But, whether just or not, the plain truth is that the House of Commons would not have sanctioned a second time the payment of over-regulation prices. In the interest of the officers themselves, therefore, in the interest of the House of Lords also, but, most of all, in the interest of the army and of the nation, the Government was bound to avail itself of any legal means which might enable it to prevent the mischief that could not fail to follow from the rash vote of the House of Lords. Ministers accordingly advised the Queen to abolish purchase by royal warrant, which was at once done. This has been called acoup d'état, and a display of 'high-handed despotism.' But no one whose opinion is worth anything has ventured to question the legality of the act. Sir Roundell Palmer, whose absence from the House of Commons at the time was supposed to indicate his disapproval, has given the high sanction of his authority, not only to the legality, but to the advisability, under the circumstances, of what the Ministry had done. But though the legality of the act has not been disputed, a chorus of voices in and out of Parliament have pronounced it 'unconstitutional.' It is not easy to see the distinction. An unconstitutional act we take to mean an act perpetrated in violation of the constitution. But what part of the constitution has been infringed, either in letter or in spirit, by the exercise of the royal warrant in the abolition of purchase in the army? The purchase system was created by royal warrant, nor has it ever rested on any other sanction. Constitutionally and legally, therefore, all that was required for its abolition was merely the withdrawal of the warrant which gave it existence; and that is precisely what has been done. Constitutional or legal objection there is none that can bear a moment's examination, and the whole matter resolves itself into a question of expediency. Those who consider the purchase system the mainstay of the British army will, of course, be of opinion that it was highly inexpedient to abolish it. Others, however, who prefer to look at the question in the light of facts rather than of theory and sentiment, will say that it was expedient to abolish at the earliest moment in which it could legally be done, a system whose history is such as we have described, and the continuance of which for another year, after all that had taken place, would have been fraught with evil to public morality, and have effectually prevented in the interval all possibility of reorganizing the army.
But the sting of the royal warrant abolishing purchase in the army lay doubtless in the fact that it was only exercised after theconsent of Parliament had been previously asked, and (by the Lords) refused. And if this humiliation had been put upon the House of Lords wantonly, and without sufficient cause, the Government would have merited very severe censure. But was there not a sufficient cause? In the first place, the abolition of purchase was part of a large scheme, which embraced,inter alia, a very liberal offer of compensation for the extinction of the vested interests which the officers of the army had illegally contracted. It seemed, therefore, more respectful to the House of Commons, which was asked to vote the money, that the scheme of the Government should be submitted to it in its integrity; and there is no doubt, we apprehend, that if the House of Commons had met the second reading of the bill by a vote similar to that which was carried in the House of Lords, the Government would have bowed to the decision. But the question assumed quite a different aspect after the bill had been affirmed, in all its essential features, by decisive majorities in the House of Commons. It was then in the power of the Government to abolish purchase by royal warrant, and to send the bill, thus disencumbered of its bone of contention, up to the House of Lords. But the Lords would certainly have resented such treatment even more indignantly than they did the subsequent rescinding of their vote. So the bill was presented to them as it left the lower House; and they met it, not by a direct negative, not even by an amendment affirming the expediency of retaining the purchase system, but by a motion for delay. The debate which followed, however, clearly showed that the majority in the upper House were in reality fighting, not for more information, but for the retention of the purchase system. The consequence of yielding to their injudicious vote would therefore have been simply the waste of a precious twelvemonth; for everybody admitted that the purchase system was doomed, and could not survive another year. But it would have been much more satisfactory if it could have been abolished by Act of Parliament, for its resurrection would have been a moral impossibility; whereas, as matters now stand, it may be revived any moment by the same process which has for the time destroyed it. This consideration alone seems to us to be a sufficient justification for the course which the Government took. The abolition of purchase by Act of Parliament was the more excellent way, and the Government was right in trying it before availing itself of its last resource in the royal warrant. And certainly the officers are the last persons who ought to complain of what has been done; for there can be little doubt that if the Government had begun by abolishing purchase it would have found it hard, in the absence of aquid pro quo, to persuade the House of Commons to sanction the swollen estimates which compensation for over-regulation prices necessitated. The Lords, too, if they would only consider the matter calmly, would see reason to be grateful to a Government which has rescued them from much obloquy and from a most dangerous agitation. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the rejection of the Ballot Bill and of the Army Bill in one session would have gravely imperilled the existence of the House of Lords, at least in its present form. But the unavoidable mortification which the Government was compelled to inflict upon it served to appease the public resentment, and even to create a certain degree of sympathy in favour of our hereditary legislators.
The limits of our space forbid us to do more than notice very cursorily the remaining Ministerial achievements of the session. We do not know what others may think, but our own opinion is that the University Tests Bill is at least as important a measure as the Divorce Bill, which was about the sole legislative triumph of the session of 1857. To the readers of theBritish Quarterly, at all events, that session will not appear a barren one which has thrown open to Nonconformists the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Nor will the working classes quarrel seriously with a session which has given them the Trades' Unions Bill. The repeal of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill may be considered a small matter. But the passage of it through Parliament consumed the best part of a session, and disturbed the peace of the three kingdoms. It was, moreover, a stride backward in civilization, for it was one of those attempts, against which Nonconformists have always protested, to defend the truth by the carnal weapons of penal legislation. It was also the commencement of a retrograde policy towards Ireland. When the Queen visited that country, and on several other occasions, the territorial titles of the Irish Roman Catholic bishops were freely recognised in official documents. The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill made them penal, and the result was what men of sense predicted at the the time. The bill became a dead letter; for it was systematically violated, because it was too absurd and too antagonistic to the principles of religious liberty to be enforced. There was a moral fitness in its repeal, under the Premiership of Mr. Gladstone, for hiswas the great speech which exposed its mischief and its incongruities when it was passing through the House of Commons.
The Ballot Bill can hardly be reckoned among the achievements of the session, since it has failed to become law; but it is certainly one of the achievements of the Government. It was carried through the House of Commons by overwhelming majorities, and it is not the fault of the Government that it is not now on the statute book. The Ministry was blamed for pressing it on, knowing that the Lords would reject it; but the Ministry had no such knowledge. On the contrary, there was some reason to believe that the Peers would have been satisfied with thwarting one of the capital measures of the session. But even if the Government had felt morally certain that the Lords would reject the Ballot Bill, we still insist that they were bound to go on with it. Nothing did so much to damage the prestige of Parliamentary Government, and to exasperate the working classes against the old Parliament as thedolce far nientepolicy of the Palmerstonianrégime. Lord Palmerston's adroitness consisted mainly in combining the maximum of liberal promises with the minimum of liberal fulfilment. He took up measures to conciliate the more Liberal of the electors, and dropped them to conciliate the majority of the House of Commons. More valuable, therefore, even than the passage of the Ballot Bill into law, is the assurance which the conduct of the Government has given that it was thoroughly in earnest. But it was contended in influential quarters that the sincerity of the Government was sufficiently evinced by the second reading of the bill, and ministers were accordingly advised to suspend all further progress of the bill, and resume it again at that stage next session. Besides other objections to that proposal, it is enough to say of it that it is founded on a misconception of the powers of the Government. It is the simple fact that the Government had no power to do what it was so persistently advised to do. A proposal was made in 1861 that some power of that kind should be given by statute to either House of Parliament. But the House of Commons rejected the proposal on account of 'the grave and numerous objections' to it, and particularly because 'this suspending power in either House of Parliament, if exercised at its own discretion, would be at variance with the prerogative of the Crown.'
Mr. Bruce's Licensing Bill has been considered one of the chief failures of the session; and we do not wish to conceal our opinion that there were some tactical blunders in the management of it; but they were blunders which are in a great degree excusable by the peculiar circumstances of the session. It was, in our humble judgment, a blunder to introduce such a bill without a determination to deliver a decisive battle upon it; for the introduction of the bill roused the opposition of a powerful and thoroughly organized class interest, while the withdrawal of it alienated those to whom the Government looked for support. Mr. Bruce's excuse, and it is so far valid, is that the unexpected tactics of the Opposition in respect to the Army Bill wasted so much of the session that there was no opportunity to fight the battle of the Licensing Bill as he had intended to have fought it. The bill itself appears to us to be a fair compromise, and we have no doubt that it was calculated to do much good. The brewers and publicans have gained a victory for the moment, and they have the satisfaction of having beaten the Government candidate in East Surrey; but their victory is likely to prove a Pyrrhic one. It has opened the eyes of the public to the ruin which the excessive indulgence in intoxicating drinks is causing, and the more the question is discussed, the less reason will the publicans have for rejoicing over the defeat of Mr. Bruce's bill. The yearly sum spent on intoxicating liquors in the United Kingdom has now reached the enormous and portentous figure of £110,000,000, and the annual committals for drunkenness amounted in the year 1869 to 122,310. These are frightful facts; and if the interests of the publicans stand in the way of a thorough remedy, so much the worse for the interests of the publicans. Let the Government take away the licensing power from the magistrates, and commit the question to the management of local boards elected by the ratepayers, and we will undertake to say that the publicans will be checkmated politically in the first place, and that we shall witness, in the second place, a rapid decrease in their unholy traffic. Before dismissing the subject, however, it is right to remind our readers that Mr. Bruce's bill did not perish utterly. A portion, and a very valuable portion, of it is now law, and will effectually check the increase of public houses, and at the same time help to diminish the number of those already existing.
We have now glanced through the principal measures of the session, and we confidently ask whether it is not true that both in respect to the quantity and the quality of the work done it will bear a favourable comparison with the large majority of Parliamentary sessions during the last forty years. And yet it cannot be denied that the Government has incurred a certain amount ofunpopularity. How is this to be explained? A general answer may be given, to the effect that a Liberal Government which is in earnest is sure to incur some degree of unpopularity; for itsraison d'êtreis to attack abuses wherever it may find them. Its business is to do what is best for the nation at large in the first place, and to consider the interests of particular sections of the nation in the second place. But the interests concerned, as was natural, view the matter in a different light. They object to be relegated to the second place, for they prefer their own welfare to that of the nation, and, like the brewers the other day, are ready, whenever their pockets are menaced, to subordinate the interest of their party to that of their trade. The Government, to use a common expression, has 'trodden on the corns' of several powerful interests, and has thereby incurred their resentment. But it must be owned that it was from Mr. Lowe's budget that the Government received its first serious blow. Our own opinion is that incompetent as it was the budget attracted to itself a good deal of unmerited obloquy. But we feel bound, at the same time, to express our conviction that if Mr. Lowe knew human nature better, or took less pains to exasperate it, he might have produced a budget which would have strengthened instead of weakened the Government. As it was, the Government never quite recovered the prestige which Mr. Lowe's financial blunders had lost them. Then came a series of naval disasters, for which the Government was somehow considered responsible, though it really had no more to do with them than it had with the eruption of Vesuvius.[68]Then the persistent cry of extravagant expenditure, raised by the Conservatives, and echoed by their small band of allies among the Radicals, had some effect. Yet there never was a more dishonest cry. Though the present Government came into office in the end of the year 1868, the naval and military estimates for the ensuing year were prepared by their predecessors, and they reached the respectable figure of twenty-six millions sterling. And this, be it remembered, was in a period of profound peace. Mr. Gladstone's Government had to prepare the estimates for 1870, and the result showed a reduction from £26,000,000 to £21,000,000, with a marked improvement, at the same time, in the efficiency both of the army and navy. It is true, that in consequence of the complications arising out of the Franco-German war, two millions more were added to the estimates in the course of the summer. But no Government can be held responsible for expenditure caused by unforeseen emergencies: and, moreover, the expenditure in question was demanded by the country generally, and cannot in fairness be laid at the door of the Government. The upshot of the whole matter, however, is that the Government now in office reduced, on the first opportunity, the estimates of their predecessors by upwards of £4,000,000, and that, in spite of the expenditure occasioned by a gigantic Continental war, and a thorough reorganization of the army, the estimates are still considerably below the figure which the Tory Government reached in the midst of an universal peace abroad, and in the absence of any extraordinary expenditure at home. And yet Tory politicians, in and out of Parliament, have rent the air with their cries against the 'wasteful and extravagant expenditure' of the Government. Were it not for the war on the Continent, and the cost of abolishing the purchase system, and putting the army on a new basis, it is not too much to say that the navy and army estimates of this year would have been £7,000,000 lower than those which the Conservative Government bequeathed to Mr. Gladstone. We believe, however, that the exceptional expenditure of this session is neither 'wasteful' nor 'extravagant.' It is like the wise outlay of a skilful husbandman who drains and manures his barren land, in the sure confidence that it will repay him tenfold. The new basis on which the Government is reorganizing the army will give us in a few years a force which will free us from the recurrence of those periodical panics whichmake us the laughing-stock of other nations, and which always involve for the time being a large, but perfectly useless, expenditure. Already our navy is admitted, even by the political opponents of the Government, to be more than a match for all the navies of the world put together; and, under the wise administration of our present rulers, the army also will soon be in a condition to maintain our just influence abroad, and make the invasion of these isles a practical impossibility.
On the whole, then, we believe that the unpopularity which has overtaken the Government this session, is for the most part, undeserved; and we believe in the next place that the unpopularity is mainly confined to certain political cliques and class interests, which the Government, in the prosecution of its plain duty, has unavoidably offended. Through a combination of these causes, a general election at this moment might lose the Government a score of seats all over the country; but it would not seriously shake its position. The nation has not lost its confidence in Mr. Gladstone, and it will think twice before it makes up its mind to exchange him for Mr. Disraeli. The journal 'written by gentlemen for gentlemen' has recently told us in one of its oracular manifestoes, that 'the whole London press has become thoroughly suspicious of Mr. Gladstone's strength and fitness for the place which, for the want of any tolerable competitor, he holds at his own discretion.' We have heard and read this sort of language before. 'The whole London press,' or rather that portion of it which is fortunate enough to receive theimprimaturof thePall-Mall Gazette, pronounced the same verdict on Mr. Gladstone five years ago. And the result was, that those confiding politicians who trusted in the sagacity of 'the whole London press' either lost their seats in Parliament, or had to sit on the stool of repentance and vow eternal allegiance to Mr. Gladstone. Let those, therefore, who mayhap are contemplating a repetition of the same experiment meditate on the history of the Adullamites, and be wise in time. The country has its eye on that knot of atrabilious Liberals whose voice is that of Jacob, but whose hands are the hands of Esau. They may declare,ore rotundo, that they have no confidence in Mr. Gladstone. Let them have a care lest the next general election prove that the country has no confidence in them.
To sum up, then, the claims of the Government during the past year on the continued confidence of the nation. It succeeded in limiting the area of the war between France and Germany, and, while upholding the dignity of the country, preserved to us the blessings of peace. By the treaty of Washington it has laid the foundation of a cordial understanding and a lasting friendship with the great American Republic. It has passed several measures for the benefit of Ireland which will surely help, as they become thoroughly understood, to lay the demon of disaffection in that impulsive, but not ungenerous people. Then what shall we say of the Army Bill? Its importance is gauged by the unparalleled resistance which it encountered in Parliament, and in times less exacting than the present its success would have made the fortune of an ordinary administration. On the other hand, the Trades' Unions Bill, the University Tests Bill, the Repeal of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, and the Local Government Board Bill, (a most valuable piece of legislation) are the quality of bills which ordinarily constitute the work of a session. And, in addition to these outward and visible signs of ministerial toil, the separate departments of the Government have, each in its place, done an immense amount of that kind of work which makes no appeal to public notice, but which is none the less valuable because it works in silence. The Poor-law Board, the Admiralty, and Mr. Cardwell's department have all laboured incessantly, and the fruit of their labour is already becoming visible in the better management of our workhouses, and in the increased efficiency of our army and navy. Nor must we forget the excellent reforms which Mr. Monsell has already made in the Post Office, and which entitle him at no distant day to a seat in the Cabinet. We maintain, therefore, that the Government may, without any remorse, sit down with a good conscience to frame the programme of the coming session. The only serious danger which they have ahead of them is the question of Irish education; and that is a question which can well wait awhile. But if it must be tackled next session, we see no reason why the genius which solved the church and land questions should not be equal to solving that of education also. The danger of the Government lies in the inconsistent conduct of the Opposition, who advocate the application to Ireland of principles which are totally opposed to those for which they contend in the case of England. Still, it does not appear to us that the question of Irish education presents any insurmountable difficulty, provided the same statesmanlike principles are brought to bear upon it which have already solved the vexed problems of land tenure and religious equality. In short, a good budget and a moderate programme will enable the Government to make thenext session—we will not say more fruitful, but—more popular than the last.
Contemporary Literature.
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND TRAVELS.
Short Studies on Great Subjects.ByJames 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 ofFrazer, 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 aquasichampion 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 heroicfaith, 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 anec cum te nec sine tefeeling. 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 oddlyto themhis address must have sounded! History as ahortus 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. ByW. H. S. Aubrey. Vol. I. J. Hagger.
Of the historian, as of the poet, it is emphatically truenascitur 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 northeir 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.—thefons et origoof 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.ByHenry Hallam, LL.D.Incorporating in the text the Author's latest Researches, with Additions from recent Writers, and adapted to the use of Students. ByWilliam 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.ByRobert 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, toweredover 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.'
'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 histime. 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 from1848–1852;with a Sketch of the Revolution of1848. By the lateNassau 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 asfacile 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 theipsissima verbaof 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 assiduouslyprepared 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 thecoup d'étatof 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 hiscoup d'étatof 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 thecoup d'étatwhich 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, thecoup d'étatmight 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 volumeshave 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, whichinsultent 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 theateliers nationauxwere 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 byThomas Landseer, A.R.A. Hurst and Blackett.
Mr. Landseer is not so careful as he should be to tell us that his hero is nottheBewick 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 aMurillo 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 paintlargeworks 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 thereal motherin 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 artisticallycloseas 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 Ioughtto 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,indeedhe 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 LordCarlisle's indignation at the thought that he wanted to dine withhim—'What does the fellow mean? Does he want to dine withme? 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 interestingana, 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 byCharlotte 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 penetratesthe 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.'