true, though not equally apparent in the hope of inducing the government to pursue the conduct desired, which was desired only because of service to the people, the above explanation has been hazarded respecting the advantages resulting to the aristocracy. The real object in view however was the welfare of the colony. If any hope was entertained of obtaining that object through the instrumentality of the ministry, it was requisite to make them understand how the proposed method would benefit themselves. For that purpose and as a means to a better end, the method of advancing the sinister interests of our aristocracy has been dwelt on and explained.

In a future number the tenure under which the country ought to be settled will be considered in detail.

ART. IV.-Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel De Foe. By Walter Wilson, Esq. of the Inner Temple. 3 vols. 8vo. London. 1830.

MR.

R. Wilson commences his elaborate performance with the grave establishment of two distinct propositions; the first of which affirms the utility of Biography, on the authority of Zeno, Plutarch, Dr. Johnson, and Lord Bolingbroke; while the second assumes, that the life of Daniel De Foe is entitled to be written. Backed by such respectable testimony, all the world will agree with the first of these averments; and, if it were only for the sake of Robinson Crusoe, no small number of ingenuous persons as unreservedly subscribe to the correctness of both. Such at least ought to be the case; for, in the face of his own spirited satire, on the appellation, De Foe was in the strictest sense of the expression, a True-born Englishman ; not, of course, implying the bundle of ultra-toryism, bigotry and prejudice upon whom the epithet has been usually bestowed, nor even that pure quintessence of every thing open, honest, frank and generous, which Englishmen flatter themselves is peculiarly national; but a man whom English events, English experience, and English society, could alone produce and foster. Acute, undaunted, fertile and persevering, he resembled the Franklin of a later day, in the faculties of attentive observation, shrewd and accurate inference, and sterling good sense; and, like that celebrated individual, may be instanced as a remarkable specimen of the valuable texture of mind, the occasional production of which is so characteristic of the middling classes of Eng

land. Even his fictions bear the same predominant features; and, to crown all, his very defects, both as a writer and a man, wear the same native English complexion.

It might be wished that the plan and execution of these desultory volumes were as defensible, as the claim of Daniel De Foe to biographical attention, but in truth, besides abounding in that British fault, which Madame de Stael significantly terms les longueurs, as regards the revival of worn-out circumstances, and the party-spirit in which they are concocted, they appear, in strict conformity with the advice of Dogberry, precisely "when there is no need of such vanity." In justice to Mr. Wilson, however, it must be observed that his book was written, if not published, before the repeal of the Test-act, and was evidently composed with the view of encountering a more strenuous resistance to that piece of strict justice and sound policy, than was really experienced. It may still however be asked, whether the manner in which the battle was likely to be waged, demanded the appearance of a running commentary on the controversy between high church and dissent, from the Restoration to the reign of George I. It is obvious, that for a long time past, setting aside silly and eccentric individuals, who are scarcely to be taken into account on any side, churchmen have rested their chief defence of the Test-act, upon the virtual enjoyment by Protestant Dissenters of all which they demanded, and the asserted principle that the very nature of an establishment required exclusive privileges. They have been signally defeated in regard to both these points; and it required but slight attention to the mighty march of circumstance to prognosticate that, whatever might characterize a session or two, such would be the result. The benefit, therefore, may be demanded, of an unnecessary revival of the absurdities of a certain period, on the subject of passive obedience, divine right, and the propriety of persecuting dissent under the name of schism; when, except as before excepted, every one had ceased to contend for anything of the sort. History, no doubt, must tell the truth of all seasons; but then it is required to tell the whole truth, whereas Mr. Wilson selects his era so as comparatively to sink the vagaries of his own side of the question. He may plead that he could not deal with the life and times of De Foe without bringing in these subjects. Granted; but they need not to have occupied an almost exclusive attention. Much of this, however, may be attributed to a very simple and innocent cause. It needs not be remarked to experienced readers, how frequently bookish men, according to their early habits and predilections, get utterly at the mercy of associations, connected with dif

ferent periods in the history of their own country, and sometimes even in that of others; so as to be led to think more in the spirit of the favourite era, than of that in which they themselves exist. One person selects the days of Elizabeth and James; and every thing is to be judged of in reference to the standard and complexion of that celebrated period. The imagination of another is bewitched by the graceless revelries and wicked wit, which distinguished the blessed reign of his sacred majesty the second Charles. A few years ago, an elderly gentleman published a book avowedly to prove, that he possessed not a single idea which might not be traced to the reign of Anne; and here is poor Mr. Wilson, plunged up to the ears in controversies respecting passive obedience, divine right and other verbal delusions which have long ago departed to join the senses of Orlando, the bequest of Constantine, the decretals of Pope Sylvester, and similar nonentities in that beautiful satellite of ours called the Moon, which, according to the pleasant bard Ariosto, is the appointed receptacle of all such articles, when the earth has no more to do with them.

But it is not merely as fostering and retaining any injurious spirit of animosity, that we object to this recriminative and unoblivious spirit of assailment on old grounds of opposition and controversy; it proves equally injurious to the formation of clear and unprejudiced convictions in relation to affairs, not as they existed in the reigns of Charles, William, and Anne, but as they exist after a century and a half of additional experience. No person of sound sense will undervalue the study of history, that of his own country in particular, but it is equally clear, that no rational observer of the operation of time and circumstances upon human institutions, who attends to the incidental abuses which thence accrue, can avoid perceiving how favourable to those who profit by them, is the eternal grounding of principles and practice upon combinations of incident and maxims of policy which bear only some loose or general analogy to the present state of things. An overweening attention even to truths, when closely connected with particular times and circumstances, not unfrequently produces one of the worst operations of falsehood; by shutting out the qualifications and corrections which wider fields of contemplation and more enlarged experience are sure in the sequel to supply; to which it may be added, that mankind err not more certainly by neglecting the lessons of experience, than by improperly and untimely applying them. For example, it may safely be taken for granted, that one half the deliberative ratiocination of parliament, is occupied in a fruitless encounter with antiquated adages and com

mon places, originating, not in the position of things as they are, but as they have been. Not that laws can be duly rectified without an attention to the past as well as present, but on the part of those, at least, who are duly anxious for an amendment, such consideration should always exhibit a proper subserviency to the fundamental principle which forms the primary criterion of their utility and propriety. It should be left to those exclusively who profit by abuses, to distract attention by sophisticated appeals to detected fallacies and perverted associations, and above all, to passions and prejudices, which have their source in political and religious animosities that no longer exist. It has already been observed, that history must tell its genuine tale, but its tone should be peculiarly calm and philosophical in relation to mistakes which have been rectified, and principles which have been virtually renounced. At all events, books should scarcely be written to keep alive unpleasant feelings upon exploded points and defunct differences, which might so much more profitably attend to things which live, exist, and have their being, at the present moment. Whatever Mr. Wilson may think of his own book-and we firmly believe him to be a very honest and conscientious writer-it is as decidedly a party production as we ever perused; for what other name is due to a registry of the most plain and incontrovertible positions on the one side of a question in array against the most absurd and time-exploded fallacies on the other; and that with little, or certainly with inadequate allusion to suppressed absurdity, in the former case, or to more rational pretensions in the latter. What will follow if these volumes become popular? A recriminative counter-statement adverting in precisely the same spirit to the absurdities of the puritans in the preceding era of the Commonwealth-and to what earthly purpose? If such continue the practice, when will peace and good-will take place among men, or that race of Christian benevolence be run among different classes of religious theorists, the foremost object of which is to be of benefit to all mankind? It is not for a moment contended, that in return for tardy justice, the Dissenter is either to relax in a single conscientious principle, or to abate in any sort of prudent watchfulness, which may be essential to his future liberty or independence; but merely that an eternal recurrence to disputes and animosities which time has completely settled can do neither. A contemporary, indeed, applies the phrase, "happy iteration" to Mr. Wilson's labours, the grounds of which observation are sufficiently obvious. Neither need people be much at a loss to discover why the undeniable truth-that to religious dissent England is mainly

indebted for the share of political liberty which has fallen to her lot-is qualified by a lament, that when Dissenters have no cause of complaint, "and the zeal which has been kept alive by hard usage and penal laws, subsides into indifference and scepticism, there will be no leven left in mere feebler opinions, strong enough to throw off the pressure of unjust and ruinous power."* This is a very expressive dirge from the quarter in question over the declining influence of a party, which has for so long a time assumed and profited by the patronage of the sufferers, "by hard usage and penal laws," and that not unfrequently to the advancement of far more personal objects than opposition to "unjust and ruinous power." The growth of a large and influential portion of the population at once out of oppression and pupillage, is doubtless distressing; but let us indulge in a hope, that this great religious struggle being set at rest, honest people whose spirits and faculties have been so naturally engrossed thereby, may find leisure to pay attention to flagrant usurpation and abuse of power of another kind; that oligarchical monopoly and rapacity, may be repressed as well as kingcraft and priestcraft, both which evils it has engulphed within itself as the whale swallowed Jonah. It would be melancholy, indeed, if the general sense of mankind should remain obtuse to every other tyranny but an interference with creeds; or that persecution were the only antidote to indifference and scepticism. What is there in the existing aspect of society which bespeaks all this apathy? Great meliorations are taking place all over Europe, in which religious conflict has little or nothing to do; and how decidedly the remark may be extended to both the Americas, it would be almost ridiculous to dwell upon. Even in our own country we discover no absolutely discouraging indifference to these points, although there may be much to the minimum of distinction between the theoretical Whig and the practical Tory, who seem to be fast dissolving into one and the same being, like the too amatory nymph and the reluctant swain in the Metamorphoses. The most graceful part of Othello's occupation has doubtless terminated in the repeal of the Test Act, and the passing of the Catholic Relief Bill, and be it added, very honorably and consistently so far as regards those particulars; the world will still go on, and people be found anxious to redress unequivocal grievances, even if every man be not only allowed to go to his own chapel without the abatement of a single privilege, but be spared every sort of pecuniary infliction for the support of those of other people.

* See Edinburgh Review, No. C. Art. "Life and Times of De Foe."