LITERARY SPECTATOR.

MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.°

IT is the unfortunate condition of journalists like ourselves, that we are compelled, from the insatiable demand for novelty on the part of readers, to offer too frequently our first rather than our best thoughts to their acceptance. Ike are denied leisure for in- vestigation, and cut off from opportunities of careful comparison, by the tenure of our office, and in some measure obliged to be superficial, and to appear occasionally negligent, notwithstanding our most earnest longing alter solidity and accuracy. Had it lain in our power as it does in our wish, we should have asked no more pleasant and profitable labour than the thorough study of a volume on English history from the pen of so eloquent a man and so learned a jurist 11S Sir JAME'i MACKINTOSH. But while we were employed in balancing authorities and weighing opinions, the time would have been slipping away beyond recall when we could expect to find a willing audience to listen to our decisions. We must therelore pertbrce content ourselves with a statement, and but a brief one, of the impression which a glance at rather than a perusal of the first volume of Sir JamEs's history has left on our minds. Happily, even a hasty judgment may, in this case, be formed without much danger. The period or our history which Sir JAMES MacKINTosn embraces,t is one touching which not many disputed points remain to be settled; while the scene is too remote front our times to call into action the party zeal or preju- dices Of him who now sits down to deserihe it. The history, in the place of which, as a book of' common perusal and ready refer- ence, we most hope and wish to see Sir JAmEs's work substituted, is the elegant and acute and Oozing one of HuME. \\t. remem- ber no work of a similar nature that has gone further to continual I he ideas of political and even of moral ria-lit and wrong., than that celebrated history. To its beauty of diction and plausibility of argument, it has hithert o h ten indelded for too general aceeifianee ; and to the rather unfortunate Met, that those who have most suc- cessfully exposed its sophistry have been but little able to rival its eloquence. What former critics hml chroniclers have attempted hi we think Sir JaArEs l‘lACKINTosu bids lair to accomplish. His studied conciseness has not, so Mr as We 11:1‘ m ObSCI'Ved, imiduced hint 1.0 °Mit One flirt or particular that was necessary or pert inent ; he lets nowhere sacrificed intelligibility to brevity ; nor is the flow Of his narrative ever broken by abrupt transitions. His diction is at once nervous and polished ; his reflections are generally just, and frequently- profound, with the additional recommendation that they spring naturally out of the facts he is narrating. Ile gives, what HUME very seldom condescends to do, the authorities from NVIlieh his facts are drawn : utti while his narrative is thus authen- ticated, he has contrived, by the frequent introduction of the lan- guage of the Chronicle to which lie is referring, to give vtuiety

and u i(rour to its style. There is another composition with which, as a mere literary

effort, his Hist (4 of England will naturally he brought into fre- quent comparison ; :nut we dare promise, without injury to the thme which it cannot fail very speedily to acquire. Of course we allude to the volumes on Scottish History whieh Dr. LARDNER has been fortunate enough to obtain, ihr the sante work, from the pen of Sir WALTER Soon.. By those ‘vtio inspect the two books, it will be seen that the tempers and previous studies of the writers have stamped in pretty distinct characters their impress on both. Sir WALTER's Iiinguin,e is the more racy of the *two ; Sir JAMES'S the more elegant.. Yet. Sir Waarart is never rude, though i some- litmus provincial ; nor is Sir Jaatas ever belie, though always polisle.d. Sir WALTER delights in anecdote ; Sir JAMEs ill re- mark. The subject of Sir WmaraIt naturally lot him to the method of illustration which he has adopted. Thu ugh is in the history of Scot land, Ilniugli bright, are seat tered ; thu characters that figure in it are too pecaliar, anti the events too isolate(h, to serve as rules for the regi dal ion of of her stales. England presents, even in its early history, more appearance (dreg-IC:n.4 ; and general principles are more un,ily :Ind naturally tIoducilde from it. These are the most marhed, hod not the sole features of tile two works.

s:e WALTER s01110:111 reasons, and as he 'anat always do, sagaciously' Sir JAMES often tells a story, :Ind tills it wit Ii much eftbet. Sir WALTER is sometimes, though nut often, elaborately ornate in his languai.:e ; Sir Jae:Es is sometimes studiously simple. In all their great nomis ilw agreement of the two ant hors is per- fect,—in their elevation end cw.aprehension of view, in 1 heir dis- dain of petty artifice to entrap applause, in then. constant and earilest endeavour after the true and the just in every particular of II eir narrative.

We cannot set apart a large space for extract, but we must give our readers one or two specimens of Sir JAMES'S historical style.

We tal.e I hem from the reflective rather than the narrative it ion of the volume, as we conceive that to le ilia mare characteristic. The billowing remarks on a prevalent theory occur in the second chapter. He is speaking of the Britons at the time of Cwsar's invasion.

" It is vain to inquire into the forms of government prevalent among a people in so low a state of culture. The application of the terms which denote civilized institutions to the confused jumble of usages and tradi- tions which gradually acquire some ascendant over savages, is a practice full of fallacy. The Britons had a government rather occasional than constant, in which various political principles prevailed by turns. The • Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopredia—The History of England. By the Right Hon. sir James Mackintosh, LL.D. M.P. Vol. I. London, 1830. -F From the Invasion of the Romans to the death of Henry the Fifth.

power of eloquence, of valour, of experience, sometimes of beauty, over a multitude, for a time threw them into the appearance of a democracy. When their humour led them to follow the council of their elders, the community seemed to be aristocratic. The necessities of war, and the popularity of a fortunate commander, vested in him in times of peril a sort of monarchical power, limited rather by his own prudence and the patience of his followers, than by laws or even customs. Punishment sprung from revenge : it was sometimes inflicted to avenge the wrongs of others. It is an abuse of terms to bestow the name of a free government on such a state of society ; men, in such circumstances, lived without restraint ; but they lived without security. Human nature in that state is capable of occasional flashes of the highest virtues. Men not only scorn danger and disregard privation, but even show rough sketches of ardent kindness, of faithful gratitude, of the most generous self-devotion. But the movements of their feelings are too irregular to be foreseen. Fero- cious anger may, in a moment, destroy the most tender affection. Savages have no virtues on which it is possible to rely."

The observations that close the aecount of the great est and most virtuous monarch that ever swayed the sceptre of England are equally original and sound.

"In any age or country such a prince would be a prodigy. Perhaps i there s no example of any man who so happily combined the magna- nimous with the mild virtues, who joined so much energy in war with so remarkable a cultivation of the useful and heaotiful arts of peace, and whose versatile faculties were so happily inserted in their due place and measure as to support and secure each other, and give solidity and strength to the whole character. That siich a miracle should occur in a barbarous age and nation ; that study should be thus pursued in the midst of civil and foreign wars, by a monarch who suffered almost inces- santly from painful maladies; and that it so little encroached on the dot ies of government as tO leaVe him for l;:,e,; the 110[1111M* Model for exact and watchful justice, are facts of so extraordinary a nature, that they may well excuse those who have siiverted that there are some exaggera- tion and sm■pression in the narrative of Ids reign. But Asser writes with the simplicity of an honest eye-witness. The SaXoll Chruniele is a dry

and undesignitc; compend. The Norman -Who seem to have had his diaries and note-hooks t tlieir hands, choose him as the glory of the land Whieh N'as become their own. There is no subject On which unanimous tradition is so nearly sufficient evidence, as on the eminence of one man over others of the same condition. The hrieht inelac may long be hold up before the national mind. This tradition, however para- doxical flit assertion may appear, is in the case of Alfred rather sup- ported than weakened by the tictioicts which have sprung front it. Al- though it he an infirmity of every nation to ascribe their institutions to the contrivance of a man, rather than to the slow action of tune and cir- cumstances, yet the seleetion of Alfred by the Kier;lish. people as the founder of all that was dear to t'-fan is surely the strongest proof of the deep iinpression left on the minds of all or his transeendant wisdom and virtuc,—.I urieS, the division Of the island into counties and hundreds, the dovice of frankpledge, the formation of the cominon or customary law itself, could have been mistfffienly attributed to him by nothing less than eeneral reverence. How singular must have been the admiiiistration of which the remembrance so long it °carol for him the character of a law- giver, to which his few and general cum:Tomas so little entitled him !"

Tile trid I is in no' ft/Ill/Will,' extract are not Wholly new, ha they have seldom been exprosed so well.

" The Tories represented the Sa‘on kings not the less as absolute monarchs, because thee acted by the advice of men of sense and weight chosen by themselves; and these writeis treat, d all the privileges of the people as either noirpations or concessions, chiedy ohtained from weak itice. The Whigs, with no less deviation from truth, endeavoured to

rove that the nual..1 n constitution of king, lords, and commons, sub- sisted in the earliest times, anti was then more pure and flourishing than in any sueceeding age. No one at that time was taught, by a wide sur- vey of society, that governments are not framed after a model, hut that all their parts and powers grow out of occasional acts, prompted by some urgent expediency, or t tiuti private interest, which in the course of time coalesce and harden into visage ; and that this bundle of usages is the ob- ject of respect and the guide of conduet, longibefore it is embodied, de- fiued, and enfo

rCet..nto written laws. Coverninent may be, in some de-

gree, reduced to system, but it cannot Bow from it. It. is not like a ma- chine, or a building, which may be con..l acted entirely, and according to a previous plan, by the art and lalhuir of' foam It is better illustrated by coniparison with vegetables, or i. -tm animal:, which may be, in a very high dettree, improved hy skill and rare, v hieh may be grievously injured by neglect, or destroyed by violence, hut which cannot be produced by heman co ot ri Vallee. A .2...worm:wilt can, indeed, be no more than a mere draught or sehatile of rule, when it is not composad of habits of obe- dience on the part of the people, and of an habitual exercise of certain portions or authority hy the individuals or betties who constitute the so- vereign power. These habits, like all others, can only be formed by re- peated acts ; they cannot h.; suddculy infused by the law-giver, nor can they immediately follow the most irerfeet conviction of their propriety. I■lany causes having more power over the human mind th.in written law : it is extremely diilieult, [ruin the tin-re perusal of a written scheme of government, to foretel wl:at it will prove in action. There may be go- vernments aa bad that it is justifiable to destroy them, and to trust to the probability that a better government will erow iii their stead. But as the rise of a vv irse is also possibl,,, a terrffilc a peril is never to be in- curred except in the case of a tyranny winch it is impossible to reform. It may be neeesSliry to burn a fore4 containing ;Midi 1131.'l'Ul timber, hot giving shelter to boasts of prey, who are formidaltie to an infant colony in its neighbourhood, and of too vast an extent to bc gradually and safely thinned by their inadequate labour. It is lit, however, that they should be apprised, before they take an irreparable step, how little it is pos- sible to foresee whether the earth, stripped of its vegetatiom shall be- come an unprofitable desert or a pestilential marsh." from a mixture of convenience and contempt. She Asked him about his religion, and whether he was ready to risk his life for his Clod. "To die," he answered.—"Then," said she, "let us escape together." He could not refuse. Either his courage left him, or the attempt failed. Ile escaped with safer companions. She afterwards broke her prison ; and by the repetition of the word "London," found her way marvellously by sea and land to that city, where she had no other resource than that of crying through the streets Gilbert ! the name of him whom she loved; the only European word, besides London, with which the forlorn damsel of Syria was acquainted. After many adventures she was at length recognized by the faithfol Richard, baptized with the royal name of Matilda, married to her Gilbert, and she became the mother of Thomas-h-Becket."

It was intended to limit this history to three volumes. We are not grieved, but gratified, that it will extend to more—perhaps to live. It will be the more formidable rival to HUME ; and if we never get Sir JamEs's long-promised large work, we shall be the better enabled to bear our disappointment.