'The love of loving, rage Of knowing, seeing, feeling the absolute truth of things must take them as they are: Mr. Browning's superiority over other poets, who make the lower element prominent, is that by his acceptance of both he has raised both to a height which few have been able to reach. The love which he describes would be unworthy were it only the momentary passion as he holds it to be the eternal union of two souls, marriage as distinct from love in the common sense, he is able, speaking now for once confessedly in his own person, to show how man is dignified and exalted by it : 'God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder, In conclusion, then, we should wish our readers to take this as the noblest characteristic of Mr. Browning's genius : this power of exalting men and man's deeds, not by idealising him, or by taking him out of the real conditions of his life, but by giving him his true dignity as an immortal being, whom God's love has placed here to grow and to prepare himself for a wider, more perfect life hereafter. We cannot fail to learn from Mr. Browning's poems a higher and nobler, because a truer, conception of mankind; for he bases his sympathy with men, and his firm belief in their great destiny, on a truth that can never alter, the truth that God is Love. ART. IV-LECKY'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 1. A History of England in the Eighteenth Century. By WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY. Two Volumes. By JOHN P. 2. The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland. PRENDERGAST, Barrister-at-Law. 3. The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century. By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A. Three Volumes. IN undertaking to write the History of England during the last century, Mr. Lecky conceives himself to have departed so far from the system generally adopted by historians, that it becomes necessary for him to explain his own plan of composition, and the chief objects at which he has aimed. Of the principal military events, or of the incidents of party strife, which form so large a part of political annals,' he has proposed to himself to give a broad general view, rather than a detailed account; thinking it more important 'to disengage from the great mass of facts those which relate to the permanent forces of the nation, or which indicate the more enduring features of national life; the growth or decline of the monarchy, the aristocracy and the democracy; of the Church and Dissent; of the agricultural, the manufacturing, and the commercial interests; the increasing power of Parliament and of the people; the history of political ideas, of arts, of manners, and of beliefs; the changes that have taken place in the social and economical condition of the people; the influences that have modified national character,' &c.—(Pref. v.) His plan, in short, bears a strong resemblance to that which Mr. Green also has adopted in his History of the English People, and it certainly has the merit of presenting a philosophical view of history; since, though stubbornly fought battles and brilliant victories are doubtless more picturesque incidents than the passing of a new law, or the introduction of a new mode of conveyance; yet the triumphs of the conqueror do not always permanently affect either the victorious or the defeated people; while social changes, both in themselves, and as the parents of further changes, in most cases affect future generations, and, in many instances, the subsequent condition of the people throughout all time. How little trace of influence have Crecy or Poictiers, or even St. Alban's or Tewkesbury, left on the history of either England or France. But the impeachment of Lord Latimer established a principle which to this day is regarded as one of the strongest bulwarks of the national liberties; and Caxton's printing press is the very foundation of modern civilisation in every land in which our language is spoken. Such a plan, indeed, as Mr. Lecky's, though, if history could be written in one form alone, perhaps more valuable than one chiefly occupied by battles abroad or party strifes at home, is necessarily imperfect: it takes somewhat too slight account of those who were real heroes in their day, and of that glory, which, though often purchased at excessive cost, and sometimes achieved in a cause of doubtful justice, is still a heritage of real and imperishable value to a high-spirited nation; inculcating by example the duties of courage, loyalty, patriotism, and unselfish devotion. If in the time of Juvenal the fame of Demosthenes and Cicero prompted the school-boy to aim at oratorical excellence, we cannot doubt that many a youthful subject of Victoria is cherishing the hope of emulating the thunder of Chatham, or the close logic of Pitt or Canning; that many an ensign, as he girds on his maiden sword, many a midshipman as with faltering giddy steps he clambers to the masthead, looks forward to the day when he too may beat 40,000 men in forty minutes, like Wellington at Salamanca, or lead on his blue-jackets to do their duty to England like Nelson at Trafalgar. Our greatest historians have, therefore, combined each kind of subject in their narratives. Macaulay, in his celebrated third chapter, was but following the example which Hume had set in those appendices to his different chapters, which, though their title too often causes them to be overlooked, are, in truth, not the least valuable or interesting portions of his immortal work. But Mr. Lecky, we may believe, thought that for his special period he might follow the bent of his inclination, and pass lightly over the triumphs of war and the intrigues of party, with the greater excuse, because such events have been already most copiously dwelt on by Lord Stanhope, whose work, if somewhat dry in arrangement and stilted in style, fully deserves the praise which Mr. Lecky bestows on it of 'range and accuracy of research,' 'transparent honesty of purpose, and the fulness and fairness with which he seldom fails to recount the faults of those with whom he agrees, and the merits of those with whom he differs' (Pref. vi.) To these praises which he justly bestows on the earlier writer, Mr. Lecky himself is equally entitled, as also to that of taking a broader view of his whole subject, and displaying far more of that philosophical power to trace the connexion of events, and also to estimate the characters of the actors in them, which is perhaps the most important, as it certainly is the most attractive quality, in a history which aims at being a possession for ever. In weighing the characters of our most eminent statesmen, he seems to us to be admirably impartial and fair. We do not, indeed, always agree with his estimate of them. When, for instance, he affirms that Walpole 'deliberately made corruption the basis of his rule” (i. 365), we prefer agreeing with Burke, who may be said to have spoken not without some personal knowledge of the facts to which he was alluding, that he was far from governing by corruption. He governed by party attachments. The charge of systematic corruption is less applicable to him perhaps than to any minister who ever served the Crown for so great a length of time." And still less can we follow him when hé quotes with evident approbation Grattan's comparison between the two Pitts, that the father was not perhaps so good a debater as his son; but was a much better orator, a greater scholar, and a far greater man (ii. 472). The first two phrases in this eulogy may perhaps balance one another; though when Mr. Lecky admits that Lord Chatham's taste was far from pure, and that there was much in his speeches that was florid and meretricious, and not a little that would have appeared absurd bombast, but for the amazing power of his delivery' (ib. 470), he makes serious deductions from his claim to the best kind of eloquence; deductions which no one ever made from the speeches of his son. But to assert that the man who, as his sister said of him, knew but two books, the Æneid and the Faerie Queene, was superior in scholarship to one who, with the exception of his rival Fox, had probably no equal for knowledge of the great authors of antiquity in either house of Parliament, is little short of a palpable absurdity; and in all that constitutes the real greatness of a man or a statesman, we should not fear to undertake the task of upholding the son's renown against that of any of his predecessors, contemporaries, or successors. We may, however, suspect that Grattan's estimate of the two men was in some degree coloured by his personal feelings. With Lord Chatham he had never been in antagonism. On 1 'Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs.' one great subject, the dispute with America, he had been his follower and ally; advocating in the Irish House of Commons the same cause which Chatham upheld in the English House of Peers. But to Pitt he had been almost constantly opposed. By Pitt he and his party, whether in the English, or, so long as it lasted, in the Irish Parliament, had been repeatedly defeated. The Union, of which he had been the most indefatigable opponent,' and to which he was never entirely reconciled, had been carried in his despite; and it was hardly unnatural that the recollection of his long and unsuccessful warfare should in some degree bias his judgment, and prompt him to an undeserved disparagement of the minister by whose wisdom and firmness he had been so often overborne. We may, perhaps, hereafter find another opportunity of examining the author's views of the English statesmen who flourished, and of the general policy pursued by successive administrations, during the century in question. At present we have a different object in view. Ireland is still, as it has been for many generations, one of the chief difficulties of the Government, and Mr. Lecky, who is an Irishman, has devoted more than a quarter of the two volumes before us to an elaborate investigation of the causes which have made her such going back, for that purpose, beyond the limits indicated on his title-page, and tracing, with care and sufficient minuteness, the history of his country from the completion of the English ascendancy, which 'dates only from the great wars of Elizabeth, which broke the force of semi-independent chieftains, crushed the native population to the dust, and established the complete authority of English law' (i. 95). In its earlier stages, he is far from looking on that ascendancy as a blessing to the Irish; on the contrary, he affirms that in its history we may trace with singular clearness the perverting and degrading influence of great legislative injustices, and the manner in which they affect in turn every element of national well-being ' (ib. 92). And he excuses or justifies the large space which he has devoted to that part of his subject, by the assertion 1 Sir Archibald Alison, in the second part of his History of Europe, c. x. § 53, has fallen into the strange mistake of asserting that he (Grattan) had been a warm supporter of the Union.' He was so far from being so, that, having retired from Parliament for a while, he procured a seat in the winter of 1799 for the express purpose of opposing it; paying for it, according to Lord Stanhope, quoting the Cornwallis Correspondence (Life of Pitt, iii. 222), 2,400l. And on January 15, 1800, he spoke against the project, as the same writer relates, 'with extraordinary weight and force; and he levelled his declamation more especially against the published speech of Mr. Pitt.' |