most admirable specimens of sound and elegant criticism*. His splendid oration in defence of Mr. PELTIER is too widely known, and too generally admired, to require any mention or comment on our part. No where is there depicted so faithful, or a more horrific picture of the more prominent actors in the French revolution: no where can be acquired a juster insight into the present dark designs and ambitious projects of the consular government :-nor has Mr. Mackintosh been backward to lend his literary aid towards rousing and animating the spirit and energies of the country, at this awful crisis of public affairs: the most pure and ardent patriotism runs through every sentence of his speech to the Loyal North Britons, in which volunteer corps he was a captain, and in the Declaration of the Merchats, &c. read at the Royal Exchange, which is now known to have flowed from his patriotic pen. Mr. Mackintosh, were he to write no more, has already written enough to entitle him to rank among the very first of our most accomplished writers; but, as his new situation must open new views to his keen and indefatigable observation, we may fairly expect still more solid and finished productions from the activity of his powerful and prolific mind.

With respect to the character of his mind, it has pretty generally been observed, that judgment, acuteness, sagacity, comprehension, and memory, constitute its principal powers; not that he is deficient in fancy and imagination, which his writings prove him to possess in a very eminent degree, but because they seem to be overawed from any thing like extravagant and wanton flights by the severity of his judgment, and the chasteness of his taste. There is another quality with which his mind is singularly gifted, and which naturally results from his taste and judgment, we mean, a sort of elective attraction for whatever is sublime and beautiful in the expression and thoughts of other writers, and a felicity of assimilation, by which he instantly converts it into his own: we may fairly say his own for when it is again re-issued, it appears cloathed in such a variety of new lights and colours, that scarcely any particle can be traced of the original substance.

Mille trahit varios adverso sole colores.

If examined separately, it will be generally allowed, that the faculties of his intellect are of the most vigorous mould; but a nicely dis-' criminating eye will contemplate, with more delight and admiration, the fair proportions of the general structure, and the happy manner in

* See the Critique on Mr. Burke's Regicide Peace, and on the Miscellaneous Works of Mr. Gibbon, in the Monthly Review.

which they all so amicably conspire, and so equally come forward in the performance of whatever he undertakes. Indeed it may be as justly said of intellectual as of corporeal beauty:

It's not a lip or eye we beauty call,

But the full force, and joint result of all.

In social and domestic life, Mr. Mackintosh is generally acknowledged to possess the most amiable and estimable qualities. He is a fond husband, an affectionate father, a faithful friend: and, in gentleness of manner, equability of temper, and amenity of disposition, he cannot easily be surpassed. He is not more solicitous to acquire than to communicate information: and, upon whatever subject he is consulted, he is sure to point out all the sources that can contribute to throw light upon it-so various is his reading, so prompt his recollection. Not a new publication appears that he does not immediately glance over; and from what appears to be the most superficial and transient perusal, he is able to collect the scope of the work, the manner and the degree of success that characterize the performance. He is particularly fond of reciting the more beautiful passages, either of the ancient or modern poets; and no topic can be started which he cannot employ them to illustrate and adorn. His mornings, when not taken up with professional business, he constantly devotes to reading or composing; and as he reads or composes, has always before him a glass of toast and water, which he frequently sips; and in the evening he meets the circulation of the more jovial glass, with one of lemonade, mostly made with soda, or Seltzer water. His conversation must always instruct; but it has equal powers to please-nor is it ever roughened by magisterialness, presumption, or pedantry.

Taught by his converse happily you'd steer,

From grave to gay, from lively to severe.

Although he abstains from wine, he freely indulges in the mirth it promotes. He is naturally, indeed, inclined to be cheerful and facetious; but neither his cheerfulness or his pleasantry is borrowed from the bottle; and the most zealous votaries of Bacchus are willing to confess, that his good-nature can glow without being warmed by Burgundy; and that his wit can sparkle unprompted by Champaign. He is, therefore, a strong and signal exception to the observation of our great moralist: for though under a depression of spirits, produced by whatever cause, he has frequently called in the aid of the jolly God, he has, however, ultimately proved, that he was not to be enslaved by his auxiliary.

Such, nearly, are the leading lineaments that mark the character and habits of Mr. Mackintosh.-But as we all know that,

Envy will merit, as its shade pursue,

so ought we to expect, that such splendor of talent, and of fame, could not have failed to provoke its malignity. Various, indeed, are the censures it has passed upon him, as a politician and a writer; but he is chiefly charged with a dereliction, both of his political principles, and his political friends. In his lectures he is said to have remitted much, of that ardour and alacrity with which he had espoused the cause of freedom in his Vindicia Gallice. To this charge he has himself, in a great measure, pleaded guilty. But did not subsequent events justify a change of opinion; or may it not have been suggested, by a maturer judgment, a more enlarged experience, as it certainly has been sanctioned by the gravest authorities? Even the spirit of his style is supposed to have evaporated with his love of liberty-and to us also it appears to be changed; but we think it is a change for the better. For, doubtless, it is no fault to retrench redundancy, to reject ambitious ornament, to avoid too much stateliness in the march, and too much uniformity in the measure of his periods; and to have substituted in their room more precision of language, more compression of thought, more variety of cadence, and more chasteness of metaphor. These, however, are defects or blemishes, which it was open for his critics and his rivals to detect and dilate upon. But a charge of degeneracy of style, or of inconsistency in politics, whitens into innocence itself, when compared with the blacker and more serious charge of laxity and scepticism in matters of religion, which nothing but the blindest and bitterest enmity could have possibly suggested. We think we may confidently assert, that not the slightest shade of such an imputation could ever be fairly drawn from any one senti, ment he has seriously uttered, or any one sentence he has deliberately written. It is of the highest importance, indeed, to refute such a charge, not merely as it individually affects the character of Mr. Mackintosh, but because the shadow of such suspicions should not be allowed to hang over the name of men, whose opinion on every point, but more particularly on those of grave and serious moment, must have so much weight and influence over the minds of others. We, therefore, feel the most sincere and solid satisfaction, in being able to meet this equally foul and false charge, with the most direct and triumphant refutation. For we have often heard, and, indeed, we know it from the most unquestionable

`authority, that at a time when Mr. Mackintosh was disposed to most serious reflection, by a severe domestic affliction*, and when his mind was able to ascend to the highest tone of thinking, he made, upon these dread matters, the following solemn declaration, to a man the best qualified, in every respect, to receive such an effusion of his soul, to a most accomplished scholar, a most learned and pious divine, to his most enlightened and confidential friendț. "The philosophy which I have learnt aggravates my calamity, instead of relieving me under it ;-my wounded heart seeks another consolation, governed by those feelings which in every age and region of the world have actuated the human mind; and I seek relief, and find it in the soothing hope and consolatory opinions, that a benevolent wisdom inflicts the chastisements, as well as bestows the enjoyments of human life;-that a superintending goodness will one day enlighten the darkness that surrounds our nature, and hangs over our prospects;-that this dreary and wretched life is not the whole of man;-that an animal so sagacious and provident, and capable of such proficiency in science and virtue, is not like the beasts that perish;—that there is a dwelling-place prepared for the spirits of the just, and that the ways of God will yet be vindicated to man; and I sincerely declare that Christianity, in its genuine purity and spirit, appears to me the most amiable and the most venerable of all the forms in which the homage of man has ever been offered to the AUTHOR of his being."

On such solemn sentiments, so energetically expressed, we shall not presume to offer a single observation : we shall only remind the friends and admirers of Mr. Mackintosh, that they ought rather rejoice than repine at these impotent attempts to disparage his merits, and tarnish his reputation. They must know that these clouds, with which envy endeavours to overcast his name, must at last only tend to brighten and diffuse its lustre. They must know that his character has more than sufficient in it of resilience and of energy to resist and overpower all the efforts that the spite of defeated rivals, or the malice of detected sophistry, can accumulate against it; they must know that transient must be the triumph of meanness and malignity; and though Antæus, perchance, might strike him to the ground, he is sure to re bound like Hercules.

Such are the particulars which we have endeavoured to collect of the life, the character, and the writings of Mr. Mackintosh, and

The death of his first wife..

+ Dr. Parr.

which we trust will prove as interesting to our readers as they have proved to ourselves. We do not profess to be the panegyrists or apologists of Mr. Mackintosh, though we are well aware that his rivals and his enemies will accuse us of having over-rated his talents, and allowed them a superiority to which they have no claim. We can only say, that what we have advanced is no more than the genuine opinion impressed upon our mind, both by what we have read and by what we have heard; nor are we less sensible that, while by some we are thus accused of over-strained eulogy, yet that, by others, and those perhaps the most competent to estimate his merits, we shall be censured rather as sparing than prodigal of praise.

ON MILITARY DRESS.

In the periodic paper called The World*, there is a very humorous copy of verses, describing a young officer dressing, instead of arming for a battle, in a kind of parody on some of the descriptions in Homer. But in every age and nation, whether barbarous or civilized, it has been the custom for the warrior to be careful in adorning his person, and that particularly on the eve of a dangerous action. When Xerxes expressed his surprise at the Spartans combing their hair with peculiar attention before the battle of Thermopyla, Demaratus, the exiled Spartan, king told him it was a proof that they were determined either on death or victory. The bravest warrior and the finest writer of antiquity describes his preparation for a desperate enterprize in the following words: "After this Xenophon arose, dressed as splendidly as possible for the battle, thinking that, if the gods gave them victory, the most splendid dress would be proper to decorate the conqueror; and if he should fall, it was decent to meet death adorned in the most splendid mannert."

Hence arose the laboured description of the armour of Homer's heroes; hence the plumes, the blazonry, and the devices of chivalry; hence the pompous and cumbrous war dress of Otaheité, and the war toilette of the American Indian, more minute and fastidious than that of the finest lady of Europe.

* No. CCIII.

+ Anabasis, 1. iii.