It is proper to add, that the editors
of this Journal have most properly published a retractation of the
charges made, in their ignorance of the whole facts of the case.
The acute and sagacious editor of T. Clarkson's vindication, has given
his reasons for suspecting that this criticism, in the _Edinburgh
Review_, must have proceeded from some party directly concerned in the
publication of Wilberforce's life. We enter into no discussion of the
circumstantial evidence adduced in favour of this supposition. The
editors of the Journal are the parties to whom we look; and as they,
after being to all appearance misled by some partial writer, have made
the best reparation for an involuntary error, by doing justice to the
injured party, we can have no further remark to make upon the subject.
But it is impossible to close these pages without mentioning the
extraordinary merit of this latest, and, in all likelihood, this last
production of Clarkson's pen. It is indeed a most able performance, and
has been admired by some of the ablest controversial writers of the age,
as a model of excellence in controversial writing. Plain, vigorous,
convincing, perfectly calm and temperate, devoid of all acrimony, barely
saying enough to repel unjust aggression without one word of
retaliation, never losing sight for a moment of its purely defensive
object, and accordingly, from the singleness of purpose with which that
object is pursued, attaining it with the most triumphant success,--no
wonder that the public judgment has been loudly and universally
pronounced in its favour, that its adversaries have been reduced to
absolute silence, that its author's name has been exalted even higher
than before it stood.
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