-SWIFT, JONATHAN, 1745? Remarks on the Characters of The Court of Queen Anne, note.

A man distinguished by learning and eloquence, distinguished also by courage, disinterestedness, and public spirit, but of an irritable and impracticable temper. Like many of his most illustrious contemporaries, Milton for example, Harrington, Marvel, and Sidney, Fletcher had, from the misgovernment of several successive princes, conceived a strong aversion to hereditary monarchy. Yet he was no democrat. He was the head of an ancient Norman house, and was proud of his descent. He was a fine speaker and a fine writer, and was proud of his intellectual superiority. Both in his character of gentleman, and in his character of scholar, he looked down with disdain on the common people, and was so little disposed to entrust them with political power that he thought them unfit even to enjoy personal freedom. It is a curious circumstance that this man, the most honest, fearless, and uncompromising republican of his time, should have been the author of a plan for reducing a large part of the working classes of Scotland to slavery. He bore, in truth, a lively resemblance to those Roman Senators who, while they hated the name of King, guarded the privileges of their order with inflexible pride against the encroachments of the multitude, and governed their bondmen and bondwomen by means of the stocks and the scourge.-MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, 1849, History of England, ch. v.

There are books, like "Robert Elsmere, written to illustrate passing interest, or to picture transitory events. They are received with much enthusiasm, provoke much discussion, and monopolise public attention for a time, and then are forgotten as others serving the same purpose in constantly changing conditions take their place. And there are men like these books--Sordellos who are born in times when activity must be spent on interests and events soon to be forgotten, who adopt attitudes which do not make history, and who, though they play a large part in their own day, have little influence on, because they have little sympathy with, the future. Their ability cannot save them; the storms and passions they raise or quell cannot make them live; their proportions

in their own time are not their proportions in history. Contemporaries who were weak in comparison with them often become of great magnitude and live, whilst they pass away and are hidden amongst the majority of men. One of these, to whom posterity has done but scant justice, is Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. On the one hand, as a parliamentary representative, he supported a party which was routed and which has left no trace in history; on the other, as a political philosopher, he was at once before and behind his time. Yet of no man could it be more truly said that he erred on the side of uprightness, that he ordered his life too much in accordance with principle, that his honesty deprived his country of the brilliance of his talents. As a politician, he stood head and shoulders over his contemporaries; he played a leading part in every revolutionary project of his troubled times; as a writer and man of letters he was one of the most cultured and erudite of his day; and as a patriot he rose supreme in a crisis when patriotism was never so strong, and when no greater temptations were ever held out to public men to abandon it.-MACDONALD, J. R., 1893, Andrew Fletcher, The Scottish Review, vol. 22, p. 61.

Whose personality is embalmed by his saying or quotation about the ballads of a nation; and by his not quite senseless crotchet about enslaving beggars. SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1898, A Short History of English Literature, p. 523.

GENERAL

His countryman, Andrew Fletcher, is a better master of English style: he writes with purity, clearness, and spirit; but the substance is so much before his eyes, that he is little solicitous about language.HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. iv, ch. vii, par. 44.

As an accurate descriptive writer of the manners of his time he ranks high. His pictures are generally sad, though his hopes were ever bright. They are full of gloom, with the shades dull and dark and full of awe; but, vivid with picturesque terseness, they lift his writings above the fleeting reputation of an essayist into the position of valuable historical materials. Sir Walter Scott was among the first to recognize this value of his being a limner

of national life; and in the novelist's pages we come across quotations from Fletcher, which give us glimpses into the cavalier-like manners of the time and the deplorable state of the country. His accuracy is undoubted, and a page of his description is like a table of statistics clothed in realization.-PURVES, JAMES, 1882, Fletcher of Saltoun's Writings, The Antiquary, vol. 6, p. 151.

As a writer he is superior to any Scotchman of his age, and his oratory, nervous and incisive, is made eloquent by his sincerity and earnestness.-ESPINASSE, FRANCIS, 1889, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XIX, p. 296.

Fletcher wrote as he must have spoken, clearly and simply. Always full of his subjects, he strung his arguments in a plain sequence, using little or no rhetoric, and seeking no illustration except in history, from which he had extracted a marvellously sound philosophy. Comparison with his pedantic Scottish contemporaries lifts him high above them all in style, his distinguishing qualities being a just choice of words, neatness of construction, and a certain elegance, which is in itself evidence of the breadth of his culture. He has recourse to no passion as an aid to

persuasion, except that of patriotism, and though he continually works upon the selfinterest of his audience, the largeness and dignity of that interest at once save his theme from debasement and elevate the tone of his eloquence. He may be classed as a strenuous debater, rather than as an orator.-WALLACE, W., 1894, English Prose, ed. Craik, vol. III, p. 346.

In point of style Fletcher is unique. He had no models. If he had written ten or fifteen years later, it might have been supposed that he had imitated Addison; for, especially in the "Account of a Conversation," the style of Fletcher resembles the style of Addison. But he had ceased to write long before the "Spectator" appeared. To Burnet he doubtless owed a sound classical education, and a knowledge of political history. The clearness and elegance of his style, however, were certainly not learned from Burnet, but were evidently the result of studying, very closely, the literature of Greece and Rome, from which he loves to draw illustrations for the purpose of enforcing his own theories of government, and his peculiar political schemes.-OMOND, G. W. T., 1897, Fletcher of Saltoun (Famous Scots Series), p. 150.

PERSONAL

The life, the soul, and the spirit of his party. SUNDERLAND, ROBERT SPENCER, EARL, 1701, To King William, Sept. 11; Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. III, p. 446. A shallow statesman, though of mighty fame: An unjust judge, and blemish of the mace, Witness the bankers' long-depending case,

-SHIPPEN, WILLIAM?, 1704, Faction Displayed.

He was very learned in his own profession, with a great deal more learning in other professions, in divinity, philosophy, and history. He had a great capacity for business, with an extraordinary temper; for he was fair and gentle,

perhaps to a fault, considering his post. So that he had all the patience and softness, as well as the justice and equity, becoming a great magistrate.—BURNET, GILBERT, 1715-34, History of My Own Time. His life was, in every part of it, set off with that graceful modesty and reserve, which made his virtues more beautiful, the more they were cast in such agreeable shades. . . . His greatest humanity appeared in the minutest circumstances of his conversation. You found it in the be

nevolence of his aspect, the complacency of his behaviour, and the tone of his voice. His great application to the severer studies of the law, had not intected his temper with anything positive or litigious. He did not know what it was to wrangle on indifferent points, to triumph in the superiority of his understanding, or to be supercilious on the side of truth. He joined the greatest delicacy of good breeding to the greatest strength of reason.

. . His principles were founded in reason, and supported by virtue; and, therefore, did not lie at the mercy of ambition, avarice, or resentment. His notions were no less steady and unshaken, than just and upright.-ADDISON, JOSEPH, 1716, The Freeholder, No. 39.

Somers, whose timorous nature, joined with the trade of a common lawyer, and the consciousness of a mean extraction, had taught him the regularity of an alderman, or a gentleman usher.-SWIFT, JONATHAN, 1719, Letter to Lora Bolingbroke, Dec. 19.

One of those divine men, who, like a chapel in a palace, remain unprofaned, while all the rest is tyranny, corruption, and folly. All the traditional accounts of him, the historians of the last age, and its best authors, represent him as the most incorrupt lawyer, and the honestest statesman; as a masterly orator, a genius of the finest taste, and as a patriot of the noblest and most extensive views; as a man, who dispensed blessings by his life, and planned them for posterity. He was at once the model of Addison, and the touchstone of Swift: the one wrote from him, the other for him.-WALPOLE, HORACE, 1758, A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, Scotland and Ireland, vol. IV, p. 76.

In truth, he united all the qualities of a great judge, an intellect comprehensive, quick and acute, diligence, integrity,

patience, suavity. In council, the calm wisdom, which he possessed in a measure rarely found among men of parts so quick and of opinions so decided as his, acquired for him the authority of an oracle. The superiority of his powers appeared not less clearly in private circles. The charm of his conversation was heightened by the frankness with which he poured out his thoughts. His good temper and his good breeding never failed. His gesture, his look, his tones were expressive of benevolence. His humanity was the more re

markable; because he had received from nature a body such as is generally found united with a peevish and irritable mind. His life was one long malady: his nerves were weak his complexion was livid: his face was prematurely wrinkled. Yet his enemies could not pretend that he had ever once, during a long and troubled public life, been goaded, even by sudden provocation, into vehemence inconsistent with the mild dignity of his character. All that was left to them was to assert that his disposition was very far from being so gentle as the world believed, that he was really prone to the angry passions, and that sometimes, while his voice was soft, and his words kind and courteous, his delicate frame was almost convulsed by suppressed emotion. It will perhaps be thought that this reproach is the highest of all eulogies. The most accomplished men of those times have told us that there was scarcely any subject on which Somers was not competent to instruct and to delight.--MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, 1855, History of England, ch. xx.

Somers's learning and judgment, his honesty, his eloquence, his modesty, mildness, candour, and taste, together with his sweetness of temper, have been acknowledged by all modern authors of whose writings he has been the subject. -FOSS, EDWARD, 1864, The Judges of England, vol. VII, p. 362.

Learning, patience, industry, instinctive equitableness of judgment, comprehensiveness of view, subtlety of discernment, and command of apt and perspicuous language; in short, all the qualities best fitted to adorn the woolsack, are ascribed to Somers by his contemporaries. Yet, partly by the fault of his reporters, partly in consequence of the dearth of causes célèbres, partly by reason of his early

surrender of the great seal, his recorded achievement is by no means commensurate with his reputation. Courtly and reserved by nature or habit, Somers carried into the relations of ordinary life a certain formality of demeanour, but in his hours of relaxation could be an agreeable companion. It does not appear that he was a brilliant talker, but his vast erudition and knowledge of affairs placed him at his ease with men of the most diverse interests and occupations. His religious. opinions appear to have been latitudinarian. His domestic life did not escape the breath of scandal. His oratory, which cannot be judged by the meagre reports which alone are extant, is said to have united close reasoning with a masculine. eloquence, the charm of which was enhanced by a musical voice. To Burke, Somers was the type of "the old whigs" to whom was addressed the famous “Appeal;" to Macaulay he was no less a symbol of awe and veneration. Yet as a statesman he does not merit all the praise which has been lavished upon him by whig panegyrists.-RIGG, J. M., 1898, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LIII, pp. 224, 227.

GENERAL

His style in writing was chaste and pure, but, at the same time, full of spirit and politeness; and fit to convey the most intricate business to the understanding of the reader, with the utmost clearness and prespicuity. And here it is to be lamented, that this extraordinary person, out of his natural aversion to vain-glory, wrote several pieces, as well as performed several actions, which he did not assume the honour of though, at the same time, so many works of this nature have appeared, which every one has ascribed to him, that, I believe, no author of the greatest eminence would deny my Lord Somers to have been the best writer of the age in which he lived. ADDISON, JOSEPH, 1716, The Freeholder, No. 39.

The world will do that justice to the

collection, as not to suppose that these specimens from it, immitis ignis reliquiæ, will afford an adequate idea of its merits. It filled upwards of sixty volumes in quarto, and did not contain a paper from Lord Somers's pen which the most intimate friend would have wished to secrete, or the bitterest enemy could have fairly turned to his prejudice.-HARDWICKE, LORD, 1778, ed., Miscellaneous State Papers.

This great lawyer, to whom every Englishman who feels the blessings of that constitution of government under which he has the happiness to live, owes the highest obligations for the excellent and spirited defences he made of the two great bulwarks of it, the limited succession to the crown, and the trial by jury.-SEWARD, WILLIAM, 1795-97, Anecdotes of Some Distinguished Persons, vol. II, p. 272.

Political studies alone did not occupy the active mind of Mr. Somers. He had devoted himself with much ardour to classical pursuits; and of the progress which he had made in these, and of his general attachment to literature, he afforded an instance in 1681, by the publication of a translation, into English, of the Epistles of Dido to Æneas, and of Ariadne to Theseus, from Ovid. It would be unreasonable to institute a comparison between the versions of Mr. Somers and those of Dryden and Pope; but may be asserted that in Mr. Somers's attempt there is considerable power of diction, and some ease of versification. ROSCOE, HENRY, 1830, Lives of Eminent British Lawyers, p. 145.

But the greatest man among the members of the Junto, and in some respects, the greatest man of that age, was the Lord Keeper Somers. He was equally eminent as a jurist and as a politician, as an orator and as a writer. His speeches have perished; but his State papers remain, and are models of terse, luminous, and dignified eloquence. - MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, 1855, History of England, ch. xx.