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professor at Cambridge (Sir James Stephen) be happily con tinued. Of these we have already been allowed to gather the first fruits. To men who remember his excellent predecessor, William Smyth, it is delightful to think that his chair is now filled by one who, having the same high principles, the same earnest convictions, the same genial and benevolent love for his fellow men, combines with these gifts, industry inexhaustible, a wider philosophy, and a more extended experience.

Among the many paths of historical pursuit there is none more exposed to difficulty and temptation than that of contemporary narrative. It is far, indeed, from uniformly true that we see most accurately the objects which are nearest. The very contrary is often the case. We see but a part, and we see that part distorted. Time is, in many instances, a most powerful agent in discriminating truth from falsehood. It acts like those filtering cisterns which render our streams purer in their progress than at their source. The contemporary historian, if he has mixed in the events which he records, if he has associated with the statesmen of his time, can hardly free himself from the passions and the prejudices, the partialities and the animosities, which such associations engender. Having acted as a partisan, he can hardly avoid writing as such. There are events which he may know too well, there are others of which he can know but little. Some will be presented to his eye through a discoloured, or a distorting, medium. If the danger to the writer of contemporary history is great, the dangers to posterity may be greater still. If inaccuracies enter into the narrative, posterity will assume that what is not contradicted by living critics and witnesses ought to be received. Thus errors and mistatements are transmitted to future times as materials for history. The exposure of such defects, is a duty not only to the men and to the political parties of our own time, but to those who succeed us. On this account, therefore, it sometimes becomes necessary to notice works which might otherwise be allowed to escape observation.

We took up Mr. Roebuck's History of the Whig Ministry of 1830' with curiosity and interest. We anticipated, and desired his success. He possessed some important qualifications for the task he undertook. He had been for many years engaged in parliamentary life. Gifted with acute powers of observation, capable of close reasoning, familiar with general principles, clear, accurate, and idiomatic in his diction, with an intellectual courage scorning all danger, with feelings unbiassed by any very warm sympathies, with a love of independence, proclaimed somewhat too ostentatiously, he seemed ambitious

to add to our Parliamentary gallery a miniature likeness of himself, in the character of a modern Andrew Marvel. In addition to the advantages we have described, he has also the credit of being the author of one of the best and most useful works on our colonial system, a work which, from its high literary merit, its practical wisdom, and the calm and constitutional spirit in which it is written, is deserving of more notice than it has as yet received.

With these very great advantages Mr. Roebuck has unfortunately combined habits of action and modes of thinking which greatly impair his usefulness, both as a speaker and a writer. We presume that it must be with a view of displaying his perfect impartiality, that he has used the privilege of judging all men, and all parties, with indiscriminating severity and injustice. Plaintiff or prosecutor, he claims to appear also as witness, juror, and judge; he accuses, tries, condemns, and executes. It is in this last function that he manifestly delights. As the late Richard Shiel said of Mr. Disraeli, he resembles a young surgeon in a school of anatomy, who is nothing without a human body exposed for his dissecting knife. To him all wells seem poisoned; all fruits without a ripened and a sunny side. He prefers a search for the 'adder's fork and tongue of dog,' and the other defiling elements of the witches' cauldron, to the task of wreathing the gathered sweets of Enna and of Pæstum. We cannot say,surgit amari aliquid in ipsis floribus,' for, alas! the bitter is abundant, and the flowers few! He wanders from Dan to Beersheba, and finds all worse than barren. Where any public act is open to animadversion, he stigmatises it as a wilful crime. Where it has been productive of undeniable good, he attributes it to motives low and selfish. Nothing is allowed to escape his slashing hook.' We remember one of the unco guid,' who seeing a group of beautiful children playing among flowers, hardly sweeter or brighter than themselves, described them as 'bubbling fountains of iniquity.' So it is unfortunately with Mr. Roebuck. Placed as a modern Simon, on the top of the Monument, we doubt whether he would not consider the tide of human life which flowed beneath him rather as candidates for the gaol or the hulks, than as the active, industrious, public-spirited, and home-loving people of England.

Yet, with all this, we are less inclined to consider Mr. Roebuck as an ill-natured man,' than as being possessed by a most ⚫ill-natured muse.' His mission would seem to be, by his own choice, that of a general doomsman, sent forth to punish. This he does unflinchingly, and in most cases, with equal readiness, on all whom he summons before him. In the voluntary

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1852. Mr. Roebuck's Disqualifications for his Task. enforcement of his own criminal law, within the walls of Parliament, this apparent impartiality adds greatly to the force and effect of his sentences, and of his punishments. He claims to speak, not only his own opinions, but, somewhat presumptuously, those of the people of England. He assumes as his motto, Tu quid ego, et populus mecum desideret, audi,' but he neither refers to authority, nor produces his commission.

We have often marvelled, and been amused in witnessing enthusiastic Tory cheers excited by a bitter attack on the Whigs, subside at once into angry silence, when the Minié rifle of this expert marksman was suddenly shifted, and directed with deadly aim, against the Protectionist ranks. These manœuvres, however, are not works of wisdom, but political tours de force. They have destroyed the usefulness of one capable, and, we believe, willing, to render efficient services to his country. They deprive him of the sympathy of his fellow men, except of that class who rejoice in the sufferings of others. We regret this result for the sake of the public; we regret it for the sake of Mr. Roebuck himself.

We should not have hazarded these accusations lightly; but their justice is forced upon us by a careful perusal of the volumes before us. We are compelled to dwell upon them," because, if substantiated, it must be evident how utterly unfitted is Mr. Roebuck's mind for the performance of the duty of a just and accurate historian. The line which he has chalked out, is certainly not the line of grace; and we venture to suggest to him that Vandyke did not draw with a pencil of gall, on a 'tablet of stone;' nor confine his studies from nature to the morbid anatomy of the College of Surgeons.

We shall first illustrate our observations by a reference to Mr. Roebuck's character of King William the Fourth. He describes him as being very weak and very false, his capacity notoriously 'contemptible;' and as exhibiting the trained artifice of a 'mean spirit.' (Vol. i. p. 9.)

On the recal of Lord Grey's Government in 1831, he observes, The Ministry were forced upon the King, much against his inclination; he was glad of every defeat they encountered, and impatiently awaited an opportunity which might permit him to evince his dislike. He was, though a 'weak man, yet a very finished dissembler, and succeeded in making some, at least, of his ministers believe that they enjoyed his personal favour, when they were the objects of his most ⚫ inveterate hate.' Mr. Roebuck suggests, that the secret history of the period is to be found in the letters of the ministers of the day, and their correspondence with the King. Mr. Roebuck seeks

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to obtain further credit by stating that The documents he had ⚫ seen which relate more immediately to the King, were for the most part letters written by his command, and at his dictation; and that he has compared letters written at different periods and under very different states of mind.' What authority Mr. Roebuck possesses, and how he can have obtained access to confidential documents which could scarcely have been divulged at present without impropriety, he does not condescend to explain; but in the conclusion he comes to, he is contradicted, as he him self admits, by Lord Brougham, to whom the contents of these documents cannot fail to be known. Yet we are called upon to believe the calumny on the authority of one ill-informed of the facts, and in opposition to the direct testimony of a principal actor. Even if the historian and the Chancellor of William the Fourth had equal access to these papers, we find them adopt conclusions utterly contradictory; for Lord Brougham,' observes Mr. Roebuck, is accustomed to describe William the Fourth as frank, just, and straight-forward.' We cannot doubt that the public will prefer the evidence of the Minister of the Sovereign, to the very ungenerous imputations of the philosopher of Sheffield. Diogenes was like Mr. Roebuck, an acute, though 'as we suspect, not a very popular philosopher; but, however well acquainted with the topography of his tub, he was not on that account likely to be a good chronicler of the Court of Alexander.

He proceeds to apply the judgment thus formed to the historical facts of the time. He states (vol. ii. p. 27.) that, 'from the commencement, the King looked with great dislike upon the mere proposal of bringing in the Reform Bill. He considered the measure a most dangerous, and far too extensive a change; and nothing but terror of the probable consequence of such a proceeding prevented him putting an end at once to the whole scheme by dismissing the Whig Ministry. It would require all Mr. Roebuck's ingenuity to reconcile this statement with facts which he himself does not venture to conceal or to question. The King willingly accepted the basis offered by Lord Grey, on the formation of his Government, of which the corner-stone was Reform. He acquiesced in the dissolution which submitted the Reform Bill as the distinct issue to be tried by the people of England. It may here be remarked that the Bill itself was submitted to the constituencies, as it had been already to Parliament. Lord Grey did not seek to veil his intentions in any abstract declarations. Had he done so, how his political opponents would have taunted him; and justly too. Upon the resignation of Lord Grey's Government after the success of Lord Lyndhurst's amendment, the King stipulated

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with his expectant Cabinet, that the measure of Reform should be carried. • The King,' said the Duke of Wellington, insisted that some extensive system of Reform (I use his Majesty's ' own words) should be passed.' The late Lord Ashburton admitted (vol. ii. p. 315.) that to recommend the King not to pass a Reform Bill would be advice of the most pernicious kind; and the individual who gave it would be justly exposed to the reprobation of the House and of the Country.' Nor let it be imagined that this pledge was intended to have been redeemed by some trivial or inadequate measure; on the contrary, Lord Ellenborough in the moment of indiscreet triumph expressed, with imprudent frankness, that it would be the desire of his friends to outbid the Whigs in the popularity market; to extend the basis of the constituency, and to maintain household suffrage. We shall hereafter show how this stipulation on the part of the King led to the refusal of Sir Robert Peel and his political friends to join the proposed Government. This, and the general disgust expressed in the House of Commons, strangled the embryo Cabinet in its birth. It was thus that the firmness and resolution of William the Fourth, led to the restoration of Lord Grey's Government, and to the success of the Reform Bill in the hands of its framers. A result directly contrary to Mr. Roebuck's insinuation. He is driven to admit the main fact, though reluctantly and uncandidly. The King,' he observes, 'now that by the second reading of the Bill, the Lords had sanctioned the principle of the measure, considered himself 6 bound in honour to effect some change in the representative system.' (Vol. ii. p. 302.) He also admits the ready acquiescence of the Duke of Wellington in this principle, when the King proposed to him the acceptance of office on the condition of carrying a measure of Reform.

We are far from suggesting that the late King was a distinguished or consistent man. He had been ill-educated, and was ill-informed; but he was frank and honest, simple-hearted, and faithful to early friendships. Neither will the people of England readily forget, with what earnestness he adhered to a strict economy, avoiding all debt, or the imposition of increased burdens upon his people. We have reason to know how cheerfully he laid aside even his most favourite projects when informed that they would render necessary an application for new Parliamen tary grants. He felt that he had been justly and liberally dealt with by the House of Commons, and he recognised this fact in all his actions. When Buckingham Palace was completed he expressed the utmost disinclination to occupy it. It will re'quire an enlarged establishment, it will entail upon me