whatever be the composition of large | been loaded with marks of royal fadeliberative assemblies, their spirit is vour, and who had bound himself, by always in some degree popular. a solemn promise, never to coalesce Where there are free debates, elo- with Pitt, was meditating a new quence must have admirers, and reason perfidy. Of all the statesmen of that must make converts. Where there is age, Fox had the largest share of royal a free press, the governors must live in favour. A coalition between Fox and constant awe of the opinions of the Newcastle was the arrangement which governed. the King wished to bring about. But Thus these two men, so unlike in the Duke was too cunning to fall into character, so lately mortal enemies, such a snare. As a speaker in Parliawere necessary to each other. New-ment, Fox might perhaps be, on the castle had fallen in November, for whole, as useful to an administration want of that public confidence which as his great rival; but he was one of Pitt possessed, and of that parlia- the most unpopular men in England. mentary support which Pitt was better Then, again, Newcastle felt all that qualified than any man of his time to jealousy of Fox, which, according to give. Pitt had fallen in April, for the proverb, generally exists between want of that species of influence which two of a trade. Fox would certainly Newcastle had passed his whole life in intermeddle with that department acquiring and hoarding. Neither of which the Duke was most desirous to them had power enough to support reserve entire to himself, the jobbing himself. Each of them had power department. Pitt, on the other hand, enough to overturn the other. Their was quite willing to leave the drudgery union would be irresistible. Neither of corruption to any who might be inthe King nor any party in the state clined to undertake it. would be able to stand against them.

Under these circumstances, Pitt was not disposed to proceed to extremities against his predecessors in office. Something, however, was due to consistency; and something was necessary for the preservation of his popularity. He did little; but that little he did in such manner as to produce great effect. He came down to the House in all the pomp of gout, his legs swathed in flannels, his arm dangling in a sling. He kept his seat through several fatiguing days, in spite of pain and languor. He uttered a few sharp and vehement sentences; but during the greater part of the discussion, his language was unusually gentle.

During eleven weeks England remained without a ministry; and in the mean time Parliament was sitting, and a war was raging. The prejudices of the King, the haughtiness of Pitt, the jealousy, levity, and treachery of Newcastle, delayed the settlement. Pitt knew the Duke too well to trust him without security. The Duke loved power too much to be inclined to give security. While they were haggling, the King was in vain attempting to produce a final rupture between them, or to form a Government without them. At one time he applied to Lord Waldgrave, an honest and sensible man, but unpractised in affairs. Lord Waldgrave had the courage to accept the Treasury, but soon found that no administration formed by him had the smallest chance of standing a single week.

When the inquiry had terminated without a vote either of approbation or of censure, the great obstacle to a coalition was removed. Many obstacles, however, remained. The King At length the King's pertinacity was still rejoicing in his deliverance yielded to the necessity of the case. from the proud and aspiring Minister After exclaiming with great bitterness, who had been forced on him by the and with some justice, against the cry of the nation. His Majesty's Whigs, who ought, he said, to be indignation was excited to the highest ashamed to talk about liberty while point when it appeared that New-they submitted to be the footmen of castle, who had, during thirty years, the Duke of Newcastle, his Majesty

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 successful abroad as that of Godolphin.

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, du- | ring 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.

amidst the roar of guns and kettledrums, 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.

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. His 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.

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

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, Roche-overtaken by an English squadron fort threatened, a few ships burned in the harbour of St. Malocs, 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

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

swered Hawke; "I will answer for his influence with the nation. In Par

everything. I command you to lay me alongside the French admiral." Two French ships of the line struck. Four were destroyed. The rest hid themselves in the rivers of Britanny.

liament, such was the ascendency which his eloquence, his success, his high situation, his pride, and his intrepidity had obtained for him, that he took liberties with the House of which there The year 1760 came; and still had been no example, and which have triumph followed triumph. Montreal never since been imitated. No orator was taken; the whole province of could there venture to reproach him Canada was subjugated; the French with inconsistency. One unfortunate flcets underwent a succession of dis- man made the attempt, and was so asters in the scas of Europe and much disconcerted by the scornful deAmerica. meanour of the Minister that he stamIn the meantime conquests equal-mered, stopped, and sat down. Even ling in rapidity, and far surpassing in the old Tory country gentlemen, to magnitude, those of Cortes and Pizarro, whom the very name of Hanover had had been achieved in the East. In been odious, gave their hearty Ayes to the space of three years the English subsidy after subsidy. In a lively conhad founded a mighty empire. The temporary satire, much more lively French had been defeated in every indeed than delicate, this remarkpart of India. Chandernagore had able conversation is not unhappily surrendered to Clive, Pondicherry to described. Coote. Throughout Bengal, Bahar, Orissa, and the Carnatic, the authority of the East India Company was more absolute than that of Acbar or Aurungzebe had ever been.

"No more they make a fiddle-faddle
About a Hessian horse or saddle.
No more of continental measures;
No more of wasting British treasures.
Ten millions, and a vote of credit,
"Tis right. He can't be wrong who did
it.'

On the continent of Europe the odds were against England. We had but The success of Pitt's continental 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 he now carried that practice farther speedily changed. The invaders were than Carteret himself would have ven-driven out. An army, partly English, 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 maintain the conflict on equal terms against his powerful enemies. On no subject had Pitt ever spoken with so much eloquence and ardour as on the mischiefs 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

of Germany, was placed under the command of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. The French were beaten in 1758 at Crevelt. In 1759 they received a still more complete and hu

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.

Even as a war minister, Pitt is scarcely entitled to all the praise which his contemporaries lavished on him. We, perhaps from ignorance, cannot discern in his arrangements any appearance of profound or dexterous combination. Several of his expeditions, particularly those which were sent to the coast of France, were at once costly and absurd. 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

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 bewildered by his vigour. A panic spread through all ranks of society. Our enemies soon considered it as a settled thing that they were always to be beaten. Thus victory begot victory; till, at last, wherever the forces of the two nations met, they met with disdainful confidence on one side, and with a craven fear on the other.

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 was their place yet supplied by distinctions of a still more important kind. A new

generation of country squires and last work of Sir James Mackintosă. 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. The Church was drowsy and indulgent. The great civil and religious conflict which began at the Reformation seemed to have terminated in universal repose. Whigs and Torics, Churchmen and Puritans, spoke with equal reverence of the constitution, and with equal enthusiasm of the talents, virtues, and services of the Minister.

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. All the little peculiar cadences of that voice from which scholars and statesmen loved to receive the lessons of a serene and benevolent wisdom are in our cars, 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 prefired 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.

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 post

humously published. Neither had received the last corrections. The 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 sof tened, and some wholly omitted. The severa 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.