Historical Characters

MACKINTOSH, THE MAN OF PROMISE

Part I

FROM HIS YOUTH TO HIS APPOINTMENT IN INDIA

Mackintosh’s character. – Character of men of his type. – Birth and parentage. – Starts as a physician, fails, and becomes a newspaper writer, and author of a celebrated pamphlet in answer to Burke’s “Thoughts on the French Revolution.” – Studies for the bar. – Becomes noted as a public character, violent on the Liberal side. – Becomes acquainted with Mr. Burke. – Modifies his opinions. – Gives lectures on public law, remarkable for their eloquence and their Conservative opinions. – Becomes the advocate of Peltier; makes a great speech, and shortly afterwards accepts an appointment in India.

I

I still remember, amongst the memorable events of my early youth, an invitation to meet Sir James Mackintosh at dinner; and the eager and respectful attention with which this honoured guest was received. I still remember also my anxiety to learn the especial talents, or remarkable works, for which Sir James was distinguished, and the unsatisfactory replies which all my questions elicited. He was a writer, but many had written better; he was a speaker, but many had spoken better; he was a philosopher, but many had done far more for philosophy; and yet, though it was difficult to fix on any one thing in which he was first-rate, it was generally maintained that he was a first-rate man. There is, indeed, a class amongst mankind, a body numerous in all literary societies, who are far less valued for any precise thing they have done than according to a vague notion of what they are capable of doing. Mackintosh may be taken as a type of this class; not that he passed his life in the learned inactivity to which the resident members of our own universities sometimes consign their intellectual powers, but which more frequently characterizes the tranquil scholars, whose erudition is the boast of some small German or Italian city.

But though mixing in the action of a great and stirring community, a lawyer, an author, a member of parliament, Mackintosh never arrived at the eminence in law, in letters, or in politics, that satisfied the expectations of those who, living in his society, were impressed by his intellect and astonished at his acquirements.

If I were to sum up in a few words the characteristics of the persons who thus promise more than they ever perform, I should say that their powers of comprehension are greater than their powers either of creation or exposition; and that their energy, though capable of being roused occasionally to great exertions, can rarely be relied on for any continued effort.

They collect, sometimes in rather a sauntering manner, an immense store of varied information. But it is only by fits and starts that they are able to use it with effect, and at their happiest moments they rarely attain the simple grace and the natural vigour which give beauty and life to composition. Their deficiencies are inherent in their nature, and are never therefore entirely overcome. They have not in their minds the immortal spark of genius, but the faculty of comprehending genius may give them, in a certain degree, the power of imitating it; whilst ambition, interest, and necessity, will at times stimulate them to extraordinary exertions. As writers, they usually want originality, ease, and power; as men of action, tact, firmness, and decision. The works in which they most succeed are usually short, and written under temporary excitement; as statesmen, they at times attract attention and win applause, but rarely obtain authority or take and keep the lead in public affairs. In society, however, the mere faculty of remembering and comprehending a variety of things is quite sufficient to obtain a considerable reputation; whilst the world, when indulgent, often estimates the power of a man’s abilities by some transient and ephemeral display of them.

I will now turn from these general observations to see how far they are exemplified in the history of the person whose name is before me; a person who advanced to the very frontier of those lands which it was not given to him to enter; and who is not only a favourable specimen of his class, but who, as belonging to that class, represents in many respects a great portion of the public during that memorable period of our annals, which extends from the French Revolution of 1789 to the English Reform Bill in 1830.

II

The father of Sir James was a Scotch country gentleman, who, having a small hereditary property, which he could neither part with nor live upon, entered the army early, and passed his life almost entirely with his regiment. Young Mackintosh was born on the 24th of October, 1765, in the county of Inverness, and was sent as soon as he could be to a school at Fortrose; where he fell in with two books which had a permanent influence on his future career. These books were “Plutarch’s Lives” and the “Roman History,” books which, by making him ambitious of public honours, rendered his existence a perpetual struggle between that which he desired to be and that for which he was best suited. At Aberdeen, then, where he was sent on quitting Fortrose, he was alike remarkable for his zeal in politics, and his love for metaphysics – that is, for his alternate coquetry between an active and a meditative life. At Edinburgh, also, where he subsequently went to study medicine, it was the same thing. In the evening he would go now and then to a “spouting” club and make speeches, while the greater part of his mornings was spent in poetical lucubrations. To the medical profession he paid little attention, till all of a sudden necessity aroused him. He then applied himself, with a start, to that which he was obliged to know; but his diligence was not of that resolute and steady kind which insures success as the consequence of a certain period of application; and after rushing into the novelties of the Brunonian System,82 which promised knowledge with little labour, and then, rushing back again, he resolved on taking his countrymen’s short road to fortune, and set out for England. His journey, however, did not answer. He got a wife, but no patients; and on the failure of his attempts to establish himself at Salisbury and at Weymouth, retired to Brussels – ill, wearied, and disgusted. The Low Countries were at that time the theatre of a struggle between the Emperor Joseph and his subjects; the general convulsion which shortly afterwards took place throughout Europe was preparing, and the agitation of men’s minds was excessive. These exciting scenes called the disappointed physician back to the more alluring study of politics; and to this short visit to the Continent he owed a knowledge of its opinions and its public men, which first served him as the correspondent of a newspaper, The Oracle; and, subsequently, furnished him with materials for a pamphlet which in an instant placed him in the situation he so long occupied as one of the most promising men of his day. This celebrated pamphlet, published in 1791, and known under the name of “Vindiciæ Gallicæ,” whether we consider the circumstances under which it appeared, the opponent whom it combated, or the ability of the composition itself, merited all the attention it received, and was the more successful because it gave just the answer to Burke which Burke himself would have given to his own Reflections.

Thus, the club of Saint James’, the cloister of Trinity College, had a writer to quote, whose sentiments were in favour of liberty, and whose language, agreeable to the ear of the gentleman and the scholar, did not, in defending the patriots of France, advise their imitation or approve their excesses.

“Burke,” he says, “admires the Revolution of 1688; but we, who conceive that we pay the purest homage to the authors of that Revolution, not in contending for what they then did, but for what they would now do, can feel no inconsistency in looking on France – not to model our conduct, but to invigorate the spirit of freedom. We permit ourselves to imagine how Lord Somers, in the light and knowledge of the eighteenth century, how the patriots of France, in the tranquillity and opulence of England, would have acted.

“We are not bound to copy the conduct to which the last were driven by a bankrupt exchequer, and a dissolved government; nor to maintain the establishments which were spared by the first in a prejudiced and benighted age.

“Exact imitation is not necessary to reverence. We venerate the principles which presided in both, and we adapt to political admiration a maxim which has long been received in polite letters, that the only manly and liberal imitation is to speak as a great man would have spoken, had he lived in our times, and been placed in our circumstances.”

There is much even in this passage to show that the adversary was still the imitator, imbued with the spirit and under the influence of the genius of the very writer whom he was bold enough to attack. Many, nevertheless, who, taken by surprise, had surrendered to the magisterial eloquence of the master, were rescued by the elegant pleading of the scholar. Everywhere, then, might be heard the loudest applause, and an applause well merited. On the greatest question of the times, the first man of the times had been answered by a young gentleman aged twenty-six, and who, hitherto unknown, was appreciated by his first success.

The leaders of the Whig party sought him out; they paid him every attention. His opinions went further than theirs; for he was an advocate of universal suffrage, an abolitionist of all titles, an enemy to a senate or second assembly. No persons practically contending for power could say they exactly sanctioned such notions as these; but all praised the style in which they were put forth, and, allowing for the youth, lauded the talent, of the author. Indeed, “the love to hatred turned” ever repudiates moderation, and the antagonist of Burke was certain of the rapturous cheers of those whom that great but passionate man had deserted. In this manner Mackintosh (who was now preparing for the bar) became necessarily a party man, and a violent party man. Mr. Fox praised his abilities in Parliament; the famous Reform Association called the “Friends of the People” chose him for their honorary secretary. A great portion of the well-known declaration of this society was his composition; and in a letter to the Prime Minister of the day (Mr. Pitt), he abused that statesman with a fierceness and boldness of invective which even political controversy scarcely allowed.

Here was the great misfortune of his life. This fierceness and boldness were not in his nature; in becoming a man of action, he entered upon a part which was not suited to his character, and which it was certain therefore he would not sustain. The reaction soon followed. Amongst its first symptoms was a review of Mr. Burke’s “Regicide Peace.” The author of the review became known to the person whose writing was criticised: a correspondence ensued, very flattering to Mr. Mackintosh, who shortly afterwards spent a few days at Beaconsfield (1796).

It was usual for him to say, referring to this visit, that in half an hour Mr. Burke overturned the previous reflections of his whole life. There was some exaggeration, doubtless, in this assertion, but it is also likely that there was some truth in it. His opinions had begun to waver, and at that critical moment he came into personal contact with, and was flattered by, a man whom every one praised, and who praised few. At all events, he was converted, and not ashamed of his conversion, but, on the contrary, mounted with confidence a stage on which his change might be boldly justified.

The faults as well as the excellences of the English character arise from that great dislike to generalise which has made us the practical, and in many instances the prejudiced, people that we are. Abroad, a knowledge of general or natural law, of the foundations on which all laws are or ought to be based, enters as a matter of course into a liberal education. In England lawyers themselves disregard this study as useless or worse than useless.83 They look, and they look diligently, into English law, such as it is, established by custom, precedent, or act of Parliament. They know all the nice points and proud formalities on which legal justice rests, or by which it may be eluded. The conflicting cases and opposing opinions, which may be brought to bear on an unsound horse, or a contested footpath, are deeply pondered over, carefully investigated. But the great edifice of general jurisprudence, though standing on his wayside, is usually passed by the legal traveller with averted eyes: the antiquary and the philosopher, indeed, may linger there; but the plodding man of business scorns to arrest his steps.

When, however, amidst the mighty crash of states and doctrines that followed the storm of 1791 – when, amidst the birth of new empires and new legislatures, custom lost its sanctity, precedent its authority, and statute was made referable to common justice and common sense, – then, indeed, there uprose a strong and earnest desire to become acquainted with those general principles so often cited by the opponents of the past; to visit that armoury in which such terrible weapons had been found, and to see whether it could not afford means as powerful for defending what remained as it had furnished for destroying what had already been swept away.

III

A course of Lectures on Public Law – about which the public knew so little, and were yet so curious – offered a road to distinction, which the young lawyer, confident in his own abilities and researches, had every temptation to tread. Private interest procured him the Hall at Lincoln’s Inn; but this was not sufficient; it was necessary that he should make the world aware of the talent, the knowledge, and the sentiments with which he undertook so great a task. He published his introductory essay – the only memorable record of the Lectures to which we are referring that now remains. The views contained in this essay may in many instances be erroneous; but its merits as a composition are of no common kind. Learned, eloquent, it excited nearly as much enthusiasm as the “Vindiciæ Gallicæ,” and deserved, upon the whole, a higher order of admiration.

But praise came this time from a different quarter. A few years before, and Mackintosh had spoken of Mr. Pitt as cold, stern, crafty, and ambitious; possessing “the parade without the restraint of morals;” the “most profound dissimulation with the utmost ardour of enterprise; prepared by one part of his character for the violence of a multitude, by another for the duplicity of a court.”84

It was under the patronage of this same Mr. Pitt that the hardy innovator now turned back to “the old ways,” proclaiming that “history was a vast museum, in which specimens of every variety of human nature might be studied. From these great occasions to knowledge,” he said, “lawgivers and statesmen, but more especially moralists and political philosophers, may reap the most important instruction. There, they may plainly discover, amid all the useful and beautiful variety of governments and institutions, and under all the fantastic multitude of usages and rites which ever prevailed among men, the same fundamental, comprehensive truths – truths which have ever been the guardians of society, recognised and revered (with very few and slight exceptions) by every nation upon earth, and uniformly taught, with still fewer exceptions, by a succession of wise men, from the first dawn of speculation down to the latest times.”

“See,” he continued, “whether from the remotest periods any improvement, or even any change, has been made in the practical rules of human conduct. Look at the code of Moses. I speak of it now as a mere human composition, without considering its sacred origin. Considering it merely in that light, it is the most ancient and the most curious memorial of the early history of mankind. More than 3000 years have elapsed since the composition of the Pentateuch; and let any man, if he is able, tell me in what important respects the rule of life has varied since that distant period. Let the institutes of Menu be explored with the same view; we shall arrive at the same conclusion. Let the books of false religion be opened; it will be found that their moral system is, in all its good features, the same. The impostors who composed them were compelled to pay this homage to the uniform moral sentiments of the world. Examine the codes of nations, those authentic depositories of the moral judgments of men: you everywhere find the same rules prescribed, the same duties imposed. Even the boldest of these ingenious sceptics who have attacked every other opinion, have spared the sacred and immortal simplicity of the rules of life. In our common duties, Bayle and Hume agree with Bossuet and Barrow. Such as the rule was at the first dawn of history, such it continues at the present day. Ages roll over mankind; mighty nations pass away like a shadow; virtue alone remains the same, immutable and unchangeable.”

The object of Mackintosh was to show that the instinct of man was towards society; that society could not be kept together except on certain principles; that these principles, therefore, from the nature of man – a nature predestined and fashioned by God – were at once universal and divine, and that societies would perish that ignored them; – a true and sublime theory; but with respect to which we must, if we desire to be practical, admit that variety of qualifications which different civilizations, different climates, accidental interests, and religious prescriptions interpose.

It may be said, for instance, that no society could exist if its institutions honoured theft as a virtue, and instructed parents to murder their children; but a great and celebrated society did exist in ancient Greece, – a society which outlived its brilliant contemporaries, and which sanctioned robbery, if not detected; and allowed parents to kill their children, if sickly. It is perfectly true that the ten commandments of the Jewish legislator are applicable to all mankind, and are as much revered by the people of the civilized world at the present day, as by the semi-barbarous people of Israel 3000 years ago. They are admitted as integrally into the religion taught by Christ, as they were into the religion taught by Moses. But how different the morality founded on them! How different the doctrine of charity and forgiveness from the retributive prescription of vindicative justice! Nay, how different the precepts taught by the various followers of Christ themselves, who draw those precepts from the same book!

If there is anything on which it is necessary for the interest and happiness of mankind to constitute a fixed principle of custom or of law, it is the position of woman. The social relationship of man with woman rules the destiny of both from the cradle to the grave; and yet, on this same relationship, what various notions, customs, and laws!

I make these observations, because it is well that we should see how much is left to the liberty of man, whilst we recognise the certain rules by which his caprice is limited: how much is to be learned from the past – how much is left open to the future!

But all argument at the time that Mackintosh opened his lectures consisted in the opposition of extremes. As the one party decried history altogether, so the other referred everything to history; as the former sect declared that no reverence was due to custom, so the latter announced that all upon which we valued ourselves most was traditional. Because those fanatics scoffed at the ideas and manners of the century that had just elapsed, these referred with exultation to the manners and ideas that prevailed some thousands of years before.

Mackintosh stood forth, confessedly, as History’s champion; and with the beautiful candour, which marked his modest and elevated frame of mind, confessed that the sight of those who surrounded his chair – the opinions he knew them to entertain – the longing after applause, for which every public speaker, whatever his theme, naturally thirsts – and also, he adds, “a proper repentance for former errors” – might all have heightened the qualities of the orator to the detriment of the lecturer, and carried him, “in the rebound from his original opinions, too far towards the opposite extreme.”85

IV

We shall soon have to inquire what were the real nature and character of the change which he confessed that his language at this time exaggerated. Suffice it here to say that, amidst the sighs of his old friends, the applauses of his new, and the sneering murmurs and scornful remarks of the stupid and the envious of all parties, his eloquence (for he was eloquent as a professor) produced generally the most flattering effects. Statesmen, lawyers, men of letters, idlers, crowded with equal admiration round the amusing moralist, whose glittering store of knowledge was collected from the philosopher, the poet, the writer of romance and history.

“In mixing up the sparking julep,” says an eloquent though somewhat affected writer, “that by its potent application was to scour away the drugs and feculence and peccant humours of the body politic, he (Mackintosh) seemed to stand with his back to the drawers in a metaphysical dispensary, and to take out of them whatever ingredients suited his purpose.”86

In the meanwhile (having lost his first wife and married again) he pursued his professional course, though without doing anything as an advocate equal to his success as a professor.

M. Peltier’s trial, however, now took place. M. Peltier was an émigré, whom the neighbouring revolution had driven to our shores; a gentleman possessing some ability, and ardently attached to the royal cause.

He had not profited by the permission to return to France, which had been given to all French exiles, but carried on a French journal, which, finding its way to the Continent, excited the remarkable susceptibility of the first consul. This was just after the peace of Amiens. Urged by the French government, our own undertook the prosecution of M. Peltier’s paper. The occasion was an ode, in which the apotheosis of Bonaparte was referred to, and his assassination pretty plainly advocated. So atrocious a suggestion, however veiled, or however provoked, merited, no doubt, the reprobation of all worthy and high-minded men; but party spirit and national rancour ran high, and the defender of the prosecuted journalist was sure to stand before his country as the enemy of France and the advocate of freedom.

A variety of circumstances pointed out Mr. Mackintosh as the proper counsel to place in this position; and here, by a singular fortune, he was enabled to combine a hatred to revolutionary principles with an ardent admiration of that ancient spirit of liberty, which is embodied in the most popular institutions of England.

“Circumstanced as my client is,” he exclaimed, in his rather studied but yet powerful declamation, “the most refreshing object his eye can rest upon is an English jury; and he feels with me gratitude to the Ruler of empires, that after the wreck of everything else ancient and venerable in Europe, of all established forms and acknowledged principles, of all long-subsisting laws and sacred institutions, we are met here, administering justice after the manner of our forefathers in this her ancient sanctuary. Here these parties come to judgment; one, the master of the greatest empire on the earth; the other, a weak, defenceless fugitive, who waives his privilege of having half his jury composed of foreigners, and puts himself with confidence on a jury entirely English. Gentlemen, there is another view in which this case is highly interesting, important, and momentous, and I confess I am animated to every exertion that I can make, not more by a sense of my duty to my client, than by a persuasion that this cause is the first of a series of contests with the ‘freedom of the press.’ My learned friend, Mr. Perceval, I am sure, will never disgrace his magistracy by being instrumental to a measure so calamitous. But viewing this as I do, as the first of a series of contests between the greatest power on earth and the only press that is now free, I cannot help calling upon him and you to pause, before the great earthquake swallows up all the freedom that remains among men; for though no indication has yet been made to attack the freedom of the press in this country, yet the many other countries that have been deprived of this benefit must forcibly impress us with the propriety of looking vigilantly to ourselves. Holland and Switzerland are now no more, and near fifty of the imperial crowns in Germany have vanished since the commencement of this prosecution. All these being gone, there is no longer any control but what this country affords. Every press on the Continent, from Palermo to Hamburg, is enslaved; one place alone remains where the press is free, protected by our government and our patriotism. It is an awfully proud consideration that that venerable fabric, raised by our ancestors, still stands unshaken amidst the ruins that surround us. You are the advanced guard of liberty,” &c.