tory, and the two combined exhibit his intellect in all its breadth and beauty. Though the latter work, constructed for immortality, will ever surpass its successor in general favour, because treating of a subject of permanent and universal interest, it is difficult to say to which the palm is due for intrinsic excellence. Our own taste inclines us at present to prefer the Essays-perhaps because they possess the charm of novelty, which frequent perusal has taken from his greater work. But in this we rather indicate a predilection than offer an opinion. If magnitude of conception and talent in the execution awaken our admiration in the History, the variety of natural gifts and extent of acquired knowledge will no less surprise us in the Essays. Surpassing those of Jeffrey-who, not widely learned, seldom original, moreover never gives one the feeling that he is in earnest, or deeply impressed with his subject; unlike those of Sidney Smith, whose vigorous and sparkling wit was chiefly expended on topics of ephemeral interest; possessing all the profound philosophy of Mackintosh, with ten times his pictorial powers and conse. quent popularity; rivalling Macaulay himself in ancient and modern lore, but inferior to him in condensation of ideas and arrangement of details, Alison surpasses him in the variety and grandeur of the subjects he discusses, and in the elevation of mind and grasp of intellect with which he treats them. In some respects these two great writers are remarkable contrasts. Macaulay, supreme in miniature-painting, exquisite in the selection and use of his colours and in the management of details, is unrivalled in the Historical Essay, or in delineating a memorable event or a particular era. Alison, excelling in breadth and grandeur of style, negligent of details, yet guided by exquisite art, is supreme on the extended canvas of History. son is a Michael Angelo, without his gloom; Macaulay combines the beauty of Raphael with the minuteness of the Dutch school. The erudition of both is amazing; but Alison's is the more varied. The style of the latter is free, flowing, vigorous; of the former, elegant exceedingly, but marked with care. Both are poetic in temperament—both at times rise to the highest flights of eloquence; but in earnestness and power the palni rests with Alison.

Ali

Macaulay addresses himself to the everyday world; Alison to the higher qualities of our nature. The former uses gossip frequently and systematically, to give piquancy to his narrative; Alison rarely, and only to depict character. No historian represents, in an equal degree with Macaulay, the average ideas, feelings, and political wants of the English people; he hits, without falling below or flying beyond, the popular mark; and his admirable sense and tact, and clear, business-like, yet brilliant style, confer on his works unbounded popularity. He is the repre- . sentative of the Present; Alison is the advocate of the Future.

It is a difficult task, in those days, for a man to work out for himself fame as a first-class author. The great works of former genius overshadow all mediocre attempts at immortality; and the public is ever chary of placing a new statue in their temple of High Art. Amusing works rise into notice like soap-bells, and glow for their day in the rainbow hues of popular favour; but elevated works, which aim at nothing less than an eternity of fame, encounter a very different reception. Whenever such an aut Cæsar aut nullus appears, he is received with the cold eye of dis trust. Reputations already made are endangered, old opinions threatened with subversion. Critics fear to err; and it is safer to censure than to eulogise-to point out blemishes, than give verdict on the whole performance. In such cases, the public never dissent from the critics at first; and, laudatores præteriti, are always ready to back their censures and unfavourable comparisons.. Mr. Alison, when the first volumes of his History appeared, was a man unknown to public fame. Though a staunch Conservative, his name was not identified with that of his party. No party organs praised his work while yet in embryo-no flourish of trumpets hailed its debut. It did not spare the errors of his own party, and it was felt as a mortal stroke by his opponents. He wrote, too, against the spirit of the times. It was during the fervour of Reform that the early volumes of his Conservative History appeared; and both then and since, his opinions have run counter to those of the majority of the nation. Independent in spirit and conscious of his powers, he did not surrender one iota of his convictions for the sake of catch

ing the popular gales; and he has lived to reap the recompense. He worked for enduring fame, and he has obtained his reward even in the present generation.

In all his writings Mr. Alison emphatically condemns the time-serving principle of expediency, ever too popular with mankind; and in his History he loses no opportunity of exhibiting the cheering truth, that national virtue ever triumphs in the end. His application of religion as a test to the conduct alike of nations and individuals, has been called the very salt of his great work; and it forms a sure, unwavering guide amid the mazes of conflicting opinions. His impartiality is unquestioned; and he not only gives the truth, but the whole truth. Everything has at least two sides, and Alison gives both. He knows well that the same man may be made a villain or a demigod, the same age be painted black or white, and with equal truth, by a one-sided sketcher, and that the only way to keep the reader right is to show him both views. He is of too elevated a nature to take any interest in the gossipry of scandal, and has no love for pulling down the great characters that stalk through his pages, by needlessly recounting their peccadilloes. Frailties he knows are everywhere—no man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre; and he never makes his pages piquant with scandal when he can render them elevating by noble examples. In his delineation of character, he metes out eulogy and censure with discriminating hand. There is a natural tendency for a grand impression to absorb all mi. nor ones, and it is an error into which men of warm feelings, like Mr. Alison, are very apt to fall; but the care with which he avoids this is not less remarkable than honourable to him. Such calm discrimination, indeed, is indispensable in the delineation of real life, where peculiarities of the most opposite description are not unfrequently found united in the same per

son.

Human nature is a bundle of contradictions, which the comprehensive powers of pen can alone depict. The utmost skill of the brush or the chisel fail in the attempt. They can only seize an hour of a lifetime, one phase of the strangely-changing soul; and whoever represents living men

thus, represents them defectively. In his dealing with such mixed characters, Mr. Alison follows the method indicated by Shakspeare:-"As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoiced at it; as he was valiant, I honour him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There are tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honour for his valour, and death for his ambition."

"We shall not," says Mr. Alison, in reviewing Macaulay's History of England, "in treating of the merits of this very remarkable production, adopt the not uncommon practice of reviewers on such occasions-we shall not pretend to be better informed on the details of the subject than our author, nor set up the reading of a few weeks or months against the study of half a lifetime. We shall not imitate certain critics who look at the bottom of the pages for the authorities of the author, and, having got the clue to the requisite information, proceed to examine, with the utmost minuteness, every particular of his narrative, and make, in consequence, a vast display of knowledge, wholly derived from the reading which he has suggested. We shall not be so deluded as to suppose we have made a great discovery in biography, because we have ascertained that some Lady Caroline of the last generation was born on the 1st October 1674, instead of the 8th February 1675, as the historian, with shameful negligence has affirmed; nor shall we take credit to ourselves for a journey down to Hampshire to consult the parish register on the subject. As little shall we in future accuse Macaulay of inaccuracy in describing battles, because, on referring, without mentioning it, to the military autho. rities he has quoted, and the page he has referred to, we have discovered that at some battle, as Malplaquet, Lottum's men stood on the right of the Prince of Orange, when he says they stood on the left; or that Marlborough dined on a certain day at one o'clock, when, in point of fact, he did not sit down, as is proved by incontestable authority, till half-past two. We shall leave such minute and Lilliputian criticisms to the minute and Lilliputian minds by whom alone they are ever made. Mr. Macaulay can afford to smile at all reviewers who affect to possess more than his own gigantic stores of information."*

This is well said, and doubtles owes not a little of its pungency to the waspish attacks with which his own writings have been assailed. All errors should be noted by reviewers, both small and great, even for the benefit of the au

thor himself and such criticism Mr. Alison and all worthy authors will hail with satisfaction; but to infer general inaccuracy from casual error, is to exemplify in sober life the old fable of the fault-finding fly on the cupola of St. Paul's. It would have been more than human, if so extensive a work as Mr. Alison's History had been immaculate-if no slip of the memory or pen had occurred during its composition; but every successive edition has been weeding them out; and this present edition may challenge the closest scrutiny to detect even a trivial error. It is after the closest scrutiny, and painstaking comparison with earlier editions, that we thus speak in its favour. New authorities, such as the Memoirs of Chateaubriand, Lamartine's Girondins, the concluding volumes of Thiers' History, &c., have been consulted;-fresh maps have been added to the magnificent atlas which illustrates the work, and a gallery of beautiful and authentic portraits adorns it pages;-many of the battle-scenes have been retouched,† and additional light thrown on that most puzzling of great engagements, the battle of Waterloo. The index continues in its former state of perfection; and a noble chapter of Concluding Reflections has been added, which closes the History with profound and original observations on the grand features of national politics and the general progress of mankind.

Many illustrious men have neglected their genius in youth-many more do not become aware of possessing it till that fleeting seed-time of future glory is past for ever.

"Amid my

vast and lofty aspirations," says Lamartine, "the penalty of a wasted youth overtook me. Adieu, then, to the dreams of genius-to the aspira

rations of intellectual enjoyment!" Many a gifted heart has sighed the same sad sigh; many a noble nature has walked to his grave in sackcloth, for one brief dallying in the bowers of Circe for one short sleep in the Castle of Indolence. But no such echo of regret can check the aspirations of our author. Brought up at the feet of Gamaliel in all that relates to lofty religious feeling and the admiration of art, and in not a little concerning the grand questions of national poli tics, his youth was well tended; and almost ere he emerged from that golden dreamy period, he had embarked on the undertaking which was to be the mission of his life, his passport to immortal fame. Among the dazzling and dazzled crowd whom, from all parts of Europe, the fall of Napoleon in 1814 had attracted to the French metropolis, was a young Englishman, who, hurrying from his paternal roof, arrived in time to witness the magnificent pageants which rendered memorable the residence of the Allied Sovereigns and armies in Paris. Napoleon had fallen, the last act of the revolutionary drama seemed to have closed; and on the Place Louis XV. assembled Europe and repentant France joined in the obsequies of its earliest victims and holiest martyrs. It was in the midst of those heart-stirring scenes, that the first inspiration of writing a history of the momentous period then seemingly closed, entered the throbbing breast of that English youth-and that youth was Alison. Ten years of travel, meditation, and research followed; during which the eye and the ear alike gathered materials for his great undertaking, and the mind was expanding its gifted powers preparatory to moulding these materials in a form worthy of the great events to be narrated, and of

the high conception which the youth longed to realise. Other fifteen years of composition were required ere the History was brought to a close, and the noble genius of its author awakened the admiration of Europe.

Strange as it may sound in unreflecting ears, we attribute much of the success of Mr. Alison's History to his imaginative powers. In a voluminous work, where a thousand trivial occurrences must be recounted, and many dry subjects discussed, it is imagination alone that can carry the reader through the mass of details - that can float Truth down the flood of Time. It is the peculiar faculty of imagination to clothe whatever it touches with beauty, yet without derogating from reality. The sunbeam adorns the spray of the waterfall with rainbow hues, without altering its nature; the author may paint his subject in lively colours without injuring the justness of the outline. "We cannot too often repeat," says Madame de Stael, "that imagination, far from being an enemy to truth, brings it out more than any other faculty of the mind," &c. &c. It is the highest quality of art; and it is of as much use to the historian as to the writer of romance: nay more, for with the latter, dry matter can be rejected-with the former, it must be retained and made interesting. This is the great difficulty in large histories-the narrative must be made interesting, yet kept real. Without this, the utmost powers of intellect and research will be displayed in vain-wisdom that nobody reads is lost.

But more than this is requisite to the successful writing of history: Art must mould the materials which research has collected and imagination adorned. The principles of proportion must be steadily kept in view; otherwise sameness will weary, progress be unmarked, and the reader be perplexed to discern what is trivial from what is important. If equal light be thrown upon all parts of a picture, the effect is ruined. It is this fault which mars the great historians of France. The justly celebrated writers of the graphic school of History, which arose in that country after the Revolution, have, almost without exception, fallen into this mistake. In the effort to avoid the tame apathetic narrative of former

historians, they have glided unconsciously into the opposite error; in the desire to be interesting and picturesque, they have finished all parts with the same minuteness, and have thus destroyed the perspective. Look at Michelet, and even the great Sismondi. Their narrative is admirably clear and graphic, but there is a want of subordination and exaltation of events: all are treated in the same minute careful style. Or else, in the author's desire to be truthful and truthful-like, he quotes largely from old chronicles or modern state papers, and smothers the interest of his narrative by a mass of foreign matter. Of the thirty volumes of Michelet's Histoire des Francais, about one-half are taken up with quotations of this kind, an error which not only clogs the narrative, but breaks the unity of the performance. Look at Thiers. In describing the circumstances of the Tennis-court Oath-the locking of the Assembly doors against the deputies-the conduct of the captain on guard the deputies' intentions of forcing from him the pass-word, and the very proper advice of Bailly to let the good-natured fellow alone-all are given so minutely as to make them appear of as much historical importance as the taking of the oath itself. In history, the general thread of the narrative should be (as it always is in Hume and in the old Classic historians) clear but unambitious-it must be kept in the shade; events of secondary importance must rise into half light; while a flood of radiance should be thrown upon the grand crises of the history. It is on such parts that the author should lavish his highest powers, and on such only. He must know not only where to be prodigal of his genius, but where to refrain.

On our first perusal of the History, we were astonished at the effect it produced on us; it had all the charm of romance, as well as the durable interest of history. The soul of the poet was felt in its scenes of grandeur or misfortune; the hand of the painter sketched the thrilling adjuncts of the battlefield; the spirit of the soldier breathed in the narrative of charging armies and heroic exploit; the eloquence of the orator spoke to us in his perorations; the eye of the general pointed out the manœuvres that lost or won a kingdom. All this, and a great deal

The

more, we felt, in common with others, before we got half through the work; but it was not till repeated perusals had made us familiar with it, and given us the power of analysing so extensive a work, that we came fully to appreciate the merit of the author, by discerning the grand plan upon which he worked. It is founded on a systematic application of those principles of relief and proportion which we have already declared indispensable in all high art; and when once discovered, it can be traced throughout every portion of the History. The ten years which he spent in preparation were not spent in vain: before he put pen to paper the plan was complete in all its details-the chart of his History was already laid down minutely -the clue of Ariadne was prepared, which was to lead him unembarrassed through the "mighty maze" of the Revolutionary contest. heroic mood cannot always be sus. tained; the ardour of the battle-field, or the breathless struggle of parties, will pall if long continued: the mind requires as much relief in a long history as the eye seeks and finds in the varying hues of nature. "Whenever I am particularly dull," said Sir Walter Scott, "be assured it is not without an object;" and on all occasions Mr. Alison takes excellent advantage of this principle of our nature. Chapters on the great questions which rose into notice during that period, give variety to the work; as each new nation enters the arena, a condensed view is given of its past history and present resources; and even the driest topics lose somewhat of their dryness from the position they occupy,-generally filling up some pause in the contest, some lull of history, bordering on and relieving some dreadful strife of nations. Linked to his well-connected narrative, are the brilliant episodes upon the rise of our Indian Empire, the American war, and the South American revolutions; completing the history of that first-born and mightiest of revolutions which, cradled in France, enthroned in Europe, spread its arms to the uttermost parts of the earth.

If we examine our author's critical Essays, we shall see with what care he has sought out the true principles of the art of history in the works of others-if we turn to his History, we will see how successfully he has em

bodied them in his own. Art is as discernible in his great work as in the masterpieces of painting and the drama. On the approach of a decisive battle, for instance, we first see the hostile armies scattered, perhaps, in cantonments, and the plans of their chiefs; we then see them draw rapidly together, and sweep towards one another like lowering thunderclouds. The unimportant preliminary combats of the mancuvring hosts are dismissed in a sentence; and the narrative glides on unbroken and swift

"The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below."

While the rival hosts slumber around their watchfires, on the night before the battle, a paragraph indicates their respective advantages, force, and valour, and the weighty issues hanging on the soldier's arm. Then comes the battle a vivid startling picture, that makes the heart beat faster; then the pursuit, the efforts of the pursuer and pursued the surrender or the armis tice. The reader feels the approach of a Borodino or a Leipsic with unfailing prescience; and from that instant the interest never flags-the author never draws bridle till the battle is won and its fruits reaped.

Mr. Alison has permanently placed history on a level with the fine arts, and under the mask of nature, has reared the most artistic monument

that this or any other country has ever produced. In the nature of his subject, he has a great advantage over the immortal work of Gibbon. The Decline and Fall of Rome, most interesting to classical readers, most instructive to the philosophic of all ages, is too far removed from us by time, difference of civilization, antagonism of religion, to awaken our deepest sympathies,-especially in an age when generosity and imagination, the higher parts of our intellectual and moral being, are kicking the beam in the popular ba lance of utilitarianism, and when the momentous interest of present questions, present convulsions, is driving the memory of all others from our thoughts. But the interests at issue in the narrative of Alison come home to every heart; they are peculiarly those of present times-our fathers or ourselves took part in the contest he describes. Democracy, scepticism, ma