THE BRITISH CRITIC, For JANUARY, 1811. "There's fomething previous ev'n to Tafte-'tis Senfe: POPE. ART. 1. A Hiftory of the Political Life of the Right Hon. William Pitt; including fome Account of the Times in which he lived. By John Gifford, Efq. 3 Vols. 4to. 81. 8s. 6 Vols. 8vo. 41. 4s. Cadell and Davies. 1809. THE confideration of this ponderous work involves the reviewer in many difficulties. He feels that the great man, who is the subject 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 feJection 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 task had not devolved on fome one more competent, in many refpects, than himself, to do juftice to the fubjett. 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 allo enemies to truth, juftice, and liberality, have a right to feel. How this task devolved on Mr. Gifford, he and his book feller alone can explain, but that he was not happily gifted for the under. taking, every man acquainted with his paft pursuits and prefent fituation would readily perceive. Hittorical biography, 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 tafle and judgment is too apt to extend itfelf 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 leaft exempt from the charge of flovenlinefs and vulgarity. 64 One great fault, which muft ftrike every reader of these 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 promiles "the political life of Mr. Pitt" with jome 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 int 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 Statesman on the Continent, whose date of exertion had been nearly contemporary with that of Mr. Pitt. The author of fuch a work cannot be fupposed 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'is, in another respect, most injudicious, in an author who has not his temper under the moft perfect perfect control. Truth is the facred duty of every writer, but, to a certain extent, the biographer has had, by courtefy, the privilege of being an apologift. This licence was never extended to the hiflorian, 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, cơnfpicuous on every occafion, forfeits, at once, all claim to credit and to refpe&t. Mr. Gifford feems to have anticipated that fome of these 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 must judge. "If, in this work," fays he, "I have expreffed ftrong fen. timents, the fubject will be found to have called for, and confequently, to have juftified them.-If I have fpoken with free dom of public characters, I have only afferted that liberty which they exercifed themfelves, with this difference, that I have pever ufed it but for public purposes, whereas they often employed it for perfonal objects; and I have carefully confined it within legitimate bounds, while they carried it to an unwarrantable and dangerous excefs. If I have inferred motives from cons. duct, I have adopted the only criterion by which the intentions of men can be tried, and the only means of deriving those in. ftructive leffons, which it is the main object of history to communicate, and its peculiar province to imprefs. I have endea voured 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 establishment of truth, I have pleaded her caufe with earneft 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 stood, with refpect to other statefmen; and the contefts and scenes in which he was fucceflively engaged during the minority of his fon; all these things, judiciously, though flightly touched, would B. 2 would have elucidated many parts of Mr. Pitt's fubfequent conduct, which, in Mr. Gifford's narrative, are left unex. plained, and are, by a reference to that alone, inexplicable. The declaration of Lord Chatham, that he would not, as a minifter, fanction measures which he was not allowed to guide; his fubfequent refufal, even at the request of his Sovereign, to aflit in a cabinet, the foundation of which was not left entirely to him!elf; his quarrel with one of the ncareft and most endeared of his relatives, because he was not allowed the uncontrouled afcendancy to which he afpired; his conduct and expreffions during the American war; his influence over the party which oppofed government in the city; his fentiments on the impreffing of feamen, the reform of parliament, the repeal of the telt-laws, and many other great political queftions, all of which occurred under the obfervation of his favourite fon, certainly claimed fome notice from the biographer of that fon, and were certainly to have been expected by a reader who wifhed to gain fome infight into the caufes as well as the courfe of his conduct. But, more than even this, Mr. Gifford omits to notice, that which is always interefting to the reader of a biographical work; the first public difplay which bis fubject made of his character. He does not even mention the interesting correfpondence which took place foon after the death of Lord Chatham, refpecting the intention of that ftatefman to join with Lord Bute in compofing an adminiftration, in the courfe of which correfpondence Mr. Pitt published a letter, equally honourable to his talents and his feelings. Mr. Gifford loofely informs us, that Mr. Pitt went the western circuit ence; even from that meagre incident fome light might have been thrown on the fources of Mr. Pitt's fubfequent conduct, if Mr. Gifford had ufed only fo much induflry as would have enabled him to collect from printed documents, well known, and by no means fcarce, that Mr. Pitt was retained, and diftinguished himself in the celebrated Cricklade cafe; where a fcene of corruption was unfolded, which was well calculated to inflame the warmth communicated to his mind by his father, on the fubject of parliamentary reform. Although this work profeffes to exhibit merely the political life of Mr. Pitt, furely a few pages of thele very large volumes might have been allotted to the narrative of fome, and The affertion is not quite correct, for Mr. Pitt went the circuit twice at leaft. He held briefs in the Cricklade caufes, in the fummer afizes 1781, and the fpring affizes 1782. inveftigation inveftigation of others of the topics alluded to. The author, however, feems impatient to place his hero in parliament, and after occupying a few paragraphs (we fhall not often cenfure him for brevity) in giving a jejune and confused outline of the fate of the war in which Great Britain was then engaged, he notices his being returned for the borough of Appleby, and without affording the flighteft view of the ftate of parties in parliament, or even intimating what were his family or political connections, he drily informs us, that on the 26th of February, he made his fift fpeech on Mr. Burke's motion for an economical reform in the civil lift. It is always fair, in making objections to the manner in which an author treats his fubject, to imagine what anfwers he might probably give, if called upon to vindicate himfelf against the charges alledged. Perhaps, on the fubject of these omillions it might be faid, that fome of the matters were not fo intimately connected with the narrative as to require insertion, and others were too well known to deserve it. If the characteristic of thefe volumes had been a defire to abridge unneceffary narration, and to avoid frivolous and ufelefs difcuffion, the excufe, bad as it is, might have had fome weight; but the topics to which we have alluded, were by far too important to the right understanding of Mr. Pitt's political character to be omitted; and if brevity were the author's pretence, he would have confulted that object more wifely and more effectually, by omitting many drawling narratives in which he has afterward indulged, when treating of the moft hacknied and trivial incidents of the laft twenty years. The pains and good tafte which would have been requifite to make a vigorous and judicious commencement, Mr. Gifford did not bring to the task, but where he could be fupplied, for many fucceffive fheets, with materials which coft barely the trouble of felection, from the Parliamentary and Annual Regiflers, and the pamphlets and narratives, which in the courfe of his literary life he has written, tranf lated, or compiled, or been obliged to refort to while engged on thofe employments, no bounds are fet to his copioufnefs, and no compaffion fhown to the fatigue of the reader. The first effays of a greci man are generally confidered by his biographer, as peculiarly worthy of commemoration, and they are regarded with great intereft by all judicious readers. What then must be the furprise of those who look into this work for genuine information, to find the events of the first two feffions in which Mr. Pitt was a fenator, comprised in two octavo pages, and not one of his parliamentary B 3 efforts |