should require of him in discussing a point of abstract criticism, and setting up one opinion against another. It is something whol ly different from the credit of an opinion that is at stake. The courtesy of amicable hostilities is at an end, when personal reputation is deeply wounded; and we must think of another criterion whereby to judge of the propriety of controversial language in such a case as this. Coarseness, illiberality, and vulgar insult, are in every case to be condemned. But these are offences for which our censure must fall, not upon the champion of the learned body, but upon his assailants.-No. XXXI, p. 177, &c. One of these gentlemen, whose mind is most unhappily tainted with the love of low imagery, and flagrant personality, describes his own style by informing us that he says what he has to say after his own manner-always confident that, whatever he may be, he shall be found out and classed as he deserves.' We admit the test to be a sure one, and shall pass over the merits of his manner, ‘whatever they may be,' leaving those to be pleased with it, who think an epithet of contempt, or a barn-door simile, to be the best kind of wit, and who can make reasonable allowances for the violation of all the decencies, and some of the moralities, of life: quando tanta fæx est in urbe, ut nihil tam sit axúnpor, quod non alicui venustum videatur. Grant him this privilege, and tolerate one of the worst of styles.-But when the same critic inveighs against 'personality and impertinence,' nay, even whispers something about writing modestly and like a gentleman,' we suspect that he has a very faint perception of the imprudence of printing invectives against himself, and of doing what is generally thought to be intolerable; Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes? The writings of his two associates in the common cause are not tarnished by equal rankness of insult. But it does them no small discredit to appear in the company of one who seems to reckon upon free license and impunity in saying all that he pleases, in his own manner.' The reviewer of Strabo has, besides, much of this kind to answer for in his own pages. But it is time to take leave of all the three productions, and of the Author whe has given them their proper reproof; Horum naturam triplicem, tria corpora, Memmi, 6 ART. XIII. A History of the Political Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt; including some Account of the Times in which he lived. By John Gifford, Esq. In 3 vols. 4to. pp. 2150. London. Cadell and Davies. 1809. F' (says a celebrated orator and statesman of antiquity) 'many nesses of their persons, the copies of the mere exterior frame, much more should we be solicitous that the world may receive, from the hand of some consummate master, a finished representation of our wisdom and virtues.* It becomes, perhaps, the noblest natures, to disdain the former of these two kinds of solicitude, and to be influenced only in a measured degree even by the latter; but the anxiety in both respects, which a great man will not indulge for himself, must be the more strongly felt in his behalf by his friends and admirers. Those who loved and respected Mr. Pitt, may gratify themselves with the reflection that the object of their attachment is already secure of all the immortality which the powers of sculpture or of painting can bestow. To several excellent resemblances of him, taken during his life, one has been added since his death, which leaves nothing farther to be desired in this department. The chissel of Lysippus did not produce a more faithful copy of the features of Alexander the Great, or a happier expression of the visible soul, with which those features were informed. It remains to be seen whether biography will be as just to this great subject as the imitative arts; and her first considerable attempt upon it is here submitted to the public decision. The work professes to be a history of the political life of Mr. Pitt. The distinction, implied in this title, between the departments of political and of private biography, will attract the earliest notice of most readers, and probably the censure of most critics. The world is apt to assume a jurisdiction over the proceedings of an author, even on the point in which his free agency might seem the least liable to question,-the choice of a subject. Admitting, in its utmost extent, the lawfulness of the jurisdiction so assumed, it does not appear to us that the sentence which we have in this instance anticipated, would be just. The province of political biography is defined by boundaries which, though they may seem An, cum statuas et imagines, non animorum simulacra, sed corporum, studiosè multi summi homines reliquerint; consiliorum relinquere ac virtutum nostrarum effigiem nonne multò malle debemus, summis ingeniis expressam et politam? Cic. pro Arch. 12. The same illustration is employed in the well-known Letter to Lucceius. Epist. Fam. lib. 5. confused to the magnifying eye of a metaphysician, are, for every practical purpose, sufficiently clear and precise; and no man will deny that, even thus separately taken, it presents ample scope for exertion to the most capacious mind. He, therefore, who performs what Mr. Gifford has here undertaken, does well; and performing so much, is hardly treated if he be blamed for not having undertaken more. If, indeed, we were to decide this point rather by our taste and feelings than by our notions of rigid justice, we know not that we should acquit our author so readily. The political history of a distinguished individual is then, we conceive, both most agreeable and most instructive, when it is blended with views of his private life and manners. By this union, not only are the profit and pleasure derivable from biography so much increased; but a new and independent spring of both is opened to us, in the contemplation of that sympathy and resemblance which generally subsists between the public and the private characters of men. It is impossible,' (said an illustrious master of eloquence) that the unnatural father, the hater of his own blood, should be an able and faithful leader of his country; that the mind which is insensible to the intimate and touching influence of domestic affection, should be alive to the remoter impulse of patriotic feeling; that private depravity should consist with public virtue. The sentiment is here expressed with all that vehemence which might be expected in the angry eloquence of a political chief, conscious of the amiableness of his own domestic life, and inveighing against a rival too strong in most points to be spared where he was found weak. It has, however, a foundation of truth, and may suggest the advantages resulting from that blended species of biography of which we have spoken. Even in the anomalous cases where no correspondence, or no close correspondence can be traced between the more retired and the more conspicuous features of a character, a comparative exhibition of the two has its use, and will furnish the philosopher with many interesting themes of reflection. The chief use, however, of such an * “ Ὁ γὰρ μισότεκνος, καὶ πατὴρ πονηρὸς, ουκ ἄν ποτε γίνοιτο δημαγωγὸς χρηστός· ουδὲ ὁ τὰ φίλτατα καὶ οικειότατα σώματα μὴ στέργων, ουδέποτε ὑμᾶς περὶ πλειονος ποιήσεται τοὺς ἀλλο τρίους· ουδέ γε ὁ ἰδίᾳ πονηρὸς, ουκ ἄν ποτε γένοιτο δημοσίᾳ χρηστος. Æschin. contr. Ctes. 29. The striking coincidence between this passage and some lines in Cowper's Task, will, we trust, sufficiently apologize for our introduction of the latter in this place, if indeed an apology can ever be necessary for introducing good poetry. For when was public virtue to be found, Where private was not? Can he love the whole, Can he be strenuous in his country's cause, Who slights the charities, for whose dear sake That country, if at all, must be belov'd?-TASK, B. 5. exhibition, resides in the rule, not in the exception, and belongs, not to the speculative few, but to the active many. By associating, in the view of mankind, whatever is amiable and, as it were, feminine in the human character, with whatever in it is commanding and Herculean, it takes advantage of our veneration for the latter class of qualities to betray us into a respect for the former. It gives dignity to the humbler virtues and domestic charities in the eyes both of public and of private men, both of those who aspire to become great and of those who are content to remain little; and thus universally secures the vital interests of society, In making these remarks, it must be repeated that we are merely expressing a feeling, not urging a claim. By confining himself to a particular compartment of a subject, instead of attempting to compass the whole of it, an author incurs no reprehension, provided only that he duly forewarns the reader of his purpose; this being done, the demands of critical justice are satisfied. It may, perhaps, however, with more reason be objected to the plan on which the work before us is framed, that, even tried on the ground of its own professed objects, it is somewhat too narrow and exclusive. There are events which, though, strictly speaking, they fall altogether within the private life of the statesman, yet so far savour of publicity, that political biography, under a liberal construction of that term, cannot with any propriety leave them unnoticed. They constitute, if we may so describe them, the illu minated portion of the planet's disk, which is imperceptible indeed to sense, but which yet we expect to see supplied in the planisphere of the philosopher. In the present history of Mr. Pitt, an account of this mixed class of events will be sought in vain ; plainly, by a defect, not in the execution of the design, which, thus far at least, has been but too faithful, but in the design itself. When Xenophon embodied in a narrative form his idea of a perfect prince, he thought fit minutely to describe the institution and discipline under which the perfection that he was representing, might reasonably be judged to have been attained; and so important did this part of his undertaking appear to him, that he deduced from it the title of the whole work. But Mr. Gifford has been content with devoting to the education of Mr. Pitt only a single page out of three vast quartos. His conciseness, or, as it is in effect, his utter silence on this subject, is the principal of those faults of omission to which we have just been alluding. It is surely not less consonant to the laws of nature and reason, than to those of Homeric poetry, that the arming of the hero for battle should enter into the description of the battle itself. A full inspection of the means by which characters of uncommon eminence have been formed, not only is in itself highly useful, but appears 27 VOL. IV. NO. VII. to be, in every case, the most natural preliminary to the contemplation of the characters themselves. And, if the utility of such a study, and its pertinency in a work like the present, be allowed, its great attractiveness may fairly be urged as a strong additional reason why it should not be overlooked by a biographer who writes for popular use. In truth, it is most powerfully calculated to excite attention and sympathy. We love to dwell on every circumstance of splendid preparation which contributes to fit the great man for the scene of his glory. We delight to watch, fold by fold, the bracing on of his Vulcanian panoply, and observe with pleased anxiety the leading forth of that chariot which, borne on irresistible wheels, and drawn by steeds of immortal race, is to crush the necks of the mighty, and sweep away the serried strength of armies. There are likewise certain other topics, on which this writer has maintained what seems to us a mistaken silence. He has afforded few or no means of judging, what were Mr. Pitt's peculiar habits of business, or study, or studious contemplation; what methods he pursued in the selection of proper auxiliaries to assist his public purposes, and in the management of men in general; what, in short, was his practical skill in that branch of civil knowledge, which Lord Bacon calls negotiation, or the wisdom of business, and of which that high authority observes, that, as history of times is the best ground for discourse of government, such as Machiaval handleth, so history of lives is the most proper for discourse of business because it is more conversant in private actions. The observation is, indeed, couched in general terms, and perhaps cannot be quoted against Mr. Gifford, who professes to write, not the history of a life, but the history only of a political life. Yet when it is considered that a proficiency in the species of wisdom referred to, is exclusively a public qualification and that too a qualification of first rate importance, it may surely be conjectured that Lord Bacon would have hesitated to allow the completeness of any portrait of a public character, which should have omitted, or even thrown into the shade, so capital a feature. Thus much we have offered on the general object and conception of this publication; but it is time to notice the manner in which the plan is executed. The author does not profess, we should observe, excepting perhaps in a very few instances, to have derived his intelligence from secret or peculiar sources. His materials, in fact, seem to have been mostly collected, on the one hand, from the Annual and Parliamentary Registers, or other periodical records, and, on the other, from those personal recollections of which any man, who has been as attentive to the course of passing * Advancement of Learning, Book II. |