ART. XII.-History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Aix la Chapelle. By LORD MAHON. Vol. I. 8vo. London: 1836.

THERE is much to approve in the design, and not a little to Tcommend in the execution of Lord Mahon's book. It is undertaken to supply an undeniable deficiency in our historical literature. We have no tolerable account of English affairs from the peace of Utrecht to the peace of Aix la Chapelle. Tindal's Continuation of Rapin is the least exceptionable. It is full of useful information, and written with fairness and candour; but it is dull and heavy, and not overburdened with thought or reflection. Smollett is short, meager, and partial; Belsham empty and declamatory; Goldsmith careless and superficial. Lord John Russell began a similar work some years ago, on a more extensive scale; and for that very reason, perhaps, it was dropped soon after its commencement. Coxe, in his various publications, has furnished us with valuable materials for this portion of our annals; but writing biography, and not general history, he confined himself to transactions, in which the persons whose lives he relates were more particularly concerned. It was, therefore, with no small satisfaction, that we saw a history of this period announced from the pen of Lord Mahon; nor have we been disappointed in our expectations. He writes in a plain, unaffected style, with an occasional mixture of familiar phrases and turns of expression, which is far from being displeasing to us. His reflections are benevolent and humane; and when not biassed by party politics, they are in general of a liberal cast. His narrative is minute and circumstantial without being tedious. His history of the Rebellion, in particular, is clear, distinct, and entertaining. In his judgment of persons, he is on the whole fair, candid, and discriminating. His detestation of the vices of Dubois does not prevent him from seeing and doing justice to the good sense and sagacity of that profligate, but extraordinary man; and in blaming the boldness and extravagance of Alberoni's conceptions, he gives him credit for his vigour and perseverance in the execution of his designs. He is a diligent enquirer after truth, and if he sometimes errs, his errors, we believe, are unintentional.

As specimen of his style and manner of writing, we shall haracters of Queen Anne, and of her favourite minisfOxford:

In reviewing,' says he, the chief characters, which we find at this period on the political stage, that of the Queen need not detain us long. She was a very weak woman, full of prejudices, fond of flattery-always blindly guided by some female favourite, and, as Swift bitterly exclaims, "had not a stock of amity to serve above one object at a time." Can it be necessary to waste many words upon the mind of a woman who could give as a reason-a lady's reason-for dismissing a Cabinet. Minister, that he had appeared before her in a tie wig instead of a full bottom? Is it not evident, that in such a case, we must study the advisers and not the character of a sovereign-that we must look to the setting and not to the stone?

Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and at this time Lord Treasurer and Prime Minister, is one of the most remarkable examples in history, how it is possible to attain both popularity and power without either genius or virtue. Born in 1661, and bred in Presbyterian principles, which, however, he was not slow in forsaking, he entered Parliament soon after the accession of King William, and was, during four years, Speaker of the House of Commons. On quitting the chair, in 1704, he was made Secretary of State through the recommendation of Marlborough. He was, however, an object of suspicion to his other colleagues. "His humour," said Lord Chancellor Cowper at the time, "is never to deal clearly or openly, but always with reserve, if not dis"simulation, and to love tricks when not necessary, but from an inward "satisfaction in applauding his own cunning." He had hitherto, in a great measure, skilfully trimmed between the Tories and the Whigs, and secured a great number of adherents from both. But, almost immediately after his junction with the latter, he began to cabal against them; obtained private interviews with the Queen, through the means of Mrs Masham; gradually worked himself into her Majesty's confidence, and filled her with distrust of her responsible advisers. His letters at that period to Marlborough and Godolphin, prove that he knew how to combine the most subtle schemes of malice with the most ardent professions of friendship. His plotting being at last partly brought to light, he was compelled to resign in February, 1708. But he immediately put himself at the head of the Tories; and, retaining his back-stairs influence at court and his early friends among the dissenters, he, in little more than two years, undermined and overthrew the great Whig Administration. He became chief of that which succeeded: obtained not only the Treasurer's staff, but the earldom of Oxford; and, next to Mrs Masham herself, was now the most important subject of the realm. He seems to have possessed in perfection a low sort of management, and all the baser arts of party, which enabled him to keep together and cajole his followers, and to sow divisions amongst his enemies. He spared neither pains nor promises to secure adherents. He affected, upon every question, a tone of forbearance and candour. But he was one of those inferior spirits who mistake cunning for wisdom. His slender and pliant intellect was well fitted to crawl up to the heights of power, through all the crooked mazes and dirty by-paths of intrigue; but having once attained the pinnacle, its smallness and meanness were exposed to all the world. From the moment of his triumph, the expert party leader was turned into the most dilatory and helpless of ministers; his best friends were reduced to complain that no business could be done with him. "Lord Treasurer," says Swift, "is the greatest procrastinator in the world. He only says-poh, poh! all will be well. He told Mr Lewis

it should be determined to-night; and so he will say a hundred nights." Even his taste for literature was numbered among his faults; for in him (if I may borrow a phrase from Tillotson) it was only a specious and ingenious sort of idleness. In personal intercourse he was mild, courteous, and conciliatory; but in public affairs, whenever he could temporize no longer, and was driven to some decision, he had a bias to prerogative and arbitrary measures, as being most easy and convenient to himself. With all his indolence in business, he was so jealous of its possession as to claim from his colleagues a larger share of it than even the greatest genius and activity could have satisfactorily transacted.'

But, while we bestow the praise we think due to Lord Mahon's book, there is one blemish that seems to us to pervade it from beginning to end. His lordship sees every event through the medium of his party politics. In relating past transactions, his mind continually recurs to the political struggles and contentions of his own times. Others may be swayed by a similar bias; but Lord Mahon proclaims it loudly, and forces it, without necessity or provocation, on the observation of his readers. He cannot quote Queen Anne's speech from the throne, on the peace of Utrecht, without contrasting it with the speech of the Prince Regent on the peace of Paris. He cannot mention the Duke of Marlborough, without some allusion to the Duke of Wellington; and though far from excusing, or even palliating, the political delinquencies of the hero of Blenheim, we verily believe that he feels a deeper concern for them, on account of the inward comparison he is continually making in his own mind between that illustrious general and the hero of Waterloo. Having, from the part he has taken in politics, been seldom if ever gratified with demonstrations of popular applause, he goes out of his way to express his hatred and contempt of 'King Mob; and, though far from insensible to the laudable feelings of family attachment, he seems even to exult in the defeat of his ancestor, when put in nomination for Westminster,' because he was the 'mob favourite ;'-' a circumstance,' he observes, which, at that period, did not either imply subserviency

or insure success;' for the popular shouts at Westminster 'were not then reserved exclusively for despotic pledges' nor had 'it yet become usual for the electors to determine their choice according to the clamours of the non-electors.'* Having occasion to mention some 'Church and King' riots at Bristol,

* P. 159.

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Oxford, and Birmingham,* he cannot help exclaiming, in reference to Bristol, what a contrast to the scenes of 1831;' or reminding the once Tory town of Birmingham that it was then remarkable for its High Church and monarchical principles. To the unchanged and unchangeable Oxford he has no such reproaches to address-no such tergiversations to object. It is still the same as when his ancestor, General Stanhope, employed a troop of dragoons to coerce the Vice-Chancellor, and frighten the Fellows from their intended rebellion.

No possible allusion to existing circumstances, or to recent events, ever escapes the watchful eye and vigilant attention of his Lordship. The vindication of Marlborough by Coxe, reminds him of the memoirs of the Arch-Traitor Fouché;' † and the dissolution in 1710, of the conduct of the Whigs in May 1831.' He cannot relate the provisions of the act of settlement without a sarcasm at our new Constitution of 1832;' nor express his approbation of the Hanover succession, without entering his protest against the 'hateful demon of despotism, when 'he assumes the dangerous and ensnaring disguise of revolu'tionary licence.' § After remarking that he finds 'no coalition * so unnatural, no opposition so factious' as the alliance of Walpole with the Tories in 1717, he subjoins in a note, 'this observation was written before February, 1833.'**

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This propensity to view every subject with a reference to modern politics leads him at times to awkward inconsistencies. Having loaded his piece with Conservative fire, he discharges it to the right and left without considering what he hits. Though a professed admirer of the Revolution of 1688, he does not scruple to say, that it is 'by junctions of dissembling knaves and honest 'dupes, that all revolutions are effected.'++ Though he would probably claim, as a Tory, the greatest practical reformer of our commercial system in modern times, he cannot resist the temptation of twitting those who sit opposite to him on the Treasury bench with the observation, that in that unenlightened age (the days of Queen Anne) merchants and practical men of business 'were usually preferred to theorists and speculators.'‡‡ Why he should appeal to practical men of business as his friends and allies, we must confess we are unable to comprehend. We doubt whether any of those persons would adopt his theory (though fortified by a dictum of Sully), that one of the reasons why the price of small commodities is kept up unduly' in England, arises from the practice we have adopted of reckoning by pounds or

* P. 169. † 20.

17. S 148.

** 396.

tt 482. 50.

'guineas instead of crown pieces;'* which implies, that the higher we make the denomination of our coins, the higher will be our prices. But with all submission to Sully and Lord Mahon, we hardly believe there is a member even of a Chandos committee who could be persuaded to recommend as a remedy for agricultural distress, that we should estimate the price of wheat in moidores or ounces, in place of sovereigns.

As well-wishers to Lord Mahon, and writing in no unfriendly spirit, we advise him to retrench such passages in his next edition, and to avoid them in his future volumes. He who aspires to write a history for posterity, should not lower his work to the standard of newspapers and party pamphlets. But before we quit this part of the subject we have same further remarks to lay before him.

He is still fascinated 'with his imaginary discovery, that the Whigs and Tories have changed places since the days of Queen Anne. He has not profited by the lesson read to him in one of our former Numbers. He has forgot the comparison there made between the progress of society and the march of an army. He is aware, that in every art or science founded on observation and experience, the progress must be continual, the advance indefinite. In penal legislation he admits 'the gradual advance of ‘humane and merciful principles,' so that the 'clemency of one 'age appears cruelty to the more compassionate feelings of the 'next;' and expresses his delight at this progressive respect for 'human life, and aversion to human suffering.' Does he suppose that this improvement has been confined to penal legislation? Can he deny, that our notions of civil government have become more just and definite since the days of the Plantagenets and the Tudors? Can he doubt the fact, that while the government of England, during the last century, has been subjected to a more effectual responsibility and popular control, it has been rendered more efficient for the maintenance of order and preservation of internal tranquillity! Had he traced this progress with his usual diligence, keeping in his eye the two great parties that divide the state, he would have found, as in the march of the Israelites to the promised land, the house of Judah continually 'the first to set out,' and the tribes originally in the rear 'still the hindmost with their standards.' But, instead of following this course, he has repaired to the present encampment of the Tories; and finding in it some leavings of the Whigs,

* P. 444.