From Chambers' Journal. METAPHYSICS OF PARTY. In all states where the popular voice is heard, there is a divarification of the people into parties. It seems to be an unavoidable consequence of deliberation on their part, that a diversity of view arises, under which they commence pulling different ways. It usually depends on external circumstances which of the two sets gives the actual direction to affairs. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that the entire population is divided into parties. It is only in extraordinary circumstances that even an approach is made to an involvement of the whole people in controversial politics. The actual partisans are usually but a handful on each side, while the great mass remains in the centre with a comparatively dull sense of what is going on, and little disposition to interfere, although liable to be to some extent affected towards one view or the other, according as arguments are successfully addressed to them, or circumstances arise to enforce their attention to public questions, to excite their prejudices, and to awaken their hopes and fears. It is this torpor of the mass which forms the great difficulty in democratic arrangements. In tranquil times they would rather not use their votes. In times of excitement, the use to be made of these votes depends almost entirely on the dexterity with which popular prejudices are addressed by unscrupulous members of the thinking handful; whence of course disappointments, despair of progress, patriotic heartbreak, and many consequent evils. circumstances. Where the natural tendencies are not of a very resolute character, they will be much affected and biassed by parental authority and example, and the force of external circumstances generally. They will also, even in pretty strong cases, undergo a change in the course of advancing years. Thus he who begins with romantic feelings in favor of authority and antiquity, is often seen, as he grows soberer, and acquires more solid, as well as more extensive views, to pass wholly or partially into the opposite range of politics. He who began with ardent hopes of improvement from change, is often, in like manner, disenchanted in his middle or elderly life, and becomes fain to own that things which he once thought wrong may have an intermediate bastard utility not altogether to be despised, while as yet society is composed of a mixture of the civilized and savage. Then there is a set whose general determination is apt to be affected by whims, crotchets, or views of interest. Thus we sometimes see a neighbor range himself on the conservative side, not exactly because he primarily tends that way, but because the opposite system has awakened some antipathy in his nature. Popular causes, though often invested with a certain sublimity, are more generally liable to vulgar associations. The cant, the clangor, the dust and sweat attending them, are repulsive to a fastidious nature; while, on the other hand, the select few ranged in opposition appear gentlemanly, gallant, almost martyr-like. In this way many fine spirits are lost to great movements both in politics and religion. A mind, too, which is in the main of liberal inclinations, may betake itself to the opposite banners because of something in its own position which brings it painfully into collision with authority. An arrogant father or master will sometimes send one of nature's conservatives to the camp of the enemy. A proud spirit, chafing in an unworthy situation, looked down upon by reputedly superior classes, while conscious of that within which ought to annul all social distinctions, will often take the rebellious side in despite of the first intention of In that intelligent and active portion of a people which becomes inspired with party feelings, it is curious to study the various causes which determine particular predilections. What may be called the natural bases of partisanship are really traceable. Some minds are from the cradle venerative of authority, and through life continue ready to submit to it, and exert themselves for its support. Others are congenitally jealous of power, indisposed to yield to it, and eager to keep it in check. Here are the two great sources of loyalty and Jacobinism.nature. Some minds look with romantic tenderness on what Among this class of causes there is obviously is old; they love to wander back into the past, and none more powerful than the selfish feelings. It is regret whatever tends to produce a change in the a mistake, however, to suppose that men are to any ancient landmarks. Others, again, are all for the great extent bought by actual money or by prosromance of the future. Change is to them a con- pects of advancement. The chances on both sides tinual subject of hope. The present does not sat-are much alike in these respects. Purchased parisfy them; the past they despise. Here are the tisanship was a feature of grosser ages, but scarcely two great natural sources of conservative and re- of ours. People are now more liable to be gained forming politics. Some minds, again, are intoler- or lost through their self-love and love of approbaant of whatever is not clearly useful, expedient, and tion. A man thinks he is of some value: if courted economical. Others regard such matters with in- to the extent of his sense of this value, he will perdifference or with contempt. The former have a haps give his support; if neglected, he will be apt, satisfaction in viewing the means of promoting the out of pique, to go to the other side. A very small benefit of the community. The philanthropy of matter in the way of courtesy will often not merely the latter never gets beyond the particular case of obtain a vote, but determine a career of some imsome friend, or dependent, or any individual casu- portance to the public. It is not that there is a ally brought under their attention. Here, it is want of conscientiousness in such minds. They equally evident, are the natural origins of the polit-are merely irresolute in the midst of contending arico-economical reformer and his opposite. Now, guments, and liable to be taken to that side which though there are three sets of characters brought shall place them on the most agreeable footing with here into contrast, they are all in general resolved themselves. Once let any petty circumstance deinto one set of persons. Jealousy of power, hope-cide the way which they are to take, and the perfulness of change, and love of the economical, are sonal feeling, "This is my side," will keep them attributes usually found in one person, as the oppo-as upon a line of rails through life, or till something sites also are, though perhaps not all found at the equally petty shall occur to disgust them with their same time, as it is not always that there is occasion party. for the development of the whole set of feelings at once. There are, however, secondary and modifying All of these causes may be said to be alike natural, though all cannot be considered as alike respectable. Where one's line of politics is determined by innate tendencies of the mind, apart from all selfish considerations, the whole range of action which results, as far as bounded by rules of honor, is entitled to public respect. It is all that we have of the nature of a Divine voice speaking in the breasts of men. Therefore, no matter how inconvenient the dictates of this voice may appear, no matter to what consequences it may threaten to lead, it must be respectfully listened to and entreated. To call the ultra-loyal by any such appellation as Malignants, or the ultra-liberal by such a term as Destructives, is not to be approved of by those who are out of the heat of the strife. Let there be as much activity of counteraction by argument as possible; seek by all means to establish the supremacy of what you believe to be better doctrines-but spare the fellow-creature who acts under the resistless necessity of his own lights, believing him to be, in intention, as good as yourself. When we come to consider the secondary or modifying circumstances, we feel of course more at liberty to assign degrees of merit and demerit. The mind which has been affected by educational influence, or yielded to the authority of others, even though these may have been persons generally entitled to reverence, cannot be considered as quite on the same moral platform with one which obeys great primitive impulses inherent in itself. Those who have changed their views with advancing years, alike true to the natural voice at the one time as the other, ought of course to be carefully distinguished from common renegades. The victims of crotchet and of petty feelings of self-love may be pitied, but we can never esteem them. They ought to have reflected on the great interests at stake, and not allowed themselves to be swayed by trivial considerations as to themselves. It is of importance to pass rigid judgment on such persons, because they often have from the rest of their character a high claim to respect. They may have, for instance, great talents. Common thinkers argue that because this is an able man, his word ought to go a great way. It is important to see that, while this would be true of an able man whose mind was clear to form sound conclusions, it is not true of one who has allowed himself to be carried out of his proper track by some romantic whimsey, some disgust at a successful rival, or some pique arising from his finding that his own estimate of himself was not admitted by the party to which he first seemed inclined to attach himself. It is one of the most distressing things in the world of politics to see a man who, from some such frivolous cause, has thrown himself into a false position. His energy and eloquence are hampered at every turn by his own secret convictions. He has to act, with affected cordiality, with those whom in his heart he despises. Should he have given himself to a failing cause, as very often happens, he is doomed to see his best talents expended in vain, to feel himself growing old without having accomplished anything, while inferior but better-directed men are reaping their due harvest of both profit and honor. These are amongst the moral suicides of the able men of the world. How powerfully do they warn us that we are not to be guided in any of the greater affairs of life by the self-hood, but by its opposite-a generous view of what is good for all. It is difficult, or rather impossible, for some natures to maintain coolness in times of violent political excitement; but to many it may not be altogether useless to remind them that the most earnestly cherished dogmas are liable to be followed by great disappointment. The French revolutionist sees his high aspirations for a rule by and for the people lead resistlessly to a despotism. The panicstruck conservative sees nothing follow from the changes which he vainly resisted, but a ridiculous falsification of his fears. If men would reflect how often the result has been different from that contemplated on either side, there would be, on the one hand, a soberer hope and a less intolerant feeling towards all thwarting influences, on the other a more cheerful trust in the course of Providence, even under what appear the most trying crises. Few politicians of any shade seem sufficiently aware of the character of that great central mass which has been already described as non-political. There, in reality, resides that which defeats alike the hopes of democratic and the fears of oligarchical parties. It is a mass which refuses to be democratized. It minds its own affairs, content with whatever rule may be over it, unless it be one which makes itself painfully felt indeed. Go beyond the capacity of change inherent in this mass, and you must come back again to where you were. Give it true cause of discontent, and it becomes an element of great danger, though one which cannot long remain in such an attitude. The great secret of successful rule is never to offend irremediably this true squadrone volante of parties, never to resist it beyond a certain point, and never to lose faith in it as a mass which can only be temporarily thrown out of its proper condition, as that which gives at once momentum and stability to the entire machine. Frem Blackwood's Magazine. THE LIFE OF THE SEA. BY B. SIMMONS. "A very intelligent young lady, born and bred in the Orkney islands, who lately came to spend a season in this neighborhood, told me nothing in the mainland scenery had so much disappointed her as woods and trees. She found them so dead and lifeless, that she never could help pining after the eternal motion and variety of the ocean. And so back she has gone; and I believe nothing will ever tempt her from the wind-swept Orcades again."-SIR WALTER SCOTT. Lockhart's Life, vol. ii.—[Although it is of a female this striking anecdote is related. it has been thought more suitable to give the amplified expression of the sentiment in the stanzas a masculine application.] I. THESE grassy vales are warm and deep, Drift in long wreaths.-Below, brook. II. But all too close against my face My thick breath feels these crowding trees, The wild free life that round the flinty shores BEN AND LOCH LOMOND. STILL Sleeps Loch Lomond by her mountain side, mis. POETRY. Evening Solace, 469.-Rash Opinions, 474.-The Life of the Sea, 478.-Ben and Loch Lomond, 479. SHORT ARTICLES.-Six Days shalt thou Labor, 476. PROSPECTUS. This work is conducted in the spirit of Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favor ably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is twice as large, and appears so often, we not only give spirit and freshness to it by many things which were excluded by a month's delay, but while thus extending our scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety, are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to satisfy the wants of the American reader. 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From the Quarterly Review. The History of England from the Accession of James II. By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 2 vols. 8vo. 1849. THE reading world will not need our testimony, though we willingly give it, that Mr. Macaulay possesses great talents and extraordinary acquirements. He unites powers and has achieved successes, not only various, but different in their character, and seldom indeed conjoined in one individual. He was, while in Parliament, though not quite an orator, and still less a debater, the most brilliant rhetorician of the house. His Roman ballads (as we said in an article on their first appearance) exhibit a novel idea worked out with a rare felicity, so as to combine the spirit of the ancient minstrels with the regularity of construction and sweetness of versification which modern taste requires; and his critical Essays exhibit a wide variety of knowledge with a great fertility of illustration, and enough of the salt of pleasantry and sarcasm to flavor, and in some degree disguise, a somewhat declamatory and pretentious dogmatism. It may seem too epigrammatic, but it is, in our serious judgment, strictly true, to say that his history seems to be a kind of combination and exaggeration of the peculiarities of all his former efforts. It is as full of political prejudice and partisan advocacy as any of his parliamentary speeches. It makes the facts of English history as fabulous as his Lays do those of Roman tradition; and it is written with as captious, as dogmatical, and as cynical a spirit as the bitterest of his reviews. That upon so serious an undertaking he has lavished uncommon exertion, is not to be doubted; nor can any one during the first reading escape the entraînement of his picturesque, vivid, and pregnant execution; but we have fairly stated the impression left on ourselves by a more calm and leisurely perusal. We have been so long the opponents of the political party to which Mr. Macaulay belongs that we welcomed the prospect of again meeting him on the neutral ground of literature. We are of that class of tories-Protestant tories, as they were called-that have no sympathy with the Jacobites. We are as strongly convinced as Mr. Macaulay can be of the necessity of the Revolution of 1688 of the general prudence and expediency of the steps taken by our whig and tory ancestors of the Convention Parliament, and of the happiness, for a century and a half, of the constitutional results. We were, therefore, not without hope that at least in these two volumes, almost entirely occupied with the progress and accomplishment of that revolution, we might, without any sacrifice of our political feelings, enjoy unalloyed the pleasures reasonably to be expected from Mr. Macaulay's high powers both of research and illustration. That hope VOL. XXI. 31 CCLXV. LIVING AGE. has been deceived; Mr. Macaulay's historical narrative is poisoned with a rancor more violent than even the passions of the time; and the literary qualities of the work, though in some respects very remarkable, are far from redeeming its substantial defects. There is hardly a page- we speak literally, hardly a page-that does not contain something objectionable either in substance or in color; and the whole of the brilliant and at first captivating narrative is perceived on examination to be impregnated to a really marvellous degree with bad taste, bad feeling, and, we are under the painful necessity of adding-bad faith. These are grave charges; but we make them in sincerity, and we think that we shall be able to prove them; and if, here or hereafter, we should seem to our readers to use harsher terms than good taste might approve, we beg in excuse to plead that it is impossible to fix one's attention on, and to transcribe large portions of a work, without being in some degree affected with its spirit; and Mr. Macaulay's pages, whatever may be their other characteristics, are as copious a repertorium of vituperative eloquence as, we believe, our language can produce, and especially against everything in which he chooses (whether right or wrong) to recognize the shibboleth of toryism. We shall endeavor, however, in the expression of our opinions. to remember the respect we owe to our readers and to Mr. Macaulay's general character and standing in the world of letters, rather than the provocations and example of the volumes immediately before us. Mr. Macaulay announces his intention of bringing down the history of England almost to our own times; but these two volumes are complete in themselves, and we may fairly consider them as a history of the Revolution; and in that light the first question that presents itself to us is why Mr. Macaulay has been induced to re-write what had already been so often and even so recently written-among others, by Dalrymple, a strenuous but honest whig, and by Mr. Macaulay's own oracles, Fox and Mackintosh? It may be answered that both Fox and Mackintosh left their works imperfect. Fox got no further than Monmouth's death; but Mackintosh came down to the Orange invasion, and covered full nine tenths of the period as yet occupied by Mr. Macaulay. Why then did Mr. Macaulay not content himself with beginning where Mackintosh left off-that is, with the Revolution? and it would have been the more natural, because, as our readers know, it is there that Hume's history terminates. What reason does he give for this work of supererogation? None. He does not (as we shall see more fully by and by) take the slightest notice of Mackintosh's history, no more than if it had never existed. Has he produced a new fact? Not one. |