submitted. The infiuence of Leicester Cape Breton was reduced. The fleet House prevailed on Pitt to abate a to which the Court of Versailles had little, and but a little, of his high confided the defence of French Amedemands; and all at once, out of the rica was destroyed. The captured chaos in which parties had for some standards were borne in triumph from time been rising, falling, meeting, se- Kensington Palace to the city, and parating, arose a government as strong were suspended in St. Paul's Church, at home as that of Pelham, as success- amidst the roar of guns and kettleful abroad as that of Godolphin. drums, and the shouts of an immense multitude. Addresses of congratulation came in from all the great towns of England. Parliament met only to decree thanks and monuments, and to bestow, without one murmur, supplies more than double of those which had been given during the war of the Grand Alliance. Newcastle took the Treasury. Pitt was Secretary of State, with the lead in the House of Commons, and with the supreme direction of the war and of foreign affairs. Fox, the only man who could have given much annoyance to the new Government, was silenced by the office of Paymaster, which, during the continuance of that war, was probably the most lucrative place in the whole Government. He was poor, and the situation was tempting; yet it cannot but seem extraordinary that a man who had played a first part in politics, and whose abilities had been found not unequal to that part, who had sat in the Cabinet, who had led the House of Commons, who had been twice entrusted by the King with the office of forming a ministry, who was regarded as the rival of Pitt, and who at one time seemed likely to be a successful rival, should have consented, for the sake of emolument, to take a subordinate place, and to give silent votes for all the measures of a government to the deliberations of which he was not summoned. The first acts of the new administration were characterized rather by vigour than by judgment. Expeditions were sent against different parts of the French coast with little success. The small island of Aix was taken, Rochefort threatened, a few ships burned in the harbour of St. Maloes, and a few guns and mortars brought home as trophies from the fortifications of Cherbourg. But soon conquests of a very different kind filled the kingdom with pride and rejoicing. A succession of victories undoubtedly brilliant, and, as was thought, not barren, raised to the highest point the fame of the minister to whom the conduct of the war had been entrusted. In July, 1758, Louisburg fell. The whole island of The year 1759 opened with the conquest of Goree. Next fell Guadaloupe; then Ticonderoga; then Niagara. The Toulon squadron was completely defeated by Boscawen off Cape Lagos. But the greatest exploit of the year was the achievement of Wolfe on the heights of Abraham. The news of his glorious death and of the fall of Quebec reached London in the very week in which the Houses met. All was joy and triumph. Envy and faction were forced to join in the general applause. Whigs and Tories vied with each other in extolling the genius and energy of Pitt. colleagues were never talked of or thought of. The House of Commons, the nation, the colonies, our allies, our enemies, had their eyes fixed on him alone. His Scarcely had Parliament voted a monument to Wolfe, when another great event called for fresh rejoicings. The Brest fleet, under the command of Conflans, had put out to sea. It was overtaken by an English squadron under Hawke. Conflans attempted to take shelter close under the French coast. The shore was rocky; the night was black: the wind was furious: the waves of the Bay of Biscay ran high. But Pitt had infused into every branch of the service a spirit which had long been unknown. No British seaman was disposed to err on the same side with Byng. The pilot told Hawke that the attack could not be made without the greatest danger. "You have done your duty in remonstrating," an 308 WILLIAM PITT, swered Hawke; "I will answer for his influence with the nation. In Par- surrendered to Clive, Pondicherry to No more they make a fiddle-faddle About a Hessian horse or saddle. it. The success of Pitt's continental On the continent of Europe the odds were against England. We had but one important ally, the King of Prussia; measures was such as might have and he was attacked, not only by been expected from their vigour. France, but also by Russia and Austria. When he came into power, Hanover Yet even on the Continent the energy was in imminent danger; and before of Pitt triumphed over all difficulties. he had been in office three months, the Vehemently as he had condemned the whole electorate was in the hands of practice of subsidising foreign princes, France. But the face of affairs was An army, partly English, he now carried that practice farther speedily changed. The invaders were than Carteret himself would have ven-driven out. tured to do. The active and able Sove-partly Hanoverian, partly composed of reign of Prussia received such pecu- soldiers furnished by the petty princes niary assistance as enabled him to of Germany, was placed under the maintain the conflict on equal terms command of Prince Ferdinand of against his powerful enemies. On no Brunswick. The French were beaten subject had Pitt ever spoken with so in 1758 at Crevelt. In 1759 they remuch eloquence and ardour as on the ceived a still more complete and humischiefs of the Hanoverian connec-miliating defeat at Minden. tion. He now declared, not without much show of reason, that it would be unworthy of the English people to suffer their King to be deprived of his electoral dominions in an English quarrel. He assured his countrymen that they should be no losers, and that he would conquer America for them in Germany. By taking this line he conciliated the King, and lost no part of In the meantime, the nation exhibited all the signs of wealth and prosperity. The merchants of London had never been more thriving. The importance of several great commercial and manufacturing towns, of Glasgow in particular, dates from this period. The fine inscription on the monument of Lord Chatham in Guildhall records the general opinion of the citizens of London, that under his administration | tributed with unexampled cheerfulness, commerce had been "united with and made to flourish by war." It must be owned that these signs of prosperity were in some degree delusive. It must be owned that some of our conquests were rather splendid than useful. It must be owned that the expense of the war never entered into Pitt's consideration. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the cost of his victories increased the pleasure with which he contemplated them. Unlike other men in his situation, he loved to exaggerate the sums which the nation was laying out under his direction. He was proud of the sacrifices and efforts which his eloquence and his success had induced his countrymen to make. The price at which he purchased faithful service and complete victory, though far smaller than that which his son, the most profuse and incapable of war ministers, paid for treachery, defeat, and shame, was long and severely felt by the nation. this was undoubtedly his work. The ardour of his soul had set the whole kingdom on fire. It inflamed every soldier who dragged the cannon up the heights of Quebec, and every sailor who boarded the French ships among the rocks of Britanny. The Minister, before he had been long in office, had imparted to the commanders whom he employed his own impetuous, adventurous, and defying character. They, like him, were disposed to risk every thing, to play double or quits to the last, to think nothing done while any thing remained undone, to fail rather than not to attempt. For the errors of rashness there might be indulgence. For over-caution, for faults like those of Lord George Sackville, there was no mercy. In other times, and against other enemies, this mode of warfare might have failed. But the state of the French government and of the French nation gave every advantage to Pitt. The fops and intriguers of Versailles were appalled and bewilEven as a war minister, Pitt is dered by his vigour. A panic spread scarcely entitled to all the praise which through all ranks of society. Our his contemporaries lavished on him. We, enemies soon considered it as a settled perhaps from ignorance, cannot discern thing that they were always to be in his arrangements any appearance of beaten. Thus victory begot victory; profound or dexterous combination. | till, at last, wherever the forces of the Several of his expeditions, particularly two nations met, they met with disthose which were sent to the coast of dainful confidence on one side, and France, were at once costly and absurd. with a craven fear on the other. Our Indian conquests, though they add to the splendour of the period during which he was at the head of affairs, were not planned by him. He had undoubtedly great energy, great determination, great means at his command. His temper was enterprising; and, situated as he was, he had only to follow his temper. The wealth of a rich nation, the valour of a brave nation, were ready to support him in every attempt. In one respect, however, he deserved all the praise that he has ever received. The success of our arms was perhaps owing less to the skill of his dispositions than to the national resources and the national spirit. But that the national spirit rose to the emergency, that the national resources were con The situation which Pitt occupied at the close of the reign of George the Second was the most enviable ever occupied by any public man in English history. He had conciliated the King; he domineered over the House of Commons; he was adored by the people; he was admired by all Europe. He was the first Englishman of his time; and he had made England the first country in the world. The Great Commoner, the name by which he was often designated, might look down with scorn on coronets and garters. The nation was drunk with joy and pride. The Parliament was as quiet as it had been under Pelham. The old party distinctions were almost effaced; nor their place yet supplied by distinctions of a still more important kind. A new was generation of country squires and last work of Sir James Mackintosh. rectors had arisen who knew not the We have in vain tried to perform what Stuarts. The Dissenters were tolerated; ought to be to a critic an easy and the Catholics not cruelly persecuted. habitual act. We have in vain tried to The Church was drowsy and indul- separate the book from the writer, and gent. The great civil and religious con- to judge of it as if it bore some undict which began at the Reformation known name. But it is to no purpose. seemed to have terminated in universal All the lines of that venerable counrepose. Whigs and Torics, Church- tenance are before us. All the little men and Puritans, spoke with equal peculiar cadences of that voice from reverence of the constitution, and with which scholars and statesmen loved to equal enthusiasm of the talents, virtues, receive the lessons of a serene and and services of the Minister. benevolent wisdom are in our ears. A few years sufficed to change the We will attempt to preserve strict imwhole aspect of affairs. A nation con- partiality. But we are not ashamed to vulsed by faction, a throne assailed by own that we approach this relic of a the fiercest invective, a House of Com-virtuous and most accomplished man mons hated and despised by the nation, with feelings of respect and gratitude England set against Scotland, Britain which may possibly pervert our judgset against America, a rival legislature sitting beyond the Atlantic, English blood shed by English bayonets, our armies capitulating, our conquests wrested from us, our enemies hastening to take vengeance for past humiliation, our flag scarcely able to maintain itself in our own seas, such was the spectacle which Pitt lived to see. But the history of this great revolution requires far more space than we can at present bestow. We leave the Great Commoner in the zenith of his glory. It is not impossible that we may take some other opportunity of tracing his life to its melancholy, yet not inglorious close. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. (JULY, 1835.) History of the Revolution in England, in 1688. Comprising a View of the Reign of James the Second, from his Accession to the Enterprise of the Prince of Orange, by the late Right Honourable Sir JAMES MACKINTOSH; and completed to the Settlement of the Crown, by the Editor. To which is prefixed a Notice of the Life, Writings, and Speeches of Sir James Mackintosh. 4to. London: 1834.* Ir is with unfeigned diffidence that we venture to give our opinion of the ment. The It is hardly possible to avoid instituting a comparison between this work and another celebrated Fragment. Our readers will easily guess that we allude to Mr. Fox's History of James the Second. The two books relate to the same subject. Both were posthumously published. Neither had received the last corrections. authors belonged to the same political party, and held the same opinions concerning the merits and defects of the English constitution, and concerning most of the prominent characters and events in English history. Both had thought much on the principles of ther literary defects nor speculative differences can justify, and which ought to be reserved for offences against the laws of morality and honour. The reviewer was not actuated by any feeling of personal malevolence: for when he wrote this paper in a distant country, he did not know, or even guess, whom he was assailing. His only motive was regard for the memory of an eminent man whom he loved and honoured, and who appeared to him to have been unworthily treated. The editor is now dead; and, while living, declared that he had been misunderstood, and that he had written in no spirit of enmity to Sir James Mackintosh, for whom he professed the highest respect. Many passages have therefore been softened, and some wholly omitted. The severe censure passed on the literary execution of the Memoir and Continuation could not be retracted without a violation of truth. But In this review, as it originally stood, whatever could be construed into an imthe editor of the History of the Revolution putation on the moral character of the was attacked with an asperity which nei-editor has been carefully expunged. government; yet they were not mere | periority of Mr. Fox to Sir James as speculators. Both had ransacked the an orator is hardly more clear than the archives of rival kingdoms, and pored superiority of Sir James to Mr. Fox as on folios which had mouldered for ages a historian. Mr. Fox with a pen in in deserted libraries; yet they were his hand, and Sir James on his legs not mere antiquaries. They had one in the House of Commons, were, we eminent qualification for writing his- think, each out of his proper element. tory: they had spoken history, acted They were men, it is true, of far too history, lived history. The turns of much judgment and ability to fail political fortune, the cbb and flow of scandalously in any undertaking to popular feeling, the hidden mechanism which they brought the whole power by which parties are moved, all these of their minds. The History of James things were the subjects of their con- the Second will always keep its place stant thought and of their most fa- in our libraries as a valuable book; miliar conversation. Gibbon has re- and Sir James Mackintosh succeeded marked that he owed part of his in winning and maintaining a high success as a historian to the observa-place among the parliamentary speakers tions which he had made as an officer of his time. Yet we could never read in the militia and as a member of the a page of Mr. Fox's writing, we could House of Commons. The remark is never listen for a quarter of an hour most just. We have not the smallest to the speaking of Sir James, without doubt that his campaign, though he felling that there was a constant effort, never saw an enemy, and his parlia- a tug up hill. Nature, or habit which mentary attendance, though he never had become nature, asserted its rights. made a speech, were of far more use Mr. Fox wrote debates. Sir James to him than years of retirement and Mackintosh spoke essays. study would have been. If the time As far as mere diction was conthat he spent on parade and at mess in cerned, indeed, Mr. Fox did his best to Hampshire, or on the Treasury bench avoid those faults which the habit of and at Brookes's during the storms public speaking is likely to generate. which overthrew Lord North and Lord He was so nervously apprehensive of Shelburne, had been passed in the sliding into some colloquial incorrectBodleian Library, he might have ness, of debasing his style by a mixture avoided some inaccuracies; he might of parliamentary slang, that he ran have enriched his notes with a greater into the opposite error, and purified number of references; but he would his vocabulary with a scrupulosity unnever have produced so lively a picture known to any purist. "Ciceronem of the court, the camp, and the senate- Allobroga dixit." He would not allow house. In this respect Mr. Fox and Addison, Bolingbroke, or Middleton to Sir James Mackintosh had great ad- be a sufficient authority for an expresvantages over almost every English sion. He declared that he would use historian who has written since the no word which was not to be found time of Burnet. Lord Lyttleton had in Dryden. In any other person we indeed the same advantages; but he should have called this solicitude mere was incapable of using them. Pc-foppery; and, in spite of all our addantry was so deeply fixed in his miration for Mr. Fox, we cannot but nature that the hustings, the Treasury, think that his extreme attention to the the Exchequer, the House of Com- petty niceties of language was hardly mons, the House of Lords, left him worthy of so manly and so capacious an the same dreaming schoolboy that they understanding. There were purists of found him. this kind at Rome; and their fastidiousWhen we compare the two interest-ness was censured by Horace, with that ing works of which we have been speaking, we have little difficulty in giving the preference to that of Sir James Mackintosh. Indeed, the su perfect good sense and good taste which characterize all his writings. There were purists of this kind at the time of the revival of letters; and the two greatest |