Under this system the representation of the best towns | The improbability here cuts two ways, and truth, as we all I wish by no means to undervalue drill, but there is drill and counties has become stuffed with a set of political know, is not always like the truth. It was not likely that and drill, that of the level parade-ground and that of the nonentities, utterly helpless on occasions of emergency a dignitary of the Church in the dress of his rank would field, and it is in the first that our regiments chiefly excel to to take an efficient part in directing or modifying go into an ale-house with a common soldier, some years like to see their battalions looking well, are flattered by the disadvantage of the latter. Colonels and Lieut.-Colonels opinion, utterly powerless to originate or carry any ago. It was not likely that any man in his senses would the praises which Inspecting Generals bestow on steadiness specific improvement which their constituents may need, have acted as a certain member of Parliament did more and precision, and therefore neglect that promptitude of and utterly useless at all times to stimulate the Minister recently on Constitution hill, under the eyes of the word and action upon which (though at the sacrifice of some of the day to good deeds, or to check him when passengers and police in Piccadilly. symmetry of motion) the success of battles must depend. drifting into bad ones. The raw materials of this impostor In the Yelverton case, it may be remembered, there was The shortcomings of our soldiers are, then, not to be attriband are sometimes well-born, often wealthy, and generally a scene on the deck of a packet which would have been buted to the science of drill, but to the pedantry with which what is called highly respectable. We have no objection pronounced most improbable if it had not been confessed it is encumbered. Unity of action, for instance, is most to to any or all of these attributes; but we must insist by the parties, as what passed might have been seen by be desired; but if for the sake of perfect unity the action is upon it, that any or all of them taken together do not con- the seamen and others moving about, but yet escaped delayed until too late, where is the gain? The pains taken to obtain smart volley firing offers another example of this stitute a presumption that a man is qualified to sit for a observation. error; it is very fine, no doubt, on a field-day, to hear a great and intelligent community in the Commons' House of hundred rifles go off as one, but if in the face of an enemy Parliament; and we shall never cease repeating what we accuracy of aim were sacrificed to unity of sound, where have more than once of late felt it to be our duty to urge, would be the gain? True science, like everything else, that until constituencies shall cease to look for leather and degenerates under exclusiveness, science to pedantry and prunella they are not likely to find men fit to do any work blind following of precedent; and so it is that military for them that is worth doing. science has fallen so far below common sense. But here was the conflict between positive direct evidence and the negative circumstantial. Of the many who could have seen what Heane swore to have passed, none had seen. The question before the Court-Martial was whether Heane's story was to be believed, improbable as were the In conclusion, it is worthy of remark that the real efficiency circumstances; and the very same question was before the of our Volunteer corps is in inverse ratio to their disregard Court of Queen's Bench, upon precisely the same evidence of pipe-clay. Your constant readers will not have forgotten or absence of evidence. The issue was a terrible one for some strong remarks you made some time since when a regithe young men. If Armitage was innocent Heane was a ment which had served abroad with honour was censured perjured villain, who had ruined his brother officer by the by a stay-at-home Inspecting General because the men did very wickedest of false accusations. If Armitage was not hold the butts of their muskets far enough back. guilty his guilt was double, for, added to his disgusting FABER. offence was the crime of the false accusation of perjury to ruin his accuser. Correspondence. AUSTRIA. Proceedings of the Reichsrath. In the Upper House of the Reichsrath on Saturday a debate took place on the credit demanded by Government to cover the expenses of Federal execution. Cardinal Rauscher and Count Hartig advocated the maintenance of the London protocol. They declared that it must be respected similarly as other treaties. Both speakers considered that Germany should be thankful to the great German Powers for undertaking the occupation of Slesvig in the interests of European peace. Count Rechberg asserted that the credit already granted would suffice, as nothing more was to be apprehended in Slesvig from the enemy. The Lower House at its last sitting consented that forty million florins should be provided by loan towards the expenses of 1864. Speech of the Emperor. In the late contest for Brighton the Tories had the advantage of a triple schism in the popular ranks. What the precise objects or motives of Mr Dumas may have been, in having himself put forward by the well-known election agent Mr Ackland, it would be tiresome and to little purpose to inquire. He did his utmost, no doubt, to weaken the Liberals and to let in the Tory; but, after all, none can say he did it. It required more money and effrontery than he is supposed to have at command to make safe the return of Mr Moor. The man to do the business We do not wonder that the jury could not agree upon Mr Disraeli wanted done was found in Mr Julian Goldsmid, a verdict of such fearful import one way or the other. the still recent obligations of whose race and creed to There were two other characters concerned, and Armithe party he has betrayed, if no other considerations, tage's counsel alleged conspiracy; but if there had been ought to have restrained him. It is really rather conspiracy, would not one false witness have deposed that soon for the synagogue to forget the history of Jewish he saw what another had resented; would the conduct emancipation. No objection has been hitherto raised to charged have wanted corroborative evidence? It is a sad members of their community when seeking to become case, from which judgment shrinks, and it may best rest candidates. But it would not take much to rekindle pre- where the jury's doubts left it. judices that must inevitably work their exclusion from Parliament more effectually than any form of oath was in past times able to do. Let them be warned by the The Session of the Reichsrath was closed on Monday by the Emperor in a Speech from the Throne, of which the following is a summary: example of a more numerous and in many respects a far THE ESSAYS AND REVIEWS' JUDGMENT. He said that in these eventful times he felt the want of seeing the less unacceptable body. This is the five-and-thirtieth year representatives of the country before the close of the Session, and exsince Catholic emancipation. Among the noblest and Sir, Many, perhaps, may be at a loss to know why the pressed particular satisfaction at the presence of the Transylvanian wealthiest families in Great Britain Catholics are to be Judicial Committee of Privy Council should have been so deputies, and continued, "I have observed with great satisfaction the found, as well as throughout every grade of the middle and careful to assent, both at the beginning and end of their material and intellectual progress made by Austria during the past working classes. In many places they form no incon-judgment in the cases of Dr Williams and Mr Wilson, that Session. The distress in some parts of Hungary has filled my heart their judgment was confined to the extracts left in the with grief." He expressed his thanks for the support and sympathy siderable portion of the population. Yet, for no county, articles of charge as reformed by Dr Lushington. It is so he had received from the whole monarchy, and said: " Although the city, or borough, in England, Scotland, or Wales, can a thoroughly and generally taken for granted that our judicial Session has not been remarkable for the work accomplished, it has not Roman Catholic gentleman find a seat with the single courts do not travel beyond the terms of the prosecution, been unfruitful, some important Bills having already been sanctioned. exception of the nominee hamlet of Arundel, for which the that we are tempted to think that these saving clauses must Eastern Galicia and the Bukowina will have the advantage of railways, Duke of Norfolk might if he pleased return his groom. We have been inserted for the special gratification of the Arch has been passed, and the increase of taxes and dues for the extraordi and a line will also be constructed in Transylvania. The financial law shall not deny that we regret such should be the case; but we bishops. But although it is perfectly true that the Judicial nary wants of the State has been agreed to by you. Financial reforms must add that we much more regret the cause. In an evil Committee had to consider only "the meagre and disjointed are reserved for the next Session. Most serious events have directed hour for their political fortune the Roman Catholic body extracts" left by Dr Lushington, it would be a mistake to our attention to the state of affairs abroad. I have neglected nothing suppose that these extracts only have received an acquittal. in order to maintain the precious blessing of peace. The mission of were tempted to set up a separate and selfish interest of The prosecutor, in the first instance, ransacked the whole of Austria is to be strong against any attack, but to raise the voice of their own, regardless of the fate of the Liberal party to the two Essays, and brought up a sheaf of extracts which peace in the council of nations. Our friendly relations with the great whom they owed their equality in the eye of the law. A were anything but meagre or disjointed. Of these Dr Powers of Europe promise the complete attainment of this object. The steady and settled conviction was thus engendered, neither Lushington rejected the greater number,-in other words, he crisis which for years threatened to occur between Germany and logical nor reasonable, but inevitable and irresistible, that decided that no charge of heresy could be founded upon Government to exercise a conciliatory influence. In conformity with Denmark has resulted in war, notwithstanding the endeavours of my as between competing candidates Protestants should in all them. A few more were rejected at the hearing of the the vote of the Federal Diet, I have, as a German Prince, taken part in cases be preferred. If our Jewish friends-whose just Judicial Committee, and the remainder were thrown out by the Federal execution, and, in concert with the King of Prussia, the battles we are at all times ready to fight-do not mind the final judgment. Inasmuch, therefore, as all portions of Duchy of Slesvig has been occupied as a pledge. The excellent conwhat they are about, they may continue to rejoice in the Dr Lushington's decision, not formally excluded by the last duct and bravery of the allied armies have achieved brilliant results. removal from the Statute Book of all traces of disability; these two Essays at least furnish no ground for any charge of conquest, but from the attainment of the just objects which are known decision, are confirmed by it, it follows that the whole of My joy on this account does not spring from ambition and love of but at elections where there is a free choice, they are not heresy. But no one, probably, ever supposed for a moment to Europe. I confidently hope that the results achieved will secure likely to be recognised as of the chosen race. By their that the Judicial Committee were called upon to pronounce on a happy future to countries the rights of which have long been violated, unscrupulous conduct at Brighton they have succeeded in the mere tendency of any book. The day is rather too late adding another supporter to Toryism in Parliament. Mr for constructive heresy or constructive treason. Goldsmid never had a chance of being himself returned; but if, through any pardonable delusion, he and his adherents had imagined that he had one for the first two hours of the day of polling, they must after that time have been undeceived. There still remained a sufficient number of persons one way or other subject to their influence who, by voting for Mr Fawcett, would have secured him a majority; but this they were not suffered to do, and the result is what we see. EVIDENCE AGAINST PROBABILITY. L A curious question between direct positive evidence and negative circumstantial evidence appears in the trial of the Mr Queen v. Heane, in the Court of Queen's Bench. Armitage, a young naval officer, who had commenced his career meritoriously, was charged by three officers with conduct of a nature not to be described, tried by a CourtMartial, convicted of two of the three charges, and dismissed the service. Under the Naval Discipline Act he proceeds against one of his accusers, Mr Heane, for wilful false evidence, an offence not distinguishable from perjury, but which, for proof, does not, like perjury, require two witnesses. This proceeding involved a new trial of all the circumstances on which the Court-Martial had decided when they found Armitage guilty of the conduct charged against him by Heane. That charge, on the face of it, was highly improbable. The place of the alleged offence was the deck of the ship, at night, where all that passed might have been seen by the sentry on the bridge, or others, if their attention had been directed to the spot. Was it likely that Armitage would have run such a risk of instant detection and exposure? Unhappily there are too many and will not endanger the peace of Europe in a more extended sphere." The Emperor said, in conclusion: "Austria has shown that in her heritance of her strength and glory abides with her on the new path of rejuvenated form she preserves her good old spirit, and that the inliberty which she has entered. THE GERMAN STATES. The importance of the decision is known to all; but the Saturday Review, in its anxiety to show that really there is very little in all that has been going on of late, has fallen into the strange blunder of asserting that all the members of the Judicial Committee are "distinguished lawyers." This all lovers of fair and free discussion must feel grateful. But is a complete ignoring of three ecclesiastics, to one of whom At the sitting of the Federal Diet on the 13th the representative of with their gratitude to the Bishop of London, they will feel Oldenburg brought in a motion referring to the march of Prussian some gratitude, of a somewhat different kind, to the Bishops the authorities. The motion was appointed to be debated at the next troops through the principality of Lubeck, in spite of the protest of of Oxford and St David's, for it is, I believe, pretty generally sitting of the Diet. Notice was received from General von Hake, comknown that the Bishop of Oxford was the prime mover of manding the Federal troops in Holstein, and from the Federal Comthe celebrated circular of the Bishops, which sold so many missioners in that duchy, of the occupation of Altona by two battalions editions of 'Essays and Reviews,' and that when he requested of Prussian troops. Protests were handed in by various members the Bishop of London to subscribe to it. the latter said that against this occupation. The Saxon representative complained that he would follow the judgment of Bishop Thirlwall. On some the measures adopted were in direct contradiction to the express grounds, the wisdom of which is best known to himself, the promises of Austria and Prussia, and without the consent of the Diet. Bishop of St David's put his name to it; the Bishop of He moved that these promises should be fulfilled, the authority of the London added his, and the rest obediently followed the Confederation be secured, and that the reserves (Austria and Prussia) example thus set to them. The result is that some questions Federal troops. The Austrian and Prussian representatives declared which had left the army of execution should be replaced by other have now been decided which, but for this step, might have that the promises made should in no way be infringed by the Prussian remained unsettled for years, and possibly have torn the occupation. The Federal Commissioners in Holstein have since stated, Church of England in pieces. It is not right that the Bishop in reply to the communication dated the 9th inst. from the committee of Oxford should go without the thanks which he deserves. on the affairs of that duchy, that they would resign should they have I am, &c., PRESBYTER ANGLICANUS. lost the confidence of the Federal Diet. February 16, 1864. In Thursday's sitting it was resolved that an embargo should be placed on Danish shipping in German ports, in consequence of the embargo laid by the Danes on German shipping not belonging to Austria and Prussia. The Diet also decided to appoint a committee to will be elected at the next sitting of the Diet. examine the complaint made by the Grand Duke of Oldenburg against Prussia for infraction of territory. The members of the committee Hesse Darmstadt. BLACK SKINS versus RED COATS. their boasted discipline and valour, our troops, when opposed Sir,It is worth while to inquire how it is that, with all to savages, so often come off no better than second-best. The solution of the mystery will, I venture to think, be found in Molière's play. The enemy will push in tierce while we In the sitting of the Lower House, on the 16th, the Government are parrying in quarte. They have not the politeness to was called upon to press for the settlement in the Federal Diet of the wait while our men are being put through the motions, Slesvig-Holstein succession question, which had been unaccountably secundum artem, to bring them into the proper positions for delayed. It was also demanded that the Government should in any attack or defence, but either assail them when unprepared, or behalf, and, in concert with the other Governments faithful to the Con case at once recognize Duke Frederick of Augustenburg Englishmen (so to speak) were required to catch one of Chamber further desired that the Federal force occupying Holstein way; and thus it was that in New Zealand two armies of and their Prince even by the adoption of extreme measures. natives, the first to make them run away and the other to should be increased, and that the Diet should send troops to occupy stop them as they run. Slesvig in common with the two great German Powers. on its own instances of the fallibility of this question. And on the When the reverse is the case prudently move out of harm's federation, maintain the rights of the Diet and those of the Duchies other hand, it may be asked whether, if Heane was trumping up a false accusation, he would not have studied probability more in choosing the place of the offence. The THE LITERARY EXAMINER A REVIEW IN THE ATHENÆUM. "truth to express which is sufficiently raised above men's the fact by which he supports his assertion that there is no "every-day thoughts to appear worth especial notice when just proportion in my book. It is adequately proved, he "it is presented also in men's every-day language?" In says, by "merely turning over the leaves," and observing reviewing a book, of which the writer thus explicitly con- that "the century preceding Chaucer is represented by less For some years past English authors have had to regret it fair to say, without proving upon him one word used for "hundred, to bring the reader up to that period." It may tends again and again for plain, clear, and direct speech, is" than one hundred pages, while it takes more than five the altered character of the chief weekly literary journal. the sake only of ornament, that its distinguishing quality be intended that the reader of the Athenæum, who has Writer after writer is in turn sent away empty when he is "a studied quaintness?" been told nothing of the plan of the book, and being seldom looks to the old familiar columns of the Athenæum for a Having represented, then, the style of the book as being a literary man of the more educated class may have heard fair representation of his work in the just censure and the generous appreciation of an educated fellow-labourer. So studiously made the exact opposite to that which the little of any writers before Chaucer, should marvel at the common is the sense of disappointment, that among literary before himself and his readers as the standard of good with an account of what is represented by a simple blank author in more places than one, and in plain words, sets sense of proportion which would fill five hundred pages men of good repute in their profession, I have no reason to writing, and having represented this as a sort of merit in in his own mind, and leave only a hundred for the days of Since in the profession of letters each individual thrives spite of which the book is invertebrate; the reviewer pro- Wiclif, about whom he has really heard. The fact is that the book, of which the proportions are ceeds to his own little bit of "studied quaintness," in his description of the book as of the "invetebrate order of condemned upon this ground, consists of four-and-twenty "literary productions." He justifies this assertion with the chapters. The first starts in or before the year 500, B.C., following sentence, which is absolutely all that he tells of with those speculations on the origin of the English, the design of the author in a book which it seems to be his whether Celt or Anglo-Saxon, which are now considered own design to have a clear field for misrepresenting at his in University examinations to be a necessary part of the pleasure. He says, "The one idea which Mr Morley attempts study of our language and literature. The second chapter to make the backbone of his performance, namely, that the brings to this country its first Celtic occupants, tells what English mind, one and the same, underlies every section is known of them, divides them into Gael and Cymry, and believe it otherwise than universal. not by the discredit but by the sustained honour of his comrades, I trust that in the few plain words to which I shall here sign my name in personal discussion of a question that does not concern me alone, there will be nothing said that can be mis-interpreted into the expression of a mere private resentment which I do not feel. In the Athenæum for the 13th of February, there appeared an article purporting to be a review of the newly published first volume of my work on English Writers. Whatever its intellectual worth, and upon that head, let it be understood distinctly, that I here intend to raise no question whatever-the mere mechanism of the book showed it to be one upon which its author had spent or must spend before it could be finished, the best produce of the thought and labour of his life. It might seem, therefore, not much to expect that in a journal holding, though it were only by traditional repute, high literary rank, a critic who believed the work to be ill done would show something of what it had attempted, and explain wherein it failed. Of course I had not expected from the Athenæum so much justice as this, and I did not get it, nor a tithe of it. But it so happened that what notice I did get was of a kind that now enables me, without raising one question of critical opinion, without self-commendation, and even without argument, to show distinctly to the public what sort of reviewing it is that has for a time-I hope only for a short time-withdrawn from the Athenæum the respect of almost, or altogether, every reputable English author. It may be that, where it is so much needed, a quickened sense of responsibility will be the result of this exposure, and with that hope it is made. 66 "of our national literature, is as obvious a truism as it is begins the tracing of the Celtic element in our literature patrons. nexion with each other. The existence of such matter the reviewer leaves un At the Now the third page of the volume is headed "Purpose the three kingdoms-English, Welsh, Scotch, Irish-as of this Book," and a paragraph, labelled at the side with the English people, and to discriminate among other inthe same words, contains this sentence, "In these volumes fluences from first to last the influence upon the AngloI desire to convey certain impressions as to the influence Saxon race of contact or admixture with the Celts who exerted upon writers by the mind and fashion of the share the land with them. The same second chapter times in which they lived." In the next page it is proceeds, therefore, to give for the first time in a general written that account of the literature of this country a description of The next chapter Upon historical accidents affecting to a most remarkable extent the ancient literature of the Gaels. fashions of speech, and not upon changes of fixed natural character, gives, also for the first time in such connexion, an we must found the division of a History of English Literature into account of the ancient literature of the Cymry, almost its four periods, namely, entirely representative of the struggle against the inThat of the Formation of the Language, ending with Chaucer; coming of the Anglo-Saxons. In this way, through a That of Italian Influence, felt even in Chaucer's day, but more fairly inaugurated by the " company of courtly makers" who pre-native literature, the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons is ceded the age of Elizabeth; depicted, and the next nine chapters contain, in about That of French Influence, of which the beginning is marked 200 pages, a history of Anglo-Saxon literature, of which, strongly by a change in the style of Dryden subsequent to the Annus whether good or bad, it is evident from its contents that it Mirabilis;' And that of English Popular Influence, which was established was meant to be as complete as it could be made by help of the fresh studies of Anglo-Saxon scholars in England, France, gradually, but which should be dated from Defoe. To the last-named there was added slight admixture of a German and Germany. Upon this follows in continuous narrative influence. The best period of German literature came in aid of the the early history of Anglo-Norman literature, which sets That I may not misrepresent my critic, or leave it to be tendency to revert to what is usually called Saxon English, which out with a chapter upon movement and change among the supposed that something in his review left unquoted would had begun to live again when writers addressed more habitually the modify the more remarkable statements that it might suffice great body of the English people than the polite circle of fashionable nations, showing the foundation of Normandy and influences that went to the forming of the character and language of to quote, I will be careful to reproduce every word of the The student of English literature, then, should look for the the Normans. Then there is the fusion of languages and article to which I ask attention; indeed, it is almost neces- characteristic mind of the nation underlying through all generations characters after the Conquest; there is the work of the old sary to the present purpose that I should do so, for there for more than a thousand years the most distinct diversities of manner. is not one sentence in it that does not contain a direct of every change of taste and style, marking a period, he should seek chroniclers; there is the rise of knightly romance, and the the origin in many influences-as of public events or struggles at great activity of mind during our Henry the Second's or an implied misrepresentation. And again let me repeat home or abroad; of the personal character of the sovereign in days reign, an activity felt throughout Europe; these things that I raise no question whatever of the merit of my own of patronage; of the humour of the sovereign's court, which would and many more were all to be narrated in their right conwork. Let it be assumed, for the sake of argument, that colour the humours of all lesser patrons; of the genius of great it is altogether bad; and the impropriety of this review writers, or the fashionable extravagances of small writers who were at the time in high repute. But at every turn it is to be remembered of it remains not less conspicuous. I dispute here no that those superficial differences do not change the mind within. recognized, when he gives as his one fact in evidence that opinion, but deal only with questions of fact, upon which the book wants proportion, that "by merely turning over it needs no literary skill to come to a true verdict. Of this plan, stated at the outset in a few plain words, and "the leaves" he finds that less than a hundred pages are The reviewer begins thus: then made the basis of the whole work, every hint is sup-given to the century before Chaucer. Even what stateMr Morley's book, in spite of a good deal of honest labour and the pressed by the reviewer in the Athenæum. The work is in its ment he here does make is not true. Except Roger studied quaintness which is its distinguishing quality, may be classed own pages shown to consist of an Introduction and Four Parts. Bacon to whom alone I give eight pages, the writers he among the invertebrated order of literary productions. It wants a The Introduction is set forth as meant to explain "very names, Langlande and Wiclif, did not live in the century backbone to give it adherence and stability. It likewise wants that "generally" the grounds of the division into periods, and before Chaucer, but were his contemporaries. which is an indispensable quality for a literary history, a just to justify the principle on which its plan is based, and close of the present volume Chaucer has been only introproportion. The one idea which Mr Morley attempts to make the backbone of his performance, namely, that the English mind, one and which is even stated on its first leaf, that "no land can be duced, and it remains yet to be seen how much more the same, underlies every section of our national literature, is as "to itself a world. Neighbouring nations act and react space my plan will accord to an expression of the spirit of obvious a truism as it is to say that it underlies any other portion of "strongly upon each other, and Englishmen, insular as his time. Yet I have introduced Wiclif, have dwelt on our national life. And of the author's notion of proportion an "they are called, have from the first been travellers his work, and have actually added to the little that is adequate idea may be gained by merely turning over the leaves, when and tourists, actively observant of their neighbours' known of the life of Langlande, in an analysis that fills we find the century preceding Chaucer, the century in which the fashions. Whenever the literature of any country in nine pages of small print, the story and the interpreEnglish language was in its most rapid stage of formation, which saw Roger Bacon, Wiclif, and Langlande represented by less than one "Europe has for a time become stronger than that of its tation of his Vision of Piers Plowman, read as a pure hundred pages, while it takes more than five hundred to bring the "neighbours, its admitted strength has influenced them in a Vision of Christ seen through an age of trouble. reader up to that period. "very marked degree." This having been explained at the The reviewer then proceeds as follows: Three statements are here made. 1. That the dis-outset in the Introductory Essay, which has for title its tinguishing quality of the book is a studied quaintness; one subject, "the Four Periods of English Literature," Literature be accepted as a fair exposition of the writer's scheme, If the introductory Sketch of the Four Periods of English 2. that it wants a backbone, since its one idea is that the then follows the first of the Four Books into which, ac- his object appears to be to explore all centuries of English lore, to English mind underlies every section of our national cording to the Four Periods taken as the basis of its plan, find a genealogical tree for modern novels and journalism. literature, which is a truism. 3. That it wants proportion the main work is divided. And this first book upon "the This sentence is a misrepresentation so complete that I because less than a hundred pages are given to the century Period of the Formation of the Language;" or, "the do not myself understand it. Obviously it would have preceding Chaucer. "Writers before Chaucer;" is all else that is given in the been incompatible with even the slightest account that the Distinguishing between assertions which I leave unques- volume which the critic had before him. I say nothing critic might have given of the real object of the book as tioned and the facts adduced in their support, I have only whatever of the merit or demerit of this plan; every expressed by the writer, or with even the faintest indication to show by a fact the misrepresentation contained even in reader has a just right to express his own opinion upon it. of its actual contents. the unsupported assertion which in these days of artificial But I believe that in no journal except the Athenæum A more unsatisfactory volume, in proportion to the knowledge of writing might seem to have been intended by a flippant would a writer throughout his notice of a book thus the author, it is almost impossible to conceive. The greatest names writer to be complimentary, that the chief characteristic of planned, be careful to keep its author's purpose out of view, amongst English writers, and the greatest influences in the my book is "a studied quaintness." The book contains in and represent that he has no purpose beyond the expression development of thought, are either not mentioned, or are mentioned more than one place direct censure of affected writing. of an "obvious truism." It may be passing from fact to incidentally. While Lyly and Euphuism occupy several pages, This pervades, for example, all that is said of the influence argument to add, that the more it is an obvious truism to Bacon, Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher are merely of Italian and French conceits on English literature; it say that the English character speaks through the English Raleigh, Drayton, and Hooker receive no mention at all. The appears in the comment upon Johnson's Latinized English mind, the more it is essential that no sketch of English influences of the discovery of printing, of the classical renaissance,where I say, and illustrate the fact that "the number of literature should omit clearly to show how it does so. "syllables in a word matters infinitely less than its exact If this sort of misdescription, bad as it is, were all that "fitness to the measure of the thought it should express." I had to show, I should not have come forward as I now do Again there are in the Introduction five or six pages to protest publicly against the manner of reviewing in the devoted to an argument on English style and its variations, Athenæum. But let the reader of this protest observe that of which one sentence and the pervading sense is that I am not selecting points of comment. "exact, clear, emphatic, and durable expression of our example of an offence often committed in the columns of thoughts is the whole object of writing," or again that "the the Athenæum, I am following this review sentence by "real question for each genuine writer is How shall I give sentence that I may show its character in every part from "to my own mind the fullest utterance." Farther on, the the first sentence to the last. Abundant reason for the critic might have found it asked in comment on the strain course I take will have appeared when all is said, for "bad for wit produced in our own day among weak writers who "begins but worse remains behind." have been called into existence by extension of the reading Even the translation of the Bible, the publication of which has Following the critic, then, through every sentence, and exercised more influence on the nationa mind and taste than that of circle, "What else is to be done by one who has no natural still leaving unquestioned all matter of opinion, I come to any other work whatsoever, is omitted entirely. As of named in relation to 'Euphues." Sir Thomas More, Sir Walter of the Reformation, are not even hinted at. my book ends lived before the discovery of printing, or the I have myself always believed that Chaucer with whom Renaissance, or the Reformation. If the Introductory Sketch had been the book of which it professes only for a specified purpose "hastily and partially" to mark the plan, I might have stopped at the end of it, my work complete. As it is, the period which in the preliminary sketch occupies six pages, occupies in the work itself more than six hundred. The reviewer adds: book: This is not misrepresentation but direct misstatement. [press would be also a requisite part of the sketch. After ment is the assertion in the next clause of the sentenceWitness the following extract from the Introduction to the pointing out certain relations to literature of the movement for one misrepresentation in a sentence does not always represented by the great French revolution, and having suffice for this reviewer-that I give no distinct characLet it here be remembered that the period of English literature spoken of Goldsmith only to observe his influence on terization of the differing qualities of the three races. more directly influenced by the frivolities of Italy dates from the Goethe, in the course of a brief indication of the action The clearly predominant intention to display the character time of our Reformation in the Church, and occupies a period in and reaction of the English and the German mind upon each and temper of each race in the country, and each generation which minds engaged with intense activity upon the settlement of great religious questions became also more and more deeply engaged other, I speak presently of the influence of Scott's whole- of its writers, cannot, of course, be proved by voluminous in political assertion of the rights of subjects. Throughout the days some character upon the reading mass, and say that in his quotation; but such characterization necessarily runs, again of civil war and of the Commonwealth Italian influence extends. To time "there was a wide general public now able to fasten and again, into distinct pages of summary, and from such that part of the period thus defined, in which we find the greatest upon entertaining volumes. Scott widened it, and pages one or two citations will be sufficient evidence of the prevalence of literary affectation, belongs also the truest and most purified its taste." At the close of that Introductory misstatement of the critic. Here, for example, is part of earnest work on which the pens of Englishmen have ever been engaged our authorized translation of the Bible. Essay I speak of the gradual advancement of the people in the characterization of the Gaels: In the actual work I record, as far as I can, in passage after passage, every translation of the Bible or single books of the Bible by Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Normans, and at last Wiclif's Bible' is the headline to four pages near ⚫ the conclusion of the volume. The reviewer continues: In fact, all religion and all philosophy and all history, and a very large portion of our best-known poetry, appear, for the purposes of this plan, to have had no existence. I care only to direct attention in this passage to the statement that I have omitted "all religion" from the plan of the book, because it follows the assertion that I have said nothing about the translation of the Bible, and is afterwards insinuated in another form. Surely it would surprise the reader who had been thus instructed as to the character of a book that he had not yet seen, to find in it a chapter devoted to the Introduction of Christianity, and the next chapter beginning with these words: "For us it is very right that we praise with our words, love in minds, the Keeper of the Heavens, Glory-King of Hosts. He is the source of power, the head of all His great creation, Lord Almighty He never had beginning, nor was made, nor cometh any end to the Eternal Lord; but His power is everlasting over heavenly thrones, With high majesty, faithful and strong, He ruled the depths of the firmament that were set wide and far for the children of glory, the guardians of souls." Such is the earliest note of English song, if. Beowulf and the other ancient poems of its class were brought hither Nor is the extended treatment of the first of the periods, as by the Anglo-Saxons from their former home, for this is the opening of Cadmon's sacred poem; and in the latent spirit of this will be found the soul of nearly all that is Saxon in our literature. That thee is sent receive in buxomness, The wrastling of this world asketh a fall; Forth, pilgrime! forth, beast out of thy stall! I The reviewer, passing from misstatement to mis-statement, proceeds thus: the three races. reader turns most readily to the literature of his own day, thinly-peopled or unpeopled soil; combat whenever two different true reading power. Then, having shown why the general Fights, courtship, and abduction; occupation of the riches of a in which he understands every allusion, I express in this bodies of colonists chanced to be coveting the same broad lands, are the morass of a glorification of novel reading, in which it is small migrations, fierce and persistent in fight, but not cruel, and sentence, the last sentence of the Introductory Sketch,--the chief features of old Gaelic history. It represents in its details a somewhat restless pastoral people, apt to diffuse itself by great and said to end,-a design precisely opposite to that which is giving honour to a very chivalrous sense of fair play. There are few invented for me by the reviewer. tales of mean espial and betrayal. More natural to the Gael was his notion that the invaders who had made good their landing unexpected, Nevertheless the well-being of our wit depends greatly upon our unopposed, might reasonably, at the request of the invaded people, close familiarity with all that is best in English thought. And if re-embark, retire nine waves, and then let it appear whether in fair to recall some at least of the living influences which made our we could so read over again the story of the English mind, as fight thay could make their landing good. The half-barbarous Gael foremost writers what they were; if we could so think over it all-Pagan, but a gentleman in the rough-who to the best of his own that we might attach to any name or period at least enough of human way and time held women in honour, and was often gladly subject to a clever queen, delighted in rich colour (not in Macphersonian interest to save an immortal utterance of living thought from being gloom) and had the taste for ornament that we find clearly displayed feel in it a man living and speaking-something would be gain d. covered in its tombs. He liked the joyous festival, the glad run with as a mere dead book to us-for we are not reading a book until we in the gold trinkets and the chased work of the Bronze period disThere would be something gained even by small success in such an the hounds. He had also a religious spirit and a lively fancy, that effort; and, knowing that, I pass now with good courage to an effort accorded dignity to the office not of the priest only but of the man of to recall in these volumes some traces of the life of English Literature. letters. The young Gaelic civilization showed even in its vanities, The monkish chroniclers I have undoubtedly described its follies, its misdeeds, a clever childishness that might advance into There are no signs of the unmanly as what they were, the journalists of their own day, but maturer dignity and worth. have not given that character to any one of the many barbarism. But barbarism undoubtedly there was. apathy, the base animal cunning or ferocity, that indicate a stagnant The Ulstermen other classes of writers described in the first book of my were said to mix the brains of their slain enemies with lime, form narrative. them into hard balls, and play with them when boastfully comparing such a brainstone, and to have lived seven years with two brains in trophies. Conchobar is said to have had his own skull penetrated by his head, always sitting, for he would die were he to shake himself. Then, after more description of the Gaelic literature, shadowed forth in the preliminary plan, dissimilar in execution. We the characterization is applied formally to the purpose of have here the result of a great deal of wide and miscellaneous read the book, in a section headed, The Celtic Influence on ing; but the arrangement according to no fixed principle-no clear I have in the generalizations of this book distinctly set idea of cause and effect. The prehistoric period, the origin of lan- English Literature.' In the next chapter on the other great forth Christianity "as the great living awakener and guide the iron period do not seem to call for any lengthy notice in a book characterization which may be right or wrong-and I say guage, the Indo-European theory, the stone period, the bronze period, section of the Celts, the very first paragraph begins with a "of thought," laying, indeed, so much and constant stress professing to deal only with English literature. Neither should we upon the religious element in the English mind, that I have looked in such a work for an Anglo-Saxon grammar. But nothing of that--but is most certainly distinct. After the sometimes dreaded as I wrote with a full heart what I felt when such topics are introduced and fully treated-when we have first paragraph has said that, "in the most ancient Cymric to be the simple truth, a very different charge to that here disquisitions on the various races of Celts, and a long account of the "literature we hear again the battle cries of conflict Anglo-Saxon period, it seems strange to miss entirely all notice of "between the resisting Celt and the advancing Teuton, made of having left "all religion" out of my plan. The the religion of either Celt, Teuton, or Northman, and to find no and are touched with the profound melancholy of the very last words in my book are the lines taken from Chaucer. distinct characterization of the differing qualities and aptitudes of bards who sang the death struggle of heroes in a hope"less patriotic war," the description of the literature is The character of one part of this passage is sufficiently left to speak for itself, till finally, on page 214, its spirit is shown by the little that, in confronting fable with fact, I summed up. But the Teutonic races are said not to be have been compelled to state of what is really contained in distinctly characterized. What is the fact? After the the book thus misdescribed. All that is said in relation to book has told of the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, and the Celts and Anglo-Saxons of their cromlechs and barrows, described their old Pagan epic of Beowulf, not only does Only recalling the fact that the reviewer in the Athenæum and whatever else belongs to the stone, the bronze, and the the characterization run through the whole narrative, but has excluded from the knowledge of his readers every iron periods, is told in less than six pages of the 660. What at the outset of this part of the narrative a formal introaccount but his own imaginary one of the contents of the the believing country reader of the Athenaeum is meant to ductory characterization occupies nearly four pages. I work, I leave the misrepresentation implied in the next suppose when, having been sufficiently misled as to its real quote from it only a few sentences: sentences to speak for itself: object and general contents, he is further told that my book quote from it only a few sentences: There is another side from which to note the temper of the AngloIt is, indeed, a singular sketch, however slight, of English litera- contains" an Anglo-Saxon Grammar," I do not know. But Saxon mind, yet ignorant of the best truth and honour. If their ture which excludes the names of Latimer, and Jewel, and Andrews, what is the fact? After the coming of the Anglo-Saxons has Pagan theology had not taught our forefathers to labour in this and Barrow, and every later divine,-ignores Hobbes, Harrington. been represented through such record of the ancient litera- world by self-denial for a happiness beyond the grave, so neither had Locke, Berkely, and Hume as philosopher, takes no notice of ture of the country as the war-strain of the Gododin and it taught them to affect a spiritual aim in living selfishly. If the Shirley, Herrick, Denham, Marvell, Cowley, Waller, and every poet endeavours to tell, as far as ethnologists know, who the said, "for to-morrow we die." The best that their gods promised Clarendon, Bolingbroke, Gibbon, and Hume as historian, and rejects the laments of Llywarch Hen, there is a chapter that hero fought and the bard sang for food and fee, plainly and honestly they made it appear that they did so. "Let us eat and drink," they of the eighteenth century, with the exception of Pope and Goldsmith. One can barely imagine to oneself the train of thought of a man Anglo-Saxons were; and this chapter is closed with a for them after death was that they should go on eating and drinking. who should, while professing, in however brief a compass, to show sketch, in thirteen pages, of the structure of Anglo-Saxon. The warrior was undisguisedly a tradesman in his sword-the poet the sequence and the generation of English authorship, leave out of This is for the general reader an appendix that he may in his song. What each desired he took if he could get it; but his account the influence of Bishop Percy and Cowper, as well as of Keats and Shelley, four men whose minds and tastes have exercised glance over or skip, but one that should give to the working motives were as open as his deeds. The practical mind of the AngloSaxons never throughout their history has worked for any but as strong an attraction over their contemporaries and successors, as student, for whose use also the book is designed, a means substantial ends, and what end could it seek in those days but the those of any other four in English literature. of exact understanding, and a standard of compari- conquest of material advantage? Theirs was a mind that marched The reviewer then reverts to his notion that as I am son to which he can bring at a glance those details of the straight towards its purpose, and spoke plainly. It may be said that irreligious so am I also a journalist, and thus he continues: formation of the language which afterwards occur in the there is in the unmixed Anglo-Saxon an imagination with deep roots and little flower, solid stem, and no luxuriance of foliage. The gay Defoe, and Steele, and Addison are the authors on whom Mr course of this first part of the story of its literature. wit of the Celt would pour into the song of a few minutes more Morley dwells with peculiar emphasis, and naturally enough, if we is meant to secure to the student the exactness he desires, phrases of ornament than are to be found in the whole poem of are to accept journalism as the crowning, latest and greatest birth of and it considers the comfort of the general reader who Beowulf. For example, in the death-song of Queen Meav over her English genius, if some five centuries of literary glory are, as Mr having turned over the dozen pages not intended for his husband Cuchorb, there are six similes in eight successive lines, while Morley's Sketch indicates, to end in journalism, just as some of the great rivers in Australia end in moras. The writer never seems to use, is thereafter spared the longer and, to the student, less in the six thousand there hundred and fifty lines of Beowulf only five similes have been discovered, and these are rather natural be able to free himself from the continual pressure of journalism satisfactory pieces of written information about Anglo-expressions than added ornaments. The people of upon his attention. He sees journalism in the Chronicles of the Saxon that would otherwise be necessary. Holland have retained to our own day, little changed, this type of mediæval monks, in Giraldus Čambrensis and Robert of Gloucester. Having made what he could of the vague terror of "an Christianity struck root among them, mastered the first conditions of character. Both Dutch and Anglo-Saxons, when the seed of We suppose he would see it in Fra Angelico and in Filippo Lippi." Anglo-Saxon Grammar," the reviewer insinuates for the a full development of its grand truths with the same solid earnestness, Even Scott's novels, strange to say, were "for seventeen years, in effect, so many parts of a great influential family periodical, justly third time that there is in the book a strange want of religion. and carried their convictions out to the same practical result. Holpunctual to its half-yearly appearance." Sir Walter Scott is the "It seems "strange," he says, "to miss entirely all notice land indeed has been, not less than England, with England and for last author dwelt upon; after bim "a true journalism was then being "of the religion of either Celt, Teuton, or Northman, and to England, a battle-ground of civil and religious liberty. The power developed into adequate expression of the English mind." In fact, find no distinct characterization of the differing qualities it, lies in this energetic sense of truth and this firm habit of looking of the English character, and therefore of the literature that expresses Mr Morley is determined to find journalism not only in the cloister, but everywhere; and, no doubt, sees the journalistic element as "and aptitude of the three races. I cannot suppose to the end. Christianity having once been accepted, aided as it was strong in Moses, Isaiah, Aristophanes, Tacitus, and Shakspeare, as that after complaining, or appearing to complain, that greatly in its first establishment among us by the zeal of the Gael I tell anything at all about the Celts, his complaint now and Cymry, who were in this country the first Christians, the AngloAlthough the little that it has been necessary to say of is, that I do not give a complete history of their Pagan history of our literature, varied and enlivened by the diverse blending Saxon writers fastened upon it, and throughout the whole subsequent what the book does really contain will have sufficed to mythology. But even the character of Celtic Paganism of the Anglo-Saxon with the Northman and the Celt, religious show the character of this misrepresentation of its purpose, is, in fact, again and again illustrated in the sketch of energy has been the centre of its life. let me state, as far as I can guess them, upon what facts the ancient literature of the Gaels and Cymry. In the Incidentally this passage may serve also as further it is founded. According to the division I have chosen, the case of the Pagan Anglo-Saxons, the form and spirit of evidence of the degeee of misrepresentation that declares fourth period of our literature is that of Popular Influence. their life is represented in a full sketch of the poem the book to be one in which Religion has been omitted In the Introductory Essay, which is designed broadly to of Beowulf, and the part of the narrative which imme- from its view of English literature. characterize each of the four periods, I have taken those diately precedes the account of the introduction of facts which best illustrate in this latest period the gradual Christianity is described in margin and headline as a passage of literature from the days of patronage to the summing up of "the spirit of Anglo-Saxon Paganism." There are many degrees of knowledge, many and diverse powers of clear and direct thought and discovery, many methods of treatdays when the public at large, become chief patron, influ- But if the reviewer meant only to assert that the book does ment; and to trace the successive changes of the spirit of Chivalry ences much for good and (till as a mass it is better taught) not recognise the religion of the Christian Celts and Teutons, from the time of its first manifestation up to its florid maturity in the a little also for evil, the manner and the matter of the larger I can only add the fact that many pages of it are given to the days of Froissart and Chaucer, and the corresponding changes which part of what is written. Obviously it was through Defoe record of the pious labours of the Celtic Culdees, and that its different phases wrought upon literature, was not a task beneath and Steele and Addison and Johnson that this increase of there is hardly a page treating of Anglo-Saxon work that Mr Morley's faculties of sagacity and erudition. There would have been more substantial novelty and more true originality shown in direct relations between writer and people would be repre- does not, in some form, recognise with satisfaction the reli- doing such a thing well, than in talking about the monks as sented, and some notice of the conquest of liberty for the gious element in the Teutonic mind. As absolute a misstate-quiet English medieval journalists," and in uttering platitudes about he finds it in Walter Scott. It The reviewer proceeds: "our the "English mind." Mr Morley, however, speaks with contempt of the "bray of trumpets and the fluttering of pennons," and the ideal love created and worshipped by knights and troubadours meets with his especial scorn. But if we deprive the Middle Ages of love, war and chivalry, and all who sang about them, we fear their story must be a deadly-lively one. Pages 454-5 contain a section entitled "Early Pro- | went to New York after a short trial of mercantile life in vençal Literature," the authority cited in a footnote being Santa Cruz. By the help of friends, who saw the talent Fauriel's Histoire de la Poésie Provençal.' that was in him, he became a student at King's College, The reviewer proceeds: New York, in 1774, just at the time when the Americans "wish to make it your own. Then was it only by conflict that the Spaniard and Provençal were were beginning to talk eagerly about separation from EngHere there is a return to the misrepresentation that the taught by the Arabs? Were there no intervals of peace in which land, and entering with boyish zeal into their views he had purpose of the book is a glorification of journalism; and as Waistians went to Cordova and Seville to learn Arab arts and science? won fame as an orator and pamphleteer before he was it has been already accused of containing no religion, so it is the Arabs? and did the Provençal meet with the Arab alone in moderation in the American movements of those early Was not one of the most learned of medieval Popes educated among eighteen years old. There were wisdom, justice, and now accused of containing no love, war, or chivalry. The Palestine? fact is that the book contains, in Chapters XVI. and XXI., Certainly there was a peaceful influence of the Arabs, the House of Peers, "look at the papers transmitted to us times. "When your lordships," said Lord Chatham in I do not say a better or more correct, but most surely a as is told rather fully in three pages (447-9) of the book, "from America, when you consider their decency, firmmore copious account of the origin, character, and sub- which is represented as having said nothing about it. The "ness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause and stance of Arthurian and other romance than is to be found reviewer goes on: in any other general history of English literature. It is For myself, I must declare charged with omission of such matter, when it not only Saracen? Has Mr Morley never heard of the Mahommedan con- "not the people or senate who, in such a complication of Is it true that Italy was not brought into equal contact with the" and avow that, in the master States of the world, I know describes but actually tells, in pages of small type, such quest of Sicily? Were not all the chief towns of Italy represented "difficult circumstances, can stand in preference to the old tales of chivalry as the romance of 'Havelok' or of at the First Crusade? Do not the Chronicles of Pisa tell us that two 'King Alexander.' It speaks also more fully than any Pisans were the first to stand upon the wall of the Holy City? Did "delegates of America assembled in general Congress at other general account of English literature, of the language, whole crusade? Did not Tancred and Bohemond lead a large host fied champions of liberty, Hamilton, boy as he was, was not the Pisan and Genoese fleet do signal service throughout the " Philadelphia." But among the most upright and dignicharacter and influence of the troubadours; and even its last from Italy? Did not the town of Amalfi establish hospitals in already conspicuous. As soon as fighting began, he made chapter but one ends with a full strain of war in Laurence Palestine and did not a Venetian doge make the first Latin conquest himself ready for war, and for his conduct at the battle of Minot's Song on the Battle of Cressy.' Having pretended of Constantinople? that the book he is misrepresenting does not contain these All of this that is pertinent to its history is actually he obtained the epithet of the Little Lion. "Well do I Preston, in 1776, his first experience of actual warfare, things, the reviewer adds, "If we deprive the Middle contained in the book. From page 577 to page 582 is a "recollect the day," said one, when Hamilton's company Ages of love, war, and chivalry, and all who sang about section entitled 'Seed-time of Italian Literature,' in which "them we fear their story must be a deadly-lively one." the Saracens in Sicily, the relation of Italy to the Crusaders," at its head was a boy, and I wondered at his youth; but "marched into Princeton. It was a model of discipline; Here the reader, who has had no glimpse of the real Tancred, and so forth, are discussed in counexion with the substance of the volume thus reviewed, is distinctly left to course of literature. But there is nothing here to show figure, he was pointed out to me as that Hamilton of "what was my surprise when, struck with his slight infer that in a sketch of the literature of the Middle Ages, that the Italian commercial cities did deliver themselves whom we had already heard so much." That Hamilton the author, having a monomania for journalism, has up to enthusiasm for the Crusades. Even the part, for omitted not only love, war, and chivalry, but also "all example, taken by Dandolo in the conquest of Constan- was not yet twenty years old, and there was literal truth "who sang about them." And yet the fact is, that the tinople was purely a trade speculation. in the term by which Washington loved to call himbook not only describes our own heroic poetry, but con- wood and workmanship at the best prices, but he would "My boy." He was old enough and wise enough, hownects with much detail early English and French romance, not give flesh and blood. How, while private adventurers and the State papers of his writing are the best and manever, to be made Washington's aide-de-camp and secretary, and even, in wide discussion of the topic, goes to Germany to might waste their blood, the main policy of the Italian liest relics of American statesmanship in its best and speak of the Nibelungenlied,' and to Spain to speak of the cities was to live and not to die by the Crusaders, may be manliest day. Day, and no more. romance of the Cid Campeador. It is true that in doing read in the pages of Sismondi, who, as to this matter Hamilton had to complain of the "favouritism and injusAs early as 1778 this the book distinguishes in early literature between the of the Venetian doge, adds that "the wisdom and poetry of courts and that of nations. The only conceivable "moderation of the Senate prevented the wealth and hand and false economy on the other," that were already "tice, caprice and indecision, improvidence on the one ground, indeed, for the misrepresentation is, that it puts at "population of the State from going to burial in those the heart of a literature not chivalry, or love, or war, but "distant provinces where so many battalions of Crusaders weakening the cause for which he was working, and that the soul of a whole nation passing forward out of barbarism" and so many noble French families had been extin- were laying the seeds of the harvest of trouble now being to the conquest of right knowledge and a purer sense of "guished." God. Washington was the one man whom the secretary could But this is perhaps matter of opinion; if so, let it be heartily respect and rely upen. But even with Washington assumed that I am in the wrong. My purpose is not to he did not always agree. The subject of their first dispute, join issue upon interpretations of history, but simply to small in comparison with the great matters of the time, is travel patiently and dispassionately from the first sentence to the last through an example of that manner of reviewing Adjutant-General, taken prisoner while obeying orders in very significant. When in 1780 Major André, the British for which the Athenæum has of late years been too fre-proceeding to make use of the proffered treacheries of quently disfigured. In so doing I have at length reached General Arnold, the American, was sentenced to be hanged the last paragraph, and for that reason the last misstate- for his conduct, Hamilton tried his utmost in the first place ment, in a review to which too many comments on books to avert altogether the punishment of death, and, failing that have of late years appeared in the Athenæum bear a in that, to have it executed in some less disgraceful way. family resemblance. Thus my reviewer ends: The reviewer next proceeds to quote from the brief introduction to the book one passage, which he thinks he can by comment twist out of its sense. Mr Morley says "What morning dew of poetry, what obscure tricklings of verse, caused, in days barren of wit, the genius of Dante to leap forth from the dry rock? After the confusion and darkness of the last days of the Ancient Literature, in the south of Europe there was rhyming of love-verses or devotional songs, feeble and rude until stirred into quicker life by conflict with a warm-witted Oriental people. Against this people the Spaniards had to maintain in their own land a daily strife, awakening devotional and patriotic chivalry, and giving soul to song and ballad-and against them the men of southern France went out to fight upon the sacred soil of Palestine. Italy, or the contending cities by which Italy was represented, stayed at home; every man eager to fight with his neighbour, and trade profitably with the world." On which he observes, first: How can the days of Dante be called barren of art the days of Guido Cavalcanti, of Cino da Pistoia and a crowd of other poets with whom Mr Rossetti has filled a volume. He would sell Notwithstanding, however, the strictures which we have felt it reaped. In this also he failed. For the first time, apparently, the general and his aide-de-camp were directly opposed to each other on a matter of importance, and the whole affair seems to have left a sore and dissatisfied feeling on the mind of the younger man. "Poor André suffers to-day," he writes, on the morning of the execution. "Everything that is amiable in virtue, in fortitude, in delicate sentiment, and accomplished manners, pleads for him; but hard-hearted policy calls for a sacrifice. He must die. I send you my account of Arnold's affair, and, to justify myself to your senti ments, I must inform you, that I urged a compliance with Andre's request to be shot, and I do not think it would have had an ill effect; but some people are only sensible to motives of policy, and sometimes, from a narrow disposition, mistake it. "When Andre's tale comes to be told, and present resentment is death will be branded with too much obstinacy. over, the refusing him the privilege of choosing the manner of his But the second sentence after the last which he has quoted happens to contain my own citation of Mr Rossetti's admirable volume, and the narrative proceeds I have only to add that besides other direct citation of Not knowing who can be the "very many others," to speak lightly according to the purpose and Warton, as on page 600, page 722 contains a footnote manner of the Introductory Essay to which it belongs saying distinctly, "I take these illustrations, and much "It was proposed to me to suggest to him the idea of an exchange of the literature before Dante; while Guido Cavalcanti "that is here said on the subject, from Warton's History for Arnold; but I know I should have forfeited his esteem by doing and Cino da Pistoia are so far from having been over- of English poetry;'" Thomas Warton being also named it, and therefore declined it. As a man of honour, he could not but looked, that in the course of my own argument a sonnet in the text both on that page and on the next; also that thing, which must have placed me in the unamiable light of supreject it; and I would not for the world have proposed to him a by each of them is actually quoted from among the trans- on page 643, to the ancient Cuckoo Song is attached the posing him capable of a meanness, or of not feeling myself the improlations in Mr Rossetti's book. note, "Given by Ritson in his Ancient English Songs;" priety of the measure. I confess to you, I had the weakness to value also that to the Account of Robin Hood there is appended the esteem of a dying man, because I reverenced his merit." Preceded also by Sordello and the great outburst of Provençal the note (on p. 645), "I take facts of the life of Robin graph. It is true that Arnold was safe under the shelter of that All the chivalry of Hamilton's character speaks in the last parasong,-days which had their prose writers as well, Matteo Spinello," Hood from Ritson's 'Introduction to the Robin Hood British flag, which never yet betrayed the fugitive who trusted to its Ricordano Malespina before Dante, and Dino Campagni and Giovanni Ballads,' 2 vols., London, 1832;" and that on page 736 protection, and that no English general would have consented to purVillani contemporary with him, although Mr Morley subsequently says there was no Italian prose till the middle of the fourteenth I cite, in a note, the full title of Ritson's edition of Minot's chase the life of friend or brother, by delivering up the renegade poems, and give it as the authority for notice in the text whose proffered services he had once accepted. But Hamilton felt that there was dishonour in the very proposal, and that he should of Warton's blunder in mistaking Edward Baliol for forfeit the esteem of André by even mentioning it to him. He meaEdward III.; so that here, very near the end of the book, sured the nobleness of the victim by his own lofty standard. the names of both Warton and Ritson appear on the same page The reviewer then continues: century. HENRY MORLEY. Alexander Hamilton and his Contemporaries; or, The On that fatal morning there was a gloomy silence in the camp, and, excepting the brigade on duty, officers and soldiers retired to their tents. It was the natural and spontaneous delicacy of true valour. Having breakfasted, and dressed himself with care in the full uniform of a British officer, André walked calmly to the place of in sight of the gibbet, he asked with some emotion: "Must I then execution. There was a serene smile on his lips, but, when he came die in this manner?" Being told it was inevitable, he said: "It will be but a momentary pang;" and, springing upon the cart, he made the necessary preparations with admirable composure. He was to say. "Nothing," he answered, "but to request you will bear informed that the last moment was at hand, if he had anything more witness, that I meet my fate like a brave man." It was the dying thought of a soldier, who felt that he had to maintain the martial I do not know what this means, if it be not desired to lead the reader to suppose that I have recognized the existence of no poets before Dante in a work on English literature, that besides recognition in the Introductory sketch, has given nearly half a chapter to the early literature of Provence and Southern Europe. Again, when the book is represented as saying, without modification, that there was no Italian prose before the middle of the fourteenth century, it is not stated that this followed reference to the previously conflicting local forms and to each town's scorn of its neighbour's dialect. It is no real contradiction, American politics to the tolerably clear, albeit disturbed, If it is pleasant to turn from the turgid stream of modern therefore, to point to Neapolitan Ephemerides, or a Florentine town chronicle. The Florentines were doubtless much fountain to which it is to be traced, it is yet more pleasant aggrieved when Dante, in his treatise on the Vulgar to put aside the ill constructed and angrily written party honour of his country. Tongue, refused to accept their dialect as the literary manifestoes which for two years past have been crowding The tale has been told a thousand times, and still affects us, standard, but with that book for one landmark, a brief our shelves, and read a volume as excellent in style and almost as it affected our grandfathers. In America, as in England, generalization upon literature might reasonably place the beginning of Italian prose after its publication, in the days when Boccaccio wrote his Decameron and Florentine His tory was written by the three Villani. But I will concede point upon which argument can be raised. Let it be assumed that in this I am wrong. The reviewer Alexander Hamilton quite deserves to have a careful biography written of him by an Englishman for English A few months after this the aide-de-camp resigned his readers. In him we see reflected all the best features of post. The cause was certainly curious. Washington had the American struggle for independence. He was born in met Hamilton on the stairs of his house, and told him that the West Indian Island of Nevis in 1757, whence, left at he wished to speak with him. Hamilton answered that a very early age to fight his own way in the world, he he would wait on him immediately, but was unexpectedly been found expedient to draw still nearer to the British model, and to detained by business. On going back, he says, "Instead would at least have given time to adopt a national policy, and to form volume. Making Hamilton the central figure, and sketching "of finding the general, as is usual, in his room, I met a generation of statesmen; and if, after a full and fair trial, it had his portrait in a truly artistic way, he has grouped together "him at the head of the stairs, where, accosting me in an substitute the hereditary for the elective principle, the transition all the famous men of his time, and in describing their "angry tone, Colonel Hamilton,' said he, you have need not have been violent, or have involved any sacrifice of the movements shown clearly the origin of all the strength and "kept me waiting at the head of the stairs these ten established liberties of the people. weakness of American politics. In Arichandra, the Martyr of Truth; a Tamil Drama. ""minutes; I must tell you, sir, you treat me with A year was spent in obtaining the agreement of the ""disrespect.' I replied, without petulancy, but with States to the constitution drawn up by the convention, and "decision, 'I am not conscious of it, sir; but since you in establishing the division of the people into the federalist ""have thought it necessary to tell me so, we part.' and republican parties, never since broken down. "Very well, sir,' said he, if it be your choice,' or some- February, 1789, Washington was elected first President, "thing to this effect; and we separated." In less than and in March the administration was in working order. an hour Washington sent to withdraw his censure, and Hamilton accepted the onerous and thankless post of This is a very curious and a very interesting little book, invite Hamilton to rejoin his staff; but the young man Secretary to the Treasury, his hands being fettered at and our readers will, we think, thank us if we give them was determined. By this separation, however, the friend- starting by a heavy debt which a large part of the people some account of itself and its author. Mutu Coomara is of the ship of the two great men was not permanently broken. wished to repudiate, and which no one wished to assist in Hindu nation called Tamil, which is that which occupies the "A day was to come when Washington again found in paying. "When warned of the calumny and persecutions southern extremity of the Indian Peninsula. The Tamils are "Hamilton his most tried and faithful counsellor, and to "which inevitably attend his efforts to do his duty in such reckoned to be as many as twelve millions in number, about "the hour of his death he never spoke or wrote of him "a position, Hamilton only answered, 'Of that I am a million of whom have colonized and settled in the neigh"but in terms of affectionate esteem." "perfectly aware; but I am convinced it is the situation bouring island of Ceylon, forming about one half its popuDuring the seven years preceding that day Hamilton"in which I can do most good.'" lation, and incomparably the most civilized and industrious; was doing his utmost to build up the liberty of his country His anticipations were fully realised. Jefferson, coming for the native inhabitants, the Singalese, compared with on a firm basis. Having retired from the staff in April, from France to take office as Secretary of State, and coming them, are barbarous and slothful. The Tamil language is 1781, he spent a few months in writing a series of essays, hot with the fury of the French Jacobin clubs, soon be one of the three cultivated languages of Southern India, called the Continentalist,' showing the people what re- came leader of an organised opposition to the more aristo- called the Dravidian. These differ from each other, but forms seemed to him most necessary; and in July he cratic tendencies represented by Washington and Hamilton. between them and the languages of Northern India there obtained the command of a battalion. During the last six To the President he was obliged, for some time at any is nothing in common, except an infusion of Sanskrit, months of the war he took an active part; and as soon as rate, to make a show of friendship and submission; but which is an ingredient in them much as Norman-French is there was no more work to do, "the soldier of five-and- that only made him more violent against the Secretary of an ingredient in English. As to the author himself, he is "twenty withdrew from the field, with no emolument but Finance. The opposition was carried into all the in- an accomplished gentleman-very much of an Englishman "his fame, and set himself to study the law, in prepara- tricacies of American politics during more than five years. by speech and pen-a barrister of the English and Ceylonese "tion for an entirely new career." In four months' time Throughout all that time Hamilton worked with notable Bar, and a member of the Council of Ceylon. he had mastered the subject sufficiently to write for his zeal and honesty, both in his own province of the admi- Now for the work. It purports to be a drama translated own guidance a 'Manual on the Practice of the Law,' nistration, and in general assistance of Washington, now from the Tamil, but the Tamil original is a novel conducted which was found good enough to be published and en- and till death his firm friend. But as soon as he felt that by interlocutors, and only thrown into the European form of larged for the guidance of others. Late in 1782 he was duty to his country would allow it, he gladly resigned his drama by the translator. The Tamil itself is not, indeed, an elected a delegate to Congress, and after a year spent in post, and retired to private life. He resumed his posi- original work, but taken from an episode of the Mahabarat, zealous labour at its reform he gave it up in disgust. tion as a barrister in 1795. "I have beheld one of the one of the two far-famed poems of the Sanskrit, the other "He entered into a complete examination of the prin- "wonders of the world," wrote Talleyrand of him at this being the Ramayana. It is remarkable, indeed, that none of ciples of the existing Confederation, and condemned time; "I have seen a man who has made the fortune of a the vernacular languages of India contain any original works "them as utterly impracticable, and incapable of adapta-"nation, labouring all night to support his family." that are held in estimation, all that is valuable in Hindu "tion or amendment." He drew up a scheme of entire But, though out of office, he laboured none the less literature being confined to the Sanskrit. The interlocutors reform; but he had to throw it into a drawer, with the heartily, with pen and tongue, in the cause of American in- in the Arichandra are very numerous, for we find among endorsement, "Intended to be submitted to Congress in dependence. For a brief space, also, he had to serve his them at least a dozen gods and goddesses, some twenty men, "1783, but abandoned for want of support." He there- country in another way. When in 1798 Washington exclusive of Brahmins, sages, and Ascetics, and seven women, fore resigned his seat, and for three years he practised as consented to resume command of the army and put it in exclusive of attendants. The scene is various, being first a private man at the bar, doing at the same time all he working order, it was on condition that Hamilton should laid in Ayòdiah, the modern Oude, then in the heaven of could to help his newly-formed country in its time of also be employed, as General second in command. This India, and finally in the holy city of Kàsi, the modern threatened ruin. "The people of America, united for a appointment, however, was also resigned very soon after Benares. The time extends to several months. The nature season by the struggle for independence, seemed about Washington's death in December, 1799. The fact of its of the work will be best described by giving a few "to split into a number of obscure and hostile factions, having been conferred upon him at all made him many samples of it, and we begin by an account of the hero, the "who only agreed in devotion to republican forms, and in fresh enemies. "Mine is an odd destiny," he wrote to King of Oude, and of the heroine his Queen, daughter of "their antipathy to anything that resembled a strong an old fellow-worker, in 1801. "Perhaps no one in the a neighbouring King: " "government. It was observed that the relaxation of "United States has sacrificed or done more for the present This youthful warrior is the King of Ayòdiah, the land where the "authority had been followed by a corresponding change" Constitution than myself; and, contrary to all the anti-all-wise Rama was born. He is of the Solar race: his ancestors "in manners, that the old respect of servants for masters, cipations of its fate, as you know from the very begin- were distinguished alike for deeds of valour as of virtue. He sur"of children for their parents, of the young for the aged, "ning, I am still labouring to prop the frail and worthless passes in beauty even Madana, the God of Love; for his radiant face resembles the bright red-lotus in full blossom before the God of fabric. Yet I have the murmurs of its friends, no less Morning. His shoulders are broad, his limbs exquisitely moulded, was on the wane; that politeness and reverence were "giving place to a rude and boisterous self-assertion; and "than the curses of its foes, for my reward. What can I his chest deep, his whole form the perfection of symmetry and grace. "while good men apprehended a moral and social deterio-" He has a melodious voice and gracious manners. He smiles, and his ration, merely prudent men looked forward with dismay pearly teeth flash forth a brilliancy like that of lightning. In learn"to the prospect of political anarchy." ing, great-in morals, pure-in heroism, unrivalled-Arichandra is the friend of the gods, the terror of the vicious, and the refuge of the good. Manu is his guide-love, liberality, and justice his neverfailing attributes. A paragon of mortals, and the possessor of all earthly and heavenly blessings, who but Arichandra can be your husband? do better than withdraw from the scene! Every day The description of the heroine is this: Those issues could not altogether be restrained, but as The last and most decisive proof of this soon came. much as one man fighting against a nation could do to During the later years of his life his most vindictive enemy prevent them was done by Hamilton. After nearly four was Aaron Burr, his former rival at the bar, and his bold years of waiting, he saw an opportunity for bringing up traducer in Congress. When Burr sought the office of his old scheme of reform. He submitted to Congress in President, in 1804, Hamilton felt it right to denounce him February, 1787, a proposal for assembling a general as an unsafe adventurer. For this Burr challenged him to We were at Kasi, visiting the temple of Vis Wanath: thence we convention, to take into consideration the position and fight a duel, on the 11th of July, and Hamilton accepted went to Cannamàpoori, where reigns a king of the name of Mathè prospects of the United States. The proposal was acceded the challenge, resolving not to use his pistol. Burr's they an. We learnt that, as the reward of great self-denial and to; and in May a new body of men was brought together pistol, however, was used with fatal effect; and, after austerities performed by him, he has been blessed by the Gods with at Philadelphia; among the number Washington, Maddison, thirty hours of horrible agony, the patriot died, only forty to describe to you her personal charms or mental attractions. Suffice an only daughter. We saw her: but vain would be the endeavour Franklin, and Pinckney. Hamilton, at this time just seven years old. His murderer lived to be eighty, hunted it to say, that beauty like hers has never been beheld; nor does the thirty, came as the delegate of New York. In a long and as it were by one of the old Greek furies, through two-fish-bannered and cane-bowed God of Love wield a mightier instrumemorable speech he told them that the time was come for and-thirty years of weary life. Wherever he wandered, ment of torture than that which is found in the gazelle-like eyes, a change of government, and urged the establishment of a through nearly every part of Europe and America, men the flowing tresses, the heaving bosom, and the slender waist of this new administration, as nearly as possible resembling that shrank from his society, and still he lived on in poverty cast into the shade even Santra, the God of Night. Oft he peeps out queen of women, Sandramati. Her fair face and brilliant glances of the parent country. Four busy months were spent in and misery. in the heavens, and as oft he hides his orb, shamed by this rising moon of India. Her virtues have secured to her the especial favour of her patron god, Siva. She stands peerless on the earth. And if our understandings direct us aright, you alone, O Monarch! are her fit compeer. Hinduism. necklace of skulls round her truculent throat. Notwith the discussion of his scheme and various amendments to Perhaps it was well for Hamilton's own happiness that it; and the result was the formation of that new constitu- he died young. Into his short life he crowded more work tion of which Franklin said, "I consent to it, because I than most great men have been able to do, even in twice "expect no better, and because I am not sure that this is as many years; and already the evils of American govern"the best." Hamilton was sure that it was not the best; ment, which he had vainly tried to check when they votaries of Siva, the third person of the Hindu Triad, or The parties represented in the novel or drama are but he signed it with the others, seeing that none better first appeared, were growing too strong to be rooted out was to be hoped for. "It is a remarkable fact," says Mr by any process less violent than that by which we now the Destroyer, the most frequent of all the forms of Riethmüller, "that Hamilton's scheme differs from the see the country torn in pieces. In many ways America Siva, or as his worshippers often call him, "constitution finally adopted, exactly in those points in has prospered marvellously; but in the vital principles of Mahadeva, that is, the Great God, is, as his title would lead "which the latter has proved most defective." national welfare she has steadily deteriorated. "Nothing us to infer, a very ferocious sort of god, not exceeded in this By giving an absolute, instead of a limited sovereignty to the "can be more dreary," says Mr Riethmüller, with truth, quality by any personage of the Hindu Pantheon, except his central power, he sought to avoid those collisions between the Con- "than the records of that half century of ever-deepening consort, Durga, always represented with a bloody head in federacy and the States, which have been the fertile source of half "gloom, relieved here and there by a flash of light from one hand and a drawn sword in the other, and wearing a the troubles of America; while, by retaining the State Governments the intellectual activity of a Clay, a Calhoun, or a in a subordinate position, he hoped that they would apply themselves Webster, but, in the main, rolling darkly along on its standing, she is thus invoked by the pious Hindus: strictly to the administration of local affaire, serve as a school for the training of public men, and take the place of those great European "obscure and blundering course, till all difference of I adore the incomparable feet of the Goddess, who, mounted on a corporations, which have always been the best safeguards of order, "principle is absorbed in a selfish contest for pelf and lion, and bearing aloft in her arms the trident, the skull, and the liberty, and law. By vesting the executive power in a Chief Magis- "power. Then, while the mantle of Washington passes of Vishnu and the consort of Siva. Thou, O Goddess, art beyond scimitar, pervades the universe. I worship at the shrine of the sister trate, chosen indeed by the people, but whose dignity and honour "from one lay figure to another, all great principles are the ken of all words and thoughts. Is it for me, a puny mortal, to should not be the sport of every breath of popular change, and who "" should hold his office by a permanent tenure-he sought to make that suppressed, all inquiries stifled, all difficulties evaded or recount thy innumerable deeds of valour and might? Deign, Durga! high post an object worthy of the ambition of the best and noblest, "shuffled out of the way; and the American people, to favour me with thy divine presence. and not to be lightly bestowed by any less solemn sanction than the "soothed by the voice of flattery, and plunged in an The Hindus of the Drama, like most Orientals, are deliberate exercise of a nation's will. By granting the same tenure" atmosphere of self-delusion, are content to admire their rigid predestinarians. the hands of the executive for good, while keeping it within the "on the rest of the world: till the inevitable end comes, subject: of office to one branch of the legislature, he intended to strengthen « own perfections, and look down with contemptuous pity themselves, thus express their deliberate opinion on the Certain hermits, speaking among bounds of its legitimate authority, and to control the impatience, while maintaining the rights of the democracy. Both President and "and history affords one more example that no nation can Senators would have been responsible-but responsible only to the "safely dispense with the services of its ablest citizens, or law, interpreted by an impartial and independent tribunal. The confide its government with impunity to the managewhole life of politicians would not have been wasted in election tactics, and wretched intrigues for power. What other evils might "ment of inferior men.' have arisen under this constitution it is now in vain to inquire. It We are loth to part with Mr Riethmüller's delightful In this universe not even a straw shakes with the wind unless it were so willed before. Fate rules supreme--what avails man's will? destined to be so? Mortal men and immortal gods fancy that much Who is weak, who strong, who good, who bad, except the man preis in then nothing is beyond them. puppets, under the control of strings in the hands of One above Yes Verily, verily, they are |