English life has again became as rare as it was in the reigns of our last two Stuart kings. What, however, it would be futile to seek in the Character of a Trimmer, is political philosophy which looks far beyond a given situation. The author is only concerned to apply a few broad principles to matters as they stand; and this he does in language which, though here and there it glows with an unfeigned warmth, disdains neither trivial illustrations nor familiar figures, and rarely rises to so ambitious a height as that of the well-known passage at the close of the tract, which it seemed right not to omit below.

Another well-known tract attributed to Halifax, though the signature T. W. reversed was held by some to point to Sir William Temple, is the Letter to a Dissenter, published on the occasion of James II.'s first Declaration of Indulgence (1687). It was an admirably devised and most opportune attempt to convince the Protestant Nonconformists of the correctness of the timeo Danaos attitude which, with a combination of long-sightedness and fortitude almost unparalleled, a large proportion of their body assumed, and in spite of discouragement upon discouragement maintained. The argument of the solidarity of the Protestant interest was in itself excellent; the weakness of the position taken up by the writer of the Letter, which he did his best to cover with the help of a style full of liveliness and wit, lay in the paucity of the examples at his disposal of the readiness of the Church of England to acknowledge the solidarity in question. The Letter called forth a full score of replies; but while I perceive no reason for doubting Halifax's authorship of it, I cannot suppose him to have written the dogmatic Second Letter to a Dissenter, etc. (1687), which appeared in the course of the controversy. Among other political pieces that have been attributed to Halifax are the happily-named and shrewd, but rather drily written, Anatomy of an Equivalent (i.e. for oaths and tests); the very interesting Cautions offered to the consideration of those who are to choose Members to serve in the ensuing Parliament, which apparently belongs to the year 1689, and contains a most curious picture, drawn without narrow-mindedness, of the social composition of a House of Commons of the times; and A Rough Draft of a New Model at Sea (1694). In this pamphlet, which, if written by Halifax, was probably his last political piece, he seeks, not very effectively, to "trim" between the two different systems of appointment to commissions, which in the Navy and elsewhere it

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long proved so difficult to blend. The brief Maxims of State printed among Halifax's Miscellanies have considerable vigour, and conclude with the following :-"That a people may let a king fall, yet still remain a people; but if a king let his people step from him, he is no longer king."

Of much the same type are the Political and Moral Reflexions, which were published in 1750 from Halifax's MSS. by his granddaughter, the Countess of Burlington. But aphoristic literature has no claim to survive unless when distinguished by real excellence; and these sentences, while rarely devoid of the kind of wisdom that is the fruit of experience, as rarely show what deserves to be called wit. At the same time was given to the world Halifax's Character of Charles II., to which posterity has turned with more interest than to his censures on Edward II. and Richard II.; yet the latter are of some significance. They appeared in the very crisis of the Revolution settlement (January 1689), under the full (something too full) title of Historical Observations upon the Reigns of Edward I., II., III., and Richard II.; with Remarks upon their Faithful Counsellors and False Favourites; written by a Person of Honour. Yet in truth Edward I. and II. only come in towards the close in a series of antitheta of no particular interest; the point of the essay lies in the parallel between Edward II. and Richard II., and possibly James II. subauditus. The Introduction, which exhibits Lord Halifax himself in the character of a highly self-complacent latterday Doctor Faustus, rejecting theology, giving philosophy the go-by, and in default of being able to make way with uncontentious mathematics venturing upon a bit of solid history in their stead, is quite worth perusal, but contains no passage of notable force. It should not remain unmentioned, in this connexion, that Halifax was a keen-sighted collector of original historical documents, a selection from which, published in 1703, must not be confounded with the other Miscellanies of his own inditing.

As a quick-sighted observer, who had every opportunity of supplementing his own observations by those of the clever men, and more especially of the gifted women, whose intimacy he enjoyed, and as a judge raised above all prejudice, whether partisan or personal, Halifax was uniquely qualified to sum up the character of a prince, usually, but not altogether correctly, supposed to have had no character at all. And in my opinion the result is the best extant summary of the subject from the

personal, or in other words the one biographically satisfactory, point of view. I have extracted parts of the concluding chapter, which has something of the gracefulness inseparable from the true generosity of disposition which distinguished Halifax.

Nor is this quality altogether missing in the last of Halifax's literary productions on which I propose to touch, The Lady's New-Year's Gift, or, Advice to a Daughter. This once famous little treatise might almost be described as its author's offering to the beloved young wife of whom (in 1670) he was suddenly bereft, as well as to his daughter Anne (afterwards Lady Vaughan) to whom he devoted a not less genuine affection. This Manual of Conduct ran rapidly through sixteen editions, and was translated into French and Italian; and I have met with it in curiously mixed company in a guinea gift-book, entitled Angelica's Ladies' Library, or, Parents' and Guardians' Present, illustrated by Angelica Kauffman and H. Bunbury, and dedicated to good Queen Charlotte (1794). It has many undeniable merits; for it

is not only, as a matter of course, full of shrewdness and commonsense, but it likewise, as observed, displays on such questions as those of domestic economy the broad and liberal spirit of a true grand seigneur. And again, more especially in discussing the management of children, it reveals a genial and loveable side of Halifax's character, not elsewhere apparent except in his familiar letters. Yet when one reads that in the vade mecum composed by him for his child, our author tempered "naxims of exalted piety with a curious mixture of worldly wisdom," one can only wonder at the willingness of able writers to accommodate themselves to foregone conclusions. Halifax's standpoint in this work is dangerously near to that of another celebrated nobleman—a grandson by the way of Halifax and his second wife—in his Letiers to his Son. In both instances the father's admonitions are inadequate, not so much because of what they contain as because of what they omit. Halifax's conception of religion, for instance, as here developed is consistent and calm; it is cheerful; it is charitable; it is what you will; but I cannot discern in it any thing "exalted." He moves, not more at his ease (for he is always quite at his ease), but more to the tune of his times, in the succeeding sections under the headings, "Husband," "House, Family, and Children," Behaviour," "Friendship," "Diversions," and so forth. We here see him to be sincerely intent upon his daughter's prosperity in the world which he knew

both intus et in cute, and offering her the very best of advice, quintessential indeed in the strength in which it is distilled from his unrivalled experience. If her husband has faults or vices, if he is too fond, for instance, of sitting over his bottle or of counting his money-bags, let her not so much give way to as utilise these defects, and she will find her reckoning. If her friends of her own sex are discussed in her presence, let her not be too eager to defend them with generous warmth. Nobody can predict what may or may not prove true; and it is never advisable to be found to have taken the wrong side. On the other hand, if you must blame, if you must strike, “do it like a Lady, gently; and assure yourself that where you care to do it you will wound others more, and hurt yourself less by soft strokes, than by being harsh or violent." Accustomed though Halifax was to the society of some of the most honourable, cultivated, and within their lights, both high-minded and high-spirited women of his times, he could not think, so far as in him lay, of training up his daughter except in one way, the way that would pay. Thus his social, not less than his political philosophy, had its limits.

A. W. WARD.

LIBERTY, AND THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION

OUR Trimmer owns a passion for liberty, yet so restrained that it does not in the least impair or taint his allegiance; he thinks it hard for a soul that does not love liberty, ever to raise itself to another world; he takes it to be the foundation of all virtue, and the only seasoning that gives a relish to life; and tho' the laziness of a slavish subjection has its charms for the more gross and earthy part of mankind, yet to men made of a better sort of clay all that the world can give without liberty has no taste. It is true, nothing is sold so cheap by unthinking men; but that does no more lessen the real value of it, than a country fellow's ignorance does that of a diamond in selling it for a pot of ale. Liberty is the mistress of mankind, she has powerful charms which so dazzle us that we find beauties in her which perhaps are not there, as we do in other mistresses; yet, if she was not a beauty, the world would not run mad for her; therefore, since the unreasonable desire of it cannot be entirely suppressed, those who would take it away from a people possessed of it are likely to fail in the attempting, or be very unquiet in the keeping of it.

Our Trimmer admires our blessed constitution, in which dominion and liberty are so well reconciled. It gives to the prince the glorious power of commanding freemen, and to the subject the satisfaction of seeing the power so lodged, as that their liberties are secure; it does not allow the Crown such a ruining power, as that no grass can grow where'er it treads, but a cherishing and protecting power; such a one as hath a grim aspect only to the offending subjects, but is the joy and the pride of all the good ones; their own interest being so bound up in it, as to engage them to defend and support it; and though in some instances the king is restrained, yet nothing in the government can move without him; our laws make a distinction between vassalage and obedience, between devouring prerogatives and a licentious ungovernable freedom; and as of all the orders