When he talked, he clothed his wit Saxon or Norman-French, of which and his sense in forcible and natural the roots lie in the inmost depths of expressions. As soon as he took his our language; and that he felt a vipen in his hand to write for the public, cious partiality for terms which, long his style became systematically vicious. after our own speech had been fixed, All his books are written in a learned were borrowed from the Greck and language, in a language which nobody Latin, and which, therefore, even when hears from his mother or his nurse, in lawfully naturalised, must be consia language in which nobody ever dered as born aliens, not entitled to quarrels, or drives bargains, or makes rank with the king's English. His love, in a language in which nobody constant practice of padding out a ever thinks. It is clear that Johnson sentence with useless epithets, till it himself did not think in the dialect in became as stiff as the bust of an exwhich he wrote. The expressions which quisite, his antithetical forms of exprescame first to his tongue were simple, sion, constantly employed even where energetic, and picturesque. When he there is no opposition in the ideas exwrote for publication, he did his sen- pressed, his big words wasted on little tences out of English into Johnsonese. things, his harsh inversions, so widely His letters from the Hebrides to Mrs. different from those graceful and easy Three are the original of that work inversions which give variety, spirit, of which the Journey to the Hebrides and sweetness to the expression of our is the translation; and it is amusing great old writers, all these peculiarities to compare the two versions. "When have been imitated by his admirers we were taken up stairs," says he in and parodied by his assailants, till the one of his letters, "a dirty fellow public has become sick of the subject. bounced out of the bed on which one of us was to lie." This incident is recorded in the Journey as follows: "Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose started up, at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from the forge." Sometimes Johnson translated aloud. "The Rehearsal," he said, very unjustly, "has not wit enough to keep it sweet;" then, after a pause, "it has not vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction." Mannerism is pardonable, and is sometimes even agreeable, when the manner, though vicious, is natural. Few readers, for example, would be willing to part with the mannerism of Milton or of Burke. But a mannerism which does not sit easy on the mannerist, which has been adopted on principle, and which can be sustained only by constant effort, is always offensive. And such is the mannerism of Johnson. The characteristic faults of his style are so familiar to all our readers, and have been so often burlesqued, that it is almost superfluous to point them out. It is well known that he made less use than any other eminent writer of those strong plain words, Anglo Goldsmith said to him, very wittily and very justly, “If you were to write a fable about little fishes, doctor, you would make the little fishes talk like whales." No man surely ever had so little talent for personation as Johnson. Whether he wrote in the character of a disappointed legacy-hunter or an empty town fop, of a crazy virtuoso or a flippant coquette, he wrote in the same pompous and unbending style. His speech, like Sir Piercy Shafton's Euphuistic eloquence, bewrayed him under every disguise. Euphelia and Rhodoclea talk as finely as Imlac the poet, or Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia. The gay Cornelia describes her reception at the country-house of her relations, in such terms as these: "I was surprised, after the civilities of my first reception, to find, instead of the leisure and tranquillity which a rural life always promises, and, if well conducted, might always afford, a confused wildness of care, and a tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every face was clouded, and every motion agitated." The gentle Tranquilla informs us, that she "had not passed the earlier part of life without the flattery of courtship, and the joys of triumph; but had danced the round of gaiety amidst the | that of this remarkable man! To be murmurs of envy and the gratulations regarded in his own age as a classic, of applause, had been attended from and in ours as a companion. To repleasure to pleasure by the great, the ceive from his contemporaries that full sprightly, and the vain, and had seen homage which men of genius have ic her regard solicited by the obsequious-general received only from posterity! ness of gallantry, the gaiety of wit, and To be more intimately known to posthe timidity of love." Surely Sir John terity than other men are known to Falstaff himself did not wear his petti- their contemporaries! That kind of coats with a worse grace. The reader fame which is commonly the most tranmay well cry out, with honest Sir sient is, in his case, the most durable. Hugh Evans, "I like not when a 'oman The reputation of those writings, which has a great peard: I spy a great peard he probably expected to be immortal, under her muffler." is every day fading; while those peculiarities of manner and that careless table-talk the memory of which, he probably thought, would die with him, are likely to be remembered as long as the English language is spoken in any quarter of the globe. JOHN HAMPDEN. Some Memorials of John Hampden, his WE have read this book with great We had something more to say. But our article is already too long; and we must close it. We would fain part in good humour from the hero, from the biographer, and even from the editor, who, ill as he has performed his task, has at least this claim to our gratitude, that he has induced us to read Boswell's book again. As we close it, the club-room is before us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever on the canvass of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke and the tall thin form of Lang-pleasure, though not exactly with that ton, the courtly sneer of Beauclerk and kind of pleasure which we had expected. the beaming smile of Garrick, Gibbon We had hoped that Lord Nugent would tapping his snuff-box and Sir Joshua have been able to collect, from family with his trumpet in his ear. In the papers and local traditions, much new foreground is that strange figure which and interesting information respecting is as familiar to us as the figures of the life and character of the renowned those among whom we have been leader of the Long Parliament, the first brought up, the gigantic body, the of those great English commoners huge massy face, seamed with the scars whose plain addition of Mister has, to of disease, the brown coat, the black our ears, a more majestic sound than worsted stockings, the grey wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving with convulsive twitches; we see the heavy form rolling; we hear it puffing; and then comes the "Why, sir!" and the "What then, sir?" and the "No, sir!" and the "You don't see your way through the question, sir!" What a singular destiny has been It is proper to observe that this passage bears a very close resemblance to a passage In the Rambler (No. 20.). The resemblance may possibly be the effect of unconscious plagiarism. the proudest of the feudal titles. In this hope we have been disappointed; but assuredly not from any want of zeal or diligence on the part of the noble biographer. Even at Hampden, there are, it seems, no important papers relating to the most illustrious proprietor of that ancient domain. The most valuable memorials of him which still exist, belong to the family of his friend Sir John Eliot. Lord Eliot has furnished the portrait which is engraved for this work, together with some very interesting letters. The portrait is undoubtedly an original, and probably the only original now in existence. The intellectual forehead, the mild penetra- across the path of tyranny. The times tion of the eye, and the inflexible reso- grew darker and more troubled. Publution expressed by the lines of the lie service, perilous, arduous, delicate, mouth, sufficiently guarantee the like- was required; and to every service the ness. We shall probably make some intellect and the courage of this wonderextracts from the letters. They con-ful man were found fully equal. He betain almost all the new information came a debater of the first order, a that Lord Nugent has been able to pro- most dexterous manager of the House cure respecting the private pursuits of of Commons, a negotiator, a soldier the great man whose memory he wor- He governed a fierce and turbulent asships with an enthusiastic, but not ex-sembly, abounding in able men, as travagant veneration. easily as he had governed his family. He showed himself as competent to direct a campaign as to conduct the business of the petty sessions. We can scarcely express the admiration which we feel for a mind so great, and, at the same time, so healthful and so well proportioned, so willingly contracting itself to the humblest duties, so easily expanding itself to the highest, so contented in repose, so powerful in action. Almost every part of this virtuous and blameless life which is not hidden from us in modest privacy is a precious and splendid portion of our national history. Had the private conduct of Hampden afforded the slightest pretence for censure, he would have been assailed by the same blind malevolence which, in defiance of the clearest proofs, still continues to call Sir John Eliot an Had there been even any The public life of Hampden is surrounded by no obscurity. His history, more particularly from the year 1640 to his death, is the history of England. These Memoirs must be considered as Memoirs of the history of England; and, as such, they well deserve to be attentively perused. They contain some curious facts which, to us at least, are new, much spirited narrative, many judicious remarks, and much eloquent declamation. We are not sure that even the want of information respecting the private character of Hampden is not in itself a circumstance as strikingly characteristic as any which the most minute chronicler, O'Meara, Mrs. Thrale, or Boswell himself, ever recorded concerning their heroes. The celebrated Puritan leader is an almost solitary instance of a great man assassin. who neither sought nor shunned great- weak part in the character of Hampness, who found glory only because glory den, had his manners been in any relay in the plain path of duty. During spect open to ridicule, we may be sure more than forty years he was known that no mercy would have been shown to his country neighbours as a gentle- to him by the writers of Charles's facman of cultivated mind, of high prin- tion. Those writers have carefully preciples, of polished address, happy in his served every little circumstance which family, and active in the discharge of could tend to make their opponents local duties; and to political men as odious or contemptible. They have an honest, industrious, and sensible made themselves merry with the cant member of Parliament, not eager to of injudicious zealots. They have told display his talents, stanch to his party, us that Pym broke down in a speech, and attentive to the interests of his that Ireton had his nose pulled by constituents. A great and terrible crisis Hollis, that the Earl of Northumbercame. A direct attack was made by land cudgelled Henry Marten, that St. an arbitrary government on a sacred John's manners were sullen, that Vane right of Englishmen, on a right which had an ugly face, that Cromwell had a was the chief security for all their other red nose. But neither the artful Clarights. The nation looked round for a rendon nor the scurrilous Denham defender. Calmly and unostentatiously could venture to throw the slightest the plain Buckinghamshire Esquire imputation on the morals or the manplaced himself at the head of his coun-ners of Hampden. What was the trymen, and right before the face and opinion entertained respecting him by the best men of his time we learn from Baxter. That eminent person, eminent not only for his piety and his fervid devotional eloquence, but for his moderation, his knowledge of political affairs, and his skill in judging of characters, declared in the Saint's Rest, that one of the pleasures which he hoped to enjoy in heaven was the society of Hampden. In the editions printed after the Restoration, the name of Hampden was omitted. "But I must tell the reader," says Baxter, "that I did blot it out, not as changing my opinion of the person. Mr. His son, William Hampden, sate in the Parliament which that Queen summoned in the year 1593. William married Elizabeth Cromwell, aunt of the celebrated man who afterwards governed the British islands with more than regal power; and from this marriage sprang John Hampden. He was born in 1594. In 1597 his father died, and left him heir to a very large estate. After passing some years at the grammar school of Thame, young Hampden was sent, at fifteen, to Magdalene College, in the University of Oxford. At nineteen, he was admitted ried Elizabeth Symeon, a lady to whom he appears to have been fondly attached. In the following year he was returned to parliament by a borough which has in our time obtained a miserable celebrity, the borough of Grampound. John Hampden was one that friends a student of the Inner Temple, where and enemies acknowledged to be most he made himself master of the principles eminent for prudence, piety, and peace-of the English law. In 1619, he marable counsels, having the most universal praise of any gentleman that I remember of that age. I remember a moderate, prudent, aged gentleman, far from him, but acquainted with him, whom I have heard saying, that if he might choose what person he would be then in the world, he would be John IIampden." We cannot but regret that we have not fuller memorials of a man who, after passing through the most severe temptations by which human virtue can be tried, after acting a most conspicuous part in a revolution and a civil war, could yet deserve such praise as this from such authority. Yet the want of memorials is surely the best proof that hatred itself could find no blemish on his memory. Of his private life during his early years little is known beyond what Clarendon has told us. "In his entrance into the world," says that great historian, " he indulged himself in all the license in sports, and exercises, and company, which were used by men of the most jolly conversation." A remarkable change, however, passed on his character. "On a sudden,” says Clarendon, "from a life of great pleasure and license, he retired to extraordinary sobriety and strictness, to The story of his early life is soon told. a more reserved and melancholy soHe was the head of a family which had ciety." It is probable that this change been settled in Buckinghamshire before took place when Hampden was about the Conquest. Part of the estate which twenty-five years old. At that age he he inherited had been bestowed by was united to a woman whom he loved Edward the Confessor on Baldwyn de and esteemed. At that age he entered Hampden, whose name seems to indi-into political life. A mind so happily cate that he was one of the Norman constituted as his would naturally, favourites of the last Saxon king. Dur-under such circumstances, relinquish ing the contest between the houses of the pleasures of dissipation for domestic York and Lancaster, the Hampdens enjoyments and public duties. adhered to the party of the Red Rose, His enemies have allowed that he and were, consequently, persecuted by was a man in whom virtue showed Edward the Fourth, and favoured by itself in its mildest and least austere Henry the Seventh. Under the Tudors, form. With the morals of a Puritan, the family was great and flourishing. he had the manners of an accomplished Griffith Hampden, high sheriff of Buck-courtier. Even after the change in inghamshire, entertained Elizabeth his habits, "he preserved," says Clarenwith great magnificence at his seat. don, "his own natural cheerfulness In January, 1621, Hampden took his seat in the House of Commons. His mother was exceedingly desirous that her son should obtain a peerage. His family, his possessions, and his personal accomplishments were such, as would, in any age, have justified him in pretending to that honour. But in the reign of James the First there was one short cut to the House of Lords. It was but to ask, to pay, and to have. The sale of titles was carried on as openly as the sale of boroughs in our times. Hampden turned away with contempt from the degrading honours with which his family desired to see him invested, and attached himself to the party which was in opposition to the court. and vivacity, and, above all, a flowing | posed to endure oppression. "C'est le courtesy to all men." These qualities plus périlleux peuple qui soit au monde, distinguished him from most of the et plus outrageux et orgueilleux." The members of his sect and his party, and, good canon probably did not perceive in the great crisis in which he after- that all the prosperity and internal wards took a principal part, were of peace which this dangerous people enscarcely less service to the country joyed were the fruits of the spirit which than his keen sagacity and his daunt- he designates as proud and outrageous. less courage. He has, however, borne ample testimony to the effect, though he was not sagacious enough to trace it to its cause. "En le royaume d'Angleterre," says he, "toutes gens, laboureurs et marchands, ont appris de vivre en paix, et à mener leurs marchandises paisiblement, et les laboureurs labourer." In the fifteenth century, though England was convulsed by the struggle between the two branches of the royal family, the physical and moral condition of the people continued to improve. Villenage almost wholly disappeared. The calamities of war were little felt, except by those who bore arms. The oppressions of the government were little felt, except by the aristocracy. The institutions of the country, when compared with the institutions of the neighbouring kingdoms, seem to have been not undeserving of the praises of Fortescue. The government of Edward the Fourth, though we call it cruel and arbitrary, was humane and liberal when compared with that of Lewis the Eleventh, or that of Charles the Bold. Comines, who had lived amidst the wealthy cities of Flanders, and who had visited Florence and Venice, had never seen a people so well governed as the English. "Or selon mon advis," says he, "entre toutes les seigneuries du monde, dont j'ay connoissance, ou la chose publique est miculx traitée, et ou regne moins de violence sur le peuple, et ou n'y a nuls édifices abbatus ny demolis pour guerre, c'est Angleterre; et tombe le sort et le malheur sur ceulx qui font la guerre." It was about this time, as Lord Nugent has justly remarked, that parliamentary opposition began to take a regular form. From a very early age, the English had enjoyed a far larger share of liberty than had fallen to the lot of any neighbouring people. How it chanced that a country conquered and enslaved by invaders, a country of which the soil had been portioned out among foreign adventurers and of which the laws were written in a foreign tongue, a country given over to that worst tyranny, the tyranny of caste over caste, should have become the seat of civil liberty, the object of the admiration and envy of surrounding states, is one of the most obscure problems in the philosophy of history. But the fact is certain. Within a century and a half after the Norman conquest, the Great Charter was conceded. Within two centuries after the Conquest, the first House of Commons met. Froissart tells us, what indeed his whole narrative sufficiently proves, that of all the nations of the fourteenth century, the English were the least dis About the close of the fifteenth and the commencement of the sixteenth century, a great portion of the influence which the aristocracy had possessed passed to the crown. No English king has ever enjoyed such absolute power as Henry the Eighth. But while the royal prerogatives were acquiring |