Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 1

Of such a writer it is scarcely necessary to say, that his works are destitute of every charm which is derived from elevation, or from tenderness of sentiment. When he chose to...

Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six found Hastings guilty on the charges relating to Cheyte Sing and to the Begums. On other charges, the majority in his favour was...

The old struggle recommenced; but not precisely after the old fashion. The Sovereign was not indeed a man whom any common warning would have restrained from the grossest violati...

We should not think it necessary to offer any remarks for the purpose of directing the judgment of our readers, with respect to this transaction, had not Sir John Malcolm undert...

Two attempts were made to disturb this tranquillity. The banished heir of the House of Stuart headed a rebellion; the discontented heir of the House of Brunswick headed an oppos...

Though Hampden had as yet taken little part in the debates of the House, he had been a member of many very important committees, and had read and written much concerning the law...

The illusion was soon dispelled. Bentley’s answer for ever settled the question, and established his claim to the first place amongst classical scholars. Nor do those do him jus...

About politics, in the high sense of the word, he knew nothing, and cared nothing. He called himself a Whig. His father’s son could scarcely assume any other name. It pleased hi...

The progress of civilisation introduced a great change. War became a science, and, as a necessary consequence, a trade. The great body of the people grew every day more reluctan...

His powers soon began to give annoyance to the Government; and Walpole determined to make an example of the patriotic cornet. Pitt was accordingly dismissed from the service. Mr...

Temple was ordered to attend the King, and was charged with the office of negotiating a separate peace with Holland. The Spanish Ambassador to the Court of London had been empow...

The truth lies between two absurd extremes. On one side is the bigot who pleads the wisdom of our ancestors as a reason for not doing what they in our place would be the first t...

Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the sixth of December, 1731. His mother died a few days later, and he was left dependent on his distressed grandfather. The child was ea...

For a time business went on with a smoothness and a despatch such as had not been known since the days of the Tudors. During the session of 1724, for example, there was hardly a...

During eleven weeks England remained without a ministry; and in the meantime Parliament was sitting, and a war was raging. The prejudices of the King, the haughtiness of Pitt, t...

In the Commons, George Grenville had been intrusted with the lead. The task was not, as yet, a very difficult one for Pitt did not think fit to raise the standard of opposition....

When Parliament met in the following winter, the Commons proceeded to elect a Committee for managing the impeachment. Burke stood at the head; and with him were associated most...

Our own times furnish a parallel case. Suppose that a revolution should take place in Spain, that the Constitution of Cadiz should be reestablished, that the Cortes should meet...

The man who first saw that it was possible to found an European empire on the ruins of the Mogul monarchy was Dupleix. His restless, capacious, and inventive mind had formed thi...

But Charles acted at this conjuncture as he acted at every important conjuncture throughout his life. After oppressing, threatening, and blustering, he hesitated and failed. He...

Yet Temple is not a man to our taste. A temper not naturally good, but under strict command; a constant regard to decorum; a rare caution in playing that mixed game of skill and...

He had quelled the opposition of the civil servants: that of the army was more formidable. Some of the retrenchments which had been ordered by the Directors affected the interes...

A single session was quite enough for Temple. When the Parliament was dissolved, and another summoned at Oxford, he obtained an audience of the King, and begged to know whether...

At the head of those who may be called the Constitutional Royalists were Falkland, Hyde, and Culpeper. All these eminent men had, during the former year, been in very decided op...

But grant that Lewis was not really stopped in his progress by this famous league; still it is certain that the world then, and long after, believed that he was so stopped, and...

If the opportunity of forming a coalition beneficial to the State, and honourable to all concerned, was suffered to escape, the fault was not with the Whig ministers. They behav...

That a rash and impetuous man of genius like Carteret should not have been able to maintain his ground in Parliament against the crafty and selfish Pelhams is not strange. But i...

The health of Clive had never been good during his residence in India; and his constitution was now so much impaired that he determined to return to England. Before his departur...

The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picture-writing of Mexico. The images which Dante employs speak for themselves;...

The Opposition had now the great body of the nation with them. Thrice the King dissolved the Parliament; and thrice the constituent body sent him back representatives fully dete...

As it was with the faces of the men of this noble family, so was it also with their minds. Nature had done much for them all. She had moulded them all of that clay of which she...

The English functionaries at Fort William had as yet paid little or no attention to the internal government of Bengal. The only branch of politics about which they much busied t...

We do not believe that he could have succeeded. But we do not think his plan so utterly frantic and hopeless as it has generally been thought; and we are sure that, if he had be...

We have no hesitation in pronouncing this Fragment decidedly the best history now extant of the reign of James the Second. It contains much new and curious information, of which...

The elections of 1754 were favourable to the administration. But the aspect of foreign affairs was threatening. In India the English and the French had been employed, ever since...

Neither the facts which Dr. Nares has discovered, nor the arguments which he urges, will, we apprehend, materially alter the opinion generally entertained by judicious readers o...

It is somewhat curious that the admirers of Strafford should also be, without a single exception, the admirers of Charles; for, whatever we may think of the conduct of the Parli...

The truth seems to be that the government of the Tudors was, with a few occasional deviations, a popular government, under the forms of despotism. At first sight, it may seem th...

The zeal of Burke was still fiercer; but it was far purer. Men unable to understand the elevation of his mind, have tried to find out some discreditable motive for the vehemence...

It was about this time, as Lord Nugent has justly remarked, that parliamentary opposition began to take a regular form. From a very early age, the English had enjoyed a far larg...

Where such was the political morality of the noble and the wealthy, it may easily be conceived that those professions which, even in the best times, are peculiarly liable to cor...

It would be unjust not to add that Clive made a creditable use of his riches. As soon as the battle of Plassey had laid the foundation of his fortune, he sent ten thousand pound...

In one matter, indeed, Grenville, at the expense of justice and liberty, gratified the passions of the Court while gratifying his own. The persecution of Wilkes was eagerly pres...

His colleagues for a time continued to entertain the expectation that his health would soon be restored, and that he would emerge from his retirement. But month followed month,...

“I really cannot see,” says Mr. Gleig, “upon what grounds, either of political or moral justice, this proposition deserves to be stigmatised as infamous.” If we understand the m...

“Our state-artificer foresaw Which way the world began to draw. For as old sinners have all points O’ th’ compass in their bones and joints, Can by their pangs and aches find Al...

The conduct of Walpole with regard to the Spanish war is the great blemish of his public life. Archdeacon Coxe imagined that he had discovered one grand principle of action to w...

But it is not thus with music, with painting, or with sculpture. Still less is it thus with poetry. The progress of refinement rarely supplies these arts with better objects of...

This event produced the effect which has never failed to follow every check, however slight, sustained in India by the English arms. For hundreds of miles round, the whole count...

Temple, whose great maxim was to offend no party, was not likely to cling to the falling fortunes of a minister the study of whose life was to offend all parties. Arlington, who...

The effect of the book, even when we make the largest allowance for the partiality of those who have furnished and of those who have digested the materials, is, on the whole, gr...

Eight years later, the bull of Pius deposing Elizabeth produced a third law. This law, to which alone, as we conceive, the defence now under our consideration can apply, provide...

The crisis was indeed formidable. That great and victorious empire, on the throne of which George the Third had taken his seat eighteen years before, with brighter hopes than ha...

“Depuis deux siècles les Essais forment une branche importante de la littérature anglaise; pour designer un écrivain de cette classe, nos voisins emploient un mot qui n’a pas d’...

This was an evil, yet not an unmixed evil. If the new Whig statesmen had little experience in business and debate, they were, on the other hand, pure from the taint of that poli...

The Houses, it must be acknowledged, committed great errors in the conduct of the war, or rather one great error, which brought their affairs into a condition requiring the most...

About thirty years before this time, a Mahommedan soldier had begun to distinguish himself in the wars of Southern India. His education had been neglected; his extraction was hu...

Elizabeth clearly discerned the advantages which were to be derived from a close connection between the monarchy and the priesthood. At the time of her accession, indeed, she ev...

The triumph of Nuncomar seemed to be complete. He held a daily levee, to which his countrymen resorted in crowds, and to which on one occasion, the majority of the Council conde...

His enemies, particularly those who were the enemies of his virtues, were unscrupulous, ferocious, implacable. Their malevolence aimed at nothing less than the utter ruin of his...

In the general spirit and character of his administration, we think Cromwell far superior to Napoleon. “In the civil government,” says Mr. Hallam, “there can be no adequate para...

Scandal represented the Groom of the Stole as the favoured lover of the Princess Dowager. He was undoubtedly her confidential friend. The influence which the two united exercise...

The next great blessing which we owe to the Revolution is the purification of the administration of justice in political cases. Of the importance of this change no person can ju...

Of the numerous servants of the Company who have distinguished themselves as framers of minutes and despatches, Hastings stands at the head. He was indeed the person who gave to...

The old government of England, as it had been far milder than the old government of France, had been far less violently and completely subverted. The national institutions had b...

CALAS, Jean, a tradesman of Toulouse, done to death on the wheel in 1762 on the false charge of murdering his son to prevent his becoming a Romanist. Voltaire took his case up a...

But he had pledged himself to win the battle: and he was not a man to go back. It was no time for squeamishness. Bute was made to comprehend that the ministry could be saved onl...

Therefore it is that we decidedly approve of the conduct of Milton and the other wise and good men who, in spite of much that was ridiculous and hateful in the conduct of their...

Of those principles, then struggling for their infant existence, Milton was the most devoted and eloquent literary champion. We need not say how much we admire his public conduc...

Soon, however, new principles were announced; principles which were destined to keep England during two centuries and a half in a state of commotion. The Reformation divided the...

Nor was it only the influence of rivals that Temple had to dread. The relations of his mistress regarded him with personal dislike, and spoke of him as an unprincipled adventure...

These lines, we suspect, would have raised a tremendous storm In the theatre at any time during the reign of Charles the Second. They were clearly not written by a zealous Prote...

With this negotiation commences a new chapter in the life of Clive. Hitherto he had been merely a soldier carrying into effect, with eminent ability and valour, the plans of oth...

We now come to the Royalists. We shall attempt to speak of them, as we have spoken of their antagonists, with perfect candour. We shall not charge upon a whole party the proflig...

Russell, Lord William, the Hampden of the Restoration period. Fought hard for the exclusion of James II. from the crown; unjustly executed for alleged share in the “Rye House Pl...