THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR GEORGE SAVILE.*
MINUTE students of Parliamentary history will be grateful to Miss Foxcroft for her laborious work. The book is largely based upon documents hitherto unpublished, which are cited at great length, and students naturally prefer to have material afforded them for forming their own conclusions. The average reader will scarcely be tempted to follow the career of Halifax through seven hundred closely printed pages, and we must say that Miss Foxcroft seems to have been led into a very needless pedantry. All the documents quoted are printed as direct transcripts from the original, punctuation, spelling, and even contractions (which were largely employed) being preserved. The involved prose of that period is sufficiently troublesome to read at the best, and it is a pity to refuse the reader any possible alleviation. Miss Foxcroft also deals too largely in footnotes,—many of her shorter explanations could have been perfectly well inserted in the text. In short, we cannot praise the book for literary qualities, but as a production of diligent research conducted in a spirit of wise impartiality it is valuable. And it must be allowed that the story which Miss Foxcroft had to tell is as tangled a skein as ever perplexed the narrator to unravel. The evolution of Parliamentary government out of the chaos in which the Restoration found our institutions was a tedious and indirect process which worked itself out by the usual English policy of makeshifts. Two ideals were familiar to the country,—that of a despotism, which, shaken off when Charles I. fell, returned under Cromwell ; and that of a Republic, which commended itself only to a small section of political theorists. It was the great merit of Halifax that he saw clearly the possibility of a compromise, but his apparent sympathy with both sides resulted over and over again in a double accusation of treachery. The man's character was in part responsible for the extent to which he was misunderstood by those with whom he had to act. Intriguers like Sunder. land, when they saw him temporise or change sides, attributed to him their own motives, and were incensed to find that he would not go all lengths in support of a colleague. Theorists like Russell, who never saw any question with two sides to it, were equally disgusted when Halifax refused to follow up an abstract principle at all hazards. A man of this type can never accomplish a great reform or head any forward move- ment of the people ; but he can make himself a potent voice in the nation's counsel, and may do marvels in restraining. Halifax did over the Exclusion Bill what perhaps no other man has ever done ; he turned a vote in the House of Lords against an angry and triumphant party headed by Shaftes- bury, a speaker not less able than himself. As a Minister it would be difficult to say that he achieved anything ; his natural bent was for foreign affairs ; but in these Charles II. was always able to dupe the ablest men about him and stultify their measures. The Minister under him had responsibility without power, and it is surprising that a man like Halifax should so long have remained in such a position. But he had the constitutional defect proper to clever men; he had too much confidence in his personal ascendency, and he underrated human stupidity. When he had demonstrated to the King the advisability of action in concert with the Pro- testant Powers, and obtained his assent to carrying it out, it never seemed possible to him that Charles should allow him- self to be persuaded into a different line, or that, being convinced, he should not act upon his conviction. No man was ever less answerable for the foreign policy of his country while it was nominally sander his direction ; but Parliament and the country generally were determined to fix responsibility upon Ministers, and Halifax suffered considerable injustice in the process. He incurred risks with his eyes open ; but he was too keenly sensitive to the charm of power to refuse office, and even when the power was only a semblance, his inherited loyalty to the person of his Sovereign made him unwilling to shrink from any service that was demanded.
We do not propose, however, to discuss his political career, nor to follow Miss Foxcroft in her subtle analysis of the motives which led him so often to change sides and associates.
• The Life and Letters of Sir George Savile, Bart., First Marquis of Halifax, &e. With a Now Edition of his Works, now for the ilrAt time collected and revised. By 11. C. Foxcroft. 2 rob London; Longmans and Co. [36'.1 She vindicates for him, we think, a degree of political con. sistency highly respectable in that age, and of his ability there is no question, though one would scarcely go so far as
the author of Saviliana, whom Mies Foxcroft identifies with Halifax's chaplain, William Mompesson :—
"For my part," he writes, "after a long and very close study of his Lordship, I doubt the world, with all its plenty, has scarce showed such a man in a hundred years ; and it not having lasted yet six thousand, by this rule there have not lived three score of his Lordship's strong reaching natural parts since the beginning of it It is rather of Halifax the writer that we prefer to speak, and we are sincerely grateful for this admirable reprint of his miscellaneous works,—out of which only three pamphlets have been reissued within this century. The fact is in itself a criticism, and it confirms us in our opinion that Sir James Mackintosh went a great deal beyond the mark when he described the Letter to a Dissenter as the finest political tract ever written. It seems to us absurd to compare either this or the Anatomy of an Equivalent, considering them solely as political engines, with Swift's Conduct of the Allies or Drapier Letters, to say nothing of Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution. And, in point of fact, they had little effect upon public opinion, whereas Swift's papers, with their cold mar. shalling of facts and homely language, produced results not
less remarkable than Halifax's speeches on the Exclusion Bill. As Swift preached pamphlets, so Halifax wrote orations,
The famous Character of a Trimmer is over-abundant is metaphor and rhetoric, and it certainly missed its aim. The word " trimmer," which Halifax endeavoured to turn into a
title of honour, remains rooted in its original contemptuous significance ; he has indeed done lasting injustice to his memory by fixing the name on himself ; much as though a man should put on a fool's cap in public to show that he can look
wise in spite of it. But though Halifax seems to us some. what overrated as a pamphleteer, he is unduly neglected as a writer of moral and political reflections. Incomparably the most interesting among his productions to a modern reader is the character of Charles II., which is not so well known but that one may quote from it -- " It will be said that he had not religion enough to have eon. viction ; that is a vulgar error. Conviction, indeed, is not a proper word but when a man is convinced by reason ; but in the common acceptation, it is applied to those who cannot tell why they are so. If men can be at least as positive in a mistake as when they are in the right, they may be as clearly convinced when they do not know why as when they do."
The tacit assumption of intellectual superiority is very characteristic of Halifax. Here, again, is a subtle piece of psychology :—
" He was so good at finding out other men's weak sides, that it made him less intent to cure his own ; that generally happeneth. It may be called a treacherous talent, for it betrayeth a man to forget to judge himself by being so eager to censure others. This doth so misguide men the first part of their lives that the habit of it is not easily recovered when the greater ripeness of their judgment inclineth them to look more into themselves than into other men."
We commend to all ladies who wish to measure their own emancipation Halifax's paper of "Advice to a Daughter" on the occasion of her marriage, in which he assumes that the husband will probably be unfaithful, will certainly get drunk,
and may be ill-tempered, or, worst of all, avaricious, but in all these cases it is the woman's duty, he holds, to make the beet of a bad bargain, to smile and look pleasant, and never by any chance to reproach. One of his "Cautions" to electors, written in the spring of 1679, is also suggestive of the age : " Great drinkers are less fit to serve in Parliament than is apprehended." Conviviality would seem to have been considered a qualification ; and Halifax seriously sets out to disparage this "wet popularity." His concluding remark is significant. "I will suppose that this fault was less fre- quent when Solon made one of his laws that it was lawful to kill a magistrate if he was found drunk. Such a liberty taken in this age, either in Parliament or out of it, would do terrible execution." And here are two political reflections picked out of a mass where almost all are of interest, for the sake of their obvious bearing : " There is an accumulative cruelty in a number of men, though none in particular are ill-natured. " The angry buzz of a multitude is one of the bloodiest noises in the world." It would seem, however, that Lord Halal
when in power was just as little inclined to inquire into the veracity of Titus Oates as the French Cabinet into that of
Esterhazy. The instability of a Government renders moral obligations a trifle obscure.
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