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Lest subsequent paragraphs should seem to be too exclusively informed by a spirit of captious "censure"—by a carping detraction, a nibbling disparagement, of Sir Archibald Alison's literary character,—be the present and opening one devoted to a sincere ascription of homage to whatever is laudable (and there is much that is highly so) in his historical writings. The more needful is this, because the subsequent paragraphs in question are, after all, concerned rather with superficial points, connected with such things as style and composition, than with the substance of his narrative. Honour due, then,—and the dues are considerable,—be forthwith and cordially paid to the learned baronet's industry, energy, enthusiasm, elevation of moral tone, and honest impartiality of purpose. Especial honour, that with such strong and staunch convictions of his own, he can and will, not only lend an attentive ear, but assign a prominent place, to the equally strong and utterly opposed convictions of others. He is himself deeply impressed with, and consistently prompt to impress on his countrymen, the belief,
That, for the functions of an ancient State—
Strong by her charters, free because unbound,
Servant of Providence, not slave of Fate—
Perilous is sweeping change, all chance unsound.[1]
Mr. de Quincey has remarked of Southey, as a writer of history,—and the remark may be applied in a measure to Alison,—that his very prejudices tended to unity of feeling—being in harmony with each other, and growing out of a strong moral feeling, which is the one sole secret for giving interest to an historical narrative, fusing the incoherent details into one body, and carrying the reader fluently along the else monotonous recurrences and unmeaning details of military movements.[2] The Corn-laws and the Currency,—who has not dipped into and dozed over the learned baronet's lucubrations on those terrible topics ? Which of us has not guiltily skipped by the score whole-page tables of statistics, laboriously compiled, and infallibly demonstrative of old England's moribund state? One is profanely reminded (mutatis mutandis), by the spectacle of Sir Archibald's mode of watching and predicting the free-trade décadence de l'Angleterre, of a stanza in a much-disputed variorum poem,—
Down the river did glide, with wind and with tide,
A pig with vast celerity;
And the Devil look'd wise, as he saw how the while
It cut its own throat. "There!" quoth he with a smile,
"Goes England's commercial prosperity."
Not that the "smile" pertains to Sir Archibald, any more than does
- ↑ Wordsworth: Sonnets.
- ↑ De Quincey's Autobiographic Sketches, vol. ii.
