their conversion, to question their sincerity. It would be most uncandid to attribute to sordid motives actions which admit of a less discreditable explanation. We think that the conduct of these persons has been precisely what was to be expected from men who were gifted with strong imagination and quick sensibility, but who were neither accurate observers nor logical reasoners. It was natural that such men should see in the victory of the third estate in France the dawn of a new Saturnian age. It was natural that the disappointment should be proportioned to the extravagance of their hopes. Though the direction of their passions was altered, the violence of those passions was the same. The force of the rebound was proportioned to the force of the original impulse. The pendulum swung furiously to the left because it had been drawn too far to the right.

We own that nothing gives us so high an idea of the judgment and temper of Sir James Mackintosh as the manner in which he shaped his course through those times. Exposed successively to two opposite infections, he took both in their very mildest form. The constitution of his mind was such that neither of the diseases which committed such havoc all around him could, in any serious degree, or for any great length of time, derange his intellectual health. He, like every honest and enlightened man in Europe, saw with delight the great awakening of the French nation. Yet he never, in the season of his warmest enthusiasm, proclaimed doctrines inconsistent with the safety of property and the just authority of governments. He, like almost every honest and enlightened man, was discouraged and perplexed by the terrible events which followed. Yet he never, in the most gloomy times, abandoned the cause of peace, of liberty, and of toleration. In that great convulsion which overset almost every other understanding, he was indeed so much shaken that he leaned sometimes in one direction and sometimes in the other; but he never lost his balance. The opinions in which he at last reposed, and to which, in spite of strong temptations, he adhered with a firm, a disinterested, an ill-requited fidelity, were a just mean between those which he had defended with a youthful ardour and with more than manly prowess against Mr. Burke; and those to which he had inclined during the darkest and saddest years in the history of modern Europe. We are much mistaken

if this be the picture either of a weak or of a dishonest mind.

What his political opinions were in his latter years is written in the annals of his country. Those annals will sufficiently refute the calumny which his biographer has ventured to publish in the very advertisement to his work. "Sir James Mackintosh," says he, "was avowedly and emphatically a Whig of the Revolution: and since the agitation of religious liberty and parliamentary reform became a national movement, the great transaction of 1688 has been more dispassionately, more correctly, and less highly estimated."While we transcribe the words, our anger cools down into scorn. If they mean anything, they must mean that the opinions of Sir James Mackintosh concerning religious liberty and parliamentary reform went no further than those of the authors of the Revolution,-in other words, that Sir James Mackintosh opposed Catholic Emancipation, and quite approved of the old constitution of the House of Commons. The allegation is confuted by twenty volumes of parliamentary debates, nay, by innumerable passages in the very fragment which this writer has done his little utmost to deface. We tell him that Sir James Mackintosh has often done more for religious liberty and for parliamentary reform in a quarter of an hour than the feeble abilities of his biographer will ever effect in the whole course of a long life.

The Continuation which follows Sir James Mackintosh's Fragment is as offensive as the Memoir which precedes it. We do not pretend to have read the whole, or even one-half of it. Three hundred quarto pages of such matter are too much for human patience. It would be unjust to the writer not to present our readers, few of whom, we suspect, will be his readers, with a sample of his eloquence. We will treat them with a short sentence, and will engage that they shall think it long enough. "Idolatry! fatal word, which has edged more swords, lighted more fires, and inhumanized more hearts, than the whole vocabulary of the passions besides." A choice style for history, we must own! This gentleman is fond of the word "vocabulary." He speaks ver, scornfully of Churchill's "vocabulary," and blames Burnet for the "hardihood of his vocabulary." What this last expression may mean, we do not very clearly under stand.

But we are quite sure that Burnet's vocabulary,

with all its hardihood, would never have dared to admit such a word as "inhumanized."

Of the accuracy of the Continuation as to matters of fact we will give a single specimen. With a little time we could find twenty such. "Bishop Lloyd did not live to reap, at least to enjoy, the fruit of his public labours and secret intrigues. He died soon after the Revolution, upon his translation from St. Asaph to Worcester." Nobody tolerably well acquainted with political, ecclesiastical, or literary history, can need to be told that Lloyd was not made Bishop of Worcester till the year 1699, after the death of Stillingfleet; that he outlived the Revolution nearly thirty years; and died in the reign of George I. This blunder is the more inexcusable, as one of the most curious and best known transactions in the time of Anne, was the address of the House of Commons to the queen, begging her to dismiss Lloyd from his place of almoner.

As we turn over the leaves, another sentence catches our eye. We extract it as an instance both of historical accuracy and philosophical profundity. "Religion in 1688 was not a rational conviction, or a sentiment of benevolence and charity; but one of the malignant passions, and a cause of quarrel. Even in the next age, Congreve makes a lying sharper, in one of his plays, talk seriously of fighting for his religion." What is meant by "even in the next age? e?" Congreve's first work, the novel of "Cleophil," was written in the very year 1688; and the "Old Bachelor," from which the quotation is taken, was brought on the stage only five years after the Revolution. But this great logician ought to go further. Sharper talks of fighting, not only for his religion, but for his friends. We presume, therefore, that in the year 1688, friendship was one of the malignant passions, and a cause of quarrel." But enough and too much of such folly.

66

Never was there such a contrast as that which Sir James's Fragment presents to this Continuation. In the former, we have scarcely been able, during several close examinations, to detect one mistake as to matter of fact. We never open the latter without lighting on a ridiculous blunder which it does not require the assistance of any book of reference to detect. The author has not the smallest notion of the state of England in 1688; of the feelings and opi

nions of the people; of the relative position of parties; of the character of one single public man on either side. No single passage can give any idea of this equally diffused ignorance, this omninescience, if we may carry the “hardihood of our vocabulary" so far as to coin a new word for what is to us quite a new thing. We take the first page on which we open as a fair sample, and no more than a fair sample, of the whole.

"Lord Halifax played his part with deeper perfidy. This opinion is expressed without reference to the strange statement of Bishop Burnet, which seems, indeed, too inconsistent to be true. It should be cited, however, for the judgment of the reader. "The Marquis of Halifax,' says he, (on the arrival of the commissioners at Hungerford,) sent for me; but the prince said, though he would suspect nothing from our meeting, others might; so I did not speak with him in private, but in the hearing of others. Yet he took occasion to ask me, so as nobody observed it, if we had a mind to have the king in our hands. I said by no means, for we would not hurt his person. He asked next, what if he had a mind to go away? I said nothing was so much to be wished for. This I told the prince, and he approved of both my answers.'

"Is it credible that Lord Halifax started an overture of the blackest guilt and infamy in a room with others, in a mere conversation with an inferior personage, who had little credit and no discretion, and whilst he had, it has been shown, more suitable vehicles of communication with the Prince of Orange! Such a step outrages all probability when imputed to a statesman noted for his finesse. But why should Burnet invent and dramatize such a scene? It may be accounted for by his distinctive character. He appears throughout his history a subaltern partisan, conscious of his inferiority, and struggling to convince others and himself, that he was a personage of the first pretension. Such a man, whose vanity, moreover, was notoriously unscrupulous, having heard of the intrigue of Lord Halifax, would seize and mould it to his purpose as a proof of his importance, and as an episode in his history."

And this is the man who has been chosen to complete a work which Sir James Mackintosh left unfinished! Every line of the passage proves the writer to be ignorant of the most notorious facts, and unable to read characters of which the peculiarities lie most open to superficial observation. Burnet was partial, vain, credulous, and careless. But Burnet was quite incapable of framing a deliberate and circumstantial falsehood. And what reason does this writer assign for giving the lie direct to the good bishop? Absolutely none, except that Lord Halifax would not have talked

Was

Was it

on a delicate subject to so "inferior a personage.' Burnet then considered as an insignificant man? to an insignificant man that Parliament voted thanks for services rendered to the Protestant religion? Was it against an insignificant man that Dryden put forth all his powers of invective in the most elaborate, though not the most vigorous of his works? Was he an insignificant man whom the great Bossuet constantly, described, as the most formidable of all the champions of the Reformation? Was it to an insignificant man that King William gave the very first bishopric that became vacant after the Revolution? Tillotson, Tennyson, Stillingfleet, Hough, Patrick, all distinguished by their exertions in defence of the reformed faith, all supporters of the new government, were they all passed by in favour of a man of no weight-of a man so unimportant that no person of rank would talk with him about momentous affairs? And, even granting that Burnet was a very "inferior personage," did Halifax think him so ? Everybody knows the contrary-that is, everybody except this writer. In 1680 it was reported that Halifax was a concealed Papist. It was accordingly moved in the House of Commons by Halifax's stepfather, Chichley, that Dr. Burnet should be examined as to his lordship's religious opinions. This proves that they were on terms of the closest intimacy. But this is not all. There is still extant among the writings of Halifax a character of Burnet, drawn with the greatest skill and delicacy. It is no unmixed panegyric. The failings of Burnet are pointed out; but he is described as a man whose very failings arose from the constant activity of his intellect. "His friends," says the Marquis, "love him too well to see small faults, or if they do, think that his greater talents give him a privilege of straying from the strict rules of caution." Men like Halifax do not write elaborate characters, either favourable or unfavourable, of those whom they consider as "inferior personages." Yet Burnet, it seems, was so inferior a personage, that Halifax would not trust him with a secret! And what, after all, was the mighty secret? This writer calls an overture of guilt and infamy." It was no overture of guilt and infamy. It was no overture at all. It was, on the face of it, a very simple question, which the most

it "