Note 12 — TO THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX[12].

We have often occasion, in these notes, to mention the Marquis of Halifax. He was originally Sir George Saville, Baronet; but, being early characterized by unmatched dexterity in political intrigue, he successively attained the rank of Viscount, Earl, and, in 1682, Marquis of Halifax. He acted alternately for the people against the Crown, and for the Crown against the people; for he delighted in nice and delicate strokes of policy, and in balancing, by a slight but well-applied exertion, the sinking against the rising faction. Hence he was accounted the head of the little faction called Trimmers; and hence his counsels became particularly acceptable to Charles II., whose administration he guided, as Lord Privy Seal, during the last years of that monarch's life. The king had no mind that the high-flying tories should attain an absolute predominance; for he feared his brother, who had placed himself at their head, and he loved Monmouth, who was the object of their most violent hatred. Still less could he be supposed to favour the whigs, whose ranks contained many determined republicans. A minister, therefore, whose ingenious and versatile councils could enable him to check the triumph of the tories, without too much encouraging the whigs, was a treasure to him,—and just such a minister was Halifax. Our author therefore dedicates to him, with great propriety, a piece written for Charles, when Halifax was his favourite minister; and the subjects of eulogium are chosen with Dryden's usual felicity. Some allowance must doubtless be made, for the indispensible obligation which compelled a dedicator to view the conduct of his patron on the favourable side. Such an unfortunate wight cannot be reasonably tied down to uniformity of sentiment in different addresses. The character of Dryden's immediate patron was always his cue for praise: if he stood forward against a predominant party, he was necessarily Cato, the most virtuous of men; if he yielded to the torrent, he was Phocion or Cicero, and Cato was a fool to him. With the few grains of allowance which his situation required, Dryden's praise of Halifax is an honest panegyric. It is certain, his wisdom prevented a civil war in the last years of the reign of Charles, and indirectly led the way to a bloodless revolution. The age in which he lived was therefore so far indebted to him, as our author has elegantly said, for the lives of husbands and of children, for property unviolated, and wealth undiminished. Nor does the present owe him less; for, when is it that a government, erected by a party successful in civil dissention, does not far exceed their just, and even their original pretensions? The parties had each founded their plea and their pretensions upon sacred and integral parts of the constitution, as the contending factions of the Jews occupied, the one the temple, and the other the palace of Jerusalem. In a civil war, one bulwark or other must have fallen with the party which it sheltered; and it was only the Revolution of 1688, which, leaving both whig and tory in full strength, compelled them mutually to respect the constitutional vantage-ground assumed by each other.