetrated his first great crimes. But the whole history of our race proves that the taste for the misery of others is a taste which minds not naturally ferocious may too easily acquire, and which, when once acquired, is as strong as any of the propensities with which we are born. A very few months had suflSced 124 macaulay's miscellaneous wkittngs. to bring this man into a state of mind in which images of despair, wailing, and death had an exhilarating effect on him, and inspired him as wine and love inspire men of free and joyous natures. The cart creaking under its daily freight of victims, ancient men and hids, and fair young girls, the binding of the hands, the thrusting of the head out of the little national sash-window, the crash of the axe, the pool of blood beneath the scaffold, the heads rolling by scores in the panier — these things were to him what Lalage and a cask of Falernian were to Horace, what Rosette and a bottle of iced champagne are to De Beranger. As soon as he began to speak of slaughter, his heart seemed to be enlarged, and his fancy to become unusually fertile of conceits and gasconades. Robespierre, St. Just, and Billaud, whose barbarity was the effect of earnest and gloomy hatred, were, in his view, men who made a toil of a pleasure. Cruelty was no such melan- choly business, to be gone about with an austere brow and a whining tone ; it was a recreation, fitly accompanied by singing and laughing. In truth, Robespierre and Barere might be well compared to the two renowned hangmen of Louis the Eleventh. They were alike insensible of pity, alike bent on havoc. But, while they murdered, one of them frowned and canted, the other grinned and joked. For our own part, we prefer Jean qui pleure to Jean qui rit, •In the midst of the funeral gloom which overhung Paris, a gayety stranger and more ghastly than the horrors of the prison and the scaffold, distinguished the dwelling of Barere. Every morning a crowd of suitors assembled to implore his protection. He came forth in his rich dressing-gown, went round the antechamber, dispensed smiles and promise among the obsequious crowd, addressed himself w^ith peculiar animation to every handsome woman who appeared in the circle, and complimented her in the florid style of Gascony on the bloom of her cheeks and the lustre of her eyes. When he had enjoyed the fear and anxiety of his suppliants he dis- misse.l them, and flung all their memorials unread into the fire. This was the best way, he conceived, to prevent ar- rears of business from accumulating. Here he w\as only an imitator. Cardinal Dubois had been in the habit of clearing his table of papers in the same way. Nor was this the only point in which we could point out a resemblance between the worst statesman of the monarchy and the worst states- man of the republic. Of Barere's peculiar vein of pleasantry a notion may be BARERE. 125 formed from an anecdote which one of liis intimate associ- ates, a juror of the revohitionary tribunal, has related. A courtesan who bore a conspicuous part in the orgies of Clichy implored Barere to use his power against a head-dress wdiich did not suit her style of face, and which a ri\ al beauty was trying to bring into fashion. One of the magistrates of the capital was summoned, and received the necessary orders. Ari'^tocracy, Barere said, was again rearing its front. These new wigs were counter-revolutionary. He had reason to know that they were made out of the long fair hair of- hand- some aristocrats who had died by the national chopper. Every lady who adorned herself with the relics of criminals might justly be suspected of incivism. This ridiculous lie im- posed on the authorities of Paris. Female citizens were solemnly warned against the obnoxious ringlets, and were left to choose between their head-dresses and their heads. Barere's delight at the success of this facetious fiction was quite extravagant ; he could not tell the story without going into such convulsions of laughter as made his hearers hope that he was about to choke. There was something peculiarly tickling and exhilarating to his mind in this grotesque com- bination of the frivolous with the horrible, of false locks and curling-irons with spouting arteries and reeking hatchets. But, though Barere succeeded in earning the honorable nicknames of the Witling of Terror, and the Anacreon of the guillotine, there was one place where it was long re- membered to his disadvantage that he had, for a time, talked the language of humanity and moderation. That place was the Jacobin Club. Even after he had borne the chief part in the massacre of the Girondists, in the murder of the Queen, in the destruction of Lyons, he durst not show him- self within that sacred precinct. At one meeting of the so- ciety a member complained that the committee to which the supreme diiection of affairs was intrusted, after all the changes which had been made, still contained one man who was not trustworthy. Robespierre, whose influence over the Jacobins was boundless, undertook the defence of his i olleague, owned there was some ground for w^hat had been said, but spoke highly of Barere's industry and aptitude for business. This seasonable interposition silenced the accuser ; but it was long before the neophyte could venture to appear at the club. At length a' masterpiece of wickedness, unique, we think, even among Barere's great achievements, obtained his full 126 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. pardon even from that rigid conclave. The insupportable tyranny of the Committee of Public Safety had at length brought the minds of men, and even of women, into a fierce and hard temper, which defied or welcomed death. The life which might be any morning taken away, in consequence of the whisper of a private enemy, seemed of little value. It was something to die after smiting one of the oppressors ; it was something to bequeath to the surviving tyrants a terror not inferior to that which they had themselves inspired. Human nature, hunted and worried to the utmost, now turned furiously to bay. Fouquier Tinville was afraid to walk the streets ; a pistol was snapped at Collot D'Herbois ; a young girl, animated apparently by the spirit of Charlotte Corday, attempted to obtain an interview with Robes- pierre. Suspicions arose ; she was searched, and two knives were found about her. She was questioned, and spoke of the Jacobin domination with resolute scorn and aversion. It is unnecessary to say that she was sent to the guillotine. Barere declared from the tribune that the cause of these attempts was evident. Pitt and his guineas had done the whole. The English Government had organized a vast system of murder, had armed the hand of Charlotte Corday, and had now, by similar means, attacked two of the most eminent friends of liberty in France. It is needless to say that these imputations were, not only false, but destitute of all show of truth. Nay, they w ere demonstrably absurd : for thi assassins to whom Barere referred rushed on certain death, a sure proof that they were not hirelings. The whole wealth of England would not have bribed any sane person to do w^hat Charlotte Corday did. But, w^hen we consider her as an enthusiast, her conduct is perfectly natural. Even those French writers who are childish enough to believe that the English Government contrived the infernal machine and strangled the Emperor Paul have fully acquitted Mr. Pitt of all share in the death of Marat and in the attempt on Robespierre. Yet on calumnies so futile as those w^hich we have mentioned did Berere ground a motion at which all Christendom stood aghast. He proposed a decree that no quarter should be given to any English or Hanoverian soldier."* His Carmagnole was worthy of the proposition *M. Hippolyte does his best to excuse this decree. His abuse of England is merely laughable. England has managed to deal with enemies of a very differ- ent sort from either himself or his hero. One disgraceful blunder, however, we think it right to notice. M. Hippolyte Carnot asserts that a motion similar to that of Bar6re was mado BARERE. 127 with which it concluded. "That one Englishman sliould be spared, that for the shaves of George, for tlie Imman machines of York, the vocabulary of our armies shouhl con- tain such a word as generosity, this is Aviiat the National Convention cannot endure. War to the death against every English soldier. If last year, at Dunkirk, quarter had been refused to them when they asked it on their knees, if our troops had exterminated them all, instead of suffering them to infest our fortresses by their presence, the English Govern- ment would not have renewed its attack on our frontiers this year. It is only the dead man who never comes back. W].at is this moral pestilence which has introduced into our armies false ideas of humanity ? That the English were to be treated with indulgence was the philanthropic notion of the Brissotines ; it was the patriotic practice of Dumourier. But humanity consists in exterminating our enemies. Ko mercy to the execrable Englishman. Such are the sentiments of the true Frenchman ; for he knows that he belongs to a nation revolutionary as nature, powerful as freedom, ardent as the saltpetre which she has just torn from the entrails of the earth. Soldiers of liberty, when victory places English- men at your mercy, strike ! None of them must return to the servile soil of Great Britain ; none must pollute the free soil of France." The Convention, thoroughly tamed and silenced, acqui- esced in Barere's motion without debate. And now at last the doors of the Jacobin Club were thrown open to the disciple who had surpassed his masters. He was admitted a member by acclamation, and was soon selected to preside. For a time he was not without hope that his decree would be carried into full effect. Intelligence arrived from the seat of war of a sharp contest between some French and English troops, in which the Republicans had the advantage, and in which no prisoners had been made. Such things happen occasionally in all wars. Barere, however, attributed the ferocity of this combat to his darling decree, and enter- tained the Convention with another Carmagnole. "The Republicans," he said, " saw a division in red uniforms at a distance. The red-coats are attacked with the in the English Parliament by the late Lord Fitzwilliam. This assertion is false. We defy M. Hippolyte Carnot to state the date and terms of the motion of which he speaks. AVe do not accuse him of intentional misrepresentation ; but we con- fidently accuse him of extreme ignorance and temerity. Our readers will be amused to learn on what authority he has ventured to publish such a fable. He quotes, not the Journals of the Lords, not the Parliamentary Debates, but a rant- ing message of the Executive Directory to the Five Hundred, a message, too, the whole meaning of which he has utterly misunderstood. 128 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. bayonet. Not one of them escapes the blows of the Repub- licans. All the red-coats have been killed. No mercy, no indulgence, has been shown towards the villains. Not an Englishman whom the Republicans could reach is now living. How many prisoners should you guess that we have made ? One single prisoner is the result of the day." And now tliis bad man's craving for blood had become insatiable. The more he quaffed, the more he thirsted. He had begun with the English ; but soon he came down with a proposition for new massacres. ''All the troops," he said, " of the coalesced tyrants in garrison at Conde, Valen- ciennes, Le Quesnoy, and Landrecies, ought to be put to the sword unless they surrender at discretion in twenty- four hours. The English, of course, will be admitted to no capitulation whatever. With the English we have no treaty but death. As to the rest, surrender at discretion in twenty- four hours, or death, these are our conditions. If the slaves resist, let them feel the edge of the sword." And then he waxed facetious. " On these terms the Republic is willing to give them a lesson in the art of war." At that jest, some hearers, worthy of such a speaker, set up a laugh. Then he became serious again. "Let the enemy perish," he cried; " I have already said it from this tribune. It is only the dead man who never comes back. Kings will not conspire against us in the grave. Armies will not fight against us when they are annihilated. Let our war with them be a war of exter- mination. What pity is due to slaves whom the Emperor leads t^ war under the cane ; whom the King of Prussia beats to the shambles with the flat of the sword ; and whom the Duke of York makes drunk with rum and gin ? " And at the rum and gin the Mountain and the galleries laughed again. If j^arere had been able to effect his purpose, it is difli- cult to estimate the extent of the calamity which he would have brought on the human race. No government, however averse to cruelty, could, in justice to its own subjects, have given quarter to enemies who gave none. Retaliation would have been not merely justifiable, but a sacred duty. It would have been necessary for Howe and Nelson to make every French sailor whom they took walk the plank. England has no peculiar reason to dread the introduction of such a system. On the contrary, the operation of Bardre's new law of war would have been more unfavorable to his. countrymen than to ours ; for we believe that, from the beginning to the end of the war there never was a time at BARE RE. 129 whicli the number of Frencli prisoners in England was not greater than the number of English prisoners in France ; and so, we apprehend, it will be in all wars while England retains her maritime superiority. Had the murderous decree of the Convention been in force from 1794 to 1815, we are satisfied that, for every Englishman slain by the French, at least three Frenchmen would have been put to the sword by the English. It is, therefore, not as Englishmen, but as members of the great society of mankind, that we speak with indignation and horror of the change which Barere attemj^ted to introduce. The mere slaughter would have been the smallest part of the evil. The butchering of a single unarmed man in cold blood, under an act of the legislature, would have produced more evil than the carnage of ten such fields as Albuera. Public law would have been subverted from the foundations; national enmities would have been inflamed to a degree of rage which happily it is not easy for us to conceive ; cordial peace would have been impossible. The moral character of the European n.'«tions would have been rapidly and deeply corrupted ; for in all countries those men whose calling is to put their lives in jeopardy for the defence of the public weal enjoy high consideration, and are considered as the best arbitrators on points of honor and manly bearing. With the standard of morality established in the military profession the general standard of morality must to a great extent sink or rise. It is, therefore, a fortunate circumstance that, during a long course of years, respect for the weak and clemency towards the vanquished have been considered as qualities not less essential to the accomplished soldier than personal courage. How long would this continue to be the case, if the slaying of prisoners were a part of the daily duty of the warrior ? What man of kind and generous nature would, under such a system, willingly bear arms ? Who, that was compelled to bear arms, would long continue kind and generous ? And is it not certain that, if barbarity toAvards the helpless became the characteristic of military men, the taint must rapidly spread to civil and to domestic life, and must show itself in all the dealings of the strong with the weak, of hus- bands with wives, of emjDloyers with workmen, of creditors with debtors ? But, thank God, Barere's decree was a mere dead letter. It was to be executed by men very different from those who, in the interior of France, were the instruments of the Vol. III.— 9 130 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. Committee of Public Safety, who prated at Jacobin Clubs, and ran to Fouquier Tinville with charges of incivisni against women whom they could not seduce, and bankers from whom they could not extort money. The warriors who, under Hoche, had guarded the walls of Dunkirk, and who, under Kleber, had made good the defence of the wood of Monceaux, shrank with horror from an office more de- grading than that of the hangman. " The Convention," said an officer to his men, " has sent orders that all the English prisoners shall be shot." " We will not shoot them," an- swered a stout-hearted sergeant. " Send them to the Con- vention. If the deputies take pleasure in killing a pris- oner, they may kill him themselves, and eat him too, like savages as they are." This was the sentiment of the whole army. Bonaparte, who thoroughly understood war, who at Jaffa and elsewhere gave ample proof that he was not unwilling to strain the laws of war to their utmost rigor, and whose hatred of England amounted to a folly, always spoke of Barere's decree with loathing, and boasted that the army had refused to obey the Convention. Such disobedience on the part of any other class of citizens would have been instantly punished by wholesale massacre ; but the Committee of Public Safety w^as aware that the discipline which had tamed the unwarlike popula- tion of the fields and cities might not answer in camps. To fling people by scores out of a boat, and, when they catch hold of it, to chop off their fingers with a hatchet, is un- doubtedly a very agreeable pastime for a thorough-bred Jacobin, when the sufferers are, as at Nantes, old confessors, young girls, or women with child. But such sport might prove a little dangerous if tried upon grim ranks of grenadiers, marked wdth the scars of Hondschoote, and singed by the smoke of Fleurus. Barere, however, found some consolation. If he could not succeed in murdering the English and the Hanoverians, he was amply indemnified by a new and vast slaughter of his own countrymen and countrywomen. If the defence which has been set up for the members of the Committee of Public Safety had been well founded, if it had been true that they governed with extreme severity only because the republic was in extreme peril, it is clear that the severity would have diminished as the peril diminished. But the fact is, that those cruelties for which the public danger is made a plea became more and more enormous as the danger BARE RE. 131 became less and less, and reached the full height when there was no longer any danger at all. In the autumn of 1793, there vv^as undoubtedly reason to apprehend that France might be unable to maintain the struggle against the European coali- tion. The enemy was triumphant on the frontiers. More than half the departments disowned the authority of the Convention. But at that time eight or ten necks a day were thought an ample allowance for the guillotine of the capital. In the summer of 1794, Bordeaux, Toulon, Caen, Lyons, Marseilles, had submitted to the ascendency of Paris. The French arms were victorious under the Pyrenees and on the Sambre. Brussels had fallen. Prussia had announced her intention of withdrawing from the contest. The Re- public, no longer content with defending her own indepen- dence, was beginning to meditate conquest beyond the Alps and the Rhine. She was now more formidable to her neigh- bors than ever Louis the Fourteenth had been. And now the Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris was not content with forty, fifty, sixty heads in a morning. It was just after a series of victories, which destroyed the whole force of the single argument which has been urged in defence of the system of terror, that the Committee of Public Safety re- solved to infuse into that system an energy hitherto un- known. It was proposed to reconstruct the Revolutionary Tribunal, and to collect in the space of two pages the whole revolutionary jurisprudence. Lists of twelve judges and fifty jurors were made out from among the fiercest Jacobins. The substantive law was simply this, that whatever the tribunal should think pernicious to the republic was a capital crime. The law of evidence was simply this, that what- ever satisfied the jurors was sufficient proof. The law of l^rocedure was of a piece with everything else. There was to be an advocate against the prisoner, and no advocate for him. It was expressly declared that, if the jurors were in any manner convinced of the guilt of the prisoner, they might convict him without hearing a single witness. The only punishment which the court could inflict was death. Robespierre proposed this decree. When he had read it, a murmur rose from the Convention. The fear which had long restrained the deputies from opposing the Com- mittee was overcome by a stronger fear. Every man felt the knife at his throat. "The decree," said one, "is of grave importance. I move that it be printed, and that the debate be adjourned. If such a measure were adopted, with- 132 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. out time for consideration, I would blow my brains out at once.'' The motion for adjournment was seconded. Then Barere sprang up. " It is impossible," he said, that there can be any difference of opinion among us as to a law like this, a law so favorable in all respects to patriots ; a law which insures the speedy punishment of conspirators. If there is to be an adjournment, I must insist that it shall not be for more than three days." The opposition was over- awed ; the decree was passed ; and, during the six weeks which followed, the havoc was such as had never been known before. And now the evil was beyond endurance. That timid majority which had for a time supported the Girondists, and which had, after their fall, contented itself with registering in silence the decrees of the Committee of Public Safety, at length drew courage from despair. Leaders of bold and firm character were not wanting, men such as Fouche and Tallien, who, having been long conspicuous among the chiefs of the Mountain, now found that their own lives, or lives still dearer to them than tlieir own, were in extreme peril. Nor could it be longer kept secret that there was a schism in the despotic committee. On one side was Robespierre, St. Just, and Couthon ; on the other, Collot and Billaud. Barere leaned towards these last, but only leaned towards them. As was ever his fashion when a great crisis was at hand, he fawned alternately on both parties, struck alter- nately at both, and held himself in readiness to chant the praises or to sign the death-warrant of either. In any event his Carmagnole was ready. The tree of liberty, the blood of traitors, the dagger of Brutus, the guineas of Perfidious Albion, would do equally well for Billaud and Robespierre. The first attack which was made on Robespierre was in- direct. An old woman named Catherine Theot, half maniac, lialf impostor, was protected by him, and exercised a strange influence over his mind ; for he was naturally prone to superstition, and, having abjured the faith in which he had been brought up, was looking about for something to believe. Barere drew up a report against Catherine, which contained many facetious conceits, and ended, as might be expected, with a motion for sending her and some other wretched creatures of both sexes to the Revolutionary Tribunal, or, m other words, to death. This report, hoAvever, he did not dare to read to the Convention himself. Another member, less timid, was induced to father the cruel buffoonery ; and BARE RE. 133 the real author enjoyed in security the dismay and vexation of Robespierre. Barere now thought that he had done enough on one side, and that it was time to make his peace with the other. On the seventh of Thermidor, he pronounced in the Conven- tion a panegyric on Robespierre. " That representative of the people," he said, " enjoys a reputation for patriotism, earned by live years of exertion, and by unalterable fidelity to the principles of independence and liberty." On the eighth of Thermidor, it became clear that a decisive struggle was at hand. Robespierre struck the first blow. He mounted the tribune and uttered a long invective on his opponents. It was moved that his discourse should be printed ; and Barere spoke for the printing. The sense of the Convention soon appeared to be the other way ; and Barere apologized for his former speech, and implored his colleagues to abstain from disputes which could be aggreeable only to Pitt and York. On the next day, the ever-memorable ninth of Thermidor, came the real tug of w^ar. Tallien, bravely tak- ing his life in his hand, led the onset. Billaud followed ; and then all that infinite hatred which had long been kept down by terror burst forth and swept every barrier before it. When at length the voice of Robespierre, drowned by the president's bell, and by shouts of "Down with the tyrant! " had died away in hoarse gasping, Barere rose. He began with timid and doubtful phrases, watched the effect of every word he uttered, and, when the feeling of the Assembly had been unequivocally manifested, declared against Robespierre. But it was not till the people out of doors, and especially the gunners of Paris, had espoused the cause of the Conven- tion that Barere felt quite at ease. Then he sprang to the tribune, poured forth a Carmagnole about Pisistratus and Catiline, and concluded by moving that the heads of Robes- pierre and Robespierre's accomplices should be cut off with- out a trial. The motion was carried. On the following morning the vanquished members of the Committee of Pub- lic Safety and their principal adherents suffered death. It was exactly one year since Barere had commenced his career of slaughter by moving the proscription of his old allies the Girondists. We greatly doubt whether any human being has ever succeeded in packing more wickedness into the space of three hundred and sixty-five days. The ninth of Thermidor is one of the great epochs in the history of Europe. It is true that the three members of the 134 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. Committee of Public Safety who triumphed were by no means better men than the three who fell. Indeed, we are inclined to think that of these six statesmen the least bad was Kobespierre and Saint Just, whose cruelty was the effect of sincere fanaticism operating on narrow understandings and acrimonious tempers. The worst of the six was, beyond all doubt, Barere, who had no faith in any part of the system which he upheld by persecution ; who, while he sent his fellow-creatures to death for being the third cousins of royalists, had not in tlie least made up his mind that a re- public was better than a monarchy; who, while he slew his old friends for federalism, was himself far more a federalist than any of them ; who had become a murderer merely for his safety, and who continued to be a murderer merely for his pleasure. The tendency of the vulgar is to embody everything. Some individual is selected, and often selected very inju- diciously, as the representative of every great movement of the public mind, of every great revolution in human affairs ; and on this individual are concentrated all the love and all the hatred, all the admiration and all the contempt which he ought rightfully to share with a whole party, a whole sect, a whole nation, a whole generation. Perhaps no human being has suffered so much from this propensity of the multitude as Robespierre. He is regarded, not merely as what he was, an envious, malevolent zealot, but as the incarnation of Terror, as Jacobinism personified. The truth is, that it was not by him that the system of terror was car- ried to the last extreme. The most horrible days in the his- tory of the revolutionary tribunal of Paris were those which immediately preceded the ninth of Thermidor. Robespierre had then ceased to attend the meetings of the sovereign Committee ; and the direction of affairs was really in the hands of Billaud, of Collot, and of Barere. It had never occurred to those three tyrants that, in overthrowing Robespierre, they were overthrowing that system of Terror to which they were more attached than he had ever been. Their object was to go on slaying even more mercilessly than before. But they had misunderstood the nature of the great crisis which had at last arrived. The yoke of the Committee was broken for ever. The Conven- tion had regained its liberty, had tried its strength, had vanquished and punished its enemies. A great reaction had commenced. Twenty-four hours after Robespierre had BARERE. 135 ceased to live, it was moved and carried, amidst Ibud bursts of applause, tliat the sitting of the Revolutionary Tribunal should be suspended. Billaud was not at that moment present. He entered the hall soon after, learned with indig- nation what had passed, and moved that the vote should be rescinded. But loud cries of "No, no!" rose from those benches which had lately paid mute obedience to his com- mands. Barcre came forward on the same day, and adjured the Convention not to relax the system of terror. " Beware, above all things," he cried, " of that fatal moderation which talks of peace and of clemency. Let aristocracy know, tliat here she will find only enemies sternly bent on vengeance, and judges who have no pity." But the day of the Car- magnoles was over : the restraint of fear had been relaxed ; and the hatred with which the nation regarded the Jacobin dominion broke forth with ungovernable violence. Not more strongly did the tide oi public opinion run against the old monarchy and aristocracy, at the time of the taking of the Bastile, than it now ran against the tyranny of the Moun- tain. From every dungeon the prisoners came forth, as they had gone in, by hundreds. The decree which forbade the soldiers of the republic to give quarter to the English was repealed by an unanimous vote, amidst loud acclama- tions ; nor, passed as it was, disobeyed as it was, and rescind- ed as it was, can it be with justice considered as a blemish on the fame of the French nation. The Jacobin Club was refractory. It was suppressed without resistance. The sur- viving Girondist deputies, w^ho had concealed themselves from the vengeance of their enemies in caverns and garrets, were readmitted to their seats in the Convention. No day passed without some signal reparation of injustice ; no street in Paris was without some trace of the recent change. In the theatre, the bust of Marat was pulled down from its pedes- tal and broken in pieces, amidst the applause of the audi- ence His carcass was ejected from the Pantheon. The celebrated picture of his death, which had hung in the hall of the Convention, was removed. The savage inscriptions with which the walls of the city had been covered disap- peared ; and, in place of death and terror, humanity, the watchword of the new rulers, was everywhere to be seen. In the mean time, tlie gay spirit of France, recently subdued by oppression, and now elated by the joy of a great deliver- ance, wantoned in a thousand forms. Art, taste, luxury, I'cvived. Female beauty regained its empire — an empire 136 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. strengtheMed by tlie remembrance of all the tender and all the sublime virtues which women, delicately bred and re- puted frivolous, had displayed during the evil days. Re- fined manners, chivalrous sentiments, followed in the train of love. The dawn of the Arctic summer day after the Arctic winter night, the great unsealing of the waters, the awakening of animal and vegetable life, the sudden soften* ing of the air, the sudden blooming of the flowers, the sud- den bursting of old forests into verdure, is but a feeble typo of that happiest and most genial of revolutions, the revolu- tion of the ninth of Thermidor. But, in the midst of the revival of all kind and generous sentiments, there was one portion of the community against which mercy itself seemed to cry out for vengeance. The chiefs of the late government and their tools were now never named but as the men of blood, the drinkers of blood, the cannibals. In some parts of i^'rance, where the crea- tures of the Mountain had acted with peculiar barbarity, the populace took the law into its own hands and meted out justice to the Jacobins with the true Jacobin measure ; but at Paris the punishments were inflicted with order and decency, and were few when compared with the number, and lenient when compared with the enormity, of the crimes. Soon after the ninth of Thermidor, two of the vilest of mankind, Fouquier Tinville, whom Barere had placed at the Revolutionary Tribunal, and Lebon, whom Barere had de- fended in the Convention, were placed under arrest. A third miscreant soon shared their fate. Carrier, the tyrant of Nantes. The trials of these men brought to light horrors surpassing anything that Suetonius and Lampridius have related of the worst Caesars. But it was impossible to pun- ish subordinate' agents, who, bad as they were, had only acted in accordance with the spirit of the government which they served, and, at the same time, to grant impunity to the heads of the wicked administration. A cry was raised, both within and Avithout the Convention, for justice on Collot, Billaud, and Barere. Collot and Billaud, wdth all their vices, appear to have been men of resolute natures. They made no submission ; but opposed to the hatred of mankind, at first a fierce re- sistance, and afterwards a dogged and sullen endurance. Bai ere, on the other hand, as soon as he began to under- stand the real nature of the revolution of Thermidor, at- tempted to abandon the Mountain, and to obtain admission BARERE. 137 among his old friends of the moderate party. He declared everywhere that he had never been in favor of severe meas- ures ; that he was a Girondist ; that he had always con- demned and lamented the manner in which the Brissotine deputies had been treated. He now preached mercy from that tribunal from which he had recently preached extermi- nation. " The time, " he said, " has come at which our clei lency may be indulged without danger. We may now safely consider temporary imprisonment as an adequate punishment for political misdemeanors." It was only a fortnight since, from the same place, he had declaimed against the moderation which dared even to talk of clem- ency ; it was only a fortnight since he had ceased to send men and w^omen to the guillotine of Paris, at the rate of three hundred a week. He now wished to make his peace with the moderate party at the expense of the Terrorists, as he had, a year before made his peace with the Terrorists, at the expense of the moderate party. But he was disap- pointed. Pie had left himself no retreat. His face, his voice, his rants, his jokes, had become hateful to the Con- vention. When he spoke he was i>4terrupted by murmurs. Bitter reflections w^ere daily cast on his cowardice and per- fidy. On one occasion Carnot rose to give an account of a victory, and so far forgot the gravity of his character as to indulge in the sort of oratory which Barere had affected on similar occasions. He was interrupted by cries of " IS^o more Carmagnoles ! " " 'No more of Barere's puns ! " At length, five months after the revolution of Thermidor, the Convention resolved that a committee of twenty-one members should be appointed to examine into the conduct of Billaud, Collot, and Barere. In some weeks the report was made. From that report we learn that a paper had been discovered, signed by Barere, and containing a prop- osition for adding the last improvement to the system of terror. France w^as to be divided into circuits ; itinerant revolutionary tribunals, composed of trusty Jacobins, were to move from department to department ; and the guillotine was to travel in their train. Barere, in his defence, insisted that no speech or motion which he had made in the Convention could, without a violation of the freedom of debate, be treated as a crime. He was asked how he could resort to such a mode of de- fence, after putting to death so many deputies on account of opinions expressed in the Convention. He had nothing to 138 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. say, but that it was mncli to be regretted that the sound principle liad ever been violated. He arrogated to himself a large share of the merit of the revolution in Thermidor. The men who had risked their lives to effect that revolution, and who kneAv that, if they had failed, Barere would, in all probability, have moved tlie decree for beheading them without trial, and have drawn up a proclamation announcing their guilt and their punish- ment to all France, were by no means disposed to acquiesce in his claims. He was reminded that, only forty-eight hours before the decisive conflict, he had, in the tribune, been pro- fuse of adulation to Robespierre. His answer to this re- proach is worthy of himself. " It was necessary," he said, " to dissemble. It was necessary to flatter Robespierre's vanity, and, by panegyric, to impel him to the attack. This was the motive which induced me to load him with those praises of wliich you complain. Who ever blamed Brutus for dissembling with Tarquin ?" The accused triumvirs had only one chance of escaping punishment. There was severe distress at that moment among the M^orking people of the capital. This distress the Jacobins attributed to the reaction of Thermidor, to the lenity with which the aristocrats were now treated, and to the measures which had been adopted against the chiefs of the late administration. Nothing is too absurb to be be- lieved by a populace which has not breakfasted, and which does not know how it is to dine. The rabble of the Fau- bourg St. Antoine rose, menaced the deputies, and de- manded with loud cries the liberation of the persecuted patriots. But tlie Convention was no longer such as it had been, when sii^iilar means were employed too successful against the Girondists. Its spirit was roused. Its strength had been proved. Military means were at its command. The tumult was suppressed : and it was decreed tliat same evening that Collot, Billaud, and Barere should instantly be removed to a distant place of confinement. The next day the order of the Convention was executed The account which Barere has given of his journey is the most interesting and the most trustworthy part of these Memoirs. There is no witness so infamous that a court of justice will not take his word against himself; and even Barere maybe believed when he tells us how much he was hated and despised. The carriage in which he was to travel passed, sur- BARERE. 139 rounded by armed men, along the street of St. Ilonore. A crowd soon gatliered round it and increased every moment. On the long flight of steps before the church of St. Roch stood rows of eager spectators. It Avas with difliculty that the coach could make its way througli those wdio hung upon it, hooting, cursing, and striving to burst tlie doors. Barere thought his life in danger, and was conducted at his own request to a public oftice, w^here he hoped that he might find shelter till the crowd should disperse. In the mean time, another discussion on his fate took place in the Convention. It was proposed to deal with him as he had dealt with better men, to put him out of the pale of the law, and to deliver him at once without any trial to the headsman. But the humanity which, since the ninth of Thermidor, had gen- erally directed the public counsels, restrained the deputies from taking this course. It was now night; and the streets gradually became quiet. The clock struck twelve ; and Barere, under a strong guard, again set forth on his journey. He was conducted over the river to the place where the Orleans road branches off from the southern boulevard. Two travelling carriages stood there. In one of them was Billaud, attended by two officers ; in the otlier two more oflacers were waiting to re- ceive Barere. Collot was already on the road. At Orleans, a city which had suffered cruelly from the Jacobin tyranny, the three deputies were surrounded by a mob bent on tearing tliem to pieces. All the national guards of the neighborhood were assembled ; and this force was not greater than the emei-gency required ; for the multitude pursued the carriages far on the road to Blois. At Amboise the prisoners learned that Tours was ready to receive them. The stately bridge was occupied by a throng of people, who swore that the men under whose rule the Loire had been choked W'ith corpses should have full personal experience of the nature of a noyade. In con- seqaonce of this news, the ofticers who had charge of the crimin lis made such arrangements that the carriages reached Tours at tw^o in the morning, and drove straight to the post- house. Fresh horses were instantly ordered ; and the travel- lers started again at full gallop. They had in truth not a moment to lose ; for the alarm had been given ; lights were seen in motion ; and the yells of a great multitude, disap- pointed of its revenge, mingled with the sound of the de- parting wheels. 140 MACAULAY'S miscellaneous WIITTINCJ3. At Poitiers there was another narrow escape. As the prisoners quitted the post-house, they saw the whole pop- ulation pouring in fury down the steep declivity on which the city is built. They passed near Niort, but could not venture to enter it. The inhabitants came forth with threatening aspect, and vehemently cried to the postilions to stop ; but the postilions urged the horses to full speed, and soon left the town behind. Through such dangers the men of blood were brought in safety to Rochelle. Oleron was the place of their destination, a dreary island beaten by the raging waves of the Bay of Biscay. The prisoners were confined in the castle ; each had a single chamber, at the door of which a guard was placed ; and each w^as allowed the ration of a single soldier. They were not allowed to communicate either with the garrison or with the population of the island ; and soon after their arrival they were denied the indulgence of walking on the ramparts. The only place where they were suffered to take exercise was the esplanade where the troops were drilled. They had not been long in this situation when news came that the Jacobins of Paris had made a last attempt to regain ascendency in the state, that the hall of the Conven- tion had been forced by a furious crowd, that one of the deputies had been murdered and his head fixed on a pike, that the life of the President had been for a time in immi- nent danger, and that some members of the legislature had not been ashamed to join the rioters. But troops had ar- rived in time to prevent a massacre. The insurgents had been put to flight ; the inhabitants of the disaffected quar- ters of the capital had been disarmed ; the guilty deputies had suffered the just punishment of their treason ; and the power of the Mountain was broken forever. These events strengthened the aversion with which the system of Terror and the authors of that system were regarded. One mem- ber of the Convention had moved that the three prisonci^^ of Oleron should be put to death ; another, that they should be brought back to Paris, and tried by a council of w^ar. These propositions were rejected. But something was con- ceded to the party which called for severity. A vessel which had been fitted out with great expedition at Rochefort touched at Oleron ; and it was announced to Collot and Billaud that they must instantly go on board. They w^ere forthwith conveyed to Guiana, where Collot soon drank him- self to death with brandy. Billaud lived many years, shun- BARE EE. 141 nirig his fellow-creatures and shunned by them ; and diverted his lonely hours by teaching parrots to talk. Why a dis- tinction was made between Barere and his companions in guilt, neither he nor any other writer, as far as we know, haa explained. It does not appear that the distinction was meant to be at all in his favor ; for orders soon arrived from Paris, that he should be brought to trial for his crimes be- fore the criminal court of the department of the Upper Charente. He was accordingly brought back to the con* tinent, and confined during some months at Saintes, in an old convent which had lately been turned into a jail. While he lingered here the reaction which had followed the great crisis of Thermidor met with a temporary check. The friends of the house of Bourbon presuming on the in- dulgence with w^hich they had been treated after the fall of Robespierre, not only ventured to avow their opinions with little disguise, but at length took arms against the Conven- tion, and were not put down till much blood had been shed in the streets of Paris. The vigilance of the public authori- ties was therefore now directed chiefly against the Royal- ists ; and the rigor with which the Jacobins had lately been treated was somewhat relaxed. The Convention, in- deed, again resolved that Barere should be sent to Guiana. But this decree was not carried into effect. The prisoner, probably with the connivance of some powerful persons, made his escape from Saintes and fled to Bordeaux, where he remained in concealment during some years. There seems to have been a kind of understanding between him and the government, that, as long as he hid himself, he should not be found, but that, if he obtruded himself on the public eye, he must take the consequences of his rash- ness. While the constitution of 1795, with its Executive Direc- t(^ry, its Council of Elders, and its Council of Five Hundred was in operation, he continued to live under the ban of the law. It was in vain that he solicited, even at moments when the politics of the Mountain seemed to be again in the ascendant, a remission of the sentence pronounced by the Convention. Even his fellow-regicides, even the authors of the slaugh- ter of Yendemiaire and of the arrests of Fructidor, were ashamed of him. About eighteen months after his escape from prison, his name was again brought before the world. In his own province he still retained some of his early popularity. He 142 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. had, indeed, never been in that province since the downfall of the monarchy. The mountaineers of Gascony were far removed from the seat of government, and were but imperfectly informed of what passed there. They knew that their countryman had played an important part, and that he had on some occasions promoted their local interests ; and they stood by him in his adversity and in his disgrace with a constancy which presents a singular contrast to his own abject fickleness. All France was amazed to learn that the department of the Upper Pyrenees had chosen the pro- scribed tyrant a member of the Council of Five Hundred. The council, which, like our House of Commons, was the judge of the election of its own members, refused to admit him. When his name was read from the roll, a cry of in- dignation rose from the benches. "Which of you," ex- claimed one of the members, "would sit by the side of such a monster ? " " Not I, not I ! " answered a crowd of voices. One deputy declared that he would vacate his seat if the hall were polluted by the presence of such a wretch. The election was declared null on the ground that the person elected was a criminal skulking from justice ; and many severe reflections were thrown on the lenity which suffered him to be still at large. He tried to make his peace with the Directory, by wri- ting a bulky libel on England, entitled. The Liberty of the Seas. He seems to have confidently expected that this work would produce a great effect. He printed three thou- sand copies, and, in order to defray the expense of publica- tion, sold one of his farms for the sum of ten thousand francs. The book came out ; but nobody bought it, in consequence, if Barere is to be believed, of the villany of Mr. Pitt, who bribed the Directory to order the Reviewers not to notice so formidable an attack on the maritime greatness of jjer fidious Albion. Barere had been about three years at Bordeaux when he received intelligence that the mob of the town designed him the honor of a visit on the ninth of Thermidor, and would probably administer to him what he had, in his defence of his friend Lebon, described as substantial justice under forms a little harsh. It was necessary for him to disguise himself in clothes such as were worn by the carpenters of the dock. In this garb, with a bundle of wood shavings under his arm, he made his escape into the vineyards which surround the city, lurked during some days in a peasant's hut, and, when BARERE. 143 the dreaded anniversary was over, stole back into the city. A few months later he was again in danger. He now thought that he should be nowhere so safe as in the neigh- borhood of Paris. He quitted Bordeaux, hastened unde- tected through those towns where four years before his life had been in extreme danger, passed through the capital in the morning twilight, when none were in the streets except shop-boys taking down the shutters, and arrived safe at the pleasant village of St. Ouen on the Seine. Here he remained in seclusion during some months. In the mean time Bona- parte returned from Egypt, placed himself at the head of a coalition of discontented parties, covered his designs with the authority of the Elders, drove the Five Hundred out of their hall at the point of the bayonet, and became absolute monarch of France under the name of First Consul. Barere assures us that these events almost broke his heart ; that he could not bear to see France again subject to a master; and that, if the representatives had been worthy of that honorable name, they would have arrested the am- bitious general who insulted them. These feelings, how- ever, did not prevent him from soliciting the protection of the new government, and from sending to the First Consul a handsome copy of the essay on The Liberty of the Seas. The policy of Bonaparte was to cover all the past with a general oblivion. He belonged half to the Revolution and half to the reaction. He was an upstart and a sover- eign ; and had therefore something in common with the Jacobin, and something in common with the Royalist. All, whether Jacobins or Royalists, who were disposed to sup- port his government, were readily received — all, whether Jacobins or Royalists, who showed hostility to his govern- ment, were put down and punished. Men who had borne a part in the worst crimes in the Reign of Terror, and men w ho had fought in the army of Conde, were to be found close together both in his antechambers and in his dungeons. He decorated Fr uche and Maury with the same cross. He sent Arena and Georges Cadoudal to the same scaffold. From a government acting on such principles Barere easily obtained the indulgence which the Directory had constantly refused to grant. The sentence passed by the Convention was remitted ; and he was allowed to reside in Paris. His pardon, it is true, was not granted in the most honorable form; and he remained, during some time, under the special supervision of the police. He hastened, however, to pay 144 macaulay's miscella:n^eous writings. his court at the Luxemburg palace, where Bonaparte then resided, and was honored with a few dry and careless words by tlie master of France. Here begins a new chapter of Barere's history. What passed between him and the Consular government cannot, of course, be so accurately known to us as the speeches and reports which he made in the Convention. It is, however, not difficult, from notorious facts, and from the admissions scattered over these lying Memoirs, to form a tolerably ac- curate notion of what took place. Bonaparte wanted to buy Barere : Barere wanted to sell himself to Bonaparte. The only question was one of price; and there was an im- mense interval between what was offered and what was de- manded. Bonaparte, whose vehemence of will, fixedness of pur- pose, and reliance on his own genius were not only great but extravagant, looked with scorn on the most effeminate and dependent of human minds. He was quite capable of per- petrating crimes under the influence either of ambition or of revenge : but he had no touch of that accursed monomania, that craving for blood and tears, which raged in some of the Jacobin chiefs. To proscribe the Terrorists would have been wholly inconsistent with his policy ; but, of all the classes of men whom his comprehensive system included, he liked them the least ; and Barere was the worst of them. This wretch had been branded with infamy, first by the Con- vention, and then by the Council of Five Hundred. The in- habitants of four or five great cities had attempted to tear him limb from limbi Nor were his vices redeemed by eminent talents for administration or legislation. It would be unwise to place in any honorable or important post a man so wicked, so odious, and so* little qualified to discharge high political duties. At the same time, there was a way in winch it seemed likely that he might be of use to the gov- ernment. The First Consul, as he afterwards acknowl- edged, greatly overrated Barere's powers as a writer. The effect which the Reports of the Committee of Public Safety had produced by the camp fi. res of the Republican armies had been great. Napoleon himself, when a young soldier, had been delighted by those compositions, wdiich had much in common with the rhapsodies of his favorite poet, Mac- pherson. The taste, indeed, of the great warrior and states- man was never very pure. His bulletins, his general orders, and his proclamations, are sometimes, it is true, BARERE. 145 masterpieces in their kind ; but we too often detect, even in his best writing, traces of Fingal, and of the Carmagnoles. It is not strange, therefore, that he should have been desirous to secure the aid of Barere's pen. Nor was this the only kind of assistance which the old member of the Com- mittee of Public Safety might render to the Consular gov- ernment. He was likely to find admission into the gloomy dens in which those Jacobins whose" constancy was to be overcome by no reverse, or whose crimes admitted of no expiation, hid themselves from the curses of mankind. No enterprise was too bold or too atrocious for minds crazed by fanaticism, and familiar with misery and death. The gov- ernment was anxious to have information of what passed in their secret councils ; and no man was better qualified to furnish such information than Barere. For these reasons the First Consul was disposed to em- ploy Barere as a writer and as a spy. But Barere — was it possible that he would submit to such a degradation ? Bad as he was, he had played a great part. He had belonged to that class of criminals who filled the world with the renown of their crimes ; he had been one of a cabinet which had ruled France with absolute power, and made war on all Eu- rope with signal success. Nay, he had been, though not the most powerful, yet, with the single exception of Robes- pierre, the most conspicuous member of that cabinet. His name had been a household word at Moscow and at Phil- adelphia, at Edinburgh and at Cadiz. The blood of the queen of France, the blood of the greatest orators and philosophers of France was on his hands. He had spoken ; and it had been decreed that the plough should pass over the great city of Lyons. He had spoken again ; and it had been decreed that the streets of Toulon should be razed to the ground. When depravity is placed so high as his,- the hatred which it inspires is mingled with awe. His place was with great tyrants, with Critias and Sylla. with Ec- celino and Borgia ; not with hirelings, scribblers, and police runners. ** Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast ; But shall the dignity of vice be lost ? So sang Pope ; and so felt Barere. When it was proposed to him to publish a journal in defence of the Consular gov- ernment, rage and shame inspired him for the first and last time with something like courage. He had filled as large a Vol. hi.— 10 146 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. space in the eyes of mankind as Mr. Pitt or General Wash- ington ; and he was coolly invited,.to descend at once to the level of Mr. Lewis Goldsmith. He saw, too, with agonies of envy, that a wide distinction was made between himself and the other statesmen of the Revolution who were sum- moned to the aid of the government. Those statesmen were required, indeed, to make large sacrifices of principle ; but they were not called on to sacrifice what, in the opinion of the vulgar, constitutes personal dignity. They were made tribunes and legislators, ambassadors and counsellors of state, ministers, senators, and consuls. They might reason- ably expect to rise with the rising fortunes of their master; and, in truth, many of them were destined to wear the badge of his Legion of Honor and of his order of the Iron Crown ; to be arch-chancellors and arch-treasurers, counts, dukes, and princes. Barere, only six years before, had been far more powerful, far more widely renowned, than any of them ; and now, while they were thought worthy to repi-e- sent the majesty of France at foreign courts, while they received crowds of suitors in gilded ante-chambers, he was to pass his life in measuring paragraphs, and scolding cor- rectors of the press. It was too much. Those lips which had never before been able to fashion themselves to a No, now murmured expostulation and refusal. " I could not " — these are his own words — " abase myself to such a point as to serve the First Consul merely in the capacity of a journal- ist, while so many insignificant, low, and servile people, such as the Treilhards, the Roederers, the Lebruns, the Marets, and others whom it is superfluous to name, held the first place in this government of upstarts." This outbreak of spirit was of short duration. Napoleon was inexorable. It is said indeed that he was, for a mo- ment, half inclined to admit Barere into the Council of State ; but the members of that body remonstrated in the strongest terms, and declared that such a nomination would be a disgrace to them all. This plan was therefore relin- quished. Thenceforth Barere's only chance of obtaining the patronage of the government was to subdue his pride, to forget that there had been a time when, with three words, he might have had the heads of the three consuls, and to betake himself, humbly and industriously, to the task of composing lampoons on England and panegyrics on Bona- parte. It has been often asserted, we know not on what grounds, BARERE. 147 that Barere was employed by the government not only as a writer, but as a censor of the writings of other men This imputation he vehemently denies in his Memoirs; but our readers will probably agree with us in thinking that his denial leaves the question exactly where it was. Thus much is certain, that he was not restrained from exercising the office of censor by any scruple of conscience or honor ; for he did accept an office, compared with which that of censor, odious as it is, may be called an august and beneficent magistracy. He began to have what are delicately called relations with the police. We are not sure that we have formed, or that we can convey an exact notion of the nature of Barere's new calling. It is a calling unknown in our country. It has indeed often happened in England that a plot has been revealed to the government by one of the conspirators. The informer has sometimes been directed to carry it fair towards his accomplices, and to let the evil de- sign come to full maturity. As soon as his work is done, he is generally snatched from the public gaze, and sent to some obscure village or to some remote colony. The use of spies, even to this extent, is in the highest degree unpopular in England ; but a political spy by profession is a creature from which our island is as free as it is from wolves. In France the race is Avell know^n, and was never more numer- ous, more greedy, more cunning, or more savage, than under the government of Bonaparte. Our idea of a gentleman in relations with the Consular and Imperial police may perhaps be incorrect. Such as it is, we will try to convey it to our readers. We image to ourselves a w^ell-dressed person, with a soft voice and affable manners. His opinions are those of the society in which he finds himself, but a little stronger. He often complains, in the language of honest indignation, that what passes in pri- vate conversation finds its way strangely to the government, and cautions his associates to take care what they say when they are not sure of their company. As for himself, he ow^ns that he is indiscreet. He can never refrain from speaking his mind ; and that is the reason that he is not prefect of a department. In a gallery of the Palais Royal he overhears two friends talking earnestly about the king and the Count of Artois. He follow^s them into a coffee-house, sits at the table next to them, calls for his half-dish, and his small glass of cognac, takes up a journal, and seems occupied with the news. His 148 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. neiglibors go on talking without restraint, and in the style of persons warmly attached to the exiled family. They depart ; and he follows them half round the boulevards till he fairly tracks them to their apartments, and learns their names irom the porters. From that day every letter ad- dressed to either of them is sent from the post-office to the police, and opened. Their correspondents become known to the government, and are carefully watched. Six or eight honest families, in different parts of France, find themselves^ at once imder the frown of power without being able to guess what offence they have given. One person is dis- missed from a public office; another learns with dismay that his promising son has been turned out of the Polytechnic school. Next, the indefatigable servant of the state falls in with an old republican, who has not changed with the times, who regrets the red cap and the tree of liberty, who has not un- learned the Thee and Thou, and who still subscribes his letters with "Health and Fraternity." Into the ears of this sturdy politician our friend pours forth a long series of complaints. What evil times ! What a change since the days wlien the Mountain governed France ! What is the First Consul but a king under a new name ? What is this Legion of Honor but a new aristocracy? The old super- stition is reviving with the old tyranny. There is a treaty with the Pope, and a provision for the clergy. Emigrant nobles are returning in crowds, and are better received at the Tuileries than the men of the 10th of August. This can not last. What is life without liberty ? What terrors has death to the true patriot ? The old Jacobin catches fire, bestows and receives the fraternal hug, and hints that there will soon be great news, and that the breed of Harmodius and Brutus is not quite extinct. The next day he is close prisoaer, and all his papers are in the hands of the govern- ment. To this vocation, a vocation compared with which the life of a beggar, of a pickpocket, of a pimp, is honorable, did Barere now descend. It was his constant practice, as ( ften as he enrolled himself in a new party, to pay his foot- ing with the heads of old friends. He was at first a Royalist, and he made atonement by watering the tree of liberty with the blood of Louis. He was then a Girondist; and made atonement by murdering Vergniaud and Gensonne. He fawnc'-^ on Robespierre up to the eighth of Thermidor ; and BAKERE. 149 he made atonement by moving, on the ninth, that Robes- pierre should be beheaded without a trial, lie was now enlisted in the service of the new monarchy ; and he pro- ceeded to atone for his republican heresies by sending re- publican throats to the guillotine. Among his most intimate associates was a Gascon named Demerville, who had been employed in an office of high trust under the Committee of Public Safety. This man was fanatically attached to the Jacobin system of politics, and, in conjunction with other enthusiasts of the same class, formed a design against the First Consul. A hint of this design escaped him in conversation with Barere. Barere carried the intelligence to Lannes, who commanded the Consular Guards. Demerville was arrested, tried, and beheaded ; and among the witnesses who appeared against him was his friend Barere. The account which Barere has given of these transactions is studiously confused and grossly dishonest. We think, however, that we can discern, through much falsehood and much artful obscurity, some truths which he labors to con- ceal. It is clear to us that the government suspected him of what the Italians call a double treason. It was natural that such a suspicion should attach to him. He had, in times not very remote, zealously preached the Jacobin doc- trine, that he who smites a tyrant deserves higher praise than he who saves a citizen. Was it possible that the mem- ber of the Committee on Public Safety, the king-killer, the queen-killer, could in earnest mean to deliver his old con- federates, his bosom friends, to the executioner, solely because they had planned an act which, if there were any truth in his own Carmagnoles, was in the highest degree virtuous and notorious ? Was it not more probable that he was really concerned in the plot, and that the information which he gave was merely intended to lull or to mislead the police ? Accordingly, spies were set on the spy. He was ordered to quit Paris, and not to come within twenty leagues till he received further orders. Nay, he ran no small risk of being sent, with some of his old friends, to Madagascar. He made his peace, however, with the government so far, that he was not only permitted, during some years, to live unmolested, but was employed in the lowest sort of political drudgery. In the summer of 1803, whijci he was preparing to visit the south of France, he received a letter which de- serves to be inserted. It was from Duroc, who is well-known 150 maoaulay's miscellaneous writings. to have enjoj^ed a large share of Napoleon's confidence and favor. Tlie First Consul having been informed that Citizen Barere is about to set out for the country, desires that he will stay in Paris. " Citizen Barere will every Aveek draw up a report on the state of public opinion on the proceedings of the government, and generally on everything which, in his judgment, it will be interesting to the First Consul to learn. " He may write with perfect freedom. " He will deliver his reports under seal - into General Duroc's own hand, and General Duroc will deliver them to the First Consul. But it is absolutely necessary that nobody should suspect that this species of communication takes place; and, should any such suspicion get abroad, the First Consul will cease to receive the reports of Citizen Barere. " It will also be proper that Citizen Barere should frequently insert in the journals articles tending to animate the public mind, iDarticularly against the English." During some years Barere continued to discharge the functions assigned to him by his master. Secret reports, filled with the talk of coffee-houses, were carried by him every week to the Tuileries. His friends assure us that he took especial pains to do all the harm in his power to the returned emigrants. It was not his fault if ISTapoleon was not apprized of every murmur and every sarcasm which old marquesses who had lost their estates, and old clergymen who had lost their benefices, uttered against the imperial system. M. Hippolyte Carnot, we grieve to say, is so much blinded by party spirit that he seems to reckon this dirty wickedness among his hero's titles to public esteem. Barere was, at the same time, an indefatigable journal- ist and pamphleteer. He set up a paper directed against England, and called tlie Memorial Antibritannique, He planned a work entitled, " France made great and illustrious by Napoleon." When the Imperial government was estab- lished, the old regicide made himself conspicuous even among the crowd of flatterers by the peculiar fulsomeness of Jiis adulation. He translated into French a contemptible volume of Italian verses, entitled " The Poetic Crown, com- posed on the glorious accession of Napoleon the First, by the Shepherds of Arcadia." He commenced a new series of Carmagnoles very different from those which had charmed the Mountain. The title of Emperor of the French, he said, was mean ; Napoleon ought to be Emperor of Europe. King of Italy was too humble an ai3pellation ; Napoleon's style ought to be King of Kings. But Barere labored to small purpose in both his voca^ tions. Neither as a writer nor as a spy was he of much use. He complains bitterly that his paper did not sell. While BARERE. 151 the Journal des Dehats^ then flourishing under the able management of Geoffroy, had a circuhition of at least twenty thousand copies, the Memorial Antibritannique never, in its most prosperous times, had more than fifteen hundred subscribers ; and these subscribers were, with scarcely an exception, persons residing far from Paris, probably Gas- cons, among whom the name of Barere had not yet lost its influence. A writer who cannot find readers generally attributes the public neglect to any cause rather than to the true one ; and Barere was no exception to the general rule. Plis old hatred to Paris revived in all its fury. That city, he says, has no sympathy with France. No Parisian cares to subscribe to a journal which dwells on the real wants and interests of the country. To a Parisian nothing is so ridiculous as patriot- ism. The higher classes of the capital have always been devoted to England. A corporal from London is better received among them than a French general. A journal, therefore, which attacks England has no chance of their support. A much better explanation of the failure of the Memorial was given by Bonaparte at St. Helena. " Barere," said he to Barry O'Meara, "had the reputation of- being a man of talent : but I did not find him so. I employed him to write ; but he did not display ability. He used many flowers of rhetoric, but no solid argument ; nothing but coglionere wrapped up in high-sounding language." The truth is that, though Barere was a man of quick parts, and could do with ease what he could do at all, he had never been a good writer. In the day of his power he had been in the habit of haranguing an excitable audience on exciting topics. The faults of his style passed uncensured ; for it was a time of literary as well as of civil lawlessness, and a pa- triot was licensed to violate the ordinary rules of composition as well as the ordinary rules of jurisprudence and of social morality. But there had now been a literary as well as a civil reaction. As there was again a throne and a court, a magistracy, a chivalry, and a hierarchy, so was there a re- vival of classical taste. Honor was again paid to the prose of Pascal and Massillon, and to the verse of Racine and La Fontaine. The oratory which had delighted the galleries of the Convention was not only as much out of date as the language of Villehardouin and Joinville, but was associated in the jDublic mind with images of horror. All the peculiar* 152 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. ities of the Anacreon of the guillotine, his words unknown to the Dictionary of the Academy, his conceits and his jokes, his Gascon idioms and his Gascon hyperboles, had become as odious as the cant of the Puritans was in England after the Restoration. Bonaparte, who had never loved the men of the Reign of Terror, had now ceased to fear them. He was all-power- ful and at the height of glory ; they were Aveak and uni- versally abhorred. He was a sovereign ; and it is probable . that he already meditated a matrimonial alliance with sov- ereigns. He was naturally unwilling, in his new position, P liold any intercourse with the worst class of Jacobins. Had Barere's literary assistance been important to the govern- ment, personal aversion might have yielded to considerations of policy ; but there was no motive for keeping terms with a worthless man who had also proved a worthless writer. BonajDarte, therefore, gave loose to his feelings. Barere was not gently dropped, not sent into an honorable retire- ment, but spurned and scourged away like a troublesome dog. He had been in the habit of sending six copies of his journal on fine paper daily to the Tuileries. Instead of re- ceiving the thanks and praises which he expected, he was dryly told that the great man had ordered five copies to be sent back. Still he toiled on ; still he cherished a hope that at last Napoleon would relent, and that at last some share in the honors of the state would reward so much assiduity and so much obsequiousness. He was utterly un- deceived. Under the Imperial constitution the electoral colleges of the departments did not possess the right of choosing senators or deputies, but merely that of presenting candidates. From among these candidates the Emperor named members of the senate, and the senate named mem- bers of the legislative body. The inhabitants of the Upper Pyrenees were still strangely partial to Barere. In the year 1805, they were disposed to present him as a candidate for the senate. On this Napoleon expressed the highest dis- pleasure ; and the president of the electoral college was directed to tell the voters, in plain terms, that such a choice would be disgraceful to the department. All thought of naming Barere a candidate for the senate was consequently dropped. But the people of Argeles ventured to name him a candidate for the legislative body. That body was alto- gether destitute of weight and dignity; it was not per- mitted to debate ; its only function was to vote in silence BARERE. 158 for whatever the goverDment proposed. It is not easy to understand how any man, who had sat in free and })owerful deliberative assemblies, could condescend to bear a part in Buch a mummery. Barere, however, was desirous of a])lace even in this mock legislature; and a place even in this mock legislature was refused to him. In the whole senate he had not a single vote. Such treatment was sufficient, it might have been thought, to move the most abject of mankind to resentment. Still, however, Barere cringed and fawned on. His Letters came weekly to the Tuileries till the year 1807. At length, while he was actually writing the two hundred and twenty- third of the series, a note was put into his hands. It was from Duroc, and was much more perspicuous than polite. Barere was requested to send no more of his Eeports to the palace, as the Emperor was too busy to read them. Contempt, says the Indian proverb, pierces even the shell of the tortoise ; and the contempt of the Court was felt to the quick even by the callous heart of Barere. He had humbled himself to the dust ; and he had humbled himself in vain. Having been eminent among the rulers of a great and victorious state, he had stooped to serve a master in the vilest capacities ; and he had been told that, even in those capacities, he was not worthy of the pittance which had been disdainfully flung to him. He was now degraded below the level even of the hirelings whom the government employed in the most infamous offices. He stood idle in the market-place, not because he thought any office too infamous, but because none would hire him. Yet he had reason to think himself fortunate ; for, had all that is avowed in these Memoirs been known, he would have received very different tokens of the Imperial dis- pleasure. We learn from himself that, while publishing daily columns of flattery on Bonaparte, and while carrying weekly budgets of calumny to the Tuileries, he was in close connection with the agents whom the Emperor Alexander, then by no means favorably disposed towards France, em- ployed to watch all that passed at Paris ; was permitted to read all their secret despatches ; was consulted by them as to the temper of the public mind and the character of Napoleon ; and did his best to persuade them that the gov- ernment w^as in a tottering condition, and that tne new sovereign was not, as the world supposed, a great statesman and soldier. Next, Barere still the flatterer and talebearer 154 macaulay's miscellaneous avkitings. of the Imperial Court, connected himself in the same manner with the Spanish envoy. He owns that with that envoy he had relations which he took the greatest pains to conceal from his own government ; that they met twice a day ; and tliat their conversation chiefly turned on the vices of Nar poleon, on his designs against Spain, and on the best mode of rendering those designs abortive. In truth, Barere's baseness was unfathomable. In the lowest deeps of shame he found out lower deeps. It is bad to be a sycophant ; it is bad to be a spy. But even among sycophants and spies there are degrees of meanness. The vilest sycophant is he w^ho privily slanders the master on whom he fawns ; the vilest spy is he who serves foreigners against the govern- ment of his native land. From 1807 to 1814 Barere lived in obscurity, railing as bitterly as his craven cowardice would permit against the Imperial administration, and coming sometimes unpleasantly across the police. When the Bourbons returned, he, as might have been expected, became a royalist, and Avrote a pamphlet setting forth the horrors of the system from which the Restoration had delivered France, and magnifying the wisdom and goodness which had dictated the charter. He who had voted for the death of Louis, he who had moved the decree for the trial of Marie Antoinette, he whose hatred of monarchy had led him to make war even upon the sepulchres of ancient monarchs, assures us, with great com- placency, that " in this work monarchical priuciples and at- tachment to the House of Bourbon are nobly expressed.'^ By this apostacy he got nothing, not even any additional infamy ; for his character was already too black to be blackened. During the hundred days he again emerged for a very short time into public life; he was chosen by his native district a member of the Chamber of Representatives. But, though that assembly was composed in a great measure of men who regarded the excesses of the Jacobins witli in- dulgence, he found himself an object of general aversion. When the President first informed the Chamber that M. Barere requested a hearing, a deep and indignant murmur ran round the benches. After the battle of Waterloo, Barere proposed that the Chamber should save France from the victorious enemy, by jjutting forth a proclamation about the pass of Thermopylae and the Lacedaemonian custom of wearing flowers in times of extreme danger. Whether this BARERE. 155 composition, if it had then appeared, would have stopped the English and Prussian armies, is a question respecting which we are left to conjecture. The Cliamber refused to adopt this last of the Carmagnoles. The Em.peror had abdicated. The Bourbons returned. The Chamber of Representatives, after burlesquing dur- ing a few weeks the proceedings of the National Conven- tion, retired with the well-earned character of having been the silliest political assembly that had met in France. Those dreaming pedants and praters never for a moment comprehended their position. They could never understand that Europe must be either conciliated or vanquished ; that Europe could be conciliated only by the restoration of Louis, and vanquished only by means of a dictatorial power en- trusted to Napoleon. They would not hear of Louis ; yet they would not hear of the only measures which could keep him out. They incurred the enmity of all foreign powers by putting Napoleon at their head ; yet they shackled him, thwarted him, quarrelled with him about every trifle, abandoned him on the first reverse. They then opposed declamations and disquisitions to eight hundred tliousand bayonets ; played at making a constitution for their country, when it depended on the indulgence of the victor whether they should have a country; and were at last interrupted in the midst of their babble about the rights of man and the sovereignty of the people, by the soldiers of Wellington and Blucher. A new Chamber of Deputies was elected, so bitterly hos- tile to the Revolution that there was no small risk of a new Reign of Terror. It is just, however, to say that the King, his ministers, and his allies exerted themselves to restrain the violence of the fanatical royalists, and that the punish- ments inflicted, though in our opinion unjustifiable, were few and lenient when compared with those which were de- manded by M. de Labourdonnaye and M. Hyde de Neuville. We have always heard, and are inclined to believe, that the government was not disposed to treat even the regicides Avitli severity. But on this point the feeling of the Cham- ber of Deputies was so strong that it was thought necessary to make some concession. It was enacted, therefore, that whoever, having voted in January, 1793, for the death of Louis the Sixteenth, had in any manner given in an adhesion to the government of Bonaparte during the hundred days should be banished for life from France. Barere fell v.'ithin 156 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. this description. He had voted for the death of Louis ; and he had sat in the Chamber of Representatives during the hundred days. He accordingly retired to Belgium, and resided there, forgotten by all mankind, till the year 1830. After the revo- lution of July he was at liberty to return to France ; and he fixed his residence in his native province. But he was soon involved in a succession of lawsuits with his nearest rela- tions — " three fatal sisters and an ungrateful brother, ' to use his own words. Who was in the right is a question about which we have no means of judging, and certainly shall not take Barere's word. The Courts appear to have decided some points in his favor and some against him. The natural inference is that there were faults on all sides. The result of this litigation was that the old man was re- duced to extreme poverty, and was forced to sell his paternal house. As far as we can judge from the few facts which remain to be mentioned, Barere continued to be Barere to the last. After his exile, he turned Jacobin again, and, when he came back to France, joined the party of the extreme left in rail- ing at Louis Philippe, and at all Louis Philippe's ministers. ]VL Casimir Perier, M. De Broglie, M. Guizot, M. Thiers, in particular, are honored with his abuse ; and the King him- self is held up to execration as a hypocritical tyrant. Never- theless, Barere had no scruple about accepting a charitable donation of a thousand francs a year from the private purse of the sovereign whom he hated and reviled. This pension, together with some small sums occasionally doled out to him by the department of the Interior, on the gi-ound that he was a distressed man of letters, and by the department of Justice, on the ground that he had formerly held a high judicial office, saved him from the necessity of begging his bread. Having survived all his colleagues of the renowned Committee of Public Safety, and almost all his colleagues of the Convention, he died in January, 1841. He had at- tained his eighty-sixth year. We have now laid before our readers what we believe to be a just account of this man's life. Can it be necessary for us to add anything for the purpose of assisting their judg- ment of his character ? If we were writing about any of his colleagues in the Committee of Public Safety, about Carnot, about Robespierre, or St. Just, nay, even about Couthon, Collot, or Biilaud, we might feel it necessary to BARERE. 157 go into a fall examination of the arguments which have been employed to vindicate or to excuse the system of Terror. We could, we think, show that France was saved from her foreign enemies, not by the system of Terror, but in spite of it ; and that the perils which were made the plea of the violent policy of the Mountain were to a great extent created by that very policy. We could, we think, also show that the evils produced by the Jacobin administration did not terminate when it fell ; that it bequeathed a long series of calamities to France and to Europe ; that public opinion, which had during two generations been constantly becoming more and more favorable to civil and religious freedom, underwent, during the days of Terror, a change of which the traces are still to be distinctly perceived. It was natural that there should be such a change, wlien men saw tliat those who called themselves the champions of popular rights had compressed into the space of twelve months more crimes than t|^e Kings of France, Merovingian, Car- lovingian, and Capetian, had perpetrated in twelve centuries. Freedom was regarded as a great delusion. Men were will- ing to submit to the government of hereditary princes, of fortunate soldiers, of nobles, of priests; to any government but that of philosophers and philanthropists. Hence the imperial despotism, with its enslaved press and its silent tribune, its dungeons stronger than the old Bastile, and its tribunals more obsequious than the old parliaments. Hence the restoration of the Bourbons and of the Jesuits, the Chamber of 1815 with its categories of proscription, the re- vival of the feudal spirit, the encroachments of the clergy, the persecution of the Protestants, the appearance of a new breed of De Montforts and Dominies in the full light of the nineteenth century. Hence the admission of France into the Holy Alliance, and the war waged by the old soldiers of the tricolor against the liberties of Spain. Hence, too, the apprehensions with which, even at the present day, the most temperate plans for widening the narrow basis of the French representation are regarded by those who are espe- cially interested in the security of property and the mainte- nance of order. Half a century has not sufficed to obliter- ate the stain Avhich one year of depravity and madness has left on the noblest of causes. Nothing is more ridiculous than the manner in which writers like M. Hippolyte Carnot defend or excuse the Jac- obin administration, while they declaim against the reac- 158 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. tion which followed. That the reaction has produced and is still producing much evil, is perfectly true. But what produced the reaction? The spring flies up with a force proportioned to that with which it has been pressed down. The pendulum which is drawn far in one direction swings as far in the other. The joyous madness of intoxication in the evening is followed by languor and nausea on the mor- row. And so, in politics, it is the sure law that every ex- cess shall generate its opposite; nor does he deserve the name of a statesman who strikes a great blow without fully calculating the effect of the rebound. But such calculation was infinitely beyond the reach of the authors of the Reign of Terror. Violence, and more violence, blood, and more blood, made up their whole policy. In a few months these poor creatures succeeded in bringing about a reaction, of which none of them saw, and of which none of us may see, the close ; and, having brought it about, they marvelled at it ; they bewailed it ; they execrated it ;^hey ascribed it to everything but -the real cause — their own immorality and their own profound incapacity for the conduct of great affairs. These, however, are considerations to which, on the pres- ent occasion, it is hardly necessary for us to advert; for, be the defence which has been set up for the Jacobin policy good or bad, it is a defence which cannot avail Barere. From his own life, from his own pen, from his own mouth, we can prove that the part which he took in the work of blood is to be attributed, not even to sincere fanaticism, not even to misdirected and ill-regulated patriotism, but either to cowardice, or to delight in human misery. Will it be pretended that it was from public spirit that he murdered the Girondists ? In these very Memoirs he tells us that he always regarded their death as the greatest calamity that could befall France. Will it be pretended that it was from public spirit that he raved for the head of the Austrian woman? In these very Memoirs he tells us that the time spent in attacking her was ill spent, and ought to have been employed in concerting measures of national defence. Will it be pretended that he was induced by sincere and earnest abhorrence of kingly government to butcher the living and to outrage the dead ; he who invited Napoleon to take the title of King of Kings, he who assures us that after the Res- toration he expressed in noble language his attachment to monarchy, and to the house of Bourbon? Had he been less BARERE. 159 mean, something might have been said in extenuation of his cruelty. Had he been less cruel, something might have been said in extenuation of his meanness. I3ut for him, regicide and court-spy, for him who patronized Lebon and betrayed Demerville, for him who wantoned alternately in gasconades of Jacobinism and gasconades of servility, w^hat excuse has the largest charity to offer ? We cannot conclude without saying something about two parts of his character, which his biographer appears to consider as deserving of high admiration. Barere, it is ad- mitted, was somewhat fickle ; but in two things he was consistent, in his love of Christianity, and in his hatred to England. If this were so, we must say that England is much more beholden to him than Christiarfity. It is possible that our inclinations may bias our judg- ment ; but we think that we do not flatter ourselves when we say that Barere's aversion to our country was a senti- ment as deep and constant as his mind was capable of en- tertaining. The value of this compliment is indeed some- what diminished by the circumstance that he knew very little about us. His ignorance of our institutions, manners, and history is the less excusable, because, according to his own account, he consorted much, during the peace of Amiens, with Englishmen of note, such as that eminent nobleman Lord Greaten, and that not less eminent philoso- pher Mr. Mackensie Coefhis. In spite, however, of his con- nection with these well-know^n ornaments of our country, he was so ill-informed about us as to fancy that our government was always laying plans to torment him. If he was hooted at Saintes, probably by people whose relations he had mur- dered, it was because the cabinet of St. James's had hired the mob. If nobody would read his bad books, it was because the cabinet of St. James's' had secured the Reviewers. His accounts of Mr, Fox, of Mr. Pitt, of the Duke of Wellington, of Mr. Canning, swarm with blunders surpassing even the ordinary blunders committed by Frenchmen who write about England. Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt, he tells us, were ministers in two different reigns. Mr. Pitt's sinking fund was instituted in order to enable England to pay subsidies to the powers allied against the French republic. The Duke of Welling- ton's house in Hyde Park was built by the nation, which twice voted the sum of 200,000/. for the purpose. This, how- ever, is exclusive of the cost of the frescoes, which were also paid for out of the public purse. Mr. Canning was the first 160 macaulay's miscellaneous ayritings. Englishman wiiose death Europe had reason to lament ; for the death of Lord Ward, a relation, we presume, of Lord Greaten and Mr. Coefhis, had been an immense benefit to mankind. Ignorant, however, as Barere was, he knew enough of us to hate us ; and we persuade ourselves that, had he known us better he would have hated us more. The nation which has combined, beyond all example and all hope, the bless- ings of liberty with those of order, might well be an object of aversion to one who had been false alike to the cause of order and to the cause of liberty. We have had amongst us intemperate zeal for popular rights ; we have had amongst us also the intemperance of loyalty. But we have never been shocked by such a spectacle as the Barere of 1794, or as the Barere of 1804. Compared with him our fiercest demagogues have been gentle ; compared with him, our meanest courtiers have been manly. Mix together Thistle wood and Bubb Dodington ; and you are still far from having Barere. The antipathy between him and us is such, that neither for the crimes of his earlier nor for those of his later life does our language, rich as it is, furnish us with adequate names. We have found it difficult to relate his history without having perpetual recourse to the French vocabulary of horror, and to the French vocabulary of base- ness. It is not easy to give a notion of his conduct in the Convention, without using those emphatic terms, guillotine ade^ noyade^ fusillade^ mitraillmle. It is not easy to give a notion of his conduct under the Consulate and the Empire, without borrowing such words as mouchard and mouton. We therefore like his invectives against us much better than anything else that he has written ; and dwell on them, not merely with complacency, but with a feeling akin to gratitude. It was but little that he could do to promote the honor of our country ; but that little he did strenuously and constantly. Renegade, traitor, slave, coward, liar, slanderer, murderer, hack writer, police-spy — the one small service which he could render to England was to hate her : and such as he was may all who hate her be ! We cannot say that we contemplate with equal satisfac- tion that fervent and constant zeal for religion which, ac- cording to M, Hippolyte Carnot, distinguished Barere ; for, as we think that whatever brings dishonor on religion is a serious evil, we had, we own, indulged a hope that Barere was an Atheist. We now learn, however, that he was at no BARERE. 161 time even a skeptic, that he adhered to his faith through the whole Kevohition, and that he has left several manuscript works on divinity. One of these is a pious treatise, entitled " Of Christianity, and of its Influence." Another consists of meditations on the Psalms, which will doubtless greatly console and edify the Cliurch. This makes the character com])lete. Whatsoever things are false, whatsoever things are dishonest, whatsoever things are unjust, whatsoever things are impure, whatsoever things are liateful, whatsoever things are of evil report, if there be any vice, and if there be any infamy, all these tilings, we knew, were blended in Barere. But one thing was still wanting; and that M. Hippolyte Carnot has supplied. When to such an assemblage of qualities a high profession of piety is added, the effect becomes overpowering. We sink under the contemjjlation of such exquisite and manifold perfection; and feel, with deep humility, how presump- tuous it v/as in us to think of composing the legend of this beautified athlete of the faith, St. Bertrand of the Carmag- noles. Something more we had to say about him. But let him go. We did not seek him out and will not keep him longer. If those who call themselves his friends had not forced him on our notice we should never have vouchsafed to him more than a passing word of scorn and abhorrence, such as we might fling at his brethren, Hebert and Fouquier Tinville, and Carrier and Lebon. We have no pleasure in seeing human nature thus degraded. We turn with disgusl from the filthy and spiteful Yahoos of the fiction ; and the filthiest and most spiteful Yahoo of the fiction was a noble creature when compared with the Barere of histor3^ But what is no pleasure M. Hippolyte Carnot has made a duty. It is no light thing that a man in high and honorable public trust, a man who, from his connections and position, may not unnaturally be supposed to speak the sentiments of a large class of his countrymen, should come forward to de- mand approbation for a life black w^ith every sort of wicked- ness, and unredeemed by a single virtue. This M. Hip- polyte Carnot has done. By attempting to enshrine this Jacobin carrion, he has forced us to gibbet it ; and we ven- hire to say that, from the eminence of infamy on which we have placed it, he will not easily take it down. Vol. ITI.— 11 162 macaulay's miscellaneous writings THE EARL OF CHATHAM * {Edinburgh Revieio, October, 1844.) More than ten years ago we commenced a sketch of the political life of the great Lord Chatham. We then stopped at the death of George the Second, with the intention of speedily resuming our task. Circumstances, which it would be tedious to explain, long prevented us from carrying this intention into effect. Nor can we regret the delay. For the materials which were within our reach in 1834 were scanty and unsatisfactory, when compared with those which we at present possess. Even now, though we have had access to some valuable sources of information which have not yet been opened to the public, we cannot but feel that the his- tory of the first ten years of tlie reign of George the Third is but imperfectly known to us. Nevertlieless, we are in- clined to think that we are in a condition to lay before our readers a narrative neither uninstructive nor uninteresting. We therefore turn with pleasure to our long interrupted labor. We left Pitt in the zenith of prosperity and glory, the idol of England, the terror of France, the admiration of the whole civilized world. The wind, from whatever quarter it blew, carried to England tidings of battles won, fortresses taken, provinces added to the empire. At home, factions had sunk into a lethargy, such as had never been known since the great religious schism of the sixteenth centtiry had roused the public mind from repose. In order that the events which we have to relate may be clearly understood, it may be desirable that we should ad- vert to the causes which had for a time suspended the ani- mation of both the great English parties. If, rejecting all that is merely accidental, we look at the essential characteristics of the Whig and the Tory, we may consider each of them as the representative of a great prin- ciple, essential to the welfare of nations. One is, in an * 1. Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. 4 vols. 8vo. J^ondon: 1840. 2. Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, to Horace Mann, 4 vols. 8vo. London: 1843-1. THE EARL OF CHATHAM 163 especial manner, the guardian of liberty, and the other, of order. One is the moving power, and the other the steady- ing power of the state. One is the sail, without which so- ciety would make no progress, the other the ballast without which there would be small safety in a tempest. But, dur- ing the forty-six years which followed the accession of the House of Hanover, these distinctive peculiarities seemed to be effaced. The Whig conceived that he could not bett(;r serve the cause of civil and religious freedom than by stren- uousl}^ supporting the Protestant dynasty. The Tory con- ceived that he could not better prove his hatred of revolu- tions than by attacking a government to which a revolution had given birth. Both came by degrees to attach more im- portance to the means than to the end. Both were thrown into unnatural situations ; and both, like animals transported to an uncongenial climate, languished and degenerated. The Tory, removed from the sunshine of the court, was as a camel in the snows of Lapland. The Whig, basking in the rays of royal favor, was as a reindeer in the sands of Arabia. Dante tells us that he saw, in Malebolge, a strange en- coimter between a human form and a serpent. The ene- mies, after cruel wounds inflicted, stood for a time glaring on each other. A great cloud surrounded them, and then a wonderful metamorphosis began. Each creature was trans- figured into tlie likeness of its antagonist. The serpent's tail divided itself into two legs ; the man's legs intertwined themselves into a tail. The body of the serpent put forth arms ; the arms of the man shrank into his body. At length the serpent stood up a man, and spake ; the man sank down a serpent, and glided hissing away. Something like this was the transformation which, during the reign of George the First befell the two English parties. Each gradually took the shape and color of its foe, till at length the Tory rose up erect the zealot of freedom, and the Whig crawled and licked the dust at the feet of power. It is true that, when these degenerate politicians dis- cussed questions merely speculative, and, above all, when they discussed questions relating to the conduct of their own grandfathers, they still seemed to differ as their grand- fathers had differed. The Whig, who, during three parlia- ments, had never given one vote against the court, and w^ho was ready to sell his soul for the Comptroller's staff or for the Great Wardrobe, still professed to draw his political 164 MACAULAy's MISCELLAISTEOUS WRITINGS. doctrines from Locke and Milton, still worshipped the mem ory of Pym and Hampden, and would still, on the thirtieth of January, take his glass, first to the man in the mask, and then to the man who would do it without a mask. The Tory, on the other hand, while he reviled the mild and temperate Walpole as a deadly enemy of liberty, could see nothing to reprobate in the iron tyranny of Strafford and Laud. But, whatever judgment the Whig or the Tot y of that age might pronounce on transactions long past, there can be no doubt that, as respected the practical questions then pending, the Tory was a reformer, and indeed an intemperate and indiscreet reformer, while the "M^hig was conservative even to bigotry. We have ourselves seen similar effects produced in a neighboring country by similar causes. Who would have believed, fifteen years ago, that M. Guizot and M. Villemain would have to defend property and social order against the attacks of such enemies as M. Genoude and M. de La Roche Jaquelin ? Thus the successors of the old Cavaliers had turned demagogues ; the successors of the old Roundheads had turned courtiers. Yet was it long before their mutual ani- mosity began to abate ; for it is the nature of parties to retain their original enmities far more firmly than their origi- nal principles. During many years, a generation of Whigs whom Sydney would have spurned as slaves, continued to wage deadly war with a generation of Tories whom Jeffreys would have hanged for republicans. Through the whole reign of George the First, and through nearly half the reign of George the Second, a Tory was re- garded as an enemy of the reigning house, and was excluded from all the favors of the crown. Though most of the country gentlemen were Tories, none but Whigs were created peers and baronets. Though most of the clergy were Tories, none but Whigs were appointed deans and bishops. In every county, opulent and well descended Tory squires complained that their names were left out of the commission of the peace, while men of small estate and mean birth, who were for toleration and excise, septennial parliaments and standing armies, presided at quarter ses- sions, and became deputy lieutenants. By degrees some approaches were made towards a rec- onciliation. While Walpole was at the head of affairs, enmity to his power induced a large and powerful body of Whigs, headed by the heir apparent of the throne, to make THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 165 an alUaiice with the Tories, and a truce even witli the Jaco- bites. After Sh* Robert's fall, the ban which lay on the Tory party was taken off. The chief places in the adminis- tration continued to be filled by Whigs, and, inde-ed, could scarcely have been filled otherwise ; for the Tory nobility and gentry, though strong in numbers and in property, had among them scarcely a single man distinguished by talents, either for business or for debate. A few of them, ho^vever, were admitted to subordinate offices ; and this indulgence produced a softening effect on the temper of the whole body. The first levee of George the Second after Walpole's resig- nation was a remarkable spectacle. Mingled with the con- stant supporters of the House of Brunswick, with the Russells, the Cavendishes, and the Pelhams, appeared a crowd of faces utterly unknown to the pages and gentlemen ushers, lords of rural manors, whose ale and fox-hounds were re- nowned in the neighborhood of the Mendip hills, or round the Wrekin, but who had never crossed the threshold of the palace since the days when Oxford, with the white staff in his hand, stood behind Queen Anne. During the eighteen years which followed this day, both factions were gradually sinking deeper and deeper into re- pose. The apathy of the public mind is partly to be ascribed to the unjust violence Avith w^hich the administration of Walpole had been assailed. In the body politic, as in the natural body, morbid languor generally succeeds morbid ex- citement. The people had been maddened by sophistry, by calumny, by rhetoric, by stimulants applied to the national pride. In the fulness of bread, they had raved as if famine had been in the land. While enjoying such a measure of civil and religious freedom as, till then, no great society had ever known, they had cried out for a Timoleon or a Brutus to stab their oppressor to the heart. They were in this frame of mind when the change of administration took place ; and they soon found that there w^as to be no change- whatever in the system of government. The natural conse- quences followed. To frantic zeal succeeded sullen indiffer- ence. The cant of patriotism had not merely ceased to charm the public ear, but had become as nauseous as the cant of Puritanism after the downfall of the Rump. The hot fit was over ; the cold fit had begun ; and it was long before seditious arts, or even real grievances, could bring back the fiery paroxysm which had run its course and reached its termination. 166 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. Two attempts were made to disturb this tranquillity. The banished heir of the house of Stewart headed a rebellion ; the discontented heir of the House of Brunswick headed an opposition. Both the rebellion and the opposition came to nothing. The battle of Culloden annihilated the Jacobite party. The death of Prince Frederic dissolved the faction which, under his guidance, had feebly striven to annoy his father's government. His chief followers hastened to make their peace with the ministry ; and the political torpor be- came complete. Five years after the death of Prince Frederic, the public mind was for a time violently excited. But this excitement had nothing to do with the old disputes between Whigs and Tories. England was at war with France. The war had^ been feebly conducted. Minorca had been torn from us. Our fleet had retired before the white flag of the House of Bourbon. A bitter sense of humiliation, new to the proudest and bravest of nations, superseded every other feeling. The cry of all the counties and great towns of the realm was for a government which would retrieve the honor of the English arms. The two most powerful men in the country were the Duke of ISTew^castle and Pitt. Alternate victories and defeats had made them sensible that neither of them could stand alone. The interest of the state, and the interest of their own ambition, impelled them to coalesce. By their coali- tion was formed the ministry which was in power when George the Third ascended the throne. The more carefully the structure of this celebrated ministry is examined, the more shall we see reason to marvel at the skill or the luck which had combined in one harmoni- ous whole such various and, as it seemed, incompatible ele- ments of force. The influence which is derived from stain- less integrity, the influence which is derived from the vilest arts of corruption, the strength of aristocratical connection, the strength of democratical enthusiasm, all these things were for the first time found together. Newcastle brought to the coalition a vast mass of power, which had descended to him from Walpole and Pelham. The public ofiices, the church, the courts of law, the army, the navy, the diplomatic service, sw^armed with his creatures. The boroughs, which long afterwards made up the memorable schedules A and B, were represented by his nominees. The great Whig fami- lies, which, during several generations, had been trained in the discipline of party warfare, and were accustomed to stand THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 167 to.2^ether in a firm phalanx, acknowledged him as their cap- tain. Pitt, on the other hand, had what Newcastle wanted, an eloquence which stirred the |)assions and charmed the imagination, a high reputation for purity, and the confidence and ardent love of millions. The partition which the two ministers made of the pow- ers of government was singularly ha])py. Each occu])ied a province for which he was well qualified ; and neither had any inclination to intrude himself into the province of the other. Newcastle took the treasury, the civil and ecclesias- tical patronage, and the disposal of that part of the searet service money which was then employed in bribing mem- bers of Parliament. Pitt was Secretary of State, with the direction of the war and of foreign affairs. Thus the filth of all the noisome and pestilential sewers of government was poured into one channel. Through the other passed only what was bright aiid stainless. Mean and selfish politicians, pining for commissionerships, gold sticks, and ribands, flocked to the great house at the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields. There, at every levee, appeared eighteen or twenty pair of lawm sleeves ; for there was not, it was said, a single Prel- late who had not owed either his first elevation or some sub- sequent translation to Newcastle. There appeared those members of the House of Commons in whose silent votes the main strength of the government lay. One wanted a place in the excise for his butler. Another came about a prebend for his son. A third whispered that he had always stood by his Grace and the Protestant succession ; that his last election had been very exp.ensive ; that potwallopers had now no conscience ; that he had been forced to take up money on mortgage ; and that he hardly knew where to turn for five hundred pounds. The Duke pressed all their hands, passed his arms round all their shoulders, patted all their backs, and sent aw^ay some with wages, and some Avith |)romises. From this traffic Pitt stood haughtily aloof. Not only was he himself incorruptible, but he shrank from the loathsome drudgery of corrupting others. He had not, however, been twenty years in Parliament, and ten in ofiice, without discovering how the government was carried on. He was perfectly aware that bribery was practised on a large scale by his colleagues. Hating the prjictice, yet despairing of putting it down, and doubting whether, lu ill those times, any ministry could stand without it, he deter- mined to be blind to it. He would see nothing, know notli- 168 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. ing,' believe nothing. People who came to talk to him about shares in lucrative contracts, or about the means of securing a Cornish corporation, were soon put out of coun- tenance b}^ his arrogant humilit3^ The}^ did him too much honor. Such matters were beyond his capacity. It was true that his poor advice about expeditions and treaties was listened to with indulgence by a gracious sovereign. If the question were, who should command in North America, or who should be ambassador at Berlin his colleagues would probably condescend to take his opinion. But he had not the* smallest influence with the Secretary of the Treasury, and could not venture to ask even for a tide waiter's place. It may be doubted whether he did not owe as much of his popularity to his ostentatious purity as to his eloqu^ence, or to his talents for the administration of war. It was everywhere said with delight and admiration that the great Commoner, without any advantages of birth or fortune, had, in spite of the dislike of the Court and of the aristocracy, made himself the first man in England, and made England the first country in the world ; that his name was mentioned with awe in every palace from Lisbon to Moscow ; tliat his trophies were in all the four quarters of the globe ; yet that he was still plain William Pitt, without title or riband, without pension or sinecure place. Whenever he should retire, after saving the state, he must sell his coach horses and his silver canellesticks. Widely as the taint of corrup- tion had spread, his hands were clean. They had never re- ceived, they had never given, the price of infamy. Thus the coalition gathered to itself support from all the high and all the low parts of human nature, and was strong with the whole united strength of virtue and of Mammon. Pitt and Newcastle were co-ordinate chief ministers. The subordinate places had been filled on the principle of including in the government every party and shade of party, the avowed Jacobites alone excepted, nay, every public man who, from his abilities or from his situation, seemed likely to be either useful in ofiiceor formidable in oppositiou. The Whigs, according to what was then considered as their prescriptive right, held by far the largest share of poAver. The main support of the administration was Avhat may be called the great Whig connection, a connection which, during near half a century, had generally had the chief sway in the country, and which derived an immense authority from rank, wealth, borough interest, and firm THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 169 union. To this connection, of which Newcastle was the head, belonged the houses of Cavendish, Lennox, Fitzroy, Bentinck, Manners, Conwa}^, Wentworth, and many others of high note. There were two other powerful Whig connections, either of w^hieh might have been a nucleus for a strong opposition. But room had been found in the government for both. They were known as the Grenvilles and the Bedfords. The head of the Grenvilles was Richard Earl Temple, flis talents for administration and debate were of no high ^rder. But his great possessions, his turbulent and un- scrupulous character, his restless activity, and his skill in the most ignoble tactics of faction, made him one of the most formidable enemies that a ministry could have. He was keeper of the privy seal. His brother George was treas- urer of the navy. They were supposed to be on terms of close friendship with Pitt, who had married their sister, and was the most uxorious of husbands. The Bedfords, or, as they were called by their enemies, the Bloomsbury gang, professed to be led by John Duke of Bedford, but in truth led him wherever they chose, and very often led him where he never would have gone of his own accord. He had many good qualities of head and heart, and w^ould have been certainly a respectable and possibly a distinguished man, if he had been less under the influence of his friends, or more fortunate in choosing them. Some of them were indeed, to do them justice, men of parts. But here, we are afraid, eulogy must end. Sandwich and Rigby were able debaters, pleasant boon companions, dexterous intriguers, masters of all the arts of jobbing and electioneer- ing, and both in public and private life, shamelessly immoral. Weymouth had a natural eloquence, which sometimes aston- ished those who knew how little he owed to study. But he was indolent and dissolute, and had early impaired a fine estate with the dice box, and a fine constitution with the bottle. The wealth and power of the Duke, and the talents and audacity of some of his retainers, might have seriously annoyed the strongest ministry. But his assistance had been secured. He was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; Rigby was his secretary ; and the whole party dutifully supported the measures of the Government. Two men had, a short time before, been thought likely to contest with Pitt the lead of the House of Commons, William Murray and Henry Fox. But Murray had been 170 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. removed to the Lords, and was Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Fox was indeed still in the Commons : but means had been found to secure, if not his strenuous support, at least his silent acquiescence. He was a poor man ; he was a doting father. The office of Paymaster-General during an expensive war was, in that age, perhaps the most lucrative situation in the gift of the government. This office was bestowed on Fox. The prospect of making a noble fortune in a few years, and of providing amply for his darling boy Cliarles, was irresistibly tempting. To hold a subordinate p ace, however profitable, after having led the House of Commons, and having been intrusted with the business ot forming a ministry, was indeed a great descent. But a punctilious sense of personal dignity was no part of the character of Henry Fox. We have not time to enumerate all the other men of weight who were, by some tie or other, attached to the government. We may mention Hardwick, reputed the first lawyer of the age ; Legge, reputed the first financier of the age ; the acute and ready Oswald ; the bold and humorous Nugent ; Charles Townshend, the most bril- liant and versatile of mankind ; Elliot, Barrington, North, Pratt. Indeed, as far as we can recollect, there were in the whole House of Commons only two men of distinguished abilities who were not connected with the government ; and those two men stood so low in public estimation, that the only service which they could have rendered to any govern- ment would have been to oppose it. We speak of Lord George Sackville and Bubb Dodington. Though most of the official men, and all the members of the cabinet, were reputed Wliigs, the Tories were by no means excluded from employment. Pitt had gratified many of them with comm.ands in the militia, which increased both .theii* income and their importance in their own counties ; r«nd tliey were therefore in better humor than at any time hince the death of Anne. Some of the party still continued grumble over their punch at the Cocoa Tree ; but in the House of Conmions not a single one of the malcontents durst lift his eyes above the buckle of Pitt's shoe. Thus there was absolutely no opposition. Nay, there was no sign from which it could, be guessed from wliat quar- ter opposition was likely to arise. Several years passed dur- ing which Parliament seemed to have abdicated its chief functions. The Journals of the House of Commons, during THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 171 four sessions, contain no trace of a division on a party ques- tion. The supplies, though beyond precedent great, were voted without discussion. The most animated debates of that period were on road bills and inclosure bills. The old King was content ; and it mattered little whether he was content or not. It Avould have been impossible for him to emancipate himself from a ministry so powerful, even if he had been inclined to do so. But he had no such hiclination. He had once, indeed, been strongly prejudiced against Pitt, and had repeatedly been ill used by Newcastle ; but the vigor and success with wdiich the w^ar had been waged in Germany, and the smoothness w^ith w^hich all pub- lic business Avas carried on, had produced a favorable change in the royal mind. Such w^as the posture of affairs w^hen, on the twenty- fifth of October, 1760, George the Second suddenly died, and George the. Third, then tw^enty-tw^o years old, became King. The situation of George the Third differed widely from that of his grandfather and that of his greatgrand- father. Many years had elapsed since a sovereign of Eng- land had been an object of affection to any part of his peo- ple. The first two kings of the House of Hanover had neither those hereditary rights which haA^e often supplied the defect of merit, nor those personal qualities w^hich have often supplied the defect of title. A prince may be popular with little virtue or capacity, if he reigns by birthright derived from a long line of illustrious predecessors. An usurper may be popular, if his genius has sared or aggran- dized the nation which he governs. Perhaps no rulers have in our time had a stronger hold on the affection of subjects than the Emperor Francis, and his son-in-law^ the Emperor Napoleon. But imagine a ruler with no better title than Napoleon, and no better understanding than Francis. Rich- ard Cromw^ell w^as such a ruler ; and, as soon as an arm w^as lifted up against him, he fell without a struggle, amidst uni- versal derision. George the First and George the Second were in a situation which bore some resemblance to that of Richard Cromwell. They w^ere saved from the fate of Richard Cromwell by the strenuous and able exertions of the Whig party, and by the general conviction that the na- tion had no choice but between the House of Brunswick and popery. But by no class were the Guelphs regarded with that devoted affection, of w^hich Charles the First, Charles the Second, and James the Second, in spite of the greatest 172 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. faults, and in the midst of the greatest misfortunes, received Innumerable proofs. Those Whigs who stood by the new dynasty so manfull}' with purse and sword did so on princi pies independent of, and indeed almost incompatible with, the sentiment of devoted loyalty. The moderate Tories re- garded the foreign dynasty as a great evil, which must be endured for fear of a greater evil. In the eyes of the high Tories, the Elector was the most hateful of robbers and ty- rants. The crown of another was on his head; the blood of the brave and loyal was on his hands. Thus, during many years, the Kings of England were objects of strong personal aversion to many of. their subjects, and of strong personal attachment to none. They found, indeed, firm and cordial support against the pretender to their throne; but this sup- port was given, not at all for their sake, but for the sake of a religious and political system which would have been en- dangered by their fall. This support, too, they were com- pelled to purchase by perpetually sacrificing their private inclinations to the party which had set them on the throne, and w^hich maintained them there. At the close of the reign of George the Second, the feel- ing of aversion wdth which tlie House of Brunswick had long been regarded by holf the nation had died away ; but no feeling of affection to that house had yet sprung up. There was little, indeed, in the old King's character to inspire esteem or tenderness. He was not our countryman. He never set foot on our soil till he was more than thirty years old. His speech bewrayed his foreign origin and breeding. His love for his native land, though the most amiable part of his character, was not likely to endear him to his British subjects. He w^as never so happy as when he could ex- change St. James's for Hernhausen. Year after year, our fleets were employed to convey him to the Continent, and the interests of his kingdom were as nothing to him when compared with the interests of his Electorate. As to the rest, he had neither the qualities which make dulness re- spectable, or the qualities which make libertinism attractive. He had been a bad son and a worse father, an unfaithful husband and an ungraceful lover. Not one magnanimous or humane action is recorded of him ; but many instances of meanness, and of a harshness, which, but for the strong con- stitutional restraints under which he was placed, might have made the misery of his people. He died ; and at once a new world opened. The young THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 173 King was a born Englishman. All his tastes and habits, good or bad, were English. No portion of his subjects had anything to reproach him with. Even the remaining ad- herents of the House of Stuart could scarcely impute to liim the guilt of usurpation. He was not responsible for the Revokition, for the Act of Settlement, for the suppression of the risings of 1715 and of 1745. He was innocent of the l)lood of Derwentwater and Kilmarnock, of Balmerino and Cameron. Born fifty years after the old line had been ex- pelled, fourth in descent and third in succession of tlie Han- overian dynasty, he might plead some show of hereditary right. His age, his appearance, and all that was known of his character, conciliated public favor. He was in the bloom of youth ; his person and address w^ere pleasing. Scandal imputed to him no vice ; and flattery might without any glaring absurdity, ascribe to him many princely virtues. It is not strange, therefore, that the sentiment of loyalty, a sentiment which had lately seemed to be as much out of date as the belief in witches or the practice of pilgrimage, should, from the day of his accession, have begun to revive. The Tories in particular, who had always been inclined to King-worship, and who had long felt with pain the want of an idol before whom they could bow themselves down, were as joyful as the priests of Apis, when, after a long interval, they had found a new calf to adore. It was soon clear that George the Third was regarded by a portion of the nation wath a very different feeling from that which his two pi-e- decessors had inspired. They had been merely First Magis- trates, Doges, Stadtholders ; he was emphatically a King, the an(5inted of heaven, the breath of his people's nostrils. The years of the widowhood and mourning of the Tory party were over. Dido had kept faith long enough to the cold ashes of a former lord ; she had at last found a comforter, and recognized the vestiges of the old flame. The golden days of Harley would return. The Somersets, the Lees, ard the Wyndhams would again surround the throne. The latitudinarian Prelates, who had not been ashamed to corre- spond with Doddridge and to shake hands with Whiston, would be succeeded by divines of the temper of South and Atterbury. The devotion which had been so signally shown to the House of Stuart, which had been proof against defeats, confiscations, and proscriptions, which perfidy, oppression, ingratitude, could not weary out, was now transferred entire to the House of Brunswick. If George the Third would but 174 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. accept the homage of the Cavaliers and High Churchmen, he should be to them all that Charles the First and Charles the Second had been. The Prince, whose accession was thus hailed by a great party long estranged from his house, had received from nature a strong will, a firmness of temper to which a harsher name might perhaps be given, and an understanding not, indeed, acute or enlarged, but such as qualified him to be a good man of business. But his character had not yet fully developed itself. He had been brought up in strict seclu- sion. The detractors of the Princess Dowager of Wales affirmed that she had kept her children from commerce with society, in order that she might hold an undivided empire over their minds. She gave a very different ex23lanation of her conduct. She would gladly, she said, see her sons and daughters mix in the world, if they could do so without risk to their morals. But the profligacy of the people of quality alarmed her. The young men were all rakes ; the young women made love, instead of waiting till it was made to them. She could not bear to expose those whom she loved best to the contaminating influence of such society. The moral advantages of the system of education which formed the Duke of York, the Duke of Cumberland, and the Queen of Denmark, may perhaps be questioned. George the Third was indeed no libertine ;, but he brought to the throne a mind only half opened, and was for some time entirely under the influence of his mother and of his Groom of the Stole, John Stuart, Earl of Bute. The Earl of Bute was scarcely known even by name, to the country which he was soon to govern. He had indeed, a short time after he came of age, been chosen to fill a vacancy, which, in the middle of a parliament, had taken place among the Scotch representative peers. He had dis- obliged the Whig ministers by giving some silent votes with the Tories, had consequently lost his seat at the next dissolution, and had never been reelected. Near twenty years had elapsed since he had borne any part in politics. He had passed some of those years at his seat in one of the Hebrides, and fi'om that retirement he had emerged as one of the household of Prince Frederic. Lord But^, excluded from public life, had found out many ways of amusing his leisure. He was a tolerable actor in private theatricals, and was particulai'ly successful in the part of Lothario. A hand- some leg, to which both painters and satirists took care to THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 175 give prominence, was among his chief qualifications for the stage. He devised quaint dresses for masquerades. He dabbled in geometry, mechanics, and botfiny. He paid some attention to antiquities and works of art, and was consid- ered in his own circle as a judge of painting, architecture, and poetry. It is said that his spelling was incorrect. But though, in our time, incorrect spelling is justly consid- ered as a proof of sordid ignorance, it would be unjust to apply the same rule to people who lived a century ago. 'J'he novel of Sir Charles Grandisonwas published about the time at which Lord Bute made his appearance at Leicestei- House. Our readers may perhaps remember the account which Charlotte Grandison gives of her two lovers. One of them, a fashionable baronet who talks French and Italian fluently, cannot write a line in his own language without some sin against orthography ; the other, who is represented as a most respectable specimen of the young aristocracy, and some- thing of a virtuoso, is described as spelling pretty well for a lord. On the whole, the Earl of Bute might fairly be called a man of cultivated mind. He was also a man of undoubted honor. But his understanding was narrow, and his manners cold and haughty. His qualifications for the part of a statesman were best described by Frederic, who often indulged in the unprincely luxury of sneering at his dependents. " Bute," said his Royal Highness, " you are the very man to be envoy at some small proud German court where there is nothing to do." Scandal represented the Groom of the Stole as the favored lover of the Princess Dowager. He was undoubt- edly her confidential friend. The influence which the tAvo united exercised over the mind of the King was for a time unbounded. The Princess, a woman and a foreigner, was not likely to be a judicious adviser about affairs of state. The Earl could scarcely be said to have served even a novi- ciate in politics. His notions of gOA^ernment had been acquired in the society which had been in the habit of assembling round Frederic at Kew and Leicester House. That society consisted principally of Tories, who had been reconciled to the House of Hanover by the civility Avith which the Prince had treated them, and by the hope of ob- taining high preferment Avhen he should come to the throne. Their political creed was a peculiar modification of Toryism. It was the creed neither of the Tories of the seventeenth nor of the Tories of the nineteenth century. It Avas the creed, not 176 MACAULAy's miscellaneous WRITIlSrGS. of Filmer and Sacheverell, not of Perceval and Eldon, but of the sect of wliich Bolingbroke may be considered as the chief doctor. This sect deserves commendation for having pointed out and justly reprobated some great abuses which sprang up during the long domination of the Whigs. But it is far easier to point out and reprobate abuses than to propose beneficial reforms : and the reforms which Boling- broke proposed would either have been utterly inefficient or would have produced much more mischief than the} would have removed. The Revolution had saved the nation from one class of evils, but had at the same time — such is the imperfection of all things human — engendered or aggravated another class of evils which required new remedies. Liberty and property were secure from the attacks of prerogative. Con- science was respected. No government ventured to infringe any of the rights solemnly recognized by the instrument which had called William and Mary to the throne. But it cannot be denied that, under the new system, the public interests and the public morals were seriously endangered by corruption and faction. During the long struggle against the Stuarts, the chief object of the most enlightened states- men had been to strengthen the House of Commons. The struggle was over ; the victory was won ; the House of Commons was supreme in the state ; and all the vices which had till then been latent in the representative system were rapidly developed by prosperity and power. Scarcely had the executive government become really responsible to the House of Commons, w^hen it began to appear that the House of Commons was not really responsible to the nation. Many of the constituent bodies were under the absolute control of individuals ; many were notoriously at the command of the highest bidder. The debates were not published. It was very seldom known out of doors how a gentleman had voted. Thus, while the ministry was accountable to the Parliament, the majority of the Parliament was accountable to nobody. In such circumstances, nothing could be more natural than that the members should insist on being paid for their votes, should form themselves into combinations for the purpose of raising the price of their votes, and should at critical conjunctures extort large wages by threatening a strike. Thus the Whig ministers of George the First and George the Second were compelled to reduce corruption to a system, and to practise it on a gigantic scale. THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 177 If we are right as to the cause of these abuses, we can scarcely be wrong as to the reniedy. The remedy was surely not to deprive the House of Commons of its weight in the state. Such a course would undoubtedly have put an end to parliamentary corruption and to parliamentary factions : for, when votes cease to be of importance, they will cease to be bought ; and, when knaves can get nothing by com- bining, they will cease to combine. But to destroy cor- ru])tion and faction by introducing despotism would have been to cure bad by worse. The proper reniedy evidently was, to make the House of Commons responsible to the nation ; and this was to be efrected in two ways ; first, by giving publicity to parliamentary proceedings, and thus pLacing every member on his trial before the tribunal of public opinion ; and secondly, by so reforming the constitu- tion of the House that no man should be able to sit in it who had not been returned by a respectable and independent body of constituents. Bolingbroke and Bolingbroke's disciples recommended a very different mode of treating the diseases of the state. Their doctrine was that a vigorous use of the prerogative by a patriot King would at once break all factious combina- tions, and supersede the pretended necessity of bribing members of Parliament. The King had only to resolve that he would be master, that he would not be held in thraldom by any set of men, that he would take for ministers any persons in whom he had confidence, wdthout distinction of party, and that he would restrain his servants from influ- encing by immoral means either the constituent bodies or the representative body. This childish scheme proved that those who proposed it kncAv nothing of the nature of the evil with which they pretended to deal. The real cause of the prevalence of corruption and faction was that a House of Commons, not accountable to the people, was more power- ful than the King. Bolingbroke's remedy could be applied only by a King more powerful than the House of Commons. How was the patriot Prince to govern in defiance of the body without whose consent he could not equip a sloop, keep a battalion under arms, send an embassy, or defray even the charges of his own household? Was he to dis- solve the Parliament ? And what was he likely to gain by appealing to Sudbury and Old Sarum against the venality of their representatives ? Was he to send out privy seals ? Was he to levy ship-money ? If so, this boasted reform Vol. III.— 12 178 MACAULAy's miscellaneous WrjTINGS. must commence in all probability by civil war, and, if con- summated, must be consummated by the establishment of absolute monarchy. Or was the patriot King to carry the House of Commons with him in his upright designs? By what means? Interdicting himself from the use of corrupt influence, what motive was he to address to the Dodingtons and Winningtons ? Was cupidity, strengthened by habit, to be laid asleep by a few fine sentences about virtue and union ? Absurd as this theory was, it had many admirers, par- ticularly among men of letters. It was now to be reduced to practice ; and the result was, as any man of sagacity must have foreseen, the most piteous and ridiculous of failures. On the very day of the young King's accession, appeared some signs which indicated the approach of a great change. The speech which he made to his council was not submitted to the cabinet. It was drawn up by Bute, and contained some expressions which might be construed into reflections on the conduct of affairs during the late reign. Pitt re- monstrated, and begged that these expressions might be softened down in the printed copy ; but it was not till after some hours of altercation that Bute yielded ; and, even after Bute had yielded, the King affected to hold out till the following afternoon. On the same day on which this singular contest took place, Bute was not only sworn of the privy council, but introduced into the cabinet. Soon after this, Lord Holdernesse, one of the Secretaries of State, in pursuance of a plan concerted with the court, resigned the seals. Bute was instantly appointed to the vacant place. A general election speedily followed, and the new Secretary entered parliament in the only way in which he then could enter it, as one of the sixteen repre- sentative peers of Scotland."^ Had the ministers been firmly united it can scarcely be doubted that they would have been able to withstand the court. The parliamentary influence of the Whig aristoc- racy, combined with the genius, the virtue, and the fame of Pitt, would have been irresistible. But there had been in the cabinet of George the Second latent jealousies and enmities, which now began to show themselves. Pitt had been estranged from his old ally Legge, the Chancellor of * In the reign of Anne, the House of Lords had resolved that, under the 23d article of tJnion, no Scotch peer could be created a peer of Great Britain. This resolution was not annulled till the year 1782. THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 179 the Exchequer. Some of the ministers were envious of Pitt's popularity. Others were, not altogether without cause, disgusted by his imperious and haughty demeanor. Others, again, w( re honestly opposed to some parts of his policy. They admitted that they had found the country in the depths of humiliation, and had raised it to the height of glory : they admitted that he had conducted the war with energy, ability, and splendid success ; but they began to hint that the drain on the resources of the state was un- exampled, and that the public debt was increasing with a speed at which Montague or Godolphin would have stood aghast. Some of the acquisitions made by our fleets and armies were, it was acknowledged, profitable as well as honorable; but, now that George the Second was dead, a courtier might venture to ask why England was to become a party in a dispute between two German powers. What was it to her whether the Plouse of Hapsburg or the House of Brandenburg ruled in Silesia ? Why were the best Eng- lish regiments fighting on the Main ? Why were the Prus- sian battalions paid with English gold? The great minister seemed to think it beneath him to calculate the price of victory. As long as the Tower guns were fired, as the streets were illuminated, as French banners were carried in triumph through London, it was to him matter of indiffer- ence to what extent the public burdens were augmented. Nay, he seemed to glory in the magnitude of those sacrifices Iv^hich the people, fascinated by his eloquence and success, had too readily made, and would long and bitterly regret. There was no check on waste or embezzlement. Our com- missaries returned from the camp of Prince Ferdinand to buy boroughs, to rear palaces, to rival the magnificence of the old aristocracy of the realm. Already had we borrowed, in four years of war, more than the most skilful and economical government would pay in forty years of peace. But the prospect of peace was as remote as ever. It could not be doubted that France, smarting and prostrate, would consent to fair terms of accommodation ; but this ivas not what Pitt wanted. War had made him powerful and pop- ular ; with war, all that was brightest in his life was as- sociated : for war his talents were peculiarly fitted. He had at length begun to love war for its own sake, and was more disposed to quarrel with neutrals than to make peace with enemies. Such were the views of the Duke of Bedford and of the 180 macaulay's miscellaneous wkitings. Earl of Hardwicke ; but no member of the government held these opinions so strongly as George Grenville, the treas- urer of the navy. George Grenville was brother-in-law of Pitt, and had always been reckoned one of Pitt's personal and political friends. But it is difficult to conceive two men of talents and integrity more utterly unlike each other. Pitt, as his sister often said, knew nothing accurately except Spenser's Fairy Queen. He had never applied himself steadily to any branch of knowledge. He was a wretched financier. He never became familiar even with the rules of that House of which he was the brightest ornament. Fie had never studied public law as a system ; and was, indecid, so ignorant of the whole subject, that George the Second, on one occasion, complained bitterly that a man who had never read Vattel should presume to undertake the direc- tion of foreign affairs. But these defects w^ere more tlian redeemed by high and rare gifts, by a strange power of in- spiring great masses of men with 'confidence and affection, by an eloquence which not only delighted the ear, but stirred the blood, and brought tears into the eyes, by originality in devising plans, by vigor in executing them. Grenville, on the other hand, was by nature and habit a man of details. Pie had been bred a lawyer ; and he had brought the industry and acuteness of the Temple into official and parliamentary life. He was supposed to be intimately ac- quainted w^ith the whole fiscal system of the country. He had paid especial attention to the law of Parliament, and was so learned in all things relating to the privileges and orders of the House of Commons that those who loved him least pronounced him the only person competent to suc- ceed Onslow in the Chair. His speeches were generally in- structive, and sometimes, from the gravity and earnestness with which he spoke, even impressive, but never brilliant, and generally tedious. Indeed, even when he was at the head of affairs, he sometimes found it difficult to obtain the ear of the House. In disposition as well as in intellect, he differed widely from his brother-in-law. Pitt was utterly regardless of money. He would scarcely stretch out liis jaand to take it; and, when it came, he threw it away with childish profusion. Grenville, though strictly upright, was grasping and parsimonious. Pitt was a man of excitable nerves, sanguine in hope, easily elated by success and pop- ularity, keenly sensible of injury, but prompt to forgive ; Grenville's character was stern, melancholy, and pertinacious THE EARL OF ( UATHAM. 181 Nothing was more remarkable in him than his inclination always to look on the dark side of things. He was the raven of the Plouse of Commons, always croaking defeat in the midst of triumphs, and bankruptcy with an overflowing exchequer. Burke, with general applause, compai-ed hiin, in a time of quiet and plenty, to the evil spirit whom Ovid described looking down on the stately temples and wealthy haven of Athens, and scarce able to refrain from wee])ing because she could find nothing at which to weep. Such a man was not likely to be popular. But to unpopularity Grenville opposed a dogged determination, which some- times forced even those who hated him to respect liim. It was natural that Pitt and Grenville, being such as they were, should take very different views of the situation of affairs. Pitt could see nothing but the trophies ; Gren- ville could see nothing but the bill. Pitt boasted that Eng- land was victorious at once in America, in India, and in Germany, the umpire of the Continent, the mistress of the sea. Grenville cast up the subsidies, sighed over the army extraordinaries, and groaned in spirit to think that the nar tion had borrowed eight millions in one year. a With a ministry thus divided it was not difficult for Bute to deal. Legge was the first who fell. He had given offence to the young King in the late reign, by refusing to support a creature of Bute at a Hampshire election. He was not only turned out, but in the closet, when he delivered wp his seal of office, was treated with gross incivility. Pitt, who did not love Legge, saw this event with indif- ference. But the danger was now fast approaching himself. Charles the Third of Spain had early conceived a deadly hatred of England. T^venty years before, when he was King of the Two Sicilies, he had been eager to join the coalition against Maria Theresa. But an English fleet had suddenly a])peared in the Bay of Naples. An English cap- tain had landed, had proceeded to the palace, had laid a watch on the table, and had told liis majesty that, within an hour, a treaty of neutrality must be signed, or a bombard- ment would commence. The treaty was signed ; the squad- ron sailed out of the bay twenty-four hours after it had sailed in ; and from that day the ruling passion of the humbled Prince was aversion to the English name. He was at length in a situation in which he might hope to gratify that passion. He liad recently become King of Spain and the Indies. He saw, with envy and apprehension, the 182 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. triumphs of our navy, and the rapid extension of ourcoloniai Empire. He was a Bourbon, and sympathized with the distress of the house from which he sprang. He was a Sj^aniard, and no Spaniard could bear to see Gibraltar and Minorca in the possession of a foreign power. Impelled by such feelings, Charles concluded a secret treaty with France. By this treaty, known as the Family Compact, the U\o powers bound themselves, not in express words, but by the clearest implication, to make war on England in common. Sj)ain postponed the declaration of hostilities only till her fleet, laden with the treasures of America, should have ar- rived. The existence of the treaty could not be kept a secret from Pitt. He acted as a man of his capacity and energy might be expected to act. He at once proposed to declare war against Spain, and to intercept the American fleet. He had determined, it is said, to attack without delay both Havana and the Philippines. His wise and resolute counsel was rejected. Bute was foremost in opposing it, and was supported by almost the wh»le cabinet. Some of the ministers doubted, or affected to doubt, the correctness of Pitt's intelligence ; some shrank from the responsibility of advising a course so bold and de- cided as that which he proposed ; some were weary of his ascendency, and were glad to be rid of him on any pretext. One only of his colleagues agreed with him, his brother-in- law. Earl Temple. Pitt and Temple resigned their ofiices. To Pitt the young King behaved at parting in the most gracious man- ner. Pitt, who, proud and fiery everywhere else, was al- ways meek and humble in the closet, was moved even to tears. The King and the favorite urged him to accept some substantial mark of royal gratitude. Would he like to be appointed governor of Canada ? A salary of five thousand pounds a year should be annexed to the oflice. Residence would not be required. It was true the governor of Canada, as the law then stood, could not be a member of the House of Commons. But a bill should be brought in, authorizing Pitt to hold his government together with a seat in Parlia- ment, and in the preamble should be set forth his claims to the gratitude of his country. Pitt answered, with all deli- cacy, that his anxieties were rather for his wife and family than for himself, and that nothing would be so acceptable ti him as a mark of royal goodness which might be benefi- THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 183 cial to those who were dearest to him. The hint was taken. The same Gazette which announced the retirement of the Secretary of State announced also that, in consideration of his great public services, his wife had been created a peeress in her own right, and that a pension of three thousand pounds a year, for three lives, had beenbestow^ed on himself. It was doubtless thought that the rewards and honors con- ferred on the great minister would have a conciliatory effect on the public mind. Perhaps, too, it was thought that his popularity, which had partly arisen from the contempt which he had always shown for money, would be damaged by a pension ; and, indeed, a crowd of libels instantly ap- peared, in which he was accused of having sold his country. Many of his true friends thought that he would have best consulted the dignity of his character by refusing to accept any pecuniary reward from the court. Nevertheless, the general opinion of his talents, virtues, and services, re- mained unaltered. Addresses were presented to him from several large towns. London showed its admiration and af- fection in a still more marked manner. Soon after his res- ignation came the Lord Mayor's day. The King and the royal family dined at Guildhall. Pitt was one of the guests. The young Sovereign, seated by his bride in his state coach, received a remarkable lesson. He was scarcely noticed. All eyes were fixed on the fallen minister; all acclamations directed to him. The streets, the balconies, the chimney tops, burst into a roar of delight as his char- iot passed by. The ladies waved their handkerchiefs from the windovA^s. The common people clung to their wheels, shook hands with the footmen, and even kissed the horses. Cries of " No Bute ! " " No Newcastle salmon ! " were mingled with the shouts of "Pitt for ever!" When Pitt entered Guildhall, he was welcomed by loud huzzas and clapping of hands, in wdiich the very magistrates of th(^ city joined. Lord Bute, in the mean time, was hooted and pelted through Cheapside, and would, it was thought, have been in some danger, if he had not taken the precaution of surrounding his carriage w^ith a strong body guard of boxers. Many persons blamed the conduct of Pitt on this occasion as disrespectful to the King. Indeed Pitt himself afterwards owned that he had done wrong. He was led into this error, as he was atterw^ards led into more serious errors, by the influence of his turbulent and mischievous brother-in-law^. Temple. 184 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. The events which immediately foUowed Pitt's retire- ment raised his fame higher than ever. War with Spain proved to be, as he had predicted, inevitable. News came from the AYest Indies that Martinique had been taken by an expedition which he had sent forth. Havana fell ; and it was known that he had planned an attack on Havana. Llanilla capitulated ; and it was believed that he had medita- ted a blow against Manilla. The American fleet, which he had proposed to intercept, had unloaded an immense cargo of bullion in the haven of Cadiz, before Bute could be con- vinced that the Court of Madrid really entertained hostile intentions. • The session of Parliament which followed Pitt's retire- ment passed over without any violent storm. Lord Bute took on himself the most prominent part in the House of Lords. He had become Secretary of State, and indeed prime minister, without having once opened his lips in pub- lic except as an actor. There was, therefore, no small curiosity to know how he would acquit himself. Members of the House of Commons crowded the bar of the Lords, and covered the steps of the throne. It was generally ex- pected that the orator would break down ; but his most malicious hearers were forced to own that he had made a better figure than they expected. They, indeed, ridiculed his action as theatrical, and his style as tumid. They w^ere especially amused by the long pauses which, not from hesita- tion, but from affectation, he made at all the emphatic w^ords, and Charles Townshend cried out " Minute guns ! " The general opinion however was, that, if Bute had been early practised in debate, he might have become an impres- sive speaker. In the Commons, George Grenville had been intrusted with the lead. The task was not, as yet, a very difficult one : for Pitt did not think fit to raise the standard of opposition. His speeches at this time were distinguished, not only by that eloquence in which he excelled all his rivals, but also by a temperance and a modesty w^hich had too often been wanting to his character. When w^r w^as de- clared against Spain, he justly laid claim to the merit of having foreseen what had at length become manifest to all, but he carefully abstained from arrogant and acrimonious expressions ; and this abstinence was the more honorable to him, because his temper, never very placid, was now^ severely tried, both by gout and by calumny. The courtiers had THE EAKL OF CHATHAM. 185 adoj3tecl a mode of warfare, which was soon turned with fai more formidable effect against themselves. Half the inhab- itants of the Grub Street garrets ])aid their milk scores, and got their shirts out of pawn, by abusing Pitt. His German war, his subsidies, his ])ension, his wife's peerage, were sl]in of beef and gin, blankets and baskets of small coal, to the starving poetasters of the Fleet. Even in the House of Commons, he was, on one occasion during this session, assailed with an insolence and malice which called forth tlie indignation of men of all parties; but he endured the out- rage with majestic patience. In his younger days he had been but too prompt to retaliate on those who attacked him ; but now, conscious of his great services, and of the space which he filled in the eyes of all mankind, he would not stoop to personal squabbles. "This is no season," he said, in the debate on the Spanish war, "for altercation and recrimination. A day has arrived when every Englishman shoijld stand forth for his country. Arm the whole; be one people ; forget everything but the public. I set you the example. Harassed by slanderers, sinking under pain and disease, for the public I forget both my wrongs and my infirmities ! " On a general review of his life, we are in- clined to think that his genius and virtue never shone with so pure an effulgence as during the session of 1762. The session drew towards tlie close ; and Bute, em- boldened by the acquiescence of the Houses, resolved to strike another great blow, and to become first minister in name as well as in reality. That coalition, which a few months before had seemed all powerful, had been dissolved. The retreat of Pitt had deprived the govei-nment of popu- larity. Newcastle had exulted in the fall of the illustrious colleague whom he envied and dreaded, and had not fore- seen that his own doom was at hand. He still tried to flatter himself that he was at the head of the government ; but insults heaped on insults at length undeceived him. Places which had always been considered as in his gift, were bestowed without any reference to him. His expostu- lations only called forth significant hints that it was time for him to retire. One day he pressed on Bute the claims of a Whig Prelate to the archl)ishopric of York. " If your grace thinks so higldy of him," answered Bute, " I wonder that you did not promote him wlien you had the power." Still the old man clung with a desperate grasp to the w^-eck. Seldom, indeed, have Christian meekness and Christian 186 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. humility equalled the meekness and humility of his patient and abject ambition. At length he was forced to under- stand that all was over. He quitted that Court where he had held high office during forty-five years, and hid his shame and regret among the cedars of Claremont. Bute became first lord of the treasury. The favorite had undoubtedly committed a great error. It is impossible to imagine a tool better suited to his pur- poses than that which he thus threw away, or rather put into the hands of his enemies. If Newcastle had been suf- fei'ed to play at being first minister, Bute might securely and quietly have enjoyed the substance of power. The gradual introduction of Tories into all the departments ol the government might have been effected without any vio- lent clamor, if the chief of the great Whig connection had been ostensibly at the head of affairs. This was strongly represented to Bute by Lord Mansfield, a man who may justly be called the father of modern Toryism, of Toryism modified to suit an order of things under which the House of Commons is the most powerful body in the state. The theories which had dazzled Bute could not impose on the fine intellect of Mansfield. The temerity with which Bute provoked the hostility of powerful and deeply rooted in- terests, was displeasing to Mansfield's cold and timid nature. Expostulation, however, was vain. Bute was impatient of advice, drunk with success, eager to be, in show as well as in reality, the head of the government. He had engaged in an undertaking in which a screen was absolutely necessary to his success, and even to his safety. He found an excel- lent screen ready in the very place where it was most needed ; and lie rudely pushed it away. And now the new system of government came into full operation. For the first time since the accession of the House of Hanover, the Tory party was in the ascendant. The prime minister himself was a Tory. Lord Egremont, who had succeeded Pitt as Secretary of State, was a Tory, and the son of a Tory. Sir Francis Dashwood, a man of slender parts, of small experience, and of notoriously im- moral character, was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, for no reason that could be imagined, except that he was a Tory, and had been a Jacobite. The royal household was filled with men whose favorite toast, a few years before, had been the King over the water. The relative position of the two great national seats of learning was suddenly changed. The THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 187 University of Oxford had long been the chief seat of disaf- fection. In troubled times, the High Street had been lined with bayonets ; the colleges had been searched by the King's messengers. Grave doctors were in the habit of talking very Ciceronian treason in the theatre; and the undergrad- uates drank bumpers to Jacobite toasts, and chanted Jacobite airs. Of four successive Chancellors of the University, one had notoriously been in the Pretender's service ; the other three were fully believed to be in secret correspondence with the exiled family. Cambridge had therefore been es- pecially favored by the Hanoverian Princes, and had shown herself grateful for their patronage. George the First had enriched her library ; George the Second had contributed raimificently to her Senate House. Bishoprics and deaneries were showered on her children. Her chancellor was New- castle, the chief of the Whig aristocracy ; her High Steward was Hardwicke, the Whig head of the law. Both her bur- gessess had held office under the Whig ministry. Times had now changed. The University of Cambridge was re- ceived at St. James's with comparative coldness. The an- swers to the addresses of Oxford were all graciousness and warmth. The watchwords of the new government were prerogative and purity. The sovereign was no longer to be a puppet in the hands of any subject, or of any combination of subjects. George the Third would not be forced to take ministers whom he disliked, as his grandfather had been forced to take Pitt. George the Third would not be forced to part with any whom he delighted to honor, as his grandfather had been forced to part with Carteret. At the same time, the system of bribery which had grown up during the late reigns was to cease. It was ostentatiously proclaimed that, since the succession of the young King, neither constituents nor representatives had been bought with the secret service money. To free Britain from corruption and oligarchical (jabals, to detach her from continental connections, to bring the bloody and expensive war with France and Spain to a close, such were the specious objects which Bute ]3rofessed to procure. Some of these objects he attained. England withdrew, at the cost of a deep stain on her faith, from her German connections. The war with France and Spain was termina- ted by a peace, honorable indeed and advantageous to our country, yet less honorable and less advantageous than might 188 macaulay's miscellaneous wkittngs. have been expected from a long and almost mibroken series of victories, by land and sea, in every part of the world. But the only effect of Bute's domestic administration was to make faction wilder, and corruption fouler than ever. The mutual animosity of the Whig and Tory parties had begun to languish after the fall of Walpole, and had seemed to be almost extinct at the close of the reign of George the Second. It now revived in all its force. Many Whigs, it is true, were still in office. The Duke of Bedford had signed the treaty with France. The Duke of Devon- shire, though much out of humor, still continued to be Lord Chamberlain. Grenville, who led the House of Commons, and Fox, who still enjoyed in silence the immense gains of the pay office, had always been regarded as strong Whigs. But the bulk of the party throughout the country regarded the new minister with abhorrence. There was, indeed, no want of popular themes for invective against his character. He was a favorite ; and favorites have always been odious in this country. No mere favorite had been at the head of the government since the dagger of Felton had reached the heart of tlie Duke of Buckingham. After that event the most arbitrary and the most frivolous of the Stuarts had felt the necessity of confiding the chief direction of affairs to men who had given some proof of parliamentary or official talent. Strafford, Falkland, Clarendon, Clifford, Shaftes- bury, Lauderdale, Danby, Temple, Halifax, Rochester, Sunderland, Avhatever their faults might be, were all men of acknowledged ability. They did not owe their eminence merely to the favor of the sovereign. On the contrary, they owed the favor of the sovereign to their eminence. Most of them, indeed, had first attracted the notice of the court by the capacity and vigor which they had shown in opposition. The Revolution seemed to have for ever secured the state against the domination of a Carr or a Villiers. Now, however, the personal regai'd of the king had at once raised a man who had seen nothing of public business, who had never opened his lips in parliament, over the heads of a crowd of eminent orators, financiers, diplomatists. From a private gentleman, this foi tunate minion had at once been turned into a Secretary of State. He had made his maiden speech when at the head of the administration. The vulgar resorted to a simple explanation of the phenomenon, and the coarsest ribaldry against the Princess Mother was scrawled on every wall and sung in every alley. THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 189 This was not all. The spirit of party, roused by impol- itic provocation from its long sleep, roused in turn a still fiercer and more malignant Fury, the spirit of national animosity. The grudge of Whig against Tory was mingled with the grudge of Englishman against Scot. The two sections of tlie great British peo])le had not yet been indis- solubly blended together. The events of 1715 and of 1745 had left painful and enduring traces. The tradesmen of Cornhill had been in dread of seeing their tills and ware- houses plundered by barelegged mountaineers from tlie Grampians. They still recollected that Black Friday, when the news came that the rebels were at Derby, when all the shops in the city were closed, and wdien the Bank of England began to pay in sixpences. The Scots, on the other hand, remembered, with natural resentment, the severity with which the insurgents had been chastised, the military out- rages, the humiliating laws, the heads fixed on Temple Bar, the fires and quartering blocks of Kennington Common. The favorite did not suffer the English to forget from what part of the island he came. The cry of all the south was that the public ofKces, the army, the navy, were filled with high cheeked Drummonds- and Erskines, Macdonalds and Macgillivrays, who could not talk a Christian tongue, and some of whom had but lately begun to wear Christian breeches. All the old jokes on hills without trees, girls with- out stockings, men eating the food of horses, pails emptied from the fourteenth story, were pointed against these lucky adventurers. To the honor of the Scots it must be said, that their prudence and their pride restrained them from retalia- tion. Like the princess in the Arabian tale, they stopped their ears tight, and unmoved by the shrillest notes of abuse, walked on, without once looking round, straight towards the Golden Fountain. - Bute, who had always been considered as a man of taste and reading, affected, from the moment of his elevation, the character of a Maecenas. If he expected to conciliate the public by encouraging literature and art, he was grievously mistaken. Indeed, none of the objects of his munificence, with the single exception of Johnson, can be said to have been well selected ; and the public, not unnaturally, ascribed the selection of Johnson rather to the Doctor's political prejudices than to his literary merits : for a wretched scribbler named Shebbeare, who had nothing in common with John- son except violent Jacobitism, and who had stood in the 190 MACAULAY's MIS'CELLAIS-EOUS WRITINGS. pillory for a libel on the Revolution, was honored with a mark of royal approbation, similar to that which was be- stowed on the author of the English Dictionary, and of the Vanity of Human Wishes. It was remarked that Adam, a Scotchman, was the court architect, and that Ramsay, a Scotchman, was the court painter, and was p^referred to Reynolds. Mallet, a Scotchman, of no high literary fame, and of infamous character, partook largely of the liberality of the government. John Home, a Scotchman, was re- warded for the tragedy of Douglas, both with a pension and with a sinecure place. But, when the author of the Bard, and of the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, ventured to ask for a Professorship, the emoluments of which he much needed, and for the duties of which he was, in many respects, better qualified than any man living, he was refused ; and the post was bestowed on the pedagogue under whose care the favor- ite's son-in-law. Sir James Lowther, had made such signal proficiency in the graces and in the humane virtues. Thus, the first lord of the treasury was detested by many as a Tory, by many as a favorite, and by many as a Scot. All the hatred which flowed from these various sources soon mingled, and was directed in one torrent of obloquy against the treaty of peace. The Duke of Bedford, who had nego- tiated that treaty, was hooted through the streets. Bute was attacked in his chair, and was with difficulty rescued by a troop of the guards. He could hardly walk the streets in safety without disguising himself. A gentleman who died not many years ago used to say that he once recognized the favorite Earl in the piazza of Covent Garden, muffled in a large coat, and with a hat and wig draw/i down over his brows. His lordship's established type with the mob was a jack boot, a wretched pun on his Christian name and title. A jack boot, generally accompanied by a petticoat, was sometimes fastened on a gallows, and sometimes committed to the flames. Libels on the court, exceeding in audacity and rancor any that had been published for many years, now appeared daily, both in prose and verse. Wilkes, with lively insolence, compared the mother of George the Third to the mother of Edward the Third, and the Scotch minister to the gentle Mortimer. Churchill, with all the energy of hatred, deplored the fate of his country, invaded by a new race of savages, more cruel and ravenous than the Picts or the Danes, the poor, proud children of Leprosy and Hunger. It is a slight circumstance, but deserves to be recorded. THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 191 that in this year pamphleteers first ventured to print at length the names of tlie great men whom they lam])oonecl. George the Second had always been the K . His min- isters had been Sir E W , Mr. P , and the Duke of N . But tlie libellers of George tlie Tliird, of the Princess Mother, and of Lord Bute did not give quarter to a single vowel. It w^as supposed that Lord Temple secretly encouraged the most scurrilous assailants of the government. In truth, those who knew his habits tracked him as men track a mole. It was his nature to grub underground. Whenever a heap of dirt was flung up it might well be suspected that he was at work in some foul crooked labyrinth below. Pitt turned away from the filthy work of opposition, with the same scorn with which he had turned away from the filthy work of government. He had the magnanimity to proclaim ca ery- where the disgust which he felt at the insults offered by Jiis own adherents to the Scottish nation, and missed no op])or- tunity of extolling the courage and fidelity which the High- land regiments had displayed through the whole war. But, though he disdained to use any but lawful and honorable weapons, it was well known that his fair blows were likely to be far more formidable than the privy thi-usts of his brother-in-law's stiletto. Bute's heart began to fail him. The Houses were about to meet. The treaty would instantly be the subject of dis- cussion. It was probable that Pitt, the great Whig connec- tion, and the mulitude, would all be on the same side. The favorite had professed to hold in abhorrence those means by which preceding ministers had kept the House of Commons in good humor. He now began to think that he had been too scrupulous. His Utopian visions were at an end. It was necessary, not only to bribe, but to bribe more shame- lessly and flagitiously than his predecessors, in order to make u]) for lost time. A majority must be secured, no matter by what means. Could Grenville do this? Would he do it? His firmness and ability had not yet been tried in any peril- ous crisis. He had been generally regarded as a humble follower of his brother Temple, and of his brother-in-law Pitt, and was supposed, though with little reason, to be still favorably inclined towards them. Other aid must be called in, and where was other aid to be found ? There was one man, whose sharp and manly logic had often in debate been found a match for the lofty and impas- 192 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. sioned rhetoric of Pitt, whose talents for jobbing were not inferior to his talents for debate, whose dauntless spirit shrank from no difficulty or danger, and who w^as as little troubled with scruples as with fears. Henry Fox, or nobody, could weather the storm which w^as about to burst. Yet w^as he a person to whom the court, even in that extremity, W'as unwilling to have recourse. He had always been re- gared as a Whig of the Whigs. He had been the friend and disciple of Walpole. He had long been connected by close ties wath William Duke of Cumberland. By the Tories he was more hated than any man living. So strong was their aversion to him that when, in the late reign, he had at- tempted to form a party against the Duke of Newcastle, they had throwm all their weight into Newcastle's scale. By the Scots, Fox was abhorred as the confidential friend of the con- queror of Culloden. He w^as, on personal grounds, most ob- noxious to the Princess Mother. For he had, immediately after her husband's death, advised the late King to take the education of her son, the heir apparent, entirely out of her hands. He had recently given, if possible, still deeper of- fence ; for he had indulged, not without some ground, the ambitious hope that his beautiful sister-in-law, the Lady Sarah Lennox, might be queen of England. It had been observed that the King at one time rode every morning by the grounds of Holland House, and that, on such occasions. Lady Sarah, dressed like a shepherdess at a masquerade, was making hay close to the road, which was then separated by no wall from the lawn. On account of the part w^hich Fox had taken in this singular love affair, he w^as the only member of the Privy Council who was not summoned to the meeting at which his Majesty announced his intended marriage with the Princess of Mecklenburg. Of all the statesmen of the age, therefore, it seemed that Fox was the last with whom Bute the Tory, the Scot, the favorite of the Princess Mother, could, under any circumstances, act. Yet to Fox Bute was now compelled to apply. Fox had many noble and amiable qualities, which in pri- vate life shone forth in full lustre, and made him dear to his children, to his dependents, and to his friends ; but as a public man he had no title to esteem. In him the vices which were common to the whole school of Walpole appeared, not perhaps in their w^orst, but certainly in their most prominent form ; for his parliamentary and official talents made all his faults conspicuous. His courage, his vehement temper, his THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 193 contein])t for appearances, led him to display much that others, quite as unscrupulous as himself, covered with a decent veil. He was the most unpopular of the statesmen of his time, not because he sinned more than many of them, but because he canted less. lie felt his unpopularity ; but he felt it after the fashion of strong minds. lie became, not cautious, but reckless, and faced the rage of the whole nation with a scowl of inflexible defiance. He was born with a sweet and generous temper ; but he had been goaded and baited into a savageness which was not natural to him, and which amazed and sliocked those who knew him best. Such was the man to whom Bute, in extreme need, applied for succor. That succor Fox was not unwilling to afford. Though by no means of an envious temper, he had undoubtedly con- templated the success and popularity of Pitt with bitter mor- tification. He thought himself Pitt's match as a debater, and Pitt's superior as a man of business. They had long been regarded as well-paired rivals. They had started fair in the career of ambition. They had long run side by side. At length Fox had taken the lead, and Pitt had fallen be- hind. Then had come a sudden turn of fortune, like that in Yirgil's foot-race. Fox had stumbled in the mire, and had not only been defeated, but befouled. Pitt had reached the gaol, and received the prize. The emoluments of the Pay OfHce might induce the defeated statesman to submit in silence to the ascendenc}^ of his competitor, but could not satisf}' a mind conscious of great powers, and sore from great vexations. As soon, therefore, as a party arose ad- verse to the war and to the supremacy of the great war min- ister, the hopes of Fox began to revive. His feuds with the Princess Mother, with the Scots, with the Tories, he was ready to forget, if, by the help of his old enemies, he could now regain the importance which he had lost, and confront Pitt on equal terms. The alliance was, therefore, soon concluded. Fox was assured that, if he would pilot the government out of its embarrassing situation, he should be rewarded with a peer- age, of which he had long been desirous. He undertook on his side to obtain, by fair or foul means, a vote in favor of the peace. In consequence of this arrangement he became leader of the House of Commons ; and Grenville, stifling his vexation as well as he could, sullenly acquiesced in the change. Vol. III.— 13 194 macaulay's miscellaneous wkitings. Fox had expected that his influence woukl secure to the court the cordial support of some eminent Whigs who were his personal friends, particularly of the Duke of Cumherland and of the Duke of Devonshire. He was disappointed, and soon found that, in addition to all his other difliculties, he must reckon on the opposition of the ablest prince of the blood, and the great house of Cavendish. But he had pledged himself to w^in the battle ; and he was not a man to go back. It was no time for squeamish- ness. Bute was made to comprehend that the ministry could be saved only by practising the tactics of Walpole to an (!x- tent at which Walpole himself would have stared. The Pay Office was turned into a mart for votes. Hundreds of mem- bers were closeted there with Fox, and, as tliere is too much reason to believe, departed carrying with them the wages of infamy. It was affirmed by persons who had the best op- portunities of obtaining information, that twenty-five thou- sand pounds were thus paid away in a single morning. The lowest bribe given, it was said, was a bank-note for two hundred pounds. Intimidation was joined with corruption. All ranks, from the highest to the lowest, were to be taught that the King w^ould be obeyed. The Lords Lieutenants of several counties were dismissed. The Duke of Devonshire was es- pecially singled out as the victim by whose fate the magnates of England w^ere to take w^arning. His wealth, rank, and influence, his stainless private character, and the constant attachment of his family to the House of Hanover did not secure him from gross personal indignity. It was known that he disapproved of the course wdiich the government had taken ; and it was accordingly determined to humble the Prince of the Whigs, as he had been nicknamed by the Princess Mother. He went to the palace to pay his duty, " Tell him," said the King to a page, " that I will nut see him." The page hesitated. " Go to him," said the King, " and tell him those very w^ords." The message was deliv- ered. The Duke tore off liis gold key, and went away boil- ing with anger. His relations who were in office instantly resigned. A few days later, the King called for the list of Privy Councillors, and wdth his owai hand struck out the Duke's name. In this step there was at least courage, though little wis- dom or good nature. But, as nothing was too high for the revenge of the court, so also was nothing too low. A per- THE EAEL OF CHATHAM. 195 eeciition, such as had never been known before, and has never been known since, raged in every public department. Great numbers of humble and laborious clerks were de- prived of their bread, not because they had neglected their duties, not because they liad taken an active part against the ministry, but merely because they had owed their situations to the recommendation of some nobleman or gentleman who was against the peace. The proscri])tion extended to tide waiters, to gangers, to doorkeepers. One poor man to whom a pension had been given for his gal- lantry in a fight with smugglers, was deprived of it because he had been befriended by the Duke of Grafton. An aged widow, who, on account of her husband's services in the navy, had, many years before, been made housekeeper to a public office, was dismissed from her situation, because it was imag- ined that she was distantly connected by marriage with the Cavendish family. The public clamor, as may well be sup- posed, grew daily louder and louder. But the louder it grew, the more resolute did Fox go on with the work which he had begun. His old friends could not conceive what had possessed him. "I could forgive," said the Duke of Cum- berland, " Fox's political vagaries ; but I am quite con- founded by his inhumanity. Surely he used to be the best- natured of men." At last Fox went so far as to take a legal opinion on the question, whether the patents granted by George the Second were binding on George the Third. It is said, that if his colleagues had not flinched, he would at once have turned out the Tellers of the Exchequer and Justices in Eyre. ]\feanwhile the Parliament met. The ministers, more hated by the people than ever, were secure of a majority, and they had also reason to hope that they would have the advantage in the debates as well as in the divisions ; for Pitt was confined to his cham.ber by a severe attack of gout. His friends moved to defer the consideration of the treaty till he should be able to attend : but the motion was rejected. The great day arrived. The discussion had lasted some time, when a loud huzza was heard in Palace Yard. The noise came nearer and nearev, up the stairs, through the lobby. The door opened, and from the midst of a shouting multitude came forth Pitt, borne in the arms of his attend- ants. His face was thin and ghastly, his limbs swathed in flannel, his crutch m his hand. The bearers set him down 196 macaitlay's MISCELLA:N"E0US whitikgs. within the bar. His friends instantly surrounded him, and with their help he crawled to his seat near the table. In this condition he spoke three hours and a half against the ])eace. During that time he was repeatedly forced to sit down and to use cordials. It may well be supposed that his voice was faint, that his action was languid, and that his speech, though occasionally^ brilliant and impressive, was feeble when compared with his best oratorical performances. But those who remembered what he had done, and who saw what lie suffered, listened to him with emotions stronger than any that mere eloquence can produce. He was unable to stay for the division, and was carried away from the House amidst shouts as loud as those which had announced his arrival. A large majority approved the peace. The exultation of the court was boundless. " Now," exclaimed the Princess Mother, " my son is really King." The young sovereign spoke of himself as freed from the bondage in which his gi-andfather had been held. On one point, it was an- nounced, his mind was unalterably made up. Under no circumstances whatever should those Whig grandees, who had enslaved his predecessors and endeavored to enslave himself, be restored to power. This vaunting was premature. The real strength of the favorite was by no means proportioned to the number of votes which he had, on one particular division, been able to command. He was soon again in difficulties. The most important part of his budget was a tax on cider. This measure was opposed, not only by those who were generally hostile to his administration, but also by many of his sup- porters. The name of excise had always been hateful to the Tories. One of the chief crimes of Walpole in their eyes, had been his partiality for this mode of raising money. The Tory Johnson had in his Dictionary given so scurrilous a definition of the word Excise, that the Commissioners of Excise had seriously thought of prosecuting him. The counties Avhich the new impost particularly affected had al- ways been Tory counties. It was the boast of John Philips, the poet of the English vintage, that the Cider-land had ever been faithful to the throne? and that all the pruning-hooks of her thousand orchards had been beaten into swords for the service of the ill-fated Stuarts. The effect of Bute's fiscal scheme was to produce union between the gentry and yeo- manry of the Cider-land and the Wliigs of the capital. THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 197 Herefoi'dsliire and W orcestershire were in a flame. The city of London, though not so directly interested, was, if pos- sible, still more excited. The debates on this question irre- parably damaged the government. Dashwood's financial statf.'ment had been confused and absurd beyond belief, and had been received by the House with roars of laughter. He had sense enough to be conscious of his unfit- ness for the high situation wliich he held, and exclaimed in a comical fit of despair, ''What shall I do? The boys will point at me in the street, and cry, ' There goes the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer that ever w^as.' " George Grenville came to the rescue, and spoke strongly on his favorite theme, the profusion with w^hich the late war had been carried on. That profusion, he said, had made taxes necessary. He called on the gentleman opposite to him to say where they would have a tax laid, and dwelt on this topic with his usual prolixity. "Let them tell me where," he repeated in a monotonous and somew^hat fretful tone. " I say, sir, let them tell me where. I repeat it, sir ; I am entitled to say to them. Tell me where." TJnluckily for him Pitt had come down to the House that night, and had been bitterly provoked by the reflections throw^n on the war. He revenged himself by murmuring, in a whine resembling Grenville's, a line of a well known song, "Gentle Shepherd, tell me wdiere." " If," cried Grenville, " gentlemen are to be treated in this way " Pitt, as w^as his fashion, when he meant to mark extreme conteinpt, rose deliberately, made his bow, and walked out of the House, leaving his brother- in-law in convulsions of rage, and everybody else in convul- sions of laughter. It was long before Grenville lost the nickname of the Gentle Shepherd. But the ministry had vexations still more serious to endure. The hatred which the Tories and Scots bove to Fox was implacable. In a moment of extreme peril, they had consented to put themselves under his guidance. But the aversion with which they regarded him broke forth as soon as the crisis seemed to be over. Some of them attacked him about the accounts of the Pay Office. Some of them rudely interrupted him wdien speaking, by laughter and ironical cheers. He was naturally desirous to escape from so disagreeable a situation, and demanded the peerage which had been promised as the reward of his services. It w^as clear that there must be some change in the com- position of the ministry. But scarcely any, even of those 198 macaulay's miscellaneous wrtti^^gs. who, from their situation, might be supposed to be in Jxll the secrets of the government, anticipated what really took place. To the amazement of the Parliament and the nation it was suddenly annoimced that Bute had resigned. Twenty different explanations of this strange step were suggested. Some attributed it to profound design, and some to sudden panic. Some said that the lampoons of the oj)position had driven the Earl from the field ; some that he had taken office only in order to bring the war to a close, and had always meant to retire when that object had been accomplished. He publicly assigned ill health as his reason for quitting business, and privately complained that he was not cordially seconded by his colleagues, and that Lord Mansfield, in particular, whom he had himself brought into the cabinet, gave him no support in the House of Peers. Mansfield was, indeed, far too sagacious not to perceive that Bute's situation was one of great peril, and far too timor- ous to thrust himself into peril for the sake of another. The probability, however, is that Bute's conduct on this occa- sion, like the conduct of most men on most occasions, was determined by mixed motives. We suspect that he was sick of office ; for this is a feeling much more common among ministers than persons who see public life from a distance are disposed to believe ; and nothing could be more natural than that this feeling should take possession of the mind of Bute. In general, a statesman climbs by slow degrees. Many laborious years elapse before he reaches the topmost pin- nacle of preferment. In the earlier part of his career, therefore, he is constantly lured on by seeing something above him. During his ascent he gradually becomes inured to the annoyances which belong to a life of ambition. By the time that he has attained the highest point, he has be- come patient of labor and callous to abuse. He is kept con- stant to his vocation, in spite of all its discomforts, at first by hope, and at last by habit. It was not so with Bute. His whole public life lasted little more than two years. On the day on which he became a politician he became a cabinet minister. In a few months he was, both in name and in show, chief of the administration. Greater than he had been he could not be. If what he already possessed was vanity and vexation of spirit, no delusion remained to en- tice him onward. He had been cloyed with the pleasures of ambition before he had been seasoned to its pains. His habits had not h^m such as were likely to fortify his mind THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 199 against obloquy and public hatred. He had reached his forty-eighth year in dignified ease, without knowing, by per- sonal experience, what it was to be ridiculed and slandered. All at once, without any previous initiation, he had found himself exposed to such a storm of invective and satire a» liad never burst on the head of any statesman. The emoki- ments of office were now nothing to him: for he had just succeeded to a princely property by the death of his father- in-law. All the honors which could be bestowed on him he had already secured. He had obtained the Garter for himself, and a British peerage for his son. He seems also to have imagined that by quitting the treasury he should escape from danger and abuse without really resigning power, and should still be able to exercise in private supreme influ- ence over the royal mind. Whatever may have been his motives, he retired. Fox at the same time took refuge in the House of Lords ; and George Grenville became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. We believe that those who made this arrangement fully intended that Grenville should be a mere puppet in the hands of Bute ; for Grenville was as yet very imperfectly known even to those who had observed him long. He passed for a mere oflicial drudge ; and he had all the industry, the minute accuracy, the formality, the tediousness, which belong to the character. But he had other qualities which had not yet shown themselves, devouring ambition, dauntless courage, self-confidence amounting to presumption, and a temper which could not endure opposition. He was not dis- posed to be anybody's tool ; and he had no attachment, po- litical or personal, to Bute. The two men had, indeed, noth- ing in common, except a strong propensity towards harsh and unpopular courses. Their principles were fundamentally different. Bute was a Tory. Grenville would have been very angry witli any person who should have denied his claim to be a Whig. He was more prone to tyrannical measures thar. Bute; but he loved tyranny only when dis- guised under the forms of constitutional liberty. He mixed up, after a fashion then not very unusual, the theories of the republicans of the seventeenth century with the tech- nical maxims of English law, and thus succeeded in com- bining anarchical speculation with arbitrary practice. The voice of the people was the voice of God ; but the only legitimate organ through which the voice of tlie people 200 MACAULAY^S MISCELLANEOUS WHITINGS. could be uttered was the Parliament. Alli)owerwas from the people; but to the Parliament the Avhole power of the people had been delegated. No Oxonian divine had ever, even in the yeai's which immediately followed the Restora- tion, demanded for the King so abject, so unreasoning a hom- age, as Grenville on what he considered as the purest Whig principles demanded for the Parliament. As he wished to see the Parliament despotic over the nation, so he wished to see it also despotic over the court. In his view the prime minister, possessed of the confidence of the House of Commonj-, ought to be Mayor of the Palace. The King was a mere Childeric or Cliilperic, who might well think himself lucky in being permitted to enjoy such handsome apartments at St. James's, and so fine a park at Windsor. Thus the opinions of Bute and those of Grenville were diametrically opposed. Nor w^as there any private friend- ship between the two statesmen. Grenville's nature was not forgiving; and he w^ell remembered how, a few months before, he had been compelled to yield the lead of the House of Commons to Fox. We are inclined to think, on the whole, that the worst administration wiiich has governed England since the Re- volution w^as that of George Grenville. His public acts may be classed under two heads, outrages on the liberty of the people, and outrages on the dignity of the crown. He began by making w^ar on the press. John Wilkes, member of Parliament for Aylesbury, was singled out for persecution. Wilkes had, till very lately, been known chiefly as one of the most profane, licentious, and agreeable rakes about town. He was a man of taste, reading, and en- gaging manners. His sprightly conversation was the delight of green rooms and taverns, and pleased even grave hearers when he was sufficiently under restraint to abstain from de- tailing the particulars of his amours, and from breaking jests on the New Testament. His expensive debaucheries forced him to have recourse to the Jews. He was soon a ruined man, and determined to try his chance as a political adventurer. In j)arliament he did not succeed. His speak- ing, though jjert, was feeble, and by no means interested his hearers so much as to make them forget his face, which was so hideous that the caricaturists were forced, in their own despite, to flatter him. As a writer, he made a better figure. He set up a weekly paper, called the North Briton, This journal, written with some pleasantry, and great au- THE EAKL OF CHATHAM. 201 clacity and impudence, had a considerable number of I'eaders. Forty-four numbers ?iad been published when Bute resigned ; and, though almost every number had contained matter grossly libellous, no prosecution had been instituted. The forty-fifth number was innocent when compared with the majority of those which had preceded it, and indeed con- tained nothing so strong as may in our time be found daily in the leading articles oi* the Times and Morning Chronicle. But Grenville was now at the head of affairs. Anew spirit had been infused into the administration. Authority was to be upheld. The government was no longer to be braved with impunity. Wilkes Avas arrested under a general war- rant, conveyed to the Tower, and confined there with cir- cumstances of unusual severity. Ilis papers w^ere seized, and carried to the Secretary of State. These harsh and illegal measures produced a violent outbreak of popular rage, which was soon changed to delight and exultation. The arrest was pronounced unlawful by the Court of Com- mon Pleas, in which Chief Justice Pratt presided, and the prisoner was discharged. This victory over the government was celebrated with enthusiasm both in London and in the cider counties. While the ministers were daily becoming more odious to the nation, they w^ere doing their best to make themselves also odious to the court. They gave the King plainly to understand that they were determined not to be Lord Bute's creatures, and exacted a promise that no secret adviser should have access to the royal ear. They soon found rea- son to suspect that this promise had not been observed. They remonstrated in terms less respectful than their master had been accustomed to hear, and gave him a fortnight to make his choice between his favorite and his cabinet. George the Third was greatly disturbed. lie had but a few weeks before exulted in his deliverance from the yoke of the great Whig connection. He had even declared that his honor would not permit him ever again to admit the mem- bers of that connection into his service. lie now found that he had only exchanged one set of masters for another set still harsher and more imperious. In his distress he thought on Pitt. From Pitt it w^as possible that better terms might be obtained than either from Grenville, or from the party of which Newcastle w^as the head. Grenville, on his return from an excursion into the coun- try, repaired to Buckingham House. He was astonished to 202 macaulay's miscellan^eous writings, find at the entrance a chair, the shape of which was well known to him, and indeed to all London. It was distin- guished by a large boot, made for the purpose of accommo- dating the great Commoner's gouty leg. Grenville guessed tlie whole. His brother-in-law was closeted with the King. Bute, provoked by what he considered as the unfriendly and ungrateful conduct of his successors, had himself pro- posed that Pitt should be summoned to the palace. Pitt had two audiences on two successive days. What |)assed at the first interview led him to expect that the ne- gotiation would be brouglit to a satisfactory close ; but on the morrow he found the King less complying. The best account, indeed the only trustworthy account of the confer- ence, is that which was taken from Pitt's own mouth by Lord Hardwicke. It appears that Pitt strongly represented the importance of conciliating those chiefs of the Whig party who had been so unhappy as to incur the royal dis- pleasure. They had, he said, been the most constant friends of the House of Hanover. Their power was great ; they had been long versed in public business. If they were to be under sentence of exclusion, a solid administration could not be formed. His Majesty could not bear to think of putting himself into the hands of those whom he had recently chased from his court w^th the strongest marks of anger. " I am sorry, Mr. Pitt," he said, " but I see this will not do. My honor is concerned. I must support my honor." How his Majesty succeeded in supporting his honor, we shall soon see. Pitt retired, and the King was reduced to request the ministers, whom he had been on the point of discarding, to remain in ofiice. During the two years which followed, Grenville, now closely leagued with the Bedfords, was the master of the court ; and a hard master he proved. He knew that he was kept in place only because there was no choice except between himself and the Whigs. That under any circumstances the Whigs would be forgiving, he thought impossible. The late attempt to get rid of him had roused liis resentment; the failure of that attempt had liberated him from all fear. He had never been very courtly. He now begun to hold a language, to which, since the days of Cornet Joyce and President Bradshaw, no English King had been compelled to listen. In one matter, indeed, Grenville, at the expense of justice and liberty, gratified the passions of the court while gratify- THE EAKL OF CHATHAJSI. ing his own. The persecution of Wilkes was eagerly pressed, tie liad written a parody on Pope's Essay on Man, entitled tlie Essay on Woman, and had appended to it notes, in ridicule of Warburton's famous Commentary. This com])osi- tion was exceedingly profligate, but not more so, we think, than some of Pope's own works, the imitation of the second satire of the first book of Horace, for example; and, to do Wilkes justice, he had not, like Pope, given his ribaldry to tli'e world. He had merely printed at a private press a very small number^of copies, which he meant to present to some of his boon companions, whose morals were in no more danger of being corrupted by a loose book than a negro of being tanned by a warm sun. A tool of the government, by giving a bribe to the printer, procured a copy of this trash, and placed it in the hands of the ministers. The minis- ters resolved to Adsit Wilkes's offence against decorum with the utmost rigor of the ]aw^ What share piety and respect for morals had in dictating this resolution, our readers may judge from the fact that no person was more eager for bringing the libertine poet to punishment than Lord March, after- wards Duke of Queensberry. On the first clay of the session of Parliament, the book, thus disgracefully obtained, was laid on the table of the Lords by the Earl of Sandwich, whom the Duke of Bedford's interest had made Secretary of State. The unfortunate author had not the slightest suspicion that his licentious poem had ever been seen, except by his printer and by a few of his dissipated companions, till it was produced in full Parliament. Though he was a man of easy temper, averse from danger, and not very susceptible of shame, the surprise, the disgrace, the prospect of utter ruin, put him beside himself. He picked a quarrel with one of Lord Bute's dependents, fought a duel, was seriously wounded, and when half recovered, fled to France. His enemies had now their own way both in the Parliament and in the King's Bench. He was censured, expelled from the House of Commons, outlawed. His works were ordered to be l)urned by the common hangman. Yet was the multitude still true to him. In the minds even of many moral and religious men, his crime seemed light when com- pared with the crime of his accusers. The conduct of Sand- wich, in particular, excited universal disgust. His own vices were notorious ; and, only a fortnight before he laid the Essay on Woman before the House of Lords, he had been drink- ing and singing loose catches with Wilkes at one of the most 204 mac\ulay's miscellaneous writings. dissolute clubs in Loudon. Shortly after the meeting of Parliament, the Beggar's Opera was acted at Covent Gar- den theatre. When Macheath uttered the words — " That Jemmy Twitcher should peach me I own surprised me," — pit, boxes, and galleries, burst into a roar which seemed likely to bring the roof down. From that day Sandwich was universally known by the nickname of Jemmy Twitcher. The ceremony of burning the North Briton was interrupted by a riot. The constables were beaten ; the paper was rescued; and, instead of it, a jack boot and a petticoat were committed to the flames. Wilkes had instituted an action for the seizure of his papers against the Under Secretary of State. The jury gave a thousand pounds dam- ages. But neither these nor any other indications of public feeling had power to move Grenville. He had the Parlia- ment with him : and, according to his political creed, the sense of the nation was to be collected from the Parliament alone. Soon, however, he found reason to fear that even the Parliament might fail him. On the question of the legality of general warrants, the Op])Osition, having on its side all sound principles, all constitutional authorities, and the voice of the whole nation, mustered in great force, and was joined by many who did not ordinarily vote against the govern- ment. On one occasion the ministry, in a very full House, had a majority of only fourteen votes. The storm, how- ever, blew over. The spirit of the Opposition, from what- ever cause, began to flag at the moment when success seemed almost certain. The session ended without any change. Pitt, whose eloquence had shone with its usual lustre in all the principal debates, and whose popularity was greater than ever, was still a private man. Grenville, detested alike by the court and by the people, was still minister. As soon as the Houses had risen, Grenville took a step which proved, even more signally than any of his past acts, how despotic, how acrimonious, and how fearless his nature was. Among the gentlemen not ordinarily opposed to the government, who, on the great constitutional question of general warrants, had voted with the minority, was Henry Conway, brother of the Earl of Hertford, a brave soldier, a tolerable speaker, and a well-meaning, though not a wise or vigorous politician. He was now deprived of his regiment, the merited reward of faithful and gallant service in two THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 205 wars. It was confidently asserted that in this riolent measure the King heartily con(^urred. But whatever pleasure the persecution of Wilkes, or the dismissal of Conway, may have given to the royal mind, it is certain that his Majesty's aversion to his ministers increased day by day. Grenville was as frugal of the public money as of his own, and morosely refused to accede to tlie King's request, that a fev>^ thousand pounds might be expended in buying so'ne open fields to the west of tlie gardens of Buck- ingham House. In consequence of this refusal, the fields were soon covered with buildings, and the King and Queen were overlooked in their most private walks by the u])];er windows of a hundred houses. Nor was this the worst. Grenville w^as as liberal of words as he was s])aring of guineas. Instead of explaining himself in that clear, con- cise, and liv^ely manner, which alone could win the attention of a young mind new to business, he spoke in the closet just as he spoke in the House of Commons. When he had harangued two hours, he looked at h'rs watch, as he had been in the habit of looking at the clock opposite the Speaker's chair, apologized for the length of his discourse, and then w^ent on for an hour more. The members of the House of Commons can cough an orator down, or can walk away to dinner ; and they were by no means sparing in the use of these privileges when Grenville was on his legs. But the * poor young King had to endure all this eloquence with mournful civility. To the end of his life he continued to talk with horror of Grenville's orations. Al>out this time took place one of the most singular events in Pitt's life. There was a certain Sir William Pyn- sent, a Somersetshire baronet of Whig politics, who had been a Member of the Plouse of Commons in the days of Queen Anne, and had retired to rural ])rivacy when the Tory party, towards the end of his reign, obtained the ascendency in her councils. His manners were eccentric. His morals lay under very odious imputations. But his fidelity to his political opinions as unalterable. During fifty years of seclusion he continued to brood over the cir- cumstances which had driven him from public life, the dis- missal of the Whigs, the peace of Utrecht, the desertion of our allies. He now thought that he perceived a close analogy between the well remembered events of his youth and the events which he had witnessed in extreme old age; between the disgrace of Marlborough and the disgrace of 206 MACAULAy's MISCELLAIS^EOUS WRITINGS. Pitt ; between the elevation of Harley and the elevation of Bute ; between the treaty negotiated by St. John and the treaty negotiated by Bedford ; between the wrongs of the House of Austria in 1712 and the wrongs of the House of Brandenburg in 1762. This fancy took such possession of the old man's mind that he determined to leave his whole property to Pitt. In this way Pitt unexpectedly came into possession of near three thousand pounds a year. Nor could all the malice of his enemies find any ground for reproach in the transaction. Nobody could call liim a legacy himter. Nobody could accuse him of seizing that to which others had a better claim. For he had never in his life seen Sir William ; and Sir William had left no relation so near as to be entitled to form any expectations respecting the estate. The fortunes of Pitt seem^ed to flourish ; but his health was worse than ever. We cannot find that, during the ses- sion which began in January, 1765, he once appeared in parliament. lie remained some months in profound retire- ment at Hayes, his favorite villa, scarcely moving except from his arm-chair to his bed, and from his bed to his arm-chair, and often employed his wife as his aman- uensis in his most confidential correspondence. Some of his detractors whispered that his invisibility was to be ascribed quite as much to affectation as to gout. In truth his character, high and splendid as it was, wanted simplicity. With genius which did not need the aid of stage tricks, and with a spirit which should have been far above them, he had yet been, through life, in the habit of practising them. It was, therefore, now surmised that, having acquired all the consideration Avhich could be derived from eloquence and from great services to the state, he had determined not to make himself cheap by often appearing in public, but, under the pretext of ill health, to surround himself with mysiery, to emerge only at long intervals and on momentous occa- sions, and at other times to deliver his oracles only to a few favored votaries, who were suffered to make pilgrimages to his shrine. If such were his object, it was for a time fully attained. Never was the magic of his name so powerful, never was he regarded by his country with such super- stitious veneration, as during this year of silence and seclu- sion. While Pitt was thus absent from Parliament, Grenville proposed a measure destined to produce a great revolution, the effects of which will long be felt by the whole human THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 207 race. We speak of the act for imposing stamp duties on the North American colonies. The plan was eminently charac- teristic of its author. Every feature of the parent was found in the child. A timid statesman would have shrunk from a step, of which Walpole, at a time when the colonies were far less powerful, had said, — lie who shall propose it will he a much bolder man than I." But the nature of Gi'cn- ville was insensible to fear. A statesman of large views would have felt that to lay taxes at Westminster on New England and New York, was a course opposed, not indeed to the letter of the Statute Book, or to any decision contained in the Term Reports, but to the principles of good government, and to the spirit of the constitution. A states- man of large views would also have felt that ten times the estimated produce of the American stamps would have been dearly purchased by even a transient quarrel between the mother country and the colonies. But Grenville knew of no spirit of the constitution distinct from the letter of the law, and of no national interests except those which are expressed by pounds, shillings, and pence. That his policy might give birth to deep discontents in all the provinces, from the shore of the Great Lakes to the Mexican sea ; that France and Spain might seize the opportunity of revenge ; that the empire might be dismembered; that the debt, that debt with the amount of which he perpetually reproached Pitt, might, in consequence of his own policy, be doubled ; these were possibilities which never occurred to that small, sharp mind. The Stamp Act will be remembered as long as the globe lasts. But, at the time, it attracted much less notice in this country than another Act which is now almost utterly for- gotten. The King fell ill, and w^as thought to be in a dangerous state. His complaint, we believe, was the same which, at a later period, repeatedly incapacitated him for the performance of his regal functions. The heir apparent was only two years old. It was clearly proper to make pro- vision for the administration of the government, in case of a minority. The discussions on this point brought the quar- rel between the court and the ministry to a crisis. The King wished to be intrusted with the power of naming a regent by will. The ministers feared, or affected to fear, that, if this power were conceded to him, he would name the Princess Mother, nay, possibly the Earl of Bute. They, therefore, insisted on introducing into the bill words con- 208 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. fiiiinor the King's choice to the royal family. Having thua exchided Bute, tliey urged tlie King to let them, in the most marked manner, exclude the Princess Dowager also. They assured him that the House of Commons would undoubtedly strike her name out, and by this threat they wrung from him a reluctant assent. In a few days, it appeared that the representations by which they had induced the King to put tliis gross and public affront on his mother were unfounded. The friends of the Princess in the House of Commons moved that her name should be inserted. The ministers could not decently attack the parent of their master. They hoped that the Opposition would come to their help, and put on them a force to which they would gladly have yielded. But the majority of the Opposition, though hating the Prin- cess, hated Grenville more, beheld his embarrassment with delight, and would do nothing to extricate him from it. The Princess's name was accordingly p>laced in the list of persons qualified to hold the regency. The King's resentment was now at the height. The present evil seemed to him more intolerable than any other. Even the junta of Whig grandees could not treat him worse than he had been treated by his present ministers. In his distress, he poured out his whole heart to his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland. The Duke was not a man to be loved; but he was eminently a man to be trusted. He had an intrepid temper, a strong understanding, and a high sense of honor and duty. As a general, he belonged to a remarkable class of captains, captains we mean, whose fate it has been to lose almost all the battles which they have fought, and yet to be reputed stout and skilful soldiers. Such captains were Coligui and William the Third. We might, perhaps, add Marshal Soult to the list. The bravery of the Duke of Cumberland was such as distinguished him even among the princes of his brave house. The indiffer- ence with which he rode about amidst musket-balls and cannon-balls was not the highest proof of his fortitude. Hopeless maladies, horrible surgical operations, far from un- manning him, did not even discompose him. With courage, he had the virtues which are akin to courage. He spoke the truth, was open in enmity and friendship, and upright in all his dealings. But his nature was hard ; and what seemed to him justice was rarely tempered with mercy. He was, therefore, during many years one of the most unpopu- lar men in England. The severity with which he had treated THE EAKL OF CIIATIIxVM. 209 the rebels after the battle of Culloclen, had gained for liim the name of the Butcher. His attempts to introduce into the army of England, then in a most disorderly state, the rigorous discipline of Potsdam, had excited still stronger diso-ust. Nothincr was too bad to be believed of him. Many honest people were so absurd as to fancy that, if he were left Regent during the minority of his nephews, there would be another smothering in the Tower. These feel- ings, however, had passed away. The Duke had been living, during some years, in retirement. The English, full of ani- mosity against the Scots, noAv blamed his Royal Highness only for having left so many Camerons and Macj^hersons to be made gangers and cnstom-house officers. He was, there- fore, at present, a favorite with his countrymen, and es2)e- cially with the inhabitants of London. He had little reason to love the King, and had shown clearly, though not obtrusively, his dislike of the system which had lately been pursued. But he had high and almost romantic notions of the duty which, as a prince of the blood, he owed to the head of his house. He determined to extri- cate his nephew from bondage, and to effect a reconciliation between the Whig party and the throne, on terms honorable to both. In this mind he set off for Hayes, and was admitted to Pitt's sick-room ; for Pitt would not leave his chamber, and would not communicate with any messenger of inferior dignity. And now began a long series of errors on the part of the illustrious statesman, errors which involved his country in difficulties and distresses more serious even than those from which his genius had formerly rescued her. His language was haughty, unreasonable, almost unintel- ligible. The only thing which could be discerned through a cloud of vague and not very gracious phrases, was that he would not at that moment take office. The truth, Ave be- lieve, was this. Lord Temple, who was Pitt's evil genius, had just formed a new scheme of politics. Hatred of Bute and of the Princess had, it should seem, taken entire pos- session of Temple's soul. He had quarrelled with his brother George, because George had been connected with Bute and the Princess. Now that George had appeared to be the enemy of Bute and of the Princess, Temple w^as eager to bring about a general family reconciliation. The three brothers, as Temple, Grenville, and Pitt were popularly called, might make a ministry, without leaning for aid either Vol. III.— U 210 macaulay's miscellaneous wkitings. on Bute or on the Whig connection. With such views, Temple used all his influence to dissuade Pitt from acceding to the propositions of the Duke of Cumberland. Pitt was not convinced. But Temple had an influence over him such as no other person had ever possessed. They were very old friends, very near relations. If Pitt's talents and fame had been useful to Temple, Temple's purse had for- merly, in times of great need, been useful to Pitt. They had never been parted in politics. Twice they had come into the cabinet together ; twice they had left it together. Pitt could not bear to think of taking office without his chief ally. Yet he felt that he w^as doing wrong, that he was throwing away a great opportunity of serving his country. The ob- scure and unconciliatory style of the answers which he re- turned to the overtures of the Duke of Cumberland, may be ascribed to the embarrassment and vexation of a mind not at peace with itself. It is said that he mournfully exclaimed to Temple, *' Extinxti te meqiie, soror, populumqne, patresque Sidonios, urbemque tiiara.'' The prediction was but too just. Finding Pitt impracticable, the Duke of Cumberland ad- vised the King to submit to necessity, and to keep Grenville and the Bedford s. It was, indeed, not a time at which offices could safely be left vacant. The unsettled state of the government had produced a general relaxation through all the departments of the public service. Meetings, which at another time would have been harmless, now turned to riots, and rapidly rose almost to the dignity of rebellions. The Houses of Parliament were blockaded by the Spital- fields weavers. Bedford House was assailed on all sides by a furious rabble, and was strongly garrisoned with horse and foot. Some people attributed these disturbances to the friends of Bute, and some to the friends of Wilkes. But, whatever might be the cause, the effect was general insecu- rity. Under such circumstances the King had no choice. With bitter feelings of mortification, he informed the minis- ters that he meant to retain them. They answered by demanding from him a promise on his royal word never more to consult Lord Bute. The promise was given. They then demanded something more. Lord Bute's brother, Mr. Mackenzie, held a lucrative office in Scotland. Mr. Mackenzie must be dismissed. The King THE EAKI. OF CHATHAM. 211 replied that the office had been given under very peculiar circumstances, and that he had promised never to take it away while he lived. Grenville was obstinate; and the Kinc^, with a very bad grace, yielded. The session of Parliament was ovei\ The triumph of the ministers was complete. The King was almost as much a prisoner as Charles the First had been, when in the Isle of Wight. Such were the fruits of the policy which, only a few months before, was represented as having for e\er secured the throne against the dictation of insolent subjects. His Majesty's natural resentment showed itself in every look and word. In his extremity he looked wistfully to- wards that Whig connection, once the object of his dread and hatred. The Duke of Devonshire, who had been treated with such unjustifiable harshness, had lately died, and had been succeeded by his son, who was still a boy. The King condescended to express his regret for what had passed, and to invite the young Duke to Court. The noble youth came, attended by his uncles, and was received with marked graciousness. This and many other symptoms of the same kind irri- tated the ministers. They had still in store for their sov- ereign an insult which would have provoked his grandfather to kick them out of the room. Grenville and Bedford de- manded an audience of him, and read him a remonstrance of many pages, which they had drawn up with great care. His Majesty was accused of breaking his word, and of treat- ing his advisers with gross unfairness. The Princess was mentioned in language by no means eulogistic. Hints were thrown out that Bute's head was in danger. The King was plainly told that he must not continue to show, as he had done, that he disliked the situation in which he Avas placed, that he must frown upon the Opposition, that he must carry it fair towards his ministers in public. He several times interrupted the reading, by declaring that he had ceased to hold any communication with Bute. But the ministers, dis- regarding his denial, went on ; and the King listened in silence, almost choked by rage. When they ceased to read, he merely made a gesture expressive of his wish to be left alone. He afterwards owned that he thought he should have gone into a fit. Driven to despair, he again had recourse to the Duke of Cumberland ; and the Duke of Cumberland again had recourse to Pitt. Pitt was really desirous to undertake 212 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. the direction of affairs, and owned, with many dutiful ex- pressions, tliat the terms offered by the King were all that any subject could desire. But Temple was impracticable ; and Pitt, with great regret, declared that he could not, with- out the concurrence of his brother-in-law, undertake the a 1 ministration. The Duke now saw only one way of delivering his nepliew. An administration must be formed of the Whigs in opposition, without Pitt's help. The difficulties seemed almost insuperable. Death and desertion had grievously thinned the ranks of the party lately supreme in the state. Those among whom the Duke's choice lay might be divided into two classes, men too old for important offices, and men who had never been in any important office before. The cabinet must be composed of broken invalids or of raw recruits. This was an evil, yet not an unmixed evil. If the new Whig statesmen had little experience in business and de- bate, they were, on the other hand, pure from that taint of political immorality which had deeply infected their pre- decessors. Long prosperity had corrupted that great party which had expelled the Stuarts, limited the prerogatives of the Crown, and curbed the intolerance of the Hierarchy. Adversity had already produced a salutary effect. On the day of the accession of George the Third, the ascendency of the Whig party terminated ; and on that day the purifi- cation of the Whig party began. The rising chiefs of that party were men of a very different sort from Sandys and Winnington, from Sir William Yonge and Henry Fox. They were men worthy to have charged by the side of Hampden at Chalgrove, or to have exchanged the last em- bi-ace with Russell on the scaffold in Lincoln's Inn Fields. They carried into politics the same high principles of virtue which regulated their private dealings, nor would they stoop to promote even the noblest and most salutary ends by means which honor and probity condemn. Such men were Lord John Cavendish, Sir George S a vile, and others whom we hold in honor as the second founders of the Whig party, as the restorers of its pristine health and energy after half a century of degeneracy. The chief of this respectable band was the Marquess of Rockingham, a man of splendid fortune, excellent sense, and stainless character. He was indeed nervous to such a de- gree that, to the very close of his life, he never rose without THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 213 great reluctance and embarrassment to address the House of Lords. But though not a great orator, lie had in a liigh degree some of the qualities of a statesman. He chose his friends well, and l/e had, in an extraordinary degree, the art of attaching them to him by ties of the most honorable kind. The cheerful fidelity with which they adhered to him through many years of almost hopeless o})])Osition was less admirable than the disinterestedness and delicacy which they showed when he rose to power. We are inclined to think that the use and the abuse of party cannot be better illustrated than by a parallel between two powerful connections of that time, the Rockinghams and the Bedfoi'ds. The Rockingham party was, in our view, exactly what a party should be. It consisted of men bound together by common opinions, by common public objects, by mutual esteem. That they desired to obtain, by honest and constitutional means, the direction of affairs they openly avowed. But, though often invited to accept the honors and emoluments of office, they steadily refused to do so on any conditions inconsistent with their principles. The Bed- ford party, as a party, had, as far as we can discover, no principle whatever. Rigby and Sandwich wanted public money, and thought that they should fetcji a higher 23rice jointly than singly. They therefore acted in concert, and prevailed on a much more important and a much better man than themselves to act with them. It was to Rockingham that the Duke of Cumberland now had recourse. The Marquess consented to take the treasury. Newcastle, so long the recognized chief of the Whigs, could not well be excluded from the ministry. He was appointed keeper of the privy seal. A very honest clear-headed country gentleman, of the name of Dowdeswell, became Chancellor of the Exchequer. General Conway, who had served undex the Duke of Cumberland, and was strongly attached to his Royal Highness, was made Secretary of State, with the lead in the House of Commons. A great Whig nobleman, in the prime of manhood, from whom much was at that time ex- pected, Augustus Duke of Grafton, w^as the other Secre- tary. The oldest man living could remember no government so weak in oratorical talents and in official experience. The general opinion was, that the ministers might hold office during the recess, but that the first day of debate in Parlia- ment would be the last day of their power. Charles Town« 214 macaulay's misoellaneous writings. shend was asked what he thought of tlie new administration. " It is," said he, " mere lutestring ; pretty summer wear. It will never do for the winter." At this conjuncture Lord Rockingham had the wisdom to discern the value, and secure the aid, of an ally, who, to eloquence surpassing the eloquence of Pitt, and to industry whioh shamed the industry of Grenville, united an ampli- tude of comprehension to which neither Pitt nor Grenville could lay claim. A young Irishman had, some time before, come over to push his fortune in London. He had written much for the booksellers ; but he was best known by a little treatise, in which the style and reasoning of Bolingbroke were mimicked with exquisite skill, and by a theory, of more ingenuity than soundness, touching the pleasures which we receive from the objects of taste. He had also attained a high reputation as a talker, and was regarded by the men of letters who supped together at the Turk's Head as the only match in conversation for Dr. Johnson. He now became private secretary to Lord Rockingham, and was brought into Parliament by his patron's influence. These arrange- ments, indeed, were not made without some difiiculty. The Duke of Newcastle, who was always meddling and chatter- ing, adjured the^ first lord of the treasury to be on his guard against this adventurer, whose real name was O'Bourke, and whom his grace knew to be a wild Irishman, a Jacobite, a Papist, a concealed Jesuit. Lord Rockington treated the calumny as it deserved ; and the Whig party was strength- ened and adorned by the accession of Edmund Burke. The party, indeed, stood in need of accessions ; for it sus- tained about this time an almost irreparable loss. The Duke of Cumberland had formed the government, and was its main support. His exalted rank and great name in some degree balanced the fame of Pitt. As mediator ^between the Whigs and the Court, he held a place which no other pel -on could fill. The strength of his character supplied thai which was the chief defect in the new ministry. Con w^ay, in particular, who, with excellent intentions and re- spectable talents, was the most dependent and irresolute of human beings, drew from the counsels of that masculine mind a determination not his own. Before the meeting of Parliament the Duke suddenly died. His death was gener- ally regarded as the signal of great troubles, and on this account, as well as from respect for his personal qualities, was greatly lamented. It was remarked that the mourning THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 21£ in London was the most general ever known, and was both deeper and longer than the Gazette had prescribed. In the mean time, every mail from America brought alarming tidings. The crop which Grenville had sown, his successors had now to reap. The colonies were in a state bordering on rebellion. The stamps were burned. The revenue officers were tarred and feathered. All traffic be- tween the discontented provinces and the mother country was interrupted. The Exchange of London was in dismay. Plalf the firms of Bristol and Liverj)ool were threatened with bankruptcy. In Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, iL was said that three artisans out of every ten had been tui'ned adrift. Civil war seemed to be at hand ; and it could not be doubted that, if once the British nation were divided against itself, France and Spain would soon take part in the quarrel. Three courses were open to the ministers. The first was to enforce the Stamp Act by the sword. This was the course on which the King, and Grenville, whom the King hated beyond all living men, were alike bent. The natures of both were arbitrary and stubborn. They resembled each other so much that they could never be friends ; but they resembled each other also so much that they saw almost all important practical questions in the same point of view. Neither of them would bear to be governed by the other ; but they were perfectly agreed as to the best way of gov- erning the people. Another course was that which Pitt recommended. He held that the British Parliament was not constitutionally competent to pass a law for taxing the colonies. He there- fore considered the Stamp Act as a nullity, as a document of no more validity than Charles's writ of ship-money, or James's proclamation dispensing with the penal laws. This doctrine seems to us, we must own, to be altogether un- tenable. Between these extreme courses lay a third way. The opinion of the most judicious and temperate statesmen of those times was that the British constitution had set no limit whatever to the legislative power of the British King, Lords, and Commons, over the whole British Empire. Par- liament, they held, was legally competent to tax America, as Parliament was legally competent to commit any other act of folly or wickedness, to confiscate the property of all the merchants in Lombard Street, or to attaint any man in 216 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. the kingdom of liigli treason, without examining witnesses against him, or hearing him in his own defence. The most atrocious act of confiscation or of attainder is just as valid an act as the Toleration Act or the Habeas Corpus Act. But from acts of confiscation and acts of attainder lawgivers are bound, by every obligation of morality, systematically to refrain. In the same manner ought the British legisla- ture to refrain from taxing the American colonies. The Stamp Act was indefensible, not because it was beyond the constitutional competence of Parliament, but because it vas unjust and impolitic, sterile of revenues, and fertile of dis- contents. These sound doctrines were adopted by Lord Rockingham and his colleagues, and were, during a long course of years, inculcated by Burke, in orations, some of which will last as long as the English language. The winter came ; and Parliament met ; and the state of the colonies instantly became the subject of fierce conten- tion. Pitt, whose health had been somewhat restored by the waters of Bath, reappeared in the House of Commons, and, with ardent and pathetic eloquence, not only con- demned the Stamp Act, but applauded the resistance of Massachusetts and Virginia, and vehemently maintained, in defiance, we must say, of all reason and of all authority, that, according to the British constitution, the supreme legislative power does not include the power to tax. The language of Grenville, on the other hand, was such as Strafford might have used at the council table of Charles the First, when news came of the resistance to the liturgy at Edinburgh. The colonists were traitors ; those who excused them were little better. Frigates, mortars, bayonets, sabres, were the proper remedies for such distempers. The ministers occupied an intermediate position ; they proposed to declare that the legislative authority of the British Parliament over the whole Empire was in all cases supreme ; and they proposed, at the same time, to repeal the Stamp Act. To the former measure Pitt objected ; but it was carried with scarcely a dissentient voice. The repeal of the Stamp Act Pitt strongly supported ; but against the Government was arrayed a formidable assemblage of op- ponents. Grenville and the Bedfords were furious. Temple, who had now allied himself closely with his brother, and separated himself from Pitt, was no despicable enemy. This, however, was not the worst. The ministry was with- out its natural strength. It had to struggle, not only against THK KARL OF CHATHAM. •217 •ts avowed eiieriiies, but against the insidious hostility of the King, and of a set of persons who, about this time, began to be designated as the King's friends. The character of this faction has been drawn by Burke with even more than his usual force and vivacity. Those who know how strongly, through his whole life, his judg- ment was biassed by his passions, may not unnaturally sus- pect that he has left us rather a caricature than a likeness ; and yet there is scarcely, in the whole portrait, a single touch of which the fidelity is not proved by facts of unques- tionable authenticity. The public generally regarded the King's friends as a body of which Bute was the directing soul. It was to no purpose that the Earl professed to have done with politics, that he absented himself year after year from the levee and the drawing-room, that he went to the north, that he went to Rome. The notion that, in some inexplicable manner, he dictated all the measures of the court, w^as fixed in the minds, not only of the multitude, but of some who had good opportunities of obtaining information, and who ought to have been superior to vulgar prejudices. Our own belief is that these suspicions were unfounded, and that he ceased to have any communication with the King on political matters some time before the dismissal of George Grenville. The supposition of Bute's influence is, indeed, by no means ne- cessary to explain the phenomena. The King, in 1765, was no longer the ignorant and inexperienced boy who had, in 1760, been managed by his mother and his Groom of the Stole. He had, during several years, observed the struggles of parties, and conferred daily on high questions of state with able and experienced politicians. He way of life had developed his understanding and character. He was now no longer a puppet, but had very decided opinions both of men and things. Nothing could be more natural thim that he should have high notions of his own prerogatives, should be impatient of opposition, and should wish all public men to be detached from each other and dependent on himself alone ; nor could anything be more natural than that, in the state in which the political world then was, he should find instruments fit for his purposes. Thus sprang into existence and into note a reptile species of politicians never before and never since known in our country. These men disclaimed all political ties, except those which bound them to the throne. They were willing 218 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. to coalesce with any party, to abandon any party, to under- mine any party, to assault any party at a moment's notice. To them, all administrations, and all oppositions were the same. They regarded Bute, Grenville, Rockingham, Pitt, without one sentiment either of predilection or of aversion. They were the King's friends. It is to be observed that this friendship implied no personal intimacy. These i^eople had never lived with their master as Dodington at one time lived with his father, or as Sheridan afterwards lived vtdth his son They never hunted with him in the morning, or played cards with him in the evening, never shared his mutton or walked with him among his turnips. Only one or tAVO of them ever saw his face, except on 23ublic days. The whole band, however, always had early and accurate information as to his personal inclinations. These people were never high in the administration. They were generally to be found in places of much emolument, little labor and no re- sponsibility ; and these places they continued to occupy se- curely while the cabinet was six or seven times reconstructed. Their peculiar business was not to support the ministry against the opposition, but to support the King against the ministry. Whenever his Majesty was induced to give a re- luctant assent to the introduction of some bill which his con- stitutional advisers regarded as necessary, his friends in the House of Commons were sure to speak against it, to vote against it, to throw in its way every obstruction compatible with the forms of Parliament. If his Majesty found it ne- cessary to admit into his closet a Secretary of State or a First Lord of the Treasury whom he disliked, his friends were sure to miss no opportunity of thwarting and humbling the obnoxious minister. In return for these services, the King covered them with his protection. It was to no pur- pose that his responsible servants complained to him that they were daily betrayed and impeded by men who were eating the bread of the government. He sometimes justified the offenders, sometimes excused them, sometimes owned that they were to blame, but said that he must take time to consider whether he could part with them. He never would turn them out ; and, while everything else in the state was constantly changing, these sycophants seemed to h^ive a life estate in their offices. It was well known to the King's friends that, though his Majesty had consented to the repeal of the Stamp Act, he had consented with a very bad grace, and that though he had THE EAKL OF CHATHAM. 219 eagcjrly welcomed tlie Wliigs, vvlieii, in his extreme need Mild at his earnest entreaty, they Iiad undertaken to free him from an insupportable }'oke, l)e had by no means got over his early prejudices against his deliverers. Tiie ministers soon found that, while they were encountered in front by the whole force of a strong opposition, their rear was as- sailed by a large body of those whom they had regarded as auxiliaries. Nevertheless, Lord Rockingham and his adherents went on resolutely Avith the bill for repealing" the Stamp Act. They had on their side all the manufacturing and commer- cial interests of the realm. In the debates the government was powerfully supported. Two great orators and states- men, belonging to two different generations, repeatedly put forth all their powers in defence of the bill. The House of Commons heard Pitt for the last time, and Burke for the first time, and was in doubt to which of them the palm of eloquence should be assigned. It was indeed a splendid sunset and a splendid dawn. For a time the event seemed doubtful. In several di- visions the ministers w^ere hard pressed. On one occasion, not less than twelve of the King's friends, all men in ofiice, voted against the government. It was to no purpose that Lord Rockingham remonstrated with the King. His Ma- jesty confessed that there was ground for complaint, but hoped that gentle means would bring th<3 mutineers to a better mind. If they persisted in their misconduct, he would dismiss them. At length the decisive day arrived. The gallery, the lobb}', the Court of Requests, tlie staircases, were crowded with merchants from all the great ports of the island. The debate lasted till long after midnight. On the division the ministers had a great majority. The dread of civil war, and the outcry of all the trading towns of the kingdom, had been too strong for the combined strength of the court and the opposition. It was in the first dim twilight of a February morning that the doors were thrown open, and that the chiefs of the hostile parties showed themselves to the multitude. Con- way was received with loud applause. But when Pitt ap- peared, all eyes were fixed on him alone. All hats were in the air. Loud and long huzzas accompanied him to his chair, and a train of admirers escorted him all the way to his home. Then came forth Grenville. As soon as he was recog- 220 MACAUr.Av's MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. nized, a storm of hisses and curses broke forth. He turned fiercely on the croAvd, and caught one man by the throat. The bystanders were in great alarm. If a scuffle began, none could say how it might end. Fortunately the person who had been collared only said, " If I may not hiss, sir, I hope I may laugh," and laughed in Grenville's face. The majority had been so decisive, that all the opponents of the ministry, save one, were dis230sed to let the bill pass without any further contention. But solicitation and ex- postulation were thrown away on Grenville. His indomitable spirit rose up stronger and stronger under the load of public hatred. He fought out the battle obstinately to the end. On the last reading he had a sharp altercation which his brother-in-law, the last of their many sharp altercations. Pitt thundered in liis loftiest tones against the man who had wished to dip the ermine of a British King in the blood of the British people. Grenville replied with his wonted in- trepidity and asperity. " If the tax," he said, " were still to be laid on, I would lay it on. For the evils which it may produce my accuser is answerable. His profusion made it necessary. His declarations against the constitutional powers of the Kings, Lords, and Commons, have made it doubly necessary. I do not envy him the huzza. I glory in the hiss. If it were to be done again, I would do it." The repeal of the Stamp Act was the chief measure of Lord Rockingham's government. But that government is entitled to the praise of having put a stop to two oppressive practices, which in Wilkes's case, had attracted the notice and excited the just indignation of the public. The House of Commons was induced by the ministers to pass a resolu- tion condemning the use of general warrants, and another resolution condemning the seizure of papers in cases of libel. It must be added, to the lasting honor of Lord R(;cking- liam, that his administration was the first, which, during a long course of years, had the courage and the virtue to refrain from bribing members of Parliament. His enemies accused him and his friends of weakness, of haughtiness, of party spirit ; but calumny itself never dared to couple his name with corruption. Unhappily his government, though one of the best that has ever existed in our country, was also one of the weakest. The King's friends assailed and obstructed the ministers at every turn. To appeal to the King was only to draw forth new promises and new evasions. His Majesty was sure THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 221 that there must be some misunderstanding. Lord Rocking- ham had better speak to the gentlemen. They should be dis* missed on the next fault. The next fault was soon commit- ted, and his Majesty still continued to shuffle. It was too bad. It was quite abominable ; but it mattered less as the proroga- tion was at hand. He would give the delinquents one more chance. If they did not alter their conduct next session, he eliould not have one word to say for them. He had already resolved that, long before the commencement of the next session. Lord Rockingham should cease to be minister. We have now come to a part of our story whicli, admir- ing as we do the genius and the many noble qualities of Pitt, we cannot relate without much pain. We believe that, at this conjuncture, he had it in his power to give the victory either to the Whigs or to the King's friends. If he had allied himself closely with Lord Rockingham, Avhat could the court have done? There would Imxe been only one al- ternative, the Whigs or Grenville ; and there could be no doubt what the King's choice would be. He still remem- bered, as well he might, with the uttermost bitterness, the thraldom from which his uncle had freed him, and said about this time, with great vehemence, that he would sooner see the Devil come into his closet than Grenville. And what was there to prevent Pitt from allying himself with Lord Rockingham ? On all the most important ques- tions their views were the same. They had agreed in con- demning the peace, the Stamp Act, the general warrant, the seizure of papers. The points on which they differed were few and unimjjortant. In integrity, in disinterestedness, in hatred of corruption, they resembled each other. Their |3ersonal interests could not clash. They sat in different Houses, and Pitt had always declared that nothing should induce him to be first lord of the treasury. If the opportunity of forming a coalition beneficial to the state, and honorable to ail concerned, was suffered to escape, the fault was not with the Whig ministers. They behaved towards Pitt with an obsequiousness which, had it not been the effect of sincere admiration and of anxiety for the public interests, might have been justly called servile. They re- peatedly gave him to understand that, if he chose to join their ranks, they were ready to receive him, not as an as- sociate, but as a leader. They had proved their respect for him by bestowing a peerage on the person who, at that time, enjoyed the largest share of his confidence, Chief Justice macaulay's miscellaneous writings. Pratt. What then was there to divide Pitt from the Whigs ? What, on tlie other hand, was there in common between him and the King's friends, that he should lend himself to their purposes, he who had never owed anything to flattery or intrigue, he whose eloquence and independent spirit had overawed two generations of slaves and jobbers, he who had twice been forced by the enthusiasm of an unadmiring nation on a reluctant Prince ? Unhappily the court had gained Pitt, not, it is true, by those ignoble means which were employed when such men as Rigby and Wedderburn were to be won, but by allure- ments suited to a nature noble even in its aberrations. The King set himself to seduce the one man who could turn the Whigs out without letting Grenville in. Praise, caresses, promises, were lavished on the idol of the nation. He, and he alone, could put an end to faction, could bid defiance to all the powerful connections in the land united, Whigs and Tories, Rockinghams, Bedfords, and Gi-envilles. These blandishments produced a great effect. For though Pitt's spirit was high and manly, though his eloquence was often exerted with formidable effect against the court, and though his tlieory of government had been learned in the school of Locke and Sydney, he had always regarded the person of the sovereign with profound veneration. As soon as he was brought face to face w^ith royalty, his imagination and sen- sibility were too strong for his principles. His Whiggism tha^ved and disappeared; and he became, for the time, a Tory of the old Ormond pattern. Nor was he by any means unwilling to assist in the work of dissolving all political con- nections. His own weight in the state was wholly independent of such connections. He was therefore inclined to look on them with dislike, and made far too little distinction between gangs of knaves associated for the mere purpose of robbing the public, and confederacies of honorable men for the pro- motion of great public objects. Nor had he the sagacity to perceive that the strenuous efforts which he made to annihi- late all parties tended only to establish the ascendency of one party, and that the basest and most hateful of all. It may be doubted whether he w^ould have been thus misled, if his mind had been in full health and vigor. But the truth is that he had for some time been in an unnatural state of excitement. No suspicion of this sort had yet got abroad. His eloquence had never shone w4th more splen- dor than during the I'ecent debates. But people afterwards THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 223 called to minrl many things which ought to have roused their appreliensions. His habits were gradually becoming more and more eccentric. A horror of all loud sounds, such as is said to have been one of the many oddities of Wallen- stein, grew upon him. Though the most aliectionate of fathers, he could not at this time bear to hear the voices of his own children, and laid out great sums at Hayes in buy- ing up houses contiguous to his own, merely tliat he might , have no neighbors to disturb him with their noise. He then sold Hayes^ and took possession of a villa at Hampstead, where he again began to purchase houses to right and left. In expense, indeed, he vied, during this part of his life, with the wealthiest of the conquerors of Bengal and Tanjore. At Burton Pynsent, he ordered a great extent of ground to be planted with cedars. Cedars enough for the purpose were not to be found in Somersetshire. They were therefore collected in London, and sent down by land carriage. Re- lays of laborers w^ere hired ; and the work went on all night by torchlight, man could be more abstemious than Pitt ; yet the profusion of his kitchen was a wonder even to epicures. Several dinners were always dressing ; for his appetite was capricious and fanciful ; and at whatever mo- ment he felt inclined to eat, he expected a meal to be in- stantly on the table. Other circumstances mi^^it be men- tioned, such as separately are of little moment, but such as, when taken together, and when viewed in connection with the strange events which followed, justify us in believing that his mind was already in a morbid state. Soon after the close of the session of Parliament, Lord Rockingham received his dismissal. He retired, accom- panied by a firm body of friends, whose consistency and up- rightness enmity itself was forced to admit. None of them had asked or obtained any pension or any sinecure, either in possession or in reversion. Such disinterestedness was then rare among politicians. TPieir chief, though not a man of brilliant talents, had won for himself an honorable fame, which he kept pure to the last. He had, in spite of difficul- ties which seemed almost insurmountable, removed great abuses and averted a civil war. Sixteen years later, in a dark and terrible day, he was again called upon to save the state, brought to the very brink of ruin by the same perfidy and obstinacy which had embarrassed, and at length over- thrown, his first administration. Pitt was planting in Somersetshh-e when he was sum* 224 macaulay's miscellaneous avritings. moncd to court by a letter written by the royal hand. He instantly hastened to London. The irritability of his inhid and body were increased by the rapidity with which he travelled ; and wlien he reached his joui-ney's end he was suffering from fever. Ill as he was, he saw the King at Richmond, and undertook to form an administration. Pitt was scarcely in the state in which a man should be who has to conduct delicate and arduous negotiations. In his letters to his wife, he complained that the conferences in which it was necessary for him to bear a part heated his blood and accelerated his pulse. From other sources of in- formation we learn that his language, even to those whose co-operation he wished to engage, was strangely peremptory and despotic. Some of his notes written at this time have been preserved, and are in a style which Lewis the Four- teenth would have been too well bred to employ in address- ing any French gentleman. In the attempt to dissolve all parties, Pitt met with some difficulties. Some Whigs, wdiom the court would gladly have detached from Lord Rockingham, rejected all offers. The Bedfords were perfectly willing to break with Gren- ville ; but Pitt would not come up to their terms. Temple, whom Pitt at first meant to place at the head of the treas- ury, provecl intractable. A coldness indeed had, during some months, been fast growing between the brothers-in- law, so long and so closely allied in politics. Pitt was angry with Temple for opposing the repeal of the Stamp Act. Temple was angry with Pitt for refusing to accede to that family league which was now the favorite plan at Stowe. At length the Earl proposed an equal partition of power and patronage, and offered, on this condition, to give up his brother George. Pitt thought the demand exor- bitant, and positively refused compliance. A bitter quarrel followed. Each of the kinsmen was true to his character. Temple's soul festered with spite, and Pitt's swelled into contempt. Temple represented Pitt as the most odious of liypocrites and traitors. Pitt held a different and perhaps a more provoking tone. Temple w^as a good sort of a man enough, whose single title to distinction was, that he had a large garden, with a large piece of water, and a great many pavilions and summer-houses. To his fortunate connection with a great orator and statesman he was indebted for an importance in the state which his own talents could never have gained for him. That importance had turned his he*d THE EARL OF CIIATnAM. 225 He had begun to fancy that lie could form administrations, and govern empires. It was piteous to see a well meaning man under such a deUision. In spite of all these difficulties, a ministry was made such as the King wished to see, a ministry in which all his Majesty's friends were comfortably accommodated, and which, with the exception of his Majesty's friends, contained no four persons who had ever in tlieir lives been in tlio habit of acting together. Men who had never concurred in a single vote found themselves seated at the same board. The office of paymaster was divided between two persons who had never exchanged a word. Most of the chief posts were filled either by personal adherents of Pitt, or by mem- bers of the late ministry, who had been induced to remain in place after the dismissal of Lord Rockingham. To the form.er class belonged Pratt, now Lord Camden, who ac- cepted the great seal, and Lord Shelburne, who was made one of the Secretaries of State. To the latter class be- longed the Duke of Grafton, who became First Lord of the Treasury, and Conway, who kept his old position both in the government and in the House of Commons. Charles Townshend, who had belonged to every party, and cared for none, Avas Chancellor of the Exchequer. Pitt himself Avas declared prime minister, but refused to take any laborious office. He was created Earl of Chatham, and the privy seal was delivered to him. It is scarcely necessary to say, that the failure, the com- plete and disgraceful failure, of this arrangement, is not to l)e ascribed to any want of capacity in the persons Avhom wv, have named. None of them was deficient in abilities; and four of them, Pitt himself, Shelburne, Camden, and Townshend, were men of high intellectual eminence. The fault was not in the materials, but in the principle on which the materials were put together. Pitt had mixed up these conflicting elements, in the full confidence that he sIiouaI be able to keep them all in perfect subordination to himself, and in perfect harmony with each other. We shall soon see how the experiment succeeded. On the very day on Avhich the new prime minister kissed hands, three-fourths of that popularity which he had long enjoyed without a rival, and to which he owed the greater part of his authority, departed from him. A violent outcry was raised, not against that part of his conduct which really deserved severe condemnation, but against a step in which we Vol. III.— 15 226 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. can see nothing to censure. ITis acceptance of a peerage produced a general burst of indignatrDu. Yet surely no peerage had been better earned ; nor was there ever a statesman who more needed the repose of the Upper House. Pitt was noA\^ growing old. He was much older in constitu- tion than in years. It was with imminent risk to his life that he had, on some important occasions, attended his duty in Parliament. During the session of 1764, he had not been able to take part in a single debate. It was impossible that he should go through the nightly labor of conducting the business of the government in the House of Commons. His wish to be transferred, under such circumstances, to a less busy and less turbulent assembly, was natural and reason- able. The nation, however, overlooked all these considera- tions. Those who had most loved and honored the great Commoner were loudest in invective against the new-made Lord. London had hitherto been true to him through every vicissitude. When the citizens learned that he had been sent for from Somersetshire, that he had been closeted with the King at Richmond, and that he was to be first minister, they had been in transports of joy. Preparations were made for a grand entertainment and for a general illumina- tion. The lamps had actually been placed round the monument, when the Gazette announced that the object of all this enthusiasm was an Earl. Instantly the feast was countermanded. The lamps were taken down. The news- papers raised the roar of obloquy. Pamphlets, made up of calumny and scurrility, filled the shops of all the booksellers ; and of those pamphlets, the most galling were written under the direction of the malignant Temple. It was now the fashion to compare the two Williams, William Pulteney and William Pitt. Both, it was said, had, by eloquence and simulated patriotism, acquired a great ascendenc}^ in the House of Commons and in the country. Both had been intrusted with the office of reforming the government. Both had, when at the height of power and popularity, been seduced by the splendor of the coronet. Both had been made earls, and both had at once become objects of aversion and scorn to the nation which a few hours before had re- garded them with affection and veneration. The clamor against Pitt appears to have had a serious effect on the foreign relations of the country. His name had till now acted like a spell at Versailles and Saint Ilde- fonso. English travellers on the Continent had remarked THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 227 that nothing more was necessary to silence a whole room full of boasting Frenchmen than to drop a hint of the prob- ability that Mr. Pitt would return to power. In an instant there was deep silence : all shoulders rose, and all faces were lengthened. Now, unhappily, every foreign court, in learn- ing that he was recalled to office, learned also that he no longer possessed the hearts of his countrymen. Ceasing to be loved at home, he ceased to be feared abroad. The name of Pitt had been a charmed name. Our envoys tried in vain t( conjure with the name of Chatham. The difficulties which beset Chatham were daily increased by the despotic manner in which he treated all around him. Lord Pockingham had, at the time of the change of minis- try, acted with great moderation, had expressed a hope that the new government would act on the principles of the late government, and had even interfered to prevent many of his friends from quitting office. Thus Saunders and Kep- pel, two naval commanders of great eminence, had been induced to remain at the Admiralty, where their services were much needed. The Duke of Portland was still Lord Chamberlain, and Lord Besborough Postmaster. But within a quarter of a year. Lord Chatham had so deeply affronted these men, that they all retired in disgust. In truth, his tone, submissive in the closet, was at this time insupportably tyrannical in the cabinet. His colleagues were merely his clerks for naval, financial, and diplomatic business. Conway, meek as he was, was on one occasion provoked into declaring that such language as Lord Chat- ham's had never been heard west of Constantinople, and was with difficulty prevented by Horace Walpole from resigning, and rejoining the standard of Lord Rockingham. The breach which had been made in the government by the defection of so many of the Rockinghams, Chatham hoped to supply by the help of the Bedfords. But with the Bedfords he could not deal as he had dealt with the other parties. It was to no purpose that he bade high for one or two members of the faction, in the hope of detaching them from the rest. They were to be had ; but they were to be had only in the lot. There was indeed for a moment some wavering and some disputing among them. But at length the counsels of the shrewd and resolute Rigby prevailed. They determined to stand firmly together, and plainly intimated to Chatham that he must take them all, or that he should get none of them. The event proved that they were 228 MACAULAY^S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. wiser in their generation than any other connection in the state. In a few months they were able to dictate their own terras. The raost important public measure of Lord Chatham's administration was his celebrated interference with the corn trade. The harvest had been bad ; the price of food was high ; and he thought it necessary to take on himself the responsibility of laying an embargo on the exportation of grain. When Parliament met, this proceeding was attacked by the opposition as unconstitutional, and defended by the ministers as indispensably necessary. At last an act was passed to indemnify all who had been concerned in thi embargo. The first words uttered by Chatham, in the House of Lords, were in defence of his conduct on this occasion. He spoke with a calmness, sobriety, and dignity, well suited to the audience which he was addressing. A subsequent speech which he made on the same subject was less successful. He bade defiance to aristocratical connections, with a super- ciliousness to which the Peers were not accustomed, and with tones and gestures better suited to a large and stormy assembly than to the body of which he was now a member. A short altercation followed, and he was told very plainly that he should not be suffered to browbeat the old nobility of England. It gradually became clearer and clearer that he was in a distempered state of mind. His attention had been drawn to the territorial acquisitions of the East Lidia Company, and he determined to bring the whole of that great subject before Parliament. He would not, however, confer on the subject with any of his colleagues. It was in vain that Con- way, who was charged w^ith the conduct of business in the House of Commons, and Charles Townshend, who was res])onsible for the direction of the finances, begged for some glimpse of light as to what was in contemplation. Chat- ham's answers were sullen and mysterious. He must decline any discussion with them ; he did not want their assistance ; he had fixed on a person to take charge of his measure in the House of Commons. This person was a member who was not connected with the government, and w^ho neither had, or deserved to have, the ear of the House, a noisy, purse-proud, illiterate demagogue, whose Cockney English and scraps of mispronounced Latin were the jest of the newspapers, Alderman Beckford. It may well be supposed THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 229 tliat these strange proceeding's produced ferment tli rough the whole political world. The city was in commotion. The East India Company invoked the faith of charters. Burke thundered against the ministers. The ministers looked at each other, and knew not what to say. In the midst of the confusion, Lord Chatham procLaimed liimself gouty, and retired to Bath. It was announced, after some time, that he was better, that he would shortly return, tliat he would soon put everything in order.' A day was fixed for his arrival in London. But when he reached the Castle inn at Marlborough, he stopped, shut himself up in his room, and remained there some weeks. Everybody wlio travelled that road was amazed by the number of his attendants. Footmen and Grooms dressed in his family livery, filled the whole inn, though one of the largest in England, and swarmed in the streets of the little town. The truth was, that the invalid had insisted that, during his stay, all the waiters and stable-boys of the Castle s?iould wear his livery. His colleagues w^ere in despair. The Duke of Grafton proposed to go down to Marlborough in order to consult the oracle. But he was informed that Lord Chatham must de- cline all conversation on business. In the mean time, all the parties which were out of oflice, Bedfords, Grenvilles, and Rockinghams, joined to oppose the distracted government on the vote for the land tax. They were reinforced by almost all the county members, and had a considerable majority. This was the first time that a ministry had been beaten on an important division in the House of Commons since the fall of Sir Robert Walpole. The administration, thus furiously assailed from without, w^as torn by internal dissensions. It had been formed on no principle whatever. From the very first, nothing but Chatham's authority had prevented the hostile contingents which made up his ranks from going to blows with each other. That authority was now withdrawn, and everything was in commotion. Con- way, a brave soldier, but in civil affairs the most timid and irresolute of men, afraid of disobliging the King, afraid of being abused in the newspapers.^ afraid of being thought fac- tious if he went out, afraid of being thought interested if he staid in, afraid of everything, and afraid of being known to be afraid of anything, was beaten backwards and forwards like a shuttlecock between Horace Walpole who wished to make him prime minister, and Lord John Cavendish who wished to draw him into opposition. Chailes Townshend. 230 MACAU lay's miscellaneous WRITINGS. a mail of splendid eloquence, of lax principles, and of bound- less vanity and presumption, would submit to no control. The full extent of his parts, of his ambition, and of his arro- gance, had not yet been made manifest ; for he had always quailed before the genius and the lofty character of Pitt. But now that Pitt had quitted the House of Commons, and seemed to have abdicated the part of chief minister, Town- shend broke loose from all restraint. While things were in this state, Chatham at length returned to London. He might as well have remained at Marlborough. He would see nobody. He would give no opinion on any public matter. The Duke of Grafton begged piteously for an interview, for an hour, for half an hour, for five minutes. The answer was, that it was impossible. The King himself repeatedly condescended to expostulate and implore. " Your duty," he wrote, " your own honor, require you to make an effort." The answers to these appeals were commonly written in Lady Chatham's hand, from her lord's dictation ; for he had not energy even to use a pen. He flings himself at the King's feet. He is penetrated by the royal goodness so signally shown to the most unhappy of men. He implores a little more indulgence. He cannot as yet transact business. He cannot see his colleagues. Least of all can he bear the excitement of an interview with majesty. Some were half inclined to suspect that he was, to use a military phase, malingering. He had made, they said, a great blunder, and found it out. His immense popularity, his high reputation for statesmanship, were gone for ever. Intoxicated by pride, he had undertaken a task beyond his abilities. He now saw nothing before him but distresses and humiliations; and he had therefore simulated illness, in order to escape from vexations which he had not fortitude to meet. This suspicion, though it derived some color from that weakness which was the most striking blemish of his character, was certainly unfounded. His mind, before he became first minister, had been, as we have said, in an un- sound state : and physical and moral causes now concurred to make the derangement of his faculties complete. The gout, which had been the torment of his whole life, had been suppressed by strong remedies. For the first time since he was a boy at Oxford, he had passed several months without a twinge. But his hand and foot had been relieved at the expense of his nerves. He became melancholy, fanciful, THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 231 irritable. The embarrassing state of public affairs, the grave responsibility which lay on him, the consciousness of his errors, the disputes of his colleagues, the savage clamors raised by his detractors, bewildered his enfeebled mind. One thing alone, he said, could save him. He must re])ur- chase Hayes. The unwilling consent of the new occupant was extorted by Lady Chatham's entreaties and tears ; and ner lord w^as somewhat easier. But if business were men- tioned to him, he, once the proudest and boldest of man- kind, behaved like a hysterical girl, trembled from head to foot, and burst into a flood of tears. His colleagues for a time continued to entertain the ex- pectation that his health would soon be restored, and that he would emerge from his retirement. But month followed month, and still he remained hidden in mysterious seclusion, and sunk, as far as they could learn, in the deepest dejection of spirits. They at length ceased to hope or to fear any- thing from him; and though he was still nominally Prime Minister, took without scruple steps which they knew to be diametrically opposed to all his opinions and feelings, allied themselves with those whom he had proscribed, disgraced those whom he most esteemed, and laid taxes on the colonies, in the face of the strong declarations w^hich he had recently made. When he had passed about a year and three quarters in gloomy privacy, the King received a few lines in Lady Chatham's hand. They contained a request, dictated by her lord, that he might be permitted to resign the Privy Seal. After some civil- show of reluctance, the resignation was accepted. Lideed Chatham was, by this time, almost as much forgotten as if he had already been lying in West- minster Abbey. At length the clouds wliich had gathered over his mind broke and passed away. His gout returned, and freed him from a more cruel malady. His nerves were newly braced. His spirits became buoyant. He woke as from a sickly dream. It was a strange recovery. Men had been in the habit of talking of him as of one dead, and, w^hen first he showed himself at the King's levee, started as if they had seen a ghost. It was more than two years and a half since he had appeared in public. He, too, had cause for wonder. The world which he now entered was not the world which he had quitted. The administration which he had formed had never been, at any 232 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. one moment, entirely changed. But there had been so many losses and so many accessions, that he could scarcely recog- nize his own work. Charles Townshend was dead. Lord Shelburne had been dismissed. Conway had sunk into utter insignificance. The Duke of Grafton had fallen into the hnnds of tlie Bedfords. The Bedfords had deserted Gren- ville, had made their peace with the King and the King's friends, and had been admitted to office. Lord ISTorth was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was rising fast in import- ance. Corsica had been given up to France without a struggle. The disputes with the American colonies had been revived. A genei'al election had taken place. Wilkes had returned from exile, and, outlaw as he was, had been chosen knight of the shire for Middlesex. The multitude was on his side. The Court was obstinately bent on ruining him, and was prepared to shake the very foundations of the constitution for the sake of a paltry revenge. The House of Commons, assuming to itself an authority which of right belongs only to the whole legislature, had declared Wilkes incapable of sitting in Parliament. Nor had it been thought sufficient to keep him out. Another must be brought in. Since the freeholders of Middlesex had obstinately refused to choose a member acceptable to the Court, the House had chosen a member for them. This was not the only in- stance, perhaps the most disgraceful instance, of the inveter- ate malignity of the Court. Exasperated by the steady opposition of the Rockingham party, the King's friends had tried to rob a distinguished Whig nobleman of his private estate, and had persisted in their mean wickedness till their own servile majority had revolted from mere disgust and shame. Discontent had spread throughout the nation, and was kept up by stimulants such as had rarely been applied to the public mind. Junius had taken the fields had trampled Sir William Draper in the dust, had well-nigh broken the heart of Blackstone, and had so mangled the repu- tation of the Duke of Grafton, that his grace had become sick of office, and was beginning to look Avistfully towards the shades of Euston. Every principle of foreign, domestic, and colonial policy which was dear to the heart of Chatham, liad, during the eclipse of his genius, been violated by the government which he had formed. The remaining years of his life were spent in vainly struggling against that fatal policy which, at the moment when he might have given it a death blow, he had been in- THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 233 duced to take under his ])rotection. Tlis exertions i-edecmed his own fame, but they effected little for his conntry. He found two parties arrayed against the ij^ovei-nment, the party of fiis own brothers-in-law, the Grenvilles, and the party of Lord Rockingham. On the question of the Middle- sex election these parties were agreed. But on many other important questions they differed widely : and they were, in truth, not less hostile to each other than to the Court. The Grenvilles had, during several years, annoyed the Rocking- ham s with a succession of acrimonious pamphlets. It was long before the Rockinghams could be induced to retaliate. But an ill-natured tract, written under Grenville's direction, and entitled a State of the Nation, was too much for their patience. Burke undertook to defend and avenge his friends, and executed the task with admirable skill and vigor. On every point he was victorious, and nowhere more com- pletely victorious than when he joined issue on those dry and minute questions of statistical and financial detail in w^hich the main strength of Grenville lay. The official drudge, even on his own chosen ground, was utterly unable to maintain the fight against the great orator and philosopher. When Chatham reappeared, Grenville was still writhing with the recent shame and smart of this well merited chastise- ment. Cordial co-operation between the two sections of the Opposition was impossible. 'Nor could Chatham easily con- nect himself with either. His feelings, in spite of many affronts given and received, drew him towards the Gren- villes. For he had strong domestic affections ; and his nature, which, though haughty, was by no means obdurate, had been softened by affliction. But from his kinsmen he was separated by a wide difference of opinion on the ques- tion of colonial taxation. A reconciliation, however, took place. He visited Stowe : he shook hands with George Grenville ; and the Whig freeholders of Buckinghamshire, at their public dinners, drank many bumpers to the union of the three brothers. In opinions, Chatham was much nearer to the Rocking- hams than to his own relatives. But between him and the Rockinghams there was. a gulf not easily to be passed. He had deeply injured them, and in injuring them, had deeply injured his country. When the balance was trembling be- tween them and the Court, he had thrown the whole weight of his genius, of his renown, of his popularity, into the scale of misgovernment. It must be added, that many eminent 234 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. members of the party still retained a bitter recollection oi the asperity and disdain with which tliey had been treated by him at the time when lie assumed the direction of affairs It is clear from Burke's pamphlets and speeches, and still more clear from his private letters, and from the language which he held in conversation, that he regarded Chatham with a feeling not far removed from dislike. Chatham was undoubtedly conscious of his error, and desirous to atone for it. But his overtures of friendship, though made with earnestness, and even with unwonted humility, were at first received by Lord Rockingham with cold and austere re- serve. Gradually the intercourse of the two statesmen be- came courteous, and even amicable. But the past was never wholly forgotten. Chatham did not, however, stand alone. Round him gathered a party, small in number, but strong in great and various talents. Lord Camden, Lord Shelburne, Colonel Bar re, and Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, w^ere the principal members of this connection. Thei-e is no reason to believe that, from this time till within a few weeks of Chatham's death, his intellect suffered any decay. His eloquence was almost to the last heard with delight. But it was not exactly the eloquence of the House of Lords. That lofty and passionate, but somewhat desultory declamation, in which he excelled all men, and which was set off by looks, tones, and gestures, worthy of Garrick or Talma, was out of place in a small apartment where the audience often consisted of three or four drowsy prelates, three or four old judges, accustomed during many years to disregard rhetoric, and to look only at facts and arguments, and three or four listless and supercilious men of fashion, whom any thing like enthusiasm moved to a sneer. In the House of Commons, a flash of his eye, a wave of his arm, had sometimes cowed Murray. But, in the House of Peers, his utmost vehemence and pathos produced less effect than the moderation, the reasonableness, the lu- minous order and the serene dignity, which characterized the speeches of Lord Mansfield. On the question of the Middlesex election, all the three divisions of the Opposition acted in concert. No orator in either House defended wiiat is now universally admitted to have been the constitutional cause with more ardor or elo- quence than Chatham. Before this subject had ceased to occupy the public mind, George Grenville died. His part} THE EAKL OF CHATHAM. 235 rapidly melted away ; and in a short time most of his ad- herents appeared on the ministerial benches. Had George Grenville lived many months longer, the friendly ties which, after years of estrangement and hostil- ity, had been renewed between him and his brother-in-law, Avould, in all probability, have been a second time violently dissolved. For now the quarrel between England and the North American colonies took a gloomy and terrible as})ect. Oppression provoked resistance ; resistance was made the pretext for fresh oppression. The warnings of all the greatest statesmen of the age were lost on an imperious court and a deluded nation. Soon a colonial senate con- fronted the British Parliament. Then the colonial militia crossed bayonets with the British regiments. At length the commonwealth was torn asunder. Two millions of English- men, who, fifteen years before, had been as loyal to their prince and as proud of their country as the people of Kent or Yorkshire, separated themselves by a solemn act from the Empire. For a time it seemed that the insurgents would struggle to small purpose against the vast financial and military means of the mother country. But disasters, following one another in rapid succession, rapidly dispelled the illusions of national vanity. At length a great British force, exhausted, famished, harassed on every side by a hos- tile peasantry, was compelled to deliver up its arms. Those governments which England had, in the late war, so signally humbled, and which' had during many years been sullenly brooding over the recollections of Quebec, of Minden, and of the Moro, now saw with exultation that the day of re- venge was at hand. France recognized the independence of the United States ; and there could be little doubt that the example would soon be followed by Spain. Chatham and Rockingham had cordially concurred in opposing every part of the fatal policy which had brought the state into this dangerous situation. But their paths now diverged. Lord Rockingham thought, and, as the event proved, thought most justly, that the revolted colo- nies were separated from the Empire for ever, and that the only effect of prolonging the war on the American conti- nent would be to divide resources which it was desirable to concentrate. If the hopeless attempt to subjugate Penn- sylvania and Virginia were abandoned, war against the House of Bourbon might possibly be avoided, or, if inevi- table, might be carried on with success and glory. We 236 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. might even indemnify ourselves for part of what we had lost, at the expense of those foreign enemies who had hoped to proh't by our domestic dissensions. Lord Kockingham, therefore, and those who acted with him, conceived that tlie wisest course now open to England was to acknowl- edge tlie independence of the United States, and to turn her whole force against her European enemies. Chatham, it should seem, ought to have taken the same side. Before France had taken any part in our quarrel with l!ie colonies, he had repeatedly, and with great energy of Language, declared that it was impossible to conquer Amer- ica, and he could not without absurdity maintain that it was easier to conquer France and America together than Amer- ica alone. But his passions overpowered his judgment, and made him blind to his own mconsistency. The very cir- cumstances which made the separation of the colonies in- evitable made it to him altogether insupportable. The dis- memberment of the Empire seemed to him less ruinous and humiliating, when produced by domestic dissensions, than w^hen produced by foreign interference. His blood boiled at the degradation of his country. Whatever lowered her among the nations of the earth, he felt as a personal out- rage to himself. And the feeling was natural. He had made her so great. He had been so proud of her ; and she had been so proud of him. He remembered how^, more than twenty years before, in a day of gloom and dismay, when her possessions were toi-n from her, when her flag was dishonoreil, she had called on him to save her. He remem- bered tlie sudden and glorious change which Ins energy had wrought, the long series of triumphs, the days of thanks- s^iviug, the nights of illumination. Fired by such recollec- tions, he determined to separate himself from those who advised that the independence of the colonies should be acknowledged. That he was in error will scarcely, we think, be disputed by his warmest admirers. Indeed, the treaty, by which, a few years later, the republic of the United States was recognized, was the work of his most attached adherents and of his favorite son. The Duke of Richmond had given notice of an address to the throne, against the further prosecution of hostilities with America. Chatham had, during some time, absented himself from Parliament, in consequence of his growing in- firmities. He determined to appear in his place on this oc- casion, and to declare that his opinions were decidedly at THE EAKL OF CHATHAM. 237 variance with those of the Rockingham party. He was in a state of great excitement. His medical attendants were uneasy, and strongly advised him to calm himself, and to remain at home. But he was not to be controlled. His son AVilliam, and his son-in-law Lord Mahon, accom|)anied him to Westminster. He rested himself in the Chancellor's room till the debate commenced, and then, leaning on his two young relations, limped to his seat. The slightest par- ticulars of that day were remembered, and have been ( are- fully recorded. He bowed, it was remarked, with great courtliness to those peers who rose to make way for him and his supporters. His crutch was in his hand. He wore, as w^as his fashion, a rich velvet coat. His legs were swathed in flannel. His wig was so large, and his face so emaciated, that none of his features could be discerned, ex- cept the high curve of his nose, and his eyes, which still re- tained a gleam of the old fire. When the Duke of Richmond had spoken, Chatham rose. For some time his voice was inaudible. At length his tones became distinct and his action animated. Here and there his hearers caught a thought or an expression which re- minded them of William Pitt. But it was clear that he was not himself. He lost the thread of his discourse, hesi- tated, repeated the same words several times, and w^as so confused .that, in speaking of the Act of Settlement, he could not recall the name of the Electress Sophia. The House listened in solemn silence, and with the aspect of profound respect and compassion. The stillness was so deep that the dropping of a handkerchief would have been heard. The Duke of Richmond replied with great tenderness and courtesy ; but while he spoke, the old man was observed to be restless and irritable. The Duke sat down. Chatham stood up again, pressed his hand on his breast, and sank down in an apoplectic fit. Three or four lords who sat near him caught him in his fall. The House broke up in* confusion. The dying man was carried to the residence of one of the officers of Parliament, and was so far restored as to be able to bear a journey to Hayes. At Hayes, after lin- gering a few weeks, he expired in his seventieth year. His bed was watched to the last with anxious tenderness, by his wife and children, and he well deserved their care. Too often haughty and wayward to others, to them he had been almost effeminately kind. He had through life been dreaded by his political opponents, and regarded with more 238 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. awe than love even by his political associates. But no fear seems to have mingled with the affection which his fondness, constantly overflowing in a thousand endearing forms, had inspired in the little circle at Hayes. Chatham, at the time of his decease, had not, in both Houses of Parliament, ten personal adherents. Half the public men of the age had been estranged from him by his errors, and the other half by the exertions which he had made to repair his errors. His last speech had been an at- tack at once on the policy pursued by the government, and on the policy recommended by the opposition. But death restored him to his old place in the affection of his country. Who could hear unmoved of the fall of that which had been so great, and which had stood so long ? The circumstances, too, seemed rather to belong to the tragic stage than to real life. A great statesman, full of years and honors, led forth to the Senate House by a son of rare hopes, and stricken down in full council while straining his feeble voice to rouse the drooping spirit of his country, could not but be remem- bered with peculiar veneration and tenderness. The few de- tractors who ventured to murmur were silenced by the indig- nant clamors of a nation which remembered only the lofty genius, the unsullied probity, the undisputed services, of him who was no more. For once, the chiefs of all parties were agreed. A public funeral, a public monument, were eagerly voted. The debts of the deceased were paid. A provision was made for his family. The city of London re- quested tliat the remains of the great man whom she had so long loved and honored might rest under the dome of her magnificent cathedral. But the petition came too late. Every thing was already prepared for the interment in Westminster Abbey. Though men of all parties had concurred in decreeing j:)osthumous honors to Chatham, his corpse was attended to the grave almost exclusively by opponents of the govern- ment. The banner of the lordship of Chatham was borne by Colonel Barre, attended by the Duke of Richmond and Lord Rockingham. Burke, Savile, and Dunning upheld the pall. Lord Camden was conspicuous in the procession. The chief mourner was young William Pitt. After the lapse of more than twenty-seven years, in a season as dark and perilous, his own shattered frame and broken heart were laid, with the same pomp, in the same .consecrated mould. FRAN^CIS ATTERBURY. 239 Chatham sleeps near the northern door of the Church, in a spot which has ever since been appropriated to states- men, as the other end of the same transept has long been to poets. Mansfield rests there, and the second William Pitt, and Fox, and Grattan, and Canning, and Wilberforce. In no other cemetery do so many great citizens lie within so narrow a space. High over those venerable graves towers the stately monument of Chatham, and from above, his effigy graven by a cunning hand, seems still, with eagle face and outstretched arm, to bid England be of good cheer, and to hurl defiance at her foes. The generation which reared that memorial of him has disappeared. The time has come when the rash and indiscriminate judgments which his con- temporaries passed on his character may be calmly revised by history. And history, while, for the warning of vehe- ment, high, and daring natures, she notes his many errors, will yet deliberately pronounce, that, among the eminent men whose bones lie near his, scarcely one has left a more stainless, and none a more splendid name. FRANCIS ATTERBURY. {Encyclopcedia Britannica^ December ^ 1853.) Francis Atterbury, a man who holds a conspicuous place in the political, ecclesiastical, and literary history of England, was born in the year 1662, at Middleton in Buck- inghamshire, a parish of which his father was rector. Francis was educated at Westminster School, and carried thence to Christ Church a stock of learning which, though really scanty, he through life exhibited with such judicious osten- tation that superficial observers believed his attainments to be immense. At Oxford, his parts, his taste, and his bold, contemptuous, and imperious spirit, soon made him con- spicuous. Here he published, at twenty, his first work, a translation of the noble poem of Absalom and Achitophel into Latin verse. Neither the style nor the versification of the young scholar was that of the Augustan age. In English composition he succeeded much better. In 1687 he distin- guished himself among many able men who wrote in defencQ 240 macaulay's miscellaneous whitings. of the Church of England, then persecuted by James II., and calumniated by apostates who had for lucre quitted her communion. Among these apostates none was more active or malignant than Obadiah Walker, who was master of University College, and who had set up there, under the royal patronage, a press for printing tracts against the es- tablished religion. In one of these tracts, written apparently by Walker himself, many aspersions were thrown on Martin Luther. Atterbury undertook to defend the great Saxon Reformer, and performed that task in a manner singularly characteristic. Whoever examines his reply to Walker will be struck by the contrast between the feebleness of those parts which are argumentative and defensive, and the vigor cf those parts which are rhetorical and aggressive. The Papists were so much galled by the sarcasms and invectives of the young polemic that they raised a cry of treason, and accused him of having, by implication, called King James a Judas. After the Revolution, Atterbury, though bred in the doctrines of non-resistance and passive obedience, readily swore fealty to the new government. In no long time he took holy orders. He occasionally preached in London with an eloquence which raised his reputation, and soon had the lienor of being appointed one of the royal chaplains. But he ordinarily resided at Oxford, where he took an active part in academical business, directed the classical studies of the undergraduates of his college, and was the chief adviser and assistant of Dean Aldrich, a divine now chiefly remem- bered by his catches, but renowned among his contempora- ries as a scholar, a Tory, and a high-churchman. It was the practice, not a very judicious practice, of Aldrich to employ the most promising youths of his college in editing Greek and Latin books. Among the studious and well-disposed lads who were, unfortunately for themselves, induced to become teachers of philology when they should have been content to be learners, was Charles Boyle, son of the Earl of Orrery, and nephew of Robert Boyle, the great experi- mental philosopher. The task assigned to Charles Boyle was to prepare a new edition, of one of the most worthless books in existence. It was a fashion, among those Greeks and Romans who cultivated rhetoric as an art, to compose epistles and harangues in the names of eminent' men. Some of these counterfeits are fabricated with such exquisite taste and skill that it is the highest achievement of criticism to FRANCIS ATTERBURY. 241 distinguish them from originals. Others are so feebly and rudely executed that they can hardly im])ose on an intelli- gent school-boy. The best specimen which has come down to us is perhaps the oration for Marcellus, such an imitation of Tully's eloquence as Tully would himself have read with wonder and delight. The worst specimen is perhaps a col- lection of letters purporting to have been written by that Phalaris who governed Agrigentum more than 500 years before the Christian era. The evidence, both internal and external, against the genuineness of these letters is over- whelming. When, in the fifteenth century, they -emerged, in company with much that was far more valuable, from their obscurity, they were pronounced spurious by Politian, the greatest scholar of Italy, and by Erasmus, the greatest scholar on our side of the Alps. In truth, it would be as easy to persuade an educated Englishman that one of John- son's Ramblers was the work of William Wallace as to per- suade a man like Erasmus that a pedantic exercise, composed in the trim and artificial Attic of the time of Julian, was a despatch written by a crafty and ferocious Dorian, who roasted people alive many years before there existed a volume of prose in the Greek language. But, though Christ-Church could boast of many good Latinists, of many good English A^ riter«, and of a greater number of clever and fashionable men of the world than belonged to any other academic body, there was not then in the college a single man capable of distinguishing between the infancy and the dotage of Greek literature. So superficial indeed was the learning of the rukrs of this celebrated society that they were charmed by an essay which Sir William Temple published in praise of the ancient writers. It now seems strange that even the eminent public services, the deserved popularity, and the graceful style of Temple, should have saved so silly a per- formance from universal contempt. Of the books which he most vehemently eulogized his eulogies proved that he knew nothing. In fact, he could not read a line of the language in which they were written. Among many other foolish things, he said that the letters of Phalaris were the oldest letters and also the begt in the world. Whatever Temple wrote attracted notice. People who had never heard of the Ej)istles of Phalaris began to inquire about them. Aldrich, who knew very little Greek, took the word of Temple, who knew none, and desired Boyle to prepare a new edition of tliese admirable compositions which, having long slept in Vol. hi.— 16 242 jSrACAULAY's MISCELLANEOUS AVKITINGS. obscurity, had become on a sudden objects of general in- terest. The edition was prepared with the help of Atterbury, who was Boyle's tutor, and of some other members of the college. It was an edition such as might be expected from people who would stoop to edit such a book. The notes were worthy of the text ; the Latin version worthy of the Greek original. The volume would have been forgotten in a month, had not a misunderstanding about a manuscript arisen between the young editor and the greatest scholar that had appeared in Europe since the revival of letters, Richard Bentley. The manuscript was in Bentley's keep- ing. Boyle wished it to be collated. A mischief-making bookseller informed him that Bentley had refused to lend it, which was false, and also that Bentley had spoken con- temptuously of the letters attributed to Phalaris, and ol the critics who were taken in by such counterfeits, which was perfectly true. Boyle, much provoked, paid, in his preface, a bitterly ironical compliment to Bentley's courtesy. Bent- ley revenged himself by a short dissertation, in which he proved that the epistles were spurious, and the new edition of them worthless : but he treated Boyle personally with civility as a young gentleman of great hopes, whose love of learning was highly commendable, and who deserved to have had better instructors. Few things in literary history are more extraordinary than the storm which this little dissertation raised. Bentley had treated Boyle with forbearance ; but he had treated Christ-Church with contempt ; and the Christ-Church-men, wherever dispersed, were as much attached to their college as a Scotchman to his country, or a Jesuit to his order Their influence was great. They were dominant in Oxford, powerful in the Inns of Court and in the College of Phy- sicians, conspicuous in Parliament and in the literary and fashionable circles of London. Their unanimous cry was, that the honor of the college must be vindicated, that the insolent Cambridge pedant must be put down. Poor Bo} le was unequal to -the task, and disinclined to it. It was, there- fore, assigned to his tutor Atterbury.^ The answer to Bentley, v» hich bears the name of Boyle, but which was, in truth, no more the work of Boyle than the letters to which the controversy related were the work of Phalaris, is now read only by the curious, and will in all probability never be reprinted again. But it had its day of FRANCIS ATTERBUKY. 243 noisy popularity. It was to be found, not only in the stud- ies of men of letters, but on the ta})les of the most brilliant drawing-rooms of Soho Square and Covent Garden. Even the beans and coquettes of that age, the Wildairs and the Lady Lurewells, the Mirabells and the Millamants, congrat- ulated each other on the way in which the gay young gen- tleman, whose erudition sate so easily upon him, and who wrote with so much pleasantry and good breeding about the Attic dialect and the anapaestic measure, Sicilian talents and Thericlean cups, had bantered the queer prig of a doe- tor. Nor was the applause of the multitude undeserved. The book is, indeed, Atterbury's masterpiece, and gives a higher notion of his powers than any of those works to which he put his name. That he was altogether in the wrong on the main question, and on all the collateral ques- tions springing out of it, that his knowledge of the language, the literature, and the history of Greece was not equal to what many freshmen now bring up every year to Cambridge and Oxford, and that some of his blunders seem rather to deserve a flogging than a refutation, is true ; and therefore it is that his performance is, in the highest degree, interest- ing and valuable to a judicious reader. It is good by reason of its exceeding badness. It is the most extraordinary in- stance that exists of the art of making much show with little substance. There is no difficulty, says the steward of Moliere's miser, in giving a fine dinner with plenty of money : the really great cook is he who can set out a ban- quet with no money at all. That Bentley should have writ- ten excellently on ancient chronology and geography, on the development of the Greek language, and the origin of the Greek drama, is not strange. But that Atterbury should, during some years, have been thought to have treated these subjects much better than Bentley is strange indeed. It is true that the champion of Christ-Church had all the help which the most celebrated members of that so- ciety could give him. Smalridge contributed some very good wit ; Friend and others some very bad archaeology and philology. But the greater part of the volume was en- tirely Atterbury's : what was not his own was revised and retouched by him ; and the whole bears the mark of his* mind, a mind inexhaustibly rich with all the resources of controversy, and familiar with all the artifices which make falsehood look like truth, and ignorance like knowledge. He had little gold ; but he beat that little out to the very 244 macaulay's mtscella^^-eous whitings. thinnest leaf, and s])read it over so vast a surface that tc those who judged by a ghmce, and who did not resort to bahmces and tests, the glittering heap of worthless matter which he produced seemed to be an inestimable treasure of massy bullion. Such arguments as he had he placed in the clearest light. Where he had no arguments, he resorted to personalities, sometimes serious, generally ludicrous, always clever and cutting. But, whether he was grave or merry, whether he reasoned or sneered, his style was always pure, polished, and easy. Party spirit then ran high ; yet, though Bentley ranked among Whigs, and Christ-Church was a stronghold of Tory- ism, Whigs joined with Tories in applauding Atterbury's volume. Garth insulted Bentley, and extolled Boyle in lines which are now never quoted except to be laughed at. Swift, in his "Battle of the Books," introduced with much pleasantry Boyle, clad in armor, the gift of all the gods, and directed by Apollo in the form of a human friend, for whose name a. blank is left which may easily be filled up. The youth, so accoutred, and so assisted, gains an easy victory over his uncourteous and boastful antagonist. Bentley, meanwdiile, was supported by the con- sciousness of an immeasurable superiority, and encouraged by the voices of the few who were really competent to judge the combat. " No man," he said, justly and nobly, " Avas ever written down but by himself." He spent two years in preparing a reply, which will never cease to be read and prized while the literature of ancient Greece is studied in any part of the world. This reply proved, not only that the letters ascribed to Phalaris were spurious, but that Atterbury, with all his wit, his eloquence, his skill in controversial fence, was the most audacious pretender that ever wrote about what he did not understand. But to Atterbury this expo- sure was matter of indifference. He was now engaged in a dispute about matters far more important and exciting than the laws of Zaleucus and the laws of Charondas. The rage of religious factions was extreme. High church and Low church divided the nation. The great majority of the clergy w^ere on the high-church side ; the majority of King Wil- liam's bishops were inclined to latitudinarianism. A dis- ])ute arose between the two parties toucliing the extent of the powers of the Lower House. of Convocation. Atterbury thrust himself eagerly into the front rank of the high-church- men. These who take a com}>rehensive and impartial view FRANCIS ATTEKJiUUY. 246 of his whole career will not be disposed to give him credit for religious zeal. But it was his nature to be vehement and pugnacious in the cause of every fraternity of which he was a member. He had defended the genuineness of a spurious book simply because Christ-Church had put forth an edition of that book ; he now stood up for the clergy against the civil power, simply because he was a clergyman, and for the priests against the episcopal order, sim])ly In;- cause he was yet only a priest. He asserted the pretensions of the class to which he belonged in several treatises written with much wit, ingenuity, audacity, and acrimony. In this, as in his first controversy, he w^as opposed to antagonists whose knowledge of the subject in dispute was far superior to his ; but in this, as in his first controversy, he imposed on the multitude by bold assertion, by sarcasm, by decla- mation, and, above all, by his peculiar knack of exhibiting a little erudition in such a manner as to make it look like a great deal. Having passed himself off on the world as a greater master of classical learning than Bentley, he now passed himself off as a greater master of ecclesiastical learn- ing than Wake or Gibson. By the great body of the clergy he was regarded as the ablest and most intrepid tribune that had ever defended their rights against the oligarchy of prel- ates. The Lower House of Convocation voted him thanks for his services ; the University of Oxford created him a doctor of divinity ; and soon after the accession of Anne, while the Tories still had the chief w^eight in the govern- ment, he was promoted to the deanery of Carlisle. Soon after he had obtained this preferment, the Whig party rose to ascendency in the state. From that party he could expect no favor. Six years elapsed before a change of fortune took place. At length, in the year 1710, the pros- ecution of Sacheverell produced a formidable explosion of high-church fanaticism. At such a moment Atterbury (iould not fail to be conspicuous. His inordinate zeal for the body to which he belonged, his turbulent and aspiring temper, his rare talents for agitation and for controversy, were again signally displayed. Pie bore a chief i)art in framing that artful and eloquent speech which the accused divine pro- nounced at the Bar of the Lords, and which presents a singular contrast to the absurd and scurrilous sermon which had very unwisely been honoi-ed with impeachment. During the troubled and anxious months which followed the trial, At- terbury was among the most attractive of those i)am2)hleteera 246 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. who inflamed the nation against the Whigr ministry and the Whig parliament. When the ministry had been changed and the parliament dissolved, rewards were showered upon him. The Lower House of Convocation elected him pro- locutor. The Queen appointed him Dean of Christ-Church on the death of his old friend and patron Aldrich. The college would have preferred a gentler ruler. Nevertheless, the new head was received with every mark of honor. A congratulatory oration in Latin was addressed to him in the magnificent vestibule of the hall ; and he in reply pro- fessed the warmest attachment to the venerable house in which he had been educated, and paid many gracious com- pliments to those over whom he was to preside. But it w^as not in his nature to be a mild or an equitable governor. H(} had left the chapter of Carlisle distracted by quarrels. He found Christ-Church at peace ; but in three months his despotic and contentious temper did at Christ-Church what it had done at Carlisle. He w^as succeeded in both his deaneries by the humane and accomplished Smalridge, who gently complained of the state in wdiich both had been left. ''Atterbury goes before, and sets everything on fire. I come after him with a bucket of water." It was said by Atter- bury's enemies that he w^as made a bishop because he w^as so bad a dean. Under his administration Christ-Church was in confusion, scandalous altercations took place, oppro- brious words were exchanged ; and there was reason to fear that the great Tory college would be ruined by the tyranny of the great Tory doctor. He was soon removed to the bishopric of Rochester, which was then always united with the deanery of Westminster. Still higher dignities seemed to be before him. For, though there were many able men on the episcopal bench, there were none wdio equalled or approached him in parliamentary talents. Plad his party continued in power it is not improbable that he would have been raised to the archbishopric of Canterbury. The more splendid his prospects, the more reason he had to dread the accession of a family which w^as well know^n to be partial to the Whigs. There is every reason to believe that he was one of those politicians who hoped that they might be able, during the life of Anne, to prepare matters in such a way that at her decease there might be little difiiculty in setting aside the Act of Settlement and placing the Pretender on the throne. Her sudden death confounded the projects of these conspirators. Atterbury, who wanted no kind of FRANCIS ATTERBURY. 247 courage, implored his confederates to proclaim James III., and offered to accompany the heralds in lawn sleeves. But he found even the bravest soldiers of his party irresolute, and exclaimed, not, it is said, without interjections wliich ill became the mouth of a father of the church, that the best of all causes and the most precious of all moments had beer pusillanimously thrown away. He acquiesced in what he could not prevent, took the oaths to the House of Hanover, and at the coronation officiated with the outward show of zeal, and did his best to ingratiate himself with the royal 'family. But his servility was requited with cold contempt. No creature is so revengeful as a proud man who has humbled himself in vain. Atterbury became the most fac- tious and pertinacious of all the opponents of the govern- ment. In the House of Lords his oratory, lucid, pointed, lively, and set off with every grace of pronunciation and of gesture, extorted the attention and admiration even of a hostile majority. Some of the most remarkable protests which appear in the journals of the peers were drawn up by him ; and in some of the bitterest of those pamphlets which called on the English to stand up for their country against the aliens who had come from beyond the seas to o])press and plunder her, critics easily detected his style. When the rebellion of 1715 broke out, he refused to sign the paper in which the bishops of the province of Canterbury de- clared their attachment to the Protestant succession. He busied himself in electioneering, especially at Westminster, where, as a dean, he possessed great influence, and was, indeed strongly suspected of having once set on a riotous mob to prevent his Whig fellow-citizens from polling. After having been long in indirect communication with the exiled family, he, in 1717, began to correspond directly with the Pretender. The first letter of the correspondence is extant. In that letter Atterbury boasts of having, during many years past, neglected no opportunity of serving the Jacobite cause. "My daily prayer," he says, "is that you may have success. May I live to see that day, and live no longer than I do what is in my power to forward it." It is to be remembered that* he who wrote thus was a man bound to set to the church of which he was overseer an example of strict probity ; that he had repeatedly sworn allegiance to the House of Brunswick ; that he had assisted in placing the crown on the head of George I. ; and that he had ab- 248 macaulay's miscellaneous whitings. jured J ames III., " without equivocation or mental reserva- tion, on the true faith of a Christian." It is agreeable to turn from his public to his private life. His turbulent spirit, wearied with faction and treason, now and then required repose, and found it in domestic endear- ments, and in the society of the most illustrious of the living and of the dead. Of his wife little is known : but between him and his daughter there was an affection singularly close and tender. The gentleness of his manners when he was in the company of a few friends was such as seemed hardly credible to those who knew him only by his writings and speeches. The charm of his " softer hour " has been com- memorated by one of those friends in imperishable verse. Though Atterbury's classical attainments were not great, his taste in English literature was excellent ; and his admira- tion of genius was so strong that it overpowered even his political and religious antipathies. His fondness for Milton, the mortal enemy of the Stuarts and of the church, was such as to many Tories seemed a crime. On the sad night on which Addison was laid in the chapel of Henry VII., the Westminster boys remarked that Atterbury read the funeral service with a peculiar tenderness and solemnity. The favorite companions, however, of the great Tory prelate were, as might have been expected, men whose politics had at least a tinge of Toryism. He lived on friendly terms with Swdft, Arbuthnot, and Gay. With Prior he had a close intimacy, which some misunderstanding about public affairs at last dissolved. Pope found in Atterbury, not only a warm admirer, but a most faithful, fearless, and judicious adviser. The poet was a frequent guest at the episcopal palace among the elms of Bromley, and entertained not the slightest suspicion that his host, now declining in years, confined to an easy-chair by gout, and apparently devoted to literature, was dee])ly concerned in criminal and perilous designs against the government. The si^irit of the Jacobites had been cowed by the events of 1715. It revived in 1721. The failure of the South Sea project, the panic in the money market, the downfall ol great commercial houses, the distress from which no part of the kingdom was exempt, had produced general discontent. It seemed not improbable that at such a moment an insur- rection might be successful. An insurrection was planned. The streets of London were to be barricaded ; the Tower and the Bank were to be surprised ; King George, his FRANCIS ATTEliBL^KY. 249 family, and his chief captains and councillors, were to be arrested ; and King James was to be proclaimed. The design became known to the Duke of Orleans, regent of France, who was on terms of friendship wdth the House of Piano ver. He put the English government on its guard. Some of the chief malcontents were committed to prison ; and among them was Atterbury. No bishop of the Churcli of England had been taken into custody since that memor- able day when the applauses and prayers of all London had followed the seven bishops to the gate of the Tower. Tlie Opposition entertained some hope that it might be possible to excite among the people an enthusiasm resembling that of their fathers, who rushed into the waters of the Thames to implore the blessing of Bancroft. Pictures of the heroic confessor in his cell were exhibited at the" shop windows. Verses in his praise were sung about the streets. The restraints by which he .was prevented from communicating with his accomplices were represented as cruelties worthy of the dungeons of the Inquisition. Strong appeals were made to the priesthood. Would they tamely permit so gross an insult to be offered to their cloth? Would they suffer the ablest, the most eloquent member of their pro- fession, the man who had so often stood up for their rights against the civil power, to be treated like the vilest of man- kind ? There was considerable excitement ; but it was al- layed by a temperate and artful letter to the clergy, the work, in all probability, of Bishop Gibson, who stood high in the favor of Walpole, and shortly after became minister for ecclesiastical affairs. Atterbury remained in close confinement during some months. He had carried on his correspondence with the exiled family so cautiously that the circumstantial proofs of his guilt, though sufficient to produce entire moral convic- tion, were not sufficient to justify legal conviction. He could be rea(*.hed only by a bill of pains and penalties. Such a bill the WJiig party, then decidedly predominant in botli houses, was quite prepared to sup])ort. Many hot-headed members of tliiit party were eager to follow the precedent which had been set in the case of Sir John Fenwick, and to pass an act for cutting off the bishop's head. Cadogan, wlio com- manded Jhe army, a brave soldier, but a headstrong politi- cian, is said to have exclaimed with great vehemence: "Fling him to the lions in the Tower." But the wiser and more humane Walpole was always unwilling to shed blood; 259 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. and his influence prevailed. When parliament met, the evidence against the bishop was laid before committees of both houses. Those committees reported that his guilt was proved. In the Commons a resolution, pronouncing him a traitor, was carried by nearly two to one. A bill was then introduced which provided that he should be deprived of his spiritual dignities, that he should be banished for life, and that no British subject should hold any intercourse with him except by the royal permission. This bill passed the Commons with little difficulty. For the bishop, though invited to defend himself, chose to re- serve his defence for the assembly, of which he was a mem- ber. In the Lords the contest was sharp. The young Duke of Wharton, distinguished by his parts, his dissoluteness, and his versatility, spoke for Atterbury with great effect ; and Atterbury's own voice was heard for the last time by that unfriendly audience which had so often listened to him with mingled aversion and delight. He produced few wit- nesses ; nor did those witnesses say much that could be of service to him. Among them was Pope. He was called to prove that, while he was an inmate of the palace at Bromley, the bishop's time was completely occupied by literary and domestic matters, and that no leisure was left for plotting. But Pope, Avho was quite unaccustomed to speak in public, lost his head, and, as he afterwards owned, though he had only ten words to say, made two or three blunders. The bill finally passed the Lords by eighty-three votes to forty-three. The bishops, with a single exception, were in the majority. Their conduct drew on them a sharp taunt from Lord Bathurst, a warm friend of Atterbury and a zealous Tory. " The wild Indians," he said, " give no quarter, because they believe that they shall inherit the skill and prowess of every adversary whom they destn/y. Perhaps the animosity of the right reverend prelates to their brother may be explained in the same way." Atterbury took leave of those whom he loved with a dignity and tenderness worthy of a better man. Three fine lines of his favorite poet were often in his mouth : — " Some natural tears he dropped, but wiped them soon : The world was all before him, where to chuse His place of revst, and Providence his guide.'* At parting he presented Pope with a Bible, and said, with a disingenuousness of which no man who had studied FRANCIS ATTERBURY. 251 the Bible to much purpose would have been guilty: "If ever you learn that I have any dealinc^s with the Pretender, I give you leave to say that my punishment is just." Pope at this time really believed the bishop to be an injured mnn. Arbuthnot seems to have been of the same opinion. Swift, a few months later, ridiculed with great bitterness, in the "Voyage to Laputa," the evidence which had satisfied the two Houses of Parliament. Soon, however, the most par- tial friends of the banished prelate ceased to assert his inno- cence, and contented themselves with lamenting and excusing what they could not defend. After a short stay at Brussels, he had taken up his abode at Paris, and had become the leading man among the Jacobite refugees who were assembled there. He was invited to Rome by the Pretender, who then held his mock court under the imme- diate protection of the Pope. But Atterbury felt that a bishop of the Church of England would be strangely out of place at the Vatican, and declined the invitation. During some months, however, he might flatter himself that he stood high in the good graces of James. The correspon- dence between the master and the servant was constant. Atterbury's merits were warmly acknowledged ; his advice was respectfully received ; and he was, as Bolingbroke had been before him, the prime minister of a king without a kingdom. But the new favorite found, as Bolingbroke had found before him, that it was quite as hard to keep the shadow of power under a vagrant and mendicant prince as to keep the reality of power at Westminster. Though James had neither territories nor revenues, neither army nor navy, there was more faction and more intrigue among his courtiers than among those of his successful rival. Atter- bury soon perceived that his counsels were disregarded, if not distrusted. His proud spirit was deeply wounded. He quitted Paris, fixed his residence at Montpellier, gave ui5 politics, and devoted himself entirely to letters. In the sixth year of his exile he had so severe an illness that his daughter, herself in very delicate health, determined to run all risks that she might see him once more. Having obtained a license from the English Government, she went by sea to Bordeaux, but landed there in such a state that she could travel only by boat or in a litter. Her father, in spite of his infirmities, set out from Montpellier to meet her; and she, with the impatience which is often the sign of ap- proaching death, hastened towards him. Those who were 252 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. about her in vain implored her to travel slowly. She said that every hour was precious, that she only wished to see her papa and to die. She met him at Toulouse, embraced him, received from his hand the sacred bread and wine, and thanked God that they had passed one day in each other's society before they pr.rted for ever. She died that night. It was some time before even the strong mind of Atter- bury recovered from this cruel blow. As soon as he was himself again lie became eager for action and conflict ; for grief, Avhich 'disposes gentle natures to retirement, to inac- tion, and to meditation, only makes restless spirits more restless. The Pretender, dull and bigoted as he was, had found out that he had not acted wisely in parting with one who, though a heretic, was, in abilities and accomplish- ments, the foremost man of the Jacobite party. The bishop was courted back, and was without much difficulty induced to return to Paris and to become once more the phantom minister of a ]>hantom monarchy. But his long and troubled life was drawing to a close. To the last, how^ever, his intel- lect retained all its keenness and vigor. He learned, in the ninth year of his banishment, that he had been accused by Oldmixon, as dishonest and malignant an old scribbler as any that had been saved from oblivion by the Dunciad, of having, in concert with other Christ-Church men, garbled Claren- don's History of the Rebellion. The charge, as respected Atterbury, had not the slightest foundation : for he was not one of the editors of the History, and never saw it till it was printed. He published a short vindication of himself, wdiich is a model in its kind, luminous, temperate and dignified. A copy of this little w^ork he sent to the Pretender, with a letter singularly eloquent and graceful. It w^as impossible, the old man said, that he should write anything on such a subject without being reminded of the resemblance between his own fate and that of Clarendon. They w^ere the only tAvo English subjects that had ever been banished from their country and debarred from all communication with their friends by act of parliament. But here the resemblance ended. One of the exiles had been so happy as to bear a chief part in the restoration of the Royal house. All that the other could now do was to die asserting the rights of that house to the last. A few weeks after this letter was wa^itten Atterbury died. He had just completed his seven- tieth year. 253 His body was brought to England, and laid, with great privacy, under tlie nave of Westminster Abbey. Only three mourners followed the coffin. No inscription marks tlie grave. That tlie epitaph with which P(;pe honored the memory of his friend does not appear on the walls of the great national cemetery is no subject of regret : for nothing worse was ever written by Colley Gibber. Those who wish for more complete information about Atterbury may easily collect it from his sermons and his controversial writings, from the report of the parliamentary proceedings against him, which will be found in the State Trials, from the five volumes of his correspondence, edited by Mr. Nichols, and from the first volume of the Stuart papers, edited by Mr. Glover. A very indulgent but a very interesting account of the bishop's political career, will be found in Lord Mahon's valuable History of England. JOHN BUNYAN. {Encyclopcedia Briiannica^ May^ 1854.) John Buntan, the most popular religious writer in the English language, was born at Elstow, about a mile from Bedford, in the year 1628. He may be said to have been born a tinker. The tinkers then formed an hereditary caste, which was held in no high estimation. They were generally vagrants and pilferers, and were often confounded with the gypsies, whom in truth they nearly resembled. Bunyan's father was more respectable than most of the tribe. Pie had a fixed residence, and w^as able to send his son to a vil- lage school where reading and w^rifing were taught. The years of John's boyhood were those during wliicb the puritan spirit was in the highest vigor all over England ; and nowhere had that spirit more influence than in Bed- fordshire. It is not wonderful, therefore, that a lad to whom nature had given a powerful imagination, and sensibility which amounted to a disease, should have been early haunted by religious terrors. Before he was ten, his sports were interrupted by fits of remorse and despair ; and his 254 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. sleep was disturbed by dreams of fiends trying to fly away with him. As he grew older, his mental conflicts became still more violent. The strong language in which he de- scribed them has strangely misled all his biogra])hers except Mr. Southey. It has long been an ordinary practice with pious writers to cite Bunyan as an instance of the super- natural power of divine grace to rescue the human soul from the lowest depths of wickedness. He is called in one book the most notorious of profligates ; in another, the brand plucked from the burning. He is designated in Mr. Ivimey's History of the Baptists as the depraved Bunyan, the wicked tinker of Elstow. Mr. Ryland, a man once of great note among the Dissenters, breaks out into the following rhap- sody : — No man of common sense and common integrity can deny that Bunyan was a practical atheist, a worthless contemptible infidel, a vile rebel to God and goodness, a common profligate, a soul-despising, a soul-murdering, a soul-damning, thoughtless wretch as could exist on the face of the earth. Now be astonished, O heavens, to eternity ! and wonder, O earth and hell ! while time endures. Behold this very man become a miracle of mercy, a mirror of wis- dom, goodness, holiness, truth, and love." But whoever takes the trouble to examine the evidence will find that the good men who wrote this had been deceived by a ])hrase- ology which, as they had been hearing it and using it all their lives, they ought to have understood better. There cannot be a greater mistake than to infer, from the strong expressions in which a devout man bemoans his exceeding sinfulness, that he has led a worse life than his neighbors. Many excellent persons, whose moral character from boy- hood to old age has been free from any stain discernible to their fellow-creatures, have, in their autobiographi(?s and diaries, applied to themselves, and doubtless with sincerity, epithets as severe as could be applied to Titus Gates or Mrs. Brownrigg. It is quite certain that Bunyan was, at eighteen, what, in any but the most austerely puritanical circles, would have been considered as a young man of singular gravity and innocence. Indeed, it may be remarked that he, like many other penitents who, in general terms, acknowledged them- selves to have been the worst of mankind, fired up and stood vigorously on his defence, whenever any particular charge was brought against him by others. He declares, it is true, that he had let loose the reins on the neck of his lusts, that he had delighted in all transgressions against the divine law, JOHN" BUNYAN. 255 and that he had been the ringleader of the youth of Elstow in all manner of vice. But, when those who wished him ill accused him of licentious amours, he called on God and the angels to attest his purity. No woman, he said, in heaven, earth, or hell, could charge him w^th having ever made any improper advances to her. Not only had he been strictly faithful to his wife ; but he had, even before his marriage, been perfectly spotless. It does not appear from his own confessions, or from the railings of his enemies, that he ever was drunk in his life. One bad habit he contracted, that of using profane language ; but he tells us that a single reproof cured him so effectually that he never offended again. The worst that can be laid to the charge of this poor youth, whom it has been the fashion to represent as the most des- perate of reprobates, as a village Rochester, is that he had a great liking for some diversions, quite harmless in them- selves, but condemned by the rigid precisians among whom he lived, and for whose opinion he had a great respect. The four chief sins of which he was guilty were dancing, ringing the bells of the parish church, playing at tipcat, and reading the History of Sir Bevis of Southampton. A rector of the school of Laud would have held such a young man up to the whole parish as a model. But Bunyan's notions of good and evil had been learned in a very different school ; and he was made miserable by the conflict between his tastes and his scruples. When he was about seventeen, the ordinary course of his life was interrupted by an event which gave a lasting color to his thoughts. He enlisted in the parliamentary army, and served during the decisive campaign of 1645. All that w^e know of his military career is that, at the siege of Leicester, one of his comrades, who had taken his post, was killed by a shot from the town. Bunyan ever after con- sidered himself as having been saved from death by the interference of Providence. It may be observed that his imagination was strongly impressed by the glimpse which he had caught of the pomp of war. To the last he loved to draw his illustrations of sacred things from camps and for- tresses, from guns, drums, trumpets, flags of truce, and regi- ments arrayed, each under its own banner. His Greatheart, his Captain Boanerges, and his Captain Credence, are evi- dently portraits, of which the originals w^ere among those martial saints who fought and expounded in Fairfax's army. 256 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. In a few months Bunyan returned home and married. His wife had some pious relations, and brought him as her only portion some pious books. And now his mind, excit- able by nature, very imperfectly disciplined by education, and exposed, without any protection, to the infectious viru- lence of the enthusiasm which was then epidemic in England, began to be fearfully disordered. In outward things he soon became a strict Pharisee. He was constant in attend- ance at prayers and sermons. His favorite amusements were one after another relinquished, though not without many painful struggles. In the middle of a game of tipcat he paused, and stood staring wildly upwards with his stick in his hand. He had heard a voice asking him whether he would leave his sins and go to heaven, or keep his sins and go to hell ; and he had seen an awful countenance frowning on him from the sky. The odious vice of bell-ringing he re- nounced ; but he still for a time ventured to go to the church tower and look on while others pulled the ropes. But soon the thought struck him that, if he persisted in such wicked- ness, the steeple would fall on his head ; and he tied in terror from the accursed place. To give up dancing on the village green was still harder ; and some months elapsed before he had the foi'titude to part with this darling sin. When this last sacrifice had been made, he was, even when tried by the maxims of that austere time, faultless. All Els tow talked of him as an eminently pious youth. But his own mind was more unquiet than ever. Having nothing more to do in the way of visible reformation, yet finding in religion no pleasures to supply the place of the juvenile amusements which he had relinquished, he began to apprehend that he lay under some special malediction ; and he was tormented by a succession of fantasies which seemed likely to drive him to suicide or to Bedlam. At one time he took it into his head that all persons of Israelite blood would be saved, and tried to make out that he partook of that blood ; but his hopes were speedily destroyed by his father, who seems to have had no ambition to be regarded as a Jew. At another time Bunyan was disturbed by a strange dilemma : " If I have not faith, I am lost ; if I have faith, I can work miracles." He was tempted to cry to the puddles between Elstow and Bedford, " Be ye dry," and to stake his eternal hopes on the event. Then he took up a notion that the day of grace for Bed- JOHN BUNYAN. 257 ford and the neighboring villages was past ; that all who were to be saved in tliat part of England were already con- verted ; and that he had begun to pray and strive some months too late. Then he was harassed by doubts whether the Turks w ere not in the right, and the Christians in the wrong. Then he was troubled by a maniacal impulse which ])rompted hira to pray to the trees, to a broomstick, to the parish bull. As yet, however, he was only entering the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Soon the darkness grew thicker. Hideous forms floated before him. Sounds of cursing and wailing were in his ears. His way ran through stench and fire, close to the mouth of the bottomless pit. He began to be haunted by a strange curiosity about the unpardonable sin, and by a mor- bid longing to commit it. But the most frightful of all the forms which his disease took was a propensity to utter blas- phemy, and especially to renounce his share in the benefits of the redemi3tion. ISTight and day, in bed, at table, at work, evil spirits, as he imagined, were repeating close to his ear the words, " Sell him. Sell him." He struck at the hobgob- lins ; he pushed them from him ; but still they were ever at his side. He cried out in answer to them, hour after hour : " ISTever, never; not for thousands of worlds, not for thou- sands." At length, worn out by this long agony, he suffered the fatal words to escape him, " Let him go, if he will." Then his misery became more fearful than ever. He had done what could not be forgiven. He had forfeited his part of the great sacrifice. Like Esau, he had sold his birthright ; and there was no longer any place for repentance. None," he afterwards wrote, " know the terrors of those days but myself " He has described his sufferings with singular en- ergy, simplicity, and pathos. He envied the brutes ; he envied the very stones in the street, and the tiles on the houses. The sun seemed to withhold its light and waimth from him. His body, though cast in a sturdy mould, and though still in the highest vigor of youth, trembled whole days together with the fear of death and judgment. He fancied that his trembling was the sign set on the worst reprobates, the sign which God had put on Cain. The un- happy man's emotion destroyed his power of digestion. He had such pains that he expected to burst asunder like Jidas, whom he regarded as his prototype. Neither the books which Bunyan read, nor the advisers whom he consulted, were likely to do much good in a case Vol. m.— 17 258 macaulay's MISCELLANEOIJS WRTTmOS. like this. His sin all library had received a most unseason- able addition, the account of the lamentable end of Francis Spira. One ancient man of high repute for piety, whom the sufferer consulted, gave an opinion which might well liave produced fatal consequences. "I am afraid," said Bunyan, "that I have committed the sin against the Holy Gho^^.t." " Indeed," said the old fanatic, " I am afraid that you have." At length the clouds broke ; the light became clearer and clearer ; and the enthusiast, who had imagined that he was branded with the mark of the first murderer, and des- tined to the end of the arch traitor, enjoyed peace and a cheerful confidence in the mercy of God. Years elapsed, however, before his nerves, which had been so perilously overstrained, recovered their tone. When he had joined a Baptist society at Bedford, and was for the first time ad- mitted to partake of the Eucharist, it was with difficulty that he could refrain from imprecating destruction on his brethren while the cup was passing from hand to hand. Af- ter he had been some time a member of the congregation, he began to preach; and his sermons produced a powerful effect. He was indeed illiterate ; but he spoke to illiterate men. The severe training through which he had passed had given him such an experimental knowledge of all the modes of religious melancholy as he could never have gathered from books ; and his vigorous genius, animated by a fervent spirit of devotion, enabled him, not only to exer- cise a great influence over the vulgar, but even to extort the half contemptuous admiration of scholars. Yet it was long before he ceased to be tormented by an impulse which urged him to utter words of horrible impiety in the pulpit. Counter-irritants are of as great use in moral as in phys- ical diseases. It should seem that Bunyan was finally re- lieved from the internal sufferings which had embittered his life by sharp persecution from without. He had been five years a preacher, when the Restoration put it in the power of the Cavalier gentlemen and clergymen all over the country to oppress the Dissenters ; and, of all tlie Dissenters wliose history is known to us, he was perliaps the most hai'dly treated. In November, 1660, he was flung into Bed- ford jail ; and there he remained, with some intervals of partial and precarious liberty, during twelve years. Hia persecutors tried to extort from him a promise that he would abstain from preaching; but he was convinced that JOnK BUNT AN. 259 he was divinely set apart and commissioned to be, a teacher of righteousness; and he was fully determined to obey God rather than man. He was brought before several tribunals, laughed at, caressed, reviled, menaced, but in vain. He was facetiously told that he was quite right in thinking that he ought not to hide his gift ; but that his real gift was skill in repairing old kettles. He was compared to Alexander the coppersmith. He was told that, if he would give up p'-eaching, he should be instantly liberated. Pie was warned (hat, if he persisted in disobeying the law, he would be liable to banishment, and that, if he were found in England after a certain time, his neck would be stretched. His answer was, " If you let me out to-day, I will preach again to-mor- row." Year after year he lay patiently in a dungeon, com- pared with which the worst prison now to be found in the island is a palace. His fortitude is the more extraordinary, because his domestic feelings were unusually strong. In- deed, he was considered by his stern brethren as somewhat too fond and indulgent a parent. He had several small children, and among them a daughter who was blind, and whom he loved with peculiar tenderness. He could not, he said, bear even to let the wind blow on her ; and now she must suffer cold and hunger ; she must beg; she must be beaten ; " yet," he added, " I must do it." While he lay in prison he could do nothing in the way of his old trade for the support of his family. He determined, therefore, to take up a new trade. He learned to make long tagged thread laces; and many thousands of these articles were furnished by him to the hawkers. While his hands were thus busied, he had other employment for his mind and his lips. He gave religious instruction to his fellow-captives, and formed from among them a little flock, of which he was himself the pastor. He studied indefatigably the few books which he possessed. His two chief com])anions were the Bible and Fox's Book of Martyrs. His knowledge of the Bible was such that he might have been called a living con- cordance ; and on the margin of his copy of the Book of Martyrs are still legible the ill-spelt lines of doggrel in which he expressed his reverence for the brave su&rers, and his implacable enmity to the mystical Babylon. At length he began to write; and, though it was some time before he disi^overed where his strength lay, his writ- ings were not unsuccessful. They were coarse, indeed ; but they showed a keen mother wit, a great command of the 260 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. homely luotlier tongue, an intimate knowledge of the Eng- lish Bible, and a vast and dearly bought spiritual experi- ence. They, -therefore, when the corrector of the press had improved the syntax and the spelling, were well received by the humbler class of Dissenters. Much of Banyan's time was spent in controversy. lie wrote sharply against the Quakers, whom he seems alwa3''s to have hekl in utter abhorrence. It is, however, a remark- able fact that he adopted one of their peculiar fashions : his ])ractice was to write, not November or December, but eleventh month and twelfth month. He wrote against the liturgy of the Church of England. No two things, according to him, had less affinity than the form of prayer and the spirit of prayer. Those, he said ' with much point, who have most of the spirit of prayer are all to be found in jail ; and those who have most zeal for the form of prayer are all to be found at the alehouse. The doc- trinal articles, on the other hand, he warmly praised, and defended against some Arminian clergymen who had signed them. The most acrimonious of all his works is his answer to Edward Fowler, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, an ex- cellent man, but not free from the taint of Pelagian ism. Bunyan had also a dispute with some of the chiefs of the sect to which he belonged. He doubtless held with ])erfect sinceriiy the distinguishing tenet of that sect ; but he did not consider that tenet as one of high importance, and wil- lins'ly joined in communion with quiet Presbyterians and Independents. The sterner Baptists, therefore, loudly pro- nounced him a false brother. A controversy arose wdiich long survived the original combatants. In our own time the cause which Bunyan had defended with rude logic and rhetoric against Kiffin and Dan vers was pleaded by Robert Ilall with an ingenuity and eloquence such as no polemical writer has ever surpassed. During the years which immediately followed the Res- toration, iBunyan's confinement seems to have been strict. But, as the passions of IGGO cooled, as the hatred with which the Puritans had been regarded while their reign was recent gave place to pity, he was less and less harshly treated. The distress of his family, and his own patience, courage, and piety softened the hearts of his persecutors. Like his own Christian in the cage, he found protectors even among the crowd of Vanity Fair. The bishop of the dio- cese, Dr. Barlow, is said to have interceded for him. At JOHN BUNYAN. 261 length tlie prisoner wna suffered to pass most of his tinin beyond the walls of the jail, on condition, as it sliould seem, that he remained within tlie town of Bedford. He owed his complete liberation to one of the worst acts of one of the worst governments that England has ever seen. In 1671 the Cabal was in power. Charles II. had concluded the treaty by which he bound himself to set up the Roman Catholic religion in Enghmd. The first step which he took towards that end was to annul, by an uncon- stitutional exercise of his prerogative, all the penal statutes against the Roman Catholics; and, in order to disguise liis real design, he annulled at the same time the penal statutes against Protestant nonconformists. Bunyan was conse- quently set at large. In the first warmth of his gratitude he published a tract in which he compared Charles to that humane and generous Persian king, who, though not him- self blessed wdth the light of the true religion, favored the chosen people, and permitted them, after years of captivity, to rebuild their beloved temple. To candid men, who con- sider how much Bunyan had suffered, and how little he could guess the secret designs of the court, the unsuspicious thankfulness with which he accepted the precious boon of freedom will not appear to require any apology. Before he left his prison he had begun the book which has made his name immortal. The history of that book is remarkable. Tlie author was, as he tells us, writing a trea- tise, in which he had occasion to speak of the stages of the Christian progress. He compared that progress, as many others had compared it, to a pilgrimage. Soon his quick wit discovered innumerable points of similarity wdiich had escaped his predecessors. . Images came crowding on his mind faster than he could put them into words, quagmires and pits, steep hills, dark and horrible glens, soft vales, sunny pastures, a gloomy castle of which the courtyard was strewn with the skulls and bones of murdered prisoners, a town all bustle and splendor, like London on the Lord Mayor's Day, and the narrow path, straight as a rule could make it, running on up hill and down hill, through city and through wilderness, to the Black River and tlie Shining Gate. He had found out, as most people would have said, by accident, as he would doubtless have said, by the guid- ance of Providence, where his powers lay. He had no sus- picion, indeed, that he was producing a masterpiece. He could not guess what place his allegory would occupy in 262 macatjlay's miscellaneous writings. English literature ; for of English literature he knew noth- ing. Those who suppose him to have studied the Fairy Queen might easily be confuted, if this were the proper place for a detailed examination of the passages in which the two allegories have been brouglit to resemble each other. The only work of fiction, in all probability, with which he could compare his pilgrim, was his old favorite, the legend of Sir Bevis of Southampton. He would have thouglit it a sin to borrow any time from the serious business of his life, from his expositions, his controversies, and liis lace tags, for the purpose il amusing himself with what he considered merely as L trifle. It was only, he assures us, at spare moments that he returned to the House Beautiful, the De- lectable Mountains, and the Enchanted Ground. He had no assistance. Nobody but himself saw a line till the whole was complete. He then consulted his pious friends. Some were pleased. Others were much scandalized. It was a vain story, a mere romance, about giants, and lions, and goblins, and warriors, sometimes fighting with monsters and sometimes regaled by fair ladies in stately palaces. The loose atheistical wits at Will's might write such stuff to di- vert the painted Jezebels of the court ; but did it become a minister of the gospel to copy the evil fashions of the world ? There had been a time when the cant of such fools w^ould have made Bunyan miserable. But that time was passed ; and his mind was now in a firm and healthy state. He saw that, in employing fiction to make truth clear and goodness attractive, he was only following the example which every Christian ought to propose to himself ; and he determined to print. The Pilgriiti's Progress stole silently into the world. Not a single copy of the first edition is known to be in ex- istence. The year of publication has not been ascertained. It is probable that, during some months, the little volume circulated only among poor and obscure sectaries. But soon the irresistible charm of a book which gratified the imagina- tion of tht reader with all the action and scenery of a fairy tale, which exercised his ingenuity by setting him to dis- cover a multitude of curious analogies, which interested his feelings for human beings, frail like himself, and struggling with temptations from within and from without, which every moment drew a smile from him by some stroke of quaint yet simple pleasantry, and nevertheless left on his mind a senti- ment of reverence for God and of sympathy for man, began JOnX BUNYAIS. 263 to produce its effect. In puritanical circles, from which plays and novels were strictly excluded, that effect was such as no work of genius, though it were superior to the Iliad, to Don Quixote, or to Othello, can ever produce on a mind ac- customed to indulge in literary luxury. In 1678 came forth *x second edition with additions ; and then the demand be- came immense. In the four following years the book was reprinted six times. The eighth edition, which contains the last improvements made by the author, was published in 1682, the ninth in 1684, the tenth in 1685. The help of the engraver had early been called in ; and tens of thousands of children looked with terror and delight on execrable co])per- plates, which represented Clu'istian thrusting his sword into Apollyon, or writhing in the grasp of Giant Despair. In Scotland, and in some of the colonies, the Pilgrim was even more ])opular than in his native country. Bunyan has told us, with very pardonable vanity, that in New England his dream was the daily subject of the conversation of thou- sands, and was thought worthy to appear in the most superb binding. He had numerous admirers in Holland, and among the Huguenots of France. With the pleasures, however, he experienced some of the pains of eminence. Knavish book- sellers put forth volumes of trash under his name ; and envious scribblers maintained it to be impossible that the poor ignorant tinker should really be the author of the book which was called his. He took the best w^ay to confound those who counter- feited him and those who slandered him. He continued to work the gold-field which he had discovered, and to draw from it new treasures, not indeed with quite such ease and in quite such abundance as when the precious soil was still virgin, but yet with success which left all competition far behind. In 1684 appeared the second part of the " Pilgrim's Proirress." It w^as soon followed by the " Holy War," \\ hich, if the " Pilgrim's Progress " did not exist, would be tlie best allegory that ever was written. Bunyan's place in society was now very different from wdiat it had been. There had been a time when many Dissenting ministers, who could talk Latin and read Greek, had affected to treat him Avith scorn. But his fame and influence now far exceeded theirs. He had so great an authority among the Baptists that he was poj^ularly called Bishop Bunyan. His episcopal visitations were annual. From Bedford he rode every year to London, and preached 264 MACAULAy's miscellaneous WRlTmGS. there to large and attentive congregations. From Lon* don he went his circuit through the country, animating the zeal of his brethren, collecting and distributing alms, and making up quarrels. The magistrates seem in gen- eral to have given him little trouble. But there is rea- son to believe that, in the year 1685, he was in some danger of again occupying his old quarters in Bedford jail. In that year the rash and wicked enterprise of Monmouth gave the Government a pretext for prosecuting the Noncon- formists ; and scarcely one eminent divine of the l*resby- terian. Independent, or Baptist persuasion remained unmo- lested. Baxter was in prison : Howe was driven into exile : Henry was arrested. Two eminent Baptists, with whom Bunyan had been engaged in controversy, were in great peril and distress. Danvers was in danger of being hanged ; and Kiffin's grandsons were actually hanged. The tradition is that, during those evil days, Bunyan was forced to dis- guise himself as a wagoner, and that he preached to his congregation at Bedford in a smock-frock, with a cart-whip in his hand. But soon a great change took place. James the Second was at open war with the church, and found it necessary to court the Dissenters. Some of the creatures of the government tried to secure the aid of Bunyan. They probably knew that he had written in praise of the indul- gence of 1672, and therefore hoped that he might be equally pleased with the indulgence of 1687. But fifteen years of thought, observation, and commerce with the world had made him wiser. Nor were the cases exactly parallel. Charles was a professed Protestant : James Avas a professed Paj)ist. The object of Charles's indulgence was disguised : the object of James's indulgence was patent. Bunyan was not deceived. He exhorted his hearers to prepare themselves by fasting and prayer for the danger which menaced their civil and religious liberties, and refused even to speak to the courtier wdio came down to remodel the corporation of Bod- ford, and who, as Avas sup])osed, had it in charge to ofler some municipal dignity to the Bishop of the Baptists. Bunyan did not live to see the Revolution. In the sum- mer of 1688 he undertook to plead the cause of a son Avith an angry father, and at length prevailed on the old man not to disinherit the young one. This good work cost the oenevolent intercessor his life. He had to ride through heavy rain. He came drenched to his lodgings on Snow Hill, was seized with a violent fever, and died in a feAV days JOHN BUNYAN. 265 He was buried in Buiiliill Fielus ; and tlie spot where lie lies is still regarded by the ISTonconforirdsts with a feeling which seems scarcely in harmony with the stern spirit of their the- ology. Many puritans, to whom the respect paid by itonian Catholics to the reliques and tombs of sanits seemed childish or sinful, are said to have begged with their dying breath that their coffins might be placed as near as possible to the coffin of the author of the " Pilgrim's Progress." The fame of Bunyan during his life, and during the cen- tury which followed his death, was indeed great, but was al- most entirely confined to religious families of the middle and lower classes. Very seldom was he dui'ing that time men- tioned with respect by any writer of great literary eminence. Young coupled his prose with the poetry of the wretched D'Urfey. In the Spiritual Quixote, the adventures of Chiis- tian are ranked with those of Jack the Giant-Killer and John Ilickathrift. Cowper ventured to praise the great allegorist, but did not venture to name liim. It is a significant circum- stance that, till a recent period, all the numerous editions of the "Pilgrim's Progress" were evidently meant for the cot- tage and the servants' hall. The paper, the printing, the plates were all of the meanest description. In general, wdien the educated minority and the common people differ about the merit of a book, the opinion of the educated minority finally prevails. The "Pilgrim's Progress" is perhaps the only book about which, after the lapse of a hundred years, the educated minority has come over to the opinion of the common people. The attempts which have been made to improve and to imitate this book are not to be numbered. It has been done into verse : it has been done into modern English. " The Pilgrimage of Tender Conscience," "the Pilgrimage of Good Intent," " The Pilcrrimage of Seek Truth," "The Pilgrimage of Theophilus," "^The Infant Pilgrim," " The Hindoo Pil- grim," are among the many feeble copies of the great orig- inal. But the peculiar glory of Bunyan is, that those who most hated his doctrines have tried to. borrow the help of his genius. A Catholic version of his parable may be seen with the head of the Virgin in the title page. On the other hand, those Antinomians for whom his Calvinism is not strong enough may study the pilgrimage of Hephzibah, in which nothing will be found which can be construed into an pdmission of free agency and universal redemption. But the most extraordinary of all the acts of Vandalism by which 266 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. a fine work of art was ever defaced was committed so lat€ as tlie year 1853. It was determined to transform the " Pil- grim's Progress " into a Tractarian book. The task was not easy: for it was necessary to make the two sacraments the most prominent objects in the allegory; and of all Christian theologians, avowed Quakers exce])ted, Bunyan was tlie one in whose system the sacraments held the least prominent place. However, the Wicket Gate became a type of Bap- tism, and the House Beautiful of the Eucharist. The effect of this change is such as assuredly the ingenious person who made it never contemplated. For, as not a single pilgrim passes through the Wicket Gate in infancy, and as Faithful hurries past the House Beautiful without stopping, the les- son which the fable in its altered shape teaches, is that none but adults ought to be baptized, and that the Eucharist may safely be neglected. Nobody would have discovered from the original " Pilgrim's Progress " that the author was not a P^edobaptist. To turn his book into a book against Paedo- baptism was an achievement reserved for an Anglo-Catholic divine. Such blunders must necessarily be committed by every man who mutilates parts of a great work, without taking a comj)rehensive view of the whole. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. {Encyclo2)(Bdia Britannicay February ^ 1856.) Oliver Goldsmith, one of the most pleasing English writers of the eighteenth century. He was of a Protestant and Saxon family which had been long settled in Ireland, and which had, like most other Protestant and Saxon fami- lies, been, in troubled times, harassed and put in fear by the native population. His father, Charles Goldsmith, studied in the reign of Queen Anne at the diocesan school of Elphin, became attached to the daughter of the schoolmaster, mar- ried her, took orders, and settled at a ])lace called Pallas in the county of Longford. There he with difficulty supported his wife and children on what he could earn, partly as a curate and partly as a farmer. At Pallas Oliver Golcjsmith was born, in November, 1728. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 261 The spot was then, for all practical purposes, almost as re- mote from the busy and splendid capital in which his later years were passed, as any clearing in Upper Canada or any sheep-.walk in Australasia now is. Even at this day those entliusiasts who venture to make a pilgi'image to the birth- ]i]nce of the poet are forced to perform the latter part of their journey on foot. The hamlet lies far from any high road, on a dreary plain which, in wet weather, is often a lake. The lanes would break any jaunting car to pieces; and there are ruts and sloughs through which the most stnmgly built wheels cannot be dragged. While Oliver was still a child, his father was presented to a living worth about 200/. a year, in the county of West- meath. The family accordingly quitted their cottage in the wilderness for a spacious house on a frequented road, near the village of Lissoy. Here the boy Avas taught his letters by a maid-servant, and was sent in his seventh year to a village school kept by an old quartermaster on half-pay, who professed to teach nothing but reading, writing and arith- metic, but who had an inexhaustible fund of stories about ghosts, banshees nnd fairies, about the great Rapparee chiefs, Baldearg O'Donnell and galloping Hogan, and about the ex])loits of Peterborough and Stanhope, the surprise of Monjuich, and the gloriou's disaster of Brihuega. This man must have been of the Protestant religion ; but he was of the aboriginal race, and not only spoke the Irish language, but could pour forth unpremeditated Irish verses. Oliver early became, and through life continued to be, a passion- ate admirer of the Irish music, and especially of the com- positions of Carolan, some of the last notes of whose harp he heard. It ought to be added that Oliver, though by birth one of the Englishry, and though connected by numerous ties with the Established Church, never showed the least sign of that contemptuous antipathy with Avhich, in his days, the ruling minority in Ireland too generally regarded the subject majority. So far indeed was he from sharing in the opinions and feelings of the caste to which he belonged, that he conceived an aversion to the Glorious and Immortal Memory, and, eyen when George the Third was on the throne, maintained that nothing but the restoration of the banished dynasty could save the country. From the humble academy kept by the old soldier Gold- smith was removed in his ninth year. He went to several grammar-schools, and acquired some knowledge of the an- 268 macaulay's miscellaneous writixgs. cienl .aiiguagos. His life at this time seems to have been far from happy. He had, as appears from the admirable portrait of him at Knowle, features harsh even to ugliness. The sraall-pox had set its mark on him witli more than usual severity. His stature was small, and his limbs ill put togetlier. Among boys little tenderness is shown to per- sonal defects ; and the ridicule excited by poor Oliver's ap- pearance was heightened by a peculiar simplicity and a dis- position to blunder which he retained to tlie last. He be- came the common butt of boys and masters, was pointed at as a fright in the play-ground, and flogged as a dunce in the school-room. When he had risen to eminence, those who had once derided him ransacked their memory for the events of his early years, and recited repartees and couplets which had dropped from him, and which, though little noticed at the time, were supposed, a quarter of a century later, to in- dicate the powers wdiich produced the "Vicar of Wake- field " and the " Deserted Village." In his seventeenth year Oliver went up to Trinity Col- lege, Dublin, as a sizar. The sizars paid nothing for food and tuition, and very little for lodging ; but they had to per- form some menial services from wliich they have long been relieved. They swept the court : they cari'ied up the dinner to the fellows' table, and changed the plates and poured out the ale of the rulers of the society. Goldsmith was quartered, not alone, in a garret, on the window of which his name, scrawled by himself, is still read with interest.^ From sucli garrets many men of less parts than his have made their way to the v>^oolsack or to the episcopal bench. But Gold- smith, w^hile he suffered all the humiliations, threw away all the advantages, of his situation. He neglected the studies of the place, stood low at the examinations, was turned down to the bottom of his class for playing the buffoon in the lecture-room, was severely reprimanded for pumping on a constable, and Avas caned by a brutal tutor for giving a ball in the attic story of the college to some gay youths and damsels from the city. While Oliver was leading at Dublin a life divided be- tween squalid distress and squalid dissipation, his father died, leaving a mere ])ittance. The youth obtained his bachelor's degree, and left the university. During some * The glass on which the name is written has, as we are informed by a writer In J^otes and Queries (2d S, ix. p. 91), been inclosed in a frame and deposited in the Manuscript Room of the College Library, /here it is still to be seen. OLIYER GOLDSMITH. 265 time the humble dwelling to which his widowed mother had retired was his home. He was now in his twenty-first year; it was necessary that he should do something ; and Iiis education seemed to have fitted him to do nothing but to dress himself in gaudy colors, of whicli he was as fond as a magpie, to take a hand at cards, to sing Irish airs, to play the flute, to angle in summer, and to tell ghost stories by the fire in winter. He tried five or six professions in turn without success. He applied for ordination ; but, as he ap- plied in scarlet clothes, lie was speedily turned out of the episcopal palace. He then became tutor in an opulent family, but soon quitted his situation in consequence of a dispute about play. Then he determined to emigrate to America. His relations, with much satisfaction, saw him set out for Cork on a good horse, with thii'ty pounds in his pocket. But in six weeks he came back on a miserable liack, without a penny, and informed his mother that the ship in which he had taken his passage, having got a fair wind while he was at a party of pleasure, had sailed without him. Then he resolved to study the law. A gen- erous kinsman advanced fifty pounds. With this sum Gold- smith went to Dublin, was enticed into a gaming house, and lost every shilling. He then thought of medicine. A small purse was made up ; and in his twenty-fourth year he was sent to Edinburgh. At Edinburgh he passed eighteen months in nominal attendance on lectures, and picked up some superficial information about chemistry and natural history. Thence he went to Ley den, still pretend- ing to study physic. He left that celebrated university, the third university at Avhich he had resided, in his twenty- seventh year, without a degree, with the merest smattering of medical knowledge, and Avith no property but his clothes and his fiute. His fiute, however, proved a useful friend. He rambled on foot througli Flandei-s, France, and Switzer- land, playing tunes which everywhere set the peasantry dancing, and which often procured for him a supper and a bed. He wandered as far as Italy. His musical perform- ances, indeed, were not to the taste of the Italians ; but lie contrived to live on the alms Avhich he obtain.ed at the gates of convents. It should, hoAvever, be observed that the stories Avhich he told about this part of his life ought to be received with great caution ; for strict A^eracity was never one of his virtues ; and a man who is ordinarily in- accurate in narration is likely to be more than ordinarily in- 270 MACAULAy's mSCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. accurate when be talks about bis own travels. Goldsm'tli, mdeecl, was so regardless of trutb as to assert in print that he was present at a most interesting conversation between Voltaire and Fontenelle, and that this conversation took place at Paris. Now it is certain that Voltaire never was ^^'ilbln a hundred leagues of Paris during the whole time which Goldsmith passed on the Continent. In 1756 the wanderer landed at Dover, without a shil- ling, without a friend, and without a calling. He had, in- deed, if his own unsupported evidence may be trusted, ob- tained from the university of Padua a doctor's degree ; but this dignity proved utterly useless to him. In England his flute was not in request: there were no convents; and he was forced to have recourse to a series of desperate expedi- ents. He turned strolling player; but his face and figure were ill suited to the boards even of the humblest the- atre. He pounded drugs and ran about London with phials for charitable chemists. He joined a swarm of beggars, which made its nest in Axe Yard. He was for a time usher of a school, and felt the miseries and humiliations of this sit- uation so keenly that he thought it a promotion to be per- mitted to earn his bread as a bookseller's hack ; but he soon found the new yoke more galling tlian the old one, and was glad to become an usher again. He obtained a medical ap- pointment in the service of the East India Company ; but the appointment was speedily revoked. Why it was revoked w^e are not told. The subject was one on which he never liked to talk. It is probable that he w^as incompetent to perform the duties of the place. Then he presented himself at Surgeons' Hall for examination, as mate to a naval hos- ))ital. Even to so humble a post lie was found unequal. By this time the schoolmaster wdiom he had served for a morsel of food and the third part of a bed was no more. Nothing remained but to return to the lowest drudgery of literature. Goldsmith took a garret in a miserable court, to Avhich he had to climb from the brink of Fleet Ditch by a dizzy lad- der of flag-stones called Breakneck steps. The court and the ascent have long disappeared ; but old Londoneis w^ill remember both.^ Here, at thirty, the unlucky adventurer sat down to toil like a galley slave. * A gentleman, who states that he has known the neighborhood for thirty years, corrects this account, and informs, the present publislier that the Break- keck Steps, thirty-two in number, divided into two flights, are still in existence, and that, according to tradition, Goldsmith's house was not on the steps, but wa? the first house at the head of the court, on the left hand, going from the Old Bailey. See Notes and Queries (2d S. ix. 280). OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 271 In the succeeding six years he sent to the press some things which have survived and many which have perished. He produced articles for reviews, magazines, and newspa^ pers ; cliildren's books which, bound in gilt paper and adorned with hideous woodcuts, appeared in the window of the once far-famed shop at the corner of St. Paul's Church- yard ; "An Inquiry into tlie State of Polite Learning in 'Europe," which, though of little or no value, is still re- printed among his works ; a "Life of Beau Nash," which is not reprinted, though it well deserves to be so ; a superfi- cial and incorrect, but very readable, " History of Eugl^nid," in a series of letters purporting to be addressed by a nt.ible- man to his son ; and some very lively and amusing " Sketches of London Society," in a series of letters purporting to be addressed by a Chinese traveller to his friends. All these works were anonvmous ; but some of them were well known to be Goldsmith's ; and he gradually rose in thS estimation of the booksellers for whom he drudged. He was, indeed, a popular writer. For accurate research or grave disquisi- tion he was not qualified by nature or by education. He knew nothing accurately : his reading had been desultory ; nor had he meditated deeply on what he had read. He had seen much of the world ; but he had noticed and retained little more of what he had seen than some grotesque inci- dents and characters which had happened to strike his fancy. But, though his mind was very scantily stored with ma- terials, he used what materials he had in such a way as to produce a wonderful effect. There have been many greater writers ; but perhaps no writer was ever more uniformly agreeable. His style was always pure and easy, and, on proper occasions, pointed and energetic. His narratives were always amusing, his descriptions always picturesque, his humor rich and joyous, yet not Avithout an occasional tinge of amiable sadness. About everything that he wrote, serious or sportive, there was a certain natural grace and decorum, hardly to be expected from a man a great part of whose life had been passed among thieves and beggars, street-walkers and merry andrews, in those s<|ualid dens which are the reproach of great cajutals. As his name gradually became known, the circle of his acquaintance widened. He was introduced to Johnson, r * Mr. Black has pointed out that this is inaccurate: the life of Nash has been twice reprinted ; once in Mr. Prior's edition (vol. iii. p. 249), and once in Mr. Cunningham's edition (vol. iv. p. 35). 272 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. who was then considered as the first of living English wri- ters ; to Reynolds, tlie Mrst of English painters ; and to Burke, wlio had not yet entered parliament, but had distinguished himself greatly by liis writings and by the eloquence of liis conversation. With these eminent men Goldsmith became intimate. In 1763 he was one of the nine original members of that celebrated fraternity Avhich has sometimes been called the Literary Club, but which has always disclaimed' that epithet, and still glories in the simple name of The Club. By this time Goldsmith had quitted liis miserable dwell- ing at the top of Breakneck Steps, and had taken chambers in tlie more civilized region of the Inns of Court. But he was still often reduced to j^itiable shifts. Towards the close of 1764 his rent was so long in arrear that his landlady one mornmg called in the help of a sheri£i:*'s officer. The debtor, in great perplexity, despatched a messenger to Johnson; Johnson, always friendly, though often surly, sent back the messenger with a guin(?a, and promised to follow speedily. He came, and found that Goldsmith had changed the guinea, and was railing at the landlady over a bottle of Madeira. Johnson put the cork into the bottle, and entreated his friend to consider calmly how money was to be procured. Goldsmith said that he had a novel ready for the press. Johnson glanced at the manuscript, saw that there were good things in it, took it to a bookseller, sold it for 60/., and soon returned with the money. The rent was paid ; and the sheriff's officer withdrew. According to one story, Goldsmith gave his landlady a sharp reprimand for her treatment of him ; according to another, he insisted on her joining him in a bowl of punch. Both stories are probably true. The novel which was thus ushered into the w^orld was the " Vicar of Wakefield." But, before the " Vicar of Wakefield " appeared in print, came the great crisis of Goldsmith's literary life. In Christmas week, 1764, he published a poem, entitled the " Traveller." It was the first work to which he had put his name ; and it at once raised him to the rank of a legitimate English classic. The opinion of the most skilful critics was, that nothing finer had appeared in verse since the fourth book of the " Dunciad." In one respect the " Traveller " differs from all Goldsmith's other writings. In general, his designs were bad, and his execution good. In the " Travel- ler," the execution, though deserving of much praise, is far OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 273 inferior to the design. No philosophical poem, ancient or modern, has a plan so noble, and at the same time so simple. An English wanderer, seated on a crag among the Alps, near the point where three great countries meet, looks down on the boundless prospect, reviews his long pilgrimage, re- calls the varieties of scenery, of climate, of government, of I'eligion, of national character, which he has observed, and comes to the conclusion, just or unjust, that our happiness depends little on political institutions, and much on the lem]^er and regulation of our own minds. While the fourth edition of the "Traveller" was on the counters of the booksellers, the "Vicar of Wakefield" ap- peared, and rapidly obtained a popularity which has lasted down to our own time, and which is likely to last as long as our language. The fable is indeed one of the worst that ever was constructed. It wants, not merely that probability which ought to be found in a tale of common English life, but that consistency which ought to be found even in the wildest fiction about witches, giants, and fairies. But the earlier chapters have all the sweetness of pastoral poetry, together with all the vivacity of comedy. Moses and his spectacles, the vicar and his monogamy, the sharper and his cosmogony, the squire proving from Aristotle that relatives are related, Olivia preparing herself for the arduous task of converting a rakish lover by studying the controversy be- tween Robinson Crusoe and Friday, the great ladies with their scandal about Sir Tomkyn's amours and Dr. Burdock's verses, and Mr. Burchell with his " Fudge," have caused as much harmless mirth as has ever been caused by matter packed into so small a number of pages. The latter part of the tale is unworthy of the beginning. As we approach the catastrophe, the absurdities lie thicker and thicker ; and the gleams of pleasantry become rarer and rarer. The success which had attended Goldsmith as a novelist emboldened him to try his fortune as a dramatist. He wrote the " Good-natured Man," a piece which had a worse fate than it deserved. Garrick refused to produce it in Drury Lane. It was acted in Co vent Garden in 1768, but was coldly received. The author, however, cleared by his benefit nights, and by the sale of the copyright, no less than 500/., five times as much as he had made by the " Traveller " and the " Vicar of Wakefield " together. The plot of the "Good-natured Man " is, like almost all Goldsmith's plots, very ill constructed. But some passages are exquisitely Vol. III.— 18 274 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. ludicrous ; much more ludicrous, indeed, than suited the taste of the town at that time. A canting, mawkish play, entitled " False Delicacy," had just had an immense run. Sentimentality was all the mode. During some years, more tears were shed at comedies than at tragedies ; and a pleasantry which moved the audience to anything more than a grave smile was reprobated as low. It is not strange, therefore, that the very best scene in the " Good-natured Man," that in which Miss Richland finds her lover attended by the bailiff and the bailiff's follower in full court dresses, should have been mercilessly hissed, and should have been omitted after the first night. In 1770 appeared the "Deserted Village." In mere dic- tion and versification this celebrated poem is fully equal, perhaps superior, to the " Traveller ; " and it is generally preferred to the " Traveller " by that large class of readers who think, with Bayes in the " Rehearsal," tliat the only use of a plan is to bring in fine things. More discerning judges, however, while they admire the beauty of the de- tails, are shocked by one unpardonable fault which pervades the whole. The fault we mean is not that theory about wealth and luxury which has so often been censured by political economists. The theory is indeed false : but the poem, considered merely as a poem, is not necessarily the worse on that account. The finest poem in the Latin lan- guage, indeed the finest didactic poem in any language, was written in defence of the silliest and meanest of all systems of natural and moral philosophy. A poet may easily be pardoned for reasoning ill ; but he cannot be pardoned for describing ill, for observing the world in which he lives so carelessly that his portraits bear no resemblance to the originals, for exhibiting as copies from real life monstrous combinations of things which never were and never could be found together. What would be thought of a painter who should mix August and January in one landscape, who should introduce a frozen river into a harvest scene ? Would it be a sufficient defence of such a picture to say that every part was exquisitely colored, that the green hedges, the apple-trees loaded with fruit, the wagons reeling under the yellow sheaves, and the sunburned reapers wiping their foreheads, were very fine, and that the ice and the boys sliding were also very fine ? To such a picture the " De- serted Village " bears a great resemblance. It is made up of incongruous parts. The village in its happy days is a OLIVER GOLDSMITH. tnie English village. The village in its decay is an Irish village. The felicity and the misery which Goldsmith has brought close together belong to two different countries, and to two different stages in the progress of society. He had assuredly never seen in his native island such a rural paradise, such a seat of plenty, content, and tranquillity, as his " Auburn." He had assuredly never seen in England all the inhabitants of such, a paradise turned out of their homes in one day and forced to emigrate in a body to America. The hamlet he had probably seen in Kent ; the ejectment he had probably seen in Munster; but, by join- ing the two, he has produced something which never was and never will be seen in any part of the world. In 1773 Goldsmith tried his chance at Covent Garden with a second play, She Stoops to Conquer." The mana- ger was not without great difficulty induced to bring this piece out. The sentimental comedy still reigned and Goldsmith's comedies were not sentimental. The Good- natured Man " had been too funny to succeed ; yet the mirth of the " Good-natured Man " was sober when compared with the rich drollery of " She Stoops to Conquer," which is, in truth, an incomparable farce in five acts. On this occasion, however, genius triumphed. Pit, boxes, and gal- leries, were in a constant roar of laughter. If any bigoted admirer of Kelly and Cumberland ventured to hiss or groan, he was speedily silenced by the general cry of "turn him out," or " throw him over." Two generations have since confirmed the verdict which was pronounced on that night. While Goldsmith was writing the "Deserted Village" and " She Stoops to Conquer," he was employed on works of a very different kind, works from which he derived little reputation but much profit. He compiled for the use of schools a " History of Rome, by which he made 300Z., a " History of England," by which he made 600/., a " History of Greece," for Avhich he received 250/., a " Natural His- tory," for which the booksellers covenanted to pay him 800 guineas. These works he produced without any elaborate research, by merely selecting, abridging, and translating into his own, clear, pure, and flowing language what he found in books well known to the world, but too bulky or too dry for boys and girls. He committed some strange blunders; for he knew nothing with accuracy. Thus in his "History of England " he tells us that Naseby is in Yorkshire ; nor did he correct this mistake when the book was reprinted. 276 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. He was very nearly hoaxed into putting into the History of Greece " an account of a battle between Alexander the Great and Montezuma. In his ''Animated Nature" he re- lates with faitli and with perfect gravity, all the most absurd lies which he could find in books of travels about gigantic Patagonians, monke3^s that preach sermons, nightingales that repeat long conversations. " If he can tell a horse from a cow," said Johnson, "that is the extent of his knowledge of zoology." How little Goldsmith was qualified to write about the physical sciences is sufficiently proved by two anecdotes. He on one occasion denied that the sun is longer in the northern than in the southern signs. It was vain to cite the authority of Maupertius. "Maupertius ! " he cried, " I understand those matters better than Maupertius." On another occasion he, in defiance of the evidence of his own senses, maintained obstinately, and even angrily, that he chewed his dinner by moving his upper jaw.. Yet, ignorant as Goldsmith was, few writers have done more to make the first steps in the laborious road to knowl- edge easy and pleasant. His compilations are widely dis- tinguished from the compilations of ordinary book-makers. He was a great, perhaps an unequalled, master of the arts of selection and condensation. In these respects lus histories of Rome and of England, and still more his own abridgments of these histories, well deserve to be studied. In general, nothing is less attractive than an epitome ; but the epitomes of Goldsmith, even when most concise, are always amusing; and to read them is considered by intelligent children, not as a task, but as a pleasure. Goldsmith might now be considered as a prosperous man. He had the means of living in comfort, and even in what to one who had so often slept in barns and on bulks must have been luxury. His fame was great and was con- stantly rising. He lived in what was intellectually far the best society of the kingdom, in a society in which no talen^. or accomplishment was w^anting, and in which the art of conv Brsation was cultivated with splendid success. There probably As^ere never four talkers more admirable in four different ways than Johnson, Burke, Beauclerk, and Garrick; and Goldsmith w^as on terms of intimacy with all the four. He aspired to share in their colloquial renown ; but never was ambition more unfortunate. It may seem strange that a man who wrote with so much perspicuity, viA^acity, and grace, should have been, whenever h^ took a part in con- OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 277 v^ersation, an empty, noisy, blundering rattle. But on tliis point tlie evidence is overwhelming. So extraordinary was the contrast between Goldsmith's published works and the silly things which he said, that Horace Walpole described him as an inspired idiot. "Noll," said Garrick, " Avrote like an angel, and talked like poor Pol." Chamier declared that it was a hard exercise of faith to believe that so foolish a chatterer could have really written the " Traveller." Even Boswell could say, with contemptuous compassion, that he liked very well to hear honest Goldsmith run on. "Yes, sir," said Johnson ; " but he should not like to hear himself." Minds differ as rivers differ. There are transparent and sparkling rivers from which it is delightful to drink as they flow ; to such rivers the minds of such men as Burke and Johnson may be compared. But there are rivers of which the water when first drawn is turbid and noisome, but be- comes pellucid as crystal, and delicious to the taste, if it be sufl'ered to stand till it has deposited a sediment ; and such a river is a type of the mind of Goldsmith. His first thoughts on every subject were confused even to absurdity ; but they required only a little time to work themselves clear. When he wrote they had that time ; and therefore his readers pronounced him a man of genius : but when he talked he talked nonsense, and made himself the laughing- stock of his hearers. He was painfully sensible of his in- feriority in conversation ; he felt every failure keenly ; yet he had not sufficient judgment and self-command to hold his tongue. His animal spirits and vanity were always impel- ling him to try to do the one thing which he could not do. After every attempt he felt that he had exposed himself, and writhed with shame and vexation ; yet the next mo- ment he began again. His associates seera to have regarded him with kindness, which, in spite of their admiration of his writings, was not unmixed with contempt. In truth, there was in his char- acter much to love, but very little to respect. His heart was soft even to weakness ; he was so generous that he quite forgot to be just ; he forgave injuries so readily that he might be said to invite them ; and was so liberal to beggars that he had nothing left for his tailor and his butcher. He was vain, sensual, frivolous, profuse, improvident. One vice of a darker shade was imputed to him, envy. But there IS not the least reason to believe that this bad passion, though it sometimes made him wince and utter fretful exclamations, 278 macaulay's miscellaneous writijngs. ever inipelled )um to injure by wicked arts tlie reputation of any of his rivals. The truth probably is, that he was not more envious, but merely less prudent, than his neighbors. His heart was on his lips. All those small jealousies, which are but too common among men of letters, but whicli a >iian of letters who is also a man of the world does his best to con- ceal, Goldsmith avowed with the simplicity of a child. When he was envious, instead of affecting indifference, ^instead of damning with faint praise, instead of doing injuries slyly and :.n the dark, he told everybody that he was envious. " Do not, pray, do not talk of Johnson in such terms," he said to Boswell ; " you harrow up my very soul." George Steevens and Cumberland were men far too cunning to say such a thing. They would have echoed the praises of the man whom they envied, and then have sent to the newspapers anonymous libels upon him. Both what was good and what was bad in Goldsmith's character was to his associates a per- fect security that he would never commit such villainy. He was neither ill-natured enough, nor long-headed enough, to be guilty of any malicious act which required contrivance and disguise. Goldsmith has sometimes been represented as a man of genius, cruelly treated by the world, and doomed to struggle with difficulties which at last broke his heart. But no repre- sentation can be more remote from the truth. He did, indeed, go through much sharp misery before he had done anything considerable in literature. But, after his name had appeared on the title-page of the " Traveller," he had none but himself to blame for his distresses. His average income, during the last seven years of his life, certainly exceeded 4.00Z. a year ; and 4:001. a year ranked, among the incomes of that day, at least as high as 800/. a year v/ould rank at present. A single man living in the Temple with AOOl. a year might then be called opulent. Not one in ten of the young gentlemen of good families who were studying the law there had so much. But all the wealth which Lord Clive had brought from Ben- gal, and Sir Lawrence Dundas from Germany, joined to- gether, would not have sufficed for Goldsmith. He spent twice as much as he had. He wore fine clothes, gave dii - ners of several courses, paid court to venal beauties. Ho had also, it should be remembered, to the honor of his heart, though not of his head, a guinea, or five, or ten, according to the state of his purse, ready for any tale of distress, true or false. But it was not in dress or feasting, in promiscuous, OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 279 amours or promiscuous charities that his chief expense lay. He had been from boyhood a gambler, and at once the most sanguine and the most unskilful of gamblers. For a time he put off the day of inevitable ruin by temporary expedients. He obtained adv^ances from booksellers, by promising to execute works which he never began. But at length this source of supply failed. He owed more than 2000Z. and he saw no hope of extrication from his embarrassments. His spirits and health gave way. He was attacked by a nervous fever, which he thought himself competent to treat. It would have been happy for him if his medical skill had been appreciated as justly by himself as by others. Notwith- standing the degree which he pretended to have received at Padua, he could procure no patients. " I do not practise," he once said ; " I make it a rule to prescribe only for my friends." " Pi^ay, dear Doctor," said Beauclerk, " alter your rule ; and prescribe only for your enemies." Goldsmith now, in spite of this excellent advice, prescribed for himself. The remedy aggravated the malady. The sick man was induced to call in real physicians ; and they at one time imagined that they had cured the disease. Still his w^eakness and restlessness continued. He could get no sleep. He could take no food. " You are worse," said one of his medical attendants, "than you should be from the degree of fever which you have. Is your mind at ease ? " " No, it is not," were the last recorded words of Oliver Goldsmith. He died on the third of April, 1774, in his forty-sixth year. He was laid in the churchyard of the Temple ; but the spot was not marked by any inscription, and is now forgotten. The coffin was followed by Burke and Reynolds. Both these great men were sincere mourners. Burke, when he heard of Goldsmith's death, had burst into a flood of tears. Reynolds had been so much moved by the news that he had flung aside his brush and palette for the day. A short time after Goldsmith's death, a little poem ap- peared, which w^ill, as long as our language lasts, associate the names of his two illustrious friends with his own. It has already been mentioned that he sometimes felt keenly the sarcasm which his wild blundering talk brought upon him. He was, not long before his last illness, provoked into retaliating. He wisely betook himself to his pen ; and at that Yv^eapon he proved himself a match for all his assailants together. Within a small compass he drew with a singu- larly easy and vigorous pencil the characters of nine or teu 280 macaulay's miscellaneous writings of liis intimate associates. Though this little work aid not receive his last touches, it must always be regarded as a masterpiece. It is impossible, however, not to wish that four or five likenesses which have no interest for posterity were wanting to that noble gallery, and that their places were supplied by sketches of Johnson and Gibbon, as happy and vivid as the sketches of Burke and Garrick. Some of Goldsmith's friends and admirers honored him with a cenotaph in Westminster Abbey. Nollekens was the sculptor ; and Johnson wrote the inscription. It is much to be lamented that Johnson did not leave to posterity a more durable and a more valuable memorial of his friend. A life of Goldsmith would have been an inestimable addition to the Lives of the Poets. No man appreciated Goldsmith's writings more justly than Johnson : no man was better ac- quainted with Goldsmith's character and habits ; and no man was more competent to delineate with truth and spirit the peculiarities of a mind in which great powers were found in company with great weaknesses. But the list of poets to whose works Johnson was requested by the booksellers to furnish prefaces ended with Lyttleton, who died in 1773. The line seems to have been drawn expressly for the pur- pose of excluding the person whose portrait would have most fitly closed the series. Goldsmith, however, has been fortunate in his biographers. Within a few years his life has been written by Mr. Prior, by Mr. Washington Irving, and by Mr. Forster. The diligence of Mr. Prior deserves great praise ; the style of Mr. Washington Irving is always pleasing ; but the highest place must, in justice, be assigned to the eminently interesting work of Mr. Forster. SAMUEL JOHNSON. {Encydapcedia Briiannica, December^ 1856.) Samuel Johnson, one of the most eminent English w^riters of the eighteenth century, was the son of Michael Johnson, who was, at the beginning of that century, a mag- istrate of Lichfield, and a bookseller of great note in the midland counties. Michael's abilities and attainments seenj SAMUEL JOHNSON. 281 to have been considerable. He was so well acquainted with the contents of the volumes which he exposed to sale, tiiat the country rectors of Staffordshire and Worcestershire thought him an oracle on points of learning. Between him and the clergy, indeed, there was a strong religious and po- litical sympathy. He was a zealous churchman, and, though he had qualified himself for municipal office by taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession, was to the last a Jaco- bite in heart. At his house, a house which is still pointed out to every traveller who visits Lichfield, Samuel was born on the 18th of September, 1709. In the child, the physical, intellectual, and moral peculiarities which afterwards dis- tinguished the man were plainly discernible ; great muscular strength accompanied by much awkwardness and many infir- mities ; great quickness of parts, with a morbid propensity to sloth and procrastination ; a kind and generous heart, with a gloomy and irritable temper. He had inherited from his ancestors a scrofulous taint, which it was beyond the power of medicine to remove. His parents were weak enough to believe that the royal touch was a specific for this malady. In his third year he was taken up to London, inspected by the court surgeon, prayed over by the court chaplains, and stroked and presented with a piece of gold by Queen Anne. One of his earliest recollections was that of a stately lady in a diamond stomacher and a long black hood. Her hand was applied in vain. The boy's features, which were originally noble and not irregular, were distorted by his malady. His cheeks were deeply scarred. He lost for a time the sight of one eye ; and he saw but very imperfectly with the other. But the force of his mind overcame every impediment. In- dolent as he was, he acquired knowledge witli such ease and rapidity that at every school to which he was sent he was soon the best scholar. From sixteen to eighteen he resided at home, and was left to his own devices. He learned much at this time, though his studies were Avithout guidance and without plan. He ransacked his fathers' shelves, dipped into a multitude of books, read what was interesting, and passed over what was dull. An ordinary lad would have acquired little or no useful knowledge in such a way : but much that was dull to ordinary lads was interesting to Samuel. He read little Greek; for his proficiency in that language was not such that he could take much pleasure in the masters of Attic poetry and eloquence. But he had left school a good Latinist ; and he soon acquired, in the large macaulay's miscellaneous writings. and miscellaneous library of which he now had the command^ an extensive knowledge of Latin literature. That Augustan delicacy of taste which is the boast of the great public schools of England he never possessed. But he was early familiar with some classical writers who were quite unknown to the best scholars in the sixth form at Eton. He was peculiarly attracted by the works of the great restorers of learning. Once, while searching for some apples, he found a huge folio volume of Petrarch's works. The name excited his curi- osity ; and he eagerly devoured hundreds of pages. In- deed, the diction and versification of his own Latin com- pv)sitions show that he had paid at least as much attention to modern copies from the antique as to the original models. While he was thus irregularly educating himself, his family was sinking into hopeless poverty. Old Michael Johnson was much better qualilied to pore upon books, and to talk about them, than to trade in them. His business declined ; his debts increased ; it was with difficulty that the daily expenses of his household were defrayed. It was out of his power to support his son at either university : but a wealthy neighbor offered assistance ; and in reliance on promises which proved to be of very little value, Samuel was entered at Pembroke College, Oxford. When the young scholar presented himself to the rulers of that society, they were amazed not more by his ungainly figure and eccentric manners than by the quantity of extensive and curious information which he had picked up during many months of desultory but not unprofitable study. On the first day of his residence he surprised his teachers by quoting JMacrobius; and one of the most learned among them de- clared that he had never known a freshman of equal attain- ments. At Oxford, Johnson resided during about three years. He was poor, even to raggedness ; and his appearance ex- cited a mirth and a pity which were equally intolerable to his haughty spirit. He was driven from the quadrangle of Christ Church by the sneering looks which the members of that aristocratical society cast at the holes in his shoes. Some charitable person placed a new pair at his door ; but he spurned them away in a fury. Distress made him, not ser- vile, but reckless and ungovernable. 'No opulent gentleman commoner, panting for one-and-twenty, could have treated the academical authorities with more gross disrespect. The needy scholar was generally to be seen under the gate of SAlsrUEL JOHNSON. 283 Pembroke, a gate now adorned witli his effigy, haranguing a circle of lads, over whom, in spite of his tatCt^red gown and dirty linen, his wit and audacity gave him an undisputed ascendency. In every mutiny against the discipline of the college he was the ringleader. Much was pardoned, how^- ever, to a youth so highly distinguished by abilities and ac- quirements. He had eai-ly made himself known by turning Pope's Messiah into Latin verse. The style and rhythm, indeed, w^ere not exactly Virgilian ; but the translation found many admirers, and was read with pleasure by Pope him- self. The time drew near at which Johnson would, in the ordinary course of things, have become a Bachelor of Arts; but he was at the end of his resources. Those promises of support on which he had i-elied had not been kept. His family could do nothing for him. His debts to Oxford tradesmen were small indeed, yet larger than he could pay. In the autumn of 1731, he was under the necessity of quit- ting the university without a degree. In the following winter his father died. The old man left but a pittance ; and of that pittance almost the whole was appropriated to the support of his widow. The property to which Samuel succeeded amounted to no more than twenty pounds. His life, during the thirty years which followed, was one hard sti'uggle with poverty. The misei-y of that struggle needed no aggravation, but was aggravated by the suffer- ings of an unsound body and an unsound mind. Before the young man left the university, his hereditary malady had broken forth in a singularly cruciform. He had become an incurable hypochondiiac. He said long after that he had been mad ail his life, or at least not perfectly sane ; and, in truth, eccentricities less strange than his have often been thought grounds sufficient for absolving felons, and for set- ting aside wills. His gi'imaces, his gestures, his mutterings, Rometimes diverted and sometimes terrified people w^ho did not know him. At a dinner table he would, in a fit of ab- sence, stoop down and twitch off a lady's shoe. He would amaze a drawing-room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord's Prayer. He would conceive an unintelligible aversion to a particular alley, and perform a great circuit rather than see the hateful place. He would set his heart on touching every post in the streets through Avhich he walked. If by any chance he missed a post, he would go back a hun- dred yards and repair the omission. Under the influence 284 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his imagination morbidly active. At one time he would stand poring on the town clock without being able to tell the hour. At another, he would distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his name. But this was not the worst. A deep melancholy took possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his views of human nature and of human destiny. Such wretchedness as he endured has driven many men to shoot themselves or drown themselves. But he was under no temptation to commit suicide. He was sick of life ; but he was afraid of death ; and he shud- dered at every sight or sound wliich reminded him of the inevitable hour. In religion he found but little comfort during his long and frequent fits of dejection ; for his re- ligion partook of his own character. The light from heaven shone on him indeed, but not in a direct line, or with its own pure splendor. The rays had to struggle through a disturb- ing medium : they reached him refracted, dulled and dis- colored by the thick gloom which had settled on his soul ; and, though they might be sufficiently clear to guide him, were too dim to cheer him. With such infirmities of body and of mind, this cele- brated man was left, at two-and-twenty, to fight his way through the world. He remained during about five years in the midland counties. At Lichfield, his birth-place and his early home, he had inherited some friends and acquired others. He was kindly noticed by Henry Hervey, a gay officer of noble family, who happened to be quartered there. Gilbert Walmesley, registrar of the ecclesiastical court of the diocese, a man of distinguished parts, learning, and knowledge of the world, did himself honor by patronizing the young adventurer, Avhose repulsive person, unpolished manners and squalid garb moved many of the petty aristoc- racy of the neighborhood to laughter or to disgust. At Lichfield, however, Johnson could find no way of earning a livelihood. He became usher of a grammar school in Leicestershire : he resided as a humble companion in the liouse of a country gentleman ; but a life of dependence was insupportable to his haughty spirit. He repaired to Birming- ham, and there earned a few guineas by literary drudgery. In that town he printed a translation, little noticed at the time, and long forgotten, of a Latin book about Abyssinia. He then put forth proposals for publishing by subscription the poems of Politian, with notes containing a history of SAMUEL JOITNSOX. 285 modern liatin verse : but subscriptions did not come in • and the volume never appeared. While leading this vagrant and miserable life, Johnson fell in love. The object of his ]~>assion was Mrs. Elizabeth Porter, a widow who had children as old as himself. To ordinary spectators, the lady appeared to be a short, fat, coarse woman, painted half an inch thick, dressed in gaudy (!t)lors, and fond of exhibiting provincial airs and graces which were not exactly those of the Queensberrys and Lepels. To Johnson, however, whose passions were strong, whose eyesight was too weak to distinguish ceruse from natural bloom, and who had seldom or never been in the same room with a woman of real fashion, his Titty, as he called her, Avas the most beautiful, graceful and accomplished of her sex. That his admiration was unfeigned cannot be doubted ; for she was as poor as himself. She accepted, with a readiness which did her little honor, the addresses'of a suitor who might have been her son. The marriage, how- ever, in spite of occasional wranglings, proved happier than might have been expected. The lover continued to be under the illusions of the wedding-day till the lady died in her sixty-fourth year. On her monument he placed an in- scription extolling the charms of her person and of her man- ners ; and when, long after her decease, he had occasion to mention her, he exclaimed, with a tenderness half ludicrous, half pathetic, " Pretty creature ! " His marriage made it necessary for him to exert himself more strenuously than he had hitherto done. He took a house in the neighborhood of his native town, and adver- tised for pupils. But eighteen months passed away ; only three pupils came to his academy. Indeed, his appearance was strange, and his temper so violent, that his schoolroom must have resembled an ogre's den. Nor was the tawdry painted grandmother whom he called his Titty well quali- fied to make provisions for the comfort of young gentlemen. David Garrick, who was one of the pupils, used, many years later, to throw the best company of London into convul- sions of Laughter by mimicking the endearments of this ex- traordinary pair. At length Johnson, in the twenty-eighth year of his age,- determined to seek his fortune in the capital as a literary adventurer. He set out with a few guineas, three acts of the tragedy of Irene in manuscript, and two or three letters of introduction from his friend Walmesley. 286 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. Never, since literature became a calling in England, had it been a less gainful calling than at the time when Johnson took up his residence in London. In the preceding genei- ation a writer of eminent merit was sure to be munificently rewarded by the government. Tlie least that he could expect was a pension or a sinecure place ; and, if he showed any aptitude for politics, he might hope to be a member of parlia- ment, a lord of the treasury, an ambassador, a secretary of state. It would be easy, on the other hand, to name several writers of the nineteenth century of whom the least success- ful has received forty thousand pounds from the booksellers. But Johnson entered on his vocation in the most dreary part of the dreary interval which separated two ages of prosperity. Literature had ceased to flourish under the patronage of the great, and had not begun to flourish under the patronage of the public. One man of letters, indeed. Pope, had acquired by his pen w^hat was then con- sidered as a handsome fortune, and lived on a footing of equality with nobles and ministers of state. But this was a solitary exception. Even an author whose reputation was established, and whose works were popular, such an author as Thomson, whose Seasons were in every library, such an author as Fielding, whose Pasquin had had a greater run than any drama since the Beggar's Opera, was sometimes glad to ob- tain, by pawning his best coat, the means of dining on tripe at a cook-shop under ground, where he could wipe his hands after his greasy meal, on the back of a Newfoundland dog. It is easy, therefore, to imagine what humiliations and privations must have awaited the novice who had still to earn a name. One of the publishers to whom Johnson applied for employment measured with scornful eye that athletic though uncouth frame, and exclaimed, " You had better get a porter's knot, and carry trunks." Nor w^as the advice bad ; for a porter was likely to be as plentifully fed, and as comfortably lodged, as a poet. Some time appears to have elapsed before Johnson was able to form any literary connection from which he could expect more than bread for the day which was passing over him. He never forgot the generosity with which Hervey, who was now residing in London, relieved his wants during this time of trial. " Harry Hervey," said the old philoso- pher many years later, " was a vicious man ; but he was very kind to me. If you call a dog Hervey I shall love him." At Hervey's table Johnson sometimes enjoyed feasts which SAMUEL JOHNSON. 287 were made more agreeable by contrast. But in general he dined, and thought that he dined well, on six pennyworth of meat, and a pennyworth of bread, at an alehouse near Drury Lane. The effect of the privations and sufferings which he en- dured at this time was discernible to the last in his temper and his deportment. His manners had never been courtly. They now became almost savage. Being frequently under the necessity of wearing shabby coats and dirty shirts, he became a perfect sloven. Being often very hungry when he sat down to his meals, he contracted a habit of eating with ravenous greediness. Even to the end of his life, and even at the tables of the great, the sight of food affected him as it affects wild beasts and birds of prey. His taste in cook- ery, formed in subterranean ordinaries and alamode beef- shops, was far from delicate. Whenever he was fortunate to have near him a hare that had been kept too long, or meat pie made with rancid butter, he gorged himself with such violence that his veins swelled, and the moisture broke out on his forehead. The affronts which his poverty em- boldened stupid and low-minded men to offer to him would have broken a mean spirit into sycophancy, but made him rude even to ferocity. Uiiha|)pily the insolence which, while it was defensive, was pardonable, and in some sense respectable, accompanied him into societies where he was treated w^ith courtesy and kindness. He was repeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken liberties with him. All the sufferers, however, were wise enough to ab- stain from talking about their beatings, except Osborne, the most rapacious and brutal of booksellers, who proclaimed everywhere that he had- been knocked down by the huge fellow whom he had hired to puff the Harleian Library. About a year after Johnson had begun to reside in Lon- don, he was fortunate enough to obtain regular employment from Cave, an enterprising and intelligent bookseller, who was proprietor and editor of the " Gentleman's Magazine." That journal, just entering on the ninth year of its long ex- istence, was the only periodical work in the kingdom which then had what would now be called a large circulation. It was, indeed, the chief source of parliamentary intelligence. It was not theci safe, even during recess, to publish an account of the proceedings of either House without some disguise. Cave, however, ventured to entertain his readers with what he called " Reports of the Debates of the Senate 288 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. of Lilliput." France was Blefuscii ; London was Mildendo : pounds were sprugs ; the Duke of Newcastle was the Nar- dac Secretary of State : Lord Hard vvi eke was the Hur^o Hickrad ; and William Pulteney was Wingul Pulnub. To write the speeches was, during several years, the business of Johnson. He was generally furnished with notes, meagre, indeed, and inaccurate, of what had been said ; but some- times he had to find arguments and eloquence both for the ministry and for the opposition. He was himself a Tory, not from rational conviction — for his serious opinion was that one form of government was just as good or as bad as another — but from mere passion, such as inflamed the Capu- lets against the Montagues, or the Blues of the Roman circus against the Greens. In his infancy he had heard so much talk about the villainies of the Whigs, and the dangers of the Church, that he had become a furious partisan when he could scarcely speak. Before he was three he had insisted on being taken to hear Sacheverell preach at Lichfield Cathedral, and had listened to the sermon with as much respect, and probably with as much intelligence, as any Staf- fordshire squire in the congregation. The work which had been begun in the nursery had been completed by the university. Oxford, when Johnson resided there, was one of the most Jacobitical colleges in Oxford. The prejudices which he brought up to London were scarcely less absurd than those of his own Tom Tempest. Charles 11. and James II. were two of the best kings that ever reigned. Laud, a poor creature who never did, said, or wrote anything indi- cating more than the ordinary capacity of an old woman, was a prodigy of parts and learning over whose tomb Art and Genius still continued to weep. . Hampden deserved no more honorable name than that of " the zealot of rebellion." Even the ship money, condemned not less decidedly by Falkland and Clarendon than by the bitterest Roundheads, Johnson would not pronounce to have been an unconstitu- tional impost. Under a Government, the mildest that had ever been known in the world — under a government which allowed to the people an unprecedented liberty of speech and action — he fancied that he was a slave ; he assailed the ministry with obloquy which refuted itself, and regretted the lost freedom and happiness of those, golden days in which a writer who had taken but one-tenth part of the license allowed to him would have been pilloried, mangled with the shears, whipped at the cart's tail, and flung into a SAMUEL JOHNSON. 289 noisome dangeon to die. He hated dissenters and stock- jobbers, the excise and the army, septennial parliaments, and continental connections. He long had an aversion to the Scotch, an aversion of which he could not remembei the commencement, but which, he owned, had ])robably originated in his abhorrence of the conduct of the nation during the Great Rebellion. It is easy to guess in what manner debates on great party questions were likely to be reported by a man whose judgment was so much disordered by party spirit. A show of fairness was indeed, necessary to the prosperity of the Magazine. But Jolmson long after- wards owned that, though he had saved appearances, he had taken care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it ; and, in fact, every passage which has lived, every pas- sage which bears the marks of his higher faculties, is put into the mouth of some member of the opposition. A few weeks after Johnson had entered on these obscure labors, he published a work which at once placed him high among the writers of the age. It is probable that wiiat he had suffered during his first year in London had often re- minded him of some parts of that noble poem in which Juvenal had described the misery and degradation of a needy man of letters, lodged among the pigeons' nests in the tottering garrets which overhung the streets of Rome. Pope's admirable imitations of Horace's Satires and Epistles had recently appeared, were in every hand, and were by many readers thought superior to the originals. What Pope had done for Horace, Johnson aspired to do for Juvenal. The enterprise was bold, and yet judicious, for betAveen Johnson and Juvenal there was much in common, much more certainly than between Pope and Horace. Johnson's London appeared without his name in May, 1738. He received only ten guineas for this stately and vigorous poem : but the sale was rapid, and the success complete. A second edition was required within a week. Those small critics who are always desirous to lower estal- blished reputations ran about proclaiming that the anony- mous satirist was superior to Pope in Poj^e's own peculiar department of literature. It ought to be remembered, to the honor of Pope, that he joined heartily in the applause with which the appearance of a rival genius was welcomed. He made inquiries about the author of London. Such a man, he said, could not long be concealed. The name was soon discovered ; and Pope, with great kindness, exerted Vol. in.— 19 290 macaulay's miscellaneous wRixmos. himself to obtain an academical degree and the mastership of a grammar school for the poor young poet. The attempt failed ; and Johnson remained a bookseller's hack. It does not appear that these two men, the most eminer t writer of the generation which was going out, and the most eminent writer of the generation which was coming in, ever saw each other. They lived in very different circles, one surrounded by dukes and earls, the other by starving pam- ])hleteers and index-makers. Among Johnson's associates at this time may be mentioned Boyse, who, when his shirts were pledged, scrawled Latin verses sitting up in bed with his arms through two holes in his blanket ; who composed very respectable sacred poetry when he was sober ; and who was at last run over by a hackney coach when he was drunk : Hoole, surnamed the metaphysical tailor, who, in- stead of attending to his measures, used to trace geometrical diagrams on the board w^here he sate cross-legged : and the penitent impostor, George Psalmanazar, who, after poring all day, in a humble lodging, on the folios of Jewish rabbis and Christian fathers, indulged himself at night with literary and theological conversation at an alehouse in the city. But the most remarkable of the persons with whom at this time Johnson consorted was Richard Savage, an earl's son, a shoemaker's apprentice, who had seen life in all its forms, who had feasted among blue ribands in St. James's Square, and had lain with fifty pounds' weight of iron on his legs in the condemned ward of Newgate. This man had, after many vicissitudes of fortune, sunk at last into abject and hopeless poverty. His pen had failed him. His patrons had been taken away by death, or estranged by the riotous pro- fusion with which he squandered their bounty, and the un- grateful insolence with which he rejected their advice. He now lived by begging. He dined on venison and champagne whenever he had been so fortunate as to borrow a guinea. If his questing had been unsuccessful, he appeased the rage of hunger with some scraps of broken meat, and lay down to rest under the Piazza of Covent Garden in warm weather, and, in cold weather, as near as he could get to the furnace of a glass-house. Yet, in his misery, he was still an agree- able companion. He had an inexhaustible store of anecdotes about that gay and brilliant world from which he was now an outcast. He had observed the great men of both parties in hours of careless relaxation, had seen the leaders of oppo- sition without the mask of patriotism, and had heard the SAMUEL JOHN-SOX. 29i prime minister roar with laughter and tell stories not over^ decent. During some months Savage lived in the closest familiarity with Johnson ; and then the friends parted, not without tears. Johnson remained in London to drudge for Cave. Savage went to the West of England, lived there as he had lived everywhere, and, in 1743; died, penniless and heart-broken, in Bristol jail. Soon after his death, Avhile the public curiosity was strongly excited about his extraordinary character, and his not less extraordinary adventures, a life of him appeared widely different from the catchpenny lives of eminent men which were then a staple article of manufacture in Grub Street. The style was indeed deficient in ease and variety ; and the writer was evidently too partial to the Latin ele- ment of our language. But the little Avork, with all its faults, was a masterpiece. No finer specimen of literary biography existed in any language, living or dead ; and a discerning critic might have confidently predicted that the author was destined to be the founder of a new school of English elo- quence. The Life of Savage was anonymous ; but it was well known in literary circles that Johnson was the writer. During the three years which followed, he produced no im- portant work ; but he was not, and indeed could not be, idle. The feme of his abilities and learning continued to grow. Warburton pronounced him a man of parts and genius; and the praise of Warburton was then no light thing. Such was Johnson's imputation that, in 1747, several eminent booksellers combined to employ him in the arduous work q£ preparing a Dictionary of the English Language, in two folio volumes. The sum which they agreed to pay him Tvas only fifteen hundred guineas ; and out of this sum he had to pay several poor men of letters who assisted him in the humbler parts of his task. The prospectus of the Dictionary he addressed to the Earl of Chesterfield. Chesterfield had long been celebrated for the politeness of his manners, the brilliancy of his wit, and the delicacy of his taste. He w^as acknowledged to be the finest speaker in the House of Lords. He had recently governed Ireland, at a momentous conjuncture, with eminent firmness, wisdom, and humanity ; and he had since became Secretary of State. He received Johnson's homage with the most winning affability, and requited it with a few guineas, bestowed doubtless in a very graceful manner, but 292 MACAITLAY-S MISCELLATs'EOUS WKTTIN"GS. was by no means desirous to see all his carpets blackenea *with the London mud, and his soups and wines thrown to right and left over the gowns of fine ladies and the waist- coats of fine gentlemen, by an absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange starts and uttered strange growls, who dressed like a scarecrow, and ate like a cormorant. During some time Johnson continued to call on his patron, but, after being repeatedly told by the porter that his lordship was not at home, took the hint, and ceased to present himself at the Inhospitable door. Johnson had flattered himself that he should have com- pleted his Dictionary by the end of 1750 ; but it was not till 1755 that he at length gave his huge volumes to the world. During the seven years which he passed in the drudgery of penning definitions and marking quotations for transcription, he sought for relaxation in literary labor of a more agreeable kind. In 1749 he published the Vanity of Human Wishes, an excellent imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal. It is in truth not easy to say whether the palm belongs to the ancient or to the modern poet. The couplets in which the fall of Wolsey is described, though lofty and sonorous, are feeble when compared with the wonderful lines which bring before us all Rome in tumult on the day of the fall of Sejanus, the laurels on the door-posts, the white bull stalking towards the Capitol, the statues ^-oiling down from their pedestals, the flatterers of the disgi-aced minister running to see himdiagged with a hook through the streets, and to have a kick at his carcai^e before it is hurled into the Tiber. It must be owned too that in the concluding pas- sage the Christian moralist has not made the mostrof his advantages, and has fallen decidedly short of the sublimity of his Pagan model. On the other hand, Juvenal's Hannibal must yield to Johnson's Charles ; and Johnson's vigorous and pathetic enumeration of the miseries of a literary life must be allowed to be superior to Juvenal's lamentation over the fate of Demosthenes and Cicero. For the copyright of the Vanity of Human Wishes Johnson received only fifteen guineas. A few days after the publication of this poem, his trag- edy, begun many years before, was brought on the stage. His pupil, David Garrick, had, in 1741, made his appearance on a humble stage in Goodman's Fields, had at once risen to tlie first place amojig actors, and was now, after several years of almost uninterrupted success, manager of Drury SAMUEL JOHNSON. Lane Theatre. The relation between him and his old pre ceptor was of a very singular kind. They re])elled each other strongly, and yet atti-acted each other strongly. Na- ture had made them of very different clay ; and circum- stances had fully brought out the natural peculiarities of both. Sudden prosperity had turned Garrick's head. Con- tinued ad*versity had soured Johnson's temper. Johnson saw with more envy than became so great a man the villa, the |»late, the china, the Brussels carpet, which the little mimic bad got by repeating, with grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men had written ; and the'exquisitely sensitive vanity ol Garrick was galled by the thought that, while all the rest uf the world was applauding him, he could obtain from one morose cynic, w^hose opinion it was impossible to des])ise, 8carcely any compliment not acidulated with scorn. Yet the two Lichfield men had so many early recollections in common, and sympathized with each other on so many points on which they sympathized with nobody else in the vast population of the capital, that, though the master was often provoked by the monkey-like impertinence of the pu- ])il, and the pupil by the bearish rudeness of the master, they remained friends till they were parted by death. Gar- rick now brought Irene out, with alterations sufficient to displease the author, yet not sufficient to make the piece ])leasing to the audience. The public, however, listened with little emotion, but with much civility, to live acts of monotonous declamation. After nine representations the ])lay was withdrawn. It is, indeed, altogether nnsuited to the stage, and, even when perused in the closet, will be found hardly worthy of the author. He had not the slight- est notion of wdiat blank verse should be. A change in the last syllable of every other line would make the versifica- tion of the Vanity of Human Wishes closely resemble the versification of Irene. The poet, however, cleared, by his benefit nights, and by the sale of the copyright of his trag- edy, about three hundred pounds, then a great sum in his estimation. About a year after the representation of Irene, lie began to publish a series of short essays on morals, manners, and literature. This species of composition had been brought into fashion by the success of the Tatler, and by the still more brilliant success of the Spectator. A crowd of small writers had vainly attempted to rival Addison. The Lay Monastery, the Censor, the Freethinker, the Plain Dealer, the 294 macaulay's miscellaneous avkitings. Champion, and other works of the same kind, had had their short day. None of them had obtained a permanent place in our literature ; and they are now to be found only in the libraries of the curious. At length Johnson undertook the adventure in which so many aspirants had failed. In the thirty-sixth year after the appearance of the last number of the Spectator appeared the first number of the Rambler. From March 1750 to March 1752, this paper continued to come out every Tuesday and Saturday. From the first the Rambler was enthusiastically admired by a few eminent men. Richardson, when only five num- bers had appeared, pronounced it equal, if not superior, to the Spectator. Young and Hartley expressed their appro- bation not less warmly. Bubb Dodington, among whose many faults indifference to the claims of genius and learn- ing cannot be reckoned, solicited the acquaintance of the writer. In consequence probably of the good ofifices of Dodington, who was then the confidential adviser of Prince Frederic, two of his Royal Highness's gentlemen carried a gracious message to the printing office, and ordered seven copies for Leicester House. But these overtures seem to have been very coldly received. Johnson had had enough of the patronage of the great to last him all his life, and was not disposed to haunt any other door as he had haunted the door of Chesterfield. By the public the Rambler was at first very coldly re- ceived. Though the price of a number was only twopence, the sale did not amount to five hundred. The profits were therefore very small. But as soon as the flying leaves were collected and reprinted they became popular. The author lived to see thirteen thousand copies spread over England alone. Separate editions were published for the Scotch apd Irish markets. A large party pronounced the style perfect, so absolutely perfect that in some essays it would be impos- sible for the writer himself to alter a single word for the 1 etter. Another party, not less numerous, vehemently ac- cused him of having corrupted the purity of the English tongue. The best critics admitted that his diction was too moiiotonous, too obliviously artificial, and now and then turgid even to absurdity. But they did justice to the acute- ness of his observations on morals and manners, to the con-: stunt precision and frequen't brilliancy of his language, to tlie weighty and magnificent eloquence of many serious pas- Bages, and to the solemn yet pleasing humor of some of the SAMUEL JOHNSON* 295 lighter papers. On the question of precedence between Addison and Johnson, a question which, seventy years ago, was much disputed, posterity has pronounced a decision from which there is no appeaL Sir Roger, liis chaphiin and his butler, Will Wimble and Will Honeycomb, the Vision of Mirza, the Journal of the Retired Citizen, the Everlast- ing Club, the Dun mow Flitch, the Loves of Jlilpah and Shalum, the Visit to the Exchange, and the Visit to the Abbey, are known to everybody. But many men and wo- men, even of highly cultivated minds, are unacquainted with Squire Bluster and Mrs. Busy, Quisquilius and Venus- tulus, the Allegory of Wit and Learning, the Chronicle of the Revolutions of a Garret, and the sad fate of Aningait and Ajut. The last Rambler was written in a sad and gloomy hour. Mrs. Johnson had been given over by the physicians. Three days later she died. She left her husband almost broken- « hearted. Many people had been surprised to see a man of Ids genius and learning stooping to every drudgery, and denying himself almost every comfort, for the purpose of su])plying a silly, affected old woman with superfluities, which she accepted with but little gratitude. But all his affection had been concentrated on her. He had neither brotlier nor sister, neither son nor daughter. To him she Avas beautiful as the Gunnings, and witty as Lady Mary. Her opinion of his writings was more important to him than the voice of the pit of Drury Lane Theatre or the judgment of the Monthly Review. The chief support Avhich liad sustained him through the most arduous labor of his life was the hope that she would enjoy the fame and profit which he anticipated from his Dictionary. She was gone ; and in the vast labyrinth of streets, peopled by eight hun- dred thousand human beings, he was alone. Yet it was necessary for him to set himself, as he expressed it, dog- gedly to work. After three more laborious years, the Dic- tionary was at length complete. It had been generally supposed that this great work would be dedicated to the eloquent and accomplished noble- man to whom the prospectus bad been addressed. He Avell knew the value of such a compliment; and, therefore, when the day of publication drew near, he exerted himself to soothe, by a show of zealous and at the same time of deli- cate and judicious kindness, the pride which he had sc cruelly wounded. Since the Ramblers had ceased to ap MAOAULAy's miscellaneous AVKITINGS. pear, the town hud been entertained by a journal called The World, to which many men of high rank and fashion con- tributed. In two successive numbers of The World the Dictionary was, to use the modern phrase, puffed with won- derful skilL The wiitings of Johnson were warmly praised. It was proposed that he should be invested with the author- ity of a Dictator, nay, of a Pope, over our langunge. and that his decisions about the meaning and the spelling ot words should be received as finah His two folios, it was said, would of course be bought by everybody who could afford to buy them. It was soon known that these pa])ers were written by Chesterfield. But the just resentment of Johnson Avas not to be so appeased. In a letter written with singular energy and dignity of thought and language, he repelled the tardy advances of his patron. The Diction- ary came forth without a dedication. In the preface the author truly declared that he owed nothing to the great, and described the difficulties with which he had been left to struggle so forcibly and pathetically that the ablest and most malevolent of all the enemies of his fame, Horne Tooke, never could read that passage without tears. The public, on this occasion, did Johnson full justice, and something more than justice. The best lexicographer may well be content if his productions are received by the world with cold esteem. But Johnson's Dictionary w^as hailed with an enthusiasm such as no similar work has ever excited. It was indeed the first dictionary which could be read with pleasure. The definitions shoAV so much acute- ness of thought and command of language, and the i)assages quoted from poets, divines and philosophers are so skilfully selected, that a leisure hour may always be very agreeably spent in turning over the pages. The faults of the book re- solve themselves, for the most part, into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist. He knew little or nothing of any Teutonic language except English, which in- deed, as he wrote it, was scarcely a Teutonic language ; and thus he was absolutely at the mercy of Junius and Skinner. The Dictionary, though it raised Johnson's fame, added nothing to his pecuniary means. The fifteen hundred guineas whicli the booksellers had agreed to pay him had been advanced and s])ent before the last sheets issued from the press. It is painful to relate that, twice in the course of the year which followed the publication of this great work, he was arrested and carried to spunging-houses, and that he SAMUKL JOHXSON. 291 was twice indebted for his liberty to his excellent friend Richardson. It was still necessary for the man who had been formally sahited by the hio-hest authority as Dictator of the English language to sup])ly his wants by constant toil, lie abridged his Dictionary. lie proposed to bring out an edition of Shakspeare by subscription ; and many subscribers sent in their names, and laid down their money ; but he soon found the task so little to his taste that he turned to more attractive employments. He contributed many pa])ers to a new monthly journal, whicli was called the Literary Maga- zine. Few of these papers have much interest; but among them was the very best thing that he ever wrote, a master- piece both of reasoning and of satirical pleasantry, the re- view of Jenyns's Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil. In the spring of 1758 Johnson put forth the first of a series of essays, entitled The Idler. During two years these essays continued to appear weekly. They were eagerly i-ead, widely circulated, and, indeed, impudently pirated, while they were still in the original form, and had a large sale when collected into volumes. The Idler may be de- scribed as a second part of the Rambler, somewhat livelier and somewhat weaker than the first part. While Johnson was busied with his Idlers, his mother, who had accomplished her ninetieth year, died at Lichfield. It was long since he had seen her ; but he had not failed to contribute largely, out of his small means, to her comfort. In order to defray the charges of her funeral, and to pay some debts which she had left, he wrote a little book in a single week, and sent off the sheets to the ])ress without reading them over. A hundred pounds were paid him for the copyright ; and the purchasers had great cause to be pleased with their bargain ; for the book was Rasselas. The success of Rasselas was great, though such ladies Miss Lydia Languish must have been grievously disap- pointed when they found that the new volume from the cir- culating library was little more than a dissertation on the author's favorite theme, the Vanity of Human Wishes ; thai the Prince of Abyssinia was without a misti-ess, and the Princess without a lover ; and that the story set the hero and the heroine down exactly where it had taken them up. The style was the subject of much eager controversy. The Monthly Review and the Critical Review took different sides. Many readers pronounced the writer a pompous 298 macaulay's miscellaneous whitings. pedant, who would never use a word of two syllables where it was possible to use a word of six, and who could not make a waiting woman relate her adventures without bal- ancing every noun with another noun, and every epithet with another epithet. Another party, not less zealous, cited with delight numerous passages in which weighty meaning was expressed with accuracy and illustrated with splendor. And both the censure and the praise were merited. About the plan of Rasselas little was said by the critics ; and yet the faults of the plan rrtight seem to invite severe criticism. Johnson has frequently blamed Shakspeare for neglecting the proprieties of time and place, and for ascrib- ing to one age or nation the manners and opinions of another. Yet Shakspeare has not sinned in this way more grievously than Johnson. Rasselas and Imlac, Nekayah and Pekuah, are evidentl}^ meant to be Abyssinians of the eighteenth cen- tury : for the Europe which Imlac describes is the Europe of the eighteenth century ; and the inmates of the Happy Valley talk familiarly of that law of gravitation which Newton dis- covered, and which was not fully received even at Cambridge till the eighteenth century. What a real company of Abys- sinians would have been may be learned from Bruce's Trav- els. But Johnson, not content with turning filthy savages, ignorant of their letters, and gorged with raw steaks cut from living cows, into philosophers as eloquent and enlight- ened as himself or his friend Burke, and into ladies as highly accomplished as Mrs. Lennox or Mrs. Sheridan, transferred the whole domestic system of England to Egypt. Into a land of harems, a land of polygamy, a land where women are married without ever being seen, he introduced the flirta- tions and jealousies of our ball-rooms. In a land where there is boundless liberty of divorce, wedlock is described as the indissoluble compact. "A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of each other. Such," says Rasselas, "is the common process of marriage." Such it may have been, and may still be, in London, but assuredly not at Cairo. A writer who was guilty of such improprieties had little right to blame the poet who made Hector quote Aristotle, and represented Julio Romano as flourishing in the days of the oracle of Delphi. By such exertions as have been described, Johnson sup- ported himself till the year 1762. In that year a great change in his circumstances took place. He had from a child been SAMUEL JOHNSON. 299 an enemy of the reigniikg dynasty. His Jacobite prejudices had been exhibited with little disguise both in his vv^orks and in his conversation. Even in his massy and elaborate Dic- tionary, he had, with a strange want of taste and judgment, inserted bitter and contumelious reflections on the Whig party. The excise, which was a favorite resource of Whig financiers, he had designated as a hateful tax. He had railed against the commissioners of excise in language so coarse that they had seriously thought of prosecuting him. He had with difficulty been prevented from holding up the Lord Pi'ivy Seal by name as an example of the meaning of the word "renegade." A pension he had defined as pay given to a state hireling to betray his country ; a pensioner as a slave of state hired by a stipend to obey a master. It seemed unlikely that the author of these definitions would himself be pensioned. But that was a time of wonders. George the Third had ascended the throne ; and had, in the course of a few months, disgusted many of the old friends and concili- ated many of the old enemies of his house. The city was becoming mutinous. Oxford was becoming loyal. Caven- dishes and Bentincks were murmuring. Somersets and Wyndhams were hastening to kiss hands. The head of the treasury was now Lord Bute, wdio was a Tory, and could have no objection to Johnson's Toryism. Bute wished to be thought a patron of men of letters ; and Johnson was one of the most eminent and one of the most needy men of letters in Europe. A pension of three hundred a year was gra- ciously offered, and with very little hesitation accepted. This event produced a change in Johnson's whole way of life. For the first time since his boyhood he no longer felt tlie daily goad urging him to the daily toil. He was at liberty, after thirty years oi anxiety and drudgery, to indulge his constitutional indolence, to lie in bed till two in the after- noon, and to sit up talking till four in the moi*ning, without fearing either the printer's devil or the sheriff's officer. One laborious task indeed he had bound himself to perform. He had received large subscriptions for his promised edition of Shakspeare ; he had lived on those subscriptions during some years ; and he could not w^ithout disgrace omit to per- form his part of the contract. His friends repeatedly ex- horted him to make an effort; and he repeatedly resolved to do so. But, notwithstanding their exhortations and his resolutions, month followed month, year followed year, and nothing was done. He prayed fervently against his idle- 300 MACAULAY's miscellaneous WIUTINGS. ness; he determined, as often as he^received the sacrament, that he would no longer doze away and trifle away his time; but the spell under which he lay resisted prayer and sacra- ment. His private notes at this time are made up of self- reproaches. " My indolence," he wrote on Easter eve in 1764, "has sunk into grosser sluggishness. A kind of strange oblivion has overspread me, so that I know not what has b->-'-.ome of the last year." Easter 1765 came, and found him still in the same state. My time," he wrote, has been unprofitably spent, and seems as a dream that has left nothing behind. My memory grows confused, and I know not how the days pass over me." Happily for his honor, the charm which held him captive was at length broken by no gentle or friendly hand. He had been weak enough to pay serious attention to a story about a ghost which haunted a house in Cock Lane, and had actually gone himself, with some of his friends, at one in the morning, to St. John's Church, ClerkenwelJ, in the hope of receiving a communication from the perturbed spirit. But the spirit, though adjured with all solemnity, remained obstinately si- lent ; and it soon appeared that a naughty girl of eleven had been amusing herself by making fools of so many philoso- ])hers. Churchill, who, confident in his powers, drunk with popularity, and burning with party spirit, was looking for some man of established fame and Tory politics to insult, celebrated the Cock Lane Ghost in three cantos, nicknamed Johnson Pomposo, asked where the book was which had been so long promised and so liberally paid for, and directly accused the great moralist of cheating. This terrible word proved effectual; and in October, 1765, appeared, after a delay of niire years, the new edition of Shakspeare. This publication saved Johnson'^ character for honesty, but added nothing to the fame of his abilities and learning. The preface, though it contains some good passages, is not in his best manner. The most valuable notes are those in which he had an opportunity of showing how attentively he had during many years observed human life and human nature. The best specimen is the note on the character of Polonius. Noth- ing so good is to be found even in Wilhelm Meister's admir- able examination of Hamlet. But here praise must end. It w^ould be difficult to name a more slovenly, a more \vorthless, edition of any great classic. The reader may turn over play after play without finding one happy conjectural emendation, or one ingenious and satisfactory explanation of a passage SAMUEL JOHNSON. which had baffled preceding commentators. Johnson had^ in his Prospectus, told the worhl that he was peculiarly fitted for the task which he had undertaken, because he had, as a lexicographer, been under the necessity of taking a wider view of the English language than any of his ])redecessors. That his knowledge of our literature was extensive is indis- putable. But, unfortunately, he had altogether neglected that very part of our literature with which it is especially desirable that an editor of Shakspeare should be conversant. It is dangerous to assert a negative. Yet little will be risked by the assertion, that in the tAvo folio volumes of the English Dictionary there is not a single passage quoted from any dramatist of the Elizabethan age, except *Shakspeare and Ben. Even from Ben the quotations are few. John- son might easily, in a few months, have made himself well acquainted with every old play that was extant. But it never seems to have occurred to him that this was a neces- sary preparation for the work which he had undertaken. He would doubtless have admitted that it would be the height of absurdity in a man who was not familiar with the works of ^schylus and Euripides to publish an edition of Sopho- cles. Yet he ventured to publish an edition of Shakspeare, without having ever in his life, as far as can be discovered, read a single scene of Massinger, Ford, Decker, Webster, Mario w, Beaumont, or Fletcher. His detractors were noisy and scurrilous. Those who most loved and honored him had little to say in praise of the maimer in whicli he had dis- charged the duty of a commentator. He had, howev'er, ac- quitted himself of a debt which had long lain heavy on his conscience ; and he sank back into the repose from which the sting of satire had roused him. He long continued to live upon the fame which he had already won. He was hon- ored by the University of Oxford with a Doctor's degree, by the Royal Academy with a professorship, and by the King with an interview, in which his Majesty most graciously ex- pressed a hope that so excellent a writer would not cease to write. In the interval, however, between 1765 and 1775 Johnson published only two or three political tracts, tlie longest of which he could have, produced in forty-eight hours, if he had worked as he worked on the Life of Sav- age and on Rasselas. But, though his pen was now idle, his tongue was active. The influence exercised by his conversation, directly upon those with whom he lived, and indirectly on the whole liter- 302 MACAULAy's MISCELLAIS^EOUS WRITINGS. ary world, was altogether without a parallel. His colloquial talents were indeed of the highest order. He had strong sense, quick discernment, wit, humor, immense knowledge of literature and of life, and an infinite store of curious anec- dotes. As respected style, he spoke far better than he wrote. Every sentence which dropped from his lips was as correct in structure as the most nicely balanced period of the Rambler. But in his talk there were no pompous triads, and little more than a fair proportion of words in osity and ation. All was simplicity, ease, and vigor. He uttered his short, weighty, and pointed sentences with a power of voice, and a justness and energy of emphasis, of which the effect was rather increased than diminished by the rollings of his huge form, and by the asthmatic gaspings and puffings in which the peals of his eloquence generally ended. Nor did the laziness which made him unwilling to sit down to his desk prevent him from giving instruction or entertainment orally. To discuss questions of taste, of learning, of casu- istry, in language so exact and so forcible that it might have been printed without the alteration of a word, was to him no exertion, but a pleasure. He loved, as he said, to fold his legs and have his talk out. He was ready to bestow the overflowings of his full mind on anybody who would start a subject, on a fellow-passenger in a stage coach, or on the person who sat at the same table with him in an eating house. But his conversation was nowhere so brilliant and striking as when he was surrounded by a few friends, whose abilities and knowledge enabled them, as he once expressed it, to send him back every ball that he threw. Some of these, in 1764, formed themselves into a club, which gradually be- came a formidable power in the commonwealth of letters. The verdicts pronounced by this conclave on new books were speedily known over all London, and were sufficient to sell off a whole edition in a day, or to condemn the sheets to the service of the truuk-maker and the pastry-cook. Nor shall we think this strange when we consider w^hat great and various talents and acquirements met in the little fra- ternity. Goldsmith was the representative of poetry and light literature, Reynolds of the arts, Burke of political elo- quence and political philosophy. There, too, were Gibbon, the greatest historian, and Jones the greatest linguist of the age. Garrick brought to the meetings his inexhaustible pleasantry, his incomparable mimicry, and his consummate knowledge of stage effect. Among the most constant SAMUEL JOHT^SOI^. 303 attendants were two high-born and high-bred gentlemen, closely bound together by friendship, but of widely different characters and habits ; Bennet Langton, distinguished by his skill in Greek literature, by the orthodoxy of his opinions, and by the sanctity of his life ; and Topham Beauclerk, re- nowned for his amours, his knowledge of the gay world, his fastidious taste, and his sarcastic wit. To predominate over such a society was not easy. Yet even over such a society Johnson predominated. Burke might indeed have disputed the supremacy to which others were under the necessity of submitting. But Burke, though not generally a very patient listener, was content to take the second part when Johnson was present ; and the club itself, consisting of so many emi- nent men, is to this day popularly designated as Johnson's Club. Among the members of this celebrated body was one to whom it has owed the greater part of its celebrity, yet who was regarded with little respect by his brethren, and had not without difficulty obtained a seat among them. This was James Boswell, a young Scotch lawyer, heir to an honorable name and a fair estate. That he was a coxcomb, and a bore, weak, vain, pushing, curious, garrulous, was obvious to all who were acquainted with him. That he could not reason, that he had no wit, no humor, no eloquence, is apparent from his writings. And yet his writings are read beyond the Mississippi, and under the Southern Cross, and are likely to be read as long as the English exists, either as a living or as a dead language. Nature had made him a slave and an idolater. His mind resembled those creepers which the botanists call parasites, and which can subsist only by cling- ing round the stems and imbibing the juices of stronger plants. He must have fastened himself on somebody. He might have fastened himself on Wilkes, and have be- come the fiercest patriot in the Bill of Right,s Society. He might have fastened himself on Whitfield, and have become the loudest field preacher among the CfJvinistic Methodists. In a happy hour he fastened himself on Johnson. The pair might seem ill matched. For John- son had early been prejudiced against Boswell's country. To a man of Johnson's strong understanding and irritable temper, the silly egotism and adulation of Boswell must have been as teasing as the constant buzz of a fly. Johnson hated to be questioned ; and Boswell was eternally cate* chizing him on all kinds of subjects, and sometimes pro- 304 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. pounded such questions as "What would you do, sir, if you were locked up in a tower with a baby ? " Johnson was a Avat^r-drinker ; and Boswell was a w4ne-bibber, and indeed little better than a habitual sot. It was impossible that there should be perfect harmony between two such companions. Indeed, the great man was sometimes provoked into fits of passion in which he said things which the small man, during a few hours, seriously resented. Every quarrel, how(Jver, was soon made up. During twenty years the disciple con- tiliued to worship the master: the master continued to scold the disciple, to sneer at him, and to love him. The two friends ordinarily resided at a great distance .from each other. Boswell practised in the Parliament House of Edin- burg, and could pay only occasional visits to London. During those visits his chief business was to watcli John- son, to discover all Johnson's habits, to turn the conversa- tion to subjects about which Johnson was likely to say some- thing remarkable, and to fill quarto note books with minutes of what Johnson had said. In this way were gathered the materials out of which was afterwards constructed the most interesting biographical work in the world. Soon after the club began to exist. Johnson formed a connection less important indeed to his fame, but much more -important to his happiness, than his connection with Boswell. Henry Thrale, one of the most opulent brewers in the kingdom, a man of sound and cultivated understanding, rigid principles, and libei-al spirit, was mai- ried to one of those clever, kind-hearted, engaging, vain, pert young women, who were perpetually doing or saying what is not exactly right, but who, do or say what they may, are always agreeable. In 1765 the Thrales became acquainted with Johnson ; and the acquaintance ripened fast into friend- ship. They were astonished and delighted by the brilliancy of his conversation. They were flattered by finding that a man so widely celebrated preferred their house to any other in London. Even the peculiarities which seemed to unfit him for civilized society, his gesticulations, his rollings, his puff- ings, his mutterings, the strange way in which he put on liis clothes, the ravenous eagerness with which he devoured his dinner, his fits of melancholy, his fits of anger, his frequent rudeness, his occasional ferocity, increased the interest which liis new associates took in him. For these things were the cruel marks left behind by a life which had been one long conflict with disease and with adversity. In a SAMUEL JOHNSON. 305 vulgar back writer such oddities would have excited ordy disgust. But in a man of genius, learning, and virtue their effect was to add pity to admiration and esteem. Johnson soon had an apartment at the brewery in Southwark, and a still more pleasant ajDartment at the villa of his friends on Str^atham Common. A large part of every year he passed in those abodes, abodes which must have seemed magnifi- cent and luxurious indeed, when compared with the dens in which he had generally been lodged. But his chief pleasures were derived from what the astronomer of his Abyssinian tale called " the endearing elegance of female friendship." Mrs. Thrale rallied him, soothed him, coaxed him, and, if she sometimes provoked him by her flippancy, made ample amends by listening to his reproofs, with angelic sweetness of temper. When he was diseased in body and in mind, she was the most tender of nurses. No comfort that wealth could pui'chase, no contrivance that womanly ingenuity, set to Avork by womanly compassion, could devise, was wanting to his sick room. He requited her kindness by an affec- tion, pure as the affection of a father, yet delicately tinged with a gallantry, which, though awkward, must have been more flattering than the attentions of a crowd of fools who gloried in the names, now obsolete, of Buck and Maccaroni. It should seem that a full half of Johnson's life, during about sixteen years, was passed under the roof of the Thrales. He accompanied the family sometimes to Bath, and sometimes to Brighton, once to Wales, and once to Paris. But he had at the same time a house in one of the narrow and gloomy courts on the north of Fleet Street. In the garret was his library, a large and miscellaneous collection of books, falling to pieces and begrimed with dnst. On a lower floor he sometimes, but very rarely, re- galed a friend with a plain dinner, a veal pie, or a leg of lamb and spinage, and a rice pudding. Nov was the dwelling uninhabited during his long absences. It was the home of the most extraordinary assemblage of inmates that ever was brought together. At the head, of the establish- ment Johnson had placed an old lady named Williams, whose chief recommendations were her blindness and her poverty. But, in spite of her murmurs and reproaches, he gave an asylum to another lady who was as poor as herself, Mrs. Desmoulins, whose family he had knowai many years before in Staffordshire. Room was found for th.e daughter of Mrs. Desmoulins, and for another destitute damsel, who Vol. III.— 20 306 MACAULAy's MISCELLANEOITS AVRITINGS. was generally addressed as Miss Carmichael, but whom het generous host called Polly. An old quack-doctor named Levett, who bled and dosed coal-heavers and hackney coachmen, and received for fees crusts of bread, bits of bacon, glasses of gin, and sometimes a little copper, com- pleted this strange menagerie. All these poor creatures were at constant war with each other, and with Johnson's negro servant Frank. Sometimes, indeed, they transferred their hostilities from the servant to the master, complained that a better table was not kept for them, and railed or maundered till their benefactor was glad to make his escape to Streatham, or to the Mitre Tavern. And yet he, who was generally the haughtiest and most irritable of mankind, who was but too prompt to resent anything which looked like a slight on the part of a purse-proud bookseller, or of a noble and powerful patron, bore patiently from mendicants, who, but for his b.ounty, must have gone to the work-house, insults more provoking than those for which he had knocked down Osborne and bidden defiance to Chesterfield. Year after year Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Desmoulins, Polly and Levett, continued to torment him and to live upon him. The course of life which has been described was inter- rupted in Johnson's sixty-fourth year by an important event. He had early read an account of the Hebrides, and had been much interested by learning that there was so near him a land peopled by a race which was still as rude and simple as in the middle ages. A wish to become intimately acquainted with a state of society so utterly unlike all that he had ever seen frequently crossed his mind. But it is not probable that his curiosity would have overcome his habit- ual sluggishness, and his love of the smoke, the mud, and the cries of London, had not Boswell importuned him to attempt the adventure, and offered to be his squire. At length, in August, 1773, Johnson crossed the Highland line, and plunged courageously into what was then considered, by most Englishmen, as a dreary and perilous wilderness. After wandering about two months through the Celtic region, sometimes in rude boats which did not protect him from the rain, and sometimes on small shaggy ponies which could hardly bear his w^eight, he returned to his old haunts with a mind full of new images and new theories. During the following year he employed himself in recording his ad- ventures. About the beginning of 1775, his Journey to the Hebrides was published, and was, during some weeks, the SAMUEL J0nNS01>9-. 307 chief subject of conversation in all circles in wbicli any at- tention was paid to literature. The book is still read with pleasure. The narrative is entertaining ; the speculations, whether sound or unsound, are always ingenious; and the style, thouirh too stiff and pompous, is somewhat easier and more graceful than that of his early wn-itings. His prejudice against the Scotch had at length become little more than rantter of jest; and whatever remained of the old feeling had been effectually removed by the kind and respectful liospitality with which he had been received in every part of Scotland. It was, of course, not to be expected that an Oxonian Tory should praise the Presbyterian polity and rjtLial, or that an eye accustomed to the hedgerows and parks of England should not be struck by the bareness of Berwickshire and East Lothian. But even in censure John- son's tone is not unfriendly. The most enlightened Scotch- men, with Lord Mansheld at their head, w^ere w^ell pleased. But some foolish and ignorant Scotchmen were moved to anger by a little unpalatable truth which was mingled with much eulogy, and assailed him whom they chose to consider as the enemy of their country with libels much more dis- honorable to their country than anything that he had ever said or written. They published paragraphs in the news- papers, articles in the magazines, sixpenny pamphlets, five shilling books. One "scribbler abused Johnson for being blear-eyed ; another for being a pensioner ; a third informed the world that one of the Doctor's uncles had been con- victed of felony in Scotland, and had found that there was in that country one tree capable of supporting the weight of an Englishnum. Macpherson, whose Eingal had been proved in the Journey to be an impudent forgery, threatened to take vengeance with a cane. The only effect of this threat was that Johnson reiterated the charge of forgery in the most contemptuous terms, and walked about, during some time, with a cudgel, which, if the impostor had not been too wise to encounter it, would assuredly have descended upon him, to borrow the sublime language of his own epic poem, " like a hammer on the red son of the furnace." Of other assailants Johnson took no notice whatever, lie had early resolved never to be drawfi into controversy ; and he adhered to his resolution ^vith a steadfastness which is the more extraordinary, because he was, both intellectu- ally and morally, of the stuff of which controversialists are made. In conversation, he was a singularly eager, 808 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. acute, and pertinacious disputant. AYhon at a loss for good reasons, he had recourse to sophistry ; and, when heated by altercation, he made unsparing use of sarcasm and invective. But when he took his pen in his hand, his whole character seemed to be changed. A hundred bad writers misrepresented him and reviled him; but not one of the hundred could boast of having been tliought by him worthy of a refutation, or even of a retort. The Kenricks, Caripbells,theMacNicols, and Hendersons, did their best to annoy him, in the hope that he would give them importance by answering them. But the reader will in vain searcli his works for any allusion to Kenricks, or Campbell, or Mac- Nicol or Henderson. One Scotchman, bent on vindicat- ing the fame of Scotch learning, defied him to the combat in a detestable Latin hexameter. " MMxime, situ vis, cupio contendere tecum." But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He had learned, both from his own observation and from literary history, in which he was deeply read, that the place of books in the public estimation is fixed, not by what is written about them, but by what is written jyi them ; and that an author Avhose works are likely to live is very unwise if he stoops to wrangle Avith detractors wdiose works are certain to die. He ahvays maintained that fame was a shuttlecock which could be kept up only by being beaten back, as well as beaten forward, and which would soon fall if there were only one battledore. No saying was often er in his mouth than that fine apo]3hthegm of Bentley, that no man was ever written down but by himself. Unhappily, a few months after the appearance of the Journey to the Hebrides, Johnson did what none of his envious assailants could have done, and to a certain extent succeeded in writing himself down. The disputes between England and her American colonies had reached a point at which no amicable adjustment was possible. Civil war was evidently impending; and the ministers seem to have thought that the eloquence of Johnson might with ad- vantage be employed to inflame the nation against the o]>- position here, and against the rebels beyond the Atlantic- He had already written two or three tracts in defence of the foreign and domestic policy of the government; and those tracts, though liardly worthy of liim, were much superior to the crowd of pamplilets which lay on the counters of Almon SAMUEL JOHN SOX. 309 and Stockdale. But his Taxation No Tyranny was a piti- able failure. The very title was a silly phrase, which can have been recommended to his choice by nothing but a jingling alliteration which he ought to have despised. The arguments were such as boys use in debating societies. The pleasantry was as awkward as the gambols of a hippopo- iamus. Even Boswell was forced to own that, in this un- fortunate piece, he could detect no trace of his master's powers. The general opinion was that the strong faculties which had produced the Dictionary and the Rambler were beginning to feel the effect of time and of disease, and that the old man w^ould best consult his credit by writing no more. But this was a great mistake. Johnson had failed, not because his mind was less vigorous than when he wrote Rasselas in the evenings of a week, but because he had foolishly chosen, or suffered others to choose for him, a sub- ject such as he would at no time have been competent to treat. He was in no sense a statesman. He never willingly read or thought or talked about affairs of State. He loved biography, literary history, the history of manners ; but political history w^as positively distasteful to him. The question at issue between the colonies and the mother coun- try was a question about which he had really nothing to say. He failed, therefore, as the greatest men must fail wdien they attempt to do that for wdiich they are unfit ; as Burke would have failed if Burke had tried to write cornedies like those of Sheridan ; as Reynolds would have failed if Rey- nolds had tried to paint landscapes like those of Wilson. Happily, Johnson soon had an opportunity of proving most signally that his failure was not to be ascribed to intel- lectual decay. On Easter Eve, 1777, some persons, deputed by a meet- ing which consisted of forty of the first booksellers in Lon- don, called upon him. Though he had some scruples about doing business at that season, he received his visitors with much civility. They came to inform him that a new edition of the English poets, from Cowley downwards, was m con- templation, and to ask him to furnish short biographical pre- faces. He readily undertook the task, a task for which he was pre-eminently qualified. His knowledge of the literary history of England since the Restoration was unrivalled. That knowledge he had derived partly from books, and partly from sources which had long been closed ; from old Grub Street traditions ; from the talk of forgotten poetasters 310 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. and pamphleteers who had long been lying in parish vaults ; from the recollections of such men as Gilbert Walmesley, who had conversed with the wits of Button ; Gibber, whc had mutilated the plays of two generations of dramatists ; Grrery, who had been admitted to the society of Swift; and Savage, who had rendered services of no very honorable kind to Pope. The biographer therefore sate down to liis task with a mind full of matter. He had at first intended to give only a paragraph to 'every minor poet, and only four or five pages to the greatest name. But the flood of anev^- dote and criticism overflowed the narrow channel. Tlio work, which was originally meant to consist only of a few sheets, swelled into ten volumes, small volumes, it is true, and not closely printed. The first four appeared in 1779, the remaining six in 1781. The Lives of the Poets, are, on the whole, the best of Johnson's works. The narratives are as entertaining as any novel. The remarks on life and on human nature are eminently shrewd and -profound. The criticisms are often excellent,. and, even when grossly and provokingly unjust, well deserve to be studied. For, however erroneous they may be, they are never silly. They are the judgments of a mind trammelled by prejudice and deficient in sensibility, but vigorous and acute. They therefore generally contain a portion of valuable truth which deserves to be separated from the alloy; and, at the very worst, they mean some- thing, a praise to which much of what is called criticism in our time has no pretensions. Savage's Life Johnson reprinted nearly as it had ap- peared in 1744. Whoever, after reading that Life, will turn to the other lives will be struck by the difference of style. Since Johnson had been at ease in his circumstances he had written little and had talked much. When, therefore, he, after the lapse of years, resumed his pen, the mannerism which he had contracted while he was in the constant habit of elaborate composition was less perceptible than formerly ; and his diction frequently had a colloquial ease which it had formerly wanted. The improvement may be discerned by a skilful critic in the Journey to the Hebrides, and in the Lives of the Poets is so obvious that it cannot escape the notice of the most careless reader. Among the lives the best are perhaps those of Cowley, Dryden, and Pope. The very worst is, beyond all doubt^ that of Gray. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 311 This great work at once became popular. There was, indeed, much just and much unjust censure : but even those who were loudest in blame were attracted by the book in spite of themselves. Malone computed the gains of the publishers at five or six thousand pounds. But the w^riter was very poorly remunerated. Intending at first to write very short prefaces, he had stipulated for only two hundred guineas. The booksellers, when they saw how far his per- formance had surpassed his promise, added only another hun- dred. Indeed, Johnson, though he did not despise, nor af- fect to despise, money, and though his strong sense and long experience ought to have qualified him to protect his own interests, seems to have been singularly unskilful and un- lucky in his literary bargains. He was generally reputed the first English writer of his time. Yet several writers of his time sold their copyrights for sums such as he never ventured to ask. To give a single instance, Robertson re- ceived four thousand five hundred pounds for the History of Charles V. ; and it is no disrespect to the memory of Robertson to say that the History of Charles V. is both a less valuable and a less amusing book than the Lives of the Poets. Johnson was now in his seventy-second year. The in- firmities of age were coming fast upon him. That inevit- able event of which he never thought without horror was brought near to him ; and his whole life was darkened by the shadow of death. He had often to pay the cruel price of longevity. Every year he lost what could never be re- placed. The strange dependents to whom he had given shelter, and to whom, in spite of their faults, he was strongly attached by habit, dropped off one by one ; and, in the silence of his home, he regretted even the noise of their scolding matches. The kind and generous Thrale was no more ; and it would have been well if his wife had been laid beside him. But she survived to be the laughing-stock of those who had envied her, and to draw from the eyes of the old man who had loved her beyond anything in the world tears far more bitter than he would have shed over hei grave. With some estimable and many agreeable qualities, she was not made to be independent. The control of a mind more steadfast than her own was necessary to her respectar bility. While she was restrained by her husband, a man of sense and firmness, indulgent to her taste in trifles, but al- ways the undisputed master of his house, her worst offences 312 MACAULAY's miscellaneous WlllTmGS. had been impertinent jokes, white lies, and short fits of pet tishness ending in snnny good humor. But he was gone ; and she was left an opulent widow of forty, with strong sen- sibility, volatile fancy, and slender judgment. She soon fell in love wath a music-master from Brescia, in whom nobody buc herself could discover anything to admire. Her pride, and ])erhaps some better feelings, struggled hard against this degrading passion. But the struggle irritated her nerA^es, soured her temper, and at length endangered her health. Conscious that her choice was one which Johnson could not approve, she became desirous to escape from his inspection. Her manner towards him changed. She was sometimes cold and sometimes petulant. She did not con- ceal her joy when he left Streatham ; she never pressed him to return ; and, if he came unbidden, she received him in a manner which convinced him that he was no longer a wel- come guest. He took the very intelligible hints which she gave. He read, for the last time, a chapter of the Greek Testament in the library which had been formed by himself. In a solemn and tender prayer he commended the house and its inmates to the Divine protection, and, with emotions which choked his voice and convulsed his powerful frame, left forever that beloved home for the gloomy and desolate house behind Fleet Street, where the few and evil days which still remained to him were to run out. Here, in June, 1783, he had a paralytic stroke, from which, how- ever, he recovered, and which does not appear to have at all impaired his intellectual faculties. But other maladies came thick upon him. His asthma tormented him day and night. Dropsical symptoms made their appearance. While sink- ing under a complication of diseases, he heard that the woman whose friendship had been the chief happiness of six- teen years of his life had married an Italian fiddler ; that all London was crying shame upon her; and that the news- papers and magazines were filled with allusions to the Ehpe- sian matron, and the two pictures in Hamlet. He velic- mently said that he would try to forget her existence. He never uttered her name. Every memorial of her which met his eye he flung into the fire. She meanwhile fled from thti laughter and hisses of her countrymen and countrywomen to a land where she was unknown, hastened across Mount Cenis, and learned, while passing a merry Christmas of con- certs and lemonade parties at Milan, that the great man with whose name hers is inseparably associated had ceased to exist SAMUEL JOIIXSOX. 813 He had, in spite of much mental and bodily alHiction, clung vehemently to life. The feeling described in that fine but gloomy paper which closes the series of his Idlers seemed to grow stronger in him as his last hour drew near. He fancied that he should be able to draw his breath more easily in a southern cliniate, and would probably have set out for Rome and Naples, but for his fear of the expense of the journey. That expense, indeed, he had the means of defraying; for he had'laid up about two thousand pounds, the fruit of labors which had made the fortune of several publishers. But he was unwilling to break in upon this hoard ; and he seems to have wished even to keep its exist- ence a secret. Some of his friends hoped that the govern- ment might be induced to increase his pension to six hundred pounds a year : but this hope was disappointed ; and he resolved to stand one English winter more. That winter was his last. His legs grew weaker ; his breath grew shorter ; the fatal water gathered fast, in spite of incisions which he, courageous against pain, but timid against death, urged his surgeons to make deeper and deeper. Though the tender care which had mitigated his sufferings during months of sickness at Streatham was withdrawn, he was not left desolate. The ablest physicians and surgeons • at- tended him, and refused to accept fees from him. Burke parted from him with deep emotion. Windham sate much in the sick-room, arranged the pillows, and sent his owii servant to watch a night by the bed. Francis Burney, wdiom the old man had cherished with fatherly kindness, stood weeping at the door; while Langton, whose piety eminently qualified him to be an adviser and comforter at such a time, received the last pressure of his friend's hand within. When at length the moment, dreaded through so many years, came close, the dark cloud passed away from Johnson's mind. His temper became unusually patient and gentle ; he ceased to think with terror of death, and of that which lies beyond death ; and he spoke much of the mercy of God, and of the propitiation of Christ. In this serene frame of mind he died on the 13th of December, 1784. He was laid, a week later, in Westminster Abbey, among the eminent men of whom he had been the historian, — Cowley and Denham, Dryden and Congreve, Gay, Prior, and Addison. Since his death the popularity of his works — the Livei- of the Poets, and, perhaps, the Vanity of Human Wishes. 314 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. excepted — has greatly diminished. His Dictionary ha« been altered by editors till it can scarcely be called his. An allusion to his Rambler or his Idler is not readily appre- hended in literary circles. The fame even of Rasselas has grown somewhat dim. But, though the celebrity of the writings may have declined, the celebrity of the writer, strange to say, is as great as ever. Boswell's book has done ior him more than the best of his own books could do. The memory of other authors is kept alive by their works. But tlie memory of Johnson keeps many of his works alive. The old philosopher is still among us in the brown coat with the metal buttons and the shirt which ought to be at wash, blinking, puffing, rolling his head, drumming with his fin- gers, tearing his meat like a tiger, and swallowing his tea in oceans. No human being who has been more than seventy years in the grave is so well known to us. And it is but just to say that our intimate acquaintance with what he would himself have called the anfractuosities of his intellect and of his temper serves only to strengthen our conviction that he was both a great and a good man. WILLIAM PITT. (EncyclopcBdia Britannica^ January ^ 1859.) William Pitt, the second son of William Pitt, 'Earl of Chatham, and of Lady Hester Grenville, daughter of Hester, Countess Temple, was born on the 28th of May, 1759. The child inherited a name which, at the time of his birth, was the most illustrious in the civilized world, and was pro- nounced by every Englishman with pride, and by every enemy of England with mingled admiration and terror. During the first year of his life, every month had its illumin- ations and bonfires, and every wind brought some messen- ger charged with joyful tidings and hostile standards. In 'Westphalia the English infantry won a great battle which arrested the armies of Louis the Fifteenth in the midst of a career of conquest ; Boscawen defeated one French fleet on the coast of Portugal ; Hawke put to flight another in the Bay of Biscay \ Johnson took Niagara ; Amherst took WILLIAM PITT. 315 Ticonderoga ; Wolfe died by the most enviable of deaths under the Vails of Quebec ; Clive destroyed a Dutch arma- ment in the Hooghly, and established the English supremacy in Bengal ; Coote routed Lally at Wandewash, and estab- lished the English supremacy in the Carnatic. The nation, while loudly applauding the successful warriors, considered them all, on sea and on land, in Europe, in America, and in Asia, merely as instruments which received their direction from one superior mind. It was the great William Pitt, the great commoner, who had vanquished French marshals in Germany, and French admirals on the Atlantic ; who had conquered for his country one great empire on the frozen shores of Ontario, and another under the tropical sun near the mouths of the Ganges. It was not in the nature of things that popularity such as he at this time enjoyed should be permanent. That popularity had lost its gloss before his children were old enough to understand that their father was a great man. He was at length placed in situ- ations in which neither his talents for administration nor his talents for debate appeared to the best advantage. The energy and decision which had eminently fitted him for the direction of war were not needed in time of peace. The lofty and spirit-stirring eloquence which had made him supreme in the House of Commons often fell dead on the House of Lords. A cruel malady racked his joints, and left his joints only to fall on his nerves and on his brain. During the closing years of his life, he was odious to the court, and yet was not on cordial terms with the great body of the opposition. Chatham was only the ruin of Pitt, but an awful and majestic ruin, not to be contemplated by any man of sense and feeling without emotions resembling those which are excited by the remains of the Parthenon and of the Coliseum. In one respect the old statesman was emi- nently happy. Whatever might be the vicissitudes of his public life, he never failed to find peace and love by his own heai'th. He loved all his children, and was loved by them ; and, of all his children, the one of whom he was fondest and proudest was his second son. The child's genius and ambition displayed themselves with a rare and almost unnatural precocity. At seven, the interest which he took in grave subjects, the ardor with which he pursued his studies, and the sense and vivacity of his remarks on books and on events, amazed his parents and instructors. One of his sayings of this date was reported to MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS AV KITING S. his mother by his tutor. In August, 1766, when the world was agitated by tlie news that Mr. Pitt had become Earl of Chatham, little William exclaimed : " I am glad that I am not the eldest son. I want to speak in the House of Com- mons like papa." A letter is extant in which Lady Chatham, a woman of considerable abilities, remarked to her lord, that their younger son at twelve had left far behind him his elder brother, who was fifteen. The fineness," she wrote, of William's mind makes him enjoy with the greatest pleasure what would be above the reach of any other creature of his small age." At fourteen the lad was in intellect a man. Hay ley, w^ho met him at Lyme in the summer of 1773, was astonished, delighted, and somewhat overawed, by hearing wit and wisdom from so young a mouth. The poet, indeed, was afterwards sorry that his shyness had prevented him from submitting the plan of an extensive literary work, which he was then meditating, to the judgment of this ex- traordinary boy. The boy, indeed, had already Avritten a tragedy, bad of course, but not worse than the tragedies of his friend. This piece is still preserved at Chevening, and is in some respects highly curious. There is no love. The whole plot is political ; and it is remarkable that the inter- est, such as it is, turns on a contest about a regency. On one side is a faithful servant of the Crown, on the other an amibitious and unprincipled conspirator. At length the King, who had been missing, reappears, resumes his power, and rewards the faithful defender of his rights. A reader who should judge only by internal evidence would have no hesitation in pronouncing that the play was written by some Pittite poetaster at the time of the rejoicings for the re- covery of George the Third in 1789. The pleasure with which William's parents observed the rapid development of his intellectual powers was alloyed by apprehensions about his health. He shot up alarmingly fast ; he was often ill, and always weak ; it was feared that it would be impossible to rear a stripling so tall, so slender, and so feel)le. Port wine was prescribed by his medical ad- visers : and it is said that he was, at fourteen, accustomed to take this .agreeable physic in quantities which would, in our abstemious age, be thought much more than sufficient for any full-grown man. This regimen, though it would probably have killed ninety-nine boys out of a hundred, seems to have been well fitted to the peculiarities of Wil- liam's constitution ; for at fifteen he ceased to be molested WILLIAM riTT. 317 by disease, and, though never a strong man, continued, dur- ing many years of labor and anxiety, of nights passed in debate and of summers passed in London, to be a toler- ably healthy one. It was probably on account of the deli- cacy of his frame that he was not educated like other boys of the same rank. Almost all the eminent English states- men and orators to whom he was afterwards op]:>osed or allied, North, Fox, Shelburne, Windham, Grey, Wellesley, Grenville, Sheridan, Canning, went through the training of great public schools. Lord Chatham had himself been a distinguished Etonian ; and it is seldom that a distinguished Etonian forgets his obligations to Eton. But William's in- firmities required a vigilance and tenderness such as could be found only at home. He was therefore bred under the paternal roof. His studies were superintended by a clergyman named Wilson ; and those studies, though often interrupted by illness, were prosecuted with extraor- dinary success. Before the lad had completed his fifteenth ^year, his knowledge both of the ancient languages and of mathematics was such as very few men of eighteen then carried up to college. He was therefore sent, towards the close of the year 1773, to Pembroke Hall, in the University of Cambridge. So young a student required much more than the ordinary care which a college tutor bestows on un- dergraduates. The governor, to whom the direction of William's academical life was confided, was a bachelor of arts named Pretyman, who had been senior wrangler in the preceding year, and who, though not a man of prepossessing appearance or brilliant parts, was eminently acute and la- borious, a sound scholar, and an excellent geometrician. At Cambridge Pretyman was, during more than two years, the inseparable companion, and indeed almost the only com- panion, of his pupil. A close and lasting friendship sprang up between the pair. The disciple was able, before he com- pleted his twenty-eighth year, to make his preceptor Bishop of Lincoln and Dean of St. Paul's ; and the preceptor showed his gratitude by writing a life of the disciple, which enjoys the distinction of being the worst biographical work of its size in the world. Pitt, till he graduated, had scarcely one acquaintance, attended chapel regularly morning and evening, dined every day in hall, and never went to a single evening party. At seventeen, he was admitted, after the Ijad fashion of those times, by right of birth, without any examination, to the 318 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. degree of Master of Arts. But he continned during some years to reside at college, and to apply himself vigorously, under Pretyman's direction, to the studies of the place, while mixing freely in the best academic society. The stock of learning which Pitt laid in during this part of his life Avas certainly very extraordinary. In fact, it was all that he ever possessed ; for he very early became too busy to have any spare time for books. The work in which lie took the greatest delight was Newton's Principia. His liking for mathematics, indeed, amounted to a passion, which, in the opinion of his instructors, themselves distinguished mathematicians, required to be checked rather than en- couraged. The acuteness and readiness with which he solved problems was pronounced by one of the ablest of the moderators, who in those days presided over the disputa- tions in the schools, and conducted the examinations of the Senate House, to be unrivalled in the University. Nor Avas the youth's proficiency in classical learning less remarkable. In one respect, indeed, he appeared to disadvantage when compared with even second-rate and third-rate men from public schools. He had never, while under Wilson's care, been in the habit of composing in the ancient languages ; and he therefore never acquired that knack of versification which is sometimes possessed by clever boys whose knowl- edge of the language and literature of Greece and Rome is very superficial. It would have been utterly out of his power to produce such charming elegiac lines as those in which Wellesley bade farewell to Eton, or such Virgilian hexameters as those in which Canning described the pil- grimage to Mecca. But it may be doubted whether any scholar has ever, at twenty, had a more solid and profound knowledge of the two great tongues of the old civilized w^orld. The facility with which he penetrated the meaning of the most intricate sentences in the Attic writers aston- ished veteran critics. He had set his heart on being inti- mately acquainted with all the extant poetry of Greece, and was not satisfied till he had mastered Lycophron's Cassanclra, the most obscure work in the whole range of ancient litera- ture. This strange rhapsody, the difficulties of which have perplexed and repelled many excellent scholars, " he read," says his preceptor, " with an ease at first sight, which, if I had not witnessed it, I should have thought beyond the com- pass of human intellect." To modern literature Pitt paid comparatively little at- WILLIAM PITT. 319 tention. He knew no Jivinp^ language except French ; and French he knew very imperfectly. With a few of the best English writers he was intimate, particularly with Sbak- speare and Milton. The debate in Pandemonium, was, as it well deserved to be, one of his favorite passages; and his early friends used to talk, long after his death, of the just emphasis and the melodious cadence with which they had lieard him recite the incomparable speech of Belial. He had indeed been carefully trained from infancy in the art of managing his voice, a voice naturally clear and deep-toned. His father, whose oratory owed no small part of its effect to that art, had been a most skilful and judicious instructor. At a later period, the wits of Brookes's, irritated by ob- serving, night after night, how powerfully Pitt's sonorous elocution fascinated the rows of country gentlemen, re- proached him with having been " taught by his dad on a stool." ^ His education, indeed, was well adapted to form a great parliamentary speaker. One argument often urged against those classical studies which occupy so large a part of the early life of every gentleman bred in the south of our island is, that they prevent him from acquiring a command of his mother tongue, and that it is not unusual to meet with a youth of excellent parts, who writes Ciceronian Latin prose and Horatian Latin Alcaics, but who would find it impossi- ble to exjDress his thoughts in pure, perspicuous, and forcible English. There may perhaps be some truth in this observa- tion. But the classical studies of Pitt were carried on in a peculiar manner, and had the effect of enriching his English vocabulary, and of making him wonderfully expert in the art of constructing correct English sentences. His practice was to look over a page or two of a Greek or Latin author, to make himself master of the meaning, and then to read the passage straight-forward into his own language. This prac- tice, begun under his first teacher Wilson, was continued under Pretyman. It is not strange that a young man of great abilities, who had been exercised daily in this way during ten years, should have acquired an almost unrivalled power of putting his thoughts, without 23remeditation, into words well selected and well arranged. Of all the remains of antiquity, the orations were those on Avhich he bestowed the most minute examination. His favorite employment was to compare harangues on opposite sides of the same question, to analyze them, and to observe 320 macaulay's miscellaneous wettings. which of the arguments of the first speaker were refuted by the second, which were evaded, and which were left un- touched. Nor was it only in books that he at this time studied the art of parliamentary fencing. When he was at home, he had frequent opportunities of hearing important debates at Westminster ; and he heard them, not only with interest and enjoyment, but with a close scientific attention resembling that with which a diligent pupil at Guy's Hos- pital watches every turn of the hand of a great surgeon through a difiicult operation. On one of these occasions, Pitt, a youth whose abilities were as yet known only to his own family and to a small knot of college friends, was intro- duced on the steps of the throne in the House of Lords to Fox, who was his senior by eleven years, and who was already the greatest debater, and one of the greatest orators, that had appeared in England. Fox used afterwards to relate that, as the discussion proceeded, Pitt repeatedly turned to him and said, " But surely, Mr. Fox, that might be met thus ; " or, " Yes ; but he lays himself open to this retort." What the particular criticisms were Fox had forgotten ; but he said that he was much struck at the time by the pre- cocity of a lad who, through the whole sitting, seemed to be thinking only how all the speeches on both sides could be answered. One of the young man's visits to the House of Lords was a sad memorable era in his life. He had not quite com- pleted his nineteenth year, w^hen, on the 7th of April, 1778, he attended his father to Westminster. A great debate was expected. It was known that France had recognized the independence of the United States. The Duke of Richmond was about to declare his opinion that all thought of subjugating those states ought to be relinquished. Chat- ham had always maintained that the resistance of the colo- nies to the mother country was justifiable. But he con- ceived, very erroneously, that on the day on which their independence should be acknowledged the greatness of England would be at an end. Though shiking under the weight of years and infirmities, he determined, in spite of the entreaties of his family, to be in his place. His son supported him to a seat. The excitement and exertion were too much for the old man. In the very act of ad- dressing the peers, he fell back in convulsions. A few weeks later his corpse was borne, with gloomy pomp, from the Painted Chamber to the Abbey. The favorite child and "WILLIAM riTT. 321 namesake of the deceased statesman followed tlie coffin as chief mourner, and saw it deposited in the transept where his own was destined to lie. His elder brother, now Earl of Chatham, had means suf- fixiient, and barely sufficient, to support the dignity of the peera2:e. The other members of the family were poorly provided for. William had little more than three hundred a year. It was necessary for him to follow a profession, lie had already begun to eat his terms. In the spring of 1780 he came of age. He then quitted Cambridge, was called to the bar, took chambers in Lincoln's Inn, and joined the western circuit. In the autumn of that year a general election took place ; and he offered himself as a candidate for the university ; but he was at the bottom of the poll. It is said that the grave doctors, who then sate, robed in scar- Jet, on the benches of Golgotha, thought it great presump- tion in so young a man to solicit so high a distinction. He J was, however, at the request of a hereditary friend, the Duke of Rutland, brought into Parliament by Sir James Lowther for the borough of Appleby. The dangers of the country were at that time such as might well have disturbed even a constant mind. Army after army had been sent in vain against the rebellious col- onists of ISTorth America. On pitched fields of battle the advantage had been with the disciplined troops of the mother country. But it was not on pitched fields of battle that the event of such a contest could be decided. An armed nation, with hunger and the Atlantic for auxiliaries, was not to be subjugated. Meanwhile the House of Bour- bon, humbled to the dust a few years before by the genius and vigor of Chatham, had seized the opportunity of re- venge. France and Spain were united against us, and had recently been joined by Holland. The command of the Mediterranean had been for a time lost. The British flag hnd been scarcely able to maintain itself in the British Channel. The northern powers professed neutrality; but their neutrality had a menacing aspect. In the East, Hyder hnd descended on the Carnatic, had destroyed the little army of Baillie, and had spread terror even to the ramparts of Fort St. George. The discontents of Ireland threatened nothing less than civil war. In England the authority of the government had sunk to the lowest point. The King and the House of Commons were alike unpopular. The cry for parliamentarv reform was scarcely less loud and vehe- Vol. III.— 21 322 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. menttlian in the autumn of 1830. Formidable associations, headed, not by ordinary demagogues, but by men of high rank, stainless character, and distinguished ability, de- manded a revision of the representative system. The popu- lace, emboldened by the impotence and irresolution ol the government, had recently broken loose from all restiaint, besieged the chambers of the legislature, hustled peers, hunted bishops, attacked the residences of ambassadors, opened prisons, burned and pulled down houses. London liad presented during some days the aspect of a city taken by storm ; and it had been necessary to form a camp among the trees of Saint James's Park. In spite of dangers and difficulties abroad and at home, George the Third, with a firmness which had little affinity with virtue or with wisdom, persisted in his determination to put down the American rebels by force of arms ; and his ministers submitted their judgment to his. Some of them were probably actuated merely by selfish cupidity ; but their chief. Lord North, a man of high honor, amiable tem- per, winning manners, lively wit, and excellent talents both for business and for debate, must be acquitted of all sordid motives. He remained at a post from which he had long wished and had repeatedly tried to escape, only because he had not sufficient fortitude to resist the entreaties and re- proaches of the King, who silenced all arguments by pas- sionately asking whether any gentleman, any man of spirit, could have the heart to desert a kind master in the hour of extremity. The opposition consisted of two parties which had once been hostile to each other, and which had been very slowly, and, as it soon appeared, very imperfectly reconciled, but which at this conjuncture seemed to act together with cor- diality. The larger of these parties consisted of the great body of the Whig aristocracy. Its head was Charles, Mar- quess of Rockingham, a man of sense and virtue, and in wealth and parliamentary interest equalled by very few of the English nobles, but afflicted with a nervous timidity which prevented him from taking a prominent part in de- bate. In the House of Commons, the adherents of Rock ingham were led by Fox, whose dissipated habits and ruineu fortunes were the talk of the whole town, but whose com- manding genius, and whose sweet, generous, and affection- ate disposition, extorted the admiration and love of those who most lamented the errors of his private life. Burke, WILLIAM riTT. 823 Riiperior to Fox in largeness of compveliension, in extent of knowledge, anrl splendor of imagination, but less skilled in that kind of logic and in that kind of rhetoric which convince and persuade great assemblies, was willing to be the lieu- tenant of a young chief who might have been his son. A smaller section of the opposition was composed of the old followers of Chatham. At their head was William, Eai 1 of Shelburne, distinguished both as a statesman and as a lover of science and letters. With him were leagued Lord Cnmden, who had formerly held the Great Seal, and whose integrity, ability, aitd constitutional knowledge commanded the public respect ; Barre, an eloquent and acrimonious de-, claimer ; and Dunning, who had long held the first place at the English bar. It was to this party that Pitt was natu- I'ally attracted. On the 26th of February, 1781, he made his first speech, in favor of Burke's plan of economical reform. Fox stood ' up at the same moment, but instantly gave way. The lofty . yet animated deportment of the young member, his perfect self-possession, the readiness with which he replied to the ora- tors who had preceded him, the silver tones of his voice, the perfect structure of his unpremeditated sentences, astonished and delighted his hearers. Burke, moved even to tears, ex- claimed, It is not a chip of the old block ; it is the old block itself." " Pitt will be one of the first men in Parlia- ment," said a member of the opposition to Fox. "He is so already," answered Fox, in whose nature envy had no place. It is a curious fact, w^ell remembered by some who were very recently living, that soon after this debate Pitt's name was ])ut up by Fox at Brookes's. On two subsequent occasions during that session Pitt ad- dressed the House, and on both fully sustained the reputa- tion which he had acquired on his first appearance. In the summer, after the prorogation, he again went the western circuit, held several briefs, and acquitted himself in such a manner that he was highly complimented by Buller from the l)ench, and by Dunning at the bar. On the 27th of N'ovember the Parliament reassembled. Only forty-eight hours before had arrived tidings of the sur- render of Cornwallis and his army ; and it had consequently been necessary to rewrite the royal speech. Every man in the kingdom, except the King, was now convinced that it was mere madness to think of conquering the United States. In the debate on the report of the address, Pitt spoke with 324 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. even raore energy and brilliancy than on any former occa- sion. He was warmly applauded by his allies; but it was remarked that no person on liis own side of the liouse was so loud in eulogy as Henry Dundas, tlie Lord Advocate of Scotland, who spoke from the ministerial ranks. That able and versatile politician distinctly foresaw the approaching downfall of the government with which he was connected, and was preparing to make his own escape from the ruin. From that night dates his connection with Pitt, a connec- tion which soon became a close intimacy, and which lasted till it was dissolved by death. About a fortnight later, Pitt spoke in tlie committee of supply on the army estimates. Symptoms of dissension had begun to appear on the Treasury bench. Lord George Ger- raaine, the Secretary of State who was especially charged with the direction of the war in America, had held language not easily to be reconciled with declarations made by the First Lord of the Treasury. Pitt noticed the discrepancy with much force and keenness. Lord George and Lord North began to whisper together ; and Welbore Ellis, an ancient placeman who Jiad been drawing salary almost every quarter since the days of Henry Pelham, bent down between them to put in a word. Such interruptions sometimes dis- compose veteran speakers. Pitt stopped, and, looking at the group, said, with admirable readiness, " I shall wait till Nestor has composed the dispute between Agamemnon and Achilles." After several defeats, or victories hardly to be distinguished from defeats, the ministry resigned. The King, reluctantly and ungraciously, consented to accept Rockingham as first minister. Fox and Shelburne became Secretaries of State. Lord John Cavendish, one of the most upright and lionor- able of men, was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. Thur- low, whose abilities and force of character had made him the dictator of the House of Lords, continued to hold the great seal. To Pitt was offered, through Shelburne, the Vice- Treasurership of Ireland, one of the easiest and most highly paid places in the gift of the Crown ; but the offer was, without hesitation, declined. The young statesman had re- solved to accept no post which did not entitle him to a seat in the cabinet: and, a few days later, he announced that resolution in the House of Commons. It must be remem- bered that the cabinet was then a much smaller and more WILLIAM PITT. 325 select body than at present. We liave seen cabinets of six- teen. In the time of our grandfathers a cabinet of ten or eleven was thought inconveniently large. Seven was an usual number. Even Burke, who had taken the lucrative office of paymaster, was not in the cabinet. Many therefore thought Pitt's declaration indecent. He himself was sorry that he had made it. The words, he said in private, had escaped him in the heat of speaking ; and he had no sooner uttered them than he would have given the world to recall them. They, however, did him no harm with the public. The second William Pitt, it was said, had shown that he had inherited the spirit, as well as the genius, of the first. In the son, as in the father, there might perhaps be too much pride ; but there was nothing low or sordid. It might be called arrogance in a young barrister, living in chambers on three hundred a year, to refuse a salary of five thousand a year, merely because he did not choose to bind himself to speak or vote for plans which he had no share in framing ; but surely such arrogance was not very far removed from virtue. Pitt gave a general support to the administration of Rockingham, but omitted, in the mean time, no opportunity of courting that Ultra-Whig party which the persecution of Wilkes and the Middlesex election had called into existence, and which the disastrous events of the war, and the triumph of republican principles in America, had made formidable both in numbers and in temper. He supported a motion for shortening the duration of Parliaments. He made a motion for a committee to examine into the state of the representa- tion, and, in the speech by which that motion was intro- duced, avowed liimself the enemy of the close boroughs, the strongholds of that corruption to which he attributed all the calamities of the nation, and which, as he phrased it in one of those exact and sonorous sentences of which he had a bound- less command, had grown with the growth of England and strengthened with her strength, but had not diminished wath her diminution or decayed with her decay. On this occa- sion he was supported by Fox. The motion was lost by only twenty votes in a house of more than three hundred members. The reformers never again had so good a divi- sion till the year 1831. The new administration was strong in abilities, and was more popular than any administration which had held office since the first year of George the Third, but was hated by 326 MACAULAy's ]MISCEi.LANEOUS WKITINGS. the Kii]g, hesitatingly supported by'the Parliament, and torn by internal dissensions. The Chancellor was disliked and distrusted by almost all his colleagues. The two Sec- retaries of State regarded each other with no friendly feel- ing. The line between their departments had not been traced with precision ; and there were consequently jeal- ousies, encroachments and complaints. It was all that Rock- ingham could do to keep the peace in his cabinet ; and, be- fore the cabinet had existed three months, Rockingham died. In an instant all was confusion. The adherents of the deceased statesman looked on the Duke of Portland as their chief. The King placed Shelburne at the head of the , Treas- ury. Fox, Lord John Cavendish, and Burke, immediately resigned their offices ; and the new prime nunister was left to constitute a government out of very defective materials. His own parliamentary talents were great ; but he could not be in the place where parliamentary talents were most needed. It was necessary to find some member of the House of Commons who could confront the great orators of the opposition ; and Pitt alone had the eloquence and the courage Avhich were required. He was offered the great place of Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and he accepted it. He had scarcely completed his twenty-third year. The Parliament was speedily prorogued. During the re- cess, a negotiation for peace which had been commenced under Rockingham was brought to a successful termination. England acknowledged the independence of her revolted colonies ; and she ceded to her European enemies some places in the Mediterranean and in the Gulf of Mexico. But the terms which she obtained were quite as advanta- geous and honorable as the events of the war entitled her to expect, or as she was likely to obtain by persevering in a contest against immense odds. All her vital parts, all the real sources of her power, remained uninjured. She pre- served even her dignity ; for she ceded to the House of Bourbon only part of what she had won from that House in ])revious w^ars. She retained her Indian empire undi- minished ; and, in spite of the mightiest efforts of two' great monarchies, her flag still waved on the rock of Gibraltar. There is not the slightest reason to believe that Fox, if he had remained in office, would have hesitated one moment about concluding a treaty on such conditions. Unhappily that great and most amiable man was, at this crisis, hur- ried by his passions into an error which made his genius WILLIAM PITT. 327 and his virtues, during a long course of years, almost use- less to his country. He saw that the great body of the House of Commons was divided into three parties, his own, that of North, and that of Shelburne ; that none of those three parties was large enough to stand alone ; that, therefore, unless two of them united, there must be a miserably feeble administra- tion, or, more probably, a rapid succession of miserably feeble administrations, and this at a time when a strong government was essential to the prosperity and respecta- bility of the nation. It was then necessary and right that there should be a coalition. To every possible coalition there were objections. But, of all possible coalitions, that to which there were the fewest objections was undoubtedly a coalition between Shelburne and Fox. It would have been generally applauded by the followers of both. It might have been made without any sacrifice of public principle on the part of either. Unhappily, recent bickerings had left in the mind of Fox a profound dislike and distrust of Shel- burne. Pitt attempted to mediate, and was authorized to invite Fox to return to the service of the Crown. " Is Lord Shelburne," said Fox, "to remain prime minister ? " Pitt answered in tlie affirmative. " It is impossible that I can act under him," said Fox. " Then negotiation is at an end," said Pitt ; "for I cannot betray him." Thus the two statesmen parted. They were never again "in a private room together. As Fox and his friends would not treat with Shelburne, nothing remained to them but to treat with North. That fatal coalition which is emphatically called " The Coalition " was formed. Not three-quarters of a year had elapsed since Fox and Burke had threatened North with impeach- ment, and had described him, night after night, as the most arbitrary, the most corrupt, the most incapable of ministers. They now allied themselves with him for the purpose of driving from office a statesman with whom they cannot be said to have differed as to any important question. Nor had they even the prudence and the patience to wait for some occasion on which they might, without inconsistency, have combined with their old enemies in opposition to the government. That nothing might be wanting to the scan- dal, the great orators, who had, during seven years, thun- dered against the war, determined to join with the authors of that war in passing a vote of censure on the peace. 328 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. The Parliament met before Christmas, 1782. But it was not till January, 1783, that the preliminary treaties were signed. On the 17th of February they were taken into consideration by the House of Commons. There had been, during some days, floating rumors that Fox and North had coalesced ; and the debate indicated but too clearly that these rumors were not unfounded. Pitt was suffering froui indisposition : he did not rise till his own strength and that of his hearers were exhausted; and he was consequently less successful than on any former occasion. His admirers owned that his speech was feeble and petulant. He so far forgot himself as to advise Sheridan to confine himself to amusing theatrical audiences. This ignoble sarcasm gave Sheridan an opportunity of retorting with great felicity. "After what I have seen and heard to-night," he said, "I really feel strongly tempted to venture on a competition with so great an artist as Ben Jonson, and to bring on the stage a second Angry Boy." On a division, the address proposed by the supporters of the government was rejected by a majority of sixteen. But Pitt was not a man to be disheartened by a single failure, or to be put down by the most lively repartee. When, a few days later, the opposition proposed a resolu- tion directly censuring the treaties, he spoke with an elo- quence, energy, and dignity, which raised his fame and pop- ularity higher than ever. To the coalition of Fox and North he alluded in language which drew forth tumultuous applause from his followers. " If," he said, " this ill-omened and unnatural marriage be not yet consummated, I know of a just and lawful impediment ; and, in the name of the public weal, I forbid the banns." The ministers were again left in a minority; and Shelburne consequently tendered his resignation. It was accepted ; but the King struggled long and hard before he submitted to the terms dictated by Fox, whose faults he detested, and whose high spirit and powerful intellect he detested stiU more. The flrst place at the board of Treasury was repeat- edly offered to Pitt ; but the offer, though tempting, was steadfastly declined. The young man, whose judgment was as j)recocious as his eloquence, saw that his time was com- ing, but was not come, was deaf to royal importunities and reproaches. His Majesty, bitterly complaining of Pitt's faintheartedness, tried to break the coalition. Every art of seduction was practised on North, but in vain. During WILLIAM PITT. 329 several weeks the country remained without a government. It was not till all devices had failed, and till the aspect of the House of Commons became threatening, that the King gave way. The Duke of Portland was declared First Lord of the Treasury. Thurlow v/as dismissed. Fox and Nortli became Secretaries of State, with power ostensibly equal. But Fox was the real prime minister. The year was far advanced before the new arrangen^ents were completed ; and nothing very important was done during the remainder of the session. Pitt, now seated on the opposition bench, brought the question of parliamentary reform a second time under the consideration of the Com- mons. He proposed to add to the House at once a hundred county members and several members for metropolitan dis- tricts, and to enact that every borough of which an election committee should report that the majority of voters ap- peared to be corrupt should lose the franchise. The motion was rejected by 293 votes to 149. After the prorogation, Pitt visited the Continent for the first and last time. His travelling companion was one of his most intimate friends, a young man of his own age, who had already distinguished himself in Parliament by an en- gaging and natural eloquence, set oft' by the sw^eetest and most exquisitely modulated of human voices, and whose affectionate heart, caressing manners, and brilliant wit, made him the most delightful of companions, William Wilberforce. That was the time of Anglomania in France ; and at Paris the son of the great Chathfim was absolutely hunted by men of letters and women of fashion, and forced, much against his will, into political disputation. One re- markable saying which dropped from him during this tour has been preserved. A French gentleman expressed some surprise at the immense influence which Fox, a man of pleasure, ruined by the dice-box and the turf, exercised over the English nation. " You have not," said Pitt, " been under the wand of the magician." In November, 1783, the Parliament met again. The gc vernment had irresistible strength in the House of Com- mons, and seemed to be scarcely less strong in the House of Lords, but was, in truth, surrounded on every side by dangers. The King was impatiently waiting for the mo- ment at which he could emancipate himself from a yoke which galled him so severely that he had more than once seriously thought of retiring to Hanover i and the King was 380 macaulay's miscellaneous wuitings. scarcely more eager for a change tlian tlje nation. Fox and North had committed a fatal error. They ought to have known that coalitions between parties which have long been hostile can succeed only when the wish for coalition per- vades the lower ranks of both. If the leaders unite before there is any disposition to union among the followers, the probability is that there will be a mutiny in both camps, and that the two revolted armies will make a truce with eacli other, in order to be revenged on those by whom they think that they have been betrayed. Thus it was in 1783. At the beginning of that eventful year, North had been the recognized head of the old Tory party, which, though for a moment prostrated by the disastrous issue of the American war, was still a great power in the state. To him the clergy, the universities, and that large body of country gentlemen whose rallying cry was " Church and King," had long looked up with respect and confidence. Fox had, on the other hand, been the idol of the Whigs, and of the whole body of Protestant dissenters. The coalition at once alien- ated the most zealous Tories from North, and the most zealous Whigs from Fox. The University of Oxford, which had marked its approbation of North's orthodoxy by elect- ing him chancellor, the city of London, which had been during two and twenty years at war with the Court, were equally disgusted. Squires and rectors who had inherited the principles of the cavaliers of the preceding century, could not forgive their old leader for combining with disloyal sub- jects in order to put a force on the sovereign. The members of the Bill of Rights Society and of the Reform Associations were enraged by learning that their favorite orator now called the great champion of tyranny and corruption his noble friend. Two great multitudes were at once left without any head, and both at once turned their eyes on Pitt. One party saw in him the only man wdio could rescue the King ; the other saw in him the only man who could purify the Parliament. He was supported on one side by Arclibishop Markham, the preacher of divine right, and by Jenkinson the captain of the Praetorian band of the King's friends ; on the other side by Jebb and Priestley, Sawbridge and Cart- wright, Jack Wilkes and Horne Tooke. On the benches of the House of Commons, however, the ranks of the minis- terial majority were unbroken ; and that any statesman would venture to brave such a majority was thought impos« sible. No prince of the Hanoverian line had ever, under any WILLIAM PITT. 331 provocation, ventured to appeal from the representative body to the constituent body. The ministers, therefore, notwith- standing the sullen looks and muttered words of displeasure with which their suggestions were received in the closet, notwithstanding the roar of obloquy which was rising louder and louder every day from every corner of the island, thought themselves secure. Such was their confidence in their strength that, as soon as the Parliament had met, they brought forward a singu- larly bold and original plan for the government of the Brit- ish territories in India. What was proposed., was that the whole authoi'ity, which till that time had been exercised over those territories by the East India Company, should be trans- ferred to seven Commissioners who were to be named by Parliament, and Avere not to be removable at the pleasure of the Crown. Earl Fitzwilliam, the most intimate personal friend of Fox, was to be chairman of this board ; and the eldest son of North was to be one of the members. As soon as the outlines of the scheme were known, all the hatred which the coalition had excited burst forth with an astounding explosion. The question which ought un- doubtedly to have been considered as paramount to every other was, whether the 23roposed change was likely to be beneficial or injurious to the thirty millions of people who were subject to the Company. But that question cannot be said to have been even seriously discussed. Burke, who, whether right or wrong in the conclusions to which he came, had at least the merit of looking at the subject in the right point of view, vainly reminded his hearers of that mighty population whose daily rice might depend on a vote of the British Parliament. He spoke, with even more than his wonted power of thought and language, about the desola- tion of Rohilcund, about the spoliation of Benares, about the evil policy which had suffered the tanks of the Carnatic to go to ruin ; but he could scarcely obtain a hearing. The contending parties, to their shame it must be said, would listen to none but English topics. Out of doors the cry against the ministry Avas almost universal. ToAvn and country w^ere united. Corporations exclaimed against the violation of the charter of the greatest corporation in the realm. Tories and democrats joined in pronouncing the proposed board an unconstitutional body. It was to con- sist of Fox's nominees. The effect of his bill was to give, not to the Crown, but to him personally, whether in office 332 macaulay's miscellaneous wbitings. or in opposition, an enormous power, a patronage sufficient to counterbalance the patronage of the Treasury and of tlie Admiralty, and to decide the elections for fifty boroughs. He knew, it was said, he was hateful alike to King and people ; and he had devised a plan which would make him indepen- dent of both. Some nicknamed him Cromwell, and some Carlo Khan. Wilberforce, with his usnal felicity of ex]>res- sion, and with very unusual bitterness of feeling, described the scheme as the genuine offspring of the coalition, as marked with the features of both its parents, the corruption of one and the violence of the other. In spite of all oppo- sition, however, the bill was supported in every stage by great majorities, w^as rapidly passed and was sent up to the Lords. To the general astonishment, when the second reading was moved in the Upper House, the opposition pro- j)osed an adjournment, and carried it by eighty-seven votes to seventy-nine. The cause of this strange turn of fortune was soon known. Pitt's cousin. Earl Temple, had been in the royal closet, and had there been authorized to let it be known that His Majesty would consider all who voted for the bill as his enemies. The ignominious commission was per- formed ; and instantly a troop of Lords of the Bedchamber, of Bishops who wished to be translated, and of Scotch peers who wished to be re-elected, made haste to change sides. On a later day, the Lords rejected the bill. Fox and I^orth were immediately directed to send their seals to the palace by their Under Secretaries ; and Pitt was appointed First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. The general opinion was, that there would be immediate dissolution. But Pitt wisely determined to give the public feeling time to gather strength. On this point he differed from his kinsman Temple. The consequence was, that Temple, who had been appointed one of the Secretaries of State, resigned his office forty-eight hours after he had ac- cepted it, and thus relieved the new government from a great load of unpopularity; for all men of sense and honor, however strong might be their dislike of the India bill, dis- ai)proved of the manner in which that bill had been thrown out. Temple carried away with him the scandal which the best friends of the new government could not but lament. The fame of the young prime minister preserved its white- ness. He could declare with perfect truth that, if uncon- stitutional machinations had been employed, he had been no party to them. WILLIAM PITT. 333 He Avas, IioweA^cr, snrroimded by difficulties and dangers. In the House of Lords, indeed, he ]iad a majority; nor could any orator of the opposition in that assembly l^e con- sidered a match for Thurlow, who was now ac^ain Chancel- lor, or for Camden, who cordially supported the son of his old friend Chatham. But in the other House there was not a single eminent speaker among the official men who sate round Pitt. His most useful assistant was Dun das, who, though he had not eloquence, liad sense, knowledge, readi- ness, and boldness. On the opposite benches was a powerfnl majority, led by Fox, who was supported by Burke, IsTorth and Sheridan. The heart of the young min- ister, stout as it was, almost died within him. He could not once close his eyes on the night which followed Tem- ple's resignation. But, whatever his internal emotions might be. Ids language and deportment indicated nothing but unconquerable firmness and haughty confidence in his own powers. His contest against the House of Commons lasted from the 17th of December, 1783, to the 8th of March, 1784. In sixteen divisions the opposition triumphed. Again and again the King was requested to dismiss his ministers. But he was determined to go to Germany rather than yield. Pitt's resolution never wavered. The cry of the nation in his favor became vehement and almost furious. Addresses assuring him of public support came up daily from every part of the kingdom. The freedom of the city of London was presented to him in a gold box. He went in state to receive this mark of distinction. He was sumptuously feasted in Grocers' Hall ; and the shop- keepers of the Strand and Fleet street illuminated their houses in his honor. These things could not but produce an effect within the walls of Parliament. The ranks of the majority began to waver; a few passed over to the enemy ; some skulked away ; many were for capitulating v^ hile it was still possible to capitulate with the honors of war. Negotiations were opened with the view of forming an administration on a wide basis; but they had scarcely been opened when they were closed. The opposition de- manded, as a preliminary article of the treaty, that Pitt should resign the Treasury; and with this demand Pitt steadfastly refused to comply. While the contest was raging, the Clerkship of the Pells, a sinecure place for life, worth three thousand a year, and tenable with a seat in the House of Commons, became vacant. The appointment was 334 macaulay's mtscella^^^eous writings. with the Chancellor of the Exchequer : noboriy doubted that lie would appoint himself, and nobody could have blamed him if he had done so : for such sinecure offices had always been defended on the ground that they enabled a few men of eminent abilities and small incomes to live without any profession, and to devote themselves to the service of the state. Pitt, in spite of the i-emonstrances of his friends, gave the Pells to his father's old adherent. Colonel Barre, a man distinguished by talent and eloquence, but ])oor and afflicted with blindness. By this arrangement a pension which the Rockingham administration had granted to Barre was saved to the public. Never was there a hap- ])ier stroke of policy. About treaties, wars, expeditions, tariffs, budgets, there will always be room for dispute. The policy which is applauded by half the nation may be con- demned by the other half. But pecuniary disinterestedness everybody comprehends. It is a great thing for a man who has only three hundred a year to be able to show that he considers three thousand a year as mere dirt beneath his feet, when compared with the public interest and the pub- lic esteem. Pitt had his reward. No minister was ever more rancorously libelled ; but, even when he was known to be overwhelmed with debt, when millions were passing through his hands, when the w^ealthiest magnates of the realm were soliciting him for marquisates and garters, his bitterest enemies did not dare to accuse him of touching unlawful gain. At length the hard fouo-ht battle ended. A final remon- strance, drawn up by Burke with admirable skill, was car- ried on the 8th of March by a single vote in a full House. Had the experiment been repeated, the supporters of the coalition would probably have been in a minority. But the supplies had been voted ; the Mutiny Bill had been passed ; and the Parliament was dissolved. The popular constituent bodies all over the country were in general enthusiastic on the side of the new govern- ment. A hundred and sixty supporters of the coalition lost their seats. The First Lord of the Treasury himself came in at the head of the poll for the University of Cambridge. His young friend, Wilberforce, was elected knight of the great shire of York, in opposition to the whole influence of the Fitzwilliams, Cavendishes, Dundases, and Saviles. In the midst of such triumphs Pitt completed his twenty-fifth yea^. He w^as now the ^^eatest subject that England had WILLIAM riTT. 835 Been during many generations. He domineered aLsolutely OYVY the cabinet, and was the favorite at onee^ of the Sovereign, of the Parliament, and of the nation. His fatlier had never been so powerful, nor Walpole, nor Marl- borough. This narrative has now reached a j)oint, beyond which a full history of the life of Pitt would be a history of Eng- hand, or rather of the whole civilized world ; and for such a history this is not the proper place. Here a very slight sketch must suffice ; and in that sketch prominence will be given to such points as may enable a reader who is already acquainted with the general course of events to form a just notion of the character of the man on whom so much de- pended. If we wish to arrive at a correct judgment of Pitt's merits and defects, we must never forget that he be- longed to a peculiar class of statesmen, and that he must be tried by a peculiar standard. It is not easy to com- pare him fairly with such men as Ximenes and Sully, Richelieu and Oxenstiern, John de Witt and Warren Has- tings. The means by which those politicians governed great communities were of quite a different kind from tho&e which Pitt was under the necessity of employing. Some talents, which they never had any opportunity of showing that they possessed, were developed in him to an extraordinary de- gree. In some qualities, on the other hand, to which they owe a large part of their fame, he was decidedly their in- ferior. They transacted business in their ch^sets, or at boards where a few confidential councillors sate. It was his lot to be born in an age and in a country in which par- liamentary government was completely established ; his whole training from infancy was such as fitted him to bear a part in parliamentary government ; and, from the prime of his manhood to his death, all the powers of his vigorous mind were almost constantly exerted in the work of parlia- mentary government. He accordingly became the greatest master of the whole art of parliamentary government that has ever existed, a greater than Montague or Walpole, a greater than his father Chatham or his rival Fox, a greater than either of his illustrious successors. Canning and Peel. Parliamentary government, like every other contrivance of man, has its advantages and its disadvantages. On the advantages there is no need to dilate. The history of Eng- land during the hundred and seventy years which have 836 macaulay\s miscellaneoijs wrjxmGS. elapsed since t]ie House of Commons became the most powerful body in tlie state, her immense and still growing prosperity, her freedom, her tranquillity, her greatness in arts, in sciences, and in arms, her maritime ascendency, the marvels of her public credit, her American, her African, her Australian, her Asiatic empires, sufficiently prove the excel- lence of her institutions. But those institutions, though ex- cellent, are assuredly not perfect. Parliamentary govern- ment is government by speaking. In such a government, the power of speaking is the most highly prized of all the qualities which a politician can possess ; and that power may exist, in the highest degree, without judgment, with- out fortitude, without skill in reading the characters of men or the signs of the times, without any knowledge of the principles of legislation or political economy, and without any skill in diplomacy or in the administration of war. Nay, it may well happen that those very intellectual quali- ties which give a peculiar charm to the speeches of a public man may be incompatible with the qualities which w^ould fit him to meet a pressing emergency with promptitude and firmness. It Avas thus with Charles Townshend. It was thus with Windham. It was a privilege to listen to those accora])lished and ingenious orators. But in a perilous crisis they would have been found far infei-ior in all the qualities of rulers to such a man as Oliver Cromwell, who talked nonsense, or as William the Silent, who did not talk at all. When parliamentary government is established, a Charles Townshend or a Windham will almost always exercise miicli greater influence than such men as the great Protector of England, or as the founder of the Batavian common- wealth. In such a government, parliamentary talent, though quite distinct from the talents of a good executive or judicial officer, will be a chief qualification for executive and judicial office. From the Book of Dignities a curious list might be made out of Chancellors ignorant of the principles of equity, and First Lords of the Admiralty ignorant of the principles of navigation, of Colonial ministers who could not repeat the names of the Colonies, of Lords of the Treasury who did not know the difference between funded and unfunded debt, and of Secretaries of the India Board who did not know^ wdiether the Mahrattas were Mahometans or Hindoos. On these grounds, some persons, incapable of seeing more than one side of a question, have pronounced parliamentary government a positive evil, and have maintained that the WILLIAM PITT. 3B7 administration would be greatly improved if the power, now exercised by a large assembly, were transferred to a single person. Men of sense will probably think the remedy very much worse than the disease, and will be of opinion that there would be small gain in exchanging Charles Towns hend and Windham for the Prince of the Peace, or the poor slave and dog Steenie. Pitt was emphatically the man of parliamentary govern- ment, the type of his class, the minion, the child, the spoiled cJiild, of the House of Commons. For the House of Com- mons he had a hereditary, an infantine love. Through nis whole boyhood, the House of Commons was never out of his thoughts, or out of the thoughts of his instructors. Reciting at his father's knee, reading Thucydides and Cicer'o into English, analyzing the great Attic s])eeches on the Embassy and on the Crown, he was constantly in training for the conflicts of the House of Commons. He was a dis- tinguished member of the House of Commons at twenty- one. The ability which he had displayed in the House of Commons made him the most powerful subject in Europe before he was twenty-five. It would have been happy for himself and for his country if his elevation had been deferred. Eight or ten years, during which he would have had leisure and opportunity for reading and reflection, for foreign trav- el, for social intercourse and free exchange of thought on equal terms with a great variety of companions, would have supplied what, without any fault on his part, was wanting to his powerful intellect. He had all the knowledge that he could be expected to have ; that is to say, all the knowledge that a man can acquire while he is a student at Cambridge, and all the knowledge that a man can acquire when he is First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. But tlie stock of general information Avhich he brought from college, extraordinary for a boy, was far inferior to what Fox possessed, and beggarly when compared with the massy, the splendid, the various treasures laid up in the large mind of Burke. After Pitt became minister, he had no leisure to learn more than was necessary for the purposes of the dav Avhich was passing over him. What was necessary for those purposes such a man could learn with little difliiculty. He was surrounded by experienced and able public servants. He could at any moment command their best assistance. From the stores which they produced his vigorous mind rap- idly collected the materials for a good parliamentary case : Vol. hi.— 22 338 macaitlay's MISCELLAKEOUS "VVBITINGS. and that was enough. Legislation and administration were with him secondary matters. To the work of framing statutes, of negotiating treaties, of organizing fleets and armies, of sending forth expeditions, he gave only the leav- ings of his time and the dregs of his fine intellect. The strength and sap of his mind were all drawn in a different direction. It was when the House of Commons was to be convinced and persuaded that he put forth all his powers. Of those powers we must form our estimate chiefly from tradition ; for of all the eminent speakers of the last age Pitt has suffered most from the reporters. Even while he was still living, critics remarked that his eloquence could, not be preserved, that he must be heard to be appreciated. They more than once applied to him the sentence in which Taci- tus describes the fate of a senator whose rhetoric was admired in the Augustan age : " Haterii canorum illud et profluens cum ipso simul exstinctum est." There is, liowever, abun- dant evidence that nature had bestowed on Pitt the talents of a great orator ; and those talents had been developed in a very peculiar manner, first by his education, and secondly by the high oflicial position to which he rose early, and in which he passed the greater part of his public life. At his first appearance in Parliament he showed himself superior to all his contemporaries in command of language. He could pour forth a long succession of round and* stately periods without premeditation, without ever pausing for a word, without ever repeating a word, in a voice of silver clearness, and ^vith a pronunciation so articulate that not a letter was slurred over. He had less amplitude of mind and less richness of imagination than Burke, less ingenuity than Windham, less wit than Sheridan, less perfect mastery of dialectical fence, and less of that highest sort of eloquence which consists of reason and passion fused together, than Fox. Yet the almost unanimous judgment of those who were in the habit of listening to that remarkable race of men placed Pitt, as a speaker, above Burke, above Wind- ham, above Sheridan, and not below Fox. His declamation was copious, polished, and splendid. In power of sarcasm he was probably not surpassed by any speaker, ancient or modern; and of this formidable weapon he made merciless use. In two parts of tlie oratorical art which are of the highest value to a minister of state he was singularly expert. No man knew better how to be luminous or how to be ob- scure. When he wished to be understood, he never failed WILLIAM PITT. 339 to make himself understood. He could with ease present to his audience, not perhaps an exact or ])rofound, but a (;lear, popuhir, and plausible view of the most extensive and complicated subject. Nothing was out of place ; nothing was forgotten ; minute details, dates, sums of money, were all faithfully pi-eserved in his memory. Even intricate ques- tions of finance, when explained by him, seemed clear to tlie ])lainest man among his hearers. On the other hand, w^lien he did not wish to be explicit, — and no man who is at the head of affairs always wishes to be explicit, — he had a mar- vellous power of saying nothing in language which left on his audience the impression that he had said a o:reat deal. He was at once the only man w^ho could open a budget Avithout notes, and the only man who, as Windham said, could speak that most elaborately evasive and unmeaning of human compositions, a King's speech, without premedita- tion. The effect of oratory will always to a great extent de- pend on the character of the orator. There perhaps never were tw^o speakers whose eloquence had more of what may be called the race, more of the flavor imparted by moral qualities, than Fox and Pitt. The speeches of Fox owe a great part of their charm to that warmth and softness of heart, that sympathy with human suffering, that admiration for everything great and beautiful, and that hatred of cruelty and injustice, which interest and delight us even in the most defective reports. No person, on the other hand, could hear Pitt without perceiving liim to be a man of high, in- trepid, and commanding spirit, proudly conscious of his own rectitude and of his own intellectual superiority, incapable of the low vices of fear and envy, but too prone to feel and to show disdain. Pride, indeed, pervaded the whole man, was written in the harsh, rigid lines of his face, was marked by tlie way in which he walked, in which he sate, in w^hich he stood, and, above all, in wdiich he bowed. Such ])ride, of course, inflicted many wounds. It may confidently be afiirmed that there cannot be found, in all the ten thousand invectives written against Fox, a word indicating that his demeanor had ever made a single personal enemy. On the other hand, several men of note who had been partial to Pitt, and who to the last continued to approve his public conduct and to support his administration, Cumberland, for example, Boswell, and Matthias, were so much irritated by the contempt with which he treated them, that they com- 840 macaulat's miscellaneous writings. plained in print of their wrongs. But liis pride^ though it made him bitterly disliked by individuals, inspired the great body of his followers in Parliament and throus^hout the country witli respect and confidence. They took him at his own valuation. Tliey saw that his self-esteem was not that of an upstart, who was drunk with good luck and with ap- plause, and who, if fortune turned, Avould sink from arro- gance into abject humility. It was that of the magnani- mous man so finely described by Aristotle in the Ethics, of ■.he man who thinks himself worthy of great things, being in truth worthy. It sprang from a consciousness of great powers and great virtues, and was never so conspicuously displayed as in the midst of difficulties and dangers which would have unnerved and bowed down any ordinary mind. It was closely connected, too, with an ambition which had no mixture of low cupidity. There was something noble in the cynical disdain with which the mighty minister scattered riches and titles to right and left among those who valued them, while he spurned them out of his own way. Poor himself, he was surrounded by friends on whom he had be- stowed three thousand, six thousand, ten thousand a year. Plain Mister himself, he had made more lords than any three ministers tliat had preceded him. The garter, for which the first dukes in the kingdom were contending, was repeatedly offered to him, and offered in vain. The correctness of his private life added much to the dignity of his public character. In the relations of son, brother, uncle, master, friend, his conduct was exemplary. In the small circle of his intimate associates, he was amiable, affectionate, even playful. They loved him sin- cerely ; they regretted him long ; and they would hardly admit that he who was so kind and gentle with them could be stern and 1 aughty with others. lie indulged, indeed, some- what too freely in wine, which he had early been directed to take as a medicine, and which use had made a necessary of life to him. But it was very seldom that any indication of undue excess could be detected in his tones or gestures; and, in truth, two bottles of port were little more to him than two dishes of tea. He had, when he was first intro- duced into the clubs of Saint James's Street, shown a strong taste for play ; but he had the prudence and the resolution to stop before this taste had acquired the strength of habit. From the passion which generally exercises the most tyran- nical dominion over the young he possessed an immunity, WILLIAM PITT. 341 wlilch is probably to be ascribed partly to his ternpei'anieiit and partly to his situation. His coiistitvition was feeble ; he was very shy ; and he was very busy. The strictness of his morals furnished such buffoons as Peter Pindar and Captain Morris with an inexhaustible theme foi' merriment of no very delicate kind. But the great body of the middle class of Englishmen could not see the joke. They warmly praised the young statesman for commanding his passions, and for covering his frailties, if he had frailties, with decorous obscur- ity, and would have been very far indeed from thinking better of him if he had vindicated himself from the taunts of his enemies by taking under his jjrotection a ISTancy Parsons or a Marianne Clark. No part of the immense popularity which Pitt long en- joyed is to be attributed to the eulogies of wits and poets. It might have been naturally expected that a man of genius, of learning, of taste, an orator whose diction was often com- pared to that of Tully, the representative, too, of a great university, would have taken a peculiar pleasure in befriend- ing eminent writers, to whatever political party they might have belonged. The love of literature had induced Augustus to heap benefits on Pompeians, Somers to be the protector of nonjurors, Harley to make the fortunes of Whigs. But it could not move Pitt to show any favor even to Pittites. He w^as doubtless right in thinking that, in general, poetry, history and philosophy ought to be suffered, like calico and cutlery, to find their proper price in the market, and that to teach men of letters to look habitually to the state for their recompense is bad for the state and bad for letters. As- suredly nothing can be more absurb or mischievous than to waste the public money in bounties for the purpose of in- ducing people who ought to be w^eighing out grocery or measuring out drapery to write bad or middling books. But, though the sound rule is that authors should be left to be remunerated by their readers, there will, in every genera- tion, be a few exceptions to this rule. To distinguish these special cases from the mass is an employment well worthy of the faculties of a great and accomplished ruler ; and Pitt would assuredly have had little difficulty in finding such cases. While he was in power, the greatest philologist of the age, his own contemporary at Cambridge, was reduced to earn a livelihood by the lowest literary drudgery, and to spend in writing squibs for the Morning Chronicle years to which we might have owed an all but perfect text of the 342 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. whole tragic and comic drama of Athens. The greatest historian of the age, forced by poverty to leave his country, completed his immortal work on the shores of Lake Leman. The political heterodoxy of Porson, and the religious het- erodoxy of Gibbon, may perhaps be pleaded in defence of the minister by whom those eminent men were neglected. But there were other cases in which no such excuse could be set up. Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of un- bounded power when an aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by his writings, and who was sinking into the grave under a load of infirmities and sorrows, wanted five or six hundred pounds to enable him, during the winter or two which might still remain to liim, to draw his breath more easily in the soft climate of Italy. Not a farthing was to be obtained ; and before Christmas the author of the English Dictionary and of the Lives of the Poets had gasped his last in the river fog and coal smoke of Fleet Street. A few months after the death of Johnson appeared the Task, incomparably the best poem that any Englishman then living had produced — a poem, too, which could hardly fail to excite in a well constituted mind a feeling of esteem and compassion for the poet, a man of genius and virtue, whose means were scanty, and whom the most cruel of all the calamities incident to humanity had made incapable of supporting himself by vigorous and sus- tained exertion. Nowhere had Chatham been praised with more enthusiasm, or in verse more worthy of the subject, than in the Task. The son of Chatham, however, contented himself with reading and admiring the book, and left the author to starve. The pension which, long after, ena- bled poor Cowper to close his melancholy life, unmolested by duns and bailiffs, was obtained for him by the strenu- ous kindness of Lord Spencer. What a contrast be- tween the way in which Pitt acted towards Johnson and the way in which Lord Grey acted, towards his politica] enemy Scott, when Scott, worn out by misfortune and dis- ease, was advised to try the effect of the Italian air! What a contrast between the. way in which Pitt acted towards Cowper and the way in which Burke, a poor man and out of place, acted towards Crabbe! Even Dundas, who made no pretensions to literary taste, and was content to be consider- ed as a hard-headed and somewhat coai'se man of business, was, when compared with his eloquent and classically edu- cated friend, a Maecenas or a Leo. Dundas made Burns an WILLIAM PITT. 348 exciseman, witli seventy pounds a year; and this was more than Pitt, during his long tenure of power, did for the encouragement of letters. Even those who may think tliat it is, in general, no part of the duty of a government to re- ward literary merit will hardly deny that a government, Avhich has much lucrative church preferment in its gift, is bound, in distributing that preferment, not to overlook diviners whose writings have rendered great service to the cause of religion. But it seems never to have occurred to Pitt that he lay under any such obligation. All the theo- logical works of all the numerous bishops whom he made and translated are not, when put together, worth fifty pages of the Horae Paulinse, of the Natural Theology, or of the View of the Evidences of Christianity. But on Paley the all-powerful minister never bestowed the smallest benefice. Artists Pitt treated as contemptuously as writers. For painting he did simply nothing. Sculptors, who had been selected to execute monuments voted by Parliament, had to haunt the ante-chambers of the Treasury during many years before they could obtain a farthing from him. One of them, after vainly soliciting the minister for payment during four- teen years, had the courage to present a memorial to the King, and thus obtained tardy and ungracious justice. Architects it was absolutely necessary to employ ; and the worst that could be found seem to have been employed. Not a single fine public building of any kind or in any style was erected during his long administration. It may be con- fidently affirmed that no ruler whose abilities and attainments would bear any comparison with his has ever shown such cold disdain for what is excellent in arts and letters. His first administration lasted seventeen years. That long period is divided by a strongly marked line into two almost ex:actly equal parts. The first part ended and the second began in the autumn of 1792. Throughout both parts Pitt displayed in the highest degree the talents of a parliamentary leader. During the first part he was a fortu- nate and, in many respects, a skilful administrator. With the difficulties which he had to encounter during the second part he was altogether incapable of contending : but his eloquence and his perfect mastery of the tactics of the House of Commons concealed his incapacity from the multitude. The eight years which followed the general election ol 1784 were as tranquil and prosperous as any eight years in the whole lustory of England. Neighboring nations which 344 MAOAULAY's miscellaneous WlilTlNGS. had lately been in arms against her, and which had flattered themselves that in losing her American colonies, she had lost a chief source of her wealth and of her power, saw with wonder and vexation, that she was more wealthy and more powerful than ever. Her trade increased. Her manufac- tures flourished. Her exchequer was full to overflowing. Very idle apprehensions w^ere generally entertained, that the public debt, though much less than a third of the debt which we now bear with ease, would be found too heavy for the strength of the nation. Those apprehensions might not perhaps have been easily quieted by reason. But Pitt quieted them by a juggle. He succeeded in persuading first himself, and then the whole nation, his opponents included, that a new sinking fund, Avhich, so far as it differed from former sinking funds, differed for the w^orse, would, by vir- tue of some mysterious power of propagation belonging to money, put into the pocket of the public creditor great sums not taken out of the pocket of the tax-payer. The country, terrified by a danger w^hich w^as no danger, hailed with delight and boundless confidence a remedy which was no remedy. The minister was almost universally extolled as the greatest of financiers. Meanwhile both the branches of the House of Bourbon found that England was as formidable an antagonist as she had ever been. France had formed a plan for reducing Holland to vassalage. But England inter- posed ; and France receded. Spain interrupted by violence the trade of our merchants with the regions near the Oregon. But England. armed ; and Spain receded. Within the island there was profound tranquillity. The King was, for the first time, popular. During the twenty-three years which had followed his accession he had not been loved by his subjects. His domestic virtues were acknowledged. But it was gen- erally thought that the good qualities by which he was dis- tinguished in private life were wanting to his political char- acter. As a Sovereign, he was resentful, unforgiving, stub- born, cunning. Under his rule the country had sustained cruel disgraces and disasters ; and every one of those dis- graces and disasters was imputed to his strong antipathies, and to his perverse obstinacy in the wrong. One statesman after another complained that he had been induced by royal caresses, entreaties, and promises, to undertake the direction of affairs at a diflicult conjuncture, and that, as soon as he had, not without sullying his fame and alienating his best friends, served the turn for which he was w anted, Ids un- WILLIAM PITT. 345 grateful master began to intrigue against liim, and to canvass against him. Grenville, Rockingham, Chatham, men of widely different cliaractei's, but all three u|)i'igl]t and high- spirited, agreed in thinking that the Prince under whom they had successively held the highest place in the govern- ment was one of the most insincere of mankind. His confi- dence was reposed, they said, not in those known and re- sponsible counsellors to whom he had delivered the seals of office, but in secret advisers who stole up the back stairs into liis closet. In Parliament, his ministers, while defending themselves against the attacks of the opposition in front, were perpetually, at his instigation, assailed on the flank or in the rear by a vile band of mercenaries who called them- selves his friends. These men constantly, while in possession of lucrative places in his service, spoke and voted against bills wdiich he had authorized the First Lord of the Treasury or the Secretary of State to bring in. But from the day on which Pitt was placed at the head of affairs there was an end of secret influence. His haughty and as})irii]g spirit was not to be satisfied with the mere show of power. Any attempt to undermine him at Court, any mutinous move- ment among his followers in the House of Commons, was certain to be at once put down. He had only to tender his resignation ; and he could dictate his own terms. For he, and he alone, stood between the King and the Coalition. He w^as therefore little less than Mayor of the Palace. The nation loudly applauded the King for having the wisdom to repose entire confidence in so excellent a minister. His Majesty's private virtues now began to produce their full effect. He was generally regarded as the model of a re- spectable country gentleman, honest, good-natured, sober, religious. He rose early : he dined temperately : he was strictly faithful to his wife : he never missed church ; and at church he never missed a response. His people heartily j)rayed that he might long reign over them ; and they prayed the more heartily because his virtues were set off to the best advantage by the vices and follies of the Prince of Wales, who lived in close intimacy with the chiefs of the opposition. How strong this feeling was in the public mind appeared signally on one great occasion. In the autumn of 1788 the King became insane. The opposition, eager for office, com- mitted the great indiscretion of asserting that tlie heir apparent had, by the fundamental laws of England a right to be Regent with the full powders of royalty. Pitt 346 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. on the other hand, maintained it to be the constitutional doctrine that, when a Sovereign is, by reason of infancy, disease, or absence, incapable of exercising the regal func- tions, it belongs to the estates of the realm to determine who shall be the vicegerent, and with what portion of the execu- tive an thority such vicegerent shall be entrusted. A long and violent contest followed, in which Pitt was supported by the great body of the people with as much enthusiasm as during the first months of his administration. Tories with one voice applauded him for defending the sick-bed of a virtuous and unhappy Sovereign against a disloyal faction and an unduti- ful son. Not a few Whigs applauded him for asserting the authority oE Parliaments and the principles of the Revolu- tion, in opposition to a doctrine which seemed to have too much affinity with the servile theory of indefeasible heredi- tary right. The middle class, always zealous on the side of decency and the domestic virtues, looked forward with dismay to a reign resembling that of Charles II. The palace, which had now been, during thirty years, the pattern of an Englisli home, would be a public nuisance, a school of protligacy. To the good King's repast of mutton and lemonade, de- spatched at three o'clock, would succeed midnight banquets, from which the guests would be carried home speechless. To the backgammon board at which the good King played for a little silver with his equerries, would succeed faro tables from which young patricians who had sate down rich would rise up beggars. The drawing-room, from which the frown of the Queen had repelled a whole generation of frail beau- ties, would now be again what it had been in the days of Barbara Palmer and Louisa de Querouaille. Nay, severely as the public reprobated the Prince's many illicit attach- ments, his one virtuous attachment was reprobated more severely still. Even in grave and pious circles his Protes- tant mistresses gave less scandal than his Popish wife. That he must be Regent nobody ventured to deny. But he and his friends were so unpopular that Pitt could, with general a])probation, propose to limit the powers of the Reagent b} restrictions to which it would have been impossible to sub- ject a Prince beloved and trusted by the country. Some interested men, fully expecting a change of administration, went over to the opposition. But the majority, purified by these desertions, closed its ranks, and presented a more firm array then ever to the enemy. In every division Pitt was victorious. When at length, after a stormy interregnum of WILLIAM PITT. 347 three months, it was announced, on the very eve of tlie in- auguration of the Regent, that tlie King was himself again, the nation was wild with delight. On the evening of the day on which His Majesty resumed his functions, a spontane- ous illumination, the most general that had ever been seen in England, brightened the whole vast space from Ilighgate to Tooting, and from Hammersmith to Greenwich On the day on which he returned thanks in the cathedral of his capital, all the horses and carriages within a hundred miles of London were too few for the multitudes wliich flocked to ^ee him pass through the streets. A second illumination followed, which was even superior to the first in magnificence. Pitt with difficulty escaped from the tumultuous kindness of an innumerable multitude which insisted on drawing his coach from Saint Paul's Churchyard to Downing Street. This was the moment at which his fame and fortune maybe said to have reached the zenith. His influence in the closet was as great as that of Carr or Villiers had been. His dominion over the Parliament was more absolute than that of Walpole or Pel- ham had been. He was at the same time as high in the favor of the populace as ever Wilkes or Sacheverell had been. Nothing did more to raise his character than his noble poverty. It was well known that, if he had been dismissed from office after more than five years of boundless power, he would hardly have carried out w^ith him a sum sufficient to furnish the set of chambers in which, as he cheerfully de- clared, he meant to resume the practice of the law. His admirers, however, were by no means disposed to suffer him to depend on daily toil for his daily bread. The voluntary contributions which were awaiting his acceptance in the city of London alone would have sufficed to make him a rich man. But it may be doubted whether his haughty spirit would have stooped to accept a provision so honorably earned and so honorably bestowed. To such a height of power and glory had this extraordi- nary man risen at twenty-nine years of age. And now the tide was on the turn. Only ten days after the triumphant procession to Saint Paul's, the States-General of France, after an interval of a hundred and seventy-four years, met at Versailles. The nature of the great Revolution which followed was long very imperfectly understood in this country. Burke saw much further than any of his contemporaries : but whatever his sagacity descried was refracted and discolored 848 macaulay's miscellaneous wkitings. by his passions and his imagination. More than three years elapsed before the principles of the English administration underwent any material change. Nothing conhl as yet be milder or more strictly constitutional than the minister's do- mestic policy. 'Not a single act indicating an arbitrary tem- per or a jealousy of the people could be imputed to him. He had never applied to Parliament for any extraordinary powers. He had never used with harshness the ordinary j)Owers entrusted by the constitution to the executive govern- ment. Not a single state prosecution which would even now be called oppressive had been instituted by him. Indeed, the only oppressive state prosecution instituted during the first eight years of his administration was that of Stockdale, which is to be attributed, not to the government, but to the chiefs of the opposition. In office, Pitt had redeemed the pledges which he had, at his entrance into public life, given to the supporters of parliamentary reform. He had, in . 1785, brought forward a judicious plan for the improvement of the representative system, and had prevailed on the King, not only to refrain from talking against that plan, but to recommend it to the Houses in a speech from the throne. This attempt failed ; but there can be little doubt that, if the French Revolution had not produced a violent reaction of public feeling, Pitt would have performed, with little difficulty and no danger, that great work which, at a later period, Lord Grey could accomplish only by means which for a time loosened the very foundations of the common- wealth. When the atrocities of the slave trade were first brought under the consideration of Parliament, no abolition- ist was more zealous than Pitt. When sickness prevented Wilberforce from appearing in public, his place was most efficiently supplied by his friend the minister. A humane bill, which mitigated the horrors of the middle passage, was, in 1788, carried by the eloquence and -determined spirit of Pitt, in spite of the opposition of some of his own col- leagues; and it ought always to be remembered to his honor that, in order to carry that bill, he kept the Houses sitting, in spite of many murmurs, long after the business of the government had been done, and the Appropriation Act passed. In 1791 he cordially concurred with Fox in main- taining the sound constitutional doctrine, that an impeach- ♦ The speech with which the Ki]ig opened the session of 1785 conchided with ftii assurance that His Majesty would heartily concur in every measure which tould tend to secure the true principles of the constitution. These words were a; the time understood to refer to Pitt's Reform Bill. WILLIAM PITT. 349 ment is not terminated by a dissolution. In the course of the same year the two great rivals contended side by side in a far more important cause. They are fairly entitled to divide the hic^h honor of having added to our statute-book the inestimable law which places the liberty of the press under the protection of juries. On one occasion, and one alone, Pitt, during'the first half of his long administration, acted in a manner unworthy of an enlightened Whig. In the debate on the Test Act, he stooped to gratify tlie master whom he served, the university which he represented, and tlie great body of clergymen and country gentlemen on whose support he rested, by talking, with little heartiness, indeed, and no asperity, the language of a Tory. With this single exception, his conduct from the end of 1783 to the middle of 1792 was that of an honest friend of civil and religious liberty. Kor did anything, during that period, indicate that he loved war, or harbored any malevolent feeling against any neighboring nation. Those French writers tvho have rep- resented him as a Hannibal sworn in childhood by his father to bear eternal hatred to France, as having, by mys- terious intrigues and lavish bribes, instigated the leading Jacobins to commit those excesses which dishonored the Revolution, as having been the real author of the first coali- tion, know nothing of his character or of his history. So far was he from being a deadly enemy to France, that his laudable attempts to bring about a closer connection with that country by means of a wise and liberal treaty of com- merce brouglit on him the severe censure of the opposition. He was told in the House of Commons that he was a de- generate son, and that his partiality for the hereditary foes of our island was enough to make his great father's bones stir under the pavement of the Abbey. And this man, whose name, if he had been so fortunate as to die in 1792, would now have been associated with peace, with freedom, with philanthropy, with temperate reform, with mild and constitutional administration, lived to associate his name with arbitrary government, with harsh laws harshly executed, with alien bills, with gagging bills, Avith suspensions of the Habeas Corpus Act, with cruel pun- ishments inflicted on some political agitators, with unjusti- fiable prosecutions instituted against others, and with the most costly and most sanguinary wars of modern times. He lived to be held up to obloquy as the stern oppressor of macaula^y's miscellan"eous writings. England, and the indefatigable disturber of Europe. Poets, contrasting his earlier with his later years, likened liim some- times to the apostle who kissed in order to betray, and sometimes to the evil angels who kept not their first estate. A satirist of great genius introduced the fiends of Famine, Slaughter, and Fire, proclaiming that they had received their commission from One whose name Vas formed of four letters, and promising to give their employer ample proofs of gratitude. Famine would gnaw the multitude till they should rise against him in madness. The demon of Slaughter would impel them to tear him from limb to limb. But Fire boasted that she alone could reward him as he deserved, and that she would cling round him to all eternity. By the French press and the French tribune every crime that disgraced and every calamity that afflicted France was ascribed to the monster Pitt and his guineas. While the Jacobins were dominant, it was he who had corrupted the Gnronde, who had raised Lyons and Bordeaux against the Convention, w'ho had suborned Paris to assassinate Le- pelletier, and Cecilia Regnault to assassinate Robespierre. When the Thermidorian reaction came, all the atrocities of the Reign of Terror were imputed to him. Coliot D'Herbois and Fouquier Tinville had been his pensioners. It was he who had hired the murderers of September, who had dic- tated the pamphlets of Marat and the Carmagnoles of Barere, who had paid Lebon to deluge Arras with blood, and Carrier to choke the Loire with corpses. The truth is that he'liked neither war nor arbitrary gov- ernment. He was a lover of peace and freedom, driven, by a stress against which it was hardly possible for any will or any intellect to struggle, out of the course to which his in- clinations pointed, and for which his abilities and acquire- ments fitted him, and forced into a policy repugnant to his feelings and unsuited to his talents. The charge of apostasy is grossly unjust. A man ought no more to be called an apostate because his opinions alter with the opinions of the great body of his contemporaries than he ought to be called an oriental traveller because he is always going round from west to east with the globe and everything that is upon it. Between the spring of 1789 and \he close of 1792, the public mind of England under- went a great change. If the change of Pitt's sentiments attracted peculiar notice, it was not because he changed more than his neigl bors ; for in fact he changed less WILLIAM PITT. 351 than most of them ; but because his position was far more conspicuous than theirs ; because he was, till Bonaparte appeared, the individual who filled the greatest space in the eyes of the inhabitants of the civilized world. During ♦ short time the nation, and Pitt, as one of the nation, looked with interest and approbation on the French Revolution. But soon vast confiscations, the violent sweep- ing away of ancient institutions, the domination of ctslubs, the barbarities of mobs maddened by famine and hatred, produced a reaction here. The court, the nobility, the gentry, the clergy, the manufacturers, the merchants, in short, nineteen twentieths of those who had good roofs over their heads and good coats on their backs, became eager and intolerant Anti-jacobins. This feeling was at least as strong among the minister's adversaries as among his supporters. Fox in vain attempted to restrain his followers. All his genius, all his vast personal influence, could not prevent them from rising up against him in general mutiny. Burke set the example of revolt ; and Burke was in no long time joined by Portland, Spencer, Fitzwilliam, Loughborough, Carlisle, Malmesbury, Windham, Elliot. In the House of Commons, the followers of the great Whig statesman and orator diminished from about a hundred and sixty to fifty. In the House of Lords he had but ten or twelve adherents left. There can be no doubt that there would have been a similar mutiny on the ministerial benches if Pitt had ob- stinately resisted the general wish. Pressed at once by his master and by his colleagues, by old friends and by old op- ponents, he abandoned, slowly and reluctantly, the policy which was dear to his heart. He labored hard to avert the European war. When the European war broke out, he still flattered himself that it would not be necessary for this coun- try to take either side. In the spring of 1792 he congratu- lated the Parliament on the prospect of long and profound peace, and proved his sincerity by proposing large remis- sions of taxation. Down to the end of that year he con- tinued to cherish the hope that England might be able to preserve neutrality. But the passions which raged on both sides of the Channel were not to be restrained. The repub- licans who ruled France were inflamed by a fanaticism re- sembling that of the Mussulmans, who, with the Koran in one hand and the sword in the other, went forth, conquer- ing and converting, eastward to the Bay of Bengal, and westward to the Pillars of Hercules. The higher and mid- 852 macaulay's miscellan'eous writings. die classes of England were animated by zeal not less fiery than that of the Crusaders who raised the cry of Dens vult at Clermont. The impulse which drove the two nations to a collision was not to be arrested by tlie abilities or by the authority of any single man. As Pitt was in front of his fellows, and towered high above them, he seemed to lead them. But in fact he was violently pushed on by them, and, had he held back but a little more than he did, would have been thrust out of their way or trampled under their feet. He yielded to the current : and from that day his mis- fortunes began. The truth is that there were only two con- sistent courses before him. Since he did not choose to oppose himself, side by side with Fox, to the public feeling, he should have taken the advice of Burke, and should have availed himself of that feeling to the full extent. If it was impossible to preserve peace, he should have adopted the only policy which could lead to victory. He should have proclaimed a Holy War for religion, morality, property, order, public law, and should have thus opposed to the Jacobins an energy equal to their own. Unhappily he tried to find a middle path; and he found one which united all that was worst in both extremes. He went to war; but he would not understand the peculiar character of that war. He was obstinately blind to the plain fact, that he was con- tending against a state which was also a sect, and that the new quarrel between England and France was of quite a different kind from the old quarrels about colonies in Amer- ica and fortresses in the Netherlands. He had to combat frantic enthusiasm, boundless ambition, restless activity, the wildest and most audacious spirit of innovation ; and he acted as if he had to deal with the harlots and fops of the old Court of Versailles, with Madame de Pompadour and the Abbe de Bernis. It was pitiable to hear him, year after year, proving to an admiring audience that the wicked Republic was exhausted, that she could not hold out, that her credit was gone, and her assignats were not worth more than the paper of which they were made ; as if credit was necessary to a government of which the principle was rapine, as if Alboin could not turn Italy into a desert till he had negotiated a loan at five per cent., as if the ex- chequer bills of Attila had been at par. It was impossible that a man who so completely mistook the nature of a con- test could carry on that contest successfully. Great as WILLIAM PITT. 353 Pitt's abilities were, his military administration was that of a driveller. He was at the head of a nation engaged in a struggle for life and death, of a nation eminently distin- guished by all the physical and all the moral qualities which make excellent soldiers. The resources at his command were unlimited. The Parliament was even more ready to grant hipi men and money than he was to ask for them. In such an emergency, and with such means, sucli a statesman as Richelieu, as Louvois, as Chatham, as Wellesley, would have created in a few months one of the finest armies in the world, and would soon haA^e discovered and brought for- ward generals worthy to command such an army. Germany might have been saved by another Blenheim ; Flanders re- covered by another Kamilies ; another Poitiers might have delivered the Royalist and Catholic provinces of France from a yoke which they abhorred, and might have spread terror exen to the barriers of Paris. But the fact is, that, after eight years of war, after a vast destruction of life, after an expenditure of wealth far exceeding the expenditure of the American War, of the Seven Years' War, of the war of the Austrian Succession, and of the war of the Spanish Succession, united, the English army, under Pitt, was the laughing-stock of all Europe. It could not boast of one single brilliant exploit. It had never shown itself on the Conti- nent but to be beaten, chased, forced to re-embark, or forced to capitulate. To take some sugar island in the West In- dies, to scattei- some mob of half-naked Irish peasants, such were the most splendid victories won by the British troops under Pitt's auspices. The English navy no mismanagement could ruin. But during a long period whatever mismanagement could do was done. The Earl of Chatham, without a single qualifi- cation for high public trust, was made, by fraternal ])ar- tiality. First Lord of the Admiralty, and was kept in that great ])Ost during two years of a war in which the very ex- istence of the state depended on the efficiency of the fleet. He continued to doze away and trifle away the time which ought to have been devoted to the public service, till the whole mei-cantile body, though generally disposed to sup- ])ort the government, complained bitterly that our flag gave no ])rotectiinch describe government as an ordinance of God, for the government under which the writers of the New Testament lived was not an hereditary monarchy. The Roman emperors were republican magis- trates, named by the Senate. None of them pretended to rule by riglit of birth ; and, in fact, both Tiberius, to whom Christ commanded that tribute should be given, and Nero, whom Paul directed the Romans to obey, were, according to the })atriarchal theory of Government, usurpers. In the JAMES I. 373 Middle Ages, the doctrines of indefeasible hereditary right would have been regarded as heretical, for it was altogether incompatible with the high pretensions of the Church of Rome. It was a doctrine unknown to the founders of the Church of England. The Homilyon Wilful Rebellion had strongly, and, indeed, too strongly inculcated submission to constituted authority, but had made no distinction between hereditary and elective monarchies, or between monarchies and re- publics. Indeed, most of the predecessors of James would, from personal motives, have regarded the patriarchal theory of government with aversion. William Rufus, Henry the First, Stephen, John, Henry the Foui'th, Henry the Fifth, Henry the Sixth, Richard the Third, and Henry the Seventh, had all reigned in defiance of the strict rule of descent. A grave doubt hung over the legitimacy both of Mary and of Elizabeth. It was impossible that b?)th Catharine of Arragon and Anne Boleyn could have been lawfully married to Henry the Eighth, and the highest authority in the realm had pronounced that neither Avas so. The Tudors, far from considering the law" of succession as a divine and unchange- able institution, were constantly tampering with it. Henry the Eighth obtained an Act of Parliament giving him power to leave the crown by will, and actually made a will to the prejudice of the royal family of Scotland. Edward the Sixth, unauthorized by Parliament, assumed a similar power, with the full approbation of the most eminent Reformers. Elizabeth, conscious that her own title was open to grave objection, and unwilling to admit even a reversionary right in her rival and enemy, the Queen of Scots, induced the Parliament to pass a law enacting that whoever should deny the competency of the reigning sovereign, with the assent of the estates of the realm, to alter the succession, should suffer death as a traitor. But the situation of James was widely different from that of Elizabeth. Far inferior to her in abilities and in popularity, regarded by the English as an alien, and excluded from the throne by the testament of Henry the Eighth, the King of Scots was yet the undoubted heir of William the Conqueror and of Egbert. He had, therefore, an obvious interest in inculcating the superstitious notion that birth confers rights anterior to law and unalter- able by law. It was a notion, moreover, well suited to his intellect and temper. It soon found many advocates among tliose who aspii-ed to his favor, and made rapid 2)rogresa among the clergy of the Established Church. • 374 macaulay's miscellaneous wkitings. Thus, at the very moment at which a republican spirit began to manifest itself strongly in the Parliament and in the country, the claims of the monarch took a monstrous form, which would have disgusted the proudest and most arbitrary of those who had preceded him on the throne. James was always boasting of his skill in what he called kingcraft ; and yet it is hardly possible even to imagine a coarse more directly opposed to all the rules of kingcraft than that which he followed. The policy of wise rulers has always been to disguise strong acts under popular forms. It was thus that Augustus and Napoleon established absolute mon- archies, while tlie public regarded them merely as eminent citizens invested with temporary magistracies. The policy of James was the direct reverse of theirs. He enraged and alarmed his Parliament by constantly telling them that they held their priviJfeges merely dui-ing his pleasure, and that they had no more business to inquire what he might law- fully do, than what the Deity might lawfully do. Yet he quailed before them, abandoned minister after minister to their vengeance, and suffered them to tease him into acts directly opposed to his strongest inclinations. Thus tlie in- dignation excited by his claims and the scorn excited by his concessions went on growing together. By his fondness for worthless minions, and by the sanction which he gave to their tyranny and rapacity, he kept discontent constantly alive. His cowardice, his childishness, his pedantry, his ungainly person and manners, his provincial accent, made him an ob- ject of derision. Even in his virtues and accomplishments there was something eminently unkingly. Thus, during the whole course of his reign, all the venerable associations by which the throne had long been fenced, were gradually losing their strength. During two hundred years, all the sovereigns who had I'uled England, with the single exception of the un- fortunate Henry the Sixth, had been strongminded, higli- spirited, courageous, and of princely bearing. Almost all had possessed abilities above the ordinary level. It was no light thing that, on the very eve of the decisive struggle between our kings and their Parliaments, royalty should be exhibited to the world stammering, slobbering, shedding unmanly tears, trembling at a drawn sword, and talking in the style alternately of a buffoon and of a ^jedagogue. AKCHBISHOP LAUD. 375 CHARLES I. Ojsrthe death of James, Charles the First succeeded to the throne. He had received from nature a far better under- standing, a far stronger will, and a far keener and firmer temper than his father's. He had inherited his father's po- Htical theories, and was much more disposed than his father to carry them into practice. He was, like his father, a zeal- ous Ejjiscopalian. He was, moreover, what his father had never been, a zealous Arminian, and, though no papist, liked a papist much better than a Puritan. It would be unjust to deny that Charles had some of the qualities of a good, and even of a great prince. He wrote and spoke, not, like his father, with the exactness of a professor, but after the fashion of intelligent and well educated gentlemen. His taste in lit- erature and art was excellent, his manner dignified though not gracious, his domestic life without blemish. Faithlessness was the chief cause of his disasters, and is the chief stain on his memory. He Avas, in truth, impelled by an incurable propensity to dark crooked w^ays. It may seem strange that his conscience, which, on occasions of little moment, was sufficiently sensitive, should never have reproached himw^ith this great vice. But there is reason to believe that he was prefidious, not only from constitution and from habit, but also on principle. He seems to have learned from the theologians whom he most esteemed, tliat between him and his subjects there could be nothing of the nature of mutual contract ; that he could not, even if he would, divest himself of his despotic authority ; and that, in every promise which he made, there was an implied reservation that such promise might be broken in case of necessity, and that of the necessity he was the sole judge. ARCHBISHOP LAUD. The ecclesiastical administration was, in the mean time, principally directed by William Laud, archbishop of Can- terbury. Of all the prelates of the Anglican Chui'ch Laud 376 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. had departed farthest from the prmciples of the Reforma- tion, and had drawn nearest to Rome. Ilis theology was moi e remote than eA^en that of the Dutch Arminians from the theology of the Calvinists. His passion for ceremonies, Ms reverence for holidays, vigils, and sacred places, his ill-con- cealed dislike of the marriage of ecclesiastics, the ardent and not altogether disinterested zeal with which he asserted the claims of the clergy to the reverence of the laity, would have made him an object of aversion to the Puritans, even if he had used only legal and gentle means for the attain- ment of his ends. But his understanding was narrow, and his commerce with the world had been small. He was by nature rash, irritable, quick to feel for his own dignity, slow to sympathize with the sufferings of others, and prone to the error, common in superstitious men, of mistaking his own peevish and malignant moods for emotions of pious zeal. Under his direction every corner of the realm was subjected to a constant and minute inspection. Every little congrega- tion of separatists was tracked out and broken up. Even the devotions of private families could not escape the vigilance of his spies. Such fear did his rigor inspire, that the deadly hatred of the Church, which festered in innumerable bosoms, w^as generally disguised under an outward show of confor- mity. On the very eve of troubles fatal to himself and to his order, the bishops of several extensive dioceses were able to report to him that not a single dissenter was to be found within their jurisdiction.^ CHARLES II. The restored king was at this time more loved by the peo- ple than any of his predecessors had ever been. The calam- ities of his house, the heroic death of his father, his own long sufferings and romantic adventures, made him an ob- ject of tender interest. His return had delivered the country from an intolerable bondage. Recalled by the voice of both the contending factions, he was the very man to arbitrate be- tween them ; and in some respects he was well qualified for the task. He had received from nature excellent parts and a * See his Keport to Charles for the year 1639. CHARLES II. 377 happy temper. His education had been such as n)ig}it have been expected to develop his understanding, and to form him to the practice of every public and ])rivate virtue. He had passed through all varieties of fortune, and had seen both sides of human nature. He had, while very young, been driven forth from a palace to a life of exile, penury, and danger. He had, at the age when the mind and body are in their highest perfection, and when the first effervescence of boyish passions should have subsided, been j'ccalled from his Avanderings to Vv^ear a crown. He had been taught by bitter experience how much b.iseness, perfidy and ingratitude may lie hid under the obsequious demeanor of courtiers. He had found, on the other hand, in the huts of the poorest, true nobility of soul. When wealth was offered to any who would betray him, when death was denounced against all who should shelter him, cottagej-s and serving-men had kept his secret truly, and had kissed his hand under his mean disguises with as much reverence as if he had been seated on his ancestral throne. From such a school it might have been expected that a young man who wanted neither abilities nor amiable qualities, would have come forth a great and good king. Charles came forth from that school with social habits, with polite and engaging manners, and with some talent for lively conversation, addicted be- yond measure to sensual indulgence, fond of sauntering and of frivolous amusements, incapable of self-denial and of exertion, without faith in human virtue or in human attach- ment, without desire of renown, and withoat sensibility to reproach. According to him, every person was to be bought. But some people haggled more about their price than others ; and when this haggling was very obstinate and very skilful, it was called by some fine name. The chief trick by which clever men kept up the price of their abilities was called integrity. The chief trick by which handsome Avomen kept up the price of their beauty was called modesty. The love of God, the love of country, the love of family, the love of friends, Avere phrases of the same sort, delicate and con- venient synonyms for the love of self. Thinking thus of mankind, Charles naturally cared very little Avhat they thought of him. Honor and shame were scarcely more to him than light and darkness to the blind. His contempt of flattery has been highly commended, but seems, Avhen vicAved in connection with the rest of his character, to deserve no com- meu iation. It is possible to be beloAV flattery as well as 378 macaulay's miscellaneous wkitings. above it. One who trusts nobody, will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its coun- terfeit. It is creditable to Charles's temper, that, ill as he thought of his species, he never became a misanthrope. He saw little in men but what was hateful. Yet he did not hate them ; nay, he was so far humane that it was highly disa- greeable to him to see their sufferings or to heai^ their com- plaints. This, hoAvever, is a sort of humanity which, thougli amiable and laudable in a private man whose power to help or hurt is bounded by a narrow circle, has in princes often been rather a vice than a virtue. More than one well-dis- posed ruler has given up whole provinces to rapine and oppression, merely froin a wish to see none but happy faces round his own board and in his own walks. No man is fit to govern great societies who hesitates about disobliging the few who have access to him for the sake of t?ie many whom he will never see. The facility of Charles was such as has, perhaps, never been found in any man of equal sense. He was a slave without being a dupe. Worthless men and women, to the very bottom of whose hearts he saw, and whom he knew to be destitute of affection for him, and undeserving of his confidence, could easily wheedle him out of titles, places, domains, state secrets, and pardons. He bestowed much ; yet he neither enjoyed the pleasure nor acquired the fame of beneficence. He never gave spontaneously; but it was painful to him to refuse. The consequence was that his bounty generally went, not to those who deserved it best, nor even to those whom he liked best, but to the most shame- less and importunate suitor who could obtain an audience. The motives which governed the political conduct of Charles the Second differed widely from those by which his predecessor and his successor were actuated. He was not a man to be imposed upon by the patriarchal theory of government, and the doctrine of divine right. He was utterly without ambition. He detested business, and would sooner have abdicated his crown than have undergone the trouble of really directing the administration. Such was his aversion to toil, and such his ignorance of affairs, that the very clerks who attended him when he sat in council could not refrain from sneering at his frivolous remarks and at his childish impatience. Neither gratitude nor revenge had any share in determining his course, for never was there a mind on which both services and injuries left such faint CHAKLES II. 379 and transitory impressions. He wished merely to be a king such as Louis the Fifteenth of France afterwards was ; a king who could draw without limit on the treasury for the gratification of his private tastes, who could hire with w^ealth and honors persons capable of assisting him to kill the time, and who, even when the state was brought by maladministra- tion to the depths of humiliation and to the brink of ruin, could still exclude unwelcome truth from the purlieus of his own seraglio, and refuse to see and hear whatever might disturb his luxurious repose. For these ends, and for these ends alone, he wished to obtain arbitrary power, if it could be obtained Avithout risk or trouble. In the religious disputes which divided his Protestant subjects, his conscience was not at all interested, for his opinions oscillated in a state of contented suspense between infidelity and popery. But though his conscience was neutral in the quarrel between the Episco])alians and the Presbyterians, his taste was by no means so. His favorite vices were precisely those to which the Puritans were least indulgent. He could not get through one day without the help of diversions which the Puritans regarded as sinful. As a man eminently well bred, and keenly sensible of the ridiculous, he was moved to contemp- tuous mirth by the Puritan oddities. He had, indeed, some reason to dislike the rigid sect. He had, at the age when the passions are. most im})etuous, and when levity is most par- donable, spent some months in Scotland, a king in name, but in fact a state prisoner in the hands of austere Presbyte- rians. ISTot content with requiring him to conform to their worship and to subscribe to their Covenant, they had watched all his motions, and lectured him on all his youthful follies. He had been compelled to give reluctant attendance at endless prayers and sermons, and might think himself fortunate when he was not insolently reminded from the pulpit of his own frailties, of his father's tyranny, and of his mother's idolatry. Indeed, he had been so miserable during this })art of his life, that the defeat which made him again a wan- derer might be regarded as a deliverance rather than as a calamity. Under the influence of such feelings as these, Charles was desirous to depress the party which had resisted his father. 380 MACAtlLAY's MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. THE EARL OF CLARENDON. The person -on whom devolved at this tune the greater part of the labor of governing was Edward Hyde, chancellor of the realm, who was soon created Earl of Clarendon. The respect which we justly feel for Clarendon as a writer, must not blind us to the faults which he committed as a states- man. Some of those faults, however, are explained and excused by the unfortunate position in which he stood. He had, during the first year of the Long Parliament, been hon- orably distinguished among the senators who labored to redress the grievances of the nation. Ope of the most odious of those grievances, the Council of York, had been removed in consequence chiefly of his exertions. W hen the great schism took place, when the reforming party and the conservative party first appeared marshalled against each other, he, with many wise and good men, took the conserv- ative side. He thenceforward followed the fortunes of the court, enjoyed as large a share of the confidence of Charles the First as the reserved nature and tortuous policy of that prince allowed to any minister, and subsequently shared the exile and directed the political conduct of Charles the Second. At the restoration, Hyde became chief minister. In a fcAV months it was announced that he was closely related by affinity to the royal house. His daughter had become, by a secret marriage. Duchess of York. His grand- children might perhaps wear the crown. He was raised by this illustrious connection over the heads of the old nobility of the land, and was, for a time, supposed to be all-power- ful. In some respects he was well fitted for this great place. No man wrote abler state papers. No man spoke with more weight and dignity in council and in Parliament. No man w^as better acquainted with general maxims of statecraft. No man observed the varieties of character with a more discriminating eye. It must be added that he had a strong sense of moral and religious obligation, sincere reverence for the laws of his country, and a conscientious regard for the honor and interest of the crown. But his temper was sour, arrogant, and impatient of opposition. Above all, He had been long an exile 3 and this circumstance alone THE EARL OF CLARENDON. 381 would have completely disqualified him for the supreme di- rection of affairs. It is scarcely possible that a politician who had been compelled by civil troubles to go into banish- ment, and to pass many of the best years of his life abroad, can be fit, on the day on which he returns to his native land, to be at the head of the government. Clarendon was no exception to this rule. He had left England with a mind heated by a fierce conflict which had ended in the downfall of his party and of his own fortunes. From 1646 to 1660 he had lived beyond sea, looking on all that passed at liomc from a great distance, and through a false medium. His notions of public affairs were necessarily derived from the reports of plotters, many of whom ^vere ruined and desper- ate men. Events naturally seemed to him auspicious, not in proportion as they increased the prosperity and glory of the nation, but in proportion as they tended to hasten the hour of his own return. His wish — a Avish which he has not disguised — was, that, till his countrymen brought back the old line, they might never enjoy quiet or freedom. At length he returned ; and, without having a single week to look about him, to mix with society, to note the changes which fourteen eventful years had produced in the national character and feelings, he was at once set to rule the state. In such circumstances, a minister of the greatest tact and docility would probably have fallen into serious errors. But tact and docility made no part of the character of .Claren- don. To him, England was still the England of his youth ; and he sternly frowned down every theory and every prac- tice which had sprung up during his own exile. Though he was far from meditating any attack on the ancient and un- doubted power of the House of Commons, he saw with ex treme uneasiness the growth of that power. The royal pre- rogative, for which he had long suffered, and by which he had at length been raised to wealth and dignity, was sacred in his eyes. The Roundheads he regarded both with politi- cal and with personal aversion. To the Anglican Church he had always been strongly attached, and had repeatedly, where her interests were concerned, separated himself with regret from his dearest friends. His zeal for episcopacy and for the Book of Common Prayer, was now more ardent than ever, and was mingled with a vindictive hatred of the Puritans, which did him little honor either as a statesman or as a Christian. The minister's virtues and vices alike contributed to his S82 macaulay's miscet.laneous writings. ruin. He was tlie ostensible head of the administration, and was tlierefore held responsible even for those acts which he had strongly, but vainly, opposed in council. He was regarded by the Puritans, and by all who pitied them, as an implacable bigot, a second Laud, with much more than Laud's understanding. He had on all occasions maintained that the Act of Indemnity ought to be strictly observed ; and this part of his conduct, though highly honorable to him, made him hateful to all those Royalists who wished to re- pair their ruined fortunes by suing the Roundheads for damages and mesne profits. The Presbyterians of Scotland attributed to him the downfall of their Church. The papists of L-eland attributed to him the loss of their lands. As father of the Duchess of York, he had an obvious motive for wishing that there might be a barren queen, and he was therefore suspected of having purposely recommended one. The sale of Dunkirk was justly imputed to him. For the war with Holland he was, with less justice, held account- able. His hot temper ; his arrogant deportment ; the indel- icate eagerness with which he grasped at riches ; the osten- tation with which he squandered them; his picture gallery, filled with masterpieces of Vandyke, which had once been the property of ruined Cavaliers ; his palace, which reared its long and stately front right opposite to the humbler resi- dence of our kings, drew on him much deserved, and some undeserved censure. When the Dutch fleet was in the Thames, it was against the chancellor that the rage of the populace was chiefly directed. His windows were broken, the trees of his garden cut down, and a gibbet set up before his door. But nowhere was he more detested than in the House of Commons. He was unable to perceive that the time was fast approaching when that house, if it continued to exist at all, must be supreme in the state ; when the management of that house would be the most important department of poli- tics ; and when, without the help of men possessing the ear of that house, it would be impossible to carry on the govern- ment. He obstinately persisted in considering the Parliament as a body in no respect differing from the Parliament which had been sitting when, forty years before, he first began to study law at the Temple. He did not wish to deprive the Leg- islature of those powers which were inherent in it by the old Constitution of the realm; but the new development of those powers, though a development natural, inevitable, and to be prevented only by utterly destroying the powers themselves. THE EARL OF CLARENDON. 383 disgusted and alarmed him. Nothing would have induced him to put the great seal to a writ for raising ship-money, or to give his voice in council for committing a member of Parliament to the Tower on account of words spoken in debate ; but w^hen the Commons began to inquire in Avhat manner the money voted for the war had been wasted, and to examine into the maladministration of the navy, he flamed with indignation. Such inquiry, according to him, was out of their province. He admitted that the house was a most loyal assembly ; that it had done good service to the crown ; and that its intentions were excellent ; but, both in public and in the closet, he on every occasion expressed his concern that gentlemen so sincerely attached to monarchy should unadvisedly encroach on the prerogative of the monarch. Widely as they differed in spirit from the members of the Long Parliament, they yet, he said, imitated that Parliament in meddling with matters which lay beyond the sphere of the estates of the realm, and which were sub- ject to the authority of the crown alone. The country, he maintained, would never be well governed till the knights' of shires and the burgesses were content to be what their predecessors had been in the days of Elizabeth. All the plans which men more observant than himself of the signs of that time proposed, for the purpose of maintaining a good understanding between the court and the Commons, he dis- dainfully rejected as crude projects, inconsistent with the old polity of England. Towards the young orators who were rising to distinction and authority in the Lower House, his deportment was ungracious ; and he succeeded in making them, with scarcely an exception, his deadly enemies. In- deed, one of his most serious faults was an inordinate con- tempt for youth, and this contempt was the more unjustifi- able, because his own experience in English politics was by no means proportioned to his age ; for so great a part of his life had been passed abroad, that he knew less of the world in which he found himself on his return than man^ who might have been his sons. For these reasons he was disliked by the Commons ; for very different reasons he was equally disliked by the court. His morals as well as his politics were those of an earlier generation. Even when he w^as a young law student, living much with men of wit and pleasure, his natural gravity and his religious principles had to a great extent pre- served him from the contagion of fashionable debauchery ; S84 macaulay's miscellan-eous writings. and he was by no means likely, in advanced years and in declining health, to turn libertine. On the vices of the young and gay he looked with an aversion almost as bitter and contemptuous as that which he felt for the theological errors of the sectaries. He missed no opportunity of show- ing his scorn of the mimics, revellers, and courtesans who crowded the palace ; and the admonitions which he ad- dressed to the king himself were very sharp, and, what Charles disliked still more, very long. Scarcely any voice was raised in favor of a minister loaded with the double odium of faults which roused the fury of the people, and of virtues which annoyed and importuned the sovereign. Southampton was no more. Ormond performed the duties of friendship manfully and faithfully, but in vain. The chancellor fell with a great ruin. The king took the seal from him ; the Commons impeached him ; his head was not safe ; he fled from the country ; an act was passed which doomed him to perpetual exile ; and those who had assailed and undermined him, began to struggle for the fragments of his power. LOUIS XIV. The personal qualities of the French king added to the respect inspired by the power and importance of his king- dom. 'No sovereign has ever represented the majesty of a great State with more dignity and grace. He was his own prime minister, and performed the duties of that arduous situation with an ability and an industry which could not be reasonably expected from one who had in infancy suc- ceeded to a crown, and who had been surrounded by flat- terers before he could speak. He had shown, in an eminent degree, two talents invaluable to a prince : the talent of choosing his servants well, and the talent of appropriating to himself the chief part of the credit of their acts. In his dealings with foreign powers he had some generosity, but no justice. To unhappy allies who threw themselves at his feet, and had no hope but in his compassion, he extended his protection with a romantic disinterestedness, which THE CABAL. 385 seemed better suited to a knight-errant than to a statesman ; but he broke through the mt)st sacred ties of yjublic faith without scruple or shame, whenever tliey interfered with his interest, or with what he called his glory. His perfidy and violence, however, excited less enmity than the insolence with which he constantly reminded his neighbors of his own greatness and of their littleness. He did not at this time ])rofess the austere devotion which, at a later period, gave to his court the aspect of a monastery. On the contrary, he was as licentious, though by no means as frivolous and indolent, as his brother of England. But he was a sincere Roman Catholic; and both his conscience and his vanity impelled him to use his power for the defence and propaga- tion of the true faith, after the example of his renowned predecessors, Clovis, Charlemagne, and St. Louis. THE CABAL. It happened by a w^himsical coincidence that, in 1671, the cabinet consisted of live persons, the initial letters of whose names made up the word Cabal: Clifford, Arlington, Buck- ingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. Sir Thomas Clifford was a Commissioner of the Treas- ury, and had greatly distinguished himself in the House of Commons. Of the members of the Cabal he was the most respectable : for, with a fiery and imperious temper, he had a strong though a lamentably perverted sense of duty and honor. Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, then Secretary of State, had, since he came to manhood, resided principally on the Continent, and had learned that cosmopolitan indifference to constitutions and religions which is often observable in ijersons whose life has been passed in vagrant diplomacy, [f there was any form of government Avhich he liked, it was that of France; if there was any church for which he felt a preference, it was that of Rome. He had some talent for conversation, and some talent, also, for transacting the ordi- nary business of ofhce. He had learned, during a life passed in travelling and negotiating, the art of accommodating his lan- guao^e and deportment to the society in which he found him- YoL. IIT.— 25 383 MACAULAy's miscellaneous AVRITmGS. self. His vivacity in the closet amused the king; his gravity in debates and conferences imposed on the public ; and he had succeeded in attaching to himself, partly by services and partly by hopes, a considerable number of personal retainers. Bu'^kingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale, wei-e men in whom the immorality which was epidemic among the poli- ti, and pageantry, and that his dear- est wish was to escape from the bustle and glitter of White- hall to the quiet woods which surrounded his ancient hall at Ivufford ; but his conduct was not a little at variancti with his professions. In truth, he wished to command the respect at once of courtiers and of philosophers, to be admired for at- taining high dignities, aj:id to be at the same time aer of the board. It soon became clear that the wicked judge was fast sinking under the weight of bodily and mental suffering. Doctor John Scott, prebendary of St. Paul's, a clergyman of great sanctity, and authoi* of the Christian Life, a trea- tise once widely renowned, was summoned, probably on the recommendation of his intimate friend Shai-p, to the bed- side of the dying man. It was in vain, however, that Scott spoke, as Sharp had already spoken, of the hideous butch- eries of Dorchester and Taunton. To the last Jeff reys con- tinued to repeat that those who thought him cruel did not know what his orders were, that he deserved praise instead of blame, and that his clemency had drawn on him the ex- treme displeasure of his master."^ Disease, assisted by strong drink and by misery, did its work fast. The patient's stomach rejected all nourishment. He dwindled in a few weeks from a portly and even corpu- lent man to a skeleton. On the eighteenth of April he died, in the forty-first year of his age. He had been Chief Jus- tice of the King's Bench at thirty-five, and Lord Chancellor at thirty-seven. In the whole history of the English bar there is no other instance of so rapid an elevation, or of so terrible a fall. The emaciated corpse was laid, with all pri- vacy, next to the corpse of Monmouth, in th(3 chapel of the Tower.t * See the Life of Archbishop Sharp by his son. AVhat passed between Scott and Jeffreys was related by Scott to Sir Joseph Jekyl. See Tindal's History ; Echard, iii. 932. Echard's informant, who is not named, but who seems to havo had good opportunities of knowing the truth', said that Jeffreys died, not as the vulgar believed, of drink, but of the stone. The distinction seems to be of little importance. It is certain tliat Jeffreys was grossly intemperate ; and his mal- ady was one which intemperance notoriously tends to aggravate. t See a Full and True Account of the Death of George Lord Jeffreys, licensed on the day of liis death. The wretched Le Noble was never weary of repeating that Jeffreys was poisoned by the usurper. I will give a short passage as a specimen of the calumnies of which William was the object. 11 envoya," says Pasquin, ce Mn ragout de champignons an Chanceiier Jelfreys. prisonnier dans l;t Tour, qui les trouva du meme goust, et du meme assaisonnement que furent les derniers dojit Agrippine regala bon-homme Claudius son epoux, et pie Neron appella depuis la viande des Dieux." Marforio asks : Le Chance- iier est done mort dans la Tour?" Pasquiji answers : " 11 estoit trop lidele k son Roi legitime, et trop habile dans les loix du royaume, pour echapper k I'Usurpa- teur qu'il ne vouloit point reconnoistre. Guillemot prit soin de faire publier que ce malheureux prisonnier estoit attaque d'une tievremaligne : mais,k parler franchement, il vivroit peut-estre encore, s'il n'avoit rien mange que de la main de ses anciens cuisiniers,"— Le Festin de .Guillemot, 1G89. Dangeau (May 7) mentions a report that Jeffreys had poisoned himself. 410 MACAU lay's miscellaneous whitings. The fall of this man, once so great and so much dreaded, the horror with which he was regarded by all the respectable members of his own party, the manner in whicli the least respectable members of that party renounced fellowsliip with him in his distress, and threw on him the whole blame of crimes which they had encouraged him to commit, ought to have been a lesson to those intem])erate friends of liberty who were clamoring for a new proscription. But it was a lesson which too many of them disregarded. RICHARD BAXTER. No eminent chief of a party has ever passed through many years of civil and religious dissension with more inno- cence than Richard Baxter. He belonged to the mildest and most temperate section of the Puritan body. He was a young man when the civil war broke out. He thought that the right was on the side of the houses, and he had no scruple about acting as chaplain to a regiment in the Par- liamentary army; but his clear and somewhat skeptical understanding, and his strong sense of justice, preserved him from all excesses. He exerted himself to check the fanatical violence of the soldiery. He condemned the proceedings of the High Court of Justice. In the days of the Common- wealth he had the boldness to express, on many occasions, and once even in Cromwell's presence, love and reverence for the ancient institutions of the country. While the royal family was in exile, Baxter's life was chiefly passed at Kid- derminster, in the assiduous discharge of parochial duties. He heartily concurred in the Restoration, and was sincerely desirous to bring about a union between Episcopalians and I^resbyterians ; for, with a liberality rare in his time, he con- sidered questions of ecclesiastical polity as of small account when compared with the great principles of Christianity, and had never, even when prelacy was most odious to the ruling powers, joined in the outcry against bishops. The attempt to reconcile the contending factions failed. Baxter cast in his lot with his proscribed friends, refused the mitre of Hereford, quitted the parsonage of Kidderminster, and gave himself up almost wholly to study. His theological WILLIAM PENN. 411 writings, thougli too iiioclerate to be pleasing to the bigota of any party, had an immense reputation. Zealous Chui'cli- men called him a Roundliead ; and many JS'onconforrnists accused him of Erastianisni and Arminianism. But the integrity of his heart, the purity of his life, the vigor of his faculties, and tlie extent of his attainments, were acknowl- edged by the best and wisest men of every persuasion. His political opinions, in spite of the oppression whicli he and his brethren had suffered, were moderate. He was partial to that small party which was hated by both Whigs and Tories. He could not, he said, join in cursing the Trimmers, when he remembered who it was that had blessed the peace- makeis.^ WILLIAM PENN. The Quakers had a powerful and zealous advocate at court. Though, as a class, they mixed little with the world, and shunned politics as a pursuit dangerous to their spiritual interests, one of them, widely distinguished from the rest by station and fortune, lived in the highest circles, and had constant access to the royal ear. This was the celebrated William Penn. His father had held great naval commands, had been a commissioner of the Admiralty, had sat in Parlia- ment, had received the honor of knighthood, and had been encouraged to expect a peerage. The son had been liberally educated, and had been designed for the profession of arms, but had, while still young, injured his prospects and dis- gusted his friends by joining what was then generally con- sidered as a gang of crazy heretics. He had been sent sometimes to the Tower, and sometimes to Newgate. He had been tried at the old Bailey for preaching in defiance of the law. After a time, however, he had been reconciled to his family, and had succeeded in obtaining such powerful protection, that, wliile all the jails of England were filled with his brethren, he was permitted, during many years, to profess his opinions without molestation. Towards the close of the late reign he had obtained, in satisfaction of an old * Baxter's Preface to Sir Matthew Hale's Judgment of the Nature of True Religion, 1684. 412 MACAULAV'S MISCELLANEOUS WKITINGS. debt due to biin from the crown, the grant of an immense region in North America. In this tract, then peo}3led only by Indian hunters, he invited his persecuted friends to settle. His colony was still in its infancy when James mounted the throne. Between James and Pcnn there had long been a familiar acquaintance. The Quaker now became a courtier, and almost a favorite. He was every day summoned from the gallery into the closet, and sometimes had long audiences wdiile peers were kept waiting in the ante-chambers. It was noised abroad that he had more real power to help and hurt than many nobles Avho filled high offices. He was soon sur- rounded by flatterers and suppliants. His house at Kensing- ton was so letimes thronged, at his hour of rising, by more than two hundred suitors. He paid dear, however, for this seeming prosperity. Even his own sect looked coldly on him, and requited his services with obloquy. He was loudly accused of being a papist, nay, a Jesuit. Some affirmed that he had been educated at St. Omer's, and others that he had been ordained at Rome. These calumnies, indeed, could find ^.redit only with the undiscerning multitude ; but with these calumnies were mingled accusations much better founded.^ To speak the whole truth concerning Fenn is a task which requires some courage, for he is rather a mythical than an historical person. Rival nations and hostile sects have agreed in canonizing him. England is proud of his name. A great commonwealth beyond the Atlantic regards him with a reverence similar to that which the Athenians felt for Theseus, and the Romans for Quirinus. The respectable society of which he was a member honors him as an apostle. By pious men of other persuasions he is generally regarded as a bright pattern of Christian virtue. Meanwhile, admir- ers of a very different sort have sounded his praises. The French philosophers of the eighteenth century pardoned what they regarded as his superstitious fancies in considera- tion of his contempt for priests, and of his cosmopolitan benevolence, impartially extended to all races and to all *Penn's visits to Whitehall and levees at Kensington are described with great vivacity, though in very bad Latin, by Gerard Croese. *' Sumebat," he says, " rex Sfepe secretuni, non horarium, vero horarum plurium, in quo de variis rebus cum Peuno serio sermoneni coiiferebat, et interim differebat audire pra^cipuorum nobilium ordiiiem, qui hoc interim spatio in procoetone, in proximo, regem con- ventum praesto erant." Of the crowd of suitors at Penn's house, Croese says, " Vidi quandoque de hoc genere hominum non minus bis centum." His evidence *s to the feeling with which Penn was regarded by his brethren is clear and f uU. ' Etiam Quakeri Pennum non amplius, ut ante, ita amabant ac magnifaciabant, quidara aversabantur ac f ugiebaut." — Historia Quakei^iana, lib. ii., 1695. WILLIAM PENN. 413 creeds. His name has thus become, throughout all civilized countries, a synonym for probity and philanthropy. Nor is this high reputation altogether unmerited. Penn was without doubt a man of eminent viitues. He had a strong sense of religious duty and a fervent desire to promote the happiness of mankind. On one or two points of liigh importance he had notions more correct than were, in his day, common even among men of enlarged minds; and, as the proprietor and legislator of a province which, being almost uninhabited when it came into his possession, af- forded a clear field for moral experiments, he had the rare good fortune of being able to carry his tljeories into prac- tice without any compromise, and yet without any shock to existing institutions. He will always be mentioned with honor as a founder of a colony, who did not, in his dealings with a savage people, abuse the strength derived from civilization, and as a lawgiver who, in an age of per- secution, made religious liberty the corner-stone of a poli- ty. But his writings and his life furnish abundant proofs that he was not a man of strong sense. He had no skill in reading the characters of others. His confidence in persons less A'irtuous than himself, led him into great errors and misfortunes. His enthusiasm for one great principle sometimes impelled him to violate other great principles which he ought to have held sacred. Nor w^as his integrity altogether proof against the temptations to which it w'as ex- posed in tliat splendid and polite, but deeply corrupted society with wdiich he now^ mingled. The wdiole court was in a ferment with intrigues of gallantry and intrigues of ambition. The traihc in honors, places, and pardons was incessant. It was natural that a man w^ho ivas daily seen at the j^alace, and who was known to have free access to majesty, should be frequently importuned to use his influ- ence for purposes which a rigid morality must condemn. The integrity of Penn had stood firm against obloquy and persecution; but now, attacked by royal smiles, by female blandishments, by the insinuating eloquence and delicate flattery of veteran diplomatists and courtiers, his resolution began to give way. Titles> and phrases against which he had often borne his testimony dropped occasionally from his lips and his pen. It w^ould be well if he had been guilty of nothing worse than such compliances wnth the fashions of the w^orld. Unhappily, it cannot be concealed that he bore a chief part in some transactions condemned, not 414 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. merely by the rigid code of the society to which he be- longed, but by the general sense of all honest men. He afterwards solemnly protested that his hands were i)ure from illicit gain, and that he had never received any gratuity from those whom lie had obliged, though he might easily, while his inHuence at court lasted, have made a hundred and twenty thousand pounds.^ To this assertion full credit is due. But bribes may be offered to vanity as well as to cupidity ; and it. is impossible to deny that Penn was ca- joled into bearing a ])art in some unjustifiable transactions of which others enjoyed the profits. The first use wliich he made of his credit was highly commendable. He strongly represented the sufferings of the Quakers to the new king, who saw with pleasure that it was possible to grant indulgence to these quiet sectaries and to the Roman Catholics without showing similar favor to other classes which w^ere then under persecution. A list was framed of persons against whom proceedings had been instituted for not taking the oaths, or for not going to church, and of whose loyalty certificates had been produced to the government. These ])ersons were discharged, and orders were given that no similar proceeding should be instituted till the royal pleasure should be further signified. In this way about fifteen hundred Quakers, and a still greater number of Roman Catholics regained their liberty.t The conduct of Penn was scarcely less scandalous. He was a zealous and busy Jacobite ; and his new way of life was even more unfavorable than his late way of life had been to moral purity. It w^as hardly possible to be at once a consistent Quaker and a courtier ; but it was utterly im- possible to be at once a consistent Quaker and a conspira- tor. It is melancholy to relatt? that Penn, while professing to consider even defensive w^ar as sinful, did every thing in his power to bring a foreign army into the heart of his own. country. Pie wrote to inform James that the adherents of the Prince of Orange dreaded nothing so much as an appeal to the sword, and that, if England Avere now invaded from * Twenty thousand into my pocket, and a hundred thousand into my prov Ince." — Penii's Letter to Popple. t These orders, signed by Sunderland, will be found in Sewel's History. They bear date April 18, 1Ges of Graham and Campbell had borne no love to each other; and they had ever since been at deadly feud. Care was taken that the prisoner should pass throug^h the same gate and the same streets through which Montrose had been led to the same doom. The troops who attended the proces- sion were put under the conmiand of Claverhouse, the fiercest and sternest of the race of Graham. When the earl i-eached the castle his legs were put in irons, and he was informed that he liad but a few days to live. It had been determined not to bring him to trial for his recent offence, but to put him to death under the sentence pronounced against him several years before ; a sentence so flagitiously unjust that the most servile and obdurate lawyers of that bad age could not speak of it without shame. But neither the ignominious procession up the Iligh Street, nor the near view of death, had power to disturb tlie gentle and majestic patience of Argyle. His fortitude was tried by a still more severe test. A paper of inter- rogatories was laid before him by order of the Privy Coun- cil. He replied to those questions to which he could reply without danger to any of his friends, and refused to say more. He was told that unless he returned full answers he should be put to the torture. James, who was doubtless sorry that he could not feast his own eyes with the sight of Argyle in the boots, sent down to Edinburgh positive orders that nothing should be omitted which, could wring out of the traitor information against all who had been con- cerned in the treason. But menaces were vain. With tor- ments and death in immediate prospect, Mac Galium More thought far less of himself than of his poor clansmen. " I was busy this day," he wrote from hrs cell, " treating for them, and in some hopes ; but this evening orders came tliat I must die upon Monday or Tuesday ; and I am to be put to the torture if I answer not all questions upon oath. Yet T hope God shall sup])ort me." The torture was not inflicted. Perhaps the magnanimity of the victim had moved the conquerors to unwonted com- passion. He himself remarked that at first they had been very harsh to him, but they soon began to treat him with respect and kindness. God, he said, had melted their hearts. It is certain that he did not, to save himself from the utmost cruelty of his enemies, beti*ay any of his friends. On the last morning of his life, he wrote these words: "] 420 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. have named none to their disadvantage. I thank God He hath supported me wonderfully." He composed his own epitaph ; a short poem, full of meaning and spirit, simple and forcible in style, and not contemptible in versification. In this little piece he com- plained that, though his enemies had repeatedly decreed his death, his friends had been still more cruel. A comment on these expressions is to be found in a letter Avhich he addressed to a lady residing in Holland. She had furnished him with a large sum of money for his expedition, and he thought her entitled to a full explanation of the causes which had led to his failure. He acquitted his coadjutors of treachery, but described their folly, their ignorance, and their factious perverseness, in terms which their own tes- timony has since proved to have been richly deserved. He afterwards doubted Avhether he had not used language too severe to become a dying Christian, and, in a separate paper, begged his friend to suppress what he had said of these men. " Only this I must acknowledge," he mildly added : " they were not governable." Most of his few remaining hours were passed in devo- tion, and in affectionate intercourse with some members of his family. He professed no repentance on account of his last enterprise, but bewailed, with great emotion, his former compliance in spiritual things with the pleasure of the gov- ernment. He had, he said, been justly punished. One who had so long been guilty of cowardice and dissimulation was not worthy to be the instrument of salvation to tlie State and Church; yet the cause, he frequently repeated, was the cause of God, and would assuredly triumph. "I do not," he said, "take on myself to be a prophet; but I have a strong impression on my spirit that deliverance will come very suddenly." It is not strange that some zealous Pres- byterians should have laid up his saying in their hearts, and should, at a later period, have attributed it to divine in- spiration. So effectually had religious faith and hope, co-operating with natural courage and equanimity, composed his s])irits, that, on the very day on which he was to die, he dined with appetite, conversed with gayety at table, and, after his last meal, lay down, as he was wont, to take a short slumber, in order that his body and mind might be in full vigor when he should mount the scafl'old. At this time one of the lords of the council, who had probably been bred a Presbyterian, ARCHIBALD, EAKL OF aKGYLE. 421 and had been seduced b}^ interest to join in oppressing the Church of which he had once been a member, came to tlie castle Avith a message from his brethren, and demanded ad- mittance to the earl. It was answered that the earl was asleep. The privy councillor thought that this was a sub- terfuge, and insisted on entering. The door of the cell was softly opened, and there lay Argyle on the bed, sleeping, in his irons, the placid sleep of infancy. The conscience of the renegade smote him. He turned away sick at heart ran out of the castle, and took refuge in the dwelling of a lady of his famil}'- Avho lived hard by. There he flung him- self on a couch, and gave himself up to an agony of re- morse and shame. His kinswoman, alarmed by his looks and groans, thought that he had been taken sick with sudden illness, and begged him to drink a cup of sack. " No, no," he said, "that will do me no good." She prayed him to tell her what had disturbed him. " T have been," he said, " in Argyle's prison. I have seen him, within an hour of eternity, sleeping as sweetly as ever man did. But as for me — " And now the earl had risen from his bed, and had pre- pared himself for what was yet to be endured. He was first brought down the High street to the Council House, where he was to remain during the short interval which was still to elapse before the execution. During that interval he asked for pen and ink, and wrote to his wife. " Dear heart, God is unchangeable. He hath always been good and gra- cious to me ; and no place alters it. Forgive me all my faults ; and now comfort thyself in Him, in whom only true comfort is to be found. The Lord be with thee, bless and comfort thee, my dearest. Adieu." It was now time to leave the Council House. The divines who attended the prisoner were not of his own per- suasion ; but he listened to them with civility, and exlvorted them to caution their flocks against those doctrines which all Protestant Churches unite in condemning. He mounted the scaffold, where the rude old guillotine of Scotland, called the Maiden, awaited him, and addressed the people in a speech, tinctured with the peculiar phraseology of his sect, but breathing the spirit of serene piety. His enemies, he said, he forgave as he hoped to be forgiven. Only a single acrimonious ex])ression escaped him. One of the Episcopal clergymen who attended him went to the edge of the scaffold, and called out in a loud voice, " My lord dies i22 MACAULAY's MISCEJ.LANEOUS WKITIA^GS. a Protestant." Yes," said the earl stepjniig forward, " and not only a Protestant, but with a heart-liatred of popery, of prelacy, and of all superstition." He then embraced his friends, put into their hands some tokens of remembrance for his wife and children, kneeled down, laid his head on the block, prayed for a little space, and gave the signal to the executioner. His head was fixed on the top of the Tol- booth, where the head of Montrose had formerly decayed * RICHARD TALBOT, EARL OF TRYCONNEL. Soon after the prorogation, this reckless faction was strengthened by an imj^ortant reinforcement. Richard Tal- bot, Earl of Tryconnel, the fiercest and most uncompro- mising of all those who hated the liberties and religion of England, arrived at Court from Dublin. Talbot was descended from an old Norman family wdiich had been long settled in Leinster, which had there sunk into degeneracy, which had adopted the manners of the Celts, which had, like the Celts, adhered to the old religion, and which had taken part with the Celts in the rebellion of 1641. In his youth he had been one of the most noted sharpers and bullies of London. He had been introduced to Charles and James when they were exiles in Flanders, as a man fit and ready for the infamous service of assassinating the Pro- tector. Soon after the Restoration, Talbot attempted to obtain the favor of the royal family by a service more in- famous still. A plea was wanted which might justify the Duke of York in breaking that promise of marriage by which he had obtained from Anne Hyde the last proof of female affection. Such a plea Talbot, in concert with some of his dissolute companions, undertook to furnish. He affirmed that he had triumphed over the young lady's vir- tue, made U23 a long romance about the interviews with * 'Jlie authors from whom I have taken the hif^tory of Argyle's expedition arc Sir Patrick Hume, who was an eye-witness of what he related, and Wodrow, who had access to materials of the greatest value, am-ong which were the earl'3 own papers. Wherever there is a question of veracity between Argyle and Hume, 1 have no doubt that Argyle's narrative ought to be followed. See, also, Buruet, i. 631, and the Life of Bi e?son, published by Dr. MacCrie. The account of the Scotch rebellion in Clarke's Life of James the Secoiid is a ridiculous romance, composed by a Jacobite who did not even take the trouble to look at a map of tlie seat of war. RIOHAKJ) TALBOT, EARL OF TllYCOXNEL. 423 whicli she had indulged him, and rehited how, in one of his secret visits to her, he had unluckily overturned the chan- cellors inkstand upon a pile of papers, and how cleverly she had averted a discovery by laying the blame of the accident on her monkey. These stories, which, if they had been true, would never have passed the lips of any but the basest of mankind, were pure inventions. Talbot was soon forced to own that they were so ; and he owned it without a blush. The injured lady became Duchess of York. Had her hus- band been a man really upright and honorable, he would have driven from his presence with indignation and contempt the wretches who had slandered her. But one of the pecu- liarities of James's character was, that no act, however wicked and shameful, which had been prompted by a desire to gain his favor, ever seemed to him deserving of disappro- bation. Talbot continued to frequent the court, appeared daily with brazen front before the princess whose ruin he had plotted, and was installed into the lucrative post of chief pander to her husband. In no long time Whitehall was thrown into confusion by the news that Dick Talbot, as he was commonly called, had laid a plan to murder the Duke of Ormond. The bravo was sent to the Tower ; but in a few days he was again swaggering about the galleries, and carrying billets backward and forward between his patron and the ugliest maids of honor. It was in vain that old and discreet councillors implored the royal brothers not to countenance this bad man, who had nothing to recom- mend him except his fine person and his taste in dress. Tal- bot was not only welcome at the palace when the bottle or the dice-box was going round, but was heard with attention on matters of business. He affected the character of an Irish patriot, and pleaded with great audacity, and sometimes with success, the cause of his countrymen whose estates had been confiscated. He took care, however, to be well paid for I is services, and succeeded in acquiring, partly by the sale of his influence, partly by gambling, and partly by pimping, an estate of three thousand pounds a year ; for, under an outward show of levity, profusion, improvidence, and eccentric impudence, he was, in truth, one of the most mercenary and crafty of mankind. He was now no longer young ; but advancing age had made no essential change in his character and manners. He still, whenever he opened his mouth, ranted, cursed, and swore with such frantic vio- lence that superficial observers set him down for the wildest 424 macaulay's miscellaneous vvkitings. of libertines. The multitude was unable to conceive that a man who, even when sober, was more furious and boastful than others when they were drunk, and who seemed utterly incapable of disguising any emotion or keejDing any secret, could really be a cold-hearted, far-sighted, scheming syco- phant : yet such a man was Talbot. In truth, his hypocrisy was of a far higher and rarer sort than the hypocrisy which had flourished in Barebones's Parliament ; for the consum- mate liypocrite is not he who conceals vice behind the sem- blance of virtue, but he who makes the vice which he has on objection to show a stalking-horse to cover darker and more profitable vice which it is for his interest to hide. CATHARINE SEDLEY. This woman was the daughter of Sir Charles Sedley, one of the most brilliant and profligate wits of the Restoration. The licentiousness of his writings is not redeemed by much grace or vivacity, but the charms of his conversation were ac- knowledged even by sober men who had no esteem for his character. To sit near him at the theatre, and to hear his criti- cisms on a new play, was regarded as a privilege.^ Dryden had done him the honor to make him a principal interlocutor in the dialogue on dramatic poesy. The morals of Sedley were such as, even in that age, gave great scandal. He on one occasion, after a wild revel, exhibited himself without a shred of clothing in the balcony of a tavern near Covent Garden, and harangued the people who were passing in language so indecent and profane, that he Avas driven in by a shower of' brickbats, was |3rosecuted for a misdemeanor, was sentenced to a heavy fine, and was reprimanded by the Court of King's Bench in the most cutting terms. f His daughter had in- herited his abilities and his impudence. Personal charms bhe had none, with the exception of two brilliant eyes, the lustre of which, to men of delicate taste, seemed fierce and unfeminine. Her form was lean, her countenance haggard. Charles, though he liked her conversation, laughed at her ugliness, and said that the priests must have recommended her to his brother by way of penance. She well knew that * Pepys, Oct. 4, 1664. t Fepys, July 1, 1663. CATHAKINE S ED LEY. 425 she was not handsome, and jested freely on her own ugliness ; yet, with strange inconsistency, she loved to adorn herself magnificently and drew on herself much keen ridicule by ap- pearing in the theatre and the ring, plastered, painted, clad in Brussels lace, glittering with diamonds, and affecting all the graces of eighteen.^ The nature of her influence over James is not easily to be explained. He was no longer young. He was a religious man ; at least he was willing to make for his religion exer- tions and sacrifices from which the great majority of those who are called religious men would shrink. It seems strange that any attractions should have drawn him into a course of life which he must have regarded as highly criminal, and in this case none could understand where the attraction lay. Catharine herself was astonished by the violence of his j^as- sion. "It cannot be my beauty," she said, " for he must see that I have none; and it cannot be my wit, for he has not enough to know that I have any." At the moment of the king's accession, a sense of the new responsibility which lay on him made his mind for a time peculiarly open to religious impressions. He formed and announced many good resolutions, spoke in i:)ublic with great severity of the impious and licentious manners of the age, and in private assured his queen and his confessor that he would see Catharine Sedley no more. He wrote to his mistress entreating her to quit the apartments which she occupied at Whitehall, and to go to a house in St. James's Square which had been splendidly furnished for her at his expense. He at the same time promised to allow her a large pension from his privy purse. Catharine, clever, strong-minded, intrepid, and conscious of her power, refused to stir. In a few months it began to whispered that the services of Chiffinch were again employed, and that the mistress frequently passed and re- passed through that private door through which Father Hud- dleston had borne the host to the bedside of the late king The king's Protestant ministers had, it seems, conceived a hope that their master's infatuation for this w^oman mighl cure him of the more pernicious infatuation which impelled him to attack their religion. She had all the talents which qualified her to play on his feelings, to make game of his scruples, to set before him in a strong light the difficulties and dangers into which he was running headlong. Roches- ter, the chami3ion of the Church, exert eel himself to strengthen ♦ See Dorset's satirical lines on her. 426 MACAULAy's miscellaneous WKITINGS. her influence. Ormond, who is popularly regarded as the personification of all that is pure and high-minded in the English Cavalier, encouraged the design. Even Lady Rochester was not ashamed to co-operate, and that in the very worst way. Her office was to direct the jealousy of the injured wife towards a young lady who was perfectly inno- cent. The whole court took notice of the coldness and rudeness with whicli the queen treated the poor girl on whom suspicion had been thrown ; but the cause of hc-r majesty's ill-humor was a mystery. For a time the intrigue went on prosperously and secretly. Catharine often told the king plainly what the Protestant lords of the council only dared to hint in the most delicate phrases. His crown, she said, was at stake ; the old dotard Arundel and the blus- tering Tryconnel would lead him to his ruin. It is possible that her caresses might have done what the united exhor- tations of the Lords and the Commons, of the house of Austria, and of the Holy See, had failed to do, but for a strange mishap which changed the whole face of affairs. James, in a fit of fondness, determined to make his mistress Countess of Dorchester in her own right. Catharine saw all the peril of such a step, and declined the invidious honor. Her lover was obstinate, and himself forced the patent into her hands. She at last accepted it on one condition, which shows her confidence in her own power and in his weakness. She made him give her a solemn promise, not that he would never quit her, but that, if he did so, lie would him- self announce his resolution to her, and grant her one parting interview. As soon as the news of her elevation got abroad, the whole palace was in an uproar. The warm blood of Italy boiled in the veins of the queen. Proud of her youth and of her charms, of her high rank and of her stainless chas- tity, she could not, without agonies of grief and rage, see herself deserted and insulted for such a rival. Rochester, perhaps, remembering how patiently, after a short struggle, Catharine of Braganza had consented to treat the mis- tresses of Charles with politeness, had expected that, after a little complaining and pouting, Mary of Modena would be equally submissive. It was not so. She did not even at- tempt to conceal from the eyes of the world the violence of her emotions. Day after day the courtiers who came to see her dine, observed that the dishes Avere removed untasted from the table. She suffered the tears to stream down her CATHARINE SKDLEY 427 cheeks uiicuncealed in the presence of tlie whole circle of courtiers and envoys. To the king she spoke with wild vehemence : " Let me go ! " she cried. " You have made your woman a countess : make her a queen ! Put my crown on her liead ! Only let me hide myself in some convent, where I may never see her more." Then, more soberly, she asked him how he reconciled his conduct to his religious professions. " You are ready," she said, " to put your kingdom to hazard for the sake of your soul, and yet you are throwing away your soul for the sake of that creature." Father Petre, on bended knees, seconded these remon- strances. It was his duty to do so ; and his duty was not the less strenuously performed because it coincided with his interest. The king went on foi- a time sinning and re- penting. In his hours of remorse his ])enances were severe. Mary treasured up to the end of her life, and at her death bequeathed to the convent of Chaillot, the scourge with which he had vigorously avenged her wrongs upon his own shoulders. Nothing but Catharine's absence could put an end to this struggle between an ignoble love and an ignoble superstition. James wrote, imploring and commanding her to depart. He owned that he had promised to bid her fare- well in person. "But I know too well," he added, "the power which you have over me. I have not strength of mind enough to keep my resolution if I see you." He offered her a yacht to convey her with all dignity to Flanders, and threatened that if she did not go quietly she should be sent away by force. She at one time worked on his feelings by pretending to be ill. Then she assumed the airs of a martyr, and impudently proclaimed herself a sufferer for the Protestant religion. Then again she adopted the style of John Hampden. She defied the king to remove her. She would try the right with him. While the Great Char- ter and the Habeas Corpus Act were the law of the land, she would live where she pleased. "And Flanders," she cried; " never ! I have learned one thing from my friend the Duchess of Mazarin, and that is, never to trust myself in a country where there are convents." At length she selected Ireland as the place of her exile, probably because the brother of her patron Rochester was viceroy there. After many delays she departed, leaving the victory to the queen.* *■ The chief materials for the history of this intrigue are tlie despatches of Barillon and Bonrepaux at the beginning of the vear 1G86. See Barillon, Jan. 25, Feb. 4— Jan. 28— Feb. 7, Feb. 1—11, Feb. 8—18, Feb. 19—29, and Bonrepaux undei 428 macaulay's miscellaneous avkitings. The history of this extraordinary intrigue would be im- perfect if it were not added that there is still extant a re- ligious meditation, written by the treasurer, Avith his own hand, on the very same day on which the intelligence of his attempt to govern his master by means of a concubine was despatched by Bonrepaux to Versailles. No composition of Ken or Leighton breathes a spirit of more fervent and exalted ])iety than this effusion. Hypocrisy cannot be sus- pected, for the paper was evidently meant only for the writei's own eye, and was not published till he had been more than a century in his grave. So much is history sti'anger than fiction, and so true is it that Nature has ca- prices which Art dares not imitate. A dramatist would scarcely venture to bring on the stage a grave prince, in the decline of life, ready to sacrifice his crown in order to serve the interests of his religion, indefatigable in making proselytes, and yet deserting and insulting a wife who had youth and beauty for the sake of a profligate paramour who had neither. Still less, if possible, would a dramatist venture to introduce a statesman stooping to the wicked and shameful part of a ])rocurer, and calling in his wife to aid him in that dishonorable ofiice, yet, in his moments of leisure, retiring to his closet, and there secretly pouring out his soul to his God in penitent tears and devoted ejaculations. WILLIAM III., MARY IL, AND BISHOP BURNET. The place which William Henry, Prince of Orange Nas- sau, occupies in the history of England and of mankind, is the fiJSt four dates; Evelvn's Diary, Jan. 19; Reresby's Memoirs; Burnet i, 682 ; Sheridan MS. ; Chaillot MS. ; Adda's Despatches, Jan. 23— Feb. 1, and Jan. 29— Feb. 8, 1686. Adda writes like a pious, but weak and ignorant man. Ho appears to have known nothing of James's past life. * The meditation bears date Jan. 25— Feb. 4, lCt5— 6. Bonrepaux, in his de- spatch of the same day, says, " L'intrigue avoit ete conduite par Milord Roches- ter et sa femme. . . . Leur projet etoit de faire gouverner le Koy d'Angle- terre par la nonveUe comtesse. lis s'etoient assures d'elle." While Bonrepaux was writing thus, Rochester was writing as follows : " O God, teach me so to number my days that 1 may apply my heart unto wisdom. Teach me to number the days that I have spent in vanity and idleness, and teach me to luimber those which 1 have spent in sin and wickedness. O God, teach me to number the days Df my aftiiction too, and to give thanks for all that is come to me from Thy hand. Teach me likewise to number the days of this world's greatness, of which 1 have BO great a share ; and teach me to look upon them as vanity and vexation ol gpirit." WILLIAM III., MARY II., AND BISHOP BURNET. 429 80 great that it may be desirable to portray with some minuteness the strong lineaments of his cliaracter. ^ He was now in his thirty-seven tli year. But botli in body and in mind lie was older than other men of the same age. Indeed, it might be said that he had never been young. His external appearance is almost as well known to us as to his own captains and counsellors. Sculptors, painters, and medallists exerted their utmost skill in the work of transmitting his features to posterity; and his features were such as no artist could fail to seize, and such as, once seen, could never be forgotten. His name at once calls up be- fore us a slender and feeble frame, a lofty and ample fore- head, a nose curved like the beak of an eagle, an eye rival- ling that of an eagle in brightness and keenness, a thoughtful and somewhat sullen brow, a firm and somewhat peevish mouth, a cheek pale, thin, and deeply furrowed by sickness and by care. That pensive, severe, and solemn aspect could scarcely have belonged to a happy or a good-natured man. But it indicates in a manner not to be mistaken a capacity equal to the most arduous enterprises, and fortitude not to be shaken by reverses or dangers. Nature had largely endowed William with the qualities of a great ruler, and education had developed those quali- ties in no common degree. With strong natural sense and rare force of will, he found himself, when first his mind be- gan to open, a fatherless and motherless child, the chief of a great but depressed and disheartened party, and the heir to vast and indefinite pretensions, which excited the dread and aversion of the oligarchy, then supreme in the United Prov- inces. The common people, fondly attached during a cen- tury to his house, indicated whenever they saw him, in a manner not to be mistaken, that they regarded him as their rightful head. The able and experienced ministers of the Republic, mortal enemies of his name, came every day to pay their feigned civilities to him, and to observe the pro- gress of his mind. The first movements of his ambition were carefully watched ; every unguarded word uttered by him was noted down ; nor had he near him any adviser on whose judgment reliance could be placed. He was scarcely * The cliief materials from which I have taken my description of the Prince of Orange will be found in Burnet's History, in Temple's and Gourville's Memoirs, in the Negotiations of the Counts of Estrades and Avaux, in Sir George Down- ing's Letters to Chancellor Clarendon, inWagenaar's voluminous History, in Van Kamper's Karakterkunde der Vanderlandsche Geschiedenis, and, above all, in William's own confidential correspondence, of which the Duke of Portland per- mitted Sir James Mackintosh to take a copy. 430 MA CAUL ay's mtrcellaxeous wrtths-gs. fifteen years old when all the domestics who were attached to liis interest, or who enjoyed any share of his confidence, were removed from under his roof by the jealous govern- ment. Pie remonstrated with energy beyond his years, but in vain. Vigilant observers saw the tears more than once rise in the eyes of the young state prisoner. His health, naturally delicate, sank for a time under the emotions vvl ich his desolate situation had produced. Such situ- ations bewildered and unnerved the weak, but called forth all the strength of the strong. Surrounded by snares in which an ordinary youth would have perished, William learned to tread at once warily and firmly. Long before he reached manhood he knew how to keep secrets, how to bafHe curiosity by dry and guarded answers, how to conceal all passions under the same show of grave tranquillity. Meanwhile, he made little ]U'oficiency in fashionable or literary accomplishments. The manners of the Dutch no- bility of that age wanted the grace Avhich was found in the highest perfection among the gentlemen of France, and which, in an inferior degree, embellished the court of Eng- land ; and his manners Avere altogether Dutch. Even his countrymen thought him blunt. To foreigners he often seemed churlish. In his intei'course Avith the world in general he appeared ignorant or negligent of those arts which double the value of a favor and take away the sting of a refusah He was little interested in letters or science. The discoveries of Newton and Leibnitz, the poems of Dryden and Boileau, were unknown to him. Dramatic performances tired him ; and he Avas glad to turn away from the stage and to talk about public affairs while Orestes was raving, or Avhile Tartuffe was pressing El- vira's hand. He had, indeed, some talent for sarcasm, and not seldom employed, quite unconsciously, a natural rhetoric, quaint indeed, but A'igorous and original. He did not, hoAvever, in the least affect the character of a Avit, or of an orator. His attention had been confined to those suidies which form strenuous and sagacious men of business. From a child he listened Avith interest Avhen high questions of alliance, finance, and Avar Avere discussed. Of geometry he learned as much as was necessary for the construction of a ravelin or horuAvork. Of languages, by the help of a memory singularly poAverful, he learned as much as Avas necessary to enable him to comprehend and answer without assistance everything that was said to him, and eA-ery let- WILLIAM III., MARY II., A N^D BISHOP BURIS'ET. 431 ter which he received. The Dutch was his own tongue. He understood Latin, Italian and Spanish. He spoke and wrote French, Englisli, and German, inelegantly, it is true, and in- exactly, but fluently and intelligibly. No qualification could be more important to a man whose life was to be passed in organizing great alliances and in commanding amies as- sembled from different countries. One class of philosophical questions had been forced on his attention, by circumstances, and seems to have interested him more than might have been expected from liis general character. Among the Protestants of the United Provinces, as among the Protestants of our island, there were two great religious parties which almost exactly coincided with two great political parties. The chiefs of the municipal oligarchy were Arminians, and were commonly regarded by the multitude as little better than Papists. The Princes of Orange had generally been the patrons of the Calvinistic divinity, and owed no small part of their popularity to their zeal for the doctrines of election and final perseverance, a zeal not always enlightened by knowledge or tempered by humanity. William had been carefully instrncted tVom a child in the theological system to which his family was at- tached, and reirarded that system with even more than the partiality which men generally feel for an hereditary faith. He had ruminated on the great enigmas which had been dis- cussed in the Synod of Dort, and had found in the austere and inflexible logic of the Genevese school something which suited his intellect and his temper. That example of intol- erance, indeed, Avhich some of his predecessors had set, he never imitated. For all persecution he felt a fixed aversion, which he avowed, not only where the avowal was obviously politic, but on occasions where it seemed that his interest would have been promoted by dissimulation or by silence His theological opinions, however, were even more decided than those of his ancestors. The tenet of ])redestinati(>n was the keystone of his religion. He even declared that if lie were to abandon that tenet, he must abandon with it all belief in a superintending Providence, and must become a mere Epicurean. Except in this single instance, all the sap of his vigorous mind was early drawn away from the specu- lative to the practical. The faculties Avhich are necessary for the conduct of great affairs ripened in him at a time of life when they have scarcely begun to blossom in ordinary men. Since Octavius the world had seen no such instance 432 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. of precocious statesmanship. Skilful diplomatists were sur- prised to hear the weighty observations which at seventeen the prince made on public affairs, and still more surprised to see the lad, in situations in which he might have been ex- pected to betray strong passion, preserve a composure as imperturbable as their own. At eighteen he sat among the fathers of the Commonwealth, grave, discreet, and judi- cious as the oldest among them. At twenty-one, in a day of gloom and terror, he was placed at the head of the adminis- tration. At twenty-three he was renowned throughout Europe as a soldier and a politician. He had put domestic factions under his feet; he was the soul of a mighty coali- tion ; and he had contended with honor in the field against some of the greatest generals of the age. His personal tastes were those rather of a warrior than of a statesman ; but he, like his great-grandfather, the silent prince who founded the Batavian commonwealth, occupies a far higher place among statesmen than among warriors. The event of battles, indeed, is not an unfailing test of the abilities of a commander ; and it would be peculiarly unjust to apply this test to William ; for it was his fortune to be almost always opposed to captains who were consummate masters of their art, and to troops far superior in discipline to his own ; yet there is reason to believe that he was by no means equal, as a general in the field, to some who ranked far below him in intellectual powers. To those whom he trusted he spoke on this subject with the magnanimous frank- ness of a man who had done great things, and who could well afford to acknowledge some deficiencies. He had never, he said, served an apprenticeship to the military profession. He had been placed, while still a boy, at the head of an army. Among his officers there had been none competent to in- struct him. His own blunders and their consequences had been his only lessons. " I would give," he once exclaimed, " a good part of my estates to have served a few campaigns under the prince of Conde before I had to command against him." It is not improbable that the circumstance which prevented William from attaining any eminent dexterity in strategy may have been favorable to the general vigor of his intellect. If his battles were not those of a great tac- tician, they entitled him to be called a great man. 'No dis- aster could for one moment deprive him of his firmness or of the entire possession of all his faculties. His defeats were repaired with such marvellous celerity that, before his WILLIAM III., MARY II., AND BISHOP BURNET. 433 enemies had sung the Te Deura, he was again ready for conflict ; nor did his adverse fortune ever deprive him of the respect and confidence of his soldiers. That respect and confidence he owed in no small measure to his persona] • courage. Courage in the degree which is necessary to carry a soldier without disgrace through a campaign is possessed, or might, under proper training, be acquired, by the great majority of men ; but courage like that of William is rare indeed. He was proved by every test ; by war, by w^ounds, by painful and depressing maladies, by raging seas, by the imminent and constant risk of assassination, a risk which has shaken very strong nerves, a risk which severely tried even the adamantine fortitude of Cromwell ; yet none could ever discover what that thing was which the Prince of Orange feared. His advisers could with difficulty induce him to take any precaution against the pistols and dao;gers of conspirators.^ Old sailors were amazed at the composure which he preserved amid roaring breakers on a perilous coast. In battle his bravery made him conspicuous even among tens of thousands of brave warriors, drew forth the generous applause of hostile armies, and was never .questioned even by the injustice of hostile factions. During his first campaigns he exposed himself like a man who sought for death ; was always foremost in the charge and last in the retreat; fought, sword in hand, in the thickest press ; and, with a musket-ball in his arm and the blood streaming over his cuirass, still stood his ground and waved his hat under the hottest fire. His friends adjured him to take more care of a life invaluable to his country ; and his most illustrious antagonist, the great Conde, remarked, af- ter the bloody day of Seneff, that the Prince of Orange had in all things borne himself like an old general, except in ex- posing himself like a young soldier. William denied that he was guilty of temerity. It was, he said, from a sense of duty, and on a cool calculation of what the public interest required, that he was always at the post of danger. The troops which he commanded had been little used to war, and shrank from a close encounter with the veteran soldiery * William was earnestly entreated by his friends, after the peace of Ryswick, to speak seriously to the French ambassador about the schemes of assassination wliicli the Jacobites of St. Germain's were constantly contriving. Tlie cold mag- nanimity with which these intimations of danger were received is singularly char- acteristic. To Bentinck, who had sent from Paris very alarming intelligence, William merely replied at the end of a long letter of business, " Pour les assassirg je ne luy en ay pas voulu parler, croiant quec'etoitou desous de moy."— May 2- 12, 1698. I keep the original orthography, if it is to be so called. Vol. III.— 28 484 MACAULAy's MISCELLAIS^EOUS WRITINGS. of France. It Avas necessary that tlieir leader sliould show them how battles were to be won. And, in truth, more than one day which had seemed hopelessly lost was retrieved by the hardihood with which he rallied his broken battalions, and cut down with his own hand the cowai'ds who set the * example of flight. Sometimes, however, it seemed that he had a strange pleasure in venturing his person. It was re- marked that his spirits were never so high and his manners never so gracious and easy as amid the tumult and carnage of a battle. Even in his pastimes he liked the excitement of danger. Cards, chess, and billiards gave him no pleasure. Tlie chase was liis favorite recreation ; and he loved it most when it Avas most hazardous. His leaps were sometimes such that his boldest companions did not like to follow him. He seems even to have thought the most hardy field sports of England effeminate, and to have pined in the great park of Windsor for the game which he had been used to drive to bay in the forests of Guelders, wolves, and wdld boars, and huge stags with sixteen antlers."^ The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable be- cause his physical organization was unusually delicate. From a child he had been weak and sickly. In the prime of. manhood his complaints had been aggravated by a severe attack of small-pox. He w\as asthmatic and consumptive. His slender frame was shaken by a constant lioarse cough. He could not sleep unless his head was prop})ed by several pillows, and could scarcely draw his breath in any but the purest air. Cruel headaches frequently tortured him. Ex- ertion soon fatigued him. The physicians constantly kept up the hopes of his enemies by fixing some date beyond which, if there were anything certain in medical science, it was impossible that his broken constitution could hold out. Yet, through a life which w^as one long disease, the force of his mind never failed, on any great occasion, to bear up his suffering and languid body. He was born with violent passions and quick sensibili- ties ; but the strength of his emotions was not suspected by the world. From the multitude, his joy and his grief, his affection and his resentment, were hidden by a phlegmatic * From Windsor he wrote to Beiitiiick, tlien ambassador at Paris, J'ay pris avent hier un cerf dans la forest avec les chains dii Pr. de Denm. et ay fait ur assez jolie chasse, autant que ce vilain paiis le permest." — March 20— April 1, 1G98. The spelling is bad, but not worse than Napoleon's. William wrote in better humor from Loo :— Nous avons pris deux gros cerfs, le premier dans Dorewaert, qui est un des plus gros que je saohe avoir jamais pris. II porte seize."— Oct. 25-Nov. 4, 1697. WTLLTAM TIT., MARY II., ANT) r.TRITOP BITKXET. 485 serenity, which made liirn pass for the most cold-blooded o^ mankind. Those who brought him good news could seldom detect any sign of pleasure. Those who saw him after a de- feat looked in vain for any trace of vexation. He praised and reprimanded, rewarded and punished, with the stern tranquillity of a Mohawk chief; but those who knew him well and saw him near, were aware that under all this ice a fierce fire was constantly burning. It was seldom that an- ger deprived him of power over himself; but when he was really enraged, the first outbreak of his passion was terrible. It was, indeed, scarcely safe to approach him. On these rare occasions, however, as soon as he regained his self-coin- mand, he made such ample reparation to those whom he had wronged, as tempted them to wish that he would go into a fury again. His affection was as impetuous as his wrath. Where he loved, he loved with the whole energy of his strong mind. When death separated him from what he loved, the few who witnessed his agonies trembled for his reason and liis life. To a very small circle of intimate friends, on whose fidelity and secrecy he could absolutely de- pend, he was a different man from the reserved and stoical William whom the multitude sup]~)Osed to be destitute of human feelings. He was kind, cordial, open, even convivial and jocose, would sit at table many hours, and would bear his full share in festive conversation. Highest in his favor stood a gentleman of his household named Bentinck, sprung from a noble Batavian race, and destined to be the founder of one of the great patrician houses of England. The fidel- ity of Bentinck had been tried by no common test. It was while the United Provinces were struggling for existence against the French power, that the young prince on whom all their hopes were fixed was seized by the small-pox. That disease had been fatal to many meiiibers of his family, and at first wore, in his case, a peculiarly malignant aspect. The public consternation was great. The streets of the Hague were crowded from daybreak to sunset by persons anxiously asking how his highness was. At length his complaint took a favorable turn. His escape was attributed partly to his own singular equanimity, and partly to the intrepid and in- defatigable friendship of Bentinck. From the hands of Ben- tinck alone William took food and medicine. By Bentinck alone William was lifted from his bed and laid down in it. Whether Bentinck slept or not while I was ill," said Wil- liam to Temple, with great tenderness, "I know not ; but this 436 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. I know, that, through sixteen days and niglits, I never once called for anything but that Bentinck was instantly at my side." Before the faithful servant had entirely performed his task, he had himself caught the contagion. Still, however, he bore up against drowsiness and fever till his master was pronounced convalescent. Then, at length, Bentinck asked leave to go home. It was time ; for his limbs would no longer support him. He was in great danger, but recovered, and, as soon as he left his bed, hastened to the army, where, during many sharp campaigns, he was ever found, as he had been in peril of a different kind, close to William's side. Such was the origin of a friendship as warm and pure as any that ancient or modern history records. The descen- dants of Bentinck still preserve many letters written by William to their ancestor ; and it is not too much to say, that no person who has not studied those letters can form a correct notion of the prince's character. He whom even his admirers generally accounted the most distant and frigid of men, here forgets all distinctions of rank, and pours out all his feelings with the ingenuousness of a schoolboy. He im- parts without reserve secrets of the highest moment. He explains with perfect simplicity vast designs affecting all the governments of Europe. Mingled with his communications on such subjects are other communications of a very differ- ent kind, but perhaps not of a less interesting kind. All his adventures, all his personal feelings, his long run after enor- mous stags, his carousals on St. Hubert's Day, the growth of his plantations, the failure of his melons, the state of his stud, his wish to procure an easy pad-nag for his wife, his vexation at learning that one of his household, after ruining a girl of good family, refused to marry her, his fits of sea- sickness, his coughs, his headaches, his devotional moods, his gratitude for the Divine protection after a great escape, his struggles to submit himself to the Divine will after a dis- aster, are described with an amiable garrulity hardly to have been expected from the most discreet and sedate statesman of the age. Still more remarkable is the careless effusion of his tenderness, and the brotherly interest wdiich he takes in his friend's domestic felicity. When an heir is born to Ben- tinck, " He will live, I hope," says William, " to be as good a fellow as you are ; and, if I should have a son, our chil- dren will love each other, I hope, as we have done." ^ Through life he continues to regard the little Bentincks * March 3, 1679. WILLIAM in., MARY IL, AND BISHOP BURNET. 437 with paternal kindness. He calls them by endearing dimin- utives ; he takes charge of them in their father's absence, and, though A^exed at being forced to refuse them any pleas- ure, will not suffer them to go on a hunting party, where there would be risk of a push from a stag's horn, or to sit up late at a riotous supper.^ When their mother is taken ill during her husband's absence, William, in the midst of business of the highest moment, finds time to send off sev- eral expresses in one day with short notes containing intel- ligence of her state, f On one occasion, when he is pro- nounced out of danger after a severe attack, the piince breaks forth into fervent expressions of gratitude to God. " I write," he says, " with tears of joy in my eyes." t There is a singular charm in such letters, penned by a man whose irresistible energy and inflexible firmness extorted the re- spect of his enemies, wdiose cold and ungracious demeanor repelled the attachment of almost all his partisans, and whose mind was occupied by gigantic schemes wdiich have changed the face of the world. His kindness was not misplaced. Bentinck was early- pronounced by Temple to be the best and truest servant that ever prince had the good fortune to possess, and continued through life to merit that honorable character. The friends were indeed made for each other. William wanted neither a guide nor a flatterer. Having a firm and. just reliance on his own judgment, he was not ])artial to counsellors who dealt much in suggestions and objections. At the same time, he had too much discernment, and too much elevation of mind, to be gratified by sycophancy. The confidant of such a prince ought to be a man, not of inventive genius or com- manding spirit, but brave and faithful, capable of executing orders punctually, of keeping secrets inviolably, of observ- ing facts vigilantly, and of reporting them truly; and such a man was Bentinck. William was not less fortunate in marriage than in friendship ; yet his marriage had not at first promised much domestic happiness. His choice had been deter- mined chiefly by political considerations ; nor did it seem likely that any strong affection would grow up between a handsome girl of sixteen, well disposed indeed, and natu- * "Viola en pen de mot le detail de iiostre St. Hubert. Et j'ay ou soin que M. Woodstoc " (Beutiiic'k's eldest sou) " n'a point este a la cliasse, bleu moiu au soupe, quoyqu'il fut icy. Vous pouvez pourtaut croire que de u'avoir parchassa I'a un peu mortifie, mais je ue I'ay pas aus6 prendre sur moy, puis>que voua m'aviez dit que vous ne la souliai tiez pas." From Loo, Nov. 4, 1697. t on the 15th of June, 1688. t Sept. 6, 1679. 438 MAC AULA y's MISCELLANEOUS WKITINGS. rally intelligent, but ignorant and simple, and a bride- groom who, though he had not completed his twenty eighth year, was in constitution older than her father, whose manner was chilling, and whose head was constantly occupied by public business or by field sports. For a time William was a negligent husband. He was, indeed, drawn away from his wife by other women, particularly by one of her ladies, Elizabeth Villiers, who, though des- titute of personal attractions, and disfigured by a hideous squint, possessed talents which well fitted her to partake his cares."^ He was, indeed, ashamed of his errors, and spared no pains to conceal them ; but, in spite of all his pre- cautions, Mary well knew that he w^as not strictly faithful to her. Spies and tale-bearers, encouraged hy her father, did their best to inliame her resentment. A man of a very dif- ferent character, the excellent Ken, who was her chaplain at the Hague during some months, was so mucli incensed by her wrongs, that he, with more zeal than discretion, threat- ened to reprimand her husband severely. f She, however, bore her injuries with a meekness and patience which de- served, and gradually obtained, William's esteem and grati- tude. Yet there still remained one cause of estrangement. A time would probably come when the princess, who had been educated only to work embroidery, to play on the spinet, and to read the Bible and the Whole Duty of Man, would be the chief of a great monarchy, and would hold the balance of Europe, while her lord, ambitious, versed in affairs, and bent on great enterprises, would find in the British government no place marked out for him, and would hold power only from her bounty and during her pleasure. It is not strange that a man so fond of autliority as William, and so conscious of a genius for command, should have strongly felt that jealousy which, during a few hours of royalty, put dissension between Guilford Dudley and the Lady Jane, and w^hich produced a rupture still more tragical betw^een Darnley and the Queen of Scots. The Princess of Orange had not the faintest suspicion of her husband's feel- ings. Her preceptor. Bishop Compton, had instructed her carefully in religion, and had especially guarded her rc ind against the arts of Roman Catholic divines, but had left her profoundly ignorant of the English Constitution and of her * See Swift's account of her in the Journal to Stella. t Henry Sidney's Journal of March 31, 1680, in Mr. Blencowe's interesting col- lection. WILLIAM III., MARY II., XND BISHOP KUliXKT. 439 own position. She knew that her marriage vow bound her to obey her husband ; and it had never occurred to her that the relation in which they stood to each other might one day be inverted. She had been nine years married before she discovered the cause of William's discontent ; nor would she evei have learned it from himself. In general, his tem- per inclined him i-ather to brood over his griefs, than to give utterance to them ; and in this pjarticular case his lips were gealed by a very natural delicacy. At length a complete ex- planation and reconciliation were brought about by the agency of Gilbert Burnet. The fame of Burnet has been attacked with singular malice and pertinacity. The attack began early in his life, and is still carried on with undiminished vigor, though he has noAV been more than a century and a quarter in his grave. He is, indeed, as fair a mark as factious animosity and petulant wit could desire. The faults of his under- standing and temper lie on the surface, and cannot be missed. They were not the faults which are ordinarily considered as belonging to his country. Alone among the many Scotch- men who have raised themselves to distinction and prosper- ity in England, he had that character which satirists, novel- ists, and dramatists have agreed to ascribe to Irish adven- turers. His high animal spirits, his boastfulness, his undis- sembled vanity, his propensity to blunder, his provoking in- discretion, his unabashed audacity, afforded inexhaustible subjects of ridicule to the Tories. Nor did his enemies omit to compliment him, sometimes with more pleasantry than delicacy, on the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of his calves, and his success in matrimonial projects on amorous and opulent widows. Yet Burnet, though open in many respects to ridicule, and even to serious censure, was no con- temptible man. His parts were quick, his industry un- wearied, his reading various and most extensive. He was at once an historian, an antiquary, a theologian, a preacher, a pamphleteer, a debater, and an active political leader ; and in every one of those characters made himself conspicuous among able competitors. The many spirited tracts which he wrote on passing events are now known only to the curious ; but his History of his Own Times, his History of the Reformation, his exposition of the Articles, his Dis- course of Pastoral Care, his Life of Hale, his Life of Wil- mot, are still reprinted, nor is any good private library with- out them. Against such a fact as this all the efforts of de* 440 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. tractors are vain. A writer, whose voluminous works, in several branches of literature, find numerous readers a hun- dred and thirty years after his death, may have had great faults, but must also have had great merits ; and Burnet had great merits, a fertile and vigorous mind, and a style far in- deed removed from faultless purity, but always clear, often lively, and sometimes rising to solemn and fervid eloquence. In the pulpit the effect of his discourses, which were de- livered without any note, was heightened by a noble figure and by pathetic action. He was often interrupted by the deep hum of his audience ; and when, after preaching out the hour-glass, which in those days was part of the furniture of the pulpit, he held it up in his hand, the congregation clamorously encouraged him to go on till the sand had run off once more.^ In his moral charactei', as in his intellect, great blemishes were more than compensated by great excellence. Though often misled by prejudice and passion, he w^as emphatically an honest man. Though he was not secure from the seductions of vanity, his spirit w^as raised high above the influence either of cupidity or of fear. His nature was kind, generous, grateful, forgiving, t His religious zeal, though steady and ardent, was in general resti-ained by hu- manity, and by a respect for the -rights of conscience. Strongly attached to what he regarded as the spirit of Christianity, he looked with indifference on rites, names and forms of ecclesiastical polity, and was by no means disposed to be severe even on infidels and heretics whose lives were pure, and whose errors appeared to be the effect rather of some perversion of the understanding than of the depravity of the heart. But, like many other good men of that age, he regarded the case of the Church of Kome as an exception to all ordinary rules. Burnet, during some years, had had a European reputa- tion. His history of the Reformation had been received with loud applause by all Protestants, and had been felt by * Speaker Onslow's note on Burnet, i. 596 ; Jolmson's Life of Sprat. 1 No person has contradicted Burnet more frequently or with more asperity than Dartmouth ; yet Dartmouth says, "I do not think he designedly published anything he believeid spirit. In a worldly sense, the fidelity of Churchill's love was amply rewarded. His bride, though slenderly portioned, brought with her a dowry, which, judiciously employed, made him at length a duke of England, a sovereign prince of the empire, the captain-genernl of a great coalition, the arbiter between mighty pi-inces, and, what he valued more, the wealthiest subject in Eurojie. She had been brought up from childhood with the Princess Anne, and a close friend- ship had arisen between the girls. In character they re- sembled each other very little. Anne was slow and taciturn. * (rrammmit's Memoirs ; P3py5>" Dinry. Feb. 21, ir>R4-5. THE DUCHESS OF MARLEOKOUGH. 447 To those whom slie loved she was meek. Tlie form which her anger assumed was siillenness. She liad a strong sense of religion, and was attached, even with bigotry, to the rites and government of the Church of England. Sarah was lively and voluble, domineered over those whom she regarded with most kindness, and, when she was offended, vented her rage in tears and tempestuous reproaches. To sanctity she made no pretence, and, indeed, narrowly esca]jed the imputation of irreligion. She was not yet what she became when one class of vices had been fully developed in her by prosperity, and another by adversity, Avhen her brain had been turned by success and flattery, when her heart had been ulcerated by disasters and mortifications. She lived to be that most odious and miserable of human beings, an ancient crone at war with her whole kind, at war with her own children and grandchildren, great indeed and rich, but valuing greatness and riches cliiefly because they enabled her to brave public opinion, and to indulge without restraint her hatred to the living and the dead. In the reign of James she was re- garded as nothing worse than a fine, high-spirited young woman, who could now and then be cross and arbitrary, but whose flaws of temper might well be pardoned in considera- tion of her charms. It is a common observation, that differences of taste, un derstanding, and disposition, are no impediments to friend- ship, and that the closest intimacies often exist between minds each of which supplies what is wanting to the other. Lady Churchill was loved and even worshipped by Anne. The princess could not live apart from the object of her ro- mantic fondness. She married, and was a faithful and even an affectionate wife; but Prince George, a dull man, whose chief pleasures were derived from his dinner and his bottle, acquired over her no influence comparable to that exercised by her female friend, and soon gave himself up with stupid patience to the dominion of that vehement and commanding spirit by which his wife was governed. Children were born to the royal pair, and Anne was by no means without the feelings of a mother; but the tenderness which she felt for her offspring was languid when compared with her devotion to the companion of her early years. At length the princess became impatient of the restraint which etiquette imposed on her. She could not bear to hear the words Madam and Royal Highness from the lips of one who was more to her than a sister. Such words were indeed necessary in the gal- 448 MACAULAy's miscellaneous WETXmGS. lery or the drawing-room, but they were disused in the closet. Anne was Mrs. Morley; Lady Churchill was Mrs. Freeman ; and under these childish names was carried on, during twenty years, a correspondence on which at last the fate of administrations and dynasties depended. But as yet Anne had no political power and little patronage. Her friend attended her as first lady of the bed chamber, with a salary of only four hundred pounds a year. There is reason, liowever, to believe that, even at this time, Churchill was able to gratify his ruling passion by means of his wife's in- fluence. The princess, though her income was large and her tastes simple, contracted debts which her father, not witliout some murmurs, discharged ; and it was rumored, that her embarrassments had been caused by her prodigal bounty to her favorite. At length the time had arrived when this singular friend- ship was to exercise a great influence on public affairs. What part Anne would take in the contest which distracted England was matter of deep anxiety. Filial duty was on one side. The interests of the religion to which she was sincerely attached were on the other. A less inert nature might well have remained long in suspense when drawn in opposite directions by motives so strong and so respectable. But the influence of the Churchills decided the question, and their patroness became an important member of that exten- sive league of which the Prince of Orange was the head. AUBREY DE VERE, EARL OF OXFORD. The noblest subject in England, and, indeed, as Eng- lishmen loved to say, the noblest subject in Europe, was Aubrey de Vere, twentieth and last of the old Earls of Ox- ford. He derived his title through an uninterrupted male descent from a time when the families of Howard and Sey- mour were still obscure, when the Nevilles and Percies enjoyed only a provincial celebrity, and when even the great name of Plantagenet had not yet been heard in Eng- * It would be endless to recount all the books from whicb 1 have formed my estimate of the duchess's character. Her own letters, her own vindication, and the replies which it called forth, have been my chief materials. CHARLES TALBOT, EARL OF SHREWSBURY. 449 land. One chief of the house of De Vcre had held high command at Hastings ; another had marched, with Godfrey and Tancred, over heaps of slaughtered Moslems, to the sepulchre of Christ. The first earl of Oxford had been min- ister of Henry Beauclerc. The third earl had been con- spicuous among the lords who extorted the Great Charter from John. The seventh earl had fought bravely at Ci-essy and Poictiers. The tliirteenth earl had, through many vicissitudes of fortune, been the chief of the party of the Red Rose, and had led the van on the decisive day of Bos- worth. The seventeenth earl had shone at the court of Elizabeth, and had won for himself an honorable place among the early masters of English poetry. The nineteenth earl had fallen in arms for the Protestant religion and for the liberties of Europe under the walls of Maestricht. His son Aubrey, in whom closed the longest and most illustrious line of nobles that England had seen, a man of inoffensive temper and courtly manners, was lord lieutenant of Essex, and colonel of the Blues. His nature was not factious, and his interest inclined him to avoid a rupture with the court ; for his estate was encumbered, and his military command lucrative. He was summoned to the royal closet, and an explicit declaration of his intentions was demanded from him. " Sir," answered Oxford, "I will stand by your majesty against all enemies to the last drop of my blood. But this is matter of conscience, and I cannot comply." He was instantly deprived of his lieutenancy and of his regiment.^ CHARLES TALBOT, EARL OF SHREWSBURY. It^ferior in rank and s])lendor to the house of De Vere, but to the house of De Yei-e alone, was the House of Tal- bot. Ever since the reign of Edward the Third, the Talbots had sat among the ])eers of the realm. The earldom of Shrewsbury had been bestowed, in the fifteenth century, on *Halstead's Succinct Genealogy of the Family of Vere, 1685 ; CoUins's His- torical Collections. See in the Lords' Jom-nals, and in Jones's reports, tbe pro- ceedings respecting the earldom of Oxford, in March and April, 1625-6. The exordium of the speech of Lord Chief Justice Crewe is among the finest speci- mens of the ancient English eloquence. Citters, Feb. 7-17, 1688. Vol. Ill— 29 450 macatjlat's miscellaneous writings. John Talbot, the antagonist of the Maid oi Orleans. He had been long remembered by his countrymen with tender ness and reverence as one of the most illustrious of those warriors who had striven to erect a great English empire on the continent of Europe. The stubborn courage which he had shown in the midst of disasters had made him an ob- ject of interest greater than more fortunate captains had inspired, and his death had furnished a singularly touching scene to our early stage. His posterity had, during two centuries, flourished in great honor. Tlie head bf the family at the time of the Restoration was Francis, the eleventh earl, a Roman Catholic. His death had been attended by circumstances such as, even in those licentious times which immediately followed the downfall of the Puritan tyranny, nad moved men to horror and pity. The Duke of Bucking- ham, in the course of his vagrant amours, was for a moment attracted by the Countess of Shrewsbury. She was easily won. Her lord challenged the gallant, and fell. Some said that the abandoned woman witnessed the combat in man's attire, and others that she clasped her victorious lover to her bosom while his shirt was still dripping with the blood of her husband. The honors of the murdered man de- scended to his infant son Charles. As the orphan grew up to man's estate, it was generally acknowledged that of the young nobility of England none had been so richly gifted by nature. His person was pleasing, his temper singularly sweet, his parts such as, if he had been born in an humble rank, might well have raised him to the height of civil greatness. All these advantages he had so improved, that, before he was of age, he was allowed to be one of the finest gentlemen and finest scholars of his time. His learning is proved by notes which are still extant in his handwriting on books in almost every department of literature. He spoke French like a gentleman of Louis' bed-chamber, and Italian like a citizen of Florence. It was impossible that a youth of such parts should not be anxious to understand the grounds on which his family had refused to conform to the religion of the state. He studied the disputed points closely, submitted his doubts to priests of his own faith, laid their answers before Tillotson, weighed the arguments on both sides long and attentively, and, after an investigation which occupied two years, declared himself a Protestant. The Church of England welcomed the illustrious convert with delight. His popularity was great, and became greater CRATILES SACKVTLLE, EAKL OF DORSET. 451 w]ieT) it was known that royal solicitations and promises had been vainly employed to seduce him back to the super- stition which he had abjured. Tlie character of the young earl did not, however, develop itself in a manner quite satisfactory to those who had borne the chief part in his couA^ersion. His morals by no means escaped the contagion of fashionable libertinism. In truth, the shock which had overturned his eai'ly prejudices had at the same time un- fixed all his opinions, and left liim to the unchecked guid- ance of his feelings; but, though his principles were un- steady, his impulses were so generous, his temper so bland, his manners so gracious and easy, that it was impossible not to love him. He was early called the King of Hearts, and never, through a long, eventful, and checkered life, lost his right to that name. * Shrewsbury w^s lord lieutenant of Staffordshire, and colonel of one of the regiments of horse which had been raised in consequence of the western insurrection. He now refused to act under the board of regulators, and was de- prived of both his commissions. CHARLES SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET. None of the English nobles enjoyed a larger measure of public favor than Charles Sackville, earl of Dorset. He was, indeed, a remarkable man. In his youth he had been one of the most notorious libertines of the wild time which fol- lowed the Restoration. He had been the terror of the city watch, had passed many nights in the round bouse, and had at least once occupied a cell in Newgate. His passion for Betty Morrice and for Nell Gwynn, who always called him her Charles the First, had given no small amusement and scandal to the town. Yet, in the midst of follies and vices, his courageous spirit, his fine understanding, and his natural goodness of heart, had been conspicuous. Men said that the excesses in which he indulged were common between him and the whole race of gay young Cavaliers, but that his * Coxe's Shrewsbury Correspondence ; Mackay's Memoirs ; Life of Charles, Duke of Shrewsbury, illS ; Burnet, i. 762 ; Birch's Life of Tillotson, where the reader will find a letter from Tillotson to Shrewsbury, which seems to me a model of serious, friendly, and gentlemanlike reproof. 452 MACAULAY^S mSCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. sympathy with human suffering and the generosity with which he made reparation to those whom his freaks had injured, were all his own. His associates were astonished by the distinction which the public made between him and them. "He may do what he chooses," said Wilmot ; "he is never in the wrong." The judgment of the world be- came still more favorable to Dorset when he had been sobered by time and marriage. His graceful manners, his brilliant convei'sation, his soft heart, his open hand, were universally praised. No day passed, it was said, in which some distressed family had not reason to bless his name. And yet, with all his good nature, such was the keenness of his wit, that scoffers whom all the town feared, stood in craven fear of the sarcasm of Dorset. All political parties esteemed and caressed him ; but politics were not much to his taste. Had he been driven by necessity to exert himself, he would probably have risen to the highest posts in the state; but he was born to rank so high and wealth so amj^le, that many of the motives which impel men to en- gage in public affairs were wanting in him. He took just so much part in parliamentary and diplomatic business as sufficed to show that he wanted nothing but inclination to rival Danby and Sunderland, and turned away to pursuits which pleased him better. Like many other men who, with great natural abilities, are constitutionally and habitu- ally indolent, he became an intellectual voluptuary, and a master of all those pleasing branches of knowledge which can be acquired without severe application. He was al- lowed to be the best judge of painting, of sculpture, of architecture, of acting, that the court could show. On ques- tions of polite learning, his decisions were regarded at all th.e coffee-houses as without appeal. More than one clever play which had failed on the first representation was supported by his single authority against the whole clamor of the pit, and came forth successful from the second trial. The del- icacy of his taste in French composition Avas extolled by Saint Evremond and La Fontaine. Such a patron of letters England had never seen. His bounty was bestowed with equal judgment and liberality, and was confined to no sect or faction. Men of genius, estranged from each other by literary jealousy or by difference of political opinion, joined in acknowledging his impartial kindness. Dryden owned that he had been saved from ruin by Dorset's princely generosity. Yet Montague and Prior, who had keenly WILLIAM WILLIAMS, SOLICITOR GENKIiAL, 453 satirized Drydeii, were introduced by Dorset into public life ; and the best comedy of Dryden's mortal enemy, Shad- well, was written at Dorset's country seat. The munificent earl might, if such had been his wish, have been the rival of those of whom he was content to be the benefactor ; for the verses which he occasionally composed, unstudied as they are, exhibit the traces of a genius which, assiduously culti- vated, would have produced something great. In the small volume of his works may be found songs which have the easy vigor of Suckling, and little satires which sparkle witii wit as splendid as that of Butler. ^ WILLIAM WILLIAMS, SOLICITOR GENERAL. No barrister living had opposed the court with more virulence than William Williams. He had distinguished himself in the late reign as a Whig and an Exclusionist. When faction was at the height, he had been chosen speaker of the House of Commons. After the prorogation of the Oxford Parliament, he had commonly been counsel for the most noisy demagogues who had been accused of sedition. He was allowed to possess considerable parts and knowledge. His chief faults were supposed to be rashness and party spirit. It was not yet suspected that he had faults com- pared with which rashness and party spirit might well pass for virtues. The government sought occasion against him, and easily found it. He had published, by order of the House of Commons, a narrative which Dangerfield had writ- ten. This narrative, if published by a private man, would undoubtedly have been a seditious libel. A criminal in* formation was filed in the King's Bench against Williams : he pleaded the privileges of Parliament in vain ; he was con- * Pepys's Diary ; Prior's dedication of his poem to the Duke of Dorset ; Diy- den's Essay on Satire, and Dedication of the Essay on Dramatic Poesy. The affection of Dorset for his wife, and his strict fidelity to her, are mentioned with great contempt by that profligate coxcomb Sir George Etherege, in his letters from Katisbon, Dec. 9-19, 1687, and Jan. 16-26, 16s8 ; Shadvvell's Dedication oi the Squire of Alsatia ; Burnet, i. 261 ; Mackay's Characters. Some parts of Dor- Bet's character are well touched in this epitaph, written by Pope : — " Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay ; and again :— "Bless'd courtier, who could king and country please, Yet sacred keep his friendships and his ease." 454 MACAULAy's miscellaneous WIUTINGS. victed, and sentenced to a line of ten thousand pounds. A large part of this sum he actually paid ; for the rest, he gave a bond. The Earl of Peterborough, who had been injuri- ously mentioned in Dangerli eld's narrative, was encouraged by the success of the criminal information, to bring a civil action, and to demand large damages. Williams was driven to extremity. At this juncture a way of escape presented itself. It was, indeed, a way which, to a man of strong principles or high spirit, would have been more dreadful than beggary, imprisonment, or death. He might sell him- self to that government of which he had been the enemy and the victim. He might offer to go on the forlorn hope in every assault on those liberties and on that religion for which he had professed an inordinate zeal. He might ex- piate his Whiggism by performing services from which bigotted Tories, stained with the blood of Russell and Sid- ney, shrank in horror. The bargain was struck. The debt still due to the crown was remitted. Peterborough was in- duced, by royal mediation, to compromise his action. Saw- yer was dismissed. Powis became attorney general. Wil- liams was made solicitor, received tlie honor of knighthood, and was soon a favorite. Though in rank he was only the second law officer of the crown, his abilities, learning, and energy were such that he completely threw his superior into the shade. ^ HENRY SIDNEY, BROTHER OF ALGERNON. It is remarkable that both Edward Russell and Henry Sidney had been in the household of James, that both had, partly on public and partly on private grounds, become his enemies, and they both had, to avenge the blood of near kinsmen who had, in the same year, fallen victims to his im- placable severity. Here the resemblance ends. Russell, with considerable abilities, was proud, acrimonious, restless, and violent. Sidney, with a sweet temper and winning * London Gazette, Dec. 15, 1687. See the proceedings against Williams in the Collection of State Trials, " Ha hecho," says Ronquillo, " grande susLo el haber nombrado el abogado Williams, que fue el oiador y el mas arrabiado de toda la cassa des comunes en los ultimos terribles parlamentos del Rey difunto."— • Nov. 27— Dec. 7, 1G87. SCHOMBERG. 455 manners, seemed to be deficient in capacity and knowledge, and to be sunk in voluptuousness and indolence. His face and form were eminently handsome. In his youth he had been the terror of husbands ; and even now, at near fifty, he was the favorite of women and the envy of younger men. He had formerly resided at the Hague in a public character, and had then succeeded in obtaining a large share of Wil- liam's conlidence. Many wondered at this ; for it seemed that between the most austere of statesmen and the most dissolute of idlers there could be nothing in common. Swift, many years later, could not be convinced that one whom he had known only as an illiterate and frivolous old rake could really have played a great part in a great revolution. Yet a less acute observer than Swift might have been aware that there is a certain tact, resembling an instinct, which is often wanting to great orators and philosophers, and which is often found in persons who, if judged by their conversation or by their w^ritings, would be pronounced simpletons. Indeed, when a man possesses this tact, it is in some sense an ad- vantage to him that he is destitute of those more showy talents which w^ould make him an object of admiration, of envy, and of fear. Sidney w^as a remarkable instance of this truth. Incapable, ignorant, and dissipated as he seemed to be, he understood, or rather felt, with whom it was neces- sary to be reserved, and with whom he might safely venture to be communicative. The consequence was, that he did what Mordaunt, with all his vivacity and invention, or Bur- net, with all his multifarious knowledge and fluid elocution, never could have done. ^ SCHOMBERG. The prince had already fixed upon a general w^ell quali- fied to be second in command. This w^as indeed no light matter. A random shot or the dagger of an assassin might in a moment leave the expedition without a head. It was necessary that a successor should be ready to fill the vacant place ; yet it was impossible to make choice of any English- * Sidney's Diary and Correspondence, edited by Mr. Bleucowe ; Mackay's Memoirs with Swift's Note ; Burnet, i. 763. 456 MA CAUL ay's miscellaneous writings. man without giving offence either to the Whigs or to the Tories ; nor had any Englishman then living shown that he possessed the military skill necessary for the conduct of a campaign. On the other hand, it was not easy to assign pre-eminence to a foreigner without wounding the national sensibility of the haughty islanders. One man there was, and only one in Europe, to whom no objection could be found, Frederic, count of Schomberg, a German, sprung from a noble house of the Palatinate. He was generally esteemed the greatest living master of the art of war. His rectitude and piety, tried by strong temptations and never found wanting, commanded general respect and confidence. Though a Protestant, he had been, during many years, in the service of Louis, and had, in spite of the ill offices of the Jesuits, extorted from his employer, by a series of great ac- tions, the staff of a marshal of France. When persecution began to rage, the brave veteran steadfastly refused to pur- chase the royal favor by apostasy, resigned, without one murmur, all his honors and commands, quitted his adopted country forever, and took refuge at the court of Berlin. He had passed his seventieth year ; but both his mind and his body Avere still in full vigor. He had been in England, and was much loved and honored there. He had, indeed, a recommendation of which very few foreigners could then boast ; for he spoke our language, not only intelligibly, but with grace and purity. He was, with the consent of the Elector of Brandenburg, and with the warm approbation of the chiefs of the English parties, appointed William's lieut- enant.^ JOHN LORD LOVELACE. Men of higher consequence had already set out from different parts of the country for Exeter. The first of these was John Lord Lovelace, distinguished by his taste, by his magnificence, and by the audacious and intemperate vehe- mence of his Whiggism. He had been five or six times arrested for political offences. The last crime laid to his charge was, that he had contemptuously denied the validity * Abr6g6 de la Vie de Frederic Due de Schomberg, 1690 ; Sidney to William June 30, 1688 ; Burnet, i. 677. JOHN LORD LOVELACE. 457 of a warrant signed by a lioman Catholic justice of the peace. He had been brought before tlie Piivy Council and strictly examined, but to little pur|)ose. He resolutely re- fused to criminate himself ; and the evidence against him was insufficient. He was dismissed ; but, before he retired, James exclaimed, in great heat, " My lord, this is not the first trick that you have ])layed me." "Sir," answered Lovelace, with undaunted spirit, " I never played a trick to your majesty, or to any other person. Whoever has accused me to your majesty of playing tricks, is a liar." Lovelace had subsequently been admitted into the confidence of those who planned the Ke volution. ^ His mansion, built by his ancestors out of the spoils of Spanish galleons from the Indies, rose on the ruins of a house of Our Lady in that beautiful valley through which the Thames, not yet defiled V)y the precincts of a great capital, nor rising and failing with the flow and ebb of the sea, rolls under woods of beech round the gentle hills of Berkshire. Beneath the stately saloon, adorned by Italian pencils, Avas a subterraneous vault, in which the bones of ancient monks had sometimes been found. In this dark chamber some zealous and daring opponents of the government had held many midnight con- ferences during that anxious time when England was im- patiently expecting the Protestant wind, t The season for action had now arrived. Lovelace, with seventy followers, well armed and mounted, quitted his dwelling, and directed his course westward. He reached Gloucestershire without difficulty. But Beaufort, who governed that county, was exerting all his great authority and influence in support of the crown. The militia had been called out. A strong party had been posted at Cirencester. When Lovelace arrived there, he was informed that he could not be suffered to pass. It was necessary for him either to relinquish his undertak- ing, or to flght his way through. He resolved to force a passage ; and his friends and tenants stood gallantly by him. A sharp conflict took pLace. The militia lost an officer and six or seven men ; but at length the followers of Lovelace were overpowered ; he was made a prisoner, and sent to Gloucester Castle. $ * Johnstone, Feb. 27, 1688 ; Citters of the same date. t Lysons, Magna Britannia, Berkshire. $ London Gazette, Nov. 15, 1688; Luttrell's Diary. ^58 MACAULAY's miscellaneous WKITINGS. ANTONINE, COUNT OF LAUZUN. It was not very easy to find an Englishman of rank and honor who would undertake to place the heir apparent of tlie English crown in the hands of the king of France. In lliese circumstances, James bethought him of a French nobleman who then resided in London, Antonine, count of Lauzun. Of this man it has been said that his life was stranger than the dreams of other people. Early in life he hud been the intimate associate of Louis, and had been en- couraged to expect the highest employments under the French crown. Then his fortunes had undergone an eclipse. Louis had driven from him the friend of his youth with bitter reproaches, and had, it was said, scarcely refrained from adding blows. The fallen favorite had been sent prisoner to a fortress ; but he had emerged from his con- finement, had again enjoyed the smiles of his master, and hp.d gained the heart of one of the greatest ladies in Europe, Anna Maria, daughter of Gaston, Duke of Orleans, grand- daughter of King Henry the Fourth, and heiress of the im- mense domains of the house of Montpensier. The lovers were bent on marriage. The royal consent was obtained. During a few hours, Lauzun was regarded by the court as an adopted member of the house of Bourbon. The portion which the princess brought with her might well have been an object of competition to sovereigns : three great duke- doms, an independent principality, with its own mint and with its own tribunals, and an income greatly exceeding the whole revenue of the kingdom of Scotland. But this splendid prospect had been overcast. The match had been broken off. The aspiring suitor had been, during many years, shut up in an Alpine castle. At length Louis relented. Lauzun was forbidden to appear 'in the royal presence, but was allc>wed to enjoy liberty at a distance from the court. He visited England, and was well received at the palace of James and in the fashionable circles of London ; for in that age the gentlemen of France were regarded throughout Europe as models of grace ; and many chevaliers and vis- counts, who had never been admitted to the interior circle at Versailles, found themselves objects of general curiosity and admiration at Whitehall. Lauzun was in every respect TUB FIRST MINISTRY OF WILLIAM III. 459 the man for the present emergency. He had courage and a sense of honor, had been accustomed to eccentric adven- tures, and, with the keen observation and ironical pleasantry of a finished man of the world, had a strong propensity to knight errantry. All his national feelings and all his per- sonal interests impelled him to undertake the adventure from which the most devoted subjects of the English crown seemed to shrink. As the guardian, at a perilous crisis, of the Queen of Great Britain and of the Prince of Wales, he might return with honor to his native land ; he might once more be admitted to see Louis dress and dine, and might, after so many vicissitudes, recommence, in the decline of life, the strangely fascinating chase of royal favor. THE FIRST MIISriSTRY OF WILLIAM III. The internal government of England could be carried on only by the advice and agency of English ministers. Those ministers William selected in such a manner as showed that he was determined not to proscribe any set of men w^ho were willing to support his throne. On the day after the crown had been presented to him in the Banqueting House, the Privy Council was sworn in. Most of the Councillors were Whigs ; but the names of several eminent Tories ap- peared in the list."^ The four highest offices in the state were assigned to four noblemen, the representatives of four classes of politicians. In practical ability and official experience Danby had no superior among his contemporaries. To the gratitude of the new Sovereigns he had a strong claim ; for it was by his dexterity that their marriage had been brought about in spite of difficulties which had seemed insuper- able. The enmity w^hich he had ahvays borne to France, was a scarcely less powerful recommendation. He had signed the invitation of the thirtieth of June, had excited and directed the northern insurrection, and had, in the Con- vention, exerted all his influence and eloquence in opposition 10 the scheme of Regency. Yet the Whigs regarded him * London Gazette, Feb. 18, 1688-9. macaulay's miscellaneous wkitings. • with unconquerable distrust and aversion. They could not forget that he had, in evil days, been tlie first minister of the state, the head of the Cavaliers, the champion of the pre- rogative, the persecutor of dissenters. Even in becoming a rebel, he had not ceased to be a Tory. If he had drawn the sword against the Crown, he had drawn it only in defence of the Church. If he had, in the Convention, done good by opposing the scheme of Kegency, he had done harm by ob- stinately maintaining that the throne was not vacant, and that the Estates had no right to determine who should fill it. The Whigs were therefore of opinion that he ought to think himself amply rewarded for his recent merits, by being suffered to escape the punishment of those offences for which he had been impeached ten years before. He, on the other hand, estimated his own abilities and services, which were doubtless considerable, at their full value, and thought himself entitled to the great place of Lord High Treasurer, which he had formerly held. But he was disap- pointed. William, on principle, thought it desirable to divide the power and patronage of the Treasury among sev- eral Commissioners. He was the first English King who never, from the beginning to the end of his reign, trusted the white staff in the hands of a single subject. Danby was offered his choice between the Presidency of the Council and a Secretaryship of State. He sullenly accepted the Presidency, and, while the Whigs murmured at seeing him placed so high, hardly attempted to conceal his anger at not having been placed higher."^ Halifax, the most illustrious man of that small party which boasted that it kept the balance even between Whigs and Tories, took charge of the Privy Seal, and continued to be Speaker of the House of Lords. t He had been foremost in strictly legal opposition to the late Government, and had spoken and written with great ability against the dispensing power; but he had refused to know anything about the de- sign of invasion : he had labored, even when the Dutch were in full march towards London, to effect a reconcili- ation ; and he had never deserted James till James had deserted the throne. But from the moment of that shame- ful flight, the sagacious Trimmer, convinced that compro- mise was thenceforth impossible, had taken a decided part. He had distinguished himself pre-eminently in the Conven- * London Gazette, Feb. 18, 1688-9 ; Sir J. Reresby's Memoirs, t London Gazette, Feb. 18, 1688-9 ; Lords' Journala. THE FIRST MINISTRY OF WILLIAM III. 461 tion ; nor was it witliout a peculiar propriety that lie liad been appointed to the honorable office of tendering the crown, in the name of all the Estates of England, to the Prince and Princess of Orange; for our Revolution, as far as it can be said to bear the character of any single mind, assuredly bears the character of the large yet cautious mind of Halifax. The Whigs, however, were not in a temper to accept a recent service as an atonement for an old offen(;e; and the offence of Halifax had been grave indeed. He had long before been conspicuous in their front rank during a hard fight for liberty. When they were at length victori- ous, when it seemed that Whitehall was at their mercy, when they had a near prospect of dominion and revenge, he had changed sides ; and fortune had changed sides with him. In the great debate on the Exclusion Bill, his elo- quence had struck them dumb, and had put new life into the inert and desponding party of the Court. It was true that, though he had left them in the day of their insolent prosperity, he had returned to them in the day of their dis- tress. But, now that their distress was over, they forgot that he had returned to them, and remembered only that he nad left them.'^ The vexation with which they saw Danby presiding in the Council, and Halifax bearing the Privy Seal, was not diminished by the news that jS'ottingham was appointed Secretary of State. Some of those zealous churchmen who had never ceased to profess the doctrine of non-resistance, who thought the Revolution unjustifiable, who had voted for a Regency, and who had to the last maintained that the English throne could never be one moment vacant, yet con- ceived it to be their duty to submit to the decision of the Convention. They had not, they said, rebelled against James. They had not selected William. But, now that they saw on the throne a Sovereign whom they never would have placed there, they were of opinion that no law, divine or human, bound them to carry the contest further. They thought that they found, both in the Bible and in the Statute Book, directions which could not be misunderstood. The Bible enjoins obedience to the jDowers that be. The Statute Book contains an act providing that no subject shall be deemed a wrongdoer for adhering to the King in posses- sion. On these grounds many, Avho had not concurred in setting up the new government, believed that they might * Burnett, ii. 4. 462 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. give it tlieir support without offence to God or man. One of the most eminent politicians of this school was Not- tingham. At his instance the Convention had, before the throne was filled, made such changes in the oath of allegi- ance as enabled him and those who agreed with him, to take that oath without scruple. " My principles," he said, " do not permit me to bear any part in making a King. But when a King has been made, my principles bind me to pay him an obedience more strict than he can expect from those who have made him." He now, to the surprise of some of those who most esteemed him, consented to sit in the council, and to accept the seals of Secretary. William doubtless hoped that this appointment would be considered by the clergy and the Tory country gentlemen as a sufficient guarantee that no evil was meditated against the Church. Even Burnet, who at a later period felt a strong antipathy to Nottingham, owned, in some memoirs written soon after the Revolution, that the King had judged well ; and that the influence of the Tory Secretary, honestly exerted in sup- port of tlie new Sovereigns, had saved England from great calamities.^ The other Secretary was Shrewsbury. f No man so young had within living memory occupied so high a post in the government. He had but just completed his twenty- eighth year. Nobody, however, except the solemn formal- ists at the Spanish embassy, thought his youth an objection to his promotion 4 He had already secured for himself a place in history by the conspicuous part which he had taken in the deliverance of his country. His talents, his accom- plishments, his graceful manners, his bland temper, made him generally popular. By the Whigs especially he was al- most adored. None suspected that, with many great and * These Memoirs will be found in a manuscript volume, which is part of the Harleian Collection, and is numbered 6584. They are, in fact, the first outlines of a great part of Burnet's History of His Owji Times. The dates at which the different portions of this most cnrious and interesting book were composed are marked. Almost the whole was written before the death of Mary. Burnet did not begin to prepare his History of William's reign for the press till ten years later. By that time his opinions, both of men and of things, had undergone great changes. The value of the rough draught is therefore very great : for it contains some facts which he afterwards thought it advisable to suppress, and eome judgments which he afterwards saw cause to alter. I must own that I gen- erally like his lirst thoughts best. Whenever his History is reprinted, it ought to be carefully collated with this volume. When I refer to the Burnet MS., Harl. 6584, I wish the reader to understand that the MS. contains something which is not to be found in the History. As to Nottingham's appointment, see Burnet, ii. 8 ; the London Gazette of March 7, 1688-9 ; and Clarendon's Diary of Feb. 15. t London Gazette, Feb. 18, 1688-9. t Don Pedro de Ronquillo makes this objection. UXPOPULARTTT OF WILLIAM III. 463 many amiable qualities, he had such faults both of head and of heart, as would make the rest of a life, which had opened under the fairest auspices, burdensome to himself and al- most useless to his country. UNPOPULARITY OF WILLIAM III. Unhappily, sarcasm and invective directed against Wil- liam were but too likely to find favorable audience. Each of the two great parties had its own reasons for being dis- satisfied with him ; and there were some complaints in which both parties joined. His manners gave almost uni- versal offence. He was, in truth, far better qualified to save a nation than to adorn a court. In the highest parts of states- manship, he had no equal among his contemporaries. He had formed plans not inferior in grandeur and boldness to those of Richelieu, and had carried them into effect with a tact and wariness wortliy of Mazarin. Two countries, the seats of civil liberty and of the Reformed Faith, had been preserved by his wisdom and courage from extreme perils. Holland he had delivered from foreign, and England from domestic foes. Obstacles apparently insurmountable had been interposed between him and the ends on which he was intent; and those obstacles his genius had turned into step- ping-stones. Under his dexterous management the hereditary enemies of his house had helped him to mount a throne ; and the persecutors of his religion had helped him to rescue his religion from persecution. Fleets and armies, collected to withstand him, had, without a struggle, submitted to his orders. Factions and sects, divided by mortal antipathies, had recognized him as their common head. Without car- nage, without devastation, he had won a victory compared with which all the victories of Gustavus and Turenne were insignificant. In a few weeks he had changed the relative position of all the states in Europe, and had restored the equilibrium which the preponderance of one power had destroyed. Foreign nations did ample justice to his great qualities. In every Continental country where Protestant congregations met, fervent thanks were offered to God, who, from among the progeny of Plis servants, Maurice, the de- 464 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. liverer of Germany, and William, the deliverer of Holland, had raised up a third deliverer, the wisest and mightiest of all. At Vienna, at Madrid, nay, at Rome, the valiant and sagacious heretic was held in honor ^as the chief of the great confederacy against the house of Bourbon; and even at Versailles the hatred which he inspired was largely mingled with admiration. Here he was less favorably judged. In truth, our an- cestors saw him in the worst of all liglits. By the Frencli, the Germans, and the Italians, he was contemplated at sut^h a distance that only what was great could be discerned, and that small blemishes were invisible. To the Dutch he was brought close: but he was himself a Dutchman. In his intercourse with them he was seen to the best advantage : he was perfectly at his ease with them ; and from among them he had chosen his earliest and dearest friends. But to the English he appeared in a most unfortunate point of view. He was at once too near to them and too far from them. He lived among them, so that the sm.allest peculiarity of temper or manner could not escape their notice. Yet he lived apart from them, and Avas to the last a foreigner in speech, tastes, and habits. One of the chief functions of our Sovereigns had long been to preside over the society of the capital. That func- tion Charles the Second had performed with immense success. His easy bow, his good stories, his style of dancing and play- ing tennis, the sound of his cordial laugh, were familiar to all London. One day he was seen among the elms of Saint James's Park, chatting with Dryden about poetry.^ Another day his arm was on Tom Durfey's shoulder ; and his majesty was taking a second, while his companion sang "Phillida, Phillida," or "To horse, brave boys, to Newmarket, to horse." t James, with much less vivacity and good nature, was accessible, and, to people who did not cross him, civil. But of this sociableness William was entirely destitute. He seldom came forth from his closet ; and, when he appeared in the public rooms, he stood among the crowd of courtiers and ladies, stern and abstracted, making no jest and smiling at none. His freezing look, his silence, the dry and concise answers which he uttered when he could keep silence no longer, disgusted noblemen and gentlemen w^ho had been accustomed to be slapped on the back by their royal masters, * See the account given in Spence's Anecdotes of the Origin of Dryden's Medal. t Guardian No- 67. UNPOPULARITY OF WILLIAM "iH. 465 called Jack or Harry, congratulated about race cups or rallied about actresses. The women missed the homage due to their sex. They observed that the king spoke in a some- what imperious tone even to the wife to whom he owed so much, and whom he sincerely loved and esteemed.^ '^'iiirit of a martyr ; that he was determined to brave, in the cause of the Monarchy and of tlie Church, the utmost rigor of those laws with which the obsequious parliaments of the sixteenth century had fenced the Royal Supremacy. He did in truth hold out long. But at the last moment his Ijeart failed him, and he looked round him for some mode of escape. Fortunately, as childish scruples often disturbed his conscience, childish expedients often quieted it. A more childish expedient than that to which he now resorted is not to be found in all the tomes of the casuists. He would not himself bear a part of the service. He would not publicly pray for the Prince and Princess as King and Queen. He would not call for their mandate, order it to be read, and then proceed to obey it. But he issued a commission empowering any three of his suffragans to commit, in his name and as his delegate, the sins wliich lie did not choose to commit in person. The re- proaches of all parties soon made him ashamed of himself. He then tried to suppress the evidence of his fault by means more discreditable than the fault itself. He abstracted from among the public records of which he was the guar- dian the instrument by which he had authorized his breth- ren to act for him, and was with difficulty induced to give it up. ^ ♦Burnetii. 8: Birch's Life of Tillotson : Life of Kettlewell, part iii. seo tion 62. 470 MACAULAy's miscellaneous WEITINGS. Burnet however had, under the authority of this instru- ment, been consecrated. When he next waited on Mary, she reminded him of the conversations which tliey had lield at the Hague about the high duties and grave re- sponsibility of Bishops. " I hope," she said, " that you will put your notions in practice." Her ho])e was not disap- pointed. Whatever may be thought of Burnet's opinions touching civil and ecclesiastical polity, or of the temper and judgment which he shov/ed in defending those opinions, the utmost malevolence of faction could not venture to deny that he tended his flock with a zeal, diligence, and disinterestedness worthy of the purest ages of the Church. His jurisdiction extended over Wiltshire and Berkshire. These counties he divided into districts which he sedu- lously idsited. About two months of every summer he passed in preaching, catechizing, and confirming daily from church to church. When he died there was no corner of Jiis diocese in which the people had not had seven or eight opportunities of receiving his instructions, and of asking his advice. The worst weather, the worst roads, did not pre- vent him from discharging these duties. On one occasion, when the floods were out, he exposed his life to imminent risk rather than disappoint a rural congregation which was in expectation of a discourse from the Bishop. The poverty of the inferior clergy was a constant cause of uneasiness to his kind and generous heart. He was indefatigable and at length successful in his attempts to obtain for them from the Crown that grant which is known by the name of Queen Anne's Bounty."^ He was especially careful, when he trav- elled through his diocese, to lay no burden on them. In- stead of requiring them to entertain him, he entertained them. He always fixed his headquarters at a market town, kept a table there, and, by his decent hospitality and munif- icent charities, tried to conciliate those who were prejudiced against his doctrines. When he bestowed a poor benefice, and he had many such to bestow, his practice was to add out of his own purse twenty pounds a year to the income. Ten promising young men, to each of whom he allowed thirty pounds a year, studied divinity under his own eye in the close of Salisbury. He had several children, but he did not think himself justified in hoarding for them. Their * Swift, writing under the name of Gregory Misosariim, most malignantly and dishonestly represents Burnet as grudging this grant to the Church. Swift can- i\()t have been ignorant that the Church was indebted for the grant chiefly to Burnet's persevering exertions. THE COUNT OF AVAUX. 471 mother had brought hmi a good fortune. With that for- tune, he always said they must be content. He would not, for then- sakes, be guilty of the crime of raising an estate out of revenues sacred to piety and charity. Such merits as these will, in the judgment of wise and candid men, appear fully to atone for every offence which can be justly imputed to him.* THE COUNT OF AVAUX. The Count of Avaux, whose sagacity had detected all the plans of William, and w^ho had vainly recommended a policy which would probably have frustrated them, was the man on whom the choice of Louis fell. In abilities, Avaux had no superior among the numerous able diplomatists whom his country then possessed. His demeanor was singularly pleasing, his |>erson handsome, his temper bland. His man- ners and conversation were those of a gentleman who had been bred in the most polite ^md magnificent of all Courts, who had represented that Court both in Roman Catholic and in Protestant countries, and who had acquired in his wanderings the art of catching the tone of any society into which chance might throw him. He was eminently vigilant and adroit, fertile in resources, and skilful in discovering the weak parts of a character. His own charaeter, however, was not without its weak parts. The consciousness that he was of plebeian origin was tlie torment of his life. He ])ined for nobility with a pining at once pitiable and ludicrous. Able, experienced and accomplished as he was, he some- times, under the iniluence of this mental disease, descended to the level of Moiiere's Jourdain, and entertained malicious observers with scenes almost as laughable as that in which the honest draper was made a Mamamouchi.f It would * See the Life of Burr.et, at the end of the second volume of his history, his manuscript memoirs, Harl. 6584, his memorials touching the First Fruits and Tenths, and Som.ers's letter to him on that subject. See also what Dr. Kinj^^ Jacobite as he was, had the justice to say in his Anecdotes. A most hoiiorable testimony to Burnet's virtues, given by another Jacobite who liad attacked him fiercely, and whom he had treated generously, the learned and upriglit Thojuas Baker, will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine for August and September, 1791. t See Saint Simon's account of the trick by which Avaux tried to pass himself off at Stockholm as a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost. 472 macaulay's miscellai^eous writijs-gs. have been well if this had been the worst. But it is not too mnch to say, that of the difference between right and wrong, Avaiix had no more notion than a brute. One sentiment was to him in the place of religion and morality, a super- stitious and intolerant devotion to the Crown which he served. This sentiment pervades all his despatches, and gives a color to all his thoughts and words. Nothing that tended to promote the interests of the Fl-ench monarchy seemed to him a crime. Indeed, he appears to have taken it for granted, that not only Frenchmen, but all human beings, owed a natural allegiance to the House of Bourbon, and that whoever hesitated to sacrifice the happiness and freedom of his own native country to the glory of that House, was a traitor. While he resided at the Hague, he always designated those Dutchmen who had sold themselves to France, as the well-intentioned party. In the letters which he wrote from Ireland, the same feeling appears still more strongly. He would have been a more sagacious poli- tician if he had sympathized more with those feelings of moral approbation and disapprobation which prevail among the vulgar. For his own indifference to all considerations of justice and mercy was such that, in his schemes, he made no allowance for the consciences and sensibilities of his neighbors. More than once he deliberately recommended wickedness so horrible that wicked men recoiled from it with indignation. But they could not succeed even in making their scruples intelligible to him. To every remon- strance he listened with a cynical sneer, wondering within himself whether those who lectured him were such fools as they professed to be, or were only shamming. Such was the man whom Louis selected to be the com- panion and monitor of James. CKCTELTY OF PwOSEN^ AT THE SIEGE OF EON- DONDERRY. It had been resolved that Rosen should take the chief command. He was now sent down with all speed. ^ On the nineteenth of June he arrived at the headquarters * Avaux June 16 (26), 1689. CRUELTY OF EOSEN AT THE SIEGE OF LOXDONDEKRY. 473 of the besieging army. At first he attempted to undermine the walls; but his plan was discovered; and he W'as com- pelled to abandon it after a sharp fight, in which more than a hundred of liis men were slain. Then his fury rose to a strange pitch. He, an old soldier, a Marshal of France in expectancy, trained in the school of the greatest generals, accustomed, during many years, to scientific war, to be bafi[ied by a mob of country gentlemen, farmers, shop- keepers, who were protected only by a wall which any good engineer would at once have pronounced untenable ! He raved, he blasphemed in a language of his own, made up of all the dialects spoken from the Baltic to the Atlantic. He w^ould raze the city to the ground ; he w^ould spare no living thing ; no, not the young girls ; not the babies at the breast. As to the leaders, death w^as too light a punish- ment for them : he would rack them : he would roast them alive. In his rage he ordered a shell to be flung into the town with a letter containing a horrible menace. He would, he said, gather into one body all the Protestants who had remained at their homes between Charlemont and the sea, old men, women, children, many of them near -in blood and affection to the defenders of Londonderry. No protection, whatever might be the authority by wdiich it had been given, should be respected. The multitude thus brought together should be driven under the walls of Londonderry, and should there be starved to death in the sight of their countrymen, their friends, their kinsmen. This was no idle threat. Par- ties were instantly sent out in all directions to collect vic- tims. At daAvn, on the morning of the second of July, hundreds of Protestants, who \^'ere charged with no crime, who were incapable of bearing arms, and many of whom had protections granted by James, were dragged to the gates of the city. It was imagined that the piteous sight would quell the spirit of the colonists. But the only effect was to rouse that spirit to still greater energy. An order was im- mediately put forth tlmt no man should utter the w^ord Surrender on pain of death ; and no man uttered that word. Several prisoners of high rank were in the town. Hitherto they had been well treated, and had received as good rations as were ♦measured out to the garrison. They were now closely confined. A gallows was erected on one of the bas- tions; and a message was conveyed to Rosen, requesting him to send a confessor instantly to prepare his friends for death. The prisoners, in great dismay, wrote to the savage 474 macaulay's miscellaneous waitings. Livonian, but received no answer. They then addressed themselves to their countryman, Richard Hamilton. They were willing, they said, to shed their blood for their Kingj but they thought it hard to die the ignominious death of thieves in consequence of the barbarity of their own com- panions in arms. Hamilton, though a man of lax principles, was not cruel. He had been disgusted by the inhumanity of Rosen, but, being only second in command, could not venture to express publicly all that he thought. He how- ever remonstrated strongly. Some Irish officers felt on this occasion as it was natural that brave men should feel, and declared, weeping with pity 'and indignation, that they should never cease to have in their ears the cries of the poor women and children who had been driven at the point of the pike to die of famine between the camp and the city. Rosen persisted duriug forty-eight hours. In that time many unhappy creatures perished : but Londonderry held out as resolutely as ever ; and he saw that his crime was likely to produce nothing l3ut hatred and obloquy. He at length gave way, and suffered the survivors to withdraw. The garrison then took down the gallows .which had been erected on the bastion."^ SIR JAMES DALRYMPLE. The person by whose advice William appears to have been at this time chiefly guided as to Scotch politics, was a Scotchman of great abilities and attainments. Sir James Dalrymple of Stair, the founder of a family eminently dis- tinguished at the bar, on the bench, in the senate, in diplo- macy, in arms and in letters, but distinguished also by misfortunes and misdeeds which have furnished poets and novelists with materials for the darkest and most heart- rending tales. Already Sir James had been in mourning for more than one strange and terrible death. One of his sons had died by poison. One of his daughters had pon- iarded her bridegroom on the wedding night. One of his grandsons had in boyish sport been slain by another. * Walker ; Mackenzie ; Liglit to the Blind ; King, iii. 13 ; Leslie's Answer to King ; Life of James ii. 366. I ought to say that on this occasion King is unjust to James. SIR JAMES DALPvYMPLE. 475 Savage libellers asserted, and some of the superstitious vulgar believed, that calamities so portentous were the con- sequences of some connection between the unhappy. race and the powers of darkness. Sir James had a wry neck ; and he was reproached with this misfortune as if it had been a crime, and was told that it marked him out as a man doomed to the gallows. His wife, a woman of great abil- ity, art, and spirit, was popularly nicknamed the Witch of Endor. It was gravely said that she had cast fearful spells on those whom she hated, and that she had been seen in the likeness of a cat seated on the cloth of state by the side of the Lord High Commissioner. The man, however, over whose roof so many curses apj)eared to hang, did not, as far as we can now judge, fall short of that very low standard of morality which was generally attained by politicians of his age and nation. In force of mind and extent of knowledge he was superior to them all. In his youth he had borne arms : he had been a professor of philoso23hy : he had then studied law, and had become, by general acknowledgment, the greatest* jurist that his country had produced. In the days of the Protectorate he had been a judge. After the Restoration, he had made his peace with the royal family, had sate in the Privy Council, and had presided with un- rivalled ability in the Court of Session. He had doubtless borne a share in many unjustifiable acts ; but there were limits which he never passed. He had a wonderful power of giving to any proposition which it suited him to main- tain, a plausible aspect of legality and even of justice ; and this power he frequently abused. But he was not, like many of those among whom he lived, impudently and unscrupulously servile. Shame or conscience generally re- strained him from committing any bad action for which his rare ingenuity could not frame a specious defence; and he was seldom in his place at the council board when anything outrageously unjust or cruel v/as to be done. His modera- tion at length gave offence to the Court. He was deprived of his high office, and found himself in so disagreeable a situa- ti(m that he retired to Holland. There he employed himself in correcting the great work on jurisprudence which has preserved his memory fresh down to our own time. In his banishment he tried to gain the favor of his fellow exiles, who naturally regarded him with suspicion. He protested, and perhaps with truth, that his hands were pure from the blood of the persecuted Covenanters. He made a high pro 476 macaulay's miscellaneous weitings. fessi'on of religion, prayed much, and observed weekly days of fasting and humiliation. lie even consented, after much hesitation, to assist with his advice and his credit the un- fortunate enterprise of Argyle. When that enterprise had failed, a prosecution was instituted at Edinburgh against Dalrymple; and his estates would doubtless have been con- fiscated, had they not been saved by an artifice which sub- sequently became common among the politicians of Scotland. His eldest son and heir apparent, John, took the side of the government, supported the dispensing power, declared against the Test, and accepted the place of Lord Advocate, when Sir George Mackenzie, after holding out through ten years of foul drudgery, at length showed signs of flagging. The services of the younger Dalrymple were rewarded by a remission of the forfeiture which the offences of the elder had incurred. Those services indeed were not to be de- spised. For Sir John, though inferior to liis father in depth and extent of legal learning, was no common man. His knowledge was great and various : his parts were quick ; and his eloquence was singularly ready and graceful. To sanctity he made no pretensions. Indeed, Episcopalians and Presbyterians agreed in regarding him as little better than an atheist. During some months. Sir John at Edinburgh affected to condemn the disloyalty of his unhappy parent Sir James ; and Sir James at Leyden told his Puritan friends how deeply he lamented the wicked compliances of his unhappy child. Sir John. The Revolution came, and brought a large increase of wealth and honors to the house of Stair. The son promptly changed sides, and co-operated ably and zealously with the father. Sir James established himself in London, for the purpose of giving advice to William on Scotch affairs. Sir John's post was in the Parliament House at Edinburgli. He was not likely to find any equal among the debaters there, and was prepared to exert all his powers against the dynasty which he had lately served.^ * As to the Dalrymples, see the Lord President's own writings, and among them his Vindication of the Divine Perfections ; Wodrow's Analecta ; Doug- las's Peerage ; Lockhart's Memoirs ; the Satyre on tlie Familie of Stairs ; the Satyric Lines upon the long-wished-for and timely Deatli of the Eight Honor- able Lady Stairs ; Law's Memorials; and the Hyndford Papers, written in 1704-5, and printed with the Letters of Carstairs. Lockliart, though a mortal enemy of John Dalrymple, says, " There was none in the parliament capable to take the cudgels with him." LOKD MELVILLE. 477 LORD MELVILLE. By tlie large party which was zealous for the Calvinistic ehurcli government, John Dalryraple was regarded with in- curable distrust and dislike. It was therefore necessary that another agent should be employed to rnanage that party. Such an agent was George Melville, Lord Melville, a nobleman connected by affinity with the unfortunate Mon- mouth, and Avith that Leslie who had unsuccessfully com- manded the Scotch army against Cromwell at Dunbar. Melville had always been accounted a Whig and a Pres- byterian. Those who speak of him most favorably have not ventured to ascribe to him eminent intellectual endowments or exalted public spirit. But he appears from his letters to have been by no means deficient in that homely prudence the want of which has often been fatal to men of brighter genius and of purer virtue. That prudence had restrained him from going very far in opposition to the tyranny of the Stuarts : but he had listened while his friends talked about resistance, and therefore, when the Rye House plot was discovered, thought it expedient to retire to the Con- tinent. In his absence he was accused of treason, and was convicted on evidence which would not have satisfied any impartial tribunal. He w^as condejnned to death : his hon- ors and lands were declared forfeit : his arms were torn with contumely out of the Heralds' book ; and his domains swelled the estate of the cruel and rapacious Perth. The fugitive meantime, with characteristic wariness, lived quietly on the Continent, and discountenanced the unhappy pro- jects of his kinsman Monmouth, but cordially approved of th(i enterprise of the Prince of Orange. Illness had prevented Melville from sailing with the Dutch expedition ; but he arrived in London a few hours after the new Sovereigns had been proclaimed there. Wil- I liam instantly sent him down to Edinburgh, in the hope, as it should seem, that the Presbyterians would be disposed to listen to moderate counsels proceeding from a man who was attached to their cause, and who had suffered for it. Mel- ville's second son, David, who had inherited, through his mother, the title of Earl of Leven, and who had acquired 478 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. some military experience in the service of the Elector of Brandenburg, had the honor of being the bearer of a letter from the new King of England to the Scottish Convention.* CARSTAIRS. William had, however, one Scottish adviser who de- served and possessed more influence than any of the ostensible ministers. This was Carstairs, one of the most remark- able men of that age. He united great scholastic attain- ments with great aptitude for civil business, and the firm faith and ardent zeal of a martyr with the shrewdness and suppleness of a consummate politician. In courage and fidelity he resembled Burnet; but he had, what Burnet wanted, judgment, self-command, and a singular power of keeping secrets. There Avas no post to which he might not have aspired if he had been a layman, or a priest of the Church of England. But a Presbyterian clergyman could not hope to attain any high dignity either in the north or in the south of the island. Carstairs was forced to content himself with the substance of power, and to leave the sem- blance to otliers. He was named CJiaplain to their Majesties for Scotland ; but wliefever the King was, in England, in Ireland, in the Netherlands, tliere was this most trusty and most prudent of courtiers. Pie obtained from the royal boanty a modest competence ; and he desired no more. But it was well known that he could be as useful a friend and as formidable an enemy as any member of the cabinet ; and he was designated at the public offices and in the antechambers of llie palace by the significant nickname of the Cardinal.! * As to Melville, see the Leven and Melville Papers, passim, and the preface ; the Act Pari. Scot. June 16, 1685 ; and the Appendix, June 13; Burnet, ii. 24 ; and the P.urnet MS. Harl. 6584. t See the Life and Correspondence of Carstairs, and the interesting memorials of him in the Caldwell Papers, printed 1854. See also Mackay's character of him, and Swift's note. Swift's word is not to he taken against a Scotchman and a Presbyterian. I believe, however, that Carstairs, though an honest and pious man in essentials, had his full share of the wisdom of the serpent. THE DUKE OF SCHOMBERG. 479 THE MARQUESS OF RUVIGNY. Four regiments, one of cavalry and three of infantry, had been formed out of the French refugees, many of whom had borne arms with credit. No person did more to pro- mote the raising of these regiments than the Marquess of Ruvigny. lie had been during many years an eminently faithful and useful servant of the French government. So highly was his merit appreciated at Versailles, that he had been solicited to accept indulgences which scarcely any other heretic could by any solicitation obtain. Had he chosen to remain in his natiA^e country, he and his household would have been permitted to worship God privately according to their own forms. But Ruvigny rejected all offers, cast in his lot with his brethren, and, at upwards of eighty years of age, quitted Versailles, where he might still have been a favorite, for a modest dwelling at Greenwich. Tliat dwell- ing was, during the last months of his life, the resort of all that was most distino-uished amon<^ his fellow exiles. His abilities, his experience, and his munificent kindness, made him the undisputed chief of the refugees. He v/as at the same time half an Englishman ; for his sister had been Countess of Southampton, and he was uncle of Lady Russell. He was long past the time of action. But his two sons, both men of eminent courage, devoted their swords to the service of William. The younger son, who bore the name of Caillemote, was appointed colonel of one of the Huguenot regiments of foot. THE DUKE OF SCHOMBERG. The general to whom the direction of the expedition against Ireland was confided, had wonderfully succeeded in obtaing the affection and esteem of the English nation. He had been made a Duke, a Knight of the Garter, and Master of the Ordnance ; he was now placed at the head of an army : and yet his elevation excited none of that jealousy 480 macaulay's miscellaneous writi:n"gs. which showed itself as often as any mark of royal favor was bestowed on Bentinck, on Zulestein, or on Auverquerque. Schomberg's military skill was universally acknowledged. He was regarded by all Protestants as a confessor who liad endured everything short of martyrdom for the truth. For his religion he had resigned a splendid income, had laid down the truncheon of a Marshal of France, and had at near eighty years of age, begun the world again as a needy soldier of fortune. As he had no connection with the United Prov- inces, and had never belonged to the little Court of the Hague, the preference given to him over English captains was justly ascribed, not to national or personal partiality, but to his virtues and his abilities. His deportment differed widely from that of the other foreigners who had just been created English peers. They, with many resi3ectable quali- ties, were, in tastes, manners, and predilections, Dutchmen, and could not catch the tone of the society to which they had been transferred. He was a citizen of the world, had travelled over all Europe, had commanded armies on the Meuse, on the Ebro, and on the Tagus, had shone in the splendid circle of Versailles, and had been in high favor at the court of Berlin. He had often been taken by French noblemen for a French nobleman. He had passed some time in England, spoke English remarkably well, accom- modated himself easily to English manners, and was often seen walking in the park with English companions. In youth his habits had been temperate; and his temperance had its proper reward, a singularly green and vigorous old age. At fourscore he retained a strong relish for innocent pleasures : he conversed with great courtesy and sprightli- ness : nothing could be in better taste than his equipages and his table ; and every cornet of cavalry envied the grace and dignity with which the veteran appeared in Hyde Park on his charger at the head of his regiment."^ The House of Commons had, with general approbation, compensated his losses and rewarded his services by a grant of a hundred thousand pounds. Before he set out for Ire- land, he requested permission to express his gratitude for this magnificent present. A chair was set for him within the bar. He took nis seat there with the mace at his right hand, rose, and in a few graceful words returned his thanks and ♦'See the Abr^g^ de la Vie de T'rederic due de Schomberg by Luzancy, 1690 the Memoires of Count Dolina, and the note of Saint Simon on Dangeau's Jour- nal July 30, 1690. ADMIRAL TOERINGTON. 481 took his leave. The Speaker replied that the Conimona could never forget the obligation under which they already lay to His Grace, and they saw him with pleasure at the head of an English army, that they felt entire confidence in his zeal and ability, and that, at whatever distance he might be, he w^ould always be in a peculiar manner an object of their care. The precedent set on this interesting occasion w\as follow^ed with the utmost minuteness, a hundred and twenty-five years later, on an occasion more interesting still. Exactly on the same spot on w^hich, in Jidy, 1689, Scliom- berg had acknowledged the liberality of the nation, a chair w^as set, in July, 1814, for a still more illustrious w^arrior, w^ho came to return thanks for a still more splendid mark of jDublic gratitude. Few things illustrate more strikingly the peculiar character of the English government and people than the circumstance that the House of Commons, a pop- ular assembly, should, even in a moment of joyous enthu- siasm, have adhered to ancient forms v>'ith the punctilious accuracy of a College of Heralds ; that the sitting and rising, the covering and the uncovering, should have been regu- lated by exactly the same etiquette in the nineteenth cen- tury as in the seventeenth ; and that the same mace w^hich had been held at the right hand of Schomberg, should have been held in the same position at the right hand of Wel- lington.^ ADMIRAL TORRIJSTGTON. We cannot justly blame William for having a high opin- ion of Torrington. For Torrington w^as generally regarded as one of the bravest and most skilful officers in the navy. He had been promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral of Eng- land by James, who, if he understood anything, understood maritime affairs. That place and other lucrative places Torrington had relinquished w^hen he found that he could retain them only by submitting to be a tool of the Jesuitical cabal. No man had taken a more active, a more hazardous, or a more useful part in effecting the Revolution. It seemed, therefore, that no man had fairer pretensions to be * See the Commons' Journals of July 16, 1689, and of July 1, 1814. Vol. III.— 31 482 macaulay's miscellat^eous writings. put at the head of the naval administration. Yet no man couhl be more unfit for such a post. His morals had always been loose, so loose, indeed, that the firmness with which in tlie late reign he had adhered to his religion had excited much surprise. His glorious disgrace indeed seemed to have produced a salutary effect on his character. In pov- erty and exile he rose from a voluptuary into a hero. But, as soon as prosperity returned, the hero sank again into a voluptuary ; and the lapse was deep and ho])eless. Tlie nerves of his mind, which had been during a short time braced to a firm tone, w^ere now so much relaxed by vice, tliat he was utterly incapable of self-denial or of strenuous exertion. The vulgar courage of a foremast man lie still retained. But both as Admiral and as First Lord of the Admiralty, he was utterly inefficient. Month after month the fleet which should have been the terror of the seas, lay in harbor while he was diverting himself in London. The sailors, punning upon his new title, gave him the name of Lord Tarry-in-town. Wlien he came on shipboard he was accompanied by a bevy of courtezans. There was scarcely an hour of the day or of the night when he was not under the influence of claret. Bein'g insatiable of pleasure, he necessarily became insatiable of wealth. Yet he loved flat- tery almost as much as either wealth or pleasure. He had long been in the habit of exacting the most abject homage from those who were under his command. Llis fhigshi]) was a little Versailles. He expected his captains to attend him to his cabin when he went to bed, and to assemble every morning at his levee. He even suffered them to dress him. One of them combed his flowing wig; another stood ready with the embroidered coat. Under such a chief there could be no discipline. His tars passed their time in rioting among the rabble of Portsmouth. Those officers who won his favor by servility and adulation, easily obtained leave of absen.ce, and spent weeks in London, revelling in taverns, scouring the streets, or making love to the masked ladies in the pit of the theatre. The victuallers soon found out with w^hora they had to deal, and sent down to the fleet casks of meat which dogs would not touch, and barrels of beer which smelt worse than bilge water. Meanwhile the British Chan- nel seemed to be abandoned to French rovers. Our mer- chantmen were boarded in sight of the ]-amparts of Ply- mouth. The sugar fleet from the West Indies lost seven ships The whole value of the prizes taken by the cruisers AVARICE OF MARLBOKOUGII. 483 of the enemy in the immedinte neighborhood of our island, wlule Torrington was engaged with his bottle and his harem, was estimated at six hundred thousand pounds. So difficult Avas it to obtain the convoy of a man of war, except by giving immense bribes, that our traders were forced to hire the services of Dutch privateers, and found these for- eign mercenaries much more useful and much less greedy than the officers of our own royal navy.^ AVARICE OF MARLBOROUGH. The Jacobites, however, discovered in the events of the campaign abundant matter for invective. Marlborough was, not without reason, the object of their bitterest hatred. In his behavior on a field of battle, malice itself could find little to censure : but there were other parts of his conduct which presented a fair mark for obloquy. Avarice is rarely the vice of a young man : it is rarely the vice of a great man : but Marlborough was one of the few who have, in the bloom of youth, loved lucre more than wine or women, and who have, at the height of greatness, loved lucre more than power or fame. All the precious gifts which nature had lavished on him he valued chiefly for what they would fetch. At twenty he made money of his beauty and his vigor. At sixty lie made money of his genius and his glory. The ap- l)lauses which were justly due to his conduct at Walcourt, could not altogether drown the voices of those who muttered that, wherever a broad piece was to be saved or got, this hero was a mere Euclio, a mere Harpagon ; that, though he drevf a large allowance under 2:)retence of keeping a public table, he never asked an officer to dinner ; that his muster rolls were fraudulently i^ade uj) ; that he pocketed pay in the names of men who had long been dead, of men who had been killed in his own sight four years before at Sedgmoor ; that there were twenty such names in one troop ; that there were thirty-six in another. Nothing but the union of dauntless courage and commanding powers of * Commons' Jour., Nov. 1,-23, 1689 ; Grey's Debates, Nov. 13, 14, 18,23, 1689. See, among numerous pasquinades, the Parable of the Bearbaiting, Reformation of JNIanners, a Satire, the ]Mock Mourners, a Satire. See also Pepys's Diary kept at Tangier, Oct. 15, 1683w 484 macaulay's miscellaneous writings. mind, with a bland temper and winning manners, could have enabled him to gain and keep, in spite of faults eminently unsoldierlike, the good-will of his soldiers."^ KEN, BISHOP OF BATH AND WELLS. Ken", who, both in intellectual and in moral qualities, ranked highest among the non-juring prelates, hesitated long. There were few clergymen who could have submitted to the new government with a better grace. For, in the times Allien non-resistance and passive obedience were the favorite yhemes of his brethren, he had scarcely ever alluded to poli- tics in the pulpit. He owned that the arguments in favor of swearing were very strong. He went, indeed, so far as to say, that his scruples woidd be completely removed if he could be convinced that James had entered into engage- ments for ceding L-eland to the French King. It is evi- dent, therefore, that the difference between Ken and the Whigs was not a difference of principle. He thought, with them, that misgovernment carried to a certain point, justi- fied a transfer of allegiance, and doubted only whether the misgovernment of James had been carried quite to that point. Nay, the good Bishop actually began to prepare a pastoral letter explaining his reasons for taking the oaths. But, before it was finished, he received information which convinced him that Ireland had not been made over to France : doubts came thick upon him : he threw his unfin- ished letter into the fire, and implored his less scrupulous friends not to urge him further. He was sure, he said, that they had acted uprightly: he was glad that they could do vyit'h a clear conscience what he shrank from doing : he felt the force of their reasoning : he was all but persuaded ; and he was afraid to listen longer lest he should be quite per- suaded : for, if he should comply, and his misgivings should afterwards return, he should be the most miserable of men. Not for wealth, not for a palace, not for a peerage, would he run the smallest risk of ever feeling the torments of remorse. It is a curious fact that, of the seven non-juring prelates, the only one whose name carries with it much weight was on * See the Dear Bargain, a Jacobite pamphlet clandestinely printed in 1690. I have not patience," says the writer, after this wretch (Marlborough) to mention any other. All are innocent comparatively, even Kirke himself." KEN, BISPTOr OF BATH AND WELLS. 485 the point of swearing, and was prevented from doing so, as he himself acknowledged, not by the force of reason, but by a morbid scrupulosity Avdiich he did not advise others to imitate.^ Among the priests who refused the oaths, were some men eminent in the learned world, as grammarians, chro- nologists, canonists, and antiquaries, and a very few who were distinguislied by wit and eloquence: but scarcely one can be named who was qualified to discuss any large ques- tion of morals or politics, scarcely one whose writings do not indicate either extreme feebleness or extreme fiightiness of mind. Those who distrust the judgment of a Whig on this point, will probably allow some weight to the opinion which was expressed, many years after the Revolution, by a philosopher of whom the Tories are justly proud. John- son, after passing in review the celebrated divines who had thought it sinful to swear allegiance to William the Third and George the First, pronounced that, in the w^hole body of nonjurors, there was one, and one only, who could rea- son.! * See Turner's Letter to Sancroft, dated on Ascension Day, 1689. The original is among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library. But the letter will be found, with much other curious matter, in the Life of Ken, by a Layman, lately pub- lished. See also the Life of Kettlewell, iii. 95 ; and Ken's letter to Burnet, dated Oct. 5, 1689. in Hawkins's Life of Ken. " I am sure," Lady Russell wrote to Dr. Fitzwilliam, " the Bishop of Bath and Wells excited others to comply, when he could not bring himself to do so, but rejoiced when others did." Keii declared that lie had advised nobody to take the oaths, and that his practice h;id been to remit those who asked his advice to their own studies and prayers. Lady KusselTs assertion and Ken's denial will be found to come nearly to the same thiiifz, when we make those allowances which ought to be made for situation and feeling, even in weighing the testimony of the most veracious witnesses. Ken, h