glory; and who, amidst the elegant commerce, and even the festive gaieties of private life, maintains the dignity of public sentiment by the conservative influence of his own example. It would be inconsistent with historical fidelity to pass over, in the life of Cæsar, his early attachment to unprincipled persons, his profligate extravagance, or his amour with the Egyptian queen. Mr. Fox was not a violator of the laws, nor do we charge him with any thing dishonourable in his conduct; but his departures, such as they were, from decorum and temperance, and the line of exemplary morals, ought no more to be suppressed or softened than the vices of Cæsar. In all probability, he would himself have been ashamed of the indiscriminate rhapsodical praise which has incumbered his memory. To the manly remonstrances of a virtuous friend, we can conceive it possible that he would have unveiled his early transgressions, and admitted his weakness and error. His understanding would have disdained to patronize the vices, which the effeminate sophisms of his friends, by endeavouring to disguise, have made more conspicuous; illustrating, by the inconsistencies of their panegyrics, the danger to sound sentiment and correct principle, arising from an example, of which the vicious and faulty parts were, perhaps, alone within the reach of imitation.

We could not forbear throwing out these few observations on a subject, not immediately connected with the object of this article, though naturally arising out of the topics which it incidentally presents to our consideration. It was impossible to contemplate the effects of Mr. Fox's political habits on the character and tendency of his history, without yielding to the temptation of glancing at his general character; and protesting against that praise which, not content with embalming his memory, has presumed to canonize his faults. We will now consign his virtues and his failings also to the impartial page of history (if any such shall record the transactions of these times, and give life to the embryon lessons of wisdom which they contain); where we trust his name will stand a memorial, as well of the great possibilities of the human intellect, as of the tendency of party struggles, and a lax education, to check, if not to defeat, the bounties of benignant nature.

To revert therefore to the subject immediately under consideration, we have no hesitation in saying, that Mr. Fox's historical fragment bears plain indications of the bias of his political sentiments. We are of opinion with Mr. Rose, that men who mix in parties are generally unfit for the office of historian. If they write the accounts of their own times, quorum pars

magna fuerunt, they are apt to endeavour to interest posterity in their quarrels; and if they write of antecedent events, their purpose will naturally be so to dress up those events, that contemporary transactions may take, by reflection, a colour favourable to their own political views. We have already, and we hope with sufficient distinctness, observed, that we do not impute to Mr. Fox any mistatements of facts; but we cannot but suspect him of those natural prepossessions which are almost inseparable from party-spirit; and we think that the bias of these prepossessions is discernible throughout his history. It was said of the excellent Plutarch himself, that in his biographical parallels, notwithstanding all his integrity and candor, it was plain enough he was a Greek.

History, to be the handmaid of philosophy, and the mistress of - moral instruction, should be as chaste in respect to characters, as . events. Her office has been well compared to that tribunal of the Egyptians mentioned by Diodorus, in which men and princes after their deaths were either acquitted with honour, or delivered over as criminals to posterity. Historical truth is not more sacred than historical justice. It is only by a due appropriation of praise and blame, that history becomes philosophy, teaching by examples, and capable of transfusing the virtues of one generation into another. To this its retrospective efficacy, we might add, that while it maintains the credit of strict impartiality, it operates usefully on that imposing grandeur of sentiment, which -stretches the interests of the ambitious beyond the grave, and gladdens the prospect of eternity with the anticipation of a bright and lasting reputation on earth. When she is thus clear in her great office, it is her privilege to bring strength out of weakness, and to turn a superstitious vain glory into an accessory to improvement. A secondary hope of immortality is encouraged, which purifies the dregs of selfishness and sense, and if it cannot, like the religious hope of a heavenly futurity, raise us above the world, while we live in it, it is nevertheless strong enough to refine and exalt the worldly man in the choice of worldly objects.

The general impression which we have expressed ourselves to have received, from the perusal of Mr. Fox's work, of his having written it under the influence of party feelings, lays us, as we conceive, under no obligation to give any specific reasons for our being so impressed. Mr. Fox gives no other reason for his own conviction, that Hume entertained a childish admiration of kings. Our impression arises from an accumulation of little indications, most of which would be too minute to particularize. The side which an historian takes, will as often become apparent from

little turns of expression, and even from his occasional silence, where observation would naturally be excited, as by opinions more declaratively announced, or a more decided colouring of the narrative. Although the prepossessions of Mr. Fox's mind are discoverable chiefly from these incidental, involuntary, and even negative indications, we will nevertheless give some of our reasons for forming this judgment of his work.

Would a mind that had received no warping from habit or party-predilection be content with remarking on the trial and condemnation of Lord Strafford, that " the prosecution, or rather the manner in which it was carried on, was less justifiable than their former proceedings," meaning the proceedings of the long parliament, of which he had just before spoken in terms of decided commendation? Could not the lofty character, impressive deportment, and sad end, of that much injured nobleman, win from the generous nature of Mr. Fox one gentle word of commiseration?

We are far from being disposed to justify the imperious conduct of Lord Strafford, and the tendency of his disposition to arbitrary counsels. They greatly derogated from his other estimable qualities. That he exercised some acts of discretionary jurisdiction in times of great turbulence and disorder, at a period of our history in which the boundaries of our constitution were but ill-defined, in a country ill-affected and incompletely conquered, (for such at that time was the state of Ireland) must be admitted and deplored; but as even at this epoch of improved and settled polity, it would be gross injustice to condemn a man to death upon a general charge of endeavouring to subvert the fundamental laws, so at a period of such constitutional inaccuracy as that in which this transaction took place, such a proceeding deserved the execration of every just and impartial mind. Miserable and disgraceful were the methods used to ruin this nobleman. Bound by an oath of secrecy, the committee proceeded against him less like public accusers, than plotting conspirators. Privy counsellors were suborned to act the part of informers: words torn from the context and incidentally used at their meetings, where freedom of speech and advice is so essential to the utility of their consultations, were accepted as evidence of treason, upon the testimony of his bitterest enemies. The testimony of the friends of the earl was excluded by pretended prosecutions, and groundless imprisonment. Still however an accusation, thus supported and carried on, yielded to the prevalence of truth, enforced by a pathos and dignity on the part of the accused, which it is impossible for guilt to assume. After a trial and acquittal before the tribunal of his peers, a bill of attainder, carried through

parliament by artifice and violence, and forced upon the king by the same unrighteous means, accomplished the ruin of this devoted person. Now, we cannot help thinking, that if Mr. Fox had not for the greater part of his life been the leader of a party in opposition to the government, he would have found other words to describe this transaction than the terms of apathy in which he has conveyed his opinion.

The prosecution of Lord Strafford, and the manner in which it was carried on, Mr. Fox, as we have observed, considered as less justifiable, than the former proceedings of the long parliament, which former proceedings he had, in another place, very emphatically commended. The execution of the king he calls a far less violent measure: so that, if a consistent construction be given to his expressions, this act of regicide would seem to have been considered by him as a crime of small magnitude. It must be admitted, that he does in cold and calculating language disapprove of the proceeding. But does he not disapprove of it on grounds of inexpediency, rather than on the ground of its inherent turpitude? It is to be remarked, too, that the whole discussion of the expediency of the measure seems evidently to have been built upon the consideration of it as an act of the people at large, whereas in truth it was, as Mr. Fox in the passage immediately preceding allows, the act of Cromwell alone. It could not surely, in any view, have been expedient that the projects of Cromwell should have been carried into effect, and the ancient monarchy destroyed? One does not therefore see how the question of expediency could properly arise, or be applicable to the ease as it really stood predicamented in fact. "The army," as Mr. Fox had a little before observed, were the masters of the parliament, and being entirely influenced by Cromwell, gave a commencement to what may, properly speaking, be called a new reign." And he adds, " that great and respectable as were the names of some who sat in the high court, they must be regarded, in this instance, rather as the ministers of the usurper, than as acting from themselves." Now if these great and respectable persons were not acting from themselves, they had not the excuse of honest enthusiasm, and if they were acting in obedience to the usurper, it is plain they were not acting under the authority of the people: then, it seems, these respectable persons were the executioners of the bloody purpose of an individual.

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It can scarcely be denied, because all history proclaims it, that Charles was sacrificed to the ambition of Cromwell, and that the army, or rather the cabal of officers, was the means of bring ing it about, against the feelings of the nation. But even supposing it was the act of the people, by their representatives,

what right had they to plead the justice or necessity of it, after treating with Charles as their rightful monarch, and actually declaring, by their vote, that the king's concessions were a foundation for the house to proceed upon in the settlement of the kingdom. As the king had not forfeited his right to be trusted, by any instance of insincerity since this treaty was on foot, (if suspicions of insincerity alone could be a reasonable ground for declining such a compromise) they were precluded from breaking with the king, on this pretext, by their own acts. At all events, was not an act of parliament, ratified by the king, a sufficient security against the imputed insincerity? But however this may be, it is to be recollected that the state of the facts was not such as to afford a proper ground for the question on the broad national basis of expediency, and that Mr. Fox by admitting that the king was sacrificed, not to the people, but to the usurper, and by arguing, upon that admission, the question, whether the execution was just and necessary, warrants the inference that he was of opinion (though we are far from seriously thinking he was of such opinion) that it might have been justified by necessity, though in fact the nation had no part in it.

The other point on which Mr. Fox rests the question of justification is this, "Was the example of it likely to be salutary or pernicious?" He does, to be sure, allow that as an example it was wholly needless, as it could be of no use to set an example to kings, when it was intended that the office of king should be abolished. And he admits that there was no ground upon which we could be authorized to inflict death, for the sake ofexample to other nations, or, in other words, to take the criminal justice of the world into our hands. But, surely, the plea of example fails, unless there is in the first place a justification for the punishment in the quality of the crime itself. So that one really perceives nothing in sound political morality, or common justice, to lay a ground for the second point of view in which Mr. Fox has chosen to consider the question. Since, therefore, in page 116 of his work, he takes it for granted, that example is the only legitimate end of punishment, (in itself a pretty large assumption) and that where the example is not likely to be salutary, every punishment inflicted by the magistrate is cruelty, and every execution murder, the execution of Charles upon his own reasoning was nothing short of the crime of murder; and as such should seem to deserve to be denounced in stronger terms than Mr. Fox has used upon this occasion.

As for ourselves, we must confess our weakness in having read with tears the account of that prince's sufferings in the least fayourable of his historians, and that to these emotions, the con