Some historians are great Palliators. Hume, for instance, palliates the conduct and administration of Edward II., and Richard II.; and he enters largely into the tyranny of the Tudors; seemingly, it has been thought, for the express purpose of extenuating that of the Stuarts. As to his history of Charles I., it is a party production altogether.

William Pitt, that is, the second William Pitt, was a great Palliator; insomuch, that, though of a high mind, personally, he defended almost every public delinquent, during the long period of his administration.

During the early stage of the French revolution, Reubel was the constant protector of men accused of plunder and dilapidation; Barras, of attainted and ruined nobles; and Revelliere, of unprincipled priests.

Some things are esteemed for their intrinsic value; some for the associations with which they are connected; and others for being specimens of art, genius, or labour. Thus a nobleman admits the portrait of a person to hang in his cabinet for years, whom he would not permit (vivo) to come into his presence for a moAn assassin, for instance. It is the work, and not the man. Sometimes it is not the deed, but the motive; sometimes the man or the deed, and not the motive.

ment.

Men are frequently lenient,-exceedingly lenient,-to the faults of others, when they have never suffered from the like; and are in no dread of suffering from the future but the moment they fear;-the unholy difference!

LXXX.

WHO ACCUSE OTHERS OF WHAT THEY ARE GUILTY OF THEMSELVES.

"Tis but my duty to redress the wrongs

That we have caus'd; unless, perhaps, you took me
For one of those who, having injured you,
Term fair expostulation an affront;

And, having first offended, are the first

To turn accusers.'-Terence; The Brothers; Colman.

THERE is such a jealous and mortified spirit among men, that if a person does a thing once, he is not unfrequently accused of doing it always. Thus, if he lie in bed till ten in the morning once or twice, his neighbours will immediately convert it into a habit; and it is ten to one but he will have a character for indolence, which he will be some time in clearing away.

How often, also, do we accuse others of what we are guilty of ourselves*! To hear Cethegus accuse Cati' line,' says Juvenal, 'would be almost enough to draw 'the planets from the spheres.' Indeed, when I hear men accuse their fellows, pertinaciously, of prejudice, ill humour, or of any other fault, unless I know expressly to the contrary,—I am rather apt to believe the accusers too guilty of those vices themselves; and yet, -in their own opinions at least,—they are men of an exceedingly nice discernment!

Thou art inexcusable, O man,' says St. Paul, 'whoever 'thou art, that judgest; for wherein thou judgest another, thou 'condemnest thyself: for thou, that judgest, doest the same things.'-Romuns, oh. ii., v. 1.

6

'In Fox,' said Napoleon, the heart warmed the 'genius; in Pitt, the genius withered the heart.' How applicable was the last sentence to the speaker himself!

'Change but the name, the tale is told of you.'

Livy accuses Hannibal of 'inhuman cruelty,' and more than 'Carthaginian treachery;' of having 'no respect for truth or honour;' no fear of the gods ;' no regard for the sanctity of oaths;' and 'no sense of religion.' Whether Hannibal was, indeed, a martyr to all these bad qualities, I know not. I much suspect that he was not. But one thing is certain; viz., that, were he guilty of them to ever so great an extent, his enemies had them in as great, if not in a greater. It is much to be lamented that the history of the Carthaginians is known chiefly-indeed, as I have said before, almost only, through the medium of their enemies.

Hannibal could both command and obey. He had not pertinacity of design: but, what genius! what resources! Nor would he permit himself to feel that there were such things as doubt, or difficulty, or danger. He had both courage and stratagem; nor would he hesitate about any thing but a declaration of peace with those whom he felt to be his country's most effective and inveterate enemies.

Could any thing have been more ludicrous than to have heard Cromwell accuse Charles I. of being a hypocrite? One day, finding the Eikon' on the table of Lady Wenwood, Cromwell exclaimed, 'You, I see, madam, you have Charles Stuart's book in your keep'ing.' 'Yes, my lord Protector,' answered Lady

you

Wenwood; but do 6 believe he wrote it?' To be sure I do,' answered Cromwell; do I not know him to have been a perfect hypocrite?'

Look, too, at the conduct of Cromwell's clergymen*. It is curious to observe how mankind are led, from generation to generation, by garbled statements, unjust accusations, and puerile prejudices! Thus the reign of Mary the Bigot is stigmatized, and justly, for the enormity of religious persecutions. She is, therefore, almost universally believed to have united the three pestilent vices of avarice, pride, and revenge; chastened only by the affection which she entertained for a worthless husband. During her reign two hundred and seventyseven persons died at the stake; but it ought not to be forgotten, that if Mary was attached to the stake, Elizabeth seems to have been almost equally attached to the halter; for in her reign one hundred and sixty-eight persons were executed for being priests, for harbouring priests, or for being converts. Two Dutchmen were also burnt in Smithfield for being anabaptists +.

*The most part of them (divines) were such as had preached ' and cried down, with great show of zeal, the avarice and plurali'ties of bishops and prelates; yet these conscientious men (ere any part of the work done for which they came together, and 'that on public salary) wanted not boldness, to the ignominy and 'scandal of their pastor-like profession, to seize into their hands, " or willingly accept (besides one, sometimes two or more, of the 'best livings), collegiate masterships in the universities, rich lec'tures in the city, setting sail to all winds that might blow gain ' into their covetous bosoms.'-Milton, Character of the Long Parliament, 1681, pp. 5, 6.

+ Bishop Challoner assures us, that nearly as many suffered from the first year of James I. to the last of Charles II.

Can we forget the reasoning of Izarn, in his dispute with one of the Albigenses?

'As you declare you won't believe, 'tis fit that you should burn ; And as your fellows have been burnt, that you should blaze in turn *.

And as you've disobey'd the will of God and of St. Paul,

Which ne'er was found within your heart, nor pass'd your teeth at all,

The fire is lit, the pitch is hot, and ready is the stake,

That through these tortures, for your sins, your passage you may take.'

LXXXI.

WHO APPRECIATE MALICIOUSLY.

'So, roll'd up in his den, the swelling snake
Beholds the traveller approach the brake;
When, fed with noxious herbs, his turbid veins
Have gather'd half the poisons of the plains."

Homer, Iliad; Pope.

THIS is a motto which might have been adopted with felicity by her imperial majesty, Maria Theresa; the difference being often

'As great between

The optics seeing, as the object seen.'

< The English are almost all deists, infidels, and free'thinkers,' said her majesty to her husband, the Emperor, and her youngest son the Archduke Maximilian, when they were about to visit France and the Netherlands. 'Go not over to that country: I tremble lest ' any intercourse with such a nation should contami

*E s'aquest no vols creyre vec t'el foc arzerat

Che art tos companhos,' &c. &c.

Vide Sismondi, i., 227.