is that of Sir William Grant. In hearing him, it was impossible not to think of the character given of Menelaus by Homer, or rather by Pope, that

'He spoke no more than just the thing he ought.'

But Sir William did much more:-in decompounding and analyzing an immense mass of confused and contradictory matter, and forming clear and unquestionable results, the sight of his mind was infinite. His exposition of facts, and of the consequences deducible from them, his discussion of former decisions, and showing their legitimate weight and authority, and their real bearings upon the point in question, were above praise; but the whole was done with such admirable ease and simplicity, that while real judges felt its supreme excellence, the herd of learners believed that they should have done the same. Never was the merit of Dr Johnson's definition of a perfect style,-' proper words in proper places,'-more sensibly felt than it was by those who listened to Sir William Grant. The charm of it was indescribable; its effect on the hearers was that which Milton describes, when he paints Adam listening to the angel after the angel had ceased to speak; often and often has the reminiscent beheld the bar listening, at the close of a judgment given by Sir William, with the same feeling of admiration at what they had heard, and the same regret that it was heard no more."

Sir James Mackintosh.

BORN A. D. 1765.-DIED A. D. 1832.

THIS distinguished statesman and accomplished scholar was the son of John Mackintosh of Kellachie, in Morayshire. He was born at Alldourie, on the 24th of October, 1765, and educated at Fortrose, and at King's college, Aberdeen. After having greatly distinguished himself at the latter seminary, he removed to Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, and received the degree of M. D. in 1787.

He had always manifested a predilection for political speculation, and in 1789 he published a pamphlet on the regency question, in which he espoused the views of Fox. Having previously entered himself a student of one of the Inns of court, he spent some time abroad, on the continent; and on his return in 1791, astonished the world by his celebrated Vindicia Gallicæ,' or reply to Burke's work on the French revolution.

The effect produced by the work on the public, is thus described by Mr Campbell: "Those who remember," he says, "the impression that was made by Burke's writings on the then living generation, will recollect, that in the better educated classes of society, there was a general proneness to go with Burke; and it is my sincere opinion that that proneness would have become universal, if such a mind as Mackintosh's had not presented itself, like a break-water to the general spring-tide of Burkism. I may be reminded that there was such a man as Thomas Paine; and that he strongly answered, at the bar of popular opinion, all the arguments of Burke. I deny not this fact, and I should be sorry if I could be blind, even with tears for Mackintosh in

my eyes, to the services that have been rendered to the cause of truth, by the shrewdness and the courage of Thomas Paine. But without disparagement to Paine, in a great and essential view, it must be admitted, that though radically sound in sense, he was deficient in the stratagetics of philosophy; whilst Mackintosh met Burke, perfectly his equal in the tactics of moral science, and in beauty of style and illustration. Hence Mackintosh went, as the apostle of liberalism, among a class, perhaps too influential in society, to whom the manner of Paine was repulsive. Paine had something of a coarse hatred towards Burke's principles, but he had a chivalric genius. He could foil him, moreover, at his own weapons; he was logician enough to detect the sophist by the rules of logic; and he turned against Burke, not only popular opinion, but classical and tasteful feelings."

The talent displayed in the Vindicia Gallica' procured Mackintosh the acquaintance of Sheridan, Grey, Whitbread, Fox, and the duke of Bedford; and it called forth the following eulogium from Dr Parr in his Sequel:'-" In Mackintosh I see the sternness of a republican without his acrimony, and the ardour of a reformer without his impetuosity. His taste in morals, like that of Mr Burke, is equally pure and delicate with his taste in literature. His mind is so compre

hensive, that generalities cease to be barren; and so vigorous, that detail itself becomes interesting. He introduces every question with perspicuity, states it with precision, and pursues it with easy unaffected method. Sometimes, perhaps, he may amuse his readers with excursions into paradox; but he never bewilders them by flights into romance. His philosophy is far more just, and far more amiable, than the philosophy of Paine, and his eloquence is only not equal to the eloquence of Burke. He is argumentative without sophistry, fervid without fury, profound without obscurity, and sublime without extravagance."

race.

Perhaps one of the finest passages in this celebrated Vindication, is the following character of Louis XIV.: "The intrusion of any popular voice was not likely to be tolerated in the reign of Louis XIV., a reign which has been so often celebrated as the zenith of warlike and literary splendour, but which has always appeared to me to be the consummation of whatever is afflicting and degrading in the history of the human Talent seemed in that reign to be robbed of the conscious elevation, of the erect and manly port, which is its noblest associate and its surest indication. The mild purity of Fenelon, the lofty spirit of Bossuet, the masculine mind of Boileau, the sublime fervour of Corneille, were confounded by the contagion of ignominious and indiscriminate servitude. It seemed as if the representative majesty of the genius and intellect of man were prostrated before the shrine of a sanguinary and dissolute tyrant, who practised the corruption of courts without their mildness, and incurred the guilt of wars without their glory. His highest praise is to have supported the stage-part of royalty with effect. And it is surely difficult to conceive any character more odious and despicable than that of a puny libertine, who, under the frown of a strumpet or a monk, issues the mandate that is to murder virtuous citizens, to desolate happy and peaceful hamlets, to wring agonizing tears from widows and orphans. Heroism has a splendour that almost atones for its excesses; but what shall we think of him, who, from the luxu

rious and dastardly security in which he wallows at Versailles, issues, with calm and cruel apathy, his orders to butcher the protestants of Languedoc, or to lay in ashes the villages of the Palatinate? On the recollection of such scenes as a scholar, I blush for the prostitution of letters; and as a man, I blush for the patience of humanity."

In 1795 Mr Mackintosh was called to the bar by the society of Lincoln's inn. In 1798 he, with some difficulty, obtained permission to read a course of lectures in Lincoln's hall on The Law of Nature and of Nations.' In these lectures, says Mr Campbell, "Mackintosh, with the eye of a true philosopher, laid bare the doctrines of Rousseau and Vattel, and of a host of their followers, who borrowed their conceptions of the law of nature from the savages of the forest, or from the abodes of the brute creation. In order to establish a false theory, those men assumed that man was always out of his natural state when he was removed in the smallest degree from barbarism. Mackintosh dispelled this error. Speaking of the law of nature he says, 'It is the law of nature, because its general precepts are essentially adapted to promote the happiness of man as long as he remains a being of the same nature with which he is at present endowed, or, in other words, as long as he continues to be man, in all the variety of times, places, and circumstances, in which he has been known or can be imagined to exist; because it is discoverable by natural reason, and suitable to our natural constitution; because its fitness and wisdom are founded on the general nature of human beings, and not on any of those temporary and accidental situations in which they may be placed. It is with still more propriety, and the most perfect accuracy, considered as a law, when, according to those just and magnificent views which philosophy and religion open to us of the government of the world, it is received and reverenced as the sacred code, promulgated by the great Legislator of the universe, for the guidance of his creatures to happiness, guarded and enforced, as our own experience may inform us, by the penal sanctions, of shame, of remorse, of infamy, and of misery; and still farther enforced by the reasonable expectation of yet more awful penalties in a future and more permanent state of existence.' If Mackintosh had published nothing else than his Discourse on the Law of Nature and of Nations,' he would have left a perfect monument of his intellectual strength and symmetry. And even supposing that that essay had been recovered, only imperfect and mutilated,—if but a score of its consecutive sentences could be shown, they would bear a testimony to his genius as decided as the bust of Theseus bears to Grecian art amidst the Elgin marbles."

In 1803 Mackintosh defended the editor of The Ambigu,' on his trial for libel against the French consul. His speech on this occasion was pronounced by Lord Ellenborough to have been "the most eloquent he had ever heard in Westminster hall." The orator chiefly dwelt on the high importance of a free-press,-a doctrine which he illustrated with unequalled force and beauty. The following is a single specimen of his remarks under this head:

"I am convinced, by circumstances which I shall now abstain from discussing, that this is the first of a long series of conflicts, between the greatest power in the world, and the only free press now remaining in Europe. Gentlemen, this distinction of the English press is new, it

is a proud and melancholy distinction. Before the great earthquake of the French revolution had swallowed up all the asylums of free discussion on the continent, we enjoyed that privilege, indeed, more fully than others, but we did not enjoy it exclusively. In great monarchies, the press has always been considered as too formidable an engine to be intrusted to unlicensed individuals. But, in other continental countries, either by the laws of the state, or by long habits of liberality and toleration in magistrates, a liberty of discussion has been enjoyed, perhaps sufficient for most useful purposes. It existed, in fact, where it was not protected by law; and the wise and generous connivance of governments was daily more and more secured by the growing civilization of their subjects. In Holland, in Switzerland, in the imperial towns of Germany, the press was either legally or practically free. Holland and Switzerland are no more; and since the commencement of this prosecution, fifty imperial towns have been erased from the list of independent states by one dash of the pen. Three or four still preserve a precarious and trembling existence. I will not say by what compliances they must purchase its continuance. I will not insult the feebleness of states, whose unmerited fall I do most bitterly deplore. These governments were in many respects one of the most interesting parts of the ancient system of Europe. Unfortunately for the repose of mankind, great states are compelled, by regard to their own safety, to consider the military spirit and martial habits of their people as one of the main objects of their policy. Frequent hostilities seem almost the necessary condition of their greatness; and, without being great, they cannot long remain safe. Smaller states, exempted from this cruel necessity-a hard condition of greatness, a bitter satire on human nature-devoted themselves to the arts of peace, to the cultivation of literature, and the improvement of reason. They became places of refuge for free and fearless discussion; they were the impartial spectators and judges of the various contests of ambition, which from time to time disturbed the quiet of the world. They thus became peculiarly qualified to be the organs of that public opinion, which converted Europe into a great republic, with laws which mitigated, though they could not extinguish, ambition; and with moral tribunals, to which even the most despotic sovereigns were amenable. If wars of aggrandizement were undertaken, their authors were arraigned in the face of Europe. If acts of infernal tyranny were perpetrated, they resounded from a thousand presses throughout all civilized countries. Princes, on whose will there were no legal checks, thus found a moral restraint, which the most powerful of them could not brave with absolute impunity. They acted before a vast audience, to whose applause or condemnation they could not be utterly indifferent. The very constitution of human nature, the unalterable laws of the mind of man, against which all rebellion is fruitless, subjected the proudest tyrants to this control. No elevation of power, no depravity, however consummate,-no innocence, however spotless, can render man wholly independent of the praise or blame of his fellow-men. These governments were, in other respects, one of the most beautiful and interesting parts of our ancient system. The perfect security of such inconsiderable and feeble states, their undisturbed tranquillity amidst the wars and conquests that surrounded them, attested, beyond any other part of the European system, the moderation.

the justice, the civilization, to which Christian Europe had reached in modern times. Their weakness was protected only by the habitual reverence for justice, which, during a long series of ages, had grown up in Christendom. This was the only fortification which defended them against those mighty monarchs to whom they offered so easy a prey. And till the French revolution, this was sufficient. Consider, for instance, the situation of the republic of Geneva: think of her defenceless position, in the very jaws of France; but think also of her undisturbed security, of her profound quiet, of the brilliant success with which she applied to industry and literature, while Louis XIV. was pouring his myriads into Italy before her gates; call to mind, if ages crowded into years have not effaced them from your memory, the happy period when we scarcely dreamt more of the subjugation of the feeblest republics of 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 true civilization. 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 still inviolate. There is still one spot in Europe where man can freely exercise his reason on the most important concerns of society; where he can boldly publish his judgment on the acts of the proudest and most powerful tyrants. The press of England is still free. It is guarded by the free constitution of our forefathers. It is guarded by the hearts and arms of Englishmen; and I trust I may venture to say, that if it be to fall, it will fall only under the ruins of the British empire. It is an awful consideration, gentlemen. Every other monument of European liberty has perished. That ancient fabric, which has been gradually reared by the wisdom and virtue of our fathers, still stands― it stands, thanks be to God! solid and entire--but it stands alone, and it stands amidst ruins."

He sketches the following vivid picture of the leading actors in the French revolution: "Some of them, indeed-the basest of the race— the sophists, the rhetors, the poet-laureates of murder—who were cruel only from cowardice and calculating selfishness, are perfectly willing to transfer their venal pens to any government that does not disdain their infamous support. These men, republicans from servility, who published rhetorical panegyrics on massacre, and who reduced plunder to a system of ethics, are as ready to preach slavery as anarchy. But the more daring-1 had almost said, the more respectable ruffians— cannot so easily bend their heads under the yoke. These fierce spirits have not lost the unconquerable will, the study of revenge, immortal hate.' They leave the luxuries of servitude to the mean and dastardly hypocrites, to the Belials and Mammons of the infernal faction. They pursue their old end of tyranny under their old pretext of liberty. The recollection of their unbounded power renders every inferior condition irksome and vapid, and their former atrocities form, if I may so speak, a sort of moral destiny, which irresistibly impels them to the