diately raised his voice for oppressed Ireland, with an earnestness which shows how deeply he felt for her sufferings. "Your Majesty," he said, "accepted my poor field fruits touching the union; but let me assure you that England, Scotland, and Ireland well united, will be a trefoil worthy to be worn in your crown. She is blessed with all the dowries of nature and with a race of generous and noble people, but the hand of man does not unite with the hand of nature. The harp of Ireland is not strung to concord. It is not attuned with the harp of David in casting out the evil spirit of superstition, or the harp of Orpheus in casting out desolation and barbarism."

In gradual reform of the law, his exertions were indefatigable; his favourite maxim was,—

"I hold every man a debtor to his profession; from which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto."

He suggested improvements both of the civil and criminal law; he published various works on the subject; he proposed to reduce and compile the whole law, and availed himself of an opportunity to recommend a memorial touching the review of the penal laws, and the repeal of such as are obsolete and snaring, and the supply, where it shall be needful, of Lawes more mild and fit for the time, &c. and in a tract upon universal justice, Leges Legum, he planted a seed which, for the last two centuries has not been dormant, and is now just appearing above the surface.

In his first speech in Parliament, he recommended a permanent board of legal reform, and he availed himself of every opportunity to repeat this recommendation. It is repeated in his offer of a Digest of the Law; in his proposal for the amendment of the law; in his "Justitia Universalis;" in his dedication to the elements of common law, and in his proposition for a compilation of the law. A suggestion which has been wholly disregarded. He has been crying in the wilderness. Had he been heard, we should not, for centuries, have been legislating like a blind man trying his way with a stick, but as a seeing man with light. Such were his direct exertions to improve the law, and they were made not when reform was popular, but when it was looked upon with great jealousy by the king, by the people, and by his profession.

His indirect exertions, although less perceptible, were not less profitable. They have ever been duly appreciated. In a work of which Mr. Macaulay will acknowledge the authority, the Edinburgh Review of April, 1803, the author, speaking of Bacon's Essay on Judicature, says,—

"To both bench and bar, in Scotland and everywhere else, we strongly

recommend the attentive and repeated study of Lord Bacon's little Essay (scarcely three pages) on Judicature. It is a discourse which ought not merely to be suspended over the gate, but engraven on the heart of every court of Justice."

From Bacon's great foresight; from his having lived in times when darkness was upon the face of the country, and from his having lived in courts, he was necessarily well skilled in the art of silence; he could not but know that the art of advancing kind feeling, when conversing with kings and great men, consists not in resisting but in inperceptibly humouring observations; not in opposing but in directing the stream; "Never oppose a king," is an old maxim among courtiers, which he well understood.

When Elizabeth said to him that a publisher should be compelled by the rack to produce the author, Bacon did not read a lecture against erroneous punishments; he contented himself with saying, "Nay, Madam, rack his style." He said this in the true spirit of an intelligent reformer, as is thus stated in Hume :

"There cannot be a stronger proof how lightly the rack was employed, than the following story, told by Lord Bacon. We shall give it in his own words: The Queen was mightily incensed against Haywarde on account of a book he dedicated to Lord Essex, being a story of the first year of King Henry the Fourth; thinking it a seditious prelude to put into the people's heads, boldness and faction, she said she had an opinion that there was treason in it, and asked me if I could not find any places in it that might be drawn within the case of treason? Whereto I answered, for treason sure I found none: but for felony, very many; and when her Majesty hastily asked me wherein? I told her the author had committed very apparent theft; for he had taken most of the sentences of Cornelius Tacitus, and translated them into English, and put them into his text. And another time when the Queen could not be persuaded that it was his writing whose name was to it, but that it had some more mischievous author, and said with great indignation, that she would have him racked to produce his author, I replied: Nay, Madam, he is a doctor; never rack his person, but rack his style: let him have pen, ink, and paper, and help of books, and be enjoined to continue the story where it breaketh off, and I will undertake by collating the styles, to judge whether he were the author or no.' Thus had it not been for Bacon's humanity, or rather his wit, this author, a man of letters, had been put to the rack for a most innocent performance."

So too, and in the same spirit, when James was much troubled with Peacham's conduct, and said, " He is a raging devil," Bacon did not inveigh against the use of such terms, but said, " Nay, he is a dumb devil," and he adds, " We are driven to make our way through questions (which I wish were otherwise)."

If Mr. Macaulay disapprove of this doctrine, he may without

difficulty ascertain its correctness. The Mahometans are darkened by ignorance and depraved by cruelty. Their emblem is not the dove but the vulture. Let him settle for a short time, it will be only a short time, in Constantinople; and let him write an Edinburgh Review against capital punishment or the seraglio, it will, unfortunately for the public, be his last Review. The Mahometan punishments are very summary. They do not hesitate to tie offenders in a sack with very unpleasant companions and throw them into the Bosphorus, and the torture inflicted upon malefactors will without hesitation be extended to troublesome reviewers.

Never was there, I repeat, a more ardent reformer of the law, never a more sincere lover of his country than Lord Bacon. For his exertions to reform the law, I refer to his publications and exertions in Parliament. For his love of his country, I refer to his Essay on the Greatness of Britain, and to every part of his works; and, amongst others, to his prayer as Chancellor, which was found amongst his papers after his death, where he thus speaks:

"Remember, O Lord, how thy servant hath walked before thee, remember what I have first sought and what hath been principal in my intentions. I have loved thy assemblies; I have mourned for the divisions of thy church; I have delighted in the brightness of thy sanctuary. This vine which thy right hand hath planted in this nation, I have ever prayed unto thee that it might have the first and the latter rain, and that it might stretch its branches to the seas and to the floods."

Such was the man who by Mr. Macaulay has been accused of hard-hearted malevolence, and of being behind his age.

By these loose and incautious statements Mr. Macaulay has thrown another stone at the monument of one of the greatest men that ever lived, instead of aiding in the nobler work of clearing away the rubbish that defaced it. To the other charges heaped by inconsiderate ignorance, he has added the hitherto unheard of charge of cruelty; following in the train of Sir Edward D'Ewes and Sir Anthony Weldon, whose falsehoods were exposed almost as soon as uttered, instead of joining the illustrious band, who vied with each other in doing honour to his memory. The learned and pious Dr. Rawley, Archbishop Tennison, and Herbert,the faithful Sir Thomas Meautys, the intellectual Hobbs,-the independent, high minded Selden, and the observing, affectionate, discriminating Ben Jonson, who, in a passage partly noticed in the Review, says,—

"My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his place or honours, but I have and do reverence him for the greatness that was only proper to himself; in that he seemed to me ever by his works one of the greatest men and most worthy of admiration that had been in many ages in his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength, for greatness he could not want.'"

Here Mr. Macaulay concludes; not so Ben Jonson, who thus finishes the sentence, "Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, knowing that no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest."

The evidence upon the charge of cruelty is now before the impartial public, by whom, sooner or later, justice is always done.

If Mr. Macaulay had been a common writer, his charge of cruelty might have been safely left to its natural fate. It would have floated down the stream with the censures of D'Ewes and of Weldon; or have been added to the list of wonderful accusers mentioned, I think, by Lord Byron, "the accuser of Voltaire of ignorance, of Wilberforce and Clarkson of cruelty, and of Napoleon and Wellington of cowardice;" but when a distinguished scholar places himself in the judgment seat, and calls such a man as Lord Bacon to the bar, it cannot but be his wish that his errors should not pass unnoticed. Let the bane and antidote circulate together. The evidence has been adduced; it now only remains for me, when demanding justice for Lord Bacon and truth for the world, respectfully to say, that a truly great man is considerate before he condemns, and hesitates when compelled to censure; he knows that in all censure of others there is something of self-approbation; that, exalted into the situation of a judge, it is difficult to walk humbly. He is also fearful that a subject deeply considered, and by him cautiously stated, may mislead others; that he may awaken intemperate zeal, that he may administer to malice, and encourage that never-dying envy which vainly hopes to raise itself by the depression of superiority.

I cannot conclude without saying, that, whatever apparent differences there may be between Mr. Macaulay and myself, we can have but one wish, one object in view,-to assist society in forming a correct judgment of the character of Lord Bacon ;-and it will be formed. He did not speak inadvertently when he said, "I leave my good name and reputation to men's charitable speeches, to foreign countries, and the next ages." B. M.

ART. VIII.-The Life, Times, and Missionary Enterprises of the Rev. John Campbell. By ROBERT PHILIP. London: Snow.

MR. Philip's Life of the Rev. John Campbell is a valuable and interesting work. It presents much more variety than the history of most ministers of the gospel can be expected to furnish, whose piety, however ardent, is not likely to offer many striking incidents, and whose pastoral duties might be of a routine nature, and little calculated to engage the particular attention of strangers. But John Campbell from his boyhood exhibited some uncommon features, or at least supplies us with several very instructive incidents and

characteristics. The changes which took place in his worldly condition have something in them that is engaging. The influence he had, too, in the religious movement which occurred about half a century ago, in his native country, is a matter for observation. Above all, his Missionary exertions were of such amount and distinction as will hand down his name to posterity among the champions who have devised the noblest schemes, and adventured most for their fellow-men in the dark places of the earth. In so far as Mr. Philip is concerned, the work is well done; it is executed in a congenial spirit; it is a warm, hearty, and an eloquent tribute to a departed friend. We proceed to lay before our readers some of the more important passages, or to indicate the nature of others by some brief observation; premising, however, that Mr. Campbell's Missionary enterprises shall not occupy us at any length, for these reasons, first, that his efforts in behalf of the poor Africans are widely known in the religious world; and secondly, because it would be impossible to sketch the history of his exertions and sacrifices in this sphere of philanthropic achievement with anything like adequate fulness, precision, and vividness, within our limits.

The work, Mr. Philip states, is substantially Mr. Campbell's own, he having been, after he was well advanced in life, urged by his friends to draw up a narrative of his life. He says, in reference to such urgencies, that at length "the matter began to wear a very formidable aspect; for I had no written memorials of former occurrences. No doubt I had referred to many of them in letters I had written to friends during a long series of years; but I had no copies of those letters, and perhaps many of them were torn to pieces as waste paper. So I was left to recover the whole by dint of mere memory. I mentioned this to brother Philip, who had much experimental knowledge on the subject. He advised me to commence my narrative, and told me I should be surprised how one fact would lead to the accurate recollection of another. I began, and found it exactly as he had said. Many parts of the narrative refer to facts that happened more than forty years ago, and I am confident that they are more accurately recorded than if they had happened only a month ago."

Mr. Campbell was bred up in the capital of Scotland, and under the roof of an uncle who was an elder or deacon of the Relief Church. The boy had lost both his parents at an early period of his life, but found in a relative's character and protection an excellent substitute. He obtained part of his education at that celebrated academical institution, the High School of Edinburgh, under Nicoll, the friend of Burns. But he seems rather to have been a truant than an assiduous scholar at this period-preferring to roam over and to climb the Salisbury Crags, those bold and VOL. III. (1841.) No. II.

R