_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.