Each haunted by its wizard stream, o'erhung But to my parched mouth's roof cleave this tongue, And this oft-panting heart forget to throb, SONG. "I know that he loves me." I KNOW that he loves me-I could not live on, No wonder the shadow oft steals o'er my brow, But now, if I weep, he just asks, why so sad? And says when I sorrow he cannot be glad; Oh! so calmly he speaks of the gloom of my mind, His voice never falters-it only is kind. Yet I know that he loves me-I feel there is none That he loves half as well, or could love, were I gone; But in solitude often my tears will run o'er, To think, tho' he loves me, 'tis not as of yore! Oh! why does the rainbow so soon fleet away, * Graham's British Georgics. BIANCA. MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.* THIS is the production of a matured and eminently philosophical intellect, but is not, what its title imports it to be, a History of England. It is a work of a far other character, being a commentary on the history of the English constitution, in which the facts and incidents of the ordinary historian are referred to, solely with a view to the elucidation of general principles. Under this description, it promises, when completed, to be perhaps the most important contribution to this branch of literature of modern times; hardly excepting the, on the whole, masterly treatise of Mr. Hallam. High as is this praise, we would not be understood as estimating these volumes as part of a perfect work, or as altogether worthy of the reputation of Sir James Mackintosh. By no means: we recognise, in every page, the defects, no less than the beauties, of that distinguished writer's habits of thought and composition. If we gladly miss the occasional advocate exaggerations, and one-sided searching scepticism, alternating with a no less one-sided convenient credulity, of Hume, we also miss the speculations on the springs of action, at once profound and happy, and the transparent grace, and what Gibbon termed the inimitable carelessness of style, of that acutest of metaphysicians. In the narrative part of their labours both our northern historians, owing to the want of a lofty and vivifying imagination, are essentially defective. They are far less picturesque and skilful in historical perspective, than Sismondi or Lingard, and not to be named in the same page with Livy or Thucydides. Both, also, are wanting in that fusing earnestness of purpose which, in the absence of higher qualities, serves to interest the affections of the reader. As it strikes us that the defects of Mr. Hume's history, as well as of that now before us, have sprung from the same causes, namely, the influence of early pursuits, and an identity of temperament, a few words may not be ill bestowed in pointing them out. The character of David Hume has been faithfully and touchingly drawn by his friend Mackenzie, in his story of La Roche, and admirably sketched by himself in that morsel of autobiography which has been justly eulogized as a felicitous medium between coldness and egotism. From these, and the concurrent testimony of his numerous acquaintance, we learn, that never was there a man more amiable with perhaps less warmth of heart. It would, indeed, seem, that his scepticism on all matters interesting to man, as a moral and intelligent being, was so early formed and rooted, as to actually preclude the co-existence of all ardent affections. He had no fervid attachments, and yet was universally esteemed for the even kindness of his social feelings, and for his total freedom from malice and uncharitableness. No accident of fortune could disturb the equable flow of his cheerful temperament; no literary disappointments-and his early career was a series of them-could for a moment ruffle the tranquil surface of his naturally benignant spirit. "I was, I say," to quote his own words, a man of mild disposition, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments." We are, unfortunately, unable † to trace the progress of Mr. Hume's scepti The History of England, vols. 1 and 2; by the Right Hon. Sir James Mackintosh; being vols. 8 and 18 of the Cabinet Cyclopædia. In a letter written by Mr. Hume to Mr. Gilbert Elliott, dated March 19, 1751, he says, "Any propensity you imagine I have to the other (the sceptical) side, crept in upon me against my will; and it is not long ago that I burned an old manuscript book, wrote before I was twenty, which contained, page after page, the gradual pro cism from his first boyish speculations in metaphysics, to the publication of his Treatise of Human Nature; but as it is recorded in that remarkable performance, and in all his subsequent writings, it stands out in the records of philosophy, as probably the most striking instance of the baleful excess to which an almost preternatural acuteness of intellect may lead speculative ingenuity. Mr. Hume's scepticism was founded on no half and half-"moderate"-" bit by bit" cavilling principles of disbelief; nor does it seem to have been influenced by that love of paradox or spurious vanity, which so often seduces young minds into a profession of heterodox opinions. He did not attempt to question in detail the certainty of the evidence of particular doctrines of belief; but boldly undertook to demonstrate that, from the very structure of our understanding, we could know nothing of either matter or spirit, and were consequently doomed to dwell for ever in universal ignorance. The folly of such an attempt need not be pointed out; indeed, we would not have made even a passing allusion to it, but that it furnished a key to many of the practical defects of Mr. Hume's History, particularly of his narrative of the events which brought Charles the First to the scaffold. It may be going too far to say, in the words of Sir James Mackintosh himself,* with reference to this very topic, that those "who are early accustomed to dispute first principles, are never likely to acquire, in a sufficient degree, that earnestness, and that sincerity, that strong love of truth, and that conscientious solicitude for the formation of just opinions, which are not the least virtues of men, but of which the cultivation is the more especial duty of all who call themselves philosophers." It is not, however, too much to assert, that to an intellect so subtle and searching as Mr. Hume's, one in which the reason predominated so absolutely over the other faculties, and with his strong sceptical bias, facts were of no value but as they squared with his preconceived opinions. Of a deliberate historical falsehood, notwithstanding Mr. Brodie's stubborn statements to evidence, we hold Hume to have been incapable; but, from the causes which we have been indicating, he was too prone to first form a theory of motives, from a few isolated facts, and then to distort the remaining facts of the case so as to make them correspond with his theory; a species of misrepresentation, it need not be added, more injurious to the cause of truth and justice than the most reckless falsehood. For reasons to which we need not do more than allude, Mr. Hume contracted a very early theoretical aversion to the numerous sects, known in the history of the times of Charles the First, by the common appellation of Puritans. In addition to the repugnance to hypocrisy so characteristic of vigorous and well-constituted minds, Mr. Hume had a gloomy tendency to distrust all virtues liable to be exaggerated or counterfeited; and hence he was led to regard the austerity of the Presbyterian Sabbath, the extravagance of the Independent preachers in the camp, the precise garb, the severe countenances, the petty scruples, and the affected accent of the Commonwealth-men, as the mere excrescences of fanaticism and turbulence, without deigning to recognise the valour, the disinterestedness, and the public spirit, which lurked beneath this ungainly exterior. This it was, and not a Tory reverence for the House of Stuart, that made him the advocate of Charles and his ministers, in their struggles with the immortal leaders of the Long Parliament; and this it is that has enrolled his name among the deadliest foes of civil liberty; and not, indeed, without justice; for without positively asserting much more than he can prove-by giving a ready prominence gress of my thoughts on that head. It began with an anxious search after arguments to confirm the common opinion; doubts stole in, dissipated, returned again, and it was a perpetual struggle of a restless imagination against inclination, perhaps against reason.' Philosophy has had an irreparable loss in the destruction of that manuscript. History of the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, Encyclopædia Britannica, a masterly essay. to all the evidence on one side, while the adverse testimony is suppressed, or severely scrutinised, and by well-timed concessions of seeming candour, he has done more towards blinding men's minds to the true character of the actors and the events of that stirring period, than generations of historians will perhaps be able to remedy. A sound understanding, and a healthy morality, have preserved Sir James Mackintosh from the baleful influence of universal scepticism; for, though he has himself recently declared, that in "speculative philosophy, his opinions are nearer indifference than an exclusive spirit;" yet, in the discussion of those ethical doctrines in which the heart is most interested, he writes with an ardour and an eloquence which betoken the depth of their source, and of which we have but too few modern examples. Familiar with the metaphysical doctrines that have so closely fixed the attention of his countrymen during the last sixty years, he was too acute a man not to perceive at once, that universal scepticism can never rank higher than a species of intellectual gymnastics-of which the only use is the exercise of subtlety, and the tendency to check dogmatism. He was too clear sighted, and too ingenuous a worshipper of Truth, not to perceive at a very early stage of his philosophical studies, that universal scepticism involves a contradiction in terms "a belief that there can be no belief”—and that our moral convictions rest on the same foundation, and therefore possess equal claims to certainty with the elements of geometry. The constitution of our nature is their common basis. But though Sir James, aided, no doubt, by the native benevolence of his disposition, has passed through the ordeal of a searching scrutiny into the sources of human knowledge, and of the rule of life, unscathed, the more exclusively intellectual portion of his being has not escaped the doubt-creating influence of his early pursuits, thus affording a thousand-and-first remarkable example, of the tendency of strong original impressions and associations, indirectly and imperceptibly, to bias the mind in all future investigations. Like Mr. Locke, Sir James Mackintosh devoted some years of the earlier portion of his life to the study of medicine, and to that introductory study may be traced the defects, no less than the high merits, of his subsequent efforts as a statesman, an historian, and a writer on philosophy. It was well observed by the late Mr. Dugald Stewart, that "no science could have been chosen more happily calculated than medicine, to prepare such a mind as that of Locke, for the prosecution of those speculations which have immortalized his name; the complicated and fugitive, and often equivocal phenomena of disease, requiring in the observer a far greater portion of discriminating sagacity than those of physics, strictly so called; resembling in this respect, much more nearly the phenomena about which metaphysics, ethics, and politics, are conversant." But for the very same reason that phenomena, in their nature thus "complicated and fugitive, and often equivocal," develope our discriminations and sagacious faculties; they also induce a habit of doubt and uncertainty, fatal to decision and earnestness, and, above all, oneness of purpose. The cause, be its nature, or importance, or urgency, what it may, never receives a final judgment. There are still some arguments to be heard on the other side, which again require a rehearing of the plaintiff's evidence, and so on in an endless circle of over-refining, over-discriminating scrupulosity. If a mind so trained, is safe from the hazard of rash conclusions in history or politics, it is liable to mar the effect of its moral judgments, by the cautious and hesitating tone in which they are delivered. To make amends, it is true, the generalization and the reasonings of such men as Sir James Mackintosh on moral and political questions, are usually so accurate and profound as to place them beyond the reach of controversy; but then they are so tardy and so encumbered by the "whys" and "wherefores," as to be hardly available for general purposes. Hence it is, that of the several controverted questions of fact and morals which occur in the period of history, embraced by the two volumes now under consideration, (which extendfrom the invasion of Cæsar to the reign of Elizabeth,) Sir James has not pronounced a very decided opinion on any, though evidently in possession of the means, and, on most occasions, furnishing the reader with much finger-post aid to arrive at a sound conclusion of his own. Questions in politics and morals being essentially questions of comparison and degree, it should seem as if he felt that every assertion, not involving a contradiction in terms, should be received, à priori, as equally probable; and that therefore he would be ill performing his duty, unless he stated all the circumstances in favour of and against that probability with equal explicitness, and apparently equal earnestness. Hence it is, that though no historical writer in our languge has taken a wider range of investigation, or has examined society and human nature under more varied aspects; and though few have excelled him in dis tinguishing the exception from the rule-the local from the universal—or in separating general principles from disturbing accidents-still the complete effect of a perusal of the whole of his work is indefinite and unsatisfactory. In every thing he is the learned expounder of not only all that has been, but of all that might have been said on the matter at issue, so far as it seems to elucidate a general principle. But he is wanting in that force and singleness of conviction which would carry away our convictions. Every page teems with proofs of wonderful research and of a philosophic intellect; but the deficiency of the Promethean mens divinior, by which a glow of human earnestness is communicated to the veriest abstraction of the closet, is perceived and felt. Having made these general observations in justice to our subject and ourselves, we propose, as the work advances, to proceed to point out its more prominent defects and merits, promising the reader that, ere we part, we shall have travelled over much that is interesting and novel in British History. EXHIBITION OF PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ARCHITECTURE. THIS is the sixty-third exhibition of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, since the establishment of the Royal Academy by West, Reynolds, and their brethren, in the early days of George the Third; it contains in all twelve hundred works of art, one hundred and four of which are contributed by the members of the Academy, and the vast residue by the associates, and other aspirants after fame, generally called students in art, though several of them are hoary, and some have genius worthy of academic honours. Many of those works are, as must be imagined, remarkable for little but their mediocrity; a great number come under the appellation of respectable—not a few hover on the debateable land between good and evil; and a few are worthy of any age and of any country. In high poetic painting we have little now, and we never had much poetry is reluctant in throwing her mantle over the heads of the professors of British art, but in requite she has blest them with an undying love for the manufacture of portraits; and, what is better, has bestowed the power upon them of giving us fine images of social humour, fire-side happiness, and of all the humbler range of subjects pertaining to household gladness and enjoyment. Much evil has come with the good: thistles spring up with the corn, and the hawk builds her nest nigh the dovecot and in the grove; in like manner a sort of vulgar art has arisen, in which poetry claims no share; which deals in prize oxen and ladies' lap-dogs; in scenes of rude and coarse enjoyment, of which living life presents enough, and which we need not pay a shilling and endure a squeeze to see. We object to the colours |