eye which looked to it for healthy action; the
machinery of the mind would require to be examined with the hand of
charity as well as the hand of science: but the general result must be
knowledge--always interesting, and often of the highest value; for the
tendency of manners is, to disappoint that research. The habits, the
associations, almost the general peace of society, unite in covering the
actual nature of man with a uniform aspect. The unquestionable effect of
civilization is, not merely to smooth the inequalities of the surface,
but to conceal the actual material--the rough, the hard, the cold, or
the pernicious within. But there is no one operation of man, by which
human nature is so deeply and so distinctly penetrated and tested, as a
true narrative of the career of men acting a prominent part in the
world. History is comparatively feeble to this powerful searcher. Its
heroes and heroines are placed so palpably on a stage; its _dramatis
personae_ are so distant and so disciplined; its positions are so openly
arranged for effect, that the nearest approach is only conjecture, as
the nearest approach to reality is only illusion. Courts and campaigns
are not human life. Kings and ministers, in their court pageantry, are
scarcely more entitled to the name of human beings. They are factitious
forms, showy spectacles, glittering effigies. But strip off the state
costume; stand beside them while they are unconscious of a spectator;
enter into their minds; seize their motives; measure their impulses: it
is only then that we discover their affinity to the family of man, and
by their vigour and virtue model our own.

The life of the Earl of Eldon is an important addition to public
biography. Written by a lawyer, it has the advantage of professional
knowledge--by a man of a certain experience in public, and even in
official life, it exhibits that practical knowledge of affairs which
nothing but practice can gain--and by a man of literary accomplishment,
it adds, to its more solid merits, those graces of style which supply
the last attraction to a work of manly utility. We feel even, in some
degree, an uncritical, yet a not less authentic satisfaction in giving
our tribute to the work of one connected with a family, whose name
brings to the public mind such deep recollections of fine ability finely
employed--of talents combined with the noblest triumphs of past genius
and of forms and countenances eminently fitted to repres