THE BRITISH CRITIC, For JANUARY, 1811. "There's fomething previous ev'n to Tafte-'tis Senfe: Porz. ART. 1. A Hiftory of the Political Life of the Right Hon. William Pitt; including fome Account of the Times in which be lived. By John Gifford, Efq. 3 Vols. 4to. 81. 8s. 6 Vols. 8vo. 41. 4s. Cadell and Davies. 1809. THE HE confideration of this ponderous work involves the reviewer in many difficulties. He feels that the great man, who is the fubject of it, is intitled, perhaps more than any minifter that ever lived, to have his life recorded, his talents illuftrated, and his general merits emblazoned. He entertains opinions congenial with thofe of Mr. Gifford, on the virtues and character of this illuftrious individual, but yet cannot, on the whole, compliment him on the felection of his materials, on the judgment, or on the felicity. with which he has employed them." In his Dedication to Lord Spencer, Mr. Gifford regrets, deeply and feriously, that this tafk had not devolved on fome one more competent, in many refpects, than himself, to do justice to the fubject. The regret which Mr. Gifford expreffes, the purchafers of his work, the friends, and even B BRIT. CRIT: VOL. XXXVII. JAN. 1811. the the enemies of Mr. Pitt, if they are not also enemies to truth, juftice, and liberality, have a right to feel. How this task devolved on Mr. Gifford, he and his bookfeller alone can explain, but that he was not happily gifted for the under. taking, every man acquainted with his paft purfuits and prefent fituation would readily perceive. Hiftorical bio.. graphy, more than any other fpecies of writing, requires an union of the highest attainments with the choiceft gifts of nature and of temper. The biographer is the officer in the Temple of Fame, who ufhers his hero into the feats of immortality; and from his manner and powers, much of the opinion of after-ages must be derived. If his compofition be inelegant, flovenly, and inerudite, a great rifque is incurred that the reader will transfer fome portion of contempt to his fubject; if his ftyle be coarfe, and his invective boisterous, illiberal, and virulent, the difguft excited in the mind of the reader of tafte and judgment is too apt to extend itself to the individual, about whom the writer has been employed. The interefts of literature required that the commemoration of Mr. Pitt fhould be confided to a vigorous but delicate hand, and in the Volumes dedicated to his memory, every page should have been, if not refplendent with the glow of genius, at least exempt from the charge of flovenlinefs and vulgarity. One great fault, which muft ftrike every reader of thefe diffufe volumes is, the want of appropriation of much of the matter to the perfonal conduct of Mr. Pitt. The author, with the caution of a special pleader, has drawn up a title page, which promifes "the political life of Mr. Pitt" with fome account of the times in which he lived;" but fuch a title will prove only an inadequate excufe for a biography in which whole chapters are to be found with no relation to the acts or motives of the fubject, further than as they have relation to thofe of every other public man in Europe; and in which the hiftory is fo imperfect as to afford no fure foundation for the affertion of any fact, or the formation of any opinion. The greater portion of the matter contained in thefe volumes might, with equal propriety, have been introduced into a life of Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox, or even of any General or Statefman on the Continent, whofe date of exertion had been nearly contemporary with that of Mr. Pitt. The author of fuch a work cannot be fuppofed to have intended to produce either a biography or a hiftory; his whole aim evidently has been, to make a book. Such a mixed production, in another refpect, most injudicious, in an author who has not his temper under the most perfect perfect controul. Truth is the facred duty of every writer, but, to a certain extent, the biographer has had, by courtely, the privilege of being an apologist. This licence was never extended to the hiftorian, and he who in writing, even what may be called fome account of public affairs, renders his partiality toward one fide, and his enmity to another, confpicuous on every occafion, forfeits, at once, all claim to credit and to refpe&t. Mr. Gifford feems to have anticipated that fome of thefe objections would be made to his work, and in his dedication to Lord Spencer, has given a defence, of the truth and cogency of which the reader auf judge. "If, in this work," fays he, "I have expreffed ftrong fentiments, the fubject will be found to have called for, and confequently, to have juftified them.-If I have spoken with free. dom of public characters, I have only afferted that liberty which they exercifed themselves,--with this difference, that I have never used it but for public purpofes, whereas they often employed it for perfonal objects; and I have carefully confined it within legitimate bounds, while they carried it to an unwarrant able and dangerous excefs.—If I have inferred motives from condu, I have adopted the only criterion by which the intentions of men can be tried, and the only means of deriving. thofe in. Kructive lessons, which it is the main object of hiftory to com. municate, and its peculiar province to imprefs.-I have endea youred to ftate facts with fidelity; and, if I have drawn deductions from them illogical, inconclufive, or falfe, they muft have proceeded from an error in judgment, which, with the premifes before him, the reader will have no difficulty to correct. Anxious, above all things, for the cftablishment of truth, I have pleaded her caufe with earnest zeal and fincere devotion; nor have I been deterred from enforcing her precepts by any motives of a perfonal nature, by the defire of conciliating favour, on the one hand, or by the fear of giving offence, on the other." Vol. VI. p. ix. The manner in which the work is commenced, augurs moft unfavourably of its execution. Every reader, entering on a life of Mr. Pitt, muft expect fome details from which he can derive the probable caufes of fome portion of his fubfequent conduct. The political fituation and opinions of his father; the fcope of his mind; the virtues and defects of his public character; the means by which he obtained his great popularity; the points of contraft in which he flood, with refpect to other ftatelinen; and the contests and scenes in which he was fucceflively engaged during the minority of his fon; all these things, judiciously, though flightly touched, would B 2 |