minds. None of his articles, in truth, were | dulged in a copious rhetoric, and how faintly conceived and executed with a view to im- he relished a chaster manner is evident from mortality. He would never have reprinted his criticism on Swift and his contempothem of his own accord, and rated them be-raries. There are men who show their maslow instead of above their value. He was tery of language by taking a survey of all quite satisfied with discussing the topics the applicable terms, selecting the fittest, upon every tongue in a way to get the hear- and rigorously excluding the rest. Jeffrey's ing of every ear about him;-and though memory appeared to range the dictionary he had no objection to live laborious days, from A to Z, and he had not the self-denial we question if he had enough of that usual to spare his readers the redundance which infirmity of noble minds to have resigned delighted himself. His overflowing diction, his festive evenings with kindred spirits, or in short, was his weakness as often as his the soft interchange of candid courtesies' strength. with bright-eyed dames, for the sake of pro- Horner remarked in 1808 that while his longing indefinitely the echoes of applause. matter evinced a maturer understanding, his It was necessary to explain why the stars style had suffered much from the hurry of shone brighter dispersed than now they are his operations. Some of his best-thought collected into the constellation Jeffrey ;- passages about Mr. Fox,' said that friendly but it is not the less certain that his articles but honest critic, are expressed with a are remarkable productions, and it is to them clumsiness that surprised me.' Connoisthat posterity must always refer for much seurs could hardly have shared the delusion of the ablest contemporary criticism upon which Horner imputes to the world at large the numerous men of genius that arose of supposing that Jeffrey elaborated his artiin his day. The paper on Swift is by much cles with overwhelming anxiety, any more his master-piece, and in the descending series than they would have suspected a sloven of there are several trifles such as every author bestowing upon his toilet the care of a Brumventures who lives pen in hand; yet they mell. He was not more punctilious about have all the stamp of the same dye, and, the substance than the form. His collection perhaps, no person who has written upon so of books was miserably scanty-it gave him many branches of knowledge, and at so no concern if a set was broken into odd many different stages of life, could be more volumes-and his lucubrations for the press justly characterized in a general description. fared much the same with his private readFor a keen speculator on the theory of ing. He rarely strained after materials composition, he was rather heedless of the which lay beyond the easy reach of his arm. structure of his sentences. There is no ap- An acute and thoughtful man, stored with pearance of his having aimed at any excel- knowledge of what was past and passing, lence in particular-and his periods dis- had quite enough to tell; and for Editor play no signal qualities of elegance or har- Jeffrey to have wasted his energies in a mony; nor did he more attempt in writing curious solicitude for minute perfection, would than in conversation to condense his mean- have been impoverishing the whole for the ing into short and sparkling maxims. The enrichment of a part. As he was utterly few specimens of the kind seem to drop from above the paltry dishonesty of affecting rehim unconsciously. His images, without search, his confessions in the Review of being over-abundant, are his principal orna- superficial preparation are full and frequent. ment, and these-sometimes hackneyed and He apologises for the imperfection of criticommonplace, but often original and forci- cisms because he writes from imperfect reble-are thrown out in a way which shows collections; for the inaccuracy of passages them to have been part of the ordinary fur translated from the French, because he was niture of his mind. Altogether, he restrict- too indolent to correct the blunders; and ed his ambition to writing such a free and for not giving extracts from a book, because masculine style as could be produced with- he had unhappily mislaid his copy. There out much resting on his elbow. His mate- is something engaging in this scorn of false rials for the purpose were almost unlimited, pretension, and it pervaded every portion of and he goes on amplifying his phraseology Jeffrey's character. till his sense comes muffled to the ear from He was a master of fence, dexterous in the number of foids through which it passes. parrying and returning the thrust of his He began by cultivating 'an oratorical style,' adversary; and, what does not always hapwith a view to public speaking; and though pen with subtle disputants upon a petty he allowed that it was totally improper for scale, he conducted a larger_argument with any other species of composition,' the tree distinguished ingenuity. Lord Cockburn. retained to the last the bent of the twig. says he was adroit in arraying scientific His favourite authors were those who in- proofs, and refers, for one example, to the

essay in which he claims for Mr. Clerk of nothing of the kind that is profound, very Eldin (father of John the Grim) the inven- little that is ingenious, and much belongs tion of the manoeuvre for breaking the exclusively to the Scotch art of philosophienemy's line—and here, we must allow, it is sing truisms. His rules, drawn from partinext to impossible to resist the art of the cular cases, were often falsified by experience. advocate, notwithstanding that his conclusion The way ward geniuses of the age broke is by the best judges pronounced wholly through his barriers, and involved him in reerroneous. How such art, especially the air peated contradictions. In his article upon of candour, must have told with juries, we the Vision of Don Roderick, he laid down can readily understand. Along with a speci- reasons why it was impossible to produce men of his skill, where he, we suppose, was successful poetry on a recent victory; and wrong, should be mentioned a couple of when Byron sent forth his stanzas on papers upon vaccination, in which he was Waterloo, Jeffrey admitted that the imposclearly right. Some practitioners had the sibility had been performed. He cautions hardihood to assert, and thousands had the Mr. Morehead, in 1813, that the poet, to be folly to believe, that vaccination aggravated worthy of his calling, must allow no visions instead of preventing the small-pox, engender- of critics or posterity to come across him;" ed new and frightful diseases, and adulterat- and he emphatically warns Wordsworth, per ed the noble nature of man with the baser contra, in 1814, that it is essential that the properties of beasts. One Dr. Moseley al- inspirations of genius should be tempered leged that the skins of certain children had by an occasional reference to what will be turned in consequence to hairy hides, and thought of them by the ultimate dispensers that young Christians began to butt and bel- of glory.' Others of his maxims seem low like bulls. It is hard to say whether purely arbitrary, and were immediately we should marvel most at the forwardness overruled by the public voice. He welof the ignorant to become the dupes of im-comed the poachers and smugglers of Crabbe, posture, or at the scepticism with which they but he wanted to outlaw the freebooters of regard any rational discovery. Jeffrey Scott. He could scarcely, he said, 'help plunged into the contest, attracted to it by regretting that the feuds of border chieftains his fondness for medical speculations, dis- should have monopolised as much poetry as posed of the popular prejudices-plausible might have served to immortalise the whole or preposterous with his usual dexterity; baronage of the empire.' Nobody knew and by the influence of the Edinburgh Re- better than Jeffrey that men are not picview, when its credit was highest, did more turesque in proportion to their rank, and than all the pamphlets of all the Doctors to that the savage glens and bandits of Salvaput an end to the panic. tor were at least as worthy of the pencil as the high dressed grounds and groups of Watteau.

But his chief renown was as a critic. His principal excellence in this department was his power of seizing and delineating the prominent features of a book. Of those refined observations of which nobody has thought, and of which every body sees the justice the moment they are uttered, he has not, we believe, many-but he has a great faculty of selecting the characteristics which would have been felt by cultivated minds, and of giving them full and perspicuous expression. Even where he magnifies defects, and leaves beauties in the shade, his portraits preserve the likeness, though it may be the likeness of a caricature. The art must be difficult, for it is rare-and Jeffrey has not been surpassed in. it. In the preface, however, to his Collection, he calls pronouncing on the mere literary merits of works a humble task,' and prides himself most for attempting to go deeply into the principles on which his judgments were rested. A careful examination of his volumes, with every desire to agree with him, has convinced us that he must be numbered among the many authors who would wear their shoe upon their head. He has

The same sort of prejudice against investing particular classes with an atmosphere of poetry is curiously shown in a little episodical dissertation on some stanzas of Wordsworth, concerning one Matthew, whose calling-as it appears from two or three lines of prose prefixed-was that of a schoolmaster. By what traits,' breaks forth Jeffrey, is this worthy old gentleman delineated by the new poet? No pedantry-no innocent vanity of learningno mixture of indulgence with the pride of power, and of poverty with the consciouness of rare acquirements. Every feature which belongs to the situation or marks the character in common apprehension is scornfully discarded by Mr. Wordsworth.' Certainly there are no allusions to Matthew's profes sion in the verses, but because Wordsworth has needlessly let out that his hero was a schoolmaster, Jeffrey will not allow him the feelings of a man. He is not to laugh and cry like other people, which is all he does in the poem; he can only be permitted to be pedantic and self-important, according to an

1

outworn satirical type of the critic's adoption. a prudent middle-aged woman to take care of The tendency throughout of Jeffrey's prin- them.' ciples was to put a yoke upon the neck of When Jeffrey in his old age revised his genius; but, like the wild squadron in Ma- Essays, and arrived at the miner who zeppa, 'the steeds rushed on in plunging worked on for twenty years, in despite of pride,' and were not to be persuaded that it universal ridicule, and at last found the was for their good to be saddled and bridled, vein he had expected,' he could hardly have even by the dapperest of grooms. avoided thinking of himself and the poet. The protracted war with the Lake Poets He then apologised in a note for his past was commenced in the very first number of asperities, but it was solely the style and the Edinburgh Review. In an article upon tone which he regretted, and he still mainThalaba he denounced Wordsworth's par- tained that in substance he had neither been tiality for puerile phraseology and sentimen- too liberal of censure nor too sparing of tal rustics, and Southey was classed among praise. He takes the utmost pains to guard the minor offenders in the same school. The against the idea that he has changed his Rydal Bard, it must be confessed, gave a opinions, and expressly asserts that he is good deal of provocation both by the lofti-as far as possible from intending a retractness of all his pretensions and the lowliness ation.' The limitations of his language have of many of his strains. The more Jeffrey endeavoured to abase him, the more he seemed determined to exalt himself; and this again reacted upon the critic, who felt in the language of Campbell

been generally overlooked, and in the last few years it has been a hundred times repeated that he had ended in doing homage to the Lake school of poetry. His homage was simply to declare that he would repeat the same sentiments in softer terms.

With

'Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall these convictions it was impossible for him

be torn.'

to have done justice to Wordsworth: it would have signified little although his censures had been written in milk instead of in vinegar.

But he is not to be justified upon any plea. The article on the Excursion, contemptuous as much of it is, is the only one in which Mr. Wordsworth is not treated rather as a If Jeffrey's taste in poetry was not unidriveller than as a great and original poet. versal, it was that of a highly accomplished Nor do the essays devoted to the late Lau- man; and from his intense love of nature, reate's works afford the sole ground of com- and from the warmth of his affections, we plaint. When other poets came before his should have guessed that it excited in no one chair he was constantly travelling out of the a more ardent glow. Yet much in his artirecord to pass sentence anew upon this stand- cles would lead to an opposite conclusion, ing delinquent. To hear the wolf of the and induce us to suppose that his poetical Edinburgh Review, it might be supposed sympathies were far from deep. It is diffi that the lamb of the Lakes was bleating in cult to understand how any one who felt the every path and troubling every stream. If full power of verse could have penned some Wordsworth, too, sometimes chose to ap- of his prose and prosaic analyses of poems. pear before the public in a tattered garment instead of royal robes, Jeffrey, on the other hand, attempted to make a rent where none existed. To quote a single instance the 'Churchyard' in the Excursion has been held by the majority of the poet's admirers to be the gem of the piece; and nobody, admirer or not, could consider Jeffrey's summary to be an honest description of that solemn des

cant :

Where he wished to be satirical, it is intelligible that his version of the story should be burlesque ; but where his admiration was highest, it is strange how he degrades the most graceful incidents by an almost farcical narration. A plot without the enchantment of details, metre, imagery, and language, is at best a stalk stripped of its leaves and flowers. Jeffrey, not content with its native bareness, twisted it into fantastic and 'The sixth book contains a choice obituary, ludicrous shapes. I laugh,' he wrote to or characteristic account, of several of the per- Horner, and it was with reference to poetry, sons who lie buried before this group of morali-at almost everything I admire;' and he zers:—an unsuccessful lover, who had found considered that his serious friend had yet to consolation in natural history-a miner who learn that whatever had a praiseworthy had had worked on for twenty years, in despite of also a deridable aspect.' His derisive art, universal ridicule, and at last found the vein he often misapplied, was not seldom, to counhad expected two politicalenemies reconciled in old age to each other an old female miser-terbalance, employed with just and telling a seduced damsel-and two widowers, one who effect; for he was no contemptible master had devoted himself to the education of his of that dry humour which consists in showing daughters, and one who had preferred marrying the intrinsic absurdity of fables and argu.

ments, by merely reducing them to their idea of malevolence which the publication simplest elements. He was prone, however, of his Life must entirely dispel. Except to carry on the jest till it ceased to amuse. when heated by conflict, nothing approaching He wanted a monitor to whisper in his ear, to malice ever governed his pen; and he

'And let it fairly now suffice-
The gambol has been shown.'

was conspicuous for the generosity which would confess an error and repair a wrong. He gave many proofs of it during his actual editorship, and his harshness, after all, has The charge of sweeping condemnation perhaps been over-stated. It was certainly was not confined to the treatment of certain not his habit to look at authors upon their schools of poetry. There was a disposition sunny side, but he did ample justice to Byto look upon the whole tribe of authors as ron, Campbell, and Crabbe; he was among the game for critics, and the excitement of the warmest admirers of the Waverley novels; sport, and the amusement which, for a he awarded praise and blame in a fair prowhile, it afforded the public, were strong portion to many occupants of the lower temptations. In an article, of the year 1814, benches, and some with whom be dealt in a on Hogg's 'Queen's Wake,' Jeffrey defended summary way well deserved what they got. the severities of his Journal on the graver The same public which complained that he plea that it was of greater consequence to had not used his faculties meekly, showed, point out faults than beauties. In advanced by the estimation in which they held him, years, when he could look back upon his that he was considered on the whole to have contests with the feelings of a bystander, he used them well. The worst effects of the confessed to many 'excesses of party zeal, supercilious system were to be found, as aloverweening confidence, and intemperate ways, in the followers, and not in the chiefs. blame,' and refused to re-publish the speci- The Sydney Smiths and Jeffreys in their mens of his satirical skill. There was real duellos usually fought with the gentleman's virtue in their suppression, for whatever else weapon-the keen and glittering sword; the the editor might miss, he was sure to hit the mob of imitators, who wanted their skill, blot. Intermingled with his strokes of vi- were reduced to the arts of vulgar violence, vacity and acumen-many of them excellent and fought with their fists. To be insolent, -are occasional objections so frivolous and flippant, and abusive, is in the power of vexatious that it is impossible to read them everybody who will stoop to it; critical sawithout a smile. He attacked the author of gacity, dignified rebuke, polished satire, and Anastasius in 1807 for publishing a book on radiant humor are not so common. Many Household Furniture, a study which Jeffrey of the journeymen' were unable to distinaverred to be only proper for slaves and guish the difference, and mistook asperity foreigners' at a crisis when every male for sarcasm, and pertness for wit. Horner creature in the country was occupied with told Jeffrey in 1808 that nobody else had its politics and its dangers.' To demand a written a sentence of literature that could be suspension of the arts of civilised life from endured,' and unquestionably the early lite the dread of invasion was a sorry compli- rary articles are more remarkable for their ment to English self-possession, but if it was coarseness than their criticism. The editor indeed a want of patriotism in Mr. Hope to might prune and engraft, but it was imposprint a book upon furniture-which he might sible essentially to change the nature of the easily have done without neglecting his drill degenerate suckers thrown up from his root. -it was little better in Ensign Jeffrey to The singularity, however, is not in the misspend his time in reading and reviewing it. takes, for they must always be committed. Bentley on Indian Astronomy, and Willde- The exceptional fact is the wonderful success now's Species Plantarum, both of which are which crowned a vast undertaking through discussed with exceeding satisfaction in the the happy combination of rare virtues and same number, would have been quite as rare talents in Francis Jeffrey. His monuuseless in assisting to drive back the French ment is the Edinburgh Review-not his colto the sea. Any difference there might be lected essays, which are the smallest portion was in favor of Mr. Hope. His furniture, of his labours-and it is a monument of which was associated with the comforts of which-in spite of all the streaks in the home, would have been a stronger motive marble-he might well have been proud. to expel the intruders than cogitating the Indian notions of the stars and Mr. Willde

now's classification of weeds.

6

These, taken separately, are trivial items, but in their aggregate they are important, and the captiousness of the editor begot an

1851.

ART. VI.-1. The History of England dur- | buck's preface is well founded, that the pas ing the Thirty Years' Peace, 1816-46. By sions and prejudices arising from political Harriet Martineau. 2 Vols. 2. History of the Whig Ministry of 1830 to the Passing of the Reform Bill. By John Arthur Roebuck, M.P. 2 Vols. 1852.

6

opinions are far from being confined to the contemporary historian. But he mistakes if he supposes he has met the weightiest objection against the class of works in which his Whig Ministry' must be included. If In chemistry it is known that pure sub- Lord Brougham or Lord John Russell had stances can seldom be obtained by one pro- told the story of the Reform Bill, we should cess. In the crucible and the retort they have had to take into account the peculiar are first separated from their grosser parts, position and sentiments of the witness, but the product becoming more valuable as the we should have positive facts presented to analysis proceeds. Alcohol can be extracted, us. Burnet is a very one-sided writer; but we believe, from the weakest of fermented as he had access to the best sources of inliquors, but the distillation must be many times repeated, and the spirit will at last form an infinitesimal proportion to the mass of vapid residuum. In our day a process not unlike this is required in the investigation of political history. The newspaper and the pamphlet give place to the periodical volume; Hansard and the Annual Register supply the basis of those 'contemporary histories' which are called into existence by the requirements of an impatient public; and these compilations-for the works we have in view are little more-will in their turn be resolved into a purer shape, and truth be disengaged from the error and prejudice which attend the birth of political events.

formation, his History of his own Time' has obtained a permanent place in our literature. The works of Miss Martineau and Mr. Roebuck have no claim to similar consideration: they represent but a part—and the worst part-of contemporary history. They share in its partisanship, its errors, its animosities, but not in its clear and decisive knowledge. The spectators of a scene are often more agitated than the actors in it. The illusion of the stage is lost at the wings. There is something in the presence of realities, and of the trifling incidents which accompany them, inconsistent with the earnest mood which attends the distant contemplation or mere sentiment of great transactions, When England awaited in suspense the fate of Charles I., who could imagine the buf

face with the pen which he had just used to affix his signature to the King's death-warrant? Montrose fainted when the news of his master's death reached him, and a loyal adherent of Louis XVI. committed suicide when the poor monarch was led to the guillotine. It is doubtful whether any of those who bore a real part in the tragic solemnities were equally moved. Wilkes declared that he never was a Wilkite. We can believe that many a vestry orator was more zealous about the Reform Bill than Earl Grey or his Chancellor.

Yet we are far from thinking that contemporary history-if it be of a genuine kind-foonery of Henry Marten, inking Cromwell's requires the apology which Mr. Roebuck has put forth for it. We should be glad to see it worthily revived. We cannot forget our obligations to Thucydides and Xenophon, to Cæsar and Sallust, to Froissart, Commines and Clarendon. It is true that contemporary record must be received with some caution: each age has an atmosphere of its own; and, as in archery, the truest aim may suffer some deviation from the prevailing air. Allowance must be made, too, for the bias of the writer. But if he be in any degree trustworthy, and if he bore an active part in the events he relates, it requires little argument to show that his narrative, as far as it goes, must be immeasurably superior to any which can be written at a subsequent date. Voltaire sneers, with some reason, at the historians who give traditionary tales as positive facts: 'Suétone rapporte ce que les premiers empereurs de Rome avaient fait de plus secret; mais avaitil vécu familièrement avec douze Césars?' The early history of Rome may be written with advantage after the first decades of Livy, as Niebuhr has well shown; but who could improve upon the Anabasis or the Commentaries?

No doubt the observation in Mr. Roe

Since the Revolution of 1688 there have been very few examples of members of a Cabinet divulging its secrets. In some rare cases men have been provoked or tempted to such revelations; but the rest-includ ing the best-who have served the Crown have respected its confidence, and have been content to submit to any amount of obloquy and misrepresentation rather than pronounce the words which would have silenced their opponents. They have not been without their reward. Time has done them justice, and the most self-denying have been best rewarded for their forbearance by the ap preciation of posterity. But this honourable reserve is much against the value of contem