14 APRIL 1838, Page 18

LORD BROUGHAM AS A HISTORIAN.

THE current number of the Edinburgh Review challenges atten- tion, not merely as showing that the most extraordinary mind of the present day is yet unimpaired in its powers, (which for a time seemed doubtful,) but for the peculiar character and interest of its leading article—" Abuses of the Press." Under the form of a review of Lady CHARLOTTE BURY'S unprincipled publication on -Queen CAROLINE, HENRY (Lord) BROUGHAM has poured forth from his living "experience," a narrative, rhetorically graphic, of the connexion between GEORGE the Fourth and his Queen, which, if not strictly history, is almost unrivalled as a piece of historical portraiture,—possessing the interest of the memoirs of the French writers, hut animated and elevated by a far mightier mind than fell to the possession of the courtly chroniclers of former times. Naturally, or by an easy oratorical art, the principal personages who were connected with that act of the political drama, are all in- troduced, painted with bold and rapid strokes ; often exhibiting a penetration of the keenest kind, and distinguished for broad gene- ral fidelity of likeness, though the favourable features of some are improved, and the ugly traits of others exaggerated. Amongst the happiest characters, are GEORGE the Third and his consort—done harshly perhaps, but with great justness. The Duke of YORK—the truest, and most candid of the batch. GEORGE the Fourth, painted at full length, and with undisguised severity; and though a philosophical allowance is at last made for the "circumstances" of his birth and situation, yet it comes so late and stands so isolated that it produces no effect. His wife is drawn with the lingering partiality of a friend ; all her hearty quality put in the best light, all her coarseness sunk. The characters of PERCIVAL and ELDON are appreciated with nice exactness, and require nothing but a more judicial, and per- haps a less effective manner of statement, to be rated as perfect masterpieces. Sir JOHN LEACH is touched off with the con- temptuous bitterness of a satirist; CANNING with the generosity of an old rival, whose opposition has been softened by time and death. WHITBREAD is not happy—the words suggest ideas, but not realities; and Mrs. FITZHERBERT seems drawn from hearsay. But Lord DUDLEY and WARD is the nicest of the whole. It is true he occupies a space disproportioned to his influence in the historical action, or to the figure he filled in the public eye: still, nothing is more skilfully noted than the effect which the refinements of his taste had in encouraging his idleness, or more properly preventing his exertions, and the possible influence of some latent bodily ill-constitution, which finally deprived hint of reason. Of the incidents—for the quorum pars fui makes them awe than events—the most striking is the all-night council, when the Princess CHARLOTTE eloped, unbonneted and in a haeliney-csiiek from the petty tyrannies of "the first gentleman of the age," to take refuge at her mother's, and the successive arrival of Mishit" and Princes of the Blood, all in hackney-coaches. The whole is too long for extract, and it would suffer by curtailment. There are some remarks and some theories about the Prese from which we differ; but as the " noble author" promises a eon: tinuance, we may perhaps take that opportunity to expound ow views. There is also a hint of' another production; whose fulfil. ment, not the English, but the Anglo.Saxon world in both bemi, spheres, would greedily devour. "As to the historical portion or this article," says its author, "we felt it a safer course, and ose that exposed us both to fewer temptations and less misconstrue,, tion, to avoid sketching the characters, or commenting on the conduct of living statesmen and living monarchs, But we desire it to be distinctly understood, that we have so abstained, without entertaining the least doubt that the public. conduct and public character of liviug men, and of women too, in high station, falls within the legitimate scope of our duty."