The Press. — London, England, 1858-07-03 00:00:00

yittraturt. History of England during the Reign of George 111. By William Massey, M.P. Vol. 11. 1770-1780. London : J. W. Parker and Son. • WE have so recently* had an opportunity of expressing our opinions upon this very interesting period of English history, that we feel we have no ex,:use for detaining our readers very long upx n the present occasion. The early part of George reign is necessarily an important epoch for the political student ; as it is here that his best and most impartial guide for the first time deserts him, and leaves him to apply for him self the lessons conveyed through the medium of more remote and indifferent events. Hallam is now silent. And the principal writer to whom we have to trust is Professor Smyth, whose pre dilations are far too strongly marked to permit of our accepting him as an authority. The text book of his lectures on the period—as Alison does not begin till twenty years later—is Adolphus's "History of the Reign of George III.." written from the Higl.-Tory point of view ; and the tenor of his remarks is pervaded by an air of special pleading directed to the confutation of a single author, rather than by the calm inquisitiveness of the political philosopher. A continuation ofthe "Constitutional History" is gradually becoming one of the wants of the present day. But we look round in vain for any one possessed of the learning, impartiality, and sagacity of its celebrated author. No regular history can do for us exactly what Mr. Hallam has done, or else we need not ask for anything more than Lord Mahon's, who, though not always equal to the labour of forming original views, presents us on the whole with a very fair picture of the period he has undertaken to de lineate. But though the leisurely student may be able to draw his own conclusions from a lucid and impartial narrator, the world at large requires to have the abstracting process performed for them. To get the full value from a Thucydides, we require an Aristotle ; and to get the full value from a Hume, we require a Hallam. Who is to perform that office for our later history, we say, we do not know. In the meantime, pretenders of every description are freely permitted to distort the history of this era into the wildest shapes of absurdity ; to sneer at the only English sove reign who since the days of Queen Elizabeth has stamped his character on the epoch, and at one of those great English Ministers, who, at the head of a great national party, has repre sented at once the opinions both of the monarch and the people. We must hasten to apprise our readers that we do not mean to include Mr. Massey in the terms of this description. Ills History approaches much nearer to the moderate and equitable nar rative of Lord Mahon than to the class of mad declaimers represented by Mr. Macknight, or of scholastic partizans of whom Professor Smyth is an example. He is evidently anxious to be im partial ; and though we should say he is deficient in research, he is gifted with a native good sense that frequently leads him to the truth where a more pretentious writer would have missed it. We do not mean to say that lie is an historian of sufficient calibre to overcome the force of in veterate prejudices ; but, apparently, when his mind is not under the influence of these, he is willing to see things in a light not always in hccordance with his own general views. His character of George 111., and his description of the " King's Friends," as given in the first volume of this work, are distinguished by an effort to do justice to the former and by a much more sensible estimate of the real , position of the latter, than we commonly meet with in Liberal historians. But his intellect is unequal to the labour a! sustaining him at this elevation of im partiality. In his second volume he is gradually drawn down again to the vulgar level, and per mits himself to indulge in much of the abusive cant which has been levelled against George 111. On the parliamentary policy of that Sovereign, we have expressed our views at length in the article already referred to. It was a legitimate reaction against the policy of the two preceding reigns. It was not to be supposed that when the l'eteis, Feb. 20. I:eview.of Life of Burke. THE PRESS, JULY 3, 1858. immediate dread of Popery and tyranny was re moved, the English people would not resume their natural allegiance to monarchical principles. Professor Smyth is right enough in saying that the two first Georges were not in any bondage to their Ministers, and that, therefore, it cannot be properly said that George 111. emancipated him self from a thraldom which, in fact, never ex isted. True ; but what kind of power was it that the two first Georges exercised, and by what unholy compact was it held ? The King agreed to surrender the management of our domestic policy into the hands of the Whigs, provided the Whigs would permit him to pursue a German policy abroad. There was no thraldom here, of course, for either party; but then it was a state of things which could only be regarded, at the best, as a necessary evil, to be abrogated the moment it could be done with security. To exclude the Stuarts, it was necessary to maintain the Guelphs; to maintain the Guelphs, it was necessary to humour their Hanoverian sympa thies. But when that necessity was over, the English people welcomed back an English King to the exercise of those functions which attached to the national sovereignty. " The principles of the Revolution" did not consist in having a King of England who cared for nothing English, and was content to ignore his real position. All that they established was, that no King of England could govern in defiance of the will of Parliament. They never meant that Parliament was to govern in defiance of the King's will. And that this was the general interpretation placed upon them by the people of this country is evident from the popular support accorded to the King's Government for an unbroken period of half a century. This is a salient fact which cannot be got over. The abstract excellence of any system of government is one thing ; its agreement with the feelings of those for whose sake it is admi nistered is another. Any Government which fulfils the latter condition is, in the only practical sense of the word, a good Government. And when, therefore, it is argued against George 111. that he supported the American war, and op posed Roman Catholic emancipation, it seems to be quite overlooked that had he not done both he would have been acting on the very same theory of government which the Revolution was intended to destroy. When, therefore, Mr. Massey writes in such a strain as the following, he is really, if we may say so, putting the cart before the horse : The Catholic question served the purposes of George HI. for the remainder of his reign. It. enabled him to form and break up administrations, to gratify personal malice, and to exclude from the public service some of the foremost statesmen in the country. His mind, like that of James 11., was so constituted as to be incapable of derising a practical lesson from experience; and had he lived and governed in 1829, he would, probably, have risked a far more dangerous dismemberment of the empire than that of 1783, before he would have permitted the Duke of Norfolk or Mr. O'Connell to take their seats in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is not so much that the Catholic question served the purposes of George 111. as that George 111. served the purposes of the English Protestants. As his own opinions happened, un fortunately, to agree with those of the vast majority of his subjects, they preserved a cordial understanding with each other to the end of his reign. But this is twisted by Mr. Massey into a deliberate scheme on the King's part to adopt popular prejudices for the sake of being able "to gratify his personal malice"; while he is said to have imitated James 11., by doing, in obedience to the popular wish, the exact re verse of what that Sovereign had tried to do in defiance of it. These arguments are as logical as they are generous, and as unworthy of Mr. Massey as they are contrary to the known cha racter of the King. Not even George lll.'s enemies have denied that he acted conscien tiously, and it was the confidence which lie thus inspired, as much as the principles he professed, which contributed to his long popu larity. We have said that where Mr. Massey is free from the influence of the most powerful kind of prejudices, he is frequently sensible and shrewd. His remarks on the partition of Poland in 1772 are an instance of this. He thinks, and in our opinion very justly, that it was impossible for this country to interfere. We, indeed, go even further than he does, for we think that even France and England united would have 631 been no match in those days for Austria, Prussia, and Russia on their own ground. But however that might have been, it is clear that the partition was in accordance with the foreign policy which Great Britain had long been pursuing, and of which Chatham was the great exponent. The statesmen of that day are not to be blamed if they did not see seventy years before them, or if they overrated the terrors of a power which was the traditional enemy to the liberties of Europe. The " Humiliation of the House of Bourbon" had, in their time, become an empty phrase ; but they could not, perhaps, be expected to see it. A hundred and twenty years before the same thing was said about Spain ; and the Peace of the Pyrenees was grounded on the same erroneous theory that induced English statesmen to wink at the parti tion of Poland. France then stood in the same relation to Spain that Russia now stood in to France—her as yet unacknowledged successor to the predominant place in Europe. Nobody in either case saw the truth—neither Cromwell in the one, nor Chatham in the other. It is pos sible, indeed, that each may have been blinded by special prejudices—Cromwell by his indignation with Spain for protecting the Stuarts and their adherents; Chatham by the fact that his reputa tion was principally founded on his great struggle with France. But still the analogy is a curious one, and only serves to show how rare, after all, is true political foresight, and how little claim can be advanced by the greatest statesmen to a freedom from popular illusions. Mr. Massey's sketches of society and literature during the present period are spirited and graphic, though they show a closer imitation of Lord Ma caulay than he has any right to indulge in. Witness the following : The curate of the seventeenth, and the first half st least of the eighteenth century, in point of education, was little above his flock ; and, in social position, he was certainly below the yeomen and tradesmen of the parish. He was often obliged to eke out a subsistence for his ragged and half-starved family by the labour of his hands : and his children were brought up to earn their bread by servile labour. The vices and foibles incident to a position theoretically one of dignity and authority, but iii which it was really difficult to maintain sell-respect, were the constant theme of ridicule to the satirists of the age. The higher ranks of the clergy, though free from the degrading influences of abject poverty, seldom fulfilled the duties, or ever regarded much the outward decencies of their calling. The rector or vicar was often a pluralist, and, therefore, an absentee; or, if he lived upon his vlebe, he was a kind of ecclesiastical squire, differing only from other country gentlemen in the discharge of the formal duties of his offic. He joined in carouses and field. sports ; and his presence rarely imposed any restraint on the conversation or indulgence of the festive board. On Sunday the service was hurried over, terminating, perhaps, in a sermon affectedly learned and abstruse. The daily attendance on his parishioners, which is now considered by every conscientious clergyman the most important part of his duties, was wholly neglected by the incumbents who flourished in the early years of the Hanover succession; and, even down to a much later period, the jovial rector, if called upon to perform o duty on a week-day, might be seen homing over the office of matrimony or burial in a surplice carelessly thrown beer a hunting frock or other equipment Thr the field. The man of fashion of this period was a compound of effeminacy and affectation. He painted and perfumed like a woman. His toilet occupied a great proportion of his time; his dress was of the most costly materials, and the most fantastic pattern.. Silks and brocades, em• broidery, gold-lace and jewellery, adorned his person, both in morning and evening costume. He seldom stirred abroad on foot, except to take a turn in the Mall ; and if he bad to cr)ss the street only from his lodging to a tavern, he was conveyed in a chair. Gaming was his chief employment; gallantry occupied the hours which could be spared from dress and play. He had made the grand tour, and consequently knew the world. Of books he knew little or nothing. Men of education he called " prigs " and " pedants." The only literature which he cultivated was plays, novels, lampoons, or tracts in ridicule of religion. With Mr. Massey's literary opinions we often disagree. his estimate of Junius in the first volume has not, we think, commanded general assent. Ills account of Foote in the present volume stands in marked contrast with the essay of Mr. Forster on the same subject. We are, indeed, tempted to believe that Mr. Massey has not read this essay, or he would scarcely have stated as a well-known fact what that careful and laborious writer has not even so much as men tioned. We allude to the report that Foote offered to suppress a libel on the Duchess of Kingston if she would give him 2,0001. Now, we allow that the evidence for this report is not so weak as to justify the contemptuous silence of Mr. Forster. But certainly the general %in= J