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diff --git a/39597-8.txt b/39597-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9cdfed0 --- /dev/null +++ b/39597-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,29323 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of British Quarterly Review, American Edition, +Vol. LIII, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIII + January and April, 1871 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: May 2, 2012 [EBook #39597] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW *** + + + + +Produced by Alicia Williams, Melissa McDaniel and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have + been preserved. Obvious errors have been corrected. + + Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal + signs=. + + The January Journal has no Article VIII. + + + + + THE + BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW. + JANUARY AND APRIL, 1871. + VOLUME LIII. + + AMERICAN EDITION. + + NEW YORK: + PUBLISHED BY THE LEONARD SCOTT PUBLISHING COMPANY + 340 FULTON STREET, BETWEEN BROADWAY AND NASSAU STREET. + 1871. + + S. W. GREEN. + PRINTER, STEREOTYPER, AND BINDER + 16 and 18 Jacob St., N.Y. + + + + +INDEX TO VOL. LIII. + + + Abbott, Rev. Edwin A., Bible Lessons, Part II., 154. + + Abbs, Rev. John, Twenty-two Years' Missionary Experience in + Travancore, 297. + + Ainger, Rev. Alfred, Sermons preached in the Temple Church, + 316. + + Alcott, L. M., Little Women, 157. + + Alford, Henry, D.D., Truth and Trust: Lessons of the War, + 318. + + American Press, The,; + Influence of the Press on Civilization, 1, 2; + Raymond's Life, 3; + The Newspaper in America, ib.; + Reviews, 5; + Want of a Comic Periodical, ib.; + Roman Catholic Organs, 6; + Religious Journalism, 7; + The Princeton Review, 8; + Superiority of the Independents and Presbyterians in + Theological Authorship, 9; + General Criticism of the American Press, ib.; + Inferiority to that of England, 10; + Corruption of the English Language, ib.; + Scurrility and Personality, 10, 11; + Absence of Anonymous Editorship, 11, 12; + Low scale of Morality, though improved of late, 12; + Great Power of the Press, and the responsibility which + each power involves, 13. + + Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vols. XVII. and XVIII., 151. + + Attwell, Henry, A Book of Golden Thoughts, 140. + + + Barham, Life and Letters of Rev. R. H., by his Son, 209. + + Baring-Gould, S., The Origin and Development of Religious + Belief--Part II., 142. + + Barlowe, Master John, The Bruce, 140. + + Barnes in Defence of the Berde, 140. + + ---- Albert, The Evidences of Christianity in the Nineteenth + Century, 147. + + Barni, Jules, Napoléon 1er, et son Historien, M. Thiers, + 218. + + Barrett, G. S., The Revision of the New Testament, a Lecture, + 320. + + Beauvoir, The Marquis de, a Voyage round the World, 123. + + Beecher, Henry Ward, The Plymouth Pulpit, 320. + + Belcher, Lady, The Mutineers of the 'Bounty' and their + descendants, 115. + + Bennet, Rev. James, The Wisdom of the King, 320. + + Bentley Ballads, The, 209. + + Berkeley's Works, Professor Fraser's Edition of, 256; + England's Neglect of her Philosophers, ib.; + Berkeley's Historical Position not sufficiently recognised, + 257; + Mr. Fraser's Picture of him at College, 258; + Two earliest books, 259; + Berkeley at Court, ib.; + Interest in Social Morality, 259, 260; + Rapid Church Preferment, 260; + He starts for the Bermudas to found a College, ib.; + Stops at Rhode Island, and remains there some years, ib.; + Writes his 'Alciphron,' 261; + Dr. Johnson, ib.; + Close of Berkeley's active life, 262; + Founds a Scholarship at Yale College, 263; + His life as Bishop of Cloyne, ib.; + Belief in Tar-water, ib.; + Removal to Oxford, 264; Death, ib.; + Berkeley's Philosophy, ib.; + Views of two classes of his Critics, 265; + Too much founded on his Early Writings, ib.; + The true Key to his Philosophy, 266; + Its relations to Locke and the English Mystics, 266, 267; + Three Stages of Development, 268; + 'New Theory of Vision,' ib.; + 'Principles of Human Knowledge,' 269; + The Abstract Idea of Matter, 270; + Something more than mere Sensations, ib.; + Associations, 271; + Deficient Perception of Ethical Relations, 272; + The 'Siris,' ib. + + Bingham, Hon. Cap., Journal of the Siege of Paris, 291. + + Bible, The Holy, arranged in Paragraphs and Sections, 154. + + Blackburn, Henry, Art in the Mountains, 129. + + Blackmore, R. D., Lorna Doone, 139. + + Blunt, Rev. J. H., A Dictionary of Doctrinal and + Historical Theology, 146. + + Bonapartism, The Downfall of, 218; + Analogy between the Imperialism of 1804 and that of 1852, 219; + The latter hopelessly collapsed, 220; + The Strange Revolution in Literature, 221; + The Mutual Hatred of French and Prussians in the Emperor's + Favour, 222; + His Relations, real and supposed, to Religion, 222, 223; + The Second Empire rendered possible by the strength of the + Napoleonic Idea, 224; + Causes of the Empire's Decay, ib.; + Reaction against the Despotism of the Capital, 226; + Rottenness of Paris Life, ib.; + Ignorance of itself and of other Nations, 227; + M. Leclercq's Views, 228; + 'Papiers Secrets,' 229; + Management of Money, 229, 230; + 'Cabinet Noir,' 230; + The Emperor warned by Persigny, ib.; + Lanfrey's account of Napoleon I., 231; + The Erckmann-Châtrian Novels, 232; + General political knowledge assumed in them, and with + reason, 233; + Impossibility of Predicting the Future of France, 234. + + Bonar, Horatius, D.D., Life and Truth, 317. + + Boorde, Andrewe, The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of + Knowledge, 140. + + Braund, J. H., History and Revelation, 152. + + Bray, Mrs., The Revolt of the Protestants of the Cevennes, + 116. + + Brevia, Short Essays and Aphorisms, by the author of + 'Friends in Council,' 310. + + Broadus, J, A., D.D., A Treatise on the Preparation and + Delivery of Sermons, 148. + + Brougham, Life and Times of Lord, 297. + + Brown, J. B., First Principles of Ecclesiastical Truth, 314. + + ---- ---- Misread Passages of Scripture--Second Series, 319. + + Brunel, Isambard, The Life of I. K. Brunel, 294. + + Buchanan, Robert, Napoleon Fallen, 303. + + Bulwer, E. (Lord Lytton), King Arthur, 304. + + Bungener, F., St. Paul: his Life, Lectures, and Epistles, + 152. + + Bunting, Memorials of the Rev. W. M., 120. + + Burn, R., Rome and the Campagna, 127. + + Burton's History of Scotland, Vols. V., VI. and VII., 161; + Important place held by Scotland in English History, ib.; + Character of Mr. Burton's Books, 162; + Period treated of in the Present Work, ib.; + Mary Stuart, ib.; + Elizabeth's Policy, 163; + Murray, 164; + James 1st, 165; + The Reformation in Scotland, 166; + James as King of the three Kingdoms, 168; + Effects of the Union in Scotland, 169; + Restoration of Prelacy, ib.; + Policy of Charles I., 170; + The Covenant, 171; + Outbreak of Civil War, 172; + Westminster Assembly, 174; + Execution of Charles, 175; + The Scotch overcome by Cromwell, ib.; + The General Assembly Dissolved, ib.; + Masterly Policy of Cromwell, ib.; + Subsequent History, 176; + Estimate of the Book, ib. + + + Capper, John, The Duke of Edinburgh in Ceylon, 298. + + Chamberlayne, T., The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis; + and other Poems, 133. + + Clarke, C. C., The Riches of Chaucer, &c., 141. + + ---- ---- Tales from Chaucer in Prose, 141. + + Coinage, Report from the Royal Commission on International, + 14; + Nature of the Question, 14, 15; + Mr. Jevons's Investigations, 15, 16; + Convention entered into by Four Countries, 16; + Importance of England's joining in it, 17; + Plan proposed to facilitate this, 17, 18; + Comparison of the Amount of Gold Coinage in different + Countries, 19; + Charges at the Different Mints, 20; + Precedent for Change in English Coinage, 21; + Small proportion of the Gold brought into the Country + Coined, ib.; + Summing-up, 22. + + Colborne, P., The Measure of Faith; and other Sermons, 319. + + Collins, Mortimer, Marquis and Merchant, 309. + + Conder, G. W., Tender Herbs, 317. + + Cordery, J. G., The Iliad of Homer, Translated, 304. + + Cotton, Memoir of Bishop, 295. + + Courthope, W. J., The Paradise of Birds, 133. + + Cowper, Poetical Works of, Edited by W. Benham, 134. + + Creasy, Sir E. S., History of England, Vol. II., 113. + + Crowfoot, J. R., Fragmenta Evangelica, 93. + + Cubitt, James, Church Design for Congregations, 129. + + Cunningham, General, The Ancient Geography of India, 302. + + + Dale, R. W., The Jewish Temple and the Christian Church, + 318. + + Darwin, C., The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation + to Sex, 299. + + Deane, Life of General, 118. + + Diary of a Novelist, 136. + + ---- of the French Campaign of 1870, 273. + + ---- of the Besieged Resident in Paris. 291. + + Dixon, W. H., Her Majesty's Tower, Vols. III. and IV., 292. + + Duncan, P. M., The Transformation of Insects, 126. + + Duplessis, G., The Wonders of Engraving, 128. + + + Early English Texts, 176; Importance of Studying the Early + English Language and Literature,176, 177; + Efforts made to Facilitate and Promote such Study, 177; + Early English Text Society and its Publications, 178; + Theological Works, 179; + Romances, 180; + Fourteenth Century Texts, ib.; + The 'Vision of Piers Plowman,' ib.; + Mr. Toulmin Smith's edition of 'English Gilds,' 182; + 'Early English Alliterative Poems,' ib,; + Arthurian Romances, 182-185; + The 'Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry,' 186; + 'The Wright's Chaste Wife,' ib.; + Furnivall's 'Babees Book,' 187; + 'Book of Quinte Essence,' ib.; + Religions Books, ib.; + Condition of the Society, ib.; + Its Important Objects, 189. + + Eiloart, Mrs., From Thistles--Grapes? 137. + + Episcopal Church, Parties in the, 189; + Diversities in Opinion and Practice existing in the + Church, 189, 190; + Dr. Hook's Representation of High Church Views, 190, 191; + Those of the Evangelicals, 191; + Broad Churchmen the only Men who maintain Clerical Liberty, + 192; + What Stanley says, ib.; + General Spread of a Measure of High Church Feeling, 193; + Some little Influence Acquired by Convocation, ib.; + Alleged Catholic Revival, 194; + Boldness of the Ritualists, 195; + Youthful Energy of the Party, ib.; + Their Practical Wisdom, 196; + The 'Twelve Days' Mission,' 197; + The Power of Individuals Utilized, 198; + The Advance of the Party Favoured by Circumstances, ib.; + Also, by Controversies, 199; + By the Fear of a Separation between Church and State, 200; + Almost entire Extinction of the 'High and Dry' School, + 201; + The Anglican Clergyman of To-day, ib.; + Contempt for Law, 203; + Decline of the Evangelical Party, 204; + Causes of that Decline, 206; + Approaching Crisis in the Establishment, 209. + + Episodes in an Obscure Life, 306. + + Erckmann-Châtrian, Romans Nationaux, 218. + + Established Church in Wales, The, 72; + Principles involved in the Disestablishment of the Irish + Church, ib.; + Mr. Gladstone's Attempt to escape from applying these + Principles to Wales, 73; + Influence of England on the Religious History of Wales, + 74; + The Church Establishment since the Reformation, 75; + Its Failure, 77; + The Appointments of Englishmen to Welsh Bishoprics, 79; + Testimony of two Welsh Clergymen on the subject, 79, 80; + Fathers of Welsh Methodism, 80; + Effect of the New Movement on the Church, 81; + Primary Cause of all the Evils, 84; + Comparison of the Established Church with Nonconformists + during this Century, ib.; + Church Accommodation, 85; + Number of Attendants, 87; + Schools, 89; + Preponderance of Nonconformists in Welsh Literature, 92; + The Eisteddfod, ib.; + Exceptional Scarcity of Crime in Wales, 93. + + + Fair France, 125. + + Foreign Protestant Pulpit, 318. + + France, Alsace and Lorraine, 273. + + Francillon, R. E., Earl's Dene, 306. + + Fraser, A. C., The Works of Bishop Berkeley, 256. + + Fraser-Tytler, C. C., Jasmine Leigh, 309. + + French, The late F. W., Things Above, 320. + + Froude, J. A., History of England, Vols. VIII.-XII., 126. + + Future of Europe, The, 273; + The Progress of the Race Interrupted, 274; + The Fault not all on One Side, ib.; + Prussia's openly avowed Desire of Domination, 275; + Excuses made for her Conduct; ib.; + Bismark's Ground that of Political Expediency, 276; + His False Reasoning, ib.; + Prussia will not stop short in her aggressive Career, 277; + Her want of Money, ib.; + National Character, 278; + Prussia's Absorption of all Germany into Herself, 279; + The King made Emperor, 280; + Despotic Constitution of the Empire, ib.; + Austria must also be Absorbed, 281; + Holland in Danger, 282; + Relations between Prussia and Russia, ib.; + What Prussia may do in Turkey, 283; + Change of Proportion in the Powers of Europe, 284; + Decrepitude of Austria, ib.; + Ruined State of France, 285; + Effects of her Prostration upon Europe, 286; + Isolation of England, 287; + Difficulties to be encountered by her, ib.; + Duties of her Government, 287, 288. + + + Gilbert, W., Martha, 307. + + Gledstone, J. P., The Life and Travels of George Whitefield, + 297. + + Gogerly, Rev. G., The Pioneers, 297. + + Greg, W. R., The Great Duel, 292. + + + Hamilton, The late James, D.D., Moses, the Man of God, 153. + + Hampden, Some Memorials of Bishop, 296. + + Hare, A. J. C., Walks in Rome, 302. + + Harold Erle, 307. + + Heraud, J. A., The In-Gathering, 134. + + Hinton, J., Thoughts on Health and some of its Conditions, + 301. + + Hood, E. Paxton, the World of Moral and Religious Anecdote, + 140. + + Hoole, C. H., The Shepherd of Hermas, Translated, 151. + + Hoppin, Professor, the Office and Work of the Christian + Ministry, 316. + + Hutton, R. H., Essays, Theological and Literary, 311. + + + Ingoldsby, 209; + Value of this kind of Writing, 209, 210; + Barham's Clerical Life little touched on, 210; + Character of his Humour, and his Superiority to others in + this Respect, 212; + His attacks on Superstition, 213; + The 'Ingoldsby Legends' adapted to Young Readers, 214; + Deficiency of Poetry in Them, ib.; + Hook, 215; + Anecdotes, 216. + + Interests of Europe in the Conditions of Peace, The, 273. + + + Jacox, F., Secular Annotations on Scripture Texts, 150. + + Jeafferson, J. C., Annals of Oxford, 294. + + Juvenile Literature, 154, 309. + + + Kaye, J. W., The Essays of an Optimist, 140. + + Kay Spen, The Green-Eyed Monster, 309. + + Keshub Chunder Sen, The Brahmo Somaj, 148. + + + Landels, Rev. W., D.D., Beacons and Patterns, 318. + + Lanfrey, P., Histoire de Napoléon 1er, 218. + + Leathes, Rev. S., The Witness of St. John to Christ, The + Boyle Lecture for 1870, 149. + + Leclercq, Emile, La Guerre de 1870, 218. + + Letters on the War, 291. + + Lewis, Rev. W. H., D.D., Sermons for the Christian Year, + 319. + + Louis's own Account of the Fight, 409. + + Low, Lieut. C. R., The Land of the Sun, 125. + + + M'Combie, The late W., Sermons and Lectures, 320. + + MacDonald, G., The Miracles of our Lord, 152. + + Macduff, J. R., D.D., Memories of Patmos, 153. + + Mackennal, A., Christ's Healing Touch, and other Sermons, + 319. + + MacLeod, A., D.D., Christus Consolator, 148. + + Macmillan, Rev., H., The True Vine, 318. + + Malmesbury Papers, The, 23; + Importance of the Period Comprised, ib.; + The Father of the First Earl, 25; + Friendship with Handel, ib.; + Almack's Rooms Designed, 26; + Fashionable Amusements, ib.; + Court Dress, 28; + The Pantheon, 30; + England a Hundred Years Ago, 31; + Old London, 32; + Paris, ib.; + The First Earl, 34; + His Diplomatic Embassies, ib.; + The Editor of the Books, 35. + + Malmesbury, Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, + first Earl of, 23. + + ---- ---- Letters of the first Earl of, his Family and + Friends, 23. + + March, Rev. D., D.D., Night unto Night, 154. + + Mariette, 138. + + Martin, Samuel, Rain upon the Mown Grass, and other Sermons, + 150. + + Mateer, Rev. S., The Land of Charity, 297. + + Matson, W. T., Poems, 134. + + Maverick, A., Henry J. Raymond and the New York Press, for + Thirty Years, 1. + + Meade, Lieut. the Hon. H., A Ride through the Disturbed + Districts of New Zealand, 299. + + Melville, Henry, Sermons, 318. + + Michelet, Jules, La France devant l'Europe, 273. + + Mourin, E., Les Comtes de Paris, 54. + + Muller, F. Max, Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. III., + 139. + + Murray, Rev. J., The Prophet's Mantle, 318. + + My Little Lady, 307. + + + Newman, Professor F. W., Europe of the near Future, 273. + + + O'Flanagan, J. R., The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and + Keepers of the Great Seal of Ireland, 288. + + Oliphant, Mrs. John, 136. + + Oosterzee, Rev. J. J. Van, D.D., The Theology of the New + Testament, 145. + + + Palestine, Explorations in, 36; + Purposes and Plans of the Exploration Society, ib.; + Early Operations, 36, 37; + The site of Capernaum Decided, 37; + Ai and Cana, ib.; + Synagogues Examined, 38; + Tombs, ib.; + Temples, 39; + Topography of Jerusalem, 40; + The old Walls, 44; + Site of the Temple, 45; + Jewish Archæology, 49; + A Museum for the Antiquities Discovered, ib.; + Inscriptions, 50; + The Moabite Stone, 51; + Light thrown by it on Early Writing, 51, 52; + Natural History and Geology, 53; + Importance of continuing and Encouraging the Society's + Work, 53, 54. + + Paley, F. A., Religious Tests and National Universities, + 235. + + Parker, Joseph, D.D., Ad Clerum, 148. + + ---- ---- The City Temple Sermons, 316. + + Parr, Louisa, Dorothy Fox, 308. + + Pope, The Works of Alexander, 303. + + Porter, Noah, D.D., The American Colleges and the American + Public, 302. + + Present Day Papers on Prominent Questions in Theology, 144. + + Prussian Aggrandisement and English Policy, 273. + + Pulpit Analyst, The, 154. + + + Rae, W. F., Westward by Rail, the New Route to the East, + 123. + + Rees, T., D.D., History of Nonconformity in Wales, 72. + + ---- Rev. W., The Church of England in Wales, 72. + + Religious Tests and National Universities, 235; + Why Disabilities have so long been Retained at the + Universities, ib.; + Desires on different sides for their removal, 237; + Objections brought against it, ib.; + Ineffectiveness of Tests, 239; + Needless in connection with Sinecures, ib.; + Principles recently adopted regarding Education, 240; + Importance of the connection between the Universities + and Elementary Education, 240, 241; + Clerical Fellowships and the effects they Produce, 241; + Evidence given before the House of Lords, 242, 243. + + Richardson, F., The Iliad of the East, 136. + + Robinson, Wade, Loveland., and other Poems, chiefly + concerning Love, 133. + + Rothschild, C. and A. de, The History and Literature of + the Israelites, 143. + + Rowlands, Rev. D., Sermons on Historical Subjects, 317. + + Ruskin, John, Fors Clavigera, 310. + + + Schmid, C. F., D.D., Biblical Theology of the New Testament, + 145. + + Schmidt, A., Elsass und Lothringen, Nachweise wie diese + provenzen dem deutschen Reiche verloren gingen, 273. + + Scrutator, Who is responsible for the War?, 273. + + Seeley, Professor, Lectures and Essays, 114. + + Sermons, 316. + + Sewell, E. M. and S. M., Yonge, European History, 116. + + Shairp, J. C., Culture and Religion in some of their + Relations, 149. + + Shalders, E. W., Sermons for the Times, 320. + + Shand, A. J., On the Trail of the War, 116. + + ---- A. I., Against Time, 135. + + Sieges of Paris, The Early, 54; + Comparison of Paris with other Capitals, 55; + Its History, 56; + Sudden rise in importance, 57; + Attacks by the Northmen, 58; + Rivalry with Laon, 59; + Great Siege of Paris by the Northmen, 60; + Abbo's account of it, 61; + The Siege Raised, 65; + Further Ravages, 66; + Second German Invasion, 67; + Its Results, 69; + Analogies with the War in our Time, 71; + Future Fate of Paris, 72. + + Six Months Hence, 137. + + Stanford, Charles, Symbols of Christ, 317. + + Stapleton, A. G., The French Case truly Stated, 273. + + Strauss, D. F., Krieg und Friede, 273. + + Stubbs, W., Select Charters and other Illustrations of + English Constitutional History, 291. + + Swainson, C. A., D.D., The Athanasian Creed, and its usage + in the English Church--A Letter to Dean Hook, 143. + + + Tappan, The Life of Arthur, 120. + + Taylor, Rev. W. M., The Lost Found and the Wanderer Welcomed, + 317. + + Tennyson, A., and Arthur Sullivan, The Window; or, the Loves + of the Wrens, 130. + + Thistleton, Rev. A. C., The Story of Job, 319. + + Tholuck, A., D.D., Hours of Christian Devotion, 153. + + Thompson, J. P., The Theology of Christ from His own Words, + 145. + + Tourguéneff, Ivan, S., On the Eve, 308. + + Tregelles, S. P., The Greek New Testament, 93; + Value of the Work, ib.; + The Author's previous Writings, 94; + The MSS. he has followed, 95; + His Text Compared with Alford's, 97; + His Labours interrupted by Illness, 98. + + Trench, W. Stewart, Ierne, 305. + + Trollope, J. Adolphus. A Syren, 135. + + ----, Anthony, The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson, 138. + + Two Months in Palestine, 125. + + Tyerman, Rev. L., Life and Times of Wesley, 119. + + + Vaughan, C. J., D.D., Christ satisfying the Instincts of + Humanity, 316; + Half-Hours in the Temple Church, 317; + Counsels to Young Students, ib. + + Vera, 305. + + Victor Hugo, Napoléon le petit, 218. + + Victory of the Vanquished. The, 139. + + Vince, Charles, Lights and Shadows in the Life of King David, + 319. + + + Wadsworth, Charles, Sermons, 318. + + War Correspondence of the Daily News, 291. + + War of 1870, The, 98; + Possible Results of the War, 98, 99; + Its Causes, 99; + Sketch of its History, 100; + French Scheme and Movements, ib.; + Speedy Organization of the Germans, 101; + First Battle, 102; + Woerth and Forbach, 103, 104; + Gravelotte, 105; + Insane scheme made for MacMahon, 107; + Sedan, 109; + Surrender of Metz, 110; + Revival of the French Spirit under Trochu and Gambetta, + ib.; + Wonderful Defence of Paris, 111; + Blame attaching to Prussia, 112; + Lessons of the War, ib. + + War of 1870-1, 243; + The Last Half of the Great Drama, 244; + Proceedings after the Disaster of Sedan, ib.; + Investment of Paris, 245; + Trochu's Scheme of Defence, 245, 246; + Gambetta's Balloon Journey and Efforts in Collecting + Troops, 246; + Doings of the Germans, 246, 247; + Effects of the Fall of Metz, 247; + The promising movements of D'Aurelles de Paladines, ib.; + His Failure and its Causes, 248; + Change in the German Plans, 249; + Their Superiority in Generalship, 250; + Was Trochu Incompetent? 251; + Chanzy's Brilliant Actions, ib.; + Reinforcements obtained on Both Sides, 252; + Bourbaki's rash Scheme, 252, 253; + Chanzy's Defeat, 253; + Bourbaki's attempt at Suicide, 254; + Progress of the Siege, 255; + Famine, ib.; + The War Ended by the Fall of Paris, ib.; + The Future of France; ib. + + Wardlaw, Gilbert, The Leading Christian Evidences, 147. + + Watson, Albert, Cicero, 118. + + Wedgewood, Julia, John Wesley and the Evangelical Reaction + of the Eighteenth Century, 119. + + Wesley, The Poetical Works of John and Charles, 135. + + White, John, Sketches from America, 126. + + Wickham, The Correspondence of the Right Hon. W., 117. + + Williamson, Rev. A, Journeys in North China, Manchuria, + and Eastern Mongolia, 121. + + Wylie, Rev. J. A., Daybreak in Spain, 125. + + + + +THE + +BRITISH QUARTERLY + +JANUARY 1871 + + + + +ART. I.--_Henry J. Raymond and the New York Press, for Thirty Years._ +Progress of American Journalism, from 1840 to 1870. By AUGUSTUS +MAVERICK. Hartford, Connecticut: A. S. Hale. 1870. + + +There is no country in the world which so finely illustrates the +diffusive spirit of modern civilization as America; for, though in other +lands human nature seems to rise to a greater height in individual +instances, and to stand out in more picturesque relief, it is the nation +which has excelled them all in equalizing the rights, the enjoyments, +and the intelligence of man. Many circumstances have contributed to this +happy result. America has been clogged by none of the mischievous +remains of feudal institutions, and but little affected by those +violations of political economy, older than the age of reason, which +have checked the free and natural development of European communities. +Its provisions for popular education were from the first singularly +wise, liberal, and ample; there was no legislation to restrict all civil +and social advantages to the members of a single religious sect; and no +taxes on knowledge or artificial monopolies of any kind, to prevent the +people from having access to that full variety of opinions, inquiries, +and statements of fact, which is necessary to intellectual advancement. +Above all, it was born old, with all the elements of European +civilization to start with, and equipped with a complete literature, in +which it would seem almost impossible to find place for any great +genius, and with the best English works placed within every man's reach, +at less than a tenth of their original cost. Taking these things in +connection with the boundless material resources of the country, it is +not by any means difficult to explain the magical rapidity of its +advances in wealth and population, the signal prosperity it has already +enjoyed, and the extraordinary power and greatness to which it is +evidently destined. + +The development of the press, like the improvement of the means of +civilization, is a certain sign of the relative advancement of a nation. +We use the term civilization here to signify not so much the development +of some elevated and delicate parts of human nature, such as art, +philosophy, or politeness, as that of political liberty and social +progress; and in this sense the progress of the press becomes +historically the most constant and faithful indication of the general +progress of a nation. The truth of this proposition becomes evident, +from the close connection that exists between the press and the public, +from the action and reaction, the efflux and reflux, from the true +corporate unity which brings into the press the life-blood of the +country. We depend upon the newspaper for distributing knowledge, as +well as creating it; it is an instrument by which the opinions and +feelings of the people may be guided and developed, as well as +communicated and ascertained. It is in fact an essential element in the +peculiar spirit and tendency which characterizes our modern +civilization. Still we are far from holding that it is a perfect +instrument, or free from very serious drawbacks. Eminent men like +Lamartine speak of it in terms of extravagant eulogy, predicting that +before the century shall have run out journalism will be the whole +press, the whole human thought, and that the only book possible from day +to day will be the newspaper; a great English novelist speaks of it as a +link in the great chain of miracles which prove our national greatness; +and Bulwer Lytton calls it the chronicle of civilization, the great +mental camera which throws a picture of the whole world upon a single +sheet of paper. These somewhat rhetorical representations are very +common, but they are far from exact or truthful. We suspect that the +newspaper tends in all countries to ignore, more or less, all knowledge +that will not render its teaching popular; that its chief figures are +often the wicked, the worthless, and the shallow; and that its pictures, +though generally faithful, are often false, distorted, and narrow. De +Tocqueville liked the liberty of the press, rather from the evils it +prevented, than from the advantages it created; and Montalembert +represents Liberty as saying to the Press, like the unhappy swain--'_Nec +cum te nec sine te vivere possum_.' John Stuart Mill has two objects of +hatred; Puritanism, with its positive creed and aggressive zeal, and the +ascendancy of the middle classes, through the newspaper press, with all +their mediocrity and bigotry. He has always protested, in the interests +of his great idol, individuality, against 'the _régime_ of public +opinion,' against the various 'usurpations upon the liberty of private +life,' against the moral intolerance of society, carried on through, the +newspapers. Amidst these various estimates of the press we are disposed +to take a middle course. It may sometimes be wielded by unworthy hands, +for unworthy purposes; its liberty may run into licence, and the rules +of good taste and propriety be violated; its policy on public questions +may be unscrupulous and unprincipled; but we remember that modern +progress would have been impossible without it; that the people are not +its slaves, but its patrons and critics; and we would lay no other +restraint upon it than the invisible fetters imposed by the intelligence +and good feeling of its readers. Whether, then, we consider the amount +and quality of intellectual force put forth in it, the character of mind +acted on by it, and the wide area over which it operates, especially in +England and America, where it has the greatest expansion, we cannot but +regard it as a subject for sincere congratulation that its influence has +been exercised so uniformly on the side of public safety and public +morals, that there has been a gradual improvement of late years in the +moral tone of newspaper management, and that it has succeeded in +creating and fostering a healthy and independent public opinion on all +the questions of the age. + +The great development of the American press has taken place during the +last thirty years, keeping pace exactly with the advancing prosperity of +the country. A large number of new and powerful processes, as well as +influences of a more general kind, were converging towards this result. +The education of the people, the progress of legislation, the +discoveries of science, the inventions of art, conspired to make +literature, especially in the newspaper form, a prime necessity of +American life, and to place it within every man's reach on easy terms; +while every improvement made in the art of communication and travel +still farther contributed to its growth, and increased its utility. So +it has come to pass that America is the 'classic soil of newspapers;' +everybody is reading; every class is writing; literature is permeating +everywhere; publicity is sought for every interest and every order; no +political party, no religious sect, no theological school, no literary +or benevolent association, is without its particular organ; there is a +universality of print; the soldiers fighting in Mexico or in the +Southern states are printing the journal of their exploits on the +battle-field; the press is seizing on the whole public life and upon so +much of private life as through social irregularity, or individual force +of character, or national taste, necessarily emerges into publicity; +fostering on the one hand the worship of the almighty dollar, but +establishing a strong and wholesome counterpoise, by stimulating that +zeal for public education, that enthusiastic spirit of philanthropy, and +that truly munificent liberality by which the American people have been +always distinguished. As we have already intimated, the modern +development of the press is just thirty years old. There was no +telegraph before 1843; no fast ocean-steamer to carry news from the old +world for some years later; and no Associated Press to organize the +supply of intelligence. The first American newspaper was printed at +Boston, in 1690, fifty years after the appearance of the first English +newspaper; in 1775 there were only 34 newspapers; in 1800, 200; in 1830, +1,000; and the latest statistics give no less than 5,244 as the total +number of journals published in the United States, of which 542 are +daily, 4,425 are weekly, and 127 are monthly. + +Our common idea of the American newspaper is that of a print published +by a literary Barnum, whose type, paper, talents, morality, and taste +are all equally wretched and inferior; who is certain to give us +flippancy for wit, personality for principle, bombast for eloquence, +malignity without satire, and news without truth or reliability; whose +paper is prolific of all kinds of sensational headings; and who is +obliged, in the service of his advertising customers, to become +enthusiastic on the subject of hams, exuberant in the praises of +hardware, and highly imaginative in the matter of dry-goods. Perhaps +this representation might apply, with some degree of correctness, to a +portion of the newspaper press, especially that published in the country +towns and villages; but we shall immediately see that American literary +enterprise, especially in the great cities, is not to be judged by such +unworthy examples. The work of Mr. Maverick, which appears at the head +of this article, supplies a large amount of information concerning +American journalism, connecting its more recent development with the +name of Henry J. Raymond, a well-known Republican politician, who +founded the _New York Times_, one of the most respectable and powerful +newspapers in the States. We cannot say much for the book, on literary +grounds: it exhibits nearly all the worst qualities of Transatlantic +journalism itself--flimsiness, personality, and haste; but its +information is very interesting and acceptable to European readers. The +facts of Raymond's life may be supplied in a few sentences. He was born +in 1820, at Lima, in the state of New York; he graduated at the +University of Vermont; he went to New York city in 1840, and was +introduced to newspaper life by Horace Greeley; he passed ten laborious +years on the _Tribune_, and the _Courier_ and _Inquirer_; and in the +year 1851 he may be justly said to have opened a new era in American +journalism, by establishing the _Times_, a daily paper, which carried +temperance and dignity into political discussion, banishing all +personalities, and maintaining a high critical and moral tone, which was +all but unknown before that period. Like most American journalists, he +engaged actively in politics, becoming in 1849 a member of the New York +Legislature, and afterwards speaker of the House of Representatives, and +Lieutenant-Governor of the State; and in 1864, member of Congress. He +was a sincere and upright politician, who always staunchly opposed the +slave party in the United States, but lost popularity and credit, by his +exceedingly foolish and unfortunate championship of President Johnson, +through all his remarkable freaks of obstinacy and eccentricity. On +returning home from his office, on the night of the 18th June, 1869, he +dropped down in the hall of his house, in a fit of apoplexy, and died +five hours afterwards, without recovering consciousness. He was in his +fiftieth year. Henry Ward Beecher said, in the funeral oration at his +grave, that Raymond 'was a man without hate, and, he might almost say, +without animosity; his whole career had been free from bitterness;' and +Horace Greeley bore this high testimony to his professional ability;--'I +doubt whether this country has known a journalist superior to Henry J. +Raymond. He was unquestionably a very clever and versatile, but not +powerful writer; and excelled especially in newspaper management.' We +shall have occasion to refer again to his services as a journalist. + +In proposing to give some account of the American press, both secular +and religious, we have to remark that the first great stimulus given to +newspaper enterprise in America was by James Gordon Bennett, the +well-known editor of the _New York Herald_, which was established in the +year 1834. This able journalist was born in 1800, at Newmill, Keith, +Banffshire, of Roman Catholic parents. He was originally designed for +the priesthood, and had passed through a portion of his preliminary +training in the Roman Catholic College of Blairs, near Aberdeen, but +ultimately abandoned the prospects of a clerical life, and emigrated to +America, in his nineteenth year--as he said himself--'to see the country +where Franklin was born.' There he formed an early connection with the +press, but it was not, as we have said, till 1834 that he founded the +_Herald_. We are all more or less familiar with the moral and +intellectual characteristics of this newspaper--unsparing personality, +intolerable egotism, and sleepless hatred of England; but we are not so +foolish as to imagine that the _Herald_ became popular and successful +because Americans are fond of personal abuse, or private scandal, or of +the ceaseless denunciation of this country. These offences against good +taste and right feeling existed long before the publication of the +_Herald_. The secret of its remarkable success lay in the vigour and +tact with which Bennett laboured day and night to furnish ample and +early intelligence of events in all parts of the world, without regard +to cost and labour. Mr. Maverick tells us that 'all the old and +heavy-weighted journals, which lazily got themselves before the New York +public, day by day, thirty years ago, were undeniably sleepy,' and that +'the ruthless Bennett shocked the staid propriety of his time by +introducing the rivalries and the spirit of enterprise which have ever +since been distinguishing characteristics of New York newspaper life.' +The _Herald_ was successful, then, because Bennett made it his business +to present his readers with fresh, ample, and correct news. No editorial +eloquence, no skilful flattery of national prejudice or party feeling, +could have atoned for any shortcoming in this respect. The other +newspaper managers were soon compelled to imitate his energy and skill +in the supply of news, and Mr. Maverick has informed us how effectively +his example was sometimes followed, by his rivals. On one occasion, +before the days of the telegraph, the leading New York journals +despatched reporters to Boston, to obtain an early account of a speech +by Daniel Webster, who was then in the plenitude of his fame. Two +reporters represented each journal; but Raymond alone represented the +_Tribune_. On their return home by the steamer the other reporters +passed the night in convivial pleasantries; but Raymond was busily +engaged all the time, in a retired part of the vessel, writing off his +report for a batch of printers who were on board with their 'cases' of +type; so that the entire report, making several columns of the +_Tribune_, was prepared for being printed on the arrival of the steamer +at New York, at five o'clock in the morning. The feat was a remarkable +instance of newspaper enterprise. The Hudson River steamboats afterwards +regularly carried corps of printers with types, from Albany to New York, +to prepare the speeches of legislators for next morning's journals. +Carrier-pigeons were employed to convey the latest European news from +Halifax or Boston to Wall-street; and pilot-boats made long voyages, in +stormy weather, to meet Atlantic steamers in search of early news. In +election times pony-expresses were appointed by rival journals to carry +early intelligence of results; as, in railway times, 'locomotive engines +were raced on rival lines of railroad in the interest of papers which +had paid high prices for the right of way.' Sometimes a little of that +'smartness,' which is so popular in America, was displayed in these +newspaper rivalries, as when, on one occasion, the _Tribune_ reporter +ran off to New York on a special engine, hired expressly for the +_Herald_, and thus succeeded in publishing an early and exclusive +edition of some important news. + +The success of the _Herald_ led Horace Greeley to found the _Tribune_, +in 1841. We can see at once that, like Bennett and Raymond, he was +greatly endowed with that species of sagacity which divines at a glance +the capabilities of a new project or speculation. Greeley was the son of +a New England farmer, and came to New York a poor penniless boy. His +earlier essays in newspaper management were total failures; but the +_Tribune_ was remarkably successful from its very commencement. It +eschewed the coarse and violent style of the _Herald_, and pursued a far +more generous and enlightened policy on public questions, while it +almost rivalled the business-like energy of its earlier contemporary; +but it ultimately injured itself by its championship of socialism, and +a host of other secular heresies. For, though Greeley was of a +remarkably practical turn of mind, at least in the management of his own +business, he was a great theorist, committed to every _recherché_ +novelty in faith and life, a moral philosopher, after a fashion of his +own, sincere and liberal in his ideas, with deep sympathies for the +working classes, advocating their rights, and seeking their elevation, +while he did not fear to expose their follies and their faults. The +_Tribune_ became, under his management, the organ of socialism and +spirit-rapping, woman's rights, vegetarianism, temperance, and peace +principles. It seemed, in fact, the premature harbinger of the 'good +time coming,' adept in all the cant of reform, and familiar with the +whole philosophy of progress, a very clear vein of sense being +perceptible to critical minds, in the elegant sophistry with which it +vindicated its own course, and tried to overwhelm all objectors. It +attempted, in fact, to turn to account the remarkable tremour of the +public mind, which arose from what was seen or said between 1845 and +1855 of mesmerism, electro-biology, spirit-rapping, Swedenborgianism, +and psychology; but we are glad to know that the _Tribune_ has greatly +improved in its general views, and comes more into accord with common +ideas on these curious subjects. + +It was the disgust and disappointment of the public with the socialistic +heresies of the _Tribune_, as well as with the shameless and indecent +personalities of the _Herald_, that led to the establishment of the +_Times_, in the year 1851. It took rank at once as a dignified and able +journal. Its influence was exercised from the first on the side of +morality, industry, education, and religion; and to use the words of an +eminent English journalist, now at the American press, 'it encouraged +truthfulness, carried decency, temperance, and courtesy into discussion, +and helped to abate the greatest nuisance of the age, the coarseness, +violence, and calumny, which does so much to drive sensible and +high-minded and competent men out of public life, or keep them from +entering it.' No one, certainly, has ever done more than Henry J. +Raymond for the elevation of the American newspaper. We cannot justly +overlook the substantial services done in the same department by the +_New York Evening Post_, under the management of its veteran editor, +William Cullen Bryant, the poet; by the _New York World_, a new paper +distinguished by the talent, incisiveness, and dignity of its articles; +and by the _Nation_, managed by Mr. Godkin, an Irishman, once connected +with the London press, and which stands upon the intellectual level of +the best European periodicals. + +We are indebted to Mr. Maverick for a tolerably full account of the +present position of New York journalism. There are 150 newspapers +published in that city, of which 24 are daily papers, two of them +published in the French language, and three in the German. The remainder +are weekly journals, of which eighteen are in German, one in Italian, +and two in Spanish. There are no less than 258 German newspapers in all +America, the largest number being published in Pennsylvania. There are +eighteen religious newspapers published in New York. We have the +following information in reference to the literary and mechanical +arrangements of the daily press: + + 'Each of the great daily papers of New York to-day employs + more than a hundred men, in different departments, and + expends half a million of dollars annually, with less + concern to the proprietors than an outlay of one-quarter of + that sum would have occasioned in 1840. The editorial corps + of the papers issued in New York on the first day of the + present year numbered at least half a score of persons; the + reporters were in equal force; sixty printers and eight or + ten pressmen were employed to put in type and to print the + contents of each issue of the paper; twenty carriers + conveyed the printed sheets to its readers, and a dozen + mailing clerks and bookkeepers managed the business details + of each establishment. Editorial salaries now range from + twenty-five to sixty dollars a week; reporters receive from + twenty to thirty dollars a week; and the gross receipts of + a great daily paper for a year often reach the sum of one + million of dollars, of which an average of one third is + clear profit. These statistics are applicable to four or + five of the daily morning journals of New York.' + +There is much literary ability displayed in the daily and weekly +journals of Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, and other leading cities. +The _Boston Post_ is a leading paper in that city. It is answerable for +all the paradoxical absurdities of the famous Mrs. Partington. The +_Washington National Era_, like the _National Intelligencer_, of the +same capital, has a high position, as a literary and political journal. +It was through its columns that Mrs. Stowe first gave to the world her +'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' just as Judge Haliburton first published 'Sam +Slick, the Clockmaker,' in the pages of a Nova Scotian weekly newspaper. + +It is a remarkable fact that the Americans have never produced a +Quarterly worthy of the name, except the 'North American Review,' which +is certainly below the intellectual level of the four or five English +reviews which are reprinted in New York every quarter within a +fortnight of their publication in England. It was said, in explanation +of the fact that the French had never succeeded in maintaining a review +on the plan of the English Quarterlies, that their opinions and parties +change so often, and the nation was so volatile, that they could not +wait a quarter of a year upon anybody. But this explanation will not +apply to the Americans. The 'North American Review' has always had on +its list of contributors the very best names in native literature, such +as Longfellow, Everett, J. R. Lowell, Motley, Jared Sparks, Caleb +Cushing, George Bancroft, and others. Yet its success has been very +partial. Its literary position ought to have been far more decided. The +'Atlantic Monthly' holds a deservedly high place in American letters, +with such authors as Emerson, Holmes, and Mrs. Stowe among its principal +contributors; but its influence has always been thrown into the scale +against Evangelical Christianity. 'Harper's Magazine,' published in New +York, is an illustrated monthly for the fashionable world, with a +circulation of 150,000 copies. 'Bonner's Ledger' has pushed its way into +the front rank of weekly magazines, by its romances, its essays, and its +poetry, from such writers as Parton, Beecher, Everett, Saxe, Bryant, and +many others. The sporting world has its _Wilkes' Spirit of the Times_; +the advocates of woman's rights have the _Revolution_, in the hands of +Susan B. Anthony and E. C. Stanton; the grocers have a _Grocers' +Journal_; the merchants a _Dry Goods Reporter_; the billiard-players, a +_Billiard-cue_; and the dealers in tobacco, a _Tobacco Leaf_. The +advocates of Spiritualism and Socialism have a large number of journals +in their service. But, strange to relate, the Americans have not a +single comic periodical like our 'Punch.' Mr. Maverick says that, in the +course of a dozen years, many attempts have been made to establish such +a print, but without success. 'Vanity Fair' was the best of the class, +but its wit and its pictorial illustrations were equally poor and +trivial. All the comic papers that flourished for a few years were only +remarkable for the immense amount of bad wit they contained, for a +wilderness of worthlessness, for an endless process of tickling and +laughter; with only an occasional gleam of genuine humour and +imagination. If the Americans have failed in producing such a +periodical, it is not from the want of literary men possessed of the +_vis comica_, for Oliver Wendell Holmes, James R. Lowell, Shelton, +Butler, and Saxe are first-rate humourists. The English comic papers can +command all the abounding talent of men like Douglas Jerrold, Albert +Smith, W. M. Thackeray, Mark Lemon, Shirley Brooks, Thomas Hood, F. +Burnand, and a host of other satirists. The Americans, however, have +never had a Tenniel, a Doyle, a Leech, a Du Maurier, or a Keene, to +throw off, week after week, the most amusing and instructive of +pictorial satires. All they have hitherto done in this department is to +copy with tolerable taste and skill the best cartoons and wood-cuts of +'Punch' and our illustrated magazines. Perhaps America has yet to find +its Bradbury and Evans. It is evidently most in want of a publisher. +After all, there is hardly anything the Americans need more than a good +comic paper, to moderate the intensity of their politics, to laugh down +the extravagant follies of American society, to measure the strength of +their public men, to register their blunders, and expose their +hollowness, to watch over the caprices of fashion, to criticize the +press itself, with its coarseness and scurrility, its disgraceful +advertisements, and its downright fabrications; taking good care to keep +free from those sins which so easily beset satirists, rancour, +obscenity, and attacks on private character. They need a satirical +journal, just to apply to all things the good old test of common sense; +and when uncommon wit is allied with common sense in branding any custom +or habit as evil, it must be very deeply rooted if it cannot be +overturned or modified. Besides, the Americans, as a hard-working race, +need a refreshing humour to relieve the strain upon their mental and +physical energies. Emerson remarked of Abraham Lincoln, that humour +refreshed him like sleep or wine; and a nation so eager in all kinds of +work deserves the innocent relaxation that comes from literature in its +most sparkling and pleasing form. + +The volume of Mr. Maverick makes almost no allusion to an important +department of the American press, which demands some notice at our +hands, viz., that which ministers to the intellectual and moral wants of +the Irish Roman Catholic immigrants. There is no city of any magnitude +which does not possess its Catholic organ. New York city is the proper +centre of the Catholic press, but Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, +Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Boston, Charleston, and St. +Louis have each their weekly paper for the Irish population. +Intellectually, these papers are very inferior, and so illiberal that +almost every question is viewed from the single standpoint of creed, +race, or country. The liberal policy of a free and progressive state has +hardly produced the slightest effect upon them. It is a very remarkable +fact that in America, as in other countries, journalism is not wielded +in the service of Romanism with any freshness and power, except by +converts from Protestantism. We find _Brownson's Review_, the _Freeman's +Journal_, the _Shepherd of the Valley_ (now discontinued), and the +_Catholic Herald_, in the hands of perverts, just as in Europe the +_Tablet_ was founded by a convert from Quakerism, the _Dublin Review_ is +in the hands of an Oxford pervert, and the _Historisch-politische +Blätter_ of Munich was founded by Professor Phillips, and maintained in +great scientific efficiency by Yarke, both converts from Lutheranism. +The Irish press in America is very ultramontane. It seems drunk with the +very spirit of religious servility, mad with the hatred of liberty, and +adopts the strictest Roman Catholic doctrines, following them out to +their extremest consequences, with a rudeness and arrogance of style, +approaching to vulgarity. Orestes Brownson says that the Pope is nowhere +so truly Pope, and finds nowhere, so far as Catholics are concerned, so +little resistance in the full exercise of his authority as in the United +States. No European editor, except Veuillot, ever wrote in the style of +Brownson himself, who is intellectually without a peer among Romish +editors; for he takes the strongest and most unpopular ground as the +very foundation of his ecclesiastical and political theories. Veuillot +shocked the good sense and liberal feeling of Europe, by defending the +Inquisition and the St. Bartholomew massacre; but Brownson despises all +prudential considerations, in claiming for his church the right to put +heretics to death, for he holds that this is punishment, and not +persecution. The _Shepherd of the Valley_ held that the question of +punishing heretics was one of mere expediency, and declared that in the +event of his church gaining the ascendancy in America, there would be an +end of religious toleration. The _Pittsburgh Catholic_ censured these +outspoken utterances; but the _Boston Pilot_ rebuked its Pittsburgh +contemporary for its censures, declaring that the _Shepherd of the +Valley_ said nothing that was not true; yet saying itself, with marked +inconsistency, 'No Catholic wishes to abridge the religious rights of +Protestants.' It is in perfect consistency with such ultramontane ideas +that these Irish newspapers uniformly take the side of royal despots in +great national struggles, and deny all sympathy to revolutionary leaders +except those of Ireland. Though they usually cry out lustily when any +step in American legislation or any popular combination manifests even +an appearance of hostility to Catholic interests, they actually had the +audacity, in 1859, to defend those royal miscreants of Italy, who rioted +in the misery of their subjects, and of whom it was truly said, 'They +kept one-half of their people in prison and the other half in fear of +it.' They sympathised with the Poles in their last insurrection, because +their oppressor was a schismatic; they had no sympathy with Hungarians, +or Italians, or Spaniards, because their oppressors were Catholics. The +_Boston Pilot_--the most popular journal of the Irish--forgot its _rôle_ +so far in 1848, as to take a liberal view of the European revolutions. +The result was that the _Univers_, in giving an account of Catholic +journalism in America, excluded the _Pilot_ from its list of the +orthodox; the clergy, moreover, condemned it; and it was obliged to +express its penitence for such an error of judgment. The _Pilot_, after +all, is more reasonable and less fanatical than most of the Catholic +papers, and is specially copious in its reports of Catholic news. All +these Irish newspapers are, without exception, bitterly anti-English in +their tone and spirit. One might suppose that having escaped from misery +and poverty, and launched upon a new career of prosperity and +contentment, the Irish could afford to forget England; but, like their +teachers at the press, they are strong in historical grudges, and their +hatred to this country is as much theological as political. The +Irish-American journalist delights in copying into his paper the abuse +of England, collected from all quarters of the world, and in times of +war or rebellion depreciates our triumphs and magnifies our misfortunes. +The Catholic clergy have found it hard to control the opinions of a +portion of their Irish countrymen, who, though sufficiently submissive +in spiritual concerns, have shown a disposition to assert an +independence of clerical control in matters affecting the interests of +Ireland. Sometimes, indeed, the clergy have been led to humour this +national feeling, as when they were in the habit of attending the 'Tom +Moore Club,' at Boston, though it had been more than suspected that the +favourite poet had died out of the pale of the church. At length the +_Shepherd of the Valley_ pointedly condemned their appearance at the +annual banquet, on the ground that the poet was ashamed of his country's +religion during life, and that English preachers performed the obsequies +at his grave. The appearance of Thomas Francis Meagher in America, after +his escape from penal servitude in Australia, greatly perplexed the +bishops and clergy; but the _mot d'ordre_ went forth, and all the +Catholic newspapers in America, with a single exception, assailed him +with the greatest bitterness, for his enlightened opinions upon +religious liberty, and upon the relation between Church and State. +Thousands of the Irish, notwithstanding, rallied round Meagher; and the +_Irish-American_ was established, for the vindication and enforcement of +his principles. There are a few other organs of Irish nationality, +including the _Irish People_, of John Mitchell, published in America, +but, with the exception of the _People_, they are all contemptible, in +every point of view. You find in their pages column after column of +windy jargon and tawdry rhetoric, which would consign an English editor +to a madhouse. This gaudy and ornate style, with a profusion of florid +imagery and Oriental hyperbole quite overpowering, seems to characterise +every Nationalist journal. It is these papers that have inflated the +Fenian bubble. We pity the deplorable ignorance of the Irish masses, +their misguided enthusiasm, and their preposterous pertinacity in the +pursuit of visionary ends; but we have no language too severe to apply +to their intellectual leaders who pursue their ignoble calling from a +mercenary calculation of the profits to be derived from bottomless +credulity. We fear that the Irish press generally has succeeded in +imparting an education to the _emigrés_ that can serve only to nurture +hatreds, which, like curses, too often come home to roost, and that some +considerable time may be expected to elapse before all the appliances of +American civilization and Christianity shall succeed, as they most +certainly will, in the assimilation of such intractable materials. + +Our notice of the American press would be incomplete without some +account of that ample supply of religious literature which is furnished +by thousands of weekly, monthly, and quarterly periodicals. The +religious newspaper is almost peculiar to America, and is far superior +to any similar publication in England. The English paper is more +ecclesiastical and less religious; the American, while equally strenuous +and careful in the advocacy of denominational claims, supplies much of +what we usually obtain here from the _Sunday Magazine_ and the _Family +Treasury_. The literary superiority of the religious press over the +secular in America arises mainly from the fact that its conductors and +contributors are mostly clergymen who have been graduates of colleges, +and are possessed of a considerable amount of classical culture and +training. Every denomination has a large number of weekly organs. The +two leading newspapers of the class are the _New York Independent_ and +the _New York Observer_, the former an organ of the Congregationalists, +and the latter of the Presbyterians. The _Independent_ was originally +conducted by the Rev. Dr. Bacon, the Rev. Dr. Thompson, and the Rev. +Richard Storrs, jun.; it afterwards passed into the hands of the Rev. +Henry Ward Beecher, who wielded it with great power and efficiency in +the anti-slavery cause; and it is now managed by Theodore Tilton in +company with several others. It contains a great variety of religious, +political, and general news, devotional and literary pieces of great +merit, together with foreign and domestic correspondence, written with +an excellent spirit. Mr. Beecher has established, and conducts, the +_Christian Union_, another religious paper, which is rapidly rising to +popularity and power. _The Advance_, a religious paper published in +Chicago, and conducted by Dr. Patten, is one of the best of the +religious papers of America. The _Observer_ is one of the oldest and +best established papers, once exceedingly Conservative in its views of +slavery, but always distinguished by sound judgment, good taste, and +fair culture. The Methodists are well represented by the _Christian +Advocate and Journal_, and the Baptists by the _Examiner and Chronicle_. +The monthly organ of the American Tract Society has a circulation of +about 200,000, which it owes to its catholic character and its +extraordinary cheapness. The quarterly literature of the American +churches is of a very high character. The _Bibliotheca Sacra_ is the +great organ of New England theology, and the _Biblical Repertory and +Princeton Review_ is the leading representative of the Calvinism of the +Westminster standards. These are the two most powerful reviews. The +_Bibliotheca Sacra_ is published at Andover, the scene of the learned +labours of Moses Stuart, the biblical expositor, and was established +twenty-seven years ago. It differs from the _Princeton Review_ and all +British reviews in publishing the names of its contributors, and it has +succeeded in gathering to its pages a vast amount of the most versatile +talent from nearly all the Congregational Colleges of America. Its most +original contributor in the domain of metaphysical theology is Professor +Austin Phelps, of Andover, whose articles on 'The Instrumentality of the +Truth in Regeneration,' and 'Human Responsibility as related to Divine +Agency in Conversion,' published within the last two or three years, +prove that much of the genius and spirit of Jonathan Edwards still +exists in New England theology. Another eminent contributor, Professor +Park, of Andover, who is also its principal editor, has been frequently +in collision with Dr. Hodge, of the _Princeton Review_, on points of +Calvinistic divinity. Professor Bascom has been recently publishing in +its pages a series of articles on 'The Natural Theology of Social +Science'--a subject hitherto left too much in the hands of +secularists--and has succeeded in lifting it with advantage into the +higher sphere of theology. The articles of this review are generally +marked by a high style of ability and a scientific thoroughness: and +are, many of them, worthy of being reproduced, as they have been, from +time to time, in the _British and Foreign Evangelical Review_. The +spirit of its management is exceedingly liberal. We observe, for +example, that it recently published an article on 'Christian Baptism,' +from the professor of a Baptist College, in conformity with a plan +adopted by the conductors of securing from representative men of +different sects and schools of thought, articles unfolding distinctive, +theological opinions, and exhibiting with something like scientific +precision the exact peculiarities of meaning attached to the terminology +of the respective schools. The _Princeton Review_ is the oldest +quarterly in the United States. It was established in 1825 by Dr. +Charles Hodge, the well-known commentator on the Epistle to the Romans, +who was then, and still is, a Professor in the Princeton Theological +Seminary; but it was not till 1829 that it ceased to be a mere repertory +of selections from foreign works in the department of biblical +literature. It is, beyond all question, the greatest purely theological +review that has ever been published in the English tongue, and has waged +war in defence of the Westminster standards for a period of forty years, +with a polemic vigour and unity of design without any parallel in the +history of religious journalism. If we were called to name any living +writer who, to Calvin's exegetical tact, unites a large measure of +Calvin's grasp of mind and transparent clearness in the department of +systematic theology, we should point to this Princeton Professor. He +possesses, to use the words of an English critic, the power of seizing +and retaining with a rare vigour and tenacity, the great doctrinal +turning-points in a controversy, while he is able to expose with +triumphant dexterity the various subterfuges under which it has been +sought to elude them. His articles furnish a remarkably full and exact +repository of historic and polemic theology; especially those on +'Theories of the Church,' 'The Idea of the Church,' 'The Visibility of +the Church,' 'The Perpetuity of the Church,' all of which have been +reproduced in English reviews. The great characteristic of his mind is +the polemic element; accordingly we find him in collision with Moses +Stuart, of Andover, in 1833, and with Albert Barnes in 1835, on the +doctrine of Imputation; with Professor Park, in 1851, on 'The Theology +of the Intellect and the Theology of the Feelings;' with Dr. Niven, of +the _Mercersburg Review_, in 1848, on the subject of the 'Mystical +Presence,' the title of an article which attempted to apply the modern +German philosophy to the explanation and subversion of Christian +doctrines; with Professor Schaff, in 1854, on the doctrine of historical +development; and with Horace Bushnell, in 1866, on vicarious sacrifice. +In fact, a theological duel has been going on between Andover and +Princeton for nearly forty years, the leading controversialists of +Andover being Stuart, Park, Edward Beecher, Baird, and Fisher, and those +of Princeton, Hodge, the Alexanders, and Atwater.[1] Hodge has +contributed one hundred and thirty-five articles to the _Review_ since +its commencement; Dr. Archibald Alexander--a venerable divine, who +resembled John Brown, of Haddington, in many respects--contributed +seventy-seven; his son, Dr. James Waddel Alexander, twice a Princeton +Professor, and afterwards pastor of the wealthiest congregation in New +York, contributed one hundred and one articles; another son, Dr. Joseph +Addison Alexander, the well-known commentator on Isaiah, contributed +ninety-two, mostly on classical and Oriental subjects; and Dr. Atwater, +another Princeton professor of great learning and versatility, +contributed sixty-four on theological and metaphysical subjects. The +articles in the _Princeton_ on science, philosophy, literature, and +history, have generally displayed large culture and research. The review +of Cousin's Philosophy, in 1839, by Professor Dod, was one of the most +remarkable papers that appeared on the subject in America, and was +afterwards reprinted separately on both sides of the Atlantic. Another +theological quarterly of America, is the _New Englander_, published at +Newhaven, Connecticut, and representative principally of Yale +scholarship. Nearly all the leading names in New England theology, such +as Bellamy, Hopkins, Emmons, Dwight, Griffin, Tyler, and Taylor, among +the dead, and Bushnell, Beecher, and Bacon, among the living, are +associated with the venerable University of Yale. Tryon Edwards (the +great-grandson of Jonathan Edwards) is one of the contributors to the +_New Englander_. The professors and graduates of the college are its +principal contributors. Among them are to be found the distinguished +names of Dr. Noah Porter and President Woolsey. The former has recently +contributed to the _New Englander_, a series of valuable articles, just +reprinted in a small volume, on 'The American Colleges and the American +Public;' an able discussion of the fundamental principles of University +education. The _Mercersburg Review_ is the quarterly organ of the German +Reformed Church, and has been conducted, from its commencement, by Dr. +Niven and Professor Schaff, the well-known historian. The Baptists have +their _Christian Review_, the Methodists their _Methodist Quarterly +Review_, the Lutherans their _Evangelical Review_, the Episcopalians +their _Protestant Episcopal Quarterly Review_, and the Unitarians their +_Christian Examiner_, which reflects from time to time the vicissitudes +of Unitarian opinion. There is one fact suggested by this review of the +American religious press, viz., that Episcopacy holds a very inferior +place beside Independency and Presbyterianism in theological authorship. +We all know how greatly things are changed, even in England, since Dr. +Arnold deplored, and all but despised, the culture of Dissenters, for we +have Dean Alford, but the other day, confessing in the _Contemporary +Review_, 'Already the Nonconformists have passed us by in Biblical +scholarship, and ministerial training.' But in the United States, the +palm of theological scholarship has always rested in the hands of +Congregational and Presbyterian divines. The best theological +seminaries, the ablest theological reviews, and the most original as +well as extensive authorship in the various branches of theology, belong +to the two denominations referred to. + +We shall now proceed, as briefly as possible, to make some observations +of a critical nature upon the intellectual and moral character of the +American press generally. It is not, certainly, in any spirit of +national superiority that we point to the undoubted fact that, +notwithstanding the great expansion of newspaper literature in the +States, the wide diffusion of popular education, and the circulation of +English books of the best kind at a mere nominal cost, the Americans +have as yet produced nothing representatively like our London _Times_, +or _Punch_, or the _Athenæum_, or the _Illustrated London News_, or the +_Saturday Review_, or the _Art Journal_, or the _Edinburgh_ and +_Quarterly_. They have not even produced a single great newspaper writer +like Captain Stirling, of the _Times_, Albany Fonblanque, sen., of the +_Examiner_, or Hugh Miller, of the _Edinburgh Witness_, for Bennett, +Greeley, and Raymond, though capital editors, are all greatly inferior +to these men in that art of scholarly, dignified, and tasteful +leader-writing, which gives such a power and charm to London journalism. +Newspaper writing is, perhaps, the most difficult of all writing; there +is none at least in which excellence is so rarely attained. The capacity +of bringing widely-scattered information into a focus, of drawing just +conclusions from well-selected facts, of amplifying, compressing, +illustrating a succession of topics, all on the spur of the moment, +without a moment's stay to examine or revise, argues great intellectual +cultivation. The articles may not be of a lofty order, or demand for +their execution the very highest kind of talent, but the power of +accomplishing it with success is very uncommon, and of all the varieties +of ways in which incompetency is manifested, an irrepressible tendency +to fine writing is associated with the greater number of them. De +Tocqueville says that democratic journalism has a strong tendency to be +virulent in spirit and bombastic in style. It certainly runs the risk of +lawlessness, inaccuracy, and irreverence, with much of vehemence, and +with little taste, imagination, or profundity. One serious charge we +have to bring against the American newspapers is, that they have sorely +vulgarized and vitiated the English language. We are aware that many of +them imagine the language of their country to be the standard as to +idiom, pronunciation, and spelling, and any English variation from their +golden rule as erroneous and heterodox; but such critics are entitled to +no consideration whatever. If men of education at the American press +refuse to study the style of the great authors who fixed and purified +the language of our common forefathers, so that we may have one and not +two languages spoken on opposite sides of the Atlantic, let them at +least imitate such writers of their own as Washington Irving, Horace +Bushnell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose pure and +native English is wholly free from all the corruptions and affectations +of phrase which overrun American newspapers, simply because it is +beautifully modelled upon the most elegant and polished writers of +English literature. In fact, the Americans have always been greatly in +need of a critical organ, like the old _Edinburgh Review_, to purify the +literary atmosphere from the clouds and mists of false taste which +deface it, to stand censor on books and newspapers, a recognized +authority in the literary republic, for whose quarterly judgments +readers might look with interest, and authors with trembling. The +_North American Review_, though written with great spirit, learning, and +ability, and abounding in profound and original discussions on the most +interesting subjects, has never filled the place of the _Edinburgh_, +and, indeed, its own style is not free from the common sin of +affectation. It is pleasant to think of William Cullen Bryant, the poet, +hanging up in the office of his newspaper--the _New York Evening +Post_--a catalogue of words that no editor or reporter is ever to be +allowed to use.[2] Let us hope that the literary men of America, of all +classes, will seriously aim at the formation of a purer, chaster, and +juster style of writing, for what they have hitherto produced has been +defective in taste rather than in talent. + +Another great sin of American journalism is its intolerable personality, +violence, and exaggeration. This was the disgrace of our own English +press at no distant period. Cobbett was a great sinner in this respect, +He had much to do with raising the intellectual, and lowering the moral, +reputation of the modern newspaper. The wide diffusion of enlightened +views on politics and religion is attested, however, in a remarkable +manner among ourselves, by the moderation of tone which we now see in +journals which, about twenty years ago, were remarkable for their +scurrility and violence. It is no longer a recommendation to an English +newspaper to be known as an assailant of the Royal Family, the +aristocracy, the bench of bishops, or parsons. Several publications +that, a few years since, professed atheism and secularism, have become +extinct, and the _quondam_ organs of Chartism and fierce democracy have +been obliged to become respectable. But many of the American newspapers +are much worse than the English were a quarter of a century ago. With +us, faction has become less mischievous and shameless; unfounded +accusations less common and less malignant; invectives more measured and +decorous; not merely because the evil passions which required to be fed +with the abuse of individuals have calmed down, but because the British +press is now guided by the principle of attacking public opinion, not +private characters, measures, not men; and its quarrels are usually +governed by the laws of honour and chivalry, which proscribe all base +advantages. But an American newspaper cannot assail another newspaper +without mentioning the editor's name, and calling him coward or rascal. +If you cannot answer your opponent's objections, you caricature his +appearance, or dress, or diet, or accent, as Bennett is in the habit of +treating Greeley; and if you are foiled by his wit, you recover your +advantage by stabbing his character. No allusions become too indecorous +for your taste; no sarcasms too bitter for your savage spite; and no +character pure enough to be sacred from your charges and insinuations. +The American editor pursues his antagonist as if he were a criminal. The +_New York World_ lately devoted four columns of its space to illustrate +by quotations the amenities of American journalism. The majority of the +papers seem to subsist on the great staple of falsehood and personality, +and enjoy all the advantages which spring from an utter contempt for the +restraints of decency and candour; and we are strongly of opinion that +this work of cruel intimidation is pursued with unrelenting eagerness, +not from the influence of angry passions or furious prejudices, but in +the cold-blooded calculation of the profits which idle curiosity or the +vulgar appetite for slander may enable its authors to derive from it. We +are not prepared to endorse all the strong statements made by infuriated +rivals concerning the proprietor of the _New York Herald_; but he leaves +us, in no doubt, himself, as to the light in which he regarded his own +frequent chastisements. Immediately after James Watson Webb had severely +whipped him in the streets of New York, the whole affair was recounted, +in the _Herald_ with a sensational circumstantiality that had an evident +eye to business, though we cannot overlook the remarkable good humour +with which Bennett treated the whole affair:-- + + 'The fellow,' he says, 'no doubt wanted to let out the + never-failing supply of good humour and wit which have + created such a reputation for the _Herald_, and appropriate + the contents to supply the emptiness of his own skull. He + didn't succeed, however, in rifling me of my ideas. My + ideas in a few days will flow as freshly as ever, and he + will find it to his cost.' + +Imagine the London _Times_ degraded to the condition of its responsible +editor rejoicing in his own personal chastisement! American journalists +fight like their French brethren. They never dream of explanations. +Bullets and bowie-knives are the natural sequel of such recriminations +as disgrace their newspapers. This extreme violence is part of the loose +political morality so common there. Americans seem to be taught almost +from their infancy to hate one-half of the nation, and so contract all +the virulence and passion of party before they have come to the age of +reason; but before their newspapers can be said to enter upon the course +of real usefulness which is open to them, they must have come to believe +that political differences may exist without their opponents being +either rogues or fools. Jefferson said in his day that the scurrility of +the press drove away the best men from public life, and would certainly +have driven away Washington had he lived to suffer from its growing +excesses. James Fenimore Cooper, the celebrated novelist, had a horror +of newspapers, and instituted actions at law against a host of them for +literary libels. He once remarked, 'The press of this country tyrannizes +over public men of letters, the arts, the stage, and even private life. +Under the semblance of maintaining liberty, it is gradually establishing +a despotism as ruthless and grasping and one that is quite as vulgar as +that of any Christian state known.' This view of the case is certainly +serious and suggestive. Party violence may be carried to a length that +defeats itself, for it may harden public men against all newspaper +criticism whatever, to the great injury of public affairs, and thus +lower the estimation and disturb the course of public opinion. Nowhere +are fools more dogmatic than in politics, and nowhere are wise men more +doubtful and silent; but American party writers have no respect for the +Horatian maxim, 'in medio tutissimus'--the secret of that moderation of +opinion which has distinguished the most genial and sagacious men in our +political world. They must really learn to cultivate a love of truth and +justice; they should seek to attain the power of holding the scales +steadily, while the advantages or disadvantages of every question are +fairly weighed; they should stamp upon their professional life the +impress of personal rectitude and honour, and not wait--to copy the tone +of the old apologies--till a higher standard of public morals, and a +more intelligent cultivation of political and literary inquiries, shall +have raised for them a new class of readers. It is the prerogative of +genius to create the light by which it is to be understood and +appreciated; but the working talents of a country, which are identified +with its immediate interests, ought at least to rise a little above the +surrounding level. + +We are led, from this point, to notice another defect in American +journalism,--the absence of the anonymous usage, which is, indeed, +mainly answerable for the scurrility and violence already referred to. +The British editor is usually unknown to the public; the French +journalist subscribes his name at the foot of his articles; but the +American editor publishes his name and address boldly at the top of his +newspaper. The effect of this custom is to identify the authority of the +journal with the personal influence of the editor; it tends to a habit +of deciding questions on personal grounds, and to a far too marked +superfluity of the _tu quoque_ argument. The object of the American +journalist is not so much the instruction of the public as the political +advancement of himself, for journalism usually forms the first stage in +the course of an ambitious politician, or a rising statesman; and the +American usage is certainly very well adapted to this end. Our anonymous +habit limits the discussions of the press and abolishes egotism, while +it certainly tends to debar personalities. It has been remarked, as a +suggestive fact, that personality is the common vice of the only free +press in the world, which ignores the anonymous principle; and that in +England, under a contrary usage, personality is little known, always +reprobated, and, indeed, in cases of flagrant personal attacks, the +authorship is usually but thinly disguised. It is absurd to defend the +American habits as manly and ours as cowardly; for their habit tends to +make writers far from circumspect or considerate of the feelings of +others. But, in fact, the publicity in which American journalists +delight is only akin to the publicity of American life generally. The +British public would not tolerate the intrusion of the press into +private or family concerns; yet one New York paper published, in the +panic, of 1857, the name of every gentleman who bought a silk dress for +his wife, or gave a dinner-party to his friends. Other newspapers +criticize the dress and appearance of ladies at balls and cricket +parties, the personality of their praise being almost as offensive as at +other times the coarseness of their vituperation. + +We confess that we do not entertain a very high opinion of the morality +of the American press, though we admit there has been a sensible +improvement within the last thirty years. Emerson made the remark, in +his 'English Traits,' that the London _Times_ was an 'immoral +institution,' on the ground we presume, of its frequent changes of +opinion. We are far from defending the leading journal in its policy of +tergiversation--for there can be no doubt it ever fights on the stronger +side, upholds no falling cause, and advocates no great principle--but it +was never yet bought with bribes or cowed by intimidation. It has +sometimes shown that it is conducted on principles superior to mere +money considerations, for, during the Railway mania of 1845, when its +advertising sheet was overrun with projected lines of railway, realizing +to the proprietors the enormous sum of from £2,839 to £6,687 per week, +the Thunderer turned its fire on these projects, and lost nearly £3,000 +in a single week. We do not charge the American press with any flagrant +changes of policy or principle, for we believe it is, in these respects, +sufficiently consistent. But we deplore the absence of high moral +purpose, as well as independence in its discussions of public questions. +The American people demand a large amount of flattery; they have come +almost to loathe the wholesome truth; they must be pampered with +constant adulations, so that no one will venture to tell them their +faults, and, neither at home nor abroad, dare moralists venture a +whisper to their prejudice. This is a serious drawback. America wants +more writers of the class who are said to prefer their country's good to +its favour, and more anxious to reform its vices than cherish the pride +of its virtues. Besides, we strongly suspect that the American +journalist is very careless about the truth. We mean the truth of fact, +which is part of the historic disposition of the age, as opposed to all +that is sensational. He resembles the French rather than the English +journalist in the tendency to regard good news as more important than +correct news. The English journals make it their business to present +their readers with news and not advice, with facts and not opinions, so +that they can form opinions for themselves, and the power of our press +is thus enormously increased, but only on conditions that effectually +prevent the arbitrary exercise of it. The American writers for the press +have followed our example in some degree, but their disposition to +provide startling and sensational intelligence is too often manifested +at the expense of truth. Mr. Maverick gives an account of a number of +disreputable hoaxes played by the newspapers upon the public of America, +which were justified, we presume, to the consciences of the authors by +the observation of Lord Bacon--'A mixture of lies doth ever add +pleasure; doth any man doubt that if there were taken from men's minds +vain opinions, nattering hopes, false valuations, and the like, it would +leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things?' The 'Moon +Hoax,' which was published in the New York _Sun_ in 1835, was one of the +most skilful and successful of these literary frauds. Successive numbers +of that paper contained a pretended extract from the pages of a +supplement to the _Edinburgh Journal of Science_, under the title of +'Great Astronomical Discoveries latterly made by Sir John Herschel, +LL.D., F.R.S., at the Cape of Good Hope.' The paper had a remarkable air +of scientific research, such as might deceive all but the most learned +and wary. The Herschel telescope was represented as affording a distinct +view of lunar roads, rocks, seas, cascades, forests, houses, people, and +monsters of various shapes. The 'Roorback Hoax' was a shameless attempt +to injure the character of J. K. Polk, when he was a candidate for the +Presidency, by representing him as possessing forty-three slaves who had +his initials branded into their flesh. The deception was wrought by +simply adding to a sentence in Featherstonehaugh's Travels in America +four lines of the hoaxer's own, recording the disgraceful lie referred +to. We confess that we cannot recognise the morality of a transaction +which Mr. Maverick records in the history of the _New York Times_, +without apparently the slightest suspicion of its dishonesty. When the +_New York Herald_ got hold of the single survivor of the ill-fated +Atlantic steamer, _Arctic_, which was lost in September, 1854, an +assistant on the _Times_ succeeded, by means of an adroit pressman, in +purloining an early copy from the _Herald_ press-rooms, and actually +published the _Herald's_ report an hour earlier than that journal. We +cannot understand what Mr. Maverick means by representing the _Herald_ +as 'playing a trick to keep the news from the other papers,' unless the +_Herald_ was actually bound to supply its contemporaries gratuitously +with the exclusive news it had obtained from the survivor at its own +sole expense. The transaction seems to us merely a clever specimen of +American 'smartness.' + +But we must draw these observations to a close. We cannot but admit that +the press of America, with all its defects, is an engine of great power. +It is on this ground we desire for it a close approximation to those +intellectual and moral qualities which have given British journalism +such an influence over the affairs of the whole world. In fact, two such +nations as America and Britain, working in the same language, should be +always learning from each other; for the eager energy of the one should +push forward the occasionally lagging progress of the other, and our +matured caution restrain their hasty inexperience. America is great in +all that leads to immediate and available results. She has given us +several of the greatest mechanical inventions of the age; she has far +excelled us in the theory and practice of religious liberty, as well as +in the more liberal recognition of denominational brotherhood among the +religious sects; while she has furnished a noble example of public +spirit in the support of religion, missions, and education. Let us hope +that in time she will equal, if not surpass us in a periodical +literature, which, if even still more intensely political than ours, +will display a breadth and strength of thought, together with a wisdom +and dignity, which will add immensely to its power. There is one aspect +of Transatlantic literature which already contrasts favourably with our +own, and that is its generally cordial recognition of Evangelical +Christianity. With the exception of the German and French newspapers, +which chafe under the restraints of a Christian country, and scoff at +Judaic sabbaths, Pharisaic church-going, and tyrannical priestcraft, +there are no newspapers of any position in the States that are avowedly +anti-Christian; and there is less disposition than formerly, on the part +of the American press generally, to exclude all reference to distinctive +Christianity. It was considered a remarkable circumstance at the time of +the American revival that several newspapers, notorious for a thinly +disguised infidelity, and for a most undisguised enmity to Evangelical +religion, should not only publish the most ample reports of the +movement, but commend it in a way that has had no parallel in English +journalism, even before the tide of public opinion had turned decisively +in its favour. It is the common custom still for American newspapers to +print the sermons of popular preachers, and to publish a large amount of +religious intelligence. The press is also intensely Protestant, and has +contributed to the growth of that enormous assimilating power by which +American Protestantism has absorbed generation after generation of the +Roman Catholic emigrants. The statistics of the Propaganda declare that +one half of the whole number has been lost to the Church of Rome; and +the explanation is, that they can no more escape from the influence of +American ideas than from the effects of the atmosphere and climate. + +It becomes, therefore, a matter of the greatest consequence that the +literary guides of a nation with such a destiny as America, should +understand the responsibilities under which their power is exercised. +They should take care, above all things, to use their influence not to +materialize the mind of society, by obtruding material concerns too much +upon the attention, to the neglect of those moral and spiritual +interests which constitute the very foundations of its greatness. This +is a real danger, for, as De Tocqueville remarks, the tendency of modern +democracy is to concentrate the passions of men upon the acquisition of +comforts and wealth. They cannot be ignorant that the most clearly +marked line of social progress over the whole world is coincident with +the line of the Christian faith; that wherever true religion has had +free access to the centres of human action, a palpable advance has been +made in knowledge, liberty, and refinement; while poverty, injustice, +and licentiousness, which are the ulcers of a depraved society, have in +that degree been checked and healed. They must understand that honesty +is the grand necessity of the world at this time, in its politics as +well as its theology, in its commerce as well as its science. Let these +things be understood by the leaders of American thought, and we cannot +but anticipate a proud future for their country. It is a subject of just +congratulation to England that her children have stamped their character +on a vast continent, and, that instead of discontented colonies +subjected to her caprice, she can now point to a great people, with all +the best life of the ancient nations throbbing in their veins, +flourishing exactly in proportion to their freedom, and trained, through +all their bloody disasters which almost threatened to ruin their work, +to build a stronger rampart, and to reclaim a broader shore for +posterity. The interests of humanity demand that a nation so strong in +all the material elements of civilization, and manifesting such an +impetuous disregard of limit and degree in all its enterprises, should +be equally strong in its intelligence and its Christianity. + + + + +ART. II.--_Report from the Royal Commission on International Coinage. +1868._ + + +Although during the deplorable struggle between Germany and France +public attention has been of necessity mainly directed to the conflict, +yet it is impossible, for many reasons, to do otherwise than regret this +concentration of interest. The last session of our Parliament was +fertile to an unusual degree in measures of public utility and +importance; but it is not too much to say that the difficulties incurred +by several of these measures in their passage through both Houses would +have been greatly enhanced had the engrossing events which have recently +agitated all Europe occurred at the time. The only satisfaction which +can be obtained in contemplating, even from a distance, the misery +inflicted on such countless thousands, arises from the hope that when +the last echoes of the strife have faded away, a peace, firm and +durable--durable because based on sound principles--may link together +those nations who are now suffering from the effects of the struggle. +Till this is the case, the evils arising from the war will not be +confined to those actually engaged in it. Meanwhile, it is really no +slight misfortune that many subjects, not unimportant to the country, +should fail to obtain the attention which they would otherwise have +received, in consequence of the superior interest of the central +European crisis. + +Professor Jevons' remarks at the late meeting of the British Association +at Liverpool, on the manner in which points of importance were thus +swamped, will not readily be forgotten by those who heard them. Among +other subjects, the Professor instanced that of an international +coinage, which, after having received considerable and careful +attention, had receded for a time from that prominence which it +deserved. + +In this country, the question has been considered from two points of +view--the one taken by those who are desirous to adopt a universal +system of coinage, as well as a universal system of weights and +measures; the other, by those who are aware of the present and +increasing deterioration of the gold coinage of the country, arising +from the number of coins deficient in full weight which are now in +circulation. + +Neither of these points have escaped the notice of the active mind of +the present Chancellor of the Exchequer (Right Hon. R. Lowe). He has +become aware that many of the gold coins now in circulation are below +the legal tender weight; that the opportunity of a considerable +re-coinage might be made use of to assimilate the weight of gold in the +sovereign to that contained in twenty-five francs, and that in doing +this the expense incurred in the coinage of gold might, by means of a +seigniorage, be spared to the country. + +To explain these points, it will be well, in the first place, to refer +to a report of the then Master of the Mint, and Colonel Smith, late +Master of the Calcutta Mint, in reply to the question put by the +Chancellor of the Exchequer-- + + 'What would it cost, first to manufacture a sovereign, and + afterwards to keep it in good condition for all time? The + coin is always losing weight by wear, while it passes from + hand to hand, and ends by becoming light (after + three-quarters of a grain of gold have been lost), and is + no longer current. The individual piece has thus a limited + existence, and must be withdrawn and replaced by a new + sovereign of full weight; that, again, by another in due + time; and so on. Now, for what present payment could this + succession be maintained? What is the contract price to + cover the first construction, and all future + restoration?'[3] + +To put it in another shape. The person who thinks it worth his while to +convert his gold bullion into coin, according to this plan, is to pay +for the expense of manufacture, and is also called upon to contribute to +a reserve fund, by means of which the natural deterioration of the coin +he has caused to be put into circulation is to be provided for. + +The coinage of gold in this country is--and it is well to explain this +point at the outset--entirely gratuitous as far as the Government is +concerned. That is to say, any person possessing gold bullion of the +required purity of standard, may, if he chooses, take that bullion to +the Mint. And, in due time, the officers of the Mint will return +him--weight for weight--an equal quantity of gold coin. _In due time_, +however, means in practice, a considerable delay; and delay in money +matters means loss of interest. Hence, it arises, that in the natural +course of events, no private person takes gold bullion to be coined, +himself. But he carries it to the Bank of England. Now, that great +corporation, among other duties to the State, has this particular +charge. It is bound to buy all gold bullion of standard fineness offered +to it, at the rate of £3 17s. 9d. per oz. These payments are made in +bank notes; and as bank notes are immediately exchangeable for +sovereigns, the result is, that any one possessing gold bullion of the +Mint standard, can at once and immediately turn that bullion into gold +coins for the slight cost of 1½d. per oz., or something less than ½d. +for every sovereign. This is really buying a sovereign at cost price, +for the mere manufacture of a sovereign costs fully a ½d., as will be +mentioned further on. What is more, the payment, small as it is, does +not accrue to the Government, but is retained by the Bank of England, +and is considered as being only sufficient to compensate that +institution for the trouble and expense of the operation, including the +loss of time, and consequent loss of interest incurred. No provision is +made to include the loss by wear, which, though imperceptible at the +moment, accumulates in process of time to a large amount. Investigation +shows that 100 sovereigns lose 8d. a year by fair usage. If the amount +of British gold coin in circulation amounts, as it is supposed to do, to +eighty millions, sixty-eight being whole sovereigns, and twelve millions +in halves, the annual loss would amount to £35,000 from deterioration +due to wear alone. The charge for manufacturing sovereigns is not high +when all that has to be done is taken into consideration. Great +precautions have to be taken in the process to secure the needful +quality. Each bar has to be brought to the required standard. Careful +assays are made, and great exactness in the weight of each coin is, of +course, essential. All these points cannot be attended to without +considerable expense. Again, the great amount of valuable property in +the shape of coin and bullion necessitates vigilant watching. The total +charge is estimated at ½d. each sovereign. Half sovereigns are, in +proportion to value, more expensive to strike than sovereigns. They also +wear more rapidly. This arises from greater rapidity of circulation, and +also from the fact that, weight for weight, each half sovereign presents +a greater surface for abrasion than a sovereign. After making careful +calculations, the Master of the Mint and Colonel Smith arrived at the +conclusion that a charge of £1 13s. 6d. for every £100 coined would be +sufficient to cover all expenses. That is to say, that if an arrangement +were made with a contractor to undertake to manage the Mint, and to keep +the gold coinage in good repair, he would require, to hold him harmless +from loss, to be paid about £1 13s. 6d. for every £100 in the average +proportion of sovereigns and half sovereigns put into circulation. And +this sum is at the present time lost to the community. + +It is characteristic of the manner in which public questions are handled +in this country, that throughout the report, to which is attached the +name of an official in such high place as that of the late Master of the +Mint, continual reference is made to the investigations, not of a public +officer, but of Mr. Jevons, Professor of Political Economy in Owen's +College, Manchester. Mr. Jevons, being desirous of ascertaining the +condition of the gold currency, made inquiries of bankers and other +suitable persons in all parts of the United Kingdom, requesting them + + 'to take one or two hundred pounds in sovereigns, and half + the amount in half-sovereigns, from gold received in the + ordinary course of business, and to cause the number of + coins of each date to be counted and stated. The aid thus + requested was furnished with a readiness which I had no + right to expect, and which I cannot sufficiently + acknowledge. Not a few gentlemen, on becoming acquainted + with my purpose, procured very extensive returns, and the + final result was, that this kind of census of the gold + coinage was extended over one-sixth of a million of coins, + thus composed: + + Number of sovereigns enumerated 90,474 + Number of half-sovereigns enumerated 75,036 + ------ + Total number 165,510 + + 'At least one gold coin in every hundred now existing in + this country was, on the average, enumerated; and, as there + were 321 separate returns received from 213 distinct towns + or localities, including almost every place of commercial + importance, it may be allowed, I think, that sufficient + data were acquired for determining the average character of + the circulation.'--_Journal of the Statistical Society_, + vol. xxxi., p. 439. + +Mr. Jevons' inquiry was, as he describes it, made in a private manner, +but it was, beyond question, conducted most efficiently and thoroughly. +And there is no reason to doubt that he has rather under-estimated than +over-estimated the case when he states, that about 45 per cent. of the +sovereigns and 62 per cent. of the half-sovereigns now in circulation in +the country are lighter than the legal standard. If this statement +appears excessive to any one, he can easily verify it for himself. He +has only to go to his banker, in whatever part of the United Kingdom he +may reside, and ask him to provide out of the gold in his till--out of +the ordinary circulation of the locality--100 sovereigns of _full_ +weight. Then, if he inquires how many sovereigns have been picked over +to obtain this number, he will--within those reasonable limits of +variation which every similar calculation is liable to--find that Mr. +Jevons' statement gives a correct idea of the ordinary circulation. + +But Mr. Lowe, as will have been observed, did not confine himself to the +actual deterioration of the existing British gold circulation. His +thoughts took a wider range--'a coin which would have the advantage of +an international circulation' occurred to him as a possible thing--and, +further, that the British sovereign, reduced to an exact equation with +twenty-five francs of gold coin of France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, +&c., might be such a coin. The question of the desirability of an +international coinage has frequently been discussed. From some of the +remarks which have been made on Mr. Lowe's speech, it might have been +imagined to be only a recent idea. But this is far from being the case. +Much attention was drawn to the point in 1851. The difficulty then +experienced in comparing the value of the articles produced in different +countries and shown at the Great Exhibition, naturally suggested the +idea of a coinage common to all nations. The International Statistical +Congress then took the matter up at their meetings at Brussels, in 1853, +and at Paris, in 1855, and at London, in 1860. This last-named meeting +was held under the presidency of the late Prince Consort, and his +address on its opening was the last public speech delivered by him. In +it are to be found these words, which show that the importance of the +question of international coinage had not escaped the notice of the +Prince:--'The different weights, measures, and currencies, in which +different statistics are expressed, cause further difficulties and +impediments. Suggestions with regard to the removal of these have been +made at former meetings, and will, no doubt, be renewed.' Before this +meeting separated, an international commission was formed to report on +the question. Further consideration was given to it at Berlin, in 1863. +In December, 1865, the idea was put into practice. A formal convention +was entered into by France, Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland; and those +four countries established an international currency among themselves. +The French Government followed up the subject by giving official notice +of this convention, inviting this country, with many others, to send +commissioners to attend a conference 'for the purpose of deliberating +upon the best means of securing a common basis for the adoption of a +general international coinage.' + + 'The Conference was attended by thirty-three delegates, + representing twenty different countries, viz.:--Austria, + Baden, Bavaria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, + Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, + Spain, Sweden and Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, United + States, Wurtemburg.' + + 'The delegates were not authorized in any way to bind their + respective countries, but they voted according to their own + opinions.' + + * * * * * + + 'Great value seems to be attached to the cooperation of + England in any measure of this description. England has + been forward in urging the policy of free trade upon + Continental nations; and while her joining in any movement + originated abroad for promoting and facilitating commercial + intercourse would be most favourably received, and would + increase her influence among them, her declining altogether + to enter upon it might appear to be inconsistent with her + general conduct upon such questions.' + + 'The recommendations of the Conference may be shortly + stated to be: + + 'I. The adoption of a single gold standard. + + 'II. The adoption of 9/10 as the proportion of fine gold in + the coins. + + 'III. That all gold coins hereafter struck in any of the + countries which are parties to the Convention, should be + either of the value of five francs or multiples of that + sum. + + 'IV. That a gold coin of the value of twenty-five francs + should be struck by such countries as prefer it, and be + admitted as an international coin. + + 'In other countries steps have been taken with a view to + promote a general international coinage. + + * * * * * + + 'A Bill has been introduced into the Congress of the United + States for altering the value of the American coinage, so + as to assimilate it to that of the Convention of 1865; and + we have received the report of the Finance Committee of the + Senate of the United States, recommending the adoption of + the measure, with certain amendments; together with a + report also presented to the Senate, adverse to the passing + of the Bill. + + 'A Bill has been introduced into the Canadian Parliament + for the regulation of the currency of that country, in + which provision is made for the adoption by Canada of the + system of the Convention, in the event of the measure above + referred to becoming law in the United States. + + 'Another Bill has been introduced into the Congress of the + United States, in order to assimilate the coinage to that + of this country, making the half eagle equal to our + sovereign. + + 'The Federal Parliament of the North German Confederation + has passed a resolution declaring necessary the adoption of + a decimal monetary system. + + 'Finally, we have received a communication from the Foreign + Office, by which it appears that the Government of Sweden + have proposed to strike a gold coin equivalent to ten + francs, and further to coin pieces of twenty-five francs as + soon as such a coin shall be struck in France.'--_Report + from the Royal Commission on International Coinage_, 1868. + +The Spanish Government has recently given notice of being willing to +join the Convention (Nov., 1869), and the pattern pieces of the +twenty-five franc coin have already been struck at the Paris mint. + +This brief _résumé_ of what has actually been done by several other +nations, suffices of itself to show that the question deserves, as Mr. +Lowe has stated in Parliament, very careful consideration. + +Four nations, with more than sixty-six millions of inhabitants, already +possess an international coinage. That is to say, any merchant in the +furthest point to which the Convention extends knows at once, if he +takes up a paper with the prices current at Paris, Marseilles, Bordeaux, +or any of the great centres of commerce, what those prices mean, and how +nearly they correspond with his own. Other nations besides France, +Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, are prepared to join in this uniform +coinage. It is not unlikely that the sixty-six millions may be more than +doubled shortly. Will it not be a great disadvantage to the thirty or +thirty-two millions inhabiting these islands to be outside this great +confederation? + +The values of the gold in the pound sterling and in twenty-five francs +approximate very closely. To enable this country to join the +confederation, it would be needful for the values to be equalized. This +must be done in one of two ways. + +Either the amount of gold contained in the proposed coin of twenty-five +francs must be increased by twenty centimes to make it the equivalent of +the English full-weight sovereign. Or, the weight of gold in the English +sovereign must be diminished to make it equal to that contained in the +25-franc piece. The Royal Commissioners on International Coinage appear +to have entertained an aspiration--it can hardly be termed a hope--that +the former plan would be adopted; but it can scarcely be looked for. The +inconvenience to the nations who have already joined the Convention +would be so great as to preclude the idea. The other alternative alone +practically has to be considered. It amounts to this: that 2d. in value +should be taken out of every sovereign. But to do this without due +compensation would be to alter every existing contract. A seigniorage to +be charged on all bullion taken to the mint to be coined, is proposed as +a method of bridging over this difficulty. To effect this such a charge +or seigniorage would have to be proportionate to the amount of bullion +subtracted from each sovereign. + +It is desirable to trace out what effect such a charge would have. It +would be-- + + 'tantamount to an enhancement of the purchasing value of + the coinage in the country of its currency. It immediately + augments the value of the coinage as expressed in its + exchange value for bullion, unless the weight of pure metal + in the coinage be simultaneously reduced to the same extent + as the amount of the seigniorage. The following may serve + as a test example, and avoid the necessity for the use of + fractions:--"What would be the effect of a seigniorage of 1 + per cent, in a country where it is imposed for the first + time?" It would be this: that whilst the pieces of current + coin before the imposition of the seigniorage were exactly + worth their weight in uncoined bullion of the same + intrinsic fineness, they would, after its imposition, be + worth 1 per cent, more than their weight in bullion of the + like standard.'--_Mr. Hendriks' Evidence, Royal Commission + on International Coinage_, p. 142. + +The sovereign, thus diminished in weight, would still possess exactly +the same purchasing power--within the limits of the country--as it +previously had. Beyond those limits, as shown by the practice of the +French mint authorities, it would still retain its value. It would not +be, as the present sovereign now is, undervalued in consequence of the +mint charges of other nations. + +An objection may be, and has already been, made to the alteration--that +such a change would be unfair to all those creditors who had made +contracts in the old coin, and would be repaid in the new. This +objection is sufficiently disposed of by the fact that, as mentioned +before, the purchasing power of the new coin will be equal to that of +the old. + +If any doubt existed, a further security might be given under all +circumstances, by adopting the plan recommended by Colonel Smith, the +late Master of the Calcutta Mint. His proposal is, 'that the new +sovereign shall be changeable for gold bullion at the present price.' +This would cause the value of the new coin to remain equal with that of +the present coin, exactly as the value of the existing silver coinage is +maintained. The present shilling, even when of full weight, is by no +means worth its weight in the metal of which it is made. The pound troy +of standard silver is, and has been in England, since 1817, coined into +sixty-six shillings. The value of the shilling, thus debased, is +maintained at the proper level by the coin being limited, as a legal +tender, to 42s. by tale. The result is obvious. Silver of the value of +something like 18s. does service for 20s. What is more, this has been +the case for years, and no one has ever been injured by it. And the same +effect would surely follow if Colonel Smith's plan were carried out. If +the holder of 100 sovereigns were to desire to convert them into gold, +he would take them to the Bank of England, who would give, as now, a +certain quantity of bar gold of standard fineness, at £3 17s. 10½d. per +oz. The sovereign would, to a certain extent, become a 'token' coin; +that is to say, each sovereign would, as the shilling is now, be worth +something less than the stamped value. But it would, within the limits +of the convention, that is, within the limits of the civilized world, be +current exactly to the extent of its nominal value; and any one desiring +to employ it beyond the limits of the Convention would be placed in +exactly the position in which he is now, by simply taking his gold coins +to the Bank of England and exchanging them for bar gold. A further +advantage would arise from this diminution in weight of the sovereign. +As the sovereign is worth a fraction over ten rupees in India, it +follows that the internationalization of the English sovereign, and the +reducing it by about twopence, to make it equal with twenty-five francs +or five dollars, would immediately rectify the present difference +between the British sovereign and the 10-rupee piece; and the rupee, the +British florin, and the Australian florin would, in the international +scheme of coinage, ultimately become absolutely identical, so far at +least as gold coinage is concerned.[4] + +Any alteration of coin in so backward a country as India would have to +be introduced with great caution; but the advantage of assimilating the +currency to that of this country cannot be doubted. There are great +disadvantages in allowing coins, nearly identical in value, to circulate +together; and if the 'sovereign' remains at the present value, what Mr. +Jevons anticipates may not be unlikely to happen. + + 'It is only necessary for the Continental nations and the + United States to issue, as is already proposed, a piece of + twenty-five francs in order to supplant the sovereign; for, + as the new coin would have the value of a well-worn + sovereign, it would soon be accepted equally with the + sovereign in all foreign countries and our colonies, if not + at home. At the same time, the difference of value being + about 2d. in the pound, would ensure the melting of all new + sovereigns in preference. Thus, however many sovereigns are + coined, we should never succeed in dislodging the 25-franc + piece from circulation. More even than at present our + British Mints would perform the labours of the Danaïdes, + ever pouring forth new and beautiful coin, at once to + disappear into the bullion dealer's crucible. The sovereign + would be an evanescent coin, constantly liable to be + recoined with the permanent impress of a foreign mint. + Common sense, as well as invariable experience, tells us + that we must be worsted in this contest of the heavier and + the lighter coin.'--_Professor Jevons' Paper in the Journal + of the Statistical Society_, vol. xxxi., p. 429. + +The extent of the populations employing the 20-franc piece as their +principal gold coin, has already been mentioned. Some persons may say, +'It is true these nations more than double in number the persons whose +basis of accounts is the pound sterling; but still there may be more +"sovereigns" in existence than 20-franc pieces.' Now, it is by no means +as easy to enumerate the coins in a country as to make a census of the +inhabitants. You may count the dwellers in the poorest hovel. But you +cannot count the coins hidden under the hearth, or in the end of the +stocking. It is, however, by no means clear that the amount of British +gold coin in existence is as much as that circulated by several other +nations. Sovereigns, so far from preponderating, appear to be in an +absolute minority. At the Paris Conference of 1867, the amounts of the +gold coinage of Great Britain, France, and the United States were stated +as follows:-- + + France, from 1793 to 1866, of the value of £262,444,160 + Great Britain, 1816 to 1866 187,068,290 + United States, 1792 to 1866 169,107,318[5] + +It is, of course, impossible to state with certainty what proportion of +coins struck at any mint at any time remain in existence afterwards. +Some coins are called in, some are lost, others find their way to the +melting-pot: it is impossible to say how many continue to circulate. One +thing, however, is certain, that whatever casualties of this nature any +coins are exposed to, British coins feel to the fullest extent. The +rapidity of circulation in Great Britain tends to great deterioration +from wear and tear. The absence of seigniorage causes our coinage to be +relatively undervalued in proportion to other gold coins.[6] Even +supposing British coins to remain current as long as those of other +nations, they are certainly less numerous. They are probably far less +frequently hoarded. The coinage returns from 1851 to 1866 inclusive show +the relative proportions even more clearly than the earlier statements. +Our Mint was less fertile during that time, than either the Mints of +France or the United States. + + YEARS 1851 TO 1866. + Great Britain struck in gold coins £91,000,000 + The United States 131,600,000 + France 197,400,000 + ----------- + 420,000,000 + +The amount of gold coin in a country is very far from being an +indication, either of its wealth or of its business transactions; but +these figures suffice to show that the sovereign does not hold the +pre-eminence frequently ascribed to it. Even if the proceeds of the +Sydney Mint are added in, the sovereign will still be found in the +minority. The Sydney Mint was established in 1855. The coinage has been +as follows:-- + + Average + Years. Coinage. per annum. + 7 years 1855 to 1861 £ 8,438,162 £1,205,451 + 5 " 1862 to 1866 11,889,838 2,377,967 + ----------- + £20,328,000 + +And it must not be assumed that all these Australian sovereigns are in +circulation now. An imperfection in the process of refining incident on +carrying on that operation in a new country, left a certain portion of +silver at all events in the earlier mintages, and this circumstance is +believed to have made these coins favourites with the 'melters.' Sir A. +Donaldson, formerly Colonial Secretary, and Colonial Treasurer to the +Government of New South Wales, gave evidence before the Select Committee +of the House of Commons on the Sydney Branch Mint, appointed in 1862; +and, after stating that he believed that a considerable number of the +Australian sovereigns have reached England, added, 'as a matter of fact, +I think they all find their way to the refiner.' Mr. W. Miller, of the +Bank of England, when examined before the same Committee, 'understood +that upwards of 2,000,000 were sent to this country some time ago, and +that they have been melted.' This was before the proclamation making +these coins legal tender in this country. They have probably been less +frequently melted since that proclamation. But it cannot be assumed that +the whole twenty millions are still in circulation. Even including all +of them, the sovereign would not be the preponderating coin as far as +number is concerned. + +Mr. Hendriks, a very eminent statistician, who has paid much attention +to questions connected with the coinage (_vide Journal of the Society of +Arts_, February 14, 1868), has given to the public the grounds upon +which he bases his opinion that, although the sovereign and the dollar +may be more widely diffused than the Napoleon, there are now current in +the world twice as many Napoleons as sovereigns, four times as many as +half-eagle or five-dollar pieces, and about one-third more than +sovereigns and half-eagle pieces together. This writer has also made the +following calculations, showing the relative importance of the United +States, England, and France, as the chief manufacturing countries of +coinage since 1792. The object of the division of the results into +separate periods is to show the altered condition since the gold +discoveries in California and Australia. + + PERCENTAGE OF THE COINAGE OF THE THREE + NATIONS TO THEIR TOTAL COINAGE. + + Years Years Years + 1792 to 1851. 1861 to 1866. 1792 to 1866 + United States 18-1/3 31-1/2 27-1/3 + England 43-2/3 21-1/2 30-1/3 + France 33 47 42-1/3 + ------ ------ ------ + 100 100 100 + +In further commenting, in the pages of the _Economist_, on these +statistics, Mr. Hendriks observes:-- + + 'It thus appears that whilst England coined 48-2/3 per + cent., or nearly one-half, of the grand total from 1792 to + 1851, her proportion has fallen from the first place to the + last, in the subsequent period 1851 to 1866, her fresh + coinage having therein sunk to 21-1/2 per cent., or a + little more than one-fifth of the total. The proportion for + France was 33 per cent. in the first period, and 47 per + cent. in the second. From the second place she thus moved + to the first. But the advance of the United States was + equally marked, and from the smallest proportion, 18-1/3 + per cent, in the period 1792 to 1851, there was an increase + to 31-1/2 per cent., or to the second place, in the period + 1851 to 1866. + + 'The report from the Secretary of the American Treasury for + 1868 gives more recent statistics, namely, for the years + ended 30th June, 1867 and 1868. These show a gold coinage + of about forty million dollars in 1867, and of about + twenty-four million dollars in 1868. But in England, in + 1867, the gold coined was actually less than half a million + sterling, or under two and a half million dollars' worth in + American coin. And in 1868 the English Mint turned out only + £1,653,384 sterling, or about eight million dollars' worth + in American coin. The gold coinage of France has also + declined below the rate of fresh production in America. + Thus America is rapidly attaining the first place as a gold + coining country. And it will be a question for future time + to solve, whether the English and Australian Mints, in + their united working, will exceed the manufacture by the + United States' Mints at Philadelphia, San Francisco, and + Denver.' + +As some persons may say, 'Other nations need a larger gold coinage than +we do, because their paper money and banking systems are not like ours; +but their coinage is no proof of the extent of their business +transactions,' it is best to mention that the united export and import +trade of the European countries alone, who have already joined the +Monetary Convention, or have signed preliminary treaties of adherence +thereto, amounts to no less than five hundred million pounds sterling +per annum at the present time, or to nearly one-fourth more than the +aggregate exports and imports of the United Kingdom. It will now be +desirable to mention the charges made for coining, or seigniorage, at +the principal mints. In England no charge is made; but the 1½d paid +to the Bank on each ounce of standard gold bullion, amounts to about +0·1605 (say 3s. 2½d.) per cent. In France it is different. When gold +is carried to the mint there, coin is returned for it, with a certain +deduction. This deduction is about ¼ per cent. Beyond this there is +some delay, practically, before the coin is returned. On an average the +loss of interest on the money, caused by this delay, amounts to about +¾ per cent. Altogether, the charge is about 1 per cent., or more than +six times the charge now made in England. In Prussia the charge is ½ +per cent., and the delay is about the same as in Paris. In America and +India it is about the same.[7] + +It appears from these statements that there is nearly a universal +consensus of practice in charging a seigniorage. There is also a nearly +universal consensus of opinion on the part of the leading authorities in +political economy (such as Adam Smith and J. S. Mill) that such a +seigniorage, when moderate, really enhances the value of the coin to the +extent of the charge. If, therefore, this opinion is correct, it follows +that the gold coinage of England, where no charge is made, will be +depreciated--that is, will not obtain its real value in those countries +where a charge is made. It is not difficult to show that this is the +case in France; and if in one country where a seigniorage is charged, it +follows, of course, in all of them. + +A British sovereign of full weight contains about equal intrinsic +quantities of pure gold with twenty-five francs twenty centimes. + + 'But it does not follow that even a full-weight sovereign + is more valuable, either in a mathematical or in a + commercial sense, than twenty-five francs of gold coin, + when it is conveyed to a country within the operation of + the Monetary Convention of December, 1865. There the + sovereign ceases to be coin, and is nothing more than + bullion; and, as bullion, is subject to a seigniorage or + mint-charge, when converted into coin. And as, in the + countries in question, twenty-five francs twenty centimes + of bullion are, on the average, equal to only twenty-five + francs of coin, the sovereign is practically "valuable" + only as twenty-five francs.'--_Royal Commission on + International Coinage. Evidence of Mr. Hendriks_, p. 145. + +The reason for this must be that the British coinage is gratuitous. A +sovereign may be regarded from two points of view--as a certain weight +of gold of a known fineness, manufactured into a uniform shape by the +officials of the mint, and as the current coin of the realm. At present +no charge is made for the process of manufacture. The question to be +decided is this, Is the coin, _plus_ the process of manufacture, worth +more than the same weight of gold before that process is performed? It +appears that it is even worth less in France. + + 'The French Mint publishes a tariff giving a schedule of + the coinage of each country, the legal weight and fineness + in the country of its mintage, and a comparative estimate + of fineness, according to the French Mint tariff of + purchase, stating the value of each coin per kilogramme and + per single piece.' + +If the intrinsic value of the pure gold contained in the sovereign is +considered, it is equal to 25·2079 at par; but the Mint tariff giving +the price of purchase makes it only 25·12 at par, a deduction of about +nine centimes on each sovereign. In estimating it thus, + + 'The French Mint Commission and M. Durand, its + Commissioner-General, practically admit that current gold + coin in France is equal in exchange to its full legal + weight of bullion, _plus_ seigniorage. In order to test + this with mathematical exactness, we must observe that a + kilogramme, _i.e._, 1,000 grammes of absolutely pure gold + without deduction for seigniorage or mint charges, is worth + 3444·4444 francs; or, _with_ deduction at the rate of 6 + francs 70 centimes, on 3,100 francs, 9/10 fine, the 1,000 + grammes of absolutely pure gold, 10/10 fine, are worth + 3,437 francs. Then, at ·916 fine, _i.e._, at the French + Mint tariff of English gold coin treated as bullion, the + proportionate value of the kilogramme of sovereigns, + allowing for seigniorage or mint charge, comes out as given + in the tariff, 3148·29 francs. And thus, doubtless, the + French Mint arrives at its present equation of 25·12 francs + = 1 sovereign. For the proportion is, 1,000 _grammes_ : + 3148·29 francs :: 7·98085 grammes : x = 25·12602 + francs.'--_Royal Commission on International Coinage. Mr. + Hendriks' Evidence_, p. 146. + +It appears by this that the pound sterling is practically undervalued +2d. in France; one penny about in the intrinsic worth of the gold; and +another, the cost of coining the metal, including the loss for delay in +so doing. + +Any alteration in the standard of the coinage is, beyond doubt, a +measure which should not be carelessly undertaken. Those opposed to such +a measure have stated that the standard had remained unchanged in this +country for more than a century and a half. Great weight has also been +attributed by some persons to the resolution of the House of Commons of +20th October, 1696, and passed again in the same words on the 12th June, +1822, 'That this House will not alter the standard of the gold and +silver coins of this kingdom, in fineness, weight, or denomination.' A +solemn declaration beyond doubt; but notwithstanding this, several +changes have at various times been made in the currency of the realm. + +In 1696, the year of the 'Resolution' silver was the sole legal tender. + +In 1717, silver ceased to be the sole standard, and the double, or +alternative standard of gold or silver, was adopted. This change was +made under the advice of Sir Isaac Newton. + +In 1774, silver was restricted, as a legal tender, to sums under £25 by +tale, and above £25 by weight, but gold remained a legal tender without +restriction. + +In 1783, both gold and silver, without any restriction, became legal +tender. + +In 1797, bank notes were made legal tender. The effect of this change is +well known. + +In 1798, silver was made legal tender as in 1774. + +In 1817, gold alone was made legal tender, silver being debased and +restricted as mentioned before. + +In the face of these alterations it is impossible to appeal to history +for a proof that it is not lawful to make any desirable change. + +But some objectors say, If the British Mint no longer coins gratis, gold +bullion will no longer make its way to this country as freely as it now +does. At the present time England is the great bullion exchange of the +world, because it is the country where the mint charges are lowest. +Deprive this country of this advantage, and the stream of bullion will +be directed elsewhere. If this argument is of any validity, of course +all, or at least the greater part, of the bullion which has already +reached this country, must have found its way to the Mint. But what is +the real fact? That not so much as the ninth part of the gold bullion +imported into this country within the last four years, has been coined +into British money. + +The following figures are taken from the Statistical Abstract for +1869:-- + + COMPUTED REAL VALUE OF THE REGISTERED IMPORTS + OF GOLD AND SILVER BULLION, AND SPECIE, INTO + THE UNITED KINGDOM. + Gold. Silver. Total. + 1865 £14,485,570 £6,976,641 £21,462,211 + 1866 23,509,641 10,777,498 34,287,139 + 1867 15,800,159 8,020,888 23,821,047 + 1868 17,136,177 7,716,418 24,852,595 + _____________ + £104,422,992 + + AMOUNT OF GOLD AND SILVER MONEYS COINED AT THE + ROYAL MINT. + Gold. Silver. Total. + + 1865 £2,367,614 £501,732 £2,869,346 + 1866 5,076,676 493,416 5,570,092 + 1867 496,397 193,842 690,239 + 1868 1,653,384 301,356 1,954,740 + ___________ + £11,084,417 + +Looking at these figures, it will scarcely be argued that the fact of +gratuitous coinage at the Royal Mint is of any power in attracting gold +bullion to this country. + +The charges made on coining in other countries amount to large sums in +the aggregate. It is desirable to show what these sums are. + +It has been calculated that, upon each million pounds sterling worth of +gold coin delivered, the charge (including adjustment for loss of +interest in the fixed delays for delivery) amounts in all + + England to £ 1,605 + France 10,490 + United States 15,000 + Australia 13,330 + India 13,330[8] + +It is of itself a sufficient answer to those who think that the +imposition of a seigniorage might prevent bullion from being brought to +this country for coinage, to note what has taken place where such a +charge is made. Both France and the United States have coined +considerably more gold during the sixteen years mentioned above than +this country. Yet the charge in the United States is nearly ten times +that in Great Britain. The coinage at the Mint of Sydney has nearly +doubled, yet the charge in Sydney is nearly as high as in the United +States. The returns for the years 1867-1868 have not, as far as we are +aware, yet reached this country. But considering the great and +progressive increase in the Sydney coinages, it is highly probable that +the coins struck in Australia during those years have greatly exceeded +those minted in London. + +To sum up: + +It is at present open to this country to join the International Monetary +Convention already in force between several of the principal European +States. + +It is probable that this Convention will shortly include the most +important powers of the civilized world. + +The population of the countries which have already given in their +adherence to this Convention, greatly exceed in number the inhabitants +of the British Islands. Their trade is more important in value than our +own. + +The disadvantages of being outside such a Convention are very great. + +In joining it, a seigniorage would have to be charged on all British +gold coinages. + +A similar seigniorage is always charged on the coinages at the Sydney +Mint; and the coinage at the Sydney Mint is now large and increasing--in +the last two years probably more than that of the English Mint. + +This seigniorage is no disadvantage to anyone. On the contrary, it +possesses several advantages. At present, the last holder of a light +sovereign is exposed to loss. This is unfair, as probably the last +holder has done nothing to cause the coin to be light. + +Were a seigniorage imposed, the first holder, the man who thinks he can +gain something by causing the coin to be minted, would have--as is +fair--to provide against the depreciation. Further, the first holder +would have to pay for the work he has done; _i.e._, the manufacture of +the coin--a charge now defrayed by the country. + +It is clear that the absence of a seigniorage is not the cause which +attracts gold to England, as barely the ninth part of the bullion +imported finds its way to the Mint. + +It is also clear that alterations, one at least of far more importance +than the imposition of a seigniorage, have at former times been made in +the status of the currency of the country. + +To conclude, in the words of an early pioneer of British commerce, 'The +exchanges practised in England, and principally in London, are confined +within a narrow scantling, being but as a rivolet issuing out of the +great streame of those exchanges that are used beyond the seas.' + +Thus wrote 'that eminently deserving author,' Mr. Lewes Roberts, the +'delineator' of the Merchant's Mappe of Commerce in 1638. The 'true +dimensions of our English traffique' even then excited his limited +admiration and wonder. He could only imagine either that this commerce +was 'at its full perfection, or that it aymes higher than can hitherto, +by my weake sight, be either seen or discerned.' To us, 'the full +streame' of that trade seems but 'a petty rivolet,' and we only wonder +how, with the complicated and varying systems of money then in practice, +with measures of length and quantity differing in almost every place of +importance in Europe, any commerce could be kept up between differing +nations. It is no longer needful to note now, as it was then, that +different weights and measures were to be found in the principal cities +even of the same country. It is no longer needful to bear in mind, as it +was then, that there was a difference of exchange between places close +to each other, and within the same territories. Commerce now would not +bear such fetters. The vigour of the early days of trade surmounted +those obstacles as the rush of a mountain stream drives it unhindered +over rocks that vainly bar its course. In these times affairs approach +what has been termed the stationary state. As the stream expands, the +current becomes more gentle. As facilities for trade become greater, a +smaller obstacle suffices to turn that trade from its course. It is now +far more easy to give a vessel the option of discharging her cargo in +one port or another, in one country or another, than it was then. +Increased opportunities of intercourse render any change of the line of +traffic far less difficult now than at any previous time. A smaller +difference in profit renders such alterations of destination more +desirable and more necessary. The course of commerce has just been +compared to that of a stream--as dashing rapidly down the mountain glen, +or slowly moving through the rich and level plain. Is it permissible to +carry on the simile still further?--to watch how, as in Holland, a +trifling artificially-produced change of level is sufficient to divert +the scarcely perceptible flow of the almost stagnant flood--to add the +waters of the Rhine to the Yssel, or of the Waal to the Lech? So as a +general extension of wealth brings all countries more closely to one +uniform condition, is it not needful to remove those obstacles which may +cause similar diversions of our trade? Is it not needful to take a step +onward, and to supply our own people with those advantages which are now +possessed by many--will soon be possessed by almost all civilized +nations? Among such advantages, to provide a coinage which, while +entailing no expense on the country, either at its creation or for its +maintenance, may be truly international in character, and aid the +streams of our commerce to maintain their course around the globe. + + + + +ART. III.--(1.) _Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, first Earl +of Malmesbury._ Edited by his Grandson, the Third Earl. 4 vols. Second +edition. London: 1845. + +(2.) _Letters of the first Earl of Malmesbury, his Family, and Friends, +from 1745 to 1820_. Edited, with Notes, &c., by his Grandson, the Right +Hon. the EARL OF MALMESBURY, G.C.B. 2 vols. London: 1870. + + +From 1745 to 1820--this was the lifetime of James Harris, afterwards first +Earl of Malmesbury; and such is the period over which the subject-matter +of these two works extends. A more memorable period is not to be found +in the annals of this country, or even in the long and more momentous +history of Europe. It bridges the chasm which separates the old world of +Europe from the new. It shows us that elder world in its last stage; it +also shows us the beginning of that new and better order of things +amongst which we now live. In the earlier period of those seventy-five +years, we see the thrones of Louis the Fifteenth, of Frederick the +Great, and Catherine of Russia, standing high above the heads of a +crushed and miserable people, who counted for nothing either in their +policy or in their pleasures. The simple facts of that old _régime_ of +royal absolutism now read like a monstrous dream. Vice and despotism in +the palace, license and intrigue at the Court, penury in the cottage, +and degradation everywhere, such is hardly an exaggeration of the +general condition of the Continent at that time, and simple truth as +regards France, who then, as since, boasted her leadership of +civilization. As is always the case in analogous periods, the people +themselves had sunk into a moral torpor. There were no national +movements or aspirations. Religion, freedom, and the thirst for military +conquest, are the three great motive powers of humanity. But all of +these were then dead or in abeyance. Humanity had settled on its lees. +Even mental philosophy, which so often flourishes in such dead times of +a nation's history, threw its teachings into the scale in favour of an +ignoble life; and while a pitiless Scepticism robbed men of heaven and +all their religious beliefs, Materialism bade them "eat, drink, and be +merry, for to-morrow ye die" _for ever_, like the trees of the wood and +the beasts of the fields. While Philosophy robbed man of his moral +freedom and a future life, Royalty denied him his personal and political +liberty and plundered his pockets. In truth, the whole upper crust of +society had become heartless, debased, and corrupt, while beneath was a +seething mass of suffering, ignorance, and savagery. And so the upper +crust, with king, priests, and nobles--crowns, croziers, and +coronets--gave way and fell into an abyss of devouring fire, like that +which burst up of yore beneath Sodom and Gomorrah, devastating the +corrupt Cities of the Plain. The old world of Europe was cast into the +furnace, and all things became new--Providence overruling the wrath of +man to its own wise and merciful ends. + +All history is an ennobling study, alike in its events and its examples; +but life is short, and it is the French Revolution that commences the +period of history of deepest importance to the present age. Beyond that +chasm, so rudely severing the old world of Europe from the new, lies the +realm of the historian; on this side begins a drama of opinions and +events constituting by far the most useful field of study in secular and +political knowledge. Changed since then, and still changing, as are the +territorial arrangements of Europe, the conquests of Napoleon +contributed greatly to the rise of the principle of Nationality which is +now the great power at work in the alteration of boundaries and the +shaping of kingdoms. It is true, Napoleon meant to conquer only for +himself and for France. He sought to found a vast empire, with vassal +kingdoms under the rule of his brothers and relatives. But in +establishing this empire, he swept away a great deal of the obstructive +rubbish of the former time. By expelling the Germans from Italy, and +also by creating a titular King of Rome, he paved the way for the +subsequent aspirations and movement of the Italians in favour of +nationality and independence, which have at length borne their full +fruits in the establishment of a free and united Italy. In like manner, +by sweeping away a whole host of petty princedoms in Germany, he +simplified the subsequent course of events towards a unification of +Germany; while the iron despotism which he exercised in that country +first compelled all Germans to feel the tie of brotherhood, in the +glorious uprising of the Fatherland in 1813 against the foreign foe. +Poland, too, during the ascendancy of Napoleon, temporarily (but only +for the great conqueror's own purposes) regained in part its old +existence, thereby keeping alive the hope for renewed independence; a +hope which, improbable as our expectations may seem, we think will yet +be realized amid the great trouble, and changes impending over the +Continent. But still more memorable, and worthy of thoughtful study, are +the times of the French Revolution, from the influence which they have +produced upon the current of political, social, and religious thought, +in subsequent times. A whole flood of new ideas, principles, and +opinions was then poured upon the world. Some of these were wise and +good, others were detestable, but nearly all of them were given to the +world in so crude a form and in so savage or ruthless a spirit, as to +make them as a whole so repulsive that even yet some of their +excellencies are but little known or acknowledged. Every one recognises, +however, the vast influence which that grand and terrible Revolution has +exercised upon the whole current of subsequent thought; and if Europe +has yet to undergo one more great upheaving of democratic revolution (as +we believe it has), we may rely upon it that some of the more extreme +and, at present, all but forgotten dogmas of the first revolution will +again appear on the scene; including, we regret to say, that terrible +development of infidelity and materialism, against which even +Robespierre himself, with his firm belief in the Supreme Being and a +future life, was unable successfully to contend. That storm of blasphemy +and utter scepticism, in its worst features at least, soon blew +over--and let us trust that such will be the case again; but any one +who has watched the turn of thought on the Continent, and in Germany +even more than in France, must expect any new outburst of democratic +revolution to be accompanied by a manifesto of infidelity and an attempt +to banish religion from the fabric and principles of society, in a +manner only too similar to that which formed the worst feature of the +first French Revolution. + +The first Earl of Malmesbury was in public life, for the greater part of +the time holding the highest diplomatic appointments abroad, during the +whole course of these momentous events. From a vantage-ground enjoyed by +few men either of this or any other country, he beheld the Courts and +peoples of Europe both before the deluge and after it; and although he +withdrew from public office before the termination of the great war with +France, he continued to the end to be confidentially consulted by the +Ministers of the time. The first of the two works whose titles are +prefixed is by far the most valuable and important. All the leading men +of the day--monarchs, statesmen, and generals--figure constantly in the +diaries and correspondence. The work has been quoted with advantage to +history by some of our ablest writers, and not least so by Lord +Stanhope, in his 'Life of Pitt.' It constitutes a mine of historical and +political facts; and though published too late to be made use of by our +chief historians of the French war and of the immediately preceding +times of the Empress Catherine and Frederick the Great, its value is +fully recognised by the writers of the personal and political memoirs +which have recently issued from the press. The second of the works on +our list is of a lighter character, in which the incidents of +fashionable life mingle largely with matters of State and Parliamentary +politics. The one work shows us the grand movements of the time, the +other gives us the bye-play. The latter, to which we chiefly confine our +remarks, is a selection from private letters received by three +generations of the Harris family. They are confidential exchanges of +intelligence and ideas, in which the hopes and fears, the expectations, +disappointments, and impressions of our ancestors are given in the very +words in which they were described. The noble editor of these letters +calls them 'waifs of the past,' but they possess a twofold interest, +firstly, as illustrating the opinions and social habits of that past +time; and secondly, they are reliable indications of what public feeling +was at their date with regard to politics, society, and the general +condition of our own and foreign countries:-- + + 'And how eventful those years were,' says the editor: + 'They saw the Highland rebellion; the American war; the + despotic Courts of the Bourbons, of Catherine, and of + Frederick; the great French revolution, and its subsequent + phases of a bloody republic, an aggressive empire, an + ephemeral restoration, and again of a short empire and a + second restoration. They witnessed the struggles of our + English people for greater freedom, even from the + privileges claimed by their own House of Commons; and + lastly, a far fiercer contest to save their own country + from the subjugation under which for a time Napoleon held + every nation in Europe except theirs.' + +The chief recipient of the earlier letters in this collection was Mr. +James Harris, the father of the first Earl of Malmesbury. The Harris +family had lived quietly on an estate in Wiltshire from the middle of +the 16th century; and Mr. James Harris first broke through the +hereditary sameness of existence by becoming one of the most +distinguished scholars of his day. Besides 'Philosophical Treatises,' he +published a work on grammar, called 'Hermes,' which the accomplished +Bishop Lowth styled 'the most beautiful example of analysis produced +since the days of Aristotle,' and which obtained so high a reputation +that it was afterwards translated and published by command of the French +Directory in 1796. He was member of Parliament for Christchurch, which +seat he held till his death, in 1780; was made a Lord of the Treasury in +1763, and in 1744 he became Secretary and Comptroller of the Queen's +Household. When he first took his seat in the House of Commons, John +Townshend asked who he was, and on being told that he had written on +grammar and harmony, replied 'Why does he come here, where he will hear +neither?' His literary talent and high personal character procured for +Mr. Harris a wide circle of friends and acquaintances among the leading +men of the times; and owing to the influence he thus acquired he was +enabled to launch his son, afterwards the first Lord, early into public +life. The present Earl (who edits these letters), speaking of the +'_fêtes_ and social intercourse in the venerable city of Sarum,' where +his great-grandfather resided, observes regretfully 'how much less of +cliques and class categories then existed among the nobility and their +neighbours than in the present day.' + +Mr. Harris was passionately fond of music and art, and wrote treatises +upon them, which indicate a more lively and sympathetic nature than +would he inferred from the dry philosophy of his other works. His wife +moved much in society, and appears to have possessed a similar taste for +the fine arts. The best artists of the day were visitors at their house +in Salisbury. The family went frequently to the theatre, and in the +letters we find critical observations on most of the new dramas of the +time. There are two letters from David Garrick, asking permission to +bring out at Drury Lane a musical pastoral, called 'Damo and Amyrillis,' +which, the editor says, 'was in Mr. Harris's hands,' but which, there +seems to us reason to believe, was actually composed by him. As might be +expected of a musical family, they attended the concerts and the opera, +and by-and-by we read of 'the great house in the Haymarket,' and Italian +singers come to the front. Then, as now, the Opera was a perilous +venture, and both the managers and singers occasionally came to grief. +Of one of the favourite singers of the day we read as follows:-- + + 'All Manzolini's clothes and finery are seized, and carried + to the Custom House, so he has sent a petition to the Lords + of the Treasury to have them redeemed. This event diverts + Lord North, as he says not one of the Treasury know a note + of music, nor care one farthing what becomes of Manzolini, + _except Mr. Harris_. He says your father has told so moving + a story to Mr. Grenville about it, that he thinks it may + affect him.' + +A close friendship existed between Mr. Harris and Handel, who left him, +by will, his portrait, and all his operas in manuscript. The very first +letter in this collection has a touching allusion to the great musician, +whose intellect had been affected by his labours, and who had become +very eccentric. The Countess of Salisbury, a relative of Mr. Harris, +writes to him thus (in 1745):-- + + 'My constancy to poor Handel got the better of my indolence + and my propensity to stay at home, and I went last Friday + to see the 'Alexander's Feast;' but it was such a + melancholy pleasure as drew tears of sorrow, great though + unhappy Handel, dejected, wan, and dark, sitting by, not + playing on the harpsichord, and to think how his light has + been spent by being _overplied in music's cause_. I was + sorry, too, to find the audience so insipid and tasteless + (I may add unkind) as not to give the poor man the comfort + of applause; but affectation and conceit cannot discern or + attend to merit.' + +In the next letter, the Rev. W. Harris writes to Mrs. Harris thus:-- + + 'I met Mr. Handel a few days since in the street, and + stopped and put him in mind who I was; upon which, I am + sure it would have diverted you to have seen his antic + motions. He seemed highly pleased, and was full of inquiry + after you. I told him I was very confident that you + expected a visit from him this summer (at Salisbury). He + talked much of his precarious state of health, yet he looks + well enough.' + +Handel recovered from the mental affection; and five years later (1750) +we find the Earl of Shaftesbury writing of him as follows:-- + + 'I have seen Handel several times since I came hither (to + London), and I think I never saw him so cool and well. He + is quite easy in his behaviour, and has been pleasing + himself in the purchase of several fine pictures, + particularly a large Rembrandt, which is indeed excellent. + We have scarce talked at all about musical subjects, though + enough to find that his performances will go off + incomparably.' + +Music appears to have held a more prominent place in public amusements a +century ago than is generally imagined; and when Giardini undertook the +management of the Opera 'at the great house in the Haymarket' in 1764, +Mrs. Harris opines that he will meet with no small difficulty, because +the 'greatest part of the orchestra, and almost all the dancers, are +engaged at the _play-houses_.' Giardini--a Piedmontese violinist and +composer, who, after residing thirty years in England, went to Russia, +where he died in 1793--came to grief in this operatic venture, and +afterwards started an Opera in 'Mrs. Cornely's' rooms. Indeed, the +Haymarket house, great as its celebrity became in the present century, +was by no means a famous place in those times. In the same year (1764) +we read in one of the letters, 'Almack is going to build some most +magnificent rooms behind his house--one much larger than that at +Carlisle House,' _i.e._, Mrs. Cornely's. This latter was the favourite +place of resort at that time, and for many years afterwards. It was a +place where subscription-concerts were held (one series mentioned in +1764, consisted of twenty-one concerts, of Bach's music, Cocchi's, and +Abel's, for five guineas), where the Opera for some time had its seat; +and also where masquerade parties and other fashionable entertainments +were held. In 1770, we read of 'fifteen or sixteen young men of fashion +and fortune giving a masquerade at Cornely's, to 800 people;' and in the +following year we have a full account of a masquerade given at the same +place by 'the gentlemen of the Tuesday Nights' Club.' Mrs. Harris, +writing to her son (the future Earl) at Madrid, says: 'Mr. Charles Fox +has offered to supply us with tickets. Your sisters and I mean to go; +'tis the only masquerade I wish them to go to. I shall try my utmost to +persuade Mr. Harris (her husband) to accompany us. One difficulty is in +the way; that is, no gentlemen are admitted in dominos.' Mr. Harris +could not be persuaded to join the fashionable assembly, but Mr. +Fox--who had just commenced his official career, as a Lord of the +Admiralty--was, at that time, more at home in such parties than in +Parliament. Mrs. Harris was greatly delighted with it. The following is +part of her account of it:-- + + 'Gertrude (Miss Harris) was dressed as the Pythian, that + is, priestess to the temple of Apollo, a dress which she + wore in one of the private plays. Louisa was an Indian + Princess; Mr. Cambridge borrowed a dress for her which was + pretty and fine--the habit, muslin with green and gold + sprigs, with a turban and veil. I never saw anybody enter + so strongly into the spirit of a masquerade as she did. She + talked to numbers all in French, and had disguised her + voice so well that even some of her friends did not + discover her. Towards the end, she said she was frightened + by the Devil speaking to her sister. Mine was a white + domino, with a Mary Queen of Scots cap and ruff. + + 'Lord Edgecombe was a shepherdess, with a little lamb under + his arm, and a most excellent figure he was. Mr. Banbury + was a most excellent _friseur_; Lord Berkeley, a charlatan. + Mrs. Crewe[9] looked beautiful as a nun with a yellow veil. + Several gentlemen in women's clothes, not as old women.... + + 'On the whole we are greatly entertained, for it was the + first masked ball I ever saw. We supped soon after one; and + then everybody unmasked, and a number of acquaintances we + found, though we had found out many before. We got home + soon after five; and, old as I may be, I never left a + public place with more regret.' + +Mrs. Cornely's rooms soon became the object of a jealous, and let us +hope unfounded, attack. Giardini had opened an Opera there, which was +'greatly injuring that of Mr. Hobart's in the Haymarket;' and the latter +gentleman 'informed against them' as an unlicensed house. There was a +strong party on either side, 'harmoniacs' and 'anti-harmoniacs,' and the +latter party brought forward scandalous charges. Only a week after the +above-mentioned masquerade, Mrs. Harris writes thus:-- + + 'The Harmoniac is over, and, what is worse, they threaten + hard to indict Mrs. Cornely's as a house of ill-fame, and + say that forty beds are made and unmade every day, which is + hard, for a friend of ours says it is never more than + _twenty_. But, joking apart, if they choose to demolish + Mrs. Cornely, all elegance and spectacle will end in this + town; for she never yet had her equal in these things, and + I believe got but little, as all she undertakes is clever + to a degree.' + +There is a wonderful want of logical sequence in these few lines; and as +to whether the scandalous charge was true or false, Mrs. Harris apparently +was as little in a position to judge as we are now. Mrs. Cornely was +originally Mademoiselle Pompeiati, a singer. She hired Carlisle House, +in Soho-square, and established balls and assemblies by subscription. +This place of fashionable resort, however, as well as its mistress, +quickly thereafter declined in reputation. In 1774, we find Mrs. Harris +writing:--'I went to Carlysle House, which Bach has taken for his +concerts; the furniture, like Mrs. Cornely, is much on the decline; but, +in my opinion, the place is better for the concert than Almack's.' Bach +soon left these rooms, and opened a place of his own, splendidly fitted +up. But even he was not allowed to carry on his performances without +opposition, although of a different kind from that which proved fatal to +Mrs. Cornely. 'Lord Hillsborough, Sir James Porter, and some others +(writes Mrs. Harris) have entered into a subscription to prosecute Bach +for a nuisance, and I was told the jury had found a bill against him. +One would scarce imagine his house could molest either of these men, for +Bach's is at the corner of Hanover-street.' + +Amateur theatrical performances were in those days in great vogue among +the upper classes, and usually took place in the country residences of +the nobility and gentry in the winter months--during the Parliamentary +recess, when even members of the Ministry (notably Mr. Fox) took part in +them. Winterslow House was the famous place for these amateur +performances. The ordinary audience consisted of the servants of the +house and the neighbouring townspeople, as well as a select circle of +visitors, which on one occasion included the Duke and Duchess of +Queensberry, the Duchess of Bedford, Lord and Lady Pembroke, Lady +Charles and Lord Robert Spencer, Lord Dunkellin, Lady Louisa +Fitzpatrick, &c. At the close of one of those performances at Winterslow +House (in January, 1774), in which Mr. Fox and another member of his +family acted, a lamentable accident occurred, which destroyed the +greater part of the mansion. Mrs. Harris writes of it next day as +follows:-- + + 'We got home in whole bones [an allusion apparently to the + bad roads] soon after one, and in high spirits; but our joy + is now turned to sorrow, for this morning, at five, a fire + broke out in the new building at Winterslow House, and + entirely consumed that and also the old house, except the + kitchen and laundry. Though the house was full of company, + fortunately no life was lost. The fire was discovered by + some Salisbury chairmen, who, for want of a bed, were + deposited on a carpet under the great stairs; they alarmed + the house, and probably, thereby, saved some lives. Lady + Pembroke, Lady Mary Fox and her children, were carried to + King's House; Miss Herbert, Mrs. Hodges, and the other + ladies stayed in the laundry; all the gentlemen stood by. + As they had no engines, and little or no water but violent + rain, they in a manner gave up all hopes of the house; but + their object was to save the furniture, in which they have + succeeded, though 'tis greatly damaged by dirt and rain. + 'Tis thought, but not certain, that the fire was owing to + some timber near a chimney in the new building. I think of + the contrast: we left that house this morning between + twelve and one, all mirth and jollity, and by seven it was + consumed; it really hurts me when I think how many + agreeable days I have spent in those rooms. + + 'Some say that, during the flames, Stephen and Charles Fox + and Fitzpatrick got to a proper distance, and laid bets as + to which beam would fall in first. The friends of the + house, who resort to Almack's and White's, say they are + sorry they were not at Winterslow that night, as "they + might have had an opportunity of seeing the family in a + _new light_. I could mention profane things uttered at the + very time, but they are too bad." + +Amateur dramatic and operatic performances were a frequent amusement at +Mr. Harris's house in Salisbury. Miss Gertrude, the elder daughter, was +an adept in such performances, and, moreover, retained this taste +throughout the whole of her long life. This lady afterwards became the +wife of Mr. Robinson, younger son of Lord Grantham. She lived, in the +London world, to the age of eighty-five, preserving to the last her +faculties and cheerful character. She used to give private theatricals +at her house, in which Lord de Grey, Mr. F. Robinson, Hugh Elliott, and +Canning were the chief actors--Canning writing the prologues and +epilogues, which are still extant. In the letters we find frequent +allusions to the performances in Mr. Harris's family residence; but we +shall content ourselves with mentioning one of them, which aroused the +satirical ire of some provincial Juvenal, whose poetic outburst serves +to show the great, indeed too great, change between the notions on such +subjects then and now. Mrs. Harris, in a letter to her son, thus alludes +to a rehearsal of the piece, which a few days afterwards was performed, +as usual, to an audience of the townsfolk and the visitors at the +house:-- + + 'I have but little to send from hence; we are so totally + taken up with our own theatrical business that nothing else + is thought of. The ladies acted last night in their dresses + to all their servants, and a most crowded house they had. + Although I was not admitted to the performance, I saw all + the ladies. Their dresses are fine and elegant. Miss + Townshend makes an excellent Spanish ambassador, a fine + figure and richly dressed; she had a prodigious long sword, + and not being accustomed to wear one, she contrived, as she + walked, to run it up through a scene, and damaged it + greatly. Louisa has taken a sword you left her [here?], and + manages it right well. She is very fine in a purple Spanish + dress, all the buttons Irish diamonds, a handsome button + and loop to her hat, and your King of Spain's picture + hanging from her neck. The Queen, Miss Hussey, was dressed + in blue and silver, with a number of diamonds; Miss + Wyndham, who is Elvira, in white, trimmed with pearls; + Gertrude, the Princess, in a black Spanish dress, trimmed + with red and silver, and a great quantity of diamonds; it + becomes her much. + + 'Lord Pembroke [the tenth Earl] sent a note to your father, + which was as follows:--"I can snuff candles, I can scrape + on the violoncello; if either of these sciences will + entitle me to a place in your theatre, I will perform + gratis. P.S. My wife says she can thrum the harpsichord or + viol-de-gamba." + + 'We have sent them and the Amesbury House tickets for + Saturday. Everybody is making interest to get in. The + ladies mean to perform five times, so I hope everybody will + see it.' + +The satirical verses which this lady performance called forth appeared +in the _Bath Journal_ (Nov. 17, 1774), entitled 'On the Ladies at the +Close of Salisbury, now acting _Elvira_;' and Mrs. Harris opines that +'they were sent from some _vinegar_ merchant in Salisbury who could not +get admitted to the performance. The verses are as follows:-- + + 'In good Queen Elizabeth's reign, + In a decent and virtuous age, + That they ne'er might give modesty pain, + No female appeared on the stage. + But lo, what a change time affords! + The ladies, 'mong many strange things, + Call for helmets, for breeches and swords, + And act Senators, Hervos, and Kings.' + +If the anonymous 'vinegar merchant' could have been transported into the +present time, how much more would he have been shocked by the 'change +which time affords!' Could he now take a trip to London (so serious a +matter a century ago, but made so quickly and cheaply now by means of a +return ticket by rail), what would he think of the state of matters in +our theatres? It was only in private theatricals that ladies donned the +male costume a century ago, and they were always draped with the +strictest propriety. But what do we see in London theatres now? Not only +in the so-called 'burlesques' does the main 'fun,' such as it is, +consist in the transposition of the sexes--men taking female +characters, and women the part of males--but the costumes of the female +performers, rich and picturesque as they usually are, are devised +expressly to make a prodigal display of the person, a minimum of clothes +apparently being the acme of perfection kept in view by the theatrical +costumiers, and by the ladies themselves. The female figure is now so +prodigally displayed that a handsome girl, especially if she has +well-turned legs, is sought after on that account alone. 'My _shape_ is +my fortune, sir, she said!' would now be the burden of the song of these +demi-nude demoiselles of the stage. To such a pitch has this new method +of attracting audiences been carried, that this class of performances, +or rather exhibitions, are now known in theatrical parlance as +'leg-pieces.' It is impossible not to see what a demoralising influence +such performances must have upon the rising generation, indeed upon the +whole audience. It is a lamentable sign of the times: it is a symptom of +degeneration, of corruption, of a fatal laxity of manners. The relation +between the sexes is becoming seriously deteriorated; and woman, instead +of being peculiarly an object of respectful regard or chivalrous +admiration, tends to become simply an object of pleasure, seeking to +please at any cost. Most rightly did the Lord Chamberlain recently issue +his fiat against the short skirts of the ballet-dancers: but the fiat +has been vain, as all such injunctions in this 'free' country must be +when public opinion refuses to support it, or at last allows itself to +be overpowered by the crowd of playgoers who delight in such spectacles. +A gangrene of selfish and demoralising pleasure is now eating into the +heart of this country; and we fear the social malady will not be checked +save by the advent of some terrible national calamity--let us hope not +so terrible as that by which our neighbour France is now being purged as +by fire. + +Before quitting the lighter and gossipy items to be found in these +letters, let us say a word or two about the rich Court costumes of the +period. We need not speak of the dresses of the ladies; for although the +fashion of those dresses has changed, indeed is ceaselessly changing, in +richness and costliness female attire at the present time is quite on a +par with what it was when George the Second was king. But a notable +change has taken place in the full dress of the men. Probably only a +minority of our readers can remember the time when colour disappeared +from the evening costume of gentlemen: it is nearly forty years since +coloured coats, with white or coloured silk or velvet waistcoats +vanished from the private dinner-party and ball-room--though the taste +for colour is now reviving. Warren, in _Ten Thousand a Year_, dresses +his hero Gammon for the evening in blue coat with metal buttons, white +waistcoat, and black trousers--and such was a quiet evening dress of +that time. In the long interval since then, there has been a monotonous +reign of simple black cloth. The change in the Court or gala dress has +been still more striking. Apropos of this change, a philosophic writer +has remarked, that whenever any class abandons its distinctive costume, +it is a sign of decadence and coming extinction. There is some truth in +the remark, but it is partial truth only. It ignores the fact that the +peculiar source of distinction for each class, and especially with the +nobility, who are or ought to be the leaders of the nation, varies from +age to age with the spirit of the times. It might as well be said that +our nobility verged on extinction three centuries ago, when they ceased +to wear mail and to lead their retainers to the field. No doubt the +French Revolution, with its levelling doctrines, and the principle of +social equality (not new in this country), tended to abolish the +'bravery' of dress previously distinctive of the nobility; but the +change was far more due to the gravity of the times, the sober spirit +natural during a most critical period of the country, and of the economy +rendered necessary throughout the community at large by the heavy costs +of the great war with France. Indeed, the fact that a corresponding +change took place in the gala dress of the middle classes serves to show +that there was nothing exceptional or peculiar in the diminished finery +of the aristocratic costume. All classes alike felt the sobering +influence of the time, and then, as in all such cases, a corresponding +change took place in costume. + +Firstly, then, as to the gala costume of the Prince of Wales, afterwards +George III., who certainly cannot be suspected of too great a devotion +to fashion or the frivolities of dress. In a Drawing-room in St. James's +in 1745, the Prince of Wales wore a light-blue velvet coat, laced with +silver, and the sleeves of it brocade--as was also his waistcoat. On +another occasion he 'had on a crimson damask laced with silver, very +rich and handsome.' Again, the Countess of Shaftesbury, writing to her +cousin, Mr. Harris, in December, 1754, 'enlivening her epistle with a +detail of the birthday finery' at Court, says: 'The Prince of Wales +looked as blooming as his clothes; they were a blossom-coloured velvet, +with gold and lace down before; the waistcoat and cuffs a rich +white-and-gold stuff. Prince Edward's was a yellow and silver velvet, +with a silver lace before, turned up with white and silver cuffs, and +the waistcoat the same.' She adds: 'My lord's clothes and mine were both +admired. His was a very rich scarlet and gold velvet coat--waistcoat and +breeches the same; and mine a gold stuff with purple spots on the +ground, and coloured sprigs of flowers that looked like embroidery.' On +a similar occasion, 'Lord Kildare was unexceptionably the finest of any +gentleman there: his coat was a light-blue silk, embroidered all over +with gold and silver in a very curious manner, turned up with white +satin, embroidered as the other; the waistcoat the same as his sleeves.' +His Majesty (George II.), however, by no means set the fashion in gala +dress. Even at Drawing-rooms, we read, 'he dressed in his usual way, +without aiming at finery of any sort;' his usual costume being a +deep-blue cloth coat, trimmed with silver lace, and waistcoat the same. +At another Birthday Drawing-room, 'the King was dressed in black velvet; +the sleeves of his coat and his waistcoat were red, embroidered with +gold.' The last time his Majesty's costume at Drawing-rooms is mentioned +is in 1754, six years before his death, when we find the following +curious statement, that 'his Majesty had told Mr. Shutz [the fashionable +German tailor of the day] he would have him bespeak him a very handsome +suit, but not to make a boy or a fop of him;' and as the result of this +consultation with his tailor, his Majesty appeared in brown, very richly +laced with silver, and turned up with a blue cuff laced, and a blue and +silver waistcoat.' We read of 'very mortifying disasters' happening at +some of these Birthday Drawing-rooms. On one such occasion, the Countess +of Salisbury writes:-- + + 'Miss Young, in making her curtsey to his Majesty, + entangled the heel of her shoe [there were high heels in + those days] in her train, so that she fell quite backwards, + with her legs up. The laugh was so general that nobody + thought of helping the poor young creature, until his + Majesty, though as well diverted as the rest, said he would + go himself; but, as you may imagine, was prevented. Lady + Young was not in less confusion than her daughter. + + 'The second hustle was about Miss Corke, whose hoop, in + climbing over the Foreigner's box, caught in such a manner + that all her petticoats flew up, to the undermost flannel. + Lady Arvon, in endeavouring to help her, was caught in the + hoop, which pulled off her fine diamond sprig and + head-dress.' + +As might be expected, there were flirtations, runaway matches, and +_mésalliances_ in those days, as they are still. One of the beauties +immortalized by the pencil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and whose portrait +is preserved at Holland House, gave rise to much gossip by marrying a +'player:'-- + + 'The Court and assembly's talk yesterday was all of the + match of Lady Susan Strangeways and O'Brien, the player. It + is said she went out on Saturday with a servant, whom, + under pretext of having forgotten something, she sent back, + and said she would wait in the street till her return. + O'Brien was waiting in a hackney coach, which she got into; + and they went to Covent Garden Church, and were married. + 'Tis a most surprising event, as Lady Susan was everything + that was good and amiable; and how she ever got acquainted + with this man is not to be accounted for. They say she sent + him £200 a little time since. She is of age.' + +Gretna Green, on the Scottish borders, although it has now relapsed into +the obscurity natural to such a poor little hamlet (although it still +gives name to a railway station), was a famous place in those days in +connection with runaway matches; indeed, it was so even within the +memory of the present generation. A century ago, we often read of lovers +having 'gone to Scotland.' Among others-- + + 'Lady Jane Tollemache, daughter to Lord Dysart, is gone to + Scotland with a Captain Halliday of the Light Horse: his + father is a man of fortune. The captain was just going to + to be married to Miss Byron; the coach and clothes were + bought; but he saw Lady Jane twice at the Richmond + assembly, was captivated, wrote a letter to Miss Byron, to + inform her he had changed his mind, and had set out for + Scotland.' [The gay captain would have had to pay heavy + damages for so cavalier a proceeding now-a-days.] + +Whatever amount of what is commonly called 'scandal,' and which merits a +worse name, there may have been in our aristocratic circles in the +latter half of last century, there is but little trace of it to be found +in these letters. But in one of Mrs. Harris's letters to her son, giving +him the talk and gossip of the town, there is a mysterious-looking +allusion to some such matrimonial scandal, which reads as +follows:--'Lady S---- B---- is in lodgings at Knightsbridge. She says +her husband [whom doubtless she had deserted] is a most angelic man; but +her attachment for the other is so great, she must live with him.' + +What was the 'Pantheon' in those days? Whatever else it was, it appears +to have been a sort of assembly-rooms for balls and dances; and, though +frequented by persons of rank and of the highest respectability, its +doors were not impregnable against the entrance of 'soiled doves' and +doubtful reputations--whose presence, however, was against the rules of +the place, for, as the following embarrassing incident to one of Mrs. +Harris's daughters shows, they were liable to be turned out. Mrs. Harris +thus writes of it to her son:-- + + 'Wednesday your two sisters, Molly Cambridge, and I, went + to the Pantheon. It is undoubtedly the finest and most + complete thing ever seen in England. Such mixture of + company never assembled before under the same roof. Lord + Mansfield, Mrs. Baddeley, Lord Chief Baron Parker, Mrs. + Abbingdon, Sir James Porter, Madlle. Heinell, Lords Hyde + and Camden, with many other serious men, and most of the + gay ladies in town, and ladies of the best rank and + character--and, by appearance, some very low people. Louisa + is thought very like Mrs. Baddeley [one of the gay ladies]; + and Gertrude and I had our doubts whether our characters + might not suffer by walking with her [_i.e._, Louisa]; but + had they offered to turn her out, we depended upon Mr. + Hanger's protection. [George Hanger, of the Guards, was one + of the great beaux of his day.] None of the fashion dance + country-dances or minuets in the great room, though there + were a number of minuets and a large set of dancers. I saw + Miss Wilks dance a minuet; some young ladies danced + cotillons in the cotillon gallery.... The spectacle at + first strikes one greatly, but then it becomes stupid.' + +The domain of personal incident crops up richly and interestingly +throughout these volumes, and comes freshly and truthfully upon us in +the correspondence of the hour. Whether we read of Lady ----, who ran +away with her footman John, and sent back her fine clothes, 'because she +would no longer have any need for them;' or of the deep gambling and +other queer affairs of Charles Fox in his dissipated youth; or of the +sayings and doings of the notorious Wilkes, who so shocked society, or +of his duel, in which he bore himself so honourably, the epistolary +narrative is full of _naïveté_ and interest. The second marriage of Lord +Coventry (whose first wife was the elder of the beautiful Miss Gunnings) +must have been what is now called 'good fun.' The marriage party was all +assembled in stately magnificence; but his Grace of Canterbury was from +home, and the licence did not arrive! But the party was equal to the +emergency--'so it was agreed that they should eat the dinner, rather +than it should be spoiled. So to dinner they went [at the early hour +then in fashion], and sat all the afternoon, dressed in their white and +silver, expecting every moment the express from Lambeth, but nothing +came. The same reason held good for eating a supper as for eating the +dinner; and in short they supped and sat till after two, and then, by +mutual consent, dismissed the parson, and all retired.' Two hours +afterwards (4 a.m.) the express with the licence arrived, and the +ceremony went off with due _éclat_ in the forenoon. We may remark that +it is comforting to find in these letters of the day a guarantee for the +genuineness of many of the excellent bonmots and repartees which have +taken their place in our anecdotical literature in connection with the +more or less famous men of that period, and which sparkle pleasantly +across the pages of these volumes. + +But quitting the domain of purely personal incident, let us glance at +some passages in the letters which throw curious light upon the England +of our forefathers in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Here is +a picture of Cambridgeshire which looks strange now, and which indeed +startled the writer thereof, Mrs. Harris, when she and her husband went +on a visit to their friend the Dean of Sarum's parsonage in that +locality. She says that the country is the most disagreeable she ever +saw; and talking of the Fens, says that the herds of cattle which feed +on them in the summer months are up to their bellies in water even in +the dry season:-- + + 'The natives dry the cowdung for firing in the winter; so + 'tis kept in heaps about the fields, as is also the dung of + their yards; so when you walk, the stink is inconceivable. + Mr. Harris took a ride to survey these fens, and he says + nothing can be so detestable. He talked with the natives, + who told him that during the winter the water was + constantly above the ancles in their houses.' + + 'The Dean's parsonage is surrounded with fens, and you are + teased beyond expression by the gnats. When we got here, + the Dean's butler came to your father with a pair of + leather stockings [the dress of that day was breeches and + silk stockings] to draw on so as to protect his legs, which + in hot weather [it was the month of June] is dreadful. + Besides this, the beds have a machine covered with a silk + net, which lets down after you are in bed, and covers you + all over. Without this, there could be no sleeping; for, + notwithstanding these precautions, we were most miserably + stung.' + +Were anyone to light upon this passage in an isolated form nowadays, he +would conclude without hesitation that it was an extract from some +Indian diary--the use of the word 'natives' completing the resemblance. +Here we have the Indian plague of mosquitoes existing in full severity +in England, and also the use of mosquito-nets around the beds at night, +exactly as in India. Nay, there is still another point of +resemblance--namely, in the use which the Cambridgeshire 'natives' made +of the cow-dung: drying and using it as fuel, as is the common practice +of the natives of our Eastern Empire. + +In the letters which relate to the events of the Rebellion of 1745, and +the march of the rebels into the heart of England, we have ample proof +alike of the general ignorance of places now well known to every one, +and of a want of the means of information in regard even to the great +events taking place in other parts of the kingdom, which read strangely +in these times when every morning we can know from the newspapers the +very way the wind is blowing in every quarter of our island. The +Highland army marches to and fro in its daring enterprise, although +several separate armies (Wade's, Ligonier's, the Duke of Cumberland's, +&c.) are on foot to meet or catch them: indeed, as we read in these +letters, 'more troops are in England than ever was known before,' yet +notwithstanding, the hardy light-moving Highlanders get through them all +into the heart of England, and quite as easily back again. We cannot +help thinking that the English generals had not much stomach for their +work. They were astonished and something more by the sudden and total +rout of Sir John Cope's army, and by the daring and marvellous rapidity +of the rebels' march; and it must be allowed that even in their retreat, +the Highlanders gave a good account of any force that tried to bar their +passage. As the noble editor incidentally observes, General Wade (who +was posted in the north of England to stop the southward march of the +rebels) only became famous after the rebellion was over; and his +marching and counter-marching to catch the rebels was of a very helpless +character indeed. + +Smuggling, as well as rebellion, profited greatly by the roadless +character of England in those days. Mr. and Mrs. Harris, on returning +home one night from Heron Court, then the property of their friend Mr. +Hooper, had great difficulty in getting over Ringwood Heath, an +adjoining waste land, about five miles in length--'the vile heath,' as +Mrs. Harris calls it--even with 'the assistance of two servants riding +before.' Heron Court now belongs to the Malmesbury family; and the +editor, in a foot-note, states that until the beginning of the present +century there were no roads but smugglers' tracks across those heaths. +They were a favourite place for contraband transit from the south coast; +and he mentions that all classes aided in carrying on this traffic. 'The +farmers lent their teams and labourers, and the gentry openly connived +at the practice, and dealt with the smugglers. The cargoes, chiefly of +brandy, were easily concealed in the furze bushes, that extended from +Ringwood to Poole, and in the New Forest for thirty miles.' We suspect +that the impossibility of carrying on such operations nowadays has had +much more to do with their cessation than the improvement in the +morality of the age. Look at the customary frauds in making returns to +the income-tax, and then say whether the middle-classes are a whit more +honest in fiscal matters now than they used to be when smuggling was +rife. + +How vastly London has changed and grown since the last century need not +be said, and the contrast between then and now, meets one almost in +every page of these lively letters. There was no Rotten-row, or the +fashionable rides in the Park, which make so gay a sight now in the +summer afternoons; and the whole district north of the Park knew nothing +of the noble streets and terraces which now occupy the space. Mrs. +Harris speaks with delight, almost rapture, of the sweet rural beauty of +a 'ride to Paddington of a July morning.' But with all our knowledge of +the change which has come over the British metropolis since that time, +it is startling to find that some nameless Dick Turpin or Claude Duval +could ply his trade with impunity even within the courtly precincts of +St. James's. In February, 1773, Mrs. Harris writes that 'a most +audacious fellow robbed Sir Francis Holburne and his sisters in their +coach, in St. James's Square, coming from the Opera. He was on +horseback, and held a pistol close to the breast of one of the Miss +Holburnes for a considerable time. She had left her purse at home--which +he would not believe. He has since robbed a coach in Park Lane.' In +these letters, too, there is the earliest mention which we have met with +of the tiny member of the finny tribe which now confers a greater +popular renown upon Greenwich than even its world-famous Observatory or +its magnificent Hospital, and which for a generation has caused that +place to be the honoured scene of the annual Ministerial banquet at +which our rulers meet together to congratulate one another upon the +approaching close of the Parliamentary session,--the famous 'whitebait +dinner,' which within the last two years has fallen into abeyance, +perhaps never to be revived. Mr. Harris, the founder of the family and +father of the first Earl Malmesbury, was then (1763) a Lord of the +Admiralty; and Mrs. Harris describes a 'most agreeable expedition on the +Thames,' which she had with a party in the 'Admiralty barge.' After +seeing Woolwich and all its military wonders, the lady says:-- + + 'We got back to Greenwich to dine. We had the smallest fish + I ever saw, called whitebait: they are only to be eat at + Greenwich, and are held in high estimation by the + epicures; they are not so large as the smallest of minnows, + but are really very good eating. We dined in a charming + place in the open air, which commanded a fine view of the + Thames; but were obliged to leave it at six o'clock, as the + tide was so cruel as not to stay for us--and they never + venture to shoot the bridge [old London bridge] with the + Admiralty barge at low water. We had a beastly walk through + the Borough after we landed.' + +Let us now quit old England for a moment to take a passing glance at the +Continent. As we have already said, the 'Diaries and Correspondence' of +the first Earl of Malmesbury are a rich mine of political information +and personal anecdote concerning the leading Courts of Europe; but we +must here confine our few gleanings of this kind from the newly +published 'Letters,' and content ourselves with some sketches of the +state of matters in France, in the period of decay and rottenness which +preceded the outburst of the terrible but life-reviving Revolution. +Young Mr. Harris (afterwards the first Earl), then only in his +twenty-second year, is passing through Paris in November, 1768, on his +way to assume a diplomatic post at Madrid, and thus he writes of the +French capital:-- + + 'I see no new improvements since I was last here; and, + except a few new fashions for caps and muffs, I believe + nothing has changed materially. On such subjects alone do + this lively people exercise their inventive faculties, + since the decease of Louis le Grand. They have now no + capital painters, few good sculptors, and still fewer good + authors; for the modern set of French writers are either + totally devoid of talents, or else employ them in such a + manner, and on such subjects, as to render their works of + very little use to the community. To pass for an _esprit + fort_ is all their ambition; and when a man has written + down all religions, without distinction, they cry, "_Pardi! + c'est un grand homme: il pense hardiment!_"' + +Turning from fashion and infidelity, the young diplomatist in another +letter describes the political aspect of affairs; remarking, _inter +alia_, that the Government 'are now expending the revenues of the year +1771 [three years in advance!] at the same time that the people are +labouring under the greatest necessity; garden stuff and bread, the +chief nourishment of the lower class in this country, being raised in +price one-third since last winter, and the greatest appearance also that +there will not be a sufficient quantity of either to supply the winter.' +But Court life and pageantry went on _quand même_. Seven years later, +a Dr. Jean takes up the correspondence from Paris. Speaking of the +Anglomania then prevalent, and which mingled with the Court gaieties, he +writes that the 'young Queen' (Marie Antoinette) has made herself +unpopular by 'a little misunderstanding in etiquette' between her and +the princes of the blood, and also by her great predilection for +everything that is English. And he describes a horse race, 'which is now +become a very frequent and frequented amusement.' Most of the cavaliers +in the concourse were 'badly imitating the English mode of riding;' also +'ladies of fashion, clad in boots and leather breeches, _astride_ on +their horses!' The Queen, with all her court, were upon the stand at the +starting post; and the race was 'managed by English grooms (_jackés_ as +they call them) and English horses.' The same correspondent also gives a +description of a _bal paré_ in 'the most decorated room perhaps in the +world,' the Opera House at Versailles. He says that Lord Clive, who was +present, 'declared that Asiatic display of riches appeared but as tinsel +to the brilliancy of the French court on that occasion.' 'The room,' +says Dr. Jean 'was filled by between three and four thousand people, +dressed in the richest, and at the same time the most fancied, taste +imaginable. The show which French ladies always make above those of +other nations added much to the spectacle. The ornaments of their +head-dress, and their robes, so disposed and varied, composed a most +beautiful _tout ensemble_. In regard to their persons, to be sure, they +seemed to be almost all of the same family, from the similarity of their +_complexions_, and the unity of their dress. It appeared to me an +assembly of houris.' He describes the Queen as 'very majestic, and at a +distance very handsome,' also with a remarkably fine hand and arm; and +he adds that she gives life to almost all public amusements, and 'is +very familiar with those who are in favour,'--an amiable though perhaps +not dignified _trait_ which brought her sad woe in the end, in +consequence of the calumnies set on foot against her by her base and +contemptible relative, the Duke of Orleans, _Philippe Egalité_. + +A romantic incident connected with the French Revolution happened to +Lord Malmesbury in 1793, when the French nobility and clergy were flying +from the sanguinary proscriptions of the Reign of Terror. He was walking +one day on the pier at Brighton (not then the scene of gaiety and +fashion which it is now), when a French fishing-boat approached the +pier, and one of the crew jumped out with a baby in his arms, and +addressed him. The poor fisherman said that a lady, known and beloved +by himself and his comrades, had thrown the baby into their boat, +entreating them to save its life by carrying it to England, whither, she +said, if she were spared, she would follow it. They had accordingly +stood over for Brighton, to entrust the infant, as the lady desired, to +the first Englishman they met. Lord Malmesbury at once took charge of +the helpless little exile, and had it conveyed to Lady Malmesbury at his +house. In a few weeks, the mother, after many hair-breadth escapes, +found her way to England, and knowing where the child had been landed, +soon discovered its place of refuge. The baby became a handsome and +fascinating woman, and, as Madame Alfred de Noailles, was for many years +a leader of fashion in the first circles of Paris. When Lady Malmesbury +was at Paris in 1816, we find her writing of Madame Alfred as 'our +daughter;' and his quondam _protégé_, in all her letters to Lord +Malmesbury, used to sign herself 'Leontine Harris.' + +Although tempted to linger longer over these interesting letters, our +narrowing limits warn us that we must leave untrod a large portion of +the field which they present, alike for gossiping and for sage +historical reflection. But ere we close, we must say a few words as to +the leading members of the family whose correspondence has now been +given to the world. Of Mr. James Harris, who, though not himself +ennobled, may justly be regarded as the founder of the Malmesbury +family, we have already spoken. He was a literary man of fine tastes, a +member of Parliament, and a subordinate member of several +Administrations. He does not appear to have had the brilliant abilities +of his son, the first Earl; but he had a pleasant and healthy +temperament, a perfect rectitude of nature, and a sound sagacity, which +qualities have since been hereditary in the family. There are only a few +letters of his in this collection, but in almost every one of these, +brief though they are, there is some remark or other which shows his +shrewd and healthy common sense, whether in great matters or little +ones. When a motion was made in the House (1770), to restrain revenue +officers from voting at elections (a disfranchisement only recently +removed), Mr. Harris writes that it was 'a rather tedious debate, full +of that patriotic commonplace which nobody believes that talks it, nor +anyone else but a few dupes in the provinces.' When we were on the eve +of war with Spain, in 1770, about the Falkland Islands, he writes:--'It +moves me to indignation that two respectable nations, naturally made for +friends, should take to cutting one another's throats for a paltry +island, not better than Bagshot Heath, and which if it were merged in +the ocean, would be no loss to either. Let it be with nations as with +individuals: if ye _can_ help it, don't quarrel at all--'tis more +conformant to your social nature; but if ye _must_ quarrel, for heaven's +sake let it not be for trifles, for objects of the lowest contempt.' But +when this Spanish difficulty was happily got over, to the general +satisfaction of the country, which, he says, 'does not wish a war, +whatever wicked patriots may endeavour;' he adds, 'None make such +audacious use of the word _people_ as these do--a word which often means +no more than themselves, and their ignorant or interested followers.' + +His son, the first Earl of Malmesbury, was perhaps the ablest +diplomatist whom England has produced; certainly he was second to none +in the long roll of distinguished men who have served the State as +ambassadors and ministers in foreign countries. There is an anecdote of +his boyhood, narrated by his relative Lord Shaftesbury, which perhaps +may be taken as an indication of the courage and self-reliance which the +youth was afterwards to display in a very different form. As his mother +was walking one day with some friends before her house in the Close at +Salisbury, she descried some one climbing up the spire of the cathedral; +and having obtained a glass the better to observe so perilous a feat, +she immediately dropped it, exclaiming, 'Good heavens! it is James!' The +astonished lady had discovered her only son upon the apex of the tallest +steeple in Great Britain. Of his life at Oxford, he himself (taking a +retrospect in 1800) gives a poor account, either as regards learning or +amusements. He says that the set of men with whom he lived were very +pleasant, but very idle fellows. 'Our life was an imitation of high life +in London: luckily, drinking was not the fashion; but what we did drink +was claret, and we had our regular round of evening card parties, to the +great annoyance of our finances. It has often been a matter of surprise +to me how so many of us [Charles Fox, Lord Auckland, Bishop North, and +others] made our way so well in the world, and so creditably.' From +Oxford he went to the University of Leyden; and as he became a favourite +with our Minister at the Hague, young Harris had ample opportunities of +mingling in the court life, and also of studying carefully the political +affairs of Holland--a knowledge which he was afterwards destined to turn +to most valuable account. In the following year (1767) he made a journey +to Prussia, Poland, and Paris; and in 1768, although only in his +twenty-second year, he was appointed secretary of embassy at the Court +of Madrid. In this post, an opportunity arising, the youth greatly +distinguished himself; for, having been temporarily left chargé +d'affaires, he undertook upon his own responsibility the critical affair +of the Falkland Islands, which he conducted so admirably as to win the +praise of both political parties at home; and the issue, so honourable +to England, at once established his diplomatic reputation, and obtained +for him in the following year the post of Minister at Berlin, where +Frederick the Great, although past his prime, reigned in the full vigour +of his tyrannical and eccentric genius. Next, after a few months in +England in 1776, when he married, he was sent to St. Petersburg as our +minister at the Court of the Empress Catherine, whose shameless passion +for 'favourites' affected even her policy, and where he had a hard +battle to fight, owing to the Empress's ill-will to England, although +his _esprit_ and remarkable conversational talents made him personally +much more liked by the Empress than any of his diplomatic rivals. It +appears to have been a costly office, and diplomatic salaries at that +time were so inadequate that on leaving Russia he had diminished his +private fortune to the extent of £20,000. + +The severe climate of Russia broke down his health, and he returned to +England in 1782, having previously received from the King the Order of +the Bath, in acknowledgement of his services at the Russian Court. But +two years afterwards he was despatched to the Hague, at that moment the +scene of the most active political operations and manoeuvres; the +Stadtholder being then threatened with deposition, and Holland with +subjection to France. In this emergency, Sir James Harris matured a bold +plan of an Anglo-Prussian alliance and an intervention on behalf of +Holland; a project which Mirabeau, the French agent at Berlin, when he +got wind of it, scouted as absurd, _et seulement la conception +personelle de cet audacieux et rusé Harris_, but which completely +succeeded--freeing Holland from her peril, and winning high fame for its +bold projector, who was created Baron Malmesbury, and received honours +from the King of Prussia and the Stadtholder. Lord Malmesbury now +enjoyed the almost unbounded confidence of his Government in all matters +relating to foreign politics, and was entrusted with all the most +important missions. In 1793, he was sent to Berlin, and in 1796 and +again in the following year he was sent to France to endeavour to +negotiate a peace with the French Directory. We cannot do more than +simply mention those important missions; but we cannot refrain from +noticing a mission of a very different kind which befel him in 1794, +when he received orders 'to ask of the Duke of Brunswick his daughter in +marriage for the Prince of Wales.' Lord Malmesbury had little hope of +this union turning out well, but he had no discretionary power in the +matter, so he married her Royal Highness by proxy, and brought her over +to England. The Prince of Wales never forgave Lord Malmesbury for his +share in this affair, which was certainly hard upon his Lordship, +especially as he had no end of difficulties with the German princess, as +well as with some of the ladies of the Court, who had reasons of their +own for hating Prince George's _fiancée_. Here is his Lordship's account +of the first interview between the Princess and her royal betrothed:-- + + 'I, according to the established etiquette, introduced (no + one else being in the room) the Princess Caroline to him. + She very properly, in consequence of my saying to her it + was the right mode of proceeding, attempted to kneel to + him. He raised her (gracefully enough), and embraced her, + said barely one word, turned round, retired to a distant + part of the apartment, and calling me to him said, "Harris, + I am not well, pray get me a glass of brandy." I said, + "Sir, had you not better have a glass of water?" upon which + he, much out of humour, said with an oath, "No!" and away + he went. The Princess, left during the short moment alone, + was in a state of astonishment, and on my joining her said, + "_Mon Dieu! est-ce que le Prince est toujours comme cela? + Je le trouve très gros, et nullement aussi beau que son + portrait._" I said His Royal Highness was naturally a good + deal affected and flurried at this first interview, but she + certainly would find him different at dinner. + + 'At dinner I was far from satisfied with the Princess's + behaviour; it was flippant, rattling, affected raillery and + wit, and throwing out coarse vulgar hints about Lady ----, + who was present, and, though mute, _le diable n'en perdait + rien_. The Prince was evidently disgusted. And this + unfortunate dinner fixed his dislike, which, when, left to + herself, the Princess had not the talent to remove, but, by + still observing the same giddy manners and attempts at + cleverness and coarse sarcasm, increased it till it became + positive hatred.' + +Soon after the Earl's last diplomatic mission to France, in 1797, he was +seriously attacked by deafness, in consequence of which infirmity he +thought it right to decline all further State employment either in the +Cabinet or abroad; but during the lives of Mr. Pitt and the Duke of +Portland, he remained in the most intimate political confidence of those +Ministers and their principal colleagues. Indeed, during the greater +part of the war with Napoleon, every scrap of important news received at +the Foreign Office appears to have been forwarded to him; and in 1814 +he was consulted by Lord Liverpool's Government on the readjustment of +Europe, and the arrangements relating to Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, +and Prussia, were principally suggested and settled by him. During the +closing years of his life (he died in 1820, at the age of seventy-five), +he passed most of his time in London and at Parkplace, his seat near +Henley, receiving at his house constantly, and with the same pleasure, +the rising generation of statesmen and literary men, as he had shown +formerly in associating with his own distinguished contemporaries. He +early appreciated the high talents of Mr. Canning, Lord Grenville, and +Lord Palmerston, and used his influence with the statesmen of the time +to draw special attention to those illustrious men who have now become +memorable in English history. He was the guardian of Lord Palmerston, +and by his influence obtained for him his first official appointment. + +Two portraits of the Earl are given in these volumes: one taken in the +early part of his career when he was simple Mr. Harris, the other when +he was full of years and honours, at the age of seventy. Both are +handsome faces, but though the first has the advantage of youth, with a +look of _esprit_ and lively courage, the second is really the finer and +nobler head--a phenomenon only observable in rare cases, where high +intellect is united with goodness of heart and a well-balanced +temperament. His grandson, who edits these works, and who--in consonance +with the principles of life so wisely and admirably laid down by the +first Earl, with special reference to the nobility, but whose beautiful +precepts are applicable to all spheres of life--has devoted himself from +youth to the public service, and has twice been the Foreign Minister of +England, appends some true remarks as to the difference in the work and +responsibilities of diplomatists which has been created by the progress +of civilization and the great change in the political condition of the +nations of Europe. But the result of those changes has been to lessen +the responsibility and lighten the labour of our Ministers abroad, and +the contrast serves only to heighten the well-won reputation of the +diplomatist whose 'Letters and Correspondence' have supplied materials +for this article. The cynical but pre-eminently sagacious Talleyrand, +speaking simply of Lord Malmesbury's intellectual powers and knowledge +of human nature, apart from those high personal qualities by which he +was distinguished, said, _Je crois que Lord Malmesbury était le plus +habile Ministre que vous aviez de son temps. C'était inutile de le +devancer, il fallait le suivre de près. Si on lui laissait le dernier +mot, il avait toujours raison._ And as is shown alike by his official +career, and by his private correspondence, we may well apply to the +first Lord Malmesbury the epithet by which M. Thiers has so truly +characterized Mr. Pitt--'ce pur Anglais.' + + + + +ART. IV.--_The Explorations in Palestine. Publications of the Palestine +Exploration Fund, viz._-- + +(1.) _Report of Preliminary Meeting, 1865._ + +(2.) _Captain Wilson's Expedition, 1866._ + +(3.) _Meeting at Cambridge, 1867._ + +(4.) _Annual Meeting, with Lieutenant Warren's Report, 1868._ + +(5.) _Statement of Progress, January 1st, 1869._ + +(6.) _Lieutenant Warren's Letters and Reports, with Lithographed Plans._ + +(7.) _Lieutenant Warren's Notes on the Valley of the Jordan, and +Excavations at Ain es Sultan (Jericho.)_ + +(8.) _Dean Stanley's Sermon on the Exploration of Palestine._ + +(9--15.) _Quarterly Statements_ I. _to_ VII., _April, 1869, to October, +1870._ + +(16.) _The Recovery of Jerusalem._ Edited by the Honorary Officers of +the Palestine Exploration Fund. With Fifty Illustrations. Richard +Bentley. + + +The Palestine Exploration Society was established in 1865, for the +accurate and systematic investigation of the archeology, topography, +geology, physical geography, and manners and customs of the Holy Land, +for Biblical illustration. The universality of interest belonging to +Palestine, and the inefficiency of individual efforts at exploration, +made the step advisable; while the success of the Ordnance Survey of +Jerusalem in 1864 at once suggested the scheme and gave encouragement to +its promoters. In the original prospectus of the Society it was proposed +to excavate at Jerusalem for the purpose of ascertaining the extent of +the Temple enclosure, the position of the tombs of the kings, the site +of the Tower of Antonia, &c; to examine other important sites, such as +Gerizim, Samaria, Jiljilieh (probably Gilgal) and the mounds at Jericho; +to collect materials for a work on manners and customs comparable to Mr. +Lane's 'Modern Egyptians;' to effect an accurate survey of the Holy +Land; to determine levels and sites and the course of ancient roads; to +investigate the geology of the country, especially in the Valley of +Jordan and basin of the Dead Sea; and lastly, to apply the same energy +and ability to the study of the botany, zoology, and meteorology of +Palestine, which naturalists have given to those of the forests of South +America and the rivers of Africa. The time is come when we may ask how +much of this programme has been carried out, and what amount of light, +if any, is being thrown on the Scriptural history. Three years ago, we +touched upon the subject;[10] but the Society was then in its infancy, +its work only just begun, and the publication of results confined to +one or two small pamphlets. We now have at least enough reports to make +a thick octavo volume, and these so packed with technical details that +they will have to be spread out into three volumes more before their +information can be grasped by the ordinary reader. We have, moreover, +now before us the book called the 'Recovery of Jerusalem,' which is +partly such an expansion and partly a comment on the work, with a trifle +of new material. + +The active work of the Society commenced in December, 1865, when Captain +Wilson, E.E., and Lieutenant Anderson, E.E., with Corporal Phillips, as +photographer, landed at Beyrout, to probe the country from north to +south. Captain Wilson was the intelligent officer who had surveyed +Jerusalem the previous year, and given us a map of that city, as +accurate and reliable in every particular as any map to be had to-day of +the city of London. This first expedition, in the course of six months, +traversed Palestine from Damascus to Hebron, constructing a series of +maps of the entire backbone of the country, excavating at Tel Salhiyeh +(near Damascus), at Kedes (Kadesh Naphtali), and Mount Gerizim; +examining remains of ancient synagogues, copying old inscriptions, +collecting materials for about fifty plans, with detailed drawings of +churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and tombs, and tracing the +ancient system of irrigation of the Plain of Gennesareth. The report of +this tentative expedition was in favour of Jerusalem as the headquarters +of any future exploring party, since that city promised to prove the +greatest mine of discoveries, and to yield the quickest results. +Accordingly, in November, 1866, we find Lieutenant Warren, R.E., at work +in Palestine, at first with only Sergeant Birtles for his assistant, but +afterwards with several corporals as well, and with permission to engage +a number of native labourers, according to the amount of excavation +going on. Lieutenant Warren spent two months in survey-work east and +west of Jordan, and then concentrated his energies on Jerusalem, where +he laboured at shafts and galleries almost incessantly, till he was +invalided home, in May of the year 1870. + +Although the operations at Jerusalem, besides being the more extensive, +are also the more interesting in character, it may be well to look, +first, at the results of Captain Wilson's expedition, and in connection +with that officer's work, to consider the later labours of Warren, where +they are of the same kind. First, with regard to the survey-work: it is +marvellous that we have never yet had a decently correct map of the land +in which all Christians are so much interested. The Admiralty have given +us correct charts of the coast-line, but in the interior of the country +hundreds of sites remain to be verified, and hundreds to be discovered; +while the east of Jordan is almost a _terra incognita_, and the maps of +it scarcely more than creations of the fancy. It is as though in England +we were acquainted with but the line of the Great Northern Railway and +the towns within a little distance of it on either side, and in Wales +knew only the position of three or four of the principal towns. The +Wilson exploring party fixed for the first time the exact latitude and +longitude of nearly seventy places between Damascus and Jerusalem, +determined many sites, ascertained heights, and recorded the features of +the ground along which they passed. Lieutenant Warren has obtained the +latitude and longitude of many scores of places, fixed the height of +some hundreds, and surveyed so much ground that the committee are able +to announce the map of Palestine, on the scale of one inch to the mile, +as 'now approaching completion.' Much of this work was done in the +dangerous country east of Jordan, where life is not safe without an +escort, and the sheikh who bargains to protect you is ready to sell you +to the next chieftain who thinks your friends can pay a ransom. + +Connected with the surveying is the settlement of topographical +questions. We have seen an old book which professed to give the latitude +and longitude of every place visited by the Scriptural kings, prophets +and apostles, with their relative positions and distances from one +another in miles. Such information, if reliable, would be of great +value, for there is so close a connection between history and geography +that in some cases the first cannot be understood without a knowledge of +the second; and in most cases the geographical or topographical +knowledge will at least assist us to realise the history. + +In this department our knowledge is still scanty, though good service +has been rendered by the explorers. The site of Capernaum, which has +been fixed in three different places by Egmont, Robinson, and De Saulcy, +and which Dean Stanley regarded as utterly lost, has been fixed by +Wilson with very small chance of error, where Soewulf placed it in the +beginning of the twelfth century, viz., at Tel Hum,[11] on the +north-western corner of the lake. The determining circumstance was the +discovery of the irrigation of the plain of Gennesareth, as described by +Josephus,[12] and its connection with the Tabighah Fountain, whereas +attention had previously been fixed on the Round Fountain. It is +confirmatory of Wilson's view, that while at the Round Fountain there +are no ruins, except some small foundations which may have been +anything, Tel Hum possesses extensive ruins, including those of a +synagogue. Two miles north of Tel Hum--at Kerazeh, a spot indicated by +the Rev. G. Williams, in 1842, and indeed by Pococke, as early as +1740--Lieutenant Anderson identified Chorazin, by the presence of +extensive remains, including those of a synagogue. Of no less interest +is the discovery of the scene of the destruction of the herd of swine. +Lord Lindsay, Mr. Elliott, and others had been on the eastern shores of +the lake, but their accounts were mutually contradictory; and Dean +Stanley, after rewriting his note on the place again and again, had been +obliged to scratch it out altogether. It now appears that there is only +one place--namely, Khersa, about half way between Wady Fîk and Wady +Semakh--which fulfils all the conditions required by the Biblical +narrative. The hills which everywhere else on the eastern side receded +from a half to three-quarters of a mile from the water's edge, here +approach within forty feet of it; not, indeed, terminating abruptly, but +presenting a steep, even slope. The 'Dictionary of the Bible' places the +scene at Gadara, now Um Keis, a place from which the swine would have +had a hard gallop of two hours before reaching the lake. + +We have also in these publications an admirable paper by Captain Wilson, +'On the site of Ai and the position of the Altar which Abram built +between Bethel and Ai;' and another by the Rev. Dr. Zeller, Protestant +clergyman at Nazareth, on 'Kefr Kenna.' As the old Hebrew names of +places commonly cling to the spot under some Arabic disguise--the hill +of Dan, for instance, being now Tel el-Kadi (both Kadi in Arabic, and +Dan in Hebrew, being equivalent to 'judge' in English)--it is doing +good service to collect Arabic names. Great care, however, is needed in +this work, for the same _wady_ may have different names in different +parts; two or three hills, a fountain, and several ruins may all have +one name--that of the district; and the traveller may misunderstand the +Arabic answers to his questions. Mr. Layard tells a story of a +traveller, who published, for the benefit of those who might follow in +his footsteps, a little vocabulary, but whose own ignorance of the +language is shown by the fact that several places on his map are marked +with the word _Mabarafsh_. The fact was, that when the traveller asked +his guide the name of a place the man answered _Mabarafsh_--'I don't +know,' and down went this name on the map. In the same traveller's +vocabulary 'nose' is put down as _snuff_; for when he wanted the word +for nose he had probably raised his hand, and the Arab supposed he +wanted 'snuff.' Under these circumstances, it must have been very +satisfactory to Lieutenant Warren, after making a list of 150 places +visited or seen on the east of Jordan, to find that wherever Robinson +had been before him there was substantial agreement in the spelling. +Lieutenant Warren and Dr. Chaplin, of Jerusalem, also obtained many +names in the course of a tour from Jisr Damieh to Jisr Mejamia and back; +and the former has given us a list of thirty-four Tels in the Jordan +valley. More work of the same kind will have to be done, as there is +much confusion in the spelling of names; besides which there exist many +unnamed cities and ruins on both sides of the Jordan. South of Ammân +(the ancient Rabbath-Amman, and afterwards Philadelphia, 2 Sam. xi. and +xii.), Lieutenant Warren came upon a piece of elevated country, about +four miles square, literally covered with ruins of temples and houses. + +The synagogue at Capernaum was only one out of nine synagogues examined +in the district north of the Sea of Galilee, and the investigation was +so thorough that the plan of the building was made out, and careful +drawings made and measurements taken. The result has been to dissipate +the idea that the synagogues were barn-like structures, and to prove +that they had considerable architectural pretensions. + + 'They all lie north and south, have three gateways in the + southern end, the interior divided into five aisles, by + four rows of columns, and the two northern corners formed + by double engaged columns. The style of decoration does not + always appear to have been the same. At Tel Hum (the + strongest claimant for the site of Capernaum) and Kerazeh + (Chorazin), Corinthian capitals were found; at Irbid, a + mixture of Corinthian and Ionic; whilst Kefr Birim, Meiron, + Um el-Amud have capitals of a peculiar character. The faces + of the lintels over the gateway are usually ornamented with + some device; at Nebartein there is an inscription and + representation of the seven-branched candlestick; at Kefr + Birim the ornament appears to have been intended for the + Paschal lamb; and at Tel Hum there are the pot of manna and + lamb. A scroll of vine leaves, with bunches of grapes, is + one of the most frequent ornaments. The investigator cannot + fail to be struck by their resemblance in plan--accidental + or otherwise--to the palaces of Persepolis and to the House + of the Forest of Lebanon, built by Solomon.' + +For particular description and measurements our architectural readers +must be referred to Captain Wilson's paper in Quarterly Statement No. +II. These synagogues date either from the Christian era or the centuries +immediately following. Mr. R. Phené Spiers, M.R.I.B.A., says, from the +third to the sixth centuries, inclusive. The Rev. George Williams, of +Cambridge, assigns them to a period prior to the destruction of +Jerusalem, both because the depopulation of the country after that event +made it almost impossible that they should have been built subsequently, +and because the style of ornament so much resembled that of the tombs of +the kings (so-called) at Jerusalem. In that case they may have been +trodden by the feet of Christ; and the ruins of Capernaum may be remains +of the very building concerning which the Jewish elders said, the +centurion is worthy--'for he loveth our nation, and hath built us the +synagogue.' Yet Dr. Robinson, whose ears and eyes seemed to be open to +hear and see all that was really to be heard and seen in connection with +sacred topography, did not mention these various ruins till his second +journey in 1852, giving then only a brief account of them, while +previous to that year there had been no account of them at all. + +Another admirable paper of Wilson's, also illustrated with plans, is 'On +the Remains of Tombs in Palestine.' Rock-hewn tombs appear to be the +earliest in date, and are the tombs most commonly met with, the softer +strata of limestone, especially the white chalk in some districts, being +well adapted for excavation. Sometimes a natural cavern is made use of, +sometimes a square or oblong chamber is cut in the rock, while in a +third class one entrance leads into a number of sepulchral chambers; and +in all these cases _loculi_ or resting-places for the bodies are either +sunk in the surface of the rock much after the manner of a modern grave, +or driven into the rock-face like a small tunnel or pigeon-hole. In the +so-called tomb of Joshua at Tibneh, after passing through a chamber with +fourteen _loculi_, a smaller one is reached which has only one _loculus_ +at its extreme end, an arrangement not noticed elsewhere; the face and +sides of the porch are nearly covered with niches for lamps, and round +the door are traces of plaster. The tombs of the kings at Jerusalem come +into this class, and are described, as well as the tombs of the +prophets, the tombs of the Judges, and a large tomb discovered by Lieut. +Warren in the Kedron valley. Masonry tombs, which constitute the second +class, are few in number, and confined to the northern portion of the +country. It is possible that at Tel Hum, where the (basaltic) rock is so +hard as to make excavation difficult, this form of tomb was commonly +used. If the tombs in which the demoniac lived were of this description, +their disappearance is not at all surprising. Besides these two classes +of tombs, and their subdivisions, sarcophagi are sometimes found, those +at Kedes (Kadesh Naphtali, the city of refuge in the midst of Canaanite +strongholds) being the most elaborately ornamented. The material is hard +white limestone, almost marble, and the workmanship is excellent: the +usual design on the sides is a garland held up in two or more loops by +nude figures, with some device over each end and a bunch of grapes +hanging from the bottom. Two sarcophagi have been shipped to England by +Lieut. Warren, and were exhibited, with other articles, at the Dudley +Gallery in the summer of last year. + +A paper in these Quarterly Statements, which has greatly pleased the +architects is that on the ruined temples of Coele-Syria. In the summer +of 1869, _Captain_ Warren (we are glad to notice his promotion) was +obliged to take his party to the Lebanon in consequence of their having +suffered severely from fever in Jerusalem. While there they occupied +themselves in investigating the ruined temples of Coele-Syria and +Mount Hermon, and the exhaustive manner in which the work was done, +places us in possession of so much information that we may be said to +have previously known nothing at all on the subject. The extremely +careful tracings (fifteen in number) sent home by Captain Warren are to +be seen at the office of the Fund; but two of them, selected by the +advice of Mr. Fergusson, are given to subscribers with Captain Warren's +complete and detailed account of the temples in Quarterly Statement No. +V. The temples of Coele-Syria date from Roman times, and the +inscriptions found on them are mostly Greek. The small temples about +Mount Hermon appear to be somewhat more ancient, their architecture +being of the Ionic order. On the summit of Hermon stands the ruins of a +sacellum, _i.e._, a rectangular building without a roof, which has +nothing in its construction in common with the temples on the west +below, and which probably had to do with a different and more ancient +form of worship. Captain Warren's investigations led him into a +discussion of the question of the orientation of heathen temples. It had +been surmised by Dr. Robinson and several other writers that the temples +about Hermon were turned towards it as to a kibleh, so that the +worshippers might face it when they prayed; but now that the directions +and angles are taken, it is found that they all have their entrances +more or less towards the _east_, and in no case does the entrance or any +side of the building face direct upon the summit of Hermon. The Jewish +tabernacle and afterwards the temple at Jerusalem faced the +east--according to Josephus--in order that when the sun arose it might +send its first rays upon it; according to some of the Jews of the +present day, in order that the priest might watch for the first dawn of +day in offering up the morning sacrifice. + +The principle which accounts for the eastward aspect of the temple at +Jerusalem, accounts also for the southward aspect of the synagogues of +Galilee: as that was open to the east, so they were open to the temple. +It would be a crucial test of this theory to examine the remains of a +synagogue said to exist near Beersheba, the only ruin of the kind which +is not due north from Jerusalem. + +The mention of temples reminds us that on Mount Gerizim numerous +excavations were made under the direction of Lieut. Anderson. Within the +ruins known as the 'Castle,' the foundations of an octagonal church were +laid bare, probably the church known to have been built there by +Justinian. On the eastern side of the church is an apse, on the northern +side the main entrance, and on each of the others, doors leading to +small side chapels. In the interior are the piers of a smaller octagon, +apparently intended to carry a dome. The church and castle were found to +be built on a rough platform of large stones laid together without +mortar, and of this--which may possibly be the platform on which the +Samaritan Temple stood--the 'twelve stones,' fabled to have been brought +up by the tribes from the bed of the Jordan, form a portion. No trace +of large foundations could be found on the southern portion of the small +plateau on which the castle stands. Close to the Holy Rock of the +Samaritans a number of human remains were dug up, but no clue could be +obtained to their age or nationality. The study of the synagogue remains +of Galilee, as well as the temples, mosques, churches, tombs, +inscriptions, aqueducts, castles, theatres, ruined cities and general +aspect of the country, is much facilitated by the series of 350 +photographs taken by the two expeditions, which are most of them +beautifully executed and very many of them taken for the first time. + +We must now follow Captain Warren to Jerusalem, where the longer course +of the operations supplies us with larger results for criticism; and the +_reason_ for the more extended labours is a reason for our devoting more +space to their consideration; it being simply the paramount interest of +Jerusalem and the richness of the field Scripturally, historically, and +archæologically. The ground on which the city of Jerusalem stands is +included in a fork between two ravines, whose point of union is to the +south-east of the city, near the Well of Joab, and which, if we trace +them backward, may be said to clasp the city, the one on the south and +west, the other on the east. The eastern ravine is known as the Valley +of Jehoshaphat or of the Kedron, the westernmost as the Valley of +Hinnom. On the north side they run up to the level of the northern part +of the city; so that Jerusalem is not an isolated hill, but the southern +tongue of a great plateau which stretches away northward. This +table-land is one of the highest in the country, and Jerusalem is about +2,500 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, while the Dead Sea, +only twelve miles to the east, is 1,300 feet below the same. Of the +cities of Palestine, Jerusalem alone is thus entrenched with deep +ravines--a mountain fastness, with natural defences on every side except +the north; and to this circumstance she owed in a great measure her +early strength and subsequent greatness. After Joshua's conquest, the +aboriginal inhabitants of Palestine, who elsewhere lingered only in the +plains, were, able here to maintain a position in the hills;[13] and +Joshua, Barak, Gideon, and Saul passed away without seeing the Jebusites +conquered. When David became king of all Israel, it was necessary to fix +his capital farther north than Hebron, and no city appeared so suitable +as Jebus, both on account of its strength and its central position, and +perhaps also from the circumstance that it was partly in the tribe of +Judah, to which David belonged, and partly in Benjamin, the tribe of +Saul. So strong was the citadel that the blind and the lame were thought +sufficient to defend the walls; but the steep ascent was climbed by +Joab, and David 'took the stronghold of Zion.' Before David's time the +men of Judah and the men of Benjamin had gained some partial successes +at Jerusalem, and perhaps before the Israelitish invasion the city had +experienced varied fortunes in the wars of the aboriginal tribes among +themselves. But in the 3,000 years since David's time, how eventful has +been its history! From David to Nebuchadnezzar, from Nebuchadnezzar to +Pompey and Titus, from Titus to the Crusaders, from Saladin to Sultan +Suliman, who built the present walls in 1542, the sieges have been no +fewer than twenty; while the city has been four or five times sacked or +utterly destroyed. + +It is very much in consequence of the repeated destruction of its walls +and buildings that its topography has become so much obscured. This +could hardly have been the case with any other city of which we had such +full descriptions, nor with Jerusalem if ravines had not run _through_ +the city as well as round it; the _débris_ has found its way into these +intramural valleys, from which its removal was difficult and perhaps +inadvisable. The description which Josephus gives of the city is as +follows:-- + + 'The city was built upon two hills, which are opposite to + one another and have a valley to divide them asunder; at + which valley the corresponding rows of houses on both hills + end. Of these hills that which contains the upper city is + much higher, and in length more direct. Accordingly it was + called the citadel by king David (he was the father of that + Solomon who built this temple at the first); but it is by + us called the Upper Market Place. But the other hill, which + was called Akra, and sustains the lower city, is of the + shape of a crescent moon. Over against this was a third + hill, but naturally lower than Akra, and parted formerly + from the other by a broad valley. However, in those times + when the Asamoneans reigned, they filled up that valley + with earth and had a mind to join the city to the temple. + They then took off part of the height of Akra and reduced + it to be of less elevation than it was before, that the + temple might be superior to it. Now, the valley of the + cheesemakers, as it was called, being that which we told + you before distinguished the hill of the upper city from + that of the lower, extended as far as Siloam; for that is + the name of a fountain which hath sweet water in it, and + that in great plenty also. But on the outsides these hills + are surrounded by deep valleys, and by reason of the + precipices to them belonging on both sides, they are + everywhere unpassable.[14] + + 'In section 2 of the same chapter, he says, "It was Agrippa + who encompassed the parts added to the old city with this + [third] wall, which had been all naked before; for as the + city grew more populous it gradually crept beyond its old + limits, and those parts of it that stood northward of the + temple and joined that hill to the city, made it + considerably larger, and occasioned that hill, which is in + number the fourth, and is called Bezetha, to be inhabited + also."' + +It would be easy from these descriptions to trace an ideal map of +Jerusalem with its ancient hills and valleys; but such a map would not +correspond by a long way with Jerusalem as it is now. The city, as +enclosed by its walls to-day, approximates to the form of a +parallelogram whose eastern and western sides run north and south, but +whose western side as a whole stands more southerly than its eastern +side as a whole. From outside the Damascus Gate, near the middle of the +north wall, a very marked valley traverses the city, deepening as it +runs southward, and terminating by a junction with the Kedron valley +outside the south wall, near the Pool of Siloam. The half of the city to +the west of this valley is the higher of the two, and is itself highest +at its north-western part; the half of the city to the east consists of +the Haram esh-Sherêf--a raised platform about 1,500 feet from north to +south and 900 feet from east to west, and of about an equal space of +streets and houses. The Haram is the southern portion and is separately +enclosed with walls, though its entire east wall and two-thirds of the +south are coincident, so far, with the walls of the city. The one valley +from Damascus Gate gives us two hills within the city; but according to +Josephus there were four, and even if we suppose that Bezetha, the 'new +town,' last added to the city, was afterwards excluded from it by a +narrowing of the compass of the walls, we must still find a second +valley to give us a third hill. In the part of the city to the north of +the Haram area a valley runs down from Herod's Gate in the north wall +towards St. Stephen's Gate in the east wall; but the narrow ridge on the +north-east side of this valley is connected with the high ground outside +the city, and can hardly be of itself the third hill we are in search +of. There must have been a valley then which has become obliterated--in +fact, Josephus tells us that the Maccabees did fill up a valley, to +connect the city with the temple, in the second century B.C. But +inasmuch as the valley is not now apparent, it has to be supplied from +conjecture, and in consequence we have had a mass of topographical +controversy unequalled for its extent, its confusion, and its +bitterness. The valley from the Damascus Gate is usually identified with +Josephus's Tyropoeon valley or valley of the cheesemakers; but some +writers bring a valley across from the Jaffa Gate, which is near the +middle of the west wall, into this north-and-south valley, and call it +the Tyropoeon from Jaffa Gate to Siloam. The valley from Damascus +Gate, again, is often made to send off a branch to the east across the +Haram platform, cutting it sometimes near its northern wall and +sometimes farther south than the dome of the rock or Mosque of Omar, +which stands on a smaller platform near the centre of the larger. It is +disputed, also, which is the valley of Hinnom, which the valley of +Kedron, whether Hinnom was not on the east of the city, and whether +Gihon did not come down through the middle of the city. + +The fate of the valleys determines the fate of the hills, and we are +perplexed to know which was Mount Zion, which Moriah, and which Akra, +nothing seeming to be certain except that the modern Zion (the western +hill) is not the ancient Zion, that the Temple (and therefore Moriah) +was somewhere within the Haram enclosure, and that the hill to the east +of the present Kedron valley is the Mount of Olives. The position of the +hills and valleys determines the course of the streams; for the brook +Kedron presumably followed the valley of that name, the Pools of Gihon +were in the valley of Gihon (if there was a valley of Gihon); and when +Hezekiah 'brought the upper watercourse of Gihon straight down to the +west side of the city of David,' the direction of the new channel +depends on the position assigned to 'the city of David, which is +Zion.'[15] On the position and contour of the hills, again, depends the +direction of the ancient walls; for these would in general follow the +brow of the hill, except on the north side, where the ground made no +descent, while Zion appears to have been separately enclosed, so as to +need a siege by itself. Until we know the direction of the walls, we +know not where to look for the gates and towers, nor for the sepulchres +of the kings, which were most of them within the city of David;[16] nor +for the Holy Sepulchre, which was _outside_ the gates. A grand point +also is the exact site of the temple, which carries with it that of +Antonia, which Josephus says was at the junction of the north and west +cloisters, and may also help us to find Solomon's palace, and to +determine the position of the king's gardens. It must be evident that, +while these points remain unsettled, the history of Jerusalem, from +David's age to that of Titus, must lack for us the definiteness and +vividness which are so essential to its complete understanding. Of +theories we have had enough--they are guesses not without a certain +value, but guesses almost in the dark--facts are wanted, to test and +correct the theories; and these facts the Palestine Exploration +Committee promised to supply. + +Captain Warren saw that two courses were open to him, in his endeavours +to recover a first thread of the old topography--(1) to obtain the +contours of the ground as they existed in olden times; (2) to dig about +the supposed site of some remarkable building, in hopes of finding its +remains. Both these methods were adopted; and although excavation is not +allowed in the sacred places, and the work has been crippled elsewhere +for want of funds, enough has been ascertained to settle several +disputed points, and to alter the conditions of controversy for time to +come. First, as regards the hills and valleys, the Tyropoeon valley, +which it was conjectured might contain thirty or forty feet of _débris_, +is found, by excavation, to be filled up in some places to nearly one +hundred feet; and instead of presenting an even slope, its western side +is nearly level, the final descent being very steep, and the lowest +course of the valley being _inside_ the Haram, about sixty feet east of +the south-west angle. The Kedron valley is found to contain sixty or +eighty feet of loose stone chippings and other _débris_, forming a +sloping bank, with an inclination of about thirty degrees, and having +its base resting against the western slope of Olivet. One effect of this +accumulation has been to alter the bed of the stream, so far as there is +now any stream at all, pushing it forty feet to the east, and raising it +thirty-eight feet from its old level. At what must have been the ancient +bed of the brook the remains of a masonry wall were touched; between +that line and the east of the Haram several other walls were +encountered, and at last progress up the hill was stopped--at a point +fifty feet east of the Haram--by a massive masonry wall, into which +Warren drove a hole five feet, and then had to give up the business. A +contribution from M. Clermont Ganneau, of the French Consulate at +Jerusalem, affords Mr. Warren an argument in favour of the identity of +Kedron and Hinnom. There have always been several reasons for +considering the Virgin's Fount, in the Kedron, to be the same with En +Rogel, where Adonijah was saluted as king, though many place it at the +Well of Joab, lower down. Near to En Rogel was the stone of Zoheleth (1 +Kings i. 9), and near to the Virgin's Fount M. Ganneau discovers a rock +called Ez Zehwele; so that the statements of Joshua xv. and xviii., +which make the border between Judah and Benjamin to pass Zoheleth to En +Rogel, and thence up the valley of Hinnom, seem to identify Hinnom with +what is now called Kedron. As the Kedron has three names to-day in +different parts of its course, there would thus far be no objection to a +fourth, but the statements in Joshua seem to us to point to some valley +more westward than that now called Kedron. The principal reason for +tracing the Tyropoeon from the Jaffa Gate arises from Josephus's +description of the valley as an open space or depression within the +city, 'at which the corresponding rows of houses on both hills end.' +This was held to be more applicable to a valley running from the Jaffa +Gate than to that from the Damascus Gate when the slope is so gradual +that the rows of houses now run across it without interruption, besides +which it probably had formerly a wall on either side of it. Mr. +Lewin[17] speaks positively as to the Tyropoeon commencing at the +Jaffa Gate, and says it can be traced thence to the Haram by the _rise_ +of ground which is still very perceptible on the right hand, as you walk +down the street from the gate to the Haram. He makes this valley the +boundary of the high town on the north, and puts his first wall on the +southern brow of it. It is difficult to see on this hypothesis how the +hill of the high town could be 'in length more direct' than the eastern +hill, as Josephus says it was; or how the corresponding rows of houses +could meet any more readily than near Damascus Gate. However, Mr. +Warren, after excavation, tells us that 'a very decided valley runs down +from the Jaffa Gate to the Tyropoeon, near Wilson's arch;' and he +found under the causeway leading westward from Wilson's arch, vaults and +chambers, and a secret passage, at a depth which serves to confirm his +view. There is no disputing facts, though it seems to us still +questionable whether this valley is any part of the Tyropoeon of +Josephus. The valley running south-east from Herod's Gate, in the +north-east part of the north wall, proves to be longer and deeper than +any theorist had imagined, running into the Kedron at a point between +the north-east angle of the Haram and the Golden Gate, and being filled +in with more than 100 feet of _débris_. The Pool of Bethesda, which is +360 feet in length, is imbedded in this valley, and stretches across it, +having its ends formed by the rocky sides of the valley, and its sides +built up of masonry; and since it is found lined with concrete, it must +have been a reservoir, and not the fosse of Antonia, which Robinson +supposed it to be.[18] + +The valley which Simon Maccabeus filled up[19] is made by Mr. Lewin to +coincide with the northern half of what is usually called the +Tyropoeon--the part from Damascus Gate, down to near Wilson's arch. +Other writers identify it with a supposed branch of the Tyropoeon, +curving to the east across the Haram. Josephus tells us that when Pompey +beseiged Jerusalem he took up his position on the _north_ of the temple, +in the only part where an assault was practicable; and that even there +the temple was defended by high towers, and a trench, _and by a deep +ravine_. The position which various writers give to this ravine depends +upon their idea as to the site of the temple. Mr. Fergusson[20] thinks +that the valley of the Asamoneans was a 'tranverse cut, separating the +hill Bezetha from the Akra or citadel, on the temple hill.' Mr. +Thrupp[21] allows a valley on the north side of the temple, and reminds +us that traces of a valley debouching into the valley of Kedron, near +the middle of the eastern wall of the Haram, and which seemed to have +been artificially filled up, were detected by the late Dr. Shultz. +Shultz identifies these traces as those of the valley filled up by the +Asamoneans; but Thrupp holds him to be mistaken in doing so. Mr. +Sandie[22] puts forth the recognition of such a valley as the special +characteristic of his view of ancient Jerusalem; but he places it south +of the dome of the rock. He moreover identifies it with 'the ravine +called Kedron' ([Greek: tên Kedrôna kaloumenên pharanga]), which +Josephus tells us was overlooked by the north-east wall of the +temple,[23] and by which he does not mean the valley of Kedron, since he +always calls the latter 'Kedron' simply. Mr. Lewin, again, makes this +ravine to be 'the slip of ground between the temple and the city wall, +reaching from Bethesda on the north to Ophla on the south,' _i.e._, the +eastern side of the present Haram platform, which is, or was, the west +bank of the present Kedron valley. It is difficult to see how this +could have been a ravine at all; but Mr. Lewin translates '_so-called_ +Kedron ravine,' and seems to think the expression implies that Josephus +did not consider the term 'ravine' quite legitimate. Even if this were +so, the illegitimacy of the designation might result from the +circumstance that what was once a ravine had since been filled up by the +Maccabeans and by Pompey.[24] But we must come to facts. + +First of all, Captain Warren tells us that there was no ravine south +of the dome of the rock, for 'the crest of the rocky spur runs from the +north-west angle of the Dome-of-Rock platform in a south-east direction +to the triple gate in the south wall; and at these two points, and in +the line between them, the rock is at the surface.' Secondly, in +December, 1868, when the displacement of a stone by the rains enabled +Captain Warren to descend beneath the surface of the Haram, he found a +souterrain running east and west, in the line of the northern edge of +the Mosque platform, the southern side of it being scarped rock, on +which the wall supporting the northern edge of the Mosque platform is +built, but the rock itself appearing to 'shelve down rapidly to the +north.' In the following month Captain Warren ventured to suggest on +plan (lithographed plan 32) the possible course of a valley coming from +the Gate of the Inspector in the Tyropoeon, and running past the +north-western corner of the Dome-of-Rock, out eastward through the +Birket Israil (Pool of Bethesda). The souterrain may, as Captain Warren +observes, be claimed by one party as the ditch on the northern wall of +the temple, and by another as the northern ditch of Antonia; and the +valley--which owes its depth in one part of its course to what is +doubtingly called a 'natural or artificial ditch'--will of course be +claimed as that of the Asamoneans. + +It is thus, in our opinion, rendered probable that the ground to the +west of that valley which runs from Damascus Gate constituted the old +town, the [Greek: phrourion] of David's time, the upper market-place of +the days of Josephus; that the dome of the rock and the space to the +south of it represent the old Temple-hill; that to the north of this was +the valley of the Asamoneans; that between the latter and the valley +from Herod's Gate was the city of David, or Zion,[25] and that +north-east of the last-named valley was Bezetha. The name Zion got +transferred to the Temple-hill, or was made to include it, before or +during the times of the Maccabees, probably after the filling-up of the +intervening valley, and in the early centuries of the Christian era was +transferred to the western hill, which, after the Akra was cut down, was +the highest hill of the city.[26] Certainly there is still room for some +controversy on these points, and Captain Warren contributes something to +the discussion, in a long paper on the 'Comparative Holiness of Mounts +Zion and Moriah,' in which he argues that Zion was considered holy when +the ark was there, in David's time; that after the ark (and the +holiness) were transferred to Moriah, the name Zion got transferred +also, and that Josephus refrains from using the term Zion because he is +aware of this confusion. + +If the Tyropoeon valley extended from Damascus Gate southward, and the +city of David was on the eastern side of it, north of the temple, then +the water which Hezekiah diverted from its course, and brought down to +the west side of the city of David (2 Chron. xxxii. 30), and yet _into_ +the city of Jerusalem (2 Kings xx. 20) was probably brought in at +Damascus Gate, and ran towards the Kedron, either on the west side of +the temple, or by the Maccabean valley, on the northern side. In the +southern half of the Tyropoeon valley, outside the west wall of the +Haram, Captain Warren has found, at a depth of seventy or eighty feet, a +rock-cut aqueduct, twelve feet deep and six feet wide, with round +rock-cut pools at intervals, and shafts which indicate that pure water +was drawn from it. As Hezekiah brought the stream down from 'the upper +watercourse of Gihon,' this discovery has a direct bearing on the +question of the position of 'the upper pool,' and of 'Gihon, in the +valley,'where Solomon was anointed king; but as the upper part of the +Tyropoeon has not been excavated, it remains uncertain whether the +water came in by Damascus Gate or Jaffa Gate, and consequently what +position of Zion is favoured by the finding of this aqueduct. + +The search for the old walls of the city has only been partially carried +out. Here, again, we have Josephus's explicit description, and the usual +differences among the commentators. + +'The city of Jerusalem was fortified with three walls, on such parts as +were not encompassed with unpassable valleys; for in such places it had +but one wall.... The old wall began on the north at the tower called +Hippicus, and extended as far as the Xistus, a place so called, and +then, joining to the Council-house, ended at the west cloister of the +temple. But if we go the other way westward, it began at the same place, +and extended through a place called Bethso to the Gate of the Essenes; +and after that it went southward, having its bending above the fountain +Siloam, where it also bends again towards the east at Solomon's pool, +and reaches as far as a certain place which they called Ophlas, were it +was joined to the eastern cloister of the temple. The second wall took +its beginning from that gate which they call Gennath, which belonged to +the first wall; it only encompassed the northern quarter of the city, +and reached as far as the tower Antonia. The beginning of the third wall +was at the tower Hippicus, whence it readied as far as the north quarter +of the city, and the tower Psephinus, and then was so far extended till +it came over against the monuments of Helena (which Helena was Queen of +Adiabene, the daughter of Izates); it then extended farther to a great +length, and passed by the sepulchral caverns of the kings, and bent +again at the tower of the corner, at the monument which is called the +monument of the Fuller, and joined to the old wall at the ravine called +Kedron.'[27] + +As many writers make the northern part of the first wall to have run +from the Jaffa Gate eastward, Captain Warren spent some time in +excavating in the Muristan, a large open space in the city, the old +burial-place of the Knights Hospitallers; but he found 'nothing but +confusion in the shape of old walls running at one another in all +directions.' At Wilson's arch, however, near the Haram wall, and nearly +due east from the Jaffa Gate, he discovered an old city gateway at a +great depth. If we could find traces of the tower Hippicus we should +come upon the first and third walls together, and similarly the gate +Gennath would put us on the line of the first and second walls. The +theories of some writers compel them to put Hippicus at the Jaffa Gate, +where they think they see its representative in the present Castle of +David. But we agree with Mr. Fergusson, that the remains called _Kasr +Jalud_ at the north-west corner of the city suit better with Josephus's +description. To this point Captain Warren has not yet been able to give +much attention; but the so-called Gennath Gate was examined both by +Wilson and by Warren, and pronounced by the former to be of +comparatively modern construction, by the latter to be ancient, +'especially as its style is Roman.' The gate rests in made earth. + +The Damascus Gate is built of two very different styles of masonry, one +of them apparently very old; and it suits the views of several writers, +who differ as to the course of the first wall, that this gate and the +portion of wall immediately east of it should be part of the second wall +of the city.[28] At the Damascus Gate excavation brought to light 'a +very ancient wall ten feet six inches in thickness, built with bevelled +stones similar to those of the Jews' Wailing Place;' but the wall would +seem to be built out of old materials, since stones of more recent date +were found among them; and at the foot of the wall lay a stone with a +Templar's cross on it. + +The third wall has probably almost or quite disappeared, for when +Hadrian was re-erecting the walls in A.D., 136, he would not think it +necessary to go out so far; the population had diminished, and to +construct armour without, so disproportionate to the shrunken body +within, would have been simply ridiculous. If any part of the third wall +remained, we might suppose it to be at the northern part of the present +east wall; but here excavation shows that there has been 'no destruction +of extensive buildings so far north as St. Stephen's Gate,' that the +wall itself is 'of no very ancient date,' and that 'of the city wall to +the east, the north-east angle of the Haram area is the first sign from +the northern end of anything ancient in appearance.' + +Perhaps there is here a little room for error; for where the rock is +high, the absence of much _débris_ may not imply that there has been no +great destruction of buildings; but simply that the rubbish has found +its way to the valleys or was not suffered to accumulate. + +South of the Haram wall, the hill, which is now chiefly occupied by +small vegetable gardens, in terraces of six to ten feet high, must have +been at one time covered with houses, for every shaft sunk brought to +light remains of buildings, drains, scarped and cut rock, and +antiquities of various dates. A cavern cut out of the rock, appears to +have been at first a dyer's shop and afterwards a stable, while early +Christian glass and pottery was found in a drain above it. Tradition +relates that St. James was cast over the outer wall of the temple +enclosure, and that 'a fuller took the club with which he pressed the +clothes, and brought it down on the head of the just one.' This hill is +frequently identified with Ophel, where Jotham and Manasseh built (2 +Chron. xxvii. 3; xxxiii. 14; Neh, iii. 26, 27; xi. 21), though whether +Ophel referred to the whole of the swelling hill or to a tumour-like +tower in some part of it was not certain.[29] In this district Warren +has discovered a massive wall, from twelve to fourteen feet thick, which +abuts on the Haram wall (but does not bond into it) at a point twelve +feet six inches west of the south-east angle of the Haram, which runs +first of all sixty feet due south, and then takes a bend to the +south-west, in which direction it runs for 700 feet, and then ends +abruptly. The wall is still from forty to sixty feet in height, and the +rock is scarped for thirty feet below it, while solid towers of masonry +are found at intervals along its course. This discovery will have to be +taken into consideration by those who bring the south wall of the city +up from Siloam, and make it join the third wall at a point 600 feet from +the south-west angle of the present Haram, and therefore more than 300 +feet from the point where this wall abuts. The curious rock-cut +connection which Warren found between the Virgin's Fount and a shaft +opening from Ophel, would seem to be a device for supplying the +inhabitants of this district with water, in a secret way; reminding us +of the work of Hezekiah, and possibly being of the same date. + +A question of paramount interest is the site of the successive temples +of Solomon, Zerubabel and Herod. It is universally allowed that the +temple stood on that hill which we call Moriah, and within the present +sacred area; but while Josephus describes it as a square of 600 feet (1 +stadium), in the side, the dimensions of the Haram are, according to +Catherwood, 1,520 feet on the east side, 1,617 feet on the west, 1,020 +on the north, and 932 on the south. The way being thus open for +conjecture, we have had the usual differences of opinion, and the temple +has been variously placed at the south-west angle, the centre of the +area, the southern half of the area, the northern half, or has even been +made coincident with the entire Haram. A few shafts and galleries would +probably settle this question, and in showing us the foundations of the +temple, give us the key to most of the old topography; but unfortunately +the reservation made by the Turkish Government has compelled Captain +Warren to labour only outside the enclosure. Still, as there was reason +to think that one or more of the Haram walls or angles might coincide in +position with those of the temple, there was room for discovery by +exterior examination. The theory of Catherwood and of De Vogüé, that the +whole of the area belonged to the temple, may be dismissed as being +inconsistent with the measurements of Josephus. The discovery of the +transverse valley and of the prolongation of the valley from Herod's +Gate appear to be fatal to Williams's view, that the temple stood in the +northern half of the Haram and stretched all across it. + +A favourite theory is that of Fergusson, Lewin, and others, that the +temple occupied the south-west angle of the area, its south and west +walls coinciding with those of the Haram for a distance of 600 feet from +the corner. The chief positive evidence for this view consists in the +fact that the south-west angle is the only right angle of the present +walls, that some of the stones existing in that part of the wall to-day +are so immense as to justify Josephus's description of stones 'immovable +for all time' and that the spring stones of an arch discovered by +Robinson in the western wall, commencing about forty feet from the +south-west angle, would be in the centre of the great Stoa Basilica of +the temple. This cloister, according to the Jewish historian, was on the +south wall, overhanging the valley, and communicated by steps with the +upper city.[30] The arch of Robinson was often assumed to be the first +of a series, and 'Robinson's bridge or viaduct' was attributed by Lewin +to Solomon, and identified as that which was broken away by the +followers of Aristobulus, in Pompey's time.[31] Signor Pierotti had +scratched up a few feet of earth, and not finding any trace of a pier, +declared that there could not have been a bridge. The excavations of +Capt. Warren have shown that the south-west angle of the Haram is buried +for about ninety feet, while in the Tyropoeon valley the rock from the +western side rather rises than falls until it is within 200 feet of the +sanctuary wall, and then shelves down very rapidly. The actual pier of +an arch has been discovered, with three courses of stones _in situ_, +twelve feet two inches in thickness, commencing at forty-one feet six +inches from the wall, within a few inches of the span assigned by +Robinson. The length of the spring-stones is given by Wilson as fifty +feet, and the pier is found to measure fifty-one feet six inches, and +has its northern end eighty-nine feet from the south-west angle, nearly +corresponding to the spring stones. The stones of the pier are precisely +similar to those of the south-west angle, and presumably of the same +age; but the inference that they are therefore of the age of Solomon is +checked by the next discovery. Stretching between the pier and the +sanctuary wall is a pavement, on which some of the fallen voussoirs of +the arch are resting, but underneath the pavement are twenty-three feet +of _débris_, covering two older voussoirs, which have crushed into the +arched roof of an aqueduct which may be older still--the aqueduct +previously spoken of in connexion with Hezekiah. These historical +_strata_ seem to yield evidence as follows:-- + +1. The winding rock-cut aqueduct was constructed. + +2. The west Haram wall was afterwards built, the aqueduct arched over, +and a bridge thrown across from the Haram area to the western side of +the valley. + +3. The arch of the bridge fell (two voussoirs still remain), smashing in +part of the arch of the aqueduct. + +4. _Débris_ began to fill up the valley, a pavement was constructed upon +it, which still remains, about twenty feet above the top of the +aqueduct; and shafts were constructed at intervals from the pavement +down to the aqueduct, in order to obtain water readily. Another arch was +built. + +5. The arch fell, and now rests upon the pavement. + +6. _Débris_ began to fill up the valley over the fallen arch, the pier +of which standing out was removed, all except the three lowest courses. + +7. Houses were built on a level twenty feet above the pavement. + +8. These houses fell into ruin and the _débris_ accumulated to its +present level, viz., forty-five feet above the pavement. + +No remains of any second arch of the supposed viaduct have been found; +but three arches with a staircase to west would have sufficed to bridge +the gulf, and there does exist a colonnade in ruins in continuation of +the line of Robinson's arch. It is part of the view which places the +temple at the south-west angle, that the three other gates and roadways +mentioned by Josephus as connecting its west side with the city and +suburbs[32] should be traceable between Robinson's arch and a point 600 +feet from the south-west angle. The first of these gates--apparently the +most northern--'led to the king's palace, and went to a passage over the +intermediate valley.' It is remarkable that at a distance of 600 feet +from the south-west angle we have a causeway which crosses the valley, +while from this point the western wall no longer follows the same +direction, but inclines slightly to the westward. This causeway +commences with an arch nearly as large as Robinson's, discovered by Dr. +Barclay, of the United States, measured by Captain Wilson, and known as +Wilson's arch. This arch is now found to be in a perfect condition and +elevated 120 feet above the lowest part of the valley, while the +causeway to west is a succession of vaults on vaults, and is about +eighty feet above the rock. The passage--the way to the king's +palace--has also apparently come to light in the form of a secret +tunnel, which has been traced westward for 250 feet, at which point it +is under the house of Joseph Effendi, and is used as a cistern. + +Of the two intermediate gates, the southern should be by calculation 264 +feet from the south-west angle of the Haram area; and at 270 feet there +is in the Haram wall an enormous lintel, which was first brought +prominently into notice in this century by Dr. Barclay, in his 'City of +the Great King.' The bottom of the lintel is five feet five inches above +the surface of the ground, and Warren has ascertained that the sill is +about thirty feet below the lintel, while the road up to it seems to +have been by a causeway raised forty-six feet above the rock. We have, +then, in the western portion of the Haram wall two bridges and one gate; +but the most persevering search has not been rewarded by the discovery +of any second gate between the two bridges. Moreover, the spring of +Wilson's arch is seven feet above that of Robinson, its pier is for the +first nineteen feet built up of rough blocks (that of Robinson's of +smooth stones), and the voussoirs are of a style said to be of the later +days of the Roman empire; though, like the more southern arch, it +appears to have had a predecessor on the same spot. + +Of the new evidence furnished by the explorations, the balance seems, +after all, to tell against the south-west angle as the site of the +temple. It has already been stated that the original bed of the +Tyropoeon valley comes out through the south wall of the Haram, about +sixty feet from the south-west angle; and it is only stating the fact in +other words to say that for sixty feet the south wall is carried up the +slope of the modern Mount Zion. In the other direction, if we measure +off 600 feet from the south-west angle, to find the south-east corner of +the temple, the wall at that point rests on the highest part of Mount +Moriah, which is not cut by the south front at all. An examination of +the lithographed plan, No. 14, makes such a position seem an unlikely +one for the original wall; for it would be more like building in the +valley than on the hill, would take more material, and be destitute of +symmetry. Next, the rock-cut aqueduct running down the Tyropoeon has +one of its pools half cut through by the west wall; and the north part +of the aqueduct, roofed with flat slabs, appears to be older than the +south, which is vaulted; everything favouring the conclusion that the +aqueduct originally followed the course of the valley, and that when the +wall was built the part of the aqueduct lying outside of it was left +intact, and new lines of arched passage built to connect the older +portions. Unless, therefore, the aqueduct is of pre-Solomonian age, the +west wall was no part of Solomon's Temple at least, though it may have +been included in Herod's. + +Add to all this, that the stones at the south-west angle resemble those +at the north-east, and that a temple in the south-west angle would not +face due east, and the evidence in favour of this position is by no +means conclusive. + +The courses of stone in the south wall usually run from three feet six +inches to three feet nine inches in height; but between the Double Gate +and the Triple Gate there is a course described by Captain Wilson, from +five feet ten inches to six feet one inch high. Captain Warren found +that this course, with some breaks, is continued to the south-east +angle, and thence runs north along the east wall for twenty-four feet. +The length of this course in the south wall is 600 feet; and the +coincidence of this number with the measurement of the temple cloisters, +is enough to suggest that we may here have a clue, especially since, +through the rising ground under the Triple Gate, this is the first +course of stones which could be carried uninterruptedly through from +east to west. Captain Warren, following this clue, not only found, after +numerous examinations underground, that a perpendicular dropped from the +most westerly stone of this course would pretty well divide the wall +into two parts of different character, but that the rough stones to the +west of this line resemble those at the north-east angle, thus far +favouring the conclusion that these were the parts added by Herod.[33] + +The Triple Gate is in the middle of this six feet course of stones, thus +agreeing with the description of Josephus, that the south front of the +temple had 'gates in its middle,' an expression which some have tried to +reconcile with the existence of the Huldah and Triple Gates, at about +equal distances from the angles and from one another, or have construed +as applying to the Huldah Gate alone, which is, however, 365 feet from +the south-west angle. + +Under the Triple Gate the rock, as already stated, is highest, and +notwithstanding that the slope is greater to the east than to the west, +there would thus be an appearance of symmetry in the wall which it could +not have if standing entirely west of the Triple Gate. It is worth +notice also that at the Huldah Gate, where, on this view, the temple +would terminate to west, the wall of the city, coming up from the south, +now abuts, indicating that the south-west angle of the Haram is less +ancient than the original city wall at this part, and the city wall less +ancient than the south Haram wall east of Huldah Gate. + +Again, the wall of Ophel, which commences at the south-east angle, and +thus favours the view we are considering, runs sixty feet south, then +700 feet south-west, and terminates abruptly at a point nearly due south +of Huldah Gate (see lithographic plan, No. 30), to which, it would seem +possible, its return course may have run. Even Fergusson's argument for +the south-west angle--that the south wall of the platform which now +surrounds the Mosque of Omar runs parallel to the south wall of the +Haram, at a distance of exactly 600 feet, and for a length of 600 +feet--is nearly as much in favour of the south-east angle; and Lewin's +argument that Josephus's [Greek: pulas kata meson] must refer to a +double doorway, and therefore to the present Huldah Gate, is balanced by +Warren's discovery that originally the so-called Triple Gate was a +double tunnel. + +It is often urged that the sub-structures known as Solomon's stables, in +the south-east corner of the Haram, are of too slight a construction to +bear the cloisters of the temple, and too modern, as well as too +slight;[34] but the floor of these vaults is on a level with the six +feet course of stones previously mentioned--above which level few stones +remain _in situ_--and any previous sub-structures would not have +survived the destruction of the east and south retaining walls. Between +the Triple Gate and the south-east angle is the postern known as the +Single Gate, with its sill on a level with the sill of the Triple Gate, +but itself of modern construction. Below this gate, and below the vaults +within the Haram, at this corner, Warren discovered a passage for +carrying into the Kedron some liquid, and yet wholly distinct from the +water channels under the Triple Gate. Underground Jerusalem so abounds +in aqueducts and passages that it would not be of much force to urge +that this channel conveyed the blood from the altar: yet the suggestion +may be set against any similar one in favour of another site. + +Finally, on this point, at the south-east angle, which some had thought +to be modern, the foundations are about eighty feet beneath the surface, +the stones are _in situ_, and some of them have Phoenician masons' +marks painted and chiselled on them. That the stones are _in situ_ is +proved by the circumstance that a small depth of _débris_, which had +been shovelled away to make room for the lowest tier, still remains +close by, and has its layers _sloping inwards_. That the wall is ancient +is thought to be evidenced by the Phoenician characters, which seem +certainly to point to pre-Roman times, and possibly to the time when +Solomon engaged the workmen of Hiram, King of Tyre, to build the temple. + +Still, neither is the evidence conclusive here. While the stones at the +north-east angle differ from those at the south-east, and there are +several breaks and irregularities in the masonry of the east wall, +Phoenician marks--though too much blurred to be deciphered--are found +at the north-east angle also; the south-east angle is not a right angle, +but measures 92 deg. 5 min. at the surface, and 92 deg. 25 min. at the +foundation; at 105 feet from the corner there is a break in the +character of the masonry; only the first 120 feet of wall are in the +same straight line, and then there is a bend to the north-east. + +The platform, called the Haram area, is nearly on one level all over, +and near its centre is a second platform, about eighteen feet higher, +on which stands the Mosque of Omar, covering the Sakhra, or sacred rock +of the Mahometans, which measures sixty feet by fifty or fifty-five, and +is said by them to be a morsel of Paradise. Thrupp and Falconer suppose +it to be the rock or part of the rock on which stood the tower of +Antonia; Fergusson maintains it to be the Holy Sepulchre, over which +Constantine built a church, and Professor Willis identifies it with the +threshing-floor of Araunah, and therefore with the site of the temple. +As this rock is the highest point of Mount Moriah, and contains a cave +with an opening to a deeper recess which has not been explored, it was +sure thus to suggest itself as the place of the altar whence, according +to the Talmud, the blood and offal of the sacrifices were drained off to +the Kedron. As excavations have not been permitted within the sacred +area, it has not been possible to put this theory to any test; nor can +Warren's accidental discovery of souterrains along the northern edge of +the platform, and of a natural or artificial ditch crossing beyond its +north-west corner, be considered as settling the point either way. It +may be worth a thought that the summit of Moriah may have been a 'high +place' for heathen worship before it occurred to David to build a temple +for God; that on that very account it would perhaps be _avoided_ by the +builders of the temple; and that if Araunah worshipped on any high place +at all, his threshing-floor would not be on the same spot. + +Captain Warren is never forward to theorise, but as a provisional +hypothesis during his earlier excavations he favoured the south-east +angle as the probable site of the temple; and now, after three or four +years of investigation, while he has come to no conclusion, he inclines +to a position nearly coincident with the Dome-of-Rock platform. As +Josephus states the stones in Solomon's Cloister--the eastern side of +the temple--to have been twenty cubits long and six cubits high, and +Warren has not found any stones of these dimensions at any point where +he has explored, he naturally thinks the cloister may be in the part he +has not explored, viz., a space of 600 feet between the Golden Gate and +the south-east angle, where a wide Mahometan cemetery makes operations +very difficult. + + 'Place the temple here, nearly coinciding with the + Dome-of-the Rock Platform, and it appears to suit exactly. + It has the valley to the north; it has the raised platform + of the dome of the rock, which is just about the height of + the inner court above the outer; it has the unexplored 600 + feet of wall south of the Golden Gate, and overlooking the + Kedron. But it will be asked, "What about the south-east + angle, with its sub-structures and its walls, with + Phoenician characters inscribed thereon?" I think it was + Solomon's palace.' + +One of the objects of the Palestine Exploration Fund is to improve our +knowledge of Jewish archæology, about which we have known next to +nothing. The discoveries in Assyria show us what may be expected; 'for +not only have we been able (says Mr. Layard) through the discoveries of +Sir Henry Rawlinson, Dr. Hincks, and others (Mr. Layard might have added +his own name), to read their written history, and trace their connection +with other nations and races, but by the aid of the sculptures we can +almost learn the details of the private and domestic life of the +Assyrian people--their dress, their arms, and their religious +ceremonies.' If similar discoveries could be made in Palestine, the +greatest light would be thrown upon the political and domestic history +of the Jews, and most important illustrations of the Holy Scriptures +would be obtained. Such discoveries are indeed considered unlikely, +since the Jewish law forbade the representation of the human form in +sculpture or painting; but the Jews did not always scrupulously observe +their law; besides which, the objection does not relate to the discovery +of pottery, glass, coins, metal work, remains of architecture, &c. It +must be confessed, indeed, that the legendary golden throne of King +Solomon, with its eagles, and lions, and doves, has not been found, and +the sceptres of the kings of Judah and Israel have not even been +searched for by the explorers; moreover, most of their labour has been +expended in uncovering massive structures, which cannot be brought home; +yet still, when Mr. Macgregor returned from Jerusalem, he brought with +him nine cases of objects incidentally lighted upon by the excavators, +and in the summer of 1869 the Society was able to open a Museum of +Palestinean Antiquities. The collection included lamps, pottery, glass, +coins, weapons, tesselated pavement, sculpture, sarcophagi, geological +specimens, and a collection of stone weights; besides photographs, and +tracings, maps, and models. Three glass lamps, of curious construction, +with several brigs of red pottery, and a cooking dish, glazed inside, +were found in the rock-cut chambers and passages leading from the +Virgin's Fountain up through the hill of Ophel. The whole of the ground +of Ophel, between the south Haram wall and the Pool of Siloam, has been +built over, and lamps of a particular type have been found there--two of +them with Greek inscriptions--and in no case has any known Arabic +pottery been found. On the other hand, at the Birket Israil--so-called +Pool of Bethesda, where Warren dug through thirty-five feet of rubbish, +and brought up a piece of the concrete bottom--the pottery is totally +different. It is in many cases highly glazed, and has patterns on it, +and when it is unglazed it has bands of red or brown, or other marks, +very similar in appearance to the specimens of pottery found at Athens +and Melos; and yet among this there came to light two pieces of glazed +jars with raised Arabic or Cufic inscriptions, one of them being the +usual invocation to Allah. + +Some of the pottery found is older than the south-east portion of the +Haram wall, for on the rock there rests an accumulation of eight or ten +feet of a clay mould, which, from its slope, appears to have been cut +through for the purpose of laying the stones on a solid foundation, and +this clay abounds in pottery, broken into fragments. The rock at the +south-east angle is very soft for the first two or three feet of depth, +and at three feet to the east of the angle a hole was found scooped out +of it, one foot in diameter and one foot in depth, in which was a little +earthenware jar, standing upright, as though it had been purposely +placed there. Warren suggested at the time (February, 1869) that the +purpose may have been religious or superstitious, and that in such cases +inscriptions might be found upon the pottery, if the jars were properly +cleaned. The suggestion has borne fruit in his own experience. Among the +fragments of pottery which for a depth of about two inches covers the +rich loam overlying the rock at the south-east angle some handles of +jars were observed to have a stamp on them, and on this account some +specimens were collected. After his return to England, in 1870, Captain +Warren, getting these out, and dusting the mud off them, observed +Phoenician letters, some of which have since been read by Dr. Birch, +of the British Museum, as _lemelek Zepha_ (to the king Zepha), and which +exactly resemble those of the Moabite stone, of which all the world has +heard. The significance of this discovery will be better understood +after we have considered that of the Moabite stone itself. + +The paleographical results achieved by the Palestine Exploration Fund, +when viewed by the side of the many and varied works in other +departments, may seem to be small; but Mr. Deutsch, when speaking at +Oxford,[35] was not wrong in desiring his hearers to count the latter, +but to weigh the former. In a minaret near Nablus, immured upside down, +is an inscribed slab that once belonged to a synagogue, which, though it +does not seem to have been seen by Robinson, was copied by Shultz in +1844, and published by Rödiger; and again copied by Wildenbruck, and +published by Blau. Finally, in 1860, it was copied and explained by +Rosen, whose work left that of his predecessors far behind. Yet even he +does not give all the characters, nor are they so accurately reproduced +as would seem to be absolutely necessary in the case of the oldest known +Samaritan monument; nor has he been able more than to conjecture as to +the reading of the very beginning of the tablet. A photograph, taken +under Captain Wilson, has rendered everything clear, and it turns out +that, owing to the difficulty of the position in which the decipherer is +necessarily placed, it was utterly impossible to perceive certain marks +on the stone itself which are quite clear in the photograph. The tablet +itself exhibits ten lines, the first eight of which contain the Ten +Commandments, according to the Samaritan recension, in an abbreviated +form. The ninth forms a portion of the celebrated Samaritan +interpolation after the Ten Commandments (from Deut. xxvii. 2--7; and +ix. 30)--'And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan ... +on Mount Gerizim ... _and thou shalt build there an altar unto the Lord +thy God_.' The last line contains the formula from Exodus, of frequent +use in Samaritan worship, viz., 'Arise, O Lord; return, O Lord!'[36] +Another photograph gives the famous inscription on the lintel of a +ruined synagogue at Kefr Birim, in Galilee, with greater clearness than +is represented in M. Renan's lithograph, taken from a cast, and is even +clearer than the original itself, certain blurred characters of which it +was next to impossible to distinguish on the glaring white surface. The +gist of the inscription is a prayer for 'peace upon this place and all +the places of Israel,' and an indication of the builder's name. In +addition to these, some dozens of inscriptions have been copied--in the +north of Palestine by Wilson; at Jerash and in the Lebanon by Warren; +and in the Haram area and elsewhere by Mr. E. H. Palmer. Ancient +characters have been ferreted out, and copied from the walls of Sidon; +and a seal, bearing the inscription, 'Haggai, son of Shebaniah,' and +dating as far back as the Maccabean period, has been found under the +buried pavement near the south-west corner of the Haram. The red-paint +characters at the south-east angle of the Haram were examined by Mr. +Deutsch on the spot, and pronounced to be partly letters, partly +numerals, and partly special masons' or quarry signs. Some of them were +recognisable at once as well-known Phoenician characters; others, +hitherto unknown in Phoenician epigraphy, Mr. Deutsch had the rare +satisfaction of being able to identify on absolutely undoubted antique +Phoenician structures in Syria, such as the primitive sub-structures +of the harbour at Sidon. Similar marks at the north-east angle afford +evidence that the stones of the Haram wall were shaped at the quarry, +inasmuch as the paint in one instance has run, and the trickling is +upwards with reference to the present position of the stone. Evidence to +the same effect is furnished by the marginal drafts, which, present no +appearance of pattern or design when the wall is regarded as a whole, +but only when each stone is taken by itself. + +The paleographic discovery of paramount interest is that of the Moabite +stone, with a memorial inscription in what is known to scholars as the +'Phoenician' character, and belonging, there is little doubt, to the +first half of the ninth century B.C. In August, 1868, the Rev. F. A. +Klein, a Prussian clergyman, in the service of the Church Missionary +Society at Jerusalem, in the course of a journey from es-Salt to Kerak, +had the good fortune to be shown this monument at Dhibân near Arnon, the +old border of Moab. The stone was lying among the ruins, perfectly free +and exposed to view, the inscription uppermost, and was in excellent +preservation. Mr. Klein ascertained it to be one metre thirteen +centimetres in height, seventy centimetres in breadth and thirty-five in +thickness, rounded at the upper and lower corners,[37] and containing +thirty-four lines of writing. Circumstances prevented his copying more +than 'a few words from several lines at random;' and when afterwards M. +Clermont-Ganneau, of the French Consulate at Jerusalem, Captain Warren, +of the Palestine Exploration Fund, and others, interested themselves to +obtain 'squeezes,' the Arabs resented the action of foreigners, +quarrelled among themselves, and lighting a fire about the stone poured +water on it and broke it to pieces. An Arab employed by M. Ganneau, who +when the quarrel arose was engaged in taking a squeeze, tore off the wet +impression in rags, and springing on his horse managed to escape, +though not without a spear wound in his leg. Through the energy of +Captain Warren and M. Ganneau better squeezes were afterwards obtained +of the larger fragments, and at a later date the fragments themselves +came to hand, so that of 1,000 letters which it is estimated the stone +contained, 669 have been recovered. + +While the materials remain imperfect, it is impossible to obtain a +complete translation of the inscription, though various attempts have +been made. M. Ganneau's second translation of June, 1870, differs widely +from that which he put forth five months previously; but then his only +copy of certain parts of the stone was certain torn rags (_lambeaux +frifés et chiffonnés_), and his method of procedure with the fragments +of the stone is thus described:--'La plus grande partie de ces morceaux, +même les plus minimes, peut être mise en place facilement, en tenant +compte de la correspondance horizontale et verticale des séries de +caractères: il suffit de procéder comme pour déterminer la position +géographique d'un point par l'intersection des lignes de longitude et de +latitude.'[38] Translations have also been attempted by Professor +Schlottman, of Halle, Professor Nöldeke, and in this country by Dr. +Neubauer; while Mr. Deutsch has consistently asked scholars and the +public to exercise patience and wait till the full materials for a +translation should come to hand. The general drift of the inscription, +however, is clear enough. It appears to be a contemporaneous record from +the Moabite point of view of 2 Kings i. 1, set up by King Mesha, +commencing with a brief record of himself and his father, commemorating +warlike successes over the Israelites, explaining how he rebuilt and +improved a number of well-known Moabite cities, and finishing apparently +with some further reference to war. The names of Israel, Omri, Chemosh, +occur up and down, and the monarch seems to have conceived himself under +the special guidance of his god, who was thought to signify his will +that this or that city should be attacked, and who was obeyed +implicitly. Historically, therefore, the monument is interesting, since +it is an unexpected record of a nation now passed away, and adds a +trifle to our knowledge. + +Paleographically, the stone is of far greater value, and happily of +nearly as much value in its mutilated condition, as it would have been +if perfect. It is the very oldest Semitic lapidary record of importance +yet discovered, the most ancient specimen of the alphabetic writing +still in common use amongst us--a century and a half earlier than any +other inscription in the same Phoenician character, and three +centuries earlier than any other such inscription of any length. Its +significance in this respect is, however, only in process of being +studied, and uniformity of opinion has not yet been arrived at. The +names of the Hebrew letters are all significant of certain +objects--_aleph_, _bêth_, _gimel_, _daleth_, for instance = ox, house, +camel, door, &c.; and it has been maintained by Semitic scholars that +the letters themselves were originally slight and abridged +representations of the visible objects, the resemblance being more +clearly seen in the older Phoenician than in the later Phoenician, +the Assyrian or square character, and archaic Greek.[39] Mr. Deutsch, +who was so careful in the matter of translation, was bold to express +himself here, and to assert from the evidence of the Moabite stone that +'the more primitive the characters the _simpler_ they become; not, as +often supposed, the more complicated, as more in accordance with some +pictorial prototype.'[40] This view is controverted by Professor +Rawlinson, in the _Contemporary Review_ for August, 1870, and, as it +appears to us, successfully; for while the later characters in some +instances present a greater complication to the eye, they are far +simpler to the mind as soon as you imagine yourself engaged in writing +them and exerting the volition separately for each stroke. 'In _samech_ +for instance, apparently the most complicated of the later letters, a +gradual diminution in the number of strokes may be traced from first to +last. Originally the letter was written like an early Greek _xi_--thus, +[hand printed character], with four distinct strokes; then the four were +reduced to two by changing the three horizontal bars into a zigzag, +which could be written without taking the hand from the paper, and +adding a vertical bar beneath it; finally, the vertical bar was attached +to one end of the zigzag, and thus made a continuation of it, so that a +single continuous stroke sufficed for the whole letter.... In like +manner, the original _zain_ required three distinct strokes, two +horizontal and one oblique ([hand printed character]), which were +subsequently represented by the form still in use (Z), a form producible +by a single effort, without any removal of the pen from the paper.' + +And so with regard to the pictorial origin of the letters. The early +_bêth_ differs from the later solely in having a pointed head instead of +a rounded one. But the object which _bêth_ was intended to represent was +a tent, the earliest 'house' of pastoral man; and this had in primitive +times the simple triangular form, (Delta). Thus the early _bêth_ more +resembled the object than the later one. The early _daleth_ is a simple +triangle; the later has the right side of the triangle elongated, and +the other two generally rounded into one. But _daleth_, 'door,' +represented the opening of a tent, the form of which was like that of +the tent, triangular. For other instances we must refer our readers to +Professor Rawlinson's paper and the plate which accompanies it, merely +remarking in the way of adverse criticism that the square letters of the +Old Testament present a difficulty, since, while they are confessedly of +later origin, such letters as _bêth_, _gimel_, _zain_, _ain_, _kaph_, +_shin_, are less simple in the sense explained, than the older. The +Moabite stone also throws light on the question of the time at which +writing was introduced into Greece, the Greek alphabet of the earliest +inscriptions (circ. B.C. 650-500) resembling that of the Moabite stone +more closely than it does any later alphabet; so that Mr. Grote's +opinion that letters were unknown to the Greeks of Homer's time, and +Hesiod's, is in danger of being proved incorrect. + +It is remarkable that a stone measuring three feet six inches in length +and with thirty-four lines of writing on it should have escaped notice +until the year 1868; but since Irby and Mangles visited Moab in 1809, +scarcely any European traveller has passed near the spot where this +monument was found; so that it has been said that the chief value of +this discovery is in the prospect it affords of future successful +exploration. It should be remembered that the Arabs are now aware of the +price Europeans are willing to pay for such relics, and would no doubt +bring others forward if they knew of any existing. Mr. E. H. Palmer, who +was in the country in the spring of 1870, is probably right in his +conclusion that above ground at least there does not exist another +Moabite stone. But there are more fishes in the sea than have ever yet +been caught; and if a few intelligent men accustomed to dealing with +lawless Arabs could be sent out to Moab to conduct excavations, they +might, if liberally supplied with money and other resources, obtain +antiquities of great value, inscriptions possibly included. Dean Stanley +points us also to 1 Sam. xv. 12, describing Saul's victory over the +Amalekites, where it is said, 'Saul came to Carmel, and behold he set +him up a place' ([Hebrew character] which is from the root [Hebrew +character], _to set_, _to put_; in the Hiphil to make to stand, and +which might be translated _pillar_ or _trophy_)--the Dean points to +this to show the possibility of even Jewish inscriptions coming to +light. + +To return to the characters at the south-east angle of the Haram--on the +wall and on the handles of the jars or vases. The letters on the pottery +are like those of the Moabite stone; whence the age of the jars is +inferred to be about the same, and their origin Phoenician: the +position of the pottery shows it to be of nearly the same age as the +wall, and hence the antiquity of the wall is deduced; the wall itself +shows Phoenician marks, and so the builders are believed to have been +Phoenicians. This seems to us a little too hasty. The Moabite stone +gives us the _Moabite_ alphabet of King Mesha's time, which proves to be +identical with that of old Phoenicia. Judea was geographically as near +to Phoenicia as Moab was, and probably used the same alphabet, a +supposition confirmed by the discovery of vase handles at Jerusalem with +letters like those of the Moabite stone. It seems gratuitous to conclude +that these vases were among the contents of a museum or were ever the +property of Phoenicians, when the evidence goes to show that the +language inscribed on them was common to all the races of Western Asia. +Only for want of a better name has it been called 'Phoenician;' and +Mr. Deutsch had already suggested the term 'Cadmean,' while Sir Henry +Rawlinson had ventured the prediction that, should any early monument be +found at Jerusalem, its inscription would be in this character. The +Phoenician character was probably the only cursive character used by +the Semitic nations, and the Hebrew character, Sir Henry believes, did +not exist till after the return from the captivity. The vase handles +therefore show us the kind of letters used by the Hebrew prophets, and +the Cadmean masons' marks neither prove nor disprove the Phoenician +origin of the Haram wall; but the identity of the vase-handle letters +with those of the Moabite stone rather than with the alphabet of +Assyrian tablets and gems, or of the inscription on the tomb of +Eshmunazer (circ. B.C. 600) indicates the great antiquity both of the +pottery and the south-east Haram wall. On this point we may add that we +have compared (from the photographs) the letters of the vase-handles +with those of the Moabite stone, and find the identity very apparent in +the case of the _tau_, _shin_, _kaph_ and _mem_. + +The work promised by the Fund in the departments of natural history and +geology still waits for want of means; though notes have been made on +the occurrence of basalt, trap, hot springs, &c., and among the things +sent home have been an occasional animal, a small collection of +_Coleoptera_, a book of dried flowers from Moab, and some specimens of +rock. In its zoology and botany, as well as in its human history and +arts, Palestine has felt the influence of Africa, Asia and Europe; the +heights of Lebanon and Hermon, the depths of Gennesareth and the Dead +Sea, assist to make its natural history cosmopolitan. It is curious that +the _Clarias_, a strange-looking fish of the Siluroid family, found by +Tristram in the Lake of Galilee, and in one of the fountains near its +shores, should be identical in species with a fish found in the Nile; +thus far confirming Josephus, who says that the fountain of Capharnaum in +Gennesareth produced a Nile fish, and on that account was thought to be +a vein of the river of Egypt.[41] But the words of Linnæus are almost +true to-day: 'We know more of the botany and zoology of farther India +than we do of those of Palestine.' Of the geology we are in equal +ignorance, although the depression of the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea +invites attention as being the most remarkable on the face of the globe, +and constituting, in the opinion of Sir R. Murchison, the key to the +entire geology of the district. Mr. Prestwich, Mr. Tristram, and a few +other gentlemen, if sent out and supported for some years, would +probably astonish us by the results of their investigations. In +meteorology the Society has made a commencement, by sending out +instruments and publishing tabular statements of barometrical readings, +temperature, rainfall, &c., observed at Beyrout, Nazareth, Gaza, Jaffa, +and in the Lebanon. With all this work on hand, they have also begun the +exploration of the Tih--the Wilderness of the Wanderings--sending out +Mr. E. H. Palmer, a most accomplished Arabic scholar, formerly of the +Sinai Ordnance Survey, who appears to have made some discoveries, but +whose full statement is not yet before us. + +We had intended to detail the difficulties under which the explorers +have done their work, but the list is too long: counting every shade, +from the laziness of the native workmen, to the whizzing of native +bullets; from the thermometer at 110 degrees to attacks of fever and +dysentery; from slips in scaling mountains, danger from falling stones, +risk of choking in narrow aqueducts and sewers--we had noted not less +than fifty instances. + +We are bound to say that the Society has made a good beginning; that it +has done fully as much as could be expected under all the +circumstances, and with its inadequate funds; and that if it be not well +supported for another five years it will be to the lasting disgrace of +England. In its scientific and its religions aims, in its practical and +its unsectarian character, it suits the present age; supplying facts for +theorists, illustrating points of Scripture history, and confirming the +general truth of the Bible. + +Besides the completion of the work at Jerusalem, much remains to be +done, not only in natural history and geology, but in the observation of +manners and customs, exploration at other cities, such as Jezreel, +Samaria, Hebron, Bethshan, Nazareth, and excavation of the mounds +scattered over the face of the country. There will probably never be a +better opportunity than the present: for the visit of the Prince of +Wales to the Holy Land removed some prejudices, the Turkish Government +is favourable to the enterprise, and the work is actually begun. We +conclude this review of the work of the Palestine Exploration Fund by +heartily endorsing the appeal of Mr. Deutsch at the annual meeting in +1869. 'We, as humble votaries of science, would, in the name of science, +urge you to continue that in which both religion and science may join. +And let me remind you of one thing. There are ruins enough in the City +of Sorrows. _Do not add fresh ruins._ Do not leave there broken shafts, +abandoned galleries; and let it not be told in Gath that this England, +the richest, proudest, and most Bible-loving country in the world, +undertook one of the greatest undertakings, and abandoned it--for want +of money.' + + + + +ART. V.--_The Early Sieges of Paris. Les Comtes de Paris; Histoire de +l'Avènement de la Troisième Race._ Par ERNEST MOURIN. Paris: Didier et +Cie. + +_Robert der Tapfere, Markgraf von Anjou, der Stammvater des +Kapetingischen Hauses._ Von Dr. Phil. KARL VON KALCKSTEIN. Berlin: +Löwenstein. + + +The events of the last few months have, in a special way, drawn the +thoughts of men towards two cities which stand out among European +capitals as witnesses of the way in which the history of remote times +still has its direct bearing on things which are passing before our own +eyes. Rome and Paris now stand out, as they have stood out in so many +earlier ages, as the historic centres of a period which, there can be +no doubt, will live to all time as one of the marked periods of the +world's history. And it is not the least wonderful phænomenon of this +autumn of wonders that, while our eyes have been drawn at once to Rome +and to Paris, they have been drawn far more steadily and with far keener +interest towards Paris than they have been drawn towards Rome. We can +hardly doubt, whether we look back to the past or onwards to the future, +that the fall of the Pope's temporal power is really a greater event +than any possible result of the war between Germany and France. Yet such +is the greater immediate interest of the present struggle, such perhaps +is the instinctive attraction of mankind towards the more noisy and +brilliant triumphs of the siege and the battle-field, that the really +greater event, simply because of the ease with which it has happened, +has passed almost unnoticed in the presence of the lesser. The world has +seen the Papacy in several shapes; but the shape of a Pontiff, +spiritually infallible, but politically a subject, and the subject not +of an universal Emperor but of a mere local King, is something which the +world has not seen before. What may come of it, no man can say; but we +may be pretty sure that greater things will come of it in one way or +another, than can come out of any settlement, in whatever direction, of +conflicting French and German interests. Still, at this moment, the +present fate of Paris unavoidably draws to itself more of our thoughts +than the future fate of Rome. But it is well to keep the two cities +together before our eyes, and all the more so because the past history +and the present position of those two cities have points in common which +no other city in Europe shares with them in their fulness, which only +one other city in Europe can claim to share with them in any degree. + +The history of Rome, as all the world knows, is the history of a city +which grew into an Empire. It grew in truth into a twofold, perhaps a +more than twofold Empire. Out of the village on the Palatine sprang the +Rome of the Cæsars and the Rome of the Pontiffs. From Rome came the +language, the theology, the code of law, which have had such an undying +effect on the whole European world. Amidst all changes, the city itself +has been always clothed with a kind of mysterious and superstitious +charm, and its possession has carried with it an influence which common +military and political considerations cannot always explain. And from +the Old Rome on the Tiber many of these attributes passed--some were +even heightened in passing--to the new Rome on the Bosporos. From the +days of Constantine till now, no man has ever doubted that, in the very +nature of things, Constantinople, in whatever hands, must be the seat of +empire. To Western eyes this seems mainly the result of her unrivalled +geographical situation; over large regions of the East the New Rome +wields the same magic influence which in the West has been wielded by +the Old. _The_ City,[42] the City of the Cæsars, is in Christian eyes +the one great object to be won; in Mahometan eyes it is the one great +object to be kept. By the Bosporos, as by the Tiber, it is the city +which has grown into the Empire, which has founded it, and which has +sustained it. + +Now of the other capitals of Europe--the capitals of the more modern +states--one alone can claim to have been, in this way, the creator of +the state of which it is now the head. Berlin, Madrid, Stockholm, +Copenhagen, Saint Petersburg, are simply places chosen in later times, +for reasons of caprice or convenience, as administrative centres of +states which already existed. Vienna has grown from the capital of a +Duchy into the capital of something which calls itself an Empire; but +Vienna, as a city, has had nothing to do with the growth of that +so-called Empire. London may fairly claim a higher place than any of the +cities of which we have spoken. It was only by degrees, and after some +fluctuations, that London, rather than Winchester, came to be +permanently acknowledged as the capital of England. London won its rank, +partly by virtue of an unrivalled military and commercial position, +partly as the reward of the unflinching patriotism of its citizens in +the Danish wars. But London in no way formed England, or guided her +destinies. The history of London is simply that the city was found to be +the most fitting and worthy head of an already existing kingdom. But +Paris has been what London has been, and something more. Paris, like +London, earned her pre-eminence in Gaul by a gallant and successful +resistance to the Scandinavian enemy. It was the great siege of Paris in +the ninth century which made Paris the chief among the cities of Gaul, +and its Count the chief among the princes of Gaul. Its position first +marked it out for the rank of a local capital, and, through the way in +which it used its position, it grew into the capital of a kingdom. But +it did not, like London, simply grow into the capital of a kingdom +already existing. The city created first the county, and then the +kingdom, of which it was successively the head. Modern France, as +distinguished both from Roman Gaul and from the Western Kingdom of the +Karlings, grew out of this County of Paris; and of the County of Paris +the city was not merely the centre, but the life and soul. The position +of Paris in the earliest times is best marked, as in the case of all +Gaulish cities, by its place in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. It was a +city, not of the first, but of the second rank; the seat of a Bishop, +but not the seat of a Metropolitan.[43] Lutetia Parisiorum held the +usual rank of one of those head towns of Gaulish tribes which grew into +Roman cities. But it never became the centre of one of the great +ecclesiastical and civil divisions; it never reached the rank of Lyons, +Narbonne, Vienne, or Trier. Twice before the ninth century, the +discerning eye, first of a Roman and then of a Frankish master, seemed +to mark out the city of the Seine for greater things. It was the beloved +home of Julian; it was the city which Hlodwig at once fixed upon for the +seat of his new dominion. But the greatness of Paris, as the earliest +settled seat of the Frankish power, was not doomed to be lasting. Under +the descendants of Hlodwig Paris remained a seat of royalty; but, among +the fluctuations of the Merovingian kingdoms, it was only one seat of +royalty among several. It was the peer of Soissons, Orleans, and +Metz--all of them places which thus, in the new state of things, assumed +a higher importance than had belonged to them in Roman times. But, as +the Austrasian House of the Karlings grew, first as Mayors, and then as +Kings, to the lordship of the whole Frankish realm, the importance of +the cities of Western Gaul necessarily lessened. Paris reached its +utmost point of insignificance in the days of Charles the Great, whom +French legends have pictured as a French King, reigning in Paris as his +royal city. Whatever importance it had, it seems to have derived from +its neighbourhood to the revered sanctuary of St. Denis. By a strange +accident, the first King of the new house--the house with which Paris +was to wage a war of races and languages--died either in the city +itself, or in the precinct of the great monastery beyond its walls. +Pippin, returning from a successful campaign in Aquitaine, fell sick at +Saintes; from thence he was carried to Tours to implore the help of +Saint Martin, and thence to Paris to implore the help of Saint Denis. He +died at Paris, and was buried in the great minster which became the +burial-place of the next and rival line of kings.[44] But Paris was +neither the crowning-place nor the dwelling-place of his son, nor was it +the object of any special attention during his long reign. Of the two +sons of Pippin, between whom his kingdom was immediately divided, Paris +fell to the lot of Karlmann. But he chose Soissons for his +crowning-place--the place where his father had been crowned before +him.[45] Charles, crowned at Noyon, made Aachen his capital, and, in the +course of his whole reign, he visited Paris only on a single progress, +when it is incidentally mentioned among a long string of other +cities.[46] + +But this time of utter neglect was, in the history of Paris, only the +darkness before the coming of the dawn. In the course of the next reign +Paris begins to play an important part, and from that time the +importance of the city steadily grew till it became what we have seen it +in our own day. The occasional visits of Lewis the Pious to the city are +dwelled on by his poetical biographer with evident delight, and with +even more than usual pomp of words.[47]. And the city was now about to +appear in its most characteristic; light. In the words of Sir Francis +Palgrave, who has sketched the early history of Paris with great power +and insight,[48] 'the City of Revolutions begins her real history by the +first French Revolution.'[49] In this particular case we do not even +grudge the premature use of the word 'French,' for the movement of which +he speaks was plainly a movement of the Romanized lands of the West +against their Teutonic master. Most likely no such feeling was +consciously present to the mind of any man; but nations and parties seek +to shape themselves unconsciously, and cities and regions learn to play +their appropriate parts, before they can give any intelligible account +of what they are doing. The Emperor was leading an expedition against +the revolted Bretons; suddenly all the disaffected spirits of the +Empire, his own sons among the foremost, gathered themselves together at +Paris.[50] They then seized Lewis himself at Compiègne, and their hated +step-mother Judith on the rock of Laon. But one part of his dominions +was still faithful to the imprisoned Cæsar; the German lands had no +share in the rebellion, and eagerly sought for the restoration of their +sovereign. In marking out the geographical divisions of feeling, the +writer of the ninth century, like those of the nineteenth, is driven, as +it were, to forestal the language of a somewhat later time. The Emperor +had no confidence in the French, but he put his trust in the German.[51] + +Such was the part--a characteristic part--played by Paris in the +Revolution of 830. Four years later Paris appears playing an opposite, +yet a no less characteristic part. The Emperor Lewis, already restored +and again deposed, is held as a prisoner by his eldest son Lothar, and +is led in bonds to Paris.[52] Again the men of the East, the faithful +Germans, are in arms for their sovereign under Lewis, at that moment his +only loyal son. But by this time the city has changed sides. Lothar, for +fear of the German host, flees to the South, leaving his father at +liberty; the late captive is led by his rejoicing people to the minster +of Saint Denis, and there is girt once more with the arms of the warrior +and with the Imperial robes of the Cæsar.[53] Once then in the course of +its long history, did Paris behold the inauguration of a lawful Emperor. +But it was the re-inauguration of an Emperor whom one Parisian +revolution had overthrown, and whom another Parisian revolution had set +up again; and in the moment alike of his fall and of his restoration the +force of loyal Germany forms at one time a threatening, at another an +approving, background. + +We thus see Paris, well-nigh unheard of during the reign of Charles the +Great, suddenly rise into importance under his son. Under Charles the +Bald its importance becomes greater still, and it begins to assume the +peculiar function which raised it to the head place in Gaul. The special +wretchedness of the time was fast showing the great military importance +of the site. Under the rule of the Austrasian Mayors and Kings there had +been endless wars, but they had been wars waged far away from Paris. +Above all, no hostile fleet had for ages sailed up the Seine. Lutetia +on her island must, under the Frankish power, have enjoyed for some +generations a repose almost as unbroken as she had enjoyed in the days +of the _Roman Peace_. Now all was changed. The Empire was torn in pieces +by endless civil wars, wars of brother against brother, and the fleets +of the Northmen, barely heard of in the days of Charles the Great, were +making their way up the months of all its rivers. Men now began to learn +that the island city, encompassed by the broad Seine, with its bridges +and its minsters, and the Roman palace on the left bank, was at once +among the most precious possessions and among the surest bulwarks of the +realm. It is not without significance that the one time when the Great +Charles himself visited Paris, it was in the course of a progress in +which he had been surveying the shores of the Northern Ocean.[54] He +came to Paris as a mourner and as a pilgrim, yet we may believe that +neither his grief nor his devotion hindered him from marking the +importance of the post. His eye surely marked the site as one fated to +be the main defence, if not of his whole Empire, at least of its western +portion, against the pirate-barks by which the Ocean was beginning to be +covered. And probably it was not mere accident that it was in the course +of an expedition against Brittany that Paris became the centre of the +conspiracy of 830. In a Breton war, a land war, Paris would not be of +the same pre-eminent importance as it was in the invasion of the +Northmen. Still the island stronghold would be of no small moment in +case of a Breton inroad, and in the days of Lewis the Pious a Breton +inroad was again a thing to be dreaded. Among the troubles of the next +reign the pre-eminent importance of Paris begins to stand out more and +more strongly. By the last partition under Lewis the Pious, his youngest +son, Charles the Bald, became King of a kingdom formed by the accidental +union of Neustria and Aquitaine. The kingdom so formed answered to +nothing which had been thought of in earlier divisions, but it answered +in a kind of rough way to modern France. Far smaller as a whole, it took +in districts at both ends, in Flanders and in Catalonia, which have long +ceased to be looked upon as French. But it nowhere came near to the +coveted frontier of the Rhine and the Alps. Of this kingdom it seemed at +first that Paris was at once to become the capital; no other city filled +so prominent a place in the early history of the reign of Charles the +Bald. In the very beginning of his reign we find Charles making use of +the position of the city and its bridge: to bar the progress of his +brother, the Emperor Lothar. We find him dwelling for a long time in the +city, and giving the citizens the delight of a spectacle by appearing +among them in royal pomp at the Easter festival.[55] Four years later, +the city began to appear in its other character as the great mark for +Scandinavian attack. The northern pirates were now swarming on every +sea, and the coasts of Britain, Gaul, and Germany were all alike +desolated by their harryings. But they instinctively felt that, while no +shore lay more temptingly for their objects than the shores of Northern +Gaul, there was no point either of the insular or of the continental +realm where their approach was better guarded against. The island city, +with its two bridges and its strongly fortified Roman suburb on the +mainland, blocked their path as perhaps no other stronghold in Gaul or +Britain could block it.[56] In the very year of the fight of Fontenay, +as if they had scented the mutual slaughter from afar, the Northmen had +sailed up the stream and had harried Rouen and the surrounding lands +with the sternest horrors of fire and sword.[57] Four years later they +pressed on yet further into the heart of the defenceless realm; Paris +was attacked; in strange contrast with the valour of its citizens forty +years later, no one had the heart to resist; the city was stormed and +sacked; and King Charles, finding his forces unequal to defend or to +avenge, was driven to forestal the wretched policy of Æthelred, and to +buy a momentary respite from the invaders.[58] Other attacks, other +harryings followed. One more terrible than all, in the year 857, was +specially remembered on account of the frightful havoc wrought among the +churches of the city. The church of Saint Genoveva, on the left bank of +the river--better known to modern ears as the Pantheon--was burned, +Saint Stephen's, afterwards known as Nôtre Dame, Saint Germans, and +Saint Denis, bought their deliverance only by large ransoms.[59] In the +minds of the preachers of the time the woes of Paris suggested the woes +of Jerusalem and a wail of sorrow went up from the Jeremiah of the age +for the havoc of the city and its holy places.[60] + +When we remember the importance to which Paris was plainly beginning to +rise under Lewis the Pious, we may perhaps be led to think that it was +the constant attacks to which the city was exposed which hindered it +from becoming the permanent dwelling-place of royalty under Charles the +Bald. That the city held a place in his affections throughout his life +is shown by his choosing Saint Denis as the place of his burial. But it +never became the royal city of the Kings of his house. We need hardly +look on it as a mark of personal cowardice in Charles that he preferred +to fix the ordinary seat of his government in some other place than the +most exposed fortress of his kingdom. Compiègne now often appears as a +royal dwelling-place; but the home and centre of Carolingian royalty in +the Western Kingdom gradually fixed itself on a spot the most opposite +to Paris in position and feeling which the Western Kingdom could afford. +Paris and Laon were in every sense rivals; their rivalry is stamped upon +their very outward appearance. Each is a representative city. Paris, +like Châlons and Bristol, is essentially an island city; the river was +its defence against ordinary enemies, however easily that defence might +be changed into a highway for its attack in the hands of the amphibious +Northmen. But Laon is the very pride of that class of towns which out of +Gaulish hill-forts grew into Roman and mediæval cities. None stands more +proudly on its height; none has kept its ancient character so little +changed to our own day. The town still keeps itself within the walls +which fence in the hill-top, and whatever there is of suburb has grown +up at the foot, apart from the ancient city. Paris again was the home of +the new-born nationality of the Romance speech,[61] the home of the new +French nation. Laon stood near the actual German border, in a land where +German was still spoken; it was fitted in every way to be, as it proved, +the last home of a German dynasty in the West. There can be little doubt +that, by thus moving eastward, by placing themselves in this outlying +Teutonic corner of their realm, the Carolingian Kings of the West threw +away the opportunity of putting themselves at the head of the new +national movement, and of reigning as national Kings, if not of the +whole Romance-speaking population of Gaul, at least of its strictly +French portion north of the Loire. + +Of such a mission we may be sure Charles the Bald and his successors +never dreamed. The chances are that those to whom that mission really +fell dreamed of it just as little. We must never forget that the +national movements of those days were for the most part instinctive and +unconscious; but they were all the more powerful and lasting for being +instinctive and unconscious. An act of Charles the Bald, one of the +ordinary grants by a King to one of his vassals, created the French +nation. The post from which the King himself shrank was entrusted to a +valiant subject, and Robert the Strong, the mightiest champion of the +land against the heathen invader, received the government of the whole +border land threatened by the Breton and the Northman.[62] We may be +sure that the thoughts of the King himself did not reach at the most +beyond satisfaction at having provided the most important post in his +realm with a worthy defender. To shield himself from the enemy by such a +barrier as was furnished by Robert's country, it was worth while to +sacrifice the direct possession even of the fair lands between the Loire +and the Seine. His dominion was a _mark_;[63] his truest title a +_marquis_. But the Mark of France, like the Mark of Brandenburg and the +Mark of Austria, was destined to great things. Robert no doubt, like the +other governors and military chiefs, who were fast growing from +magistrates into Princes, rejoiced in the prospect of becoming the +source of a dynasty, a dynasty which could not fail to take a high place +among the princes of Gaul. But he hardly dreamed of founding a line of +Kings, and a line of Kings the most lasting that the world ever saw. +Still less did he dream of founding a nation. But he did both. The +Counts who held the first place of danger and honour soon eclipsed in +men's eyes the Kings who had retired to the safer obscurity of their +eastern frontier. The city of the river became a national centre in a +way in which the city of the rock could never be. The people of the +struggling Romance speech of northern Gaul found a centre and a head in +the rising city and its gallant princes. That Robert was himself of +German descent, the son of a stranger from some of the Teutonic +provinces of the Empire,[64] mattered not a whit. From the beginning of +their historic life the Parisian Dukes and Kings have been the leaders +and representatives of the new French nationality. No royal dynasty has +ever been so thoroughly identified with the nation over which it ruled, +because no royal dynasty could be so truly said to have created the +nation. Paris, France, and the Dukes and Kings of the French are three +ideas which can never be kept asunder. A true instinct soon gave the +ruler of the new state a higher and a more significant title. The Count +of Paris was merged in the Duke of the French, and the Duke of the +French was soon to be merged in the King. The name of _Francia_, a name +whose shiftings and whose changes of meaning have perplexed both history +and politics--a name which Eastern and Western writers seem to have made +it a kind of point of honour to use in different meanings[65]--now +gradually settles down, as far as the Western Kingdom is concerned, into +the name of a territory, answering roughly to the Celtic Gaul of the +elder geography.[66] It has still to be distinguished by epithets like +_Occidentalis_ and _Latina_, from the Eastern _Francia_ of Teutonic +speech, but, in the language of Gaul, _Francia_ and _Franci_ for the +future mean the dominion and the subjects of the lord of Paris. We need +not say that the lands beyond the Rhone, the Saône, and the Maes, which +formed no part of the Western Kingdom, are not included under the name +of _Francia_. But neither are the lands held, like the French Duchy, in +fief of the common sovereign, Brittany, Flanders, Aquitaine, and the +ducal Burgundy. To these must be added Normandy, the land wrested from +the French Duchy to form the inheritance of the converted Northman. +France is still but one among the principalities of Gaul; but, like +Wessex in England, like Castile in Spain, like Prussia in Germany and +Piedmont in Italy, it was the one destined, by one means or another, to +swallow up the rest. From the grant of 861, from the foundation of the +Parisian Duchy, we may date the birth of the French state and nation. +From that day onwards France is whatever can, by fair means or foul, be +brought into obedience to Paris and her ruler. + +Count Robert the Strong, the Maccabæus of the West-Frankish realm, the +patriarch of the old Capets, of the Valois, and of the Bourbons, died as +he had lived, fighting for Gaul and Christendom against the heathen +Dane.[67] But his dominion and his mission passed to a son worthy of +him--to Odo, or Eudes,[68] the second Count of his house, presently to +be the first of the Kings of Paris. In his day came the great struggle, +the mighty and fiery trial, which was to make the name of Paris and her +lord famous throughout the world. On the great siege of Paris by the +Northmen, the turning-point in the history of the city, of the Duchy, +and in truth of all Western Europe, we may fairly dwell at somewhat +greater detail than we have done on the smaller events which paved the +way for it. We must bear in mind the wretched state of all the countries +which made up the Carolingian Empire. The Northmen were sailing up every +river, and were spreading their ravages to every accessible point. Every +year in the various contemporary annals is marked by the harrying of +some fresh district, by the sack of some city, by the desecration of +some revered monastery.[69] Resistance, when there was any, was almost +wholly local; the invaders were so far from encountering the whole +force of the Empire that they never encountered the whole force of any +one of its component kingdoms. The day of Saul-court, renowned in that +effort of old Teutonic minstrelsy which may rank alongside of our own +songs of Brunanburh and Maldon,[70] the day when the young king Lewis +led the West-Frankish host to victory over the heathen,[71] stands out +well-nigh alone in the records of that unhappy time. While neither realm +was spared, while one set of invaders ravaged the banks of the Seine and +the Loire, while another more daring band sacked Aachen, Köln, and +Trier,[72] the rival Kings of the Franks were mainly intent on extending +their borders at the expense of one another. Charles the Bald was far +more eager to extend his nominal frontier to the Rhine,[73] or to come +back from Italy adorned with the Imperial titles,[74] than he was to +take any active step to drive out the common enemy of all the kindred +realms. At last the whole Empire, save the Burgundian Kingdom of Boso, +was once more joined together under Charles the Fat. Paris was again +under the nominal sovereignty of an Emperor whose authority, equally +nominal everywhere, extended also over Rome and Aachen. Precarious and +tottering as such an Empire was, the even nominal union of so many +crowns on a single head, however unfit that head was to bear their +weight, does seem to have given for the moment something like a feeling +of greater unity and thereby of greater strength. Paris, defended by its +own Count and its own Bishop, was defended by them in the name of His +Emperor, Lord of the World.[75] The sovereigns alike of East and West +were appealed to for help, and at least a show of help was sent in the +name of both parts of the Frankish realm.[76] The defence of Paris was +essentially a local defence, waged by its own citizens under the command +of their local chiefs. Still the great check which the invaders then +received came nearer to a national act on the part of the whole Frankish +Empire than anything which had happened since the death of Charles the +Great. + +Our materials for the great siege are fairly abundant. Several of the +contemporary chronicles, in describing this gallant struggle, throw off +somewhat of their usual meagreness, and give an account conceived with +an unusual degree of spirit and carried out with an unusual amount of +detail.[77] And we have a yet more minute account, which, even as it is, +is of considerable value, and which, had it been a few degrees less +wearisome and unintelligible, would have been of the highest interest. +Abbo, a distinguished churchman of those times, a monk of the house of +Saint German, and not only a contemporary, but a spectator and sharer in +the defence,[78] conceived the happy idea of writing a minute narrative +of the exciting scenes which he had witnessed. But he unhappily threw +his tale into the shape of hexameters which have few rivals for +affectation and obscurity. The political biographer of Lewis the Pious +at all events writes Latin; Abbo writes in a Babylonish dialect of his +own composing, stuffed full of Greek and other out-of-the-way words, and +to parts of which he himself found it needful to attach a glossary. +Still with all this needless darkness, he gives us many details, and he +especially preserves many individual names which we should not find out +from the annalists. A fervent votary of Saint German, a loyal citizen of +Paris, a no less loyal subject of the valiant Count who, when he wrote, +had grown into a King, Abbo had every advantage which personal knowledge +and local interest could give to a narrator of the struggle. Only we +cannot help wishing that he had stooped to tell his tale, if not in his +native tongue, whether Romance or Teutonic, yet at least in the +intelligible Latin of Nithard in a past generation and of Richer in a +future one.[79] + +The poet begins with a panegyric on his city, in which he may, while +dealing with such a theme, be forgiven for somewhat unduly exalting its +rank among the cities of the world.[80] Its position, the strength of +the island-fortress, connected with the mainland by its castles on +either side, is plainly set forth.[81] The defenders of the city are +clearly set before us; Odo the Count, the future King, as we are often +reminded,[82] and Gozlin the Bishop, stand forth in the front rank. +Around the two great local chiefs are gathered a secondary band of their +kinsfolk and supporters, clerical and lay. There is Odo's brother +Robert, himself to wear a crown in the city which he defended, but in +days to which the foresight of the poet did not extend. There is the +valiant Count Ragnar; there is the warlike Abbot Ebles of Saint Germans, +whose exploits are recorded with special delight by the loyal monk of +his house.[83] A crowd of lesser names are also handed down to us, names +of men who had their honourable share in the work, but with whose bare +names it is hardly needful to burthen the memories of modern readers. A +great object of attack on the part of the Northmen was the castle which +guarded the bridge on the right bank of the river, represented in after +times by the Grand Châtelet. The watchful care of the Bishop had been +diligent in strengthening this and the other defences of the city; but +the last works which were to guard this important point were not fully +finished.[84] The Danish fleet now drew near, a fleet manned, so it was +said, by more than thirty thousand warriors.[85] As in the tale of our +own Brihtnoth,[86] the invaders began with a peaceful message. The +leader of the pirates, Sigefrith, the sea-king,--a king, as the poet +tells us, without a kingdom[87]--sought an interview with Count Odo, and +demanded a peaceful passage through the city. Odo sternly answers that +the city is entrusted to his care by his lord the Emperor, and that he +will never forsake the duty which was laid upon him. The siege now +began; the Northmen strove to storm the unfinished tower. After two days +of incessant fighting, and an intervening night spent in repairing the +defences, the valour of the defenders prevailed. The Count and the +Bishop, and the Abbot who could pierce seven Danes with a single shot of +his arrow,[88] finally drove back the heathen to their ships; and +instead of the easy storm and sack which they doubtless looked for on +this, as on earlier occasions, the Northmen were driven to undertake the +siege of the city in form.[89] + +One is a little surprised at the progress in the higher branches of the +art of war which had clearly been made by the enemy who now assaulted +Paris. The description of their means of attack, if not intelligible in +every detail, at least shows that the freebooters, merciless heathens as +they were, were at all events thorough masters of the engineering +science of their age.[90] But, through the whole winter of 885, all +their attempts were unavailing. The skill and valour of the defenders +were equal to those of the besiegers, and their hearts were strung by +every motive which could lead men to defend themselves to the last. But +early in the next year, in February 886, accident threw a great +advantage into the hands of the besiegers. A great flood in the Seine +swept away, or greatly damaged, the lesser bridge, the painted bridge, +that which joined the island to the fortress on the left bank of the +river.[91] That fortress and the suburb which it defended, the suburb +which contained the Roman palace and the ministers of Saint Genoveva and +Saint German, were thus cut off from the general defences of the city. +The watchful care of the Bishop strove to repair the bridge by night. +But the attempt was forestalled by the invaders; the tower was isolated +and surrounded by the enemy. The Bishop and the other defenders of the +city were left to behold, to weep, and to pray from the walls, at the +fate of their brethren whom they could no longer help.[92] The tower was +fiercely attacked; the gate did not give way till fire was brought to +help the blows of the Northmen; the defenders of the tower all perished +either by the flames or by the sword, and their bodies were hurled into +the river before the eyes of their comrades.[93] The conquerors now +destroyed the tower, and from their new vantage ground they pressed the +siege of the island city with increased vigour. + +The chances of war seemed now to be turning against the besieged. The +stout heart of Bishop Gozlin at last began to fail; he saw that Paris +could no longer be defended by the arms of its citizens only. He sent a +message to Henry, the Duke of the Eastern Franks, praying him to come to +the defence of the Christian people. The Duke came; we are told that his +presence did little or nothing for the besieged city;[94] yet in the +obscure verses of the poet we seem to discern something like a night +attack on the Danish camp on the part of the Saxon Duke and his +followers.[95] But in any case the coming of the German allies did +nothing for the permanent relief of the city. They went back to their +own land; Paris was again left to its own resources, and at last the +Bishop, worn out with sorrow and illness, began to seek the usual +delusive remedy. He began to enter into negotiations with Sigefrith, +which were cut short by the prelate's death. The news was known in the +Danish camp before it was commonly known within the walls of Paris, and +the mass of the citizens first learnt from the insulting shouts of the +besiegers that their valiant Bishop was no more.[96] + +The Bishop, as long as he lived, had been the centre and soul of the +whole defence, yet it would seem that, at the actual moment of his +death, his removal was a gain. We hear no more, at least on the part of +the men of Paris, of any attempts at treating with the enemy. One bitter +wail of despair from the besieged city reaches our ears, and the hero of +the second act of the siege now stands forth. The spiritual chief was +gone; the temporal chief steps into his place, and more than into his +place. Count Odo appears as cheering the hearts of the people by his +eloquence, and as leading them on to repeated combats with the +besiegers.[97] At last hunger began to tell on the strength of the +defenders; help from without was plainly needed, and this time it was to +be sought, not from any inferior chief, but from the common sovereign, +the Emperor and King of so many realms. Count Odo himself went forth on +the perilous errand; he called on the princes of the Empire for help in +the time of need, and warned the sluggish Augustus himself that, unless +help came speedily, the city would be lost for ever.[98] Long before any +troops were set in motion in any quarter for the deliverance of Paris, +the valiant Count was again within its walls, bringing again a gleam of +joy to the sad hearts of the citizens, both by the mere fact of his +presence and by the gallant exploit by which he was enabled to appear +among them. The Northmen knew of his approach, and made ready to bar his +way to the city. Before the gate of the tower on the right bank, the +tower which still guarded the northern bridge, the lines of the heathen +stood ready to receive the returning champion. Odo's horse was killed +under him, but, sword in hand, he hewed himself a path through the thick +ranks of the enemy; he made good his way to the gate, and was once more +within the walls of his own city, ready to share every danger of his +faithful people.[99] + +Such a city, we may well say, deserved to become the seat of Kings, and +such a leader deserved to wear a royal crown within its walls. Eight +months of constant fighting passed away after the return of Odo before +the lord alike of Rome, of Aachen, and of Paris appeared before the city +where just now his presence was most needed. Towards the last days of +summer Duke Henry again appeared, but it was fully autumn before the +Emperor himself found his way to the banks of the Seine.[100] Duke Henry +came, with an army drawn from both the Frankish realms, Eastern and +Western.[101] With more show of prudence than he had shown at his former +coming, Henry began by reconnoitring both the city and the camp of the +enemy, to judge at what point an attack might be made with least +risk.[102] But the Northmen were too wary for him. They had surrounded +their whole camp with a network of trenches, three feet deep and one +foot wide, filled up with straw and brushwood, and made to present the +appearance of a level surface.[103] A small party only were left in +ambush. As the Duke drew near, they sprang up, hurled their javelins, +and provoked him with shouts. Henry pressed on in wrath, but he was soon +caught in the simple trap which had been laid for him; his horse fell, +and he himself was hurled to the ground. The enemy rushed upon him, slew +him, and stripped him in the sight of his army.[104] One of the +defenders of the city, the brave Count Ragnar, of whom we have already +heard, came in time only to bear off the body, at the expense of severe +wounds received in his own person.[105] The corpse of the Duke was +carried to Soissons and was buried in the Church of Saint Médard. The +army of Henry, disheartened by the loss of their chief, presently +returned to their own homes. Paris was again left to its own resources, +cheered only by such small rays of hope as might spring from the +drowning of one of the besieging leaders in the river.[106] + +The news of the death of Henry was brought to the Emperor. +Notwithstanding his grief--perhaps an euphemism for his fear--he +pressed on towards Paris with his army; but even the chronicler most +favourable to him is obliged to confess that the lord of so many +nations, at the head of the host gathered from all his realms, did +nothing worthy of the Imperial majesty.[107] All in truth that the +Emperor Charles did was to patch up a treaty with the barbarians, by +virtue of which, on condition of their raising the siege of Paris, they +received a large sum as the ransom of the city, and were allowed to +ravage Burgundy without let or hindrance.[108] We are told indeed that +this step was taken because the land to be ravaged--are we to understand +the Kingdom of Boso?--was in rebellion.[109] At all events, the +Christian Emperor, the last who reigned over the whole Empire, handed +over a Christian land as a prey to pagan teeth, and left Paris without +striking a blow. Charles went straight back into Germany, and there +spent the small remnant of his reign and life in a disgraceful domestic +quarrel.[110] One act however he did which concerns our story. Hugh the +Abbot, the successor of Robert the Strong in the greater part of his +Duchy, had died during the siege. The valiant Count of Paris was now, by +Imperial grant, put in possession of all the domains which had been held +by his father.[111] + +But the Count was not long to remain a mere Count; the city and its +chief were alike to receive the reward of their services in the cause of +Christendom. Presently came that strange and unexampled event by which +the last Emperor of the legitimate male stock of the Great Charles was +deposed by the common consent of all his dominions. The Empire again +split up into separate Kingdoms, ruled over by Kings of their own +choice. The choice of the Western realm fell, as it well deserved to +fall, upon the illustrious Count of Paris. The reign of Odo indeed was +not undisturbed, nor was his title undisputed. He had to struggle in the +beginning of his reign with a rival in the Italian Guy, and in latter +years he had to withstand the more formidable opposition of a rival King +of the old Imperial line. And chosen as he was by the voice of what we +may now almost venture to call the French people, hallowed as King in +the old royal seat of Compiègne by the hands of the Primate of Sens, the +Metropolitan of his own Paris,[112] Odo had still to acknowledge the +greater power and higher dignity of the Eastern King. He had to confess +himself the man of Arnulf, to receive his crown again at Arnulf's hands, +while Arnulf was not as yet a Roman Emperor, but still only a simple +King of the East Franks.[113] Still the Count had become a King; the +city which his stout heart and arm had so well defended had become a +royal city. The rank indeed both of the city and its King, was far from +being firmly fixed. A hundred years of shiftings and changings of +dynasties, of rivalry between Laon and Paris, between the Frank and the +Frenchman, had still to follow. But the great step had been taken; there +was at last a King of the French reigning in Paris. The city which by +its own great deeds had become the cradle of a nation, the centre of a +kingdom, was now placed in the foremost rank at their head. The longest +and most unbroken of the royal dynasties of Europe had now begun to +reign. And it had begun to reign, because the first man of that house +who wore a crown was called to that crown as the worthiest man in the +realm over which he ruled. + +But we must go back to the enemy before Paris. By the treaty concluded +with the Emperor, they were to raise the siege, but they were left at +liberty to harry Burgundy and other lands. The citizens of Paris, +however, steadfastly refused to allow them to pass up the Seine; so the +Northmen ventured on a feat which in that age was looked on as +unparalleled.[114] They saw, we are told, that the city could not be +taken; so they carried their ships for two miles by land, and set sail +at a point of the river above the city.[115] While the Empire was +falling in pieces, while new kingdoms were arising and were being +struggled for by rival kings, the Northmen were harrying at pleasure. +Soissons was sacked;[116] after a long and vain attack on the mighty +walls of Sens, the enemy found it convenient to retire on a payment of +money.[117] Meaux also, under the valiant Count Theodberht, stood a +siege; but after the death of their defender, the citizens capitulated. +The capitulation was broken by the Northmen; the city was burned, and +the inhabitants were massacred.[118] By this time Odo was King. +Meanwhile the Northmen, after their retreat from Sens, had made another +attempt on Paris, and had been again beaten off by the valiant +citizens.[119] The King now came to what was now his royal city, and +established a fortified camp in the neighbourhood to secure it from +future attacks.[120] Yet when the Northmen once more besieged Paris in +the autumn of 889, even Odo himself had to stoop to the common means of +deliverance, The new King, the first Parisian King, bought off the +threatened attack by the payment of a Danegeld, and the pirates went +away by land and sea to ravage the Constantine peninsula, the land +which, a generation or two later, was to become the special land of the +converted Northmen.[121] + +Paris was finally secured against Scandinavian attack by the +establishment of the Duchy of Normandy. By the treaty of Clair-on-Epte +in 913, Rolf Ganger, changed in French and Latin mouths into Rou and +Rollo, became the man of the King of Laon for lands which were taken +away from the dominion of the Duke of Paris. Charles the Simple, the +restored Karling, was now King; Robert, the brother of Odo, was Duke of +the French, and there can be no doubt that the tottering monarchy of +Laon gained much by the dismemberment of the Parisian Duchy and by the +establishment at the mouth of the Seine of a vassal bound by special +ties to the King himself. The foundation of the Rouen Duchy at once +secured Paris against all assaults of mere heathen pirates. France had +now a neighbour to the immediate north of her--a neighbour who shut her +off from the sea and from the mouth of her own great river--a neighbour +with whom she might have her wars, as with other neighbours--but a +neighbour who had embraced her creed, who was speedily adopting her +language and manners, and who formed, part of the same general political +system as herself. The shifting relations between France and Normandy +during the tenth and eleventh centuries form no part of our subject, but +it will be well to bear in mind that Paris was at once sheltered and +imprisoned through the Norman possession of the lower course of the +Seine. + +It follows then that the next besiegers of Paris came from a different +quarter; and these next besiegers came from the quarter from which its +last besiegers have come. In the course of the tenth century, the +century of so many shifting relations between Rouen, Laon, and Paris, +while the rivalry between King and Duke sometimes broke forth and +sometimes slumbered, Paris was twice attacked or threatened by German +armies. Both the First and the Second Otto at least appeared in the near +neighbourhood of the city. In 946, the first and greatest of the name, +not yet Emperor in formal rank, but already exercising an Imperial +pre-eminence over the kingdoms into which the Frankish Empire had split +up, entered the French Duchy with two royal allies or vassals in his +train. One was the Burgundian King Conrad, Lord of the realm between +the Rhone and the Alps; the other was the nominal King of Paris and its +Duke, Lewis, alike the heir of all the Karlings and the descendant of +our own Ælfred, whose nominal reign over the Western Kingdom was +practically well nigh confined to the single fortress of Compiègne. +Among the shifting relations of the Princes of the Western Kingdom, Hugh +the Duke of the French and Richard the Duke of the Normans were now +allied against their Carolingian over-lord. He had lately been their +prisoner, and had been restored to freedom and kingship only by the +surrender of the cherished possession of his race, the hill and tower of +Laon. Otto, the mighty Lord of the Eastern realm, felt himself called on +to step in when Teutonic interests in the Western lands seemed to be at +their last gasp. The three Kings united their forces against the two +Dukes, and marched against the capitals both of France and Normandy. But +never were the details of a campaign told in a more contradictory way. +There can be little doubt that Rouen was besieged, and besieged +unsuccessfully. Thus much at least the German historian allows;[122] in +Norman lands the tale swells into a magnificent legend.[123] What +happened at Paris is still less clear. Laon, for the moment a French +possession, was besieged unsuccessfully, and Rheims successfully.[124] +Then, after a vain attempt on Senlis, the combined armies of the Kings +of Aachen, Arles, and Compiègne drew near to the banks of the Seine. +Flodoard, the canon of Rheims, the discreetest writer of his age, leaves +out all mention of Paris and its Duke; he tells us merely that the Kings +crossed the river and harried the whole land except the cities.[125] The +Saxon Widukind tells us how his King, at the head of thirty-two +legions, every man of whom wore a straw hat[126] besieged Duke Hugh in +Paris, and duly performed his devotions at the shrine of Saint +Denis.[127] From these two entries we are safe in inferring that, if +Paris was now in any strict sense besieged, it was at least not besieged +successfully. But Richer, the monk of Saint Remigius, one of the +liveliest tale-tellers of any age, is ready with one of those minute +stories which, far more than the entries of more solemn annalists, help +to bring us face to face with the men of distant times. The Kings were +drawing near to the Seine. In order that the enemy might be cut off from +all means of crossing, the Duke of the French, Hugh the Great, aware of +their approach, had bidden all vessels, great and small, to be taken +away from the right bank of the river for the space of twenty miles. But +his design was hindered by a cunning stratagem of the invaders. Ten +young men, who had made up their mind to brave every risk,[128] went in +advance of the army of the Kings, having laid aside their military garb +and provided themselves with the staves and wallets of pilgrims. +Protected by this spiritual armour, they passed unhurt and unchallenged +through the whole city of Paris, and crossed over both bridges to the +left bank of the river. There, not far from the suburb of Saint German, +dwelt a miller, who kept the mills which were turned by the waters of +the Seine.[129] He willingly received the comely youths who professed +to have crossed from the other side of the river to visit the holy +places. They repaid his hospitality with money, and moreover purchased +wine, in the consumption of which a jovial day was spent. The genial +drink opened the heart and the lips of the host, and he freely answered +the various questions of his guests. He was not only a miller; he was +also the Duke's head fisherman, and he moreover turned an occasional +penny by letting out vessels for hire. The Germans praised the kindness +which he had already shown them, which made them presume to ask for +further favours. They had still other holy places to pray at, but they +were wearied with their journey. They promised him a reward of ten +shillings--no small sum in the tenth century--if he would carry them +across to the other side. He answered that, by the Duke's orders, all +vessels were kept on the left bank to cut off all means of crossing from +the Germans. They told him that it might be done in the night without +discovery. Eager for his reward, he agreed. He received the money, and, +accompanied by a boy, his step-son, he guided them to the spot where +seventy-two ships lay moored to the river side. The boy was presently +thrown into the river, the miller was seized by the throat, and +compelled by threats of instant death to loose the ships. He obeyed, and +was presently bound and put on board one of the vessels. Each of the +Germans now entered a ship and steered it to the right bank. The whole +body then returned in one of the vessels, and each again brought across +another. By going through this process eight times, the whole +seventy-two ships were brought safely to the right bank. By daybreak the +army of the Kings had reached the river. They crossed in safety, for all +the inhabitants of the country had fled, and the Duke himself had sought +shelter at Orleans. The land was harried as far as the Loire, but of the +details of the siege of Rouen and of the siege of Paris, if any siege +there was, we hear not a word.[130] + +The military results of the first German invasion of France and Normandy +were certainly not specially glorious. Laon, Senlis, Paris, and Rouen, +were, to say the least, not taken. All that was done was to take Rheims +and to ravage a large extent of open country. But, in a political point +of view, the expedition was neither unsuccessful nor unimportant. From +that time the influence of the Eastern King in the affairs of the +Western Kingdom becomes of paramount importance, and under his +protection, the King of the West Franks, King of Compiègne and soon +again to be King of Laon, holds a far higher place than before in the +face of his mighty vassals at Paris and Rouen. The next German invasion, +forty years later, found quite another state of things in the Western +Kingdom. The relations between King Lothar and Duke Hugh Capet were +wholly different from the relations which had existed between their +fathers, King Lewis and Duke Hugh the Great. No less different were the +relations between Lothar and Otto the Second from those which had +existed between their fathers, Lewis and Otto the Great. The elder Otto +had been a protector, first to his brother-in-law and then to his +nephew; the younger Otto was only a rival in the eyes of his +cousin.[131] On the other hand, it was the policy of Hugh Capet to keep +up the dignity of the Crown which he meant one day to wear, and not to +appear as an open enemy of the dynasty which he trusted quietly to +supplant. For a while then the rivalry between Laon and Paris was +hushed, and the friendship of Paris carried with it the friendship of +Rouen and Angers. Thus, while Lewis, a prince than whom none ever showed +a loftier or more gallant spirit, was hunted from one fortress or one +prison to another, his son, a man in every way his inferior, was really +able to command the forces of the whole land north of the Loire. Again +the King of Gaul looked Rhine-wards; the border land of Lotharingia +kindled the ambition of a prince who might deem himself King both of +Laon and Paris. That border land, after many times fluctuating to and +fro, had now become an acknowledged portion of the Eastern Kingdom. But +a sudden raid might win it for the King of the West, and the Duke of +Paris would be nothing loth to help to make such an addition to the +Kingdom which he meant one day to possess. The raid was made; the hosts +of the King and the Duke crossed the frontier, and burst suddenly on the +Imperial dwelling-place of Aachen. The Emperor, with his pregnant wife, +the Greek princess Theophanô, had to flee before the approach of his +cousin, and Lothar had the glory of turning the brazen eagle which his +great forefather had placed on the roof of his palace in such a +direction as no longer to be a standing menace to the western +realms.[132] As in a more recent warfare, the Gaul began with child's +play, and the German made answer in terrible earnest. The dishonour done +to their prince and his realm stirred the heart of all Germany, and +thirty thousand horsemen--implying no doubt a far larger number of +warriors of lower degree--gathered round their Emperor to defend and +avenge the violated Teutonic soil. Lothar made no attempt to defend his +immediate dominions; he fled to crave the help of his mighty vassal at +Paris.[133] The German hosts marched, seemingly without meeting any +resistance, from their own frontier to the banks of the Seine. +Everywhere the land was harried; cities were taken or surrendered, but +the pious Emperor, the Advocate of the Universal Church, everywhere +showed all due honour to the saints and their holy places.[134] In +primatial Rheims, in our own days to be the temporary home of another +German King, the German Cæsar paid his devotions at the shrine of Saint +Remigius, the saint who had received an earlier German conqueror still +into the fold of Christ.[135] At Soissons Saint Médard received equal +worship, and when the church of Saint Bathild at Chelles was burned +without the Emperor's knowledge, a large sum was devoted to its +restoration. But if the shrines of the saints were reverenced, the +palaces of the rival King were especially marked out for destruction. +Attigny was burned, and nearly equal ruin fell upon Compiègne itself. +Meanwhile the King had fled to Etampes, in the immediate territory of +the Duke, while Hugh himself was collecting his forces at Paris. At last +the German host came within sight of the ducal city. Otto now deemed +that he had done enough for vengeance. He had shown that the frontiers +of Germany were not to be invaded with impunity; he had come to Paris, +not to storm or blockade the city, but to celebrate his victorious march +with the final triumph of a pious bravado. He sent a message to the Duke +to say that on the Mount of Martyrs he would sing such a Hallelujah to +the martyrs as the Duke and people of Paris had never heard. He +performed his vow; a band of clergy were gathered together on the sacred +hill, and the German host sang their Hallelujah in the astonished ears +of the men of Paris. This done, the mission of Otto was over, and after +three days spent within sight of Paris, the Emperor turned him to depart +into his own land.[136] + +Such, at least, is the tale as told by the admirers of the Imperial +devotee. In the hands of the monk of Rheims the story assumes quite +another shape, and in the hands of the panegyrist of the house of Anjou +it inevitably grows into a legend.[137] Richer tells us how the Emperor +stood for three days on the right bank of the river, while the Duke was +gathering his forces on the left; how a German Goliath challenged any +man of France to single combat, and presently fell by the dart of a +French, or perhaps Breton, David;[138] how Otto, seeing the hosts which +were gathering against him, while his own forces were daily lessening, +deemed that it was his wisest course to retreat.[139] As for the details +of the retreat, our stories are still more utterly contradictory. One +loyal French writer makes Lothar, at the head of the whole force of +France and Burgundy, chase the flying Emperor to the banks of the Maes, +whose waters swallowed up many of the fugitives.[140] The monk of Rheims +transfers the scene of the German mishap to the nearer banks of the +Aisne,[141] while the Maes is with him the scene of a friendly +conference between the two Kings, in which Lothar, distrusting his +vassals at Paris, deems it wiser to purchase the good-will of the +Emperor by the cession of all his claims upon Lotharingia.[142] The most +striking details come from the same quarter from which we get the +picture of the Hallelujah on Montmartre. The Emperor, deeming that he +had had enough of vengeance, departed on the approach of winter;[143] he +reached the Aisne and proposed to encamp on its banks. But by the advice +of Count Godfrey of Hennegau, who warned him of the dangers of a stream +specially liable to floods, he crossed with the greater part of his +army, leaving only, on the dangerous side, a small party with the +baggage.[144] It was on this party that Lothar, hastening on with a +small force, fell suddenly, while a sudden rise of the stream hindered +either attack or defence on the part of the main armies.[145] Otto then +sends a boat across with a challenge, proposing that one or the other +should allow his enemy to cross without hindrance, and that the +possession of the disputed lands should be decided by the result of the +battle which should follow.[146] 'Nay rather,' cried Count Geoffrey, +probably the famous Grisegonelle of Anjou, 'let the two Kings fight out +their differences in their own persons, and let them spare the blood of +their armies.'[147] 'Small then, it seems,' retorted Count Godfrey in +wrath, 'is the value you put upon your King. At least it shall never be +said that German warriors stood tamely by while their Emperor was +putting his life in jeopardy.'[148] At this moment, when we are looking +for some scene of exciting personal interest, the curtain suddenly +falls, and this, our most detailed narrator, turns away from the +fortunes of Emperors and Kings to occupy himself with his immediate +subject, the acts of the Bishops of Cambray.[149] + +Putting all our accounts together it is hard to say whether, in a +military point of view, the expedition of Otto the Second was a success +or a failure. If his design was to take Paris, he certainly failed. If +he simply wished to avenge his own wrongs and to show that Germany could +not be insulted with impunity, he undoubtedly succeeded. In either case +the political gain was wholly on the German side. King and Duke acted +together during the campaign; but each, in its course, learned to +distrust the other, and each found it expedient to seek the friendship +of the Emperor as a check against his rival.[150] And more than all, the +Imperial rights over Lotharingia were formally acknowledged by Lothar, +and were not disputed again for some ages.[151] + +This campaign of 976 has a special interest just now, as its earlier +stages read, almost word for word, like a forestalling of the events of +the present year of wonders. How far its later stages may find their +counterpart in the great warfare now going on, it is not for us to +guess. But it is a campaign which marks a stage in the history of +Europe. It is the first war that we can speak of--a war waged between +Germany and anything which has even the feeblest claim to be called an +united France. When Otto the Great marched against Paris and Rouen, he +was fighting in the cause of the King of the West Franks, the lawful +over-lord of the Dukes against whom he was fighting. When Otto the +Second marched against Paris, he was fighting against King and Dukes +alike, and King and Dukes between them had at their call all the lands +of the strictly French speech, the tongue of _oil_. Aquitaine of course, +and the other lands of the tongue of _oc_, had no part or lot in the +matter; then, as in latter times, there were no Frenchmen south of the +Loire. But if the expedition of Otto was in this sense the first German +invasion of France, it was also for a long time the last. It is not +often that Imperial armies have since that day entered French territory +at all. The armies of Otto the Fourth appeared in the thirteenth century +at Bouvines, and the armies of Charles the Fifth appeared in the +sixteenth century in Provence. But Bouvines, lying in the dominions of a +powerful and rebellious vassal, was French only by the most distant +external allegiance, and Provence, in the days of Charles the Fifth, was +still a land newly won for France, and the Imperial claims over it were +not yet wholly forgotten. Both invasions touched only remote parts of +the kingdom, and in no way threatened the capital. Since the election +of Hugh Capet made Paris for ever the head of France and of all the +vassals of the French Kingdom, the city has been besieged and taken by +pretenders, native and foreign, to the Capetian Crown, but it has never, +till our own century, been assailed by the armies of the old Teutonic +realm. The fall of the first Buonaparte was followed by a surrender of +Paris to a host which called up the memories alike of Otto of Germany +and of Henry of England. The fall of the second Buonaparte is followed +before our own eyes by the siege of Paris, the crowning point of a war +whose first stages suggest the campaign of the Second Otto, but which, +for the mighty interests, at stake, for the long endurance of besieger +and besieged, rather suggests the great siege at the hands of Sigefrith. +But all alike are witnesses to the position which the great city of the +Seine has held ever since the days of Odo. Paris is to France not merely +its greatest city, the seat of its government, the centre of its society +and literature. It is France itself; it is, as it has been so long, its +living heart and its surest bulwark. It is the city which has created +the kingdom, and on the life of the city the life of the kingdom seems +to hang. What is to be its fate? Is some wholly different position in +the face of France and of Europe to be the future doom of that memorable +city? Men will look on its possible humiliation with very different +eyes. Some may be disposed to take up the strain of the Hebrew prophet, +and to say, 'How hath the oppressor ceased, the golden city ceased!' +Others will lament the home of elegance and pleasure, and what calls +itself civilization. We will, in taking leave of Paris, old and new, +wind up with the warning, this time intelligible enough to be striking, +of her own poet-- + + Francia cur latitas vires, narra, peto, priscas, + Te majora triumphâsti quibus atque jugâsti + Regna tibi? Propter vitium triplexque piaclum. + Quippe supercilium, Veneris quoque feda venustas. + Ac vestis preciosæ elatio te tibi tollunt! + Afrodite adeo, saltem quo arcere parentes[152] + Haud valeas lecto, monachas Domino neque sacras; + Vel quid naturam, siquidem tibi sat mulieres, + Despicis, occurant? Agitamus fasque nefasque. + Aurea sublimem mordet tibi fibula vestem, + Efficis et calidam Tyriâ camera preciosâ. + Non præter chlamydem auratam cupis indusiari + Tegmine, decusata tuos gemmis nisi zona + Nulla fovet lumbos, aurique pedes nisi virgæ, + Non habitus humilis, non te valet abdere vestis. + Hæc facis; hæc aliæ faciunt gentes ita nullæ; + Hæc tria ni linquas, vires regnumque paternum + Omne scelus super his Christi, cujus quoque vates, + Nasci testantur bibli: fuge, Francia, ab istis! + + + + +ART. VI.--_The Established Church in Wales._ + +(1.) _An Essay on the Causes which have Produced Dissent from the +Established Church in Wales._ By ARTHUR JAMES JOHNES. Third Edition. + +(2.) _Letters on the Social and Political Condition of Wales._ By HENRY +RICHARD. London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder. + +(3.) _History of Nonconformity in Wales._ By THOMAS REES, D.D. London: +John Snow. + +(4.) _Hanes y Methodistiaid Calfinaidd gan._ JOHN HUGHES. + +(5.) _Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry, gan y diweddar Barch._ WILLIAM RAWLANDS. +Llanidloes: John Pryse. + +(6.) _The Church of the Cymry. A Letter to the Right Hon. W. E. +Gladstone, M.P._, from HENRY S. EDWARDS, B.A. Oxon., Vicar of Carnarvon. +London: Longmans, Green, and Co. + +(7.) _The Church of England in Wales, in Seven Letters to the Right Hon. +W. E. Gladstone, M.P._ By the Rev. WILLIAM REES, Liverpool. + + +The Act for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Irish Church +was one of great importance for what it did, but of still greater +importance for what it implied; for in that measure there was a distinct +legislative recognition of certain general principles, which are +susceptible of far wider application than to the particular case they +were invoked to sustain. It disposed, once for all, of the fond fantasy +that the State is bound in its collective capacity to have a conscience, +and in obedience to the dictates of that conscience, to impose its own +creed upon the community, as the established faith of the country, to be +supported by the authority, and enforced by the sanction of law. It +acknowledged the principle that where an established church never has +been, or has ceased to be the church of the nation, and fails, +therefore, in its professed function as the religious instructor of the +people, it has no longer any _raison d'être_, and ought to be swept +away as an anomaly and encumbrance. It recognised the fact, if not for +the first time, at least with more distinctness and emphasis than was +ever done before, that ecclesiastical property is national property, +which the nation has a perfect right through its legitimate organ, the +legislature, to apply to any purpose it may think fit, whether sacred or +secular. + +We need not wonder that when the Irish Establishment was abolished, +men's minds should turn almost instinctively to the sister institution +in Wales, as furnishing a case in many respects parallel, but in other +respects still less admitting of justification. The discussion of this +subject in Parliament last session, on the motion of Mr. Watkin +Williams, did not take place, perhaps, under the most favourable +auspices. But it was at least attended with this advantage, that it +obliged those who oppose the Disestablishment of the Welsh Church to +show their hand. As Mr. Gladstone, in addition to his many other merits +as an orator, is the most accomplished debater in the House of Commons, +we may safely assume that whatever could be said in defence of the +Church in Wales, and in deprecation of its proposed severance from the +State, was said by him with the utmost degree of plausibility and point. +But certainly on a calm review of the arguments he used on that +occasion, they do not appear to be very formidable. + +It may be said, indeed, that the Prime Minister made no attempt to +defend the Welsh Church. He abandoned it to the strongest condemnation +pronounced upon it by its adversaries, for the 'gross neglect, +corruption, nepotism, plunder,' to use his own words, by which it has +been marked; and only tried to account for these evils by laying them +all to the charge of 'Anglicizing prelates.' He admitted that, even +granting what Churchmen claimed, namely, about one-fourth of the +population as belonging to the Establishment,--a claim, let us say in +passing, which in the face of notorious facts is simply +preposterous--'the disproportion is very remarkable in the case of a +Church purporting to be the Church of the nation.' He admitted, +moreover, as a circumstance seriously militating against the Welsh +Church, that 'so large a proportion of her members belong to the upper +classes of the community, the classes who are most able to provide +themselves with the ministrations of religion, and therefore, in whose +special and peculiar interest it is most difficult to make any effectual +appeal for public resources and support.' But while acknowledging all +this, he resists the proposal for its disestablishment. On what grounds? +First, on this ground--that there is no hostility in Wales to the +Church Establishment, and that its existence does not, as in Ireland, +produce alienation or bitterness of feeling between different classes of +the community. But this argument, if it were well founded in fact, which +unhappily it is as far as possible from being, does not address itself +in the least to the reason or justice of the case. Even if the Welsh +people were so devoid of spirit and self-respect as to feel it no +grievance to have a costly Church Establishment, which exists almost +exclusively for the benefit of the rich, saddled upon their necks, +surely that is no proof that it is right to perpetuate the privileges of +a body, whose history for generations has been marked by 'gross neglect, +corruption, and nepotism,' and which, purporting to be the Church of a +nation, does not pretend, even according to the claims of its most +audacious advocates, to number among its adherents more than one-fourth +of the nation. But Mr. Gladstone is wholly misinformed as to the fact. +Because the Nonconformists of Wales are an eminently peaceable, loyal, +and orderly people, and do not proclaim their grievances with clamour +and menace, it is imagined that they do not feel the gross injustice and +indignity of the position they occupy. They do feel it deeply, and they +are made to feel it, by events continually occurring in their social and +political life, which all spring from this one root of bitterness. We +need only refer in illustration of what we mean to the circumstances +which attended and followed the last general election. Every form of +unfair pressure was brought to bear upon the people to induce them to +vote against their convictions, and many of those who had the courage to +resist, were mercilessly evicted from their holdings, or otherwise +injured and persecuted. All this sprang from the existence of the +Established Church, as is evidenced by the fact, that in every instance +we believe without a single exception--the oppressors were Churchmen and +the sufferers Nonconformists. + +The other, and the only other, argument of Mr. Gladstone is this--that +except for conventional purposes, there is really no Church in Wales, +that the Welsh Church is only a part of the Church of England, and +cannot therefore be dealt with separately. We confess we are not very +much dismayed by this difficulty; for we can remember the time when the +same reason was urged to show the impossibility of touching the Irish +Church. Properly speaking, we were told there was no Church of Ireland, +but only the united Church of England and Ireland--the two churches +having, at the time of the Union, been joined together by a compact so +solemn and binding, that Her Majesty the Queen could not give her +consent to any measure for dissolving that compact, without incurring +the danger of committing perjury and bringing her crown into jeopardy. +And as for providing legislation for Ireland distinct from that of +England, the suggestion was scouted as an absurdity. Ireland was as much +a part of the United Kingdom as Yorkshire or Lancashire, and must be +governed by the same laws. The sense of justice, however, and the urgent +necessities of the case, triumphed over these foregone conclusions. + +There is one fact that gives a sort of sinister unity to the religious +history of Wales through all its vicissitudes. It is this: that the +influence of its relations with England, whether they were hostile or +friendly, whether under Saxon or Norman rule, whether in Catholic or +Protestant times, has been, in this respect, uniformly disastrous. We +can only glance very briefly at the proofs of this allegation. Without +raising again the controversial dust which envelopes the discussion as +to the time and manner of the first introduction of Christianity into +this island, we may at least assume it as an admitted historical fact, +that early in the second century the Gospel had been planted here, and +that long before the Saxon invasion there was a flourishing Christian +Church in Britain. In the records of the first three or four hundred +years of its existence, we find that many large collegiate +establishments were formed and dedicated to religion and literature. +From these institutions went forth men thoroughly instructed in the +learning of their times, some of them bearing the fame of their +country's piety and erudition to the uttermost parts of Europe. In the +oecumenical councils summoned under Constantine the Great and his +sons, in the third and fourth centuries, at Arles, at Nice, and at +Sardica, to decide the great Donatist and Arian controversies that +disturbed the unity of the Catholic faith, we are told that the British +Churches were represented by men who bore an honourable part in the +defence of sound doctrine; for Athanasius himself testifies that Bishops +from Britain joined in condemnation of the heresy of Arius, and in +vindication of himself. But when, in the sixth century, the Pope sent +the celebrated Augustin, as a missionary, to convert the pagan +Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of this island to Christianity, there came on +the British Church a time of terrible persecution. Having resolutely +refused to recognise the papal authority, Augustin and his successors, +in accordance with the policy of that persecuting Church which they +represented, incited their Saxon converts to make war upon the British +recusants, exasperating the national animosities, already sufficiently +bitter between the two races, by adding to it the fanatical frenzy of +religious bigotry. For many ages, therefore, the Britons were liable to +frequent incursions from their Saxon neighbours, who, instigated by the +councils of Rome, invaded their country, destroying their churches, +burning their monasteries, and putting to death the pious and learned +monks, who, in the seclusion of those establishments, were pursuing the +peaceable occupations of literature and religion.[153] This struggle +between the ancient British Church on the one side, and that of Rome, +backed by the Saxon sword, on the other, continued for centuries. And +when the Saxon conquerors had in their turn to succumb to the Norman +invaders, that struggle was renewed with greater fierceness than ever. +Religion was again unscrupulously used as an instrument of State, the +Norman princes forcing ecclesiastics of their own race into all the +higher offices of the Church in Wales, not from any regard for the +spiritual interests of the people, but that they might aid in +extinguishing the national spirit of the Cymri, and in subjugating the +country to the Norman yoke. This policy, of course, failed, as it richly +deserved to fail. The bishops and other dignitaries thus intruded upon +the country were only safe when surrounded by bodies of armed retainers, +and whenever the Cymric arms won a victory in the field, the interlopers +had to flee to England to save themselves from popular indignation. +About the end of the twelfth century, the Welsh princes appealed to the +Pope for a redress of these intolerable wrongs. A petition couched in +eloquent language was presented to his Holiness from Llywelyn, Prince of +Gwynedd; Gwenwynwyn and Madoc, Princess of Powys; Gruffydd, Maelgwn, +Rhys, and Meredith, sons of Rhys, Prince of South Wales. It is curious, +in reading this document, to observe that some of the ecclesiastical +grievances of which the British princes complain, are precisely those +which the friends of the Church in Wales are still reiterating in our +own day:-- + + 'And, first, the Archbishop of Canterbury, as a matter of + course, sends us English bishops, ignorant of the manners + and language of our land, who cannot preach the word of God + to the people, nor receive their confessions but through + interpreters. + + 'And besides, these bishops that they send us from + England, as they neither love us nor our land, but rather + persecute and oppress us with an innate and deep-rooted + hatred, seek not the welfare of our souls; their ambition + is to rule over us and not to benefit us; and on this + account they do not but very rarely fulfil the duties of + their pastoral office among us. + + 'And whatever they can lay their hands upon or get from us, + whether by right or wrong, they carry into England, and + waste and consume the whole of the profits obtained from + us, in abbeys and lands given to them by the king of + England. And like the Parthians, who shoot backwards from + afar as they retreat, so do they from England excommunicate + us as often as they are ordered so to do.... + + 'Besides these things, when the Saxons (English) rush into + Wales, the Archbishop of Canterbury puts the whole land + under an interdict, and because we and our people defend + our country against the Saxons and other enemies, he places + us and our people under judgment of excommunication, and + causes those bishops whom he sent among us to proclaim this + judgment, which they are ready to do on all occasions. The + consequence is, that every one of our people who falls on + the field of blood, in defence of the liberty of his + country, dies under the curse of excommunication.' + +When the Reformation came, the influence of the connection with England +was, if possible, still more disastrous on the religious interests of +Wales. 'The robbery in times of peace,' says Mr. Johnes, 'proved worse +than the spoliation in the times of war, and the rapacity of the +Reformation was added to the rapacity of Popery.' He then describes, in +language of eloquent indignation, how the ecclesiastical endowments of +the Principality were pitilessly plundered by being bestowed upon +laymen, the descendants of the Norman invaders, or by being alienated +from the Church of Wales to endow English bishoprics and colleges! For +the last century and a half, again, the policy of the civil and +ecclesiastical authorities in dealing with the Welsh Church has, it +would seem, been steadily directed to the extinction of the Welsh +language and nationality by the appointment of Englishmen to bishoprics, +canonries, deaneries, and most of the richest livings in Wales, in utter +contempt of all decency. And now when, by the legitimate operation of a +State establishment of religion, nearly the whole nation has been +alienated from the Church, so that it has become a mere encumbrance in +the land, we are told that Wales is so inseparably united with England +that it cannot expect to be rid of the incubus until England has made up +its mind to deal with its own Church Establishment. + +But what we have to do with most especially at present is the Protestant +Church Establishment in Wales, and our indictment against it is this, +that at no period of its history has it fulfilled, in anything +approaching to a satisfactory manner, its proper function as the +religious instructor of the Welsh people. We have a chain of testimonies +in support of this allegation that are unimpeachable as to their +quality, and of overwhelming force in their concurrence and cumulation +of evidence. We are anxious to make this point clear, because the line +of defence that has been lately taken by the friends of the Church of +England in Wales is to this effect. It is true, they say, that towards +the middle of the last century the Church had fallen into a deep sleep, +and so afforded occasion, and to some degree excuse, for the rise of +Nonconformity, which was previously almost unknown in Wales. And then +they point in vague and sounding phrases to the golden age that preceded +that period of spiritual torpor, when the Church, alive to her high +mission, ruled by native bishops, who understood the language and +commanded the confidence and veneration of the country, comprehended and +cared for within her ample fold the whole population of the +Principality. Dissent, we are assured, is in Wales an exotic of quite +modern growth, which, it is further implied, will prove to have a very +ephemeral life, like Jonah's gourd, which came up in a night and +perished in a night. Now all this is pure fiction. Dissent is not a +thing of modern growth in Wales. It has existed more or less for 230 +years, and whatever of vital religion has existed there during the whole +of that period, has been owing far more to its influence than to that of +the Established Church. It is not correct to say that the Church 'fell +asleep' in the last century, simply because it had never been awake. +'The wisest thing, in my opinion, that our Church friends can do,' said +Mr. Henry Richard, in his address at the opening of Brecon College-- + + 'instead of pluming themselves on their antiquity, would be + to cut off, so far as they can, all connection with and all + memory of their past history in Wales. The succession + through which they derive their ecclesiastical lineage, in + this country at least, is about as unapostolical a + succession as can be conceived--a succession of simony, + pluralism, nepotism; of ignorance, incompetence, and utter + indifference to the duties of their own high office and the + claims of the unfortunate people left to their charge, on + the part of those who called themselves the priests of + God.' + +And to begin with what must surely be considered as the first and most +solemn duty of a Protestant Church, that of supplying the people of whom +it professes to take charge with the Word of God in their own language, +how does the account stand with the Welsh Established Church in this +respect? Dr. Llewellyn, the learned author of the 'Historical Account of +the Welsh Versions of the Bible,' states + + 'that for upwards of seventy years from the settlement of + the Reformation by Queen Elizabeth, for near one hundred + years from Britain's separation from the Church of Rome, + there were no Bibles in Wales, but only in the cathedrals + of parish churches and chapels. There was no provision made + for the country or the people in general; as if they had + nothing to do with the word of God, at least no further + than they might hear it in their attendance on public + worship once in the week.' + +But how did the ecclesiastical authorities act in reference to the +translation of the Scriptures into the Welsh language, even for use in +the churches? In the year 1563, an Act of Parliament (5 Eliz. c. 28) was +passed, ordering this work to be done. In the preamble it is recited,-- + + 'That her Majesty's most loving and obedient subjects + inhabiting within her Majesty's dominion and country of + Wales, being no small part of this realm, are utterly + destitute of God's Holy Word, and _do remain in the like or + rather more darkness and ignorance than they were in the + time of Papistry_.' + +It was therefore enacted that the Bible, consisting of the New Testament +and the Old, together with the book of Common Prayer and the +Administration of the Sacraments, should be translated into the British +or Welsh tongue. The duty of seeing this done was devolved upon the +Bishops of St. Asaph, Bangor, St. David's, Llandaff, and Hereford, and +they were subjected to a penalty of £40 each if the work were not +accomplished by March, 1566. The New Testament was translated within the +given period, principally by William Salesbury, a lay gentleman, with +some help from the Bishop and Precentor of St. David's; but there was no +version of the Old Testament for twenty years later, and that was done +not by the initiative or at the instigation of the bishops, but by the +spontaneous piety and patriotism of one individual, Dr. William Morgan, +vicar of Llanshaidr-yn-Mochnat, Denbighshire, whose name ought to be +held in everlasting veneration by all Welshmen. This was published in +1588. He acknowledges, indeed, that he received some encouragement and +help from the Bishops of St. Asaph and Bangor. Ingenious apologies have +been urged for the gross neglect of the bishops in fulfilling their +commission. But Dr. Morgan, in the Latin dedication of his Bible to +Queen Elizabeth, ascribes it to what, no doubt, was the true cause, +mere 'idleness and sloth.'[154] There was no other edition of the Welsh +Bible for thirty-two years. But in the year 1620, Dr. Parry, Bishop of +St. Asaph, brought out a new issue. This also seems to have been the +result of individual zeal, for in his preface Dr. Parry says, that the +former edition having been exhausted, and many or most of the churches +being either without any or with only worn-out and imperfect copies, and +nobody, so far as he could learn, even thinking of a republication, he +was moved to undertake the work.[155] This, likewise, was exclusively +for use in the churches. The first edition of the Bible for popular use +was published in an octavo form in 1630, but does not seem to have +originated with the Church in any way. 'The honour,' says Dr. Llewellyn, +'of providing for the first time a supply of this kind for the +inhabitants of Wales, is due to one or more citizens of London,' namely +Mr. Alderman Heylin, 'sprung from Wales,' and Sir Thomas Middleton, also +a native of the Principality, and an alderman of London.[156] For the +next half century there was only one edition of the Scriptures in Welsh +published by Churchmen, a large folio of 1,000 copies, for the pulpits +of the churches. But during the same period the persecuted +Nonconformists--Walter Cradock, Vavasor Powell, Stephen Hughes, Thomas +Gouge, and David Jones--published nine editions, consisting of about +30,000 copies of the whole Bible, and above 40,000 of the New Testament +separately. During the subsequent half-century (from 1718 to 1769) we +acknowledge with cordial gratitude that several large editions were +issued by the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, two of them at +the instigation of the Rev. Griffith Jones, and one at the instigation +of Dr. Llewellyn, a dissenting minister. But let it be observed that the +former period, from the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the beginning of +the eighteenth century, synchronises as nearly as possible with the +golden age which some members of the Welsh Church fondly believe to have +existed in the history of that institution. + +But let us now enquire how, in other respects, the Established Church +in Wales discharged its duties as the teacher of the people. In the +absence of the Bible there was, of course, all the more need for +personal earnestness and activity on the part of its ministers in +preaching the word and catechising, and the regular and solemn +administration of all religious ordinances. But how was it in this +respect during the beatific period, when, as some of the modern +advocates of the Church exultingly declare, there was 'no dissent in +Wales?' We will begin our inquiries with the reign of Queen Elizabeth. +In the year 1560, Dr. Meyrick, Bishop of Bangor, writes that he had only +two preachers in his diocese. Strype, in his 'Life of Archbishop +Parker,' describes the condition of the bishoprics of Llandaff and +Bangor, one in South and the other in North Wales, about the year 1563, +as follows. The former had been two or three years, in effect, void, and +wanted a vigilant bishop to manage that diocese. But the great +dilapidations had so impoverished that see, that few who were honest and +able would be persuaded to meddle with it. + + As for Bangor (he continues), the diocese was also much out + of order, _there being no preaching used_, and pensionary + concubinacy openly continued, which was allowance of + concubines to the clergy, by paying a pension, + notwithstanding the liberty of marriage granted. + + ... So that Wales being in an evil condition as to + religion, 'the inhabitants remaining still greatly ignorant + and superstitious, the Queen left it particularly to the + care of the Archbishop to recommend fit persons for those + two sees now to be disposed of.' + +In 1588, John Penry published his 'Exhortation unto the People and +Governors of Her Majesty's Country of Wales,' every line of which was +aflame with the fire of a righteous and eloquent indignation at the +negligent bishops and 'unpreaching ministers,' to whose tender mercies +his 'poor country of Wales' was abandoned. We need not quote at large +from the melancholy picture he gives in this and his other pamphlets of +the state of the Principality in that day, as his writings have been +rendered familiar to many of our readers by Dr. Waddington's 'Life of +Penry,' and Dr. Rees's 'History of Nonconformity in Wales.' We will +therefore cite only one or two pregnant sentences:-- + + 'This I dare affirm and stand to, that if a view of all the + registries of Wales be taken, the name of that shire, that + town, or of that parish, cannot be found, where, for the + space of six years together within these twenty-nine years, + a godly and learned minister hath executed the duty of + teacher, and approved his ministry in any mean sort.... If + I utter an untruth let me be reproved, and suffer as a + slanderer; if a truth, why should not I be allowed.' + +The Rev. Henry T. Edwards, the author of the very able and vigorous +pamphlet mentioned at the head of this article, has permitted himself, +in an evil moment, and in stress of argument and information, in defence +of the Welsh Church of those days, to describe this noble-minded and +devoted Christian and patriot in very opprobrious terms, as 'a +sour-minded Puritan, recognising no truth save in his own interpretation +of the written Word,' &c., &c. But Strype, at least, cannot be called 'a +sour-minded Puritan.' Let us then revert to his testimony in reference +to precisely the same period. In his 'Annals of the Reformation'[157] he +makes the following statement. We borrow Dr. Rees's summary:-- + + 'Dr. William Hughes, Bishop of St. Asaph, was accused, in + the year 1587, the year before the publication of Penry's + "Exhortation," of misgoverning his diocese and of + tolerating the most disgraceful abuses. When the case was + inquired into, it was found that the Bishop himself held + sixteen rich livings _in commendam_; that most of the great + livings were in possession of persons who lived out of the + country; that one person who held two of the greatest + livings in the diocese boarded in an alehouse; and that + only three preachers resided upon their livings viz., Dr. + David Powell, of Ruabon; Dr. William Morgan, of + Llanrhaidr-yn-Mochnat, the translator of the Bible; and the + parson of Llanvechan, an aged man, about eighty years old.' + +We will now follow the history of the Welsh Church into the reign of +James I. At that time, there lived and laboured in Wales a very +remarkable man, the Rev. Rees Pritchard, Vicar of Llandovery, in +Carmarthenshire, the author of a work which has had a larger circulation +in the Principality than any book except the Bible. It is entitled +'Canwyll y Cymry,' or, 'The Welshman's Candle,' a series of moral and +religious poems, most simple in their language, and even slovenly in +their metrical composition, but full of poetry and feeling, and +thoroughly saturated with evangelical truth. He flourished between the +years 1616 and 1644. John Penry, in his most vehement remonstrances, +does not employ stronger language to portray the utter ignorance, +irreligion, and immorality in which the people were sunk, than does this +excellent clergyman. But what we have specially to do with now is the +testimony he bears as to the condition of the Church, a testimony all +the more unimpeachable, as he continued through life a member and a +minister of that Church. In one of his poems, after describing all +classes as wholly given up to every species of depravity, he adds that +the clergy were asleep, leaving the people to wallow in their sins, and +to live as they liked, unwarned and unrebuked.[158] In another poem, he +puts the clergy at the head of various classes, whom he enumerates, who +were 'contending with each other, which of them should most daringly +affront the Most High.' There is evidence still more conclusive, if +possible, in the reports presented to the King by Archbishop Laud, +between the years 1633 and 1638, which are still extant among the +Lambeth MSS. This bigoted prelate had, it seems, in those years, been +specially instigating the Bishops of St. David's and Llandaff to +persecute without mercy those in their dioceses who were guilty of +'inconformity;' that is, who refused to read 'The Book of Sports,' and +other similar obligations which were laid on the consciences of the +clergy. After commemorating the success with which the Bishop of St. +David's had silenced one Roberts, a lecturer, for inconformity, and +reduced three or four others to submission, he adds: 'He complains much, +and surely with cause enough, that there are few ministers in those poor +and remote places that are able to preach and instruct the people.' And +the Bishop of St. Asaph tells Laud that 'they were not anywhere troubled +with inconformity; but that he heartily wished that they might as well +be acquainted with superstition and profaneness.' + +In the year 1651, there was published a translation in the Welsh +language of the once celebrated 'Marrow of Modern Divinity.' This +translation was by the Rev. John Edwards, one of the clergy ejected by +the Parliamentary Commission appointed under the Commonwealth. In the +preface, he deplores the neglect into which the Welsh language had +fallen, and declares that, 'among the Church clergy (y Dyscawdwyr +Eglwysig), scarcely one in fifteen knew how to read and write Welsh.' +The reader will observe that we are following our chain of evidence link +by link. In 1677, a work was published in Welsh entitled 'Carwr y +Cymry,' that is, 'The Welshman's Friend; an Exhortation to his dear +countrymen for the sake of Christ and their own souls, to search the +Scriptures according to Christ's command, John v. 39.' This is supposed +to have been written by a clergyman of the name of Oliver Thomas. The +introduction is in the form of an earnest and affectionate address to +'Welsh Churchmen.' In this he says:-- + + 'Often does sorrow beyond measure strike my heart in + observing and reflecting upon the great deficiency and the + utter neglect which prevails among us Welsh Churchmen, in + taking pains to teach our flocks conscientiously, through + our not giving ourselves with full purpose of heart to + reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. We are ourselves, + many of us, unskilful in the word of righteousness, and + therefore incompetent to direct others.... Yea, my dear + brethren, give me permission to say, what it pains me to be + obliged to say, that in each of the Welsh bishoprics forty + or sixty churches may be found without any one in them on + Sundays, even in the middle of summer, when the roads are + driest, and the weather finest.'[159] + +We have brought our chain of testimonies down to near the end of the +seventeenth century. But from that time to our own they are still more +abundant. + +In 1721 was published, 'A View of the State of Religion in the Diocese +of St. David's, about the beginning of the Eighteenth Century,' by Dr. +Erasmus Saunders. It contains a most deplorable picture of the condition +of the Church, as regards both its material and spiritual interests. He +describes some churches as totally decayed; they + + 'do only serve for the solitary habitations of owls and + jackdaws; such are St. Daniel's, Castelhan, Kilvawyr, + Mountain, Capel Colman, and others in Pembrokeshire; Mount + Llechryd, in Cardiganshire; Aberllynog, in Breconshire; + Nelso, in Gower, Glamorganshire, and others in + Carmarthenshire. And it is not to be doubted, but as there + are districts of land, so there were originally just + endowment of tythes that did belong to all those several + churches; but whatever they were, they are now alienated, + the churches, most of them, demolished, the use for which + they were intended almost forgotten, unless it be at + Llanybrec, where, I am told, the improprietor or his tenant + has let that church unto the neighbouring Dissenters, who + are very free to rent it for the desirable opportunity and + pleasure of turning a church into a conventicle'--(pp. 23, + 4.) + + 'As the Christian service is thus totally disused in some + places, there are other some that may be said to be but + half served, there being several churches where we are but + rarely, if at all, to meet with preaching, catechising, or + administering of the Holy Communion. In others, the service + of the prayers is but partly read, and that perhaps but + once a month, or once in a quarter of a year.... The + stipends are so small, that a poor curate must sometimes + submit to serve three or four churches for £10 or £12 + a-year.' + +He then refers, though with great forbearance and tenderness, to the low +type of character which such a state of things produced among the +clergy; and then exclaims, sorrowfully, 'Such is the faint shadow that +remains among us of the public service of religion!' + + 'And now,' continues the author, 'what Christian knowledge, + what sense of piety, what value for religion are we + reasonably to hope for in a country thus abandoned, and + either destitute of churches to go to, or of ministers to + supply them, or both? Or how can it well consist with + equity and conscience to complain of the ignorance and + errors of an unhappy people in such circumstances? They are + squeezed to the utmost to pay their tithes and what is + called the church dues (though, God knows, the Church is to + expect little from it), and, at the same time, most + miserably deprived of those benefits of religion which the + payment of them was intended to support, and delivered up + to ignorance and barbarity, which must be the certain + consequence of driving away the ministers of religion, or + of depressing or incapacitating them for their duty'--(p. + 26.). + +To aggravate the evils of all kinds already sufficiently rife in the +Welsh Church, the English Government, about the beginning of the +eighteenth century, adopted the practice, which it has continued ever +since, of appointing Englishmen utterly ignorant of the Welsh language +to Welsh bishoprics.[160] And the bishops, following the example thus +set by those acting for the head of the Church, inundated the +Principality with English clergymen, their own relatives and +connections, to whom all the highest dignities and the richest livings +were, almost without exception, assigned. A more monstrous abuse than +this it is difficult to conceive, and yet it has been persevered in for +150 years in the face of all complaint and remonstrance, and in the +teeth of the express judgment of the Church itself, which declares in +its 26th Article that 'it is a thing plainly repugnant to the word of +God, and to the custom of the primitive Church, to have public prayer in +the church, or to minister the sacraments in a tongue not understanded +of the people.' We need not wonder, therefore, that great prominence +should be henceforth given by the friends of the Church to this, as one +of the causes, if not, indeed, the sole cause, of its inefficiency and +decay. How far they are justified in attaching such supreme importance +to it we shall consider hereafter. But we shall for the present resume +our series of testimonies to the matter of fact. Most of our readers +will doubtless have heard of the Rev. Griffith Jones, of Llanddowror, +the founder of the remarkable circulating schools, which, during the +latter half of the eighteenth century, rendered such inestimable service +to the people of the Principality. We cannot here enter upon the history +of the life and labours of this admirable clergyman. If one man could +have saved the Church in Wales, he would have saved it. But as Mr. +Johnes has remarked with great sagacity--though he does not appear to +see the inevitable inference to be drawn from the remark--'it is a truth +but too well sanctioned by experience, that a few pious ministers are +the weakness, and not the strength, of an establishment, when the +majority of its ministers are sunk in indifference to their sacred +duties.' Our object now, however, is merely to cite the Rev. Griffith +Jones as a witness to the condition of the Church about the middle of +the eighteenth century. In the year 1749 he published a letter in Welsh, +on the 'Duty of Catechising Ignorant Children and People.' In that +letter he observes that the + + 'peasantry cannot understand from sentences of deep + learning in sermons the Articles of Faith without being + catechised in them, which, at present, is more necessary, + because there is among us such _monstrosity_ (anferthwch) + and such evil and barefaced craft in some places, as the + frequent preaching of _English_ to the _Welsh_ people, not + one jot more edifying or less ridiculous than the Latin + service of the Papists in France. One author states that he + could not help rebuking such clergymen, in spite of the + spleen and wrath it was likely to bring upon him, viz., the + lazy vicars and rectors, who have led a careless life from + their youth, and have set their mind on keeping company, + and going unsteadily from tavern to tavern, and not minding + their books; in consequence of which they are as ignorant + of their mother tongue as they are of Greek and Hebrew, and + therefore read the service and preach in English, without + sense or shame, in the most purely Welsh assemblies + throughout the country. Not much better, if any, are those + who patch up a sermon of mixed language and jargon sounds, + inconsonant, dark, and unintelligible, to the great scandal + and disgrace of the ministry, and to the grief, damage, and + weariness of the congregation.' + +There is one other eminent Welsh clergyman whom we must add to this +cloud of witnesses before we speak of the rise of Methodism in Wales. +The Rev. Evan Evans, better known, perhaps, by his Bardic name, _Ieuan +Brydydd Hir_, was a man of learning and genius, a friend and +correspondent of Bishop Percy and other _literati_ of that age. He was +especially well versed in ancient British literature, and published a +Latin essay, _Dissertatio de Bardis_, containing Latin translations from +the poems of Aneurin, Taliesin, and Llywarch Hen. In 1776, he published +two volumes of Welsh sermons. To the first volume he prefixed a +dedication to Sir W. W. Wynn in English, and an address to the reader in +Welsh, in both of which he describes in bold and burning language the +miserable state of the Church in Wales at that time. Here is one out of +many extracts we might have given. After complaining that most of the +gentry had 'thrown away all regard for religion and morality,' and that +'the ignorance and immorality of the lower class of the people was +pitiful, owing to the slothfulness and neglect of many of the clergy,' +he thus proceeds: + + 'As for the clergy, such of them as still enjoy the + remaining emoluments of the Church might do some good in + their generation if they were so disposed. But alas! so + little has been done by the clergy of the Established + Church in this way, that there is hardly a book or a sermon + left behind by any of them to testify their fidelity in + their vocation, for almost a hundred years past. It is a + pity they should not do something to convince the world + that they are ministers of the gospel. And it is a great + pity that most of them are so _scandalously ignorant of the + language_ in which they are to do the duties of their + function, that they can do very little to the edification + of their flocks. Those who enjoy the richest benefices in + the Church are most deficient in this respect, copying + herein the Church of Rome very faithfully, and leaving + their sheep to perish. And I am afraid that upon this and + other accounts many sincere Christians abhor the sacrifice + of the Lord, who were well disposed to the Church + established. And such abominations, if continued, will make + it desolate! + + 'Now, the question is what a faithful minister of the + gospel ought to do in such dangerous times? I am very sure + that some conscientious ministers of the gospel have + suffered severely of late years under these lordly and + tyrannic prelates. The number of such disinterested + persons, it must be owned, was small, and every art and + method have been used to discountenance them. If what I + here aver be doubted, I appeal to the writings of the late + pious and truly reverend Mr. Griffith Jones, of + Llanddowror, who underwent the scurrilities of a venal + priest _hired by the bishops_ to _bespatter him_, though he + was by the special grace of God without any stain or spot. + By far the greater number of the clergy, like Gehazi, run + after preferments, and have left the daughter of Zion to + shift for herself. And his doom, in a spiritual sense, is + likely to follow them and their successors.' + +It is well known that the man who may be called the father of Welsh +Methodism was Mr. Howell Harris. He was, and continued to the day of his +death, a dutiful son of the Church. He applied for ordination, but was +refused. He pressed his request for six years, but to no purpose. +'Wherever he went,' we quote again the language of a Welsh clergyman, +'as a simple and unoffending preacher of the gospel, either in the South +or the North, he was denounced by the clergy from their pulpits, he was +arrested by the magistrates, and persecuted by the rabble.[161] Now let +us hear his own account of the reasons which induced him to commence and +continue preaching to his countrymen. He describes his being taken +before the magistrates at Monmouth, for the work of God and the +testimony of Jesus Christ, and then continues-- + + 'After this, I was more satisfied than ever that my mission + was from God, especially as I had so often applied for holy + orders, and was rejected for no other reason than my + preaching as a layman. I saw both from Scripture and the + practice of the Church that the preaching of laymen was + proper in times of necessity; and I thought that time of + greater necessity could hardly be than the present, when + the whole country lay in a lukewarm and lifeless condition. + _In many churches there was no sermon for months together; + in some places nothing but a learned English discourse to + an illiterate Welsh congregation_; and where an + intelligible sermon was preached, it was generally so + legal, and so much in the spirit of the old covenant, that + should any give heed to it, they could never be led thereby + to Christ, the only way to God. Seeing these things, and + feeling the love of Christ in my heart, I could not refrain + from going about to propagate the gospel of my dear + Redeemer.'[162] + +The second great name in connection with the rise of Methodism in Wales, +was the Rev. Daniel Rowlands, of Llangeitho, a man whose powers as a +preacher are described by those who knew both, to have surpassed even +those of Whitfield. The effect of his eloquence among his countrymen was +extraordinary. It ran like a stream of electricity through the nation, +kindling into life thousands who had been previously wrapped in +spiritual torpor. Like Howell Harris, he was not merely content, but +anxious to continue his ministrations in the Church. 'But he was cast +out of the Church of England,' says one of his biographers, the Rev. J. +C. Ryle, 'for no other fault than excess of zeal.' And what was the +condition of the church, from which this over zealous man was expelled +by Episcopal judgment? Mr. Ryle shall answer. 'This ejection took place +at a time when scores of Welsh clergymen were shamefully neglecting +their duties, and too often were drunkards, gamblers, and sportsmen, if +not worse.'[163] + +The inference from all this has already been drawn for us by a candid +Churchman. Mr. Johnes, in his 'Essay on the Causes of Dissent in Wales,' +says that he is irresistibly led to the conclusion 'that before the rise +of Methodism in Wales the churches were as little attended by the great +mass of people as they are now: and that indifference to all religion +prevailed as widely then as dissent in the present day.' Of the early +Methodists in Wales, as indeed of the early Nonconformists, it may be +said most truly that they did not leave the Church of their own accord. +Most of them clung to it with a most touching fidelity, in spite of +incessant persecution and obloquy from those within its pale, and were +at last thrust out of it, for no offence but the excess of their zeal +for the moral and spiritual improvement of their countrymen. It is not +necessary now to put in any defence for these men; for it has become the +fashion of late among our Church friends in Wales, while denouncing +modern Nonconformity as schismatic, turbulent, self-seeking, and other +choice epithets with which we are so familiar in this connection, to +speak with great tenderness and respect of the founders of Welsh +dissent, and especially the early Methodists. Retaining, of course, that +_de haut en bas_ air of extreme candour and condescension which any +Churchman, however small, thinks it right to assume when referring to +any Dissenter, however illustrious for capacity and service, they do +nevertheless admit that the men in question were admirable men, full of +genuine zeal for evangelical truth and the salvation of souls. Nor do +they scruple to deplore and censure the perverse policy which persecuted +such men and drove them from the Church. Nay, in some cases, clergymen +have even become their admiring and eulogistic biographers. But this is +the old thing over again. 'Ye build the tombs of the prophets and +garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, if we had been in the +days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the +blood of the prophets.' But then, unhappily, by displaying the same +spirit towards the successors of these men, and branding them with the +same epithets of contumely and reproach as their fathers applied to +_their_ fathers, and that for doing precisely the same work, they are +witnesses unto themselves that they are the genuine children of them +which persecuted the prophets. + +Having brought our review down to the great revival of religion about +the middle of the last century, let us now inquire what the Church has +done since that time to make up for centuries of gross neglect or +perfunctory service. It might have been thought that this stirring of +spiritual life in the country, through other agencies than its own, +would have roused it, were it from no better motive than that of jealous +emulation, to make some effort to retain or recover its influence over +the population. And this, indeed, has been the case to some extent +within the last quarter of a century. But for nearly a hundred years +after the appearance of Harris and Rowlands, during which all bodies of +Dissenters were labouring incessantly for the evangelization of the +Principality, the Church was settled on her lees. Her rulers not only +winked at for their own profit, but actively maintained and promoted the +existence of abuses as audacious and monstrous as ever dishonoured a +Christian Church. Her clergy, wholly abandoned to themselves, with +little or no episcopal supervision or stimulus, were content with +enjoying their temporalities while they neglected their duties, leading +lives of mere worldly ease, and sometimes much worse lives than that. If +any reader should imagine we are indulging in exaggerations, we can +refer him for exuberance of proof to Mr. Johnes' most able and admirable +work, which we have already mentioned. It was published in 1832, and +describes the state of things then in actual existence. The sole object +of most of the alien bishops who had been and were in occupation of the +Welsh sees, seemed to have been to provide for themselves and those of +their own households. Never was episcopal nepotism carried to so daring +an excess, with this peculiar and enormous aggravation, that 'in Wales +every relation of a bishop is in language a foreigner; and his uncouth +attempts to officiate in his church in a tongue unintelligible to +himself, can be felt by his congregation as nothing better than a +profanation of the worship of God.'[164] As a specimen of how the chief +pastors of the Welsh Church acted in this matter, we subjoin an extract +from a speech delivered in the House of Commons, in 1836, by Mr. +Benjamin Hall, afterwards Lord Llanover, a gentleman whose name and +memory ought to be held in grateful and honourable remembrance in the +Principality, for the strenuous efforts he made in and out of +Parliament to remedy many flagrant abuses in the educational and +ecclesiastical institutions of the country, and to procure something +like justice for Wales:-- + + 'What he complained of most was the unbounded spirit of + nepotism which seemed to take possession of some of these + English Bishops the moment they took up this episcopal + power in the Principality. He found that in the diocese of + St. Asaph a relation of the late bishop held the following + preferments:--He was dean and chancellor of the diocese, + with the deanery house, worth about £40 a year; parish of + Huellan, £1,500; St. Asaph, £426; Llan Nevydd, £300; + Llanvair, £220; Darowain, £120; Chancellorship, from fees, + £400;--making £3,006. Besides all this, he was lessee of + Llandegele and Llanasaph, worth £600, and this all + exclusive of the rectory of Cradley, in the diocese of + Hereford, £1,200; vicarage of Bromyard, £500; prebend of + Hereford, £50; portion of Bromyard, £50 at present, but it + is expected on the death of an old life that this + preferment will be worth £1,400. Thus he had no less than + _eleven_ sources of emolument, producing between six and + seven thousand a-year. It appears also that his brother had + about £3,000 a-year, and the total enjoyed by relations of + the late bishop of the diocese alone, amounts to between + seven and eight thousand. But it appeared, moreover, that + the amount enjoyed by the bishop, and the relations of the + former bishops alone, amounts to £23,679, _and exceeds the + whole amount enjoyed by all the other resident and native + clergy put together_.' + +To what unseemly consequences the appointment of English clergymen to +Welsh incumbencies must have led, our readers may conceive by imagining +a number of Frenchmen installed in livings in England, and attempting to +perform the service in the English language. Here are a few examples of +the ludicrous scenes often witnessed in Welsh churches. They are taken +from a speech delivered in 1852 by the Rev. Joseph Hughes, a very able +clergyman, a native of the Principality, but residing then at Meltham:-- + + 'The mistakes,' he says, 'that are made by Anglo-Welsh + clergymen, both in the reading-desk and pulpit, are nearly + as many as the words in a Welsh glossary. Some of these + mistakes are of an absurd and revolting character, and + subversive of that due solemnity which should be observed + in the house of God. Yea, the meaning of different words + and sentences of Scripture is often painfully associated in + the minds of the people with those mistakes.' + +Before citing these specimens, we may premise that if any of our readers +should be acquainted with the Welsh language, they will immediately +perceive how probable it is that the blunders described should have been +committed by an Englishman trying to read Welsh, or rather, how next to +impossible it is that he should not have committed some of them. + + 'Bishop Burgess, in pronouncing the blessing in Welsh, used + to say, "The peace of God which passeth all vengeance." + "Tangnefedd Duw yr hwn sydd uwchlaw pob _dial_." + + 'A clergyman of the name of Lewis preached at Chapel + Colman, and while speaking of man's depravity, said, "Every + man is exceedingly _tall_ by nature." "Y mae pob dyn yn + _dal_ iawn wrth natur." He meant to say blind--yn _ddall_. + The little men in the congregation looked at each other + with great astonishment, and seemed to question the truth + of the statement. I was present at the time, and heard this + as well as other mistakes. + + 'The same clergyman, while officiating at Llandygwydd, + committed the following blunder:--He made "Hail, King of + the Jews," to mean "_An old cow of straw, King of + Ireland_." "Hen fuwch wellt, Brenhin yr Ywerddon." + + 'Another, reading the words, "These things are good and + profitable unto men," gave them this meaning, "These graves + are good and wordly to men." "I beddau hin si da a bydol i + dinion." + + 'Another Anglo-Welsh clergyman, in his sermon quoting the + words, "but the righteous into life eternal," gave them the + following sense, "but to some chickens the food of the + geese"--"ond i rai cywion fwyd y gwyddau." + + 'A. B. officiating at ---- and reading the words, "let us + here make three tabernacles," was understood to say, "let + us here make three _pans_, one for thee, one for Moses, and + one for Elias." "Gwnawn yma dair _padell_." + + 'A clergyman in the county of Pembroke, while reading the + funeral service, made it to say, "it is sown the body of a + _beast_." "Efe a hoir yn gorph _anifail_." + + 'A late dean in North Wales, in repeating the following + beautiful lines, + + "Ymddyrcha o Dduw'r nef uwch ben, + Daear ac wybren hefyd," + + "Be thou exalted, O God of heaven, above the earth and + firmament," gave them the following interpretation:-- + + "_Arise O God above the head + Of two hens and the crows egg also_." + + "Ymddyrcha o Dduw'r nef uwch _ban + Dwy iar_ ac _wy brân_ hefyd." + + 'Another dean, addressing his work-people at their + drinkings, said, "_pori_ yr ydych etto," "you are still + _grazing_." His work-people not perceiving that the blunder + was unintentional, thought their master treated them as + brute beasts, and were much offended. + + 'Another clergyman reading that part of the "Venite," "In + his hand are all the corners of the earth," said, "In his + hand are all the afflictions of the earth," + "_gorthyrmderau'r_ ddaear." + + 'A clergyman reading, "The whole head is sick, and the + whole heart faint," was understood to say, "the _back + parts_ are sick, and the _middle of the back faint_." "Y + _pen ol_ sy glwyfus a'r _hol ganol yn lesg_." + + 'Another reading, "The crooked shall be made straight, and + the rough places plain," "A'r gwyrgeimion a wneir yn + uniawn, a'r geirwon yn ffyrdd gwastad," read it thus, "The + _crooked men_ shall be made _straight_, and _the rough + men_, smooth ways;" leaving the women, I suppose, still + crooked and rough.' + +But while admitting, as who could hesitate to admit, that the practice +so long followed of appointing Englishmen to all the higher +ecclesiastical offices in Wales, could not fail to affect most +injuriously the interests of the Welsh Church, we must utterly demur, as +we have already intimated, to the exaggerated influence ascribed by the +modern defenders of the Church to this circumstance, as though it were +the sole cause of its inefficiency. For let us look a little more +closely into the matter. The period to which the advocates of this +theory are fond of reverting, as constituting the ideal era of the +Established Church in Wales, when it was governed principally by native +prelates, is, speaking in general terms, the interval between the +accession of Queen Elizabeth and the reign of William and Mary, or to +take the precise dates, adopted by those among them who have most +carefully investigated the subject, from the years 1558 to 1715. They +specify the names of twenty-four Welshmen elevated to Welsh sees during +these 257 years. But what was done by these Cymric bishops for the +spiritual good of the Principality? Mr. Johnes, whose work is the great +repertory of information on all matters connected with this subject, +mentions three out of the whole number who seem to have distinguished +themselves by some service rendered to their country. First, Bishop +Morgan, who translated the Bible into the Welsh language; but he did +this _not_ as bishop, but as the vicar of a small country parish in +Denbighshire, and he undertook the work precisely _because_ it had been +neglected by the Welsh prelates to whom it had been entrusted. Second, +Bishop Parry, who brought out a new edition of the Bible for use in the +churches. Third, Bishop Owen, who succeeded to the diocese of St. Asaph +in 1629, and of whom we are told that 'he began first by his order and +decrees, to establish preaching in Welsh in St. Asaph parish church, and +as it is supposed, in other parish churches, in his diocese. He repaired +his cathedral at his own cost, and set up a new organ in +it;'--expressions which evidently seem to imply, that these very simple +and obvious duties had been neglected by his predecessors, though they +also were native prelates. We have, also, seen a general statement that +some of the others established and endowed schools in particular +localities in Wales. Of most of the rest we know nothing, but of some of +them we know something. We know of Bishop Hughes, of St. Asaph, that he +held sixteen rich livings _in commendam_, and left his diocese in the +disgraceful condition already described in the early part of this +article. We know that under Bishop Meyrick, of Bangor, there were, by +his own acknowledgment, only two preachers in his diocese; and that +according to the testimony of Strype, the grossest scandals were openly +practised by the clergy. We know that the four native bishops, who by +the Act of Elizabeth, of 1563, were charged with translating the +Scriptures into Welsh, so neglected their duty as that even the churches +were left without Welsh Bibles for twenty-five years after that date. We +know that for seventy years after the settlement of the Reformation, not +a single edition of the Bible in the Welsh language was issued for the +use of the people. We know that from 1640 to 1690, which forms a +considerable portion of the vaunted era of Welsh bishops, Churchmen +published only one edition of the Scriptures--a large folio, for use in +the churches--while during the same interval the Nonconformists +published nine editions. We know that the contributions of the 'native +bishops' to the moral and religious literature of the Cymry are +conspicuous by their absence. We have examined with some care Rowland's +'Cambrian Bibliography' ('_Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry_'), containing an +account of all books published in the Welsh language from 1546 to 1800, +and, between the years 1558 and 1715, the era of Welsh bishops, we have +failed to discover a single work written in Welsh or translated into +Welsh by any one of these prelates, except 'A Letter to the Welsh,' by +Bishop Davies, introducing Salesbury's translation of the New Testament. +Nor is there any proof that they helped or promoted in any important +degree the publication of religious books in the Welsh language, while +the Nonconformists of that age laboured indefatigably to enlighten the +people through the press. Even Vicar Pritchard's work, 'The Welshman's +Candle,' left by him in manuscript, and which, next to the Bible, had +the greatest influence on the religious character of the country, was +published by the care and at the expense of Mr. Stephen Hughes, a +Nonconformist minister. But above all, we know what was the state of the +Church and the country during, and at the end of, the reign of this long +dynasty of Welsh bishops. It is described in the language already cited +of Strype, and Penry, and Pritchard, and Edwards, and Thomas, and +Erasmus Saunders, and Griffith Jones, and Howell Harris. And we beg our +readers specially to observe, that all the witnesses we have summoned to +depose to the character and condition of the Welsh Church during three +centuries of its history, have been members of the Church itself. If +there is one exception, it is that of John Penry. But he also was born +in the Church, and baptized in the Church, and ordained in the Church, +for we are told that he was 'a famous preacher of the University' and he +had, moreover, the honour of being persecuted, imprisoned, and hung by +the Church. With that one doubtful exception all the rest lived and died +within its pale. We might, of course, have added a large number of +witnesses from the ranks of Nonconformity, whose testimony, we believe, +would have been quite as trustworthy. But we have preferred omitting +whatever might be thought open to even the suspicion of sectarian +prejudice. Let us remember, that several of the 'native bishops' lived +several years into the beginning of the eighteenth century, and if they +had exercised so blessed an influence on the Church and the country as +it is now the fashion to affirm, that influence could not have suddenly +vanished immediately after their death. _Nemo repente fuit turpissimus_ +is surely as applicable to a community as to an individual. And yet we +know by the confession of all candid Churchmen, that when Griffith Jones +and Howell Harris began their labours--the former in 1730, and the +latter in 1735--the Welsh Church was in a most lamentable state of +inefficiency and corruption. + +The simple truth is, that the history of the Welsh Church is only a +crucial illustration of the invariable and inevitable evils that attend +State establishments of religion. It is true that in its case these +evils appear in a somewhat aggravated form, from the attempt made by the +English Government to treat Wales as a conquered country, and to employ +the Church as an agent in the extinction of its language and +nationality. But when the life of a Christian Church is made to depend +not on the faith, love, and liberality of its own members, and the +presence and blessing of its Divine Master, but upon the protection and +patronage of the civil government, and when, as a necessary consequence, +the administration of its affairs falls into the hands of worldly +politicians, who use it as an instrument of State, what can be expected +but what always has ensued, that its spiritual life should wither, until +those who seek real religious nourishment from its breasts are driven in +sheer desperation to seek it elsewhere? + +Indeed, it is curious that the friends of the Welsh Church, while +enumerating the secondary causes which have led to her ruin, do not find +their way, which they may do by a single step, to the right conclusion +as to the primary cause from which all the others spring. Our Church, +they say, has suffered grievous injustice from the alienation of her +revenues, from the appointment of unqualified persons to all her highest +offices, from the most flagrantly corrupt use of patronage, from the +neglect of native talent, from laxity of godly discipline. But who has +alienated her revenues? The State. Who has made those unfitting +appointments? The State. Who has exercised patronage so corruptly? The +State and its nominees, the bishops. Who has overlooked native talent? +Again, the State and its nominees. Who has neglected to enforce godly +discipline? Still, the State and its nominees. Yet, when it is proposed +to strike away the fetters which bind them to the power that has thus +maltreated and oppressed them, they hug their chains with frantic +vehemence, and even use them as weapons with which to assail those who +would fain assist in their liberation. + +But let us now inquire into the condition of the Church in our own day. +And in the phrase 'our own day,' we suppose we may include a period of +twenty-five years. We have previously observed that, for a long time +after the revival of religion which stimulated the Dissenters in Wales +to such extraordinary activity in providing the means of religious +instruction for the people, the Church continued sunk in utter apathy. +It is impossible to find a more conclusive illustration of this, than is +afforded by the following statement of the comparative progress made in +church and chapel accommodation during the first half of the present +century. It is founded on the Census Returns of 1851, and appears in Mr. +Richards's 'Letters on the Social and Political Condition of Wales,' +where it is cited on the authority of a very accomplished statistician, +the late Mr. Plint of Leeds. North Wales, in 1801, stood thus as to +religious accommodation:-- + + Proportion to all + Sittings Sittings + Church of England 99,216 75·2 + All others 32,664 24·8 + ------- ----- + Total 131,880 100·0 + +In the fifty years following, the population increased from 252,765 to +412,114, or 63 per cent. To have kept up the ratio of sittings to +population by each of these sections of religionists, the former should +have supplied 62,505 sittings, and it did supply 16,164. The latter +ought to have supplied 20,576, and it did supply 217,928. The Church of +England fell short of its duty 73·5 per cent., and all other +denominations exceeded it 950 per cent. The ratio of sittings to +population, which, in 1801, was 52·1 per cent. (5·9 less than the proper +standard, according to Mr. Horace Mann), was, in 1851, 88·9--that is, 30 +per cent. above it. + +South Wales, in 1801, stood thus:-- + + Sittings. Proportion to all + Sittings. + Church of England 133,514 61·8 + All others 82,443 38·2 + ------- ----- + Total 215,957 100·0 + +The population increased from 289,892 to 593,607, or 105·5 per cent. The +quota of sittings required of the Church was 140,854; it did provide +15,204. The other denominations ought to have provided 86,975; they did +provide 270,510. The Church of England fell short of its duty 89 per +cent.; the other denominations exceeded it 211 per cent. The ratio of +sittings to population in 1801 was 74·7 per cent., and in 1851, 84·5. +Can the force of antithesis go further.[165] + +But we must descend a little more into detail, and furnish some +practical illustrations, still taken from the testimony of Churchmen +themselves, as to the condition of their Church in Wales in these modern +times. In 1849, Sir Benjamin Hall made a speech in the House of Commons, +in which he described the state of things at that time, especially in +the diocese of St. David's. He spoke of the total neglect of +archidiaconal visitations, of the small number of services performed in +the diocese, and of the ruinous and deserted state of the churches. Here +are a few extracts from his statement, taken, we believe, from the +Report of the Commissioners on Education:-- + + 'No. 1. Kemys Hundred.--In the whole country between + Fishguard on the north, and the Precelly mountain on the + south, there is no day-school, and the state of the church + exemplifies the neglect in which the population of the + parishes are left. The churches of Llandeilo and + Maenchlogag are in ruins. In that of Morfyl the panes of + the chancel window were all out, the inside of the church + wet, as if just rinsed with water--indeed it had been, for + the afternoon was raining. + + 'No. 2. Hasguard.--School held in the church, where the + master and four little children were ensconced in the + chancel, amidst lumber, round a three-legged grate full of + burning sticks, without funnel or chimney for the smoke to + escape; how they bore it I cannot tell. There had been no + churchwarden in the parish for the last ten years, nor, it + is believed, for a much longer period. + + 'No. 3. Llanafan Fechan.--Mr. Rees, farmer, who lives close + to the church, informed me that divine service was very + seldom performed here, unless there are banns to publish, a + wedding, or a funeral. + + 'No. 4. Llandulais.--This church is a barn-like building + with large holes in the roof, evincing every symptom of + neglect and discomfort. + + 'No. 5. Llanfihangel Abergwessin.--No service performed in + this church five out of six Sundays for want of a + congregation. + + 'No. 6. Llanfihangel Bryn Pabuan.--Divine service not often + performed here, except a wedding or funeral takes place. + The vicar rides by on a Sunday afternoon, but seldom has + occasion to alight and do duty, from the want of a + congregation. + + 'No. 7. Llanfair tref Helygon,--The parish church was in + ruins many years ago; the oldest inhabitant does not + remember it standing. + + 'No. 8. Llandegley.--The clergyman is forbidden to have his + horses in the churchyard, but he puts in two calves. The + school is held in the church, into which the belfry opens, + which is open to the churchyard. Calves are still turned + into the churchyard, and, I was told, still sleep in the + belfry. + + 'No. 9. Llangybi, four miles from Llanbedr College, has + neither doors nor windows. The sacrament has not been + administered for _ten_ years. Service seldom performed at + all. Cows and horses walk into the church and out at + pleasure. + + 'No. 10. Llanfihangel Ar Arth, also near Llanbedr.--Here + there was once a chapel of ease; the stones of its ruins + have now disappeared, though a yew-tree marks the spot; and + the baptismal font was lately seen used as a pig-trough. + Yet the dissenters have five chapels, and congregations + amounting to 1,200. + + 'No. 11. Llandeilo Abercywyn.--The incumbent is + occasionally obliged to ring the church bell himself; but + sometimes the congregation amounts to two or three persons. + + 'No. 12.--In another parish the vicar has been in the + Insolvent Court; and was also suspended for three years for + immorality, but allowed to return. He has only a + congregation of about fifty, whilst the dissenters have + four chapels, with congregations of about 1,300. + + 'No. 13 Llandeilo Fach.--No service here for about _ten_ + years. The roof has fallen down for several years; but, + fortunately, there is a dissenting chapel, with a + congregation of about 300. + + 'No. 15. Llanddowror.--This parish is a frightful + demonstration of the destruction of the Church in Wales by + the present system. About eighty years ago this parish was + under the pastoral care of a native Welshman, the excellent + and eminent Griffith Jones, renowned for his piety, + abilities, and qualifications. This church had then 500 + communicants, and people came many miles to attend the + service. But this church has now no roof to its chancel, + of which it has been destitute several years. The + churchyard has neither wall nor fence; sheep were seen + standing on the church tower some months ago. In one parish + the curate has only of late been suspended, of whom the + parishioners said he was "so bad the devil would soon be + ashamed of him." The vicar had not preached in this parish + for ten years, and lives twenty miles off. He has had the + care of the parish since 1812, which is now reduced to the + above deplorable state, though formerly, when in other + hands, it was quoted as the model parish of Wales.' + +Such was the aspect of the Church in the diocese of St. David's only +twenty years ago; and we have no doubt there were scores of other +parishes in the same diocese in little better condition than those +specified in the above extracts. + +Let us now turn to look at another diocese. In the year 1850 a vigorous +effort was made to promote church extension in the diocese of Llandaff. +An appeal was issued in the form of a letter from the Archdeacon of +Llandaff to the Bishop, stating the facts of the case, which were these. +The population of the two Archdeaconries of Llandaff and Monmouth was +173,139. There was church-accommodation for only 17,440. Let our readers +specially remark this fact. After having been in possession of the +country for three hundred years, the Established Church in that part of +Wales did not pretend to have made provision, in the year of grace 1850, +for the religious instruction of more than one-tenth of the vast +population committed to her care. But, did the people avail themselves +of her ministrations even to that extent? The answer is at hand. Among +others to whom the appeal for help in building new churches, founded on +the above showing, was sent, was Sir Benjamin Hall. Before responding to +that appeal, Sir Benjamin, who was intimately conversant with that part +of the country, and who had his doubts whether more church-accommodation, +scanty as it was, was really needed for the district, instructed +competent persons to count the actual numbers who attended the churches +and the dissenting chapels in forty of the parishes of the diocese on a +given Sunday. He published the result in a pamphlet, in the form of a +letter to the Bishop, from which it appeared that, while the sittings +provided in the churches were 17,440, the total number of actual +attendants at the most numerously-attended service on Sunday, October +13th, 'the weather being particularly fine,' was 7,229; while the number +which attended the 227 chapels provided by the Nonconformists, in the +same district, amounted, on the same day, to 80,270. 'From the above it +appears,' says the writer of the pamphlet, 'that so far from the +churches being too small to hold the remnant of Churchmen which the zeal +and activity of Dissenters have not wrested from us, there is, at +present, room for 9,591 persons in addition to those who now attend the +divine service of the Established Church.' + +If we turn to one of the North Wales dioceses, that of Bangor, it would +seem that even now, notwithstanding the energetic efforts which the +present bishop is known to have made to infuse some life into the +church, its condition, according to the acknowledgment of its own +friends, is sufficiently discouraging. At a meeting held in Bangor last +year, the bishop in the chair, a lay churchman said that Anglesey has +seventy-nine parishes, fifty-two of which have no parsonages. The +seventy-nine parishes are held by forty rectors; two of them possess +four livings each, eight of them possess three livings each, and +seventeen two each. He said that the desirable thing for Anglesey was +the residence of the clergyman among his parishioners. He declared that +the church there was now 'empty.' Another of the speakers, Lord Penrhyn, +acknowledged that Dissent had prevented Wales from becoming a heathen +country. At a clerical conference held in the same city in August, 1868, +also under the presidency of the bishop, the Rev. P. C. Ellis, +Llanfairfechan, in the course, we are told, of 'a very earnest address,' +made these remarks:--'He believed if the Church of Ireland were +disestablished it would be a just judgment upon the clergy of that +church for their shortcomings, and he was convinced that investigation +would show that the clergy of the church in this country had fallen as +far short of their duty as their brethren in Ireland. He trembled to +think what the report of the state of the Church in Wales would +disclose, as he believed its position was worse than that of the Church +in Ireland. If the Church in Ireland were to go down, the Church in +Wales must surely follow.' + +With regard to the number of persons still attached to the Church in +Wales, there is great discrepancy of opinion. Without pronouncing +dogmatically on the subject, we propose to furnish our readers with +certain data, which may assist them in drawing their own conclusions. So +far as we know, the first, and we believe the most careful attempt that +was ever made to procure a return of the ecclesiastical statistics of +Wales, was in 1846, by Mr. Hugh Owen, Honorary Secretary of the Cambrian +Educational Society, a gentleman to whom the Principality is indebted +for many valuable services. What provoked that inquiry was this. About +that time the National Society was making a strenuous effort to cover +Wales with day-schools, wherein, according to the fundamental +regulations of that Society, 'the children were to be instructed in the +Holy Scriptures, and the liturgy and catechism of the Church of England, +such instruction to be subject to the superintendence of the parochial +clergyman;' 'the children to be assembled for the purpose of attending +service in the parish church;' 'the masters and mistresses to be members +of the Church of England,' &c. A special appeal was issued on behalf of +Wales by Archdeacon Sinclair, with a view 'to raise a large fund' to +establish schools on the above principles. In this appeal, the +suggestion 'to adopt a broad basis in which all sects could unite,' was +sternly rejected. No system 'from which the characteristic doctrines of +the Church of England were expunged' could be tolerated for an instant. +To show how utterly unsuited to the country schools of this description +must prove to be, the inquiry of which we speak was instituted. Having +obtained, through means of the relieving officers, the names and +addresses of trustworthy persons in about three-fourths of the parishes +in Wales, Mr. Owen addressed a circular to each of those persons, +requesting a return of--1. The name of every place of worship in his +district. 2. The name of the denomination to which it belonged. 3. The +exact number of the congregation at each place of worship on the first +Sunday after the receipt of the circular, in the morning, afternoon, and +evening. 4. The exact number attending the Sunday-school at each place, +morning and afternoon.[166] Returns were received from 392 parishes, +thirty of which were in Anglesey, fifty-nine in Carnarvonshire, +fifty-three in Denbighshire, seventeen in Flintshire, twenty-three in +Merionethshire, twenty-eight in Montgomeryshire, twenty-seven in +Breconshire, fifty-four in Cardiganshire, forty in Carmarthenshire, +eighteen in Glamorganshire, forty-three in Pembrokeshire, and ten in +Radnorshire. The population of these 392 parishes amounted to 431,000. +As the total population of Wales, not including Monmouthshire, was then +only 911,603, that of the returned parishes contained nearly one-half of +the whole population of the country. The result is thus summarized in a +pamphlet published soon after:-- + + 'From the returns it appeared that the number attending the + morning services of dissenters were 79,694, the morning + service of the church, only 18,128, being more than four + dissenters to one churchman; the afternoon services of + dissenters were attended by 63,379, those of the church by + 5,710, or about seven dissenters to one churchman. The + evening services of the church were attended by 9,889, and + those of dissenters by 128,216, or twenty-two dissenters to + one churchman. The average attendance on the Sunday was-- + + Churchmen 11,242 + Dissenters 90,415 + ------- + Total average attendance 101,657 + + Hence the average attendance of dissenters as compared with + churchmen was as eight to one. + + 'The actual morning attendance at dissenting Sunday-Schools + was 40,641, at the church schools 3,396, or in the + proportion of twelve to one. In the afternoon, the + dissenters' schools were attended by 57,243, the church + schools by 6,002, or more than nine to one, giving an + average proportion of eleven to one in favour of dissenting + schools.' + +It may be objected that as there were probably many churches in which +only one service was held, the deduction, from the average of three +services, may be unfair. Well, let it be noticed that the maximum number +attending the churches is in the morning, when it amounts to 18,128; and +that the maximum number attending the dissenting chapels is in the +evening, when it amounts to 128,216; hence the ratio of the maximum +attendance at dissenting chapels (evening service) to the maximum +attendance at the churches (morning service) is seven to one. But +leaving out of account for the moment the relative proportions of Church +and Dissent, as indicated by these returns, what do they tell us of the +absolute number of persons attached to the Church, as compared with the +population? Instead of taking the average attendance at three services, +we will, as before, take the number present at the most numerously +attended, namely, the morning service; and if we add to that number +one-fourth to represent absentees, we shall have a total of 22,660 +souls. This, in a population of 431,000, would amount to rather more +than one in nineteen of church-goers. + +But let us now turn to the official census of 1851. We have not the +slightest wish to impeach the general accuracy of the facts and figures +given in Mr. Horace Mann's masterly report. But the condition of Wales +is very peculiar, and the general rules laid down by that eminent +statistician for classifying and formulating the immense mass of figures +with which he had to deal, while fair enough, no doubt, to the normal +state of society in England, may not have been equally applicable to a +country in so exceptional a state as Wales. + +That a serious error has crept in somewhere into the returns, as +respects the Principality, is obvious from this one fact. The number of +sittings provided by the Church of England is stated to be 301,807, and +the number of the worshipping population of the same church on the 31st +of March, 1851, is stated to be 138,719. Now Mr. Mann shows that the +proportion per cent. of attendants to sittings in the Established +Church, throughout all England and Wales, is only thirty-three; whereas +by the above showing, the proportion of attendants to sittings in Wales +alone is 40 per cent. We venture to say, that no man competently +acquainted with Wales, knowing, as every such man must know, the +miserably meagre attendance at hundreds of churches in that country, +would for an instant believe that the churches are occupied in the +proportion of 40 per cent. of attendants to sittings. Let us, however, +take the figures given to us in the census. The population of Wales, +including Monmouthshire, in 1851, was 1,188,914. The total number of +places of worship was 4,006, which was distributed thus: + + PLACES OF WORSHIP. + + Of the places of worship-- + The Established Church furnished 1,180 + Nonconformists 2,826 + ----- + 4,006 + + SITTINGS. + + Of the sittings (including estimates for defective return)-- + Established Church furnished 301,897, or 30 per cent. + Nonconformists 692,239, or 70 per cent. + +It appears thus, that the Church had provided sittings for only 25 per +cent. of the population, while the Nonconformists had provided sittings +for nearly 59 per cent. + +But how about attendance? According to Table B. of the Census of +Religious Worship, the greatest number by very far of attendants at the +services of the Established Church on the Census Sunday was in the +morning. The number was 100,953. If we add one-fourth to this number for +the absentees, we have 126,191, which represents 10·6 per cent., not +quite one in nine of the population. + +But these facts, sufficiently remarkable as they are in themselves, give +really but an imperfect impression of the real magnitude of the anomaly +which exists in Wales. An Established Church is presumably a _national_ +Church, and rests its claim to being established on the ground of its +being national. Above all, it ought to be _par excellence_ the poor +man's Church, as some of the friends of the English Establishment are +wont to allege, with what truth we pause not now to inquire, that theirs +is. But in Wales the Church is not only not national, but it is +anti-national; and the whole policy of its rulers for at least a hundred +and fifty years has been inspired by a prejudice as stupid as it was +mean against, the Welsh nationality and language. At present, of the +small remnant of the population which still remains within its pale, by +far the larger part are either English immigrants into Wales, or that +portion of the Welsh people which have become Anglified in their +feelings and tastes; and instead of being the poor man's Church, that of +Wales is emphatically and almost exclusively the rich man's Church. +There are scores, we might safely say hundreds of churches, in which, if +the clergyman's family and the squire's family, and their few dependents +and parasites were removed, there would be absolutely no congregation at +all. + +Mr. Gladstone lamented, as members of the Welsh Church also sometimes +profess to lament, the want of accurate and trustworthy information as +to the real facts of the case as regards the several religious opinions +in Wales. But whose fault is that? There would be no difficulty +whatever, in a small country like Wales, in obtaining perfectly accurate +information as to the number of adherents to the church, if that body +were to follow the example of the principal Nonconformist denominations +in the Principality, who collect and publish periodically statistical +returns of the members of their churches, and the attendants at public +worship. But the clergy of the establishment, clinging tenaciously in +the face of notorious facts to the fond fancy that theirs is the +national church, however small a fragment of the nation really belongs +to it, decline to give us the number either of their communicants or of +those who habitually frequent their churches. We are driven therefore to +look for such incidental indications of the real state of the case as +may come within our reach. Some of these, however, are very +significant. In the National Society's report for 1866-7 there is a +return given of the number of persons attending Church Sunday Schools in +Wales. They amounted to 49,358, or 4 per cent. of the population. The +number found in Dissenting Sunday Schools, according to the printed year +books of the various denominations on the same year, was 351,128, or 29 +per cent. of the population, thus showing the Church Sunday scholars to +be one-eighth of the entire number. These returns are all the more +valuable, because in Wales it is not the children merely that attend the +Sunday schools, but a very large proportion of the adult population +also. + +Very striking revelations have been made, likewise, in connection with +Day Schools in Wales, tending to throw much light on the actual and +comparative strength of the church. When the committee of Council on +Education began to make grants for the erection of schools, there was a +great rush of applicants from the friends of the Established Church in +Wales. They had many advantages in their favour for undertaking the work +of establishing Day Schools. They had nearly the whole land and a great +proportion of the wealth of the country in their possession. As they +drew the means for the support of their clergy, the fabrics of the +church, and public worship--which the Dissenters had to provide out of +their own pockets--from the national endowments, they had all their +resources at liberty to devote to the work of education. The +administrators of the national fund were their partial friends, and +dispensed it with a lavish profusion, with little or no inquiry into the +fitness of those who applied, to direct and control the education of +such a population as that of Wales. The National Society, as already +shown, made an appeal, which was liberally responded to, for a special +fund in which the co-operation of England was solicited, to promote 'the +education of our fellow-countrymen throughout Wales in the principles of +our common church.' Our friends of the Establishment, moreover, were +restrained by no scruple whatever from receiving public money to any +extent for teaching their own peculiar tenets in day schools, while the +Dissenters conscientiously refused the proffered grants of Government +aid for religious instruction. This sudden access of educational zeal +sprang avowedly in great part from proselyting motives. The Bishop of +St. David's, in one of his early charges, adverting to the peculiar +condition of the Principality, confessed that the existing generation +was hopelessly alienated from the church, but that the next could and +must be recovered by attending to the education of the young. The result +of this effort was that State-aided Church schools sprang up in all the +larger towns and villages, and in many remote hamlets, and that often in +places where there were not half-a-dozen church children.[167] In these +schools the principles of the National Society were rigidly enforced. +All the children were taught the Church catechism, and obliged to attend +church on Sundays. But State-aided schools were liable to inspection, +and the inspectors had to present their reports to the Committee of +Council, and these were laid before Parliament and the public. It was +not possible, therefore, in reporting on the state of education in +Wales, wholly to conceal the fact, that an enormous majority of the +people held religious views different from those held by the class who +in many places had undertaken to direct their education. This has often +come out in the reports of even Church of England Inspectors. Thus the +Rev. Longueville Jones, who was inspector of Church schools in Wales in +1854, says:--'The number of children in Welsh schools whose parents +belong to the Church is so very small, that it requires great experience +and delicacy of feeling to treat their young minds as they should +be.'[168] As an illustration of the difficulty with which this gentleman +had to contend, it is only necessary to refer to the statistics he gives +of one school under his inspection, in which out of 107 children, only +five were of parents belonging to the Church, whilst in the following +year the same school contained 144 children, of whom two only were of +church-going parents. To come down to a later period in the report of +the Rev. S. Pryce, Inspector of Church of England Schools for Mid-Wales, +for 1868, we find the following admission:--'The number of children +attending the Welsh country schools I visit, is great beyond all +proportion when compared with the number of persons attending +church.'[169] + +Among the inspectors of British schools in Wales was and is Mr. J. +Bowstead. We believe that Mr. Bowstead is himself a churchman. But he is +a liberal and candid churchman. When, therefore, in the discharge of his +office, he began to visit the country, some eighteen or twenty years +ago, he was forcibly struck with the singular anomaly he found to exist, +of a large number of Church schools in some cases liberally subsidized +from the public funds, and in others supported by deductions from +workmen's wages, planted among a population of Dissenters, who felt the +strongest repugnance to much of the religious teaching forced on their +children in such schools. He had the courage in his reports to expose +this injustice, for which he has been ever since the _bête noire_ of the +Welsh bishops and clergy, who often assail him with great acrimony and +conspicuous unfairness. But on the other hand, he has the satisfaction +of knowing that he has won the enthusiastic gratitude of a whole nation, +who owe to him, in a main degree, the exposure of a flagrant wrong from +which they had been long suffering, with little hope of deliverance. +Well, Mr. Bowstead, after extensive and careful inquiry, in order to +show the aggravated character of the anomaly of which he complained, +ventured to say that _nine-tenths of the common people_ in Wales were +Nonconformists. A writer in the April number of the _Quarterly Review_ +has assailed him very angrily, and has accused him of 'asserting without +a shadow of proof that _nine-tenths of the Welsh people_ are +Nonconformists.' In a pamphlet issued for private circulation, Mr. +Bowstead has with just severity first rebuked his assailant for +perverting his words, and then shown how little foundation there is for +the charge of his having asserted without 'a shadow of proof,' what +alone he did assert, that nine-tenths of the common people of Wales, of +such people as use elementary schools, are Nonconformists. Now for the +proof of this allegation. When Sir John Pakington's committee was +sitting in 1865-6, Mr. Bowstead was one of the witnesses summoned to +give evidence. He had been asked to procure the best information he +could, as to the comparative numbers of children of church people and +children of Dissenters in the schools he visited. He had no difficulty +in getting at this from the school register, because the name of the +Sunday school which each child attends is entered in a column provided +for the purpose, a very satisfactory index of the denomination to which +its parents belong. And what was the result? He received returns from +thirty schools, 'which were the only elementary schools in their +respective localities. These thirty schools had an aggregate of 6,799 +children under instruction, and of these 756 were returned as belonging +to the Church. The children of parents attached to the Church formed, +therefore, about 11 per cent. of the whole, and the children of +Nonconformists constituted the remaining 89 per cent. But Mr. Bowstead +supplies us with more recent evidence, which we give in his own words:-- + + 'I have not on this occasion attempted to obtain returns + from so wide an area as in 1866; but I have secured very + complete and reliable returns, upon a considerable scale, + from a locality which embraces some 20,000 inhabitants, all + of whom are brought together by the industrial operations + of one large Company; and all of whose children, so far as + they belong to the working classes, receive their education + in schools promoted by that Company. The locality is + Dowlais, which in the matter of education is the Prussia of + South Wales. It has an admirable system of schools, + embracing not only unsectarian Protestant schools for the + bulk of the community, but also Roman Catholic schools for + the Irish. Nearly one-sixth of the whole population may be + found on the registers of these schools at any moment, and + I should think there is scarcely a child in the place that + does not receive some amount of schooling, whilst those of + them who stay long enough at school secure a very thorough + elementary English education, together with some + instruction in the French language and in drawing. I know + of no place where the schools reproduce so complete a + picture of the population around them, or where the free + play of all the social forces presents so true a type of + the characteristic features of the working men of the + district.' + +Mr. Bowstead then subjoins a table showing the number of children +belonging to each denomination, in attendance at the Dowlais schools: +out of a total of 2,933, those belonging to the Established Church are +266. 'The Church children therefore would be almost 7·7 per cent., or +one-thirteenth of the whole, and the Nonconformists would claim the +remaining twelve-thirteenths. This gives a larger proportion to the +Nonconformists than any former return.' Accompanying this return there +is a letter from Mr. G. T. Clark, the manager of the Dowlais works, +containing two or three sentences which are of great significance and +value. In sending the tabular statement just referred to, Mr. Clark +remarks:--'The proportion of the several sects may, I think, be taken as +typical of the manufacturing population of South Wales and +Monmouthshire.' We must quote two or three other sentences from Mr. +Clark's letter:-- + + 'I see a great deal is said about the disposition of the + Welsh Dissenters to allow their children to attend Church + schools. We have both Church and neutral schools in this + district, and I believe the Church schools of my friend and + neighbour the Rector of Gelligaer to be as good as any + semi-rural Schools in Wales, and they are largely attended + by the children of Dissenters. But this is not from love of + the Church, but because they desire education, and the + district has no other schools. The Welsh, in this respect, + like the Scotch, have a craving to get on, and they will + make a sacrifice to educate their children; and if the only + accessible school be a Church school, to it they will + apply. They trust and safely trust to the domestic example, + and to the Sunday teaching in the chapel, and chapel + school, to keep the children in the special faith of their + parents.... Those who say that the South Wales + manufacturing population have a regard for the Church of + England speak in utter ignorance of the matter. Their + dislike to the Church, as an establishment, is very strong, + and is yearly becoming stronger.' + +It would be difficult to find a more competent and trustworthy witness. +Mr. Clark is himself an attached member of the Church of England. He is +a gentleman of rare intelligence, who has for many years been at the +head of one of the largest and best conducted of the great iron works of +South Wales. His knowledge of the population of the whole district is +extensive and accurate. His testimony therefore as to the comparative +number of Churchmen and Dissenters, and the feelings of the +Nonconformists towards the Establishment, must be held to be +unimpeachable. + +But what is the comparative progress in accommodation for worship made +by the Church and the Nonconformists since the Census of 1851? We have +the materials for an approximate estimate. The Bishop of Llandaff, in +his last charge, delivered in August, 1869, states that since 1849, the +number of new churches erected in his diocese is thirty-nine, not quite +two churches in the year; and the number of churches rebuilt on the same +site, but whether enlarged is not stated, is thirty-six, making a total +of seventy-five. Against this we have to place the following return, +furnished to us in detail, but of which we can here give only a summary, +of what has been done in the same diocese by three Nonconformist bodies +since 1850:-- + + Number of new chapels built by the Independents 68 + Number of ditto rebuilt and enlarged 46 + -- 114 + Number of new chapels built by the Baptists 66 + Number of ditto rebuilt and enlarged 39 + -- 105 + Number of new chapels built by Calvinistic Methodists 52 + Number of ditto rebuilt and enlarged 42 + -- 94 + --- + 313 + +Let it be observed that this showing includes only the three principal +Nonconformist denominations, as we have failed to procure returns of the +different bodies of Wesleyan Methodists and other minor sects, which +would make undoubtedly a considerable addition to the total increase of +dissenting accommodation. And yet how does the comparison stand even +with such incomplete elements as we possess? We find that the +Nonconformists have built 186 new places of worship against thirty-nine +built by the Church, and have rebuilt and enlarged 127 more against +thirty-six rebuilt by the Church. + +With regard to the whole of Wales, our information as respects what the +Church has done during the last twenty years, is not so perfect as we +could wish. The number of new churches built in the four dioceses +appears, as nearly as we can calculate from the data within our reach, +to be about 110. But there is more difficulty in getting, at those +rebuilt and enlarged, as in one of the returns (that of St. Asaph) we +find churches 'restored' and 'improved'--words implying merely repairs +of existing fabrics without any additional accommodation--mixed up with +those which have been 'rebuilt and enlarged.' We have the precise number +rebuilt, and we are willing to presume somewhat enlarged, in Llandaff, +which is thirty-six, and in Bangor, which is thirty-one. We think it +would be a liberal allowance from the statistical report before us to +assign thirty-five 'enlarged' churches to St. Asaph, and judging by the +number of new churches built in St. David's, we presume that thirty +'enlarged' churches would cover all that has been done in that diocese, +making a total rebuilt and enlarged of 132. Let us now turn to the +Nonconformists. The following are facts on the substantial accuracy of +which our readers may rely. Since 1850, the Calvinistic Methodists have +built 321 new chapels, and have rebuilt and enlarged 435 more, providing +additional accommodation in all for 123,881 worshippers, at a cost of +£366,000. The Independents, during the same period, have built 118 new +chapels, and have rebuilt and enlarged 200 more, furnishing additional +accommodation for 130,000, at a cost of £294,000. The Baptists have +built 142 new chapels, and rebuilt and enlarged ninety-nine more, +furnishing additional accommodation for 81,800, at a cost of £163,000. +Thus, these three denominations alone have in twenty years built 581 new +chapels, and rebuilt and enlarged 734 more, providing accommodation for +308,681 persons, at a cost of £823,000. + +But it must be further observed, that it is not merely in the matter of +religious instruction that the Nonconformists have become almost +exclusively the leaders of the Welsh people. As respects literature and +science, and all important social and political movements, it is the +same. The literature of Wales, and not its religious literature merely, +is almost wholly Nonconformist. There are about thirty periodicals, +quarterly, monthly, and weekly, at present published in the Welsh +language. Of these all but three are owned and edited by Dissenters. +There are nine commentaries on the whole Bible, and nine besides on the +New Testament alone, some original and some translated from English, and +only two of these were done by Churchmen, and even they were Dissenters +when they began their work. There are eight Biblical and Theological +Dictionaries, and as many bodies of divinity or systems of theology, and +no Churchman, we believe, has had a hand in the production of any one of +them. There is a History of the World, a History of Great Britain, a +History of Christianity, a History of the Church, a History of the Welsh +Nation, a History of Religion in Wales, all by Dissenters, besides +elaborate denominational Histories of the Calvinistic Methodists, the +Independents, the Baptists, &c. Indeed, all the ecclesiastical histories +in the language are Nonconformist, and all the general histories except +the History of Wales by the Rev. Thomas Price, and a small work called +the 'Mirror of the Principal Ages.' There is a valuable work illustrated +by many excellent maps and diagrams, entitled 'The History of Heaven and +Earth,' treating of geography and astronomy, by the Rev. J. T. Jones, of +Aberdare, formerly a Nonconformist minister. There is another large +geographical dictionary in course of publication by a dissenting +minister. There are two copious Biographical Dictionaries edited and +principally written by Dissenters. There is now, and has been for +several years, in course of publication an Encyclopædia in the Welsh +language (Encyclopædia Cambrensis), dealing as such works do with the +entire circle of human knowledge. It was described by the late +Archdeacon Williams, who had seen the earlier volumes, as 'a work of +great promise, as sound in doctrine as it is unsectarian in principle.' +It is studiously free from denominational taint, and was intended to be +a great national undertaking, the contributors being indiscriminately +selected from the ablest writers of all denominations, the combined +learning and talent of Wales being thus engaged in its preparation. The +enterprising publisher at the outset addressed a letter to all those +among his countrymen of whatever church or creed who had distinguished +themselves in any way by their literary acquirements and productions, +inviting their co-operation. We have now before us a list of the +contributors amounting to ninety names, and out of these ninety, there +are certainly not more than nine churchmen. + +The English public has of late years become partially acquainted with a +remarkable institution existing in Wales, which has come down from very +ancient times, called Yr Eisteddfod, or the Session, meaning in its +primitive signification the Session of the Bards. Its object is to +encourage the cultivation of literature, poetry and music. The English +press has tried to throw great ridicule on this institution, as the +English press is wont to do, upon all institutions that are not English. +And yet surely, as the Bishop of St. David's has said, 'it is a most +remarkable feature in the history of any people, and such as could be +said of no other than the Welsh, that they have centred their national +recreation in literature and musical competitions.' Prizes ranging from +£1 to £100 are offered for the best compositions in poetry, prose, and +music. The highest honour bestowed by the Eisteddfod is the Bardic +chair, and the productions entitling the successful candidates to this +distinction are supposed to possess rare merit. There are now living +nine chaired bards, of whom one is a clergyman, seven are Nonconformist +ministers, and one a Nonconformist layman. In musical compositions, the +proportion would be about the same. And certainly the Welsh clergy of +the present day have not, any more than their predecessors, +distinguished themselves as authors. A catalogue of Welsh books +published within the last twenty years, would show a very beggarly +'account' standing to the credit of the official instructors of the +Welsh people. + +Such are the past history and the present condition of the Established +Church in Wales. Surely no legislature with any sense of justice can +long refuse to deal with so anomalous an institution as that we have +described; a Church which has wholly failed, and is still failing, to +accomplish the only object for which it pretends to exist, from +which--and that entirely owing to its own criminal neglect--the great +body of the people are hopelessly alienated, and which has no vital +relation with the religions, political, social, or literary life of the +nation. And it is not merely a theoretical anomaly. It is an intolerable +practical grievance, and is becoming more and more so every day. For its +friends, numbering as they do nearly all the landowners and wealthy +classes, galvanized, of late years, into a sort of spasmodic zeal, which +is far more political than religious, are making frantic efforts to +regain for their Church the ascendancy it has so righteously lost, by a +very unscrupulous use of their wealth, their social position, and their +control over the land. The advocates of the Church, especially in the +English press, are trying to wreak their vengeance on a nation of +Dissenters, by traducing the character of the people, and ridiculing +their language, their literature, and their religious institutions; and +this they are not deterred from doing by their utter ignorance of all +three. Some of the Welsh clergy, also, exasperated by seeing their +pretensions contemned, and their ministrations forsaken, are propagating +the most monstrous calumnies against their successful rivals, the +Dissenting ministers. One Conservative journal in London has especially +distinguished itself by throwing its columns open to these anonymous +slanderers. Here are some of the flowers of speech that have been +plentifully scattered in its pages on the Welsh Nonconformists. 'The +Welsh language is made the instrument of evil by preachers and other +supporters of anarchy and plunder.' 'The people are actively taught to +commit arson and murder; they are regularly drilled into Fenianism.' +'Dissenting ministers are the curse of Wales; there is scarcely a sermon +or lecture they deliver that is not full of sedition.' + +And yet the country whose population is thus systematically trained to +sedition and murder, is more free from serious crime than any part of +the United Kingdom; so free, indeed, that in many of the counties the +annual visit of her Majesty's judges is almost a work of supererogation. +Take as an example the county of Cardigan, which was the scene of the +most extensive and cruel political persecutions after the last election, +where about sixty tenants were evicted from their holdings, some of them +under circumstances of a singularly exasperating character. And yet at +the Assizes, that were held immediately after, there was not a single +prisoner to be tried. Mr. Justice Hannen, in charging the grand jury, +said 'that a perfectly clear calendar was a circumstance he had never +before met with since he had been on the bench, and he understood from +his brother judges that only in the Principality of Wales was such a +thing known, and that there it was frequent. Whether it was attributable +to race or to the influence of religious teaching he could not say, but +he felt deeply interested in the matter, and whatever might be the +cause, there was the indisputable fact, one of which the county of +Cardigan might well be proud.' + +These insane efforts to drive or to drag the people back into the Church +by coercion and calumny, produce, of course, precisely the opposite +effect. Indeed the Conservatives, in their treatment of Wales, are +triumphantly vindicating their right to the title bestowed upon them by +Mr. Stuart Mill, as 'the stupid party.' Unhappily, however, they do +succeed in embittering the heart of the people, and in introducing +alienation and anger into their relations with the classes who are thus +tempted to tamper with their religious and political rights. And all +this is owing to the existence of an Established Church. + + + + +ART. VII. (1.)--_The Greek New Testament, edited from Ancient +Authorities, with the Latin Version of Jerome from the Codex Amiatinus._ +By S. P. TREGELLES, LL.D. Matthew to Acts--Catholic Epistles--Romans to +Philemon. S. Bagster and Sons. + +(2.) _Fragmenta Evangelica quæ ex antiqua recensione versionis Syriacæ +Novi Testamenti a Gulielmo Curetono vulgata sunt Græce reddita textuique +Syriaco editionis Schaafianæ et Græco Scholzianæ fideliter collata._ +Pars Prima. J. R. CROWFOOT, S.T.B. Williams and Norgate. + + +It is difficult to estimate our unpaid obligations to the students and +scholars who have sacrificed their life to furnish us with the +common-places of our knowledge. The elaborate and prolonged effort, the +perseverance, ingenuity, and scientific skill often concealed in the +foundations of a great building or in the underways of a great city, are +no inapt illustration of the lifelong labours of those students and +votaries of literature who have placed in our hands authentic and +accurate copies of the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of ancient thinkers. The +learned, patient, and devout men to whom we are indebted for our present +careful approximations to the text of the New Testament, have undergone +a species of toil which it is very difficult for those scholars even to +appreciate, who have never made the attempt to decipher a single MS. or +to gather around them the abundant and often conflicting evidence on +which the judgment of the critic really turns. Whatever be the ultimate +currency or acceptance of the text which Dr. Tregelles has offered to +the world as the result of his life-long effort, and granting that some +of the disadvantages under which he has suffered have left ineffaceable +marks on the greater part of the work, and that his main principles may +still be under judicature, yet we readily endorse the strong language of +Bishop Ellicott: 'The edition of Tregelles will last to the very end of +time as a noble monument of faithful, enduring, and accurate labour in +the cause of truth; it will always be referred to as an uniquely +trustworthy collection of assorted critical materials of the greatest +value, and as such it will probably never be superseded.'[170] The +Bishop does not regard Dr. Tregelles' text as the final one, but does +not hesitate to speak of it as far better than Tischendorf's, and as +furnishing material which no subsequent editor can afford to ignore. +With the exception of the text of the Apocalypse and of the appendices +rendered necessary by the progress of textual criticism since the +earlier portions of the work were published, this long-expected work is +now placed in our hands. The exception to which we have referred is, we +profoundly regret to say, occasioned by the serious indisposition of the +learned, laborious, and devout editor. The regret is to some extent +alleviated from a literary point of view by the circumstance that one of +the first contributions to Biblical science made by this conscientious +and accurate scholar was published in 1844, and entitled 'The Book of +Revelation in Greek, edited from Ancient Authorities, with a new English +Version and various Readings, by Samuel P. Tregelles.' There is this +difference, however, between the evidence alleged by Dr. Tregelles for +the text of the Revelation and that which he has pursued throughout the +elaborate work now before us, that in the former he was either content +or only able at that time to give the evidence of the few Uncial MSS. +and early versions, then known to contain the Apocalypse, with such +confirmation as they received from a large number of the Cursive MSS. +Although his object was to approximate as nearly as possible to the most +ancient text, his _apparatus criticus_ had not then reached the +proportions it has subsequently assumed, and he did not even attempt to +marshal the evidence of patristic quotations, or to give the arguments +_pro_ and _contra_ any reading that he deliberately adopted. The _Codex +Sinaiticus_ had not then been rescued from the Convent of St. Catherine +by the enterprising Dr. Tischendorf, and the system of careful notation +which is adopted in the _magnum opus_ now before us, had not been +elaborated. Since 1844, moreover, the Rev. Bradley Alford has published +a collation of the celebrated Cursive MS. 38, Dr. Delitzch has +discovered the MS. used by Erasmus, and a careful collation is promised +of the Codex Basiliensis, which Dr. Tregelles proposes to call Q, +instead of adopting the old and confusing symbol B, which has led some +to identify it with _the_ Codex Vaticanus. The introduction to the +interesting volume on the text of the Book of Revelation was expanded in +1854 into a goodly octavo entitled 'An Account of the printed text of +the Greek New Testament, with remarks on its revision upon critical +principles, together with a collation of the critical texts of +Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann, and Tischendorf with that in common use.' +We know no work on biblical criticism more charged with well-digested +information, and none which reveals a more extensive literary +enterprise, than that which is here recorded. Dr. Tregelles tells us in +the preface to his Greek Testament, that this work contains a detailed +exposition of the principles he holds and the studies in which he has +been engaged, and as his editors earnestly request that it be referred +to in explanation of the principle adopted by Dr. Tregelles, it is +almost incumbent upon us to remind our readers of its contents and +spirit. In the appendix to section 13, occurs a brief and modest sketch +of the extensive and continuous labours of this great student of the New +Testament text. It appears that he commenced his research simply for his +own satisfaction. The text of Dr. Scholz, based so largely on the +consensus of later MSS. but revealing the small group of Alexandrian +authorities and most ancient witnesses in opposition to the text adopted +by him, first called Dr. Tregelles to a consideration of the fact that +these most ancient but rejected testimonies were curiously confirmed by +the older versions. He was thus led to conceive of the creation of a +text entirely based on the authority of the most ancient copies. He did +not even know that Lachmann in 1838 had already made his celebrated +though imperfect attempt to produce the text of the first four centuries +in entire or professed independence of the later authorities and of the +received text. When the Codex Amiatinus of Jerome's Latin Version was +collated and published by Fleck in 1840, Tregelles found it confirm, in +opposition to the Clementine Vulgate, the oldest Greek readings. In +preparing his work on the text of the Revelation, he found it necessary +to collate the Uncial MSS. with his own hand. In 1845 he collated the +Codex Augiensis (in Trinity Coll. Camb.). Though he visited Rome for +the purpose of collating the celebrated _Codex Vaticanus_ he was +prevented from copying unless it were surreptitiously on his +thumb-nails, a single reading. We formerly gave to our readers[171] a +full account of the various imperfect collations made by Birch, +Bartolocci, and Cardinal Mai, and also of the edition which has recently +been published under the auspices of Dr. Tischendorf. In the greater +part of Dr. Tregelles' critical labours he has been compelled to trust +to the faulty and otherwise divergent collations which preceded Dr. +Tischendorf's edition; but while he was deprived of the personal +advantage of investigating Codex B for himself, he did collate at Rome, +with his own hand, the Codex Passonei, and at Florence the Codex +Amiatinus of Jerome's Latin; and at Modena, Venice, Munich, and Basle, +other Uncial MSS. of considerable portions of the New Testament. Many of +these were used by Tischendorf in his second Leipsic edition of the +Greek Testament. + +Dr. Tregelles became acquainted in 1849 with the remarkable Syriac +fragment which Dr. Cureton found among the MSS. brought from the Nitrian +monasteries and deposited in the British Museum. This mutilated fragment +contains portions of the four Gospels--Matt. i.-viii. 22; x. 31-xxiii. +25; Mark xvi. 17-20; John i. 1-42; iii. 6-vii. 37; xiv. 11-29; Luke ii. +48-iii. 16; vii. 33-xv. 21; xvii. 24-xxiv. 44; but in the opinion of the +best Syriac scholars, it is older than the Peshito, and would seem to +have been collated with the Greek by the translator of the Greek +Testament into Syriac (Peshito). Dr. Cureton supposed that it represents +a first translation from the original Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, but Dr. +Davidson has we think conclusively proved that it is a translation from +the Greek. Dr. Cureton conjectured that sundry curious blunders or +deviations from the canonical Matthew are due to the mistakes made by +the translator of the Hebrew into Syriac. These conjectures are +ingenious but perfectly gratuitous. Dr. Davidson has shown that in a +variety of places the Curetonian Syriac (as it is called) differs from +the early Greek text by the obvious blunder between two _Greek_ words of +similar appearance. We have been rather explicit on the matter of this +valuable witness to a very early text, not only because Dr. Tregelles +and others have made constant reference to it, but because the second +work which we have placed at the head of this article is a translation +into Greek of the first part of these precious fragments, and is, +moreover, a collation of every reading with Scholz's text, and with +Schaaf's edition of the Peshito. This critical effort of Mr. Crowfoot +will be of real service to the student who is not familiar with Syriac, +and who wishes to see for himself the singular deviations of this text +from the Textus Receptus. Take _e.g._ the additions made to the text of +Matthew in chap. xx. 28, where a passage resembling one in Luke vii. is +introduced. The Cur. Syriac here is sustained by the Codex D. Very +frequently, however, it corresponds in its omissions with the most +ancient MSS. and with the old Latin, as in Matt. xx. 22, 23. It is +profoundly interesting, moreover, in that it retains of Mark's Gospel +only a portion of the very closing passage, which is not to be found in +Codex B. or in [Hebrew: Aleph]. Partly in consequence of this testimony +Dr. Tregelles leaves the passage as an authentic appendix to the text of +the Gospel of St. Mark. We see that Mr. Crowfoot and Dr. Tregelles +sometimes differ, as we might expect them to do, as to the Greek +equivalent which they suppose most likely to have been the exemplar of +the Syriac, but they do not seriously differ as to the testimony it +bears to a particular reading. In Matthew xi. 23, the Textus Rec. reads +[Greek: kai sy Kapernaoum hê heôs tou ouranou hypsôtheisa, k.t.l.] Mr. +Crowfoot gives in place of [Greek: hê], [Greek: ouch]. Dr. Tregelles on +the authority of B, C, D, the Vulgate _a, b, c_, and Syr. Cur., gives +[Greek: mê], and makes the clause interrogative. + +But to proceed with Dr. Tregelles' labours. The various collations made +by him need not be exhaustively enumerated, though special attention +should be called to the extraordinary effort and patience which was +required by him to form an accurate estimate of the readings of the +Codex Colbertinus, called 33 in the Gospels, and 13 in the Acts and +Catholic Epistles. The leaves of the vellum have been in places sodden +with damp and stuck together. The consequence was that when separated, +'the ink adhered to the _opposite_ page rather than to its own, so that +in many leaves the MS. could only be read by observing how the ink had +_set-off_, and thus reading the Greek words _backwards_.' At Paris, +Leipsic, Berlin, Dresden and Wolfenbüttel, Dr. Tregelles continued his +patient research, and came to such discoveries as that the Codex +Sangallensis ([Delta] of the Gospels), and Codex Boernerianus (G of St. +Paul's Epistles) were the severed portions of the same book. At Dublin, +the difficult palimpsest fragment (Z) was deciphered after submitting +the vellum to a chemical process, and Tregelles was able to restore the +portions which had been left blank in the edition of this fragment +published by Dr. Barrett. + +Special reference may be made to the Codex, called Zacynthius and +designated [Xi], the property of the British and Foreign Bible Society. +This is almost an illegible parchment palimpsest, containing +considerable portions of Luke's Gospel. The readings of this old +lectionary have been carefully noted by Tregelles and are cited +throughout his text of the Gospel of Luke. The Codex Leicestrensis, the +property of the Town Council of Leicester, has been also carefully +collated by our author, as well as by Mr. Scrivener. It is cited as 69 +in the Gospels, 31 Acts, and by other numbers in remaining portions of +the New Testament. + +Dr. Tregelles has not paid _much_ attention to the mass of cursive MSS. +It is not fair to accuse him of utterly neglecting them, when he has +gone through the laborious work of collating specimens of cursive MSS. +in each of the divisions of his subject. He has, however, placed far +more confidence in another class of authority and of evidence. The most +ancient versions have been thoroughly noted by him in their several +codices. The old Latin is carefully studied throughout; the Codex +Amiatinus of Jerome's Latin is published in the volume before us, with +all the deviations from it in the Clementine Vulgate. The Peshito and +Harcleian Syriac versions, the Cureton fragments, the Jerusalem +Lectionary, the Memphitic and Thebaic (sometimes called the Coptic and +Sahidic) versions, the Ethiopic and the Gothic, are used throughout this +edition of the Greek Testament. A considerable number of uncial MSS., +which have been published in facsimile or in a printed text, Dr. +Tregelles has copied with his own hand, and all the rest of the uncial +MSS. he appears to have also collated with his own hand. Having gone +through this extraordinary labour, he has proceeded to give the text of +the New Testament on the authority of the oldest MSS. and versions, and +with the aid of the earliest citations, so as to present the text of the +fourth century. He does not hesitate to deviate from these ancient +testimonies, when they agree in transcriptural error; and he confers +this great advantage on the student, that he states in every case the +authorities on both sides with reference to any disputed reading. + +Now there has often been expressed on the part of the advocates of the +cursive MSS. and the Constantinopolitan group of MSS. and of the later +uncial MSS., the conviction that their consensus ought to outweigh the +strong and clearly expressed testimony of the ancient MSS. on the +plausible supposition that the existing later MS. _may_ be the copies +of an older text than that of any existing MS. whatever. Now if Dr. +Tregelles or Dean Alford or Dr. Tischendorf had been mere slaves of the +few uncial MSS. of great antiquity which are extant, and had no further +or corroborative testimony to add in favour of the readings, or the +additions and omissions they have affirmed, there would be much justice +in the protest sometimes raised; but neither of them can justly be +charged with this, and Dr. Tregelles must certainly be acquitted of such +prejudice. He and Dean Alford do indisputably and notoriously differ in +certain cases where subjective reasons and considerations of the +exercise of personal discretion must assume great importance; and in +some of these doubtful and difficult cases Tregelles has been more +influenced by diplomatic considerations, and has more readily yielded to +authority, than Dean Alford; but Dr. Tregelles has stated very acutely +and powerfully his reasons for trusting the ancient MSS., even in these +difficult readings. Let the following phenomena to which he is able, in +most cases, to add the unexceptionable evidence of his own personal +observation and collation, be considered. (_a_) The uncial MSS. are now +known and have been at length collated with such care that we may be +certain of their testimony. (_b_) The palimpsests which have been +recently found and deciphered confirm the readings of the oldest +codices. (_c_) The great discovery of the Sinaitic Codex throws in its +testimony against the bulk of the cursive MSS. (_d_) The Curetonian +Syriac of the Gospels agrees with the oldest MSS. (_e_) Certain cursive +MSS. (such as Codex Colbertinus of the 12th century) agree with the +ancient text rather than with the bulk of the cursives, thus providing a +class of exception which proves the rule. (_f_) There is agreement of +the ancient versions with this older text; and (_g_) not infrequently +there is the express testimony of early patristic writers to the +existence of such a text in their day. Now the principle that Dr. +Tregelles takes great pains to establish is as follows,--While there are +certain readings sustained by the great majority of recent MSS., +divergent readings of the same passages can be proved to have been in +existence long before the existence of these MSS., by the evidence of +the earliest MSS. of the old Latin version, by the Syriac and other +translations, and by the deliberate discussion of the very peculiarities +in question by some earlier writer like Origen. Now, even if there were +no uncial MSS. which confirmed such divergence, this would constitute a +presumption in favour of such a divergence, if some adequate +explanation could be found of the commonly received text. But, if in +addition to these testimonies, a considerable number of the most ancient +uncial MSS. confirm such readings, then Tregelles urges the adoption of +them as an approximation to the true text. Thus, take his elaborate +argument in favour of the reading of Matt. xix. 17, [Greek: ti me erôtas +peri tou agathou? heis estin ho agathos]. This alteration was first made +by Griesbach and sustained by Lachmann, and adopted subsequently by +Tischendorf and Alford, though condemned by Mr. Scrivener on the ground +of the numerical poverty of the evidence, and because it evinced +theological zeal for the honour of the Incarnate Son. It is interesting +to find, since the judgment of these recensionists was deliberately +given, that the final recension of the Vatican MS. and the testimony of +the Sinaitic MS. have arisen to defend it. The evidence for the +existence of this text in the fourth century, or indeed before the time +of Origen, and before the existence of _Cureton Syriac_, just proves, +according to Tregelles, that it is safe 'to take the _few_ documents +whose evidence is _proved_ to be trustworthy, and to discard the +eighty-nine ninetieths of the evidence shown thus to be less valuable.' +One result of his comparative criticism is, 'that as certain MSS. are +found by a process of inductive proof to contain an ancient text, their +character as witnesses must be considered to be so established, that in +other places their testimony deserves peculiar weight;' and still +further--'that the ancient MSS. were not exceptional documents, because +they contain readings which we learn elsewhere to have been both ancient +and widespread.' + +One great advantage in Dr. Tregelles' New Testament is, that he not +merely states but cites the authority of the patristic writers to whom +he appeals, and by a somewhat elaborate notation enables the reader at a +glance to see how his uncial MSS. and principal versions are serving +him, and where all the _lacunæ_ begin and end. + +We proceed to give some further account of the contents and +peculiarities of this great work. Dr. Tregelles and Dr. Alford agree in +the great majority of cases where they differ from the received text, +although in some instances they have not with the same facts before +them, come to the same conclusion. _E.g._, both call attention to the +fact that in John vi. 51, the clause [Greek: hên egô dôsô] is omitted by +B, C, D, L, T, 33, the Latin versions, the Cur. Syriac, Thebaic, and +Æthiopic versions, and by many Fathers, and Alford even mentions a +longer list of such omissions than Tregelles, but Alford allows the +_homoioteleuton_ just above, to be a sufficient explanation of the +original omission in the text, and retains the clause: Tregelles strikes +it out, making the verse read thus, 'and the bread which I will give for +the life of the world is my flesh.' Since their discussion, the Sinaitic +MS. confirms Tregelles, by not only omitting the clause, but altering +the order of the words. This alteration of order may confirm Dean Alford +in his continued insertion of the clause, though we think Tregelles is +in the right. Through whole chapters of the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, +these two recensionists may be said to agree _verbatim et literatim_, +and to have come precisely to the same conclusions: still a few +specimens of their divergence may explain more fully than a more +elaborate analysis, the character of their work. In John viii. 41, +Alford prefers the less comprehensible form [Greek: gegennêmetha], to +the form [Greek: egennêthêmen], on the ground of the possible alteration +of the tense to the more usual form. We do not think that Tregelles has +acted here on his own principles, for he shows that versions and +citations defend the former rather than the latter reading. In John +viii. 54, they differ again as to the preferable character of the +readings [Greek: hêmôn] or [Greek: humôn], 'our God' or 'your God,' and +here Tregelles defends the reading [Greek: hêmôn] with a great array of +evidence; see also ch. ix. 4, where [Greek: hêmas dei ergazesthai +k.t.l.] is given as preferable to the [Greek: eme dei k.t.l.], and +largely on the ground that Origen must have been acquainted with this +obscure text, and tried to interpret it. In each instance a theological +zeal might have provoked a copyist to the ordinary readings. Throughout +the ninth chapter of the Acts, where the received text has passed +through so fiery an alembic, Alford and Tregelles agree, we believe, in +every word, with one exception, and that is the word [Greek: epeirazen] +is preferred by one to the [Greek: epeirato] of the other in v. 26. Here +strong uncial authority governs Tregelles, and the disposition to prefer +the less usual or less common form has influenced Dr. Alford. In Romans +v. 1, the celebrated reading [Greek: echômen] in place of [Greek: +echomen] is preferred by Tregelles. Alford still has doubts about it, +from the indecision of MSS. in their modes of spelling certain vowel +sounds. The quotations from Origen and Tertullian are decisive of the +existence of such a text in their day, and the array of versions is +strongly confirmatory of the seven uncials and two cursives that are +quoted for it. We need scarcely say, that Tregelles gives his powerful +authority in favour of [Greek: hos], rather than [Greek: theos], in 1 +Tim. iii. 16, and rejects the reference to the three heavenly witnesses +in 1 John v. 7; but in spite of the authority of Tischendorf's collation +of B and of [Hebrew: Aleph], and other authorities in favour of the +received text, he gives [Greek: kyriou] instead of [Greek: theou] as the +preferable reading of Acts xx. 28. + +Our author is strongly moved by the citations of Origen, and +consequently places in his margin as the alternative reading in Heb. ii. +9, [Greek: chôris theou] by the side of [Greek: chariti theou]. It is +clear, from no fewer than seven citations of Origen, he must have had a +MS. before him with this startling statement, 'that Jesus on the behalf +of all without (or in the absence, or hiding of) God might taste death.' +The only MS. authority for such a reading is the uncial fragment called +M of the tenth century, so that we are surprised to see the high place +given to it in Tregelles' margin. Dr. Tregelles, in the wealth of +material at his disposal, sometimes almost travels into the region of +the exegete, as in the long note upon Rom. ix. 5, where he gives eight +or nine quotations from Greek and Latin Fathers, to show the sense in +which they took the phrase, [Greek: ho ôn epi pantôn theos eulogêtos eis +tous aiônas] as not divided from the [Greek: ho christos] which +precedes. It may be added, that he retains [Greek: en Ephesô] in the +text of Eph. i. 1, thus preserving the traditional character of this +Epistle as one addressed not to Laodiceans or any group of Asiatic +churches, but to the church at Ephesus. + +Dr. Tregelles and Dean Alford differ slightly in 1 Cor. iii. In the +fifth verse, [Greek: ti oun estin Apollôs] is preferred to the [Greek: +tis] of the Receptus, by Tregelles, while Alford sustains the latter. +Tregelles has given the adjectives [Greek: chrysion] and [Greek: +argyrion] in v. 12, in place of the [Greek: chryson], [Greek: argyron]; +and [Greek: ethêka] to the commoner [Greek: tetheika] and of v. 10. Here +Alford seems to have the weight of evidence in favour of his view, +though doubtless the _aorist_ gives the finer sense, and makes the truer +affirmation 'I laid,' rather than 'I have been laying the foundation.' + +He leaves [Greek: Agar] in brackets in his text of Gal. iv. 25. So also +he deals with the [Greek: eikê] of Matt. v. 22. The [Greek: baptisantes] +of Matt. xxviii. 19, given on the authority of the doubtful recensions +of the Vatican MS. is most unsatisfactory. Tischendorf, who gave it in +some of his earlier editions, has returned to [Greek: baptizontes]; and +probably Dr. Tregelles will show us in his appendix that he has done the +same, as [Hebrew: Aleph] agrees with all the uncial MS. here in the more +grammatical reading. We will not further trouble our readers with +details. These will suffice for a specimen. Every page presents at a +glance the presence of the entire group of MS. versions and fragments +collated by the author, and the whole is printed with extreme beauty of +type and arrangement. + +In conclusion, we express our profound sense of the obligation under +which the accomplished and persevering editor has laid every student of +the New Testament. There is a fulness and richness of material placed +here by him, at the disposal of those who are utterly precluded from +this kind of investigation. The work is done so conscientiously and +laboriously, that great confidence is inspired in the accuracy and +reliableness of the information thus harvested for general use. The +principles on which Dr. Tregelles has toiled, are so clearly put, and +for the most part so patiently applied, that they command hearty +respect, if not general assent. Such work as this is necessarily +provisional, and cannot be regarded as final. The discovery of the +Sinaitic codex and the recent collated edition of the Vatican MS. since +the commencement of Tregelles' enterprise, is sufficient proof of this; +and until the promised appendices appear we cannot tell to what extent +this circumstance may have modified the text of our author. It is +inexpressibly affecting that the labour of nearly forty years should be +arrested when the patient, true-hearted scholar had just reached, as we +understand, the last chapter of the Revelation, and that he should be +suffering not only from prostration of strength, but be smitten in that +very organ of vision which he had consecrated so lovingly to his +Master's service. We can only deplore and sympathize with such +disappointments as these. We are satisfied that we speak the universal +desire of his collaborateurs, and of his rivals, in this lofty field of +work, when we express the earnest hope that he may yet be spared to +complete his labours, and to see the effect of them in the deeper +reverence paid by his contemporaries to the Word of the living God. + + + + +ART. IX.--_The War of 1870._ + + +It is impossible as yet even to guess the consequences of the memorable +war of 1870. It may verify the German exclamation that the hour of the +Latin race has come, and that France has ceased to be a great power, or +it may lead to the moral resurrection of that essentially noble people, +and even to the recovery of its military supremacy. It may develope a +French Republic which from its failure to turn the tide of fortune shall +be followed by a Jacobin successor, and issue in a despotism of the +sword not less fearful than that of Napoleon I. or it may be the +forerunner of a better period when France, purified by adversity, shall +win the esteem and admiration of Europe, by her constancy in affliction, +her lofty patriotism, her renewed energy, her surviving genius. Looking +at it, too, from the other side, it may accelerate the unity of Germany, +cemented by blood poured out in the field, by a brotherhood in arms, and +by common triumphs; or it may tend only to German divisions, and to the +collapse of the policy of 1866, by aggrandising Prussia out of all +proportions, and making her influence intolerable to the minor States. +Who, indeed, shall speculate on the results of this mighty and awful +conflict, when, though it seems for the time to be drawing to a close, +France refuses to acknowledge defeat, and defies the invader behind the +walls of the capital, and when, though apparently struck to the ground, +she still raises the flag of resistance, appeals to the memories of +1793, and endeavours to rally for a final effort those national forces +which, in her case, have so often proved impossible to subdue? Yet, if +we shall not attempt to forecast the remote issues of this tremendous +struggle, or to predict what it shall ultimately bring forth, the time +has come when we can briefly describe its marvellous events and +fortunes, and can truly indicate its immediate lessons of deep +significance to these kingdoms. The momentous war of 1870 is not only +one of the grandest illustrations of the art which founds and destroys +Empires; it not only is an astonishing drama, every scene which the +military student should examine carefully and lay to heart; it not only +fascinates the ordinary observer by its gigantic action and immense +events; it points conclusively to a solemn moral, not to be forgotten by +any country which seeks to maintain its position in the world, and +cherishes a sense of its independence. It shows how weak, in the hour of +trial, may be even a great military power which neglects the real +sources of its strength, and relies mainly on its martial traditions, on +its past honour, on the memory of a name; it proves fearfully how +imperial despotism may rear an edifice of imposing grandeur, which for a +generation shall deceive mankind, and yet fall suddenly at the first +breath of misfortune; it testifies to the old truth that material +prosperity with moral corruption are the fruitful sources of national +decline; and it teaches us what we should never forget, how terrible and +decisive, in modern warfare, are the results of rapid and great success, +and how absolutely necessary it is for England, in the present menacing +condition of Europe, to surround herself with an invulnerable shield, +to look after her national defences, and to take care that by sea and on +land she shall possess the means of repelling aggression. + +It would be an unnecessary and unprofitable task to examine at length +the causes of the war. Impartial history, we believe, will pronounce +that though Napoleon gave the challenge, it had been to some degree +provoked by the policy of Bismark, by the attitude recently taken by +Prussia, by the series of events which since 1866 have changed the +centre of power in Germany. It was impossible but that the Emperor +should feel bitterly how he had been outwitted by the unscrupulous +statesman who had purchased his complicity in the spoliation of Denmark +by promises of annexation on the Rhine, and had afterwards coolly +violated his pledges; nor yet that he should not be really alarmed at +the immense development of the military power of Prussia during the +preceding five years. It would have been disregarding the traditions +which, rightly or wrongly, for two centuries have guided the foreign +policy of France, to have witnessed the absorption of the German States +into one dominant and threatening power, without an effort to break the +union; and if an attempt to obtain this, was contrary to modern ideas +and aspirations, it was only carrying out what had always been the views +of Henry IV. and Richelieu. Besides, ever since the battle of Sadowa, +France and Prussia had been watching each other, and tending inevitably +to collision; both Powers had been increasing their armaments, and +events have proved which was the more ready; and we know from the +Imperial correspondence that Napoleon had been repeatedly warned that +Prussia was meditating an invasion of France, and would avail herself of +the first opportunity. It is not, therefore, too much to say that it was +not merely French folly and arrogance which precipitated this tremendous +conflict; the conduct of Prussia and her aggressive acts contributed to +it in no slight degree; and if France, as it has turned out, was unwise +in not accepting accomplished facts, and in chafing at the military +strength of her rival, we can perfectly comprehend this sentiment, +without charging her, as a nation, with any peculiar turn for +aggrandisement, or even any extraordinary ambition. It must be admitted +that the Emperor was utterly in the wrong in the pretext on which he +declared war, and that his whole policy in this respect showed ignorance +of the real state of opinion. After the Hohenzollern candidature of +Spain had been withdrawn at the instance of England, it was an act of +extreme unwisdom to have proceeded to further demands; and the result +was that, to outward seeming, France, at the beginning of hostilities, +was alone to blame for the frightful contest, and that Prussia appeared +the injured defender of the national independence of Germany. In truth, +however, in this as in other matters, Bismark probably outgeneralled +Napoleon; he seems to have been eager for war, and to have been too glad +to find an opportunity to attack France with the support of public +opinion; and now at least when he puts forward claims to wrest from her +some of her present provinces, he can scarcely be considered by +impartial men as the mere opponent of French aggression. + +Hostilities were proclaimed on the 15th of July, after efforts at +negotiation on the part of England. There can be little doubt that the +war was welcomed by the classes who form public opinion in Germany, +quite as much as in France. The passionate and foolish cry, 'to Berlin,' +was answered by shouts of defiance, 'to Paris;' and if French chauvins +and journalists talked of the annexation of the left bank of the Rhine, +and of the breaking up of the German Confederation, claims for 'the lost +patrimony of Elsass and Lothringen' were put forward prominently by the +press of Germany. In fact, amiable German professors who back the +arrogant demands of Bismark, and pleasantly insist on 'the line of the +Vosges,' as a necessary bulwark for 'peace-loving Germany,' against the +'intolerable ambition of Frenchmen,' must have a strange notion of the +facts of the case; the war fever was at least as strong in the capital +of Prussia, as in that of France; and it is about as correct to +represent the two nations as differing in this, as it is to repeat the +veracious legend--of which of course the League of Pilnitz and the +barbarous invasion of 1792 are confirmations that cannot be +gainsaid--that France has always been the assailant of her meek and +long-suffering Teutonic rival. Within a few days after the declaration +of war, the army of the Rhine was set in motion, and the heads of the +columns of eight French corps were approaching the verge of the German +frontier; the main bodies, however, being still distant. The first +corps, under the renowned MacMahon, had advanced from Algeria and the +south, and occupied Upper and Lower Alsace, its headquarters being at +Strasburg. The second and fifth corps of Frossard and De Failly were +sent forward, and at St. Avold and Bitsche held the approaches to the +Rhenish Palatinate, from MacMahon's left to near the line of the Saar. +To the left of these again, was the fourth corps, marched from the north +under L'Admirault, and stationed at and around Thionville; while, in +the rear, Bazaine with the third corps, was moving to the great fortress +of Metz; the sixth, under the orders of Canrobert, was on its way from +Chalons to Lorraine; and far behind, the Imperial Guard--the flower of +the French army--was pushing forward from the French capital. In the +meantime, the seventh corps of Douay formed the extreme right of the +great French line; far to the north it guarded Belfort, the 'gate of +France,' between the Vosges and the Jura; and it connected itself with +MacMahon's rear-guard along the Rhine and Lower Alsace. The whole French +army, in its first line, extended in a huge semicircle from Northern +Lorraine to the Southern Vosges; but its second line, massed between +Metz and Chalons, was at a considerable distance from the first; and +though it was well connected by railways, and placed as it was, it +threatened equally the Rhenish provinces and Southern Germany, it was +not yet even nearly concentrated. + +Such was the disposition of the army of the Rhine about the 21st or 22nd +of July. It will be seen at once that it was well adapted for an +offensive movement against Germany, if made rapidly and in full force, +for Baden and the Palatinate were threatened, and the exact point of +attack was concealed. Placed as they were, the forces of France could +either pour into the Rhineland, drawing after them their reserves on all +sides, or they could cross the Rhine, and, advancing from Strasburg, +interpose between Northern and Southern Germany and endeavour to break +up their uniting armies. On the other hand, the position of the French +was badly chosen as a line of defence; for their foremost corps were +widely disseminated, and in case of a sudden attack, were thrown too far +beyond their supports; and if they were assailed by a resolute foe, +converging against them in full strength, they would be exposed to +serious disaster. For these reasons we may certainly infer that the +strategic plan of the French Emperor was to march upon the Germans with +much rapidity, and whether the recently published pamphlet does or does +not disclose his purpose, it is evident that he intended to advance +either by the Rhineland on Landau and Mayence, or by Strasburg into the +territory of Baden. Besides, he must have known perfectly well that a +brilliant initiative was his best chance; for not only was it in +accordance with the traditions and genius of the French soldier; not +only was it calculated to sow dissensions and alarm among his foes and +perhaps prevent them from combining; it was the sole means to give full +effect to the one great advantage which France would possess over +Prussia at the beginning of a campaign, the imposing strength of a +standing army, supposed to be ready at all points and formidable in its +numerical proportions, compared with levies, immense indeed when brought +together and set in motion, but believed to be inferior in military +power, and requiring time to be fully arrayed. It may therefore be said +with confidence, that a sudden and vigorous spring on Germany was the +real scheme of Napoleon III.; and, notwithstanding all that has +occurred, it is impossible to say what the result would have been had +this design been carried out boldly, with the promptness and skill of a +great commander who would have led his troops to immediate victory. +Unhappily, however, for the interests of France, vacillation at the +decisive moment took the place of resolution and genius; and her armed +arrays, however imposing to outward seeming, were not in a state to +undertake great and rapid operations. The Emperor lingered a fortnight +at Paris before he went to his headquarters at Metz; even when he had +arrived he passed nearly a week, uncertain, it would appear, how to +strike; and thus the favourable opportunity was lost which might have +changed the whole course of the war. In addition to this, it is now well +known that the army was not ready to march; its commissariat was not +complete; it was deficient in ammunition and supplies; and its real +strength was considerably less than Napoleon III. had been led to +expect. Between the irresolution of its chief, and its own ill-prepared +condition, it had already forfeited its most hopeful chances before even +a blow had been struck. + +During these delays of the army of the Rhine Germany had been making +astonishing efforts. If Bismark's reports are to be believed, the German +nation was not prepared for immediate war on a gigantic scale. But +considering that since the battle of Sadowa Prussia had been steadily +increasing her armaments, and that it is tolerably clear from her +government press that she was eager to measure her strength with France, +we shall scarcely credit the Northern Confederation with any want of +military readiness; still immense as their exertions were, it is not +impossible that the Southern States were taken to some extent by +surprise. However this may have been, the summons to arms against the +ancient and dreaded foe met with but one answer from the Teutonic race; +and whatever may be thought of the policy of its rulers, its patriotism +and heroic attitude are entitled to the highest admiration. From the +sandy wastes that border the Niemen to the valleys watered by the +Moselle, and from the shores of the Northern Sea to the Danube and the +Bohemian hills, the martial cry 'to the war' was heard; the integrity of +the Fatherland was the one thought of the whole people; and whatever may +have been the divisions caused by the events of 1866, and whatever the +hopes of dispossessed sovereigns, of blind diplomatists, or of +discontented nobles, it was soon evident that Napoleon III. would have +to contend against an united Germany. This single circumstance shows how +impolitic had been the course of the French Emperor, and how badly he +had been advised; and, in fact, unless, as is not improbable, the +conduct of Prussia shall tend to disunion, the war will have done more +to make Germany a concordant people than any event since 1813. Within a +few days the military system of the nation was in full operation; the +army was 'mobilized' and increased to its war strength within the local +limits assigned to its different divisions, and in an exceedingly short +time a gigantic array composed of regular troops in the first line, with +reserves of landwehr in the second, was in a state to commence +operations under the guidance of leaders of proved ability. Those who +witnessed that mighty torrent of war pouring through Germany towards the +Rhenish frontier have described its tremendous power and impulse; and +none who have observed how it was directed can doubt that it had been +long held in hand to commence as well as to repel aggression. Towards +the last days of July and the first of August, while the French were +still disseminated in Lorraine, three vast German armies had taken +possession of the territory of the Rhenish Palatinate, and, already in +communication with each other, were being marshalled to pour into France +an overwhelming tide of invasion. The first army, numbering about 80,000 +men, was under the command of the aged Steinmetz, and was approaching +the Saar from Treves, its outposts reaching to near Saar-Louis. The +second army, nearly 200,000 strong, had crossed the Rhine at and above +Mayence, and, led by King William and Prince Frederick Charles, held the +centre of the Rhenish Palatinate, its outposts almost advanced to the +Saar, and its rearward divisions stretching far backwards. To the left +was the third army, commanded by the Crown Prince of Prussia, about +150,000 strong; it touched the right of the second army, and extended +thence to the course of the Rhine, and its vanguard, along the stream of +the Lauter, approached the northern frontier of Alsace, the main body +being not distant, and concealed behind the adjoining fortresses. From +Treves on the west to Landau on the east, and pressing forward to the +very edge of France, the huge German masses were already in a state to +fall on their enemy with tremendous force. + +The manner in which these immense armies were formed, organised, and +moved in concert within a short distance of the French frontier, was one +of the most notable of strategic exploits. In the space of nineteen or +twenty days 430,000 men in the highest state of efficiency for war, with +guns, horses, and other material, had been arrayed and prepared for the +field, and now stood on the verge of the Rhineland ready to overrun +Alsace and Lorraine. We know of no finer military movement, except +perhaps the splendid concentration of Napoleon's forces on the Belgian +frontier on the 14th of June, 1815; and it attests clearly the +calculating forethought and ability of the Prussian Government, the high +training and skill of its generals, and the discipline and power of the +German troops. The French army, scattered and divided on the semicircle +from Thionville to Belfort, and with its first line widely separated +from the second, was already in no condition to offer a successful +resistance to its mighty foe; it was not only much weaker in strength, +being outnumbered fully two to one at the decisive points where it was +threatened, it was also so disunited in its parts, that it could hardly +collect 60,000 men in any position to withstand an attack. In fact, a +glance at the map will show that along the whole line of the Saar and +the Lauter it was exposed to be defeated in detail by a force infinitely +superior in power; and this peril was aggravated by the circumstance, +placed beyond dispute by the clearest evidence, that it believed itself +completely secure, and that its leaders were planning a forward movement +while their enemy was close at hand to destroy them. + +It is now well known that a German advance was not suspected in the +French camp even during the first three days of August: the woods along +the edge of the frontier were not searched by the French outposts, and +the German columns were allowed to collect in force behind this +deceptive screen while the Emperor and his Marshals were dreaming of a +march without an obstacle into the Rhenish provinces. The consequences +of this ruinous neglect and self-deception became soon evident. On the +4th of August the Crown Prince of Prussia detached a part of his vast +army to attack the extreme right of the whole French line, this movement +being only the first step of a general advance across the French +frontier. The Prince, with about 40,000 men, fell upon a single +division of about 10,000 which lay encamped near the town of +Weissenburg, surprised it, it is said, when at breakfast, and drove it +back in a state of confusion. The French, rallying on the Geisberg, made +a gallant resistance for a short time; but the hill having been stormed +by the enemy, they were ultimately driven in utter rout from beyond +Weissenburg on the road to Strasburg. The first success, so important in +war, had thus been decisively won; the trophies of the day were 500 +prisoners, a gun, and a great deal of material; and the advanced guard +of the German army stood in triumph upon the soil of France, the right +wing of the French forces having been already threatened and struck, and +the secret of their want of preparation having been disclosed to their +able antagonists. + +The affair at Weissenburg was only the prelude of operations of a more +serious kind. The 5th of August was spent by the Crown Prince in +bringing the mass of his troops forward, and in arraying them for a +formidable attack on the French forces in his immediate front. There can +be no doubt that in making these dispositions he exposed his flank to +the corps of De Failly, which, stationed at Bitsche, beyond the Vosges, +ought to have combined with that of McMahon, and fallen on the right of +the Prussian commander, while, as yet, his columns were not closed up, +and his whole line was somewhat out of order. This movement, however, +was not executed; the want of intelligence and the vacillation which +characterised the operations of the French, were again too painfully +conspicuous; and though De Failly sent one division through the hill +passes to the aid of his colleague, he remained at Bitsche with the bulk +of his troops, and left MacMahon completely isolated. Meanwhile that +brave, but unfortunate chief, made preparations to resist the attack of +the Germans, now evidently impending. It is a misconception to suppose, +as some have done, that he advanced recklessly against his foe; what he +did was to take and occupy a defensive position on the flank of the +Germans, where he could hope to give them battle, under circumstances of +the least disadvantage, and De Failly, if he wished, could come to his +aid; and we assert, with confidence, that this strategy was the best +open to the Duke of Magenta. The marshal by the evening of the 5th had +drawn up his forces along the crest of a range which extends from +Reichsofen on the left by Woerth to Elsasshausen, and Marbronn on the +right, and which, with the stream of the Sauer in front, and with broken +ground along the rising slopes, formed a strong position against his +enemy. MacMahon's object evidently was to compel the Germans to turn +against him, and assail him as they changed their front; he would thus +divert them from the road to Strasburg, and engage them as favourably +for himself as possible; and at the same time, he as it were summoned +the corps of De Failly to join his rear, while he kept open several +lines of retreat. These were the arrangements of an able commander; and +considering that MacMahon had not more than 50,000 men in his band, his +dispositions certainly give proof of the tactical skill for which he is +renowned. On the morning of the 6th, the Crown Prince advanced to the +attack, with 130,000 men, and not less than 440 guns. As MacMahon had +calculated, the change of front, which the Germans were compelled to +make, threw their line for some time into confusion; and the French +repelled for several hours a somewhat feeble and disunited effort +against their left, at and near Reichsofen. Meantime the French centre +at Woerth had been engaged; there too, for a considerable time, +MacMahon's divisions resisted stoutly, and even for a moment assumed the +offensive. But about two o'clock the huge German line had come up on all +sides in strength; and the Crown Prince prepared to turn the French +wings at both sides, combining with this an attack in front--a movement +justified by his superiority in force, but certainly not without hazard. +MacMahon, who, at this conjuncture, De Failly not having come up, ought, +in our judgment, to have retreated, struck desperately at the German +centre at Woerth, thinned by the extension of its flanks; but the French +onset was bravely resisted, and indeed it could not have been +successful. Ere long the formidable outflanking movement developed +itself, and became decisive; and from Reichsofen to beyond Marbronn the +dense German columns extended threateningly, and overlapped the whole +French position. A sudden panic fell on MacMahon's army; its right and +centre gave way; and it was soon a mass of disheartened fugitives, +broken on all sides into disunited fragments. Six thousand prisoners and +thirty guns were the spoils of the victorious Germans; and for some time +the defeated force was annihilated, in a military point of view. + +It cannot be said that the Germans' tactics were remarkable for ability +or boldness during the first part of this desperate battle. They +attacked weakly, and in divided masses; they gave MacMahon more than one +chance; and with their immense superiority of numbers their victory +ought to have been more decisive. On the other hand the French Marshal +showed talent in his original dispositions; he resisted his enemy during +several hours, and at one time placed him in much danger; and had he +when he had been assured that De Failly's corps was not coming up, +effected a rapid and confident retreat, he would have been entitled to +commendation. MacMahon, however, held his ground too long; and when the +Crown Prince, who, as soon as he had ascertained the inferiority of the +French in strength, displayed consummate energy and skill, had advanced +on Reichsofen and Marbronn, it was almost inevitable that the French +line should give way and be totally defeated. As regards the conduct of +the opposing armies, the Germans, cautious and slow at first, became at +last self-reliant and bold; the French fought long with 'consummate +bravery,'--we quote the German official report--but they broke up +hastily under the stress of disaster--a fault almost a national +characteristic. The strategic consequences of the battle were in the +highest degree important. The whole right wing of the French army, +overpowered by immensely superior forces, was driven in and almost +destroyed; it had no chance but to retreat behind the Vosges, too +fortunate if it could make its escape; Alsace was thrown open to the +enemy, and an avenue into the heart of France laid bare. This result was +in some measure due to the criminal negligence of De Failly, who, if he +had chosen, might have joined MacMahon, and whose corps might have +changed the fate of the day; but it was also caused by the bad +arrangement of the whole French line upon the position, which at no +point was in sufficient strength to offer a firm and certain resistance. +This, indeed, was made evident, at the same time, at another part of the +theatre of operations. While the Crown Prince was attacking MacMahon, a +German division of the First Army crossed the Saar and advanced to +Saarbrück, where a few days before the corps of Frossard had made a +demonstration on the frontier, in order, it has been supposed, to +gratify the curiosity of the Prince Imperial. The French were completely +surprised; but, pressing hastily forward, they advanced to repulse the +audacious foe, who with great boldness resisted steadily for some time. +Meanwhile another German division had come to the aid of their comrades; +and seizing promptly the cover of woods which overlapped the right of +the French, they wasted it away with a destructive fire; and further +supports having come up, the Germans stormed with heroic valour a line +of heights called the Spicheren hills, which formed the front of the +French position. The whole French line had begun to give way; and an +additional mass of foes appearing on their extreme left, and having +outflanked it, they retreated in precipitate haste, leaving a +considerable number of guns and prisoners. + +The two engagements of the 6th of August, named respectively those of +Woerth and Forbach, were fraught with results of great moment. It was +not only that the renowned French army which had been supposed to be the +first in the world had suffered a double crushing defeat, in one +instance of a dishonourable kind; not only that it had lost its prestige +and given proof of want of steadiness, of indiscipline, and of +disorganization; the invasion of Germany was now impossible; the South +had been united to the North by the pledge of common military success; +and there was nothing to avert the victorious progress of the German +masses on the French frontier. The situation, in fact, had been suddenly +changed; and Europe, which up to that moment had been expecting a French +advance, was now to witness the calamitous recoil of the Imperial forces +at all points, attended with ever increasing disasters. The right wing +of the French army, well-nigh cut off and destroyed at Woerth, was +driven in rout out of Alsace and compelled to abandon Strasburg to its +fate; and it would be too fortunate if it could rally at Châlons, +drawing to it the corps of De Failly and Douay. The right centre, broken +through at Forbach, was forced backward upon Metz; and the centre and +left, involved in its defeat, were obliged to fall back in the same +direction. Meanwhile the Germans ably directed, and collected in +overwhelming strength, poured into France in the successive waves of an +invasion that nothing could resist. The Crown Prince's army, in +communication with the Second by a cordon of cavalry sent through the +Vosges, detached a part of its force to besiege Strasburg, and with its +remaining divisions poured forward through Lower Alsace in pursuit of +MacMahon. The Second Army advancing from the Rhineland, swept across the +Saar in immense forces, and passed into the north of Lorraine, driving +before it the feeble French corps now seeking a refuge under the guns of +Metz. Meanwhile, the Third Army made a parallel movement; and, uniting +with the right of the Second, marched rapidly in overwhelming front on +Metz, already threatening with its right wing to overlap and surround +the great fortress. By the 18th August, 300,000 Germans with large +reserves in their immediate rear had made good their way into France, +and from Strasburg to Thionville and thence into the heart of Lorraine, +were taking military possession of the country and menacing with ruin +the enemy in their path. + +During this mighty advance of the Germans, the strategic operations of +the French, in part owing to the bad disposition of their forces for +combined movements, and in part to the weakness of their commanders, had +been characterised by much indecision. MacMahon, indeed, had effected +his retreat from the field of Woerth with the wreck of his troops, and +escaped safely through the Vosges passes; and though his corps was +almost ruined, he had shown some ability in getting away, for he ought +to have been destroyed by the Germans. In fact, the pursuit of the Crown +Prince had not been marked by energy or speed, whatever indiscriminate +flatterers may urge; his own reports more than once refer to the +comparative slackness of his cavalry or at least to their extreme +caution. De Failly, too, though the disaster at Woerth must be laid to a +great extent to his charge, had been prompt in breaking up from Bitsche, +and he had succeeded in approaching MacMahon without being caught by the +enemy; his escape, however, being in a great measure due to the +resistance made by the fortress of Bitsche, which retarded the march of +one of the Crown Prince's columns. The broken right of the French army, +though its losses had been terrible, and its morale was destroyed, was, +in a word, making good its way to Châlons; and, as the corps of Douay +was moving towards it, and as the whole mass was about to concentrate, +we cannot find fault with these arrangements. But in the remaining part +of the theatre of war the French dispositions revealed nothing but +feebleness, vacillation, and want of forethought. The instant Woerth and +Forbach were fought, and the right and right centre of the French were +forced back on either side of the Vosges, it cannot be doubted that the +whole French army ought to have retreated in a parallel line; and it +ought certainly to have retired on Châlons, having thrown a strong +garrison into Metz, for it was at Châlons only that it could hope to +reunite, and when there it would be in a position to save Paris and +defend the interior on the well-known lines of the Marne and Seine. To +effect this would not have been easy, for the disseminated state of the +corps on the frontier from Thionville to Forbach and thence backward to +Metz exposed them whatever moves they attempted; but this was what ought +to have been done, and the attempt would have probably succeeded. +Instead of this the unfortunate emperor drew in his left and centre on +the Nied--and when he had collected these behind the river, he halted +five or six days at Metz, uncertain evidently what to do next, and +hesitating, while there was time to fall back on Châlons. The reason of +this strange and fatal fault, through which the main body of the French +army was exposed to be cut off and destroyed, remains as yet to be +explained; it was probably owing to vacillation and to the dread of +terrifying Paris by the news of a general retrograde movement. While the +bulk of the Army of the Rhine was being detained in camp around Metz, +completely separated from its supports in Champagne, the German armies +advanced to the Moselle; and while a part of the First and Second Armies +were massed close to the great fortress a considerable detachment was +thrown forward, to menace and fall on the French line of retreat should +an attempt be made to retire on Châlons. + +The results of these strategic arrangements, so different in ability and +forethought, were developed ere long with great distinctness. On the +14th of August one detachment of the French army with the Emperor at its +head, left Metz and crossed to the left bank of the Moselle; and this +ultimately reached Châlons, where it effected its junction with +MacMahon. The remaining corps endeavoured to begin their retrograde +movement the same day, but being on the eastern side of the fortress, +and their great numbers impeding their march, they were attacked by two +corps of the Germans, whose vigorous onset held them in check. The +combat lasted the whole day; and each side claimed to have won the +victory; but the real issue was in favour of the Germans, who detained +their antagonists round Metz, while their own troops were being pushed +forward to occupy the French line of retreat. Next day, the 15th, the +whole French army began to defile to the left bank of the Moselle; but +it marched only ten or twelve miles on the two roads to Verdun and +Etain, the avenues by which it would reach Châlons; and it bivouacked at +Mars La Tour and Doncourt, still, as it proved, not far from its enemy. +The causes of this disastrous delay, fraught with consequences of a +ruinous kind, remain yet to be explained; much was doubtless due to the +extreme difficulty of moving columns of great length and size, +encumbered with baggage and other impediments; and it is not improbable +that a desire to avoid the appearance of a hasty retreat may have had +influence on the French commanders. It is certain, however, that a +greater distance should have been accomplished by the retiring force; it +was of vital importance to get clear at once of the foes gathering on +the flank and rear; and Marshal Bazaine, who by this time certainly had +been invested with the supreme command, unquestionably committed a +grave error in not having pressed forward the movement. The next day it +was too late; and the Germans found themselves in a position to achieve +success, which it is quite clear from their own despatches, they never +expected. On the morning of the 16th, the retreating French were +attacked on the Verdun road by the cavalry and infantry of a German +corps, which continued for some hours to hold them in check; and aid +having come to the assailants, a sanguinary battle raged at Mars La +Tour, one side endeavouring to cut its way through, the other struggling +to bar the passage. Throughout the day fresh supports thrown forward +judiciously on the flanks of the French, gave terrible effect to the +German attacks; and their enemy, bound to a single road, and in their +extended columns fatally exposed, was compelled to fight at a great +disadvantage. The French, however, fought desperately, aware of the +importance of the issue; and it is possible that they would have +resisted successfully, had it not been for a brilliant charge of a large +mass of cavalry towards the evening, which forced them back a +considerable distance. Meanwhile, a simultaneous attack had been made on +the Etain road, and though the French struggled with great courage, this +too ultimately proved successful. The whole French army about nightfall +withdrew sullenly towards Metz, having failed to make its retreat good, +and the Germans, closing on its communications, already stood on its way +to Châlons. + +Driven thus to bay under the guns of Metz, Bazaine resolved to +concentrate his forces in order to fight a decisive battle. He had +probably 130,000 men in hand, with from 400 to 500 guns, the flower and +strength of the French army; and his plan was to choose a defensive +position where he could resist the onslaught of the Germans, and, having +repulsed it, could break through their lines, and get off with the mass +of his troops. With this object he drew up his men along the summit of a +range of uplands, extending from Gravelotte before Metz, to beyond the +hamlet of Privat La Montagne, and which, broken by streams and difficult +ground, and with woods, villages, and thickets in front, offered a +strong barrier to an attacking enemy. The French left rested on +Gravelotte, the centre on Vionville and Amanvilliers, and the right +stretched away to Doncourt and Jaumont, the whole line thus holding the +roads which debouche to Verdun, Etain, and Sedan, protected by natural +and artificial obstacles. This was a position of the strongest kind, +considered as a scheme of defence, for it exposed the assailants at +most points, and especially at that of Gravelotte, to a terrible fire at +great disadvantage; but, as the result showed, it was deficient in this, +that it gave no opportunity for a counter attack, and it enabled the +Germans to draw round from all sides on the enemy before them. The 17th +was spent by each army in preparing for a decisive engagement. The +German commanders by this time had 240,000 men, with from 700 to 800 +guns, and they resolved to attack according to a plan, which, if +perilous in some degree, was justified by their superior numbers, and +promised great and remarkable success. While the right of the Germans +was to restrain the French left, their centre and left were to march +across the whole front of Bazaine's position, and having overwhelmed his +right wing, the weakest point in his defensive lines, they were to +converge inwards upon the French and force them back in retreat on Metz. +On the morning of the 18th, three German corps began to engage the +French at Gravelotte, while at the same time, five and a half corps +moved towards Vionville and Privat La Montagne, in order to execute the +great turning movement which was to lead to the expected victory. The +French, immoveable in their positions, were compelled to await the +circling attack which threatened to stifle and hem them in; unlike +Napoleon I. at Austerlitz, Bazaine had not secured the means of striking +his enemy as he swept round on him. Towards the afternoon, the Prussian +guards had outflanked the right of the Marshal; soon afterwards, his +centre was fiercely assailed, and by degrees the great German line +advanced snakelike to encompass its foe. It was now time for the German +right to strike fiercely at Gravelotte; and here a battle of the most +desperate kind raged until nightfall for several hours, the French +certainly having the advantage, and destroying the Germans with +frightful carnage. But gradually the German plan was worked out; the +German masses converging on all sides forced the French backward from +point to point; and at last the whole line of defence gave way, and +retreating, slowly fell back on Metz, having lost the real object of the +battle. + +It is not improbable that, in this conflict, the losses of the Germans +exceeded those of the French. At Gravelotte the corps commanded by +Steinmetz was repeatedly driven back with terrific slaughter, and at +other points the ranks of the assailants were cruelly thinned by a +destructive fire. But if in a tactical point of view the battle was +hardly a German victory, and if the resistance of Bazaine with an +inferior force was honourable to him, the strategic results were great +and decisive. The Germans had now obtained possession of the entire line +of the Marshal's retreat; they barred the way to Châlons completely, and +he had been forced back with his army on Metz, where, his communications +with France being cut off, he would be ultimately compelled to +surrender. Unless he could again begin the contest and pierce through +the encircling foes, no prospect awaited him but to resist until famine +dashed the sword from his grasp, and made the army of the Rhine +captive--so ruinous had been the disastrous generalship which had +detained it in isolation at Metz, and had allowed its enemies to gather +round it instead of effecting a speedy retreat! + +Leaving Bazaine in this perilous strait, we must now turn to another +part of the theatre, where folly, rashness, and above all the exigencies +of the political situation, were to complete the work of irresolute +weakness in contributing to the ruin of France. About the 16th or 17th +of August MacMahon had made good his way to Châlons with the wreck of +his corps defeated at Woerth, and he was rejoined in a day or two by De +Failly, who had contrived to elude the pursuing Germans--a retreat which +proves that the Crown Prince had moved slowly and with much caution, and +had not made the most of his brilliant victory. About the 19th of August +the corps of Douay, marched back from Belfort, arrived at Châlons; this +body, at the news of the battle of Woerth, having properly retired to +the great strategic point which nature and history have alike marked out +as the position where the defence of France should be undertaken in +front of Paris. Next day, the 20th, about 70,000 men, with more than 100 +guns, came up hastily from the French capital, the Government under +Count Palikao having certainly made energetic efforts to reorganize and +recruit the army; and thus MacMahon, by the 21st, had probably about +150,000 men, with from 400 to 500 guns, under his orders at the great +camp at Châlons. When we recollect what Napoleon I. accomplished on this +very ground--the memorable lines of the Marne and Seine--with a force +greatly inferior in numbers, against more than 300,000 Germans, it +cannot be doubted that a great commander would have made such an use of +this army that he would long have kept the invaders back, and possibly +changed the whole situation. But ability and caution were especially +requisite, for the troops now under MacMahon's orders were in fact raw +or demoralized soldiers; and plain common sense ought to have suggested +that they were not fit for operations that demanded speed, or that could +bring them in contact with a superior enemy. + +At this critical moment a plan was formed, the responsibility for which +is unknown, but which led to the greatest of military disasters. +Considering the state of MacMahon's forces, there can be no doubt that +his proper course was to delay his enemies as they advanced on Châlons, +to endeavour to defend the Marne and the Seine, and, retreating slowly, +to fall back until he had reached a position at which he would be in the +flank of the Germans as they approached Paris. A great general, +operating in this way, would have retarded the foe for weeks, would +certainly have inflicted much injury on him, and while he inured his own +troops to war, would assuredly have kept his army intact in order to +make a stand for the capital, the fortifications of which, with a force +before them, would perhaps have changed the issue of the campaign. It is +true that the strategy would have been an apparent abandonment of +Bazaine; but this really was inevitable. Bazaine, as the event proved, +was not in need of immediate relief; shut up, as he was, inactive at +Metz, he still detained an immense mass of Germans around the great +fortress; and in any case, as affairs now stood, the first consideration +ought to have been the security of the last army of France, and a +settled purpose to defend the capital. Had Wellington been in MacMahon's +place, we are convinced that these would have been his tactics; and we +feel certain that he would have succeeded, if not in defeating the +Germans in the field, at least in greatly reducing their strength, in +preserving Paris from real danger, and in saving his forces for an +effort to be undertaken when his raw troops were rendered more equal to +their antagonists. Instead of a rational operation like this, a resolve +was made at the French head-quarters which can only be described as +insanely rash. It was determined to relieve Bazaine with MacMahon's weak +and undisciplined army; and the manner in which this was to be done was +marked by thoughtless and strange presumption. The French troops were to +leave Châlons, and moving northwards to Rheims and Rethel, were to +strike from that place across the Argonnes, to pass the Meuse and attain +Montmédy, and descending thence upon Thionville, were to fall on the +rear of the Germans at Metz, to extricate Bazaine, and in conjunction +with him, to annihilate the astounded enemy by an attack worthy of the +first Napoleon. By this operation MacMahon's army was to slip round the +flank of the Crown Prince, known to be advancing from Nancy on Châlons; +it would probably attain the northern frontier before its destination +could be ascertained; and if it ever reached the neighbourhood of Metz +and came into communication with Bazaine, what would be the fate of the +insolent invaders, and what the triumphant issue of a campaign begun +under ill-omened auspices? + +Whether the pamphlet recently published at Brussels be the work of +Napoleon III. or not, it is now clear that Marshal MacMahon was not the +real author of this strategy. A glance at the map will clearly show that +it exposed the French army to ruinous disaster, and it has been proved +that it was inspired by the Government of the Regency at Paris, +ill-informed as to the real situation, and fearful lest a retrograde +movement should cause the sudden fall of the Empire. And what was the +projected operation, which it was assumed was proposed by an eminent +French Marshal, who, we may suppose, knew the art of war, and certainly +had very great experience? It was simply to make an immense flank march +with a weak and thoroughly untrained army, within full reach of an enemy +twice as strong, who would be able to arrest the movement, and to fall +on his adversary in overwhelming force; and it was to do this along a +line on which a defeat would probably entail destruction, or a surrender +upon the Belgian frontier. Let it be granted that MacMahon might expect +to cross the Meuse before he would be intercepted, still it was all but +certain that the German armies, which assuredly would turn northward at +once, would come up with him between the Meuse and Thionville; and if he +were caught, what chance had he of contending against the enormous +forces which, in that event, would be directed against him? A crushing +defeat was to be expected, and if he were defeated would not his army, +hemmed in along the narrow belt of land extending from the northern +Argmues to Lorraine, be either utterly broken to fragments or forced +helplessly to lay down its arms? And it was for a reckless scheme such +as this--one in which success was hardly conceivable, and of which ruin +would be the natural result--that the rational and legitimate course of +retreating leisurely and defending Paris from point to point, was to be +abandoned! The correspondence recently published shows that this plan +did not originate with MacMahon; and that it was adopted must be +ascribed to the necessity felt at the Tuileries of avoiding a retrograde +movement in the interest of the tottering Empire. MacMahon, however, did +consent to it; and for this he must be held responsible. Beyond all +doubt he ought to have rejected a project fraught with calamity to his +country, at the risk even of resigning his command; had he done so, the +position of France might have been different from what it is now, and +his own reputation would not have suffered from the consequences of a +dire catastrophe. Making every allowance for his difficult situation, we +cannot acquit him of want of resolution, though sheer ignorance and +incapacity did not lead him to make the greatest of blunders ever made +perhaps by a commander-in-chief. + +Our space precludes us from describing at length the series of great +events that ensued. On the 22nd of August MacMahon's army, already +giving melancholy proofs of weakness, indiscipline, and insubordination, +had reached Rheims from the camp of Châlons; and on the 23rd it was on +its way to Rethel. The march of the columns was extremely sluggish, in +consequence of the bad organisation of the troops, and eye-witnesses +have recorded that the unfortunate marshal was even now evidently +dispirited and anxious. Rethel was not passed until the 25th; and as the +movement to the Meuse and the Argmues was to be accomplished as soon as +possible, MacMahon divided his army into three parts; one to go +northward, by railway to Mézières, and the other two to advance easterly +by Vouziers and Nouart, and Le Chène and Stonne. The Emperor and his +ill-fated child attended mournfully the doomed army, but if we are to +credit newspaper reports, Napoleon III. still felt confident that he was +marching to assured victory. Though the dispositions of the French +marshal were evidently made with a view to speed, the movement of his +columns was exceedingly slow, no doubt owing to their inefficient state, +and also probably to commissariat defects; and even by the morning of +the 29th they had only attained Nouart and Stonne, that is, they were +still a day's march from the Meuse, which they ought to have found on +the 28th. These delays aggravating the inherent perils of a strategic +plan essentially vicious, were sure to lead to disastrous consequences; +and while MacMahon had been going northwards the German commanders had +been preparing the means of utterly overwhelming him. On the 19th and +20th of August, after Bazaine had been shut up in Metz, a fourth German +army had been despatched, under the command of the Crown Prince of +Saxony, to co-operate with that of the Crown Prince of Prussia, and it +had been moved by Verdun, on St. Menehould, to be in readiness for any +event. Meanwhile the third German army, after passing Nancy, had +advanced on the great road to Paris to Ligny and Bar le Duc, its light +cavalry, the well-known Uhlans, having scoured the whole country to +beyond Châlons. By the 24th the Crown Prince of Prussia, who had been +rejoined by the king from Metz, had his head-quarters at Bar le Duc, and +when there the news arrived that MacMahon had broken up from the camp, +and was aiming northward toward Mézières and Rethel. The plan of the +French was immediately perceived by the eminent strategist who in this +campaign had been the genius of the German armies, and he proceeded to +defeat it, and ensure victory. Orders were at once issued to the Crown +Prince of Saxony to move northerly towards the Meuse, and intercept the +heads of MacMahon's columns; while the third German army, under the +Prussian Prince, was to advance rapidly in the same direction, and fall +on the French flank and rear. By the 25th the huge German array, +numbering nearly 250,000 men, with from 700 to 800 guns, was marching +forward in dense masses to overwhelm the much weaker force that +incautiously presented its flanks to it, and that soon would be within +its formidable reach. + +By the 28th and 29th of August the game began to be gradually developed. +The vanguard of the Tenth German Army, having passed Verdun and reached +the Meuse, appears to have crossed the river at Stenay, and it struck +one of MacMahon's columns about Buzancy and again at Nouart. Meanwhile +the army of the Crown Prince of Prussia advancing by Clermont, Grand +Pré, and Suippes, had closed on the flank and rear of the Marshal and +had made it certain that he would be overtaken. Headed thus, as they +approached the Meuse, and threatened with a destructive attack, which, +if successful, would prove ruinous, the French were compelled to diverge +northwards, and MacMahon endeavoured to make his escape though his case +was already well-nigh desperate. Drawing one of his columns towards the +other, and leaving a strong rear-guard at Beaumont, with orders to make +a determined resistance, he sought to concentrate his remaining forces, +and having passed the Meuse between Sedan and Mouzon, to move rapidly on +Carignan, and thence to march direct on Montmédy, thus eluding the +tightening grasp of the Prussians. In these operations we see the +windings of a general who feels that a disaster is at hand; but, +situated as MacMahon was, they were the best that could have been made. +By the morning of the 30th the whole French army, except the corps at +Beaumont, was collected from Lethêne to near Stenay; and it has been +said that the unhappy Emperor was still confident as to the issue. His +powerful antagonists were not likely to allow their prey to slip out of +their clutches. The German columns on the 29th had closed more firmly on +their retiring enemy; and while a portion of the Fourth Army had taken +possession of both banks of the Meuse, the Third was in readiness to +attack Beaumont, and to press MacMahon as he crossed the river. These +dispositions assured success which could hardly fail to be ultimately +decisive. As the French army approached the Meuse, the Crown Prince of +Prussia made an attack on the detachment which had been left at +Beaumont; and these corps, commanded by the incapable De Failly, were +overwhelmed after a feeble resistance. Meanwhile MacMahon had contrived +to get two of his corps across the river, which had marched towards +Carignan; but as the remaining ones were passing they were caught and +routed by the Crown Prince of Prussia with a great loss of guns and men +at Mouzon. At the same time the Fourth German Army advancing from the +right bank of the Meuse, had driven the French from the road to +Carignan; and thus the whole French army baffled and defeated was forced +in confusion still further northward. By the evening of the 30th its +routed divisions had been re-formed in front of Sedan behind the +defensive line of the Chiers, the huge German forces gathering all round +and hemming in their intended victim. + +We can only devote a few sentences to describe the decisive battle that +ensued. The 31st of August was spent by MacMahon in drawing up his army +in a line of defence extending from Givonne on the Belgian frontier, +across ranges of eminences in front of Sedan, and thence backward to the +rear of the town, as far as the plateaux of La Garenne and Floiny. The +left of the Marshal rested on Giomne, his centre protected by the Chiers +and by the villages of Bazeilles and Balan, spread before Sedan in +strong positions, and his right and right centre stretched beyond Sedan, +holding the Meuse nearly to Floiny northwards. The Fourth German army in +the meantime had been marched on the opposite bank of the Chiers, while +that of the Crown Prince had come up to the Meuse in full force; and the +German commanders now pursued the plan of hemming in MacMahon +completely, and having forced him upon Sedan, of destroying him by their +overwhelming strength. With this object the French left was to be turned +and passed by, the centre was to be fiercely assailed, the right was to +be surprised and struck, and the whole German armies, having united in a +perfect circle around Sedan, were to accomplish the ruin of their +entrapped enemy. Considering the extraordinary disproportion between +the hosts about to join in battle--230,000 men at least with from 600 to +700 guns against 110,000 of inferior quality with one-third less +pieces--this ambitious and astonishing design may be justified in a +military point of view; but, notwithstanding all that has been said, it +is by no means to be admired in its conception; and a great commander, +who in such a position, should break out from the centre with resolute +troops, might cause an attack of this kind to end in a terrible defeat. +On the morning of the 1st, the Fourth German Army, in consequence of the +neglect of the French outposts, effected the passage of the Chiers +without loss; and its right soon turned the French left at Givonne, the +defenders of that important point having offered only the feeblest +resistance. At the same time a considerable part of the forces of the +Crown Prince having crossed the Meuse during the previous night, +attacked Bazeilles and Balan in great strength; but here the French +showed a bold front, and the battle hung in suspense for hours. +Meanwhile, however, the remaining corps of the Third German Army had +faced the Meuse at a point much lower down the river, and falling on the +extreme right of the French at or near a hill that commands Floiny, had +driven it in after a brave defence, and placed themselves in +communication with the victorious troops of the German army which had +approached them from Givonne. The inner circle was now completed; the +French centre still fighting obstinately was obliged to evacuate +Bazeilles and Balan; and the whole French army was compelled to recoil +inwards upon Sedan, where it was crushed by a death-dealing artillery. +No alternative but a surrender remained; the German tactics had +completely succeeded; and on the 2nd of September, the last army of +France in the field had passed under the yoke, and was a mass of +prisoners of war. The Emperor was one of the trophies of the conqueror; +MacMahon, more fortunate, had been severely wounded and did not witness +the capitulation; but upwards of 90,000 men and from 400 to 500 guns in +the hands of the triumphant Germans attested the magnitude of the +catastrophe. + +The results of the terrible battle of Sedan--a catastrophe unparalleled +in the annals of war--were the destruction of the only French army that +remained to the nation in the field, the complete isolation of Bazaine +at Metz with a certainty of his ultimate surrender, the exposure of +Paris to an immediate siege, and the prospect of the subjection of +France to the will of an implacable conqueror. At no conjuncture in +military history has a strategic error of the gravest kind been fraught +with such calamitous effects; and the march to Sedan will long be noted +as one of those frightful mistakes of generalship which have deeply +influenced the fate of kingdoms. A day or two after this dire event a +revolution broke out in Paris; the empire collapsed with the captive +Emperor; the Empress Regent was compelled to fly; and, although a +Government of National Defence was formed, composed of men of very great +eminence, who--after fruitless attempts to negotiate--bravely resolved +to carry on the struggle, sooner than consent to the dismemberment of +France, hardly anyone believed that the defeated nation would be able to +offer serious resistance. The situation of France, indeed, appeared +desperate even to her well-wishers--even to those who resented the +dictum of the cynical scorner of popular rights, that whether their +inhabitants liked it or not, Alsace and Lorraine 'would belong to +Prussia'--and for several weeks her exulting enemies remained absolute +masters of the situation, and trampled down the defenceless country. The +German armies which had fought at Sedan marched without a moment's delay +to Paris, arrived before the forts on the 18th September, and, having +routed a few raw troops, who endeavoured to harass them at Versailles, +invested the capital on all sides, and inclosed it in impenetrable +lines. The surging waves of the tremendous invasion meanwhile flowed +furiously over the northern provinces, carrying with them devastation +and ruin. Strasburg, after a siege which clearly indicated the temper of +the people of Alsace, and their assumed sympathy with their 'German +liberators,' fell on the 29th September; most of the fortresses of the +Vosges, with the exception of Bitsche and Phalsburg, submitted; Toul, +which had gallantly resisted for weeks a whole army, met the same fate, +and by the close of October the German hosts had cleared their +communications with Paris, were masters of the whole region between the +Seine and the Rhenish Provinces, and had laid hold of Picardy and the +valley of the Loire, which locust-like they devoured by requisitions. +The consummation seemed at hand, when after making many attempts to +break the iron ring of his foes, Bazaine on the 27th of October +surrendered the fortress he had so long held; and the whole remains of +the army of the Rhine, the garrison, and a mass of auxiliary troops, +became prisoners of war as they defiled from Metz. France seemed under +the Caudine forks; the iron had entered into her soul; and even the most +far-sighted observers believed that the end of the war was close at +hand. + +For two whole months after the battle of Sedan, France thus appeared +altogether ruined, trampled under the hoof of a ruthless invader. Her +capital was invested; her provinces were overrun; fortress after +fortress became an easy prey; the grasp of the Prussian upon the country +seemed day after day to become stronger, and few signs of resistance +appeared except a desultory partisan warfare. Some military critics at +Versailles exclaimed that the 'hour of the Latin race had come;' the +King of Prussia piously resigned his spirit to the triumph that seemed +close at hand; Bismark with grim humour declared that Paris was 'frying +in its own fat;' writers disposed complacently of Lorraine and Alsace, +and congratulated France that her fate was no worse, and only a small +minority of Englishmen entertained a hope for the fallen nation. Yet +during all that terrible time vitality was returning to the stricken +frame, and France was preparing for mighty efforts which, whether they +prove successful or not, have been some of the noblest in history, and +are entitled to the highest admiration. The first symptom of reviving +animation was seen in the attitude of Paris, which, under the control of +General Trochu, a commander who has already won a high place in the +annals of fame, put off her Sybarite pride and luxury, and from behind +her ramparts prepared herself for a defence which must be pronounced +astonishing. Day after day the immense capital which the Germans +declared would consume itself by internal revolution and anarchy, and +which was not expected to hold out a fortnight, encompassed itself with +fresh defensive lines, drilled its raw levies within its walls, and +arrayed itself in such a panoply of war that before long it had become +evident that its speedy reduction was impossible. The bombardment which +it was predicted would soon 'bring these fools to their senses,' was +postponed for the simple reason, that it had not the faintest chance of +success; and as amazed Europe beheld the works of Paris growing in +formidable power, and actually threatening the investing circle, it +learned to set a proper value on the profession that 'there was no +intention to destroy by fire a noncombatant population,' as if +starvation was a more humane process. Meanwhile silently, and hardly +observed by the correspondents of the English Press, enormous +preparations for the renewal of the contest were made in every part of +the country. Arms were produced in prodigious quantities, old soldiers +were recalled to their colours, recruits were summoned in hundreds of +thousands, the nuclei of several armies were formed, and the splendid +memories of 1793-4 were invoked by the representatives of the people, +and created wide-spread martial enthusiasm. While Bismark jeered at the +'gentlemen of the pavement,' and cynically redoubled his confident +insults, while telegram after telegram announced that town after town +was capitulating, France was becoming a vast camp, and sternly, proudly, +and in a very different spirit from that in which it began the war, the +nation girded up its loins for the strife. M. Gambetta, whose journey +from Paris in a balloon excited considerable ridicule at Versailles--for +a while--was the mainspring of this remarkable movement, of which, if we +cannot predict the success, the patriotism and force cannot be disputed. + +The first symptom in the turn of the tide which made itself distinctly +perceived, was an engagement which took place on the 9th of November. A +mass of raw levies and depôt battalions, to which had been given the +name of the Army of the Loire, had been driven out of Orleans in +October; and it was generally supposed that it had been all but +destroyed. But a general had been placed at its head who had given it +consistency and strength; it had been furnished with good artillery, and +on the ninth of November it recrossed the Loire and defeated the +Bavarian force in its front, which it succeeded in almost surrounding. +After this the nuclei of armies, in the west, the north, and the +south-east of France, have made their appearance, and are growing +formidable; and the military strength of what had been deemed the effete +and worn-out nation, has shown itself to be great and threatening. The +attitude of the armies of the Loire and of the West has compelled the +Germans to draw in almost their whole available forces to cover the +immense circle of their lines around Paris; and though as yet they have +suffered no reverse, and have even gained some important successes, +their enemies still confront them in the field with rapidly improving +power and discipline, and so long as they hold their present positions, +they are exposed to considerable danger. In fact the German armies round +Paris would be placed in imminent peril, if the covering armies on the +circumference outside, were to meet anything like a defeat; and as the +French levies are day after day acquiring an increase of numbers and +force, this is by no means an impossible contingency. Meanwhile the +beleaguered capital of France has offered to the besiegers a resistance +which has astonished and confounded the world, and its illustrious +governor, General Trochu, has literally created out of the young and +demoralised troops within its walls, armies of unquestionable valour +and worth. These armies commenced offensive operations on the 29th and +30th November, by making immense sorties from the capital; and though +they have not succeeded in breaking through the net which hems them in, +it is not impossible that they may yet do so. The situation, in fact, +has so completely changed since the beginning of the month of November, +that all competent persons now think that if Paris can hold out five or +six weeks more, the result may be fatal to the Germans. It is almost +useless to speculate on events which may be solved before these lines +shall be printed, but we venture to hazard a glance into the future. It +appears to us that in all probability Paris will ultimately succumb to +famine, that it will not be relieved from without, and that General +Trochu and his brave troops will have to yield to adverse fortune. This +blow, if it happens, will be terrible, but if France continues to evince +the resolution and energy of the last two months, its military +consequences need not be decisive. In that event the defence of France +will have to be undertaken on the Loire; and if her young armies are +carefully husbanded; if her generals and statesmen admit the truth that +the siege of Paris has gained time for developing her restored vigour; +and if no fatal mistakes are made, we believe that she yet may repel the +invader. What is most to be feared is, that if Paris falls, a collapse +of authority may ensue, that Red Republicanism may lift its head, and +that the men who have done such eminent service, may be overthrown by +popular fear and terror. But if France is true to herself, if she goes +on as she has done lately, and if her forces are rationally handled, she +may possibly succeed in shaking off her assailants, and avoid the +dismemberment with which she is threatened. Let the nation comprehend +that if Paris falls, it will have done wonders in gaining time, and in +allowing the spirit of France to revive, and then let it go on with the +contest, obedient as a man to the existing Government, and looking +steadily to the one great object, deliverance from impending +subjugation. + +Such has been, up to the middle of December, the memorable war of 1870. +We have well-nigh exhausted our space, and can only make a few brief +reflections. History has yet to describe the real causes of this +terrible and devouring conflict, and the persons really responsible for +it; but, allowing that Napoleon was in the wrong for throwing down the +gauntlet to Prussia, what is now to be thought of the Power which is +carrying on an internecine contest after she has received offers of +ample compensation, and is endeavouring to dismember France, and to +annex two of her most loyal provinces for the sole purpose, we fear, of +making her former rival her vassal? Ever since the interview with +Bismark at Ferrières, when, after Sedan, M. Jules Favre proposed to give +Prussia more than satisfaction for all losses incurred by her, the war +has been one of simple conquest on the part of King William and his +minister. France, who at the outset of the conflict may have been, at +least through her ruler, in the wrong, is now fighting against an +invader for her national existence and her place in history; and beaten +down as she is, it is not impossible that she may yet succeed; certainly +she is rapidly winning the sympathy which was at first denied her. It is +creditable to the mind of England, which was at first almost unanimously +on the side of Germany, believing that it was unjustly attacked, that +the majority of our countrymen are beginning to see through the ambition +of Prussia, to distrust the cynical fraud of Bismark, and to wish well +to the nation which is now really fighting for all that makes life dear. +But it may be said, 'France has been beaten; the victor offers her peace +on the terms of the cession of Alsace and Lorraine, which after all were +at one time German; why does she not admit her overthrow, and thus +restore quiet to awed Europe?' But to such suggestions, France, we +believe, will not listen. We do not see how, until her resources are +destroyed, she can consent to abandon Alsace and Lorraine, because these +provinces are absolutely necessary to her safety as an important Power, +as any military student must know; nor ought she, as a leader of +civilization, to give up populations devoted to her to invaders whom +they detest. As for the ethnological argument derived from the German +origin of their territories, France may fairly adduce their present +attitude as evidence of the real sentiments of the inhabitants. + +We cannot dwell at the present moment on the lessons to be deduced from +this war. Those who think that it conclusively proves the superiority of +the German over the French soldier, will do well to read a little +history and to study the battles of Jena and Austerlitz. No doubt on +several occasions the French have fought badly under the moral +depression of repeated and overwhelming defeats; but nothing has yet +been seen in this campaign compared to the demoralization of Prussia in +1806. Nor may we assume that the French military character has +deteriorated, though a corrupt layer of Imperialism has injured the +upper ranks of society; the nation which after crushing reverses can +still show such an indomitable front, will be yet found by its foes to +be terrible. What the campaign proves is the immense superiority of +German generalship over its antagonists, a superiority which, seconded +by irresistible force, and by great advantages in artillery, has +produced results of an astonishing kind, yet not more marvellous than +those witnessed sixty years ago on the other side when Napoleon +commanded the Grand Army. As to the military operations of the French +commanders, they have been throughout as bad as possible. From the +outset of the campaign to the first battles we see nothing but reckless +rashness; we then behold vacillation and weakness followed by the +astonishing blunders of Sedan; and the news which has just arrived of +the defeats of the Army of the Loire at Orleans, prove, we fear, that +another series of mistakes in the plainest strategy have been committed. +These have been the causes of the disasters of France of which an able +adversary has reaped the advantage; and to these we should add the +enervating results of Imperialism on the upper classes, corruption and +peculation in the higher ranks of the army, the false confidence +engendered by martial traditions, and not least, the numerical +inferiority of the French forces to those of the Germans. Yet we do not +doubt that if France continues her present resolute attitude, if common +sense prevails in her councils, if she remains united and patriotic, she +may yet pluck safety out of her dangers; and in a long and internecine +struggle the Power which has the command of the sea, superior wealth, +and more compact unity, may in our judgment ultimately triumph. For +ourselves this cruel and fearful war ought to teach us to look after our +national defences, to array ourselves in complete panopoly, to take good +assurance that this England of ours, the home of freedom and good +government, shall at least be secure in the shock of arms now crashing +over a large part of the Continent. It cannot be questioned that the +sudden rise of Bismarkian Prussia is a threat and a peril to the world; +the demands of Gortschakoff and the letters of Bernstorff already prove +that it bodes no good to England; and we shall do better to look after +our fleets, and to put our military organization in order, than to +believe the idyls of sentimental professors who assure us that the +plunderer of Silesia, the divider of Poland, and the despoiler of +Denmark, is 'wise, pious, moral, and unambitious.' If it is not our duty +to interfere actively in the interest of the balance of Europe, we, at +least, in the conflict now rending France ought to read a warning +address to ourselves; and while the boundaries of nations are being +shifted, while justice and right are in danger of being trampled under +foot, that brute force may work its will, we ought to take good heed +that this our England shall retain her high position in the world, shall +be able when necessary to lift her hand in the cause of civilization and +human progress, shall never 'lie' at the proud foot of a conqueror, +shall be as powerful as she is great and glorious. + + + + +CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE. + + + + +HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND TRAVELS. + + +_History of England, from the Earliest to the Present Time._ In Five +Volumes. By Sir EDWARD S. CREASY, M.A., Emeritus Professor of History in +University College, London; late Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. +Vol. II. Completing the History during the Early and Middle Ages. +Walton. 1870. + +Sir Edward Creasy's second volume embraces nine reigns, from Edward II. +to Richard III., both inclusive. We consider the strong point of it, and +that which has had most of the writer's heart, to be the constitutional +and social history. The narrative of public and military transactions +has not the same merit; and especially that towards the latter end, +including the Wars of the Roses, which is too compressed--we had almost +said too perfunctory--to be even interesting. In the earlier portions, +where the author takes all the room that he wants, he lets us see that +he does not lack the power of placing the events of war in an +instructive light. Coming to Edward III.'s reign, he corrects the +impression that is probably entertained by many, that the great contest +with France arose from a wanton and ambitious claim upon the crown of +that kingdom; and shows, by a very careful statement of facts and dates, +that it was Philip of Valois' war, not Edward's. + +Few of our historians have attempted thoroughly to penetrate Edward's +plan in that famous expedition of 1346-7, in which he traversed the +North of France, landing at La Hogue, and embarking at Calais, just as +though it had been a piratical expedition needing no further +explanation. Sir Edward makes a good suggestion as to the commencement +and early stage of the invasion; namely, that one great object of it was +to deliver a blow at the nourishing woollen manufactures of Normandy, +and thereby relieve English trading towns from their powerful +competitors in that quarter. But we think he fails to account +satisfactorily for Edward's movements after the taking of Caen, when he +assigns it as a sufficient reason for his advance on Paris (after being +obliged to turn away from Rouen, be it remembered), that he wished to +divert French troops from the South of France, where a small English +army was being hard pressed. But could not the king of England have +effected such a purpose by establishing himself in Normandy, where he +rested on his fleet? To dismiss his ships, as he did at Caen, and to +take a moderate force of some 40,000 men into the interior without a +base of operations, in the hope of relieving a distant province, would +not have been worthy of the genius of Edward III. We have little doubt +that after achieving his success as far as Caen, if not before, Calais +itself (not Paris, nor yet Guienne) was in his eye. In fact, the speech +of Sir Geoffrey Harcourt to Edward, at Caen, reported by Froissart, +distinctly recognises Calais as the ultimate goal of the expedition. His +having found the North of France so defenceless (to say nothing of his +having taken prisoner at Caen the Count of Guisnes, on the border of +whose territory Calais lay), probably suggested the feasibility of +capturing Calais on the land side. Hence the immediate attempt to cross +the Seine at Rouen; and hence, when this failed, the march up the +Seine--not to relieve Guienne, but to effect a passage of the river. The +famous fortress fell to Edward as the result of a bold calculation, not +as a piece of good luck after a desperate escapade. To judge how +tempting it must have seemed to him, even so far off as Caen, we have +only to reflect on the immediate use he made of it as soon as it was his +own; to say nothing of his resolution in maintaining a longer winter +siege. He immediately converted what had before been a piratical +stronghold against him into an English colony; besides which he made it +the Continental staple for the English wool trade, by which means he +delivered himself from certain Flemish towns, which hitherto had +converted his necessities into their own gains. Those who understand +something of English State finance in this reign, and the peculiar +importance of the woollen trade to Edward as a financier, will be able +to comprehend his views when he resolved on obtaining hold of this +important position upon the Straits of Dover. + +In a fresh history of Edward III.'s reign, various episodes, of minor +importance, indeed, but ineradicable from the English mind, will always +be turned to, to see how far the new lights will permit the old +favourites of the popular imagination to stand their ground. Let us +turn, then, to the Ostrich Feathers. Mr. Longman, in his recent 'Life of +Edward III.,' simply remarks that the current story is a very doubtful +one; while Sir Edward Creasy's remark is, that there is no reason at all +to doubt it. But passing observations like these, on the one side or on +the other, entirely fail to do justice to a very interesting series of +papers (not referred to by either of these authors), that may and ought +to be read in the 'Archæologia,' mentioning the curious discovery of a +contemporary statement of the popular story (Camden having been hitherto +the earliest authority for it), which, nevertheless, cannot overcome the +strong evidence marshalled by the learned antiquaries, that the feathers +really came from Hainault, and through Queen Philippa, not from Bohemia +at all, or its gallant old king. The story of the six haltered citizens +of Calais Sir Edward accepts likewise, and finds himself able to +support it by fresh evidence. In fact, there was never any sufficient +reason to doubt it, and our historic scepticism is apt sometimes to be +over-scrupulous. For the anecdote, singular as it is, is by no means +unique: the incident mentioned in 1 Kings, xx. 31, if not strictly +parallel, was quite sufficient to have originated the custom in the +picturesque days of the Middle Ages, with the genius of which, too, it +entirely harmonises. Monstrelet records a similar instance in the +campaigns of the Duke of Bedford, in the following century; and another +in Papal history, belonging to 1540, may be read in Ranke. + +A narrative work ought not to be dismissed without an examination of its +dates. And here we are obliged to admit that our narrator has not shown +sufficient vigilance. The death of Roger Mortimer, Queen Isabella's +favourite, is undated, although we are carefully told that Edward III.'s +real reign only began from that event. One-half of the narrative of his +overthrow is on a page headed 1328, and the other half under 1330. The +death of the Black Prince is described and its importance to public +affairs is acknowledged, but it is undated. The page on which it is +narrated is headed 1376; but the next page, dealing with the events of +the moment, is dated 1377. The battle of Cressy is dated August 25th, a +day too soon. Henry V.'s setting sail for the Agincourt campaign is +twice on one page dated Sunday, August 12th, instead of Sunday, August +11th. The Duke of Bedford engages the enemy at the mouth of the Seine on +August 18th (it should be 13th), returning home August 16th. The famous +coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims, when the Maid of Orleans assisted, +is dated July 18th, instead of Sunday, July 17th. Lord Talbot fell in +the battle of Castillon, and this is dated July 23rd, a date of that +hero's death quite new to us, although we have seen four others +recorded. But we do not at all feel confident that our author gives this +figure as the result of any special inquiry. We are sure that our +writers will never be induced to guard wakefully against the crime of +circulating false dates until their eyes are thoroughly open to the +dreadful state in which our popular chronology stands, making it unsafe +for us to adopt any figures whatever without every means of verification +in our power. + +We have expressed ourselves freely as to where this volume might, in our +opinion, have been stronger. We therefore gladly invite attention to +what we have felt Sir Edward Creasy's chief success to be, and to what +we consider our chief gains in possessing this record of his studies. + +The constitutional and social history of the period comprised in this +volume will soon attract the reader's warm interest; for he will +perceive that it is not merely inserted for the sake of filling up a +department, but written _con amore_, and out of full stores of +knowledge. The author has made diligent and zealous use of the numerous +and valuable works published under the Master of the Rolls, and has not +lost sight of the researches of our local antiquarian societies, and +other good authorities. Matters which in most current histories are +simply referred to as known, and which therefore remain long unknown, +such as obsolete mediæval taxes, the nature of impeachment, the council, +and the like, are here carefully explained, which makes the history +popular in the best sense, as well as a thorough student's book. What he +calls the Thirty Years' War between capital and labour, from the Black +Death to Wat Tyler, is a most lucid and interesting piece of social +history, fully worked out, and by no means useless in view of +present-day questions. As the result, Tyler's insurrection, as well as +Cade's, will wear a new complexion, we suspect, in the minds of many +general readers. + +One feature of Sir Edward's pages will certainly gratify not a few; we +mean the conspicuous absence of partisanship and all unfairness of +statement. While forming his judgments on the past, he succeeds in +throwing himself into the times he is describing, and consequently +preserves a calm and reasonable tone, without being querulous and hasty. +A striking instance of this judicial temper occurs in his account of +persecuting Arundel and the frightful statute _De heretico Comburendo_, +the tenor of his observations on which we hope no one will be so +uncandid as to misunderstand or misrepresent. The danger of such a habit +of mind is, of course, a liability to that amiable weakness which wants +to whitewash everybody and palliate everything; but this danger we think +Sir Edward succeeds in avoiding. He has a moral firmness of his own, and +an independence of mind which would not permit him to be simply an +allowance-maker. If we wanted a proof that he has his strong +partialities, unfalteringly expressed in the right direction, we should +point to his chapter on Wycliffe, which also is the weightier, from its +being, as usual, discriminating. Here, facing the great religious +movement of the Reformation, our historian expresses himself as a +Christian believer, and one who venerates the Holy Bible, and as though +he considered himself writing for those who ought to be both. + + +_Lectures and Essays_. By Professor SEELEY. Macmillan & Co. + +To those who are acquainted with 'Ecce Homo,' we need not say that this +is an interesting volume. There is something so fresh and bold, so frank +and vigorous in all that Professor Seeley writes, that we must enjoy +reading him, whether we agree with him or not, and whatsoever topic he +discusses. + +He writes on the 'Revolution at Rome,' and on the 'Decline and Fall of +the Empire,' with a masterly grasp on an obscure and complex subject. We +entirely agree with him in his estimate of Julius Cæsar's motives and +character; and while we acquit Brutus himself of any mean and sordid +impulse, we cannot think that he served Rome or humanity in the 'taking +off' of the Dictator. If we can trust Sallust at all, the nobles for +whom Pompey fought were quite unfit to govern Rome. Our author's +explanation of the final fall of the Empire has more than probability. +The facts justify it to a large extent. Wherever population is at a +standstill, we may be sure 'there is something rotten in the State,' and +may confidently anticipate its dissolution. Is not the prostrate +condition of France at the time we write another illustration of the +truth? Have not similar causes there produced like effects? + +Our author's analysis of Milton's opinions and his critique on Milton's +poetry, deserve perusal. He appreciates the solitary grandeur of the +gentle and cultivated Puritan,--Titanic, yet not coarse. It is not easy +to reconcile the utter disappointment, the deep heart-sorrow, of +Milton's old age with his uniform hopefulness. All the more honour to +him! There is nothing more paralyzing than despair. We doubt whether it +should ever find utterance in a Christian's writing. We at once +recognise the parallelism of Carlyle's position with Milton's in some +aspects of it. We were taken aback to hear of Ruskin in a similar +aspect, but our author makes out a good case for him too. + +Nothing can be juster in our view than the 'Essay on Art.' These +'elementary principles' must be recognised, one is apt to say, by all +thoughtful men, and we are greatly indebted to the Professor for setting +them forth so clearly. We cannot too soon adopt the principle that 'art +is not always independent, but in some cases parasitic; and accordingly, +in judging particular performances, in architecture and oratory, it is +necessary to apply two standards in succession--the practical and the +artistic ... the decisive test of merit "here" being art in +subordination.' + +Surely no one has more right than he to speak with authority on +'University Education.' And his strictures upon the course at Cambridge, +and the effects of it upon both teachers and taught, are well worthy of +attention. Somehow or other it is true that life-long study is not +secured by present methods, and it is a topic deserving of careful +discussion. 'Why is it so, and how can it be mended?' With a great deal +advanced in this searching essay we heartily agree, and we are glad to +see that some suggestions in it are already being acted upon. Many more +we hope and expect will become the usage of the future. We were pleased, +not surprised, to find him frankly acknowledging, that in one important +particular the method at Oxford is to be preferred to that at Cambridge. +It is not a little humbling to us as a nation to have him say +parenthetically (not as 'thesis' to be maintained--observe--but as an +axiom--an unquestioned truth) that 'most good books are in German.' + +Again, in regard to the study of 'English in Schools.' Who so competent +as he to speak? With all that he says about the duty of teaching more +fully in our schools, both the language and literature of our country, +we heartily agree, though we are not prepared to go with him quite so +far as to say, 'No Latin at all till a boy is fourteen.' The 'accidence' +of any language are more easily learnt by young minds--it is a mere +effort of memory, and strengthens it--while in later life such matters +cannot be learnt as accurately, in our conviction. We hold with him, +however, respecting the English, and are inclined therefore, in this +matter, to the rule, 'Then ought ye to do, and not to leave the other +undone.' + +The strictures on preaching, again, are excellent. How well it will be +if all our young preachers ponder them well! The world needs, and more +than that, it likes practical preaching, if it be intelligent, +sympathetic, and sincere. Every word he says about 'political preaching' +we would gladly endorse. Surely it is as much within a Christian +teacher's sphere as the domestic relations, and we believe that greater +fidelity in the pulpit on the subject of political morality, will be +followed by a great advance at the poll. Men are willing to be told +where they are wrong and ought to amend, if only it be a true man who +tells them so. Wherever one who is 'bone of their bone' speaks 'to them +on vital topics, men will come and hear. They will not then leave the +Church to the women and the children.' + +With the inaugural address at Cambridge the volume closes. His subject, +'History, a Teacher of Politics,' promises much, and we are inclined to +envy those who are in the way of hearing the discourses to which this +one is preamble and preface. May they profit by them as much as we think +we should, and our children reap the fruits in the wiser legislation of +the coming generation of statesmen! Somewhere lately, we have seen the +doctrine put forth, with marvellous confidence, that 'the history of the +past cannot give wisdom for the future, inasmuch as Society is ever +progressing, and no past state therefore can ever be exactly +reproduced.' It would be as sensible to say that a legal education is of +no good, because laws are ever being altered (ought we to say mended?); +or a medical training, because no two human constitutions are exactly +alike. 'Men are of like passions' with their forefathers, and masses of +men are moved by impulses similar to those which stirred the men of old. +So we believe in 'History as the Teacher of Politics,' and are glad +indeed that our young politicians at Cambridge have so learned, and +faithful, and courageous a guide. May they have the graces to profit by +their privileges, and give their countrymen the benefit hereafter, and +so disappoint the somewhat disheartening forebodings of the exordium of +this discourse! + + +_The Mutineers of the 'Bounty' and their Descendants in Pitcairn and +Norfolk Islands._ By Lady BELCHER. John Murray. + +Lady Belcher, having obtained possession of a variety of private +documents, and having from private sources gathered a variety of +details, has, in this volume, told over again the romantic story of the +Pitcairn Islanders. Lady Belcher herself is the step-daughter of Captain +Heywood, a midshipman of the 'Bounty' at the time of the mutiny--she +naturally, therefore, feels a personal interest in the subject. She is +not very skilled in book-making; her narrative is desultory and overlaid +with documents; but she has told the story with a fulness of detail to +which the volume of Sir John Barrow, written for 'The Family Library' +thirty years ago, makes no pretension. The diary of Morrison, a petty +officer of the ship, gives for the first time the details of the +voyage, and of the tyrannous conduct of the commander of the 'Bounty,' +Lieutenant Bligh, prior to the mutiny. Clearly, Fletcher Christian was +maddened by insults and overbearing tyranny. Bligh's conduct indeed +seems to have been that of a madman rather than of a sane person. After +the mutiny the narrative divides itself into three independent branches. +First, a history of Bligh and his companions, who were sent adrift in +the boat; next, of Christian and those who remained in the 'Bounty,' +some involuntarily, having taken no part in the mutiny, simply because +the boat in which Bligh was sent off could contain no more--among these +was Peter Heywood, the midshipman. This section of the crew of the +'Bounty' landed at Tahiti, and there gave themselves up to the captain +of the 'Pandora,' by whom they were treated with great and unnecessary +harshness. They were put in irons, and sent to England for trial. The +'Pandora,' however, was wrecked upon a reef, and after a hazardous boat +voyage, they reached Batavia, and were thence sent to England. Heywood +and Morrison were adjudged guilty, on the formal ground of insufficient +resistance to Christian, but were instantly and honourably pardoned; +others were executed. + +Christian and eight Englishmen, who remained in the 'Bounty,' went to +Pitcairn Island, taking with them some Tahitian women, and founded a +colony there. After some dissensions and violence, in which Christian, +Edward Young, and others, lost their lives, the colony, under the rule +and teaching of John Adams, became singularly peaceful and virtuous. +They were not discovered for many years; and were permitted to remain +unmolested; one or two adventurers joined them, and the colony remains +to this day. It outgrew the small island, however, and a few years since +the entire population was transferred, under the auspices of Sir William +Dennison, to Norfolk Island; a few of them returned, and were last +visited by Sir W. Dilke, who gives an account of them in his 'Greater +Britain.' + +No wonder that so romantic a narrative, and so picturesque a community, +fascinated the muse of Byron, and elicited 'The Island' from his pen. + +Lady Belcher has told a plain unvarnished tale, but it is one hardly to +be paralleled in the romance of the seas. + + +_European History, narrated in a Series of Historical Selections from +the best Authorities._ By E. M. SEWELL and S. M. YONGE. Macmillan and +Co. + +This is the second volume of an attempt to render history attractive and +popular with young readers, and there is much to be said in its favour. +The era of which it treats is from 1088 to 1228. The characters foremost +on the scene are Henry II., Frederick Barbarossa, Richard I., Philip +Augustus, John, St. Bernard and Abelard, Becket, Longchamp, and Langton. +According to the design, we have a set of pictures by hands of very +unequal power. Gibbon and Capefigue are side by side with Milman and +James, while from Mr. Stubbs's masterly analysis of Henry II.'s +character we pass to a portrait of Longchamp by Lord Campbell, and one +of Langton by Dean Hook. The result is rather like a mosaic, but of +course it could not well be otherwise. The editorial introductions are +admirably done; the first, which describes the position and character of +our Angevin kings, is a sketch both brilliant and accurate. The chief +objection to this method of teaching history is, that writers of +historical monographs are too apt to become amorous of their theme, and +to indulge in much fine writing in consequence; and this objection +specially applies to Mr. Morrison's account of St. Bernard, which is +painfully verbose and magniloquent. Undoubtedly the best chapter in the +book, and the one that will most severely tax the young student's mental +energy, is that which contains Mr. Stubbs's account of Henry II. + + +_On the Trail of the War._ By ALEXANDER JAMES SHAND, Occasional +Correspondent of _The Times_. Smith, Elder and Co. + +This little volume purports to be nothing more than a full and true +account of the ordinary incidents in an extraordinary state of things +which occur on the trail of the war. To this position the author +strictly confines himself, leaving the more stirring events of the front +to be described by others. Some of the papers are reprints from _The +Times_, but the greater portion of them are original, and may be +supposed to be a veracious account of the progress of the armies as +beheld from the rear. The author's departure from London is told with a +picturesque dash, which predisposes the reader for the hacking, hewing, +and slashing he has subsequently to go through; while the last chapter +resumes the situation, as the French say, in a warm outburst of dread, +and admiration of the strength of new-born Germany. Mr. Shand evidently +sees amid all this ponderous power, the stumbling-block over which she +must one day totter and fall. To the paramount passion of nationality +from which this gigantic Germany has been created, will likewise be +owing her quick decay and sudden dissolution. This feeling makes the +wisest of Germans lose his head when speaking of united Germany, and +proclaim himself proud to belong to God's chosen people. To this we can +only answer from our own personal experience, that if the impatience +created by the restless variety and overweening self-laudation of the +French, are to be exchanged for the cold pedantry and haughty arrogance +of the Prussians, Europe will have made but a sorry bargain. We cannot +agree with Mr. Carlyle in his opinion that we may be greatly benefited +by this sudden transfer of moral power from light satirical France to +heavy overbearing Prussia. We can only pray to be preserved from both. + + +_The Revolt of the Protestants of the Cevennes; with some Account of the +Huguenots in the Seventeenth Century._ By Mrs. BRAY, Author of 'The Good +St. Louis and his Times,' 'The White Hoods,' &c. John Murray. + +Of all the stirring romances hitherto published by Mrs. Bray, the _true_ +history before us is assuredly the most stirring and the most romantic. +The single story of Jean Cavalier, the baker's boy of Anduze, contains +the elements of a dozen romances. From his first appearance on the stage +of history to do his allotted work, to his final sinking into honourable +obscurity when his work was done, Jean Cavalier shines out as the true +and gallant soldier of the cross, the faithful defender of the right, +the constant avenger of the wrong. He was a youth of seventeen, the +eldest of three sons of a shepherd of Anduze. 'Altogether,' says Mrs. +Bray, 'he was such as we may fancy him to have been, who, armed with the +shepherd's sling in the cause of the Lord, overcame the giant +Philistine.' None could have thought that such a one could have been +chosen to avenge the iniquitous Edict of Nantes, issued by the greatest +monarch of Europe, at the instigation of the wisest woman of her day. +The boy had been apprenticed to a baker at Anduze, and this circumstance +was in itself a fund of amusement at the court of Versailles, where the +'_Petit Maître_' and the '_Garçon Boulanger_' served as whetstones to +the wit of the courtiers at the _petit lever_ and _grand coucher_ of the +king. But the baker's boy had been endowed by heaven with the strangest +and most mysterious of gifts--a military genius untaught, and frank as +nature's self--which ere long caused the boldest of the Great Monarch's +generals to tremble and turn pale at even the mention of his name. No +other account of this extraordinary talent has been given than that +during his shepherd life he would love to spend whole hours on the +Garden watching the manoeuvres of the soldiers, who at that time were +stationed in the country in order to force the Protestants into adoption +of the Catholic faith. No other lesson in military science had he ever +taken, and yet he defeated the boldest troops and ablest generals of the +proudest army in the world! The mysterious nature of his mission, +reminds one strongly of Joan of Arc. At nineteen years of age he quitted +France for ever, leaving behind him the memory of his glory and the +grateful affection of the Protestants of the Cevennes, by whom his name +is revered and cherished to this very day. + +Mrs. Bray has performed her task of biographer of Jean Cavalier in the +most satisfactory and conscientious manner, with all the stedfastness of +the historian and the enthusiasm of the romance writer. 'The Revolt in +the Cevennes' is a charming book, and should be placed in the hands of +every Protestant boy and girl throughout the world. + + +_The Correspondence of the Right Honourable William Wickham, from the +year_ 1794. Edited, with Notes, by his Grandson, WILLIAM WICKHAM, M.A. +Two vols. 8vo. London. 1870. + +These volumes are another contribution to the still increasing store of +material for the history of the great French Revolution; the first act +of that great drama of which another is now being played amid sympathies +and antipathies, hopes and fears, perhaps as intense, certainly more +widely felt, than those which accompanied the first lifting of the +curtain. Now, however, the Revolution and the _ancien régime_ have +become accustomed to each other, and know that though it be but as cat +and dog, they must awhile lead some sort of life together; and they have +modified their reciprocal attitude accordingly. Then each startled by +the first apparition of the other, glared at it with the hate, not of +prolonged antagonism, but of instant death-grapple. Free England, guided +by great and noble-minded men--Pitt, Lord Grenville, and Burke--not only +joined in, but led the resistance of the Continental sovereigns, and we +have no need to blush for the conduct of our grandsires. Whether, +looking from our present coign of vantage, we may judge England's course +then wise or imprudent, the evidence afforded by these volumes is enough +to show--admitting the hostile prejudice which an established and +aristocratic government must needs have against a mushroom +democracy--that our statesmen descended to the fray with an honesty of +purpose, and an elevated sense of national duty on which we may reflect +with grateful and patriotic pride. + +Mr. Wickham was twice sent by Lord Grenville as minister to Switzerland; +to the comparatively slight duties of which office was added the onerous +task of concerting, in correspondence with the Royalists in France, with +the Prince of Condé, the Court of Vienna, Marshal Suwarrow, General +Pichegru, and many others, the measures to be taken against their common +foe--the Directory in Paris. At the time of Mr. Wickham's earlier +mission, Bonaparte had not yet risen to power, and if Mr. Wickham could +have inspired with his own zeal and prudence the selfish and blind +potentates whom he was aiding with English counsel and treasure, the +glittering series of Napoleonic phenomena might never have appeared. Mr. +Wickham was regarded with the most perfect confidence by his own +Government. How dangerous he proved to their foes may be judged from the +fact that when at a later period he was named to represent his country +at the courts, first of Berlin and then of Vienna, his appointment was +objected to because it would be displeasing to the French Government. + +By those who are either well acquainted with, or are studying the +history of the French Revolution, these volumes will be highly prized, +while general readers will find much of great interest in a +correspondence which comprises letters from George III., Louis XVIII., +the Prince de Condé, and the Duc d'Enghien, the Archduke Charles, +Marshal Suwarrow, and many others, besides the despatches and other +communications which passed between Mr. Wickham and his chief, Lord +Grenville. The present Mr. Wickham has added succinct biographical notes +concerning the several correspondents and persons named, some +introductory remarks to the several groups of despatches, and a slight +sketch of his grandfather's career, written with grace and modest pride. +The first volume is embellished with a portrait of the diplomatist; and +the second with a very interesting one of the most eccentric of great +men--Suwarrow. + +Nearly all the letters now published relate to Mr. Wickham's foreign +missions. He afterwards served as Secretary for Ireland, and while he +held that office Emmet's rebellion occurred. He was also a member of the +ministry of 'All the Talents.' If he has left as interesting memorials +of his later services as of his earlier ones, we hope that his grandson +may at a future time let his present good work be followed by a +publication of Mr. Wickham's later correspondence. + + +_Cicero_. Select Letters. With English Introductions, Notes, and +Appendices. By ALBERT WATSON, M. A. Macmillan and Co. Clarendon Press +Series. + +The letters of Cicero, on account of the materials they supply for the +history of the Roman constitution during its last struggles, the light +they throw upon the motives and movements of the partisan leaders, and +the insight they afford into the character of Cicero himself, are justly +regarded as the most important and instructive of his literary +productions. Cicero's correspondence extends over the space of +twenty-six years; and of the letters written during this eventful period +to a wide circle of literary and political friends and connexions, there +are extant upwards of 850, which are undoubtedly genuine. Up to the +present time, this portion of Cicero's writings has received but little +attention at the hands of English editors. In Germany, excellent +editions have been published by Billerbeck, Boot, Frey, Hofman, and +Süple; while in England we have only an inferior edition of the letters +to Atticus by a Master of Arts, and a selection of 111 letters by E. St. +John Parry, intended to illustrate the public life of Cicero, accompanied +with notes which are purely historical. The volume before us is also a +selection of 148 letters, taken almost exclusively out of the two chief +divisions of Cicero's correspondence--the _Epistolæ ad Familiares, those +ad Diversos_, and the _Epistolæ ad Atticum_--containing together 822 +letters. The first letter in this volume is dated July 65 B.C., and the +last July 43 B.C. The collection, therefore, covers one of the most +momentous periods in Roman history. Mr. Watson, in making the present +selection of letters, has been principally guided by considerations of +their historical importance, or of their value as illustrating Cicero's +character. The collection is divided into parts or groups, each of which +is preceded by a lengthy and valuable introduction, furnishing the +reader with a digest of the leading public events, and a review of the +state of political parties during each period. In this portion of the +work, the editor has borrowed largely from the well-known 'History of +Rome,' by Professor Mommsen, and from Brückner's 'Life of Cicero.' The +works of Zumpt, Drumann, Abeken, and Reen, have also been laid under +heavy contributions. In the appendices to those sections, the reader +will find discussed with clearness and ability many legal and historical +questions, highly important for the right understanding of allusions in +the letters--_e.g._, the legal question at issue between Cæsar and the +Senate, the Calendar, the meaning of the terms 'colonia,' 'municipium,' +and 'præfectura,' &c. These introductions and appendices add greatly to +the value of the volume. The notes are far more numerous, but not so +learned and valuable as those of the German editions. Indeed, many are +so brief and unimportant that it is difficult to account for their +insertion, and seem quite out of place in a work which is evidently not +intended for tyros. The only persons qualified to read the letters of +Cicero are the highest classes in schools, and students at the +Universities, neither of which stand in need of a translation of +passages and of words that involve no particular difficulty. The +following are taken _ad apertram libri_:--[Greek: hysteron proteron], 'I +will answer your last question first;' [Greek: Homêrikôs] 'after the +manner of Homer;' contiones, 'addresses to the populace;' manum, 'crew;' +in eo ... erant omnia, 'on that everything depended;' inopiam, 'the +neediness;' judicium, 'the trial.' Most of the notes are, in our +opinion, too elementary for qualified readers of the correspondence of +Cicero. The abundant references to Madvig's Grammar will be found +exceedingly useful. On the whole, it is an excellent edition, and cannot +be perused without greatly enlarging one's knowledge and deepening one's +interest in these unique epistolary writings. + + +_The Life of Richard Deane, Major-General, and General at Sea, in the +service of the Commonwealth, and one of the Commissioners of the High +Court of Justice appointed for the Trial of King Charles the First._ BY +JOHN BATHURST DEANE, M.A., F.S.A., of Pembroke College, Cambridge; +Corresponding Member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society; +Rector of St. Martin Outwich. Longmans, 1870. 8vo. + +Another successful attempt to rescue a great historical reputation from +the slanders of the scurrilous pamphleteers of the Restoration, and one +of which it is no mean praise to say, that it is not unworthy of a place +beside Mr. Markham's recently published noble vindications of Fairfax. +The 'Goodman Button (a hoyman of Ipswich), his boy' of the 'Mystery of +the Good Old Cause,' which would seem to have been the source from +whence Bates, Winstanley, Heath, and the author of the 'Lives of the +King-killers,' as well as Clarendon, drew their inspiration, turns out +to have been the son of a Gloucestershire gentleman, who was connected +both by birth and by marriage with such families as the Wickhams, the +Hampdens, and the Mildmays; and the 'Hoyman of Ipswich' to have been a +captain in the King's service, who was attached to the Royal Dockyard, +at Harwich, and was a kinsman of Sir Thomas Button's, a near relative of +the St. Johns and the Cromwells. Mr. Deane having been fortunate enough +to discover a copy of the elaborate and elegant Latin inscription which +was composed for the tablet erected to the memory of his illustrious +ancestor in Westminster Abbey, among the additional MSS. in the British +Museum, has been directed by it to the entry of his baptism in the +register of the parish of Lower Guyting, near Winchcombe. It is as +follows: 'Anno Dni. 1610, ye viii daie of Julie, was baptized Richard +Deane, ye sonne of Edward Deane.' His mother was a Warre, and his +grandmother a Wickham, through whom he was connected with the Hampdens +and the Cromwells; and his aunt Joan seems to have married Robert +Mildmay, of Terling, the grandson of Sir Thomas Mildmay, one of the +auditors of the Court of Augmentation in the reign of Henry VIII., and +grand-nephew of Sir Walter Mildmay, the founder of Emmanuel College, +Cambridge. We have no knowledge of Deane's career up to the year 1642, +beyond the fact of his having served under Captain Button, of Harwich, +during some part of that period; nor have we any of his private life at +all, except that he married Mary Grimsditch, and that at his death he +left two daughters by her, Mary and Hannah, the former of whom died +unmarried, and the latter married Goodwin Swift, attorney-general of +Tipperary, and uncle to the well-known Dean of St. Patrick's, Jonathan +Swift. From the year 1642 to that of his death, however, few names are +more frequently mentioned in the annals of his day than that of Richard +Deane. He early and heartily espoused the cause of the Parliament in the +great civil war, under a conviction that in no other way could the +religion and the liberties of the country be saved; and soon proved +himself to be 'one of those extraordinary men, produced by revolutionary +times, who by the innate force of an energetic character, surmount the +difficulties of birth and station, and, rising to authority, seem as if +they had been born and educated for it; no one wondering either at their +elevation, or at the ease with which they discharge the duties of the +highest offices.' His biographer has related his great services to the +cause which he espoused with singular impartiality, which renders his +work a valuable contribution to the general history of his times. After +the trial and execution of the King, in which, as is well known, Deane +took a very prominent part, he was appointed, 'in connection with +Colonels Edward Popham and Robert Blake, as one of the three generals at +sea,' with 'co-ordinate powers.' In 1651, he assumed the chief command +in Scotland, where he was the principal means of bringing about the +'eight years' tranquillity' which Bishop Barnet 'so commends and +attributes to the (happy) usurpation.' War now breaking out with the +Dutch, Deane was hastily summoned to rejoin the fleet. It was in action +with the Dutch that he met with his death, June 2, 1653. 'He fell at the +moment of victory, sword in hand, in the bow of his ship, as he was +waving his sword and encouraging his men to follow him in boarding 'the +Dutch Admiral,' Van Tromp. Deane was buried with all honour in the +chapel of Henry VII., at Westminster Abbey, on the 24th of February +following. 'The corpse,' the authors of the 'Parliamentary History of +England' inform us, 'was brought from Greenwich to Westminster Bridge by +water, attended by thirty barges in mourning. The procession was saluted +in their passage by all the ships in the river, and the Tower guns. In +the evening, the body was interred in the Abbey with great pomp; the +lord-general and his council, with all the officers of the navy and army +then in town, attending the funeral.' After the Restoration, his body, +together with those of twenty others of his contemporaries, was removed +and re-interred in the adjoining churchyard. The sympathies of his +biographer may be inferred from the following comments on this act of +Charles II. and his advisers. 'If their bodies had been decently removed +from the church to the churchyard, no blame can justly attach to the +King for the removal, for he naturally desired to clear his own family +vaults of those whom he might undoubtedly regard as intruders. But it is +not quite so certain that the removal and re-interment were so +decorously conducted as tradition says they were. The present Dean of +Westminster, with the laudable desire of ascertaining not only the +place, but also the manner of re-burial, caused, in November, 1869, the +ground to be opened on the spot supposed to be the grave of the removed, +but found no evidence of a decent and careful interment, such as +fragments of coffins, and skeletons lying side by side in the order of +deposit, but only a confused mass of bones, so mixed together as to +suggest an irreverent emptying of coffins into a large common pit. The +Dean, and other members of the Chapter who accompanied him, went away, +and still remain in the charitable hope that they have failed in +discovering the deposit which they sought, but have fallen in with some +other not unusual spectacle in crowded churchyards, where the callous +sexton of one generation shovels away the coffinless bones of the +preceding, to make room for the bodies of his own contemporaries who may +have occasion for his services. It is earnestly to be hoped that such +was the case here, and that the only indignity to which Richard Deane +and Robert Blake were exposed, was the removal of their remains from the +burial place of kings to that of ordinary Christians, with no other +memorial of their names than that of their deathless renown. Be the case +as it may, these facts are certain, they fought on the same deck, died +in the same cause, and were buried in the same pit. They had been loving +and pleasant in their lives, and in their graves they were not divided.' +We congratulate Mr. Deane on the ability, the fairness, and the +diligence which he has brought to his praiseworthy undertaking. He has +rendered the historical student admirable service. + + +_John Wesley and the Evangelical Reaction of the Eighteenth Century._ By +JULIA WEDGEWOOD. Macmillan and Co. + +_The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., Founder of the +Methodists._ By Rev. L. TYERMAN. Vols. I. and II. Hodder and Stoughton. + +Our literary and ecclesiastical authorities are much occupied at present +with the life-work and surroundings of John Wesley, with his relation to +the Church of England, and with the probable position that would have +been assigned to an ecclesiastical reformer, or revivalist, occupying in +the Church of Rome a position analogous to that of John Wesley in the +English Church. We do not endorse the big words with which Mr. Tyerman +opens up his subject. 'Is it not a truth (he asks) that Methodism is the +greatest fact in the history of the Church of Christ? Methodism has now +existed one hundred and thirty years. Is there any other system that has +spread itself as widely in an equal period? We doubt it.' Whether the +victories of Methodism over other ecclesiastical organizations, or over +religious indifferentism, or over the stubborn resistance to God's truth +of the barbarian or the idolater, can be paralleled with the past +successes of the Apostolic Church or not, and whether numbers or area +can now be used as measures of greatness, may be considered open +questions, but no ecclesiastical writer pretending to honour truth or +candour can hide his eye to the fact of Methodism, or to the vitality it +displays at the present moment. We are thankful for this instalment of +Mr. Tyerman's valuable work. There is a mine of wealth, a store-house of +treasure, in the unimpeachable diary and authentic correspondence +contained in this first volume, which will amply repay most careful +attention. + +Miss Julia Wedgewood, in our opinion, has done very excellent service. +She has not attempted to write a memoir of John Wesley or his brother, +or a history of Methodism, nor has she kept up a chronological +continuity in her fascinating pages, but she has shown us the remarkable +figure of Wesley upon a great variety of backgrounds. Methodism at +Oxford, with its first obstacles in the painfully exacting conscience +and scrupulosity of Wesley himself, becomes a vivid sketch of Oxford +life at the commencement of the eighteenth century. Methodism in +Virginia becomes an impressive representation of the relation of England +to her colonies. The conflict of Methodism with Bristol and Cornwallese +colliers; its hand to hand fight with the devils of hysteria and fear, +and with those of bigotry and exclusiveness; with Moravian theology, and +with Calvinism and its old problem of the universe, are all well told in +a succession of bright and thoughtfully conceived pictures. There is +very remarkable candour, much good sense, and wise use of material in +her work; and the volume will bring the high enthusiasm and glorious +earnestness of Wesley into contact with classes that would remain +strangers to the more elaborate biographical details of Mr. Tyerman. The +subject is so large--so important in all its bearings--that we cannot +dismiss these works with a cursory notice; we shall hope, at an early +date, to return to the literature and ecclesiastical position of the +Wesleys. + + +_Memorials of the late Rev. William M. Bunting; being Selections from +his Sermons, Letters, and Poems._ Edited by the Rev. G. STRINGER ROWE. +With a Biographical Introduction by THOMAS PERCIVAL BUNTING. Wesleyan +Conference Office. + +The characteristic of William Bunting which all who knew him would +assuredly mention first was an unbounded power of loving; and as the +effect of this as near an embodiment of the 'charity' of the Epistle to +the Corinthians as is perhaps possible to men who love truth and the God +of truth. 'Grace to all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ in +sincerity,' was not only a sentiment upon his lips, it was an +instinctive, irrepressible feeling of his heart. Few men were more +attached to his own Church; few men had more large-hearted and loving +appreciation of the good men and good things of all other Churches. +Charity was the 'bond of his perfectness.' Wherever Christ was to be +served, the souls of men benefited, faithful preachers to be heard, +fervent worship to be joined in, there, according to his opportunity, +William Bunting was to be found. Our cathedrals were familiar with his +tall, attenuated, intellectual figure. In any Nonconformist congregation +in London, where worship and preaching were edifying, he was at any time +as likely to be found as in a Wesleyan Chapel. Few of the principal +Nonconformist pulpits were unfamiliar with his ministrations. His +friends were the best ministers of every evangelical church. He was a +lover of all good men, and all good men loved him. He was a kind of +_tertium quid_, around which the best men and feelings of the different +sects crystallized into beautiful forms of charity. No one thought of +him as belonging to any one section of the Church; the feeling towards +him was that he belonged to all. This volume of memorials will be valued +by his friends. The brief biographical sketch by his brother is +sufficient for the record of his uneventful life; it is racy and piquant +in its style, yet fervent and tender in its love and devout sympathy. + +As a preacher, Mr. Bunting was diffuse and therefore lengthy, and +sometimes tedious, although his brother testifies to his great +efficiency. + +As a letter-writer he was wonderfully loquacious; some of his letters, +as he says, 'as long as a life,' even as abbreviated here, filling eight +or ten pages of print. Rarely could he have said with Paul, 'I have +written a letter unto you in few words:' but they are wonderfully +loving, enthusiastic and brilliant, full of delicate sympathy and +beautiful piety and charity. + +Chiefly, however, Mr. Bunting excelled as a writer of hymns. Two or +three of his compositions have found their way into popular hymnals, and +are not likely to be forgotten. The tender pathos of the 'Song in the +Night Season,' + + 'Thou doest all things well,' + +has not often been surpassed. + + +_The Life of Arthur Tappan._ With Preface by the Rev. NEWMAN HALL, +LL.D. Sampson Low and Co. + +Mr. Tappan was a New York merchant, of a type which the _laudator +temporis acti_ would tell us was once not uncommon, but is now rarely to +be met with either in America or England. This we are loth to believe. +There are still, thank God, not a few upright, God-fearing, +noble-hearted men, who will do and dare whatever righteousness and +religion may demand. Mr. Tappan was eminently one who 'feared God and +eschewed evil,' whose business was as much a religion to him as +church-worship. His one simple maxim was to do right at any cost. He is +said to have been the first man in America 'to make use of money in +large sums for benevolent objects.' Certainly he was generous, to the +verge of prudence; and when reverses came upon him he did not begin +retrenchment with the things of God. His high-toned morality did not +always square with the morals of Wall-street, and often involved him in +perplexing and ludicrous entanglements; but nothing could shake his +determination to do right. Several business friends wished to help him +in his pecuniary difficulties, but urged upon him as a tacit condition +the desirableness of lessening his anti-slavery denunciations. His short +and decisive answer was, 'I will be hung first.' He was the prime mover +and leader of many things, greatest and best, in the religious life of +America. He was president of the Anti-Slavery Society, and one of the +founders of the Bible Society, the Tract Society, Oberlin College, and +the American Education Society--to all of which he gave large pecuniary +and laborious personal assistance. He was a kind of American John +Thornton in his religious philanthropy. He fought many a fierce and +fearless battle, especially in the anti-slavery cause--when to be its +advocate was to imperil life. He was mobbed, and had a price set upon +his head. A more beautiful, single-hearted, noble life of integrity, +industry, fearlessness, and generosity has rarely been lived. His +closing days at Newhaven have an interesting setting of New England +Puritanism, and were quiet, devout, and beautiful. In a higher sense +than mere amassing of money he was a 'successful merchant.' Our +merchants will do well to read this interesting memoir, and to learn +anew from it the old lesson that 'the fear of the Lord is, indeed, the +beginning of wisdom.' + + +_Journeys in North China, Manchuria, and Eastern Mongolia; with some +Account of Corea._ By the Rev. ALEXANDER WILLIAMSON, B.A., Agent of the +National Bible Society of Scotland. With Illustrations and 2 Maps. Two +vols. Smith, Elder and Co. + +Mr. Williamson has contributed to the literature of travel and of +science another of those thorough, sober, and instructive books which +have been one of the incidental results of Christian Missions. To the +ordinary advantages over casual visitors, which long residence and +familiar intimacy gives to a missionary, and to the conscientiousness +which his religious position and character impose upon him, Mr. +Williamson, as a highly-educated medical man, adds a higher degree of +scientific knowledge than many of his brethren possess, which qualifies +him to speak of the configuration, products, and possibilities of the +country in a way that will impart valuable knowledge. Mr. Williamson +first visited China as a missionary in connection with the London +Missionary Society. His health failed after two or three years' +residence, and he returned to England. On the re-establishment of his +health he returned to China, about seven years ago, as an agent of the +National Bible Society of Scotland. These volumes are, virtually, the +journal-records of eight extensive journeys through various parts of +North China, which he has made in the prosecution of his evangelistic +labours. It need scarcely be remarked that a man so occupied, the very +business of whose life is to travel from place to place, and to +cultivate familiar intercourse with the people, has opportunities for +the acquisition of knowledge, to which no mere casual traveller, or +resident merchant, or professional man can pretend. Accordingly, Mr. +Williamson's volumes are full of minute, thorough, and novel information +of all kinds concerning the country and the people; they are utilitarian +enough for a blue book, while they have the general interest of a book +of travels in countries of which we are almost entirely ignorant. We do +not, in fact, remember two volumes the information of which is so +valuable, and the interest of which is so great, at this particular +juncture especially, when our peaceful relations with China are again in +peril. Our Government, as well as the general public, may gather from +them more accurate and extensive information respecting the sources and +character of Chinese feeling towards us, than from any other source +whatever--not excepting even the valuable and intelligent information +furnished by our diplomatic agents. Mr. Williamson has been among the +people as distinguished from officials, and he speaks confidently +concerning the peacefulness and friendliness of their disposition +towards Protestant missionaries. He travelled unarmed, and encountered +no violence or rudeness, nothing more than the occasional attempts at +extortion with which travellers are not unfamiliar in London and New +York. They are grossly ignorant, and in some places look upon Europeans +as a different species of beings. 'In some places they calls us +"devils," not in impertinence, but in genuine ignorance of our origin +and character; so much so, that they often use this term with +complimentary prefixes, as _e.g._, their practice of calling a friend of +ours Kwhe tze ta jen, "His Excellency the Devil." Moreover, they often +use this term in our courts of justice. In other places they look upon +us as a race of fierce men not quite up to the mark in mental powers. +Many a time have foreigners been provoked by Chinamen coming up to them, +patting them on the shoulder, and caressing them just as we would a huge +Newfoundland dog, or a semi-tamed lion. Nor is this all. They appear in +many districts to look upon us as a species of fools. Often have I +observed Chinamen address myself and others just as mendacious +nursery-maids address children, as if we were incapable of seeing +through their barefaced lies and shallow deceit.' The Imperial claim is +as preposterous as ever--as shown by the refusal to receive Prince +Alfred--and is a serious obstacle in national intercourse. Lord Elgin +attempted effectually to destroy this by a march on Peking, which was +baffled by the flight of the Emperor to Tartary. The Chinese people +sadly lack truth, uprightness, and honour, the fear of God. The opium +trade, which has been our great disgrace, and which has, it is feared, +extended beyond all legislative or diplomatic control, is the deadly +curse of the country. 'There are literally millions,' says Mr. +Williamson, 'to whom opium is more valuable than life. The only hope is +the creation of a public opinion against it among those who abstain from +the poison, and among the young; so that the generation of opium smokers +may, in due course, die out. The reformation has already commenced, and +only needs to be fostered and systematized.' + +The Roman Catholics are much disliked by the Chinese, chiefly because of +the outrages committed by the French soldiers during the late war--the +fatal blunder into which our neighbours always fall in their dealings +with weaker nations, or in their attempts to colonize: wherever they go, +they invariably succeed in getting themselves well hated. Another cause +of dislike to the Roman Catholics is the assumptions of the priests, and +their arbitrary claims to property. 'There is no hostility on the part +of the people towards Protestant missionaries.' And Mr. Williamson +thinks that 'were the matter of inland residence made a provision in +treaty engagements, there would be little or no difficulty in carrying +it out.' The hostility of the mandarins during the last year or two, the +Tien-tsin massacres, and other indications of dislike in the governing +classes, are attributed by Mr. Williamson to 'the ultra-liberal policy +of our Government, and especially to that outburst of hostile criticism +in the spring of 1869, on the part of our officials and leading +politicians and writers at home, all of which was duly communicated to +the Chinese authorities, leading them to believe either that we were +sure of our strength, or had lost all interest in our countrymen in +China.' Mr. Williamson lays great stress on a demand being made for +'inland residence under proper sanction;' and he argues this from the +perfect success of the experiment, so far as it has been made. +'Protestant missionaries, British, German, and American, have been +labouring unmolested for some years, in many of their inland cities.' +The Chinese opponents of missionaries are not the people, but corrupt +officials, who oppose everything foreign and everything calculated to +enlighten or improve the moral tone of the people. Mr. Williamson's +reply to such diplomats and writers as denounce the missionaries in +China, or sneer at them, is not only conclusive, it is perfectly +crushing. Five powerful foreign legations have for several years +resided in Pekin, viz., the British, American, French, Russian, and +Prussian. They had very able men and very great facilities. Not long +ago, the head of the British Legation thought fit to taunt the +missionaries, by urging them to begin by converting the higher classes, +adding that 'China would be raised through them, not in spite of them.' +Mr. Williamson pertinently asks, what with all their ability and +opportunities they have done, and unhesitatingly answers, nothing! All +the European books, lesson books, and books of science especially, which +it is no part of the missionary's function to produce, have been +compiled or translated by them. 'Dr. Hobson has given them works on +Physiology; on the Principles and Practice of Surgery; on the Practice +of Medicine and Materia Medica; on the Diseases of Children; on the +Elements of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy. Mr. Wylie has given them +the whole of _Euclid_; De Morgan's _Algebra_, in thirteen books; Loomis' +_Analytical Geometry and Differential and Integral Calculus_, in +eighteen books, and also the first part of Newton's _Principia_ which is +now in process of completion. Mr. Edkins has translated Whewell's +_Mechanics_, and given them many other contributions on science and +Western literature. Mr. Muirhead has produced a work on English history, +and another on universal geography. Dr. Bridgman has published a finely +illustrated work on the United States of America. Dr. W. P. Martin has +translated Wheaton's _International Law_, and just published an +elaborately illustrated work in three large volumes, on Chemistry and +Natural Philosophy. Other missionaries have given them works on +Electro-telegraphy, Botany, and elementary treatises on almost every +subject of Western science.' Would it not be as well for some of these +diplomatic gentlemen to employ their abundant leisure in emulating, +rather than in sneering at the earnest philanthropy of these +hard-working missionaries. Until they can show something like such a +list of contributions to Chinese enlightenment, shame should keep them +silent, even if they are incapable of generous appreciation. + +These matters, however, are only touched in the introductory part of Mr. +Williamson's book, which is an intelligent traveller's account of China +and the Chinese. It is full of matter for quotation; but for this we +have no space. At one of the temples in Manchuria, Mr. Williamson saw an +instrument, which was the famous praying machine. 'Prayers are pasted +both on the inside and outside of the barrels, which being turned round, +their prayers are presented, as they suppose, to their god.' Some +curious church music was aided by 'two trumpets, each of which was about +twelve feet long, with a mouth two feet in diameter; they were mounted +on small wheel-carriages, like guns, and the players reclined upon the +ground when playing.' This was in the famous Temple of Do-la-nor. At one +place the landlord, having no clock, fastened a huge fat cock under Mr. +Williamson's bed, lest he should oversleep himself. We will add only, +that the book is written in a plain, business-like style, that it is +full of valuable facts, that, in appendices, Mr. Edkins and others have +contributed valuable papers, and that, in our judgment, it is one of the +most sterling and instructive, as it is one of the most modest books of +travels that has appeared for years. + + +_Westward by Rail: the New Route to the East._ By W. F. RAE. Longmans, +Green and Co. + +The temptations to fulsome eulogy or to exaggerated caricature are, to a +writer of a book of American travels, so great and are so rarely +resisted, that Mr. Rae, as a signal exception, deserves the very highest +praise. His feeling to America and Americans is evidently of the +kindest, and yet he has had such a wholesome fear of fulsome praise, +that he has put himself under almost undue restraint--the greys +predominate in his colouring. He has everywhere manifestly endeavoured +to see things as they are and to describe them as he saw them; the +result is a sober, judicious, intelligent book, that vouches for its own +trustworthiness. Mr. Rae describes only the route across the American +continent from New York to San Francisco by the Great Pacific Railway. +He tells us that the basis of his book is two series of letters which +appeared in the _Daily News_, revised and recast. He writes in an easy, +accustomed style, as men write whose pen is the weapon with which they +fight the battle of life. He has imagination enough and descriptive +power enough to redeem his narrative from the dryness of a log, and he +has sufficiently large and varied knowledge of the world to qualify him +to form wise, practical, and genial estimates of things. Much in +American life is novel and experimental, and demands in its judge no +small power of constructive imagination. Much in American feeling is +provincial, wayward, and almost morbidly sensitive, and needs great +candour for the appreciation of its fresh, generous, and noble elements. +The Americans are rapidly outgrowing some of the follies of their youth; +there are still in the practical administration of politics and social +economies many things--worse than follies--that belie the noble +principles of their constitution, and that the warmest friends of +America cannot but look upon with anxiety. The extent of administrative +corruption, the unscrupulousness of party politics, not only as towards +each other but as towards other nations--such passionate, undignified, +and manifestly venal messages as the one just sent to Congress by +President Grant for instance, with the political interpretations of +which it is susceptible--render it a question of great solicitude +whether these are the moral weaknesses of childhood, which experience +and discipline will cure, so as to develope a nation high and courteous +in political as in social and personal honour, or whether its political +maturity will manifest the faithlessness and unscrupulousness which so +sadly stain the escutcheons of some European nations, and which +necessitate a constant and suspicious vigilance; we strongly hope in the +higher developement, but the centenary of the nation's birth is near at +hand, and we are longing to see a high-minded government and policy +such as we do not see yet. + +Mr. Rae describes with smartness, the railways and cars and travelling +ways of America as they have often been described. He especially +commends to our own greater railway companies the luxury of Pullman's +sleeping cars, and we heartily endorse the recommendation. It is no +small luxury to be able to go to bed while traveling at the rate of +thirty miles an hour in America--of from forty to fifty here--those who +cannot sleep may at any rate enjoy a sprawl with disencumbered limbs. We +would also add a recommendation of the check system with luggage; what +should prevent our companies giving passengers a check, to which a +corresponding number is affixed to the piece of luggage, so that the +latter might be delivered to the porter or a servant presenting the +check? The comfort of being delivered from all anxiety about luggage is +a great luxury of American travel. Mr. Rae describes Chicago 'the Garden +City,' 'the Queen of the West,' 'the Queen of the Lakes,' as it is +proudly called. Forty years ago it was a log fort, to-day 300,000 +well-to-do people, many of them as wealthy merchants as any in the +States, occupy in palatial residences one of their most imposing cities. +Mr. Rae's account of the Mormons is not very eulogistic, and is we +suspect much nearer the truth than most of the superficial accounts, the +result of an hour's conversation, note-book in hand, that have reached +us. Brigham Young's peculiar institution does not commend itself even on +utilitarian grounds: the intolerance, jealousy and violence of the +Mormon city, restrained only by the adjacent United States' camp, must +make it an unenviable residence: while even the vaunted industry of the +residents is seriously qualified in Mr. Rae's estimate of what has been +done in relation to the condition of the place. We commend Mr. Rae's +careful study of Mormondom to all who have been fascinated by the +glamour of writers like Mr. Dixon. Mr. Rae has much to say concerning +California, the enterprise of the people and their great future; but he +gives special emphasis to their ultra-provincialism, and what surprises +us more, implies a slighting estimate of their hospitality. Of their +literature he speaks in glowing terms--indeed he seems to think the +provincial press of the States superior to the New York press. Mr. Rae's +book is restricted to the route which he travelled, and to matters +connected with it; it is therefore limited in its range. He has also a +slight tendency to preach, but, as a whole, his book may be very highly +commended as an honest and successful attempt to represent Brother +Jonathan as he really is. + + +_A Voyage round the World._ By the Marquis de BEAUVOIR. In Two vols. +John Murray, Albemarle-street. 1870. + +These charming volumes come before us with every claim to interest. The +author is a Frenchman without national prejudice--a mere boy in years +without either self-sufficiency or vain-glory--a nobleman of high degree +without _morgue_ or arrogance, to whom fortune has allotted an +inestimable opportunity of improving the gifts of nature by sending him +as companion to the young Duc de Penthièvre, on this easy, pleasant +'Voyage round the World.' All these conditions unite to predispose the +reader to a series of novel emotions in traversing an already beaten +track. The Duc de Penthièvre is introduced to us as a young man of high +intelligence and sterling character, who, in spite of his youth, had +already seen six years of service in the United States' navy, and gained +promotion therein by merit alone--not as homage to his position as scion +of a royal house. The princes of the House of Orleans have been apt +scholars in the great school of adversity. It would be well for France +if the lessons they have been learning could be turned to account in the +government of their own country. We learn from M. de Beauvoir's preface +that, during the space of three months, three princes of Orleans left +Europe to see if in some distant land they might not utilize their +talents and energy, as at present they were unable to devote them to the +service of their own. The Duc d'Alençon entered the Spanish service, and +took command of the artillery during the glorious expedition to the +Philippine Islands; the Prince de Condé went to India and Australia, +where death cut him off at the commencement of his career; and the Duc +de Penthièvre, the Prince de Joinville's son, started on a voyage round +the world. No greater proof of the great change which has come over the +social world of France could be found than this announcement made so +simply by our author. + +The two volumes under review are devoted to Australia, Java, Siam, and +Canton. The novel judgments of men and things, attributable to the +extreme youth and exceptional position of the writer, gives an entirely +original insight into the manners and customs of the higher classes of +these different countries. Naturally enough, we turn at once to +Australia. Throughout the whole of the volume which treats of Australia, +the national pride of the English reader is gratified to its fullest +extent, not by empty praise of material wealth and rich produce, but by +solid admiration of the perseverance, tenacity of purpose, and high +intelligence with which the mother country has resisted all temptation +to impose a yoke upon her distant children; and has thereby caused their +hearts to cling closer to her own, than those of her nearer and dearer +progeny. We can readily sympathise with the pleased astonishment which +seizes upon the Marquis de Beauvoir, when he contrasts the wise +abstention from all interference in the local government of the colony, +with the petty and vexatious pressure of French authority in Algeria. + +One instance of the equity of the law as practised in the colony, +contrasted with the following of its mere letter, peculiar to the +tribunals of Europe, we cannot pass over. + +'In going through the workshops we remarked two native blacks, mere +children, and utterly hideous, but with a perfectly gentle expression. +Their extremely white teeth exposed to view by a mouth split from ear to +ear, formed a strong contrast with their black skins, as their jolly and +perpetual laugh did with the dress which is worn by those condemned to +hard labour for life. Their appearance was so cheerful, that we were +naturally much interested in them. Besides, there was a great deal in +their novelty as aborigines.' All interest in these merry culprits was, +however, at an end, when the visitors were informed that one of them had +murdered three sailors, and the other had waylaid and hacked to pieces +two white women. They had not been condemned to death, because 'they +were natives--and none of the aborigines had as yet been hung--their +instincts and belief being so different, that with them murder is no +crime; they are tamed more by gentleness than cruelty.' + +The Marquis expatiates, with true youthful ardour, upon this generous +forbearance, and declares that a government professing such principles +after invading, in the name of civilization, a country occupied by a +barbarian race, deserves the admiration of all Europe. The records of +Sydney law confirm the distinction made between barbarous native and +civilized colonist; for a little while after, seven white men, having +murdered a family of natives, were hung without mercy, to give a good +example to the rising generation of the young colony, who are taught to +pity the blind, ferocious instincts of the native race, and to feel +contempt and horror of the civilized white men guilty of the same +cold-blooded atrocities. + +Life in the bush has charms for our youthful author as great as those of +the handsome drawing-rooms of Melbourne and Sydney. After much visiting +amongst the highest circles of Sydney--banqueting at the Government +House, and dancing in the spacious halls of the great officials of the +colony--the buoyant spirits of the young Marquis lead him to throw +himself, _a corps perdu_, into the delights of savage life. His +enthusiastic description of the visit to Mr. Capel--the arrival of the +party at the hut inhabited by the triple millionaire, on the banks of +the Murray river--the glee with which he recounts the danger of fording +the stream, while the horses were left to swim to the bank as best they +could, and the subsequent scramble up the muddy side to Mr. Capel's +dwelling, will make many an English boy's eyes sparkle with delight and +envy as he reads. + +We can only mention the journey through Java, Siam, and Canton. Much of +the interest lies in the description of the court of the King of Siam, +rendered familiar to the English public by the recent account of the +'English Governess.' At Hong Kong, the author's admiration of English +rule again breaks forth. And we take our leave of the distinguished +party, of which he appears to have been the very life and soul, with +hearty thanks for the boldness with which the young Marquis has dared to +assert his conviction that the English alone are fitted to found a +colony, and that no other nation is possessed of the patience, the +calmness, and true sense of justice which are needed to render the +natives submissive to civilization and the yoke of the foreigner. + + +_Fair France._ By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.' Hurst and +Blackett. + +At a time when France is torn and tortured by the most terrible war the +world has ever known, it seems strange to open a volume of peaceful +travel in the beautiful country which most of us know so well, and which +has undergone such an unparalleled transformation. The authoress (_pace_ +Thackeray) of this charming volume is well known to the public as a +novelist, and however critical judgments may vary as to her artistic +power, of her purity of tone and freedom from the vicious tendencies of +modern fictitious literature, there can be no question. For our own +part, we find her even more agreeable as a tourist than as a novelist. +She looks at the world with unprejudiced eyes; she finds that even +French _curés_ are human beings, and not the frightful demons that they +appear to the excited imagination of the honourable member for +Peterborough. We have, in these days, been accustomed to travellers of +many kinds: there is the sensational tourist, who bursts into mysterious +eloquence on the slightest provocation; and there is the cynical +tourist, who with upturned nose regards all the world as a gigantic +imposture--looking up into the dome of St. Peter's, or down into the +crater of Etna, and contemptuously remarking that 'there is nothing in +it.' But the truly pleasant traveller is the man or woman who starts +with intent to enjoy the trip, who looks at the bright side of +everything, and who, writing a book, writes cheerily and gaily. This is +precisely what we find in 'Fair France.' The dedication deserves to be +quoted: 'I inscribe "Fair France"--France of yesterday--to those heroic +and suffering souls in the France of to-day, who yet suffer in hope, +seeing light through the darkness, and believing in a new and nobler +"France of to-morrow."' That new and nobler France is no dream of the +ivory gate. This siege of Paris, to which the siege of Troy seems +trivial, will purge the French people of many evil qualities, and leave +them greater than before. This is the belief of all who know them +well--who know how their higher life has been eclipsed by noxious +influences. However this war may terminate, and whatever may be the fate +of the country of Lothair, it is pretty certain that the fatal follies +which have misguided the French people are now exploded for ever. + + +_The Land of the Sun._ By Lieutenant C. R. LOW. Hodder and Stoughton. +1870. + +This book makes no pretensions to be regarded as a regular diary of +connected travel, but is a series of vivid sketches of such places in +the East as the author frequently visited. In a succession of +interesting chapters he carries us from place to place, describing each +locality with many of its historical associations, and his own personal +impressions and incidents of adventure. He tells us something of Aden, +Massowah, and the Red Sea, the Andaman Islands, and many other places +of interest, some of growing importance; leaving us finally at that city +of romance, Bagdad. Those who have commercial relations with 'the Land +of the Sun' will find valuable information in this volume, especially in +the chapters on Aden and Persia. As Mr. Low says, 'The Suez Canal has +opened a new era for Aden and Persia, and indeed for all the ports of +the Red Sea, and it is impossible to exaggerate the mighty future in +store for them.' It did not require that the title-page should inform us +that the writer belonged to the navy, for almost every paragraph +contains expressions which are possible from only a joyous, enthusiastic +sailor-nature. He makes the reader feel as though he were listening to +some clever Jack-tar, who can describe the places and people he has +visited, and can spin a yarn with startling effect. The lieutenant +revels in adventure, and any skirmish excites his vigorous sympathy. +Like a true British sailor, he has an infinite contempt for all his +enemies, and a supreme belief in English seamanship and courage. Our +readers may get considerable instruction and many a hearty laugh out of +this capital book. + + +_Two Months in Palestine; or, a Guide to a Rapid Journey to the Chief +Places of Interest in the Holy Land._ By the Author of 'Two Months in +Spain.' Nisbet and Co. + +This little volume is what its title indicates. It gives useful +information, and records the _impressions du voyage_ of an intelligent +traveller. While it does not wholly refrain from historical reminiscence +and archæological speculation, it touches them lightly, and without +dogmatism. It is a pleasant record of experiences in sacred scenes, +whose interest no number of travellers' books can exhaust. Readers of +'The Leisure Hour' will be familiar with the papers here collected into +a volume. + + +_Daybreak in Spain: a Tour of Two Months._ By the Rev. J. A. WYLIE, +LL.D. Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1870. + +Whatever other distinguishing traits Dr. Wylie may possess, he is at +least a famous hater of the Papacy. In several former volumes he appears +as the earnest champion of Protestantism, and in his vigorous +declamatory rhetoric gives the enemy no quarter. It is no matter of +surprise, therefore, that the remarkable movement in Spain which +preceded and followed the expulsion of Isabella II. should have awakened +his most energetic sympathy. With a _naïveté_ perfectly charming he +informs the reader that he entered Spain on the anniversary of the +Queen's summary dismissal. The coincidence of the two events may be an +important historical incident, but as yet we fail to see it. However, he +presents to us the results of two months' tour in a light sketchy +manner, though in a very readable book. His descriptions of the scenes +and people are sometimes vivid, but they leave the impression of haste +and effort to be striking. The author also compiles a number of +noteworthy facts concerning the progress of the Gospel in that long +unhappy land, which enable us to share his prophetic hopes for its +brighter future. The book would be immensely improved by the omission of +many of those eulogistic paragraphs on the Bible, which mar the +continuity of the narrative, and read like the perorations of +innumerable speeches. The illustrations by Gustave Doré, which he says +(page 12) accompany the first chapter, are wanting in our copy. + + +_History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the +Spanish Armada._ By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A., late Fellow of Exeter +College, Oxford. Vols. VIII.-XII. Longmans, Green, and Co. 1870. + +This most admirable and faultless reprint of the classic history of a +great period of our annals is now completed. Never have publishers +considered more carefully the convenience and comfort of the general +reader. The volumes are portable, and the type is suited to the most +defective sight. The pleasure of consulting Mr. Froude's works is +moreover enhanced by a copious and well-arranged index, which occupies +no fewer than one hundred pages. The dates are given on every page, from +first to last; and this great work, on which we have so often commented, +is now placed within the reach of thousands who have for their perusal +of it hitherto had to depend on library copies. Whatever difference of +opinion may be entertained as to the justness of certain conclusions, +and the good taste of some revelations, the extraordinary merit of this +history of the most eventful epoch in the development of the English +church, nationality, and constitution, can hardly be exaggerated. + + +_Sketches from America._ By JOHN WHITE, Fellow of Queen's College, +Oxford. Sampson Low and Co. + +Mr. White's book has but very little of the character of a tourist's +book of travels, although it is, he tells us, 'founded upon a tour that +was undertaken without any design of collecting materials for a book.' +Personal experiences are but little obtruded. We get the most of them in +the second section, 'A Pic-nic to the Rocky Mountains.' The party +consisted of newspaper editors and Mr. G. F. Train; who probably is an +editor, and a dozen things besides. This personal part of Mr. White's +book indicates a keen observer and a graphic pen. We would gladly, had +we space, extract some of the amusing incidents of his journey. The +first and third parts of the book--on Canada, and on the Irish in +America--are disquisitions founded in part upon personal observation, +but chiefly upon facts and opinions collected from diversified sources +with care and discrimination. They constitute, therefore, a series of +judgments by Mr. White, and are to be taken simply as such, _quantum +valeat_. We are bound to say, however, that they are marked by great +moderation, scholarly intelligence, and plausible credibility. But +clearly, other observers equally well-informed and judicial, might come +to very different conclusions. We can only indicate some of Mr. White's +opinions. He points out acutely the distinctive characteristics of the +Canadians; their many points of difference from the citizen of the +States, both in manners, feeling, and political interest. Canadians are +strong in a theoretic loyalty, and are proud of their English +belongings, while they have very little of patriotic passion. The Irish +in Canada are not, Mr. White thinks, so loyal as is often boasted, +although they are less hostile than the Irish in America. They feel no +affection for the English, and, as a class, desire annexation. The +French Canadians are contented without being patriotic. They are not +annexationists, and see nothing better for themselves than English rule. +The best classes in Canada, like those in the States, studiously eschew +politics, and affect indifference, even while the streets of Montreal +are crowded at an exciting election. Mr. White conveys no very exalted +idea of the dignity of Canadian legislation, by the account he quotes of +the behaviour of the members of the Ottawa Parliament singing choruses +and indulging in other forms of obstructive boisterousness all night. +'Men, not measures,' is the Canadian political motto, although to a less +extent than in the United States. Mr. White gives a good account of the +Church legislation of the last few years, and of its beneficial results, +which we commend to our Church and State partisans. While admitting that +the feeling of Canada is adverse to annexation with the States, Mr. +White seems to think that commercial interests and necessities will make +it inevitable--a forecast from which there is both room and reason for +differing. + +Mr. White's book is, throughout, written with an amount of information, +a scholarly intelligence and care, and a studied moderation of feeling, +which place it above most books of its class, and entitle it to a +permanent place in the library. It will have value when the interest of +ephemeral books of mere travel has passed away. + + + + +POLITICS, SCIENCE, AND ART. + + +_The Transformation of Insects._ By P. MARTIN DUNCAN, F.R.S. Cassell, +Petter, and Galpin. + +The metamorphoses of insects comprise some of the most interesting +phenomena of the most attractive class in the animal kingdom. They lose +none of their attractions in the hands of the enterprising publishers to +whose energy the public are already indebted for so many handsome and +profusely illustrated works on various branches of natural history. + +The present volume, like the rest, abounds in pictures of all kinds, +from those which are diagrammatic, and should accompany a scientific +treatise, to those which are highly pictorial and life-like; and they +are all of high merit. Of course, the illustrations, for the most part, +are not original. They do not come from the hand of the author, nor were +they designed to illustrate his text. No work with such first-class +engravings, drawn expressly to elucidate the meaning of a writer, could +be produced at ten times the cost of the book before us. Collected from +all sources, and more or less judiciously distributed through the +volume, the plates constitute the chief value of the work. The +letter-press, however, like the illustrations, is full of interesting +matter. Almost all the well-known facts which science has revealed to us +concerning the whole life-history of the _Arthropoda_, are stripped of +their technical phraseology, invested in an amusing, and sometimes a +grotesque garb, and displayed so as to attract those to whom real +scientific study would be repulsive. To our youth, and to that numerous +class of casual and unscientific observers of Nature who rather delight +in interesting facts than in the causes which underlie them, 'The +Transformation' will, no doubt, be found amusing and satisfactory. On +the other hand, we are bound to state that there is nothing in the book +before us, either in the shape of original contribution to our +information, or of philosophic grouping of phenomena into wider +generalizations, which will really assist the scientific student. + +We have purposely mentioned the publishers rather than the author as the +originators of this work, because the resources of the former are far +more evident than those of the latter. Probably no one but the +publishers could have produced so handsome and entertaining a volume at +so small an expense, while almost any one might have been the author of +it. We have also designedly made the plates occupy the first place in +our commendation. It is evident that the book was made to order from a +large stock in hand. We do not wish to disparage the work at all, or any +more than is necessary to let the public know exactly what it is. Such a +book would not be written except to order, and could not be so good +unless there were a large stock of material on hand. Such books have a +definite use, and this particular book is good of its kind. It is, as it +professes to be, an 'adaptation of M. Emile Blanchard's work.' If the +author had done for his own work what he has done for M. Blanchard, +_i.e._, 'eliminated large portions which, although very interesting, do +not refer directly to the phenomena of metamorphosis,' we should have +been deprived of half the volume; and as the illustrations could hardly +have been crowded more closely together, we should have lost them also, +and this would have been a great pity. That the letter-press is but +accessory, and sometimes hardly accessory, to the pictures is abundantly +manifest. Thus, at p. 366, we have a beautiful engraving representing +the transformations of _Cicada fraxini_--an insect belonging to, and +even the type of, the homopterous division of the order +'Hemiptera'--incorporated, without reference to it, into the chapter on +the 'Neuroptera;' while, in the chapter on the 'Hemiptera,' the +metamorphosis of the same species is described without reference to the +engraving. + +The term 'insects' is used in the old Linnæan sense, and not according +to its more modern and definite scientific signification, and so is made +to include not only moths, bees, beetles, locusts, dragon-flies, bugs, +and flies, and the orders of which they are the types, but also +spiders, hundred-legs, and crustaceans. _The Metamorphoses of the +Arthropoda_ would be the more correct title, but this would not have +been so popular, and therefore not so well suited to a popular work. +This dominant idea of rendering the book popular is always kept in view. +Thus, when we have a description of the habits of that popular +favourite, the water spider (_Argyroneta aquatica_), it is hoped, no +doubt with some degree of confidence, that we shall be so pleased with +the wonderful facts, that we shall forgot to ask why a species which has +no metamorphosis, and belongs to a genus, family, and order which never +exhibit transformations, should have been introduced to our notice at +all. Again, when we are facetiously told that _Cimex lectularius_ drops +from the ceiling on to sleepers, and grows more or less rapidly +according to the temperature of the room and corpulency of its +inhabitants, and we have 'to thank Providence that it has no wings,' it +would be ill-natured to inquire whether the statements are strictly +accurate, and with regard to the latter statement, to whom we are +indebted for the rest of the anatomy? + +Mr. Duncan thinks it only just that M. E. Blanchard should be relieved +from the authorship of opinions as to the nature of metamorphosis +contained in this work, but as the only part of the book which treats of +metamorphosis philosophically consists of a long, well-chosen, and +acknowledged quotation from Newport's 'Essay,' we think this delicate +sense of justice somewhat misplaced. + +We cannot too highly recommend the 'Transformation of Insects' as a +glorious picture-book full of moderately trustworthy anecdotes; but we +warn all students of physiology or natural history that there is no such +royal road to learning as its pages present. + + +_Rome and the Campagna: an Historical and Topographical Description of +the Site, Buildings, and Neighbourhood of Ancient Rome._ By ROBERT BURN, +M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge. Deighton and Co. +1871. + +There is something singularly opportune in the publication of this book +at this time. Rome, dear to all men of taste, for its countless +treasures in the department of the arts--to all scholars, for its +multitudinous associations with relics of classical times--to many a +Christian too, for its memories of our holy religion, has just passed +into new hands, and is henceforth to be subject to other rulers. We will +not affect to regret this. We have long despaired of any substantial +improvement under the _régime_ now happily brought to an end; but there +can be no reason, in the nature of things, why modern Rome should be the +worst drained and dirtiest of Christian cities, and why the Pontine +marshes, once so fruitful, should now be a pestiferous waste. We believe +that a thorough revolution may be worked, both in Rome itself and all +around it, not only without any detriment to those precious relics of +the old world with which this volume deals, but with great advantage to +them; and we hope to read ere long of the appointment of a commission +(we are not sure what is the proper Italian word for it) with some such +man as the Cavaliere Rosa at its head, whose business it shall be to +guard with jealous care whatever already discovered may interest the +student of art or of history, and to watch for new matter of a kindred +nature wherever public works or private enterprise may lay open the +still unworked mines which underlie in all directions the accumulated +rubbish of many centuries in this city of Rome. A board of antiquaries +and artists, with two or three practical men amongst them, may earn for +themselves the gratitude of the civilized world, by an enlightened and +earnest prosecution of this work. + +As to the book before us, we can hardly find words to express our sense +of its varied excellence. It has evidently been a _con amore_ labour +with its author; and he has brought to his work the three qualifications +essential to its thorough discharge--learning, sagacity, and zeal. His +references to the classical writings of Rome, and to those who have been +his pioneers in these researches, prove the first; while the accuracy +with which he observes and compares both objects and opinions are +sufficient evidence of the other qualities. + +Starting with a geological discussion of the soil on which the city is +built, we are introduced to the original materials for building in Rome +and its immediate neighborhood. There is abundant evidence of volcanic +action in the tufaceous rock which is characteristic of the region; and +this is associated with the depositions of water--both salt and +fresh--and in some cases has been manifestly modified by their action. +Indeed, there is proof that the valleys between the famous hills were +marshes, frequently flooded by the Tiber, down into the early period of +Roman history. There are two sorts of tufa, one more granular, and so +lighter than the other, as well as a fair portion of a limestone rock, +named travertine, harder than either of the tufas; besides these there +is capital clay for bricks, and matter which makes the best mortar in +the world. We are not surprised, therefore, to find that not only during +the Republic, but in later times, when, under the emperors, the wealth +and luxury of the Romans was boundless, the main substance even of the +most magnificent of their buildings was brick; and marble 'facings,' +columns, and pavements came in to give finish and beauty to their solid +brickwork. Indeed, to this fact we owe it that so much is still left to +us. The barbarous rapacity of the Middle Ages, which ruthlessly +appropriated these enrichments, would no doubt have taken all, had all +been marble. + +Our author regards the myths which connect the early Romans with the +Greeks, and with the Trojans under Æneas, as belonging rather to the +domain of poetry than history, and confining himself to the facts as +illustrated by these ruins, begins with the Palatine, as the hill +originally occupied by the first fathers of the Romans; and he gives us, +in chronological order, as far as possible, notices of all ruins now +uncovered there. He then passes on to the Capitoline, as having been +occupied next in point of time, dealing with it in the same manner; +after this we return southward to the Aventine; thence, turning east, we +cross the valley of the Circus Maximus to the Cælian Hill, and then +proceed northward to the Esquiline, the Viminal, Quirinal, and Pincian, +in succession. On all these we are introduced to the remains of ancient +buildings; their chronology, their identity, their extent, their present +condition, and their associations with such historic matter as has come +down to us, are all set before us with great accuracy of detail. Then we +cross the Tiber, and visit Janiculum and the Vatican Hill; recrossing +into the valleys among the hills, we visit the Circus Maximus, the +Campus Martius (now occupied by the modern city), and the Via Lata. The +'Forum' (Romanum) is discussed in the earlier part of the work, and with +it the Fora of the emperors, which were meant to supersede it and its +associations, and did so. The line of the walls of Servius, built mainly +of the tufa already mentioned, in large rectangular blocks, is traced +all round the city with ingenious care; and then the more extensive +walls of Aurelian, with notices of the fortifications of the present +day. Before we have done we take a delightful, though hasty, run through +the Campagna. We visit Hadrian, at his villa Tiburtina (Tivoli); Cicero, +at Tusculum (Frascati); and dear old Horace, at his Sabine farm. At +Laurentum we inspect, in detail, the country seat of our communicative +host, the unlucky Pliny, who perished miserably when Pompeii was +destroyed. + +We would gratefully acknowledge our sense of obligation to our +intelligent guide; and shall reckon it henceforward as among our +pleasantest reminiscences that we have thus visited with him the spot +where Virginia bled, where Cicero spoke, where Cæsar fell; that we have, +in his company, trodden the Forum, the Capitol, and the Appian way; and +wandered, silent and awe-stricken at their grandeur, in the golden house +of Nero, the Forum of Trajan, the Coliseum of Vespasian, and the baths +of Diocletian. + +We must not close our notice without a word about the maps and ground +plans, and the illustrations. All are worthy of the work. Here and +there, in the ground plans, we miss the arrow-head, indicating the +points of the compass, and this, we hold, should always be put in; and +if the illustrations, engraved from photographs, as we are told, are a +trifle too sharp and hard, we gain in accuracy what we lose in beauty, +and would not have it otherwise. We heartily thank Mr. Burn for his +valuable work, and his publishers for the style in which they have put +it forth; and shall be only too happy to find it in our portmanteau when +we next visit Rome. + + +_The Wonders of Engraving._ By GEORGES DUPLESSIS. Illustrated with Ten +Reproductions in Autotype, and Thirty-four Wood Engravings, by P. +Selher. Sampson Low, Son, and Marston. + +This translation of 'Les Merveilles de la Gravure' will doubtless, in +the words of the editor, be 'acceptable to all lovers of this important +and deeply interesting branch of art. It traces from its different +origins in wood engraving and _nielli_, this effort of one high art to +become the handmaid and herald of another, until the genius of the +engraver has developed a comprehensive department of original design and +elaborate artistic work of his own. Our author has told the story of +this development as it unfolds itself in the different schools of +Italian art in Spain, in Flanders, in Holland, in Germany, England, and +France. This necessitates brief sketches of distinguished engravers in +wood or copper, belonging to all these countries, with some account of +their works. As many of these engravers are far better known to fame by +their paintings, we have fresh interesting details concerning the +life-work of Leonardo da Vinci, Marc Antonio Raimondi, Albrecht Dürer, +Rembrandt, Ruysdael, Lucas v. Leyden, Paul Potter, Hogarth, Gillray, +Nicolas Poussin, and Claude Lorraine, with very many others. The author +rather glories in a clever reference which he made of some anonymous +engraving of the early Italian school to the hand of Leonardo himself, +and in some interesting and independent confirmation of his guess, which +he afterwards derived from other quarters. To those who have not made +the art of engraving a practical and prolonged study, many of these +chapters may have the appearance of a catalogue of strange names, and of +partially comprehended work, rather than of a dissertation to make one +wise. The transition is rapid from one great name to another, and the +volume will be used as a book of reference rather that as a continuous +treatise. The autotype copies of several old engravings, as well as +numerous woodcuts, greatly enliven and enrich the pages. It is very +interesting to see in this department of human endeavour, how great +results have followed accidental discovery. The Italian goldsmiths, who, +before running their enamel (_nigellum_) into the ornamented and +engraved gold, tried the effect of their work by staining paper or +linen, and by the impressions (_nielli_) which the engraved surface when +first washed with colouring matter would produce, no more anticipated +the extraordinary development which their chance trials would receive, +than could the early printers have prophesied the marvels of the modern +printing-press. M. Duplessis has briefly and clearly enumerated and +described all, or nearly all, of the processes of engraving. We are +surprised that he has not given some place to the wonderful process of +lithography. The volume is a marvel of finish and beauty. + + +_Art in the Mountains._ By HENRY BLACKBURN. London: Sampson Low, Son, +and Marston. + +Mr. Blackburn is well-known as a traveller with a special faculty; he +has an artist's eye, and his record of wanderings in Algeria, Spain, +Normandy, are pages of picture. Hence was he the very man to make a +pilgrimage into the Bavarian highlands, and bring back an intelligible +account of that strange Passion-Play performed by the peasants of +Ober-Ammergau; and excellently well he has done it. There is something +strange, something almost weird in the enactment of a mediæval +miracle-play in this nineteenth century--by peasants, too, who are some +of them before Paris by this time, obeying Bismarck's iron will. +Extremes meet in the oddest manner. As to this old-fangled +representation, which has come off once a decade for the last two +centuries, there seems to be nothing irreverent about it. They are a +child-like folk, these Bavarian peasants; they have no Prussian _geist_; +they possess a strong imitative faculty, such as belonged to the first +villagers who, in ancient Greece, originated what we now call comedy. +Mr. Blackburn's illustrations amply show what sort of people they are. +Look at the maiden at page 59, with the mild bovine eye that Homer loves +to attribute to Hebe, and the well-shapen yet utterly unlightened face, +and the comfortable, unfascinating curves of shoulder and arm, a +woman--a dull, good, unimaginative 'young person'--with no tendency +towards witchery or ladyhood. Having examined that portrait, you have no +difficulty in understanding how it is that a Passion-Play lives +alongside the railway and the telegraph. The slow-moving, cow-eyed +maiden is typical; that she would heartily and reverently enjoy the show +of our Lord's Passion is clear enough. But how long she, and such as +she, will crawl on in their snail-like groove, now that our 'own +correspondent' has appeared in Ammergau, now that the representatives of +Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate have gone together to besiege Paris, +is a question not easy to settle. Mr. Blackburn states that there will +probably be ten performances of the Passion Play in 1871, and that then +it will not be repeated till 1880. We commend anybody who really desires +to see it to go to Ammergau next year. We move fast nowadays--that +Bavarian village will be quite another sort of place in 1880. + + +_Church Design for Congregations: its Developments and Possibilities._ +By JAMES CUBITT, Architect. With nineteen plates. Smith and Elder. + +The practical divorce of Art and Utility has told nowhere more +disastrously than in the building of churches. Gothic buildings with +'long-drawn aisles and fretted roof,' designed and adapted for the +processional and ritual worship of the Romish Church, have for three +centuries been the dreary reverberating theatres of Protestant reading +and preaching. Perhaps few of us could recall a more comfortless ideal +than a rural parish church in winter, half the congregation excluded +from seeing, and the other half from hearing the monotonous reader of +prayers and sermons. Nonconformists, while rightly deeming that the +Episcopal Church had no monopoly of Gothic architecture, have not been +always wise in their appropriation of it. They have built the old Gothic +church with its nave, two aisles, transepts, and chancel, its clustered +stone pillars and clerestory, utterly unmindful of the fact that of all +styles of ecclesiastical building it was the most unsuited for their +worship and preaching. Their dignified discomfort led to the +substitution of iron columns, as incongruous, and, in artistic effect, +as ugly as anything that could be imagined--'a mediæval church,' as Mr. +Cubitt says, 'in the last stage of starvation.' If we must have nave and +aisles, as he justly remarks, we seem shut up either to bad arrangement +or bad architecture. Fame and fortune await the architect who can create +a new order of buildings for Congregational worship which shall avoid +both. Mr. Cubitt seems ambitious to attempt this, and he breaks a lance +with old conventionalism with great courage and skill. The type that is +required, he says, 'does not present itself in the ordinary nave and +aisles plan, whether its nave-piers are thick or thin; but it may be +hopefully sought in either of these two ways--'by designing our churches +without columns at all, or by designing them with substantial columns +placed where they will cause no obstruction. The former system is +already adopted in small buildings, and there are some signs of its +future employment on a larger scale. It allows great variety of form. +Its plans may be oblong, cruciform, circular, or polygonal; or still +better, a fresh combination of three different elements. On the latter +system the columns may be few in number and far apart, or they may be +placed so near the side walls as to obscure, not the seats, but only the +passages leading to them. We may thus have either the wide nave with +narrow side aisles, or the ordinary nave with very wide bays, or both +together. We may plan a grand open space before the pulpit and communion +table--surely a natural arrangement for a Protestant Church--and we +shall find ample scope for architecture in its external and internal +treatment.' The subsequent chapters are virtually a development and +illustration of these ideas. The writer advocates the admission of the +dome into Gothic architecture; he has much to say on behalf of the +Eastern mosque; and no one who has stood in the vast and simple area of +St. Sophia, at Constantinople, built, it must be remembered, as a +Christian church, could fail to have been greatly impressed with its +magnificent congregational capabilities. Galleries in theatre form, iron +column churches, lanterns, and most other things that perplex church +builders, are discussed. The merit of Mr. Cubitt's work is that it is +strictly utilitarian. It recognises the actual necessities, not only of +Congregational worship, but of Congregational church builders; it boldly +grapples with all inartistic incongruities; it avoids 'schools' and +'orders,' and honestly seeks to supply what is wanted under genuine +artistic conditions. Abundance of plates and drawings illustrate Mr. +Cubitt's theories. We heartily commend this book to all whom it may +concern, as the most independent, intelligent, and scholarly attempt in +the direction indicated that has been made. + + + + +POETRY, FICTION, AND BELLES LETTRES. + + +_The Window; or, the Loves of the Wrens._ Words written for Music, by +ALFRED TENNYSON, Poet Laureate; the Music by ARTHUR SULLIVAN. Strahan. + +So many rumours have been for so long in circulation about this volume, +and the names of its joint authors are so eminent, that it is not +surprising it should have excited much curiosity and many hopes. We +venture to predict that neither the curiosity nor the hopes will be +disappointed. Mr. Tennyson's songs need not fear being 'tested' in the +same crucible with the 'Lotos Eaters,' or 'In Memoriam,' or we may add +with 'Maud,' or the 'Princess.' Nor will Mr. Sullivan's music be found +less characteristic of his genius, or other than fully worthy of the +words to which it has been composed. + +The 'Window' is, we believe, the first attempt in English--certainly the +first attempt of any eminent English poet--to cast a series of events or +emotions into the form of a set of connected songs. Wordsworth's +well-known series of sonnets are an approach to the same thing; but the +song--a composition of two or three stanzas, suitable to music--is not +so favourite a form with English poets as with those of Germany. There +the cycle of songs--the _Liederkreis_ or _Liedercyclus_--is better +known. Readers of Heine and Chamisso will remember more than one +instance. We are glad to welcome it to English literature, not only as a +new form of verse, but also because of the promise which it gives of +many a marriage between fine poetry and fine music--a marriage hitherto +far too rare among us. + +The 'Window,' then, is a 'circle of songs,' twelve in number, describing +the hopes and fears of a lover parted from his mistress, and uncertain +what her reply will be to the great question he has asked her. + +In the first--'On the hill'--he stands on the slope of the valley which +separates his home from hers, and as he looks across the distance sees +the flash from the window-pane of his love:-- + + 'The lights and shadows fly! + Yonder it brightens and darkens down on the plain. + A jewel, a jewel dear to a lover's eye! + O is it the brook, or a pool, or her window-pane, + When the winds are up in the morning? + + 'Clouds that are racing above, + And winds and lights and shadows that cannot be still, + All running on one way to the home of my love, + You are all running on, and I stand on the slope of the hill, + And the winds are up in the morning!' + +He knows the window of which the flash has thus come to him, and is +familiar with all the charm both of what surrounds it, and what it +enshrines:-- + + 'Vine, vine, and eglantine, + Clasp her window, trail and twine! + Rose, rose and clematis, + Trail and twine and clasp and kiss, + Kiss, kiss; and make her a bower + All of flowers, and drop me a flower, + Drop me a flower.' + +The flowers are there, but their mistress is gone:-- + + 'Gone! + Gone till the end of the year, + Gone, and the light gone with her, and left me in shadow here! + Gone--flitted away, + Taken the stars from the night and the sun from the day! + Gone, and a cloud in my heart, and a storm in the air! + Flown to the east or the west, flitted I know not where! + Down in the south is a flash and a groan: she is there! she is + there!' + +The winter comes, but our lover holds out in spite of the season: + + 'Bite, frost, bite! + You roll up away from the light + The blue woodlouse, and the plump dormouse, + And the bees are still'd and the flies are kill'd, + And you bite far into the heart of the house, + But not into mine.' + +and it passes, and spring-time comes, with + + 'Birds' love and birds' song, + Flying here and there; + Birds' song and birds' love, + And you with gold for hair! + + 'Birds' song and birds' love + Passing with the weather; + Men's song and men's love, + To love once and for ever.' + +At last he can bear the suspense no longer-- + + 'Shall I write to her? shall I go? + Ask her to marry me by and by? + + * * * * * + Go little letter, apace, apace; + Fly! + Fly to the light in the valley below-- + Tell my wish to her dewy blue eye.' + +The letter is sent, and no answer comes; and then he despairs, as he +well may, and in the 'wet west wind' of the spring he wishes himself +dead: + + 'The mist and the rain, the mist and the rain! + Is it ay or no? is it ay or no? + And never a glimpse of her window-pane! + And I may die but the grass will grow, + And the grass will grow when I am gone, + And the wet west wind and the world will go on.' + +The answer is still delayed:-- + + 'Winds are loud and you are dumb: + Take my love, for love will come, + Lore will come but once a life. + Winds are loud, and winds will pass! + Spring is here with leaf and grass: + Take my love, and be my wife. + After-loves of maids and men + Are but dainties drest again: + Love me now, you'll love me then: + Love can love but once a life.' + +But at length it comes:-- + + 'Two little hands that meet, + Claspt on her seal, my sweet! + Must I take you and break you, + Two little hands that meet? + I must take you, and break you, + And loving hands must part-- + Take, take--break, break-- + Break--you may break my heart. + Faint heart never won-- + Break, break, and all's done.'-- + +and its tenour is obvious, from the rapture of the reader-- + + 'Be merry, all birds, to-day, + Be merry on earth as you never were merry before, + Be merry in heaven, O larks, and far away, + And merry for ever and ever, and one day more. + Why? + For it's easy to find a rhyme.'-- + +the rhyme to 'Why' being of course 'Ay.' + +After this the progress of things need no telling. + + 'Sun comes, moon comes, + Time slips away; + Sun sets, moon sets, + Love, fix a day. + * * * * + "To-morrow, love, to-morrow, + And that's an age away." + Blaze upon her window, sun, + And honour all the day.' + +The last song of the series is too fine and too even a union of fancy, +feeling, and art not to be quoted entire-- + + 'Light, so low upon earth, + You send a flash to the sun. + Here is the golden close of love, + All my wooing is done. + + O the woods and the meadows, + Woods where we hid from the wet, + Stiles where we stay'd to be kind, + Meadows in which we met! + + Light, so low in the vale, + You flash and lighten afar: + For this is the golden morning of love, + And you are his morning star. + + Flash, I am coming, I come, + By meadow and stile and wood: + O lighten into my eyes and my heart, + Into my heart and my blood! + + Heart, are you great enough + For a love that never tires? + O heart, are you great enough for love? + I have heard of thorns and briers. + + Over the thorns and briers, + Over the meadows and stiles, + Over the world to the end of it + Flash for a million miles.' + +Surely these songs, even in the fragmentary state in which we have been +forced to give them, will be recognized as the work of a great master, +by everyone who has the feeling and the fancy requisite for any +appreciation of poetry, and are surely as worthy of Mr. Tennyson's +genius as Shakspeare's songs are of his, or the lyrics in 'Wilhelm +Meister' of Goethe's. They are full of the old exquisite art that has +endeared the songs of the 'Princess' to so many thousand hearts. We find +here, as in those and other old favourites, those lovely and +indescribable touches which seem to paint in sound or air the very +things they name--the + + 'Winds and lights and shadows that cannot be still;' + +the + + 'Wet west wind, how you blow, how you blow;'-- + +There is the alliteration that is so magical because so seldom used-- + + 'Woods where we hid from the wet, + Stiles where we stay'd to be kind, + Meadows in which we met;' + +There are the familiarity with nature and the accurate observation at +once so characteristic of English poetry and of Mr. Tennyson's muse-- + + 'The blue woodlouse and the plump dormouse.' + + 'The wren with the crown of gold.' + + 'The fire-crowned king of the wrens from out of the pine! + Look how they tumble the blossoms, the mad little tits! + Cuckoo! Cuckoo! was ever a May so fine;' + +There too the hundred links of connexion which bind the twelve songs +into one golden chain--the constant references to the 'light,' or the +'blaze,' or the 'flash,' or the 'window pane,' which form the keynote of +the whole; and lastly the human sentiment at once so deep and broad +which fuses the whole into poetry in its noblest sense--all these +proclaim the deep and abiding worth of this unpretending series of +lyrics. + +The Shakspearian ring in one or two of them (especially in No. 8), is as +obvious, though in a different vein, as in any of the well-known lyrics +in the 'Idylls of the King.' + +It will be obvious that we do not agree with those who regard Mr. +Tennyson's last effort as 'a trifle from beginning to end.' Slight in +texture it may be, but slightness is not triviality. + +Mr. Sullivan's task in setting these charming songs to music has not +been without its difficulties. The very qualities which render verse +characteristic of its author often militate strongly against its +adaptability to music. The subtleties which form the main charm of the +poet may be mere blemishes and hindrances to the musician. Irregularity +of metre and variety of form are among his most serious difficulties. +What the composer requires is a strong pervading sentiment or idea to +inspire character to his music, with regular even verse for the vehicle. +The finest songs of Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann are written to +little poems of the simplest structure, almost always in stanzas of four +lines of eight or ten feet, the syllables linked together in easy +concatenation. Such are the 'Auf Flügeln des Gesanges,' the 'Widmung,' +the 'Junge Nonne,' and the 'Sey mir gegrüsst.' Was it instinct or +calculation that led Goethe, Heine, Eichendorff, and other great poets +of Germany, to throw so many of their enchanting thoughts and passionate +emotions into these simple forms? Whichever it was, the end has fully +justified the means; and the poems of these great geniuses have a double +beauty and a double gift of immortality in the strains of their +composer-brethren. Now the very charm of the songs of the 'Window' on +which we have been insisting, and so rightly insisting, are all in +opposition to those of the poems just spoken of. What is he to make of +such stanzas as + + 'Gone! + Gone till the end of the year, + Gone! and the light gone with her, and left me in shadow here. + Gone--flitted away'? + +or such unequal lines as + + 'Go little letter apace, apace, + Fly!' + +or, + + 'For it's ay, ay, ay, ay, ay;' + +or, + + 'And my thoughts are as quick and as quick, ever on, on, on'? + +If we want to see what can be made of them, by what adroit shifts their +difficulties can be avoided and overcome, we have only to turn to Mr. +Sullivan's music; and the examination will well repay the trouble, and +will open the eyes of anyone who was not before aware of the laws which +must govern verse that is to be married to music. No. 6 has been altered +since it was set, and we thus have the advantage of two versions. + +For the music itself we must really refer our readers to the book. +Dissertations on music, unless in connection with actual performance, +or with technical study, are very much like attempts to paint a sunrise +in words. At any rate, without musical quotations, any description of +these songs would be unintelligible. + +The finest of the set are indisputably the first and the last. Next, +perhaps, for depth of sorrow, comes No. 7, 'The mist and the rain.' No. +3, 'Gone,' with its persistent accompaniment, is beautiful. Of the +tender songs, Nos. 9 and 10 are especially charming, while No. 4 is a +bold air, which we venture to predict will be in the mouth of many an +amateur baritone before a month is out. We have only one word of regret +to add--if regret be not too strong a term. We wish that Mr. Sullivan +had availed himself of the chance which the words gave him to do what +Beethoven has so finely done in his 'Liederkreis,' namely, to +re-introduce the melody of the first song in the last one, and thus make +his work really a 'circle.' But this is so obvious that we do not doubt +he had some sufficient reason for not doing it. + +Mr. Sullivan has written many fine songs; and indeed great as is his +genius for the orchestra, it often seems as if it were equally great for +vocal music. And it is not too much to say that in this direction at +least, his last effort has been his greatest, and that these songs +surpass all that he has written before. Of their popularity among the +best class of amateurs--that class which we delight to believe is +rapidly increasing--there can be no doubt. They will want not only good +singing, but what is rarer still, good accompanying, and we trust some +opportunity may be shortly found for their being given in public by Mr. +Reeves and Mr. Stockhausen, or Mr. Santley, accompanied by the composer +himself. After that we are bold enough to hope that he may score some of +them for the orchestra. Connected though they be, they are not +indivisible, and there are several which would not suffer by being taken +from their place in the 'cycle' and transferred singly to the +concert-room. + + +_The Paradise of Birds._ By WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE. Edinburgh: William +Blackwood and Sons. + +Verily the young English poet who dares tread in the footsteps of the +Attic Aristophanes has a fine audacity. This does Mr. Courthope, and not +altogether without justification. He is a lover of birds; he is +disgusted at the way in which they are murdered at pigeon matches, and +for the adornment of ladies' hats. He goes to Aristophanes for +inspiration, and gives us a very charming poem as the result. Mr. +Courthope is unquestionably a poet. The fault we find _in limine_ is, +that he is not sufficiently original and varied in rhyme and rhythm, for +a professed follower of Aristophanes. All the birds of the air sing in +the pages of the mighty Greek, sing in character, with the very music +that belongs to them. We cannot say this of Mr. Courthope, yet is he +often fortunate and felicitous. Here is the Nightingale, pitying us +unfeathered bipeds: + + 'Man that is born of a woman, + Man, her un-web-footed drake, + Featherless, beakless, and human, + Is what he is by mistake. + For they say that a sleep fell on nature + In the midst of the making of things; + And she left him a two-legged creature, + But wanting in wings.' + +Wings! ay, that is what we should all of us like. Fancy being able to +soar and tumble in mid-ether, like those pigeons that flash round our +roofs. Fancy having power to follow the summer like 'the temple-haunting +martlet,' which leaves its house under our eaves for a residence +somewhere in Central Asia! What Mr. Courthope wants, in our judgment, is +greater imaginative intensity: he plays laughingly with his theme, and +even so did Aristophanes, his master; but he does not attain as yet the +lofty poetry, the strong humour, which are born of earnestness in +Aristophanes. + + +_The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis; and other Poems._ By TANKERVILLE +CHAMBERLAYNE, B.A. Hurst and Blackett. + +There is curious variety of style, of finish, and of theme in this +little volume. A classical epos is followed by a monody on Lord Derby, +and translations from Horace and Heine. Elegies on Napoleon, Peabody, +and Mozart, are interspersed with love ditties and theological +speculations. A discussion of the probable condition of Napoleon's soul +in the other world is terminated by the following most inappropriate +couplet:-- + + ''Tis ours in peace to let him rest + With hope upon his Saviour's breast.' + +There is some spirit and fire in the 'Song of the Rhine,' weakened, +however, by sad doggrel. The impression produced by the whole is, that +an accomplished and well-meaning graduate has favoured the public with +the contents of his college portfolio without due selection. + + +_Loveland, and other Poems chiefly concerning Love._ By WADE ROBINSON. +London and Dublin: Moffat and Co. + +There is a charm of novelty and freshness about these poems. The +thoughts expressed are often both original and beautiful; and in this +lies the chief attraction of the book. The language in which the +thoughts are clothed is not remarkable for elegance, and the style is +occasionally rather obscure, but the reader will find it worth his while +to take the little trouble that may now and then be needed fully to +grasp the author's meaning. There is no particular arrangement in the +poems, but they all turn in some way on the subject indicated in the +title-page; one (by no means the best of them) describing an Utopian +world perverted and ruled by love alone. There is an elevated tone of +feeling about the work in general, befitting the high theme to which it +is devoted. We will content ourselves with one specimen of the poetry, +though it would be easy to select many. The following lines are taken +from a short poem called 'Spring-time in the Woods':-- + + 'Is that next life indeed a Paradise? + But whether I shall leave my flowers for aye + When leaving earth, or in some other world + Shall find them all again, this much I know: + Whate'er in me communes with them shall not + Be left in loneliness. That sense of mine + To which God comes in hues upon the cheeks + Of innocent flowers, and in their perfumed breath, + Expands in strength and purity, and God + Will come to it again as shall be best. + I cannot now declare how He shall come; + I only know that this poor world, so sad + And still so beautiful, cannot exhaust + The beauty in the mind of God, or yet + His artist power to mould and paint his thoughts.' + + +_Poems_. By WILLIAM TIDD MATSON. Groombridge and Sons. + +_The Inner Life: a Poem._ By WILLIAM TIDD MATSON. Elliot Stock. + +Mr. Matson does not now first come before the world as a poet, but in +his best poem, on 'The Inner Life,' he has done something better than +any of his previous productions. The book consists of meditations, not +perhaps very strictly connected, yet passing naturally from one into +another--all treating on themes of the deepest interest, as the title +implies; the poetical strains adding greatly to the charm of the +Christian philosophy that is conveyed in them. It is true poetry, though +not poetry of the highest order. The reader of this little work will be +glad to turn to a volume of poems by the same author which appeared some +years ago. Mr. Matson speaks in the preface to this book of the joy he +has found in poetry. We do not feel in his case as we are sometimes +tempted to do, that the poet himself is the only person benefited--the +pleasure found in making the verse being the only pleasure it can ever +afford. Far from this: we are much indebted to Mr. Matson for giving his +poetry to the world. The versification is unusually easy and flowing--no +straining after effect; no determination to be original at all costs: +all seems to come naturally and without effort. There is an evenness of +merit in the poems which would make it difficult to specify one above +another; but one characteristic marks them all, and distinguishes them +from those of many other writers, _i.e._, the Christian sentiment by +which they are all pervaded. Instead of the wail of unrelieved +disappointment and regret for the past, and dark and vague forebodings +for the future, the voice of resignation and heavenly hope is never +wanting, mingled with the plaintive strains in which we always expect to +hear a poet sing. We cordially recommend both the books to all lovers of +this class of poetry among our readers. + + +_The In-Gathering_. By JOHN A. HERAUD. Simpkin, Marshall and Co. + +Mr. Heraud, whose first poem was published in 1820, ten years before +Tennyson, shows no perceptible decrease of poetic faculty now, after the +lapse of half a century. It is doubtless true with some men that + + 'The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, + Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.' + +The little volume before us contains 'Cimon and Pero,' a series of two +hundred somewhat mystical sonnets under the title of 'Alcyone,' and +several minor poems. 'Cimon and Pero,' which we prefer to any of the +other poems, is based on the fine old story, told by Valerius Maximus, +of the Greek woman, who, to save her imprisoned father from starvation, +fed him at her own breast. Mr. Heraud has avowedly chosen to tell the +tale in the austere style of Wordsworth's noble 'Laodamia,' and not +without success. It may be but a fable this, but no fable is devoid of +significance, and we may say with Valerius, 'Putaret aliquis hoc contra +rerum naturam factum, nisi deligere parentes prima naturæ lex esset.' +Several of the minor poems have a delicate beauty: among these may +specially be noted the short lyric entitled 'Eres,' which is quite in +Herrick's vein; the well-known story of 'The Brides of Venice' is also +pleasantly told. The author's admirers will be glad to find that he has +still the vigour and versatility of his youth, with greater skill of +artistic execution. + + +_The Poetical Works of William Cowper._ Edited, with Notes and +Biographical Introduction, by WILLIAM BENHAM, Vicar of Addington. Globe +Edition. Macmillan and Co. + +It was a matter of course that Cowper's works should form a volume of +the Globe series. His popularity has scarcely waned since he first +became the poet of the religious world, beloved for his piety by those +who had but small appreciation of his poetry, and admired for his poetry +by those who had but little sympathy with his themes or his spirit. As a +realistic painter of middle-class life he anticipated, and in delicacy +and sensibility infinitely surpasses Crabbe; while as a humorist of the +purest water he took the kind of hold upon the general public that +Sydney Smith afterwards did--only Cowper's humour was more delicate and +subtle--and as a poet of nature he was the literary progenitor of +Wordsworth. Mr. Benham's biographical introduction is very carefully and +very modestly done. He is, we think, right in his judgment on the point +questioned by the _Spectator_, 'that Lady Austen would gladly have +married Cowper;' and perfectly conclusive, we think, is the evidence +concerning the contemplated marriage with Mary Unwin. Newton and Bull +were Cowper's most intimate friends, and the denial of Southey, who was +by no means so accurate as the _Spectator_ assumes, cannot be put +against their positive and explicit evidence. The works are arranged in +chronological order, and the notes are intelligent, accurate, and true. +Altogether, we possess in the Globe volume the best edition of Cowper +hitherto given to the world. + + +_The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, reprinted from the +Originals, with the latest Corrections of the Authors; together with the +poems of Charles Wesley not before published._ Collected and arranged by +E. OSBORN, D.D. Vols. VII. to X. + +This admirably edited collection of the poetical works of the Wesleys +proceeds steadily towards its completion. It reveals a surprising +fecundity of verse, and an amazing degree of sustained fervour, +strength, and excellence. There are treasures of song in Charles +Wesley's compositions, unused and unknown as yet by the Church, that +would give him high rank as a hymn writer, independently of the +compositions which are in every church and on every lip. We do not think +he ever reaches the reverent sublimity of the best hymns of Watts. +Watts, for instance, would scarcely have used the somewhat incongruous +adjective 'tremendous deity;' nor would Watts have fallen into the +German jingles of some of his metres; but in devout inspiration, sacred +passion, and felicitous verse, Wesley holds his own against any hymn +writer of the Church of Christ. We shall have more to say concerning him +when the collection of his poetical works is complete. The eighth volume +contains his admirable version of the Psalms, and a great variety of +personal and national hymns, which furnish a kind of devotional +commentary on the history of both. The ninth volume consists of the +first portion of the short hymns on 'Select Passages of the Holy +Scriptures.' The two-volume edition of 1762 has long been a table book +with us. We specially commend some of Wesley's exquisite poetical +versions or uses--this, for instance:-- + + 'O that I knew where I might find him, + Where but on yonder tree? + Or if too rich thou art, + Sink into poverty, + And find him in thine heart.' + + +_A Syren._ By J. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. Three vols. Smith, Elder and Co. + +Mr. J. A. Trollope has returned to the scenes of his first love--to +Italian skies, artists, maidens, marchesi, and friars. We are plunged at +once into the hot sunshine and tropical excitements of a Ravennese +Carnival. The author gives us exuberant descriptions of female beauty, +of fastidious adornment, dexterous _deshabille motivée_, and of fierce +sexual passion met by cold calculating resolve to play a high stake +without love, or faithfulness, or even wisdom. Mr. Trollope is matchless +in his portraiture of Italian _artistes_, and of the simple _contadina_ +of refined and delicate taste, and pure seraphic devotion to the one +over-mastering affection. He has, in this story, contrasted the natures +of two beautiful portionless girls, who by strange fortune are thrown, +during the same carnival, into the way of the two Marchesi Castelmare. +The one is an opera singer, the other a painter. The former resolves on +making a conquest of the elder nobleman, and the latter does win the +affections of the younger. The uncle is described as the pattern of the +highest virtue, of stone-cold passions, of infinite proprieties; and La +Lalli, the syren, succeeds during the carnival in bewitching, maddening, +and befooling him into promise of marriage, and inspiring the most +deadly jealousy of any interference with his claim. A noble nature is +ruined by the fierce fires of a foolish attachment, and most tragic are +the issues. We will not diminish the fascination of the story by +revealing its secret. _La diva Lalli_ is actually murdered on the very +day when the old marchese has publicly admitted his intention to marry +her, and everybody but the murderer seems to have run the risk of having +to bear the brunt of the charge. More than a volume is occupied with an +endeavour to answer the question, 'Who has done the deed?' There is more +delicacy, and subtlety, and meaning in the inquiry, than in the inquiry, +'Who killed Tulkinghorn?' and the reader is reminded of the +heart-searching of Mr. Browning's 'Ring and Book,' rather than of Mr. +Dickens's popular story. The story cannot be called pleasing or +profitable. It is a wonderful drawing, full of brilliant effects, and +crowded with narrative and suggestion. The style is clear, and the +Italian expletives and appellatives give it an operatic grace and +sweetness that are very attractive. If '_tesoro mio_' had been +translated 'duck of diamonds,' and the rest of the prettiness turned +into plain English, perhaps the blue sky and the _circolo_ and the +_carnival_ would have had to vanish likewise. + + +_Against Time._ By ALEXANDER INNES SHAND. Two vols. Smith, Elder and Co. +1870. + +The machinery that Mr. Shand has contrived is clumsy, and looks like a +violent effort to be original. The hero of the story is put into +circumstances of maddening temptation to make money by unfair means. He +is exasperated by discovering that a relative has made him sole heir to +her vast estates, on the proviso that in the course of three years he +developes out of the few thousands that are left to him, a fortune equal +to that which he may then receive. On his failing to fulfil this +condition, the designation of the property is concealed from all except +a pair of contemptible villains, who endeavour to play a series of +underhand tricks to secure it ultimately for their own uses. The hero +came from the Kursaals of Germany to hear of this race that he had to +run 'against time,' and he is determined, by huge speculation, to win +the prize. The monetary scheme, the Credit Foncier and Mobilier of +Turkey, is described by one who has seen the eggs of many of these +vipers hatched in the sun of England's prosperity. There is a grandeur +about the conception, and a rapidity in the inflation of this great +balloon, that is enough to take away the breath of ordinary financiers. +The young aristocrat is the Ulysses in council, the Achilles in strife, +the Bayard _sans peur, sans reproche_; and though he makes, in the +course of three years, some quarter of a million sterling, and might +claim the possession of family estates, he has positively contrived to +withdraw the greater part of it from the 'concern,' and to have done it +without dishonour. He has been dabbling up to the elbows in boiling +pitch, and is neither scorched, nor blistered, nor defiled. Most +surprising is his nobility. When the bubble bursts, he has the +magnanimity and magnificence voluntarily to sacrifice his splendid +fortune, and more splendid prospects, at the shrine of the honour which +seems for a moment in the dust. Finally, of course it all turns out for +the best, and the young lady who has won the heart of the great +financier is prepared to second his sublime sacrifice, and as the two +are starting for Australia in beautiful poverty, it turns out that on +the bridegroom's failing to fulfil the conditions of the will, the +penniless bride has herself become the heiress of the immense estates, +and so the pair are happy ever after. There is much brilliant writing in +the story, some caustic satire, and a great deal of clever and pleasant +characterization. + + +_Diary of a Novelist._ By the Author of 'Rachel's Secret,' 'Nature's +Nobleman,' &c. Hurst and Blackett. 1871. + +The title of this volume is attractive. What speculations and hopes are +excited by the mere announcement, 'Diary of a Novelist!' The secrets +into which curious readers have attempted to pry are about to be +unfolded, the originals of the characters described are to be revealed, +a real personal living interest is to surround the author's fictions +ever after. What would we give to have such a diary from the pen of +George Eliot or Charles Dickens! But amid such a rush of eager +anticipations, we turn to the book itself, and find that no explanations +are given--the authoress does not lift the veil. It is the journal of a +year's most striking thoughts and noteworthy experiences. The first +feeling is one of disappointment that the volume is so different from +our expectations; but disappointment soon changes into hearty admiration +and sincere gratitude. It is emphatically a good book. Sympathy with all +that is beautiful and noble pervades the whole, and it is written with +the ease of a practised hand. The rippling chat runs on through a +succession of bright sunny scenes, ever and anon deepening into shady +pools of profounder thought, and then again merrily hastening on its +way. We are permitted to read the aims of this novelist's life, so true, +pure, earnest, that we involuntarily exclaim, 'O si sic omnia!' There is +also a cheerful religiousness in this diary, which will equally surprise +those who think that a fiction-writer's only use is for amusement, and +those who indiscriminately condemn all novels as unmitigated evils. The +following sentence gives us the key-note of the book:--'I like to feel +that this fair earth, which God has made, which even now, where man has +not marred it, keeps the touch of his hand upon it still--breathes back +its life to Him in love. And so the whole world becomes to me at once a +Temple and a Home--a place for worship and for happy life: and I live in +it, not alone, but sharing with all created things in the great Father's +care, and joining with them in their many-voiced psalm of love and +praise.' The charming sketches of natural scenery show the touch of an +artist and a poet; the outline descriptions of character reveal the +writer as a keen observer of human life; while her reflections on some +of the tangled problems of the world tell us that she, too, has wrestled +with the mighty mystery, and found peace only in trust. + +We notice an exuberance of enthusiasm which might be toned down with +advantage to the general style. The attempt to transcribe the Yorkshire +dialect is not successful; but, as we have ourselves failed in that +accomplishment, we appreciate the difficulty, and only notice the +fact--'a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.' + + +_The Iliad of the East._ By FREDERICK RICHARDSON. Macmillan. + +The title of this book is of course _ad captandum_; the East has no +Iliad, in any intelligible sense. What is here offered us is a series of +legends, taken from Valmiki's Sanskrit poem, the 'Ramagana,' and taken +from the French version of M. Fauche. It is a readable little volume, +and may be recommended to those who desire to obtain some slight +knowledge of the early Sanskrit poetry. When we compare a work like the +Ramagana with the Iliad and Odyssey, we cannot avoid the conclusion that +in the Greek mind there existed a vivid view of poetry, which is quite +absent from the Hindoo mind. Rama's adventures are absurdly grotesque. +We meet garrulous vultures, chivalrous monkeys, and so forth. The +supreme imagination, which obtains a sublime effect by depicting +humanity in its intensest forms, as in Achilles, Diomed, Odysseus, as in +Helen, Andromache, Penelope, has no place in the Oriental poems. They +are childish, exaggerated, mere nursery tales. The theorists, foremost +among whom is Mr. Max Müller, who conceived that both the Greek and +Sanskrit poetry come from one source, ought assuredly to explain to us +why there exists so wide a difference between the Homeric poems and all +the Oriental cycle. Homer's epic, like the goddess Athene, seems to have +sprung perfect in person and panoply from the brain of its creator. The +Eastern pseudo-epics are mere strings of ridiculous stories, with no +definite connection, no beginning, middle, or end. This manifest +literary difference would appear to indicate some definite racial +difference. Valmiki is not an entirely unreadable author, but between +Homer and him there is about as much difference as between Shakespeare +and Quallon. Now, what the Sanskrit scholars ought surely to do for us +is to state some theory whereby to account for the fact that their +favourite language contains no literature worth perusal. There is +neither the poetry of the Greek nor the theosophy of the Hebrew in +Sanskrit. Hence we venture to infer that there is some innate racial +distinction as yet undiscovered by the modern ethnologist. + + +_John._ By Mrs. OLIPHANT. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons. + +Mrs. Oliphant's delicate touch in social description is too well known +for it to be necessary to dwell upon it here. She is one of the few +lady-novelists who improve as they go on; the truth being that she has +never sought to obtain startling effects by absurd means, but has always +studied nature and human nature. In 'John,' re-published from +_Blackwood's Magazine_, which is a novelette rather than a novel, she is +very felicitous. There is no more story than Canning's knife-grinder had +to tell: it is a mere love-tale, 'Silly sooth,' as Shakespeare hath it. +John is a country parson's son, and Kate is a banker's daughter, and she +is thrown from her horse near the parsonage, and has to be taken there, +and as she convalesces makes sad havoc with poor John. A simple story, +but charming in its simplicity. The _situation_ is well conceived. Dr. +Clifford is a worldly person; his son John is utterly unworldly; +Crediton, the banker, is a plutocrat of the first force; Kate is a +spoilt child, who means to have her own way in marriage. The end of it +all is easily conceivable; but the comedietta is played out with +consummate skill, especially by its heroine. We are less interested in +her lover than in her; and although doubtless Mrs. Oliphant is an able +nomenclator, we venture to think that the book would have more properly +represented its title if that title had been 'Kate.' + + +_From Thistles--Grapes?_ By Mrs. EILOART, Author of 'The Curate's +Discipline,' 'Meg,' &c., &c. In three vols. Richard Bentley, Publisher +in Ordinary to Her Majesty, New Burlington-street. + +Given a bundle of thistles, how many bunches of grapes can it produce? +Answer, none. This theory Mrs. Eiloart seeks to develope to its fullest +extent; and, as a natural consequence, we find the miserable 'grapes,' +the son, dangling by the neck on the scaffold whither the testimony of +the 'thistles,' the unnatural parent, has sent him. There is nothing so +new or original in the plot of the novel as the title, which with its +note of interrogation at once arouses the interest of the reader, an +interest which unfortunately goes little further than the title-page. +The scene is laid in a cathedral town of England. Dr. Langton, a +sanctimonious divine, who has sown a terrible crop of wild oats, as well +as 'thistles' in his early youth, excites the enmity of one of his +parishioners, a ragged vagabond, who has been convicted of robbery, and +sentenced to one month's imprisonment in the county jail. The fellow, +having escaped from durance, is concealed by the hero till morning, and +succoured by the heroine in a wood, where he lies helpless and prostrate +from a sprained ankle. But unfortunately Dr. Langton, passing by that +way, discovers the poor wretch of whom the officers are in pursuit, +struggling amidst the brambles, and instantly gives the alarm. The +vagabond is consequently conveyed back to prison, muttering threats and +imprecations against his betrayer. From these preliminary incidents +arise a series of events, which, as they pass before us, we salute with +all the reverence to which they are entitled from their venerable age +and ancient service. But notwithstanding the long acquaintance we have +enjoyed, in the land of romance, with the greater part of the adventures +contained in these three volumes, some of them appear before us with +their old garments so delicately patched and mended with Mrs. Eiloart's +new materials that we willingly forget the proverbial weariness of the +thrice-told tale. The death of the heroine is well managed. The kindness +to the wretched offender, her efforts to drag him out of the mire into +the atmosphere of intelligence and feeling, meets with the usual result. +He becomes deeply enamoured of the sweet gentle girl according to the +brutal instincts of his nature, and pushes her through the wood even to +the brink of the precipice down which she is bent on throwing herself, +maddened as she is with the discovery of the hero's attachment to +another. The vagabond, whose brain is as usual muddled with beer, +suddenly becomes sobered at the sight of her peril, and rushes forward +to save her. Seizing her by the folds of her dress, the frail material +gives way, and a portion of it remaining in his hand and afterwards +found in his possession, becomes the circumstantial evidence, which +causes his arrest. Now the thistles come forward to bear witness to +having beheld the frantic flight of the girl through the wood, and the +subsequent appearance of the boor on the very spot where she had met +with her death. The testimony is crushing, the offender is condemned to +die, and mounts the scaffold proclaiming his innocence. The revelation +of the relationship in which he stands to his denouncer is made too +late, and Dr. Langton arrives with the proof of the young lady's +meditated suicide just in time to see his own illegitimate son swing in +mid-air as the drop falls, and the shoutings of the crowd announce that +all is over. The perseverance and tenacity of purpose which bear an +author through the labour of executing three goodly volumes unaided in +the task by incident, description, or dialogue, are beyond all praise. +'_Il est si facile de ne point écrire_,' exclaims Boileau. But the +lady-writers of modern times evidently reverse the saying--with them it +far more difficult to refrain. + + +_'Six Months Hence.'_ Being Passages from the Life of Maria _née_ +Secretan. Three volumes. Smith, Elder and Co. + +In the anonymous author of this story we have, we suspect, a new writer +of fiction, and of considerable power. The novel is mainly a +psychological one--although full of tragic incidents, and complicated in +its plot. Indeed, the story is constructed with a mechanical ingenuity, +which in the minuteness and mosaic of its incidents, is not unworthy of +the author of the 'Lady in White.' The story is told autobiographically +by the heroine, in a plain matter-of-fact way; full, however, of +psychological self-analysis that would do credit to the author of 'Dr. +Austin's Guests,' especially in the delineation of Fortescue's madness. +The heroine enters upon a situation as governess in the family of Mr. +Armitage, of Harcourt Villa, Hastings; who, being left a widower, with +a son and daughter, Charles and Helen, has married, a second time, a +woman of coarse nature and unscrupulous character, who has one son, +Fred, a little boy of six. A Mr. Fortescue, an accomplished and wealthy +young man, is a constant visitor at the villa, and is the presumptive +lover of Helen, although he has never declared his love. Helen, and +Maria, the governess, who are of the same age, become fast friends; +gradually, however, Mr. Fortescue transfers his attentions to Maria, +whose first guilt consists in yielding to ambitious desires, and +permitting in herself and Mr. Fortescue treachery to her friend. The +incipient attachment is strengthened by a long nursing of little Fred, +who meets with an accident; the rescue of Maria from the tide by Mr. +Fortescue precipitates matters, and they are secretly engaged to be +married; two or three days before the intended disclosure of the +engagement, and a few days before the intended marriage, Mr. Armitage +dies, having, through the machinations of his wife, made an iniquitous +will, whereby little Fred is made his heir in the event of his attaining +the age of twenty-one; should he die before that age, the estates revert +to the natural heir, no other provision being made. Maria and Mr. +Fortescue are married. On the very week of their arrival at Dalemain +Castle, Mr. Fortescue's seat in Cumberland, little Fred is +murdered,--Mr. Fortescue being absent from home on some business in +another part of Cumberland. Helen is suspected and tried; then suspicion +falls upon Charles, against whom circumstantial evidence is strong, and +public indignation stronger still. The mob at Lewes attempt to lynch him +on the day of his trial, and he receives injuries of which he dies. In +the meanwhile, Maria discovers that she has married a maniac, who +inherits the fatal taint from his grandmother. In the event of such a +contingency, by the grandfather's will, the property is to go to the +next heir. Now comes the struggle between Maria's cupidity and her +conscience; she tries to hide the fact of her husband's insanity, and +discovers that, under a strong hallucination, he has been the murderer +of little Fred. Again a struggle between selfishness and +conscience--Helen is accused of the murder, and Maria conceals the +evidence that will exculpate her, and, to put it out of her power to +save her, goes with her husband into Switzerland; there she hears that +the accusation is transferred to Charles, whom she has secretly but +passionately loved. What conscience would not do for Helen, love does +for Charles; she hastens to England with proofs of his innocence, but +arrives only in time to see him die of the injuries received from the +mob. All this is told with great power--the anatomy of selfishness in +herself, of madness in her husband, and of love in Helen and Charles is +very masterly, and almost painfully minute. The story is one of intense +interest, and gives promise of another powerful writer of fiction, who, +notwithstanding the feminine autobiography, and the minute analysis of +female passions, is, we suspect, of the sterner sex. + + +_The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson_. By One of the Firm. +Edited by ANTHONY TROLLOPE. Smith, Elder, and Co. + +Mr. Trollope has, in this little _brochure_, essayed the epic of modern +advertising. The following sentences epitomise the moral +thereof:--Robinson, _loquitur_--'Did you ever believe an advertisement? +Jones, in self-defence, protested that he never had. And why should +others be more simple than you? No man, no woman, believes them. They +are not lies; for it is not intended they should obtain credit. I should +despise the man who attempted to build his advertisement on a system of +facts, as I should the builder who lays his foundation on the sand. The +groundwork of advertisement is romance. It is poetry in its very +essence. Is Hamlet true?' + +'I really do not know,' said Mr. Brown. + +'There is no man, to my thinking, so false,' continued Robinson, 'as he +who in trade professes to be true. He deceives, or endeavours to do so. +I do not. Advertisements are profitable; not because they are believed, +but because they attract attention.' + +_Per contra._ 'The ticketing of goods at prices below their value is not +to our taste, but the purchasing of such goods is less so. The lady who +will take advantage of a tradesman, that she may fill her house with +linen, or cover her back with finery, at his cost, and in a manner which +her own means would not fairly permit, is, in our estimation, a robber. +Why is it that commercial honesty has so seldom charms for women? A +woman who would give away the last shawl from her back will insist on +smuggling her gloves through the Custom-house. Is not the passion for +cheap purchases altogether a female mania? And yet every cheap +purchase--every purchase made at a rate so cheap as to deny the vendor +his fair profit, is, in truth, a dishonesty--a dishonesty to which the +purchaser is indirectly a party. Would that woman could be taught to +hate bargains! How much less useless trash would there be in our houses, +and how much fewer tremendous sacrifices in our shops?' + +Those who read in the _Cornhill Magazine_ this sketch of the advertising +firm, its wonderful puffs, and the sensations they caused in +Bishopsgate; with the unromantic, hard, business-like match-making which +is interwoven with it, will remember with what a keen and somewhat +cynical satire, too much upon a dead realistic level perhaps, the story +is told. Those who have not read it there, are recommended to make +themselves acquainted with it. It is but 'An Editor's Tale,' but its +moral is wholesome and timely. + + +_Mariette; or, Further Glimpses of Life in France_. A Sequel to Marie. +Bell and Daldy. + +This story of humble life in the French provinces is intended as a +sequel to that of 'Marie,' and is a mere narrative of events occurring +in the daily existence of the humblest of serving women, who reports the +sayings and doings of her masters, through the incidents, political and +municipal, occurring in the good town of Nantes, where they reside. The +book is amusing enough, a sort of French country town chronicle, such a +record as Mrs. Gaskell would now and then give us of English life under +the same conditions; there is nothing in it to stir the +passions--nothing to irritate or vex; but on the other hand, nothing to +soothe or calm the nerves. It resembles a long unbroken chant, as if +from the lips of an aged crone, which neither commands the attention of +the listener nor prevents him from bestowing it on anything else, and +yet is regretted when it is over, simply because the scenes, the +characters, the conversations are all familiar to our memory, and +hallowed by long association. The little volume possesses one charm of +its own. It is written without the smallest pretension, easy and simple +in style, and delicately subdued in sentiment, in keeping with the +character and station of the supposed narrator. + + +_Lorna Doone._ A Romance of Exmoor. By R. D. BLACKMORE. Sampson Low. + +We spoke of this novel when it first appeared in almost the highest +terms of commendation that we could command. A re-perusal of it only +confirms our impression, that in scholarly conscientiousness, artistic +skill, and romantic interest, it more nearly approaches the best of the +Waverley novels than any fiction that has appeared since then. We can +give it no higher praise. We only wonder that it has so tardily won the +honours of a cheap edition. + + +_The Victory of the Vanquished._ A Tale of the First Century. By the +Author of the Schönberg-Cotta Family. T. Nelson and Co. + +In her new story, Mrs. Charles has ventured to tread the oft-trodden +paths of the age of the Incarnation, and with a delicacy, grace, and +devout tenderness that perhaps none of her predecessors have attained. +The story opens in Rome in the year A.D. 17. Its personages are a +captive German family, brought to Rome by Germanicus--slaves in his +household, first becoming acquainted with the pagan life at Rome, then +with the heaving Jewish life, which He who was Immanuel was stirring to +its depths. Jew and Roman, Greek and Christian represent the various +classes of contemporary life. Mrs. Charles is too refined and reverent +an artist to bring us into the actual presence of him who taught in +Capernaum; but we vividly feel and realize his life; and Siguna and her +children, Seivord and Hilda, and Laon, the old Greek, and Cloelia +Diodora, the Roman maiden, find its salvation. A more beautiful, +pellucid, and tender story has rarely been written. + + +_Chips from a German Workshop._ By F. MAX MULLER, M.A., Foreign Member +of the French Institute, &c. Vol. III., Essays on Literature, Biography, +and Antiquities. Longmans, Green, and Co. + +The first and second volumes of Mr. Max Müller's occasional essays on +the subject of comparative mythology, and on the so-called science of +religious development, received the modest and quaint title of 'Chips +from a German Workshop.' Our author has given the stress of his energy +and the prime of his life to great undertakings. His edition of the +'Rig-Veda,' and now his elaborate translation and interpretation of its +hymns, have not prevented his delivering important courses of lectures +on the Science of Language. The great assistance he rendered to Baron +Bunsen in his Oriental and philological speculations has been abundantly +recognised by all students of the greater works of Bunsen. But +scientific scholarship on this high scale has brought our author into +contact with other and allied themes of literary research; and we find +in the present volume a reprint of sixteen additional essays, of varied +interest and merit, which greatly enhance our idea of the wide extent of +Mr. Max Müller's scholarship, and are, moreover, of a class which may be +safely commended to the general reader. Comparative grammar is clearly +the key which this accomplished student of ancient and modern languages +is tempted to use on all occasions, and for the solution of all puzzles, +historical, theological, political, and even scientific. His keen and +penetrating eye sees analogies, histories, reaches of civilization, +bonds and bars of fellowship, in non-extant words, where one less +trained to the business would utterly fail to discover them; and his +linguistic omniscience makes us, in our ignorance, not seldom feel that +he is too clever by half, and that his conclusions come almost too 'pat' +upon his speculative theses. Be this as it may, we thank him very +heartily for the exceeding refreshment and peculiar charm of this +volume. The three articles on 'Cornish Antiquities,' on the question +'Are there Jews in Cornwall?' and on 'the Insulation of St. Michael's +Mount,' which were written in 1867, form a trilogy of extreme interest. +We have seldom read anything more perfect or complete in its way than +his demolition of Mr. Pengelly's plausible theory, that the Cornish +language was spoken before the insulation of St. Michael's Mount, in +Cornwall, could have taken place; even though, geologically speaking, +that event must be thrown back from 16,000 to 20,000 years. His learned +refutation of the idea that Jews worked in the mines of Cornwall, in +part effected by the discovery of the true etymology of the name of the +town Marazion, on which so much had been built, and his instructive +exposition of the nature and value of the Cornish antiquities and +language, will well repay perusal. + +The gem of the volume is the eloquent and affectionate tribute to the +memory of Bunsen, in the form of a review of his memoirs. To these Max +Müller has now added a valuable postscript, in a selection of some +hundred letters addressed to himself by the great scholar and +diplomatist. They are charged with kindly and generous feeling, and with +noble enthusiasm; and they give fresh insight into Bunsen's astounding +activity, far-reaching glance, and prodigious range of literary +endeavour. They would many of them be more intelligible if they were +read in their proper place in his biography; but the perusal of them +recalls the zest with which three years ago the memoirs of this great +man were devoured rather than read. We are not surprised that M. Müller +should say, 'It has been my good fortune in life to have known many men +whom the world calls great philosophers, statesmen, scholars, artists, +and poets; but take it all in all, take the full humanity of the man, I +have never seen, and I shall never see his like again.' + +One of the essays to which we would direct special attention is that on +the language and poetry of Schleswig-Holstein. The biographical articles +on Schiller, and Wilhelm Müller, and some of the shorter 'chips' on 'Ye +Schyppe of Fools,' 'Old German Love-songs,' and on 'A German Traveller +in England, A.D. 1598,' are racy, and highly entertaining. + + +_The World of Moral and Religious Anecdote; Illustrations and Incidents +gathered from the Words, Thoughts, and Deeds in the Lives of Men, Women, +and Books_. By EDWIN PAXTON HOOD. Hodder and Stoughton. + +Mr. Hood is a man who reads everything, and who, making allowance for +such slight inaccuracies as are characteristic of voracious readers, +forgets nothing that he has read. It would be difficult to name a man +better qualified to compile a volume of anecdotes. We wish, however, he +would not call Samuel Bailey, the thoughtful author of the 'Essays on +the Formation and Publication of Opinions,' Bail_lie_. Eccentricities of +this kind are frequent in Mr. Hood's writings, and not easy to be +accounted for. + +The volume published by Mr. Hood, under the more general title 'The +World of Anecdote,' has met with a reception so favourable, that he has +published this companion volume, 'The World of Religious Anecdote,' +filled with anecdotes of religious men or things, gathered from a very +wide circle of religious biography and history, and from all imaginable +miscellaneous sources--from a quarterly review to a newspaper. Mr. Hood +does not exaggerate the importance and significance of anecdote, either +in history or biography; if exactly told, such incidents as constitute +anecdote, indicate the movement or the man, more truthfully than formal +disquisition. We do not pretend to have read through Mr. Hood's +volume--this would be a task, less arduous only than to read through a +dictionary--but we have read enough of it cordially to commend it as a +repertory of many things that are both new and good, and of some that +are neither. + + +_The Essays of an Optimist_. By JOHN WILLIAM KAYE. Smith, Elder, and Co. + +Mr. Kaye tells us that he had no particular design when writing these +papers; no purpose, that is, of illustrating any special philosophy. +They were not to him a serious work--they were 'holiday tasks, written +by snatches, and sent off piece by piece as they were written; the loose +thoughts of a loose thinker, desultory, discursive,' written away from +books, 'in country inns, or sea-side lodgings, or other strange places +far away from home.' Criticism is exonerated from dealing in any serious +way with a book so produced. Literature is not thus achieved. +Cameo-cutting should be as artistic and patient as _genre_ painting. Mr. +Kaye is pleasantly garrulous, and intelligently superficial. He writes +as one would write good letters; and what he writes is very pleasant to +read. He throws the regulating good sense of a sober well-informed man +upon such matters as Holidays, Work, Success, Growing Old, Toleration, +&c. He has done and can do good work; therefore we accept with a certain +degree of interest these 'chips.' + + +_A Book of Golden Thoughts_. By HENRY ATTWELL, Knight of the Order of +the Oak Crown, &c. Macmillan and Co. + +This is one of the most charming volumes of the Golden Treasury series. +The author, with rare discernment and fine taste, has selected the +richest, sweetest thoughts of our greatest and wisest teachers on a +marvellous variety of themes, but all tending in the direction of high +spiritual culture. The apothegms or longer passages extracted from +French or German writers are translated with delicate tact and placed in +an appendix. The words of Pascal--_J'ecrirai ici mes pensées sans ordre, +et non pas peut-être dans une confusion sans dessein: c'est le veritable +ordre, et qui marquera toujours mon objet par le désordre même_--are +placed at the head of the volume. It would take a long time to try and +unravel the design of Mr. Attwell, but whoever wishes to have the +choicest words of Bacon, Pascal, Montesquieu, Goethe, Ruskin, Helps, and +many others, may find them here brought together into small compass, and +presented in a very attractive form. + + +_Publications of the Early English Text Society_. 1870. Extra Series. +Trübner and Co. + +X.--_The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, made by Andrewe +Boorde, of Physycke Doctor_. + +_A Compendyus Regyment, or a Dyetary of Helth_. By the same Author. + +_Barnes in Defence of the Berde_. + +XI.--_The Bruce_. By Master JOHN BARLOWE, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, A.D. +1375. + +These issues are not quite according to the Society's programme in their +report of January last, which, stated that three or four other works +besides the first part of the 'Bruce' were in the press for their extra +series of 1870, and made no mention of the volume which Mr. Furnivall +has edited. Indeed, the opportunity for his undertaking this work did +not, he tells us, occur until February, when he purchased an early copy +of the Dyetary at Mr. Corser's sale. + +Dr. Andrew Boorde or Borde, was a Carthusian monk of Henry the Eighth's +time, who 'was dyspensyd of the religion,' whatever that may mean--a +point obscure to Mr. Furnivall--travelled over a great part of Europe, +and returned to practise as a physician, having for his patient the Duke +of Norfolk, when that great noble was in the Royal favour. Of several +works which the Doctor wrote, Mr. Furnivall has printed two; in a +preface and epilogue which he is pleased to style 'Forewords and +Hindwords,' are collected many particulars of the author's life, and +long extracts from others of his writings. 'The Introduction of +Knowledge' is a book of travel, partly in rhyme, giving characteristics +and specimens of the languages of the several countries the author had +visited. The Dyetary is a book of hygiène, containing many prescriptions +which modern physicians would approve. Both tracts abound in quaint, +curious, and shrewd remarks. One of the Doctor's last works was a +treatise on beards, which he seems to have condemned, and to have +advocated shaving. For this Mr. Furnivall, who 'left off the absurdity +some three years before his neighbours,' thinks him 'a noodle,' as it +seems did 'Barnes, whoever he may be,' whose defence of the Berde is +here printed. There is, however, some reason to suppose that the learned +editor thinks Barnes was a noodle also. The subject is clearly a pet +with him. + +The 'Bruce' is well-known, and has been frequently reprinted, editions +having appeared as lately as 1856 and 1869. The last was issued after +Mr. Skeat had begun his labours; but its character was not such as to +lead the Society to desire less the completion of their own edition. +About half the poem is now printed. Mr. Skeat's preface and glossarial +index await the publication of the second part. John Barlowe was the +contemporary of Wycliffe, Chaucer, and Gower, and his poem is a worthy +member of the group of noble works which were the first fruits of +English literature. It may be called English, now that Scotland and +England have a common inheritance, though it is a Scot's story of his +countrymen's resistance to the dictation and encroachment of the English +king, and the Archdeacon would doubtless have scorned and repudiated the +epithet. The subject-matter of the poem is a great one. It tells how, on +the death of King Alexander, a doubt arose, whether, according to the +true law of inheritance, the Bruce or the Baliol ought to succeed to the +throne; how the dispute was referred to the arbitration of the English +Edward,-- + + 'For that the king of Ingland + Held swylk freyndship and company + To thar king, that was swa worthy + Thai trowyt that he as gud nychtbur, + And as freyndsome compositur + Wald have Iugyt in lawtes;' + +how, instead of judging loyally, he seized the opportunity for insisting +on his own claim to a feudal superiority over the Scottish crown, +deciding for the Balliol because he 'Assentyt till him in all his will,' +while the Bruce replied,-- + + Schyr, said he, sa God me save, + The kynryk zham I nocht to have, + Bot gyff it full off rycht to me: + And gyff God will that it sa be, + I sall as frely in all thing + Hald it, as it afferis to king; + Or as myn eldris foronch me + Held it in freyast reawte;' + +how English invasion and Scottish insurrection followed, and how the +long-baffled Bruce fought out his triumph. The story is told with +archaic simplicity, but with much grace of diction. + + +_The Riches of Chaucer, &c._ By CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE. Second Edition, +carefully Revised. Lockwood and Co. + +_Tales from Chaucer in Prose, designed chiefly for the use of Young +Persons_. By CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE. Second Edition, carefully Revised. +Lockwood and Co. + +Mr. Clarke is a veteran in the field of Shakespearian literature; +although this is not necessarily a qualification for the exposition of +Chaucer, who lived two centuries and a quarter earlier, and at the very +dawn of our literature: the scholarly character of his Shakespearian +work, however, is a presumption in favour of a worthy presentation of +Chaucer. The work itself justifies this presumption. The first of these +volumes is an expurgated, modernized, and accentuated edition of +Chaucer. Scholars, or perhaps we should say, pedants, will likely enough +turn up their noses at this, and pour upon Mr. Clarke the ridicule that +has been the meed of Bowdler; but Chaucer and Shakespeare stand in +different relations to modern popular readers. To such the archaic +language of Chaucer makes him simply unintelligible, while his +coarseness absolutely excludes him _puerisque virginibus_. No idolatry +of English literature can warrant a parent in putting Chaucer as he is +into the hands of his children. Nor can much moral benefit accrue to +anyone from his perusal. If, therefore, Chaucer is to be a popular book +at all, to be read by any but scholars, both processes are essential. +Mr. Clarke has every desirable qualification for the work, which demands +both a scholar and an artist. The accentuation of the rhythm too will be +a great help to unpractised readers. This edition of Chaucer may be put +into the hands of young people and modest women, with the assurance also +that it will be easily understood and thoroughly enjoyed. We trust that +through it our first and one of our greatest poets will be introduced +into schools and homes, and win a popularity hitherto denied him. + +The second volume is an attempt to reproduce the Tales of Chaucer in +modern prose after the manner of Lamb's 'Tales from Shakespeare.' This +is a far more arduous undertaking. Mr. Clarke tells us that he has +endeavoured to render the poetry in as easy prose as he could, without +at the same time destroying the poetical description and strong natural +expressions of the author. Some of the long discussions are omitted, as +of course is all that is offensive in coarse expression or allusion. The +task has been difficult. 'I was,' Mr. Clarke says, 'to be at one and the +same time modernly antique, prosaically poetic, and comprehensively +concise.' That he has succeeded in so large a degree is very high merit. +We trust his little volume will be widely read. + + + + +THEOLOGY AND PHILOLOGY. + + +_The Origin, and Development of Religious Belief._ By S. BARING-GOULD, +M.A. Part II.--Christianity. Rivingtons. + +We have already called the attention of our readers to the first part of +this remarkable work, in which the writer, taking the standpoint of +positive science and the facts of human nature, endeavoured to account +for the developments of religious belief in all ages and places, and +uttered his conviction that they all correspond to some necessity and +quality of human nature. He then hazarded the opinion that the true and +absolute religion would take account of, and embody, and satisfy, the +cravings expressed in the strange worship and religious ideas of all +peoples. He has now pursued his inquiry into the positive dicta of +Christian theology, and seeks to show that they rest on facts anterior +both to the text of Scripture and the very existence of the Divine +Society. Revelation, if it exists at all, must take up into itself all +the varieties not only of Mosaism or heathenism, but of polytheism, of +idolatry, fetishism, and mysticism, because these and many others are +facts of human nature, and have had a great part to play in the +development and progress of human thought. Christianity, to our author, +is true--and by Christianity he appears to mean the whole dogmatic and +hierarchical and social edifice of Catholicism, because it contains in +itself the utterance of all truths. All other religions and all sects +and schism of the one Church, so far as they hold positive truth, hold +only what the Church holds; their negations are to his mind 'nothing,' +and are destitute, therefore, of all vital power. The Quaker, the +Lutheran, the Anglican, the Greek, the Presbyterian, the modern +Christian philosopher, not to say the Pagan, the Arian, the Pelagian, +the Donatist, grasped severally and forcibly some one truth; perhaps +one-half of the antinomy presenting itself in some great synthesis. Let +this be granted, and, according to Mr. B. Gould, Catholicism held the +same great truth. It may be found embedded in her system, taught with +greater explicitness there than by the sectary; but each of these has +_denied_ some truth or placitum of Catholicism, and its negation has +been nothing, has added nothing to the value of belief as positive +truth. Yet with all this, the author falls foul of Rome at a hundred +points. The union between the Church and the temporal power is denounced +with unmeasured terms; the Papacy is a violation and a 'negation' of the +_oecumenicity_ of the Church, and the encyclical of Pius IX. comes in +for a series of terrific blows. The Inquisition and the persecuting +spirit which arose in Rome under the union of sacred and secular powers, +is treated with as sincere a condemnation as is every form of +Protestantism. Still further, when the author comes to deal with the +evidence for the Incarnation, on which his whole theory turns, he +disposes of every vestige of proof which may be supposed to linger in +the New Testament in favour of this stupendous mystery of grace, and +this 'conciliation of all antinomies.' The chapter on 'The Evidence of +the Incarnation' is a feeble _rechauffé_ of the most ultra type of +modern scepticism. Miracles and prophecy, the inspiration, authenticity, +and genuineness of the Gospels, the evidential value of specific +occurrences in the life of Christ, all go to the wall. Much is made of +discrepancies and contradictions, of the silence of contemporary +historians, and all the rest of it, with which we are so familiar; and +our author's conclusion is, that there is no evidence worthy of the name +for the chief fact on which the whole of the religious development of +Christianity turns. Relinquishing every proof of the divinity of Christ +derivable from the New Testament as less than useless, the grounds on +which he calls for a belief in the incarnation of God in Christ (who, by +the way, need not ever have existed as an historical character at all) +are, that 'such a union of divinity and humanity is necessary to me, +that my nature may find its complete religious satisfaction;' 'such a +dogma alone supplies an adequate basis for morals, establishes the +rights of man on a secure foundation, enables man to distinguish between +authority and force, conciliates my double nature, rational and +sentimental, and my double duties, egoistic and altruistic, and supplies +an adequate incentive to progress.' + +These several points furnish the matter of several chapters; and while +it must be observed here that Mr. Baring-Gould's 'negations,' as well as +those of other sectaries, are 'nothing,' and his condemnations and +denials of many positions for which the Catholic Christian would be +prepared to die, put him, in spite of himself, among the most extreme +left of the Hegelian school, yet his arguments on the worth of the dogma +of Incarnation, from his own point of view, deserve serious +consideration. After his numerous indications of a negative criticism +and spirit as hardy and audacious as could be well imagined, he sets to +work with a will, to blaspheme Protestantism as the negation of moral +truths. His monstrous perversions of Luther's and Calvin's position +merit severe castigation. Thus, 'Calvin denied free-will, and therefore +denied duty.' Can he have read the 'Institutes?' The statement 'that +Reformers denied the holiness of God,' with Jewel's 'Apology,' or any of +the Protestant symbols in his hand, is too flagrant a violation of +common fairness. The charge in this chapter against Protestants, that +they deny or negative the Personal Christ, and in a later chapter, that +they have only a dead Christ and not a present Christ to worship or +love, comes with a bad grace from one who has thrown away the evidence +of the existence or divinity of Christ as an historical fact. He appears +to glory in the sacramental system of the Romanist, and assures us that +the Protestant sacraments are reduced to two, and these are not baptism +and the Lord's Supper, but the 'Ministry' and the 'Bible;' the latter of +which, in its sacramental character, he pleasingly describes for his +purpose, as just so much 'washed-up rags and black treacle stains,' an +euphuism for the printed page, which is the _matériel_ for the +communication of such truth and reality as we poor destitute beings +possess. We are content. The mighty Word itself, with all its power to +kindle life and instruct intelligence, to stir the affections, and +discern even the thoughts and intents of the heart, is graciously +communicated to us by the printed page, and by the living voice of men +charged with the Holy Ghost; and for an actual communication of the +living Christ to our true nature, it is on an infinitely higher level +than that which can only reach our emotional nature through the medium +of our alimentary canal and gastric juices. When our author holds up to +heartless Protestants certain acts of special worship which Cardinal +Wiseman described so feelingly and poetically, we can hardly refrain +from telling him that such Cremorne splendours of religious awe, such +blendings of fetishism and wax-candles with the stupendous conception of +the ever-present Christ, will have little effect upon those whose +intellectual, moral, and sensuous nature have been brought into their +due relation with each other, who know the Christ, who love Him and +could die for him. + +There is much that is worthy of profound consideration in Mr. +Baring-Gould's positive assertions with reference to the Incarnation and +the Atonement, the dogma of immortality and the Christian sacrifice; but +he has a strange habit of putting a few transcendental propositions one +after the other, mounting up from a 'positive' basis to something like +'Catholic doctrine,' and then calling his string of dogmas, +demonstration. He appears perfectly rabid in his hatred of Protestantism +and Protestants, in his dislike of the doctrine of the Atonement, as +expounded in every phase of evangelical Christianity; and he never +wearies of accusing Protestants of worshipping a dead Christ, because +they cannot, after his Hegelian fashion, accept the Tridentine dogma of +transubstantiation and eucharistic sacrifice. With all his rapturous +admiration of the Church and denunciation of Protestants, it is +sufficiently amusing to find him perpetually--when he wants to give high +utterance to his most enthusiastic dream--driven to quote the poetry of +Sectaries; and once he is so far left to himself as actually to make +that heretic, Isaac Watts, do him some service, and say for him one of +his sweetest thoughts. After all said and done, we find him still +outside the Roman Church, and the next thing we may hear is, that his +interesting, eloquent, and original book is placed in the 'Index.' There +is surely scarcely a position of high importance adopted by him which +would not be repudiated by a Catholic theologian. + + +_The Athanasian Creed, and its usage in the English Church: an +Investigation, as to the General Object of the Creed, and the Growth of +prevailing Misconceptions concerning it._ A Letter to Very Rev. W. F. +HOOK, D.D., from C. A. SWAINSON, D.D. Rivingtons. + +This letter is extremely interesting, coming, as it does, on the morrow +after the publication of the Report of the Ritual Commissioners, and +following the courageous articles of Dean Stanley and Professor Maurice +in the _Contemporary Review_, and the long discussion of the subject in +the _Guardian_. Dr. Swainson is well entitled, by his prolonged studies +in this department of ecclesiastical literature, to be heard in defence +of the symbol of Athanasius. The upshot of his argument is, that it is a +'hymn,' and not a 'creed.' Here he does but re-echo the language of Dr. +J. H. Newman, Mr. Maurice, and others. He conceives, however, that he +has proved that it was in the first instance used to prepare candidates +for baptism, and that the damnatory clauses do not belong to it in +essence, and have not the same authenticity or value as the exposition +given in it of the Catholic faith; that their meaning is not intended to +cover every individual clause of the exposition, but to refer to the +Catholic faith as a whole; that they merely assert the grand distinction +which faith makes between those that are being saved and those that are +perishing for ever in the darkness of unbelief; that the inaccuracies of +the English translation are due to the influence of the Greek +translation of Bryling, and to the obscurity introduced by Luther's +version of it into German; that it ought to be 'sung,' in a true +translation, as an addition to the psalmody, and not in place of the +Apostles' Creed; that as 'the articles were never intended originally to +be made a test to be subscribed or enlarged from that point of view,' +the reference to the Athanasian Creed in the Articles does not bind us +to believe that every clause in it is agreeable to the word of God, any +more than a multitude of other propositions in the Articles, about which +it would be absurd to make a similar assertion. These various +refinements will not avail to reconcile the Anglican clergy to continue +much longer the use of a formulary which, though certain portions of it +may, by antiquarian scholars, be severed in thought from the rest, does +yet assume to the majority of those that are called to 'sing' or 'say' +it, the appearance of a homogeneous whole. Dr. Newman's description of +it as a war-song of the Church, is unquestionably true; if so, it does +condemn, in the language of triumphant dogmatism, the opinions of Arian, +Sabellian, and Apollinarian, as well as those who repudiate the Double +Procession of the Holy Spirit; and it declares that, without doubt, +those who hold such opinions shall perish for ever. Scarcely one in a +thousand of the Anglican clergy can believe in the obvious literal +interpretation of the symbol as a whole. + + +_The History and Literature of the Israelites, according to the Old +Testament and the Apocrypha._ By C. DE ROTHSCHILD and A. DE ROTHSCHILD. +Two vols. Longmans, Green and Co. + +The first element of interest to us in this work is, that it is a +history of the Jewish people and their literature, by members of their +own nation and faith. It must ever be of great interest and of great +importance to Christian students of the Old Testament to see the views +of it taken by Jews, who certainly do not bring to it the Christian +preconceptions which so often overlay and perplex its interpretation. +If, as we think, the interpretation of the modern Jew errs through his +refusal to see the relations of its predictions and types to Jesus of +Nazareth, it is certain that the interpretation of Christians often errs +through the excess of Christian allusion which they imagine themselves +to find there. One way of correcting the latter is to see how +intelligent, pious, and conscientious Jewish interpreters look at it. +Many things are placed by them in natural lights, which are not the less +artificial in Christian hands, because Christian thought and meaning are +imported into them. The Messrs. Rothschild, who claim the conjoint +authorship of the book, are accomplished and devout men, and are +remarkably free from polemical one-sidedness. A chaste and gentle +elegance of style, illumined with quiet lights of a poetic but +restrained imagination, make the volumes very pleasant to read. The +work, moreover, is popular in form. Its critical power is not great, and +the criticism that there is, is latent rather than formal, and is +exhibited in its results rather than in its processes. It is sufficient, +if not to determine great controverted questions, yet to give +intelligence to the quiet assumption of conclusions. Nothing is debated, +everything is assumed and affirmed as unquestionable truth, although +there are indications that the writers are aware of the positions of +modern criticism. + +The first volume is a simple recast of the Old Testament story; the +ordinary conclusions of popular orthodoxy are accepted. It makes no +pretensions to the rectification and reconstruction of Ewald or Stanley; +Ewald, indeed, is not once referred to. This volume, therefore, which +completes the history, calls for no remark, except that it is written +freshly and pleasantly. The second volume, which deals with Hebrew +literature, presents many more points for criticism. The writers have +arrived at conclusions, some of which are warranted by the most +authoritative judgments of modern scholarship; others of which are so +far from this, that it was almost incumbent upon the authors to justify +their assumption of them. They are such as these,--that there were two +Isaiahs, the first living down to the time of Josiah, the second a +hundred and fifty years later in the time of Cyrus--the one the prophet +of prosperity, the other of adversity; that the Messianic prophecies of +the latter, those contained in the fifty-third chapter for instance, had +reference to contemporary martyrs; that the traditions of Jonah, the +fretful prophet, were handed down through many generations, until they +were embodied in their Biblical form by some able writer of the +Babylonian period; the writers, however, repudiate the idea of its being +a legend, and contend for its historical character--that the book of +Daniel was written about the year B.C. 160; that the canonical book of +Psalms was ever used or intended to be used 'as a kind of liturgy of the +Jewish Church,' and 'that the poems were made to serve this purpose, +however different their original object might have been;' that the book +of Job was an imaginative drama, or dialogue, written about the +Babylonian period, constructed to prove the true doctrine of human +calamity; that the book of Ecclesiastes was written 'in the Persian, if +not in the Macedonian period,' and that the author 'put his ideas very +appropriately into the mouth of King Solomon;' that the 'Song of +Solomon' was 'written not long after the death of Solomon, by a poet +living in the Northern Kingdom,' was supposed to be the production of +Solomon himself, and 'naturally believed to have a religious tendency,' +and that through this misconception it obtained its place in the Canon. + +As the writers give no reasons for their assumptions, it is impossible +to indicate the reasons of our agreement with them or difference from +them; we content ourselves with remarking, that the absence of reasons +in matters so greatly controverted, deprives the volume of scholarly +character and critical value. We can only say that, taking it for what +it is, it is an intelligently and agreeably written book. Although +making no pretensions to the ability or historical power of Stanley's +'Jewish Church,' it does not fall into any of his great assumptions. The +general remarks on the office and character of the Prophets, and on the +schools of the Prophets, are very meagre and feeble compared with the +chapters of Dr. Payne Smith, or of Dean Stanley. The work, indeed, must +be commended as simply a popular and uncritical reproduction from a +Jewish point of view of the Old Testament story. + + +_Present Day Papers on Prominent Questions in Theology._ Edited by the +Right Reverend ALEXANDER EWING, D.C.L., Bishop of Argyll and the Isles. +Strahan and Co. + +These pamphlets have been published separately, and subsequently +collected into a volume. The first bears the title 'The Atonement,' by +the Rev. Wm. Law, a reprint of that great writer's 'Dialogue on the +Atonement,' with an elaborate introduction; the second, by the editor, +is on 'the Eucharist;' the third to the sixth are anonymous, under the +titles 'The Rule of Faith,' 'The Present Unbelief,' 'Words for Things,' +and 'Meditations and Prayers;' the seventh is a translation of Luther's +theses on 'Justification by Faith,' by the Rev. J. Wace. It is +impossible to deal with these papers separately in the compass of a +brief notice. One strong spirit pervades almost the whole of them. The +burden of several is to charge upon Evangelical doctrine the entire +blame of the 'present unbelief,' to represent that which we hold to be +the essence of the Gospel of Christ as little better than blasphemous +misunderstanding of God, as immoral, as defamatory to the true nature of +God and the work of Christ. It is urged that Socinians and infidels +would have had their deadliest weapon wrenched from their hands, if +schoolmen and theologians had not perverted the Gospel by representing +the Atonement of Christ as a means adopted to reconcile the Father to +his rebellious children, propitiate His wrath, or satisfy His justice. +We quite agree so far as this with Mr. Law, and with the spirit of +several of the pamphleteers. If the Church of Christ had been converted +to the view of Christ's work held by the Socini and their followers, +such disbelievers would have gained a great victory. The doctrine of +'substitution' is the _bête noire_ of these writers. Whatever else they +attempt to explain away or refute or repudiate, this hated doctrine +comes in for condemnation. The editor, in his paper on the Eucharist, +devotes great space to show that the 'basis of morality is overthrown by +the idea of a substituted or equivalent righteousness, ... all true +conception of the righteousness and holiness of God is lost, and we are +only saved from profanity ... by our non-observance of its real nature.' +To 'accept the sacrifice of the Son' in lieu of man's righteousness, or +in place of man's punishment, 'is a terrible misconception,' changing +'all that we naturally know and believe about God, as good and right, +into darkness.' The paper on the 'Present Unbelief,' which turns on +man's indisposition to recognise the self-evidencing revelation of God, +and propounds much wise and true remark on the undue reverence paid by +men and Churches to the logical processes once needed for special combat +with evil, but now no longer useful, tells us that 'the definitions of +God too often among ourselves, of God under the name of Christ Jesus, or +the anointed Saviour, have been too similar to the heathen--to Saturn +devouring his children, painted, no doubt, in milder colours, and +clothed in decent cloud, but very near the old heathen conception, the +old pictures of the Greeks.' 'God was not only in danger, but lost by +such a belief.' The author of the paper on 'the Rule of Faith,' after +much vague declamation and mystical enthronement of the inner life, says +what is very excellent on the fact 'that the proof of revelation being +true from the character of its operation, is the highest kind of proof, +and is not liable to the accidents which affect other or external +evidence.' He lays great emphasis on that inner verification of revealed +truth which also makes it to be revelation to each man. 'The God of +another is not my God; He is not my God by authority; I must be the +authority myself.' After developing the older 'rule of faith,' as +understood by the writer, and saying some useful though not very +satisfactory or clear things about the canon of Scripture, he endeavours +to show that the old 'rule of faith and practice in Christ has been +essentially altered.' The climax of the offence of modern theology is +represented here and elsewhere in these papers as a transformation of +the statements, 'God so loved the world that He gave His Son for it,' +into 'God so loved his Son as to give the world for Him.' What the +writer means we are at a loss to understand, but he actually tells us, +with a very grave and solemn look, that 'in the theology of substitution +the way is turned into the end,' 'darkness is brought in at the centre,' +God's 'love for man, as such, and individuals, as such, was lost sight +of, and the soul left to a conventional relationship with Him which +left it entirely outside, and from whence it could draw no nourishment.' +All we can say here is, that the author does not understand the alphabet +of the doctrine of substitution, or has wilfully misrepresented it. The +introduction to the reprint of William Law's dialogue is full of these +misconceptions, and seems utterly blind to the mighty powers of the new +life which, in the reformed theology, are the direct form in which the +justification of the soul by faith in Christ's sacrifice becomes a +matter of experience or consciousness. The paper on 'Words for Things' +is largely occupied with the same theme. That man should not suffer to +the full the consequences of his sins in this world and the next seems, +we suppose, to these writers a fearful violation of order; that the work +of Christ should be adapted to save a man from his sins by guaranteeing +and assuring him of the Father's forgiveness is incomprehensible to +them. To us this state of mind is only explicable on the supposition +that these writers cannot have felt the awfulness, hideousness and peril +of sin against the irresistible order in the midst of which we are +placed. Christianity seems to us a very worthless thing if this key-note +of its melody, this key-stone of its masonry be abstracted. From +Confucius to Marcus Antoninus, from Seneca to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, +from English Deists to French Positivists, we are _told_ by sages and +philosophers of all kinds to be good and self-sacrificing, to love God +and our neighbour, and do justice and love mercy, and that all will be +well. Leave out of Christianity the 'grace' that, to a broken heart and +to a mind conscious of guilt, comes not only with the Divine life that +makes a man a new creature, but with the assured conviction that the +order of God's universe, the will of the Father, the justice of His +rule, are manifested in His infinite love to the world through the death +of His Son; leave out the sublime truth that pervades the whole +revelation, and then the Bible and the Christ have little more to tell +us than we can find in enlightened heathenism and pagan philosophy. +There is much in these papers of which we cordially approve, and for +which we feel grateful; but this dead-set at what seems to us the heart +of Christianity wounds and distresses us. Mr. Wace's translation of +Luther's theses is pitched in another key, and deserves separate +treatment. + + +_The Theology of the New Testament._ A Handbook for Bible Students. By +the Rev. J. J. VAN OOSTERZEE, D.D. Translated from the Dutch by MAURICE +J. EVANS, B.A. Hodder and Stoughton. + +_Biblical Theology of the New Testament._ By CHRISTIAN FRIEDEREK SCHMID, +D.D., late Professor of Theology, Tübingen. Translated from the Fourth +German Edition. Edited by C. WEIZÄCKER, D.D. By G. H. VENABLES. +Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark. + +_The Theology of Christ from His own Words._ By JOSEPH P. THOMPSON. New +York: Charles Scribner. + +We anticipate great advantage from the translation of these two +excellent manuals. We are learning in this country to value 'historical +theology' and the genesis and development of Christian ideas. Many +efforts have been made to present to the student the first stages and +earliest forms of this wondrous element of religious thought. Neander in +his 'History of the Planting of the Christian Church,' Reuss in his +'Histoire de la Théologie Chrétienne,' and Dr. Bernard in his Bampton +Lecture, have made us familiar with the fact that the teaching of the +New Testament, though resulting in glorious harmony, is yet not +homogeneous, and reveals throughout a progress from less to more--from +germinant seeds to rich efflorescence, from mysterious reticence to open +secrets, from fundamental principles to elaborate and systematic detail. +The peculiar type of doctrine conspicuous in the Synoptic Gospels +differs from the spirit and burden of the fourth gospel. The Petrine +doctrine is not identical either with Pauline or Johannine theology. We +are, perhaps, too apt to explain the language of James by that of Paul, +or both by that of John, without sufficiently taking into account the +specific teaching of each Evangelist and each Apostle. Dr. Oosterzee's +'Biblical Theology' presents, in small compass, the results of much +careful study, and seeks, at each stage of the inquiry, to place the +student in relation with the authors of the New Testament respectively, +and with them alone for the time being. The references to literature are +ample, and various points of stimulating inquiry are suggested. The +author does not go very deeply into the separate positions, nor does he +attempt any elaborate exegesis of the Scriptures cited in proof of the +induction he makes. The Evangelical bias of the inquiry is not +concealed, and his summaries of doctrine and the higher unity which he +claims for the somewhat divergent forms, reveal very clearly the +dogmatic tendencies of his own investigations. We can most cordially +commend this work--especially to those who have not access to larger and +more voluminous treatises--as an admirable compendium of Biblical +theology, and a valuable preliminary to all honest study of scientific +and dogmatic theology. + +The second work mentioned above pursues the same general theme, and +contrasts the Biblical theology of the New Testament with exegesis on +the one hand and systematic divinity on the other. This manual is a +translation by Mr. G. H. Venables of the fourth German edition of the +late Dr. Schmid's work as edited by Dr. Weizäcker, and is a far more +elaborate treatise than that of Dr. Oosterzee. It is divided into two +parts, the one a development of the teaching of Jesus, and the other an +exposition of the teaching of the Apostles. The first part is preceded +by an historical review of the life of Jesus, and the second by a +fruitful and suggestive sketch of the lives of the Apostles. The +strength of learning and high analytical powers of the author are +reserved for the doctrinal review, and very beautifully does he bring +forth the teaching of our Lord under the three divisions--(_a_) the +glorification of the Father in the Son, involving the full sublime +teaching of Christ with reference to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; +(_b_) the redemption of man, including the object of redemption, man and +the world, and the subject of redemption in all His relations; and (_c_) +the whole teaching of Christ about the kingdom of God, which is +identified with the Church; there the author reveals his sacramentarian +proclivities, and his high idea of the function of the Church and +development of the kingdom both in this world, and that which is to +come. In developing the teaching of the Apostles, his chief point is +that that of James and Peter presents Christianity as in living unity +with the Old Testament, and that of Paul and John in its fundamental +distinction from the Old Testament. Great care and skill are shown in +showing how the teaching of Paul and John roots itself in the previous +teaching of Jesus, and the result of the entire discussion affords high +subsidiary proof of the unity of the New Testament, the authenticity of +the later as well as the earlier of Paul's Epistles, and the fundamental +identity of doctrine in the Apocalypse and fourth Gospel. + +Dr. J. P. Thompson of New York, in the third work mentioned above, has +confined himself to the high, grand, noble theme of illustrating the +'theology of Christ.' He takes, as we think, higher and broader ground +in his illustration of the 'kingdom of God' than either Dr. Oosterzee or +Dr. Schmid, and admirably states the truth when he represents the Church +as a form of the kingdom of God, embracing the whole 'commonwealth of +believing souls who, through all diversities of race, language, and +ecclesiastical institution, fraternise in the love of Christ.' Dr. +Thompson developes the teaching of Christ under a great variety of +themes which are not concatenated in any such classification as Dr. +Schmid's, though they traverse much of the same ground. Such topics as +'prayer,' 'providence,' and 'eschatology,' occupy much of the space. The +exposition is wise, candid, and eloquent. + + +_A Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology._ Edited by the Rev. +JOHN HENRY BLUNT, M.A., F.S.A. L--Z. Rivingtons. + +We see no reason for modifying the judgment of Mr. Blunt's Dictionary +which we ventured to pronounce upon the first section of it. His +extensive knowledge is beyond all doubt, and his indefatigable industry +beyond all praise. We give him all credit for both painstaking and +conscientiousness; but he sorely lacks the scholarly faculty of using +his knowledge in a dispassionate way. Rash assertion, hasty +generalization, partial and illogical inference, disfigure every page of +his Dictionary. Mr. Blunt is fairly carried away by his sacramentarian +theories; they possess him like a fever, and affect both his vision and +his judgment. Above most of his brethren even, and that is saying very +much, he infuses a polemic into every scrap of antiquarian fact that he +can collect, and into every particle of reasoning that his ingenuity can +devise. We are aware that a statement like this is a very grave +accusation, and that it can be substantiated only by a patient +induction such as a brief notice will not permit; but we pledge our +critical judgment to the assertion that there is not a page in which +statements do not occur, which no judicial mind can accept. Thus, on the +very first page, _sub voce_, 'Laity,' Mr. Blunt chooses to interpret the +Hebrew word [Hebrew character], which Gesenius and all lexicographers +render 'people'--in the sense of nations--by the ecclesiastical word +'laity,' _i.e._, the people as distinguished from the priests. This +enables him to give to a number of instances in which the word occurs +just the twist of interpretation that his theory demands. Surely a +conscientious scholar would refrain from giving a general term such a +special significance for the sake of sustaining an ecclesiastical +theory. It matters not that the term is sometimes used in this sense, +and is applied to the people as distinguished from the priests--Mr. +Blunt treats it as the generic sense. Under the word 'Latitudinarianism,' +among much prejudiced statement, we meet this astounding assumption, +'this article (the 18th of the Church of England) is somewhat loosely +worded; but by comparison of the language used with the use of similar +language in the New Testament, it will be plainly seen to amount to a +statement that salvation is only to be obtained within the boundaries of +the Church.' Under the word 'Lay-Co-operation' we have this unscholarly, +and must we not say spiteful, assumption: 'Puritanism confounded the +idea of the [Greek: klêros] and the [Greek: laos], and if the phrase +"co-operation of the laity" had been known to it, the theory of such +co-operation, as well as the practice, would have been resolved into a +substitution of the laity for the clergy, by setting the former to do +those works chiefly or solely which especially belong to the office of +the latter.' Is it the function of a theological dictionary to utter +hypothetical prophecies founded upon rash and gratuitous statements, and +conceived in a spirit of theological malice like this? Under the head +'Lay Priesthood' we read: 'This sacerdotal function of the Christian +laity is a consequence of the anointing which they receive from God the +Holy Ghost in baptism and confirmation.... The Holy Eucharist is offered +at the altar by the priest ordained for that purpose, and the lay priest +co-operates with him by saying "Amen" at the giving of thanks.' Will Mr. +Blunt permit us to say that no lay scholar could possibly have been +guilty of such desperate assertions? + +Passing over the word 'Limbo,' and some regrets that it cannot be used +on account of prejudice, although perfectly unobjectionable in itself, +we find under the word 'Liturgy' the usual assumptions of men of Mr. +Blunt's school, _e.g._, 'the circumstances under which, the Holy +Eucharist was instituted, make it absolutely certain that the Apostles +celebrated it from the first with a considerable amount of ritual +preciseness, and the same circumstances make it probable that they also +used from the beginning some liturgical form. It seems to be unnecessary +to prove that the Apostles used some set form of liturgy in celebrating +the memorial of their Lord.' And yet if Mr. Blunt would condescend to +furnish such proof, it would convert to his views of things one-half of +Protestant Christendom. + +Under the word 'Lollards,' Mr. Blunt is disingenuous enough to cite +against Wickliffe the articles prepared for his indictment in the trial +before Archbishop Courtenay; among them, '7. That God ought to obey the +devil;' and then to say, 'Such was the teaching initiated by Wickliffe, +and assiduously promulgated by his followers.' It is surely a new thing +to adduce an indictment of enemies as a witness to character. Does Mr. +Blunt really believe that this was Wickliffe's teaching? If he does, +what are we to think of his scholarship? If he does not, what are we to +think of his candour? + +This brings us only to 'Ló,' under the first letter in this division of +Mr. Blunt's work. We need not say that these are fair samples of the +whole. We protest against such gross assumptions and perversions in the +name of simple scholarship. We greatly regret that so much labour and +knowledge are thus perverted to the aims of the fanatical polemic. His +book is not without its value, but it sorely tries the patience of a +simple inquirer after fact and truth. Mr. Blunt has done his best to +make worthless a work that might have been a valuable contribution to +popular ecclesiastical knowledge. + + +_The Leading Christian Evidences, &c._ By GILBERT WARDLAW, M.A. +Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark. + +_The Evidences of Christianity in the Nineteenth Century._ By ALBERT +BARNES. Blackie and Son. + +We have bracketed these two volumes together, not simply because they +are alike in theme, but because by a peculiar coincidence they are +complementary of each other. Written as we need scarcely say, altogether +independently, they yet arrive by opposite methods at similar +conclusions. From Scotland and from America come the same earnest, +forcible national testimony to the truth of Christianity. There are both +likeness and unlikeness. Each author treats his subject in a clear, +attractive, popular manner, candidly confessing difficulties where such +exist, yet carrying the reader forward by the almost irresistible power +of his reasoning to the most decided conviction. The literary style is +eminently different, as is to be expected when two diverse thinkers +express themselves on a common topic. This, however, arises not only +from the individuality of the writers, but also from the very +circumstances in which their works were produced. Mr. Gilbert Wardlaw +has been 'secluded, during the later years of life, from other +opportunities of service to the cause of truth,' and his book therefore +bears the impress of a thoughtful mind evolving for itself arguments in +support of a faith in which has been found the truest consolation during +years of retirement. We imagine that his very seclusion from active life +has compelled him to re-examine in the light of modern scepticism the +foundations of his belief. His work is characterized by a calmness and +quiet force which we cannot too highly admire, and which must be +productive of the happiest results upon the minds of sincere doubters. +Mr. Barnes's volume, on the other hand, had a different origin. It +consists of a series of Lectures in a Theological Seminary, which are +somewhat elaborate, diffuse, and theoretical, and were evidently +intended to produce an immediate impression on an audience by their +style as well as their matter. Yet each work is admirable. Both should +be studied together, since they look at the argument from diverse +stand-points. Their methods of treatment, not only in manner but +substance, are in harmony with the circumstances in which these volumes +originated. The one may be described as the subjective, the other the +objective method. Mr. Wardlaw, believing that the moral aspect of the +Christian revelation and the attitude of the inquirer are the most +important preliminary questions in determining the truth of +Christianity, commences with the internal and experimental evidences; +while Mr. Barnes deals with external proofs, looking at the Bible as a +book to be accounted for on historical grounds. It has been a real +mental gratification to study these diverse methods, and to watch how, +though travelling by distinct lines of thought, both authors arrive at +the conviction that Christianity is from God. The volumes are in many +ways helpful to each other, for if Mr. Wardlaw's seems to suffer from +condensation, leaving too much to his readers' minds, the same points +are often elaborated by Mr. Barnes with abundance of detail. It would +have been an improvement if, in 'The Leading Christian Evidences,' +italics or some other form had been adopted by which the successive +stages of the argument would have been indicated, so that we could at a +glance gather up the main points discussed. We do not venture on any +criticism of positions which we consider weak or unsound, as our space +is limited, and therefore content ourselves with congratulating these +authors on their well-reasoned additions to our apologetic literature. + + +_The Brahmo Somaj._ Lectures and Tracts. By KESHUB CHUNDER SEN. First +and Second Series. Edited by SOPHIA DOBSON COLLETT. Strahan and Co. + +We have on previous occasions given considerable space to the remarkable +movement in Hindu thought which is known to us under the above title. +Some of these lectures, notably that on 'Jesus Christ--Europe and Asia,' +have long been before us, and offer a remarkable sign of the effect +produced on Indian society, by the truth of Christ's life, and its +sublime ideal of conformity with the will of God enshrined in the +Gospels. The lack, the negation, the blank in the theology of Mr. Sen +need not be wondered at. This is a very different phenomenon from a +similar mental position when adopted by a professedly Christian teacher. +These lectures and tracts will receive special attention in consequence +of the recent visit to England of this remarkable man, whose obvious +earnestness and passionate yearnings after the regeneration of India +have produced so deep an impression. We do not in the least sympathize +with the hasty disposition shown by some to accept Mr. Sen as a prophet +of an undogmatic theism, nor with his somewhat arrogant address to +English Christians from certainly very small acquaintance with them and +their work. All that he knows of the higher life of faith and true +holiness, and all the stimulus that his own moral nature and Hindu +society have received of late years, are so conspicuously due to the +indirect effects of missionary labour and Christian teaching, that his +disposition to ignore the source of the new light that has flooded his +soul is unsatisfactory in the extreme. At the same time, we do rejoice +at the moral dignity and spiritual ideal and religious exercise which he +is proclaiming to his countrymen. His protest against Pantheism, his +grasp of the idea of 'the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man,' +of man's sin, and need of regeneration, of man's dependence, and need of +faith and resignation, of self-sacrifice and prayer, are very +instructive. But let us clearly recognise the position assumed by him, +that Hinduism and Mahometanism are themselves, in some purified form, to +'harmonize and form the future Church of India.' The words of Jesus or +His Apostles are often quoted by him with respect, as something +'excellently and wisely said,' but there is no acknowledgment of fealty +to the Lord, no Gospel but what he calls 'the Gospel of Divine mercy,' +based upon his own intuitions and experiences. + +'The true faith,' which is expounded in a series of apothegms arranged +under a variety of headings, is intended to appeal to those who are +accustomed to the style of some of the best of the sacred books. There +is much that is most excellent and Christian in its tone of feeling, +beautiful and attractive in form, lofty in conception and ideal, as were +the meditations of Antoninus. He and his friends reveal the potent +influence, the pungent leaven, the grain of mustard seed, that has been +cast into the Oriental mind. They are feeling after God and finding Him. +God has given them by His Spirit some faith. May it daily grow to more +and more! + + +_Christus Consolator._ The Pulpit in Relation to Social Life. By +ALEXANDER MACLEOD, D. D. Hodder and Stoughton. + +_Ad Clerum._ Advices to a Young Preacher. By JOSEPH PARKER, D.D. Hodder +and Stoughton. + +_A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons._ By JOHN A. +BROADUS, D.D., Philadelphia. Smith, Elder, and Co. + +The literature of homiletics is becoming almost redundant. It is +singular that every man whose business it is to teach this difficult +science is dissatisfied with the text-books and manuals that his +well-meaning predecessors have prepared for him, and tries his hand at a +new one. We cannot see any very sufficient reason for the work of Dr. +Broadus. It is neither better nor more comprehensive nor more helpful +than the well-known treatises of Vinet, Kidder, and Shedd. It is not so +philosophical as M. Vinet's, nor so erudite as Dr. Kidder's, nor so rich +and suggestive as Dr. Shedd's. It goes over the old ground in very much +the old way, and tells some of the old stories, and gives much the same +old advice. Those who can work by rule, and who thoroughly trust the +rule-maker, will find the subject carefully and exhaustively but not +energetically treated by Dr. Broadus. The contrast between Dr. Broadus +and Dr. Parker is great. The 'Advices to a Young Preacher' are racy, +caustic, and stimulating. They are not confined to the great theme, but +wisely condescend to give useful hints on little things. The personal +allusions to living men, the astounding eulogiums passed by Dr. Parker +on some of his brethren, the withering satire pronounced on others, the +conversational criticism on certain printed sermons, and the familiar +epistolary offer to all and sundry to send the respected author a sermon +to criticise, almost take the breath out of one's mouth, and certainly +remove the volume from the range of ordinary literature. The specimen +prayers introduced by the author, though very excellent in their way, +appear out of place. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, the book is full +of strong and wise advice. Here is caricature and broad farce, and +extreme exaggeration and violent personal attack under assumed or blank +names, all of which are strangely out of tune with the manly and +reverent tone of the author when he touches the deepest themes. A +preacher of such high reputation and undoubted success must be listened +to by young preachers with great interest. Dr. MacLeod's volume has +greatly delighted us. Seldom have the high functions of Christian truth, +and the possibilities of the pulpit, been more powerfully or more +candidly put. We wish that some of the unsuccessful men whom Dr. Parker +grinds to powder, would ponder with the aid of this volume the sublime +work which may even now be within their reach. Dr. MacLeod has described +with singular power and freshness 'the preacher as an _Elevator_, as a +_Healer_, as a _Reconciler_, as an _Educator_, as a _Liberator_, and +_Regenerator_.' Under these several headings he has touched the sorest +places in our social life, has carried a torch into some of the darkest +chambers of human sorrow and need, and has shown the mission of +Christianity and the function of its minister with conspicuous success. +Dr. MacLeod is wise and stringent, moreover, in his condemnation of +those who only preach fragments of the truth of God. His rebuke has a +loving, helpful peal in it, which makes the heart soft, and calls aloud +for higher effort and more consecrated zeal. There is neither +common-place exaggeration nor rasping personality; it is full of wisdom, +strong sense, and earnestness. + + +_Culture and Religion in some of their Relations._ By J. C. SHAIRP, +Principal of the United Colleges of St. Salvator and St. Leonard, St. +Andrew's. Edinburgh; Edmonston and Douglas. + +The volume before us consists of five lectures delivered by the +principal of the United Colleges of St. Leonard and St. Salvator, on a +theme of high interest, at a time when the elevating process indicated +by the rather vague term 'culture' bids high to supersede the divine +claim and authoritative sway of religion. Professor Shairp, though +dealing with the relations of culture and religion in a vein and manner +suited to popular address, reveals on every page his own deep sympathy +with the paramount claims of religious truth and the spiritual life of +man, and a large-hearted appreciation of those aspects of 'culture,' +which its exclusive advocates imagine never to have shed their light on +deeply religious minds. With great dexterity, if, in the present case, +such a term is applicable, our author shows that starting from a fair +definition of 'culture,' 'it must embrace religion and end in it;' and +on the other side, that Christianity is the great harmonizing principle +of human affairs, bringing one region of human cultivation after another +under its sanctifying influence 'to reconcile all true human learning +not less than human hearts to God.' In lecturing on the 'scientific +theory of culture,' our author exhibits the ideally educated man on +Professor Huxley's theory, and quotes and criticises the celebrated +comparison drawn by him between the liberal education he demands, and +the acquaintance which an imaginary chess-player should possess with the +laws of the mighty game with nature, on the success of which his fortune +and his life depend. Mr. Shairp has shown with great beauty and force of +expression, that if there were no other than the fixed laws of this game +determined by scientific investigation, 'men would be more than ever +driven inward, and their natural selfishness be tenfold concentrated and +intensified;' that for the 'tender conscience' which Mr. Huxley +postulates as an element in wisely playing this great game of life the +'theory' makes no provision; and indeed that such conscience, though the +highest part of a man's nature, would be no help, but a hindrance, to +any successful issue of the struggle. The scientific theory of culture +leaves out facts of our nature which are as certain, though not so +apparent, as any fact which science registers. With fine appreciation of +all the excellencies of Mr. Arnold's theory of culture, which he +designates as literary or æsthetic, Mr. Shairp contends that Mr. Arnold +has erred in his estimate of what the spiritual energy really is in +which our highest good is to be sought, 'has made that primary which is +secondary and subordinate, and made that secondary which by right ought +to be supreme.' He argues with much force, that the first great +commandment 'cannot be made subservient to any ulterior purpose;' that +religion is either a good in itself or it is not a good at all. We have +not space to describe the remaining lectures on 'Hindrances to Spiritual +Growth' and 'Combinations of Religion and Culture.' The volume is +charged with weighty suggestions. + + +_The Witness of St. John to Christ; being the Boyle Lecture for 1870; +with an Appendix on the Authorship and Integrity of St. John's Gospel, +and the Unity of Johannine Writings._ By the Rev. STANLEY LEATHES, M.A. +Rivingtons. + +This is the third series of Boyle Lectures delivered by the Rev. +Stanley Leathes. In the first and second series, the author dealt with +the witness of the Old Testament, and that of St. Paul to Christ. In the +volume before us, he pursues a similar method; and taking nothing for +granted, not even the genuineness of the fourth Gospel, nor the +inspiration of this, or of other portions of the New Testament, 'he does +not assume that its conception is true, but he does affirm that if its +message is fraught with substantial truth, certain results will follow, +and--do follow.' In the appendix, there is an effort made to grapple +with the question of the genuineness of the fourth Gospel, and to meet +the difficulties raised by Dr. Davidson, the Rev. J. J. Tayler, and +others. There is nothing special or peculiar in this argument, with the +exception of the detailed effort which Mr. Leathes has made to show the +abundant similarity of theme, doctrine, historical fact, and even form +of expression between the three Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John. +We have never seen this point so well elaborated elsewhere, and the +obvious conclusion is that much too great a stress has been laid upon +the supposed discrepancy of subject-matter and ethical tone discernible +between these documents. We think that both Dr. Hengstenberg and the +Rev. John Godwin have handled the Paschal difficulty more successfully +than Mr. Leathes, but few writers have shown with more sufficiency and +clearness the unity of the Johannine writings. In fact, everything turns +in this discussion on satisfactorily showing the possibility, from a +literary standpoint, of the identity of authorship of the Apocalypse and +the fourth Gospel. The Tübingen school, Dr. Davidson, J. J. Tayler, and +the most thorough-going opponents of the genuineness of the Gospel, +admit, nay contend for the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse. They +uphold the external evidence for it against Lücke and others; they +establish the relations between the John of the Synoptists and the +Apocalyptist. If, then, by accumulation of independent evidence, the +identity of the author of the fourth Gospel with the Apocalyptist is +established, or a belief in it is shown to be perfectly rational, a +great victory is won for the faith of Christ. We commend Mr. Leathes' +argument to the profound consideration of students. The eight lectures +deal with the credibility of the witnesses, the characteristics of +John's teaching, the essentials of this teaching, John's appeal to the +inward witness, the unity of John's writings, their authority, John's +message to the age, and John's place in Holy Scripture. There is much +fine and strong, though rather cold and artificial reasoning in these +lectures. The reader feels a little too much as though he were under the +authoritative commands of a drill-sergeant, or rather of a too officious +guide, who tells him exactly where he must stand, or where he must not +stand, in order to see some glorious panoramic landscape. The hand of +the critic and the logician is always on the shoulder, and forcing head +and heart into the appropriate and rational conclusion. Yet, with this +drawback, every lecture leaves a healthy impression; and the testimony +of the beloved disciple to our Divine Lord seems at length to be so +strong and self-evidencing, that it matters comparatively little when, +where, or by whom the testimony is given. + + +_Secular Annotations on Scripture Texts._ By FRANCIS JACOX. Hodder and +Stoughton. + +This volume is the result of very extensive and discursive reading. +Sixty or seventy passages of Scripture have been annotated by the author +from the copious stores of his secular erudition. Choice fragments of +poetry, philosophy, and history, the analogies of life and thought, with +the high themes suggested by the sacred text, are heaped in almost +prodigal affluence of illustration upon the foundation of each text. +Thus, on 'the Tempter's it is written,' our author quotes in +illustrative vein not only Bunyan, and the criticism on the Dublin Synod +of Irish Catholics, but Shakespeare's 'Merchant of Venice,' Gray, +Coleridge, Burns, Diderot, Thomas Carlyle, and Charles Dickens. In his +beautiful comment on 'Consider the lilies,' we have Tennyson, and +Justice Shallow, Leigh Hunt and Mr. Proctor, Bishop Copleston, Isaac +Taylor, Shenstone, and Dr. Croly's Salathiel, Mr. Hannay, and Mrs. +Browning, all laid under contribution, and a very charming mosaic is the +result. We might imagine the book to be the work of a life-time, or the +hobby of a highly-cultured and devout man. Many a sermon and many a +platform-speech may hereafter benefit by Mr. Jacox's labour of love; but +none will take the pure delight in it which it must have given to the +author in his quiet hours. The annotations of the words 'Strangers and +Pilgrims,' 1 Peter ii. 11, are peculiarly rich and beautiful. + + +_Rain upon the Mown Grass, and other Sermons, 1842--1870._ By SAMUEL +MARTIN, Minister of Westminster Chapel. Hodder and Stoughton. + +The ministry of the Rev. Samuel Martin has now for nearly thirty years +exerted a spiritual force upon an ever widening circle. Westminster +Chapel has constituted a focus of holy influence, where his varied, +thoughtful, continuous instructions have not only gathered around him +one of the largest congregations in England, but have conferred upon it +a character for wise effort, liberal sympathies, and Christian +devotedness. It would be impossible to measure the circumference of that +influence. Few nonconforming churches in the kingdom have failed at +least to seek Mr. Martin's presence and assistance when any great thing +was to be done; when any difficult enterprise needed a special +consecration, when a young pastor at his ordination, or a church +entering on a new career of usefulness, craved sanctifying counsel and +tender sympathy. It would be difficult to convey to a stranger, or to an +unsympathizing critic, any conception of the strange fascination, the +deep thrill of holy excitement, the solemn hush of spirit which the +spoken words of Samuel Martin have produced on susceptible minds. It is +quite beyond our power to analyze or account for the overwhelming +impression we have known him produce by his mode of quoting some +well-known words of Holy Scripture, or by iterating and reiterating in a +manner almost unique, the key-word or clause of some discourse on which +he has put forth all his strength. His sermons are often characterized +by an exceeding quaintness which from any other lips than his might +provoke a smile; by a subtle ingenuity of illustration which reminds one +of Brooks, or Sibbes, or even of Thomas Adams; by an elaboration of +argument which seems to throw a disproportionate weight on some minor +truth of God's word; by a fulness of illustration bordering on the +efflorescent; and by a tone of meditation, fitted, as it might seem, to +the cloister or some learned leisure rather than to this busy, +world-harassed, distracted age: yet it is almost impossible to listen to +one of those exceptional discourses without an intense desire for a +higher, more beautiful, more self-sacrificing life. The exquisite +sensitiveness of the preacher to all the sorrows of men, his obvious +personal distress over the breaking heart of suffering humanity, his +quivering sympathy with the weak and diseased, the poor, the out cast, +the prisoner, 'the publican and the sinner,' the old man and the little +child, make almost every sermon a lesson in the 'enthusiasm of +humanity.' Much of every good sermon, is beyond the power of +reproduction by the press; and this noble volume of Mr. Martin's +discourses has to some extent the effect upon the reader which a volume +of Beethoven's symphonies might have upon a musical student who had lost +the power of hearing. Notwithstanding this necessary peculiarity +disparaging the printed and revised report of all the noblest +productions of the pulpit, we render Mr. Martin our unfeigned thanks for +the volume. It contains thirty-two discourses. Many of them have been +preached on special occasions, and demand a little imagination from the +reader before he can understand their full significance. Take, for +instance, the sermon preached at the opening of the new church at +Halifax on the text, 'Then the king said unto Nathan the Prophet, See +now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within +curtains.' The three sacred places, 'the home,' 'the grave,' 'the +sanctuary of God,' have never been more admirably described, and the +sketch given of 'the history of places of true worship' has never been +drawn with more graphic force or spiritual beauty; but all the +circumstances of the day and the place of that discourse gave it tenfold +meaning. It would be well for those who disparage the Puritan theology +and its professors, to understand that the high strain with which the +volume opens on the genial influence and character of the Gospel, was +preached with electrifying power to one of the great gatherings of +Nonconformist ministers and churches in the North of England. + +The sermons on 'The Saving Name,' 'The Precious Blood of Christ,' 'The +Fulness of God,' show how Mr. Martin handles some of the great +theological problems, and there is hardly one which is not charged with +deep emotion, with carefully expressed thought, and spiritual force. +This last element is the distinctive virtue of a volume which can +scarcely be touched without perceiving some electric flash of light, +some new pulsation of holy, Christ-like feeling. + + +_The Shepherd of Hermas._ Translated into English, with an Introduction +and Notes. By CHARLES H. HOOLE, M.A., Senior Student of Christ Church, +Oxford. Rivingtons. + +It is not long since we called the attention of our readers to the +admirable translation, from the Greek test, of the 'Shepherd of Hermas,' +which was published, together with other writings of the so-called +Apostolic Fathers in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library. The Greek text +of this ancient Christian allegory or romance was found, together with +the epistle of Barnabas, attached to the Codex Sinaiticus of the New +Testament; and this may account in part for the revival of interest +among the students of ecclesiastical history in this once popular but +long-neglected fragment of antiquity. Mr. Hoole has executed his task +with great care and painstaking, and has given in his 'introduction and +notes' some very valuable information bearing on its interpretation, and +on its reception by the Ante-Nicene Fathers of the Church. We are +brought by it 'into the earliest period of Christian antiquity.' It was +doubtless quoted by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and +Eusebius, with a decreasing respect; and we can only admire the fine +tact and good sense which ultimately led the later writers and the +Church Councils unequivocally to exclude it from the Canon of the New +Testament. The question of the authorship is enveloped in great +obscurity, and the apparently explicit statements are easily refutable. +It is not even certain, but indeed very doubtful, whether the author was +an ecclesiastical officer of any kind. The supposed Ebionitic tendencies +of his doctrine have been maintained strongly by Hilgenfeld, but refuted +by Dörner and Donaldson. We are surprised that in virtue of the +non-appearance in Latin translations of the main passage on which this +charge rests, Mr. Hoole has thought fit to omit it. Dr. Donaldson shows +at length that there is 'nothing in the teaching of Hermas with regard +to God, Christ, the Church, or the work of salvation, which is contrary +to the truths or spirit of Christianity.' It is interesting also to +observe from various passages, that Hermas identified the office of +bishop and presbyter, and makes no reference to the Eucharist. + + +_Ante-Nicene Christian Library._ Vols. XVII. and XVIII. Edited by Rev. +A. ROBERTS, D.D., and JAMES DONALDSON, LL.D. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. + +These two volumes are extremely valuable; one is the third and last +volume of Tertullian, and the other contains 'The Clementine Homilies' +and 'The Apostolical Constitutions.' The Homilies are a translation by +the Rev. Thomas Smith, D.D., by Peter Peterson, M.A., and Dr. James +Donaldson, and the 'Constitutions' have been carefully revised from +Whiston's translation. If Bunsen's theory be correct, that they take us +into the end of the second century or beginning of the third, and can +be almost conclusively shown to be the work of one to whom the +interpolations of the Ignatian literature were familiarly known, we +obtain a valuable additional test of the quality of second century +literature, and another assurance that the Gospel of John must have +preceded them by more than a generation. It is not merely the abundant +quotation from the fourth Gospel, but the profound difference of tone +between these documents, that is so remarkable. If this is the second +century theology and ecclesiasticism, how comes it that an author living +in that century could rise such an untold height above them and omit +what unfortunately had become the chief features of his time? Krabbe, in +his elaborate work on the Apostolical Constitutions, concludes that the +eighth book could not have been written before the end of the fourth or +beginning of the fifth century. Bunsen thinks that the law of +interpolation may account for the several references to later customs +and offices which are to be found there. At all events, throughout the +earlier books, we hear nothing or next to nothing of the sacerdotal +order, and no other officer is mentioned intermediate to bishop or +deacon. In the eighth book we have full-blown sacerdotalism and +episcopacy, and the several apostles are made responsible for all the +innovations. We owe a great debt of obligation to the careful editors of +these translations now approaching their term. The admirable indices of +all kinds greatly enhance the value of the work thus accomplished. + + +_The Miracles of Our Lord._ By GEORGE MAC DONALD. Straham and Co. + +Mr. Mac Donald is well known in the circles of the Church, for the +ministry of which he was educated, as a preacher of remarkable freshness +and power. Whatever judgment may be passed upon some points of his +theology, there are few living men whose words are fuller of high +religious inspiration, and indicate a more reverent and intense love for +the Lord Jesus. This is his distinctive claim as a religious teacher. He +disregards the conventionalities of sermon-structure, and of +sermon-speech, and brings to bear upon his themes the fresh thought of a +man of genius, and the penetrating spiritual insight of a man of fervent +piety. Whether any of these papers have been preached as sermons we do +not know; thousands of readers have become acquainted with them in the +pages of the _Sunday Magazine_, to which they were contributed. Mr. Mac +Donald has no difficulty in accepting the miraculous; nay, he justly +says that if the Supreme Being 'be a God worthy of being God, yea (his +metaphysics even may show the seeker), if He is a God capable of being +God, He will speak the clearest, grandest word of guidance which He can +utter intelligible to His creatures.' 'The miracles are mightier far +than any goings on of nature, as beheld by common eyes, dissociating +them from a living will; but the miracles are surely less than those +mighty goings on of nature with God, beheld at their heart. In the name +of Him who delighted to say, "My Father is greater than I," I will say +that His miracles in bread and in wine were far less grand and less +beautiful than the works of the Father they represented, in making the +corn to grow in the valleys, and the grapes to drink the sunlight on the +hill-sides of the world, with all their infinitudes of tender gradation +and delicate mystery of birth.' Whether we agree with every minute +interpretation or not, this little volume, precious as fine gold, is +full of penetrating spiritual insight, of fine spiritual sympathy, and +of suggestions and inspirations greatly helpful to the noblest spiritual +life. + + +_Saint Paul: his Life, Labours, and Epistles._ A Narrative and an +Argument. By FELIX BUNGENER. Translated from the French. Religious Tract +Society. + +M. Bungener's is one of the numerous books elicited by M. Rénan's +assaults upon Christianity. Such have always produced the effect of +multiplying defensive exposition and arguments. They are therefore not +to be regretted; their resultant good is much greater than their +incidental evil. Untenable positions are tested and abandoned, and +valued defences are strengthened. M. Bungener's argument is the +narrative. He goes steadily through the incidents of the Apostle's +history, parrying attacks, and setting forth evidences and arguments as +he goes. His French brevity and his religious earnestness give a great +charm to the volume. + + +_History and Revelation: the Correspondence of the Predictions of the +Apocalypse with the marked Events of the Christian Era._ By JAMES H. +BRAUND. Two vols. Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday. + +In the exposition of the Apocalypse, literally everything depends upon a +right principle of interpretation. Whether the symbolism of the book has +its solution in historic facts or in spiritual principles, determines +everything that a writer has to say respecting it. Into these two +schools all interpreters of the Apocalypse may be divided. Of the +former, Mr. Elliott is the modern Coryphæus, and he has found in Mr. +Braund a laborious disciple. 'The Horæ Apocalypticæ,' he says, 'will be +found, perhaps, the nearest to perfection of its kind extant;' and these +two volumes are devoted to a patient working out of historical +coincidences and congruities. Mr. Braund confidently trusts that the +proof from such congruity will be so self-evident that it will be +impossible to doubt. But clearly it must depend very largely upon the +historical knowledge and imaginative ingenuity of the interpreter, +whether a fulfilment can be demonstrated or not. For instance, there is +much more of ingenuity than of demonstration in the fancy of Mr. Elliott +adopted by Mr. Braund, that the white horse of the first seal is the +Roman Empire, that the rider is Nerva, and that the bow in his hand is +the symbol of his Cretan origin--the Cretans being great votaries of +Apollo. It may be so; but the mere statement of it does not, in virtue +of its congruity, carry with it demonstrative proof. It is a mere piece +of _ipse dixitism_, which might find a hundred parallels of equally +ingenious suppositions. On what authority, again, does Mr. Braund affirm +that the 'seven horns of the Lamb symbolize his atoning work, because +the blood of the sin offering was sprinkled on the horns of the altar, +and the seven eyes, his mediatorial character between God and men'? +Horns are usually the symbol of power, and eyes of wisdom. The statement +of Mr. Braund, so far from being self-evidencing, provokes our +incredulity. + +For ourselves, we hold to the opposite principle of interpretation, as +substantially adopted by Hengstenberg, Godwin, and others, viz., that +the rise, progress, and overthrow of antichristian principles--Jewish, +pagan, infidel, worldly and ecclesiastical--are symbolized in the +Apocalypse, and that with the development of these, national events have +to do in only a very subordinate way. Then much of the symbolism takes +its place as mere parabolic drapery. Whether any specific historical +event find its type in an Apocalyptic symbol or not, we cannot err +seriously if we lay hold upon a great principle; certain it is that +every antichristian power in the history of the world has had its +strength in the domain of superstition, rather than in mere historic +incident; and to be assured of the destruction of this is to be assured +of the main thing. We cannot help thinking that such laborious +demonstrations as Mr. Braund's are, comparatively speaking, exercises of +painful and wasted ingenuity. + + +_Moses, the Man of God._ A Course of Lectures. By the late JAMES +HAMILTON, D.D., F.L.S. James Nisbet. + +These lectures have been selected for separate publication from Dr. +Hamilton's MSS. They have all the fascinating characteristics of his +pen--graceful description, imaginative reconstruction, unconventional, +and often very ingenious, sometimes learned, disquisition, with the +light, graceful touch of poetic style and delicate fancy which ally all +his productions with general rather than with sermon literature. As +sermons they seem to us to want point and cogency: they read rather like +chapters of a book; but it is a sufficient commendation to say they are +James Hamilton's. + + +_Memories of Patmos; or, some of the Great Words and Visions of the +Apocalypse._ By J. R. MACDUFF, D.D. James Nisbet and Co. + +Dr. Macduff disavows all pretensions to be a hierophant of the mysteries +of the Apocalypse. We are left to gather incidentally that he himself +inclines to what may be called the spiritualistic, as distinguished from +the historic school of interpreters. His object in this volume, however, +is to present those 'manifold isolated passages of transcendent +grandeur, beauty, and comfort ... which can be see by the naked eye, +without the aid of the prophetic lens or telescope.' His selections are +made chiefly from the opening and closing chapters. Dr. Macduff's manner +of discoursing is too well known to need characterizing; it is enough to +say that in these glorious manifestations of the exalted Christ, he +has, with due regard to exegesis, indulged, wisely and profitably, in +the unction of description and application which have made his books so +popular. No man may discourse of the new heavens and the new earth +without palpable shortcoming, but he has given to devout readers a wise +and edifying book. + + +_Hours of Christian Devotion._ Translated from the German of A. THOLUCK, +D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Halle. By ROBERT +MENZIES, D.D. Blackwood and Sons. + +This excellent manual of devotional thought, the work of one of the +greatest Biblical scholars that Germany has produced, has passed through +many editions, and has been translated into several different languages +with more or less of abridgment. Dr. Menzies has accomplished the +difficult task not only of translating the prose meditations, but the +numerous poetical effusions that enrich and pervade the volume. +Seventy-six brief meditations on personal, experimental, and practical +religion, are of course very varied in their character. Thus one of them +is a running comment of extreme beauty on Psalm xxiii., followed by a +poetical rendering of the spirit of the Psalm, which, even in Dr. +Menzies' translation, is of a high order, as thus-- + + 'I strayed a wild tumultuous road along, + My mind not less tumultuous than the way;'-- + +And a few verses later on-- + + 'Rich is the banquet both for heart and eye, + As varying still their hues by night and day, + A world of flowers, like sparkling jewelry, + Their opening loveliness around display. + + 'When shines the sun aloft without a cloud, + His smile evokes a pomp of colour bright; + Or if in gloom his radiant face he shroud, + Sweet violets shed their perfume thro' the night.' + +We are tempted somewhat profanely to ask, however, whether the perfume +of the violet quite carries out the idea of flowery beauty as a banquet +for the _eye_ through the night? To many of these meditations four or +five great texts are prefixed, and the reader feels that the gentle +pressure of a powerful hand has crushed these sacred fruits, and handed +him the fragrant wine of the kingdom in a golden goblet. The writer +seems to blend his own spiritual history with his exposition in such a +way as to aid the reader to make such experience his own. Reading +between the lines it is easy to perceive the philosophic dissertant, the +accomplished Biblical scholar, the learned theologian, but all is +subdued to the language of simple, earnest piety and profound devotion. +Some of the deepest mysteries of the kingdom of God are made more +comprehensible when thus brought into the light and glory of the Most +Holy Place. We note particularly the meditations on 'Drawing nigh to +God,' and on 'By grace made free from sin.' Thus, 'If peace have +departed from thy heart, build upon the vacant spot a penitential altar, +and peace will again return, for the Lord Himself will place upon it the +atoning sacrifice. Can any suppose that a servant who has transgressed +his Lord's will, and then with anxiety in his heart sets about amending +his ways, is as well qualified to do good works as the child who has +wept repentant tears upon his Father's bosom, and has had his faults +forgiven? Oh, no; the future cannot be made better until the evil be +made good.' The abundance and variety of the material furnished in this +volume for quiet pondering render further characterization difficult. We +are thankful for the introduction of this wise, thoughtful, helpful book +in this dark, sad season. + + +_The Holy Bible, according to the Authorized Version, arranged in +Paragraphs and Sections; with Emendations of the Text, also with Maps, +Chronological Tables, &c._ The New Testament. Religious Tract Society. + +It is very difficult to amend the authorized version without proceeding +to a thorough revision which again would necessitate a revision of the +_textus receptus_ of the Greek. There is no intelligible principle to +guide an editor in pursuing a middle course. Dr. Jacob has improved the +renderings in the _more important instances_ in which the labours of +later critics have shown that the translators to whom we owe our justly +venerated English version were in fault. We are too thankful to have +errors removed in any degree to demur. The truth is, that a false +superstition for the authorized version, like all false things, is +permitted to suppress true reverence for the Divine Word as God gave it. +It will soon cease to be a question of the excellencies or defects of +the authorized version, and will become the imperative duty of all who +reverence that which is the truest and most perfect record of +revelation, to protest against its usurpation of a reverence due only to +the original text. Another bondage from which the editors of this +admirable edition are helping to deliver us is that of chapters. The +arrangement of the text in paragraphs according to the sense, and its +division into sections corresponding thereto, is a much greater service +in interpretation than many might suppose. This beautiful, clearly +printed, and carefully edited volume deserves very high praise. + + +_Night unto Night._ A Selection of Bible Scenes. By the Rev. DANIEL +MARCH, D.D. Hamilton, Adams, and Co. + +Certain well-known night-scenes of Scripture are here sketched with a +vividness and graphic force which make us spectators of the varied +incidents, while the lessons that are drawn from them of warning, of +hope, or of duty, are brought home to the heart and conscience with +tenderness and power. + + +_Bible Lessons._ By the Rev. EDWIN A. ABBOTT, M.A., Head Master of the +City of London School. Part II., New Testament. Macmillan and Co. + +Mr. Abbott has very opportunely published the substance of the Bible +lessons which he gives to his fifth and sixth forms, thereby +demonstrating how practicable it is to give to pupils the very highest +form of religious teaching, without any ecclesiastical or even dogmatic +sectarianism. He must be a fanatical theorist indeed who can take +exception to the contents of this volume; and yet pupils receiving them +would be possessed of all that the most exigeant need care for in +religious teaching. It is not every teacher who can inculcate religious +truth with such penetrating wisdom and catholic breadth of sympathy as +characterize Mr. Abbott; but it is almost certain that, practically, he +must be an ingenious fanatic indeed, who, with the Bible alone in his +hand, can do much in sectarian teaching; at any rate if he do, he will +do it wilfully, and the remedy will neither be far to seek, nor slow of +application. Mr. Abbott has done good practical service--over and above +the intrinsic value of his book, which is great--by this timely +publication. + + +_The Pulpit Analyst._ Vol. V. Hodder and Stoughton. + +The 'Analyst' has completed the fifth year of its existence, and has, we +think, continued to grow from the beginning. The present volume is a +rich and valuable one. A course of sermons by Alford 'On the Parable of +the Ten Virgins,' a very valuable series of discourses by Mr. Baldwin +Brown 'On Misread Passages of Scripture,' a miscellaneous series of +fresh and vigorous sketches by Mr. Watson Smith, and a short series by +the Editor on the life of Jacob, constitute a homiletical department of +unusual excellence. Dr. Parker's odd concatenation of wise, clever, and +incongruous advices to a young preacher, of which we have spoken +elsewhere, run through the volume under the title 'Ad Clerum.' Mr. +Godwin contributes two or three able discourses on 'Proving Knowledge,' +and a new translation, with notes, on the Epistle to the Galatians. The +'Analyst' again changes hands. It comes with the new year under the +editorial control of Mr. Paxton Hood. It enlarges its dimensions, and +changes its name to 'The Preacher's Lantern.' + + + + +JUVENILE BOOKS. + + +At Christmas time all pleasant things abound:--from turkeys to +pantomimes, from oysters to gift books, from staid family gatherings to +snapdragon and hunt the slipper; all domestic and social charities are +in highest exercise, as if the carol of the angel, and the blessed +advent of the Holy child inspired all forms of brightest joy and most +loving thought. Not least among the blessings which Christmas pours +from her cornucopia are her gift-books. If we welcome with satisfaction +the higher works of art which Christmas brings, and which, ministering +to the sense of the beautiful, elevate and refine the entire man, moral +and intellectual, as well as æsthetical, we welcome still more heartily +the affluent Christmas supply of books which more especially address +themselves to the young. Artistic excellence, romantic adventure, fairy +imagination, natural phenomena, the wonders of travel and of science, +creations of fiction and fancies of poetry, are all brought under +requisition--and their very highest products consecrated to the nurture +of youthful imagination and fancy, mind and heart. This is one of our +distinctive glories, and, we will venture to say, a mark of distinctive +wisdom, that our literature for the young is so rich in quality and so +affluent in quantity. Few nations possess a juvenile literature--France +has no children's books; neither has Spain, nor Italy. Even our American +cousins have a very meagre native supply. Only Germany can make any +pretence to a comparison with us. Month by month books for the young are +produced, and at Christmas-tide they are poured forth in bewildering +profusion; publishers of gravest repute lay themselves out for them; the +staidest literary journals review them. We have come to understand that +no service to a people can be greater or more momentous than to supply a +pure, bright, merry-hearted literature for the young, which shall wisely +minister to their imaginations, and in pleasant ways sow the seeds of +good things in their hearts. Happy are the children of these days +compared with those of the days of 'Goody Two Shoes' and 'Sandford and +Merton.' What a small British-Museum-library a child of twelve would +possess who should have, from its birth, acquired and retained the +hundreds of juvenile publications of each year; and what is more, how +intelligent, if it had imbibed all their instructions, how good if it +had embodied all their lessons. Tales of fairies and genii abound, as is +fitting and wise; but it is no less a national blessing that our +juvenile literature is so wholesome. We can speak only of a very few of +the books which, in every variety of form and character, seek to +brighten the nursery and the fire-side. + +In the very foremost rank, whether in respect of artistic attractiveness +or of literary excellency, we must place the dainty publications of +Messrs. Nelson. _In the Eastern Seas; or, The Regions of the Bird of +Paradise._ A Tale for Boys. By W. H. G. KINGSTON. _In the Wilds of +Africa._ A Tale for Boys. By W. H. G. KINGSTON. Two books of imaginative +travel, in the style that Mr. Kingston has made his own, full of +descriptive information carefully compiled, and of adventurous incidents +well imagined. Mr. Kingston wraps the pill of useful information in the +jam of romantic adventure so deftly that young patients will scarcely be +conscious of the physic--only of the gratification of their intellectual +palate. In the first of these works Mr. Kingston carries his young +friends to fresh scenes and pastures new, and opens out to them the +tropical wonders of the Malay Archipelago. Walter Heathfield, the hero +of these adventures, is a fatherless boy, who, with his sister, are +taken to the East by Captain Davenport. The voyage is, of course, full +of adventure and peril, and all the phenomena of Eastern seas and skies +are observed. Singapore and Nagasaki open to the young travellers the +worlds of China and Japan. Walter, with a companion, is washed overboard +in a typhoon, and, of course, is cast upon a desolate island; after +hair-breadth escapes he returns to England, as the heir and successor of +his relative, Lord Heatherley; the personal story being cleverly +interwoven with the useful knowledge. In the second book named, Andrew +Crawford is sent to sea, in consequence of the mercantile reverses of +his father, with a due charge of good advice from the latter. The +captain dies, and the ignorant mate permits the ship to be stranded on +the coast of Africa. A slaver picks up Andrew, and part of the crew +getting on shore, they resolve to journey inland to the Crystal +Mountains, through the gorilla district, the wonders of which are +described. On the river, among the mountains, through the wilderness, +they wander, until all the marvels of Central Africa are described. +These two books will be prime favourites with boys. They are worthy of +Mayne Reid.--_The Sea and its Wonders._ By MARY and ELIZABETH KIRBY. +This is a companion volume to 'The World at Home,' published last year, +of which it is in every way a worthy successor. Both books are +beautifully got up as to paper, type, and binding, and are most +profusely illustrated with steel engravings. The wonders of the sea +itself, and of its productions, are described in a clear and simple +style, and in short chapters, with paragraphs and words equally short, +so that the book has a most inviting look to even an inexperienced +reader. It would be difficult to find a more interesting as well as +instructive book for children from seven to fourteen, while to many +beyond that age, its facts will be new and interesting.--_The Fall of +Jerusalem and Roman Conquest of Judea._ A condensed account of the 'Fall +of the Sacred City,' and a summary of the events that led to it; +followed by a vivid narrative of the final subjugation of Judea. The +last chapter gives us the characters which Dean Milman introduces in the +'Fall of Jerusalem,' and quotations from it. It is an interesting and +valuable little book, well furnished with engravings.--_Lighthouses and +Lightships._ By W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS. A very complete and readable +account of the ancient Pharos and of our modern lighthouses, with their +principles of construction; together with a correct list of those that +guard the dangerous coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. A chapter is +given to French lighthouses, and to the manner of life of those who +spend their days in tending these safeguards for our sailors. As a book +of reference it will be very useful, but it will repay a careful reading +before being consigned to the reference shelf. The illustrations, over +sixty in number, give life and interest to the little volume, which is +intended for no especial class of readers, but for both young and old +who care for the welfare of humanity.--_Cyril Ashley._ A Tale. By +A.L.O.E. Another of A.L.O.E.'s instructive stories for young people, +which the authoress, in a touching preface, 'thinks will be the last +time she may be permitted to bring her pitcher from the well-spring in +which she has so often dipped it.' Cyril Ashley is a young man of +singular prudence and goodness, who has thrust upon him by stern duty +the reformation of a weak, selfish step-father, and a number of unruly +half-brothers and sisters. The history of Jonah is the stimulus and +deeply pondered lesson which gives him the resolution to carry that +trying task to a satisfactory issue.--_Birds and Flowers._ By MARY +HOWITT. A volume of verses on birds and flowers, enlarging the latter +term, that is, so as to include orchard and forest trees; written on +that high level of excellence which makes Mrs. Howitt's poetry so +pleasant and readable, although there are not many pieces of it that +abide in the memory, or will take their place in our permanent poetical +literature. The illustrations by M. Giacomelli, the French artist who +illustrated 'the Bird' of M. Michelet, are very beautiful. They are all +vignettes, or initial letters, or chapter headings, but they are done +with great artistic skill and delicacy. Altogether this is one of the +most beautiful of smaller Christmas books. Graceful song and artistic +picture together will charm young readers, and supply a very choice +gift-book for them.--_The Spanish Brothers._ A Tale of the Sixteenth +Century. By the Author of 'The Dark Year of Dundee,' &c. The author of +the series, of which this is one volume, has much of the careful skill +and fascination of the author of the Schönberg-Cotta series. Many +suspected her first work to be from the pen of the latter. The 'Spanish +Brothers' contains a vivid picture of the horrors of the Inquisition, +and of the heroism with which many of the early Protestants in Spain +endured its inflictions--life-long incarcerations, and _auto-dá-fé's_, +at which men, and even women of gentle birth were burned to death before +crowds of exulting spectators. Such things are strange to read of in +these our 'soft times,' but there is abundant evidence to prove that +both the cruelty and the heroism in their extremest forms were real +facts. The fictitious part of the book is a story (interesting, but +rather too long) of two brothers devoted to each other, and to the idea +of a father whom they had never seen, until one of them comes +accidentally to share his prison. The two then remain together till the +death of the father and the martyrdom of the son.--_The Story of our +Doll._ By Mrs. GEORGE CUPPLES. The adventures of little Maggie's +foundling doll will appeal very successfully to the make-believe +imagination of little children, and greatly delight them.--_Wonders of +the Plant World; or, Curiosities of Vegetable Life._--_Useful Plants. +Plants adapted for the Food of Man, Described and Illustrated._--_Walter +in the Woods; or, Trees and Common Objects of the Forest Described and +Illustrated._ Three little books designed to give young people popular +botanical knowledge. The first is the more scientific in form. The last +two have recourse to that kind of conversational incident and +illustration which children will listen to for hours. All three may be +commended.--_Pictures and Stories of Natural History._ A series of short +sketches of different animals, with very effective coloured plates of +each animal described. Admirable for juveniles. + +Foremost and best among Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton's juvenile books +comes _Old Merry's Annual_, the prince of its class, as Aunt Judy's +volume is the princess. Brilliant in crimson and gold, and chubby in +form like a winter apple, Old Merry comes forth to brighten Christmas +firesides, as cheery, wise, wholesome, and quaint as ever. Among the +annuals we like it the best. Stories, gossipy chats _de omnibus_, +puzzles, useful information about most things that interest boys, and +didactic papers, make up a miscellany which it is impossible to +describe, and difficult to overpraise. M. D. Liefde's story is the +_vale_ of an able man, a great favourite with young people. It is +chiefly a posthumous publication.--_Madeleine's Trial, and other +Stories._ From the French of MADAME DE PRESSENSÉ. A group of simple +stories illustrative of the law of love. The translator has made them so +English in tone as well as in style that the flavour of the original is +well-nigh exhaled.--_Walter's Escape; or, The Capture of Breda._ By J. +B. DE LIEFDE. A spirited account of one of the most remarkable exploits +in the heroic struggles of the Dutch to secure their liberty. It is +written with the author's wonted vigour.--_Model Women._ By WILLIAM +ANDERSON. This volume gives us slight sketches of the Mother of the +Wesleys, Elizabeth Fry, Amelia Sieveking, Felicia Hemans, Hannah More, +Elizabeth Browning, Caroline Herschel, Selina Countess of Huntingdon, +and a few others whom the author conceives to have been respectively +'model women,' either in domestic life, philanthropic effort, literary +achievement, scientific research, or Christian consecration. There is +not much power or point in the characterization of these distinguished +women, but the brief memorials of some of them are interesting, and may +help to raise the idea of women's work. + +Messrs. Griffith and Farran sustain the reputation of the house that +became famous by the publication of 'Goody Two Shoes.' They have an +admirable staff of writers for young people, and the works they produce +are of a highly interesting and instructive character. One of the best +this year is _Household Stories from the Land of Hofer; or, Popular +Myths of Tirol._ By the Author of 'Patrañas; or, Spanish Stories.' +Between twenty and thirty stories of myth and magic of the old-fashioned +sort, embodying the wild legends that hang about the valleys of the +Tyrol (the writer pedantically spells it Tirol), and have haunted them +for a thousand years. The Norgs, or little men, are the chief heroes, a +kind of southern Trolls, or dwarfs of the Black Forest. It is a class of +myths less known than those of Scandinavia, but having many of their +weird characteristics. The most popular are 'Nickel of the Mine,' the +little man of the mountain who dug riches for the covetous, selfish +Aennerl; and the 'Rose Garden of King Sweyn,' made by the Norg king for +his mortal bride, whom, however, after a fierce combat, he had to +surrender to Theodoric the Visigoth. Many of the stories are legendary +embodiments of the struggle between Christianity and Paganism. Since Dr. +Dasent's 'Norse Tales,' a more important and interesting collection of +legends has not appeared.--_Tales of the Saracens._ By BARBARA HUTTON. +These tales are history, not fiction, treating first of Mohammed as +prophet and as conqueror, and then of the line of Caliphs by whom he +was followed. The book is written in a clear and lively style, and to +intelligent readers will prove both entertaining and instructive.--_Sunny +Days; or, A Month at the Great Stowe._ The Great Stowe is a farmhouse in +the country, at which a family of little town-folk spent a month. We are +told all that they saw and did, and a right merry party they were; none +the less so for the wise discipline and sententious wisdom and clever +stories of Aunt Gommie. 'Aunt Gommie is like a spider; she goes on spin, +spin, spin, and she is never at a loss for a web.' + +Sampson Low & Co. have re-published a charming American Story, _Little +Women; or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy_. By LOUISA M. ALCOTT. Whether Miss +Alcott is the most popular of American writers for young people we do +not know; but beyond all question, 'Little Women' is just now the most +popular American juvenile fiction. You see it upon every American +book-stall, and find it in almost every American home. It is having a +greater run than any recent fiction; and it is really a very charming +story. The 'Little Women' are the four children of Mr. March, an +American pastor, away South at the war. Their characters are delineated, +and their history, from early girlhood to motherhood, traced with a +consummate cleverness. Miss Alcott has not, perhaps, so delicate a touch +as the author of the 'Gayworthy's,' nor so graphic a power as Mrs. +Beecher Stowe; but she has delicacy, descriptive power, and force of no +ordinary kind. One of the most promising characteristics of American +fiction is its individuality. There is a marked family likeness among +the fictions by female writers, which during the last few years have +obtained such popularity among ourselves. They are redolent of American +character and life, especially of New England life, and have also an +intellectual cast of their own--a kind of household idealism, +quaintness, and piety, not easy to describe, but unmistakably to be +recognised. We predict for 'Little Women' a popularity greater than that +of the 'Wide, Wide World,' 'The Gayworthy's,' or 'Faith Gartney's +Childhood.' We are not sure that our American cousins do not, in this +department of literature, far excel any writer that we can boast There +are two or three other books of Miss Alcott's ('The Old-Fashioned Girl,' +for instance) with which we should like English children to be +acquainted, although they are not quite equal to 'Little Women.' + +Messrs. Bell and Daldy send _The Brownies, and other Tales_. By JULIANA +HORATIO EWING. Beautiful stories, charmingly told, with capital +illustrations by our old friend George Cruikshank.--_Aunt Judy's +Christmas Volume for Young People_ contains a wealth of instruction and +amusement, which we have neither time nor space to describe. Our young +readers should get it, and judge for themselves, and we assure them they +will not be disappointed.--_Waifs and Strays of Natural History._ By +Mrs. ALFRED GATTY. An elementary book of instruction, concerning corals +and coral islands, the Beaver, sponges, zoophytes, microscopic objects, +&c., conveyed in Mrs. Gatty's charming way. Nothing lends itself more +easily to romance than natural phenomena, and Mrs. Gatty's readers need +not to be told how magical Aunt Judy's pen is.--_Parables from Nature._ +Fifth Series. By Mrs. ALFRED GATTY. Eight more of Mrs. Gatty's popular +parables, about 'Consequences,' 'Ghosts,' 'Unopened Parcels,' 'See-Saw,' +&c. The one on 'Unopened Parcels' is the longest and the +best.--_Deborah's Drawer._ By ELEANOR GRACE O'REILLY. The author of +'Daisy's Companions' cannot fail of an eager welcome from the readers of +that charming little volume. Here is a companion to it. Deborah is the +dead sister of Lavinia Meek, who had a great gift of telling and writing +stories for children. These had been put away in a drawer, which Lavinia +Meek opens for the amusement of little Averil, who reads four or five +clever and touching little stories which she found there. These are set +in a neat framework of personal history. The little book is a gem. + +Messrs. Seeley and Co. send us _Aunt Judith's Recollections; a Tale of +the Eighteenth Century_. By the author of 'Missionary Recollections.' +Aunt Judith flourished in the days of Wesley and Whitfield, and in a +pleasant chatty way, though somewhat garrulous withal, the old lady +tells her young niece Annie the story of those times--of the darkness +which had settled on this England of ours, and of the great awakening +that followed the labours of those holy, earnest men.--_Hetty's Resolve; +a Story of School Life._ By the Author of 'Under the Lime Trees.' There +is but little power or point in these rather prosy details of school +routine; but if they should lead some young readers to shun the slippery +ways of Florence Benson, and to imitate the honest work of the +kind-hearted Maggie, they will not have been written in vain.--_Curious +Facts about Animals._ For Little People. _Evening Amusement._ Two little +books for little folk, simply written and attractively illustrated; the +former describing the habits of the mole, the badger, the otter, the +deer, the dog, the sheep, the horse, &c., and telling anecdotes +respecting them; the latter a series of juvenile stories of the simplest +kind, which derive their main interest from the children cutting out +figures in black paper to illustrate them.--_Tony and Puss._ From the +French of P. J. STAHL. With Twenty-four Illustrations from designs by +Lorenz Frölich. Another dainty book for very little children, with +multitudinous groupings of Tony and Puss in varied relationship. Some of +the illustrations are very clever, though Herr Frölich's typical 'Papa' +looks rather of the feeble order; but he may not be less welcome to the +Tinies, for whose special advantage Messrs. Seeley and Co. cater so +lavishly.--_Sunday Echoes in Weekday Homes._ By Mrs. CAREY BROCK. This +book is a history of the home life of some young people, who having been +trained to look upon the Bible as connected with every thought and +incident of their lives, find in the journeyings of the children of +Israel types and emblems of their own doings and trials, at home and at +school. It is none the less interesting to the class for whom it is +written, if less true to Nature, that the children themselves suggest +the warnings given and the lessons taught by God's dealings with the +Israelites. From the 'passing over Jordan' of the youngest of the family +the rest derive much comfort in seeing one of their number enter the +'promised land.' + +Messrs. Cassell cater liberally and successfully for young readers. _The +Log of the Fortuna: a Cruise on Chinese Waters._ Containing Tales of +Adventure in Foreign Climes, by Sea and by Shore. By Captain AUGUSTUS F. +LINDLEY. A Collection of 'Seven Sailors' Yarns'--not all of them, +however, relating to China. The scene of one of them is laid in Paris; +of another, among Australian Bushrangers; of another, in the Sea of +Azof. The 'Yarns' are told on board the _Fortuna_, which has got upon a +mud-bank in Chinese waters, and waits for spring tides. Captain Lindley +wields a vigorous, incisive, and humorous pen. His stories are therefore +clever and amusing: some of his descriptions and bits of rollicking +humour would not discredit Charles Lever. The book is profusely +illustrated, and, like all the publications of this firm, marvellously +cheap.--_Home Chat with our Youngsters._ By C. L. MATEAUX. Never was +instruction more acceptably given or more sweetly sugared than in this +attractive volume. The twenty-two chapters on 'People, and things which +the Young Folks see or hear about,' are illustrated on almost every +page. The chapters are conversational in form, the young folks asking +only sufficient questions to mask the monotony of unbroken information. +The story of 'Columbus' is thus told, and is made lucid by +illustrations. Simpler synonyms for some of the words might have been +found, but the book will be a great favourite in the nursery. It is, for +children a stage farther advanced, almost as good as 'The Children's +Album.' We can give it no higher praise. + +From the Religious Tract Society we have received--_Spanish Pictures +Drawn with Pen and Pencil._ By the Author of 'Swiss Pictures Drawn with +Pen and Pencil.' We have done--what doubtless some of our readers have +done--tested the 'Swiss Pictures' by taking it to Switzerland as a +_quasi_ guide-book. We found it carefully accurate, and full of +intelligent observations. This bespeaks our confidence for this +companion volume about Spain. 'Africa begins at the Pyrenees,' says the +French proverb: so does our author: and even veteran travellers will +feel that once over the Pyrenees they are in a _terra incognita_. And +yet few lands are physically more unique, romantically more full of wild +legends, historically more full of romance, ethnologically more +interesting, and socially and religiously more full of undeveloped +possibilities. Madrid, the Escurial, Granada, Seville, &c., are visited +and described. Cathedrals, bull-fights, gipsies, Murillo, religious +customs, literature, trade, the Moors, all receive due notice; and have +thrown upon them gleams of history, snatches of poetry, and visions of +the future. The author has freely laid under contribution writers of +renown, large extracts from whom are interwoven with his narrative of +personal experience. Gustave Doré is among the eminent artists who have +supplied the illustrations. It is an instructive and effective popular +book.--_The Picture Gallery of the Nations_ is a series of short +descriptive chapters of about seventy of the nations of the earth; each +occupying only a page or two, and illustrated with very effective +wood-cuts, some of them whole-page size, others smaller. It is a popular +book of the best kind for young people who delight in the help which the +eye affords to the instruction of the pen.--_Original Fables._ By Mrs. +PROSSER. Readers of 'The Leisure Hour' and 'The Sunday at Home' are +familiar with Mrs. Prosser's name as the writer of two or three capital +serial stories which appeared in these publications. With these fables +they will, through the same medium, have made acquaintance. To write +fables successfully has been given to only three or four of the human +race--the author of those which pass under the name of Æsop, La +Fontaine, and Kriloff are the only three names of great fable-writers +that occur to us. Mrs. Gatty very successfully attempts parabolic +stories, but not the terseness and brevity of the fable proper, which is +to fiction what the sonnet is to poetry--what the proverb is to the +sermon. Mrs. Prosser has done fairly where so few have done well. From +the nature of the case we cannot quote (to analyze would carry us beyond +our space); we content ourselves therefore with a general commendation. +The morals which she weaves into fables may catch the fancy of children, +whom an apothegm would only make callous.--The _Leisure Hour_ and the +_Sunday at Home_ are sustained at a degree of almost unrivalled +adaptation and efficiency. Tale, biography, sermon, and song, often of a +very high order, diversify and enrich their pages. We are glad to see in +the 'Leisure Hour' the wise breadth and impartiality which supplies +biographers of characters so diversified as those of Miss Burdett +Coutts, Charles Dickens, Père Hyacinthe, Professor Huxley, Mr. Disraeli, +and General Trochu. Mr. Lord, Naturalist to the Egyptian Exploring +Expedition, supplies a valuable series of papers on the 'Peninsula of +Sinai.'--_Cousin Mabel's Experiences._ By E. JANE WHATELY. Cousin Mabel +having been absent from England for some years, in visiting various home +circles is much struck by the diversified errors and follies into which +religious people have fallen, whose earnestness and seriousness cannot +be doubted. The ritualism of young ladies run wild upon church +decorations, the spiritual gossip in which certain elderly people +indulge, the doing for the poor and strangers to the neglect of home +duties, the party spirit pervading missionary work, with other forms of +worldliness and selfishness, which are so largely mixed up with many +forms of religious life--all these grave errors are exemplified in a +series of unconnected stories of family life. Miss Whately does not +exaggerate in her characters the follies she wishes to point out; and +her way of combating them is one of much wisdom, and is combined with +many practical hints, calculated to effect in actual life the reforms +which in these tales is always achieved. We trust the practical result +may be the same.--_The First Heroes of the Cross._ By BENJAMIN CLARKE. +Sunday School Union. Mr. Clarke's 'Life of Jesus, for Young People,' has +been received with so much favour that he has attempted to tell the +story of the Acts of the Apostles in the same way. He has done this +admirably, with great simplicity, and in a very interesting way. Mr. +Clarke has spared no pains to qualify himself for forming and expressing +true conceptions of the incidents that he narrates. + + + + +THE + +BRITISH QUARTERLY + +APRIL 1871 + + + + +ART. I.--_Burton's History of Scotland._ Vols. V., VI., and VII. London. +1870. + +The affairs of Scotland will always occupy an honourable and conspicuous +place in the grand drama of national development which makes up the +history of the British Empire. It has been the destiny of the Scottish +people to influence the general fortunes of England in a larger degree, +and more permanently, than could have been expected from their mere +numbers, or their position in the north of our island. In the years +which succeeded the Norman Conquest, Scotland was, in some measure, a +place of refuge for the English name from foreign oppression; and though +deeply penetrated by the Norman elements which consolidated and +strengthened her feudal monarchy, she held up something like a beacon of +hope before the eyes of the down-trodden Saxon, during the calamitous +period of alien domination. Two centuries later, when her nationality +had become more firmly established, when her Highland clans, her +Anglo-Norman colonies, her Norse settlements, and her Lowland commonalty +had been brought nominally under a supreme government, though not yet +formed into one people, she exhibited to the world a magnificent +spectacle of prolonged, stubborn, and successful resistance to the +encroachments of a very superior power; and, in the internecine struggle +which ensued, we see distinctly the high qualities which have made her +the worthy compeer of England. It was probably one of the results of +this contest that France, aided by her Northern ally, was enabled to +throw off the Plantagenet yoke, and to acquire the position she still +holds in Europe; and, but for Verneuil and other battles, it is +possible that, in the fifteenth century, England might have become a +military despotism, extending from the Western Isles to the Pyrenees, +and have had a completely different history. It is unnecessary to say +what Scotland accomplished at the great crisis of the Reformation; if, +in the person of Mary Stuart, her dynasty threatened England with +subjection and with the despotism of the Catholic League, her people +proved the defence of Protestantism, rejected the sovereign they justly +detested, gave strength to the counsels of Elizabeth, and contributed +largely to the success of the policy which culminated in the ruin of the +Armada. For it was at the momentous period of the civil wars of the +seventeenth century that the house of Stuart and part of the Scottish +nobility endeavoured to blight the prospects of England, to stifle +freedom by military power, and to restore what was Romanism all but in +name; but the mass of the nation opposed the movement, and set the noble +example of resistance to it; and though they ultimately separated from +England, they did much to cause the series of events which ended in the +Revolution of 1688. Scotland, in a word, has had a beneficent influence +of a marked and even extraordinary kind in shaping the course of our +English story; and we need not notice how her independent spirit has +affected for good the national character, what eminent men she has given +the State, what valuable additions she has made to the treasures of +British literature and thought, what use some of her institutions have +been, as patterns for our own imitation. + +The author of the interesting volumes before us has long held a +distinguished name in connection with the literature of his country. He +has given us an exceedingly good account of the transitional period in +the history of Scotland, which embraces the Revolution of 1688, the +Union, and the final extinction of the reactionary and half-Romanist +party in the nation, when Jacobitism perished in 1745. He has also +described with clear insight, and, on the whole, with an impartial pen, +that honourable episode in Scottish annals, of lasting importance to +these kingdoms, the 'ancient league' of Scotland with France; and no +writer, perhaps, has done more to elucidate whatever is most noteworthy +in the antiquarian remains and monuments of the races which from the +earliest times have inhabited the northern division of our island. The +history, however, which he has just completed, and which deals with the +affairs of Scotland from the Roman invasion, under Agricola, to the +overthrow of the House of Stuart, is, beyond comparison, his greatest +work; and as a repository of the learning with which modern research and +criticism have explored the national life of his countrymen, it stands +alone, and without a parallel. Mr. Burton, in his first four volumes, +which were published in 1867, carried down his narrative from the +legendary period of the Roman occupation, of the Scots and Picts, of +Fergus and the old Celtic monarchy, to the rise of the feudal kingdom of +Scotland and its long contest with the power of England; and he went on +to describe the memorable era when the ascendancy of France, and +national pride resenting Flodden and Pinkie Cleugh, struggled with the +forces of the Scottish Reformation; and Mary Stuart, but for her crimes +and her fall, would probably have united the two crowns, and become the +sovereign of a Romanized Britain. If in treating this important part of +his subject Mr. Burton was sometimes carried away by a somewhat too +exuberant patriotism, if he, perhaps, assigned too high a place to the +position of Scotland in British annals, and if he was never eloquent or +picturesque, he displayed rare and extensive knowledge, a judgment +usually calm and correct, and the faculty of forming sound conclusions; +and his account of the Scottish war of independence, and of Scottish +politics in the sixteenth century, is worthy of very high commendation. +His last three volumes, which have recently appeared, and which we +purpose now to review, comprise the last years of the reign of Mary +Stuart, the triumph of the Reformation in Scotland, the struggle between +the Kirk and the Crown, which marked the beginning of the seventeenth +century, the reaction against James I. and his son, and the memorable +events which were the result; they proceed to describe the great civil +war, the important attitude of Scotland in it, the conquest of the +kingdom by Cromwell, and the dreary epoch which followed the +Restoration; and, as may be supposed, they exhibit the merits and the +shortcomings of the earlier volumes. Mr. Burton is inclined to +exaggerate the part which Scotland played in 1640-1649: he is rather too +lenient to the Stuart kings, and he is not skilful in the art of +composition. But, on the other hand, his learning is profound; his views +of most of the great questions which arose during this memorable epoch, +are sound and judicious, and deserve attention; and, on the whole, he +has placed the events of the drama of which he has followed the +chequered scenes, in their true light and real significance. + +Mr. Burton's narrative begins at the period of the imprisonment of Mary +Stuart at Lochleven. A few months previously the Scottish queen had been +the hope of the Catholic Powers, which were ever planning the ruin of +Elizabeth, and the overthrow of the Reformation in England; and, widely +as they were divided from each other, they looked upon her as the +appointed instrument with which to assail the common enemy. Her beauty +too, her extraordinary gifts, the magic of her presence, and her rare +abilities, had won the hearts of the Scottish nobility; and though she +had never deceived Knox and the earnest champions of Scottish +Protestantism, the pride of the nation was aroused in her favour, from +the circumstance that it seemed probable that the two crowns would unite +on her brow, and that she would become the sovereign of England and +Scotland. Distrusted as she was in England by all the real friends of +the Reformation, she was supported by the Catholic party, still most +formidable in rank and numbers; and she had on her side the conservative +feeling, of extraordinary strength in that age, which saw in her the +heir to the throne, Elizabeth being without children, and the means of +bringing England once more into the old order and ways of Europe. Had +Mary Stuart not disgraced herself in the opinion even of that +generation, not over-scrupulous about the acts of princes, there can be +little doubt that she would have been acknowledged as Elizabeth's +successor; and very probably she would have brought the reign of the +heretic Tudor to a close, would have become the ruler of England and +Scotland, arrested the Reformation for a time, and changed the whole +tenor of our history. Providentially, however, this was not to be; and +Mary Stuart, by her own hand, was to destroy the prospect of power and +ambition, fraught with destruction to the destinies of mankind, which +fortune seemed to have opened to her. The murder of Darnley, followed by +the shameless and infamous marriage with Bothwell, revealed the depths +of recklessness and crime in the existence of this singular woman, and +placed her at once under the moral ban of Scotland, England, and +Catholic Europe. At Carberry Hill her followers' arms dropped, as it +were, from their nerveless hands; the nation rose in fury against her; +her adherents were for the time silenced; and she found herself on a +sudden a prisoner, her son proclaimed, the Reformation victorious, and +Murray exercising the powers of a regent; the whole scene changing as if +by magic. Catherine de Medicis, also, gave her up, alarmed at the storm +which had burst out in Scotland; and though undoubtedly the Florentine +queen was not guided by moral considerations, and, at this moment was +beginning to adopt a conciliatory policy towards the French Huguenots, +her complete abandonment of Mary Stuart was caused chiefly by a true +conviction that she had ruined herself in general opinion. Philip II. +also declined to give the slightest countenance to the beautiful fury, +in whom he had hoped to find a St. Teresa; and in Catholic and +Conservative England the revulsion of feeling was so strong, that +thenceforward the cause of Mary Stuart ceased to be national in any real +sense. + +Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Froude have given us very different accounts of +the captivity of Mary Stuart at Lochleven. Mr. Burton has taken great +pains to ascertain the facts, and to judge of them, and we quote a few +words from his description:-- + + 'The conclusion of all is, that there is nothing in the + conditions to justify the inference that the captive was to + be sent thither as to a place of sordidness and severity, + as well as of seclusion and security.... There is no + evidence that the Lady of Lochleven treated her prisoner + harshly. Much vigilance was necessary, however, and that + could not be accomplished without giving annoyance and even + pain. The daughters of the house shared the prisoner's bed. + To one who had enjoyed full command over the stately + reserve of the court of France, and the impregnable barrier + of isolation which it had put at her disposal, this may + have been a heavy grievance; it can be paralleled only by + the sufferings of people accustomed to civilized + refinement, when their lot is cast among + barbarians.'--(Vol. v. 98.) + +The only personage, as is well known, who seems to have shown any real +sympathy with the Queen of Scotland, in this forlorn condition, was the +sovereign who, it might be supposed, was of all persons the least +likely to do anything in behalf of her cause. On hearing of the +imprisonment of Mary, Elizabeth not only refused to give open support to +her 'rebellious lords,' but actually threatened to invade Scotland, +should they not restore their mistress to the throne, on terms, however, +dictated by England. To suppose that this conduct is to be ascribed to +chivalrous generosity would be a mistake; nor do we think with Mr. +Burton, that it was due wholly to Tudor dislike of disobedience to the +Lord's anointed, though this certainly was one ruling motive. Elizabeth, +undoubtedly, throughout her entire reign, especially in the case of the +united provinces, was averse to countenancing revolted subjects, even +when to do so was her evident interest; but in this instance she was, in +fact, guided by other considerations in her conduct. She seems to have +wished in this, following the traditional policy of English rulers, to +have taken upon herself the settlement of Scotland; and she did not +choose that that kingdom should be revolutionized without her sanction. +She also had a particular aversion to Knox and the Reforming leaders; +and very probably her sagacious advisers may have foreseen that the rule +of Murray and his associates was far from secure. These motives probably +influenced her policy in not siding with the Regent and his followers; +and in one respect the event vindicated, in a great measure, her +cautious prudence. Though the infant James was formally crowned, though +the Reformed Church was established in Scotland, and Murray proved +himself an able ruler, a strong reaction set in in favour of the +imprisoned queen; and though unquestionably the great mass of the nation +remained completely hostile, she was able to rally a party sufficient to +cause a violent counter-revolution. The numerous adherents of the old +Church, the whole body of the Catholic clergy, and a large minority of +the Scottish nobility enlisted themselves on the side of Mary Stuart; +they were joined by some of the politicians and patriots whose one idea +was the giving a Scottish sovereign to England; and pity for misfortune, +the recollection of rare beauty and great gifts, and that strange +loyalty which so often has shown itself superior to the sense of right, +of justice, and of the successful cause, contributed to swell the ranks +of her followers. Mr. Burton describes the escape from Lochleven, and +the stirring incidents of the struggle which ensued, with much research +and even animation; but we can only refer our readers to them. The +unimportant battle of Langside showed that, however imposing it was in +name, the party of the queen was not supported in any degree by the +Scottish nation; a defeat, though little more than a skirmish, was +sufficient to overthrow her career, and to compel her forthwith to leave +her kingdom. After her flight, in which she found few friends, Mary +Stuart was obliged to take refuge in England, abandoning for ever a +country in which she had played one of the most astonishing parts that +have ever fallen to the lot of woman, and which, excepting a +revolutionary faction, had repudiated her for crimes which had effaced +the sentiment of former affection. + +We agree generally with Mr. Burton in his estimate of Elizabeth's policy +when her rival had placed herself in her power. That policy was not +generous or high-minded; it was even temporising, doubtful, and +tentative; but it was essentially crafty and prudent. To have listened +to the petition of the Scottish queen, and to have sent her over to +France or Spain, would have been to arm the enemies of England with a +weapon of the most perilous kind, and, at the same time, to make all +Protestant Scotland permanently hostile. On the other hand, Elizabeth +refused to hand her guest over to the Scottish lords, in part certainly +from compassionate feelings, in part from her known antipathy to +rebellion against a lawful sovereign, and in part from a well-founded +doubt whether the government of Murray was really stable, and whether, +if the surrender were made, a violent reaction would not follow. A +middle course was artfully struck out, which had the advantage of +seeming just, of ruining the fair fame of Mary Stuart, and depriving her +of all moral influence, and which, moreover, gave her the right of +intervening in Scottish affairs, and making England the arbiter of them. +Under the form of a charge against her revolted subjects, Mary Stuart +was really put on her trial before the most distinguished personages in +England; and the result of the inquiry was that she was disgraced in +public opinion, that her detention was in part justified, and that, +though made somewhat dependent on England, Murray and the Regency were +confirmed in power. This is what Elizabeth and Cecil had aimed at, and +whatever may be thought of the dignity of their conduct, it fell in with +the interests of England; and it was, on the whole, inspired by wisdom. +Mr. Burton describes at much length the conferences at York and Hampton +Court, but we have no space to dwell on his narrative. The only real +question was as to the guilt of Mary, and of this, like ourselves, he +has no doubt. The evidence contained in the casket letters is confirmed +by numerous subordinate proofs; the authenticity of the letters +themselves was hardly questioned in that generation, and not a single +member of the Commission--though several were devoted to Mary--not even, +apparently, her own advocates, attempted to challenge this decisive +fact. As the Scottish queen has found defenders of the boldest kind, +even in our day, we quote a part of Mr. Burton's comments:-- + + 'There are two theories on which the guilty conclusion to + which the casket documents point has been resisted with + great perseverance and gallantry; the one is, that, as we + now see them, they have been tampered with; the other, that + they are forgeries from the beginning. All questions raised + on the prior theory, are at once settled by the fact that + those to whom the letters were first shown, drew + conclusions from them as damnatory as any they can now + suggest.... The theory of an entire forgery seems not to + have occurred to any of those friends or foes of the queen + who saw the documents.... And it is impossible not to + connect the stream of contemporary impugnment with a + notable peculiarity in these documents. They are as + affluent in petty details about matters personally known to + persons who could have contradicted them if false, that the + forger could only have scattered around him, in superfluous + profusion, allusions that must have been traps for his own + detection. Wherever any of these petty matters come to the + surface elsewhere, it is in a shape to confirm the accuracy + of the mention made of them in these letters.... Though + this controversy has produced dazzling achievements of + ingenuity and sagacity, I would be inclined not so much to + press technical points of evidence, as to look to the + general tone and character of the whole story. In this view + nothing appears to me more natural than the casket letters. + They fit entirely into their places in the dark history of + events.'--(Vol. iv. p. 436, _et seq._) + +Events showed that Elizabeth and Cecil were right in calculating that +the power of Murray did not rest on a secure foundation. The Regent was +one of the best governors who ever appeared in Scottish history; he was +honourable, upright, firm, yet humane; and during his too brief rule he +maintained order in a manner unknown in that generation. The religious +movement, too, of which he was the unselfish and sincere champion, was +followed by the great mass of the nation; and though most of the +Reforming lords were simply greedy for the spoils of Popery, Knox and +his adherents went with them, and, as a people, Scotland was sincerely +Protestant. These combined elements of power, however, did not render +the Government safe, and it was exposed to a series of formidable +attacks which kept the country for some years in anarchy. The united +parties which Langside had quelled again formed a perilous coalition; +and the old Church, many of the great feudal lords, and the statesmen +who wished above all things to place a Stuart on the Tudor throne, once +more rallied in behalf of Queen Mary. The leading spirit of this +ill-assorted league was that singular character, Maitland of Lethington, +one of the ablest men of that stirring age, yet, with his keen intellect +and clear brain, an enthusiast possessed by a vain idea. Long one of the +chief opponents of the queen, he had yielded to the alluring +prospect--held out to him skilfully by his wife, one of the captive's +principal attendants--of making Mary Stuart the sovereign of Great +Britain, and he now schemed and plotted in her cause in conjunction with +his worst former enemies. At the same time, Elizabeth maintained a +dubious attitude towards the Regency: wishing to stand well with the +Catholic Powers, with whom for the moment she was at peace, and always +disliking undutiful subjects, she more than once declared she would +release the queen; and though we do not believe she was sincere in this, +the effect was to weaken the Scottish Government, and to add strength to +its many adversaries. Besides, Elizabeth contrived to stir the sense of +Scottish patriotism to the quick by an imperious demand for the +extradition of one of the leaders of the Northern rebellion; and the cry +went forth that the pusillanimous Regency was the dishonoured instrument +of Tudor oppression, and that Scotland under her lawful sovereign should +again vindicate her independence with the assistance of her old ally, +France. The result was a furious civil war, of which, after the murder +of the Regent, the issue was for a time doubtful; and, as Mr. Burton +correctly observes, Scotland was more thoroughly and widely divided than +she had been at any former period. An event, however, which in that age +revolutionized the politics of Europe, was, in Scotland also, to change +the situation. The atrocious massacre of St. Bartholomew stirred to its +depths a people essentially Protestant, confounded the adherents of Mary +Stuart, made the French alliance a source of dread, and threw the nation +on the side of the Regency, now in the hands of the vigorous Morton. At +the same time, it showed Elizabeth that the interest of England +compelled her to support 'the lords,' Knox, and the Reformation; that in +Mary she had an implacable enemy; and that her only chance was to strike +in boldly with Morton and the national Protestant party. The union of +these forces was decisive; Morton and his adherents, backed generally by +the spirit of an indignant people, overcame quickly Mary Stuart's +faction; an English army invaded Scotland, and the siege and fall of the +Castle of Edinburgh put an end to the French alliance, destroyed for +ever the chances of the Scottish queen, and, with the death of +Lethington and Grange, extinguished the prospects of her cause. + +Mr. Burton thus describes this conjunction, one of the turning-points in +the history of Scotland:-- + + 'For the future three great disturbing forces, prolific in + action, are seen no more. In the first place, the game of + conquest has been entirely played out by England. We may + say, perhaps, that it came to an end with the Reformation; + but there was still room for it, and it might start up any + day. Now its place was occupied. On both sides of the + border, men looked to another solution of the problem, how + the two nations should be made into one. Secondly, it + followed that there was no longer danger from abroad, since + French protection was no longer needed. The ancient league, + if not dead, was paralyzed, and all its long romance of + heroism and kindly sympathy was at an end.... Thirdly, + Queen Mary has no longer a place in the history of her + country. She was in one sense busier than ever ... but in + Scotland, however many may have been the hearts secretly + devoted to her, her name passed out of the arena of + political action and discussion.'--(Vol. v. 384.) + +After these events the history of Scotland passes through a period of +intrigues and factions, in the midst of which James I. grew up. He +abandoned his ill-fated mother, and the Catholic Powers endeavoured to +make his youth the instrument of their designs. The ascendancy of +D'Aubigny and Arran marks the short-lived triumph of this policy. These +attempts, however, were in the long run fruitless; the great body of the +people adhered to Protestantism and the English alliance; the Kirk and +the Reforming nobles worked together against the common enemy; and +James, as he grew to man's estate, had sagacity enough to see the +strongest side, and to direct accordingly his public conduct. Mr. Burton +omits to dwell upon the base selfishness of the young king, in throwing +over the unhappy princess, to whom he owed the love of a son. But +morally he was always a coward; and the prospect of the inheritance of +England, and the dread of alienating Elizabeth, was more than enough to +determine his purpose. The extremely unsettled state of Scotland, after +the death of the Regent Morton, and the rudeness and barbarism of its +government, appear in the frequency and sudden violence of the changes +which took place in its rulers; and it seems to have been assumed, that +whatever faction had possession of the person of the king, was rightly +invested with supreme authority. In these circumstances, as may be +supposed, the progress of Scotland was only slow; the face of the +country seemed scarred with the marks of desolation and war; the nation +was rent by intestine troubles; and travellers from England drew marked +contrasts between the aspect of the Southern land at peace under the +Tudor sceptre, and that of its lawless Northern neighbour. Nevertheless, +the course of events tended inevitably to the approaching union of the +two crowns under a common sovereign--invasion from England had wholly +ceased--and though the aged Elizabeth would not acknowledge the title of +James to her glorious throne, every politician in both countries was +aware that the time was not distant, when the policy inaugurated by +Edward I., and pursued by every great English monarch, of joining +together the whole of the island, would be consummated without civil war +or bloodshed. Meanwhile the tragic and striking figure which had played +such an awful and mournful part in the historical drama of the two +kingdoms had passed away for ever from the stage, and the terrible +career of Mary Stuart had been cut short by the Fotheringay headsman. +Mr. Burton properly does not dilate on the incidents of her melancholy +life during the later years of her long imprisonment, for they hardly +belong to his subject, but his estimate of them is generally correct. +Mary Stuart, after the final overthrow of her party in Scotland, +transferred her energies to intriguing with the Continental powers; and +it can admit of no question that she continued to maintain her claims to +the crown of England, that she plotted directly against the life of +Elizabeth, and that she kept England in a state of apprehension, +intolerable to the Parliament and nation. She was a conspirator of the +worst kind, and deserved the death she bravely encountered; and the +crooked policy, the vacillation, and the duplicity of her rival towards +her prisoner, should not render us blind to the real issue. + +While, in circumstances such as these, Scotland was working out her +political destiny, her ecclesiastical and religious reformation was +being developed and matured. In no country, perhaps, in Europe had the +Church of Rome been so grossly corrupt as in the northern part of our +island; it had been the appanage of a vicious court, and the instrument +of coarse spiritual tyranny; and in none, accordingly, was the reaction +against it more rapid, popular, and thoroughly decisive. Although +Beaton and the men of his faction had endeavoured to associate the +defence of Popery with the spirit of stern opposition to the Southron, +their policy had, in the long run, failed; and before Mary Stuart +ascended the throne, Scotland, as a nation, had become Protestant. The +grand and striking figure of Knox was the chief exponent of this +movement; but it is idle to imagine that even Knox could have changed +the spiritual life of Scotland, if the people had not been generally +with him. As usually has happened, the baser elements of selfishness +mingled with this revolution; and the support given by most of the +Scottish nobles to the overthrow of Romanism was chiefly prompted by a +greedy appetite for the spoils of the fallen Church. Nevertheless, the +Reformation took firm root; the old ecclesiastical system of the country +and its ancient faith were violently changed; and the accession of +Murray to the Regency marks the period of this great transformation. Mr. +Burton's account of the new Church which rose on the ruins of its +predecessor, and of its peculiar ritual and doctrine, is one of the most +interesting parts of his book, and abounds in learning and sound +criticism. The Scottish Kirk was founded upon the model of the Huguenot +Church of France; with a large admixture of lay elements, it had the +same definite and strong organization, and the same tendency to create +what was a powerful priesthood all but in name; and its teaching +exemplified the austerity and strictness of the theology of Calvin. From +the first, accordingly, it was calculated to encourage pretensions among +the ministry, and to become an _imperium in imperio_, not without risk +of collision with the State; and its whole system, in its excess, led to +fanaticism and contempt of civil authority. We transcribe a few passages +from Mr. Burton's description of the Second Book of Discipline of the +Scottish Kirk, a specimen of its general principles:-- + + 'It sets forth that, "as the ministers and others of the + ecclesiastical estate are subject to the magistrate civil, + so ought the person of the magistrate be subject to the + Kirk spiritually, and in ecclesiastical government." + Further:--"The civil power should command the spiritual to + exercise and do their office according to the word of God; + the spiritual rulers should require the Christian + magistrate to minister justice and punish vice, and to + maintain the liberty and quietness of the Kirk within their + bounds." Nothing could be on its face a fairer + distribution. The civil power was entitled to command the + spiritual to do its duty; but then the magistrate was not + to have authority to "execute the censures of the Church, + nor yet prescribe any rule how it should be done." This is + entirely in the hands of the Church; but in enforcing it + the State is the Church's servant, for it is the + magistrate's duty to "assist and maintain the discipline of + the Kirk, and punish them civilly that will not obey the + discipline of the same." Thus the State could give no + effective orders to the Church, but the Church could order + the State to give material effect to its rules and + punishments. It was the State's duty, at the same time, to + preserve for the Church its whole patrimony; and we have + seen that this meant all the vast wealth which had been + gathered up by the old Church. Among the prerogatives of + the clergy, it was further declared that "they have power + to abrogate and abolish all statutes and ordinances + concerning ecclesiastical matters that are found noisome + and unprofitable, and agree not with the time, or, are + abused by the people."'--(Vol. v. 470.) + +While Knox and his generation survived, the tendencies of the new +establishment were prevented from fully showing themselves. The great +Reformer was at bottom moderate; he had a real reverence for the powers +that be, however he abhorred Mary Stuart. The lay lords had sufficient +influence to control the ministry throughout the country; and the +presence of a common danger compelled the Scottish Protestants to uphold +the Government. But, when the Kirk had become settled, and the +Reformation was completely secure, dissensions rapidly grew up between +the spiritual and civil powers, and the Presbyterian clergy began to +assume that attitude in the affairs of Scotland, which led, afterwards, +to such momentous consequences. The leader of the new school of divines +was the celebrated Melville, thus described by Mr. Burton:-- + + 'Knox had a respect for hereditary rank which only yielded + to a higher duty, when, as the successor of the prophets of + old, he had to announce the law of God even to the highest. + Melville, though born to a higher position, was more of the + leveller. He was the type of a class who, to as much of the + fierce fanaticism of the Huguenots as the Scottish + character could receive, added the stern classical + republicanism of Buchanan.'--(Vol. v. 404.) + +An organization of this kind, supported by such spiritual leaders, ere +long displayed its natural tendencies. The Kirk, with its powerful local +ministry, connected with each other by numerous links, attempted to +revive in Scotland the pretensions of the old dominant Church, and it +succeeded in creating a vast spiritual power, often in conflict with the +authority of the State. The principal fact in Scottish history, during +the last years of the sixteenth century and the first of the +seventeenth, was the opposition given, by the Presbyterian clergy, to +the acts and even the rights of the Crown; and though the conduct of +James I. was, as usual, arrogant and unwise, he was subjected to extreme +provocation. The enthusiasm which followed the defeat of the Armada, the +supposed inclination of the king to High Church, and even Romanist +doctrines, and the open favour he showed to several of the old Catholic +Scottish houses, gave strength to the champions of the Kirk; and for +some time, as he ruefully exclaimed, he was not a ruler in his own +dominions. The formal abolition of Episcopacy in Scotland--the +institution had existed in name even after the iconoclasm of Knox--marks +the highest point of Presbyterian ascendancy; and, more than once, the +king and his council were compelled to yield to the demands put forward +by those whom he called the 'Popes of Edinburgh.' Undoubtedly, however, +if James had been a really able and popular ruler, he could have +vindicated his supreme authority, and the national estates, which even +at this juncture often showed jealousy of the heads of the Kirk, would +have upheld the prerogatives of the Crown. As it was, Scotland was +divided by a contest between the Church and the State, and the +Presbyterian Hildebrands assumed an attitude which contributed +afterwards to many troubles. We quote a passage that gives an idea of +the bickerings between the king and the clergy:-- + + 'Entering in the cabinet with the king alone, I show his + Majesty that the Commissioners of the General Assembly, + with certain other brethren ordained to watch for the well + of the Kirk in so dangerous a time, had convened at Cupar. + At the which word the king interrupts me, and angrily + quarrels our meeting, alleging it was without warrant and + seditious, making ourselves and the country to conceive + fear where there was no cause. To the which I, beginning to + reply in my manner, Mr. Andrew could not abide it, but + brake off upon the king in so zealous, powerful, and + unresistible a manner, that, howbeit the king used his + authority in most crabbed and choleric manner, Mr. Andrew + bore him down, and uttered the commission as from the + mighty God, calling the king but "God's silly vassal," and, + taking him by the sleeve, says this in effect, through much + hot reasoning and many interruptions, "Sir, we will humbly + reverence your Majesty, always, namely, in public. But, + since we have this occasion to be with your Majesty in + private, and the truth is, you are brought in extreme + danger, both of your life and crown, and, with you, the + country and Kirk of Christ is like to wreck for not telling + you the truth, and giving of you a faithful counsel--we + must discharge our duty therein, or else be traitors, both + to Christ and you! And therefore, Sir, as divers times + before, so now again, I must tell you, there are two kings + and two kingdoms in Scotland. _There is Christ Jesus the + King, and His Kingdom the Kirk, whose subject King James + the Sixth is--and of his kingdom, not a king, nor a lord, + nor a head, but a member!"_'--(Vol. vi. 81.) + +While seeds of trouble were thus growing up in the contests between the +Kirk and the Crown, the great Tudor queen had passed away, and James +became monarch of the three kingdoms. Both England and Scotland +recognised in him the principle of hereditary right, for there was +little in his character or antecedents to recommend him as a national +sovereign. In his own country he had become unpopular, and in England he +was chiefly known as one who had basely betrayed his mother, who had +intrigued with Elizabeth to obtain her throne, and who had no sympathy +with the great alliance with France and the United Provinces in the war +with Spain. James, however, encountered no opposition in assuming the +sceptre of these realms; and his progress to London from the +North--described graphically by Mr. Burton--was a scene of continuous +joy and festivity. The king, at least, had ample reason to feel delight +at the happy change which had come over his life and prospects. He left +a poor and distracted country--where his reign had long been a long +scene of trouble, and where he was being continually reviled by those +who, in his phrase, 'agreed as well with monarchy as the devil with +Christ'--for rich, peaceful, and well-ordered England; and he might well +expect a season of repose amidst the blandishments of a Tudor hierarchy, +and the submissive acts of Tudor courtiers. For some time he was not +disappointed, and what between the unctuous flattery of prelates, who +said that 'he spake like the Spirit,' and of nobles who vied with each +other in adulation, James must have thought himself translated to a +sphere not unworthy even of his own estimate of himself. Before long, +however, he was destined to find out that in England, as well as +Scotland, he was to earn the contempt and dislike of his subjects. +Essentially timid and short-sighted, he abandoned the foreign policy of +Elizabeth; he disgusted Englishmen by his open preference for worthless +and needy Scottish favourites; and in a few years he found himself in +antagonism with the House of Commons, now becoming a real image of the +nation, and with the tremendous force of Puritanism already growing into +ascendancy in England. Mr. Burton gives us, from a contemporary +chronicler, this sketch of the ignoble monarch:-- + + 'He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through his + clothes than in his body, yet fat enough; his clothes ever + being made large and easy, the doublets quilted for + stiletto proof; his breeches in great plaits and full + stuffed. He was naturally of a timid disposition, which was + the greatest reason of his quilted doublets. His eyes + large, ever rolling after any stranger came in his + presence, inasmuch as many for shame have left the room, + being out of countenance. His beard was very thin; his + tongue too large for his mouth, which ever made him speak + full in the mouth, and made him drink very uncomely as if + eating his drink, which came out into the cup on each side + of his mouth. His skin was as soft as taffeta sarcenet, + which felt so because he never washed his hands--only + rubbed his finger-ends slightly with the wet end of a + napkin. His legs were very weak, having had, it was + thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he + was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of + age--that weakness made him ever leaning on other men's + shoulders.'--(Vol. vi. 162.) + +As is well known, the dislike entertained for James in England was in +part owing to the favour he showed to Scotch favourites. The nation, +too, abounding in keen adventurers--poor, hardy, and pushing--came in +for a share of this feeling; and the wits and satirists of the day +indulged in sarcasms on the greedy race who crossed the border in hungry +swarms to feed on the wealth of the well-fed Southron. We quote from +one of these pasquinades:-- + + 'Bonny Scot, we all witness can, + That England hath made thee a gentleman. + Thy blue bonnet, when thou came hither, + Could scarce keep out the wind and weather; + But now it is turned to a hat and feather; + Thy bonnet is blown--the devil knows whither. + + Thy shoes on thy feet when thou camest from plough, + Were made of the hide of an old Scots cow; + But now they are turned to a rare Spanish leather, + And decked with roses altogether. + + Thy sword at thy [back] was a great black blade, + With a great basket-hilt of iron made; + But now a long rapier doth hang by his side, + And huffingly doth this bonny Scot ride. + Bonny Scot, we all witness can, + That England hath made thee a gentleman.' + + --(Vol. vi. 191.) + +During the years that followed the union of the crowns, Scotland made +considerable material progress, though still troubled by occasional +disorder. The strife which for ages had made the border a theatre of +desolation and rapine came, to a great extent, to an end, and signs of +good husbandry and growing comfort began to appear in this wild +district. The great house of Huntly, 'the cock of the North,' and the +terror of the Reformation party, was balanced by the rival house of +Argyle, and the barbarous Highlands were reduced in some degree to +subjection to the Crown. The wealth of Scotland increased apace under +the influence of trade comparatively free; and the political +consequences were important in weakening the connection of the country +with France. At the same time, the authority of the law, which, since +the death of Murray, had been feeble, began to be again vindicated. The +following, from a contemporary eye-witness, will show the progress of +this revolution:-- + + 'The Islanders oppressed the Highlandmen; the Highlanders + tyrannized over their Lowland neighbours; the powerful and + violent in the country domineered over the lives and goods + of their weak neighbours; the Borderers triumphed in the + immunity of their violences to the ports of Edinburgh; that + treasons, murthers, burnings, thefts, reifs, heirships, + hocking of oxen, breaking of mills, destroying of growing + corns, and barbarities of all sorts were exercised in all + parts of the country--no place nor person being exempt or + inviolable--Edinburgh being the ordinary place of butchery, + revenge, and daily fights.... These and all other + abominations, which, settled by inveterate custom and + impunity, appeared to be of desperate remeid, had been so + repressed, punished, and abolished by your Majesty's care, + power, and expenses, as no nation on earth could now + compare with our prosperities.'--(Vol. vi. 283.) + +Yet, though Scotland was growing in wealth, and the authority of the +Crown was increasing, the nation, during the last years of this reign, +abounded in discontent and disorder. The Scots seem to have felt +bitterly the transference of their ancient Royal House to an alien and +lately hostile country; and though they had no affection for James, they +resented the visible loss of the monarchy. A High Commissioner and +Council at Edinburgh could not supply the place of the sovereign; the +evils of absenteeism began to be felt in the capital and the rural +districts; and complaints were made that what had been a kingdom was now +treated as a subject province. Dissatisfaction of this kind, however, +was small, compared to the angry sentiments engendered by the +long-standing quarrel between James and the Presbyterian clergy. Puffed +up by the oriental flattery of the courtiers and prelates at Whitehall, +that sagacious ruler formed the design of revolutionizing the Kirk in +Scotland, and of restoring the mode of Church government which the +Reformation had violently overthrown; and he proceeded to his work with +a timid arrogance which provoked contempt and indignation alike. Many +circumstances concurred to second a purpose, which in the next +generation was to culminate in disaster and ruin to the House of +Stuart. The pretensions of the Presbyterian ministry had disgusted many +moderate persons; their despotic claims to spiritual domination had +aroused the jealousy of the national estates; a large party among the +nobility were ready to comply with the wishes of James; and though the +nation was fanatically Protestant, a minority of it had no sympathy with +what they thought was sacerdotal tyranny. The result was that, without +seeming difficulty, Episcopacy was again set up in Scotland; the king +was enabled to boast complacently that he had built up the chief pillar +of the throne, and he even succeeded in introducing innovations into the +simple ritual which had been established after the Reformation. James, +however, prudently abstained from allying aristocratic selfishness with +popular feeling, and did not venture to lay hands on the forfeited +possessions of the Church, long in the ownership of lay families; and, +on the whole, notwithstanding the tone of pompous dictation assumed by +him, he avoided wounding powerful class interests when he insisted upon +the return to 'Prelacy.' His bishops, indeed, were very different +personages from the mitred tyrants who, a century before, had lorded it +over thousands of vassals, and had exasperated Scotland by their pride +and wickedness. They were, for the most part, needy and insignificant +men, who thought a great deal more of 'making ends meet,' and of winning +the royal ear by adulation, than of asserting the claims of the Church, +and they had little in common with the class of the Beatons. Mr. Burton +gives us a most interesting account of their difficulties and +privations, and of the ignoble means some of them took to keep up their +state. We quote an anecdote to that effect:-- + + 'When I was in England his Majesty did promise to me the + making of two serjeants-at-law, and I travailed with some + to that effect, with whom I covenanted, if they were made + serjeants by my means they should give me eleven hundred + pounds sterling the piece, and the projector a hundred + pounds of it for his pains. Now I have received ane letter, + that these same men are called to be serjeants, and has + received his Majesty's writ to that effect, and desires me + to write to them anent that indenting. I beseech you to + know if his Majesty's will is I be paid by that course or + not.'--(Vol. vi. 265.) + +This change, however, though it did not provoke a violent revolution in +Scotland, created a large amount of discontent. The Presbyterian clergy +declared that the Kirk had been contaminated and profaned; they kept up +a sullen agitation; and many of their congregations only awaited an +opportunity to revolt openly. Whenever James paid a visit to his +Scottish dominions, which he occasionally did, his devout respect for +the Anglican ritual, his reverence for 'my Lords, the Bishops,' and his +assiduous care about forms and vestments, aroused indignation and +contempt, and before his death it had become evident that a great +religious movement was at hand. The King, however, continued to avert a +passionate explosion during his life; he avoided acts of high-handed +oppression; and it is remarkable that he expressed an unfavourable +opinion of the wrong-headed personage who in the next reign was to +precipitate the catastrophe and bring his son to ruin. We quote James's +account of the character of Laud:-- + + 'The plain truth is, that I keep Laud back from all places + of rule and authority because I find he hath a restless + spirit, and cannot see when matters are well, but loves to + toss and change, and to bring things to a pitch of + reformation floating in his own brain, which may endanger + the steadfastness of that which is in a good pass, God be + praised. I speak not at random. He hath made himself known + to me to be such a one; for when, three years since, I had + obtained of the Assembly of Perth to consent to five + articles of order and decency in correspondence with this + Church of England, I gave them promise by attestation of + faith made, that I would try their obedience no further + anent ecclesiastic affairs. Yet this man hath pressed me to + incite them to a nearer conjunction with the liturgy and + canons of this nation.'--(Vol. vi. 339.) + +The death of James, in 1625, was the inauguration of a new era in +Scotland. The king, though full of arrogant pretensions, was timid, +feeble, and not without a certain kind of political insight; and if he +had irritated and alarmed the nation, he did not venture to outrage its +feelings or to assail some of its most powerful interests. His +successor, naturally a firmer man, and taught to believe the odious +doctrines of passive obedience and divine right, had no scruples in +overbearing opposition, however stern and national, to the line of +policy he had marked out for himself; and the conscientiousness he +undoubtedly possessed with respect to certain cardinal principles, made +him obstinate in carrying them out in government. Besides, he seems to +have really thought it was no part of the duty of a king to keep faith +with ministers or subjects, that something in his office placed him +outside the pale of ordinary moral obligations; and in addition, like +all the Stuarts, he was especially addicted to favourites, and to lend +an ear to their unwise counsels. Such a man, a bad ruler as it were on +principle, was calculated to precipitate the great revolution which in +England and Scotland alike had been gradually in course of development. +As Mr. Burton truly observes, the teasing, fitful, and hesitating +attempts of James to cross the will of his people, were as nothing to +the steady and resolute efforts with which Charles endeavoured to +accomplish the ends which from the first he had clearly in view. The +battle in Scotland, as might have been expected, commenced upon the +affairs of the Church; and the king, with singular unwisdom, contrived +to unite against him most of the nobility, the Kirk, and the bulk of the +people, and to stir to its depths the national sentiment. There can be +little doubt that Charles intended to force the Anglican system on +Scotland, and to introduce into that kingdom the well-endowed State +Church, the rich courtier prelates, 'the midge-madge of doctrine,' and +the gorgeous ritual which he considered divine in England. His first +step was audaciously to claim the resumption of the revenues of the old +Church of Scotland, which had been forfeited at the Reformation:-- + + 'A proclamation announced the general revocation by the new + king of all grants by the Crown, and all acquisitions to + the prejudice of the Crown, whether before or after his + father's Act of Annexation in 1587. This was virtually the + proclamation of that contest of which King Charles was + destined never to see the end. It proposed to sweep into + the royal treasury the whole of the vast ecclesiastical + estates which had passed into the hands of the territorial + potentates from the Reformation downwards, since it went + back to things done before King James's annexation.'--(Vol. + vi. 355.) + +By this wicked and insensate measure, Charles made enemies of all the +powerful men, the leaders of the nobility of Scotland, who were in +possession of ecclesiastical property, and he gave the whole nation a +significant example of the iniquities of mere arbitrary power. But he +was not satisfied with exasperating a class; he proceeded to touch to +the very quick the religious and patriotic feelings of the nation. At +the stroke of a pen he completely changed the ecclesiastical polity of +Scotland, by proclaiming his right to make canons for the Kirk; and he +not only introduced many of these ordinances, but he peremptorily +enjoined the use of forms and symbols in worship for many years detested +in Scotland. This was done, too, with a coarse contempt of Scottish +sentiment which was especially galling; the innovations being thrust +upon the country by English prelates, regarded as aliens. We quote a +specimen of scenes which, doubtless, were not unfrequent at this +juncture:-- + + 'At the back of this altar, covered with tapestry, there + was ane rich tapestry wherein the crucifix was curiously + wrought; and as those bishops who were in service passed by + this crucifix they were seen to bow their knee, and beck, + which, with their habit, was noticed, and bred great fear + of inbringing of Popery.... The Archibishop of St. Andrew's + and four bishops did "the service" "with white rochets and + white sleeves and copes of gold, having blue silk to their + foot." Bishop Laud took Glasgow, and thrust him from the + king with these words, "Are you a Churchman, and wants the + coat of your order?"'--(Vol. vi. 376.) + +In this kind of foreign innovation, Laud, now made a royal favourite, +was badly and conspicuously eminent. This meddling priest, who thought +that he could bind the faith of two nations within his formulas, was +made an overseer of the Scottish prelates, and presented to them with +insolent rudeness the ecclesiastical policy they were to adopt. There is +reason to believe they disliked him heartily, while he was execrated by +the Presbyterian clergy. We quote a few words from one of his +dictatorial letters:-- + + 'You are immutably to hold this rule, and that by his + Majesty's strict and most special command--namely, that + yourself, or the Lord Ross, or both of you together, do + privately acquaint the Earl of Traquair; ... and the earl + will readily do all good offices for the Church that come + within his power, according to all such commands as he + shall receive, either immediately from the king, or + otherwise by direction of his Majesty from myself.'--(Vol. + vi. 386.) + +By this policy, Charles had contrived to unite the great mass of the +nation against him. The descendants of the lay lords of the Reformation, +the moderate men who reverenced law, the still powerful Presbyterian +clergy and their congregations throughout the country were alarmed, +irritated, and provoked; and signs of discontent were manifest even in +the Council of National Estates. The last drop that made the cup +overflow was the publication of the famous Liturgy of Laud, which, +itself odious to all true Protestants, was forced on the people in a +manner certain to exasperate a high-spirited country. Mr. Burton +criticises at length and learnedly this celebrated attempt on the faith +of Scotland: it must suffice to say that the new Liturgy was in conflict +with all the forms of Scottish worship, devised, as we have seen, from +the Huguenots, which had existed since the Reformation. The scenes that +ensued are well known, and it is not necessary to dwell on them. The +'rabblings' of the angry mobs at Edinburgh, Jenny Geddes and her 'devout +sisters,' the terror that fell on the appointed bishops, were merely +symptoms of the deep indignation which had taken possession of the +people of Scotland; and, in a short time, a general opposition was +organized against the king and his government. How ignorant Charles and +his ministers in England were of the tempest they had waked, will be +seen from the following passage:-- + + 'The truth is, there was so little curiosity either in the + court or the country to know anything of Scotland, or what + was done there, that when the whole nation was solicitous + to know what passed weekly in Germany and Poland, and all + other parts of Europe, no man ever enquired what was doing + in Scotland; nor had that kingdom a place or mention of one + page of any gazette.'--(Vol. vi. 451.) + +Meanwhile the opposition to the king in Scotland had assumed a +formidable shape, and throughout the country crowds of 'supplicants,' +demanding a repeal of the obnoxious measures which had been passed +during the preceding years, had formed themselves into regular +assemblies, connected with a central convocation, which expressed +angrily the will of the people. It has been supposed that the Council of +Edinburgh connived, to say the least, with this movement; it certainly +recognised the representative quality of the delegates by treating +officially with them; and the institution of the celebrated 'Tables' +marks the commencement of the great revolution. Charles, however, and +his councillors were unrelenting; and Laud especially distinguished +himself in invoking fire and sword upon the audacious 'rebels.' The +'Tables,' that is, the leading men of the nation, acknowledged as a +lawful power, in direct opposition to the Sovereign, resolved to make +their authority felt; and the famous compact of the 'Covenant' found the +entire sympathy of all classes with them. The Covenant, in fact, was the +solemn protest of Scotland against the wrong done by the king. The +following, from a contemporary account, shows the deep enthusiasm with +which it was welcomed:-- + + 'Gentlemen and noblemen carried copies about in their + portmanteaus or pockets, requiring subscriptions thereunto, + and using their utmost endeavours with their friends in + private for to subscribe. It was subscribed publicly in + churches, ministers exhorting their people thereunto. It + was also subscribed and sworn privately. All had power to + take the oath, and were licensed and welcomed to come in; + and any that pleased had power and license for to carry the + Covenant about with him, and give the oath to such as were + willing to subscribe and swear. And such was the zeal of + many subscribers, that for a while many subscribed with + tears on their cheeks; and it is constantly reported that + some did draw their own blood, and used it in place of ink, + to underwrite their names.'--(Vol. vi. 488.) + +Charles now began to act after the fashion which was to lead him at last +to ruin and death. He had not yet alienated the hearts of his people, +and timely concession and simple justice would certainly have allayed +the tempest. But he resolved to dissimulate with them, to hold out hopes +that he would comply with their requests, and, at the same time, to +prepare the means of chastising them as audacious 'rebels.' He sent +Hamilton, as a commissioner, to Scotland, with full power to redress +grievances, with a promise that a General Assembly and a free Parliament +should be convened; but he secretly determined to put down opposition by +sheer military force. If Charles was not what is called a 'bad man,' if +he was not a mere reckless and wicked tyrant, it must be allowed that +the detestable doctrines of kingcraft had poisoned his understanding; he +acted on system, as though he were free from all obligations of good +faith with his subjects. Mr. Burton gives us the following letter, +written to Hamilton at this juncture; it is one of the worst extant +specimens of royal duplicity:-- + + 'And to this end I give you leave to flatter them with what + hopes you please.... This I have written to no other end + than to show you I will rather die than yield to those + impertinent and damnable demands, as you rightly call + them.... As the affairs are now, I do not expect that you + should declare the adherers to the Covenant traitors until, + as I have already said, you have heard from me that my + fleet hath set sail for Scotland.'--(Vol. vi. 505.) + +According to the promise given by the king, a General Assembly was now +held, described fully by Mr. Burton. This great convention met at +Glasgow; and Episcopacy was condemned and set aside, as in the days of +the first Reformation. Charles replied by seizing Edinburgh Castle, and +taking possession of the chief Scottish fortresses; and Hamilton openly +issued proclamations denouncing the Covenanters as audacious rebels. +Civil war broke out in 1639; and in a few weeks, an irregular contest +was raging in the east and south-east, and threatening to overrun the +kingdom. At this juncture, Scotland abounded with soldiers trained in +the Thirty Years' War, not mere mercenaries of the Dalgetty type, but +men really fitted to command; and a resolution was formed to march to +the south, and to make an armed demonstration against England. In an +incredibly short time, 22,000 men were arrayed under the orders of +Leslie, and making for the English border--a force relatively to the +population of Scotland, of extraordinary numerical amount, and a +conclusive proof of the enthusiasm of the country. The composition of +this army, led by some of the noblest men in Scotland, shows all +classes, high and low, joined in the movement against the king:-- + + 'Our crouners (that is, colonels) for the most part were + noblemen. Rothes, Lindsay, Sinclair, had among them two + full regiments, at least, from Fife. Balcarras, a horse + troop; Loudon, Montgomery, Erskine, Boyd, Fleming, + Kirkcudbright, Yester, Dalhousie, Eglinton, and others, + either with whole or half regiments. Montrose's regiment + was above fifteen hundred men.'--(Vol. vii. 56.) + +The Scottish army having reached the Border, the king consented to the +brief truce known by the name of the Pacification of Berwick. Once more +Charles made specious promises with a resolution to break faith: the +wishes of the nation were to be respected; Episcopacy was not to be +restored; Presbyterianism was to be the form of Church government; and +the National Estates were to sanction the reforms confirmed by a +paternal and high-minded sovereign. The Parliament, however, was hardly +assembled before it was indefinitely prorogued; and there is ample +evidence that Charles intended, as soon as an opportunity came, to +invade Scotland, and take summary vengeance. At this juncture, the +Scottish leaders unquestionably remembered the 'Ancient League,' and +looked to France and Richelieu for aid; and if we cannot approve their +purpose, we at least should remember the great provocation. The king +thought that the time had arrived to inflict punishment on the 'rebels +of the North;' he felt assured that the old English jealousy of a +political connection between Scotland and France would throw all England +upon his side; and he issued orders for a general armament, for the +invasion and even the conquest of Scotland. But, at this crisis, +political sympathy got the better of past national dislikes; and +England, as a people, was averse to aid the king in crushing discontent +beyond the Tweed. For a series of years the government of Charles had +provoked indignation in England, only less than that which existed in +Scotland; the tyranny of Strafford and the arrogance of Laud had +combined the Constitutional and Puritan parties, and a great revolution +was fast approaching. The future chiefs of the Long Parliament +co-operated with the Scottish malcontents; and Charles found it +impossible to collect a sufficient army to carry out his purpose. Mr. +Burton describes the situation thus:-- + + 'The result is described by one on whom heavy + responsibility lay--the Earl of Northumberland, who was to + command the army of the North: "Most of the ways that were + relied on for supplies of money have hitherto failed us, + and, for aught I know, we are likely to become the most + despised nation of Europe. To the regiments that are now + raising, we, for want of money, have been able to advance + but fourteen days' pay--the rest must meet them upon their + march towards Selby, and for both the horse and foot + already in the North, we can, for the present, send them + but seven days' pay." Those who were considered liable to + serve in the army resisted the conscription; and when + embodied, they were often so mutinous as to be more + dangerous to their officers than they were likely to be to + the enemy.'--(Vol. vii. 99.) + +The Scottish army, as is well known, encountered no opposition on the +Tweed, and, having taken Newcastle, was advancing southwards, when its +progress was stayed by the Treaty of Ripon. The sword had been struck +out of the hands of the king; his English subjects had refused to second +his efforts against their ancient enemies; and, in England and Scotland +alike, the national cause was about to triumph. From this time, the +chiefs of the opposition to the court cooperated in the two countries; +and the acts of the Long Parliament and the Scottish Estates were, in a +great degree, of the same kind, and had objects almost similar. Mr. +Burton, however, correctly shows that Scotland certainly has the honour +of having inaugurated this glorious resistance; but for the resolution +displayed by the nation, it is not impossible that Stratford's scheme of +'Thorough' might have been successful for many years, and the +constitutional liberties of England might have been suspended for at +least a generation. Mr. Burton describes at some length the visit of the +Scottish Commissioners to London, and the first proceedings of the Long +Parliament; but we have no space to dwell on a subject which, however +interesting and picturesque, belongs more properly to the History of +England. In 1640-41, the Scottish Estates were convened in accordance +with the conditions of the Treaty of Ripon, and it became evident, at +once, that the authority of the king would be swept away by a violent +revolution. This Assembly, formerly little more than an instrument of +the will of the king, was now intent on putting an end to the policy and +the power of Charles; it was overflowing with religious zeal and with +national, if not democratic passion; and it resolved once for all that +the House of Stuart should no longer trifle with the rights of Scotsmen. +As Scotland had suffered more grievously than England from the tyranny +of the court, the legislation of the Estates was more violent than that +of the Long Parliament, and marked more strongly with precipitate haste; +on the whole, it does not contrast favourably with that of the English +Assembly; but, undoubtedly, not a few of its measures served as +precedents for the Long Parliament, in the later stages of the conflict +with Charles. For instance, after destroying Episcopacy, and sweeping +away all the innovations in Church and State of the twenty years before, +the Estates proceeded practically to abolish the prerogatives of the +Crown in Scotland; and the course they took seems to have suggested the +Nineteen Propositions of the Long Parliament:-- + + 'One of the points which the Estates had determined to + carry, was the appointment, by themselves, of all public + officers. The Secret Council and the Court of Session were + recast, the appointments being made in two separate Acts. + In a general Act, applicable to Government offices at + large, the king's form of appointment is treated with all + reverence; but, at the same time, it is to be exercised in + each instance "with the advice and approbation" of the + Estates.'--(Vol. vii. 140.) + +It was not to be expected, after this, that a revolution could be +avoided. Charles, unquestionably, resolved to draw the sword as soon as +an opportunity offered; the Estates, backed by the mass of the nation, +were as determined to maintain their advantage. When such were the +feelings on either side, there is little use in examining with care how +or by whom the Civil War was commenced. But, as in the case of the Five +Members, so in that of the mysterious Incident, the king seems to have +acted with that treacherous malice which so often provoked the +indignation of his subjects; and after this event, war was inevitable. +The great Irish rebellion of 1641 came to add fuel to the gathering +flame; and Scotland, like England, was impressed with the belief that +Charles had connived at an infamous scheme of overthrowing the colonists +of Ireland, and of marshalling a Papist Irish army to put down the +Estates and the Parliament. Mr. Burton examines at some length the +evidence against the king in this matter, and certainly is not inclined +to acquit him; however that may be, it is somewhat curious that he does +not allude to a most significant fact, that the alleged commission to +the rebellious Irish was given under the great seal of Scotland, and was +said to be in the interest of the Scotch, and that the Irish carefully +avoided to lay a hand, at first, on the Scottish colonists, while they +massacred wholesale their English fellows. Civil war now broke out in +England and Scotland; and for some time, as is well known, success +inclined to the side of the king. Mr. Burton describes the brilliant +campaigns of Montrose in the North minutely and well; but he shows +correctly that they were mere raids, of which the importance has been +exaggerated; and Montrose was defeated without difficulty, when +encountered by a really able soldier. The real struggle was in the +South; and Mr. Burton, perhaps, underrates the extraordinary efforts of +Cromwell in restoring the Parliamentary cause, and overestimates the +weight which Leslie and the Scottish army threw into the balance. +Undoubtedly, however, Leslie and the Scots were auxiliaries of extreme +importance. We quote this brief description of Marston Moor, where +Leslie and Cromwell commanded together:-- + + 'Prince Rupert headed one of those impetuous attacks for + which he was renowned, and scattered before him the right + of the allied army under Fairfax and Leven. It was one of + those great blows that may confuse a whole army; but the + other half was in very competent hands--those of Cromwell + and David Leslie. They beat back their opponents, not by a + rush, but a hard, steady fight, and were on the enemy's + ground, when Rupert returned from a pursuit which he had + carried too far. He found that while he had been away + pursuing the defeated enemy, events behind him had arranged + matters for a second battle, in which each occupied the + ground that earlier in the day, had belonged to the other + side. The end was an entire victory.'--(Vol. vii. 180.) + +Meanwhile the Solemn League and Covenant had attested the Union of +England and Scotland, and the celebrated Assembly of Divines at +Westminster had been employed in devising means for establishing one +faith in both kingdoms. The inherent difference between the +Protestantism of the two countries was fully developed. The Scottish +Presbyterians, true to the narrowness and bigotry of their peculiar +tenets, claimed that the Kirk was of Divine institution, and endeavoured +to compel a universal adoption of its ritual and forms of worship. These +vain pretensions were strenuously opposed by the Parliament, broad and +Erastian in view, and by the great mass of the Puritan party, trained by +the results of the persecution of years to acknowledge the rights of +freedom of conscience. Disputes, leading to memorable consequences, were +the result of these divergent views which Mr. Burton has fully set +forth:-- + + 'To the Scottish covenanters the calling of this Assembly, + and the adoption of the Solemn League and Covenant as + revised by it, were rapidly bringing on the consummation of + that great scheme of Divine Providence destined to + establish the Presbyterian polity over all mankind. The + government of the Church by a General Assembly, Synod, + Presbyteries, and Kirk Sessions, was the divine form of + Church government, and all others must dissolve before + it.... The Parliament, however, had other views, and + skilfully prepared for the consummation. There lurked at + that time, in the class of men who made the Parliament and + the influential circles, a disinclination to reconstruct + any strong priesthood.... The Brownists, Independents, or + Congregationalists, were a large body in England, and had + been growing, even in Scotland, too rapidly for the peace + of the Covenanting party. Their principle was, that there + should be no combined system of Church government, whether + prelatic or Presbyterian, but that each Christian + congregation should be a church in itself.'--(Vol. vii. + 209.) + +The civil war had gone on during these long and important discussions. +The genius of Cromwell and the power of his army had everywhere overcome +the Royalists; and the great Republican had become the arbiter of the +situation, and supreme in England. In these circumstances the auxiliary +force of the Scots became of little importance, and jealousies had +already begun to grow up between the soldiers of the two nations. As is +well known, the unfortunate king repaired to the Scottish camp, and the +Scottish leaders delivered him up to Commissioners of the Parliament for +a sum of money. We quote Mr. Burton's account of this transaction, +which, if not so base as has been described by writers of the Junius +type, does little credit to Scottish honour:-- + + 'Apart from any question about trust, had the king really + fled from enemies to find refuge with friends? The Scots + army were older and steadier enemies than the English. It + was in the future, no doubt, that in England he was to be + put to death; but the Scots had no more reason to expect + this of the English than to be themselves suspected of such + a design; and it was not by the party to whom he was + intrusted or "sold" by the Scots that he was put to death, + but by the enemies of that party. The Scots had made up + their minds to return home when their arrears were paid. + They could not keep the king except by taking him with them + into Scotland, and such an act would have implied at once + suspicion and hostility towards those who had been so long + their allies. The Scots showed in what they afterwards + attempted for him and his son, that, had he agreed to their + terms, and consented to be a Presbyterian king over a + Presbyterian people, they would have fought for him instead + of "selling" him.'--(Vol. vii. 236.) + +It is unnecessary to dwell on the melancholy scene of the execution of +Charles I. In his case, as in that of Mary Stuart, sufferings and a +violent death endured with dignity, have atoned, in the eyes of many +persons, for misgovernment and political crimes. This event was the +signal for an open rupture between the leaders of the various parties +which, in England and Scotland alike, had accomplished the great +revolution of the time. The English Independents, already supreme under +Cromwell and his invincible army, had resolved to establish the +Commonwealth, and to set up Puritanism as the national faith; the Scots +insisted on placing Charles II. on the throne as a covenanting King, and +on Presbyterianism as the church of these realms. A brief but decisive +struggle ensued, which, as might have been expected, ended in the +overthrow of the weaker country, and the complete ascendancy of the +great soldier who had never yet met his equal in the field. Mr. Burton +describes at some length the 'crowning mercies' of Dunbar and Worcester, +but we have no space to refer to the narrative. In the settlement of the +religious affairs of Scotland, the breadth of view and even the +toleration of Cromwell contrast favourably with the high-flown +pretensions and narrow-mindedness of the Presbyterian clergy, who +approved themselves the Pharisees of pedantic formalism. His grand +exclamation--'In the bowels of Christ, I beseech you think that you may +be mistaken,' shows that he recognised one of the principles which in +matters of faith enjoins charity. We quote Mr. Burton's account of the +closing of the General Assembly:-- + + 'Lieutenant-Colonel Cotterel beset the Church with some + rattes of musketeers and a troop of horse. Himself (after + our fast, wherein Mr. Dickson and Mr. Douglas had two + gracious sermons) entered the Assembly House, and + immediately after Mr. Dixon, the moderator, his prayer, + required audience, wherein he inquired if we did sit there + by the authority of the Parliament of the commonwealth of + England, or of the commander-in-chief of the English + forces, or of the English judges in Scotland. The moderator + replied, that we were an ecclesiastical synod, a spiritual + Court of Jesus Christ, which meddled not with any thing + civil; that our authority was from God, and established by + the laws of the land, yet standing unrepealed; that by the + Solemn League and Covenant the most of the English army + stood obliged to defend our General Assembly. When some + speeches of this kind had passed, the lieutenant-colonel + told us his order was to dissolve us; whereupon he + commanded all of us to follow him, else he would drag us + out of the room.... Thus our General Assembly, the glory + and strength of our Church upon earth, is by your soldiery + crushed and trod under foot, without the least provocation + from us at this time in word or deed.'--(Vol. vii. 303.) + +It is, however, but just to add that Cromwell did not countenance this +violence; and though the General Assembly was closed, no restriction +existed during his _régime_ on the exercise of the Presbyterian form of +worship. + +The northern and southern parts of our island were now under the rule of +Cromwell, the Long Parliament having been swept away, and the great +soldier wholly supreme. Even the worst enemies of the Protector must +allow that in Scotland, as elsewhere, his government was in advance of +his time, and, if despotic, was wise and judicious. After long +conflicts, the nation was at rest; and if its patriotic spirit was +quelled, it enjoyed a large share of real freedom, and grew rapidly in +material wealth. Though the Kirk was no longer established, all forms of +Protestantism were tolerated and favoured; and the Catholic nobles also +had no cause to complain of the harshness of the civil magistrate. In +governing the country Cromwell gave proof of that profound policy and +anticipation of the future, which marks him out as one of the greatest +of statesmen. All restraints on commerce were removed. Scotland was +completely united to England; the feudal jurisdiction of the great +nobles and Highland chiefs was summarily abolished; and forts, armed +with sufficient garrisons, kept the half-barbarous clans in subjection. +In a word, all the capital reforms which it took a century after the +Restoration to introduce into Scotland again, were, in a few years, +carried out by Cromwell; and it is but the truth that his Scottish +policy was a model for three generations of statesmen. Under his +far-sighted and firm government the country began to thrive apace. We +quote from a contemporary chronicler this curious account of Leith and +Glasgow:-- + + 'The town of Leith is of itself a pretty, small town, and + fortified about; having a convenient dry harbour, into + which the Frith ebbs and flows every tide, and a convenient + quay on the one side thereof, of a good length, for the + landing of goods. This place formerly, and so at this time, + is indeed a store-house, not only for her own traders, but + also for the merchants of the City of Edinburgh, this being + the port thereof.... Glasgow, seated in a pleasant and + fruitful soil, and consisting of four streets, handsomely + built in form of a cross, is one of the most considerable + burghs of Scotland, as well for the structure as trade of + it. The inhabitants, all but the students of the college + which is here, are traders and dealers.'--(Vol. vii. 313.) + +Our space precludes us from dwelling at length on the history of +Scotland after the death of Cromwell, described fully by Mr. Burton. As +is well known, a loyal reaction set in, in favour of Charles II., and +this was followed by a period of tyranny in Church and State of extreme +severity. Not only were proscriptions frequent, and the scaffold crowded +with many victims, but the legislation of 1641 was cancelled, Episcopacy +was insolently restored, the authority of the Crown considerably +increased, and Presbyterianism barely allowed to maintain a weak and +inglorious existence. The era, indeed, of the ascendancy of Sharp, and +of the tender mercies of Claverhouse and his dragoons, was one of +darkness and sorrow in Scotland--it far exceeded in its melancholy +features that of the Cavalier reaction in England; and the question +arises why a nation, which had proved itself so fiercely tenacious of +its independence in the preceding generation, submitted for years to +this cruel oppression. Mr. Burton has hardly brought out sufficiently +the causes of this remarkable quiescence, which are of deep interest to +the student of history. They are, we think, to be found in the facts +that, after the exertions of the great civil war, Scotland was, in a +great degree, exhausted; that after the Restoration, the power of the +Crown was upheld for the first time by a standing army, not large, but +formidable; and, above all, that the Government avoided one capital +error of Charles I.--it conciliated instead of injuring the nobles, and +did not attempt to assail their interests by threatening to resume the +old Church revenues. Worn out, borne down, and without leaders, the +nation was for a time submissive; its discontent exhibited itself in a +few occasional risings only; and Lauderdale, Charles II., and his +brother were allowed a season to fill up the measure of iniquity and +wrong. At last the fierce awakening came. But it should be observed that +at this conjuncture the movement for freedom began in England; and if +Scotland inaugurated the events which led to the meeting of the Long +Parliament, she played a very subordinate part in the Revolution of +1688. The passages of that memorable time are not narrated in this work, +so it is not necessary to allude to them. An estimate of Mr. Burton's +history will be gathered from what we have already written. It is +deficient as a picturesque narrative; it sometimes, as may be supposed, +displays a too fervent national patriotism; but it is singularly +well-informed and complete, and its conclusions on men and events are +usually careful, correct, and judicious. + + + + +ART. II.--_Early English Texts. Publications of the Early English Text +Society._ London: Trübner and Co. 1864-70. + + + 'O Poesy divine! O sacred song! + To thee bright fame, and length of days belong: + Thou goddess, thou eternity canst give, + And bid secure the mortal hero live.' + +Thus sings Nicholas Rowe in his translation of the poet Lucan; but can +we agree with the sentiment expressed? It is partly true and partly +false, for although the poet possesses this wonderful power, he himself +creates an enemy that wars against his own and his hero's immortality, +and this enemy is the medium he uses to express his thoughts. Few men +will take the trouble to learn a language for the special purpose of +enjoying an author's works, and therefore for the many it is requisite +that some one should be ready and willing to reintroduce the old writer +into new society. The poet Waller feared that the time would come when +his countrymen would be unable to understand his writings, and he thus +expressed his fear-- + + 'Poets that lasting marble seek, + Must carve in Latin or in Greek: + We write in sand, our language grows, + And like the tide our work o'erflows.' + +This is, of course, an extreme view, and time has proved it to be a +false one; but the writers of the centuries previous to Waller are +already in the position that he expected soon to be in himself. Chaucer +is a household name, but we fear that few read his works, and still +fewer the works of those who went before him. This is a state of things +that should not be allowed to exist; but that it does exist, no one +would be rash enough to deny. We do not blame those who neglect foreign +literatures, but we do blame those who turn away from the authors of +their own land because there is some little difficulty in understanding +their writings. + +It cannot be right that the literature of England for eight or ten +centuries should be quietly ignored by Englishmen, because it is not +easy to read its language; and, moreover, this difficulty is much +exaggerated, for although a Saxon book may, without previous study, +appear as if written in a foreign tongue, yet the few difficulties of +its language will in a graduated study speedily disappear. The pedigree +is complete that takes us back from the language of the nineteenth to +that of the fifth century. Both in language and literature it is +emphatically true that the child is father of the man, and no one can +thoroughly appreciate the greatness of Shakspeare, Milton, and our +moderns, who has not contrasted them with the authors who preceded them; +no one can rightly judge the force of words and phrases, who has not +followed them up to their sources, and seen the meads of thought they +have flowed through. + +Not long ago the early history, language, and literature of England were +thought to be unworthy of study. Men of culture studied the languages +and literatures of France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, but utterly +neglected the early literature and language of their own country, which +were considered rude and unworthy of attention. We do not expect to find +any among the uneducated caring for the old forms of speech, but it is a +disappointment to find men of education, who ought to be justly proud of +the grandest literature in the world, treating our old writers with +neglect. This feeling of contempt for our early literature is by no +means yet destroyed, and therefore no lover of the work done by his +ancestors should rest until it is entirely and for ever eradicated. + +In the old English literature there is a choice for all tastes: history, +biography, theology, science, romance, lyrics, and merry tales, have all +come down to us from the earliest times, and in them may be seen the +gradual development of the nation's mind. It should be a cause of pride +for the Englishman to remember that the links in the chain that connects +the language of Tennyson with the language of Alfred are all perfect. + +Shall we, then, allow the treasures of the past to crumble and decay? We +are now living in the enjoyment of an intellectual feast that centuries +of our forefathers have prepared for us; and shall we in return leave to +our children less than we have ourselves received? Are we not bound +rather to take no rest until all our MS. treasures are placed beyond the +reach of decay? The printing press must not be allowed to pause in its +work until every line is set in type. Nothing is more likely to +encourage our desire to attempt this great work than for us to see what +has been done of old. All honour is due to the unnamed writer of the +Vernon MS.,[172] to Shirley and Thornton, the contemporaries of Chaucer +and Lyndesay, who recognised the value of the treasures that came in +their way, and copied MS. libraries that have survived in safety to our +times. The man who has consulted the grand Vernon MS. in the Bodleian +Library has obtained a glimpse of the olden time, with its noble desire +to benefit posterity, that he is never likely to forget. + +The student, however, may naturally ask, 'Where can I study these works? +I can't read at Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, or London; and even if I +could I don't understand the writing. I want the books in print, and not +only in print, but in an accessible form.' It is this question that we +will attempt to answer; this want that we will try to show can be +satisfied. + +Various worthy men have at different times laboured to diffuse a +knowledge of our old literature, and societies have been formed for the +same purpose. Hickes, Junius, Gale, Lye, the two Elstobs, and many +others, are editors whose works have been so widely circulated that we +need hardly dwell on them; but the issues of printing clubs are less +known, and we therefore propose to summarize them. In 1812, the +Roxburghe Club was instituted in London, to commemorate the grand sale +of the Duke of Roxburghe's library, and although many trifling matters +were printed by its members, yet through its aid several important texts +have been brought to light. In 1818, John Gower's 'French Ballads' and +other poems were printed; in 1819, Caxton's translation of six books of +'Ovid's Metamorphoses,' 'Le Morte Arthure,' and 'Sir Lancelot du Lake;' +in 1828, 'Havelok the Dane;' in 1832, 'William and the Werwolf;' in +1838, 'The Owl and the Nightingale,' and Old English versions of the +'Gesta Romanorum,' and in later years the 'Alliterative Romance of +Alexander,' the 'Ayenbite of Inwyt,' and the 'History of the Holy +Graal.' + +In 1823, the Bannatyne Club was started at Edinburgh, and in 1827, it +printed the 'Palice of Honor,' by Gawin Douglas, and in 1839, a +collection of all the poems relating to Sir Gawayne, and Douglas's +translation of the 'Æneid of Virgil,' which it has left without preface, +glossary, or notes. + +In 1828, the Maitland Club was founded in Glasgow, and it printed three +old romances, viz.: 'Clariodus,' 'Sir Beves of Hamptoun,' and 'Lancelot +du Lak.' + +The Abbotsford Club commenced its career in 1835, at Edinburgh, and +printed several romances from the Auchinleck MS., as 'Rouland,' and +'Vernagu,' and 'Otuel,' 'Arthour and Merlin,' 'Sir Guy of Warwick,' and +'Rembrun,' and 'Sire Degarre.' + +The Spalding Club, which was founded in 1839, at Aberdeen, printed +Barbour's 'Brus' in 1856. + +Although the publications of these clubs are very praiseworthy, and +have done much good, the number of copies is so small, and their +commercial value so great, that they are placed almost as far beyond the +reach of the ordinary literary man as the manuscripts themselves. We +believe that all true lovers of their country's literature will echo the +words of a living editor quoted in the first prospectus of the Early +English Text Society. 'I should rejoice to see my books in the hands of +a hundred, where they are now on the shelves of one.' + +Soon after the select printing clubs were started, a more popular +movement set in, with the foundation in 1834 at Durham of the excellent +Surtees Society. Although its publications are mostly of an historical +or local character, it has issued several literary relics, such as 'The +Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter,' 'Latin Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon +Church,' and 'The Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels.' + +Four years afterwards, the Camden Society was started in London, and +from 1838 to the present time it has continued to publish a most +valuable collection of works. Its chief object has been to advance +historical studies, but it has issued the 'Thornton Romances,' +comprising the early English romances of Perceval, Isumbras, Eglamour, +and Degravant; three early English metrical romances--viz., 'The Anturs +(or Adventures) of Arther at the Tarnewathelan, Sir Amadace, the +Avowynge of King Arther, Sir Gawan, Sir Kaye, and Sir Bawdewyn of +Bretan;' 'The Ancren Riwle,' a treatise on the rules and duties of +monastic life; an 'Apology for Lollard Doctrines' attributed to +Wicliffe; and Mr. Way's invaluable edition of the old English and Latin +Dictionary, entitled 'Promptorium Parvulorum.' + +All students of English literature owe a debt of gratitude to the Percy +Society, which was founded in 1840. Unfortunately it did not meet with +the success that it deserved, and died a natural death after some +unfortunate dissension among its editors. Nevertheless, it published in +a convenient form, among other works, 'Selections from the Minor Poems +of John Lydgate;' 'The Owl and the Nightingale' from a better MS. than +that which the Roxburghe Club had printed; 'Reynard the Fox;' 'Poems of +John Audelay;' 'Romance of Syr Tryamoure;' 'Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,' +from the oldest and perhaps the best manuscript known; 'Songs and Carols +of the fifteenth century;' and William de Shoreham's 'Religious Poems.' + +In 1843, the Cheetham Society was formed at Manchester, in order to +print the historical and literary remains connected with the palatine +counties of Lancaster and Chester; and the Ælfric Society in London, for +the publication of Anglo-Saxon works, both civil and ecclesiastical. + +The Caxton Society was started in 1845, and the Warton Club in 1854. + +The late Canon Shirley at one time projected a Wycliffe Society, which +was to print our great reformer's works, but instead he induced the +Oxford delegates to undertake the task, and after great labour he +published, in 1865, his catalogue of Wycliffe's works. His lamented +death has not stopped the undertaking, and one volume of the Latin works +has been published at Oxford, and three of the English ones are nearly +ready for issue. + +In January, 1857, the Master of the Rolls submitted to the Treasury a +proposal for the publication of materials for the history of this +country from the invasion of the Romans to the reign of Henry VIII., +which has resulted in the issue of the valuable series of chronicles and +memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the middle ages. Many of +these works are in Latin and French, but among those to be mentioned as +written in English are Capgrave's 'Chronicle,' Pecock's 'Repressor,' +Cockayne's 'Saxon Leechdoms,' the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,' and Wright's +'Political Poems and Songs.' + +We have now scoured the field and shown shortly what had been done +before the formation of the Early English Text Society. This was but +little, for there was a mass of unprinted literature entirely unknown +and unregistered, and it was felt by a few lovers of early English that +the time had come when the great work of producing this literature in +cheap editions must be grappled with. + +The Philological Society commenced in 1858 with the occasional +publication of some Old English MSS., and issued 'Early English Poems +and Lives of Saints,' 1250-1406; 'The Play of the Sacrament;' 'Liber +Cure Cocorum,' a cookery book in verse; Hampole's 'Pricke of +Conscience;' and the 'Castel off Love.' In 1864, these texts were +discontinued, and a few of the members of the Philological Society +'formed a committee for the purpose of collecting subscriptions, and +printing therewith early English manuscripts.' From this small beginning +the Early English Text Society has grown to its present flourishing +condition, with a yearly income of over £900. + +The publications of the Society are naturally of a very varied +character, but they may be divided under four heads. There are first the +Arthurian and other romances; and these form a large, and probably the +most popular class, for they were the light literature of our +ancestors, and in them we see as in a mirror the love for war and women, +and for action of all kinds. Few of these are of native growth, but are +translations from the French. + +The second division consists of works illustrating our dialects and the +history of our language, including a series of early English +dictionaries. Some of these last are of great value and interest, and we +are glad to see that the Committee propose to edit some which will form +worthy companions to the 'Promptorium Parvulorum' of the Camden Society. +A rare old rhyming dictionary has already been issued, and it is +proposed to bring out shortly the 'Catholicon Anglicum' from Lord +Monson's MS. This is a dictionary of a slightly later date than the +'Promptorium,' which contains many new and unregistered words. To this +second division all the texts may be said to belong more or less, +because most of the editors give careful glossaries and introductions on +the dialect of their authors. Dr. Morris's introductions, especially, +are the only real grammars of our early language, and are of the +greatest value to the student of the history of the formation of our +tongue. + +The third division consists of Biblical translations and religious +treatises; and the fourth of texts, such as 'Piers Plowman,' which do +not come under either of the three first headings. + +We will now pass in review some of the works issued by the Society, and +we shall do so according to their dates, beginning with the 12th +century. + +The most valuable monuments of our language are chiefly of a theological +character, and in 'Old English Homilies'[173] Dr. Morris has given us a +deeply interesting collection, from which a curious insight into the +religious views of the time may be obtained. Much of the religious +teaching of these old preachers was of an evangelical character, and is +but little mixed up with the legends of later writers. One writes: 'We +must forsake the broad way which leads to hell, and choose the narrow +and green way along the high cliffs which leads to heaven, where there +are no earthly luxuries, but where the sight of God alone constitutes +the eternal life, bliss, and rest of his saints.' In the homily on the +Lord's-day the author tells the curious legend of St. Paul's and St. +Michael's descent into hell, and how they obtained for the damned one +day's rest in the week unto doomsday. He admonishes all to honour the +Sunday, and fortifies his position thus:--'We ought to honour Sunday +very much, and to observe it in all purity, for it hath in it three +worthy virtues which ye may hear. The first virtue is that it on earth +gives rest to all earth-thralls, men and women, from their thrall works. +The second virtue is in heaven, because the angels rest themselves more +than on any other day. The third virtue is that the wretched souls in +hell have rest from their great torments.' + +In the 'Story of Genesis and Exodus,'[174] the author has versified the +most important facts contained in those books, and has included portions +of Numbers and Deuteronomy, so as to give a complete history of the +wanderings of the Israelites, and the life of their leader Moses. The +poet (of whom nothing is known) invokes the aid of the Deity in these +terms:-- + + 'Fader god of alle ðhinge, + Almightin louerd, hegest kinge, + ðu giue me seli timinge, + To thaunen ðis werdes biginninge, + ðe, leuerd god, to wurðinge, + Queðer so hic rede or singe!'[175] + +He then goes on to relate, in a spirited manner, the chief incidents of +the Bible narrative. Lamech's bigamy is thus referred to:-- + + 'ðis Lamech was ðe firme[176] man + ðe bigamie first bi-gan. + Bigamie is unkinde[177] ðing, + On engleis tale, twie-wifing.' + +To bigamy is afterwards added murder:-- + + 'Twin-wifing and twin-manslagt, + Of his soule beð mikel hagt.[178]' + +The author thinks that Christian men ought to be as glad as birds are of +dawn, to hear the story of man's bliss and sorrow. + +'Seinte Marherete,'[179] is the first of a triad of saints' lives, to be +edited for the Society, the other two (St. Juliane and St. Katherine) +are still to come. The editor is Mr. Cockayne, whose observations are +always worth a hearing, although they are of a very pugnacious +character. In 'Hali Meidenhad,'[180] he expresses great offence at the +opinions of his author, whose attacks on wedlock he takes very much to +heart. We find in the side-notes such expressions as these--'highflying +notions,' 'this ranter.' The anonymous author of the treatise is +supposed by Mr. Cockayne to have been a bishop, and the same as he who +wrote the three saints' lives, and the 'Ancren Riwle.' Whoever he was, +he writes with considerable vigour, and describes the troubles of wives +with great goodwill. The maiden is to ask the queens, rich countesses, +and saucy ladies as to their mode of life. 'Truly, truly, if they +rightly bethink themselves and acknowlege the truth, I shall have them +witnesses that they are licking honey off thorns. They buy all the +sweetness with two proportions of bitter.' A husband is held up before +the maiden's eyes in these unfavourable colours:--'While he is at home, +thy wide walls seem too narrow for thee; his looking on thee makes thee +aghast; his loathesome voice and his rude grumbling fill thee with +horror. He chideth and jaweth thee, and he insults thee shamefully; he +maketh mock at thee; he beateth thee and mawleth thee as his bought +thrall and patrimonial slave. Thy bones ake, and thy flesh smarteth, thy +heart within thee swelleth of sore rage, and thy face externally burneth +with vexation.' It shows how much outspoken language has gone out of +fashion, that the author thinks it necessary to put into Latin certain +of the passages which a bishop addressed to some young nuns. Mr. +Furnivall has unearthed from the Vernon MS. a later essay on the same +subject, entitled 'Clene Maydenhood,' in which the author adjures young +women to bind Christ in their hearts, because man's love is never +constant. + +'Havelok the Dane,[181] is one of the best--if not the very best--of +early romances, and we are indebted to the Society for bringing it +within the reach of the ordinary reader. It was first edited, in 1828, +by Sir Frederic Madden, for the Roxburghe Club, but since that time it +has been almost unattainable on account of its scarceness and consequent +high price. The story, like most of the romances, is a version taken +from an original, written in French. Two kings, of England and Denmark, +die, and each leaves his child to the care of a steward, who uses it +badly. Grim, the founder of Grimsby, saves the life of Havelok, the son +of the King of Denmark, and comes with him to England, where the boy +grows up stalwart, and becomes the strongest man alive, putting the +stone twelve feet beyond his companions. Havelok marries Goldborough, +'the fairest woman alive,' who was the daughter of the dead King of +England. The two go to Denmark and drive the usurper from the throne, +after which they return to England, and conquer the English usurper. +They reign for sixty years, and fifteen children are born to them, who +all become kings and queens. Havelok's first acts, on his return to +England, were to found a priory of black monks in Grimsby, for the good +of his old friend Grim's soul, and to marry Grim's daughters to two of +his courtiers. 'King Horn,'[182] another romance of the thirteenth +century, is of English origin. Horn, the son of the King of a place +called Suddene, who had been killed by the Saracens, reaches the country +of a neighbouring king with his companions, and is loved by that king's +daughter. The king finds out the attachment, and banishes Horn, who +travels to another kingdom, and conquers a formidable giant. After this, +he returns to Westernesse and claims his lady love. Various troubles +succeed; but, in the end, Horn returns to take possession of the +ancestral throne of Sudden. + +We now pass to the fourteenth-century texts; and here we find the most +important work that the Society has attempted, which is a three-text +edition (under the able editorship of Mr. Skeat) of the most valuable +work in early English literature before Chaucer, viz., 'The Vision of +Piers Plowman.'[183] This great 'Puritan' poem was very popular for many +years, and a large number of MSS. of it have come down to us. These +differ very much, and it appears that the author, William Langland, was +induced by the popularity of this work to produce at various times what +may be called, for want of a better term, three editions. These are +represented by--1, the Vernon MS.; 2, the copy printed by Robert +Crowley, in 1550; and 3, that printed by Dr. Whitaker, in 1813; and all +the MSS. at present known can be ranged under one or other of these +types. Before commencing the great work of producing a worthy edition +of this great classic, the Society was anxious to have as much +information concerning the MSS. as it could obtain, and in 1866 issued +Parallel Extracts of twenty-nine MSS., asking, at the same time, that +librarians or possessors of libraries would communicate to the Society's +editor the discovery of other MSS. not noticed in these extracts, as the +committee believed that many valuable ones might have remained unknown. +In the following year Text A, from the Vernon MS., appeared. This only +extends to eleven passus, or less than half of the whole poem, as +subsequently written. The author is very severe upon the vices of his +day, and in scourging them he gives us a valuable insight into the +domestic life of the time. + +The poem is divided into two parts, the 'Vision of Piers the Plowman,' +and the 'Vision of Do-well, Do-bet, and Do-best.' In the first, the +author describes how he fell asleep on the Malvern Hills, and saw, in a +dream, much to displease him. The world is represented by a field full +of folk, among whom are ploughmen, spendthrifts, hermits, minstrels, +beggars, pilgrims, friars, a pardoner with bulls, law-serjeants, +bishops, and all kinds of craftsmen. Holy Church comes to the author as +a lovely lady, and points out to him Falsehood, Bribery, Simony, and +Flattery. The King makes up his mind to punish Falsehood, if he can +catch him; but that delinquent flees, and takes refuge with the friars, +who pity him and take him under their protection. The king then appeals +to Reason, but he will not take pity on wrong until lords and ladies +love truth, rioters are holy clerks, knights are courteous, and priests +practise what they preach. The author awakes, but soon dreams again. +Conscience preaches, and is seconded by Repentance in his endeavours to +convert the deadly sins. The preaching has great effect, and all set out +on a pilgrimage to find Truth; but no one knows the way, and a Palmer +who has returned from the Holy Sepulchre, and met many saints, knows +nothing of Truth. They now meet Piers the Ploughman, who directs them to +the way, and promises to guide them when he has ploughed his half-acre; +meantime he sets them to work. At first, the people will not work till +hunger comes in, and then they agree to do whatever Piers wills. All the +names of persons introduced into the poem tell their own story, thus +Piers's wife is called _Work when time is_, his daughter, _Do as you are +bid_, and his son, _Obey your king_. In the second part, _Do-well_ is to +fear God, _Do-bet_ to suffer, _Do-best_ to be lowly of heart. All the +allegory of the poem is very palpable, and at times tedious; but the +incidental allusions to the state of the people are of the greatest +interest. The author appears to have felt strongly the responsibility of +his position as a preacher, and the contempt he evinces for the small +value of the Pope's pardon, shows us that in the middle ages a purer +Christianity was occasionally preached than we are often apt to imagine. +Langland lays great stress on the law of love, and shows the infinite +superiority of a life of righteousness over a mere trust in indulgences. +Mr. Skeat says of him: 'He shows himself to us a man of simple, noble, +and pure faith, the friend of the poor, the adviser of the rich, with +strong views on the duties of a king toward his subjects, together with +a feeling of deep reverence for the kingly character, fearless, +unprejudiced, and ever willing to be taught.' + +'Pierce the Ploughman's Crede'[184] is not written by the same author as +the 'Vision,' but is an imitation of it by some one who was glad to +avail himself of the popularity of that work. It is thus analyzed by +Alexander Pope:-- + + 'An ignorant plain man, having learned his Paternoster and + Ave Mary, wants to learn his creed. He asks several + religious men of the several orders to teach it him. First, + of a friar Minor, who bids him beware of the Carmelites, + and assures him that they can teach him nothing, describing + their faults, &c., but that the friars Minor shall save him + whether he learns his creed or not. He goes next to the + friars Preachers, whose magnificent monastery he describes; + there he meets a fat friar, who declaims against the + Augustines. He is shocked at his pride, and goes to the + Augustines. They rail at the Minorites. He goes to the + Carmelites; they abuse the Dominicans, but promise him + salvation without the creed for money. He leaves them with + indignation, and finds an honest poor _Plowman_ in the + field, and tells him how he was disappointed, by the four + orders. The ploughman answers with a long invective against + them.' + +Mr. Skeat has followed manuscripts in his edition which had been +previously neglected. Dr. Whitaker and Mr. Wright printed from the first +edition of 1553, but the British Museum MS. is older than this, and +there can be little doubt that both the MSS. and the printed copy are +all copied from a MS. now lost or not forthcoming. + +The next work we shall mention is a translation of a French treatise on +sins and virtues into the homely English of Kent. It is called the +'Ayenbite of Inwyt,'[185] two old and expressive words which are now +completely lost to us, and superseded by remorse and conscience. The +book was written for the benefit of laymen, in order that fathers and +mothers might keep their consciences undefiled. There is a very full +account of sins, and the morality preached is very strict, for +backgammon and chess are placed among foul and forbidden games. This +text had been previously edited by Mr. Stevenson for the Roxburghe Club, +but in a very careless manner, as is seen by the author's original +preface and table of contents being left out. Dr. Richard Morris has +remedied these deficiencies, and has prefixed a most valuable +grammatical introduction, in which the characteristics of the Southern +dialect during the early English period (1250-1340) are pointed out. + +The late Mr. Toulmin Smith's collection of the statutes of 'English +Gilds,'[186] in the 14th and 15th centuries, is one of the most valuable +works issued by the Society, as its interest is so wide as to include +both the past and the present. The study of the societies of the olden +times gives us a deep insight into the domestic and municipal life that +has been so much neglected by historians, and throws a strong light upon +the present condition of the working classes as developed in the trades' +unions. + +A life and coherency has been put into the dead bones of dry statutes by +the valuable essay on the subject by Dr. Lujo Brentano, which is the +first and only 'History of Gilds' in English, and comprises the +Continental Gilds as well as our own. Mr. Toulmin Smith unfortunately +died before the work was completed, but his daughter, with filial piety, +has worked at the completion of her father's design, and the result is a +book that forms a worthy monument to an able and good man. + +The 'Early English Alliterative Poems'[187] consist of the 'Pearl,' +'Cleanness,' and 'Patience.' The first poem is an allegory of great +beauty, in which resignation to the will of God is enforced. The writer +has lost a daughter of two years old, and he dreams of gleaming rocks, +crystal cliffs, and silver trees, and sees his child in bliss on the +opposite side of a stream. The second poem is a collection of Biblical +stories tending to enforce purity of life, and the third is a paraphrase +of the Book of Jonah. All three show the author to have possessed much +poetic power. + +'William and the Werwolf'[188] was edited by Sir Frederic Madden, in +1832, for the Roxburghe Club, but his edition had become very scarce +before the Early English Text Society undertook its publication as the +first text for their Extra Series. Mr. Skeat, who has edited this +edition, has wisely changed the name of the English romance to William +of Palerne, because it is a translation of the French 'Guillaume de +Palerne,' and has been able to fill up the missing parts of the English +version from the French MS., portions of which were supplied to him by +M. Michelant, of the Imperial Library at Paris. The story is as +follows:--William, the son of the King of Apulia, is about to be +murdered by his uncle, when he is carried off by a wolf, who is found +subsequently to be a werwolf or manwolf, enchanted by his stepmother. +William is adopted by a cowherd, and afterwards taken into his household +by the Emperor of Rome, whose daughter falls in love with the boy. To +save herself from being married to another prince, Melior leaves the +palace with William, both of them being disguised as bears. They are +taken care of by the werwolf, and afterwards re-disguise themselves as a +hart and hind. William performs marvels, taking the werwolf's +step-mother a prisoner, and only releasing her on condition that the +werwolf shall be disenchanted. All ends happily, with several marriages +as a climax. + +We have not yet referred to the great cycle of Arthurian romances, which +have lately been brought so prominently before the reading public by the +charming poems of the Poet Laureate. Most of these romances were +introduced to an English public in the 15th century, but some are of an +earlier date. 'Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight'[189] is one of these +last, and appears to have been written by the author of the +'Alliterative Poems' previously mentioned. Sir Gawayne, the matchless +and faultless son of Loth, was one of the leading spirits in his uncle's +court, and the present text contains one of the most interesting +incidents in his career. While Arthur is holding a Christmas festival at +Camelot, a knight of gigantic stature, clothed entirely in green and +riding on a green foal, enters the hall. He carries an axe, sharp as a +razor, and asks that some one should strike him with it, on condition +that he may return the stroke at the end of a year. All are silent. +Arthur accepts the challenge, but Gawayne beseeches his uncle to allow +him to undertake the encounter, and the king consents. The Green Knight +adjusts himself, and after Gawayne has struck off his head, walks off +with it under his arm. The company feel more comfortable after his +departure, but the year soon comes to an end, when Gawayne must travel +to seek the Knight of the Green Chapel. After many adventures, Gawayne +comes to the loveliest castle ever beheld, where he is welcomed warmly. +The lord (who is the Green Knight in a more ordinary costume than that +he had before adopted) treats him nobly, and tells him that he will +direct him to the Green Chapel. The two make a covenant between them +that the lord shall go to the chase and Gawayne stay at home, and at the +end of the day give each other what they have got in the meantime. On +the first day the hostess tempts Gawayne, but he is proof against her +charms, and she leaves him with a kiss, which he gives the host at +night; on the second day she does the same and gives him two kisses, +which he gives to his host; the third time Gawayne is again tempted and +receives three kisses, and a girdle of green lace that will preserve +whoever wears it from wound or death. At night Gawayne gives the kisses +but keeps the girdle. On the morrow, after much trouble, he finds the +Green Chapel, from which the Green Knight comes out, and makes a feint +to strike him. The Knight pretends to strike again, and the third time +he brings blood, when he explains his conduct to Gawayne thus:--'Two +blows I aimed at thee, for twice thou kissedst my fair wife, but I +struck thee not, because thou restoredest them to me according to +agreement. At the third time thou failedst, and therefore I have given +thee that tap.' The Green Knight, who is Bernlak de Hautdesert, now +tells Gawayne that his aunt, Morgain la Fay, lives at his castle, and +presses his friend to return with him, but Gawayne will not, as he +wishes to return to Arthur's court. Here he is received with joy, and +all the knights wear a green belt in his honour. The author tells all +this, which we have been obliged to relate in the baldest manner, with +great spirit and vivacity; and in the midst of his story he gives +lively accounts of boar and fox hunts, which display a wonderful mastery +over language. Another of the prominent knights of Arthur's court was +Lancelot of the Laik.[190] His adventures are related in a short romance +paraphrased into the Scottish dialect from a part of the long French +'Lancelot.' The author is in love and dares not tell it, but dreams that +he should write a poem for his lady love to read. He does not know what +to write about until he thinks of the romance of 'Lancelot,' when he +runs over rapidly an enumeration of that knight's early deeds by way of +saying that he will not tell of them. He then commences in earnest with +the wars between Arthur and Galiot. A knight brings a message from King +Galiot, bidding Arthur to yield to him or he will invade his land and +not return until he has conquered and taken Queen Guinevere prisoner. +Arthur returns the defiance, but on asking Gawayne who Galiot is, he +learns that ten kings obey him. At this time Lancelot is imprisoned by +the lady of Melyhalt, and laments his fate, but as he hears of a battle +between Arthur and Galiot, he obtains leave from the lady to join Arthur +on condition that he returns to his prison at night. The lady provides +him with a red courser, and red shield and spear, and he goes to the +fight, where he performs wonders, and sees the queen, with whom he falls +in love. He returns to prison, where the lady visits him, and is smitten +with love. She goes to court, and returns after being sumptuously +entertained. She now promises to let Lancelot go on one of three +conditions--either he must tell whom he loves, or declare his name, or +say if he expects again to equal his former exploits. He refuses to tell +his lady's name, or his own, but declares his trust to do more than he +has done before. + +The lady of Melyhalt asks Lancelot to remain with her till the next +battle, when she will provide him with black armour. Arthur's forces are +led in the fight by Gawayne, who is severely wounded. Lancelot joins in +the battle on the third day, and laments over Gawayne, but he does not +waste time in regrets; for on all the ladies, with the exception of the +queen, sending him a message, he overthrows several knights, and does +great damage to the enemy. At last, on Gawayne's instigation, the queen +sends him a message, the receipt of which affects him so much that he +seems to grow a foot in height, and nothing can withstand him, as he +goes into the thick of the fight. His foes leave the place in mortal +fear at the sight of him; for whilst his thoughts are of his lady's love +he achieves unheard-of-wonders. At last he is borne to the earth, and +Galiot, who has seen his powers, says he shall not die on his account, +and gives him his horse. Here the Scottish romance closes, and the rest +of the story is only to be learnt from the French original. Gawayne +swoons when he sees Lancelot with Galiot; but the latter is induced by +Lancelot, although he is conquering, to submit to Arthur. When all are +friends, Galiot and Arthur go to see the wounded Gawayne, and then they +speak of Lancelot. Gawayne says that he would wish to be a woman, if +Lancelot would love him all his life. The queen seems to approve of the +sentiment, for she admits that she can say no more. Now the serious part +of the story commences, for the queen, through the instrumentality of +Galiot, visits Lancelot, and promises to love him. She takes counsel +with the lady of Melyhalt, and after a general understanding they all +part, with hopes of soon meeting again. + +Mr. Furnivall has printed a short and rapid sketch of the life and wars +of _Arthur_,[191] king of men, which occurs in an incomplete Latin +'Chronicle of the Kings of Britain,' belonging to the Marquis of Bath. +The author seems to have got excited, and found dull Latin prose unequal +to his feelings, so he breaks out into English verse. There are many +spirited and lively sketches in the Lincoln 'Morte Arthure,'[192] which +was first printed by Mr. Halliwell, in 1847. It opens with a general +statement of Arthur's conquests, and then proceeds with the account of +the summons from the Emperor Lucius. When Arthur hears it, his face is +so terrible that the Romans who bring the letter quail before him. The +king has a magnificent feast prepared, at which boars' heads are served +upon silver, and peacocks and plovers upon golden plates. There are also +sucking pigs, herons in sauce, huge swans, cranes, and curlews, tarts +and conserves, hams and brawn in slices, wild geese and ducks, young +hawks, stews, curries, and all kinds of made dishes. So much for the +food; and the drinks are on as grand a scale of magnificence. Wine of +various kinds is made to run in silver conduits, and the rare sorts are +served by the chief butler in goblets of gold, decked with precious +stones, in order to preserve the drinkers from the deadly effects of +poison. All this grandeur astonishes the Roman senator, who allows that +Rome itself could show nothing equal to this luxurious feast. Arthur +sends a grand message to the Roman emperor, in which he threatens to +throw down the walls of Milan, ravage Tuscany, and besiege Rome. All +these big words seem to have frightened the Roman senator, for he prays +to be protected on his homeward journey; and Arthur tells him that if +his coffers were crammed full of silver, he would be quite safe with a +passport from him. Nevertheless, the Romans were glad to get away, and + + 'Of alle þe glee undire Gode so glade ware þey nevere, + As of þe sounde of þe see and Sandwyche belles.' + +In the great battle that follows, Lucius's army is preceded by sixty +giants, born of fiends and witches, riding on tower-bearing camels. In +spite of all this, Arthur is victorious, and sends the body of the +emperor, whom Lancelot had killed, to Rome, as his arrears of tribute. +Other battles[193] succeed this, till Arthur learns of the villany of +his bastard son, Mordred, when he at once sets out for Britain, and he +might well say with Edgar-- + + 'The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices + Make instruments to plague us.' + +Gawayne, always rash, fights Mordred like a madman, and is slain in the +deadly struggle. Thus dies the merriest, the kindliest, and the bravest +of knights--he who was the hardiest of hand, the happiest in arms, and +the most polished in hall. Now all grows dark, and the end begins to +close upon all. Arthur finds the dead body of his nephew, and his great +grief is beautifully exhibited in the following description:-- + + 'Than gliftis[194] þe gud kynge, and glapyns[195] in herte, + Gronys fulle grisely with gretande teris; + Knelis downe to the cors, and kaught it in armes, + Kastys upe his umbrere,[196] and kysses hyme sone! + Lokes one his eye-liddis, þat lowkkide ware faire, + His lippis like to þe lede, and his lire[197] falowede! + Þan the corownde kyng cryes fulle lowde,-- + "Dere kosyne o kynde, in kare am I levede! + Ffor nowe my wirchipe es wente, and my were endide! + Here es þe hope of my hele,[198] my happynge of armes! + My herte and my hardynes hale one hym lengede! + My concelle, my comforthe, þat kepide myne herte! + Of all knyghtes þe kynge þat undir Criste lifede! + Þou was worthy to be kynge, those I þe corowne bare! + My wele and my wirchipe of alle þis werlde riche + Was wonnene thourghe Syr Gawayne, and thourghe his witte one! + Allas," saide Syr Arthure, "nowe ekys my sorowe! + I am uttirly undone in myne awene landes! + A dowttouse derfe dede, þou duellis to longe! + Why drawes þou so one dreghe, thow drownnes myne herte!"' + +Arthur now, with his 1,800 men, fights desperately against 60,000, and +is successful in conquering them, and killing Mordred; but what +signifies victory, when he has got his death wound, his wife has +deserted him, and his friends are dead around him. The great conqueror +and pattern of all knightly virtues dies a broken-hearted man, and the +grand old story comes to an end. The writer really felt what he was +writing about, and the consequence is, that his history stirs our very +blood. And not in vigour alone is the writer's power shown; the lines in +which he describes a bright morning in spring, and others in which he +tells of love, can hardly be beaten by any other early work. + +'Merlin'[199] is one of the longest of the romances, and although the +whole of the text has been issued in three parts, the work still awaits +for its completion Mr. Wheatley's introduction, index, and glossary. It +has, however, two interesting essays prefixed--one by Mr. D. W. Nash, +who learnedly draws the distinction between Merlin the enchanter and +Merlin the bard; and another by Mr. J. S. Stuart Glennie, on the +Arthurian localities which he finds in Scotland. The story commences +with the miraculous birth of Merlin, and a description of King +Vortiger's tower. The various events occur very rapidly at first. +Pendragon and Uter defeat Vortiger, and Pendragon becomes king, but +soon after he is killed in a battle, and Uter succeeds him, taking his +brother's name at the same time as a surname. Uter Pendragon falls in +love with Ygerne, the wife of the Duke of Tintagel, and by the help of +Merlin he deceives her into receiving him as her husband while the duke +is away. This ill-used man is killed in a fight, and the king at once +marries Ygerne, who soon after bears him Arthur. Merlin is now very +busy, and by his help the child is carried away. When Uter Pendragon +dies, Merlin points Arthur out as the heir. He is made king, but the +barons revolt against him, and now a long series of battles commence, +which are graphically described by the old author. Gawein and the other +nephews of Arthur come to him to be knighted, and through their +instrumentality the rebel kings are gradually reconciled to their chief, +to whom they do homage. + +Merlin is enchanted by Nimiane, in a hawthorn bush, in the forest of +Brochelond, and Arthur is heavy at heart on account of the long absence +of his adviser. Gawein and his fellows go to seek for Merlin, and with +the account of their adventures the book is brought to an end. + +The 'Romance of the Chevelere Assigne'[200] is a translation of the +French poem, 'Chevalier au Signe,' and was formerly edited for the +Roxburghe Club by Mr. Utterson. The present editor, Mr. Henry Hucks +Gibbs, gives in his preface a description of a curious ivory casket of +14th century workmanship, belonging to Mr. William Gibbs, which +illustrates the story. + +King Oryens and his queen Beatrice have no child to succeed them, and +when one day they see a woman with twins, the queen is unkind enough to +revile her. As a punishment, she herself soon afterwards bears six sons +and one daughter, each with a silver chain about its neck. The king's +mother, Matabryne, gets a man to drown the children, which she replaces +by seven whelps, and then bids the king to burn his wife. Marcus, the +man employed to take away the children, leaves them in a wood, wrapped +up in a blanket, a hind then suckles them, and a hermit takes them home. +The forester sees them, and tells Matabryne, who has the eyes of Marcus +put out, and employs Malkedras to kill the children, and take away their +chains. The man only finds six, as one is with the hermit; but he smites +the chains from off these, and the children are turned into swans. The +queen gives the chains to a goldsmith to make into a cup, but one chain +increases so that half of it does for a cup, and the workman keeps the +other five. The poor queen is to be burnt for her crime of bringing +forth seven whelps, and a day is fixed for the purpose; but in the +meantime, an angel comes to the hermit, and tells him the whole truth, +commanding him at the same time to take the child he has with him to +court, and have him christened Enyas. The angel counsels the child, who +is twelve years old, to say that he will fight for the queen. There is +then a great combat, in which right is victorious. + + 'Alle þe belles of þe close rongen at ones, + Witheoute ny mannes helpe while þe fyghte lasted.' + +Enyas cuts off the head of Malkedras, and the old queen is burnt instead +of the young one, who is unbound. The goldsmith comes forward with the +five chains, which being given to the swans, bring them back to their +proper form. The unfortunate sixth one, however, is obliged to remain a +swan because its chain is irrevocably gone. + +The 'Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry'[201] is a very entertaining +work, as it gives us a good insight into the condition of woman in the +fourteenth century, which cannot be considered as at all satisfactory. +The worthy knight set about instructing his three daughters on their +various duties, and all his directions are enforced by some tale from +the Bible or monkish legends. He employed two clerks and two priests to +look up examples and anecdotes for him, and a curious medley is the +result of their labours. He seems to have been a credulous man, and a +good friend to the priests, for he never fails to uphold their views. He +tells us that the Virgin saved the life of an evil woman when she fell +into a well, because she fasted on Fridays and Saturdays, and kept +herself from sin on those days; but a good woman was lost because she +did not confess one sin. He is very severe upon the dressiness of the +women, and says that young ladies _now_ often take so long to adorn +themselves that they are too late for service. Some ladies who washed +their hair in wine and other things, to change its colour, could not get +into the church of our Lady until they had cut off their hair. Besides +waste of valuable time, much money was thrown away by these ladies, and +the knight laments that one woman's dress would have clothed many poor. +The worthy man wrote a book for the benefit of his sons, on the same +plan as this one for his daughters; but, unfortunately, it has been +lost. + +'The Wright's Chaste Wife'[202] is really, as it is here styled, 'a +merry tale.' A wright or carpenter marries a fair maiden, whose mother +can only give, as her portion, a garland of roses, that will keep its +colour while she is true to her husband, but will change if she is +faithless. The man makes a room in his house, with a trap-door, out of +which escape is impossible, and then goes to build a hall for a certain +lord. This lord asks the wright about his garland, and thinks he will go +to try its efficacy. He gives the wife forty marks, and she tells him to +go to the secret chamber, where he drops through the trap-door. He +threatens, but his passion is of no avail; and when he is hungry, the +woman will give him nothing to eat until he has earned his dinner by +work. The steward follows the lord, and gives the woman twenty marks, +when he also is sent upstairs, and tumbles through the trap-door. This +man won't work until he is very hungry. Next comes the proctor, who also +gives the woman twenty marks, and likewise tumbles through the hole +prepared for his reception. He very much objects to work, and stands out +for a longer time than the others; but at last he is obliged to give in +too, and spin for his meal. At last the wright comes home, and wonders +at the noise. When he finds out the cause, he asks his wife to let the +lord out, but she will not until his lady is sent for. At last all three +are set free, and the garland remains as fresh as ever. + + 'Here endyth the wryghtes processe trewe, + Wyth hys garlond feyre of hewe, + That neuer dyd fade the coloure. + It was made by the avyse + Of hys wywes moder, wytty and wyse, + Of flowrys most of honoure, + Of roses whyte þat wylle nott fade, + Whych floure alle ynglond doth glade, + Wyth trewloues medelyed in syght; + Unto the whych floure I wys, + The loue of God and of the comenys, + Subdued bene of ryght.' + +This story is a reproduction and improvement of one of the 'Gesta +Romanorum,' in which the carpenter gets with his wife a shirt that will +never want washing as long as she is faithful to him. In the original +story the three lovers are fed on bread and water, and not made to work, +as in Adam de Cobsam's poem. + +Mr. Furnivall seems to have a special gift for hunting interesting tales +and bringing them to earth. His 'Political, Religious, and Love +Poems'[203] are a miscellany of good things of various dates; but the +'Babees Book'[204] is a perfect treasure-house of curiosities, which +tend to illustrate the manners of the fifteenth century. It contains a +'lytyl reporte' of how young people should behave; 'how the good wijf +tauzte hir douztir;' 'how the wise man tauzt his son;' the 'Book of +Nurture, or schoole of good maners for men, servants, and children,' by +Hugh Rhodes; the 'Boke of Nurture, by John Russell;' the 'Boke of +Kerninge;' the 'Booke of Demeanor, and the allowance and disallowance of +certaine misdemeanors in companie, by Richard West;' the 'Boke of +Curtasye;' the 'Schoole of Vertue, by F. Seager,' and various other +pieces on the customs of the times. The authors of these pieces give +very good rules for behaviour, and some of them would be appropriate in +a book of etiquette of the present day; but others discover a state of +society now happily passed away. The subjects treated of rise from the +rules laid down for boys, which if they follow, + + 'Than men wylle say therafter + That a gentylleman was here,' + +up to the difficulties that beset chamberlains, ushers, and marshals, in +ordering the precedence of the great men entertained by their lords. + +Mr. Furnivall has prefixed to his book a valuable introduction on the +subject of Education in Early England. + +'The Booke of Quinte Essence'[205] is a short text with a long title, on +a revelation delivered to Hermes, the prophet and king of Egypt. It is +here said that God's greatest secret for man's need is how to restore +old feeble men to the strength of youth. A walnut-shell full of the +wonderful liquid is sufficient to turn an old man young again, to cure +one given up by the doctors, and to make a coward bold and strong. +Besides all these advantages, it has the further one of driving away the +devil. As the price of the book that contains these wonderful secrets is +only one shilling, we should not be surprised to learn that the Society +had sold a very large number of copies. + +We now pass to some of the purely religious texts of the fifteenth +century, commencing with the hermit of Hampole. + +Richard Rolle, author of the 'Prick of Conscience,' was formerly held +in great estimation as a prolific writer, and his 'English Prose +Treatises'[206] are a real addition to our literature. The hermit was +not a priest, but a recognised, although an irregular sort of preacher. +One John de Dalton gave him a hermit's clothing and a cell, and provided +for his maintenance. His gaze was ever upwards, and he was so absorbed +in his work that his friends could take off his tattered coat and put it +on again when mended without his knowledge. He was an ascetic himself, +but saw that some men must lead an active life or the world would come +to an end; and although much of his teaching is gloomy, it is generally +Scriptural. Hampole died of the Black Death, in the year 1349, and his +shrine became a favourite resort of pilgrims, who believed that he +performed miracles of healing after his death. Mr. Perry has discovered +a very great curiosity in a Latin office, prepared for the time when the +hermit should be sainted. Whether this time did arrive, or whether the +office was actually used, does not appear. + +The 'Religious Pieces in Prose and Verse'[207] contain Dan Jon +Gaytryge's sermon, 'the whilke teches how scrifte es to be made, and +whareof and in scrifte how many things solde be consideride' (this has +also been wrongly attributed to Wiclif); the 'Mirror of St. Edmund,' +which contains some good precepts, although gloomy and ascetic; the +'Abbey of the Holy Ghost,' and a few hymns and poems. The 'Abbey of the +Holy Ghost' is founded in the conscience, and the maidens that cleanse +the place are righteousness and purity. The abbey is built on the river +of tears, meekness and poverty prepare the ground, the walls are raised +by obedience and mercy, the love of God and right faith are the cement. +Patience and faith shall raise the pillars, shrift make the +chapter-house, preaching the hall, prayer the chapel, contemplation the +dormitory, sadness the infirmary, devotion the cellar, and meditation +the store-house. The Holy Ghost is the warden and visitor, charity the +lady abbess, wisdom the prioress, meekness the sub-prioress, discretion +the treasure, orison the chauntress, jubilation the helper of the +chauntress, devotion the cellaress, penance the cook, temperance the +waiter, soberness the reader, pity the answerer, mercy the almoner, +dread the porteress, honesty the mistress of the novices, courtesy and +simplicity the receivers of the guests, and reason the purveyor. But +with all these excellent virtues about, four evil damsels are introduced +into the abbey, and they are envy, pride, grumbling, and evil-thinking, +who do much mischief; but in answer to prayer the visitor expels the +evil damsels. + +John Myrc, a canon of Lilleshall, in Shropshire, knowing how ignorant +many priests were, compiled his 'Instructions for Parish Priests,'[208] +for the purpose of 'coaching' them in their duties. He instructs them as +to the questions they should ask the penitent in confession, and gives +forms of absolution. He says that bad Latin does not spoil the +Sacrament, if the first syllable of each word be right. The author, +however, does not confine himself to priests, but adjures the laity to +be reverent in their behaviour at church; and not to jest or loll +against pillars and walls. This treatise affords, as may be supposed +from its subject, very valuable illustrations for the life of its time. + +We have left to the last, one of the texts that we like best, and that +is, the 'Hymns to the Virgin and Christ.'[209] These poems are full of a +pure devotional feeling, and many of them exhibit their authors as true +poets. 'The Mirror of the Periods of Man's Life; or, Bids of the Virtues +and Vices for the Soul of Man,' is a striking and vigorous poem; but +there is a tender philosophy breathing throughout 'Revertere' (in +English tunge, turne aghen!) which is very charming:-- + + 'In a noon tijd of a somers day, + Þe sunne schoon ful myrie þat tide, + I took myn hauk al for to play, + Mi spaynel rennyng bi my side. + A feisaunt hen soone gan y se, + Myn hound put up ful fair to flight, + I sente my faukun, y leet him flee: + It was to me a deinteouse sight. + + 'My faukun fligh faste to his pray, + I ran þo with a ful glad chere, + I spurned ful soone on my way, + Mi leg was hent all with a brere. + Þis brere forsoþe dide me grijf, + And soone it made me to turne aghe, + For he bare written in every leef, + Þis word in latyn, revertere. + + 'I knelid and pullid þe brere me fro, + And redde þis word ful hendeli; + Myn herte fil doun unto my too, + Þat was woont sitten ful likingly. + I leete myn hauke and feysaunt fare, + Mi spaynel fil doun to my knee, + Þanne took y me wiþ sighynge sare + Þis new lessoun, revertere. + + 'Revertere is as myche to say + In englisch tunge as, turne aghen: + Turne aghen, man, y þee pray, + And þinke hertili what þou hast ben; + Of þi livynge be-þinke þee rijfe, + In open and in privite. + Þat þou may come to everlastinge lijf, + Take to þi mynde, revertere.' + +Besides the texts we have noticed, there are many of a later date than +the fifteenth century; but we cannot do more than mention the names of +Lauder's 'Poems,' Hume's 'Orthographie of the Britan Tongue,' Thynne's +'Animadversions of Chaucer,' Lyndesay's 'Works,' 'The Romance of +Partenay or Lusignen,' Levins's 'Manipulus Vocabulorum,' Awdeley's +'Fraternitye of Vacabondes,' &c., &c. + +The list of books to be printed in the future is a very tempting one, +and we notice many works of great interest, which we trust the Society +will have money enough at its disposal to allow it to issue. This can be +done only by a large accession of members, and we are sorry to see that +the income has not increased as it ought to have done during the last +year. The following are the totals of the balance-sheets of the various +years from the formation of the Society in 1864, when the income was +only £152 2s.; 1865, £384 0_s_. 11_d_.; 1866, £681 0_s_. 1_d_.; 1867, +£941 6_s_. 10_d_.; 1868, £1,229 1_s_. 3_d_.; 1869, £1,227 19_s_. 4_d_. + +The committee seem to feel the greatness of the work before them, and +calling for further assistance, write in their fourth report:--'Thus +reinforced, the Society can proceed with fresh vigour to the +accomplishment of its task, with the determination not to rest till +Englishmen shall be able to say of their early literature, what the +Germans can now say with pride of theirs, "Every word of it is printed, +every word of it is glossed."' And in their second report, they had +previously said, 'The Society will be ready to take on itself the burden +laid by the late J. M. Kemble on the Ælfric Society, to leave no word of +Anglo-Saxon unprinted.' In redemption of the latter pledge it has now in +the press, King Alfred's translation of Gregory's 'Pastoral Care,' the +'Homilies of 971 A.D.,' belonging to the Marquis of Lothian, and a fresh +set of Ælfric's 'Homilies,' most of which are in verse. + +We ought never to lose sight of the urgent need there is for printing +our MS. treasures. A unique manuscript may be destroyed at any moment, +as has lately occurred in the total destruction of the Strasburg +library, to the irreparable loss of the whole literary world. + +All tastes are catered for in the set of Early English Texts. Do you +wish for ballads and short poems? You have them here. Do you care only +to read romances? You have the tales of battles and gallantry that +delighted our grandfathers while they sat as open-mouthed listeners to +the reading of the great volume that lasted them for many a long winter +evening. Do you wish to study manners and customs, to find out how our +ancestors lived, worked, and played, what were their religious beliefs +and superstitions? Here are ample materials for your investigation. Or +is the old language the object of your examination? Then the great +object of the Society is to popularize the old works that illustrate the +history of our native speech. + +There is everywhere evidence of a growing living interest in modern +languages, and of an attempt to study them with the thoroughness that +has heretofore been confined to the classical languages. At present, +although we are comparatively in the dark as to our grammatical forms, +we are gradually constructing a history; but we cannot build without +bricks, and the Early English Text Society proposes to supply them. + +No pleasure is thoroughly enjoyed until it is imparted to another, so +that as we have had the satisfaction of conversing with, and studying +the mind and manners of our ancestors, we are anxious that others should +enjoy the same pleasure; and we cannot but feel that those who will only +read printed books are under great obligations to those gentlemen who +undertake the arduous task of reading and explaining the manuscripts for +their amusement and instruction. We have made a rapid sketch of the +literature of several centuries as illustrated by the publications of +the Society, and necessarily, from the extent of the subject, in a very +slight and cursory manner, but we shall be quite satisfied if its +imperfections lead our readers to consult the originals themselves. + +We may add, for the benefit of those whom it may interest, that the +subscription to the Early English Text Society is one guinea a year +(with an additional guinea for those who subscribe to the Extra Series), +and the honorary secretary is Mr. Henry B. Wheatley, 53 Berners-street, +W. + + + + +ART. III.--_Parties in the Episcopal Church._ + +(1.) _Judgments of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council._ By the +Hon. G. C. BRODRICK and Rev. W. H. FREEMANTLE. London: John Murray. + +(2.) _The Church Times._ + +(3.) _Church Association Reports._ + + +The glory of the Episcopal Church, according to many of her loudest +eulogists, is her comprehensiveness. She is not, they say, like the +sects, bound within the narrow lines of a rigid orthodoxy. She does not +expect that from all her pulpits the same doctrines should be preached +in stereotyped phraseology, not even that her ritual shall always +conform to the same pattern. She recognises diversities of tastes, and +adapts herself to them. Instead of checking, she encourages the widest +freedom of inquiry, and secures for her clergy a liberty which the +members of voluntary communities will not tolerate in their ministers. +Hence she includes in her ranks men of innumerable varieties of opinion, +from believers in the extreme theory of verbal inspiration on the one +hand to Doctor Colenso and his sympathizers on the other; from upholders +of sacramentarian and sacerdotal systems, which run to the very verge of +Romanism, to men whose Church principles are hardly to be distinguished +from those of the Plymouth Brethren. Whether such diversity is +consistent with the fundamental principles of the constitution of the +National Church; whether it was ever contemplated by the men who, at the +time of the Restoration, gave her her present character; whether the +advocates of this comprehensiveness support it by arguments drawn from +their own ideal of what a National Church should be, rather than from +the documents which determine what the Anglican Church really is; +whether the principle they lay down is worked out to the extent which, +if admitted at all, justice would demand; whether, on the whole, it +works for evil or for good, are questions which we do not propose to +discuss at length here. The fact at all events is patent, and was never +more so than at present, that the Church of England includes not only +individuals of different views, but great antagonistic parties having +their separate organizations, pursuing their own ends, and two of them +at least, so far from admitting that the Church should be of this +comprehensive character, asserting that they themselves are the only +loyal Churchmen, and that all others have more or less of the taint of +heresy upon them. The lines of demarcation have become even wider, and +the feelings cherished by the more eager partizans on either side more +intense than when, eighteen years ago, one of the distinguished divines +of the day gave to the world his celebrated sketch of the rival hosts. +During the interval there have been many fierce struggles, in the +settlement of which the courts of law have been called to intervene. +Decisions of great importance in their bearing upon the liberty enjoyed +by the clergy have been given. Toleration has been secured for doctrines +and practices which it was generally thought were inadmissible, and the +legislature has gone so far in its desire to relieve scrupulous +consciences as to modify the terms of clerical subscription. The result +of the liberty thus given, has been, as perhaps might have been +expected, a wider divergence of opinion than has existed at any previous +period; but this, unfortunately, has not been accompanied by a growth of +that mutual tolerance which even the result of the various suits, +instituted for the suppression of what was regarded on one side or the +other as heresy, ought to have produced. The parties who have failed in +their attempts to purge the Church of error have sat down under their +defeat, angry and discontented, the loud talk of a determination to +secede rather than be parties to the toleration of false doctrines has +died away, but the lesson as to the limitation of their power has done +nothing towards producing a spirit of greater charity. + +The Broad Church party--if indeed it is right to speak of a number of +men who have no party organization and no party aims, among whom are to +be found all shades of opinion, and whose one bond of connection is +their common love of freedom--have consistently maintained that the +Church of England belongs neither to one section nor the other, but is +intended to comprehend all. The aim of the courts has been as far as +possible to maintain this view, on behalf of which they have often +strained the language of the law to a dangerous extent, and in fact have +allowed mere custom to set aside the authority of law in a way which +certainly would not have been tolerated in any proceedings relative to +property or civil right. The expositions of ecclesiastical law, as given +even by the highest court, have often been remarkable as illustrations +of the dexterity with which the judges have rescued the Church from +positions of great difficulty, rather than as examples of sound +interpretation of the statutes. Considerations of public policy have +affected the decisions, and the strict letter of the law has been +disregarded in a fashion which would find little favour in Westminster +Hall. The question has been, not as to the positive requirements of the +statute if construed on the ordinary principles of language, but as to +the amount of latitude to be permitted; and so far has this been +carried, that the defendant in a recent suit was bold enough to quote a +passage from a letter of Dr. Arnold, which was not published till after +his death, as illustrative of the liberty which had been granted to him, +and which, therefore, though to a much greater extent, he demanded for +himself. Statesmen and lawyers in truth, understanding that the absolute +victory of either of the contending parties meant the downfall of the +National Church, have anxiously sought to protect all in the enjoyment +of their position, and to make them understand that the continuance of +the great institution, to which in common they profess so hearty an +attachment, depends upon their mutual recognition of each other's +rights. But the lesson has been given to reluctant pupils, of whom it +would not be too much to say that they cling to that which they ought to +forget, and turn a deaf ear to all they need to learn. If among the best +men on all sides there has been the steady growth of a better feeling, +and if there is an increasing body of the ablest and most thoughtful of +the clergy who refuse to identify themselves with any party, the +majority of the strong adherents both of the High Church and the +Evangelicals display all the old spirit, and if they had the power +certainly do not lack the will to make the Church the exclusive preserve +of their own section. + +A better illustration of this could not well be found than that which is +given in the introductory Essay on 'Anglican Principles' in the recent +volume of 'Essays on the Church and the Age,' the manifesto of moderate +High Churchmen. In this party the Dean of Chichester deservedly holds a +very high place. His great abilities, his large and varied experience, +his distinguished services in various departments of labour, his high +character, rightly give him position and influence. He is not a man of +illiberal temper, and if he ever had the heat of the partizan, the +mellowing influence of time has toned down its ardour. He is so far from +being a man of extreme views or from cherishing any sympathy with the +Ritualist party, that he says, 'They assert dogmas which are scarcely to +be distinguished from some of the errors of the Church of Rome.' 'To +this party,' he adds, 'those who adhere to the principles of the English +Reformers, and who were, till of late years, known on that account as +High Churchmen, are as much opposed as they have ever been to the +Puritans, and on the same grounds.' His opposition to these Romanizing +tendencies, however, does not lead him to regard more favourably those +who are at the other pole of the theological compass. On the contrary, +if he condemns Ritualists, he lays much of the blame for their position, +as well as for that of the Rationalizers, on the Evangelicals, whom he +charges with infidelity to their ecclesiastical obligations, and with +all the consequences which have resulted from those lax notions of +subscription of which they gave the first example. 'The only +difference,' he says, 'between the Tractarian and the Puritan, in regard +to the formularies of our Church, is this, that the former honestly, if +not discreetly, has avowed the principle upon which the other party has, +from the time of the Reformation, never ceased to act. The Puritans did +not use the term non-natural; but what else is meant when they clothe in +the garment of Calvinism what the Church has laid before them as plain +and simple Catholic truth?' Having himself no sympathy with those who do +not care to inquire what the Church really means in the dogmas which she +has laid down, and who are satisfied if they can so torture her +formularies as to make them lend an apparent sanction to preconceived +opinions, he contends that 'if the thumb-screw be allowable to one +party, it cannot be withheld from the other;' ... that if liberty be +granted to one, it must be extended quite as freely to the other; and +that if this be conceded, the only conclusion is that 'we possess no +authoritative statement of doctrine whatever.'... 'The question is--we +repeat it--the principle having been conceded to the Puritans, where is +it to stop!' This is certainly turning the tables to some purpose. The +Evangelicals have been in the habit of denouncing, with a good deal of +righteous indignation, the Popish traitors who eat the bread of a +Protestant Church, while all the time they are labouring only to betray +her into the hands of her enemy; or the still greater offenders who +continue to occupy Christian pulpits, while their writings show that +they have accepted even the fundamental doctrines of Christianity in a +non-natural sense. It is somewhat startling for them to be told, not +only that they are equally guilty, but that their own laxity has been +the fruitful parent of the excesses of which they complain so bitterly +in others; that as the definite meaning of formularies must be +maintained or universal liberty be conceded, and every man left to +believe as seemeth right in his own eyes, the toleration to a Gorham +necessitated toleration to a Bennett and a Mackonochie and a Colenso; +and that on them, therefore, rests the responsibility for the disorder, +the anarchy, and the heresy by which the Church is afflicted. The +argument is not new, for it is substantially that which was employed by +the Rev. W. G. Ward in his defence before the Oxford Convocation, and +the Evangelicals would doubtless have a good deal to say in opposition +to its conclusions. We quote it here only as indicative of the strong +feelings that prevail between different parties. Mr. Ward used it in +self-defence, and in an extremity when the _tu quoque_ plea was about +the only one which was available. From Dr. Hook it comes as a judicial +utterance; and when such a man adopts this style of criticism, we can +easily understand with what bitterness the struggle will be carried on +by those who have neither his ability nor his self-restraint. + +While High Churchmen are thus determined on their side, and while the +more advanced section of the party never attempt to conceal the contempt +they entertain for Evangelicals, we have only to turn to the utterances +on the opposite side to see how fully the sentiment is reciprocated. It +would be hard to conceive of a sadder caricature of Christianity than +would be presented by a series of extracts from the _Church Times_ and +_Church Review_ on the one side, and the _Record_ and the _Rock_ on the +other. That there are members of both parties who are shocked by the +violence, the narrow-mindedness, the unreasoning partizanship of their +organs, we do not doubt; but it is impossible to deny that these +journals do represent large classes, whose antagonism to each other they +at once stimulate and express. The scenes which two or three years ago +disgraced the meeting of the Christian Knowledge Society, and the +prosecutions which occupy so much of the time, and must sometimes try +the temper and patience of the judges, are other indications of the same +virulence of spirit. We hear about the comprehensiveness of the Church, +but while this internal strife continues, that comprehensiveness is its +scandal, not its glory. It is the legal association in a Christian +Church of men who have no faith in each other, whose principles are +mutually subversive, who lose no opportunity of expressing their disgust +with their companions and their belief that they are where they are, +only by unfaithfulness to conscience and disobedience to law. It is the +maintenance of an outward and visible form of union where there is not +the inward and spiritual grace; not the fellowship of those who have +subordinated minor differences that they may cultivate a true spiritual +unity, but of those whose antagonism is deep-rooted and intense, and who +remain in the same Church from mutual jealousy and distrust rather than +from any better feeling. It is a comprehensiveness which is the child of +legal moderation, not of Christian charity, which, so far from being +the legitimate development of noble and generous sentiment, is the +result only of external constraint, whose hollowness is evident in the +railing accusations to which both parties condescend, and which survives +only because neither is willing to withdraw from an enforced and hateful +union, and so leave all the prestige and emoluments of the National +Church in the hands of its opponents for the promotion of what it +regards as deadly error. + +The ideal of a church which allows the greatest latitude of opinion +consistent with an adherence to the primary truths of the Gospel, which +trusts for the maintenance of Christian truth to its own living force +rather than to any artificial defences, which aims to cultivate unity of +spirit rather than agreement in creed, which, proceeding on the belief +that where there is the same spirit there will yet be diversities of +gifts, and under the same law differences of administration, does not +attempt to curb the free development of individual belief or allow the +divergence to which it may lead to interfere with the enjoyment of true +spiritual fellowship, is a very exalted one. If the Church of England +were really striving to attain that, or if it exhibited any signs of an +approach to it, we should be prepared to condone many faults, and, even +though it failed to realize its own conception, to honour it for aiming +at such an ideal. But this is just the view which High Church and Low +Church would alike repudiate. Little love as they bear to each other, +they have still less for the only section which is honestly seeking to +give the Church this character. Whether or not the members of the Broad +Church party are right in their interpretation of the facts of history +or the principles of ecclesiastical law, it is due to them, at least, to +say that they are consistent in their maintenance of clerical liberty. +Others demand freedom for themselves, and are very loud in their +protests against ecclesiastical despotism if there is any danger that +they may themselves become its victims. Broad Churchmen vindicate the +liberties of all, and have more than once, in times of fierce +excitement, exposed themselves to a storm of unpopularity by their +gallant defence of men who had made themselves obnoxious by their avowal +of what was branded as heresy. All others have in their turn been +assailants; they, never. From all the crusades against heresy they have +stood aloof, and have been content to bear the reproach of heterodoxy +themselves rather than do anything which might narrow the boundaries of +the Church, or curtail the freedom of the clergy. We could not find a +better illustration of this than in Dean Stanley's recent volume of +Essays. We find him in the Gorham controversy breaking a lance in +defence of the Evangelicals when an attempt was made to deprive them of +their status in the Church; and when they, forgetful of their own +difficulties, turned round, and in their turn became assailants of the +authors of 'Essays and Reviews,' we find him equally resolute in +courageously withstanding them. His own views in opposition to Ritualism +are expressed with sufficient distinctness, and, when dealing with its +favourite South African prelate and his attack on Dr. Colenso, he is +bold and unsparing; but if any wish him to unite in an effort to expel +Ritualists from the Church, his answer is, 'As we would wish to include +the Nonconforming members of the Church who are without its pale, so we +would wish to retain those Nonconforming members who are within its +pale.' The very thoroughness with which the Dean carries out his +principle itself irritates many. They cannot understand how a man should +be so zealous a champion of the rights of those whose theological and +ecclesiastical opinions he has not a spark of sympathy. But nothing +tempts him to swerve from his position. The Church is nothing to him if +she be not comprehensive, and he will resist to the death anything which +threatens to deprive him of this boasting on her behalf. + +All that Broad Churchmen can thus do, however, is to justify themselves. +They cannot alter the fact that there is an Act of Uniformity defining +exactly what the character and constitution of the Church shall be; and +when we come to examine the history and requirements of that Act, it is +difficult to see how it can be maintained that the Church was intended +to be comprehensive. It is so in fact; but it is so certainly in +opposition to the designs of the ecclesiastics of the Restoration who +gave it its present constitution, and in opposition to the letter of the +law. + +But if the existence of separate parties with views in such complete +antagonism as to be mutually destructive is an anomaly, these parties +may plead in their own behalf that they are as necessary to the +Establishment as the Establishment is to them; that they could exist and +work for the advancement of their own views even though they should be +expelled from the Establishment, but that in such case it must assuredly +fall; and that so conscious of this have been the administrators of the +law, that until the extreme views of Mr. Purchas and Mr. Voysey have +dictated a somewhat different course, their constant effort has been to +avoid any decision which might compel any one of them to secede--a +tenderness certainly not prompted by any regard to them, but solely by +a consideration of the probable results to the Establishment. How far +this should reconcile conscientious men to retain their position, is a +point which must be left for themselves to settle. Nonconformists have +sometimes been too ready to settle it for them, and condemn both +Evangelicals and Ritualists for infidelity to truth because they do not +take the course which, under like circumstances, they themselves would +feel bound to adopt. Imputations of this kind are as impolitic as they +are unfair. They leave out of sight the different aspect in which the +same facts present themselves to different minds, and the diversity of +conclusion which may be reached with perfect honesty on all sides. It is +certain, however strange it may seem to those looking at the subject +from a different stand-point, that of the two extreme parties there are +numbers who sincerely believe that the Church was intended to be of +their particular type--'Evangelical or Catholic,' as the case may be. It +requires a good deal of faith, perhaps, to believe that any man can +honestly think that Gunning or Sheldon intended to make the Church +Evangelical, but it is nevertheless certain that numbers have a sincere +conviction that Evangelicals are the true Churchmen. That 'Catholics' on +their side are satisfied of their own ecclesiastical orthodoxy is less +surprising; while any, whether High Churchmen or Low Churchmen, who are +candid enough to confess their rubrical transgressions, would maintain +that no one conforms to the pattern in all things, and that if they err, +it is only in common with all beside. + +One of the most remarkable features in the history of the Church during +the last twenty years has been the development of High Church +principles; and in this we do not so much refer to the extreme extent to +which they have been pushed by the Ritualists, or to the increase of +professed adherents of the party, as to the higher tone of Church +sentiment which is so perceptible, and which has affected numbers who +would disown all connection with any section of the party. The +Tractarian movement has undoubtedly been one of the chief causes of +this. Mr. Bennett and others of the early leaders who still remain +faithful in their allegiance to the Church of their birth, may well +congratulate themselves on the different atmosphere by which they now +find themselves surrounded. They have not indeed succeeded in moulding +public opinion, they have not undermined the strong Protestant feeling +of the nation nor have they persuaded the people that the National +Church is anything but a Protestant Church. But practices are tolerated +to-day which formerly were regarded with horror and alarm; +battle-grounds which once were hotly contested have been left in +possession of the High-Anglicans, and they, grown bold by the successes +they have won, have put forth new claims and are seeking to introduce +innovations--or, as they would call them, restorations--which the most +sanguine among them would not have dared to contemplate a few years ago. +To preach in a surplice, for example, is no longer regarded as an +evidence of Romanising tendency, although, perhaps, it is still a sign +that the preacher is not of the Evangelical party. In the struggle, +however, which is now waged to prevent the adoption of sacrificial +vestments, it is almost forgotten how recently the appearance of the +preacher in a surplice was sufficient to provoke popular commotion and +to furnish an occasion of legal prosecutions. In the style of Church +architecture and music, in the more elaborate form of service adopted in +places innocent of High Church tendencies, and in the increased +attention paid to some of the festivals, we find the same advance. Nor +is it only in such points as these that the change is seen. Even more +significant is the quiet revival of Convocation, and the amount of +influence it has been able to gain. Power in the strict sense of the +term it has not; and there is often a ludicrous contrast between the +loudness of its talk and the feebleness of its performances. But if it +has no legislative authority, it continually passes its judgment on +questions affecting the interests of the Church, and its pretensions +have sometimes been treated with a consideration, not to say deference, +which is indicative of an alteration in the spirit of the times. No +English Prime Minister, indeed, whatever might be his personal +proclivities, would dare to concede what its leaders consider themselves +entitled to ask; yet a careful observer cannot fail to see that it has +been quietly asserting itself in a way most grateful to the advocates of +ecclesiastical ascendancy. The Bill for the Revision of the Lectionary, +introduced in the last session of Parliament, afforded a very striking +proof of this advance. Convocation was first consulted as to the changes +proposed to be made, and greatly to the satisfaction of High Churchmen, +the preamble of the measure contained a distinct reference to the +opinion which that august body had expressed on the subject. It is true +that the Bill did not pass the House of Commons, and would probably not +have been able to secure the assent of an assembly chosen by household +suffrage without the sacrifice of this point of the preamble, but the +fact that it was introduced by the ministers of the Crown and, in +opposition to the protests of Lord Shaftesbury and some other peers, was +accepted by the House of Lords, is itself painfully significant. It may +even prove that the move has been premature and impolitic, and the +result may be the awakening of a spirit of jealousy that will prevent +any further encroachments. Still, such progress as has been made in this +development of Church authority would not have been possible if there +had not been, in certain quarters, a state of feeling friendly to it--a +reaction against the Erastianism which would treat the clergy as mere +officers of the State, whose duty was simply to carry out the will of +Parliament--a growing tendency to accept the rule of the Church in the +business of the Church. + +There are many who attribute this High Church development to the +influence of what they call the 'Catholic revival' throughout Europe. A +wave of deeper spiritual feeling, more humble reverence for authority, +more perfect faith in Catholic truth, and more earnest desire to work +out the true Catholic ideal of holiness has, they say, been passing over +the Continent, and it has reached us. Before we admit the fact of this +revival, we are entitled to ask where its evidences are to be found. Is +it in Belgium, esteemed the most Catholic country in Europe except +Ireland, where the closer our acquaintance with the people the more +clearly does it appear that underlying much show of outward devotion, +there is, especially in the male part of the urban population, a spirit +of silent but decided revolt against the superstitions of Rome? Or is it +in Austria, whose ecclesiastical policy has been growingly liberal in +its character, and has been continually putting it more and more out of +accord with the Vatican? Or in Spain, where once priests and Jesuits +ruled supreme, but where the fall of their wretched instrument, who so +long disgraced the throne of that unhappy land, has inaugurated an era +of freedom? Or is it in Italy herself, preserving indeed her outward +allegiance to the Papal See, but it is to be feared with little faith of +any kind surviving among her people? As we look at these nations where +the dominion of Rome is supposed to be most secure, it seems absurd to +talk of 'Catholic revival.' Still we cannot say that it is only a dream +of enthusiasts. In a certain sense there has been the revival of which +Archbishop Manning is so fond of boasting. Ages and countries in which +we find great material prosperity, love of luxury, a low standard of +morals, are those in which we find also a strong development of +superstition, and a readiness to bow to the will of the priest. Europe +in the nineteenth century is no exception to the rule. France in +particular would perhaps be pointed out as the scene of the great +Catholic revival of the day; and if the desertion by the great body of +the Gallican bishops and clergy of the cause for which their +predecessors so gallantly contended, the readiness of priests and people +to accept the most extreme views of Papal infallibility and Mariolatry, +the restoration of the rites of the Church in the old cathedrals in +their full pomp and circumstance, and the shameless subserviency of +French politicians to Papal ambition, be the signs of a 'Catholic +revival,' such revival there undoubtedly has been. Side by side with the +falsehood, the frivolity, the idle display, the incredible extravagance, +and the immorality which were the scandal of Paris, and in which the +court of the Second Empire was so deeply implicated, there was also an +outburst of superstitious devotion, yclept, we suppose, a 'revival.' The +Empress was the great leader of fashion, and as she was a devotee of +Rome and the Jesuits, it became fashionable in the circles of which she +was the centre, to affect an earnest zeal for the Church and her +observances. As in Paris, so to some extent in other capitals; and thus, +though there is little on which a Church intent only on spiritual ends +could congratulate herself, there have been an increased splendour in +ceremonial, a more facile acceptance of Church dogmas, a greater show of +deference to the priest, and especially to the Holy Father, which have +been gratefully welcomed. Looking back at the position of the Papacy in +1848, and tracing its rise from the extreme depression into which it had +fallen at that time, to that sense of power which encouraged the Pope +eighteen months ago to convene a Council in the hope that it would +realise the grand idea of years, and proclaim his infallibility, we +cannot be surprised that we hear boasts of a revival. But the more +closely it is examined, the less of a religious character will it be +found to possess. + +In England it has been different. Whatever we may think of the doctrines +of the Tractarians, it would be worse than uncharitable to doubt their +sincerity, their conscientiousness, their intense devotion to the +principles they hold, their spiritual life and fervour, as it would be +foolish to deny that they have been the authors of what may fairly be +described as a 'Romish revival.' So far as there has been any real +religious movement in the Roman Catholic churches of the Continent, we +believe that it has come from this country. It was no small thing for +the Papal See to gain the distinguished band of converts, of which +Newman and Manning are the most conspicuous. Bringing with them subtle +and highly-cultured intellects, high reputations, and fervid zeal, they +threw themselves into the service of the Church in which they professed +to have found rest with all the passionate devotion of new converts, and +their influence could not but be felt throughout the whole Romish +community. The prospect of the return of England to the true Church that +so large a secession from the Anglican ranks seemed to hold out, was +itself sufficiently stimulating, while the example of their ardour and +diligence stirred up their new associates to nobler efforts in the +common cause. + +But while they thus breathed new life into the movements of the Roman +Catholic Church, their influence did not end there. The leaven of their +teaching and spirit remained in the Church they had forsaken. Contrary +to what was once expected, their secession neither deterred many of +their sympathisers from venturing still further in the dangerous paths +which had conducted their leaders to Rome, nor induced them to follow +their example, and reconcile themselves with the Holy See. So far from +the Church being purged of Tractarian principles, these are more defiant +and rampant than ever. Mr. Bennett, Dr. Littledale, and Mr. Mackonochie +have only developed the idea of Mr. Newman and his coadjutors; but they +have done this to an extent which their predecessors never attempted, +and which in those days they would not have thought possible. It is +possible now, because these teachings have done much more than merely +indoctrinate a certain number of minds with their opinions, they have +created a High Church tone in a much wider circle than that which they +are able directly to affect. Men who would scorn to accept them as their +leaders, who declaim about the absurdity of some of their practices, and +the Romish tendency of the whole movement, are yet to an extent, perhaps +almost unconsciously, influenced by them. How is this? + +Something is due to their very audacity. They speak with no faltering +tone, they act with decision and fearlessness, and the confidence which +they show in themselves and their opinions begets a similar feeling in +others; while even with those who refuse to yield themselves absolutely +to their lead, there is a disposition to think that, though they may +push their notions too far, they would not have dared to go to such an +extreme unless they had been in the main right. There are large numbers +of Englishmen, who, looking on at the spectacles provided for them in +Ritualistic churches, are induced, after the first feeling of surprise, +and possibly of indignation, is over, to say, 'There must be something +in these men; they have gone too far, but that is only what others are +doing in the opposite direction. They have borrowed too much from Rome, +while others approach too near Geneva. We like neither the one nor the +other. What we want is the service of our own Church well done.' Thus +they have carried a large body who condemn Ritualism to a position in +advance even of the old High Church view, and they have done it mainly +because they had the courage of conviction, and did not shrink from the +consequences to which their boldness might expose them. What the +Protestant public would think and say of them, how many prejudices they +would awaken, what condemnation they would have to face, they must have +foreseen. But they have braved all, and they have a reward, even beyond +the progress they have made in winning converts to their party, in the +subtle but powerful influence they have exerted on Church sentiment. + +They have had, too, the life and energy characteristic of the youth of +religious parties. In the abundance of their labours, in their freedom +from conventionalism in their work, in their willingness to adopt any +plan which has been found successful by others, they are an example to +ministers of all churches. There are, of course, among them those who +have little sympathy with the noble aims of their brethren, and who have +no higher object than a gratification of their own strong priestly +instincts, perhaps even of their childish love of display, who delight +in the show of the gorgeous service, and have little care for the truths +it is intended to symbolize, and who bring contempt upon the whole +movement by words and deeds which stamp on it a character of weakness +and puerility. It is the fate of every party to attract some followers +of this type, and it would be as unfair to judge it by them, as it would +be uncandid not to recognise the higher qualities of those who have +given it weight and importance. The truth is, these men have a faith, +and they are not afraid of avowing and of acting upon it; and in an age +which is only too prone to seek after compromises, this itself gives +them power. Their very dogmatism, offensive as it is to inquiring minds, +is a reaction from the too prevalent laxity of religious belief, and +commends them to a large class who are weary of endless disputations, +and crave for something positive. To the clamour for liberty--which is +not unfrequently only another name for lawlessness, the sign of an +unwillingness to submit to any rule either of faith or practice, the +assertion of a man's right to believe what he likes, and do what he +will--they oppose the law of a Catholic Church, ending all discussion, +and silencing opposition by the mere assertion that the Church has +spoken, and that through her we receive the will of God. In the presence +of a widespread disbelief in the supernatural, and a desire to eliminate +the miraculous from the teachings of Scripture, they assert the +existence of a perpetual miracle in the presence of the Lord upon His +own altars, and find the best evidence of His Incarnation in the +extensions of that incarnation through the sacraments for the +nourishment of the spiritual life of His followers. Such a creed is out +of harmony with all Protestant opinion, and does not bear the test of +either reason or Scripture; and when, as it must be, the demand for its +acceptance is based on the authority of the Church, it is open to attack +from the Roman Catholic side equally fatal with that which it has to +encounter from Protestantism. But illogical and unscriptural as it +appears to us, it is held by Anglicans with a tenacity, and worked out +with an enthusiastic ardour, of which we find too few examples among the +believers in creeds of a more Scriptural order. They are ready to +proclaim its articles on the housetops; so far from attempting to hide +the extravagance of any of their pretensions, they seem rather to +delight in bringing them out in their most pronounced obnoxious forms; +and by their outspoken boldness they constrain even the admiration of +those who like them least. + +If this party have gained power by the strong assertion of their +distinctive principles, they have largely increased it by the way in +which they have identified themselves with various popular movements, +and the earnestness, combined with a certain kind of practical wisdom, +with which they have prosecuted their work. With all the deference they +claim for tradition in relation to doctrine, they show not the slightest +respect to traditional notions, so far as Christian work is concerned. +Of that regard to dignity which restrained the High Church clergy of a +former time from everything that bore the most distant resemblance to +Methodism, they have not a vestige, and, indeed, they view it as one of +the errors of that dreary Hanoverian Protestantism which they hate +intensely, and certainly not without good reason. They set out with an +ardent longing to recover the masses of the people to their allegiance +to the Church, and any means that will contribute to that end they +adopt. 'All other sections of the English Church save one,' Dr. +Littledale tells us, 'have stood their trial and have failed.' The time +is come when an effort should be made on a different principle, and that +principle is a careful regard to the tastes and necessities of the +people whom they have to win; for past failure is to be attributed +largely to 'a refusal to face the fact, that it is with beings with +human wants and frailties, and not pure disembodied rationalities that +the Church has to deal, that the shopkeepers and artisans have gone to +Dissent, and the labourers have gone to the devil.' Acting on this +conviction, they have sought to understand the nature of the influences +by which the people have been drawn on both sides in order that they +might fight both dissent and the devil with their own weapons. They have +been willing to learn everywhere, believing that if the children of this +world are in their generation wiser than the children of light, the +latter cannot do better than become pupils in their school. Hence they +have not been particular as to who their instructors were, if only they +had something to teach them, and have been content to learn from a +gin-palace as well as from a conventicle, from the Odd-Fellow or +Forester as well as from the Primitive Methodist, borrowing from the one +the histrionic style of their Ritual, and from the other the spiritual +enthusiasm which expresses itself in revival services with stirring +addresses and glowing hymns. There is certainly something singular in +the idea that, inasmuch as the landlord of the gin-palace caters for his +customers by means of painting, light, and music, the Church of Christ +should do the same, and that ministers of the Gospel, adopting the arts +of the managers of benefit societies, and pandering to that childish +love of display which the latter gratify by glittering insignia of +office, processions with a great deal of pomp and show, and rites around +which a mysterious awe is thrown, should seek to attract the people by +churches with gaily decorated altars, processions with banners and +music, and a regular succession of church festivals celebrated with +accessories that appeal to both the eye and ear. It indicates, however, +the spirit of the party. Their Ritual has a deeper meaning than this, +but by many it has undoubtedly been developed with the prominence they +have given it under the belief that it would produce great popular +effects. + +Had they, however, confined themselves to the cultivation of this +histrionic element, they would never have gained the power they possess. +They have been equally active in the employment of means of a higher +order. With the contempt for preaching which was, and still is, so +prevalent amongst a large number of the Anglican clergy, they have +little sympathy; for while they attach supreme importance to the work of +the sacrificing priest or the confessor, they take ample care also to +cultivate the art of popular address. This was specially apparent in the +celebrated 'twelve days' mission,' which brought into notice more than +one public orator of a type very different from anything with which the +Episcopal Church has been familiar. That mission itself, disfigured as +it was by many extravagancies and eccentricities, lowered in its +character as a Christian work by the loud flourish of trumpets by which +it was heralded, and the jubilant exultation as to its success in which +its promoters indulged, and especially discredited by their manifest +design to make it an opportunity of familiarising the minds of the +people with Romish notions and practices, was, nevertheless, a +remarkable proof of the skill as well as enthusiasm of the party. We +should be sorry to think that among those by whom it was carried on +there were not many influenced by a higher desire than to secure a mere +party triumph; but regarded in that light only, we cannot too much +admire the knowledge of human nature, and particularly of English human +nature, shown by those who conceived the idea. Its very novelty was sure +to arrest attention and draw crowds, and the fact that crowds are drawn +by whatever means to religious services is with many sufficient to cover +a multitude of offences against good taste, and even against Christian +truth. There are those who apply to everything what they call practical +tests, and one of their surest tests of the power of a preacher, is his +capability of attracting large audiences. Of course, the proclamation of +a grand crusade against sin and Satan, to be undertaken by a number of +clergymen whose peculiarities had already attracted to them a large +share of public attention, awakened curiosity, and, if there had been no +other feeling, that would have been sufficient to crowd the churches. +Among those who attended these services were many good people who went +to see in what fashion and with what weapons this new warfare would be +carried on. They saw the unusual sight of numbers, and many of them +belonging to classes seldom found in a place of worship, coming night +after night, and apparently impressed by the services. They heard +eloquent preachers preaching to them the great truths of the Gospel, in +forcible and striking language rebuking the sins of the day, in vivid +and glowing pictures setting before them the love of Christ and His +redeeming work, and in thrilling appeals beseeching them to believe and +obey. Though even this could not reconcile them to a style of worship so +strongly Romish in its character, or lead them to accept the error which +was so subtly insinuated, it disarmed not a few prejudices, and led +numbers, who never had a friendly thought towards Ritualism or +Ritualists before, to think that, despite all their faults, these men +were doing a great work, and were not lightly to be evil spoken of. The +spectacle of so many clergymen banding themselves together for earnest +evangelistic work, casting aside the traditions of their Church and +their office, throwing themselves heart and soul into services in which +the freedom and fervour, characteristic of Methodist revivals were +substituted for the dulness and decorum with which the high Anglicans of +former days were satisfied, and determined that, so far as lay in their +power, they would make their Church what it has so often claimed to be, +and what as a National Church it ought to be, the Church of the people, +could not fail to produce a deep and favourable impression. Men who +maintain an attitude of indifference to all parties did homage to the +earnestness which marked the movement; and even among those who regarded +it with strongest disapproval, and believed that its effect, so far as +it was successful, would be to Romanize rather than Christianize the +people, there were many who felt that the only way of overcoming such +workers would be to display a spirit as devoted, as self-denying, and as +practical as their own. Ritualists would be mistaken if they accepted +the ungrudging praise which was given in many quarters to their daring +courage, their free and energetic modes of action, their conscientious +attempts to solve in their own fashion one of the most important +problems of the day as indicating any abatement of decided opposition to +their teachings, or of the righteous indignation with which those who +are most ready to honour them for all that is good in them or their +work, view their disloyalty to the Church of which they are ministers, +and the wretched quibbles by which they seek to cloak or excuse their +unfaithfulness. But, on the other hand, the Evangelicals will be equally +mistaken if they forget that practical service of this character tells +powerfully on behalf of the party by whom it is undertaken, and that +those who feel that duty compels them to take a position of antagonism +to it must, if they are to carry popular sympathy with them, justify +their faith also by works. + +Another feature in the conduct of the Ritualist clergy deserving of +commendation, is the tact they have shown in utilising the power which +was lying dormant in their congregations. The experience of all Churches +testifies that nothing does more to attract a man to a religious +community than the assigning to him a place and a work, and so making +him feel that he contributes something to its power and prosperity. The +'Catholic' party (as they would have us call them) understand this, and +have acted upon it. They endeavour to find a place for every one who +will heartily give himself to the common work. They take care, of +course, to preserve the sanctity and authority of the priesthood, and +have clearly-marked boundary lines beyond which no layman will be +allowed to go; but they perceive that one grand secret of the weakness +of the Episcopal Church has been the unwillingness or the inability of +the clergy to use the services which numbers in their congregations were +willing to render, and they have sought to remedy the defect. Let it be +granted that much of the work they give to their followers is not of a +very exalted or edifying character. Still, even the masters of +ceremonies, the cross-bearers, the choristers, the acolytes, the +sacristans, feel themselves honored by the kindly notice of the clergy. +They are pleased to think themselves of some use and importance, are led +to identify themselves with the movement, and are often among its most +zealous propagandists. The Christian work of women has been made a +special study, and a number of devoted labourers called forth, who are +among the most trusty adherents of the party, and whose ministry of love +has been an immense gain to the influence of the Church in the neglected +districts where it is carried on, and is a tower of strength to it. If +we were intending here to estimate the exact value of the service done +in these and other ways by the Ritualist clergy, we should be compelled +to make many deductions. But the point on which we wish to insist, is +simply the effect of their work in ministering to the growth of High +Church sentiment in the country--a growth which has been aided by the +unwise opposition of the Evangelicals, who have been too prone to oppose +every movement of Ritualist origin without regard to its character. They +have thus not only enabled their opponents to monopolise the entire +credit of movements which might just as consistently have been +undertaken by one party of the Church as another, but have caused +Evangelicalism to be viewed by men of a more catholic spirit, who belong +to no party organization, but are willing to accept wise suggestions +from whatever quarter they come, as obstructive and impractical. The +_éclat_ which never fails to attend activity and enterprise has thus +unfortunately remained with the Anglicans. + +But while High Churchmen owe much of their present position to +themselves, or, to speak more accurately, to the small but active +section who form their extreme left, it cannot be denied that they have +to some extent been favoured by circumstances. There are different +characteristics of the age, distinct from and even opposed to each +other, which have been friendly to them. They have profited by its +material prosperity, and the consequent increase of its wealth and +luxury; and they have profited, though in a different way, by its spirit +of philosophic inquiry, its intelligent freedom, its political +earnestness. A religion which delights in show, which attaches high +importance to externals, which will be lenient in its judgments of those +who obey the priest and regularly attend the sacraments, is certain to +find many votaries in an age when there are such numbers who have no +higher business in life than the pursuit of mere pleasure. The love of a +new sensation alone is enough to attract crowds of this class to a +church like St. Alban's. But it is not the novelty alone which +captivates them; it is the type of religion which meets their tastes. It +is true that they may hear from the pulpit eloquent denunciations of the +frivolity of the life they are leading, but these oratorical thunders do +not disturb them, save for the time. It is a remarkable fact, indeed, +which has often been noticed, that sermons directed against their own +special sins are rather popular than otherwise with hearers gathered +from the world of fashion. They listen with interest, and if a preacher +does his work well, are, perhaps, moved to some degree of sentimental +emotion; they meekly submit to the castigation which they have to +endure, and accept it as a species of penance which is to be borne with +all humility, and having discharged what they consider a religious duty, +feel themselves entitled to return with all the more zeal and avidity to +the scenes from which they have for a time been withdrawn. They have had +indeed the virtues of an ascetic life set before them, but they do not +apply the exhortations to themselves. These, they quietly assume, belong +to the 'religious,' the clergy, or those who have a vocation to a more +exalted type of piety. For themselves, they are satisfied with a much +humbler _rôle_; and if they are regular at church, observe the Holy +Communion at proper times, and practise some degree of abstinence on +Fridays and in Lent, they consider that they have amply satisfied all +the claims of conscience and religion. If they are zealous at all, +their zeal is shown in a very different direction. They leave to others +all services demanding self-denial or patience. They are never found in +the crowded alleys where the poor congregate, visiting the sick or +succouring the needy. For the painful austerities which some practise +they have no love. It is by the histrionic element that they are +attracted. To them the decorations of the church and the vestments of +the priests are subjects of supreme interest. They go into ecstasies +over the cut of a chasuble or the colour of a stole, can tell the exact +difference between a dalmatica and an alb, can give the most orthodox +opinion as to the colour proper to each church festival, and are +wonderfully captivated with a religion in which millinery plays an +important part. 'You should (said one of this class) visit ---- church. +It is so delightfully high; the vestments are superb, and the clergyman +has got such dear little boys, with red stockings, for acolytes.' + +There is a better side of the system which appeals to another and higher +class, also to be found in aristocratic circles. Repelled by the +wretched frivolity of fashionable society, wearied of its incessant +round of pleasure, conscious that life ought to have some higher end, +and seeking after something to satisfy the craving of their souls for +the real good,--they are taken by the ascetic view of Christian life as +given by High-Churchism. The idea of an authority in the Church which +shall relieve them from the trouble of deciding between the conflicting +opinions which are abroad, and shall give them some resting-place in +which they may find secure footing and so be saved from the indifference +and unbelief into which such numbers are drifting, is itself welcome. +They are pleased with the idea that they have the faith held by the +Catholic Church for centuries, while the prospect of a life marked by +self-sacrifice and active labour is that above all others the most +calculated to kindle their aspirations. Romanism has always had these +two sides by which it has attracted adherents of the most opposite +character; and it is not surprising that Ritualism, which has sought to +follow so closely in its steps, should exhibit the same characteristics +with the same results,--drawing from out the circles of fashion both the +superficial and frivolous, who are captivated by its outward and +objective character, and the more earnest, who are won by that ideal of +a life with nobler aims, and under the government of unselfish +principles which it exhibits before them. + +The controversies of the day, too, have helped the development of High +Church feeling. When a Church is or is supposed to be in danger, when +enemies are assailing her from without, and some of her own adherents +are seriously compromising her character and influence, and when there +is a need, therefore, for the display of special zeal on the part of +those who would maintain her position, the party which is conspicuous +for the highest idea of her rights, and for the most uncompromising +spirit in their assertion and defence, is sure to be specially popular. +High Churchmen have known how to use to the utmost advantage the +existing state of things. By a singular coincidence, the Judicial +Committee have been engaged in hearing the case of Mr. Voysey on the one +hand, and Mr. Mackonochie and Mr. Purchas on the other; and although the +Vicar of St. Alban's and the Brighton Incumbent have both been +condemned, we doubt whether the High Church will not profit more by the +spectacle presented by Mr. Voysey than it will lose by the suspension of +Mr. Mackonochie or the prohibition of the extravagancies of Mr. Purchas. +By the one, indeed, the High Church, as distinguished from the Ritualist +section, will gain, rather than lose, if the result be the repression of +outrages upon Protestant feeling and defiances of law, which check the +sympathy that otherwise would flow much more decidedly in a High Church +direction. By the other, however, the gain is immediate and very +considerable. Here, we are told, is the outcome of Protestantism. +'Rights of private judgment, free inquiry, individual responsibility--see +to what they all lead us! There is safety only in abiding by Catholic +truth, and submitting implicitly to the authority of the Church which +asserts it. The assumed right of conscience which is the basis of +Protestantism is the root of all evil, and the consequence of admitting +it will be an absolute eclipse of faith. Reject the voice of the Church, +and men will soon cease to believe in the Bible, or even in God at all.' +There are not a few who receive all this; even sincere lovers of +Evangelical principles will declare that they would rather men should +believe too much than believe too little, forgetting that the one evil +is tolerably sure to be the cause of the other; that it is just where +the dominion of superstition has been most absolute that, in the +inevitable sway of the pendulum, scepticism becomes most rampant and +powerful; and that no more fatal error could be committed by the friends +of truth than to appeal to ecclesiastical authority on its behalf. The +fact, however, is undeniable, and it is only another illustration of the +general law of which we have just spoken, that in the reaction from +rationalizing views and the fear of their consequences, numbers are +ready to throw themselves into the sheltering arms of High-Churchism. +They love truth more than liberty, and are content to surrender the +latter rather than brave the risk of any danger to the former. + +The progress of opinion in favour of the separation of Church and State, +so manifest in different quarters, has produced a similar effect. +Anticipating the possibility of disestablishment and of its coming soon, +thoughtful members of the Episcopal Church are anxiously considering in +what way she will be best able to meet the difficulties and demands of +the novel position in which she will find herself when she is placed on +a level with other Christian churches. They see that when the prestige +of State connection is gone, something will be necessary to make up for +the loss which she will sustain, and they hope to find it in that +exaltation of her claims in which High Churchmen delight. In the view of +High Churchmen, the Evangelical who has nothing on which to rely but his +faithfulness and power in carrying on the work of his ministry, and who +admits that the Congregational minister by his side is on a level, so +far as authority is concerned, with himself, reduces the Church to the +position of the sects; and in the competition which is provoked, she +will not necessarily be the gainer. What is wanted, according to them, +is that the clergy should assert their prerogative. The maintenance of +an ornate and gorgeous ceremonial is important, for it has been shown +that it has great attractions for the mass of the people, and has been +able to win back numbers who, so long as simplicity was the order of the +day, saw no difference between the service of a church and that of a +dissenting chapel, and, in fact, preferred the latter because of its +greater freedom and warmth. But of still greater moment is it that the +Church should mark out distinctly the line which separates her from the +sects; should insist on the authority which belongs to her clergy as +being in the true line of the Apostolical succession, and should make it +felt that her members possess advantages in which those outside her pale +do not participate. We do not believe that experience will justify the +policy, or that the pretensions which are intolerable in an Established +Church would meet with anything but ridicule when put forth by a Church +which has not even the special patronage of the State to encourage such +un-Christian arrogance. In the meantime, this is a prevalent view, and +it is of material service to the party who are contending for High +Anglican principles. + +From those various causes a High Church spirit is showing itself far +beyond both sections of the clergy who have identified themselves with +Anglican movements, and, in fact, is more or less affecting all parties. +We heard of a conversation the other day between some laymen of +extensive information and strong Evangelical sympathies, in which the +question was asked in relation to a place which had once been a +stronghold of Evangelicalism, 'Are they not becoming rather high at +----?' 'Where' (was the reply) 'is it that they are not becoming high?' +We have taken some trouble to get information, and it all goes to +corroborate this view. There are few of our larger towns, even those +which have been most distinguished for their zeal for Evangelical +principles, where we do not find the intrusion of a High Church, and +indeed, a Ritualist element, which in some cases may become strong and +popular. We regret to add that several of the Episcopal appointments +made by the present Government must still further strengthen the hands +and encourage the hopes of the sacerdotal party. Already we note some +ominous signs in a southern diocese, where, after the lengthened rule of +an Evangelical bishop, one of a very different character--a prelate of +great power of eloquence and extraordinary tact, not to say +subtlety--has been appointed in his room. Some of the Evangelical clergy +have, we are told, suddenly awakened to a perception of the great worth +of their new diocesan, and are adopting practices which hitherto they +have condemned, and a tone which will certainly be much more acceptable +to him than that which they have been accustomed to maintain. We venture +to predict, that if he preside over the see for a few years, he will be +able to report a different state of things from that which he found when +he commenced his administration. It is not probable that he will so +completely expel the Evangelical element as, if we are to accept his own +statement, he had excluded Ritualism from his late diocese, but we fear +that his influence may so transform some of his clergy that their old +friends will hardly be able to recognise them. Whether Nonconformists +have any reason to congratulate themselves on this result of the Liberal +triumph to which they so largely contributed, is a question on which we +need not enter. They do not owe so much to the Evangelical prelates on +the bench, that they have any special reason to regret that their number +has not been augmented. Still, the increase of the power of the High +Church party was not the direct and immediate object for which they gave +their support to Mr. Gladstone; and we are bound to say that the amount +of encouragement given to that party, both in the appointment of its +members to important positions, and in the favour shown to certain +points of its policy, has not been regarded with satisfaction. + +One result of the new spirit that has been awakened in the Anglican +party, has been the almost entire extinction of that particular section +of the Episcopal clergy known as the 'high and dry' school. So long, +indeed, as the present system of patronage continues, it is never likely +altogether to cease from among us. While there are a considerable number +of livings in the gift of the Universities and colleges, who appoint to +them members of their own body, who have lived so long among the musty +records of the past that they have little fitness for the work of the +living present, who have, in fact, by the very force of circumstances, +became so many Dryasdusts; and while there are a still larger number +regarded as the appanages of great families, who give them to younger +sons or needy cousins, without any thought either of their mental or +spiritual qualifications, many of the clergy are sure to be 'dry, yea, +very dry;' and because they are dry they will also be high. They have +nothing on which to rest their claims except the authority of the Church +and the dignity of their office, and they are sure to exalt the one and +magnify the other. Still, the section is a diminishing one, and the +Church may well rejoice both that it is diminished in numbers, and that +what remains of it is improved in quality. We have before our eyes now, +one whom we knew in our childhood, a quiet, dignified old gentleman, who +might have earned respect in any other position but that of a clergyman. +He resided in the parish for many years, but what influence for good he +ever exerted upon it, except by means of his charities, which were +always free enough, it would have puzzled his admirers to tell. Of +course, he had a righteous horror of Dissent and Radicalism; but even in +opposition to them he never showed any enthusiasm. Such men belong to +another generation, and where they are found now occupying positions of +importance, in the midst of the busy life of this nineteenth century, +they only hold them to the injury of the Church of which they are the +representatives. + +The papers announced, a few weeks ago, the death of one of this class, +with some facts of whose story we happen to be acquainted. He was one of +the few pluralists who still remain, residing on one of his livings in a +midland county, and holding another in a large manufacturing town in the +North of England. This town, with its teeming population and growing +importance, he had never visited for more than twenty years. The work +was left to be done by two curates, living on very inadequate incomes, +while their rector satisfied himself with drawing the lion's share of +the ample revenues of the parish. He found more congenial employment in +the small village where his other cure was situate, and where he +discharged, doubtless with becoming grace, the duties of a country +gentleman. A glimpse of his life was given through a side-light in a +speech of one of his curates, who, in acknowledging his rector's health, +at a great agricultural dinner in the town of which he was so negligent +an overseer, assured the company that the rector would gladly have been +present, as he took a deep interest in all agricultural pursuits, and +was himself one of the most successful breeders of pigs in the county of +----. It is hardly necessary to say that Dissent has a powerful hold +upon the parish, or that numbers have grown up in indifference, if not +in absolute hostility to religion altogether. And yet even he was not of +the worst type. We remember, some years ago, driving several miles in a +midland district, with a friend who was thoroughly acquainted with the +region and its history. The country was rather thickly studded with +churches and parsonages, and, as we passed them, our friend gave us some +account of the men who had lived and worked in them. Many of the livings +were in the gift of colleges and other public bodies, while others were +the property of the country gentry, and, as might be expected, the +clergy had almost invariably been of the 'high and dry' school; and as +we heard story after story of indolence, incompetence, heresy, or, in +some cases, ministerial delinquency, we could not but feel that the +Church of England might well rejoice that there are but few remaining of +so unworthy a generation. + +The Anglican clergyman of to-day (and the class is very numerous in +rural districts) is of a very different pattern. Even where he has not +actually embraced Ritualistic opinions, he has generally breathed +something of their spirit, and is determined to carry it into his work. +He loves Dissent as little as his 'high and dry' predecessor, but he is +determined to deal with it in a different way. He is courteous in his +manner toward the Dissenting minister, but he means, all the time, to +'stamp out' Dissent. But it is to be done by outworking it +everywhere--in schools, in pastoral visitation, and in public services; +any weakness in preaching being compensated by increased splendour of +service. It is impossible not to admire the intensity of devotion with +which some of these young clergymen give themselves to their work. A +Congregational minister of our acquaintance was telling us of one of +them who had recently come to his neighbourhood, and who was working a +wondrous change among a remarkably slothful and apathetic people by the +earnestness of his spirit and the abundance of his labours. He had +himself been called to visit one of his own members, and, though he +immediately responded to the summons, he found the clergyman already +there, proffering services of every kind, and unwilling to accept a +denial of his request to sit up and watch all night by the bedside of +the sick man. The Nonconformist convictions of a poor man must be very +clear and decided if he can be insensible to such a mode of approach as +this, and it was only natural that, when he recovered, the recipient of +such kind attentions should be found occasionally in the parish church. +But it is by means of the schools, especially, that this gentleman and +his class operate, and operate to considerable effect. We are told, and +with some truth, that children cannot enter into nice theological +distinctions; but it is not in theological subtleties that they are +instructed. The lessons given are plain and intelligible enough, as to +the rights of the Church and the evils of Dissent, the reverence due to +a clergyman and the Church, and the sin which they commit who neglect to +show it. Besides there are innumerable ways in which, indirectly, both +parents and children are affected; and a clergyman knows well enough, +that when he has once got a child to the national school, he has taken +the first step towards securing the parent for the Church. Hence the +resolute determination of the clergy to get hold of the education of the +people, an attempt in which they have been helped by those who, +twenty-five years ago, persuaded Nonconformists to take up an untenable +position that prevented their just scruples from receiving proper +attention, and shut them out from a work in which they had previously +been the leaders. Hence, too, the remarkable outburst of zeal and +liberality in the extension of denominational schools since the passing +of the late Act. Denominational schools are, for the most part, Anglican +and Roman Catholic, and a large proportion of the grant to them will, as +a matter of fact, go to build up the power of the Establishment and +suppress Dissent in the rural districts. It is true the new national +schools will be under a conscience clause, but they must be credulous +indeed who believe that it will be of much avail in parishes where there +is an active and influential clergyman, wielding, in conjunction with +the squire, a supreme authority. A more potent instrument could scarcely +have been put into the hands of the priesthood; and among the young +recruits of the Anglican party, there are numbers who know how to wield +it with the greatest effect. They do not trust to the influence of the +teaching alone, but they find various ways of interesting the children: +they form them into singing classes; they prepare them for their choirs; +they accustom them to the observance of Saints' Days; they please them +by giving them a place in processions, or employing them as acolytes. In +short, they find them in the National schools, and they lose no +opportunity of so training them that they shall naturally grow up to be +loyal sons of the Church. We have neither the intention nor the desire +to reproach them for the manner in which they thus carry on their work, +or for the care which they specially devote to children. With their +views of the Church, they are only showing a proper loyalty to +conscience in the course which they adopt. What we object to is, that +the nation should be called upon to support them in this hierarchical +crusade by increasing the grants they now enjoy. We have asserted from +the first that schools already in existence had a fair right to be left +undisturbed in the enjoyment of advantages which the State had virtually +engaged to secure them, and which they had won by their own efforts. +What we complain of is, that facilities should be given for the +multiplication of these denominational schools at the very time that the +Government are establishing a great National system. + +The National school, however, is not the only theatre on which the +activity of the advanced Anglican priest is manifest. His coming into a +parish is the signal for a series of changes, all directed to one end. +First, the interior of the church is to be remodelled to adapt it to the +style of service he means to introduce. Pews which, it must be +confessed, are often unsightly enough, are displaced to make way for +benches. If it be practicable, a part is railed off for a sanctuary; and +the altar, with its tall candlesticks, and, where they can be obtained, +with its embroidered and coloured cloths, assumes an entirely new +aspect. Fast days and feast days, hitherto unknown, begin to be +celebrated; intoning takes the place of the quiet and orderly reading of +the service, and by degrees the people find their church and their +worship bear a striking, and, to many, not pleasant resemblance to that +of Romanism. In all this there is no consultation, either of diocesan or +of parishioners. The clergyman assumes the position of a dictator, and +resolves to carry out his own ideas, whatever be the result. Sometimes +there is fierce discord and, not unfrequently, there are many +secessions; but even where this is not so, the changes are, as we hear, +in many cases anything but satisfactory to the squirearchy, who have +hitherto been found among the most steady supporters of the Church. They +valued it as furnishing a respectable and quiet type of religion, which +did not make any excessive demands from them. Their old High Church +clergyman neither disquieted himself nor disturbed them. He was a +welcome guest at their boards, and the slight requisitions which he +made, in the way of subscriptions to his charities, were not +particularly burdensome, and were generally met with cheerfulness. The +new-fangled notions, which make it a far more difficult thing to be +zealous Churchmen, requiring not only money for schools and other +objects, but some amount of personal effort and sacrifice, and often +involving a man in unpleasant controversies with his neighbours, are far +from being welcome, and already quiet murmurings may be heard in various +quarters. We have given the party by whom this work is carried on, all +the credit to which they can possibly lay claim. We are therefore the +more at liberty to condemn that which is reprehensible; and one of their +most prominent features is their utter contempt for the law to which +they owe subjection. Not content with adopting the most pitiful evasions +in order to introduce practices contrary to the whole spirit of the +Church to which they belong, they have invented a convenient theory of +their own as to the distinction between the law of the Church and the +law of the State, refusing to obey the one when it comes into collision +with the other. In the economy of the Episcopal Church, such a +distinction cannot be maintained for an hour. In the eye of the law, the +nation is the Church, with Parliament as its legislator, and the courts +as its administrators. If any of the clergy feel that their consciences +are aggrieved by this subjection to civil authority, they have the +remedy in their own hands. Nonconformity has after a long and difficult +struggle, succeeded in obtaining for itself a recognised legal status, +and the liberty which it has thus secured is opened to them, if they are +content to accept the conditions. They can have the freedom, if they are +satisfied to pay the price at which it can be obtained. What they cannot +do, is to enjoy the advantages which the law gives to the national +Church, without, at the same time, submitting to its control. Their +declamation about the rights of the Church, and the iniquity of any +secular Parliament putting restraints on its free action, or any civil +tribunal undertaking to adjudicate on matters of doctrine and +discipline, sounds well enough, but coming from those who still claim +to enjoy the prestige and emoluments of a national Church, it is simply +idle bunkum which can impose on no one. Were they manfully to resolve +rather to be free than to retain a position which they can only hold on +condition of their disobeying what is to them a higher law, they would +command sympathy from all who know how to honour loyalty to conscience. +As it is, their attempts to represent themselves as victims of +persecution because they are required to obey the law, expose them only +to contempt and ridicule. + +It is only fair to add that there is a considerable section of the party +by whom the force of this reasoning is felt, and who are prepared to +carry their objections to State interference to their ultimate issue. + + 'It would be' (says Mr. Orby Shipley, one of the ablest and + most fearless exponents of Ritualistic views) 'the crowning + labour; it would be the culminating honour, it would be the + blessed consummation of the Catholic reformation to be the + means in the Divine economy of terminating that wicked, + immoral, and godless alliance which, under present + circumstances, exists under the title of the Union of + Church and State.' + +How far it is consistent for any man to lend his personal support to an +alliance which he pronounces 'wicked, immoral, and godless,' by +continuing to accept the advantages which it secures to him, is a +question which his own conscience must be left to determine; but it is +at least satisfactory to find that Mr. Orby Shipley and his friends have +begun to feel the inconsistency of their present position. Whether in +the event of the Judicial Committee condemning their distinctive +principles, as it has already condemned their symbolic practices, and +deciding against Mr. Bennett as it has done against Mr. Purchas, they +would secede from the Establishment, is not very clear. What is clear +is, that they regard the present relation of the State to the Church as +hindering the work of the 'Catholic' restoration, and therefore seek +disestablishment as the first essential to the realization of their +ideal. But this cannot be brought about at once, and in the meantime +circumstances may force on a separation. Perhaps, however, it is more as +a menace to the bishops than as an indication of any serious purpose +that Mr. Shipley tells their lordships that the 'conspicuous want of +success which has attended Episcopal hindrance to the Catholic revival +has certainly postponed, but has not at all removed the prospect of +impending schism.' We are left to infer, therefore, that if the attempts +to repress Ritualism should be crowned with more success than has +hitherto attended them, we must be prepared for schism, which, Mr. +Shipley says, would be an untold evil to the Church; adding, and in this +we agree with him, 'that the present state of abnormal antagonism, in +any Christian sense, is less harmful, it is hard to believe.' If, +however, this calamity should come, he gives the Episcopal Bench to +understand that on them the responsibility will rest. + + 'If they precipitate a schism, either by actively hostile + legislation, or by unconstitutional illegality, or by the + continuance of vexatious antagonism, the sin of schism will + rest upon their individual consciences. Neither those who + see below the surface from without, nor those within, who + can feel the pulse of the Catholic Party,[210] and know its + deepest sentiments, need to be told that the scandal of + Episcopal sanction and apology for the desecration of the + Blessed Sacrament in Westminster Abbey, and the dishonour + done to God's Holy Word, by entrusting the revision of the + Authorized Version to heretics and schismatics, out of + which this scandal arose, has done more to render such a + schism possible than any other act of the English bishops + during the last half century.' + +These thunders will not disturb the serene complacency of the Episcopal +Bench, nor are such petulant utterances to be regarded as indicating any +serious idea of separation, but their insolent and lawness tone is +eminently characteristic of the party. They have formed their ideal of +the Church, and in defiance of all authority, whether civil or +spiritual, they are determined to work it out. They know and confess +that they are at variance with the bishops, whom they have promised +'reverently to obey,' 'following with a glad mind and will their godly +admonitions, and submitting themselves to their godly judgments;' but +they have a convenient theory as to the necessary limitations of the +obedience they are bound to render, by which they satisfy themselves +that they are right in their resistance to the authority which they have +in the most solemn manner bound themselves to accept. The bishops 'are, +it may be, good results, but still they are results of a bad, vicious, +immoral system; of a system which is utterly un-Catholic;' they have +pronounced against the Catholic revival from beginning to end, and +having thus set themselves against all that 'priests of the Catholic +school' are doing, they have condemned themselves, and forfeited all +title to unlimited obedience, by condemning these developments. In other +words, the want of harmony which they confess exists between the mind of +the Episcopate and the mind of the Presbyterate is a sufficient reason +why priests should refuse their allegiance. The conclusion is not that +which suggests itself to ordinary minds, but these men are so thoroughly +convinced that they have Catholic truth, and are doing a great Catholic +work, that they seem to suppose themselves superior to the laws by which +ordinary mortals are governed. They may seem to be arrogant and +overbearing, they may indulge in railing and vituperation, they may +condescend to a style of controversy, happily altogether cast aside by +Christian gentlemen, but everything is done in the interests of the +Catholic revival, and these are to be advanced at all costs. Mr. Shipley +candidly avows that their aim is to 're-Catholicize the Church of +England,' and he appears to think that because that object cannot be +secured without disobeying the bishops, there is sufficient reason why +they should be disobeyed. After enumerating the changes that require to +be made in the election of bishops and the remodelling of Convocation, +he says:-- + + 'We have again to make confession the ordinary custom of + the masses, and to teach them to use Eucharistic worship. + We have to establish our claims to Catholic Ritual in its + highest form. We have to restore the Religious Life, to say + Mass daily, and to practise Reservation for the sick. + Looking at these and other more or less pressing needs of + our communion, I confidently ask, "Can these and suchlike + wants, in the providence of God, be restored to His + afflicted, and to this extent indigent, Church, if we admit + the theory of limitless obedience, not, observe, to the + Episcopate combined in a Sacred College, but to any or to + all the individual members of the Bench of Bishops?"' + +The simplicity of this is no doubt beautiful, but its weakness is +manifest. 'Limitless obedience' no one expects them to render; but the +justification of their refusal to obey at all, on the ground that +disobedience is necessary to their design of revolutionizing the +character of their Church, has certainly the merit of novelty. They seem +to imagine that the first essential to success is audacity, and expect +that they will prevail, in virtue of their blustering self-confidence +and contemptuous treatment of all opponents. But the ultimate result of +such a policy cannot be doubtful. A party which sets up a plea of +liberty to excuse the violation of distinct obligations, whose +Catholicity has in it not a single element of true charity, which seeks +to subject others to authority while it disclaims all authority that +comes into collision with its own ideas and designs, which brands every +man, however eminent and good, who will not bow down to its idols as a +heretic or an infidel, is not a party that is likely to exert any +permanent influence. The age is tolerant, disposed to permit great +latitude of opinion, perhaps too ready to sympathise with those who are +resisting constituted authority, but it is not to be cajoled by the +specious sophistries of men who, professedly contending for liberty, are +seeking only to establish a new priestly despotism. + +But if we have no fears of Anglican Catholics being able to shape the +future of the Church of England according to their wishes, neither can +we look hopefully on the condition and prospects of the Evangelical +party. Thirty years ago it was the most popular and influential, if not +the most numerous section of the Church. Its most sanguine friend would +hardly pretend that it holds the same position to-day. We have already +marked incidentally the disadvantage under which it lay in contending +against a party full of the passionate zeal and energy of youth, and +with ability equal to its earnestness, its members claiming to be _par +excellence_, the assertors of Church principles and the champions of +Church interests, skilful in adapting themselves to the wants of +different classes of minds, fertile in expedients, and indefatigable in +labours. Under any circumstances, it would have been no easy task to +have maintained an equal struggle against such adversaries, hampered as +the Evangelicals necessarily are by their position in the Church. Still +they had many compensating advantages, and had they known how to avail +themselves of the forces at their command, they might not only have held +their ground, but have been to-day masters of the situation. In the +great conflict which has been going on between authority and freedom, +the reactionary forces are not the strongest, and had the Evangelicals +been prepared fully to identify themselves with the cause of liberty, +they need not have feared the result of the struggle. They had on their +side the prestige of the noble work which they had done in rousing the +Church from torpor and idleness, and in regaining for her much ground +that she had lost, in quickening the spiritual life of the nation, in +promoting social and philanthropic movements at a time when they were +not viewed with so much favour as at present. As the representatives of +Protestantism in the National Church, they were able to rally to their +support a strong national sentiment, not always very intelligent or +reasonable, but deep and passionate in its hatred of everything that has +on it the taint of Romanism, and only too easily roused in opposition to +any party which could fairly be suspected of Popish sympathies. Their +position, too, seemed to mark them out as the connecting link between +the Established Church and the Nonconformists. Their theological views, +if not identical, were in close sympathy with those of Evangelical +Dissenters: they were frequently brought into association in Christian +work, and had often to fight side by side against the common foe; and +though there never was a chance that the Nonconformists could be won +back to the Church, kindly and intimate relations might have been +established with them, which would have told greatly to the credit of +the party by whom they had been promoted. Yet with all these +circumstances in its favour, the Evangelical party has been declining. +Its enemies point to it with triumph, and exaggerate the weakness over +which they rejoice. Its friends reluctantly confess it, and find the +explanation in the wickedness and degeneracy of the age. + +The tone of a recent gathering of the leaders of the party at Islington +shows that they are conscious of the fact, and alive to the necessity of +making some strenuous effort, perhaps of effecting a considerable change +in their policy, in order to recover the ground that has been lost. To +outsiders, however, the real causes of their weakness may be more +apparent than to themselves, and we shall therefore attempt to explain a +state of things which we unfeignedly regret. The Episcopal Church, +whether Established or not, must be one of the most powerful religious +forces in the country, and we must desire to see its influence wielded +by men whose theology is that of the Reformers, who recognise the rights +of the individual conscience, whose creed is derived from the Bible and +not from Church tradition, who preach salvation by faith in the living +Christ, and have no confidence in priests and sacraments. It would +therefore be cause of sorrow to us, as it will assuredly in the issue +prove disastrous to the Church and injurious to the nation, if the +Evangelical party should be overborne in the present struggle, its power +crippled, or its character so modified as to impair its usefulness. We +are fully alive to its defects. As Nonconformists, we have little for +which to be thankful to it; but not the less should we deplore the loss +of what has been the most spiritual element in the Church, and therefore +we can only regard with sorrow the state of things of which we have to +speak. + +The decline of the Evangelical party is attributed by many, both friends +and foes, to a growing distaste for evangelical doctrine. The age, we +are often confidently told by those in whom the wish is father to the +thought, has outgrown the old theology; it is too intelligent to rest in +the dogmas which were once received without question; the leading +spirits of the time are known to be unbelievers, and that fact itself is +sufficient to make unbelief a fashion among a class who desire to be +esteemed intellectual. Very sorrowfully we admit there is some ground +for these statements, but they are only half-truths. The philosophic and +scientific movements of the day, have undoubtedly affected theological +opinion; the spirit of inquiry has become more searching in its +investigation; the rebellion against the bondage of creed has, in some +instances, led to an indifference to all forms of belief; and in +general, doctrines that were thought to be established, are discussed +with freedom, and rejected when they do not stand the more severe tests +by which they are proved. Orthodoxy counts for less in the estimate of +Christian character, and there is less disposition to condemn any man +because of his inability to accept all its shibboleths. But all this +does not indicate that the power of the Gospel is diminishing; and, +indeed, there are many things that point in the opposite direction. +Preaching _quâ_ preaching may be less influential; but the preaching +which is a power at all, never was a greater power than it is at +present. Men chafe against the notion that it is their duty to hear a +certain number of sermons, even though they be made up of platitudes +rendered additionally wearisome by the style in which they are +delivered; but where a preacher has a message from God, and knows how to +deliver it he is quite sure of having a large audience. Nor is it at all +likely to be diminished by the fact that his sermon is decidedly +evangelical and even strongly dogmatic. We have popular Ritualist as +well as popular Evangelical preachers; but the discourses of the former +are in their leading features as decidedly evangelical as those of the +latter. Indeed, at the conference at Islington, it was frankly admitted +that whatever might be the actual condition of the party, the doctrines +for which it contends were never so widely preached by the clergy as at +present. Certainly, the Nonconformist Churches know no decline, nor is +their prosperity to be traced to any abandonment or concealment of +evangelical doctrines. Congregationalists, accustomed as they are to +breathe the atmosphere of freedom, and unfettered by the restraints of +any formal creed, have, perhaps, felt more of the influences of the age +than any other body of Christians; but no one who is acquainted with +them would assert that they have at all faltered in their loyalty to the +Gospel. Perhaps one of the best proofs of this is to be found in the +essays in 'Ecclesia.' Their writers speak with great frankness; they +admit many defects in their system, and suggest various changes; they +are anxious, as far as possible, to adapt themselves to the wants of the +age; but withal, there is a consistent adherence to the essential +principles of the old theology. Changes in the forms in which doctrines +are expressed, differences in the modes of expounding and defending them +there are, but change as to the root-ideas there is none. And +Congregationalism upholding the great truths of the Trinity, the Godhead +of our Lord, and the Atonement, and basing all on the authority of +Scripture, not only maintains its ground despite the opposition it has +to meet from the renewed activity of the Established Church, but is on +the increase. + +If, then, the Evangelicals are decreasing in numbers and influence, the +cause must be sought in some errors in their policy, and not in the +increased unpopularity of the principles they profess. We are confirmed +in this view by the refusal of some of the best men of the day to +identify themselves with the party, even though they hold the +principles. It would be invidious to name living men; but there is one +recently passed from among us, to the great loss not of his own +particular Church only, but of all Christian Churches, who affords, +perhaps, the most striking illustration of the remark. Others there are, +of whom the late Canon Melville may be taken as a type, whose +High-Church ideas are sufficient to prevent them from uniting with a +party with whom in doctrinal sentiment they have much in common. But the +Dean of Canterbury, we need not say, had no such hindrance. Mr. Ryle +himself is not more free from any tinge of ecclesiasticism, as he +certainly is not more heartily and thoroughly Evangelical, than was Dean +Alford. Yet the latter stood aloof from the Evangelical party; and they, +we fear, did not desire his union with them. His case was a typical one, +and enables us to understand the enfeebled state in which the +Evangelicals find themselves. They did not like the Dean's breadth of +view; they regarded the opinions on the subject of inspiration, to which +his Biblical studies had led him, as unsound and dangerous; they did not +understand, what was one of his marked characteristics, a large-hearted +sympathy with goodness even in the professors of a false creed. So, +though he was educated in the school, and (as the Rev. E. T. Vaughan +truly says) though he 'preached the Gospel which they preached with a +force and simplicity which they might well have wished to emulate,' they +looked coldly on him, and he could find no home in their midst. + +Here, then, is one great secret of their loss of influence. Their ideas +of Evangelical doctrine are narrow and rigid, and they are maintained +with an intolerance which is at once repulsive and inconsistent. We +complain that the 'Catholic' champions of authority should demand for +themselves that individual liberty for which Protestantism contends, but +it is still more intolerable that these Protestants of Protestants +should set up a claim to infallibility, and brand all those who do not +agree with them as traitors to the Gospel. By maintaining the verbal +inspiration of Holy Scripture, insisting on a particular theory of the +Atonement as alone Evangelical, committing themselves to a particular +scheme of prophetic interpretation, and adhering to those old ideas of +the religious life which make worldliness to consist in certain outward +acts which are therefore forbidden to the spiritual man, rather than in +the world-spirit which can make everything common and unclean, and which +is the evil to be resisted, they have placed themselves in direct +collision with the culture of the age--even that part of it which +retains a hearty allegiance to the Gospel. But when with these extreme +views is combined a spirit of intolerant conservatism, when new modes of +thought, and even new forms of expression are regarded as dangerous +novelties, when all wisdom is supposed to be summed up in the +determination to walk in the old paths and to meddle not with those who +are given to change, and when those who dare, even in relation to +subjects that do not affect the essentials of the faith, to take +independent ground are treated as enemies of the truth, it is not +difficult to account for the weakness of the party. A creed that is not +only unpopular, and in some points illogical, but which can be regarded +as the creed only of a section, and that not the most intelligent +section of Evangelical Christians, and which is yet set forth as the +only true representation of the Gospel, must alienate many; but a spirit +of exclusiveness, a Pharisaic pride of orthodoxy, a dislike of free +inquiry, are sure to alienate still more. + +It may be said, indeed, that the dogmas of the Anglican school are still +more narrow and extreme, and its intolerance still more arrogant and +exclusive; but this does not mend the case. The intolerance of the +Anglicans is extreme enough, but then it is consistent. Their system is +based upon the assumption of a special sanctity and authority belonging +to their Church party. The name of 'Catholic' which they arrogate to +themselves is itself an insult to all other Christians. For them, +therefore, to abjure the spirit of exclusiveness would be to renounce +their own principles. But the Evangelicals are in a very different +position. They are the children not of the bond-woman, but of the free. +They rest their doctrines not on an appeal to authority, but to reason. +The Scripture is their one rule of faith, and they recognise the right +of every man to interpret its teachings for himself. When, therefore, +they attempt to put a bar on all progress, when they claim for the +traditions of their school a position hardly less authoritative than +that which their opponents demand for 'Catholic' tradition, when they +discover a spirit of watchful jealousy in relation to all the +intellectual movements of the day, and seem afraid of the light which +science and philosophy have to shed upon the difficult problems of human +life, they are untrue to themselves and their principles. Their +watchword is, 'The Bible and the Bible only as the religion of +Protestants,' but with them there is a reserved condition that the Bible +must be interpreted as Puritans and Reformers interpreted it. They are +afraid of the liberty to which they owe their existence, and are +continually throwing themselves back on that Church authority which, if +it is to be accepted at all, will pronounce in favour of their +opponents. + +It is this ignorance of their true strength which has betrayed the +Evangelicals into errors of policy which have been fraught with serious +injury. As Protestants, they ought to have been the most liberal party +in the Church; the most desirous to secure the greatest liberty +compatible with loyalty to truth; the most ready to welcome every +advance in scholarship that might help to a more thorough understanding +of the Word of God; the most candid in examining and pronouncing upon +the conclusions which modern Biblical criticism has reached; the most +anxious to establish cordial relations with Nonconformists outside the +pale of the Church. Unhappily, the very opposite of this has been the +case. They have left to others the duty of practically developing those +Protestant principles of which they claim to be the representatives, and +have again and again employed their influence in favour of the party of +reaction. The spectacle which they have presented in the ecclesiastical +controversies of the last few years has, indeed, been humiliating in the +extreme. They have been the most timid in every panic,--the first to +raise the cry of danger,--the most eager in the assault, whether upon +Rationalists within or Dissenters outside the Church--the facile +instruments of the High Church party, whose leaders have gladly accepted +their aid, knowing well that any prestige or advantage that might be +secured must remain with those who were the consistent champions of +authority. At present they are the most zealous champions of the +Establishment, and their organ the most Erastian in its tone of any of +the journals of the day. Yet there is no party which owes so little to +the Establishment, or would have so glorious a future before it if the +union between the Church and the State were dissolved. Except during the +brief interval when Lord Palmerston scattered mitres so lavishly in its +ranks, it has had but a scant share of the higher honours of that Church +which owes so much to the devoted labours of its members. Even of the +more important parochial charges, but a small proportion is held by the +Evangelicals, many of whose ablest men are the incumbents of churches +dependent entirely upon voluntary contributions for their support. If +the Evangelical leaders would make a careful estimate of the exact +position of the two parties in the Church, and of the amount of the +national revenues which go to the maintenance of that which they are +continually telling us is deadly error as compared with that which is +devoted to the support of their own principles, we think they would be +inclined to doubt the wisdom of the position they take in relation to +the Establishment. That they who ought to have the most confident faith +in the spiritual forces of the Church, and whose own experience affords +ample proof that that faith would not be misplaced, should cling the +most tenaciously to the union with the State, with all its painful and +compromising conditions, is surely a strange phenomenon. Yet this is not +the worst of the case. Unfortunately, their zeal for the Establishment +is not allied with charity, and their characteristic intolerance marks +their treatment of those Nonconformists who feel themselves constrained +to seek the dissolution of an alliance which they believe to be contrary +to the mind of Christ and injurious to the interests of truth. +Apparently unable to understand that this difference of opinion is +perfectly consistent with the preservation of Christian unity and mutual +respect, they have resented the assertion of Nonconformist principles as +a personal injury, and have urged it as a sufficient reason for +withdrawing from Christian intercourse with those who have been guilty +of so flagrant an offence. They expected that Dissenters would purchase +their friendship by unfaithfulness to their own principles, and have +been disappointed and indignant when they have discovered their mistake. +If Nonconformists will play the _rôle_ of poor relations, content to +receive a patronizing notice on the platforms of Bible and Missionary +Societies, and for the sake of this to suppress their own convictions, +they are willing to be on terms of kindly intercourse with them; but +that they should presume on this, and venture to assert their religions +equality, is more than they will tolerate. The inevitable result has +been a division between two parties who have much in common, and whose +union would have been a tower of strength to Evangelical Protestantism. + +We should not care to have written thus fully on these points, but for +the conviction that we are on the eve of important ecclesiastical +changes, and that the character of the future will depend largely upon +the position taken by the Evangelical party. The Broad Church dream of +comprehension must remain a dream. It is beautiful, and it speaks much +for the liberality of men trained amid the influences and associations +of an Established Church, that they should have indulged in such a hope. +But it cannot be realized. Nonconformists do not wish for a place in the +National Church, and could not accept one without the renunciation of +all for which they have been contending. And assuredly, the recent +meetings at Sion College show that a large and powerful party in the +Establishment have no desire for union with them. But if comprehension +is impossible, disestablishment must come, and come speedily, and with +it will come a new phase of the great struggle. 'I disbelieve,' said Mr. +Orby Shipley, himself an able advocate of the separation between Church +and State, 'in anything but a change in the contest of the Church +militant, a change from a contest against the State without to a contest +within, against Puritanism, against Latitudinarianism, against +Infidelity, and against what may be termed "Lay-elementarianism in the +Church."' The sacerdotal party believes that its position in this +struggle will be improved by disestablishment; but if the Evangelicals +are loyal to their Protestant principles, we predict that it will find +itself mistaken. Disestablishment will remove the one obstacle to hearty +co-operation between the two great sections of English Protestantism, +and united, they will be fully able to withstand the fierce onslaught +with which they are threatened. But if the Evangelicals are to play +their part in this controversy, the sooner they choose their position, +and resolve to hold it firmly, the better. Two great principles are +daily coming more and more directly into conflict, and they must elect +to abide by the one or by the other. They must abandon all tamperings +with the delusive fancy of an apostolical succession, or of special +virtue attaching to Episcopal ordination. They must cease the foolish +coquetting in which a few of them seem disposed to indulge with High +Church ideas and practices, they must show a broader spirit and +cultivate closer relations with those of kindred opinions who do not +belong to their party or even to their Church; in short, they must not +shrink from the full development of their own principles, and they will +soon regain the strength which has been lost by the timid and +compromising policy of the past. + +Meanwhile it is evident that the Establishment is on the eve of a great +crisis. The condemnation of Mr. Purchas has goaded the High Church +party, some almost to madness; and should it be followed by a decision +against Mr. Bennett, it is not easy to predict the result. Indeed, be +the deliverance of the Court what it may, 'there are breakers ahead.' If +it be against the Vicar of Frome, it will be fatal to the hopes both of +Anglican and Broad Churchmen. It will compel the former to secede, for +we believe the body of them to be honest men who will not renounce +principles which they hold to be the very essence of Catholic doctrine. +It will teach the latter that their dream of comprehension is at an end. +On the other hand, a decision in his favour will not conciliate the +Ritualists, since it will still leave them subject to the restrictions +imposed by the Mackonochie and Purchas judgments, while the Evangelicals +in their turn will be placed in extreme perplexity. At present the +Church Association is in the ascendant. We wish we could say that its +deportment in the hour of victory was such as to assure us in relation +to the future of the Evangelical party. We cannot wonder that it is +jubilant, but wisdom would have suggested some moderation in the +expression of its joy, especially considering that the decision yet to +be given may prove that its exultation has been as premature as it +certainly is undignified and impolitic. We read the report of the +meeting at St. James's Hall to celebrate the victory with extreme pain +and sorrow. The evident failure to realise the gravity of the crisis, +the unseemly tone adopted towards defeated adversaries, the apparent +unconsciousness of the scandal such a strife is bringing upon the Church +and upon religion in general, and perhaps more than all, the disposition +to rest so much on the power of the law, are all indicative of extreme +weakness. Men who can talk in the style of the Dean of Carlisle clearly +do not comprehend the spirit of the times or the true position of the +party which they represent. They seem to think they can stamp out High +Churchism at all events, in its more advanced forms. They do not appear +to understand that, could they succeed, they would secure the downfall +of that Establishment which they love 'not wisely and too well.' If they +would think less of law, and remember that the true weapons of their +warfare are not carnal, but spiritual, they would take a position more +in harmony with their principles, and be more sure of ultimate success. + + + + +ART. IV.--_Ingoldsby._ + +(1.) _The Life and Letters of the Rev. Richard Harris Barham._ By his +Son. London: Bentley. + +(2.) _The Ingoldsby Legends._ By THOMAS INGOLDSBY, Esq. London: Bentley. + +(3.) _The Bentley Ballads._ Edited by JOHN SHEEHAN. London: Bentley. + + +'Ingoldsby,' like Odysseus, has become a name. The word, used as a _nom +de plume_ by a facile versifier, has come to indicate the kind of verse +which he produced, and in which he has had hundreds of inferior +imitators. Mr. Carlyle, who objects utterly to the whole herd of + + 'Corvos poëtas et poëtrias picas,' + +as being the emptiest shams the world has ever seen, would probably +regard the 'Ingoldsby Legends' as fathom-deep below contempt; but with +the highest respect for the philosopher of Chelsea, we hold such things +worth notice, and do not intend to allow his virtue to prevent our +reference to 'cakes and ale.' Indeed, there are times when the laughing +philosopher does considerable service in the removal of abuses and +prejudices; and if our Democritus writes in rhyme, it does not appear +that he is any the worse. The world, probably, would be none the less +happy for more true mirth than we at present get. There are laughters +hideous and contemptible--aye, and even pathetic. Ruin and cynicism, and +scorn and spite, have their hyæna laugh; but it differs wholly from the +pleasant laughter of the man to whom the world brings always joyous +impulses. We English are, assuredly, a humorous race, more humorous, in +all likelihood, than any other; this is shown, not only in Chaucer, +Shakspeare, Butler, Sterne, Dickens, but in the incidents of our +country and city life, in the quaint colloquy and light chaff of the +market-place and the way-side. 'Merry England,' is an ancient phrase; +and there is much merriment in our modern England that is not always +observed by philosophers and politicians. We happen to have walked +through most English counties, and to have enjoyed the marvellous +differences of humour which exist through the breadth of the land. We +have tracked Shakspeare through Central Warwick; have trodden the paths +of Wordsworth and Coleridge and Wilson, in the realm of lakes; have +talked with moormen on Dartmoor, and with shrimpers at Poulton-le-Sands. +Everywhere we have encountered a joyous humour, inextinguishable by +poverty and toil--a humour clearly designed to lighten men's hearts in +their passage through a world of many troubles. Recognising this, we +think that any form of humour is worth cultivation, and that a writer +like Barham, who, to many grave thinkers, might seem a lover of +ineffable nonsense, was not without his use in the world. + +Three things may be affirmed in his favour. He caused good honest +laughter, by telling stories in a ridiculous style, without writing a +word to which the most absolute purist could object. He ridiculed +foolish and superstitious legends, blowing them away as the winds of the +vernal equinox blow the dead wood from the trees. And he proved that the +position of a minister of religion, doing his duty in a manner +thoroughly conscientious, was not inconsistent with a pleasant +mirthfulness of temper. Of him we may say, as Rosaline of Biron-- + + 'A merrier man, + Within the limit of becoming mirth, + I never spent an hour's talk withal.' + +And, with all his merriment, Barham did not for a moment neglect his +clerical duty; indeed, there are indications that he was a remarkably +good specimen of the parson of the parish. If we found any fault with +this biography, which is, for the most part, well executed, it is that +Barham's life as a clergyman is too slightly indicated. His friend, Mr. +Hughes, father of the member for Frome, wrote of him thus in the _New +Monthly_:-- + + 'It is not always an easy task to do as you would be done + by; but to think as you would be thought of and thought + for, and to feel as you would be felt for, is perhaps more + difficult, as superior powers of tact and intellect are + here required to second good intentions. These faculties, + backed by an uncompromising love of truth and fair + dealing, indefatigable good nature, and a nice sense of + what was due to every one in the several relations of life, + both gentle and simple, rendered our late friend + invaluable, either as an adviser or peacemaker, in matters + of difficult and delicate handling. How he managed to get + through his more important duties is a marvel. Certain it + is that they were well and punctually performed in every + point relating to cathedral matters, as well as his + engagements as a parochial incumbent and priest of the + Household, which, I believe, was the nature of his office + at the Chapel Royal.' + +This testimony from one who knew him well, makes us regret that more of +Barham's parochial life has not been revealed to us. Often there is a +curious difference between the practical and the literary half of a +man's career. _A priori_, one would not expect the 'Lay of St. Cuthbert' +to be the work of a Canon of St. Paul's. More information as to Barham's +clerical career would have been intensely interesting to the +psychological student; but his filial biographer has refrained from +entering on the subject to any extent. We are not certain as to his +motive. Perhaps he thought it hopeless to persuade the world that a good +parson could be a lover of fun. Well, another lover of fun was one +Sydney Smith, well known to all of us, also a Canon of St. Paul's. Smith +was a resolute Whig, Barham a high Tory, yet were they excellent good +friends. Here is proof. Barham sent Smith some game: here is the other +Canon's epigrammatic ironic reply:-- + + 'Many thanks, my dear sir, for your kind present of game. + If there is a pure and elevated pleasure in this world, it + is the roast pheasant and bread sauce--barn-door fowls for + Dissenters, but for the real Churchman, the thirty-nine + times articled clerk--the pheasant, the pheasant! + + 'Ever yours, + 'SYDNEY SMITH.' + +The pheasant for rectors, the fowl for Dissenters--a characteristic bit +of chaff from Peter Plymley to Tom Ingoldsby. In these days, after +wonderful rapidity of movement, when the questions which troubled the +last generation have been merged in others far deeper and wider, it is +pleasant to think of Whig and Tory in the same cathedral precinct--Tory +sending Whig some game, and Whig replying with a gibe at all dwellers +without the orthodox limits. Few years have passed, yet the atmosphere +is marvellously clearer; there is not precisely the same relation +between Conformist and Nonconformist. The pheasant and the barn-door +fowl are rather more equally distributed, perhaps. + +Mr. Barham's son and biographer thus states his determination not to +record his father's clerical life. 'With the details of his experience +as a clergyman, rarely suitable for publication as such particulars are, +I do not propose to deal. Of course, an outline will be given of his +professional progress; but the reader must, once for all, be requested +to bear in mind that it is intended, in the following pages, simply to +throw together some slight records of his leisure hours and recreative +pursuits.' This design has been very well executed; but we certainly +think that more might be done. However, we must perforce accept the +editor's view of the matter, and learn what we can of his father by +sidelong glimpses of him. Taken solely as a man of letters, Barham is +well worth study. Taken as husband and father, he is delightful. His +correspondence with his children is equal to Tom Hood's letters to +infant friends, though in quite a different style. His nonsense, prose +or verse, was always pleasant nonsense. Thus he writes to his daughter +Fanny: + + 'What do you think of Mr. Sydney Smith having offered me + his residentiary house to live in, together with a garden + at the back--magnificent for London--containing three + polyanthus roots, a real tree, a brown box border, a + snuff-coloured jessamine, a shrub which is either a dwarf + acacia or an overgrown gooseberry bush, eight broken + bottles, and a tortoiseshell tom-cat asleep in the sunniest + corner; the whole, as George Robins would say, capable of + the greatest improvement; with a varied and extensive + prospect of the back of the Oxford Arms, and a fine hanging + wood (the new drop at Newgate) in the distance, all being + situate in the midst of a delightful neighbourhood, and + well worth the attention of any capitalist wishing to make + an investment.... + + There is work enough cut out for you, I promise you, when + you get back: eighteen jars of onions to pickle, as many + double-damson cheeses to press, some dozen niggers to boil + into black currant jelly, and jams and marmalades to make + without end; for, unfortunately for you and all other + females connected with the family, the new house is + provided with that domestic curse, a roomy store-closet. + So, my dear old Fan, make hay or dirt pies, which is the + same thing, while you can, in comfort.' + +_Pater peramans_, evidently. Here again is a pleasant piece of chaff +addressed to the same young lady, on 'having nothing to say' in a +letter:-- + + 'As your correspondence increases, my dear girl, you will + find that this having nothing to say, and being obliged to + say it, will be one of the great and incipient stumbling + blocks of your literary life. Nothing, in fact, is so + difficult to express--that is, with any degree of + propriety--as nothing; and when once you have attained a + proficiency in this, your education may be considered to be + to a certain extent completed. Till then many people may + think, and may assure you, that you know nothing, but do + not believe them. You may know, and I dare say do, very + little; but to be thoroughly acquainted with nothing + requires not only a great deficiency of talent far below + the common run of intellect, but also a want of application + which, though it is possible you may possess it in a very + considerable degree, I have never yet seen in you to the + extent absolutely requisite.' + +So easy and regular was the course of Barham's life, that there is +really nothing to say about it. As landowner, Canon of St. Paul's, +parson of a City church, he moved pleasantly in society, and had only to +encounter life's inevitable troubles. We remember him in our hot youth, +at the long-extinct Chapter Coffee-house in St. Paul's churchyard, whose +landlord bore the appropriate name of Faithful, improvising marvellous +verses over a glass of antique port. Perhaps his life was almost too +facile; perhaps men of serious temperament would regard such productions +as the 'Ingoldsby Legends' as things intolerable: but Barham had his +mission, depend on it, and if you go to a 'Penny Reading' in the country +any winter evening, the chances are that you will get selections from +'Pickwick' or from 'Ingoldsby,' whatever else may greet your ear. +Everybody knows Sam Weller and Tiger Tim--both typical man-servants:-- + + 'Tiger Tim was clean of limb, + His boots were polished, his jacket was trim; + With a very smart tie in his smart cravat, + And a smart cockade on the top of his hat; + Tallest of boys, or shortest of men, + He stood in his stockings just four foot ten; + And he asked, as he held the door on the swing, + "Pray, did your lordship please to ring?"' + +Everybody also recollects that rascally 'Jackdaw of Rheims'--related, +doubtless, to the _graculus superbus_ of Phaedrus--who stole the +Cardinal's ring just as his Latin predecessor stole the peacock's +feathers. There is no _reductio ad absurdum_ extant equal to this +whimsical legend. Excommunication, which was slightly damaged in value +by the curse of Ernulphus, came to a ridiculous end when the Cardinal +Lord Archbishop of Rheims tonitrated his worst maledictions at a +thievish jackdaw. 'Maledictus sit vivendo, moriendo, manducando, +bibendo, esuriendo, sitiendo, jejunando, dormitando, dormiendo, +vigilando, ambulando, stando, sedendo, jacendo, operando, quiescendo,' +&c., &c. + + 'The Cardinal rose with a dignified look, + He called for his candle, his bell, and his book. + In holy anger and pious grief, + He solemnly cursed the rascally thief. + He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed, + Prom the sole of his foot to the crown of his head; + He cursed him in sleeping, that every night + He should dream of the devil, and wake in fright; + He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking. + He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking, + He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying; + He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying, + He cursed him in living, he cursed him in dying: + Never was heard such a terrible curse. + But what gave rise + To no little surprise-- + Nobody seemed one penny the worse.' + +When after awhile the mystery was out--when the poor little comminated +jackdaw presented himself in a sad state, so that of the cathedral +officers, sacristans, and vergers, and the like, it is recorded, + + 'That heedless of grammar, they all cried, + "That's him!"' + +the absurdity reached its climax. For our own part, though these humours +are not of the highest or deepest order, we laugh at them. Life has its +follies; Shakspeare had his clowns. In the old forgotten coaching days, +there was wonderful humour at the wayside inns. Sam Weller was possible +then: a railway porter has no time to be humorous. Of the Ingoldsby +humour, as practised by Barham himself, there is this to be said: it was +always harmless, and it was directed against absurdity and nonsense. +Ingoldsby has had disciples, who have not disgraced their master, yet +who have never quite equalled him in certain peculiar points. There is +Hood's admirable story of 'Miss Killmannsegg,' wherein, if we remember +aright, he depicts certain folks as-- + + 'Washing, their hands with invisible soap + In imperceptible water.' + +There is Praed's 'Red Fisherman:'-- + + 'All alone, by the side of the pool, + A tall man sat on a three-legged stool, + Kicking his heels on the dewy sod, + And putting in order his reel and rod. + Red were the rags his shoulders wore, + And a high red cap on his head he bore; + His arms and his legs were long and bare, + And two or three locks of long red hair + Were tossing about his scraggy neck, + Like a tattered flag o'er a splitting wreck. + It might be time, or it might be trouble, + Had bent that stout back nearly double; + Sunk in their deep and hollow sockets + That blazing couple of Congreve rockets, + And shrunk and shrivelled that tawny skin, + Till it hardly covered the bones within. + The line the Abbot saw him throw + Had been fashioned and formed long ages ago, + And the hands that worked his foreign vest + Long ages ago had gone to rest: + You would have sworn, as you looked on them, + He had fished in the flood--with Ham and Shem.' + +Then, again, there is Browning's 'Pied Piper of Hamelin,' a rare old +story rarely versified:-- + + 'Rats! + They fought the dogs, and killed the cats, + And bit the babies in the cradles, + And eat the cheeses out of the vats, + And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles, + Split open the kegs of salted sprats, + Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, + And even spoiled the women's chats, + By drowning their speaking + With shrieking and squeaking + In fifty different sharps and flats.' + +There is vast difference between the three writers; the courtly epigram +of Praed, and the scholarly variety of Browning, differ widely from the +style of the master whom they imitate. But it is a high testimony to the +literary value of what we may call the Ingoldsby method, that men so +original and so desperate have tried their hands at it. A glance at the +'Bentley Ballads' shows that the same thing has been done by a great +number of very different men; Sheehan and Creasy, Maginn and Mahony, Sam +Lover the versatile, whom we remember delighting us with improvisations +at Barnes-terrace just above the Thames, Tom Ingoldsby's son who follows +his father with filial felicity, have done excellently well in this +style of spirit and humour. + +Indeed, to succeed in it to a certain degree, demands only abundance of +animal spirits and a capacity for rhythm and rhyme. But it is clear that +Barham had more than this. What, indeed, makes him perfect and absolute +master of his craft, is his power of invariably catching the whimsical +aspects, the humorous sides, of an event. Hood was too fond of a pun, +Praed was too fine a gentleman, Browning is too subtle and curious, to +attain the precise humour of Ingoldsby. Wherever we open the 'Legends' +we find the frolicsome fancy of their author fresh and facile. Take the +description of Winifred and David Pryce, in 'Look at the Clock!' It is a +picture easily realized in the Principality:-- + + 'Winifred Pryce was tidy and clean, + Her gown was a flowered one, her petticoat green, + Her buckles were bright as her milking cans, + And her hat was a beaver, and made like a man's; + Her little red eyes were deep set in their socket-holes, + Her gown-tail was turned up, and tucked through the pocket holes: + A face like a ferret + Betokened her spirit: + To conclude, Mrs. Pryce was not over young, + Had very short legs, and a very long tongue. + + Now David Pryce + Had one darling vice; + Remarkably partial to anything nice, + Nought that was good to him came amiss, + Whether to eat, or to drink, or to kiss! + Especially ale-- + If it was not too stale + I really believe he'd have emptied a pail; + Not that in Wales + They talk of their ales; + To pronounce the word they make use of might trouble you, + Being spelt with a C, two R's and a W.' + +Now in this there is absolutely nothing that will bear analysis; it is +the laughing spirit of the man that carries you on, amusing you in spite +of yourself, in spite of your decided feeling that really there is +nothing to laugh at. But, somehow, what with the ready jingle of the +rhyme, and the perfect good humour of the ridicule, amused you are. + +Barham's loudest fun was generated when he had to deal with obsolete and +obsolescent superstitions. He loved to laugh at the vulgar idea of the +Devil--the fiend with horns, tail, and hoofs, whom Cuvier ruthlessly +dismissed as 'a graminivorous animal.' Thus, in the 'Lay of Saint +Cuthbert,' we find him describing a group of demons at dinner:-- + + 'Few ate more hearty + Than Madame Astarte, + And Hecate, considered the belles of the party. + + Between them was seated Leviathan, eager + To do the polite, and take wine with Belphegor: + Here was Morbleu (a French devil) supping soup-meagre, + And there, munching leeks, Davy Jones of Tredegar-- + + * * * * * + + Here's Lucifer lying blind drunk with Scotch ale, + While Beelzebub's tying huge knots in his tail'-- + +and so on _ad libitum_. Again, in the 'Lay of Saint Abelard,' he gives +us 'Old Nick' defeated by a saintly personage. It was-- + + 'In good King Dagobert's palmy days, + When saints were many and sins were few, + Old Nick, 'tis said, + Was sore bested + One evening--and could not tell what to do. + + He had been east and he had been west, + And far had he journeyed o'er land and sea; + For women and men + Were warier then, + And he could not catch one where he'd now catch three. + + He had been north and he had been south, + From Zembla's shores unto fair Peru, + Ere he filled the sack + Which he bore on his back-- + Saints were so many and sins so few. + + The way was long, and the day was hot; + His wings were weary; his hoofs were sore; + And scarce could he trail + His nerveless tail + As it furrowed the sand on the Red Seashore. + + The day had been hot, and the way was long; + Hoof-sore, and weary, and faint, was he; + He lowered his sack, + And the heat of his back. + As he leaned on a palm-tree, blasted the tree.' + +Demons and saints were the favourite themes of Tom Ingoldsby's laughter; +he jeered alike the Romish miracle-monger and the anthropomorphic fiend. +A volume might be written on the way in which the popular and vulgar +idea of the devil has gradually arisen. It is clear from 'Paradise +Lost,' that Milton favored the mediæval notion that the Pagan divinities +were really fiends; and it can scarcely be doubted that the hirsute Pan +gave the first sitting for that portrait of the devil which Coleridge +completed, when he wrote + + 'His coat was red, and his breeches were blue, + With a hole behind for his tail to come through.' + +At such matters we can smile contemptuously; but in earlier centuries, +when the Pagan superstition had still some vitality left in it, it was a +serious matter to the Christian convert. Pan might meet him at the +corner of a lonely woodland, and strike him with a panic dread. Worse +than all he might be allured by the terrible enticements of Venus. To +this day, Friday has a tradition of ill-luck, because it is _dies +veneris--vendredi_. That the goddess of evil pleasure still came among +men as a female fiend was a firm belief of the Middle Ages. Hence have +we the legend of the Venusberg, chosen as a theme by more than one +living poet, the version we prefer being unquestionably Lord Houghton's; +hence also that of the betrothal ring inadvertently placed by a +bridegroom on the finger of a statue of Venus, which finger, on his +return, he finds bent, and the ring irremovable. This latter story is +told with prosaic prolixity in the final volume of Mr. Morris's 'Earthly +Paradise.' It must be remembered that the change from Paganism to +Christianity was often effected in curious ways; that the worship of +Apollo, the sun-god, was, by a play upon words, diverted to Elias the +prophet; that temples of Venus were, as a rule, dedicated to the Virgin. +Probably that worship of the Virgin Mary to which Romanists cling so +fondly originated in a weak desire to satisfy proselytes by giving them +one goddess in exchange for another. Any way, the belief in Venus +endured so long that, in 1614, in the good city of Frankfort, a learned +lawyer named Kornman, published a work called 'Mons Veneris,' which +dealt with the legends about her as if they were based on fact. Of such +legends let us name one only; an English story, told by William of +Newbury. In the reign of Henry I., a peasant passed at midnight, near a +hill, not far from the town of Burlington. To his amazement, he heard +sounds of revelry therefrom, and saw a door open in the hillside, and, +entering, beheld a vast chamber, where men and women held high festival. +A cup was handed him, full of some liquid, which doubtless would have +the effect of Circe's magic wine: with singular presence of mind, our +peasant threw away the wine, and ran off with the cup. All the rabble +rout of Venus pursued him, but the swift-footed ploughman brought his +prize safely to Burlington. Somebody (probably the mayor, who should +have been knighted for it) sent the cup to the King, and the King made +it a present to the Queen of King David of Scotland; but King William of +Scotland returned it to Henry II. of England. Whether it is still among +the royal plate is a point to be determined by 'Notes and Queries.' + +The growth of letters and of science changes all this; just as Venus +vanished a few centuries ago, Old Bogy also--the foe of our infancy--has +vanished from modern nurseries, nor do very many children of elder +growth believe in an archdemon of the graminivorous type. Hence the fun +of 'Ingoldsby' that ridiculed superstition of this sort is likely to +lose its interest in time. We fear, however, that his laughing +caricature of Romish absurdities--as in 'The Jackdaw of Rheims'--will +scarcely lose its point at present. The Pope may be reduced to 'the +Vatican, and a garden,' but the Papal superstition still clings closely +to multitudes of men, especially of the Celtic race. That race, as M. +John Lemoinne has just said of his French kindred, is feminine, and +seems unable to accept a manly religion. + +The 'Ingoldsby Legends' are peculiarly adapted to the palate of youth. +They make fun out of trifles and vulgarities. One can hardly understand +a man of high culture caring much about them after forty. Then the +humour of Shakspeare's clowns, of Cervantes, and Sterne, and Elia, +becomes more enjoyable than the 'Ingoldsby Legends' or the 'Pickwick +Papers.' Then you prefer Autolycus to Sam Weller. The strong point of +Ingoldsby is his gay high-spirited boyishness; but this quality is only +attractive under certain conditions. It may, perhaps, be roughly stated +that a man will care to read Ingoldsby so long as he cares to play +cricket. It is, in fact, the eager buoyancy and rather perspiring fun of +the cricket-field which one finds in the rollicking strophes of the +'Legends.' When their writer knocks over a saint or a demon as if he +were a wicket, you almost expect to hear the shout of, 'How's that, +umpire?' Indeed, the book is a _loud_ book, scarcely to be tolerated, +one might think, in a quiet library. Yet was its author a quiet haunter +of libraries, and we find in one of his letters how he received in one a +royal visitor:-- + + 'What think you of a visit from, and confabulation with, + the Queen of the Belgians. On Saturday, I was in the + library at St. Paul's, my custom always in an afternoon, + with a book-binder's 'prentice and a printer's devil, + looking out fifty dilapidated folios for rebinding. I had + on a coat which, from a foolish prejudice in the multitude + against patched elbows, I wear nowhere else, my hands and + face encrusted with the dust of years, and wanting only the + shovel--I had the brush--to sit for the portrait of a + respectable master chimney sweeper, when the door opened, + and in walked the Cap of Maintenance, bearing the sword of, + and followed by, the Lord Mayor in full fig, with the + prettiest and liveliest little Frenchwoman leaning on his + arm. Nobody could get at the lions but myself. I was fairly + in for it, and was thus presented in the most _recherché_, + if not the most expensive, court-dress that I will venture + to say the eyes of royalty were ever greeted withal. + _Heureusement pour moi_, she spoke excellent English, + however, and rattled on with a succession of questions + which I answered as best I might. They were sensible, + however, showed some acquaintance with literature, and a + very good knowledge of dates.' + +Her lively Majesty might have been felicitated on finding Tom Ingoldsby +as a guide to the library of the great cathedral. But to return to the +'Legends.' Besides their extreme boyishness, their redundancy of +pulsation, there is a deficiency in them which must prevent their +becoming classic. They are devoid of poetry. Master of the grotesque as +he was, Barham had no mastery of the picturesque. Keen to see and seize +the humorous aspects of affairs, he had none of that deeper humour +which creates character. A real poet who had written some fifty or more +eccentric legends, could not have helped inventing or describing certain +individual characters in the course of his work. He must have done it +unconsciously, must have done it if even he had tried to avoid it. There +are two tests on the very surface of the true poet. If he describes a +scene, you see it; if he describes a man, you know him. Barham's +grotesque descriptions are often remarkable; indeed, his legends +somewhat remind us of the hideous gurgoyles of old churches, wherein +tradition sayeth the old ecclesiastic architects depicted their enemies, +making of them waterspouts, that during rain they might seem to vomit. +The men who carved those gurgoyles could not have sculptured an Apollo; +and of Barham it may be said that, though he wrote laughable stories +with supreme felicity, he never produced a line of poetry. He appears, +indeed, to have regarded only the surface of life. There is nothing in +his published works to show that he had an original idea, or that he +cared about ideas. Of course, having given us the 'Ingoldsby Legends'--a +piece of work absolutely unique, and quite unlikely to meet with a +readable rival--he will be forgiven if he had a contempt for ideas; but +one feels some desire to know whether such fertility of fun was not the +upper stratum of something stronger and finer. Tom Hood's fun, for +example, grows out of his profound melancholy, as under Etna's laughing +vines the volcanic fire is sleeping. Shakspeare's fun grows out of his +masterful knowledge of the world, of men, of women. In a play of his you +seem in some city of chivalry and romance, where the great knight passes +to deeds of high emprise, and the lovely lady smiles on him from her +balcony, and the troubadour sings of 'the Lord of Oc and No;' and all +the while you hear the chaffer of the market-place, the chatter of +street gossips, the insignificant laughter of loitering louts. Fun that +has no root in something deeper seems morbid and hysterical; and we +cannot help believing that there was more in Barham than his writings +reveal, than his most intimate friends knew, than perhaps he knew or +even guessed himself. + +Dr. Maginn, a man like yet unlike Tom Ingoldsby, wrote these four +lines--part of a poem which we have no means of obtaining:-- + + 'For those who read aright are well aware + That Falstaff, revelling his rough mates between, + Oft in his heart felt less the load of care, + Than Jaques, sighing in the forest green.' + +Maginn had, if we may judge from appearances, higher poetic instincts +than Barham; his 'Homeric Ballads' are a very remarkable contribution to +the literature of Homeric translation; but he unwisely expended himself +upon periodical writing, and has left nothing behind him worthy of his +powers. It is, we think, a subject for congratulation, that the cheap +magazines of the day are so anxious to please the populace, that a +first-rate writer has absolutely no chance with them, and is obliged to +do work worthier of him. The shilling magazine has to suit the taste of +the railway reader, who wants to be amused during the hour in which +Great Western or Great Northern accepts him as a parcel to be delivered +at a friend's house by dinner-time. How this is done we need not say, as +anybody who likes to expend a shilling can judge for himself; but it is +so done as to render it absurd for men of the calibre of Barham and +Maginn to write for the majority of these magazines. This we take to be +an advantage. Such men are obliged to work harder--and better. + +Another instance of a man with something nobler in him and better than +he ever gave the world, or even his friends, is Theodore Hook. Until his +private diary came into the hands of those who knew him best, they had +no knowledge of the depths of passionate remorse for a wasted life which +lay beneath the too brilliant surface of his character. 'In every page,' +wrote Lockhart, + + 'We trace the disastrous influence of both the grand + original errors perpetually crossing and blackening the + picture of superficial gaiety--indications, not to be + mistaken, of a conscience ill at ease; of painful + recollections and dark anticipations rising irrepressibly, + not to be commanded down; of good, gentle, generous + feelings, converted by stings and dartings of remorse into + agonies of torture. If we were to choose a motto for this + long line of volumes, it would be a maxim so familiar to + himself, that it is repeated over and over in his tales of + fiction--hardly omitted in any one of them--"Wrong never + comes right."' + +Theodore Hook laboured under the double disadvantage of an irremovable +load of debt, and of an illicit connection which effectually prevented +his marrying a woman who might have directed his marvellous powers into +their true channel. The consequence was that he lived a false factitious +life; worked terribly hard to produce income necessary for him to meet +wealthy peers on apparently equal terms; was always pestered by +money-lenders; yet all the while his daring spirit maintained an +external gaiety unquenchable. At the very time when his spirit seemed +highest, when his wit was memorably brilliant, when at club or country +house he was amazing every one by his victorious vivacity, there occur +in his diary entries that show a broken spirit, a wounded heart, an +infinite regret for the past and despair of the future. Such was the +inner condition of a man whose conversation had such unique sparkle, +that men dined at the Athenæum for the chance of being allowed to draw +their chairs to his little table in a favourite corner (Temperance +Corner) after dinner--so that the diners at that club fell off more than +300 a year after his disappearance from his wonted seat. + +It is unfortunate that the early career of men of letters is often +turned awry by the well-meant interference of their relations. A boy of +genius, who happens to appear in the midst of a steady, stolid, +respectable family, is usually regarded as a 'black sheep.' They try to +make him work in some regular groove, and, of course, he fails. If they +are very determined, he quarrels with them, and then, too often, he runs +headlong into debt, or love, or both, and burdens himself in such a way +that he has to toil for freedom through the best years of his life, and +possibly never emancipates himself. Of course, it is always hard to say +whether the young gentleman is right who fancies himself a genius. Dr. +Holmes, in his latest novel, has a capital sketch of a young poetaster +who 'eventuates' behind the counter of a store. Such youths require +Darwinian compression; but there are just a few of higher mould, with +the irrepressible vocation for pen and ink which nothing can cure, who +would do better if some way could be devised to give them a chance in +literature. Perhaps when the school boards have leisure to consider the +subject, they will try to discover a way of developing those latent +powers, mathematical as well as poetical, which often exist in regions +wholly unexpected. Inspectors of schools might be directed, after they +have registered the triumphs of the clever boys, to investigate the +habits of the stupid ones. A great poet or mathematician is almost +certain to seem stupid in his boyhood. + +It may appear that we have tried the 'Ingoldsby Legends' by too high a +test; and, indeed, it is a very unpretentious production. Its originator +was wholly modest, and did not dream of placing himself in the foremost +seats of the literary amphitheatre. He knew the true value of his +invention. It is designed for those who would rather laugh than think. +It may amuse children at any rate, and there are certain fortunate folk +who, to the end of their lives, can be children now and then--can +listen to merry rhyming, can believe for the moment that in Fairyland +there are mock turtles and March hares, that the dogs there have no ears +because the dog's ears have been used up on the little boys' Latin +grammars, and the sheep no eyes because the little girls have used up +all their sheep's eyes in looking at their sweethearts; can imagine that +in Ghostland one may dine comfortably with one's doppelganger. There are +times--'weird winter nights,' as Shelley calls them, warmed with +merriment, and joyous summer days in which the nightingale seems ebrious +with ozone--when there is a necessity for nonsense of one sort or +another. It is this necessity which Ingoldsby and his followers supply. +Possibly some good is effected by the fact that the occupants of lofty +positions have deigned to play with these toys; that the occupants of +deaneries and canonries (ecclesiastic port-wineries, if we may venture +to coin a phrase) have found in such matters Attic salt for their +filberts. + +_Apropos_ of Ghostland, just named, Barham was a great lover of spectral +stories, and the reader who cares about such will find in his memoir +some of the best we have ever seen. As to anecdotes, the book is +brimming over with them. Of course, one meets with one or two that have +been met before; but an old story, like an old friend or an old coat, is +sometimes more enjoyable than a new one. Barham was at Paul's School +with some men as well known as himself, among them being Sir Frederick +Pollock, Nestor of lawyers, and Richard Bentley, Nestor of publishers. +Another of his comrades was Charles Diggle, afterwards Governor of +Sandhurst College. Of him and Barham we find a good story:-- + + 'The two boys having in the course of one of their walks + discovered a Quaker's meeting-house, forthwith procured a + penny tart of a neighbouring pastry-cook; furnished with + this, Diggle marched boldly into the building, and holding + up the delicacy in the midst of the grave assembly said, + with perfect solemnity, + + '"Whoever speaks first shall have this pie." + + '"Friend, go thy way," commenced a drab-coloured gentleman, + rising; "go thy way, and----" + + '"The pie's yours, sir!" exclaimed Master Diggle, politely; + and placing it before the astounded speaker, hastily made + his escape.' + +It was very improper, certainly; and we cannot help hoping that the Head +Master of Dean Colet's famous school heard of the impertinence, and +administered to the 'nether-urchin' of the future military pedagogue the +sharp flogging which he undoubtedly deserved. But one cannot help +laughing at these schoolboy absurdities; and the naughtiest boys, if +looked after by a schoolmaster like Tom Hood's, + + 'Who never spoilt the child and spared the rod, + But spoilt the rod and never spared the child,' + +often turn out the ablest men. There is incipient power in these wayward +vivacities of youth. + +Musical amateurs of the present day of the strenuous class that elicited +Charles Lamb's verses beginning-- + + 'Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart, + Just as the whim bites; for my part + I do not care a farthing candle + For either of them, or for Handel' + +will doubtless deem Lord North an utter barbarian. George III. scolded +him for never going to the concerts of ancient music. 'Your brother, the +Bishop,' said the King, 'never misses them, my Lord.' 'Sir,' answered +the Premier, 'if I were as deaf as my brother, the Bishop, I would never +miss them either!' + +Of Lord Thurlow we believe it was that Theodore Hook declared that +nobody could be as wise as Thurlow _looked_. Whether he had much wisdom +is a moot point; but strength of will he possessed in an enviable +degree, as the following anecdote shows:-- + + 'Lord Thurlow had applied to George the Third on behalf of + his brother for the Bishopric of Durham, and having + somewhat unexpectedly met with a refusal, he bowed, and was + about to retire without pressing his suit, when the + monarch, wishing to soften his decision as far as possible, + added, "Anything else I shall be happy to bestow upon your + relative, but this, unfortunately, is a dignity never held + but by a man of high rank and family." + + '"Then, Sire," returned Lord Thurlow, drawing himself up, + "I must persist in my request--I ask it for the brother of + the Lord High Chancellor of England!" + + The Chancellor was firm, and the King was compelled to + yield.' + +This we take to have been highly creditable to Thurlow: it was a +courageous assertion that the aristocracy of genius is at least equal to +the aristocracy of birth. Here is an amusing story of clerical ignorance +from Barham's diary:-- + + 'December 3.--Dined for the first time with Dr. Sumner, + Bishop of Llandaff, who told me, as a fact, that Dr. R----, + a fellow of Eton, had some time since ordered one of his + ponds to be cleared out. A great number of carp, tench, + eels, &c., were taken in the course of the operation. The + doctor was at dinner with some friends, who had been + viewing the work, when a servant came in, to inform him + that in draining off the water the men had found a + chalybeate. "Have they indeed?" cried he, with much + interest; "I am very glad to hear it. Tell them to put it + along with the other fish for the present."' + +In those days Eton was not famous for its erudition, and a fellow of +that famous corporation was likely to be a better judge of the 'other +fish' than of the chalybeate. Dr. R---- would probably have known +exactly the right way to dress a red mullet from the Avon or a Coniston +char. + +Here is a good story of Dr. Thomas Hume, an intimate friend of +Barham's:-- + + 'They had walked together to the office of one of the + morning newspapers, and there the doctor silently placed + upon the counter an announcement of the death of some + friend, together with five shillings, the usual charge for + the insertion of such advertisements. The clerk glanced at + the paper, tossed it on one side, and said gruffly, "Seven + and six!" + + '"I have frequently," replied Hume, "had occasion to + publish these simple notices, and I have never before been + charged more than five shillings." + + '"Simple!" repeated the clerk, without looking up; "He's + universally beloved, and deeply regretted! Seven and six." + + 'Hume produced the additional half crown, and laid it + deliberately by the others, observing, as he did so, with + the same solemnity of tone he had used throughout, + "Congratulate yourself, sir, that this is an expense which + your executors will never be put to."' + +We hope that unlucky clerk could understand the rebuke that he received; +but to us it appears that sarcasm is generally thrown away on such +people. They are pachyderms. + +The book contains some capital stories of poor Theodore Hook, that +marvellously wasted intellect. His great power lay in _impromptu_, of +prose or verse, spoken or written. No man has ever equalled him at a +paragraph or a squib, except as to the latter, Garrick and Coleridge. +Nobody was ever so exquisite a conversational wit. And certainly no one +has ever possessed his power of improvisation in English. He threw off +stanza and strophe as fast as a knifegrinder's wheel throws sparks. He +scintillated always. Coleridge, after an evening in his company, +declared he was as great a genius as Dante. His felicity was invariable. +When he was improvising at the piano, after luncheon, at his Fulham +villa, enter the ancilla, to say Mr. Winter, the tax collector, has +called. Ejaculates Hook:-- + + 'Here comes Mr. Winter, collector of taxes; + I advise you to give him whatever he axes! + He isn't the man to stand nonsense or flummery. + For though his name's Winter, his actions are summary.' + +But how could Hook stand the tremendous dissipation to which he +foolishly condescended? Here is a specimen of his way of living:-- + + 'After a dinner given by Mr. Stephen Price, of Drury-lane + Theatre, all the guests, with the exception of Cannon and + Theodore Hook, having long since retired, the host, who was + suffering from an incipient attack of gout, was compelled + to allude pretty plainly to the lateness of the hour. No + notice, however, was taken of the hint; and, unable to + endure any longer the pain of sitting up, Mr. Price made + some excuse, and slipped quietly off to bed. On the + following morning he inquired of his servant--"Pray at what + time did those gentlemen go last night?" "Go, sir!" replied + John; "they are not gone, sir; they have just rung for + coffee!"' + +To revert from anecdotes of this class to the special theme of our +article. Poetry is one thing, and verse-writing is another, and there +may be very good verse-writers who would not condescend to be +poetasters. In the present day there are a multitude of foolish persons +who have discovered that _breeze_ rhymes with _trees_, and that there +are as many syllables as they have fingers in a line of blank verse. So +they flood the shilling magazines with their silliness, and some of them +raise money enough to pay for the publication of a volume of their +trash. Within a few days from this time of writing we have had occasion +to look through about a score volumes of this class, and only one +contained anything that could be called poetry--and that one came from +San Francisco. Now, why cannot people with a faculty for verse write it +sensibly, without trying to be poets? Why can they not give us something +manly, something humorous? Lockhart and Maginn wrote fine verse, but +would have smiled at the notion of being called poets. Barham never +wrote a line of poetry, in the severe sense--but what immense amusement +has the world received from the rhymed stories of Ingoldsby! + + + + +ART. V.--_The Downfall of Bonapartism._ + +(1.) _Documents Authentiques Annotés. Les Papiers Secrets du Second +Empire._ 4e édition. "Fiat lux." Bruxelles: Office de Publicité. 1870. + +(2.) _La Guerre de 1870: l'Esprit Parisien produit du la régime +Impérial._ Par EMILE LECLERCQ. 5e édition. Bruxelles. 1870. + +(3.) _Napoléon Ier, et son Historien, M. Thiers._ Par JULES BARNI. +Paris, Germer-Baillière. 1869. + +(4.) _Histoire de Napoléon Ier._ Par P. LANFREY. Paris: Charpentier. +1867-70. Vols. I. to IV. + +(5.) _Napoléon le Petit._ Par V. HUGO. Bruxelles. 1852. + +(6.) _Romans Nationaux._ Par ERCKMANN-CHÂTRIAN. Paris: Hetzel. 1868-70. + + _Histoire d'un Paysan, ou la Révolution Française racontée + par un paysan._ + + _Le Conscrit._ + + _Le Blocus._ + + _La Guerre._ + + _L'Invasion._ + + _Waterloo, etc._ + +(7.) _Louis's own Account of the Fight at Dame Europa's School._ +Literally translated from the French. London: J. Camden Hotten. 1871. + + +Imperialism has fallen; and with it France has for the present +disappeared from among the great Powers. With Metz in foreign hands, she +is much in the same position as that of Paris when the Prussians had +turned upon her the guns of Mont Valérien. Her eastern frontier is +wholly exposed; she must feel as Lombardy did while Austria held the +Quadrilateral. + +As far as material influence is concerned, France is become a +second-rate state. She must confine her aim to doing what she has so +often done before--influencing the world of ideas. She did this in the +Middle Ages in a way which we seldom sufficiently appreciate; she did it +in a less degree during the post-Reformation period, for then her own +religious wars and the preponderance of Germany had thrown her somewhat +into the shade; she did it most of all when the _Encyclopédistes_ began +to claim for her a definite position as the world's teacher. This +position she had not formally claimed before. Under the old _régime_ she +had been slowly getting welded together; feudalism, carried out more +'logically' in France than elsewhere, had kept her provinces almost as +distinct as so many little German kingdoms. Louis XI.'s policy, indeed, +did for the French _noblesse_ much what the Wars of the Roses did for +ours; and Louis XIV., by giving the higher classes a taste for Court +life, drew them together and trained them to a community of habits and +aims; but the mass of provincials were scarcely affected by this +centralization of a single class. Louis XIV., however, did one thing +more: he secured to Paris that fatal predominance which has ever since +made her the arbitress of the national destinies. While saying +'_l'état c'est moi,_' he so arranged that very soon the Parisians +could say, _Paris c'est la France_. The great writers, too, lent their +influence to glorify the capital: the town-loving spirit was strong in +them all. Paris got more and more supreme, while at the same time the +efforts of Government were divided between crushing out provincial +independence and meeting the ruinous expenditure of a Court always +luxurious and very often warlike. Hence a tendency in the old _régime_ +to a more and more strictly personal government. Feudal liberties were +crushed; feudal tyranny was aggravated. The provincial parliaments, and +that of Paris into the bargain, gradually lost even the semblance of +power; and the old system degenerated into despotism. + +The Revolution, while superficially breaking up this system, left +untouched those parts of it which some say are grounded on the +peculiarities of French character. It intensified centralization, and it +practised most oppressively that interference with the rights of the +individual which is of the essence of personal government. The very men +who so loudly proclaimed the principles of '89 were found most ready to +act on rules which led them straight to the lawless tyranny of the +Terror. Their 'ideas' were grand, but personal freedom was far too +trifling a thing to be allowed to stand in their way for a moment. In +one point the Revolution diverged from the old _régime_: it became +intensely and deliberately propagandist--bent, _i.e._, on carrying +forward, with the strength of the whole nation, the mission which the +thinkers of Voltaire's day had assigned to themselves. We often find +that the man who believes in nothing in particular is the most violent +in opposing the beliefs of others. So it was with the leaders of the +Revolution: they were mad to spread their doctrines over Europe; and +their doctrines being those of Paris, Paris became (in Frenchmen's eyes) +the recognized head, not of France only, but of the civilized world. + +Imperialism was at first a reaction from despotic anarchy; the dread of +another Terror made the French welcome with delight a man who seemed +strong enough to be 'the saviour of society.' So it was again in 1849, +when the Socialist struggle in which 13,000 Parisians perished so +alarmed the successful 'bourgeois,' that to prevent its repetition they +condoned the _coup d'état_. Ideas, it was said in 1795, were ruining +France; the men of ideas had been beaten in the field; Imperialism +therefore meant military glory as the basis of French prosperity. +Frenchmen were content to believe that (as M. Louis Blanc said the other +day at Bordeaux) 'glory and liberty are incompatible,' and deliberately +to choose the former. + +Of course the Imperialism of 1852 differs somewhat from that of 1804, +but it is the same in its intense selfishness, and its thorough +insincerity. Under the second Empire, there have been commercial +treaties and alliances, and the working class has found good wages, so +long as it has been content with political nothingness; but the two will +be seen to be the same in principle. Each has the radical evil of +depending on success in war, or peace, or both, for its stability; and +this necessary instability makes them more hopeless as systems than the +old _régime_, with all its corruptness, or even than the wild theories +of the Republic.[211] + +But it is needless to enlarge on the manifest causes which made a +hereditary monarchy stable so long as it is not wholly intolerable. The +same causes make the best of 'tyrannies' (in the Greek sense of the +word) unstable. Men as 'logical' as Frenchmen are sure to feel that if +such a government is not fulfilling the purpose of its creation, it had +better cease to exist; and feeling with Frenchmen generally means +action. + +The first Napoleon had immense success on his side; he 'saved France,' +in his own fashion, and so long as he was successful, very few Frenchmen +cared to inquire into the soundness of the method employed. The third +Napoleon had in his favour the remembrance of his uncle's success, and +the fact that the _règne du bavardage_ had failed as completely in 1849 +as it had done in the days of the Directory. Both were helped, too, by +the systematic lying of their newspapers, which, amid the enforced +silence of all who would not speak as they did, could say what they +pleased without fear of contradiction. Both, too, were able +administrators: Louis points out, in 'his own Account of the Fight at +Dame Europa's School'--a bitter satire on the selfish insincerity of +Imperialism--how hard he worked for years, and how by repressing them +with one hand and giving them employment with the other, he controlled +the terrible Paris _canaille_. This is, in fact, his solitary claim for +forgiveness. But both fell when the moment of pressure came, and the +fall of the nephew is irreparable: for him there can be no 'hundred +days;' even the boundless capabilities of treachery which he found in +Bazaine failed to do anything but seal his fate by convincing France +that, whereas the uncle shed French blood like water in support of his +selfish ambition, the nephew actually paltered with the enemy, and +betrayed the strongest fortress in the country, in the vain hope of +securing foreign support. + +It is plain to the most superficial observer that of all the things +which have collapsed in France since last July, none has collapsed so +hopelessly as Imperialism. When the ex-Emperor rushed into war as the +only way of staving off a revolution, France showed herself (as she so +often has done at critical periods of her history) culpably passive. +There were complaisant prefects who assured his Majesty that his people +went with him heart and soul; there were crowds, hired or not, such as +can always be collected in any great city, who shouted _Vive la guerre_ +and _à Berlin_; but the peasantry still believed that the Empire meant +peace; and when they afterwards found war come upon them, they fancied +(so strong was their faith in Napoleon) that it was the Prussians who +were the aggressors. Just in the same way on the eve of the Spanish war, +in 1808, the servile Senate said: 'Sire, the will of the French people +goes along with you. This Spanish war is just and necessary. Fathers +envy their sons the glory of rushing to join your ranks, and of winning +another Marengo and another Austerlitz.' And this farce was kept up at a +time when the conscription had grown so odious that the Government had +to imitate Louis XIV.'s _dragonnades_, and to quarter _garnisaires_ upon +the families of those lads who had escaped to the woods, or had fled +across the frontier. + +France was passive in July, 1870, as she was more than once during the +first Napoleon's career; the difference is, that the nephew's army, on +which he was supposed to have lavished so much thought and money, and +which, since the _coup d'état_, he had pampered into prætorian +insolence, failed him utterly both for defence and offence; whereas the +uncle always had something which he could trust to fight well, if not to +win battles. + +Since Sedan, France, no longer passive, has worked wonders; and every +step in her work has made a relapse to the old state of things more +impossible. 'The man of Sedan,' it was felt all along, could never +return, except behind Prussian bayonets. Had he, on that last fatal day, +cut his way at whatever loss through the encompassing host, and, +throwing himself on Paris, raised a _levée en masse_ to the old cry of +'the country in danger,' matters might have turned out very differently, +both for him and for France; but he could not have so acted without +denying his own principles. His whole career had been an attempt to +juggle with universal suffrage while practising the narrowest despotism, +and now to appeal in real earnest to popular principles, and to give the +pledges necessary to make that appeal a serious one, was an +impossibility for the man who had eagerly snatched at the chances of war +which the crafty Bismarck threw in his way, rather than honestly carry +out the liberal measures which he had at last been forced to adopt. +There is a point beyond which charlatanism cannot go. Thrice had the +uncle felt that this kind of appeal is useless when it is contrary to a +man's whole antecedents: once at Arcis-sur-Aube, when in the midst of +the battle, Sebastiani said, 'Are these all your Majesty's forces?' +'Every man I have.' 'Then does not your Majesty think of raising the +nation?' 'Nonsense: you're dreaming of the way they did things in Spain, +or here in France, in '91. How can you talk of raising a nation whose +nobles and priests have been destroyed by the Revolution, and whose +Revolution has been destroyed by me?' There was nothing, he felt, left +to appeal to. Again, on his return from Elba, wisdom said, 'Wait on +French soil, and crush the invaders at Paris and Lyons;' but this would +have necessitated an appeal to the nation and a pledge that all war +except defensive war should cease, and, as Colonel Charras says, in +words which seem almost prophetical of the events of last July, 'to +re-establish his despotism he could not do without the prestige of +victory: he thought to find it on the frontier, so thither he hastened.' +A third time, when, after Waterloo, Napoleon was among the remnant of +his troops at Laon, it was still free to him to show himself not only +the 'child of the Revolution,' but its legitimate offspring and its +protector. He still shrank instinctively from doing so: bolder, indeed, +than his nephew, he did go to Paris; but with the invincible dislike of +all his race to true freedom of government, he went there merely to see +if there was a chance of carrying on the war without making any real +political concessions. + +So it was that, after Sedan, the nephew passed out of history: no amount +of plotting can restore the man who showed himself fool as well as +knave, who fell--not, like his uncle, under the blows of banded +Europe--but because he had allowed himself to be wholly deceived, both +as to the quality and composition of his own army and as to the +dispositions of neighbouring powers. France never can forgive such a +result of twenty years of personal government. But that the ex-Emperor +should disappear out of history is natural enough; the marvel is that he +ever became one of the makers of history. His success was due to the +vitality of the Napoleonic idea, nourished as it was after the +restoration by writers of all kinds--notably by the veteran statesman +who now, more than any one else, has made a return to Imperialism +impossible. For this total revolution in literature it is hard to give a +sufficient reason. Before the restoration, literature, when not venal, +was strongly anti-Bonapartist.'[212] After the Bourbons were restored, +writers began to extol Napoleon as industriously as before they had +decried him. This change was owing partly to French feeling against the +mode of his removal: it was a great humiliation; as Madame de Staël said +(deploring the return from Elba), 'It's all over with liberty if he +succeeds, and with the national independence if he is beaten.' The +nation felt that the peace of 1815 had compromised its independence; +and, in writing down the king who had been brought in by foreign armies, +literary men were acting as the mouthpiece of France. But this is not +all; wounded vanity did much. Under the Empire mind had been powerless, +unless, as in the case of Lacépède and other _savans_, it had submitted +to be the humble tool of force: when Sièyes said, 'I'll be the head and +that little Corsican shall be the arm,' he had quite unwittingly spoken +the truth; for, in Napoleon's system, the head was nothing and the arm +everything. Great, then, was the disappointment when under Louis XVIII., +and still more under his successor, the head seemed almost as powerless +as before. The heart (if such a word may be used of the hollow system of +Popery) came into play; and, unless a man was _dévôt_, or seemed to be +so, ability of any kind served him little. Add to this the wilful +blindness of the Bourbons, who (it was soon seen) 'had learnt nothing +and forgotten nothing.' Their petty despotism disgusted the nation; +while the 'Memoirs of St. Helena' and a crowd of similar writings made +out, with a sophistry so barefaced that we should fancy it could never +have deceived even Frenchmen, that the Emperor had always acted as a +dutiful son of the revolution, according to the programme which himself +had laid down, that 'liberty, equality, and prosperity shall be +ensured.' Will the nephew ever venture to assert, as the uncle did in +1816, that his government was a constitutional and temperate monarchy, +and that the French people under it were the freest people in Europe? +However this may be, there is no doubt that the claim thus made by +Napoleon I. told immensely on the thought of the nation, and through it +on the masses. Claiming to have saved the revolution by moderating its +violence, the exile of St. Helena persistently called himself its +soldier and its martyr. His wars (he said) had been undertaken to spread +its civilizing influence; and the consciousness of this had made kings +and princes so determined on his overthrow. We, of course, can see +through the hollowness of all this: but the French writers of that day, +finding France humiliated, and knowing that she had been glorious, +actually came to believe, or at any rate fostered the belief, that in +the days of her glory she had been free, since undoubtedly in the days +of her humiliation she was fettered. No wonder the rest were deceived, +since a man of consummate ability, M. Thiers, whose honesty is proved by +his having refused office during some seventeen years of 'personal +government,' could write such a marvellous romance as that which he gave +to the world under the title of 'The Consulate and the Empire.' + +Thus, by a combination of causes we may partly account for the change in +the mind of France; and this change told upon the more or less educated +masses. When Thiers wrote as he did; when Victor Hugo--whom a strange +Nemesis afterwards urged to write 'Napoleon the Little'--sang the great +man's praises in 'Lui,' and, throwing moral sanctions to the winds, +declared that + + 'Tu domines notre siécle, _ange ou démon qu'importe_?' + +when Beauchèsne, in 'L'Ecolier,' pathetically described the day-dreams +of the boyish enthusiast; and, yet more, when Béranger sang his 'Vieux +drapeau,' and his 'Serrez vos rangs, Gaulois et Francs,' and, above all, +his 'Souvenirs du Peuple,' no wonder men forgot the real Napoleon, and +accepted the ideal which was so persistently put before them. + +Béranger was a true prophet when he sang + + 'On parlera de sa gloire + Sous le chaume bien longtemps; + L'humble toit en cinquante ans + Ne connaîtra plus d'autre histoire.' + +It is not easy to trace how this feeling had so penetrated downwards, +and had so thoroughly laid hold of the lowest stratum, the wholly +uneducated peasantry, that the first time the vote by universal suffrage +was taken, many peasants thought they were voting for the old Emperor. +That it did so is one more proof how soon a nation with great +'recuperative powers' loses the memory of disasters. The cruel +conscriptions which drove mere boys to die in Spain under the fire of +Wellington's seasoned troops--the retreat from Russia, after which 'the +man of Smorgoni' was for a time as unpopular as 'the man of Sedan,' were +forgotten. The heroic defence of Champagne, and the glories which +preceded it, were alone remembered. This will account for the growth of +the Imperial idea in the more fighting parts of France, especially in +Alsace and Lorraine, which have always contributed much more than their +share to the army. + +How it was in La Vendée we cannot pretend to say. Napoleon there had +been as ruthless in his way as the 'blues;' he had ordered that every +family which could not prove that all its members were at home and quiet +should lose its property, this being divided between the 'good subjects' +and the occupying troops. Nor can we understand how the Southern +peasants should have welcomed the nephew when they had hated the uncle. +It was against them chiefly that the odious _garnisaires_ had to be +employed; and we all know how they showed their feeling in 1814 by +several times nearly tearing the Emperor to pieces when he was on the +way to Elba, frightening him so that he disguised himself as an English +officer. + +North-eastern France was Bonapartist because it was anti-Prussian, and +the Emperor had thoroughly humiliated Prussia. For this special hatred +of Prussia there is ample reason. The Prussian character is not +loveable; even at the best it is singularly domineering and +cantankerous; and during the invasions of French territory (not to speak +of the bloodthirsty pursuit after Waterloo) the Prussians had shown +themselves (as unhappily they too often have during this war)[213] worse +than Cossacks. This special hatred of Prussians comes out continually in +the Erckmann-Châtrian series. The contrast between the bitterness with +which the fights at Ligny and Wavre and the final conflict at Waterloo +are described is remarkable; it may almost be said to be prophetic of +the merciless way in which too much of the fighting has been carried on +within the past few months. 'No quarter' is the word on both French and +Prussian side; and scornful hatred lurks in every phrase of the graphic +account of those savage conflicts which at last left the French +nominally victorious. The English, on the other hand, are 'jolly +fellows, well shaved, and with the get-up of _bons bourgeois_.' We do +not think that, even before the Crimean war, French mothers ever taught +their children to hate us; whereas, _mon fils tu haïras les Prussiens_ +was a daily lesson among the peasants of the North-east.[214] + +To account for the Napoleonism of the peasants in other parts, we must +add to the feeling that Napoleon had glorified France, on the part of +those who (we said) were only too ready to forget how he had also +humiliated and ruined her, the persistent dread of the _spectre rouge_ +on the part of the vast class of little landowners, and thirdly, the +influence of the priests. Both these had been made use of by the uncle. +Whenever he wanted an excuse for despotism, he always got up a Jacobin +plot. This was the pretence for that famous 18th Brumaire, by which +'model and prototype of all _coups d'état_,' as M. Barni calls it, he +destroyed the constitution which he had sworn to defend. + +When, as First Consul, he arrested a number of those who remained true +to the Republic--among them Jourdain, the hero of Fleurus--and +threatened to banish them to Cayenne, the pretext was 'the infernal +machine' (very probably 'got up,' like so many more recent +conspiracies), which was denounced as a Jacobin invention. Jacobinism +was his apology for forming (at the beginning of the Empire) eight State +prisons, and for exercising the most rigorous censorship both of the +press and of the stage. + +How the priests helped him may be judged from the amusingly profane +addresses made to him on his accession to empire by the different +bishops. The Bishop of Aix wrote: 'Like another Moses, Napoleon has been +summoned by God from the deserts of Egypt,' 'God seems to have said +(wrote the Bishop of Orleans), "My heart hath chosen a new ruler to rule +my people; My almighty arm shall help him in his glorious work, and I +will strengthen his throne. He shall reign over the seas, and the rivers +shall become his servants."' In the eyes of other bishops and capitular +bodies the new emperor is 'another Matthias sent by the Lord,' 'a new +Cyrus,' 'Scripture hath given us, in the reign of Jehoshaphat, a +prophetic outline of his reign.' This, the fitting reward of the +Concordat, was the incense offered up by a servile clergy on the eve of +his coronation; and it matches well with the _Catechism_, published by +authority, and in use in all French churches in 1811.[215] After +repeated injunctions as to the special duty of reverence for the Emperor +and his house, the question is asked, 'Are there not yet other motives +to bind us strongly to our Emperor?'--'Yes; for it is he whom God raised +up in troublous times to re-establish the public worship of the holy +religion of our fathers and to be its protector. He has restored and +preserved public order by his profound and energetic wisdom; he defends +the State by his powerful arm; he is become the anointed of the Lord by +the consecration which he has received from the Sovereign Pontiff, chief +of the Universal Church.'[216] + +How the Pope, of whose meanly cruel treatment by Napoleon, the Count +d'Haussonville gave such a graphic account in the _Revue des Deux +Mondes_ of two years ago, really felt on the subject, we need not +inquire; with Napoleon the case was simple enough: 'he wanted a clergy +(says Madame de Staël) as he wanted chamberlains and courtiers, and all +the old things over again.' As for his being the restorer of religion, +no praise was ever less merited; he told Cabanis: 'This concordat of +ours is _la vaccine de la religion_; in fifty years it will have killed +it out like a moral small-pox.' On the other hand, before the Concordat +was signed there was full liberty of worship, and nearly eight millions +of people were in full practice of Catholicism. His Concordat was +needless, except for his own purposes; at the outset, indeed, the +Assembly had borne heavily on the clergy: to force them to take oaths +and then to persecute those who refused was to show an ignorance of the +first principles of toleration; and one of the few things which we have +to find fault with in MM. Erckmann-Châtrian's excellent novels is the +way in which the 'refractory priests' are spoken of, and in which the +harsh treatment they underwent is justified, because they disturbed the +peace of families, and intrigued for 'royalist restoration.' But by the +Constitution of the year III. Church and State had been separated, and +freedom of worship restored to every one. There was no need, therefore, +for any effort on Napoleon's part to secure what the Constitution had +already secured; he was, as usual, working simply for himself: 'I did +not despair,' (he writes from St. Helena) 'of sooner or later getting +full control of the Pope; and then what a lever for moving the world, +what a help towards keeping men's minds in hand!' + +With the Pope and the Italian clergy, indeed, Napoleon never had the +least success; but in France the large salaries which he gave to the +bishops produced the effect he anticipated; and at last, even in La +Vendée, a good deal of the old feeling died out. The _noblesse_ of +course still spoke of him as a mere _locum tenens_: for them he was +always 'the General Bonaparte, Lieutenant-in-Chief of the Forces of his +Majesty's King Louis XVII.' But the peasantry were gradually taught to +accept him as the friend of religion, and not simply as a temporary +police magistrate who was necessary to keep down their hated enemies the +'Reds.' Of this his nephew reaped the reward, and he moreover was able +to come forward as the defender of the Papacy under circumstances in +which his conduct gratified not only the peasants, but every sincere +Romanist in France, while it caused one more breach in the already +divided Republican camp. If the occupation of Rome was actually +initiated by honest Republicans, they never (not even when they made +Louis Napoleon Prince-President) were guilty of a more fatal mistake. +They shared the reward of all trimmers; supporting 'order' at the +expense of principle, they lost the confidence of the best men of their +party; while the Prince-President, assuming to be the champion of that +'order' which after all they had only defended with half-heartedness, +gained all the credit of the act, and won thereby the support of the +Ultramontanists. Of this support his subsequent vacillation could not +deprive him, because the Ultramontanes were sure that, whatever he might +do in other countries, in France he would not relax those fetters which +the Papacy finds so essential in securing the acceptance of its newly +'formulated dogmas and repressive encyclicals. When we say this, we by +no means assert that the ex-Emperor had the full confidence of the +clergy; that confidence it is not the policy of Rome to accord to any +one. Now again, as in 1848, she has shown that on occasion she can be as +revolutionary as Garibaldi himself, if there is an end to be gained by +being so. Napoleon is lost; despite the ridiculous outcry of London +imperialist papers like _La Situation_, his cause is hopeless; therefore +Rome hastens to give him up, and to affirm that he is rightly punished +for having supported Victor Emmanuel. But, so long as he was a power in +Europe, he received support enough to keep him popular among the +priest-ridden classes, because he was less dangerous than those who +would be sure to succeed him. A Republican government would without +doubt have given up the Roman occupation; while the Orleanists, who +would come to the surface if the Republic failed, are, as the real +friends of religious liberty, the most unacceptable of all to the +Ultramontane party. Guizot, the Orleanist statesman _par excellence_, +ventured to doubt whether it is not an abuse of toleration to allow full +scope to such irreconcilable foes to liberty as the Jesuits; therefore +it was better to uphold Napoleon, and to trust to the influence of the +Empress rather than to provoke a change which was sure to be for the +worse. + +But we have said enough to account somewhat for the growth of the +Napoleonic idea, after the first Emperor had done his best by the +failures, and still more by the littleness of his later years, to crush +it. + +France, moreover, had been humiliated in 1815, and Louis Philippe kept +her at peace without giving an outlet for enterprise in foreign +colonization. If Algeria had been less of a mere military settlement; or +if, instead of Algeria, France had laid hold of a colony better suited +for Europeans to thrive in, the Orleans line might have still been on +the throne. But the nation was slow to realize the amount of waste which +had accompanied the wars of the Empire. France did not like to keep +quiet and repair the ugly gaps left in her prosperity; she wanted to +make a grand figure before the world. Louis Philippe thought that by +combined repression and corruption he could check this restlessness; and +so he, a constitutional king, was led into a career of unconstitutional +conduct--the proximate, though not the remote, cause of the revolution +in 1848. + +The _facilis descensus_ from a republic to a despotism was seldom more +inevitable than amid the chaos of parties which succeeded the +Provisional Government. France wanted _prestige_: who more likely to +give it to her than the nephew of the man who won Jena and Austerlitz? +France wanted protection against the 'Reds,' 'the enemies of order and +property:' surely, the very man to secure this to her was _l'homme +providentiel_, who could sway the army as one man, and who, though he +professed to believe in universal suffrage, and to have a high regard +for the working man, was known to be hand in glove with the great +financiers and capitalists? As Victor Hugo puts it in his little history +of the _coup d'état_, 'tous les hommes du passé, depuis tel banquier +juif qui se sentait un peu Catholique jusqu'à tel évêque qui se sentait +un peu juif,' all combined to work up the Napoleonic idea, and to induce +the masses to accept what was the best government for stock-jobbers and +Court tailors and highly paid functionaries of all sorts. It was the +Nemesis of 1793 which produced the _coup d'état_ of December 1851: but +for the recollection of the Reign of Terror, of that wild carnival of +cruelty and rapine, such an outrage would have been impossible. Men of +substance argued that what had been might be again; and therefore they +threw in their lot with the saviour of society, even while they abhorred +the means which he employed for its salvation. National susceptibility, +then, and a half unconscious desire to wipe off old scores, combined +with Popish influence and the dread of the 'Reds,' helped to give +tangibility to this long-cherished Napoleonic idea, by bringing about +the second Empire. + +A few words, now, on the causes and the history of its decay. These, as +usual in political and social matters, are complex and seemingly +conflicting. First, those who looked for _prestige_ were not satisfied +with the declaration, _l'Empire c'est la paix_, even explained away +though it was by the many wars undertaken in the last twenty years. +France fighting side by side with England in the Crimea and in China, +was not the same as France carrying her eagles into almost every +European capital. This feeling forced on the war which resulted in the +sudden peace of Villafranca--the suddenness of which peace proved (to +the French Emperor's detractors) that Magenta and Solferino were not +such very decided victories, after all. It always seemed in Napoleon +III.'s undertakings, that he was stopped at a certain point, just as if +he had not really been the master of France, but was only free to use +her resources within the range of his tether. This may be due to the +financial complications in which he and his creatures were always mixed +up, or to that indecision of character which, while it gave him for a +time a reputation for profound wisdom, did him immense harm by making +men suspect him of deep plotting when he was simply at a loss how to +reconcile conflicting ideas, and by exciting profound distrust on +occasions where pity would have been the more appropriate feeling. +Herein he paid the penalty (almost always exacted in all ranks of life) +of seeing both ways. The notion which couples moral obliquity with +crookedness of vision is confined to the vulgar; but comparatively few +can avoid distrusting the mental power of looking at once in several +directions. The ex-Emperor had his English experience; his political +education was far in advance of that of most of his subjects; he saw the +weak points of each party, and saw too how each drew strength from the +amount of truth which it had grasped. Could he have lived as president +of a republic in which all these elements should have had free scope, +France might have thriven morally during the last nineteen years, as +much as she has thriven materially. But the French character, no less +than his own designs, forbade this. Frenchmen cannot bear to 'give and +take;' their _logique_ shows itself by forcing them into the streets to +battle for their cause as soon as there is the feeblest chance of +success; and, above all, his aim was, not to give France the best +government, but to keep himself by all means at her head. Hence, lying +and repression became his instruments. One party was played off against +another. The _prolétaires_ kept in good humour by the Hausmannizing, not +of Paris only, but of half the French cities, were told that the Emperor +was really their friend; and so long as they got _panem et circenses_ +they seem pretty generally to have believed it. The _parti prêtre_ was +petted at home; and the control which the clergy was allowed to have +over education more than compensated for the cutting off of the Romagna. +The moneyed class, and all the crowd of little _rentiers_, who are +almost forced to accept the existing order of things, saw by the vast +growth of public credit and by the steady price of public securities, +that the Empire was the millennium of men of means. The army, petted and +spoiled, was full of dislike for civilians, and of chauvinist contempt +for foreigners. The literary class alone feebly kept up the struggle; +and its protest against the dictum 'la France c'est moi,' was chiefly +confined to such far-fetched allusions as we find in 'Labiénus' and in +the 'leaders' of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. The French are brave; but +those who did not accept the Empire were cowed by the _coup d'état_; +and in such circumstances they are of all people the most patient under +what they have come to believe inevitable. + +But though nothing was done much was felt, and the mistakes and +disappointments of later years soon brought the feeling to the surface. +From the very first, nothing but the _coup d'état_ had thoroughly +succeeded. The Crimean war ended too soon; it failed in its main object, +that of crippling Russia, and it was from the outset distasteful to a +large party because it drew France so close to England. The Austrian war +wanted the dash and vigour of Marengo; and the Mexican campaign (so +opposed by Thiers in 1864) showed that the ruler of France was afraid to +move when the United States bade him stand still. Meanwhile Poland had +been twice given up--and Poland is very dear to a large section of the +French; the Confederate States had been abandoned, and Denmark had been +left unhelped to the tender mercy of Prussia and Austria. Military +_prestige_ had gone, despite the numbers and the ruinous cost of the +army. All the while the occupation of Rome was a standing outrage on the +feelings of the most thinking part of the nation; and, combined with it, +by that strange inconsistency which marks all Napoleonic procedure, the +creation of the kingdom of Italy alienated the Ultramontanes, and set +them plotting, after their fashion, against the man whom it was still +their interest outwardly to support. + +Herein uncle and nephew are thoroughly at one. Both Lanfrey and the +author of the 'Romans nationaux' remind us how constantly the first +Napoleon displayed a cynical disregard for men's feelings, without +apparently seeing that thereby he was giving irreparable offence. He +looked on men as reasoning machines, and quite left out of account all +the sentimental springs of action. Those whom he needlessly insulted +would, he thought, recognise both his power to crush and also to benefit +them, and therefore they would be his obedient servants. Such was the +state of the Continent that he was scarcely disabused of this notion +till he undertook to govern Spain. Italy submitted to exactions more +galling though less ruinous than those which the Germans have been +making upon France. Germany, thoroughly dissatisfied with its own serene +highnesses and arch-dukes, and looking upon Napoleon as the true +successor of Hoche and Moreau, and the others who had spread republican +ideas through the Fatherland, was content to bear a great deal before +she showed any signs of anger. Spain certainly set Continental Europe +an example in this. Napoleon might prove beyond dispute that under his +tutelage she would soon rise rapidly in position and wealth; but Spain +had been cruelly outraged by the treatment to which her people as well +as her royal family had been subjected; and Spain cared not a jot for +either position or wealth compared with a successful revolt against +French occupation. We know how wholly, in dealing with individuals, the +uncle left the power of personal feelings out of account; the nephew, +rarely forgetting this in regard to the individual, forgot it when +dealing with classes. To the clergy for instance, he said, 'Italy must +be reconstituted, and to that end the Pope must give up the Romagna and +the Marches. You shall have our troops still in Rome, and I will arrange +that you may control French education pretty much as you please.' The +clergy, accepting what he gave, never even pretended to be grateful for +the boon; they never forgave the 'spoliation of the Church;' and thus +the ex-emperor's conduct, as usual, displeased both parties, and +deprived him of any support except what it was manifestly men's interest +to give him. + +Then came the dread of Prussia, and the sudden attempt (almost as bad as +deploying under fire) to reorganise that army for which so much money +had been drawn that had really been expended on other objects. The +severer conscription made the peasants restless; and the _plébiscite_ +was called for much in that spirit of distrust which set David numbering +the people. When it was found that a considerable percentage of the army +had voted the wrong way, it was felt that the pyramid, hitherto propped +up on its small end by bayonets, was tottering; and the war, of which we +have lately seen the sad issue, was hurried on as the sole change of +retrieving the fortunes of the dynasty. + +It is not our business to gauge the complicity of the French people in +the affair of Benedetti and Gramont.[217] France, as we said, showed +herself culpably passive; Paris, say the French 'irreconcilables,' was +culpably complaisant. We may be thankful that here in England we have +not for centuries seen twenty years of such a debasing system as that +which made Paris what it was till it was purified in the furnace of +affliction. We fancy that the reaction against the despotism of the +capital will be very strong. There is far more independent life left +than most people imagine in the French provincial cities, far more than +in our large towns; and they were increasingly indignant at the +pre-eminence which the imperial system gave to Paris in everything. This +exaltation of Paris is natural in a dynasty which has no roots in France +itself. Paris had proved herself in 1790 capable of taking the lead and +giving the law to all France; Paris, therefore, must be kept strong in +order that all France might be of one mind. How different from the days +of Henry IV., or of any of the old race! To the Corsican intruder the +peasant of Beauce was just the same as the peasant of the +Bourbonnais--merely a fighting machine. Hence the real depression of the +provinces, despite of some exceptional improvements in Brittany and in +the _landes_ of the Gironde. The first Napoleon's levies so reduced the +relative strength of the country districts that Paris, in his time, +gained a position which she has ever since held. Whatever form of +government she chose the provinces echoed her choice. Disliking her, +they still never thought of shaking off her yoke. That Paris, befooled +by Béranger, by chauvinism, and by the popular fiction of imperialism, +should have chosen such a President as she did, is a strange comment on +all the bombastic nonsense which Victor Hugo talks about +_Paris-cerveau_--Paris, the brain of the world. Paris now, conscious of +her degradation, is avenging herself by heaping all sorts of abuse on +the man of her choice--'the phlegmatic perjurer,' 'the silent Tartuffe,' +as M. Leclercq calls him. But the choice was hers, and the degradation +which resulted from the years of personal rule followed with peculiar +rapidity owing to a want in the French character. The most 'logical' of +nations is indeed terribly consistent; it always seems to want that +happy power of stopping short before things have gone so far as to make +a catastrophe inevitable. + +The last years of the late emperor's reign were morally unhealthy beyond +the average of the most immoral times since the Reformation. It is not +that people were worse in their conduct: they were more cynical. They +had got to laugh at everything, to despise all sanctions--even those +shadowy ones which the first revolution substituted for the sanctions of +religion. The years in which Cora Pearl and the rest of the demi-monde +were the arbiters of fashion, in which Thérèse was the pet of +drawing-rooms, and the younger Dumas the popular _littérateur_, saw the +extinction of much that was noble in France, for they witnessed what we +may call the apotheosis of epicureanism. Paris seemed to have lost all +moral sense since the time that its government had ceased to have any. +The efforts of Parisian talent resulted in nothing but ill-digested and +unwholesome works. The upper classes did as the Court did--that crew of +wholesale stock-jobbers, like the Duke of Morny, among whom, one who was +a strange mixture of reckless extravagance and gross bigotry presided as +mistress of the revels. The masses were sunk in ignorance, and lived a +life--those Paris _ouvriers_ who have so often taken in hand to +regenerate the world--which it would terrify the average English workman +to contemplate. The middle class, the Famille Benoîton of the play, +vegetated, made money, and reasoned on false premises. It was Babylon +over again, as poor Prévost-Paradol styles it. Tongue-tied on all high +subjects, the Parisians flung themselves mad with delight upon that +class of ideas which soon brings thought down to its lowest level, 'Make +money, never mind how, and live simply to gratify your meanest +instincts,' that was everybody's maxim--_leur esprit s'était abâtardi_. + +At the same time Paris still asserted that superiority over all the rest +of the world which her writers had first claimed when they began to +write up the first empire. Her writers kept on blowing one another's +trumpets, and crying out that theirs was the great nation, and that to +the people among whom primary education is more deficient than even in +Spain was entrusted the mission of indoctrinating Europe with ideas. +Grossly ignorant of their own shortcomings the French were, last July, +quite incapable of forming a fair estimate of any other nation. Because +Napoleon III. had always managed to mystify his people as to what he was +going to do, therefore they fancied he had mystified Europe. Because he +had met Bismark at Biarritz, and had been always fond of personal +conference with princes, therefore they dreamed of Tilsit over again, +and refused to see that on every point their master was either outwitted +or else over-mastered by other statesmen. All the follies which come of +boasting, of contempt for one's adversary, of unmeasured self-esteem, of +confidence in one's power of doing anything in any line whatever, seemed +to have burst out at once into monstrous growth in the Paris of last +July. M. Leclercq collects chronologically the choice passages from the +_Figaro_, the _Gaulois_, &c., which show the feeling of those who +claimed to be the leaders of thought; and surely nothing better than +such a collection can justify the almost universal dislike to France +which was felt at the beginning of the war. Belgian as he is, he knows +how bad the supremacy of Paris has been for Brussels, her little +imitator, and he hopes that this supremacy is gone never to be restored. +In this hope he gives us page after page of blatant absurdity, of +grotesque and childish rant, of transparent falsehood, from the +inaugural 'leader' in _Figaro_ down to the wild dithyramb which Victor +Hugo published when he entered Paris after the 4th September. + +It is worth while to quote a few sentences from _Figaro_ of the 17th +July:-- + + 'Drums beat, trumpets sound--it is war.' + + * * * * * + + 'France, France, righteous land, hospitable land, noble + people; always thou shalt be first among the first ... thy + name is LEGION!' + + * * * * * + + 'The cannon makes the pavement of the big city ring with a + dull sound.... Make way for the cannon, and hats off! It is + going to clear a passage for civilisation and humanity. + + * * * * * + + 'These Prussians, too, have said that you were drawing + back! France drawing back; 'tis like the sun standing + still. And who is this new Joshua who shall make the sun of + France stand still! Moltke, perhaps!' + +And the 'leader' (what an abuse of the word) winds up with a prayer 'to +the God who has said that they who take the sword shall perish by the +sword, and who ordains that liberty's furrows should be blood-watered, +since no otherwise can the germ of freedom be developed.' Many have been +offended during the war with the tone of Emperor William's telegrams; +but even the _Standard_ must confess that they are infinitely preferable +to the blasphemous hiccoughings of the _Figaro_. + +The strangest part of it, perhaps, is the monstrous lying; Austria (we +are told) is thirsting for revenge:--'The Austrian aristocracy is wild +about the insolence of these Brandenburg margraves, _these parvenu, +princes_' (the appropriateness of the epithet from a Bonaparte of a +Hohenzöllern deserves remark).... 'Frankfort has shut all its shops, and +its trade won't recover the shock for many years.... Prussia has +withdrawn all the able-bodied men out of Hanover for fear of an +outbreak.' The truth being that, except a portion of the highest class, +and a very few of the lowest, the whole Hanoverian population went in +heart and soul for German unity. + +This incredible ignorance of other nations is matched by an equal +ignorance of the French army and its belongings:--'War can bring us no +annoying surprises, for we have the most marvellous body of +_éclaireurs_ in Europe,' is an assertion repeated over and over again +towards the end of last July, at a time when the Uhlans were already +beginning to show what they were capable of, and when French officers +were finding out that they had nothing provided in the way of maps, +except out-of-date plans of East Prussian fortresses. The absurd vanity +which could write in this way when the Prussians were showing that they +knew every inch of French soil, is only equalled by the craven way in +which _Figaro's_ readers gave in whenever Prussian audacity, backed by +Prussian knowledge of their country, enabled Uhlans or regulars to make +a dash. The _Cornhill_ tale, 'How the Prussians took Mousseux-les-Caves' +(under the guidance of a sub-lieutenant who had been clerk to a wine +merchant there), is a story which has been acted out to the letter, not +once but fifty times, to the confusion of those who were boasting all +the while about their 'admirable corps d'éclaireurs.' The boasting was +about as well-grounded as that which, a fortnight later, declared that +of Prince Frederick Charles's army nothing was left but the remnants, +and that the whole corps of Bismark's white cuirassiers had been cut off +to a man. + +The companion piece to all this senseless exaggeration, encouraged, we +must remember, and endorsed by the highest authority--first by the +Emperor himself and then by Count Palikao--is Victor Hugo's dithyramb +aforesaid. It appeared in the _Electeur Libre_ of 3rd October, and +surpasses anything which Walt Whitman, in his wildest moments, ever +dreamt of:-- + + 'We are but one Frenchman, but one Parisian, but one single + heart; there is but one citizen left, 'tis you, 'tis I, + 'tis all of us. Where the heart is, there will be our + breasts to make a barrier. + + 'Resistance to-day, deliverance to-morrow: that sums up + everything. We are no more flesh, but stone. I don't know + my own name any more, I am called, "Country, forward on the + foe!" We are called, "France, Paris, stand like a wall."... + + 'The Pantheon wonders what it can do to make room beneath + its dome for all this people who have a right to lie + there.... Each time the shells fall, and the grape-shot + roars, what see we in our streets? women tripping by with a + smile. O Paris, thou hast crowned the statue of Strasburg + with flowers; history will crown thee with stars!' + +It is as hard for sober Englishmen to imagine a people delighting in +edicts penned in that style, as it is for us to read without disgust any +two consecutive pages of _L'homme qui rit_. Hugo's latest novel is well +matched by his latest political utterances. + +One encouraging sign is, that Paris journalism grows ashamed of itself: +the lies, indeed, continue to the last: insincerity seems (since the +first Napoleon's time) to have become inseparable from French bulletins; +but the _Siècle_ of the middle of November proves what a change had come +on:-- + + 'It is _esprit_ which has ruined France; the esprit, we + mean, of the boulevards, that _esprit_ nine-tenths of which + are made up of puns and jokes, of scepticism, of _blague_, + and of which the remaining tenth is boastful nonsense and + absurd lies.... So long as the _Figaro_, _Paris Journal_, + _Gaulois_ and all the rest keep up above the circulation of + 500, which would suffice for the comic actors and actresses + who ought to be their only readers, there is no hope of + seeing France recover herself. Men talk with scorn of the + Greeks of the lower empire who were arguing about the kind + of light which shone on Mount Tabor, while Mahomet II. was + breaching their walls. But these Greeks were eagles + compared with our _boulevardiers_. They discussed a + theologico-physical question, wild and absurd, no doubt, + but still showing a capacity for lofty thought; our + _spirituel_ newspapers discuss the scandals which they rake + up out of the moral sewers of the capital.... If the + present war ends without having killed, not scotched, this + _esprit boulevardier_, peace will be no use, it will be + nothing but a halt in the mire.' + +M. Leclercq's comment on this is-- + + 'If we, whom the second Empire has so poisoned through its + infamous press, have not energy enough to make a reaction + against Parisian manners and Parisian _esprit_, we shall + fall as low as our neighbours, and shall soon imbibe that + scorn of truth and reason which they have shown.' + +This, from a Belgian, is at least as humiliating to Paris as any of the +Prussian victories. + +From politics, as from warlike criticism, M. Leclercq abstains almost +wholly: of course, he cannot help wondering at Bazaine's behaviour at +Metz; as we heard it lately expressed by a great English financier, +unable, like most financiers, to help liking the Emperor after all:--'I +won't say Bazaine was a traitor; that is not quite fair upon him. But I +will say that he thought more of his government than he did of France. +He might have prevented the investment of Paris, there is not a doubt of +it.' The decay of the Napoleonic idea is put in a startling light, when +we reflect that Bazaine was, before the end of last September, almost +the only Imperialist in France. Paris, which had been so delighted at +the prospect of glory as to forget all about the _coup d'état_, went +round as one man. In fact, Sedan was hurried on because Paris could not +be trusted: there was no sincerity in the ex-Emperor's professions and +concessions. The Parisians knew that, and though they had been ready +enough to shout against the Prussians, they were only waiting for their +opportunity to get rid of their own ruler. It is the old story of a +house divided against itself. The poor men were mowed down at Sedan by +shells from such a distance that they could not see whence they were +fired, simply because it was 'useless' for Napoleon to go to Paris. The +idea of really honestly trusting to the country, and giving pledges for +future conduct, never presented itself as possible in 1870 any more than +in 1814 and 1815. + +On one point M. Leclercq finds just fault with the Republican +government: they decreed a second expulsion of Germans from Paris, and +they vowed not only never to yield an inch of French soil, but never to +raze a stone of one of her fortresses:--'As to the soil (says our +author), let the inhabitants decide; but the offer to dismantle Metz and +Strasburg, and, above all, the little fortresses which have so long +wished to be made open towns, would at once have set them right with all +the noblest minds in Europe: to act as they did was to play into the +hands of the King of Prussia.' But M. Leclercq is somewhat of a +peace-at-any-price man. + +He is a prophet, too, and delights in the thought that France, before +long, will be a federation like the United States. Its provinces will +then (he says) resume their old importance--'the life now heaped up in +Paris will be spread abroad where it is needed.' Paris, no doubt, has +done nobly, and there is, after all, a good side to her character. He is +as little desirous as we are to deny this; but, then, the fault was +mainly hers. Had she last autumn stood firmly by the Republican party, +instead of falling so readily and blindly into the trap which Louis +Napoleon laid for her, war would have been impossible. She enabled the +Emperor to begin; and then, by her fickle restlessness, she hampered his +movements and forced him to fight, as it were, with one hand tied up. +Instead of Hugo's _Paris-cerveau_, M. Leclercq calls her +_Paris-spectacle, Paris-plaisir, Paris-panache_, and he sees no future +for France except in her humiliation: _il faut trépaner_ (he says) _le +cerveau de la France_. + +The _Papiers Secrets_ need not occupy us long; they were hardly worth +the trouble of unearthing. The Government of National Defence might +surely have found better work for men like De Kératry, Lavertujon, and +Cochut, than to be rummaging among the rubbish found at the Tuileries, +at St. Cloud, and at Meudon. If they had so destroyed the environs of +Paris as to prevent the Prussians from finding shelter; if they had (as +common sense would have dictated) fortified Versailles, connecting it +with the _enceinte_ by a strong military line, and used their abundant +labour to make the works impregnable, it would have been far better than +to have wasted precious time in docketing papers which are certainly +disappointing. They reveal nothing, for we already know that the Empire +was based upon corruption and _espionnage_; and all they do is to enable +the curious reader to follow the ramifications of this imperial system +into unsuspected corners. + +Thus, at the outset, we have a letter from the Empress _en route_ for +Suez, which shows her grammar and orthography as much at fault as those +of the fine ladies of Queen Anne's time, and which is sadly like what +Henrietta of France might have written to Charles I.:-- + + 'Plus on aura besoin de force plus tard, et plus il sera + nécessaire de prouver au pays qu' on a _des idées_ et non + _des expédients_.' "Amuse-toi" (is her advice to her + husband) 'il faut se refaire un moral, comme on se refait + une constitution affaiblie, et une idée constante finie + (sic) par user le cerveau le mieux organisé.' + +Altogether Eugenie does not come off badly in the published +correspondence. + +Of the chapter on Napoleon's mistresses we need say nothing except that +it will disappoint the prurient reader. Marguerite Bellanger, who first +fathered a son on him, and then (after being managed by the _président +du cour_, poor M. Devienne) confessed she had cheated him, and Miss +Howard, are the only two who come to the front; the latter, by the way, +appears to have received in the course of two years five and a half +millions of francs--good interest for having paid 'the Prince's' debts +when he was in England. It is unsafe to state anything about the +ex-Emperor's private property. The 'facts' have been contradicted and +re-asserted; but there they are, in this little pamphlet, with full +details, sixty-three millions of francs, including the accounts with +Baring of London, with Kindlet of Vienna, with Funder and Plitz of St. +Petersburg, with Berg von Dussen of Amsterdam, and Jecker in Mexico, and +Brown Brothers of New York. What he had in the French funds the author, +of course, professes himself unable to tell; but _en revanche_ he gives +(in the chapter headed _ce que coûtaient les impérialists_) the whole of +the enormous civil list, a great deal of which was (as is proved by +marginal notes on the documents) paid by the Emperor over and above the +allowance, without the intervention of the Ministry. + +We all know how persistently Pierre Bonaparte begged for money, and how +recklessly money was wasted on affairs like the Prince Imperial's +baptism, but the amount expended per month on men like Baron Jérome +David, M. Granier de Cassagnac, and others of the 'vendus' is +prodigious; and we are told that of the actual total we can form no +notion, the usual plan of payment having been one which may be +recommended to our own 'man in the moon'--a trusty go-between used to +breathe on the glass of the office door, and then write with his finger +the sum which he was authorised to draw, whereupon it was paid without +question. + +Of the _Cabinet Noir_, where letters were opened, according to a system +adopted in France at any rate since Louis XIV.'s day, we have all heard +a good deal. The actual letter-stealers were certain _concierges_ with +whom the postmen were instructed to leave all letters addressed to +certain persons. These letters were then carried off to M. Saintonier, +18, Rue Les Cases, who opened them, had them copied, if necessary, and, +if possible, returned them in time for the next delivery. Among the +copies found is a remarkable letter from Ducrot, at Strasburg, to +Trochu, dated 1st December, 1866, setting forth the dangerous state of +feeling in Germany, and pointing out that Prussia can get ready 600,000 +men and 1,200 guns far sooner than France can muster half the number. +Ducrot animadverts severely on the 'stupid vanity' which makes his +countrymen think they can choose their own time, and get their Great +Exhibition well over before they begin. He says, too, that the frontier +swarms with Prussian agents, and that the feeling between the Moselle +and the Vosges is far less French than people fancy: + + 'They are sons and grandsons of the men who, in 1815, + petitioned the Holy Alliance that Alsace might be re-united + to Germany.... The Prussians are working here just as I am + told they did in Bohemia three months before their war with + Austria began.' + +Surely the Emperor was warned; and that, in spite of all warnings, he +should have acted as he did, justifies as well as explains the scorn +which all parties alike have manifested for him. + +These papers, in fact, remind us that imperialism was based on +_surveillance publique_, on a spy system so vast as to embrace lists of +all the 'dangerous men,' of whatever views, throughout the Empire. The +prop of this system was the terrible power of arbitrary arrest given to +all prefects by the 10th article of the Criminal Code. How the nation +which boasts of being exceptionally _logique_ reconciles such an article +with the principles of 1789 we cannot imagine; but it is clear that a +Government, resting on such a basis, could only stand by its prestige. +At whatever cost, it was necessary last July 'to do something,' and at +Sedan the ex-Emperor judged rightly that he had better fall into +Prussian hands than trust to feelings which even his uncle had not +ventured to rely on. + +Persigny, according to the letters contained in the _Papiers Secrets_, +was Louis Napoleon's Strafford. As late as December, 1867, he +memorialises the Emperor at great length on the state of the nation, and +exclaims against the folly of concessions: + + 'Your enemies,' (says he) 'under the pretence of setting up + Parliamentary rule, are working your ruin. I see it in + their every movement. I watch them and note the bitterest + hatred--hatred! and something more--showing itself in look, + word, and gesture; and your Ministers bow down and humbly + beg the Opposition to withdraw their motions.... If your + majesty sees no harm in all this, it's no use my making + plans to put out the fire that's burning up your house; + but, anyhow, I can't go on with abstract studies amid such + moral anarchy as this.' + +Persigny, at any rate, was faithful, and, we believe, felt proper scorn +for the miserable policy which tried to secure the _bourgeoisie_ by +alarming them every now and then with sham plots. Except the Orsini and +Pianori plots, and the Villette affair of last summer, all the plots +were, we are told, hatched by Pietri and Lagrange. Thus Greco, who was +condemned to life transportation in 1853, was let out one night from +Mazas by M. Lagrange himself, lived for years in America on a pension of +£250 and then came back to Paris under a feigned name, and worked as a +detective. The man, we read, is now in prison, and has made a full +confession of his antecedents. + +That Ollivier, at the end of 1869, was anxious to infuse new blood into +the Imperial councils, and also to win over 'the few men of talent between +thirty and forty years of age _who had not already been driven into +the revolutionary ranks_,' is a proof that the Constitutional-Imperialist +was more clear-sighted than his enemies will admit. That the Empress, +after Wörth, should have telegraphed to her husband not on any account +to return to Paris, as she could not be answerable for the consequences, +shows a weakness of character which the admirers of Eugenie certainly +did not anticipate. + +These quotations from Paris newspapers and secret documents help to show +why the Empire fell. It was unsound. However we may differ as to the +amount of culpability shared by the French nation, or even by the +Parisians, there is no doubt of the rottenness of the whole system. That +it has been swept away is a gain for the world--a gain for France which +will outweigh all her hopes, if only (in the words of the _Siècle_) the +_esprit boulevardier_, the street-idler spirit, disappears along with +the _régime_ which fostered it; and if that hardness towards the poor, +and indifference to their sufferings, which are too characteristic of +the French wealthier classes, can be modified. + +And now for a very few facts to show what a poor idol was the uncle of +such a nephew. The three writers, Lanfrey, Barni, and Erckmann-Châtrian, +have done more than any others to disabuse the French mind about +Napoleonism. The cheap edition of Barni, from which the analysis and +_seriatim_ confutation of M. Thiers' books are omitted, has been +immensely read; that such a book could be published in France in 1870 +was a sign of the times quite as alarming to imperialists as the known +disaffection of a part of the army. Besides these Charras, Scherer, +Quinet, and Eugene Pelletan had for years been working against the +worship of which Thiers was so long the prophet, and had succeeded in +proving to all thoughtful Frenchmen that Fichte and Channing were much +nearer the truth than was the romancer who wrote the 'Consulate and +Empire.' + +Our remarks must necessarily be brief; but we would call special +attention to what M. Lanfrey tells about the early life of Napoleon: so +much seems accounted for by such circumstances acting on such a +temperament. Corsica was passing through a crisis when he was a boy; his +father, head of one of the most influential families, went over to the +French side when he saw resistance was hopeless. The son, who began life +an ardent patriot, cursed his father for not having shared Paoli's +exile. The family, however, profited by his change of side. He himself, +displaying that same skill in managing men, above all Frenchmen, for +which his son was afterwards so remarkable, became the confidential +adviser of the governor and his cabinet. His children were provided for +on the different royal foundations then so common in France. Napoleon +went to Brienne, and thence to Paris; the great poverty of his family, +and the humiliating position in which he found himself among the cadets +of noble houses, accustomed to spend money as recklessly at their +military colleges as our boys nowadays do at Sandhurst, made him +cynical. The references to his want of means are frequent in his early +journals; but this consciousness of poverty did not deprive him of his +keen power of observation. His journals are an admixture of practical +shrewdness and of originality expressed in wild bombast. He soon took +the measure of those with whom he was brought in contact, fathomed their +weaknesses, and adroitly made use of them. Life in Paris in the days +when young Bonaparte first went there must have been trying to a young +man's faith. Bonaparte had been 'finished' under the _régime_ which was +said to have existed _par les femmes et pour les femmes_; but before he +was fully a man the old system was swept away, and Paris was a scene on +which the most fantastic absurdities were enacted in the name of +liberty. The selfish greed of the Republicans seems to have done more +than anything else to make the young man a disbeliever in the grand +phrases which he so freely used. His determination to act for himself +comes out strikingly in his first Italian campaign, when by his happy +boldness against Wurmser he had made the convention of Loeben +inevitable. Throughout the preliminaries he behaved as an independent +prince. He told the Directory what he was doing, and received their +instructions, and from time to time acted upon them; but the only way in +which he showed himself a faithful servant of the government was by +putting money and art-treasures in their way. The greed which these +Parisian deputies displayed was something incredible: and their young +general encouraged them in it. He told them that Italy was rich and able +to pay; and the contributions which he levied--though trifling compared +with the amounts of recent Prussian requisitions--were sufficiently +grievous to drive the people of the Milanese to revolt. Leghorn, for +instance, had to pay two million francs for the _privilege_ of being +protected against the English. How Venice was treated is well known. +'The child of the revolution' betrayed that city to Austria as cynically +as he afterwards crushed the Ligurian republic. 'Give them (said he, +writing of the Corfiotes), plenty of talk about old Greece and liberty: +it will please them, and it means nothing.' He is always the same, +pitiless in his scorn of that _bavardage_, to put a stop to which he +tells Menou that he was leaving Egypt. No success ever pleased him more +than the way in which he fooled Sièyes, the man of ideas--making use of +his reputation as a constitution-builder, and then showing 'the head' +that as soon as its work was done it must give way to the arm. + +Lanfrey's account of the 18th Brumaire, when only two of the five +directors, Gohier and Moulins, stood firm, and when the affair of the +Orangerie consummated by force what had been begun by corruption, is +exceedingly instructive. It shows how, out of such a chaos, the rise of +the ablest man was inevitable. Had Napoleon been a Washington he would, +of course, have risen for far other than selfish ends; he would at once +have taken in hand the constitution of which he so well knew the +defects, and would have perfected it. Even had he been a Cromwell, +earnest and impressed with a really noble idea, he would have looked at +home instead of abroad, and have proved that 'the empire is peace.' +Being what he was, the successful military commander, with no rule of +action, except to make everything further his own advancement, he began +by destroying representative life, and making even the judges his +creatures, at the same time that he entered on that career of war in +which he never paused save for short breathing times. A true instinct +told him that either the French must have _bonâ fide_ freedom, or must +be drawn away from politics by being kept always at war. He may have +mistrusted his ability to play the part of Washington; or what he had +seen of Frenchmen may well have made him doubt whether they would +appreciate his self-denial. Anyhow he never tried them; war became a +necessity of his position; and to make war he did not shrink from so +thoroughly exhausting France that we may doubt if she has suffered so +much by this last ruinous war, and yet more ruinous peace, as she did by +the long struggle which ended at Waterloo. The recklessness of last July +was but a recognition by the nephew of the uncle's maxim, that 'by war, +and war only, can our position be kept safe.' + +Another point in common between uncle and nephew, is reckless +expenditure; we do not sufficiently remember that, besides the +conscription, the first Napoleon had the whole wealth of the nation +under his personal control. He used it as the resources of the Second +Empire have been used. The vast salaries of senators, the bribes, direct +and indirect, the encouragement of a luxury which made large means +essential--all this soon destroyed 'the austere simplicity of the +republic.' '_Il faut se montrer_' was the phrase in everybody's mouth, +'for if we do not come forward as friends of things as they are, we +shall have none of the prizes which are being so lavishly distributed.' +It was imperial Rome over again. + +Such a system could not last; and the way in which France succumbed +after Waterloo, while it does not exalt our opinion of French gratitude +(for, after all, the first Napoleon had for years given France all that +the mass of Frenchmen ask for), shows how inherently weak the strongest +'tyranny' (in the Greek sense) must always be. Any one who wants a +simple and natural account of how Napoleonism grew up out of the folly +and corruption and strife of the republicans, and of the helpless +disgust with which the mass of the nation submitted when they saw what +Napoleonism really meant, should study the Erckmann-Châtrian series. We +do not wonder that the writers should have been elected as deputies for +the Meurthe and the Haut Rhin, so thoroughly do their books photograph +life and thought in these most republican departments. The peasant +proprietor, who has bought with his hard-earned savings a little patch +of confiscated land, is as fiercely bent on keeping it as ever tigress +was on defending her cubs. He is told that kings and nobles, creatures +of Pitt and Coburg, are sworn to wrest it from him; and his previous +experience of kings and nobles assures him that he has nothing to hope +if he fall into their clutches. That was the secret of Napoleon's +strength; he went forth as the soldier of the Republic, predestined to +show Europe that it was hopeless to dream of restoring the _émigrés_. +How the true Republicans, who formed the nucleus of his armies, got +gradually depraved until they became the 'dogs of war' of the Old Guard +is wonderfully well set forth; and is, we fear, only too truly +paralleled in this recent war, in which the moral deterioration of the +German citizen-soldier has, like everything else, gone on at railroad +pace. + +The Erckmann-Châtrian novels have been compared with the Waverley +series. We do not think the comparison a happy one. They do not aim at +Sir Walter Scott's intricacy of plot; the stories are exceedingly +simple, and the events (_péripéties_ is the untranslateable word which +best describes them) are unfolded historically, rather than after the +manner of a romance; the human agent merely serves to string together a +number of sketches from actual affairs. On the other hand, the +Erckmann-Châtrian books show that rare power of accurate nature-painting +which belongs almost wholly to very modern times, and which shines forth +so conspicuously in our own George Eliot as well as in Dickens, and +which among French writers is best seen, perhaps, in Georges Sand. Very +different this from the landscape style of Scott, which has beauties of +its own, but which differs from them much as a picture of Wilson, or +Constable, or 'old Crome' differs from one by Tenniel. In the 'Romans +Nationaux,' too, there is a vast deal more direct political teaching +than 'the author of Waverley' ever attempted. He no doubt had very +strong views of his own; and he managed, strangely enough, to make a +sentimental Jacobitism fashionable at the very time when 'his most +Sacred Majesty George IV.' was visiting North Britain. He is answerable +for several inversions of historical truth: he makes Balfour of Burley +and his class contemptible, and throws a halo of glory round +Claverhouse, like that with which Byron invests his Werterian villains. +But he never directly teaches politics. The 'Romans,' on the contrary, +do this in almost every page. They assume, moreover, an amount of +political knowledge on the part of their readers which would be very +unwisely assumed by any English novel-writer. The fact is, the average +Frenchman does know his own history since '89 far better than most +Englishmen know the tortuous politics of the Georgian era--knows it +better because he take a vastly more personal interest in it. For us, +Mr. Disraeli well pointed out, history from the Revolution to the Reform +Bill is chiefly the record of the quarrels of a few 'great houses;' to +the Frenchman the earlier half of the eighteenth century is the time +when his country was in the labour pangs of the strange, wild birth +which was to follow; and the close of it is the fitful period in which +the Revolution, surfeited with blood, sank helplessly under the yoke of +military despotism. No need to urge Frenchmen to do what her Majesty's +inspectors have so often recommended in our elementary schools, to begin +history at the modern end and work backwards. Our boys and our men +prefer woad-stained Britons and the strife of Dane and Saxon to the +Rockinghams and Walpoles, and even the Pitts; but in France it is wholly +different. Hence an amount of political knowledge in the country, for +which we rarely give our neighbours credit. Your diligence-driver +between Caen and Falaise will point out the Château Turgot, and will +tell you all about the minister whose name it bears in a way which would +have astonished any of the old mail-coachmen along the Western road, who +knew, indeed, Burke's name in connection with High Wycombe, but who knew +nothing but the name. This is one of the errors of 'our own +correspondent:' because Frenchmen have not that blatant freedom of +speech to which he is used at English hustings, he writes home that they +know little and care less about politics--and this of people who seldom +hesitate, on occasion, to die for their opinions. Their peculiar way of +managing things arises from their habit of looking to authority, of +moving under pressure of a _force majeure_; they have not, and can form +but a faint idea of, that English liberty which is in our air, which M. +de Montalembert used to call a _bain de vie_; but they have generally +speaking, historically at any rate, more political knowledge than we +have. + +This accounts for much in the 'Romans' which, to the English reader, is +wearying; they appeal to what he does not possess, a knowledge of the +state of parties from '89 downwards. Every one, however, must appreciate +the way in which the rise of Napoleon is shown to have been due to the +corruption, the gross corruption, as well as imbecility of the +Directory. No wonder Bonaparte despised mankind, when such poor +specimens--vain, self-seeking, blindly conceited--were presented to him +as the pick of republican France. Thus politics, as well as national +character and habits (the habits, be it remembered, of that Alsace which +is now to become the Ireland of Germany), are abundantly illustrated in +these novels. We do not mean to analyse any of them, or to give samples +which would be about as satisfactory as a single stone picked out of a +Greek temple. The most touching of them is 'Madame Thérèse,' which, +showing as it does how heartily the Germans on the frontier sympathized +with the ideas of which Hoche was the expounder, bears on the question, +'How will the annexed districts get on under Junker rule?' Quiet Dr. +Jacob, the hero of the story, is already so smitten with revolutionary +ideas, that when he hears them commented on by the wounded _vivandière_ +whose life he has saved, he forgets that she is only the daughter of a +village schoolmaster who had volunteered and had fallen, with his three +sons, at Valmy, and, marrying her, joins Hoche as army surgeon. Men of +this stamp are found on both sides of the Rhine; and to force Junkerism +upon them would provoke a speedy break-up of the German empire. German +optimists say that this danger is imaginary: acknowledging the +disagreeable features in the Prussian character, they say that 'Germany +will open Prussia out.' If not, trouble must ensue. + +The 'Blocus' is, perhaps, the most picturesque of the whole series. The +old Jew who, despite his timidity and his hatred of war, gradually +becomes an effective national guard, is admirably drawn; the details of +the siege, the misery, the excitement, are told so differently from the +half flippant, half bombastic manner of even the best of 'our own +correspondents.' The old soldier who, churl as he is supposed to be, +meets the Jew's kindness with still greater kindness, and who, long +refusing to believe in the Emperor's abdication, shoots himself when the +truth is forced upon him, is a finished picture of which any artist +might be proud. And the town thus immortalised is Phalsbourg, which +henceforth is to be German. But we hope our readers will go to the books +themselves: their appearance marks an era in novel-writing; it has done +much more, for they are all novels with a purpose, and have been very +powerful in pulling down the Napoleonic idol, in hastening the decay of +the imperial idea. + +The idol is overthrown; what will be reared in its place is doubtful. +Political wisdom is not to be learned in six months, no matter how +sternly its lessons may be enforced. The France which accepted Louis +Napoleon, which gloried in the absurd boast, 'When France is satisfied +the world is at rest,' which suffered itself to be kept in +leading-strings for twenty years, giving full control over its wealth, +its resources, its foreign and domestic policy, to an unscrupulous +adventurer and his stock-jobbing associates, is not likely to rise at +once to the dignity of a free people. 'Unstable as water' has hitherto +been the curse of France's efforts at free government. The mission she +has chosen has been to teach ideas to others, not to work them +practically out for herself. When we read in old files of the approving +_Times_ of the revels at Compiègne, the luxury, the extravagance, we are +reminded of the answer made to the first Napoleon, when he asked, 'Have +I not got back the old system _in toto_?' 'Yes, but you forget that two +million Frenchmen died to root out that old system; and you can't bring +them to life again.' + +Why is France, as a whole, sick of 'ideas?' Why, although they could +dance round the statue of Strasburg when they ought to have been making +peace and husbanding their strength for by-and-by, were the besieged +Parisians incapable of any serious effort? Why was Trochu paralysed by +the fear of Blanqui? Why should Bourbaki's wretched army have behaved so +differently from that of Hoche, which was equally shoeless, and almost +as much in want of everything, and which its enthusiastic leader kept at +fighting point by allowing no tents during the bitterest winter that had +been known for years? Man for man, Germans have always been superior to +the French; to succeed, these last must move in masses welded together +by one overmastering idea. They had no idea, no union, last year. Will +this terrible lesson give them that unity of sentiment which Germany, +since 1808, has been gradually feeling after, and has only just +attained? Let us hope that sad experience may, at any rate, teach them +the insufficiency of the very grandest of all merely human ideals. The +noble thoughts of the 'Marseillaise'-- + + 'Nous entrerons dans la carrière quand nous aînés ne seront plus, + Nous y trouverons leur poussière et la trace de leur vertus,' + +led to the brutal _Carmagnole_ and the sickening excesses of the Terror, +because, though noble, they were not sanctified. The sickness that comes +from aiming at too much brought on a reaction which has lasted ever +since; and the fact that Romanism is the hereditary religion of the +French masses increases the difficulty of hearty national union. No +earnest political reformer can ever look on the priests as more than +temporary allies; no ultramontane can ever be an honest Republican. + +What may come if Rome changes in the direction indicated by the Abbé (so +he styled himself) and now lately by Père Hyacinthe, we cannot say; +anyhow, such changes must be slow. At present the French priesthood must +be reckoned among the bitter opponents of all free constitutional +development. + +The next few months will better enable us to determine whether Paris +will still hold its own against France, or whether M. Leclercq's hope +will be realized.[218] We may be quite sure that thousands of Frenchmen +feel what he so well expresses--that it is Paris which made Louis +Napoleon possible, even as it was Paris which enabled his uncle to be +what he was. They both, indeed, used 'France' against Paris; but it was +Paris which gave them a _status_ at the outset. Those who think thus +will feel that in the changed character of the capital is the best +safeguard for the good government as well as for the moral regeneration +of France; and if this change of character seems hopeless, the dangerous +experiment must be tried of moving the Legislature out of such an +unhealthy atmosphere. + +We have thus striven to trace the growth and decay of Imperialism--which +in its re-establishment was the practical expression of the Napoleonic +idea--and to contrast it indirectly with the old _régime_, and with the +sad delusion which, beginning so nobly in 1789, too soon ended in +perhaps the bloodiest tyranny that modern Europe has ever seen. We +decline to draw any horoscope of the future; such prophesying is always +useless. Let us hope that God, who 'fulfils Himself in many ways,' will +comfort the faith which this cruel satire on modern progress has so +rudely shaken, by showing plainly that good has come out of all the +evil. We cannot hope that nations will yet recognise the truth that war +is organised crime; but we may hope that for a long time imperialism, +based, as we have shown it to be, on lawlessness and on the +glorification of the individual, will be impossible. + +That the beaten nation always deserves to suffer is a maxim which +nothing but a distorted view of Scripture will propound. Berlin is not +many degrees above Paris in morality; and France, despite the character +given of her in her filthy novels, is certainly not without home life +and deep pure home affections. + +All that we can say is that we, believing in God's providence, are very +sure that, however strangely things may seem to turn out, the course of +this world is ordered by Him. + + + + +ART. VI.--_Religious Tests and National Universities._ By F. A. PALEY, +M.A. Williams and Norgate, 1871. + +(2.) _Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on +University Tests._ + + +Owing to the energy with which Her Majesty's Government have pushed +through its earlier stages, the identical Universities Tests Bill which +was so adroitly shelved last year by the resolution of the Marquis of +Salisbury, we may confidently anticipate that, before these pages reach +the public, every hindrance which kept men from the enjoyment of prizes +which they had fairly won, and from posts of honour and usefulness which +they were well qualified to fill, simply and solely because they were +Nonconformists, will be swept away for ever. It would be gratifying if +as reasonable a hope could be entertained that the far more stringent +and objectionable religious test which is a practical bar to the +enjoyment of half the fellowships of Oxford and Cambridge, not only to +Nonconformists, but to all such as cannot say they believe in their +hearts that they are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost, and called, +according to the Will of Our Lord Jesus Christ to His ministry, as +defined by the Church of England, would be as speedily removed from the +threshold of offices which in no way require, and, practically, are +seldom associated with the exercise of this professedly divinely imposed +ministry. The progress of events may discredit our hopes or our fears, +but this need not prevent a review of the struggle for the abolition of +those tests at the universities which are obnoxious to Nonconformists +alone, as though it were a thing of the past; nor a prospective glance +at the clerical test which is obnoxious to all conscientious laymen who +object to give in their adhesion to a complex creed, and hesitate to +assume functions which are imposed by the Majesty of Heaven, but defined +by the Majesty of Britain. This is the point upon which we must next +concentrate our forces. + +In the course of a few years it will, no doubt, be a source of wonder +that religious disabilities should have been retained at the +universities so long after they have been removed from almost all civil +and municipal offices throughout the realm. This wonder will certainly +not be lessened by an enquiry into the nature of the offices they are +supposed to guard, or the value of the emoluments which attach to those +offices. That any man otherwise qualified to explain the laws which +govern the physical forces of light and heat, or the principles of +comparative anatomy, should be cut off from a professorship in these +sciences, because he will not conform to a liturgy containing the +Athanasian Creed, can never appear less absurd by the lapse of time. A +fellowship at one of our colleges, is, as Mr. Paley correctly defines +it, wholly and absolutely a sinecure. No duties whatever are required as +a condition of its tenure. Fellowships are held by gentlemen who are +absent from, as well as by those who are resident at their colleges, and +if the residents in any way promote the discipline or education of the +students in those colleges, they have extra payment for such services +altogether apart from their incomes as fellows. The word 'sinecure,' +however, as applied to a fellowship, loses much, if not all the odium +usually attached to that term from the fact that fellows are elected +absolutely according to their merit as scholars, as that merit is proved +by success in the university and college examinations. It seems strange +that one-half of the nation should have been so long content to be +excluded from participation in the prizes of pure scholarship, when the +possession of these, unlike the enjoyment of livings and benefices, +involved no duties either lay or cleric. That creed or conformity should +be required of those whose sole duty was to enjoy an income of £300 per +annum is ridiculous, unless we adopt the theory that the disabilities +were meant to be punitive in their character. The same remarks apply to +the yet more lucrative headships of colleges. Nor can it be supposed +that exclusion from these rewards of learning by a religious test was +submitted to because the rewards were insignificant in amount, either +singly or in the aggregate. Mr. Paley estimates the gross annual revenue +of the two universities and their colleges at half a million of money, +£50,000 of which goes to the heads of forty colleges and halls, while +730 fellows enjoy average incomes of not less than £300 a year. Thirty +years' residence at Cambridge has given Mr. Paley the right to speak +with some authority in these matters, but we think he has understated +the amount of these emoluments. We should not be surprised if, at no +distant day, a commission of enquiry should reveal, that the gross +revenue of these institutions, calculated on the real value of their +rapidly increasing property, is double the sum named. The apathy of +other sects in not urging more determinedly their claims to have the +prizes of the university course open to them, when the course itself is +open to all comers, is not to be accounted for on the ground that they +can afford to despise those prizes. The explanation lies in the fact +that the injustice done them has never till lately assumed a practical +and tangible form. The indifference of the English to theoretical +grievances is proverbial, and a conjunction of circumstances has tended +to mask the character of the injustice. + +The circumstances referred to will in a few short years become hard to +understand unless we seize the present moment to record them. On the one +hand Nonconformists had not yet recovered from the repeated blows dealt +upon them by the legislature--blows of which the Act of Uniformity may +be taken as a striking example. Content to be tolerated and glad to be +hidden, finding neither social comfort nor encouragement in the pursuit +of the liberal professions, they sought in commerce a fair field and no +favour, and entered on this avocation with an energy which has not a +little tended to establish our national importance. At the present time +we claim free entrance to the offices and emoluments of our +universities, because they are _national_ institutions, but to a +dissenter a few years ago the very term _national_ conveyed the idea of +exclusion, as it still does in such phrases as 'National Church' and +'National School.' Nonconformists had almost learned to regard +themselves as aliens, for so the legislature had taught them to consider +themselves. The idea of demanding equal privileges with all other +subjects of the Crown, had scarcely entered their thoughts. Hence the +universities were regarded by them, as were also the army, navy, and the +bar, as inhospitable places where they would be slighted and ignored. + +On the other hand the universities them selves had, at the commencement +of the present century, fallen from their high estate, and become +corrupt, servile, and dead to all the higher aims which should +distinguish institutions for learning and education. At that period a +very narrow stream of conventional scholarship ran through a very wide +meadow of mediocrity, which it never overflowed or irrigated. The +modicum of knowledge required of the [Greek: hoi polloi] was +contemptible, and every arrangement seemed to be based on the principle +of letting through as easily as possible those who could afford to pay, +and rendering the course of study of the studious as useless as the +nature of study would permit. At the time when Gunning was the +repository of university gossip, it is evident that both university and +colleges were dishonest in their distribution of both honours and +emoluments; they were willing to set the university stamp of education +upon men whose only claim to be considered educated consisted in their +being able to bear the lavish expenditure of college life. From this +depth of degradation the universities have been slowly extricating +themselves, while during the same period Nonconformity has been +relieving itself from civil disabilities, and increasing in wealth and +influence. The two circles, which were once far apart, have by +synchronous enlargement at length cut one another. Despite every +discouragement, Dissenters began to send their sons to the ancient +universities, especially to that of Cambridge. Of those sent up a large +proportion were men of great ability. Messrs. Stirling, Aldis, Wilkins, +and Hartog--and during the present year Dr. Hopkinson--and many others, +obtained the highest places in the competitive examination. These men +were no doubt consciously fighting the battle of liberty of conscience +in general, and of their co-religionists in particular. The stimulus +afforded to their competitors by the prizes incident to a high place in +the tripos lists was, in their case, substituted by a desire to break +down a system of injustice which oppressed their several sects, and the +nobler impulse produced the noblest results. From the time of the +triumph of such men the question assumed a new character. The injustice +had ceased to be theoretical, and appealed for redress to every +right-minded man in language which could neither be misunderstood nor +disregarded. The tacit eloquence of unrewarded merit addressed itself +most powerfully to the most influential quarters. However averse to +self-reform the governing bodies at the universities might be, since +they were composed of men who had climbed to their present dignity by +the arduous path of study, these could not be altogether without +sympathy for men of like ability. Hence the party for the abolition of +tests within the universities has wonderfully augmented of late years, +and, as is natural, numbers as its own the men of the greatest talent. +These tests which had been regarded as the heavy armour of defence began +so to gall that they are now looked upon as more cumbersome than useful. +Whatever might be the necessity for the maintenance of tests, the +incidental evil that men of such industry and acquirement should fail of +their appropriate rewards could not but be deplored by all generous +minds. Henceforth candid enquirers began to ask what were the uses of +tests which were to counterbalance these palpably bad results? and men +not celebrated for candour saw the necessity of finding some arguments +in their favour. + +Attention having been imperatively called to the question of tests, +their abolition became certain. Besides the direct injustice done, it +was soon perceived that tests inflicted indirect injury upon the whole +body of Nonconformists, upon the universities themselves, and on the +nation at large. Religion, discredited by her uncharitable janizaries, +longed to repudiate them, and both religion and morality discarded +safeguards which could exclude the man who was so loyal to the God of +truth that he would not violate His truth in the slightest particular, +but could include any infidel, provided he were not only infidel to his +God, but also to his own conscience. + +Nonconformists became alive to the necessity of claiming a perfect +political and social equality with all other of her Majesty's subjects: +they perceived that their practical exclusion from the old universities +gave some colour to the imputation of ignorance and narrow-mindedness +which their enemies had sedulously endeavoured to fix upon them. + +University reformers, bent on opening the universities to all classes +for the furtherance of every branch of study, saw the necessity of +removing every invidious distinction, and welcoming on equal terms that +half of the nation which had hitherto regarded these institutions as +places where their sons would not have fair play. The rapid growth and +wide influence of the London University, where no such disabilities +existed, no doubt quickened the perception of these reformers, each of +whom beheld his _Alma Mater_ beginning to weep like Niobe for the loss +of her children. + +To oppose this rising current of opinion that set against the tests, +their defenders had only such arguments as could be ranged under two +categories; the one retrospective, and the other prospective. It was +contended that by abolishing the tests the wills of the founders and +donors would be violated, and the violence done to them would have a +tendency to weaken the rights of property, and dry up the streams of +benevolence. It was further argued that these tests were the only +safeguards which could defend the minds of our youth from the inroads of +infidelity, and from the hydra-headed monster of unbelief which was +quickening into such active life. These were the two sheet anchors cast +out astern and astem to keep the tests from drifting to destruction. The +cogent logic of facts soon showed that, however good the anchors might +be, their cables could not hold. The application of these arguments was +singularly unfortunate. For the benefit of such uncompromising advocates +of the tests as the Rev. E. H. Perowne, who, if sincere, must now be +pacing the deck of his forlorn craft in fear of instant and imminent +shipwreck, we may show the insecurity of the stays to which he trusted. + +It is notorious that the offices and emoluments guarded by the tests +were made, not for churchmen by churchmen, but for Catholics by +Catholics. In the case of the writer of the pamphlet at the head of this +article, we have a singular instance of cruel disregard of the wills of +the founders. Mr. Paley is one of the best instructors in classics, and +perhaps the most voluminous classical author in the University of +Cambridge. He is in every way qualified for any post of classical +instruction, but because he is an adherent of that church to which the +founders of nine-tenths of the colleges belonged, he could receive no +benefit from emoluments which were specially intended, where there was +any limit to their application at all, for his co-religionists. On the +narrowest conservative grounds Mr. Paley might urge his right to enjoy +promotion in the university he adorns. If he were told by an advocate +for tests, that the offices and emoluments were secured to the +adherents of the religion of the state, and that they were since +reserved for the professors of a different faith, because the state had +adopted that new faith, he would doubtless reply;--that his church had +never stooped so low as to admit that articles of faith could be matters +of state legislation, and that the Catholic founders of the colleges +would have stood aghast at the astounding anomaly of a state-made +church. Surely none but an outlaw to the realms of logic and ethics +could after that maintain that he ought to be excluded. Mr. Paley has +chosen to advocate the abolition of tests on broader grounds. He is a +Roman Catholic of the most liberal type, but as a Catholic citizen, +whether liberal or ultramontane, his defence of his right to participate +in the honours of the university is impregnable. We can readily imagine +the just indignation with which the claim to these universities, as +Church of England institutions still carrying out the wills and wishes +of the original Catholic founders, made by those who are perpetually +taunting Catholics with a want of veracity, would be flung aside as a +sophism unworthy of men who ought to identify religion with the +strictest honesty and truth. + +But, even if this sophism were more worthy of the adoption of honourable +men, it has become quite obsolete and inapplicable at the present time. +The abolitionists might concede, for the sake of argument, that it is +right that donors, living in a remote age, should be assisted by the +present administration of law to attach conditions to the tenure of +property which have a tendency to modify, restrain, and stereotype the +political and religious opinions of a nation centuries after they had +ceased to mingle with the affairs of men. They might even admit that no +considerations of the wishes and convenience of the present holders of +the property, nor the promotion of that education which is the main +object for which the colleges and universities were founded, nor the +requirements of the nation, ought to be permitted to modify the +administration of the property by the present governing bodies. They +might further forget that the universities were constituted by royal +charter, and upheld by continual renewals of their charters. If colleges +were looked upon as corporations irresponsibly holding property more +absolutely than corporate bodies have ever been permitted to do in any +enlightened state, yet these admissions would in no way affect or +enfeeble the action of those who are now urging on the abolition of all +religious tests. They, at least, are not responsible for introducing +any novel principle of action dangerous to the stability of property. +For, to say nothing of all past legislation,--including that act of +uniformity which by limiting the election to headships, fellowships, +chaplaincies, and the office of tutor to a certain class of persons, +recognises an imperial authority to remove these limits--we have the +recent Oxford and Cambridge University Acts. The latter Act specially +and distinctly empowers the governing body of any college to repeal from +its deeds of constitution, &c., disqualifications to office, and to +abolish oaths and declarations. The Oxford Act has a section of the same +tenor, but owing to its having been passed two years earlier, it is less +distinct and explicit. This interference of the legislature has already +been accepted by many of the colleges. Proceeding under the provisions +of that Act, many of the governing bodies have removed the necessity for +celibacy from the holding of fellowships, and made other important +modifications with regard to the tenure of office, and the receipt of +emoluments. It has therefore been recognised on all hands by Churchmen +and Dissenters, by the authors of the act of uniformity, and the +supporters of the University Acts, by Parliament as well as by the +colleges, that the special provisions of the donors may be set aside in +order to promote the main object of their benefactions. It is strange +that men conversant with these facts should be content to occupy ground +which, while it is completely commanded by their opponents, is to them a +labyrinth of absurdities. + +In some cases the Tests Bill will absolutely restore to the colleges +their ancient rights and liberty which the legislature had previously +ruthlessly curtailed. In the statutes of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, it is +expressly and advisedly provided that no religious disabilities shall +bar their offices. At the last annual meeting of the fellows of Trinity +College, the following resolution was passed by twenty-five votes +against ten: "That the master and seniors take such steps as may be +necessary in order to repeal the religious restrictions in the election +and conditions of tenure of fellows at present contained in the +statutes." This vote is rendered nugatory, so far as nonconformists are +concerned, because of an unrepealed clause in the Act of Uniformity. +Thus, at Trinity, we have a governing body intent on rendering its means +of education efficient, and administering rewards strictly in accordance +with merit, but debarred from doing so, not by the wills of the +founders, but by a subsequent innovation which restricts the rights of +the present holders of the college property. Such a state of things +appeals to every true conservative as well as to every wise liberal +instinct for speedy and complete legislation. + +The stern cable of the maintainers of tests having parted, is the fibre +of the other more reliable? The confidence in the efficiency of tests, +which was once almost universal, is being every day shaken by fresh +revelations of their futility. At the Universities the tests have been +themselves tested and found to be base metal, stamped indeed with the +die of authority, but current only in those marts where credulity holds +commerce with cruelty. Bishop Colenso was long a resident and, so far as +his powers of imparting mathematical instruction are concerned, an +ornament to the University of Cambridge, yet Bishop Colenso denies the +inspiration of writings which the Church of England holds to be +canonical. If it be maintained that his heterodoxy was subsequent to his +residence, it may be replied, that he has ceased to reside at Cambridge +because he has accepted preferment to an office which involves +submission to a multiplicity of tests, each more stringent than that +which attaches to a fellowship. Professors Baden Powell and Jowitt, two +of the ablest writers in the volume which was once popularly called 'The +Challenge of the Seven Champions of _un_-Christendom,' occupied +distinguished places in the University of Oxford. Probably if we were to +search for the home of the most dangerous kind of skepticism we should +find it not far removed from the Combination rooms of Oxford and +Cambridge, where 'the dons' discuss high matters at their ease 'across +the walnuts and the wine.' This is certainly the case if we may take the +evidence of Mr. Paley, who thus writes:-- + + 'In plain words, every one knows that a person may be an + avowed member of the Church of England, and yet be a + downright rationalist. Thousands are undoubtedly such. To + talk therefore of "admitting free-thinking" by removing + tests, can only raise a smile in those who know intimately + the working of the present system. Indeed, it has been well + said, that if the religious nonconformists who are excluded + from fellowships could hear the conversation of many who + now hold them, they would be as much shocked as surprised + at the fruits which the test-system is producing.' + +It is easy to conceive of a case in which these arguments for the +retention of tests might be urged with great force. It is scarcely +possible to imagine a case in which they could be rendered more feeble +and futile by the comment of circumstance. + +The progress of events and the logic of facts could scarcely render the +University tests more absurd, did not these make them day by day more +pernicious to the charity and concord of Christians of all +denominations, more galling and injurious to the Universities, now +striving nobly and efficiently to meet the requirements of the age, and +more detrimental to the interests and highest aspirations of the British +nation. + +In tracing the causes why these University Tests have existed so long, +it has been impossible to avoid incidentally producing the reasons why +they should endure no longer. + +The test imposed at Cambridge, by requiring the graduate when he +proceeds to his B.A. degree to declare himself a _bonâ fide_ member of +the Church of England, not only excludes the nonconformist from a voice +in the senate, which body is the popular and ultimate regulator of the +studies of the university, but it also denies to him a vote for the +members representing the university in Parliament. This is the only +constituency in which a religious belief is made to curtail the exercise +of the franchise. + +Headships and fellowships in colleges, as distinguished from the offices +of tutor, lecturer, and dean, are sinecures involving no onerous duties, +and not necessarily connected with the imparting of instruction of any +kind, whether religious or secular. They are posts of honour and not of +trust. Their occupants, no doubt, influence and control the course of +study at their colleges, but they need not be and are not by their +offices personally concerned in education. These posts, therefore, not +only involve no clerical duty, they do not demand the exercise of those +debateable functions which lie between the lay and clerical offices, +such as the education of youth is supposed to imply. To use an +illustration now rendered familiar to most by the practical working of +the Education Act; the master and fellows of a college occupy the +position of a school board, while the tutors and lecturers alone +instruct. Lecturers in the several departments of study are, it is true, +generally chosen from the body of fellows, but by no means necessarily +so. Hence, there is no analogy between the test imposed on the clergy, +and that which is taken by the heads and fellows of the colleges. The +former is a pledge to perform definite functions for which the +functionaries receive a definite stipend, the latter is a test applied +to those who require service to be performed. The test as applied to +these offices has become an unparalleled anomaly. It is the last remnant +of the revengeful policy exercised by the Anglican upon the Puritan +party, after these were driven from their short-lived supremacy. + +Thus viewed, the tests at the universities are like the Needle rocks, +which once were continuous with the neighbouring cliff, but are now +become strange and fantastic through the isolation imposed upon them by +the waves of the ever advancing ocean. As political change is as rapid +and certain as geologic change is slow and sure, their bold position is +an evidence not of their immunity from, but of their amenableness to the +influence of the forces which play upon their bases. + +The offices of tutor, dean, lecturer, &c., inasmuch as they are directly +connected with the moral supervision and education of the undergraduates +in all branches of study, including theology, stand in a somewhat +different position with regard to tests. To those unacquainted with the +universities, the distinction between these two classes of office is not +obvious. The general impression obtains that these national institutions +are training schools for the clergy of the Establishment, in which +training all resident officials are concerned; but the members of the +governing bodies themselves are quite aware of the difference pointed +out. Unless this distinction could be made there would be no _locus +standi_ for the select committee of the House of Lords appointed for the +purpose of inquiring into the best mode of giving effect to the +following resolution of the house-- + + 'That in any measure for enabling persons not members of + the Church of England to hold offices to which they are not + now eligible in the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and + Durham, and the colleges and halls in those universities, + it is essential to provide by law proper safeguards for the + maintenance of religious instruction and worship, and for + the religious character of the education to be given + therein.' + +All the gentlemen who gave evidence before that committee, with the +exception of the Rev. E. H. Perowne, who has the reputation of being the +most uncompromising and indiscriminating advocate of tests, recognise +this distinction; and all suggest that while fellowships, or some of +them, be thrown open to all, a modified test be applied to the +functional posts. + +The pernicious principle that Government has a right to interfere +between parents and their children in the regulation of the religious +instruction of youth, has, no doubt, been often acted upon. Thus that +Act of Uniformity, which is now the main prop of university tests, +requires subscription not only from persons in holy orders and +university officials, but also from schoolmasters in private as well as +in public schools, and even from tutors in private families. + +The recent legislation for the primary education of the country has, +however, thrown a flood of light on the relations of education to +religion, and of the State to both. It is scarcely conceivable that the +Parliament which passed the Elementary Education Act of 1870, should +retain a sectarian test as a safeguard to offices because they are posts +of education. The Education Act was avowedly tentative and incomplete. +It was a compromise, in which the representatives of old ideas obtained +more recognition than they had anticipated. The bill will certainly be +modified before many years are gone, and if so the modification is sure +to be in the direction of eliminating the sectarian element from +education. Yet there was great unanimity of opinion among the parties to +the discussion in certain principles embodied in the Act. These +principles were: 1. That the State might neither provide nor require +definite religious instruction. 2. That where, owing to existing methods +of denominational education, it was necessary for the State to make the +various sects its allies to effect the common object of secular +education, it should deal to all denominations even-handed justice. 3. +That wherever the State interfered or was concerned with education, no +child who was the recipient of the benefactions applied to instruction +should be placed at any disadvantage on account of the religious belief +of the parents of that child. + +If the House of Lords should endeavour so to mutilate the University +Tests bill as to substitute a test, however modified or limited in its +action, in place of that imposed by the Act of Uniformity, it would ask +the legislature to violate every one of the aforesaid principles, and +thus to stultify itself. Such an attempt is certain to be successfully +resisted. We had better not legislate at all than re-endorse a time +_dis_-honoured practice. + +The Elementary Education Act, while it thus indicated the nature of the +reform required, also furnished the most urgent reason for the immediate +adoption of that reform at the universities. If primary education ought +to be the care of the State, secondary education is not less its duty. +By secondary education we mean a higher education than that rudimentary +training which is thought essential to all children; that is, a higher +class education, not education for a higher class. That the child of a +poor man who has shown himself capable of wider and higher culture by +the readiness with which he has responded to the lower, should not be +able to proceed to a higher class school, because of the poverty of his +parents, would be even more deplorable than that dull ones should lack +education altogether. The universities form the natural apex of the +pyramid of national education. The nation can never rightly economise +and utilise its intellect until every one of its children, capable of +such culture, can pass freely up through all the grades of education to +the very summit. If this is to be the case the capital must be rendered +congruous with the column it should surmount. By reason of tests the +national universities are rendered so incongruous with the rest of the +structure that is in course of erection, that no cement could make them +cohere. If by common consent we must eliminate sectarian religion from +elementary education in the interests of the child whose father is so +stolidly indifferent to the higher needs of that child that he must be +compelled to send him to school; how absurd it is to provide that when +he has grown into manhood and shown a capacity for the reception of the +highest culture, he should be handed over for instruction to a body +rendered exclusively sectarian by the retention of antiquated religious +tests. The inauguration of a national scheme of education is an _epoch_ +in the history of the nation. It is a _crisis_ in the history of the +universities. On the present settlement of this question in some measure +depends whether the ancient universities shall stand in the position of +the Doric capitals which crown the columns and support the architrave of +the classic temple, or lie like those same capitals after the earthquake +has dashed them to the ground--the broken and isolated fragments of a +former grandeur. + +From a review of the past struggle, in which we have endeavoured to show +how the march of events, the advance of ideas, and the change of +position of parties, rendered the old line of defence formed by these +tests, not only indefensible, but deserted by its defenders, we turn to +examine the ground of the next battle-field. + +The necessity of taking holy orders as a condition for holding or +retaining offices and emoluments at the universities and their colleges +is a test of the most stringent and pernicious character. Every argument +against tests in the abstract, may be urged with double force against +this clerical test. Every consideration of the welfare of +nonconformists, of the universities, and of the nation, which has +determined the abolition of the simple tests, is of greater force when +applied to the complex test implied in the taking of holy orders. + +Fully one-half of the fellowships of Oxford and Cambridge, and nearly +two-thirds of the headships, can be enjoyed only by clergy of the +Establishment. This clerical test is therefore a practical bar to +Nonconformists of half the preferments of these wealthy national +institutions; and the fact that all conscientious laymen are included +under this academic ban certainly does not commend this test to +exceptional retention. Colleges, where there is a certain minimum of +clerical fellowships, are at the present moment compelled to elect +inferior men when all their lay fellowships are filled. In colleges like +Trinity and St. John's, Cambridge, where all must take orders at a +certain date from their degrees, the more able and energetic men usually +become absorbed in other pursuits and vacate their fellowships to serve +in turn to younger men as means of defying the impecuniosity which +notoriously dogs the early stages of a professional career; while the +idlers as naturally become sinecure pluralists, because the dignity of +the priest need not interfere with the fellow's ease. By this system the +colleges are equally dishonoured by those whom they retain and those +whom they reject. By this system the nation also suffers, by allowing +the large revenues of national institutions to be squandered on cureless +priests, which, by some such arrangement as is explained by Mr. Paley, +might secure to literature and science the labours of our greatest +scholars and ablest investigators. To this catalogue of ill effects may +be added the damage done by the clerical test to the Church of England. +Many years of university life is admitted to be the very worst +preparation for parish work. As a rule, fellows manifest great +repugnance to take upon themselves, in middle life, the duties involved +in the acceptance of a college living; and the man who allows himself to +drift first into holy orders and then into a college benefice, from +sheer inanity, is not likely to bring much zeal to his work. + +We are quite aware that a very different view of this result of clerical +fellowships is taken by their advocates; and this brings us to the +examination of those reasons which may be brought forward to show that +the clerical test stands on a footing different from that of other +tests. The advocates of clerical fellowships would state, first, that +the clerical test was not imposed _ab extra_ by the Imperial +Legislature, but rested wholly and solely on the wills of the founders +and donors of the emoluments and offices it guarded. They would argue, +secondly, that by removing the tests from lay fellowships a sufficient +number were thrown open to satisfy and reward all the Nonconformist +scholars who were likely to seek education at the universities, and that +by retaining the clerical fellowships a preponderance would be secured +at the seats of learning in favour of Protestant Christianity, which +preponderance is a desideratum with nine-tenths of the English people. +They would show, thirdly, that these clerical fellowships induced men, +having the reputation and acquirements of scholars, to enter, and +thereby adorn and strengthen a Church which more than ever needs learned +divines to meet scientific sceptics on their own ground. + +All this may be true, but it is very little to the purpose. Whether the +colleges, or any of them, were originally monastic institutions is a +curious antiquarian question, but the requirement of holy orders and +celibacy, from every member of the fraternity, in many instances, at +least, originated in times when the recognition of a distinction between +the regular and secular clergy was a part of the public opinion of the +day. A community which accepted the theory that good works could be +performed by a sacerdotal order which would benefit men's souls after +death, quite irrespective of any effect which could be produced upon +them during life, might look with complacency on fraternities freed from +social ties, and consecrated to spiritual uses when these uses were not +apparent. Nowadays, however, a collegiate priest is of all men least +likely to give himself to works of supererogation. The duties of a +fellow of a college and a priest without cure can be defined only as +Bishop Blomfield once defined the functions of an archdeacon, namely, as +archidiaconal. These duties may both once have been burdensome, but now +the academic Issachar crouches down between them, and declares rest to +be good and the land pleasant. The plain teaching of the clerical test +is, not that we ought to follow the letter of the wills of the founders +when it contravenes their spirit, but that well-meaning men can do +little good, and may do much harm, by endeavouring to impose the ideas +of one age on the customs and manners of a remotely future one. + +It is a wild expectation that the maintenance of a Christian and +Protestant ascendancy at the universities will establish oases in the +midst of the barren desert of doubt, or clearings in the forest of +Papist superstition, such as the several religious alarmists, according +to their bent and temperament, would induce us to believe our country +will soon become. Let those who delight in clothing bugbears with +imaginary terrors speculate on the possibility of a Mussulman or a +Parsee becoming an examiner for the theological degree, or a positivist +becoming a professor of exegesis. A reasonable man will consider the +conditions upon which such a thing could occur. Our nation must have +forsaken a faith which has existed among us for a thousand years. Our +legislature and our universities, both equally transcripts of the +popular mind, must have forgotten their God. In such a case is it +conceivable that a religion alike abandoned by a people which it has +raised to power and prosperity, and by the Deity which promulgated it, +should be preserved to our colleges by the operation of a test which is +even now profaned by men who avow their readiness to swear _et ceteras_? + +The great classical scholar Person, himself a sufferer under, and a +protester against the clerical test, used to say that a fellow's life +was like the lime-tree avenue at Trinity--a long walk with a church at +the end of it. This was said in reference to Coton spire seen in the +distance. + +The present Bishop of Carlisle said in a sermon addressed to the +University of Cambridge, 'We want men to enter the ministry of our +Church who, if they went to the bar, would succeed at the bar.' There +was a curious admission implied in these words, but to do Dean Goodwin +justice, he was then speaking, not in defence of clerical fellowships, +but to rouse the voluntary enthusiasm of the students he addressed. + +That scholars are induced by the practical working of the system of +clerical fellowships to take their places among the clergy of the +Establishment cannot be denied, but the argument deducible from this, +savours both of bigotry and worldliness. A clerical fellowship is in +this view a skilfully-baited trap to catch a Church decoration. We have +many instances to show that by placing upon learned men the badge of +orthodoxy you do not make them defenders of the faith. Too often the +false position of a man, thus entrapped, makes him cynically sceptical. +Of such an one it may often be said, 'A little grain of conscience makes +him sour,' and causes him-- + + 'Like a dog, that is compelled to fight, + Snatch at his master, that doth tarre him on.' + +This endeavour to affix a plume to the helmet of faith worn by the +church militant is in strange relation to the thanksgiving which +proceeded from the Head of the Church, 'I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of +heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and +prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.' This is evidently solely a +Churchman's consideration, and does not deserve our further notice; but +it is intimately related to the wider question of the influence of this +test on morality and religion. + +We cannot better preface our concluding remarks on this important +bearing of the subject than by quoting the evidence given by the Rev. D. +P. Chase and Professor J.B. Lightfoot before the Committee of the House +of Lords:-- + + '286. Lord Rosebery: You say that there are Free-thinkers + already amongst the body of fellows at Oxford, who, under + the irritation produced by their false positions, express + their feelings and opinions with some freedom.' + + 'Dr. Chase: Yes. + + '289. Have you reason to think that these gentlemen + deliberately swallow their opinions in order to obtain the + advantage of a fellowship? + + 'I would hardly put it in that way: I think they have + persuaded themselves that the imposition of any such test + being in itself immoral, they may act in a way in which + they would not act towards an obligation which they + acknowledged.' + +Dr. Chase does not endorse this lax morality, for he says as follows:-- + + 'I have my own impression of the men whom I meet, and of + the way in which they obtrude their contempt for religious + opinions in general, but I can say nothing more definite + than that I allude to people who are _already upon + foundations_. + + '40. Marquis of Salisbury: They come in in spite of the + existing tests? + + 'Yes. + + '41. Do you think that that is probably due either to some + subsequent change of opinion on their part, or to a + peculiar elasticity of mind? + + 'It is due to the loss of common honesty and morality, I + think.' + + '1001. Earl of Morley: I think you mentioned the fact of + several fellows having retired who had formerly taken the + tests. Would you like to mention any instances of that? + + 'Dr. Lightfoot: I am not in a position to say exactly the + motives which led them to resign their fellowships; but + there have been two or three instances quite lately where + persons have resigned fellowships, and I believe they have + done so on account of religious scruples. + + '1302. Do those facts have rather a bad effect upon the + undergraduates, do you think? + + 'I think they have. That is my reason for desiring a + change. They create a prejudice against religion.' + +Lord E. Fitzmaurice, in the debate on clerical fellowships, is reported +to have said:-- + + 'The clerical fellows might be classed as those who wore + white ties and those who went without. The first class + steadily opposed all progress in the universities, and the + last merely took orders to obtain the fellowship. These + latter, in fact, threw away the outward visible sign of + that inward and spiritual grace which they were conscious + they did not possess.' + +Lord Fitzmaurice has so lately left the University of Cambridge that his +recollection of it must be very vivid. The sentences quoted have just +that quality of candid but rather indiscriminate truth, flavoured with +somewhat flippant and irreverent satire; which would have brought down +the house at the Union Debating Society. Indeed we can hardly refrain +from thinking these words were originally prepared for the benefit of +the audience there assembled. + +The ingenuity of the great enemy of souls would be taxed in vain to hit +upon a device by which the ministry of Christ and the truth of God could +be more thoroughly brought into contempt in the judgment of susceptible +youth, which is ever keen to detect selfish shams, and ever loyal to +self-sacrificing nobility. The system of clerical fellowships is such a +scheme-- + + 'As from the body of contraction plucks + The very soul; and sweet religion makes + A rhapsody of words.' + +If this hoar iniquity of clerical tests be for a few years longer +maintained by a mistaken section of Churchmen, it will be our duty as +Nonconformists, during that time, by making a vigorous protest through +every channel by which public opinion is influenced, to show that if +these tests be _safeguards_ they are safeguards not of Catholic +Christianity, but of sectarian ascendancy; to keep the fair garments of +religion unspotted by a worldly and turbid policy; to cause that the +contempt which cannot but be felt should light not upon the royal +priesthood of Christ, but on the priesthood of the Establishment; and to +demonstrate that, if truth be violated, she is violated by no criminal +consent of ours. + + + + +ART. VII.--_The War of 1870-1._ + + +In the last number of this Review we endeavoured to describe what may be +called the first act of the tremendous contest which has convulsed +Europe during the last eight months. We glanced at the original causes +of the war long impending between Germany and France, reviewed the +opening passages of the struggle, the gathering of the antagonist hosts, +the false strategy of Napoleon III., the great ability of his opponents, +the first victories that were the result,--Wörth, Forbach, and the +battles at Metz; and examined the remarkable movements which led to the +catastrophe of Sedan, an event unparalleled in military history. +Pursuing the narrative, we noticed briefly the consequences of that +awful disaster--the advance of the German armies to Paris, and their +investment of the famous capital; and said a few words on the grand +spectacle afforded by France at this conjuncture, when, after her +unprecedented reverses, she unrolled the banner of national resistance, +and tried to stem the flood of Teutonic invasion. We felt, however, that +it would be premature to dwell at length on the scenes of the latter +conflict, because their issue was as yet uncertain, and we postponed to +the present number a more elaborate survey of them. We now propose to +give a short account of the second and closing act of the drama, +comprising the marvellous siege of Paris, the efforts of France to +relieve the city, and their defeat by the German hosts, and, finally, +the fall of the beleaguered capital after an heroic resistance. This +phase of the war is altogether different from that which preceded it, +and in many respects is more interesting. It is not a mere succession of +dazzling triumphs caused by genius and force on one side and incapacity +and weakness on the other; it is a frightful international strife, in +which, owing to peculiar circumstances, the result was for a long time +doubtful; in which the belligerent which at first seemed prostrate made +a rally of an extraordinary kind, and placed its opponent in comparative +danger; and in which victory was decided at last through the continued +efforts of rare ability wielding perfectly organized military force, and +prevailing over patriotic energy, strong in the elements of warlike +power, but untrained, undisciplined, and badly directed. This part of +the campaign shows us how the defences of Paris caused the invading +armies, which had never expected that they would hold out, to be exposed +to formidable attacks; how the breathing-time obtained in this way +enabled France to rise again, and to put immense masses of men into the +field; and how, in consequence of their military situation, the Germans, +although at all points victorious, necessarily occupied a precarious +position; and it shows not less clearly how superiority of generalship, +of skill, and of efficiency in war, turned the scale at last against +mere numbers, though possessing some remarkable advantages. As for the +lessons to be deduced from the straggle, it lays bare painfully the real +causes of the overwhelming calamities of France; it reveals very plainly +the true nature of the gigantic Power now dominant in Europe; and it +makes thinking persons sadly admit that, notwithstanding civilization +and progress, the passions of man remain little changed, that the lust +of conquest burns as fiercely at the close as at the beginning of the +nineteenth century, that experience seems unable to teach that the +triumphs of mere ambition and force are often a curse even to the +victor. + +After the disaster of Sedan, the German armies proceeded at once to +march on Paris. At this moment the last regular army of France in the +field was a mass of prisoners; the Army of the Rhine, the hope of the +nation, was shut up with Bazaine at Metz, hemmed in by the corps of +Prince Frederic Charles; and France seemed so utterly vanquished that +even the cautious German leaders could see no possible danger in moving +into the heart of the invaded country, though they had not taken one +important fortress, or even occupied one line of railway. Besides, it +was assumed in the German camp that the advance to Paris would be little +more than a military pageant or demonstration; the city had fallen in +1814 and 1815 after a resistance of a mere nominal kind; though it had +been since fortified, the fortifications were known to be within the +range of modern heavy guns; and, in any case, it was taken for granted +that a population like the Parisians would never venture to make a +stand, or submit to anything like privations. Accordingly, the +magnificent German hosts were directed in two enormous masses from Sedan +against the devoted city, the Fourth Army under the Crown Prince of +Saxony advancing by Vouziers and Rheims towards the Marne, the Third, +under the Crown Prince of Prussia, descending from Rheims upon the +Seine, the object of both being to converge and hem in Paris in an +investing circle. Eye-witnesses have recorded with admiration how superb +was the aspect of these mighty arrays as, flushed with astonishing +success, and in the most perfect military discipline, they rolled on +through the plains of Champagne in all the pomp and circumstance of war, +finding literally nothing to check their progress. By the 15th or 16th +of September the two armies had made good their way to the rivers which, +in their uniting bends, form the first lines of the defence of Paris; +the Crown Prince of Saxony having reached Meaux, and his colleague +having pushed forward to Mélun. Soon after these points had been passed, +the first signs of opposition appeared. After the fall of the Imperial +_régime_, General Trochu, who had been President of the Government of +National Defence, had been making great preparations to enable Paris to +stand a siege; and as it was of vital importance to retard the +assailants as long as possible, he had sent one detachment to hold in +check the Germans in the valley of the Marne, and another to attack the +Crown Prince of Prussia as he crossed the Seine to the south of the +city. Their efforts, however, completely failed, the French troops with +Vinoy and Ducrot, demoralized by repeated defeats, being wholly unable +to withstand the Germans; and on the 19th of September the invading +armies had closed on all sides around the beleaguered city, the Crown +Prince of Prussia having mastered a range of heights overlooking the +defences to the north, and having captured some temporary works erected +by Trochu along their position. The army of the Crown Prince of Saxony +spread along the northern and eastern parts of Paris, from Charenton to +about Argenteuil; that of his brother Prince completed the circle from +the Marne across the Seine to St. Germains, the head-quarters being at +Versailles. + +In this way, within two or three days after their first appearance on +the Marne and Seine, the German invaders had encompassed Paris, and by +the 22d of September the investment was complete. It is said that the +fortifications merely saved the city from the terrors of an assault; +but, however this may have been, these works were already in a condition +which compelled the Germans to pause, and to make their approaches with +circumspection. In fact, the natural strength of Paris as a defensible +position is exceedingly great; and the artificial defences, though +constructed before the invention of the artillery of this day, had +rendered the capital a powerful fortress. Paris is protected along its +eastern front by the converging streams of the Marne and Seine, thrown +before it like a series of fosses, and by the succession of heights +extending from the plain of St. Denis to Vincennes; to the west it is +covered by the winding returns of the Seine, from Sèvres to beyond St. +Germains; and to the north and south, though at these points weaker, it +is not without a barrier marked out by nature. The result is that Paris +is, as it were, designed for a vast entrenched camp, very difficult to +surround or attack; for its situation on the rivers which wind about it +not only compels an enemy to divide his forces if he would invest it, +but exposes him to considerable danger, especially if a defending army +held the eastern heights before referred to. This naturally strong and +vast position had been fortified with great care in 1841, by engineers +of the school of the first Napoleon. A ditch had been thrown around the +city, and a rampart with regular bastions made; but these were merely +the internal lines. The real and external defences were a series of +powerful detached forts, so arranged as to support each other, and to +constitute a zone on all sides of great dimensions, difficult to +approach. For this purpose every advantage had been taken of the +character of the place; the forts were so built as to command the +obstacles formed by the Marne and Seine, and thus to enable troops to +bar the passage of an enemy across these streams. They also crowned the +eastern heights, and thence covered St. Denis to the north; and while +one fort only--that of Valérien--threw a shield over the western front, +four or five, along a range of projecting eminences, protected the +southern and southwestern. It must be added, however, that those who +designed the fortifications of Paris always supposed that an army would +be within the zone comprised by the range of the forts, and would thus +be able to oppose an enemy; and, owing to the invention of heavy rifled +guns, the southern forts, from Charenton to Versailles, were +comparatively weak, and liable to attack. + +Such was the aspect of the defences of Paris when, at the end of the +third week of September, they were surrounded by their Teutonic foes. +The forts and ramparts were extremely formidable, but they were, as yet, +ill-armed with heavy guns, and, above all, the great element required +for a successful defence--a well-regulated and disciplined army, to +prevent an enemy from closing round--was, for the present, altogether +wanting. General Trochu, in concert with subordinate officers, had for +several weeks laboured hard in bringing into the city artillery and +munitions of war. Paris had become a vast arsenal for constructing +fieldpieces, manufacturing gunpowder, and fabricating all kinds of +military appliances; and an immense number of men fit for service, +amounting, it is said, to half a million, including 250,000 National +Guards, had been congregated within the walls to form the materials of +an organized force. But though the efforts of the Governor and his +assistants, and the patriotism of the population, had been admirable; +though stores of provisions had been laid in; though foundries and +workshops had toiled day and night in casting ordnance and preparing +cartridges; and though the multitude of recruits had been subjected to +continual drill, Paris was not ready when the Germans appeared; and, in +consequence, after the feeble resistance of Vinoy and Ducrot on the +17th, the investment was completed without difficulty, and the first +great object of the besiegers was attained. Yet, though Trochu was thus +driven to a passive defence--what had hardly been seriously contemplated +by those who had fortified Paris--he did not despair or lose heart; and +we may believe that he had good hopes that France would be saved +through the resistance of Paris. He knew that the city possessed +resources of food for several months; he was aware that it was possible +to create a vast supply of cannon and arms; he thought that he would +have time to make out of the crude masses of men in his hands an +efficient army inside the walls; and on these data he formed a scheme +for the defence of the country, which, though it failed, and though, as +we think, it was open to censure, was, nevertheless, not without +grandeur. He would render Paris impregnable to attack, and detain the +Germans around the ramparts for a time passing their calculations; he +would form into soldiers the levies he commanded, while provincial +armies would be raised in France. And if these forces could be made to +combine, and attack the besiegers from without and within, how critical +might their position become, divided, as they would be, around the +capital, and distant from the frontier, perhaps in the depths of winter! +In that case, it was not impossible that the siege would be raised, +perhaps after a great defeat, and that the Germans would be compelled to +retire; and the retreat might become one of extraordinary loss and +disaster. + +To make, therefore, Paris as strong as possible, although defended +passively at first; to allow the besiegers to invest it without +molestation for some time, inasmuch as this was unhappily necessary; to +consider the capital the main pivot and cardinal point of the national +war; and to combine operations by means of which an army, to be formed +under his own auspices, was to fall on the Germans, while an army +outside was to cooperate in the attack--such were the leading features +of Trochu's project; and though, as we have said, it invites criticism, +and it did not lead to the deliverance of France, it was nearer success +than may perhaps be imagined. The Governor of Paris addressed himself +energetically and steadily to carrying it out; and during the first few +weeks after the investment, his whole care was directed to the +increasing and strengthening of the defences, and the fashioning into +military shape the enormous levies which had been collected. Heavy guns +were turned out in quantities, and mounted upon the forts and ramparts; +new works were constructed to add their fire to that of the original +fortifications; redoubts were thrown up at several points, and armed +with batteries of a formidable kind; the southern forts especially were +protected; and at Avron and Villejuif, on the eastern and south-eastern +fronts of the city, the investing circle began to be threatened by what, +technically, are called counter-approaches, bristling with large and +destructive artillery. The result was that although the armed masses +within Paris were almost quiescent, and the besiegers were only slightly +molested by an occasional and distant cannonade, their lines were +gradually removed and forced back, and the obstacles to continuing the +siege became more and more evident. At the same time, the organization +of the masses inside the city went on regularly, and before long a real +army of 150,000 men, supplied with artillery, officers and a staff, and +in a fair state of military power, was formed out of the chaotic +multitude crowded together when the siege had commenced--an achievement +marvellous under the circumstances. Meanwhile, having escaped in a +balloon, M. Gambetta had devoted the singular powers of his enthusiastic +and passionate nature to raising and equipping provincial armies; and, +aided by the patriotism of France, his success had been, on the whole, +surprising. Old soldiers were recalled to the standard, recruits joined +the ranks in hundreds of thousands, and immense efforts were made to +procure field guns and small arms in sufficient quantities. In a few +weeks four armies seemed to start, as it were, from the earth, in +France--those of the North, the East, the West, and the Loire--all +intended either to resist the farther advance of the German foe, or to +co-operate in the relief of the capital. The first three armies were, as +yet, in a very bad and ill-disciplined state; but the fourth army--that +of the Loire--composed largely of veteran troops, and numbering nearly +100,000 men, with from 300 to 350 guns, was by no means to be despised +by an enemy. + +While France had thus been collecting her strength for a great effort of +national resistance, the Germans on their side had not been idle. Though +disappointed, as days rolled on, that Paris still held resolutely out, +and though conscious that its defences were assuming a very formidable +shape, they seem not yet to have supposed that a long siege was already +certain. Nevertheless, they proceeded to clear their communications with +the frontier, and to collect supplies from all parts of the country +within tolerably easy reach of Paris; and for this purpose the sieges of +some of the north-eastern fortresses of France were begun, and flying +columns were despatched as far as Dreux, Chartres, Beauvais, and +Orleans, to sweep the adjoining districts of their crops and cattle. +These raiders, however, although they formed a kind of observing force +for the investing lines, were not properly a covering army strong enough +to defeat a real effort made in strength to relieve the capital; they +were little more than petty detachments; and there can be no doubt that +the German leaders were not yet sufficiently aware of the power of +France to renew the contest. They seem, indeed, to have specially +under-rated the real force of the Army of the Loire, which was now +collected just north of Orleans, and had between it and the capital only +a Bavarian corps about 25,000 strong; the reason being that in the first +week of October a part of this army had been defeated easily, and had +shown remarkable want of discipline. Yet even at this period--that is +about six weeks after the beginning of the siege--the situation of the +Germans in France, in consequence of her great exertions, was one of +increasing difficulties. Nearly the whole forces of the invaders were +spread around the capital and Metz,--that is, were detained by two vast +entrenched camps, and were liable to attack from within, and that in the +depths of an enemy's country; and while an army far from contemptible +was being slowly created in Paris, immense levies were gathering in the +provinces, and were being trained into regular armies in a condition of +more or less efficiency. The German chiefs, however, elated by success, +disregarded all these menacing preparations, and even now reckoned that +a few days would see them victorious inside Paris, and would bring the +war to a triumphant close. So confident, indeed, were they that no +attack from any quarter was probable, that, instead of sending for +reinforcements to strengthen the army around Paris, they had detached, +after the fall of Strasburg, a force which might have been so employed, +to reduce the fortresses of Alsace, and to Dijon, Besançon, and Lyons. + +Such were the positions of the belligerents in the last days of the +month of October. The fall of Metz increased immensely the power and +advantages of the Germans, and threw a weight into the scale against +France which ultimately it became impossible to counterbalance. It was +not only that 200,000 invaders were now let loose to overrun the country +and to strengthen the investment of Paris, nor yet that the whole army +of the Rhine, with the garrison of a first-rate fortress--170,000 men, +four marshals of France, and 6,000 officers--were swept off into +captivity in Germany; the surrender of Metz, it is now well known, +prevented operations which, at this juncture, were being planned for the +relief of Paris, and which, but for that circumstance, would probably +have been successful. As we have seen, the Germans had allowed the Army +of the Loire to collect near Orleans, with only a small Bavarian corps +interposed between it and the French capital; and they still so utterly +despised this army that, although after Metz had capitulated, their +leaders had ordered one corps of those around the fortress to advance to +Paris, the bulk of the troops of Prince Frederic Charles were separated +into two great masses, one directed against the North of France, and the +other towards Troyes, Nevers, and Bourges,--that is, against the centre +of the country, and not immediately on the Loire and Orleans. These +dispositions, which showed plainly that the real strength of the Army of +the Loire was inadequately understood in the invaders' camp, permitted +the commander of that body--a veteran named D'Aurelles de Paladines, who +had done much to improve its discipline--to attempt a design he had been +meditating, and even to strike a blow at his enemy which possibly might +have had extraordinary results. D'Aurelles, aware that the only obstacle +to his reaching the lines around Paris was one corps of 25,000 men, +resolved to attack and overwhelm that detachment; and there can be +little doubt that, in the event of success, he contemplated a march on +the besieged city, even though he must have known that Prince Frederic +Charles had been set free, and was moving from Lorraine. The plan of +D'Aurelles was well designed, though not executed with equal ability. On +the 7th of November he crossed the Loire below Orleans with the mass of +his army, a single column having crossed higher up, his intention being +to surround and destroy the few divisions which stood in his path, and +then to advance, if fortune favoured. Von der Tann, the commander of the +Bavarians, either unaware of his enemy's strength, or confident in the +prestige of success, moved boldly to attack the main French column; but, +finding himself opposed by irresistible forces, he fell back rapidly and +with great skill on the main roads from Orleans to Paris. Although this +retreat was very well executed, and, indeed, was in part effected at +night, Von der Tann suffered a good deal in a series of sharp and +repeated engagements at Marchenoir, Coulmiers, and Baum; and had the +French column which had crossed the Loire above Orleans been +sufficiently quick, he could hardly have escaped a serious defeat. As it +was, when upon the 11th he stood concentrated at Arthenay and Toury, +covering the main route to Paris from D'Aurelles, he had certainly lost +more than 3,000 men, and what is more important, the ascendancy of +success; he had been, in fact, decidedly overmatched; and a French army, +70,000 strong, which could have been increased to 90,000, stood in his +front, eager for battle and revenge. + +It is not impossible that at this moment D'Aurelles could have forced +his way to Paris had he known how to seize his opportunity. Considerable +alarm prevailed at Versailles: it had become evident that a powerful +force was only five or six marches from the lines, with nothing between +but one reduced corps; there really was no covering army to repel a bold +attempt at relief, and it was expected that the army of the Loire would +advance obliquely by Chartres and Dreux, and attack the Germans to the +west of the city. Such an attack, which would, of course, be combined +with an attack from the armed masses within, would be too formidable to +be resisted, for it would place the Germans between two fires, spread as +they were on an immense circumference; and accordingly the remarkable +man who directed the operations of the invaders made preparations to +raise the siege, and to incur the consequent moral loss, in case the +columns of D'Aurelles' army should be descried on their way from the +south. As, however, the French general might pause, a corps of about +20,000 men was sent off to the aid of Von der Tann under the command of +the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg; one-half of this corps, however, being +ordered to diverge towards Dreux to observe the French Army of the West, +supposed to be moving from that quarter. Thus, even as late as the 13th +of November, not more than about 30,000 Germans were interposed between +D'Aurelles and Paris; and it is difficult to suppose, had he moved on +the 11th, that he would not have broken down with ease the only barrier +in his way, and not improbably have defeated Von der Tann and the Grand +Duke in detail. The French commander, however, hesitated; he had not +destroyed Von der Tann; he was evidently not thoroughly confident in +himself; and, at this crisis of the affairs of France, he drew back +instead of advancing, and finally retired to a camp at Orleans which he +had marked out for ulterior operations, his success being thus rendered +wholly fruitless. This was a calamitous mistake for the French; yet we +can account for it without charging D'Aurelles with entire incapacity. +Knowing that Von der Tann was still in his front, he calculated with +justice that the Bavarians would be able to obstruct his progress until +reinforcements should come up; and the news, which in all probability +reached him, that the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg was being detached, +caused him perhaps to overrate the Grand Duke's strength, and to halt +until he should ascertain it. In addition, and what was, we believe, +decisive, D'Aurelles knew that Prince Frederic Charles was moving from +Metz towards the south; and though the Prince was still really distant, +the French general not unreasonably feared undertaking a march on Paris, +which might expose the Army of the Loire to be ultimately assailed in +flank and rear. This consideration, though not well-founded, was exactly +such as would influence a commander not of the first class, and thus a +favourable opportunity was missed, of which the consequences might have +been immense. + +These operations, when attentively reviewed, show at once what a +terrible disaster to the French cause was the capitulation of Metz, at +the time when it actually took place. Had the fortress held out till the +9th of November, Prince Frederic Charles must have remained around it; +his movement against the centre of France would not have been even +commenced; and, in that event, there would have been no force which +could have even threatened the Army of the Loire in the rear, had it +advanced on Paris. If so, the obstacle which probably prevented +D'Aurelles from pushing forward after the actions of the 9th and 10th +could have had no existence even in his fancy, and, consequently, it is +difficult to believe that D'Aurelles would not have marched, at once, +and succeeded in raising the siege of Paris. As it was, he had, we +believe, the means of attaining this result, had he been endowed with +qualities of the highest order; but, giving him credit for the talents +he possesses, had he known that the Prince was at Metz, he would almost +certainly have pressed forward. And had the siege of Paris been raised, +as was not altogether uncontemplated by Von Moltke, if ever the Army of +the Loire came up, the effect in France would have been prodigious; and +though we differ from those who insist that it would have led to a great +German disaster, we think that it would have prevented a renewal of the +investment of Paris. The question, therefore, presents itself--Did +Bazaine hold out to the last, and is he responsible for the surrender of +Metz at the moment when it occurred? On this subject, as may be +supposed, there is a great deal of conflicting evidence, but some +conclusions seem tolerably certain. We do not think it possible to deny +that Metz really yielded to famine; the army was in a deplorable state, +horseflesh had long been the only animal food, the bread rations had +been greatly reduced, and fever and typhus had made portentous ravages +among the troops, and even the population. But, on the other hand, there +is some proof that, at the beginning of the investment, provisions had +not been carefully preserved, and that the generals and other officers +thought a great deal too much of their own comforts, and did not attend +to the wants of the army; and therefore, although we think that Bazaine +was incapable of anything like treason, and really made a stout +resistance, it is possible that a more self-denying and foresighted +commander might have slightly protracted the defence. The luxury and +pride of the imperial _régime_, it is to be feared, infected the +head-quarters and staff during the siege of Metz; and it may--though we +speak with diffidence--have been the result that the fortress fell +exactly at the least fortunate moment, so far as regards the interests +of France. + +The apparition of the Army of the Loire beyond Orleans, and its +unexpected strength, caused a complete change in the plans of the +Germans. It had become evident that a powerful force was in the field +for the relief of Paris, and no one knew better than the great commander +who guided the movements of the invaders, how necessary it was to +interpose an effectual barrier against this foe if the siege of the city +was to continue. Paris, too, was showing no signs of submission; the +winter was coming on apace; and the position of the besiegers might +become critical if they were detained around the capital for months, at +an immense distance from their base on the frontier, and liable to +attacks from without and within. The battles of the 9th and 10th, in a +word, had awakened the able German chiefs to the possible dangers of +their situation, and with characteristic energy and consummate prudence +they applied themselves to avert or remove them. The corps intended to +march northward were kept back and brought nearer to Paris, and the army +commanded by Prince Frederic Charles was diverted from the centre and +east, and ordered to move as quickly as possible to the Lower Loire and +the neighbourhood of Orleans, with the view of checking D'Aurelles' +force, and attacking it, should it attempt to advance. At the same time, +the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg was kept in communication with Von der +Tann along the roads leading from Orleans to Paris, while some of his +divisions were turned towards the Sarthe to face the French Army of the +West; these arrangements, however, being only temporary until the +arrival of Prince Frederic Charles should add largely to the strength of +the Germans. In this way a whole series of covering armies were in a +short time thrown in an extensive circle around the investing lines, so +as to baffle and repel the French; and these would soon become +formidable, though, as yet, they were not in sufficient force to render +an attempt to relieve Paris beyond the reach of a daring commander. +Meanwhile the French had done much on their side, though it cannot be +said that their efforts were equally important or as well conducted. +D'Aurelles retired to his camp near Orleans, entrenching himself with +great care, and meditating ulterior movements, and in a few days he made +his entrenchments exceedingly difficult to turn or attack, though their +proximity to the Loire, just behind, made them dangerous as a defensive +position. At this point, which he had made his base, he awaited his +reinforcements for some days, apparently thinking that the addition of +these would more than counter-balance Prince Frederic Charles, now +hastening forward to arrest his progress--a conclusion utterly false, in +our judgment. These reinforcements, however, it must be said, were, in +mere numbers, exceedingly great, and at the close of November +D'Aurelles' army had more than doubled its nominal strength, being now +upwards of 200,000 men, with from 400 to 500 guns; but the organization +of these new divisions was, for the most part, imperfect and crude; the +recruits were partly young raw lads; the staff and other arrangements +were bad; and not only was the second portion of the Army of the Loire +inferior to the first, but it did not throw into the scale of France a +force even nearly as great as that which, under Prince Frederic Charles, +was now reaching the theatre of war. + +Such, at the close of November, was the situation of the belligerent +armies. By this time Trochu had completed his arrangements for carrying +out his plan; had made Paris prodigiously strong; had greatly weakened +the besiegers' lines; had organized two armies inside the city; and he +now prepared for a gigantic sortie, while D'Aurelles should co-operate +from without. That general seems to have been in communication with +Trochu by means of balloons and pigeons; and, for the second time, he +began operations which had for their object the relief of Paris. His +army was very well placed in comparison with that of the Germans, for it +was concentrated on a much narrower front, from Chateaudun to Montargis, +its centre holding the camp at Orleans, and its wings occupying the main +roads to Paris; whereas Prince Frederic Charles was only just in line at +Pithiviers and Nemours. Von der Tann, at Toury, was extremely weak, and +the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, thrown westward, was hardly united to his +Bavarian colleague. There was thus an interval in the German line +immediately in front of the French centre, which offered a favourable +mark for attack; and had D'Aurelles been a great general, we think he +would have advanced on that point, and very probably have been +successful, especially if it is borne in mind that he had a great +superiority in numbers--200,000 to about 100,000. But D'Aurelles again +displayed timidity, indecision, and want of true insight. He commenced +his march on the 28th of November, and attacked one corps of Prince +Frederic Charles, stationed near the village of Beaune la Rolande, and +though the engagement was indecisive, he made no effort with the rest of +his army, and fell back on his camp at Orleans, having thus struck at +his enemy's line, not where it was weak, but where it was strong, having +delivered his stroke with a small part of his forces, and having only +made the Germans aware of his position and movements. Prince Frederic +Charles, who now commanded the whole German army to the south of Paris, +made immediate preparations for a counter-blow which should overwhelm +his timid antagonist. He perceived that Von der Tann and the Grand Duke +of Mecklenburg were perilously divided, and he gave orders for a general +concentration of the whole forces of these commanders, while he advanced +his own to co-operate with them. These movements went on during two +days, the German columns drawing together within easy reach of the +French general, who, however, lingered irresolutely in his camp, +unwilling or unable to attack. On the 1st of December Prince Frederic +Charles moved against his foe, with his divisions in hand; and as the +French were now disseminated, in comparison with the German front, it is +not improbable that, at the decisive points, they scarcely had a +numerical superiority. The result was, of course, thenceforward certain. +D'Aurelles' centre was pierced through and through; his wings were +separated and thrown off in broken and widely-divided parts; the camp at +Orleans, too near the Loire, proved a disadvantage rather than +otherwise; the Army of the Loire was utterly defeated with a loss of +nearly 15,000 men, and the attempt to march to the relief of Paris ended +in complete and ruinous disaster. + +In these engagements we see the difference between vigorous and bad +generalship. It is not pretended that the army of the Loire was as well +organized as that of the Germans; but numerically it was nearly twice as +strong; and had it been commanded by an able chief it might not +improbably have been led to victory. But in selecting his point of +attack, in advancing with a fragment of his forces, in retreating when +it was not necessary, and above all, in allowing his enemy to unite, +literally without being molested, D'Aurelles showed want of capacity to +command; whereas Prince Frederic Charles gave convincing proof of vigour +and skill in these operations. That able commander was seriously alarmed +when, on the 28th, he ascertained the strength and positions of the +French, and perceived the space in the long line between Von der Tann +and the Grand Duke; and had he been in D'Aurelles' place, Europe might +have seen the Army of the Loire advancing between the German wings, and +forcing its way in triumph to Paris. When, however, the Prince became +aware of the real nature of the situation, he displayed talent of a very +high order; and the celerity with which he collected his army and bore +down on his vacillating foe was quite worthy of the first Napoleon. +Meanwhile, a grand but unsuccessful effort had been making by the armies +in Paris to break through or turn the lines of the Germans. On the 29th +of November two large masses of troops, commanded by Generals Vinoy and +Ducrot, covered by a terrible cannonade from the southern and +south-eastern forts, attempted to carry the positions of Choisy le Roi +and Chevilly, on the road to Orleans, and to storm Ormesson beyond the +Marne, these operations being evidently intended to be in concert with +those of D'Aurelles' army. On account of the rise in the waters of the +Marne, the attack of Ducrot was not pressed that day; but on the 30th it +was renewed with imposing forces, and four villages beyond the Marne +were seized and occupied by the French, their numbers carrying +everything before them. The German lines were now nearly reached, and +had the attack been repeated next day, it is not impossible that it +might have succeeded, for it is now known that 100,000 men could have +been opposed to about 30,000. But Trochu paused at this crisis, resolved +not to attempt to do more unless the Army of the Loire was at hand; and, +as this force still made no sign, he allowed Ducrot to remain inactive +during the 1st and part of the 2nd of December. Meanwhile the Germans +had been combining their troops for a decisive effort, and on the +morning of the 2nd they assailed their enemy in the positions he had +won. Two of the villages were retaken; but, as the assailants advanced +further, they were smitten by such a fire from the forts, the guns of +which had been unexpectedly strengthened, that they were swept away and +destroyed by thousands. The French pushed forward victoriously again. On +the night of the 2nd they were once more in overwhelming strength near +the investing line; and it may be doubted whether a bold effort would +not have forced it at this juncture. But Trochu would not pursue his +advantage, and as the army of the Loire did not appear, he soon withdrew +Ducrot's army from before the Marne in the wood of Vincennes. + +Persons not versed in military science will at once conclude from this +brief narrative that Trochu was an incompetent chief. They will say that +he ought to have cut his way out at all hazards without a second +thought, and that he missed a fine opportunity during any of the first +three days of December. They will point also to the means he possessed +for concentrating on interior lines, and pouring an overwhelming mass of +men on certain selected points; and they will insist that nothing but +skill was wanting to France on this occasion. We do not wholly condemn +the assertions; but considerations of the gravest kind must be borne in +mind on the other side. It is a maxim of the art of war that an invested +fortress must be relieved by the efforts of an army without combined +with those of the garrison within; for, in the first place, it is +extremely difficult for the garrison unaided to break through the +entrenchments formed by the besiegers; and, in the second, if the +garrison breaks through, it is liable to destruction unless it is +received into the arms, as it were, of a friendly force. The case of a +great city like Paris is no exception to this principle, or at least +only in a slight degree; for it would have been an arduous task for +Ducrot to have stormed the German lines in any event; and, if he had, +what was he to have done with from 80,000 to 100,000 men, when he had +got out in the open country, with scanty supplies, and without a base? +There were special reasons also why, in this instance, Trochu should +wait for the Army of the Loire, for if it arrived, the Army of Paris +would be enabled to make its way out without running any serious risk; +and, in that case, combined with the relieving force, it might expect to +do the Germans immense injury, as they drew off from the investing +circle. In acting, therefore, as he did, Trochu was not the temporizing +fool he has been called by certain detractors; and it must be added that +he adhered strictly to the recognised rules of military science. +Nevertheless, had he been a chief of genius, we think he would have +taken the bolder course, and have endeavoured, on the 1st and 2nd of +December, to have broken through the German entrenchments. For, in the +first place, he could not reckon, with anything even approaching +certainty, that the Army of the Loire could reach Paris; and, that being +so, he should perhaps have relied upon himself and his army alone. And, +in the second place, it so happened that if his army could once sever +the lines, it would not be exposed to a want of supplies, even if no +assistance came from outside, for had he seized the great German depôts +a few miles off on the Strasburg Railway, it would have found +everything which it could have needed. Admitting, therefore, all that +can be said, Trochu perhaps showed himself too wedded to mere rules and +general notions in not having made a great effort with Ducrot at this +critical moment; and had he struck with his whole force, that effort +might have been successful. + +The failure of Ducrot's great sortie, and the defeats of the Army of the +Loire near Orleans, were cruel and lasting disasters to France. In +another part of the theatre of operations, the balance of fortune hung +more evenly, though the ultimate issue was not very different. The +discomfited forces of D'Aurelles, as we have seen, were broken into +three parts, the centre and wings divided from each other; and even +after the battles of the first days of December, the centre and right, +driven across the Loire, retreated hastily to Bourges and Nevers, while +the left remained on the north bank of the river, clinging to Marchenoir +and the adjoining country. The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg and Von der +Tann, with about 35,000 or 40,000 men, were detached to destroy this +isolated wing, while Prince Frederic Charles pursued the main body, and +a series of operations ensued which throw a ray of lustre on the French +arms. The commander of the broken French left was a general who, though +before unknown, has since given proof of no common talents, and in fact +seems to us to be entitled to no mean rank among able captains. Chanzy, +in a series of obstinate encounters, confronted and baffled his +victorious foes with a force hardly superior in numbers; and after +disputing the difficult country between Beaugency and Vendôme, effected +at last his retreat to Le Mans, where he joined the friendly Army of the +West, and succeeded in obtaining large reinforcements. This retreat was +executed with great skill, and was made exactly on the right points; and +that Chanzy was able to gain his goal in the face of the Grand Duke and +of Von der Tann, and subsequently of a corps of Prince Frederic Charles, +moved up from the Loire to overpower him, does honour to his ability and +judgment. A lull now took place in the operations along the zone of +country to the south of Paris; but from the North an unsuccessful +attempt to relieve the beleaguered capital was made. For some weeks the +French Army of the North had been in a state of comparative order, and +though it had been defeated in November, it had been entrusted to an +experienced commander, who had done much to improve its discipline. In +the third week of December, General Faidherbe advanced to attack at +Pont Noyelles a part of the German Army of the North, his object being, +should he win the battle, to press forward and march to Paris. This +engagement, however, proved indecisive, and Faidherbe in a few days +retired into the chain of fortresses on the Belgian frontier, his +antagonist, Von Goeben, holding him in check along the line of the Somme +and its affluents. Meanwhile Trochu, doubtless informed from without of +the intentions of Faidherbe, had made another effort on the 21st to +attack the German lines to the north; but though he achieved a certain +amount of success, he again declined to strike more decisively, when it +had become apparent that he was not to expect the assistance of a +relieving army. The French captured several outlying positions on the +great northern and eastern roads, and held them for two or three days; +but there being no sign of Faidherbe's approach, they once more retired, +having effected nothing. + +While these combats had been taking place, the belligerents had been +making great exertions to increase their forces and renew the war. The +German commanders had discovered that France had developed resources of +which they had no previous conception, and that Paris was stronger and +better provisioned than they could possibly have imagined; and though as +yet they had been victorious, they felt their position to be insecure, +bound as they were to the besieged capital, and, in the depth of a +severe winter, exposed to the attacks of all the French armies +converging on them from every side. In fact, in a strategic point of +view their situation was extremely critical; for if a single one of the +covering armies were broken through by a relieving force, which thus +could reach the line of investment, they might have been compelled to +raise the siege, and might, perhaps, suffer a series of disasters. This +danger was, therefore, to be averted; and as the covering armies had +lost enormously from cold, hardship, and field-service, and the +besiegers' ranks had also been thinned, it was necessary to make very +large additions to the strength of the invading forces. Vast +reinforcements were accordingly despatched across the Rhine to all +points of the war; Prince Frederic Charles, the Grand Duke of +Mecklenburg, and Von der Tann received thousands of recruits; the armies +of Von Goeben and Werder were replenished to a considerable extent, and +the corps selected to protect the different lines of the communications +were increased by important reserves. In this way about 200,000 men were +joined to the armies already in France; and at the same time no pains +were spared to accelerate the arrival of siege trains before Paris, in +order to open fire on the defences. This task, however, was extremely +difficult, on account of the distance from the frontier, and the state +of the roads; and though, during more than two months, heavy guns had +been gradually sent up, it was not until near the end of December that +batteries, more nearly adequate to the purpose, had been constructed and +armed. Meantime, the French had been equally energetic, but the results +obtained had been very inferior. Recruits, indeed, had been despatched +in masses to increase the bulk of the provincial armies; munitions of +war were obtained in quantities, and nothing, it must be said, was left +undone which patriotism and devotion could accomplish. But though the +divided parts of the Army of the Loire, and though the Armies of the +North and the East became very formidable in mere numbers, the accession +of raw and unformed levies, without proper military organization, did +not much augment their real power; and as many of the best soldiers in +the force commanded by D'Aurelles had perished in the recent +engagements, it is not improbable that the strength of France was hardly +greater towards the end of December than it had been three weeks +previously, whereas that of Germany had increased to a degree that made +the German generals masters of the situation in all its aspects. + +Such, about Christmas, was the relative strength and condition of the +belligerent armies. At this moment, Prince Frederic Charles, Von der +Tann, and the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, held a central position between +Orleans and Chartres, having Chanzy in advance of Le Mans, and the +remainder of the Army of the Loire rallied by Bourbaki at Bourges and +Nevers; Faidherbe was held in check by Von Goeben; to the east Werder, +who had been told off after the fall of Strasburg to overrun the south, +was confronted by the French Army of the East, with an irregular force +under Garibaldi; and, as we have seen, the vast circle of the covering +armies was more formidable than it had been at any preceding time. In +this state of things an extraordinary scheme was formed for the French +provincial armies, and ultimately for the relief of Paris, which we can +only describe as the extreme of rashness. Werder had for some time +invested Belfort, while part of his forces lay in Franche Comté; and as +he had not more than 50,000 men, and Bourbaki was at no great distance +with perhaps not less than 120,000, an opportunity seemed given to +strike a blow, which it was hoped might crush this foe, and even change +the aspect of the contest. If Bourbaki were to assail Werder from +Bourges and Nevers, he would probably destroy him; and if so, he could +relieve Belfort, and furthermore, by a bold advance on Nancy and +Luneville, fall upon the great line of German communications from +Strasburg to Paris along the main railway. But a stroke of this kind +would in all probability compel the siege of Paris to be raised, for the +Germans could not so easily subsist if their supplies were cut off or +even interrupted; and if they were obliged to retire, the paramount +object of French strategy would be attained by this single operation. +The movement of Bourbaki, too, was not only promising in itself, for it +was difficult to imagine that he would not crush Werder, which, being +done, all the rest would follow; but, properly conceived, it need not +endanger the French armies in other parts of the theatre. Let it be +granted that the withdrawal of Bourbaki would relieve Prince Frederic +Charles of an enemy, would the Prince, Von der Tann, and the Grand Duke +of Mecklenburg turn round and fall in full force on Chanzy? And, even if +they did, would not Chanzy, with his large army in position at Le Mans, +be strong enough to baffle their efforts? And even supposing Chanzy +defeated, how little was to be thought of a defeat provided Bourbaki +relieved Paris by seizing and cutting the German communications? +Besides, was it not very conceivable that Prince Frederic Charles would +pursue Bourbaki, in which case that commander would escape him, and that +he would not think of attacking Chanzy? + +Such was their plan, and, we repeat, it was, under the circumstances, +simply insensate. No one will deny that to overwhelm Werder, to effect +the raising of the siege of Belfort, and to sever the communications of +the Germans, were desirable objects for the French; and had Bourbaki +reached in force the main railway from Strasburg to Paris, this might +have caused the relief of the capital. But, in the actual state of the +French armies--raw, ill-provided, and ill-disciplined--a movement like +this was extremely difficult, and far from likely to be at all +successful, even as regards the mere reaching Belfort; and it was open +to the decisive objection that it enabled Prince Frederic Charles to +oppose all his forces to Chanzy and overwhelm him, in conjunction with +his German colleagues. The scheme, therefore, exposed the French on one +side to certain disaster, and, on the other, was really far from +hopeful; and it not only made it almost impossible to expect the relief +of Paris, but it might lead to terrible results should Bourbaki fail or +prove a bad General, In an unfortunate hour for France, however, this +reckless project was adopted; and in the first days of January, Bourbaki +broke up from Bourges and Nevers to reach Franche Comté, and made his +way to his first point, Belfort. The operations that ensued were just +such as might have been foreseen. The instant that Prince Frederic +Charles had ascertained that Bourbaki's army was on its way to the +distant east, he turned rapidly upon Chanzy, and directed his own +reinforced corps, with those of Von der Tann and the Grand Duke, to +converge without delay on Le Mans and overwhelm his French antagonist. +The movement began in the first days of January; and as the united +German armies were probably 140,000 strong, whereas Chanzy was hardly +superior in mere numbers, and had little but undisciplined levies in his +ranks, the issue was not for a moment doubtful. Chanzy, who had made a +feint forward, and had threatened the Prince before Vendôme, found +himself pressed by an irresistible enemy, and fell back at once on Le +Mans, not having been, we believe, informed of the project which had +detached Bourbaki. His retreat was conducted with marked ability, his +German foes closing in on all sides, and endeavouring to cut him off +from his point; and nothing save his judicious foresight enabled him to +save even a part of his army. Chanzy had fortified a strong position +before Le Mans, on the river Huisne--so strong that it has been compared +to Torres Vedras by an eye-witness--and he succeeded in making a stand +on this, and even baffling his enemy for a time. The contest, however, +was too unequal; his lines were turned on the night of the 11th; Le Mans +was captured the next day; and Chanzy's army, beaten and demoralized, +lost, it is said, 20,000 prisoners. + +While these events had been in progress, Bourbaki had been making his +way across the rugged and hilly country which divides Burgundy from +Franche Comté. The cold of the winter was intense; and his divisions, +composed of young recruits, ill-clothed, ill-fed, and ill-disciplined, +suffered cruelly, and were half demoralized before they saw even the +face of an enemy. At Dijon he obtained reinforcements drawn from the +French Army of the East, and with a force, nominally 140,000 strong, +with from 300 to 400 guns, he proceeded through the intricate defiles, +between the rivers Ognon and Doubs, which lead to the hills around +Belfort. The march of his weak and untrained columns, confined to a +single narrow route, was necessarily extremely slow; and it is decisive +against Bourbaki's generalship that, at a time when speed was of the +greatest importance, he did not advance by four or five roads, and thus +make expedition possible. The French army, worn out and harassed, and +especially wanting in staff officers, moved at the rate of four or five +miles a day only, and the result was that it completely failed to cut +off Werder, as had been expected, and that that general was enabled to +retreat leisurely and cover Belfort. A rear-guard engagement took place +at Villersexel, on the 6th of January, and it was not until the 14th +that Bourbaki reached the Lisaine--a tributary of the Doubs in front of +the fortress--where he found Werder's army drawn up in entrenched +positions, and awaiting its foe. A series of combats ensued, in which +the raw and bad French troops, although numerically three to one, were +unable to gain any success; and, on the 18th, Bourbaki retreated, having +lost from 8,000 to 10,000 men, and having met nothing but heavy +disaster. His army, baffled and half starving, began to disband and go +to pieces; and, as he retreated by the narrow defiles by which he had +before advanced, he did not reach Besançon till the 22nd. Meanwhile Von +Moltke had been directing a terrible and decisive stroke against him. As +soon as the great German commander had become aware of Bourbaki's +movements, he massed a force of some 50,000 men between Auxerre and +Chatillon-sur-Seine, and launched it across the hills of Burgundy upon +the flank and rear of the Frenchman, while Werder, pressing forward from +the Lisaine, advanced against him through Franche Comté. By the 24th of +January, four German divisions had passed Dijon and reached Dôle on the +Doubs, to the south of Besançon, while a large part of Werder's forces +were threatening Bourbaki from the north; and thus the unfortunate +French army was already almost completely hemmed in by its vigorous and +indefatigable pursuers. The disgrace of a second Sedan flashed across +the mind of the French commander, and in a paroxysm of despair he shot +himself, unable to brave the impending peril. His army, a mere +dissolving mass, rolled out helplessly from Besançon, and endeavoured to +make its way southward, but finding all the roads occupied, it turned +aside and crossed the Swiss frontier. There the starving mob of +disbanding fugitives was obliged helplessly to lay down its arms. + +Such was the end of the expedition, ill-planned and still worse +executed. The detachment of Bourbaki to the east caused the overthrow of +Chanzy at Le Mans, by setting Prince Frederic Charles free; and the bad +state of Bourbaki's army, and even more, his deplorable conduct, led to +the catastrophe we have described. What, indeed, could have been more +unwise than to have moved in a single column only, when celerity was the +first consideration; and what could have been more shameful than the +management of the retreat to Besançon, and the rash act which left an +army at that place without a commander? These things are simply without +excuse; yet it must be added that the condition of Bourbaki's troops +made it very improbable that he could, under any circumstance, have +accomplished the task which he undertook, at least that he could ever +have reached the great line of the German communications; and +accordingly, even when it seemed most promising, the whole enterprise +cannot be justified. The result might have been very different if the +forces of Bourbaki and Chanzy had been concentrated for a vigorous +attack on Prince Frederic Charles and his colleagues on the line between +Orleans, Vendome, and Chartres. Had this been done the French would have +largely outnumbered their foes, and even had they failed and been +defeated, they would have been able to make good their retreat without +incurring a terrible disaster. The more we study the operations of the +French armies in the month of January, the more we see how ill-devised +they were; while, on the other hand, the strategy of the Germans--of +Werder, in the stand he made on the Lisaine, and of Von Moltke in +surrounding Bourbaki--is deserving of the highest admiration; and, +though no one would think of comparing the young French troops with +their veteran foes, it is not the less true that the final issue was +decided in the main by generalship. Everywhere else in the theatre of +war, while these disasters were taking place, the fortunes of France +were in calamitous eclipse. The German Army of the North was taking the +fortresses on her north-eastern frontier without difficulty by a brief +bombardment, the old bastions of Vauban's time being useless against +modern heavy guns, and the triple barrier of Louis XIV. was thus broken +down from within, and the Northern Departments laid open. Faidherbe had +fought two battles in a vain attempt to resist the invaders; but, though +he gained some success at Bapaume, over a small part of Von Goeben's +army, he had been unable to follow it up, and soon afterwards he was +defeated with great and ruinous loss at St. Quentin--an ominous name in +French annals. After this disaster the French Army of the North was no +longer able to keep the field. Faidherbe took refuge in Lille and +Cambrai, and the tide of German invasion flowed irresistibly to the +borders of Artois and Hainault. + +Meanwhile the progress of the great siege had been tending to its +inevitable conclusion. On the 27th of December, the German batteries +commenced the reduction of the outwork constructed by Trochu on Mont +Avron, and in two days it was silenced and destroyed, the defences being +feeble and incomplete. This roused the spirits of the besiegers; and as, +by this time, their siege trains had come up in considerable numbers, +fire was opened on the southern and eastern forts, and for some weeks +was kept up with vigour. The distance, however, of the attacking +batteries from the defences of Paris was very great, nor was their +artillery powerful; and it cannot be said that they succeeded in making +a serious or lasting impression. In fact, the forts, and even the +ramparts, were armed with rather stronger ordnance, and they maintained +a combat at least equal to that of the heavy guns that were directed +against them. The bombardment of the city was next attempted, and shells +were poured into its streets and squares; but as the extreme range of +the German guns extended only to one bank of the Seine, no great damage, +fortunately, was done, and, as often has happened in other cases, the +effect on the spirits of the population was rather to stimulate than to +alarm. 'You might as well have pelted Paris with bottles,' was the +remark of an intelligent eye-witness, and there can be no doubt that the +active siege of the capital was a complete failure. Meantime, however, +famine was doing the work which fire and sword could not have +accomplished. The city had been amply provisioned, but, at the end of +four months and a half, it was reduced to the extreme of misery. For +many weeks horseflesh had been the only animal food of the population; +the bread doled out in scanty rations was a vile compound of bran and +rye; the mortality among the old and young was appalling; the supply of +fuel had fallen short, and that in the depths of a fearful winter. On +the 19th of January, Trochu made a last effort against the besiegers' +lines, but, as might have been anticipated, it failed, his troops having +lost all courage and worth. By this time all hope of relief from the +provincial armies had been frustrated, and at last, on the 130th day of +the siege, the proud capital was subdued by famine. The line of the +defences was almost uninjured; and, unquestionably, Paris would have +held out for months, nay, perhaps might have proved impregnable, had the +citizens possessed the means of subsistence. + +The fall of Paris brought to a close the internecine strife between +France and Germany. The extraordinary disasters of January, indeed +(especially the ruin of Bourbaki's army), had made resistance no longer +possible; and, in all probability, had the war gone on, the vanquished +country would have been overrun. Those who, like ourselves, were of +opinion that the expected surrender of the capital need not necessarily +terminate the struggle, could not have anticipated the fatal strategy +which annihilated the provincial armies of France in futile movements +and desperate efforts. We believe the National Assembly was right in +accepting the conditions of the Germans, harsh and relentless as these +were; and we applaud the patriotism of M. Thiers in bowing before the +doom of fate, and offer him our respect and sympathy. Our space has been +already outrun, and we cannot make any general remarks on the mighty +conflict which has just closed. + +As regards its consequences, we can only hazard two or three +anticipations of the future. Those who believed in the moderation and +civilization of the gigantic power of which Bismark has been the creator +must have been disappointed at the German terms; but as we are not among +the credulous, we cannot say that we have been surprised. The +annexation, however, of Alsace and Lorraine against the will of two +millions of the brave inhabitants of those provinces, the dismemberment +of France, and her spoliation, and, above all, the evident understanding +between the autocrats of Russia and Germany, are simply the triumphs of +brute force--perpetual menaces to the peace of Europe. As regards +France, her destiny is uncertain; and it remains to be seen whether, as +of old, she will rise superior to misfortune, or whether, like Spain, +she will henceforth decline and sink into an inferior power. If, as we +think, the first alternative is that which history will yet witness, +France certainly will renew the combat, and endeavour to regain from her +pitiless foe, not only her strategic position, but the conquered +territories. To effect this purpose she will avail herself of any +alliances, however abnormal--and for this she is not to be condemned. +From this point of view, also, the prospect for England is not +reassuring. France, however, if she would renew her strength, must first +learn self-government, and to combat anarchy and revolution; and, deeply +as we sympathise with her, she would, we believe, achieve more if she +were to attain these great ends than if she were to avenge Sedan by a +second Jena, and march once more in triumph to Berlin. + + + + +ART. VIII.--_Professor Fraser's Edition of Bishop Berkeley's Works._ + +(1.) _The Works of George Berkeley, D.D., formerly Bishop of Cloyne._ +Collected and Edited, with Prefaces and Annotations, by ALEXANDER +CAMPBELL FRASER, M.A., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the +University of Edinburgh. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1871. + +(2.) _Life and Letters of George Berkeley, D.D., formerly Bishop of +Cloyne, and an Account of his Philosophy; with many writings of Bishop +Berkeley hitherto unpublished._ By ALEXANDER CAMPBELL FRASER, M.A., +Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. +Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1871. + + +The English people have not treated their great philosophers well. They +have profited by them, made use of their results, and embodied in +political, social, and religious life the principles which men like +Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume have laboriously thought out +and sent forth to enrich the common stock of human knowledge; but they +have not sufficiently honoured their intellectual guides. They have not +striven to obtain a clear and consistent conception of the whole of each +great man's life, nor have they cared to estimate the full sweep of his +influence upon the thought of his fellows. They have been content to sum +up the result of life labours in the meagre formula, Hobbes, who was the +father of Locke, who was the father of Berkeley, who was the father of +Hume. They have measured the ingathering influence of the lake by the +amount of water carried into it by the stream coming from the lake +above, its outgoing action by the amount of water which the river bears +away to the lake beneath. The thousand rills which trickle down from the +hills and neighbouring highlands are forgotten, the constant unseen +action of air and heat and light bearing away the myriad waterdrops to +store them in the clouds of the firmament, ready to hear when the corn +and the vine call to the earth, and the earth calleth to the heavens, +and to answer in life-bringing showers, is left unremembered. Until +Cambridge gave us Bacon's Works, edited by Messrs. Ellis and Spedding, +England had not one good annotated edition of her great philosophers. +Oxford has now given us Berkeley. We have only hope to trust to for +Locke and Hume, the greatest and most powerful of all. And English +philosophy pays the penalty of the neglect in the one-sidedness, +superficiality, and inadequateness which have to some extent +characterized it. It is with great pleasure, therefore, that we welcome +this beautiful, complete, and carefully-edited edition of the works of +Bishop Berkeley, and thank the authorities of the Clarendon Press for +what we hope is only the first fruits of a series of our great +philosophers. + +There is wisdom in the selection. Bishop Berkeley, of all English +thinkers, is most easily misunderstood when detached portions of his +writings are studied by themselves apart from their relation to the +whole, and when his philosophy is criticised by those who have no +knowledge of his life. How many of those who know and have discussed +Berkeley's theory of vision, his nominalism, and his sensationalism, are +aware that the theory of vision was only the first step in the +exposition of a comprehensive theory of causality,--that his nominalism +was only the denial of the conceptualist doctrine of universals, was +suppressed in his latest writings, as if he had felt it to have been too +sweeping, and was supplanted by a doctrine of realism almost akin to +Plato's,--and that his sensationalism, inherited from Locke and +bequeathed to Hume, was only one moment in a Platonic idealism, which he +had learnt in his youth from More and Norris, in his old age from +Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists, and which he left to be developed by +Kant. The truth is, that in Berkeley we have the meeting-place of two +distinct streams of thought, both of which had already received distinct +but inadequate expression in England. He inherits the intellectual +wealth of the Cambridge Platonists, as well as the clearer, though less +profound results of Hobbes and Locke. He has been misunderstood and +misrepresented because his double position, inadequately expressed, and +not uniformly maintained, has been unknown to so many of his readers, +Berkeley, the disciple of Locke, the Nominalist, the amiable, +unconscious sceptic, is familiar to most students of philosophy. +Berkeley, the Platonist, the Realist, the idealist combatant of +scepticism, who found in Miss Forster the mystic and the disciple of +Fénélon and Madame Guyon the lady 'whose humour and turn of mind pleased +him beyond anything that he knew in her whole sex,' is not so well +known. + +The great value which this edition of Berkeley's philosophical writings +will have is that it presents us with the whole of his philosophy, and +by some pregnant annotations enables us to trace the unity of the +principle which binds them into a more or less consistent whole. +Professor Fraser, in preparing this edition, has kept the following +objects chiefly in view:-- + + '(1.) To revise the text of the works formerly published, + and to present them in a satisfactory arrangement. + + '(2.) To help the reader to reach Berkeley's own point of + view in each work, by means of bibliographical and + analytical prefaces, and occasional annotations or brief + dissertations, in which the author might be compared with + himself, and studied in his relations to the circumstances + in which he wrote. + + '(3.) To collect and publish any hitherto unpublished + writings of Berkeley which might illustrate his opinions or + character. + + '(4.) To offer a comprehensive conception of his implied + philosophy as a whole.' + +These objects have been so well realized that we are enabled for the +first time to survey Berkeley's character and opinions as a whole, to +see how his life and philosophy act and react on each other, to view his +great principles dimly shaping themselves in his earliest speculation +recorded in his student common-place book, and to see how his latest and +deepest thoughts are but the more adequate expression of his early +musings. Professor Fraser's summary of Berkeley's philosophy, given in +the fourth volume, will do much to destroy and render impossible the +one-sided criticism to which the opinions of the philosopher have been +so long subjected. He has shown that Berkeley's philosophy is not the +dried-up intellectual cistern of a solitary thinker of the last +century--is not a barren 'subjective idealism' which a breath of 'common +sense' can 'for ever render impossible,' but is a living fountain from +which our greatest modern English thinkers have not disdained to draw; +and he might have shown that it is instinct with the germs of those +philosophical principles which under the name of the _Ideal-Realismus_, +are leavening modern German thought. We venture to predict that +hereafter every historian and critic of philosophy will have to +reconsider the commonplace verdict which, first pronounced by Dr. Thomas +Reid in this country, by Kant in Germany, and by Cousin in France, has +been repeated wearisomely by their successors. At the same time, we +would not homologate every statement which Professor Fraser has made +about the philosophy of his author. We are inclined to think that he has +not sufficiently recognised the historical position of Bishop Berkeley. +He has too much regarded him as occupying a unique place in the history +of speculation, and neglected some of those facts of English philosophy +which serve to explain Berkeley's position and principles. No thinker, +and especially no great thinker, can occupy a position historically +inexplicable. He is the exponent of the thoughts and feelings of his +time, the interpreter of their present meaning, and the unconscious +prophet of their future development. And Berkeley was no exception to +this rule. It is just because he lived in an age in which two different +streams met, and because he alone of the thinkers then living combined +them, that he is to be reckoned among the few great English thinkers; +and it is because the two tendencies then at work and conflicting with +each other contained the undeveloped germs of the living principles now +combining that Berkeley's philosophy is not to be thrown aside as a +useless relic of the past, but to be studied as the inadequate +expression of much that is deepest and truest in the present English and +German philosophy.[219] 'England's Antiphon' against the sensational +psychology, sceptical metaphysics, and utilitarian ethics, which form +the bulk of her contributions to the general stock of philosophy, has +usually found expression in her poetry and religion rather than in her +philosophy; but there have always been thinkers who have refused to +accept the common creed, and to suffer themselves to glide down the +stream of popular opinion. Their protest has seldom been loud-voiced. +They have generally lived solitary, unheeded lives; but their presence, +like a scent unseen, has had its impalpable, invisible influence. +English mysticism is a fact, though unrecorded in the pages of the +history of her philosophers; and English mysticism was never stronger +than in the generation preceding Berkeley. The Cambridge Platonists had +but lately passed away. Four or five translations of Jacob Böhmen had +showed the popular studies, Norris of Bemerton was so well known that +his philosophy could be ridiculed in an elaborate parody, and Tom Brown, +'of facetious memory,' could tickle a not too fastidious public with a +caricature of his Platonic love. The influence of Malebranche was felt +upon English philosophy. Fénélon and Madame Guyon had their English +disciples, and the gross immorality of the times of the earlier Georges +had its opposite in the refined mysticism which appears in many of the +religious and philosophical writers of the period. By education, +training, studies and temperament, Berkeley was fitted to combine this +mystical philosophy with the ruder and more practical sensationalism of +Locke. He did so; and because he did so, he begins the second period of +modern philosophy. However we regard Berkeley--whether as a man, as a +Christian philanthropist, or as a metaphysician--we find the same +unconscious combination of practical sagacity and of refined enthusiasm, +a keen eye for fact, and a deep mind for theory, along with a continual +incapacity to combine adequately or express fully, either by action or +speech, the double tendency which is the secret of his power. We feel as +if Berkeley were always struggling with a great thought which he did not +wholly see, and could not adequately express. The young student of +Trinity College is labouring to record in his commonplace book a +principle which will prove to be the universal solvent, and set right +everything that is wrong. The young philosopher has elaborated the +principles of human knowledge which are to banish scepticism, +re-establish theology, philosophy, and the physical sciences on new and +lasting foundations. The missionary has a scheme for transplanting the +virtues, arts, and sciences to a new continent, since an extravagant +nobility and a reckless and dishonest passion for speculation have +impoverished and demoralized the chief countries in Europe. The +philanthropic bishop finds that a national bank will redeem his country +from all her troubles, and that tar-water is a panacea for every ill the +flesh is heir to. Everywhere we find the practical man and the idealist. +Everywhere we find the same keen eye for facts not quite comprehensive +enough; the same wealth of ideas which, nevertheless, wants the +intellectual momentum needed to carry out a great philosophical +conception; the same prophetic vision of principles and facts which are +afterwards to become plain, accompanied by the inability to clear the +way for their present manifestation. + +Professor Fraser has given us a beautiful picture of young Berkeley and +his surroundings in Trinity College, Dublin. Born at Dysart Castle, in +the beautiful valley of the Nore, and educated at the famous Kilkenny +School, the Eton of Ireland, Berkeley came up to Trinity College in the +spring of 1700, and at once found himself near a whirl of intellectual +life, into which he threw himself with ardour. The influence of the +discoveries of Newton, Boyle, and Hooke, and the speculations of +Descartes, Locke, and Malebranche, was beginning to show itself in the +University, and was gradually displacing the old scholasticism; and the +bright, clever lad looked with eagerness towards all the new lights +which were beginning to shine upon him. An amusing story is told of his +fondness for experiment, and his dreamy disregard of consequences. He +had gone to see an execution, and returned pensive and melancholy, but +strangely inquisitive about the sensations experienced by the +unfortunate criminal in the crisis of his fate. He took counsel with an +intimate college friend, Conterini, the uncle of Oliver Goldsmith, and + + 'it was agreed between them that he should himself try the + experiment, and be relieved by his friend on a signal + arranged, after which Conterini, in his turn, was to repeat + the experiment. Berkeley was accordingly tied up to the + ceiling, and the chair removed from under his feet. Losing + consciousness, his companion waited in vain for the signal. + The enthusiastic inquirer might have been hung in good + earnest,--and as soon as he was relieved he fell motionless + upon the floor. On recovering himself his first words + were--"Bless my heart, Conterini, you have rumpled my + band."' + +We need not wonder that this incident caused Berkeley to be looked upon +as an eccentric by his fellow-students, nor that he had to bear the +usual annoyances which befall those who get the name. With all his +eccentricity, however, he seems to have been the centre of a company of +friends, who thought him a prodigy of learning and amiability; and his +college career was very successful. + + 'He was made a Scholar in 1702. In the spring of 1704 (the + year Locke died) he became Bachelor of Arts. He took his + Master's degree in the spring of 1707. After the customary + arduous examination of that University, conducted in + presence of nobility, gentry, and high officials, he passed + with unprecedented applause, and was admitted to a + Fellowship, June 9, 1707, "the only reward of learning that + kingdom has to bestow," as one of his biographers curtly + says.' + +It is his commonplace book, however, and the other records of his +college life, now first published, that show us how the young student +employed himself, and what were his favourite studies and opinions. In +these early days one sees that he learned mostly by negation. Locke is +_not_ right in this particular, Malebranche is wrong in that, More is +not to be trusted in a third,--are the most usual entries in the young +student's journal. It is curious to look at those imperfect jottings and +see as through a window into the eager young soul, sharpening and +training itself by living contact with the thoughts of the great +thinkers who then ruled the intellectual world, and preparing itself to +take rank among them at some future day. Mathematics, metaphysics, +optics, physics, and natural theology were all studied. Locke was his +great teacher, then Malebranche, then the English Platonists; Barrow, +Boyle, Newton, and Molyneux taught him physics and mathematics. He is +always independent, perhaps too fond of independence, perhaps scarcely +aware that as much is learned from what we find ourselves compelled to +deny, as from what we are obliged to affirm. There seems to have been a +great deal of intellectual life in the University, when Thomas Prior and +Samuel Madden--the two founders of the Royal Irish Society--were +fellow-students of Berkeley, when King was translated to the see of +Dublin, and Bishop Browne was Provost of Trinity. Berkeley and his young +friends formed themselves into a society for the purpose of discussing +the problems which life and the new philosophy were presenting to them. +We are not told who the members of this society were, but we can guess, +from jottings in the commonplace book, that the subjects of discussion +were mainly suggested by portions of Locke's essays, and we can fancy +the young metaphysicians disputing with great eagerness, ardour, and +confusion, all manner of soluble and insoluble questions. It is more +than probable that out of the chaos of the thoughts and opinions which +must have formed the intellectual outcome of such a society, there +gradually arose clearly and more clearly before Berkeley the +intellectual insight into the wants and difficulties of modern +metaphysics, pure and applied, which at last realized itself in the +'Essay towards a New Theory of Vision,' and in the 'Principles of Human +Knowledge.' At all events we know that these two works, on which +Berkeley's fame as a metaphysician has rested, were written and +published not many years after the date of the founding of the College +Society; and that many of the questions discussed are to be found among +the list of subjects which Professor Fraser thinks were there debated. +Both works everywhere show traces of the reading and thinking which the +commonplace book reveals, and the results of the two are the expression +of the double tendency to the inductive philosophy and to mysticism, +which, we have said, is the distinguishing feature in Berkeley's life +and philosophy. 'The Theory of Vision' is Malebranche's seeing all +things in God, but on a rational and experimental basis. We see God in +all things, and we see all things by means of his continual contrivance. +The outcome of the 'Principles of Human Knowledge' is, in the main, the +attempt to explain clearly, fully, and in accordance with Baconian +principles, the mystical thought of Norris, that God is the immediate +author of our sensations, and that we therefore participate in Him when +we see, feel, or desire, and the doctrine of providence on which Dr. +More delighted to expatiate. + +In 1713, we find Berkeley at the court of Queen Anne, in company with +Swift. He had come over from Dublin chiefly for the purpose of gaining +attention for his metaphysical system. He had endeavoured, while in +Dublin, to interest English philosophers in his new principle, but the +attempt was not very successful. He now tried by personal intercourse +and more popular exposition, in his Essays in the 'Guardian' and in his +Dialogues, to gain adherents to those opinions from which he expected so +much; and in this he was pretty successful. Swift, writing to Lord +Carteret from Dublin some years after, says that 'he (Berkeley) was a +Fellow of the University here: and going to England very young about +thirteen years ago, he became founder of a sect called the +_Immaterialists_, by the force of a very curious book upon that subject. +Dr. Smalridge and many other eminent persons were his proselytes.' We +have very pleasant glimpses of the young Irish metaphysician among the +wits of Queen Anne's court. Then, as afterwards, his amiability and +enthusiasm disarmed enmity and gained friends among all factions. He was +intimate with Steele and Addison, as well as the companion of Swift and +Pope. Swift procured for him the appointment of secretary to Lord +Peterborough, and in that capacity, and afterwards as tutor to Mr. St. +George Ashe, he spent some years abroad. On his return, + + 'he found London and all England in the agitation and + misery consequent upon the failure of the South Sea Scheme. + This occasioned one of his most characteristic productions + as an author. He now addressed himself for the first time + publicly to questions of social economy. If I am not + mistaken, the deep impression which the English catastrophe + of 1720 made upon him was connected with the project of + social idealism which, as we shall see, filled and + determined his life in its middle period.' + +He was shocked at the tone of social morality and his imaginative +enthusiasm perhaps helped to make him fancy the plague more +wide-spreading and more incurable than it really was. His thoughts found +vent in his 'Essay toward Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain,' and he +then probably first began to meditate on the romantic scheme of +missionary enterprise which filled so much of his life. + +His second stay in London brought him the beginning of many of the +friendships which lasted through life. He had met in Italy, Benson, +afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, and now became intimate with Secker, +successively Bishop of Bristol, Bishop of Oxford, and Archbishop of +Canterbury, Rundle, Bishop of Derry, Clarke, and Butler,--all of whom +helped him in his attempt to realise the great plan now beginning to +take shape in his mind. He had returned to Ireland as Chaplain to the +Lord Lieutenant, and had been nominated, in rapid succession, Divinity +Lecturer, Senior Greek Lecturer in Trinity College, then Dean of +Dromore, then Hebrew Lecturer and Senior Proctor in Trinity College, +then Rector of Ardtrea and Arboe, and lastly Dean of Derry; but no +sooner had he fairly obtained the church preferment which his position +and talents had merited, than he was eager to resign it--'his heart is +ready to break if his deanery be not taken from him.' He wished to +resign present preferment and future prospects, and to dedicate his +life, means, and energies to instruct the youth of America, as the +President of an ideally perfect University in the Isles of Bermuda. The +old world had grown very evil, and Berkeley wished to make a new one. He +had mysticism enough to imagine a new Atlantis, and the practical turn +for experimenting which made him eager to attempt to realize it. His +thoughts were not content with the patient waiting of the mystical +mediæval piety which inspires the beautiful 'Hora Novissima' of Bernard, +they must take shape in action. His enthusiasm rises to poetic height, +and finds utterance in a few glowing verses prophetic of the dominion +which is to come and increase on the other side of the ocean by the +diffusion of education, the sciences, and the preaching of the Word: + + 'Westward the course of empire takes its way; + The four first Acts already past. + A fifth shall close the Drama with the day: + Time's noblest offspring is the last.' + +After much anxious waiting and painful pleading at court and with +Parliament, Berkeley at last obtained a charter for his college, and +was promised an endowment of £20,000:-- + + 'The Charter authorized the erection of a college in the + Bermudas to be called the College of St. Paul, and to be + governed by a President and nine Fellows who were to form + the Corporation. Berkeley was named the first President, + and his three Dublin associates the first Fellows. They + were all allowed to retain their preferments at home for + eighteen months after their arrival in the islands. Other + six Fellows were to be appointed by them within three + years, and the surviving members of the Corporation were to + have power to elect all the future vacancies. The Bishop of + London was named as Visitor, and the Secretary of State for + the Colonies was appointed Chancellor. The College was + declared to be for the instruction of students in + literature and theology, with a view to the promotion of + Christian civilization alike in the English and in the + heathen parts of America.' + +He sailed from Gravesend with his newly-married wife and a little +company of retainers and friends, and arrived in the Narragansett +waters, on the western side of Rhode Island, at the beautiful harbour of +Newport. Berkeley had meant to call at Rhode Island on his way to the +Bermudas to get information, procure anything needful for the fulfilment +of his great scheme, purchase land as an investment for his college, and +perhaps gain the good-will and interest of friendly New Englanders. He +was not destined to get nearer the Bermudas. The visit, which was +originally meant to be a short one, lengthened out from month to month, +until at last Berkeley began to like the place so well that he +confidentially says to Prior in one of his letters:--'The truth is, if +the king's bounty were paid in, and the charter could be removed hither, +I should like it better than Bermuda.' And Newport would have made a +very good centre for his scheme of educational and evangelical +operations. It was the capital of the State of Rhode Island, and was a +rich centre of foreign and domestic trade. The State had been colonized +by Roger Williams in 1636, and had a constitution which asserted the +right of religious freedom while that was still unknown in every other +State in America. Its society was accordingly very unlike that met with +almost anywhere else. Quakers, Moravians, Jews, Episcopalians, +Congregationalists, Independents, and Baptists of every sect, all lived +together, holding their own beliefs, and tolerating those of their +neighbours. The town population was chiefly mercantile, while that of +the interior of the island, and that along the Narragansett shore, was +pastoral. The inhabitants were famed for their hospitality, and the +society was intelligent and well-informed. Great care was taken of the +education of the children, and the libraries and pictures which still +remain testify to the good taste and culture of the gentlemen of the +island:-- + + 'The Rhode Island aristocracy of Berkeley's time maintained + the character of the old English country gentlemen from + whom they were descended. A state of society supported by + slavery produced festivity. Tradition records the genial + life of those days in the colony. Excursions to Hartford to + luxuriate on bloated salmon were annual indulgences in May. + Pace races on the beach for silver tankards were the social + indulgences of summer. When autumn arrived, there were + harvest-home festivities. Large numbers of both sexes + gathered on those occasions--gentlemen in their scarlet + coats and swords, with lace ruffles over their hands, silk + stockings, and shoes ornamented with silver buckles, and + ladies dressed in brocade, with high-heeled shoes and high + head-dresses. These festivities would sometimes continue + for days, and they were shared by the slaves as well as + their masters. Christmas was the great festival of the + year; twelve days were then given to hospitalities. The + wedding, too, was a great gala in the olden time. And the + fox chase, with hounds and horns, as well as fishing and + fowling, were favourite sports in Narragansett.' + +While in Newport, Berkeley mingled in the society of the town, and +frequently preached in the pulpit of Mr. Honeyman, a missionary of the +Church of England. He visited the Narragansett country, and is said to +have made some distant excursions to see the condition of the native +Indian tribes. A few months after his arrival he bought a farm and built +a commodious house, which he called Whitehall. The house is still +standing, and is known in the neighbourhood as Bishop Berkeley's house. +Few situations could be more adapted to the tastes of a student as fond +of nature as of books. It was here that 'Alciphron,' the most elaborate, +and, in the lifetime of the author, the most popular, of all Berkeley's +writings, was written. Tradition points to a natural alcove in the +rocks, commanding a view of the beach and the ocean, as the spot where +the beautiful dialogues were composed. + + '"Alciphron" is redolent of the fragrance of nature in + Rhode Island and of the invigorating breezes of its ocean + shore. Smith of Philadelphia, in his preface to the London + edition of Johnson of Stratford's philosophical works, says + that one day when visiting him Johnson took up the book, + and reading some of Berkeley's rural descriptions, told him + that they were copied from the charming landscapes in that + delightful island, which lay before him at the time he was + writing.' + +While living this retired life at Whitehall and troubled with anxieties +at the delays which prevented him from seeing the actual realization of +his great scheme, Berkeley found time to mingle in the intellectual +society which Newport afforded, and took the lead in forming a +philosophical association for the discussion of speculative questions. +One of the objects of this association was to collect books, and it +originated the Redwood Library, which still exists in Newport, a memento +of the short but interesting stay of Bishop Berkeley. + +One American friend, however, is more closely related to Berkeley than +any other, and must not be passed over without special mention. This was +Dr. Samuel Johnson, the Episcopalian minister of Stratford. He had known +the 'Principles of Human Knowledge' before Berkeley's arrival in +America, and had become a convert to the metaphysical opinions there set +forth. He was one of the first to welcome Berkeley when he landed in +Rhode Island, and the friendship and correspondence which then began +only ceased with the death of the Bishop. His name, too, possesses +special interest to all students of Berkeley's philosophy, and he must +be held in honour as one of the earliest and one of the greatest +metaphysicians which America has produced. Although his works have been +forgotten--obscured, perhaps, by the theological and metaphysical fame +of his great pupil, Jonathan Edwards--they still deserve attention. We +should like to see a new edition of his 'Elementa Philosophica;' and +believe that, if re-published and known, it would be a valuable +contribution to American philosophy. This work possesses a special +interest for the student of Berkeley. It was written by a professed +disciple, was the result of the study of Berkeley's writings, of +conversations and correspondence with him on the philosophical subjects +it discusses. It was dedicated to the Bishop, and may almost be looked +upon as a new and more complete edition of the 'Principles of Human +Knowledge.' It treats of the pure intellect and its notions, and of the +intuitive intellectual light; and so, to some extent, supplies the place +of the second part of that work which was never written, and connects +the philosophy of Berkeley's earlier days with the Platonic mysticism of +his old age. Johnson's 'Elementa Philosophica' can never be separated +from Berkeley's 'Principles of Human Knowledge;' and had the two been +always studied together, the continual misapprehension of the Bishop's +philosophical system, which has characterized most histories of +philosophy, could scarcely have arisen. The philosophical letters to +Johnson are also full of interest, and show other sides of Berkeley's +system than that most prominent in the 'Principles of Human Knowledge;' +and Johnson himself seems to have had no small influence in developing +what, in some respects, may be called the idealist,[220] and in others +the mystical moment in Berkeley's speculation. + +While thus employed in philosophical correspondence and composition, and +in social and intellectual intercourse with his friends in and near +Newport, Berkeley was harassed with doubts and anxieties about the +success of his great scheme. He had embarked in the faith that Sir R. +Walpole would fulfil his promise, and that the £20,000 endowment which +had been voted by Parliament would be soon handed over to him for his +college. But the long months spent in waiting lengthened out to years, +and the prospect grew duller and duller, until at length even Berkeley +began to despair. Dr. Gibson, Bishop of London, who had been appointed +by the charter the Visitor of the new University, did all he could to +forward the scheme; and when he found that the ministerial delays were +only meant to cover the non-fulfilment of their bargain, he at last got +a conclusive answer from Walpole: 'If you put this question to me as a +minister,' said he, 'I must and can assure you that the money shall most +undoubtedly be paid as soon as suits with public convenience; but if you +ask me, as a friend, whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America +expecting the payment of £20,000, I advise him by all means to return +home to Europe, and give up his present expectations.' + +The ten best years of Berkeley's life were given to this scheme of +missionary enterprise, and now it ended in what seemed to be utter +failure. We have only to read his enthusiastic letters to his friend +Prior to see how hopefully he had looked forward to the future, and to +realize how crushing the blow must have been which now fell upon him. He +bore himself bravely enough, however, outwardly, and his own account of +the miscarriage given in 'Alciphron' does not reveal very much +depression:-- + + 'I flattered myself, _Theages_, that before this time I + might have been able to have sent you an agreeable account + of the success of the affair which brought me into this + remote corner of the country. But, instead of this, I + should now give you the detail of its miscarriage, if I did + not rather choose to entertain you with some amusing + incidents, which have helped to make me easy under a + circumstance I could neither obviate nor foresee. Events + are not in our power; but it always is, to make a good use + even of the very worst. And I must needs own, the course + and event of this affair gave opportunity for reflections + that make me some amends for a great loss of time, pains, + and expense. A life of action, which takes its issue from + the counsels, passions, and views of other men, if it doth + not draw a man to imitate, will at least teach him to + observe. And a mind at liberty to reflect on its own + observations, if it produce nothing useful in the world, + seldom fails of entertainment to itself. For several months + past I have enjoyed such liberty and leisure in this + distant retreat, far beyond the verge of that great + whirlpool of business, faction, and pleasure which is + called the world. And a retreat in itself agreeable, after + a long scene of trouble and disquiet, was made much more so + by the conversation and good qualities of my host + Euphranor, who unites in his own person the philosopher and + the farmer, two characters not so inconsistent in nature as + by custom they seem to be.' + +But Berkeley felt that his life-work was done. He felt himself to be a +broken man, so far as action was concerned. The practical-working +experimental side of his nature falls into the shade; and the calm +mystical enthusiasm which spends itself in study and in reverie, and can +turn from the vexations and disturbances and wrongs of the real world to +find repose and quietude in the contemplation of the world of ideal +perfection visioned in the dreams of genius, grows stronger and +stronger. He returned to England in the end of 1731, and soon found +himself among old acquaintances. Church preferment awaited him. He was +nominated to the rich deanery of Down, and when the nomination was from +accidental circumstances cancelled, was soon afterwards nominated and +consecrated Bishop of Cloyne. But he did not mingle much in society, nor +take a very active part in the business of life. He more and more +preferred to live in quiet seclusion. A wealthier bishopric was within +his reach, but he contented himself with Cloyne. The offer of the +Primacy of Ireland failed to draw him from his retirement. A growing +feebleness, a love for quietness, and increasing and constant +ill-health, all show how heavily the great disappointment of his life +pressed upon him. He was not fifty when he was made Bishop of Cloyne, +but all that he did afterwards bears the stamp of old age. + +The American enterprise, however, was not such a failure as it seemed to +Berkeley. His one great practical enterprise bears a curious analogy to +his philosophical system. His life-work and his life-thought are +strangely parallel. In both there is the combination of shrewd, +practical judgment, with almost visionary enthusiasm. Both were thought +by his contemporaries to be more suitable for a dream-life than for +waking reality. Both fail in completeness of development and adequacy of +expression; and yet both contain in them germs of life to be long +afterwards developed. Berkeley's American scheme did not entirely break +down at his return to England. The farm of Whitehall, which he had +bought near Newport, he bequeathed to Yale College for the purpose of +encouraging Greek and Latin scholarship, and the list of Berkeleian +scholars--a list containing more than two hundred names, among them some +of the most eminent in America--shows how far the designs of the founder +were thus unexpectedly fulfilled:-- + + '"It is a fact of no slight significance," the writer + remarks, "taken in connection with the original purpose of + Berkeley, that of this list nearly one hundred are marked + as ministers of the Gospel, foremost among whom is + President Wheelock, who founded an Indian school, the germ + of Dartmouth College; while hundreds more, not here + enumerated, have been recipients of this bounty, in the + shape of smaller premiums, among whom may be named David + Brainerd, the 'Apostle to the Indians.'"' + +Berkeley's gifts to Yale College did not cease with the bequest of his +farm. He so interested some of his Bermuda subscribers in the American +College that, with their aid, he was able to send over from England a +large donation of books to its library. Harvard College, as well as +Yale, received gifts of books, and, to the end of his life, Berkeley's +constant references in his letters to Johnson, and his continual +kindnesses and recommendations of young American students who from time +to time came over to England, showed the deep interest which he took in +the cause of religion and education in the Western hemisphere. + +The Cloyne life was a very retired one, and Berkeley was almost as much, +if not more out of the world there than he had been at Newport. His +intercourse with old friends was mostly by letter. Secker, the Bishop of +Bristol, and Benson, Bishop of Gloucester, are still the most valued +correspondents among the friends of his later life. Gibson, Bishop of +London, writes in dignified style about public events, and about the +analyst controversy. Prior, his old school and college companion, is +still his most useful friend, eager and ready as ever to take up and +defend any one of his theories or fancies. Dean Gervais writes and +receives beautiful letters about Cloyne and foreign politics. These were +stirring times abroad. Frederick the Great was in Silesia, and even a +student recluse cannot help thinking that 'We live in an age of +revolutions so sudden and surprising in all parts of Europe, that I +question whether the like has been ever known before.' Protestant +clergymen were very much afraid of France governed by old Cardinal +Fleury, but the excitement did not last long, and only reawakened when +the next post-bag arrived. The letters from Cloyne give us beautiful +glimpses into Berkeley's home-life. There are musical parties, and +country visits, village charities, and small attempts at the +introduction of manufactures, and his student life in his diocese was +not entirely that of a recluse. Even at this period of his life, +Berkeley's sympathies were active enough to lead him to undertake a +somewhat long and tedious study of the causes of Irish distress and +poverty, and more particularly of the famine and epidemic of 1741-2. The +results of his investigations were published in the 'Querist' and in +'Siris.' + +The 'Querist' was originally published in three parts. It consists of a +series of queries concerning the state of Ireland and the remedies +suggested. It is a remarkable book, and very little known; still more +remarkable when we consider that it was written in 1735 by a bishop of +the Irish Church Establishment. The central thought is expressed in the +pregnant query, 'Whether a scheme for the welfare of the Irish nation +should not take in the whole inhabitants; and whether it be not a vain +attempt to project the flourishing of our Protestant gentry, exclusive +of the bulk of the natives?'--and the introduction of manufactures, a +national bank, the admission of Roman Catholics into Trinity College, +Dublin, without compelling them to attend chapel or divinity lectures, +and the election of Roman Catholics as justices of the peace, are some +of the means of realizing such a scheme. Berkeley's belief in the +healing powers of tar-water is better known, and his efforts to get it +recognised as a panacea scarcely require mention. They occupied no small +part of his last years in Cloyne. + +During these last years we hear occasionally of an 'Oxford Scheme,' and +there are traces in Berkeley's correspondence of efforts made to give up +his bishopric for the sake of some minor preferment not requiring +residence. The education of his sons and his own imaginative desire for +a 'life academico-philosophical' seem to have been the motives. In +August, 1752, he left Cloyne, and was not destined to see it again. The +journey was more than his weakened body could bear. 'He was so much +reduced by suffering that he had to be carried from his landing on the +English shore, in a horse litter to Oxford.' He did not linger long in +the beautiful University city in the enjoyment of a life to which he had +so often looked forward, and during the months of his residence was +almost withdrawn from society by disease and suffering. He was not +altogether idle, however. + + 'In October, 1752, "A Miscellany containing several Tracts + on various Subjects, by the Bishop of Cloyne," was + published simultaneously in London and Dublin. With one + exception, the Miscellany was a reprint of works previously + published. But the old ardour was not extinguished. It + contains also, "Further Thoughts on Tar-water," written + probably during his last months at Cloyne; and prefixed to + the Miscellany is a copy of Latin verses addressed to him + by an English prelate on that absorbing enthusiasm of his + old age. + + 'A third edition of "Alciphron," of which I have given a + minute account elsewhere, was also published at this time. + It is chiefly remarkable for its omission of those sections + in the Seventh Dialogue which contain a defence of what has + been called his Nominalism.' + +The end was drawing near, and came almost unexpectedly. Professor Fraser +tells us that + + 'The autumn and winter of 1752 wore passing away, as we may + fancy, in that enjoyment of academic repose which was + possible in weakness of body more or less disturbed by + acute suffering. We are here left to fancy. One actual + scene has alone been preserved. On the evening of Sunday, + the 14th of January, 1753, Berkeley was resting on a couch, + in his house in Holywell-street, surrounded by his family. + His wife had been reading aloud to the little family party + the lesson in the Burial Service, taken from the fifteenth + chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, and he had + been making remarks upon that sublime passage. His daughter + soon after went to offer him some tea. She found him, as it + seemed, asleep, but his body was already cold; for it was + the last sleep--the mystery of death; and the world of the + senses had suddenly ceased to be a medium of intercourse + between his spirit and those who remained. "Although all + possible means," we are told, "were used, not the least + symptom of life ever afterwards appeared."' + +And so one of the greatest and of the purest thinkers that England has +ever seen passed away to his rest. + +The philosophy of Berkeley is not so much a theory of matter as a +philosophy of causality; and the great service which Professor Fraser +has done to the history of philosophy is that he has so far made it +clear that the one important contribution which Berkeley has brought to +the stock of knowledge, the one doctrine of his which has been most +fruitful, and most pregnant with results to after-philosophy, is his +explanation of the word cause, and the place which he assigns to +causality. Berkeley's polemic against abstract ideas, his theories of +vision, and his discussions about the nature of ideas, are all +subsidiary to this one great doctrine of the meaning and place of +causality. It does occur to us that Professor Fraser, while keeping this +clearly before him in his admirable elucidations, by prefaces and notes, +has somewhat obscured it by dwelling at such length on the points of +similarity between Berkeley and Reid and Hamilton. These Scottish +philosophers struggled after a theory of matter from the beginning to +the end; the reality of the external world, as if anybody ever +questioned it, was their alpha and omega. They could think and write of +scarcely anything else. But Berkeley's philosophy was a great deal +deeper and wider. It was free from what we may perhaps call the +provincialism of the Scottish school, which clung with tenacity to what +was after all a very small strip in the wide dominion of philosophy, and +could never free itself from the narrowness which such exclusiveness was +sure to beget. His philosophical writings, containing new and striking +thoughts, some of them only now bearing fruit, upon the great +metaphysical problems of universals, substance, causality, and the +organism of the universe, cannot without danger of misconception be +compared at length with a system which thinks itself competent to +classify all metaphysical systems according as they contain some one or +other theory of perception. We repeat, then, Berkeley's philosophy is by +no means merely a theory of matter or a doctrine of sense-perception--it +is a philosophy of causality--of substance and causality if you will, +but of substance as subordinate to causality. + +We are quite aware that these views regarding Berkeley's philosophy have +not met with general acceptance. The great proportion of Berkeley's +critics, roughly speaking, may be set in two classes: those who believe +that his theory is utter scepticism, which the first breath of common +sense dissipates, and those who believe the Bishop's opinions to be +harmless, because quite unimportant. Dr. Johnson kicks a stone, and +Berkeley's theory is disproved. Dr. Reid runs his head against a +lamp-post, and with the same important philosophical result. + + 'Coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin.' + +And Hood depicts the terror of the alderman at a system which would + + 'For mock-turtle make me sup sensations.' + +The grave criticisms and arguments of many of Berkeley's opponents rest +on the same basis. On the other hand, Hegel looks down loftily upon the +whole affair, and pronounces the philosophy and its criticism a mere +play upon words. Berkeley says _without_ is _within_. Be it so. He has +done nothing to settle the problem of philosophy, which remains as +before. It may help to bring out more clearly what we believe to be a +juster estimate of the nature and value of the speculations of Bishop +Berkeley, if we shortly summarize these two different modes of +criticizing his system as they appear in their latest form. + +Thus it is said, on the one hand, when we look at any object we feel +compelled to assert that we see it to be of a certain colour; but this +assertion, we afterwards find, must be compatible with two facts--that +the same object has different colours as seen by the same person from +different points of view, and also as seen by different persons at the +same time. Yet we stand by our conviction, that we do see the same +thing, because it is our conviction that we do see it. If we were not to +stand by it under these circumstances, we could never stand by such +natural convictions at any time. The whole evidence for the system is +that visible objects look of different sizes and colours at different +distances, and in different lights; while the arguments against the +theory are the primary convictions of men.[221] + +On the other hand, a recent German critic says that the reason why +Berkeley's theory has been so little approved of, not only by the great +public of those who are capable of reflection, but also by those who are +philosophers by profession, is that it is not at all in advance of +common opinion; for Berkeley was not the first to declare that the apple +which is seen and felt, is only seen and felt, or is phenomenal. This +assertion is as old as philosophy. Most philosophers, however, in +opposition to Berkeley, have thought, and still think, that the +fundamental cause of the phenomena which brings it about is not merely +phenomenal, but something quite different. This hypothesis is not +without its difficulties. We cannot explain how a motion in the nerves +becomes a sensation which we are conscious of. But Berkeley's theory +does not better the position. He cannot show how it happens that the +divine objective 'ideas' become one human subjective perception or +intuition; he does not tell us how God enables us to share or represent +His thoughts, since He neither speaks to us nor writes to us. Berkeley +cannot, from his point of view, show with any certainty where the truth +lies in the different opinions of men upon the orderly coherence of the +phenomenal world, the relation of phenomenal things to each other, upon +the ground and purpose of human existence, &c. In short, he is as little +able to found a scientific knowledge and a theory of knowledge upon his +hypothesis as the common opinion of man can on its presupposition. His +whole system is only a change of position without result. It explains +nothing, helps us in nothing--it is no philosophy.[222] + +We have chosen these two representations, not because they are the best, +but simply because they are the latest. + +All such criticisms proceed upon the supposition that the whole of the +philosophy of Berkeley is summed up in the 'Principles of Human +Knowledge,' and do not even take the trouble to investigate the history +of the opinions advanced in that unfinished and imperfect treatise. They +do not know the philosophical importance of the Theory of Vision, the +correspondence between Johnson and Berkeley, nor the Platonism or +Neo-Platonism of 'Siris.' The publication of a complete edition of +Berkeley's writings ought itself to render such criticism impossible, +and the elucidations supplied by Professor Fraser should make them less +excusable. A philosophical critic can scarcely now proceed on the +presupposition that the 'Principles of Human Knowledge' and the +Dialogues are the full and finished results of Berkeley's speculations, +and take it upon him to neglect all else in his critique.[223] He must +now recognise that it is not so easy to sum up Berkeley's principles; +that we are in the same position for judging him as we would be with +regard to Leibnitz if the 'Monadologie' and the 'Nouveaux Essais' had +never been written; that we have a series of treatises, each more +unfinished than the other, from which the latent developing thoughts +have to be gathered as much by reference to history and life as by +actual reference to their pages. He must recognise that there is a +discernible unity in his life and speculations--a unity which may be +traced throughout all Berkeley's writings, and which reconciles the +Theory of Vision with 'Siris,' the Preface to the 'Principles,' &c., +with the cancelling of the pages on Nominalism in the last edition of +the 'Alciphron.' + +Berkeley's whole philosophy is a combination of two currents of +speculation--that of Locke on the one hand, and that of the English +mystics on the other. In his earlier writings the influence of Locke is +predominant, but gradually loses power until at last it almost succumbs +to the influence of the Platonists; but, from first to last, we have the +attempt to combine what is real and deep and true in the old spiritual +philosophy with the clearness, consistency, and relation to physical +science which Nominalism and the Baconian method can bring. + +Berkeley seeks, in metaphysics, direct spiritual intuition; in physics, +to abolish what would prevent this intuition. The mystics from whom +Berkeley had learned so much had built their system of philosophy upon +such an intuition, and made it their one thing needful. But their +spiritual intuition was an intuition which was said to be enjoyed in +meditations and trances, not in life and work. The world of things seen +and handled did not bring them into direct communion with spirit; it was +rather a veil to cloud the vision, a clog to hinder the endeavour of the +human spirit ever trying to get beyond it. The senses and +sense-knowledge were despised, and only behind the veil which it hung +athwart the soul was there that universe of things unseen and eternal +which More and Norris delighted to expatiate upon; or, if the senses did +in any dim and uncertain way reveal the invisible spiritual realities +longed for, it was because the soul, rising above them, put a divine +meaning into them, and revelled in the 'lusciousness of this inward +sense.' Such a hazy, unreal way of conceiving the spirit-life which he +believed to be the true reality, was distasteful to Berkeley. He wished +to keep to the spiritual intuition, which was the one good thing in +these mystical doctrines, but he wished to bring it out of dreamland, +and make it serviceable for every-day work and endeavour. Both More and +Norris dreamt of an Atlantis, and celebrated its praises in prose and +verse; Berkeley set sail for America to create the Utopia he had +visioned. More and Norris could only realise the spiritual intuition on +which they based their philosophy in an ecstatic contemplation, when +the soul is borne on the wings of meditation far beyond this world of +sensible things; Berkeley employs his spiritual intuition to account for +puzzles in vision, errors in mathematics, and the virtues of tar-water. +He wishes to mould and fashion, to give clearness and distinctness of +outline to the spiritual beliefs and intuitions of the mystics by +applying to them the _method_ of Locke and Bacon. He wishes to conserve +and give value to the fundamental truths which lie unshaped in the +scholastic Realism, by applying to them the clearness and methods of +Nominalism. This is, we believe, the key to Berkeley's life and +philosophy. + +Let us try to show its application. + +The English mystics were the reaction against a phase of the new +philosophy which had been so developed by Hobbes as to create a strong +counter opinion. This phase was the doctrine of an inert matter which is +so prominent in the writings of Descartes and Geulinx--matter, whose +distinguishing characteristic was extension, which was entirely void of +all power to act or to influence, and which was set up in opposition to +spirit, whose distinguishing characteristic or property was +consciousness. This theory of matter was so void of all real meaning +that the existence and properties of material substance became gradually +of less importance in a system of philosophy, and at length, as in +Malebranche and Norris, ceased to have any influence on their +speculations. It was outside their system, and of little or no account +in its explanation. Yet the very semblance of its presence prevented a +thorough-going attempt to explain the real meaning of reality, power, +and causality, and recourse is had to meditation and ecstasy instead of +to philosophical explanation and analysis. Locke's philosophy, on the +other hand, with its calm, experimental analysis of the facts of +knowledge, and its concentration of effort upon the senses and the +knowledge they supplied, had brought the mind of man back to facts, and +pointed to another path than that of vision or ecstasy, by which one +might ascend to the understanding of what is meant by the world of +things known and knowable. But if Locke is always judicious, he is never +deep. He solved the theory of substance more by ignoring than by +explaining it; and his Atomism, if one may call it so--his assertion +that all knowledge is of particulars, and particulars only--not only +turned him aside from any complete statement of causality, but forced +him into theories of abstract ideas or conceptions that seem +inconsistent with his own principles. When Locke had to account for the +fact that this, that, and the other, sensation of colour were felt to be +the same, he explains away this seeming contradiction to his favourite +doctrine that all knowledge is of particulars, by saying that there is +an abstract idea of whiteness framed from the particular ideas or +sensations. But the necessities of language, thought, and science +require that this abstract idea of whiteness must be as often, if not +oftener, before the mind than any one of the particular ideas out of +which it has been constructed, and thus the abstract idea is much more +important than the particular sensation. When Locke is called on to give +an account of our knowledge and its origin, his Atomism is always +brought forward; when he wishes to speak of truth, certainty, &c., he +cannot help paying more attention to abstract ideas. He thus figures two +worlds just as the mystics had done, the sensible and intelligible, and +while elevating the worth of the former, is inclined to make certainty, +demonstration, &c., belong to the latter. + +Locke's theory of abstract ideas was an hypothesis to account for and +explain a really objective knowledge--that is, a knowledge which is true +for others as well as for the individual. Objectivity, in this simple +sense of the word, was a great difficulty in Locke's system. He had +reduced all our ideas to ideas of sense and of reflection. He had +insisted on the purely subjective origin of whatever is known. And at +the same time he had insisted that what was known in this way were +particular things and particulars only. He seems both in his account of +the origin of knowledge, and in his description of the things known, to +exclude the possibility of a knowledge common to several individuals at +once. Each man seems rather to be shut within the sphere of his own +ideas of sense and reflection about certain particular objects. But a +subjective theory of knowledge and things known cannot be maintained. It +would render all social intercourse impossible. There could be neither +language, propositions, nor even common nouns. And the theory of +abstract ideas is the way out of the difficulty. Now Berkeley, with his +strong spiritual intuition, regarded Locke's system of abstract ideas +very much as Aristotle, with his strong faith in progressive motion +towards a final end ([Greek: telos]), looked at Plato's ideal theory. It +was only reproduction, a shadowy reflection, a cold crystallization of +the world of sense ideas, and really did nothing to explain the life, +motion, and order of the sense-world, nor furnished us with a basis for +our real common or objective knowledge. We do not think that Berkeley +altogether appreciated Locke, nor fully recognised the use which he, as +well as Hobbes, had made of the doctrine of association of ideas, to +explain community of knowledge and objective certainty. For in Hobbes +and Locke we see the beginnings of that modern psychological theory +which, under the names of association of ideas and relativity of +knowledge, explain the existence, permanence, and objectivity of things +and classes of things by a manifold flow of phenomena. Ideas or +sensations, by rubbing themselves against consciousness, in various ways +coalesce into things, and things into those possibilities of +reproduction, intercourse, and communion which are represented by common +nouns. But Berkeley had been taught by the mystics to associate motion, +cause, and sensation with spirit or mind, and he could not see that +Locke's doctrine of association, so void of conscious life or personal +activity, might at least prove so nearly allied to his own doctrine of +causality that it might be called its external wrapping. And even if +Berkeley had seen this, we may excuse him from acknowledging what he +owed to Locke in this matter, and forcing into prominence, in opposition +to Locke's teaching, his intuition of direct spiritual agency, when we +find how the association theory has not freed us from the abstractions +which Berkeley dreaded, but still gives us such shadowy conceptions as +the 'unconditioned' of Hamilton, or the 'unknown cause' of Mill. +Berkeley admired Locke, and studied him carefully. His great aim was to +keep Locke's results, to retain Locke's philosophy, but to give it new +life. His philosophy was to be Lockianism stript of its notionalism, and +inspired in all its parts by that direct spiritual intuition which was +never absent from his mind. It was to be Locke's philosophy, with these +differences: the starting-point of the system was to be the human +self--the conscious _ego_--the type of all subsistence: and an +association theory producing a second world of abstract ideas was to be +supplanted by the continuous active causality of personal spirits; or, +more shortly, it was to be Locke's philosophy, with living personal +causality put instead of abstract ideas.[224] + +If we take this as the fundamental thought in Berkeley's speculation we +find three stages of development in his philosophy. In his 'Common-place +Book,' and in the 'Principles,' he fancies, in his youthful fervour, +that he has only to strip Locke's philosophy of its notionalism and the +true system of metaphysics will appear. Hence his speculation in this +first period is mainly negative. It is a war against abstractions, and +his positive theories are more hinted at than explained. The second +period is revealed in his philosophical letters to Dr. Samuel Johnson. +He begins to find that there is more to be done in philosophy than to +extirpate abstract ideas, and inquires into the archetypes of things. +The third period is given us in 'Siris.' His philosophy has got deeper +and perhaps less dogmatic. He was won to the grand thought of an organic +universe of things, in which their whole is made for all the parts, and +every part for the whole, and for the other parts; so that the virtues +of tar-water are intimately connected by a multiform concatenation +with the constant presence and continual agency of the God in whom we +live and move and have our being. The first period in Berkeley's +speculation is, as we have said, mainly negative. It is a polemic +against abstract ideas in their various forms. The attack is earnest, +eager, but also impatient and inadequate. We have only hints at +construction. It seems as if he thought he had only to deny false modes +of explanation in order to state the right one, and his discussion +throughout bears the stamp of eagerness and impetuosity. It represents +the man who could say of those who doubted the success of his American +enterprise, 'that small-minded persons had a talent for objections.' +This period is represented in the 'New Theory of Vision,' 'The +Principles of Human Knowledge,' and 'The Dialogues between Hylas and +Philonous.' Its negative character may be due to accident. These three +works are confessedly an imperfect sketch of Berkeley's principles. The +'Theory of Vision' is a mere tentative introduction; the 'Principles,' +as we have them, are only the first part of a work which, if we are to +trust 'The Common-place Book,' was meant to include three parts, and was +published as Part I. The 'Dialogues' are only the 'reproduction of the +first part of the 'Principles of Human Knowledge.' They are all of them +imperfect expositions of Berkeley's speculative opinion. Taking them as +they are, however, let us endeavour to discover the fundamental thoughts +in each. + +It has been for some time acknowledged that the essay towards A New +Theory of Vision is not to be summed up in the dictum that distance is +invisible. The invisibility of distance is the psychological basis of +the theory.[225] The work is rather the first blow in the attack upon +Locke's 'Doctrine of Abstract Ideas':-- + + 'The treatise is, in short, a professed account count of + the facts, the whole facts, and nothing but the facts, of + which we are visually conscious, as distinguished from + pretended facts and metaphysical abstractions, which + confused thought, an irregular exercise of imagination, or + an abuse of words had substituted for them.' + +The question which Berkeley really asks is--How do we universalize our +ideas of sight? The proper objects of sight are light and colours. How, +then, do we see distance, figure, size, situation, magnitude and +solidity? How can the sensation of green colour peculiar to my mind +stand for, not the mere sense-blur of vague green colour, but an oval +leaf fluttering in the wind some twenty feet above me, attached to the +twig of a beech tree! and, moreover, how can this sensation which +belongs to me so far belong to others that the same knowledge conveyed +to me is also given to them? How can the vague subjective sensation be +universalized so that it stands for several things not felt, and more +especially for sensations of touch? What is the link between these +various qualities? What is the bridge by which the mind passes over from +the one to the other? This link is _not_, says Berkeley, an _abstract +idea_ of extension, in which the visible and tangible sensations unite, +for there is no such idea. The sensations of sight and of touch are on +their side quite heterogeneous:-- + + 'The extension, figures, and motions perceived by sight are + specifically distinct from the ideas of touch, called by + the same names; nor is there any such thing as one idea, or + kind of idea, common to both senses.' + +Light and colour are the immediate objects of sight, and they constitute +a species entirely distinct from the ideas of touch. No one would think +of adding a visible foot to a tangible foot; and the experience of +persons born blind and recovering their sight points to a certain +confusedness in apprehending the connection between the two sets of +ideas which would not occur if they belonged to one and the same +abstract idea of extension. If we would explain the fact that ideas may +so be universalized that they stand for ideas of touch, we must rather +bring them under the living power of mind which, grasping the two +together, makes the one the sign of the other. When we have the +sensation of the colour greenness, we see a green leaf of a small oval +shape, not because the colour is necessarily connected with the size and +shape, nor because all three inhere as qualities in an abstract idea of +extension, but because:-- + + 'Light and colours, with their several shades and degrees, + all which being infinitely diversified and combined, deform + a language wonderfully adapted to suggest and exhibit to us + the distances, figures, situations, dimensions, and various + qualities of tangible objects--not by similitude, nor yet + by inference of necessary connection, but by the arbitrary + imposition of Providence, just as words suggest the things + signified by them.' + +There is no abstract idea which corresponds now to the sensations of +sight, now to the sensations of touch; the connecting link is supplied +by the unifying action of the human mind, which seizes upon the one idea +and makes it the sign of the others, and this one idea is fitted to be +the sign of the others not by any similarity or peculiar fitness on its +side, but because of its position in the flow of phenomena given to it +and preserved for it by the living spiritual causality which creates and +arranges everything. The ideas of sense are universalized, scientific +and objective knowledge is possible, we can go from ideas of sight to +those of touch, and back again from those of touch to those of sight, +because of a double spiritual influence--the active living influence of +mind outside, permeating, creating, and associating all things, and the +partly passive, partly active ingathering influence of the individual +human mind within, interpreting, arranging, according to the +associations imposed upon them and lying undeveloped in them, the vague +_blurs_ of sensation. Berkeley's thought is almost the same as +Schleiermacher's, that all scientific knowledge is the joint product of +an internal and an external factor--organic function and the external +world,--which factors are universally related to each other; only, +according to Berkeley's spiritual intuition, everywhere present; the +living centre of organic function is the partly passive, partly active +influence of the human self, while the living centre of the external +factor is the supreme mind without us continuously creating and +arranging. + +The Principles of Human Knowledge follow up the attack on abstract ideas +made in the New Theory of Vision. The introduction, with its attack on +Conceptualism,[226] prepares the way for a more sweeping assault on +abstractions. Now Berkeley almost invariably attacks a general question +by making an assault on one special form which it takes. His method is +borrowed from Locke, who shows that all our ideas may be reduced to +ideas of sensation and reflection by selecting one or two most unlikely +to conform to such a reduction, and proving by analysis that they do. +Berkeley begins to attack the Lockian doctrine of abstract ideas by +showing that there is no abstract extension common to sight and touch; +he proves the providence of God by explaining the beauty and value of +the language of vision; and he exhibits the organism of the universe by +tracing the connection between the virtues of tar-water and the hidden +mysteries of things. He always seeks a concrete instance of the abstract +fact, and assails a particular case of the general principle he wishes +to attack. This method is carried out in the 'Principles.' He does not +assail the doctrine of abstract ideas in general, nor endeavour to strip +Lockianism of all its notionalism. He fastens on one particular abstract +idea, which because of its importance and prevailing influence may be +considered as the champion of the rest, and puts to flight the armies of +the Philistines by slaying their Goliath. + +The sum and head of all abstract ideas is the idea of matter, as this +was used in the new philosophy of the seventeenth century. For what is +an abstract idea? It is a connecting link between sensations--something +to which they may be referred, in which they are supposed to inhere, and +which is thought to account for their permanence of objective reality. +For example, 'white' is a single quality or a single sensation felt by +me now and here when I look at a sheet of paper. But 'whiteness' is the +abstract idea to which all these single sensations may be referred, and +in which they may inhere and so have a permanence and objective reality, +so that this sheet of paper, because it has 'whiteness,' is always and +by every one seen to be 'white.' The abstract ideas of extension, of +situation, and of number, are examples which are supposed to be of more +importance, and to include a vastly larger number of individuals. Now +the one idea to which every sense-particular, without exception, may be +referred is the idea of matter or material substance. It gives them +permanence, reality, and objectivity. It is the germ, the centre, the +vital spot of the whole system of abstractions. Destroy it, and the +system perishes. Show that it is an illusion, a mere word,--that it can +give no reality, no permanence,--that it cannot afford a basis for +scientific knowledge nor community of belief, and the whole doctrine +which seeks to build science and reality on such a foundation +disappears, and on the ground thus cleared a more substantial, real, and +living structure of belief and opinion may be erected. This seems to be +the guiding thought in the 'Principles of Human Knowledge' and in the +'Dialogues.' It is mainly negative,--a denial of matter, and therefore +of all abstractions. But amidst the negative or destructive reasonings +there are traces, as there must be, of positive construction. The _one_ +positive principle which is always present is that spiritual intuition +which we have already spoken of,--the all-pervading belief inherited +from the mystics, and particularly from Malebranche and Norris, that +mind or spirit is the one reality and the one fount of active agency. +But this intuition, always present, is never adequately expressed nor +applied. Berkeley either meant to reserve its discussion for another +'Part,' or his natural impatience made him overlook the necessity of +explaining the steps in his analysis of all _reality_ into personal +spirit, and all _causality_ into the conscious activity of such personal +spirits. He is always confused, hesitating, and sometimes conflicting in +his statements about the way in which 'mind' becomes the only real +existence, and the 'activity of mind' the only real agency; and it is in +the skill with which he has pierced together the scattered hints into +one really complete and so far adequate explanation of the universe of +things that Professor Fraser's unwearied patient study and just +appreciation of his author is seen to most advantage. + +Our experience as given us in the senses is made up 'of sensations, +ideas, or phenomena,--facts of which there is a perception or +consciousness.' These sensations, and nothing else, make the material of +the sensible universe which we see and know and live in,--they are the +material out of which the shifting scenes in this wonderful panorama of +sense-life are formed,--they are the exciting causes of all the various +forms of our mental life, of our joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, +hopes and despairings. When we are conscious of the outward world, it is +of a world of sensations which is _immediately_ present to our minds and +in our minds; for the essence of an idea or sensation is that it is +perceived,--its _esse_ is _percipi_. But this is not the whole of +Berkeley's theory of matter, as many critics would have us believe. +There is along with this 'immediate perception of extended sensible +reality' a 'mediate perception or a presumptive inference of the +existence of sensible things and their relations.' The knowledge we have +of the external world of the senses cannot be reduced to the sensations +of which we are actually conscious for the time being. There are, +besides the sensations immediately present, clustering groups of others +which we do not immediately perceive. Tangible things are signified by +visual sensations, and sounds recall colours and shapes. Every isolated +sensation is significant of more than itself, and _mere_ sensation is +impossible. And this significance of sensations, the reality of their +_relations_ to each other, recognised and insisted upon by Berkeley, +makes his scheme different from any system of merely subjective +idealism, and supplies a basis for objective or scientific knowledge. +'For,' as Professor Fraser says, 'faith in an established or external +association between our sense-phenomena is the basis of the constructive +activity of intellect in all inductive interpretation of sensible +things.' It is this 'external,' or imposed association, which +_universalizes_ and gives objective existence to sensations and the +sense-world, and so far Berkeley's explanation does not differ very much +from that of Mr. Mill or Professor Bain. + +But then, what is Berkeley's 'association'? It is, as Professor Fraser +well puts it, 'his religious faith in the constancy of the Divine +constitution of the Cosmos.' The associative relations of things which +give permanence and objective reality and intelligibility to the world +of sense-phenomena are not to be explained by any hap-hazard +one-coming-after-another, as modern psychologists do. They are due to +the active agency of the Supreme Mind which links sensations together in +ways of His own, so that there exists, not a chaos of varying, changing +phenomena, but an orderly intelligible system of sense things, +co-existing and successive, significant of each other, and all together +making the interpretable language of Him whose designs they embody, and +by whose constant activity they are all maintained. 'And thus,' as +Professor Fraser has beautifully expressed it:-- + + 'The only conceivable and practical, and for us the only + possible, substantiality in the material world + is--permanence of co-existence or aggregation among + sensations; and the only conceivable and practical, and for + us the only possible, causality among phenomena + is--permanence or invariableness among their successions. + + These two are almost (but not quite) one. The actual or + conscious co-existence of all the sensations which + constitute a particular tree, or a particular mountain, + cannot be simultaneously realized. A few co-existing visible + signs, for instance, lead us to expect that the many other + sensations of which the tree is the virtual co-constituent + would gradually be perceived by us, if the conditions for + our having actual sensations of all the other qualities were + fulfilled. The substantiality and causality of matter thus + resolve into a Universal Sense-symbolism, the interpretation + of which is the office of physical science. The material + world is a system of interpretable signs, dependent for its + actual existence in sense upon the sentient mind of the + interpreter; but significant of guaranteed pains and + pleasures, and the guaranteed means of avoiding and + attaining pains and pleasures: significant too of other + minds, and their thoughts, feelings, and volitions; and + significant above all of Supreme Mind, through whose + Activity the signs are sustained, and whose Archetypal Ideas + are the source of those universal or invariable relations of + theirs which make them both practically and scientifically + significant or objective. The permanence and efficiency + attributed to Matter is in God--in the constitutive + Universals of Supreme Mind: sensations or sense-given + phenomena themselves, and sensible things, so far as they + consist of sensations, can be neither permanent nor + efficient; they are in constant flux. This indeed is from + the beginning the tone of Berkeley himself--much deepened in + "Siris."' + +In Berkeley's earlier philosophy, and even in his later, this grand +conception of an orderly universe permeated and ever upheld by mind, is +by no means fully or consistently worked out, as Professor Fraser +himself acknowledges. The starting-point itself is somewhat confused. +Berkeley starts with sensations. But the universe is not a universe of +sensations, but of sensible things, and although the formula _esse est +percipi_ will at once explain the meaning of a sensation, it will not, +without some argument and explanation, account for the meaning of a +sensible thing. Berkeley did not sufficiently recognise the difference, +and he leaped to a conclusion which, however right, should have been +reasoned out. A whole is not the aggregate number of its parts, it is +the sum of the parts _plus_ their being placed together. There is a +difference between a house and a heap of stones. Now Berkeley did not +seem to see this, at least in his earlier philosophy. Tangible distance +was to him a series of _minima tangibilia_, a series of tactual points; +visible distance a series of _visible points_, and that only. Whereas, +distance is really the sensible points _plus_ their arrangement. The +sensible thing is really the complex of sensations _plus_ their +unification. We are not disposed to believe with Professor Ueberweg[227] +that this oversight amounted to a begging of the whole question, we hold +with Professor Fraser that there is only a little confusion in +apprehending the problem aright, and a rashness in leaping to a +conclusion which should rather have been elaborated and proved. Berkeley +thought, as Professor Fraser says, that 'the consciousness of my own +permanence, amid the changes in my senses, is the only archetype, in my +experience, of proper substance or permanence; and apart from this +experience, permanence or substance is an unintelligible word.' His +thought was not substantially distinct from Dr. Ueberweg's own,--who +says[228] 'that individual intuitions gradually arise out of the +original _blur_ of perception, when man first begins to recognise +himself an individual essence in opposition to the external world,' and +who elsewhere[229] makes the notion of self the type of the essence of +things. That unique thing called 'self' or 'I' is the only real +permanent unity known, and is therefore the type of all permanence and +unity elsewhere. The _esse_ or the essence which gives shape and +endurance to fleeting formless sensations is mind--my mind or the +Supreme Mind. It is the _percipi_, _being perceived_, or coming under +the formative influence of mind, which gives to a series of sensations +that unity which we can call 'distance,' that shape and unity to the +cluster of sensations which we call 'leaf' that orderly series +arrangement and permanence which we call the system of things. The +action of mind upon sensations, forming and arranging them, is not +discussed by Berkeley. He contents himself with his vague spiritual +intuition, and leaves his readers to work out his meaning. It does seem +clear to us, however, both from his references to the archetypes of +ideas in the 'Principles of Human Knowledge,' and more especially from +his interesting discussions on the native archetypes of ideas in his +letters to Johnson, that he did not altogether overlook the distinction +between mere complexes of sensations and sensible things; but that he +was sensible of this distinction, and wished to explain that the complex +of sensations was transformed into an orderly stable sensible thing by +the unifying formative mind putting as it were its stamp upon it.[230] + +It was undoubtedly a hindrance to the completeness of Berkeley's +thoughts that he had no clear and distinct scheme of ethical relations +before his mind when he was investigating the relations between mind +and phenomena. It is true that, as Professor Fraser says, 'the moral +presumption of our individual free and proper agency is obscurely +involved in Berkeley's philosophy of sense from the first.' But the +ethical relations of the individual human spirit were nowhere clearly +seen, and were not made its leading and peculiar characteristic. It was +reserved for Kant to place the moral relations of these individuals and +their significance in the world of things in due prominence, and it has +been easier for men such as Schleiermacher and Herman Lotze, who have +come after Kant, and who have maintained a doctrine of the spiritual +relations which exist in and give order, cohesion, and permanence to the +universe, not unlike Berkeley's, to develop the doctrine of these +relations so far as the human spirit goes, and give more thoroughness +and completeness to the scheme. We may conceive Berkeley carefully +working out the double relation of human to divine spirit, and finding +in the sensible universe the veil which hangs between, not merely the +orderly and pregnant language of the Creator Spirit to be interpreted +and made intelligible by the creature spirit, but also the shadowy +reflection of the working of the Creator towards the creature, and of +the striving of the creature towards the Creator. Each thing, class, +order, genus, and race, with all its relations to all the other parts of +the vast order of things, filling the place in the organism in which the +Creator placed it, acting, influencing, and ruling, according to its +function and place in the arrangement of the whole; just as the +individual, or class, or nation fulfils, or ought to fulfil, the ethical +duties which its hands find to do, so that the universe, in all its +spheres of animate and inanimate life, of organic and inorganic bodies, +becomes in its mutual action and reaction, as Schleiermacher says, a +'fainter ethic.' + +Berkeley approaches this in his greatest metaphysical work, the 'Siris.' +It is here that the thought of organism or development in things and in +the universe, which comes in occasionally in his earlier writings, is +more fully expressed and even elaborated. The very name suggests it, the +book is a _chain_ of philosophical reflections and inquiries. Faithful +to the method of his younger days, Berkeley takes a concrete instance of +the concatenation of nature. He discourses on the virtues of tar-water, +and thoughts on these lead up to the highest mysteries of the universe. +But when we divest the thoughts of this particular form, we have such a +system of the universe as Bacon working with Plotinus might have +conceived. The centre source and light of all is the One Supreme +Spirit--the personal omnipresent God in whom we and all things live and +more and have our being. The universe is his reflection, it represents +his thoughts, it is the revelation of his mind and will, it is his +language. But the old puzzling word 'arbitrary' has disappeared, and +this language of nature is seen to depend upon great laws and to be +capable of interpretation because so dependent. The esse of sensation +and of the sense-world generally, is still _percipi_, but the ambiguity +lying in the word is carefully distinguished. On the one hand all things +are dependent on the creative and upholding influence of the Supreme +Spirit. He it is that, making all things after their _kinds_, sends +forth and sustains the archetypes of things. On the other hand, the +fleeting sense-world is framed and shaped by the individual mind into +the universe of things, in accordance with the divine ideas or +archetypes which lie hidden in it. There is a double meaning in the +phrase, _esse_ is _percipi_. It means both that these ideas are +dependent for the possibility of existence on the divine thoughts, or +archetypes whose sensible shadows they are, and also that all sensible +things are dependent for their particular formation and position on the +formative powers of the human mind, which works in each man by general +laws of human intelligence, in accordance with and for the discovery of +the divine ideas lying immanent in things. And thus human knowledge is a +reproduction, or discovery and representation of the thoughts which the +divine creative thinking has built into things;[231] human science is a +presaging or reading of the letters and words of nature which manifest +its order and harmony, in the faith and expectancy that this same order +and harmony now prevailing, because it depends on the divine ideas of +the Creator, is fixed and enduring;[232] and the 'proper name of this +world is Spirit--free immortal Spirit--Spirit in communication with +Spirit--Spirit in dependence on and in reconciliation, through Christ, +with the one absolute Spirit--God.'[233] + + + + +ART. IX.--_The Future of Europe._ + +(1) _Der Deutschen Volkszahl und Sprachgebiet in den Europaischen +staaten eine statistische untersuchung von Richard Böekh._ Berlin: J. +Guttenay. 1871. + +(2.) _France, Alsace and Lorraine._ London: Trübner & Co. 1870. + +(3.) _The French Case Truly Stated._ By AUGUSTUS GRANVILLE STAPLETON. +London: E. Stanford. 1871. + +(4.) _La France et la Prusse, pendant l'invasion de 1870._ Par ERARD DE +CHOISEUL GOUFFIER. 2me Edition. Luxembourg: Pierre Bruck. 1870. + +(5.) _La France devant l'Europe._ By JULES MICHELET. 2me Edition. +Ferrier: Hachette and Cie. 1871. + +(6.) _Elsass und Lothringen nachweise wie diese provenzen dem deutschen +Reiche verloren gingen._ VON ADOLF SCHMIDT. Dritte auf. Leipzic: Vert +and Co. 1870. + +(7.) _Prussian Aggrandizement and English Policy._ London: Ridgway. +1870. + +(8.) _Krieg und Friede._ VON D. F. STRAUSS. Leipzic: S. Herzel. 1870. + +(9.) _The Interests of Europe in the Conditions of Peace._ London: +Stanford. 1870. + +(10.) _Recueil des Documents sur les Exactions, vols et cruautés des +armées Prussiennes en France._ Bordeaux: Feret et fils. 1871. + +(11.) _La République neutre d'Alsace._ Par le COMTE A. DE GASPARIN. +Genève et Bäle. 1871. + +(12.) _Who is responsible for the War?_ By SCRUTATOR. London: +Rivingtons. 1871. + +(13.) _Europe of the near Future._ By EMERITUS PROFESSOR FRANCIS W. +NEWMAN. Trübner and Co. 1871. + +(14.) _Diary of the French Campaign of 1870; with the Decrees, +Telegrams, and Proclamations of his Majesty the King of Prussia._ +London: Trübner and Co. 1871. + + +There are two antagonistic theories which profess to summarise history. +Vico attempted, in the last century, to prove that the course of human +events had, like the planets, an orbit of their own, into which they +returned after a certain number of years. In fact, according to this +philosopher, the tendency of history was to repeat itself, much like a +compound circulating decimal. But the rapid development of physical +science has, of late years, thrown this theory very much into the shade, +by confronting it with the more glittering notion of human +perfectibility. Mankind, instead of gyrating in an ellipse, move along a +line of infinite progression. Scientific men fondly imagined that the +march of intellect was destined to impel society, through stages of +uninterrupted progress, to a fanciful millennium. Knowledge was to be +the spiritual means of redeeming the nations. When mankind came to +understand their relations to the surrounding universe, Astrea would +again visit the earth, and the golden age return. There were not wanting +many minor postulates which seemed to support this splendid vision. All +the wars of Europeans found their root in dynastic interests, and would +vanish, when the wishes of the million became the main-spring of +politics. The knell of standing armies was rung by a citizen soldiery; +and with standing armies vanished all fear of territorial +aggrandisement. Economic inventions and the wide ramifications of +industrial interests were fast binding mankind in a network of harmony +and peace. Under war waged for the spell of these illusions, +philosophers and statesmen had looked back upon the past as the +wilderness of humanity, and, from the heights of Pisgah, sighted the +promised land. Even Gioberti, priest though he was, did not shrink from +avowing in his primato, that if the Jews looked forward to the Messiah +as yet to come, in the light of the golden age, he was as staunch in +that belief as the stoutest Israelite among them. The rationalist +divines have vied with the poets of our own age in announcing the +approach of the dawn of an era of universal peace and happiness. In the +midst of these delightful anticipations a speck appears upon a sunny +sky, no bigger than a man's hand. But it suddenly swells to gigantic +dimensions and sheds disastrous twilight over the fairest regions of the +earth. Without any rational pretext whatever, two of the most +enlightened nations of Europe rush with murderous weapons at each +other's throats. They close with deadly gripe; inflict upon each other +mortal blows, until one sinks through sheer exhaustion. The collapsed +state is then let blood. Heavy gyves are placed upon it, from which +there is little chance of escape for many years to come, and then only +by combination with some other power. Between two races who were, a +little time ago, beginning to forget their old animosity in acts of +amity and goodwill, the flames of hate are anew enkindled with a +vehemence destined to last through all time. Now these phenomena may, +doubtless, be explained by the usual philosophic method of assigning +very simple causes to very complicated effects. + +As to which power is humanly responsible for these multiplied disasters, +is discussed at large in the pamphlets before us.[234] The question is +not simply historical, but bears directly upon the reasonableness of +the terms of peace which have been imposed. If Prussia is as blameless +in the transactions which led to the outbreak, as Bismark would make +out, it is obvious he had some reason for his recent severity. But this, +we think, can in no way be sustained. We do not share the bias of the +authors who have written on this subject. It is our opinion, having +heard, with the impartiality of a _nisi prius_ judge, all that can be +said upon the subject, that both parties have been lamentably in the +wrong; that the diplomatic relations between France and Prussia for the +last six years have been conducted upon principles more worthy of +thieves than honest politicians; that each has been attempting to +overreach the other; that Napoleon began these subterranean intrigues +with a view to secure all the prizes of war without fighting for them, +and that Bismark so manipulated events as to cause the Emperor to fight +after all, and left him nothing but defeat for his pains. Each knew that +the mining operations in which both were engaged, had gone so far, that +they must explode somewhere, and each endeavoured to direct the train +from his own territory to that of his neighbour. It is beyond question +that Bismark, if he did not plan the Hohenzollern intrigue with his eyes +open to all the consequences, knew of its existence when his Government +denied all knowledge of it. It is also clear that Baron Von Theile, in a +conference with Benedetti, repudiated, on the part of his Government, +the very suggestion, after Bismark and the King had expressed their +approval of the candidature.[235] From the declarations of the French +ambassador on this occasion, Bismark must have known the irritating +effect the avowal of the scheme must produce on the French Government. +He also refused to advise the King simply to withdraw his consent from +Leopold's acceptance of the Spanish crown, when pressed to do so by the +British Government,[236] though that step would have probably induced +France to give up the quarrel. When the Prince withdrew his claims to +the Spanish throne at the instance of his father, Prussia sullenly +refused to renounce her sanction to those claims, and thus bore a very +conspicuous part in drawing upon Europe the consequences which +followed. Then, there is a great deal of mystery about the telegram from +Ems conveying the falsehood that the King, in a crowded watering-place, +turned upon his heel when accosted by, and refused to speak with, the +French ambassador. Now, it is expressly admitted by Bismark, that he +sent copies of that telegram to all the German representatives abroad; +and either himself or his subordinates must have caused its insertion in +the official Berlin gazette, by which the war excitement in both +countries was roused to fever height.[237] We all know it was that +telegram which impelled the French Government to launch their +declaration of war. It is also upon record that France, in the course of +February, made, through Lord Clarendon, two overtures to Berlin for +mutual disarmament, offering to reduce her various contingents to the +extent of 90,000 men, which was, in fact, one-eighth of her army; but +that Bismark, having churlishly refused to listen to the first proposal, +did so far entertain the second as to forward it to the King, who, under +the counsels of his astute chancellor, declined the proposition on the +ground that the military organization of Prussia was the vital principle +of her constitution, and that she was least of all inclined to modify +it, in front of an aggressive Russia, and with the probability of an +alliance between Austria and the South German States[238]--two pretexts, +the hollowness of which, recent events sufficiently demonstrate. Now, +though the conduct of France is utterly indefensible in provoking the +conflict after the Hohenzollern grievance had been substantively +withdrawn, we cannot acquit Prussia of irritating her adversary, and of +provoking, in a great degree, the blow she seemed anxious to repel. In +point of fact, both parties had their respective interests in the +struggle; both desired to fight; both, like two pugilists, had been in +training for the encounter during the last five years, and both were +determined that so opportune an occasion should not be lost for bringing +it on. + +The indulgence of military vanity, and the desire to dominate Europe, +are faults which may be ascribed to France in a larger degree than to +Prussia. But Germany, after having disarmed her antagonist, has indulged +these propensities with a mercenary spirit, and with the manifest +intention of wiping France out of the list of the great powers. The +frankness with which this is avowed is admirable in its simplicity. +France must be hindered from being dangerous in the future. She must, +therefore, be reduced to such a position as to render her alike both +impotent and defenceless. She must be degraded from her state in the +family of nations. She is, therefore, stripped of her armaments: her +artillery, her muskets, her swords, her ammunition, her military stores, +in fact, nearly all her implements and panoply of war, are carted off to +Berlin. That she may not be in an immediate position to supply their +place, she is loaded with a pecuniary indemnity which must exhaust the +energies of another generation. The frontiers of the country are thrown +back to the state in which they were in the middle of the sixteenth +century. The strong chain of fortresses which France has erected or +fortified during the last three hundred years, with two or three minor +exceptions, have been wrenched from her by her enemy. Strasburg, +Bitsche, Phalsburg, Thionville, and Metz, protecting that flank of +France which is most exposed to attack, are now only so many reservoirs, +ready, at a moment's notice, to open the rivers of invasion and deluge +the country. Metz, which is only some 160 miles from Paris, is a naked +rapier laid across the defenceless throat of France. With her greatest +buckler of defence in the hands of Prussia, anything like independent +action on the part of France is manifestly impossible. While Metz is in +the hands of Prussia, she must remain as politically weak as Piedmont, +with Austria in the Quadrilateral. With a bankrupt exchequer, with a +pillaged population, with a disorganized government, with a defenceless +frontier, with a mutilated territory, with civil feud in her capitals, +with all her strongholds in the hands of the enemy, with an imposition +of £200,000,000 sterling as a war indemnity, France is not likely to +recover her physical strength in our day; and when vigour returns to her +shattered frame, it will be only to feel she has lost her place in the +councils of Europe. + +There are, of course, many excellent reasons assigned for this sort of +beneficence, which need only be stated to win common assent. Metz and +Alsace belonged to the house of Hapsburg in the fourteenth century. They +ought, therefore, to belong to the house of Hohenzollern in the +nineteenth,--a convincing argument, which no country so consistently as +Prussia could urge with elaborate effect. If every nation which has been +disintegrated during the last two hundred years, should get back its own +to-morrow, we all know how much Prussia would be a gainer by the +transfer. But the inhabitants of Alsace speak a patois of German and +French, which contains something of both, and is not either. They are, +therefore, clearly entitled to be governed from Berlin. This principle +is beautifully illustrated by the Sclave-speaking population of Silesia, +the Polish community of Posen, and the Danes of Schleswig. What more in +keeping with this piebald collection of people, in the name of +nationality, than the French people at Metz? Then, were not Alsace and +Lorraine taken by force and guile from Germany? and what more proper to +retake them by the same openhanded violence? But it is forgotten that +these provinces were first wrenched from France by Germany, so that to +restore the original balance, France will have to scramble for them +again. By this flux and reflux of empire, at least, one principle is +fully assured. Nations are prevented from becoming stagnant. The +standing pool of industrial affairs is defecated. War becomes, not an +exceptional, but the normal condition of the universe. Civilization has +the consolation of knowing that it has no sooner got on its legs, and is +about to gather into its granaries an exuberant harvest, than it is +knocked over again and its fruits are withered. + +It is singular that German ideologists, whose views are so sound upon +abstract subjects, should put forth such inconsistent trash, to justify +their newly-adopted policy of territorial aggrandizement. There are, +however, a large number of sentimentalists in the world, who have a +strange hankering for the past, whose sympathies it was necessary to +secure. The German archives have, therefore, been ransacked for every +tittle of evidence to prove that Metz was a German province in the +fourteenth century; and, therefore, if any Frenchmen are found there in +the nineteenth, they ought to be under Prussian rule. But to do Bismark +justice, he has a great contempt for trashy dialectics of this +character. He takes his stand upon the firmer ground of political +expediency. France has invaded Germany some twenty-seven times, +stimulated entirely by her lust for the Rhine provinces. It is, +therefore, necessary to reduce her to such conditions that she is not +likely to offend again. In the case of the German ideologists, we grant +the premise, but deny the inference. They are doubtless sincere in their +unreason. But Bismark's premiss and conclusion are alike vicious, and no +one knows that better than himself. + +The earlier wars of France against the Empire arose out of the struggle +for these border possessions when the posterity of Lothaire II., to whom +they belonged, had died out; but in these wars, France, then being +parcelled out among numerous vassals, had the worst of it. A series of +German irruptions, under Henry the Fowler, and the Othos, united these +domains to the Empire. They were, however, held more or less as fiefs of +the crown of France. The French element within, and French intrigue +without, always gave the German emperors great uneasiness; and this, +combined with further schemes of obtaining fresh fiefs in Burgundy and +Flanders, exposed France to two German invasions--one under Henry V., +and the other under Otho IV., which made Louis the Fat and Philip +Augustus tremble for their suzerainty. But the Germans soon found in +Italy a richer field for their exploits, and France was left to +constitute her unity without much hindrance, until the empire fell into +Spanish hands. Afraid, then, of being bodily eaten up, her monarchs +became aggressive; but their blows were aimed, not against Germany, but +against Spain, unluckily without any great effect; for, the towns of +France were some half dozen times invaded by the Emperor and his allies, +her king captured, and her fortresses demolished. Our share in these +plundering transactions helped us to Tournay and Boulogne. In the next +series of wars, which arose out of the religious and political +dissensions of the empire, if France intermeddled, she was invited to do +so by the Protestant princes of Germany, with whom she was allied, and +whose interests were menaced by the house of Austria. As the price of +her intervention, she got a portion of the disputed frontier; but we +never heard that Germany otherwise than freely conceded the long-coveted +prize to her, or regarded this portion of the Treaty of Munster as a +menace to her liberties. It was not until Louis Quatorze seized Franche +Comté, and sent his legions over the Rhine, that Germany manifested any +uneasiness at the ambition of France--an uneasiness which the league of +Augsburg immediately dispelled, and an ambition which the armies of +Eugene and Marlborough levelled to the ground. Hence, Lorraine soon +afterwards fell as quietly into the hands of France, as if its exchange +for the reversion of Tuscany had been an arrangement of Providence. We +are rather curious, therefore, to know how Count Bismark gets his +twenty-seven instances of French aggression against Germany, and whether +he includes in the list the troops which France lent to Prussia to +enable her to retain her hold upon Silesia, and the counter-support she +gave Maria Theresa to enable the empress to defeat Prussia. It is +evident no parties are responsible for such interventions except those +who invite them; and to ascribe to the ambition of the people of +France, wars which arose out of the rapacity of his own countrymen, is a +phase given to the quarrel which outrages common sense. Even were all +the wars carried on under the Louises, the Richelieus, and the feudal +princes of France, as wantonly aggressive as Bismark would make out, the +French people are no more responsible for them, than the horses which +dragged their artillery to the field. They were waged frequently in +their own despite, purely for dynastic interests, and as often +undertaken to repel aggression, as to make it. Even when the people woke +up to their sovereign rights, in 1789, from whom did the first +deliberate act of aggression come? From mild and peace-loving Prussia. +Scarcely five years ago, we saw both the Saxon and Bavarian palatinate +entirely at the mercy of the first French regiment that might have +ventured to cross the border, without a hand being stretched forth to +snatch the defenceless prize. It is therefore false, in fact, to assign +to the French such an incurable lust after German territory, as to +warrant the necessity of her political servitude. The French have no +specific hatred to the Germans as a people, any more than they have to +the Italians, whose territory they have honoured no less frequently with +their presence. The allegation of Bismark is not, therefore, very +assuring. He revives the memory of these miserable feuds, as a reason +why they should be stopped; and produces a treaty, for that purpose, +which only transmits them to posterity, wrapped in a blaze of undying +vehemence. It is monstrous for the conquerors of a country to assign, as +a pretext for its abasement, the participation of its rulers in those +quarrels which originated with themselves. The great shield of Germany +against French interference is its unity. Had she further insisted upon +the fortresses in Alsace and Lorraine being dismantled, with an adequate +pecuniary indemnity, she would then have been doubly secure. But when, +in addition, she requires the keys of France to be placed in her hands, +and the country, bound hand and foot, to be cast under her feet, it is +idle to say that Prussia is aiming at mere immunity from aggression. +There is a weightier reason behind for the mutilation of France, which +it would be inconvenient to avow, and that is the preservation, if not +the increase, of her own military ascendancy. + +Prussia in making peace consulted her own interests. Had her troops +returned to Berlin after concluding with France a wise and durable +treaty, that would have occurred which occurred after the peace of +1815--Germany would have demanded free and liberal institutions. There +would have been no necessity for Prussian Cæsarism. Berlin would have +had to modify her military constitution. There would have been no +necessity for vast armaments. The world would have once more settled +down to pacific ways. But in leaving behind her an exasperated France, +Prussia has the strongest of all motives for inducing Germany to +perpetuate her military dictatorship, and keep the war ferment at high +pressure. But it is impossible that the most pacific country can remain +long under the influence of such a military organization as Prussia +commands, without using it as an instrument for further aggrandizement. +Were it indeed otherwise, a marvel would occur, the like of which would +be unknown in history. Who ever heard of a power suddenly overtopping +Europe, and, amid a handful of weaker states, stopping short in her +career of aggression? Those who believe in the pacific virtues of +Bismark, and the pious sincerity of William, ask us to indulge in +anticipations which have never been realised. Did Rome stop when it +overran the Peninsula, Macedon when it fulminated over Greece, the +Caliphs when they stormed Constantinople, or the Hapsburgs when they +conquered Vienna? There is a momentum in all states, once entered upon a +career of conquest, which hurries them along with a speed proportionate +to the extent of their acquisitions. The law of rising kingdoms may be +formulated almost with the same nicety as that of falling bodies. Nor +are there any circumstances in this instance calculated to modify its +tendency, except such as give it vastly preponderating force and +direction. + +It must not be overlooked in this case, that the states under the +hegemony of Prussia are amongst the poorest in Europe. Some three +hundred thousand annually are driven, by fell necessity, to seek that +provision in foreign lands which is denied them at home. The little +wealth possessed by the home population is not in the possession of +their princes and feudal aristocracy, but in the hands of the mercantile +class, to whom war would not be in the least distasteful, if it opened +out new avenues for their trade. The poverty of the German Junker, +however, has been up to the present only equalled by his +pretentiousness. Sheridan advised the last generation of them, to sell +their high-sounding titles, to buy worsted to mend their stockings. Yet +some of our statesmen would have us believe that these gentlemen, long +suffering under a painful sense of impecuniosity, will, on waking up to +the reality of their being masters of the world, continue to go about, +as heretofore, with empty pockets. Can we suppose that a strong state, +steeped up to the ears in poverty, will continue quiescent, surrounded +by weak states who oppose no barriers to her possession of superabundant +wealth? The inference is against everything we know of human nature, +even upon the supposition that Prussia, to whom the people have +entrusted their fortunes, is the most pacific state in the world, and +that they have been attempted to be worried like bleating lambs, in the +recent struggle. The only rational conclusion is that the Junkers of +Germany will, like every other impoverished class, make the most of +their new position. They will sit down to consider what countries +contain the great reservoirs of commerce, and by what accession of +territory the stream of wealth may be diverted to their own land. +Germany is in the condition of the miller who had large mills but no +water. Is it likely, when she has the power, she will refrain from +entering her neighbour's territory, to divert the course of the element +which sweeps by her with such majestic abundance, without rendering any +service to herself? If she did not withhold her hand from a few barren +roods in the case of Denmark, is she likely to do so when the prize is +more tempting, the power to snatch it a thousand degrees more startling, +and the chances of failure so much less? There can be only one reply to +these questions. If the _bourgeoisie_ condemned the movement, their +opposition would be treated with the same indifference as the opposition +of the great commercial class to the war of 1866. But the Minister has +only to show the trading class that the movement is a commercial +venture, and he will convert them into his staunchest adherents. + +The German people have acquired of late years a peace-loving character, +which, however, is rather adventitious than real, springing more out of +the helplessness into which they were thrown by the dissensions of the +Diet, than out of any innate disposition to be less quarrelsome than +their neighbours. That they are more phlegmatic, more industrious, and +less easily roused than the French may be readily admitted. But we +should be strangely oblivious of the thirty years' war, of the Silesian +wars, of the Swedish and Italian wars, of the Danish and Austrian wars, +if we came to the conclusion that, if left to themselves, and in +possession of their united strength, they would be the most benignant +people in the world. The Germans have always evinced a conservative +disposition to follow their feudal chiefs, and, by espousing their +quarrels, have kept Europe embroiled for many centuries. In no other +country could a small state like Prussia spring out of a mere society +of Knight Templars, and in less than two hundred years, take her place +among the first powers of the globe. While the smaller states of the +empire followed their indolent habits, and cultivated the _dilettante_ +tastes of their rulers, Prussia was perpetually sharpening her sword, +carving out of her neighbours fresh slices of territory, and using one +acquisition as a stepping-stone to another. The acceptance of the +peaceful pursuits to which the inaction of the minor states, and the +jealous rivalries and despotic tendencies of the larger, impelled their +respective populations, as a pledge of the new era of quiet harmony upon +which Europe is about to enter, is only another instance of taking the +forced and exceptional state of a people for its normal and natural +condition. If the German people could be divorced from their feudal +leanings, if they could bind up their unity with free institutions, and +sink the interest of each particular state in that of the entire +community, we should regard their assumption of military supremacy as a +blessing to Europe. But this state of things, so near being accomplished +in 1848, is now further off than ever. Prussia, then, by the free voice +of Germany, was offered the Imperial crown, upon condition of merging +her individual sovereignty in that of the commonwealth. But she refused. +Now she has got it upon her own terms--that of merging the commonwealth +into herself. All the power and might of Germany, instead of being +allied with liberal institutions, is wielded by one despotic hand. +Instead of Germany swallowing up Prussia, Prussia has swallowed up +Germany. Germany in inaugurating her unity, like the young man coming to +his heritage, was surrounded by two candidates for her favours,--free +institutions and military despotism--and, succumbing to the tempter, she +has flung herself into the embraces of military despotism. + +Prussia, who first intoxicated Germany with the idea of unity, has +debauched her with the doctrine of nationality. The lure was in the Elbe +Duchies, which she first held out to the Fatherland, and then +appropriated to herself. The overthrow of Austria induced the Northern +states to submit, some out of compulsion, and others out of love, but +all out of a hope that under so puissant a leader, an impoverished state +of independence might be changed for one of wealthy servility. Hence, +the Confederation or Staatenbund of the North, which placed the +armaments and international relationships of all the states on the +Prussian side of the Main completely under the control of Berlin. The +Treaty of Prague guaranteed independent action, as well as a separate +confederation to the German states south of the Main. But while the ink +wherewith that treaty was signed was scarcely dry, and while Napoleon +was congratulating his subjects on having set up two confederations in +Germany instead of one, Bismark signed treaties of offensive and +defensive alliance with each of the Southern States, which made their +confederation an impossibility, by placing all their armaments as +completely in the hands of Prussia as if they belonged to the Northern +Bund. But, in these days, changes take place so rapidly as to exhaust +our breath in recounting them. The goal of Prussian ambition to-day, is +its starting-post to-morrow. The North German Confederation, with their +treaties of defensive and offensive alliance, which have done their work +so effectually in the subjugation of France, has already made room for +another edifice of a more momentous character. The Staatenbund, which +has disappeared, was, as its name imports, a mere confederacy. The union +was effective for federal purposes, but too much individual action was +left to the component bodies. The armies of the Confederacy, though +under the command of the King of Prussia, as President of the Bund, owed +fealty to their respective chiefs. There is something naïve in the +declaration that they should have command of their own troops in time of +peace. But now this poor shadow of sovereignty is taken away, and the +armies of the Northern States, both in peace and war, are handed over to +the King of Prussia, and constitute part and parcel of the Prussian +force. The joints have, therefore, been tightened in proportion as the +area has been extended. In point of fact, the former mediatized states +have been virtually incorporated with Prussia; while the +semi-independent sovereignties of the south have been reduced to the +position of the former mediatized states. They have only one railway and +water communication, one system of post and telegraph, one mercantile +marine, one tariff, one code of civil and criminal judicature, one +consulate, and one army and navy. The states south of the Main now find +themselves bound up in closer ligatures with those of the north than +formerly united these with each other. In other words, the Staatenbund +has been changed into a Bundesstaat, or a confederacy into one allied +State. The whole of Germany, from the Baltic to the Vosges, from the +frontiers of Gallicia to the mouth of the Weser, is now united in a +single commonwealth, with an hereditary emperor, with a central +parliament, and a common capital: we need hardly add that the majority +of that parliament are Prussian subjects, that the Emperor is the +Prussian monarch, and that the capital is Berlin. + +It is curious to notice the careful guarantees by which Prussia has +secured the increase of her ascendancy in the new institution, and the +growth of centralization in her hands. No change can be effected in the +charter which is opposed by fourteen votes of the Federal Council. But +as she has seventeen of these, it is clear Germany cannot enter upon a +more liberal regime unless Prussia wishes it. Baden and Hesse have, like +the Northern States, handed over their armies to Prussia, with whose +forces they are henceforth incorporated. The King of Bavaria has the +command of his own troops only in times of peace; in war he is liable to +be superseded by a Federal commander, appointed by the Emperor. +Würtemburg has consented to consign her troops to a Federal commander, +nominated by Prussia, both in peace and war. For this concession the +King has been allowed to appoint his inferior officers, subject to the +approval of the Emperor. Throughout the rest of Germany, the appointment +of all the officers rests entirely with the Emperor. All the citadels +and fortresses of every state, without exception, are surrendered into +his hands. He can give the keys of all the strong places to whom he +chooses. The Emperor alone can make war or conclude peace; though unless +the country be invaded, he has been restricted, at the instance of +Bavaria, from making war without the consent of the Federal Council. +But, as King of Prussia, he can make war when he pleases, which renders +him as practically independent of control as if the restriction did not +exist. The armaments of Germany are, therefore, as practically in the +hands of Prussia, as the armaments of Russia are in those of the Czar. +The concessions in favour of the Kings of Würtemburg and Bavaria are so +trifling, that to call these princelings kings any longer is trifling +with the name. Their sovereignties are virtually absorbed in the crown +of Prussia. Let the phantom monarchs, who have signed their own +death-warrants at Munich and Stuttgart, presume to interfere with the +mandates of Berlin, and they will be dealt with as summarily as any +provincial _maire_ who ventured to disobey imperial decrees under the +Napoleonic _régime_. + +These results we ventured to predict some five years ago, but they have +been brought about with a celerity and completeness which even have +surprised ourselves.[239] The fact is, there is a splendour and glitter +about military achievements which the soberest cannot withstand, when +they appear in the shape of victories over those who have been +perpetually disparaging our strength or crowing over our weakness. It +would, indeed, have been a great advantage to German liberty, had the +different states been allowed to consolidate their unity in peace. +Prussia would then have been obliged to make terms with the southern +populations, who would have been alive to the necessity of obtaining +solid pledges from her, that the resources of the German commonwealth +should not be squandered to gratify the ambition of the house of +Hohenzollern. But the astonishing exploits of Prussia, the unparalleled +series of triumphs which have laid France prostrate at her feet, have +carried away the judgments of the populations of the South, and induced +them to call for indiscriminate amalgamation with the conqueror, in +terms which their princes could not withstand. The sovereigns of +Stuttgart and Munich had, therefore, no choice between deposition and +obedience to the popular voice. They therefore made a virtue of +necessity, and were the first to offer the Imperial Crown to the King of +Prussia. In the Salle des Glaces at Versailles, surrounded by the +pictures and medallions which perpetuate the triumphs of Louis XIV. in +Franche Comté and the Netherlands, and beneath the roof of the edifice +dedicated to all the glories of France, King William was solemnly +proclaimed Emperor, on the anniversary of the day when, 170 years ago, +the Elector Frederick first assumed the crown of Prussia. Before all the +representatives of Germany, ranged beneath the banners of their +respective states, at the gates of the French capital, already quivering +in the throes of capitulation, and girt round with all the panoply and +pride of victorious armies, the German cannon thundered out the ominous +title in the ears of dying France. In the power which the title created, +the lofty pinnacle to which it elevated the sovereign upon whom it was +conferred, in the proud circumstances under which the transfer of the +Imperial Crown was accomplished, the imagination is carried back to the +days of Charlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa in order to find a +parallel. For, the pageant represented the assumption of no mere +primatial dignity, but the extension of direct sovereign power, +absorbing some three kingdoms, with twenty-four principalities, which at +once enables it to become supreme in Europe, both in war and peace. The +nominal federal ties, by which the princes of the Southern States are +allowed to flatter their hereditary vanity, cannot even outlast the +present generation; for the new elections to the Federal Parliament have +returned a large majority, to strengthen the autocratic interests and +centralizing policy of Prussia. The need of simplification in the laws +which bind up the different states into one homogeneous body, will +powerfully contribute to the same end, so that, in a few years, Prussia +will find herself wielding the power of the Cæsars, with a single +national authority. + +That Prussia will not use the tremendous force she has thus acquired to +fight for empty name or mere _gloire_, or marshal her battalions for +deadly conflict, simply because some foreign ambassador has refused to +take off his hat to one of her kings' mistresses, may be readily +conceded; and, taking the transfer of military ascendancy from Paris to +Berlin, so much in the interests of peace has doubtless been gained. But +what guarantee have we that Prussia will not use her vast accession of +power to augment her material interests and enrich the populations who +have confided their fortunes to her management? The military and naval +supplies are raised by taxes, over which neither parliament--the +Reichstag, nor the Federal Council--the Bundesrath, has the slightest +control. The chief corner-stone of English liberty is the dependence of +the executive on Parliament. If it cannot get the supplies from the +legislature, down it goes. But in the adroit charter lately manipulated +at Versailles, there is no executive beyond the Prussian monarch and his +chancellor, and the military taxes of the Empire find their way into +their exchequer, without any check or hindrance, quite as if the process +was a law of nature. The great doctrine of ministerial responsibility, +without which not even the shadow of constitutional liberty can be +inaugurated, finds no place in the charter of the new federal Empire. It +is true that any extraordinary levies or augmentation of the armaments +of the Empire would have to receive the sanction of the new German +legislature. But when we remember that the military resources of the +Empire are already developed to the utmost, that the normal military +organization of the Empire enables Bismark to exhaust its last thaler, +employ its last musket, and call out its last man, it would appear a +mockery to hold out this provision as a guarantee of the influence of +the popular element in the new constitution. It does not improve the +situation, when we remember, how resolutely the popular element in the +Prussian Chambers was set at defiance by the King and his Minister, upon +the refusal of the majority to endorse the increased armaments which +they demanded, to enable them to appropriate the Duchies, and +afterwards to fight Austria. Bismark suspended the Prussian Constitution +for four years, to carry out his policy of blood and iron. A despotic +charter, in the hands of Liberal ministers, might be modified in favour +of progress. But with a despotic charter in the hands of a despotic +minister, we see little hope for the future pacification of Europe. +France is under the heel of Germany, and Germany under the heel of +Prussia. That that power will henceforth champion the liberties she has +hitherto done her best to repress; that she will voluntarily renounce +the plundering policy which has been the predominant feature of her +character for a policy of justice and rectitude; that she will hereafter +woo peace with the same ardour with which she has up to the present +wooed the sword, is what we most devoutly wish, but which we cannot +bring ourselves to believe. + +In fact, Prussia has by no means fulfilled the destiny which she avows +it is her honest mission to accomplish. She is called by Providence to +unite the whole of Fatherland under her sceptre. But the German kingdom +still remains divided. The edifice of German nationality still requires +the copestone for the completion of the structure. The words which her +sovereign addressed to the German people on the day when he accepted the +imperial crown at Versailles, are strikingly significant of her +pretensions, 'The Empire,' said the king, or rather Bismark, who spoke +in his person, 'has been in abeyance some sixty years. We are summoned +to undertake its re-establishment.' In 1806, the dissolution of the old +Germanic Empire followed as a natural consequence of the Confederation +of the Rhine. The Emperor of Austria, at the dictation of Napoleon, then +renounced the title and regalia of the empire which had fallen to +pieces, but which King William now takes it upon himself to revive. +'Accordingly,' says this monarch, 'we and our successors to the crown of +Prussia henceforth shall use the imperial title in all the relations and +affairs of the German Empire; and we hope to God that it may be +vouchsafed to the German people to lead the Fatherland on to a blessed +future under the auspices of its ancient splendour.'[240] As an earnest +of this intention, Alsace and German-speaking Lorraine, together with a +portion of French-speaking Lorraine, brought under the German flag, is +an important revival of the old kingdom on its western frontier. This is +a rich slice to commence with. But the resuscitation of the Empire with +the western limb of the Austrian monarchy, and nine millions of Germans +left out, is like the resuscitation of Greece without either Athens or +Thermopylæ; or the play of Hamlet, with the part of the Prince excluded +from the programme. The union of Fatherland would be a mockery, and the +revival of the Empire a nullity, without the annexation of those +provinces which constitute the birthplace and cradle of its history. +Accordingly, when the Germanic Confederation was set up in 1815, as a +substitute for the old diet, the German provinces of Austria were deemed +of such importance as to confer upon her the leading voice in its +councils. It is not, therefore, likely that some forty-two millions of +Germans will long remain united, without endeavouring to include, under +the same hegemony, the nine additional millions now clamouring for +admission outside. Already, within the German provinces of Austria, +committees are established, with a view to afford their Northern +brethren a fulcrum for realizing the desired event. In Glatz, Salzburg, +Innsprück, Linz, and Vienna, _fêtes_ were prepared to celebrate the +recent triumphs of their German compatriots, which the Hohenhart +ministry was obliged to suppress by force. But even despite of the +Government, numerous meetings have been held in which the warmest +eagerness for German unity and for federal union with Berlin has been +expressed. Indeed, the Austro-Germans who formerly aspired to lead +Fatherland, now live in subordination to the Sclaves, whose influence in +the Austrian Chambers, by mere force of numbers, is paramount to their +own. They, therefore, seek union with their heroic countrymen, with all +the more ardour, as it would release them from the ascendency of a race +whom they despise. Guided by the aspirations of his countrymen, Bismark +will find a much easier passage across the Inn to the Leitha than across +the Rhine to the Moselle. The work of German nationality has advanced so +far that we must doubt, if Prussia remained indifferent to the prize, +that the fusion would not be accomplished by the very momentum which the +movement has already acquired. But with Prussia, true to the grasping +instincts of her house, clothed with the enormous prestige of her recent +victories, and throwing all her energies into the struggle, Austria can +no more resist the absorption than a wave of the Eider could resist +being swallowed up in a ground swell from the German Ocean. + +The limits of the revived Empire on its Southern frontier will, +doubtless, be such as to enclose those provinces in which the Germans +form the principal element. These comprise Upper and Lower Austria, +including Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, and the Tyrol. Some two millions +occupy the north and western frontiers of Bohemia. In the north-east of +Moravia, and the eastern part of Austrian-Silesia, there are some seven +hundred thousand more. But the proportion of the German to the Sclavonic +populations of Bohemia and Moravia is only one-fourth; so that these +provinces cannot be annexed to the German Empire without giving the +doctrine of nationality its _coup de grâce_. But Moravia and Bohemia +constituted integral portions of the old German Empire. They were, also, +reclaimed as such by Austria, on the construction of the Germanic +Confederation in 1815. There are besides strategical reasons. For the +Austrian Archducal province, with its three millions of Germans, would +be blocked up between the Czechs and Magyars, while Bohemia would extend +like a wedge into the bowels of the Empire. We are afraid, that when the +question comes to be settled, both Bohemia and Moravia will find +themselves eaten up, sandwichlike, by the German populations on the +north and south frontiers, and assimilated into the political body which +is already dominating Europe. + +But the necessity of increased outlets for German industry, and of +further materials for the expansion of her commerce, will be as powerful +a stimulant for the growth of Prussian Cæsarism as the principle of +nationality. Germany having achieved her national unity, will require +free access to the seaboard of the German Ocean. She will require ships +and colonies. The possession of Holland would place all these +requirements at her disposal, and enable her to fructify her home +commerce a hundredfold. Professor Newman sees such advantage to both +parties in the annexation, that he is anxious the union should be +accomplished; he rather naïvely adds that Prussia will withhold her +hand, because she would not wish to be hampered with Java or Surinam, +and the other possessions which alone impart to Holland its +significancy. Twenty millions of colonial population, however, would be +a prize as glittering to the Germans as the Dutch seaboard at home; and, +therefore, no one was overwhelmed with surprise when its annexation was +mentioned as one of the overtures made by Bismark to the French Emperor +in return for Prussian acquiescence in the French seizure of Belgium. +Nor can it excite wonder that the French Emperor refused as promptly as +his uncle, when the Russian Alexander offered to France both Syria and +Egypt in return for allowing him to seize Constantinople. But now there +is no France to block the way, and Holland is entirely at the mercy of +Berlin. The House of Nassau had its representative in the Germanic +Confederation, to answer for the interests of Luxembourg. Why should it +not have its representative in the Bundesrath at Berlin, and sacrifice +its independence, to bask in the splendour of the new Empire? If the +four millions of Dutchmen do not fall in with these suggestions so +readily as the five millions of Bavarians, they will be found as +incompetent as the Bavarians would have been, to oppose the high behests +and the colossal interests of a race of fifty millions, who threaten to +rule the world. The Netherlands were an important limb of the old +Germanic Empire. The Dutch section of it is identified with Germany by +military traditions. Her language and religion are Teutonic. In resuming +possession of this territory, the revivers of the old imperial +domination would not meet with anything like the difficulties they have +to encounter in incorporating the eastern frontiers of France. + +The absorption of Holland, by so powerful a country as Germany, would +deal a heavy blow at our own naval supremacy. But this danger is the +least of those which are ahead. For Prussia does not appear alone upon +the scene of action; and there are prizes for her to seize, which +require the support of an ally who has herself a direct interest in the +spoil, and who is troubled with as few scruples as Prussia herself. +There cannot, we think, be a doubt that Prussia entered upon the recent +campaign with a secret understanding with Russia, of armed intervention +on the part of that power, in case of certain eventualities arising out +of the war, unfavourable to Prussia. The two combatants had not measured +swords at Spicheren, before this treaty was suddenly announced, and as +boldly denied. The cordial greetings of the two courts, moreover, during +the progress of the war; the shout of rapture which every French +disaster drew from the Emperor Alexander; the indiscreet announcement of +the Emperor William, that he would never forget that he owed it to the +attitude of his Imperial nephew that the war did not assume larger +dimensions, and the conferring on each other, at the conclusion of the +campaign, military honours; all these things tend conclusively to prove +that, in league with Prussia, there is a power still more formidable to +the liberties of mankind. Had it not been for this assurance of support +from Russia, it would have been perfect madness for Prussia to leave her +eastern frontier exposed to the inroads of Austria, when that power was +counting her chances as to throwing in her lot with France. Had Austria +moved a musket, Russia would have poured her troops through the defiles +of the Carpathians, and given her another enemy to encounter. Bismark +was, therefore, enabled to leave Saxony as much unprotected, as were the +Rhine Provinces in the war of 1866. When France was prostrate; when she +was expiring under the terrible effects of the blow which she had +recklessly invited, but which the connivance of Russia enabled Germany +with collective force to deal; that power plainly exposed her cards, and +showed the interests she had in the struggle. In the month of November, +Gortschakoff startled London by announcing the intention of Russia to +repudiate the treaty of 1856. Within a little time afterwards, the +Prussian Prince of Roumania declared he could no longer support his +position as Turkish feudatary; but must convert his government into one +of independent sovereignty, or retire from it altogether. About the same +period, as if to bring the repudiation of treaties in fashion, Bismark +announced the resolution of Prussia to withdraw from the guarantee of +1867 protecting the neutrality of Luxembourg. If two of these +difficulties have been transitionally arranged, the compromisers have +only deferred the real solution of the question they involve, to a more +convenient opportunity. It is very ominous for England, that Europe, at +present, is virtually in the hands of two potentates evidently acting in +concert with each other, who can place two millions and a half of +fighting men in the field; and that both have shown a disposition to +complicate affairs in the East, to the spoils of which each possesses +peculiar pretensions, as well as peculiar means of realizing those +pretensions in the amplest manner. + +The interest of Russia in driving the Turks out of Europe is +traditional. She believes in it as a mission to which she is called by +divine Providence. It is not merely an affair of conquest, but a matter +of religion. For this she exists as a nation, bound to execute the task +at all hazards, and to intermit no opportunity of bringing it about. +With Prussia it is merely a question of arithmetic. But the gain to her, +were the struggle only partially decided in her favour, is such as to +overpower even an Oriental imagination. The conjoint export and import +trade of Turkey may be set down at forty millions annually. Of this +trade England has, at present, the lion's share. The rest is mainly +divided between Italy, France, Austria, and Russia. Prussia and Northern +Germany enjoy little or next to nothing of it. Turkey, to them, might as +well not be in existence, except for the wealth it pours into the +coffers of their neighbours. Formerly Russia has been prevented from +dealing with the 'sick man' by the protectorate of the Western Powers. +England and France have been repeatedly offered ascendancy on the banks +of the Nile, in return for permitting Russian ascendancy on the shores +of the Bosphorus. But, besides the principle of equity, which no English +minister dare contravene, it would have been an absurd policy, in +exchange for an African or Asiatic province, to place our trade in the +Levant in jeopardy, by allowing Russia to instal herself in +Constantinople. But Russia has now an accomplice who can help her to the +booty, who is troubled with no moral delicacy, and who would gain a +large revenue out of the transaction. Prussia, by laying her hand upon +the north-western limb of European Turkey, would command the navigation +of the Danube, and divert a large stream of Oriental commerce to the +capitals of Germany. Provinces which are at present rich, even in their +uncultivated state, would, colonized by Prussia, become the granaries of +the world. The Italian portions of the Empire are gone from it +irretrievably: but Germany can indemnify herself by expansion in an +eastern direction. If, therefore, no extraneous force intervenes, we +look forward to the establishment of a Prussian sovereignty, extending +from the Euxine to the Adriatic, and owning no limit till it tops the +crests of the Balkan. The scion of her house, who has already converted +the Principalities into a Prussian arsenal, is in an admirable position +to direct her energies towards this object. While Russia operates on the +Asiatic frontier, the Prussian Hospodar, backed by German battalions, +and reinforced with ordnance from Berlin, has only to put out his hand, +and Bosnia and Servia are in his grasp. With the iron and steel of the +Vosges, with the copper, lead, and silver mines of Carinthia and +Carniola, with the silks and carpets of Shumla, and the grain of Servia +and Roumania, Germany would possess a trade with which the commerce of +Italy in the Middle Ages, or the colossal industries of England in the +nineteenth century, would be dwarfed in comparison. Would she resist the +prize within her reach, if the tempter at her ear instigated her to take +it as her share of the spoil? The Ottoman Empire may be said to derive +the very breath of its existence from the jealousy of the great Powers. +The States of the West had an instinctive dread of the great Empire of +the North, besides a mutual mistrust of each other; and, therefore, the +fairest plains of Europe were allowed to remain in possession of those +who had no ambitious instincts to gratify, and no foreign predilections +to indulge. But now the state of affairs is profoundly changed, and +Turkey finds herself at the mercy of two military despots, who are +acting in concert, without any protection from their cupidity, but what +their own mistrust of each other may happen to oppose. + +Up to 1866 five great Powers existed in Europe. But we cannot conceal it +from ourselves, that in the interim of a few years, three of these have +either been neutralized or practically effaced. Since the battle of +Koeniggratz it would be idle to say that Austria is of any account in +Europe. The blow she received at Solferino was a prelude to the loss of +Venetia, and the loss of her Italian possessions is only a prelude to +the stroke which will drive her completely out of Germany. When empires +rise, they accomplish the task of expansion with difficulty and labour, +but when they sink, everything appears greased to impel the wheels along +the declivity of descent. Austria has ceased to be an empire, and will +soon find it difficult to maintain an independent sovereignty. When her +Germans imitate her quondam Italian subjects in attaching themselves to +their own nationality, the Magyar and multifarious Sclavonian tribes +will alone remain, whose respective interests are so antagonistic, that +anything like union under one sceptre, without being tempered by the +influence of less excitable races, will be difficult in the extreme. At +present, her possession of nine millions of Germans, is much more a +source of weakness than of strength. Prussia, in any scheme of +annexation she may contemplate, or in any object she may have in view, +has only to show that it is for the interest of Fatherland, and Austrian +Germany is at once alive to the necessity of paralysing the action of +its own Government, and assisting the Prussian project. During the late +war, it was manifestly the interest of Austria to have flung in her lot +with France, but had she done so, the first enemy whom she would have +had to encounter would have been her German subjects. The mode in which +she clung to our garments during the struggle, and like a child with its +nurse, interceded with us to interfere between the combatants, when she +dared not interfere herself, was a glaring instance of the timidity +arising out of her weakness. When we remember the boldness of Metternich +before Napoleon I., and how Maria Theresa, yet bleeding from the loss of +Silesia, confronted the united hostility of France and Prussia, we are +astonished at the pusillanimity which Austria displays, even in her +present stage of decrepitude. In 1866, though backed by nearly all the +military forces of the Confederation, she suffered herself to be +prostrated by Prussia, and her imperial mantle to be stript from her in +a few weeks. It is therefore not from such a Power that any help can +come, when Prussia in the name of Germany finds her way to the seaboard +of the Northern Ocean, or when the Russian Emperor and his ally choose +to realize any little plans they may have concerted, with a view of +bringing Turkey within the sphere of European civilization. + +The position of France is much more desperate than that of Austria, +though the compact unity of her race holds out a better prospect of her +recovering some portion of her former strength. This, however, if it +occurs, will not be, at least, in our generation. We must, therefore, +regard the course affairs may take during the next twenty years, as if +she was not in existence, at least as a controlling power. It is not the +effect of the material, so much as of the moral, ruin of the French +nation which has to be feared. Before the German armies passed through +the defiles of the Vosges, the corruption of the Second Empire had done +its work in effeminating the character of a gallant people. The mode in +which the Army of the Rhine left the capital of France for the frontier, +animated with the spirit of conquest, and glittering with all the vain +conceit of anticipated triumph, and the mode in which that proud host +was rolled back, never halting for a moment until fortressed walls +afforded them some respite from their pursuers, can be paralleled only +by the bluster of those armies of old, who under Mardonius and Hippias +came to wreck all the pride of Persia against the gates of Greece. The +spirit of a nation must be entirely emasculated, its prowess gone, when +the flower of its soldiery can surrender in masses of hundreds of +thousands to an enemy in numbers hardly superior; and when the great +body of the army can be allowed to be shut up for nearly two months in a +fortress, without making any decisive attempt to cut through a line of +weaker proportionate strength, and without the country so much as +putting up a finger to relieve them. The capitulations of Sedan and +Metz, consigning the famous Imperial Guard, which so often restored the +fluctuating fortunes of France under Ney and Cambronne, and 300,000 +soldiers to the hulks of Germany, there to be employed as beasts of +burden and helots, make us almost blush at the name of Frenchmen. Such +shameful surrenders are hardly equalled by the masses of barbarous +Cossacks under Peter the Great, whom Charles XII. netted like shoals of +fish in the Ukraine. If the Republican armies did not conduct +themselves so ignominiously, it cannot be forgotten that the strategy +of Chanzy and Faidherbe was disconcerted by the Mobiles flinging down +their arms at the critical moment, and exhausting in a panic-flight +energies which ought to have been employed against the enemy. Even in +the Paris sorties, after the tide had spent its strength, more soldiers +surrendered themselves than the Germans cared to make prisoners. It also +speaks volumes for French military degeneracy, that the German armies +were permitted, for four months, to go through the dilatory process of +strangling Paris, by famine, without a single attempt being made to +interrupt their two lines of communication with Germany, except a bold +but abortive one by Ricciotti Garibaldi, when, had the country by +foraging parties constantly directed its energies to this end, they +might have placed the besieging armies in the same plight as the +besieged. If the French justly complain of the physical prostration to +which the plundering and huckstering propensities of the Germans have +reduced France, this mischief is nothing in comparison with the moral +prostration to which their submission to twenty years of a corrupt +despotism has brought the country. The injury inflicted by the +foreigner, they may in a few years partially retrieve, but the evil they +have inflicted on themselves is likely to be of a far more permanent +character. The fact is, France can never show her face in the arena of +foreign diplomacy, much less appear in the front rank again, until she +probes her weaknesses to the bottom, and eliminates the causes which +have so powerfully contributed to cast the nation, like a bleeding and +mangled carcase, under the heel of Prussia. Perhaps the most destructive +of these, is the number of hostile factions into which her population is +split, each clamouring against the other, with a hatred ever ready to +burst out into civil conflict. In France, Republicanism is arrayed +against Monarchy, and each of these parties admits of infinite +subdivisions, arrayed against each other. Legitimist, Constitutionalist, +and Imperialist, represent the monarchical element. But the Bonapartist +entertains not a greater hatred to the Orleanist, than the Socialist +entertains to the Conservative Republican. Then, the priest-party in the +country has a thorough abhorrence of the free-thinking Democrat of the +town. It cannot be denied, that during the late war, these factions did +much to paralyze the energies of the country. The Republican party had +little sympathy for the armies which were overthrown at Woerth, and sent +into captivity at Sedan. The priest-party had as little sympathy for the +raw levies which Gambetta sent to be mown down like unresisting grass, +under Chanzy and Bourbaki. The energy of the nation was constantly +divided against itself. Its heart was never thoroughly enlisted against +Germany in any part of the struggle. The country wanted a common hope, a +united faith, a solidarity of principle to champion it in the struggle. +Until these miserable feuds are terminated, we see little hope for +France. For, they reduce the country to the same state of imbecility, +which rendered Poland, fifty years previous to her extinction, of no +account in Europe. That they will entirely disappear we have little +hope. But that they will be very considerably diminished by the galling +chastisement which Prussia has inflicted, is what we try to believe, +although the events which have transpired in Paris during the last +fortnight, in which the bloodthirsty cruelty and aimless recklessness of +the Paris mob have been met by the miserable irresolution, divided +councils, and practical imbecility of the Versailles government, almost +destroy all reasonable hope. It is just in proportion to the degree in +which hatred of Prussia, and the desire of being revenged for the +punishment she has recently administered, shall diminish the rancour of +political factions and amalgamate all the feelings and strength of the +country into one flood-tide of patriotism, that we must look for the +political regeneration of France. Prussia, by the exorbitant demands she +has imposed, has certainly done her utmost to bring about this result. +She has purchased the triumphs and security of to-day, at the expense of +future ages of misery and retribution. But it is not consolatory to +think that, whatever may be her efforts, so low is the present position +of France, that she must consent to remain a political cypher during the +present century, and that her only means of recovering her position, +even as a first-class power, and of directing her united energies and +resources to that end, is by renewing the struggle with her relentless +enemy. + +That France in the school of adversity will unlearn much of the +frivolity and self-glorifying spirit which has distinguished her people +during the Second Empire, is another advantage which may be hoped rather +than expected from her recent disasters--an advantage, indeed, which +would confer as many benefits upon herself as upon the world. France, +ever since the days of Louis Quatorze, has been too much accustomed to +deem herself the arbitress of Europe. She had come to recognise it as +her peculiar mission to open or shut the Temple of Janus, and give peace +or war to the world. It was her boast that not a gun could be fired off +in Europe without her consent. This had been repeated so often, in later +times, that not only Frenchmen but mankind generally came to believe it. +The consequence was, that when any restlessness was exhibited at the +Tuileries, foreign nations began to look at their muskets, increase +their armaments, and prepare for eventualities. Nor will anyone, who +considers the exploits of the First Napoleon, the marvels he +accomplished in the midst of a divided Italy and a dismembered Germany, +regard the belief as having no foundation. But France, while trading on +the splendid reminiscences of the First Empire, during the Second, +completely lost that daring and resolute spirit by which those wonders +had been achieved. While pandering to all the foolish vanities, and +indulging in the hectoring and blustering swagger, generated by the +victories of the First Napoleon, she had sunk in the slough of +effeminacy all that martial dash, that burning ardour, and fearless +courage which enabled her, against overwhelming odds, to nail victory to +her standards at Marengo and Austerlitz. The delusion under which she +laboured, was not surpassed by that of Greece, who, when debauched by +her Asiatic conquests, imagined, in her struggles with the Roman Empire, +that she possessed the prowess of the heroes who made such havoc with +the Persian armies at Marathon and Thermopylæ. The folly, into which +this delusion has betrayed her, can only be measured by the colossal +nature of the task she undertook--a task before which even the +adventurous genius of Napoleon would have quailed, that of defeating +upwards of forty millions of Germans armed to the teeth, and united +against her as one man. The result must open her own eyes to the hollow +nature of her pretensions, quite as much as it has undeceived the world. +She must now learn, if she would not be ridiculous, since she cannot +bring her deeds up to the level of her words, to reduce her words to the +level of her performances. She must for ever renounce all idea of +military ascendancy in Europe--an idea, the realization of which has so +often covered her with wounds, and now has eclipsed all her glory. The +cultivation of a chastened spirit on the part of France, the abandonment +of her levity, the manifestation of a proper sense of the humiliation to +which she is reduced, will doubtless free the world from some +nightmares, and powerfully contribute to the rehabilitation of the +country. But the work is a question of time. The change cannot be +perceptibly felt during the lifetime of the present generation; and in +the interim, before she can exercise any marked influence on the course +of events, the keys of Europe may be fought for, and the world's Empire +given away. + +When we contrast the past glories of France, the height of power she +attained, or even the influence she might have exerted under wise rulers +over contemporary events, with her present prostration and political +eclipse, it is impossible to over-estimate the gravity of the crisis to +humanity. A great force has been struck out of the nations. A power upon +which during the last half century we leaned for the enforcement of +order, and the progress of constitutional ideas in Europe, has been +removed. She is, at present, as politically dead as if the Atlantic wave +rolled over Limoges, and crested the Jura. Except England, which it is +the fashion to decry as selfish and sordid, her Crimean and Abyssinian +wars notwithstanding, France was the only nation in Europe that was +chivalrous enough to fight for abstract right, especially when it was +endangered among the Latin nations. It is owing to her that Italy has +become free, united, and independent. The Poles always found in her the +resolute champion of their interests. Russian ambition had nowhere a +more uncompromising enemy than the great people whose political +obsequies are now being celebrated by illuminations in Berlin. It is +true, on a few occasions, led away by a false sense of her own interest, +her Government refused to sanction the policy we recommended for its +adoption; and in the case of the Egyptian suzerainty and the Spanish +marriages, moved exactly in a contrary direction. But it may be safely +affirmed that for the last half-century, under every government France +has possessed, she has co-operated with our own, in resisting +aggression, and promoting the triumph of constitutional principles in +every part of Europe. Under the united flags of both countries, an +independent kingdom was founded in Greece. From 1830 to 1833 she +assisted us to establish Belgium, to promote constitutional government +in Switzerland and Piedmont, and to guard the infancy of the +constitutional monarchy of Spain. In 1839, we united our efforts to +extinguish the feud between Mehemet Ali and the Porte. We also joined +our protests, when Russia suppressed Warsaw, and Prussia and Austria +extinguished Cracow, just as we sent in our united protests when these +two powers made their raid on Denmark. Our forces fought together in +1827 to protect Greece from Turkey, as in 1854 to protect Turkey against +Russia. The two Western nations were, as regards force, the complements +of each other. What the one wanted to be complete, the other had. +Singly, they were impotent to withstand any combination of despots; but +united, they might have defied the world. Now France is a wreck, and we +stand isolated in Europe. The head of the Latin nations lies shattered +in the dust; and the people whose independence we assisted her to build +up, are unable by themselves to lift an arm, or to afford any effectual +barrier against aggression. Their sole resource now is in England, who +stands alone, looking with dismay upon the effacement of the two allies, +upon whom she mainly relied in her difficulties, and upon the alliance +of two military monarchies in Europe who dominate the situation. It +depends entirely upon the attitude of Great Britain during the next few +years whether she surely shall participate in the fate of her allies, +and abandon the world to a retrogressive policy; or whether the _foyers_ +of freedom and independence shall be kept alive in Europe; and whether +the spirit of justice and rectitude, instead of that of rapacity and +conquest, shall sway the intercourse of nations. + +For our part, it is not without some misgivings that we look forward to +the policy of Great Britain, during the next thirty years. We do not +lose our faith in God, nor in the power of right principles, nor do we +mistrust the indomitable spirit and resources of the country when once +fairly roused, disciplined, and utilized with sagacity and skill. But of +late years there has been a growing party in the State, who would +confine the energies of the Government to its own internal affairs; who +would withdraw it from active intervention in European politics; who +would employ every shilling of our expenditure upon developing the +commercial resources of the country, and who would not even prepare to +resist an enemy until they saw him actually approaching our shores. The +disciples of this school, fortified by the principles of political +economy, refuse to see any other element in our relations with foreign +countries than the mere ledger account of barter and gain; and anything +which suspends the traffic, or withdraws the national energies into +other paths, is denounced by them as suicidal to the national interests. +War shatters the doctrines of political economists. It is, therefore, +only natural they should attempt to relieve us of warlike armaments and +decry military organization. There can be no doubt that the Reform Bills +of 1831 and 1868, by throwing power into the hands of the great trading +classes, have augmented the strength of this party, until it weighs with +preponderating effect on the main-spring of Government. We gladly admit +the beneficial influences of the changes which this party have largely +contributed to bring about, in interior retrenchment and municipal +reforms, in the equalization of political privileges, in the extension +of education, in the partial abolition of University Tests, in the +liberation of commerce from protective duties, and of religion from +State-Church endowments. We heartily accord, moreover, with its +denunciations of the war spirit, as such. But we cannot shut our eyes to +the fact that these benefits have not been unalloyed by some admixture +of evil. For, to the fact of our applying all our energies in this +direction, may be traced the breakdown of our armies before Sebastopol; +the acceptance of the declaration of Paris, which strips England of one +of its most potent weapons in naval warfare; and the shameful +abandonment of Denmark in the affair of the Duchies, which has given +rise to three wars and to the present complicated difficulties which we +have to face.[241] It even now is a question whether, if Russia were to +enter upon a new phase of encroachment in the East, or Prussia were to +annex Holland, we could, or dare, interpose with dignity and effect. Any +joint scheme of conquest pursued by these two military monarchies, we +might certainly as well hope to resist, as a child might venture to +arrest an avalanche; and our individual incompetency would, in the eyes +of the governing class, be a solid reason for not endeavouring to +solicit the aid of a series of disorganized States who are weaker than +ourselves. For the last fifty years, our influence abroad has depended +very much on the martial spirit and the indomitable pluck we displayed +in our struggles with the First Napoleon. But, if we were now to enter +upon a Continental war of only one-fifth of the dimensions of that we +carried on against Napoleon, we should find ourselves, without allies, +as little competent to support our former prestige, as the French have +lately found themselves to support the prestige of the First Empire. + +But the weakness of England lies not so much in the ascendancy of the +non-intervention party, as in the hand-to-mouth policy of the English +Executive. Every question of foreign policy is considered exclusively on +its own merits, and solely with relation to the circumstances of the +hour. It is never considered as evolved out of the events of the past, +and linked with the impending events of the future. The Minister, +instead of contemplating the question in its philosophic bearings, +surrounded with all the lights which his lofty position enables him to +command, counts his majorities, feels the pulse of the nation through +the organs of the press, and decides upon adopting that course which +shall most contribute to strengthen his power. In all these questions, +the necessity of preserving a Cabinet is always paramount to that of +saving a nation. At this crisis, it is unfortunate we have to do with +States which pursue an entirely opposite system. The foreign policy of +England fluctuates now in one direction, and then in another, much at +the mercy of vulgar opinion, according to whatever whims the Minister +may have who happens to be in power. But the foreign policy of Russia +and Prussia broadens out like a mighty stream which unceasingly rolls +its current in one direction, and never ceases to return with renewed +effort upon any point where it may have sustained a temporary defeat. +The policy of both Powers is one in act, identical in principle, +substance, and complexion. It is the simple abnegation of justice in the +comity of nations. Since the days of Peter the Great, and the first +Frederic, the policy of these two Powers has been one of continuous +annexation and conquest. Prussia has no more intention of arresting her +course at the foot of the Carpathians, than Russia at the foot of the +Caucasus. It behoves, therefore, the British people to change their +course, and adjust their sails to the altered circumstances of affairs. +Nor is it less incumbent on Ministers to be alive to the fact, that, +though they may receive their home policy from the dictates of the +people, it is their high sphere, on all questions of foreign policy, to +guide, direct, create, and fashion the opinion of the country. There may +be a difference of opinion as to how far the nation is bound to uphold +the principles of abstract justice and right in its dealings with other +Powers; but there can be no difference of opinion upon the obligation of +maintaining these principles with the greatest tenacity, wherever their +violation affects our interests. We would claim the support of the most +rabid economist for the expediency of maintaining our rank as a +first-class Power, if upon no higher principle than with a view to keep +open foreign markets for our goods, and to prevent ourselves from being +cut off from the sources of our commercial prosperity. A policy, which +directed all the energies of the country to its own internal affairs, +might be persisted in without radical injury, while the political +equilibrium was divided between five States, each bent upon neutralizing +its neighbour's power by counter-checks and balances; but the same +policy pursued while Europe is in the hands of two military monarchies, +apparently having only one game in view, would be simple ruin to the +nation. + +We therefore regard the present Army Organization Bill as a step in the +right direction: our only objection to it is, that it does not go far +enough. What the nation wants is increased military efficiency, and +diminished expense. The Bill does not secure the one, and only partially +realizes the other. We, however, are content to proceed by steps, if we +are only secure of going in the right direction. Let us hope this +measure is only the prelude to a series of others, which may increase +our military efficiency without increasing the military burdens of the +country. But union is strength. The liberal States of Europe, like the +sticks in the fable, may be weak in themselves, but they can easily +become strong by mutual alliance. The time is not inopportune for a +League among the smaller States, based upon mutual defence from attack, +which, if it could not preserve peace, might afford England, in +conjunction with her crippled allies, a fulcrum of support in time of +need. At all events, it is our duty, besides attending to our military +organizations at home, to enter into closer relationship with the +independent States of Europe, that if the autocrats of the North persist +in indulging their old freak of enriching themselves at their +neighbours' expense, they may not find us unprepared to maintain the +power and greatness of this country. + + + + +CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE. + + + + +HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND TRAVELS. + + +_The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of +Ireland from the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria._ By J. +RODERICK O'FLANAGAN, M.R.I.A., Barrister-at-Law. Two vols. Longmans. + +These two handsome volumes are the result of twenty-five years' almost +continuous industry, and they bear abundant testimony to the variety and +interest of the author's researches and lucubrations. It was undoubtedly +a bold and happy resolution that led him to follow in Lord Campbell's +path, and attempt to accomplish for the Lord Chancellors of Ireland, +what that successful lawyer and judge had already done with such vigour, +clearness, and liberality for the Lord Chancellors of England. Mr. +O'Flanagan has certainly produced a work which will command public +attention from the specially skilful manner in which he has furnished, +in connection with the personal biography of the great lawyers, an +almost continuous review of Irish events, together with a thousand +traditionary reminiscences and anecdotes, scandalous or praiseworthy, +concerning the Irish bar, from the earliest period. The portraits, +especially in the first volume, may be rather indistinct; but, after +all, the Lord Chancellors of Ireland, for a period of about six hundred +years, stand before us with a remarkable distinctness, in all their +variety of opinion, accomplishment, and character; the arrogant +churchman, the profound politician, the corrupt judge, the staunch +patriot, the fierce fanatic, and the eccentric jester, all playing their +parts variously, and at times in a manner but little consistent with the +character of their sedate and pacific avocations. The first Irish +Chancellor of whom there is any record is John de Worchley, who received +his appointment in 1219, in the reign of Henry III. Nearly all the early +Chancellors were Englishmen, as well as prelates. Their courts were held +in Dublin Castle. Their salaries were originally £40 a year, exclusive +of fees and perquisites; now the income of the office is £8,000 a year, +with a retiring pension of £4,000. The greatest of all the Irish +Chancellors were certainly Lord Clare and Lord Plunket, and Mr. +O'Flanagan not inappropriately devotes to their biographies nearly +two-thirds of the second volume. + +It is very evident to the most cursory reader of this work, that the +author is a very staunch Roman Catholic, as well as a most patriotic +Irishman; but we should not on this ground hold him disqualified for his +present task, if he discovered a general candour and impartiality in +those instances in which his religious convictions are concerned. +Unhappily, however, in such cases, _surgit amari aliquid_. It would be +impossible for us to note all the evidences of religious partizanship +observable in the pages of this extensive work; but we prefer to direct +public attention to a very bold though unsuccessful attempt to vindicate +the character of one of the most detestable and unprincipled judges who +ever disgraced the Irish bench. Mr. O'Flanagan has taken extraordinary +pains to wipe the stains from the character of Sir Alexander Fitton, the +Irish Lord Chancellor of James II., who certainly appears in no enviable +light in the pages of Hume and Macaulay. Though compelled to admit that +he may not be 'able to remove the stains altogether,' our author is +still bold enough to say, 'with patience and perseverance, I have +satisfied myself that party prejudice originated or embellished most of +the original accusations.' (Vol. i. p. 467.) The case is one of purely +historical evidence. Hume's reference to Fitton is in these +words:--Tyrconnell was now vested with full authority, and carried over +with him as Chancellor, one Fitton, a man who was taken from a jail, and +who had been convicted of forgery and other crimes, but who compensated +for all his enormities by his headlong zeal for the Catholic religion. +He was even heard to say from the bench, that the Protestants were all +rogues, and that there was not one among forty thousand that was not a +traitor, a rebel, and a villain.' Macaulay's account is substantially +the same; but he adds that Fitton 'often, after hearing a cause in which +the interests of his church were concerned, postponed his decision, for +the purpose, as he avowed, of consulting his spiritual director, a +Spanish priest.' Mr. O'Flanagan disposes of these statements by +affirming that both these historians drew their representations from the +account of Fitton given in his 'State of the Protestants of Ireland +during King James's Government,' by Archbishop King, of Dublin, an +avowed enemy. Burnet, however, in his 'History of his own Times,' speaks +of Tyrconnell and Fitton as 'not only professed but zealous Papists,' +and of Fitton he says, he 'knew no other law but the king's pleasure.' +It is a very remarkable fact that Plowden, the Roman Catholic historian, +in his 'Historical Review,' published long after these works, does not +make the slightest allusion to Fitton, though if he had preserved +anything like the spirit of Mr. O'Flanagan, he would not have allowed +the memory of James's Irish Chancellor to rot under the 'repulsive +reproaches of two centuries.' But we are fully prepared to show that Dr. +King did not speak without book in charging Fitton with forgery. + +It is not a matter of much consequence whether Fitton was only 'one +Fitton,' as Hume calls him, or a descendant of one of the most +aristocratic families of Cheshire, as Mr. O'Flanagan, on undoubted +evidence, assures us. Neither does anyone dispute the fact that he was +convicted of the crime of forgery, and lay several years in prison. The +question is, was he guilty of the crime? Our author says--'There is some +doubt whether he was chargeable with the guilt which has been so +unsparingly imputed to him;' but he cannot deny that a jury of twelve +men had no hesitation on their oath in attaching forgery to his name. +What, then, are the facts of the case? These are recounted at some +length by Mr. O'Flanagan, following the admirable and now rare 'County +History of Cheshire,' by Ormerod; but he has not fairly followed his +authority, as his narrative omits passage after passage that bears most +hardly against Fitton. We are also to remember that Ormerod's own +authority was a tract written in Fitton's own justification, under the +following title:--'A True Account of the Proceedings in the several +suits in Law that have been between the Right Honorable Charles Lord +Gerard of Brandon and Alexander Fitton, Esq. Published for general +satisfaction by a lover of truth. Hague: Printed MDCLXIII. Small 4to, 49 +pp.' There was also another tract published, which, perhaps, Ormerod +never saw, under the title--'A Reply to a Paper intituled, A New Account +of the Unreasonableness of Mr. Fitton's pretences against the Earl of +Macclesfield.' (British Museum, Parl. Law Cases, vol. v., p. 117.) The +facts of the case as narrated in these tracts by Fitton's friends, may +be briefly described. Sir Edward Fitton, who was childless, resolved in +1641, after paying his debts and bequeathing legacies to his sisters' +children, to restore the ancient entail of the Gawsworth estates, and +sealed it by indenture dated 9th Nov., 17 Car., on William Fitton, his +next male kinsman, the father of Alexander Fitton, the Irish Lord +Chancellor. In this settlement there was a power of revocation. It is +said to have been confirmed by deed-poll, dated April 3, 18 Car., by Sir +Edward Fitton, who died two years after at Bristol. The allegation is +that this deed-poll was forged by Alexander Fitton, or, at his instance, +by Alexander Grainger. After Sir Edward's death, his widow, Lady Fitton, +retained possession of Gawsworth as her jointure; but on her death, +after a series of lawsuits instituted against the sisters of Sir Edward +Fitton, who were determined to retain the estate, William Fitton +succeeded in getting Gawsworth into his possession, and his son, +Alexander, afterwards succeeded upon his marriage in getting hold of all +the property by paying off a number of mortgages against it. But +nineteen years after Sir Edward Fitton's death, as this tract states, +his nephew, Lord Gerard, produced a will bequeathing the estates to +himself, as the son of one of Sir Edward's sisters; though it was +stated, on the other side, that immediately before his death, Sir Edward +said 'he would rather settle his estate on Ned Fitton, the bonny beggar, +than on any one of his sisters' children.' The parties then went to law, +Alexander Fitton relying on the deed-poll, and Lord Gerard maintaining +that it was not genuine. The High Court of Chancery directed a trial at +law to be had at Westminster upon this special issue, whether the +deed-poll was the act of Sir Edward Fitton or not; for it had been +rumoured that Lord Gerard's solicitor had prevailed upon Abraham +Grainger to swear that he had forged Sir Edward's hand to the deed. The +question came on for trial; the deed was substantiated--to use Ormerod's +words--by the evidence of Mr. Richard Davenport, Mr. Edmund Barwick, and +Mr. Thomas Smallwoods, whose deposition was taken on his deathbed by Mr. +Edge, a clergyman; but the forgery was, on the other hand, fully +acknowledged by Grainger himself, corroborated by the evidence of +Gifford and Wheeler; and it was also deposed by Colonel R. +Ashton,--Webb, Esq., Thomas Adams, Thomas Cotton, Captain Holland, and +others, that they had heard Mr. Fitton confess that Grainger had forged +a deed for him for £40. Depositions to Mr. Fitton's character were +taken, and three witnesses not named are said to have sworn they had +seen the deed-poll before the time alleged for the forgery. It was +objected to Fitton that he could not prove where he had the deed, or who +engrossed it; that it had not been mentioned at the former trials or at +Fitton's marriage; and that the witnesses could not remember where it +was executed. The jury found that the deed was forged. Now, let it be +remembered that this narration comes from the Fitton party; and yet Mr. +O'Flanagan holds Fitton guiltless in the teeth of the verdict of an +independent jury in London, who heard both sides of the case. But the +narrative does not end here. Processes were issued commanding several of +Fitton's witnesses to appear before the King's Bench on an information +of perjury. Then, says Mr. O'Flanagan, 'Grainger, conscience-stricken, +declared his prevarication in a written document, stating that he had +not forged the deed; that this document was signed in the presence of +twelve or thirteen gentlemen.' Our author's version of Ormerod's history +is singularly defective and one-sided. Ormerod says that +Grainger--according to the tract--begged earnestly for an opportunity of +acknowledging his guilt to Fitton; and, farther, did so before a citizen +of London, not named, and a kinsman of Fitton's, not named; and then +wrote a narrative which he read before twelve or thirteen gentlemen. But +Ormerod says that these 'gentlemen' 'were all most probably in low +situations, and are in no way identified.' The narration itself relates +the most improbable circumstances, as, for example, that in March, 1661, +Grainger, the narrator, was pulled off his horse, taken before Sir Allen +Aspley, who committed him to the Gatehouse without examination; that he +was in danger of being murdered in his bed by one Rowe; that he was +threatened with hanging, and with getting his hands cut off, if he would +not forge the will. Was there ever such an improbable story? And yet Mr. +O'Flanagan passes over this statement in silence, without referring to +Ormerod's honest judgment, that even the inference from Grainger's facts +is in favour of Lord Gerard, and that the evidence of a perjured witness +was of no value unless corroborated by independent testimony. We have +good reason, then, to believe that not only did Fitton secure the +forgery of the deed in the first instance, but that he induced Grainger +to issue his recantation in the shape of the narration referred to. For +the House of Lords, immediately after its publication, ordered two +copies of it to be burned, one at Westminster and another at Chester, +'at such time as Lord Gerard should appoint,' and inflicted the +following severe punishment on Fitton and three others:--'That Alexander +Fitton should be fined to his Majestie in the summe of £500; and should +be committed close prisoner to the King's Bench Prison until he should +produce Grainger, and should find sureties for his good behaviour during +life; and that Edward Floyd, John Cade, and John Wright (three of the +witnesses), should be committed to the Fleet during the King's pleasure, +and should, before their enlargement, find sureties for their good +behaviour during life.' It is evident from this very stringent +proceeding of the House of Lords that they connected Fitton very +directly with the disappearance of Grainger, and that Grainger was +either unable or unwilling to come forward to stand the ordeal of a +public examination upon the circumstances of his recantation. + +We submit, then, that Archbishop King--'with all his hatred of +Catholicity'--was perfectly warranted in saying that Sir Alexander +Fitton was 'a person detected of forgery, not only at Westminster and +Chester, but likewise fined by the House of Lords in Parliament' (p. +65). Mr. O'Flanagan has no evidence to offer against Dr. King's further +statement that he was an inefficient and partial judge, for the mere +negative evidence that the Irish bar did not express any dissatisfaction +with his decisions is not worth the slightest consideration. He admits +that Fitton did consult one Dr. Stafford, a Popish priest, before giving +some of his decisions; but then Stafford was made a Master in Chancery +by the same power that placed Fitton at the head of Irish law; for, as +King remarks, the Chancellor 'was forced to make many needless +references to the Masters in causes that had no difficulty in them.' +Stafford, 'the learned and _loyal_,' Mr. O'Flanagan calls him, may have +been 'an eminent doctor of the civil law,' but the Reverend Master in +Chancery who perished at Aughrim in cheering on the courage of the Irish +troops was not exactly the person best fitted to dispense justice in +such critical times--side by side, be it remembered, with Felix O'Neal, +another Master, son of Turlogh O'Neal, the bloody rebel and murderer of +1641. We do not believe, then, that Mr. O'Flanagan has succeeded in the +slightest degree in 'removing the stain' upon the character of Fitton. + + +_Select Charters and other Illustrations of English Constitutional +History, from the earliest times to the reign of Edward the First_, +arranged and edited by WILLIAM STUBBS, M.A., Regius Professor of Modern +History. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1870. Pp. xii. 531. + +This volume is intended to be, primarily, a 'treasury of references; an +easily handled repertory of the _Origines_ of English Constitutional +history; and, secondarily, a manual for teachers and scholars, with a +view to the first purpose.' Professor Stubbs has collected 'in it every +constitutional document of importance during the period which it +covers;' and with a view to the second, he has also 'pointed out the +bearings of the several documents on one another, and on the national +polity,' in his prefatory remarks to each of them, 'supplying in the +introductory sketch, a string of connexion and a continuous theory of +the development of the system.' + +As 'the first traces of our national history must be sought for, not in +Britain, but in Germany--in the reports given by Cæsar and Tacitus of +the tribes which they knew;' reports in which we have indeed a 'somewhat +indistinct picture,' yet 'one which when interpreted by the clearer +history of the later stages of the institutions which are common to the +Teutonic race, does give a probable and consistent representation' of +them. The Professor's first extracts are taken from the 'Commentarii' of +one of these authors, and the 'Germania' of the other. These are +followed by others taken from Mr. Thorp's translation of the 'Ancient +Laws and Institutes of the Anglo-Saxons.' The remainder of the volume +consists of 'Select Charters and Excerpts,' illustrated by carefully +selected passages from the chronicles of the several periods, as well as +by other historical documents not easily accessible to any who have not +the command of a public library, and some of which are to be read only +in MS., all bearing upon the 'long struggle of the constitution for +existence,' which terminated only with the reign of Edward I. There are +only two documents of a later date given--the 'Petition of Eight,' of +1628, and the 'Bill of Rights' of 1689; both of which are printed in an +appendix. + +Mr. Stubbs thus states his reasons for closing his labours with the +reign of the first Edward. It is 'the period of time at which the nation +may be regarded as reaching its full stature. It has not yet learned its +strength, nor accustomed itself to economise its power. Its first +vagaries are those of a people grown up, but not disciplined. To trace +the process by which it learned the full strength of its organism,--by +which it learned to use its powers and forces with discrimination and +effect,--to act easily, effectually, and economically,--or, to use +another metaphor, to trace the gradual wear of the various parts of the +machinery, until all roughnesses were smoothed, and all that was +superfluous, entangling, and confusing was got rid of, and the balance +of forces adjusted, and their action made manageable and intelligible, +and the power of adaptation to change of circumstances fully realized, +is the story of later politics--of a process that is still going on, and +must go on as the age advances, and men are educated into, wider views +of government, national unity, and political responsibility. We stop, +however, with Edward I., because the machinery is now completed, the +people are at full growth. The system is raw, and untrained, and +awkward, but it is complete. The attaining of this point is to be +attributed to the defining genius, the political wisdom, and the honesty +of Edward I., building on the immemorial foundation of national custom; +fitting together all that Henry I. had planned, Henry II. organized, and +the heroes of the thirteenth century had inspired with fresh life and +energy'--(pp. 50, 51). + +The value of the volume is considerably enhanced by a glossary that +might be extended with great advantage, and especially so if made to +include the French and Anglo-Saxon words, as well as the Latin ones, +which are employed in the body of the work. It would also be well if in +some cases the definitions were to be accompanied by references and +quotations after the manner of Ducange. The learned Professor would, +moreover, render good service to students and teachers alike, if he were +to add such explanatory notes to some of his excerpts as he well knows +how to compile. The volume ought to be no stranger in any of our +colleges, and well deserves a place in the 'curricula' of our public +schools. It will not be without its interest and its value also to the +general reader. + + +_The War Correspondence of the 'Daily News.'_ 2 vols., Macmillan and Co. + +_Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris._ Hurst and Blackett. + +_Journal of the Siege of Paris._ By the Hon. CAPTAIN BINGHAM. Smith, +Elder, and Co. + +_Letters on the War._ By T. MOMMSEN, D.F. + +STRAUSS, F. MAX MÜLLER, and T. CARLYLE. Trübner and Co. + +_The Great Duel._ By W. R. GREG. Trübner and Co. + +When the history of the war of 1870 comes to be written, it will furnish +scope for genius the most various and the most profound. A greater +Jomini will be needed to elucidate the tactics that decided greater +battles than Borodino or Austerlitz; to unweave for us the intricate web +of the great strategist's plans; to solve for us the problem whether he +is a superstition and a fetish, reaping the glory sown by the +organization and _morale_ of his troops, or the silent centre from which +was directed the regulated play of such tremendous forces. But though +the time for the military critic or the philosophical historian has not +yet come, the events and scenes of the war, as they photographed +themselves in the eye of the spectator, are full of immediate interest, +and demand for their adequate description the highest order of +picturesque power. Probably no accounts of the recent campaign so amply +satisfied our modern thirst for the picturesque as the letters written +to the _Daily News_. The moving panorama of the battle-field, the +scientific deploying of vast masses, the heroism of attack or repulse, +were brought close to our eyes. The description of the battle of +Gravelotte reads like a page torn out of Tacitus, and for awful +vividness might stand by the side of Thucydides' narrative of the +plague. So swiftly have events passed out of chronicle into history, +that the accounts of the early battles of the war--Weissenburg, Wörth, +Forbach, will even now bear reperusal, and contain much that in our +hungry desire for the salient facts was omitted at the first reading. +Till a spectator of the entire course of the war shall fuse his +impressions of the moment with his mature reflections, and produce a +continuous living narrative of the whole, these letters will probably +remain the best compendium of the history of the last eight months. We +may add that the republication comprises many of the letters of the +veracious 'Besieged Resident.' They are at least amusing, and give the +proper seasoning of farce to the tragedy. + +The 'Besieged Resident' remained in Paris during the siege 'to enjoy a +new sensation.' He had new sensations in abundance; and generously gave +the British public, through the medium of the _Daily News_, the benefit +of his experiences. They were sufficiently varied, for he went in search +of them--grotesque, for fidelity to fact is not his strong point--and +amusing, for he is the liveliest of _persifleurs_. The personal element +in these letters was unquestionably that which gave them their charm; +the siege as it affected the 'Besieged Resident,' rather than the +'Besieged Resident' reporting on the siege, seemed to be the subject of +them. How his clothes were held together by an infinity of pins, how his +boots had burst in half-a-dozen places, and how horse did not assimilate +with his inner man, were facts which made the Philistine's breakfast an +interesting meal during the siege. Now that the letters have been +published in a complete form, these important facts seem less +prominent, and we are able to recognize the real value of the narrative +as a history of opinion--journalistic, Bellevilleite, and _bourgeois_, +during the four months of the investment. The description is not +flattering. The 'Besieged' plays the part of valet to the Parisian +heroes, and sees very little of heroism but a great deal of braggadocio. +A somewhat cynical temper perhaps lends some exaggeration to mere +common-place folly; but it seems certain that the despicable traits and +unworthy actions of which the 'Besieged' is the chronicler will have to +be taken into account in any truthful narrative of the great siege. On +the whole, it does not seem likely that the 'Besieged' will be +superseded in his self-assumed function by any subsequent chronicler. + +Captain Bingham is a more prosaic narrator than the 'Besieged Resident,' +but there was so much to be seen that he has many incidents to relate +without touching on ground already occupied. His book is a consecutive +narrative of facts, which are all the more trustworthy that they take no +colouring from the individuality of the writer. + +The 'Letters on the War' are of no evanescent interest, but are a +permanent contribution to the literature of the subject. The writers of +them are the Titans of the Teutonic race, whose clear duty it is to +speak out, as the prophets of old spoke out, in a great crisis of +history. Those of Dr. Strauss and Mr. Carlyle are the most important +historically, as they are also the most interesting. Mr. Carlyle's +historic retrospect reaches back to Louis XI., and is meant to show what +a terribly bad neighbour France has been to Germany for the last 400 +years. He describes the grand 'plunderings and incendiarisms of Europe' +by the French, and he believes that Germany would be a 'foolish nation +not to think of raising up a secure boundary fence against such a +neighbour.' And why should not Alsace and Lorraine be restored to their +original owners? The only titles of France to them are the 'cunning of +Richelieu and the grandiose long-sword of Louis XIV.' He has pity for +France but no sympathy; acknowledges her services to civilization and +the grandeur of her 'Insurrection against shams,' in 1789; but believes +that the German race is now to be protagonist in the 'immense +world-drama.' Dr. Strauss's argument is, like Mr. Carlyle's, historical, +but with diminished perspective, and from a different point of view. He +traces the history of the movement towards national unity, travailing +towards birth through the obstructions of the reactionary despotisms, +planted by the diplomacy of Vienna, the abortive revolution of 1848, and +the apathy or despair of all but the enthusiasts. He accepts the creed +of Bismark; unity could only be obtained through force, as Hegel saw +seventy years ago. + +In Mr. Greg's pamphlet and letters we admire the dexterity of the +practised swordsman, whose convictions are chiefly a matter of logic. + + +_Her Majesty's Tower._ By WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON. Vols. III. and IV. +Hurst and Blackett. + +We might as well surrender at discretion to Mr. Dixon. He is as +confirmed in his ways as we in our critical canons. What the late +lamented George Robins was among auctioneers--what M. Jullien was among +musicians--what Dumas _père_ was among novelists--what the 'besieged +resident' is among newspaper correspondents--Mr. Dixon is among +historians; _what_ it is not easy to say. He alike provokes and +interests us. Our taste is offended; our critical conscience protests. +Murdered Clio, like Banquo's ghost, sits in Mr. Dixon's place and +'shakes his gory locks.' The meretricious style--the superb +magniloquence--the broad statements--the highly coloured pictures--the +irrepressible affinities for what is coarse, make us fume with +impatience and exclaim with anger: but we must read on; in spite of +ourselves we are interested, although with the uneasy pleasure of a sin. +We must, however, be just. Whether it be that our taste has adapted +itself, or that Mr. Dixon has improved, we are bound to say that in +reading these volumes our pleasure has been less alloyed, and has +secured a larger measure of our good conscience than in reading any of +his previous works. Some of his descriptions are well toned in their +brilliancy, there are fewer catapult sentences, good taste is less +frequently violated, extravagances of assertion are less daring, and +altogether he inspires greater historic confidence, and excites more +literary pleasure. Happily, however, we are released from all reasonable +obligation to apply historic tests. Mr. Dixon tells us that he has not +'cared to fret the reader by a dozen references in every page to +pipe-rolls, doquets, warrant-books, and council registers.' Such things, +we admit, are encumbering; they are vulgar, moreover, and altogether +unworthy the dignity of history, and are only temptations to irreverent +readers. It is pleasant to read a well-printed page, undisfigured by a +single reference, to be unable to distinguish too nicely between a +'doquet' and 'the caricatures' which Miss Burdett Coutts has lent him. +We read 'Her Majesty's Tower' as we read 'Kenilworth' or 'Richard III.' +If it be neither history nor fiction, it is something better than +either, and it is well by the absence of all references to be released +from the responsibility of determining which. Mr. Dixon certainly does +possess considerable narrative and descriptive ability. His literary art +is great. He cannot be dull. Whether he also possesses patient power of +historical research, and a judicial faculty of exact presentation, we +have no means of judging; but it is conceivable that with these, +combined with adequate scholarship, he might have trodden not unworthily +in the footsteps of Macaulay. We regret that he has chosen to write +after the fashion of the _Daily Telegraph_--to lay himself out for +sensations--the result of which is a series of volumes which might have +been brilliant history, but which are only sensational articles. + +In the range of these volumes Mr. Dixon is essentially a free lance. The +first of the two is almost entirely occupied with George Villiers, Duke +of Buckingham, the infamous favourite of our British Solomon, and with +the base intrigues and dirty scandals of his court,--why it is +impossible to say, inasmuch as, except that some of his victims were +imprisoned in it, Villiers had no more to do with her Majesty's Tower +than Macedon had with Monmouth, nor so much, for Villiers does not begin +with a T. It is, in fact, a romance of Whitehall, of which Villiers is +the hero. And it is by no means a clean one; that under any +circumstances it could hardly be, but, as Mr. Dixon tells it, it is like +a bad dream. Throughout we feel the evil suggestion. Mr. Dixon seems to +delight in keeping us on the verge of nastiness, and to have peculiar +unction in reiterating such offensive epithets as the one he applies to +Dean Williams. We think that the dirty intrigues and unsavoury stories +with which the author of 'Spiritual Wives' has filled this section of +his work might, without much detriment to our knowledge of either +history or social manners, have been left in the obscure records from +which they have been culled. The career of Villiers, the son of a poor +knight, who began life as an amateur comedian, and in that character +pleased the pedantic voluptuary James, and was rapidly elevated through +a succession of offices and dignities until, when he fell beneath +Felton's knife, he was Duke of Buckingham and the most potent courtier +in England, is an inseparable part of the history of England; and the +shameless corruption and profligacy of James's court, of women like the +'parent,' as Mr. Dixon chooses to label the mother of Villiers, and +indeed of almost every circle of fashionable life, are as vitally +connected with the convulsions that followed, as the Courts of Louis +XIV. and XV. are with the French Revolution. But what connection there +is between the details of Buckingham's rascality and of his mad escapade +into Spain with Prince Charles, and the Tower of London, passes our +comprehension. The only pretence of a connection is, that on the safe +arrival at home of Buckingham and the Prince certain prisoners in the +Tower were liberated. Williams, who was first a Welsh curate, and then, +as the reward of being a hateful pander, was exalted to be first Dean of +Westminster, and ultimately Archbishop of York, is a despicable +character, and history will not qualify Mr. Dixon's portrait of him. +'Little Laud' was made use of by 'the parent' as his successful rival. +He was destined to play a part in the tragedy which followed that he +little dreamed of. + +In Eliot, Mr. Dixon has a genuine hero of the Tower. His account of him +is almost unexceptionable, only, one remembers that here he had the +advantage of the previous labours of Mr. Forster. Eliot, for his +fearless and incorruptible patriotism, endured a long imprisonment in +the Tower. He died in it--one of its noble army of martyrs. For seven +years after his death, as is well known, no Parliament was called in +England. Mr. Dixon in trying to be magniloquent is almost profane when +he tells us that of this period 'Wentworth was the State, Laud was the +Church, and Charles was God.' + +The fourth volume is much more relevant to Mr. Dixon's theme. We could +have spared the catalogue of names with which, after the manner of +Homer's list of ships, it opens, and which is an amusing instance of the +sonorous effects which Mr. Dixon delights to produce; but the volume is, +on the whole, satisfactory. The instances are well selected. The +dramatic skill with which his heroes are presented is great. The +interest is legitimately sustained, and we are really gratified to be +able to speak highly of the whole. We cannot follow him in detail. Our +sympathies are most interested in the visionary politico-philosopher +James Harrington, the author of 'Oceana,' the sorrowful victim of +idiotic fears, whose political prevision, Mr. Forster's Ballot Bill, +after two centuries, is just about to realize. Mr. Dixon rapidly +sketches, as heroes of the Tower, the second Buckingham--the Duke of +Richmond, who was guilty of falling in love and eloping with the king's +mistress--the Earl of Castlemaine, who connived at the unfaithfulness of +his wife, and died a monk--the two Penns--the romantic story of Colonel +Blood--the mysterious tragedy of the Earl of Essex--the martyrdom of +Lord Russell, and of Algernon Sydney--the execution of the Duke of +Monmouth--the lurid tragedy of Judge Jeffreys--the death of Laud--the +fate of the Scottish Jacobites--the romantic escape of Lord +Nithsdale--the imprisonment of Sir Francis Burdett--and the finis to the +prison history of the Tower in the anti-climax of the Cato street +conspirators. + +We wish Mr. Dixon had treated his really great epical subject with more +dignity and with better taste. His powers of picturesque narration and +of vivid portraiture are great: is it too late to ask him to employ them +upon better themes, and to subdue them to great purposes? + + +_Annals of Oxford._ By J. C. JEAFFERSON. 2 vols. Hurst and Blackett. + +There is, perhaps, no subject on which a book of pleasanter and more +instructive gossip could be compiled than the English universities. +Their origin and early constitution are excessively vague and uncertain, +and are therefore a source of perpetual interest to the antiquary. It is +known that they came into existence as part of that intellectual revival +which is coupled with such names as Anselm and Abelard, and that the +first notices of their activity represent them as vigorous institutions. +As soon as the colleges, which are special characteristics of English +academical history, are founded, information as to the domestic life of +these ancient corporations begins, and is continued uninterruptedly to +our own time. The materials for the annals of Oxford and Cambridge are +copious, and such annals, were the facts carefully selected and well +arranged, would be an exceedingly valuable addition to the social +history of this country. Few people, for example, are aware of the very +important part which Oxford played in the incipient reformation of +Wyckliffe in the fourteenth, and in the revival of tithes under Erasmus, +More, and Colet at the conclusion of the fifteenth, centuries; or of +the refuge which both Universities, but especially Cambridge, afforded +to the leaders of Puritanism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. +Nor are there many persons who are alive to the fact that the +legislation of the Restoration, which tied both these great institutions +down to a political system, under which the Established Church was made +the slave of the State and the gaoler of the mind, degraded and +demoralized both Oxford and Cambridge. + +Mr. C. Jeafferson has some pretensions to the reputation of a good +gossip. He has compiled certain amusing books about the professions of +law, physic, and divinity. In an evil hour he was tempted to risk this +reputation, and to write a book about Oxford. He has succeeded in +producing one of the worst specimens of book-making which has ever been +put before the public. To call these two volumes the 'Annals of Oxford' +is a gross abuse of words, for they are not annals in any sense +whatever. A few facts are culled from very familiar authors, such as +Anthony Wood and Gutch, and are diluted with a prodigality of verbiage +to which no experience of ours can find a parallel. The most important +parts of academical history are omitted, as for example the contest +between the University and the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which Oxford +supported Wyckliffe against prelate and pope, and succumbed only when +she was threatened with the loss of her franchises. The reader is +treated to an account of the origin of the University, for which there +is neither authority nor probability, for throughout the two volumes the +author is utterly without any information of what the University has +been or is, notwithstanding his boast that he 'knows nearly everything +about Oxford in the dark ages.' + +But the most serious offence which the book commits is not its omission +of important facts, or its intolerable dilution of unimportant ones, or +its misapprehension of the whole subject, but its incessant vulgarity. +There is hardly a page in the two volumes where we do not find examples +of that slangy familiarity of expression which passes with some people +for wit or humour, and which in pretending to avoid dulness is the +dullest of all sins against good taste. Mr. C. Jeafferson's contribution +to the history of Oxford is wholly without value, and for the sake of +the writer's reputation as a collector of gossip and anecdote, the +kindest wish which a reviewer can make him is that the 'Annals of +Oxford' may be speedily forgotten. + + +_The Life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer._ By ISAMBARD +BRUNEL, B.C.L. Longmans. 1870. pp. 568. + +Very few men in the history of the world have at the same time said so +little and done so much as Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He was eminently the +worker as distinguished from the talker. Not that he had, as was the +case with the illustrious Hunter, a difficulty as to expressing his +thoughts in appropriate language. His mode of expression, on the rare +occasions when he did speak, was pointed and happy. His reports and +professional correspondence were models of clear perspicuous terseness. +But he felt that his works were the true witnesses as to his character; +and to their silent and enduring testimony he was content to commit his +fame. Though he was made as often as any public man of his day the +object of frequent and unsparing attack, he rarely offered any verbal +reply, restrained by that proper pride in his own profession which +forbade him to appear before the irresponsible and uneducated tribunal +of the political press. + +What those works were on which rests a reputation that will increase +while the fame of many others fades and disappears, his son, in a modest +volume, brings briefly to the notice of the public. There is evidence +that Mr. Isambard Brunel has been a pupil in his father's school. He has +confined his work within limits only too narrow for the actual magnitude +of the subject. Very often, by the simple form of abstracted chronicle +which he uses, as in describing the launch of the _Great Eastern_, he +does more to silence slander and to terminate controversy, than could +have been effected by the most eloquent advocacy. Still, we could wish +he had allowed his pen fuller scope. We should like to have heard more +of the inner life of so remarkable a man, to have had the taste +gratified by illustrations of his refined and graceful fancy, and to +have had the magnitude of his works brought into fuller relief by a more +minute description of his unsleeping toil, his unflagging and audacious +originality, and his conscientious effort to bring all his designs and +every detail of their execution to the sternest test. + +It is easy for those who have a mere newspaper acquaintance with Mr. +Brunel to sneer at the education attained by the engineer at the expense +of his shareholders. At the commencement of the railway system in this +country something of the kind was inevitable in the case of every +leading engineer. The great features on which the success of the railway +system mainly hinged were not arrived at by scientific deduction. The +speed which George Stephenson estimated at sixteen miles an hour--viz., +the velocity attained by some of the most rapid coaches of the +period--was raised to from twenty to thirty miles an hour, in the first +instance, by Captain Ericsson (the inventor of the Monitor), in +conjunction with the late Mr. John Braithwaite. During the experimental +trials on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the Novelty, the engine +built by these engineers, passed by the Rocket, that of the Messrs. +Stephenson, like a shot. The ill-constructed four-wheel engines of Mr. +Bary, with which the London and Birmingham line was opened, were +constructed for a moderate rate of speed. From those which, of his own +design, Mr. Brunel put on the Great Western Railway, he obtained a speed +equal to that of the flight of the swallow--from sixty to seventy miles +an hour. A level portion of line between London and Slough was daily +traversed by the express trains at this high speed. + +While the forethought of Mr. Brunel--which added fifty per cent. to the +accommodation afforded by his lines of railway for the future traffic of +the country--doubled the speed of his own trains, it further compelled +the narrow-gauge lines, by the use of the long six-wheeled engines, +materially to increase theirs. The sagacious genius of the engineer was +evinced yet more splendidly in the services he rendered to navigation. +Of oceanic steam traffic Mr. Brunel may justly be called the father. In +July, 1837, the _Great Western_ steamship was launched at Bristol, and +in April of the following year she arrived at New York, after a journey +of nine days, with a fourth of her coal unconsumed. The _Sirius_ was +built by the St. George's Steam Packet Company expressly to anticipate +the _Great Western_, so that by sea as well as by land Mr. Brunel +effected almost as much by the emulation he awoke as by his own energy +and toil. The _Sirius_ arrived at New York a few hours only before the +_Great Western_, having consumed every combustible on board, down to a +child's doll! The measured tonnage of the _Great Western_ was 1,340 +tons; that of the _Great Britain_, launched at Bristol in July, 1843, +was 3,443 tons; that of the _Great Eastern_, launched in the Thames on +31st January, 1858, was 13,343 tons. It was thus that the cautious +shipwright felt his way before developing the full magnitude of his +conceptions. + +For the account of his further works--his docks and harbours, his +bridges and viaducts, his investigation of projectiles and of screw +propulsion, his admirable military hospital for the Crimean expedition, +his general professional practice--we must refer our readers to the +volume now before us. All those who regard the civil engineer as a sort +of typical or central workman, and who therefore are prepared to measure +our future progress in applied science and industrial art by the scale +afforded by the condition of this profession in England, will do well to +read with care this very interesting book. + + +_Memoir of George Edward Lynch Cotton, D.D., Bishop of Calcutta; with +Selections from his Journals and Correspondence._ Edited by Mrs. COTTON. +Longmans, Green, and Co. 1871. + +In this volume Mrs. Cotton has given to the world a memorial of the late +Bishop of Calcutta, which by those who personally knew him, and also +knew English life in India, will be read with peculiar interest. The +scattered nature of their dioceses, the varieties of claims which they +have to meet, the consecration of churches, and the confirmation of +candidates, compel the dignitaries of the English Church in India to +travel frequently and far; and, as metropolitans over the entire empire, +the Bishops of Calcutta journey more frequently and to greater distances +than their colleagues. A large portion of this memoir is devoted to the +details of such journeys; and the descriptions of places, persons, and +incidents, coming fresh from the ripe, scholarly, and cheerful mind of +one who saw Indian scenes and manners for the first time, give to it a +peculiar charm. The extracts from the Bishop's journals and letters are +numerous, perhaps too numerous and extended; and the connecting links, +now detailing important facts, and at another time discussing the +bearings of some great question, are written with clearness and power. + +The vein of humour which ran through Bishop Cotton's mind enabled him to +discern the lively and especially the burlesque aspect of the scenes +through which he passed, whether in school and college days, or amid the +serious labours which closed his life. At Rugby he named the fat denizen +of his sty Vitellius; at Cambridge he would class his personal friends +in an imaginary _tripos_, and award them medals and honours which +expressed his estimate of their worth; and his letters to his children +and old friends are full of the amusing side of native life. + +With many things to interest him, the reader cannot but be disappointed +at the book. It is almost entirely confined to the few years of Bishop +Cotton's episcopate. At page 68 he has already left England for his +Eastern diocese at the age of forty-nine; and the story of the next +eight years occupies five hundred pages. All we can learn of the mental +and moral growth of his English life, of his distinguished career as an +educator, and of the remarkable position which he early attained among +the foremost clergy of the English Church, is contained in the first +three chapters of the memoir by Dean Stanley, with the beautiful notices +of his work and influence by Professor Shairp and the late Professor +Conington. Yet his early career deserves to be described as fully as +that of Dr. Arnold, who loved him so well, whom he so greatly resembled, +and to whose position as an educator he practically succeeded. These +early years made him what he was--a careful scholar, a man of active, +earnest piety, an intense lover of truth, a man of large mind and broad +sympathies. + +We took occasion, soon after the bishop's death in October, 1866, to +express in these pages our high estimate of his worth and usefulness, +and his views on the important questions with which in his brief +episcopate he had to deal are fully set forth in Mrs. Cotton's +narrative. His long but most interesting travels; his concern for the +isolated English communities in India; his care for the spiritual +interests of the English soldiery; his opening the consecrated Episcopal +Churches to the use of the Presbyterian regiments; his charges to the +clergy; his deep interest in the Episcopal missions, in the raising up +of a native ministry, and in measures for the relief of native converts, +such as their _Re-marriage Act_; his efforts to establish schools for +East Indian children, are fully and carefully discussed. But while +illustrating in many ways Bishop Cotton's large-hearted sympathies and +the broad views which he took of men and things, the memoir fails to +show how in religious matters he looked with deep interest on other +Christian communities than his own, was prepared to do them full +justice, and held the most kindly and unpatronizing intercourse with +prominent members among them. A man of deep, sterling piety, an +evangelical preacher, a faithful minister and bishop of his Church, a +lover of good men, he well deserves the high position now accorded to +his name by the members of the Church of England; and long will he be +remembered with esteem and regard by men of many communions who outside +her own pale are striving to evangelize India. + + +_Some Memorials of Renn Dickson Hampden, Bishop of Hereford._ Edited by +his daughter, HENRIETTA HAMPDEN. Longmans, Green, and Co. + +Time brings its revenges, but not always repentance or wisdom. The +Dissenters are to be admitted to the University, and the intelligence +and good sense of the country--the dogmatic intolerance of such men as +made Dr. Hampden a martyr alone excepted--heartily approve. He is +justified as a man more foresighted and just than many of his +contemporaries, and his persecutors are relegated to that limbo of +conscientious intolerance into which all claimants of arrogant +prerogative and all obstinate conservatives are cast. Dante should have +devised a retribution for non-jurors, or Vathek should have represented +them as melancholy ghosts with their hands upon their hearts and ceasing +not to sigh out their _non possumus_. Opponents of every liberal advance +in Church and State rudely swept into eddies by the stream of time, +their characters are most heterogeneous and their labour very great. The +forty bullet-headed Protectionists of the Free-trade reform, the +Bourbons who 'forgot nothing and learned nothing,' the bereaved patrons +of rotten boroughs--to say nothing of Laud and his school of divine +right, of the good old times of the Star Chamber, of the Five-mile Act, +of the Test and Corporation Acts, of Roman Catholic disabilities, of +Church-rates, and the Irish establishment--must surely bemoan themselves +very bitterly either because they maintained right in vain, or because +they opposed it in vain. And yet inherent Toryism will not learn wisdom. +The opponents of the Test Repeal Act are, in the present Parliament, +repeating as blindly and as fatuously the follies of their predecessors. +Miss Hampden tells the story of her father's noble testimony, for really +while his actual life was much more than this, there is little more +about it to tell. Learned, pious, candid, orthodox, conservative, +reverently, and, as we should now say, almost timidly jealous for +revealed truth, anything but a man of advanced opinions generally, +Bishop Hampden was the object of a virulent and most unscrupulous +persecution, such as must ever be the dark reproach of any Church or +party whose polemical passions can make them capable of it. His sin was +that he was strongly opposed to the Tractarian movement. He was too +honest and honourable to be moved by this hostility from his position, +although his scholarly and benevolent and sensitive life was embittered +by it. He lived to see himself vindicated, and now the public opinion +of England is about to endorse the clear-sightedness, candour, and +justice of his advocacy. Of his great theological learning and catholic +heartedness, there is no need to speak. The memoir, although not very +skilfully put together, is an interesting and touching memoir of a very +noble man. + + +_The Life and Times of Lord Brougham._ (Written by himself.) Edinburgh: +W. Blackwood and Sons. + +Though the space of time covered by this first volume of Lord Brougham's +Memoirs was one of the most interesting in his own life, and one of the +stormiest in European history, the narrative is languid, and contains no +facts that are at once new and important. Indeed, his Lordship had been +already forestalled by notable contemporaries, who had been seized more +or less strongly with the autobiographical passion, and also by the fact +that the earlier portion of his life had long passed into the region of +history. What novelty the volume possesses it derives chiefly from musty +journals of travel and political correspondence of evanescent interest. +To be admitted to the spectacle of Opposition wire-pulling +three-quarters of a century ago, and to be favoured with the rapid +observations on transitory things of a hasty traveller, are benefits +that were perhaps overrated by Lord Brougham. Had he been a +philosophical observer, or possessed the power of picturesque +description, he might have left behind him an enduring record of great +and historical events, _quorum pars magna fuit_, which he had the double +advantage of seeing, as it were, in the making, and also after they were +reduced to their natural proportions by the perspective of many added +years. That, however, we have no right to expect from Lord Brougham. As +it is, there are some minute personal touches in the narrative which are +at least curious. He attributes his enormous energy and success to the +Celtic blood in his veins; very probably it accounts for his +instability. He gives a shocking account of his grandfather's funeral, +as an instance of the barbarous manners of the time, though, unhappily, +it is far from having died out. He redescribes the origin of the +_Edinburgh Review_, declaring that Sydney Smith's account of it is +entirely imaginary, although he substantially confirms it; and he gives +as his own, a satirical tale, which, it has been pointed out, is +translated from the 'Candide' of Voltaire. We shall have more to say +about both the autobiography and the man when the publication is +complete. + + +_The Life and Travels of George Whitefield, M.A._ By JAMES PATERSON +GLEDSTONE. Longmans and Co. + +The character and power of Whitefield must ever be a study of interest +to persons who either as religious men or as historical students attach +importance to the evangelical revival of the last century; and in +proportion as it recedes into the past, as contemporary passions and +their inspirations die out, and especially as the arrogant assumptions +of a dominant Church are discredited, the study will have increased +interest and recognised importance. + +Several lives of Whitefield have been attempted, some of which we would +rather not characterize. Mr. J. P. Gledstone is generously reticent +concerning them. He makes no allusion to the labours of his +predecessors, but simply tells his story with all the lights that are +available. Nothing in Whitefield's character or history or work turns +upon the discoveries of the antiquarian. The broad facts are adequately +known, and the work of the biographer is to recite and interpret them. +Mr. J. P. Gledstone has produced what, we think, will prove the standard +life of Whitefield. His sympathies are catholic, and he does justice to +the noble soul of Whitefield, who was the 'brother of all who in every +place, and under every denomination, call upon the name of the Lord +Jesus Christ. I have striven to put the man rather than his creed upon +the pages of this book.' Whitefield was no theologian; he was simply a +great preacher. His Calvinism was passionate rather than dogged, and in +an inappreciable degree influenced his preaching. His great soul yearned +for the salvation of men, and the more arduous the service the more +attractive to him it was. + +Into the merit of his great preaching power, however, we cannot now +enter, and yet both now and at all times it is a study of the most vital +moment to the Church. Mr. J. P. Gledstone's book throws upon it all the +light that circumstance and fact can furnish, and intelligently suggests +most of the deeper psychological and spiritual causes. We very cordially +commend this carefully-studied and admirably-written life of the +Chrysostom of England. + + +_Twenty-two Year's Missionary Experience in Travancore._ By Rev. JOHN +ABBS, of the London Missionary Society. John Snow and Co. + +_The Land of Charity; a Descriptive Account of Travancore and its +People, with especial reference to Missionary Labour._ By the Rev. +SAMUEL MATEER, F.L.S., of the London Missionary Society. John Snow and +Co. 1871. + +_The Pioneers; a Narrative of Facts connected with early Christian +Missions in Bengal._ By the Rev. GEORGE GOGERLY, late Missionary in +Calcutta. John Snow and Co. 1871. + +Here are three more of the numerous and excellent works which in recent +years have sought to illustrate in full detail the course and the fruits +of missionary labour in India. They are valuable additions to the +missionary library, and each will occupy a position of its own. Instead +of dealing with the Indian empire at large, both Mr. Abbs and Mr. Mateer +restrict themselves to the single province of Travancore. The work of +Mr. Abbs recounts the missionary experience of twenty-two years, and is +characterized by sound sense, extreme modesty, and deep religious +feeling. Much valuable information is given on the relations between the +mission in Travancore and the native government, and some fresh light +is thrown on the whole question of caste as encountered by Christian +missionaries in Travancore. In the same region Mr. Mateer spent nine +years, and endeavours to render his little work a complete handbook of +all necessary information respecting that district and its people. This +information has been drawn in part from authoritative records, and in +part embodies the results of the writer's own observation and inquiry +during the period of his daily life within the province. The book is +written in a simple unpretending style, and will amply repay perusal. + +Travancore, called by the Brahmins the Land of Charity, or Piety, is a +secluded province in South-western India, peculiarly devoted to +Hinduism. Though occupied to a very large extent by aboriginal tribes, +some of which must be of very ancient origin, many centuries ago it was +religiously conquered by some prominent members of the Brahminical +caste, and they have ever since retained the firmest hold upon its +rulers and its people. All the wealth and prosperity of this +well-watered and fertile corner of India have been poured into their +lap, and the lower castes and aboriginal races have been their devoted +serfs. Closely walled in by mountains and by the sea, it has had +comparatively little intercourse with its immediate neighbours, and +scarcely any with the more distant districts of South India. Its +reigning family has long been seated on the throne; and Mr. Mateer +describes the religious position occupied by its princes, and the +strange ceremonies which both establish their sanctity and secure to the +priests and Brahmins abundant rewards. Mr. Mateer also pictures the +numerous races and classes which make up its million and a half of +inhabitants, and explains the immoral causes and condition of things +under which, in one caste especially, all property is made to descend to +nephews and not to sons. + +While describing fully the physical features and productions of the +province, he dwells especially upon its religious aspects, and gives +much information concerning the life and customs of the Shanar and +Ilavar races, who in religion are devil-worshippers. It is amongst them +that Christianity has made special progress during the present century. +While the princes and nobles have been growing in knowledge and +experience of their English rulers, the lower tribes have in great +numbers accepted the Gospel. The story of the mission planted among them +is given at length, and illustrations are presented of the fruits which +they have produced in individual converts, in strong and liberal +churches, and an indigenous native ministry. The Gospel has also +leavened the population generally, and introduced many remarkable +innovations among the hard and cruel customs of former days. The +Brahmins have fought hard for their supremacy, but it is steadily +passing away. 'Sir,' said a Sudra one day to a Brahmin, 'have you +directed your attention to a wonder of the present age? Listen: the +Brahmin has become a dealer in oil and fish, while the Shanar or +pariah goes about as a Brahmin or teacher of the country. The Brahmin +woman spends her day in cooking, eating, and sleeping; while the +Shanar or pariah women are found in the streets with their Scriptures +in their hands, pretending to teach their neighbours. Is not this a +wonder? Verily the world is turning upside down.' + +Mr. Gogerly, the well-known missionary of the London Missionary Society, +has given a graphic and most pleasant account of the early leaders of +the missionary enterprise in Bengal and of their work. Mr. Grogerly +quitted the mission of which he was a member thirty years ago, and might +long ere this have presented to the world the striking facts with which +he became acquainted in the course of his Indian career. But he has +reserved the story till the present day, when some of those facts have +been gradually forgotten, and when the younger members of our missionary +societies hear only of the modern aspects of Christian work, and of the +larger fruit of conquered difficulties and converts gathered into the +Church of Christ. + +Mr. Gogerly's notices of the pioneers in the Church--Baptist, Free +Church, and American Missions in North India--are brief, but some of +them convey original information drawn from his own experience. He +naturally gives fuller details of the mission to which he himself +belonged, and in which many remarkable events occurred worthy of a +permanent place in our missionary histories. Later residents in Bengal +will read with wonder of a state of things in regard to the manners of +the people, their views of idolatry, the honour rendered to devotees, +and the satisfaction felt with the ancestral religion, which has long +since yielded to the knowledge and light which for forty years have been +changing the Bengal race, and making them a new people. The numerous +anecdotes given by the writer illustrative of former days, of domestic +habits, of village education, of native amusements, and of ancient +customs, are extremely interesting. Some institutions referred to, like +suttee, have disappeared. In regard to others, such as female education, +the position of things has wholly changed. + +Mr. Gogerly's book is well illustrated with numerous engravings, and we +heartily commend it to our readers. + + +_The Duke of Edinburgh in Ceylon. A Book of Elephant and Elk Sport._ By +JOHN CAPPER, _Times_ Correspondent, &c. Provost and Co. + +It is Mr. Capper's great merit that as a court chronicler, who of +necessity must magnify the most ordinary incidents, and carefully +chronicle the smallest event in any way connected with the movements of +a Royal Prince, he never violates good taste. He is neither flippant nor +flunkeyish, but does his work in a simple, straightforward way. No one, +we presume, will read his official record of receptions, addresses, +dinners, and balls; but this can be skipped, and bits picked out +descriptive of Cingalese hunting experiences sufficiently novel and +dangerous to be gently exciting. The Prince seems to have borne himself +as a manly, unaffected English gentleman. The volume is a thin imperial +octavo, and is adorned with some six or eight very excellent +chromo-lithographs. + + +_A Ride through the Disturbed Districts of New Zealand; together with +some Account of the South Sea Islands._ Being Extracts from the Journals +and Letters of LIEUT. THE HON. HERBERT MEADE, R.N. Edited by his +Brother. John Murray. + +Mr. Meade's untimely death, by a recent explosion at Portsmouth, invests +this volume with special interest. It does not, however, need any +adventitious attractions. It is fresh with information and bright with +genial feeling. It makes light of difficulties and hardships, and is +full of the enterprise and optimism of youth. Whether the author had any +thought of publishing his journals or not, they have the great charm of +simplicity and unaffectedness. The former part of the volume describes a +journey through the disaffected districts of New Zealand. He was +captured by the Kingites, and narrowly escaped with his life, and gives +an exciting account of the Aokatoa or preliminary religious rites, and +of the Rungana, or parley-parley to decide upon his fate; the +executioner with the tomahawk standing close by him during the debate. +He escaped at length only by the wind of his horse. He was the first +white man who had fallen into the hands of the enemy. The second, a +missionary, they hanged, and ate his eyes and brains. + + + + +POLITICS, SCIENCE, AND ART. + + +_The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex._ By _Charles +Darwin_, M.A., F.R.S. John Murray. + +The pleasure of reading Mr. Darwin's long-promised volumes, which has +been keenly anticipated, is at length gratified. Both the subject and +the man exercise a strange fascination upon the public mind. As an +experienced naturalist, a speculative philosopher, and a keen logician, +Mr. Darwin would command the attention of men of science under any +circumstances, but he has the secret of personal power and popularity +quite apart from the accomplishments which allow him to be classed with +other naturalists and philosophers. It is not the lucid clearness of his +style, nor his power of collecting, selecting, and grouping facts, nor +the shrewdness and breadth of his generalizations, alone, which give his +readers their exquisite sense of delight as they follow him through his +descriptions, his arguments, and his speculations. Beyond all this, he +has that sensuous delight in the real, the beautiful, and the +truthful--that appreciation of the grandeur of universal law, visible in +the minutest details, and that union of the receptive and active +faculties which constitute the artist and the genius who owes more to +Nature than to culture. If an argument may be derived from what man is, +and from the mental excellence which he is capable of exhibiting, to +rebuff the theory that he is of so humble a parentage as Mr. Darwin +represents, the author himself would be a refutation of his own theory. +In contemplation of his own powers he might say with Hamlet, 'What a +piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In +form and moving, how express and admirable! In action, how like an +angel! In apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world, the +paragon of animals! and yet, what to me is this quintessence of dust!' +The lineal descendant proximately of 'a hairy quadruped, furnished with +a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits and an +inhabitant of the old world; remotely, of an animal more like the larvæ +of existing ascidians (lining sacks), than any other known form!' + +Mr. Darwin's volumes treat of two subjects of profound but not of equal +interest. The difference in the interest felt in _man's descent_ and in +_sexual selection_ is well shown in the numerous reviews and notices of +this work which have already appeared. More than two-thirds of the work +is devoted to sexual selection, and this subject is treated, not +exhaustively, it is true, for that is quite impossible in the present +state of our knowledge, but methodically and comprehensively. A vast +number of fresh facts are presented; a great array of old ones are +marshalled in due order; the phenomena are traced as they appear +throughout the whole animal kingdom, and historians and travellers are +adduced in evidence to elucidate problems physical and metaphysical. Yet +reviewers have not taken notice of this, which is really the most +valuable part of the work; guided by a popular instinct they revert to +the subject of man's descent. They do this although there is not nearly +so much freshness, either in the facts or arguments presented in this +portion of his work. 'The proper study of mankind is man,' is a dictum +which men who are no students will readily adopt, because the subject is +not far to seek. That man, the orang, and the gorilla, have a common +ancestor is so fascinating an idea that none can resist its weird +influence. The clergy repeat it from their pulpits in scornful +utterance, as though the simple statement carried its own refutation. +Transcendental philosophers like Vogt assume it as a demonstrated fact. +Wits joke about it. The ears of ladies blush, not at the praise of their +own loveliness, but because of the pointed and telltale evidence these +bear of their own origin. The fascination of this idea was evident from +the first appearance of 'The Origin of Species.' The public insisted on +seeing in it nothing but evidence that man had sprung from a lower form. +Yet in that work it was evident that Mr. Darwin purposely avoided the +discussion of this point. No one will be surprised to learn, from the +introduction of the present work, that during many years the author had +collected notes on the origin and descent of man without any intention +of publishing on the subject--but rather with the determination not to +publish--that he might not add to the prejudice against his views. Yet +the multitudes who talk about the book they have never read, as if they +had done so, have all along supposed and assumed that the one question +thus designedly avoided was the subject of the whole treatise. No doubt +most of the arguments in favour of the derivation and origin of species, +told with equal force as proofs of the like derivation and origin of +man, but there was yet room for a supplemental theory, founded on the +vast elevation of man's moral and mental capacity, which would make man +an exceptional species with an exceptional origin. That such a view was +possible, may be inferred from the concluding chapter in Mr. Wallace's +book on the same subject, in which a peculiar Providence is made to +preside over the evolution of man. There can, however, be no mistake now +about Mr. Darwin's view of the question. His assertions about the origin +of man from a lower form are not only confident, but he has become +dogmatic upon the subject. The attitude of dogmatism is new to him, and +we must say does not become him so well as the cautious candour of his +earlier work. Mr. Darwin writes:--'The main conclusion arrived at in +this work, and now held by many naturalists who are competent to form a +sound judgment, is that man is descended from some less highly-organized +form. The ground upon which this conclusion rests _will never be +shaken_.... It is incredible that all these facts should speak falsely. +He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the phenomena of Nature +as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the work of a +separate act of creation.' + +In his speculations as to the genealogical descent of man and the way in +which it emerges from the ancestral tree of the animal creation, Mr. +Darwin is almost wholly guided by the rudimentary organs found in man. +Mr. Darwin is quite consistent in this method. No doubt rudimentary +organs which are functionless in our species and have dwindled almost to +nothing, but are developed and have a palpable use in other allied +forms, present the greatest difficulties to those who do not believe in +a derivative origin of species, and also afford the strongest support to +the _selection_ theory. After enumerating the aborted organs, the +transient and foetal structures, and the often-recurring abnormalities +found in man, which are some seventeen or eighteen in number, the author +works out his theory of origin almost strictly in accordance with the +plan of associating the ancestors of man proximately with those species +which possess the most of these analogous structures, and so on to the +larger divisions in which a fewer number of them have a wider +distribution. This plan is, no doubt, philosophical, but it leads the +author into some strange speculations. By similar reasoning it is +demonstrable that our ancestors were hermaphrodite, and thus long after +they had ceased to be so both sexes yielded milk to nourish their young, +and perhaps carried them in marsupial sacks. + +A doctrine thus dogmatically stated, of course involves problems and +theories hard to solve and demonstrate, but this arises, in the opinion +of the author, from the fact that the solutions and demonstrations are +hard to find, and not from the doctrines which involve them being in +the least doubtful. The existence of the moral sense in man is one of +these problems, and one of the most interesting chapters in this portion +of the work is devoted to an explanation of the evolution of human +conscience. The moral sense is traced to those social instincts which +man has in common with all gregarious animals. The strengthening and +growth of the memory and judgment would enable man to compare his past +actions, and the mere abiding satisfaction of the process would create +that distinction between the higher and lower law or motive which is all +that modern moralists require. 'Ultimately a highly complex sentiment +having its first origin in the social instincts, largely guided by the +approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in +the latter times by deep religious feeling, confirmed by instruction and +habit, all combined, constitute our moral sense in conscience.' + +The second portion of the work is a valuable contribution to science. It +is far more philosophical in its tone. It is a repertory of facts. The +theories to which these facts point are indeed discussed, but the method +is inductive, while the method of the first portion appears to us to be +deductive. Beauty as distinguished from use has always been a +stumbling-block to the disciples of the natural selection school. That +which, in any species, pleases our minds by immediate agency of the +senses, as distinguished from that which is of service to that species +in adapting it to external conditions, is quite unaccounted for by the +survival of the fittest, at least so far as wild and untamed species are +concerned. Some evolutionists would cut the knot by denying the evidence +of beauty apart from fitness. Suitability, symmetry, conspicuousness, +and an imposing appearance are, no doubt, desiderata which natural +selection may seize upon and secure, and these may incidentally and +necessarily involve that which is beautiful in our eyes. But after all +these have been eliminated or satisfied, there yet remains in a large +number of species an element of beauty the contemplation of which brings +pleasure to all human beings, whether educated or uneducated, refined or +unrefined. This is especially the case throughout those large, +numerously represented and dominant classes taken from two separate +sub-kingdoms and called insects and birds. These two classes occupy a +great deal of the attention of Mr. Darwin. If we assume any evolutionary +theory, and abjure the doctrine of final causes, all the varied beauty +of butterflies and humming-birds has but one probable explanation, +namely, that of sexual selection. To make even this explanation +possible, we must assume a keen, discriminating æsthetic faculty in +animals which is like in quality with our own, as that faculty is +possessed by the most refined of our species. Moreover, this faculty +must be intimately connected with the sexual appetency in each species. +Such a connection is, judging from analogy, not improbable. In forming +an opinion how far these views are correct, it is important to isolate +the operation of sexual selection from that of natural selection. +Nature has throughout almost the whole animal kingdom afforded to us +the means of isolation. For, as a general rule, the sexes in species are +not absolutely alike, and often there is great difference between them. +All sexual peculiarities therefore which cannot be explained on the +principle of division of labour, throw light upon the æsthetic faculty +of animals as a selective, and therefore by the theory of a creative +agency. Mr. Darwin has collected a vast mass of facts about sexual +peculiarities, which being in no way connected with the sexual function, +he calls _secondary sexual characters_. Of course, sexual secondary +characters so limited point to a difference in the modification of the +sexual desire by æsthetic appetite in the two sexes. Generally speaking, +the adorned sex is the male. Have, then, the females a greater +appreciation of beauty than their males? Mr. Darwin thinks the ardour of +the male destroys his discrimination. Some facts produced, however, seem +to run directly counter to this supposition. On all hands the peacock is +considered the most splendid of birds, and the difference between the +sexes in this species is carried to an extreme point. Yet, one of Mr. +Darwin's best authenticated facts is, that the pea-hen differs from most +birds in being the ardent wooer. + +One of the happiest and most satisfactory episodes in the book is the +account of the genesis of the eye-spot in the plumage of birds, and +specially of that of the ball and socket ornament in the secondary +wing-feathers of the Argus pheasant. The treatment of this subject +reminds us, by its clearness and beauty, of the author's treatises on +coral islands and the fertilization of orchids. How simple a phenomenon +may disclose a world of interest and wonder when in the hands of a man +of genius! It seems to us, however, that that wonderfully faithful +representation of a round ball lying in a hollow socket, expressed on +the flat of the web of a feather, offers a striking example of the +inadequacy of either natural or sexual selections to explain such +phenomena. 'That these ornaments,' says Mr. Darwin, 'should have been +formed through the selection of many successive generations, not one of +which was originally intended to produce the ball and socket effect, +seems as incredible as that one of Raphael's Madonnas should have been +formed by the selection of chance daubs of paint made by a long +succession of artists, not one of whom intended to draw the human +figure.' Exactly so! We must attribute to the hen Argus pheasant the +æsthetic powers of a Raphael in order to account for the decorations of +her mate, or, more properly, we must assign to a succession of +multitudes of generations of birds a correctness of appreciation of the +draughtsman's art, such as is a rare excellence among men. This may be a +fact, but if so, it opens up a new realm to our imagination. It must be +admitted that the tendency of modern thought is to obliterate the fast +line drawn by old authors between reason and instinct, and to assign the +former less exclusively to man, and the latter less exclusively to +animals. This tendency and the incidental light thrown by these +considerations on these interesting questions are well exemplified in +Mr. Darwin's work. + +A curious disagreement in opinion between Messrs. Darwin and Wallace is +brought out and treated of lengthily in the chapters on birds. Mr. +Wallace thinks that in the case of splendid cock-birds who have plain +hens, who sit on open nests, the tendency for both sexes to become +brilliant has been checked by natural selection. On the other hand, Mr. +Darwin thinks that secondary sexual splendour was from the first +developed only in the male; and in the converse case, where the female +is also gay, natural selection causes her to build a covered nest for +protection. We think Mr. Darwin has the best of the argument. The +question of whether the standard of beauty among men is uniform in its +essentials or not is ably discussed, but no conclusion is arrived at; so +contradictory is the evidence of travellers and observers. + +We heartily endorse Mr. Darwin's dictum that false facts are highly +injurious to the progress of science; but false views, if supported by +some evidence, do little harm. We are therefore content to + + 'Let him, the wiser man, who springs + Hereafter, up from childhood shape + His action like the greater ape.' + 'But we are born to other things.' + + +_Thoughts on Health and some of its Conditions._ By JAMES HINTON. Smith, +Elder, and Co. + +This volume contains by no means a dry discussion of the conditions of +health. It hardly professes to be methodical or exhaustive in its +treatment of the subject. It is rather the production of a man who is +full of original ideas such as lie around the subject of health and +life, and who has adopted this title in order to give them to the +public. The details of the subject have evidently no charms for the +author; nevertheless, those which are given or referred to show him to +be quite abreast of the foremost file of the army of science. He is +quite poetical in his similes, and is fascinated by sublime ideas, yet +his chapter on 'Nursing as a Profession' shows him to be a practical +reformer. The book will be read with interest by those whose mental bias +leads them in that direction, while it gives vivid conceptions of +abstruse ideas. The one fault of the book is, that the author allows his +imagination to build up speculations upon a basis of known facts, which +fresh facts yet unknown may very possibly show to be mere speculations. +Thus the speculations about the functions of nitrogen, carbon, and +phosphorus, when forming complex compounds in the organism derived and +built up upon our knowledge of their properties as elements, are +doubtless interesting, but they are not backed by chemical knowledge, +and are opposed to the analogies of that science. This fault, however, +is so allied to the virtues of freshness and force of thought which are +everywhere found in the volume, that it ought not to prejudice the +reader against the author, though he certainly ought to be on his guard +against the seduction of that author's enthusiasm. + + +_The American Colleges and the American Public._ By NOAH PORTER, D.D., +Professor in Yale College. New Haven, Conn. 1870. + +This volume would be invaluable to us if we had a system of high-school +and university education at all corresponding to that of the United +States. No one is more competent than Dr. Noah Porter to describe the +operation of the American system, to detect some of its weaknesses, to +contrast it with English and German tuition, and to point out where +America might learn something from England, and in what respect England +might be benefited by following transatlantic customs. Far away from the +circumstances and experimental innovations which have excited so much +general interest in America, we can hardly enter into any minute +criticism of the old customs or the recent changes. Some of the +discussions--such, for instance, as that on the relative advantage of +college lectures and text-book-recitations, on the system of private +tutoring, on the propriety or otherwise of very frequent examinations, +on the dormitory system, on the advantage of the resident and +non-resident systems, and on the extent to which laws and supervision on +the part of the college authorities should extend--will interest the +supporters and professors of English colleges for the ministry, though +many of the conditions under which we should have to apply them are so +profoundly different that not much light would be attained for our +guidance. The calm, candid, lucid manner in which our author has +investigated the whole subject, and held the balances in all these +discussions, is worthy of all respect. In advocating greater freedom +from clerical influence, and more breadth in the relations between the +authorities and the graduates in the government of the colleges, we +presume that he is treading on delicate ground. In our smaller +institutions we have long since adopted the principle he recommends. Our +national universities will become before long the property of the +nation, and not of a sect, and be governed in deference to law, by their +own _alumni_, without any privilege but that which is earned by +distinguished ability. This, however, is not the place to discuss a +question like this. + + +_The Ancient Geography of India; the Buddhist Period, including the +Campaigns of Alexander and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang._ By ALEXANDER +CUNNINGHAM, Major-General, Royal Engineers (Bengal, retired). With +thirteen Maps. Trübner and Co. 1871. + +The author of 'The Bhilsa Topes' has once more brought his great +learning, and his rare advantages of travel and of residence to bear on +the elucidation of the Buddhist period of Indian history and thought. On +this occasion he has, however, shown his antiquarian, topographical, +and etymological skill in deciphering and harmonizing the geography of +the Greek historians and the Chinese pilgrims. Few things are more +important to the comprehension of any history--sacred, classic, modern, +or contemporary--than a clear exhibition of the physical features of the +country on which the destinies of generations have been determined, and +a sound identification of the sites of famous cities, fortresses, +temples, and battle-fields. When the history of great nations covers +thousands of years, the physical features may be recovered by personal +inspection of sites that are distinctly described by early writers; but +the confusing resemblance of neglected and buried cities to each other +has been the fruitful source of false identifications, and when once on +a wrong scent, the geography of large districts of country has often +been thrown into hopeless entanglement. The geography of India, with its +history, maybe conveniently divided into three periods. The Vedic or +Brahmanic period would cover the entire prehistoric section of the +history, and trace the extension of the Aryan race from their first +occupation of the Punjab to the rise of Buddhism. The Buddhist period +would extend from the era of Buddha--whensoever that may be determined, +say between the fourth and sixth century B.C.--to Mahmoud of Ghizni; and +the Mohammedan period will extend from the rise of the Mohammedan power +to the battle of Plassy. Major-General Cunningham has devoted a volume +of nearly six hundred pages to the investigation of the geography of +India during the Buddhist period, which may be said to cover from +fourteen to sixteen hundred years. He has personally travelled over the +entire country, and carefully scanned its features with a curious, +archæological eye, and has thus succeeded in fixing the line of +Alexander's campaigns, and in bringing into geographical completeness +and unity the itineraries and allusions of the Chinese pilgrims, +Fah-pian, Chung-yun, and Hwen-Thsang. Though the campaigns of Alexander +were confined to the valley of the Indus and its tributaries, yet the +information collected by his companions, and the records of subsequent +embassies between the Seleucidæ and the Maurya and other princes, +include abundant references to the whole valley of the Ganges. We think +we may confidently assert that no student of the works of Rémusat and +Lassen, Stanislas Julien, or Vivien de St. Martin, will now be content +without having General Cunningham's maps and expositions at his side. It +would be difficult to do justice to such a work in a brief notice; +still, some of the identifications are of general interest. The merest +tyro in Buddhist lore knows something of the legend of Kunâla, the +beautiful-eyed son of Asoka, the great Buddhist king, who was sent in +his youth and unsuspecting innocence to quell a revolt in the great city +of _Taxasila_, and who there suffered the loss of his lustrous eyes in +consequence of the malicious designs of his stepmother. Everyone has +heard that in the neighbourhood of this city, Buddha is fabled in a +previous state of existence to have made the sacrifice of his head in +alms, and to have offered himself in another existence to a dying +tigress, having first fed her with his blood that she might be strong +enough to devour him more effectually. The city was admired by Alexander +himself; it was described by Pliny and Arrian; it was visited by +Apollonius of Tyana, and referred to by his celebrated biographer, +Philostratus. It was visited with enthusiasm by Fah-Hian 400 A.D., and +by Hwen-Thsang in 630 and 643 A.D.; and a variety of particulars are +mentioned which have enabled our author by personal inspection to +identify the exact spot, to make out the ruins, the lines of walls and +roads, and the site of the stupa placed by the great King Asoka over the +scene of the act of self-sacrifice to which we have referred. + +Our author identifies the celebrated city _Srâvasti_ with the ruined +city of _Sâhet-Mâhet_, where he discovered a colossal figure of Buddha, +with an inscription having on it the name of this city, immortalized by +Buddha's most successful preaching. He has shown that when Hwen-Thsang +visited Srâvasti it must have been in utter decay, and that he mistook +the ruins of the city for those of the palace; but Cunningham has +brought the divergent statements of the Chinese pilgrims as to the +distance of _Srâvasti_ from other points into sufficient accord to be +satisfactory, and he draws by a clever etymological manoeuvre the +modern name _Sâhet-Mâhet_ into harmony with the Pali form _Sâwatthi_ and +the Chinese name She-wei. We have, moreover, in the volume strong +reasons given for fixing the site of Kapilavastu, the birthplace of +Buddha, at _Nagar_, in the northern division of Oude; and the site of +_Nalanda_, the monster Buddhist monastery, at _Baragaon_ near Gaza; and +so with hundreds of other places which are interesting from their +mention in Buddhist legend or authentic Buddhist biography. We heartily +thank General Cunningham for his elaborate work. + + +_Walks in Rome._ Two vols. By AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE. Strahan and Co. + +This is only a guide-book, but it is one of a very superior description. +As Rome is to all cities, so is this guide-book to all other +guide-books. Fully informed with the spirit of the past, and yet not +wanting in the facts of the present, it is at once an historical monitor +and a topographical companion. The poetry and sentiment and delicate +observation of various writers, bred of cultured gazing upon the ruins +which almost make twenty centuries synchronous, have been carefully +gathered together; but the requirements of the mere sightseer have not +been forgotten. The volumes are full of useful information. We should +think that only those to whom Rome is familiar with more than the +familiarity of a natal city could afford to dispense with them. + + + + +POETRY, FICTION, AND BELLES LETTRES. + + +_The Works of Alexander Pope._ New Edition, including several hundred +Unpublished Letters and other new Material, collected in part by the +late Right Honourable JOHN WILSON CROKER. With Introduction and Notes by +Rev. WHITWELL ELWIN. Vols. 1, 2, and 6. Murray. 1871. + +Two things are evident on the most cursory inspection of Mr. Elwin's +work; first, that he has spared no pains in probing every corner of a +most complicated story; secondly, that he finds a pleasure in making the +case against Pope look as black as it possibly can be made. In a long +and minute investigation of the circumstances attending the publication +of the successive volumes of Pope's letters, he exposes the petty +trickery and vanity of the poet. We are ashamed of Pope as we read this +merciless exposure. But we are somewhat relieved when we recollect that +after all these frauds and concealments there was nothing to gain by it. +Like the magpie hiding a silver spoon, Pope took nothing by his trickery +but the pleasure of deceiving. He could not help doing as he did. +Whether from his Catholic education, or from whatever cause, he had +contracted a dishonest habit of mind, which came out in all his +dealings. But Mr. Elwin gets so heated with the chase after Pope's +stratagems, that he discovers them even where they do not exist. When he +sets up the theory that the 'Essay on Man' was a treatise of infidelity +palmed off on the public under the disguise of a vindication of +optimism, he overshoots the mark. + +So far three volumes of the edition are before us--two of the poems, and +one of the correspondence. We hope in some early number to devote an +article to an examination of Mr. Elwin's editorial work. + + +_Napoleon Fallen._ A Lyrical Drama. By ROBERT BUCHANAN. Strahan and Co. + +Mr. Buchanan is a brilliant _improvisatore_, and could doubtless produce +dramas and epics to order on any subject to which the revolutionary mind +is akin. We do not doubt the genuineness of his lyrical passion; it is +white-hot and screaming, but it seems as if it were easy to kindle, not +quite rational in its foundation, and certainly not classical in its +expression. As a rhymed pamphlet, special-pleading a cause, and echoing +the cries of the hour, 'Napoleon Fallen' is unquestionably powerful; as +a dramatic representation of events in the shape in which they will +descend to history, it is too violent to be true. It was a happy device +to incorporate the Athenian chorus with the modern drama; the expedient +provided expression for the eager feelings with which the world +witnessed the stupendous struggle. But to import into the statuesque +forms of poetry the frantic passion and inarticulate rage of the +vanquished, in their naked amorphous violence, removes the poem out of +the sphere of art. If the representation of a thing is meant to be +permanent, the thing itself must be not only real, but also permanent +in its nature. Lessing laid down this canon, and one would have thought +that it was now established. But if 'Napoleon Fallen' is not perfect as +a poem, there is very much fine poetry in it. The lyrical fire which an +age in travail with revolutions produces is perhaps not rare in our +days; Mr. Buchanan unquestionably possesses it. He also possesses that +belief and faith without which no man has a right to sing at all--belief +in the divine end of human life, and faith in the future. With poetic +indefiniteness it is rather an aspiration than an articulated creed, but +he is at least no emasculated Pagan. His dramatic power is less obvious, +and perhaps it is only the dramatism of the lyrist--the mere modulation +of passion into a different key. + + +_King Arthur._ By EDWARD BULWER (Lord Lytton.) Tucker. + +Lord Lytton's variety and pertinacity of effort must command the +admiration of even those who do not deem him great. Amongst those +churlish critics we fear we must be ranked. He is not _quite_ a poet, +yet we cannot help sympathizing with his firm resolve to place himself +among poets if the thing could be done by endeavour. In that way it +cannot be done. Marsyas shall never equal Apollo. Lord Lytton's place +among novelists is not at this juncture our affair; his place among +versifiers is high, as 'St. Stephen's' shows; but we can give him no +place among poets. His 'King Arthur,' which has now been some years +before the public, is a complete proof of this. Even Mr. Tennyson +himself has not made quite the best of the son of Uther Pendragon. We +prefer the old version of 1460-- + + 'What sawe thou there?' than sayd the Kynge, + 'Telle me now, yiff thou can: + 'Sertes Syr,' he sayd, 'No thynge, + 'But watres depe and waves wanne,' + +to the neoteric Sir Bedivere's 'long ripple washing in the reeds.' We +strongly object to the misconception of the wondrously beautiful story +of Vivian. We cannot comprehend why nobody dare tell us how Launcelot of +the Lake killed Agrawayne. If these old myths deserve poetic treatment, +treat them fairly; it is absurd to modify them to suit the indelicate +delicacy of a modern society whose most refined journals are fond of +essays upon questionable topics. This, however, is a slight digression: +let us return to Lord Lytton. He has managed to transform the Arthurean +romance into melodrama. Gawine and his raven remind one of a burlesque +by Burnand or Byron. Indeed, the poem shows poverty of invention, and a +complete want of mastery over rhythm and rhyme and style. Here is a +hexastichon:-- + + Bright as the moon, when all the pomp of cloud + Reflects its lustre in a rosy ring, + The worthy centre of a glittering crowd + Of youth and beauty, shone the British King: + Above that group, o'erarched from tree to tree, + Thick garlands hung their odorous canopy. + +'Pomp of cloud'--'reflects its lustre'--'worthy centre'--'odorous +canopy'; these are just the phrases that nobody would write who took the +trouble to think. And why in the world should poor King Arthur be +compared to the moon? He has been much misrepresented by many poets; he +was a semi-barbarous Welshman, whom our Somersetshire men drove into the +sea down by Tintagel: but he has had a _sacer vates_, and we do not see +why he should be subjected to inferior treatment. Is there anything in +the contemporary Arthurean verse that approaches Sir Ector's lament over +Sir Launcelot of the Lake--Achilles of the Arthurean _Iliad_?... 'Ah Sir +Launcelot, thou wert head of all Christian Knights.... And thou wert the +courteousest knight that ever bore shield. And thou wert the truest +friend to thy lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman. And thou wert +the kindest man that ever struck with sword. And thou wert the goodliest +person that ever came among press of knights. And thou wert the meekest +man and the greatest that ever ate in hall among ladies. And thou wert +the truest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in rest.' So +says the old poet. Can Lord Lytton or Mr. Alfred Tennyson approach him? +Can Homer beat him? The illustrations of this edition are scarcely +worthy of the poem. + + +_The Iliad of Homer._ Translated by J. G. CORDERY. Rivingtons. + +Englishing Homer has of late been a general occupation with men of +letters, and we should be the last to object to it. We delight in Homer. +We rather dislike the effeminate treatment which some of his myths have +met at the hands of one or two eminent modern poets. We hold that there +is more in the sonorous swing of those demiurgic dactyls than the +contemporary writers of blank verse can quite comprehend. Erratic enough +are we to hold that there was one Homer, not many--that no _purpurei +panni_ of Peisistratus were interwoven with his cloth of gold--that he +was an isolated leader of thought. Certain also are we that his +influence is in these days much needed, and that his Greek ideas are of +great service to modern Englishmen; his strength and simplicity are +things we possess and admire; many an Achilles has led the forlorn hope +for England, and many an Odysseus has been a F.R.G.S. There is nothing +more remarkable in Homer than what we shall venture to call his +_Englishness_. Hence, from one point of view the late Earl of Derby +translated him well; for the Earl was an Englishman every inch, and, as +we have heretofore said in these pages, the Hector of the Tory Troy. But +as the Earl was not a poet, he could not exactly render as he ought to +be rendered the supreme poet of the pagan past. Lord Derby saw in him +the part which is visible to the English legislator and landowner. There +is a good deal more than this in Homer scarcely comprehensible by the +race whose motto is _sans changer_. There are unfathomable depths of +poetic philosophy in those two oceans of thought which we call the +'Iliad' and 'Odyssey.' The key-note is struck in [Greek: Dios d' +eteleieto boulê]: throughout Homer we find the will of the supreme +Divinity always manifested. + +It is, we believe, this coincidence of English with Hellenic ideas which +causes so many men of different types to find pleasure in Homer. Think +of the chasm between Pope and the "sick vulture," or even between Lord +Derby and the poet Worsley. The theme is tempting, but space avails not; +we must say a word or two on Mr. Cordery's 'Iliad.' He seems, so far as +we have followed him, to know his Greek excellently well; but he +assuredly does not know the power and capacity of English blank verse. +The rhythmic weapon, the most difficult we know, is not within his power +to wield. Thus he commences the 'Iliad'--those lines which, as Lord +Macaulay would say, 'every schoolboy knows'-- + + 'Sing, goddess, of Achilles, Peleus' son + The wrath that rose disastrous, and the cause + Of woes unnumbered to Achaia's host,' &c. + +The first few lines suffice. Here is a writer who cannot wield the metre +he has chosen. This being so, we find it undesirable to enter farther +into any discussion of the merits of his version, and shall content +ourselves with giving conscientious praise to his loving and patient +attempt to do a great work which is beyond his height of attainment. +This is not contemptuous nor careless criticism. Not yet has Homer been +done into English. Will any future translator give us Homer's +unutterable music, Homer's unfathomable thought? + + +_Ierne._ A Tale. By W. STEUART TRENCH. 2 vols. Longmans, Green, and Co. + +If Mr. Trench's 'Realities of Irish Life' was something more than a +history, 'Ierne' is something more than a romance. It is full of vivid +pictures of Irish life, and is inlaid with historical information, +political disquisitions, and didactic comment. We are not sure which +presents the truer portraiture, the history or the romance, probably the +latter. It appears, in spite of the extravagance and impossibility of +its incidents, to reproduce with the fidelity which long personal +familiarity enables, various aspects of Western Irish life, its fine +culture, enthusiastic genius, and heroic patriotism in the higher +classes; its wild passions, its half-savage instincts, and its no less +noble patriotism in the lower. The representation is not a very hopeful +one; at least, whatever hope there is in it must be found in the gross +inconsistencies of thought, and in the unaccountable impulses of feeling +which made Ireland such an enigma to Lord Killarney; the blind, +deep-rooted infatuation about the ownership of land, and the notion that +all improvements by Saxon possessors are inimical to its reversion, so +that the better the landlord, the worse the feeling of antagonism +excited, is profoundly perplexing. Mr. Trench has so thorough a +knowledge of Irish feeling that we must accept this representation as +true. Even the excellencies of a Saxon landlord, and his solicitude for +the improvement of his estate and for the comfort of his peasantry, are +specific reasons why he should be shot. Mr. Trench writes in full +sympathy with the people in their sense of wrong. Few nations have been +so oppressed and peeled, and no generous or even just Englishman will +deny that, however unreasonable and fanatical Irish treason is now, when +for nearly a century everything that could be done to redress the +tyranny of the past has been done, it has traditional justification +which almost exalts it to patriotism; and Mr. Trench feels the +difficulty of so adjusting his sympathy as that while he justifies the +national resentment of the past, he may condemn the continued treason of +the present. Of course he sees no possibility in the dreams of +repealers, and wishes every wise friend of Ireland would denounce repeal +as the worst thing that could befall her. He can only, with ourselves, +hope that the measures of redress of the last two Parliaments which +leave Ireland almost literally without a grievance, will gradually +discredit political agitation, and engender loyalty. He does, indeed, +half suggest that a royal residence in Ireland, occasional visits from +the Queen, or the Prince of Wales, would, as an appeal to Irish +sentiment, be more potent than even the disestablishment of the Irish +Church, or the enactment of the Land Bill. If so, it is a pity the +experiment is not tried. As a romance, Mr. Trench's book is scarcely +worthy of criticism. Ierne's personation of the ghost and her marvellous +movements and achievements generally are simply preposterous. We +tolerate the romance for the sake of the pictures of Irish life +interwoven with it. Inveterate novel-readers will get through this, +others will skip the tale, but even then the book will, by its +information concerning national feelings and prejudices, and its +delineation of various scenes of national life, faction fights, midnight +drills, meetings of conspirators, and wakes, and especially by its racy +delineation of national humour, and its careful description of noble +scenery, amply repay persual. + + +_Véra_. By the Author of 'The Hôtel au Petit St. Jean.' Smith, Elder, +and Co. + +The Charm of 'Véra' is twofold; first, it introduces us to the interior +of Russian life, and excites our interest by the delineation of modes of +thought, feeling, and life, very different from our own. Next, it is +written with great literary skill; the author's first work, which +delineated Provençal life, will have prepared its readers for excellent +workmanship in this. It is a story of character rather than of incident. +Véra is a Russian Princess, affianced in marriage to Count Alexis +Yotoff, her cousin, but the contemplated marriage is one of convenience +rather than of affection, and when Alexis falls at Inkermann, he is wept +with tenderness but not with passion. Colonel St. John, the nephew and +heir of Lord Kendal, who lies wounded on the field of Inkermann, is +assailed by some Russian stragglers, Alexis interposes to save him, and +accidentally falls a victim to St. John's pistol, which he is in the act +of discharging. He receives from the dying Alexis some souvenirs which +he engages to convey to Véra and his family. His wounds affect his +memory, and years elapse without his being able to redeem his pledge, +and recall the names of either Alexis or his friends. In the meanwhile +he becomes acquainted with Véra, and, although twenty years her senior, +they are mutually in love. Their love, however, is sadly marred by cross +purposes. At length St. John discovers, under critical circumstances, +that Véra was the intended recipient of the souvenirs, and that his was +the hand that deprived her of her lover. For awhile the discovery is +fatal, but a fortunate railway accident affords an opportunity for +explanation, and all comes right at last. The artistic excellence of the +work is in its delineations, and the undertone of thoughtful sentiment, +if not philosophy, that runs through it. Its text is the inevitableness +of destiny; and the way in which the story illustrates this is as +original as it is clever. It is a very charming novel, one of the very +few which we wish longer. + + +_Episodes in an Obscure Life._ Three vols. Strahan and Co. + +This is one of the few books that leave the critic no alternative but +simply to heap together words of eulogy. Its least and lowest merit is +its literary workmanship, and yet we scarcely know where we could look +for more vivid pictures of accurate observation, of chaste simplicity, +and unpretentious power. The large-hearted geniality, manly piety, and +unwearied benevolence of the anonymous writer inform his eye and guide +his hand, throwing gleams of radiance, aspects of humour, and visions of +hope over the sad conditions of squalid misery which he describes, +without a particle of Dickens's falsetto. He exhibits the noble +kindly-heartedness and heroic self-denial that are often to be found in +combination with rough exteriors and chronic misery. 'Little Creases,' +'Mr. Jones,' 'the Matron of the Refuge,' 'Emily, the crossing-sweeper,' +'Bessie,' 'Sam and his wife,' 'Peter and his wife,' 'Blind Stevens and +his wife,' and half a score others, are illustrations not only of the +kindly and often heroic human nature that there is among the poorest, +but of the benevolent patient optimism in the writer that sees and +exhibits it. It is long since 'Annals of the Poor' were recorded with so +much genial sympathy and unconscious art. + +The conditions of life described in these sketches are a humiliation and +a sorrow. Never before have the underlying evils and miseries of our +gilded civilization been so vividly portrayed. Legislators and +philanthropists have a Herculean task before them in the amelioration of +the physical and moral evils of such districts as the East of +London--the overcrowding, the adulterated food, the festering disease, +the moral corruption, the extreme penury, the lawless vice, the wretched +ignorance, the impassable gulfs, not one but many, between the rich and +poor. East-end ministers of religion know them, ragged-school teachers +and City missionaries know them, few else have any conception of them. +Little do travellers who arrive at the terminus of the Great Eastern +Railway know that within a stone's throw of the platform scenes such as +are here described are any day to be witnessed. The good and the evil +both--the good in spite of evil that is simply appalling--conditions of +poverty, lawlessness, vice, and suffering are nowhere in the wide world +to be surpassed. Legislation may do something to remedy this state of +things; commercial prosperity may do something; but it is, we fear, +chiefly the result of an indolence and vice that neither can touch. In +every village there are drunken, idle vagabonds; in great cities this +element is fearfully multiplied and intensified, and it brings misery +upon hundreds who are not of it. + +All honour, then, to brave, patient, Christ-like men like the author of +this work, who are content to live their obscure life, if they may but +do something to alleviate it. Theirs is the only influence that can +regenerate vice, or in any way effectually deal with it. We know +something of the district which the writer describes, and happily we can +testify to scores of young men and women of the upper classes who visit +it, and cheerfully give evenings and Sundays to teach ragged children, +instruct their mothers, and, so far as it is wise, afford them +substantial help. No one can doubt that a clergyman, gifted as is the +author of this work, has chosen his lot, abjured the ease and elegance +of refined life which might have been his, that after the example of his +Master he may seek and save the lost. How simply, sincerely, and wisely, +as well as with what unconscious self-sacrifice, he does it, this noble +book will show. With characteristic self-abnegation the author does not +give his name. Every reader will heartily say, 'God bless him;' and if +our recommendation could avail it should carry his book into every rich +man's house and every comfortable home in the land. + + +_Earl's Dene._ By R. E. FRANCILLON. In Three vols. Edinburgh: W. +Blackwood and Sons. + +'Earl's Dene' has too obviously been written for the critics to satisfy +a critic. The course of the narrative is interrupted by appeals _ad +clerum_, which disturb the sense of illusion without convincing the +judgment. The tone of the book is apologetic and explanatory, as if the +author were under terror of the critic's lash, and were conscious that +the movement of the story would seem so capricious as to require +justification. This is a mistake in art, which seldom carries any +compensation with it. The ordinary novel-reader is the most unexacting +of human beings, and has unlimited capacity of digesting +improbabilities; while the cultivated and analytic reader will be too +conscious of the complexity of motives to be scared by superficial +inconsistencies in the delineation of character. Thackeray was guilty of +frequent 'asides,' but they were only outbreaks of cynicism or of +pathos; incessant eruptions of psychology are less pleasing, if not more +inartistic. But in all respects, this very defect included, 'Earl's +Dene' is far above the level of common-place fiction. Though not +strikingly original, it is evidently a transcription of life at first +hand, and as seen through the medium of a refined and delicate +intellect. The atmosphere of the book, though now and again disturbed +by storms, is pure rather than bracing, and is fragrant with the aroma +of refined reflection, which must be the outcome of long and intense +experience. Decidedly feminine, we should say; overflowing with +observations on the sex that look like self-revelations, and with +sketches of the male animal which are inexpressibly grotesque when they +are not weak. If anyone wants to see how Bohemia and its denizens +picture themselves in an alien mind, he should study the portrait of +Dick Barton, a cross between Caliban and Porson, an absurd and utterly +impossible monster. But the characters are for the most part carefully +drawn, by slight repeated touches, however, rather than by bold and +luminous strokes. The dialogue sparkles with French _esprit_. There is +obvious shrinking from common-place, as when the author refuses to +describe first love; and, lastly, the novel is a novel with a purpose. +It shows to men the ways of that great god 'Circumstance,' who seems a +very Moloch, and winds up the tragedy by a general holocaust of his +victims. + + +_My Little Lady._ Hurst and Blackett. + +This charming novel, evidently by a female hand, is written with much +grace and variety. The idea on which it is based has the advantage of +perfect novelty. The 'little lady' is the child of an inveterate +aristocratic gambler called Linders, who lives at Spa and Baden and +other places of the same class, and who has a marvellous capacity for +'breaking the bank.' Whether he has a 'Martingale' we are not told, and +indeed the authoress occasionally shows that she is quite properly +unfamiliar with _rouge et noir_ and _roulette_. But the conception is +that this fellow, though on the whole a scoundrel, loves his little +daughter Madelon, and that she, following him everywhere, becomes +acquainted with the games he plays, and innocently regards gaming as +quite a proper mode of making money. The complications herefrom arising +are manifold, and are told felicitously: but the writer, who is probably +a beginner, is apt to spin out her description and narrative to a rather +wearisome length. Rapidity of narration is becoming one of the rarest +qualities of modern authorship. That authors are paid for quantity +instead of quality sufficiently accounts for this: and the great +novel-manufacturers of the day, who turn out a volume a month and find +readers for them, must, we suppose, be tolerated: but we cannot help +regretting this unsatisfactory prolixity when, as in the present case, +there is a pretty and piquant and original story to be told. However, it +will be largely read, since it is high above the average of tales of the +same order. Of the characters, the best drawn is the great gambler +himself; hardly a possible personage, we suspect, but if possible +curiously interesting. Madelon in her utter simplicity is very lovely; +and she is quite conceivable, since there is no reason why a young girl +should see any harm in gambling. Nine people out of ten would be puzzled +to say on the instant why gambling is wrong: and the state of society +shows that very 'honourable men' (as Mark Antony hath it) can see no +harm in the doings at Tattersall's and the Victoria Club. So that a +little girl whose father was an astute patrician gambler, should +innocently take to _rouge et noir_, is quite intelligible--and a very +pretty story is based upon it, with some strongly dramatic scenes +therein. By the way, the names of flowers should be properly spelt, +especially by lady writers: Westeria (vol. ii. p. 185) ought to be +Wistaria, as it was named after Caspar Wistar, professor of anatomy in +the University of Pennsylvania. + + +_Harold Erle._ By the Author of "The Story of a Life." + +The author of this poem reveals his high and delicate culture, and not +unfrequently a true poetic grace. There are lines, passages, and entire +scenes, which suggest the blank verse of Wordsworth. We are not reminded +of the introspection and subjective might by which Wordsworth brings +under the microscope of his 'inward eye' the beauties of nature and the +mysteries of life, but of his bald simplicity, of his religious use of +common-place, as well as of his partial inability to appreciate the +difficulty which the great majority of the human race experience in +perceiving a poetic side of 'common things.' 'Harold Erle' is a +singularly painful theme, and one which will not readily lend itself to +the Muses. The dangers incident to the marriage of blood relations, and +the Nemesis which hereditary insanity imposes on some who enter into the +lists of love, are not refreshing matters for contemplation. Blighted +affections, the madhouse, and the grave, certainly provide material for +high imaginative treatment, but when these strong colours are used +chiefly with a view of entrapping us into a philosophic generalization +of a universal law of marriage, we are disposed to feel that poetry +itself has here degenerated into social philosophy. 'Harold Erle' is a +powerful story, but the moral and the motive of it seem insufficient, +and the _dénouement_ is decidedly prosaic. The _l'envoie_ of the poem +seems to be: 'Young people, do not marry your first cousins; should your +parents have been so foolish as to have done this, then, by all the nine +Muses, do not marry at all.' + +The career of Harold Erle is well told. Certain scenes are portrayed +with pictorial power. There are tender touches of consummate grace, and +emotions, events, and sacrifices are narrated which show how fertile +this unwelcome theme has become in the hand of an accomplished writer. + + +_Martha._ By WILLIAM GILBERT, Author of 'Lucrezia Borgia,' &c. Hurst and +Blackett. 1871. + +In the conduct of this story Mr. Gilbert has not stinted his readers in +the matter of time. We are furnished with the family history and +domestic details of four, if not five, successive generations. Near the +commencement of the story we are introduced to a wealthy young +spendthrift, who is startled by losses on the turf into propriety, +thrift, and marriage. The closing pages of the novel bring us +acquainted with the great-grandchildren of this worthy. An extraordinary +number of prosy and uninteresting characters--many of them mere +dummies--try the patience of the reader. With aggravating minuteness +circumstances which have no bearing on the story are laboriously +detailed. About a dozen different illnesses or accidents are portrayed +at such length as to suggest the notion that a hospital clerk had +nefariously introduced into the author's manuscript some pages from his +medical note-book. The oracular twaddle of the medical adviser who +figures throughout the story is redeemed from common-place only by the +presentation of a rather interesting psychological problem which, we +presume, may be stated thus: Is it possible on purely physical, or at +least subjective, grounds to account for the belief entertained by an +otherwise rational person that the phantoms of her departed relatives +continually visited her in the great crises of a chequered life? We +presume that Mr. Gilbert intends to suggest a strong affirmative. The +subject of these hallucinations, called Martha Thornburg, is the only +character of the story who possesses the minutest tittle of interest. +She is the impersonation of unselfish consecration of life to the good +of others, and on two separate occasions in her long life, at +considerable intervals from each other, she is represented as enduring +the very extremity of human suffering. She becomes a lightning-conductor +of all the accumulated misfortune with which the devil of the piece has +charged the thunder-cloud that spends its fury on this ill-fated family. + +There are two villains, at least, among the _dramatis personæ_ so +utterly unredeemed by a single ray of goodness as to despoil them of all +human interest. The one apparently belongs to the genus rattlesnake, the +other to the genus hyæna. Bigamy, fraudulent bankruptcy, forgery, +destitution of natural affection, detestable cowardice, attempted +fratricide and murder, are a few of the peccadilloes of the more refined +devil, who at last dies in his bed; the other, we are thankful to say, +hangs himself. The vigorous, prosperous, generous brother of 'Martha,' +as well as many other characters, are very faintly sketched, and the +principal, if not the sole, interest of the story consists in the +misguided goodness of 'Martha,' who covers herself with the suspicion of +complicity with the miscreant who had been throughout the curse of her +family. However, the mystery is cumbrous in the extreme, and the +solution of it by no means artistic. We certainly cannot congratulate +Mr. Gilbert on a successful use of his undoubted powers; but we are glad +to know that, after all their vicissitudes, Martha Thornbury, her +brother, his nephew, and the wife and family of the latter are all doing +well. Their furniture is excellent, their wardrobe complete, their +bracelets, ornaments, and toys abundant; and we earnestly trust that +should any illness or accident befall them, Dr. Wilson will be at hand, +not only with skilful treatment, but with ample explanations of all the +pathological phenomena. + + +_Dorothy Fox._ By LOUISA PARR. Strahan and Co. + +It is vain to pooh-pooh love stories, so long as the passion itself +rules the world so much as it does; the thing that provokes the protest +of sensible people is, that love stories are-often so ineffably foolish, +as indeed are people who are in love. A thoroughly good love story, +high-minded, true-hearted, and sensible, is about as good a service as a +novelist can render to her generation. To inculcate noble principles, +and inspire noble feelings in the pursuit of the passion upon which the +chief social happiness of the world depends, is a work worthy of the +highest genius, and demanding the gratitude of all who wish well to +mankind. 'Dorothy Fox' is a love story pure and simple. Dorothy is the +daughter of a Quaker of the strictest sort, a wealthy hosier, destined +to marry Josiah Crewdson, also a well-to-do tradesman; but, as even the +primmest and most dutiful Quakeresses will do, she takes it into her +pretty head or heart to fall in love with Captain Charles Verschoyle, a +poor cadet of a good family, whose mother, Lady Laura, is bent upon both +him and his sister making good matches. Charles reciprocates Dorothy's +love, and will not marry Miss Bingham's fifty thousand pounds. While +Audrey, the sister of Charles, instead of marrying as she ought old Mr. +Ford, the millionaire _parvenu_, perversely falls in love against her +own intention with Mr. Dynecourt, a poor barrister of ancient lineage. +How Lady Laura schemed, and old Mr. Fox was scandalized; how wise and +generous old Mr. Ford was, and how noble Josiah Crewdson--his +disagreeable sisters notwithstanding--how charming Patience Fox was, and +Grace, and John Hanbury, and how beautiful and refined Quaker-life may +be, and often is, the authoress has told very charmingly. The characters +of Charles and Audrey, with their glaze of worldly selfishness, which +melts away like hoar frost under the heat of pure love, leaving an +innate and uncorrupted nobleness, are very cleverly delineated; so is +Harry Egerton, the rough old squire, with his kind, manly heart. + +The story is a very pleasant and a very wholesome one. We trust that +Miss Parr will again present to us pictures of Quaker interiors, with +which she is so well acquainted. In them her strength lies. + + +_On the Eve: A Tale by Ivan S. Tourguéneff._ Translated from the Russian +by C. E. TURNER, English Lecturer in the University of St. Petersburg. +Hodder and Stoughton. + +Rather more than a couple of years ago (_British Quarterly_, Oct., 1869) +we directed the attention of English readers to the novels of +Tourguéneff, in an article in which a detailed account of 'On the Eve' +was given. We need not, therefore, do more than refer our readers to +what we then said about this very charming little story, which paints +Russian life from the interior with the hand not only of skill, but of +genius. Its social freedom surprises us, and its indications of easy +social vices startle us. Ellen, the heroine, is a very beautiful +creature. The translation reads smoothly and brightly. Mr. Turner seems +to have done his work well. We are glad to possess this work of a great +artist in an English dress. + + +_Marquis and Merchant._ By MORTIMER COLLINS. Three vols. Hurst and +Blackett. + +Mr. Collins in this new novel has aimed to portray two of the great +social classes that constitute England, and the two that are, perhaps, +in more active rivalry, if not antagonism, than any other, and to show +that the prejudice is not chiefly with the higher. The Marquis of +Wraysbury, whose hereditary seat is at Ashbridge, is a favourable +representative of what we are proud to designate our noble aristocracy. +Wealthy, generous, liberal, frank, gentlemanly, he is the _beau ideal_ +of his class. His son, Lord Waynflete, the hero of the story, is the +inheritor of his father's virtues, with a freedom from class +conventionalities which is his own, and which permits him, as quite a +thing of course, to marry a poor governess. + +Mr. Mowbray, who buys an estate at Ashbridge and builds there a splendid +mansion overpowering in magnitude, luxury, and appendages of garden, +conservatory, &c., and which quite dwarfs the more modest belongings of +Ashbridge Manor, is a Manchester millionaire; also a favourable +representative of his class--keen, clever, generous, but with some +drawbacks of class prejudice and obstinacy, which Mr. Collins paints +with an evident gusto. He is the rival of the Marquis in spite of the +latter; and the story is made up not unpleasantly of the history of +their rivalries, with the issue thereof. Much of the subsidiary +delineation is very good. The interiors at Ashbridge Manor, at Mowbray +Mansion, at the Orphan Institute, at Mrs. Gutch's, and at delicious +Wyvern Grange, are cleverly sketched, in these well-selected contrasts. +The subordinate characters; that clever woman, Miss Pinnock, great in +Johnsonese; the Bohemian lawyer, Terrell; the learned, gentlemanly +recluse, Métivier, full of gipsy and all other lore; and a dozen others, +are also admirably delineated. The novel is deficient as a work of art, +but only a very clever and accomplished man could have written it. It is +somewhat Bohemian in itself, and has an unpleasant vinous +flavour--allusions, characterizations, or eulogies on wines occurring +perpetually, as if the chief good of man were to have a good wine-cellar +and to be a _connoisseur_ of good vintages. The book is, moreover, an +odd _mélange_ of all conceivable things; one chapter is devoted to a +criticism on Tennyson, another to a criticism on Dickens; verses +_apropos_ of everything and nothing abound. Mr. Collins has a marvellous +Ingoldsby facility for running off rhymes, and when prose fails him or +wearies him, he takes to verse. A diagram of a game of chess, an +algebraic equation, and no end of classical quotations, are kneaded like +currants into the dough of Mr. Collins's cookery. Not only has he been +at a feast of languages, and stolen the scraps, he has evidently carved +the dishes for himself. The story is, as we have said, not so well +constructed as it might be. It is not always in good taste; it rumbles +and rollicks along; but it is very clever and very amusing. It is less +melodramatic than Mr. Collins usually is, and is, we think, the best +book he has written. + + +_The Green-Eyed Monster._ By KAY SPEN. Smith, Elder, and Co. + +The title of this little book indicates its character. Hugh Barrington +falls in love in a railway carriage with Adela Gwynne, a blue-eyed Welsh +girl, and marries her. She is of a preposterously jealous disposition, +and perversely interprets countless little incidents as justifying her +jealousy. The story details the working out of these feelings and their +disastrous issues, and the ability of the writer is shown in her +psychological knowledge and skill. It is in this point of view very +clever. Of course incidents occur with preternatural consentaneousness, +and people act and feel in a very infatuated way, setting common sense +at defiance, else how would novels get written? But Kay Spen has managed +her materials well, and has written an interesting story with a very +wholesome moral. + + +_Jasmine Leigh._ By C. C. FRASER-TYTLER. Strahan and Co. + +This is a very dainty little story. It is written in an autobiographical +form, and narrates the history of a young girl blossoming into womanhood +and love, who is abducted by a rough and sordid wooer, whom, +nevertheless, she learns to pity, if not to love. It is written with a +delicate touch, and is full of graceful and refined feeling. If, as we +surmise, it is a first work, it is full of promise. + + +_Her Own Fault._ By Mrs. J. K. SPENDER. Hurst and Blackett. + +Mrs. Spender writes with great care and with considerable strength. Her +story is well constructed, and the characters are marked by strong +individuality. The story is a stormy one. Sara, who is a very fine +creation, is 'a beautiful embodied storm.' Indeed, the defect of Mrs. +Spender is, that her strength is not sufficiently calm. Every character +is wrought up to the agony pitch: Sara, when she has accepted Rosswith +Maxwell--Bryan on the night when he learns his rejection--Lawrence Routh +in his suppressed intensity--Charley in her passionate sisterliness--all +are wrought up to powerful and exaggerated passion. Mrs. Spender might +say with the American young lady after dinner, 'I guess I've piled it +on.' The story, however, is vigorous and original, although it is not a +very pleasant one. Everybody is to be pitied. Poor Bryan is left with a +sentence of death recorded against him. + + + + +JUVENILE LITERATURE. + + +Among children's books of the past Christmas which reached us too late +for notice in our New-Year's Juvenile Section, are two or three, +altogether too remarkable to be passed over. 'At the Back of the North +Wind' (Strahan), and 'Ronald Bannerman's Boyhood,' both by George +Macdonald, are two books almost sufficient by their excellences to mark +an epoch in juvenile literature. Excepting 'Alice's Adventures in +Wonderland,' no recent work that we can remember is worthy of being +compared with the former. In no other of his many books has Mr. +Macdonald shown more strikingly the power and delicacy of his +imaginative genius. The blending of sober history with the most +Puck-like fancies--the underlying thoughtfulness of both--the inlaying +of wise reflections, subtly hinted or delicately touched--the blossoming +into poetical beauty of almost every position and teaching--the light, +graceful hand with which the whole is carried on--the deep, spiritual +meanings that transfigure the lightest incidents--altogether constitute +a fairy tale the like of which we have rarely seen, and which is as +suggestive to the mature as it is amusing to the juvenile. We know +youngsters in the nursery who, if they could not literally recite it by +heart, would infallibly detect the alteration of a single sentence. Mr. +Macdonald has attained to that perfection of excellency which +understands the heart of a child. He has made 'Diamond' immortal. +'Ronald Bannerman's Boyhood' (Strahan), is altogether different in +conception, feeling, and style. Mr. Macdonald's affluence of fancy is, +with perhaps an equal exercise of imagination, subdued to the plain +matter-of-fact, no-nonsense-about-it, autobiography of a school-boy. The +sympathy with boy-nature is as perfect as in the other volume is the +sympathy with child-nature. The narrative is bright, generous, and +true--the exact tone of a noble-hearted boy, who has, however, to speak +of some of the troubles and sorrows of life. Mr. Macdonald, however, +never lacks humour. His description of Mrs. Mitchell, his father's sour +housekeeper, and of the Dame School to which Ronald was sent, as well as +of Kirsty and the experiences at the farm, is rich and racy in a high +degree. Kirsty tells some capital kelpie and other Scotch stories and +legends. It is a beautiful picture of childhood, teaching, by its +impressions and suggestions, all noble things. 'Chamber Dramas for +Children,' by Mrs. George Macdonald (Strahan), are four little plays, +good as Hannah More's Sacred Dramas, and amusing as the stories of +Cinderella, and Beauty and the Beast, out of which two of them are +constructed. They are cleverly done, and will doubtless do duty in many +an acted charade. The 'Tetterby's' is founded upon Dickens's Haunted +Man. The 'Snowdrop' is new to us. 'The Boy in Grey' (Strahan), by Henry +Kingsley, which appeared in _Good Words for the Young_, together with +the above, was thereby subjected to a severe ordeal. It can ill bear the +comparison. Instead of the translucent fancies of Mr. Macdonald, it is +turgid and confused, and when it would be aërial, produces the effect +that sculptured clouds do. Its allusions are often beyond the range of a +boy's knowledge; its nonsense limps, and its wisdom is ponderous. We +have found it very difficult to understand Mr. Kingsley's meaning. +'Lilliput Lectures,' by the author of 'Lilliput Levée' (Strahan), is +again perfect in its way. The lectures are on all sorts of +things--social and religious, physical and metaphysical, artistic and +commercial. The writer tells us that he writes for no particular age, +but aims generally at a childlike way of putting things. Some of the +things put are high and mysterious; but then youth has wondrous dreams +and speculations, and the happy simplicity of the writer helps youthful +thought to climb. Each lecture winds up with some verses such as only +the author of 'Lilliput Levée' can write. 'Choice Poetry for Children' +(Religious Tract Society), is a small selection of religious and moral +pieces by modern writers--of course, of unequal merit, but wisely and +suitably chosen. 'The Pearl of Story Books' (Nelson) is a collection for +children of Bible narratives in Bible words. 'Mrs. Montmorency's Money,' +by Emma Jane Worboise (Clarke), belongs to minor fiction rather than to +juvenile literature. Its moral is that 'the love of money is the root of +all evil.' As is always the case with Miss Worboise, it is carefully +written, and there are clever descriptions and scenes of pathos in it; +but it is overlaid with moral, and not so successful in its plot as some +of her tales. It is, however, a wholesome and readable story, and its +moral is as timely as it is unexceptional. + + +_Brevia, Short Essays, and Aphorisms._ By the Author of 'Friends in +Council.' Bell and Daldy. + +Most of the writings of Mr. Helps are Brevia. His books are made like +Armstrong guns, of welded pieces; and the process would not be a very +violent or destructive one that resolved them into the shape of these +fragments. We can well imagine them to be not so much chips as prepared +blocks for larger works, which the architecture did not admit of, and +which, therefore, the author has wrought into independent art forms. +They are brimful of thoughtfulness and practical wisdom; always genial, +often humorous, they make up a table book of aphorism and apologue, of +colloquia, and short essay, independently conceived and gracefully +expressed--which among living writers it would be difficult to parallel. +They remind us most of Whately; only Mr. Helps is more terse than he. +Sometimes reams of discussion are gathered into half a page; sometimes a +single sentence contains seeds for reams of discussion. Mr. Helps has +given us a volume of 'Aids for Reflection,' which is worthy the study of +the most desultory. Most of these short essays and aphorisms have +appeared in _Good Words_. We quote one sentence--'Some persons, instead +of making a religion of their God, are content to make a God of their +religion.' + + +_Fors Clavigera: Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain._ +By JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D. Sold only by G. Allen, Heathfield Cottage, Keston, +Kent. + +In these letters Mr. Ruskin seeks to teach the workmen and labourers of +Great Britain some political economy which we are commonplace enough to +think fallacious, and some history which we are not Vikings enough to +think otherwise than mischievous. But we are in full accord with him in +his desire to lighten the national distress around us, and to +exterminate the yahoos of civilization; and if he can show us, as he +seems to think he can, some sure method of doing both or either, we will +abandon Mr. Mill, and will take our history from Mr. Carlyle. In the +three letters already published we have not been able to discover any +proposal leading to action, or, indeed, leading to anything at all, +except weariness and vexation of spirit. But we are perhaps even now on +the verge of the promised land. Mr. Ruskin has become so practical of +late years that we are inclined to think he has made a real discovery. +But he seems in no hurry to announce it, and delay is naturally +tantalizing. + + + + +THEOLOGY AND PHILOLOGY. + + +_Essays, Theological and Literary._ By RICHARD HOLT HUTTON, M.A. (Lond.) +Two vols. Strahan and Co. + +These volumes are likely to take a high place in English literature, and +to measure and expound the influence which their author has for many +years exerted on the higher thought of our generation, through the +periodical press. He has submitted a selection of his more elaborate +essays to final revision, and has brought them together with much skill +and felicity of arrangement. The two volumes are, in fact, two separate +works of exceeding interest, the one bearing on the highest forms of +modern literature, and the other on the theological and philosophical +speculations of the last twenty years. The polish and finish of the +revision have excised the genial humour and delicate satire which have +characterized some of Mr. Hutton's critical efforts, but they have not +altered the substance or modified the tone of these remarkable papers. +In almost all of them it is easy to trace the hand of the accomplished +publicist, who has acquired the faculty of seizing one main +characteristic of the poetry or philosophy, political career, or moral +tendency he is wishful to examine, and having made himself master of +this, is resolved to establish or illustrate it at his leisure. He +decides on a good working hypothesis to account for the composition of a +great poet, or the spirit of a remarkable book, and leisurely sits down +to transform his hypothesis into a true induction. When Mr. Hutton +brings Wordsworth, or George Eliot, or Ernest Rénan, or Henry Rogers +into his field of view, he seems to say to himself, 'some explanation is +possible of this congeries of spiritual phenomena,' and he forthwith +attacks the problem with the enthusiasm of a naturalist, and often with +the penetration of a true philosopher. He exhibits great insight, and +his speculation is always worthy of attention, but it too much resembles +the bar of sunshine gleaming through an aperture in a shutter, which +throws an intense light on some portions of a painted chamber but leaves +other portions in hazy and dubious shadow. We heartily thank him for the +vivid image he has drawn, and for the key he has often given us to the +intellectual treasures of some of our greatest modern thinkers; but we +do not feel that he has adequately solved all the problem, or has +definitely formulated the mental life or calibre of either the poets or +theologians whom he passes in review. Thus almost all that he says of +Wordsworth is nobly and truly said. There is consummate ability in his +reply to Hazlitt's 'thorny praise,' in his comparison of Wordsworth and +Tennyson, and in his method of proving the thesis with which he starts, +viz., that the charge against Wordsworth, of 'profundity and +transcendentalism,' sprang from the same root as that which declaims +against his 'unintelligible fuss about common feelings and common +things.' Still, in his anxiety to establish this position, Mr. Hutton +appears to us to overstate the frugality of Wordsworth's genius, and to +exaggerate the poet's habit of making a very minute modicum of incident +furnish all the material he needed for the exercise of his imagination +and the development of his vast subjective energies. The entire series +of ecclesiastical sonnets, as well as those which were dedicated to +national independence, cover a prodigious field, and make no +inconsiderable demand upon the reader's knowledge, as well as upon his +sympathy. In the description of the retreat from Moscow, Wordsworth +surely chose a theme big enough for the historic imagination of Scott, +and he dealt with it in an as objective a fashion, with Dryden's fire +and Shelley's pomp of style to boot. Again, in Mr. Hutton's profoundly +interesting paper on the 'Poetry of the Old Testament,' there is a +principle which is full of force, and our author's working hypothesis +will and does explain a great deal. He urges with eloquence and beauty +of illustration, that 'faith in the glorious destiny of the nation, and +the overseeing providence of God as the power which had wrought out that +destiny,' are the two roots of the Hebrew traditionary poems, and he +sees these roots in all the efflorescence of the glorious tree; but +while there is truth in the remark that this double idea underlies and +absorbs the significance of all the Hebrew poet's references to the +beauty of nature, and much also of the tragic human interest of the life +that was being lived by the prophets, there is some niggardliness in +failing to acknowledge how the very fringes of the tabernacle that +enshrined both the nation's destiny and the Divine presence are +glittering with touches of refined gold, and how much nearer an approach +the few Hebrews made to the modern conceptions of the transcendent and +pathetic beauty of nature, than all the Greeks and Romans put together. + +If the Hebrews rose to the stupendous idea of the universe being but the +shadow of Jehovah's might, and believed that the light was the skirt of +His raiment, that the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars, were the work +of His fingers, that the 'seven stars and Orion,' the 'sweet influence +of Pleiades,' and 'the morning spread upon the mountains,' were alike +declaring His glory, there is sufficient evidence in the abundance of +their imagery and the sweetness of their song, that they exulted in as +well as beheld the primal beauty. Interesting and demonstrative as Mr. +Hutton's essay is, he leaves a range of facts unaccounted for. The +gorgeous imagery of Ezekiel, when in parabolic fashion he sees the +analogies between nature and national life, the idyllic, perhaps +dramatic grace of the Song of Songs, and the genuine lyrical cry of +large portions of the minor prophets and Psalms, seem to us to +transgress the canon of our author. + +One of the volumes before us consists of eighteen theological essays, +admirably classified. They start from the moral and religious +significance of Atheism; they proceed to show the insufficiency of the +scientific and positivistic explanation of our moral relations. The +Pantheistic hypothesis is displayed in its strength and its weakness. +The question, 'What is revelation?' is then handled, and Mr. Maurice is +vindicated and Dean Mansel demolished. In another essay the historic +problems of the fourth Gospel are discussed with great candour and +success. 'The principles of evidence' are illustrated in their +application to the 'Doctrine of Incarnation,' which our author, like Mr. +Baring-Gould, would hold, even if the New Testament should pass out of +existence. Two papers on M. Rénan's recent works, and a vehement attack +upon the evangelical doctrine, under the irritating title of 'The Hard +Church,' are followed by an estimate of the relative position of the +'Romanists, Protestants, and Anglicans.' Several of these papers were +published in the _National Review_, and one of them forms part of a +series of essays entitled 'Tracts for Priests and People.' We +acknowledge great obligation to Mr. Hutton for many of these +dissertations. We sympathise most profoundly in the general estimate he +forms of the position of the Atheist, the Positivist, and the Pantheist; +and we are confident, after again perusing his examination of 'the +historical problems of the fourth Gospel,' that though we differ from +him in many details, and regret that he should find it necessary to +relinquish the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse, it is the noblest +and most triumphant vindication in the English language of this +stronghold of Christianity. In the graceful preface to the first volume, +in which Mr. Hutton acknowledges his debt of obligation to Mr. Maurice, +he sums up in a sentence the living principle of Mr. Maurice's writings. +There, as elsewhere, too much credit is given to a key; too much of a +jet of light is thrown upon a portion of Mr. Maurice's theology. We do +not believe that this great and suggestive writer can be crushed into a +proposition. Still it does cover much of the speculation associated with +Mr. Maurice's name. It is as follows:--'All beliefs about God are but +inadequate intellectual attempts to justify a belief in Him, which is +never a merely intellectual affirmation, but rather a living act of the +spirit, by no means confined to those who consciously confess His +presence.' The paper entitled 'What is Revelation?' and part of the +argument entitled 'The Hard Church,' are expansions of this principle, +in vehement opposition to the philosophy of Hamilton, as it was applied +by Dean Mansel to theological problems. We think that we may give Mr. +Hutton credit for having made the difference between Dean Mansel and +Professor Maurice more obvious than those distinguished men ever +succeeded in making it appear for themselves; but we imagine that he has +forced them into more irreconcilable antagonism than they are themselves +conscious of, and has effected this by a slight exaggeration of the +position of each disputant. We sympathize with Mr. Hutton far more than +with Dean Mansel, in his general philosophical opinions; but this +vehement scolding and irate horror caught from Mr. Maurice seems to us +perfectly misplaced. Surely, surely the 'living act of the spirit,' by +which man knows the only true God, the intuition of God by the eye of +the soul, the transcendental conclusion or conviction of the whole +intelligence, the bound heavenwards of the sanctified imagination, the +'real assent' to super-sensuous, extra-logical, metaphysical facts, all +of which processes are aided by the facts and words of Scripture, by the +recorded life of Christ, by the sublime utterances and confessions of +the creeds, will not be rejected by Dean Mansel. They are differently +described but thankfully acknowledged. What Mansel seems to us to imply +is that these processes do not solve the contradictions which are +involved in the logical effort to formulate the infinite; the knowledge +they supply is approximate rather than exhaustive, regulative rather +than absolute; a spiritual apprehension rather than scientific +comprehension. The intuitions of Mr. Hutton and Mr. Maurice are far more +numerous and intense than Dean Mansel's. Our author has more confidence +in his direct experiences of truth than Dean Mansel has. The living God +is more visible, more accessible to some minds than others, and these +want less help and fewer manifestations to penetrate the mystery; but we +do not see why Mr. Hutton should be so wrath with Dean Mansel for the +position that 'the faculties in man furnish the conditions of +constructing a philosophical theory of the object presented.' 'The +object presented' is not the living and infinite God, but the finite +manifestation and unveiling of his perfections through a certain series +of human experiences. The criticism of Mr. Hutton shows that he is +attributing to the words 'philosophical theory' more than it is meant by +Mansel to carry. It is just because Dean Mansel cannot form a theory of +the underlying 'infinite' and the 'abysmal deep' of human personality, +that he is content to theorize about that which is presented in the +person and voice and known history and character of a human being. It is +because the infinite baffles and confounds us, and refuses to come under +the formal laws of thought, that Mansel and Hamilton made a virtue and +a science out of the recognition of our nescience, and would confine +their theorizing to that which was manageable and apprehensible; but the +entire philosophy of the unconditioned turns on the presence in our +consciousness of these stupendous factors, unlabelled and untheorized. +It appears to us that the conflict narrows itself to the name to be +given to our personal relations with the transcendental and eternal +realities in which both disputants profoundly believe; and therefore we +do not for one moment think that this summation of Dean Mansel's +position would be accepted by him. Can Mr. Hutton really mean that Dean +Mansel would deny that we can be 'conscious of God's presence with us, +conscious of the life we receive from Him, conscious of what He really +is, and in the same, indeed, even in far higher sense than that in which +we are conscious of what human beings are?' We heartily agree with Mr. +Hutton in his denunciation of the idea that the moral nature of man is +fundamentally different from the moral nature of God, that the goodness +and mercy of God's being must be essentially different from the goodness +and mercy in a human will, and that the 'revelation to us of the very +character and life of the Eternal God' has been made by the +'purification of human vision,' and is 'the history of the awakening, +purifying, and answering of the yearnings of the human spirit for a +direct knowledge of Him. It proceeds from God, and not from man.' He +details with clearness and force the spread of this 'revelation,' the +human condition of it, and the widely diffused material of it, in the +instincts and regrets, and secret hopes and fears of universal man. 'The +revelation through Christ fulfilled ... the desire of all nations, by +revealing the living power in man, by which human nature is wrought into +His likeness.' But in his defence of this position he appears to us +partially, if not utterly, to ignore the new life given to our humanity +in Christ. 'Grace' seems on this theory rather to be a development of +dormant powers than the conference of a new tendency, and 'Christ' to +become rather the name of a sleeping but universal divineness in all +humanity, which is at length realized to the conscience, rather than to +be the personal source of all the life. The 'Father,' in the theology of +Mr. Hutton, is a living God, as against the Pantheistic tendencies of +modern science; but we are not sure--and few things would be farther +from our wish than to misrepresent him--that the Christ and the Spirit +of God are distinguishable from the voice of universal conscience and +the hidden and better nature of the (not fallen but) ever aspiring child +of the living God. + +Each of Mr. Hutton's papers deserves careful study; we regret that we +cannot even refer to more than one other, and this, moreover, one to +which we cannot fail to take certain exceptions. It is entitled 'The +Hard Church,' a 'degraded phase of the Church of common sense.' It is +the Church whose logic has been supplied by Whately, whose metaphysic +has been elaborated by Dr. Mansel; one of its most 'merciless and +slashing captains' is seen in Professor Henry Rogers, and Mr. Binney +caught its exact spirit in his lecture addressed to young persons on the +possibility of 'Making the best of both Worlds.' 'Its heroes,' we are +told, are 'latitudinarian but not catholic in the tone of their +theology.' It has no sympathy, no heart, offers 'no divine +reconciliation of contradictory yearnings;' it glories in 'hard sense,' +and 'dismisses from view all those fluctuating elements of human life +which do not seem deeply imbedded in the average notions of average +men.' Its representatives scold away all individuality, denounce the +eccentricities of positive faith, and are, in short, 'the most +mischievous section of Christendom.' All this is introductory to a +tremendous attack on Mr. Rogers for the pitiless severity with which he +introduces a thoroughly sceptical mind, seeing no _intellectual_ +standing-place in a 'shallow Deism,' and more consistency in +thoroughfaced Positivism or Pantheism, and more hope too, because he is +sure that at the very bottom of the abyss, the heart will spring upward +and the conscience will rise in rebellion. Mr. Hutton should remember +that 'the real and deep Theism, holding by prayer, near to +Christianity,' was not the intellectual position condemned by the author +of 'The Eclipse of Faith;' it was a Theism that is or was in a fluent +and changeable condition, a Theism that had, in deference to certain +loudly-vaunted principles of reasoning, relinquished Christianity, and +spoken of the moral character of Jesus--to put it mildly--with +disloyalty if not with disrespect; it was a Theism trembling on the +verge of Atheism, yet boasting itself to be a spiritual religion. +Methods of thought may surely be harmless in some regions, and deadly in +other spheres. It is not hardness but goodness which exposes the +worthlessness of the method. This seems to us to have been the work of +Mr. Rogers. We are not called upon to defend Mr. Rogers's strong way of +putting certain things, but we think that Mr. Hutton has not shown him a +more excellent way when he speaks of his 'throttling art,' and would +give you to believe that he is a spiritual garotter, rather perhaps of +the Antæus proportions, who has at last found a Hercules. Mr. Hutton +appears to us to be too angry to see the genuine humour as well as +rather grim pleasantry with which Mr. Rogers has represented the enemies +of the Christianity infinitely dear to him as destroying each other. The +doctrine that 'Christianity is against the grain of human nature,' is +spoken of as demonstrating the truth that 'the Hard Church has a hard +Master.' Nothing surely is more true than this language of Mr. Rogers, +and we are astonished that Mr. Hutton thinks he replies to this estimate +of Christianity by saying that Paul told the Athenians that they were +'seeking the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him.' Our +author is generally quite ready to admit the complexity of human nature, +the multiplicity of the forces that are moving it. The same apostle who +thus spake to Athenians, said to Galatians, 'Brethren, if I yet preach +circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of +the Cross ceased.' We can conceive of no more satisfactory response to +the position here assailed than that so often attributed to Lord +Palmerston, 'that all children are born good.' We suppose Mr. Hutton +must endorse it. The paper on 'Romanism, Protestantism, and Anglicanism' +cannot be discussed by us here for want of space. Its delicate insight +into 'root-principles,' and formulated tendencies, is another +illustration of the author's disposition to generalise, and to cast +pencils of coloured light upon the parts of a theme, or of a system of +thought. With the general estimate of _Luther_ we have not much to +contend against, except that no reference is made to the objects or +reasons of his faith. The unlimited, ecstatic, violent confidence in an +unproved, transcendental fact, with nothing but personal intuitions to +guide the triumphant _trust_--itself a Saviour--may be apparently proved +from certain table-talk of Luther, but is a very imperfect exhibition of +Luther's position. Why, by implication, should all whom Mr. Hutton calls +'pseudo-Protestants' be supposed to deny the indispensable necessity of +an entire moral surrender of the whole nature to the will of God? With +some of those whom Mr. Hutton thus denounces, as for example, Bishop +Bull and all who agree with him, faith is identifiable with moral +surrender to the will of God; in the view of others, as proved by almost +all the Protestant confessions, it is inseparably associated with saving +trust. Where, we ask, is 'the bibliolatry which relegates the Holy +Spirit to the province of explaining the Bible,' except in a small +section of Scotch divines, whose hard and artificial lines have long +since shown a tendency to vanish away? Mr. Hutton seems to try to take +from those whose joy and crown it is to speak of trust in a present +Christ their most distinctive feature; because here and there a logical +theologian may use scholastic or forensic phrases in his theorizing, it +is ungenerous to say that 'the passionate faith of Luther is degraded +into the acceptance of an artificial contract,' or that 'the orthodox +theory of substitution excludes the purifying influence of spiritual +union with Christ.' The best reply that we can make to Mr. Hutton's +contemptuous allusion to Dr. Candlish is to call his attention to Dr. +Candlish's sermon on 'His servants shall serve Him,' and to the greater +part of his Commentary on the first Epistle of St. John. Would that our +great thinkers succeeded in learning more of each other's mind! There +are a hundred other questions raised by Mr. Hutton on which it is +tempting but difficult to dilate. We cannot part from him, however, +without assuring him that we believe these volumes will gain what they +richly deserve--a high place in English literature. Our remarks have +been somewhat critical and dissatisfied, but we are anxious to express, +notwithstanding, the exceeding admiration which we feel for these +eloquent and noble essays. It is often most instructive to see how the +position we occupy shapes itself to the intelligence of one who is only +in partial sympathy with us. + + +_First Principles of Ecclesiastical Truth._ Essays on the Church and +Society. By J. BALDWIN BROWN, B.A. Hodder and Stoughton. + +This volume consists of ten essays: the first four are entitled 'The +Doctrine of the Infallible,' and contain Mr. Brown's exposition of the +inquiry--What is truth? a brave and full exhibition of the answer to +that question given by the infallible church; a criticism of the +Protestant dictum that an infallible book is adequate to the solution of +every great moral and spiritual problem; and in the last place a +passionate vindication for the free spirit of the possession of the true +infallibility. Two essays then follow, of considerable speculative +interest, under the titles of 'The Natural History of Antichrist,' and +'The Christian Commonwealth.' The volume is completed by four lecture +essays on the 'Revolution of the last Quarter of a Century,' the +intellectual, social, ecclesiastical and theological revolution which +has unrolled itself during the twenty-five years of Mr. Brown's fruitful +and stimulating ministry. We have said enough to indicate the +comprehensiveness and multifariousness of the theme which our author has +here investigated. It is as though he had taken his stand on some high +promontory which overlooks a boundless sea of thought, and with well +practised, almost prophetic eye, taken in the vast expanse, the rolling +tides, the brooding storms of the great highway of the nations; here a +very maelström of confusion and wreathing agony, where equatorial and +arctic currents blend in driving mist and fierce agitation, and there a +dreamy outlook of serene though glittering colour; now, the breaker and +the wreck and then the ark of refuge, the busy craft, the haven of rest. +Few writers of the present day appear to us to take a larger view of men +and things, and though his senses seem painfully acute to the moan of +distress and the shriek of the torment, yet few appear to hear more +distinctly the sound of the Master's voice, or to see more clearly the +triumphant form of Him who holds that ocean in the hollow of His hand. + +We think this volume is unquestionably the noblest production of Mr. +Baldwin Brown's pen. In refinement and elevation of style, in high +sympathy with the good and the noble side of that which he condemns, in +readiness to learn from his opponents, and to see himself and his own +position with their eyes, amounting to what some may deem almost a +dangerous concession to the misconception of the free spirit entertained +by both the Romish doctor and the apostle of science, coupled with +outspoken and brave utterance of unpopular truth, this volume will +hardly find its parallel in modern times. + +We cannot attempt more than to touch on a few points. We are inclined to +think that the paper on 'The Natural History of Antichrist' is not only +the most original and suggestive portion of the volume, but that it is, +in fact, the pivot, or the centre of the entire argument. Our author has +drawn a comparison between 'Babel,' 'Babylon,' and 'Babylon the Great,' +and has shown how the hoary legend of man's first endeavour to establish +a worldly and human independence of the Supreme will, found its +counterpart in the subsequent efforts to produce the four world-wide +monarchies of pre-Christian times, and again, in the towering system of +Pontifical rule, the rise, triumph, and fall of which are seen in the +visions of Patmos. He has discussed with consummate eloquence and +brilliancy of touch, the analogies which link these three manifestations +of the spirit of antichrist, and how God's providence has undermined +them one after the other by a like energy of the individual conscience +and the free spirit. The paper on the 'Christian Commonwealth' provides +a delicately-sketched theory of the true relation between the governing +and the Christian spirit. Mr. Brown admits, nay, contends, for the fact +that the Church and the State in their last significance and highest +development are one, and argues with great ingenuity that a supposed +alliance between the Church and the State, as between two contracting +parties, is essentially unchristian; it is, moreover, 'an exceedingly +low and false conception of the true character of the National +Establishment, and is quite unsupported by its early history.' He +acknowledges the difficulty of realizing the Christian idea in any +Christian State, and asserts 'that the Gospel has still a missionary +function in every State in Christendom; men have not only to be helped +to live by it, they have to be persuaded to believe in it;' but 'that +the idea of a National Church whose rulers are clergy, which shall have +the whole spiritual interests of the community in charge, having its own +ordinances, officers, and laws, of which it is the only lawful custodian +and administrator, lending a Christian character to the State by its +alliance, and deriving material countenance and support from the State +in return, is simply anti-Christian. The only National Church is the +whole community which has been redeemed by Christ, and on which, and in +which, He is working as the head of the Church in a thousand ways, of +which theologians of all parties little dream.' + +Mr. Brown differs from many Nonconformists in holding the competency of +the public assemblies of a Christian State to deal with spiritual +matters, and would prefer to have such regulation as the British +Parliament might supply to religious belief and life to that of any +'spiritual synod that he is acquainted with;' but he considers that a +body like the British Parliament may and must 'abstain from all attempt +at legislation on certain subjects, because they know that they would +only mar them if they were to touch them with their legal fingers.' He +does not think that domestic sympathies and affections, the higher +intellectual life of the community, or the religious life of the people, +are palpably beyond the sphere of a government, but that they are beyond +'their power. One shudders to think of the costly, wasteful, pompous, +grasping, titled, beneficed, wealthy and bigoted thing which has been +presented during three hundred years to the English people, as the +visible embodiment of His kingdom, who was the incarnation of +tenderness, compassion, purity, patience, gentleness, and love. The +Establishment principle, under the most favourable conditions, seems to +run directly counter to the fundamental principle of the spiritual +government of men as we watch it working through all the ages. It +belongs to the age of stagnancy and deadness, is vested in the old and +decaying order, is doomed, and must die.' The theoretical admission of +competency, coupled with the trenchant disavowal of power to deal with +the higher regions of the social and religious life of the people, +reminds us of the ground taken for some years by a large section of the +free kirk of Scotland. There is no practical difference between the +views held by Mr. Brown and by the bulk of Nonconformists; his +condemnation of the Establishment principle is at least the result of +experience, and appears to be final. + +As Christianity and the Church are the form and life of the truth, Mr. +Brown has prepared the way for his discussion of both by his discourses +on the infallible. The first paper, entitled 'What is Truth?' exhibits +with painful intensity the anguish, even the torment that accompanies +the search after this hidden treasure. Expressing, as we suppose, the +feelings of others rather than his own, the signs of the times rather +than his own heart-throbbings, his language almost amounts occasionally +to a wail of despair: nor does he, in the discourse which is entitled +the 'Intellectual Revolution of the last Quarter of a Century,' +exonerate the Christian teachers of the present day from the charge of +augmenting that despair. After clearly expounding the theory of the +Positivist, and showing how in its isolation it fails to satisfy the +need of either the intelligence or the heart of man, he boldly charges +theology and the Church with the sin of giving to science such a +representation of God as to induce it to do without him. In his extreme +anxiety to do justice to the scientific spirit, Mr. Brown appears to us +to do some injustice to the age-long yearning after truth which has +characterized theological science. Perhaps he does not sufficiently take +notice that the mental faculties which are quite adequate to secure the +broadest generalizations of science are insufficient to furnish us with +some of the chief data of theology. He speaks with perfect confidence of +'common ground in our Christian belief for us and the leaders of the +intellectual progress of men.' We believe that this common ground will +be found only when the methods of theology and the methods of science +are alike seen to be incomplete; but a difference of method in the two +regions there must ever be. + +In the paper on 'the Infallible Church,' our author frankly admits that +there must be infallibility somewhere. With high courage and honesty he +traces the confidence with which the Catholic Church has entertained a +consciousness of the unerring guidance of the Holy Spirit, and he has +done much to show how reasonable is the expectation of such a guidance +and the truth that underlies the celebrated dictum of St. Vincent of +Lerins; and with distinguished skill he has indicated the way in which +vagueness and uncertainty have forced some of the strongest minds in the +Romish Church to sigh after and ultimately to secure the definition of a +Papal infallibility. Few things are more remarkable than the steady +growth of this yearning in face of the proved forgeries and infinite +gullibility on which the modern dogma conspicuously rests. Mr. Brown +thinks that some deep necessities of human nature must be the +explanation of this mystery. We believe he need not go much deeper than +the ignorance, credulity, laziness, cowardice, and abjectness of the +human mind, and the wide-spread incapacity, independently of the Holy +Spirit, for the spiritual apprehension of transcendental truth. In his +papers on the infallible book and the doctrine of Christ, Mr. Brown has +shown how dependent a man with the Bible in his hand must ever be, on +the spiritual presence and indwelling light of the Comforter. He may +almost be said to have drawn Bossuet's rapier from its scabbard, and +made some vigorous passes at the 'variations of Protestantism;' but it +is not that he may turn back to an infallible Pope for guidance or for +rest, but that he might fight his way past sects and churches, and +dogmas and popes, into the true temple, where all who have received the +fulness of the spirit are worshipping their father. As we have already +said, Mr. Brown opens up so many controversies, and displays such varied +culture and exceeding fairness in his treatment of these high themes, +that we will now content ourselves with urging our readers to peruse the +whole volume. + + +_The Office and Work of the Christian Ministry._ By JAMES M. HOPPIN, +Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology in Yale College. Second +Edition. New York: Sheldon and Co. 1870. + +This elaborate course on homiletics and pastoral theology may be said +almost to exhaust the subject. The history of preaching, the art of +preaching, the analysis of a sermon in all its various parts, from the +text to the peroration, constitute the first part of the homiletical +manual. The second part contains a series of valuable dissertations on +the application of rhetoric to preaching. The pastoral office is then +examined in its divine institution, in its ideal, in the call to its +high functions, and the ordination to the office. The author further +discusses the pastor as a man, the pastor in his relations to society, +and the pastor in his relations to the Church. Here Dr. Hoppin +investigates the conduct of public worship, and under this heading such +details even as church music, marriages, and funerals are included. +Finally the whole question of the care and cure of souls is wisely and +affectionately urged upon the student. We have never seen a more +complete treatise on the question with which the author deals. There is +not much room for originality, and the analytical tone of the discussion +precludes the presence of much enthusiasm or fire. There is an abundance +of wise, godly counsel, and a considerable reference to the literature +of the subject. + + + + +SERMONS. + + +_Sermons Preached in the Temple Church._ By the Rev. ALFRED AINGER, +M.A., Reader at the Temple Church. (Macmillan and Co.) There is about +Mr. Ainger's sermons the great charm of perfect simplicity, +unconventionally, intelligence, and fearlessness. Neither in style nor +in thought are they like any sermons that we can recall. They are not +eloquent; or if so, it is the eloquence of a perfectly transparent +medium of thought. Not a fine word or a rhetorical figure occurs in +them; but neither is there anything commonplace. It is the fresh, +unconventional talk of a clear, independent thinker, addressed to a +congregation of thinkers. The uncultured would have no difficulty in +understanding; but the colourless thought would fail long to interest +such. For popular effect, it wants sensuousness and passion, and, +therefore, rhetoric. Mr. Ainger belongs to the liberal-orthodox school; +but he does not shape his opinions to any school. He speaks right out +what he thinks, and often surprises us with fresh views of familiar +texts. He is not great; but he is unconventional and earnest. In +doctrine he is broad, not however in any sense that is inconsistent with +what are understood by Evangelical views. The moral aspects of the +Atonement--forgiveness of sins, regeneration, and the life to +come--which he exhibits, are the highest truths of the Gospel; but he +exhibits them with such predominance, almost exclusiveness, that he is +apt to forget his own principle that the Atonement of Christ has many +aspects. Thoughtful men will be greatly charmed by this little volume; +they will learn from its perusal how the Gospel of Christ commends +itself to all the mind as well as to all the heart of men. The sermons, +moreover, are preached in the light of the thought of the present day, +and are rich glimpses of great questions now stirring men's +hearts.--_The City Temple Sermons, Preached in the Poultry Chapel, +London,_ 1869-70. By JOSEPH PARKER, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton.) Dr. +Parker, also, is a City preacher; but, perhaps, the three kingdoms could +not furnish a greater pulpit contrast than between him and Mr. Ainger. +Dr. Parker's sermons are much stronger, but they are far less +thoughtful. They are more rhetorical, but less beautifully clear. They +are abrupt, striking, sensational in style, and abound with rhetorical +devices for catching the ear of the multitude. Sometimes, for instance, +Dr. Parker renounces the idea of a sermon, and tells a story, after the +manner of the Parables. His sermons often offend good taste, and are to +be excused only on the ground that the end justifies the means. +Certainly Mr. Ainger could not do what Dr. Parker is doing at the +Poultry.--_Christ Satisfying the Instincts of Humanity._ Eight Lectures +delivered in the Temple Church. By C. J. VAUGHAN, D.D. (Macmillan.) +_Half-hours in the Temple Church._ By C. J. VAUGHAN, D.D., Master of the +Temple. (Strahan and Co.) _Counsels to Young Students._ Three Sermons +preached before the University of Cambridge at the opening of the +academical year 1870-71. By C. J. VAUGHAN, D.D. (Macmillan and Co.) +Concerning three new books by the author of upwards of twenty volumes of +published sermons, it is almost enough to say that they are his: only +these sermons, while preserving the admirable simplicity and practical +spiritual unction of the parochial sermons, have more of intellectual +fibre. The conception of the first series addresses itself more to +thinking men, and the treatment has a more thoughtful cast. Seven of +these letters were delivered on Wednesday evenings in Lent, the eighth +on a Sunday just after. The instincts which Christ is represented as +satisfying are the instincts of Truth, Reverence, Perfection, Liberty, +Courage, Sympathy, Sacrifice, and Unity. The only text of doubtful +relevancy is that of the sermon on Courage, taken from the Corinthians, +'Quit you like men.' It is matter for devout thankfulness that a +preacher so single-hearted, so practical, so faithful to evangelical +truth, and so spiritual, should address so large a number of the learned +profession on the great themes of the Gospel, and that these qualities +should find such acceptance as they do. The crowds who gather round the +Temple pulpit prove that preachers need have recourse neither to strange +doctrines nor to oddities of manner to make the Gospel attractive. Dr. +Vaughan must preach almost all that he thinks, as he prints almost all +that he preaches. His sermons have the natural, simple strength and +freshness of an intelligent, scholarly, and devout man. They are not +made, they grow; if they may not claim the merit of great originality, +they are in every wise and wholesome sense independent. There is no +reason why his series of little volumes should not go on for ever, and +certainly we have every desire that they should. Dr. Vaughan's devout, +spirit-searching fidelity, and evangelical theology, make his books +almost everything that we could desire them to be for popular religious +reading. There can be no better sign of our times than the favour with +which such books are received. Because Dr. Vaughan's sermons are the +simple, spontaneous outcome of his mind and heart, they always have an +admirable adaptation, whether to the alumni of Cambridge or to the +lawyers of the Temple. He speaks with exact pertinence, and therefore +with power. We are devoutly thankful that both these classes should hear +such faithful, searching, loving words as are addressed to them +respectively in these three volumes.--_The Lost Found, and the Wanderer +Welcomed._ By the Rev. W. M. TAYLOR, M.A., U.P., Liverpool. (Edinburgh: +Oliphant and Co.) A lively series of expository and practical homilies +on the fifteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel. Almost too lively at times, +when the Prodigal Son is represented as departing to the 'El Dorado of +his dreams,' and hopes to return a 'nabob;' but there is a dash, and +force, and sweetness withal, that render the volume impressive and +attractive.--_Tender Herbs; or, Lessons for the Lambs_. By GEORGE W. +CONDER. (Manchester: Tubbs and Brook; London: Kent and Co.) Few more +charming volumes than this have ever been prepared for young Christians. +A 'Little Bunch of Herbs for the Lambs,' the author calls them; but they +have rare fragrance and beauty. Under such titles as 'The Broken Vase,' +'Thistle Gardens,' 'The Coat and the Dream,' 'The Golden Key,' 'The +Shepherd and the Lambs,' Mr. Conder pours forth his affluent treasures +of tender fancy and abounding affection. Underneath the almost playful +tone of some of his addresses, and the genial kindness of all, there is +plenty of strong masculine sense, of vigorous and noble thought, of +original and novel argument.--_A Practical Commentary on the Gospel of +St. John, in Simple and Familiar Language_. By G. B. (Nisbet and Co.) +Evangelical but feeble.--_Life and Truth; or, Bible Thoughts and +Themes_. _The Lesser Epistles._ By HORATIUS BONAR, D.D. (Nisbet and Co.) +In our notice of the two previous volumes of this series we have +sufficiently characterized the sermons of which it consists. Dr. Bonar +seems to have been guided in the selection of passages for texts simply +by his sympathetic fancy. In his treatment he is somewhat +ultra-orthodox, deeply spiritual, not very critical, and not very +original or striking. He is closely textual, and in his frame-work of +divisions, resembles some of the old Puritans, rather than divines of +the present day. Eighty-five discourses, in a small volume, necessitate +brevity; they are, indeed, outlines rather than compositions. Perhaps we +may best convey an idea of their character when we say they resemble +Chalmers' 'Daily Readings;' only they have more of a sermon-plan in +them--sometimes a division or sub-division is dismissed in a sentence. +Their most fitting designation would be 'Sermons in Outline.'--_Symbols +of Christ._ By CHARLES STANFORD. (Hodder and Stoughton.) A second +edition of a little book that has commended itself to devout readers by +its healthy spiritual tone of devout practical religiousness. Mr. +Stanford has just that tinge of mysticism which spiritualises events, +and uses emblems with unction; but he never becomes mawkish or obscure. +His sermons are pure and breezy; emotion is appealed to and excited in +an intelligent, manly way. Hence few more wholesome helps to the +spiritual life could be named. This is a companion volume to the edition +of 'Central Truths,' which we commended on its appearance a few months +ago.--_Sermons on Historical Subjects._ By the Rev. D. ROWLANDS, B.A. +(Hodder & Stoughton.) Mr. Rowlands' sermons are ingenious and effective. +In some of them he is remarkably happy in seizing and condensing into a +paragraph or two the essence of a great lesson; thus the sermon on +Jacob's dream at Bethel treats--1. The 'Duality of Existence;' 2. The +'Unity of Existence.' The treatment is sometimes inadequate, an undue +space being given to mere description with which imagination has a good +deal to do. On the whole, the sermons may be commended as fresh, +sensible, vigorous, and useful.--_Sermons_. By HENRY MELVILLE. Two +volumes. (Rivingtons.) Sermon readers will feel a great obligation to +the publishers for this cheap reprint of the sermons of one of the most +effective preachers of this generation. We are not too old to remember +the electrical way in which, for an hour, the preacher at Camden Chapel +held spell-bound the multitudes that crowded every available corner: A +severe critic might characterise Mr. Melville's preaching as somewhat +artificial, and his sermons as fanciful and sometimes wire-drawn; but +they are full of unction, and contain precious evangelical truth enforced +in a way not to be forgotten. We hope these volumes will be succeeded by +others.--_Beacons and Patterns; or, Lessons for Young Men._ By the Rev. +W. LANDELS, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton.) These sermons, on some of the +historical characters of Scripture, containing lessons specially adapted +to young men, are reprinted from 'The Bible Student.' They rise to that +level of popular excellence which characterizes all that Dr. Landels +does, and are calculated to be useful.--_The Prophet's Mantle._ Being +Scenes from the Life of Elisha, the Son of Shaphat. By the Rev. JAMES +MURRAY, Minister of Old Cumnoch. (Blackwood & Son.) An exceedingly good +example of the expository preaching to which, much more than ourselves, +our Scottish brethren are given. Mr. Murray, while evidently having a +scholarly acquaintance with critical difficulties, knows how to keep +them subordinate to popular statement and practical uses. Great good +sense characterises all that he says, and regulates every touch. The +sermons are Biblical rather than practical, that is, they simply furnish +a running practical comment upon the Biblical narrative. Really useful +preaching demands somewhat larger and wider uses suited to the practical +life of our own day; the historical instance should not have larger +prominence than its application.--_Sermons._ By CHARLES WADSWORTH. San +Francisco. (R. D. Dickenson.) We welcome this volume of sermons from the +rapidly-growing and vigorous Christian life of San Francisco, where, as +everywhere else throughout the States, religious provision fully keeps +up with the rapid growth of the community. Mr. Wadsworth's sermons have +some of the characteristics of Western life: they are full of vigour, +fire, and fearlessness, but with that defective culture of form which in +its excess is designated pedantry. The thought is cast in a scholastic +form, the scientific illustrations are often in excess, and the style +wants ease and simplicity; hard words and harsh compounds occur, and, +together with this, the practical applications are too ejaculatory and +coercive. Mr. Wadsworth will do better as he mellows, but his volume is +able and has much good stuff in it.--_Foreign Protestant Pulpit._ +Sermons by eminent Preachers of France, Germany, Holland, and +Switzerland. Second Series. (R. D. Dickinson). We can only adduce as +vouchers for the great excellency of this volume the names of the +preachers of these six-and-thirty sermons; they are Lange, Grandpierre, +César, Malan, Horace Monod, Tholuck, Bersier, Hocart, Gaussen, +Krummacher, Luthardt, Schwartz, Rothe, Pressensé, and Julius Müller. In +addition to the intrinsic excellence of the sermons, they have the +exciting freshness of modes of religious thought and pulpit presentation +which are different from our own; they seem to be well translated, their +flavour is carefully retained. We cordially commend them to both sermon +preachers and sermon readers.--_The True Vine; or, the Analogies of our +Lord's Allegory._ By Rev. HUGH MACMILLAN. (Macmillan and Co.) Mr. +Macmillan combines the eye of a poet and the knowledge of a _savant_ +with the heart of a saint; while he analyses the phenomena of nature on +purely scientific principles, he interprets them on the principles of a +devout Christian theist. He sees in nature the wonderful ways of Him who +made it; 'looks through nature up to nature's God,' and often, in virtue +of his religious insight, invests familiar things with unobserved and +beautiful significance. Beneath the surface of natural symbolism he +discerns the religious and loving ways of a divine Creator and father; +and thus, in a subtle and beautiful way, he knits together the two great +departments of the one kingdom of God. In this volume he is primarily a +theologian, investigating the religious meaning of our Lord's great +allegory of the vine and its branches--perhaps the greatest of his +self-assertions on the one hand, and of his religious assurances on the +other. Mr. Macmillan here, therefore, makes science the handmaid of +theology, and brings his knowledge of natural phenomena to bear upon the +significance of our Lord's similes. He has, we think, a little overdone +this; the religious thought is overlaid, the illustration is more than +the thing illustrated; but he has thrown beautiful light upon many +points of natural symbolism. Readers and preachers who are unscientific +will find many of his illustrations as valuable as they are beautiful. +His wild luxuriance somewhat reminds us of that of James +Hamilton.--_Truth and Trust: Lessons of the War._ Four Advent Sermons. +By HENRY ALFORD, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton.) These are the last +products of Dean Alford's pen, the last utterances from his lips. The +proof was but partly corrected when he died. We could not subject them +to criticism if we would. They are 'the sound of a voice that is still,' +and love for an honoured and noble-hearted servant of God, and for a +dear personal friend, seals our lips in reverence. Under any +circumstances, we should have only words of eulogy for them. They are, +in spiritual intelligence, strength, and cogency, about the best of the +many sermons that he published.--THE JEWISH TEMPLE AND THE CHRISTIAN +CHURCH; a Series of Discourses on the Epistle to the Hebrews. By R. W. +DALE, M.A. Second Edition. Revised, with additional notes. (Hodder and +Stoughton). We cannot but regret that Mr. Dale has not made this volume +much more than 'discourses, not for scholars, but for ordinary Christian +people to whom learned commentaries are inaccessible or useless.' He has +in them laid the foundations of an exposition of the Epistle to the +Hebrews of great spiritual insight and philosophic breadth, and he +might advantageously have wrought out his plan, even in successive +editions, until the work had become the worthy _magnum opus_ of his +life. It is, however, useless regretting what he has not done; we can +simply commend what he has done, as one of the best popular hand-books +to this great and suggestive epistle that is extant. Pulpit purposes +demand broad treatment and the avoidance of minute exegesis; but the +broad treatment here is always the fruit of careful exegesis, good +scholarship, and sound, vigorous thought. Some of the sermons are not +even wrought out as they were preached; the notes thereof only are +given. It is virtually what Robinson's 'Lectures on the Corinthians' +are, and will scarcely suffer by comparison with them.--_Lights and +Shadows in the Life of King David._ By CHARLES VINCE. (Elliot Stock.) In +ten discourses, Mr. Vince selects certain incidents and points in the +history of David. He makes no pretension to biographical completeness, +or to relative importance. Spiritual, and not biographical, reasons have +guided his selections. Thus one discourse is devoted to the influence of +Rizpah's pathetic fidelity in quickening David's conscience; and two to +the two things which David had never seen--'the righteous forsaken, and +his seed begging their bread.' The volume is a very charming one--full +of delicate spiritual discernment and tender religious sensibility; the +style is simple and chaste; and the quiet, natural way in which the +practical side of everything is presented is very felicitous. Mr. Vince +does not 'strive nor cry;' he has recourse to no feverish rhetoric or +tumultuous passion; his doctrine 'distils as the dew,' and, in a +searching, potent way, finds the soul of every hearer and saturates +it.--_Misread Passages of Scripture._ Second Series. By J. BALDWIN +BROWN, B.A. (Hodder and Stoughton.) Very different is Mr. Brown, who is +urgent with intellectual force and moral earnestness. His thought is +inquisitive, aggressive, and demonstrative; his spiritual zeal takes +cogent forms. He is full of intellectual surprises and unexpected +spiritual motives; very independent, very instructive, very forcible, +fulfilling the great practical religious ends of the ministry in a +masterly, forceful way. His books are full of strong, wise, earnest +words, such as place him among the noblest teachers of our day. Nothing +could be more characteristic of him than these two series of sermons on +'Misread Passages.' In the second, as distinguished from the first which +treats chiefly of textual misinterpretations, Mr. Brown deals with +doctrines and conclusions derived from misinterpreted texts; _e.g._, +'The Principle of Christian Unity,' regarded in the light of the true +reading. 'There shall be one _flock_ and one shepherd,' instead of 'one +_fold_ and one shepherd;' and the true significance of the simile of the +potter and the clay. We commend to special attention the sermon on the +'True Idea of Substitution,' in which, denying the theories of mere +martyrdom and commercial substitution, Mr. Brown insists upon the +substitution which has its character and power in Christ as the +_representative_ of the race--the true theory, as we venture to think. +The volume is full of thoughtfulness, light, and power.--_The Story of +Job, and Meditation on Passages of the Book of Job._ By Rev. ALFRED +CLAYTON THISTLETON. (Nisbet and Co.) There is no distinctive character +either of intelligence or strength in Mr. Thistleton's sermons. They are +devout and practical, but very commonplace, abounding in unctuous words, +and not over careful about exact meanings.--_Sermons for the Christian +Year._ By the Rev. W. H. LEWIS, D.D., Rector of the Church of the Holy +Trinity, Brooklyn. (R. D. Dickinson.) A reprint of a volume of sermons +published twenty years ago. It is a poor criterion of sermons to measure +them by the clock--a poor compliment when the first commendation is of +shortness; but Mr. Lewis's sermons have this merit. This little volume +of 500 pages contains sixty-six. Few of them could have exceeded the +orthodox Episcopal fifteen minutes. We differ from many of the tenets of +Mr. Lewis. Thus, from the text, 'Cease ye from man,' he teaches that we +are from human corruption to expect only ingratitude and wrong, to live +among men as among natural enemies. This is a very doleful and, we +think, an unwarrantable doctrine. Mr. Lewis is an orthodox evangelical. +He discourses in the old mechanical way. He is pious, sincere, and +earnest, but he furnishes no great help for men struggling with the real +difficulties of human darkness and experience. The volume is typical, +and should be very useful to rectors.--_The Measure of Faith and other +Sermons._ By PHILIP COLBORNE, Norwich. With Preface by the Rev. JOHN +STOUGHTON, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton.) Mr. Colborne's sermons are +thoroughly individual, as if elaborated in some solitary place, with but +little reference either to theologians, critics, or conventional modes +of preaching. They somewhat lack fluency, but they are vigorous and +discerning. The working out of Mr. Colborne's conceptions is not always +so happy as the conceptions themselves; but his little volume contrasts +nobly with the vague vapid stuff that often comes before us under the +guise of sermons, and is a favourable specimen of that strength of the +Nonconformist pulpit which, under God's blessing, has made our churches +what they are. We would specially commend the sermon on 'Christian +Heroism,' and the two sermons on 'The Origin of Christian Life,' and +'God's Principle of Selection,' preached during the meetings in Norwich +of the British Association.--_Christ's Healing Touch, and other Sermons, +preached at Surbiton._ By ALEXANDER MACKENNAL, B.A. (Elliot Stock.) Mr. +Mackennal's sermons combine, in an unusual degree, the freshness of an +independent thinker and the power of a robust one, with the spiritual +penetration of a devout man, the evangelical fervour of a believing man, +and the practical urgency of an earnest man. No one, we think, can read +this unpretending volume without being interested--we might say +fascinated--by its manifold excellencies, or lay it down without a high +estimate of its author's ministerial power. The people who listen to +such a preacher are rarely privileged. The volume is one of the few +that, without qualification or reserve, we can heartily commend. Mr. +Mackennal has a rare faculty for eliciting the latent meanings of things +without obtruding the sense of his ingenuity, or failing in broad, +practical evangelical applications.--_The Wisdom of the King, or Studies +in Ecclesiastes._ By the Rev. JAMES BENNET, St. John's, New Brunswick. +(Edinburgh: William Oliphant.) Mr. Bennet writes with much intelligence +and good sense. In a plain, practical way he shapes the lessons to be +derived from Ecclesiastes into a series of week-day lectures, and his +book may be commended as worthy to take its place in the homiletical +literature of Ecclesiastes. Mr. Bennet still adheres to the almost +exploded notion that it is the veritable religious autobiography of +Solomon.--_Things Above._ By the late F. W. FRENCH, Rector of Newtown, +near Kells, County Meath. (James Nisbet and Co.) Mr. French was, as the +preface tells us, an aged minister, who had entered upon his eighth +decade, and who died before this little book was finished. It is a +series of short chapters or lectures concerning things above--their +reality, locality, character, &c.--written with devout feeling, and +largely illustrated by quotations from a considerable range of +writers.--_Sermons and Lectures._ By the late WILLIAM M'COMBIE. +(Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark.) Mr. M'Combie was the editor of the +_Aberdeen Free Press_, and a layman. He was accustomed to preach, +chiefly in the Baptist Church, of which he was a member; and these +discourses were prepared, not for publication, but for preaching. Mr. +M'Combie was one of the most able men in the North of Scotland. He had +much in common with Hugh Miller. His intellectual independence, vigorous +thinking, manifold attainments, and cultured beauty and precision of +expression, were not surpassed by any of his compeers. His 'Hours of +Thought,' and still more, his 'Moral Agency,' proved, in their revolt +from Predestinarianism, as commonly taught by Scotch Calvinism, both his +profound metaphysical thinking and his intellectual independence. These +sermons have not the finish of his own published works, but they are +full of rare thoughtfulness and wisdom, and of rich spiritual feeling +and suggestiveness. Their strong, unwavering faith in the sufficiency +and power of the religion of Jesus to satisfy every necessity of the +individual and social life of men is a fine tonic in these degenerate +days. It is something to hear a man who believes as Mr. M'Combie +believes speak as he speaks.--_Sermons for the Times, preached at the +Independent Chapel, Newbury._ By E. W. SHALDERS, B.A. (Blacket and Son, +Newbury.) Mr. Shalders has done most excellent service to the cause of +spiritual Christianity by the issue of this series of discourses on the +questions at issue between the Ritualist and the Free Churchman. The +topics chosen by our author have been 'Baptismal Regeneration,' +'Apostolic Succession,' 'The Childishness of Ritualism,' 'Exclusiveness +the real Schism.' Scholarship, candour, strength, clearness, and fine +manly tone, pervade each of these discussions. We should be glad to see +them circulated by tens of thousands.--_The Revision of the New +Testament, being a Popular Exposition of its Needs and Limits; a Lecture +delivered before the Norwich Young Men's Christian Association._ By +GEORGE S. BARRETT, B.A. (Hodder and Stoughton.) This lecture is +admirably well done. There is a refined tone in the discussion, and a +thorough grasp of the whole subject. When he was about it, however, Mr. +Barrett might as well have explained a little more fully what is meant +by 'The Text of Scripture.' The class addressed by the lecturer are +singularly hazy on this point. It is not uncommon to meet with pious +folk who, when the rejection, _e.g._, of 1 John v. 7, is made to depend +on its absence from all Greek MSS., are ready to exclaim--'So much the +worse for the MSS!' We heartily thank Mr. Barrett for his timely +publication.--_The Plymouth Pulpit._ Sermons by HENRY WARD BEECHER. +Third Series. (Dickenson.) The third series of Mr. Beecher's sermons +fully sustains the interest excited by the previous volumes. There are +the same high passion and earnest, practical love, the same brilliant +touch, the ring of the same musical metal which have charmed and +instructed us so often. This volume is characterized by more frequent +treatment of great doctrinal themes, when liberal views are guarded by +conservative love. There is a most powerful, practical, and useful +discourse on the fearful theme of 'The Sin against the Holy Ghost.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Mr. Peter Walker, of Philadelphia, the late publisher of the +_Princeton Review_, issued last year an index volume, giving brief +biographic notices of each contributor to its pages, since 1825. The +volume is incomplete. We are indebted to it for much of the information +contained in the text. + +[2] This _Index Expurgatorious_ puts the ban upon such words as +these:--bogus, authoress, poetess, collided, _debút_, donate, donation, +loafer, located, ovation, predicate, progressing, pants, rowdies, +roughs, secesh, osculate for kiss, endorse for approve, lady for wife, +jubilant for rejoicing, bagging for capturing, loaned for lent, posted +for informed, and realized for obtained. + +[3] Report addressed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer by the Master of +the Mint, and Colonel Smith, late Master of the Calcutta Mint, on the +mintage necessary to cover the expenses of establishing and maintaining +the gold currency. + +[4] Mr. Hendriks' Evidence before the Royal Commission. + +[5] Report from the Royal Commission on International Coinage. + +[6] This is shown by the tariff price of the British sovereign at the +Paris Mint, mentioned at p. 21. + +[7] Colonel J. T. Smith's Evidence before the Royal Commission. + +[8] Mr. Hendriks' Evidence, Royal Commission on International Coinage, +p. 19. + +[9] Mrs. Crewe's house was subsequently the resort of Charles Fox and +his party, who took for their motto-- + + 'Buff and Blue, + And Mrs. Crewe.' + +[10] _British Quarterly Review._ October, 1867, Article 'Recent +Researches in Palestine.' + +[11] Tel Hum--the mound of 'Hum. Capernaum--the village of na-hum. + +[12] B. J., iii. x. 8. + +[13] Dean Stanley reminds us that as a rule the hill tribes of a country +hold out longest against an invader, but in the case of Canaan the +nations of the plain, possessing horses and chariots, which the +Israelites were destitute of, had the advantage.--_Sin. and Pal._ + +[14] Jud. Bell. v. iv. i. + +[15] 2 Chron. xxxii. 30; I Kings viii. 1. + +[16] I Kings ii. 10; xi. 43, &c. + +[17] 'Sketch of Jerusalem,' p. 103. + +[18] Robinson, Bib. Res. i. 293. + +[19] Jos. Ant. xiv. iv. 3. + +[20] 'Dictionary of the Bible,' Art. Jerusalem + +[21] 'Ancient Jerusalem,' p. 320. + +[22] 'Horeb and Jerusalem,' p. 259. + +[23] Jud. Bell. vi. iii. 2. + +[24] Jud. Bell. vi. iii. 2. + +[25] In thus provisionally identifying Zion with a hill north of the +temple, it may be well to call attention to Josephus's description of +the eastern hill. He says it was [Greek: amphikurtos], a word which is +sometimes translated 'gibbous' sometimes 'sloping on both sides,' and +sometimes 'the shape of a moon when horned.' Liddell and Scott say +'_curved on each side_, like the moon in its third quarter, _gibbous_;' +but as [Greek: kurtos] by itself, is simply 'curved or arched,' and each +side of the moon is carved as much when it is crescent as when gibbous, +we have rendered the term 'crescent-shaped,' being influenced by the +fact that the Tyropoeon valley and that from Herod's gate would really +give a crescent shape to the two eastern hills which in his day were +one. + +[26] It seems to us overlooked, that before the Akra was cut down it may +have been higher than the western hill. If so, it would be the upper +city in David's time, and Josephus's statement that David look the lower +city and the Akra would have new light thrown upon it. It would then be +clear that Akra was co-extensive with the city of David, which is Zion, +and the absence of all mention of the upper city at this siege would be +explained. + +[27] Jud. Bell. v. iv. 1, 2. + +[28] Robinson, Bib. Res. iii. 191. Lewin, 'Sketch of Jerusalem,' +Appendix. + +[29] [Hebrew character], _a hill_ from [Hebrew character] _to swell up_. +With the art. [Hebrew character] pr.n. of a hill to the east of Mount +Zion. Gesenius Lex. And see Stanley, 'S. and P.,' Appendix. + +[30] Jos. Ant. xv. xi. 5; xiv. iv. 2; B. J. i. ii. 5, 2; ii. xvi. 3; vi. +vi. 2; vi. vii. i. + +[31] Lewin, Sketch of Jer., pp. 19, 96; Jos. Ant., xiv. iv. 2; B. J. i. +vii. 2. + +[32] Ant. xv. xi. 5. + +[33] B.7, v. 1; L. xxi. 1. Ant. xv. xi. 5. + +[34] Williams and Ferguson both ascribe them to Justinian. + +[35] See _Athenæum_, June 11th, 1870. + +[36] Athenæum, June 11th, 1870. + +[37] The Quarterly Statement of Palestine Exploration Fund, No. V., +following M. Ganneau, whose information was at first deficient, +represents the stone as rounded at the top and squared at the bottom; +and this error is repeated by Professor Rawlinson, in the _Contemporary +Review_, August, 1870. + +[38] _Révue Archéologique_, June, 1870. + +[39] Gesenius, Rödiger, Bunsen and others maintain this view. Wuttke and +Fürst are against it. + +[40] Letter to the _Times_, March 3rd, 1870. + +[41] B. J. iii. x. 8. See a paper on the 'Fishes of the Holy Land,' by +Dr. Albert Gunther in the _Student and Intellectual Observer_, July, +1869. The fish was found in the Round Fountain, not the Spring of +Tabigah, identified by Wilson as Capharnaum. + +[42] [Greek: Es tan polin] = Stamboul. + +[43] We need hardly say that the Archbishopric of Paris dates only from +the seventeenth century. Up to that time the Bishop of Paris had been a +suffragan of the Metropolitan of Sens. + +[44] Eginh. Ann. 768.--'In ipsâ tamen valetudine Turonos delatus, apud +Sancti Martini memoriam oravit. Inde cum ad Parisios venisset, viii. +Kal. Octobris diem obiit, cujus corpus in basilicâ beati Dionysii +martyris humatum est.' So Vita Karoli, 3, 'Apud Parisius morbo aquae +intercutis diem obiit.' Mark the singular use of _Parisius_ as an +indeclinable noun. + +[45] Eginh. Ann. 753, 708. + +[46] Ib. 800. The passage is worth quoting, as a specimen of the +constant locomotion of the German kings:--'Redeunte vernâ temperie, +medio fere Martio Rex Aquisgrani digressus, litus Oceani Gallici +perlustravit, et in ipso mari, quod tunc piratis Nordmannicis infestum +erat, classem instituit, præsidia disposuit, pascha in Centulo apud +sanctum Richarium celebravit. Inde iterum per litus maris iter agens, +Ratumagum civitatem venit ibique Sequanâ amne transmisso, Turonos ad +sanctum Martinum orationis causâ profectus est, moratus ibi dies aliquot +propter adversam Liutgardæ conjugis valetudinem, quæ ibidem et defuncta +et humata est; obiit autem diem ii. Non. Jun. Inde per Aurelianos ac +Parisios Aquasgrani reversus est, et mense Augusto inchoante Mogontiacum +veniens, generalem conventum ibidem habuit, et iter in Italiam condixit, +atque inde profectus cum exercitu Ravennam venit, ibique septem nom +amplius dies moratus. Pippinum filium suum cum eodem exercitu in terram +Beneventanorum ire jussit, movensque de Ravennâ simul cum filio, Anconam +usque pervenit, quo ibi dimisso Romam proficiscitur.' This same visit to +Paris seems to be alluded to by the monk of Saint Gallen, Gesta Karoli, +i. 10. (Pertz, ii. 735.) 'Quum vero ingeniosissimus Karolus quodam anno +festivitates nativitatis et apparitionis Domini apud Treverense vel +Metense oppidum celebrasset sequenti vero anno easdem sollemnitates +Parisii vel Turonis ageret.' + +[47] Ermoldus Nigellus, ii. 143 (Pertz ii. 481.) + + 'Inde Parisiacas properant cito visere sedes, + Quo Stephanus martyr culmina summa tenet, + + Quo, Germane, tuum colitur, sanctissime corpus, + Quo Genuveffa micat, virgo, dicata Deo. + + * * * * * + + Nec tua præteriit Dionysi culmina martyr, + Quin adiens tibimet posceret auxilium.' + +And again, iii. 269-- + + 'Cæsar iter tutum per propria regna gerebat, + Usque Parisiaca quo loca celsus adit. + Jam tua martyr ovans Dionysi tecta revisit, + Hilthuin abba potens quo sibi dona paras; + Hinc, Germane, tui transivit culmina tecti + Martyris et Stephani, seu, Genuvefa, tui.' + +[48] History of Normandy and England, i. 279-281. + +[49] Ibid., i. 282. + +[50] The fact that Paris was the gathering-place comes out most strongly +in the Annales Bertiniani, 830 (Pertz i. 423.) 'Nam aliqui ex primoribus +mumurationem populi cognoscentes, convocaverunt illum, ut eum a fide, +quam domno Imperatori promissam habebant, averterent; ideoque omnis +populus qui in Britanniam ire debebat ad Parisium se conjunxit, nec non +Hlotharium de Italiâ et Pippinam de Aquitaniâ hostiliter adversum patrem +venire, ut illum de regno ejicerent et novercam suam perderent ac +Bernardum interficerent, compulerunt.' + +[51] Vita Hludowici, 45 (Pertz, ii. 633.) 'Quum autem instaret +auctumnalis temperies, ei qui Imperatori contraria sentiebant alicubi in +Franciâ conventum fieri generalem volebant. Imperator autem clanculo +obnitebatur, diffidens quidem Francis magisque se credens Germanis.' One +cannot help talking here about _France_ and _French_, though such is not +the established use of the words till long after. It should, however, be +noticed that the _Francia_ of this writer, while it excludes Germany, +equally excludes Burgundy and Aquitaine. (See c. 49.) The assembly was +held at Neomaga (Nimwegen) and we read that 'omnis Germania eo confluxit +Imperatori auxilio futura.' + +[52] Annales Bertiniani, 834. 'Quum hoc Lotharius cognovisset, de Aquis +abscessit, et patrem suum usque ad Parisius sub memoratâ custodiâ +deduxit.' So in the Vita Hludowici. 50, 'Hlotharius patre assumpto per +pagum Hasbaniensem iter arripuit, et Parisius urbem petivit, ubi obviam +fore cunctos sibi fideles præcepit.' + +[53] Annales Bertiniani, 834. 'Illo abscedente, venerunt episcopi qui +præsentes aderant, et in ecclesiâ sancti Dionysii domnum Imperatorem +reconciliaverunt, et regalibus vestibus armisque induerunt. Deinde filii +ejus Pippinus et Ludoicus cum ceteris fidelibus ad eum venientes paterno +animo gaudenter suscepti sunt, et plurimas illis ac cuncto populo +gratias egit, quod jam alacriter illi auxilium præbere studuissent.' + +[54] See p. 56, ante. + +[55] See the Annals of Prudentius of Troyes, 841 (Pertz, i. 437) and the +story in Nithard, ii. 6--8. Palgrave, England and Normandy, i. 313, 314. +Hildwin, Abbot of St. Denis, and Gerard, Count of Paris--the first we +remember bearing that title--had been among the first to break their +oaths to Charles. + +[56] See the vivid description of Carolingian Paris and its first +capture in Palgrave, i. 433-439; but Sir Francis has not wholly +withstood the temptation to exaggerate the antiquity of some of the +existing buildings. + +[57] Ann. Prud. Trec. 841 (Pertz, i. 437). 'Interea piratæ Danorum ab +Oceano Euripo devecti Rotumam irruentes, rapinis, ferro, ignique +bacchantes, urbem, monachos, reliquumque vulgum et cædibus et +captivitate pessumdederunt, et omnia monasteria seu quæcumque loca +flumini Sequanæ adhærentia aut depopulati sunt aut multis acceptis +pecuniis territa relinquunt.' + +[58] Ann. Prud. Trec. 845. 'Nordmannorum naves centum viginti mense +Martio per Sequanam hinc et abinde cuncta vastantes, Loticiam Parisiorum +nullo penitus obsistente pervadunt. Quibus quum Carolus occurrere +moliretur, sed prævalere suos nullatenus posse prospiceret, quibusdam +pactionibus, et munere septem milium librarum eis exhibito, a +progrediendo compescuit, ac redire persuasit.' So in the Annals of +Fulda, 845 (Pertz. i. 364): 'Nordmanni regnum Karoli vastantes, per +Sequanam usque Parisios navigio venerunt, et tam ab ipso quam incolis +terræ acceptâ pecuniâ copiosâ, cum pace discesserunt.' + +[59] Ann. Prud. Trec. 857: 'Dani Sequanæ insistentes cuncta libere +vastant, Lutetiamque Parisiorum adgressi, basilicam beati Petri et +sanctæ Genovefæ incendunt et ceteras omnes, præter domum sancti Stephani +et ecclesiam sancti Vincentii atque Germani præterque ecclesiam sancti +Dionysii, pro quibus tantummodo, ne incenderentur, multa solidorum summa +soluta est.' Sir Francis Palgrave (i. 439,464) gives a vivid picture of +this sack of Paris. Of Saint Denis he adds: 'Saint Denis made a bad +bargain. The Northmen did not hold to their contract, or another company +of pirates did not consider it as binding: the Monastery was burnt to a +shell, and a most heavy ransom paid for the liberation of Abbot Lewis, +Charlemagne's grandson, by his daughter Rothaida.' Sir Francis, as +usual, gives no reference; but we may be sure that he could, if he had +pleased, have given one for the burning of the Monastery as well as for +the capture of the Abbot, which the Annals mention under the next year, +though not in connection with the sack of Paris. + +[60] Sir Francis Palgrave, i. 462, says: 'Amongst the calamities of the +times, the destruction of the Parisian monasteries seems to have worked +peculiarly on the imagination. Paschasius Radbertus, the biographer of +Wala, expatiates upon this misery when writing his Commentary on +Jeremiah.' Some extracts are given in Pertz, i. 450: 'Quis umquam +crederet, vel quis umquam cogitare potuisset ... ut piratæ, diversis +admodum collecti ex familiis, Parisiorum attingerent fines, ecclesiasque +Christi hinc inde cremarent circa litus?... Fateor enim quod nullus ex +regibus terræ ista cogitaret, neque ullus habitator orbis nostri audire +potuisset quod Parisium nostrum hostis intraret.' + +[61] It is worth notice, that Charles the Bald, as well as his soldiers, +could speak the 'lingua Romana,' or Romance tongue. See the Capitularies +put forth by the Kings Lewis, Charles, and Lothar at Coblentz in 860. +Lewis speaks 'lingua Theothisca,' and Charles, 'lingua Romana,' (Pertz, +Leges, i. 472.) Yet Charles, in his own Capitularies, speaks of 'lingua +Theodisca' as the language of the country, exactly as Lewis does, (i, +482, 497.) + +[62] Regino 861: 'Carolus Rex placitum habuit in Compendio ibique cum +optimatum consilio Roberto Comiti Ducatum inter Ligerim et Sequanam +adversum Brittones commendavit, quem cum ingenti industriâ per aliquod +tempus rexit.' Dr. Kalckstein's monograph, _Robert der Tapfere_, has +reached us since this article was written, and we have scarcely had time +to glance at it. We can see that he has gone into the matter with hearty +thoroughness, but we are not able to avail ourselves at all largely of +his researches in detail. We can, however, refer to his clear +investigations of Robert's origin, and of the extent of his grant. + +[63] Regino 867: 'Ruotbertus qui _marcam_ tenebat.' So Hincmar, Ann. +865. _Marchio_, in Andegaro. + +[64] Richer i. 5: 'Odo patrem habuit ex equestri ordine Rotbertum, avum +vero paternum Witichinum, advenam Germanum.' He appears to have been of +Saxon origin. See Kalckstein, p. 9, and the first 'Excursus.' + +[65] The monk of Saint Gallen (Gesta Karoli, i. 10) gives us a +definition of Francia, in the widest sense. 'Franciam vero interdum quum +nominavero, omnes Cisalpinas provincias significo ... in illo tempore +propter excellentiam gloriosissimi Karoli et Galli, et Aquitani, Ædui et +Hispani, Alamanni et Baioarii, non parum se insignitos gloriabantur, si +vel nomine Francorum servorum censeri mererentur.' + +[66] Richer i. 14, twice speaks of the Duchy of France, as 'Celtica' and +'Gallia Celtica.' 'Rex [Karolus] Celticæ [Rotbertum] Ducem præficit.' +These are Charles the Simple, and the second Robert, afterwards King. + +[67] 'Ann. Fuld.,' 867 (Pertz i., 380). 'Ruodbertus Karoli Regis Comes +apud Ligerim fluvium contra Nordmannos fortiter dimicans occiditur, +alter quodammodo nostris temporibus Machabæus, cujus proelia quæ cum +Brittonibus et Nordmannis gessit, si per omnia scripta fuissent, +Machabæi gestis æquiparari potuissent.' See the details in Regino, 867. +Hincmar, Ann. 866. The battle of Brissarthe is well described in M. +Mourin's 'Comtes de Paris,' a book whose name we have placed at the head +of this article. The volume forms a careful and spirited history of the +rise of the Parisian Kingdom; but it is strongly coloured by Parisian +dreams about the frontier of the Rhine. + +[68] Odo did not succeed at once. On account of his youth, and, that of +his brother Robert, the Duchy was granted to Hugh the Abbot. Ann. Met. +867. (See Kalckstein, p. 109.) Odo did not succeed to the whole Duchy +till the death of Hugh in 887 in the middle of the siege, 'Ducatus quem +[Hugo] tenuerat et strenue rexerat Odoni filio Rodberti ab Imperatore +traditur, qui eâ tempestate Parisiorum Comes erat.' (Regius, 887.) We +are not told what was the exact extent of the county. + +[69] See especially the entries in the 'Annales Vedastini' (Pertz, ii. +200), under 874 and several following years. Take, above all, the +general picture under 884. 'Nortmanni vero non cessant captivari atque +interfici populum Christianum, atque ecclesias subrui, destructis +moeniis et villis crematis. Per omnes enim plateas jacebant cadavera +clericorum, laicorum, nobilium atque aliorum, mulierum, juvenum, et +lactentium: non enim erat via vel locus quo non jacerent mortui; et erat +tribulatio omnibus et dolor, videntes populum Christianum usque ad +internecionem devastari.' + +[70] The Ludwigslied is printed in Max Müller's German Classics, also in +the second volume of Schilter's Thesaurus. + +[71] A full account of the battle is given in the Annales Vedastini, +881. + +[72] Annales Vedastini, 882. 'Australes Franci (that is, Eastern, +Austrasian, not Southern) congregant exercitum contra Nortmannos, sed +statim terga vertunt, ibique Walo, Mettensis episcopus, corruit, Dani +vero famosissimum Aquisgrani palatium igne cremant et monasteria atque +civitates, Treveris nobilissimam et Coloniam Agrippinam, palatia quoque +regum et villas, cum habitatoribus terræ interfectis, igne cremaverunt.' + +[73] Annales Fuldenses (Pertz, i. 390), 876. 'Karolus vero, Hludowici +morte compertâ, regnum illius, cupiditate ductus, invasit, et suæ +ditioni subjugare studuit; existimans se, ut fama vulgabat, non solum +partem regni Hlotharii, quam Hludowicus tenuit et filiis suis utendam +dereliquit, per tyrannidem posse obtinere, verum etiam cunctas civitates +regni Hludowici in occidentali litore Rheni fluminis positas suo regno +addere, id est Mogontiam, Wormatiam, et Nemetum, filiosque fratris per +potentiam opprimere, ita ut nullus ei resistere vel contradicere +auderet.' One is inclined to ask whether there may not be something +prophetic under the first entry under the next year; 'Hludowicus rex +mense Januario, generali conventa habito apud Franconofurt, quos de +regno Karoli tenuit captivos remisit in Galliam.' + +[74] Ann. Fuld. 876. The way in which Charles' Imperial dignity is +recorded is remarkable. After a satirical description of the Imperial +costume, the Annal goes on, 'Omnem enim consuetudinem regum Francorum +contemnens, Græcas glorias optimas arbitrabatur, et ut majorem suæ +mentis elationem ostenderet, ablato Regis nomine, se Imperatorem et +Augustum omnium regum cis mare consistentium appellare præcepit.' The +phrase 'cis mare' is remarkable, when we think of the English claims to +Empire, and of the constant use of the word 'transmarinus' to express +England and English things. The common name for diaries in these Annals +is 'Galliæ Tyrannus.' + +[75] Abbo, i. 48 (Pertz, ii. 780),-- + + Urbs mandata fuit Karolo nobis basileo, + Imperio cujus regitur totus prope kosmas + Post Dominum, regem dominatoremque potentum, + Excidium per eam regnum non quod patiatur, + Sed quod salvetur per eam sedeatque serenum.' + +[76] Regino 887. (Pertz, i. 596). 'Heinricus cum exercitibus utriusque +regni Parisius venit.' 'Utrumque regnum' means of course the East and +the West Franks. The same Annals, in the next year, speak of Charles as +reigning over 'omnia regna Francorum.' + +[77] See especially the Annales Vedastini, 885-890; other details come +from the Chronicle of Regino, 887-890. + +[78] Let us take one out of several passages where he describes his own +exploits (ii. 800-302):-- + + 'Nemo stetit supra speculam, solus nisi sæpe + Jam sancti famulus dicti, lignum crucis almæ + In flammas retinens, oculis hæc vidit et inquit.' + +[79] The book is printed in the second volume of Pertz, 776-805. The +Third Book has a sort of _Interpretatio_ throughout. We give a few lines +(15-18) as a specimen:-- + + _laicorum_ + _'Tapete undique villose populorum lectus in itinere._ + Amphytappa laon extat, badanola necnon; + _Ornamentum decorum valde amant vestem putam vel gumfun claram + potionem per linteum._ + Effipiam diamant, strangulam pariterque propomam. + _lenocinatio fugat paleam_ + Agagula celebs aginat pecudes nec ablundam.' + +But the narrative portions of the poem, though often obscure enough, are +not altogether in this style. + +[80] i. 10:-- + + 'Nam medio Sequanae recubans, culti quoque regni + Francigenum, temet statuis per celsa canendo: + Sum polis, ut regina micans omnes super urbes! + Quae statione nites cunctis venerabiliori, + Quisque cupiscit opes Francorum, te veneratur.' + + +[81] i-15:-- + + 'Insula te gaudet, fluvius sua fert tibi giro + Brachia, complexo muros mulcentia circum + Dextra tui pontes habitant tentoria limfæ + Lævaque claudentes; horum hinc inde tutrices + Cis urbem speculare falas, citra quoque flumen.' + +[82] i. 45:-- + + 'Hic Consul venerabatur, Rex atque futurus, + Urbis erat tutor, regni venturus et altor.' + +[83] i. 66:-- + + 'Hic Comites Odo fraterque suus radiabant + Rotbertus, pariterque Comes Ragenarius; illic + Pontificisque nepos Ebolus, fortissimus Abba.' + +[84] Ann. Ved. 885;--'Nortmanni, patratâ victoriâ valde elati, Parisius +adeunt turrimque statim aggressi, valide oppugnant; et quia necdum +perfecte firmata fuerat, eam se capi sine morâ existimant.' + +[85] Regino, 887:--'Erant, ut ferunt triginta, et eo amplius +adversariorum millia, omnes pene robusti bellatores.' + +[86] See Freeman's History of the Norman Conquest, i. 270, ed. ii. + +[87] i. 38:--'Solo Rex verbo, sociis tamen imperitabat.' + +[88] i.--107: + + 'Fortis Odo innumeros tutudit. Sed quis fuit alter? + Alter Ebolus huic socius fuit æquiperansque; + Septenos unâ potuit terebrare sagittâ, + Quos ludens alios jussit præbere quoquinæ.' + +[89] Ann. Ved. 885:--'Dani, multis suorum amissis, rediere ad naves; +indeque sibi castrum statuunt adversus civitatem, eamque obsidione +vallant, machinas construunt, ignem supponunt, et omne ingenium suum +apponunt ad captionem civitatis; sed Christiani adversus eos fortiter +dimicando, in omnibus exstitere superiores.' + +[90] Let us take Abbo's description (i. 205) of an engine which may have +been only a sow or a tortoise, but which certainly suggests the Trojan +horse, + + 'Ergo bis octonis faciunt mirabile visu, + Monstra rotis ignara; modi compacta triadi, + Roboris ingentis, super argete quodque cubante + Domate sublimi cooperto. Nam capiebant + Claustra sinûs arcana uteri penetralia ventris + Sexaginta viros, ut adest rumor, galeatos.' + +[91] Ann. Ved. 886. 'Octavo Idus Februarii contigit grave discrimen +infra civitatem habitantibus; nam ex gravissimâ inundatione fluminis +minor pons disruptus est.' It is called 'pictus pons' by Abbo, i. 250. + +[92] Ib. 'Illis vero qui intra turrim erant acriter resistentibus, fit +clamor multitudinis usque in coelum; Episcopus desuper muro civitatis +cum omnibus qui in civitate erant nimis flentibus, eo quod suis +subvenire non possent, et quia nil aliud agere poterat, Christo eos +commendabat.' + +[93] Ib. 'Nortmanni cum impetu portam ipsius turris adeunt ignemque +subponunt. Et hi qui intra erant, fracti vulneribus et incendio +capiuntur, atque ad opprobrium Christianorum diversis interficiuntur +modis, atque in flumine præcipitantur.' + +[94] Ann. Ved, 886. 'Herkengerus [the messenger sent by the Bishop, +described as _Comes_] ... Henricum cum exercitu Parisius venire fecit; +sed nil ibi profecit ... atque in suam rediit regionem.' + +Regino (887) makes the same confession. 'Imperator Heinricum ducem cum +exercitu vernali tempore dirigit sed minime prævaluit.' The Fulda Annals +alone (886) seem to make out something of a case for Henry. His army 'in +itinere propter imbrium inundationem et frigus imminens non modicum +equorum suorum perpessi sunt damnum.' The Annalist then adds, 'Quum +illuc pervenissent, Nordmanni rerum omnium abundantiam in munitionibus +suis habentes, manum cum eis conserere nec voluerunt, nec ausi sunt.' He +goes on to say that they spent the whole of Lent and up to the Rogation +days in vain labours (inani labore consumptis). They then went home, +having done nothing except kill some Danes whom they found outside their +camp, and carry off a large number of horses and oxen. + +[95] Abbo, ii. 3. + + 'Saxoniâ vir Ainricus fortisque potensque + Venit in auxilium Gozlini præsulis urbis, + At tribuit victus illi letumque cruentis + Heu paucis auxit vitam nostris, tulit amplam + His prædam. Sub nocte igitur quâdam penetravit + Castra Danûm, multos et equos illic sibi cepit.' + +After some further description he adds: + + 'Sic et Ainricus postremum castra reliquit, + Culpa tamen, fugiente morâ, defertur ad arcem.' + + +[96] Ann. Ved. 886. 'Gauzlinus vero, dum omnibus modis populo Christiano +juvare vellet, cum Sigfrido, Rege Danorum, amicitiam fecit, ut per hoc +civitas ab obsidione liberaretur. Dum hæc aguntur, Episcopus gravi +corruit in infirmitate, diem clausit extremum, et in loculo positus est +in ipsâ civitate. Cujus obitus Nortmannis non latuit; et antequam +civibus ejus obitus nuntiaretur, a Nortmannis de foris prædicatur +Episcopum esse mortuum.' + +[97] Ann. Ved. 886. 'Dehinc vulgus pertæsi una cum morte patris +obsidione, irremediabiliter contristantur; quos Odo, illustris Comes, +suis adhortationibus roborabat. Nortmanni tamen quotidie non cessant +oppugnare civitatem; et ex utrâque parto multi interficiuntur, pluresque +vulneribus debilitantur, escæ etiam coeperunt minui in civitate.' + +[98] Ib. 'Odo videns affligi populum, clam exiit de civitate, a +principibus regni requirens auxilium, et ut Imperatori innotesceret +velocius perituram civitatem, nisi ei auxilium detur.' + +[99] Ib. 'Dehinc regressus, ipsam civitatem de ejus absentiâ nimis +repperit moerentem; non tamen in eam sine admiratione introiit. +Nortmanni ejus reditum præscientes, accurrerunt ei ante portam turris; +sed ille, omisso equo, a dextris et sinistris adversarios cædens, +civitatem ingressus, tristem populum reddidit lætum.' + +[100] 'Æstivo tempore, antequam segetes in manipulos redigerentur,' says +Regino (887) of the coming of Henry, and adds, 'Post hæc Imperator ... +venit.' This does not practically contradict the Annales Vedastini +(886): 'Circa auctumni tempora Imperator Carisiacum veniens cum ingenti +exercitu, præmisit Heinricum, dictum Ducem Austrasiorum, Parisius.' + +[101] Regino 887. 'Idem Heinricus cum exercitibus utriusque regni +Parisius venit.' + +[102] Ann. Ved. 886: 'Qui quum advenisset illuc cum exercitu prope +civitatem, cum paucis inconsulte coepit equitare circa castra Danorum, +volens invisere qualiter exercitus castra eorum posset attingere, vel +quo ipsi castra figere deberent.' To which Regino (887) adds: 'Situm +loci contemplatur aditumque perquirit, quo exercitui cum hostibus minus +periculosus pateret congressus.' + +[103] This is told most fully by Regino (887): 'Porro Nordmanni +audientes appropinquare exercitum, foderant foveas, latitudinis unius +pedis et profunditatis trium, in circuitu castrorum, easque quisquiliis +et stipulâ operuerant, semitas tantum discursui necessarias intactas +reservantes.' + +[104] Ib. 'Aspiciente universo exercitu, absque morâ trucidant, arma +auferunt, et spolia ex parte diripiunt.' + +[105] The exploit of Count Ragnar comes only from the Annales Vedastini: +'Quum nudâssent illum armis suis, supervenit quidam e Francis, Ragnerus +nomine Comes, ejusque corpus non absque vulneribus illis tulit; quod +statim Imperatori nuntiatum est.' Regino says only, 'Agminibus impetum +facientibus, vix cadaver exanime eruitur.' He adds, 'Exercitus, amisso +duce ad propria revertitur.' + +[106] Abbo ii. 217: + + 'En et Ainricus, superis crebro vocitatus, + Obsidione volens illos vallare, necatur. + Inque suos, nitens Sequanam transire, Danorum + Rex Sinric, geminis ratibus spretis, penetravit + Cum sociis ter nam quinquagenis, patiturque + Naufragium medio fluvii, fundum petiturus, + Quo fixit, comitesque simul, tentoria morti. + Hic sua castra prius Sequanæ contingere fundum + Quo surgens oritur, dixit, quam linquere regnum + Francorum, fecit Domino tribuente quod inquit.' + +[107] Regino, 887. 'Post hæc Imperator, Galliarum populos perlustrans, +Parisius cum immenso exercitu venit, ibique adversos hostes castra +posuit, sed nil dignum Imperatoriâ majestate in eodem loco gessit.' So +Ann. Ved. 886: 'Ille vero audito multum doluit; accepto tamen consilio, +Parisius venit cum manu validâ; sed quia Dux periit, ipse nil utile +gessit.' So the Annals of Fulda, 886: 'Imperator per Burgundiam obviam +Nortmannos in Galliam, qui tunc Parisios erant, usque pervenit. Occiso +ibi Heinrico, Marchensi Francorum, qui in id tempus Niustriam tenuit, +Rex, parum prospere actis rebus, revertitur in sua.' + +[108] Ann. Ved. 886. 'Factum est vere consilium miserum; nam utrumque, +et civitatis redemptio illis promissa est, et data est via sine +impedimento, ut Burgundiam hieme deprædarent. So Ann. Fuld. 886: +'Imperator perterritus, quibusdam per Burgundiam vagandi licentiam +dedit, quibusdam plurimam promisit pecuniam, si a regno ejus statute +inter eos tempore discederent.' + +[109] Regino, 887. 'Ad extremum, concessis terris et regionibus quæ +ultra Sequanam erant Nordmannis ad deprædandum, eo quod incolæ illarum +sibi obtemperare nollent, recessit.' + +[110] The details follow immediately after in Regino. + +[111] See above, p. 59. So Ann. Ved. 886. 'Terrâ patris sui Rothberti +Odoni Comiti concessâ, Imperator castra movit.' + +[112] Ann. Ved. 888. + +[113] Ib. 'Odo vero Rex Remis civitatem contra missos Arnulfi perrexit, +qui ei coronam, ut fertur, misit, quam in ecclesiâ Dei genitricis in +natali sancti Briccii capiti impositam, ab omni populo Rex adclamatur.' +Cf. Ann. Fuld., 888-895. Regino 895. Arnulf was not crowned Emperor till +806. + +[114] Regino, 888. 'Nordmanni, qui Parisiorum urbem obsidebant, miram et +inauditam rem, non solum nostrâ, sed etiam superiore ætate fecerunt.' + +[115] Ib. 'Quum civitatem inexpugnabilem esse persensissent, omni +virtute omnique ingenio laborare coeperunt, quatenus urbe post tergum +relictâ, classem cum omnibus copiis per Sequanam sursum possent evehere, +et sic Hionnam fluvium ingredientes, Burgundiæ fines absque obstaculo +penetrarent.' + +[116] Ann. Ved. 886. + +[117] Ib. + +[118] Ib. + +[119] Regino, 889. 'Nordmanni a Senonicâ urbe recedentes, denuo Parisius +cum omnibus copiis devenerunt. Et quum illis descensus fluminis a +civibus omnino inhiberetur, rursus castra ponunt, civitatem totis +viribus oppugnant, sed, Deo opem ferente, nihil prævalent.' + +[120] Ann. Ved. 888. 'Circa auctumni vero tempora Odo Rex, adunato +exercitu, Parisius venit; ibique castra metatus est prope civitatem, ne +iterum ipsa obsideretur.' + +[121] Regino, 890. 'Civibus qui continuis operum ac vigiliarum laboribus +induruerant, et assiduis bellorum conflictibus exercitati erant, +audaciter reluctantibus, Nordmanni, desperatis rebus, naves per terram +cum magno sudore trahunt, et sic alveum repetentes, Britanniæ finibus +classem trajiciunt. Quoddam castellum in Constantiensi territorio, quod +ad sanctum Loth dicebatur, obsident.' The action of Odo comes from Ann. +Ved. 889. 'Contra quos Odo [Danos] Rex venit; et nuntiis +intercurrentibus, munerati ab eo regressi a Parisius, relictâque +Sequanâ, per mare navale iter atque per terram pedestre et equestre +agentes in territorio Constantiæ civitatis circa castrum sancti Laudi +sedem sibi faciunt, ipsumque castrum oppugnare non cessant.' + +[122] Widukind, iii. 4. 'Exinde, collectâ ex omni exercitu electorum +militum manu, Rothun Danorum urbem adiit, sed difficultate locorum, +asperiorique hieme ingruente, plagâ eos quidem magnâ percussit; incolumi +exercitu, infecto negotio, post tres menses Saxoniam regressus est.' + +[123] See Dudo's account in Duchesne, Rer. Norm. Scriptt., 130-134; or +Palgrave, ii. 562-578. + +[124] Richer, ii. 54. 'Tres itaque Reges, in unum collecti, primi +certaminis laborem Lauduno inferendum decernunt. Et sine morâ, illo +exercitum ducunt. Quum ergo ex adverso montis eminentiam viderent, et +omni parte urbis situm explorarent, cognito incassum sese ibi +certaturos, ab eâ urbe discedunt et Remos adoriuntur.' He then goes on +to describe the taking of Rheims. This is confirmed by Widukind, iii. 3. +'Rex cum exercitu Lugdunum adiit, eamque armis tentavit.' He places the +taking of Rheims after the attack on Paris, and afterwards, perhaps +inadvertently, speaks of Laon as if it had been taken. _Lugdunum_ is of +course a mistake for _Laudunum_. + +[125] Flodoard, 946 (Pertz, iii. 393). 'Sicque trans Sequanam +contendentes, loca quæque præter civitates gravibus atterunt +deprædationibus.' + +[126] Widukind (iii. 2) records Otto's answer to a boastful message of +Hugh. 'Ad quod Rex famosum satis reddit responsum; sibi vero fore tantam +multitudinem pileorum ex culmis contextorum, quos ei præsentari +oporteret, quantam nec ipse nec pater suus umquam videret. Et revera, +quum esset magnus valde exercitus, triginta scilicet duarum legionum, +non est inventus, qui hujusmodi non uteretur tegumento, nisi rarissimus +quisque.' On these straw hats see Pertz's note. + +[127] Widukind (iii. 3.), immediately after the attempt on Rouen, adds, +'Inde Parisius perrexit, Hugonemque ibi obsedit, memoriam quoque +Dionysii martyris digne honorans veneratus est.' + +[128] Richer, ii. 57. 'Decem numero juvenes quibus constanti mente fixum +erat omne periculum subire.' He then describes their pilgrim's garb. + +[129] Richer, ii. 57. 'Ille farinarium sese memorat, at illi prosecuti, +siquid amplius possit interrogant. Ille etiam piscatorum Ducis magistrum +se asserit, et ex navium accommodatione questum aliquem sibi adesse.' +This miller of the Seine appears also in a story of Geoffrey +Grisegonelle in the Gesta Consulum Andegavensium, vi. (D'Achery, +Spicilegium, iii. 247). 'In crastino Consul furtivus viator, egreditur, +non longe a Parisiacâ urbe burgum sancti Germani devitans, a +molendinario qui molendinos Secanæ custodiebat, dato ei suo habitu, +navigium sibi parari impetravit.' + +[130] All that Richer (ii. 58,) tells us is that Otto's troops, after +crossing the river, 'terrâ recepti incendiis prædisque vehementibus +totam regionem usque Ligerim depopulati sunt. Post hæc feruntur in +terram piratarum ac solo tenus devastant. Sicque Regis injuriam +atrociter ulti; iter ad sua retorquent.' The 'terra piratarum' is of +course Normandy. + +[131] Lothar was the son of Lewis and Gerberga, the sister of Otto the +Great; Lothar and the younger Otto were therefore cousins. + +[132] Richer iii. 71. 'Æream aquilam quæ in vertice palatii a Karolo +Magno acsi volans fixa erat, in vulturnum converterunt. Nam Germani eam +in favonium converterant, subtiliter signicantes Gallos suo equitatu +quandoque posse devinci.' So Thietmar of Merseburg, iii. 6 (Pertz. iii. +761), records the turning of the eagle and adds, 'Hæc stat in orientali +parte domûs, morisque fuit omnium hunc locum possidentium, ad sua eam +vertere regna.' The raid on Aachen is also described by Baldric in the +Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium i. 96 (Pertz. vii. 440). He always +speaks of Lothar as 'Rex Karlensium,' and of his kingdom as 'partes +Karlensium.' In Thietmar he is 'Rex Karolingorum.' + +[133] Richer iii. 74, 'Sic etiam versâ vice, Lotharium adurgens, eo quod +militum copiam non haberet fluvium Sequanam transire compulit, et +gemebundum ad Ducem ire coegit.' + +[134] Gest. Ep. Cam. i. 97, 'Paternis moribus instructus, ecclesias +observavit immo etiam opulentis muneribus ditare potius æstimavit.' + +[135] Richer iii. 74, 'Per fines urbis Remorum transiens sancto Remigio +multum honorem exhibuit.' + +[136] This story comes from Baldric, Gest. Ep, Cam. i. 97. 'Deinde vero +ad pompandam victoriæ suæ gloriam Hugoni, qui Parisius residebat, per +legationem denuntians, quod in tantam sublimitatem Alleluia faceret ei +decantari in quanta non audierit, accitis quam pluribus clericis +_Alleluia te Martyrum_ in loco qui dicitur Mons Martyrum, in tantum +elatis vocibus decantari præcepit, ut attonitis auribus ipse Hugo et +omnis Parisiorum plebs miraretur.' The 'Mons Martyrum' is, we need +scarcely say, Montmartre. + +[137] Gest. Cons. Andeg. vi. 2. Very little can be made of a story in +which the invasion of Otto is placed in the reign of Robert, the son of +Hugh Capet, who is represented as King, his father being still only +Duke. The expedition of Otto is thus described. 'Otto siquidem Rex +Alemannorum cum universis copiis suis Saxonum et _Danorum_ Montem +Morentiaci obsederat, et urbi Parisius multos assultus ignominiose +faciebat.' Geoffrey Grisegonelle comes to the rescue with three thousand +men. + +[138] Richer iii. 76. The name of the French champion is Ivo. + +[139] Ib. iii. 77. 'Otto Gallorum exercitum sensim colligi non ignorans, +suum etiam tam longo itinere quam hostium incursu posse minui sciens, +redire disponit, et datis signis castra amoverunt.' + +[140] Rudolf Glaber i. 3. His way of telling the whole story should be +noticed. 'Lotharius ... ut erat agilis corpore, et validus, sensuque +integer, tentavit redintegrare regnum, ut olim fuerat.' This is +explained in the next sentence. 'Nam partem ipsius regni superiorem, quæ +etiam Lotharii Regnum cognominatur, Otto Rex Saxonum, immo Imperator +Romanorum, [this means Otto the Great, "primus ac maximus Otto"] ad +suum, id est Saxonum, inclinaverat regnum.' The retreat is thus +described. 'Lotharius ex omni Franciâ atque Burgundiâ militari manu in +unum coactâ, persecutus est Ottonis exercitum usque in fluvium Mosam, +multosque ex ipsis fugientibus in eodem flumine contigit interire.' + +[141] Richer iii. 77. 'Axonæ fluvii vada festinantes alii transmiserant, +alii vero ingrediebantur quum exercitus a Rege missus a tergo +festinantibus affuit. Qui reperti fuere mox gladiis hostium fusi sunt, +plures quidem at nullo nomine clari.' + +[142] Ib. iii. 80, 81. 'Belgicæ pars quæ in lite fuerat in jus Ottonis +transiit.' Rudolf Glaber clearly means the same thing when he says, +'Dehinc vero uterque cessavit, Lothario minus explente quod cupiit.' + +[143] Gest. Ep. Cam. i. 98. 'Qui [Otto] quum satis exhaustâ ultione +congruam vicissitudinem se rependisse putarat, ad hiberna oportere se +concedere ratus; inde simul revocato equitatu, circa festivitatem sancti +Andreæ, jam hieme subeunte, reditum disposuit; remensoque itinere, bono +successu gestarum rerum gaudens super Axonam fluvium castra metari +præcepit.' + +[144] Ib. 'Paucis tamen famulorum remanentibus, qui retrogradientes--nam +sarcinas bellicæ supellectilis convectabant--præ fatigatione oneris, +tenebris siquidem jam noctis incumbentibus, transitum in crastino +differe arbitrati sunt.' + +[145] Gest. Ep. Cam. i. 98. 'Ipsâ etenim nocte in tantum excrevit +alveolus, ut difficultate importuosi littoris neuter alteri manum +conferre potuerit; hoc ita sane, credo, Dei voluntate disposito, ne +strages innumerabilis ederetur utrimque.' + +[146] Ib. The prize was to be, 'Commissâ invicem pugnâ, cui Deus +annueret laureatus regni imperio potiretur.' This challenge again +reminds us of Brihtnoth. Compare the references in Freeman, Norman +Conquest, i. 271, Note 1. + +[147] Ib. i. 98. 'Quid tot ab utrâque parte cædentur? Veniant ambo Reges +in unum tantummodo, nobisque procul spectantibus, summi periculi soli +subeuntes una conferantur, unoque fuso cæteri reservati victori +subjiciantur.' + +[148] Ib. Semper vestrum Regem vobis vilem haberi audivimus non +credentes; nunc autem vobismetipsis fatentibus, credere fas est. Numquam +nobis quiescentibus noster Imperator pugnabit, numquam nobis sospitibus +in proelio periclitabitur.' Compare the proposal of the Argeians for a +judicial combat to decide the right to the disputed land of Thyrea; +Thuc. v. 41, [Greek: tois de Lakedaimoniois to men prôton edokei môria +einai tauta], much as it seemed to Count Godfrey. + +[149] His comment (Gest. Ep. Cam. i. 99) is, 'Hoc igitur modo Regibus +inter se discordantibus, jam dictu difficile est quot procellis +factionum intonantibus ab ipsis suis vassallis afficitur Tethdo +episcopus.' + +[150] Richer iii. 78. Lothar debates whether he shall oppose Otto or +make friends with him. 'Si staret contra, cogitabat possibile esse Ducem +opibus corrumpi, et in amicitiam Ottonis relabi. Si reconciliaretur +hosti, id esse accelerandum, ne Dux præsentiret, et ne ipse quoque +vellet reconciliari. Talibus in dies afficiebatur, et exinde his duobus +Ducem suspectum habuit.' See also the story of Hugh's dealings with Otto +(82-85). + +[151] So Thietmar of Merseburg, iii. 6. 'Reversus inde Imperator +triumphali gloriâ, tantum hostibus incussit terrorem ut numquam post +talia incipere auderent; recompensatumque est iis quicquid dedecoris +prius intulere nostris.' + +[152] That is, simply kinswomen; _parentes_ in the French sense. + +[153] Thierry's 'History of the Norman Conquest,' book i. + +[154] Quod idem _nostram ignaviam et segnitiem_ simul prodit, quod nec +tam gravi necessitate moveri, nec tam commoda lege cogi potuerimus; quin +tam dies res tanta (qua majoris esse momenti nihil unquam potuerit) +intacta pene remanserit. + +[155] Biblius in plurisque apud nos Ecclesiis, aut deficientibus aut +tritis; et nemine, quantum ego audire potui, de excudenis novis +cogitante; id pro irriti conatus sum in Britannica Bibliorum versione, +quod foeliciter factum est in Anglicana. + +[156] Nephew of Sir Hugh Middleton, who brought the New River to London. + +[157] Vol. iv., pp. 293-4; and Appendix to vol. iv., p. 63. + +[158] + + 'Mae dy ffeiriaid hwyntau'n cysgu, + Ac yn gado'r bobol bechu + Ac i fyw y modd y mynnon + Heb na cherydd na chynghorion.' + + +[159] 'Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry,' p. 211. + +[160] Mr. Gladstone, to his great honour, has had the courage to break +through this practice, by his recent appointment of a thorough Welshman +to the diocese of St. Asaph. + +[161] 'Justice to Wales: Report of the Association of Welsh Clergy in +the West Riding of the County of York,' p. 8. + +[162] Morgan's 'Life and Times of H. Harris,' p. 41. + +[163] 'The Christian Leaders of the Last Century,' by the Rev. J. C. +Ryle, p. 192. + +[164] 'Johnes,' p. 63. + +[165] This calculation does not include Monmouthshire. + +[166] The instructions given as to the mode of collecting the returns +are these: 'In order to fill this schedule correctly, it will be +necessary to appoint persons in whom confidence can be placed, to count +every congregation and school in the parish, and that on the same +Sunday; not taking one place on one Sunday and another place on another +Sunday. Care should be taken not to give account of any place in the +schedule that is not within the limits of the parish. On the other side +of the schedule let all the persons who have been engaged in counting +write their names, as an attestation of the correctness of the returns.' + +[167] Of late years, however, the Nonconformists have taken up the +question of Day school education very strenuously and successfully, so +that there are at this time more than 400 British or neutral schools in +Wales. + +[168] Minutes of Council, 1854-5, p. 602. + +[169] Report of the Committee of Council on Education, 1868-9, p. 179. + +[170] 'Considerations on the Revision of the English New Testament.' + +[171] _British Quarterly Review_, April, 1868. + +[172] The valuable earlier Auchinleck MS. is written by five or six +hands. + +[173] 'Old English Homilies and Homiletic Treatises of the 12th and 13th +centuries.' Edited by Richard Morris. First series, 2 parts, 8vo. +London: 1867-68. + +[174] The 'Story of Genesis and Exodus,' an Early English Song, about +A.D. 1250; now first edited from an unique MS. by Richard Morris. 8vo. +London: 1865. + +[175] Father, God of all things, Almighty Lord, highest king, give thou +me a propitious season, to show this world's beginning, Thee, Lord God, +to honour, whetherso I read or sing. + +[176] First. + +[177] Unnatural. + +[178] Trouble. + +[179] 'Seinte Marherete,' the Maiden and Martyr, in Old English. Edited +by Oswald Cockayne, M.A. London: 1866. + +[180] 'Hali Meidenhad.' An Alliterative Homily of the thirteenth +century. Edited by Oswald Cockayne. London: 1866. + +[181] The 'Lay of Havelok the Dane;' composed in the reign of Edward I., +about A.D. 1280. Formerly edited by Sir F. Madden, and now re-edited by +the Rev. Walter W. Skeat. _Extra Series._ London: 1868. + +[182] 'King Horn,' with fragments of 'Floriz and Blauncheflour,' and the +'Assumption of our Lady.' Edited, with Notes and Glossary, by J. Rowson +Lumby. London: 1866. + +[183] Parallel Extracts from Twenty-nine MSS. of 'Piers Plowman,' with +comments, and a proposal for the Society's Three-text edition of this +poem, by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat. London. 1866. The 'Vision of William +concerning Piers Plowman.' By William Langland (A.D. 1362), edited from +the Vernon MS., by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat. London: 1867. + +[184] 'Pierce the Ploughman's Crede' (about 1394 A.D.), transcribed and +edited from MS. Trin. Coll. Cam. R. 3, 15, collated with MS. Bibl. Reg. +18 B. xvii. in the British Museum, and with the old printed text of +1553, by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat. London: 1867. + +[185] Dan Michel's 'Ayenbite of Inwyt; or, Remorse of Conscience,' in +the Kentish dialect. 1340 A.D. Edited by Richard Morris. London: 1866. + +[186] 'English Gilds.' The original ordinances of more than one hundred +Early English Gilds, from original MSS. of the 14th and 15th centuries. +Edited, with Notes, by the late Toulmin Smith; with an Introduction and +Glossary, &c., by his daughter, Lucy Toulmin Smith, London: 1870. + +[187] 'Early English Alliterative Poems,' in the West Midland dialect of +the 14th century. Edited by Richard Morris. London: 1864. + +[188] 'The Romance of William of Palerne' (otherwise known as the +Romance of William and the Werwolf). Edited by Rev. Walter W. Skeat. +London: 1867. + +[189] 'Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight.' An Alliterative Romance-Poem. +About 1320-30 A.D. By the Author of Early English Alliterative Poems. +Re-edited by Richard Morris. London: 1864. + +[190] 'Lancelot of the Laik.' A Scottish Metrical Romance. About +1490-1500. Re-edited by the Rev. W. W. Skeat. 8vo. London: 1865. + +[191] 'Arthur:' a short Sketch of his Life and History, in English +Verse, of the first half of the 15th century. Edited by F. J. Furnivall. +London: 1864. + +[192] 'Morte Arthure.' Edited from Robert Thornton's MS. (about 1440 +A.D.), in the Library of Lincoln Cathedral, by George G. Perry. London: +1865. + +[193] One of Arthur's grand achievements is the capture, after a severe +siege, of the city of Metz. The Duke of Lorraine is sent to Dover, and +the government of the country is otherwise provided for by Arthur. + +[194] Looks. + +[195] Is frightened. + +[196] Visor. + +[197] Face. + +[198] Health. + +[199] 'Merlin; or, the Early History of King Arthur.' A prose Romance +(about 1450-1460 A.D.) Edited from the unique MS. in the University +Library, Cambridge, by Henry B. Wheatley. Parts I.--III. London: +1865-69. + +[200] 'The Romance of the Chevalere Assigne.' Re-edited by Henry H. +Gibbs. London: 1868. + +[201] 'The Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry.' Compiled for the +instruction of his daughters. Translated from the original French, in +the reign of Henry VI., and edited by Thomas Wright. London: 1868. + +[202] 'The Wright's Chaste Wife.' A merry tale. By Adam of Cobsam. About +1462. Edited by F. J. Furnivall. 1865. + +[203] 'Political, Religious, and Love Poems.' Edited by F. J. Furnivall. +London: 1866. + +[204] 'The Babees Book, &c. Manners and Meals in Olden Time.' Edited by +F. J. Furnivall. London: 1868. + +[205] 'The Book of Quinte Essence, or the Fifth Being; that is to say, +Man's Heaven.' Edited by F. J. Furnivall. London: 1866. + +[206] 'English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle de Hampole.' Edited from +Robert Thornton's MS., cir. 1440. By George G. Perry. London: 1866. + +[207] 'Religious Pieces in Prose and Vers.' Edited from Robert +Thornton's MS., cir. 1440. By George G. Perry. London: 1867. + +[208] 'Instructions for Parish Priests.' By John Myrc. Edited from +Cotton MS., Claudius A II. By Edward Peacock. London: 1868. + +[209] 'Hymns to the Virgin and Christ, the Parliament of Devils, and +other Religious Poems.' Edited by F. J. Furnivall. London: 1867. + +[210] We should be glad to have an exposition of the 'Catholic' view +relative to the use of capitals, what special sanctity is supposed to +reside in them, and what rule governs their employment. They form a +marked feature in 'Catholic' literature, and certainly sometimes puzzle +us. Why, for example, should 'Party' have a capital here? + +[211] The ex-Emperor's selfishness is proved by his never having tried +to introduce anything answering to our Poor Law, with the working of +which he must have been thoroughly acquainted. Our system is far from +perfect; but it saves us from those terrible food revolutions, one of +which has so lately made Paris such a pitiable sight. Louis Napoleon +preferred the French voluntary system, because he always hoped to get +the _ouvriers_ in hand (as he had got the peasants), and to use them, +too, against any rising of the more intelligent classes. + +[212] Benjamin Constant is a notable instance of the want of staunchness +of too many French writers. At first strongly against the Empire, he was +won over by the uncle far more easily than poor Prévost-Paradol was by +the nephew. + +[213] Witness the cruel exactions, at Compiègne (_Pall Mall Gazette_, +11th March) and elsewhere, during the armistice and after the conclusion +of peace. + +[214] The hatred is reciprocated. Germany does not forget French +occupation. An eminent German remarked to us the other day that more +than a dozen Prussian towns are still paying the interest of the money +borrowed to pay the first Napoleon's exactions. He remarked, too, on the +cruelties which the French practised; and said that Germany remembers +Davoust at Hamburg, and his turning out 26,000 people on New Year's-day +to perish in the cold, because they could not show that they had a +sufficient stock of siege provisions. + +[215] Yet the clergy, as might be predicted from the fulsomeness of +their homage, only flattered Napoleon for their own ends. They soon +showed their ingratitude. Pradt, Archbishop of Mechlin, invented the +epithet, _Jupiter-Scapin_. Talleyrand did his best to pull down the +falling Empire. The peasantry whom they had taught were less fickle. + +[216] A curiosity in the history of Catechisms is that in use in Spain +while Napoleon was extolled as God's image on earth in the neighbouring +country. Therein young Spaniards were taught as follows: 'Tell me, my +child, who are you?'--'A Spaniard, by the grace of God.' 'Who is the +enemy of our happiness?'--'The Emperor of the French.' 'How many natures +hath he?'--'Two; the human and the diabolical.'--Mignet, vol. ii. 336. + +[217] Scrutator has tried to prove that it was really _Prussia_, and not +_France_, which made war inevitable. + +[218] Of the sad civil war in the capital we would only say that it is +partly due to the want of a proper Poor Law, partly to the justly bitter +feeling caused by the hard terms of peace--terms so different from those +of 1815, which secured fifty years' peace, and eventually made France +and England friends. + +[219] It is needless to enumerate the number of English essays and books +upon Berkeley and his philosophy which have recently appeared. It may +not be so well known to our readers that Berkeley's doctrines are at +present very widely discussed in Germany. A great deal of this +discussion is doubtless due to the exertions of that fervid Berkeleian, +Dr. T. Collyns Simon, who, according to a German critic, 'reist in +Deutschland umher, um mit allen Mitteln des Worts und der Schrift, +propaganda für seinen Meister zu machen;' but the interest shown on the +subject must rest on a deeper basis. Of German dissertations on Berkeley +we have seen the following:--R. Hoppe in _Bergman's Zeitschrift_, v. +Heft. 2. 1870; Freiherr v. Reichlin-Meldegg, in _Fichte's Zeitschrift_, +lvi. Heft. 2, 1870; T. Collyns Simon and H. Ulrici, in _Fichte's +Zeitschrift_, lvii. Heft. 1; and F. Friederich's _Ueber Berkeley's +Idealismus_, 1870. To these must be added, as the most important of all, +Prof. F. Ueberweg's translation of Berkeley's 'Principles of Human +Knowledge,' with a short preface and some very valuable notes, published +in Heimann's cheap series of philosophical works, Berlin, 1869. The +growing interest felt in Berkeley is also to be seen in the larger +amount of space given to the criticism of his doctrines in the more +recent work on the history of philosophy, such as Freiherr v. +Reichlin-Meldegg's _Einleitung zur Philosophie_, Wien, 1870. + +[220] We use the word 'Idealist' in the modern German sense. It is the +technical term to denote that tendency in human speculation which is +embodied in Plato's Dialectic, Schelling's Natur-Philosophie, Hegel's +metaphysical logic, or Ferrier's scorn for Psychology, and is opposed to +'Realist,' which is applied to Herbart's Metaphysic, Mill's Ethics, or +Buckle's History of Civilization; cf. Dr. F. Ueberweg on 'Idealism, +Realism, and Ideal-Realism,' in Fichte's _Zeitschrift_, vol. 34. + +[221] The writer of an article on the Idealism of Berkeley and Collier, +in the _North British Review_, January, 1871, summarizes forcibly the +arguments against Berkeley which have been urged by the so-called school +of Natural Realists. It is evidently an attempt to show that the +theories of Berkeley and Collier are incompatible with the doctrine of +the Incarnation, and therefore, the writer thinks, with that of +Transubstantiation also. + +[222] Professor Hermann Ulrici, of Halle, in Fichte's _Zeitschrift_, +vol. lvii. Pt. 1, 1870, pp. 171-4. + +[223] As Freiherr v. Reichlin-Meldegg does, _Enleit. für Philosophie_, +p. 122. + +[224] The advance which Berkeley made from the stand-point of Locke may +not have been made very clear by this abstract statement; but the +difference of conception was just the difference between the Baconian +and modern induction. Bacon endeavoured to explain everything by +referring it to its _form_; and this form was a contemporaneous cause, +corresponding very much to the abstract ideas of Locke, or rather to +those abstract ideas which are supposed to be the more important, viz., +the primary qualities (cf. Ellis and Spedding's Ed. of Bacon, I., p. +29). Modern induction explains by referring a consequent to its +invariable antecedent. It introduces the idea of motion, succession, or +flow, and explains a thing by showing its place in the flow of +phenomena. It is interesting to note that while Berkeley was thus +substituting a living causality for the abstract ideas of Locke, and +explaining the construction and objective knowledge of things by their +position in the successive moments of a personal agency, other +philosophers were endeavouring to solve the same metaphysical and +psychological problem in somewhat the same way. Leibnitz's 'Monadologie' +was really an attempt to explain the existence of universals and +objective principles of knowledge by the thought of growth or +development or flow; but Leibnitz's explanation differs from Berkeley's +in this, that he kept chiefly the thought of the development itself +before his mind, and conceived a gradual progression through impersonal +existences up to the conscious self, while Berkeley, keeping to his +direct spiritual intuition, ever looks at this flow as manifesting the +presence and action of a free personal spirit. The same general thought +is also at the basis of Wolff's hint that the _causal-nexus_, not +abstract ideas, enables us to explain how universal judgments are formed +out of individual experiences (_logica_, § 706). It has developed since +then into the conception of _organic development_, which plays such an +important part in Kant's 'Kritik der Urtheilskraft,' is the fundamental +thought in such post Kantian metaphysics as the 'Natur-Philosophie' of +Schelling, and the 'Mikrokosmos' of Herman Lotze, and may be called the +metaphysical foundation for the scientific method which has led to the +theories of Darwin in natural history, of Aug. Schleicher in philology, +and of the Leyden School in the history of religions. + +[225] In proof of this, we need only refer to the admirable preface of +Professor Fraser, especially pp. 3, 5, 7, 9. + +[226] Berkeley is usually esteemed the foremost of modern Nominalists, +but we question if his Nominalism was more than a denial of +Conceptualism. It was not a positive doctrine. There are several +assertions in his 'Common-place Book' which show that even in his +earlier days he was not a Nominalist in the proper sense of the term. He +denies once and again Locke's statement that we know particulars only; +he believes in the real existence of classes or kinds; and he says that +genera and species are not abstractions. In his later writings he +probably found that in his eagerness to attack the conceptualist +doctrine of abstract conceptions, he had probably been carried too far, +for in his third edition of 'Alciphron' he curiously omits those +chapters which treat of Nominalism, and in 'Siris' the reality of +universals is assumed throughout. + +[227] Berkeley's 'Abhandlung über die Principien der menschlichen +Erkenntniss. In's Deutsch übersetzt,' &c., von Dr. Fr. Ueberweg, pp. +110-112. + +[228] Ueberweg's 'Logik,' § 46. + +[229] 'Logik,' § 57. + +[230] There is undoubtedly one difficulty to this hypothesis, and that +difficulty arises from Berkeley's mathematical opinions; for the whole +question between Berkeley and Newton in the 'Analyst' may be resolved to +this one particular,--in Berkeley's view a line is a series of points, +in Newton's the line is not the series of separate points, but these +points coalescing and arranging themselves in length. Newton says, +'Lineæ describuntur ac describendo generantur non per appositiones +partium sed per motum continuum punctorum.' The difference between them +was just the difference between Nominalism and Realism, and Berkeley +takes the Nominalist side. This may have been due to his ignorance of +mathematics. + +[231] Ueberweg, 'Logik,' § 1. + +[232] Plotinus Enn. III. iii.; c. 6. + +[233] Dr. J. H. Stirling on Sir W. Hamilton, being the 'Philosophy of +Perception,' p. 124. + +[234] The best of these is decidedly that by 'Scrutator.' If we could +unmask the writer, we believe we should find Mr. Otway, for he writes +with a full knowledge of the facts, and his views are laid down with +geometrical precision. + +[235] Despatch of Benedetti to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, +dated March 31, 1869. + +[236] Despatch of Earl Granville to Lord Loftus, dated July 15, 1870. + +[237] Despatch of Bismark to Count Bernstoff, July 18, 1870. + +[238] Letters of Count Daru, dated February 1, and M. de Lavalette, +dated February 16. + +[239] Vide _British Quarterly Review_ for October, 1866, p. 524-6. + +[240] Proclamation of the King of Prussia from Versailles to the German +people, dated January 18, 1871. + +[241] Sir Alexander Malet shows conclusively that Austria was not a +voluntary agent in the dismemberment of Denmark, and that, had we +actively interposed, _she would_ have been very glad to back out of the +partnership with Prussia. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of British Quarterly Review, American +Edition, Vol. LIII, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW *** + +***** This file should be named 39597-8.txt or 39597-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/5/9/39597/ + +Produced by Alicia Williams, Melissa McDaniel and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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