OF SIR GEORGE SAVILE, BART. FIRST MARQUIS OF HALIFAX &c. WITH A NEW EDITION OF HIS WORKS NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME COLLECTED AND REVISED BY H. C. FOXCROFT Turning to scorn, with lips divine, IN TWO VOLUMES-VOL. I. LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1898 All rights reserved Ва HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY THE BEQUEST OF THEODORE JEWETT EASTMAN 1931 HARVARD A PREFACE 'J'ayme les Historiens, ou fort simples, ou excellens: Les simples . . . qui n'y apportent que . . . la diligence de ramasser tout ce qui vient à leur notice. . . nous laissent le jugement entier, pour la cognoissance de la verité.'-MONTAIGNE. 'Circumstances must come in, and are to be made a part of the matter of which we are to judge; positive decisions are always dangerous, more especially in politics.’—HALIFAX (‘A Rough Draught '). IN an article on the works of Lord Halifax which appeared in the English Historical Review' for October 1896 and which constituted, in fact, a brief epitome of the following pages-attention was called by their author to the comparative neglect which has overshadowed the reputation of the brilliant writer and statesman to whose life and works they are devoted; and readers were reminded that authorities so varied and so distinguished as Hume and Ranke, as Ralph, Mackintosh and Macaulay, have described Lord Halifax in the language of superlative. Von Ranke, a by no means friendly critic, pronounces him one of the finest pamphleteers that have ever lived.1 Mackintosh, whose estimate of Savile's political action is seldom favourable, accords to him the attribute of a brilliant genius;' regards his 'Letter to a Dissenter' as the most perfect model, perhaps, of a political tract;3 and observes that the fragments of his writing which remain, show such poignant and easy wit, such lively sense, so much insight into character, and so delicate an observation of manners, as could Englische Geschichte, v. 148, edit. Berlin, 1859-68. 2 History of English Revolution, p. 8. 3 Ibid. p. 174. hardly have been surpassed by any of his contemporaries at Versailles.'' Lord Macaulay--whom we should have supposed incapacitated, by the prejudice of party and by the limitations of an intellect robust rather than subtle, from due appreciation of his merits-entertained for him, as is well known, a progressive admiration, which verged upon enthusiasm. To his championship Lord Halifax owes what little popular recognition he has attained; while, despite serious errors of conception and of detail, the brilliant portraits enshrined in the pages of the History' 2—and even, to an inferior extent, the earlier and less adequate estimate of the Essay on Sir William Temple'-display an imaginative insight rarely evinced by the great Whig historian. He declares Halifax, in point of genius, the first statesman of his age; asserts for his tracts their true place among the classics of English literature; and dilates on the extraordinary sagacity which, distinguishing Lord Halifax from all other English statesmen,' enabled him almost invariably, through a long public life, and through frequent and violent revolutions of public feeling,' to take that view of the great questions of his time which history has finally adopted.' 4 The article then demonstrated, in detail, the need for a Life and Works' of the statesman so suggestively eulogised. An error in this part of the essay (kindly pointed out by Mr. Scccombe) calls for revision; brief appreciative notices of Lord Halifax, with short extracts from his pamphlets, occur in Craik's English Prose Selections '5 and in Dr. Garnett's 'Age of Dryden.' Mention should also have been made of Mr. Saintsbury's eulogistic references, in the Pocket Library of English Literature,'' which History of English Revolution, p. 8. 2 See especially in chapter ii. vol. i. p. 252, edit. 1858, and chapter xxi. vol. vii. p. 171. 3 Essays, iii. 81-85, edit. 1848. 46 His name occurs in no history of English literature, etc.' Mr. Seccombe also mentions an article by Mr. A. C. Ewald (Temple Bar, liii. 211). It is unimportant. 5 Vol. iii. p. 209 (by Principal A. W. Ward). Pages 251-254. 7 Vol. iv. pp. x, xi, xviii, and 1 (published by Percival & Co., 1892). |