BOOKS.
MR. LECKY'S HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.*
OF course, Mr. Lecky has written a valuable and interesting history. He never touches a subject without presenting to the eye some hitherto unobserved angle and facet ; and we find in this .History of the Eighteenth Century the old unwearied industry, especially in the by-paths of literature, his delicate subtlety of observation, and the same fine ear for the undertones of life, which are apt to be drowned in the noisy hum of battles, sieges, and dynastic changes. The eighteenth century has been ex- amined by many historians, but few of them have cast their plummets so deep as to take note, as he has done, of those under- currents, often running counter to that flowing on the surface, the latter perhaps bearing straws to the north, the former hurry- ing on the life and wealth of the ocean to the south. Mr. Lecky's book must be read by every one who aspires to understand that alternately maligned and glorified age. It does not travel by the same route as Lord Stanhope's work. He is, with all his merits, too much of the Gradgrind of history to be quite satisfactory. We want something more than a muster-roll of battles and sieges in order to understand that puzzling century. Mr. Lecky's volumes will have the freshness of novelty to one who has just read Mr. Leslie Stephen's History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. And yet it does not shew Mr. Lecky at his best. The old high-water mark is barely touched. He has done better work than this, and we hope he will do better still. To begin with, it is in some respects not a history at all. It is a chain of dissertations on the morals and manners of the last century. He does not profess to follow the strict order of chronology. Nobody need consult it who wants to know all about Marlborough's wars, or the Barrier Treaty, or the campaigns of Peterborough. The inquirer would be stopped by a disquisition of several pages on the uses of an aristocracy, while he was studying the question of the Succession. Mr. Lecky does not mind geographical boundaries any more than he does political ones, and we hear as much almost of Cardinal Alberoni as of Walpole. He interpolates in the second volume several hundred pages about Ireland, suggesting the idea that the original lines of the work comprehended only the history of that country. The truth is Mr. Lecky has not, in very high degree, the gift of narrative. Whenever he has to describe the course of political or military events he slightly disappoints us. We miss the rapid, animated phrase, the pictorial expression, the typical incident happily chosen, and the apt saying or anecdote which pierces the darkness of the past, and insinuates more than pages of dissertation can tell. Let any one try to ex- tract a concise statement of the course of events during Anne's reign, and he will be much puzzled to do so. Mr. Lecky assumes that his readers know much,—too much, we fear. We are glad that the old style of history, which turned upon military, political, and genealogical events, is obsolete ; but there is a medium be- tween that idea and a series of essays uncemented by dates, and we do not think it is realised by a history which, in regard to some epochs, barely gives us to understand distinctly that Kings and Queens married and gave in marriage in the last century, and which imperfectly and vaguely follows the fortunes of our armies. Mr. Lecky may say that these are the mere kickshaws of history, but an historian must take the world, with its tumults, its bubbles, and its froth, as he finds it. We must also say that Mr. Lecky is not a perfect historical portrait- painter. He tells us much about Marlborough, Alberoni, Walpole, Atterbury, Swift, Bolingbroke ; and a score of the most interesting characters in English history pass before us ; but they are pale and shadowy. We read a page or two of highly abstract portraiture, and endeavour to shape a living figure of this or that statesman. We look, for instance, at our author's elaborate and in truth brilliant sketch of the elder Pitt, and its well turned sentences about his love of pomp, ceremony, and ostentation. It abounds in striking touches,—for example, " of all great English- men, he [Chatham] is perhaps the one in whom there was the largest admixture of the qualities of a charlatan." The sketch of Marlborough is far superior to Lord Stanhope's. It adverts to points in the great soldier's character almost ttnnoted ; it draws attention, for instance, to the fact that " a certain vein of genuine piety ran through his nature, however inconsistent it may appear with some portions of his career." There are all the materials col- • A History of England in the Eighteenth Century. By William Edward Hartpolo Lecky. London: Longman.
lected for a portrait of Walpole ; we observe no piece of evidence, small or great, omitted, not even Lord Hardwicke's remark that Walpole always opened the letters from his gamekeeper before those from the King. But there is too much abstract disquisition, and often after reading many pages devoted to some prominent statesman, we find,—
" Effugit imago, Par levibus ventis volacrique simillima somno."
Mr. Lecky's strength appears when he has to describe the morals and manners of the time, and this book is mainly valuable just in so far as it is a continuation of the studies pursued with so much success in his former works.
Of course, there will be a difference of opinion as to whether he has exhaustively analysed the elements in eighteenth-century society. It will be said by some who have gone over that century that he has been curiously silent as to the important scientific move- ments of the time. Some critics will think that he has not taken sufficient account of the growth of the democratic spirit. Others will not be satisfied with the small amount of attention given by him to the literature or philosophy of the period. Mr. Lecky must resign himself to inevitable criticisms of this order. But, on the other hand, how large the list of things which he has noted and which others have passed by ! He has been the first to give due prominence to many of the greatest facts of the eighteenth century. One of these is the rise and growth of Methodism. We know of no better or fairer history of the work of Wesley and Whitefield than is to be found here. Mr. Lecky sets down nothing in malice, he writes with
justice and good - temper of both. Most of those who have described the rise of Methodism have been enthusiasts who could see no flaw in its founders, or persons who had a bitter dislike to Wesley and his helpmates. He has had praise and blame,—everything, in fact, save justice. Even Dr. Newman, with all his charity, and the drawing he felt to some sides of Methodism, speaks of being repelled by John Wesley's " deep self-reliance and self-conceit," and the "pride and eccentricity" and " untranquil devotion " of himself and his companions. Buckle, with off-hand bluntness, and probably without aparticle of evidence to back up the statement, asserts that Wesley " wished to organise a system capable of rivalling the Established Church." Mr. Lecky, who has spared no pains in examining the entire history of the movement, does not speak of it in any partisan spirit. He recognises its unique character. He bears testimony to the revo- lution which it effected in a cold, lifeless society. He does not think that he is wronging Pitt by instituting a comparison between him and Wesley, whose " extraordinary powers both of organi- sation and reasoning" he acknowledges. The Universities were in a state of torpor ; hosts of the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries would have owned that they had entered the ecclesiastical pro- fession for the reasons frankly given by Hume to a sceptical young friend who had consulted him as to the propriety of remaining in the Church,—it " only adds a little more to an innocent dissimulation, or rather simulation, without which it is impossible to pass through the world." It was a time when Liberal clergymen freely wrote of subscription to the Articles, as Middleton did on one occasion, " Whilst I am con- tent to acquiesce in the ill, I should be glad to taste a little of the good, and to have some amends for that ugly assent and consent which no man of sense can approve of." Everywhere there was a low standard of life. In such times as those, Methodism was like the opening of the heavens and the coming of rain after years of drought. Mr. Lecky recognises this, and what is rare, he does so while pointing out the " religious terrorism " over the nerves set up by Methodism, the many instances of religious madness which came in its train, and the superstitions, akin to the Series T'irgiliante, which accompanied the movement.
One curious feature of the early phase of Methodism is indicated in the following passage:
"Considering the immense doctrinal chasm between the Catholics and the Methodists, the pertinacity with which the charge of Popery was repeated against the latter is very remarkable. 'Unless, as I apprehend,' wrote Horace Walpole, ' the Methodists are secret Papists —and no doubt they copy, build on, and extend their rites towards that model—Popery will not revive here. Ho garth, in his caricature of the Methodist preacher, represents his wig as falling aside and revealing beneath the shaven crown of the Popish friar. Warburton noticed the striking analogies between the journal of Whitefield and the visions of Loyola ; and no less a writer than Archdeacon Blackburne, the well- known author of The Confessional,' countenanced the charge that the Methodists were secret Papists. Bishop Lavington, in his 'Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists,' made the resemblance the chief ground of his attack. The accusation was frequently brought from the pulpit, and it sank deeply into the public mind. Cries of Popery, Popery I' interrupted the Methodist preachers. It was reported that Wesley was born and educated in Rome, and in 1744, when all Catholics were- ordered to leave London, Wesley thought it advisable to delay his in- tended departure from the metropolis, lest it should countenance the charge. His brother was once actually summoned before the magistrates at Wakefield for having, in the usual Methodistic phraseology, prayed that 'God would bring home his banished ones,' which was construed by some of his hearers into a prayer for the Pretender. The real senti- ments of Wesley on the subject appear in several controversial tracts which he wrote, not only against the doctrines, but even against the toleration of Catholicism, in the earnestness with which he taught the Lutheran tenet of justification by faith, and in the emphatic sentence in his journal in which he pronounced his opinion about the position of Catholics. 'I pity them much, having the same assurance that Jesus is the Christ, and that no Romanist can expect to be saved according to the terms of his covenant.'" Nearly a quarter of a volume is occupied with a history of Ireland. We do not quite understand why Mr. Lecky gives so much prominence to this side-aspect of his subject, and his readers will be inclined to suspect that, having written an answer to Mr. Froude's Ireland and the Irish, he was at a loss what to do with it. No matter what was the origin of the history, it is
admirably done, and we know nothing—not even Mr. Goldwin Smith's sketch, Mr. Richey's lectures, the chapters on Ireland in Macaulay's third volume, or the summary prefixed to Mr. McLellan's life of Drummond—which is a better guide to that terrible jungle, Irish politics. We note that one or two points which have been- misunderstood by his predecessor are cleared up. Take, for- example, the Act of Settlement passed by the Irish Parliament in 1689. This has been denounced as a cruel and unjust measure of confiscation. Lord Macaulay has assailed with all the vehemence• of his rhetoric the iniquity of seizing lands for which the occupier& had paid, and in which they had sunk their savings. He is, however, silent as to the compensation in the shape of lands of equal value- given by the Act. " Yet surely," says Mr. Lecky very cogently,. "this is not an immaterial element in judging the law. What would- be thought of a writer who, in opposing, on the ground of justice, a Bill for appropriating private property for railways or some other- public purpose kept absolutely out of sight the fact that it was- intended to compensate the owner for the loss '?" Lord Macaulay, it will be recollected, is emphatic in his denunciation of the Bill of Attainder passed by the Irish Parliament against the adherents. of King William, and his indignation is not misplaced. But how comes it that he is silent as to the Bill of Attainder which passed the English House of Commons, and would have become law but for the opposition of the Lords ? Mr. Lecky is able to show that the Irish measure is not unique, and to convict Lord Macaulay of a curious fault of omission. We readily pardon Mr. Lecky for entering with disproportionate minuteness into the affairs of Ireland, in thankfulness for the forgotten aspects of Irish life which he reveals. We owe to him the discovery that Irish history has its' pleasing pages. The deep root struck by Quakerism in that country in consequence of the preaching of Edward Burrough. and John Hall ; the marvellous success of Wesley among the peasantry ; their freedom from many superstitions, and their- comparative tolerance, are subjects which had not received due- attention until he wrote. After mentioning that itinerant mis- sionaries of an extreme form of Protestantism passed in safety' through the wildest and most Catholic districts of Ireland, he- proceeds to say :—
" The experience of Wesley half a century later was very similar._ He certainly found more eager and more respectful listeners among the. Catholics of Ireland than in most parts of England, and he has more than once in his Journal' spoken in terms of warm appreciation of the- docile and tolerant spirit he almost everywhere encountered. Novelty and the resemblance which the itinerant preacher bore to the missionary- friar may have had in these cases some influence, but they are insuffi- cient altogether to account for it. Many of the politicians whom the- Irish Catholics have followed with the most passionate devotion have been decided Protestants ; and while in elections in England the- Catholicism of a candidate has almost invariably proved an absolute disqualification, a large proportion of the most Catholic constituencies. in Ireland are usually represented by Protestants. The tithe war was a species of agrarian contest in which the Protestant clergy occupied the position of landlords, and in the course of it many of them were- brutally ill-treated ; but with this exception, no feature in the social) history of Ireland is more remarkable than the almost absolute security the Protestant clergy, scattered thinly over wild Catholic districts, have usually enjoyed during the worst periods of organised crime, and the very large measure of respect and popularity they have almost in- variably commanded, whenever they abstained from interfering with the religion of their neighbours. We may add to this the very curious' fact that the Irish people, though certainly not less superstitious than, the inhabitants of other parts of the kingdom, appear never to have been subject to that ferocious witch mania which in England, in Scot- land, and in most Catholic countries on the Continent has caused the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent women."
We have been much struck with the coolness of Mr. Lecky's judg- ments on men. He has his heroes—Marlborough, for example—but be does not become their idolater. He has the courage to assert. the unfashionable doctrine with respect to Frederick the Great, that he was " hard and selfish to the core, and without a spark of generosity or of honour." He dwells with affection on the romantic career of Cardinal Alberoni. This son of a humble gardener of Placentia, who conceived the idea of reviving the withered greatness of Spain, is, in Mr. Lecky's view, the worthy successor of Ximenes,—a statesman fit to play on a European stage a part equal to that of Richelieu. And yet he has the self- restraint to say of the refusal of the terms offered by the Quad- ruple Alliance to Spain, that it " showed more the spirit of a daring gambler than of a great statesman."
No one, not even Lord Macaulay, has burrowed so industriously as Mr. Lecky in the pamphlets, newspapers, and quite unclassical literature of last century in search of light as to its manners and customs. The flood of interesting erudition which he pours forth when illustrating the daily life of our forefathers is very great. Take, for example, the drinking habits of the age ; he describes, apropos of this, the passion for gin-drinking, which set in about 1724, in consequence of fiscal remissions, and which culminated in 1750-51, when the annual consumption was computed at 11,000,000 gallons. Who before Mr. Lecky has brought out the fact that with the coming of the Hanoverian period Englishmen gave up beer for gin, and that the results became apparent in a decrease of births, an increase of deaths, poverty, crime, and, oddly enough, dropsy ? Take, again, such a subject as the state of the London streets ; he is not content with telling us all about the Mohocks, he must give an account of how London was lighted previously to 1736, when the Corporation were first permitted to erect glass lamps. All the hideous facts connected with our prisons in those days,—the horrors of the Fleet when under the wardenship of Huggins and Bambridge, the ravages of jail fever, the exhibition of condemned prisoners at a shilling a head, the brutalities at the execution of men who walked to the scaffold in a state of drunkenness—are catalogued with precision and fullness. He stops to tell us at much length how Kent and Bridgeman introduced modern landscape gardening ; how Handel had to wage a battle, long unequal, with the ignorant admirers of Italian music ; what were the sports besides cock-fighting in vogue ; and where were the fashionable watering-places. He re- lates in an interesting fashion the history of the Jews in England, and the too little noted influence on English life of the successive immigrations of the flower of Flemish and French artisans. Nothing is too obscure or trivial for notice. The badness of the London bricks, the custom of giving vails, the diseases and medicines of the time are all noted. Of course, the result is curious and interesting ; but let us respectfully add that Mr. Lecky presents his erudition too much in a raw state. Un- cooked information does not please the palate indefinitely. Dose after dose of statistical pemmican at last wearies. We long for some change from perpetual sandwiches com- posed of tough figures between two thin and dry layers of moral reflections. Macaulay, who could apply a hydraulic press to his vast learning, would, we are sure, have compressed Mr. Lecky's second volume into three-quarters of its present size without material loss. We are inclined to think that, with all his research, he has not devoted enough of time to his great under- taking. It lacks a little the air of finish. There are faults due to want of revision. He repeats, almost in the same words, and drawing from the same authorities, Lord Macaulay's famous account of the miserable condition of the English rural clergy. He does himself the injustice of apparently having consulted, in regard to Wesley, few other than the authorities cited by Buckle.
There is at times a superabundance of trivial facts and a paucity of reflection, suggesting hasty writing. The old insight into obscure moral truths is a little less conspicuous, and common- places, eloquently stated, are sometimes forthcoming when we expect acute observations. But with all its faults—and most of them need not appear in future volumes—Mr. Lecky has written, so far as he has gone, the best history of the eighteenth century. He has corrected many errors on the part of his predecessors, and, his manner of treatment is large, philosophical, and impartial.
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