no man ever felt more keenly the bond which bound him to his brother men, or devoted his thoughts more earnestly to their good. Some of our extracts have shown this; and we would gladly have drawn attention to a most interesting correspondence with Mr. J. Marshall on the state of the poor, and with Sir J. Franklin on the colonies. This too it was that pervaded his theory of Church and State; for it was because, as we have said, he considered Christianity as the very appointed remedy for all that suffering and sin that now stalks giant-like amongst us, that he longed and strove to reanimate a moral power, and to restore a moral law as the principle of government; and in this lay his strength of character-to be measured rather by what he persevered in attempting than by what he was able to effect. In this sense he was an enthusiast. To do his duty towards his fellow-men, to pursue it by every variety of means-in his school, in his writings, and in his preaching-was his only ideal of happiness. Thus, literature with him, literary enjoyment, literary conversation, were wholly in the back-ground; and his friends thought of him not as a clever or a learned man, but as one wholly absorbed or rather inspired by the ideas of duty, labour, earnestness, and self-devotion. And the next point upon which we believe our readers' attention will be fixed is that which his large heart, in embracing many other and what might seem higher interests, ennobled and almost idealised the common sphere of school-life; inspiriting other fellow-workers by his example, and calling forth towards himself affections which were never felt to any who did not possess something of the spirit of an apostle. When we dwell on this, we confess it seems almost a wrong that we should have permitted a discussion of his theories to withdraw us, even for a time, from the contemplation of his high character and beautiful example.*

ART. VIII.-Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury, &c. Edited by his Grandson, the Third Earl. 2 vols. London, 1844.

HOWEVER important or interesting a diplomatic correspond

ence may be while the events are pending or recent, nothing can be much less so when they are become in any degree obsolete. It is the misfortune of diplomatists, that-besides being liable to the natural delusion of seeing the objects near their own eye in too large dimensions and in too vivid colours-they have to fill up as they best can a series of dispatches, which, however

*See Note at the end of this Number.

filled,

Diaries, &c. of James First Earl of Malmesbury.

509

filled, must set off, like a stage-coach, at a certain day. Nor indeed do we think that it is in that department of public life that a high order of intellect has the most favourable opportunity of displaying its powers: it was with reference to a packet of diplomatic dispatches that the Chancellor Oxenstiern uttered his celebrated exclamation of How little of wisdom there went to the government of mankind!' But even when the minister may possess superior talents and his dispatches distinguished merit, a negociation is in most instances a drama that ceases to amuse when we have reached the catastrophe-a kind of enigmatical exercise of our curiosity that loses its interest when we arrive at the solution and although the conscientious historian or the political student will be anxious to explore the details of such matters to their sources, they are seldom of much practical use even as guides to statesmen, and can have little or no attraction for ordinary readers.

But though this be true of the official communications of diplomatists, the case is very different with their private correspondence; there, if they happen to have, to use a trivial but expressive phrase, a turn that way, we are likely to find not only the real secret of business important at the moment, but the-to aftertimes-more interesting views of characters and manners, which no one has better opportunities of sketching to the life than an intelligent foreign minister-when he is inquisitive about such extra-official subjects, and familiarly understands the habits, and, above all, the language of the country where he resides.

These general views are strongly corroborated by the volumes before us of what relates to public affairs little is new to the public, and that little is of minor importance, and now of remote and only reflected interest. Such, for instance, are most of the letters in which Lord Malmesbury thought it necessary to give his Government what he considered enlarged views of the political objects and interests of the court and country to which he was accredited, but which by the lapse of time and change of circumstances seem to us of very little substance or value; while the most amusing, and to this generation the most instructive, portions are a few personal anecdotes preserved in his private diaries and extra-official correspondence.

The work is edited by Lord Malmesbury's grandson, the third and present Earl, with judgment and taste; and if on this head we could venture to make any complaint, it would be that we do not see quite enough of the editor: wherever he appears, it is with propriety; but we could wish that he had appeared oftener. He has elucidated some obscure passages, but there are many more which would have been the better for his explanatory intervention.

tervention.* He has prefixed to the work a biographical sketch of his grandfather, which, though rating both his talents and his services on a somewhat higher scale than we should be disposed to allow, is on the whole modestly and ably written, and leads us to conclude that, in good taste, good sense, and good principles, the third Earl of Malmesbury has not degenerated from his

ancestors.

We shall now endeavour to arrange, in the chronological order of Lord Malmesbury's biography, some of the most prominent and interesting topics of the work.

James Harris, the only son of James Harris the author of Hermes,'—a treatise more celebrated than read, and more read than understood,-was born on the 21st of April, 1746; of the place of his birth, and of the country-gentleman habits of his family, we cannot resist copying the following short and amiable notice of the editor :

'He was descended from a Mr. Harris, who in 1565 was living on his estate at Orcheston St. George, in Wiltshire, where the successive and simple monuments of his posterity record no ambition on their part to leave, in life or in death, the neighbourhood of its parish church. They had a house in the Close of Salisbury, which is one of the most beautiful spots I know in any English or foreign town; and here, with such of the squires as were not in parliament, they repaired in those days when the provincial gentry filled and enlivened, during a portion of the year, our now deserted and mournful cathedral cities.'-vol. i. p. vi.

Hermes Harris, however, had the usual country-gentleman's ambition, and in 1763 got into parliament for the borough of Christchurch, where he had a family interest, and subsequently into political office-holding finally that of Secretary and Comptroller of the Queen's Household till his death, in 1780. On his first appearance in parliament, John'says the editor, but we rather suppose Charles Townshend asked who he was, and, being told that he had written on grammar and harmony, observed, "Why does he come here, where he will find neither?

6

James the younger was educated at first at a private school,

* There are several errors of the press, some of which are of importance. In the biographical notice it is stated (vol. i. p. xi), that Lord Malmesbury received his appointment to Madrid in the autumn of 1767: whereas it appears (ib. pp. 30, 40) that he spent the whole of that year and the ensuing spring in Poland, and did not arrive at Madrid till the very last days (Dec. 28) of 1768. Again, it is stated in a note of the dotations made by the Empress Catherine to her favourites, that 'the family of Prince Orloff had received, from the year 1762 down to the present time, 1783-4-5 thousand peasants.' It should have been down to the present time-1783-45 thousand peasants. Again, where Bishop South is quoted as applauding the Hermes, instead of Bishop Lowth. And again, where Lord Malmesbury is stated to have been born on the 21st April, 1746 (vol. i. p. vi), the day of the battle of Culloden (ib. p. xvii), which in fact was fought on the 16th a discrepancy which we cannot account for.

and

and subsequently at Winchester; and then, after six months of London under his father's roof, was in the spring of 1763 sent to Merton College, in Oxford, where, he tells us, he spent the two most unprofitable years of his whole life. But we suspect that in this he may have been mistaken. Men of business are apt to underrate the benefits derived from their college life: it is a transition state between the school and the world, where two strong and contrasting colours, being blended into one, lose, on retrospect, much of their distinct effect; and the ripening process is forgotten in the maturity which it has created. When Lord Malmesbury tells us that he lived with a set of very pleasant but very idle fellows-Charles Fox, Lord Romney, Bishop North, Lord Robert Spencer, William Eden, &c.'-we cannot but suspect that even the lighter hours of such society may have had a beneficial influence on the taste and manners, and perhaps on the mental dexterity and colloquial powers of the future ambassador.

On leaving Oxford, in 1765, his father-already destining him, we presume, for the diplomatic career-sent him to the University of Leyden, where he spent a studious and useful year-an excellent prelude to the ensuing thirty-five years of his life, which were passed, with very short intervals, on the Continent. At first he was only a traveller-but no doubt, with an eye to his future profession-for we find that he had letters of introduction to the King of Poland from Sir Joseph Yorke—then one of the most celebrated diplomatists of Europe-as a young gentleman travelling par curiosité et l'envie de s'instruire. His advancement was early and rapid; but he had prepared himself for it in the best school.

Passing through Holland, of which no mention is made, he proceeded to Berlin, and what he saw of Frederic the Great, and what he heard of his father, do no great honour to the personal character of either monarch. Harris gives some instances of the brutality of the father and the falsehood and meanness of the son; but we must attribute to his youth and inexperience that he seems to have taken no note of the higher qualities by which the first had consolidated the infant kingdom of Prussia, and the latter had extended and elevated it into a first-rate power and when, ten years later, after having been minister at his court, he forms a more extended and elaborate estimate of Frederic II., he still dwells more upon the vices and littlenesses than on the great military and political capacity-we had almost said genius-of that extraordinary man. He does justice, however, to the personal courage of the king, which had been maliciously questioned; and adds a circumstance which will rather surprise those who have only heard of him in his

mature

mature character. Mr. Harris say's that he read in the letters of Sir Charles Hotham, British envoy to the court of the old king, that the prince was at the time of his visit (about 1730) the most modest, benevolent, timid, and dejected young man he had ever seen!' This young Prussian eagle reminds us of the ministrum fulminis alitem' of Horace-weak and listless in the paternal nest, but soon to plume his wings and whet his beak and talons for plunder and blood-mox in ovilia―nunc in reluctantes dracones.

In October, 1767, Mr. Harris pursued his journey into Poland, and arrived at Warsaw during the sitting of one of those Diets which, by their alternate turbulence and cowardice and their constant incapacity, prepared—indeed, we may almost say produced-by every extravagance of corruption, folly, and factionthe annihilation of their monarchical republic. Russia had already military occupation of the country, and her ambassador, Prince Repnin, enacted ostentatiously the part of viceroy over' the puppet-king Poniatowski. Harris touches very slightly the causes which rendered Poland an anarchy within and a dangerous nuisance to her neighbours, and which alone can account for the apathy with which the more western nations of Europe acquiesced. in her destruction; but he gives us a few characteristic sketches of some of the principal actors, from which we may infer that the catastrophe was inevitable. The king, a private gentleman, elected to that crown of thorns,' as he calls it, by the arts of the Empress Catherine, was a good-natured, amiable man, and in private life not deficient in accomplishments or good sense-but much higher and bolder talents would have been necessary to overcome the combined difficulties of his personal position and of the anarchical constitution of which he was the creature, and not even the organ -but the victim.

Prince Repnin, the Russian Ambassador, plays a much greater part at Warsaw than the King. The line he takes is so high towards the men of the first distinction, and of such overbearing gallantry towards the women, that it is quite shocking. In the Delegation [a kind of standing committee of the Dict] he orders with the most despotic sway, and immediately silences any one that presumes to speak against his will. He treats all in the same cavalier manner-even the King.'vol. i. p. 18.

And then follows an anecdote of Repnin's bullying the King about some question of dancing at a ball, and another less violent, but more contemptuous:

At [dinner at] the Primate's there was a question of some of the ancient Polish monarchs, who, being driven from their own kingdom, were obliged, by way of support, to exercise a trade; one particularly who, for a while, was a goldsmith at Florence. The present King, dis

coursing