merit. It was, as we have said, one of the leading objects of the Review, to introduce and enforce more correct principles of reasoning and taste. As Lord Jeffrey says in his preface, the "Review aimed high from the first:

"And refusing to confine itself to the humble task of pronouncing on the mere literary merits of the works that came before it, professed to go deeply into the Principles on which its judgments were to be rested; as well as to take large and original views of all the important questions to which those works might relate. And, on the whole, I think it is now pretty generally admitted, that it attained the end it aimed at. Many errors there were, of course, and some considerable blunders; abundance of indiscretions, especially in the earlier Numbers; and far too many excesses, both of party zeal, overweening confidence, and intemperate blame. But with all these drawbacks, I think it must be allowed to have substantially succeeded-in familiarizing the public mind (that is, the minds of very many individuals) with higher speculations, and sounder and larger views of the great objects of human pursuit, than had ever before been brought as effectually home to their apprehensions, and also in permanently raising the standard, and increasing the influence of all such occasional writings, not only in this country, but over the greater part of Europe, and the free States of America; while it proportionally enlarged the capacity, and improved the relish, of the growing multitudes to whom such writings were addressed, for the stronger meats' which were then first provided for their digestion.”—P. ix.

Now, in the attainment of this object, it was essential that the subjects of controversy should be reduced to their elements, and that the foundation of a more solid and enduring canon of judgment should be laid on a correct basis of sound principle. Hence the great utility of that habit of analysis which was favoured by the taste of the time, and of which our author is so great a master. It is true, some of these analytical processes read now like a series of self-evident propositions; and we sometimes think it was hardly worth while to use an instrument so subtile to extract so plain a truth. But it must be borne in mind, that what we think self-evident and axiomatic, were the very propositions, the denial or disregard of which lay at the root of the misgovernment and perverted taste of the day; and the fact, that these principles, which were so utterly forgotten when his labours commenced, and so frequently derided and repudiated during his advocacy of them, are now received and acknowledged on all hands as rudimental-so that the demonstration of them appears superfluous--is perhaps the most flattering testimony which could be paid to the efficiency and moral influence of his writings.

No better illustration of these remarks occurs to us than the

Review of Mr. Leckie's "Essay on the British Government, vol. iv., p. 1. So gross and foolish a libel on constitutional liberty, would hardly, perhaps, at present find a reader, and certainly not a reviewer; nor, on the other hand, would any politician, or class of politicians, so far commit themselves with the public, as to deny, that all government flows from the people, and has the good of the people as its only end. But when this elaborate defence of very plain principles was composed, a man was not thought either a knave or a fool, but, on the contrary, a truly loyal British subject, deserving of great rewards, and very often receiving them, who stood up for the divine right of kings, and the sinfulness of questioning the absolute wisdom of any constituted authority. Nor must we rashly conclude, that although such notions are now obsolete, they are necessarily extinct. We have seen some strange resurrections in our own day. Opinions which have at any time taken a strong hold on intelligent men, never die, however pernicious or absurd; nor is a country or age ever safe against their re-appearance. It was by exorcisms such as those of the Edinburgh Review, that the incantations which deluded the nation were broken, and the rabble rout dispersed; but even now, when so many seem disposed to forsake modern light for ancient darkness, and when we find dogmas which we thought buried with the monks that held them, reacquiring their power over even the learned and enlightened, it is impossible to say how soon we may be sent back to the very demonstrations which we think so elementary, for weapons to defend all we hold sacred in our national institutions.

But passing from these peculiarities, we regard this work as a very valuable addition to the permanent literature of the country. It is a book not to be read only-but studied. It is a vast repertory, or rather a system or institute, embracing the whole circle of letters-if we except the exact sciences-and contains within itself, not in a desultory form, but in a well digested scheme, more original conception, bold and fearless speculation, and just reasoning on all kinds and varieties of subjects than are to be found in any English writer with whom we are acquainted, within the present or the last generation.

It would be a very unwarrantable trespass on the time of our readers, to follow our author in detail through the work before us. It presents all the variety of an undulating landscape, with deep recesses and sunny glades, and smooth still lakes, and dashing torrents, and here and there less fertile plains, and anon bright broad green meadows, redolent of cheerfulness and joy. We could but faintly sketch its more prominent and striking features; for it seems very ill spent labour to attempt to describe or condense writings which have been to us as household words from

our youth, and with which our readers are probably as familiar as ourselves. We cannot, however, dismiss our subject without inquiring a little more anxiously into our author's peculiar merits and qualities as a writer, and an attempt to form a somewhat more specific estimate of the school of criticism, of which he was the founder and the head.

The most natural comparison, as we have said before, to which every one is prompted to subject these volumes, is to the writings of Sydney Smith and Macaulay: and on a first or superficial impression, the comparison is not in their favour. The quaint wit of Sydney Smith, and Macaulay's stately rolling periods, and glittering images, beguile the time more quickly, and rivet the attention closer. Those who expected to find Jeffrey's essays of a similar stamp, have probably read or tried to read, the book, with a feeling of disappointment. It wants sustained interest for the more indolent class of readers, and is not a work for a lounger to skim over of a morning. The difference arises in a great measure from causes we have already adverted to: for these articles are truly criticisms-intended to teach and instruct. But in other respects they have merits of a higher order, and in a higher degree than either of these authors. In the first place, as pure English compositions, we think Jeffrey's writings incomparably superior, not only to his brother reviewers, but to most writers of his time. Sydney Smith's style is careless though effective. Macaulay's is an artificial costume. He is always in full dress, and marches perpetually to the same majestic but rather pompous strain. We read through his three volumes with great delight, but as we read, the everlasting reverberation of his sentences, like a great sea wave on a sandy beach, made our head reel at last.* Jeffrey does not drive over the ground so smoothly, but he is infinitely better worth loitering with. His choice of words is unbounded, and his felicity of expression, to the most impalpable shade of discrimination, almost miraculous. Playful, lively, and full of illustration, no subject is so dull or so dry that he cannot invest it with interest, and none so trifling that it cannot acquire dignity or elegance from his pencil. He can rise to the heights of the most exalted argument, or gossip with equal ease with Mary Montague or Pepys, and neither his flights nor his descents seem to cost him an effort, or to interrupt the unencumbered flow of his thoughts. Other writers have been more stately, more accurate, more witty, more florid, than he; but few have ever combined so much facility and so much excellence in all. In play

We speak here of Macaulay's collected essays, which embrace his earlier writings. His more recent style is much more free of these characteristics, and while it has lost nothing of its attractiveness, has gained in vigour and simplicity.

ful satire, he stands, in our opinion, without a rival in his time. It was his favourite and most dreaded weapon, of which his rapid fancy, quick sense of the ridiculous, and his command of happy expression, rendered him as complete a master as ever practised the art.

Independently, however, of mere style, and apart from the great variety of subject embraced by his pen, the distinguishing feature of his writings, and that in which he excels his contemporary Reviewers, is the deep vein of practical thought which runs throughout them all. He is not what would now-a-days be thought an original thinker. He has no mysteries. He does not startle by unexpected fancies, or by everyday thoughts arrayed in half-intelligible language. On the contrary, he plainly eschews such things as offences against good taste and nature, and handles them unmercifully when they come under his cognizance. In particular, he is altogether untainted by the bastard philosophizing strain which the passion for German literature has introduced of late years-which, in our humble judgment, has obscured and damaged a great deal of vigorous thought, which, in a sober, natural, and English dress, would have been far more distinguished and useful. But the habit of his mind is to search after principle, and to discover the germs of truths in the more complicated phases of intellect, and the artificial states of society. He is the professed votary of simplicity and nature in all their forms, and therefore the whole strain of his reflections, which are always clear, acute, and just, and very frequently profound, is to deduce from his subject some general principle in ethics or dialectics, by which a canon or rule may be derived for general guidance and instruction.

In his preface, he remarks—

"If I might be permitted farther to state, in what particular department, and generally, on account of what, I should most wish to claim a share of those merits, I should certainly say, that it was by having constantly endeavoured to combine ethical precepts with literary criticism, and earnestly sought to impress my readers with a sense, both of the close connexion between sound intellectual attainments and the higher elements of duty and enjoyment; and of the just and ultimate subordination of the former to the latter. The praise, in short, to which I aspire, and to merit which I am conscious that my efforts were most constantly directed, is, that I have, more uniformly and earnestly than any preceding critic, made the moral tendencies of the works under consideration a leading subject of discussion; and neglected no opportunity, in reviews of poems and novels, as well as of graver productions, of elucidating the true constituents of human happiness and virtue: and combating those besetting prejudices and errors of opinion which appear so often to withhold men from the path of their duty—or to array them in foolish and fatal

hostility to each other. I cannot, of course, do more, in this place, than intimate this proud claim: But, for the proof-or at least the explanation of it-I think I may venture to refer to the greater part of the papers that follow."-P. x.

With one qualification, we think, he is well entitled to the praise which he here assumes. He has a strong and ardent love of humanity, and delights to look on the sunny side of life. Human griefs and passions-the deeper sorrows and the minute unhappinesses of existence-find constant sympathy with him; and no little joy, no flash of true-hearted merriment, fails to find an echo in his breast. He is none of those grumblers of whom Seneca speaks, who accuse the order of the world, and would wish the gods amended, not themselves.* He admires and deeply venerates all that is august and glorious in this visible diurnal sphere, and labours, with earnest sincerity, to teach those lessons of high philosophy by which he thinks public and social happiness consist.

The qualification we refer to, is one which, perhaps, might have no place, if the volumes alone were before us; but in considering the school of criticism which he founded, and the decrees of that tribunal of which he was the head, it is impossible to omit the remark, that the highest and truest standard of right, if it was admitted at all, was never allowed to occupy its appropriate place. Let us not be misunderstood. There is nothing in the Essays before us which can do violence to the keenest religious sense; indeed, if we except one or two casual expressions in the review of Hayley's Life of Cowper, there is little we could wish altered in that respect. On the other hand, there are many passages—as, for instance, in the remarks on Bishop Heber's Journal-which breathe a tone of deep reverence for sacred things. With the scourging of hypocrisy, and the exposure of pretended sanctity, we should not only not quarrel, but sympathize. Nor is the least agreeable impression produced by these volumes, that softened and more solemn air which time and experience always produce on minds truly great. We do not complain, however, of what we find, but we desiderate what is absent. In so far as the critic derived his laws of judicial determination from the eternal truths of morality, and deals his censure and awards his praise in proportion as the great ends of man appear to be advanced or injured by the subject of the inquiry, he approached to the formation of a perfect standard of criticism. But why should the process stop there? If, after all, the true canon is to be found in the tendency to ameliorate and improve the race, will not that

"Contra ille pusillus ac degener, qui obluctatur, et de ordine mundi male existimat, et emendare mavult deos quam se."-Sen. Epist. 107.