1 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANIES. MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION [Edinburgh Review.] It is with unfeigned diffidence that we venture to give - our opinion of the last work of Sir James Mackintosh. We have in vain tried to perform what ought to be to a critic an easy and habitual act. We have in vain tried to separate the book from the writer, and to judge of it as if it bore some unknown name. But it is to no purpose. All the lines of that venerable countenance are before us. the little peculiar cadences of that voice, from which scholars and statesmen loved to receive the lessons of a serene and All benevolent wisdom, are in our ears. We will attempt to preserve strict impartiality. But we are not ashamed to own, that we approach this relic of a virtuous and most accomplished man with feelings of respect and gratitude which may possibly pervert our judgment. 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 II. The two books are written on the same subject. Both were posthumously published. Neither had received the last corrections. The authors belonged to the * 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. |