_Short Studies on Great Subjects._ By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. Second
Series. Longmans, Green, and Co.
Many of these papers, those especially which have appeared in the
magazine which Mr. Froude has recently edited, and those delivered as
addresses, will be fresh in the recollection of general readers, and
they will be glad to possess them in a permanent form. Like Mr.
Kingsley, Mr. Froude is not so much a constructor as an expositor of
opinion; but he has some rare qualities for exposition, and his
emotional and moral fervour especially give a great charm to his
advocacy. His defects, moreover, like Mr. Kingsley's, are those of a
rhetorician, and severe historical students gravely impugn his
accuracy in details, while dispassionate judges seriously condemn his
somewhat vehement special pleadings. The papers are some of them
political--'England and her Colonies;' 'Reciprocal Duties of State and
Subject;' 'The Colonies once More,' 'England's War,' 'The Eastern
Question;'--some social--'Education;' 'A Fortnight in Kerry,' in two
parts--singularly separated in the volume by half a dozen other
papers; 'On Progress,' a striking paper, which appeared in a recent
number of _Frazer_, and attracted much attention;--and some
ecclesiastical and theological--'Calvinism,' 'A Bishop of the Twelfth
Century'--an interesting account of brave hearted Bishop Hugo, Bishop
of Lincoln, and builder of the Cathedral; 'Father Newman on the
Grammar of Assent;' 'Conditions and Prospects of Protestantism.' That
Mr. Froude has strong partialities and prejudices, sometimes betraying
him into an untenable advocacy, if not into historical paradox, his
greatest admirers must admit. The first volumes of his history read
like an eloquent counsel's brief--we are oftener charmed than
convinced. The later volumes are more judicial, although both the
partisans of Elizabeth and of Mary Queen of Scots have fair cause of
demur to both the coloring of his portraiture and to some of its
details. With rhetorical historians we never feel quite safe. The
advocate is always more fascinating than the judge--they appeal to
wholly different faculties. Macaulay, Froude, Kingsley, all lack, only
in different degrees, the severe historical spirit which Hallam and
Freeman so ably exemplify. One of Mr. Froude's critics has subjected
his account of Bishop Hugo, derived from Mr. Dimock's 'Magna Vita,' to
a minute, and we must say damaging historical criticism, which
produces an uneasy feeling about Mr. Froude's historical writing
generally--especially when we have not at hand means of verification.
Mr. Froude's habit of mind tempts him to round unqualified assertions,
and to hasty generalizations, especially when he is justifying a
foregone conclusion. Another dangerous tendency of his mind is to
themes which either through imperfect knowledge or sectarian habit he
is but little qualified for treating. Few readers of the 'Nemesis of
Faith,' one of Mr. Froude's earliest publications, would feel much
confidence in his dispassionate treatment of any theological question;
and yet theology is the fatal basilisk to which he seems irresistibly
attracted. It was with a startled feeling--half amusement, half
annoyance--that we saw announced the theme which his perverse genius
characteristically fixed upon for his Rectoral Address at St.
Andrew's. No man can possibly give a satisfactory account of Calvinism
who is not sympathetically a theologian; and Mr. Froude is not only
not this, but theology in any form excites him as a red rag excites a
bull. Calvinism, above all theological creeds, might be supposed
antipathetic to him. We naturally, therefore, anticipated a Quixotic
assault upon the Scottish windmill, and imagined the sensations of the
professors and alumni of St. Andrew's on the announcement of his
subject; for Mr. Froude to undertake to discuss Calvinism in its very
metropolis was a chivalry that could be redeemed from its
foolhardiness only by its success. Mr. Froude has not succeeded. He
boldly avows himself a _quasi_ champion of something which he calls
Calvinism, but which really has very little to do with the system of
theology which is known by that designation. We tremble at the bold
generalization of his eulogy, and wonder to see men and systems having
so little in common brought within their range. It is the exordium of
a rhetorician, not of an historical critic. Notwithstanding,
therefore, his great literary merits, a fine historical vein, and
broad illustrative generalization of a very masterly character, the
result is not very satisfactory. Mr. Froude clearly sees that in
Calvinism, or its philosophical equivalents--for he finds the latter
where the former is unknown, as, for instance, in Parsecism and
Judaism, Stoicism and Mahommedanism--there is something very strong
and noble; only we suspect that he has confounded what he calls
Calvinism with the moral sense or conscience. What this is, he essays
to show by historic illustrations gathered from the six or eight great
religious movements of history; but he hardly succeeds. The facts are
indubitable, but Mr. Froude does not furnish their philosophy. Of
course he knows that Calvinism is a great deal more than mere history;
he would, no doubt, admit that it is a very pronounced and
uncompromising metaphysical theology. If it is not this, it is
nothing; but of this he does not attempt to give any account. On the
contrary, he formally eschews it, and he certainly has no very great
sympathy with it. His historic conscience is forced to admit the
strength, persistence, and nobility which the ideas of Calvinism have
in all ages inspired. They have uniformly produced the noblest
morality, the most heroic faith, the most illustrious characters and
movements of their age; they have constituted the great religious and
regenerating force of history, the permanent counteractor and
corrector of formalism, selfishness, mendacity, and slavishness--the
force that has sporadically gathered in all times of lassitude, and
that Mr. Froude thinks our own present condition needs for its
regeneration. But he admires and wonders without love; he has strong
things to say against it. Hence his paper is written with a _nec cum
te nec sine te_ feeling. It produces the impression of one who sees
men as trees walking; who aims at something worth hitting, and misses
it; who has been attracted by the true waters, but to whom it might be
said, 'Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.' We
have no sympathy with the logical excesses of Calvinism, but it
involves substantially the only true and noble philosophy of religion.
It is the theology of the almost universal Church; and its noble
inspirations and achievements deserve not only all the eulogy that Mr.
Froude bestows, but eulogy of which he does not dream. If Calvinism be
not a theology, it is nothing; and yet Mr. Froude proposes to the
professors and students of St. Andrew's to discuss Calvinism, while he
carefully disavows all theological questions. How oddly _to them_ his
address must have sounded! History as a _hortus siccus_; a drama--the
grandest ever played out on human stage--evacuated of convictions and
passions; the profoundest metaphysical and spiritual theology
sufficiently accounted for by mere history. Mr. Froude's thesis
demanded that he should have examined the metaphysical ideas involved
in Calvinism, and demonstrated their practical, moral, and spiritual
power. This he has not even attempted. He does not seem even to have
conceived of it. So again, Mr. Froude altogether misses the philosophy
of theology involved in Dr. Newman's 'Grammar of Assent.' He cannot
even speak of Butler's great work without altogether misrepresenting
it. We suspect that he is constitutionally incapable of even
apprehending metaphysical problems. While he sneers at physical
science, he regards theological science as a blind superstition.
Nevertheless, Mr. Froude's volume is worthy of a place on the shelf of
his history.
_The National and Domestic History of England_. By W. H. S. AUBREY.
Vol. I. J. Hagger.
Of the historian, as of the poet, it is emphatically true _nascitur
non fit_. A rare combination of qualities is essential to a historian
of the first-class--patience to accumulate information, learning to
appreciate it, philosophy to interpret it, and imaginative eloquence
to incarnate it. Great histories are more rare than great poems.
Histories are of two classes--those which are written directly from
original sources, and which are historical authorities; and those
which are intended for popular uses, and avail themselves of the
results of original investigation, as historical authorities have
determined them. Mr. Aubrey's work belongs to the latter class; and
is entitled to rank very high in it. In the commendation which we
think it just to bestow upon him, we are not to be understood as
comparing him with Grote, or Hallam, or Freeman, or Froude, or Masson;
but, as gathering into a pleasantly-written and skilfully-constructed
work, the results of modern historical investigation, his history of
England is by far the best we possess. To indomitable painstaking, he
adds the careful judgment of a well-informed student, and of strong
common sense. His work is the fruit of many years' assiduous labour.
Mr. Aubrey, as might be expected, belongs to the school of historians
which holds that the history of a nation is a great deal more than the
history of its monarchs, court intrigues, and wars; and he endeavours
to put his readers in possession of the springs and characteristics of
the social life of the people, of which the most ample knowledge of
the former class may leave us in utter ignorance. The influence of
monarchs, statesmen, politics, and wars, upon the social life of a
people, is necessarily great, and formerly was much greater than it is
now; but probably at no time was it so exclusive as the impressions
derived from ordinary histories would lead us to suppose. The
government of a country, and the policy of a court, except under
conditions of republican freedom, are a very imperfect index of the
condition and character of the people. Mr. Aubrey pays a just
compliment to Sir. Charles Knight's 'Pictorial History of England,' as
being the first considerable and systematic attempt to present the
social history of the English people. But the conclusions of history
have been almost revolutionized since the 'Pictorial History of
England' was written. The calendaring of State papers, and the opening
of State collections at Simancas, Venice, and elsewhere, have thrown
floods of light upon imperfectly understood events. Mr. Aubrey, too,
has greatly improved upon the literary style, as well as upon the
artistic illustrations of Mr. Knight's great work. His style is quiet
and lucid; it never rises to eloquence, or is inspired by passion; no
masterly historical groups or biographical portraits are presented by
him; but he tells his story with a simple, even excellence of pleasant
narration. If he does not greatly excite his readers, he never wearies
them. The first volume brings down the history to the time of Richard
II. Instead of references in the margin, Mr. Aubrey gives us a general
list of the authorities which he has consulted; it is formidable
enough, occupying a dozen pages, and comprising between 600 and 700
works. Some of the omissions from it, however, are notable; Mr.
Longman's 'Edward III.' for instance, and Professor Creasy's 'History
of England.' The salient points in this period are the characters of
Edward the Confessor, and Earl Godwin, Harold, and William of
Normandy, Becket, and Edward III. Mr. Aubrey forms, on the whole, a
just estimate of these men. The plan of his history precludes
disquisition, but the positions he assumes are warranted by the most
recent criticism; he justly remarks that neither men nor their doings
are 'to be regarded in the light of modern opinions and convictions,
excepting in so far as these are inherently true.' We commend
especially Mr. Aubrey's careful and discriminating estimate of the
quarrel between Henry II. and Becket, as a crucial test of his
intelligence and fairness. Here, as throughout, Mr. Aubrey enhances
the value of his book by well-selected quotations from historians like
Mackintosh, Milman, and others. The great period of Edward III.--the
_fons et origo_ of so much of our English constitution and modern
greatness--is well treated; and the great questions involved in the
French war, the rights of Parliament, and religious liberty, are
intelligently discussed. We should add that the work is profusely
illustrated. In addition to ordinary wood engravings and fac-similes,
portraits and autographs, chromolithographs and well-executed steel
plates are introduced, together with carefully-constructed maps and
plans. The illustrations are scenes and incidents, views of places,
dress, manners, sports, houses, furniture, coins, seals, and medals,
coats of arms, weapons, and ships, caricatures, monuments, and tombs.
Altogether, we may, so far as this first volume goes, commend Mr.
Aubrey's work as, in its completeness, ability, and spirit, fully
justifying its title as a 'Family History of England,' and
incomparably surpassing any other of its class.
_View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages._ By HENRY HALLAM,
LL.D. Incorporating in the text the Author's latest Researches, with
Additions from recent Writers, and adapted to the use of Students. By
WILLIAM SMITH, D.C.L., LL.D. John Murray.
Dr. Smith has done a great service by including in his series of
students' manuals this admirable edition of Hallam's first great work.
Originally published in 1818--not in 1816, as Dr. Smith says--it
rapidly passed through successive editions; the eleventh and last of
which was published in 1855. During these years the author not only
accumulated many corrections, but also a body of supplementary notes
equal in bulk to one-third of the original work. 'Reluctant to make
such alterations as would leave to the purchasers of former editions a
right to complain,' and having thoroughly revised the third edition,
six subsequent editions appeared without alteration. After the ninth
edition, the supplementary notes were published separately in 1848. In
the tenth edition (1853) they were included. The copyright of the
original edition has recently expired, and has been reprinted in a
cheap form, but without either the revision or the supplementary notes
of the author's later editions. Comparatively, therefore, it is of
little worth. Dr. Smith has not only reproduced Hallam's latest
edition, he has incorporated all of the notes that could be
incorporated, inserting at the end of each chapter such information as
could not conveniently be interwoven with the text. For this students'
edition some of the less important remarks have been abbreviated, and
the references to authorities omitted. Valuable additions, moreover,
have been made by the editor, for which the student will thank him.
Among those are the Statutes of William the Conqueror, the Charter of
the Liberties of Henry I. and Magna Charta, together with genealogical
and other tables, and certain items of information from books which
have appeared since Hallam wrote. A good reference index is also
added. More than this concerning so well-known a work we need not say;
too much we scarcely could say.
_Cameos from English History: the Wars in France._ By the Author of
the 'Heir of Redclyffe.' Second Series. Macmillan & Co.
The very skilful way in which Miss Yonge selects the chief incidents
of her episodes, and groups around them such subordinate matters as
may be necessary for a complete historic picture, has given to the
first series of her 'Cameos' a popularity which the second will not
fall short of. Miss Yonge is executing a gallery of historic
compositions that have individual completeness enough to make them
interesting, and connection enough to make them instructive. Without
any affectation of originality in the sources or methods of her
narrative, she skilfully uses the materials and conclusions of the
best historical authorities, and thus provides for young people and
for general readers a historical manual, the ability and interest of
which will convey a vast amount of information to readers whom more
pretentious works would fail to attract. This second series is almost
entirely occupied with the French wars. Beginning in 1330 with the
romantic conquests of Edward III. and the Black Prince, it narrates
the strange solecism of English rule in France, and ends in 1435 with
the still more romantic mission of the Maid of Orleans, and the
Congress of Arras, and the extinction of the English cause in France.
We cannot speak too highly of the care, good sense, and literary skill
with which these historic cameos are cut. The most romantic
incidents--battles such as those of Crecy and Poitiers, achievements
such as those of Joan of Arc--lose nothing in the artistic setting of
the author, while the least interesting are made attractive by it. A
more fascinating and instructive book, as we can testify from our own
well-thumbed copy of the first series, and from the eagerness with
which the second has been seized, could not be put into the hands of
young people.
_Life of William Cunningham, D.D., Principal and Professor of Theology
and Church History, New College, Edinburgh._ By ROBERT RAINY, D.D.,
and the late Rev. JAMES MACKENZIE. 8vo. Nelson and Sons. 1871.
As long as the disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843 is
remembered, the name of Dr. Cunningham will be indissolubly associated
with it. The Free Church party, to which he belonged, was rich in
eminent men at the great crisis. Chalmers, of course, towered over
all the rest as its man of many-sided genius. Candlish was its popular
champion; Hugh Miller was its journalist; Buchanan its ecclesiastical
statesman; Guthrie its orator and wit; Murray Dunlop its jurist. Dr.
Cunningham, however, as a dogmatic theologian and master of Church
principles, long occupied a place by himself in the councils and the
inner life of his Church, and we cordially welcome his memoir.
The volume is the work of two successive biographers. Rather more than
one-third of it had been prepared by the late Rev. James Mackenzie,
when, his untimely death interrupted his labours; the rest of the book
is written by Dr. Rainy, who, once a pupil of Cunningham's, was
afterwards his pastor and most intimate friend, and is now his
successor in the Chair of Historical Theology. Mr. Mackenzie's portion
is picturesque and lively. The story of the disruption conflict, which
it embraces, has already been told, by Dr. Hanna in his life of
Chalmers, in a way that can hardly be equalled, but the version here
given is at once elaborate and fresh. Dr. Rainy, who continues the
life from 1843 till its close in 1861, has executed his task with
judgment and loving fidelity, and with so entire a mastery of all the
bearings of his subject that his chapters will have a permanent value
for the members of the Free Church as a contribution to her history.
The outward incidents of Cunningham's life are soon told. Born at
Hamilton in 1805, he lost his father in early childhood, and was
brought up by an admirable mother. At the age of fifteen he entered
the university of Edinburgh, where he remained eight years. At
twenty-five he was ordained to one of the largest churches in
Greenock. Thence, four years afterwards, in 1834, he was translated to
Trinity College Church, in Edinburgh. Quitting the Establishment in
1843, he visited America on a public mission, and on his return was
appointed to the Chair of Apologetical Theology in the Free Church
College. In 1845, he succeeded Dr. Welsh as Professor of Church
History, and on the death of Dr. Chalmers, in 1847, he became
Principal of the College, retaining, however, his Professorship.
From his very boyhood, Cunningham was wont 'to scorn delights and live
laborious days.' In one long vacation, before he was seventeen, he
read eighty volumes, among them the whole of the Iliad in Greek,
Barrow on the 'Pope's Supremacy,' Taylor's 'Ductor Dubitantium,' and
the like. Such studious habits adhered to him through life. 'He reads
Greek and Latin,' says his biographer, 'in immense quantities, and
French in great abundance.' It was only a strong judgment and a
wonderful memory that prevented his enormous reading from overloading
his powers of mental digestion. At first, metaphysics attracted him,
but soon theology became his favourite field. Up to the age of
eighteen his sympathies were with the 'moderate' or high-and-dry party
in the Scottish Church; but about that time his mind underwent a great
and blessed spiritual change, which, as it was brought about by the
influence of evangelical truth, naturally led him to join the
evangelical party.
As a preacher, he was decidedly successful during the four years of
his ministry at Greenock. In Edinburgh his gifts were buried in an
almost inaccessible and gloomy church, and his sermons became dry. The
ten years' conflict, however, called forth all his powers. The annual
general assemblies of those days furnished an arena for high debate
unequalled in the history of Scotland. Judges of the supreme courts,
eminent lawyers, physicians, merchants, and landowners, sat on their
benches as elders, along with the flower of the Scottish clergy. The
audience was only limited by the breadth to which galleries could be
carried. The questions at issue, first, the spiritual rights of the
people in the formation of the pastoral tie, and, growing out of that,
the spiritual independence of the Church itself, affected all classes
of society, and interested Dissenters as well as members of the
Establishment. Amidst these scenes Cunningham proved himself--
'No carpet knight so trim,
But in close fights a champion grim,
In camps a leader, sage.'
Both his biographers labour to describe his power as a debater, but in
truth there must have been something indescribable about it. 'As you
heard him,' says Dr. Rainy, 'you were yourself working at the
question, not with your own faculties, but with Cunningham's, and were
possessed with the same intense moral perceptions.... This effect was
due to the personality of the man put into his speech, to his
intensity, and his vehemence.... The absence of all rhetoric, except
that which sparkled red-hot from the forge at which the workman was
labouring contributed to the same effect. To the same result conduced,
and that very powerfully, his manifest scorn of foul play, and the
manliness and fairness of his battle.' The testimony also is adduced
of Mr. Murray Dunlop, late member for Greenock, who, after long
experience both of the General Assembly and of Parliament, said,
'There is no man in the House of Commons that approaches to
Cunningham.'
The disruption, to Cunningham and his associates, was a political
defeat, but it was even more than a moral victory. It seems destined
to secure the triumph of their principles in Scotland as it has
powerfully helped to introduce them into Ireland. Now that a
generation has passed away, we see the strange spectacle of the
Scottish Establishment agitating for the abolition of patronage, and
we hear her divines boasting of spiritual independence as if a
satisfactory concordat on the matter had already been concluded with
the State. Dread of another disruption is manifestly the only
concordat that exists.
It was in the Chair of Historical Theology that Cunningham found his
true sphere of continuous labour. As a lecturer, an examiner, a
director of young men's studies, and a critic of their productions, he
was unsurpassed in his time. Dr. Rainy considers that he was even
superior to Chalmers in the power of producing the feeling of
obligation in the minds of others. His own personal godliness, and his
solicitude for the spiritual welfare of his students, showed itself
quite spontaneously both in the classroom and out of it. Youths who
trembled at coming under the jurisdiction of the great controversialist
were delighted to find him in private intercourse as gentle as a lamb,
and they yielded themselves all the more readily to the mastery of his
influence. Hundreds of his old pupils are now in the ministry,
scattered all over Scotland, and are to be found here and there in
England, Ireland, America, and the colonies; and it may safely be said
that few of them ever mention his name without affection and
reverence.
Yet with all his gentleness of nature, Cunningham was a born
controversialist. He was quite conscious of this himself. When a
student of divinity, he said to a friend. 'If my life is spared, it
will be spent in controversy, I believe;' and the event went far to
justify the prediction. With true Christian magnanimity, he would at
once apologise, and that in public, for unwarrantable expressions
dropped in the heat of debate; and in one of his later tractates he
says, 'We have some apprehension that the controversial spirit is
rising and swelling in our breast, and therefore we abstain,' &c.,
as if he were applying the curb; but the temperament remained. Part of
the last decade of his life was embittered by a controversy within the
Free Church itself, which separated him for a time from some of his
oldest and dearest friends, and made him the object of unwarrantable
attacks on the part of others. His spirit was chastened and purified
by the ordeal. In the beautiful record given by Dr. Rainy of his last
days on earth, we read that two hours before his death he said, 'I am
done with all controversies and all fightings now; I am at rest for
ever.' Then raising his hand, he very emphatically said twice, 'From
the rage of theologians, good Lord, deliver us.' Thus adopting one of
the dying sayings of the gentle Melancthon.
After his death, Dr. Cunningham's literary executors published two
large volumes of his lectures on 'Historical Theology,' and two
additional volumes of his 'Essays and Reviews'--the one on the
'Reformers and their Doctrines,' the other on 'Church Principles.'
These works are no unworthy monument of his vast learning, of his
logical power, and of the depth of his own convictions. Dr. Rainy, in
the volume before us, has very ably explained and defended
Cunningham's method of teaching theology and the history of dogma, but
we wish he had descended more into particulars, showing the growth of
Cunningham's own mind as a theologian, and the comparative importance
assigned by him to certain truths and views of truth at an earlier and
a later period of his life. It is somewhat unsatisfactory to be told
that on visiting Oxford in his later years Cunningham said musingly to
a friend, 'I am more of a bigot and more of a latitudinarian than I
used to be.'
_Journals kept in France and Italy from_ 1848-1852; _with a Sketch of
the Revolution of_ 1848. By the late NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR. Edited by
his Daughter, M. C. M. SIMPSON. 2 vols. Henry S. King and Co.
Mr. Senior's journals suggest some curious speculations concerning the
writer, and the order of literati to which he belongs; and they are a
contemporary record of some facts which may be regarded as a
contribution to history, and of some speculations which, after twenty
years, it is interesting to test by events. Mr. Senior apparently
aspired to a distinguished place in the class of writers more
prominent in French literature than in English, who contribute, for
the use of the historian and for the gratification of the gossip,
_mémoires pour servir_. With considerable literary ability, he
contributed essays to the Edinburgh and other reviews, two or three
series of which have been published. He wrote a treatise on political
economy, which evinced considerable power of philosophical thinking,
and considerable knowledge of economical science, but which fell just
short of classical authority. He was a Master in Chancery, and a
well-informed man of the world. He had an extensive acquaintance with
literati and politicians, which he sedulously cultivated. Probably,
had he chosen to concentrate his intellectual powers and to
subordinate his general knowledge, he might have produced works which
would have taken an honourable and permanent place in literature. But
the difficulty we feel in saying in what department of thought he
would have succeeded the best, indicates the versatility which made
him a clever man, and hindered him from becoming a profound one. He
belonged to the literary class of which, perhaps, Southey may be
regarded as _facile princeps_. Probably a man does best when he
follows spontaneously his own literary instinct; and Mr. Senior, in
becoming a very able chronicler and critic of the opinions of others,
has avoided the fate of a second-rate publicist. It is difficult to
find an exact type that may represent his special function and
quality. His work is the work of a Boswell, only generally applied,
and done with far more intellectual power, but at the cost of that
exactness of record which is Boswell's great charm. All Mr. Senior's
reports of the opinions and conversations of others are reproduced in
his own mould of thought. Although he had apparently that peculiar
kind of very bad memory which forgets nothing, yet clearly he does not
reproduce the _ipsissima verba_ of the interlocutors: while their
sentiments are exactly conveyed, it is a version 'according to Mr.
Senior.' One thinks again of Crabbe Robinson. What he was in a more
literary and limited sphere, Mr. Senior was in his wider sphere of
statesmen, diplomatists, and politicians. Mr. Senior's methods remind
us of the 'interviewing' of American reporters. A highly gifted,
well-informed, agreeable, and brilliant man, he was a welcome addition
to every society. Princes, statesmen, and political leaders found
pleasure in his conversation, and in the information concerning
English opinion and feeling that he was able to impart. He
assiduously prepared himself for making the most of his
opportunities. He sought introductions wherever he went, and had the
rare faculty of using them to the greatest advantage. Clearly, he knew
how to put questions without being intrusive, how to conciliate
sympathies without offensive toadyism, and how to make his note-taking
purpose well understood without loss of dignity, and apparently--but
of this we are not quite sure--without either shutting up his
informants, or making them talk with a view to the record. He has
aimed at whatever degree of literary renown attaches to men like
Beaumarchais, De Grammont, and Pepys, and he will probably be quoted
as a witness to contemporary facts and opinions when he is remembered
for nothing else. It is not everyone who could submit to the
conditions of such a function, or who could be successful in it. Mr.
Senior's success is almost perfect. He is not a describer of men and
manners--he has neither dramatic nor pictorial faculty; he is simply a
chronicler of contemporary opinions. The value of his book, therefore,
depends primarily upon the character of those to whom he had access.
In this it leaves little to be desired. These journals kept in France
and Italy are rich in the affirmations and opinions of the leading
personages in these countries--of men who were chiefly making their
history. It is impossible even to attempt an enumeration of the
illustrious men with whom Mr. Senior freely conversed. The editor of
his journals is so embarrassed by their riches, that he not only
suppresses all mere travellers' impressions, observations, and
descriptions, but reserves for separate publication the conversations
with De Tocqueville, with whom Mr. Senior was on intimate terms. This,
we think, however interesting as a contribution to the biography of De
Tocqueville, is very injurious to the historic value of the journals.
An account of the Revolution of 1848 and of the _coup d'état_ of 1852,
which chronicles the opinions of men like De Beaumont, Fauchet,
Dunoyer, Gioberti, Circourt, and Horace Say, and systematically omits
those of De Tocqueville, the greatest political philosopher among them
all, is surely Hamlet with the part of the Prince omitted. Better have
omitted the Italian journal, and have presented complete the opinions
of French events which he was able to gather.
Nevertheless, the journals are remarkably rich in both incident and
opinions, which, as communicated by political leaders themselves, may
be implicitly accepted as authentic. Perhaps the thing that will
chiefly strike the reader is the singular lack of political prevision
which characterizes the forecasts of even the ablest statesmen. The
surprise and violence of revolutionary incident probably disorder the
faculty of the political philosopher, as well as disarrange the
ordinary sequence of things. Whatever the cause, save in things
palpable to ordinary thoughtfulness, few of the anticipations of
statesmen here recorded have been verified. We have noted some dozens
of instances of political sagacity utterly at fault, which justify
this general remark, but our space forbids us to cite them.
Mr. Senior's journals in France begin about three months after the
abdication of Louis Philippe; but he gathers up a tolerably complete
account of the circumstances attending it, and of the opinions formed
concerning it. A letter of General Bergeaud gives a military account
of the overthrow of the constitutional throne, and attributes it to
defective military preparations, and to vacillating purposes:--'If I
had had the command a fortnight before, things might have passed
differently.' True! but would that have secured respect for the
time-serving king, or have given high-mindedness and dignity to the
shuffling policy of his time-serving minister? Of what advantage would
it have been to avert the revolution of February, if its provocatives
had been left to gather afresh? This policy of expedients has been the
ruin of the French nation; as De Beaumont justly said to Mr.
Senior--'In France we are not good balancers of inconveniences. _Nous
sommes trop logiques_. As soon as we see the faults of an institution,
_nous la brisons_. In England you calculate, we act upon impulse.'
Mr. Senior throws much interesting light upon the conduct and motives
of Lamartine in his brilliant and meteoric career, equally sudden in
its kindling and its extinction;--possible, surely, only in France. De
Beaumont seems to us to do more justice to Lamartine than Mr. Senior
himself does. 'He thinks that Lamartine has managed foreign affairs
honestly and ably, with an earnest wish for peace, but that the rest
of his conduct has been vain, selfish, and timid. Ten days ago he
would have been elected President by acclamation, now he would be
chosen only to keep out somebody worse.' Whatever Lamartine's vanity
and weakness, he must, we think, have credit for patriotic purpose. A
mere selfish man would surely have pressed his enormous advantage very
differently.
Much interesting light is also thrown upon the singular and
incongruous character of Louis Napoleon. Certainly our estimate of him
is not enhanced; his narrow, intriguing selfishness, his puerile
fanaticism, and the diabolical unscrupulousness of his _coup d'état_
of December 2nd, seem to justify all that his worst enemies have said
about him. A singular incident is recorded. The colonel of one of the
regiments to be employed on December 2nd was absent on the previous
night a few miles from Paris. An aide-de-camp of St Arnaud was sent to
summon him. He owed his success in life to Changarnier. As he passed
Changarnier's door he thought that this mysterious summons must have
something to do with the _coup d'état_ which everybody was expecting.
He got off his horse, and rang the bell. The porter, probably in bed,
did not answer. Second thoughts suggested to the aide-de-camp that to
tell Changarnier would be a breach of duty. He rode off without
ringing again. Had Changarnier been warned, the _coup d'état_ might
have been prevented, and the subsequent history of France might have
been different.
Read in the light of the history of France during the last twelve
months, Mr. Senior's volumes have a singular and instructive
interest. The conclusion to which they force us is a melancholy
one;--the French seem to have learned nothing, and to have forgotten
nothing, but to be simply whirled in a chaotic circle of furious
revolution and delusive order. 'The instant,' says M. Bastiat, 'three
Frenchmen meet, they talk of nothing but extending French influence
over Europe, and vote by acclamation for a military expenditure;' a
singular comment upon which is the recent determination by M. Thiers
and his Government to raise the French army to 500,000 men. In 1849,
Mr. Senior was present at a meeting of the Assembly; Jules Favre
attempted to read a letter from Rome stating that the French prisoners
had offered to serve in the Roman army; a scene of indescribable
confusion followed, some saying that, whether true or false, the ears
of Frenchmen ought not to be disgusted with such statements. General
Leflô protested against letters being read from a French tribune,
which _insultent le drapeau_. 'You tell us that the enemy has taken
one of our colours. You know it is impossible, for only five hundred
men are said to have fallen on our side; but before a colour could be
taken whole regiments must have died.' This was received with
enthusiastic applause, and Jules Favre was not permitted to read the
letter. De Beaumont is right, the French are too logical--even for
facts. 'The French,' said Dunoyer to Bancroft, 'utterly misconceive
the purposes for which a Government ought to exist, and if that
misconception continue, they will fall from revolution to revolution,
and from distress to distress, till they end in bankruptcy, anarchy,
and barbarism. They think that the purpose of Government is not to
allow men to make their fortunes, but to make their fortunes for them.
The great object of every Frenchman is to exchange the labours and
risks of a business or a profession or even a trade for a public
salary. The thousands of workmen who deserted employments at which
they were earning four or five francs a day to get thirty sous from
the _ateliers nationaux_ were mere examples of the general feeling. To
satisfy this desire, every Government goes on increasing the extent of
its duties, the number of its servants, and the amount of its
expenditure.'
Sumner told Mr. Senior, on the authority of the Minister of War, that
'Persigny was going to Berlin and Vienna to ask for Belgium and the
Rhine and Egypt, giving Hanover to Prussia, Wallachia and Moldavia and
the legations to Austria, Constantinople to Russia, and Piedmont to
the Prince of Leuchtenberg.' This was confirmed by Beaumont, who said
that when he was French Minister at Vienna, in 1849, Schwartzenberg
showed him pretty nearly the same propositions made by Persigny.
What hope can there be for a people so flippant, so superficial, so
unscrupulous! One is almost thankful for the destruction of a power
whose only law is that of selfishness and opportunity.
Mr. Senior's journals in Italy are scarcely less interesting; only
they seem to belong to bygone centuries. The King of Naples and the
Duke of Tuscany were in power, the Pope was recoiling into a despot,
Charles Albert was staking and losing his crown at Novara, and Louis
Napoleon was occupying Rome.
Mr. Senior's journals are choke full of interest--a social comment on
public history which future generations will peruse with greater
eagerness than ourselves.
_Life and Letters of William Bewick_ (_Artist_). Edited by THOMAS
LANDSEER, A.R.A. Hurst and Blackett.
Mr. Landseer is not so careful as he should be to tell us that his
hero is not _the_ Bewick whose engravings are amongst the glories of
the English school. True, William is not Thomas, and Mr. Landseer
somewhat ambiguously suggests the distinction by appending in a
parenthesis the word 'Artist' to his name; but Art knows only one
Bewick, and the lustre of his surname may well make careless readers
oblivious of his Christian name. Mr. Landseer does not tell us whether
there was any relationship between the two northern men, less remote,
that is, than the ancestry of whom Scott reminded William. The absence
of affirmation leads to the conclusion that there was not; as,
doubtless, William would have been proud of a family connection with
Thomas. William Bewick, then, of whose existence we frankly confess we
were ignorant until we made our acquaintance with him in Mr.
Landseer's book, was, notwithstanding, a man and an artist of
respectable ability, whose memoir and letters are interesting chiefly
for their anecdotes and characterizations of people more illustrious
than himself. His father was an upholsterer in Darlington, sorely
disquieted by the artistic tendencies of his son, who bravely
struggled against the genius of upholstery, and dared the paternal
prognostications of beggary, and the stern refusal to give him any
help in his artistic aspirations. He went to London almost penniless,
pleased Haydon, who saw him drawing at Burlington House, and became
his pupil, as were also George Lance, William Harvey, Sir Edwin
Landseer, and the brothers Charles and Thomas Landseer. He struggled
hard for existence, became a pupil at the Academy, so far won the
approbation of Sir Thomas Lawrence as to be commissioned by him to
copy some of Michael Angelo's figures in the Sistine Chapel; and
greatly delighted him by his execution of the 'Sybil,' somewhat less
by that of the 'Jeremiah.' The President intended to present these
copies to the Royal Academy for the benefit of future students, but
died when only four of them were completed. These were sold with his
effects, and, with other copies made by Mr. Bewick, are hidden in some
collection, or scattered among many. The difficulties of procuring
them were very great; and we agree with Mr. Landseer in his regret
that they are not secured for public inspection and use. Mr. Bewick
seems to have had peculiar skill as a copyist. Goethe gave him a
commission to execute copies of some of the figures in the Elgin
marbles. A head painted by him was mistaken for a Murillo by both
Wilkie and Calcott. His 'Jacob and Rachel' was exhibited in London,
and won encomiums from men whose praise was almost fame. Mr. Bewick
seems also to have been a skilful portrait painter, or rather
sketcher, for he usually asked only a couple of sittings from the
notable men whom he sought to include in his portfolio. Thus, he
sketched Hazlitt, Scott, Brewster, Jeffrey, Professor Wilson, Mrs.
Grant of Logan, Jamieson, McCulloch, Liston, the Ettrick Shepherd, Dr.
Birkbeck, Lord Norbury, O'Connell, Lady Morgan, Maturin, Shiel, and
many others. To these he easily procured introductions, and his
artistic ability induced them to sit to him. He seems to have been
singularly successful, and his personal agreeableness and social
abilities seem to have won greatly upon all who thus made his
acquaintance.
Hence he became acquainted with a large number of persons celebrated
in literature and art. These he carefully Boswellized, drawing their
portraits with the pen as well as with the pencil, and telling
interesting anecdotes concerning them. Hence these volumes, consisting
chiefly of his journals and letters, are a rich repertory of
reminiscences of notable men, which, like Senior's journals in other
circles of life, will have a permanent interest and value as the
records of an intelligent contemporary observer. Mr. Bewick's literary
style is somewhat inflated, and his story-telling is somewhat prolix;
it is not therefore easy, within our limits, to pick out any of the
plums of the really dainty feast that he has set before us. With
Haydon and Hazlitt, Bewick was on terms of personal friendship, and of
both he presents lengthened and interesting sketches. While, of
course, fully conscious of Haydon's faults, he was bravely faithful to
him. Haydon was very kind to Bewick. The latter was moneyless, and
Haydon had only £5. 'However,' says he, 'I'll let you have five
shillings, that will help a little.' He likewise offered to guarantee
a quarter's living at an eating-house. Haydon took no fees from his
pupils, but repaid himself in a characteristic way. He induced his
pupils to put their names to accommodation bills, and Bewick was so
implicated that when the smash came he 'found it impossible to deliver
himself from the difficulties which beset him in consequence of the
desperate state of Haydon's affairs.' Bewick sat as model for the head
of Haydon's 'Lazarus,' he being at the time opportunely ill. Wilkie,
otherwise a clumsy figure, had very fine hands. Taking hold of them,
Haydon said one day, 'Look here, Bewick, these are what I painted my
"Christ's" hands from. Wilkie's hands are the only parts of his person
that are like his pictures. They are made for fine execution; my hands
are very good, but they are not so tremulously nervous,--so delicate
or refined. These will never paint _large_ works with power, nor will
mine ever paint small pictures with sufficient delicacy and
refinement. You would never suppose that these hands would have such a
miserable mess upon the palette as you see there (looking down at
Wilkie's dirty palette). Wilkie's hands were copied for the _real
mother_ in my picture of "Solomon," and it has been said that they are
the most tender and expressive part of the whole picture.' Wilkie's
hands were artistically _close_ as well as symmetrical. Haydon, hard
up, as usual, went to Kensington to ask his friend for the loan of £5.
'I was struck with his blank expression of face; if I had given him a
blow he could not have been more staggered. I knew he had received
some hundreds for his last work, and I _ought_ to have done the same.
Wilkie put his hand to his mouth, and pressed his under lip between
his finger and thumb, like one of the figures in his "Rent-Day," and
drawled out in cold Scotch that he "raaly couldn't" let me have it. I
said, "You can't, eh?" He replied, "No, _indeed_ he could not." I was
silent--numbed; my young heart, warm then in the feelings and
sentiments of friendship, had received a shock. I felt my cheek hot
with the blush of wounded pride and disappointment, and could only
say, "I am sorry for it;" and, wishing him a good morning, left him to
himself and his hundreds.' Haydon was an awkward leech; but
considering their friendship, this was a little too bad of Wilkie. On
his way home, an eating-house keeper was more generous. To eat was a
necessity. Haydon, who had dined at the place often, went in
therefore, and after his dinner 'my hand went into my empty pocket in
make-belief, and I said, "Oh, I've forgot my money to-day, I will pay,
you to-morrow!" Just as I put foot upon the step of the outer door, a
gentle tap on my shoulder stayed my progress, and I was very civilly
invited by the keeper of the eating-house to walk into his room, as he
wished to speak to me. I returned with him. He then shut the door, and
after apologising for the liberty he was taking, said he had read in
the papers how badly I had been used with regard to my picture
("Macbeth," which Sir G. Beaumont had returned because Haydon had
increased its size), and that if dining there, or living entirely at
his house, would be any convenience to me, he should be quite
delighted, and I might pay him when I was able. I agreed to dine there
for the future, with many thanks for this noble, disinterested
kindness.' It is pleasant to add that when, shortly afterwards,
'Solomon' sold for eight hundred guineas, Haydon paid all his
creditors, the generous eating-housekeeper included; and, still more,
that his friendship for Wilkie still continued. 'I did not let trifles
of this kind come between us to mar our mutual satisfaction in the
pursuit of our beloved art.'
We regret that we cannot extract Bewick's interesting descriptions of
Hazlitt, nor his exciting account of an evening with Ugo Foscolo and
Wordsworth--the best picture in the book--when the passionate Italian
declaimed his poetry before the philosophic Lakeist; and in Haydon's
small parlour, greatly to the peril of Wordsworth's nose, especially
when, in the extraordinary discussion which followed, Foscolo clenched
his fist in the poet's face. Amusing anecdotes of Wilkie, especially
one of his visit to Castle Howard, and of Lord Carlisle's indignation
at the thought that he wanted to dine with _him_--'What does the
fellow mean? Does he want to dine with _me_? I think my steward or
housekeeper might content him;' interviews with Curran, Lord Norbury,
O'Connell; two visits to Abbotsford, introducing anecdotes and
characteristic traits of Scott; a visit to the Ettrick Shepherd;
sketches, anecdotes, gossip concerning dozens of notables in
literature and art; letters and journals from Rome and Naples, with
anecdotes of Gibson, whose friendship he secured, and who modelled his
bust; correspondence in leisurely age with his friend Davison
concerning art and artists, with the various methods and merits of the
latter, make up two volumes of the most interesting _ana_, which few
will be able to throw aside until they are finished. It is pleasant to
add that Mr. Bewick acquired a competence, built a house and a picture
gallery at Darlington, and although for some years a valetudinarian,
died in a good old age, greatly respected by a large circle of
friends.
_Life and Adventures of Count Beugnot, Minister of State under
Napoleon I._ Edited from the French by CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. Two vols.
Hurst and Blackett.
Jean Claude Count Beugnot lived through the entire period of the
French Revolution. He was born early enough (in July, 1761) to have
attained to maturity at its actual outbreak, and to have some
intelligent recollection of its immediate antecedents. He lived long
enough (until June, 1835) to see its course and issue, and to judge
its effects under three succeeding monarchs--Louis XVIII., Charles X.,
and Louis Philippe. No life could have been more exactly timed for a
complete experience of it, and perhaps no life could have been better
circumstanced for an intelligent and just appreciation of it. As a
minister and a courtier, he was eminent enough to stand within the
circle of confidential knowledge, but not so eminent as to be a leader
of parties, so as to be blinded by their passions, or to share their
fate; as a politician, he was clever enough to fill offices, and to be
employed in affairs of importance, but not so clever as to be the
victim of great and blinding ambitions. He was, moreover, flexible
enough to serve under Louis XVI.--at any rate, as a loyalist member of
the States General of 1789, and of the Legislative Assembly of 1791,
and to suffer imprisonment during the Reign of Terror; to be Prefect
of La Seine Inférieure, and Administrator of the Grand Duchy of Berg
under Napoleon; to be Minister of the Home Department under the
Provisional Government; and to serve under Louis XVIII. in various
important offices--first, as one of the three commissioners selected
by the King in the commission for the preparation of the Charter of
1814, next as Director-General of Police, next as Minister of Marine
Affairs, next as Postmaster-General. In 1819, a Royal ordinance
summoned him to the Chamber of Peers, but before it could be
countersigned the ministry resigned, and he did not take his seat
until 1830, a few months before the revolution which placed Louis
Philippe on the throne. The retrospect of such a man must have been
something like that of Noah and his sons. He was a good administrator,
a fair Parliamentary orator, an admirable drawer-up of State papers, a
cautious, respectable, able coadjutor; ranking, relatively with men in
English political history, like Sir J. Graham or Lord Halifax. His
literary ability was considerable, as these memoirs prove, but it was
not so great as to cause his ambition for original authorship to
disqualify his talent for reporting or recording what he heard and
saw. He was of the literary type of Mr. Nassau Senior, only with far
better opportunities of knowing; and instead of merely reporting the
sayings and doings and opinions of others, he aspired to
quasi-historical memoir writing, which throws the information that he
had such rare opportunities of possessing into an independent
narrative form, which is to all intents and purposes history, only
with the episodical freedom of journal writing. Perhaps no man, unless
it were Talleyrand himself, could have told us so much of the secret
history of his times, and Talleyrand could not help writing fiction
instead of history. Count Beugnot, as portrayed by himself, produces a
feeling of high respect and esteem. He was sincere, honest, and
faithful; he was a consistent Liberal, who had respect for authority,
and felt it right, in the interests of liberty, to accept whatever
Government was in power; he was, moreover, bold and faithful,
sometimes in circumstances of great personal peril. We do not feel
towards him as towards Mirabeau, or Talleyrand, or Lamartine, or
Guizot. He was not positive enough or brilliant enough to excite
either high admiration or great antagonism. He was a safe politician,
an honourable man, and a literary mediocrity of the very highest
class, but no more.
It is impossible to exaggerate the rich materials of these volumes.
They lack the aristocratic gossip of the memoirs of St. Simon; they
have not the melodramatic excitement or literary brilliancy of the
historical romances of Lamartine; they are destitute of the
doctrinaire philosophising which characterizes Guizot; but they are
most interesting and sober recitals of what may be called the social
history of the Revolution, in many of its byways, as well as at its
centre. Almost every page is a romance, revealing--sometimes pitiably
and ignominiously--the secret springs of great transactions, the
littleness of great men, the selfishness of patriots, the intrigues of
politics, the little wisdom with which the world is governed. Count
Beugnot, moreover, possesses the rare qualities of truthfulness and
fairness. He manifestly tries to tell us the truth, and with great
shrewdness and justice he endeavours to present both the defects and
excellencies of the monarchs under whom he served. He has generous
words for Napoleon, does full justice to his superb genius, while he
exhibits his hard coarseness and selfish, unscrupulousness, and
clearly discerns the fatal defects which led to his fall. He respects
Louis XVIII., his refinement and his wit, while in a very quiet way he
exhibits his intense heartlessness and selfishness. He penetrates the
unprincipled, intriguing character of the Orleans Princes, and
prepares his readers for their fall, which he did not live to see. He
appreciates, too, with much of the judicial power of an Englishman,
the character of the French nation, and the fatal defects which keep
it in almost a chronic state of eruption. It is impossible to cull
from the rich repertory of these pages. We can only indicate a few of
the points of interest. A native of Bar-sur-Aube, Count Beugnot became
acquainted with the notorious Madame de Lamotte, the heroine of the
'Diamond Necklace,' who in 1762 (a misprint, surely, for 1782) took
refuge in Bar-sur-Aube, on escaping with her sister from the Convent
at Longchamps. The two young ladies were descendants of the Baron de
Rémi, a natural son of Henry II., and claimed the estates of their
family, the only thing which it had preserved being its pedigree. The
king had granted to their father a pension of £40, and to the girls
£24 each, besides placing them gratuitously in the Abbey of
Longchamps, near Paris, with a view to the honourable extinction of a
family which had troublesome claims. Madame de Surmont took compassion
upon them, and Mademoiselle de St. Rémi fascinated M. de Surmont, and
married his nephew, M. de Lamotte. The part of Madame de Lamotte in
the amazing story of the 'Diamond Necklace' is told at great length,
as also are many details of her history, M. de Beugnot being on terms
of intimacy with her, and more than once coming into perilous contact
with this strange tragedy. To her and Cagliostro three chapters are
devoted; both are admirably sketched, and many illustrative anecdotes
of them are told. The Cardinal de Rohan had faith in Cagliostro and
'the Duke de Chartres (Egalité), at whose court it had been decided no
longer to believe in a God, but who was quite inclined to believe in
Cagliostro.' Beugnot helped Madame de Lamotte to destroy her letters
on the night of her arrest. 'Here it was that, casting cursory glances
over some of the thousands of the letters of Cardinal de Rohan, I was
sorry to see what a wreck the delirium of love, exaggerated by the
madness of ambition, had made of this wretched man. It is fortunate
for the Cardinal's memory that these letters have been suppressed, but
it is a loss to the history of human passion. What an age was that
when a prince of the Church did not hesitate to write, to sign with
his name, and to address to a woman, letters that a man of our day,
who had the least self-respect, might begin to read, but would never
finish!' This story, in the light which it throws upon the condition
of France, forms a kind of prelude to the personal history of Beugnot,
who is first elected a Deputy to the States General. Curious things
are told of Marat, who 'was then only a professor of physic, and made
a crusade against the sun, declaring that it was not the fountain of
light, and found persons senseless enough to listen to, and even to
commend him.'
A characteristic story of the _hauteur_ of the old French aristocracy
is told of Madame de Brionne, who, at the time of the first
insurrection of Paris, was advised by the Bishop of Autun to go and
spend some time in a little provincial town, where she would not be
known. 'A little provincial town!' she replied, 'Oh, M. de Perigord, I
can be a peasant if you please, but never a bourgeoise!'
Louis XV. blamed the Archbishop of Narbonne for his inordinate love of
hunting. 'My Lord Archbishop, you are a great hunter; I know something
about it. How can you forbid your priests from hunting if you spend
your life in setting them an example of it?' 'Sire,' he replied, 'for
my priests, hunting is their own vice; in my case, it is the vice of
my ancestors.' 'My Lord Archbishop,' said the King on another
occasion, 'they say that you are in debt, and, very deeply.' 'Sire,'
was the reply, 'I will ask my steward about it, and have the honour of
informing your Majesty.'
In October, 1793, M. de Beugnot was imprisoned in the Conciergerie,
where, and at La Force, he remained until the fall of Robespierre, in
daily danger of death, but, strangely, escaping it. Of the interior of
prison life during this period he gives vivid sketches; describes his
fellow-prisoners--many of them illustrious for rank, talents, or
virtues--and the incidents connected with the daily death delivery of
one or more of them. It is a vivid and powerful sketch of a notable
interior. This section of the work is a series of carefully executed
sketches of notable persons, especially of the leading Girondists,
including a full-length portrait of Madame Roland. He says, 'I more
than once made this reflection, that death on the scaffold only causes
horror to the generality of men, because they compare it with a state
of peace, of enjoyment, and perhaps of happiness they are
experiencing; but death considered from the depths of a dungeon, or
what is more, death when the whole existence is changed into torture,
is no longer the height of evils, but their remedy.'
Here we must leave M. de Beugnot. The subsequent portions of his book
are even more important and interesting, as the author himself rose to
eminence, and came into closer contact with the great movements of
history. Every page teems with interest, not only to the historical
student, but to the general reader. Miss Yonge has done good service
in translating this important work, especially at this juncture, when
the spiral cycle of French destiny has again brought its revolutionary
tragedy. It is needless to say that she has executed her task well,
although she might, in one or two places, have still further exercised
her power of excision.
_The Coolie: His Rights and Wrongs._ Notes of a Journey to British
Guiana, with a review of the System and of the recent Commission of
Inquiry. By the Author of 'Ginx's Baby.' Strahan and Co.
The conditions of coolie emigration from the East Indies to the West,
although attracting but little attention from the general public, have
been regarded anxiously by politicians and philanthropists, who know
how easily enormous oppression and cruel wrong may shelter themselves
under legal forms of emigration, and what a peculiar field for
unscrupulous cupidity is constituted by the transmigration of helpless
Hindoos and Chinese to British plantations in British Guiana. That
great abuses have been perpetrated admits of no doubt, but happily
facilities of knowledge and of redress are much greater than in the
old days of slavery; and experience has made the British public and
the British Government susceptible and suspicious so that long
continuance of wrong is not possible. A Mr. Des Voeux, formerly a
stipendiary magistrate in Demerara, now an administrator in St. Lucia,
at the close of 1869 addressed a letter to Earl Granville, the
Colonial Secretary, representing the state of the coolie emigrants 'to
be little other than that from which not many years ago the tillers of
the same soil were redeemed by our generous fathers. Seduced from
India or China by false promises (so he seems to have averred), not
duly notified of the legislation which would affect their relations
when they reached the field of labour, assigned without due caution on
the part of the executive to the power of unconscientious masters,
wronged by the law and against law, daily injured, and unable to
obtain redress because of combinations between unjust magistrates,
hireling doctors, and manoeuvring planters, dying unrecked and
unreckoned (I have tried faithfully thus to sum up this man's
charges), such a fifty thousand British subjects anywhere existing
would heat the sympathies of English hearts to boiling point.' Earl
Granville consequently appointed a commission of inquiry, and two
philanthropic societies, 'The Anti-Slavery,' and 'The Aborigines
Protection Society,' induced no doubt by the humane sympathies and the
great descriptive power of 'Ginx's Baby,' engaged Mr. Jenkins, who is
a barrister, to go out as counsel to watch proceedings on their
behalf--'to represent the coolies in this inquiry.' 'I accepted and
held their retainer as a counsel, not as a partisan.' This volume is
his report. It is, we must confess, simply a blue-book; but little of
the dash and humour and graphic description of 'Ginx's Baby'
characterize it. His clients are distant; his employers required exact
statements of facts and figures. It is a law case, and not a romance.
It is full of valuable information, but useful information is
interesting only to politicians and philanthropic societies. Mr.
Jenkins is not dull--he is most so when he tries to force the fun;
ordinarily, he is as graphic in description and as picturesque in
statistics as his subject-matter will permit him to be. Everywhere he
is intelligent and apparently most solicitously impartial. In the
descriptive parts of his book he suffers by comparison with the
graphic power of Mr. Kingsley's 'At Last,' yet fresh in the memory of
all readers. The book is to be accepted, therefore, simply as a
blue-book of useful information. The question is one of interest and
importance; it affects our national honour and philanthropy. It is
'whether an artificial system for the transfer of the swarming hives
of Eastern Asia to the needy plains of the tropical West can be
formed, organized, and conducted with results equally efficacious to
the capitalists and beneficial to the emigrants.'
Although Mr. Jenkins thinks that Mr. Des Voeux's statement, made
under fear, as he says, of a coolie rising, are exaggerated, and that
his examination before the commissioners 'proved to be of a very
unsatisfactory character,' that he had written 'a very long and
serious letter, with the honestest of intentions but with the least
business-like of performance,' he thinks that there was a necessity
for the inquiry, and that 'the severe animadversions on Mr. Des
Voeux's conduct, in the report of the commissioners, was beyond the
proper sphere of their duty;' also that, 'on one or two points,
absolute justice does not seem to have been done him in the report.'
Mr. Jenkins describes his voyage out, several farms which he visited,
the proceedings before the commissioner, the organization for
emigration in India and in British Guiana, with the management of the
emigration office, indentures, registers, &c., women and marriages,
emigration laws, remedies against employers, wages, medical
inspection, &c., illustrating each by facts, anecdotes which may not
be always facts, and various details. He also traces the growth of the
coolie system from the time of the abolition of slavery, and discusses
the apprenticeship and other provisions for its regulation. The home
Government has refused to subsidize the emigration; hence it has been
in a state of chronic feud with the colony. The details given by Mr.
Jenkins in his appendix, under the head 'Review of Emigration,' are of
a very grave and ominous character. First he tells us that 'every
importation of African blood, whether aboriginal or West Indian, has
from the first regularly disappointed its promoters; the causes 'lie
partly in the character of the negro, partly in the incapacity of the
old labour system for adaptation to a state of things in which the
labourers had become free.' In 1839, a society was formed to procure
emigrants without the aid of the State; 2,900 labourers were obtained
from Barbadoes, and thirty from the United States. The emigrants were
speedily absorbed into the mass of village population. In 1841, bounty
was paid on 8,098 emigrants, chiefly Portuguese, from Madeira and
Brazil; the mortality was appalling, and under an act of disallowance
in October of the same year, public emigration came to an end. In
1844, Acts were passed providing for Chinese and coolie emigration,
and the next year 563 emigrants came from Calcutta, and 225 from
Madras. In the following year nearly 6,000 Portuguese emigrants
arrived, together with 1,373 from Calcutta, and 2,455 from Madras.
They were 'ravaged by disease, and literally decimated year by year in
the process of acclimatization.' Between 1845 and 1851, 18,707
Madeirans had been imported. The census of 1851 showed that only 7,928
were in the colony; some, however, had returned to their native
country. The quinquennial increase in the number of Indian emigrants
arriving during each of the four periods 1851-1855, 1856-1861,
1861-1865, 1806-1870, is represented by the figures 9,000, 14,000,
18,000, and 24,000. In 1853, besides the Indians, 647 Chinese were
added, and in the seven years 1859-1866, about 12,000 more. The
Chinese have proved very valuable emigrants. About 10,000 Barbadians,
12 Portuguese, and 2,500 Africans, made an estimated rural population
of 92,466. The death-rate is very high, never less than 10 per cent.
The proportion of women to men among the coolies in British Guiana is
as 10,000 to 29,000, among the Chinese as 2 to 114. The detailed evils
resulting from this, given in Mr. Jenkins's chapter on the subject,
are appalling. Mr. Jenkins also quotes from the _Pioneer of India_ an
ugly story concerning Jamaica emigration agents, who attempted in
India to carry off some twenty women by force, whom they had got into
confinement; and were defeated only by the energy of the Rev. Mr.
Evans. Although women are almost useless as labourers, it is a
suspicious fact that the fee for each woman recruited in India is
seven rupees, while that for a man is only four. We cannot discuss the
various points of emigration policy advocated by Mr. Jenkins; we can
only thank him for directing public attention to a matter so deeply
affecting our colonial future on the one hand, and our national honour
on the other.
_Westward by Rail; a Journey to San Francisco and Back, and a Visit to
the Mormons._ By W. T. RAE. Longmans, Green, and Co.
In a new introductory chapter to this second and cheaper edition of
his book, concerning which, on its first appearance, we spake with
strong and merited commendation, Mr. Rae gives additional information
concerning the Mormons, and the effect produced upon Mormonism by the
new railway, by the Mormon revolt under Mr. Godbe and the sons of
Joseph Smith, and by the vigorous policy of the United States
Government. Mr. Rae does not think that it has sustained much damage
by either. Brigham Young said that he did not 'care anything for a
religion which could not stand a railroad.' Mr. Godbe's reform is
brought under suspicion by its commercial motive, and was checkmated
by Brigham Young giving the electoral franchise to women. The chief
perils to Mormonism are the successful assertion of the control of the
Mormon militia by Governor Schaffer, and some decisions of Chief
Justice McKean securing absolute impartiality between Mormon and
Gentile in the law courts, refusing to naturalize any aliens who are
polygamists, and refusing to legalize certain donations of public land
made by the Mormon Legislative Assembly. The recent census gives a
population in Salt Lake City of 17,246 persons, in the territory of
Utah of 86,786, both much below the calculation of the Mormons
themselves.
Mr. Rae also gives the latest information concerning gold and silver
mining in the States of California and Nevada, and the territory of
Utah, and concerning the development of traffic on the Great Pacific
Railway.
_Canoe Travelling: Log of a Cruise in the Baltic, and Practical Hints
in Building and Fitting Canoes._ By WARINGTON BADEN-POWELL. With
Twenty-four Illustrations and a Map. Smith, Elder, and Co.
The canoe achievements of Mr. McGregor--and perhaps even more the
graphic way in which they have been described--have provoked much
emulation, and bid fair to raise canoeing into one of our
characteristic national recreations, like yachting and Alpine
climbing. Mr. Baden-Powell records a remarkable achievement of 400
miles of canoeing in the Baltic. Starting from Gothenburg in the
Cattegat, on the western coast of Sweden, he and his companion took
their two canoes up the river Gotha, and across the large inland lake
Wevern, 100 miles long, which they crossed in a steamer; then through
the West Gotha Canal, and across the Lakes Wicken and Wettern, Boven,
Roxen, and Elen, with their connecting canals, to the Baltic; then
along the north coast of the Baltic, with its innumerable islets, and
up the Oxlo Sound to Stockholm. From Stockholm they went by steamer to
Gothland, Carlsharm, and Malmo, from which place they crossed in the
canoes to Copenhagen, thence by railway and steamer to Ketson, Kiel,
and Hamburg, where, after some short river canoe excursions, they took
steamer to England. The account of the voyage is little more than a
log of sailing experiences, with slight touches of description of
people and places; but it will be read with interest by all who are
fond of boating, and by many who are not. The second part of the book
is purely technical, and furnishes data for the construction of
canoes.