ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THIS HISTORY. 13 sell, and Sydney, -as it becomes Englishmen to speak and to think of such characters. To talk with affected tenderness of oppressors, may suit the policy of those who wish to bespeak the clemency of an Imperial Conqueror; but must appear peculiarly base and inconsistent in all who profess an anxiety to rouse the people to great exertions in the cause of their independence. The volume itself, which has given occasion to these reflections, and from which we have withheld our readers too long, consists of a preface or general introduction from the pen of Lord Holland; an introductory chapter, comprising a review of the leading events, from the year 1640 to the death of Charles II.; two chapters of the history of the reign of James, which include no more than seven months of the year 1685, and narrate very little but the unfortunate expeditions of Argyle and of Monmouth; and a pretty long Appendix, consisting chiefly of the correspondence between Barillon, the French confidential minister at the court of England, and his master Louis XIV. Lord Holland's part of the volume is written with great judgment, perspicuity, and propriety; and though it contains less anecdote and minute information with regard to his illustrious kinsman than every reader must wish to possess, it not only gives a very satisfactory account of the progress of the work to which it is prefixed, but affords us some glimpses of the character and opinions of its author, which are peculiarly interesting, both from the authenticity of the source from which they are derived, and from the unostentatious simplicity with which they are communicated. Lord Holland has not been able to ascertain at what period Mr. Fox first formed the design of writing a history; but, from the year 1797, when he ceased to give a regular attendance in parliament, he was almost entirely occupied with literary schemes and avocations. The following little sketch of the temper and employments of him who was pitied by many as a disappointed politician, is extremely amiable; and, we are now convinced by the fragment before us, correctly true. 14 FOX'S HISTORY -THE AUTHOR'S HABITS OF STUDY. "During his retirement, that love of literature, and fondness for poetry, which neither pleasure nor business had ever extinguished, revived with an ardour, such as few, in the eagerness of youth or in pursuit of fame or advantage, are capable of feeling. For some time, however, his studies were not directed to any particular object. Such was the happy disposition of his mind, that his own reflections, whether supplied by conversation, desultory reading, or the common occurrences of a life in the country, were always sufficient to call forth the vigour and exertion of his faculties. Intercourse with the world had so little deadened in him the sense of the simplest enjoyments, that even in the hours of apparent leisure and inactivity, he retained that keen relish of existence, which, after the first impressions of life, is so rarely excited but by great interests and strong passions. Hence it was, that in the interval between his active attendance in parliament, and the undertaking of his History, he never felt the tedium of a vacant day. A verse in Cowper, which he frequently repeated, 'How various his employments whom the world was an accurate description of the life he was then leading; and I am persuaded, that if he had consulted his own gratifications only, it would have continued to be so. The circumstances which led him once more to take an active part in public discussions, are foreign to the purposes of this preface. It is sufficient to remark, that they could not be foreseen, and that his notion of engaging in some literary undertaking was adopted during his retirement, and with the prospect of long and uninterrupted leisure before him."—p. iii. iv. He seems to have fixed finally on the history of the Revolution, about the year 1799; but even after the work was begun, he not only dedicated large portions of his time to the study of Greek literature, and poetry in general, but meditated and announced to his correspondents a great variety of publications, upon a very wide range of subjects. Among these were, an edition of Dryden - a Defence of Racine and of the French Stage an Essay on the Beauties of Euripides a Disquisition upon Hume's History - and an Essay or Dialogue on Poetry, History, and Oratory. In 1802, the greater part of the work, as it now stands, was finished; but the author wished to consult the papers in the Scotch College, and the Depôt des Affaires etrangères at Paris, and took the opportunity of the peace to pay a visit to that capital accordingly. After his return, he made some additions to his chapters; but being soon after recalled to the duties of public life, he never afterwards HIS NOTIONS OF WHAT HISTORY SHOULD BE. 15 found leisure to go on with the work to which he had dedicated himself with so much zeal and assiduity. What he did write was finished, however, for the most part, with very great care. He wrote very slow and was extremely fastidious in the choice of his expressions; holding pedantry and affectation, however, in far greater horror than carelessness or roughness. He commonly wrote detached sentences on slips of paper, and afterwards dictated them off to Mrs. Fox, who copied them into the book from which the present volume has been printed without the alteration of a single syllable. The only other part of Lord Holland's statement, to which we think it necessary to call the attention of the reader, is that in which he thinks it necessary to explain the peculiar notions which Mr. Fox entertained on the subject of historical composition, and the very rigid laws to which he had subjected himself in the execution of his important task. "It is therefore necessary to observe, that he had formed his plan so exclusively on the model of ancient writers, that he not only felt some repugnance to the modern practice of notes, but he thought that all which an historian wished to say, should be introduced as part of a continued narration, and never assume the appearance of a digression, much less of a dissertation annexed to it. From the period, therefore, that he closed his Introductory Chapter, he defined his duty as an author, to consist in recounting the facts as they arose; or in his simple and forcible language, in telling the story of those times. A conversation which passed on the subject of the literature of the age of James the Second, proves his rigid adherence to these ideas; and perhaps the substance of it may serve to illustrate and explain them. In speaking of the writers of that period, he lamented that he had not devised a method of interweaving any account of them or their works, much less any criticism on their style, into his history. On my suggesting the example of Hume and Voltaire, who had discussed such topics at some length, either at the end of each reign, or in a separate chapter, he observed, with much commendation of their execution of it, that such a contrivance might be a good mode of writing critical essays, but that it was, in his opinion, incompatible with the nature of his undertaking, which, if it ceased to be a narrative, ceased to be a history."-p. xxxvi. xxxvii. Now, we must be permitted to say, that this is a view of the nature of history, which, in so far as it is intelligible, appears to be very narrow and erroneous; and which seems, like all such partial views, to have been so 16 FOX HIS NOTION OF HISTORY TOO LIMITED, little adhered to by the author himself, as only to exclude many excellences, without attaining the praise even of consistency in error. The object of history, we conceive, is to give us a clear narrative of the transactions of past ages, with a view of the character and condition of those who were concerned in them, and such reasonings and reflections as may be necessary to explain their connection, or natural on reviewing their results. That some account of the authors of a literary age should have a place in such a composition, seems to follow upon two considerations: first, because it is unquestionably one object of history to give us a distinct view of the state and condition of the age and people with whose affairs it is occupied; and nothing can serve so well to illustrate their true state and condition as a correct estimate and description of the great authors they produced: and, secondly, because the facts that such and such authors did flourish in such a period, and were ingenious and elegant, or rude and ignorant, are facts which are interesting in themselves, and may be made the object of narrative just as properly as that such and such princes or ministers did flourish at the same time, and were ambitious or slothful, tyrannical or friends to liberty. Political events are not the only events which are recorded even in ancient history; and, now when it is generally admitted, that even political events cannot be fully understood or accounted for without taking into view the preceding and concomitant changes in manners, literature, commerce, &c. it cannot fail to appear surprising, that an author of such a compass of mind as belonged to Mr. Fox, should have thought of confining himself to the mere chronicling of wars or factions, and held himself excluded, by the laws of historical composition, from touching upon topics so much more interesting. The truth is, however, that Mr. Fox has by no means adhered to this plan of merely "telling the story of the times" of which he treats. On the contrary, he is more full of argument, and what is properly called reflection, than most modern historians with whom we AND NOT ACTED ON BY HIMSELF. 17 are acquainted. His argument, to be sure, is chiefly directed to ascertain the truth of reputed facts, or the motives of ambiguous actions; and his reflections, however just and natural, may commonly be considered as redundant, with a view to mere information. Of another kind of reasoning, indeed, he is more sparing; though of a kind far more valuable, and, in our apprehension, far more essential to the true perfection of history. We allude now to those general views of the causes which influence the character and disposition of the people at large; and which, as they vary from age to age, bring a greater or a smaller part of the nation into contact with its government, and ultimately produce the success or failure of every scheme of tyranny or freedom. The more this subject is meditated, the more certain, we are persuaded, it will appear, that all permanent and important occurrences in the internal history of a country, are the result of those changes in the general character of its population; and that kings and ministers are necessarily guided in their projects by a feeling of the tendencies of this varying character, and fail or succeed, exactly as they had judged correctly or erroneously of its condition. To trace the causes and the modes of its variation, is therefore to describe the true sources of events; and, merely to narrate the occurrences to which it gave rise, is to recite a history of actions without intelligible motives, and of effects without assignable causes. It is true, no doubt, that political events operate in their turn on that national character by which they are previously moulded and controuled: But they are very far, indeed, from being the chief agents in its formation; and the history of those very events is necessarily imperfect, as well as uninstructive, if the consideration of those other agents is omitted. They consist of every thing which affects the character of individuals: - manners, education, prevailing occupations, religion, taste,-and, above all, the distribution of wealth, and the state of prejudice and opinions. It is the more to be regretted, that such a mind as Mr. Fox's should have been bound up from such a sub |