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made bold to say to the obvious occasion of this improvement in our prospects, Much obliged to you, sir: whereunto the brown forester (waving his hand, and still walking up and down as before) replied, "No you an't. You're none o' my raising. You may act for yourselves, you may. I have pinted out the way. Down-easters and Johnny Cakes can follow if they please. I an't a Johnny Cake, I an't. I am from the brown forests of the Mississippi, I am;' and so on, as before. He was unanimously voted one of the tables for his bed at night-there is a great contest for the tables-in consideration of his public services, and he had the warmest corner by the stove throughout the rest of the journey. But I never could find out that he did anything except sit there; nor did I hear him speak again until, in the midst of the bustle and turmoil of getting the luggage ashore in the dark at Pittsburg, I stumbled over him as he sat smoking a cigar on the cabin steps, and heard him muttering to himself, with a short laugh of defiance, I an't a Johnny Cake, I an't. I'm from the brown forests of the Mississippi. I am, damme!' I am inclined to argue from this that he had never left off saying so. The following is completely in the style of Dickens -a finished miniature, yet full of heart:

There was a little woman on board with a little baby; and both little woman and little child were cheerful, good-looking, bright-eyed, and fair to see. The little woman had been passing a long time with her sick mother in New York, and had left her home in St Louis, in that condition in which ladies who truly love their lords desire to be. The baby was born in her mother's house, and she had not seen her husband (to whom she was now returning) for twelve months, having left him a month or two after their marriage. Well, to be sure, there never was a little woman so full of hope, and tenderness, and love, and anxiety, as this little woman was; and all day long she wondered whether he' would be at the wharf; and whether he' had got her letter; and whether, if she sent the baby ashore by somebody else, 'he' would know it meeting it in the street; which, seeing that he had never set eyes upon it in his life, was not very likely in the abstract, but was probable enough to the young mother. She was such an artless little creature, and was in such a sunny, beaming, hopeful state, and let out all this matter clinging close about her heart so freely, that all the other lady passengers entered into the spirit of it as much as she; and the captain (who heard all about it from his wife) was wondrous sly, I promise you, inquiring every time we met at table, as in forgetfulness, whether she expected anybody to meet her at St Louis, and whether she would want to go ashore the night we reached it (but he supposed she wouldn't), and cutting many other dry jokes of that nature. There was one little weazen-dried, apple-faced old woman, who took occasion to doubt the constancy of husbands in such circumstances of bereavement; and there was another lady (with a lap dog), old enough to moralise on the lightness of human affections, and yet not so old that she could help nursing the baby now and then, or laughing with the rest when the little woman called it by its father's name, and asked it all manner of fantastic questions concerning him in the joy of her heart. It was something of a blow to the little woman, that when we were within twenty miles of our destination, it became clearly necessary to put this baby to bed. But she got over it with the same good humour, tied a handkerchief round her head, and came out into the little gallery with the rest. Then, such an oracle as she became in reference to the localities! and such facetiousness as was displayed by the married ladies, and such sympathy as was shown by the single ones, and such peals of laughter as the little

woman herself (who would just as soon have cried) greeted every jest with! At last there were the lights of St Louis, and here was the wharf, and those were the steps; and the little woman, covering her face with her hands, and laughing (or seeming to laugh) more than ever, ran into her own cabin and shut herself up. I have no doubt that in the charming inconsistency of such excitement, she stopped her ears, lest she should hear him' asking for her-but I did not see her do it. Then a great crowd of people rushed on board, though the boat was not yet made fast, but was wandering about among the other boats to find a landing-place; and everybody looked for the husband, and nobody saw him, when, in the midst of us allHeaven knows how she ever got there-there was the little woman clinging with both arms tight round the neck of a fine, good-looking, sturdy young fellow and in a moment afterwards there she was again, actually clapping her little hands for joy, as she dragged him through the small door of her small cabin to look at the baby as he lay asleep!

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In the course of the year 1843 Mr Dickens entered upon a new tale, Martin Chuzzlewit, in which many of his American reminiscences are embodied, and which evinces no diminution of his powers. Indeed, in freshness and vigour of thought and style, and versatility of character and invention, this story bids fair to rank among the most finished of the author's performances. About Christmas of the same year the fertile author threw off a light production in his happiest manner-a Christmas Carol in Prose-which enjoyed vast popularity, and was dramatised at the London theatres. Thus crowned with unrivalled success, buoyant in genius and spirit, and replete with generous and manly feeling, we may anticipate for Mr Dickens a long and honourable career. The difficulties to which he is exposed in his present periodical mode of writing are, in some respects, greater than if he allowed himself a wider field, and gave his whole work to the public at once. But he would be subjected to a severer criticism if his fiction could be read continuedly-if his power of maintaining a sustained interest could be tested-if his work could be viewed as a connected whole, and its object, plan, consistency, and arrangement, brought to the notice of the reader at once. This ordeal cannot be passed triumphantly without the aid of other qualities than necessarily belong to the most brilliant sketcher of detached scenes. We do not, however, mean to express a doubt that Mr Dickens can write with judgment as well as with spirit. His powers of observation and description are qualities rarer, and less capable of being acquired, than those which would enable him to combine the scattered portions of a tale into one consistent and harmonious whole. If he will endeavour to supply whatever may be effected by care and study-avoid imitation of other writers-keep nature steadily before his eyes-and check all disposition to exaggerate-we know no writer who seems likely to attain higher success in that rich and useful department of fiction which is founded on faithful representations of human character, as exemplified in the aspects of English life.'*

HISTORIANS.

In depth of research and intrinsic value, the historical works of this period far exceed those of any of our former sections. Access has been more readily obtained to all public documents, and private collections have been thrown open with a spirit of enlightened liberality. Certain departments of history -as the Anglo-Saxon period, and the progress

*Edinburgh Review for 1838.

generally of the English constitution-have also been cultivated with superior learning and diligence. The great works of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon, still maintain their pre-eminence with the general reader, but the value of the two first has been materially diminished by subsequent investigations and new information.

WILLIAM MITFORD.

Mr

extreme. In treating of the democracies or of the democratical leaders, his statements are not less partial and exaggerated.'* It is undeniable that Mr Mitford has over-coloured the evils of popular government, but there is so much acuteness and spirit in his political disquisitions, and his narrative of events is so animated, full, and distinct, that he is always read with pleasure. His qualifications were great, and his very defects constitute a sort of individuality that is not without its attraction in so long a history.

[Condemnation and Death of Socrates.]

We are not informed when Socrates first became distinguished as a sophist; for in that description of men he was in his own day reckoned. When the wit of Aristophanes was directed against him in the theatre, he was already among the most eminent, but his eminence seems to have been then recent. It was about the tenth or eleventh year of the Peloponnesian war, when he was six or seven-and-forty years of age, that, after the manner of the old comedy, he was offered to public derision upon the stage by his own name, as one of the persons of the drama, in the comedy of Aristophanes, called The Clouds, which is yet extant. Some antipathy, it appears, existed between the comic poets collectively and the sophists or philosophers. The licentiousness of the former could indeed scarcely escape the animadversion of the latter, who, on the contrary, favoured the tragic poets, competitors with the comedians for public favour. Euripides and Aristophanes were particularly enemies; and Socrates not only lived in intimacy with Euripides, but is said to have assisted him in some of his tragedies. We are informed of no other cause for the injurious representation which the comic poet has given of Socrates, whom he exhibits in The Clouds as a flagitious yet ridiculous pretender to the occult sciences, conversing with the clouds as divinities, and teaching the principal youths of Athens to despise the received gods and to cozen men. The audience, accustomed to look on defamation with carelessness, and to hold as lawful and proper whatever might amuse the mul titude, applauded the wit, and even gave general approbation to the piece; but the high estimation of the character of Socrates sufficed to prevent that complete success which the poet had promised himself. The crown which rewarded him whose drama most earned the public favour, and which Aristophanes had so often won, was on this occasion refused him.

The most elaborate and comprehensive work we have here to notice, is The History of Greece from the Earliest Period, by WILLIAM MITFORD, Esq. The first volume of Mr Mitford's history came before the public in 1784, a second was published in 1790, and a third in 1797. It was not, however, till the year. 1810 that the work was completed. Mitford, descended of an ancient family in Northumberland, was born in London on the 10th of February 1744, and was educated first at Cheam school, Surrey, and afterwards at Queen's college, Oxford. He studied the law, but abandoned it on obtaining a commission in the South Hampshire Militia, of which regiment he was afterwards lieutenant-colonel. In 1761 he succeeded to the family estate in Hampshire, and was thus enabled to pursue those classical and historical studies to which he was ardently devoted. His first publication was an Essay on the Harmony of Language, intended principally to illustrate that of the English Language, 1774, which afterwards reached a second edition. While in the militia, he published a Treatise on the Military Force, and particularly of the Militia of the Kingdom. This subject seems to have engrossed much of his attention, for at a subsequent period of his life, when a member of the House of Commons, Mr Mitford advocated the cause of the militia with much fervour, and recommended a salutary jealousy relative to a standing army in this country. He was nevertheless a general supporter of ministers, and held the government appointment of Verdurer of the New Forest. Mr Mitford was twice elected member of parliament for the borough of Beeralston, in Devonshire, and afterwards for New Romney, in Kent. He died in 1827. The History of Greece' has passed through several editions. Byron says of Mr Mitford as a historian-His great pleasure consists in praising tyrants, abusing Plutarch, spelling oddly, and writing quaintly; and what is strange, after all, his is the best modern history of Greece in any language, and he is perhaps the best of all modern historians whatsoever. Having named his sins Two or three-and-twenty years had elapsed since (adds the noble poet), it is but fair to state his vir- the first representation of The Clouds; the storms of tues-learning, labour, research, wrath, and par-revolutions in the civil government of the country, conquest suffered from a foreign enemy, and of four tiality. I call the latter virtues in a writer, because had passed; nearly three years had followed of that they make him write in earnest.' The earnestness of Mr Mitford is too often directed against what he quiet which the revolution under Thrasybulus proterms the inherent weakness and the indelible duced, and the act of amnesty should have confirmed, barbarism of democratical government.' He was a when a young man named Melitus went to the kingwarm admirer of the English constitution and of the archon, and in the usual form delivered an informamonarchical form of government, and this bias led tion against Socrates, and bound himself to prosecute. him to be unjust to the Athenian people, whom he of the borough of Pitthos, declares these upon cath The information ran thus:- Melitus, son of Melitus, on one occasion terms the sovereign beggars of against Socrates, son of Sophroniscus, of the borough Athens. His fidelity as a reporter of facts has also of Alopece: Socrates is guilty of reviling the gods been questioned. He contracts the strongest indi- whom the city acknowledges, and of preaching other vidual partialities, and according as these lead, he new gods: moreover, he is guilty of corrupting the is credulous or mistrustful-he exaggerates or he qualifies he expands or he cuts down the docuyouth. Penalty, death.' ments on which he has to proceed. With regard to the bright side of almost every king whom he has to describe, Mr Mitford is more than credulous; for a credulous man believes all that he is told: Mr Mitford believes more than he is told. With regard to the dark side of the same individuals, his habits of estimating evidence are precisely in the opposite

with declaring his wonder how the Athenians could Xenophon begins his memorials of his revered master, have been persuaded to condemn to death a man of such uncommonly clear innocence and exalted worth. Elian, though for authority he can bear no comparison with Xenophon, has nevertheless, I think, given the

* Westminster Review for 1826.

solution. Socrates,' he says, 'disliked the Athenian constitution; for he saw that democracy is tyrannical, and abounds with all the evils of absolute monarchy.' But though the political circumstances of the times made it necessary for cotemporary writers to speak with caution, yet both Xenophon and Plato have declared enough to show that the assertion of Ælian was well-founded; and farther proof, were it wanted, may be derived from another early writer, nearly cotemporary, and deeply versed in the politics of his age, the orator Eschines. Indeed, though not stated in the indictment, yet it was urged against Socrates by his prosecutors before the court, that he was disaffected to the democracy; and in proof, they affirmed it to be notorious that he had ridiculed what the Athenian constitution prescribed, the appointment to magistracy by lot. Thus,' they said, 'he taught his numerous followers, youths of the principal families of the city, to despise the established government, and to be turbulent and seditious; and his success had been seen in the conduct of two of the most eminent, Alcibiades and Critias. Even the best things he converted to these ill purposes: from the most esteemed poets, and particularly from Homer, he selected passages to enforce his anti-democratical principles.'

Socrates, it appears, indeed, was not inclined to deny his disapprobation of the Athenian constitution. His defence itself, as it is reported by Plato, contains matter on which to found an accusation against him of disaffection to the sovereignty of the people, such as, under the jealous tyranny of the Athenian democracy, would sometimes subject a man to the penalties of high treason. You well know,' he says, ' Athenians, that had I engaged in public business, I should long ago have perished without procuring any advantage either to you or to myself. Let not the truth offend you: it is no peculiarity of your democracy, or of your national character; but wherever the people is sovereign, no man who shall dare honestly to oppose injustice-frequent and extravagant injustice-can avoid destruction.'

Without this proof, indeed, we might reasonably believe, that though Socrates was a good and faithful subject of the Athenian government, and would promote no sedition, no political violence, yet he could not like the Athenian constitution. He wished for wholesome changes by gentle means; and it seems even to have been a principal object of the labours to which he dedicated himself, to infuse principles into the rising generation that might bring about the desirable change insensibly. His scholars were chiefly sons of the wealthiest citizens, whose easy circumstances afforded leisure to attend him; and some of these zealously adopting his tenets, others merely pleased with the ingenuity of his arguments and the liveliness of his manner, and desirous to emulate his triumphs over his opponents, were forward, after his example, to engage in disputation upon all the subjects on which he was accustomed to discourse. Thus employed, and thus followed, though himself avoiding office and public business, those who governed or desired to govern the commonwealth through their influence among the many, might perhaps not unreasonably consider him as one who was or might become a formidable adversary, nor might it be difficult to excite popular jealousy against him.

Melitus, who stood forward as his principal accuser, was, as Plato informs us, no way a man of any great consideration. His legal description gives some probability to the conjecture, that his father was one of the commissioners sent to Lacedæmon from the moderate party, who opposed the ten successors of the thirty tyrants, while Thrasybulus held Piræus, and Pausanias was encamped before Athens. He was a poet, and stood forward as in a common cause of the

poets, who esteemed the doctrine of Socrates injurious to their interest. Unsupported, his accusation would have been little formidable; but he seems to have been a mere instrument in the business. He was soon joined by Lycon, one of the most powerful speakers of his time. Lycon was the avowed patron of the rhetoricians, who, as well as the poets, thought their interest injured by the moral philosopher's doctrine. I know not that on any other occasion in Grecian history we have any account of this kind of party-interest operating; but from circumstances nearly analogous in our own country-if we substitute for poets the clergy, and for rhetoricians the lawyers-we may gather what might be the party-spirit, and what the weight of influence of the rhetoricians and poets in Athens. With Lycon, Anytus, a man scarcely second to any in the commonwealth in rank and general estimation, who had held high command with reputation in the Peloponnesian war, and had been the principal associate of Thrasybulus in the war against the thirty and the restoration of the democracy, declared himself a supporter of the prosecution. Nothing in the accusation could, by any known law of Athens, affect the life of the accused. In England, no man would be put upon trial on so vague a charge-no grand jury would listen to it. But in Athens, if the party was strong enough, it signified little what was the law. When Lycon and Anytus came forward, Socrates saw that his condemnation was already decided.

By the course of his life, however, and by the turn of his thoughts for many years, he had so prepared himself for all events, that, far from alarmed at the probability of his condemnation, he rather rejoiced at it, as at his age a fortunate occurrence. He was persuaded of the soul's immortality, and of the superintending providence of an all-good Deity, whose favour he had always been assiduously endeavouring to deserve. Men fear death, he said, as if unquestionably the greatest evil, and yet no man knows that it may not be the greatest good. If, indeed, great joys were in prospect, he might, and his friends for him, with somewhat more reason regret the event; but at his years, and with his scanty fortune-though he was happy enough at seventy still to preserve both body and mind in vigour-yet even his present gratifications must necessarily soon decay. To avoid, therefore, the evils of age, pain, sickness, decay of sight, decay of hearing, perhaps decay of understanding, by the easiest of deaths (for such the Athenian mode of execution-by a draught of hemlock-was reputed), cheered with the company of surrounding friends, could not be otherwise than a blessing.

Xenophon says that, by condescending to a little supplication, Socrates might easily have obtained his acquittal. No admonition or intreaty of his friends, however, could persuade him to such an unworthiness. On the contrary, when put upon his defence, he told the people that he did not plead for his own sake, but for theirs, wishing them to avoid the guilt of an unjust condemnation. It was usual for accused persons to bewail their apprehended lot, with tears to supplicate favour, and, by exhibiting their children upon the bema, to endeavour to excite pity. He thought it, he said, more respectful to the court, as well as more becoming himself, to omit all this; however aware that their sentiments were likely so far to differ from his, that judgment would be given in anger for it.

Condemnation pronounced wrought no change upon him. He again addressed the court, declared his innocence of the matters laid against him, and observed that, even if every charge had been completely proved, still, all together did not, according to any known law, amount to a capital crime. But,' in conclusion he said, it is time to depart-I to die, you to live; but which for the greater good, God only knows."

work, DR JOHN GILLIES, historiographer to his majesty for Scotland, published The History of Ancient Greece, its Colonies and Conquests, two volumes, quarto, 1786. The monarchical spirit of the new historian was scarcely less decided than that of Mr Mitford, though expressed with less zeal and idiomatic plainness. The history of Greece,' says Dr Gillies, exposes the dangerous turbulence of democracy, and arraigns the despotism of tyrants. By describing the incurable evils inherent in every republican policy, it evinces the inestimable benefits resulting to liberty itself from the lawful dominion of hereditary kings, and the steady operation of wellexecuted with considerable ability and care; a sixth edition of the work (London, 1820, four volumes, 8vo.) has been called for, and it may still be consulted with advantage.

It was usual at Athens for execution very soon to follow condemnation-commonly on the morrow; but it happened that the condemnation of Socrates took place on the eve of the day appointed for the sacred ceremony of crowning the galley which carried the annual offerings to the gods worshipped at Delos, and immemorial tradition forbade all executions till the sacred vessel's return. Thus, the death of Socrates was respited thirty days, while his friends had free access to him in the prison. During all that time he admirably supported his constancy. Means were concerted for his escape; the jailer was bribed, a vessel prepared, and a secure retreat in Thessaly provided. No arguments, no prayers, could persuade him to use the op-regulated monarchy.' The history of Dr Gillies was portunity. He had always taught the duty of obedience to the laws, and he would not furnish an example of the breach of it. To no purpose it was urged that he had been unjustly condemned-he had always held that wrong did not justify wrong. waited with perfect composure the return of the sacred vessel, reasoned on the immortality of the soul, the advantage of virtue, the happiness derived from having made it through life his pursuit, and, with his friends about him, took the fatal cup and died.

He

Writers who, after Xenophon and Plato, have related the death of Socrates, seem to have held themselves bound to vie with those who preceded them in giving pathos to the story. The purpose here has been rather to render it intelligible-to show its connexion with the political history of Athens-to derive from it illustration of the political history. The magnanimity of Socrates, the principal efficient of the pathos, surely deserves admiration; yet it is not that in

which he has most outshone other men. The circum

In 1799 MR SHARON TURNER, a solicitor, commenced the publication of a series of works on English history, by which he has obtained a highly respectable reputation. The first was a History of the Anglo-Saxons, the second a History of England during the Middle Ages: in subsequent publications he has continued the series to the end of the reign of Elizabeth; the whole being comprised in twelve volumes, and containing much new and interesting information on the government, laws, literature, and manners, as well as on the civil and ecclesiastical to rival Gibbon in loftiness of style and diction, Mr history of the country. From an ambitious attempt Turner has disfigured his history by a pomp of expression and involved intricacy of style, that often

tion, intellectual design, and divine economy of the world, conceived and expressed in such a manner as to suit the modern style of thought and argument in which philosophical subjects are presented.

stances of Lord Russel's fate were far more trying narrative. This defect is more conspicuous in his border on the ludicrous, and mar the effect of his Socrates, we may reasonably suppose, would have borne Lord Russel's trial; but with Bishop Burnet for latter volumes. The early part of his history, devoted to the Anglo-Saxons, and the labour, as he informs his eulogist, instead of Plato and Xenophon, he would not have had his present splendid fame. The singular us, of sixteen years, is by far the most valuable. Mr merit of Socrates lay in the purity and the usefulness Turner has also published a Sacred History of the of his manners and conversation; the clearness with World, in two volumes: this book is intended to which he saw, and the steadiness with which he prac-view of the chief facts and reasonings on the creaafford to young persons a selected and concentrated tised, in a blind and corrupt age, all moral duties; the disinterestedness and the zeal with which he devoted himself to the benefit of others; and the enlarged and warm benevolence, whence his supreme and almost only pleasure seems to have consisted in doing good. The purity of Christian morality, little WILLIAM COXE (1748-1828), archdeacon of Wilts, enough, indeed, seen in practice, nevertheless is become was the author of various historical works of a very so familiar in theory, that it passes almost for obvious, elaborate character. His Memoirs of the Life and and even congenial to the human mind. Those only Administration of Sir Robert Walpole, published in will justly estimate the merit of that near approach 1798, in three quarto volumes, was the first tolerable to it which Socrates made, who will take the pains to account of any part of our history subsequent to the gather as they may from the writings of his contem-accession of the house of Hanover. It was followed poraries and predecessors-how little conception was by Memoirs of Horatio Lord Walpole, in which there entertained of it before his time; how dull to a just was a view of the times between 1678 and 1757. moral sense the human mind has really been; how These works derive a great value from the mass of slow the progress in the investigation of moral duties, original papers published in connexion with them, even where not only great pains have been taken, but though the author's style is heavy and inelegant. the greatest abilities zealously employed; and when His History of the House of Austria, 1807, and his discovered, how difficult it has been to establish them Memoirs of the Kings of Spain of the House of Bourby proofs beyond controversy, or proofs even that bon, 1813, were almost the first English works in should be generally admitted by the reason of men. which an acquaintance was displayed with the It is through the light which Socrates diffused by his materials of European history extant in other landoctrine, enforced by his practice, with the advantage guages than the French and Latin. Archdeacon of having both the doctrine and the practice exhibited Coxe also published the Life and Select Works of to highest advantage in the incomparable writings of Benjamin Stillingfleet, and the Life and Papers of the disciples such as Xenophon and Plato, that his life Duke of Marlborough. forms an era in the history of Athens and of man.

DR JOHN GILLIES-MR SHARON TURNER-
WILLIAM COXE-GEORGE CHALMERS.

While the first volume of Mitford's history was before the public, and experiencing that degree of favour which induced the author to continue his

Resembling Turner and Coxe in the vastness of his undertakings, but inferior as a writer, was GEORGE CHALMERS (1744-1825), a native of Scotland, and originally a barrister in one of the American colonies before their disjunction from Britain. His first composition, A History of the United Colonies, from their Settlement till the Peace of 1763, appeared in 1780, and from time to time he gave to the

world many works connected with history, politics, and literature. In 1807 he commenced the publication of his Caledonia, of which three large volumes had appeared, when his death precluded the hope of its being completed. It contains a laborious antiquarian detail of the earlier periods of Scottish history, with minute topographical and historical accounts of the various provinces of the country.

WILLIAM ROSCOE.

attainments, but did not proceed with the work. Pecuniary embarrassments also came to cloud his latter days. The banking establishment of which he was a partner was forced in 1816 to suspend payment, and Mr Roscoe had to sell his library, pictures, and other works of art. His love of literature continued undiminished. He gave valuable assistance in the establishment of the Royal Institution of Liverpool, and on its opening, delivered an inaugural address on the origin and vicissitudes of literature, science, and art, and their influence on the present state of society. In 1827 he received the great gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature for his merits as a historian. He had previously edited an edition of Pope, in ten volumes, which led to some controversy with Mr Bowles, as Mr Roscoe had formed a more favourable, and, we think, just estimate of the poet than his previous editors.

MALCOLM LAING.

MALCOLM LAING, a zealous Scottish historian, was born in the year 1762 at Strynzia, his paternal estate, in Orkney. He was educated for the Scottish bar, and passed advocate in 1785. He appeared as an author in 1793, having completed Dr Henry's History of Great Britain after that author's death. The sturdy Whig opinions of Laing formed a contrast to the tame moderatism of Henry; but his attainments and research were far superior to those

WILLIAM ROSCOE (1753-1831), as the author of the Life of Lorenzo de Medici, and the Life and Pontificate of Leo X., may be more properly classed with our historians than biographers. The two works contain an account of the revival of letters, and fill up the blank between Gibbon's Decline and Fall and Robertson's Charles V. Mr Roscoe was a native of Liverpool, the son of humble parents, and while engaged as clerk to an attorney, he devoted his leisure hours to the cultivation of his taste for poetry and elegant literature. He acquired a competent knowledge of the Latin, French, and Italian languages. After the completion of his clerkship, Mr Roscoe entered into business in Liverpool, and took an active part in every scheme of improvement, local and national. He wrote a poem on the Wrongs of Africa, to illustrate the evils of slavery, and also a pamphlet on the same subject, which was translated into French by Madame Necker. The of his predecessor. In 1800 he published The History stirring times in which he lived called forth several short political dissertations from his pen; but about the year 1789, he applied himself to the great task he had long meditated, a biographical account of Lorenzo de Medici. He procured much new and valuable information, and in 1796 published the result of his labours in two quarto volumes, entitled The Life of Lorenzo de Medici, called the Magnificent. The work was highly successful, and at once elevated Mr Roscoe into the proud situation of one of the most popular authors of the day. A second edition was soon called for, and Messrs Cadell and Davies purchased the copyright for L.1200. About the same time he relinquished the practice of an attorney, and studied for the bar, but ultimately settled as a banker in Liverpool. His next literary appearance was as the translator of The Nurse, a poem, from the Italian of Luigi Tansillo. In 1805 was published his second great work, 'The Life and Pontificate of Leo X.,' four volumes quarto, which, though carefully prepared, and also enriched with new information, did not experience the same success as his life of Lorenzo. The history of the reformation of religion,' it has been justly remarked, 'involved many questions of subtle disputation, as well as many topics of character and conduct; and, for a writer of great candour and discernment, it was scarcely possible to satisfy either the Papists or the Protestants.' The liberal sentiments and accomplishments of Mr Roscoe recommended him to his townsmen as a fit person to represent them in parliament, and he was accordingly elected in 1806. He spoke in favour of the abolition of the slave trade, and of the civil disabilities of the Catholics, which excited against him a powerful and violent opposition. Inclined himself to quiet and retirement, and disgusted with the conduct of his opponents, he withdrew from parliament at the next dissolution, and resolutely declined offering himself as a candidate. He still, however, took a warm interest in passing events, and published several pamphlets on the topics of the day. He projected a history of art and literature, a task well suited to his talents and

of Scotland from the Union of the Crowns on the Accession of King James VI. to the throne of England, to the Union of the Kingdoms in the reign of Queen Anne; with two dissertations, historical and critical, on the Gowrie Conspiracy, and on the supposed authenticity of Ossian's Poems. This is an able work, marked by strong prejudices and predilections, but valuable to the historical student for its acute reasoning and analysis. Laing attacked the translator of Ossian with unmerciful and almost ludicrous severity, in revenge for which, the Highland admirers of the Celtic muse attributed his sentiments to the prejudice natural to an Orkney man, caused by the severe checks given by the ancient Caledonians to their predatory Scandinavian predecessors! Laing replied by another publication-The Poems of Ossian, &c. containing the Poetical Works of James Macpherson, Esq. in Prose and Rhyme, with Notes and Illustrations. In 1804 he published another edition of his History of Scotland, to which he prefixed a Preliminary Dissertation on the Participation of Mary Queen of Scots in the Murder of Darnley. The latter is a very ingenious historical argument, the ablest of Mr Laing's productions, uniting the practised skill and acumen of the Scottish lawyer with the knowledge of the antiquary and historian. The latter portion of Mr Laing's life was spent on his paternal estate in Orkney, where he entered upon a course of local and agricultural improvement with the same ardour that he devoted to his literary pursuits. He died in the year 1818. Mr Laing's merit,' says a writer in the Edinburgh Review, as a critical inquirer into history, an enlightened collector of materials, and a sagacious judge of evidence, has never been surpassed. In spite of his ardent love of liberty, no man has yet presumed to charge him with the slightest sacrifice of historical integrity to his zeal. That he never perfectly attained the art of full, clear, and easy narrative, was owing to the peculiar style of those writers who were popular in his youth, and may be mentioned as a remarkable instance of the disproportion of particular talents to a general vigour of mind.'

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