_The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland._ By J. P. PRENDERGAST,
Barrister-at-law. Second Edition. Enlarged. With a Facsimile of a
Cromwellian Debenture. Longmans. 1870.
It is the tritest of common places to deplore the persistency with
which the Irish will go back to early times, and explain the failure
of the well-meant attempts of modern legislation by narrating old
persecutions. They will do it; and the practical effect of their doing
so is seen, in the agitation for 'home government' among the wilder
spirits in Fenianism, among men like Mr. Butt and Mr. J. Martin. But,
though we regret the 'over-long memory' of the Irish, we cannot but
feel that Englishmen have never paid attention enough to the history
of the sister island. To most English readers everything beyond what
it suited the purpose of Macaulay and Carlyle and Froude to tell them,
is a mere blank. Educated men read with surprise in Mr. Hill-Burton's
Scotland, the statement that Ireland was the old _Scotia_, the _Scotia
major_ when it becomes necessary to make a distinction, and that the
_perfervidum ingenium_ which carried four Scotia missionaries over the
whole continent, is that very temperament which makes the Irish of
to-day so impatient of English rule. Mr. Reichel's lectures, again
(chiefly known, we fear, only through the appreciative notices of them
in the _Saturday Review_) have been a sort of new revelation of the
way in which Popery was forced upon Ireland by the English invaders,
and of the general state of the country in Plantagenet times. Even Mr.
Froude continually overthrows preconceived opinions--as when he proves
that in Elizabeth's time the only part of Ireland where there was
anything like peace and security was that which was still ruled by
native princes; 'the pale' being ground down by taxation and ravaged
by an unpaid soldiery, the successors of those 'paddy persons' who
under Leicester had made England despicable in the Netherlands, whilst
Ulster, under Shane O'Neil, was quiet and prosperous. What Englishman,
again, had anything like a true notion of the disgraceful horrors of
'98, till he read Massey's George the Third? Yet Irishmen know and
ponder over all these things. A whole library of cheap historical
monographs has for many years spread the knowledge of them broadcast;
and to this reading, unhappily so one-sided, is due that stubborn
'ingratitude' as we call it, which even the Disestablishment and the
Land Bill fail to satisfy.
Mr. Prendergast's book (which we see has reached a second edition) is
perhaps the very best that an Englishman could read in order to master
the causes of Irish discontent. It is well written in every sense;
full of minute research, which the author's office as cataloguer of
the Carte papers in the Bodleian enabled him to make; graphic in its
descriptions, and abounding in a kind of grim humour which suits the
story well. It is the work, in fact, of an educated Irishman.
Its object is to show how the Long Parliament, taking occasion from
the massacre of 1641, declared the whole of Ireland forfeited, and,
assigning Connaught as a home for the native population, divided the
rest into lots, which were given, partly to those who advanced money
to raise the Parliamentary army, partly in lieu of pay to the officers
and soldiers of that army. Mr. Prendergast does not give many details
of Cromwell's conquest--sufficiently known from Carlyle's Letters; but
he traces narrowly the history of the deportation, and shows how,
after causing incredible misery, it failed in 'thoroughness.'
The only doubtful portion of the book is the preliminary attempt to
explain away what our author styles 'the so-called massacre of 1641.'
The attempt will hardly satisfy anyone, and in some it may awaken an
unfair prejudice against the rest of the work. No doubt as to this
'massacre' there was immense exaggeration. It gave occasion for just
the sort of cry which the Parliament wanted to strengthen their hands
against Charles. He and Strafford, tolerant for their own ends, had no
prejudice against the use of those Irish Papists whom the great
majority of the King's party looked on much as Chatham in the American
war looked on our Red Indian allies. He therefore encouraged the Irish
of the North, smarting under the sense of James's confiscations and
Strafford's oppression, to arm with the view of helping him against
the Scots. They were to have come over and joined the Highlanders in
crushing the army of the Covenant. There is no doubt about it: since
Mr. Prendergast wrote, facts cited by Mr. Burton in his recent
history, prove that O'Neil's commission was not (as one historian
after another has repeated) 'a forgery with an old seal torn off an
abbey charter stuck upon it,' it was a bonâ fide document sealed with
_the Great Seal of Scotland_--a bit of that clumsy 'statecraft' which
the Stuarts learned from Elizabeth, for the Scotch seal had, of
course, no real power in Ireland.
Unfortunately for Charles both Irish and Scotch went to work more
quickly than he had expected. The first thought was naturally enough
that to recover their own lands was at least as important as to aid
Charles; so Sir Phelim O'Neil began his rising by driving out all the
English settlers instead of waiting till Ormonde was ready to seize
the strong places, and above all to get possession of Dublin. The
Scots, again, did not stop till Charles, who knew well enough that he
could not trust his English troops, had brought over his Irish forces
against them. They crossed the border, and the fight at Newburn and
the capture of Newcastle were the results. The actual killing done by
the rebels in 1641 has (we have said) been vastly exaggerated; the
mischief was that thousands were turned out of house and home and
driven off Dublin-wards in very inclement weather. Mr. Prendergast
stoutly asserts that it was the English and Scotch who began the
killing: their reprisals were certainly fearfully severe. Even Sir J.
Turner, seasoned as he had been to cruelty in the thirty years' war,
shuddered at the work which he was expected to do in Ireland: his
description of the massacre at Newry-bridge, where priests ('popish
pedlars'), merchants who had taken no share in the defence of the
town, and women were flung into the river and then fired at like
drowning-rats, is very shocking (Hill-Burton, vol. vii. 154). The fact
is that the report of Irish atrocities, industriously magnified by the
Parliament, had maddened the other side; and the Indian Mutiny, and
the Jamaica trouble, show what the Anglo-Saxon is capable of when he
is excited by garbled reports. Along with this feeling of race was
mixed that religious rancour which led the 'new English' to include
the 'old English' (mostly Papists) in the same category as the
aborigines. Parliament fostered--conscientiously, but still in
opposition to all sound toleration principles--this religious hatred,
in order to alarm the Cavaliers, who were mostly as anti-Romanist as
their opponents, and so to deprive Charles of any advantage from the
Irish Romanists. Parliament, moreover, knew that the 'massacre' was
exaggerated; else they would not have been content to levy troops for
the Irish war, and then to employ them in England instead, quietly
leaving Ireland to itself till Cromwell had leisure to conquer it.
Mr. Prendergast's strong points are, first, the silence of all
records--a silence which is complete (he says) till the Commission,
sent over five years after, begins to get up evidence. Second, the
certainty (in his eyes) that the English began the murderings: on this
we have the counter-evidence of Sir Charles Coote, in the trial of
Maguire; but Coote was emphatically a man of blood even in that bloody
age; he had made a great part of Connaught a desert; and as a witness
he is worthless. Third, the assertion that nearly all such killing as
there was, was in the way of ordinary war, as war then and there was
carried on.
But whether the reader is persuaded or not that our author has proved
his point as to 1641, there is unfortunately no doubt at all as to
what follows. The transplantation was an attempt to exile a whole
nation; and it failed as it deserved to fail. No doubt there was
plenty of justification for such a deed. The Jesuits and the house of
Austria had already done something of the kind on a small scale in
several parts of Germany; the St. Bartholomew had shown how impossible
it is for Rome to keep politics and religion apart. And the theory of
a compact Protestant Saxondom with the Shannon for its western
boundary was just what would commend itself to the most earnest minds
of the time. When even M. Guizot nowadays doubts whether we can extend
to Rome the same measures of toleration to which other sects have an
undoubted right, we can well understand how the men of that day, fresh
from the smart of Rome's blows, should have felt all pact with her to
be impossible. The priest was one of the 'three burdensome
beasts'--the others being the wolf (whose numbers had vastly increased
during this time of misery) and the 'Tory' _i.e._, the dispossessed
landowner who refused to go into Connaught, and lived as a freebooter
till he was shot down or hanged. For all these three, as we have said,
rewards were offered, and for the 'sport' of hunting them we refer the
reader to our author's pages. The anti-Popish feeling was equally
strong in the king's party. Hyde (afterwards Lord Clarendon) writes in
1654, 'Fiennes is made Chancellor of Ireland. And they doubt not to
_plant_ that kingdom without opposition. And truly if we can get it
again, we shall find difficulties removed which a virtuous prince and
more quiet times could never have compassed.' The plan was not
original: in Henry VIII.'s time it was regularly systematized (State
Papers, vol. i. 177); and Cowley's treatise in the State Papers (i.
323) is in this respect but an anticipation of Spenser's well-known
State of Ireland.
Of the misery which was caused by this wholesale eviction--after the
work had been facilitated by the banishment to Spanish service of
40,000 fighting men and the transportation of crowds more to Barbadoes
and elsewhere--some idea may be formed from the following picture. 'A
party of horse (Prendergast, p. 308), Tory-hunting on a dark night,
saw a light in the distance, which they found to proceed from a ruined
cabin, wherein was a great fire of wood, and sitting round about it a
company of miserable old women and children, and betwixt them and the
fire a dead corpse lay broiling, which as the fire roasted they cut
off collops and ate.' This is the record of Colonel Richard Lawrence,
an eye-witness. No wonder the wolves multiplied so that even the
environs of Dublin became unsafe.
That part of the Parliament's doings which grates most on modern ears
is their abundant use of Old Testament passages to enforce their
edicts. The Irish had such 'an evil witchery,' as Mr. Froude calls it,
that even the incoming Puritans got on friendly terms with them. The
most stringent orders were therefore issued to keep the two asunder.
The Irish are 'a people of God's wrath,' and to intermarry with them
is forbidden in the language used by Ezra to forbid the mixed
marriages of the Jews. Officers guilty of such a crime are cashiered;
dragoons are reduced to common soldiers; soldiers are flogged and made
pioneers. 'The moderate Cavalier,' 1675, says that he and his fellows
Rather than marrie an Irish wife
Would batchellers remain for tearme of life.
Of course the mode of paying troops with patches of land was wholly
delusive, as the history of the Roman Cæsars might have warned those
who adopted it that it would be. Instead of getting a compact body of
settlers forming a sort of 'military frontier,' the Parliament
unwittingly created vast estates and introduced absenteeism. The
soldiers did not care to stay in a poor wasted country where native
labour was scarcely to be had: they sold their 'lots' to their
officers or others for a horse, a barrel of beer, a little ready
money, &c. Thus was laid the foundation of colossal estates like that
of the Pettys. It was the same with the small debenture holders; a
London vintner or cook who had contributed £25 to the good cause, and
held a debenture to that amount for land in Kerry, was not likely to
go out and turn backwoodsman. He sold to one of the larger holders;
and these larger holders were soon obliged to connive at the gradual
return of the dispossessed Irish, who were content (except the Tories)
to till as cottiers and hinds the lands which they had lately owned.
Thus it was that, despite such a mixture of zeal and cruelty as that
to which the book bears witness, the Puritan idea was never realized.
We shall not be suspected of undervaluing our Puritan forefathers:
they were the salt of the earth in their day; they did the Lord's work
right well in many ways. But in Ireland they failed because, while
taking Scripture for their guide, they forgot the truth that 'the
wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.'
_The English Colonization of America during the Seventeenth Century._
By EDWARD D. NEILL. Strahan and Co.
Mr. Neill is one of those inconvenient persons who will permit no
romance of story-telling to condone falsehood or exaggeration. He
would have been a terrible bore to Hume, who is said to have
deprecated fresh materials from the State Paper Office, lest they
should disturb his conclusions. He would spoil the best anecdote in
the world by asking, 'Is it true?' His book is written avowedly to
rectify historical fictions respecting the English colonization of
America; and it certainly does destroy some very pretty stories, which
have furnished themes for both romance and poetry. His book, however,
is in itself a history, as well as a correction; and although it can
boast no glowing narrative or artistic skill, it reads very
pleasantly. One of the romances that he entirely destroys is that of
'Pocahontas and John Rolfe.' Even Bancroft speaks of Rolfe as a young,
amiable, enthusiastic Englishman, who, even in his dreams, heard 'a
voice crying in his ears that he should strive to make Pocahontas, a
young Indian maiden, a Christian, and constrained by the love of
Christ, uniting her to himself by the holy bonds of matrimony.' Mr.
Neill conclusively proves, by documentary evidence, drawn from the
records of the London Company's Transactions, that Rolfe had been for
some years previously a married man, and that at his death he left a
white widow and some children, beside his son by Pocahontas; and that
Pocahontas herself, instead of a romantic Indian maiden, was a bit of
an intriguer--with a slightly disreputable character.
Another myth to which Bancroft gives his sanction is that 'the
settlers of Maryland were most of them Roman Catholic gentlemen.' Mr.
Neill proves that, so far from the old Virginian families being
derived from any aristocratic source, the colony was an early Van
Dieman's Land, to which King James transported 'divers dissolute
persons' and other convicts. It was, in short, a penal settlement,
whose residents hailed from 'Bridewell,' fifty or a hundred at a time.
Edinburgh used to banish there its 'night-walking women.' Thus,
according to Sir Josiah Child's 'New Discourse of Trade,'
1698,--'Virginia and Barbadoes were first peopled by a sort of loose,
vagrant people, and destitute of means at home, being either unfit for
labour, or such as could find none to employ themselves about, or had
so misbehaved themselves by whoreing, thieving, and debauchery, that
none would give them work; which merchants and masters of ships, by
their agents or spirits, as they were called, gathered up about the
streets of London and other places, to be employed upon plantations.'
'As the descendants of these people,' says Mr. Neill, 'increased in
wealth, they grew ashamed of their fathers, and became manufacturers,
not of useful wares, but of spurious pedigrees'--illustrations of
which he gives. The preamble to the statutes of Williamsburgh College
presents a dark picture of the illiterate condition of Virginia at the
commencement of the eighteenth century. In striking contrast with
which is a recent report of Professor Henry B. Smith, D.D., which
proves that the largest development and increase of Christianity in
this century has been in the United States, the increase of Church
membership having relatively outrun the increase of the population. It
was in the ratio of one to fifteen in 1800; it is now in the ratio of
one to six.
Mr. Neill gives us interesting details concerning the settlement of
the American colonies, derived from records, statutes, memoirs, and
letters. The history is one of heroic enterprise and romantic
experiences. It comprises the emigration of the New England
Pilgrims--the _May Flower_ seems to have been destined for Northern
Virginia, and to have been treacherously taken to Cape Cod; the
singular history too of American Quakerism. We regret that we cannot
follow into details the information of Mr. Neill's honest and
singularly interesting book.
_The Annals of our Time; a Diurnal of Events Social and Political,
Home and Foreign, from the Accession of Queen Victoria, June 20,
1837._ By JOSEPH IRVING. A new edition, carefully revised, and brought
down to the peace of Versailles, February 20, 1871. Macmillan and Co.
History is just now made very fast, and is of a character that will
stand out very prominently in the annals of our century. The Peace of
Versailles is certainly not a _terminus ad quem_. It is already half
forgotten in the astounding events that have followed; but Mr. Irving
could not wait for the stream to stop, and every presumption was that
the Peace of Versailles was a _finale_ at which an ordinary annalist
might pause. Mr. Irving's book has been before the public more than
two years, and its plan and execution have alike commended themselves
to the student and the statesman. Proceeding in a chronological order,
he records, after the manner of a diarist, the noteworthy events and
incidents of our national history--politics, ecclesiastical events,
incidents of fire and flood, everything, indeed, that one would care
to know about; these he narrates in a succinct way, and illustrates by
quotations from the journals--from the speeches and sayings of
remarkable men--from official reports, biographies, histories--nothing
comes amiss to him that gives information. He supplies precisely that
information which has not yet passed into history, but which memory
can only imperfectly retain. He also preserves for us that class of
events which is interesting for a generation or two only, and of
which no educated man can conveniently be ignorant. The loving labour
bestowed by Mr. Irving on his work has been immense. In this second
edition of it he has corrected errors, supplied omissions, readjusted
proportions, condensed information, and carried on his chronicle to
the time of publication. Every name and date and entry has been
verified. The ten years between 1837 and 1847 have grown from 127 to
230 pages; the obituary notices, from 425 to 1,000; the volume itself,
from 734 to 1,034. The index has been carefully revised and extended.
The book, indeed, is as invaluable as it is unique; it is a dictionary
of dates expanded into a history; it is a history condensed into a
chronicle; it is the cream of our social life for thirty-five years;
it links together in a light and useful way, so as to present each as
a whole, chains of events and incidents in Parliament, Church and
social life, debates, duels, controversies, and personal incidents. We
have read on from page to page, unwilling to leave off. It is
indispensable for every public man.
_The Red River Expedition._ By Captain G. L. HUYSHE. Macmillan and Co.
This is a curious episode in the history of our Canadian colonies,
which, at the time of its occurrence last year, attracted but little
attention, owing to the absorbing interest of the Franco-Prussian war.
The present writer was in Toronto before the return of the expedition,
but even there heard no mention of it. The Red River settlement is an
almost unapproachable position, near the centre of our North American
Dominions, about 600 miles northwest of Lake Superior, and about 1,200
miles from Toronto. It is reached by crossing the Lakes Huron and
Superior, by traversing rivers, and by prairie tracks. The settlement
was made by Lord Selkirk in 1813, and was planted by Scotch emigrants.
It has attained a mixed population of 15,000 souls. In the
negotiations about the confederation of the British North American
Provinces, in 1867, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Dominion Government,
and the Imperial Government, do not seem sufficiently to have
considered the feelings of the little Red River Colony. The French
half-breeds in the colony took advantage of this; disputes about lands
aggravated it; the Roman Catholic priests fomented it. Louis Riel was
placed at their head. They resolved to oppose the Canadian,
authorities; formed a 'Provisional Government,' seized Fort Garry, a
little fortified town just on the border line of British and American
territory; expelled Mr. M'Dougall, the Lieutenant Governor, sent by
the Canadian authorities, and proclaimed their independence. After
fruitless negotiations, it was resolved to send an armed expedition
from Toronto to re-establish Canadian, or rather Imperial authority,
and to punish the rebels, especially as Riel had shot one of the
Canadian soldiers, after a trial by court-martial. 1,200 troops, under
Colonel Wolseley, were, after careful selection and thoughtful
provision, sent off. Captain Huyshe was one of the expedition, and
this is the record of it. The rebellion itself affords but little
incident; it collapsed at once on the arrival of the force, and Riel
escaped across the frontier. We regret to find that the American
authorities at first threw every obstacle in the way of the
expedition, hoping to profit by the disturbance. They refused
permission to it to pass through the canal connecting Lake Huron with
Lake Superior, and even stopped the _Chicora_ steamer on her regular
trip, lest it should give facilities. This involved great
embarrassment, delay, and expense. The remonstrances of Mr. Thornton,
at Washington, at length procured the removal of this interdict. All
means of progression known to the human race, except balloons, had to
be made use of. 200 boats had to be built, a commissariat organized,
road-makers, &c., to be employed. The time occupied by the expedition
was eight months, the cost £400,000. The organization and success were
perfect. Captain Huyshe's record is interesting, both as a journal of
travel, and as a military operation. It is an Abyssinian expedition on
a small scale; not a shot was fired, not a life was lost. The
achievement was altogether a remarkable and a creditable one, and has
found a capable and pleasant historian.
_A Manual of Systematic History._ By Dr. MARTIN REED. Containing, I.,
Chronological, Genealogical, and Statistical Tables of Modern History;
II., the Biography of Modern History; III., the Facts of English
History, Military, Diplomatic, Constitutional, and Social. Jarrold and
Sons.
It is impossible to do more than describe this stout and useful
volume, which is one of those admirable manuals for the library, desk,
or school which enable a ready reference to the facts of history,
biography, and social economy that constantly turn up in the work of
the student.
In the first part, a series of chronological tables present the
memorable facts of British and general history in divisions of
centuries, with the names of sovereigns and the date of their
accession, of statesmen, authors, artists, &c., together with
genealogies and full statistical tables, especially of the cost of
different wars in money and men. The second part is a brief
biographical dictionary brought down to the present day. The third
part is a synopsis and chronology of the principal facts of British
history, military, constitutional, institutional, and social--a
cyclopædia, indeed, of useful information. Of course we have attempted
no verifications of dates, but assuming accuracy, Dr. Reed has
furnished a very valuable manual for every literary man's desk.
_The Life of John Milton, narrated in connection with the Political,
Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his time._ By DAVID MASSON,
M.A., LL.D. Vol. II. Macmillan and Co.
Professor Masson has not convinced us of the excellence of his method
by his formal defence of it, in which he urges, first, his deliberate
purpose, and next his disregard of preconceived ideas of literary
form. The former simply affirms that his book has not drifted by
accident into its present shape; in the latter every writer is to be
judged solely by success. There is, moreover, a strong presumption in
favour of a 'combination of a biography with a contemporary history.'
Every biography is a necessary part of contemporary history, and the
question is simply one of degree. Whether a method such as Professor
Masson's is justified, depends solely upon the degree in which the
hero of the biography contributes to the history with which his name
is associated, and in which he can say, _quorum pars magna fuit_.
Concerning Cromwell, for instance, there could scarcely be a doubt as
to its propriety. Mr. Christie is justified in adopting the same
method in his biography of the first Earl of Shaftesbury; both were
men whose lives entered greatly into the history of their time, not
only in the sense of being identified with it, in all that made them
notable, but in the sense of moulding and constituting it; so that
without them--the former especially--the history itself would have
been very different. Milton scarcely played such a part in the history
of the Commonwealth; although the most illustrious man in it, the
sphere of his especial greatness was not of it. It is difficult to
suppose that the course and character of the Commonwealth would in any
important particular have been essentially different had he not
existed. As Cromwell's secretary, and still more as a vigorous
pamphleteer, he doubtless contributed powerfully to the idea and
defence of the Commonwealth, especially of its ecclesiastical polity;
but only as Dryden and Swift contributed to the polity of their day.
In the period which this volume comprises--1638-1643--we are almost
ludicrously impressed with the insignificant relations of Milton to
the events that it narrates. In the huge sandwich which the volume
constitutes, the biographical chapters are not even the thinnest
slices of meat, they are at the most the mustard. Professor Masson has
not been able to avoid in history the solecism in geography of the
renowned minister of the lesser Cumbrae. It is a study of the
individual man in his relations to the universe. It is, therefore,
neither a perfectly detailed history, nor an independent biography;
while the biography is full and perfect, such portions of the history
only are narrated as are supposed to relate to the life and thought of
Milton, but of necessity this is an arbitrary and fluctuating
quantity. There is a sense of disproportion and of artificiality
throughout which disturbs our enjoyment of the scholarly and vigorous
qualities of the book; for Professor Masson is justly entitled to take
his place among the few genuine historians of the day. Every page
bears witness to his unwearied labour, his great learning, his
original research, and his perfect conscientiousness; both as a
historian and a biographer, he is equally able and trustworthy. It is,
as he affirms, 'a work of independent research and method from first
to last.' Much of his labour was done before the State papers relating
to the period were calendared. 'There is not a single domestic
document extant of those that used to be in the State Paper Office
which I have not passed through my hands and scrutinized.' His book,
therefore, both in its facts and in its judgments, is an independent
and valuable contribution to history. There is about the style a
little squaring of the elbows, and what might not irreverently be
called a little fussiness, which makes some parts unnecessarily
diffuse; but with this qualification, the work is vigorous in
expression, noble in sentiment, and elevated in its judicial fairness.
It is full of vivid portraits and pictures of the men and of the
times, and, better still, it is inspired with noble sympathies for the
great principles of political and religious freedom which were so
grandly contested. The present volume opens with a narration of the
Presbyterian revolt in Scotland and the two 'Bishops' Wars,' which
Professor Masson thinks have hardly had attached to them sufficient
relative importance. Between the first and the second, the Short
Parliament lived its little life; after the second, the Long
Parliament was called, a detailed account of the composition of which
is given by Professor Masson. After nine months of general
legislation, the movement for the reform of the English Church took
shape, the chief question being the exclusion of the bishops from
Parliament; which, after long debate, fluctuating opinion, and
abortive reaction, was effected in February, 1642, chiefly at the
moment through the blind blunder of Archbishop Williams in engaging
the bishops to a protest against all laws, &c., passed in their
absence from the House of Peers. 'The bishops,' said Lord Falkland,
'had been the destruction of unity under pretence of uniformity.' They
had been some of them so 'absolutely, directly, and cordially Papists,
that it is all that fifteen hundred pounds a year can do to keep them
from confessing it.'
The relation of Milton to public affairs at this time was solely that
of a pamphleteer. The Church question was uppermost, both in Scotland
and in England. Milton is supposed to have aided the _Smectymnuans_ in
the composition of their famous pamphlet. The word was made up of the
initials of the writers, Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas
Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow. It was a reply to
Bishop Hall's 'Humble Remonstrance,' and to his 'Episcopacy by Divine
Right.' Soon after, Milton began to publish his anti-Episcopal
pamphlets, of five of which Professor Masson gives an account. These
were directed against Hall, Bishop of Exeter, afterwards of Norwich,
so often belauded for his moderation and spirituality, but of whose
scholarship and conduct Milton had not a very exalted estimate, in
which Professor Masson agrees with him. 'I have seen,' says Professor
Masson, 'disagreeable private letters of information written by him to
Laud respecting nests of sectaries in London whom it would be well to
extirpate; and my distinct impression is, that in his conduct
generally, and even in his writings, when carefully examined, there
will be found a meaner element than our literary _dilettanti_ and
antiquaries have been able to discover in so celebrated a bishop.' No
reader of Milton's prose works needs to be told that, while their
arguments are cogent, their fierce and terrific declamation is simply
overwhelming; indeed, the coarse vituperation of both sides is hardly
conceivable to those who have not read the controversy. We may commend
the arguments, as, indeed, the public questions that were debated, and
the course of events, to the consideration of Church parties of the
present day. Those too who are so enthusiastic about 'our incomparable
liturgy,' may with advantage read Milton's incisive criticisms
thereupon. An ominous parallel--happily, however, not in spirit--might
be traced between the questions of that day and our own. The secular
claims of bishops, and the implication in secular politics of the
Established Church, have from that time to this been a fruitful source
of political and social embarrassment and evil.
Professor Masson traces the way in which the nation drifted into civil
war, and makes a valuable contribution to history by giving a detailed
statistical and personal account of the forces and leaders on both
sides. The history is a thrilling one. Both Mr. Christie and Professor
Masson give us new recitals of it. It cannot be told too often, if
told in the spirit of conscientious fidelity and generous sympathy of
these writers. The greatest lesson that Englishmen can learn, the
seeds of the noblest things they can realize, were contained in it.
All that is to be said of Milton is, that he was not in the army,
which Professor Masson regrets for his own sake, and that about this
time he married Mary Powell.
The volume concludes with a most able and valuable account of English
Presbyterianism and English Independency, introduced by a biographical
analysis of the Westminster Assembly.
Professor Masson, in a very masterly way, traces the rise and history
of English Independency from the first Brownists of 1580; gives an
account of the Separatists in Holland from 1592 to 1640; of the
Separatist congregations in London from 1610 to 1632; of the New
England Pilgrims and their Church from 1620 to 1640; of the
persistency, reinvigoration, and growth of Independency in England
from 1632 to 1643; and closes his volume by representing the array of
Presbyterianism and Independency in July, 1643, and their prospects in
the Westminster Assembly, which met on the first day of that month,
and which, as Professor Masson justly observes, 'for more than five
years and a half is to be borne in mind as a power or institution in
the English realm, existing side by side with the Long Parliament, and
in constant conference and co-operation with it. The number of its
sittings during these five years and a half was 1,163 in all, which is
at the rate of about four sittings every week for the whole time. The
earliest years of the Assembly were the most important. All in all, it
was an Assembly which left remarkable and permanent effects in the
British Islands, and the history of which ought to be more
interesting, in some homely respects, to Britons now, than the
history of the Council of Basel, the Council of Trent, or any other
of the great ecclesiastical councils, more ancient and oecumenical,
about which we hear so much.' We can neither condense nor criticise
here the very able and impartial narrative of this section of
Professor Masson's history. We may at a future time return to it. We
simply commend it to the attention of both Churchmen and
Nonconformists, as a very masterly sketch of a historic movement which
both should be familiar with, which the former is too apt to speak of
with a sneer which only ignorance could render possible, and which is
destined to produce great ecclesiastical and national results.
_A Life of Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury,
1621-1683._ By W. D. CHRISTIE. Macmillan and Co.
Mr. Christie's qualities as an historian are critical rather than
philosophical, scholarly rather than pictorial. He laudably prides
himself upon scrupulous accuracy, and has the patient industry and
conscientious truthfulness which deem no labour too great, no
minuteness too trivial, for the achievement of this result. His work,
therefore, is a critical rather than a constructive work: or, rather,
he constructs by a critical process of vindication. The first Earl of
Shaftesbury has fared badly at the hands of history. 'He lived in
times of violent party fury, and calumny, which fiercely assailed him
living, pursued him in his grave, and still darkens his name. He lived
in times when the public had little or no authentic information about
the proceedings of members of the Government or of Parliament, when
errors in judging public men were more easy than now, and when venal
pamphleteers, poets, and play-writers drove a profitable trade in
libels on public men.' Shaftesbury not only fell into the hands of
political enemies, but his political tergiversations rendered his
vindication difficult for his friends. A young man of twenty-one at
the commencement of the Civil War, his life ran parallel with the
events of that eventful period; he lived through the Restoration to
within five years of the Revolution of 1688, and was closely connected
with political affairs through the greater part of his life. A
Royalist in early life, he became an ardent Parliamentarian; a
Royalist again, he played an important part with Monk in bringing back
Charles II.; and the problem which Mr. Christie has set himself is to
vindicate his honour in these convenient changes; and with the array
of great names against him, including even those of Hallam and
Macaulay, an arduous task it is; the invective of Macaulay is almost
as terrible as that of Dryden. Of course such a career affords rich
material for writers on both sides. Dryden, whose unscrupulous pen is
no condemnation, unmercifully consigned Shaftesbury to infamy in the
judgment of the multitude who read poetry, and know nothing of
political history, by making him the Achitophel of his great satire,
published just a week before Shaftesbury's trial for high treason, and
by lampooning him in 'The Medal,' referring to the medal which
Shaftesbury's friends had struck on his acquittal. Hume, again, by
the power of his literary genius, for a long time brought popular
condemnation upon all Whigs and Whiggery, and until his Tory
proclivities for the Stuarts were counteracted by recent and more
careful historians, made the worse appear the better reason. These
falsehoods of detraction, as Mr. Christie justly observed, 'produced
counter-falsehoods of excuse and eulogy, and the result has been a
greater agglomeration of errors.' In his old age, Shaftesbury began an
autobiography, doubtless with a view of self-vindication, but
proceeded only so far as his twenty-first year. Locke, who resided in
Shaftesbury's house many years as his physician and friend, meditated
a biography, but only collected a few materials for it. The fourth
Earl, the son of the author of the 'Characteristics,' placed all the
materials he possessed in the hands of a Mr. Benjamin Martin, for the
purpose of a biography, which he began in 1734, but he was unfitted
for the task, and the result was unsatisfactory. The MS., in 1766, was
put, for improvement, into the hands of Dr. Sharpe, Master of the
Temple; then into those of Dr. Kippis, editor of the 'Biographia
Britannica,' after which it was printed, but the fifth Earl was so
dissatisfied with it that the whole impression was destroyed, with the
exception of two copies. Mr. Bentley republished it in 1836,
edited--incompetently, Mr. Christie says--by Mr. George Wingrove
Cooke. Stringer, Shaftesbury's solicitor, seems to have furnished
Locke with information, fragments of which, in MS., in Locke's
handwriting, are among the Shaftesbury papers at St. Giles's; but
Stringer is inaccurate and confused. With these materials, and, of
course, access to all the family papers, Mr. Christie has constructed
his history--or, rather, his vindication--for his book has,
throughout, the character of a polemic. It would have been more
interesting, and more generally valuable, had Mr. Christie written an
affirmative history relegating to appendices or footnotes the
polemical discussions which different points demanded. As it is, he
has furnished material and sifted it, for the use of the historian
proper, and he has done this with rare acuteness and scrupulous
fairness.
The entire history of the Great Revolution, the Commonwealth, and the
Restoration, passes under review before us, and it could not be
examined by a more competent critic.
Anthony Ashley Cooper was of good Hampshire blood on both sides. His
father, John Cooper, of Rockborne, was made a baronet the year after
his son's birth. His mother was the only daughter of Sir Anthony
Ashley, Knt., who was also made a baronet the day before Mr. Cooper;
the order of baronets having been created by James I. ten years
before; it was to be limited to two hundred. Every baronet paid £1,095
for the honour, and had to be possessed of £1,000 per annum clear of
all incumbrances. It was imperative, too, that he should have had a
grandfather who had borne arms. Anthony was a little, fragile fellow,
but of great abilities, and his family connections gave him a good
standing in Oxford, where he became a reformer of abuses. Against one
savage and stupid custom, 'tucking freshmen,' he led a successful
resistance. The seniors made the freshmen 'hold out their chin, and
they, with the nail of their right thumb left long for the purpose,
grate off all the skin from the lip to the chin, and then cause them
to drink a beer glass of water and salt.' Senators of the House of
Commons were then chosen young; some being only sixteen. Cooper was
the champion of the Tewkesbury yeomen against a bullying squire at a
civic feast, and was rewarded by being sent, at the age of nineteen,
as their representative to the House of Commons. Henceforth his life
is part of the history of the county. Cooper was with King Charles at
Nottingham, and gallantly stormed Wareham; but he soon after, and, as
we think Mr. Christie has proved, honourably, went over to the side of
the Parliament, and became one of Cromwell's privy counsellors. The
motives of neither of his great changes are very clear, but Mr.
Christie has shown that they were at least disinterested and
unsuspected. He was an intriguer, like most of the men of his time,
but his sympathies were uniformly liberal, and he resisted oppressive
measures--the Act of Uniformity for instance--at much risk to his own
interests. As a reward for his part in the Restoration of Charles, he
was made Baron Ashley. He became Lord of the Treasury, and Lord
Chancellor. He was one of the notorious Cabal ministry, but Mr.
Christie has succeeded in proving that he opposed, though
unsuccessfully, the worst measures of that miserable clique,
especially the notorious 'Stop of the Exchequer.' The most suspicious
thing about him is that he continued in Charles's favour, who made him
his Lord Chancellor and created him Earl of Shaftesbury. It seems odd
to us that a man without special legal knowledge should have been made
the head of the legal profession. In this capacity he is included in
Lord Campbell's 'Lives of the Chancellors,' from whose inaccurate
criticism Mr. Christie has to rescue him. Charles is said to have
justified his choice by saying that Shaftesbury had more law than all
his judges, and more religion than all his bishops. Charles's bishops
may have been doubtful, but Sir Matthew Hale was one of his judges. He
gave general satisfaction to suitors during his year of office, which
is saying much. His dismission probably influenced his politics, for
he joined the Whig Opposition. His closing years were characterized by
fierce conflict with the king, and he was twice sent a prisoner to the
Tower, accused of high treason; his acquittal was celebrated by great
public rejoicings. At length he concocted, with Russell and Monmouth,
a rising against the King, and had to escape to Holland, where, in
1683, just before James II. came to the throne, he died. He was a man
of brilliant genius, and a great statesman. He played a not ignoble
part in the greatest drama of our English history. He was frail in
health, but courageous and high-minded, and an uncompromising champion
of liberty. By no means immaculate, either in political principles or
personal morals, he has yet, beyond all question, been grossly
calumniated. Mr. Christie's volumes throw much interesting light upon
not only the political events, but the manners and morals of the
times. There are few more melancholy chapters in English history than
the reign of Charles II. Political venality, patriotic dishonour, and
personal vice vie with each other. Mr. Christie's volumes abundantly
justify the conclusions which have at length been reached by Liberals
in politics and by Nonconformists in ecclesiastical matters. We
earnestly commend them to all students of history as scholarly, acute,
and just.
_The Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham, written by himself._ Vol.
II. Blackwood and Co.
Reserving until the completion of this work the more ample consideration
and criticism to which The Life and Character of Lord Brougham are
entitled, we simply report concerning this second volume that it
covers the eventful period between 1808-1828, and narrates Brougham's
strenuous and successful struggle for the repeal of the Orders in
Council, which he terms 'my greatest achievement'--ultimately achieved
under the excitement caused by the assassination of Spencer Perceval.
Even Horner described Brougham's exertions as 'unexampled in the
modern history of Parliament.' Also, his costly and unsuccessful
struggle for the representation of Liverpool, which cost the Liberals
£8,000 and the Tories £20,000, during which Brougham made 160
speeches, two or three persons were killed, others severely wounded,
and votes were bought at £30 apiece. 'All who knew Liverpool formerly
say nothing was ever seen so quiet at an election there.' There were
five candidates. Canning beat Brougham by some 200 votes. Such were
the good old times. The description of the election is very racy. The
chief interest of the volume, however, centres in its detailed account
of the family feuds of George III., the relations of the Prince and
Princess of Wales, and the trial of the Queen. In 1810, Brougham
became the legal adviser of the Princess, and from that time took an
active part on her side in the vicissitudes of this dirty and
ignominious history. Brougham most strongly affirms, in contradiction
of much gossip to the contrary, that he and all the legal advisers of
the Queen had a clear and unhesitating conviction of her innocence.
The narrative throws a clearer light than has hitherto been thrown
upon the whole history, clears away many misconceptions, and solves
some mysteries.
In an explanatory note, the editor informs us that Lord Brougham, then
in his eighty-fourth year, began his account of the trial, after
examining his letters and papers, on the 8th of October, 1861. In
September, 1862, he began the political part. In November, 1863, he
began the account of his early life. In his search for materials he
found the manuscript of 'Memnon.' This he marked in pencil, on the first
page, thus--'At B----m (Brougham), 1792.' He believed he had '_composed_
it, entirely forgetting that it was only a translation--probably a
task set him by his tutor--a very pardonable mistake, after a lapse of
seventy years.' No doubt; but is not the responsibility the editor's,
and not Brougham's?
There is, of course, a great deal of characteristic egotism in the
narrative; but it is amusing rather than offensive, and is, perhaps,
not much in excess of the necessary consciousness of a man who has
played a prominent part in life.
_Francis of Assisi._ By MRS. OLIPHANT. Macmillan & Co. (Sunday
Library.)
Almost the whole of Mrs. Oliphant's story may be read in the charming
gossip of 'Alban Butler;' but here the hand of a true artist has
arranged the dramatic material furnished by the celebrated biographer
of St. Francis. An almost faultless piece of literary work, a cabinet
portrait of exceeding beauty and grace, is the result. The authorities
on which Mrs. Oliphant relies for her facts are unimpeachably good.
The biographies of De Celano and Bonaventura are suffused and
interpenetrated with exceeding reverence for the founder of the Friars
Minor. They can hardly, indeed, be acquitted of an admiration akin to
worship for the hero of their pious romance, and they often leave us
in some perplexity as to the respective limits of fact and fiction in
this strange and wonderful life. Mrs. Oliphant, however, holds the
balance very fairly. Every visitor to Assisi who has tried to drink in
the spirit of the scene, or to understand the historic reality that
underlies the mythic splendour of the tomb of the great apostle of
poverty, must have felt it difficult to free his mind from strange
reveries as to the power of the human will not only to compel the
obedience of other minds, but to evolve a whole world of facts out of
its moral consciousness. Francis was a devout son of the Roman Church,
scrupulously obedient to sacerdotal authority, and profoundly anxious
to secure the authentication of his 'Order' from the Holy See; and yet
his career is a striking illustration of the triumph of the prophetic
rather than of the sacramental or priestly power. He was the founder
of a religion, the originator of a society, the fashioner and for many
years the master of a rule and organization which were absolutely at
war with all the passions of the flesh, all the current tendencies of
society, and the whole spirit of the so-called Christian world.
Mrs. Oliphant has thrown much light upon the condition of Italy in the
thirteenth century, and has used her historic imagination to great
effect in portraying the scenes in the early life of her hero, the
grand crises of his career, and the extremes of poverty and
self-abnegation to which he submitted. She devotes considerable space
to the beautiful romance which led to the foundation of his second
Order for women, and to the circumstances which induced him to frame a
rule for those in secular life who wished to aim at the counsels of
perfection. His visit to the East and the attempt he made to convert
the Sultan to Christianity by the offer of the ordeal of fire, as well
as by other urgent appeals, are told with dramatic force. The history
of the success which attended his labours, and the sketch of some of
the 'Chapters' of his Order which assembled at his bidding for
conference and prayer, bear strong resemblance to some of the legends
of Sakya-Mouni Buddha.
The enthusiasm shown by Francis for the beauties of nature, his sense
of brotherhood to all created things, his fellowship with birds and
beasts and creeping things, atone for the touch of fanaticism with
which he addressed even the fire that was to be applied to his own
flesh in medical cautery, as Frater Ignis. With deep pathos Mrs.
Oliphant tells the 'legend' of the origination of the 'stigmata' of
the Lord Jesus in the hands, feet, and side of Francis. She shows the
strength of the evidence for the existence of these mysterious marks
on the emaciated frame of the pious enthusiast; but she also indicates
the silence of any satisfactory eye-witness for the astounding
miracle, and proves that, though his disciples assert the fact, they
do not say they saw this portentous sign of resemblance to the Saviour
of sinners. That St. Francis--in virtue of this supposed imitation in
his body of the 'marks' of the Christ--has received an idolatrous
reverence, will hardly be denied; but that St. Francis ever called the
smallest attention to such a marvel, or mentioned the mysterious
circumstance to his dearest friend, cannot be proved. The story is
improbable, and to some extent sickening, yet it appears to us the
coarse and exaggerated expression which his less spiritual disciples
gave to that 'supernatural rapture of love to God in which his history
culminates.' Mrs. Oliphant says very justly and beautifully--'The
distinction between the active servant of God, who gives up all things
to serve Him, and the mystic, who gives up the privilege of serving
him in the deeper joy of beholding, is to a great extent a difference
of temperament, but in St. Francis occurs the unusual spectacle of the
two combined.... No man ever kept his eyes more open to the wants of
common humanity, and yet few mystics can show so strange a chapter of
absolute communion with the Almighty.' We almost wonder that our
author has not given even more ample specimens of the poetic
enthusiasm of the great prophet of Assisi. The Italian canticles said
to have been written by him, which were published by Wadding in 1623,
are full of wild, holy rapture. The closing lines (in Butler's
translation) of one may express the true significance of the
mysterious stigmata:--
"Grant one request of dying love--
Grant, oh! my God, who diest for me--
I, sinful wretch, may die for thee
Of love's deep wounds; love to embrace--
To swim in its sweet sea! Thy face
To see; then joined with Thee above,
Shall I myself pass into love."
_The Life of Hernando Cortes._ By ARTHUR HELPS. Bell and Daldy.
_Conversations on War and General Culture._ By the Author of 'Friends
in Council.' Smith and Elder.
Mr. Helps is rendering a substantial service to history and to popular
literature, by this re-cast and republication of biographies from his
greater work on the 'Spanish Conquest of America.' As he proceeds his
interest in his work deepens. So far from this life of Cortes being
the carving out of a journeyman, under Mr. Helps' superintendence, it
is practically a new work, upon which much patient thought and loving
labour has been expended. While Mr. Helps has properly enough made use
of that part of his history which relates to the conquest of Mexico,
he has, he tells us, gone 'carefully over every sentence quoted from
that history, to see whether, by the aid of additional knowledge, he
could correct or improve it.' He has also added much new material,
especially to those parts which relate to the private life of Cortes.
Mr. Helps has the great gift of succinctness. He never wearies us, but
often makes us wish that his canvas was filled in with more detail.
His style, as readers of 'Friends in Council' know, is dignified,
easy, archaic, and sententious. His narrative abounds in sage
reflections and wise apothegms--he has a knack of condensing a
philosophy into an epigram. A common-place book might be greatly
enriched by choice sentences from these volumes. Mr. Helps'
impartiality is very rigid, and his summaries of character and of the
moral quality of actions severe. His narrative does not flow into
glowing descriptions or romantic enthusiasm. He is always calmly, we
might say coldly, master of himself. He has a dread of brilliant
writing, but he attains to archaic picturesqueness, and arrests the
interest of his readers while he satisfies the judgment of his
critics. Not Hallam himself is more scrupulously accurate.
Mr. Helps is as unlike Prescott as any two writers of history can be:
but his minute accuracy, if it does not produce broad effects,
determines exact relations, and with enough of literary skill to make
the result very pleasing. The noble virtues and the signal faults of
the great soldier are admirably discriminated. On the whole, we admire
more than we blame. Cortes was a great-minded, generous-hearted,
religious-souled man. Nothing in history could be more unjustifiable
than the siege of Mexico, and the massacre of its brave inhabitants,
of whom 50,000 were slain--nearly the number estimated as killed in
the recent horrors of Paris; but we must not try him by the notions of
our nineteenth century. The civilized splendour of the Mexicans almost
provokes incredulity. Mr. Helps has to assure even Mr. Carlyle of it;
and the evidence abundantly establishes it. We heartily thank Mr.
Helps for his book, and trust he will complete his series after its
model.
The _Conversations on War and General Culture_ were suggested by the
early victories of the Germans over the French last summer. They are
miscellaneous in character--general, rather than specific in aim. They
vindicate no doctrine, elaborate no themes; they are what they profess
to be, conversations, and not sermons or lectures. Unlike 'Friends in
Council,' the conversations are not appendages to essays; only one
essay is introduced. They wander about in the pleasant but more
vagrant places of conversation, and do not escape the garrulousness
and inconsequence to which their literary form tempts. They are,
however, full of thoughtful suggestions, wise teachings, and apt
illustrations. They are transparent and simple--often ingenious and
striking. They are indeed, with a difference, a new series of 'Friends
in Council,' although inferior in freshness and force. They are to be
read as we read such books, by bits. Their gentle wisdom and benign
humour will not greatly excite us, but they will instruct and interest
us. We should say that the characters of 'Friends in Council' are
reproduced. There is neither table of contents, chapter headings, nor
index. The reader, therefore, may open where he likes, taking his
chance of what he may find; but whether it be woman's place and
culture, competitive examinations, or the war, he will certainly find
much subtle wisdom, genial feeling, and literary beauty.
_Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Madge, late Minister of Essex-street
Chapel, London._ By the Rev. WILLIAM JAMES. Longmans, Green, and Co.
Mr. Madge was one of the older school of Unitarians, who hold fast by
the supernatural, and believe in the special Divine mission of Jesus.
He was originally a member of the Church of England, but early
embraced Unitarian views, and gave himself to the Unitarian ministry.
He was an intelligent, devout man, and a clear, spiritual, and
effective preacher. The successor of Belsham at Essex-street, he
sustained a pastorate there of thirty years, retired a few years ago,
esteemed and beloved by all who knew him, and died in August last
year, at the advanced age of eighty-three.
Mr. Madge did not publish much--chiefly separate sermons, the
publication of which was requested. He was a clear thinker, moderate
in sentiment, devout in feeling, and elegant and eloquent in
expression. His ministry attracted persons of culture, and some of
high rank. Few men have been more highly, universally, and deservedly
esteemed in the circle in which they have moved. In his relations to
men differing from himself he was catholic-hearted and generous. His
distinctive opinions were not permitted to check his sympathies, or to
hinder his joining in worship with all who love Jesus Christ. Mr.
James has prepared his memoir with great good taste and skill.
_An Earnest Pastorate: Memorials of the Rev. Alexander Leitch, M.A.,
Minister of South Church, Stirling._ By the Rev. NORMAN L. WALKER.
Edinburgh: Andrew Elliott.
The simplicity, evangelical fervour, methodical and well-sustained
zeal of a holy man are well portrayed in this volume. The plans of an
earnest pastor, the secret of his practical success, the spirit of a
saintly and laborious life, are always worthy of attentive
consideration by those who are trying to do similar work. Mr. Leitch,
early in life, began ministerial work in the Kirk of Scotland; passed
through the agony of the disruption with unfaltering courage, and
left behind him a name which will long be had in remembrance.
_Life of Ambrose Bonwicke._ By his FATHER. Edited by JOHN E. B. MAYOR,
M.A. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell and Co.
Ambrose Bonwicke, whose father was a non-juror, the ejected Head
Master of Merchant Taylors' School, was a student at Cambridge in the
beginning of the last century, and died of hemorrhage on the lungs at
twenty-three. He was what would now be called an Anglican of the
purest water, and we cannot help a feeling of regret and pity at the
ritual forms which his piety took; but the piety itself was very
beautiful. Ambrose was a model of gentleness, goodness, and
self-denial; a saintly youth, reminding one more of the old ascetic
monks than of a young English gentleman. The memoir throws a little
light, but not much, upon the manners and customs of Cambridge a
century and a-half ago. Incidentally we learn that the students had to
write Latin verses in eulogy of Dr. Gower on the very day that he
died, and that college chums sometimes slept in the same bed.
The notes, which make up almost half the volume, are rather in excess
of their occasion, but they are instructive and amusing. Mr. Mayor is
an indefatigable and learned antiquary.
_Scrambles Among the Alps, in the Years 1860-1869._ By EDWARD WHYMPER.
John Murray.
Mr. Whymper has written the history of the conquest of the Matterhorn
_quorum pars magna fuit_, and his book is a worthy record of a great
achievement. Making a not unreasonable allowance for the difficulties
of a writer who is the hero of his own story, and for the necessary
conflict between his modesty and his fidelity, and with the single
remark that the former is not unduly sacrificed to the latter, we may
commend to our readers a most interesting and exciting narrative,
written with lucidity and skill, terseness and pertinence, and
illustrated by Mr. Whymper himself, whose pencil, he tells us, has
been employed upon the work for the greater part of the last six
years. The illustrations are very numerous and effective, and,
generally speaking, all of a high artistic quality; with the
letterpress, they make a really sumptuous Alpine volume. From the very
nature of some of the subjects, some little has been supplied by the
imagination. For instance, the flying fragments in the 'Cannonade on
the Matterhorn' are not all of them in the line of any conceivable
projectile force; and certainly the 'Fall of Reynaud,' as represented
p. 229, could have had, for him, but one issue, and that not of a kind
to produce 'roars of laughter' from his companions. Had Mr. Whymper
fallen, as pictorially represented p. 120, he would never have written
his book save, indeed, with the assistance of Mr. Home. His survival
is, indeed, a miracle. He fell, he tells us, 200 feet 'in seven or
eight bounds--ten feet more would have taken me, in one gigantic leap
of 800 feet, on to the glacier below.' He describes his sensations as
by no means unpleasant, and thinks that death by a fall from a great
height is painless. Hardly, again, should we have fancied the suicidal
position of Croz cutting away the cornice on the summit of the Monning
Pass. Photographs, had such been possible, would, we imagine, have
presented some striking divergencies from these imaginary positions.
But, making allowance for pictorial effect in these two or three
instances, the illustrations appear to have been done with great care,
as well as with great spirit. Some excellent maps are also furnished;
two are transferred from the plates of the Dufour Map; two, a map of
the chain of Mont Blanc, based upon the Government maps of France and
Switzerland, and the survey of Mr. Reilly, and a map of the Matterhorn
and its glaciers, being an enlargement, with corrections, from the
Dufour Map, are original. The fifth is a general route map.
Mr. Whymper's first escalade in the Alps was the ascent of Mont
Pelvoux in Dauphiné, the account of which is reprinted from 'Peaks,
Passes, and Glaciers.' Sundry other subordinate, and yet novel and
arduous ascents are recounted; with interspersed dissertations on
Alpine climbing, on glaciers, on mountain lakes, &c., with criticisms
on the erosion theories of Professors Tyndall and Ramsay. But the
book, as we have said, is a history of the conquest of the Matterhorn.
Between the years 1861-1865, Mr. Whymper made seven unsuccessful
attempts to ascend the Matterhorn--four or five attempts having also
been made by others; two by Professor Tyndall in 1860 and 1862, who,
on the latter occasion, reached within 600 feet of the summit. These
attempts were made on the south-west ridge. Mr. Whymper's successful
attempt was made on the east face, which, from the Gorner Grat, is so
familiar to tourists, and looks like the side of an obelisk; its
profile, however, shows the angle to be less than 45°, and the ascent
is comparatively easy. Some of the most experienced guides had given
up the Matterhorn as inaccessible. Almer decidedly declined it.
'Anything but the Matterhorn,' said he, thinking it hopeless. The two
Cassels proved treacherous, and finessed with Mr. Whymper, while
completing arrangements with Signor Giordano, who started up the
south-west side from Breil, on July 11, 1865. On the 12th, Mr. Whymper
crossed the St. Theodule, for Zermatt, having been joined by Lord
Francis Douglas and Peter Taugwalder the younger; at Zermatt he found
Michael Croz, who had been engaged by the Rev. Charles Hudson and his
friend, Mr. Hadow, to attempt the Matterhorn. The two parties united,
and started on the 13th at half-past five, four tourists and four
guides; by twelve o'clock they had easily ascended 11,000 feet; they
halted for the day, and pitched their tent. At 9.55 on the 14th they
had reached the height of 14,000 feet, at the base of what, from the
Riffell, seems the overhanging summit. They then crossed the ridge to
the northern side, the general slope of the mountain being less than
40°. Only one part, of about 400 feet, was really difficult; it was
surmounted, and 200 feet of easy snow brought them to the summit at
1.40. The party from Breil had been four days on the mountain; they
were seen at an immense distance below; the shouts of Mr. Whymper's
party, and some stones which they rolled down to attract attention,
frightened them. 'The Italians turned and fled,' but whether from
superstition, as Mr. Whymper implies, or from fear of the stone
avalanche, so ominously directed upon them, we are not told. The fatal
accident on the descent, when five out of the eight perished--three
travellers and two guides--seems, like the accident on the Col du
Géant two or three years before, to have been caused by no special
difficulty. Mr. Hadow's foot slipped; he fell against one of the
guides, and knocked him down; the party was roped together, and but
for the providential breaking of the rope the three who were saved
must have been precipitated with the rest 4,000 feet, down to the
Matterhorngletscher. Some sixteen ascents of the Matterhorn have been
subsequently made, but it must ever be an arduous and perilous
expedition, save to the best trained and most experienced cragsmen.
_At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies._ By CHARLES KINGSLEY.
Macmillan and Co.
Readers of 'Westward Ho!' will remember the singular vividness with
which Mr. Kingsley described West Indian scenery. It was difficult to
believe that he had not seen it, and that his minute and glowing
pictures were productions of the artistic and pictorial imagination
purely. 'At last,' he has actually visited the region about which he
has read and dreamed and written for forty years, and the result is a
book of luxuriant and gorgeous description, such as nobody but Mr.
Kingsley could have written, and no one can read without catching
something of his enthusiasm. He fairly revels in West Indian fauna and
flora. Wherever he goes he sees some insect, or shell, or plant, or
flower, or forest-tree, or geological phenomenon worth noting. His
knowledge as a naturalist--his imagination as a poet--his skill as a
literary artist--all combine to produce a book which is a naturalistic
romance, gorgeous with colour, and riotous with enthusiasm on every
page. It would be difficult to find a stronger illustration of the
difference between 'Eyes and no eyes,' or of the wealth of beauty and
æsthetic and devout stimulus that an instructed eye can command. Mr.
Kingsley discovers nature for us as well as interprets it, and clothes
the earth with a glory that duller eyes only dimly observe. It is
difficult to imagine a better preparation for such a journey, or a
finer combination of qualifications for describing it. Mr. Hugh
Macmillan has great gifts of this character, but he must yield the
palm to Mr. Kingsley. Every footstep is on fairyland. His touch opens
our eyes, and we see mountain and forest, cliff and glade, shore and
sea, full of the chariots and horses of God. If the book is for
criticism at all, it is to be criticised as we criticise a picture.
From the first departure from Hurst Castle to the return to it, Mr.
Kingsley has some unthought-of thing to say, or some undiscovered
beauty to point out in common things; the phosphorescent sea suffices
for the prelude to his grand prose poem, and the gorgeous vegetation
of the West Indian islands furnishes inexhaustible material for its
substance. The book is not without its details of personal incident,
its snatches of historical reminiscence and of superstitious legend,
its sketches of negro life and of romantic adventure, its touches of
social and political disquisition; these are skilfully woven together
as only Mr. Kingsley could weave them, but they are entirely
subordinate to the visions and revels of the rapturous naturalist, his
pictures of tropical forests, pitch lakes, mangrove swamps, volcanic
mountains, and cultured gardens. Mr. Kingsley spent seven weeks in the
island of Trinidad, only glancing at other West Indian islands as the
touches of the steamer enabled. His descriptions are therefore almost
limited to that island. We are sorely tempted to cull some of the racy
anecdotes that Mr. Kingsley tells, and to reproduce some of the superb
pictures that he has painted, but we must forbear. We will say only
that his science is simply the framework of popular descriptions, that
his book is for the multitude, and not so much for natural
philosophers, and that from beginning to end it is simply a gorgeous
series of pictures, a fairyland of colour and form and wonderful
adaptation, a psalm not of life but of nature, a prolonged
'Benedicite,' a companion-book to 'Glaucus,' and to the 'Essay in a
Chalk Pit;' only richer in detail, more novel in phenomena, and more
gorgeous in colour. The world was as beautiful when he found it, but
he has made it more beautiful to our apprehension. His book has
excited our enthusiasm almost as much as the scenes which it describes
excited his.
_To Sinai and Syene and back, in 1860-61._ By WILLIAM BEAUMONT, Esq.
Smith and Elder.
A very fairly written narrative of the author's journey, having the
drawback that the writer is slightly given to bad jokes--thus,
'Suli-_man_, the boy of our party,' 'the cam-els are coming,' &c.
The route to Sinai from the wells of Moses was the more eastern one,
taken by Robinson, whereby the writer missed the fine Wady Feiran, the
Bedouin Paradise, which, however, he afterwards visited on his return.
He was admitted to the convent of Sinai by the looped chain; more
fortunate than the writer of this notice, who, arriving after sunset,
had to sleep at the door in the open air, the archbishop's letter
notwithstanding, but was afterwards admitted at sunrise through the
postern. Surely Mr. Beaumont is wrong in saying that Tischendorf found
his famous Codex at Cairo, and not at Sinai.
We can only say concerning Mr. Beaumont's book, that it is one of
those painstaking records of travel which gather together round each
locality, most of the important things done, and interesting things
said concerning it. It has not grown, it has been made; but it is
written with intelligence and commendable accuracy.
_Peeps at the Far East: a Familiar Account of a Visit to India._ By
NORMAN MACLEOD, D.D. Strahan and Co.
India is almost as well travelled as Palestine, and a cursory
traveller must have great gifts of suggestive imagination and of
description to interest us in a book about it. Dr. Macleod does
interest us: in addition to the gifts we have named, he has an
unfailing geniality and an indomitable optimism, which give a glow of
kindly interest to his pages. He went to India on official business in
connection with the Missions of the Church of Scotland. Elsewhere he
has reported concerning them. In this volume he only incidentally
refers to them, chiefly in relation to the genial brotherhood of
Christian Ministers and members of all Churches which he experienced.
It is a melancholy reflection upon our home religious life that such a
sensation of relief and enjoyment in this particular is realized by
the traveller in America or India. We hardly know in what a bitter
sectarian element we live until we get out of it. Dr. Macleod's broad,
healthy, human soul heartily rejoiced in deliverance from it.
Dr. Macleod tells us about Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta--places that
we have heard about as often as about Jerusalem. He describes
peculiarities of Hindoo life, features of Indian scenery, and the
ordinary incidents of Eastern travel; but with an observation so
alert, a geniality so bright, a humour so rich, and descriptive powers
so lively, that his book has a very pleasant charm; the reader's
interest never flags. Bombay is less eastern than Cairo, which Dr.
Macleod justly thinks is the most picturesquely oriental of all
cities. European insolence to natives, which has borne such bitter
fruits, is greatly diminished in India; the Mussulman is, in moral
virtue and general tone, superior to the Hindoo; Hindoo villages
surpass in poverty and squalor the worst specimens of Irish; English
education is doing great things for India--Dr. Macleod was frequently
surprised by the familiarity of the natives with our English
literature; the Brahmo Somaj lacks an objective basis, and can never,
therefore, firmly cohere, or make real progress. A genuine reform
movement it must ever be, changing and breaking up, gaining, and
losing what it gains; it wants the positive cohesive power which
Christianity would give it. Dr. Macleod recounts again, with great
power of description and pathos, the story of the Mutiny. In short,
this book, which is elegantly got up and profusely illustrated, is
full of the manifold charms of high intelligence, generous sympathy,
and easy, yet brilliant description. A pleasanter book has not often
fallen into our hands.
_The Nile without a Dragoman._ By FREDERICK EDEN. Henry S. King and
Co.
Egypt is by no means an economical country to travel in for Europeans,
and a Nile dahabeah, which costs from £100 to £200 per month, is an
expensive luxury. Dragomans covenant to supply travellers with
everything at so much _per diem_, according to numbers. We have known
£4 paid, and we have travelled for £1 10s. Mr. Eden determined to
dispense with a dragoman, hire a dahabeah of a friend, paying,
however, the advertised price demanded, and he accomplished a pleasant
voyage of more than four months at a cost of £60 per month. This
bright and clever little book tells us how he did it. It does not deal
much in antiquities or descriptions, it chiefly narrates experiences;
tells us the things that Murray does not tell us. A dragoman is a very
pleasant luxury, relieving the traveller of all care and many
difficulties, which Mr. Eden had to overcome; but this is the final
cause of difficulties, which Mr. Eden proved, although he evinces his
utter ignorance of the customs and prejudices of his motley crew. For
his racy descriptions of his very pleasant life, and for innumerable
touches and impressions of Nile life, we must refer our readers to the
volume; it is enough to say, that it scarcely suffers by comparison
with that of Lady Duff Gordon.