Sir James reasons on the square; while the arguments of his opponents are loaded with iron or gold.  He makes, indeed, a respectable ally, but not a very formidable opponent.  He is as likely, however, to prevail on a neutral, as he is almost certain to be baffled on a hotly contested ground.  On any question of general policy or legislative improvement, the Member for Nairn is heard with advantage, and his speeches are attended with effect:  and he would have equal weight and influence at other times, if it were the object of the House to hear reason, as it is his aim to speak it.  But on subjects of peace or war, of political rights or foreign interference, where the waves of party run high, and the liberty of nations or the fate of mankind hangs trembling in the scales, though he probably displays equal talent, and does full and heaped justice to the question (abstractedly speaking, or if it were to be tried before an impartial assembly), yet we confess we have seldom heard him, on such occasions, without pain for the event.  He did not slur his own character and pretensions, but he compromised the argument.  He spoke the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; but the House of Commons (we dare aver it) is not the place where the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth can be spoken with safety or with advantage.  The judgment of the House is not a balance to weigh scruples and reasons to the turn of a fraction:  another element, besides the love of truth, enters into the composition of their decisions, the reaction of which must be calculated upon and guarded against.  If our philosophical statesman had to open the case before a class of tyros, or a circle of grey-beards, who wished to form or to strengthen their judgments upon fair and rational grounds, nothing could be more satisfactory, more luminous, more able or more decisive than the view taken of it by Sir James Mackintosh.  But the House of Commons, as a collective body, have not the docility of youth, the calm wisdom of age; and often only want an excuse to do wrong, or to adhere to what they have already determined upon; and Sir James, in detailing the inexhaustible stores of his memory and reading, in unfolding the wide range of his theory and practice, in laying down the rules and the exceptions, in insisting upon the advantages and the objections with equal explicitness, would be sure to let something drop that a dextrous and watchful adversary would easily pick up and turn against him, if this were found necessary; or if with so many pros and cons, doubts and difficulties, dilemmas and alternatives thrown into it, the scale, with its natural bias to interest and power, did not already fly up and kick the beam.  There wanted unity of purpose, impetuosity of feeling to break through the phalanx of hostile and inveterate prejudice arrayed against him.  He gave a handle to his enemies; threw stumbling-blocks in the way of his friends.  He raised so many objections for the sake of answering