e of the domestic history of nations
is therefore absolutely necessary to the prognosis of political events.
A narrative, defective in this respect, is as useless as a medical
treatise which should pass by all the symptoms attendant on the early
stage of a disease and mention only what occurs when the patient is
beyond the reach of remedies.

A historian, such as we have been attempting to describe, would indeed
be an intellectual prodigy. In his mind, powers scarcely compatible with
each other must be tempered into an exquisite harmony. We shall sooner
see another Shakspeare or another Homer. The highest excellence to which
any single faculty can be brought would be less surprising than such a
happy and delicate combination of qualities. Yet the contemplation of
imaginary models is not an unpleasant or useless employment of the mind.
It cannot indeed produce perfection; but it produces improvement
and nourishes that generous and liberal fastidiousness which is not
inconsistent with the strongest sensibility to merit, and which, while
it exalts our conceptions of the art, does not render us unjust to the
artist.

*****

MILL ON GOVERNMENT. (March 1829.)

"Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, the Liberty of the
Press, Prisons, and Prison Discipline, Colonies, the Law of
Nations, and Education." By James Mill, Esq., author of the
History of British India. Reprinted by permission from the
Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. (Not for sale.)
London, 1828.

Of those philosophers who call themselves Utilitarians, and whom others
generally call Benthamites, Mr Mill is, with the exception of the
illustrious founder of the sect, by far the most distinguished. The
little work now before us contains a summary of the opinions held by
this gentleman and his brethren on several subjects most important to
society. All the seven essays of which it consists abound in curious
matter. But at present we intend to confine our remarks to the Treatise
on Government, which stands first in the volume. On some future
occasion, we may perhaps attempt to do justice to the rest.

It must be owned that to do justice to any composition of Mr Mill is
not, in the opinion of his admirers, a very easy task. They do not,
indeed, place him in the same rank with Mr Bentham; but the terms in
which they extol the disciple, though feeble when compared with the
hyperboles of adoration employed by them in spe