them, proposed so many doubts for the sake of solving them, and made so many concessions where none were demanded, that his reasoning had the effect of neutralizing itself; it became a mere exercise of the understanding without zest or spirit left in it; and the provident engineer who was to shatter in pieces the strong-holds of corruption and oppression, by a well-directed and unsparing discharge of artillery, seemed to have brought not only his own cannon-balls, but his own wool-packs along with him to ward off the threatened mischief.  This was a good deal the effect of his maiden speech on the transfer of Genoa, to which Lord Castlereagh did not deign an answer, and which another Honourable Member called “a finical speech.”  It was a most able, candid, closely argued, and philosophical exposure of that unprincipled transaction; but for this very reason it was a solecism in the place where it was delivered.  Sir James has, since this period, and with the help of practice, lowered himself to the tone of the House; and has also applied himself to questions more congenial to his habits of mind, and where the success would be more likely to be proportioned to his zeal and his exertions.

There was a greater degree of power, or of dashing and splendid effect (we wish we could add, an equally humane and liberal spirit) in the Lectures on the Law of Nature and Nations, formerly delivered by Sir James (then Mr.) Mackintosh, in Lincoln’s-Inn Hall.  He shewed greater confidence; was more at home there.  The effect was more electrical and instantaneous, and this elicited a prouder display of intellectual riches, and a more animated and imposing mode of delivery.  He grew wanton with success.  Dazzling others by the brilliancy of his acquirements, dazzled himself by the admiration they excited, he lost fear as well as prudence; dared every thing, carried every thing before him.  The Modern Philosophy, counterscarp, outworks, citadel, and all, fell without a blow, by “the whiff and wind of his fell doctrine,” as if it had been a pack of cards.  The volcano of the French Revolution was seen expiring in its own flames, like a bon-fire made of straw:  the principles of Reform were scattered in all directions, like chaff before the keen northern blast.  He laid about him like one inspired; nothing could withstand his envenomed tooth.  Like some savage beast got into the garden of the fabled Hesperides, he made clear work of it, root and branch, with white, foaming tusks—­

  “Laid waste the borders, and o’erthrew the bowers.”

The havoc was amazing, the desolation was complete.  As to our visionary sceptics and Utopian philosophers, they stood no chance with our lecturer—­he did not “carve them as a dish fit for the Gods, but hewed them as a carcase fit for hounds.”  Poor Godwin, who had come, in the bonhommie and candour of his nature, to hear what new light had broken in upon his old friend, was obliged to quit