Mr. Hume, the philosophical sceptic, and one of the acutest and most benevolent of men, has listened, with unsuspecting credulity, to the tales of Barillon, and cast a sneer on the "factious conduct" of Lord Russell, and the "meanness" of Sidney, "whom the blind prejudice of party has exalted into a hero." That Sir John Dalrymple and the Right Honourable George Rose should lend a willing ear to any story which can sully the character of those patriots excites no other feeling than that of perfect contempt: but when an historian, like Mr. Hume, of the soundest intellect, as well as of undisputed integrity, stamps a coin with the impress of his mint, and gives it currency, unconscious of its baseness, it must ever excite the deepest regret. * Although in our days, as Lord John Russell observes, we are no more in danger of the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic faith than of another invasion from the Romans, the case was extremely different at the period of history which we are now considering; and the dread that the political as well as religious opinions of the Papists should obtain an ascendancy, and be the cause of introducing foreign arbitrary power, as well as superstition and idolatry, created an excess of suspicion in the minds of men, of which we can now hardly form a conception. Lord Russell was one of the most vigilant and active centinels in guarding the Protestant faith, and securing a Protestant succession; and in his zeal for the prosecution of the conspirators in the Popish plot, even he seems, in one instance, to have forgotten the mildness of his nature. His perfect sincerity in the belief of that plot cannot be questioned; and on the scaffold he took God to witness that "he proceeded in it in the sincerity of his heart, being * See Hume, vol. viii. p. 43. Mr. Rose, in his reply to Mr. Fox's historical work, boasted that he was not employed about it many more weeks than Mr. Fox allotted years to his book. No one who has read the two will question the fact for a moment. A rabbit brings forth its brood once in six weeks, and can form no idea, as Mr. Burke somewhere says, of the period of gestation which is required to bring forth an elephant. Mr. Rose's work would have died and been forgotten, even in less than six weeks, if it had not been "damned to everlasting fame" by Serjeant Heywood's "Vindication." The insect is now preserved in amber, and is seen through the transparency writhing in all the agonies of torture and death. + Lord John does not consider the single authority of Echard, when all contemporary historians are silent, as sufficient to establish Lord Russell's opposition to the remission of any part of Lord Stafford's punishment. REV. MARCH, 1820, R really really convinced that there was a conspiracy against the king, the nation, and the Protestant religion." He seconded Colonel Titus's motion for excluding the Duke of York from the succession; and, after the bill had passed the Commons, he was delegated to carry it up to the House of Lords for their concurrence. The triumph which Charles obtained over the Whigs, on the subject of the Exclusion-bill, whetted the sanguinary and vindictive feelings which the measure itself had excited in his breast, and in that of his relentless brother; and he did not hesitate to employ against the meditated victims of his vengeance those very witnesses, whose perjuries in the trials for the Popish plot he had himself been the foremost to expose. The seizure of the city-charter, the election of the city-sheriffs against the will of the citizens, and the Oxford decree, enforcing slavery as a moral and religious duty, completed the destruction of the liberties of England! To the arbitrary government of Charles, obedience on the part of the people was no longer a question of morality and duty, but of prudence; and, had the Duke of Monmouth, Lords Russell, Shaftesbury, Essex, &c. brought over the Prince of Orange in 1683, they would have been intitled to all the glory which their more fortunate successors acquired in the Revolution five years afterward. The history of the Rye-House plot, and of the trial and execution of Lord Russell, are so familiar to every reader, that we shall be excused from entering into particulars concerning them. Lord Russell was committed to the Tower on the 26th of June, tried before Chief-Justice Pemberton on the 13th of July, and executed in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the 21st of July, 1683. From the manner in which he was taken up, it is little to be doubted that the court, with the dastardly policy which belonged to it, would willingly have connived at his escape; which would have saved them, as Lady R.'s biographer observes, from the odium of his death, and, by vilifying his character, have enabled them more easily to get rid of others. The back-door of his house being purposely left unguarded, while a messenger paraded in front, Lady Russell was sent to consult with her husband's friends whether or not he should withdraw himself: but no unworthy weakness or exaggerated fears for his safety suggested a wish on her part contrary to the conduct which his friends, as well as he himself, deemed consonant with his innocence and his honour. With such devotedness and ardour of affection as Lady Russell manifested, what must have been her consciousness of self-possession to have solicited her husband's leave personally to assist him at his trial! She sent to him this note: "Your friends believing you let believing I can do you some service at the trial, I am extreme willing to try my resolution will hold out,-pray let yours. But it may be the Court will not let me; however, do me try." In those days, to be tried and convicted was one and the same thing. Lord Russell was pronounced guilty on the infamous evidence of Lord Howard of Ethrick; who consummated his iniquity by afterward convicting Mr. Hampden, and bringing Algernon Sidney to the block. From the moment of her husband's condemnation, Lady Russell was unceasingly occupied in attempting to obtain a mitigation of his sentence: but the daughter of Southampton, of that faithful servant who deserted not Charles in the hour of his exile, poverty, and distress, now pleaded in vain to an ungrateful and relentless sovereign for the life of her husband, whose activity in the Exclusion-bill was an inexpiable offence. While indefatigably pursuing the slightest hope of mercy, says her biographer, and while offering to accompany him into perpetual exile, never did his heroic wife for a moment propose to him the purchase of his life by any base compliance, or by the abjuration of the noble truths for which he was persecuted.' When he was pressed by Tillotson and Burnet to leave such an abjuration behind him, she shared in his steady adherence to his principles, as she partook of his sufferings for them. In the hopes of saving him, both these divines used all their arguments and influence to persuade him to acknowlege that resistance to the constituted authorities was in all cases whatever unlawful; and such an avowal, Lord Russell was persuaded to believe, if presented to the King, might save his life: but he scorned to owe existence to a lie; and so apprehensive was Tillotson, who had gone farther than Burnet in this business, of Lady Russell's displeasure at his having, although with the best intentions, pressed her husband thus to abjure his principles, that, when he was first admitted to her presence, after her Lord's death, "he thanked God and then her Ladyship for that opportunity of justifying himself" in her estimation. The second act passed by William on his accession to the throne of these realms, from which the house of Stuart was deservedly hurled, Was one for reversing the attainder of Lord Russell, in the preamble of which his execution is called a murder. In 1694, he created the Earl of Bedford a Duke, and amongst the reasons for conferring this honour, it is stated, "That this was not the least, that he was the father to Lord Russell, the ornament of his age, whose great merits it was not enough to transmit by history to posterity, but they (the King and Queen) were willing to record them in their royal patent, to remain in the family as a monument consecrated R 2 consecrated to his consummate virtue, whose name could never be forgot, so long as men preserved any esteem for sanctity of manners, greatness of mind, and a love to their country, constant even to death. Therefore, to solace his excellent father for so great a loss, to celebrate the memory of so noble a son, and to excite his worthy grandson, the heir of such mighty hopes, more cheerfully to emulate and follow the example of his illustrious father, they intailed this high dignity upon the Earl and his posterity." Lady Russell, courted and caressed, honoured and revered, lived many years, to mourn in unmitigated grief the loss of her beloved husband. No vestal ever kept alive the sacred fire with more vigilance and anxiety than she preserved the memory of his uninterrupted kindness, benevolence, and love even time scarcely allayed the bitterness of her sorrows; and, far from effacing those sentiments of tenderness which the whole tenor of his life inspired and confirmed, it seems to have stamped them deeper and deeper! She would have exclaimed in the language of Burns, : "Still o'er past scenes my memory wakes, As streams their channels deeper wear!" Lady Russell died at the advanced age of eighty-six, with but little previous illness, on the 5th of October, 1723. The lady to whom the public is indebted for this volume of her Letters, and for the biographical account which precedes them, thus gracefully takes her farewell of the world: May the writer of the foregoing pages be allowed to hope, while fast sinking to the grave that must shortly close on an insignificant existence- may she be allowed to hope, that existence rescued from the imputation of perfect inutility, by having thus endeavoured to develope, and hold up to the admiration of her countrywomen, so bright an example of female excellence as the character of Lady Russell?-a character whose celebrity was purchased by the sacrifice of no feminine virtue, and whose principles, conduct, and sentiments, equally well adapted to every condition of her sex, will in all be found the surest guides to peace, honour, and happiness.' A portrait of Lord Russell is prefixed to the first volume of his Life. ART. Characters, of Books and Arranged with Notes by Crown 8vo. pp. 302. 8s. ART. III. Observations, Anecdotes, and ART. IV. Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men. Collected from the Conversation of Mr. Pope, and other eminent Persons of his Time. By the Rev. Joseph Spence, Now first published from the Original Papers, with Notes, and a Life of the Author, by Samuel Weller Singer. 8vo. pp.540. 14s. Boards. Carpenter. 1820. THE HESE are different publications of the same work. The first is avowedly not the original collection of Mr. Spence, but is a selection from his manuscript, with considerable modifications, by the late Mr. Malone: the other contains the same matter, but in its original order, with a large addition of anecdotes and remarks, derived from loose papers and memorandum-books in Spence's hand-writing; preceded also by a life of the author, and considerably enlarged by several notes of the editor. Pope is one of the principal speakers and actors: but many other persons are introduced, some of contemporary fame and some of only contemporary existence with the poet, whose opinions and conversations form no small portion of the miscellany. In his literary character, Spence, the original compiler, is chiefly known as the author of Polymetis; a book which still retains its place in our libraries, but which, we believe, never reached any great height of public estimation. It is indeed a prosing dialogue on the subject of heathen mythology, with this leading defect, that the illustrations are derived from the Roman to the exclusion of the Greek writers. Gray * in one of his letters made several just exceptions to it; and of Spence's general character as a writer, Dr. Johnson observed "that he was a man whose learning was not very great, and whose mind was not very powerful:"+ but he added "that his criticism was commonly just; what he thought, he thought rightly, and his remarks were recommended by coolness and candour." This perhaps is the full measure of his literary merit; and more will scarcely be urged in his favour, now that the partialities of private friendship are silent, and that commerce of praise is over which has so often given rise to exaggerated endowments among those who move in the same circle of society, and cultivate their studies in the same period of letters. His Essay on Pope's Odyssey is chiefly remarkable for having first brought him into a contact with * Gray's Letters by Mason. + Life of Pope by Johnson. R 3 Pope, |