Rousseau was an enthusiast and a sentimentalist; he was a man
of the exquisite organization of genius, and there are many passages in
his writings which are colored with a half-voluptuous, half-devotional
glow; but it seems to us a plain confusion of very obvious moral
distinctions to represent such a man as imbued with the spirit of
religion.
One of the most animated of Mr. Bancroft's chapters is the eighth, on
the course of opinion in England, in which we have glimpses of Wilkes,
of Barre, of Wedderburn, of Lord North, of Burke, and an elaborate
character of Fox. This last is a happy specimen of Mr. Bancroft's
peculiar style of portrait-drawing. The merits and defects of the
subject are presented in a series of pointed and aphoristic sentences;
and the likeness is gained, as in a portrait of Rembrandt, by the
powerful contrast and proximity of lights and shadows. Virtues and vices
stand side by side, like the black and white squares of a chess-board.
Brilliant as the execution is, the man Charles James Fox seems to us
reproduced with more distinctness and individuality in the easier,
simpler, more flowing sentences of Lord Brougham. Mr. Bancroft's sketch
has something of the coldness as well as the sharp outline of
bas-relief.
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