dresses of congratulauon came in from all the great towns of England. Parliament met only to decree thanks and monuments, and to be stow, without one murmur, supplies more than double of those which had been given during the war of the Grand Alliance. The duke loved power too much to be inclined amidst the roar of guns and kettledrums, and to give security. While they were haggling, the shouts of an immense multitude. Ad 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 Waldegrave, an honest and sensible man, but unpractised in affairs. Lord Waldegrave had the courage to accept the Treasury, but soon found that no adminis tration formed by him had the smallest chance of standing a single week. At length the king's pertinacity yielded to the necessity of the case. After exclaiming with great bitterness, and with some justice, against the Whigs, who ought, he said, to be ashamed to talk about liberty, while they submitted to be the footmen of the Duke of Newcastle, he notified his submission. The influence of the Prince of Wales prevailed on Pitt to abate a little, and but a little, of his high demands; and all at once, out of the chaos in which parties had for some time been rising, falling, meeting, separating, arose a government as strong at home as that of Pelham, as successful abroad as that of Godolphin. 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. Newcastle took the Treasury; Pitt was Scarcely had Parliament voted a monument Secretary of State, with the lead in the House to Wolfe, when another great event called for of Commons, and the supreme direction of the fresh rejoicings. The Brest fleet, under the war and of foreign affairs. Fox, the only man command of Conflans, had put out to sea. It who could have given much annoyance to the was overtaken by an English squadron, under new government, was silenced with the office Hawke. Conflans attempted to take shelter of Paymaster, which, during the continuance close under the French coast. The shore was of that war, was probably the most lucrative rocky, the night was black, the wind was furi place in the whole government. He was poor, ous, the Bay of Biscay ran high. But Pitt had and the situation was tempting; yet it cannot infused into every branch of the service a but seem extraordinary, that a man who had spirit which had been long unknown. No played a first part in politics, and whose abili-British seaman was disposed to err on the ties had been found not unequal to that part, same side with Byng. The pilot told Hawke who had sat in the cabinet, who had led the that the attack could not be made without the House of Commons, who had been twice in-greatest danger. “You have done your duty trusted 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. The first measures 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, Rochefort threatened, a few ships burned in the harbour of St. Maloes, and a few guns and mortars brought home as trophies from the fortifications of Cherbourg. But, before long, conquests of a very different kind filled the kingdom with pride and rejoicing. A succession of victories, undoubtedly brilliant, and, as it was thought, not barren, raised to the highest point the fame of the minister to whom the conduct of the war had been intrusted. In July. 1758, Louisbourg fell. The whole island of Cape Breton was reduced: the fleet, to which the court of Versailles had confided the defence of French America, was destroyed. The captured standards were borne triumph from Kensington palace to the city, were suspended in St. Paul's church, in remonstrating," answered Hawke; "I will answer for every thing. I command you to lay me alongside the French admiral." The result was a complete victory. The year 1760 came, and still triumph followed triumph. Montreal was taken, the whole province of Canada was subjugated; the French fleets underwent a succession of disasters in the seas of Europe and America. In the mean time, conquests equalling in rapidity, and far surpassing in magnitude those of Cortes and Pizarro, had been achieved in the East. In the space of three years the English had founded a mighty empire. The French had been defeated in every part of India. Chandernagore had yielded to Clive, Pondicherry to 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. On the continent of Europe the odds were against England. We had but one important ally, the King of Prussia, and he was attacked, not only by France, but by Russia and Austria. Yet even on the continent the energy of Pitt triumphed over all difficulties. Vehemently as he had condemned the practice of subsi dizing foreign princes, he now carried that practice farther than Carteret himself would have ventured or would have wished to do. The active and able sovereign of Prussia received such pecuniary 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 connection. 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 dominion 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 his influence with the nation. In Parliament, 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 had been no example, and which has never since been imitated. No orator could there venture to reproach him with inconsistency. One unfortunate man made the attempt, and was so much disconcerted by the scornful demeanour of the miniser that he stammered, stopped, and sat down. Even the old Tory country gentlemen, to whom he very name of Hanover had been odious, gave their hearty ayes to subsidy after subsidy. In a lively contemporary satire, much more lively indeed than delicate, this remarkable conversion is not unhappily described. "No more they make a fiddle-faddle 'Tis right. He can't be wrong who did it." The success of Pitt's continental measures was such as might have been expected from their vigour. When he came into power, Hanover was in imminent danger; and before he had been in office three months, the whole electorate was in the hands of France. But the face of affairs was speedily changed. The invaders were driven out. An army, partly English, partly Hanoverian, partly composed of soldiers furnished by the petty princes of Germany, was placed under the command of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. The French were beaten in 1758 at Creveldt. In 1759, they received a still more complete and humiliating defeat at Minden. In the mean time, 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, 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 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 enVOL. II.-31 tered into Pitt's consideration. Perhaps it would be more correct to say, that the cost of his victories increased the pride and pleasure with which he contemplated them. Unlike other men in his situation, he loved to exag gerate 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 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 splen dour of the period during which he was at the head of affairs, were not planned by him. He had 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 contributed with unexampled cheerfulness-this was undoubtedly his work. The ardour of his spirit had set the whole kingdom on fire. It infiamed every soldier who dragged the cannon up the heights of Quebec, and every sailor who boarded the French ships amidst the rocks of Brittany. 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 pay double or quits to the last, to think nothing done while any thing remained, 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 the 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 yet more important kind. A new generation of country-squires and rectors had arisen who knew not the Stuarts. The Dissenters were tolerated; 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 Tories, Churchman and Puritans, spoke with equal reverence of the constitution, and with equal enthusiasm of the talents, virtues, and services of the minister. A few years sufficed to change the whole aspect of affairs. A nation convulsed by fac tion, a throne assailed by the fiercest invective, a House of Commons hated and despised by the nation, England set against Scotland, Britain set 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 humilia tion, our flag scarcely able to maintain itself in our own seas-such was the spectacle Pitt lived to see. But the history of this great re volution 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 LORD BACON.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1837.] WE return our hearty thanks to Mr. Montagu, as well for his very valuable edition of Lord Bacon's Works, as for the instructive Life of the immortal author, contained in the last volume. We have much to say on the subject of this Life, and will often find our selves obliged to dissent from the opinions of the biographer. But about his merit as a collector of the materials out of which opinions are formed, there can be no dispute; and we readily acknowledge that we are in a great measure indebted to his minute and accurate researches, for the means of refuting what we cannot but consider his errors. The labour which has been bestowed on this volume, has been a labour of love. The writer is evidently enamoured of the subject. It fills his heart. It constantly overflows from his lips and his pen. Those who are acquainted with the courts in which Mr. Montagu practises with so much ability and success, well know how often he enlivens the discussion of a point of law by citing some weighty aphorism, or some brilliant illustration, from the De Augmentis or the Novum Organum. The Life before us, doubtless, owes much of its value to the honest and generous enthusiasm of the writer. This feeling has stimulated his activity; has sustained his perseverance; has called forth all his ingenuity and eloquence: but, on the other hand, we must frankly say, that it has, to a great extent, perverted his judgment. We are by no means without sympathy for Mr. Montagu even in what we consider as his weakness. There is scarcely any delusion which has a better claim to be indulgently treated than that, under the influence of which a man ascribes every moral excellence to those who have left imperishable monuments of their genius. The causes of this error lie deep in the inmost recesses of human nature. We are all inclined to judge of others as we find them. Our estimate of a character always depends much on the manner in which that character affects our own interests and pasWe find it difficult to think well of those by whom we are thwarted or depressed; and we are ready to admit every excuse for the vices of those who are useful or agreeable to us. This is, we believe, one of those illusions to which the whole human race is subject, and which experience and reflection can only partially remove. It is, in the phraseology of Bacon, one of the idola tribus. Hence it is, that the moral character of a man eminent in letters, or in the fine arts, is treated-often by contemporaries-almost always by posterity -with extraordinary tenderness. The world sions. The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of Eng land. A new Edition. By BASIL MONTAGU, Esq. 16 vols. 8vo. London. 1825-1834. us. derives pleasure and advantage from the performances of such a man. The number of those who suffer by his personal vices is small, even in his own time, when compared with the number of those to whom his talents are a source of gratification. In a few years, all those whom he has injured disappear. But his works remain, and are a source of delight to millions. The genius of Sallust is still with But the Numidians whom he plundered, and the unfortunate husbands who caught him in their houses at unseasonable hours, are forgotten. We suffer ourselves to be delighted by the keenness of Clarendon's observation, and by the sober majesty of his style, till we forget the oppressor and the bigot in the historian. Falstaff and Tom Jones have survived the gamekeepers whom Shakspeare cudgelled, and the landladies whom Fielding bilked. A great writer is the friend and benefactor of his readers; and they cannot but judge of him under the deluding influence of friendship and gratitude. We all know how unwilling we are to admit the truth of any disgraceful story about a person whose society we like, and from whom we have received favours, how long we struggle against evidence, how fondly, when the facts cannot be disputed, we cling to the hope that there may be some explanation or some extenuating circumstance with which we are unacquainted. Just such is the feeling which a man of liberal education naturally entertains towards the great minds of former ages. The debt which he owes to them is incalculable. They have guided him to truth. They have filled his mind with noble and graceful images. They have stood by him in all vicissitudes-comforters in sorrow, nurses in sickness, companions in solitude. These friendships are exposed to no danger from the occurrences by which other attachments are weakened or dissolved. Time glides by; fortune is inconstant; tempers are soured; bonds which seemed indissoluble are daily sundered by interest, by emulation, or by caprice. But no such cause can affect the silent converse which we hold with the highest of human intellects. That placid intercourse is disturbed by no jealousies or resentments. These are the old friends who are never seen with new faces, who are the same in wealth and in poverty, in glory and in obscurity. With the dead there is no rivalry. In the dead there is no change. Plato is never sullen. Cervantes is never petulant. Demosthenes never comes unseasonably. Dante never stays too long. No difference of political opinion can alienate Cicero. No heresy can excite the horror of Bossuet. Nothing, then, can be more natural than that a person of sensibility and imagination should entertain a respectful and affectionate feeling The volume before us reminds us now and then of the "Life of Cicero." But there is this marked difference. Dr. Middleton evidently had an uneasy consciousness of the weakness of his cause, and therefore resorted to the most disingenuous shifts, to unpardonable distortions and suppressions of facts. Mr. Montagu's faith is sincere and implicit. He practises no trickery. He conceals nothing. He puts the facts before us in the full confidence that they will produce on our minds the effect which they have produced on his own. It is not till he comes to reason from facts to motives, that his partiality shows itself; and then he leaves Middleton himself far behind. His work proceeds on the assumption that Bacon was an eminently virtuous man. From the tree Mr. Montagu judges of the fruit. He is forced to relate many actions, which, if any man but Bacon had committed them, nobody would have dreamed of defending-actions which are readily and completely explained by supposing Bacon to have been a man whose principles were not strict, and whose spirit was not high towards those great men with whose minds he | defence of one most eloquent and accomplished holds daily communion. Yet nothing can be Trimmer. more certain than that such men have not always deserved, in their own persons, to be regarded with respect or affection. Some writers, whose works will continue to instruct and delight mankind to the remotest ages, have been placed in such situations, that their actions and motives are as well known to us as the actions and motives of one human being can be known to another; and unhappily their conduct has not always been such as an impartial judge can contemplate with approbation. But the fanaticism of the devout worshipper of genius is proof against all evidence and all argument. The character of his idol is matter of faith; and the province of faith is not to be invaded by reason. He maintains his superstition with a credulity as boundless, and a zeal as unscrupulous, as can be found in the most ardent partisans of religious or political factions. The most overwhelming proofs are rejected; the plainest rules of morality are explained away; extensive and important portions of history are completely distorted; the enthusiast misrepresents facts with all the effrontery of an advocate, and confounds right and wrong with all-actions which can be explained in no other the dexterity of a Jesuit-and all this only in order that some man who has been in his grave for ages may have a fairer character than he deserves. Middleton's "Life of Cicero" is a striking instance of the influence of this sort of partiality. Never was there a character which it was easier to read than that of Cicero. Never was there a mind keener or more critical than that of Middleton. Had the doctor brought to the examination of his favourite statesman's conduct but a very small part of the acuteness and severity which he displayed when he was engaged in investigating the high pretensions of Epiphanius and Justin Martyr, he could not have failed to produce a most valuable history of a most interesting portion of time. But this most ingenious and learned man, though "So wary held and wise way, without resorting to some grotesque hy pothesis for which there is not a title of evi dence. But any hypothesis is, in Mr. Montagu's opinion, more probable than that his hero should ever have done any thing very wrong. This mode of defending Bacon seems to us by no means Baconian. To take a man's character for granted, and then from his character to infer the moral quality of all his actions, is surely a process the very reverse of that which is recommended in the Novum Organum. Nothing, we are sure, could have led Mr. Montagu to depart so far from his master's precepts, except zeal for his master's honour. We shall follow a different course. We shall attempt, with the valuable assistance which Mr. Montagu has afforded us, to frame such an account of Bacon's life as may enable our readers cor. rectly to estimate his character. That, as't was said, he scarce received It is hardly necessary to say that Francis For gospel what the church believed," Bacon was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, who had a superstition of his own. The great held the great seal of England during the first Iconoclast was himself an idolater. The great twenty years of the reign of Elizabeth. The Avvocata del Diavolo, while he disputed, with no fame of the father has been thrown into shade small ability, the claims of Cyprian and Athana- by that of the son. But Sir Nicholas was no sius to a place in the Calendar, was himself ordinary man. He belonged to a set of men composing a lying legend in honour of St. whom it is easier to describe collectively than Tully! He was holding up as a model of separately; whose minds were formed by one every virtue a man whose talents and acquire system of discipline; who belonged to one ments, indeed, can never be too highly extol- rank in society, to one university, to one party, led, and who was by no means destitute of to one sect, to one administration; and who amiable qualities, but whose whole soul was resembled each other so much in talents, in under the dominion of a girlish vanity and a opinions, in habits, in fortunes, that one chacraven fear. Actions for which Cicero him-racter, we had almost said one life, may, to a self, the most eloquent and skilful of advocates, could contrive no excuse, actions which in his confidential correspondence he mentioned with remorse and shame, are represented by his biographer as wise, virtuous, heroic. The whole history of that great revolution which overthrew the Roman aristocracy, the whole state of parties, the character of every public man, is elaborately misrepresented, in order to make cu something which may look like a considerable extent, serve for them all. They were the first generation of statesmen by profession that England produced. Before their time the division of labour had, in this respect, been very imperfect. Those who had directed public affairs had been, with few ex ceptions, warriors or priests: warriors whose rude courage was neither guided by science nor softened by humanity; priests whose learning and abilities were habitually devoted |