reproachfully to him from the treasury bench, he delivered one of the most memorable of his parliamentary speeches,—in which the sternest principles of public morality were so touchingly combined with compassion for the errors he condemned, that the effect was irresistible; and the casting vote of the speaker can scarcely be said with greater truth to have determined the decision of the house. Nothing more truly in the spirit of the pure and lofty principles by which he was guided is recorded of him, than his defence to the charge of inconsistency for declining to join the deputation which carried up to the king the subsequent address for the removal of Lord Melville from the royal councils. "I am a little surprised that it should be imputed as a fault to any that they did not accompany the procession to St. James's. I should have thought that men's own feelings might have suggested to them that it was a case in which the heart might be permitted to give a lesson to the judgment. My country might justly demand that, in my decision on Lord Melville's conduct, I should be governed by the rules of justice, and the principles of the constitution, without suffering party considerations, personal friendship, or any extrinsic motive whatever to interfere; that in all that was substantial I should deem myself as in the exercise of a judicial office. But when the sentence of the law is past, is not that sufficient? Am I to join in the execution of it? Is it to be expected of me that I am to stifle the natural feelings of the heart, and not even to shed a tear over the very sentence I am pronouncing? I know not what Spartan virtue or stoical pride might require; but I know that I am taught a different, ay, and a better lesson by a greater than either Lycurgus or Zeno. Christianity enforces no such sacrifice. She requires us indeed to do justice, but to love mercy. I learnt not in her school to triumph even over a conquered enemy, and must I join the triumph over a fallen friend?" We might, with the aid of these volumes, trace Mr. Wilberforce's political career through all the memorable controversies of his times, and prove, beyond the reach of contradiction, that every vote was given under such a sense of responsibility to the Supreme Lawgiver as raised him above the influence of those human affections, which scarcely any man felt more keenly. He was supported by the acclamations of no party, for in turn he resisted all. Even the great religious bodies who acknowledged him as their leader were frequently dissatisfied with a course which, while it adorned their principles, conceded nothing to their prejudices. The errors into which he may have fallen were in no single case debased by any selfish motive, and were ever on the side of peace and of the civil and religious liberties of mankind. ble to contemplate without some degree of pain. It was his habit to note, in the most careless and elliptical language, every passing occurrence, however trivial, apparently as a mere aid to recollection. But his journals also contain the results of a most unsparing self-examination, and record the devotional feelings with which his mind was habitually possessed. They bear that impress of perfect sincerity, without which they would have been altogether worthless. The suppression of them would have disappointed the expectations of a very large body of readers; and the sacred profession of the editors gives peculiar authority to their judgment as to the advantage of such disclosures. To their filial piety the whole work, indeed almost every line of it, bears conclusive testimony. We feel, however, an invincible repugnance to the transfer into these pages of the secret communings of a close self-observer with his Maker. The Church of Rome is wise in proclaiming the sanctity of the confessional. The morbid anatomy of the human heart (for such it must appear to every one who dares to explore its recesses) is at best a cheerless study. It would require some fortitude in any man to state how much of our mutual affection and esteem depends upon our imperfect knowledge of each other. The same creative wisdom which shelters from every human eye the workings of our animal frame, has not less closely shrouded from observation the movements of our spiritual nature. The lowly and contrite spirit is a shrine in which he who inhabiteth eternity condescends to dwell, but where we at least are accustomed to regard every other presence as profane. There is, we think, great danger in such publications. For one man who, like Mr. Wilberforce, will honestly lay bare his conscience on paper, there are at least one hundred, living with the fear or the hope of the biographer before their eyes, who will apply themselves to the same task in a very different spirit. The desire of posthu mous, or of living fame, will dictate the acknowledgment of faults, which the reader is to regard as venial, while he is to admire the sagacity with which they are dictated, and the tenderness of conscience with which they are deplored. We may be wrong; but both expe rience and probability seem to us to show that the publication of the religious journals of one honest man, is likely to make innume rable hypocrites. The domestic life of Mr. Wilberforce is a delightful object of contemplation, though it cannot be reduced into the form of distinct narration. From his twenty-sixth year his biography consists rather of a description of habits than of a succession of events. No man had less to do with adventure, or was more completely independent of any such resource. The leisure which he could withdraw from the ser vice of the public was concentrated upon his large and happy household, and on the troops of friends who thronged the hospitable mansion in which he lived in the neighbourhood of London. But those indications of human character which it chiefly concerns us to study, are not, after all, to be discovered in places where men act together in large masses, and under strong excitement. Mr. Wilberforce's interior life is exhibited in this biography with a minuteness The following sketch of his domestic retire of self-dissection which we think hardly possi- ment possesses a truth which will be at once recognised by every one who was accustomed to associate with him in such scenes: assure him that I am to-day, to-morrow, and Mr. Wilberforce excelled in the arts of hos pitality, and delighted in the practice of them. His cordial welcome taught the most casual guest to feel that he was at home; and the mass of his friends and acquaintance could scarcely suppose that there was a domestic sanctuary still more sacred and privileged than that into which they were admitted. Amongst them are not a few obscure, with some illustrious names; and of the latter Mr. Pitt is by far the most conspicuous. "Who that ever joined him in his hour of daily exercise, cannot see him now as he walked round his garden at Highwood, now in animated and even playful conversation, and then drawing from his copious pockets (to contain Dalrymple's State Papers was their standard measure) a Psalter, a Horace, a Shakspeare, or Cowper, and reading or reciting chosen passages, and then catching at long stored flower leaves as the wind blew them from the pages, or standing by a favourite gumcistus to repair the loss. Then he would point out the harmony of the tints, the There is no one filling so large a space in beauty of the pencilling and the perfection of recent history as Mr. Pitt, with whose private the colouring, and sum up all into those ascrip- habits the world is so little acquainted. These tions of praise to the Almighty which were volumes do not contribute much to dispel the ever welling from his grateful heart. He loved obscurity. We find him indeed at one time flowers with all the simple delight of child-passing an evening in classical studies or hood. He would hover from bed to bed over his favourites, and when he came in, even from his shortest walk, he deposited a few that he had gathered safely in his room before he joined the breakfast table. Often he would say as he enjoyed their fragrance, How good is God to us. What should we think of a friend who had furnished us with a magnificent house and all we needed, and then coming in to see that all had been provided according to his wishes, should he be hurt to find that no scents had been placed in the rooms? Yet so has God dealt with us-lovely flowers are the smiles of his goodness."" amusements with Mr. Canning; and at another, cutting walks through his plantations at Holwood, with the aid of Mr. Wilberforce and Lord Grenville. But on the whole, the William Pitt of this work is the austere minister with whom we were already acquainted, and not the man himself in his natural or in his emancipated state. The following extract of a letter from Mr. Wilberforce is almost the only passage which gives us an intimation of the careless familiarity in which for many years they lived together: "And now after having transacted my busiThe following letter to one of his children ness with the minister, a word or two to the exhibits Mr. Wilberforce in one of those cha-man-a character in which, if it is more pleasant racters in which he excelled most men: "Battersea Rise, Sept. 14, 1814. -: to you, it is no less pleasant to me to address you. I wish you may be passing your time half as salubriously and comfortably as I am at "My very dear Gisborne's, where I am breathing good air, "I do not relish the idea that you are the eating good mutton, keeping good hours, and only one of my children who has not written enjoying the company of good friends. You to me during my absence, and that you should have only two of the four at command, nor be the only one to whom I should not write. I these always in so pure a state as in Needwood therefore take up my pen, though but for a few Forest; your town mutton being apt to be moments, to assure you that I do not suspect woolly, and your town friends to be interested: your silence to have arisen from the want of however, I sincerely believe you are, through affection for me, any more than that which I the goodness of Providence, better off in the myself have hitherto observed has proceeded from this source. There is a certain demon called procrastination, who inhabits a castle in the air at Sandgate, as well as at so many other places, and I suspect that you have been carried up some day (at the tail of your kite perhaps) and lodged in that same habitation, which has fine large rooms in it from which there are beautiful prospects in all directions; and probably you will not quit a dwelling-place that you like so well, till you hear that I am on my way to Sandgate. You will meet the tomorrow man there, (it just occurs to me,) and I hope you will have prevailed on him to tell you the remainder of that pleasant story, a part of which Miss Edgeworth has related, though greatly fear he would still partake so far of the spirit of the place as to leave a part untold till -to-morrow. But I am trifling sadly, since I am this morning unusually pressed for time, I will therefore only guard my dear boy seriously against procrastination, one of the most dangerous assailants of usefulness, and I latter particular, than has been the fate of P. S. Remember me to all friends. I hope You will On the occasion of Mr. Pitt's duel with Mr. | tete he gave me an account of the negotiations Tierney, Mr. Wilberforce had designed to which had been on foot to induce him to enter bring the subject under the notice of the House | Addington's administration. When they quitted of Commons. The intention was defeated by the following kind and characteristic letter: "My dear Wilberforce : "I am not the person to argue with you on a subject in which I am a good deal concerned. I hope too that I am incapable of doubting your kindness to me (however mistaken I may think it,) if you let any sentiment of that sort actuate you on the present occasion. I must suppose that some such feeling has inadvertently operated upon you, because whatever may be your general sentiments on subjects of this nature, they can have acquired no new tone or additional argument from any thing that has passed in this transaction. You must be supposed to bring this forward in reference to the individual case. office in 1801, Dundas proposed taking as his motto, Jam rude donatus. Pitt suggested to him that having always been an active man, office, and then that his having taken such a he would probably wish again to come into motto would be made a ground for ridicule. Dundas assented, and took another motto. Addington had not long been in office, before Pitt's expectation was fulfilled, and Dundas undertook to bring Pitt into the plan; which bring in Pitt and Addington on equal terms was to appoint some third person head, and under him. Dundas, accordingly, confiding in his knowledge of all Pitt's ways and feelings, set out for Walmer Castle; and after dinner, and Port wine, began cautiously to open his proposals. But he saw it would not do, and stopped abruptly. Really,' said Pitt with a thing I ever heard him say of any friend, I sly severity, and it was almost the only sharp had not the curiosity to ask what I was to be." berforce, to be found in these volumes, is one Amongst the letters addressed to Mr. Wilwritten by John Wesley from his death-bed, on the day before he sank into the lethargy from which he was never roused. They are probably the last written words of that extraor dinary man. "In doing so, you will be accessary in loadone of the parties with unfair and unmerited obloquy. With respect to the other party, myself, I feel it a real duty to say to you frankly that your motion is one for my removal. If any step on the subject is proposed in Parliament and agreed to, I shall feel from that moment that I can be of no more use out of office than in it; for in it according to the feelings I entertain, I could be of none. I state to you, as I think I ought, distinctly and explicitly what I feel. I hope I need not repeat what I always feel personally to yourself."My dear Sir, Your's ever, WILLIAM PITT." "Downing Street, Wednesday, May 30, 1798, 11 P. M." The following passage is worth transcribing as a graphic, though slight sketch of Mr. Pitt, from the pen of one who knew him so well: "When a statement had been made to the house of the cruel practices approaching certainly to torture, by which the discovery of concealed arms had been enforced in Ireland, John Claudius Beresford rose to reply, and said with a force and honesty, the impression of which I never can forget, 'I fear, and feel deep shame in making the avowal-I fear it is too true-I defend it not-but I trust I may be permitted to refer, as some palliation of these atrocities, to the state of my unhappy country, where rebellion and its attendant horrors had roused on both sides to the highest pitch all the strongest passions of our nature.' I was with Pitt in the House of Lords when Lord Clare replied to a similar charge-Well, suppose it were so; but surely,' &c. I shall never forget Pitt's look. He turned round to me with that indignant stare which sometimes marked his countenance, and stalked out of the house." It is not generally known that at the period of Lord Melville's trial a coolness almost approaching to estrangement had arisen between that minister and Mr. Pitt. The following extract from one of Mr. Wilberforce's Diaries on this subject affords an authentic and curious illustration of Mr. Pitt's character: "I had perceived above a year before that Lord Melville had not the power over Pitt's mind, which he once possessed. Pitt was taking me to Lord Camden's, and in our tete-a "February 24, 1791. "Unless Divine power has raised you up to be as Athanasius contra mundum, I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise, in opposing that execrable villany which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils; and if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Oh! be not weary of well-doing. Go on in the name of God, and in the power of his might, till even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall vanish away before it That He who has guided you from your youth up, may continue to strengthen you in this and all things, is the prayer of, dear sir, your affectionate servant, "JOHN WESLEY." From a very different correspondent, Jeremy Bentham, Mr. Wilberforce received two notes, for which, as they are the only examples we have seen in print of his epistolary style, we must find a place. «Kind Sir, general in the house or elsewhere, be pleased "The next time you happen on Mr. Attorney to take a spike-the longer and sharper the better-and apply it to him by way of memento, that the Penitentiary Contract Bill has, for I know not what length of time, been sticking in his hands; and you will much oblige your humble servant to command. "JEREMY BENTHAM." "N. B. A corking-pin was, yesterday, applied by Mr. Abbot." There are, in this work, some occasional additions to the stock of political anecdotes. Of these we transcribe the following speci "I sympathize with your now happily pro- | in every week, and a Sabbatical hour in every mising exertions in behalf of the race of inno- day." Those days and hours gave him back cents, whose lot it has hitherto been to be to the world, not merely with recruited energy, made the subject-matter of depredation, for the but in a frame of mind the most favourable to purpose of being treated worse than the authors the right discharge of its duties. Things in of such crimes are treated for those crimes in themselves the most trivial, wearisome, or other places." even offensive, had, in his solitude, assumed a solemn interest from their connexion with the future destinies of mankind, whilliant and alluring objects of human ambition had been brought into a humiliating contrast with the great ends for which life is given, and with the immortal hopes by which it should be sustained. Nothing can be more heartfelt than the delight with which he breathed the pure air of these devotional retirements. Nothing more soothing than the tranquillity which they diffused over a mind harassed with the vexations of a political life. mens: "Franklin signed the peace of Paris in his old spotted velvet coat (it being the time of a court-mourning, which rendered it more particular.) What,' said my friend the negotiator, 'is the meaning of that harlequin coat?' 'It is that in which he was abused by Wedderburne.' He showed much rancour and personal enmity to this country-would not grant the common passports for trade, which were, however, easily got from Jay or Adams. "Dined with Lord Camden; he, very chatty and pleasant. Abused Thurlow for his duplicity and mystery. Said the king had said to him occasionally he had wished Thurlow and Pitt to agree; for that both were necessary to him-one in the Lords, the other in the Commons. Thurlow will never do any thing to oblige Lord Camden, because he is a friend of Pitt's. Lord Camden himself, though he speaks of Pitt with evident affection, seems rather to complain of his being too much under the influence of any one who is about him; particularly of Dundas, who prefers his countrymen whenever he can.-Lord Camden is sure that Lord Bute got money by the peace of Paris. He can account for his sinking near £300,000 in land and houses; and his paternal estate in the island which bears his name was not above £1500 a-year, and he is a life-tenant only of Wortley, which may be £8000 or £10,000. Lord Camden does not believe Lord Bute has any the least connexion with the king now, whatever he may have had. Lord Thurlow is giving constant dinners to the judges, to gain them over to his party, was applied to by ⚫, a wretched sort of dependant of the Prince of Wales, to know if he would lend him money on the joint bond of the prince and dukes of York and Clarence, to receive double the sum lent, whenever the king should die, and either the Prince of Wales, the dukes of York and Clarence, come into the inheritance. The sum intended to be raised is £200,000. Mr. Wilberforce retired from Parliament in the year 1825. The remainder of his life was passed in the bosom of his family. He did not entirely escape those sorrows which so usually thicken as the shadows grow long, for he survived both his daughters; and, from that want of worldly wisdom which always characterized him, he lost a very considerable part of his fortune in speculations in which he had nothing but the gratification of parental kindness to gain or to hope. But never were such reverses more effectually baffled by the invulnerable peace of a cheerful and selfapproving heart. There were not wanting external circumstances which marked the change; but the most close and intimate observer could never perceive on his countenance even a passing shade of dejection or anxiety on that account. He might, indeed, have been supposed to be unconscious that he had lost any thing, had not his altered fortunes occasionally suggested to him remarks on the Divine goodness, by which the seeming calamity had been converted into a blessing to his children and to himself. It afforded him a welcome apology for withdrawing from society at large, to gladden, by his almost constant presence, the homes of his sons by whom his life has been recorded. There, surrounded by his children and his grandchildren, he yielded himself to the current of each successive inclination; for he had now acquired that rare maturity of the moral stature in which the conflict between inclination and duty is over, and virtue and self-indulgence are the same. Some decline of his intellectual powers was perceptible to the friends of his earlier and more active days; but "Tis only a hollow truce, not a peace, that is made between Thurlow and Pitt. They can have no confidence in each other." It is perhaps the most impressive circum-"To things immortal time can do no wrong, stance in Mr. Wilberforce's character, that the lively interest with which he engaged in all these political occurrences was combined with a consciousness not less habitual or intense of their inherent vanity. There is a seeming paradox in the solicitude with which he devoted so much of his life to secular pursuits, and the very light esteem in which he held them. The solution of the enigma is to be found in his unremitting habits of devotion. No man could more scrupulously obey the precept which Mr. Taylor has given to his "Statesman"-To observe a "Sabbatical day And that which never is to die, for ever must be young." Looking back with gratitude, sometimes eloquent, but more often from the depth of the emotion faltering on the tongue, to his long career of usefulness, of honour, and enjoyment, he watched with grave serenity the ebb of the current which was fast bearing him to his eternal reward. He died in his seventyfifth year, in undisturbed tranquillity, after a very brief illness, and without any indication of bodily suffering. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, in the presence of a large number of the members of both Houses of | brings us into acquaintance with a circle in Parliament; nor was the solemn ritual of the which were projected and matured many of church ever pronounced over the grave of any the great schemes of benevolence by which of her children with more affecting or more appropriate truth. Never was recited, on a more fit occasion, the sublime benediction"I heard a voice from heaven, saying, Write, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them." The volumes to which we have been chiefly indebted for this very rapid epitome of some of the events of Mr. Wilberforce's life, will have to undergo a severe ordeal. There are numberless persons who assert a kind of property in his reputation, and who will resent as almost a personal wrong any exhibition of his character which may fall short of their demands. We believe, however, though not esteeming ourselves the best possible judges, that even this powerful party will be satisfied. They will find in this portraiture of their great leader much to fulfil their expectations. Impartial judges will, we think, award to the book the praise of fidelity, and diligence, and unaffected modesty. Studiously withdrawing themselves from the notice of their readers, the biographers of Mr. Wilberforce have not sought occasion to display the fruits of their theological or literary studies. Their taste has been executed with ability, and with deep affection. No one can read such a narrative without interest, and many will peruse it with enthusiasm. It contains several extracts from Mr. Wilberforce's speeches and throws much occasional light on the political history of England during the last half century. our age has been distinguished, and shows how partial is the distribution of renown in the world in which we are living. A more equal dispensation of justice would have awarded a far more conspicuous place amongst the benefactors of mankind to the names of Mr. Stephen and Mr. Macaulay, than has ever yet been assigned to them. Biography, considered as an art, has been destroyed by the greatest of all biographers, James Boswell. His success must be for gotten before Plutarch or Isaac Walton will find either rivals or imitators. Yet memoirs, into which every thing illustrative of the cha racter or fortunes of the person to be described is drawn, can never take a permanent place in literature, unless the hero be himself as pic turesque as Johnson, nor unless the writer be gifted with the dramatic powers of Boswell Mr. Wilberforce was an admirable subject for graphic sketches in this style; but the hand of a son could not have drawn them without impropriety, and they have never been delineated by others. A tradition, already fading, alone preserves the memory of those social powers which worked as a spell on every one who approached him, and drew from Madame de Staël the declaration that he was the most eloquent and the wittiest converser she had met in England. But the memory of his influence in the councils of the state, of his holy character, and of his services to mankind, rests upon an imperishable basis, and will deIt scend with honour to the latest times. THE LIVES OF WHITFIELD AND FROUDE.* [EDINBURGH Review, 1838.] Ir the enemies of Christianity in the com- proofs of the credibility of the Gospels. A mencement of the last century failed to accom- greater than any of these, Joseph Butler, was plish its overthrow, they were at least suc-induced, by the same adversaries, to investi cessful in producing what at present appears gate the analogy of natural and revealed reli to have been a strange and unreasonable gion, and Berkeley and Sherlock, with a long panic. Middleton, Bolingbroke, and Mande- catalogue of more obscure names, crowded to ville, have now lost their terrors; and (in com- the rescue of the menaced citadel of the faith. mon with the heroes of the Dunciad) Chubb, But in this anxiety to strengthen its defences, Toland, Collins, and Woolston, are remem- the garrison not only declined to attempt new bered only on account of the brilliancy of the conquests, but withdrew from much of their Auto-da-fe at which they suffered. To these ancient dominion. In this its apologetic age, writers, however, belongs the credit of having English theology was distinguished by an unsuggested to Clarke his inquiries into the wonted timidity and coldness. The alliance elementary truth on which all religion de- which it had maintained from the days of Jewel pends; and by them Warburton was provoked to those of Leighton, with philosophy and eloto "demonstrate" the Divine legation of Moses. They excited Newton to explore the fulfilment of prophecy, and Lardner to accumulate the quence, with wit and poetry, was dissolved. Taylor and Hall, Donne and Hooker, Baxter and Howe, had spoken as men having autho rity, and with an unclouded faith in their di vine mission. In that confidence they had with equal energy and ease all the resources grappled with every difficulty, and had wielded of genius and of learning. Alternately search |