reat,
in spite of the want of style, and not because of it. As a biographer,
he has been unfortunate in his subjects; the two most important of the
various lives he has either delineated or sketched--that of Dryden and
that of Swift--are men, to whose inexpiable baseness genius could
neither give the dignity of virtue nor the interest of error.

As an historian, we confess that we prize him more highly than as a
biographer: it is true that the same faults are apparent in both, but
there is in the grand History of Napoleon more scope for redeeming
beauties. His great, his unrivalled, excellence in description is here
brought into full and ample display: his battles are vivid, with colours
which no other historian ever could command. And all the errors of the
history still leave scenes and touches of unrivalled majesty to the
book.

As a novelist, Scott has been blamed for not imparting a more useful
moral to his fictions, and for dwelling with too inconsiderate an
interest on the chivalric illusions of the past. To charges of this
nature all writers are liable. Mankind are divided into two classes; and
he who belongs to the one will ever incur the reproach of not seeing
through the medium of the other. Certain it is, that we, with utterly
different notions on political truths from the great writer who is no
more, might feel some regret--some natural pain--that that cause which
we believe the best, was not honoured by his advocacy; but when we
reflect on the _real_ influence of his works, we are satisfied they
have been directed to the noblest ends, and have embraced the largest
circle of human interests. We do not speak of the delight he has poured
forth over the earth--of the lonely hours he has charmed--of the sad
hearts he has beguiled--of the beauty and the music which he has
summoned to a world where all travail and none repose; this, indeed, is
something--this, indeed, is a moral--this, indeed, has been a benefit
to mankind. And this is a new corroborant of one among the noblest of
intellectual truths, viz. that the books which please, are always books
that, in one sense, benefit; and that the work which is largely and
permanently popular--which sways, moulds, and softens the universal
heart--cannot appeal to vulgar and unworthy passions (such appeals are
never widely or long triumphant!); the delight it occasions is a proof
of the moral it inspires.

But this power to charm and to beguile is not that moral exce