COURTENAY'S MEMOIRS OF SIR WILLIAM

TEMPLE.

Issa person has but a scanty acquaintance with Engli,11 litera- ture, he is -familiar with the name of Sir WILLIast TEMPLE ; if

he is in the habit of looking at catalogues, eying collections, or poring over book-stalls, Ise has constantly met with his " Works; ' and if his reading has lain ever so little amongst what may be called Descriptive Statistics or Political Surveys, ten to one but lie has encountered a quotation from the friend of DE WITT

and the early patron of SWIFT. "Yet," as Mr. COURTENAY truly

observes, "neither his writings nor the circumstances of his life are familiarly known ;" or, as he might have put it without exag- geration, four-fifths of the reading public know nothing of either one or the other; and this without much blame being fairly attri- butable to them. Sir WILLIAM was an historical personage, but

not an historical hero; be was a gentleman-author of great

merit, but not possessed of the genius requisite to give an en- during interest to temporary subjects ; so that although everybody knows him, few know much about him. Still, some reasons must exist for the preeminence TEMPLE has attained over others of his class ; and these seem not difficult to find. He has had the luck to be frequently mentioned by the principal if not the sole dis-

tributors of fame—authors of eminence; and his qualities, rare in any age, were wonderful in his own. For he was a practical

diplomatist without guile, an honest man in a court of rascals. His most illustrious work—the Triple Alliance—was concluded by the Pensionary Da WITT and the cautious States of Holland with a rapidity contrary to their constitution, in consequence of

the reliance placed upon his fair dealing and honour; and although his tone and language were more courtly towards CHARLES the Second and his favourites than seem consistent with indepen- dence, neither hope nor fear could bend him to do what he con- ceived dishonourable. It is to be regretted that, with such un- bending integrity, he had not fallen upon better days, or possessed a more enlarged sagacity and a more commanding mind. When he found himself unable to influence the royal reprobate, he could do nothing but retire.

The public events of Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE'S career are not of a striking or important nature. Born in 1628, he was too young to engage in business under CHARLES the First ; and political scruples kept him in private life till the Restoration. His first employment of any consequence was in 1665 ; when he went on a mission to the Bishop of MUNSTER, a German prelate, who un- dertook to invade Holland with an army upon being duly subsi- dized; and it was TEMPLE'S business to estimate his character, stimulate the church militant, and stop the instalments in tran- situ if he saw occasion. Having acquitted himself satisfactorily in this affair, he was appointed Resident at Brussels, which was the capital of the then Spanish Netherlands: made a favourable impression upon CAsrat. RODRIGO, their Governor ; and was engaged, though seldom solely and absolutely, in the different negotiationsconsequent upon the ambition of Louts the Fourteenth, and the different wars that sprung out of it; his most consi- derable treaty being the Triple Alliance, by which England, Hol- land, and Sweden, bound themselves to a kind of armed media- tion between France and Spain; and his most important appoint- ment being that of Embassy to the Hague, in which capacity he made the acquaintance of the Prince of ORANGE, and felt the etiquette his instructions compelled him to adopt as burden- some to himself and (a hint to economists) mischievous to the object of his mission. During his diplomatic career he was made a Baronet ; at its close (in 1679) with the Peace of Nimeguen, CHARLES repeated an offer lie made to him abroad of appointing him Secretary of State, if he could raise half of 10,000/. to buy out the actual incumbent; but TEMPLE declined it, partly from a distrust of his master, partly from a dread of the times. Yet although refusing to act as a Minister, he advised CHARLES as a friend—planned the scheme of the Privy Council, which failed ; sat in Parliament as a mo- derate mart, and displeased both parties ; concocted projects with Essex and those profligate politicians SUNDERLAND and the elder HALIFAX, and was deceived by them all ; and at last, ven- turing to speak at the King in the Privy Council of his own creation, received his dismissal into private life, by his name being struck out of the list of counsellors. But though CHARLES might dislike the freedom of the politician, he retained his affec- tion for the man ; and when TEMPLE'S son, a few years after- wards, was courting a rich French heiress, " he expressed with his own hand his readiness to use his best offices with the King of France to make the match as easy to young Temple as he could."

In the education of Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE there was nothing peculiar,—unless it be strange to remember Latin and forget Greek. The most romantic part of' his private life was his mar- riage : for the passion probably originated in a piece of sisterly de-

votion on the part of his future wife; it was halt' clandestinely maintained for seven years in despite of the objection of friends on both sides : and when it at last took place, the beauty of " Mistress OSBORNE" was marred by the smallpox. During his diplomatic and courtly life there seems to have been little to tell of his pri- vate transactions. On his dismissal from the Council, lie retired first to Sheen, and afterwards to Moor Park in Surry ; at which latter spot Swirl was introduced to him as Secretary. Here, too, the Revolution, to which he submitted rather than concurred in,

found him ; and here he sometimes received King WILLIAM as a truest, although he obstinately refused all public employment..

But, in despite of easy circumstances, a high reputation, and the

friendship of his Sovereign, the closing years of Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE only afforded another illustration of the general truth of JUVENAL'S position as to the continues et qteantis malls of long

life. He had shortly before lost his daughter ; his son, appointed Secretary at War by the hero of the Revolution, drowned himself

in the Thames; Lady TEMPLE, to whom he was attached by youth- ful passion, the affection of habit, and her usefulness and worth, departed this life; the gout, and what was then called the spleen, tolboth of which he had been subject, renewed their attacks with increased force and duration ; his favourite compound, whose virtues he bad celebrated in a tract, failed to give him relief; be- lied outlived by more than two lustrums the age of sixty, which he had formally fixed upon as the proper time to chant the Nunc dimittis—le had nothing to do but to die. His latest recorded act was to remake his will ; his last recorded saying was a pointed joke against ALGERNON SIDNEY ; his final direction in relation to earth was to bury his body beside his children in Westminster Abbey, and his heart under a sun-dial in his garden.

As regards the work which has supplied the opportunity, and in a measure the means for this notice, it may truly be said that it

very far excels all other Memoirs of TEMPLE. In the first place, Mr. COURTENAY has examined more carefully than his

predecessors the published works of his hero; he has acquired by late discoveries a knowledge of the secret springs of contempo-

rary events, of which they were necessarily ignorant; and he brings to his task a higher talent and a more cultivated mind,' whilst by looking at his subject from a greater distance he saw it in a more distinct and proportional view. Secondly, he has had re- course to the collections of letters at the British Museum, which throw a light upon his subject. And lastly, he has been allowed the freest access to the existing papers of Sir WILLIAM'S family, through the kindness of the gentleman in whose possession they are, as well as to many manuscript letters of his hero in the library at Stowe. It is probable that a natural desire of display- ing this newly-discovered wealth may have induced the biogra- pher occasionally to overlay his work by introducing parts of the originals when their substance would have answered the purpose; and the minute account of bygone treaties and intrigues is some- what barren of interest save to diplomatists or politicians. We suppose, however, that the good and evil is in a measure insepa- rable, and that we must bear with the absence of that pith and spirit which condensation gives, for the sake of the extracts from the long-dormant love-letters of DOROTHY OSBORNE to WILLIAM TEMPLE during their courtship—for the pictures of manners and the indications of character that autographical productions con- vey—as well as for the now restored passages in the life of Sir WILLIAM by his sister, relating to his private affairs or peculiari- ties. See how far superior, in biography, intimate acquaintance is to genius itself; and wonder at the folly of an editor who could strike out passages such as these descriptive of

SIR W. TEMPLE' FAWCIES.

" He was a great lover of music, seldom without it in his family ; fond of pictures and statues, as far as his fortune would reach; sensible extremely to good air and good smells, which gave him so great an aversion to the town that he once passed five years at Sheen without seeing it. The entertainments of his life were the conversation of his friends and scenes he bad made pleasant about him in his garden and house : riding and walking were the exercises he was most pleased with after he had given over tennis ; and when he was dis- abled from these, too, by the gout, passed much of his time in airing in his

email that was not spent in his closet." • • • •

" He never ate abroad when he could avoid it, and at home of as little as he thought fit for his company, always of the plainest meats, but the best chosen, and commonly dining himself off the first dish, or whatever stood next him; and said he was made for a farmer and not a courtier, and understood being a shepherd and a gardener better than an ambassador. If he was ever inclined to excess, it was in fruits, which by his care and application he was always fur- nished with the best of from his own garden. He loved the taste of good wines—and those best that were least kind to hint ; and drank them constantly, though never above three or four glasses : thought life not worth the care many- were at to preserve it, and that 'twas not what we ate or drank, but excess in either, that was dangerous.

" He naturally loved play, and very deep too, without any application; and. by reckoning his losses several years, found himself every one of them so consi- derable a loser he resolved to give it quite up." • • • •

" He always rewarded his servants when they did well, and parted with them when they did not ; conversed with the meanest of them ; was all the life of his family, that looked as if they had no life when he was out of it, which no MSS I believe, was ever so seldom, from the youngest I ever remember him. " As he never did injuries, so be was very hard to bear them from any man 7. and not less to receive obligations, unless froin those lie loved and esteemed. I have seen him, upon the most inconsiderable presents, never quiet till he had found out something of greater value to return them with, but was pleased with the least that could be made him from his friends. Impatient of pain, which he has lately great and frequent returns of, and chose to pass alone, or only with a servant ; but returning with the least interval of ease to his natural good• humour, and sending for his friends to give them their share of it."

In our summary of TEMPLE'S life, we have omitted all allusion to his works, partly because a mere catalogue of names could have had no attraction, and a description of their contents and character would have had little for the readers of a newspaper ; not to men- tion that his principal works, the Memoirs, and the Surveys of the Constitutions and Interests of the Principal Powers of Europe, are more political than literary. In the volumes before us, Mr. COURTENAY, however, has so fully entered into the subject, that, the exception of the writings just mentioned, his reviews of the different publications of TEMPLE will, for general purposes, supersede all necessity of reference to the originals.