friendly hand, to one whose errors we attributed,- -we now doubt how justly, rather to a voracious and undistinguishing appetite for gossip, than to any malevolent design of libelling persons or misrepresenting facts. We closed our observations with the following summary, which we the more readily quote, because it expresses, in the main, the judgment which we should now give of that publication, when the grave has closed over the painter as well as his subjects, and when personal feelings (if any such had ever existed) must be extinguished:- 'Sir Nathaniel may be, and we believe is, in private society, a goodnatured gentleman, and a man quite above practising any premeditated deception; but his work is as far from deserving a character of goodnature as of veracity. It is not a sufficient justification of his moral character, that he does not mean to deceive, and that where he leads his reader astray he has himself been previously misled. We think that a writer is under no inconsiderable responsibility in his moral character, to set down as fact, no more than he knows for the injury to private feeling and public confidence is quite as great from his presumptuous ignorance as it would be from absolute falsehood or malice. The fables of Sir Nathaniel are now capable of detection, but the detection will not accompany them down to posterity; and we even doubt whether the conviction of Sir Nathaniel for a libel, if it should occur, will reach many readers who, fifty years hence, may chance to pick up Wraxall's "History of My Own Time."-Quarterly Review, vol. xiii., p. 215. Our readers will judge whether there is anything in such sentiments which warranted the application of such an epithet as disgraceful, or the suggestion of such an imputation as his expressions import, or in short, whether we passed the bounds of fair and liberal criticism. We have but one word to retract-the present volumes abundantly prove that Sir Nathaniel was in no sense a good-natured man, and that his mistakes are more frequently attributable to malice than to mere ignorant credulity, as we had too charitably supposed. We have given so much notice to an attack upon ourselves,— for which, both in its manner and its matter, we feel the most ineffable contempt,-because it serves as an additional proof of the loose and impudent inaccuracy with which Wraxall scatters about his imputations, and because, as our article was designed only to vindicate historical truth, we feel it to be our duty to re-assert, with perfect confidence, the justice as well as the moderation of our correction of his manifold and complicated errors and mistakes. One of those corrections, to which we have already alluded, and the mode in which Wraxall deals with it, are worth notice as a pregnant pregnant example of his style of careless assertion and of his modewhen detected in a palpable untruth,-of clinging to the mis-statement which he cannot by any possibility justify. He had told a false and impertinent story about an observation of King George III. when, at Mr. Pitt's solicitation, he conferred the Garter on Lord Camden. This anecdote Wraxall stated that he had heard from the Duke of Dorset, who was present at Lord Camden's investiture.' 6 'No,' we answered, you did not, and could not, for unluckily it was after the Duke of Dorset's death that Lord Camden received the Garter.' In his second edition he admits, -as indeed Ferdinand Mendez Pinto must have done, the force of our negation; but how will our readers believe he has done it ?-he has retained and repeated the lie, but, omitting the quotation of the Duke of Dorset, he substitutes these words, I have been assured from high contemporary authority,'-a variance which, considering the original statement of a specific name, and the ulterior abandonment of that name without vouching any other, while he nevertheless retained the malice of the anecdote, is such an evidence of the credibility and candour of Sir Nathaniel Wraxall as might relieve us from any trouble in exposing his bad faith. But-knowing no other publication which gives what we may call the memoir history of the period over which Sir Nathaniel spreads his blunders and his malevolence; and being well aware that such stories, if not contemporaneously contradicted, grow, in process of time, so rank and bold as to usurp some degree of authority, we think it necessary to interfere, to prevent-si quid nostra carmina possint—the gossip and the slanders of a credulous man grown malicious on detection and punishment, from polluting future history; we enter upon the disagreeable but necessary task of showing that, in addition to the same silly credulity and blundering inaccuracy which rendered his former volumes contemptible, the present have a leaven of malice and malignity which renders them odious. Before we proceed to the details by which eventually every such work must be tried and judged, it is proper to say a few words on its general character. The first impression that these volumes make on any one who has recently looked into the two former, is, how little of novelty or interest the present publication presents. It is, in fact, to a great degree a new and worse version of the earlier book. The dates, indeed, are different,-the first extending from Wraxall's first entry into public life to 1784,-the latter from 1784 to 1789; and of course the substantial facts which form the basis or theme of Wraxall's commentaries are also different; but the actors and the anecdotes are, in a great proportion, the same. The King, the Prince,-Lord North, Lord Sackville,-Fox, Burke, VOL. LVII. NO. CXIV. 2 G Burke, Pitt, Sheridan, Dundas, Jenkinson, &c.,-were the main topics of interest in the first publication; and the estimate of their respective characters, the description of their persons and manners, and even the lesser anecdotes of their parliamentary and private life, from one who, however credulous and inaccurate, was yet assiduous and inquisitive, and who, from having a seat in parliament, possessed some opportunities of observation and information, were not without a certain kind of interest and afforded some amusement just as an original picture of an eminent person, even from the hand of an inferior artist, is curious and valuable, because it is original. But Wraxall had shown all his original portraits in his first exhibition; and his second publication is, in this respect, a mere gallery of copies—and of copies varied for the worse, not merely by the natural failure of the hand and memory of the painter, but also by a spirit of disappointment and malevolence, which has distorted and discoloured the original sketches, diminishing their truth, and exaggerating their errors. We may almost say, that whatever of this latter publication has not been compiled from the Annual Register and Parliamentary Debates, is mainly borrowed-with the deterioration we have mentioned-from the writer's own former work. 6 The next general observation we have to make is to signalise a species of fraud which pervades the present volumes, and which at first sight would lead the reader into an error favourable to their authenticity. They are divided into sections, at the head of each of which Wraxall prefixed a contemporaneous date, as April, 1784,' with which his story begins,- 17th May, 18th May,' 19th May,' and so on, to the very end of the book. This is meant to give one the notion of those portions having been written from day to day, and under the honest impressions which the passing events would naturally excite. It is obvious that a diary thus really written would be of great authority, because, though the facts might sometimes be too hastily admitted, the general current of public opinion would be fairly represented, and because, above all, it might be expected that subsequent passions or prejudices would not be permitted to distort the original and contemporaneous views of the writer. Now all this parade of diurnalism, if we may use such a word, is, in Wraxall's case, nothing but a deliberate fraud in limine-for it is obvious, from many allusions and indeed from a few occasional slips of avowal, that the greater number of the observations which he chose to date in the various months, weeks, and days of 1784, 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788, 1789, were really written between 1820 and 1826. What credit, we ask, can be due to a writer who is so disengenuous as to give the precise form of a contemporary diary to a tardy and superannuated compilation compilation made from newspapers and magazines, or at best from memory,―(and such a memory!)-at the distance of forty years? In fact there is nothing honest and straightforward about the whole work--its very form we see is deceptive,-and we shall now proceed to show that its substance is still more so. Wraxall, as we have seen, makes, in his present Introduction, high and solemn professions of truth and impartiality. If he really deceived himself into a belief that he had any colour of claim to these qualities, it must have been from the error, not unnatural to mean and vulgar minds, of supposing that impartial truth consists in speaking ill of everybody. If we were to judge-and it is generally no bad criterion-of the man's own principles by those which he supposes to influence other men, we should be obliged to pronounce Wraxall the most corrupt of mankind-for we do not believe that there is in his whole work one person noticed, hardly a speech uttered, or a fact recorded, to whom and to which he does not contrive to assign some low, selfish, and disreputable motive. As Brissot said of RobespierreIl est profond en perversité; il parlera donc toujours de la profonde perversité des autres! This is, in truth, the key note to which his whole strain is tuned; it is all that his volumes possess of novelty, and almost all that they afford of amusement. Deprive them of uncharitable suspicion, envious insinuation, and malignant imputation, and we will venture to assert that a more commonplace and wearisome compilation never was published. All memoir writing is, we must admit, from its very nature, too liable to deal in scandal; and, unfortunately, the real history of human affairs will always afford but too much occasion for the indulgence of such a propensity. Our special quarrel with Wraxall is, that his gossip is malevolent, undistinguishing, and ignorant--wonderfully ignorant for a man of even his station in society. He very seldom strikes the right string, and even in many cases where the truth itself would be sufficiently poignant, his marvellous want of information, and the coarseness of his mind, lead him to blunder into the most erroneous and most absurd conjectures. We feel that it is our bounden duty to support these general censures by such instances and examples as shall not only justify our own opinions, but may, as far as our limits will allow us, vindicate private character and historical truth-and we really have no other difficulty in doing so than l'embarras du choix. We must select, not always the most important or the most flagrant examples, but such as may be condensed into a manageable form, and brought to a distinct issue. Many of his misrepresentations are so extensive and complicated, that it would require a bulk of volume larger than the work itself to make a full exposure and refutation. We must content ourselves with showing, by a few tangible samples and characteristic specimens, the general style, scope, and value of the work at large. This is all that a review can do, and, for such an object as the present, it is perhaps enough. We believe that the accounts given by us and our contemporaries—however short they necessarily fell of exposing all the misrepresentations of Wraxall's preceding work-have, nevertheless, had the effect of completely depriving it of all credit or authority; indeed, we almost doubt whether it might not have been a sufficient notice of the present publication to call it up for judgment under the former conviction; and we should certainly have done so if the deliberate malignity and intentional falsehood, which so especially and disgracefully-to use his own phrase-distinguish it, did not seem to require a fresh indictment and a severer punishment. One of the most striking features of Wraxall's mind is the splenetic and envious spirit in which he views every other man's success or good fortune, of whatever nature it might happen to be, and the morbid zeal with which he collects every little circumstance or insinuation which may seem to show that it was unmerited. If a a commoner be raised to, or a nobleman advanced in, the peerage, it is always from some corrupt motive, and in, reward of some discreditable services. If an untitled gentleman rises by his talents to political or social distinction, Wraxall delights to expatiate on the lowness of his origin, and the strange accidents which led to his unaccountable advancement. When a bishop is made, Wraxall reminds us that he was once a poor curate, and calculates, with minute inaccuracy, the stipend on which he starved. If a gentleman makes a fortunate marriage, Wraxall discovers many scandalous circumstances which led to such a prodigious elevation.' If another is supposed to have been happy in a match of equal rank and mutual affection, Wraxall rakes up the ashes of the wife to dishonour her, her husband, and her children. And so on-through all the ramifications of indefatigable malice. Our first example of this audacious and mendacious system shall be one occurring in the very first pages of his work, (and afterwards frequently repeated,) which will astonish our readers. Wraxall accuses WILLIAM PITT of pecuniary corruption. The whole work exhibits the most extraordinary see-saw that can be imagined—while it seems cordially to admit the merits which no one can deny, it assiduously suggests in the next paragraph delinquencies which no one could have imagined. If we condescend to give some serious attention to a charge in itself so contemptible, it is not assuredly for the purpose of vindicating the character of Mr. Pitt, or of the other equally honourable, though not |