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 barbarous servitude, might have fallen before the free barbarians of Tartary.

If we look at the feudal polity as a scheme of civil freedom, it bears a noble countenance. To the feudal law it is owing that the very names of right and privilege were not swept away, as in Asia, by the desolating hand of power. The tyranny which, on every favourable moment, was breaking through all barriers, would have rioted without control, if, when the people were poor and disunited, the nobility had not been brave and free. So far as the sphere of feudality extended, it diffused the spirit of liberty and the notions of private right. Every one will acknowledge this who considers the limitations of the services of vassalage, so cautiously marked in those law-books which are the records of customs; the reciprocity of obligation between the lord and his tenant; the consent required in every measure of a legislative or general nature; the security, above all, which every vassal found in the administration of justice by his peers, and even (we may in this sense say) in the trial by combat. The bulk of the people, it is true, were degraded by servitude; but this had no connexion

with the feudal tenures.

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.

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 has since 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 sufficient animation to keep alive the attention of the reader. Mr Tytler has added considerably to the amount and correctness of our knowledge of Scottish history. He has taken up a few doubtful opinions on questions of fact; but the industry and talent he has evinced entitle him to the lasting gratitude of his countrymen. A second edition of this work, up to the period already mentioned, extends to nine volumes.

The History of the War in the Peninsula, and in the South of France, from the year 1807 to the year 1814, in six volumes, 1828-40, by COLONEL W. F. P. NAPIER, is acknowledged to be the most valuable record of that war which England waged against the power of Napoleon. Mr Southey had previously written a history of this period, but it was heavy and uninteresting, and is now rarely met with. Colonel Napier was an actor in the great struggle he records, and peculiarly conversant with the art of war. The most ample testimony has been borne to the accuracy of the historian's statements, and to the diligence and acuteness with which he has collected his materials. Further light has been thrown on the Spanish war, as well as on the whole of our other military operations from 1799 to 1818, by the publication of The Despatches of Field-Marshal the Duke

Wellington, by LIEUTENANT-COLONEL GURWOOD, twelve volumes, 1836-8. The skill, moderation, and energy of the Duke of Wellington are strikingly illustrated by this compilation. No man ever before,' says a critic in the Edinburgh Review, had of such a monument to his glory. His despatches the gratification of himself witnessing the formation will continue to furnish, through every age, lessons of practical wisdom which cannot be too highly prized by public men of every station; whilst they will supply to military commanders, in particular, examples for their guidance which they cannot too carefully study, nor too anxiously endeavour to

emulate.'

But, as a school of moral discipline, the feudal institutions were perhaps most to be valued. Society had sunk, for several centuries after the dissolution of the Roman empire, into a condition of utter depravity; where, if any vices could be selected as more eminently characteristic than others, they were falsehood, treachery, and ingratitude. In slowly purging off the lees of this extreme corruption, the feudal spirit exerted its ameliorating influence. Violation of faith stood first in the catalogue of crimes, most repugnant to the very essence of a feudal tenure, Ample materials for a comprehensive and complete most severely and promptly avenged, most branded history of the revolutionary war had been furnished, by general infamy. The feudal law-books breathe or existed in national repositories, and a work of throughout a spirit of honourable obligation. The this kind was undertaken by A. ALISON, Esq., a feudal course of jurisdiction promoted, what trial by gentleman of the Scottish bar. Mr Alison's History peers is peculiarly calculated to promote, a keener of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revofeeling, as well as readier perception, of moral as welllution in 1789 to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 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.

1815, was completed in 1842 in ten volumes. Exceptions may be taken to parts of this work as prolix in style and partial in statement. His account of the battle of Waterloo, for example, has been questioned by the highest living authority on that subject; but, taken as a whole, Mr Alison's history is honourable to his talents, no less than his industry. His style is generally clear and animated, and his arrangement of his vast materials orderly, and well adapted for

effect.

The following are also recent contributions to this valuable department of our literature:-A History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of AixTYT-la-Chapelle, and a History of the War of the Succession in Spain, both by LORD MAHON; a History of China, by the REV. CHARLES GUTZLAFF; a History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece, by

P. F. TYTLER-COLONEL NAPIER, &c. The History of Scotland, by PATRICK FRASER LER, Esq. is an attempt to build the history of that country upon unquestionable muniments.' The author professes to have anxiously endeavoured to

Fifty or a hundred years may be allotted to an individual, but we step forwards beyond death with such hopes as religion and philosophy will suggest; and we fill up the silent vacancy that precedes our birth, by associating ourselves to the authors of our existence. Our calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate than to suppress the pride of an ancient and worthy race. The satirist may laugh, the philosopher may preach, but reason herself will respect the prejudices and habits which have been consecrated by the experience of mankind.'

Gibbon states, that before entering upon the perusal of a book, he wrote down or considered what he knew of the subject, and afterwards examined how much the author had added to his stock of knowledge. A severe test for some authors! From habits like this sprung the Decline and Fall.

was one of the most fertile writers upon record: his miscellaneous works fill twenty-two quarto volumes, and his dramas twenty-five volumes. He died in 1635, aged seventy-three. His fame has been eclipsed by abler Spanish writers, but De Vega gave a great impulse to the literature of his nation, and is considered the parent of the continental drama. The amiable and accomplished nobleman who recorded the life of this Spanish prodigy has himself paid the debt of nature; he died at Holland house, October 23, 1840, aged sixty-seven. Lord Holland was a generous patron of literature and art. Holland house was but another name for refined hospitality and social freedom, in which men of all shades of opinion participated. As a literary man, the noble lord has left few or no memorials that will survive; but he will long be remembered as a generous-hearted English nobleman, who, with princely munificence and varied accomplishments, ever felt a strong interest in the welfare of the great mass of the people; who was an intrepid advocate of popular rights in the most difficult and trying times; and who, amidst all his courtesy and hospitality, held fast his integrity and consistency to the last.

In 1800 DR JAMES CURRIE (1756-1805) published his edition of the works of Burns for the benefit of the poet's family, and enriched it with an excellent memoir, that has served for the groundwork of many subsequent lives of Burns. The candour and ability displayed by Currie have scarcely been sufficiently appreciated. Such a task was new to him, and was beset with difficulties. He believed that The Life of Nelson, by SOUTHEY, published in two Burns's misfortunes arose chiefly from his errors small volumes (since compressed into one) in 1813, he lived at a time when this impression was strongly rose into instant and universal favour, and may be prevalent-yet he touched on the subject of the considered as one of our standard popular biopoet's frailties with delicacy and tenderness. He graphies. Its merit consists in the clearness and estimated his genius highly as a great poet, without beautiful simplicity of its style, and its lucid arrangereference to his personal position, and thus in some ment of facts, omitting all that is unimportant or measure anticipated the more unequivocal award of strictly technical. Mr Southey afterwards pubposterity. His remarks on Scottish poetry, and on lished a Life of Wesley, the celebrated founder of the condition of the Scottish peasantry, appear now the Methodists, in which he evinces a minute acsomewhat prolix and affected; but at the time they quaintance with the religious controversies and were written, they tended to interest and inform the publications of that period, joined to the art of the English reader, and to forward the author's bene- biographer, in giving prominence and effect to his volent object in extending the sale of the poet's delineations. His sketches of field-preaching and works. Memoirs of Burns have since been written lay preachers present some curious and interesting by Mr Lockhart, Mr Allan Cunningham, and various pictures of human nature under strong excitement. other authors, who have added additional facts to The same author contributed a series of lives of those related by Currie, and new critical disquisi- British admirals to the Cabinet Cyclopædia, edited tions on the character and genius of Burns. It by Dr Lardner. cannot be said, however, that any of the number have composed a more able, luminous, or eloquent biography than that of the original editor.

After the death of Cowper in 1800, every poetical reader was anxious to learn the personal history and misfortunes of a poet who had afforded such exquisite glimpses of his own life and habits, and the amiable traits of whose character shone so conspicuously in his verse. His letters and manuscripts were placed at the disposal of Hayley, whose talents as a poet were then greatly overrated, but who had personally known Cowper. Accordingly, in 1803, Hayley published memoirs of the poet and his correspondence in four volumes. The work was a valuable contribution to English biography. The inimitable letters of Cowper were themselves a treasure beyond price; and Hayley's prose, though often poor enough, was better than his poetry. What the hermit of Eartham' left undone has since been supplied by Southey, who in 1835 gave the world an edition of Cowper in fifteen volumes, about three of which are filled with a life and notes. The lives of both Hayley and Southey are written in the style of Mason's memoir, letters being freely interspersed throughout the narrative. Of a similar description, but not to be compared with these in point of interest or execution, is the life of Dr Beattie, by Sir William Forbes, published in 1806, in two volumes.

In the same year LORD HOLLAND published an Account of the Life and Writings of Lope Felix de Vega, the celebrated Spanish dramatist. De Vega

Dr

The most valuable historical biography of this period is the Life of John Knox, by DR THOMAS M CRIE (1772-1835), a Scottish minister. M'Crie had a warm sympathy with the sentiments and opinions of his hero; and on every point of his history he possessed the most complete information. He devoted himself to his task as to a great Christian duty, and not only gave a complete account of the principal events of Knox's life, his sentiments, writings, and exertions in the cause of religion and liberty,' but illustrated, with masterly ability, the whole contemporaneous history of Scotland. Men may differ as to the views taken by Dr M'Crie of some of those subjects, but there can be no variety of opinion as to the talents and learning he displayed. Following up his historical and theological retrospect, the same author afterwards published a life of Andrew Melville, but the subject is less interesting than that of his first biography. He wrote also memoirs of Veitch and Brysson (Scottish ministers, and supporters of the Covenant), and histories of the Reformation in Italy and in Spain. Dr M'Crie published, in 1817, a series of papers in the Edinburgh Christian Instructor, containing a vindication of the Covenanters from the distorted view which he believed Sir Walter Scott to have given of them in his tale of Old Mortality. Sir Walter replied anonymously, by reviewing his own work in the Quarterly Review! There were faults and absurdities on the side both of the Covenanters and the royalists, but the cavalier predilections of the great novelist

certainly led him to look with more regard on the latter-heartless and cruel as they were-than on the poor persecuted peasants.

The general demand for biographical composition tempted some of our most popular original writers to embark in this delightful department of literature. Southey, as we have seen, was early in the field; and his more distinguished poetical contemporaries, Scott, Moore, and Campbell, also joined. The first, besides his admirable memoirs of Dryden and Swift, prefixed to their works, contributed a series of lives of the English novelists to an edition of their works published by Ballantyne, which he executed with great taste, candour, and discrimination. He afterwards undertook a life of Napoleon Bonaparte, which was at first intended as a counterpart to Southey's Life of Nelson, but ultimately swelled out into nine volumes. The hurried composition of this work, and the habits of the author, accustomed to the dazzling creations of fiction, rather than the sober plodding of historical inquiry and calm investigation, led to many errors and imperfections. It abounds in striking and eloquent passages; the battles of Napoleon are described with great clear- | ness and animation; and the view taken of his character and talents is, on the whole, just and impartial, very different from the manner in which Scott had alluded to Napoleon in his 'Vision of Don Roderick.' The great diffuseness of the style, however, and the want of philosophical analysis, render the life of Napoleon more a brilliant chronicle of scenes and events than a historical memoir worthy the genius of its author.

manuscript is not to be regretted, for much of it could never have been published, and all that was valuable was repeated in the journals and memorandum-books. Mr Moore's Notices' are written with taste and modesty, and in very pure and unaffected English. As an editor he preserved too much of what was worthless and unimportant; as a biographer he was too indulgent to the faults of his hero; yet who could have wished a friend to dwell on the errors of Byron?

MR CAMPBELL, besides the biographies in his Specimens of the Poets, has published a Life of Mrs Siddons, the distinguished actress, and a Life of Petrarch. The latter is homely and earnest, though on a romantic and fanciful subject. There is a reality about Campbell's biographies quite distinct from what might be expected to emanate from the imaginative poet.

The lives of Burke and Goldsmith, in two volumes each, by MR JAMES PRIOR, are examples of patient diligence and research, prompted by national feelings and admiration. Goldsmith had been dead half a century before the inquiries of his countryman and biographer began, yet he has collected a vast number of new facts, and placed the amiable and amusing poet in full length and in full dress (quoting even his tailors' bills) before the public.

access to all public documents and libraries is now easily obtained, and there is no lack of desire on the part of authors to prosecute, or of the public to reward these researches. A Life of Lord William Russell, by LORD JOHN RUSSELL, is enriched with information from the family papers at Woburn Abbey; and from a similarly authentic private source, LORD NUGENT has written Memoirs of Hampden. The Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, by the REV. J. SMITH, records the successful career of the secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of Charles II. and James II, and comprises a Diary kept by Pepys for about ten years, which is one of the most リ curiously minute and gossiping journals in the lan

Amongst other additions to our standard biogra- | phy may be mentioned the Life of Lord Clive, by SIR JOHN MALCOLM; and the Life of Lord Clarendon, by MR T. H. LISTER. The Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, by MR PATRICK FRASER TYTLER (published in one volume in the Edinburgh Cabinet Library), is also MR MOORE has published a Life of Richard Brins- valuable for its able defence of that adventurous and ley Sheridan, 1825; Notices of the Life of Lord interesting personage, and for its careful digest of Byron, 1830; and Memoirs of Lord Edward Fitz-state papers and contemporaneous events. Free gerald, 1831. The first of these works is the most valuable; the second the most interesting. The 'Life of Byron,' by its intimate connexion with recent events and living persons, was a duty of very delicate and difficult performance. This was farther increased by the freedom and licentiousness of the poet's opinions and conduct, and by the versatility or mobility of his mind, which changed with every passing impulse and impression. As well,' says Mr Moore, from the precipitance with which he gave way to every impulse, as from the passion he had for recording his own impressions, all those heterogeneous thoughts, fantasies, and desires that, in other men's minds, "come like shadows, so depart," were by him fixed and embodied as they presented them-guage. selves, and at once taking a shape cognizable by While the most careful investigation is directed public opinion, either in his actions or his words, towards our classic authors-Shakspeare, Milton, in the hasty letter of the moment, or the poem Spenser, Chaucer, &c. forming each the subject for all time, laid open such a range of vulnerable numerous memoirs-scarcely a person of the least points before his judges, as no one individual ever note has been suffered to depart without the honours before, of himself, presented.' Byron left ample of biography. The present century has amply materials for his biographer. His absence from atoned for any want of curiosity on the part of England, and his desire to keep the minds of former generations, and there is some danger that the English public for ever occupied about him this taste or passion may be carried too far. Memoirs -if not with his merits, with his faults; if not in of persons of quality-of wits, dramatists, artists, applauding, in blaming him,' led him to maintain and actors, appear every season. Authors have be a regular correspondence with Mr Moore and his come as familiar to us as our personal associates. publisher Mr Murray. He also kept a journal, and Shy retired men like Charles Lamb, and dreamy rerecorded memoranda of his opinions, his reading, cluses like Coleridge, have been portrayed in all &c. something in the style of Burns. His letters their strength and weakness. We have lives of are rich and varied, but too often display an affec- Shelley, of Keats, Hazlitt, Hannah More, Mrs tation of wit and smartness, and a still worse ambi-Hemans, Mrs Maclean (L. E. L.), of James Smith tion of appearing more profligate than he was in (one of the authors of The Rejected Addresses"), reality. Byron had written memoirs of his own life, of Monk Lewis, Hayley, and many authors of less which he presented to Mr Moore, and which were distinction. In this influx of biographies worthless placed by the latter at the disposal of Mrs Leigh, materials are often elevated for a day, and the gra the noble poet's sister and executor, but which they, tification of a prurient curiosity or idle love of gossip from a sense of what they thought due to his me- is more aimed at than literary excellence or sound mory, consigned to the flames. The loss of the instruction. The error, however, is one on the right