en of so great an undertaking, was wasted
amidst the attractions and frivolity of high London society; and that,
more even than the heroic Swede in captivity, he was

"Condemn'd a needy suppliant to wait,
While ladies interpose, and slaves debate."

Lord Mahon has conferred essential obligations on English history. He has
brought to the annals of the British empire during the eighteenth century,
qualities nearly the reverse of those of Mackintosh, but which are,
nevertheless, not less essential than those of the Scotch philosopher, for
a right appreciation and correct delineation of the period. He is a
scholar, a gentleman, and a man of the world. Possessed of great knowledge
of his subject, vigorous application, and a classical turn of expression,
he has united to these qualities those, in historical writers, still
rarer, of a practical acquaintance with statesmen, both in Parliament and
private life, and a thorough knowledge of the leading public characters,
both military, literary, and dignified, of his own time. Every one must
see what valuable qualities these are, for a correct appreciation and
faithful narrative of the history of England during the eighteenth
century--great part of which was not distinguished by any enthusiasm or
impulse in the public mind, and during which the springs of events were to
be found rather in the intrigues of the court, the coteries of the
nobility, or the cabals of Parliament, than in any great movements of the
people, or mighty heaves of the human mind. In truth, no one but a person
moving in the sphere and possessed of the connexions which Lord Mahon
enjoys, could either obtain the knowledge, or understand the real springs
of events, during a great part of the period he has embraced in his work.
But still the history of the eighteenth century remains to be written.
Lord Mahon has remarkable talents as a biographer; his account of the
Rebellion in 1745, and subsequent adventures of Charles Edward, is not
surpassed in interest by any thing in the English language, and is justly
referred to by Sismondi, in his _History of France_, as by far the best
account of that interesting episode in British history. But his _History
of England_ are "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire," rather than history
itself. We want in his pages the general views drawn from particular
facts, the conclusions applicable to all ages, which mark the philosophic
historian. His volumes will always occupy a dist