ESSAY ON ENGLISH HISTORY.

35

Hume, yet so peculiar and excellent in its way, that, instead of interfering with, it would have added to the public benefit conferred by such writers as Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. Mr. Burke entitled the few sheets he brought out "An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History, from the invasion of Julius Cæsar to the end of the reign of King John." The work teems with the sense and philosophy of its author. It differs much in language and thought from the great histories of Burke's own time. It exhibits little of their dazzling, yet but too often deceptive diction, but adopts rather the earnest and contemplative mode of writing pursued by later historians, such as Roscoe, Hallam, and Mackintosh. It is a pity that, while the "Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful" continues so popular, these chapters on early English history-perhaps the abler production of the twoshould have sunk into comparative oblivion. Few accounts of the period of Anglo-Saxon rule in England are better than that given by Mr. Burke, or more likely to assist those seeking knowledge on the subject.*

* In portraying individuals, Burke is often scarcely less felicitous than Hume. His characters of William the Conqueror, Lanfranc, and Henry II., which were much admired when the work appeared, gracefully prove this. They are as follow:

WILLIAM I.-LANFRANC.

"There is nothing more memorable in history than the actions, fortunes, and character of this great man (William); whether we consider the grandeur of the plans he formed, the courage and wisdom with which they were executed, or the splendour of that success, which, adorning his youth, continued without the smallest reserve to support his age, even to the last moments of his life. He lived above seventy years, and reigned within ten years as long as he lived-sixty over his dukedom, above twenty over England-both of which he acquired or kept by his own magnanimity, with hardly any other title than he derived from his arms; so that he might be reputed in all respects, as happy as the highest ambition the most fully gratified can make a man. The silent inward satisfactions of domestic happiness he neither had nor sought. He had a body suited to the character of his mind-erect, firm, large, and active, whilst to be active was a praise; a countenance stern, and which became command. Magnificent in his living, reserved in his conversation, grave in his common deportment, but relaxing

The opening of the year 1758 brought with it the birth of a son to Edmund Burke-a precious but a fatal gift. After the

with a wise facetiousness, he knew how to relieve his mind and preserve his dignity; for he never forfeited by a personal acquaintance that esteem he had acquired by his great actions. Unlearned in books, he formed his understanding by the rigid discipline of a large and complicated experience. He knew men much, and therefore generally trusted them but little; but when he knew any man to be good, he reposed in him an entire confidence, which prevented his prudence from degenerating into a vice. He had vices in his composition, and great ones; but they were vices of a great mind-ambition, the malady of every extensive genius; and avarice, the madness of the wise. One chiefly actuated his youth; the other governed his age. The vices of young and light minds, the joys of wine, and the pleasures of love, never reached his aspiring nature. The general run of men he looked on with contempt, and treated with cruelty when they opposed him. Nor was the rigour of his mind to be softened but with the appearance of extraordinary fortitude in his enemies, which by a sympathy, congenial to his own virtues, always excited his admiration, and insured his mercy; so that there were often seen in this one man, at the same time, the extremes of a savage cruelty, and a generosity that does honour to human nature. Religion, too, seemed to have a great influence on his mind from policy, or from better motives; but his religion was displayed in the regularity with which he performed its duties, not in the submission he showed to its ministers, which was never more than what good government required. Yet his choice of a counsellor and favourite was (not according to the mode of the time) out of that order, and a choice that does honour to his memory: this was Lanfranc, a man of great learning for the times, and extraordinary piety. He owed his elevation to William ; but though always inviolably faithful, he never was the tool or flatterer of the power that raised him; and the greater freedom he showed, the higher he rose in the confidence of his master. By mixing with the concerns of state he did not lose his religion and conscience, or make them the covers or instruments of ambition; but tempering the fierce policy of a new power by the mild lights of religion, he became a blessing to the country in which he was promoted. The English owed to the virtue of this stranger, and the influence he had on the king, the little remains of liberty they continued to enjoy, and at last such a degree of his confidence as in some sort counterbalanced the severities of the former part of his reign."

HENRY II.

"John was Henry II.'s youngest and favourite child. In him he reposed all his hopes, and consoled himself for the undutifulness of his other

first burst of joy which the parental fondness of one so strong in home affections would naturally feel, pride and hope, as time went on, enhanced the pleasure. With increase of fame and fortune, the expectation grew larger and larger, that hereditary vitality and hereditary honour awaited the statesman-that with himself his genius was not to pass away, but to flourish in descent. Burke's very soul wrapt itself in this flattering vision. He doated on the object of such auspicious promise beyond almost a father's love-perhaps, to judge from the result, beyond the devotion that should be bestowed on earthly things; for, through the very sunshine of his affection, came from Providence the stroke, which made a wreck of the great man's aspirations, happiness,

sons; but after concluding the treaty with the king of France and Richard, he found too soon that John had been as deep as any in the conspiracy. This was his last wound. Afflicted by his children in their deaths, and harassed in their lives; mortified as a father and a king; worn down with cares and sorrows more than with years, he died cursing his fortune, his children, and the hour of his birth When he perceived that death approached him, by his own desire he was carried into a church and laid at the altar's foot. Hardly had he expired when he was stripped, then forsaken by his attendants, and left a long time a naked and unheeded corpse in an empty church; affording a just consolation for the obscurity of a mean fortune, and an instructive lesson how little an outward greatness, and enjoyments foreign to the mind, contribute towards a solid felicity, in the example of one who was the greatest of kings and the unhappiest of mankind."

The following graphic description of Ireland occurs in this English History:

"Ireland is about half as large as England. In the temperature of the climate there is little difference, other than that more rain falls, as the country is more mountainous, and exposed full to the westerly wind, which, blowing from the Atlantic Ocean, prevails during the greater part of the year. This moisture, as it has enriched the country with large and frequent rivers, and spread out a number of fair and magnificent lakes beyond the proportion of other places, has, on the other hand, encumbered the island with an uncommon multitude of bogs and morasses; so that in general it is less praised for corn than pasturage, in which no soil is more rich and luxuriant. Whilst it possesses these internal means of wealth, it opens on all sides a great number of ports, spacious and secure, and, by their advantageous situation, inviting to universal commerce."

and life. Burke's son, who was called Richard, was born in January 1758. With the exception of a child christened Christopher, that died in infancy, Burke had no other issue.

This year, 1758, Mr. Burke planned and prepared, under the auspices of the publisher Mr. Dodsley, a periodical which, with but one exception, "the Gentleman's Magazine," has had the longest life of any such work that has appeared in this country. This was the still-existing and still-flourishing "Annual Register," a miscellany of great utility, which has had, through its whole course, the good fortune of able and effective editorship. The “Annual Register's" historical chronicle, begun by Edmund Burke, and sustained to the present time by other writers, with consummate industry and skill, has been a plentiful source to the majority of modern historians, and affords in itself a most copious supply of knowledge. The other features of the "Annual Register" are also good. Its reviews have ever been trustworthy and just; such, indeed, as distinguish the labours of the critic from the Zoïlus, that character, whose cowardice and malignity Henry Fielding has so powerfully depicted, entitling him the "slanderer of books." The philosophical and lighter articles, and the poetry of the "Annual Register," frequently partake of the excellences of that very best of all our periodicals, “Blackwood's Magazine." A peculiar worth of the "Annual Register" consists in the continual maintenance of that intellectual tone and fair spirit which Edmund Burke first gave it. This makes the work appear as if still composed by its sagacious originator.

The first volume of the "Annual Register" was issued in June 1759. It is curious now to refer to that volume, and to observe how much there is of Edmund Burke's bent of mind about it. The historical portion opens with the subject of America, and the first among the essays inserted is that on Taste, by Montesquieu. The preface unmistakably comes from the pen of Burke. commences thus:

It

"Some of the learned have been very severe upon such works

as we now lay before the public. Their severity would have been just, if such works had been recommended or used to the exclusion of more important studies. Those who aspire to a solid erudition must undoubtedly take other methods to acquire it. They have their labour and their merit. But there are readers of another order, who must not be left wholly unprovided. For such readers it is our province to collect matters of a lighter nature; but pleasing even by their levity, by their variety, and their aptitude to enter into common conversation. Things of this sort often gradually and imperceptibly insinuate a taste for knowledge, and in some measure gratify that taste. They steal some moments from the round of dissipation and pleasure. They relieve the minds of men of business, who cannot pass from severe labour to severe study, with an elegant relaxation. They preserve the strenuous idleness of many from a worse employment. These pretensions we have in common with all the other periodical compilers; and the same apology serves us all. But it will be expected, that in offering a new performance to the public, we should mention some new and peculiar advantage which we pretend to have over our fellow-labourers. Some such advantages we flatter ourselves we possess, partly arising from our scheme of an annual rather than monthly publication; partly from our own attention and industry."

carried on by During a fur

The "Annual Register" was for several years Burke himself, or under his immediate inspection. ther period, when he became immersed in active politics, which necessarily took him from the miscellany, it had still the benefit of his general superintendence and of the occasional exercise of his own talents. At no time, however, would Burke allow his name or any particular mention of himself, further than could be avoided, to appear in connexion with this periodical, since he held it to be the better taste always to preserve, in such kind of writing, a perfect incognito