ocuments. It
is a mortifying reflection to all who speak the English tongue, that
this task should have been deferred so long. There has been no lack
of such research in regard to insignificant individuals who have been
accidentally connected with events which come within the cognizance
of English historians; but the greatest Englishman among all English
politicians and statesmen since the Norman Conquest has heretofore been
honored with no biographer who considered him worthy the labor which has
been lavished on inferior men. The readers of Macaulay's four volumes
of English history have often expressed their amazement at his minute
knowledge of the political mediocrities of the time of James II.
and William III. He spared neither time nor labor in collecting and
investigating facts regarding comparatively unknown persons who happened
to be connected with his subject; but in his judgment of a man who,
considered simply as a statesman, was infinitely greater than Halifax
or Dauby, he depends altogether on hearsay, and gives that hearsay
the worst possible appearance. In his article on Bacon, he not merely
evinces no original research, but he so combines the loose statements he
takes for granted, that, in his presentation of them, they make out
a stronger case against Bacon than is warranted by their fair
interpretation. Indeed, leaving out the facts which Macaulay suppresses
or is ignorant of, and taking into account only those which he includes,
his judgment of Bacon is still erroneous. Long before we read Mr.
Dixon's book, we had reversed Macaulay's opinion merely by scrutinizing,
and restoring to their natural relations, Macaulay's facts.

But Mr. Dixon's volume, while in style and matter it is one of the most
interesting and entertaining books of the season, is especially valuable
for the new light it sheds on the subject by the introduction of
original materials. These materials, to be sure, were within the reach
of any person who desired to write an impartial biography; but Mr. Dixon
no less deserves honor for withstanding the prejudice that Bacon's
moral character was unquestionably settled as base, and for daring to
investigate anew the testimony on which the judgment was founded. And
there can be no doubt that he has dispelled the horrible chimera, that
the same man can be thoroughly malignant or mean in his moral nature and
thoroughly beneficent or exalted in his intellectual nature. While we do
not doubt that