and manners. This course, as it seems to us, has all the
disadvantages of a division of labour, and none of its
advantages. We understand the expediency of keeping the functions
of cook and coachman distinct. The dinner will be better dressed,
and the horses better managed. But where the two situations are
united, as in the Maitre Jacques of Moliere, we do not see that
the matter is much mended by the solemn form with which the
pluralist passes from one of his employments to the other.

We manage these things better in England. Sir Walter Scott gives
us a novel; Mr. Hallam a critical and argumentative history. Both
are occupied with the same matter. But the former looks at it
with the eye of a sculptor. His intention is to give an express
and lively image of its external form. The latter is an
anatomist. His task is to dissect the subject to its inmost
recesses, and to lay bare before us all the springs of motion and
all the causes of decay.

Mr. Hallam is, on the whole, far better qualified than any other
writer of our time for the office which he has undertaken. He has
great industry and great acuteness. His knowledge is extensive,
various, and profound. His mind is equally distinguished by the
amplitude of its grasp, and by the delicacy of its tact. His
speculations have none of that vagueness which is the common
fault of political philosophy. On the contrary, they are
strikingly practical, and teach us not only the general rule, but
the mode of applying it to solve particular cases. In this
respect they often remind us of the Discourses of Machiavelli.

The style is sometimes open to the charge of harshness. We have