English Reformation, and other passages evincing a peculiar bias) admits that Dr Lingard possesses, what he claims, the rare merit of having collected his materials from original historians and records, by which his narrative receives a freshness of character, and a stamp of originality, not to be found in any general history of England in common use. We give one specimen of the narrative style of the author:

[Cromwell's Expulsion of the Parliament in 1653.]

dreamed more of the subjugation of the feeblest of his critics (though condemning his account of the republic in Europe than of the conquest of her mightiest empire, and tell me if you can imagine a spectacle more beautiful to the moral eye, or a more striking proof of progress in the noblest principles of civilisation. These feeble states, these monuments of the justice of Europe, the asylum of peace, of industry, and of literature: the organs of public reason, the refuge of oppressed innocence and persecuted truth, have perished with those ancient principles which were their sole guardians and protectors. They have been swallowed up by that fearful convulsion which has shaken the uttermost corners of the earth. They are destroyed, and gone for ever! One asylum of free discussion is At length Cromwell fixed on his plan to procure the still inviolate. There is still one spot in Europe where dissolution of the parliament, and to vest for a time the man can freely exercise his reason on the most import- sovereign authority in a council of forty persons, with ant concerns of society, where he can boldly publish his himself at their head. It was his wish to effect this judgment on the acts of the proudest and most power- quietly by the votes of the parliament-his resolution ful tyrants. The press of England is still free. It is to effect it by open force, if such votes were refused. guarded by the free constitution of our forefathers. It Several meetings were held by the officers and members is guarded by the hearts and arms of Englishmen, and at the lodgings of the lord-general in Whitehall. St I trust I may venture to say, that if it be to fall, it John and a few others gave their assent; the rest, will fall only under the ruins of the British empire. under the guidance of Whitelock and Widrington, It is an awful consideration, gentlemen. Every other declared that the dissolution would be dangerous, and monument of European liberty has perished. That the establishment of the proposed council unwarrantable. ancient fabric which has been gradually reared by the In the meantime the House resumed the consideration of wisdom and virtue of our fathers, still stands. It the new representative body; and several qualifications stands, thanks be to God! solid and entire-but it were voted, to all of which the officers raised objections, stands alone, and it stands in ruins! Believing, then, but chiefly to the 'admission of members,' a project to as I do, that we are on the eve of a great struggle, strengthen the government by the introduction of the that this is only the first battle between reason and Presbyterian interest. 'Never,' said Cromwell, shall power-that you have now in your hands, committed any of that judgment who have deserted the good cause to your trust, the only remains of free discussion in be admitted to power.' On the last meeting, held on Europe, now confined to this kingdom; addressing you, the 19th of April, all these points were long and warmly therefore, as the guardians of the most important debated. Some of the officers declared that the parliainterests of mankind; convinced that the unfettered ment must be dissolved one way or other;' but the exercise of reason depends more on your present verdict general checked their indiscretion and precipitancy, and than on any other that was ever delivered by a jury, I the assembly broke up at midnight, with an understandtrust I may rely with confidence on the issue-I trusting that the leading men on each side should resume that you will consider yourselves as the advanced-guard of liberty-as having this day to fight the first battle of free discussion against the most formidable enemy that it ever encountered!

DR JOHN LINGARD, ETC.

the subject in the morning.

At an early hour the conference was recommenced, and, after a short time, interrupted, in consequence of the receipt of a notice by the general, that it was the intention of the House to comply with the desires of the army. This was a mistake; the opposite party had indeed resolved to pass a bill of dissolution; not, however, DR JOHN LINGARD, a Roman Catholic priest, the bill proposed by the officers, but their own bill, published in 1819 three volumes of a History of containing all the obnoxious provisions, and to pass it England from the Invasion by the Romans. He that very morning, that it might obtain the force of subsequently continued his work in five more law before their adversaries could have time to appeal volumes, bringing down his narrative to the abdi- to the power of the sword. While Harrison most cation of James II. To talents of a high order, strictly and humbly' conjured them to pause before both as respects acuteness of analysis and powers inform the lord-general at Whitehall. His resolution they took so important a step, Ingoldsby hastened to of description and narrative, Dr Lingard added unconquerable industry and access to sources of was immediately formed, and a company of musketeers information new and important. He is generally this eventful moment, big with the most important received orders to accompany him to the House. At as impartial as Hume, or even Robertson; but it is undeniable that his religious opinions have in consequences both to himself and his country, whatever several cases perverted the fidelity of his history, conceal them from the eyes of the beholders. Leaving were the workings of Cromwell's mind, he had the art to leading him to palliate the atrocities of the Bar- the military in the lobby, he entered the House and tholomew massacre, and to darken the shades in composedly seated himself on one of the outer benches. the characters of Queen Elizabeth, Cranmer, Anne His dress was a plain suit of black cloth, with gray Boleyn, and others connected with the reformation worsted stockings. For a while he seemed to listen in the church. His work was subjected to a rigid with interest to the debate; but when the speaker was scrutiny by Dr John Allen, in two elaborate articles going to put the question, he whispered to Harrison, in the Edinburgh Review, by the Rev. Mr Todd-This is the time; I must do it ;' and rising, put off his who published a defence of the character of Cran- hat to address the House. At first his language was mer-and by other zealous Protestant writers. To these antagonists Dr Lingard replied in 1826 by a vindication of his fidelity as a historian, which affords an excellent specimen of calm controversial writing. His work has now taken its place among the most valuable of our national histories. It has gone through three editions, and has been received with equal favour on the continent. The most able

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decorous, and even laudatory. Gradually he became more warm and animated; at last he assumed all the vehemence of passion, and indulged in personal vituperation. He charged the members with self-seeking and profaneness, with the frequent denial of justice, and numerous acts of oppression; with idolising the lawyers, the constant advocates of tyranny; with neglecting the men who had bled for them in the field, that they might

had little notions of confederacies for mutual protec-
tion, it is hard to say what might not have been the
successes of an Otho, a Frederic, or a Philip Augustus,
if they could have wielded the whole force of their
subjects whenever their ambition required.
If an
empire equally extensive with that of Charlemagne,
and supported by military despotism, had been formed
about the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, the seeds of
commerce and liberty, just then beginning to shoot,
would have perished; and Europe, reduced to a bar-
barous servitude, might have fallen before the free

Hallam in the Review for October 1808, with great ability and candour. His first important work was a View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, two volumes quarto, 1818, being an account of the progress of Europe from the middle of the fifth to the end of the fifteenth century. In 1827 he published The Constitutional History of England from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II., also in two volumes; and in 1837-38 an Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, in four volumes. With vast stores of knowledge, and indefatigable applica-barbarians of Tatary. tion, Mr Hallam possessed a clear and independent If we look at the feudal polity as a scheme of civil judgment, and a style grave and impressive, yet freedom, it bears a noble countenance. To the feudal enriched with occasional imagery and rhetorical law it is owing that the very names of right and graces. His introduction to the Literature of Europe privilege were not swept away, as in Asia, by the is a great monument of his erudition. His know- desolating hand of power. The tyranny which, on every ledge of the language and literature of each nation favourable moment, was breaking through all barriers, would have rioted without control, if, when the people was critical and profound, and his opinions were conveyed in a style remarkable for its succinctness were poor and disunited, the nobility had not been brave and free. So far as the sphere of feudality and perspicuous beauty. In his first two works, Mr Hallam's views of political questions are those gene- of private right. Every one will acknowledge this who extended, it diffused the spirit of liberty and the notions rally adopted by the Whig party, but are stated considers the limitations of the services of vassalage, with calmness and moderation. He was peculiarly a supporter of principles, not of men, and he judged of the records of customs; the reciprocity of obligation so cautiously marked in those law-books which are characters without party prejudice or passion. Mr between the lord and his tenant; the consent required Hallam, like Burke, in his latter years, 'lived in an in every measure of a legislative or general nature; the inverted order: they who ought to have succeeded security, above all, which every vassal found in the him had gone before him; they who should have administration of justice by his peers, and even-we been to him as posterity were in the place of may in this sense say-in the trial by combat. The His eldest son, Arthur Henry Hallam bulk of the people, it is true, were degraded by servi -the subject of Tennyson's In Memoriam-died in tude; but this had no connection with the feudal 1833, and another son, Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, tenures. was taken from him shortly after he had been called to the bar in 1850. The afflicted father collected and printed for private circulation the Remains, in Verse and Prose, of Arthur Henry Hallam (1834), and some friend added memorials of the second son. Both were eminently accomplished, amiable, and promising young men. The historian died January 22, 1859, having reached the great age of eighty-one.

ancestors.'

[Effects of the Feudal System.]

[From the View of the Middle Ages.]

The peace and good order of society were not promoted by this system. Though private wars did not originate in the feudal customs, it is impossible to doubt that they were perpetuated by so convenient an institution, which indeed owed its universal establishment to no other cause. And as predominant habits of warfare are totally irreconcilable with those of industry, not merely by the immediate works of destruction which render its efforts unavailing, but through that contempt of peaceful occupations which they produce, the feudal system must have been intrinsically adverse to the accumulation of wealth, and the improvement of those arts which mitigate the evils or abridge the labours of mankind.

It is the previous state of society, under the grandchildren of Charlemagne, which we must always keep But, as a school of moral discipline, the feudal in mind, if we would appreciate the effects of the institutions were perhaps most to be valued. Society feudal system upon the welfare of mankind. The had sunk for several centuries after the dissolution of institutions of the eleventh century must be compared the Roman empire, into a condition of utter depravity; with those of the ninth, not with the advanced civil- where, if any vices could be selected as more eminently isation of modern times. The state of anarchy which characteristic than others, they were falsehood, treachery, we usually term feudal, was the natural result of a and ingratitude. In slowly purging off the lees of this vast and barbarous empire feebly administered, and the extreme corruption, the feudal spirit exerted its amelicause, rather than the effect, of the general establish-orating influence. Violation of faith stood first in the ment of feudal tenures. These, by preserving the mutual relations of the whole, kept alive the feeling of a common country and common duties; and settled, after the lapse of ages, into the free constitution of England, the firm monarchy of France, and the federal union of Germany.

The utility of any form of policy may be estimated by its effects upon national greatness and security, upon civil liberty and private rights, upon the tranquillity and order of society, upon the increase and diffusion of wealth, or upon the general tone of moral sentiment and energy. The feudal constitution was little adapted for the defence of a mighty kingdom, far less for schemes of conquest. But as it prevailed alike in several adjacent countries, none had anything to fear from the military superiority of its neighbours. It was this inefficiency of the feudal militia, perhaps, that saved Europe, during the middle ages, from the danger of universal monarchy. In times when princes

catalogue of crimes, most repugnant to the very essence of a feudal tenure, most severely and promptly avenged, most branded by general infamy. The feudal law-books breathe throughout a spirit of honourable obligation. The feudal course of jurisdiction promoted, what trial by peers' is peculiarly calculated to promote, a keener feeling, as well as readier perception, of moral as well as of legal distinctions. In the reciprocal services of lord and vassal, there was ample scope for every magnanimous and disinterested energy. The heart of man, when placed in circumstances that have a tendency to excite them, will seldom be deficient in such sentiments. No occasions could be more favourable than the protection of a faithful supporter, or the defence of a beneficent sovereign, against such powerful aggression as left little prospect except of sharing in his ruin.

It has been justly remarked, that in Mr Hallam's

Literature of Europe there is more of sentiment than could have been anticipated from the calm, unimpassioned tenor of his historic style. We may illustrate this by two short extracts.

[Shakspeare's Self-Retrospection.]

There seems to have been a period of Shakspeare's life when his heart was ill at ease, and ill content with the world and his own conscience; the memory of hours misspent, the pang of affection misplaced or unrequited, the experience of man's worser nature, which intercourse with unworthy associates, by choice or circumstances, peculiarly teaches; these, as they sank into the depths of his great mind, seem not only to have inspired into it the conception of Lear and Timon, but that of one primary character, the censurer of mankind. This type is first seen in the philosophic melancholy of Jaques, gazing with an undiminished serenity, and with a gaiety of fancy, though not of manners, on the follies of the world. It assumes a graver cast in the exiled Duke of the same play, and next one rather more severe in the Duke of Measure for Measure. In all these, however, it is merely contemplative philosophy. In Hamlet this is mingled with the impulses of a perturbed heart under the pressure of extraordinary circumstances; it shines no longer, as in the former characters, with a steady light, but plays in fitful coruscations amidst feigned gaiety and extravagance. In Lear, it is the flash of sudden inspiration across the incongruous imagery of madness; in Timon, it is obscured by the exaggerations of misanthropy. These plays all belong to nearly the same period: As You Like It being usually referred to 1600, Timon to the same year, Measure for Measure to 1603, and Lear to 1604. In the later plays of Shakspeare, especially in Macbeth and the Tempest, much of moral speculation will be found, but he has never returned to this type of character in the

personages.

[Milton's Blindness and Remembrance of his Early Reading.]

retain. I know not, indeed, whether an education that deals much with poetry, such as is still usual in England, has any more solid argument among many in its favour, than that it lays the foundation of intellectual pleasures at the other extreme of life.

P. F. TYTLER-COLONEL NAPIER-ETC.

The History of Scotland, by PATRICK FRASER TYTLER, Esq., is an attempt to build the history of that country upon unquestionable muniments.' The author professed to have anxiously endeavoured to examine the most authentic sources of information, and to convey a true picture of the times, without prepossession or partiality. He commences with the accession of Alexander III., because it is at that period that our national annals become particularly interesting to the general reader. The first volume of Mr Tytler's history was published in 1828, and a continuation appeared at intervals, conducting the narrative to the year 1603, when James VI. ascended the throne of England. The style of the history is plain and perspicuous, with just sufficient animation to keep alive the attention of the reader. Mr Tytler added considerably to the amount and correctness of our knowledge of Scottish history. He took up a few doubtful or erroneous opinions on questions of fact (such as that John Knox was accessary to the murder of Rizzio, of which he failed to give any satisfactory proof); but the industry and talent he evinced entitle him to the gratitude of his countrymen. A second edition of this work, up to the period already mentioned, extends to nine volumes. Mr Tytler was author of the Lives of Scottish Worthies and a Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, and he edited two volumes of Letters illustrative of the history of England under Elizabeth and Mary. This gentleman was grandson of Mr Tytler, whom Burns has characterised as

Revered defender of beauteous Stuart,

and his father, Lord Woodhouselee, a Scottish judge, wrote a popular Universal History. Latterly, Mr Patrick F. Tytler enjoyed a pension of £200 per annum. He died at Malvern, in December 1849. A life of Mr Tytler has been published (1859) by the Rev. John Burgon, M.A., of Oriel College, Oxford. It represents the historian in a very prepossessing light, as affectionate, pious, and cheerful, beloved by all who knew him.

In the numerous imitations, and still more numerous traces of older poetry which we perceive in Paradise Lost, it is always to be kept in mind that he had only his recollection to rely upon. His blindness seems to have been complete before 1654;* and I scarcely think he had begun his poem before the anxiety and trouble into which the public strife of the Commonwealth and Restoration had thrown him, gave leisure for immortal occupations. Then the remembrance of early reading The History of the War in the Peninsula, and in the came over his dark and lonely path, like the moon South of France, from the year 1807 to the year 1814, emerging from the clouds. Then it was that the Muse in six volumes, 1828-40, by COLONEL SIR W. F. P. was truly his; not only as she poured her creative NAPIER, is acknowledged to be the most valuable inspiration into his mind, but as the daughter of record of that war which England waged against the Memory, coming with fragments of ancient melodies, power of Napoleon. Mr Southey had previously the voice of Euripides, and Homer, and Tasso; sounds written a history of this period, but it was heavy and that he had loved in youth, and treasured up for the uninteresting, and is now rarely met with. Sir W. solace of his age. They who, though not enduring the Napier was an actor in the great struggle he records, calamity of Milton, have known what it is, when afar and peculiarly conversant with the art of war. from books, in solitude or in travelling, or in the most ample testimony has been borne to the accurintervals of worldly care, to feed on poetical recollections, to murmur over the beautiful lines whose cadence acy of the historian's statements, and to the dilihas long delighted their ear, to recall the sentiments gence and acuteness with which he has collected his materials. Sir William Napier is son of Colonel and images which retain by association the charm that the Hon. George Napier, by Lady Sarah Lennox, early years once gave them they will feel the inesti- daughter of the second Duke of Richmond. mable value of committing to the memory, in the prime was born at Castletown, in Ireland, in 1785. Besides of its power, what it will easily receive and indelibly his important History, he is author of an account *Todd publishes a letter addressed by Milton to Andrew of The Conquest of Scinde, of The Life and Opinions Marvell, dated February 21, 1652-3, and assumes that the poet of Sir Charles Napier, the celebrated military com'had still the use of one eye, which could direct his hand. mander and conqueror of Scinde. Further light has The editor of this work has inspected the letter to Marvell been thrown on the Spanish war, as well as on the in the State-Paper Office, and ascertained that it is not in whole of our other military operations from 1799 Milton's handwriting. It is in a fine current, clerk-like hand. to 1818, by the publication of The Dispatches of

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The

He

Field-marshal the Duke of Wellington, by LIEUTENANT- Holland was a generous patron of literature and art. COLONEL GURWOOD, twelve volumes, 1836-8. The Holland House was but another name for refined skill, moderation, and energy of the Duke of hospitality and social freedom, in which men of all Wellington are strikingly illustrated by this com- shades of opinion participated. As a literary man, pilation. 'No man ever before,' says a critic in the the noble lord has left few or no memorials that Edinburgh Review, 'had the gratification of himself will survive; but he will long be remembered as witnessing the formation of such a monument to a generous-hearted English nobleman, who, with his glory. His dispatches will continue to furnish, princely munificence and varied accomplishments, through every age, lessons of practical wisdom which ever felt a strong interest in the welfare of the cannot be too highly prized by public men of every great mass of the people; who was an intrepid station; whilst they will supply to military com- advocate of popular rights in the most difficult and manders, in particular, examples for their guidance trying times; and who, amidst all his courtesy and which they cannot too carefully study, nor too hospitality, held fast his integrity and consistency anxiously endeavour to emulate.'