at the
diplomatic secrets of that period are brought to light; when the
instructions of the revolutionary minister to the admiral of the
Toulon fleet are made known, and the marvellous chance which prevented
their being acted upon by him, has become matter of history; it will
be admitted, that the civilized world have good cause to thank M.
Guizot for saving it from a contest as vehement, as perilous, and
probably as disastrous to all concerned, as that which followed the
French Revolution.

Our present business is with M. Guizot as a historian and philosopher;
a character in which he will be remembered, long after his services to
humanity as a statesman and a minister have ceased to attract the
attention of men. In those respects, we place him in the very highest
rank among the writers of modern Europe. It must be understood,
however, in what his greatness consists, lest the readers, expecting
what they will not find, experience disappointment, when they begin
the study of his works. He is neither imaginative nor pictorial; he
seldom aims at the pathetic, and has little eloquence. He is not a
Livy nor a Gibbon. Nature has not given him either dramatic or
descriptive powers. He is a man of the highest genius; but it consists
not in narrating particular events, or describing individual
achievement. It is in the discovery of general causes; in tracing the
operation of changes in society, which escape ordinary observation: in
seeing whence man has come, and whether he is going, that his
greatness consists: and in that loftiest of the regions of history, he
is unrivaled. We know of no author who has traced the changes of
society, and the general causes which determine the fate of nations,
with such just views and so much sagacious discrimination. He is not
properly speaking, an historian; his vocation and object were
different. He is a great discourser on history. If ever the philosophy
of history was embodied in a human being, it is in M. Guizot.

The style of this great author is, in every respect, suited to his
subject. He does not aim at the highest flights of fancy; makes no
attempt to warm the soul or melt the feelings; is seldom imaginative,
and never descriptive. But he is uniformly lucid, sagacious, and
discriminating; deduces his conclusions with admirable clearness from
his premises, and occasionally warms from the innate grandeur of his
subject into a glow of fervent eloquence. He seems to treat of human
affa