Critical and Historical Essays, vol 2 | Page 6

as
well as in this country. Italy has already produced a historical novel, of
high merit and of still higher promise. In France, the practice has been
carried to a length somewhat whimsical. M. Sismondi publishes a grave
and stately history of the Merovingian Kings, very valuable, and a little
tedious. He then sends forth as a companion to it a novel, in which he

attempts to give a lively representation of characters and manners. This
course, as it seems to us, has all the disadvantages of a division of
labour, and none of its advantages. We understand the expediency of
keeping the functions of cook and coachman distinct. The dinner will
he better dressed, and the horses better managed. But where the two
situations are united, as in the Maitre Jacques of Moliere, we do not see
that the matter is much mended by the solemn form with which the
pluralist passes from one of his employments to the other.
We manage these things better in England. Sir Waiter Scott gives us a
novel; Mr. Hallam a critical and argumentative history. Both are
occupied with the same matter. But the former looks at it with the eye
of a sculptor. His intention is to give an express and lively image of its
external form. The latter is an anatomist. His task is to dissect the
subject to its inmost recesses, and to lay bare before us all the springs
of motion and all the causes of decay.
Mr. Hallam is, on the whole, far better qualified than any other writer
of our time for the office which he has undertaken. He has great
industry and great acuteness. His knowledge is extensive, various, and
profound. His mind is equally distinguished by the amplitude of its
grasp, and by the delicacy of its tact. His speculations have none of that
vagueness which is the common fault of political philosophy. On the
contrary, they are strikingly practical, and teach us not only the general
rule, but the mode of applying it to solve particular cases. In this
respect they often remind us of the Discourses of Machiavelli.
The style is sometimes open to the charge of harshness. We have also
here and there remarked a little of that unpleasant trick, which Gibbon
brought into fashion, the trick, we mean, of telling a story by
implication and allusion. Mr. Hallam however, has an excuse which
Gibbon had not. His work is designed for readers who are already
acquainted with the ordinary books on English history, and who can
therefore unriddle these little enigmas without difficulty. The manner
of the book is, on the whole, not unworthy of the matter. The language,
even where most faulty, is weighty and massive, and indicates strong
sense in every line. It often rises to an eloquence, not florid or
impassioned, but high, grave, and sober; such as would become a state
paper, or a judgment delivered by a great magistrate, a Somers or a
D'Aguesseau.

In this respect the character of Mr. Hallam's mind corresponds
strikingly with that of his style. His work is eminently judicial. Its
whole spirit is that of the bench, not that of the bar. He sums up with a
calm, steady impartiality, turning neither to the right nor to the left,
glossing over nothing, exaggerating nothing, while the advocates on
both sides are alternately biting their lips to hear their conflicting
misstatements and sophisms exposed. On a general survey, we do not
scruple to pronounce the Constitutional History the most impartial
book that we ever read. We think it the more incumbent on us to bear
this testimony strongly at first setting out, because, in the course of our
remarks, we shall think it right to dwell principally on those parts of it
from which we dissent.
There is one peculiarity about Mr. Hallam which, while it adds to the
value of his writings, will, we fear, take away something from their
popularity. He is less of a worshipper than any historian whom we can
call to mind. Every political sect has its esoteric and its exoteric school,
its abstract doctrines for the initiated, its visible symbols, its imposing
forms, its mythological fables for the vulgar. It assists the devotion of
those who are unable to raise themselves to the contemplation of pure
truth by all the devices of Pagan or Papal superstition. It has its altars
and its deified heroes, its relics and pilgrimages, its canonized martyrs
and confessors, its festivals and its legendary miracles. Our pious
ancestors, we are told, deserted the High Altar of Canterbury, to lay all
their oblations on the shrine of St. Thomas. In the same manner the
great and comfortable doctrines of the Tory creed, those particularly
which relate to restrictions on worship and on trade, are