since the Revolution. Both were per-years, an almost uninterrupted posses- But of all the reforms produced by the Revolution, perhaps the most important was the full establishment of the liberty of unlicensed printing. The Censorship which, under some form or other, had existed, with rare and short intermissions, under every government, monarchical or republican, from the time of Henry the Eighth downwards, expired, and has never since been renewed. that it is given to magistrates, not for their own, but for the public advantage; that, where it is abused by magistrates, even by the highest of all, it may lawfully be withdrawn. It is perfectly true, that the Whigs were not more exempt than other men from the vices and infirmities of our nature, and that, when they had power, they sometimes abused it. But still they stood firm to their theory. That theory was the badge of their party. It was something more. It was the foundation on which rested the power of the houses of Nassau and Brunswick. Thus, there was a government interested in propagating a class of opinions which We are aware that the great improvements which we have recapitulated were, in many respects, imperfectly and unskilfully executed. The authors of those improvements sometimes, most governments are interested in while they removed or mitigated a great practical evil, continued to recognise the erroneous principle from which that evil had sprung. Sometimes, when they had adopted a sound principle, they shrank from following it to all the conclusions to which it would have led them. Sometimes they failed to perceive that the remedies which they applied to one disease of the State were certain to generate another disease, and to render another remedy necessary. Their knowledge was inferior to ours: nor were they always able to act up to their knowledge. The pressure of circumstances, the necessity of compromising differences of opinion, the power and violence of the party which was altogether hostile to the new settlement, must be taken into the account. When these things are fairly weighed, there will, we think, be little difference of opinion among liberal and right-minded men as to the real value of what the great events of 1688 did for this country. We have recounted what appear to us the most important of those changes which the Revolution produced in our laws. The changes which it produced in our laws, however, were not more important than the change which it indirectly produced in the public mind. The Whig party had, during seventy discouraging, a government which looked with complacency on all speculations favourable to public liberty, and with extreme aversion on all speculations favourable to arbitrary power. There was a King who decidedly preferred a republican to a believer in the divine right of kings; who considered every attempt to exalt his prerogative as an attack on his title; and who reserved all his favours for those who declaimed on the natural equality of men, and the popular origin of government. This was the state of things from the Revolution till the death of George the Second. The effect was what might have been expected. Even in that profession which has generally been most disposed to magnify the prerogative, a great change took place. Bishopric after bishopric and deanery after deanery were bestowed on Whigs and Latitudinarians. The consequence was that Whiggism and Latitudinarianism were professed by the ablest and most aspiring churchmen. Hume complained bitterly of this at the close of his history. "The Whig party," says he, "for a course of near seventy years, has almost without interruption enjoyed the whole authority of government, and no honours or offices could be obtained but by their countenance and protection. But this To vote a patriot black, a courtier white," "whom pensions can incite event, which in some particulars has | traitor and a slave, the Excise as a hatebeen advantageous to the state, has ful tax, the Commissioners of the Ex proved destructive to the truth of his- cise as wretches, if he were to write a tory, and has established many gross satire full of reflections on men who falsehoods, which it is unaccountable receive "the price of boroughs and of how any civilised nation could have souls," who "explain their country's embraced, with regard to its domestic dear-bought rights away," or occurrences. Compositions the most despicable, both for style and matter," in a note he instances the writings of Locke, Sydney, Hoadley, and Rapin, we should set him down for something "have been extolled and propa- more democratic than a Whig. Yet this gated and read as if they had equalled was the language which Johnson, the the most celebrated remains of an- most bigoted of Tories and High tiquity. And forgetting that a regard Churchmen, held under the administrato liberty, though a laudable passion, tion of Walpole and Pelham. ought commonly to be subservient to a Thus doctrines favourable to public reverence for established government, liberty were inculcated alike by those the prevailing faction has celebrated who were in power and by those only the partisans of the former." We who were in opposition. It was by will not here enter into an argument means of these doctrines alone that the about the merit of Rapin's History or former could prove that they had a Locke's political speculations. We King de jure. The servile theories of call Hume merely as evidence to a the latter did not prevent them from fact well known to all reading men, offering every molestation to one whom that the literature patronised by the they considered as merely a King de English Court and the English minis-facto. The attachment of one party to try, during the first half of the eigh-the House of Hanover, of the other to teenth century, was of that kind which that of Stuart, induced both to talk a courtiers and ministers generally do language much more favourable to all in their power to discountenance, popular rights than to monarchical and tended to inspire zeal for the liberties of the people rather than respect for the authority of the govern ment. power. What took place at the first representation of Cato is no bad illustration of the way in which the two great sections of the community almost There was still a very strong Tory invariably acted. A play, the whole party in England. But that party was merit of which consists in its stately in opposition. Many of its members rhetoric sometimes not unworthy of still held the doctrine of passive obe- Lucan, about hating tyrants and dying dience. But they did not admit that for freedom, is brought on the stage in the existing dynasty had any claim to a time of great political excitement. such obedience. They condemned re- Both parties crowd to the theatre. sistance. But by resistance they meant Each affects to consider every line as a the keeping out of James the Third, compliment to itself, and an attack on and not the turning out of George the its opponents. The curtain falls amidst Second. No radical of our times could an unanimous roar of applause. The grumble more at the expenses of the Whigs of the Kit Cat embrace the auroyal household, could exert himself thor, and assure him that he has renmore strenuously to reduce the military dered an inestimable service to liberty. establishment, could oppose with more The Tory secretary of state presents a earnestness every proposition for arm-purse to the chief actor for defending ing the executive with extraordinary the cause of liberty so well. The hispowers, or could pour more unmiti-tory of that night was, in miniature, the gated abuse on placemen and courtiers. history of two generations. If a writer were now, in a massive Dictionary, to define a Pensioner as a We well know how much sophistry there was in the reasonings, and how LORD BACON. (JULY, 1837.) The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chan cellor of England. A new Edition. By BASIL MONTAGU, Esq. 16 vols. 8vo. London: 1825-1834. much exaggeration in the declamations of both parties. But when we compare the state in which political science was at the close of the reign of George the Second with the state in which it had been when James the Second came to the throne, it is impossible not to admit WE return our hearty thanks to Mr. that a prodigious improvement had Montagu for this truly valuable work, taken place. We are no admirers of From the opinions which he expresses the political doctrines laid down in as a biographer we often dissent. But Blackstone's Commentaries. But if we about his merit as a collector of the consider that those Commentaries were materials out of which opinions are read with great applause in the very formed, there can be no dispute; and schools where, seventy or eighty years we readily acknowledge that we are in before, books had been publicly burned a great measure indebted to his minute by order of the University of Oxford and accurate researches for the means for containing the damnable doctrine of refuting what we cannot but consider that the English monarchy is limited as his erorrs. and mixed, we cannot deny that a salutary change had taken place. "The Jesuits," says Pascal, in the last of his incomparable letters, "have obtained a Papal decree, condemning Galileo's doctrine about the motion of the earth. The labour which has been bestowed on this volume has been a labour of love. The writer is evidently enamoured of the subject. It fills his heart. It constantly overflows from his lips and his pen. Those who are acquainted with It is all in vain. If the world is the Courts in which Mr. Montagu really turning round, all mankind practises with so much ability and suctogether will not be able to keep it cess well know how often he enlivens from turning, or to keep themselves the discussion of a point of law by from turning with it." The decrees citing some weighty aphorism, or some of Oxford were as ineffectual to stay brilliant illustration, from the De Augthe great moral and political revo-mentis or the Novum Organum. The lution as those of the Vatican to stay Life before us doubtless owes much of the motion of our globe. That learned its value to the honest and generous University found itself not only unable enthusiasm of the writer. This feeling to keep the mass from moving, but un- has stimulated his activity, has susable to keep itself from moving along tained his perseverance, has called with the mass. Nor was the effect of forth all his ingenuity and eloquence: the discussions and speculations of but, on the other hand, we must frank that period confined to our own country. say that it has, to a great extent, perWhile the Jacobite party was in the verted his judgment. last dotage and weakness of its paralytic old age, the political philosophy of England began to produce a mighty effect on France, and, through France, on Europe. Here another vast field opens itself before us. But we must resolutely turn away from it. We will conclude by advising all our readers to study Sir James Mackintosh's valuable Fragment, and by expressing our hope that they will soon be able to study it without those accompaniments which have hitherto impeded its circulation. We are by no means without sympathy for Mr. Montagu even in what we consider as his weakness. There is scarcely any delusion which has a better claim to be indulgently treated than that under the influence of which a man ascribes every moral excellence to those who have left imperishable monuments of their genius. The causes of this error lie deep in the inmost recesses of human nature. We are all inclined to judge of others as we find them. Our estimate of a character always depends much on the manner in which that character affects our own interests and passions. We find it difficult to think highest of human intellects. That placid intercourse is disturbed by no jealousies or resentments. These are the old friends who are never seen with new faces, who are the same in wealth and in poverty, in glory and in obscurity. With the dead there is no rivalry. In the dead there is no change. Plato petulant. Demosthenes never comes unseasonably. Dante never stays too long. No difference of political opinion can alienate Cicero. No heresy can excite the horror of Bossuet. well of those by whom we are thwarted | to truth. They have filled his mind or depressed; and we are ready to ad- with noble and graceful images. They mit every excuse for the vices of those have stood by him in all vicissitudes, who are useful or agreeable to us. This comforters in sorrow, nurses in sickis, we believe, one of those illusions to ness, companions in solitude. These which the whole human race is subject, friendships are exposed to no danger and which experience and reflection from the occurrences by which other can only partially remove. It is, in the attachments are weakened or dissolved. phraseology of Bacon, one of the idola Time glides on; fortune is incontribus. Hence it is that the moral cha- stant; tempers are soured; bonds which racter of a man eminent in letters or in seemed indissoluble are daily sundered the fine arts is treated, often by contem- by interest, by emulation, or by caprice. poraries, almost always by posterity, But no such cause can affect the silent with extraordinary tenderness. The converse which we hold with the world derives pleasure and advantage from the performances of such a man. The number of those who suffer by his personal vices is small, even in his own time, when compared with the number of those to whom his talents are a source of gratification. In a few years all those whom he has injured disappear. But his works remain, and are a source is never sullen. Cervantes is never of delight to millions. The genius of Sallust is still with us. But the Numidians whom he plundered, and the unfortunate husbands who caught him in their houses at unseasonable hours, are forgotten. We suffer ourselves to be delighted by the keenness of Clarendon's observation, and by the sober majesty of his style, till we forget the oppressor and the bigot in the historian. Falstaff and Tom Jones have survived the gamekeepers whom Shakspeare cudgelled and the landladies whom Fielding bilked. A great writer is the friend and benefactor of his readers; and they cannot but judge of him under the deluding influence of friendship and gratitude. We all know how unwilling we are to admit the truth of any disgraceful story about a person whose society we like, and from whom we have received favours; how long we struggle against evidence, how fondly, when the facts cannot be disputed, we cling to the hope that there may be some explanation or some extenuating circumstance with which we are unacquainted. Just such is the feeling which a man of liberal education naturally entertains towards the great minds of former ages. The debt which he owes to them is incalculable. They have guided him Nothing, then, can be more natural than that a person endowed with sensibility and imagination should entertain a respectful and affectionate feeling towards those great men with whose minds he holds daily communion. Yet nothing can be more certain than that such men have not always deserved to be regarded with respect or affection. Some writers, whose works will continue to instruct and delight mankind to the remotest ages, have been placed in such situations that their actions and motives are as well known to us as the actions and motives of one human being can be known to another; and unhappily their conduct has not always been such as an impartial judge can contemplate with approbation. But the fanaticism of the devout worshipper of genius is proof against all evidence and all argument. The character of his idol is matter of faith ; and the province of faith is not to be invaded by reason. He maintains his superstition with a credulity as boundless, and a zeal as unscrupulous, as can be found in the most ardent partisans of religious or political fac-overthrew the Roman aristocracy, the tions. The most decisive proofs are whole state of parties, the character of rejected; the plainest rules of morality every public man, is elaborately misare explained away; extensive and represented, in order to make out someimportant portions of history are com- thing which may look like a defence of pletely distorted. The enthusiast mis-one most eloquent and accomplished represents facts with all the effrontery trimmer. of an advocate, and confounds right and wrong with all the dexterity of a Jesuit; and all. this only in order that some man who has been in his grave during many ages may have a fairer character than he deserves. Middleton's Life of Cicero is a striking instance of the influence of this sort of partiality. Never was there a character which it was easier to read than that of Cicero. Never was there a mind keener or more critical than that of Middleton. Had the biographer brought to the examination of his favourite statesman's conduct but a very small part of the acuteness and severity which he displayed when he was engaged in investigating the high pretensions of Epiphanius and Justin Martyr, he could not have failed to produce a most valuable history of a most interesting portion of time. But this most ingenious and learned man, though The volume before us reminds us now and then of the Life of Cicero. But there is this marked difference. Dr. Middleton evidently had an uneasy consciousness of the weakness of his cause, and therefore resorted to the most disingenuous shifts, to unpardonable distortions and suppressions of facts. Mr. Montagu's faith is sincere and implicit. He practises no trickery. He conceals nothing. He puts the facts before us in the full confidence. that they will produce on our minds the effect which they have produced on his own. It is not till he comes to reason from facts to motives that his partiality shows itself; and then he leaves Middleton himself far behind. His work proceeds on the assumption that Bacon was an eminently virtuous man. From the tree Mr. Montagu judges of the fruit. He is forced to relate many actions which, if any man but Bacon had committed them, no"So wary held and wise That, as 'twas said, he scarce received body would have dreamed of defendFor gospel what the church believed," ing, actions which are readily and had a superstition of his own. The completely explained by supposing great Iconoclast was himself an idol- Bacon to have been a man whose ater. The great Avvocato del Diavolo, principles were not strict, and whose while he disputed, with no small spirit was not high, actions which can ability, the claims of Cyprian and be explained in no other way without Athanasius to a place in the Calendar, resorting to some grotesque hypothesis was himself composing a lying legend for which there is not a tittle of evi.. in honour of St. Tully. He was hold-dence. But any hypothesis is, in Mr. ing up as a model of every virtue a Montagu's opinion, more probable than man whose talents and acquirements, that his hero should ever have done indeed, can never be too highly ex- any thing very wrong. tolled, and who was by no means destitute of amiable qualities, but whose whole soul was under the dominion of a girlish vanity and a craven fear. Actions for which Cicero himself, the most eloquent and skilful of advocates, could contrive no excuse, actions which in his confidential correspondence he mentioned with remorse and shame, are represented by his biographer as wise, virtuous, heroic. The whole history of that great revolution which This mode of defending Bacon seems to us by no means Baconian. To take a man's character for granted, and then from his character to infer the moral quality of all his actions, is surely a process the very reverse of that which is recommended in the Novum Organum. Nothing, we are sure, could have led Mr. Montagu to depart so far from his master's precepts, except zeal for his master's honour We shall follow a different course. We shall at |