due bounds-to show them that to do good requires a little more talent and reflection than they are aware of, and, above all, to impress upon them that true zeal for virtue knows no distinction between the rich and the poor; and that the cowardly and the mean can never be the true friends of morality, and the promoters of human happiness. If they attend to these rough doctrines, they will ever find in the writers of this journal their warmest admirers, and their most sincere advocates and friends. CHARACTERS OF FOX. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1809.) Characters of the late Charles James Fox. By Philopatris Varvicensis. 2 vols. 8vo. THIS singular work consists of a collection of all the panegyrics passed upon Mr. Fox, after his decease, in periodical publications, speeches, sermons, or elsewhere,-in a panegyric upon Mr. Fox by Philopatris himself,—and in a volume of notes by the said Philopatris upon the said panegyric. Of the panegyrics, that by Sir James Mackintosh appears to us to be by far the best. It is remarkable for good sense, acting upon a perfect knowledge of his subject, for simplicity, and for feeling. Amid the languid or turgid efforts of mediocrity, it is delightful to notice the skill, attention, and resources of a superior man, of a man, too, who seems to feel what he writes, who does not aim at conveying his meaning in rhetorical and ornamented phrases, but who uses plain words to express strong sensations. We cannot help wishing, indeed, that Sir James Mackintosh had been more diffuse upon the political character of Mr. Fox, the great feature of whose life was the long and unwearied opposition which he made to the low cunning, the profligate extravagance, the sycophant mediocrity, and the stupid obstinacy of the English court. nians. But when the attorney-general for the time being ingratiates himself with the court, by nibbling at this valuable privilege of the people, it is very easy to treat hostility to his measures as a minute and frivolous opposition to the government, and to persuade the mass of mankind that it is so. In fact, when a nation has become free, it is extremely difficult to persuade them that their freedom is only to be preserved by perpetual and minute jealousy. They do not observe that there is a constant, perhaps an unconscious, effort on the part of their governors, to diminish, and so ultimately to destroy, that freedom. They stupidly imagine that what is, will always be; and, contented with the good they have already gained, are easily persuaded to suspect and vilify those friendsthe object of whose life it is to preserve that good, and to increase it. It was the lot of Mr. Fox to fight this battle for the greater part of his life; in the course of which time he never was seduced by the love of power, wealth, nor popularity, to sacrifice the happiness of the many to the interests of the few. He rightly thought, that kings, and all public officers, were instituted only for the good of those over whom they preside; and he acted as if this conviction was always present to his mind; disdaining and withstanding that idolatrous tendency of mankind, by which they so often not only suffer, but invite ruin from that power which they themselves have wisely created for their own happiness. He loved, too, the happiness of his countrymen more than their favour; and while others were exhausting the resources, by flattering the ignorant prejudices and foolish passions of the country, Mr. Fox was content to be odious to the people, so long as he could be useful also. It will be long before we witness again such pertinacious opposition to the alarming power of the crown, and to the follies of our public measures, the necessary consequence of that power. That such opposition should ever be united again with such eraordinary talents, it is perhaps, in vain to hope. One little exception to the eulogium of Sir James Mackintosh upon Mr. Fox, we cannot help making. We are no admirers of Mr. Fox's poetry. His Vers de Société appears to us flat and insipid. To write verses was the only thing which Mr. Fox ever attempted to do, without doing it well. In that single instance he seems to have mistaken his talent. Immediately after the collection of panegyrics which these volumes contain, follows the eulogium of Mr. Fox by Philopatris himself: and then a volume of notes upon a variety of topics which this eulogium has suggested. Of the laudatory talents of this Warwickshire patriot, we shall present our readers with a specimen. To estimate the merit and the difficulty of this opposition, we must remember the enormous influence which the crown, through the medium of its patronage, exercises in the remotest corners of the kingdom, the number of subjects whom it pays, the much greater number whom it keeps in a state of expectation, and the ferocious turpitude of those mercenarics whose present prospects and future hopes are threatened by honest, and exposed by eloquent men. It is the easiest of all things, too, in this country, to make Englishmen believe that those who oppose the government wish to ruin the country. The English are a very busy people; and, with all the faults of their governors, they are still a very happy people. They have, as they ought to have, a perfect confi- Mr. Fox, though not an adept in the use of political dence in the administration of justice. The rights wiles, was very unlikely to be the dupe of them. He was which the different classes of men exercise the one conversant in the ways of man, as well as in the contents over the other are arranged upon equitable principles. of books. He was acquainted with the peculiar language Life, liberty and property are protected from the vio- of states, their peculiar forms, and the grounds and effects lence and caprice of power. The visible and imme- of their peculiar usages. From his earliest youth, he had investigated the science of politics in the greater and the diate stake, therefore, for which politicians play, is smaller scale; he had studied it in the records of history, not large enough to attract the notice of the people, both popular and rare-in the conferences of ambassadors and to call them off from their daily occupations, to in the archives of royal cabinets-in the minuter detail of investigate thoroughly the character and motives of memoirs-and in collected or straggling anecdotes of the men engaged in the business of legislation. The peo- wrangles, intrigues, and cabals, which, springing up in the ple can only understand, and attend to the last results secret recesses of courts, shed their baneful influence on the determinations of sovereigns, the fortune of favourites, of a long series of measures. They are impatient of and the tranquillity of kingdoms. But that statesmen of the details which lead to these results; and it is the all ages, like priests of all religions, are in all respects alike, easiest of all things to make them believe that those is a doctrine the propagation of which he left, as an ingloriwho insist upon such details are actuated only by fac-ous privilege, to the misanthrope, to the recluse, to the tious motives. We are all now groaning under the factious incendiary, and to the unlettered multitude. For weight of taxes: but how often was Mr. Fox followed himself, he thought it no very extraordinary stretch of by the curses of his country for protesting against the penetration or charity, to admit that human nature is every two wars which have loaded us with these taxes? He boasted of no very exalted heroism, in opposing the where nearly as capable of emulation in good, as in evil. the one of which wars has made America independ- calmness and firmness of conscious integrity to the shuffling ent, and the other rendered France omnipotent. The and slippery movements, the feints in retreat, and feints in case is the same with all the branches of public liber- advance, the dread of being over-reached, or detected in ty. If the broad and palpable question were, whether attempts to over-reach, and all the other humiliating and every book which issues from the press should be sub- mortifying anxieties of the most accomplished proficients jected to the license of a general censor, it would be in the art of diplomacy. He reproached himself for no guilt, when he endeavoured to obtain that respect and conimpossible to blacken the character of any man who, fidence which the human heart unavoidably feels in its so called upon, defended the liberty of publishing opi- intercourse with persons who neither wound our pride, nor take aim at our happiness, in a war of hollow and ambigu- | show the various methods in which the parts of speech ous words. He was sensible of no weakness in believing can be marshalled and arrayed. This, which would that politicians who, after all, "know only as they are be tiresome in the ephemeral productions of a newspa known," may, like other human beings, be at first the inVoluntary creatures of circumstances, and seem incorrigible per, is intolerable in two closely printed volumes. from the want of opportunities or incitements to correct Again, strange as it may appear to this author to themselves; that, bereft of the pleas usually urged in vin- say so, he must not fall into the frequent mistake of dication of deceit, by men who are fearful of being de- rural politicians, by supposing that the understandings ceived, they, in their official dealings with him, would not of all Europe are occupied with him and his opinions. wantonly lavish the stores they had laid up for huckstering His ludicrous self-importance is perpetually destroying in a traffic, which, ceasing to be profitable, would begin to the effect of virtuous feeling and just observation, be infamous; and that, possibly, here and there, if encouraged by example, they might learn to prefer the shorter leaving his readers with a disposition to laugh, where process, and surer results of plain dealing, to the delays, they might otherwise learn and admire. the vexations, and the uncertain or transient success, both of old-fashioned and new-fangled chicanery.'-(I. 209-211.) I have been asked, why, after pointing out by name the It is impossible to read this singular book without persons who seemed to me most qualified for reforming our being everywhere struck with the lofty and honourable with propriety be employed in preparing for the use of the penal code, I declined mentioning such ecclesiastics as might feelings, the enlightened benevolence, and sterling churches a grave and impressive discourse on the authority honesty with which it abounds. Its author is every- of human laws; and as other men may ask the same queswhere the circunspect friend of those moral and reli-tion which my friend did, I have determined, after some gious principles upon which the happiness of society deliberation, to insert the substance of my answer in this rests. Though he is never timid, nor prejudiced, nor place. bigoted, his piety, not prudish and full of antiquated rectly employed in giving effect to the sanctions of our If the public service of our church should ever be diand affected tricks, presents itself with an earnest as-penal code, the office of drawing up such a discourse as [ pect, and in a manly form; obedient to reason, prone have ventured to recommend would, I suppose, be assigned to investigation, and dedicated to honest purposes. to more than one person. My ecclesiastical superiors will, The writer, a clergyman, speaks of himself as a very I am sure, make a wise choice. But they will hardly conindependent man, who has always expressed his opin-demn me for saying, that the best sense expressed in the ions without any fear of consequences, or any hope of Lincoln, St. David's, Cloyne, and Norwich, the Dean of best language may be expected from the Bishops of Landaff, bettering his condition. We sincerely believe he Christ Church, and the President of Magdalen College, speaks the truth; and revere him for the life he has Oxford. I mean not to throw the slightest reproach upon led. Political independence-discouraged enough in other dignitaries whom I have not mentioned. But I these times among all classes of men-is sure, in the should imagine that few of my enlightened contemporaries timid profession of the church, to doom a man to eter-hold an opinion different from my own, upon the masculine nal poverty and obscurity. understanding of a Watson, the sound judgment of a TomThere are occasionally, in Philopatris, a great vigour and good nature of a Bennet, the calm and enlightened lin, the extensive erudition of a Burgess, the exquisite taste of style and felicity of expression. His display of benevolence of a Bathurst, the various and valuable attain classical learning is quite unrivalled-his reading vari-ments of a Cyril Jackson, or the learning, wisdom, integrity, ous and good and we may observe, at intervals, a and piety of a Martin Ruth.'-(pp. 524—525.) talent for wit, of which he might have availed himself to excellent purpose, had it been compatible with the dignified style in which he generally conveys his sentiments. With all these excellent qualities of head and heart, we have seldom met with a writer more full of faults than Philopatris. There is an event recorded in the Bible, which men who write books should keep constantly in their remembrance. It is there set forth, that many centuries ago, the earth was covered with a great flood, by which the whole of the human race, with the exception of one family, were destroyed. It appears also, that from thence, a great alteration was made in the longevity of mankind, who, from a range of seven or eight hundred years, which they enjoyed before the flood, were confined to their present period of seventy or eighty years. This epoch in the history of man gave birth to the twofold division of the antediluvian and the postdiluvian style of writing, the lat- Philopatris has employed a great deal of time upon ter of which naturally contracted itself into those in the subject of capital punishments, and has evinced a ferior limits which were better accommodated to the great deal of very laudable tenderness and humanity in abridged duration of human life and literary labour.- discussing it. We are scarcely, however, converts to Now, to forget this event,-to write without the fear that system which would totally abolish the punishof the deluge before his eyes, and to handle a subject ment of death. That it is much too frequently inflictas if mankind could lounge over a pamphlet for ten ed in this country, we readily admit; but we suspect it years, as before their submersion,-is to be guilty of the most grievous error into which a writer can possibly fall. The author of this book should call in the aid of some brilliant pencil, and cause the distressing scenes of the deluge to be portrayed in the most lively colours for his use. He should gaze at Noah and be brief. The ark should constantly remind him of the little time there is left for reading; and he should learn, as they did in the ark, to crowd a great deal of matter into a very little compass. In the name of common modesty, what could it have signified whether this author had given a list of eccle siasticts whom he thought qualified to preach about human laws? what is his opinion worth? who called for it? who wanted it? how many millions will be influenced by it ?-and who, oh gracious Heaven! who are a Burgess,-a Tomlin,-a Dennet, a Cyril Jackson,-a Martin Routh ?-A Tom, a Jack,-a Harry, a Peter? All good men enough in their generation doubtless they are. But what have they done for the broad a? what has any one of them perpetrated, which will make him be remembered, out of the sphere of his private virtues, six months after his decease? Surely, scholars and gentlemen can drink tea with each other, and eat bread and butter, without all this laudatory crackling. will be always necessary to reserve it for the most per nicious crimes. Death is the most terrible punishment to the common people, and therefore the most preven tive. It does not perpetually outrage the feelings of those who are innocent, and likely to remain innocent, as would be the case from the spectacle of convicts working in the highroads and public places. Death is the most irrevocable punishment, which is in some sense a good; for, however necessary it might be to inflict labour and punishment for life, it would never be Philopatris must not only condense what he says in done. Kings and legislatures would take pity after a a narrower compass, but he must say it in a more nat- great lapse of years; the punishment would be remit. ural manner. Some persons can neither stir hand norted, and its preventive efficacy, therefore, destroyed. foot without making it clear that they are thinking of We agree with Philopatris, that the executions should themselves, and laying little traps for approbation. In be more solemn; but still the English are not of a very the course of two long volumes, the Patriot of War-dramatic turn, and the thing must not be got up too wick is perpetually studying modes and postures:-the finely. Philopatris, and Mr. Jeremy Benthan before subject is the second consideration, and the mode of him, lay a vast stress upon the promulgation of laws, expression the first. Indeed, whole pages together and treat the inattention of the English government to seem to be mere exercises upon the English language, this point as a serious evil. It may be so-but we do to evince the copiousness of our synonymes and to not happen to remember any man punished for an of All this sounds very chivalrous and affectionate; but we have three little remarks to make. In the first place, Mr. Fox passes no censure on Sir Patrick Hume. In the second place, this publication does by no means obviate the censure of which Mr. Rose complains. And, thirdly, it is utterly absurd, to ascribe Mr. Rose's part of the volume, in which Sir Patrick Hume is scarcely ever mentioned. to any anxiety about his reputation. fence which he did not know to be an offence; though | Marchmont, who left him his family papers, with an he might not know exactly the degree in which it was injunction to make use of them, if it should ever bepunishable. Who are to read the laws to the people? come necessary.' Among these papers was a narrawho would listen to them if they were read? who tive by Sir Patrick Hume, the earl's grandfather, of would comprehend them if they listened? In a science the occurrences which befell him and his associates in like law there must be technical phrases known only to the unfortunate expedition undertaken by the Earl of professional men: business could not be carried on Argyle in 1685. Mr. Fox, in detailing a history of without them: and of what avail would it be to repeat that expedition has passed a censure, as Mr. Rose such phrases to the people? Again, what laws are to thinks, on the character of Sir Patrick; and to obvibe repeated, and in what places? Is a law respecting ate the effects of that censure, he now finds it necesthe number of threads on the shuttle of a Spitalfields sary' to publish this volume. weaver to be read to the corn-growers of the Isle of Thanet? If not, who is to make the selection! If the law cannot be comprehended by listening to the viva voce repetition, is the reader to explain it, and are there to be law lectures all over the kingdom? The fact is, that the evil docs not exist. Those who are not likely to commit the offence soon scent out the newly devised punishments, and have been long thoroughly acquainted with the old ones. Of the nice applications of the law they are indeed ignorant; but they purchase the requisite skill of some man whose business it is to acquire it; and so they get into less mischief by trusting to others than they would do if they pretended to inform themselves. The people, it is true, are ignorant of the laws; but they are ignorant only of the laws that do not concern them. A poacher knows nothing of the penalties to which he exposes himself by stealing ten thousand pounds from the public. Commissioners of public boards are unacquainted with all the decretals of our ancestors respecting the wiring of hares; but the one pockets his extra per centage, and the other his leveret, with a perfect knowledge of the laws-the particular laws which it is his business to elude. Philopatris will excuse us for differing from him upon a subject where he seems to entertain such strong opinions. We have a real respect for all his opinions:-no man could form them who had not a good heart and a sound understanding. If we have been severe upon his style of writing, it is because we know his weight in the commonwealth: and we wish that the many young persons who justly admire and imitate him should be turned to the difficult task of imitating his many excellencies, rather than the useless and easy one of copying his few de fects. OBSERVATIONS ON THE HISTORICAL WORK In the first place, it is quite certain that Mr. Fox passes no censure on Sir Patrick Hume. On the contrary he says of him, that he had early distinguished himself in the cause of liberty;' and afterwards rates him so very highly as to think it a sufficient reason for construing some doubtful points in Sir John Cochrane's conduct favourably, that he had always acted in conjunction with Sir Patrick Hume, who is proved by the subsequent events, and, indeed, by the whole tenour of his life and conduct, to have been uniformly sincere and zealous in the cause of his country.' Such is the deliberate and unequivocal testimony which Mr. Fox has borne to the character of this gentleman; and such the historian, whose unjust censures have compelled the Right Honourable George Rose to indite 250 quarto pages, out of pure regard to the injured memory of this ancestor of his deceased patron. Such is Mr. Fox's opinion, then, of Sir Patrick Hume; and the only opinion he any where gives of his character. With regard to his conduct, he observes, indeed, in one place, that he and the other gentlemen engaged in the enterprise appear to have paid too little deference to the opinion of their noble leader; and narrates, in another that, at the breaking up of their little army, they did not even stay to reason with him, but crossed the Clyde with such as would follow them. Now, Sir Patrick's own narrative, so far from contradicting either of these statements, confirms them both in the most remarkable manner. There is scarcely a page of it that does not show the jealous and controlling spirit which was exercised towards their leader; and with regard to the concluding scene, Sir Patrick's own account makes infinitely more strongly against himself and Sir John Cochrane, than the general statement of Mr. Fox. So far from staying to argue with their general before parting with him, it appears that Sir Patrick did not so much as see him; and that Cochrane, at whose suggestion he deserted him, bad in a manner ordered that unfortunate nobleman to leave their company. The material words of the narrative are these: 'On coming down to Kilpatrick, I met Sir John (Cochrane,) with others accompanieing him; who takeing mee by the hand, turned mee, saying, My heart, goe you with me? Whither goe you, said I? Over Clide by boate, said he.-I: Wher is Argyle? I must see him.-He: He is gone away to his owne resolution, and that wee went not together to Glasgow ?-He countrey, you cannot see him.-I: How comes this change of It is no time to answer questions, but I shall satisfy you afterward. To the boates wee came, filled 2, and rowed over,' &c. THIS is an extraordinary performance in itself;-but the reasons assigned for its publication are still more extraordinary. A person of Mr. Rose's consequence, incessantly occupied, as he assures us, with official duties which take equally,' according to his elegant expression, from the disembarrassment of the mind and the leisure of time,' thinks it absolutely necessary to explain to his country the motives which have led him to do so idle a thing as to write a book. He would not have it supposed, however, that he could be tempted to so questionable an act by any light or ordidinary consideration. Mr. Fox and other literary loungers may write from a love of fame, or a relish for literature; but the official labours of Mr. Rose can only be suspended by higher calls. All his former publications, he informs us, originated in a sense of public duty;' and the present, is an impulse of private friend-sion in the Erle's countenance and speach. In end he said, ship. An ordinary reader may, perhaps, find some difficulty in comprehending how Mr. Rose could be 'impelled by private friendship' to publish a heavy quarto of political observations on Mr. Fox's history: -and for our own part, we must confess, that after the most diligent perusal of his long explanation, we do not in the least comprehend it yet. The explanation, however, which is very curious, it is our duty to lay before our readers. Mr. Rose was much. patronized by the late Earl of An honest gentleman who was present told mee afterward the manner of his parting with the Erle. Argyle being in the roome with Sir John, the gentleman coming in, found confu Sir John, I pray advise mee what shall I doe; shall I goe over Clide with you, or shall I goe to my owne countrey? Sir John answered, My Lord, I have told you my opinion; you have some Highlanders here about you; it is best you go to your owne countrey with them, for it is to no purpose for you to go over Clide. My lord, faire you well. Then call'd the gentleman, Come away, Sir; who followed him when I met with him.'-Sir P. Hume's Narrative, pp. 63, 64. Such are all the censures which Mr. Fox passes upon this departed worthy; and such the contradiction which Mr. Rose now thinks it necessary to exhibit. It N2 is very true that Mr. Fox, in the course of his narrative, is under the necessity of mentioning, on the credit of all the historians who have treated of the subject, that Argyle, after his capture, did express himself in terms of strong disapprobation both of Sir Patrick Hume and of Sir John Cochrane; and said, that their ignorance and misconduct were, though not designedly, the chief cause of his failure. Mr. Fox neither adopts nor rejects this sentiment. He gives his own opinion, as we have already seen, in terms of the highest encomium, on the character of Sir Patrick Hume, and merely repeats the expressions of Argyle as he found them in Woodrow and other historians, and as he was under the necessity of repeating them, if he was to give any account of the last words of that unfortunate nobleman. It is this censure of Argyle, then, perhaps, and not any censure of Mr. Fox, that Mr. Rose intended to obviate by the publication before us. But, upon this supposition, how did the appearance of Mr. Fox's book constitute that necessity which compelled the tender conscience of Lord Marchmont's executor to give to the world this long-lost justification of his ancestor? The censure did not appear for the first time in Mr. Fox's book. It was repeated during Sir Patrick's own life, in all the papers of the time, and in all the historians since. Sir Patrick lived nearly forty good years after this accusation of Argyle was made public; and thirty-six of those years in great credit, honour, and publicity. If he had thought that the existence of such an accusation constituted a kind of moral necessity for the publication of his narrative, it is evident that he would himself have published it; and if it was not necessary then, while he was alive, to suffer by the censure of his leader, or to profit by its refutation, it is not easy to understand how it should be necessary now, when 130 years have elapsed from the date of it, and the bones of its author have reposed for nearly a century in their peaceful and honoured monument. it could not have accounted at all for the publication of Mr. Rose's book-the only thing to be accounted for. The narrative is given as an appendix of 65 pag. es to a volume of upwards of 300. In publishing the narrative, Mr. Rose did not assume the character of an author,' and was not called upon, by the responsi bility of that character, to explain to the world his reasons for submitting himself to their judgement.' It is only for his book, then, exclusive of the narra. tive, that Mr. Rose can be understood to be offering any apology; and the apology he offers is, that it sprung from the impulse of private friendship. When the matter is looked into, however, it turns out, that though private friendship may, by a great stretch, be supposed to have dictated the publication of the appendix, it can by no possibility account, or help to ac count, for the composition of the book. Nay, the tendency and tenour of the book are such as this ardent and romantic friendship must necessarily condemn. It contains nothing whatever in praise or in defence of Sir Patrick Hume; but it contains a very keen, and not a very candid, attack upon his party and his principles. Professing to be published from anxiety to vindicate and exalt the memory of an insurgent revolution whig, it consists almost entirely of an attempt to depreciate whig principles, and openly to decry and vilify such of Mr. Fox's opinions as Sir Patrick Hume constantly exemplified in his actions. There never was an effect, we believe, imputed to so improbable a cause. Finally, we may ask, if Mr. Rose's view, in this publication, was merely to vindicate the memory of Sir Patrick Hume, why he did not put into Mr. Fox's hands the information which would have rendered all vindication unnecessary? It was known to all the world, for several years, that Mr. Fox was engaged in the history of that period; and if Mr. Rose really thought that the papers in his custody gave a differ That the narrative never was published before, ent view of Sir Patrick's conduct from that exhibited though the censure, to which it is supposed to be an in the printed authorities, was it not his duty to put antidote, had been published for more than a century, Mr. Fox upon his guard against being misled by them, is a pretty satisfactory proof that those who were and to communicate to him those invaluable documost interested and best qualified to judge, either did ments to which he could have access in no other way? not consider the censure as very deadly, or the anti- Did he doubt that Mr. Fox would have candour to dote as very effectual. We are very well contented state the truth, or that he would have stated with to leave it doubtful which of these was the case; and pleasure any thing that could exalt the character of a we are convinced that all the readers of Mr. Rose's revolution whig? Did he imagine that any statement book will agree that it is still very doubtful. Sir Pat- of his could ever obtain equal notoriety and effect with rick, in his narrative, no doubt, says that Argyle was a statement in Mr. Fox's history? Or did he poorly extremely arrogant, self-willed, and obstinate; but it withhold this information, that he might detract from is equally certain, that the earl said to him that he the value of that history, and have to boast to the pubwas jealous, disobedient, and untractable. Both were lic that there was one point upon which he was better men of honour and veracity; and, we doubt not, be-informed than that illustrious statesman? As to the lieved what they said. It is even possible that both preposterous apology which seems to be hinted at in may have said truly; but, at this distance of time, the book itself, viz., that it was Mr. Fox's business to and with no new evidence but the averment of one of have asked for these papers, and not Mr. Rose's to the parties, it would be altogether ridiculous to pre- have offered them, we shall only observe, that it tend to decide which may have come nearest to an im- stands on a point of etiquette, which would scarcely partial statement. Before the publication of the pre- be permitted to govern the civilities of tradesmen's sent narrative, it is plain from Woodrow, Burnet, and wives; and that it seems not a little unreasonable to other writers, that considerable blame was generally lay Mr. Fox under the necessity of asking for papers, laid on Argyle for his peremptoriness and obstinacy; the very existence of which he could have no reason and, now that the narrative is published, it is still to expect. This Narrative of Sir Patrick Hume has more apparent than ever that he had some ground for now lain in the archives of his family for 130 years, the charges he made against his officers. The whole unknown and unsuspected to all but its immediate tenour of it shews that they were constantly in the ha- proprietor; and, distinguished as Sir Patrick was in bit of checking and thwarting him; and we have al- his day in Scotland, it certainly does not imply any ready seen that it gives a very lame and unsatisfacto- extraordinary stupidity in Mr. Fox, not to know, by ry account of their strange desertion of him, when intuition, that there were papers of his existence their fortunes appeared to be desperate. which might afford him some light on the subject of his history. It is perfectly plain, therefore, we conceive, that the publication of Mr. Fox's book constituted nei- We may appear to have dwelt too long on these ther a necessity nor an intelligible inducement for preliminary considerations, since the intrinsic value the publication of this narrative; and that the nar- of Mr. Rose's observations certainly will not be effectrative, now that it is published, has no tendency ed by the truth or the fallacy of the motives he has to remove any slight shade of censure that histo- assigned for publishing them. It is impossible, howry may have thrown over the temper or prudence ever, not to see that, when a writer assigns a false of Sir Patrick Hume. But, even if all this had motive for his coming forward, he is commonly conbeen otherwise-if Mr. Fox had, for the first time, in-scious that the real one is discreditable; and that to exsinuated a censure on this defunct whig, and if the pose the hollowness of such a pretence, is to lay the narrative had contained the most complete refutation foundation of a wholesome distrust of his general fairof such a censure, this might, indeed, have account-ness and temper. Any body certainly had a right to ed for the publication of Sir Patrick's narrative; but publish remarks on Mr. Fox's work-and nobody a better right than Mr. Rose; and if he had stated open- | Rose's habits and connections. As we fear, however, ly, that all the habits and connections of his life had that the same justness and liberality of thinking are led him to wish to see that work discredited, no one by no means general among the more obscure retainwould have been entitled to complain of his exertions ers of party throughout the country, we think it may in the cause. When he chooses to disguise this mo- not be without its use to quote a few of the passages tive, however, and to assign another which does not to which we have alluded, just to let the vulgar tories at all account for the phenomenon, we are so far from in the provinces see how much of their favourite docforgetting the existence of the other, that we are in- trines has been abjured by their more enlightened ternally convinced of its being much stronger than we chief and leaders in the seat of government. should otherwise have suspected; and that it is only In the first place, there are all the passages (which dissembled, because it exists in a degree that could it would be useless and tedious to recite) in which the not have been decently avowed. For the same reason, patriotism and public virtue of Sir P. Hume are held therefore, of enabling our readers more distinctly to up to the admiration of posterity. Now, Sir P. Hume, appreciate the intellect and temper of this right hon- that true and sincere lover of his country, whose 'tal. ourable author, we must say a word or two more of ents and virtues his sovereign acknowledged and rehis Introduction, before proceeding to the substance of warded,' and 'whose honours have been attended by his remarks. the suffrage of his country and the approbation of good men,' was, even in the reign of Charles, concerned in designs analogous to those of Russell and Sydney ;and, very soon after the accession of James, and (as Mr. Rose thinks) before that monarch had done any thing in the least degree blamable, rose up openly in arms, and endeavoured to stir up the people to overthrow the existing government. Even Mr. Fox hesi tates as to the wisdom and the virtue of those engaged in such enterprises;-and yet Mr. Rose, professing to see danger in that writer's excessive zeal for liberty, writes a book to extol the patriotism of a premature insurgent. Besides the edifying history of his motive for writing, we are favoured, in that singular piece, with a number of his opinions upon points no way connected with Mr. Fox or his history; and with a copious account of his labours and studies in all kinds of juridical and constitutional learning In order to confirm an opinion that a minute knowledge of our ancient history is not necessary to understand our actual constitution, he takes an unintelligible survey of the progress of our government, from the days of King Alfred, and quotes Lord Coke, Plowden, Doomsday Book, Lord Ellesmere, Rymer's Fœdera, Dugdale's Origines, the Rolls of Parliament, Whitelock, and Abbot's Records; but, above all, a report which I made several years ago on the state of the records in my custody. He then goes on, in the most obliging manner, to inform his readers that 'Verto's Account of the Revolutions of Rome has been found very useful by persons who have read the Roman History; but the best model that I have met with for such a work as appears to me to be much wanted, is a short History of Poland, which I translated nearly forty years ago, but did not publish; the manuscript of which his majesty at the time did me the honour to accept; and it probably is still in his majesty's library.'-Introduction, pp. xxiv. xxv. Truly all this is very interesting, and very much to the purpose-but scarcely more so than eight or nine pages that follow, containing a long account of the conversations which Lord Marchmont had with Lord Bolingbroke, about the politics of Queen Anne's ministers, and which Mr. Rose now gives to the world from his recollection of various conversations between himself and Lord Marchmont. He tells us, moreover, that accustomed as he has been to official accuracy in statement,' he had naturally a quick eye for mistakes in fact or in deduction;-that having long enjoyed the confidence and affectionate friendship of Mr. Pitt,' he has been more scrupulous than he would otherwise have been in ascertaining the grounds of his animadversions on the work of his great rival-and that, notwithstanding all this anxiety, and the want of' disembarrassment of mind' and 'leisure of time,' he has compiled this volume in about as many weeks as Mr. Fox took years to the work on which it comments! After this, we need not quote our author's warm panegyrics on the Revolution-'that glorious event to which the measures of James necessarily led,'-or on the character of Lord Sommers, whose wisdom, talents, political courage and virtue, would alone have been sufficient to insure the success of that measure.' It may surprise some of his political admirers a little more, however, to find him professing that he' concurs with Mr. Fox as to the expediency of the bill of exclusion,' (that boldest and most decided of all whig measures); and thinks that the events which took place in the next reign afford a strong justification of the conduct of the promoters of that measure.' When his tory friends have digested that sentiment, they may look at his patriotic invectives against the degrading connection of the two last of the Stuart princes with the court of France; and the 'scandalous profligacy by which Charles and his successor betrayed the best interests of their country for miserable stipends. There is something very edifying, indeed, though we should fear a little alarming to courtly tempers, in the warmth with which our author winds up his diatribe on this interesting subject. Every one,' he observes, who carries on a clandestine correspondence with a foreign power, in matters touching the interests o: Great Britain, is prima facie guilty of a great moral, as well as political, crime. If a subject, he is a traitor to his king and his country; and if a monarch he is a traitor to the crown which he wears, and to the empire which he governs. There may, by possibility, be circumstances to extenuate the former; there can be none to lessen our detestation of the latter.'-(pp. 149, 150.) For the Observations themselves, we must say that Conformably to these sentiments, Mr. Rose expresswe have perused them with considerable pleasure-es his concurrence with all that Mr. Fox says of the not certainly from any extraordinary gratification arbitrary and oppressive measures which distinguish. which we derived from the justness of the sentiments, ed the latter part of Charles's reign;-declares that or the elegance of the style, but from a certain agreeable surprise which we experienced on finding how few parts of Mr. Fox's doctrine were considered as vulnerable, even by Mr. Rose; and in how large a proportion of his freest and strongest observations that jealous observer has expressed his most cordial concurrence. The Right Honourable George Rose, we rather believe, is commonly considered as one of the least whiggish or democratical of all the public characters who have lived in our times; and he has himself acknowledged, that a long habit of political opposition to Mr. Fox had perhaps given him a stronger bias against his favourite doctrines than he might otherwise have entertained. It was, therefore, no slight consolation to us to find that the true principles of English liberty had made so great a progress in the opinions of all men in upper life, as to extort such an ample admission of them, even from a person of Mr. he has manifested great temperance and forbearance in the character which he gives of Jefferies ;-and understated the enormity of the cruel and detestable proceedings of the Scottish government, in its unheard of acts of power, and the miseries and persecutions which it inflicted;-admits that Mr. Fox's work treated of a period in which the tyranny of the sovereign at home was not redeemed by any glory or success abroad; and speaks of the Revolution as the era when the full measure of the monarch's tyrannical usurpations made resistance a duty paramount to every consideration of personal or public danger.' 6 It is scarcely possible, we conceive, to read these, and many other passages which might be quoted from the work before us, without taking the author for a whig; and it certainly is not easy to comprehend how the writer of them could quarrel with any thing in Mr. Fox's history, for want of deference and vener. |