While Mr. Fox winnowed and sifted his phraseology with a care which seems hardly consistent with the simplicity and elevation of his mind, and of which the effect really was to debase and enfeeble his style, he was little on his guard against those more serious improprieties of manner into which a great orator who undertakes to write history is in danger of falling.  There is about the whole book a vehement, contentious, replying manner.  Almost every argument is put in the form of an interrogation, an ejaculation, or a sarcasm.  The writer seems to be addressing himself to some imaginary audience, to be tearing in pieces a defence of the Stuarts which has just been pronounced by an imaginary Tory.  Take, for example, his answer to Hume’s remarks on the execution of Sydney; and substitute “the honourable gentleman” or “the noble Lord” for the name of Hume.  The whole passage sounds like a powerful reply, thundered at three in the morning from the Opposition Bench.  While we read it, we can almost fancy that we see and hear the great English debater, such as he has been described to us by the few who can still remember the Westminster scrutiny and the Oczakow Negotiations, in the full paroxysm of inspiration, foaming, screaming, choked by the rushing multitude of his words.

It is true that the passage to which we have referred, and several other passages which we could point out, are admirable when considered merely as exhibitions of mental power.  We at once recognise in them that consummate master of the whole art of intellectual gladiatorship, whose speeches, imperfectly as they have been transmitted to us, should be studied day and night by every man who wishes to learn the science of logical defence.  We find in several parts of the History of James the Second fine specimens of that which we conceive to have been the great characteristic Demosthenes among the Greeks, and of Fox among the orators of England, reason penetrated, and, if we may venture on the expression, made red-hot by passion.  But this is not the kind of excellence proper to history; and it is hardly too much to say that whatever is strikingly good in Mr. Fox’s Fragment is out of place.

With Sir James Mackintosh the case was reversed.  His proper place was his library, a circle of men of letters, or a chair of moral and political philosophy.  He distinguished himself in Parliament.  But nevertheless Parliament was not exactly the sphere for him.  The effect of his most successful speeches was small when compared with the quantity of ability and learning which was expended on them.  We could easily name men who, not possessing a tenth part of his intellectual powers, hardly ever address the House of Commons without producing a greater impression than was produced by his most splendid and elaborate orations.  His luminous and philosophical disquisition on the Reform Bill was spoken to empty benches.  Those, indeed, who had the wit to keep their seats, picked up hints