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I

THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW.

VOL. CXVHL

L02n>03r

i

s>

THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW.

OB

CRITICAL JOURNAL:

FOB

JULY, 1863 OCTOBER, 1863,

TO BE CONTINUED QUARTERLY.

JUDXX DAICXATUK CUK ITOCXNS ABSOLTITDm^

rUIUUS STKUS.

VOL. cxvm.

LONOHAKj GBBEN, LONGMAN, BOBEBTS, AND GBEEN, LONDON;

ADAH AND CHABLE8 BLACK,

EDINBURGH.

1863.

32 SoCT^ GC5 l^/y'-r-^

8^J 53 XL f/S^--;.

CONTENTS OTf No. 241,

Page
Art. I. — 1. Memorials and Letters illastrative of the Life and
Times of John Graham^ of Claverhouse, Viscount
Dundee. By Mark Napier. 3 vols. 8vo. Edin-
burgh: 1859-62.

2. The Case for the Crown in re the Wigton Martyrs
proved to be Myths verstts Wodrow and Lord
Macaulay, Patrick the Pedler and Principal Tulloch.
By Mark Napier. Edinburgh: 1863, . . . 1

II — 1. The Druids Illustrated. By the Rev. John B.
Pratt^M.A. Edinburgh: 1861.

2. Brut y Tywysogion, or the Chronicle of the
Princes. Edited by the Rev. John Williams ab
Ithel, M.A. Published by tbe authority of the
Lords Commissioners • of tier Majesty's Treasury

. under the direction- of ih& Master of the Bolls.
London: 1860.

3. The Celtic Druids; or an Attempt to show that
the Druids were the Priests of Oriental Colonies
who' emigrated from India, and were the Introducers
of the First or Cadmeian System of Letters and the
Builders of Stonehenge, Qamac, and other Cyclopean
Works in Asia and Europe. By Godfrey Higgins,
Esq. 4to. London: 1829, 40

in. — History of .the Modern Styles of Architecture: being
a Sequel to the Handbook of Architecture. By
James Fergusson, Fellow of the Royal Institute of
British Architects. London : 1862, . . , . 71

ly. — 1. Histoire de la Revolution FranQaise. Par M. Louis
Blanc 12 vols. Paris : 1847-62.

2. Histoire de la Terreur, 1792-4, d'apr^s des docu-
mens authentiques et in^dits. Par M. Mortimer-
Temauz, 2 vols. Paris: 1862, . . • .101

Y. — A Dialogue on the Best Form of Government. By
the Right Honourable Sir Geoige Cornewall Lewis,
Bart., M.P. London: 1863, . . .138

VI.-— 1. Les Marines de la France et de TAngletexre. Par
M. Xavier Raymond. Paris: 1863.

ii CONTENTS.

«

Page
2. Iron-clad sea-going Shield Ships. A Lecture de-
livered on the 25th March, 1863, at the Bojal
United Service Institution, by Captain Cowper
Phipps Coles, B.N. London, .... 166

YII. — 1. Memoirs communicated to the Bojal Geographical
Society, June 22nd, 1863. By Captain Speke.

2. Anniversary Address, May 25th, 1863. By Sir
Roderick Impey Murchison, SLC.B., President of
the Royal Geographical Society.

3. Papers communicated to the Ethnological Society,
June 30th, 1863. By Captain Augustus Grant, . 207

YIII. — 1. Les Ecossais en France, les Fran9ais en £cosse. Par
Francisque-MicheL 2 vols. 8vo. Londres : 1862*

2. Papiers d'Etat relatifs h THistoire de TBcosse an
16"^ Si^de ; tir& des Biblioth^ques et des Archives
de France, et public pour le Bannatyne Club
d'Edimbourg. 3 vols. 4to. Paris.

3. Papers relative to the Royal Guard of Scottish
Archers in France. (From Original Documents.)
jMnted at Edinburgh for the MaiUand Club. 1 voL
4to. 1835, 230

IX. — 1. The Greological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man,
with Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species
by Variation. By Sir Charles LyeU, F.R.S., &c
8vo. 1863.

2. Antiquity Celtiques et Ant^dilnviennes. Par
M. Boucher de Perthes. 8vo. Paris. YoL 1. 1847.
VoL IL 1857.

3. Machoire humaine d6couverte k Abbeville dans
un terrain non r^mani^ ; Note de M. Boucher de
Perthes, pr^nt^ par M. de Quatrefages (Comptes
Rendus de TAcademie des Sciences^ 20 AvrU,
1863.

4. Note 8ur I'authenticit^ de la d^converte d*nne
machoire humaine et de b&ches de silex dans le
ternun diluvien de Moulin Quignon. Par M. Milne-
Edwards (Comptes Rendus, 18 Mai 1863).

5. On the Occurrence of Flint Implements, asso-
ciated with the Remains of Animals of Extinct
Species, &c By Joseph Prestwich, Esq., F.R.S.
(Philosophical TVansactions, 1860.)

6. Prehistoric Man, Researches into the Origin of
Civilization in the Old and New World. By Daniel
Wilson, LL.D. 8vo. 2 vols. 1862, . . .254

D

CONTENTS OF No. 242.

Page
Abt.L — 1. Queensland— a highly eligible Field for Emigra-
tion, and the future Cotton-field of Great Britain.
By John Dunmore Lang, D.D.y Representatiye of
the Ci^ of Sydney in the Parliament of New South
Wales. London: 1861.

2. Fugh's Queensland Almanac, Directory, and Law-
Calendar for 1863. Brisbane : 1862.

8. Statistical Begister of Queensland for the years
1860-61-62. Compiled in the Office of the
Registrar-Greneral. Brisbane : 1861-62-^, • . 305

II. — Greschichte der Stadt Bom im Mittelalter, vom
fiinften Jahrhundert bis zum sechzehnten Jahrhun-
dert Von Ferdinand Gr^orovius. Vols. L — IV.
Stuttgart : 1859—1862, 342

IIL — 1. Account of the Principal Triangulation of Gieat
Britain. London: 1858.

2. Extension of the Triangulation of the Ordnance
Survey into France and Belgium. By Colonel Sir
Henry James, B.E. F.B.S. London : 1862.

3. An Account of the Operations carried on for Ac-
complishing a Trigonometrical Surrey of England
and Wales ; from the Commencement, in the x ear
1784, to the End of the Year 1794. By Captain
William Hndge and Mr. Isaac Dalby. London : 1799.

4. Report of the Select Committee on the Cadastral
Surrey, ordered by the House of Commons to be
printed. 1862 378

IV-— The Life of Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke,
. Secretary of State in the Reign pf Queen Anne.
By Thomas Macknight London : 1863, . • 404

^V.— 1. Lectures on Jurisprudence ; being the Sequel to
* The Province of Jurisprudence Determined.' To
which are added Notes and Fragments, now first
published from the Original Manuscripts. By the
late John Austin, Esq., of the Liner Temple, Bar-
rister-at-Law. Two vols. 8vo. London : 1863.
2. On the Uses of the Study of Jurisprudence* By
the late John Austin, Esq., of the Inner Temple,
Barrister-at-Law. Reprinted from the Third
Volume of * Lectures on Jurisprudence.' London :
1863, 439

VX — 1. The History of the Royal Academy of Arts from
its Foundation in 1768 to the Present Time, With

VI CONTENTS.

Page
Biographical Notices of all iU Members. By
WiUiam Sandbj. Iq tw^o volumes. London : 1862.

2. Report from the Council of the Royal Academy to
the Greneral Assembly of Academicians. 1860.

3. Report of the Royal Commission appointed to
enquire into the Present Position of the Royal
Academy in relation to the i^lne Arts, together with
Minutes of Evidence, ftc. Pk'esented to ^th Houses

of Pariiament by command of Her Majesty. 1863, . 483

YII.— -1. Travels in Peru and India, while superintending
the Collection of Chinchona Plants and Seeds in

South America, and their Introduction into India*

By Clements R. Markham, F.S.A^ F.B.6.S. 1862.

2. Notes on the Propiagation and Cultivation of the
Medical Chinchonas or Peruvian Bark Trees.
(Printed and published by order of the Government
of Madras.) By William Graham M^vor. Madras:
1868.

3. Two Letters from W. G. M'lvor, Esq., to J. D.
Km, Esq., Secretary to Grovemment. Madras:
1863.

4» Report on the Bark and Leaves of Chinchona
Socciraba, grown in India. By J. E. Howard, Esq.
1863.

5. Memorandum on the Indigenous Cotton Plant of
the Coast of Peru, and on the Proposed Introduction
of its Cultivation into India. By Clements R.
Markham, Esq. 1862.

6. Memorandum by Dr. Wight on the bitroduction of
the Cottxm Plants of the Peruvian Coast Valleys into
the Madras Presidency. 1863, • • . .507

YIII. — EListory of England during the Reign of George the
Third. By John GeOTge Phillimore. London:
1868, 523

EL — Tara: A Mahratta Tale. By Captain Meadows
Taylor. Author of ' The Confessions of a Thug.*
3 vols. Edinburgh : 1863, 542

Report of the Incorporated Society for the Pro-
pagation of the Gospd in Foreign Parts. 1863.

2. I)ocuments relative to the Erection and Endowment
of additional Bishoprics in the Colonies, with an
Historical Preface. By the Rev. Ernest Hawkins.
Fourth Edition. 1855.

8. Judgment of the Lords of the Judicial Committee of
the rrivj Council on the Appeal of the Rev. W.
Long V. the Right Rev. Robert Gray, D.D., Bishop
of Cape Town, from the Supreme Court of the Cape
of Good Hope. 1863, 552

THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

JULY, 1863.

jyo' ccxiLi.

Abt. I. — 1. Memorials and Letters illustrative of the Life and
THmes of John Graham^ of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee.
By Mark Napier. 3 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh : 1859-62.

2. TTie Case for the Crown in re the Wigton Martyrs proved to
be Myths versus Wodrow and Lord Macaulai/y Patrick the
Pedler and Principal Tulloch By Mark Napier. Edin-
burgh: 1863.

HPhb first volume of the * Memorials of the Viscount Dundee*
was given to the public three years ago ; and as the two con-
cluding volumes have appeared more recently, we have now the
work before us as a whole, and are able to judge fairly of its
merits. It is confessedly designed as a sequel to the author's
* Life and Times of Montrose,' a compilation of a Protean kind,
which appeared at different times under four different titles and
as many different sizes, reminding us, by the ingenuity with
which the same materiab were made to assume a great variety
of shapes, of the transformations of the kaleidoscope. The two
works embrace the fifty troublous years stretching from 1640
to 1690, and they are designed not merely to clear the fame of
the two Scotch Royalist leaders from the mists of prejudice and
passion, but to throw a new light upon the history of events in
Scotland prior to the Revolution. According to Mr. Napier,
all previous histories of these times have been written wrong :
Charles I. was a saintly martyr, Charles II. a perfect gentle-
man, James 11. a good-natured, kindly man ; and the Cove-
nanters, who were hunted, hanged, drawn, and quartered, got

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLI. B

2 Napier's Memoriak of Claverhouse. July,

only what they deserved. These opinions, conspicuous enough
in die Life of Montrose^ are stated with double energy in me
Memorials of Dundee ; and Mr. Napier, as we shall presently
see, is at all times peculiarly energetic in his manner of speaking,
excelling almost all living authors in his rich vocabulary of
complimentary epithets.

As Mr. Napier differs from all previous historians of these
times regarding historic truth, ao does hedifier from all previous
bookmakers in the art of making his book. He is eminently
original in his manner as well as his matter. Order and arrange*
ment he has evidently regarded as beneath the notice of a man
who has brought forth old documents from charter chests, and
published them for the first time to the world. His volumes are
a chaos, without form and void. We can trace no plan in them';
and, in the midst of the confusion with which he envelopes us,
it is only at distant intervals we can get a hold of the thread of
his narrative. More than half of the first volume is devoted to
lavish abuse of Wodrow, Lord Macaulay, and even Sir Walter
Scott, which he speaks of as clearing the way for the advent of
his hero in unclouded glory ; and when at last the history is
begun, it is so often interrupted that the author may indulge
his peculiar instincts, that it seems like a slender streiun of
water slowly finding its way through waste land, and constantly
hid from view by the useless sedges and thickets which grow
upon its brink. He has no dread of redundancy or repetition.
He will print the same letter three times at full length, and tell
the same story half a dozen times, and allude to it again as many
times more. It is thus that a life containing very few memorable
incidents is swollen out into three volumes ; and it reqiiires a
patience that will fag without hope of reward to read through
them all. If we might venture to compare his method, or
rather want of it, with that of any one else, it would be with
Wodrow's, a writer whom he cordially hates, but whom he has
nevertheless carefully studied ; and in doing so may have become
infected with his faults, as a man may catch contagion from an
enem^

But Mr. Napier has high pretensions as a historian. He ia
no retailer of other men's goods, — no parrot repeating other
men's tales, — no vendor of old fables, embellished and fitted for
the modem market by a tinsel eloquence. He has dug for
himself into the depths of antiquity, and disclosed its treasures^
He has ransacked the archives of noble families, where no
meaner scribe would be allowed to enter, and brought hidden
things to light Forty letters of Claverhouse has he rescued
from oblivion* and from these, it is his proud boast, posterity will

1863. Ni^ier's Memorieda of Claverhcuae. 3

be able to judge of that hero by a truer test than what he calls^
in a striking aUiterative cUmax, ' the fanaticism of a Wodrow^

* the fancy of a Scott, or the ferocity of a Macaulay !' Nor let
lis be 8o nnjnst as to deny to Mr. Napier the merit of research,
although it will appear befcMre we have done with him that he has
prodigiously overrated his own achievements. It is certain he
has no lack of zeal for the cause to which he has devoted him-
self. He evidently feels that he is engaged in a religious work.
He evidently believes that he has a great mission to perform in
setting the world right by showing that the bloody Claverhouse
of tradition was the most humane of men, and that the Came-
roniao^ whom he hunted on the hills, were ^ Thugs,' ^ assas-

* nns,' ^ruffians,' and * wild cats.' He believes in his paradox,
as thoroughly as the Covenanters believed in their covenant ;
and we suppose that, like them, he would cheerfully die for it.

The first portion of the Memorials ^f Dundee is taken from
an unfinished MS., left by the late Mr. Charles Kirkpatrick
Sharpe. This Mr. Sharpe was an Edinburgh celebrity in his
day. He was a Ariend of Sir Walter Scott; fond of anti-
quarian research; possessed of some wit; an ardent high-
churchman and Tory, and regarded with proud disdain all
Presbyterians and Whigs. Scott spoke of him, in compli-
mentary fashion, as the Horace Walpole of Scotland. He
took a curious way of showing his contempt for the Covenanters ;
he carefully edited and published two high-flying covenanting
manuscripts. The first was 'Kirktbn's Secret and True

* History of the Church of Scotland ; ' and the other was

* Law's Memorials of Memorable Things.' The text of these
devout believers in Presbytery and the Covenant he illustrated
by notes of his own ; and it is amusing, though not edifying, to
read the sneers of the editor at what he conceives to be the
fanaticism of his author. The note§ often display much out-of-
Ae-way reading, but they are always designed to cast discredit
on the historian, or to exhibit in a ridiculous light the heroes of
the history. For scandalous stories he had an especial affection ;
and every piece of filthy gossip retailed by the pamphleteers and
libellers of the time in regard to the preachers and leading nobles
of the kirk, he has piously preserved for the instruction of the
readers of Kirkton and Law. Such a man was quite after Mr.
Napier's own heart \ and as he had begun a Life of Claverhouse,
but died, leaving rt in an unfinished state, the MS. is now printed
and made to form the first part of the Memorials of Dundee.
Having thus seen something regarding the composition of the
book, we must now hasten on to examine its contents.

John Graham, the subject of the * Memorials,' was born in the

4 Nupier'fl Memoriah of Claverhotise. July,

year 1643. According to the Scotch fashion, he was usually
called by the name of his paternal property of ^ Claverhouse,'
in Forfarshire, a designation which was sometimes abbreviated
into Clavers. In 1665 he matriculated at St. Leonard's College,
St Andrew's, where he probably picked up a little learning, but
which he never afterwards turned to account. Sir Walter
Scott, in criticising one of his letters, remarked that he spelled
like a washerwoman ; and others have caught up and echoed the
pointed expression. But the truth is, the rules of spelling were
not fixed in Scotland in his time, and Claverhouse spelled
neither better nor worse than his contemporaries. After finishing
his university education, which appears to have been at an age
much riper than was or is usual in Scotland, he repaired to
France and served as a volunteer under the banners of the
^ grand monarque.' France was the land to which Sicotch
military adventurers had from time immemorial resorted to seek
for glory and pay ; but in Germany and Holland a new field for
enterprise had been recently opened up. William, Prince of
Orange and Stadtholder of Holland, was at the head of the
Dutch armies, and the young Scotchman probably thought that
by his patronage he might obtain more rapid promotion than
he could in Catholic France, no longer the ally of his native
country. For this, or some other reason, he changed sides,
passed from France into Holland, and managed to secure the
place of a cornet in one of William's own troops of horse-guards.
The battle of Seneff was fought two years afterwards, and there
is a story, — though not very well authenticated, — that during
the changing fortunes of that eventful day, the comet was the
means of saving the Prince's liberty, if not his life. His
charger had floundered in a bog, and in a few minutes more he
would have been surrounded by the French cavalry, when
Graham dismounted and brought him off on his own horse.
Mr. Napier groans deeply over this incident in the opening
career of his hero ; for, bad he only left the Dutch Stadtholder
to perish in his marsh, there had been no revolution, — no
claim of right to secure our liberties, — and we should still have
been 'living under the benign sway of the Stuarts. *This

* brave action,' says the biographer, * was performed in an evil
^ hour for himself and his native monarchs. Had it not been for
^ his luckless aid, the persecutor of his family, the evil genius of

* the unfortunate James, the fiend of Glencoe, might have sunk
^ innocuous and comparatively unknown in the depths of a

* fiatavian marsh.' The cornet, as the story goes, received the
command of a troop of horse for his gallantry ; but, presuming
on the obligation under which he had laid the Prince, he shortly

1863. Napier's MemoriaU of Claverhouse. 6

afterwards solicited a regiment which had become yacani. The
Prince pleaded a previous promise as an excuse for declining to
grant the request ; but our ambitious cavalier thought himself
slighted^ and left the service in disgust^ which, of course, gives
occasion to his biographer to declaim f^inst Dutch ingratitude.
In 1676, or 1677, he returned to his native country to seek for
employment there. Let us glance at the state of Scotland at
the period of his return.

Scotland had never renounced, as England had, its allegiance
to the Stuarts. On the death of Charles I. it proclaimed
Charles II., and psdd for its loyalty by the disastrous defeats of
Dunbar and Worcester. At the Restoration the rejoicinzs were
as universal as they were insane. A day of thanksgiving was
proclaimed, sermons were preached, barrels of ale and wine
broached; and in rude fire-works Oliver Cromwell was seen
pursued by the devil, to the immense delight of .the people.
The new monarch wrote a letter to the Presbytery of Edinburgh
promising to protect the Church established by law. The
Presbytery enclosed the precious document in a silver shrine.
The Earl of Lauderdale, who was known to have the royal
confidence, wrote to an eminent minister, named Douglas, assur-
ing him that no alteration was designed in the government of '
the Church, and that at the Sling's request he had already
drawn up a proclamation for the calling of a General Assembly.
It had been well if the King had kept by his pledged word,
for if he had done so he would have preserved for ever the
hearts of his Scottish subjects. And Presbytery now was
different from what it had been twenty years before, when the
Assembly domineered over the Parliament, insulted the King,
and sent an army over the border to extirpate prelacy and sec-
tarianism, according to the solemn l^gue and covenant The
frenzy of these high-handed days was gone. The fever had
consumed its own strength ; moderation of sentiment had re-
turned; and had the Presbyterian clergy been preserved and
fostered by the King's breath, if they did not become obsequious .
they would at least have been loyaL

But there were soon indications that this was not the policy
of the Government. So soon as the monarch felt himself firmly
seated on the English throne, he knew he might do with
Scotland as he pleased, and in his heart he had no liking
for Presbytery. The Marquis of Argyle and James Guthrie,
an able but a somewhat violent Presbyterian minister, were sent
to the scafibld, for causes which would have consigned the advo-
cates who conducted their prosecution, the jury who tried them,
the judges who condemned them, and indeed one half of the

6 Napier's Memorials of Claverhouse. July,

whole Jcingdom, to the eame fate* The Parliament passed the
famous Becissory Act, and thus destroyed by one stroke of the
pen the whole legislation of the last twenty years. That period
was to be a blank in the history of the country — a desolation
and a warning. This was followed by the restoration of Episco-
pacy— a thing as hateful as Popery to the covenanted Scotchman
of two centuries ago. Still the nation was weary of contention
and longed for peace, and had a particle of moderation or
coounon sense guided the counsels of the King, the change
might have been effected without the State being convulsed.
But it M'as resolved to make the ministers who had been inducted
into their parishes during* the Commonwealth^ feel the yoke.
They were required to seek presentation from the patrons, and
institution from the bishops, under pain of the forfeiture of their
benefices. They hesitated to comply with what seemed to them
not only a personal humiliation but an open abandonment of
their most cherished principles; and in consequence of this
three hundred of them were driven from their manses, their
livings, and their parishes. The whole west of Scotland^ had
scarcely a single minister left The Koyal Commissioner, the
Primate, and the Privy Council were themselves aghast at the
ruin they had wrought

It was not so easy to supply the vacancies which had been
made. Bishop Burnet says that a hue and cry went out over
all the country for ministers ; but at a period when the educated
class was comparatively small, qualified ministers could not
easily be found ; and in the hurry of filling so many pulpits,
many men of low origin and no literature, and some of grossly
immoral life, got access to- the church. Few of them were dis-
tinguished for their piety or accomplishments, and the people
contemptuously called tbism the bishops' curates. The seed was
already sown which was to spring up and bear such bitter
fruit The deed was done which was to deliver Scotland to
the horrors of persecution and civil war. The people could not
desert in their day of need the pastors whom they loved, and
devoutly wait upon the ministrations of men who had unjustly
supplanted them, and were in their eyes the representatives of
tiie black prelacy which they had solemnly abjured in their
covenimt with God, as an accursed thing. The ousted ministers
secretly came into their parishes and held religious meetings in
any convenient place they could procure — in a kitchen, a bson,
or the hall of a gendeman's house. When no such place could
be procured, they met on the hill-side. The people flocked in
crowds to hear them ; they brou^t their children to them to be
bq^tised ; they received from them the sacrament of the Holy

1863. Napier's Memorials of Claverhouse, 7

Sapper. The parish churches were deserted. This was the
origin of the series of legislatiye Acts against conventicles,
increasing in severity till it was made death to be present
st one.

One should think it would be difficult even to apologise for
such barbarous legislation, but Mr. Napier is not abashed. He
is ready to defend even greater horrors than this. It was, he
Bays, a mere piece of legislative threatening — never meant to
be carried into execution — a brutum fulmen. It is straoge
to hear of the Parliament being in sport, erecting bugbears to
frighten the people, passing Acts which they never intended
to execute ; but it seems stranger still when we read these Acts
by the light of the times, — when we read of the hundreds who
were fined, imprisoned, outlawed, banished for contravening
tfaem, till at last they were fairly goaded into rebellion, and
dien the hangman came and did his office. It were insulting
to the character of the Scotch to suppose that they could be thus
oppressed and trampled on without being indignant. Their first
outbreak ag^nst their oppressors took its rise in Gulloway, from
pity for a poor man who was being maltreated by some soldiers
fer not paying his church fines, and resulted in the rout and
daughter of the Pentland Hills. Upwards of thirty executions
followed the fight, striking terror and dismay into every district
of Scotland.

Such was the state of matters when Claverhouse returned
from the wars to his native country. His country might be
said to be in profound peace. No foreign foe was upon her
borders. No schemes of conquest were revolved : but conven-
ticles were increasing. The Presbyterian population persisted
in loving their Presbyterian pastors, and wherever they preached
they flocked to bear them. The flagitious Government of
Lauderdale, a renegade from Presbytery and the Covenant,
attempted to make the gentry responsible for their tenants, and,
fiuling to manage this, let loose upon the western shires, where
die PTesbyterian spirit was strongest, a horde of wild caterans
from the highland hills. These, settling upon the richest
districts of the country like a flight of locusts, left a wilderness
where there was a garden. The barbarous experiment failed ;
hundreds were ruined ; but conventicles were not put down, and
another plan was resolved upon. Several troops of horse were
raised, to be constantly employed in scouring the southern and
western counties, levying fines, seizing outlaws, and above all in
suppressing conventicles. Claverhouse managed to get the
command of one of these troops, and now at last we find him
in the field of his fame.

8 Napier's Memorials of Claverhouse. July,

We can partly trace his progress and see his heroic achieve-
ments in some of his letters to the commander-in-chief, which
have been preserved. ^ On Tuesday was eight days, and Sunday,'
he writes, in December, 1678, * there were great field conven-

* tides just by here, with great contempt of the regular clergy,
' who complain extremely when I tell them I have no orders to
'apprehend anybody for past misdemeanours.' In his next
letter he narrates at length the great feat of having demolished
a barn which had served for a meeting-house. In February fol-
lowing, he is happy to be able to report that he had seized a
number of prisoners. His notice of one is illustrative of the
man and the times. ' The third brigadier I sent to seek the

* wobster. He brought in his brother for him. Though he, may

* be, cannot preach as his brother, I doubt not but he is as well
' principled as he, therefore I thought it would be no great fault
' to give him the trouble to go with the rest.' The next day he
writes, * Mr. Welsh and others preach securely within twenty
' or thirty miles off, but we can do nothing for want of spies.*
Shortly afterwards he reports that he had seized several persons
suspected of attending the conventicles, and then adds, to
account for his failure in capturing yet others among whom
was a lady, ' There is almost nobody lays in their bed that
' knows themselves anyways guilty, within forty miles of us ;
' and within a few days I shall be upon them three score of
< miles off, at one bout, for seizing on the others contained in

* the order.' Such was the commencement of the first campaign
of this great cavalier of the Jacobites ; but this was child's play
compared with what was to follow.

As Claverhouse and his troops were specially commissioned
and employed to put down conventicles, Mr. Napier thinks it
necessary to say all he can in condemnation of these. He has
devoted a long chapter to the subject, but, notwithstanding the
great prolixity and virulence of his abuse, it is very difiicult to
understand what he would have us to believe. He says the
Government required the people of Scotland to frequent the
parish church, not in testimony of their faith, but as a proof of
their peaceable disposition and submission to the law of the
land ; and hence obstinately to refuse to conform became a state
crime, deserving the severest penalties. If we are not mistaken,
Mr. Napier is himself a dissenter from the church established
by law in his country — in fact an obstinate Nonconformist.
Is this any reason why he should be regarded as wantin^^in
submission to the law, and so fined, imprisoned, or shot ? But
in the case of the Presbyterians, he argues, * it was not an
' innocent and conscientious Nonconformity.' We apprehend

1863. Napier's Memoriah of Claverhouse. 9

that siinple Nonconformity, if innocent in one case, most be inno-
cent in another ; if innocent in an Episcopalian mast he inno-
cent in a Presbyterian ; and we think it impossible to read the
history of those sad times without being convinced that though
the Covenanters were fanatical, they were at least conscientious
— ^perhaps only too sternly conscientious. But then they were
traitors and firebrands who preached at these meetings — sowers
of sedition, stirrers up of rebellion ! The men who preached at
these meetings were simply the three hundred parish ministers
who had been driven from their parishes because they could
not bring themselves to seek anew institution from the prelates
who had been thrust upon them, and there is no proof whatever
that they preached sedition. We may freely allow, however,
that they would not preach such loyal doctrines on the hill-side '
as they would have done in the parish church. But Mr. Napier
has the authority of the State proclamations of the time for de-
claring that these gatherings were the ' rendezvous of rebellion.*
The only foundation for this widely trumpeted accusation is
that after six or seven years of suffering, during which the
Presbyterians saw their regions meetings dispersed by ruthless
dragoons, their ministers compelled to skulk as outlaws among
the hills, their best families ruined by exorbitant fines, hundreds
of all classes imprisoned, banished, or hanged, they resolved to
meet with arms in their hands to defend themselves in case of a
surprise by the troops, which were constantly riding over
mountain and moor in search of them. But it was only for
defence that they armed themselves, or why seek the loneliest
places for their meetings? why have so peaceably dispersed
when their worship was done ? why have only twice come into
serious collision with the military, and that when they were
attacked amid the marshes of Drumdog and Airsmoss? In
truth all Mr. Napier's reasons against conventicles are as absurd
as the concluding one, though not so comical. Such pro-
miscuous meetings, he says, were a great attraction to the sex,
more especially as ladies of distinction were placed on high
chairs in front of the crowd, which, he gravely observes, were
just * towering thrones of female turbulence, fo)ly and vanity.' *
The month of May 1679 was made memorable by the murder
of Archbishop Sharp. The act was applauded by the few
whom oppression had made mad, but condemned by the great
bulk of the Presbyterians, although they regarded the murdered
man as the Judas of their church. On Sunday, the first of
June^ when Claverhouse was as usual scouring the moors in

♦ Vol. ii. p. 37.

10 Napier's Memorials of Claverhouse, JvAjy

search of conyenticles, he suddenly came upon one, as he him-
self tells us, ^ little to his advantf^e.' Worn out with his rapid
flight from Drumclog, where he was shamefully beaten, the
mortified hero sat down that night in Glasgow and wrote to his
conunander-in-chief how the rogues sent their women and
children to the rear, kept the ground manfully with fusils and
pitchforks, brought a comet and captain quickly to the ground
and many dragoons and guardsmen besides, ripped up the belly
of his own sorrel horse so ^ that his guts hung out half an ell ;
^ and yet,' says he, ' he carried me off a mile, which so dis-
' counted our men that they sustained not the shock, but fell
' into disorder' — from which it would appear that Oraham and
his charger fled first, and that the odiers, beholding this,
' followed pell-mell. The Battle of Bothwell Bridge rapidly
followed* Claverhouse was present at the head of his troop
of horse-guards. He took no part in the fight, but endea-
voured to wipe out the di^race of Drumclc^ by sabering
the fugitives, till ordered to desist from the butchery by the
gentle Monmouth.

But Bothwell was not over when the fanatical rabUe was
dispersed and the slaughter stayed. Several large landed pro-

Srietors had been present in arms against the Oovemment.
?heir estates must be confiscated. Four or five thousand men
had got safely off from the field ; they nuist be ferreted out in
their homes or hiding-places and brought to justice. No betto
man for such work than Claverhouse could be found ; and he
was soon in the saddle ^ain hunting down the fugitives from
law, who were now almost as plentiful as moorfowl on the
western moorlands. But in doing the work of the master whom
he served, he did not forget himself. Lord Maoaulay has
charj?ed him with beinr rapadoui. Mr. Napier has vehemently
denill it. but in makifg Z denid he has'famished the ptoo^
One of the largest estates confiscated was the barony of Fret^h
in Galloway. Claverhouse obtained a grant of it from the
Crown. He had been long employed in levying fines ; and the
Lords of the Treasury complained to the King that they had
never got any account of them. The King hinted the matter
to him, and, like other guilty men, he dented he had a farthing
to account for. Not content with what he bad already obtained,
two years afterwards he writes to Queensberry begging that
he ' would speak to the Duke, and represent the thing to the
' Lords of the Treasury that he mighi have the gift of any that
^ were not yet forfeited, that he could find probation agiunst.' A
monstrous proposition for a public servant to make— he was to
seize upon the estate so soon as he found sufficient proof to

1863. Nufiei^B Memorials of Claverhouse. 11

secure its forfeiture ! An excellent spur to diligence ! an ad-
mirable incentive to justice I And Graham .was now not only
a Captain of Horse^ but Sheriff of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and
Wigton, — the law being joined to the sword, that he might
make short woik with delinquents. . He must have known that
the people believed he was growing rich by their plunder, for
we find him on one occasion eiideavouring to persuade them
that though &e fines had been doubled, he did not wish ' to
^ enrich himself by their crimes.' But the full price for which
lie had sold himself to despotism was not yet paid down. On
the death of the Duke of Lauderdale, the ruin of his broths
and heir was resolved on« He was accused of peculation as
General of the Mint ; and Clav^ouse, forgetting former favomrs
and friendship, and scenting the carrion from afar, was moving
heaven and earth for a portion of the Lauderdale estates before
any sentence of a court had been pronqpnoed. He ultimately
obtained Dudhope, which lay conveniently near his paternal
e^ate, together with some valuable heritable jarisdictions con-
nected with Dundee.

In the charter chest of the ducal house of Bnccleugh and
Queensberry Mr. Napier found a number of letters addressed
by Claverhouse to the Duke of Queensberry, who succeeded to
the chief place of power in Scotland after the downfall of
Lauderdale. Upon the discovery of these he sets prodigious
store. The recovery of the lost decades of Livy.were nothing
to it. Most of the letters are in truth worthless ; they tell
us nothing which we did not know before ; but as Mr. Ki^ier
dedares a hundred times that his hero is everywhere misrepre-
sented by that ^ low*minded Dominie,' ' brutal calumniator,' and
'idiot' Wodrow, who has been again repeated by the novelist
Maoanlay, we shall read his doings in 1679 by the light which
he has himself let in on them.

* The country hereabouts,* he writes, 'is in great dread. Upon
cor march yesterday, most men were fled, not knowing against whom
we designed. . . The first ^hing I mean to do is to fall to work
with all that have been in the rebellion, or accessory thereto, by
giving men, money or arms; and next, resetters; and after that,
field conv^iticles.' (Vol. ii. p. 260-1.) * I can catch nobody, they
are all so alarmed.' (P. 263.) ' On Sunday last there was about
dOO people at Kirkcudbright Church, some that for seven years had
never been seen there, so that I do expect that within a short time I
could bring two parts of three to the church. But when I have
done, that is all to no purpose ; for we will be no sooner gone but
in come their ministers, and all repent and fall back to their own
ways.' * Here in ihe sHre I find the lairds all following the example
cf a late greirt man, and stiil a considerable heritor among them

12 Napier's Memorials of Claverhouse. Julj,

[Lord Stair], which is to live regularly themselyesy but have dieir
houses constant haunts of rebels and intercommuned persons, and
have their children baptised by the same, and then lay the blame on
their wives ; condemning them, and swearing they cannot help what
is done in their absence. But I am resolved this jest shall pass no
longer, as it is laughing and fooling the Government.' (P. 268.)
* I sent out a party with my [^brgther Dave T] three nights ago. The
first night he took Drunihui^ and one Inklellan, and that great villain
McClorg, the smith at Minnigaff, that made all the Clikysy and af^er
whom the forces have trotted so often. It cost me both pains and
money to know how to find him. I am resolved to hang him.*
(P. 270.) * This country now is in perfect peace. All who were in
the rebellion are either seized, gone out of the country, or treating
their peace ; and they have already so conformed, as to going to the
church, that it is beyond my expectation. In Dumfries not -only
almost all the men are come, but the women have given obedience ;
and Irongray, Welsh's own parish, have for the most part con-
formed; and so it is oirer all the country.' (P. 273.) * We are
now come to read lists every Sunday after sermon of men and

women, and we find few absent I have examined every

man in the shire, and almost all the Stewartry of Galloway, and
fixed such a guilt upon them, that they are absolutely in the King's
reverence.'

After this we need not go either to Wodrow or Macaulay
to learn the character of Claverhouse, and of the ruthless
government which he served. What a melancholy picture do
we get a glimpse of in these letters, and only a glimpse ; whole
districts fleeing from their houses on the approach of the man
whose name is yet mentioned in the same places with such deep
detestation, husbands resorting to the subterfuge of blaming
their wives for having their children baptised by Presbyterian
ministers, ultimately the majority of the people dragooned into
a sulky attendance at the parish church, and the captain of the
troop, at the end of the service, calling the roll and marking the
absentees. Even Mr. Napier appears to feel that this was no
great work for a hero to do, and that he must have cut a very
ridiculous figure in doing it, but jie consoles himself with the
thought that the covenanted ladies, whom he had marched to
church, could not bat turn away their eyes from the parson to
admire his smart uniform and handsome face I- But for his zeal
in this work, such as it was, he was made a colonel and a privy
councillor, admitted to the confidential friendship of the King
and the Duke of York, and enriched out of the wreck of the
fortunes of Lauderdale by the house of Dudhope and the con-
stabulary of Dundee.

The author of the Memorials frequently speaks of the
humanity of his hero, and the following extracts from his letters

1863. Napier^s Memorials of Claverhouse. 13

are the chief proofs which are produced in support of this newly-
discovered feature in his character : —

' I was going to have sent in the other prisoners ; but amongst
them there is one Mr. Francis Irvine, an old and infirm man, who is
extremely troubled with the gravel ; so that I will be forced to delay
for ^yre or six days.' (Dumfries, April 2l8t, 1679.) *I hope your
Lordship will pardon me that I have not sent in the prisoners that I
have here. There is one of them that has been so tortured with the
gravel it wets impossible to transport him. Besides expecting
considerable orders, I had no mind to part with thirty or forty
horses. And the Sunday's journey has a little jaded our horses.'
(Dumfries, May 6th, 1679.) * We have already,' says Mr. Napier,
' afforded a striking illustration of the disposition of bloody Clavers
to care for the suffering poor. . . . And this sympathy, being the
natural impulse of his disposition, he extended to every rebel prisoner
under his charge, '' even a Whig," whose case seemed to require it.'
(Vol i. p. 138-9.)

Marvellous humanity ! Exquisite sympathy with suffering I
This old infirm minister, a prisoner in the hands of Claverhouse,
^ was so tortured with gravel that it was impossible to trans-

* port him ' for some days, and besides, the horses were jaded,
and could not be spared ; therefore our captain must have been
a man of very fine feelings, caring even for his prisoners, and it
may be added, still more for his beasts ! Surely such an old
diseased man could not be very dangerous to the Government,
but he was nevertheless despatched to Edinburgh, and from
Edinburgh sent to the Boss Bock, there to die. The tender
mercies of the wicked are cruel !

Among the most amusing things in the letters of Claverhouse
are his frequent outbursts of wrath against the Presbyterian

* wives.' They were the head and front of the offending, they
seduced their husbands, they sheltered the outlaws, they were
mad for their ministers, they could hardly be brought to church.
But these outbursts arc rendered doubly amusing by the fact
that the indignant dragoon was at last himself led captive by a
covenanted maiden. Lady Jane Cochrane, a daughter of one of
the leading Whig and Presbyterian families in the west of
Scotland. The mother opposed the union of her daughter with
the persecutor of her faith, and the lover thought it necessary
to write the Duke of York that * neither love nor any other folly '
would seduce him from his loyalty. The marriage took place at
Paisley ; and though the bridegroom protested that his bride
was ^ well principled,' his connexion with the family of Dun-
donald was afterwards made the pretext for excluding him from
the Privy Council, as it was thought state secrets might be

14 Napier's Memorials of Claverhoute. Jolj*

wormed oat of him bj bis Presbjterian Deltlab« In justice
to Claverbouse we can say that there was not the slightest
symptoms of relenting after his marriage ; no female blandish-
ments coold touch his hard hearty and on the very day of his
nuptials he was in the saddle in search of a conventicle.

in order to understand some of the events which are to
follow, we must glance at the state of Scotland about the year
1684. By fourteen years of cruel persecution the great bulk of
the people had begun to exhibit an outward conformity with
the bastard episcopacy which the King had determined by fire
and sword to thrust upon the country. But there was a
remnant whom no fear of torture and death could force into
compliance. They were called * society people,' ^ Cameronians,'
' wanderers,' ^ wild whigs.' Their principles were those of the
Solemn League and Covenant, in their fullest extent, and burned
into their souls by the persecutions they had endured. Th^
believed it to be their most sacred duty, to extirpate all forms of
faith but their own, for theirs alone was divine. Even in their
hour of greatest need they never weakly preached toleration, tor
they regarded toleration as a deadly sin. The King must be a
covenanted king; the whole nation must be a covenanted
nation. For that they struggled, and for that they were willing
to die. After years of oppression such as no people with a
particle of spirit could tamely submit to, they published their
famous Sanquhar Declaration, in which they solemnly renounced
their allegiance to Charles Stuart as a perjured and apostate
man. Four years later they published their Apologetic Declara-
tion, in which they made it known that they would no longer
allow themselves to be butchered in cold blood, but would visit
upon all who took an active part in their persecution the just
judgments of God. They had been driven to the wall, and now
they stood at bay. About the same time two troopers who were
quartered at Swine Abbey, and the curate of Carsphdm, were
assassinated in their beds, by whom it was never known, but it
was suspected that it was by some of the * wild whigs ; ' and it
is only surprising that notwithstanding the unparalleled provo-
cation the peasantry of Scotland had received, these three mur-
ders, and that of the primate, are the only ones which can be
laid to their charge. But the Declarations, emphasised -by these
murders, created a universal alarm among the officials of the
Government, and new severities were resorted to. An oath was
framed solemnly abjuring the Apologetic Declaration; the
military were empowered to administer it to whomsoever they
pleased ; and if any refused to take it he was to be shot upon
the spot, without further form of trial.

1863.. Na[»er'8 MemoriaU of Claverhouse^ 15

But, it may be said, did not tbe ctrcumstanoes warrant the
aeveiily ? Was not the weet of Scotland in a state of chronic
rebellion ? Were not the principles of these men BubTersiye of
all society ? In answer to this it is enough to say that the
peasantry of Scotland were eminently loyal till they were
goaded to rebellion. We do not hesitate to affirm that after all
they had endured they were right to torn upon their oppressors.
We should ha^e despised them as unworthy of their country
and their blood if they had continued to crouch and whine
under the iron rod with which they were smitten. It is true
their religion was not that of the New Testament ; but they
were profoundly conscientious, though somewhat gloomy and
fitnatioil ; and their very gloom and &natiobm were in a great
OKasure the result of die wild life which they were compelled
to lead, and the pitiAil suffidrings to which they ^vere exposed.
They delighted to call themselves ^ the suffering remnant of the
' anti-prelatical anti^Erastian, true Presbyterian Church of
* Scotland.' Their c^nions r^arding civil and ecclesiastical
Grovemment are undoubtedly ridiculous, but they were not
dangerous ; this was shown by th^ condtict before the Restora-
tion and after the Revolution ; and all history proves that men
may hold opinions which they never dream of acting on. The
members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland hold
the same opinions still, but the Queen has no more peaceful or
dutiful subjects.

It was while things were in the state we have described that
two inddents occurred^ not worse than many others, but which
httve been more frequently quoted as stamping perpetual
in&my on the Government of James IL, who had now as-
cended the throne. The first was that of John Brown of
PriesthiU, who was shot by Claverhouse, at his own door and
in presence of his child and pregnant wife, for refusing to take
the Abjuration Oath ; ike second, that of the two women who
were drowned in the Blednoch for the same ciime. If these
stories were true — true as they were told — it was felt there
could be no apology for such atrocities ; and accordingly recent
Jaeobite scepticism has gone so far as to deny them both, and
through this denial not only to throw discredit upon Wodrow
and Macaulay who narrate them, but on the whole Scottish
martyrology. We shall say very little regarding the first case^
as the world is now pretty well wearied of the controversy
about John Brown, and as we discussed the case fiiUy in our
concluding review of Lord Macaulay's History of Engltmd (Ed.
Rev. No. ccxxzii., Oct. 1861), and showed that the letter pub-
lished by Mr. Napier did not, notwithstanding all his vapouring.

16 Napier'« Memorials of Claverhousc. July,

contrndict the narrative which Macaulaj had ^yen. In a few
sentences we shall simply refresh the memory of our readers,
and enable them to have a full-length portrait of the man whom
Mr. Napier delights to honour.

Lord Macaulay relates that on May Ist, 1685, Brown ^was

* cutting turf when he was seized by Claveriiouse's dragoons,

* rapidly examined, convicted of nonconformity, and sentenced to
^ death.' As the troopers, accustomed though they were to
scenes of blood, hesitated to carry the sentence into execution
before the wife and little one, Claverhousc himself raised a
pistol and shot him dead while he was yet in the act of prayer.
Such is the story as told by Macaulay ; but Professor Ay toun, in
a note appended to his * Ijajb of the Scottish Cavaliers,' endea-
voured to show that Claverhousc could not possibly be present
in the district where this military murder was said to have been
committed at the date specified, and therefore that the whole
story must be a myth. Many people with whom the wish was
father to the thought, were settling into this belief, when
Mr. Napier discovered in the Queensberry Charter Chest a letter
of Ciaverhouse, in which, under his own hand, he confessed the
murder. This letter, appearing at this time, was as if Claver-
housc himself had risen from the dead to proclaim before the world
his blood-guiltiness. Nor does Claverhouse's own account of
the murder essentially differ from that of Wodrow or Macaulay,
though of course he softens some of its features, and says
nothing about the pitiful accompaniments of wife and child,
or of his having been his own executioner. To the Lord
Treasurer Queensberry he writes that he had pursued a long
way over the hill-mosses two unarmed men, and in the end had
seized them. The elder, called John Brown, refused to take
the Abjuration Oath, declined to swear that he would never rise
in arms against the King, but said he knew no king. His house
(to which he had been dragged), being searched, there were
found some bullets and matches in it, and also some treasonable
papers ; but what these papers were we are not told, and most
probably they were a copy of the Covenant or of the Westmin-
ster Confession. ' Upon which,' says Ciaverhouse, ' I caused
' shoot him dead.' The younger man, a nephew of Brown's,
agreed to take the oath, but would not swear he had not been
at Newmills, where some prisoners had recently been rescued
from the military ; and accordingly Ciaverhouse told him also to
say his praye^^ and prepare for death. When the carabines
were presented at his breast, be was told that if he would make
an ingenuous confession his life might be spared. The poor
youth, with death before his eyes, yielded to hb fears, and

1863. Napier's Memorials of Claverhouse. 17

declared that his uncle had been at Bothwell, and he himself at
the rescue at Newmills. Such is Graham's own official account
of tUs bloody affitir, and we appeal to any unprejudiced reader
if his yerdon of the story is not quite as revolting as that of
Wodrow or Macaulay. For no crime but refusing to take the
Abjuration Oath he blew out the brains of the poor man at his
own door, and was on the eve of murdering his nephew too ;
and yet there are people enjoying the liberties which these men
bought with their blood, who talk of this Claverhouse as a
hero !

We turn now to the case of the Wigton martyrs, and we
shall examine it with some minuteness, as Mr. Napier has fol-
lowed up his ^ Memorials ' by a ^ercely controversial pamphlet
on this matter, and as his assertion that this martyrdom is as
l^endary as that of St. Ursula and her 11,000 virgins, has
been the cause of much premature Jacobite jubilation. The
story as told by contemporary writers, and stripped of the con-
cretions which have grown upon it, as upon every tale of the kind,
is shortly this : — In the year 1685, known in Scotland as the
' killing time,' an aged widow, named Lauchlison or M'Lauch-
lane, and a young girl named Wilson, were tried for noncon-
formity and refusing to take the Abjuration Oath, and condemned
to be downed, and they were drowned accordingly, tied to stakes
fixed in the sand of the river Blednoch, where the tide of the
Solway overflowed. It is admitted on all hands that they were
tried and condemned, but it is now, after the lapse of nearly
two centuries, maintained that they were pardoned, and not
drowned. In order to understand the argument upon this
simple issue we must trace the story from its beginning.

On March 27th, 1685, a royal commission was issued by the
Privy Council, appointing Colonel Douglas to be the King's
justice in all tiie southern and western shires, and associating
with him as assistant commissioners. Viscount Kenmure, Grier-
son of Lagg ; Dunbar of Baldoon ; M'Culloch of Mireton ;
and David Graham, Claverhouse's brother and substitute as
sheriflf of Galloway. The most ample judicial powers were
conferred upon the commission ; they might try persons for any
crime connected with nonconformity, and inflict upon them
any punishment known to tbelaw ; and, according to the law at
this time, to attend a conventicle was a crime to be punished
by death. This commission was ^ to endure in full force until
^the 20th day of April next, unless the same be further pro-
* longed or r^^led.' Among the instructions eiven to Colonel
Douglas for the proper exercise of his justiciary powers, we
find the following : —

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLI. C

18 Napier's Memoriah of Claverhause. Joljf

' If any person own the principles [of the *^ Cameronians,'* or
<' wild whigs," who had published the Apologetic Declaration], or do
not disown .tiiem, they must be judged at least bj three. And jou
must immediatelj give them a libd, and the names of the inquest
and witnesses, and thej being found guilty^ are to be hanged imme-
diatelj in the place according to law. But at this time you are not
to examine any women, but such as have been active in the said
courses in a signal manner^ and these are to be drowned.'

Mr. Kapiet is loud in his laudation of this instruction as
showing the extremely humane maxims by which the Grovem-
ment of James II. was actuated, more especially towards the
gentler sex. While the men who had scruples of conscience
about taking the oaths which the Government had framed were
to t^e hanged ^ according to law,' that is, as he Is careful to
explain to us, were to be hanged, drawn and quartered ; the
women who were troubled with the like scruples, were merely
to be drowned — a decent and agreeable kind of death (vol.
iiL p. 450-1.; vol. ii. 59, 60.) to which none but the most un-
reasonable would object ! Moreover, according to the instruct
tions, only those women who had been active in their wicked
courses, and that in a signal manner, were to be dismissed from
the world in this pleasing manner,— upon which legal text we
have the historical commentary that the two victims were a
widow of seventy years of age, and a girl of eighteen.

Before this royal commission, so constituted and instructed^
Margaret LauchUson and Margaret Wilson were brought to
trial on the 13th of April, for nonconformity, for not disown-
ing the Apologetical Declaration, and refusing the Oath of Abju-
ration, and, being found guilty, were condenmed to death by
drowning, although, as it turned out afterwards, the poor
women did not know the nature of the oath, for refusing which
they were to die.* They were now thrown into the gaol of
Wigton to await their doom. When there the heroic fortitude
which had sustained them at their trial forsook them, or per-
haps some humane lawyer managed to persuade them that their
scruples were needless, and the Oath of Abjuration was not such

* The, records of the Justiciary Court held at Wilton have not
been preserved, and we know its procedure only from the petition of
Margaret Lauchlison, to be afterwards quoted. In this petition
Margaret Lauchlison acknowledges that she was ^justly condemned ;'
but it must be remembered the petition was written by a * notary
' public,* who would employ the form of language ordinarily used in
such circumstances; and that very probably the old woman, who
' declared she could not write,' knew very Uttle of the contents of
her petition.'

1868. Napier's Memorials of Cktverhouse. . 19

as they had fisuuned it to be ; at all events, they must have felt
tiiat life was dear to them, and the fate whioh awaited them
horrible to contemplate, for no Mr. Napier was there to tell
them how much more pleasant it was to be drowned than to be
hanged. Under some sudi circumstances as these the elder
prisoner petitioned for her life. The petition has been pre-
seryed, and is as follows : —

* Unto his Grace, mj Lord High Commissioner, and remanent
Lords of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy Coundl — The humble
supplication of Margaret Lauchlison, now prisoner in the Tolbooth
of Wigton. Sheweth : that^ whereas I being justly condemned to die
hj the Lords Commissioners of EEis Majesty's most Honourable Priyy
Council and Justiciary, in a court held at Wigton, the 13 th day of
April instant, for my not disowning that traitorous Apologetical
Declaration lately affixed at seversd parish churches within this
kingdom, and my refusing the Oath of Abjuration of the same,
which was occasioned by my not perusing the same ; and now I
having considered the said Declaration, do acknowledge the same to
be traitorous, and tends to nothing but rebellion and sedition, and
to be quite contrary unto the written Word of God, and am content
to abjure the same with my whole heart. May it therefore please
your Grace, and remanent Lords, as said is, to take my case to your
serious consideration, being about the age of three score years and ten,
and to take pity and compassion on me, and recall the foresaid sentence
so justly pronounced against me, and to grant warrant to any your
Grace tbinks fit to administer the Oath of Abjuration to me, and upon
my taking of it, to order my liberation; and your supplicant shall
live hereafter a good and faithful subject in time coming, and shall
frequent the ordinances, and live regularly, and give what other
obedience your Grace and remanent Lords may prescribe thereanent ;
and your petitioner shall ever pray.'

Snch is the petition of Margaret Lauchlison : it is probable
that Margaret Wilson, her companion in tribulation, may have
petitioned, too ; but if so, her petition is not to be found. It
will be observed that the petitioner states that she had refused
to take the Abjuration Oath because she had never perused it,
and was, therefore, ignorant of its contents ; and it b a matter
of perfect certainty that the Cameronians in general — many of
whom were very ignorant and bigoted — regarded ihe Test and
Abjuration Oaths as tantamount to the abjuration of their faith
and hopes for eternity. And there was some ground for their
scmples. It is not quite plain that the Apologetic Declaration
is contrary to the written Word of God, as this poor woman
was forced to say that it was. It is not quite clear that
men, when crushed by an intolerable tyranny, may not take
arms into their hands and right their wroqgs. The truth is,
the questions generally put to the peasantry were purposely

20 . Napier's Memorials of Claverhouse. July*

designed as traps. Do you renounce the Covenant ? — do you
think the rising at Bothwell was rebellion? If any poor
wretch thought that the rising (which ended in the disastrous
defeat of Bothwell Bridge) was for Christ's crown and cove-
nant, and therefore not rebellion, he paid for his faith by his life*
Everyone remembers the laughable story in * Old Mortality,'
where Cuddy Headriggs saved the life of his old deaf mother
by shouting into her ear that it was the ' covenant of works'
which the dragoons wished her to renounce^ and which she
renounced most heartily, to the entire satisfaction of her mili-
tary examiners, who were not very deeply read in theology.
But it must be noted that Margaret Lauchlison had been con-
demned for nonconformity as well as for refusing the Oath of
Abjuration, for her pardon is made to depend upon her promise
henceforward * to frequent the ordinances.'

The petition, which would be regarded as a full recantation^
was followed by a reprieve for both the prisoners, dated at
Edinburgh on the last day of April. It is as follows : —

• The Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council do hereby reprieve the
execution of the sentence of death pronounced by the Justices against
Margaret Wilson and Margaret Lauchlison, until the ^»- day of
■ And discharge the magistrates of Edinburgh for putting of

the said sentence to execution against them until the foresaid day;
and recommend the said Margaret Wilson and Margaret Lauchlison
to the Lords Secretaries of State, to interpose with his most sacred
Majesty for the royal remission to them.'

A great deal of unnecessary fuss has been made about this
reprieve as if it had now been discovered for the first time.
Wodrow, as Mr. Napier is forced to confess, mentions it and
quotes it almost verbatim^ and every reader of Scotch history
was perfectly aware of it, before the author of the Memorials
arose to instruct him. It is at this point, however, that opi-
nion begins to diverge. Mr. Napier and his followers maintain
that the reprieve was tantamount to a pardon, and that the
women never were drowned : we shall follow the much more
common opinion, and show that the reprieve was not a pardon
and was never followed by one, and that the original sentenoe
was carried into execution. Let us see the facts and arguments
on the one side and on the other.

Mr. Napier affirms that the reprieve was a virtual pardon ;
but he does not prove this. No doubt, reprieves at that time^
as now, were frequentiy followed by pardons, but certwily
not always. In 1688 the celebrated outiawed preacher, James
Benwick, was condemned, reprieved, executed, just as these
women were» for refusing to abjure the Declaration of which be

1863. Napier^s Memorials of Claverhouse. 21

was the author. He argues that the prisoners must have been
removed from Wigton to Edinburgh, as it is the magfstrates
of Edinburgh and not of Wigton who are discharged from
putting the sentence into execution^ and that, therefore, they
could not afterwards be drowned in the Solwaj. We cannot
admit this conclusion. When the women petition they are still
in Wigton gaol, and though it is difficult to imderstand why
the magistrates of Edinburgh should be discharged from put-
ting the sentence into execution, we must expect to meet with
difficulties of this kind in regard to events which happened
nearly two centuries ago. It is absurd to suppose that every-
thing should be easily explicable. Edinburgh may be a clerical
error for Wigton. Or, it is quite possible they may have been
taken to Eidinbui^h when a pardon was expected, and sent
back to Wiffton to be drowned when a pardon was denied.
But it is mamtained that there was not time between the 30th
of April and the 11th of May to have an answer to the Privy
Coundl's application for mercy to the King. Certainly post^
oonununication was very different then from what it is now ;
but it was quite possible to have an answer from London
within less than tne twelve days referred to. The Govern-
ment, at that period, kept up its commtmication with Scotland
by what were called ' flying packets,' and these travelled from
Edinbui^h to London in three or four days.* There is at
least one instance of the journey having been performed on
horseback, and by the same rider, from metropolis to metropolis
in less than three days. The moment Queen Elizabeth expired
early on the morning of Thursday, a young courtier jumped
into the saddle, and he was in Holyrood Palace late on Satur-
day night kneeling before James and saluting him King of
England, France, and Ireland. After this it must not be pro-
nounced impossible to have had, even then, an answer from
London in eleven or twelve days. But though we maintain
that this was possible, we think it far more likely that the
answer was not waited for, and likeliest of all that the secre-
taries of state never made the application for a pardon. It is a
&ct that though many of those who were condenmed at this
period were undoubtedly spared, only one or two pardons are
recorded, from which we miiy infer that pardons were seldom
obtained, and that the reprieved were thus kept in the mercy

* We learn from Eushworth^s Collections, that in 1635 the Post-
master of England was commanded ' to settle one running post, or

* two, to run day and night between Edinburgh and London, to

* go ihiiher and come back again in six days.*

22 Napier^s Menwriab of Gaverhouse. J^Jy

of tiie Govemment to be spared or executed as it afl;orward8
ibongfat fit. As it 80 happens, however, three condemned men
were pardoned in the verj year in question, and there is special
mention of their pardon in the registers : and as there is no
such notice regarding the Wigton martyrs, we may conclude
that for them no pardon ever arrived. What more probable
than that the women, who in a moment of weakness recanted
their principles and begg^ for their lives, recovered their
fortitude and resolved to die rather than renounce what appeared
to them equivalent to their hopes of salvation? All martyr-
ologies are full of such cases ; and it is very certain that if th^
did so lapse into their covenanting principles, the Govemment
would find a way of having the judicial sentence passed against
them carried into execution, notwithstanding the technical
difficulties now raised up by legal subtlety. The executive of
that day — of which almost every soldier in the service was an
arm — did not stick at trifles. Why shonld they strain at a gnat
while they swallowed a camel ?

But Mr. Napier has still other grounds for his opinion*
Lord Fountdnludl, a judge of the Court of Session, he tells us,
kept a diary, in which he entered the most interesting events of
his day ; and yet he never once alludes to this drowning of
women in the Solway. The author of the Memorials must
have been hard pushed for an argument when he resorted to
diis one. Wigton was at that period so remote firom Edinburgh^
and communication so imperiect, that it is very possible the
Lord of Session may never have heard of the martyrdom*
Political murders were not so rare that every one of them was
noised over the whole country. Is it maintained that we are to
discredit every military and judicial execution but those which
Fountiunhall has entered in his diary ? K so, we must disbe-
lieve one half of those which are proved by evidence beyond
suspicion. Fountainhall does not mention John Brown : are we
to disbelieve that he was shot, though Claverhouse confesses tiie
miurder in his own hand ? What would be thought of a man
who should refuse to believe that Palmer was executed at Stafibrd
because a gentleman living in Edinburgh had not entered tiie
event in his diary ?

But Mr. Napier has another negative witness — Sir George
Mackenzie, of Bosehaugh, the Lord Advocate of Scotland at
the time iJie execution is said to have taken placb. Li his
^Vindication of the Government in Scotland, &c.,' published
in London in 1691, he says : — ' There were indeed two women

* executed, and but two in both these reigns [those of Charles

* II. and James II.], and they were punished for most heinous

1863. ^Swfk^^ Memorimk of Oiwerh&use. 23

' cnmes^ vhick no sex ehould defend ' (p. 20.). It is eenendlj
undciratood that Mackenzie here rrfers to Isabel Alison and
Marion Harvey, who were hanged at Edinburgh in Jannarj,
1681, and the 'most heinoos crimes' for which they were
ezeeuted was simply confessing their Cameronian principles in
presence of the ccMirt, though tiiey were also accusal of having
given belter to some of thdr outlawed co-religionists; and,
strange to say, Mr. Niqner- thinks they well deserved to be
hanged* But it is necessary we should know something more
of Sir €reorge Mackenzie and his pamphlet.

Sir George Mackenzie was Advocate for Scotland during the
latter part of the reign of Charles IL and the earlier part of the
reign of James IL He was a highly accomplished and scholarly
man, a fiiend of Dryden's, and regarded as one of the wits ef
the day ; but he was a man of ungovemaUe temper and extreme
royalist principles, and conducted the public prosecutions during
the bloodiest part of the two reigns to which we have referred
with sudi violence, that of all the public men in Scotland next
to Ckverhouse himself, he was most hated and feared. After
the Sevolution he retired to Oxford, but even there he felt he
could not hide himself from the finger of detestation and scorn
whidi was pointed at all who bad taken a part in the hideous
misgovemment of Scotland for the last twenty years. In these
dicumstanoee he resorted to the somewhat deq>erate exj^edient
of attempting a vin(£cation of his Government and himself;
but dying suddenly, his pamphlet was not published till three
months iSter his death. It is written with all the address
of a consummate special pleader; but we think we may
r^eat of it now what was said of it at the time : — * Were
^ tiiis gentleman's piq>er dtrictly canvassed, it might be justly
' quesdoned whether there wa^ more lies or sentences in
* it.' * * No man in Scotland,' says he, * ever suffered for
'his rdigion,' — a startling statement! but no doubt justified
by the Advocate on the ground that to attend a field preaching
was a state crime; ev^i to think that it was allowable in
certain drcumstanoes to take up arms against the Grovem-^
ment (an article in both our religious and political creed
now) was a state crime, and therefore those who suffered for
these things did not suffer for their faiilL * No man,' he proceeds
to say, * was executed in his reign [that of Charles IL], who
*woidd say " God bless the King," or acknowledge his authority.'
What! would this simple prayer have saved the thirty-five men

* A Vindication of the Presbyterians in Scotland, &c London:
1692.

24 Napier's Memariak of Claverhouse. July,

who were hanged immediately after tlie rout of Bullion Green ?
— ^^ would it have saved the six men who were hanged immedi-
ately after the rout of Bothwell ? — is there the shadow of a
proof that it would have saved one of the hundreds who died
under the hands of the executioner? * * Nor did there die upon
^ any public account,' he proceeds, * twelve in all that reign so

* excliumed against as bloody.' If Mackenzie here refers to the
reign of James II. he may not be egregiously far from the truth ;
for very soon after that monarch ascended the throne, he began
to tolerate the Presbyterians, that he might have some plea for
tolerating the Boman Catholics ; but if he refers to the far
more bloody reign of Charles II., in which he played a far more
conspicuous part, he is best answered by this statement in a
paper attached to his pamphlet, and in fact forming a part of it.
^ But to show the clemency of the Government, strangers would
' be pleased to consider that though above two thousand had been
' guUty of public rebellion, yet two hundred died not by the crim-
'mal court' [of course this excludes all who perished by the
military lynch-law of those melancholy times], 'and above one
' hundred and fifty of these might have saved their lives by

* saying ^* Gtod bless the Eing."' Two hundred is a very different
figure from twelve, and besides it is here acknowledged that at
least fifty of these could not have saved their lives by introducing
royalty into their devotions. The recantation extorted from
Margaret Lauchlison and embodied in her petition, is some-
thing very different from merely saying * God bless the King.'

After these specimens of the Advocate's accuracy, — and we
might quote many others, — we will not put much stress upon
his allegation that onlv two women suffered death during the
reigns of Charles and James. After all, amid the two hundred
executions which are acknowledged to have taken place. Sir
George may have forgotten the two Wigton women, more
especially as they were not tried by the Supreme Court, where

* We are quite aware there are several instances mentioned by
Fountainhall and other writers of persons being offered their lives if
they would say — * God save the King.' But we are also aware that
when this was complied with, as it was in some cases, other tests
were used, in the form of such questions as this, * Do you renounce
' the Covenant ?' 'Do you promise never to rise in arms against the

* Government ? ' * Will you take the Abjuration Oath ?' And the scru-
pulous Covenanter, who had prayed for the King, but could not give
satisfactory answers to these interrogatories, found he had 'sold him-

* self for nought' But do not such facts only make matters worse ?
to hang poor people for their scruples ! to make their lives depend on
their praying for the King I

1863. Napier's Memoruds of Claverhouse. 25

he acted as prosecutor, and were executed in a remote dbtrict of
the country. If he did remember the case, we think he would
be slow to confess and vindicate it in London, where his pamphlet
was published. It is not many years since the Austrian General
Haynau was mobbed and hooted and half-murdered by the
brewers of London because it was said he had caused some
women to be whipped ; surely there would have been men in
London, even in 1691, who would at least have cried shame I
upon the Advocate of the Scottish Government by which
women had been drowned.

So much for Sir George Mackenzie. But Mr. Napiet has yet
another negative proof. The records of the burgh of Wigton
have been searched, and no mention of the execution has been
found. This will appear astonishing only if it be certain that
the magistrates of Wigton were the proper parties to carry
out the sentence of the royal commission. But this is by no
means certain, more especially as the commissioners were ap-
pointed to punish as well as to try, and the sheriff of the county
was one of them. It is true the commission expired on the 20th
of April ; but though the commission expired, its sentence would
live, and the sheriff would be the proper party to see it carried
into effect. Moreover, on the veiy day following, a similar
commission was granted to General Drummond. W hy is Mr.
Kapier so silent about this commission and its powers? It
was simply a continuation of the previous one, with General
Drummond put in the place of Colonel Douglas, and would
undoubtedly take care that its sentences were executed. But
though the magistrates of Wigton do not appear to have had any
jurisdiction in the matter, it is very significant that on the 15th of
April — just two days after the trial — they called the hangman
before them and * posed ' him as to why he had absented him-
self, * when there was employment for him.' It is evident that
the fellow had some feelings of honour and humanity, and felt
that he could not drown women, though he could hang men,
and so had taken himself out of the way when he knew the
sentence of the royal conmiissioners. In the presence of his
superiors, however, he acknowledged he had done wrong, said
he had been seduced to it, and ' promised to bide by hb service.'
To make sure that he would not bolt again the bailies locked
him up in the prison, and gave him an allowance of four shillings
a day. Who can doubt that he was kept there till he could be
placed at the service of the commissioners to carry out their
barbarous sentence ?

This closes Mr. Napier's proof. We acknowledge he has
raised difficulties which we have not been able entirely to lay ;

26 Ni^M^s Memariab of daverhause. July,

but as it ofbai happens that we cannot explain every ciroam-
atanoe connected with eyents not a week old, we must not
expect to be able to explain every circiunstance connected with
events which happened nearly two centuries ago, and in a period
of violence and lawlessness. With no unprejudiced person will
such difficulties weigh a feather against the immense amount of
positive evidence which we shall now produce to show that the
two women were really drowned in the Bay of Wigton. We
know no historical fact better established — not excepting the
existence of Napoleon Buonaparte, upon which Archbishop
Whately has cast far more plausible doubts than Mr. Mark
Nuiier has cast upon the Wigton martyrs»

It is certain the women were sentenced to death — certain
they were reprieved — and almost as certain they were ney^
pardoned. If they were pardoned the pardon would have been
recorded in some way or other — let it be produced. Mr. Napier
has been praised fdr his industry in searching the public registers :
in all his searches has he found this pardon ? The truth is, no
pardon has heext found, just because no pardon was ever granted,
and dierefore the sentence may have been carried into eS6cL
We have evidence that it was.

The first notice which we have of the martyrdom is in Shield's
' Hind Let Loose,' a work published in 1687, just two years
after the event. In this book it is said : —

* Neither were women spared ; but some were hanged, — some
drowned, — tied to stakes within the sea-mark, to be devoured
gradually with the g^wing waves ; and some of them very young ;
some of an old age.'

Here the reference to the TVlgton martyrs is obvious enough,
but it is made more certain by a rude woodcut attached to the
first edition, in one of the compartments of which we have two
women suspended on a gibbet, and other two bound to a stake
and the tide rising round them. These are the four women who
sttfiered death for their religion.

The next reference to the fact which we have found is in the
Prince of Orange's Declaration for Scotland, which was widely
circulated, especially in the western counties, notwithstanding
the efibrts of the Scottish Privy Council to suppress it, imme-
diately after his landing in 1688. In that document it is sidd,
in reference to the sufferings to which the people had been
exposed: —

* Empowering officers and soldiers to act upon the subjects living
in quiet and full peace the greatest barbarities, in destroying them by
hanging, shooting, and drowning, without any form of law, or respect
had to age or $ex*

1863. Nqner^s Memoriab of Claverh<nue. 27

Mr. Napier does not seem to have been aware of tins eyidenoe
i^ainst him ; nor are we aware of its haying been previondy
pointed ont in what may be called the Wigton Martyr contro^
▼ersy. Who will beEere that in snch a state paper there would
have been such a reference unless the fact alluded to had been
wdl known?

The next Knk in onr chain of eyidenoe is fnmidied by a yery
rare pamphlet, entitled ^ A Short Memorial of the Sufferings
^and Grieyances, past and present^ of the Presbyterians in
' Scotland, particularly of those of them called by nick-name

< Cameronians/ printed in 1690.* This pamphlet was drawn
up by authority of the Cameronian Societies, and was originally

* This pamphlet is rare, but not so very rare as has been supposed.
There are oth^ copies in existence besides the mouldy ones in the
Adyocate's Library ; and we happen to have one before us while we
write. Mr. Napier pretends to be yery learned about it ; but he is
in truth profoundly ignorant both of its contents and of its histcnry.
He has learned from Patrick Walker*8 'life of Peden ' that Alexander
Shields was the reputed author of it; and from the preface that it
was originally designed to be laid before the Prince of Orange in the
form of a memorial of grievances ; and he asserts positively but erro-
neously that it was subsequently laid before the General Assembly o£
1690. Had he read < Faithful Contendings Displayed/ he might have
traced the history of this Memorial from its origin to its end. We
shall venture to instruct him ; and, as we shall speak * from book,'
we hope he will not be tempted to utter bis favourite ejaculation,—
a £alaehood ! a lie ! At a general meeting of the societies, held at
Douglas, on the 3rd of January, 1689, 'It was moved by some that

* the meeting might consider upon the drawing up and sending an

* address, with an account of our grievances sustained by us under
' the hite tyranny, to the Prince of Orange, which the circumstances

< seemed to call for at our hands ; whereupon it was resolved that the
' same should be written and brought to the next meeting, who were

< to consider upon the time and method of sending them ' (p. 369.).
At the meeting at Sanquhar, on the 24th of January, among the
matters deferred to next meeting, there was * likewise our address to

* the Prince, with our grievances, to be drawn up, and then and there
' to be deliberated upon and condescended unta' Accordingly, at the
meeting at Crawford John, on the 13th of February, * the paper

* containing a memorial of our grievanees to the Prince of Onmge,

* agreed upon at the last meeting to be drawn up, was presented to

< the meeting and read (which because of its length, and the same
^ being to be seen in a paper by itself, I here omit). When it was
*read they were inquired at what they would do with it, who unani*
'mously resolved that the same should be sent with an address to the
' Prince, with all diligence, and some fit persons chosen to go with the

* same. They appointed Keraland and Mr. Alexander Shields to go

28 Napier's Memoriah of Claverhotue, July,

designed to be laid before the Prince of Orange, but this design
was subsequently abandoned. Mr. Napier, though labouring
under a strange delusion regarding its history, is quite aware of
its existence, and has criticised its contents, but his eyes haye
been closed to its double reference to the Wigton Martyrdom.
But as one of his admirers has somewhat quizzically sdd.
Homer sometimes nods. In page 16» of this pamphlet it is
written : —

* with the address and grievances, and Dr. Ford or James Wilson to

* go with them.' (P. 380.)

At a subsequent meeting, held on the 4th of March, ' it was con-
' eluded that 30/. sterling should be given to the three men who
*were to go to the Prince of Orange with the foresaid address,
< which sum was to be presently borrowed and [afterwards to be
'collected in the societies and paid again' (p. 386.). We are
informed afterwards how circumstances occurred which created
delay ; ' So that time and season passing over, the Prince was pro-
'^claimed King ; after which the doing thereof became doubtful to
'some, yet others, notwithstanding, were desirous that the same

* might be set about for the same reasons that moved them at first to

* agree therewith ; but still new things occurring (which produced
' matter of new thoughts, resolutions, and actings), that business was
' laid aside ' (p. 387.). Mr. Napier says the Memorial was written
by Shields, and it may have been so, bat if so, it was revised by the
Societies and stamped with their authority. Mr. Napier says the
Memorial was laid before the Prince, and chuckles over the supposed
rebuff of the memorialists. Here we learn it was never presented to
him at all. Mr. Napier says it was afterwards presented to the General
Assembly by the three Cameronian ministers, when they sought adnds*
sion to the church, and not allowed to be read because it contained

* several peremptory and gross mistakes, unseasonable and impracticable
' proposfds, and uncharitable and injurious reflections, tending rather

* to kindle contentions than to compose divisions.' Mr. Napier assumes
that the paper rejected by the Assembly and the Memorial of Griev-
ances are identical,' because Walker spoils of the * hard and bad treat-
^ment Messrs. Shields, Lining, and Boyd met with, their paper

* containing their [not ^, as Mr. Napier writes] grievances only read
in a committee.* Simplyfrom the introduction of the word ^grievances*
here, Mr. Napier jumps at his conclusion, as if the Presbyterians of that
period were not constantly speaking of their grievances, and of their
grievances only. We have the most decisive evidence that the paper
rejected by the Assembly was a totally different production. It
was afterwards published as a pamphlet^ entitled ^ An Account of the
'Methods and Motives of. the late Union and Submission to the

* Assembly, 1690;' and a very full abstract of it is given in the
Epistle to the Reader appended to Wdker's ^Life of Renwick.' So
much for Mr. Napier's Imowledge of the literature of that period
upon which he plumes himself so greatly !

1863. Napier's Memorials of Claverhouse. 29

^ Thus a great number of innocent people have been destroyed
vitbont respect to age or sex. Some mere boys bave been for tbis
banged ; some stooping for age ; some women also banged, and some
drownedy because tbej could not satisfy tbe council, justiciary court,
and tbe soldiers witb tbeir tboughts about the Government.'

And again in a list of some of the most noted murders in
the western shires^ we have at page 35. the following : —

^Item, Tbe said Colonel or Lieut.-General James Douglas,
together witb tbe laird of Lagg and Captain Winram, most illegally
condemned and most inhumanly drowned at stakes, within tbe sea-
mark, two women at Wigton, viz. Margaret Laucblane, upwards of
sixty years, and Margaret Wilson, about twenty years of age, the
foresaid fatal year 1685.'

These decisive and specific statements, originally intended to
be laid before the Prince of Orange, and pubushed to the whole
world only five years after tbe events to which they relate had
occurred, are stamped with the authority of the Cameronian
Societies, to which the martyred women belonged.

In 1691 a pamphlet was published, entitled ^A Second
^ Vindication of the Churdi of Scotland,' in which we have the
following passage : —

' Some gentlemen (whose names out of respect to them I forbear
to mention) took two women, Margaret Laucbland and Margaret
Wilson, tbe one of sixty, the other of twenty years, and caused them
to be tied to a stake within the sea-mark at Wigton, and left them
there till tbe tide overflowed them and drowned them ; and this was
done without any legal trial, 1685/ (P. 128.)

Mr. Kapier speaks of this as the first specific mention of the
martyrs^ but we have seen that in this he is utterly wrong.
But as tbe pamphlet is against him, he remarks of it, with that
refinement of diction for which he is so highly distinguished^
that * tbe plan of it is to rake together in tbe most slovenly
' and reckless form, all the rubbish of unvouched scandal and
' calumny agidnst the Government that could be gathered from
< the gutters of the Covenant.' (Appendix.) We read in Eastern
story, of an unfortunate pastry-cook of Damascus, named Bed-
redoin, who was threatened with crucifixion for having made
Us cream-tarts without pepper. Mr. Napier need not dread his
fate, for most certainly he has not committed tbis fault.

Sir George Mackenzie's Vindication of his Government called
forth an answer in the following year (1692), entitled * A Vin-
' dication of the Presbyterians in Scotland from the malicious
' Aspersions cast upon them in a late pamphlet written by Sir
'Creorge Mackenzie.' Mr. Napier triumphs in the thought

30 Napier'fi Memorials of ClaoerhouMe. July,

that in this pamphlet there is no answer to the advocate's asser-
tion that but two women were executed for state crimes during
the reigns of Charles and James. We ventore to think he has
triumphed widiout having conquered. In that pamphlet we
have the following notice : —

* Nay it is sufficientlj known that women were not exempted from
their cruelty (persons, one would think, that could never either by
their policfr or strength undermine the Grovemment, and a sex that
might have expected at least some protection from the severity of
the faiws, from such a prince as Charles 11. was), but were imprisoned,
fined, and some of them executed.' (P. 15.)

And afterwards the passage from the Prince of Orange's
Declaration^ regarding the drowning of womQn, is quoted at
length. Mr. Napier is singularly blind when reading Presby-
terian pamphlets.

But every year has its own witness to this great crime. In
the ^ Answer to the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence/ published
in London in 1693, it is recorded that Colonel Douglas,

'Together with the Laird of Lagg and Captain Winram, did
illegally condemn and inhumanly drown Margaret Laudilan, up-
wards of sixty years old, and Margaret Wilson, about twen^, at
Wigton, fastening them to stakes within the sea-mark. This in
1685.'

Thus in 1687, 1688, 1690, 1691, 1692, and 1693, we have
notices of the martyrdom. We must now overleap a period of
eighteen years, but notwithstanding the increasing dbtance of
time, the evidence gains rather than loses in force, from the
peculiarly reliable source from which it is obtained. In the be-
ginning of the eighteenth century there was a very general
desire throughout Scotland that the different Kirk Sessions
should collect and preserve in their registers an account of the
martyrdoms which had taken place within their bounds under
the despotism of the Stuarts, while the memory of them was
still fresh. In accordance with this desire, expressed throtkgh
the General Assembly and Synod, the Kirk Session of Kirkinner,
the native parish of Margaret Lauchlison, entered the following
notice in their minutes on the 15th of April> 1711 : —

* Margaret Lauchlison, of known integrity and piety from her youth,
aged about eighty, widow of John Milliken, wright in Drumgargan,
was in or about the year of God 1685, in her own house taken off
her knees in prayer, and carried immediately to prison, and from one
prison to another, and without the benefit of light to read the Scrip-
tures, was barbarously treated by dragoons, who were sent to carry
her from Machermcre to Wigton, and being sentenced by Sir Robert

1863. Ni^er'a Memorimb of Claverbnue. 31

Orier of Lagg to be drowned at a st^Le within the floodmarkt jnst
below the town of Wigton, for conventicle keeping and alleged re-
bdlion» wasy according to the said sentence, fixed to the stake till the
tide made, and held down within the water bj one of the town officers,
bj his halbert at her throat, till she died.*

The E[irk Session formally attests its belief of these partiGulars
* partlv from credible information, and partly from their own
' Knowledge.' The neighboiiriagj)arish of I^enninghame was
the native parish of Margaret Wikon, and its record, dated
25th February, 1711, is still more minute: —

'Upon the 11th day of May, 1685, these two women, Margaret
Lauchlane and Margaret Wilson, were brought forth to execution.
Tliey put the old woman first into the water, and when the water was
oveifiowing her, they asked Margaret Wilson what she thought of
her in that case ? She answered, *' What do I see but Christ wrest-
*' ling there ? think ye that we are the sufferers ? No, it is Christ in
** us, for he sends none a warfare on their own charges.'' Margaret
Wilson sang psalm 25 from the 7th verse, read the 8th chapter of
the Epistle to the Romans, prayed, and then the water covered her.
But before her breath was quite gone, they pulled her up and held
her till she could speak, and then asked her if she would pray for the
Sing ? She answered that she wished the salvation of all, but the
damnation of none. Some of her relations on the place cried out she
was willing to conform ! they being desirous to save her life at any
rate. Upon which Major Winram ofiered the Oath of Abjuration to
her, either to swear it or return to the water. She refused it, saying,
** I will not ; 1 am one of Christ's children, let me go ! " And then
they returned her into the water, where she finished her warfare ;
bang a virgin martyr of eighteen years of age, suffering death for
her refusing to swear the Oath of Abjuration, and hear the curates.'

Here then we have a narrative almost identical with that to
be found in the glowing pages of Macaulay. It is followed by
this attestation : —

' The Session, having considered all the above particulars, and
having certain knowledge of the truth of the most part of them from
their own sufferings, and eye-witnesses of the foresaid sufferings of
others, which several of the Session declares, and from certain in-
formation of others in the very time and place they were acted in,
and mant/ living thai have all these fresh in their memory, they do
attest the same.'

We know not what better evidence could be had than that
here given. The Kirk Session is a judicatory of the Church of
Scotland, and consists of those parishioners who are most dis-
tinguished for their probity and piety. In country parishes
like Kirkinner an^ Penninghame, the largest proprieton and

32 Napier's Memorials of Claverhouse. *f^7f

most respectable farmers are generally members of it** These
are called elders*, and have ordinarily reached middle age before
their election. As a matter of certainty men of forty or fifty
in 1711 must have remembered with accuracy what happened
in the parish in 1685, twenty-six years before, more especially
so remarkable an event as the drowning of women. But in
addition to their own personal knowledge, they had the evidence
of persons still living who had been eye-witnesses of the fact —
and those who saw the sight would never forget it. What
more than this could be required ?

But if this be not enough, surely the graves of the women in
the churchyard of Wigton should convinca the most sceptical.
And we speak not of graves existing now, and pointed out by
the vague finger of tradition, but of graves and tombstones
existing before the generation which had witnessed the martyr-
dom had passed away, and while many of the relatives and
friends of the martyrs must still have been living, and every
Sunday mssing through the churchyard where the tombstones
stood. We know from the ' Cloud of Witnesses* that previous
to 1714 there was a stone with an epitaph upon it in memory
of Margaret Wilson ; and in the churchyard of Wigton at this
day there is to be seen a stone, of undoubted antiquity, on which
the names of both the martyrs are engraved. But here we
may be allowed to ask, if these women were not martyred, what
was done with them, what became of them ? In the course of
nature the widow of three score and ten must soon have dis-
appeared from the world ; but Margaret Wilson, the maiden of
eighteen or twenty in 1685, would be a woman of only forty-
five in 17ll ; and thus, if not really drowned, must have walked
upon her oWn grave, read her own epitaph, and been amused at
the inquiries of the Kirk Session regarding her drowning scene
twenty-five years before. But what of the relatives of these
women, be they dead or alive ? Our information is so minute
that we can tell sometlvng even of them. In 1711 the mother

* The following are some of the lay elders who attended the Synod
of Galloway at the time this inquiir was proceeding. Sir Charles
Hay of I'ark, Sir James Agnew of Lochnaw, Heron of Bargallie,
M'Culloch of Barholm, McMillan of Brockloch, Cathcart of Glen-
duisk, Halliday of Marl^ M'Dowall of Culgroat, M'Dowall of Logan,
Martin of Airies, Grordon of Largmore, Blair of Dunskey, M'Dowall
of Glen, Gordon of Garery, M*Lellan of Barmagachan, &c. The
present clerk of the Synod of Gralloway, who famishes these names
from the records in his possession, in a letter to the * Kirkcudbright-
* shire Advertiser,' states that the mansion houses of some of them
overlook the bay of Wigton.

1863. Napier's Memorials of daverhome. 33

of Margaret TVHson was still living, 'a very aged widow/
Her younger brother too was alive, and was ready to attest
all tnat the minister of Penninghame had written regarding
bis sister's martyrdom. In 1718 the daughter of Margaret
Lauchlison was still living, and is described by the minister of
Kirkinner, who had known her for sixteen years, as ^poor

* but pious, a widow indeed, the worthy daughter of such a

* martyred mother.'

If all this is not to be regarded as sufficient evidence, there
are not ten facts in the history of the world which may not be
denied. Accordingly from this period the martyrdom finds a
place in every history of the time. De Foe mentions it in his

* Memoirs of the Church of Scotland,' published in 1717. Wod-
row relates it at great length in his ' History of the Sufferings of
'the Church of Scotland,' published in 1721-2, and at which he
had been patiently toiling for the previous seven years. Patrick
Walker tells the atory in 1727. And last of all Lord Macaulay
in our own day has given it a page in his imperishable history..
The most remarkable thing of all *is this, that no writer till now
has ever denied the fact. In not one of the countless letters,
pamphlets, diaries, histories, which have been published from
the year 1685 down to the year 1862, has there been any
specie denial of the facts stated in the host of authorities which
we have now quoted. It has been reserved for Mr. Mark
Kapier to make the astounding discovery that all previous
history is false, and the most perfect chiun of evidence con-
ceivable no better than a rope of sand. But it may be said that*
Wodrow himself acknowledges that even in his day * the advo-

* cates for the cruelty of the period had the impudence, some of
' them to deny, and others to extenuate, the matter of fact' We
can quite imderstand this. No doubt there were men then
living who would fain deny this atrocity and many others
beside. Grierson of Lagg was still living, and, in the change of
times, would be as reluctant to confess it as the murderer is to
confess his midnight crime. Others through ignorance might
deny it, hardly able to believe anything so dreadful. But this
n^ative evidence can have no weight against positive evidence
to the contrary, and again we repeat that till Mr. Napier arose,
no writer was found so reckless as to dispute the fact.

And how does Mr. Napier get over the immense accumulation
of evidence which we have produced, of the existence of most of
which he is fully aware ? Sunply by disbelieving and calling by
bad names everything which has been written on behalf of
Presbytery and the Revolution. King David said, ' in his haste,
' all men are liars ; ' Mr. Napier has said at his leisure, that all

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLI. D

34 Ni^Ler's Memoriait of Claverkoute. July,

FveBbyteriaDs axe liars. The manner in wfaicli he speelcB ef
some of our best historical authorities is most scandalous and
perfectly unparalleled. He calls Dr. Burnet, Bishop of Salifr-
bury, a ^ systematic calunmiator,' ' a historical libertine/ ^ by
' nature rather fitted for the stews than the church.' De Foe is
spoken of as ^ a virulent collector of calumnious fables ; ' but
his choicest epithets are reserved for Wodrow, one of the
worthiest of men. He is ^ an idiot,' ^ a low-miiided domanie/
^ a vulgar glutton of coarse and canting gossip.' We are
told he believed in witches and apparitions and dreams, as if all
the world did not do the same. We are informed half a dooen
times that his uncle was hanged ; as if it were any disgrace to
die in the same cause as Algernon Sidney and Bussell, and
Jerviswood and Argyle. In all seriousness we say, that in
almost every page of these ^Memorials' we find language
which we had thought scholars and gentlemen had long ago
abandoned to harlots and fishwives. But Mr. Jfapier aideavouxs
to damage the evidence not only by deffuning the authors of the
narratives, but by showing that the narratives differ from one
another. In answer to this, it is sufficient to say that independent
testimonies necessarily vary. Let a hundred trutiiful witnesses
witness the. same event, and they will relate it in a hundred
different ways. The horrified crowd who beheld the drown*
ing of the women in the Blednoch, would not be all impressed
in the same way with the same drcumstances, and would not
therefore in telling the tale dwell with the same emphasis upon
the same particulars; but, while the narratives vary in the
details, we hold they are singularly at one in r^ard to the
mwi tsLCtdy — that in the fatal 1685 two women were drowned
in the Blednoch, on account of their religious opinions,
by the agents of the Government. It is highly probiri>le
that tradition added mythical circumstances to the genuine
narrative. A mythical halo naturally gathers around every
martyrdom ; but this does not prove the whole story to be a
myth. The story accounts for the myths ; the myths do not
account for the story. How did the story to which the legendary
interest attaches arise? Mr. Ni^ier thinks the trial of the
women may account for it, but it requires a faith that could
remove mountains to believe this^

Claverhouse was connected with the Wigton Martyrdom only
through his brother, who acted as his substitute, taid was one of
the royal commissioners who condenmed the women. His work
as a ^ persecutor of the saints ' was now nearly done ; but for
his achievements in this chivalric field he was raised to the rank
of major-general In 1686, Eong James> by virtue of his own

IMS. Napier's MemoriaU of Claverkouse. 35

fOftH prerogfftive, abrogated all the penal laws in tlie statute*
bode agmnst Reman Catholics ; and, to appear consistent^ he, at
the same time^ issued a series of edicts by which he suspended
the sanguinarj Acts which had been passed by the Scottish
Parliaxnent against the Pre8b3rterian nonconformists, and allowed
them to meet and wordnp their God in their own fashion, pro-
vided the J did not disseminate disloyal doctrines, or assemble in
the open fields. Othello's occupation was now gone. The
chnrdieBhad peace ; sosd the spirit of rebellion which the perse*
cution had proroked) submded the moment the persecution was
at aa end ; but it was only a temporary lull ; and the storm was
now ready to burst which was to drive the Stuart dynasty from
the thiDDe. James, blinded by his bigotry, began to meddle
with tbe dignities and emolmnents of the English Church ; the
naticm took alarm,* — and his fate was sealed. Had he left the

n Protestant hierarchy of the south alone, he might have
his worst with Scotland, md Presbyterianism must soon
httve been trampled out under the hoofs of his dragoons. In
September, 1688, James himself announced to fiie Secret
Committee of the Scottish Privy Council the anticipated inva-
snon of the country by tbe Prince of Orange. Shortly after-
wards all the troops in Scotland were ordered to march south to
meet the invader, and Graham of Claverhouse received the
command of the cavalry. While he was yet on his march, he
received his patent of Viscount Dundee from a monarch who
nnist now have felt that his only hope was in the military.
Happily the military were not required to act ; the demented
Jam^ became a fngitive ; a&d a revolution at once glorious and
bloodless ensued.

The horse whom Claverhonse had led into England, after the
ffight of the monarch whom they had come to serve, made a
gallant though foolish attempt to return to Scotland, but
Ulaverhouee was not at their head. He returned to Scotland,
attended by only a few troopers as an escort. He came to
attend a convention of the Scotch Estates, which had been
summoned by the Prince of Orange to settle the affairs of the
kingdom. But be soon found himself uncomfortable in the new
companionship which the change of affairs had forced upon him.
Edinburgh was filled with Presbyterians from the western and
southern counties, the retainers of Hamilton, and the other
Whig noblemen who sat in the Convention. Among them must
have been some of the relatives and friends of the numerous
victkos of his cruelty. He was insulted in the streets ; scowling
visages met him as he entered the Parliament House close ; infor-
mation reached him that a plot w;ae being hatched to assassinate

36 Napier's Memoriak of Claverhouse. July,

him and Sir George Mackenzie. He brought the matter before
the Convention ; and Mackenzie exerted his eloquence to per-
suade the assembled nobles and burghers to take steps for their
safety. The Convention took the deposition of a dyer, who
declared he had heard two men say ^ that they would use these
^ two dogs as they .had used them.' Here the matter rested.
The deposition was not very definite ; the Convention probably
not very hearty in its desire to throw its shield over men who
were universally detested ; and farther procedure was rendered
unnecessary by the flight of Dundee two days afterwards.

He fled to his castle of Dudhope, attended by Lord Living-
stone and about fifty troopers, in a few days he was followed
by a herald, who summoned him to disarm and return to the
Convention. In answer to this he wrote a letter to the Duke of
Hamilton, the president of the Convention, pleading that he had
been obliged- to leave Edinburgh, attended by armed followers,
as his life had been threatened, begging to be allowed to remain
at Dudhope till his wife should be brought to bed, and offering
^ in the meantime either to give security or parole not to
^ disturb the peace.' With this letter before him, Mr. Napier
has ventured to challenge Lord Macaulay's account of this pas-
sage in our chevalier's history. ^ He declared himself,' says
Macaulay, ^ ready to return to Edinburgh, if only he would be
^ assured that he should be protected against lawless violence ;
* and he.offered to rive his word of honour, or if that were not
^ suflScient, to give oail that he would keep the peace.' What
is * parole ' if it be not a soldier's * word of honour,' and what is
the difference between * security ' and * bail ' ? The truth is, at
*he very moment Dundee was writing tliis letter he was plotting
treason, impatiently expecting a commission from the fugitive
James as commanoer-in-chief of the forces in Scotland, and in
a month afterwards, notwithstanding his promises and preten-
sions to the president of the Convention, he was in the field
gathering the Highland clans around the royal standard. The
battle of Killiekrankie soon followed. The savage screams and
fierce onset of the Gaels carried terror into the Lowland
soldiery unaccustomed to such a mode of battle, and they were
driven in confusion down the defile from which they had
emerged. During the short struggle, however, Dundee re-
ceived a musket-shot, of which he died on the foUowihg
day.

Having thus traced the history of Claverhouse to its close,
we are now able to form an estimate of his character. He was
not the monster which the alarmed imagination of the Scotch
peasantry pictured him to be. Bullets did not rebound harm-

1863. Napier's Memorials of Claverhouse. 37

less from his body, nor was the charger which he rode imper-
Yious to steel. He hunted conventiclers on the hills rather on
account of the commission he held from the king than of any
covenant he had entered into with the devil. His many portraits
give him a handsome countenance, but in some of them there is
^ betrayed a decidedly forbidding and sulky expression. That he
was proud, self-willed, and of a violent temper is allowed even
by his apologists. On one occasion he so far foi^ot himself as
to threaten to strike Sir John Dalrymple in presence of the
Privy Council ; and in truth the best defence which can be made
for many of his actions is to say that they were done in hot
blood. But to say that he was hot-tempered is very different
from saying that he was a man of warm affections. The very
opposite appears to have been the case. So far as we can judge
from the history of his marriage and of his married life he was
of a singularly cold temperament, insensible to love and careless
of domestic happiness. His ruling passions were ambition and
greed. To rise in the army, to get possession of a forfeited
estate, no matter though it were a former friend's, he would do
anything, and sacrifice anything. No one will accuse him of
sloth in the discharge of his military duties. He was one of the
most active officers in the service, and as such he was valued bv
the Grovemment, and correspondingly hated and feared by the
people. The work he had to do was such as would now be en-
trusted to police agents or worse, but he not only did it but had a
pleasure in doing it. He left his nuptial feast to search for a con-
venticle, he would ride night and day over waste moorlands to
come upon the * wanderers ' by surprise, and if he caught an
ignorant ploughman returning from hearing a sermon by Cameron
or Cai^l, and had him hanged on a tree, he regarded himself
as sufficiently rewarded for his toil.

Mr. Napier delights to speak of him as ' The Great Dundee ; '
but it almost seems to be in mockery. It is like putting a royal
robe on a beggar's back. We cannot discover the shadow of
greatness in anything he did. Almost his whole military life
was spent in dispersing field-preachings, — no very heroic work !
He fought two battles ; in the first he was disgracefully beaten
by a handful of undisciplined but determined Covenanters at
Drumclog, and was himself the first or among the first to leave
the field. In the second he conquered though he fell, but the
victory was due to the rush of the clansmen, and not to the
dispositions of the general. Fifty-five years afterwards the
Pretender gained a victory from precisely the same causes at
Prestonpans ; but who has ever dreamt of speaking of the
Pretender as a great general? Yet the one, so far as we may

38 Napier's Memoriali cf Cliwerh^use. Joty*

i«dge by battles and vietories, has a better elaim than the other.
Dundee's greatness is to be found only in the imagination of
aertain Jacobite poets and writers of fiction^ who have thrown
a l^endary interest around lum which he does not deserre.
Mr. Napier is fond of conparing him widi Montrose. He is
guilty of foul injustice in making the comparison. Montrose
had some of the elements of greatness ; he wanted judgment
and stability, but he had quiclaiess of pereeptioo, fearlessness,
and above all things, dash. He made marvellous marches, and
came down upon his enemy with tiia sudden swoop of an eagle
from the hills. He fot;^ht battle after battle against high^ dss<-
dipline and superior numbers, and was always the victor. After
ibe battle of Kilsyth all Seotland lay at his feet ; and even in
his surprise and defeat at Selkirk his gallantry was conspicuous.
Besides all this he had a taste for letters, and fought not for op^
preasion and power, but on the weaker and the losing side. To
compare Claverhouse to such a man is to compare the jackdaw,
which loves flesh, to the £dcon which will fight for it.

We have now given our readers our estimate of the man
whose Memorials Mr. Napier has written. We can see no
heroism in hunting down and shooting poor peasants who
thought that salvation depended on hearing their Presbyteriaa
preadiers, and we can have no sy mpnthy with a biography whieh
cakieavours to whitewash the ruthless tools of an intolecable
tytaany, and take fr<Mn martyrs their crown of martyrdom. It
is Ugh time the mawkishnessof our Jacobite writers were come
to an end. We hold it is criminal even in a poet to confound
virtue and vice, and to invest with the attributes of a hero the
MMi who is deserving only of our abhorrence. But Mr. N^^ier
has at least the excuse that he has done it in ignorance, for we
are convinced he really believes that Claverhouse was deserving
the i^peUation of ' great ; ' and thus can only be spoken of as a
fliagular instance of a Tory gentleman, in the nineteenth century,
ezhibitii^ a more extraordinary phasis of faiwUactwn than the
Covenanters and Boundheads of the seventeenth. A non-
oenf^Mtnist himself, and happy in the abounding lib«i;y whidi
the Bevoltttion has secured fior him, he yet approves of men
being hanged and wooaen drowned for absenting themselves
from church, and groans aloud because the Revolution haa taken
place.

The ^Memorials' have no literary merits to redeem their
general dulness and their betrayal of truth and right feeling.
There is sometinaefl an attenpt at wit, but it is of the Bcootkn
and not of the Attic kind. An eflfort is made to make the
HMTtyrs ridiculous by attadung 'Saint' to their naoMs; the

1863. Napier's MgmariaU cf Clavei'house, 39

Presbyterian ministers are honoured with the title of ^ Mas/
— the sarcastic humour of which is not very apparent ; and
Lord Macaulay's statements are called ' Macaulese,' not once,
but a dozen times» as if the jd^ were worth repeating. We
have already spoken of the (^aotic oonfosion of the book, and
the shameful language with which it abounds. It is simply a
violent partisan pamphlet in three volumes, and belongs rather
to the century to which it relates than to the present one. We
think we can express no better wish for Mr. Napier than that
his * Memorials ' may speedily go down to the depths of forgetful-
ness, leaving, when they disappear, a few of the letters which
they contain floating on the surface; for so long as they are
remembered,, it will only be as a reproach to himself and to the
polite literature of the nineteenth century.

We have not considered it necessary to review Mr. Napier's
pamphlet upon the Wigton Martyrs, quoted at the head of this
lurtide, apart from his * Memorials,' for it contains nothing of
importance which he had not already written and rewritten in
the ' Memorials,' unless it be an attack upon Principal Tullodi,
whom, we think, we may safely leave to defend himself, if
indeed defence be at all necessary. The small book will not
fierve as a buttress to the large one ; the reiteration of bad

2^Knents will not make them good ones ; but we joyfully
Jiowledge, and we are glad to have a word of grace to say
at the close, that Mc Napier is much greater as a pamphleteer
than as a histcHaao.

40 Druids and Bards. July»

Abt. IL — I. The Druids Illustrated. By the Rev. John B.
Pbatt, M.A. Edinburgh: 1861.

2. Brut y Tywysogion^ or the Chronicle of the Princes. Edited
by the Rev. John Williams ab Ithel, M.A. Published
by the authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her
Majesty's Treasury under the direction of the Master of the
Rolls. London: 1860.

3. The Celtic Druids ; or an Attempt to show that the Druids
were the Priests of Oriental Colonies who emigrated from
India, and were the Introducers of the First or Cadmeian
System of Letters and the Builders of Stonehenye, Carnac,
and other Cyclopean Works in Asia and Europe. By
GoDFBEY HiOGiNS, Esq. 4to. London : 1829.

THEBE are few departments of knowledge in which a clearing
from the foundation is not a desirable achievement, although
it is a disagreeable operation : for it may have the effect of re-
lieving the overburdened intellectual faculties of the age from a
heap of ponderous and worthless lumber. It has happened to
us — no matter why — to have attempted to perform this fiinc-
tion towards the persons who figure so conspicuously in the
historical and other departments of literature as Druids and
Bards. Passing behina those books which assume the rank of
* the latest authorities ' regarding them, we have looked back
into the original evidence of their existence and character, and
the following is the result

First and chief of all evidence of the existence of the Druids,
is the celebrated passage in Cassar.* So freshly is it associated
with schoolboy days and ways, that to bid the experienced
man look into it seems almost like asking him to resume his
kite and bat. Having false recollections of its extent from
the difficulties experienced in the first contest with it, he
will perhaps be astonished at the brevity of the passage
which has given matter for so many enormous volumes — it
occupies about a page of the Delphin octavo. The Druids,
as we are there told, preside over religious observances and
sacrifices; they teach youth; they decide controversies, en-
forcing their decisions by interdicting or excommunicating
the disobedient; they have a president chosen by election;
they hold a great annual meeting within the territory of the

* Caesar de BeU. Gall vi. 12, 13.

1863. Druids and Bards* 41

Camutes; they make gigantic osier images, in which they
bom human beings by way of sacrifice ; they have traditions
about astronomy, the power of the immortal gods and 'de
* rerum natura.' It is thouffht that their * disciplina ' was
first invented in Britain and thence propagated, and those who
desire to be adepts travel thither to acquire it. There remains
still one trait on which there is dispute as to the meaning of
Caesar's words, or rather as to the words which he intended to
use. The Druids are described as exempt from military service,
but bound to the severer drill of keeping a public school.
^ Multi in disciplinam conveniunt et & prbpinquis parentibusque
' mittuntur. Magnum ibi numerum versuum ediscere dicuntur.'
The words are applicable to Eton at this very day. Caesar
adds that the pupils learn an immense number of verses in the
course of their ^ disciplina,' which hence sometimes extends to
twenty years. They must not commit it to writing, yet both
in their public and private affidrs they use the Crreek characters,
and he conjectures that there are two reasons for this — ^the pre-
servation of the secrets of the order, and the cultivation of the
memory. The word Orcecis is printed within brackets as an
imperfection supplied by the guess of a commentator. It was
perhaps suggested by Caesar's statement a few pages before
that he had written in Greek characters to Cicero the younger,
in order that the Grauls, if they intercepted his letter, might not
read it. Though this supplied word, as well as all the un-
doubted words used by Caesar on this topic, has been a prolific
source of comment, controversy, and what may be termed
archaeological castle-building, it is of little importance. But a
moment's reflection may lead us to suspect that this description
of a learned class existing throughout Gttul, in the state in
which Graul then was, is, to say the least of it, improbable.

No doubt if we were to take this as a mere outline or
analysis of a work on the constitution and functions of the
Druidical order, it woul4 be capable of comprehending within it
a body of detail both extensive and remarkable. The misfortune
to the world is that the completion of the picture has come not
from persons who had the opportunity of seeing and knowing the
details, but from those whose power of intuition has been strong
enough to divine them, with the aid of certain ancient monu-
ments which they have assumed to be relics of Druidical
temples and altars. As some have thus liberally supplied the
missing details to Caesar's outline, it is equally competent to
others to take this outline to pieces and see what it consists of.
The Celts were but too well known to the Romans long before
Caesar's day, but no earlier author, Boman or Greek, speaks of

42 Druids and Bmrdz. July,

Druids; and ms we shall see, little of a distinct character is ssid
about them after Cassar's time. Being the first and almost tbe
last to describe diem, his statement, if accurate, b very yakir-
abLe ; but at the same time, its unsupported solitude exposes
its acouracj to suspicion. No doubt it is very distinct What
makes the Commentaries so useful a book to sciioolboys — and
would make it so pleasant a book to men, had they not been
saturated with it at school — ^is the transparency of the style and
the distinct simplicity of the narratiye. Unless where there is
dbviously a defective transcripi;, no cme can doubt what Caasar
means to say. It is another question whether what he says
must of necessity be true — Bobinson Crusoe is perhaps l^e
dearest narrative in the English language. As we read on, the
very next phenomena described after be has done with the Druids
show that Caosar could give a very dear account of what
never existed. In the Hereynian forest he tells us that there is
an ox resembling a stag with a mngle horn in its front, which
after growing to a certain height, brandies out like a palm tree.
Also that in the same district, there are creatures called aloes,
Tery like goats, but having no jdnts to their knees ; so that they
sleep leaning against trees, whence it comes to pass that when
they fall they cannot rise again, and are caught by sawing through
the tree of repose, so that bodi fall togemer. Nothing can be
more distinct than the account of IJieee animals. A more
dMCure writer's statement might have been explained as an
atteoQ^t to describe a known animal, bat C»sar's very disttnctneas
enables us to know tiiat he has described what never existed*

Then he was thoroughly imbued with the haughty feeling
of tlie true Boman, that it was beneath his dignity td take
notice of minute distinctions among tJioae nations who, to the
imperial people, were all alike classified under the generic title
of Barbarians. This repulsive disdain bore some resemUanoe to
the feeling occasionally pervading people in a certain grade of
rank or iashion, that it is bei^th .them to take notice of
the genealogical hirtory or sod^ condition of persons in a
humbler rank unless these be their own immediate dependants,
and then only, births marriages and deaths among them become
worth noting. Very briefly ckws he condescend td notice the
fact tiiat the Germans diiered from the Gauls in having no
Druids at all — no sacrifices — and indeed no gods except the
Sun, yulcan,and the Moon. We know a great deal of tl^ con-
dition of thdr slaves, bat the Boman writers have never said a
word to hdp ns in our researches after tiie origin of modem
languages, not even so moch as to diow the diffimnce between
the CeUc and the Tartonia That C«nr is accucate ta d^

1S6^ Druuli and Bards. 48

wkautest partieular in hie desoriptioiis of Roman warfare or
engineering cannot be doubted, but in describing the taetics of
bis eneoues he does not Tarj his conventional method taken
firom his Roman training. The reader is provokinglj unin-
fcrmed as to die taetios and arms of the barbarians, who, for
all that CsBsar deigns to explain, raieht have been trained in
legions, cohorts, and maniples, like their conquerors. In the
very passage where the Druids are described, the other portions
of the Grallic population are divided into Equttes and Plebs.

But CsBsar has left a stiU more signal testinoony to that
Roman oonvenluonality and carelessness about facts in barbarian
social life, under the influence of which he dropped his casual
sketch of the Druids. Having described the priests, he comes
next to the rdigion which they professed; and just as a
cockney might distinguii^ the officers of an Oriental court
as the Secretary of State, the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and the President of the Board of Trade, he tells us that
Mercury is their chief god, honoured with mf^ny images, and
'&»t next t<» him in their devotion stand successively Apollo,
Mars, Jupit^, and Minerva. This has been a hard passage for
the Druidites to get over, but with nrare than iJieir usual
prudence they have generally contrived to keep it out of sight.
They eould not fail to see that if this be a true account, and if
the Grallic priest had wekomed and served the deities of the
Roman Pantheon, Druidiflm must be stripped of its claims to
nak with the reli^oos sjrstems of E^pt, Hindustan, and
C^tna :^ an ancient and obdurate institution, pushing its origin
bade into unknown antiquity, and living on from century to
century inscrutable and invulnerable. On the other hand, if
Caoaar, as is likely enoi^h, had no sufficient warrant for su<^ an
aaaertion, this would only confirm the casual and Aigitive
character of the whole of his brief account of the Druids, as
referring to a matter wludi was in his eyes of Mttle moment,
and scarcely worth bemg aecurate about.

We have next thue younger Pliny, who handles them in his
own pecuUar slyle. The passage in Caosar, no donbt, presented
a sufficiency of the atrai^e and mysterious to awaken his love
of the marveMooa. It is Pliny — and he alone — who tells of
tibe misletoe, and the eeremenios used in catting it with a golden
sickle in a white robe. It comes in as appropriate to the medi-
cinal virtues of ihd mieJetoe, and because the Druids treated that
ent as a panacea or umversai remedy.* If one half of the vast
k of the writings of the Drai^tes has expuided from the
passage in Caosar, tiie other half may trace its inspiration to the

• PHn. Nat. Hist. xvi. 95.

44 Dritids and Bards. 3vly,

still shorter morsel of Pliny ; and so a large department of human
knowledge has no better foundation l£an one of the minor
marvels told by one of the most credulous writers of the ancient
world. But Pliny has something to say about the Druids as
appropriate to the medicinal virtues of animals, and so their name
again occurs in conjunction with dragons and bsisilisks^ as the
owners of a great medicine, called the An^uinum^ or serpent's
egg. Pliny had seen one of these about the size of an apple.
It was a sort of corporate deposit, being the produce of the joint
parturition of a group of serpents, who held it in so much value
that he who would deprive them of it must needs take to flight
on a fleet horse to escape from the deadly consequences of their
wrath.*

Among other writers, such as Strabo, Ammianus Marcellinus,
and Pomponius Mela, we may find that kind of stale, in-
animate recasting of Cassar's account, which gazetteers and other
elementary books of reference are apt to exhibit in the present
day, when one after another they repeat the marvels or pecu-
liarities which some great traveller has attributed to any part of
the world. On whatever item, however small, any early writer
may add or appear to add to these faint touches of Cssar and
Pliny, we may be certain that some large and complex theory,
aflecting the whole history and condition of Europe from the
days of Csesar to those of Charlemagne, if not for some time after-
wards, will have been erected by the busy hive of Druidical
antiquaries. To pass over any one of these traces would expose
us to be treated with the chastisement due to an impostor or a
forger; and as the traces themselves are sometimes so minute as
to be hardly visible to the naked eye, the critic who would do
justice to them and escape the charge of omission must be
exceedingly careful and circumspect. For instance, it will never
do to pass by the sacred groves of oak which spread their vast
shade over the wide tracts of Druidical literature. These groves
are spoken of by Lucan, in the first book of the Pharsalia,
in that rather turgid flight of his redundant muse, in which
he summons up all the released powers of barbarism and misrule
that will take wing beyond the Alps on Caesar passing the
Bubicon, and leaving the Gauls to their own devices. The passage
is the climax of the author's invocation, and he imparts a grand
tone of mysterious awfulness to that strange barbaric priesthood,
now that the master spirit has departed, resuming their weird
mysteries in the dark recesses of their groves. It would be a
small foundation, one would think, for a systematic exposition

♦ Plin. Nat Hist. xxix. 12.

1863. Druids and Bards. 45

of the creed of the red nationa of America, were it reared on
nothing more than Pope's lioes about the Indian, whose un-
tutored mind sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind, and
expects that his faithful dog will accompany him to the world of
spirits. To refer to the grove in which they were celebrated was
the conventional way of giving a local habitation and a name to
religious rites among the Boman authors, just as a modem mis-
sionary poet, accustomed to worship in an edifice or church,
would talk about the idol and its temple. The grove is
mentioned, and just mentioned only, some years later in
Roman literature by no less a prose writer than Tacitus.*
Our readers will remember his vivid and picturesque de-
scription of the invasion of Mona or Anglesea by Suetonius,
when the Roman soldiers were appalled by a crowd of female
furies rushing about with streaming hair, uttering wild yells,
and by a row of Druids with their hands stretched upwards,
uttering their dreadful prayers, and invoking the vengeance of
their gods. When the island was subdued, Tacitus says, in his
brief way, that the groves sacred to savage superstitions were
cut down. It might be maintained that Tacitus wrote here for
effect rather than truth as much as Lucan; but the term
grove, in that form which the Romans applied to one that was
devoted to an object of worship, is certainly written in the bond,
and, in Parliamentary language, stands part of the question.

If we are to believe that in ancient Europe a spiritual
hierarchy ruled over countries pretty nearly as extensive as
those which now adhere to the See of Rome, — a hierarchy not
merely rivalling the civil power, but exercising an established
supremacy over it, — history, in the latter days of the Roman
empire, is sadly mutilated of its usual proportions, when it fails
to give us any symptoms or indications of the presence of so
powerful a body. We hear nothing of statesmen endeavouring
to conciliate them, and use them as an instrument for poli-
tical ends, nor, on the other hand, are we told the history of any
long contest with their influence, or any weighty blow struck at
their existence. For all the formidable powers attributed to
them by Caesar, they seem no more objects of consideration
and anxiety in his military career, than the branching-horned
oxen and the kneeless sti^ which are their next neighbours
in his Commentaries. One author, indeed, refers to political
transactions in which they were involved, but treats them with
an off-hand brevity as remarkable as the silence of the others.
Suetonius tells us, in the compass of a line and a half, that the

* Ann, xiv. cap. 30.

46 Dndds and Amb. JjbSj,

penieioiM rel^oii of the DmidS) partly represeed by Angastira,
was altogether abo&hed by Clandhie. Even tJiis inch of

rnnd haa not been occupied without anxiety and difficulty,
baa not been, properly speaking, contested, hot a previons
occnpani had to be ejected. A reading of the passage which
made it not the reU^on of the Droids, but the worship of the
Dryads that was suppressed, received the sanction of so emi-
nent a critic as Salmasius. The context, however, is in finvour
of the Druids, and the triumph of securing it seems to have
so dazzled their votaries, that they have been unconscious of
the more than insignificance of the acquisition. If the passage
be correct, a body of men whose suppression accidentally sie^-
gests so brief a notice in one of many histories, cannot have
been possessed of very formidable influence. On the other hand»
if the statement made by Suetonius is inaccurate, it is only a
further instance of the vague indifference with which the Bomans
treated the whole affitir.

Another historian affords us some glimpses bto Dmidical
transactions which have been wisely overlooked by the later sages
of Druidism. In bringing them forward, a preliminary remark
occurs as to the difficulty in some instances of establishing the
sex of the persons spoken of Druidically. They are sometimes
called Druides and at others Druidse. The latter is a feminine
termination, but it may be common gender, and is sometimes
used with a masculine adjective, showing that male Druids only
were referred to. In some instances the sex, undetermined by
the context, might appear to be feminine, but in others women
Druids are specifically brought forward, not merely as no rarity,
but as if the order generally were of that sex. Though they
appear thus at home in Roman literature, they are by no
means so easily received into the hierarchical system which
modem ingenuity has constructed for Druidkm, to which, indeed,
they are hardly less unconformable, as the geologists say, than
Pope Joan in the Pontificate.

Last in order in the collection of the miscellaneous Augustan
historians, are some lives by Flavins Vopiscus. They form
a small book, but it is in good esteem, fr<Hn the author's op-
portunities of acquiring authentic information, and bis simple
unaffected method of communicating it. He says he was
told by his grandfather, who had it on the very best autho-
rity, how Diocletian, in his early obscure days, frequenting
a tavern among the Hercynians in Belgium, had some in-
tercourse with a Dmidical woman ('cum Druide quadam
' muliere,') who twitted him with greed and parsimony. He
said, in banter, that he would be more open-handed when he

1863. Druid$ and JBonfa. 47

became emptfor, wlKTeoii the Draidess, rebnkiag Um f<Mr bk
levity, said to him, in the spirit of propheej, ^ Yon will be em*

* peror, cwm mprum eecideris,* ^ when y oh shall have slain the wild

* boor,' a» the natural meaniag of the prediction niight seem.
Dioeletiaii went on hmfttng and slaying great numbers of wild
boarsy bnt as be saw Anrelian, Tacitus, Probas, and others suc-
cessively assume the purple, he 9aid that he killed the bpars, but
others eat the flesh. When he afterwards statbbed Arius Aper, as
the mnrderer of Numerian, he said to himself, ^ At het I have
' killed the fated Aper/ and took the eoamumd of the imperial
gsMrds as the child of destiny. Aper would have suffisred ihe
penalty of his offence in the due course <»f the administration of
justice, bnt Diocletian admitted, as Yopiscus's grand&ther re-
ported, that he seized the opportunity of doing this deed witb
his own hands, for the purpose of fulfilling the prophecy of the
Dmidess. It is odd enough that this story contaons two
incidents of that remarkable legend of Macbeth on which
Shakspeare founded his tragedy — the pn^hecy of a crown, and
tbe slaught^, by his own hand, of one charged by him with the
mnrder of the monarch to whom he succeeded. In the usual
estinBates of Diocletian's character the parallel goes no furth^,
but still some accused him of slaying the innocent to conceal
his own guilt. Yopiscos tells another story, how the Emperor
Aurelianns, called Clfudius, consulted female Druids on the
question whether the empire would continue in his posterity,
and got for answer, that no name would be more illustrious in
the republic than that of the posterity of Claudius, a prophecy
wbich, as Yopiscus remarks^ was in one sense fulfilled; here,
too, we have a resemblance, a faint one it is true, to the pre^
diction about Banquo's o&pring. These Druid women seem to
have been a sort of Sibyls or Pythonesses^ who succeeded to
the older oracles. Their occupation is an instance of a phe-
nomenon often noticed, that the more civilised nation goes
to the more barbarous to find the gift of prophecy — hence
the fortune-telling Gipsies and second-sighted Highlanders of
modem times. Tacitus tells us that the Druids, after the burning
of the Capitol, predicted ftrom it the ruin of the empire, although
all proper auspices were engaged to inaugurate the new building,
and it would seem, though the sex is not apparent from the
grammar, that the Druids he refers to were also women.

It seems worth noticing, that these Druidic women of Vopis-
cus come forward much more distinctly in connexion with the
actual, transaction of business than any male members of the
order. So abstractly and indistinctly are these referred to, as
to render it safe to maintain, tJnvt in so daasie author does a

48 DrmkU amd Bards. SxAj^

word occur importiiig the ringnlir nwaciiHiie of the title. They
are always mentioned Tagoely in the ploral — the Druids.
Cioero, indeed, according to a passage in his work on Divina-
ti(»i9 seems to have met in society a Dmid — a rather clever
fellow, well educated and acquainted eq^edally with jAy-
mology — named Diritiacus the .Sduan, yet Cicero does not
style hifn a Druid, but mentions circuitoiuly that he belonged
to their order. A point might be made, could thb be proved to
be the same Divitiacus whom Cssar found so influential among
the Gauls. This, perhaps, is the nearest approach to the actual
identification of a living male Druid made by any ancient
author, though in reading some modem books of eminence,
one might imagine that the members of the order were nume-
rous, eminent, and well known to the public in generaL

Mr. Godfirey Higgins, in the full tide of his extravagant
speculations on the Celtic Druids, startles us by the heading
of a chapter, * Virgil a Druid.' The reader is left to find in
the original the process by which this metamorphosis is accom-
plished, and we prefer, in the meantime, citing a passage in
which the lovers of Herodotus will find an <dd fnend, who
made in his day a considerable sensation in heathen society,
coming as he did from the countries at the back of the North-
wind, in possession of the silver arrow which Apollo had buried
there, and taking an occasional ride ugpn it through the air,
after the manner of the witches of later days on their broom-
sticks. The personage described is the mysterious Abaris, who
has for centuries perplexed the commentators : —

'He appears to have been a priest of Apollo, and an Irish or
British Celtic Druid. He first travelled over Greece, and thence
went into Italy^ where he became intimate with Pythagoras. To
him that great philosopher imparted his most secret doctrines, and
especially his thoughts respecting natore, in a plainer method and in «
a more compendious form than he communicated them to any other
of his disciples. This is the account of the Greeks, but judging from
what we have read just now from the works of their authors, I think
it likely that Pythagoras might receive as much instruction as he
gave. Most assuredly I would say this if it were before he travelled
into the East. But I think it probable that a community of sentiment
and knowledge existed between them, derived from the same foun-
tain. Apollo was reported by Erastothenes to have hid the famous
arrow with which he slew the Cyclops amongst the Hyperboreans.
When Abaris visited Greece, he is said to have carried this arrow in
his hand, and to have presented it to Pythagoras. Under this story
there is evidentiy some allegd^ concealed, which I do not pretend to
understand— or perhaps this arrow was the magnetic needle.'

So^ too^ Mr. Toland argued in his history of the Druids,

1863. Druids and Bards. 49

that Abaris was a Druid of the Hebrides, because the arrow
formed part of the Druidical costume. If any reader is satisfied
by this mode of reasoning that Abaris was a distinguished
member of the Druidical order, and that all his motives and
conduct are authenticated and satisfactorily accounted for as
natural to his position, and becoming in a distinguished Druid,
it is well ; and we are not inclined to debate the matter. In
the attempt, however, to discover whether there is anywhere
in literature a passage identifying an actual individual male
Druid as -having been engaged in any practical transaction, or
as having spoken or been spoken to, there is another passage
in the same book which looks more like reality, though it refers
to a less important personage.

* There is a story told by Lucian, and cited by Mr. Toland,
which is very curious. He relates that in Gaul he saw Hercules
represented by a little old man, whom in the language of the country
they called Ogmins, drawing after him an infinite multitude of per-
sonsy who seemed most willing to follow, though dragged by extremely
fine and almost imperceptible chains, which were fastened at one end
to their ears, and held at the other, not in either of Hercules's hands
which were both otherwise employed, but tied to the tip of his
tongue, in which there was a hole on purpose, where all those chains
centred. Lucinn wondering at this manner of portraying Hercules,
was informed by a learned Druid who stood by, that Hercules did
not in Graul, as in Greece, betoken strength of body, but force ol
eloquence ; which is thus very beautifally displayed by the Druid ia
his explication of the picture that hung in the Temple.' *

Here now is a Druid so far coming forward as a man of this
world as to have an actual chat with Lucian, a person able to
hold his own with most men of his day on matters of practical
life. Mr. Godfrey Higgins, whose account of the interview we
have cited, was a man of curious and discursive learning. His
books contain so much strange and out-of-the-way know-
ledge, especially in matters inconceivably remote from those
which he professes to have under discussion, that they have
served better even than the Anatomy of Melancholy as quarries
of old stones to literary builders ; their frequent use for this
purpose has been noticed in the reading-room of the British
Museum. There can be little doubt that Mr. Higgins was quite
as well acquainted with Lucian as with the Common Prayer
Book. There must be some reason, therefore, why, instead of
being himself the interpreter, he should, with trusting modesty,
refer to Lucian through the prosy pages of Toland's history of
the Druids. The r^er who has no recollection of meeting

* Higgins on the Geltic Druids, p. 20.

VOL. CXYIII. NO. CCXLI. £

50 Druid$ and Bardt. Jnljt

■oythiog about Druid§, either in Lccian or any other favourite
Greek author, perhaps gueaees the reason. Luoian says nothk^
about a Druid. The person he had his chat with waa
fCfXrot TO wapitrnot — a Celt standing by. Tofamd boldly sub-
stitutes the wiwd Druid, and Higgina innocently accepts hii
translation. If charged with perverting the passage, he ooold
answer, with Mact^th, ' Thoa canst not say I did it 1 '
Aa^ this, by the way, is a fair specimen of the manner in wbkAi
a considerable portion of oar archnologioal literature is con-
structed.

Doubtless there was a strong temptation to commit, in this
instance, a small juous fraud. That Lucian had not, as he oi^ht
to have, used the word Druid was all the more provoking and
unpardonable that in his use of the term Ogmios, aa the name
of the GauUo Hercules, he bad afforded the one wanting link
to connect together two great sections of Druidicol scholfuahip.
There are, perhaps, some people in the woiid so ignorant as to
reqnire to be told what is meant by the Ogham Alphabet. It
may be as well to inform these tfaat some scratches upon stones,
which our ignorant grandfathers passed unheeded, or if they
noticed them, attributed to natural or accidental causes, have
lately, thanks to the advancement of archraological science, been
found to be the secret characters in which the Druids recorded
their esoteric doctrinea or other secrets for the purpose of
effectually concealing them from mankind. We are told by
the Koyaj Irish Society, in a paper presently to be referred to,
that the term Ogham ' is derived from Oc, C^b, or Ogha, a circle,
' because its fundamental rules were deve^ped in five circles
'drawn at certun intervak within each other' — a derivation
whicli, whether it be assented to or not, cannot be very eaaly
ooafutcd. Dr. O'Connor, the really learned editor of the great
sources of Irish history in the libra^ of the late Duke of
Buckingham, appears to have been the first to discover the
similarity of the name of the secret alphabet to the term used
by Lucian, and the partiality of a discoverer and sole possessor
seems to have in this instance led that cautious antiquary into
some extravagances.

The Ogham Alphabet comes far more genially to the hand of
the egregious Colonel Yallancey, who, never perplexed by any
doubts or difficulties, hits off the most recondite mysteries ot
antiquarianism with the precision of a profi^sor of one of the
exact s^enees, and provides you ivith a set of umple rules, by
means of which the humblest tyro may read with ease those
records in which the simple Dnuds believed that they had for ever
hidden tbor knowledge. The first paper in the archnological

1863. Druids md Bards. 5 1

eenes issued by the Boyal Irish Society is a report on an Ogham
inscription deciphered on Colonel Yallanoey's method. It was
found enCTaved on a stone on Mount CaUan^ in the county of
Clare. That one of the several misuonaries to the spot who
was most successful in solving its mysteries said that ' he was
' not sure that the indentures on the stone were not natural, but
< on observing them carefully, and their r^ularity^and comparing
'them with the natural impressions which were irregularly
'indented in the other stones and in some parts of this, be con-
' vinoed himself beyond a doubt that they were artificial.'

When the nussionaries had concluded their labours, they
foqnd that they had made out five different readings of tlie
inscription, quite difierent from and irreconcilable with each
other. It was fiurther discovered that while some of them, after
the barbarous fashion of the modem European nations, had read
the inscription from left to right, one adept, foimding on
opinions for which he was no doubt ready to suffer martyrdom,
bad persisted in reading it in the opposite direction, from right
to left. These discrepancies, which would have sadly dis-
oouraged investigators in any other science, seem only to have
awakaied the Oghamites to the beautiful simplicity and flexi-
biUty of their system. The inscription was intended to be read
hoih ways, and all the five seemingly discordant versions, with
an indefinite number of others imdiscovered, were of necessity
quite correct. The five different readings, when placed one
after anodier in a particular order, made a sort of epos or story.
The Ogham Alphabet was thus found to resemble one of those
ingenious toys in which certain pieces of wood or painted card
may be so shifted as to produce one after another 'the separate
figures of a group — although to compare this sublime andent
mystery to any produce of vulgar modern ingenuity is apt to
remind one of the remarks of the Persian Embassy, when, ac-
cording to Haji Baba, they saw midshipmen taking bearings at
sea, and compared such a paltry achievement as tibe discovery
of the ship's position with the feats of their own astrologers,
who, by consulting the stars, could predict her safe arrival or
discover the propitious hour for unloading her cargo.

Lucian, we may easily believe, was innocently imconscious
of the mighty discussions he was raising by that little sketch of
his, called the Celtic Hercules. He spent, it is true, a good
part of his life in Gaul, and might have been an authority about
the Druids, if they existed or were deemed worthy of his notice.
But he was as slippery a person for anything like fact or
seriousness as Rabelais or Dean Swift. The story, in fact, had
no more claim to be cited as an authority upon uie customs of

52 Druids and Bards. July,

I people beyond the Alps than Addison^s * Vision of Mirza,*
Colhns's ' Oriental Eclogues/ to stand as an authority for

the
or

the religion or government of Eastern nations. Lucian in-
tended to write an all^ory, satirising some person or persons
unknown, and no doubt he made what in his own day was
counted a capital hit

Of all the men of genius of the Old World none could have
had a better opportunity of knowing something of the Druids,
had they been the mighty hierarchy they are supposed to have
been, than Ausonius, an author not to be excluded from the
pale of classical literature, though he lived somewhat remote
from the Augustan age. He adorned the things and men around
him with a touch of sentiment akin to much of the literature of
the present day. Aspiring neither to the grand march of the
heroic, nor to the glittering Epicureanism of the lyric style, he
found a little world of poetry within the circle of his own
attachments and emotions, devoting his muse to ' the amiable
qualities of his relations and his social circle, and to the scenery
with which he was familiar.

He was a Gaul or Frenchman, a native of Bordeaux, in
fact, where his father had been a physician. He seems to have
travelled a good deal, dropping poetical tributes to the places
which interested him. He was, no doubt, familiar with that
town in the centre of Graul commonly supposed to be the
modem Dreux, which, according to Csesar, or, more properly
speaking, his Druidic commentators, was the veiy Vatican of
the great hierarchy of the Druids. If these were mentioned by
Ausonius, he could not, of course, fail to let us know, through
the expressions used by him, that they were a great dominant
power in the state, then flourishing or but recently deposed, if
either condition had been theirs. Ausonius does refer to them
in his commemoration of the Burgundian professors. They are
mentioned as the ancestry of Attius Patera of Bayeux, who
derives his name of Patera from that bestowed on their priests
by the ApoUinarian mystics, and again they are mentioned
where, among the group of grammarians, Ausonius calls up the
venerable Phoebicius, also an Apollonic name.* It will be seen

* Tlie first passage occurs in the lines to Attius Patera, Rbetor : —

' Tu Bajocassis stirpe Druidamm satus,

Si fama non fallit fidein,
Beleni sacratam ducis e templo genus :

Et inde vobis nomina :
Tibi Pater» : sic ministros nnncupant

Apollinaris mystici.' {Auson. 194. 7.)

1863. Druids and Bards. 53

that in these passages, where they are mixed up with the
Belenites or ApoUonites, the Druids are spoken of in anything
but a {nractical spirit, as undefined and semi*mythical persons of
the ohecure past. Descent from them is spoken of as if it were
from Hercules, or Apollo, or Boreas — something vaguely com-
plimentary, but far from distinct. One thing is dear, however,
in Ausonius, that his idea of the Druids, whether as a myth or
a reality, was the idea of a race or caste. This is totdly at
variance with that perfectly distinct statement of Caesar, which
is the origin of everything since said about them. He states
that they were a priesthood created by education and training,
and that their ranks were recruited from without by young
men amlntious of participating in their powers and privileges.

We conclude this sketch oi the evidence found among classic
authors for the existence of the great system of Druidism with a
feeling of considerable responsibufty, since it is quite reasonable
that where structures so vast have been raised out of materials
80 meagre, the omission of any element, however minute, will
be set down as a suppression of all that the inventive genius of
our antiquaries would have made out of it. As nothing farther
presents itself, however, we propose to pass from the meagre and
motley notices of the Druids left behind by their fellow-heathens,
and endeavour to discover if there are any traces of their contact
with primitive Christianity.

In the first place, we believe that Eusebius and other primary
ecclesiastical historians may be searched in vain for any allusion to
them. The indefatigable Diefenbach, in his alphabetical work on
the manners of the early European nations, which serves as a sort
of supplement to Ducange, announces the discovery of a passage
in St. Chrysostom in which the Druids are mentioned ; in this
passage, however, they are not spoken of practically as heathen
priests coming in contact with Christian missionaries, but they
are included in a general enumeration of the superstitious priest-
hood of heathen nations, the Magi of the Persians and the

The second passage is addressed to Phcebicius, one of the Latin
grammarians of Bordeaux : —

' Nee reticebo senem
Nomine Fhcebicium
Qui Beleni sdditaus
Nil opis inde tulit.
Sed tamen ut placitum
Stirpe satus Druidum,
Oentis Armoricie
Burdigalad cathedram,
Natl opera obtineris.' {Ausan. 200. 17.)

54 Druids and Bards. July*

Brahnnns of the Hindoos^ aide by ride with a list filled tip from
Strabo, Diodorus Siculos, and other like authorities. In Ae
aocountB of the martyrdom of St. Alban and his fellow-snffisrerv
we hear nothing of the omelty of the Dmids. Bede leads one
to infer that his persecutors were Roman heathens, and Nenios
distinctly says so. It is true that the accounts we have of this
martyrdom, as well as of everything connected with Christianity
in Britain under the Romans, belongs to dubious history. It
may also be said that, granting it to be quite true and distinct^
^ area over which the Christianity of the Roman emporors
prevailed had been previouslv cleared of Druidism, and com-
pelled to adopt the Roman polytheism. Let us go on, therefore,
to the second dawn of Christianity over those natioiis from
which the destroyers of the Roman empire had swept the empre
and Christianity away t(^ether, a wakening which qyread beyond
Ihe old bounds of the empire* over vast territories where the
Roman arms had never prevailed. In both classes of districts
the Christianity which made progress from the sixth oentoiy
onwards encountered the fr^ primitive heatiienism of im
barbarians unsophisticated by dasrical polytheinn.

It is absolutely necessary to the theories of the Dmidites tliat
their system was in full force throughout all the Celtio tribes
when they were converted to Christianity by the eariy saints or
missionaries of the North. The most lively accounts of the
idols, the priesthood, and superstitious observuices of baHMuroos
heathen tribes in modem times are to be found in the records of
misrionarv enterprise. No one can ffive so distinct an account
of the e^erm^it^Biipentition <i8 ^ ehainpion who 1»8 Men
it in full observance, has examined its character and influence
with an eye to its stronger and weaker points, and has at
last prevailed against it. The worid may generally rely oq his
taking advantage of the opportunities thus presented to Um.
He will not underrate the power and influence devefeped
in the worldly soise of the term by the system of heathen
priestcraft which he has been the cbosen instrument of destroy-
mg. And certdnly, if he has found in existence a subtie
and unscrupulous hierarchy, who for unknown ages have
exercised an absolute sway over the minds of the people, through
influences founded on ancient traditicmal authority, and sup-
ported by majestic ceremonials and mysterious rites, he will
not pass over such a phenomenon as something too trifling to be
remembered or mentioned. It may safely be pronounced,
however, that not one word about the Druids is to be found
in that great collection of Htemtmre, sraoe we may be assured
that had the northern hagiok^y contained anything to assist in

1868. Druids and Bards. 56

supporting the qpinions of the modem Druidites^ this numerous
and indefatigable body would to a certainty have discovered it.

The eulogistic biographies of saints do not, of course, entirely
pass overall allusion to the defenders of heathenism, over whom
Uieir heroes triumphed. What is here maintainedi however, is
that there is nothing in them about Druids,and that wherever they
idlude under another name to heathen priests, there is nothing to
lead to the inference that these personages belonged to any vast
ymmetrical hieraichy exercising a ^irituai domination over all
uie Celtic nations. When the holy man encounters in his path a
spiritual enemy in the flesh, he is generally called in the Latin
biographies a Magus. Sudi a person will come forward to pky
his tricks like his fellowHsiagicians of Egypt, always, of course, to
be oAt-mixacled by the saint and eat (Urt as the Persians say.
St. Columba had some transactions with a Magus named
Bxoichan, and the Saint's biographers let us so &r into the
domestic history of this Magus, as to infimn us that he possessed
a young Christian female dave. We are told nothing, how-
ever, about has golden sickle, his white robe, his serpent's egg,
or other establidbed ensignB of Ihmidical authority.

Look, on the other hand, fitmi tiie Celts to the Teutonic or
Scandinavian tribes and ti^ heathenism. Both in their own
Sagos and in the accounts of the struggles among them of the
Christian mosaionaries, the whole system comes forth with more
vitality and distinctness than even the Pantheon of the Greeks
or "Romans. There is Odin, the great Father, Thor with his
red-4iot hammer, ever fbimdering into scrapes and battering his
way out of them by sheer physical force and strength of
character; There is that lovely hoyden Freya, who gives a day
to our Christian week like her two great m^e relations. Next
comes the frolicsome Loki with his practical jokes, which shake
heaven and earth, that prince of good fellows Balder, and the
huge, lTunpi3h, lazy tenants of Giant-land. It is not for us to
say why it is that in comparison with the bold and distinct
d^riptions of these and ower members of Valhalla, so little
should be conveyed to us about the forms of heathenism among
the Celtic tribes. But the fact stands by itself, that we hove
no account of Drmdism in its latter days, either by its votaries
or its enemies. *

* We offer as a free gift to any <me who wiH accept of it, the
fbUowiog soarces of information, to which we have not observed any
relerence in modem Droidtcal literature. In < Martini Hameonii
' Frisia sen de viris rd>usqae Frisiis iUustribus ' ( 1620), p. 106 et seq.,
il is set forth that Hareo, Pontiiex sen Prnfectas Ihniidam, who
lived in Holland in the fourth century, wrote on the immortality ef

56 Druids and Bards. July,

So stands the question as to the knowledge we should have of
the Druids, without the assistance of the multitude of volumes
of all sizes which have in later times professed to tell the world
their origin and developement, the extent of territory over
which they held spiritual rule> the connexion of their hierarchy
with the Boman Emperors and the later European governments,
their influence over early and late Christianity, the special mya-
teries, pomps, and cetemonies of their religion, their^emTrkable
architecture, their colleges and schools, their views of astronomy,
physical geography, ethics, and metaphysics, and many other
things besides. Instead of attempting an exposition of any
portion of the extensive field of Druidical literature, we shall offer
an extract from an impartial abridgement of its principal fea*
tures. In quoting a passage from the 'Encyclopedia Britannica,'
it implies no reproach on that excellent work that we do not
accept the accuracy of its statement. It is the nature of an
encyclopedia not so much to criticise the received state of
knowledge, as clearly and tersely to represent it. The article
' Druids ' in the 'Encyclopedia Britannica,' is a concise and clear
digest of the principal features of Druidism, as dispersed over
the affluent pages of the * best authorities ' ; and the brief passage
now quoted from it will afford a tolerable idea of the distinct
information, commonly received by educated persons who have
not closely examined the subject, as to the manner in which the
religious rites of the Druids were performed.

* They considered the oak as the emblem, or rather the peculiar
residence, of the Almighty; and accordingly, chaplets of it were
worn both by the Druids and the people in their religious ceremonies^
whilst the altars were strewed with its leaves and encircled with its
branches. The fruit of it, especially the misletoe, was thought to
contain a divine virtue, and to be the peculiar gift of heaven. It
was therefore sought for on the sixth day of the moon, with the
greatest earnestness and anxiety ; and when found, it was hailed with
raptures of joj. As soon as the Druids were informed of this fortu-
nate discovery, they prepared everything for the sacrifice under the
oak, to which they fastened two white bulls by the horns ; then the
Arch-Druid, attended by a prodigious number of people, ascended the
tree, dressed in white ; and, with a consecrated golden knife or
pruning-hook, cropped the miseltoe, which he received in his sagum

the soul ; and that another Dutchman, Foppo, the most distinguished
heathen author of the eighth century, left, among other works,
treatises ' De offidis Druidum ' and ' De ritu sacrificiorum ; ' also that
Occo, a ferocious fellow, the last of the Frisian Druids, vrrote on the
doctrines and the lives of the chief Druidical priests. See Seelen's
' Selecta litteraria,' printed at Lubec in 1726, where (p. 428.) this
department of literature is noticed.

1863. Druidi and Bards. 57

or robe» amidst the rapturous exclamations of the people. Having
secured the sacred plant, he descended the tree ; the bulls were sacri-
ficed ; and the deity invoked to bless his own gift, and render it
efficacious in those distempers in which it should be administered.

' The consecrated groves in which they performed their religious
rites were fenced round with stones to prevent any persons entering
between the trees except through the passages left open for that
purpose, and which were guarded by some inferior Druids, to prevent
any stranger from intruding into their mysteries.

*' These groves were of different forms ; some quite circular, others
oblongy and more or less capacious, as the votaries in the districts to
which they belonged were more or less numerous. The area in the
centre of the grove was encompassed with several rows of large oaks,
set very close together. Within this lai*ge circle were several smaller
ones, surrounded with large stones; and near the centre of these
smaller circles were stones of a prodigious size and convenient
height, on which the victims were slain and offered. Each of these
being a kind of altar, was surrounded with another row of stones, the
use of which cannot now be known, unless they were intended as
cinctures to keep the people at a convenient distance from the
officiating priest.'

Here we are introduced to those great masses of stone pro-
jecting here and there from the surface of the earth, which, as
Dmidical stones, Druidical circles, Druidical altars, and so forth,
are considered a permanent and convincing testimony to the
wide influence of the order with whose name they are as-
sociated.

Familiar as people are in topographical works with the never-
bentating assertion about the use of these monuments by the
Druids, it is almost startling to reflect that there is not one word
in any ancient book to connect the two things together. The
ancient authors who speak of groves say nothing about stones,
while naturalists tell us that around Stonehenge and several
other circles no timber can have ever grown. Mr. Godfrey
Higgins dwells with a sort of wistful tenacity on those passages
in ocripture in which it is set forth that Jacob rose up early and
took the stone he slept on and set it up for a pillar ; and that
Joshua took a great stone and set it up under an oak that was
by the sanctuary; and that Samuel took a stone and set it
between Mispeh and Shem, and called the name of it Ebeneser.
But even his far-stretching ingenuity is at a loss to connect
these statements with Stonehenge and Kitts Cotty House.

Before passing 6n from the assertion that there is not one
word in any ancient book to connect the monuments commonly
called Druidical with the heathen priests described by Csesar
and Pliny, it may be necessary, if we would avoid the charge of
treacherous suppression, to notice Sir Richard Colt Hoare*s

58 Druids and Bards. Julj,

glorious discoTerj of the ritea to which Stonebenge was
dedicated in the old heathen dajs. He finds it stated bj
Diodorus Siculus, on the authority of Hecataeus, that over
against Gaul there is an island as large as Sicily^ inhabited by
the Hyperboreans and containing a circular temple dedicated to
Apollo; farther that the supreme authority over this temple
and its oonsecrated precinct is vested in the Boreads or de-
scendants of Boreas. One feels almost sorry that Diodorus had
not, by the alteration of a letter or two, given a more solid found-
ation for a satisfactory conclusion. Had he but written Druids
instead of Boreads, how vast would have been the congratula-
tion and exultation which he would have bequeathed to distant
generations. As matters now stand, it is sad to reflect that
even the possession of this dubious morsel of comfort is not un-
disputed, since some antiquaries have maintidned that the
circular temple, where the desoendants of Boreas officiated, waa
a certain small stone dome in the county of Stirling, popularly
named Arthur's Oven, imd better known by the execrationB
which antiquaries have heaped upon the barbarous owner, who
todc it to pieces to line a mill-dam with its ^ones, than by
anything discovered concerning its origin or original uses.

There are some who will perhi^ maintain that the universal
acceptance of the belief, that the connexion of these monuments
with Druidieal worship must have been cansed by a tradition to
that effect, and that such a tradition must be founded on tmfcfay
as taidition invariably is. In the instance of <me Druidieal
temple, and that the most illustrious of them all — Stonefaeage
itself — the tradition of Druidieal ori^ is impaired by the itmst
that a totally different tradition existed several hundreds of
years aga Giraldus Cambrenos tdls us, that in his day it was
called the Giants' Dance, and was reputed to have been brought
over from the flat meadow in Ireland, now used as a race-course
at the Curragh of Kildare ; and Geoffrey of Monmouth narrates
drcumstantialiy how, through the mechanical genius of Merlin,
the stones were raised and removed to Salisbury Plain, where
they may now be seen. For GeoflSrey's history of Stonehenge,
which is worth reading for its picturesqueness, it can at least
be s^d thiU; none with any more sure fiMindatioa in fact
has been given by any other writer; and we are not prepared
to accept Mr. Fergusson's theory that the whole &bric dates
frmn a period subsequent to that at which the Bomans
withdrew from Britain. Camden is as remarkably in con-
trast with his ambitious and feeble followers as he is in harmony
with the inductive system of his illustrious contemporary,
when he tells his followers not to exhaust themselves in baselees

1863. Drvids and Bards. 59

qieoulations as to the (mgin of the fiibric^ but to be content
with expressing their regret that the history of so magnificent
an effi>rt of human power is lost in impenetrable darkness.
This conclusion is as tme as it is huiniliating; and it is
perhi^ all the more provoking that one science should be
utterly baffled as to both the i^ and origin of a structure
evidently from the hand of man, while another groping bendith
affords us a lucid hbtoir of the arrangement of those strata
in the crust of the earthy deposited there long ere man came
into existence. True, geology^by an eruption or upheaval here
and a subsidence there, occurring at perfectly convenient inters
vals, has an easy method to adjust the science to the phenomena.
But in the successions of the fossiliferous strata, and even
their oonn^on with the uninhabited chemical rocks, there is a
beautiful predsion of established science which seems to put to
shame the efforts of the archsoologbt to deal with the most
familiar f^enomena of pur daily walks. Nor is this all the
humiHation that archaeology is simering from the same quarter.
Geology has been encroaching upon its parish, by asserting
possession over the curious earthen mounds, called raths and
barrows, which have heretofore afforded nearly as good a scope
fisr Dmidieal speculation as the stones themselves.

Sir Bichard Colt Hoare, after a laborious analysis, has daso^
fied these monuments as * The long barrow, the bowl barrow,
* the conoid barrow, the Druid barrow, the encircled bar-
<row, ihe enclosed barrow,' &c.; but all this fine classifica-
tion becomes lost if the geologists have their way, and make
out the barrows to be £luvial formations left by the lakes
and other waters. Nor have the geologists been frightened by
the discovery of human remains within these earthen mounds.
They hold that this only shows a disposition to bury under
conqpicuous objects, wheuier natural or artificial, as an arrange^
ment more economical thm the erection of fresh monuments.
And here it has to be noted tiiat the Druids have obtained
some compensating consolation from this principle, since it
enables them to rebut the inference frequently drawn against
them from the discovery of human remains under their favourite
stones, that these were erected as monuments to the dead, and
not as altars for the celebration of Druidieid worship.

A heavy censure would, however, be incurred by leaving the
supposition that all the monuments reputed to be relics of
Druidism lure shapeless masses without utterance. Besides the
O^iam inscriptions, there are many stones inscribed wiA
figures that would tell us an articulate history, could we find a
key to it These sculptured stones are chiefly found in the

60 Dndds and Bards. July,

North of Scotland. They contain ornaments which the pro-
fime and yulgar-minded common people speak of as spectadeSy
cocked-hats, combe, and looking-glasses, but which the learned
have found to be the symbols of some ancient and mysterious
worship. The latest of those authorities, where the matter is
treated of in the mos( recondite and transcendental form,
diseoTcrs a partnership between those great dissenters from
Brahminism called the Buddhists on the one part, and the
Druids on the other. We are told that

* When the enthusiastic Buddhist missionaries reached the extreme
West, they found themselTes among a rude race, at enmity with their
ndghbouTS, and menaced by the great Roman pow^ whidi had sub-
jugated their more pow^ful Southern neighbours. These mission-
aries with the Druids, many of idiom had fled firom the cruel perse-
cutions <^ the Romans, would unite the diffisrent tribes to oppose
their cruel invaders. This could only be done by aymbds, as they
had no written language, and upon the erect stones already probably
venerated, they traced figures to ^explain their Trinity, the great
doftma of their religion.

'As their influence extended, other obelisks were erected and
adorned with devices to stimulate the pride of the Caledonians, while
they awakened their fears and humbled their zeal for their religious
<^Mnions ; and they w^ne exeeuted in a st]^ which proved their in-
telligence and th^ knowle^e of the arts which tli^ had brought
from the East.

' As introdttctcny to a qiedflc descriptmn of the fruits of this por-
tentous alliance, we must believe;, as a leading first principle, that
^the great doctrine of the Bhuddist religion consists in a Triad,
*^ Tri-raimOj or three jewels, or three precious ones ; that is, Buddha,
** Spirit or God; Dkarma^ the Law; and Sangka, the Buddhist com-
^ munity, or brotherhood." This was the genuine sense of the words
to certain <^ the initiated ; but a more doir or inteUigiUe explana-
tion was that BuddJka signified the Sptrxtual or the Divine intellec-
tual Essoice <^ the Worid, or the eflicient underived Cause of All ;
Dkarwui, the material essence of the Worid, the plastic underived
Cause ; and Sangka^ which was derived from and composed of the
two others. The third member is therefore the collective energy of
spirit and matter in the state of action, or the embzyotic creation, the
type and sum of all specific fwms spontaneous^ evolved fitm the
union of Buddha mnd DharmuiJ

These sublime and lucid doctrines are iq[^plied in this
vrisc:—

< In the great temfOes of Ekura, and several other Buddhist caves,
Cokod Sykes found three cirdes traced in the same order as <m
the coins, two forming the basement, and one the apex. This is the
sjmbolical representation of the Buddhist Triad, which is still more
aeearately traced —- •^ ^^nneUar Standing Stcme in Abodeeadure,

1863. Druids and Bards. 6 1

which has three circles phiced in the same order as in the temples of
Hindostao, and to mark still more intelligibly the Trinity in Unity
they are connected by another circle. This is the simplest form of
the representation of the Trinity in Unity, and the crescent orna-
ment underneath the circles in the Kinif^llar Stone proves it^ identity
with the other sculptured stones of Scotland. The most frequent
form, however, of the Trinity on these stones is two circles, symbob
of Spirit and Matter, united by a belt and crossed by a bar, to the
extremities of which two sceptres were joined, to indicate the
supreme power, according to the Buddhist creed the coordinate and
all-originating principle. This formed what has been called the
spectacle ornament upon the stones of Scotland ; while the third
member of the Trinity, organised matter (Sangha), was represented
near the others in the form of a crescent

* Sometimes this third member is crossed by sceptres, to indicate
the sovereignty of the laws which organic matter follows.'*

With like Oriental profiision are illustrated monuments bear-
ing such homely northern names as Dunnichen, Norislaw,
Kintore, Meigle, Newton^ Glaromis, Aberlemno^ Eassie, and
FameL What a scientific body like the Royal Society of
Edinburgh had to do with the puolication of a document stand-
ing in such motley contrast with the scientific precision of its
neighbours, it is difficult to imagine, though one is tempted to
look to the precedent of the exhibition of the tipsy Spartan
Helots. It was perhaps no bad policy to take from a quarter
which could bring no scandal on their own pursuits a document
exhibiting in so lively a way the melancholy results of any
departure from the sober path of rigid investigation and satis-
fiactory proof.

And now a word or two about the Bards who profess to be
the historical descendants and existing representatives of Druid-
ism, baying been the literary and artistic branch of the old
Pagan hierarchy, and thus entitled and enabled, without scandal
to Christianity, to keep alive and even practise with renewed
activity in the nineteenth century the functions of their peculiar
department. In strict chronology, the first allusion to the
Bards is in the passage in Lucan, previously mentioned, where,
without reference to their race or country, ne enumerates them
among the other devotees of barbarous practices who will be left
free to exercise them by CsBsar's return to Italy. It would be
but a few years later that they are more distinctly discussed

* Notes on some of the Buddhist Opinions and Monuments of
Asia, compared with the Symbols on the ancient Sculptured Standing
Stones of Scotland, by Thomas A Wyse, Esq, M.D., F.A., S.E.,
Transactions of the Boyal Society of Edinburgh, voL xxi. p. 262.

62 Druids and Bards. Joij^

bj Tacitufi; who plaoes them not among the Celte^ but the
Germans.

DifBculties of this sort are, however, immediately got over
by that prerogative method of reasoning which^ in all questions
about languages, counts the Celtic as the giver and never as the
receiver. Pliny, having supposed that Druid, like Dryad, was
derived from the Greek for an oak, is censured by Higgins, for
going to a modem language like the Greek for a word still used
m an ancient language like the Welsh. When we find that
dam is Gaelic for a house, leabhr for a book, ughdar for an
author, while what we call writing is expressed by sgriobham and
ffraipfutm, we are not to suppose that any resemblance of these
to words of corresponding meaning in the classical languages
shows that they are derived from that source. If the inhabitant
of Wales, Kerry, or the Isle of Skye speaks of literature in
words which e^ently bear a relationship to those employed by
the Grreeks and Bomans, it must be set down without question
that these latter were the pupils, not the instructors. So, pro-
bably, etymologists in some future age will show us how the
realway thrane and the aylaecthrik thtloygraf are words of
purely Celtic origin, brought into use in a corrupt shape to
serve vulgar Saxon purposes. Like most things handled
by a supreme authority, there is a simplicity about this
method which has its attraction, as the reader will perhaps
acknowledge in the following short passage, which, in the
etymological a(^usUnent of their relation to the Druids, at the
same time points out, with a happy precision, the title of the
Bards to represent that order in the present day. It may be
necessary to mention that Strabo, Ammianus, and others speak
with vague brevity of certain Eubages, otherwise read Euhages,
Ovates, and Yates as co-operators with the Bards. All
difficulties, however, about the distribution of the functions
are removed in the passage referred to, taken from the
* Musical and Poetical Belies of the Welsh Bards,' by Edward
Jones, who held the appropriate office of Bard to George IV.
when he was Prince of Wales. In showing how * the bards
^ were originally a constitutional appendage of the Druidical
' hierarchy, which was divided into three classes, priests, philoso-
' phers, and poets,' Mr. Jones proceeds as follows : —

* Derwydd means the body of the oak, and by implication the name
of the oak, formed from Derw, oak, and ydd^ a termination of nomis,
as Llyxogdd and DarUenydd\ answering the English terminations in
governor, reader, and the like.

' Bardd signifies the branching, or what springs from, derived from
B^, a Imtnch on the top ; as Cardd from Car ; Tardd frtmi Tar and

1863. Druids and Bards. 63

Taren ; also the misletoe of the oak is called UcheUfar^ the high or
loftj shrub.

* Ovydd implies the sapling or unformed plant, from ov, raw, pure,
and ydd^ above explained ; bat when applied to a person, Ovydd
means a Noviciate, or a holy one set apart.

* Thence it appears evident that Derwydd^ Bardd, and Ovydd were
emblematical names of the three orders in the system of Druidism,
rery significant of the particular function of each. The Derwydd
was the trunk or support of the whole, whose prerogative it was to
form and preside over rights and mysteries. The Bardd was the
ramificati<m firom that trunk, arrayed in foliage which made it 6on-
spicuous, whose office waa to rec<u*d and sing to the multitude the
precepts of their religion. And the Ovydd was the young shoot
growing up, ensuring a prospect of permanency to the sacred grove ;
he was considered as a disciple, and consequently conducted the
lightest and most trivial duties appertaining to the spreading temple
of the oak.'

There is no intention on this occasion of denying that the
Welsh have had bards among them. It would be difficmt^ indeed,
to find any community existing at any time on the face of the
earth as to ^hom it could be proved that they were destitute of
that coQunodity. Everywhere man has been found giving
utterance to his musical impulses, not only by means of his own
lungs, but through a ceaseless variety of mechanical devices,
including organs, harps, sackbuts, dulcimers, trumpets, drums,
flageolets, bagpipes, fiddles, trom'bones, oboes, and hurd^rdies.
Of an art so universal, and so varied in its developement, it is
^fficolt to say how much or how little of it any one nation
possessed, and we are willing to admit that the Welsh may
have been, and may still be, a very musical people. That they
have had good music, or even good poetry, for centuries will
not, however, secure for their Bardic system the historic^ posi-
tion claimed for it. The proposition is, that the British who
sought refuge in Wales, retaining only their Christianity, abjured
all the other elements of Koman civilisation, and re-adopted
another and, of course, a higher civilisation possessed by the
Celtic nations anterior to the Boman invasion. The religion of
Druidism they could not re-adopt, consistently with their Chris-
tianity ; but the secular part of the system was renewed in
full glory, and was even enabled to rejoin the threads that had
been broken by the intrusion of the Bomans, and carry back
a continuous history of heroism and civilisation through many
hundreds of years before the Christian era. Let us see how
such a proposition tallies with the ordinary known facts of
British history.

Before looking to their political position, it should be men-

64 Druids aiid Bards. July,

tioned as a diflSculty not satisfactorily cleared up, that the Welsh
afford us much less assistance towards the real history of
Christianity in Britain than either the Saxons or the Irish. It
is true that to those who have sufficient faith to tinist to the
Welsh authorities alone, their contributions to the history of
religion are found to be superabundant A list of British
saints given by Mr. Bees, on the authority of Cressy's
* Church History,' but from which Mr. Bees carefully with-
holds his own authority, commences in this manner : ' Joseph
^ of Arimathea, Apostle of the Britons and founder of the
^ church at Glastonbury. 2. Mansuetus, a Caledonian Briton,
^ disciple of St. Peter at Borne, and afterwards Bishop of
^ Toul in Lorraine. 3. Aristobulus, a disciple of St. Peter
' or St. Paul^ sent as an apostle to the Britons, and was the
' first bishop in Britain. 4. Claudia, supposed to have been a
^ daughter of Caractacus, and the wife of Pudens.' And so
the list can be carried on, until it expands into St. Ursula
with her eleven thousand virgins, and the twenty thousand
saints buried in the Isle of Bardsey. It is curious to notice
a little bit of external assistance of which this rich Hagiology
condescends to accept. Martial, in one of his epigrams, having
mentioned a certain Pudens married to a British lady named
Claudia Bufina, the passage has been seized on as an. identi-
fication of the daughter oi Caractacus, and of her domestic
Eosition as the wife of Pudens. A great deal of learning
as been devoted to this very small item, and when compared
with the large results drawn from purely Welsh authorities,
one cannot help being reminded of Caleb Balderstone, who,
after enlarging on the abundance and luxury of the contents
of his larder at Wolfscraig, yet puts himself to earnest exertion
to get possession, in a manner not strictly justifiable, of the leg
of mutton which he finds roasting before the humble fire of a
neighbouring skipper.

Another desperate attempt to connect the native literature
and traditions of the Welsh with something accepted within
the pale of general knowledge, attaches itself to the name of
Gildas, known to most people as the reputed author of one of
the earliest books on British ecclesiastical literature. How
much hope there may be of establishing such a connexion on a
sure basis, may be inferred from what is said of Gildas by Mr.
Stevenson in his edition of his book printed for the English
Historical Society. * We are unable to speak with certainty as
' to his parentage^ his country, or even his name ; the period
' when he live^ or the works of which he was the author.*
Yet the Welsh antiquaries have succeeded^ not only in estab-

1863. Druidt and Bards. 65

lishing him as one of their aunts, but in identifying him with
their favourite poet Aneorin. Had both these been sub-
stantial realities, the union would have seemed as prepos-
terous as that Drjden should be identified with Bishop
Hoadley, or Bmms with Dr. Blidr; but shadows are more
easily amalgamated than substances. It is when we pass on to
the age of real and well authenticated saints-— or rather distin-
guished missionaries among the Saxons and the Irish, that the
essential poverty of the Welsh hagiology is felt. The names of
Aidan, Cuthbert, Columba, and many others, are as securely
based in ecclesiastical history as those of Alfred and Canute
in our civil annals. But unless their claim to St. Kentigem
were admitted, which it cannot be, none of the crowd of saints
enumerated by the Welsh themselves have any authentic stand-
ing in the histories of the early Christian world.

Though we have just seen on what poor encouragement they
will seek confirmation from other sources of evidence, the
WeMi are of course, both in their ecclesiastical and their civil
history, a law unto themselves, seeking #io support from what
may be said about them in external historical literature, and
admitting no difficulties dther from its silence, or its incon-
sistency with their own. When the outer world is told that no
translation can convey the faintest impression of the powerful
descriptions, the subUme metaphors, and the innumerable deli-
cacies of sentiment pervading Celtic poetry; when it is also
intimated that no extent of study will enable the stranger to
master the intricacies of the language, and all its graces and
* enjoyments are limited to those who have had the fortune to
acquire it as their native tongue, there is nothing for it but
submission to the hard fate which throws us back upon the
common world of literature, ancient and modem.* But when
we are told on the same exclusive authority that certain wars,
treaties, codes of law, and sodal institutions existed in Britain
hundreds of years before the Christian era ; that we are to
believe it because the Welsh sages, who are the only persons

* The last and most enthusiasUe of the cbampioDS of Welsh litera-
ture and Welsh Bards is Mr. Greorge Barrow, whose strange book,
entitled *Wild Wales,' is a very dreary counterpart of his Komany
adventures and his ' Bible in Spain.' Mr. Barrow traces the descent
of tiie Bards down to a recent period ; and as he also ascribes to
them the faculty of second sight, it is not wonderful that these all-
knowing men predicted in their 'englyn' the construction of the
Henai bridge and the North- Western Railway ! ( WUd fFales, u
p. 341.)

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLI. P

66 DruidM and Bards. Joly^

oqiable of judging, say it u so ; that to qnestbn them in this
their peculiar province, is as presumptuous as for an mileamed
person to question the professional opinion of a surgeon or a
uwyer, — we think fit to rebut the assumption, and maintain
that Welsh history must be tested by its adi^tability to that of
the rest of the world, and to the ordmary rules of human belie£

Let us just see the gulph that has to be got over to bring the
bardic literature dear down from a time anterior to the Boman
invasion. Before the final breaking up, the Bomans had been
&ur hundred years among us, nearly as long as the Saxons had
been before the Norman conquest* The vestiges of the roads
and military works by which they held a hostile and turbulent
peqfde for some time in subjection mav be traced as far as
Inverness. In the province of Valencia, between the walls, thm
left many testimonies of the luxury and magnificence in whidk
Aey lived. The wide territory to the soutii of tiie wall of Severus,
— England, in short, with the exception of one small comer,
— ^was thoroughly Bomanised* It had ceased to be the scene of
ecmtention, and in a great measure to be even a land wh^re one
nation ruled and ano&er obeyed, although, doubtless, the slave*
market was chiefly supplied from among the natives. Britain
was, like Spain and Gaul, a powerful department of the Empire,
possessing many municipalities and an extensive commerce;
and in London, York, and other conoderaUe cities, probaUy
exhibiting better spedmens of good Boman society than the
northern districts of Italy. It was a centre of intrigue and
ambition in the later struggles for the purple. One empenv,
Constantius Chlorus, died at York; nor was such an event '
spoken o^ like the death of the late emperor Alexander dT
Busda, at Taganrog, as occurring in a distant and uncivilised
province. One of the competitc»rs for the imperial throne,
Caransius, obtained his object through the political influence
which he hdd in Britain, and was as undoubtedly Cftsar as any
of the later emperors.

The Boman language, government, and manners naturally
disappeared before uie self-willed Saxons ; yet not so utterly but
that in such names as Manchester, and other places ending
in Chester or caster, we have a relic of the imperial times; and
from the readiness with which the Saxons amalgamated the
municipal system of the Bomans into their own institutions, there
is reason to suppose rather that they took them as they found
them growing on the spot, than that they went for them to the
pages of the dvilians, or copied them from continental practice.
In Wales, where one would naturally suppose that the dvilisa-
tion ^^ *'^'^ ^"npire would have long lingered, it seems to have

1863. Druidi and Bards. 67

dkappeared faster than it fled before the nordiem conqueror.
Yet dcfwn to a period later dian the Norman conqueRt the
material remains of Boman magnificence were yet visible, and
Grixaldas CambrensiB gives a rather gorgeous description of the
palaces with gilded roofs, ike temples, and the hot baths of
Oaerieon.*

Y^ we are caUed on to suppose that, about the time when
Ae Saxons began to come over, all the thorough Romanism of
Britain was abolished, and the ancient constitution restored by a
vote as it were of some comprehensive kind, perhaps by resolu-
tioDB at a great pubUo meeting. The Bup^tion, considering
it for a moment as if it were a rational one, is not complimen-
ttry to the spirit of liie people ; for instead of leaving undisturbed
tiie natural supposition that the Britons assimilated to the
dvilisi^ion of die Italians, it demands the condition that the
Britons merely submitted for liie time being to their superior
strength, and went back to their old ways whenever external
drcumstancee removed the pressure of the conqueror. But if
we are to believe the Arthurian literature, as it is termed — ^if
we are to admit liie reign of Arthur as rendered to us by the
Welsh authorities, to be a reality — we must suppose, not merely
that his contemporaries entirely and at once threw off the
Roman laws, institutions, lansui^e, and social usages, but that
they also at once adopted, and in its fullest developement, that
social code of chivalry whidi did not dawn upon the rest of
Europe until some centuries afterwards. Without some miracle
of th» sort, Arthuv and his Knights of the Round Table could
have had no existence. If we suppose that those warriors, who
fought against the hordes of Scottish invaders, and next agdnst
the Saxons, retained but a remiumt of the manners in which they
were brought up, then we know that there were among them
none of the institutions of feudality and chivalry. There were
no great casties like those afterwards built by the Normans,
where tiie chief and his guests and retainers held knightly
wassail in the great stone hall ; no fortified towers, no dungeon,
or moat, or drawbridge, where the challenger sounded his defiant
bugle. Knight-errantry and demonstrative courtesy to women
were alike unknown, and there could, therefore, be no legends
of damsels held in durance by dragons or cruel giants, until the
destined champion comes to their rescue. There were no
tournaments, or other gratuitous encounters, where men fought
without the impulse of military duty, or of hatred, or of money
as hired gladiators, or of coercion as slaves. There was no fairy

* Itinerary through Wales, Hoare's translation, b. i. chap. v.

68 Druids and Bards. July,

island of Avalon for the djing Arthur to be taken to by the
Ladies of the Lake — ^nothing, in short, of that medissval ehivalry
which adorns the expansive pages of Sir lliomas Malony, and
glows with concentrated lustre in Tennyson's ' Idylls.' Without
all these attributes, not only what is palpably fable, but what
is told in the form of grave history concerning the reign of
British Arthur, loses its form, its substance, and all the ele-
ments of material existence, and it becomes absolutely necessary
that King Arthur should pair off with his rival Odin to join
Hercules, Apollo, Bomulus, and a few other eminences in
Cloudland.

The powerfully chivalrous tone of the Arthurian literature
naturally suggests that we should look at those great founders
of chivalry, the Normans, as likely to be connected with it if any
surrounding conditions justify such a supposition. Without
undertakings according to the established practice of antiquaries,
to present for this difficulty an absolute solution, sacred both
from confutation and from doubt, we ofier it as on the whole a
rational conjecture, that after the severance from Home, and
the arrival of the Saxons, the Welsh sank rapidly into bar-
barism, both secular and religious, and were resuscitated by their
connexion with the Normans, to whose attractive influence the
impulsive inhabitants of Wales appear to have been peculiarly
susceptible. A resuscitated civilisation under their new leaders
would account for those characteristics which are held to stamp
an extreme antiquity on Welsh literature by a reference to bar-
barous and even heathenish customs. Wher« civilisation is new,
matters of recent ori^ will possess the attributes that confer a
hoar antiquity in old countries. When the New Zealanders
reach the standard of civilisation to be fairly anticipated from
their rapid progress, men meeting in good society will betray
very recent traces of the darkest usages of savage life,
when they adjust with each other genealogical questions as to
whose grandfather was the eaten and whose was the eater.

Of the connexion of the Normans with the Welsh, before the
final annexation of their territory and its fordble subjection to
the English judicatory and executive, we have a pleasant and
•expressive picture in the Itinerary of Ginddus Cambrensis, or
Du BarrL He was himself the representative of a Norman
family, but with plenty of Welsh blood in his veins, and his story
is of a progress through Wales along with Archbishop Baldwin,
for the purpose of recruiting for the Crusades. Family and
district contests then abounded, but there is no trace of a
national hatred between the Welsh and the Norman. That
seems to have come afterwards, with the final annexation.

1863. Druids and Bards. 69

And that the hatred of the oppressor should have obtained its
tone and empha^ from himseff is not unexampled in history.
The oppressions of the Edwards made Scotland show a
thoroughly English independence in her hatred of English
dominadon^ and the most restless and unquiet of Irishmen have
arisen even among the descendants of the English settlers*

It is worth noting that the earlier entries in the ^Brut j
^Tjwysogion, or Chronicle of the Princes/ speak of the
Normans or French in a spirit of neutrality^ if not of amity.
That work is now accessible, edited to perfection, and with an
excellently distinct English translation — a mighty addition to
its general usefulness — among those chronicles and memorials of
the empire which are printed under the auspices of the Master
of the Bolls. This Brut is no Arthurian romance, b«t a sober
chronicle, the bulk of it written by contemporaries, and only a
very few brief entries earlier than the Norman conquest We
mention these j)eculiaritie8 because, desirous of furnishing the
reader with a typical passage exhibiting the preposterous daims
to antiquity of the Welsh romantic literature, we find, and it is
widi regret, an easy choice of such a morsel in the preface to
this offidal edition of the * Chronicle of the Brut.' Here
is a summary, to* understand the significancy of which it is^
necessary to remember that the era of Prydain, son of Aedd
the Grreat, is variously dated from the year 1780 to 480 before
the birth of Christ:—

* The summary of the preceding authorities then, so far as they
bear upon the question we are investigating, is this : that previous
to tlvB time of Prydain there was no uniform and regular method of
recording occurrences ; that subsequently periods of time were com-
puted from his era ; that this mode was continued until after the
introduction of Christianity into the island, when, to some extent,
the year of Christ was adopted ; that the bards for the most part
adhered to the old rule of Cov & Chy vriv until the time of Arthur,
when events that occurred before the Christian era were enjoined to
be dated according to the age of the world, and subsequent events
from the Nativity; that Howel the Grood ordained chronological
records to be dated from the year of Christ's coming in the flesh ;
and that, until a comparatively late period, the bards were in the
habit of dating the holding of their congress sometimes simply from
the era of I^dain, sometimes from that and the era of Christ
conjointly, though it would seem that other events have been
chronicled by them invariably after the Christian mode, and there
is every reason to believe that a few of the historical Triads are
genuine memorials of Druidic times ; for though they might not have
been committed to writing until perhaps the twelfth century, yet it is
very probable that they were respectively compiled when the last
event of each was still fresh in the memory. Internal evidence

70 Druids and Bards. July*

points to the remotest antiquity. Being thus framed, they would be
publicly recited at the periodic festivals of the bards, and the
repeated recitation would be the sure means of preventing all inters
polation and corruption. Indeed, written literature might be more
easily tampered with in those days than oral traditions, thus, as it
were, nationally stereotyped. The only circumstance that would
affect their transmission would be the impracticabUity of meeting iti
a national convention, as, no doubt, was the case during parts of the
Roman domination. Whenever that difficulty offered itself, the duty
of preserving such records devolved upon individual members of tfa^
Bardic Institute, meeting in groups of twos or threes, and inter-
changing communications couched in the language of secrecy.' —
{Brut y Tywysogiotiy p. xii.)

The Bey. John Williams Ab Ithel, Bector of Llanymowdd wy,
who is th# author of these remarks, draws largely on our credulity.
But Scotland has resigned a long catal<^e of fictitious kings, and
Ireland has thrown adrift a still larger bulk of fabulous lustory.
Wales will have to follow the example, although she holds her
precious deposit of marvels, not only for herself, but in trust, as
it were, for the whole island of Britain. There are few instances
where the resignation of cherished historical fable has so am^e a
compensation in literary glory. That the gorgeous collection of
romance invented or repeated by Geofirey of Monmouth went at
once to the heart of chivalrous Europe, and spread over the
literature of almost every Christian land a sjurit which had its
origin in Wales, cannot be doubted. Whoever de^res to
behold the fiill efficiency of this influence, brought to his com-
prehension in translations alike remarkable for their learning
and their genius, let him go to the three volumes of, the
Mabinogium of Lady Charlotte Gruest.

But the inference to be drawn from the facts we have been
collecting, and from the absence of all tangible contemporary-
evidence, compels us, however reluctantly, to efface from the
pages of history those stately and shadowy forms which have
flitted for centuries through the groves of Avalon, and peopled
the sanctuaries of an extinct religion. Had the Druids and
Bards really existed in those periods in which they have been
described, had they really exercised the powers imputed to
them over the religion, the literature, and the arts of a great
people or of immense tribes, it is scarcely possible to conceive
that all positive evidence of their authority would have disap-
peared. We think ourselves justified, then, in concluding that
the place they really fill in history is indefinite and obscure ;
and that the attempt to give a more precise form' to these tra-
ditions by ingenious conjectures has oeen for the most part
unsuccessful

1863. Modem 8iyU$ of Architecture. 71

Abt. Ill,— History of the Modem Styles of Architecture:
being a Sequel to the Handbook of Architecture. By James
Fergusson, Fellow of the Boyal Institute of British
Architects. London: 1862.

"ji/fB. Fergussok has worthily completed an important
work. He has traced the history of architecture in every
country of the worlds from its crude infan^ through the
several stages of its greatness and decay. Few will deny
that the undertaking required great courage and no scanty
measure of judgment^ taste, and learning ; but none, perhaps,
will read his History of the Modem Styles without feeling
that, although it fully sustains his reputation, Mr. Fergusson
has fouAd the sequel of his work the less congenial portion of
his iaak. In his * Handbook of Architecture ' he had to deal
with styles which were the result of a real growth and a
geniune developement of art : but it was not this drcumstance
alone which imparted to his earlier volumes their peculiar
charm. In a series of brilliant sketches he displayed the
characteristics and the spirit which marked the art of Greece
and Bome, of Assyria, Persia, and Egypt; and his pictures
were, on the whole, no less truthful tluui brilliant, tf, while
reviewing his Handbook *, we diq>uted the theory which afl^
liated Greek architecture on that of Egypt, and if we objected
still mcnre strongly to his account of the Christian styles as
the least satisfactory portion of the work, we wdcom^ with

r'tude the admirable treatise on Eastern Art, in which
Fergusson has had no rivaL With the Asiatic styles
in general, and preeminently with those of India, he is
thoroughly familiar; and the only regret in the minds of
English readers is, that he had not examined at greater
length buildings of which they know so little. If in his volume
on ChriiBtian Art we found much valuable criticism, in his
chapters on Asiatic architecture we were indebted to him for a
real addition to our stock of knowledge. In his present volume
Mr. Fergusson goes over no such new ground. Benaissance
works are scatte^ about over well-nigh the whole face of the
civilised globe. We may see entablatures and pediments and
peristylar temples, without the trouble of going to the coun-
tries in which these forms were first adopted. The change
in his subject has had its effect on the author's feelings. The

* Ed. Bev.. Na ccziii.

72 T^T^xxfOOVL^ History of the July*

tone of the Handbook was more than cheerful ; the tone of the
present volume is not altogether inspiriting. A melancholy
catalogue enumerates the signs of a disease weU-nigh past curing;
and the only remedy proposed is one which it seems impossible
to apply. It is no exaggeration to say, that he has allowed his
artistic taste to make him needlessly censorious, and led him to
treat the whole subject in a way which barely escapes the charge
of being crotchety. His general survey of modem art has
brought him to the conclusion that all architectural styles, iu-
cluding the first stage of the Renaissance, were truthful, while
all later styles have been imitative or copying. In the former,
ornamentation * either grew naturally out of the construction,
' or was such as was best suited to express the uses or objects
' to which the building was to be applied ; ' but since the Be-
formation, with the exception of mere utilitarian designs, pro-
bably not one truthful building has been erected in Europe.
Still ornamental forms, although avowedly borrowed, may be
rightly applied. The classical shaft and capital, used as a sup-
port, is as much in its right place as a Gothic pier. Attached
to a wall, where it supports nothing, it is put to a use for which
it is not adapted, and which is therefore wrong. The applica-
tion of this test draws a broad line between the first stage of the
Beniussance and all later styles. As long as the architects
applied classical ornaments rightly, their art was in a healthy
and hopeful condition : as soon as bits of entablature were thrust
in where they were not wanted, or columns were converted into
mere ornamental appendages, the doom of the style was sealed.
But the era of the Beniussance opened with the sojourn of
Brunelleschi in Bome during the early part of the fifteenth
century. If this date enables Mr. Fergusson to treat as be-
longing to this style some of the finest palaces of Florence and
Venice, it cuts down the true Benaissance to a short life indeed.
Brunelleschi returned to Florence in 1420: he died in 1444.
During the interval he erected buildings in which pieces of en-
tablature were thrust between the pier and arch, and so left
to his successors ^ the most fatal gift of Classic Art to modem
' times * (p. 42.). A period of twenty years leaves for the trae
Benaissance, as for the Geometrical Gothic style, littie more
than a philosophical existence. But the scanty limits within
which alone he can find buildings deserving genuine praise,
widen proportionately the field ror trenchant criticism. Mr.
Fergusson is a severe censor, and he is impartial in his severibr.
To copy a Greek or a Boman building is in his eyes scarcely
less abominable than to copy a Gothic one. Columns and
entablatures, pediments and pilasters, are almost as vehemenUy

1863. Modern Styles of Architecture. 73

Eroscribed by him as cliiBtered shafts and pointed arches. To
uild now as Englishmen built four centuries ago is only more
absurd than to follow the fSuhions of classical antiquity. The
number of modem Gt>thic churches in England rouses his in-
dignation : —

' There is not a town, scarcely a village, in the length and breadth
of the land, which is not furnished with one of these forgeries : and
so cleverly is this done in most instances, that, if a stranger were
not aware that forgery is the fashion instead of being a crime, he
might mistake the counterfeit for a really old Mediasval church.'
(P. 342.)

The new Houses of Parliament are still more severely
criticised: —

* Here it was determined to go a step further. Not only the ex-
terior, but every room and every detail of the interior, was to be of
the Tudor age. Even the sculpture was to be of the stiff formal
style of that period ; Queen Victoria and her royal uncles and an*
cestors from Queen Elizabeth downwards, were all to be clothed in
the garb of the earlier period, and have their names inscribed in the
illegible characters then current. Every art and every device was
to be employed to prove that history was a myth, and that the British
Sovereigns, from Elizabeth to Victoria, all reigned before the two
last Henrys ! Or you are asked to believe that Henry Vli. foresaw
all that the lords and commons and committees would require in the
nineteenth century, and provided this building for their accommoda-
tion accordingly. The Hindoos were actuated by the same childish
spirit when they wrote their past history in the prophetic form of
the Puranas. The trick hardly deceives even the ignorant Indian,
and does not certainly impose on any Englishman.' (P. 343.)

There is, of course, the simple answer that no deception or
imposition was intended ; but the censure is in part deserved.
If we have no national architecture, there may be no shame in
adopting older forms which we find suitable for given purposes ;
but the attempt to disguise the conditions of society at the present
day in a classical or a Gothic garb is beneath contempt. In the
northern aisle of the nave of Westminster Abbey, the visitor is
attracted by a memorial brass, representing a knight and his wife^
who may have lived under the later Plantagenet kings. If he has
not seen the Abbey for some time^ he may wonder that it never
caught his eye before, until, on spelling out the archaic charac-
ters of the inscription^ he finds that the knight, to whose
memory.it was laid down, fought under Abercromby in Egypt.
In the same aisle, a coloured window representing in mediteval
guise certain mechanical works and feats of engineering, of
which no one in the middle ages knew anything, may in like

74 Fergusson's Hutory of the July,

manner perplex him until be learns that the window is a memo-
rial to die greatest railway engineer of the present age. But
while in matters relating to oar ocHnmon life we are becoming
more truthful, we are not, apparently, much nearer to the
origination of a new style of architecture. In proportion as
they depart from mere naked construction^ our architects seem
unable to escape from the magic circle of copying or adaptation.
Mr. Fergusson denies tiiat tiiere is the slightest reason for a
state of things which they have accepted as a necessity. His
opponents will probably turn to this very volume for the justi-
fication of the existing practice.

In the fifteenth century the Italians discarded Grothic in
fiivour of classical ornamentation. When in the seventeenth
century classical forms found their way into England, the
triumph of the new fadion was complete ; and from that time
to the present the designs of all architects have been more
or less imitative. But when Mr. Fergusson states broadly,

* that there are in reality two styles of architectural art, one

* practised universally before the sixteenth century, and the

* other since then ' (p. 4.), he has passed over one exception,
which would tell inconvenientiy agtdnst this sweeping rule.
If the architects of the Cathedral of Dijon took to copying
when they clothed its western front with pilasters and en-
tablatures, the ancient Boman architects were guilty of the
same offence when liiey disguised their genuine arched oon-
struction under forms borrowed from Greek art, or cast that
construction away altogether. Of the two, the latter were
incomparably more blameworthy. In the principle of their
national architecture the Bomans possessed a mine of inex-
haustible we.alth. From it sprang directly the Bomanesque and
then the Teutonic* developements of Christian art; and all
the effect which the introduction of Grreek forms had, was to
arrest for several centuries this growth of the really living style
which they cramped and stunted. With the Gothic ardbitects
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the case was wholly
different. The goodly tree which had yielded its fruits for a
thousand years was withered and dead. The exaggerated
richness of the chapel of King's College at Cambridge had
been eclipsed by the prodigal magnificence of the Chi^l of

* We use this term as expressing in a single word the fact that
Gk>thic^ KKt pointed architecture, is the art really of only the Teutonic
as distinguished from the R<nnanee nations of Europe. It seems also
to keep the religions reformation more thoroughly distinct finmi the
revolution in art

1863. Modem Styles of Arclutecture. 75

Heniy YII. at Westminster ; and this transient blaze of false
glory was succeeded by a contented acquiescence in the poorest
and the most debased fcMms, long before John of Padua designed
Longleat) or Inigo Jones drew out his plans for WhitehalL

The result was inevitable. The intrusion of any new fashion
was sure to thrust aside what was now nothing more than an
effete tradition ; and the Benfussance forms came in with all the
force which- could be imparted to them by the revival of classical
learning. The Italians had never really loved or understood
Gothic To them, therefore, the classicid architecture of their
forefathers was a style not only more congenial, but, as it seemed,
not thoroughly developed. Taken up with enthusiastic devotion,
this style a^>eared, at first, likely to realise their brightest
anticipations. How soon this prospect was clouded, the reader
will best learn from Mr. Feigusson's pages. He will there see
that the Italian or ' common sense ' style, which Mr. Fergusson
upholds as the only possible means for extricating us from our
habits of servile imitaticm, has itself been exhausted, scarcely
less than the Gothic.

The possibility or likelihood of future progress is, there-
fore, a question altogether distinct from the history of the
modem styles ; and Mr. Fergusson is perfectly right in saying
that, from whatever point of view it may be regarded, that
history must be to us a subject of very deep interest. * Either
' it is wrong in us to persevere in copying, in which case we

* ought to despise the history of this style ; or, if we are
' justified in our present practice, we cannot be mbtaken in

* studying the steps by which we have arrived at its principles,

* and, by an impartial criticism, attempting to estimate their
' value ' (p. 4.). The inquiry may reveal me real cause which
prevents the immediate invention of a new style; it must
remove very much of the mystery with which we are apt to
invest the introduction of the Renaissance designs. The results
of that change are before us ; but we are too commonly dis-
posed to assume not only that the revolution was sudden, but
that it encountered the real resistance which any living style of
art must (^[>pose to any other which may assail it. The countries
which most eagerly tock up the cause of the Reformation were
the last to be invaded by the spirit of Renaissance art ; and
in England generations which had not known by experience the
yoke of the Papacy adhered, however feebly or ignorantly, to
the architecture of their forefathers. Precisely because their
adherence was so weak, the victory of classical forms when once
introduced was rendered certain and lasting. The uncouth
splendours of Egyptian art were no temptation to the men who

76 Fergu88on*s History of the July»

bailt and adorned the Parthenon; and the beauties of the
dassical orders would have been displayed to little purpose
before those who were rearing the noble piles of Westminster,
or Salisbury, or Lincoln. A perusal of Mr. Fergusson's pages
would scarcely convince the reader, that the introduction of
foreign forms could not in England or in France have been
effected in the days of William of Wykeham or Wilars de
Honcourt

But an examination of the causes which rendered that pos-
sible in the time of Inigo Jones which was impossible in the
days of the great Bishop of Winchester, must throw some
light on the conditions under which we may look for the
invention of a new style of architecture which not by a
metaphor, but in strictness of speech, shall deserve the name of
national If in this, the most practical of all questions con-
nected with the art, Mr. Fergusson's judgment is not so clear
or so decisive as it might have been, we impute it simply to the
want of that phUosophical view which somewhat marred his
account of the Gothic styles in the ' Handbook of Architecture,'
and which, in spite of the correctness of his taste, and his
general impartiality, renders him a less authoritative judge of
Gothic than of other forms of art

That the inadequate treatment of these two points involves
some important consequences, we do not attempt to deny. But
having said thus much, we have no further abatements to make
from the expression of our hearty concurrence with the spirit
and tone of Mr. Fergusson's criticisms. His * History of the
' Modern Styles ' displays the same honest appreciation of the
beauties of every form of art, it has the same uncompromising
exposure of their faults. Of the clearness and force with which
he has everywhere laid bare the conditions of all architectural
excellence, it would be hard to speak too highly ; nor is our
opinion on this point in any way modified, because we do not
altogether concur in his practical suggestions for the removal of
inconsistencies which we cannot disdaim and absurdities which
we cannot conceal. It is, indeed, impossible that such a book
should be published without doing great good ; and probably
there is no architect now living who will not be grateM to
Mr. Fergusson for the method m which he has discussed the
present state and the prospects of architecture throughout
Europe. But, beyond this, there is much in the mere history
of Benaissance art to make such a volume welcome. We cannot
question the fact that there is now scar^ly such a thing as
really original design. Some centuries ago there was no desira
whidi was not original ; but the changes which have brought

1863. Modem Styles of Architecture. 77

about a result so marvellous by no means exhibit a constantly
increasing degradation. The character which Renaissance
architecture came to bear is widely different from that with
which it started ; aud from lime to time in its history there has
been> especially in this country^ a return to older forms. If
Mr. Fergusson has not given a due weight to the protest which
has left us such works as the chapel of Wadham College^
Oxford, the distinction between the elder and later Renaissance
in Italy and elsewhere has furnished him with a philosophical
clasdfication of later styles which unfortunately he has not
attained in treating of tiie Gothic styles. The minute care-
fulness with which this distinction has been traced out con*
stitutes the great merit of the work ; and a better prospect
will open before us when we honestly accept his conclusions^
and confess that the most exquisite of the Gothic buildings,
which have risen, or are rising around us, are copies not
less than the Boman porticoes which are made to do service
in our halls and palaces. But this confession will, in its turn,
involve a charge of inconsistency in the view which Mr.
Feigusson takes of Gothic and classic purism. If, without
reference to the forms which they employ, our architects uni*
formly speak in a dead language, it is not easy to see why the
retention of Italian forms should show greater fireedom of
thought or more of common sense than the retention of forms
which at one time unquestionably met every want of our
English forefathers. In one sense it may be said that the
Anglo-Saxon is a dead language for us, but our present speech
stands in a nearer relation to it than to the Bomance dialects of
Southern Europe.

In such questions as these, palpable exaggerations will serve
no good purpose ; and Mr. Fergusson is scarcely consistent with
the general principles of his book when he tells us that since
the Beformation there is no building, ' the design of which is

* hot borrowed from some country or people with whom our
' only associations are those derived from education alone, wholly

* irrespective of either blood or feeling * (p. 3.). If we borrow
from Uie choir of Lincoln or the nave of Lichfield, we copy,
but we copy from the works of those from whom we are
lineally sprung, and who dded in no slight measure to rtuse the
fair and goodly fabric of our English freedom.

If, however, the Beformation was not immediately connected
with the introduction of Benaissance forms into Northern
Europe, Mr. Fergusson is right in saying that it had the effect
of arresting or repressing the passion for church-building which
continued unchecked in Italy. But in Italy, the stronghold of

78 FergusBon's Histcry of the July,

the Papacy, the revival of classical learning had already effected
what it was long in achieving elsewhere. It had imbued all
classes with a love of architectural fonns which were certainly
more congenial to them than those which they beheld in the
great churches of Assisi, Vercelli, or Milan. The shell of the
building might continue to be Gothic, but the ornamentation
must be borrowed from the gifted people oyer whose recovered
lore they hung with rapt attention. At first, however, there
was an honest effort to adhere to the truthful construction of
liie mediseval architects; and so long as ihey did so, the re-
turn to classical forms was no subject for regret. At no time
was the Italian filled with a r^ love for clustered shafts
and groined vaulting. Still less had he any genuine ap-
prehension of the principles which determined the course of
Northern ardiitecture. He was utterly unable to see in what
way Westminster Abbey differed from the minsters of Peter-
borough or St. Albans, or to determine the stages in the art
which are marked severally by the cathedrals of Salisbury,
Amiens, and Cologne. The employment of Northern architects
was a natural consequence of diis inherent distaste for an art
which was alien to his soil. The magnificence of the great
Northern churches inspired a wish to see buildings not wholly
imlike them at YerceUi or Milan ; but when the Italian took
to building Gothic himself, the result was seen in such structures
as the church of Santa Maria della Spina at Pisa. It was
better to discard outright a system of decoration which, in his
hand, issued in a series of fantastic vagaries ; and the few
examples which exist of the truthful application of classical
forms serve at least to show that a genuine architecture might
have been matured, if its growth had not been arrested by ob-
stacles which it was almost impossible to avoid. Yet, if ever so
real a style had been produced in Italy, we may at once confess,
and Mr. Fergusson's admissions will ftimish ample grounds
for concluding, that the style so invented could never have
ftilfiUed all the conditions of a national style for the countries
north of the Alps.

But in reality the genuine Benaissance was so evanescent
that it must be regarded more as a sign than an accomplish-
ment of a genuine architectural reformation even in Italy. The
Christian styles had come into existence by casting aside the
entablature from all disengaged columns * : for the Italian of

* This essential distinction between Christian styles and the earlier
Roman architecture is clearly laid down in Mr. Okely's valuable
work on * Christian Architecture in Italy.' {Introduction^ p. 3.)

1863. Modern Styles of Architecture. 79

the fifteenth century there was an irresistible temptation to
return to it. In England^ as in France and Germany, the true
growth of the art had produced a system of ornamentation
which was at once constructively truthful and boundless in its
Teeonroes. The Italian, for whom the exterior of the early
basilicas furnished no decorative features whatever, could only
repeat on his walls the columns and entablatures which graced
the temples of ancient Rome. In other words, the archi-
tecture of the North arose by discarding from the genuine
forms of Boman construction the ornamentation which had
been absurdly borrowed from Greek art. The Italian Renais-
sance reverted almost immediately to the bondage with which
Rome voluntarily cramped and fettered her own enormous
constructive powers.

Hence, as the Renaissance ceased, almost at the outset, to
exhibit the working of a living principle applicable to all build-
ings, whether ecclesiastical, military, or domestic, the history
of modem styles resolves itself into little more than the history
of modem architects.* The system of Inigo Jones, Wren, or

* Mr. Fergusson has, however, greatly overstated his position in
saying that no names of medisdval architects have come down to us.
£ven if we had no records, we should not be justified in conduding
that ' probably nobody knew even then who the architects were, more
* than we know now who designed the " Warrior." * But there is no
such dearth of records, and it is unfair to write as though we had
never heard of Geofirey de Noyers at Lincoln, or seen the sketch
book of Wilars de Honconrt, which also contains some of his
original designs. These drawings illustrate most forcibly the great
distinction between the constructive decoration of the mediaeval
builders and the superficial ornamentation of modem architects. A
glance at the sketches of Wilars shows at once of what building they
are the designs ; but we receive from them a general notion of the form
and proportions of the edifice, and nothing more. Probably not one
single ornamental detail in the sketch accurately represents the actual
detidls of the building ; but neither architect nor builder needed such
exact drawings. The edifice literally grew under their hands ; the
modem architect has his building ready dressed on paper at the
shortest notice. Nothing can be more detrimental to genuine archi-
tecture than the pictorial character it has acquired from the eleva-
tioos or designs on flat surfaces relied on by modern architects.
Hence the notion has sprang up that the ugliest conceivable form can
be beautified by the addition of superficial ornament. But for such
a notion we should never have seen a design for improving buildings
so utterly wanting in every condition of architectural beauty as the
South Kensington galleries. The most lavish decoration could not
hide their real character, while it would probably render the absence
of all the tme principles of art stiU more apparent.

80 Fergusson'a History of the July,

Yanbnigli, does not exhibit the same sequence from that of
Bninellesdii or Bramante, which marks the growth of the
Continuous or Flamboyant from the earlier stages of Gothic
architecture. We are concerned^ therefore, not so much with
the deyelopement of particular principles,* as with the works
of particular men ; and we are at once thrown back in our
criticisms on certain canons of taste, which may be made
subjects of controversy. If it is impossible to ayoid this when
we compare the works of any one style v/iih those, of another,
the difficulty is increased when one of these is a true and the
other a copying style. We may be at a loss to determine
whether the Presbytery of Ely is more beautiful than the
Chapel of King's College, Cambridge ; but we can at once say
whether they are or are not inconsistent with the laws of con-
struction and decoration which r^ulate their respective styles.
It is quite another thing, if we compare the Temple of Theseus
with the Minster of Beverley, or even the details of the one
with the details of the other: nor do such comparisons appear
likely to lead to any ultimate agreement. Wnen San Gsllo
made bis designs for St. Peter's at Bome, he was deliberately
applying a system of ornamentation to uses for which it
was not primarily intended. But the clustered shafts and
continuous lines which seem to give infinity to the nave of
Winchester, are the direct result of principles involved in that
massive Romanesque construction which tnese clustered shafts
do but encircle. When, therefore, Mr. Fergusson says, that
^ with the simpler lines and more elerant details of classic art,
' a far more pure and majestic building would ' (with a slight
alteration of San Grallo's dome) ' have been the result than any
' Gothic cathedral we have yet seen' (p» 57.), he seems to us to
beg not one question only, but three or four. It is very possible
that he may be right, and they who differ from him wrong ;
but there is little profit in a debate on the abstract beauty of a
Corinthian or a Gothic capital

But there is indisputably both beauty and grandeur in many
Benaissance buildings ; and it becomes a subject of no slight
interest to determine how that grandeur and beauty wa&obtuned.
Mr. Fergusson has approached, as nearly as any writer, to that
impartialitv in the examination of all styles, without which a
reid knowledge of any style becomes impossible. And if hb
criticism tells little in favour of the principles which have
guided the Benaissance architects, they furnish but slender
consolation for those whom he delights to set down as Gothic
purists. If the former have not invented any genuine style^
the latter seem scarcely on the road to do so now. In copying

1863. Modern Styles of Architecture. 81

the cathedrals of Wells or Ely, we may be imitating the works
of our fore&thers, but we are no more producing anything of
our own than if we build a fac-simile of the Erechtheion.
And if, while doing the former, we anathematise the latter as
involving the essence of heathenism, we show our absurdity not
less than our bigotry. Mr. Fergusson has an honest horror of
all copying ; and if he seems to think that to masquerade in a
classical dress is less absurd than to masquerade in a Gothic
garb, this has not withheld him from rating at their true
value the achievements of Renaissance architects. When he
proves that their whole apparatus for the exterior and internal
treatment of buildings was confined to the classical, order with
its entablature and pediment, and that these were almost always
misapplied, his censure is as severe as any that could be pro-
nounced by the most partial lovers of Gothic architecture.

But the irresistible tendency of the Benaissance to absolute
copying is still more forcibly brought out by the fact, that of the
greatest Benaissance structures many are classical in their details
alone, while their forms are reproductions of early Christian basi-
licas or of Gothic or Byzantine buildings. Mr. Fergusson has
carefully noted the facts ; it maybe re^tted that he has not as
prominently set forth the inference which must be drawn from
them. In the hands of the Greek architect the column was a
strictly constructive feature. However scientific may have
been the rules which determined the length of the shaft or the
swell of the entasis, it remained the representative of the
wooden post thrust into the ground to support the roof which
was nused above it. By an utter departure from its original
purpose it became in Bioman hands the appendage of a wall
where it supported nothing. The Benaissance architects
followed eagerly the example thus set them, and from the use
of semi-detached columns went on to employ pilasters, 'one of
' the most useless as well as least constructive modes of oma-
' mentation that could be adopted,' which, in Mr. Fergusson'a
judgment, not only gave a character of unreality to the style^'
but 'betrayed that continual striving after imitative forms^

* which is its bane * (p. 9.). From the employment of such
columns and pilasters on useless porticoes, the step was inevitable
which led to their employment on the walls of houses, where-
they give no support whatever. This was, in Mr. Fergusson'^
words, a further step ' in the wrong direction ; it was employing^
' ornament for ornament's sake, without reference to construo-

* tion or the actual purpose of the building ; and, once it was

* admitted that any class of ornament could be employed, other

* than ornamental construction, or which had any other aim

TOL. oxyni. KO. ccxli. g

82 Ferguaflon'e History of the Julj^

^ than to express — while it beautified — the prosaic exigencies
^ of the design, there was an end of all that was trnthful, or
^ that can les3 to perfection in architectural art ' (p. 26.). Thus
the columns, which ought always to be independent supports,
and which, eyen if engaged, should suggest the idea of buttresses,
served at length simply to indicate internal arrangement, and
were separated into dbtinct layers by large entablatures which
utterly preclude all real unity of design. More than any other
cause, probably, this want of connexion between the parts led
to that exaggeration of the orders, which, as Mr. Fergusson
rightly asserts, marks the worst stage of Renaissance archi-
tecture. It would be invidious to depreciate the graceful
beauty or the solemn grandeur of many of the pakices in
Venice or Florence ; but it is impossible to view the fronts
of the Biccardi (p. 84.), the BucelUu (p. 86.), and Guadagni
(p. 88.) palaces in the latter, or the Grimani palace (p. 27.) in Sie
former (if these may be regarded as Renaissance buildings),
without feeling that there is no reason why, instead of having
three or four stages, they should not have either less or more,
and that the design would not be essentially afiected by the
change. It is true, indeed, that some of them exhibit no
orders, or, it might almost be said, no classical detuls at all,
and make no pretension to classical uniformity of arrangement,
whil6 others show more of Gothic than of classical feelinff.
The extent of this Gothic feeling in the courtyard of the Dog^s
Palace (p. 91.), is attested not only by the presence of pointed
arches in the second tier, but by banded shafts and lut^hes
springing straight from the capitus (without the intervention
of an entablature) in all the stages. But here, after the some-
what oracular fasnion which in a treatise on copying styles is
perhaps unavoidable, we are told that this use of the pointed
arch is not happy, as in itself it is not a pleasing feature, and,
when nakedly used, always unpleasing. We will not further
complicate the subject by giving any judraient of our own.

On the whole, it is not easy to determme precisely what was
gained, when Brunelleschi designed the Church of the Holy
Spirit at Florence, or Bramante built the church at LodL In
the former, the classical detuls are used, to adopt Mr. Fergusson's
words, * with singular elegance and purity ' (p. 42.). But the
design is in fact a return to the simplest form of the Basilican
church. The windows are mere round-headed apertures^ while
the clerestory is separated from the pier-arches by what is practi-
cally nothing more than an exaggerated stringcourse. Were
it not for the presence of a single feature, it might fairly be
classed among buildings of the Basilican age; but that feature

1863. Modem Styhs of Architecture. 83

stamps it as belonging to a class essentially different, and the
firagment of entablature interposed between the capital and the
arch was the pledge and sign of the coming passion for mere
imitation. We cannot add to the strength of the oondemnation
-which denounces in this tjpical form of the Renaitsanoe * the
^ most fatal gift of claraical art to modem times, as nine-tenths
^ €£ die difficulties and clumsinesses of the revived art are

< owing to the introduction of this fSoature ' (p. 42.). In the
diuroh of St. Andrew at Mantua, the piers are square masses
fiioed with Corinthian pilasters — a mode of ornamentation on
winch Mr. Fergusson's opinion has been already cited. The
church of Lodi is altogether more striking and more note-
worthy. It is rightly said that * this building is more truthful
^ in its construction than any Gothic building we are acquMUted
' withy there beix^ no false roof or false construction of any
^ sort ' (p. 47.). But here agun, * the ornamentation consists

< almost wh<my of ranges of pilasters which cover the walls
^ both externally and internally, and by tiieir email size and
' want of meaning detract much from what would otherwise
^ be really a very beautiful design.' His judgment, in this
instance, is almost too severe. The pilasters have much of the
effect of mere aieading or panelling. But, whatever mav be
thought of the decoration, the Sfurit of the design is essentially
Byzantine. As in the great church of Justinian, four semi-
domes cluster round the< cupola which soars above them. The
only real differenoe is in the comparative height of the central
don^ Otiierwise it departs as little from the Byzantine idea
as some of the Renaissance churches do from that of Ae
Basilica. But many even of those Imildings which exhibit
dassical detail in the greatest purity or with the most lavish
abundance, betray the working of ideas which are not classical
at alL The magnificent front of tlie Certosa at Pavia (p. 51.)
may show the misapplication of ornamental forms which are
fit onlv for internal use; but the front itself is one which could
never have suggested itself to the merely classical student. The
nave is divided from the aides by massive buttresses. A bold
triforium marks the separation of the pier-arches from the
clerestory, while a large circular window over the central door-
way .calls for some tracery to complete the general resemblance
to the front of a Gothic cathedral. A portion of the wall must,
it is true, be set down as a sham : but it shares this fault with
the western fronts of Exeter, Wells, Salisbury and Lincoln.

Still more striking, owing to its greater purity of detail, is the
absence of a really classical character frtnn the exquisite church

84 FergVLBSon^s History of the July,

of the AonuQciata at Genoa.* Here no fragment'of entablature
is thrust between the Corinthian capital and the arch, while
vertical lines run up from the former, and make the space be*
tween the stringcourse and the cornice practicallj a trifoiium.
Over the whole rises a semicircular vault, divided longitudinally
into three compartments, thus admitting the insertion of the
windows ' as artistically as it could be done in the best Gothic
* vaults ' (p. 80.). It may well be regretted that for the archi-
tects of St Peter^s at Borne such truthfulness of decoration
had lost its charm* The masking of piers with flat pilasters,
the insertion of heavy entablatures above the capitals, and the
exaggeration of orders had become settled practices, before the
great architects were summoned to the work which has pro-
duced the mightiest, if not the most beautiful church in
Christendom. If it is difficult to criticise any building which
is the result, not so much of genuine growth in art as of
individual design, this difficulty is greatly increased in dealing
with a structure with the dimensions of which no other can
compete, and on which all that money and zeal could furnish
has been lavished without stint or measure. In the eyes of
some it is the proudest and most glorious achievement of all
architecture; with others it is the crowning deformity of a
degenerate art. But if we reject as worthless and absurd either
of these extreme opinions, there is truth in the general admis-
sion, that the first impression on entering the buUding is one of
disappointment. If many virits are needed to convince the
stranger of the vast size of St. Peter^s, while a single glance
leaves the impression of enormous height in the cathedrals of
Amiens, Beauvab or Cologne, there must be a reason for the
difierence. This reason may be found partly in the greater
sjMce occupied by the huge masses of the piers, as compared
with the slender banded shafts of Gothic churches (a aefect
from which the plan of Bramante was comparatively free), but
still more in the gigantic size of the internal order, which

^Required a corresponding exaggeration in every detail of the

^ The peculiarities of this building are simply the result of a
departure from prevalent fashions. There is no real ground for
doubting that it was built in the latter part of the seventeenth cen-
tury ; but the purity of its design furnishes Mr. Fergusson a power-
ful temptation to question the date. In the controversy about the
church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, the same sort of afgu-
ment was applied to show that the Golden Gateway could only have
been built in the age of Constantine. See < Ed. Rev./ October 1860,
p. 430.

1863. Modem Styles of Architecture. 85

dmrch. The Baldaccbino, for instance, over the altar rises to 100
feet in beight, and bas an order 62 feet bigb ; but eren with these
dimensions it is hardly tall enough for its situation. ' But it is even
worse with the sculptured details. The figures that fill the spandrils
of the pier-arches throughout the church would, if standing upright,
be 20 feet in height. The first impression they produce on looking
at them is, that they are little more than life-size ; and the scale
they consequently give to the building is, that it is less than half the
size it really is. When the mind has grasped their real dimensions,
this feeling is succeeded by one almost of terror, lest they should fall
out of their places — the support seems so inadequate to such masses ;
and what is worse, by that painful sense of vulgarity which is the
inevitable result of all such exaggeration. The excessive dimension
given to the order internally is, in fact, the key-note to all the defects
which have been noticed in the interior of this church, and is far
more essentially their cause than any other defect of design or detail.'
(P. 64.)

This is strong censure ; but the exterior draws forth criticbms
still more severe. Bound the whole building runs an enormous
order of Corinthian pilasters which bas 'dreadfully marred'
the triapsidal arrangement to the west of the great dome^ — an
arrangement in itself one of * the most beautiM that can be
' conceived.' These pilasters are 108 feet in heighti from the
base to the top of the cornice, and being surmounted by an
attic of 39 feet, make up with the basement a wall 162 feet in
height

'Between these pilasters there are always, at least, two stories of
windows, the dressings of which are generally in the most obtrusive
and worst taste ; and there is still a third story in the attic, all which
added together make us feel more inclined to think that the architect
has been designing a palace of several stories on a gigantic scale, and
trying to give it dignity by making it look like a temple, rather than
that what we see before us is really a great basilican hall degraded by
the adoption of palatial architecture.' (P. 62.) Thus the * worlds
greatest opportunity has been thrown away,* and 'the result has
been a building which pretends to be classical, but which is essen-
tially Gothic. It parades everywhere its classical details, but the
mode in which they are applied is so essentially mediaeval that
nobody is deceived. We have two antagonistic principles warring
for the mastery— the one Christian and real, the other sentimental
and false ; and in spite of all the talent bestowed upon it, it must be
admitted that the failure is complete.' (P. 65.)

With this glorious, if not faultless, church, the great work of
Sir Christopher Wren fitly challenges a comparison. From
the existing Cathedral of St Paul's his original design was in
almost every particular different It bore, in fact, a close
i^eeemblance to the Boman St Peter's. There was the same

86 ' Fexgussoa's Mstory of the J^y^

r^titioa round, the wholq boildmg of exaggeraied CorinAka
pilaaterBj suniKHiiited by an attic^ with the same aj^oximatioii
in the plan to a Greek croes. Altogether, Mr. Fergusson is
of opinion that the design of the present church is much to
be preferred to that which it has displaced, while he believes
that the arrangement of the earlier was better adapted for the
purposes of a Protestant cburcb. But he betrays a singular
credulity or a curious misapprehension of the state of reli^oua
feeling m the seyenteenth century, when he asserts that the
change in plan. * waa insisted upon by the Duke of York, who
' wanted a building more suited to the Catholic ritual than this
' church would haye been ; but more, perhaps, is due to that
' strange conseryatiya feeling of the nation which made them
' spoil Inigo Jones's church in Coyent Garden* in order that the
' altar mignt be at the east end, and which maJces us now erect
' Gothic churches, not because they are either more beautiful
' or oonyenient than others that might be designed, but because
' our forefathers built in that numner ' (p. 269.). The Dean
and Chapter of St. Paul's had doubtless little sympathy with
the Duke of York, but they had scarcely more agreement with
the notions which in Mr. Fergusson's mind determine the idea
of a Protestant church or a Protestimt worship. This mia-
apprehension would haye been a matter of little moment, if it
had not influenced his^.whole estimate of reyiyed GK)thic as com*
pared with reyiyed classical architecture. To this point we
must hereafter rayert, whik for the present we may note the
perfect aceocdance of the exiatiBg plan with tibat of the great
Enj^eh mi8di»yal cathedrals. Tms agreement entiuled thfr
erection of naye and aisles with a clerestory, supported by
buttresses which it became necessary to hide, because thrar
i^earance would not harmonise well with the spirit of
Benaissance art. A wall was therefore built up to conceal
them, and Mr. Fergusson cannot, of course, approve a coa-
struction which was a sham. Yet, with some little inconaistencyj^
he proposes, by waar of giying the repose and breadth which ia
now lacking to the lower story, to flU up the int^nrd betwee»
the propyI«a and the transept. It seems a costly sacrifice o£
trutnfuiness for the sake of hiding 'the windows in the
' pedestals of the upper niches ' (p. 273.). How many build-
ings, raised while the art which we call Gothic was still growings
haye windows let into the pedestals of niches ?

Eyen on the dome, the distLoctiye glory of the great Be**
naissance churches, Mr. Fengusaen's criticisms are seyere> and
perhaps a little inconsistent.. Between the massiye naye and
the graceful choir of Ely rises its glorious octagon; oyer

1863. Modem Styks of ArchiUcture. 37

the obdueh of St. Sophia at Constantinople soars the still
more glorious Byzantine cupola. But in the latter, the dome
is the church ; and the former exhibits externally no domical
form at all. The application of the dome to the Latin Cross
is a distinct aehieyement of the Renaissance architects. But
if in tftis sense Mr. Fergusson is right in saying that to
the Italiana belongs exclusively the merit of inventing that
dass of domical churches oi wluoh St. Peter's at Rome is the
^rpieal example (p. 239.), there is no warrant for the assertion
^t the central dome itself was invented by them (p. 139.).
The churdi of Lodi is little more than the reproduction of the
ByzanctiDe plan ; and if the idea here followed had been faith^
ftdly worked out, we might have seen more splendid domes
than those which crown St. Peter's at Rome and our own
St» Paul's. Unfortunately, few examples of Renaissance domes
exbibil any attempt at real truthfulness of construction. In
this point the idiurcb of Lodi and the Liebfrauen Kirche of
Dresden are mrivalled; but when Mr. Fergusson says that
this is a merit which the latter shares with ^ no other medisval
' or modem dmrch ' (p^ 333.), he nmst have forgotten that in
his judgment the church of Lodi ' is more truthfiil in its con
' stmction than any Oothic building we are aequidnted with '
(p. 47.). Like the latter^ however, the dome of the Liebfrauen
Sirehe is too high, and in place of supporting semi-domes, as
at Lodi, it has subordinate turrets, which betray the working
oi Teutonic ideas. Li fact, the whdie design translates into
Renaissance lai^uage the apsidal forms common to the Rhenish
churches. Both, again, like the dome of St Paul's, have the
merit of showiDg their supports externally, and so of avoiding
the faok which mars the grandeur of the dome of St. Peter's,
the external effect of which ' is in a great measure lost, from
' its being placed in the centre of a great flat roof, so that its
' lower part can nowhere be properly seen, except at a distance ;
' and it nowhere groups synmietrRsaily with the rest of the

* architecture ' (p^ 62.). But the dome of St. Paul's is not
without firalts of its own. However splendid its form may be
eztanoidly, the outer cupola is so far from representing the
internal dome, th^ in Mr. Fergusscm's judgment, ' it would
' have been far better to have admitted at once that the external
' dome waSr lUce the spires at Satisbury, Norwich, imd eke-
^ where, merely an ornament of the extmor of the building,

* and then have amused his interior whdly irrespective of its

* external form' (p. 272.). It is the natural result of employ'*
ing wood and iron to raise a buikling to a height which in
stone it was either difficult or impracticable to reach ; but W9

88 FergosBon's History of the July,

have some hesitatiou in admitting that a feature so essentially
constructive can be fairly treated as a mere ornamental
appendage.* The form itself su^ests a stone construction,
and an impression of weakness is left on the mind» when, as
at St. Paul's, the diameter of the dome is smaller than that of
the colonnade beneath it. Of the other great domical churches
which have been built in Europe during the last three centuries,
there are none with merits which are not shared by some one
or more of the examples already mentioned, while many of
them (as the church of the Invalides and the Pantheon at
Paris) exaggerate the difference between the external and in-
ternal vault. But in all alike, the Tault is, in Mr. Fergnsson's
opinion, too high. In St. Peter^s, it is not merely painful to
look up at, but it dwarfs every other part of the church (p. 63.).
In St. Paul's, the eye, looking along the aisles, never reaches
beyond the great void of the dome, and fails to see that the
little passage beyond is in fact a continuation of the aisle (p. 269.).
In short, in all these buildings the dome is misplaced ; and thus
regarded, the dome of the Cathedral of Mexico is in better
proportion to the rest of the church, where there is a chancel
beyond. And thus his conclusion is that, ' if the dome ends
* tlie vista, it may be of any size, but in the middle of a
^ cruciform church it throws every other part out of proportion,
' if its dimensions are not kept moderate ' (p. 432.). In other
words, the Senaissance architects have failed in adapting the
dome perfectly to the Latin cross; and the octagon of Ely
answers better to the cupola of Justinian than the domes of
St. Peter's or St. Paul's.

It would be a curious and perhaps not an easy task, to
determine the exact reuduum of resX merit which, in Mr.
Fergusson's judgment, belongs to a style which, except in its
earliest stage, exhibits only the genius, the wisdom, and the
whims of individual architects. It has not achieved a complete
success in applying the dome to the Latin cross ; it has failed
in working out a new idea, when it has dressed out Gothic
towers and spires in a classical garb. It has erred in introducing
pieces of entablature between piers and arches. It has used
columns where they are not constructively necessary ; and,
finally, it has restricted itself to a scanty architectural apparatus,

• No one, on viewing a Gothic church externally, could ever
suppose that the spire covered a corresponding construction within
the building ; but the sight of an external dome must suggest to the
eje a domical form for the intmor. To treat the latter as a mere
ornament is, therefore, a deception.

1863. Modem Styles of Architecture. 89

and applied to every conceivable purpose the only method of
ornamentation which the canons of Yitruvius and Palladio left
at its disposal There may be instances in which the orders
are gracefully applied^ and produce a most pleasing effect, but
the very application of them is generally unsuitable. In the
church of the Invalides at Paris, it was necessary to save the
dignity of the dome by cutting up the body of the building
into two orders, and, by thus making it appear of two stories,
to add ^ one more to the numberless instances which prove how
' intractable the orders are when applied to modem purposes '
(p. 173.). Kecent designs of houses in Paris give some
grounds for hoping that, although 'the orders are the only
' ready-made means of enriching a design of the present day '
(p. 232.), we may now expect a change for the better. The
defects of Yanbrugh's works arise chiefly from the fact that
he ' had no idea of how to ornament a building, except by the
' introduction of an order, and to have had the greatest horror
* of placing one order over another' (p. 285.). The Badcliffe
Liibrary of Oxford is one of innumerable examples in which
the order is made to include two or more ranges of windows,
and the columns in the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields,
like those of Bramante's basilican church at Florence, exhibit
the fragment of entablature between the capital and the
arch (p. 288.).

But the problem was to become more complicated, and
its results curiously perplexing. If in any cases the architects
adhered scrupulously to truthful construction, there was some
reason for thinking that their system might in time give birth
to a new style. The church of Lodi seemed to give this pro-
mise for ecclesiastical, and the palaces of Genoa and Yenice
for secular architecture. But however grand and imposing may
be the fronts of such buildings as the more celebrated palaces
at Florence, we cannot fail of seeing that they belong to a
period of transition, and that that period could be but brief.
In their designs there is absolutely nothing to connect one stage
with another. The horizontal tendency, which Mr. Fergusson
claims as a distinguishing feature of classical art, has here in-
deed asserted its supremacy. But the engaged pillars of the
Grimani palace at Yenice, and the flat pilasters of the Bucellai
at Florence, show the irresistible tendency to the universal
employment of the order; and the introduction of vertical lines
cutting the stringcourses led naturally, whether in ecclesiastical
or secular designs, to the employment of orders, under which
two or even more stories were comprised. In Italy, where the
art of the Northern nations had never become naturalised, the

90 Fergtieson's History of the Julj,

temptation to run into such fiJse construction was not so
powerfuL The villa of Pope Julius (p. 107.), and the pdace of
Cf^rarola (p. 108.) near Rmne, stand out in fayourable contrast
with the Museum, built hj Michael Angelo, in the Capitol
(p. 105.). At Milan, where the work of Teutonic architects
could not be without its influence, the Great Hospital (p. 125.),
with its magnificent quadrangle, is a Gothic building in a
Renaissance dress which scarcely disguises its real character.
In Spain, there was the same reluctance to adopt the spirit,
tc^etner with the forms, of classical art The piers of the
Cathedral of Jaen (p. 155.) may be separated firora the arch by
a piece of eBtablature, but the character of the imposts and the
clustered shafts is unmistakably Gothic. The court of the
Archbishop's palace at Alcala de los Hernares (p. 148.), and the
dcnster in the monastery of Lupiana (p. ISO.), are not less
thoroughly Romanesque. They belong practically to the
same stage of art with eariy Christian designs ; nor is it easy
to determine what is gained by thus returning to a point long
since left behand. In truth, there was in Spain very little
carefulness in the application of classical detail. The sombre
but magnificent pile of the Escurial (p. 143.), exhibits a series
of scdecisms which would have shocked the d^iples of Y ignola
and Falladio; but the whole design shows more of Grothio
character than the masterpieces of Wren and Michael Angelo.
But, this 'grandest and gloomiest failure of modem times,'
with its fordible outlines and massiye groupings, puts utterly
to shame the miseraUe monotony of tiie still more modem
palaee oi Madrid. In France the spirit of the national tradi-
tions was stronger than in Spain ; and we hare accordingly, in
French buildings of every class, a more real adaptation of
classical details to forms of which the use had become habitual.
The west front of the cathedral at Dijon (p. 163.), and the church
of St. Euetache, at Paris (p. 167.), are in their general structure
so Gothic that they cannot be classed with pure Renaissance build-
ings* The chateaux still preseryed the forms of feudal grandeur.
In that of Chambord (p. 191.), which in its details can bear no
serere critidsm;, the pibMters, as in the church of Lodi, are so
employed as to give much of the effect of Grothic panelHng, wlule
the general character of the Bishop's palace at Sens (p. 196.),
and of tile house of Agnes Sorel at Orleans, is wholly alien to the
forma employed in their decoration. But the i^e of Louis XIY.
witnessed a greater modification of the old French plan;
and such dengna as the eastern facade of the Louvre (p. 214.),
altiiough by no means servile in their imitations, betray a
tend^icy to adopt not merely the ornaments but intend features

1863» Modem Styles of ArekUecture. 91

of okflsieal buUdings. The portico, which was eesential to a
Boman temple^ was stuck on to palaces and houses idieie it
was oonstroctively unnecessary and for all purposes useless^
But for the full deydop^aoient of this mistaken system we must
look yet further North. The dweUings pf the French nobles
and gentry still preserved in no slight degree their ancaent
outlines, and the fashion of mere imitation never permanently
affected their domestic architecture. In England, the resistance
to the new style lasted longer than in France, but it waa
altogether more passive. ' iSe foundations of St. Peter's wecei
^ laid a full century before we had a classical building of any
' kind in thils country ; and the Escurial and the Tuileries baid
* been long inhabited before we thcnigfat it necessary to try to
' rival thraa ' (p. 242.). But the new fashim, when once
introduced, gained a wider and moie undisputed sway. The
Boman portico was transferred bodily by Inigo Jones into his
design for the Duke of Devonshire's villa at Chiswick (p. 162.);
and the example set here and in the house of Amresbury in
"Wiltdiire (p^ 264*), became the staple of the designs for En^pish
Qonntiy^houses.

Whatever, then» may have been the causey the Benaissanca
architects had neither in England nor elsewhere produced a
new and living style. They had adapted and combined, in
almost every possible form, the scanty materials which the
canons of Yitruvims and Falladio had left at their disposal ;
and the comparative pov^y of the result led naturally to a
mose complete devotioa» not merely to classical details, but to
genuine classical designs* It was easy to see that the Faithencm
m its outlines, and in every feature, was faultless ; it was not
less obvious that its front, when transferred to the fia^^e of a
palace,, altogether lost its chann. An almost unconscious
feeling was springing up, that claasical forms were deprived of
their life when adapted to buildings of anoth^ cuiaracter.
The reaction was inevitable. Thus far bouses and churches
had presented the features of Greek or Boman art. The
window, which had had its dripstone, now had its pilasters and
pediment; the engaged column had taken the place of the
buttress, and the prominent stringcourses had been si4>erseded
by entflJblatures. The fronts of laiger buildings had been
graced with c(donnades or with porticoes, which might have
served aa entrances to heathen temples; but no one could
mistake the buildings themselves for anything ancient. The
proposed palace at Whitehall, the castles and houses of Frendi
kines and nobles, were utterly unlike anything that had been
built by Greek or Boman architects. No one who looked on

92 FergiiaaoxCa History of the tTuljj

Wren*8 steeple at Bow Church, or the Tower of the Seo at
Zaragoza (p. 140.), could ever mistake them for buildings of an
older style. The change which was promoted hj the works of
Wood and Stuart, still more perhaps by the acquisition of the
Elgin Marbles, substituted a dead copying for a style which had
shown some life, however feeble.

' Once the fashion was introduced, it became a mania. Thirty or
forty years ago no building was complete without a Doric portico,
hexastyle or octastyle, prostylar or distyle in antis ; and no educated
man dared to confess ignorance of a great many very bard words
which then became fashionable. Churches were most afflicted in
this way; next to these came gaols and country-halls — but even
railway stations and panoramas found their best advertisements in
these sacred adjuncts ; and terraces and shop fronts thought they
had attained the acme of elegance when either a wooden or plaster
caricature of a Grecian order suggested the classical taste of the
builder. In some instances the founders were willing to forego the
commonplace requisites of light and air, in order to carry out their
classical aspirations ; but in nine cases out of ten a slight glance
round the comer satisfies the spectator that the building is not
erected to contain a statue of Jupiter or Minerva, and suffices to
dispel any dread that it might be devoted to a revival of the impure
worship of Heathen deities.' (P. 299.)

Mr. Fergusson's pleasant satire echoes somewhat faintly the
biting sarcasms of Augustus Welby Pugin.

But if at first the inappropnateness of windows under
a Greek colonnade was scarcely felt, the discovery of the
solecism gave the spur to an imitation still more strict.
The church of St Pancras (p. 299.) may be a costiy
absurdity, but it is impossible to find fault with the detuls
of St George's Hall, at Liverpool, or to question the cor-
rectness of its design. Like the Bi^varian Walhalla and the
church of the Madeleine at Paris, it might have been built by
Greeks or Boroans two thousand years ago. Being an exact
copy, the Walhalla must in one sense be as beautiful as the
Parthenon ; but it has not even the originality in the arrange-
ment of parts, to which at the least St. George's Hall may
fairly lay claim. In short, all these buildings, however beautiful
or magnificent (and it is absurd to deny their elegance or
splendour), are neither French, nor Bavarian, nor English.
The more earnest the striving after correctness, the more serious
must be the batUe to hide the necessities of modem life.
^ This has been nearly accomplished at St George's Hall, but
' hardly anywhere else ; and after all, supposing it successful,
' is this an aim worthy of the most truthful and mechanical of
' the arts ? ' (p. 309.)

1863. Modern Styles of Architeettire. 93

The question applies with as mach force to the Gothic
revival as to the classical. But to the former Mr. Fergusson
has applied the test with less than his usual fairness. In his
hatr^ of all mere copying we heartily concur. Of the impos-
ability of any genuine invention in architecture as long as this
system of imitation prevails^ we are not less convinced than him-
self; but we cannot see why it should be more monstrous to copy
in one dead language than another, or bring ourselves to think
that the Teutonic forms are quite so dead for us as those which
Yi^ola and Palladio consecrated with their canons. He has
still farther departed from his general impartiality, by allowing
religious or theolo^cal considerations to have weight in deter-
mining a question of art. The Walhalla and the Madeleine,
although examples of direct imitation, never receive from him
the crowning stigma which brands as forgeries the new church
on the glacis of Vienna, or that of St. Nicolas at Hambui^.
The feeling which has unconsciously prompted this distinction
is closely connected with what we conceive to be his defective
view of Gothic architecture in eeneraL Until a genuine style
comes into existence which shall be applicable to every building
raised by every Englishman, without reference to his politicid
or his religious creed, it is quite possible that one style may be
more suitable for one class of structures than another.* In

* We can do no more than touch briefly on this, as on other ques-
tions of interest arising out of an examination of modem buildings.
The subject of the appropriateness of styles for different purposes
has been more fully discussed in an article on Public Monuments in
a previous Number of this Review (April, 1862). It was there
stated that, as a monument to the dead, no memorial could compete
in beauty with the Eleanor Cross, or admit in an equal degree the
application of sculpture and painting without the slightest traditional
conventionality. We welcomed therefore with sincere pleasure the
announcement that the memorial to the Prince Ck)nsort was to
assume this form. When the idea of a monolithic obelisk was
abandoned on account of its costliness, there remained the alterna-
tive of placing the statue of the Prince, habited in the garb of
Perides, within a Greek temple, or to represent him, as he really
lived, on a monument of which the character might be strictiy nationaL
The former was felt to be intolerable ; and it was no slight relief to
think that a monument worthy of the Prince might at length be
raised by the architect of the Martyrs' Memorial at Oxford. We
confess our utter disappointment. The design is not an Eleanor
Cross at alL Its character is purely Italian Gothic ; and the shrine
is in fact a gigantic exaggeration of the ciborium or tabernacle
which frequentiy covers the Holy Sacrament in continental churches.
As a monument, the idea would seem to be taken from the tomb of

94 FetgUBSon's History of the July,

either case it mast of necessity be a qaestion of adaptation or
of copying. Whether we use Italian or Grothic designs and
details^ we are in either case speaking a language which is not
really our own ; but where or in so far as it may be necessazy to
condemn, the measure in which mther may be congenial to us
must be the measure of our criticism. When the Itidian
architects consciously abandoned the details of Teutonic art,
they deserved but little blame for casting aside architectural
forms which they had never entirely mside their own. The
same indulgence should in all fairness be extended to those who
in this country have reverted to the forms which are as con-
genial to us as eva: the features of Boman art could be to
Brunelleschi or Bramante. This Mr. Fergusson seems xmable
to see. For him a medissval cathedral is the work of men who
lived a long time ago, and fix)m whom we are separated by a
vast gulf in religion, tiiought, and feeling. He can only think
of lliom as ^ our ignorecnt and hardfisted forefathers ' (p. 484.) ;
nor can he bdieve it possible that an educated man can appre-
ciate the English architecture of the Middle Ages, as he can
that of republican Athens or imperial Borne. Anyone who
is at once educated and impartial vnll thoroughly appreciate
both; but it is in the nature of things impossible that an
Englishman should really feel the same patriotic enthustasm
for the latter, winch it is at least possible that he may feel fur
the former. The Parthenon will bring to his mind the glorious
^g^ of Ictinus, of Phidias, and of Pendes. For the student of
l&glish history, the noblest works of our Teutonic architecture
freshen the remembrance of that memorable century to which
we owe all that essentially dbtinguishes our English constitu-
tion from even the most advanced in continental Europe. The

tiie Scaligers at Verona ; but the scale of the proposed structore is
ludicrously exaggerated. The upper part is out of all proportion
with the lower : and the height of the whole monument is dwarfed
by the colossal statuary on the advanced pedestals. The result would
be the same, if such sculpture were placed round an Eleanor Cross ;
bat a height of 150 feet is in itself as great an absurdity fbr this
exaggerated Italian shrine as would be a height of 800 feet for an
English cross. In all probability, the faults which strike us most in
the design will be brought out still more painfully on the scanty site
allotted to it, which leaves a clear space of only a few feet on each side
of the monument Whatever be the merit of an architectural design,
the first condition of effect is that it should be adapted to the area in
which it is to be placed, and to the points fhnn which it can be seen.
In all these respects, the erection of a Gothic, tabernacle in one
comer of Hyde Park is to be deprecated.

1863. Modem Styles of Architecture, 95

Boman ritualistB of the pres^it day have little more liking than
Protestants for the endless vistas whioh open before us in the
naves of York or Windiester* When^ tmrefore, Mr. Fei^ps-
8<Hi speaks of St* Stephen's, WalbrooJs, as 'far more appro-
^ priate to Protestant worship than any of the Grothio designs
'recently erected' (p. 276.), he says what may be perfectly
true, bat it altogether b^ the point in question. As a fact,
during the whole existence of the English Church since the
fieformation, there have been those who have adhered to a
different idea, and we have no right to demand the general
aooeptanoe of our own notion of what may be suitable ' for the
* proper celebration of Divine worship in a Protestant com-
' munity in the nineteenth century.' But this is precisely iiriiat
Mr. Fergusson does, when he asserts that in the recent Gbthic
revival, chancels were thrown out ^mply for ^eot (p. 320.).
He might have learnt that the dia&cei is no superfluous orna-
ment in Mr. Hope's ideal of the nineteenth century cathedral ;
yet, with his chaiacteristic. inability to throw hims^ into forms
of thought different from his own, he attributes to the younger
Puffin a spirit of forgery, because for ecclesiastical buildings he
wu£ed to revive the gei^eral plan of mediaeval churches. The
insinuati<m is unfieur ; and no good can ever be done by forcing
any part of this discussion into so false a dianneL Mr. Fer-
gusson in great part misapprehends his meaning, when he tells
OS that 'every page of Pugin's works reiterate, ''Give us
"'truth, — truth of materials, truth of construction, truth
' "of ornamentation," &c. &c.; and yet his only um was to
^ produce an absolute falsehood. Had he ever sucoeeded to the
' extent his wildest dreams desired, he could only have produced
' BO perfect a forgery that no one would have detected that a
' work of the nineteenth oentury was not one of the fourteenth
' or fifteenth ' (p. 318.). So far as this charge is true, we have
no wish to qualify it, or to make light of the hindrances which
it puts in the way of any developement of genuine art. We
will grant that the perfect Gothic church of Pugin or of
Mr. Scott, might have been built in the Middle Ages. But
we must be just. Mr. Fergusson has himself admitted that
the Walhalla reproduces the Parthenon, and that anyone,
juc^ng from the exterior, might ftdrly set down the Madeleine
at Paris as a work of the same age with the Maison Carrie
at Nismesy or the Erechtheion as belonging to the same period
with St. George's Hall at Liverpool. If there is foigery in
the one case, there is forgery also in the other. If it is absurd
to make barometers and thermometers look like the works of
the diurk ages, long before ' those impostors Toroelli, or Galileo,

96 'Fergaaaoiie History of the Julj,

< or Newton are said to have invented them ' (p. 328.), is it I^s
absard to put upon them ornaments which might make us
fancy that they were invented in the days of Pericles or Julius
Cassar? To speak thus is to deal in useless exaggerations.
Anyone who has read attentively the works of Pugin wiU see
that in his demand for truth he was crying out mainly for
truthfulness of construction and decoration. With him the
plan of a church was not a subject for debate ; it is not easy to
see how from his point of view it could have been. Tt^e
Renaissance architects had spread a taste for large halls and
oratories; but the ritual of the Roman Church had never
varied, and with the continuance of the same wants it seemed
illogical to infer the necessity of different arrangements. TVliat
Pugin resisted with all his energy was that system of false
construotion and ornamentation which no one else has con-
demned with erea^ vehemence than Mr. Fergusson. It was
ludicrously false to place buttresses and crockets on chairs
and tables, or to make the butler clean his plate in a bastion. It
was in Pugin's eyes scarcely less false to make up a tower, as
at St Pancras, by placing one Temple of the Winds on the top
of another, or to produce a steeple, as Wren did at Bow
Church, by plagiarising every form of a Gothic tower and
spire, and translating them into the Renaissance dialect. If he
could see little merit or originality in substituting a balustrade
for an open parapet, and an obelisk in place of a pinnacle, it
needs some assurance to say that he was wrong.

In truth, with all his correctness of taste, Mr. Fergusson
has in this volume chiefly laid himself open to charges
of inconsistency. It could hardly be otherwise. In his own
words, it is 'difficult to write calmly and dispassionately

* in the midst of the clamour of contending parties, and not to

< be hurried into opposition by the unreasoning theories that

* are propounded on both sides ' (p. 242.). Hence, perhaps, it
was to be expected that he should impute especially to the
Grothic revivalists that vice of applying ornamentation without
thought which he had previously (pp. 22-48, &c), denounced as
the 'inherent tendency,' or rather ' the bane,' of the Renaissance
styles. It may be true that ' in using the classical style, it
' required the utmost skill and endless iJiought to make the

* parts, or details, adapt themselves even moderately well to
'the purposes of Modem Church Architecture' (p. 319.):
but as a fact, this thought had rarely, perhaps never, been
bestowed on the subject When the Renaissance architects
availed themselves of pillars and pilasters, ' their real recom-
'mendation was that they covered the greatest amount of

1863. Modern Styks of Arehiieeture. 97

^ space with the least amount of thought ' (p. 48.). But it is
a mere assumption to tell us that one of the most important
advantages of the Gothic style is its cheapness. ' In a Gothic

* bmlding, the masonry cannot be too coarse^ or the materials
' too common. The carpentry must be as rude and as un-
^ mechanically put together as possible ; the glazing as clumsy,
< and the glass as bad as can be found ' (p. 319.). The charge
is curious when applied to Gothic, as dbtinguished from a style
which, except in actual paintings, allows no treatment which is
not conventional. The rules of the great Renaissance architects
have stereotyped the forms of capitals, entablatures, and cor-
nices ; but the sculptured foliage of Cologne Cathedral is faulty,
as being far too naturaL With ourselves, it seems to be for the
present a question of adaptation or copying, whether the forms
chosen are classical or Gothic We do not deny the beauty of

• St Paul's Cathedral, we are not blind to the demerits (such as
they are) of the Palace of Westminster. The British Museum
may be a finer building than the museum recently completed by
the University of Oxford. But while Mr. Fergusson minutely
criticises the Houses of Parliament and the Oxford Museum, he
omits (it would almost seem of set purpose) to notice a large
number of buildings which really belong to another class.
He can scarcely be too severe on the spasmodic straining after
every imaginable eccentricity which is betrayed by such designs
as those of All Saints', Margaret Street, or the chapel of
Balliol College, Oxford. But buildings which appear stu(Uously
to avoid every English form must not make us forget that the
works of Mr. Scott are in general examples of purdy Teutonic
art. It would be absurd to suppose that he has invented any
new style, and perhaps presumptuous to imagine that his designs
may lead directly to any such developement. But none who
examine the chapel of Exeter College, Oxford, will discover
there either falsity of construction or misapplication of orna-
ment, while all will see (what no Renaissance design can
exhibit) capitals and corbels, brackets and bosses, of which no
one example is like another, and all of which were patiently
worked out on the spot by the artist who had before him the
living foliage of nature. If the careful and earnest elaboration
of details is likely to lead hereafter to a better condition of
art, then Mr. Scott has contributed more than any other living
man to the result so eagerly desired by Mr. Fergusson.

Conventionality is, indeed, no essential characteristic of the
architecture of Teutonic Christendom. The foliage which graces
its piers and arches may be strictly natural. The drawings which
fill its windows may, and ought to be, as true as those of Benjamin

- VOL. CXTIU. NO. CGXLI. H

96 Fatffumm's Obt^rf rfAe Juiy,

West or Sir Jothoa Bejmddfi.* TbeqMndribofthedMHraidies
of C<dogne hsye funuBbed ms £ur a field for the fi^eeeoeB of
Deger as the baolicas of Bramante oonld affnrd to the painten
of Italy. But it is useless to speeiiy its capabilities if the
whole system of modem Grothic design is oondemned, and perhaps
rightly condemned, already. Mr. Feigosson will have no
coi^^ing whether Grothic or classical; —

^ For the pbHosophieal student of srt it is of the least possible
eoDseqnence whi^ may now be most sucoottM in eneroaebkig on
the domains of its antagonist. He knows that both are wrong, and
that neither can, consequently, advance the cause of true art His
one hope lies in the knowledge that there is a iertium quid, a style
which, for want of a better name, is sometimes called the Italian, but
should be called the conunon-sense style. This never having attained
the completeness which debars all nirtber progress, as was the case
in the purely classical or in the perfected Gothic styles, not only
admits of, but insists on, progress. It courts borrowing piincifrfes
and forms from eitiier. It can use either pillars or pinnadea^ as
may be required. It admils of towers and spires, or domes. It can
either indulge in plain walls^ or pierce them with innomerahle
windows. It knows no guide but common sense ; it owns no master
but true taste. It may hardly be possible, however, because it
requires the exercise of these qualities; and more than this, it
demands thought, where copying has hitherto sufficed ; and it courts
originality, which the present system repudiates. Its greatest merit
is that it admits of that progress, by which alone man has hitherto
accomplished anything great or good either in literature, in science,
or mart' (P. 529.)

There is an apparent clearness and a very real obscurity
about this singular passage. What is this Italian or common-
sense style ? If it means nothing more than the employment
of certain constructive forms, it scarcely deserves the name of
a style at alL If it implies the use of Italian decorative
features, it becomes again a mere question of adaptation. We
cannot escape from the magic circle ; and, although it is quite
possible that a new style may be developed from the use of
Italian forms, it is not less possible that the same result may be
attmned by employing an ornamentation which is not Italian.
If, however, we may judge from any existing works, we should be
loth to yield to this Italian style the credit of all those powers
which Mr. Fergusson claims for it For pinnacles it has given

* The designs of the Munich glass can scarcely be condemned on
the score of conventional drawing. But few who have compared
the windows in the southern aisle of the nave of Cologne Cathedral
with those of the choir will defend the theoty which makes the
picture independent of the mullions and tracery of the window.

166S. JMem Ayies of Archiiteture. 99

WB ebelidcs, or fonns still more noDdaeoript ; for towers it has
piled one triumphal arch on another ; for spires, it presents a
serieB of pilasteored octagons with bulbous battresses. It may
have windows; bnt these are mere apertures. Of tracery, so
long as the style remains Italian at all, it seems to be utterly
incapable. Vast semicircles yawn ondar the vault of die
' InTalides' Cburdi at Paris ; and in place of the exquisite rose
windows of Amiens or Westminster, a huge eye, hoUow as the
aoeket of the blinded Polyphemus^ stares out from the front of
ibe Certoea at Pavia (p. 51.). It may raise domes ; but these
ate in idea Bysantine; and the octagon of Ely approaches
nearer to this idea than any Renaissance example. In short,
unless we confine ourselves to absolutely naked construction^
we most, whether with one form or another, commence with
adaptetaon ; and we thus reach the simple conclusion that Mr.
Fcjgwwon piefers the language oi Ghreeoe and Italy to that of
En^and.*

StaU, to the adaptation of what ure called Gothic forms,
tkere remains an objection more serious tiian any which Mr.
Fei]gnsaon has spedfied. From the first dawn of Roman archi-
tecture down to the time when Teutonic art yielded to the
inroads of the Renaissance, every stage is a link in a series of
continuous and inseparable developements. To adopt any one
staffe as our starttng-pcHnt is to make an arbitrary selection
wiuiout any regard to its philosophical connexion with all that
went before or followed it. When the builders of the early
hanilifafl oast aside the entablature, it was an honest return to
the architecture of Rome ; and a genuine arched construction
inevitably suggested the relation of the arcades to the parts
above them. The perception of this relation led a^ inevitably
to the employment of the pointed arch. Within each bay the
windows, which had been mere openings let into the. wall
without ^stem, fell into groups, whose tracery follow^ precisely

* Nothing can more clearly show that Mr. Fergusson has not
thrown himself as thoroughly into the spirit of Giotkic as of other
architecture, than the assertion that, ^in so £ur as the system of
< ornamentation is oonoerned, the Saracenic style is identical with the

* &oihic Both use pointed arches, clustered piers, vaulted roofs, and

* they claim other features in common.' (P. 416.) It would be true
to say that they exhibit some likeness in details of ornament ; but
the Saracenic system of mere surface decoration is utterly alien to
the subordination of the Gothic ; nor is it too much to say that if
the Romanesque styles had started with the decorative system of
Saracenic art, Grothic architecture could never have come into
existence.

100 Feigusflon's HUtory of Modem Architecture. July,

the same laws which regalated every other part of the design.
The transition from a suoordination of distinct parts to a fusion
in which all parts were merged, maj be traced as clearly in
the one as in the other. And when the continuous styles suc-
ceeded to the geometrical, the principle which had produced
all these developements was completely exhausted, and the
victory of any inyading style assured. Nor can the signifi-
cance of this fact on the future history of the art be well over-
rated. If we assume with Mr. Scott, that we may build in the
style of the Ste. Chapelle at Paris, and if we are not to go on
so copying and building for ever, in what is our work to issue?
Is any new application of its principles practicable, or even
conceivable? If we cannot see our way to an affirmative
answer, it may be no reason for resorting to the common-sense
Italian style ; but it is a grave reason for not making arbitrary
selections from a series which is philosophically complete, and
whose principles have been thoroughly woi^ed out

Nor does this remark apply with less force to the Italian
style, unless it be taken to mean nothing more than the use of
the pier and arch without reference to Greek or Roman details.
This, however, is to revert to mere naked construction*; and
possibly under no other conditions can the rise of a genuine
style be looked for. If thus, or in any other way, a really
living architecture should spring up, it must be one which wiU
be applicable to all buildings whatsoever. It will be as suitable
for tlie synagogues of Jews as for the churches of Christians,
for commercial storehouses as for royal palaces. There will no
longer be any question of the appropriateness of different styles
for different purposes. There will be no need to discuss
whether a .church should be Gothic, or a club-house classicaL
It will suit every want, ecclesiastical or secular, of our age, not
less than the style which we call Gothic met the needs of our
forefathers. In a greater degree it could not do so ; and much
of the perplexity and absurdity of our present practice arises
from our failing to see how marvellously flexible that architec-
ture was. Because Englishmen in the fifteenth century built
houses with narrow mullioned windows, the same thmg is
done now, and the cry is raised that Gothic is inconvenient for

* Mr. Fergusson has, indeed, reduced the question within a very
narrow compass. If all copying of ornamental forms is utterly con-
demned, we can but do one of two things. We may use the column
with the round arch, or the column with the pointed arch. In the
one case we take up the Romanesque, in the other we adopt the
Grothic principle ; and still more it may be urged that the former, if
taken as the starting-point, must lead on to the latter.

1863. Lonis Blanc's French Revolution. 101

domestic buildings* The traih is^ they had what they wished
to have* If there had been need of wider openings, they would
have pierced them as wide as any that are now filled with plate
glass. The idea is^ but of recent growth that the purpose of a
window is not merely to let in light, but to give as wide a
view as possible of the landscape without. For those who
adopt this idea, a genuine architecture will provide what is
wanted as readily with Gothic as with Greek or Renaissance
forms.

We* can do no more than touch on this point of practical
interest, which involves the whole question of domestic archi-
tecture ; nor can we enter on the ethnological discussions with
which Mr. Fergusson brings his work to a close. There is the
less need to do so, because we do not profess to have any
deeper knowledge of Pelasgians and Turanians than Mr. Grote
or Sir Cornewall Lewis. Here, as in his former work, Mr.
Fergusson dogmatises, where they are silent, and he has seen
reason to attribute to the primitive Aryans a belief the very
reverse of that which seems to be indicated in their mythology.
These, however, are matters of less moment than the practical
questions with which the future progress of architecture is
bound up. If in treating these questions Mr. Fei^usson has
not been altogether consistent or impartial, he has examined
them with a fullness and a force which commands our gratitude.
If we have differed from him on some points, we have agreed
with him on more ; and we gladly express our hope and our belief
that his labour will not be in vain.

Ari^. IV. — 1. Histoire de la Revolution Frangcdse. Par M.
Louis Blanc. 12 vols. Paris: 1847-62.

2. Histoire de la Terreur^ 1792-4, d^apres des doeumens authen"
tiques et inidits. Par M. Mortimer-Ternaux. 2 vols.
Paris: 1862.

X>T the publication of the twelfth and coiiduding volume of
his * Histoire de la Kevolution Fran9ai8e' (the first of
which appeared iu 1847), M. Louis Blanc has now completed his
chosen labour of many years. Never, perhaps, has a great lite-
rary undertaking been conceived, proceeded with, and executed^
under circumstances so various and so singular. When first he
addressed himself to the subject, he was a young and almost
imknown literary man, an unit among the many thousand

102 Louis Blanks Frenck EeoohUum. Jvfyy

ardent spirits of Paris who were urging on their own deatiiiy
and that of the State towards the great abyss which, fike
Bossuet's precipice5 lay before them, without possibility of retnnL
Guizot was then Prime Minister of France -, Louis Philifqpe
was apparently at the height of his power ; the question of
farther progress towards democracy seemed, for the moment,
adjourned; c^ rather, a stationiary period had inierTened
between the perpetual oscillations of flux and reflux in that
agitated society. But when his first two volumes appeared,
the air was ilready *dark with the signs <^ an approaching
catastrophe. Then came the crash, and the unknown author
was himself elevated, by one of the strangest of Fortune's sports,
into the position of an arbiter of the fortunes of that great
community whose former revolutionary struggles he was engaged
in depicting. How the man of a * rare mais &pre &natisme,' as
Lamartine designates him, comported himself in that hour of
giddy elevation, future historians will have to say, for the tale
of 1848 has not yet been jtold. Driven into exile, he resumed
his pen after a few years ; the next volumes appeared in 1852,
und^r the shadow of nascent Imperialism, the lfl»t in 1862, after
ten years of that system have pruned down to the very root
the luxuriance of liberal sentiment, and left the memories of
Republicanism and of Pariiamentary government alike to &e
keeping of an elderly generation. These ten years the author
has ^nt in exile. And there is something both of dignity and
of good sense in the manner in which that Utter trial has
been borne, which commends him to the sympathy of the
reader. Faithful to his principles — erroneous as most deem
them, fanatical as most deem his addiction to them — he has
never appeared to despair of their success, and of the rege-
neration of France through their means. But he has held
them usually in calm reserve ; never gone out of his way
to obtrude them, or himself in conjunction with them, on
public notice ^ never joined, so far as we are aware, in the
schemes of those succesuve conspirators who have at times
rendered the maintenance of our ancient ri^t of political
asylum a matter of no small difficulty; never vented his passions
in ignoble abuse df hostile power from a safe distance. Among
us he has lived as one of ourselves, cherishing political principles
in utter discordance with those which prevail with the mqority
here — not disguising, but not obtruding them ; never Endea-
vouring to use for his own personal purposes the popularity
which those principles might have earned him with a zealous
minority ; never xsompromising his own dimity, eith^ by noisy
complaint or boastings, but quietly defending his conduct and

IMS. LoiUB Blanc's French BevobOicn. 103

prindplet when personal! j atta^ed, and kaving tbo ultimate
iaeae of bk csoise m the hands of Time.

Thus much we have allowed ourselves to say ; for there is no
taciai of temper and of personal dignity mcnre searching than that
of lai^ obscure p<ditical exile, and he who has borne it well
desires the tribute ci respect, however little we may approve
fan political conduct. As far as the purposes of the present
work are concerned, this exile, whkh at first seemed likely
to prevent ahogetber the completion of the present woik,
turned out, singularly enough, of the greatest possible advantage
ta the author* Deprived of the resources of the public and
private libraries of his own country, his residence here intro-
dveed him to those possessed by the British Museum. What
he found there, and how he used it, is described in the preface
to hia seventh volume, published in 1855. ' J'ai de grandee
' actions de gr&ce k rendre k mon ezil,' he ssys, ' qui m'a mis en
* €tat d'approfondir mon sujet beaucoup mieux que je ne raurais
' pu il Paris mSoae.' The late Mr. Croker was an msatiable col-
lector of pamphlets, newspapers, records of every sort, respecting
the first French Bevolution; and on two different occasions
(unless we are misinformed) he parted with $J1 which he possessed
in this way to the British Museum.* These masses of matt^,
being added to the coUectioBe made and stored by the establish^

* To give some idea of its value and extent, we quote the descrip-
tion which Louis Blanc himself has left on record of it in the ' Avis
' aa Lecteur ' which precedes his seventh volume : —

* £n relations contemporaines, brochures pour ou centre, discours,
rapports, pamphlets, satires, ehansons, statistiques, portraits, proo^
verbaux, proclAmations, placards, &c, &c, le catalogue comprend : sur
la seule affaire da Collier, 3 ^normes dossiers ; sur les Farlements, 6 ;
sur les Etats-G^neraux, 75; sar la Noblesse, 8; sur le Clerg^ 86;
sur les Travaux Publics pendant la Revolution, 7 ; sur le Commerce,
3 ; sur FAgriculture, 2 ; sur les Clubs, 22 ; sur les FStes Civiques,
9 ; scnr la Police des Cultes, 62 ; sur les Poids et Mesures, 1 ; sur les
Sdeaeee pendant la B^votutioD, 3 ; sur la G^de Nationale, 3 ; sur
les Sections de Paris, 5 ; sur I'Education^ 9 ; sur la Philosophie, 16 ;
sur les Monuments Publics, 3 ; sur les Emigres, 28 ; sur les Colonies,
45 ; sur la Mendicity et les Hospices, 4 ; sur les Prisons, 5 ; sur
Bobespierre, 12 ; sur Camille Desmoulins, 13 ; sur Brissot, 5 ; sur
Harat, 13 ; sur Baboeuf, 10 ; et ainsi de suite. . . . Inutile d'ajouter
qa% chaque ^v^nement notable de la Revolution correspond une
masse de documents proportionn^s k son importance. C^est ainsi, par
exemple, que I'ensemble des pieces diverses relatives aux affaires
d^ Avignon va du n^ 591 au n^ 599. Quant aux histoires proprement
dHesy la oottectioA s'6lend dn nnm^ro 1208 au num6ro 1340! *

104 Louis Blanc's Frenoh Bevolution. J^Jy

ment and by George IIL during the period of the Revolutkni
itselfy complete the unrivalled repository of which Louis Blanc
speaks.

By the dd of these means, envied by his French critics
themselves, and with his literary ability sharpened by political
experience, M. Louis Blanc has produced a work of a very
high order. But a History, in the highest sense of all, we dare
not call it It is in truth another contribution to that series of
eloquent and voluminous essays, framed on preconceived ideas^
which their authors have entitled Histories of the French
Revolution. Its peculiar merit lies in the unity of thought
and purpose which prevails throughout the whole. The
casual reader, who will merely take it up to peruse his ac->
count of particular scenes and characters, though he may find
much to interest and strike him, will not be able to appre-
ciate this its highest characteristic — the mode in which the
sequence of facts is brought powerfully and distinctly out ; in
which it is shown how each mistake, each injustice committed
by the several parties, as well as each bold and successful poli«
tical stroke, depended on its antecedent, and produced its results;
how one day was the father of another, and each incident only
to be understood by dose advertence to that which preceded
and followed it This is Louis Blanc's greatest achievement ;
and, for historical purposes, it is one of no common order.
And it exhibits itself, very markedly, in the dramatic part of his
work, in the delineation of character. It has been said that
Shakespeare differs from almost all other dramatists essentially
in this, that his characters are not figures introduced complete
into the canvas ; they alter, grow, and develope under the eye.
So it is, in due proportion, with ike personages brought forward
in the pages of Louis Blanc. Unlike most Fren<£ writers of
equal power, he does not seem to us to excel in the artistic
finishing of elaborate portraits, where he attempts it But his
characters draw themselves. Mirabeau, Brissot, Bobespierre,
Saint-Just, seem to grow out of their indistinct beginnings into
definite individualities, chapter by chapter, and to assume by
d^prees, as they did in life, their due proportion to the scene
which they fill.

It is evident how considerable, and rig^tiy so, are the ad-
vantages which the historian who deals with a great work in
this complete way has over those who exercise their ingenuity
on the production of 'monographs,* as some term them —
historical e«says on special subjects, diaracters, or scenes,
forming ^Kutions of the great whole. We have been much
struck with this ciroumsiance, when comparing the history

1863. Louis Blapo's French RevohiHon. 105

before us with the recent special works of anti-revolutionary
writers who have obtained success in France, and in some
instances deservedly; Granier de Cassagnac (^Histoire des
^ Grirondins'X and die more solid, but not less onensided, De
Barante (' Histoire de la Convention '). We must add to these
the work of M. Mortimer-Temaux, which we have named at
the head of this article. Although full of valuable and hitherto
unknown or unappreciated materials, it comprises, at present^
merely the history of Paris during the three summer months of
1792. Its chief merit consists in the large amount of original
written evidence it has brought to light, M. Mortimer-Temaux
having had the patience to disinter and examine several hundred
thousand documents and entries of the time, which in many
cases correct the loose statements of contemporary narrative
by irrefragable evidence. The impartial reader wUl no doubt
often agree with the corrections which these authorities make
in the facts, and the disproof which they administer to the
theories, of our republican. But their accounts of each parti-
cular crisis and action seem mutilated by the want of ' suite '
— the want of that connexion with things before and after^
which, he on his part traces with such clearness and ability.
Conduct which seems absurd, or ignoble, or inconsequent,
becomes often intelligible and in a sense justifiable by com-
parison with some other and distant series of facts.

We have in our time felt indignant with Bamave and the
Jacobins of 1791, for their spiteful detraction of their own
great leader Mirabeau, who had set in movement that devo-
lution by which they lived ; we now know clearly, what they
doubtless knew darkly, that Mirabeau had sold the Bevo-
lution and them to the Court, through ascertained brokers, for
ready money. We have probably judged according to pre-
conceived opinions tha^ passage in the life of Rooespierre^
where, in the beginning of 1792, he sets himself with all his
force to oppose the declaration of war against the Coalition ;
contrary to the views of all the various sections of the friends
of liberty, and in contradiction also to the expressed and
enthusiastic feeling of the country.* We may have attributed
it to personal jealousy of opposite leaders — to a sense of his
own civil importance, which a state of war would nullify — to
fear of the extbguishment of liberty by military chiefs, and so
forth. We now know that whatever effect these secondary

* This passage of history is treated with great force — allowing for
bis partisanship wherever Kobespierre is concerned — ^by Louis Blanc,
vol. vi. chap. 7.

106 Louis Bhnc't French RevobiiiaiL Jvij,

oomes may have had, Robespierre was ia his own sense perfitatlj
right, and the more impuktre liberals were decer?ed; that
the Court and a portion of the constitutionabsts actually ttiter*
iained the intention of using that war, and the miUtary fbroe
which it would call out, for the direct purpose of cottnter-
revolution. We have all read, perhaps with admifation, but
most* of us certainly with some disgust, Ver^niaiid's fiunous
apostrophe to his outraged, impotent sovereign, m daily peiil of
liberty and Kfe : — * Tu n'es plus rien pour ce peu{rfe que tu aa
' si l&chement traU,' and so forth ; and may have deemed it, as
M* Temaux would still apparently have us deem it, a ^eoe of
cruel rhetorical pedantry, a base attempt to earn populazity
by appealing to iJie worst feelings of the mob. But Time, the
great rectifier, has revealed to us what Yergniaud knew well
enough in a general way, though he could not prove it as we can
— that in tbit very month of July, 1792, the Eang's ageni.
Mallet du Pan, was haunting the doors of the ministers of
Austria and Prussia at Frankfort, with the King's own proposi^
tions, inviting their masters to mandi to Paris in order to save
the monarchy. And thus it ia that in judging dtber a man
or a cause by insulated hcts or expressions occi^rring in the
course of a career, one is almost inevitably unjust; and this
is the peculiar injustiee which the study of special portions
of history, otherwise so attraotave, is calculated to promote^
the study of connected and dalmate histories cak«ilated to
correct.

But if calculated to correct this error, it is ui^rtanatdy
calculated to involve the mind of the reader in far more binding
and durable error, unless he is fortified hj that amount of
scepticism which only the cooling of the passions and the slow
acquisition of much knowledge produce in some, and which
no discipline seems to produoe in othi^s. ^ L'histoire de la
' Revolution/ Louk Bbmc over and over again declares to us,
^ est encore i faire.' The era for impartial histiMry, that is, has
not yet begun. And bis own work certainly furnishes bo
exception. It is a remarkable achievement : but no more a
history, in the higher sense, than those of Thiers, or Michelet,
or Lacretelle, or Mcmtgaillard* It is, firom beginning to end,
simply an advocate's defence of a client. The causes of revo-
lution against conservatism, of the popular party against the
Court, of the Jacobins against the fiBuillaiM, the Mountain
against the Gironde, Bobespierre against Danton and against
the Committees, and his disciples against the * Thermidorians' —
these are the causes, or rather the successive phases of the
same cause, to the establishment of which he devotes himself

1863. Loms Blane'9 French SevciiUum. 107

aflsidnotisly, perticacioiidy, without yieMiiig and r&tmyne, with-
out a single looking' back, with hardly a single deviation into
the rice of candour. He may, indeed, blame askl inveigh
against the excesses of his friends; but he never admits t^
they were wrong as against their immediate opponents. In
general, his object is sufficiently attained by^ a bold and lucid
developement of the case which he wishes to make, honestly
exposing its weak side but arguing with all his force in favour
of its strong. But he is by no means above the more ordinary
arts of the advocate. This is especially manifest where he
has to deal with what in modem phrase we must call the
' sensation ' portions of his subject. It is never his tendency to
shir over, or to colour in undertone, the horrors which he has
to depict : his own thorough love of humanity, his tendency to
take on all occasions the weaker side, preserve him sufficiently
firom all such temptation. But having fEuthfuUy brought out
the daiic side of his picture, he hurries to dart in as many
patches of light — often with very little authentication — as the
subject will admit of. He does not soften the crimes of 1^
revolutionary tribunals, of the chief i^nts of Terror, or of the
'men of September;' but he brings into as much prominence
as he can their fits of human weakness, th^ acquittals>
their connivances at escape. In the same style of pleading
— and it is an employment of it which we more r^ret —
heroic acts, or persom^e^ on the wrong side, are not indeed
suppressed, but all that can be said in detraction of them is
brought fbrward with a judicial air. L^uis XVL dkd a
martyr, no doubt — in bis own cause — but he lost his patience,
was noisy, and struggled with his executioners. CharloCte
Corda^ was a heroine, but she had a certain M£gdret6 de
' caract^ ; ' was by no means free from afEeetation, had a
'preoccupation de ^oire toute payenne,' and was not particular
about tVuth* ; and, though descended from the great Comeille,
Ae was not perfect in her spelling. But the more effective

* Nothing is more unjust, at times, than a minute dissection of
words. Charlotte Corday admitted that she lefl Caen with the design
of killing Marat Nevertheless, she says in her letter to Barbaroux
that Marat's threats, in his conversation with her, to have the Giron-
dins sent to the scaffold, * ont d^id^ de son sort* Louis Blanc thinks it
worth his while to quarrel with this contradiction as indicating a want
of truthfulness. Who cannot reconcile the two 'statements in the
mouth of a determined but impulsive girl? 3f. Vatel, in his carious
republication of the 'Dossiers du Frocks de Charlotte Corday,'
seeais to make out that this letter to Barbarottx was written at
intervals and in fragments.

108 Louis Blanc's French Revolution. ^uXj,

and more constant artifice which he employs is that of carefully
constructed parallels of crime. On each several occasion he
applies himself to show, not by argument so much as by
effective juxtaposition, how the misdeeds of his clients were
occasioned, or paralleled, or avenged by those of their enemies.
The early excesses of the Revolution are shown as nearly as
may be in the same light with the occasional violence of the
clerical faction, with the bloodshed of Nancy and of the Champ
de Mars; the tale of Lyons, Avignon, Toulon, Nantes, in-
geniously intermingled with accounts of the ferocity exhibited
by Catholics in the South, and Vendeans in the West ; and
the tragedy of La Terreur itself immediately followed by a
special and most vigorous chapter, in his last volume, headed
* La Terreur Blanche : ' a chapter which deserves to produce
great effect, and would be calculated to produce more, could
not the experienced eye detect thus much, — that though the
author rarely hazards a statement without authority, he relies,
when Royalists are to be accused, on such slight authorities as
he would demolish with the most merciless criticism if they
had been adduced against Republicans. And, in truth, with
regard to many of the leading events of the Revolution, the
art of the advocate lies neither in inventing nor concealing;,
but simply in giving his own turn and colour to well-known
materials. ' Tout est optique,' says Mercier, in one of the most
requently quoted passages of his ^Nouveau Paris ' (a work,
by the way, which, after having reposed in peace for many
years on the shelve of bouqumistes, has lately acquired a certain
fashion as an authority), everything depends on the point of
view from which we regard it. Compare the narrative of the
popular intrusion into the Tuileries on the 20th of June, 1792,
as given by Louis Blanc and by Mortimer-Temaux : each uses
the same materials, and uses them honestly, and yet how
entirely opposite are the impressions conveyed by the one
narrative and the other I Or compare the account given by
Louis Blanc of the return from Varennes with that which,
unluckily for the austere Fetion, Mortimer-Temaux has
disinterred from that patriot's papers, and printed in the
appendix to his first volume. None of the facts are materially
different ; but under how different a colour they appear to the
Republican writer, who gently rebukes the shade of Potion for
having exhibited to the royal captives a little too much of
patriotic austerity, and acted the * paysan du Danube ' in too
marked a manner, and to us, who are now in possession of the
secret, that Potion had the ineffiible coxcombry to imagine
Madame Elisabeth in love with him, and dreaded, in the dose

1863. Loub Blanc's French Revolution. 109

and protracted contact of that travelling-carriwe^ to have his
virtue compromised bj a premature declaration itom Her Boyal
H^hness!

But having expressed our opinion of M. Louis Blanc's intense
partisanship, we must hasten to say that we hold him to be one
of those advocates whose entire mind is coloured and absorbed
bj the cause to which they have devoted themselves. From
the vnlgar trickery of misstating facts, of inventing friendly
or concealing hostile authorities, he is, so far as we have ob-
served, entirely exempt We have been constantly struck with
bis boldness, not only in referring to authorities, but in citing
them, where, to our comprehension, they seem to contradict
his conclusions and reduce to absurdity his theories. Others
have written as philosophers, patronising the people from a
serene distance ; he is ' le peuple ' himself — not so much an
adherent of the popular side as the very incarnation of so-called
popular views and doctrines. If we can conoeive the people
(using the word as our neighbours do, to signify at once some-
thing opposed to the higher classes and the bourgeoisie, and
something distinct from the nation at large) engaged in the
task of recording its own great Saturnalia by the hand of its
own confidential secretary, these volumes might be the result,
and Louis Blanc the instrument

Li nothing has this essentially popular kind of temperament
more forcibly struck us, than in the strange credulity which he
exhibits as to all rumours of that class which are sure to have
currency with minds heated by party and in periods of storms,
though they usually lose it again, in the minds of reasonable men,
as soon as the storms subside. Critical to excess in exposing
fictions of hostile import, there is nothing he does not seem
prepared to receive as an article either of faith or of serious
suspicion, when it tallies with the course of his theories. He
believes that Gunganelli was murdered by the Jesuits. He very
much inclines to believe that Mirabeau was poisoned — and the
Emperor Leopold. He believes that Gamain, the locksmith,
was poisoned ; not, he says, by the King or Queen — but who
else could have done it? He believes that Desault the phy-
sician, and Chopart the chemist, who were the last to minister
to the supposed Dauphin in the Temple, were both poisoned by
the Government He believes that the Count de Provence
(Louis XVIII.) was throughout the Revolution intriguing
against the King — ^that * il usa de sa position, de son influence, de
' son cr^t, dans un sens & la fois funeste & son frdre ain£ et
' favorable & lui-mdme ' (ii. 161.); that he systematically calum-
niated the Queen ; that he got rid of his nephew, the unfortu-

lie Lkhub Bkne'e Frtnch BeoolmtiotL Juljt

nate DonpkiiL He bdieveB^ apparently, in the coandal of the
* Collier ; ' tlie ooiwpiracy of Favrae (liL 404.), that of Maillebois
(iv. 189.). His faith is potent in all the charges thrown out of
underhand devieee for mining the Revolution by making it
unpopular ; in ' unknown men cutting open sacks of flour with
^ their knives,* in order to enrage the populace ; in the bands of
^•w^-mounted and well-dressed' counter'^revolutionists, who
went about in the autumn of 1789 encouraging the peasants to
destroy the ohftteaux (iv. 53.) ; in the legen&ry pair of English-
men who were seen drinking, and prompting the massacres, at the
prison of the Abbaye (viL 167.). He execrates the ^ commerce
' assassin ' of ^ accapareurs ' (forestallers, as our ancestors called
them) to the very top of the popular bent against them ; believes
that they murdered Pinet (ii« 472.) for denouncing them ; that
in 1792, ' in order to ruin die manufEictures, to leave tiie work-
' men idle and force them to curse the Revolution,' they ' mono-
^ polised everything, — ^yea, everything, down to paper, roofing
' slates, and pins ' (vi. 274«) ; that the counter-revolutionary capi**
talists systematically 'refused work' to the people (to their
own ruin) with the same dark object ; that landlords forbore to
ask for their rents when due, in order that fiurmers might hold
back their com instead of selling it, and so starve the populace
into discontent (x. 403.). We by no means place all these
instances of credulity, to which many similar might be added,
on tiie same footing: some are cases in which reasonable
suspicion might well be entertained, others appear to our judg-
ment mere mideummer madness ; but we array them together
as affording proof of that robust superabundance of faith whidi
is so eminently characteristic of the vulgar mind everywhere,
and of those peouliar minds which, like Louis Blanc's, though
critically and even fastidiously polished, retain at bottom ^e
instincts, the reasoning, the sentiments of the multitude.

As might be suspected, a mind so tenacious of the old revolu-
tionary suspicions nnds ample food in the dark machinations of
England, or at least of the British Oovemment ' Pitt et
^ Cobourg ' scarcely played a more monstrous part in Barrdre's
^ Carmagnoles,' than in the sober pages of our historiRn. This
, is really bard upon us ; for Louis Blanc can be both just and
generous towards us. Of our people, and of our institutions,
rounded though these are on principles entirely opposed to his
own, he speaks with uniform respect ; he fully appreciates what
we esteem our good qualities, and shows even more than due
indulgence to our failings ; and, which is still rarer with his
countrymen, is at once acute and merciful in his judgments on
our public men* And yet he appears actuated throughout by

186& Ifoais Bkao^ I^enek S^olutim. Ill

the belief that Pitt, his 'Ooremment, «nd hia PorliameDts, were
inspiyed hj the very gentos o£ Madbda^el himeelfy throughout
tbcnr defldinge with the ingexittOiM patnots of the Reyolution*
He eennot make the allowance for the natural heaitations of a
free GrOFemment, embarrassed by m penseTeriDg opposition, but
mIb down every appamnt inoonsi^enej to some deefi^ if inex«-
]dieable, manoravre. Ete canned see that for many years of the
straggle Enghmd had no idea whatei^er of seeking to reesta-
UishUoyaUst goTernment in Frasoe, simply because to impose
any govemmeot en a foreign nation through w«r was contrary
to Ei^fish ideas; that we fought Fnuiee to conquer France if
we eonld, regardless of the form of government which France
BHght afberwardfi assume, except so*&r as the security of peace
might seem to require. He persists in supposing that the
lekictaiiee of England to dictate political lessons to the Yen-
deans^ or to interfere in behalf of the royal family, was simply
tiie daik caloulataoii of minds bent on seeing France perish by
the mutual Tioleiioe of her sons, and anxious to prolong her
agony as €ur as possUde through a specious, but designing, for-
beanmce.*

♦ We place together in a note two carious instances of the very
loose assertions into whioh Louis Bkne's prcgudtce against Pitt and
his associates occasionally hurries him.

1. In 1790 England was embracing strongly the party of the Stadt*
holder against the democnats in the United Provinces. The English
Minister, Lord Harri% writes home : — * If this ' (an insurrection in
favour of the Stadtbolder) ' should not happen, we might then look

* forward to the reduction of this country to a state of insignificancy
' as the best event which can befall England.' This our author ren-
ders as follows : — ' S*il n*en va pas de ce sorte, nous aurtms d voir de

* r^uire eeUe contree k un ^tat de parfaite insignifiance ; car, en
^ pareil cas, c'est ce qui arriverait de mieux il 1 Angleterre ! ' (iv.
9.) Now M. Louis Blanc knows English almost as weil as French,
and we venture to brieve him incapable in cold blood of so gross a
mistranalatioB ; his honesty is shown, indeed, by his printing the
English text along with his translation ; and we are therefore reduced
to Qke conclusion that his habit of scenting a plot in every line of an
English minister's despatch has for the moment warped his under-
standing of a very few plain words.

2. * In the sitting of the House of Commons of the 19th of March,
1794' (he says, v. 386.), 'Sieridan cried out with indignation,
''Would you believe, gentlemen^ that there exists in England a

* null employed :for the manufaetmre of paper to make false French
' assignats ? " On which, Mr. Taylor declared that he was able to
' name such mills, and had seen with his eyes the false assignats.
' The generous denunciations of Sheridan threw on the jpolicy of Pitt

112 Louis Blanc's French JRevoIution. July,

To deal with a work of this magnitade and importance in the
compass of an ordinary article, so as to bring fully before the
reader its characteristic excellences and defects, would be a
task to which we feel ourselves unequal. We shall content
ourselves, on the present occasion, with directing attention to
the manner in which Louis Blanc has treated a few remarkable
scenes and incidents in the course of his history ; because these
have appeared to us to furnish striking instances of his pecu«
liarities, both of manner and substance. They illustiate, better
than any general criticism of ours can do, the sources firom whidi
he derives his strength and his weakness, the extent and variety
of his knowledge, the acuteness with which he applies it, the
fixed predetermination with which it is made to serve the purpose
of the one-sided, yet not dishonest, advocate*

1. Nothing can be more characteristic of our author than
the way in which he deals with that untoward passage of
history for writers on the Revolutionary side, the massacres of
September. * He has not deliberately Iwrdened his conscience
to apologise for them, to find in them great but melancholy
acts of vigour, violent convulsions of a people seeking to
deliver itself of its enemies, and so forth. He sees them, as
they are seen by all men of unperverted moral sense, as crimes
of the deepest dye ; and he judges them with especial severity,
as having more than any other event rendered the final success
of his favourite cause impossible. And yet he cannot refrain
from using every art of the advocate, not in palliation, but in
mitigation — by diverting the reader's attention to other parallel
historical facts — by dwelling on alleged or imagined provocation
on the part of the victims — i>y detailing, with complacency,

* more light than it was capable of bearing ; the discussion was

* stifled.* Now there is nothing improbable in such a debate
having taken place, but the only authority cited for it is the ^ Moni.

* teur ; ' and Louis Blanc adds : * It is remarkable that the report of

* this debate appears to be amiiied in the collection of Parliamentary

* Debates.' The implication, of course, is that the Grovemmcmt
suppressed it ! An Englishman can only smile at so curious a suppo-
sition ; a foreigner imbued with Louis Blanc's views must believe that
Pitt succeeded in gagging the newspapers also : we at least have been
unable to find in them any notice whatever of the supposed debate,
and on that particular Wednesday the House is reported to have trans-
acted only private business. Surely a mistake, or mystification, on
the part of the ' Moniteur,' was a solution which might have presented
itself. Communication was at that time so interrupted, that the news
of Robespierre*s fall was not published in the London papers until a
fortnight after it happened.

1863. houia Bhno^s Frertch Revolution. 113

the inBtanoes in which the satiated murderers let go their prey,
or in which they halted in their work to give vent to some
momentary outburst of sympathy or pity. He endeavours,
above all, to relieve the established revolutionary authorities,
and in especial the knot of Kobespierre and his friends, from
ignominy, by representing the whole as an irresistible popular
outburst, instead of a deliberately planned execution. He
heads the chapter in which they occur, ^ Souviens-toi de la
''Siunt-Barth^l6my.' What had Maillard and his bloody jury to
do with the crimes of Charles the Ninth ? Nothing ; but this
is a rhetorical artifice to shade off something of the dark colour
in which the scene must be painted by representing it as a kind
of £ated retaliation for the wickedness of kings in other ages.
And the same artifice reappears in the final passage, in which
he sums up his judgment : —

* It is false that the Commune traced out beforehand the plan of the
massacres, and had it executed by a handful of hired assassins, in the
middle of Paris, motionless and mute. Ah ! if the system of history
which has prevailed up to this time were well founded — a system
maintained by the Girondins from hatred of the Montagnard^, by the
Royalists from hatred of the Be volution— could there be contempt
cnoagh, execration enough, for these Ro3ralist8, Girondins, ministers.
Assembly, for all this nation itself, which, seized with horror^ but
ti-ombling with fear, allowed all this blood to be drunk by some fifty
vampires ? To what epoch of history must we then ascend to find
an example of universal cowardice comparable to that of which France,
the land of courage, would then have afforded the spectacle ? No,
no, it was not thus. The days of September had that character of
contagious excitement which in the thirteenth century distinguished
those Sicilian vespers, in which eight thousand Frenchmen were
slaughtered in two hours. . . . They had that characteristic which
has been only too often met with in the annals of nations ; a character
of irresistible spontaneousness, which associated itself, lamentable
and terrible as the truth may be, with the most ardent burst of patriot-
ism which ever took place.* (vii. 196.)

Probably Louis Blanc is the last writer who will deny the
premeditation of the massacres; * systSme (as he stmngely says)
* que je me flatte d'avoir renversfi sans retour.' He is certainly,
in our judgment, the ablest. But there have been of late
many new researches made among the mass of original docu-
ments which still remains after all the havoc which caution,
and shame, and neglect, have made among the records of the
time, in which, as M. Ternaux says, ^chacun a efface les
' marques de son courage et laiss^ les traces de sa honte.' And
these researches have only too uniformly pointed to the same
conclusion — that which patriotism and loyalty to revolutionary

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLI. I

114 Loiuft Blano'd French Bevolution. Jvly^

principle are naturally 86 reluctant to admit — that of guilt, with
malice aforethought.*

On this supposition, who were the arch-culprits? There
are three bodies on which the responsibility must especially
weigh — the Ministry of Justice (that is, Danton), the Commune,
and the Sections. Let us examine how these are dealt with in
the history before us.

Against Danton the evidence is so weighty, that Louis
Blanc appears rather to undertake his defence as part of his
general thesis, that there was no premeditation at all, than from
any hope of rescuing him individually. He ^ participated,' he
says, in the guilt of these days, but will not admit tliat he
planned it. But it is difficult to maintain such a distinction
in the case of a minister of justice, who had the very prisons
in which the massacres occurred under his especial <)harge.
We can but refer — not having room for entering on the sub-
ject in detail — to his conduct at the Conseil*G^n6ral of
the Commune on the 29th August — his conversation with
Louvet, recounted by the latter as early as November in a
narrative not impugned by Louis Blanc himself — his interview
with Prudhomme the bookseller on the 2nd of September
(viL 145.) — his address to the Assembly at one o'clock of that
day, followed by the commencement of the massacre at half-
past two — as affording evidence all but conclusive that the whole
series of atrocities were part of a scheme preconceived and
arranged in his mind. Even Louis Blanc himself, with an in-
consistency for which we can hardly account, says of him, some
days later, ' Danton commen9ait k etre embarrass^ de son coup
' d'etat.' If there was a ^ coup d*4tat,' what becomes of the
theory of ^ contagious excitement ' ?

Next, as to the share taken by the Commune. The reader
of Revolutionary history is aware of the steps by which this
usurping body had got into its hands the largest share of
executive power, not in Paris only, but in the neighbouring
provinces, at the time of the destruction of the monarchy on

* This volume of M. Louis Blanc's work was printed in 1865. M.
Granier de Cassagnac's ' Histoire des Girondins et des Massacres de
' Septembre,' appeared in 1860. The author's temper and spirit are
anything but impartial, but the proofs of design which he adduces are
formidable. A recent monograph by M. Sorel, on ' Le Couvent des
' Carmes en 1793,' gives much help to the reader, by enabling him to
fix his eye steadily on the course of events daring the massacre in one
particular locality — the deliberations of the Section of the Luxem-
bourg and their immediate connexion with the murders at the Carmes
as cause and efiect.

1863. Looit Bhuio'g French IkvobOUm. 1 15

the 10th of August^ and is familiar with the circnmstanoey
that its operations were all this time directed by the enei^tio
party of the Montagne, while its feebler riyal, the Assembly,
was controlled by Brissot and the Girondist rhetoricians. The
Town*Council, or Conseil-G^n^ral de la Commune, was the
central seat of power. Now it is trqe enough — and Louis
Blanc makes the most of it — that the procds-verbaux of this
council, which are preserved, contain no direct authorisation of
the massacres. It would be strange if they had. But the
ibllowing are the outlines of its proceedings. By the 23rd of
August, the prisons had become full of political victims : —

* On that day' (according to Potion), * one section vint en deputation
au Conseil de la Commune, et d^clara, formellement, qne les citoyens,
iatigu^, indign^ des retards qae Ton apportait dans lea jogemens,
fcMrceraient les portes de ees asiles et immoleraient k leur vengeance
les coupables qui y 6taient renferm^ Cette petition, con^ae ^ns les
termes les plus d^lirants, n'^prouve aucune censure ; elle re9ut memo
des applaudissemens.'

On the 29th, the motion of Danton, already alluded to, *for

* arming the necessitous citiiisens,' was carried, ' domiciliary
visits * ordered, together with the closing of the barri^res round
the city, to sweep into the prisons as many suspected as could
be found, with the object — say those who insist on premedita*
tion — of making clean work of alL Louis Blanc shows, no
doubt, that the first order for these visits came from the
Assembly. But the proposition was Danton's ; it was seized on
with ominous energy, and appropriated by the Commune ; and
it is remarkable, as Louis Blanc himself shows, that from that
xught the expectation of approaching massacre became general
in all the prisons. On the 30th, the Commune threw on the
Sections the responsibility ' d'examiner et de juger les citoyens
^ arrSt^ cette nuit.' On the 3l8t, Tallien, in the name of a
deputation from the Commune, declared at the bar of the As-
sembly, ^ Nous avons fait arrSter des conspirateurs, &c Nous
' avons fait arrSter les prStres perturbateurs ; ils sont enferm^
^ dans une maison particuli^, et sous pen de jours le sol de la

* liberty sera purg6 de leur pr&ence.' On the 1st of September,
the Conseil-G^n^ral of the Commune decreed the reopening of
the barrifires round the city : they had been closed for forty-eight
hours — time enough to enclose all the destined victims in the net.
Aiid, lastly, on the evening sitting of the 2nd, when it was an-
nounced that the massacres had commenced, the same body took
its measures, not to stop them, but to * provide for the safety of

* all the debtors, and prisoners in civil causes!'

Such were the proceedings of the Conseil-G^n^ral. But we

116 Louis Blanc's French Revolutimu July,

must not omit to notice that, on the morning of the 2nd, just
as the massacres were about to commence^ it had constituted
that terrible body, the Committee of Surveillance — better known
to the people as the Committee of Execution — which^ on the
next day (the 3rd), addressed to all the municipalities its famous
circular^ announcing 'qu'une partie des conspirateurs f6roces,
' d^tenue dana les prisons, a ^t^ mise k mort par le peuple/
signed by Duplain, Panis, ' Marat, I'ami du peuple/ and eight
others, * constituls & la Commune, et si^geant a la Mairie.'

Next, as to the part assigned to the Sections.* That these
bodies were in constant correspondence with the Commune,
and, as it were, affiliated to it, is well known. We are disposed
to agree in M. de Cassagnac*8 view, that they were employed by
the leaders of that body in part ^ pour ^carter d'elle la reaponsa-
' bilite, ou au moins la dlameur publique.' We have seen
that on the 30th of August, as soon as the prisons were full,
the Commune had thrown on the Sections the responsibility of
further action. In the morning of the 2nd of September, most
of the Sections answered the appeal, as if by common consent ;
the most patriotic demanding in direct terms the death of all
the * conspirators' in the prisons, in order to ' secure Paris' from
their ferocious violence during the absence of its defenders on
the frontier I To render the scene more intelligible, let us
observe the proceedings of one section only, that of the Luxem-
bourg, in which the old Convent des Cannes, then a prison for
priests, was situated, as they are recounted in M. SorePs little
volume already quoted. We find the Assembly of that section
meeting on the morning of the 2nd of September, at Saint Sul-
pice. A discussion as to the fate of the prisoners in the Cannes
IS immediately opened. A member proposes * de se d^barrasser

* des prisonniers, et surtout des prStres.' Ceyrat, president,
said, ' Tous qui sont detenus aux Carmes sont coupables, et il
' est tems que le peuple en fasse justice.' On this three mem-
bers are sent to the Commune, * pour lui communiquer ce voeu,

* €tfin de pouvoir agir dune maniere uniforme.^ Just as they are
starting on this errand, one of the three, M. Lohier, asks,

* Comment on entendit se d^barrasser des prisonniers ? Par la
' mort, s'^criSrent k la fois plusieurs 6itoyens, et le president
' lui-mSme.' At two o'clock the same president, Ceyrat, goes
to the convent, has the list of prisoners called over, and orders

•

• Very complete accounts of the character and composition of these
bodies in 1792 are given by Mortimer-Ternaux and by De Cassagnac.
They form a curious chapter in Revolutionary history, and one not
generally understood.

1863. liOWA Blaxkd'B French Bevolution. 117

them to assemble in the garden. At four, Maillard and his band
enter, and the work of death is done.

We must say that we consider the case of premeditation
proved, as far as mere circumstantial evidence can prove such
an issue. The compilers of the ' Histoire Parlementaire,' MM.
Cuchez and Boux, were themselves revolutionarj doctrinaires
of the stiffest order ; they really hold the massacres justifiable
on the fatalist theory (xvii. 322.), and they had not the
benefit of the fuller evidence since adduced by De Cassagnac
and others. And yet even they are compelled, by a sense of
historical duty, to adopt the same conclusion. After balancing
for a while the arguments in favour of and against premedi-
tation, they thus sum up the case, fairly enough, to the effect
that the massacres were organised ; that ' ce fut Fun des trois
' derniers jours d'ao&t que Tex^ution dont il s'agit fut arrdt^e.
^ . . . Que le Comit^ de Surveillance ait €t€ Tordonnateur
' des massacres, c'est sur quo! il ne pent rester ancun doute.'

Such is, as it seems to us, the fundamental error of this
portion of Louis Blanc's history. But his treatment of the
details of the subject is still more paradoxicaL As we have
said, his reprobation of the whole proceeding, and his rejection
of the sophistries by which his fellow-politicians have tried
to palliate it, is manly and uncompromising. But, having
offered this sacrifice to virtue, he then devotes himself to using
the materials before him in such a way as to soften as far as
possible every horror, and give the murderers the benefit of
every favourable interpretation which can be suggested of any
of their actions. He finds in Maillard and his jury a tribunal
terrible indeed, but on its own principles calm and just as Kha-
damanthus, * en pr^ence duquel la meilleure protection £tait
'de n'en point avoir, et oil toutes les ressources de Fesprit
'^taient nuUes si elles n'^taient fondles sur la v^rit^.' He
finds in the hideous formulas ' A la Force ' and ' £largissez
* Monsieur,' with which the victims were delivered over to the
murderers, the dictates of a delicate sympathy, * comme pour
^ 6pargner k la victime, jusqu'au dernier moment, la certitude
' de son sort I ' He believes in the absurd, though no doubt
attested, story that the massacres of the prisoners in their transit
from the Mairie to the Abbaye, on the 2nd, was provoked by
the act of one of them, a priest, in thrusting his arm out of a
carriage window and striking an nrmedjederi on the head with
a stick I It is true that the Abb6 Sicard, one of the prisoners,
says nothing of this; but then, observes Louis Blanc, the
abb6 being in the leadingcarriage might not have seen what was
going on behind him. He omits altogether to state what the

118 L<MU6 Blanc's French RevohUhn. Jal7>

abb£ doe» say — namely, that the work of blood commenced by
wanton thrusts and cuts at the prisoners within the carriages : —
^ Un de mes camarades. re9Ut un coup de sabre sur T^paule, un
^ autre fut bless^ cl la joue^ un autre au-dessus du nez,' and so
forth ; so that if anything like the event of the stick did occnr^
it was evidently in some desperate or mechanical attempt at
self-defence against outrages sdready begun. He tries to show
that the priests were killed by their guardians as a measure of
precaution, because they endeavoured to escape from the car-
riage ; and that ' Tabb^ Sioard et deux de ses oompagnons, qui

* n'essayaient pas de fuir, furent ^pargn6s.* But what the abb6
actually says is, that four occupants of his own carriage having
been killed or wounded, * les figorgeurs s'imaginent qu*il n*y a

* plus rien tl faire dans cette premiere voiture ; ils ne croient pas
' qu'il y ait un de plus, et ils se portent avec la m^me rage sur

* la seconde voiture,' and that he thus escaped unobserved We
are compelled to notice this discrepancy, because any one merely
noticing Louis Blanc's foot-notes would suppose that he was
following the abba's narrative, when he is in fiict only using so
much of it as suits his purpose, and dovetailing this into
fragments of other narratives which please him better.

A few pages farther we find, to our astonishment, the mon-
sters who, according to the common story, forced Mademoiselle
de Sombreuil to drink a glass of blood, converted into gentlemen
of polite attentions : —

' Mademoiselle de Sombreuil (after begging off her father), appear-
ing on the point of fainting, one of these barbarous men, seized with
a sudden emotion, ran to her, and offered her a glass of water, into
which, at the moment when it approached her lips, there fell a drop
of blood from the murderer's hand. Such is the origin of the hideous
fable which represents the daughter as forced to drink a glass of blood
as the price of her father's safety. I have this fact ' (he adds in a
note) * from a lady, who herself was informed of it by Mademoiselle
de Sombreuil, whose friend she had been. And the curious thing is
that the latter used to recount it in order to show that the men of
September, cruel as they were, appeared by no means inaccessible
to pity.'

Such is Louis Blanc's version of the tale. Now for Granier
de Cassagnac's (' Histoire des Girondins,' voL ii* p. 225.) : —

*To doubt the truth of the received story becomes impossible in the
face of the following attestation, which has been addressed to us
by the son of Mademoiselle de Sombreuil (who became Countess de
Yillelume) :^

< « My mother, sir, did not like speaking of those terrible times. I
have never question^kl her, . . . but I have heard her often say that at

1863. Loois Bhnc's French Revolution. 119

the time of tbe massacre M. de Saint-Mart went out from the tribunal
before her father, and was killed by a blow which cleft his skull ;
thttt she then covered her father with her body, wrestled long with
the murderers, and received three wounds. . . . After a long
struggle, one of the men, taking a glass, mixed in it the blood from
M. de Saint-Mart's head, with wine and gunpowder, and then said
that if she would drink it to tbe health of the nation, she should
save her father. She did so without hesitation^ and was then carried
in triumph by the same men."'

To borrow an exclamation frcmi M. Louis Blanc himself,
< Ce qui pr^cdde suffit pour montrer s'il est vrai que I'histoire
'de la B^volution est faite, unsi que tant de gens se Fima-
'ginent!'

One fact more, which, though of a trifling order in itself,
illustrates the peculiar readiness of M. Louis Blanc's mind to
Bcepticisni, or to credulity, according as each may favour the
particular object which he has in view. He takes upon himself
to discredit the h(»rrible murder of the woman known as * la
' belle Bouquetidre,' at the Condergerie — an event told with a
Tariety of details by all the historians of the Revolution. ' Le
' fiiit,' he says, * n'est pas trds-siir. Le nom de la victime ne se
' trouve pas sur le r^stre d'^crou de la prison oil on a pr^tendu
' qu'elle 6tait renferm^e.' Nor is her name, he adds, in Prud-
homme's list. The ulterior purpose of this little piece of incre-
dulity is plain enough — that, nauiely, of diminishing the horrors
of the scene by representing it as the result of a fit of popular
terror and fanaticism, and not aggravated by mere lust of blood.
There can, however, be no doubt of the truth of the common
atory. The evidence may be read in Granier de Cassagnac
(voL ii. p. 343.). It is quite true that the name of the wretched
woman in question, Marie Grredeler, does not appear in the
&srou, or in tbe r^istre des entr^ of the prison, preserved in
the archives of the police ; but the reason is given in the follow-
ing * declaration' by the concierge, annexed to the latter: —

* Toutes les femmcs ont ^t^ mises en liberty. II y en avait soixante
et quinze ; et la houquetiere settle a peri. On ne pent ^alement donner
la liste des femmes : le r^stre qui contient leurs noms ayant ^t^ enlev^
le 3 septembre dernier, du greffier ; et depuis ce terns, malgr^ les in-
stances du citoyen Richard ' (the concierge), * il n'a pu parvenir it
Tavoir.' (P. 367.)

It is strange, after all, that our author should not perceive
how seriously these attempts to put the best colour on parti-
cular acts of the Septembriseurs interfere with his general argu-
ment, that the massacres were unpremeditated. K the murderers
were not a mere mob of excited ruffians, but organised execu-

120 Louis Blano'a French Revolution. Jaly»

tioners^ doing their work under a perverted sense of public
virtue — if they did not kill at random, but constituted tribunals
respectable fcr their impartiality, though blameable for their
severity — if they had regular forms of proceeding and words of
order — ^if they condemned with reluctance, and acquitted with
enthusiasm — if they respected the property of their victims —
all this is convincing proof that they were not the agents in a
casual work, but regularly enrolled, instructed, and drilled for
the dreadful service required of them.

Of course, adopting the theory of non-premeditation, Louis
Blanp also acquits the leading revolutionists, one by one, of the
share which they were respectively supposed to have had in the
grand design. When public indignation began to direct itself
against the ^ Septembriseurs ' as early as the November follow-
ing, one and all of these pensonages (even Marat inclusive)
sought to exculpate himself from the charge by positive denial —
denial which M. Louis Blanc surely cannot expect us, as he
seems to do, to take as disproof. We will, however, only say
on this head, that it seems to us that the three on whom the
memory of those days weighs most heavily are Danton, to whom
the massacres were a necessary revolutionary measure ; Marat,
the monomaniac, who saw in them the realisation of a long san-
guinary dream ; and Panis, the lawyer, Santerre's brother-in-
law, who seems to have planned and executed his share of the
business with complete professional sang-froid — who was, there-
fore, perhaps the worst of the triumvirate, and who died in his
bed at nearly eighty years of age.

With regard to Bobespierre, Louis Blanc has a better case ;
but he overstates it. That Robespierre knew beforehand of the
intended massacres we have no doubt, as did every leading Mon-
tagnard. But there is no evidence that he had any share in plan-
ning or executing them ; and to suppose that he had, is to imagine
that he acted contrary to his ordinary practice of allowing others to
pull the chestnuts out of the fire for him. But we cannot agree
that ' son rdle se r^duisit a g^mir et k ne rien faire. Deux fois

* seulement il apparait k la scSne ' (he means, apparently, at the
Commune, or in its concerns'), * le soir du 1 septembre, pour de-
' mander que le Conseil-G^n^ral soit modifi6 par voie Elective . • .

* qu'en un mot le pouvoir soit remis au peupU ; le soir du 2 sep-

* tembre, pour d^plorer I'fetat de la France, en mettaut au
'nombre de ses perils la conspiration en faveur du due de
^Brunswick, &c.' No doubt Kobespierre protested all this
afterwards.

^ J'ignore les faits ; je ne les nie, ni ne les crois. Je n'ai jamais ^te
charg^ d'aucune esp^e de commission, ni ne me suis mel6 en aucune

1863. Louis Blanc's French Revolution. 121

mmni^re, d'saeane operation particnli^re. • « • Ceux qui out dit que
j'avais eu la moindre part aux ^v^nemens dont je parle sont des
homines ou excessiyement cr^dules, ou excessiyement penrers^' &c &c.*

But, unless M. Granier de Cassagnac absolutely inyents the
documents which he quotes (* Hist, des Girondins,' voL ii. ch. 2,),
Sobespierre not only introduced the two motions mentioned
aboye — ^the second, at all eyents, stispicious enough, for it was in
reality an attack on Brissot, the object at the time of his peculiar
hatred and jealousy, who yery nearly got massacred in conse-
quence t — but he was constantly present at the sittings of the
Conseil-G^n^ral at the Commune, throughout the massacres.
On the 3rd, Robespierre, Manuel, and Delroy were named
by that body Commissioners to protect the Temple, where
the royal family were imprisoned : it seems false, therefore,
that he 'accepted no commission.' In truth, as soon as the
public conscience had become a little awakened on the subject
of these horrors, Robespierre seems to haye proposed to himself
two objects — to disclaim all personal participation in them, and
at the same time to apologise for the perpetrators. ' Le calme

* impudent,' says Granier de Cassagnac, * ayec lequel Robes-

* pierre decline toute complicity dans les massacres de septembre,
^ ne saurait Stre compart qu'au calme fSroce dont il en parle.'

2. The following is an extract from the yery powerful chapter
which comprises the execution of Louis XVI. (vol. yiii. p. 80.): —

* The procession arrived at the place of execution preceded by a
sound of wheels and of horses. Louis was reading in his breviary
the psalms of the dying, while his confessor, his soul entirely occu-
pied with the thought of the abortive plot for rescue, was counting
the minutes in' silent anxiety. A hope as vain as those rapid flashes
of light which render the night blacker after darting through it ! An
implacable y igilance has foreseen all, and of those 600 persons
whom a compact of intrepid fidelity attaches to the King, five-and-
twenty only have reached the rendezyous. At ten minutes past ten
they arrived at the foot of the scaffold. It had been erected in front
of the palace of the Tuileries, on the place which had been called
after Louis XV., on the spot where had stood the statue of the most
profligate of kings, deceased tranquilly in his bed. The condemned
man took three minutes to get out of his carriage. At the moment

* Robespierre, Lettres ^ ses Commettans.

f On the evening of the 3rd, at eight p. m., we find Robespierre,
with other chiefs of the Revolution, at Danton's, discussing the
events of the day. Mandar, an honest man, not at all deep in their
deliberations, pressed them to put an end to the horrors which were
passing by getting the Assembly to establish a dictatorship for the
crisis. *Garde-t'en bien!' exclaimed Robespierre, 'Brissot serait
' dictateur.'

122 Lome Blanc's French Revolttiian. Jidy»

of leaving the Temple he had re(tified his over-coat, which C^^rj had
presented him ; he wore a hrown coat, white waistcoat, grey breeches^
white stockings. His hair was not in disorder; no change vru
remarked on his countenance. The Abb^ de Firmont was in a plain
black coat. A great empty space had been left roond the sca^old,
fenced off with artillery ; beyond, as far as the eye could reach, was
a multitude without arms. When the executioner came to open the
door of the carnage, Louis recommended his confessor to his care ;
and that in the tone of a master. When he had descended from the
carriage, he fixed his eyes on the ranks of soldiers which surrounded
him, and cried with a terrible voice, " Be silent ! " The drums
stopped, but having begun again, on a sign from their chief, he cried
out> '* What treachery ! I am lost, I am lost ! " — for it seems that op
to this moment he had preserved some hope* The executioners sur-
rounded him to take off his upper dress ; he repulsed them haughtily,
and himself undid his collar. But when they attempted to bind his
hands, all the blood in his veins appeared to kindle. " Do you mean
" to tie my hands ?** A struggle was about to take place — ^it did take
place. ** It is certain," says Mercier, " that Louis had a kind of
" battle with his executioners." The Abb^ Edgworth remained un-
certain, terrified, speechless. At last, when his master seemed to
question him by his looks, ** Sire," said he, '* in this new outrage I
*' only see a last feature of resemblance between your Majesty and
*^ that God who is about to be your reward.*' At these wiNcds, the
anger of the man giving place to the humility of the Christian, Louis
said to the executioners, " I will drink this cup to the dregs." They
tied his hands, they cut his hair ; after which, leaning on his
confessor's arm, he proceeded to ascend the steps of the guillotine
(which were very steep), with a slow step and air of exhaustion.
But on reaching the last step, he suddenly rouses himself, crosses
rapidly the whole breadth of the scafibld, advances to the left side of
it, and commanding the drums to be silent by his gesture, cries, *^ I
*' die innocent of all the crimes which are imputed to me." His face
was very red ; and, accordiug to the narrative of his confessor, *^ his
*^ voice was so loud that it could be heard at the Pont-Tournant."
Some others of his words were very distinctly heard : *^ I pardon the
" authors of my death, and I pray Gcd that the blood which you are
" about to shed may never lie on the head of France." He would have
continued, but his voice was drowned by the roll of drums, at the
signal, it is said, of the actor Dugazon, without waiting for the order
of Santerre. " Silence ! keep silence ! " shouted Louis XVI., beside
himself; and he was seen to stamp violently on the scaffold several
times. Bichard, one of the executioners, had seized a pistol, and
aimed it at the unhappy man ; it was necessary to drag him down by
force. No sooner was he bound to the fatal plank, than he uttered
dreadful cries, which the fall of the knife interrupted by severing his
head from his body. Sanson, the executioner, took up the head, and
showed it to the people ; and the people shouted, " Vive la Rdpub-
*^UqueI"'(vol. viii. p.80.)

In short, according to the statement of Louis Blanc^ the un-

1868. Louis Bkno*0 French RevobUion. 123

hrtamkte Kin^ instead of djing with the remgnatioQ nsuaflv
ascribed to him^ exhibited both Tear and fury — struggled with
his execntioners^ and. endearoured to prolong the scene in the
expectation of a rescue. Now^ when we come to examine the
authorities which Louis Blanc has very profusely cited in his
foot-notes^ we find that his tale is made up in the following
manner. The authorities in question are the well-known nar-
rative ascribed to the Song's confessor, the Abb^ Edgworth de
Finnont (printed in the collection of Memoirs of the Bevolution'
as * Les Demises Heures de Louis XVL*) ; the newspapers,
and official reports of the day ; Mercier^ in his ' Nouveau
' Paris ; ' and an account said to have proceeded from Santerre,
and to be contained in certain MS. memoirs of Mercier du
Bocher, a deputy, to whom the writer has had access. Of the
last of these authorities we cannot of course speak, but the
name of Santerre does not inspire much confidence, still less his
alleged narration at second hand. Now the abb^ says that the
King died with calmness and dignity ; but he mentions some-
thing of the plot whidi had been confided to him. Mercier (a
careless though picturesque writer, who either felt or affected
a £matical hostility to the dethroned race), and one or two of
the political scribes of the day, affirm the stru^le on the
icaffold; but they say nothing of the plot. By ingeniously
comlHning the features of one story with those of the other,
Louis Blanc has made a plausible whole : reasonable enough, if
stated only as a theory ; but this is not history, fairly told.

But we are forced to add, that the charge of over-ingenuity
is not the only one to which this part of his story is open. The
manner of Louis's death — whether he did or did not struggle
on the scaffold — was a good deal questioned at the time of the
occurrence. The dispute brought forth a letter from Sanson,
the chief executioner himself, which appeared in the * Thermo-

* mitre du Jour,* a newspaper, of the 21st of February, 1793.
We quote it from Croker's ^ Essays on the. Early Period of the

* French Revolution,' p. 255. If that letter be genuine, there
is an end of all discussion. Sanson distincdy says that the King
met his fate ^ with a sang froid and firmness which astonished
^ us all,' and that the only thing approaching to a struggle
which took place was the momentary difficulty which he made
when ordered to take off his coat, ^ saying that they might as
' well execute him as he was ;' and when his hands were to be
tied, to which he submitted on the persuasion of his con-
fessor. To suppose that Sanson, though. he is said to have
been a Royalist at heart, could have misrepresented so public a
scene^ when his own ^ valets/ and every one else on or near the

124 Louis Blanc*8 French Revolution^ Sxlj,

scaffold could at once have contradicted him (and that in oppon-
tion to the popular feeling), would be simply absurd. Why,
then, does Louis Blanc not quote or allude to this decbive
document? Even if he doubts its authenticity, why does he
not say so? It cannot be from ignorance, for he cites Croker's
curious compilation over and over again, and has evidently
studied its details with attention. We can only say — and we
say it with regret — the whole of this piece of tragic romance
is an instance of what a partisan history seems inevitably to
become, even in the hands of an honest man.

3. Our next example shall be from the account of the death
of the Hector of Louis Blanc's Iliad — the much misunderstood
Kobespierre. Everybody is aware that, according to ordinary
history, he shot himself; but a certain M^a afterwards claimed,
or was said to have claimed, the honour of firing the shot. * Few

* believed M^da,' says Carlyle, pithily, * in what was otherwise
'incredible.' But a reader thus slightly forewarned will feel
somewhat astonished at the simple positiveness of the following
narrative, in which the common story is not controverted, but
boldly ignored altogether : —

' ProfitiDg by the confusion, and finding the road free, a gendarme
called M6da, who had served in the Constitutional Guard of Louis
XVL, and who was, therefore, called '* Veto " among his comrades,
glides secretly up the staircase of the H6tel de Yille, swarming at
this moment with a crowd of distracted people, penetrates into the
Salle de Conseil by declaring himself to be despatched with secret
orders^ reaches the door of the secretaries* office, knocks, and has the
door opened to him by means of the same falsehood. The assauin
carried two pistols hidden in his shirt. Among fifty persons, who
appeared extremely agitated, he recognises him of whom his eyes
were in search. Robespierre was seated in an arm-chair, his left
elbow resting on his knee, his head leaning against his right hand.
The assassin aims at his breast, but the ball reaches Robespierre €U
the level of the mouth and breidu his jaw. The bystanders disperse,
horror-stricken. Some of them steal down a back staircase, carrying
off Coutbon. The as'sassin takes up a torch, hastens after them, and,
the wind having extinguished his light, fires his second pistol at a
venture, and wounds in the leg one of the bearers who carried Ck>u-
thon.' (xi. 256.)

This narrative, given with so predse and authentic an air,
has been in fact mainly adopted from the so-called * Precis

* Historique de M^da,' although our author says himself (p. 272.)
that this precis is full of falsehoods, and * suspects it to be a
^ fabrication I* Let us look nearer.

The only particulars, or nearly so, recorded by contemporary
authority of the capture of Bobespierre and his followers are to

1863. Louis Blanc's French Revolution. 125

be found in the document styled the second ' Beport of Citizen
* Ck)urtois to the Convention.' From this we learn that, when
Leonard Bourdon, with a few armed men, burst into their
last retreat in the H6tel de Ville, at two in the morning,
liie following were the fates of the chiefs of the party: —
Sobespierre the younger sprang from a window, complaining
that he had no pistol to kill himself with ; Lebas shot him-
self dead ; Saint-Just, when arrested, had a knife in his hand ;
Henriot either threw himself out of a window or was thrown
by CoflSnhal; Couthon only (paralytic) had taken no part
in yiolence agidnst himself or others. Everything points to
the conclusion that these bold savages, tracked to their den, had
resolved to die a Boman death together, after a fashion which
better men than they had adopted in various critical moments
of the Bevolution, both before them and after them. Now,
among these Kobespierre the elder is found, wounded by a
pistol-ball through his jaw. Two witnesses (Dulac, whom
Louis Blanc calls a spy, and Bochard, a porter, on whom no
suspidon seems to attach) depose positively that he shot
himself; and their testimony, when fairly examined, contains
only that amount of slight inconsistency and vagueness which
might fairlv be counted on in such a scene of confusion.

Now, wnat is the evidence to contradict this simple account ?
None whatever, except the story of M^, the gendarme.
This person, then a lad of eighteen, either preceded (as he
says himself) or accompanied Leonard Bourdon into the room.
He had no doabt some hand in seizing the ' rebels ; ' and it
seems probable that he fired a pistol in the mSl^e. Soon after,
he is said to have boasted, first, that he had shot a ' con-
'spirator or two/ afterwards, that he had shot Kobespierre.
Four years later, he urged his services done on that day as a
ground for special recompense, but advancing his claim in very
guarded language, without mentioning Kobespierre by name ;
while the certificate of Tallien, which accompanies his memoriid
(discovered by Louis Blanc in MS. in a collection of auto-
graphs) only says * qu'il s'empara de Kobespierre.' And thb
is all. For the narrative, published after M^da's death in hb
name, is, as we have seen, justly discredited by Louis Blanc
himself (as well as by Croker in his * Essays ') as a mere tissue of
impudent lies, and probably (to do M^da justice — who fell at
Borodino, a colonel and a baron) the fabrication of some book-
maker.

This, we say, is all, with the exception of what is really more
important than all the rest — the deposition of the two surgeons.
Verger and Marriguier, who examined and dressed the wound.

126 LouU Blue's Frmtch Bevdutim. Jviy^

That report is ^ absolutely conclusive in favour of the soicide/
says the author of the article * Robespierre ' in the ' Biographie
^ Universelle ' (Michaud). That report ^ is an unansweraUa-
^ argument against the supposition of suicide/ says Louis Blanc,
triumphantly. Which is right? Of course^ the surgeons' report
ought to speak for itself. But, unluckily, it will not speak iot
itself — it is full of that scientific ambiguity which has so often
been the despair of a lawyer engaged in investigating a criminal
case: —

^ Le coup de pistolet ' (so it runs) ' avait port4 an niveau de la booche^
^ un pouce de la commissure des l^vres. Comme sa direeUon itait
oblique, de dehors en dedans, de gauche ^ droite, de haut en bas, et
que la plaie p^n^trnit dans la bouche, elle int^ressait ext^rieurement
la peau, &c. &c. Mais il nous a 6t^ impossible de suivre le trajet da
plomb, et nous n'avons trouv^ ni contre-ouverture, ni indice de la
balle.'

It is impossible, exclaims our author, to imagine a man dis-
charging a ball at himself at the level of the mouth, from left
to right, and from above to below. Certainly ; but that is not
the supposition. Thus far is clear : the orifice of the only
external wound was in the left cheek, so near the eye, ap-
parently, that * il y avait ecchymose k Toeil du meme c6t€.' if
Robespierre shot himself in the mouth, then this wound was
made by the ball in coming out. If Robespierre was shot,
then it was made by the ball in entering. Now on the first
supposition all is consistent, and we have only to get rid of an
ambiguity in the language of the surgeons, occasioned, ap-
parently, by their having described the wound as they had
probed it, namely, from without (at the place of exit) to
within (at the place of discharge). On the second supposition,
the following questions have to be answered — What became of
the ball ? — did it come out without making a second wound any-
where ? And, how could such a shot possibly be fired, unless,
indeed, by a left-handed man ? — as to which, the wonderful
account given b^ the real or supposed M6da himself may be
received by those who can receive it : * A ces mots, je prends
^ de la main gauche un de mes pistolets, et, faisant un & droite,

* je tire. Je croyais le frapper tl la poitrine, mais la balle le prend

* au menton et lui casse la m&choire gauche infifirieure.' And,
lastly, Courtois' * Rapport ' was got up, according to Louis
Blanc, in order to favour the official supposition of suicide:
how came Courtois to insert, and to lay stress on, a sui^cal
report which proves incontestably (according to Louis Blanc)
that there was no suicide ? or how came all the world, at the
time, to understand that report in the sense of Michaud, and
not in that of Louis Blanc ?

1M3. Loois Bkiic'a French lUwduHm. 127

If tiie question were really worth farther inquiry^ it would
be interesting to know what object the leaders of the Convene
ti<m had in framing a false report, and foi^i^ several docu-
m^its, in order to make out iJiat Kobespierre shot himself
instead of being shot by a gendarme. Niot to inflict additional
disgrace on the victim ; for in that fierce day suicide brought
none. To clear themselves of the disgrace of profiting by an
' assassination/ says Louis Blanc ; and repeats, rhetorically, this
}jiniae of * assassinat,' as if mere reiteration could produce the
slightest efiect on any reader acquainted with the patent facta
of the case* Robespierre and his associates were in open re-
bellion against the Convention, and s(»ne of them armed. If
the first gendarme who made his way into their room had fired
a pistol at Bobespierre, it might have been an act of unneces-
sary violence, but to call it an * assassination ' is an outrageous
abuse of words. The political enemies who had just been pro-
didming Robespierre an outlaw^ a monster, and a tyrant, and
invoicing public vengeance on his head, must have been seized
with a strangely squeamish fit, if they were so shocked at his
meeting his death from the hand of an armed officer of the
peace, as to resort to all kinds of fictions in order to substitute
a story of suicide.

We will add one word only on the details of this gloomy
scene. As Robespierre lay wounded on the table at the H6tel
de Ville, the poor wretch, not having a handkerchief to apply
to his bleeding face, was seen to use for the purpose ^ a little
^ bag of white leather, on which were inscribed the words, ^' Au
'''grand monarque, Leccmite, fourbisseur du Roi et de sea
' ** troupes,'' ' &C. Of course, the inference was that this was the
bag which had held the pistol used by Robespierre. Will it be
believed that Louis Blanc indulges so far in childish suspicion
as to believe that ' somebody had slipped the bag into his hand
' in order to accredit the supposition of a suicide ?' and not only
this, but — at four in the morning, in the confusion of that
fearful crisis — ' had taken care to choose an inscription proper
' to suggest the idea that the chief of the Jacobins had been
* overthrown because he wanted to make himself king ?' How
the mysterious bag could suggest both ideas at once — that of
suicide and that of tyrannicide — Louis Blanc does not con-
descend to explain.*

* It is a trifling but not altogether insignificant circumstance, that
Robespierre (according to Louis Blanc) had amused himself a good
deal in his later days with pistol-shooting, and attained considerable
skill in the practice (vol. xi. p. 178.).

128 Louis Blanc's French Revohtdmu July,

4. An entire chapter, appropriately headed ' Les Mystdres du

* Temple/ is devoted in our author's latest volume to the fate
of the young Dauphin, styled, in Legitimist remembrance,
Louis XYIL And it would not be easy to find a more inge-
nious display of the talent for weaving into a specious fabric a
confused assemblage of loose hints, indications, and surmises.
^ L'enfant qui mourut dans la Tour du Temple, le 20 Prairial,
*an III (8 juin 1795) 6tait-il le Dauphin, fils de Louis XVI.,
^ou bien un enfant substitu^?' This question Louis Blanc
does not categorically answer. He does not endeavour to carry
the reader's conviction by force ; but he gradually developes his
case of suspicion, with every appearance of fairness, until the
most commonplace reader feels his imagination half roused,
and his reason half seduced into acquiescence. While he does
not adopt in the slightest degree the pretensions of any one of
the false Dauphins, he entices us towards the belief that their
common story had its negative basis of truth in the fact that
the child was removed from his prison. On the 19th of January,
1794, mysterious noises were heard by the Princess Boyal, pro-
ceeding, apparently, from her brother's room — * Nous rest&mes
< persuad^es,' she says in her narrative, ' qu'il ^tait parti.' On
that day, accordingly, the evasion is supposed to have taken
place. ' La femme Simon,' the widow of the savage keeper
from whom the child had so much to suffer, is said to have
affirmed the same to her dying day. On that date, at all events,
Simon was removed. For some months afterwards the impri-
soned child, whoever he was, had no special keeper ; he was
visited only by commissioners, constantly changed. He was con-
demned to absolate silence, absolute solitude — ^precautions

* incompr^hensibles, a moins que leur but n'ait ^t^ d'emp^her

* l'enfant d'etre vu.' In July, 1794, after the fall of Robespierre,
a new keeper (Laurent) was appointed. On the 3l8t of that
month, several members of the Committee of General Safety
visited the Temple. What did they find? A child, almost
motionless, his back bent nearly double, arms, legs, and thighs
of unnatural size. But, what was most remarkable of all, this
child never spoke. ^ Cent questions lui furent faites, il ne re-
^pondit k aucune.' His guardianship was now changed, his
condition ameliorated ; but he was slowly dying, and in all the
course of his decline he remained mute. When a deputation of
the Commune visited his cell in February, 1795, 'il ^tait impos-
' sible de tirer un mot delui.' This mysterious silence was said,
by his attendants, to have lasted ever since his mother's trial,
in 1793, when an attempt had been made to force him to give
evidence against her — a tale which no one but a romantic

1863. Loais Blanc's French Bevolutiofu 129

Legitimist could believe of so mere a child. At last, on the
6th of May, 1795» the Conventioii sent him a physician. This
was the famous Desault He was as silent to Desanlt as he
had been to othera On the 1st of June, Desault himself sud-
denly died. It was immediately reported that he had been
poisoned because he refused to kill the Dauphin. That, says
our author, b a fable. But Desault had visited the royal
fiunily in 1790. Desault must have been in a condition to
aflSrm that the dumb child in the Temple was not the Dauphin.
That was the reason of Desault's sudden death. Choppart, the
chemist, who had made up Desault's prescriptions, might have
learned the truth from Desault. Therefore Choppart died sud-
denly also, six days after the phvsician. And in two days more,
on «fune 8th, the unhappy cluld died also. But his death, not-
withstanding the suspicious coincidence, was certainly natund.
His *acte de d&es' was, however, only drawn up on the 12th.
Why this delay ? ' Y eut-il hesitation sur la question de savoir
' s^il valait mieux avouer I'^vasion ou faire un faux?'

Where, meanwhile, was the real Dauphin, who had escaped
in January, 1794? Who can say? Our author believes in
none of the pretenders : —

* We have reason to be surprised/ he says, ' at the utter disap-
pearance of the Prince ; but our surprise may perhaps be dimiQished
when we remember that at the dat^ of the escape the Dauphin was
only nine years old ; that he was consequently given op, without
defence, to every kind of treachery ; that all Europe was at this time
in a state of frightful confusion, that the Royalist party was a nur-
sery of intrigues .... that the Count de Fiwence^ called upon to
wear the crown in default of direct heirs, joined to profound
cunning a violent desire to reign ; that he had a powerful interest
In leaving, under the clouds with which events had enveloped it,
the destiny of his nephew ; that after the Restoration, which placed
Louis XYIII. on the throne, the discovery of a Louis XVII. would
have once more placed the whole destiny of the country in question,
and created incalculable embarrassments ; that under these circum-
stances a somewhat unscrupulous government might have made
family considerations yield to exigencies of what is otUed ^ la raison
^d'l^tat," or^ if it was ignorant of the truth, determine not to learn
it* (xiL366.)

We must hasten to say, that the above romantic narrative is^
not ours, but a summary of that suggested as persuasively as
possible by Louis Blanc. We are appalled by the abyss of
crime, worthy of Caesarean or Oriental history, which this cun-
ning mixture of story and argument seems to reveal. And it
is quite a relief to find the tale end with only one murder more>
of comparatively little consequence.

TOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLI. K

130 liOQifl Blanc's Frenich BevohUioB. July^

< On the 4th of March, 1820, a certain Caron, who had been em-
ployed in the kitchen senrice of Louis XYL, who had suoceeded in
getting himself admitted to the Temple after the transfer of the
royal family to that prison, and who possessed, or affected to possess,
important and secret details concerning the escape of the son of
Lonis XVL, disappeared suddenly, immediately after a series of visits
fitmi a great personage of the Court ; nor could his family ever
recover a trace of him. How is this diottppearance to be explained? '
(P. 867.)

But the reader may be reassnred, if it is in the power of
mere critics like ourselves to reassure him. We are tlM>roughly-
persuaded that the whole story of this 'evasion,' and the catalogue
of woes whidi is made so ingeniously to depend on it, is as
complete a romance as any creation of Dumas or Victor Hugo.
It is impossible, within our limits, to attempt the disproof,
but we will confine ourselves to one leading feature in the case.
The whole fabric rests on the suppontion that the substituted
child was dumb. It was necessary he should be so ; otherwise
the trick must have been found out Now, in the first place,
Ae diflSculty of finding, and appropriating, a dumb child, not
deaf and dumb, nor imbecile, which this one certainly was not,
of the exact age, could have been no slight one. But let this
pass. When we come to the evidence of the few eye-witnesses,
we find it entirely agunst the supposition. Some' Bay that he
did not speak in their heariiig ; some, that he spoke seldom ;
one or two, that he spoke often ; not one, that he cauU not
speak. The advocate can, therefore, only make out his case by
discrediting those very witnesses on whom he is at the same
time forced to rely in the absence of all other testimony. A
very false position, as advocates accustomed to their task are
well aware. Louis Blanc rejects the story of the particular
words said to have been addressed by the boy to Doctor
Pelletan (p. 359.). Nor are they probable. Does it follow that
the boy said nothing to the doctor? He rejects the positive
testimony of Gromin, oile of the attendants. He does not even
mention the words said to have been addressed by the child to
the commissioners who visited him on the 3l8t of July, 1794
(see Croker's * Essays,' p. 281.), nor the more doubtful ones to
the * two or three persons whose unexpected kindness obtained
* firom him a whisper of acknowledgement * {lb. p. 288.).
Another attendant, Lasne, on one of the several trials to which
the pretensions of the false Dauphins gave rise, testified, in
1834, that the child could not only sp^dc, but held conver-
sation with him and his fellows of a character far above his
years; evidence which was no doubt much too complacently
accepted by Croker, whose anatonusing incredulity as to stories

1863* LoinB Blane'f French RevohOion. 131

wliidi did not suit liim was combined at times with a singular
facility in adopting sacfa as did. Beine again examined on the
same subject in 1837, Lasne departed altogether from bis former
statement, and said that he neyer heard him speak but once.
Because an old witness^ forty years after the events designedly
or forgetfully contradicts himself as to whether the child spoke
<iflen or spoke once, Louis Blanc concludes — that he was
dumb I

We bdieve that we can set the reader's mind at ease on
suioifacr serious point in the case — the tragical death of Desault.
It so happens that this eminent mim was at the head of the
most distingnished medical school of Paris ; that scTeral of his
scholars were aware of his illness, and some present at his
death ; and that the most celebrated among them all, the famous
Bichat, inserted the following notice of his teacher in Millings
' Magasin Encyclop6iique ' for 1795, only a few months after
the event : —

* Les troubles du premier Prairia], demi^res agitations des agens du
crime, affect^rent profond^ment son &me. La craiute de voir les
ptoseriptiODS se renouyeler le saisit ; . . . • et d^-lors on le vit
tratnar une rie langoisaante. . • . Tons les sympt6me8 d'une fievre
maligne se d^lar^rent dans la nuit du 29 mai ; bientot leurs rapidss
accroisiemenSy Fimpuissance des moyeus que leur opposaieot des
mains habiles, firent pr^sager quelle en seroit la fin. Les ^i^ves im-
prirent en mSme temps sa maladie et le danger oil 11 ^toit* Bs
accoururent, . . . mais d^ja il ne pouvoit plus les distinguer. Un
d^Hre presque continuel, depuis Finvasion de sa maladie, lui ^pargna
le sentiment p^ible des approches de la mort, qui vint terminer ses
jours, entre les bras de ses Sieves^ le 1 juin 1795. Le vulgaire se
persuade qu'il aroit 6iA empoisonn^; le bruit, accrediiS encore
atffaunTkui dans Fe^rit de qnelques personnes, eut pour fondement
r^poqne de sa mort, qui ne pr^c^daque de quelques jours celle du fils
de Louis XVL, qu'il vojoit malade dans sa prison du Temple. On
publia qu'il mourait victime de son refus constant de se prater & des
Tues eriminelles sur la vie de cet enfant. Quel est Thomme c^l^bre,
dont la mort n'a pas €t6 le sujet des fausses conjectures du public ? '

Bicbaty we may add, was a man whose personal honour is
spoken of almost as highly as his professional genius ; and, as
he could not be deceived in such a case, he must, if Desault
was murdered, have deliberately falsified his account. And,
lastly, Louis Blanc's story — which rests on no evidence whatever
except popular belief, and the notions afterwards expressed by
certain old women of Desault's family — supposes the leaders of
the Convention to have been the most daring, as well as
masterlv of murderers, since they first poisoned the ablest
doctor in Paris, and then allowed nim to die ' entre les bras de
* ses £ldves ! '

1

132 Louis Blanc's French RevoluUon. July,

5. Perhaps the most characteristic chapter in the whole
work before us is the fourth of volume eleven, entitled * History
' of the Maximum.* It is curious from the vigour with which it
is written, from the obstinate nature of the paradoxes which it
involves, above all from its connexion with llie marked though
brief part which the author had to play in the great theatre
of the world. Visions of the Luxembourg of 1848 and its
extraordinaiy tenants, of the attempted organisation of labour,
and of all the follies of that mock Revolution, rise before the
x'eader's ima^nation as he peruses these pages. He sees clearly
that, for the moment, the author was not the humble student of
a London lodging, but was carried back to his ephemeral popular
throne.

* AXL mliDg fate itself hath not the power
To alter what hath been ; and he hath had his hour.*

The assignats, as is well known, began to be extravagantly
issued in 1792, and by the middle of 1793 had reach^ the
formidable amount of five ' milliards ' of francs, the ordinary
circulation requiring probably two milliards only. Of course
coin disappeared, and prices rose. Thus far Louis Blanc is
in accordance with former authorities; but, in his charac*
teristic way, he keeps out of sight as far as possible the ob-
vious cause of depreciation, namely, over issue, and makes as
much as he can of all sorts of minor causes — dark plots
of the enemies of the Bepublic— systematic forgeries, the de-
liberate and traitorous competition of tiie old assignats ^k
^ face royale; ' traitorous opposition to the sale of public lands
on which the assignats were based, and so forth. The Ck)n»
vention, however, fought their way as well as they could
through the difficulties of depreciation, until these affected
the lower classes. By a law of political economy, often de*
veloped, the price of labour, when the currency is in excess^
rises more slowly than that of articles of consumption. Thus,,
in 1795 (to anticipate a littie), when a day's labour was worth
forty francs in assignats, a pair of shoes was worth two hundred,
and a cup of coffee ten. The representative body, in 1793,.
was already besieged with complaints. To meet these, the
* Maximum,'* or law fixing the highest price of articles of 'first
' necessity,' was not only devised, but, with the almost incredible
daring of those times, actually carried into execution, in June,
1793. Some represent it as a tyrannical act of confiscation;
others as a measure which encountered such difficulties in the
execution that its practical effect was slight Not so Louis
Blanc He sees in it the powerful though irregular remedy

1863. Louis Blano's French Revolution. « 133

which stopped the depreciation of assignats, and thereby saved
the BcTolution !

* Whatever we maj think of it,' he says, ^ this much cannot be
too often remarked — that until the 9th Thermidor (that is, August
1794), assignats remained almost always at par. The Maximum
supported the assignat and gave it life ; and the assignat, thus sup-
ported, confounded all tindd reasonings, created almost incredible
resourceSi nourished fourteen armies, and made the Republic strong
enough to place her foot on royal Europe. It was only after the 9th
Thermidor that the depreciation presented those characteristics which
the detractors of the Bevolution have not failed to attribute to an
earlier period.' (xi. 414.)

We will not quarrel with the theories of our writer; but we
believe him in this instance to be entirely misled as to the facts.
We do not believe the Maximum had in truth anything what-
ever to do with the movement in the value of assignats. Louis
Blanc is wrong, we think, in having fixed his attention on a
very curious but temporary reflux in their value, which was
occasioned by other causes — causes which his predecessor, Thiers,
had expounded very clearly. The ' Maximum ' lasted, at least on
paper, from June, 1793, to October, 1794. In the earlier part of
that period, Cambon and the Convention tried some bold measures
to check the fall in the value of assignats ; and a forced loan of
a milliard, the severe collection of taxes, and above all a rise in
men's spirits and in the funds, owing to the high popular
courage and confidence engendered by a series of marvellous vic-
tories, did, for a short time, e&able a great reduction in their
number to be effected. But (to quote M. Charles Cocbelin, in
his article' Assignats' in the ' Dictionnaire d'^conomie Politique')
^cette r^uction ne fut pas de longue dur£e, et n'alla pas bien
' loin : bientot les Amissions recommenc^rent, d*autant plus fortes
' que les assignats, de plus en plus d^pr6oi&, representaient une
' valeur moindre ; au conunencement de 1794 ' (and therefore in
the very middle of the empire of the Maximum), ' le ohiffire
-^ d^passait de nouveau 5 milliards,' — ^that is to say, it reached an
^ufd height to the greatest attained before the Maximum. In
June, just before the fall of Robespierre, the number was 6,536
milliards. (See also Louis Blanc himself, xiL 100.) The mea-
sure of the Maximum was therefore demonstrably insufficient
to arrest their multiplication, and of course their depreciation.

But what if that measure had been maintained? Could so
ample and severe a regulation have lived on in our artificial
modem society ? The true * men of the Bevolution,' says Louis
Blanc, ^ set themselves indeed in dogged opposition to the regime
< of ** Ifusser-faire," and to that theory of the economists, in virtue

134 . IjOfmBimesFr€mekBi90bai0m. July^

« of whidi the only r^akiiioa of priee is the rdation of deaumd
' to supply ; ' bat they set themselves against it in Yain^ beoaBie
they did not see far enough^ and were not aware that their
Tiews^ founded as they were in justice and in truths could not
coexist with those modem notions of int>perty by which the
boldest of them were still enslaved.

* They saw that the rale of unKBiited oonpetition ofiere no means
of T^"taifiing at the proper ferel the proportion between labour and
capital; that it is in no degree in the power of the liU>oarer, eiUier
to arrest the growth of popnlation, and to prevent the fall of wagesy
or to direct towards prodnction a larger portion of the national
capital, and so to effect a rise in wages; that, consequently, the
labourer has not the slightest control over those circumstances, on
which nevertheless hang, as by a thread, his existence, and that of his
wife and children ; that, on the other hand, the action of demand
and supply is confused, blind, the child of chance and night, no in-
dividual producer 4>eing able to know even approximatively the extent
of the market, and the STStem of " laisser-£ure " impelling every one
to rush into it with his eyes shut, without troubling himself to find
out whether there is room enough for new comers, and in the hope
of expelling from it in any case some of those who have preceded
him ; at the risk of a glut of labour, an enormous waste of capital, and
the placing ** en coupe r6gl^ " of poor labourers suddenly deprived
of their daily bread.' (xi. 407.)

All this, and much more of the horrors of competition, de-
scribed with equal eloquence, the philosophers of the Convention
saw and would have prevented ; but they did not estimate the
resistance which the law of property, and the love of property^
offered to their great reform.

* Their measures had the defect of being unable to coincide, excq>t
by the aid of violence, with a social order founded on the principle of
^Mndividualism," a principle opposed to that from which those
measures derive their origin. They were accordingly too much or too
UttU. ... At the bottom, the idea of replacing the action of the rela-
tion of supply to demand by a scientific fixation of the remunerative
price of every commodity, following out in their successive changes
the variable elements of which this price is composed, impHed a vast
social revolution ; and the authors of the Maximum were marching
towards it, without knowing well to what end the road led which the
Bevolntion had opened before them.'

And thus — ^if we may add our own commentary — ^e vast
economical experiment of 1794 broke down precisely where the
experiment of every little cooperative society is Mipt to break
down : it was found that partial experiments in socialism are
not practicable — that it cannot eust side by side with 'in-

* dividualism.' The latter must be deared out of the way, before
the former can have a fair ohanoe.

1863^ LouiB Blanc's French BevohUian. 135

Sadi, in fiict, is the practical oondtiaion^ not only of this
particular chapter, but of the whole work. Its author lives in
the firm belief that the famous Bevolution which he describes
formed only a single stage in the great struggle of Equality
agidnst Privilege. He believes that the main reason of its tem-
porary failure lay in the fieu^t that none of its leaders — ^none save
a few of its less important, but more far-seeing, supporters — ^rose
to the real height of thrir great argument. They wanted political
equality ; they did much towards achieving it ; but they did not
perceive that it was unattainable except in company with Social-
ism. ' La B^olution ne pouvait pas 6tre, et n'a pas ^t^, le point
' d'arrdt de I'esprit humun ; elle n'a pas subitement rendu im*
' muable ce monde moral qui, de mSme que le monde physique,
f Be meut d'un mouvement ^temel ; elle nous a laiss^ en heritage
* un sol, ind^finiment fertile, iL agrandir.' Sudi are the words
in which Louis Blanc may be said to resume the moral of his
work.

We have ventured to speak of the short narrative entitled
^ Les Demidres Heures de Louis XYL,' as * ascribed to ' the
Abb^ EdgwortL It has been invariably received as his ; and
we should be sorry to arouse needless suspicion of one more
mystification, in addition to the many contained in Revolutionary
literature. But the circumstances are curious. The Abb^
Edgworth de Firmont (i.e. of Firmount, County Longford) is
made by lively French historians a legendary example of the
pious, obscure anchorite, called from his. cell to a great work.
Malesherbes, says the romantic Lamartine, carried from the King
' un message secret k un v6n6rable prdtre Stranger, cach6 dans
^ Paris. II d^couvrit la demeure de ce guide de la consdence
' du roi, et lui fit parvenir la pri^re de son maitre,' and so forth.
Who would conjecture, from his or any other French * history '
which we have 8een,gtbat this secluded saint was in truth an
active ecclesiastic, of middle age, acting at the time as Vicar-
General of the diocese of Paris, the most important post in the
* refractory' Church of France, and much consulted by Royalists
in general ? — that the King, in fact, when he asked for his assist-
ance, prayed him, in case he declined on account of the danger,
to select some clergyman ^ less known than himself '? But the
abb6, though not the hermit he is usually painted, was an
excellent and devoted man, one entirely absorbed in his duties,
down to his death from hospital fever, taken in attending
Napoleon's wounded soldiers in Prussia, in 1807. Of himseff
and his own fame he had no thought, and scarcely seems to
have realised the greatness of the scenes which he had witnessed.

136 Louis Blano*8 French Bevolutwn. 3vly,

He never published anything, nor left anything for publication-
Bat after his death, his friends searched eagerly for almost every
scrap of his correspondence which could be found, and printed
these remains. Two documents only among them are of any
general interest

These are : First. A letter^ in English, to his brother, Ussher
Edgworth, dated London, September 1st, 1796, in which he

?'ve8 an account of his own personal adventures and escapes in
aris during the Bevolution. This letter was apparently
destroyed by the receiver ; but the Bev. Mr. England included
it in the abba's correspondence, which he published in 1819,
from a transcript by the Bev. Dr. Moylan, B. C. Bishop of
Cork. Independently of the respectable character of this
authority, it carries strong internal evidence of genuineness,
being full of Grallicisms, such as the abba's style had naturally
contracted from his long residence in France. In this letter he
gives the usually-received account of his receiving a message to
attend the King, and then proceeds as follows : —

* Here, my dear Ussher, you will doubtless expect a full account of
the most woful day that ever shined over France, and of the dismal
night that preceded it. But part of this account, I suppose, is well
known to you ; and what still remains unpublished, I cannot commit
to paper until I have seen the unfortunate remains of the Bourbon
family, with whom I have never corresponded since.'

He then resumes his story at the moment when the King's
head fell ; describes his own descent from the platform of execu-
tion, and his subsequent adventures in France and flight from it.

Secondly. The narrative in French, commonly called the
* Demidres Heures de Louis XVL' We have seen that the
abb£ delayed the composition of any record of the execution
until he should have seen the royal family. This purpose he
accomplished, joining them at Blankenburg, not hng after the
date of the above letter. And in April, 1199, he writes thus to
Bishop Moylan from Mittau : —

' Monseigneur Erskine is ill-informed. I have no publication in
view. The little I can add to what has been printed over and over it
hng ago in the hands of the King (Louis XYIIL), and of his brother.
They are masters to make what use they please of my manuscript; but
for my, part, I shall publish nothing.'

It seems clear, therefore, that if the narrative is genuine, it
must have been communicated to the public, directly or indi-
rectly, by Louis XYIIL It was first published by the abba's
nephew, Charles Sneyd Edgworth, in 1815. He says that he
copied it from a transcript in the British Museum. That tran-

1863. Loub Blanc's French Beoolution. 137

script is still there. It professes to be taken firom the abba's
MS. It is contained, with other pieces, in a large volume of
calligraphic writing and designs in penmanship, purporting on
the title-page to be the work of the Marquis de Sy, an emigrant
noble. Some of the designs are portraits of members of the
royal family, and ornamented with locks of their hair. The
volume is magnificently bound, and stamped with the arms of
France, and is enclosed in a table of pecuUar construction, with
the arms of the Marquis of Buckingham engraved on it It is said
to have come to the Museum from HartwelL Nothing, certainly,
seems more probable than that the use of the original MS.
should have been permitted by Louis XVIII. to the loyal
transcriber. But farther evidence there is none. And it is
singular that although the letter which we have quoted, and
the * narrative,' scarcely cover two pages of the same ground,
yet in so short a space there are several discrepancies. The
letter mentions that the abb6 received the message at five
o'clock of the 20th of January — the narrative, at four. In the
letter, the abb6 says, * As soon as the fatal blow was given, I
' fell upon my knees, and thus remained until the vile wretch
' who acted the principal part in this horrid tragedy came with
' shouts of joy, snowing the bleeding head to the mob,' &c In
the ^Demidres Heures,' it is said, on the contrary, that Me

* plus jeune des bourreaux (il ne semblait pas avoir plus de dix-
*huit ans) eaisit aussitot la t£te, et la montra au peuple, en
' faisant le tour de I'^chafaud.' In the ^ DemiSres Heures,' the
abb4 particularly mentions that Louis XYL, on the scaffold,
recommended him, the abb6, to the care of two of the gen-
darmes; one of whom answered, ^ ^ Oui, oui, nous en aurons soin ;
' laissez-nous faire." ' In the letter, the abb^ makes no mention
whatever of the Bang's recommendation ; but simply says, that
finding himself left on the scaffold when the head fell, he endea-
vourea at once to pierce the crowd and escape. * All eyes were

* fixed on me, as you may suppose ; but as soon as I reached the
^ first lines, to my great surprise, no resistance was made. The

* second line opened in the same manner,' and so forth. Dif-
ferences of little importance, no doubt; and yet it is hardly
natural that they should occur in two accounts composed by
the same man, and almost at the same time. But, in additi(^n
to this, the ^ narrative' seems to us to have a certain semblance
of literary handling which is wanting in the letter. We offer
these remarks as the mere scruples of readers rendered perhaps
over suspicious by the enormous amount of plausible fabrication
which encumbers the materials of Eevolutionary history. A
little further inquiry might probably dissipate them.

138 Sit George Cornewall Lewis July,

Abt. V. — A Dialogue on the But Form of Government By
the Right Honourable Sir Geoboe Cobnewall LbwiSj
Bart, M.P. London : 1863.

Tt is seldom that the title of a book prefixed to an article in
this Review suggests reflections so mournful as those which
will arise in the minds of our readers in connexion with this small
volume. It may not be wonderful that the death of one
who was a frequent contributor to these pages, and who himself
for some time superintended their issue, should be a source of
ffrief to scholars and literary men ; but it is not often that the
K)6S of the same man is at least as deeply felt by the Cabinet,
the Parliament, and the people of Great Britain. Yet such is
the case at the present moment. Whilst literature mourns
an acute and accomplished scholar, the whole nation laments
a statesman in whose good sense, sagacity, and integrity
it could place implicit confidence. As the Dean of St Paul's
has truly said, in the graceful note prefixed to the recent
edition of his * History of the Jews :' — ' It is rare that a man
' who might have aspired to the very highest dignity in the
* State might have oone honour as professor of Greek to the
' most learned University in Europe/ It does not belong to us
to dwell on the feelings of domestic sorrow, or the bitter regret of
intimate friends, who know how he never failed in affection and
considerate kindness for those immediately connected with him.
Our present intention is to lay before our readers a concise
account of this Dialogue, which was Sir George Lewis's last

Eublished work, and we hope to add a few words illustrative of
is character and position. Any attempt at a biography (pro-
perly so called) would be out of place in these pages : the time
has not yet come for such a work, and it would require mate-
rials of a different kind from those which are now before us.

The intention and form of this little book is best described
in the author's own words. He says : —

'I have supposed the dialogue to take place in our own time and
country, between four Englishmen, belonging to the educated class.
My object has been to conceive each of the three recognised forms.
Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy, as represented by a sincere
partisan, and to attribute to him such arguments as a judicions
advocate might properly use. I have attempted, in discussion, to
place each government in the light in which it would be regarded by
an enthusiastic admirer, and to suggest all the strongest objections
to the other governments which the advocates of each would naturally
urge. My aim has been to conduct the controversy in such a manner

186S. M Forma cf Chvemment. 189

MB to re|>reeent the strength of each ease ; bat I have not endeavoured
to exhaust the subject. A difdogue is not fitted for sTstematie in-
struction, or for strict scientific treatment' (P. yi.)

We think that Sir George Lewis hae snceeeded admirably
IB attaining the limited object which he had in view. The
Dialogue is well written and well constructed, and the whole
treatment of the subject is eminently characteristic of hie fair
and candid mind. It is probable that Crito, who opens tiie
oonversation, represents the author's own sentiments more
nearly than any other speaker. He proposes the discussion,
and at the same time questions whether there be such a thing
as a best form of government in the abstract : —

'I cannot admit,' he says, Uhat there is any one form of govern-
ment which is best for every community under every variety of
circumstances. Compare the useful arts. Can it be said that there is
a best ship, a best gun, a best knife, a best spade, independently of
all the various purposes to which these instruments can be applied?
Why are we to suppose that one form of government is the best
adapted for all communities, whatever their moral and intellectual
fflate may be ?' (P. 5.)

He then asks how the difference of race can be passed over ;
and whether this abstract form of government is the best equally
for all those who differ to the uttermost in civilisation and in
origin ? The supposed representative of each form replies by
asserting that the particular government which he advocates is
an end to be sought for its own sake and under all circumstances.
Democraticus maintains that there are many sorts of bad go-
vernment, but only one good government : —

tffSXol fitv yap inrXHi irarroBairCfC 2e ccuco/.

Monarchicus xmdertakes to prove that a best form is not only
possible, but actually exists, and he lays especial stress on what
may be called the universality of monarchy, as a proof of its
excellence. Aristocraticus reproaches him with calling those
governments * monarchies ' which are in reality of another cha-
racter, and thus claiming credit for what does not really belong
-to -diot form. He refuses, for instance, to allow that the go-
vernment of England is properly called a * monarchy,' and
says 'it may not be a democratic republic, but it is a republic
* nevertheless. By a republic I unaerttand every government
^ in which the sovereign power is, both in form and in sub-
' stance, distributed among a body of persons.' (P. 17.)

Monarchicus replies by pressing as the characteristic of
sovereignty the civil and criminal irre^nsibility of the king
of England, and contrasting it with the position of a doge of

140 Sir George Comewall Lewis JTuljr,

Venice or a republican president ; and this limited question is
argued with great force and ingenuity.

Monarchy is attacked as a rude and unimproved system of
government characteristic of barbarism and social ignorance.
The universal adoption of pure monarchy in the East is
ascribed to the backward and stationary character of Oriental
society, which is well, and in the main, truly stated.* Aristo-
craticus contrasts with this the corporate or plural principle of
^vemment^ for which he gives the Greeks credit as inventors.
His opponent answers that there is no plural government
without a decision by the majority, and that —

* Decision by the majority is unquestionably one of the clomnest
contrivances for securing rectitude of decision which can be devised.
You may talk of the rudeness of monarchical government, but I de^
you to point out anything in monarchy so irrational as counting votes,
instead of weighing them ; as making a decision depend, not on the
knowledge, ability, experience, or fitness of the judges, but upon their
number. Nobody, in forming his individual opinion, ever resorts to
such a test. No historian in commenting on the vote of an assembly,
ever says, that the decision was made by the majority, and therefore
it was right' (P. 33.)

The reply is, that decision by a majority is no doubt open to
theoreticiu objections, but that it is the necessary condition of
corporate government, and that corporate government is the
only way of escaping from the perils of absolute sovereignty,
wiUi all its evils of occasional violence and assassination, and
the corresponding cruelties on the part of a king who is in
constant fear for his life. Monarchicus rejoins by referring to
the cruelties of the Greek oligarchies and of ancient and
modem democracies.

The evils and advantages of the rule of a single individual
are then dbcussed, as well as those which attend on party
government.

A very striking passage on the working of the old French
Monarchy and its consequences is worth quoting at length.
Aristocraticus is made to say : —

* We are sorry that Sir George Lewis made Aristocraticus express
in such very broad terms his contempt for Eastern literature. He was
not himself an Oriental scholar, and it can be scarcely just to say

* they have never produced any scientific or literary work worthy of

* mention, except the '< Arabian Nights'" (p. 29.). Our Sanscrit and
Persian scholars must read these words with indulgence, and re*
member that they are put into the mouth of a professed advocate
who is making out a case as shortly and as forcibly as he can, without
dwelling on details or qualifying what he says.

1863. on Forms of Oovemment 141

'Hostility to the intellectiial eminence, to the personal independence,
and to the honest pride which ought to characterise every aristocracy
18 a natural attribute of an absolute monarchy ; and it may accord-
ingly be discerned among the various bad qualities of the old fVench
government The Monarchy of France, from Louis XIV. down to
1789, prevented the formation of a good aristocracy. It maintained
the nobles in possession of their civil privileges ; and at the same
time, deprived them of political power. It preserved their exemption
from direct taxes, and kept up the barriers between them and the
tiers^tat; it thus rendered them odious to the rest of the communi^.
It hardened the mass of the people by its habitual severity, by its
cruel punishments, and by its system of judicial torture, which were
continued until the Revolution. The frightful punishment of Damiens
was in 1757 ; the breaking of Galas upon the wheel took place in
1762 ; the horrible execution of the young Chevalier de la Barre
occurred in 1766. The men who in July 1789, soon after the taking
of the Bastile, murdered Foulon and his son-in-law, Berthier, in the
streets of Paris ; who hung them from lamp-posts, cut off their heads^
and carried them on pikes, thrust Foulon's head in his son-in-law's
£Ace^ tore out their hearts and entrails, and even devoured them from
savage joy — ^these men had acquired their ferocity under the teaching
of the dd Monarchy ; they had not learnt it in the school of Robes-
pierre and Marat. Moreover, the old French Monarchy, by its
mquent recourse to coups cTSiai, trained the people to a systematic
disr^ard of fixed constitutional and legal rules. By this mode of
government it prepared the way for the Revolution of 1789, and for
^Bonaparte, the two great scourges of modem Europe. The genera-
tion of Frenchmen which had grown up to manhood in the year 1789,
was the creation of the old Monarchy, not of the Revolution. The
Revolution was made by men whose character and opinions had been
formed under the Monarchy, and who owed to it their training. If
the French nobles had not been, by the short-sighted and selfish
jealousy of the Monarchy, withdrawn firom all political life, and from
all the realities of business, they would not have shown the feebleness,
the mutual mistrust, and the incapacity to combine, which charac-
terised them, as a classy during the storms of the early part of the
Revolution. Instead of emigrating, they would have organised a
resistance to the Convention i acting as a body, they would easily have
put down the handful of ruffians who worked the Paris guillotine
during the Reign of Terror.*

It is not easy to sum up the indictment agidnst the French
Monarchy more completely and more forcibly than is done in this
passage. The feebleness and incapacity resulting from it which
marked the conduct of the nobles^ was. seen also in the fall of
the Girondins. We confess that our pity for these men has
always been blunted by the double consideration, that they had
lent themselves to all the cruelty against the Royal Family, and,
that they exhibited in their fall the most contemptible want of

149 Sir Gaofge CDrnewatt Lewis Jotyi

power to combine aiid avert Adr own firte. Monarehioos npholds
Bulge's view of the French Revolution^ and attributes it to
the writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and others. To
tins Aristocraticus replies that Rousseau's ^Contrat Social'
certainly furnished the political creed of the Revolution, but
that it was the Church which was the prindpal object of attack
to writers such as the Encyclop^distes. Voltaire, forinstanoej
was a professed admirer of the old Monarchy. He adds;^
that if Louis XVL had had the force of character and the
sagacity required for supporting Turgot in his reforms, be
m^t have laughed at the Encydop^die and the ^ Contrat
^ Sodal ; ' a proposition which we tinnk very questionable, and
which we may pause a little to consider.

Speculations as to what might have been the fate of France, if a
different course had been pursued by her government, are curious
and interesting* To go oack even to an earlier period: if the
Duke of Burgundy had lived, and the country had been spared
tiie imbecility and profligacy of tiie Regmit Orleans and of
Lonis XV., — ^if States General had been summoned as St.
Simon desired, smd a sincere attempt made to iniiise strengtii
and honesty into the territorial aristocracy, — would it have
been then too late to repair the mischief done by Louis XIV. ?
Even this may be doubtful, when we consider the wrongs in-
flicted on the Protestants, the religious discord which raged in
the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church itself in the matter of
the Jansenists, the centralisation of power by the Int^idants in
the {m>vinces, and the utter prostration of tiie spirit of the
nobles. In a letter written in 1840 Sir Oeorge Lewis
said: —

' There is no doubt that the terror excited by the atrocities of the
democratic and infidel party in the French Revolution has given
great strength to Uie anti-popular and clerical party. Still, it. is
difficult to be too grateful for the utter annihilation of the old aristo-
cratic institutions and opinions in France and a large part of
Germany, and a peaceable reform would not have effected this. A
peaceable reform in 1789 would probably have produced in Franee
the same ultimate effect as the Revolution of 1688 in England. It
would have curtailed the power of the king and the privileges of the
nobles; and it would ultimately have transferred the governing
power from the court to the territorial aristocracy.'

But the correctness of these last views appears to us very
questionable, and it must be remembered that they were ex-
pressed before Tocqueville had thrown a flood of light on the
real character of the old French Government. They are hardly
perhaps consistent with our present knowledge on the subject

1863. &n Fermi of GavemmenL 14S

We oonelves doubt whether any vigour on the part of Louk
XYLy united even with the prescient intellect of Turgot, could
have postponed the Bevolution for longy though it might some-
what have moderated its violence, ^l^is violence indeed was
greatly aggravated by the interference of foreigners. The
pretext, and periiaps the cause, of the massacres of September
was the necessity for striking terror into * Pitt and Cobourg.'
Bat we believe that the streun which finally burst over the
precipice with such terrible fury, had long be^ pouring down-
wards with a deep and steady current, such as no virtue or
wisdom on the part of Louis XYL could have barred or diverted*
We have mentioned Tocqueville's name: let us now quote
from the argument of Aristocraticns a passage which contains a
tribute to him, and expresses, briefly, the auth<»r'B sentiments
with reference to Napoleon i —

* Alas I poor Toequeville I would Ihat he had lived to execute his
projected survey of Napdeon's policy. A history of Ni^leon,
affording a correct estimate of his character and infiaencey is the
great desideratum of modem political literature ; and no such work
would produce any impression on the opinion of France, unless it
were written by a Frenchman. An unfavourable judgment of
Napoleon — the only judgment consistent with truth — would, if
proceeding from an EInglishman, be infallibly attributed to national
prejudice and jealousy.' (P. 56.)

There follows in the Dialogue a most instructive discussion on
the character of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the
&l8e position assumed by the EInglish Tories under George IIL :
they are charged with betraying their own order and making
themselves mere monarchists, when they * were willing to lay
' the liberties of the country at the foot of the king.'

Up to this point the advocates of aristocracy and monarchy
have be^i allowed to ai^ue their respective cases one i^inst
^ other ; but now Democraticus comes forward, and whilst he
concurs in all that Aristocraticns has urged a^nst kingly
power, calls on him to show why he would exclude the bulk
of the people from all share in the government. The reply is
that the models of ancient democracy were based on slavery as
a necessary* conditbn, and that stability and permanency have

* Mr. Freeman, in his able work ('History of Federal Go-
*vemment)' 1863), says: — <The real special weakness of pure
< democracy is that it almost seems to require slavery as a neces-
' sary con(Ution of its existence. It is hard to conceive that a large

* body of men, like the qualified citizens of Athens, can ever give so

* large a portion of their time as the Athenians did to the business of
^ruling and judging {apxnv koI diKaigtv) without the exigence of an

144 Sir George Comewall Lewis Svly,

ever been the attributes of aristocratic govemments^ as in the
cases of Sparta, Carthage, and Venice. The rejoinder is given
that common plunder of the people no doubt secures harmony
among the oppressors ; but when they have become so strong as
to fear no resistance from without, they quarrel among them-
selves, as the feudal barons of England and the free ' Bitter-
^ schaft ' of the empire used to do. Democraticus alleges that
the interests of the minority are separate from those of the
community, and often hostile to them ; that abuse of power
by a minority is certain, and can only be prevented by vesting
it in the people at large. His opponent grounds his exclusion
of the working class irom authority on their practical unfitness
for its exercise, which is such as to require that they should be
placed under tutelage. ' Moreover,' he adds, * they are deficient

* in the proprietary feeling, which is one of the great safeguards
*of society.' The advocate of popular government on the
other hand assumes that no credit must be given to any man
for good intentions, and that the onlv security against the effect
of sinister interests is the absence of power to do mischief.

We will now lay before our readers the arguments used by
both disputants on the subject of the ballot : —

* ArUtoeraHcus. — The expediency of the ballot, as a system of
secret voting, now rests principally on the example of the Austitdian
colonies. It is admitted that the American ballot is practically a
system of open voting, and that in the American elections votes are
not concealed. Now, I have no hesitation in sa3ring that, in my
opinion, the inflaence exercised at elections by the landlord over the
tenant, by the employer over the workman, is one of the legitimate
influences of property, and ought not to be disturbed. Like other
moral influences, it may be abused ; but public opinion is, in the long
run, a sufficient safeguard against its abuse. It is one of the indirect

* inferior class to relieve them from at least the lowest and most

* menial duties of their several callings. Slavery therefore is com-
' monly taken for granted by Greek political thinkers.' The author
goes on to show, however, that slavery was no special sin of demo-
cracy in ancient times : — ^ it was an institution common to the whole
^ancient world, quite irrespective of particular forms of government.'
(P. 38, note.) This last observation is quite true, but at the same
time the objection to pure democracy remains unanswered; other
forms might exist without slavery : pure democracy in the Greek
sense could scarcely do sq. The only possible solution of the diffi-
culty is by means of a representative system, which virtually does
away with the personal share of each citizen in the management of
the government, and thus negatives those advantages of the direct
political training of each individual citizen which are so much relied
on by the advocates of the Athenian Agora.

1863. on Forms of Government 145

means by which a preponderance is secafed to intelligence in an
electoral system, without resorting to the contrivance of plural
votes.

* DemocroHcui. — ^I admire your candour in spurning all subterfuge,
and in putting the aristocratic argument against secret voting on its
true ground. I know of no legitimate influence of property, except
Hs direct economical uses ; I cannot consent that it should be em-
ployed for a political object. It seems to me to be sheer hypocrisy
to give a roan a vote and to deny him the only means by which he
can obtain its full and free exercise. It is only by secret voting that
the working classes can give a genuine expression to their opinions,
and can secure the return of representatives really devoted to their
interests.' (Pp. 83, 84.)

We have extracted this passage, not because we are about to
enter on the discussion of the ballot, but because it affords a
good example of the fairness and precision with which our
author states a political issue. It is not necessary for our
present purpose to follow closely the thread of the argument
in the Dialogue; but it appears to us that more might be
said by the supporter of democracy than Sir George Lewis has
put into his mouth, especially with reference to the political
education of the people. Aristocraticus maintains tnat the
representative system is * the philosopher's stone of politics,' and
that it is essential the relation between the executive and the
representative body should be well organised. The argument

Sadually passes on to the subject of the Oovemment of the
idted States ; and Democraticus attacks it thus :

* The American plan of electing an irremoveable prime minister
for a fixed term of four years, of making the cabinet ministers his
elerks, and of excluding them firom the legislative body, s^ms to me
to be founded on a weak mistrust of the democratic influence. It is
a contrivance, and a foolish contrivance, for counteracting the demo-
cratic tendency to changes, and for giving to the executive a
stability with which, it is supposed, the pressure of democratic forces
would be incompatible ; but I do not share those apprehensions, and
am quite willing that the prizes which can be safely contended for in
£ngland by a selfish aristocracy, should, under a democracy, be con-
tended for by the representatives of the people at large, who must in
general be actuated by pure and disinterested motives.' (Pp. 90, 91 .)

There is, we think, much good sense in this criticism of the
American system, as viewed by a thorough and consistent
advocate of democracy ; and the passage which follows is still
more important and interesting at the present moment. He
goes on to say : —

' Admiring as I do the character and opinions of the great men
who founded the government of the United States, and believing that,
VOL. CXVIII. NO. COXLI. L

14(1 Sk Greorge Comewatt Lewis ^ufy,

1^ to the preeent depiohMe diviflioii, it leoiiTed more lutppineae to
the people then the government of any other oonntrj upon the earth,
I yet cannot consent that democraj^ should be judged by the working
01 the Americftn Constitution, llie American Constitution is an
intricate system, compounded of federal and state elements; the
soTereignty is partitioned betweoi the central federal power aod the
separate state governments. Both are indeed fashioned upon demo*
eratie principles ; but the constant conflict between fed^vi powers
and state powers^ and still more between federal interests and state
interests^ prevents the democratic dement from having a perfectly
free play. This conflict has been particularly manifest^ during the
present civil war. If the United States had 4>een a nation under a
simple democratic government, the civil war would either never have
arisen, or, if it had arisen, it would not have assumed such gigantic
dimensions, and it would have been brought to an earlier termination.
American politics have chiefly turned on a set of compromises between
Hie North and the South, worked out through the medium of the
Federal Grovemment These compromises have infected the whole
pml^life of America^ md have influenced the character aadeondact
of all its sUtesmen.' (Pp. 91, 92.)

The speaker then ascribes the low character of paUic men in
America, not to ' the jealous and lev^Ung sfnrit of demoeraoy/
but rather to the waking of the federal system, wUdi he
conriderB as tiie uneound part of the whole con^tutioo.

We are rather disposed to agree with Aristocraticos in attri-
batii^ this last defSsct to the * Caucus system,' which pervades
the action both of the federal and state governments* It is as
if a body like the Marylebone Vestry irere einpowered to select
the sovereign and the great functionaries. The conditions of
pqpularity and the canvass for power are made distast^ul in
the highest d^pree to those who are highly educated and who
possess means of their own. Full scope is given to sodi petty
jealousies and enmities as attsfeh themselves to every man of
eminence or distinction in public life. The eyes of those who
seek to lead the public are naturally turned to the men who« in
mediocrity and narrowness of views, most resemble themselves.
They are not only jealous of any superiority, but they fear that
such superiority will enable a man to throw off the trammek of
party and the influence which they hope to exercise over him
when he is in office. They think that they themselves may
thus £ul to secure their share in the plunder which is distributed
once in four years to the supporters of a new President and his
ministry. The spirit of Ostracism becomes quickened by a
sense of self-interest ; and the result of the whole is what we
now see exemplified — that the government of a great country,
and the guidance of great armies, fall into the hands of the men
who are least fitted for the charge of either.

1863. m Fonts rf GowmmimL 147

We are wdl aware tint it may be argued ia reply^ ai it is bj
SemooradciiB, that the indirect effects of democratic uniy^rsal
soffirage are far more than a compensation for the disadyantage
of second-rate rulers; and that its tendency to elevate the
podtion and intelligence of the individual man makes up for
these defects in administration ; but it must be remembered
that the eadstence of the body politic — that for the sake of
which all govormnent is valuable — is thus placed in perpetual
pmL

Moaarckicus interposes as the advocate of the federal princii^e.
He says: —

* It is an error to attribute the late secession to federalism. If
the ^ittre country from Canada to the Gkdf of Mexico had been
under a natioaal government, the conflicts of interests between the
North aad South, and the differences on the subject of slavery^
might equally have produced a separation and a rebellion.' (P. 95.)

On this point we must pause a little^ and offer some observa-
tions of our own.

Mr. FieeBian,in the book to which we have already referred^
has defined a federal commonwealth, in its perfect fonn» as one
which is a flongle State in its relation to other nations, but which
oondsts of many States with regard to its internal govenunent.
He says Tp. 90.): — ^Federalism is essentially a compromise:

* an artificial product of an advanced state oi political culture.'

This is assuredly in one sense true, for the parts must exist
before the whole can be constituted. Sqiarate States must
have been organised, considerable political experience acquired,
and each must be in a condition to exercise, as a ccnnmunity, a
free-will of its own, before they can combine, and agree on the
ocfliditions and modifications necessary to consolidate their imion.
In discussing the American question the same author admits that
secession is the mildest form which rebellion can take, and that
it is sometmies necessary ; he says that, as the Federal Govern-
ment is entitled to full obedience in its own sphere, the refusal of
diat obedience, whether by States or individuals, is essentially an
act of rebellion. He adds, that a seceding State may be fully
justified, but that it ought to be provided with at least as good
a case as the original States had for their secession from Great
Britain.* But, together with these doctrines, Mr. Freeman
admits that ^ a federation, though legally perpetual, is something
' which is in its own nature essentially voluntary.' He even
says: — * There is a sort of inconsistency in retaining members

* against their will.' Does it not almost i^pear that, on these

♦ Freeman*s * History of Federal Government,' pp. 116, 119.

148 Sir George Comewall LewU July, *

principles, ike question whether secession is or is not ' rebellion '
becomes one purely of words? A rebellion, the repression of
which by force is contrary to the essence of the supreme govern-
ment, and which in itself may be justifiable, mu8t, if there be
any plausible cause at all, be ' rebellion ' in the very mildest
sense of the term. Who is to judge of the sufficiency of the
cause ?

We have thus referred to Mr. Freeman's yiews for the purpose
of connecting them with the observation of Monarchicus, quoted
a few pages back, to the effect that, if the United States had
been a democratic nation, the war now raging would never have
arisen. It is, indeed, quite clear that in such a case it could
not have arisen in its present shape, and it is exceedingly
probable it would never have broken out at all; but it becomes
necessary here to reflect for a few moments on the origin and
conditions of all Federal Governments.

No Federal Government which deserves the name has ever,
we believe, been formed except for the purpose of resisting
foreign aggression or external violence. The Achsoan League
' was the result of the pressure of the Macedonian kings on
Greece. The Swiss cantons united against their feudal neigh-
bours, and against the power of Burgundy. Their union would
have perished long ago, were it not that they are hooped to-
gether by the interests and mutual jealousies of European
nations. The United Provinces became a Power for the purpose
of resisting Spain and the House of Austria. The United
States were driven to form their federal tie for the purpose of
securing their freedom against George IIL

Moreover, as foreign aggression and foreign wars have created
all federal governments, so the fear of foreign aggression and
foreign wars is, we fear, essential to their long-continued existence
in their original shape. Look at the politics of America for the
last fifty years. Whenever the body politic has been threatened
with weakness or discord at home, the statesmen of the Union,
with an instinctive sense of the fundamental principle of all
federal governments, have always restored the tone of the con-
st^itution by the stimulating action of a foreign quarrel, actual
or impending. Whenever the single States became troublesome,
or domestic discord threatened to break out, some politician like
Mr. Seward was ready to bid for popularity, and revive the
failing sense of unity, by declaiming against the perfidy and
insolence of England. The proi*pect of a foreifi^n war, at
however great a risk, has always been like a spark of life to
the Union ; and certainly, in reliance on our moderation, the
remedy has been at all times unsparingly and unscrupulously
administered.

1863. on Forms of Government 149

Now^ if such be the ori^n and such the vital principle of all
federal governments, we are tempted to ask, in the first place,
whether that class of governments is to be looked on as the
most mature product of political wisdom, which requires the
constant pressure or threat of foreign aggression as the condi-
tion of its lengthened life ? In the second place, we think that
it becomes easy to see whv secession (or rebellion) should be
constantly apprehended under a Federid system, and why such
secession, whatever may be its technical character, must differ
in its moral aspect from rebellion against a national govenx-
ment.

What are the great safeguards against rebellion and tumult
in a State such as France or Prussia ? In the first place, no
doubt, there is always the dread of the material force wielded by
those who administer the existing Government; but, behind
this, there is a stronger sentiment, which makes a would-be rebel
hesitate to rely on the support of the people around him. There
is the fear of anarchy on the part of the rich and the middle
classes — the dread that when the Government which exists, bad
as it may be, is broken up, all that men care for will be cut adrift
and floating in confusion on a troubled sea. It is felt that
security of life and property is bound up with the existence of
laws and of the tribunals which administer them. A peaceable
dtizen must, in general, be stimulated by atrocious tyranny,
before he runs the risk of the plunder and bloodshed which may
probablv follow rebellion.

But IS this so in the case of a Federal Government? By no
means. Each State is an organised community, with its own
laws, its own administration, and its own courts. If the Federal
capital, the President, Congress, and the Federal army, were to
be swallowed up by an earthquake, each State of the Union
might transact its own business and carry on its own industry
just as if nothing had happened. Secession, whether it be
technically ' rebellion ' or not, implies in itself none of those in-
ternal dangers and risks which necessarily attend on rebellion in a
centralised State. It does not involve anarchy, because each
State possesses in itself all the machinery of government, which
has in fact regulated the daily life of its citizens while it re-
mained a member of the Federation. The safeguards of life
and property will, so far as internal danger is concerned, be
neither less nor more after secession than they were before
it. We do not say that these considerations as to the real
origin and principle of federal government, and the conse-
quences of 'rebellion,' justify the secession of the South ; they
may do so, or they may not, but they appear to us to account

160 Sir QeoTgd Gcmtewall Lewis Jaly^

for many phenomena, and moraUy diey place the separation of a
State from a federation in a yery different light frt>m the insnr-
lection of a province against a national government.

With reference to this whole subject, we are permitted to
insert here an extract from a most interesting letter of Sir
George Lewis, written in July 1856. It is ounous to see how
distinctly he then appreciated the relative position of tiie different
sections of the American Union : —

* Dana's lecture on Sumner is very interesting. It illustrates the
relations of the South and North, and their feelings to one another.
People here speak of the outrage on Sumner as a proof of the
brutal manners of the Americans, and their low morality. To me
it seems the first blow in a dvil tear. It betokens the advent of a
state of things in which political differences cannot be settled by
argument^ and can only be settled by force, K half England ¥ras
in favour of a measure which involved the confiscation of the pro-
perty of the other half, my belief is that an English Brooks would
De equally applauded. If Feel had proposed a law. which instead of
reducing rents had annihilated them, instead of being attacked by
a man of words such as Disraeli, he would probably have be^i
attacked with physical arguments hy some man of hlows. I see no
solution of the political differences of the United States^ but the
separation of the Slave and Free States into distinct political coni»
mnnities. If I was a citioen of a N(»them State I should wish it.
I should equally wish it if I Was a citizen of a Southern State. In
the Northern States the English race would remain unimpaired :
but I cannot help suspecting that it degenerates under a warmer
sun, and that a community formed of Anglo-Saxon masters within
the tropics and of negro slaves would degenerate. I see no reason
why the pure English hreed should not be kept up in the Northern
Provinces and the Northern States. It may also be kept up in
Australia, which has a icHmate suited to our race, and has fortonately
been kept imtainted hy the curse of coloured slavery.'

A similar view of the subject is expressed in a later letter
(November 5th) of the same year, 1856 : —

' The United States seem to me to have come nearer to a separa-
tion of North and South than they ever were before. I take for
granted that Buchanan will win. The Southern States are
tiiorougbly in earnest. They are fighting for their property. The
Northern States have only a principle at stake ; they will he less
united and less eager. At tiie same time it is not at all clear that
ihey can continue to form one State, or rather one pditical body;
and they may reach a point when, like a married couple who cannot
agree, they may part by conmion consent. Each may find his
account in a separation.'

At a much later time (May 15tfa, 1861), he wrote as
follows : —

186S. oil Farms tf Om^emmeffd. 1£1

* The Nortbem Stales have drifted or r»thar pUmged into war
without having any iat^igible aim or policy. The South fi^t te
independence* bat what do the North fight for, except to gratify

passione and pride? in his acurious letter talks of averting

anarchy, but if the North had remained quiet they had nothing to
fear firom anarchy/

In an earlier letter of the same year, before the war had
t»*oken out, he said: —

*The refusal laf Tennessee and Arkansas to join the new c<m-
IMeracy may give some hopes of a compromise, bat I eannot see
how it can be expected that men who have committed themselves so
far as the leaders of the Secession movement, can be expected to
come back, except upon such terms as they themselves would
dictate. They would not only lose their present position, but they
would scarcely be safe from proscription, if they acquiesced in the
reestablishment of the old Union, and thus to a certain extent pot
themselves in the power of a republican executive.'

We must return for a moment to the Dialogue ; but it is
only for the purpose of laying before the reader an extract
from the concludW i^ech of Crito, which is most charac-
teristic of the author's calm moderation and cautbns good

*I am so unfortunate as to be unable to agree altogether widi asy
one of you. I must hold to my original faith as to the impossibility
of establishing any best form of government, applicable to all com-
munities. But difficult as I must maintain it to be, to mould any
constitution of government upon an ideal standard, without reference
to existing circumstances and historical associations — unless, indeed,
the conditions necessary for permanence are disregarded— -yet I am
conscious that legislative science has made great progress, and tiiat
the labours of jurists and political economists have fumi^ed the
rtatesman with a large number of true general principles, whidi, if
properly oonverfeed into maxims or rules of conduct, and i^lied to
£icta, will lead to some practical conclusions.

'If we take any particular department of legislative scienee—
Budi as criminal law, education, relief of the poor, finance^ trader
public works, military and naval organisation — we shall find tlui;t
theoretical writers have established many good general principles,
which will guide the path of the statesman, and which he will be
able with advantage to apply in practice. But when we asoend
above these departments, and arrive at the abstract question, what is
the best form of government for all communities ? it seems to me
that we aare attempting the solution of an insoluble problem. • •

*' But even if I were to decide in favour of one of these £mM,
and against the two others, I should not find myself nearer the
solution of the practical ftfoblem. A nati<m does not change its
form of government with the same facility that a man changes his

152 Sir Geoige Comewall Lewis Jotf^

coat. A nation in general only changes the form of its govemment
by means of a violent revolution.' (Pp. 113-*5.)

We think that the reader will have learnt from us enough
of this thoughtful and interesting little book to tempt him to
its perusal. It will suggest for his reflection far more than is
presented by its pages.

We now turn to consider shortly the career and character of
Sir George Lewis as a politician and a scholar. We cannot
add to his well-deserved reputation, or do justice to his merits
but this Review is the last work in which these merits should
be unnoticed, or his death unlamented.

He was descended from an old family in Badnorshire, who
are mentioned as early as the middle of the fifteenth century.
One of them was sheriff for that county in the reign of Edward
VI. Another held the same office in 1658 and 1659. Thomas
Lewis of Harpton represented the Badnorshire boroughs for
fifty-three years, that is from 1715 to 1768. It is scarcely
necessary to speak of the merits of Sir Frankland Lewis, who
sat for the same boroughs, and who received a baronetcy in
1846. His eldest son was bom in 1806. Having passed
through Eton he became a member of Christ Church, Oxford,
of which body he was an honorary student at the time of his death.

When be wfis a young man great fears were entertained for
his health, and precautions were taken against pulmonary weak-
ness by sending him to a warmer climate. On one of these
occasions he formed the idea of writing his excellent littie book
on the Komance Languages, of which a new edition has lately
appeared. When it was first published there was no work on
the subject familiarly known to the English reader : even now it
is difficult to name another in our own language, although much
has been done by Diez and others on the continent of Europe*
In 1830 Mr. Lewis attended the lectures on Jurisprudence,
delivered by Mr. John Austin at the London University, in a
class which comprised the present Master of the Bolls, Mr.
John Mill, and other distinguished men. The vigour and clear-
ness of Mr. Austin's mind acted powerfully on that of his
pupil, and had, we have no doubt, great influence in forming
his habits of thought. Li 1832 he conducted an important
inquiry into the condition of the Lish Poor in England. Li
1836 Mr. Austin and Mr. Lewis were associated in a com-
mission of inquiry into the affairs of Malta, where they resided
for some time.

We give the following extracts from letters written from that
island at the close of the year 1836 and the beginning of 1837,

1863. on Forms of Government 153

because they are interesting in themselves^ and because thej
convey an idea of the writer's correspondence : —

* At Marseilles we embarked on board a frigate, which had come
from Smyrna and therefore subjected os to the necessity of perform-
ing quarantine on our arrival at Malta. I found it a great mistake
to suppose that there is no motion in large ships ; a small vessel has
moreover this advantage, that it is worked without there being a
crew of 450 men to walk over one's bead during the chief part of

* the night. We had all kinds of foul winds and calms, and were ten
days in reaching Malta. We saw the southern point of Sardinia^
the north-west coast of Sicily, and a part of the coast of Africa near
Cape Bon. We also remained about two days in sight of a hatefbl
little island called Pantellaria.

'Yaletta is on the whole the most striking and beautiful town
I ever saw : the indentations of the harbour, the extent and
grandeur of the fortifications and their combination with the rock,
and the terrace-like arrangement of the houses, form a collection of
objects which no town that I know can equal. It resembles Edin-
burgh in some points — viz. the mixture of buildings and rock, and
the rising of the streets in stories over one another. In other
respects it is, of course^ very different.

* The French, of course, did much mischief in Malta, as in all
other places which they occupied : among other things they stripped
the leaden roof off the '* Baraccas " — large porticoes in which the
knights used to walk in hot weather. They now serve for the same
purpose in cold weather, as their uncovered walls exclude the wind
while they admit the sun.

* We found ourselves on our arrival much to our surprise floating
down the full tide of popularity. We made a sort of triumphd
entry (of course against our will) into the town. The streets were
illuminated at night, and we were annoyed with all kinds of marks
of respect. This state of things however has not been of long
endurance ; and we are already beginning to think of rotten eggs
and dead cats. The people evidently thought, or were told, that we
came out with a Maltese Magna Charta in our pockets ; and when
we summoned the chief complainants, and began to talk of inquiry,
they were manifestly quite surprised, and seemed to think that we
had merely to give a grind or two, and out would come a whole
code of laws ready m^e. After three days of inane declamation
on the part of the complainants, and of '^ damnable iteration *' on our
part, they have at last begun to perceive that it will be necessary
for us to investigate a subject before we report on it, and that in
order to investigate we must take evidence. This sequence of pro^
positions, which in England may seem tolerably clear, has only
become manifest to our gentlemen by means of a long succession of
the severest intellectual throes. It would have edified you to see
the gravity which we maintained during the most ludicrous parts of
the touching patriotic pathos addressed to us. I have seen Hook-
ham Frere, who found himself in Malta fourteen years ago at his

154 Sir OteorgQ CornewttU Lewis Jolj^

wife's death, and has forgotten to return to England. He has
translated four plajs of Aristophanes, and vill, I imagine;, pafaliab
them.

* There is nothing in this island either ancient or remarkable in
the way of art The knights appear to have thomght of nothing bat
btulding new forts, and enlarging the defences oi Yaletta. They
have b^n so successful in this ambition, that the very extent of the
fortifications is a source of weakness, inasmoch as it would take
20,000 men to man the works, if the town were r^nlarly invested.
This contingency, however, is most improbable, one may say almoet •
impossible, so lone as Elngland retains the command of the sea.

' Nevertheless, the Ordnance are not satisfied unless they keep the

S ice in a parpetual state of siege ; and I hear that orders have
ely come out from England to cut down some mulberry trees in
one of the ditches. A weU-fortified town may be an exceilaLt con-
trivance in time of war, but it is an excessive inconvenience in time
of peace. It takes between a quarter and half-4Ui*hour of walking
through narrow gates, and across ditches, and up ste^ steps^ ana
und^ covered ways, to get clear of the defences, whenever one
wishes to breathe some air. Tou can conceive ElhrenlNreitsteui on
the scale of a town large enough to contain ^0,000 people.

* The native language of the Maltese is an Arabic dialect, whioh
agrees pretty nearly with the Arabic spoken on the coast of Barbary,
as far as Egypt It has never been written and cannot even be
said to have an alphabet There are not, as far as I am aware, any
literary compositions in it preserved by tradition.

* The people are an Arab race des<$ended firom the Saracens who
obtained possession of the island. Their physiognomy bears a
striking resemblance to the Jewish. They are a gloomy people;
they never seem to laugh, or sing, or dance ; their amusemente, if
such they can b^ called, are of a rdigious cast, such as prooooaJono
on saints' days, ^dc I hear that the country people pass the chief
part of their Sundays and ^^giomi di festa " in the churches. They
are exceedingly ignorant ; and not unnaturally, as there has been no
education for the poor, very little for the rich, and no free press.
They are, however, by no means wanting in acnteness and ability.
Their practical talent is, indeed, remarkable ; and in this respect
they appear to great advantage even by the side of the English,
who (with their descendants) exceed all other nations in this quality.
There is a pernicious race of nobles, who transmit their titles to lul
their sons, together with fortunes varying from 500/. to 401 or SOL
a year, and a self-imposed inability to follow any money-making
occupation. These people are ignorant, narrow-minded, stupid, and
rapacious of public money; and it would be well if their titles
could be abolished. As, however, they are now excessively pocur,
and they have no means of recruiting their fortunes by rich marri-
ages, a few more descents, and divisions of property, must confound
them with the middle and working classes. There is also a
numerous body of priests, more than 1,000 (including the regulars)
to a population of 120,00a The priests are for the moat part

186L mFamu rf GavemmeKL IS6

IngoCed and ignorant; bot tiieir influence hm considerably dedined
of late years, and their incomes are most pitiful, varying from 101
to 30/. or 40^ a year. The merchants, the advocates, the doctors,
and the government employ^ form the really valoable part of the
population. The misery which prevails among the mass of the peo[4e
is caused by the excess of their numbers. The great and unnatural
commerce drawn into Malta by the Berlin and Milan decrees gave a
stimulos to population, and also accostomed the working classes to a
holier standapd of living, from which ibey have now fidlen.'

In a subsequent letter (October 3^ 1837) the writer says : —

' The government has lately been snakittg some changes in their
dtaritable institotions, which we had recommended. The espendi-
tnre in charities is now 16,000/. a year out of a revenue of less than
100,0001 One of the institutions which we recommended to be
gradually abolished was what in Italy is called a *' Conservatorio,"
^at is a charity boarding-school for girls, who remain in it till they
can get places or are married. On examining the girls in the con-
servatorio somewhat more dosely than had hitherto been done, it has
recently turned out that, although they have been regularly taught to
read Italian, they never learnt the meaning of the words; and
ahhough tli€t*e are some (who have been ondOTgoing this process for
several years) who can pronounce Italian to perfection, they cannot
understand or speak a word of it. I hope this is not the way in
which English is taught in Welsh schools.'

By its results^ the Malta Commisaon^ although it was un-
justly and unwisely decried in England at the time^ entirely
justified ihe policy of the Government and the prevision o£
the eminent men oy whom these measures were recommended.
The admmiste^tion of Malta, since it bad passed into the hands
of Great Britain, was the military discipline of a fortress en-
grafted on the obsolete legislation and ordinances of tJie Ejiights
of St. John. The people were impoverished and discontented ;
Uie taxes onerous ; and the rights of the Maltese overridden
by English authority. These grievances were removed by the
juridicsd wisdom of Mr. Austin and by the practical sagacity of
Mr. Liewis ; and we remember to have henrd one of the most
£stinguished members of the Maltese bar observe^ many years
afterwards, that there has seldom been an instance in which a
well-considered scheme of reform has so efiectually fulfilled the
intentions of its authors and the hopes of the people.

In 1838 Mr. Lewis succeeded his father as one of the com-
mieeioners under the Poor Law Amendment Act What his
ability and honesty were in the administration of this depart-
ment can be known only by lliose who worked with him and
under him ; but there was at least one eminent statesman who
ioOj appreciated these qxialities. We know no point in

156 Sir Qeorge Cornewall Lewis July^

which Sir James Graham showed his acateness and sagacity ia
judging of men more clearly thsn in his estimate of Mr. Lewis.
In 1841 Sir James came into office as Home Secretary. He
had a certain temptation from party motivesy and from the fact
that the topic had been largely used on the hustings by his
supporters, to cavil at, perhaps to interfere with, the adminis-
tration of the Poor Law. He had moreover, as we believe,
rather a prepossession aminst Mr. Lewis, of whom he knew
little or nothing. He tooK a certain time to satisfy himself as to
the qualifications of those who were then at the head of the
department: he tested them by requiring explanations and
reports on all cases which arose, and abstained entirely from
confidential communications with them. Afler this time, how-
ever, bad elapsed he made up his mind as to Mr. Lewis's ability
and trustworthiness, and at once placed unreserved confidence
in him. Many years afterwards he seemed to exult in the
foresight which had led him thus to appreciate Mr. Lewis'is
high qualities, and in 1857, he observed, with a sort of pride, to
one who knew all the drcumstances, lliat ' Lewis was Chan*
' cellor of the Exchequer I ' as if his elevation to that histh post
confirmed the anticipations formed by himself so long beiore.

After the change in the Poor Law Commission, Mr. Lewis
became secretary to the Board of Control, and held other offices.
He sat for Herefordshire, but at a subsequent general election
lost his seat for that county, mainly on the ground of the Com
Laws. He was afterwards defeated at Peterborough, and after
his father's death, although quite satisfied with the tranquillity of
a literary life, and perhaps unwilling to embark again in politics^
he obtained the seat for the Radnorshire boroughs which his father
and his ancestors had often held before. How he discharged
his duty as their representative, and what were his merits as a
Rindlord and a friend, is best shown by the feeling now exhibited
in his own county and in Herefordshire — a feeling such as
to overpower all discrepancy of political party. He accepted
the editorship of this Review on the death of Mr. Empson at
the close of the year 1852, and conducted it successfully until
he became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1855. In 1853 he
had been offered the Grovernment of Bombay, and wrote thus
in relation to it : —

* India is an interesting field, especially at the present moment ;
but it would have cut short a great many threads which I have begun
to spin. I therefore remain constant to the ** Edinburgh Review,"
and am just about bringing out another number.'

The reader will, we are sure, pefuse with interest the
following extract from another of his private letters, dated

1663. on Farms of Government 157

March 18th, 1855, with reference to his acceptance of the post
of Chancellor of the Exchequer : —

* Events have succeeded one another so closely with me of late,
that I reallj have had no time to write to you. Soon after my
return to London after my election, I received quite unexpectedly
the offer of the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord
Palmerston's Goyemment. I had just returned from the country :
I had had no time to look into my private affairs since my father's
death. I had not even proved his will. I had the "Edinburgh
^ Beview " for April on my hands, and the last part of my volumes
on the Roman History. I had been out of Parliament for two years,
and I did not know the presf^nt House of Commons. I had to follow
Gladstone, whose ability had dazzled the world, and to produce a
war budget with a large additional taxation in a few weeks. AU
these circumstances put together inspired me with the strongest dis-
inclination to accept the offer. I felt, however, that in the peculiar
position of the Grovemment, refusal was scarcely honourable, and
would be attributed to cowardice, and I therefore most reluctantly
made up my mind to accept. I remembered the Pope, put in heU
by Dante,

*^Che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto."

'My re-election passed off without difficulty. I went down to
Harpton for two nights and made a speech in the Town Hall at
fiadnor. Since my return to London I have been engrossed with
the business of my office, and have hardly had a moment to spare.
There is an awkward question about the newspaper stamp, which
I have had to plunge into. There are also all the preparations to
be made for the impending budget, and measures to be taken for
providing sufficient sums to meet the enormous extraordinary expen-
diture which the war in the Crimea is causing. Gladstone has
been very friendly to me, and has given me all the assistance in his
power.'

To all who knew Sir George Lewis well the extracts from
these two letters will appear most characteristic: they will
know that the simplicity with which he comments on his refusal
of the Indian Government^ and states his embarrassment at the
offer of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, is of a piece with
the whole tone of his feelings: in any other man affectation
miffht be suspected, but in him it was impossible. It is, we
believe, well known that when the present Government was
formed. Sir George Lewis did not allow the claim which he
had for his former office to interfere with the formation of a
strong and effective Cabinet ; although it was not forgotten that
his qualities as a Finance Minister were of the highest order,
and had commanded the respect and confidence of the city,
during his tenure of the Exchequer, to a remarkable degree.

158 Sir Grtorgt ConiefwaM Lewis ^^Js

His principle was, lliat any man who embarked in public life
ought to take that office which, in the opinion of his coUeaffues,
he could hold with most advantage to the GoYemment and the
country. In whatever position he was placed, his sole thought
was what he could do for the office and the public — not what
the office could do for hinu This entire foi^etfulness of self —
this absolute indifference to the conmiOQ incentiyee of vanity,
profit, or ambition^ marked to an unexampled degree the cha-
racter of Lewis. He brought into public life no irritability,
and no envy. His halnt was to dinniss, as unworthy of his
notice, those adventitious circumstances which are apt to mag-
nify political questions by personal pretensions ; and to perform
simply his duties, in whatever relation he might stano, to the
service of the Crown. Thus it was that on the lamented death of
Lord Herbert of Lea, Sir Creoi^ Lewis consented to pass from
the Secretaryship of State for the Home Deputment to that of
War, although the latter office was evidently the office least
oongeniid to his own studies and pursuits. By a melancholy
coincidence, this same office of War has twice been vacated
rince the formation of tiie present Administration, by the death
of two of the most efficient members of it I

Indeed, the striking feature of his character in politics, in
literature, and in private life was this honest and straightforward
simplicity. Trick (mt contrivance of any kind was so utterly
alien from his naiure as never to cross his thoughts. He never
suffered party or personal motives to tiunt or warp his judgment
on any question, whether of literature or statesmanship. He
would not have thought of outwitting an opponent in public
life by subterfuge or stratagem, any more than he would have
tampered with a Greek quotation for the purpose of supporting
a favourite philological theory. There is a passage in the
preface to the littie Dialogue now before us, which, like the
whole tone of the book, marks well the (sir and deliberate
diaracter of his mind. He says : —

' It 18 a controversy consisting of a debtor and creditor account ;
the difficulty lies in striking the balance fairly. The weights in one
scale may be less heavy than the weights in the other scale, but they
are nevertheless weights. Sach is the nature of nearly all m<nal
and political problems.' *(P. viL)

This is no doubt an obvious truth ; but there are few men who
practically keep this truth before them to the same extent as
the author himself did. He never failed to take ' a weight '
into account because it was offered to him by an opponent,
though he might differ as to the proper value to be assigned to
it. Personal feelings and personal enmity had as little to do

1863. Ml F&rmt of Qanwmment 159

with Ilk opisioiis or eondsct as peraoiml httereBt. He rarely
fcNrmed an opinion without looking at all sides of the question
befove hin; and ¥ritlK)ut having recourse to all aooessible sources
of infimnatioi]^ which he knew where to find better than most
men. He was deluded by iu> prejudices and jumped at
no conclusions^ without testing them by the application <^
sound common sense* When be had thus formed an opinion,
he adhered to it steadily, but not obstinately. He was always
open to argument, and he never refused to listen to it because
it conflicted with his own view of the case. We cannot confirm
Aese last assertions better than by inserting the following extract
from a letter written after his death by a highly cultivated and
intelligent American to a friend in Enghmd, and recced whilst
thia article is in oar hands: —

* I knew him but little, but there was one quality in his mind of
vast consequence to him as a statesman, and to his country, which
was quickly apparent; I mean his instinctive fairness. He was
singularly able and willing to change his opinion, when new facts
came to unssttie his old one. He seemed to do it too without regret.
This strack me the first time I saw him, which was at breakfast at
LcNrd Stanhope's in July 1866, and it was still more strongly apparent
the next m<M*ning at breakfast at his own house, the conversation <m
both occasions having been much on American afiairs, at the period
just before Buchanan's election, and when Walker was making his
wild filibustering attempts on the isthmus. And so it continued,
I think, every time I saw him that summer and the next, down to
the last dinner at his house, when we were together. I remember
I used to tlunk he had the greatest respect £ot facts of any man
1 ever saw, and an extraordinary power of determining from in-
ternal evidence what were such. I suppose this meant that the love
of truth was the uppermost viaibU qualify in his character.*

Above all, his temper in private and in public life was calm and
unru£3ed, and he bore no malice against any man. All his inr
stincts and leanings were on the side of gentleness and humanity^
but without any taint of morbid sensitiveness. He felt strongly
the misery of others^ but he never permitted feeling to weigh
down reason in the discussion of practical measures. With
all this he was conciliatory in his demeanour, and his frankness
and openness were the genuine results of his personal character.
Oflice made no change in him. With his old friends he ever
remained the same, for his afiectionate and kindly nature was
unaltered by his accession to the highest place. The scholar
and the man of letters with whom he had discussed a point of
philology or history always found the same ready attention
and the same free intercourse of thought, as if he had still
been exclusively occupied with subjects common to both of

160 Sir George Come wall Lewis ^^y,

them. His keen sense of humour and his genial disposition
made his society delightful to those who Knew him welL
Nor did he show any indisposition to mix in conversation
or ordinary talk of a light and humorous kind. His own relaxa-
tion^ indeed, from the cares of office was a return to studies
apparently to many men the most dry and uninviting, but which
were to him a source of constant enjoyment. Within a few
months of his death he beguiled the tedium of a temporary
illness by reading the Greek tragedians with the keenest delight,
in the intervals of pain ; this indeed other scholars might have
done, but few would have sought recreation after the labours
of the Home Office and of Parliament in writing the * History
' of Ancient Astronomy.' Every moment was occupied, and
his industry was unceasing, so tnat it may truly be said, few
men have lost so little time between their births and deaths*
It should be added that he was singularly methodical in the
arrangement of his papers and correspondence.

As a public man, his loss is one of the greatest which the
country could have sustained. He was listened to with attention
in Parliament, not because he was eloquent, but because he
never spoke except when he had something to say. He always
expressed sincerely and plainly a view of the subject under
discussion, which was the result of information and inquiry
digested by common sense and entire honesty of purpose.
A good example of the value of his Parliamentary powers
may be found in his speech on criminal appeals. There
was, moreover, in his mind no tendency to exaggeration of
any kind. He never knowingly over-estimated a danger or
an advantage, and his wishes and sentiments were evidently
controlled by his fairness and his reason. This was especially
visible in the consideration of questions connected with the
present crisis in America, on which he spoke his mind freely
and courageously when he thought there was a danger of pre-
cipitate action on our part

We have left ourselves but little space to dwell on the literary
labours of Sir George Lewis, numerous and important as they
are. It is not our intention to pass judgment on his writings, or
to discuss them critically. Many of them indeed have already
been the subjects of articles in this Review and in other periodi-
cals. We begin with those of his productions which appeared as
distinct works. His book on the Romance Languages has already
been mentioned : a second edition of it was called only a short
time before his death. The original work was reviewed in the
sixty-second volume of this Journal. In 1836 he published a
book on Irish Disturbances and the Irish Church. In 1839j

1863. on Forms of Government 161

Mr. Murray printed an excellent little glossary of words used
in Herefordshire and the adjoining counties, which was put
together entirely by him. In 1841 appeared a volume
on the Government of Dependencies, which was noticed
in the eighty-third volume of the * Edinburgh Review.'
Mr. Parker, of Oxford, published in 1846 his edition of the
'Fables of Babrius;' the work of a finished scholar. His
'Essay on the Influence of Authority in matters of Opinion,'
printed in 1849, was reviewed by a distinguished contributor
to this Journal in our ninety-first volume. The following extract
from a letter of the author written in that year, is character-
istic and interesting, inasmuch as it shows how little he looked
to the temporary popularity of his writings: —

' I thought I had mentioned to you some time ago that I was
writing on the subject of Authority. My book has been favourably
reviewed in the " Examiner," " Athenceum," and some other news-
papers ; and nearly 230 copies have been sold, which, as the subject
is not a very attractive one, and the mode of treatment is not
intended to be popular, is quite as much as I could hope for.'

In the same letter he stated that he was meditating a work
on the Methods of Political Reasoning, which would take him
several years, if he was ever able to complete it. His idea
was that such a book would dispose of a host of political specu-
lations, by showing that the method of reasoning on which
they were founded was radically unsound, without separately
refuting the conclusions of each author. This book appeared
ill two volumes in 1852, under the title ' A Treatise on the
^ Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics.' It is not
often that a philosopher who writes on the theory of such sub-
jects has shown that he himself is capable of applying that theory
successfully in public life.

In November 1854 he thus described the object and cha-
racter of his forthcoming work on Roman History : —

' I have been engaged at review work, and in revising my book
on Koraan History, and getting it through the press, which is very
tedious work, on account of the number and length of the notes. I
expect to complete the printing of the first volume (above 500 pages)
by the beginning of next month. My criticism is purely negative.
I set up nothing of my own. One of ray objects is to show that
Niebuhr's reconstructive theories are untenable, as well as the
accounts which he sets aside.'

In a later letter he said : —

* I have been working steadily at my Roman History, and been
following Niebuhr through all his wonderful perversions and distor-
tions of the ancient writers.'

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLI, M

162 Sir Geoige Cornewdl Lewis Joljy

TIus book was reviewed in the 104th volume of oar Journal bj
a living historian of acknowledged eminence. The first extract
given above is extremely important^ because it defines accurately
the negative character of the work, which has been by the
Germans accounted its defect, but which in our opinion is its
great and paramount excellence. Sir George Lewis may pos-
sibly be wrong in underrating the amount of historical evidence
which existed at Rome in the days of Pyrrhus, but the principle
against which he has contended is the one usually acted on oy
the German writers in dealing with such subjects. If the details
of a history are incredible in themselves, or supported by insuf-
ficient testimony, a German historian will assume the duty^
first, of sweeping away the old narrative, and then of framing
a new scheme or theory of his own, which has no foundation to
rest on except those very authorities whose credibility he has
destroyed. Thus, as it has been well put in a memorandum
before us —

* Momnisen, who does not recognise at all the history of the
kingly period, and does not mention the names of the kings except
incidentally, still relates the amalgamation of the Palatine and
Quirinal cities, and describes at length the earliest constitution^
according to his own ideas ; though the only materials which he
possesses for such a reconstruction are the very authorities whom he
regards as untrustworthy. Against this system Lewis strongly
protests. He refuses to believe an event unless certified by the
testimony of credible witnesses. He will not reject, for instance, the
history of Servius Tullius, and yet accept the Servian constitution as
an enactment of that king. He denies the right of a historian to
proceed upon internal probability when all evidence is wanting.
This demand for strict evidence is distasteful to most men. Tbos
Mommsen, in conversation in England, complained that Lewis treated
Livy as a policeman treats a criminal — drags him, as it were, into
court, and causes him. to be questioned as to the evidence for each
fact.'

It is truly added by the writer of the passage just quoted,
that when a man of Mommsen's eminence complains of such
reasonable rigour, the corrective influence of sound English
sense on the treatment of history did not come too soon. Sir
George Lewis's book has been translated into German and has
reached a second edition in that country, and more copies of the
translation have been sold probably than of the original work.
We trust the scholars of that country will profit by the les-
sons which it inculcates.

The * History of Ancient Astronomy ' has appeared so
recently that we need only mention it, more especially as it
was reviewed in the 116th volume of this Journal. Fault

1863. cm Fomu of CrmfemmenL 163

has been found with the Bweeping character of Sir Qeorge
Liewis'e eritieiBins in this work on the interpretation of
hierogljphicfl and the cuneiform inscriptions. It may be
that Mb want of Oriental scholarship makes his observations
on this subject of less valne than his judgments on such
matters in general^ but we think that the difficulties stated
in the sixth chapter respecting the interpretation of an un-
known language written in an unknown character, and the
fallacious imalogy of such a process to that of deciphering,
require yet to be answered fuUy and completely, if any sudi
answer can be given. Sir George Lewis may have underrated
the exact amount of what has been done, but his arguments are
such as ought to make us, in all such cases, require the most
stringent proof. The little^ i^rit published by him lost
▼ear was intended to apply more particularly to the attempts to
interpret the inscriptions in the old languages of Italy and
Assvria, and it is excellent in its way. The thought of a serious
work on this subject had long before crossed his mind. So far
back as 1868 he said, in writing to a friend : —

* I am thinkiDg of writing an essay to prove the recent German
attempts to interpret the Eugubine tables and other Italian inscrip-
tions in unknown tongues to be frivolous and vexatious/

We have omitted to mention that English scholars owe to
our lamented friend the translations of Miiller's Dorians (exe-
cuted jointly with Mr. H. Tufnell), and of the same writer's

* History of Greek Literature,' as well as of Boeckh's ^ Public

* Economy of Athens.'

But Sir George Lewis's literary activity, and his influence
on scholarship, history, and philosophy would be very imper-
fectly estimated by a reference to his larger works alone.

In the year 1831 or 1832, the periodical called ' The Philo-
' logical Museum ' was started at Cambridge by the present
Bishop of St. David's, the late Ardideacon Hare, and others.
Sir George Lewis was an early contributor. His first paper
is, we believe, a short review of Goettiing's edition of Aris-
totle's Politics. This was succeeded by an article on Babrius ;
then followed a notice of a blunder made by the Journal
of Education in confounding the lot in Greek elections
with the ballot ; and a paper on English Diminutives. The
second volume contains a review of Arnold on the Spartan ,
Constitution ; a discussion on English Preterites and G-enitives;
and some observations on Micali's ' History of the Ancient

* Nations of Italy ' — all by him. The circulation of the
' Philological Museum ' was a limited one, and it was given.

1

164 Sir (jeorge Cornewall Lewis Juljf

up in 1833. In 1844, Sir Greorge Lewis assisted in starting
the * Classical Museum/ to which he was a contributor for some
time. Amon^ his papers in this journal there was one on
Xenophon's Hellenics^ another on the English verb ' to thirl,'
and a curious note on some remarks of Napoleon on the Si^
of Troy. To the * Law Magazine/ then so ably conducted
by Mr. Hayward, he contributed largely, and some of his
articles are of great and permanent value. Among them
were several on Secondary Punishments, and more than one
paper on the Penitentiary System; one at least on Pre-
sumptive Evidence, another on Capital Punishments, and one
on the Trial of La Bonci^re. More recently he published in
a separate form an Essay on the Extradition of Criminals,
in which he discussed, with great legal acuteness, the con-
flicts of jurisdiction which have on several recent occasions
assumed a high degree of public importance between civilised
states.

In the ^ Edinburgh Review ' he wrote frequently on subjects
of modem history and politics, and these contributions were
not interrupted by the labours of official life. A series of seven
articles especially, on the political memoirs of the last and
present centuries which have appeared within the last few years,
forms a connected narrative of political changes from the time
of the Rockingham Administration to the Reform BilL
We earnestly hope that these papers will appear .as a
separate work, and thus become more accessible to the general
reader. But if the variety of his writings in the periodicals
already mentioned is such as to astonish us and defy enume-
oration, the number of his contributions scattered through the
•volumes of * Notes and Queries' is still more surprising.
Taking only the second series of this publication, we find
-articles from him on the following subjects — they are signed
sometimes with his name, sometimes with his initials (G. C. L.),
and sometimes only L. : — ^ Niebuhr on the Legend of Tarpeia'
"(vol. iiL). On this question we believe that he was, through a
friend, corresponding with Dr. Pantaleone, of Rdme, whilst
he was actually engaged in the preparation of his budget as
Chancellor of the Exchequer ; ' The Tin Trade of Antiquity '
{vol. v.); *The Amber Trade of Antiquity' (vol. vi.);

* Tartessus ' (vol. vii.); *Tbe Vulture in Italy,' <The Lion in

* Greece and Italy,' * Ancient Names of the Cat ' (vol. viiL)

* On the Bonasus, the Bison, and the Bubalus ' (voL ix.). ir
connexion with the subjects of these last papers, we may add
that he was extremely anxious to promote the publication of a
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Natural History, and had

1863. on Forms of Government ' 165

communicated with his friend Dr. Wm. Smith on the matter.
He wished to secure the proper completion of such a book^ which
does not in fact exist either in English or German^ and which
would be one of extreme value to the classical student. A very
short time before his death he inserted in * Notes and Queries ' a
most interesting paper on ^ The Presidency of Deliberative As-
' semblies.' We do not mention the numerous pamphlets which he
wrote on various occasions, though some of them were of great
merity and had much weight at the time of their appearance. In
these productions of his laborious pen, and also in his Parlia-
mentary Speeches, the style of Sir Greorge Lewis was eminently
characteristic of his powerful mind and unpretending character.
With a true relish for the correct beauty of the highest order of
composition, he disdained all rhetorical display, and held very
lightly to those artifices of words which are apt to mislead the
judgment though they please the imagination. His own chosen
form of expression was full, clear, and strong; — seeking no
ornament, and admitting of no variety of illustration beyond
that which the matter in hand naturally suggested. A writer
who adhered to these principles, and who sought to instruct
rather than to please — to convey a thought rather than to shape
a sentence — ^might be dry, and could not hope to be popular.
But we doubt not that ^e contributions of Sir George Lewb
to the political, historical, and philosophical literature of Europe^
will outlive many of the performances of his more brilliant con-
temporaries.

Lord Macaulay, in those beautiful lines written after his
defeat at Edinburgh, in 1847, represents the Muse or Fairy
Queen, who presides over the destinies of literary men, as
addressing her infant proteg6 in the following words :- -

* There are, who while to vulgar eyes they seem

Of all my bounties largely to partake.
Of me, as of some rival's handmaid, deem,

And court me for gain's, pow Vs^ fashion's sake :

' To such, though deep their lore, though wide their fame.

Shall my great mysteries be all unknown :
But thou, through good and evil, praise and blame.
Wilt thou not love me for myself alone ? '

If there ever was a man who * loved her for herself alone,'
that man was Sir George Lewis : his pursuit of literature was
free from the smallest taint of low or sordid motives, but he
did not on account of his love of letters abandon the paths of
politics, nor did that rulingpassion impair his influence in Par-
liament or the Cabinet. His official position and his share in

166 Xavier Baymond on the Navies of Joly^

pablic affiiirs were not lowered at diminished by his Ktenuy
laboorB : on the contrary, men of idl parties who look fcNrward
to the fature, now think that they foresee the time when a single
man of tried ability, sound judgment, perfect uprightness, md
immense resources of knowledge, round whom floating and
wavering politicians might safely group themselves, will be
sorely missed in the councils of England. It is unfortunately
useless to speculate on the fruits which the country might have
reaped from that peculiar union of solid learning and honesty
with so many brilliant and kindly qualities, which we have with
a sorrowful heart attempted imperfectly to sketch.

Art. VI.-— 1. Les Marines de la France et de tAngletenre.
Par M. Xavier Bathond. Paris : 1863.

2. Iron-clad sea-going Shield Ships. A Lecture delivered on the
25th March, 1863, at the Royal United Service Institution, by
Captain Cowper Phipps Coles, R.N. London.

^HE prosperity, and perhaps we might add the safety, of this
country has been recently threatened by two events widely
different in their nature, but to some extent suggesting the
same train of thought, and bringing to view the same national
characteristics. We have seen our staple manufacture suddenly

!)araly8ed, and those wooden walls which we have trusted in
or centuries rendered useless. There are many Englishmen,
and still more foreigners, who may have thought that our
commercial prosperity, to say the least, and with it much of our
internal peace and onler, depended on so great a branch of our
national industry as the cotton manufacture. It was still more
a national tradition, and the general belief of foreigners, that to
our ' wooden walls ' we owed our security at home, and our
consideration abroad. And if these two great sources of national
strength were separately of importance, few persons would have
doubted that the simultaneous loss of both would have been a
most serious calamity.

Yet, since 1860 we have seen that industry which brought
us so much wealth almost swept away, and our vast and costly
array of war-ships superseded. To add to the importance of
thb latter fact, the superiority at sea whicii we had possessed
with our wooden walls was for a time at least transferr^ to the
rival who had invented walls of iron. The genius of a French
naval architect had given to his country a temporary grasp
of the trident which we considered our inheritance.

1863. Framoe and England. 167

We have all witneseed these things, and their results up to
the present time are well known. We have had local distress
but no commercial ruin, no bankruptcy, no disaffection or
sedition, no extra taxes, no panic in the funds. The cotton
crisis is probably at its worst, and has shown that we are one
people, and not the ' two nations ' of a political novelist The
cdlapse, to use a popular expression, of our wooden navy has
been in its way more complete than that of the cotton manu-
fSactore ; but even the f^ct of our inferiority to France in the
only ships which can now enter the line of battle has caused no
alarm at home, nor speculation upon the possibility of invasion
abroad* The extinction of our wooden fleet (for it amounts to
that) did not cause a fractional decline of the funds, and our
hopes of success with untried weapons are almost as great as if
we had already conquered with them.

This contrast between what is and what might have
been expected by the most sagacious, is certainly a strange
phenomenon. It would be very interesting to examine the
causes of so great a discrepancy; but we do not propose to
dwell upon the cotton crisis here, further than to observe
certain points which it has in common with the naval crisis.

It is a common fiillacy to mistake some results of our com-
mercial greatness or of our naval strength for th^ cause. Thus
our cotton manu&cture has been assigned as the cause of that
prodigious activity which embraces the whole globe. If it had
been so, of course our whole commercial system would now be
under an eclipse, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer would
have presented us with a very different budget : but the fact is,
that the cotton manufacture was only one of the outlets which
our productive industry made for itself; and if that outlet be
permanently stopped, the same energies which first made it, will
make others. It is the same with our naval strength, of which
our late navy was a developement and very powerful expression,
but by no means the cause. The sources of our naval as well
as commercial strength lie deep in the genius and character of
the people, and are, as we may hope, more indestructible than a
particular industry or a particular weapon of war.

That national habit of self-help and popular co-operation
which distinguishes England from her continental neighbour
proved of great value in the cotton crisis. Private charity,
organised and directed by capable persons, sufficed to meet the
first difficulties ; and while its immediate effect was to alleviate
the distress, it also tended to promote concord at home, and to
raise our character abroad. We may trace the good effects of
this same national characteristic in a very different field of

168 Xaviqr Baymond on tlie Navies of July,

action, re-establishing our reputation for military spirit, and
making the temporary loss of our fleet a very different matter
from what it would have been some years ago. Ten years have
hardly elapsed since we scarcely had the name of an army at
home — no militia and no volunteer force. Our sole defence was a^
fleet which previous and subsequent experience has shown to be
least aviulable when most wanted. Even that fleet, moreover, we
have learned, upon official authority in 1859, had no longer
any practical superiority over the French fleet. A well-known
Treasury minute, dated in December of the previous year, re-
vealed the unpleasant fact, that while we were building ships of
an obsolete class, our rivals had constructed an efficient fleet.
Other mistakes of the same kind had weakened public confi-
dence in the administration of naval affairs, and, in the absence
of a sufficient land force, we had experienced what Mr. Cobden
has designated as ' The Three Panics.' But happily in England
we do not look to Government alone for help. A most singular
instance of popular action supplying the supposed deficiencies of
a public department followed our last alarm — let us hope our
very last — and created a volunteer army in the midst of peace.
That army was the truest expression of popular feeling in
England, and wins rightly appreciated in Europe. It had been
alleged that, in becoming manufacturers, we had lost all military
spirit as a nation ; but the volunteer movement contradicted the
theory. Thenceforward the invasion of England ceased to be a
favourite topic abroad, for the question was no longer whether
our fleet could be overmatched or evaded, but whether a people
who had not lost all the military virtues would be likely to tall
an easy prey even if invaded.

That this revival of military spirit in England made some
difference in the feelings wiUi which we heard the doom of our
wooden walls in 1861 cannot be doubted. Our outer defences
had been effectually breached by M. Dupuy de Lome when he
built a French iron-cased frigate that would have made short
work of our finest three-deckers ; but the breach served to show
a gaUant arrav within ; and there certainly was no panic this
time, though the facts were alarming and instructive enough.
A second time within a few years French genius had made our
whole fleet obsolete, and, for the purposes of European warfare,
useless : but this time we had a competent inner intrenchment,
and could proceed more leisurely to repair the breach.

The task before us was a most serious one : nothing less than
to build a new fleet upon entirely new principles, and to surpass
if possible the models of a great master in the art of naval con-
struction. We had this time to build from the foundation ; and,

1863. France and Eiyland. 169

in fairness to the Adotiiralty, it must be remembered that it was
not always their part to strike out new systems. To use a
shop-keeping illustration very much to the pointy we were like
a tradesman already provided with a Marge assortment of

* goods/ but not of the * newest patterns. ' It was not our busi-
ness to introduce new fashions which would make our stock on
band unsaleable. Perhaps^ indeed^ we were slow in moving,
and did not always move in the right direction when we did
move; but this time^ as has been said^ the ground was clear
before us : let us see how we have acquitted ourselves in a fair
race. •

From the moment that experience proved the possibility
of casing sea-going or cruising ships with iron-plates capable of
resisting such artillery as was then known, the doom of our
wooden bulwarks was pronounced. It was clearly as necessary
to meet iron with iron as it would have been to discard bows
and arrows in favour of modem artillery had we not already
done so. France had previously had the honour of proving the
efficacy of armour-cased floating batteries at Kinburn, in 1855
(our own, built at the French emperor's suggestion, had arrived
too late). In 1858 the first real iron-clad ship of war was laid
down in the same country, and designed by the same eminent
architect who had produced the * Napoleon/ the first really suc-
cessful screw line-of-battle ship. The new iron-clad, which even
exceeded the hopes entertained of her, was appropriately named

* LaGloire ; ' and thus to M. Dupuy de Lome belonged the honour
of having twice within ten years devised the means of totally
changing the nature and conditions of naval war. The * Gloire '
was launched in 1859, and France then possessed a ship, as
she had in 1852, which had no equal afloat. As this first
attempt produced an admirable model which it only remained to
copy^ thirteen more iron-clads were ordered on the same lines,
to maintain the start which had been so fairly gained ; and
although we followed in the wake, the balance of strength was
against us in 1861 : of course we speak of iron-clads alone. It
is to this date we would have the reader turn, bearing in mind
that, with the advantage already gained by France, it was a
matter of the first necessity for England to make up lee-way,
and acquire an equality in actual strength before venturing too
much upon purely experimental constructions. Whether we
have succeeded in redressing the balance in all respects, as we
certainly have in numbers, must be matter of opinion. The
correct data for forming such opinion we are able to supply ; and
leaving the reader to ouraw his own conclusions as to our iron-
clad fleet, we must now present him with those of M. Xavier

170 Xavier Baymond tm the Navies of July,

Baymond on naval matters in general, and the relative strength
of England and France as maritime Powers.

There are probably veiy few French writers who conld have
reviewed the history of tLe French and English navies since
1815 in the same fair and candid spirit as M. Raymond has
done. He feels (and warmly too) as a Frenchman, but thinks as
an Englishman, or at least argues upon principles more gene-
rally accepted among ourselves than among our neighbours.
M. Raymond was attached by M. Guizot to the mission of M. de
Lagren^e to China, some twenty years i^o, and in the course of
that and other voyages he acquired a great love of the sea, and
a deep interest in naval affairs. He also visited India, and there
conceived a strong and lasting r^ard for England, and a high
respect for her national power. When the French press still
enjoyed freedom of discussion, M. Baymond was distinguished
as a writer in its most powerfiil organ ; and the work now
before us was published in part last year, in a series of papers
which appeared in our highly valued contemporary, the * Revue
* des Deux Mondee.' We gather from it that, though not a
seaman, he has for many years lived much with naval men, and
has studied for the last twenty-five years what may be called the
Naval Question. So far as a strong interest in his subject,
industry, candour, and rare truthfulness, can qualify him, M.
Baymond may be considered to have the necessary qualities for
the task he has set himself. When it was in his power to
ascertain the facts upon which he reasons, he did so conscien-
tiously ; and when he failed to satisfy himself, he tells us so
honestly. On the one hand, his pride in the French navy,
and his regard for the French sailor, make him a good champion
of maritime France ; on the other hand, his sympathy with
liberty, with representative government, free trade, and com-
mercial pursuits, make him just towards England. While
handling a delicate subject — especially delicate tor Frenchmen
— he is never betrayed into a sneer or illiberal censure. What-
ever would be praiseworthy in France, M. Baymond finds
praiseworthy in England; and he can praise without such a
qualifying addition as often amounts to covert censure. We
would especially recommend to notice the just and reasonable
view of England's maritime preponderance taken by M. Bay-
mond. He accepts that preponderance as an existing fact,
which it is England's interest and duty to herself to per-
petuate, but he -denies that such preponderance is any part
of European law or obligatory on other Powers; in other
words, M. Baymond thinks it a fact to be quietly main-
tained in deeds but not in words. The distinction is a real and

1863. France and England. 171

practical one^ which meets us in everyday life. We 'cheerfully
concede the precedence which social usages have given to our
more fortunate neighbour, but we don't expect him to parade
that precedence in an offensive manner, nor to demand our
formal recognition of it. Those who value a good understanding
with France may learn something from M. Raymond's remarks
upon our Parliamentary discussions on this question. He con-
tmda that France is blamed there for the inevitable results of her
more efficient naval administration, and that this is the more
unreasonable on our part, inasmuch as France obtains these results
1^ a less cost than our own naval expenditure. It is as a par-
tisan of the English alliance that M. Raymond dwells upon the
danger to which it is exposed by what he considers the short-^
sightedness and inefficiency of our Admiralty system. Defending
himself against those amongst his own countrymen who mi^ht
say that if we are satisfied with a barren and unproductive
system, it is our own business, he adds : —

' The constant failures of the English Admiralty may often
cause regrets, because in England they tend indirectly to promote
that distrust of us which mars a good understanding, while in France
they are the sources cf dangerous mistakes. It is not in human
nature to admit a fault willingly ; the Admiralty, therefore, when it
meets with some fresh mishap, when it finds itself palpably distanced
by some invention which we have carried into practice, adopts a method
of excusing itself which, although answering the purpose, is not cal-
culated to promote mutual good-will . . . Instead of honestly confess-
ing its mistakes, it exclaims against French ambition, accuses us of
plotting, and of plans of invasion which nothing bears out ; it stirs up
the public feeling against us, and at the same time obtains some hun-
dred million, of francs (from Parliament) to repair past errors . . • •
Would it not be better for ourselves that tlie Admiralty should
never be placed in a position so false as well as dangerous ? ' (Pp.
414-5.)

' On the other hand, when we see the English Admiralty struggling
with one of those mischances with which it periodicaHy embarrasses
itself, we see a host of people in France also (honest people enough, but
rather ill-informed), whose notion of the highest patriotism consists in
slandering a neighbour and possible adversary : we see them hasten to
draw from circumstances which they cannot appreciate, conclusions
that are quite erroneous. Judging other countries by what they see
at home, they take the Admiralty for the true representative of
England's naval power ; they believe her to be decrepit and weak, and
indulge in the most extravagant fancies. The truth is, however, that
England is still the greatest naval Power in the world, that it is
absurd to measure that power by the acts and deeds of the Admiralty,
seeing that the Admiralty, as it now stands, is but a detail, a fraction
of the budget, a first stake in the game ; it is but the staff or the
advance of a force, that in case of a serious struggle would draw in-

172 Xavier Baymond on the Navies of July,

exhaustible resources — if anything be inexhaustible in this world —
from the nation itself. In France the naval administration represents
by far the largest share of that strength which entitles us to be called
a naval Power.* (P. 416.)

The objects aimed at by M. Baymond, as we gather from
his preface, are to refute the claims of England to limit
the naval forces of other Powers ; to trace the causes of the
ill-will which he thinks that we entertain towards the French
navy; to support the influence and prestige of France by
showing the steady progress of her navy since 1815 ; to warn \ns
countrymen against the danger of underrating their rivals ; and,
lastly, to point out a great error in the naval system of France.
Though that part which relates to the assumed claims of
England is addressed especially to this country, and occupies a
large portion of the book, we need not follow M. Raymond
through his argument. We readily concede that England can
have no right to dictate to France what naval force she shall
create or maintain. But, in fact, no one does assume such a
right. The only reason why there may apparently be such a
pretension on our part is, that the discussion of a delicate topic
is transferred from the cabinet and the sphere of diplomacy, to
the outspoken debates of Parliament. Here and there (but very
rarely) an independent member may have expressed himself
rashly upon this subject, and so may also some writers in the
press. It is clearly not a topic which can be judiciously
or usefully treated in such discussions, and they are a bad
result of the distrust which our naval administration has in-
spired. Still it does not follow that two friendly Governments
may not come to an amicable understanding as to the relative
strength of their navies. Some approach has already been made
in principle by the appointment of naval attach^ to the re-
spective embassies of England and France. As these officers, by
keeping their Governments well informed of the naval move-
ments on each side of the Channel, will leave no room f9r such
suspicions or surprises, as we have experienced of late years.
If we further admit that, in her past exertions to improve her
navy, France has given us no just cause of complaint, there will
remain little ground of di£ference with M. Baymond upon the
question of armaments.

Before entering upon the great question of iron-clads (we
owe our American cousins thanks for the word), it may be well
to follow M. Baymond in his retrospect of naval affiiirs since
1815 : the review is not so gratifying to our national pride
as it is to that of our neighbours, but it may be profit-
able. From 1815 M. Baymond dates that revival of FrencJi

1863. France and England. 173

naval genias which has produced such striking results — invul-
nerable ships being only the latest product of it. Nor can we
conceal from ourselves that it is France who has taken the lead
in these improvements^ which have completely changed the
nature of naval war. We are accustomed to admit the supe-
riority of French genius in certain arts, but in maritime affairs
we should not have been prepared to accept France as oiu:
teacher, our ^ institutrice,' as M. Raymond calls it Let us
hear him on this point : —

* In 1815, after so many glorious victories, England seemed to be jus-
tified in regarding herself as the instructress of all other Powers in naval
matters. Now, since 1815 she has in that respect received everything
from others, and given them almost nothing in return. The improve-
ments in sailing ships, in the first place, improvements which she has
heen forced to copy, and which include every part of a ship of war,
are all of French origin ... At a later time, when the application of
the screw allowed of building real steam ships of war, it was from
France again that the model came which England had to copy — the
'' Napoleon." And still later, when the experiment made ai Kinburn
by France upon her own idea proved the value of iron armour as
means of defence, it was France again which produced the first type
of fighting ship and cruiser which ever appeared upon the waters
cased in iron ; and that model still maintains its superiority both as a
sea-boat and as a weapon of war over all the copies thnt have been
designed. The English begin by depreciating and questioning her
good qualities, but the lesson given by the ** Merrimac " having come,
the " Times " exclaims suddenly, " We must not deceive ourselves, our
whole navy is reduced to two ships, the " Warrior " and " Black
" Prince ! " Then the same paper, and very soon many others both in
America and England, adopt the phrase of M. Dupuy de Lome, in the
Council of State ; when asking for the funds to build the " Gloire," he
exclaimed, " One ship of the kind pushed into the middle of a whole
** fieetof your old wooden ships would there with her 36 guns be like
** a lion among a flock of sheep."

^ If the art of defence produced such results, the means of attack
and destruction make equal progress on their side. Rifled cannon
appear ; France, which had already furnished the Paixhans's gun against
wooden walls, is the first to employ the rifled gun as an ordinary
weapon.' (Pp. 22-4.)

The merit of originality no one will deny to the master*
piece of M. Dupuy de Lome, but we may have something to
say as to the continued superiority of that undoubtedly great
effort of genius.

Nor was it only by inventive enterprise that France signalised
the reviving spirit of her navy* M. Baymond recounts a long
Ibt of very considerable warlike achievements, either wholly due
to the French navy or shared by it

174 Xavier Baymond an the Navies of J^fy,

< In 1828, the jeer which may be considered the date of its regene-
ration, the French nayj blockaded Cadiz and the Onadalqainr, and
reduced the fortress of Santi Petri. In 1828, it carried an army to
the Morea, and commenced that long and trying blockade which was
to terminate, in 1831, by the capture of Algiers, In 1831, it took
possession of Ancona, and forced the entrance of the Tagus. In the
following years it had many engagements on the coast of Africa. In
1834, it went to Carthagena and St. Domingo. In 1839» it reduced
the fort of St. Jean d'Ulloa^ after a brilliant action. In 1841, it took
possession of the Comoro Islands, the Marquesas, and Tahiti. In
1844, it destroyed the batteries of Tangiers and Mogadon In 1849,
it transported the army to Civita Yecchia. In 1859, it supported at
Genoa and Venice the operations of the army of Italy, and at the
same time commenced in Cochin China the operations which were to
afford Admiral Chamer further opportunities of victories. All these
enterprises succeeded: in none of them did we sustain a single
reverse.'

Beodes these operations of a force solely French, M. Bay*
mend (p. 82.) recounts those in combination with Englai]^>
' always yielding to France an equal share of honour except

* when her flag obtained special distinction.'

This recapitulation of naval achievements is worthy of atten-
tion, as showing how much French writers identify tiie last
startling productions of their naval power with its general
and steady advance in efficiency. A brief sketch of the English
navy during the same period (which we need not quote here)
contrasts unfavourably with that which has been given of the
French, yet the comparison is not drawn in an offensive spirit
M. Raymond traces the greater relative progress of his coun-
trymen to the better constitution of their naval administration ;
and if he be right in his view, the same cause may continue to
produce the same effects. But in most respects the naval
history of the past may indeed be compared to 'an old
' almanack.' We have entered upon a new career in naval con-
struction, an unlimited field for ingenuity is before us, and tiie
prize of success awaits the most 'judicious innovator.' As a con-
sequence of the change in the material of naval war, there must
be an equally great change in the mode of fighting and the
training of the combatants — in short, there must be a new

* personnel ' for a new * materiel'

It might be interesting though useless to speculate on the
effects of such a change upon our maritime supremacy. The
British sailor, our ancient boast, and the article of which we
had most (and could get least when wanted), will have lost
much of his value, and so far the change may seem unfavourable
to us. But M. Baymond, who has studied the question with

1863. Prance and England. 175

much aeuteness, thinks that England has nothing to fear from
the naval revolntion. In a very practical chapter on the condi-
tions of naval power, he argues that, under the new as under the
old order of things, we have all the elements of strength —
wealth, mechanical skill, vast manufacturing and ship-building
establishments, great commercial enterprise, a numerous and
hardy seafaring population, and, above all, the unity and
patriotism that liberty produces.

In M. Raymond's chapter upon the conditions of naval
power, though there may be nothing new to those who have
thought much upon the subject, there is a breadth and justness
of view, which will strike the English reader forcibly. Had
Mr. Cobden written upon the same subject, he would have
treated it probably in the same manner, though not exactly in
the same spirit. Having told us (p. 369.) that the three
elements of naval power are: —

'Wealth, flourishing manufactures, and a population of sailors,
which 18 itself, again, a result proportioned to the merchant navy of
each people/ M. Raymond adds, 'Money, it has been said, is the
sinews of war, and we need not go far to prove that this is as true
of a naval force as of any other. There are, however, some data
of the proposition which it may be well to lay before the reader, to
convince him that at sea still less than elsewhere, could the place of
money be supplied by individual' energy or popular enthusiasm ; nor
would such revolutionary proceedings as some people believe in, be of
more avail. The serious expenses of the improved engines of a
modem navy, the cost of what we now consider its commonest
operations, will serve to show the distance at which the very nature
of things has placed the different flags, and the chance which any
one Power has of changing that order of procedure in its own
favour. Thus, at the commencement of this century, in Nelson's
days, the English, by dividing the total expense of a fleet by the
number of its guns, calculated that each gun, which may be consi-
dered to represent the military strength of sliips, cost 1,000/. For
steam line-of-battle shi{)s the estimate varied from 5,000i. to
6,000/. *, it is now above 10,000/. per broadside gun in the iron-
cased frigate " Warrior," which ship, according to the statement
made by Lord Clarence Paget„ secretary to the Admiralty, in the
House of Commons, cost 367,000/.* In many countries the total
expenditure upon the navy is less than the sum required for a single
one of these ships. Add to this, that the least estimate for redemp-
tion of capital, maintenance, repairs, 8cc., is 20 per cent, on the cost ;
consider, again, that the '* Warrior " cannot steam even in fine
weather at a less expense than 21s. to 30«. for each league

• The * Gloire ' cost only 188,000/. ; but it is right to add that she
carries 86 guns instead of 40, and the engines are of 900 horse power
instead of 1,260.

176 Xavier BaymoDd an the Navies of July*

run. Now these armour-plated ships, haying entered into our line of
battle, how many second-rate navies which once played an honour-
able, even glorious, part now find themselves distanced by the mere
question of finance ? Treating the question from the other side, we
arrive at a similar but more unfavourable result for the secondary
Powers. At the commencement of this century England had to fit
out a great fieet to reduce Copenhagen. How many armour-plated
frigates would be required now-a-days to produce fully as much efiTect
as the great fleet of Nelson and Sir Hyde Parker ? Would not two
be enough, and three perhaps too many ? And let it not be thought
that, by devoting all the money spent upon her navy to building iron-
cased frigatefi, Denmark could nt least retain her ancient position ; it
would not be so : the fortifications which contributed to her defence
in 1801 have lost nearly all their value against iron-cased ships.'
(Pp. 370-3.)

M. Raymond observes, that while without a large budget
there cannot be a naval Power, yet, though money be an essen-
tial point, it is not the only one: Uhere cannot be a naval
* Power without extensive trade.' Formerly, he observes, the
strength of a naval Power consisted in the supplies which had
been accumulated in the naval arsenals, and this partly because
the insufficient means of transport rendered such previous ac-
cumulations necessary. Of this difficulty M. Kaymond gives
some striking instances, but railways have altered matters.
It would be cheaper and easier, now that there is a continuous
line of railway from St. Petersburgh to Toulon, Kochefort and
Cherbourg, to draw timber for masts from Russia, than it was
under the empire to draw them from the Vosges or from Switzer-
land ; but, further. It was only in the naval arsenals formerly
that any of the larger articles used in the navy could be made.

' Now, the largest anchors, the most powerful engines, and iron
armour plates are made in the private establishments of France, and
still more in those of England. These foundries which make the
large cjlinders, the ponderous shafts for engines of 1,000 horse
power, would make light work of cannon of the largest calibres, of
anchors,' &c.

The increased consumption of i^'on, M. Raymond truly says,
adds another tie between the navy and the manufacturer, of which
Russia had a proof when her army, in spite of numbers and
valour, was overwhelmed bv the immense material which the
workshops of England and France vomited forth from so far
and so fast against her. It must, M. Raymond says, have
embittered the last moments of the emperor Nicholas, who
disliked the commercial classes for their liberalism, and was fond
of calling them those ^ perruquiers,' to know how large a share
they had in his humiliation.

1

1868. Frandlb and England. 177

M. Baymond expects that the chief charaoteristio of every
fiitare contest will be the inexhaustible supply of all the
material of war which private industry will furnish to the belli-
gerents, and the strength and suddenness of the blows which
with such aid may be struck. The supplies sent to the Allies
in the Crimean war, contrasted with the supplies so painfully
drawn by Russia, give some notion of this, and the campaign
of Italy in 1859 no less so* In all the military operations of
the Second Empire^ the French navy has taken a distinguished

Grt: and in none more than in the present campaign in
exico, in which 50,000 men have been thrown across
the Atlantic and supported in a hostile country by French
ships of war. Steam, he considers upon these grounds,
has added to the naval strength of England ; and although her
line-of-battle ships, which lately outnumbered the combined
navies of the world, have been superseded by iron-clarls, of
which France, having got the start, now possesses an equal
number, ^ who can doubt that the same causes which had pro-
< duced so great a disproportion in the number of line-of-battle

* ships, will operate with equal strength in very shortly bringing

* about the same results in armour-c^sed ships ? ' (P. 389.)

As to steam-power, then, M. Baymond differs altogether
firom those who say * it will re-establish an equality at sea ; and
' though as to armour-cased ships, which, having, so to speak, no

* masts, will present themselves in battle as bare as pontoons, it is

* undeniable that we do not require as much as our predecessors

* did those picked men, those topmen, who were the type of the

* sailor in former days,' still, M. Baymond thinks a special
class of seamen will not the less be required, and that the im-
proved engines both of locomotion and destruction, the rapidity
and power of evolution in modem ships, demand no less skill,
experience, discipline, and courage than was needed of old. It
may be observed here that the great extension of French com-
merce is assumed to have given France the second place among
maritime Powers.

Two incidental remarks of M. Baymond, while treating upon
thb subject, will strike the naval reader. In reference to the
enormous range of modem artillery, he speaks of 1,200 metres
(1,312 yards) as the 'normal regulation distance' for engaging
in former times. If there had been any regulation upon the
subject in our navy, a nearer approach than three quarters of a
milje would certainly have been commanded. Upon the power
of evolution possessed by steam fleets, it is said by M. Bay-
mond that even Admiral Hugon, who * had a special repu-
' tation for his daring and able evolutions^ when he directed the

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLI. N

178 Xavier Raymond &n ike Navies of Jnljj

* movemeiits <^ the Mediterranean squadron, would never, not-

* withstanding all his energy and ability, have dreamed of doing
' a number of things which are considered mere amusements in
' the present day. But these things can only be done because
' our officers apply themselves to the duties of their jn^fession
' with no less vigilance and activity, with no less skill and ex-

* perience, than their predecessors. Whatever may be done, the

* efficiency of ships will always be in proportion to the talents

* and other qualities of the seamen on board of them.' (P. 395.)

The ' daring manoeuvres ' of Admiral Hugon here referred
to, included the difficult and tiding practice of manoeuvring in
the closest order, a thing never attempted in our squadrons. It
seems from the above extract, and still more from another
passage, at p. 394., that the French fleet of the present day greatly
excels that of their celebrated * Squadron of Evolutions ' in the
power of executing rapid manoeuvres in the closest order,

* shoulder to shoulder, like infantry.' Our officers will do well
to note these facts, for although the more homogeneous nature of
a French fleet giving more uniform speed to the ships must
facilitate their movements, something also must be attributed
to assiduous practice, 'and probably to the French naval admi-
nistration having devised a system of naval tactics adapted to
steam.

It would be unjust to M. Raymond, whose strictures upon
our navy we have quoted, and shall have to quote, were we not
to ^ow that he can praise in as honest a spirit as he can blam^,
and no doubt with more satisfaction. It may be observed, too,
that while the objects of his praises are essential features in our
national life, his blame is principally bestowed upon a depart-
ment in no very high favour among ourselves — our naval adminis-
tration. M. Raymond must not imagine that the English,
generally speaking, are 'touchy' on that point, for most of us
could listen with considerable equanimity to any strictures
upon our Admiralty system. There is nothing offensive in
M. Raymond's censures on this subject, for they clearly ema-
nate from goodwill rather than enmity to this country, and have
nothing personal in them. It was necessary to the view he had
taken of the English and French navies to explain why our
apparent inferiority on several points, and various occasions since
1815, does not really imply the decrepitude which some French
writers suppose. It is not every Frenchman that would search
out the hidden causes of a rival's inferiority when a more obvious
and agreeable solution offered itself; but M. Raymond is a
sincere lover of English liberty, and a believer in those prin-
dples of which he had seen the good results among us. Hence

1863. France and England. 179

he IB unwilling to admit that tbe defects of a single department
eho«ild be alleged in proof of degeneracy in that country where>
if anywhere, we must look for the advantages of self-govern-
ment. As a Frenchman also deeply interested in the maritime
developement of France, he sees danger in underrating the naval
strength. of England. In his opinion the facts to be accounted
for can be satisfactorily explained by supposing a badly-
organised administration of our navy. He had seen British
fleets inferior to French fleets in the ships comprising them, in
their internal organisation, in their efficient performance of
certain duties (see pp. 81-2., 94-9.,* 103-14., &c), and even
in their discipUne (p. 413.), for French eyes were not shut
to the discreditable mutinies of late years. He had seen
us since then building ships of a class wisely discarded by
France, and twice in three years giving her a dangerous aa-
vantage. In short, he had seen brilliant success follow the
efforts of his own country to revive their navy, while the results
of much larger naval estimates in England were, to say the
least, very unsatisfactory. With a laudable industry, and not
less praiseworthy freedom from prejudice, the author of * Les
* Marines de la France et de I'Angleterre ' traces these facts to
their cause ; and if we reject his theory, we must adopt one far
more mortifying to our national pride. It is to be remarked,
too, that the same chapter which most strongly condemns our
Admiralty system, contains also the most flattering proofs of
sincere r^ard for those qualities which constitute our national
greatness. Nor does tluit writer confound the system itself
with those who administer it — if he did so, he would find few
Englishmen who concurred with him in decrying the merits of
the nobleman who now presides over the Admiralty, and the
many distinguished officers who have bad seats at that Board.

We may, in proof of this view, quote M. Raymond's
concluding remarks upon the constitution of the Admiralty,
notwithstanding the merits of those who compose it : —

* We cannot accept tbe accuracy of M. Raymond's assertion as to
'certain violence' used by tbe French Admiral to drag his English col-
league beforp Cronstadt without some proof; the anecdote mu«t be of
French origin, and both the officers concerned have now passed away
from among us. But although the appointment of Sir Charles
Napier, when time and gout were well known to have impaired his
nerve, was injudicious, the French Admiral was not their best officer.
At least, such was the opinion of the distinguished French Grenertd
employed in the Bahic, who, in reply to the Fmperors question
about the allied Admirals, is reported to have answered : ' Sire, they
' were two old women, but otfri was at least a lady.'

180 Xavier Raymond on the Navies of July 9

* It 18 an inert indolent body gifted with inordinate powers of con-
sumption, and with productive faculties proportionately small ; it is
condemned by its very constitution to improvidence and surprises,
and, in short, possesses very little capacity for keeping its afiairs in
order. One remarkable fact among the many may be cited that would
justify this opinion ; namely, that with estimates frequently double the
amount of ours, the English navy, administered as it is by the Admi-
ralty, has not for the last fifty years given in material produce (ships)
much greater results than we have derived from our Ministry of
Marine,' (P. 411.)

Elsewhere, M. Raymond, looking at the constitution of a
Board of Admiralty, calls it ^ the least rational constitution of
' an administrative body which exists in any country * (p. 399.);
and tells us, at p. 403., that it is * one of the most singular insti-
* tutions in the world, and the most fatally condemned to con-
' sume immense resources in producing comparatively trifling
< resolts.'

So far then as the results actually obtained or theoretically to
be expected from a governing body wanting in unity and re-
sponsibility, M. Raymond, as we have seen, thinks very un-
favourably of them. But the Admiralty is not England, he
tells us : we need only turn to the activity, intelligence, and
progress of our commercial marine in private builders to see
where England's strength lies. Of this he gives us instances,
when — ;

* The English, feeling dissatisfied with the part tliey had played in
the Crimea,proposed to take their revenge in the Baltic. They wished
to destroy Cronstadt, which they had had leisure to study during
the two preceding campaigns. Whether their plan was good or bad
we need not discuss here, but they conceived the idea of crushing or
burning it under a shower of projectiles thrown from small craft,
gunboats, and mortar vessels, to be built for that special service. For
the construction of these small vesseb recourse was had to private
builders, and, amongst others, to the celebrated builder Mr. Laird,
M.P. for Birkenhead, where his building yard is situated on the
Mersey, opposite LiverpooL It was the 25th of October when the plan
of the first gunboat reached him, and when consequently he could only
begin his work. On the 11 th of the next November, the gunboat, fully
fitted except her engine, entered Portsmouth under sail. We don't
know the tonnage of this vessel, but for the reader's information we may
mention that these gunboats were of several classes, from 212 to 8^
tons each : she must, therefore, have been above 200 tons. After
giving this proof of activity, Mr. Laird sij^ned a contract with the
Government authorising him to build on plans supplied to him, and
at prices agreed on, as many gunboats as possible until the day when
notice should be given of terminating the contract. The Govern-
ment on its part engaged to take until the contract was fulfilled

1863. France and England. 181

whatever there should he in the jard. On this understanding
Mr. Laird organised his works, where they laboured daj and night
with such effect that, when he received the order to stop work, he
was delivering one vessel daily, to Grovernment/ (P. 419.)

Extraordinary as was this feat of private enterprise, we are
told that Messrs. Penn, of Greenwich, equalled it in the
conetractlon of the engines, turning out eighty between De-
cember and April, and thus enabling us to make the great
Spithead demonstration in that month.

At this demonstration M. Raymond was present, and says : —

' We saw there 60 bomb vessels, all ready for service, 140 steam
gunboats, completely armed, rigged, and stored, sailing, mancsuvring
and firing before 100,000 spectators. This was the creation of the last
winter ; it was the vanguard of the fleet which already possessed im-
posing reserves, and which could easily have been doubled within the
year. It was also a great lesson to the world, which Lord Palmerston
summed up in a significant sentence, when, on the following 8th of
May, he said in the House of Commons, '* We began the war (Feb.
^ 1854) with 212 ships in commission, we had at its close (in March
*« 1856) 590." ' (Pp. 419-21.)

Of our resources in seamen, M. Kaymond says —

' The power of England displays itself in figures no less eloquent
than those which we have cited : she does not possess statistics as well
arranged or accurate as are ours, but everyone agrees that, exclusive
of 80,000 men which she maintains under the flng of her royal navy,
the merchant service of England employs 230,000 men at least,
in what we call long sea voyages and the coasting trade ; and if she
applied to all her population who live by the sea the laws of our
'* Inscription Maritime," she might include in it, counting the small
<M>asting trade, fishermen, boatmen, workmen in the public and private
dockyards, 700,000 or even 800,000 men. This would be sa3ring
everything ; and yet, to be just, we must add that the quality corre-
sponds to the quantity. Let not the blunders of the Admiralty lead
us to think that maritime genius has abandoned the English. They
follow maritime pursuits with an energy and with talent which may
well compare with those of former times, and which have even, per-
haps, developed themselves in our days with a grandeur never before
witnessed.' (ibid)

Of the number, size, and excellence of our merchant ship-
ping— of the enterprise of our merchants, and the public spirit
which encourages all great experiments in ship-building — M.
Kaymond speaks almost with enthusiasm, adding : —

' The sea is especially the national business of Englishmen ; it is the
focus towards which all the ardour of a patriotism vivified by the
pure and wholesome spirit of liberty converges : this is not the least
cause of her power. The superiority which England possesses

182 .Xavier Bajmiond mt the Navies of Svlj,

*

fitianciftllj, her means of material production, and the numb^ of her
maritime population, are also but small matters in our eyes, compared
with the moral force imparted to her as the most free and united
nation in the world.'

From this view of our national unity even our aristocracy is
not allowed to detract. But we have only room for one more
extract, which deserves attention, as showing the writer can
honestly applaud a patriotic feeling in England, even when
originating in suspicions of France. After alluding to the co-
operation of all classes in the cotton distress —

' And at the same time with these occurrences in Manchester and
Lancashire, what has been called the Volunteer Movement follows its
steady developement. The motives which determined this national
arming do not appear to us well founded — in our eyes the alarm was
imaginary ; it is not the less true that we should be impressed with
the sincerity and ardour of that patriotism which arms itself even to
resist chimeras.'

He adds that there are very few countries where an army of
170,000 men so formed would be safe or would be trusted.

The French writer who can express himself thus upon such
topics may well be allowed to criticise some of our institutions.
If we think his strictures of our Admiralty system rather too
harsh, we must remember that that department enjoys little
credit abroad, and has. not been in good repute at home; that
the faults of its constitution, in theory at least, are undeniable,
and have not been redeemed by good results in practice. But if
M. Raymond condemns our naval administration, and thinks it
has obtained less favourable results than the French Ministry
of Marine, he is no bigoted admirer of the latter. He stronglv
condemns a French institution which certainly gives much
present strength to their navy, though possibly at the expense
of its future welfare. The Inscription Maritime is declared to
be a grievous hardship and injustice to the French maritime
population; and as it compels the whole of that class of the
nation to serve for a portion of their lives on board the ships of
the State, it evidently imposes on them a burden far exceed-
ing that of the military conscription, and therefore tends to
dnve them to seek other modes of gaining a livelihood.

It is time, however, to turn to the important and interesting
subject of those iron-clads, which have taken the place of our
wooden walls. Upon the relative value of this new force our
future place in the scfile of nations must greatly depend ; and
very lately we were behind our French rivals in the race, The
writer whom we have quoted seems to think that, judging from

1863. France and R^and. * 183

pA8t administratiTe failures, our new ehipe themselyes must par-
take of the same character as our systems. But here^ possibly^
the French strictly logical turn of mind may carry him too far.
We may admit, indeed, that, as M. Raymond asserts, we produced
(in the ' Warrior ') a horse too Ing for our stables (p. 147.), and
that want of adequate dock accommodation is one of our. official
oversights ; but the building of a ship once decided upon, her
construction passes out of the hands of the Admiralty proper
into the Controller's department ; and it is only justice to the
present First Lord to say that in Admiral Robinson he has
made a most judicious and happy selection. It is true that the
Controller is not a naval architect of world-wide reputation,
like M. Dupuy de L6me ; but it is also true that no English-
man is more capable of appreciating M» de Lome's genius, or
admiring its wonderful results. That we have no such great
light of naval architecture in England may be the result of
administrative error, f<»r we deliberately abolidied, in 1832, the
only school of the science we possessed. Our unscientific ship-
building during many years cost us vast sums of money and
many ludicrous failures. The reason assigned by Sir Jam^
Graham for abolishing the School of Naval Architecture was
that it had not produced satisfiEU^tory results — a good reason,
perhaps, for imiMX>ving it. Our experience of the opposite

2 stem has not been more favourable, and we sincerely hope
at the Duke of Somerset will restore the institution.

But while giving the honour justly due to M. de Ldme,
who struck out a new line and led the way, we are able to
show that we have ndther been idle nor unsuccessful in the
reconstruction of the* navy. It was no light or unimportant
task, for while its most successful execution involved the expen-
diture of many millions, failure would have been alike dis-
creditable, wasteful, and dangerous. An impartial review of
what has been done in both countries will show that, if the
initiative was taken by France, we have neither servilely imi-
tated her, nor yet run too rashly into untried experiments.

In 1861 we were far behind in the race: where are we now?
Our iron-plated fleet is confessedly experimental, but it contains
the germs of each system whidi has been proposed upon any
competent authority. We have broadside-armed ships properly
60 called, others concentrating their broadside guns within a
portion of their space amidships. We have ' shield ' or cupoia
ships, with one or more turrets or cupolas ; and, lastly, we have
lighter, partially armed ships for distant foreign service. Any
or none of these may prove the best type, but we are ready for
making the experiment

184 * Xavier Baymond an the Navies of July,

As it is necessary to choose some period as a point of de-
parture in our comparison, let us see how matters stood in
February 1861. We had then building, or contracted for, in
private yards six iron vessels to be partially plated. These
were the * Warrior * and * Black Prince,' contracted for in May
and October 1859 ; the ' Defence' and ' Besistance,' contract^
for in December 1859; and the 'Hector' and 'Valiant,' in
January 1861. The 'Warrior' had been recently launched,
and was completing her fittings afloat, and she was the most
advanced ship of the six. The ' Black Prince ' was launched
in February 1861, but in a very incomplete state. There was
evidently no hope that more than one of these six could be got
to sea within the year ; and it was probable that it would be
late in the following year before the ' Black Prince,' ' Besist-
'ance,' and 'Defence' would be ready for sea, and that the
year would elapse before the ' Hector * and ' Valiant ' would be
available for service afloat. Let us now say a few words as to
the progress of ship-building in France at the same date.

France had preparing or prepared sixteen ships, which, for the
sake of distinction, may be called ships of the line^ inasmuch as,
though very different from our old line-of-battle ships, they are
yet the ships which would now form the line of battle, and by
which a fleet action or general naval engagement must be fought.
This fleet is to be composed as follows : — Twelve ships of wood,
armour-plated throughout ; that is, carrying 30 guns on a single
deck, protected from end to end by armour-plates ; of immense
scantling, laige stowage, and a speed which, judging from those
that have been tried, is not less than 12^ knots when at their
deepest immersion. These are the —

Gloire,

Province,

Guyenne,

Normandie,

Revanche,

Valeureuse,

Invincible,

Gauloise,

Surveillante,

Savoie,

Magoanime,

Flandres.

Two, the ' Couronne' and ' Heroine,' are similarly armed and
similarly protected as to their batteries ; the combination, how-
ever, of the iron hull with the armour-plating, and its backing,
differed considerably from what we have adopted in England,
and is probably no improvement upon it. Of these vessels,
however, only four are as yet at sea, and the greater number
are far from completion.

Two other ships, the ' Magenta ' and ^ Solferino,' are, as b well
known, on quite a different system. These two iron-clads are real
two-deckers, armour-cased for a certain portion of their length.

1863. France and England. 185

bat leaying the extremities above the lower deck battery entirely
unprotected. They carry in their two batteries 50 guns, pro-
tected, and have realised a cfpeed of upwards of 13 knots under
favourable circumstances.

.^.Thus the line-of-battle force of France, prepared or pre-
paring, was of a very homogeneous character ; the ships com-
posing it being, except the two last-named, nearly of the same
dimensions, horse power and armament, capable of bringing
into action, when completed, 520 guns protected by armour
plating. From this recapitulation everything but the line-of-
battle force has been excluded. The floating batteries which
either Power possessed form another part of the history of our
iron-clads.

Thus, in March 1861, we stood in relative numbers, prepared
and preparing, six to sixteen. The odds were large ; nor could
we hope that the individual superiority of the English ships
might have redressed the balance. Let us fairly and impartially
examine where that superiority existed, and compare the ships
of the two rival Powers, first singly, and then collectively as a
fleet.

The * Warrior' was our first creation. The * Gloire' has the
honour of being the first iron-dad sea-going ship, not only of
France, but of the world. What advantage has one over the
other ?

The * Warrior ' is built of iron, is as a whole very much
stronger and more rigid, to a certain extent less inflammable,
has greater speed (when at her best, with a clean bottom) by
more than a knot and a half per hour, carries her battery three
feet six inches higher out of the water than her rival, will be
much more durable as a whole, has much more fighting space
between her guns, and her sides, where protected by armour-
plating, will probably resist shot better than the ^ Gloire,' sup-
posing that the armour plates of each ship are of equal quality.
The * Gloire,' on the other hand, built of wood, carries 30 guns
protected by armour-plates, against her rival's 26 ; her armour-
plates surround every portion of her structure, and defend her
steering gear and her rudder. Both extremities of the * Warrior'
are exposed above and below the water, and she trusts to water-
tight decks and compartments for safety, should these unde-
fended extremities be shattered by shot

The * Gloire ' has facilities for manoeuvring not possessed by
the ^Warrior;' she can turn completely round the circle in
something over six, the * Warrior ' in something over eight,
minutes. The ^ Gloire ' is so lightly rigged that her masts,
&C., can be no danger to her in action; the ^ Warrior ' has the

186 Xayier Baymond mi the Navies of Jtil7»

dpnrs and wis of an old 90^n ship. The ' Gloire ' i0 about
255 feet long at the water line ; the * Warrior ' 380. The
' Warrior ' can cruise under sail^ and keep a position off a ^ven
point better than the ^ Gloire/ We may hope that both caen
keep off the rocks ; but if such a misfortune as grounding on
a rocky bed befel either of them, the damage to the thin platea
of the * Warrior's' bottom would imperil the-ship, in spite of
water-tight bulkheads and compartments, more seriously than
any ordinary thumping and grinding would affect the mass of
solid timber forming the bottom of die ' Gloire.'

Setting, therefore, impartially the advantages of one ship
against that of the other, supposing the artillery and the crews
to be of equal quality , on whose side would be the superiority
on the day of battle? Sanguine Englishmen, looking to the
' Warrior's' admitted advantages-— speed, height of ports, more
roomy decks, more invulnerable sides (where defended), and
the less inflammable nature of the materials of which she is-
composed — will back her as the winner ; they will make light
of the superiority in number of protected guns, of the wholly
protected ship, of the defended rudder, of the facility for turn-
ing, of the immunity from falling qpars, and greater safety
therefore of the screw from fouling, possessed by the * Gloire.'
There are not wanting others whose convictions would be
entirely the other way. Perhaps, however, it is but wise to
admit that such a duel as has been supposed offers certain
chances to each anti^onlst, and that the result could not be
foreseen. And if we adopt this view as a safe middle course
between opposite opinions, ' what,' it may be asked, ' has Eng-
' land got in return for the nesu^ly double expense of the ** War-
* rior," as superiority in combat is, after all, the true test of
'value?' We should reply that, assuming equal chances of
victory, there will still remain to the * Warner's ' credit greater
durability, and the power of adapting such heavier ordnance as
the progress of artillery may require. A smaller ship would
not have this power. But still we suspect that the * Warrior '
would not have emanated from the office of the present Con-
troller of the Navy.

If, however, the * Warrior ' and * Black Prince ' could engage
the * Gloire ' and her consorts on equal terms — ^in the opinion of
some persons with manifest advantage — ship to ship — the
same could not be said of the ^ Resistance ' and * Defence : '
14 guns under the protection of armour-^pIates could not
be a match for 30. The superior speed in this case would
be on the side of the French ; tiie difference in the height of
battery would still be in favour of the English ships, bat

186S. Premce €tnd England. 187

eveiT other disadvantage mentioned in die 'Warrior's' case
would be fonnd in these ships also.

In the spring of 1861 , both nations looked forward to baring
by the close of 1862 two more iron-dads at sea — ^the * Hector'
and * Valiant ' on onr side, the * Magenta ' and * Solferino ' in
France. Had our hopes been realised, we should have had
a reinforcement to our iron«cIad fleet of 64 guns wholly
protected, to match the * Magenta ' and * Solferino's ' 100.
Our ships exposed at their extremities at and below the water
line, theirs defended by armour at and below die water line,
but exposed to destruction by shells and other projectiles
above the lower deck battery. Our two ships of iron, theirs
of wood ; greater speed on their side, but more danger of de-
struction from fire than on ours. Singly the ' Magenta ' and

* Solferino' were at least equal to the * Warrior,' * Black Prince,'

* Hector ' or * Valiant,' and unquestionably superior to the
' Defence ' or the * Resistance ; * collectively the six ships of
France would have been more than a match for the six ships of
England, for the total number of protected guns on their side
would have been 220, on ours 144.

In thus recapitulating what were the prospects of our iron-
dad fleet at Ihe commencement of 1861, it is but right to
mention that in the autumn of 1860 it had been intended to
construct a similar ship to the * Warrior ' (the * Achilles '), at
Chatham, in the dockyard ; designs were prepared for this
purpose, but owing to circumstances not necessary to refer to
in this paper that intention was in abeyance ; in fact, not even

* the one horizontal and three vertical bars of iron doing duty
' for H.M.S. ^ Achilles," ' with which the daily press amused the
public, were then in existence.

This being our state in the spring of 1861, and our prospects
for the next two years being such as we have described, it
was evident that a most serious efibrt was necessary to place
us simply on an equality with the most powerfol nation in
Europe. It was patent to everybody that we were not equal
to France in that arm by whidi a battle at sea was * to be
dedded ; and it was resolved by all that that inequality should
'disappear as rapidly as circumstances would permit.

Great efibrts were made to hasten the completion of the
iron ships then in hand ; but it soon became evident that, for
from getting the ships under construction by private firms
sooner than had been anticipated, the time for their delivery
would be greatly exceeded. The contractors pointed out that
the nature and quality of the woi^ were of such a superior
standard of excellence that they could hardly get it done, and

188 Xavier Baymond on tlie Nadies of Joly^

that the cost of this superior work was ruining them. They
one and all declared that iron of the required quality was not
to be had. Few manufacturers of iron-plates could be found
who could make armour-plates capable of standing the test of
shot ; and though trusting in the enterprising spirit of private
firms overcoming many of these difficulties, the Government
clearly foresaw that long delays and many disappointments
must attend such novel and difficult constructions, and that the
painful consciousness of being manifestly inferior to our power-
ful rival at sea must be removed by some other and additional
means.

Eight line-of-batde-ships of the largest class and newest
design were then in the course of construction in the different
public yards, some more, some less advanced. The timber for
these ships was provided, and tolerably well seasoned; their
construction had been commenced in 1858 and 1859^ and had
been proceeded with as opportunities offered until this time.
The further progress of these ships, as originally designed, was
at once stopped ; and it was resolved to adapt them for armour-
plated single-decked ships of the ^ Gloire's ' class as rapidly as
possible. This measure was adopted to cause as little ex-
pense as possible, and, above all, to lose no time in procuring
a powerful addition to the armour-clad navy of England.
It never was supposed that the ships designed for one purpose
could be as efficient for another, and tottdly different, purpose
as if originally designed for it. But here we had the means
under our own hands of employing a mass of material useless
in its then shape, to construct a most powerful warlike weapon,
not so good, perhaps, as one forged and made for the express
purpose, but still of great value, at little expense, and without
loss of time.

Five of these partially-built ships were accordingly selected
to be turned into armour-plated ships. Notwithstanding the
jokes of the Secretary of the Admiralty, surgical operations
were performed upon them: they were sawn in two, and
lengthened to give them the necessary flotation for the increased
weights they had to carry ; they were immensely strengthened.
Iron was freely used whenever it was necessary to give in-
creased rigidity ; armour-plates were ordered for them. Such
alterations in their bows and sterns as were doubly necessary
to enable them to carry their batteries completely protected,
were undertaken, and preparations were thus made for an
addition of five wooden armour-plated ships to the six iron
ships constructed, and in the course of construction. This
reinforcement, being in the hands of the Government, could be

1863. France and England. 189

accelerated or retarded as circumstances rendered necessary.
Increased activity on the other side of the water could be met
by greater efforts on this^ and abated activity there would give
us more time for deliberation. Our Grovemment did not relax
in its intention to place the armour-clad fleet of England on an
equality with that of France ; but it did not for that purpose
interrupt all other work, as it might have done : it kept its
resources well in hand, prepared to accelerate its pace when-
ever the necessity for so doing became apparent. All these
ships could have been launched in August 1862^ and fitted for
sea before the end of the year. The only difficulty — and it is
one which energy and a large expenditure of money could
have overcome — would have been procuring armour-plates of
the best quality ; but this, though an admitted difficulty, would
have been overcome if necessary.

It is as well, before going further, to say a word as to the
qualities of these five ships. The principal features of their
construction are, that they are armour-plated from end to end,
that they carry 34 guns under armour on their main deck
battery, that their rudder and steeri^ig gear are carefully pro-
tected, their bows and structure generallv as much strengthened
as their flotation would allow; that their speed will be be-
tween 12 and 13 knots, their rig very much lighter than the
' Warrior's,' though heavier than the French ships; their battery
higher out of the water, and their guns further apart than- the
French ships; their powers of resisting shot, supposing the
armour-plates of both to be equally good, somewhat less than
the * Warrior's,' and about equal to the * Gloire's.*

These ships are the first English ships armour-plated from
end to end, and wholly protected, which have been constructed :
their behaviour at sea will be anxiously watched, for none of our
iron ships have yet been subjected to the severe strain of carry-
ing armour-plates at their extremities. The * Gloire,' indeed, a
wooden ship, has passed through some severe trials in the Gulf
of Lyons, and the ^ Normandie,' also armour-plated from end to
end, has crossed the Atlantic and done service in the Gulf of
Mexico ; but a winter cruise in the North Atlantic will be a
severer test of the power of wooden ships to carry heavy armour.
Neither the * Gloire' nor the *Normandie,' however, have
shown any symptoms of weakness up to this time ; nor have the
partially armour^ased iron ships which we have^sent to sea.

The necessary preparations for altering these ships were
completed in the beginning of June, and they were commenced
early in that month. The preparations which had been inter-
rupted at Chatham for building the ' Achilles ' of iron were

190 Xflvier Raymond ou the Navies of ^vlj,

resumed : a new design was prepared to give the ship increased
flotation, and in August the building of this new iron*clad ship
in our dockyard was put in hand. The miun features of the
design were those of the ' Warrior,' with modifications of im-
portance at the bow and stem.

Meanwhile plans for building three additional iron ships to be
armour-plated were under consideration. It was wished to avoid
the exposed extremities of the ^ Warrior ' and ' Black Prince,'
and to retain. the maximum of speed obtained or expected in
these ships. To enable the new ships to carry the additional
weight of armour required to protect them from stem to stem,
(upwards of 800 tons\ and still to retain the extreme speed which
was expected from the lighter ships, was a difficult problem to
solve. Large as was the ^ Warrior,' serious as were, the diffi*
culties as to docks and harbours involved in that great size,
manifold as were the disadvantages attending manoeuvring in
ships of the ' Warrior's ' length, it was necessary still further to
enlarge the new design. The plan proposed, and ultimately
decided on, was that of a ship 400 feet in length, of increased
sectional area and greatei;, horse power, to meet these require-
ments. These three ships, the ^ Minotaur,' ' Northumberland '
and ^ Agincourt,' were to be built in private yards ; and earlv in
September the contracts were s^ed, and the work upon them
begun.

This then was the state of our iron-dad fleet present and
prospective, so far as r^arded ships which we may call ships of
the line, in the middle of 1861. We expected on the 1st ol
January 1863 to find ourselves with six iron armour-clad ships
ready for sea, furnished to us by private builders, and with five
wooden ships, armour-plated, bmlt in our own dockyards. One
iron ship, armour-plated, the ^ Achilles,' which should have been
three quarters built in our dockyards at Chatham, and three
iron ships, which should also have been three quarters built by
private companies, represented the progress we had a right to
expect, in addition to what has already been referred ta But,
in fact, the progress of the French iron-dads did not demand
extraordinary haste in completing our own.

The two iron ships contracted for in January 1861 were not
delivered, both were many months behind the time agreed upon ;
onlv half the amount of work which had been calculated on
haa been accomplished on the three iron ships ordered in Sep-
tember 1861 ; and the 'Achilles,' building in the Government
yard at Chatham, had not advanced towards completion with any-
thing like the rapidity originally contemplated. In the month
of January 1863 England had, however, four iron-dad iron ships

1863. France and Emgland. 191

actually at sea ; France had the same number of wooden sbips^
armour-clad, in commission ready for service, and two more
nearly ready for sea : England had also one wooden armour-clad
ship about to go to sea, and one iron armourKslad sliip nearly
ready. In addition to this prospectiTe reinforcement, England
had two wooden armour-cased ships, which could be completed
sooner than the most advanced iron-cased ships of France not yet
launched. Thus, in the number of iron-clad ships of the line
ready for hostilities, there is practically no great difference
between the two navies at present, though as much can hardly
be sud for their equality in other respects.

From what has preceded, it will appear that the whole of our
iron-dad navy originated in 1861 and in the two years preceding.
And this date has a most important bearing on all that has l)een
said of the quality, powers of resistance and of offence of these
ships in two ways: First, the ships were designed to resist the
powers of artillery as known at that time ; Secondly, they were
dengned to supply an immediate want, which events might at
any mcnnent invest with an urgency anid importanee not easy to
exMgerate.

When these ships were designed the artillery to be resisted
consbted of spherical cast-iron shot and shell — the most
effective of the former being the 68-lb. shot, and of the latter
the 8 and 10-inch shells, fired from smooth-bored cast-iron
guns. Sir W. Armstrong was, it is true, making rapid progress
with wrought-iron rifled guns ; the 40-pounders were recognised
as valuable guns, and began to be us^ in all our ships. His
100-pounder was under trial, and had so far succeeded that its
projectiles, consisting of 110-pounde^ and 120-pounder solid
wrought and cast-iron shot*, besides various kinds of shells
from the same gun, were also to be provided against ; and, indeed,
a very general opinion prevailed that these projectiles were far
more to be feared than any which could be discharged from a
smooth-bored gun of the old construction.

The French had made considerable progress in rifling their
cast-iron guns, which they strengthened and adapted for elon-
gated projectiles driven by very moderate charges of powder :
but at that time this artillery had not succeeaed in piercing
good iron plates of 4^inches thick, as has been done since.

Such experiments as had been made against iron plates

* As some readers may be pnzzled by the different weights of shot
thrown by the same gun, we may explain that the difference arises
from the more or less elongated form which may be given to the
projectile.

1 92 Xavier Baymond on the Navies of July,

fastened to the sides of wooden ships or representative taints
had established the invulnerability of an ordinary ship's side if
protected^ with good 4^inch plates against any known pro-
jectiles, and a special committee of officers charged to inquire
into the subject had ratified this opinion by a report dated
March 1860.

The Whitworth projectile had, it is true, shown greater powers
of penetration than those of the ordinary description ; but much
difficulty having been experienced in loading, and the gun
itself havine burst af^r a very few rounds, the ireneral con-
dusion arrived at ^as the following, from the report above
referred to : —

That vessels clothed in rolled iron plates of 4^-inch thickness
are to all practical purposes invulnerable against any projectile
that can at present be brought to bear against them at any
range.

The example of our precursors in armour-plating ships had
pointed in exactiy the same direction — ^viz., that 4^inch good
plates, with a thick wooden side behind them, constituted a suffi-
cient defence against ordinary guns, and a complete protection
agiunst shells, the infallible destroyers of any purely wooden
structure.

All the iron-clads therefore, six in number, designed prior to
the spring of 1861 were, as far as the armour-plating was con-
cerned, conceived on the same principle ; that is to say, 4^-inch
iron plates were applied against a strong backing of solid teak
18 inches thick outside the ribs and iron skin of the ship
proper, and, as will be shown subsequently, the protection
thus given was perfect against the power of ordinary gun&
But our authonties, not blind to the progress making by
artillery, nor to the necessity of thoroughly investigating the
nature and properties of iron plates, and the powers they pos-
sessed of resisting projectiles, named in January 1861 a com-
mittee of scientific and practical men, to inquire thoroughly
into the latter subject, and gave directions for such experiments
to be made by actual artillery practice as should tend to throw
light on the whole subject.

It is out of place here to give any history of the proceedings
of that committee, of the valuable additions to our knowledge
of the properties of iron which followed the elaborate experi-
ments they have ever since been engaged in making. It
will be sufficient to state that, on the 21st of October 1861,
a target representing a portion of the side of the * Warrior * was
fired at by the heaviest guns and largest charges of powder at
that time used both from smooth bore and from Sir W. Arm-

1863. France and England. 193

strong's rifled guns^ and that no shots penetrated through the
target. * The verdict had gone emphatically for the defendant/
as was observed by an eminent person who witnessed the awfud
pounding the target had received. This trial had established
two important points : firsts the practical invulnerability of the
six iron ships ordered up to January 1861, and of the ' Achilles,'
commenced in August 1861 ; secondly and incidentally, that
the Armstrong projectiles had proved, on the whole, no more
destructive to the armour-plates than the 68-lb. shot. The
five wooden ships ordered to be plated were sufficiently pro-
tected, inasmuch as 4^-inch^plates attached to ships' sides had
over and over again, at a distance of 200 yards, resisted the
penetration of 68-lb. shots, provided the plates were ordinarily
good.

There remained, however, the three ships ordered from private
builders in September 1861, whose armour-plating was on a
different principle, and the soundness of which was not tested by
this experiment. The experiments of the Iron Plate Committee
had led them to the conclusion, that up to a certain thickness
of plate, which appeared to be limited solely by the difficulty of
manufacturing very thick plates of as good quality as thinner
plates, the resistance to projectiles increased as the square
of the thickness. If, then, 5^inch plates of good quality
could be procured, it was certain that an equal amount of pro-
tection would be afforded to the ship with a smaller amount of
wood or even iron backing behind the armour-plate. It was in
every way desirable to dispense with as much wood behind the
armour-plate as possible, and so, by diminishing the absolute
thickness of the ship's side, to obtain important advantages in
working the guns of the ship, provided always the same amount of
invulnerability was maintained. The three ships above referred
to were designed therefore to carry S-^inch armour-plates over
9 inches of teak backing outside the skin and ribs of the ship
proper, instead of the arrangement adopted in the * "Warrior ; '
but as some uncertainty still prevailed as to whether good 5^-
inch plates could be manufactured, the Admiralty reserved to
themselves the power of reverting to the * Warrior/ system at
the end of three months from the date of signing the contract,
without incurring any additional charge from the contractor, if
subsequent experience should make such a course appear de-
sirable to them — the difficulty to be got over during the
interval being the proper manufacturing of 5^-inch plates. At a
later date the report of experiments carried on at Portsmouth
by Captain Hewlett agiunst 5i-inch plates was to the effect
that the indentation produced by shot on 5^inch plates was

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLI. O

194 Xavier Raymond on the Navies of Jwly^

shallower than on 4^inch plates, and the injury done to the
fibre less ; upon which grounds he suggested the adoption of
the thicker j^tes, with less backing. But after the memorable
victory of the ^ Warrior ' target over its assailant on the 21st of
Octofcler, 1861> two classes of men resolved to devote dieir
powers to reverse the triumph of what may be called the
defence: one class represented the iron interest^ waging im-
placable war against wood in all shapes ; the other represented
the powers of destruction embodied in the scientific and practical
artillerists of the day, who, stimulated by defeat, looked angrily
at the ' Warrior ' target, declaring ' Delenda est Carthago.'

The ^ iron men ' advocated iron backing to the armour-plating
denied the use of wood, exaggerated the evils and imperfections
of the mode of attaching armour-plates to the ship proper, and
were very wisely allowed to put their theories to the proof.
Three of the most ingenious and most confident amongst many
eminent ^ iron men ' were allowed to erect tai^ets at the public
expense, to represent what they considered the proper method of
constructing the armour-protected side of a ship, all three agreeing
on one point only, that nothing was so bad as wood or so good
as iron. These three parties were the Iron Plate Committee,
represented by Mr. Fairbaim and Mr. Samuda, an eminent
civil engineer and iron shipbuilder, and Mr. Scott Russell, also
an iron shipbuilder and naval architect of high reputation.
But while these able men were preparing their several designs,
the artillerists were not idle. A 300-pounder gun had been
constructed on Sir W. Armstrong's plan, and before the com-
pletion of the last-named experimental targets, this monster
stood grimly confronting them. It had been subjected to proofs
and experiments of no ordinary nature, the charge of powder
had be^ of exceptional magnitude, the initial velocities obtained
by the projectile startling to think of, and the chance of resisting
such blows as the iron plates would be exposed to small indeed.
The Committee's plan of a target had been tried on the 29^ of
June, 1861, and again with some modifications on the 4th of
March, 1862, without giving any results at all superior to the

* Warrior' plan. An improved plan by Mr. Fairbaim was
finally tried on the 8th of April, 1862 ; it represented iron upon
iron, and was a somewhat lighter construction, foot for foot, than
the * Warrior ' target : it also failed to show any superiority to
the original wood-backed tai^et.

On the 20th of May, 1862, a target (iron upon iron) designed
by Mr, Samuda, slightly heavier than an equal one of the

* Warrior's ' pattern, was brought under the fire not only of the
guns smooth-bored and rifled, used against the ' Warrior ' and

1863. France and England. ] 95

tbe Committee's target^ but of the formidaUe 300-poiinder,
the projectile bdng a soUd shot of 150 lbs., fired with 30 lbs. of
powder. The ordiaarj fire did more mischief to this target
than to the * Warrior's' — tiie extraordinary fire penetrated i^.

The third tai^t (iron npon iron), phumed by Mr. Scott
Bussell, nmch heavier than the ^Warrior's' target, asea for area,
was more completely ruined than the other t<u^ts, though the
penetration of the exceptional projectile was not so complete,
owing to the extra thiclmess of the iron backing to the armour-
plates ; and so far against ordinary projectiles the victory clearly
remained with the ^ Warrior ' target. But against this shattered
and sorely-tried * Warrior' it was resolved to bring the full
power of the new gun ; and four shots were fired at it, two with
40 lbs. of powder, and two with 50 lbs. The two first struck
close together ; and at the edge of two adjoining plates, the target
representing the ship's side was fairly peuetrat^ by the second
shot : the other two shots struck on portions of the side where
the structure was firmly supported by baulks of timber, and did
not penetrate the ship, though the contrary was affirmed at the
time. But though the target so far yielded to the unforeseen
power of the new and exceptional gun, its proved superiority
over its iron rivals vindicated the propriety of the course
followed in constructing the armour-plated ships, and established
still more firmly the advantage of a backing of wood. We
need not follow the progress of the artillerists, for it was evident
that they could build guns faster than anyone could build the
ships, and that if they could overcome the manufacturing diffi-
culties attending the making of such powerful ^ns, the verdict
of October 1861, for the defendant, must infallibly be reversed.

One other experiment, as bearing directly upon the ship-
building part of the question, must, however, be referred to.
It has been stated that in the three iron ships ordered in Sep-
tember 1861, acting upon such knowledge as was then possessed^
the thickness of the iron plates was increased from 4^ inches to
5^ inches, and that the wood-backing was decreased by the
weight equivalent to that additional inch of iron : that is to say,
from 18 inches to 9 inches. A target representing a section
of the ships so designed was fired at on the 7th of July, 1862.
It offered less resistance to the 150-lb. shot than the * Warrior'
target, but greater to the 68-lb. shot; on the fourth round,
however, the so-called 300-pounder burst, and it seemed as
if ship and gun had mutually destroyed each other.

It was only natural that a ship*s side designed to resist what
was known to be the power of 68 lbs. and 110-pounder guns in
1861, should be penetrated by a 150-lb. shot propelled by

196 Xavier Raymond on the Navies of July,

50 lbs. of powder^ and no disappointment should have been felt
at the result. But though the improved target was unable to
resist the 150-pounder, those who witnessed the experiments
felt no doubt that against such guns as it was originally intended
to resist, the 'Minotaur' target was an advance upon the
* Warrior,' and further advantage also was to be expected in the
improved manufacture of S^-inch plates, which would result
from mere practice.*

Thus, then, it may be assumed that, so far as our knowledge
of artillery and armour-plates then extended, and, we may add,
so far as the judgment of those whose attention had been
specially directed to the subject can be relied on, the course
pursued in preparing our iron-dad fleet in the year 1861 was
eminently judicious. It was guided by the experience carefully
obtained as to the power of artillery $ind resistance of iron
armour; the way was felt by careful experiments before
running into unnecessary expense ; private enterprise and in-
ventive power were extensively used, but without entirely
relying on those over whom Government could exercise no
effective control. A reserve of ships was wisely kept in our
own dockyards, to be hastened forward or delayed, as circum-
stances might require; and whatever may be said of these
converted Une-of-battle ships being inferior to iron-built ships
originally designed for iron-clads, by no other means could we
so speedily have attained an equality with our rivals. There
was also the great advantage, that the ships building in our own
yards could be altered and improved as experience might
suggest, without the evils attending every deviation from a
contract

It must not be forgotten that neither France nor England
made anything like the same progress with their iron-clad fleet
that was anticipated, or that either Power might have done had
all their energies been directed to this point alone. It is
enough to say that, such being the case, the efforts made
by the latter have been sufficient not only to keep pace with

• We have reason to believe that the progress of artillery in
France, under the able direction of Colonel Treuille de Beaolieu, is
at least equal to our own. The French are now trying a heavy
rifled cannon of twenty-two centimetres bore, weighing fourteen
tons, and throwing a 160 pound shot 6,000 yards with perfect accu-
racy. This enormous piece is provided with a revolving plat-
form, so arranged that a single gunner can direct and point it as
easily as a fowling-piece. The projectile can also be converted into
a shell loaded with eight pounds of powder. Guns of this calibre
are intended for the defence of the French coast.

1863. France and England. 197

the former, but to render it easy in future years to redress the
balance of inequality which has for some time existed. But
this is only one half the task that the administration of a nayal
Power like Great Britain had to perform. It had not only to
provide for a great naval action to be fought perhaps for its
existence, but to guard the national flag and colonial possessions
in every part of the world, and to protect a commerce of un-
equalled magnitude and importance. Supplementary to the
line-of-battle force which France and England were creating,
each Power was considering how its own ports might be secured
from hostile attacks by sea, and how best it could annoy and
disturb its neighbour's preparations in their own arsenals. For
each Power, then, floating batteries became a necessity — vessels
of great powers of offence and defence, not necessarily capable
of proceeding further to sea than a short trip across the narrow
waters of the Channel, or a coasting voyage in the waters of
the Mediterranean. In the preparation of such vessels France
was, in 1861, far ahead of us. In that year she had five
floating batteries built during the Crimean war, and reported as
being still in a good state, and fit for service.

Two smaller ones,' recently built, were receiving their engines
and armour-plating. Two more of the same class were on the
stocks building, and were ready for plating. Four others were
designed, though no progress had been made in their construc-
tion. There were, however, nine of these ships in actual
existence, besides some iron-clad gunboats in -course of pre-
paration, and exclusive of the four batteries designed but not
commenced. At this time England had afloat eight of these
batteries, constructed for the Crimean war. Four were of wood
and four of iron. Three out of the four wooden ones were in
so bad a state as to be unfit for service without large repairs ;
the fourth was in so rotten a state that she was taken to pieces
during the year. The four iron batteries might be considered
serviceable, but one was at Bermuda.

As it was evident that this inequality could not safely be
allowed to continue, and that preparations must be made
to replace the old not very efficient batteries by vessels
of a superior class, the attention of the Government was
called to the invention of a most ingenious and able naval
officer. Captain Cowper Coles, who had long turned his atten-
tion to placing heavy guns on a turn-table, and surrounding
them with a shield or cupola, armour-plated, and capable of re-
sisting the heaviest projectiles of the day. He had laboured
indefatigably at his invention, which had been for some
time under the consideration of the War Office, for it was

198 Xavier Raymond on tlu Navies of July,

equally adapted to a fixed fortification on land as to a moving
battery afloat In April 186 1, the Admiralty directed a Bhield,
originally intended for land defence, to be erected in one of tlie
floating batteries^ with a view of testing its capabilities by as-
certaining both the actual facilities for working and fighting a
gun so mounted and protected^ and its powers of resisting
the heaviest guns that could be brought against it. In August
the shield had resisted effectually such artillery as was then
ready for service, and it had also been ascertained that the gun
on its turn-table worked with the greatest ease, and was pointed
with remarkable rapidity.

Captain Coles, having thus established the principle of Ms
revolving shield or cupola, even in its imperfect state (for this
diield was not designed for a ship but for a fort), now proposed an
enlarged plan of cupola which should contain two 100-pounder
Armstrongs, then considered the most formidable artillery
known ; and it was resolved to make a trial of this shield with
the guns. A design was meanwhile in course of preparation for a
floating battery &at should carry six of these shields, armour-
plated from end to end, have considerable speed and not excessive
draught of water, to be built of iron, and to be for harbour and
coast defence. If upon further trial this invention should be
found to realise what was expected of it, a vessel so armed would
prove herself as a moving battery for smooth water superior to
everything afloat. Many unsuitable and impossible designs were
proposed with this object. The arrangements required were
novel and complicated, and considerable time was occupied in
perfecting them. A most favourable report of the trials of the
^eld at sea was received March 1862, and in the same month
the design above referred to was put in hand.

Captain Coles exhibited the greatest ingenuity in overcoming
all the difficulties of adapting a ship to carry these constructions,
and by his perseverance and the skill of the Constructor's
Department of the Admiralty, all obstacles were got over ; and
the * Prince Albert,' an iron ship, armour-plated all round up
to her deck, and at that time intended to carry six shields of
the same size, and armed in the same way as that which had
been so favourably reported on by Captain Hewlett, was con-
tracted for.

The original design has been departed from ; the experiments
made at Shoeburyness, in the course of 1862, showed that the
100-pounder Armstrong gun was not the limit of the artilleristB'
power — 300 and 600-pounders were looming in the distance.
The former had, it is true, after smashing some targets, blown
itself to pieces ; yet it was clear that larger and more powerful

1863. France and England. 199

guns were soflSdently near tbeir realisation to make it inoum-
bent on the Constructor's Department to provide for their use.
This, at Captain Coles's earnest request, was accordingly done.
He enlarged and altered the shape of his shields, added greatly
to their strength, and of course to ^eir weight ; and the * Prince
^ Albert ' will now carry four shields instead of six, and be
armed with the best gun that the artillerists shall have provided
in the course of the ensuing year.

The Government, however, though proceeding cautiously,
and satisfying themselves by actual experiment of the soundness
of the principles on which they were acting with regard to thwr
floating batteries, had seriously considered whether some of the
large line-of-battle ships built of wood, of which we possessed
so many, could not be turned to some useful account. Ob-
viously, in their present condition, they were little else than mere
bundles of matches, which would infallibly be destroyed after a
few broadsides by incendiary projectiles. It was true that upon
any similarly constructed wooden ship they could inflict a similar
destruction to that which they were certain to undergo; re-
serving therefore a certain number of such ships to meet any
vessels of this nature which might be opposed to us, there
remained a large surplus available for other purposes ; and plans
were under consideration for turning some at least of these
ships either into ordinary armour-plated block ships, or into
superior floating batteries, armed with Coles's revolving shields.
At this moment the news of the action between the ^ Monitor '
and ' Merrimac ' arrived, and produced such an impression on
the public mind, that there was no longer any hesitation about
converting any suitable wooden ship into an armour-clad vessel
of war.

The * Royal Sovereign ' was accordingly selected, cut down to
her lower deck beams, strengthened and prepared to carry five
of the largest shields, and the heaviest guns that could be put
into them. An outline of the plans ultimately determined upon
for this ship may prove intere^ing. The * Royal Sovereign '
was a new three-decked ship of 130 guns, and engines of 800
horse power; her tonnage was about 4,000, her mean draught
of water at her load line was 26 feet, and her estimated speed
was about 12 knots. The difference between the weights removed
and those added to the ship would, it was calculated, lighten the
ship, and diminish her mean draught of water by about 3 feet.
She was to be entirely armour-plated with 5^ inches of iron; and
after various modifications of the original design, it was settled
that she should carry four shields capable of fitting the lai^est
guns that wete in course of construction.

200 Xavier Bajmond on tlie Navies of July>

In both of these floating batteries two important results were
arrived at and obtained — dialler draught of water than any of the
iron-clad ships, and dimensions which would render the different
docks and basins in the Government establishments available for
their use. To obtain these results high speed was dispensed with,
and only such dimensions were insisted on as would enable the
structures to be as strong as possible, and to give flotation to the
requisite weight. When these ships shall have been tried
at sea, many points about which there is still some doubt and
hesitation will be cleared up ; and it is not impossible that the
great object of Captain Coles's ambition, the construction of a
sea-going shield-ship may be found to present no insurmountable
obstacles.

But while thus providing the materials for the line-of-battle,
both in wood and iron, and thb addition to the armour-clad
floating batteries, the wants of our coounerce in distant seas,
and the protection necessary to afford to our colonial possessions,
naturally turned the attention of our Government to the con-
struction of iron-plated ships, which should be as fitted for
cruising or ocean navigation as our former unprotected wooden
men-of-war. It was soon evident that the difficulties of con-
structing such ships would be very great, the problem being
to carry great weights on very restricted dimensions, to ensure
perfect sea-going qualities, and yet to protect the ship in such
a manner that, while she could scarcely be injured herself by any
thing but an iron-clad ship, she should be able to destroy any
wooden unprotected ship that she might come across, and finally
to provide for her crew air, light, and health as completely as in
an ordinary ship. None of these objects could be secured with-
out placing the deck as high out of water in proportion to the
vessel's length as experience in ordinary ships had proved to be
absolutely necessary. In none of the iron-clad ships of either
France or England had this most necessary result as yet been
obtained ; and without it all ships of war are imperfect cruisers,
and in a greater or less degree unfit for distant and protracted
service.

Various plans were proposed to the Admiralty, but all had
the same tendency to those enormous dimensions, excessive cost
of time and money, which it was so desirable to avoid ; but a
design prepared by Mr. Reed, a naval architect, not in the em-
ployment of the Government, but well known for his writings
on professional subjects, and secretary to the Institution of
Naval Architects, seemed to meet all the difficulties and satisfy
the requirements of the case. The general plan consisted of
two features — one was that it turned to account the number of

1863. France and England. 201

small vessels on the stocks in different stages of preparation^
instead of absolutely condemning them^ and wasting the material
already prepared ; the other was the mounting a limited number
of large guns in the centre of the ships> to protect by armour-
plates the battery, the engines, magazines, rudder, and all the
vital parts of the ship above and below the water line. It was
intended also so to distribute the weights that the great mass of
them should be centralised in the ship, and that the general
immersion of the whole body should be no greater than before.
By this plan ships of less than 1,000 tons could be protected
in the manner described, and yet carry a battery of four guns of
the largest size also protected. Other details, both novel and
ingenious, may be passed over, as they are of a technical nature ;
but the plan was accepted by the Admiralty, and the superin-
tendence of its execution entrusted to Mr. Keed. On this
design two sloops of 4 guns each, the ^ Enterprise ' and
' Research,' are constructing, which are intended, like armour-
plated ships, for a distant service. A corvette, the ^ Favorite,'
of 8 guns, and a frigate, the ^ Zealous,' of 16 guns, are also
rapidly advancing, both designed upon the principle referred to.

All these ships are building from materials already prepared
and paid for ; they are adaptations of ships partially built to a
new purpose, and compared with the other iron-clads are of small
dimensions and moderate draught of water.

The new work, therefore, undertaken in 1862 relative to the
preparing of our iron*cIad fleet may thus be recapitulated:
Two powerful floating batteries on the shield principle, and four
cruising sea-going armour-plated ships, intended for any service
that a wooden ship can perform — a force, it may be said, which no
other maritime Power as yet possesses.

In looking back through the brief history of armour-plated
ships, we see that the progress of penetrating — we will not say
destroying — force has been greater than that of the resisting
power ; and the result as regards land artillery versus ships is #
inevitable, for the size and power of guns cannot be easily limited,
while there are all but insuperable obstacles to a great increase
in the thickness and consequent weight of a ship's armour. We
mean, of course, a real sea-going ship, subject to all the force of
a tempest-tossed ocean, and requiring the speed and ready
steerage essential in naval warfare; we may add, having to
carry the coals, provisions, stores, armament, and crew of an
efficient ship of war.

Late experiments have shown us good plates of 7^ inches in
thickness pierced not only by shot but by shell. Mr. Whit-
worth, in the autunm of last year, exploded shells with facility

202 Xavier Raymond on the Navies of July,

through a representation of the ' Warrior's ' side. It is true
that cast-iron shot and shell will not do this, but the q>ecial
weapon will do the special work ; and the navid architect may be
sure that, if he clothes his ship in 11 -inch armour, the artil-
lerist will at a given day, and at a given expenditure of money,
pass a shell through it.

Are we then to return to unprotected ships ? By no means ;
these experiments of artillery against armour-plates are to be
considered exceptional, or, at the most, as showing what guns on
a fixed fortress are likely to be able to do against those on a
floating fortress. It is not said that exceptional guns, excep-
tional projectiles, and exceptional gunpowder — for it must be
understood that these results have only been obtuned by the use
of all three of these exceptional means, involving a cost by no
means accurately ascertained — may not in process of time
be the ordinary means of warfare, though hitherto, at any rate,
the victory that the guns have obtained over the target has in-
variably been closely followed by their own destruction. Bat
at present these guns exist only as specimens, and as speci-
mens utterly deficient in endurance. It is more than probable
that the gun and the projectile which the ' Warrior ' will have
to resist, if she meets an iron-dad of any other maritime Fewer
afloat, wQl be adequately resisted by her side. The ordinary
French gun on board their ships is a ^ canon de 30,' rifled,
throwing 100-lb. shot * with no very great initial velocity and
penetration, nothing more formidable than what we are prepared
to encounter. There are, doubtless, some breach-loading rifled
guns in the ^ Gloire ' of exceptional power ; they are on their
trial : it is premature to speak of what will be the future of this
armament. M. Baymond gives a very favourable account
of them. We hear, too, of the 15-inch guns of the Americans,
but we also hear that structures every way weaker than the
* Warrior ' resist the projectiles thro wn by those guns. But what-
ever may be the power of artillery afloat — and it is that with
which we are principally concerned ; however hard the struggle
may be to maintain the balance between the attack and defence,
we have no alternative left — that struggle must be made, our
path is clear before us. If thicker plates and heavier sides are
necessary, they must be given; if giganticdimensionsare required
for this purpose, the sacrifice must be made.

Few and hea\y guns mounted in the centre of a ship, with the

* M. Raymond tells us that the shot thrown by these guns weighs
99*180 pounds with a charge of 16*530 pounds of powder, and that at
40 yards they penetrate 4^inch plates easily.

1863. France and England. 203

water-line and vital parts protected^ will still enable ns^ at a cost
of perhaps 50,000/. per gun, to carry these floating structures
wherever there is water enough for them to swim: but let not
die public be deceived — gigantic guns •mean gigantic ships,
gigantic docks, harbours, basins, and gigantic annual bills, and
DOW and then gigantic losses. If the object of a navy like that of
England is to defend her commerce and protect her possessions on
every side, these gigantic and costly guardians must be multi-
jrfied in proportion to the spread of commerce and to the number
of possessions.

The * Warrior ' ready for sea represents 400,000i. of the
public money, and this only defended partially by 4^-inch
plates ; the * Minotaur,' wholly protected by 5^ -inch plates,
when ready for sea, will represent 500,0007. ; and both 4^ and
5i*inch plates have been pierced and shattered by guns already
in existence. What then will be the cost of ships where 8
or 10-inch plating should be adopted ? Limit the number of
guns as we may, immense dimensions will be required to float
such structures, immense cost to complete them, and the days
when a large reduction of the navy estimates shall be practicable
seem farther than ever from our reach.

It may be true that the iron-clad ships of France are less
adapted for cruising than ours, and that they seem to have been
constructed wholly for the purpose of fighting a great naval
action for supremacy at sea, so that so large a multiplication of
our iron-clad ships as has been hinted at for the protection of
our commerce and colonial empire may not be requisite ; yet
the power France undoubtedly possesses of detaching these ships
has just been exemplified by the proceedings of the * Normandie,'
and is instructive in pointing out to us that, in distant regions of
the world, the honour of our flag and the safety of our posses-
sions cannot be trusted to unprotected wooden ships.

What is passing on the shores and in the inland waters of the
great American Continent must add impressiveness, if any were
needed, to this lesson. That country resounds from one end to
the other with the din of preparation and construction of iron-
clad ships. Those ships, it is true, were built for a special
purpose, and are not formidable, except on their own waters.
But sea-going iron-clads are building, and will before long be
ready to carry the flag of the stars and stripes wherever the
policy of their Government may choose to send them. The
American practice differs essentially from that pursued in
Europe, and in nothing more than the great sise and weight of
the guns deliberately adopted. Although the first contest
between two iron-clads took place in their waters, and has

204 Xavier Kajmond on the Navies of Julj,

been commented on again and again, less has been practically
learnt from the engagement between the 'Merrimac' and
' Monitor ' than could have been supposed. We know, it is
true, how the * Monitor ' was constructed, but we do not
know what that construction had to resist, what was the
weight of those projectiles that did not harm her, with what
velocity they were discharged, nor of what substance they were
composed. On the other hand, we do not know of what ma-
terial the armour-plating was composed, nor exactly in what
manner the ^ Merrimac ' was protected by it ; though we do
know exactly with what projectiles she was battered, and very
nearly what resistance she offered. The report of Captain
Dahlgren, presented to Congress in December 1862, gives
some interesting details of this action, and confirms what has
been stated above. We also know that both ships were entirely
unfit for navigating the open sea, and that the ship or ships
which the American Government will send to sea must infallibly
partake of the type of such ships as England and France have
constructed for this purpose. The Americans are confident
that they can carry and work at sea 15-inch guns, throwing
450-lb. shot with charges of powder sufficient to pierce ana
destroy a ship's side composed of 36 inches of solid oak and
1-inch iron lining, protected by 5^ inches of solid armour-platii^ ;
they have in this way destroyed a target at 100 yards' dis-
tance, and they have done this with cast-iron guns and cast-
iron shot.

However exceptional all this may be at present, however
impracticable it may at present appear.to work such guns in a
ship in motion, it will not do to shut our eyes to these eventu-
alities. In designing those additional iron-clads, which it is but
too evident England will be compelled to build, the increasing
difficulties of the question must be fairly considered, and the
magnitude of the cost boldly conixonted.

Whether these ships shall be built of wood or iron, it is not
the object of these pages to discuss. From what has been sud
in Parliament and other places, it does, however, appear desirable
that iron ship-building should not be confined to one govern-
ment establishment only, or that, in so vital a matter as the
power of constructing a fleet, the public safety should be en-
tirely confided to private firms. Contracts between Govern-
ment and such firms cannot in all cases, as, for instance, in cases
of insolvency, be enforced by Government, but they preclude
any deviation except at an immense expense to the publia As
auxiliaries, private firms are invaluable, but it might be a fatal
error to regard them as principals.

1863. France and England. 205

Our past experience shows that constructing ships of war in
private yards often ends in bitter disappointments to both
parties^ and in enormous cost to the country. The very fact
that the men to whom the buildinc]^ of iron ships has been
entrusted are amongst the most eminent and trustworthy in
the country, the z^ and perseverance with which they have
contended against all difficulties, and the superior excellence
of the work they have accomplished, coupled with th^ delays,
the disappointments, and the totally unforeseen cost of these
ships — a cost so lai^ely in excess of what either the Govern-
ment or the builder foresaw — warn us clearly against too
great an extension of such a system. When we see that
such firms as Messrs. Napier of Glasgow, the Thames Ship
Building Company, Messrs. Laird of Birkenhead, and others
who are decidedly at the head of their profession, with all their
energies, with all the means at their disposal, have taken so
long and incurred such cost to accomplish what they have done ;
and when we see that other contractors have wholly failed in
what they had undeitaken, we are warned against an entire
surrender of such national work as fleet building to private
enterprise. It is true that the former want of system and of
organisation in our dockyards caused a general wish to see the
work transferred to those enterprising companies who so success-
fuUy managed their own affairs. But, in the first place, what-
ever were the faults of our dockyard system, or of any other
part of our naval administration, they were surely capable of
remedy by a well-considered reform ; and, in the second place,
to entrust to ordinary ship-builders the whole work of our
dockyards would be to impose upon a dwarf the work of a giant.
The experience of the last three years has shown that the
same firm which derives credit and profit from undertakings in
which it has experience will fail to obtain either in the costly
and exceptional work of building ships of war. The materials
of our iron navy must still be supplied by private enterprise ; but
even to obtain them of the necessary quality is exceedingly diffi-
colt,. and no better proof can be given than the immense pro-
portion returned as being below the required standard. Thus,
of iron building plates (technically called ship plates and boat
plates) varying from ^ths to l^ths in thickness, which form the
principal part (-j^ths perhaps) of a ship of war, the total supply
IS immense ; but the proportion capable of bearing the different
trials is very small The best iron of the kind will bear a
tensile strain with the fibre of 23 to 45 tons per square inch,
and across the fibre of 15 to 25 tons. Now, as it is a well-known
axiom that the strength of a fabric is equal to that of its

206 Xavier Raymond on Navies of France and England. July,

weakest part. Government very properly have fixed a standard
to ensure a fair average quality of iron. That standard is a
strength equal to 22 tons lengthways of the grain^ and 19 tons
across it per square inch, being far below the average of the best
iron : there are also certain smithery tests of heating, bending,
and punching, when hot and when cold, which good iron ought to
stand. But the custom of the iron trade is to produce large
quantities of these plates which will only bear a strain of 14
tons in one direction and 8 or 9 in the other. It is with iron of
this quality that our markets are stocked, and that many packets
and merchant vessels are built ; but to use them in our iron-clads
would be madness.* Nor is it only the low-priced iron that is
found to be so weak, for hundreds of tons of the high-priced
material have been from time to time rejected both at Chatham
and in the contract yards. This will explain why, notwith-
standing the vaunted (and justly vaunted) powers of private
enterprise, much is promised or offered to Government, but little^
comparatively, is done. It would also still further justify, were
that necessary, the course taken in converting useless wooden
ships into very serviceable iron-clads. The attacks made upon
the Controller of the Navy upon this subject during the present
session were clearly unjust, for, although it was boldly asserted,
it was by no means proved, that without these ships we could
occupy the position we now do in reference to the French navy.
If it was a blunder on the part of oiu* naval authorities to per-
sist in laying down wooden line-of-battle ships when the days
of such ships were numbered, it was a happy idea which turned
that blunder to such excellent purpose as has been done in the
case of the ' Boyal Oak.' That success, guaranteeing as it does
similar success with the other ^converted' ships, is a great
triumph for the building department, and extricated this country
from a position of inferiority alike dangerous and discreditable.
But although with an able and energetic man in the Controller's
OflBce, we can build good ships, and meet an emergency with
credit and success, as we have just seen, there is something harder
to build up and to maintain than a fleet, and fully as essential.
There is the moral strength which grows out of discipline— out
of confidence in, and respect for, the ruling powers — there is
the zeal for the public service, the contentment, the esprit de
corpsy the conscious power and the general smooth working of
the whole machine, which a wise organisation at headquarters
can alone produce.

♦ We would again call attention to the article on * Iron ' published
in this Journal, No. 235., p. 204. The subject is one of the gravest
national importance, especially to the navy.

1863. The Sources of the Nile. 207

Abt. VIL — 1. Memoirs communicated to the Royal Geographical
Society, June 22nd, 1863. By Captain Sp£K£.

2. Anniversary Address, May 25th, 1863, By Sir Roderick
Impet Murchison, KC.B,, President of the Royal Geogra-
phical Society.

3. Papers communicated to the Ethnological Society, June ^Oth,

1863. By Captain Augustus Grant.

HPhe two captains sent by the British Government, at the
solicitation of the Royal Geographical Society, to discover
the sources of the Nile, have been more fortunate than the two
centurions despatched by Nero on a similar errand. There may
exist doubts as to the exhaustiveness of their search ; there may
prove to be other tributaries of the Nile flowing from the east
or from the west, from more distant fountain-heads than Speke
and Grant have seen ; but this much appears certain, that these
explorers have traced the trunk stream of the river of Egypt
to its exit from the Lake Nianza, and that a southern limit of
latitude has also been determined, within which the tributaries
of the lake must necessarily lie.

The nM)st striking popular fact to be deduced from the present
exploration is, that the Nile is far the longest river in the
world, at least in one of the two senses of that epithet.
When we measure its deposed predecessor, the Mississippi, in
a direct line between its mouth and the head of its remotest
tributary, we find the distance to be about 1,740 miles; the
corresponding measurement of the Nile is no less than 2,380.
If, on the other hand, we care to measure the course of either
stream in its main features, by following their principal bends
with a pair of compasses, we obtain 2,450 for the Mississippi,
against 3,050 for the Nile. We have not patience to inquire
into the minute meanderings of either stream ; indeed, the ex-
ceedingly tortuous course of the upper part of the latter river
is still unmapped with accuracy. There is no other river on the
globe that links such different climates as the Nile, none that is
so remarkable for its physical peculiarities, none that is clothed
with equal historical interest, and none that has so attracted or
so baffled the theorist and the explorer. Let us state, in a few
words, the slow steps by which its investigation had hitherto
advanced, before we narrate the adventures of the party by
whom it has, at length, been accomplished.

All the world knows that tourists may sail readily up the
Nile from its mouth, if they wish it, to the second cataract, a
distance of 750 miles, neglecting the meanderings of the river ;

208 ' The Sources of the Nile. July,

and they also know that a further course of 700 miles, partly
navigable with ease and partly with great difficulty, takes the
traveller to Khartum, where the Blue and White branches com-
bine. Their united volume forms the identical stream that
intersects the whole breadth of the Sahara with a thread of
habitable land ; for not a single tributary, except the Atbara —
and that is almost dry in summer, while its mouth is barely
180 miles below Khartiim — ^adds anything to its volume. Bruce
reached Abyssinia at the end of the last century. He acted
upon the erroneous conclusion that the Blue Kiver was the more
important of the two arms. He accordingly devoted himself
to exploring the Lake Dembea, whence it derives its source,
and therefore he claimed the honour of having discovered the
fountain head of the Nile. The Blue River was certainly the
more important stream of the two, speaking socially, for it led
to Abyssinia, and its banks were populous; while the White
Nile led due south into morasses, and to the haunts of bar-
barians. There is life in the waters of the former, as they
swirl past Khartum, clear, blue, and sparkling, like a vast
salmon-stream; but the huge White Nile has a forlorn and
mere-like character. The size of its mouth is masked by an
island ; and when its undivided waters have been entered, they
seem so stagnant as to suggest the idea of a backwater to the
Blue Nile, rather than a sister affluent. But its breadth and
depth more than compensate for the sluggishness of its current ;
and we now know, by better measurements than the contem-
poraries of Bruce were enabled to take, that its greater volume
of water, as well as its far superior len^h, justly mark it to be
the parent stream of the river of Egypt.

The White Nile was wholly neglected until M. Linant made
a short expedition up it for one or two hundred miles, in 1827.
His report of Its size, and of the ivory, gums, and other savage
products that were procurable on its banks, inflamed the curiosity
and the greed of the Egyptian Government, who were then
bent on extending their dominions. They sent out expeditions
during three successive years, in which Amaud and Weme took
part, and explored the river for far more than 1,000 miles of
water-way, terminating at or about Gondakoro, which we have
at length ascertained, through Speke's observations, to be in
lat. 4** 54' N. and long. 31** 46' E. Fifty or sixty miles above
Gondakoro, the navigation of the river is absolutely interrupted
by rapids and rqcks.

Henceforward, and by slow degrees, the White Nile became
a highway for competing traders, who formed stations near its
banks, and trafficked in ivory and slaves. They had little

1863. The Sources of the Nile. 209

power to convey geographical knowledge, and, for the most
party thej had strong pecuniary interest in withholding what
they knew ; so that our acquaintance with the river, in a scien-
tific point of view, was out of all proportion inferior to its
value andaccessibility.

Praiseworthy attempts have been made by individuals, who
were munly incited by the earnest appeals of the French
Geographical Society, and especially of its late venerable
President, M. Jomard, to explore beyond Gondakoro, and to
map the neighbourhood of the river ; but they met with scanty
success. Our maps of the high Nilotic countries are compromises
of ezceedinffly di£ferent representations, mostly devoid of any
astronomical basis ; and the farthest exploration of the most
successful traveller, Mi^i^i^ reached only to a point which Speke
has now ascertained to be in lat 3"^ 34f N. As for the extra-
ordinary sketch of Petherick's route, which that traveller Idd
down upon paper with a free hand, and without the slightest
astronomical check, we dismiss it from our consideration. It is
wholly unproved, and is, in many respects, improbable.

The failure of travellers from Gondakoro was mainly due to
the distance of that place from Ehartiim, whence all supplies
had to be drawn, to the wretched quality of Ehartiim servants,
and to the disorganised and poverty-stricken character of the
country immediately beyond Gondakoro. A traveller could
obtain no porters at that place, beasts of burthen did not
exist, yet a strong party was essential to security and progress.
Success was only possible to an able leader, who could command
means to take out with him an imposing expedition, so com-
pletely organised as to be independent of the natives.

While progress languished on the White Nile, and geographers
were periodically tantalised and disappointed by scraps of intel-
ligence published in the bulletin of the French Geographical
Society, an entirely new base of operations was suggested to
future travellers. Two missionaries, Krapf and Rebmann,
directed by religious caprice, selected a small town on the east
coast of Africa as their station. It is called Mombas ; it lies a
little to the north of Zanzibar, and in lat. 4° 4' S. They esta-
blished themselves there, learnt native languages, made journeys
to the interior, and published an account of what they bad seen
and heard. They astonished European geographers by the asser-
tion that they had found two snow-capped mountains, whose
position they fixed at an extravagant distance from the coast.-
iJnfortunately for their credit, their narratives were too loosely
recorded to endure a searching criticism ; their itineraries were-
discussed, and their journeys were shown to have extended only

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLI. P

210 The Sources of the NUe. July,

a half or a third of the distance they had claimed to ha>re
accomplished. Fanciful conclusions were also interwoven with
their statements of fact In consequence of these serious in-
accuracies^ a misgiving unjustly attached itself to the whole of
their story. They were bitterly assailed on many sides ; some
persons asserted the mountains to be myths, and others believed
them to exist as peaks of moderate altitude, whitened by
quartz or dolomite. There were but a few who, while they
acknowledged the missionaries to be unscientific, recmled from
accusing them of intentional misstatement, and refused to
believe that a native of German Switzerland, like Rebmann^
should mistake the character of so familiar an object as a snow
mountain, when he had spent many days in its neighbouriiood,
and walked partly round it We now know that the latter
view was the correct one ; but, at the time of which we are
speaking, discussions grew exceedingly warm, and further ex-
ploration was urgently called for in Eastern Africa.

The next incident that bears upon our subject was the appear-
ance of a map, wholly compiled from native information by Mr.
Sebmann, with the assistance of another missionary, Mr. Erhardt
It included a vast territory, reaching from the eastern coast to
the medial line of Africa^ and was founded on the statements of
travellers by several caravan routes, which were said to run pa-
rallel to one another, from the coast to the interior, at 150 miles
apart, and to end, in every case, on the shores of a lake. Other
information connected the routes by cross sections, and made
it probable that the three lakes were one continuous sheet of
water, prolonged into the Lake Maravi of the older maps. The
memoir that accompanied the missionaries' sketch was composed
with great ability, and could not fail to convince readers that,
notwithstanding the improbability of the existence of a sheet of
water of the egregious dimensions and unnatural outline ascribed
to it in the sKetch, there was undoubtedly a Jake country of
great extent at some sixty days' journey from the eastern coast,
and that more than one road to it lay perfectly open to any
traveller who chose to make the effort

The labours of Mr. Cooley are too well known and too
numerous to need recapitulation here. He had advocated a
long narrow lake, stretching down Eastern Africa; but his
arguments were based on travels that were little known to the
English public, and were raised on an almost too ingenious
critical basis. The same may be said, with more or less truth,
of the arguments of the Abyssinian traveller. Dr. Beke, and of
a crowd of others who entertained various hypotheses on the
geography of various parts of Eastern Affica. They had not

1863. The Sources of the Nile. 211

the inflaeooe thej deserved. It was perhaps natufal that the
ninple statements of men writing from Africa itself, who were
able to converse with numbers of travellers, including the
native captains of caravan parties, who were, of all negroes,
the best qualified informants, should impress the majority of
geographers with a greater air of reality than learned disous-
nons, elalxnrated within the sound of Bow Bells.

The discoveries, speculations, and maps of Krapf, Rebmann,
and Brfaardt, obtained a wide circulation, and induced theorists
to suppose that the snow mountains of the missionaries were
identical vnth the Mountains of the Moon, spoken of by
Ptolemy, whence the Nile was said to rise ; and they argued, on
that hypothesis, that an expedition should be sent from Zanzibar
to seek the souroes of that river. On the other hand, there were
many who urged an investigation of the Lake question, as one of
great geographical interest and apparently easy solution. In
fine, the Geographical Society successfully exerted itself to pro-
cure the despatch of an exploring party to Eastern Africa, to find
out what they could: hence. Burton and Speke^s expedition
to Lake Tanganyika in 1857-9. It will be recollected that
Burton, the leader of the party, suffered severely from an
illness during the whole of the journey, against which he gal-
lantly but unsuccessfully struggled. Consequently, on his arrival
at Kazeh, the half-way station between Lake Tanganyika and
the coast, and an entrepdt of some importance, whence a trading
route diverges to the north, he despatched Speke on a solitary
expedition. He was to follow that route, and to visit a great lake
called Nyanza, which was clearly one of the separate lakes which
tfae missionaries had believed to be united in one continuous sheet
of water. Speke went, and reached the southern shores of an
enormous inland sea in lat 2^45^ S. and long. 33^ 3(/ E., and
therefore at a distance of 480 geographical miles from Gon-
dakoro, and about 400 from the highest point to which the White
Nile had been ascended by Miani Recollecting this fact, and
being informed that the lake extended some 400 miles in that
direction (it actually does extend more than 200), and that it
had a northern outlet in a river frequented by white men,
Speke came to the conclusion that that river must be the Nile,
and therefore that the Nyanza (or as he was pleased to call it,
with questionable taste, the Victoria Nyanza) was, in a proxi-
mate sense, its long-sought source.

The present expedition of Captains Speke and Grant was
planned to investigate that hypothesis. It was undertaken
with the help of Government aid, granted at the earnest soli-
citation of the Geographical Society, and has proved the truth

212 The Sources of the Nile. July,

of Speke's theory. We will now proceed to relate the chief
incidents and the geographical results of their protracted
journey.

Captains Speke and Grant left Zanzibar in October, I860, after
haying despatched a carayan of natives in advance, to form a depdt
of goods and travelling necessaries at Kazeh. The expedition was
arranged on a liberal scale, though it was prepared under serious
disadvantages, owing to the delays that always intervene between
the time when hope is held out of Government support, and
the day when it is finally given. Speke's preparatory arrange-
ments were thrown sadly out of gear by the procrastination of
officials at home, and his start was unduly hurried at the last
moment. It was, in fact, retarded until the most favourable
season of the year had passed. They started with a motley
caravan, consisting, first, of sixty armed men from Zan-
zibar, who were engsiged to serve them throughout the journey,
and who carried tne travellers' personal luggage; next came
an army of local porters, laden with goods oi exchange, such as
beads and calico ; and to these was added a curious detachment
which had been pressed upon them, with the kindest intentions,
by Sir George Grey, then Governor of the Cape. It c6nsisted
of a number of Hottentot soldiers. They were an utter and a
costly failure ; for the difference of climate between their native
droughts and the steaming vegetation of the coast opposite
Zanzibar, was too great for their constitutions to withstand.
Many died, and the others were useless from ill-health, as well
as from their ignorance of the language, habits, and methods of
locomotion of Eastern Africa, and they had to be sent back.
Some mules and donkeys were taken, but they also proved a
failure. The great journey had to be performed on foot.

No African caravan-track could have been less obstructed
than the road to Kazeh, when Spekc travelled along it in the
company of Burton : on the present occasion, the face of For-
tune seemed steadily set against him. A drought and famine
of remarkable severity afflicted the whole extent of Eastern
Africa, and produced tlie well-known fruits of disorganisation
and political troubles among the native tribes. It also hap-
pened that a chief of importance had died, and the question of
his succession was disputed by arms. In short, the two tra-
vellers pushed through far more severe impediments than they
had reckoned upon, before even Kazeh was reached ; and, on
attempting to proceed farther, they were attacked and plundered.
Speke became seriously ill, and Grant, who at that time was
detached from him, with a portion of the remaining stores, could
barely hold bis own. Communication with Zanzibar was ex-

1863. The Sources of the Nile. 2 1 3

pected to be cut off, and matters wore for a time a very alarm-
ing aspect. However, the two friends effected a junction, and
contrived to fall back on Kazeh, and to reorganise their party
by obtaining a new set of porters and fresh interpreters. They
then recommenced their journey in October, 1861, just one year
after leaving Zanzibar, with restored health, better prospects,
and lighter hearts. Thus far we had heard from them vid
Zanzibar, but not a scrap of intelligence of their subsequent
fate reached even the confines of the civilised world, until the
two travellers emerged at Gondakoro, on the White Nile, on
February 15, 1863.

Of the two routes from Kazeh by which the northern end
of Lake Nyanza may be reached, a person who was merely
guided by his map, might conclude it was a matter of indiffer-
ence whether a traveller should follow the eastern or the
western shore of the lake. But when political causes are taken
into consideration, it is found that the eastern route is wholly
impracticable. It passes through the territory of a warlike and
disunited people, tne Masai, with whom no traveller has yet
succeeded in making friends. They possess no paramount chief,
whose goodwill can shield the explorer throughout an extensive
country, but every tribe is independent in its own domain, and
probably on ill terms with its neighbours. Thus, the Baron
Yon der Decken, who measured and ascended the missionaries'
snow mountain, Kilimandjaro, to a height of 13,000 feet, has
recently been driven back by the Masiu, on attempting to enter
their territory from the eastern side. The western and north-
western shores of the lake are subject to very different political
conditions. They are included in the territory of Uganda, and
one despotic sovereign holds them under his strict control. He
also maintains a fleet of war-canoes on its waters. He is, there-
fore, all-powerful to aid or to thwart a traveller, and it was to
his court that Speke and Grant intended to proceed, in order
to gain his assistance.

Thus far, say 120 miles north-west of Kazeh, the travellers
had journeyed among the Wanyamesi and other uninteresting
negroes, who are said to have been formerly included in a
kingdom of some importance. They are now scattered in tribes
and families, where each man does what is right in his own
eyes, subject to no restriction beyond the self-imposed restraint
of superstitious customs and the personal interference of his
neighbours. The single principle they possess, that attains to
the dignity of a national policy, is a tacit understanding that
travelling parties should be taxed and robbed by individuals,
only 80 far as will fall short of putting a stop to the caravan

214 The Sources of the Nile. July>

trade altogether. It is cold comfort to acknowledge that this is
an advance upon the doctrines of the Masai. Now, however, on
the western shores of Lake Nvanza, Speke and Grant came
upon a series of strong governments, including that of Uganda,
and found their history to be of considerable interest.

Scattered among the Wanyamesi, and other neighbouring
races, are found families of a superior type to the negro.
They exist as a pastoral people, but in other respects they
adopt the customs of the races of Africa. They bear dif-
ferent names in different places, but we. will desmbe them
by that which has the widest currency, namely, Wahuma.
Speke considers them offshoots of the Grallas of Abyssinia, and
of Asiatic origin. He believes they migrated in somewhat
ancient times in bands from Abyssinia, and met with variouB
fortunes. In some countries, as in Uniamesi, they were simply
mingled with the natives ; but in those he was about to visit
they had achieved the position of a ruling caste, though quite
insignificant in numbers, when compared to the negroes whom
they ruled. Such was first found to be the case in Uzinli^
a small country governed by a robber, the terror of Arab
traders, which lies 80 miles to tiie west of the south end of
Lake Nyanza. Speke and Grant traversed Uzinli with* the
greatest difficulty, and thence made their way to the capital of
the hospitable Wahuma'king of Karagw6, which lay 250 miles
from Kazeh and 70 miles west of the lake. Uganda lies north
of Karagw^, and is rarely visited by traders from Zanzibar.
It was Speke's aim to make a favourable impression on the
more accessible king of Karagw^, and to avail himself of his
good will in obtaining a satisfactory introduction to his powerful
neighbour. Bumanika, the King of Karagw^, keeps up his
state with some magnificence, and has the bearing and the
liberal ideas of a* gentleman. His country is a fair undu-
lating land, partly 6,000 feet above the sea, and elsewheire
sloping to the lake. His cattle cover the hills in tens of
thousands. His rule is strict, and his people are thriving ;
but as the peculiarities of Wahuma governments were more
noteworthy in Uganda, we will reserve the description of them
just at present

Speke quitted Elaragwe on the 1st of June, 1862, escorted
by a guard sent by Bumanika, and carrying a friendly letter of
introduction to M't&e, the King of Uganda.

Many are the difiiculties of African travel, due to physical
and other causes, that readily suggest themselves to any one,
such as heat, rains, privations, and unruly attendants ; but these
may be overcome by any man who is gifted with a strong c(m-

1863. The Sources of the Nile. 216

stitation, determination, and patience. The greatest difBcalty
of all depends on other causes, over which no traveller, how-
ever well qualified, has more than a limited control. There
is the accident of the tribes among whom he travels, being at
peace or at war with each other, and that of a despot's caprice
being favourable or unfavourable to his progress. Wherever
active warfare is carried on, the road is almost hopelessly closed
between the contending parties ; wherever there is peace, the
suspicion of a ruler is aroused by the arrival of a stranger, on
a doubtful errand to traverse his territory. He suspects his
mission to be espionage, he trembles lest enchantments should
ensue, and is quite sure that covert danger of some kind or other
is to be apprehended, if the traveller is allowed to move about as
he pleases. Land journeys of great extent, in Africa, can only be
made, either when the road is freely open to caravans, as was
the case in Burton and Speke's expedition to Tanganyika, or
when the goodwill of a chief has been obtained who enjoys
such power and prestige that his escort, or even his name, is a
sufficient passport. The latter was the good fortune of Living-
stone, and such was also the happy luck of Speke, whose
power of managing natives seems to be unsurpassed by any
recent traveller, and unequalled save by Livingstone. It also
happened that the Wahuma kings, especially the King of
Uganda, bad a motive in letting him pass ; they desired the
establishment of trading routes with the stations visited by
white men. They live in considerable semi-barbaric state,
and have, as we shall presently see, a more refined taste than
is usually heard of in negro Africa. Their wants are in
advance of the productive skill of their people, though these
are mised many degrees above barbarism : for instance, to show
their advance in mechanical arts, the native blacksmiths have
sufficient skill to inlay iron with copper. The King of Karagw^
has not unfrequently received European manufactures by way
of Zanzibar, though his rascally brother of TJzinli lays an
almost prohibitive black mail on whatever passes his terri-
tory. The king of a yet more northern Wahuma State than
Uganda, by name Unyoro, of which we have not hitherto
spoken, but which abuts on the negro tribes in the neighbour-
hood of Gondakoro, occasionally obtained goods that had been
conveyed by whites on the Nile ; but none of these ever reached
M't^e, the King of Uganda, except as noteworthy presents
from his neighbouring brother-sovereigns. It naturally fol-
lowed that he felt an eager desire to open a commercial route
in both directions, and was thrown into a ferment of joy at
the news of Speke's arrival. Little did M't^ know of the

216 The Sources of the Nik. July,

evil of uncontrolled traffic with a powerful and unscrupulous
race. When Speke saw the doings of the Turkish traders
at Gondakoro^ and w^itnessed their plunder, their insolence,
and their cruelty, he regretted bitterly that the word * trade *
had ever passed his lips to tempt his kind-hearted host ia
Uganda.

Speke's route lay through vast reedy plains parallel to the west
shores of the Nyanza. He crossed deep stagnant channels every
mUe, and one ^eat river, which seemed to him as full of water
as the White Nile itself, flowing swift and deep between banks
qf dense stiff reeds, impenetrable except through certain tor-
tuous paths. This river may therefore be reckoned as the parent
stream of the Nyanza Lake ; or, in other words, the river of
Karagw^ is the true head-water of the Nile.

Uganda occupies the whole of the north-western shoulder of
the lake, whose shores are of the shape of a schoolboy's
peg-top. The peg-end is directed due south, and looks on
the map very like an ancient outlet, in a southern direc-
tion, into an adjacent tributary of the Tanganyika Lake.
Its geographical position is 2"" 3(/ S. lat. and 33"" 30' £. long.
The flat upper boundary of the lake closely coincides with the
equator, and from its very centre, and also at. the frontier
of Uganda, the Nile issues in a stream 150 yards wide,
with a leap of twelve feet Numerous other outlets of the
lake (if in truth they be not independent rivers,) converge upon
the Nile at various distances, one of which does not jom it till
after an independent course of ninety miles from the lake.
Ond hardly knows where else to find an example of such
hydrographical conditions. When a river runs into a lake or
the sea, it has always a tendency to divide itself in numy
ehannels, because it deposits mud and forms a delta; but Speke's
map presents that same appearance of many channels, in con-
nexion with an outflow of the river, which is certainly a very
unusual, as it is an unintelligible condition. The lake is
heavily bordered by reeds, and continues exceedingly shallow
far from shore; no boats venture to cross it. Uganda is
bounded by the main stream of the Nile, which Speke fol-
lowed, more or less closely, the whole way from the Nyanza
to Gondakoro, a distance of near 5^, say 350 miles, with the
exception of one part where it makes a great and remark-
able bend. At the middle of the bend we river b said to
dip into the northern shoulder of the Luta Nzig^ a narrow
laKe of some 200 miles in length, and to reissue immediately.
There is some confusion about this name, though none about
the water it refers to. Luta Nzig6, which is said to mean

1863. The Sources of the Nile. 217

neither more nor less than * dead locust/ was applied by the
natives to many sheets of water, including the Nyanza itself.
Speke identifies the lake of which we are now speaking by the
phrase * little Luta Nzig6.' The travellers were compelled by
circumstances to cut across the chord of the above-mentioned
bend, a distance of eighty miles, and to leave the Luta Nzig^
unvisited ; but we are exceedingly glad to hear that this single
deficiency in their exploration, is in a fair way of being supplied
by the zeal of an excellent traveller, Mr. Samuel Baker, to
whose proceedings we shall shortly recur, and who has started
from Gondakoro for that purpose. It is the more necessary
that this interval should be examined, as there is an unac-
countable difference of altitude of the river before and after
the bend, amounting to 1,000 feet If there be no error of
observations, a vast system of rapids and waterfalls must
intervene.

It aids our conception of numerical data to measure them by
simple standards ; those that refer to the Nile are thus to be
easily disposed of. That river spans, from south to north,
very nearly one fifth of the entire meridional arc, from |)ole to
pole ; and its general course is so strictly to the north, that
its source in the river of Karagw^ is due south of Alexandria.
Khartiim is the exact half way between the sea and the exit of
the Nile from the Nyanza, which lies almost exactly under the
equator.

Having thus far anticipated the narrative of Speke's personal
adventures by alluding to some of the main features of the
country, we will proceed to fill in the picture by further
details. Karagw^ occupies the eastern slope of a plateau
6,000 feet above the sea. Conical hills, of which MYumbiro
is the highest and most central, are scattered about the plain,
but there are no mountain giants and no continuous range.
Westward of the plateau the watershed is into a small lake
called the Rusizi, lying between the parallels of 1^ and 2^ and
in about the 30° E. long. An affluent of Lake Tanganyika
proceeds due southwards from this lake, consequently the
amphitheatre of mountains that has been pictured in some maps
round the northern end of the Tanganyika must be removed, or
be so far cut away as to admit of the river's entry. An east and
west distance of 150 miles separates the Busizi from the
Nianza. The next tribute to geographical science, collected by
Speke from native information, is that the Tanganyika has a
large outlet at its southern extremity, which feeds the Niassa
of liivingstone, and therefore reaches the sea by way of the
Shir6 and the ZambesL This new fact, if fact it be, ranks as

218 The Sources of the Nile. July*

a signal triumph to common sense, in the faoe of the former
observations of Burton and Speke, who navigated some distance
down the Tanganyika, but never were within 150 miles of its
supposed end. They insisted, upon native evidence, that a
river ran into it at that place, not out of it. Consequently^
the Tanganyika, though a fresh- water lake, was described as
resembling the Dead Sea, a sheet of water without any outlet
whatever that gets rid of the water poured into it by means
of evaporation only. It was objected, on their arrival in England,
that two facts were also stated, irreconcilable with such an hypo-
thesis ; namely, that while, on the one hand, the periodical rains
fell heavily and continuously during half the year, when no eva-
poration took place, so, on the other hand, there was no
variation in the level of the lake, as ascertained at the wharves
of the fishermen. It was wholly impossible that a half-yearly
supply and loss of water should be accompanied by an unvary-
ing leveL The statement now brought back by Speke is in
accordance with physical science, as well as with the maps of
Cooley and of the missionaries.

We have thus far arrived at the fact, that the high table-land,
120 miles across, of which M'fumbiro is the centre, is drained
on the east by the tributaries of the Nyanza, and therefore of
the Nile, and on the south-south-west by those of the Tanganyika,
and therefore of the Zambesi. There is also strong reason to
believe, from the information brought by Speke, as well as
from the appearance of the map and the conclusions of previous
African geographers, that the sources of the Congo are to be
found there also. Hence we may conclude that from this cir-
cumscribed district the waters drain into the Mediterranean, the
Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic, and that the M'fumbiro
plateau is the key-stone, the omphelosy of African geography.
We consider this fact, if fact it be, as the greatest discovery
made by Speke and Grant.*

• It deserves observation that De Barros, one of the best informed
of the Portuguese geographers, whose work was published in 1591,
and is quoted by Dr. Beke in his ' Essay on the Sources of the Nile,
(p. 40.}, speaks of a great lake in the interior as sending forth three
rivers, namely, the Tacuy or Nile, the Zaire or Congo, and the
Zambesi or Cuama. He says, ' The Nile truly has its origin in this
' first lake, which is in 12° S. latitude, and it runs 400 miles due

* north, and enters another very large lake, which is called by the
' natives a sea, because it is 220 miles in extent, and it lies under the

* equator.' The people on this lake are described as more civilised
than the people of Congo. Though not strictly accurate, this ancient
statement is an approach to what has now been ascertained to be the
truth.

1863. The Sources of the Nile. 219

The theory of Sir Roderick Murchison, that the interior of
Africa ia an elcTated watery plateau, whence rivers escape by
bursting, through a circumscribing mountainous boundary, must
now be received with some limitation. It was literally true in
the case of the Zambesi, but facts are still wanting to test its
strict applicability to the Congo ; and, as to the Nile, the fol-
lowing remarks were made by Sir Boderick in his Anniversary
Address to the Koyal Geographical Society : —

* Modem discovery has indeed proved the truth of the hypothesis,
which I ventured to suggest to you eleven years ago, that the true
centre of Africa is a great eleya^d watery basin, often abounding in
rich lands, its large lakes being fed by numerous streams from ad-
jacent ridges, and its waters escaping to the sea by fissures and de-
pressions in the higher surrounding lands. It was at our anniversary
of 1852, when many data that have since been accumulated were
unknown to us, that, in my comparative view of Africa in primeval
and modern times, I ventured fo suggest that the interior of Africa
wonld be found to be such an unequally elevated basin, occupied
now, as it was in ancient geological- periods, by fresh-water lakes,
the outflow of which would be to the east and' to the west, through
fissures in subtending ranges of higher mountains near the coast.
While this theory was clearly verified in Southern Africa by Living-
stone in the escape of the Zambesi, as narrated by himself, and is
well known to be true in the case of the Niger, so does it apply to
the Nile, in as far as the great central lake, Victoria Nyanza, occu-
pies a lofty plateau of 3,500 feet above the sea. In this example, as
the waters flow from a southern watershed, and cannot escape to the
east or the west, there being no great transversal valleys in the
flanking higher grounds, they necessarily issue from the northern
end of the Lake Victoria Nyanza, and, forming the White Nile, take
advantf^e of a succession of depressions, through which they flow
and cascade.'

We, therefore, see that the watery plateau which was de-
scribed as extending to the Niger, in western longitudes, is
terminated by the equator in the eastern portion of Africa.

We learn, in addition, that the exceptional character of the
Nile is shared in a very much more remarkable d^ree by
the Tanganyika, Niassa, and Shir^ valleys. The Tanganvika
occupiee a crevasse of some 300 miles in length, comparable in
its narrowness and abruptness to the Valley of the Dead Sea.
In exactly a similar way, the Niassa and the Shii^ occupy a
continuous north and south chasm, that has already been traced
by Livingstone to a distance of 450 miles. Now that we hear
of a connexion existing between the Tanganyika and Niassa,
we may reasonably suppose that its channel runs through a
similar fissure. The length of the entire series, from the
Busizi to the Zambesi, is nearly 1,400 miles in a direct line.

220 The Sources of the Nile. July,

Bearing these extraordinary facts in mind, the great feature
of Eastern Africa consists in a more or less marked groove, occu-
pied by water^channels. It runs right through ^e continent
from north to south, beginning at Alexandria and ending where
the land narrows into the promontory that terminates with the
Cape Colonies. It cleaves the eastern shoulder of Africa from
the rest of the continent, much as Arabia is cleft from Africa
by the long and narrow Red Sea/ So, i^ain, to adduce another
example from a neighbouring country, the deep and continuous
Valley of the Jordan, Dead Sea, Wady Araba, and the Gulf of
Akaba, is formed by an abrupt fissure possessing no less than
three watersheds, — that of the sources of the Jordan in the
north, and those of the Wady Araba, whence the drainage is
to the Dead Sea on the one band, and to * the Gulf of Akaba
on the other. It is remarkable that our globe presents
so close a repetition of the same peculiar fissures in several
neighbouring places, and it strongly tempts us to refer their
production to the same class of physical agencies.

Another important acquisition in geography, for which we are
indebted to thb and the previous expedition, consists in a greatly
improved knowledge of the water-supply of Central Africa.
It is undeniable that, owing to the great majority of travels, in
recent years, having been confined to the Sahara, the Karoos,
and the Kaliharri, an impression has forced itself on the popular
mind that the whole interior of Africa is arid. But it is an
error to suppose that this opinion was current among educated
geographers ; their fault lay in the opposite direction. The only
approach, in recent times, to a belief in the aridity of any part
of Africa, which subsequent facts disproved, lay in the question
of the northern boundary of the Kalihafri Desert It was a
surprise to geographers when Livingstone showed them that it
was abruptly bounded by a swampy land, full of large rivers ;
but in reference to the general question of the moisture or
drought of equatorial Africa, the exceeding hiunidity of its
coasts has unduly influenced opinion, as to the character of its
more distant interior.

To take a single example, we will quote a few lines from a
masterly sketch of African geography in the first volume of
Bruce's * Travels,* which appeared at the be^nning of this
century. It was written by his editor, Dr. Murray, and will
be found in the appendix on the Gtdla races — those peojde from
whom Speke theoretically derives the Wahumas :—

* The scanty knowledge we possess of the eastern and western
shores of Africa, in the region of the Line^ would lead us to sup-
pose that the central country is mountainous intersected with deep

1 863. The Sources of the Nile. 22 1

and extensire valleys and large Btreams^ whose banks have all the
wild luxuriance of warm rainy climates. All the kingdoms that lie
round the Gulf of Guinea are well watered, and, consequently, fer-
tile in a high degree. South of these, the countries of Loando, Congo,
Ngolo, and Benguela, where the Portuguese have settled, merit a
similar character, which undoubtedly may be extended across the
interior to the countries of Mozambico, Querimba, and Zanzibar, on
the opposite eastern shore. • . . All the interior of Africa between
the tropics must be full of rivers, woods, and ravines, on account of
the rains which inundate it during the winter season* Accordingly,
we observe abundance of streams in these latitudes^ which enter the
ocean on either side.'

The error of more recent geographers has lain in the same
direction. Thus, in Keith cfohnston's 'Physical Atlas/ the
chart of the dbtribution of rain ascribes an amount of precipi-
tation in equatorial Africa, little inferior to that observed in
rimilar latitudes elsewhere in the world. The humidity of the
coasts of Africa corroborated this view, and the outpour of water
from its interior did not disprove it. The river drainage of
Africa was known to be large, while our imperfect knowledge
of the river mouths along its coasts, made it probable that the
outpour was still greater than had actually been ascertained.
Africa used to be oescribed as a land in which we knew of the
existence of vast rivers, but were ignorant of their embouchures.
The Niger of a generation back, the Zambesi, the Limpopo*,
and the great river of Du Chaillu, are all instances where the
streams were known by exaggerated reports, but their mouths,
where nautical surveyors might gauge the water they poured
into the sea, were undiscovered*

The hydrology of Eastern Africa is now pretty well under-
stood ; it depends upon well-marked geographical features. A
narrow coast-line is bounded by the rampart-like edge of a high
plateau : the rain-bearing monsoons blow parallel to this ridge,
and not across it ; consequently there are heavy rains on the
coast-line, and a comparative drought to a considerable space
beyond. On passing about a quarter of the distance across
Africa, and on arriving at the meridian of the lakes, rain again
begins to fall freely, but its amount, as measured by Grant's
rain-gauge, bears no comparison to the deluge that descends in
similar parallels, either on the great oceans, or on the islands
that lie within them, elsewhere in the world.

Whatever water the rivers of a country may pour year by year
into the sea, must have been derived from it, on the average,
within the same periods. Now it is clear, from geographical
considerations, that Africa is unfavourably disposed to receiving
rain-bearing currents from the ocean. The existence of the

2^ The Sources afthe Nile, July,

Sahara to the north, and the Kaliharri Desert to the sondi, makee
it impossible that vapour supplies should reach the interior in a
straight line from the sea in either of those directions. Again,
we have already said that the monsoons blow parallel to the
east coast, and we should add, that the trade winds blow
parallel to the west coast; consequently, the vapour that
reaches the interior must be derived from limited directions^
and can only be conveyed by the comparatively in»gnificant
channel of upper atmospheric currents* We consequently fiad
that the vegetation of Central Equatorial Africa is, on the
whole, not so moist and steaming as that of its coasts, but that
it is largely characterised by open plains and scraggy mimosa
trees ; and though the flatness of laige portions of its surface
admits of the r^y formation of great lakes and reedy plains,
there is an absence of that vast amount of suspended vapour
which would ensue from African temperatures, if the air were
saturated with moisture. The chief cause of the rise of the
White Nile must not be looked for in the swelling of the
Nyanza Lake. The rain-fall was found to be too continuous
throughout the year to make any veiy marked alteration of its
level ; but south of the latitude of Gondakoro, the division of
the rainy and dry season b^ns to be sharply defined. We
should therefore mainly ascribe the rise of the White Nile to the
rain-fall north of about 3"" N. lat

We wiU now turn from consideratione of physical geography
to the history and character of the races among whom Speke
and Grant have been so long familiar. It seems clear to «s
that in no part of Africa do the negroes present so few pointa
of interest, as in the country which stretches between the lakes
Tanganyika and Nyanza and the eastern coast. But on ar*
riving at the three Wahuma kingdoms, which enclose the wes^
em and, north-western shores of the latter lake, a remarkable
state of social and political life arrests the attention. Two at
least of these Wahuma kingdoms have the advantage of being
ruled with a firm hand, and, as we have already stated, the
three are governed by a stranger dynasty, of a hi^er race
than the people who compose the bulk of theii: respective
nations. This is no exceptional occurrence in Africa : the great
kingdoms of North African negroland which now, or formerly,
stretch in a succession of blocks below the Sahara, from the
Niger to the Nile, have been for the most part founded by
alien races. It is hard to overrate the value of such a political
condition to a negro population, who are servile, suscep-
tible, and little able to rule themselves. The negro is plastic
under the influence of a strong, if it be a sympathetic, govern-

1863. Tlie Sources of the Nile. 223

moat, to an extent of which our northern experiences can afibrd
DO instance* The recent growth of national dignity among the
ItaKans is a feeble parallel to what may be effected, in the same
time, by the conversion of a barbarian chief to the Mahometan
creed. The impressionable character of the negroes is snch as
may be seen in a school of European boys, which is imme-
diately infected by bad example and negligent discipline, and
almost as rapidly raised in moral tone by the influence of a
capable master. We Anglo-Saxons stand too far from the
negroes, socially, morally, and intellectually, to be able to in-
fluence them like the Arabs, the Tawareks, or these Wahumas.

The eagerness of the African to be led, and his incapacity to
lead, is such thi^ any able and energetic man, who can hold his
own for a few years, appears to have a good chance of founding
a kingdom and originating new customs and names. The
political state of tlie African negroland seeths with continual
agitation. The Niger countries have been known to us little
more than forty years, yet that short space of time has witnessed
the introduction of an entirely new race, the Fellatahs, and the
construction of an enormous aggregate of Fellatah kingdoms, not
only on the foundation of previously existing governments, but
also by the annexation of barbarian races. So in South Africa,
\he Kaflir tribes of the earlier travellers, have changed their
names ; they and their Hottentot, Negro, and Negroid neigh-
bours dwell within largely modified frontiers; half-caste
breeds of the Hottentots have flourished and become ab-
sorbed, while another somewhat adulterated Hottentot race,
the Namaquas, are become the most powerful of any native
race. The remainder of Africa is known to us so lately, that
we have nothing but recent tradition and circumstantial evidence
to guide us ; these, however, suffice to confirm our assertion.
The negroes are continually grouping themselves in fresh com-
binations, to an extent that may remind us of a pack of cards,
variously dealt over and over again into different hands. The
story of the Wahuma nations is quaint and characteristic ; we
will describe that of Uganda.

Many generations ago, a great kingdom of negroes, ruled by
Wahuma chiefs, was established in the country now divided
among Kan^w^, Uganda, and Unyoro. That portion which
bordered the lake, and is now called Uganda, was considered
as the garden of the whole, and the agriculturists who tilled it,
were treated as slaves. Then a man named Kim^ra, himself
a Wahuma, who was also a great hunter, happened to fre-
quent for his sport, the Nile near its outflow from the Nyanza.
The negro natives flocked to him in crowds, to share the game

224 The Sources of the Nile. July,

he killed, and he became so popular that they ended by.makme^
him their king. They said their own sovereien lived far off
and was of no use to them. If any one sent him a cow as a
tributary present, the way to his judace was so long that the
cow had time to have a calf on the road, and the calf had time
to grow into a cow and to have a calf of its own. They were
therefore determined to establish a separate kingdom. Kim^ra
became a powerful and magnificent king, and formed the King-
dom of Uganda. He built himself a vast enclosure of large huts, as
a palace ; he collected an enormous harem to fill them. He made
highways across the country, built boats for war purposes on
the lake, organised an army, legislated on ceremonies, behaviour,
and dress, and superintended hyaihie so closely, that no house
could be built in his country without its necessary appendages
for cleanliness. In short, he was a model king, and established
an order of things which has continued to the present day,
through seven generations of successors, with little change. He
was embalmed when he died, his memory is venerated, and his
hunting outfit, the dog and the spear, continue to be the armorial
insignia of Uganda.

Kim^ra left at his death an enormous progeny, to whom his
people behaved as ruthlessly as if they had been disciples of Mr.
Carlyle, or as a hive of some imaginary species of bees might
be supposed to treat their too numerous royal grubs. We do not
learn what became of the girls, but the boys were sumptuously
housed and fed, and when they grew up were royally wived ;
but they were strictly watched and kept asunder, lest they
should intrigue. The most promising youth of the lot was
elected king ; the two proxime accesserunt were set aside as a
reserve in case of accident, and then the people burnt to death,
without compunction, every one of the remaining princes. The
people have certainly been well ruled under this strict system
of artificial selection, and the three Wahuma kings are every one
of them more than six feet high.

Uganda is described as a most surprising country, in the order,
neatness, civility, and politeness of its inhabitants. It would be
a pattern even for Zanzibar ; but M't^se's reign is a reign of
terror. It is an establbhed custom that there should be one
execution daily. The ceremonies and rules of precedence of
the Court of Uganda, as in that of the other Wahuma courts,
are minutely defined, and are exacted under penalty of death.
The first among the dignitaries of State is the lady who had the
good fortune to have acted as monthly nurse to the sovereign's
mother. After this Mrs. Gamp, follow the Queen's sister and
the King's barber. Then come governors of provinces and

1863. The Sources of the Nile. 225

naval and military commanders ; then the executioners (who
are bnsy men in Uganda)^ and the superintendents of tombs ;
lastly, the cook. In a lower grade are juvenile pages to look after
the women, and to run upon errands : they are killed if they
dare to walk. In addition to these is an effective band of
musicians, who drum, rattle gourds with dry peas inside them,
play flutes, clarionettes, wooden harmoniums, and harps, besides
others who sing and whistle on their fingers. Every person of
distinction must constantly attend on his sovereign, or his estates
are liable to be utterly confiscated. He must be decorously
dressed in a sort of toga, made from the pounded bark of the fig-
tree, for he is fined heavily or killed outright if he exhibits even
a patch of bare leg. What a blessing trousers would be to them I
These bark cloaks are beautifully made, and look like the best
corduroy; they are worn over robes of small antelope skins sewn
together with the utmost furrier's art. Every courtier's language
must be elegant, and his deportment modelled upon established
custom. Even the King is not free ; Wahuma taste exacts that
whenever he walks he should imitate the gait of a vigilant lion,
by ramping with his legs and turning from side to side. When
he accepts a present from a man, or orders a man a whipping,
the favoured individual must return thanks for the condescending
attention, by floundering flat on the ground and whining like a
happy dog. Levees are held on most days in the palace, which
is a vast enclosure full of life. It occupies the brow of a hill,
and consists of gigantic grass huts, beautifully thatched. The
ffronnd is strewn with mats and with rushes in patterns, and is
kept with scrupulous care. Half-gorged vultures wheel over it,
looking out for victims hurried aside to execution. The three
or four thousand wives of the King inhabit the huts and quizzed
Speke's party. There is plenty to do at these levees, both in
rad work and in ceremony. Orders are given, punishments
adjudged, presents are received. Military commanders bring
in the cattle and plunder they have taken ; artisans bring their
chefs d^oBuvre; hunters produce rare animals, dead and alive,
Kim^ra, the first kine, having established a menagerie. Pages
are running about, literally for their lives, and the band of
drummers and pea-gourd rattlers, and artistes whistling on
their fingers, with the other accompaniments, never ceases to
play. The King has, however, some peace. He sets aside
three days a month to attend to his religious ceremonies.
He possesses a collection of magic horns, which he arranges
and contemplates, and thereby communicates with a spirit who
lives deep in the waters of the Nvanza. He also indulges in the
interpretation of dreams. At otner times he makes pilgrimages^

VOL. CXVIII. KO. CCXLI. Q

226 Tlie S&uTces of ike Ntte. Juty,

dragging bis wives after him ; on which oocasionB no oomnoa
man dare look at the royal proceeBion. If any peeping Took
be seen^ the inevitable pi^es hunt him down and rob him of
everything. Occasionally the King spends a fortnight yaohting^
on the lake, and Speke was his companion oa one <^ these oo-
casions. MH^^ the King, is a yonng man of twenty-five, who
dresses scrupulously well, and uses a pocket4iaadlDerohief. He
is a keen sportsman, and became « capital shot at flying game,
under Speke's tuition. He told Speke that Uganda was h»
garden, and that no one misht say nay to him. Gnmt, we
may mention, had been ill, and remained five monthi ol
Elaragw^, while his colleague had gone forwards to feel tbs
way.

Speke established his position at the Court of Uganda by
judicious self-assertion and happy audacity. He would irot
fiounder on his belly, nor whine like a happy dog. He would
not even consent to stand in the sun awaiting the King's leisure
at the first interview, but insisted on sitting in hb own chair
with an umbrella over his head. The courtierB must have
expected the heavens to fall upon such a man, but they did not ;
and, in the end, M't6se treated him like a brother, and the two
were always together. Savage despots have to be managed like
wild beasts. If the traveller is too oompliaat, he is oppressed,
thwarted, and ruined; if he is too audacious, the autoocat
becomes furious, and the traveller is murdered, like Yogel ia
WadaL

•

Though Speke was treated with the utmost friendliness si
Uganda, living entirely at the King's expense, his movements
were narrowly constnuned, and he never seems to have left the
immediate neighbourhood of the palace, except on the one ooc»»
sion when he was yachting with M^^se, who would not allow
him to explore the lake more thoroughly. He was detained
month after month, according to the usual fate of Africaa
travellers, and finally efiected his departure with difficulty.
Other reported facts on the geography of the land hid
now transpired. The southern end of the Lake Lata Nzig€
was 100 or 150 miles due west of the northern end of the
Nyanza, and therefore on the equator ; and another small lake»
the Baringo, was described due east of the Nyanza, and so far
connected with it that the canoes of the Ugaiida people sailed
there for salt Its outlet was said to be by the Asua, a small
river which joins the Nile above Gh>ndakoro, near the farthest
point reached by Miani. It would appear from the map, that
If Kenia and Kilimandjaro send any of their drainage waters te
the White Nile, it must be by way of the Baringo. Hence,

18681 Tie Saurce$ of tlu Nik. 227

irimtever snow-waier may be contributed to the White NUe
miiBt be poured iato it thiOQgh the Asna Biver.

After Speke and. Grant hm left the capital of Uganda, thej
travelled with an escort ; Speke diverged directly to the Nile,
which he struck fifty miles from the lake. Speke then ascended
the river, and traced it to its exit from the Nyanza, and after^
wards returned down its stream in canoes. We pass over the
partieulars of his journey, though it was, personally, eventful to
him. His boats were unexpectedly attacked, while he was still
in Uganda, and he forced lus way through considerable dangers.
Finally, he reached the capital of Unyoro, the third and last of
the great Wahuma kingdoms.

His reception by the Eang was unfriendly. The Unyoro
people are suUen, cowardly, and disobliging, and their habits
afibrd a disagreeable contrast to the sprighUy wajrs and natty
dress of their neighbours in Uganda, whom Speke compyes to
the French. He and Grant spent many dreary months at Un-
yoro, in lat 1^ 40^ N., before they were allowed to proceed. The
King would never permit them even to enter hk palace: he
was always at his witchcrafts. They were first threatened
by the Unyoro peoide and then by their Uganda escort, who
endeavoured to take them back. Half of their porters
deserted them. It would weary the reader to fi>llow the travel-
lers' narrative of their truly African miseries in this inhos-
pitable land. They were felt the more acutely because the
bourne of their journey was close at hand, and many things
denoted the neighbourhood of the races and localities known to
travellers from the north. Negroes were seen in Unyoro,
speaking an entirely new class of languages, which Speke's own
interpreters could make nothing of. One single language
in modified dialects, had carried the travellers the whole way
from Zanzibar to Unyoro; now they were on the frontier
of the n(»rthem toi^ues. These new races were barbarians,
absolutely naked in their own land, and wearing a mere
scrap of clothing in Unyoro, out of deference to Wahuma
habits. Humours reached the travellers of white traders at no
great distance from diem, on the river, and they chafed at their
detention. They sent forward the chief of their Zanzibar men,
Bombay by name, who has already figured in Burton's and
Speke's writings. He returned firing his gun, frantic with
delight, and dressed in new clothes. He said he had been to
the Turks, who were encamped eight marches south of Gon-
dakoro. At length, after daily anxieties and heart-sickness,
a partial permission came for their departure, and the explorers
.made a joyful escape. It was impossible for them to follow the

228 The Sources of the Nile. July,

river, for a brother of the King of Unyoro occupied it8 banks,
and was at war with him ; they took a direct line across country,
to Gondakoro, which led them along the chord of that bend of
the Nile, to which we have already alluded. When they again
struck the river, they found themselves in a Turkish camp, at
3^ 10^ N. lat. It was an ivory station, made by men in the
employment of Debono, and established a short distance south
of the farthest point reached by Miani. They were rapturously
received, and Speke's men abandoned care and got drunk for a
week. The Turks were preparing to start for Gondakoro, with
the ivory they had bartered, and Speke waited till they were
ready, for he was absolutely unable to get on without assistance.
The Bari people among whom they were residing, are so dis-
united, that no village possesses a body of porters sufficient in
number to travel securely by themselves; nor could they be
spared to go, for, if they attempted to do so, the comparative
weakness of the villagers who staid at home would invite
the attack of their neighbours. The Turks moved in a great
caravan ; they wanted some 2,000 porters, so they exacted a
certain quota from every village, by which means they got
their men, and the balance of power among the natives was
not disturbed. In this despotic, effective way, Speke was
enabled to reach Gondakoro. He was, however, thorouehly
shocked by the recklessness with which stolen cattie and plun-
dered ivory were bought, and with the exactions and terrorism
that are made to administer to the demands of the Turkish
ivory trade. The Arab traders of Uniamesi were perfect gen-
tlemen compar^ to these Turks, whose conduct was inhuman to
the last degree. He thoroughly confirms what has been so often
repeated of late by various travellers to Gondakoro.

The discovery of this great river springing from two lakes,
does certainly confirm the belief that the ancient knowledge of
the Nile was more advanced than that of recent times ; but the
want of circumstantial precision with which the ancient ac^
counts are conveyed, left an impression adverse to their truth.
They stride in one great leap from KharttLm to the sources, with-
out any description of the intervening land, unless we except
Strabo's, which is as follows, if we understand it aright. After
clearly describing all the Kile, down to the Atbfira and Blue
Biver, he says, * But the Astapus is said to be another river

* which issues out of some lakes in the South, and this river

* forms nearly the whole of the Nile ; it flows in a straight line,

* and is filled by the summer rains.' When we speak of geo-
graphical discovery, we rarely, if ever, mean the first sight of
what no human eye had previously seen, but the visit or men.

1863. The Sources of the Nik. 229

who could observe geographically, and describe what they saw,
80 as to leave no obscurity as to their meaning. These conditions
had never previously been satisfied as regards the Nile; for
geographers, working with the fairest intentions upon the same
data, came to diverse conclusions, and no map made by any one
of liiem bore other than a rude and childish resemblance to
what is now ascertained to be the truth.

The first person Speke saw when he reached Gondakoro was his
old friend Baker, who had just arrived there, bound on a self-
planned journey of exploration and of relief to Speke. The inter-
view, to use Speke's own words, intoxicated them both with joy.
Baker gave him his return boats, stored with corn, and supplied
him with every delicacy he could think of, and thus the journey
ended. Mr. Consul ^Petherick, who had been furnished with
1,000£, the proceeds of a private subscription to bear relief to
Speke, and who had undertaken to arrive at Gondakoro a year
previously, had wholly failed in his mission. Strangely enough,
he too arrived at Grondakoro, previous to Speke's departure from
that place, but not in a condition to render that succour which
Baker had so happily and gratuitously afibrded.

Gondakoro does not seem to be quite such a desert as
Fetherick had represented, where Speke must necessarily have
starved had no expedition been directed to meet him. On the
contrary, a polished Circassian Turk, Koorschid Pasha, had
been governor of the place for fourteen months : he instantlv
gave the travellers a dinner of a fat turkey, concluded with
claret and cigars.

Thus closes the tale of a journey that involved a walk of
1,300 miles through the equatorial regions of Africa, and has
solved almost the only remaining geographical problem of im-
portance. It has been the Matterhom of the Geographical
Society, the grandest feat and the longest delayed. If Speke
himself, or Baker, would cross from the Luta Nzig6 to the
Atlantic, and if some Gregory or Stuart would traverse Western
Australia, the great secret chambers of the habitable earth
would all be unlocked.

230 The ScoU in France: J^j,

Abt. Yin. — 1. Lez JEcossais en France^ lee Frangaie en Eeoeee^
Par Fbancibque-Migh&l. 2 vols. 8vo. Londres : 1862.

2. Pajners (TJEtat relatifs it THistaire de VEooeeeau 16~ SAde;
Hrie des BAUoth^ques et dee Ardiwee de France, et jnASie
pour le Bamiatyne Club d^Edimbaurff. 3 vols* 4to. Paris.

3. Papers relative to the Royal Guard of Scottish Archers in
France. (From Original Documents.) Printed at Edin-
burgh for the Maitland Club. 1 vol. 4to. 1835.

Tn the midst of international questions of every shape and
shade, and when the value of every conceivable form of
international relation is daily submitted to the test of fresh
experience, it is interesting to turn to the history of an alli-
ance, the direct effects of which have ceased for three cen-
turies to be appreciable to politicians, hut which is still ao
important in the eyes of men of learning and ability as to
entitle it to a literature of its own. The alliance of France
and Scotland was, indeed, a memorable friendship, standing out
from all merely political arrangements not only by intimaoy
and warmth whilst it endured, but by the lasting effects which
it left behind it These M. Francisque-Michel has traoed, — in
the public history, and still more in the private and domestic
annals of France. In Scotland they meet us at every turn, —
in the institutions, habits, and speech of the people, from the
oiganisation of the Court of Session, the terminology of the
law, and the constitution of the Presbyterian Church, to
the baking of ' kickshaws ' (quelquechoses) and ' pettiooat-
' tails ' (petits^&teaux), and the opening of an oyster.* The
high-rool'ed gable and the pepper-box turret of the French
chateau gave to Scotland a style of architecture which became
domestic amongst us in the sixteenth century, and which haa
been revived in our own days with great propriety and taste.
We claim for the popular cookery of Scotland, distinguished
by an enlightened use of vegetables and of broths, a marked
superiority over the barbarous culinary preparations of South
Britain ; but it must be confessed that we owe that superiority
to the lessons of our French allies. And, as we write, we are
informed that in more than one Scottish village lingers the
tradition of a French tambour-stitch, which was probably
imported when the newest fashions came from the Court of
Blois or Fontainebleau.

* In Scotland, as in France, oysters are opened with the hollow
side undermost, so as to retain the juice— a process which is too often
reversed in England.

1863. The FmuA in Scotland. 231

M. Michel says that a sense of the disproportion between the
small spaoe aoccnded to the Scottish alliance in the ordinary
histories of France, and the magnitude of the part which it
really played in the history of his country, was one of his
motires for undertaking the work to which he has devoted so
considerable a portion of his life. Howevar the matter may
have stood when M. Michel commenced his labours, five and
twenty years ago, onr countrymen will be extremely un-
reasonable if they are not more than satisfied with the
mmende honorable which has now been made to them. Of
the class of writers — archndogists and compilers, rather
than historians — by whom the task of reviying this curious
and interesting page in the Ustory of the two countries has
been accomplished, M. Michel has beoa the most industrious,
and he is consequently the most esdiaustive. In the good
work of restoring, as it were, to eadi other, two old school-
fellows and conrades in arms, whom the chanses and chances
of life had drifted asunder, he holds, and probably will continue
to hold, the first place. He is so far from a faultless writer,
that, — taking into account that he is a Frenchman, and
remembering the precision with which Frenchmen distribute
their matter, and the deamess, sharpness, and brevity with
which they write^ — it b almost incredible that he should have
produced so disorderly and dull a book. But the merits
of M. Michel's performance altogether outweigh its defects ;
and, of the former, one of the greatest consists in the extent
to which it has rectified and widened our conception of the
subject of which it treats.

Hitharto this alliance between the most polished court of
continental Europe and our ruda* forefathers has been viewed
chiefly in relation to two or three well-known historical events;
for to say die truth the league of Scotland and France grew
up und^ the shadow of England, and was strengthened by
common hatred or common fear. In the popular conception of
it, in France more especially, these passions centre in the single
person of Mary Stuart. Everybody knows the ties which bound
the beautiful and unhappy Queen to France, — that her mother
was a Frenchwoman — that France was the land in which her
own happy girihood was spent — that for a brief period she sat
upon the French throne (France and Scotland being then united
by what would now be called a personal union) — that when she
ultimately returned to her paternal kingdom she was accom-
panied by French attendants, and continued to be surrounded
by them during her whole life, and that up to the last she herself
always both spoke and wrote by preference what was indeed

232 The Scots in France : July,

her mother's tongue. So constantly are these facts present to
the minds of Frenchmen^ that they regard her less in the light
of a beautiful exotic that flourished for a time in the rich soil
of France, than as the fair and fragile emblem of their country
transplanted, by an adverse destiny, to arid and sunless Scot^
land But the rouffh unkindness of Scotland is forgotten, and
the lily is seen omy as crushed and broken at last by the
jealousy and bigotry of England. M. Mignet has with^ entire
justice and incomparable skill combated the prepossesuons of
his countrymen; but no Frenchman can' forget that on
the scaffold at Fotheringay Mary Stuart reminded her execu-
tioners that it was on the Queen Dowager of France that they
were about to lay their sacnlegious hands.

What has been said of the powerful and indelible character
of the influences of ballad poetry, might bo sud with equal
truth of the sympathies and antipathies which arise from^ occur-
rences that appeal very strongly to the national imagination.
Scottish auxiliaries fought by the side of Joan of Arc, under the
banner which, according to M. Michel, a Scotchman had painted ;
and Scotchmen stood around as sympathising spectators of her
last sufferings at Rouen. In like manner Scotland shared the
insults offered to France in the person of Mary Stuart. It is
quite surprising to how great an extent these facts, and the many
pathetic incidents with which they are connected, dwelt upon
as they are in early youth, still colour the feelings with which
Frenchmen in general regard the two divisions of tins island.

But the marriage of Mary Stuart, and the occurrences which
arose out of it, down to the latest generation of her male heirs, are
not the only links which, even in the popular imagination, bind
Scotland to France. Many other royal marriages which pre-
ceded it are for the most part forgotten — even that of the fair
and tender Madeleine de Yalois. But the institution of the
Scottish Guard, for example, is popularly remembered; and
Quentin Durward has as many readers in France as in Scotland,
^en, by a more limited class of persons, the Scottish colleges,
and the numbers of Scotchmen who held learned appointments
in the Universities of France, are called to mind ; and the
intellectual relation between the two countries which extended
down to a very recent period, if it does not still exist*, is supposed
to be the source at once of their national sympathies and of
their political ties.

♦ Whilst M. Victor Cousin lives, — the pupil of Royer-Collard,
the friend of Hamilton, and the eloquent expositor of the Scottish
school of philosophy, — we may surely hold the chain to be unbroken.

1863. The French in Scotland. 233

On all of these subjeets the researches of M. Michel have
thrown a flood of light. The general information which most
persons possessed has beeh enriched by details, till the skeleton
has become a portly figare once more. We see how each
public transaction d^w after it a mass of private occurrences
and arrangements, not very important separately, but extremely
powerful in the aggregate, as fostering the relation between
the two countries. Mary of Guise, for example, no sooner
finds herself in interesting circumstances than she writes to her
mother to send her a physician and an apothecary — the Medical
School of Edinburgh not having then, it would seem, attained
to the eminence which it has long enjoyed. A decent portrait,
however, could be painted in Edinburgh even in those days;
for the old Duchesse, in thanking her daughter for one of the
King which .she had sent her, says, in the true spirit of a
Frenchwoman, ' Je Pay trouv6 sy beau en sa painture, que sy
' vous savy ^ combien je I'ayme, je pense vous en series jallouse.'
(Vol. i. p. 431.) Though Mr. Innes informs us that ' the hortus
* olerum was an appendage of our better dwellings from the
' earliest records, and that some kinds of ** kail " have been used
' in Scotland by all classes, as far back as we have any knowledge
'of,' we learn from another passage in M. Michel's book, that
Mary of Guise caused fruits udd vegetables to be sent her from
France, 'sans doute parce qu'elle iven trouvait pas d'aussi bons
' dans son royaume.* The letter from the Vlcomte de Longue-
Ville, in which he ^ves an account of the manner in which he
discharged his commission, and of the contents of the various
barrels, is quoted by M. MicheL The articles sent consisted of
medlars, white peas, green peas, and pears. Of one kind of
fruit, the name of which cannot be deciphered, he says he
has been able to procure only about a hunchred, in consequence
of the disease which had attacked it everywhere that year ; but
he had caused the barrel to be filled up with pears, of which
the Queen might procure more if she liked them. ^P. 455.)
Mary of Lorraine had her shoes sent her from Pans — as a
French lady might very well be pardoned for doing still, not-
withstanding the numbers of French shoemakers whom M.
Michel found in Edinburgh — and we have Marie Ck)urcelles's
letter to the valet de chambre, Baltasar, who seems to have
been then in Paris, ordering them both for her mistress and
herself.

These, and hundreds of similar facts which the industry of
M. Michel has collected, give a life and colour to the well-known
incidents of the connexion between France and Scotland in the
sixteenth century, which they never possessed before. They

884 The Scoi» m France t JvXy,

bring them nearer to us, render them more intelligible, and whilst
they remove them from the sphere of tradition to that of wdl-
authenticated history^ they add to, in place of dimininhing, their
interest. On the otiier hand, however, they do not in the
slightest degree account for, or even convey to us a conceptian
of, the extent and importance of this connexioa> as an inter-
national relation, not only during the sixteenth century, whea
it reached its culminating point, but for two eaituries at least
previously, and e\ea for uie whole of the first century after the
fieformation. It is in supplying thb inforBiation from other
sources that the great value of the work bef<»e us, as compared
with others not less interestii^, really consists. As it is now
presented to us, we see that the peculiar and very intimate
relation which so long subsisted between the two countries did
not arise from a few royal marriages, or even from ,the occasional
aid whidi the nations afforded to each other against a ooaMnnM
enemy. Royalty, no doubt, couated {<x more in the sixteenth
thui in the nineteenth century. Still the royal marriages of
those days do not seem to have differed very widely in thdr
political or social effiscts from those which in our day have bev
oontracted between our own royal family and the Protestant
Houses of Grermany, and wUch quite rec^tly have been
£(mned with the Houeee of Prussia and Denmark. No vecy
mariced diflference has occurred in ourrclationn with theseoowir
tries in consequence of those events, and none sudi woald
have occurred between France and Scotland from ttiat canae
alone.

M. Michd .finds tnaces of bands of Scottish merooaariaa
in France as early as the twelflh century; and from the
appendix to his second volume (p. 5S8.) it appears that so lale
as 1642, there were enlisted for the service of Lonis XHL
no less than 9,600 Scotchmen. But it was not to Fxanne
alone that Scotland's soldiers of fortune went ; nor were the
Scotch the <mly people whoae surplus manhood was drafted off
to foreign wars. The same for ages has been the case with the
Swiss; and as regards the Scoteh, when their servicea w«ne oo
long^ required in France, they swaimed over into Italy and
Spain. M. Michd asserts that at a very early period their
wandering propensitiea had carried them in great numbers mUi
Germany ; and it is wdl known, at any rate, that they wece
extensively engaged in the Thirty years' war, on both sidaa.
In Sweden, to thu day, names so sUghtiy altered as to leave no
doubt of their Scottiflli origin are quite common. Along the
southern shores of the Baltic, Yon Don^asaa and V on Gordons
are to be met with, whose Scottish pedqpms ace psdbaUy

1863. The French in ScoOand. 235

k^t with all ibe pride of those noble families. There is a
quarter of the city of Danzig still called SchaiHand, in memory
of a colony of Scotch weavers who settled there in the four*
teenth centnry. From such works as the ' Diary of General
^ Patrick Gordon/ * we learn that at a later period' vast nnmhers
of Scotchmen flocked to the shores of the Baltic and the banks of
the Vistula for trading purposes^ often in the humble capacity
of pedlars ; and there is^ perhaps^ no continental blood more
largely impr^nated with our own than iJiat which is again
poured out at this day in Poland in the genuine spirit of
martyrs for national freedom.

But to none of these countries did Scotland ever stand in
a relatimi in any decree resembling that in which for three or
four centuries she stood to France* Many Scotchmen, it is true»
went to all of them who never returned, and whose descendants,
it is said, still dierish the memoir of their origin. But for
ill practical puq)oses these individuals eeased to be Scoteh*
men altogether, and their continsed existence and prosperity,
and even their fre<iuent reception into the ranks of the no-
tnUty in the countries in which they settled, produced no more
effect on their native land than if they bad been shipwrecked
in their first voy^e, or had fallen on their first battle-field.
Scotland borrowed nothing from Poland, and -very little from
Germany; and into the lands of their adoption the emigrants
to these countries carried nothing that was Scotch. But such
was very far from being the case with those who went to France,
or even with those who permanently settled in that country.
Their connexion with Scotland continued, and the whole insti-
tutions of Scotland, political, legal, and even ecclesiastical, were
modified by French influences. Nor is this result at b\1 sur-
prising when the facts are fairly before us. The constant and
uninterrupted intercourse between the two countries to which
M. MichePs pages bear witness, is surprising even in this
railway generation. Over and over again he adduces a flood of
testimony in support of this assertion. Speaking of the period
of the regency of Mary of Guiee, above all, he says that * if one
< were to register the names of all the persons of noto who
^ passed from France into Scotland, or who took the opposite
* ronto, one would arrive at the conclu^on that never did a

■ ■ i»

♦ Since we reviewed, in July 1856 (Ed. Rev. civ. p. 24.), the
Grerman translation of this very carious work by Prince Obolenski
and Dr. Posselt, we rejoice to find that a great portion of the original
has been printed by the Spalding Clab ; and it is one of the most
tnteresting volumes in that valuable collection.

236 ITie Scots in France: Jvly,

* more intimate relation subsist between two countries.' He
then proceeds to give two pages of names, concluding with the
statement that hundreds of others might be discovered. If
hundreds could be discovered, it is obvious that thousands must
have ceased to be discoverable.

The fact is, that whereas the relation of Scotland with the
other countries to which we have alluded arose from accidental
and exceptional enterprises, that with France was the result of
a habit which was gradually formed, and very slowly abandoned^
and which arose from a great variety of causes. Scotchmen
of all ranks, conditions, and avocations went to France for all
sorts of purposes. Soldiers of fortune, ecclesiastics, invalids
in search of health and of medical and surgical treatment, —
of these M. Michel gives many instances, — men of lettersj
men of fashion : some went in pursuit of fame, many in pursuit
of gain, not a few with that nobler thirst for intellectual
culture which no country in Europe was then so much in a
condition to satisfy. To the higher classes of Scotchmen in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Paris was very much what
London has become to their descendants since the Union of the
Crowns, and what indeed it probably was to their ancestors in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, before the rupture between
the two divisions of the United Kingdom.

To assign all the causes which took Scotchmen to Paris in
those days would be as difficult as to mention those which take
them to London now. Many, no doubt, went merelv because
others had gone, because it was the fashion, and their friends
were there. Many remained because they had formed habits
which rendered Paris indispensable, and — Scotland impos^ble.

It is very easy to view these facts simply as indications of the
necessities of the Scots, and of the poverty and rudeness of
their native land. But the question as to whether or not this
French connexion was creditable to the Scotch — ^if it be neces-
sary to discuss it — must be determined by the manner in which
they conducted themselves, and the position which they assumed
in their adopted country. Viewed in this light, it seems to us
that a more unequivocal compliment could scarcely be paid to a
nation than that which the pages of M. Michel's book contain*
Taking into account the very large number of instances he has
given — the energy displayed by the emigrants, and the splendid
success which so often attended their exertions in what then
was, far more imquestionably than it is now, the most luxurious,
refined, and magnificent capital in Europe, are marvellous proofs
of their abilities, whilst the small number of crimes and acts of
meanness, or even violence, which he enumerates^ is a not less

1863. The French in Scotland. 237

Taluable testimony to their good conduct Notwithstanding the
general charge of insolence perpetuated in the proverb, Jier
eamme un Ecossais*, against the highly paid and gaily accoutred
soldiers of the guard, even they, up to the time at which the
kindly relation between the countries began to be affected by
the Reformation and the Union between Scotland and England,
enjoyed an amount of popularity very rarely accorded to foreign
troops, and which the Scotch did not always reciprocate towards
those Ghillic allies who from time to time were quartered in
Scotland.

Then it is said f that, from first to last, besides a great number
of professors and doctors in all the faculties, not less than thirty
Scotchmen held the office of Rector in the University of Paris.
Just let the reader reflect to what an amount of intellectual
activity, and of personal respectability and worth, this single
fact testifies. If we consider what Paris was then, and what
the office of Bector of a University, putting it at the lowest,
is at all times, it would have been very noteworthy if three
Scotchmen, in place of thirty, had attained to so high a dignity I
In like manner, the halls of the University of Padua, in
which Galileo taught, were thronged by young Scotchmen of
family in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; their names
and well-known escutcbeons may still be seen upon the walls,
and we have in our own possessidh the diploma of a ^nobilis
* juvenis Scotus' — a Wallace — who graduated there in medicine
in 1614.

We have said that the stream by no means ran with equal
force in the opposite direction. If we except the regency of
Mary of Guise, and the earlier years of the reign of her
daughter, when the Court was really French, and when French
tradesmen established themselves in Edinburgb in great num-
bers, the influx of Frenchmen into Scotland has been, compara-
tively speaking, very limited. Still, there were many — apart
from the military expeditions, of which alone we hear anything
from the public historians — who came to Scotland, both for
private and public purposes. Subsequent to the Reformation,
the emigration of Scotch Catholics into France was pretty

* Jurercomme un Ecossais, it would seem, was the French equiva-
lent for our phrase * swear like a trooper.' In the beginning of his
second volume, M. Michel has given some amusing specimens of the
jargon with which these men of the sword affligeaient les oreilles de
nos ancStres, It is itself a proof of the extent of the connexion, that
the langaige escosse-frangois is spoken of by the writers of the period
as a well-known patois.

f Miscellanea Scotica, vol. iv. p. 19.

238^ The StaU iu France : Julj,

well bak&eed by that of French Prolestuitfl into Scotkund.
Janes Melville, in his diary, mentions that snbecriptions were
raised for French Protestants in indigent oireumstaaoes in
1575; and Calderwood has a similar notice in 1622. After
the revocation <^ the Edict of Nantes^ a ecdony of Frencb
weavers^ mostly Scorn Pieardy^ was established in the locality^
where Picardy Plaee now stands. Under the year 1597,
the same James Mriville records that, * owing to the fasie of
^ Andrew Melville, the University of^St. Andrews was this year

* attended by a considerable ntmiber of foreign youth, Polea^
' Danes, Belgians, and Frenchmen, ^^ whilk (^rabbit the King

* mickle/' Andrew being no favourite c^ his.'* So lately aa
1861, three princes of the House of Orleans sat on the fomoe
of the High School of Edinburgh. They were distinguished
for ability amongst their schoolfeUows, and much beloved and
cherished by the inhabitants as the last and noblest representa-
tives of the old friendship of the two kingdoms.

It is not so easy a matter as it at first i^pears to determine
when the speciid relations between France and Scothmd
originated, or what were the causes which led to the formation
of the habit amongst Scotchmen of which we have spoken. The
common opinion is, that the connexion arose entirely after the
attempted conquest of Scotiand, wluch they viewed as a sepa-
rate Saxon kingdom, by the Norman kings of England, and
that it was fostered mainly by the part which the Scotdb took
in what is known in France as the hundred years' war.

We are quite willing to put out of account at once the treaty
between Charlemagne and l^ing Achains^thou^ it figures in tlie
jMreamble of almost every subsequent treaty, down to the timee
of Louis XIV., on the ground that neither France nor SooUaad
existed in the sense of separate treaty-making countries at that
day. To account for the connexion by a treaty of which
nothing can be either affirmed or denied, reminds us of MiiUer's
ingenious solution of the difficulty of fixing responsibility on
poor humanity by ascribing sin to a free act of self-determina*
tion anterior to oonsdousness. If the propoeitimL did not admit
of being very satisfactorily established, it was one which no
subsequent theologian was very Ukely to disprove; and the
treaty in question, we presume, is equally safe from any search
that will ever be made into the archives either of France or
Scotiand. We are aware, moreover, that the four treaties
which M, Michel ascribes to the twelfth century rest upon
evidence which is not only questionable, but which has been

* Chambers' Domestic Annab, voL i. p. 290.

1863* The Frenek m Scotland. 239

gravely questioned onoe he wrote ; and we admit tliat the fact
of Alexander III. Jmying sworn hk cocxmation oadis in French
10 Boffieiently accounted for bj the Normanising fashion which^
la his time, had extended itself to the Scottish Court. StiB,
there are facts croppii^ out, here and tiwre^ which do not
seem to adodit of much doubt, and which ane scarcelj ezfdicable
on any other assumption thim that the oonnauon existed
antericv to the war. Let us try the effect of a slight con^
paffison of dates. The deadi c^ Alexander III., and the
accession of the Ibiden of NorwiCy, took place in 1286 ; the
date of the famous conference of Xoriiam is the 10th of May,
1291, and it was not till 1314 that the battle of Bannockbum
was fought. Now, M. Mi^l informs us that, in 1313, there
was a street in Paris in which the Scotch students Irred in such
Bombers that it was known as the Bue d'£cosse ; that a street
bearing a similar name existed at Dieppe, and that in 1292
there were sixty persons of the name of S(X>t, (yaruHnly spelt)
mentioned in the jUsre de la TaUk^ for that year, as permanent
readents, and of coarse persons of some means, in Paris* As
surnames by this time were common, and as Scott never was a
wertf common surname in Scotland, sixty Sootts in a condition
to pay taxes speak for a considerable resident population of
Scotchmen. It is probable, howeyer, that in a foreign country,
the national titie 'Scot' was sometimes used in place of a
surname. In a subsequent passage M. lifichel says, that at the
commencement of the fourteenth century, there were numbers
fji Scotchmen to be found in many of the smaller towns of
France, at a great distance from the places of their usual dis-
embarkation. As an example, he mentions a Scotch colony at
M4zin in 1327. Nor is M. Michel the only antiquarian who
has collected facts bearing in the same directicm. Tytler, in his
history, and more recenSy Mr. Innes, botii following Mathew
Paris, whom the latter characterises as an 'intelligent and
' unsuspected testimony,' mentions the curious fact, that when
Louis IX. set out on his memorable expedition to the Holy
Land, one of the ships used for the transport of the horses of
the men-at-arms was built for a great French lord, the Earl of
St. Pol, at Invemeas. Taking into account the heterogeneous
character of which the crusading hosts consisted, the fact of a
French nobleman builcUng a ship at Inremess is far more
significant of a connexion between the countries than even the
large number of Scotchmen who joined that disastrous ex-
pedition. Then, as indicating the extent of the continental
trade of Scotland, and the tendency of the Scotch to form con-
tinental connexions generally, it is not unimportant to bear in

240 The Scots in France : Julj,

mind that daring the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Flemish
colonies have been traced in Berwick^ St. Andrews, Perth,
Dumbarton, Ayr, Peebles, Lanark, Edinburgh, and in the
districts of Renfrewshire, Clydesdale and Annandale. These
strangers lived under the protection of a special code of mercan-
tile law; and recent investigations have established the fact,
that, a hundred years before the great Baltic Association came
into being, we had a Hanseatic league in Scotland, small and
unimportant comparatively, but known by that very name. This
was in the time of David I., towards the middle of the twelfth
century. A hundred years later the chronicler of Lanercost,
speaking of the now insignificant town of Berwick-on-Tweed,
informs us that it was ^ a city so populous, and of such trade,
^ that it might justly be called another Alexandria, whose riches
' were the sea, and the waters its walls. In those days the
^ citizens, being most wealthy and devout, gave noble alms.' In
confirmation of these remarks, Mr. Tytler mentions that the
customs of Berwick under Alexander III. amounted to 2,1 97L 8«.
sterling, while the whole customs of England in 1287 produced
only 8,411/. 19^. II ^d. The trade of Berwick was unques-
tionably a continental trade, carried on with Flanders, and to
a large extent, probably, with the coast of France. Now if we
take into account that cities that can by any stretch of the
imagination even of a monkish chronicler, be likened to Alex-
andria are not built in a day — ^that it is not just after the first
few wanderers arrive that streets are called by their name in
towns like Paris and Dieppe, where there are a good many both
Scotch and English residents to whom no such compliment is
paid in our day, and that it must have taken some little ac-
quaintance with Scotland to enable a French noble to fix upon
so strange a place as Inverness for ship-building — ^we may
conclude, with some confidence, that, however it may have
arisen, there was in point of fact a dose connexion between
France and Scotland, of long standing, previous to the War of
the Succession.

Nor are we at all shaken in this belief, which the mention of
long-standing friendship and goodwill in the treaty of 1326
strongly confirms, by the reflection that till the war broke out
there was no very special reason for the continuous intercourse
of which we seem to find traces between France and Scotland.
There is nothing in general that seems more surprising to us
than the amount of international intercourse whicn existed in
Europe in the middle ages. We regard it now as a new thing
for an English monarch to have travelled as much as our own
Prince of Wales. But King Alfred had made the journey to

1863. The French in Scotland. 241

Some twice before he was seven years old ; and the proceeding
was by no means an exceptional one in his day. On the subject
of the intercourse which our Saxon ancestors mdntiuned with
Borne, Dr. Fauli, in his excellent ' Life of Alfred,' has the
following remarks : —

'Ever since the arrival of AuguBtin, the islanders had preserved
an uninterrupted commanication with Rome. No long period
elapsed till a house was established for the reception of their pilgriins
and the instruction of their clergy. We have already seen two kings
of the West Saxons die there. It was from the hands of the chief
shepherd of Borne that the English archbishops received the pallium,
and many bishops their consecration. Offa's name was as familiar at
St. Peter's as in the Court of Charles.'

It was by Offa, Kinpc of the East Saxons, that the hospital or
college over which Cardinal Wiseman presided in our own times,
and the Church of the Holy Trinity, subsequently known as
that of St. Thomas of Canterbury (Sto. Tommaso degli Inglesi),
were founded in 775.

Nor WAS it Italy alone that was familiar with English faces
and English tongues. Every reader of Count Bobert of Paris, .
even if he should have neglected to dip into Ducange, or should
have forgotten his Gibbon, is famiTiar with the Varangian
Guard — that body of our countrymen with whom the em-
perors of the East surrounded themselves, from the battle of
Hastings down to the taking of Constantinople, pretty much
as their predecessors had done with the Prsetorian guards, or
as the kings of France did with the Scottish archers.

When was there a merrier ^ excursion train ' than that which
started from the ^ Tabard ' in South wark one April morn-
ing, somewhere about the year 1383, on a visit to Canter-
bury ? The object of Chaucer was to exhibit the social habits
of his time, and, with this view, the characters of the pilgrims
whom he has brought together are, as a learned editor has
remarked, ^ as various as» at that time, could be found in the
' several departments of middle life ; that is, in fact, as various
* as could, with any probability, be brought together, so as ta
' form one company ; the highest and the lowest ranks of society
' being necessarily excluded.' * But what we wish to caA
attention to is not the habit of home travel to which such an
expedition testifies, but the extent to which that of foreign
travel is revealed by the account which is given in the prologue
of the various members of the party. First we have the
knight, who had ridden

* Sir Harry Nicolas, Pickering's edition, vol. i. p. 261.

TOL. CXYIII. NO. CCXLI. B

M2 . Tke ScatM m France: J^Jj

'ABwdin ChristendemaiiiiHeUiawaaey
And ever honoured for his worthinease.*

The next few lines contain a catalogue of his voyages : —

* At Alisandre be was whan it was wonne.
Fal often time he hadde the herd begonne,
Aboven alle nations, in Ptuce.
In Lettowe hadde he reysed and in Bnce,
No cristen man so ofte of his d^re.
In Gremade at the si^e eke had^ he be
Of Algesir, and ridden in Behnarie.
At Lejes was he, and at Satalie,
Whan they were wonne ; and in the Grete See,
At many a noble armee had he be.
At morUd bataiUes hadde he ben fiftene.
And foQghten for our faith at Tramissene,
In listes threis» and ay slain his foe.
This ilke worthy knight hadde ben also
Somtime with the Lord of Palatie,
Agen another hethen in Turkie,' Src.

Then there is bis son^ * a lusty bacheler ' of twenty, who has
already been

. * * in chevachie»
In Flaunders, in Artois, and in Picardie.*

The merchant and the slupman are travelled men, of coarse ;
and we are not sarprised to bear that the pardoner is ' sti^t
' comen from the Court of Rome.' But it does surprise us a
little to learn that the wife of Bath has been thrice in Jerusalem,
and ' hadde passed many a strange streme.*

^ At Rome she hadde ben, and at Boloine,
In Galice at Seint James, and at Coloine*'

The fiction, however, is not stranger than many weU-autben-
ticated facts. A yery learned friend told us, Uie other day,
that, in his historical researches, he recently came across the
traces of a bailie of Peebles, who was just setting out on a {ol-
grimage to Jerusalem I

Even as regards the mere amount of locomotion, Aere can
be little doubt that we deceive ourselves in supposing it to be
so very greatly in favour of modem times. But the increase in
the quantity has unquestionably far exceeded that in the quality
of travel, if by the quality we understand not its lazy ease, but
its efficacy for purposes of human culture and devel(^>^nent.
In former times, when scarcely any organised means of land
tomsport existed, so ordinary an afiair as a journey from London
to Borne was itself a positive school of instruction.. It was im-

U§3. The French in Sc^dand. 243

po089)le for « man to travrf oy«r the in^ of Europe on borae-
\mAy or in a litTter^ still more 80 to peiform the pilgrimage on
foot, without going through what amoonted to a aeoond edu-
cation. The most intimate contact with human character,
and wMi external nature, under the greatest variety of circum-
stances, was perfectly inevitable. There was &tigne to be
uadeigmie, unquestionably, and very possibly danger to be
encountered ; but at the end of the journey the traveller must
have felt himself inv%erated in body, and filled with new
thoughts and fedings, to a very* different extent from the
modem weakling who is shot along a nulway, the noise of
wiueh drowns conversation, and the rapidity of which renders
vin<m indistinct. In a marvellously short space of time, no
doubt, he finds himself in the Piazza di Spagna, in the midst
of a littie knot of his countrymen, as ignorant and inexperienced
as himself. He gaiins little by the diaage of place that he
might not have guned by looking at a few photogiwhs, and
reading the letters of a newspaper correspondent The more
perfectiy travelling is organised, the lees instructive and even
enjoyable it becomes — a feet which experience brings home
ratfier painfully to those of us who are old enough to contrast the
Continent now with what it was even twenty yours ago. But
it was not only the mode of transport which brought men into
more intimate contact in those days. The same efiect was
produced by the modes oi living. The poorer pilgrims were
accommodated, M. Michel informs us, from a very early period
in France, in hoepiees, free fixMn charge ; those whose circum-
stances were better, or who travelled for secular purposes,
enjoying hospitality probably on v^ much the same terms as
at the Grande Chartreuse or the Great St. Bernard at the
present day. In the towns, of course, there were hostelries and
tavenis for passers by, whilst those who r^nained made ar-
rangements with the citizens, perhaps not differing very greatly
from those with which we are familiar. But what were aJtogeth^
peculiar were the educational establishments, where the stranger
youth could avail himself of the advantages of fore9gn|^instruction
in languages and manners without altogether losing the society
of his own countrymen. Of institutions of this class the Scotch
possessed several in France ; and it is very much to be regretted
that M. Michel has not presented us with a xhore complete history
of them. Of the famous establishments in Paris and at Douai, the
latter of whidi, for a period, was transferred to Bheims, he has
told us scarcely anything beyond what was popularly known ;
and though he states that when the ecclesiastical committee o£
the National Assembly presented its report on the 23rd of Oc-

244 The Scots in France : Jvlj,

tober, I79O9 on the English, Scotch, and Lrieh reli^oas establish-
ments in France, their number, including monasteries, convents^
and colleges, amounted to twenty-four, he does not say even
what were the numbers of the different kinds of establishments
respectively. Many of them, probably, were mere dependencies
of each other. For instance, in the village of Arcueil there
was a house belonging *to a community of Scotch priests,'
which community M. Michel conjectures to have been the
college of the Bue des Foss^s-Saint-Victor, the Scotch
college in Paris, which, he says, had other properties in other

Crts of the country, the most considerable, as Uie first in date,
ing that of the estate of Gtisy-Suines, near to Brie-Comte-
Bobert, in the Brie-Parisienne. The total revenues of these
establishments amounted to 329,000 livres, and the number of
individuals who subsisted on them at the period of the Bevolution,
professors, students, and reUffieux, was about a hundred and
fifty. * The assembly passed a decree to the effect that these
' establishments should be continued in their existing condition,
* with certain modifications. In the same sitting, the demand
' for an allowance of 6,000 livres by l&e Irish college of St.
' Omer, was remitted to the finance committee.' With thia
very unsatisfactory extract irom the * Scots Magazine ' for Oc-
tober, 1790 — no very recondite or trustworthy source, surely —
this very interesting and important branch of M. Michel's subject
is permitted to drop. Of the unsuccessful attempts that have
been made, from time to time, by various bodies — the University
of Glasgow, the Advocates' Library, and the British Museum —
to recover the documents of the Scotch colleges in Paris and at
Douai, M. Michel, following for the most part Mr. Innes, has
given a full, perhaps we might say a tedious account. Like so
much else that was valuable, it is to be feared that tl^pse
treasures perished during the frenzy of the Bevolution, which
confiscated their property, as well as that of the numerous
Irish endowments in France.*

But though their archives may be mostly irrecoverable, it
could be no very difiScult matter to retrace the general outline,
at least, of the history of these institutions ; and it is scarcely
possible to imagine a work which, if executed with reasonable
care, and presented in an intelligible form, would be likely,
even in a popular sense, more richly to reward an archssologist.

* Under the treaty of Paris in 1814, compensation was made by
France to England for the seizure of British property in these estab-
lishments, and their claims were subsequently investigated by the
Privy Council, in whose records some account of them may be
found.

1863. The French in Scatlatid. 245

It was not in France alone that they existed, and consequently
they were not all subjected to the fury of the Bevolution. The
Benedictine monastenr at Ratisbon, for example, is or was re-
cently a flourishing institution.* It never belonged to the
wealthiest class of ecclesiastical establishments, and to its
poverty it was probably indebted for its immunity from plunder ;
but its possessions, such as thev were, have been guarded with
loving care ; and, within these last few years, we are informed
that all the latest improvements in Scottish agriculture have been
introduced on its farms, and the newest implements imported
from Aberdeenshire by the worthy Superior. This report we
give on the authority of an Aberdeenshire gentleman, who
enjoyed the hospitality of the Prior some eight years ago. But
a recent writer in 'Notes and Queries' (March 21, 1863),
states that the monastery has now been finally dissolved, and
the buildings and funds applied to the foundation of a Roman
Catholic seminary. At Nuremberg there was a similar esta-
blishment, founded bv Conrad III., about 1160, and now known
as the Gideon Kirche ; there was another at Vienna, situated
near the Schotten-Thor; and, if we are not greatly mistaken,
there were others at Cologne, and Wiirtsburg, and elsewhere.
That at Rome, of course, is still well known ; but its modem
date — (it was founded in 1649 by the Marchioness of Huntley
and Coimt Leslie) — renders it an object of less interest than
that at Ratisbon, which dates from the days of Macbeth.
As the oflicials of all these institutions were no doubt in
frequent communication with each other, the archives of those
which remain would probably throw much light on the history

* The' Rev. James Robertson, who was sent by Sir Arthur
Wellesley and Mr. Canning in 1808, on a secret mission to the
Danish Islands, for the purpose of inducing the Marquis de la
Romafiia to return to Spain in British ships with the Spanish troops
then quartered in the Isle of Fiinen, was a Scottish Benedictine of
this monastery of Ratisbon. The Duke of Richmond, in his travek
through Germany towards the end of the last century, had become
acquainted with the Abbot Arbuthnot and several other members of
that community; and it was through his Grace^ then Lord-Lieu-
tenant of Ireland/ that Mr. Robertson was recommended to Sir Arthur
Hyellesley, then Irish Secretary. The service he performed was of
the highest importance ; and we do not remember to have read a
more romantic and captivating narrative than the simple account
of it which has recently been published in Mr. Robertson's own
words, by his nephew Mr. Alexander Clinton Fraser. It was thus
that one of these Scotch Benedictine monks successfully defied and
defeated Napoleon and his police, when they were at the height of
their power.

24S The Seait m France : J«ly^

of the others, and a pictane of the external educational mati-
tutions of Scotland might still be produced with tolefaMe
completeness.

But the relations in which Scotland stood to the native educfr-
tional institutions of almost all the countries of Europe^ mate
particularly of France, were even more important for the national
developement than the institutions which she herself [Janted and
maintained abroad. We have already referred to the surprising
number of Scotchmen who attained to the office of Bector in
the University of Paris. There is scarcely a single Freadi
university of which a tale more or less similar might not be
told. M. Michel's pag^ are thiddy studded with notices to
this effect ; but in place of gathering them together, we shall
c<Mi8ult at once the interest of our readers and our own con-
venience, by presenting them with the following spirited sketch
of ^ scholarly knightr-errants' by Mr. Innes, a writer the clear-
ness and felicity of whose style is not one of the least of his
attractions* It refers to the period subsequent to the Be-
formation and the Union o£ the Crowns, when all special cause
for a French alliance, or for continental leanings on the part of
Scotchmen had ceased ; and still it shows how tenacious the
continental habit proved.

^ The want of emplojrment, the insecuritff , the poverty at homer
only in part explain the crowd of expatriated Scotchmen who wer«^
during those centuries, teaching science and letters in every school cf
Europe. There was something in it of the adventurous spirit of the
country — something of the same knight-errantry which led their un-
lettered brothers to take service wherever a gallant captain gave hope
of distinction and prize-money. It was not enough for one of those
peripatetic scholars to find a comfortable niche in a university, where
he might teach and gain friends and some money for his old age.
The whole fraternity was inconceivably restless, and sncoeasAil
teachers migrated from college to college, from Paris to X^ouvain,
firom Orleans to Angers, from Padua to Bologn% as wam iflL later
times completed their education by the grand tear. The nmveisily
feeling and the universal language of that day conduced somewhat to
this effect. A graduate of one university was '^ free " of alL Hia
qualifications were on the surface too, and easily tested. A single
conference settled a man's character, where ready Latin and subtle or
vigorous disputation were the essential points. But whatever weae
the causes, ^e student of the history of those centuries most it
struck with the facts. The same period which saw Fkur^ice Wilso%
Scrymger, the elder Barclay, received among the foremost sebelars of
Europe, in its most learned age, witnessed also thres Scotsmen pro-
fessors at Sedan, at one and £e same time, and two» if not three, to^
gether at Leyden. John Cameron, admirably learned, lecturing
everywhere, everywhere admired, moved in 1600 from Glasgosr to

18C3. The French in Scotiand. 347

Bei^erM, from Bergerae to Sedan, from Sedan to PariSi from Paris
to BMrdeanz, to Gr^ev% to Heidelberg, to Sanmur, to Grlaagow,
again to Saumur, to Montaoban, there to rest at last But the tjrpe
of the class was Thomas Dempster, a man of proved learning and
ability, but whose adventures in love and. arms, while actually
''regenting ^ at Paris, at Tournaj, at Toidouse, at Nismes, in Spain,
in England, at Pisa, at Bologna, were as romantic as those of the
Admirable Crichton or Cervantes* hero. Incidentally to his own
history, Dempster makes us acquainted with four Scotchmen of
letters whom he met at Louvain. He visited James Cheyne, a Scotdi
doctor at Tournay, succeeded David Sinclair as Begent in the
College of Navarro at Paris, and was invited 1^ Professor Adam
Abemethy and Andrew Currie to join them at Montpeilier.* *

Every one'a experience or desultory reading must have
fhmifihed him with examples of the phase of Scottish enterprise
which Mr. Innes has commemorated. They are by no means
confined to the period of which Mr. Innes has spoken. On the
contrary^ they stretch from the beginning of the thirteenth down
to the end of the eighteenth century. It was not till the French
Bepnblican army entered Holhind that the last resident Scotch-
man quitted the University of Leyden. Nor is the race, as
regards students, by any means extinct in our own day. But
the latest 'scholarly knight-errant of the t>ld stamp, wnom we
imrselves haTO encountered, is poor Ludwig Roes, so well known
at Athens, first as conservator of antiquities, and afterwards as
a professor in the University, and whose premature death at
Halle, in 1859, was deplored even in learned Germany as a
serious loss to philolo^cal learning. In the 'interesting sketdi
of lus life which his friend Otto Jahn has appended to a post^
humous ooUeotion of his more ephemeral writings f, he informs
Qfrthflft Boss's family, which had oeen settled for several genera-
tions in Hoktein, sprang from the North of Scotland, and that
many traits in his own character and bearing constantly re-
caQol Ins or^in. Maternally he was a German, and German
was his mother tongue ; but by the Other's side of the house
he seems to have been a twig of that vigorous branch of the
well*grown tree of the Bosses, or Boees, of which the genial
king of riflemen is the head, and Ludwig, it seems, was accus-
tomed, like a good Scotchman, to boast that his chief was a
member of the Beformed Parliament, and that* his shield dis-
played ^ee water^ougeti, in token of the crusading exploits of
nis ancestors.
*~^— — -- — — ^ ..- . . -■■-■-_- —

* Sketches of Early Scottish History, p. 280, et seq.
t Erinnerungen und Mittheilungen aus Griechenland. Berlin:
1863.

248 The Scott in France : Julj^

Boss's case, however, is a complete illastration of what we
have already mentioned — viz., that, whereas those who went to
France preserved for many generations their connexion with
Scotland, those who went to the North of Europe almost im-
mediately ceased to be Scotchmen. For practical purposes,
the fact of his origin bound him as little to Scotland as the
fact that his ancestor was a Crusader bound him to Palestine,
and neither Scotland nor Holstein was the better or the worse
for his accidental transference from the one to the other. Some-
thing very doselv analogous, no doubt, o(x^urred in many of the
cases mentioned by M. Michel, where Scotchmen were entirely
absorbed by the population of France. With those who were
members of the greater families of Scotland, the Stuarts,
Douglases, Hamiltons, Lindsays, Crawfurds, Setons, and the
like, — who fought in the hundred years' war, who conquered at
Bauges, or fell on the fatal fidds of Crevant or Yemeuil, this
would not readily occur. Even those of them, like the
Douglases Dukes of Touraine, the Stuarts Lords of Aubign^,
and the Hamiltons Dukes of Chatelh^rault, who became the
possessors of great estates in France, for the most part retained
property in Scotland, or their near relatives did so; and, at
any rate, their connexion with the Court which, both in
France and in Scotland, had a very cosmopolitan character,
would readily keep up their intercourse with their country-
men. But of the ^ dix mille chevaliers et braves soldats,'
for example, who took service under the banner of Archi-
bald, second Earl of Douglas, in 1422, and of whom the
colonists who still exist at La ForSt, in the neighbourhood
of Bourges, are very probably the descendants, it is natural
to suppose that but few would maintain a Scottish connexion
after me second generation. The same may very likely have
been the case with the vast majority of those soldiers of fortune
of a somewhat higher rank who married French wives, and
settled down in the provinces, and whose family histories M.
Michel has succeeded in disinterring. Of their Scottish origin,
their names leave no possible doubt, for they are just the
common names of Scotland at the present day, — Boyds, Cham-
bers's, Cunninghams, Moncreiffs, Tumbulls, Gorries, Doddses,
Crichtons, Foulises, Monipennys, Lockharts, Morrisons, Pat-
tullos, and Thomsons, the last being the founders of the matMon
noble de Thomesson ou Tonneson t Those of our countrymen
who have a taste for orthographical distinctions, may find their
account in consulting M. Michel's pages. There is not one of
the Scotch names that we have mentioned which is not spelt
in half a dozen ways ; and this for the most part so as in no-

1863. The French in Scotland. 249

^ise to obscure its identity. In other respects, too, our readers
may discover what will be ' to their advantage.' The members
of the great house of Thomson will be gratified to learn, * that
* there is not the slightest reason to doubt that that family was
' considered as belonging to the good old nobility/ that Geofiroy
de Tennesson was Seigneur de Bemenecourt, that ' Marie de
' Tonesson married Antoine des Armoises, Seigneur de Neu-
' ville, whose daughter Henriette married Fran9ois de Nathan-
^ court. Seigneur de Passavant and of other places, who died in
^ 1660,' &C. Some families that never gave proof of the prolific
qualities to which that just mentioned may certainly lay
claim, had a wonderiuUy brilliant career in France. Of these,
the PittiUochs, or Pattullos, of whom some representatives
atill exist in Fife and Angus, are a prominent example. In
the eventful year 1424, in which the battle of Yerneuil was
fought, Robert Pittillooh, of Dundee, landed in France, accom-
panied by a brave band of followers, and rendered such service
to Charles YII., chiefly in the south of France, that he received
and long retained the name of h petit roi die Gascogne. He
was a mere soldier of fortune, but he rose to be Governor of
Castelnau, in M^doc, and ci4)tain of the Scottish guard, an
office of the very highest distinction, in which we afterwards
find another David JPitulo, no doubt his descendant, to whose
honour, we are told, a statue was erected by Louis XI. Later
still, in 1758, another member of the same family dedicated to
Madame de Pompadour an Esscd $ur rAmilioration dee Teires.
But though individuals of this class, for all directly political
purposes, were no doubt entirely merged in the population of
iFrance, it is evident that their existence in the very great
numbers in which they are even now traceable, must, consid^-
ing the strong feelings of kindred and of country for which
Scotchmen have always been distinguished, have given, for
many generations, a home feeling to all other Scotchmen in
France greatly beyond what any Briton experiences in any
continental country at the present day.

Previous to the Beformation, the Church was everywhere the
greatjbindinf link between difierent nations, as it was between
aiA^kt dac i of society. In both senses it was emphatically
^^^^ "^' o\ rte, and between two countries bound together

Scotland were by so many other ties, this was

^ase. It was to promotion in France quite as

cotland, that an ambitious young churchman

would be no difficult matter to produce a long

len who attained to French ecclesiastical prefer^

iry distinguished kind. John Carmichael was

2S0 The SeeU m France: Jvfy,

Bishop of OrlesBfl, Andrew Foremaa was ArcMneimp of
Bouiges, David B^buie waa Bishop of Mirepoix^ and it was
*at the instance of Francis I. that be received the Cardinal's
Hat; James Bethune, bis nephew, the Archbishop of Glasgow^
was Abbot of L'Absie, an office which was alsobdd hy anedier
Scotchman named David Panter^ or Panton. Jolm Beaton,
James's brother, was Canon of €t. Qoentin* It was the Jamee
Bethnne, just mentioned, who lefb to the Scots College what
was then considered the enonnoos sum of 80,000 livies, saved,
it was said, during his long residence as ambassador at Paris,
from the benefroe we have mentioned, and other eccksiastical
preferments which he hdd in France. To these conspiciioiis
and well-known instances it would not be difficult to add many
others of Scotdimen of less note who bdd minor prefermenta
in the French Church. In proof of the fiftct that the Ingfaer
ecclesiastical dignitaries, at all events, preserved their connexion
with Scotland unimpaired bv tiieir French appointments, it
may be sufficient to remind the reader that during Andrew
Foreman's diort tenure of the arohbkhoprio of Bourges he con**
tinned to be Bishop of Moray, and that the resnk of those
complicated political and ecclesiastical intrigues between popes,
emperocB, and kii^ which M. Michel has recounted, was tint
he became Ardibishop of St Andrews ; whilst David Bethnne
was at one and the sune time Rector of Campae, Abbot of
Aberbrothick, Bishop of Mirepoix in Fraoee, Archbishop of
St. Andrews, Cardinal of St Stephen in Monte Calio^ and
— Chancellor of Scotland I

After the Beformatiom, the ties which had been contracted
under ihe influence of a common futh were riveted by perse-
cution. The Boman Catholic fiumhes of Sootknd, fierocAy
opposed by the leaders of -the Scottish Natkmal Chincb, natir-
rally learned to look for sympathy and support to their oo*re-
Binaries of France. The Stuarts themselves were guilty of
this offence against iike majesty and independence of England,
and it cost them the throne : and down to the fatal ^pedition
of the Pretender in '45, buoyed up to the last by false hopes
of French assistance, the capricious patroimge of tiie Conrt of
Yersailles kept alive this old traditional ddusion of the Jacolnte&
But it is no sUriit proof of the influence of Soot^men in
France, that a Berwidc commanded her armies, a Law ad>
Bunisto^ her finances, and a Macdonald rose to be one of die
marshak of Nap<deon L

It used to be said that the establishment of peraaaent
embassies in Europe took phu^ subsequently to the Peace of
Westphalia, in 1648; mi even the ktest edition of Mn

1863. The French m SoMmd. 251

Wheat<«'8 ^Eloneatft' pves ccHmtenance to tfais -riew. By
tbose who dttm for th«m a BCHnewluit greater annuity, their
introduction (with the exception of the nandoB and le^^tttes of
the popes, who oonfessedly resided peraMaently at an earlier
period) is generally aaerib^ to Ferdinand the Ca^<diCy aa we
had occasion to show from Dr. Puebla's despatches in our last
Number* The statement is one which anything approaching
to an intimate acquwitance with the earlier history of any one
of the older Eunqpean countriee will equally s^n^e to invalidate*
The works before us^ at all events, place it beyond questiim
tha^ long before the lattw period, and probaUy before the
former, the intimate relation which subsisted between France
and Scotland had led to the custom of roaTntaining resident
political agents at bodi Courts. M. de la Motte, for example,
m Scotland, and Andrew Foreman in France, seem each to
have been intrusted with a general mission. It is well known
that Cardinal Bethune, or Beaton, as he is cidled in Scotland,
resided at Paris fr<Hn 1519 to 1525, and on two snbeequent
occasions, for shorter periods^ in the charaetor of an ordinary
ambassador. Somewhat later, his nephew, James Beaton, sue*
oeeded him in that capacity. He served not only before the
Beformation, but was subsequently employed by James Y I. ;
and when he died in 1603^ in nis eighty-sixth year, he had been
ambassador to three generations of the royal family of Scotland,
had seen six kings of France, and transacted business with
five of.thenu M* Teulet's ^ Papiers d'Etat,' indeed, are mainly
composed of instructions to and letters from resident ambas-
sadors, and he mentions expressly their discontinuance during
the troubled years which succeedea the imprisonment of Queen
Mary in Lochleven, when the English mfluence was in the
ascendant, as a departure from the ancient usage. * After the
^ imprisonment of Mary Stuart at Loch Leven,' he says, * the
^ ambassador Du Croc returned to France, and during nearly
^ twenty years there were no more resident ambassadors in
^ Scotland^ mats seulement des envoyes chargis de miuions tem^
* poraire$.^

There was an old house in the Cow^te of Edinbuigh,
traditionally known as the residence of the French Ambassador,
and in Wilson's ^Memorials' will be found an engraving of
the edifice called the French Ambassador's Chapel, which was
pulled down so lately as 1829. When not actually at war with
England, both France and Scotland maintained constant diplo-
matic relations with that country. We friequently come upon
Spanish ambassadors also, resident in all the three countries,
and hear of Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Scotchmen, who were

252 The Scots in France : ^ July^

resident in Spain. The extent to which Spain was mixed up
in the transactions of England^ Scotland, and France in the six-
teenth century, has received very important additional illus-
tration from a portion of M. Teulet's very interesting and
important collection. Speaking of the 44th section of hb work^
he says : —

* The pieces collected in this section are all taken from the same
register (Anglet'erre XXI), in the Archives of the Miniature des
Affaires Jutrang^res. It is a contemporary collection of the greatest
authenticity, which comprises principally the correspondence of the
Dachess of Parma^ the Duke pf Alba, Perrenot, and the Baron de
GlajoD, with Philip II., relating to the intervention of Spain in the
disputes between France and England on the subject of Scotland in
1669 and 1660, when Francis IL, become King of France and Scot-
land, resolved to send into his new States sufficient forces to reduce
his revolted subjects. This correspondence, which extends from the
22nd of August, 1669, to 21st of May, 1660, seemed to us the more
important because historians do not mention this intervention of
Spain between France and England. It is curious to study, in the
documents it contains, the opinion of the Spaniards on the respective
strength of the two States, and to see how they came to the profound
conviction that England was absolutely incapable of offering any
certain resistance to an invasion by France. These documents were,
therefore, sufficiently interesting to be published ; but they exhibit all
the faults of Spanish diplomatic correspondence in. the sixteenth cen-
tury, being almost always long, diffuse, and wearisome to the reader.
We could not modify the text itself; but we have suppressed the
despatches which were mere repetitions of the others.' *

It is not very clear to what extent the envoy of those days
was surrounded by the ambassadorial staff of later times. The
mission seems, however, generally to have consisted of several
individuals ; and that amongst these was included a secretary of
legation, results from such facts as that Throckmorton's
secretary wad bribed, and furnished to the French Ambassador^
La Forest, a portion of the documents published by M. Teulet I

These facts conclusively dispose of the common opinion that
the permanent embassy is a modem institution, which took the
place occupied by the Church as an international link in Euro-
pean society, down to the period of the Reformation. Long
before the Beformation, the embassy existed alongside of the
Church; sometimes, though by no means necessarily or con-
stantly, in connexion with it ; and its existence is one more
proof, added to the many we have adduced, in support of the
view that the relations between neighbouring European States
were in general quite as intimate, and those between France

• Teulei, Preface, p. xiv.

. 863. The French in Scotland. 258

and Scotland far more intimate, in earlier than in modem
times.

There can be little doubt that Henry II. entertained the
hopeless and irrational project of incorporating Scotland with
France. M. Teulet has given, from a document in the Dupuj
Collection, a decision of the Parliament of Paris, by which it
was declared that, Mary Stuart having entered her twelfth
year, Scotland should henceforth be governed in her name by
French delegates, — a decision which, as M. Teulet justly re-
marks, could have been competently arrived at by the Parlia-
ment of Scotland alone. Such was probably also the object of
the government of Mary of Guise, and of her indiscreet em-
ployment of French officials, — a measure which more than any-
thing else tended to alienate the affections of the Scotch. But
such was not the object of the Parliament of Scotland in reci-
procating the general letters of naturalisation which Henry had
issued, nor does there seem any ground for alleging such an
intention agfunst the kings of France, either before this period
or after — from Louis XIL in 1513 to Louis XIY. in 1646 —
almost iJl of whom adopted similar measures. In conferring
the right of possessing all benefices, dignities, and ecclesiastical
offices, lands, and seigneuries, of acquiring and holding heritable
and moveable propertv, of transmitting it, free from the Droit
iPAttbaine^ and of bemg ^ treated, favoured, held, deemed, and
* reputed for ever, as true originals of the kingdom,' the object
was not incorporate union, but firm and intimate alliance ; and
we have already seen how well that object was accomplished.
One of the most immediate and inevitable results of such rela-
tions as these, and one which does not follow at all from the
exchange of mercantile commodities, however extensive, is in-
termarriages. We find, accordingly, that the Scotch who settled
in France almost invariably married French wives, leaving
behind them a pxogeny who were bound to both countries by
stronger ties than either of their parents. It is thus that
elements of national repulsion are overcome, and bonds of
national union artificially created. How much more powerful
these bonds are than any which arise from common interest, or
mere political arrangements, the modem history of Europe
most abundantly testes.

254 Lyell ^n Ike AnHquUy efMcm. J^J^

Abt. IX. — 1. T*he Geoloffical Evidences of the Antiquity tf
Meaty with Bemarks on Theories of the Orwin of Species by
Variation. By Sir Charles Ltbll, F.TLS., &c. 8Ta
1863.

2* Antiquites Celtiques et AntMiluviennes. Par M* BouCHEE
DE Perthes. 8vo. Paris. VoL L 1847. VoL IL 1857.

3. Machoire humame dicauverte h AhbevUk dans wn terrain «oii
r4manU; Note de M. Bouoheb ds Perxhes, prisemiie
par M. Dfi QnATREFAOEB ( Comptes Bendus de PAoadimie
des Sciences). 20 AttU, 1863.

4. Note sur VauthenHeiU de la deoouver^ iPime tnaehmre hu^
maine et de hackes de silex dans le tsrredn dibanen de Momlm
Qmmunu Par M. Milne-Epwabds {Cmnptes Bendwe^
18 Mu 1863).

5. On ihe Oecmrrenee of Flint ImplementSj associated wiA the
Remains of Animals of Extinct Species^ ^e. By Joseph
Prbstwich, Esq., F.R.S. {Philosophical Trdnsactione,
1860.)

6. Prehistoric Man^ Researches into the Origin of CiviUzatimi
in the Old and New World. By Daniel Wilson, LL.D.
8ya 2 vols. 1862.

C nt Charles Ltbll has aot only been the witness of an
'^ amottBt of progress aad change in the soienee of Greology,
fbrmerly nnpreoedented In the life of one man — we might
perhaps also add, nnpreoedented in the case of any other
science — bnt he has personally contribsted in no slight or
indirect manner to this progress and to this change. Bom
shortly bdbre the dose of last century, and educated at
Oxford, where he was the pupil of Bnokland, his after life
has been diiefly spent in liondon, where he has been the
interested and indefiitigable observer of what was passing in
&e world of science. The inflnenoes of an Oxford education
acted upon his acute and highly roeculative mind by a kind of
antagonkm. Mr. LyeU w«b no granter of propoeHions. He
was soon ^ led to reflect on the precept of Descartes, that a
' philosopher should once in his life doubt everything he had
'oeen taught;'* an amount of philosophical scepticism of
which his writings from first to lost give ample proof. Passing
over some comparatively juvenile papers, his first work — * The
^Principles of Geology ' — appeared, a volume at a time, com-

* Preface to vol iii. of first edition of * Principles of Greology.'

1M3. Jjj^mO^Jmiifmfy^MmL 2S5

menoiiig m 1880. The earliest yolnme was, however, mainly
Tfrittea iu 1828. The Tiffoar of its style, Uie origiiudttj and
novelty of its contents, and -the importaiiee of the conclusions
sought to be deduced fvon the facts detailed, secured for it at
once a measure of popular and sdentific attention attained by
no geological work — hardly excepting even Cnvier's researches
on foesil remains, — perfaiqM by no odier scioatific work of the
period. What b equally remarkable, the popularity of the
^Principles of Greology' has continued neuly unabated for
thirty years, amidst the incessant and restless progress of the
seiesee of which it treats. This arose in part mm the fact
that Mr. Lydl had the sagadty and good fortune to antidpate
the track in which tiie study of geology was about to be
pursued. Unlike his master, Bucklimd, whose most systematic
and original work, the ' Beliqui» Diluviaiue,' was the represen-
tative of a geological school even then oa the wane, Mr.
Ijyell courageously maintained opinions at the time and {ox
long after to some extent unpopuhur, not so mudi in tfiemselves
as in the consequences which they were supposed to involve.
He had the advantage, however, of seeing adherents year bv
year resorting to his standard, instead of deserting it; and if
he has from time to time frankly abandoned earlier expressed
opinions, it has almost always been in the direction of carrying
out further than he had ongmally felt entitled to do, the con*
sequences of his own early principles of inquiry and argument.
But Sir Charles Lyell could not have maintained his very
conspicuous ]dace amon^ the geolcmsts of Europe, had he
not united with his fiicdity and fearkssness in forming con^
captions from which many men would have shrunk, an ability
a^d perseverance in maintaining, illustrating, and difiusing
them, which have ofben been wanting in the most eminent
thinkers, and in the most diligent cultivaUMrs of the physical
and natural sdences. Himself one of the earlier members and
most zealous promoters of the Geological Society of Limdon,
he selected a position considerably diflfereat from that of most
of his compeers. Instead of writing elaborate monographs on
certain formations and on certain features of local geology, he
stored up the facta which he accumulated as well by judicious
study as by personal intercourse with otber geologists, and by
his own powers of observation; at one and the same time
collecting and classifying ; and referring each fact, to which he
devoted his special attention, to its place in that system of
which he had previously formed a theoretical conception.
Living in the midst of the scientific activity of London, his
time was yet saved from die distraction and anxiety which the

256 Lyell en Ae Antiquity of Man. Jcdy»

rapid .production and publication of detached memoirs are apt to
produce; as well as from the attendant controversies, and the
other claims on the time of those who are deeply engrossed ia
the management and support of scientific associations. Sir
Charles Ljell could afford to dispense with the flattering popu-
larity and seductive sodal influence whidi such surrenders of
ersonal independence and tranquillity are expected to attain,
e adopted the dignified position at once of the student and of
the methodical teacher, and he has no reason to regret his
choice. In this respect he may be fitiy compared with another
eminent Englishman, not less distinguished in the exact than
Sir Charles Lyell is in the natural sciencesi whom he also
resembles in the lucidity of his style and the admirable method
of his systematic writings.

The * Principles of Geology,' as well as all the subsequent
writings of our author, were mainly devoted to the develope*
ment of the idea that contemporary changes in the distribution
of the materials of the earth's surface are the same in kind,
and probably also in d^ee, as those which obtained in past
ages, which, acting through absolutely indefinite periods of
time, have brought about those changes of which we trace
the undeniable records in the succession and accidents of the
strata of the upper portion of our globe. Properiy speaking,
there was nothing absolutely new in the attempt to collect
evidence of the changes going on concurrently with the
present order of the world, or to estimate their amount and
efficacy. Nor was it any novelty to invoke the aid of vast
periods of time in expluning, by the analogy of the Present, a
greiftt number, if not all, of the chan^ manifest in the records
of the Past In the interesting historical chapters of the
' Principles,' Sir C. Lyell enumerated most of his predecessors
in this line of thought; scarcely, perhaps, giving due pro-
minence to the industry of Yon Hoff* in the collection of the
facts of contemporary change, or to the bold speculations and
memorable labours of Huttonf and Play fair |, in educing a
system of dynamical geology, very similar to his own, from the
comparatively meagre data which were available at the time
they wrote. But after allowing all credit to the geologists of
the 18th century, we may fairly admit that the time had
arrived when speculation on the {)rihdples of the sdence could
be advantageously renewed with the light of fresh researches,

* Geschichte der Natiirlichen Veranderangen der Erdoberflache.'
I. TheiL 1822.
t Theory of the Earth. 2 vols. 1795.
X Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth. 8vo. 18Q2.

1863. Itjell on the Antiquity of MaTL 257

eepecially that derived from the study of fossil organic remains.
The battle of Wemerianism and Huttonianism had been pretty
well fought out within the sphere of the original controversy — -
but new data had arisen which tended to give the whole subject
a fresh aspect.

Nothing contributed more to this result than the opening
of the continent to British .men of science, and it is plain
upon the face of Sir C. Lyell's work that, though not in its
origin the result of his journeys to the south of Europe (com-
mencing in 1828), these and his visits to the museums of Paris
gave their characteristic impress to every part of the * Prin-

* ciples of Geology.' It was a splendid success, and secured
for the author permanent fame. Successive editions showed
that he had determined to make it the repertory of his most
original observations, and the authentic expression of his
matured conclusions. As year by year he extended the circuit
of his journeys, sedulously observing himself, and treasuring
the facts communicated by resident geologists of various
countries, it is needless to say that the materials of his work
largely increased. Oermany and Scandinavia were diligently
explored, and twice he crossed the Atlantic with his eye ever
fixed on the class of phenomena — those connected with exist-
ing physical change — forming the nucleus around which all
his geological system was to cohere. The study of volcanoes,
which he commenced in Central France, he extended to Spain,
Sicily, and the Canaries. Of these various widely-spread
investigations he published some of the methodised results
apart; as, for example, on the changes of level of the land
in Scandinavia, in a paper in the * Philosophical Trans-
^actions,'* on the numerous facts observed in America in two
series of published * Travels* in that country f; and on the
formation of volcanic cones, especially of £tna, in the * Philo-

* sophical Transactions ' again.^ But the pith and substance
of all that he saw and inferred was compressed into his
methodical writings. Each new edition of his great work was
in some sense a new book. Notwithstanding all possible cur-
tailments, so much original matter could not be introduced
without unduly increasing its bulk ; and in a few years, the
work was judiciously subdivided into two: one portion retain-
ing the name of * Principles,' in which the phenomena of geology
are considered chiefly with reference to existing causes, or in

• Phil. Trans, for 1835.

t Publislmd in 1841 and 1845.

i Phil. Trans, for 1858.

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLI. B

258 TjjtVL on the Antiquity of Man. " July^

their dynamical aspect ; the other, or the ' Manual,' embracing
the systematic geology and palseontology of the entire forma-
tions of the globe* It is to the unusnal care and ability with
which these works have been from time to time re-edited and
brought up to the level of the science of which they treat, that
their permanent popularitjris justly attributable*

We have already seen that the fundamental idea in Sir
Charles LyelFs mind is, that the events of the Past are to be
viewed by the light of the Present* We might almost have
said, to be viewed exclusively by the light of the present* And
here, no doubt, is the weak point of what has justly been
called the Uniformitarian School, as opposed to Catastrophats^
We do not enter upon this discussion at present* All are
agreed that the analogies of existing causes ought to guide ua,
as far as is possible or reasonable, in the interpretation of the
past. And since we find in those strata of the globe which
are nearest to its surface and to the chief scene of present
change, the most striking analogy in materials, in disposition,
and in imbedded organic remains, to strata either forming
under our eyes or known to have been deposited in historic
times, it requires no circumlocution to show that the argument
from analogy is applicable with the greatest force to these
upper formations. From these strata, agwi, analogies may be
established with those a little more removed from modem age
and existing life, and so on downwards, until a connected chain
of analogies may be made to connect even very ancient and pro-
foundly-seated rocks with the subjects of recent change. It is
very easy to see that an argument of this kind may be skil-
fully elaborated, of which it may be difficult to show the
defective connexion at any one point, but which, nevertheless,
demands more in the way of cordial assent than most readers
may be prepared to grant.

The Newer Formations, then — those deposited anterior
to historic record, and constituting the less consolidated portion
of the earth's crust — rarely, indeed, entitled to the name of
rocks at all — became the favourite scene of Sir C* Ly ell's
researches. They had been almost ignored as subjects of me-
thodical gcoloffLCsl treatment^ until the generation arose to
which our author may be said to belong* Under the vague
names of diluvium and alluvium, they were hardly ever classi-
fied as members of geological formations down to the time of
Cuvier and Brongniart, and were r^arded, if not as properly
speaking modern^ at all events as belonging to the physical
monuments of the present aye of the world, the very oldest of
them being attributed to a date which^ if not Historical, at least

186& Lyell on the Acuity of Man. 259

miffht be so* In a word, a very large class of well-infonxied geolo-
gists admitted that these beds of clay, gravel, sand, and similar
movable materials, bad been deposited by the Noachian deluge,
whilst others, waiving the Scriptural qoestioo, left it open te
attribute these unconsolidated formations to at least a period so
comparatively recent as to belong rather to history than geology.
As Tertiary geology may be held to have commenced with
Cuvier, Quaternary, or the latest formations preceding the
present age, became a fixed part of geol<^ nuunly through the
labours of Sir Charles Lyell and a few of his contemporaries.

We are thus brought step by step nearer to the inquiry
which has called forth the work at the head of this article,
'The Antiquity of Man.' This momentous and interesting
question is in fact one portion only of a wider subject — the
theory and dassificatioii of the most veoent formations of our
globe* Sir Charies Lyell's new volmne is a dissertation upon
the geology of the upper formations. Mueh in it has no direct
reference to human antiquity, jti the question of tiiat antiquity
is, 00 to speak, the dominant question of this inquiry, because
when we talk of the present age of the w(»4d, and of the His-
torical Period, we refer, tacitly at least, to tl» presence of Man
upon the globe, as the intelligent spectator and possible chronicler
of the changes to which his species has bten the witness.

Before geology could be said to have become a science, the
tendency of the uninstrueted mind wae to see human remains
in every chance fossil, as for example, the kcmee dilmmu testis of
Scheuchzer, which was shown by Cuvier to be a species of
salamander* Elephantine bones dug up near Luoeme were
described as those of a giant 18 feet high, and even Spallan-
sani erred in supposing the osseous breccia of Cerigo to contain
hmnan relics*

As a knowledge of anatomy became more genend, and the spoils
of the strata were more attentively consUered and ccdlected,
the more enlightened belief of gpolog^aito turned to an opposite
conclusion, and the occurrence of fossil human retaains was
altogether denied. Such was tiie deliberate conviction of
Cuvier and other great men of his time, the only important
apparent exception, that of the Ouadeloupe skeletra, being ac-
oounted for by the feet that the calcareous rook in which it
occurred is in the process of actual formation* It is remark-
able that little should have occurred to disturb this belief during
the thirty years of indefatigable research — more, fer more, in
amount than that of a whole preceding century — which elapsed
from the time of the publication of Cnvier^s memorable work,
^Becherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles*' In the celebrated

260 ILjell on the Antiquity of Man. July 9

Introduction on the Bevolutions of the Globe^ Cuvier dearly
lays down, as the result of his researches, that since the earth
was sufficiently free from water to support terrestrial animals,
four distinct ages or great periods followed in succession — the
age of reptiles, that of palasotheria, that of the mammoth and
mastodon, and lastly that of Man. This belief, we say, has
continued, with scarcely an exception, to be the universal geo-
logical creed until now. The tendency of the discoveries
which have given rise to Sir C. LyelPs new work (founded
mainly on the observation of other geologists verified by him-
self) is to make' the last two ages of Cuvier graduate into one,
or at least to extend the human period back to the later portion
of the mammoth age* This is a view important, certainly, and
requiring careful proof, because anterior research had led to
contrary conclusions, and thrown the date of Man to the latest
vei^e of the geological record. But it is not in itself ante-
cedently improbable, and need occasion no violent surprise.
Cuvier himself, in the discourse already cited, quotes the fact
as the result simply of observation, and even in that respect as
by no means conclusively proving that Man did not exist along
with the mammoths. He believes that Man might have in-
habited limited territories, and after a series of catastrophes
have re-peopled the earth.*

We shall consider presently the few cases which throw any
real doubt on the assertion of Cuvier, which in his time was
unquestionably correct. Alleged fossil human bones have been
and are justly regarded with considerable scepticism.

But a discovery of little inferior interest has been made.
Implements of flint, which appear to have been fashioned with
evident design, have been found abundantly at depths of at least
twenty feet below the surface of the soil, and tJtat (as is main-
tained) not in strata belonging to the formations of the present
day, such as peat and recently-washed sands and gravels, but
in strata, incoherent, no doubt, and unconsolidated, yet whose
ancient deposition is marked by their relations to the present
physical configuration of the country and position of existing
river-beds, and also by the occurrence of numerous imbedded
fossils of extinct animals of characters thoroughly identified by
Cuvier, and which belonged to the mammoth period. Indeed^
it fortunately happened that the identical beds, in the valley of
the Somme, near Abbeville and Amiens, which first yielded
flint implements in such abundance, had been, so to speak, made

* < Osseroents Fossiles* (edit 1834), i. 217. ; and Jameson's Trans-
lation, p. 120.

1863. Jjj^W on the Antiquiiy of Man. 261

classical by Cuvier on account of the abundant and charac-
teristic remains of extinct species of elephant, rhinoceroSy
bear, and hyaena, which they had contributed to his celebrated
museum.

We shall leave for a little while the work of Sir Charles Lyell,
to make the reader acquainted, from original sources, with the
history of the interesting discovery of these flint weapons.
The credit of it is unquestionably due to M. Boucher de
Perthes, of whose work we have given the title at the head of
our article. It consists of two volumes entitled ^ Antiquit^s
' Celtiques et Ant^diluviennes.' The first volume was printed
in 1847, but only appeared in 1849 ; the second in 1857. In
both we have the history of the Abbeville fossil relics.

M. de Perthes is a gentleman of fortune, who also holds (or
held) an oflBicial position under government. It appears that
twenty-five years ago he was already devoted to antiquarian
pursuits, and that he had then made spedal inquiry into the
origin of Man and the probable date of his appearance on the
globe. In his first work (which we have not seen), und^ the
title of ^ De la Cr^tion, Essai sur I'Origine et la Progression
'des J^tres,' published at Paris in 1838, it appears that he
boldly, though somewhat hypothetically, maintained his con-
viction that human fossil remains would be eventually found
amongst those of the great mammifera. The grounds of this
inference might not be sufficient to satisfy geologists now, but
as in numberless other instances which the history of science
offers, inadequate or not, they sufficed to engage the author in
a course of persevering research, which in tmie led him to
nearly a full realisation of his early ideas. Mo doubt it may
be said that a discovery preceded by a hypothetical prediction
must be received with hesitation. Certainly the fact justifies a
sceptical inquiry into the drcumstances and the proofs. This
inquiry has been made. For more than twenty years, M. de
Perthes was in some measure a victim to the incredulity,
whether reasonable or the reverse, of his countrymen and of
geologists generally. No one, however, we think, can read his
book — independently even of recent testimony — without a
thorough conviction of M. de Perthes' entire veracity and good
faith ; and that, moreover, he used every precaution which skill
and caution could suggest to prevent imposition from being
practised on himself and others.

The facts, then, are these. In the gravel pits which abound
near the town of Abbeville, where M. de Perthes resides, flint
implements more or less rude, but unquestionably fashioned by
human hands, were first recognised at a great depth below the

262 JjjeBi on tiu AnHfuity 9f Mmu July,

surface of die soiL The geolo^eal rektioiiB »od position of
these beds we will by-ond^by oonsider. In 1840 cur 1841»
M. de Perthes was colleeting mammalian fossils from this
ancient gravel for M. Cordier of Paris. The locality^ as we
have said^ was already wdl eharaeterised by the r^eandies of
Cuyier on similar fiwsils long before procured for him by li.
Baillon. In order to accompany the bones with a portion of
the matrix or gravel in which they were embedded, the wotkr
men were desired by M. de Perthes to bring to bis house a
quantity of it. On pouring out the gravel he noticed amongat
it an unpc^ished (Hnt axe (hache Celiipie), very r^ulariy foiiMd
by chipping. The workmen had not noticed it; but on havitig
it pointed out to diem they siud that they frequently met with
such^ but had taken Kttle account of diem (ik n'en avaiemt point
fait de eas). This nanrative * appears to be perfeody satisfao-
tory. The evidence for the authenticity of diese c»rly di»»
coveries is indeed far more convincing dian any which can now,
or could for the last dozen years, have been easily obtained. It
taUies^xfiotly with what occurred to Mr. Preetwich on his firafe
visit (at a much later period) to the analogous Englkh depodt
at Hoxne in Suffolk ; the workman tbere, on being diown am
implement from Abbeville, at once said that he had often fbiuMi
sueh in the pit, and had thrown two away reoendy, one of
which he recovered in the rubbi8h.t At the same place sixty
years before, when these weapons were far more abundant^
found than now, Mr. Frere was told by a workman that ' before
^ he knew that they were objects of curiosity he had emptied
' baskets full of them into the ruts of the adjoining road.^

Subsequendy to 1841, the implements weie seen at Abbe-
ville in the matrix, by M. de Perthes (and also by others), aai
removed with his own hands. It was in vain, however, that he
attempted to extend a convieti<m of the contemporaneity of
these weapons or tools with the relics of exdnct animals, beyond
the circumscribed limits of the Soeiiti dEmulatiam at Abbeville,
and the friends or rare passing travellers who could be induced
to visit his museum, and there judge for themsdvee. Of thoee
who did so, M. de Perthes leads us to believe (and we have ao
doubt of it) that few left it unconvinced. But the just ambition
of a Frenchman is to obtain the recognition of his diaeoveriea
and their results by the Academy of Sciences. Like other

* 'Antiquity Cdtiques,' &c., torn. L p. 256., where farther details
are given.

t PhiL Trans, for 1860, p. 306.

X *' Ardueologia,' voL xiii., quoted by Mr. Frestwich.

1863. Ljell m the Antiquity of Man. 263

great incorporations^ it is, however, proverbiallj diffieult to be
moved, most of all bj persons of slight or of merely provincial
reputation. At last, in 1847, a mixed Commission was appointed
by the Academies of Sciences and of Inscriptions, to inspect the
evidences of M. de Perthes' allegations. M. Jomard, on the
part of the latter, reported as to the weapons being almost all
true antiques, but it seems to be indicated that the report of
the Geological Committee represented by M. Constant Prevost,
if it was ever made, was not so favourable as to the matter of
their association with fossil bones.*

We may also safely allow that in every such inquiry a large
amount of scepticism in admitting a fact such as that which we
are now considering, and which involves some nice points of
evidence, is both excusable and just. First of all, do these alleged
antiquities hear certain evidence of design in tJieir construction f
Any doubts which may have existed, even till recently in the
minds of some, on this fundamental question have been, we con-
ceive, so completely set at rest by full investigation, that we
shall for brevity's sake accept the fact as proved.

But admitting the human character of these tools, we next
inquire whether they are true antiques or modem fabrications ?
There can be no doubt that the temptation to make spurious
imitations has been considerable ; nay, it is difficult to deny that
in too many cases deception has been practised. The fashioned
flints have had from the first a commercial value. M. de
Perthes, twenty years ago, gave from two to five francs for a
specimen. He prudently added the farthw inducement of a
double price were he apprised of the discovery of a specimen
before its removal from the matrix. To do him justice, he seems
from the first to have had a just suspicion of imposture. As a
collector and antiquary, he had already been subjected to the
tricks of the designingf , and he took every precaution against
error. He believes that the labour of constructing an ela-^
borately formed * hache' from a rough flint would not be repaid
by the sums which he was in the habit of paying for them4
He relies with most confidence on having seen numerous
tools still imbedded in the firm matrix, from which he removed
them with his own hands, and especially on the stain which the
surface of the flint receives from the yellow gravel in contact

* We have searched the ' Comptes Rendas ' in vain for any notice
of the Heport of the Commission having been brought up.

t ^Antiquit^s Celtiques,' ii. 456.» and elsewhere.

This was probably true formerly, but it may be doubted whether
it applies since the £nglish market has been opened to the terrassiers
of Abbeville and Amiens.

264 Lyell on the Antiquity of Man* July,

mrith it in the true foasil beda*, which penetrates to a eeneible
depth into its substance, and which M. de Perthes well detscribes
as a true patina, such as antiquaries value in ancient coins, being,
in the one case as in the other, inimitable by art and a real safe*
guanl against forgery.

It is satisfactory to add that in this conclusion the eminent
English geologist, Mr. Prestwich, entirely coincides. ' This
' staining,' he adds, / is so strong and permanent that no subse-
' quent ejcposure can remove it'f There are two farther tests of
antiquity to which Sir C« Lyell (Antiq. of Man, p. 116.) attri-
butes much importance as incapable of artificial imitation ; first,
a ' vitreous gloss as contrasted with the dull aspect of freshly
' fractured flint ;' and secondly, presence of dendritic crystallisa-
tions on the fashioned faces*

The next question is, are these remains not only andent, but
do they belong to the beds characterised by t/ie remains of extinct
animals 9 On this point doubts have also been raised, and they
have probably been the last to be removed in the minds of
sceptical inquirers. Were these hatchets obtained by the work-
men from Celtic graves or comparatively recent deposits of peat
and alluvial soil, and then represented to have been found in the
old gravels ; or again, without presuming fraud, might they not
have become mixed up witli an older formation by land slips or
rents caused by artificial excavation ? In answer to the former
supposition, M. de Perthes pertinently remarks; first, that
the form and finish of the implements of the later or true Celtic
age, and even from the peat formations, are quite distinct in
character from those of the ancient deposits; secondly, that
their colour is also different in conformity with what has been
stated under the last head, corresponding to the difierent
characters of the matrix ; thirdly, that the flints of the older
type are actually more abundant in the district than those of the
newer type, so that he has habitually paid the workmen more
highly for the more modem article, and yet has accumulated in
his museum only one fourth of the number compared to the
ancient. Lastly, that he has extracted weapons with his own
hands from the lower gravels nearly in contact with the inferior
chalk. Later writera coincide generally with these conclusions.^

* It may also be brown or simply dull white, in accordance with
the character of the matrix.

t Prestwich, Phil. Trans., 1861, p. 297.

\ See, for instance, Mr. Flowers' detailed account of the extraction
with his own hands of a flint implement sixteen feet below the surface
at St. Acheul, near Amiens. {GeoL Socieiy*s Journal^ voL xvi.
p. liK).) Mr. Prestwich, who was present on the occasion, says that
the depth from tha original surface was twenty-two feet.

1863. Ijj^ on the Antiquity of Man. 265

The second and more difficult question as to the possible casual
introduction of the flint weapons into the old gravelt can hardly
be answered by spedfic disproof; and for those geologists who so
long withheld their assent to M. de Perthes' conclusions this
has been the stronghold of scepticism. Certainly no one would
lightly admit the contemporaneity of any extraneous bodies in
strata which by their very nature have been since their de-
position in a mobile and comparatively incoherent state. But
die evidence and the arguments which satisfied Cuvier and all
contemporary geologists that the mammoth, the rhinoceros, the
cave-lion, and many more extinct animals, survived to the
period of the catastrophe which entombed them in these strata,
applies without variation to the presence amongst these very
bones of the human relics of which we are now speaking. Nor
can we, without an evident paralogism, accept in the one case
a conclusion which we reject in the other, merely on account of
an alleged antecedent improbability. We have shown from his
writings that such an improbability would not have weighed
with Cuvier had the evidence which we now possess. been pre-
sented to him. At the same time we desire to record that it is
the habitual occurrence of these implements in a certain stratum
which gives its main force to the evidence ; and that had the
discovery only been made in a few instances, or in a single
locality, it might have been Justly received with doubt, and
judgment suspended until confirm^ by repeated instances and
in various places. The careful researches of Mr. Prestwich in
particular, as well as of M. Rigollot and other French geolc^ists,
have given all the consistency of which this kind of evidence
admits to the particular deductions of M. de Perthes in his
own locality, but by extending it to others in France and to the
similar formations in England, they have removed, it seems to
us, any reasonable doubt that the entombment of the flint
weapons corresponds exactly in point of antiquity to that of
the Mammoth Age of Cuvier. But these considerations lead us
naturally to a more direct consideration of the nature and age
of the geological formations characterised by all these remains,
especially as they occur in the valley of the Somme.

It is with the post-tertiary beds that we have here princi-
pally to do. Though they may be called in a geological
sense extremely modern, they manifestly do not conform to the
meaning of that phrase in a popular sense. They are sub-
divided by Sir C. Lyell into two groups, which admit of con-
sistent interpretation in respect of the fossils which they contain.
The older member of the post-tertiary beds (to which, as we
shall see, the bone and flint implement beds of Abbeville and
Amiens belong) is characterised by the fact of the shells which

26€

Lyell on the Antiquity of Man.

Jidy,

it containe being all of recent specieSy whilst the fossil mammalia
belong partly or chiefly to extinct species* This Sir C. Lyell
calls Post^PKooene. The upper member of liic post-tertiary
series, termed Recent^ mclndes both shells and fossil bones be-
longing entirely to existing species. Till within a few years the
last or recent period alone has been tiiought to include human
works or remains. The question now agitated is, whether we
are justified in placing the appearance of Man on the surface of
the globe one stage eariier, or in the Post-Pliocene age ?

That the reader may have clearly before him the rellitions of
these upper deposits and the nomenclature actually adopted, we
borrow, mainly from Sir C. LyelFs works, the following abridged

view.

PERIOD. KAVE.

PS

( BBOEKT

H <

9 S

POST-
PLIOCENE-

DESCRnrnoK.

Peat — deltas of rivers
and alluvia generally.
Newest raised beaches.

^ Loess of the Ehine -^
Terraces of the Valley
of the Sorame — Older
raised beaches — ^Bone
caves*

TOSSILS.

Entirely of existing
species. Relics of hu-
man art and of Man.

Shells all of living spe-
cies, but bones of maaj
extinct quadrupeds-^
Flint implements of
Abbeville, &c

pi

<

H

V EOCENE

/PLIOCENE CBoulder clay — Glacial \ Include a small pro-
newrrI drift or diluvium. [ porrion of extinct spe-

oi;dbb Crag of Suffolk. / cies of shells.

laocsNE (Two sabdi visions) living species rarer.

r Three subdivisions, tojLiviBg speotes of shells
1 London clay inclusive. ( very rare.

The gravel beds at Abbeville and at Amiens, as well as those
in the valleys of the Seine and Olse, and of Ae valley of the
Waveney, in Suffolk (near Hoxne), in all of which flint imple-
ments have been fouua, belong decidedly to what, in the above
table, are termed the Post-Pliocene beds. Their age is deter-
mined alike by superposition and by their fossil contents. As
to the former — in Suffolk, for example — they are seen to
overlie the * boulder clay/ or glacial drift, which belongs to the
* newer pliocene * formation, while they are evidently older than
the peat formation contained in the valleys. With respect to
fossils, they perfectly exemplify Sir C. Lyell's criteria of the
post-pliocene age. The shells are, without any exception, those

* The dates of these raised beaches and bone caves have only
lately been ndvanced from the Bould^ Clay era to the Post-pliocene
period, principally on the authority of Mr. Ftestwich and I>r.
Falconer.

1863w hy^ on ike AnHquihf ^ Mm. 267

of living spertae ; \mt the bones of quftdrupeds, where Booh are
£6«ind, bel<MEig usuaUj^ or almost always^ to extinct spedes.

The evidence deduoible as to tke climate which prevailed at
this very early stage of the history of Man is remarkable enough*
The presence of hones of the elephant^ rhinoo«N)s, hif^potamns,
and lion, naturally eonvey the idea of a i^arly tropical climate*
But this seemingly reasonable conolumon has been long abandoned
witb reference to other examples. It is not necessary that we
should here recall the facts which establish that the geographical
range of even existii^ species of most of these genera was
formerly greatly underrated *, and that the drcumstances under
which such remains have been found in Siberia and elsewhere
conclusively show, first, that these animals (ele|^nt and rhino-
ceros) lived and died on the spot — secondly, that the climate
was then certainly very cold, most probably as cold as at present.
Had not this been the case, these remains — which include flesh
and skin as well as bones — conkl mot possibly have been pre-
served, free from putrefaction, to modem times ; and the woolly
oovmng with which diey were invested proves that they in-
habited an arctic or sub-arctic dimate. The evidence from
shells, as to the climate of the drift period in the north of France,
is not altogether deoisiye. Their species almost invariably
accord with those which now belong to the same region. But,
with a single exception (the Cyrena flummeMB^ an inhabitant of
the Nile), they abd prevail in the northern or sub*arctic parts
of Curope.t The mode of deposition of the transported sand
and gravel in these beds, with the contorted forms which they
present, giv« a colour to the idea entertained by Mr. Prestwioh,
as well as Sir Charles Lyell, that the winter climate of the
Somme, at the early human period, was some 20^ at least colder
than at present ; and that the habits of life of the people may
have resembled those of the natives of Hudson's Bi^. It maj
be added that, though the entire detritus whidi composed these
important beds has been found to be atriotly composed of
materials comprised within the present outline of the drainage
of the valley where they oeour, they include massive blocks of
hard tertiary sandstone, which, according to the present views
of geologists, are believed by many to have required the ageni^
of ice for their removal; another confirmation, it is thought, of
the great antiquity of these de(>08its, and of their showing a

* The Indian lion has been found alive in the Asiatic continent, if
we recollect rightly, as far north as latitude 52° ; that is, to the north
of London, and in a winter climate incomparably more severe.

t Prestwich, * Royal Society Proceedings,* 1862, p. 44. ; LyeH,
'Antiquity,' p. 142.

268 Ljell on the Antiquity of Man. July,

gradation in respect of climate between the modem state of
things and that of the deposition of the boulder clay, a tme
pliocene deposit which is held to be purely marine and of an
arctic character. We confess that these deductions (as regards
the drift of the Sorome) seem to us to rest on rather slender
analogies; and we are glad that the paper in which Mr.
Prestwich ingeniously considers them (Royal Society Proceed*
ings, 1862) has been kept wholly distinct from his original
investigation of the facts of the case (Phil. Trans. 1860).
This last-mentioned paper appears to be a model of cautious
observation and le^timate inference.

Mr. Prestwich, whose previous labours in geology had given
weight to any expression of opinion connected with the pliocene
and post-pliocene formations, was first induced to visit Normandy
by the report of Dr. Falconer of what he had seen in M. de
Perthes' museum. In 1859, Mr. Prestwich made most of the
observations contained in his paper in the * Philosophical Trans-
' actions,' and was followed by Sir Charles Lyell, who gave in
his adhesion to the views of M. de Perthes on the antiquity
of Man, at the meeting of the British Association at Aberdeen,
in the autumn of that year. It is only just to say that Sir C*
Lyell found little to add to what his accurate predecessor, Mn
Prestwich, had done, either in confirming the genuineness of
the antiquities or their precise relations to the beds in which
they are found, and the geological and topographical positions
of these beds. Dr. Falconer and Mr. Prestwich have thought
it necessary to vindicate for themselves a more prominent
position, with reference to these and other collateral dis-
coveries, than they think Sir C. Lyell has assigned to them.
But in the matter of the Abbeville antiquities, at least, we
think that Sir 0. Lyell really intended to give Mr. Prestwich
full credit for what he had done — which, in fact, was nearly
all that the case admitted of — before Sir C. Lyell had
published at all on the subject. Indeed, in the 'Evidences
* of the Antiquity of Man,' we do not observe a claim on the
part of the author to special originality of investigation. But it
is inevitable that a systematic writer, methodising for the first
time a subject mainly new, and viewing it from its popular side,
should obtain credit for having originated much of what he
relates on the authority of his predecessors, or of which, at
least, he is. merely a confirmatory witness. Unfortunately, it is
too common a case that such writers are even less liberal of
citations from their precursors than in this case Sir Charl/ss has
been. We think we may f^rly acquit him of any ungenerous
intentions in the matter.

1863« JjjeH on the Antiquity of Man. 269

In the course of an address to the Boyal Society of Edinburgh,
in December 1860, the Duke of Argyll very justly observes,
with reference to the question of the relics of Man in the
valley of the Somme» that —

* The reluctance to admit the contemporaneity of Man with those
animals [extinct mammalia] results from the reluctance to admit
Man's priority to such physical changes as are supposed to separate
US from a fauna typified by the mammoth and the elk. If therefore
the fact of such priority be proved from the stratigraphical position
of the flint relics, wholly independent of any argument derived from
organic remains, the importance of the question of the human age of
the great mammals will be much diminished.'*

This is quite correct ; and as we have dwelt chiefly on the
evidence from fossils, we must just indicate the 'Stratigraphical
' Evidence ' here alluded to. It is tolerably simple, and may be
found in the writings and instructive sections of Mr. Prestwich
and of Sir C. LyeU. We confine ourselves to the valley of the
Somme.

At Amiens and Abbeville, this valley is an excavation of
great width — from one to two miles — in the chalk strata
covering this part of France* The height of the rising grounds
adjoining the viUley is about 200 feet above the level of the sea ;
and at Abbeville, the height above the river Somme is only a
little less. The lowest part of the excavation of the chalk, or
bottom of the valley, is lined with gravel, on which rests a bed
of peat thirty feet thick and in part below the sea level, and
through that peat the Sonmie makes its way. In it are found,
from time to time, hatchets of a more modem character than
those of the older formations called Post-Pliocene. These last
beds occur in contact with the chiUk slopes of the sides of the
▼alley at two different levels above the bed of the river. One,
about forty feet above the sea, occurs at the now well-known
locality of Menchecourt, near Abbeville ; a second terrace, from
80 to 100 feet above the sea, at Moulin Quiff non. These may
be called, respectively, the low4evel gravel and high-level gravel.
Similar phenomena occur at Amiens and elsewhere. It is to be
clearly understood that these terraces are horizontiUly stratified
masses of loam or brickearth (above), and of angular or slightly
worn flint gravel (below), abutting against the slopes of chalk
which form the sides of the valley ; that they are abruptly cut
off on the side nearest to the river, and that, acconiing to
appearances, they once stretched from side to side of the

• Proceedings of the Royal Society, Edinburgh, Dec 3rd, 1860,
p. 363.

270 L jell on the AnHquity of Man. July,

valley, like a horizontal floor, whiofa has sinee been cut into and
excavated by a moving power sufficient to form the modem
bottom of the valley* Moreover, this process was again repeated,
after an interval, — ^which may be assumed to have been a long
one — a second and narrower floor having been formed across
the valley, at the lower level, and that again cut into terraces
by a fresh excavating power. Still later, the gravel and peat
must have been deposited where it now filb up the lowest
portion of the excavated chalk valley.

It is further to be understood that the flmt implements of
which we have so often spoken are found both at the 40 feet
and the 80 feet terrace, in each case at the depth of 20 feet,
move or less, from the modem surface, chiefly in the lower
portion of the flint giavds, near where tjiey rest on the chalk,
sparingly in the brickearth or loam above, and not at all in the
superficial soil which covers both, and whieh conforms to the
sloping sides of the valley. The mammaKan remains are
deposited in a similar manner. It is important to add that,
with the hw^Uod pravdt are associated some marine, as well as
a preponderance of fresh-water shells, showing that, when they
vrere deposited, the tide reached condderably above the present
mean level of the sea at the mouth of the Somme, giving to
these formations the estuary character ; but, on the other hand,
the higk-leoel graveb show no trace of the presence of the
ocean, nor do marine deposits extend up the valley beyond
Abbeville.

On the whde, then, considerable physical changes must have
ooourred since these deposits of the human age occurred. As-
suming the uppeMevel gravel to be the oldest in date, a force
— apparently of water — surely very diflPerent from that which
the present stream of the Somme eould exert, carried along
with it the flints washed out of llie smromiding chalk forma*
tions, and disposed ihem in stnkta extending frtmi side to side of
the then spacious valley. Next, the stream must have cut
through this deposit, and excavated* a cavity, still wide, though
somewhat narrower than before, in which, meeting the waters
of the sea, it deposited the low^level gravel in the same manner :
at this time the level of the tide must have been 15 or 20 feet
higher than at present, or the land must have since been elevated
so much. It appears to us to be a strong presumption that
the deposition of the high and low level gravels was not

* It is not necessary to assume that the solid chalk was washed
out at this period. That may have been the result of older and
more violent denudation, the ancient bed being afterwards filled with
detritus.

1863. Lyell on the Antiquity of Man. 271

separated by a vast chasm in time, that their composition^
arrangement^ and orgimic and artificial contents exhibit such a
marked unity of character^ the sole exception being the oc-
currence of marine shells in the lower beds of the lowest gravels.
We say that this uniformity of character and of products seems
to be a more convincing argument for the periods of deposition
not being very remote from one another, than any difficulties
which such a supposition involves are sufficient to counteract.
We have lUready mentioned that the occurrence of great trans-
ported blocks of tertiary sandstone has been thought to require
the introduction into these valleys of glacial agency. Might
not this or some coordinate cause have aided in the formation
of these terraces, and especially have given to the now puny
stream which meanders through the extensive valley, a power
of excavation which even the attributed aid of tens of thousands
of years wholly fails to confer upon it ?

Having considered at some length the most &mous of the
implement-bearing deposits, we will not stop to detail the par-
ticulars of others more or less similar. The discovery of
fashioned ffints in the valleys of the Ouse and Waveney in the
East of England is chiefly interesting, Jirst, as showing that
their occurrence in France was not exceptional — thus removing
all doubt as to the genuineness of the relics ; secondly ^ as proving
(what the sections in Picardy did not establish) the posteriority
of these gravels to the ' boulder clay ' or ' glacial drift' (a deposit
of newer Pliocene age); and, thirdly, as having recalled to
memory the fact that such discoveries had been made and re-
corded nearly two generations since. The flint implements
found deeply imbedded in ancient gravels at Hoxne, in Suflblk,
were fully described in the ^ Archseologia ' for 1800, in a paper
by John Frere, Esq., read in 1797 to the Society of Antiqua-
ries. The specimens are still preserved in the Antiquaries'
and in the British Museums. Their association with the bones
of extinct animals is distinctly stated, and their date referred
* to a very remote period, indeed even beyond that of the
' present world ;' a conclusion as definite as any at which even
in the present day we seem able to arrive. The idea of Frere
that the strata were formed under the sea appears to be the
only mistake ; the shells indicate a fluviatile origin. It appears
also from the statements at p. 161. of the ^ Antiquity of Man,'
that a flint weapon was found in 1715 near Gray's Inn Lane, in
London, associated with the remains of an elephant.

Before quitting the valley-deposits of the Somme, we must
refer to the alleged discovery, since the date of Sir C. Lyell's
publication, of a fossil human jaw in the neighbourhood of

272 lijell on tlie Antiquity of Maru July,

Abbeville, closely associated with characteristic flint weapons.
Such' an occurrence had been anxiously anticipated by M.
Boucher de Perthes from the very dawn of his investigations,
of which indeed it may be said to have constituted the very
goal and object. Sir Charles Lyell and other geologists equally
regarded it as a probable and very desirable sequel to the whole
inquiry. Cuvier had long since stated that human bones are
not more perishable than those of the lower animals, and Sir
C. Lyell has taken pains to account for their absence by showing
that in draining the Lake of Haarlem, and in other cases where
such remains must certainly have existed, the chances are so
multiplied against their fortuitous recovery that they are wholly
undiscoverable. However, in March last, the workmen at
Moulin Quignon, near Abbeville, brought to M. de Perthes
a human tooth, which they declared they had found in the
usual site. . Having directed that special care should be taken
to report to him the first appearance of further relics, on the
28th of the same month a workman named Y&sseur announced
that a bone projected about an inch from the matrix. This was
extracted under the eves of M. de Perthes himself, and proved
to be one half of a human jaw. A flint axe was not many
inches distant. The exact depth of the jaw from the surface
was 4-^ mdtres, or 15 feet. The bed in which it lay was a
sandy one in contact with the chalk, and dark-coloured from
the admixture of iron and manganese. There were found by
M. de Perthes on the same day in the yellow sand belonging
to the same bed, and 3-^ metres from the surface, fragments of
mammoths' teeth. When the discovery was published, geologists
flocked to the spot both from Paris and London, especially M.
de Quatrefages, professor of anthropology at the Paris Museum
of Natural History, from the former, Messrs. Prestwich and
Evans, Drs. Carpenter and Falconer, from the latter. The
verdict given on the spot seems to have been entirely favourable
to the genuineness of the relic The jaw-bone was conveyed
to Paris, and one tooth and some hatchets to London.

It appears that at the time no doubt was entertained by any
of those who virited Moulin Quignon on the 14th and 15th of
April that the jaw was authentically found in the locality
described, and where it was seen by M. Boucher de Perthes.
The Englishmen, however, moved partly by the subsequent
opinion of skilled antiquaries that the hatchets were forged, as
they presented no palpable proofs of antiquity,and partly by the
fresh condition (when sawn open) of the interior of the single
tooth in their possession, surrendered their first opinion. Dr.
Falconer, in a letter to ' The Times * of April 25th, declared

1863. Lyell on the Antiquity of Man. 273

that M. de Perthes had been deceived by the men. He
further added that the undoubted osteoloc^c^ peculiarities of
the jaw, which led the most skilful naturalists to cousider it as
bearing internal evidence of remote antiquity — ^in fact, of belong-
ing to a different race of men from the European — were merely
accidental, though presenting an extraordinary coincidence with
the alleged circumstances of its discovery. The Parisian natu-
ralists, however, and especially M.. de Quatrefages, who had
possession of the jaw, firmly adhered to the first opinion.

Under these circumstances, the controversy might have been
hopelessly prolonged, had not the happy idea been entertained
and acted on of holding a meeting of savans of both nations,
which took place at Paris, under the able presidency of M.
Milne-Edwards, froto whence it was adjourned on the 12th of
May to Abbeville. The assembly consisted of MM. Milne-
Edwards, de Quatrefages, Lartet, Delesse, and Desnoyers
from Paris ; and Drs. Falconer and Carpenter, Messrs. Prest-
wich and Busk, from London. Fresh excavations were under-
taken beneath the very eyes of the Commission, and were
attended with the discovery of several hatchets which were
believed to be genuine, though not possessing the patina or
other proofs of antiquity formerly relied on. These results,
together with a full investigation of the circumstances attending
the discovery of the jaw, terminated in the conviction of every
individual present at the inquiry on that occasion that no fraud
had been practised.*

The reader must not, however, suppose that with the admission

• To speak rigorously. Dr. Falconer, while perfectly satisfied of
the authenticity of the flint tools exhumed in the presence of the
Commission on the 12th of May, and also of the jaw itself, declined
to commit himself to the authenticity of the tools discovered near the
jaw and on the 28th of March. Mr. Evans, who did not take part
in the Conference either at Paris or Abbeville, and who therefore
was not a witness to the extraction of the five ' haches ' in presence
of the Commbsion, still denies the authenticity of those not possessing
the criteria of patina, dendrites, or worn edges: and it is proper to
add that the strong doubts he has expressed on this subject are still
entertained by many geologists of eminence. The facts stated in
the text are based on documentary evidence. But we are informed
that at recent meetings of the Geological Society of London more
than one of the English Commissioners has seen reason to retract
the opinion he formed at Abbeville. These frequent alternations of
judgment have thrown doubt on the whole transaction. It is certain
that many genuine remains have been found at Abbeville; but it is
not less certuin that many spurious objects have been introduced
into the beds of gravel there.

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLI. T

274 Ljndl cm the jkUiquify of Man. Jvljy

of the relic8 being tvuly found as alleged in an undisturbed bed
at the depth of fifteen feet, coincidenoe of opinion as to the an^
of the foeeil was thereby attained* Dr. Falconer and Mn Busk
re-stated the doubts they originally entertained as to the abso-
lute age of the jaw, which was now sawn across and displayed
an amount of freshness inconsistent, in their opinion, with its
being coeval with the remains of the extinct quadrupeds. These
doubts do not seem to have been shared by the French membera
of the Commission ; but the eminent physiologists who belonged
to it, especially MM. Milne-Edwards (who as preudent, brought
the detailed report before the Academy of Sciences on the 18th
of May), and M. de Quatrefages expressly held themselves
uncommitted to any opinion as to the geolc^icaL age of the
Moulin-Quignon beds. This reserve was the more prudent
and necessary, because at the same sitting M. Elie de Beau-
mont, who, so far as is known to us, had hitherto studiously
avoided any expression of opinion, made a statement so positive
and so unexpected, as, to judge by the contemporary reports,
produced an unusual and almost electric sensation on the
scientific auditory. His opinion or decision was to this effect —
that the Moulin-Quignon beds are not ^ diluvium ; ' they ace
not even alluvia deposited by the encroachment of rivers on
their banks ; but are simply composed of washed soil deposited
on the flanks of the valley by excessive falls of rain, such as
may be supposed to occur exceptionally once or twice in a
thousand years. A week later this eminent geologist reiterated
his opinion in the same illustrious assembly, adding that the age
of these formations belonged, in his opinion, to the ^ stone period,'
or is analogous to that of peat mosses and the Swiss 'lake-
* habitations.'

Such is the position of the question at the moment we write.
We do not think that the English geologists who have
with so much industry and care established their conviction of
the ^ diluvial ' or ^ post-pliocene ' age of the terraces of the
Somme, will readily give in even to the justly respected au-
thority of the veteran geologist of France. They will no
doubt require him to produce ample evidence that they have
been wrong, and that he is right. And we think that the
scientific public will do well, while withholding a final assent
to either view, not rashly to pronounce for that which relieves
them from the necessity of embracing the new doctrine of the
contemporaneousness of Man and the mammoth.*

♦ We have drawn the history of the recent proceedings at Paris and
Abbeville from the French journals 'Cosmos ' and ' Les Mondes,* from

1863. Lydl an the Antiquity of Man. 275

The surprise wliich M. E. de Beaomont's verbal state-
meDt is said to have excited was perhaps greater than the
oocasion warranted. His doubts are the same as those which
we may believe fifteen years ago caused the Academy of
Sciences to turn a deaf ear to M. Boucher de Perthes' claims to
have made a discovery. To that scepticism the Viscomte
d'Archiac, author of an admirable compilation on the history of
geology, and Mr. Mantell^ well known on this side of the
Channel, gave distinct expression. It was one of the first
difficulties which on the re-agitation of the question in 1859,
met the English visitors to the valley of the Somme, and it
was we think fairly and fully met by Mr. Prestwich in his
admirable paper.* He still continues to hold that the Moulin-
Quignon beds belong to the diluvium or quaternary formation.

Among the difficulties presented on the very threshold by M.
Elie de Beaumont's view, is the question where to look for the
true mammoth diluvium whence these remains were washed and
mixed up with the relics of Man. Had flint weapons been
found at one point only of the terraces of the valley of the
8omme^ and not at numerous and detached points, and also in
distant valleys of France and England, a local disturbance
might be suspected. But this, as we have seen, is not the case.
Further, it is known that the fossil bones of Abbeville are not
severely rubbed as if carried from a distance^ and in one most
remarkable instance (the more striking because it occurred long
ago), M. Baillon found the bones of the hind leg of a rhinoceros
so accurately in their relative positions that they must have
cohered by their ligaments when interred : the entire skeleton

the * Comptes Bendus,' especially those of the 18th and 25th May,
from Dr. Falconer's letters to 'The Times/ of 20th and 25th
April, and 21st May, and from the letters of Mr. Evans and
Mr. Prestwich in the 'Athenffium.' A collateral argument urged
in favour of M. Elie de Beaumont's views, derived from the absence
of ivory ornaments in association with the worked flints, which it is
argued roust have been abundant had the aborigines been contem-
porary with the mammoth, seems to us, as being merely negative
evidence, to be undeserving of great weight in the face of positive
arguments of an opposite kind. Dr. Buddand found a quantity of
ivory rods and rings associated with human female bones in the
cave of Faviland in Wales (to which we shall have again to refer),
yet he did not conclude (as with much better reason he might have
done) that the woman in question was contemporary with the
elephants whose remains lay near her. However, we feel quite
entitled to use this positive fact against the negative one of the
French antiquaries.

• Phil Trans., 1860, p. 300, 801.

276 lijeW on the Antiquity of Man. July^

was also at no great distance.* The horizontal terrace-like
stratification of the bone-bearing beds and their uniform cha-
racter apparently extending over great distances, as shown in
the sections of Mr. Prestwich and Sir C. Lyell, are also in
opposition to the views of M. Elie de Beaumont.

We now come to the class of evidences of human antiquity
most nearly allied to the preceding, arising from the occur-
rences of fiint weapons, and also of human bones associated in a
more or less unequivocal way with relics of extinct animals
in limestone caverns.

The difficulties which have always beset this investigation,
or rather the uncertainty to which the conclusions are liable,
place the results decidedlv one de^o'ee lower in the scale of
proof than in the case of the stratified post-pliocene deposits
which we have been discussing. Instead of having an onierly
succession of deposits occurring in a uniform manner over con-
siderable areas, and capable of excavation to an unlimited extent,
we have in the bone-mud of caves entirely local and, so to speak,
accidental accretions, disconnected with ordinary geological
causes and devoid of position in the recognised strata of the globe.
These caves have in many instances remained accessible for ages
after the mud deposits were made, or may have even served for
occasional concealment or shelter down to modem times. At
all events, they were tenanted for long periods by successive
races whether of animals or men, and the record of their
antiquity was not, as in the case of strata geologically super-
imposed, sealed up and verified by a succession of later de-
posits.

It is quite impossible for us to enter upon the difficulties
which beset the interpretation of the well-established asso*
ciation of the remuns of such extinct animals as the elephant,
rhinoceros, the cave-bear, hyieua, and lion, and of the
reindeer with human bones, and especially with stone imple-
ments. Dr. Buckland, to whom C«vier acknowledged himself
to be deeply indebted for light thrown on these problematical
deposits, disbelieved the contemporaneousness of the relics of
Man and those of the lower animals. This was not merely
Buckland's opinion in 1823 when he wrote his ^ Keliqui» Dilu-
* vianse,' hut also when he published the second edition of his
Bridgewater Treatise in 1837 f; and it remained probably

* See extract from M. Baillon's paper of 1834-5, quoted by
Mr. Prestwich in 'Philosophical Transactions,' I860, p. 313.

f Supplementary Notes, p. 602., where the researches of Schmer-
ling in the Belgian caves are referred to.

1863. JjytM on the Antiquity of Man. 277

unchanged to the close of his life. Sir Charles Lyell allowed
also to these difficulties their full force. He says in an early
edition of his ^ Principles/ (after enumerating the sources of
confusion in classifying cave deposits)^ ^ It is not on such

* evidence that we snail readily be induced to admit either the
' high antiquity of the human race, or the recent date of certain

* lost species of quadrupeds.'* His views^ indeed, remained un-
changed down to the date of the last edition of the ^ Principles/
as he candidly allows in the following passage of the ^Antiquity

* of Man/ where he also mentions the occasion of his altering
it: —

' I came to the opinion that the human bones mixed with those of
extinct animals in osseous breccias and cavern mud were prubably
not coeval. The caverns having been at one period the dens of wild
beasts, and having served at other times as places of human habita-
tion, worship, sepulture, concealment, or defence, one might easily
conceive that the bones of man and those of animals whicli were
strewed over the floors of subterranean cavities, or which had fallen
into tortuous rents connecting them with the surface, might, when
swept away by floods, be mingled in one promiscuous heap in the

same ossiferous mud or breccia. But of late years we have

obtained convincing proofs . . . that the mammoth and many other
extinct mammalian species very common in caves occur also in undis-
turbed alluvium, embedded in such a manner with works of art,
ns to leave no room for doubt that Man and the mammoth cot*xisted.
Sncli discoveries have led me and other geologists to reconsider the
evidence previously derived from caves brought forward in proof of
the high antiquity of Man.' {Lyelty p. 62.)

Tlie most critical fact which seems to have influenced Sir C.
Lyell as well as many other geologists, was observed in the
course of an excavation of the previously unexplored cave of
Brixham in Devonshire, in 1858 or 1859, under the direction
and personal superintendence of Dr. Falconer and Mr. Pen-
gelly. Many flint knives were obtained from the lower part of
a bed of ' bone-earth ' often of great thickness, which occupied
the chambers of the cavern. Above the bone-earth was a layer
of stalagmite (calcareous deposition) which for ages has sealed
up and secured from the air or from casual intrusion the beds
below it. This stalagmite covered the entire humerus of a
cave-bear ( Ursus spelcsus, an extinct species). Moreover, • in the

* bone-bed and in close proximity to a very perfect flint tool *
lay the entire left hind leg of a cave-bear. Every bone of it
was recovered, down even to the patella : intimating that when
entombed along with the flint implement, these bones had not

• Principles; vol. ii. p. 233 (ed. 1833).

278 Lyell on the Antiquity of Man* July,

been washed out of an older deposit^ but were probably cbthed
with flesh, or ^ at least had the separate bones bound together
^ with their natural ligaments ' {Lyell^ p> 101.). It seems difficult
to resist so reasonable a conclusion, and thoi^h it is plain that
the man and the bear could not have lived in the cave together,
it may be that they disputed its occupation^ or that the ursine
remains were washed in after the cave was deserted by man. Ho
human bones have, we believe, been found in the Brixham cave.

After citing this, perhaps the latest, best established, and
most satisfactory of the arguments as to human antiquity Tet
derived from cave evidences, we will not stop to inquire wheUier
Professor Schmerling of Li^e in 1833, and Mr. M'Eneiy of
Torquay about the same period, had not already arrived with
equal right at the same conclusions long before, which the
former at least had confidently but vainly announced to an
unbelieving generation. We now acknowledge that they wore
in all probability justified in their conclusions Yet these were
difiScult to establish, and isolated facts nuist ever be regarded
by geologists with the utmost distrust, especially when they are
of a nature to disappear from subsequent verification. The
evidences of the integrity and superposition of cave deports,
and of the exact conditions of association of the remains, are of
so fleeting and so nice a description, as to demand the most
circumspect caution m accepting them. Mere reports of work-
men avail nothing here. It is on the personal testimony of the
explorers of the Brixham cave alone, that we are inclined to
accept their important conclusions.

In truth, it is difficult to dispense with ocular proof in such
cases ; and, failing that evidence, we fall back upon concoirent
testimony firom many impartial quarters. It was the indepen-
dent proof from the valleys of Picardy of the associatioQ of
implements with extinct mammalia, which gave Sir C. Lveil
confidence in accepting the results of the Brixham exploratioDs;
and, precisely conversely, it was the personal conviction wluch
he acquired at Brixham which induced Dr. Falconer to revisit
in 1858 the Abbeville museum, and there find proo& of the
same facts, which he seems in 1856 to have seen unconvinced.
All this is natural and reasonable. It is the normal progress
of science towards the admission of truth by the progresdte
elimination of legitimate doubts. It may be eom{Hired to the
hesitation with which the extra-terrestrial origin of meteoric
stones was at first received.

Until recently it has been very generally held that the age
of bone-cave deposits coincided with, or preceded, that of the
^ boulder clay,' making them more ancient therefore than the

L

1863. Lydl on the Antiquity <ff JKnu 279

flmt beds of the Somme and Ouse. But at timt time the true
flge of those beds had not been clearly ascertained, and the fossils
which they contain were assumed to belong to the newer
Pliocene series. It appears that the researches of Dr. Falconer,
in oonnexion particularly with the varieties of the extinct
elephant, have gone far to establish that the bone caves are
of t^e same geological era with those post-pliocene dcpo»ta
Ghranting this, we are met with difficulties in making even a
remote approximation to the chronological antiqnity of cavern
deposits. These difficulties are the same in kind, and almost
greater in degree, than those which we met with in contem-
plating the vast energies which must have been expended in
excavating the valley of the Somme in the cases of Ainiens and
Abbeville. The situation of the limestone caverns is in a great
number of cases most remarkable. They open npon inac-
cessible, or nearly inaccessible, precipices. The expressive sec-
tions in Dr. Buckland's ^ Reliquiee DiluvianaB' give us a lively
conviction of the difficulty of accounting for how animals
entered these dens, and how they were Mterwards subjected
to alluvial processes. We are assured that in many cases no
dtemative remains but to suppose that the configuration of the
country has altered nnce those times, and that clifie, now sixty
feet high, must have been formed at Brixham since the time
when floods found access to the caves, in the valley of the
Mouse, the diflb upon whidi the caves open are said to be two
hundred feet in vCTtioal height. The difficulty of accounting
for such changes by any conceivable duration of existing causes,
staartles even Sir Charles Lyell from his uniformttBrian tran-
quillity. After stating the last-mentioned fact, he adds: —

* There appears also in many cases to be such a correspondence in the
openings of caverns- on opposite sides of some of the valleys, both large
and small, as to incline one to suspect that they originally belonged to
a series of tunnels and galleries which were continuous before the
present system of drainage came into play, or before the existing valleys
were scooped out. Other signs of subsequent fluctuation are uflbrded
by gravel containing elephant's bones at slight elevations above the
Meuse and several of its tributaries. The loess also in the suburbs'
and neighbourhood of Li^ge, occurring at various heights in patches
lying at between 20 and 200 feet above the river, cannot be explained
without supposing the filling up and re-excavation of the valleys at a
period posterior to the washing in of the animal remains into most
of the old caverns. It may be Ejected that, according to the present
rate of change, no lapse of ages would sufiice to bring about such
revolutions in physical geography as we are here contemplating.
This may be true. It is more than probable that the rate of change
was once far more active than it is now, {Antiquity of Man^
p. 73, 74.)

280 Lyell on the Antiquity of Man. July,

It is almost unnecessary to insist on the fact that the last
sentence annihilates the argument for excessive antiquity — in
fact, puts the claimant out of court There can be no calcula-
tion of secular change when violent catastrophes are invoked
for the division of the Gordian knot The case reminds us of
the practice of those homoeopathic professors who, whilst no
crisis threatens, continue to administer with firm composure
trillionths of a grain to their trusting patient ; but when emer-
gencies occur, lose confidence in their globules, and resort with
precipitation to the vigorous remedies of the orthodox physician.

Before quitting this part of the subject, there are two dis-
coveries in connexion with bone caves which we cannot wholly
pass over, since Sir C. Lyell gives them each a prominent
place ; namely, the skulls of Engis and Neanderthal, and the
sepulchre of Auriffnac.

Amongst the human relics detected many years ago by
Schmerling in the Belgian caves, we ought perhaps to have
mentioned sooner that flint implements were so abundant as to
have excited comparatively little attention, whilst the bones of
Man were rare. Of the latter, we believe that but one skull
has been preserved, that of the Engis cave. More lately (in
1857), a skull was found in the cavern of the Neanderthid,
near Dusseldorfi**, whose peculiarity of form, rather than the
geological proofs of its great antiquity, has attracted to it much
notice. Sir C. Lyell has devoted more than an entire chapter
to the description of these remains, regarded chiefly from an
anatomical point of view. It is, in fact, an episode in the treat-
ment of his subject, and belongs rather to the concluding por-
tion of the volume on Darwin's ' Theory of the Origin of Spe-
cies,' thah to the geological argument of the 'Antiquity of Man.'
Sir C. Lyell relies on the authority of Mr. Huxley in the purely
anthropolc^ical discussion. A reader unacquainted with the
author's predilection for the Darwinian hypothesis might be
rather puzzled to account for the iusertion in this place of the
chapter on the form of these old skulls. But he who knows
already the conclusion — which may almost be called aforeffOTU
conclusion — in the writer's mind, is struck, on the other hand,
with the failure in establishing the desired proof which is the
tendency of the whole inquiry. It is a curious instance of the
struggle, which we often meet with in Sir C. Lyell's very
agreeable writings, between the intensity of his prepossessions
and the natural candour which is continually making itself seen.

There is little or no dispute about the facts. Of the two

* See < Antiquity of Man,' p. 92.

1863. Ijjell on the Antiquity of Man. 281

skulls that of Engis is the more certainly ancient. It was foiind
associated with the bones of the rhinoceros; though, as we
have already observed, this alone is in caves no sure evidence
of contemporaneousness. The skull from Neanderthal might
apparently be of almost any date, so far as its geological position
is concerned. It was carelessly extricated by workmen from
the cavern mud, along with other parts of a skeleton which
were not recognised as human until after several weeks.* The
skull is admitted to be of a very low type of humanity, re-
sembling in some degree the Australian races, yet in cubical
capacity it is far superior to certain modem skulls, and has more
than double that of the highest order of monkey. Its form is
no doubt very strange (surely the shading in the figure, p. 82.,
of the * Antiquity of Man,' must give an unintentional exa<rge-
ration of the superciliary ridge !). The Engis skull, on the
other hand, presents no anomaly of great moment, and is
readily referred by anatomists to the ordinary European raccf
It appears, therefore, to be a somewhat unreasonable preix)sse8-
sion to wish to maintain (for we can hardly affirm that Sir C.
Lyell directly maintains it), that the less certainly ancient
skull is any proof of the gmdation of Man into the ape, while
the more certainly ancient one in the same district contradicts
such an inference. At page 92., Sir C. Lyell puts his argument
in a form hardly logical. It seems to amount to this. This
skull (of Neanderthal) may either be very ancient or not very
ancient. If very ancient, it was a normal skull of the period
when Man was nearer the ape than at present; if not very
ancient, it was an abnormal skull of that period simulating a
return (called * atavism') to the structure of the owner's
monkey-like progenitors. Thus, whether normal or abnormal,
it is to be quoted on Mr. Darwin's side. In other passages,
however. Sir C. Lyell, and also his anatomical guide. Professor
Huxley, are fairer in their conclusions. On the geological
antiquity of the Neanderthal skull, the former says (p. 78.) : —

* I think it probable that this fossil may be of about the same age
as those found by S(shmerling in the Li^ge caverns ; but, as no other
animal remains were found with it, there is no proof that it may not
be newer. Its position lends no countenance whatever to the suppo'
sition of its being more ancient,*

• Schaaffhausen in « Natural History Review,* i. 156.

f Professor Huxley elsewhere describes it as 'a fair average
* human skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might
' have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage.' {Mans Pktce
in Nature^ p. 156.)

282 Lydi OH Hie Jmtiqmty cf Mcuu Julr,

Professor Huxley siqrs : —

' The fact that the skulls of one of the purest and most homoge-
neous of existing races of men can be proved to differ from one
another in the same characters, though perliaps not quite to the same
extent as the Etigis and Neanderthal skulls, seems to me to prohilnt
any cautious reasoner from affirming the latter to have been neoes-
sanlj of distinct races.' {LyeUy pp. 88, 89.)

And again, —

*The comparatively large cranial capacity of the Neanderthi^
skull, overlaid though it may be by pithecoid [ape*like] bony wall%
and the completely human proportions of the accompanying limb-
bones^ together with the very fair developement of the Engis skull,
clearly indicate that the first traces of the primordial stock whence
Man has proceeded need no longer be sought, by those who entertain
any form of the doctrine of progressive developementy in the newest
tertiarieSy but that they may be looked for in an epoch more distant
from the age of the Elephas primigenius than that is from us.' *
(Antiquity of Many p. 89.)

Sir C. Lyell, in his resume of his arguments on the antiquity
of Man, in chapter xix., gives the following conclusions on the
subject of these skulls, which it will be seen are in conformity
with Mr. Huxley's, and betray none of the leaning to the Dar-
winian inference which we have already abridged from bis fifth
chapter : —

' The human dteletons of the Belgian caverns, of times coeval with
the mammoth and other extinct mammalia, do not betray any signs
of a marked departure in their structure^ whether of skull or limb»
from the modem standard of certain living races of the human
family. As to the remarkable Neanderthal skeleton, it is at present
too isolated and exceptional, and its age too uncertain, to warrant us
in relying on its abnormal and ape-like characters, as bearing on the
question whether the farther back we trace Man into the past, the
more we shall find him approach in bodily conformation to those
species of the anthropoid quadrumana which are most akin to him
in structure.' (P. 375.)

The prominent place given in the ' Antiquity of Man ' to

■ " ■ !!■ I -■ ■ ■ 111 I ■ — ^-^-^^— i^^».^^^— ^-^■^■^— ^■^■^^.i^W^^"^^^^^™^^^^^^^"^— ^^^^■^^^— ^■^^^^—

* In his work on ' Man's Place in Nature,^ Professor Huxley says,
with equal candour : * In no sense then can the Neanderthal bones
' be regarded as the remains of a being intermediate between men
*and apes. At most they demonstrate the existence of a man'
[observe, not of a race of men] ' whose skull may be said to revert

* somewhat to the pithecoid type.' And again, ' The fossil remains

* of Man hitherto discovered do not seem to me to take us appreciably
^nearer to that lower pithecoid form by the modification of which he
'has probably become what he is.' (Man^s Place in Nature^ pp^ 157*
159.)

1863. Lyell on tlie Antiquity of Man. 283

this cranial discussion closer therefore^ in an absolute negation
of evidence as to the points which the author evidently wished
to establish. It was fitting and right that the anatomical in-
quiries should be vigorously pursued, but as they have ended
in no. result, so far as the argument of Sir C. Lyell is concerued,
we should have preferred seeing them less prominently brought
forward than has been done^ as if some weighty conclusion was
to result from them.

The other question regarding the burial-plaoe of Aurignac
demands also a brief notice.

Of the many interesting statements and discoveries included
in the descriptive pages of Sir C. Lyell's work, none ap|)ears
more piquatit to curiosity, or more suggestive of speculation,
than those respecting the sepulchral cave of Aurignac,
situated in the department of the Haute Garonne, on one of
the spurs of the Pyrenees, some forty-five miles south-west
from Toulouse. All the extant details of this most ancient of
recognised places of sepulture we owe to M. Lartet, a French
palsBontologist of recognised character and ability ; but veiy
unfortunately he was a personal witness to only a portion of
the facts. We have not room to detail tiie particulars, im-
portant though they are in drawing any conclusion from the
narrative. For them we must refer to M. Lartet's paper in
the fifteenth volume of the ^ Annales des Sciences Naturelles,'
Off a fuU translation in the first volume of the ^ Natural History
^ Heview.' A very clear and faithful abstract is given in the
* Antiquity of Man,' pp. 181-193. The cave was accidentally
discovered in 1852 by a workman, in the face of a limestone
hill, at an inconsiderable height aboye the brook Bpodes. The
entrance was entirely concealed by a talus of natural debris ;
and the cave-proper was effectually closed by a vertical slab of
stone, which was removed by the discoverer Bonnemaison (a
labourer), but subsequently broken up and lost It was not
till 1860 that the circumstances of the discovery were investi-
gated by M. Lartet. Within the stone barrier just mentioned,
at the time when it was opened, lay relics of seventeen indivi-
duals, which were counted by the Maire of Aurignac, a medical
man, and by his order entombed in the chnrchf^yard. The
made ground constituting the soil of the cave was, however,
then left untouched. It was first excavated, eight years after
its discovery, under M. Lartet's personal inspection. More
human bones were found, tools of flint and bone, the greater
part of the skeleton of a cave-bear, teeth of the cave-lion
and wild boar, and numerous bones of the rhinoceros, and other
extinct, and of some recent graminivorous, animals.

284 Lyell on the Antiquity of Man. July,

Exterior to the stone door a similnr deposit was found, with
the peculiarity that marks of fire were abundant underneath,
and that the bones (amongst which those of the camivora were
less frequent than within the cave) were almost invariably split
open in the manner which savages use to do for the extraction
of the marrow. Since undergoing this process they had
evidently been gnawed by the teeth of animals, probably hyaenas,
from the marks of which the bones within the cavern were
entirely free. On the whole evidence M. Lartet and also Sir
C. Lyell arrive at conclusions which may be thus summed up :
1. The chamber in the rock (a natural cavity) was unquestion-
ably a place of sepulture used when Man was contemporary
with the great cave-bear, cave-lion, rhinoceros, &c. 2. The
implements of flint found in the cave resemble those of the
terraces of the valley of the Somme, but are (we infer) some-
what more carefully formed. The tools and weapons in bone
and horn (both of roe and reindeer) resemble those found in
so-called ^ Recent' deposits of the stone age, and are well pre-
served. 3. The remains of beasts were (most probably) intro-
duced within the cave hy design ; either as spoils of the chase
in honour of the deceased, or as a viaticum for hb passage into
another state. The weapons were introduced for a similar
purpose. Both these usages are in conformity with the known
habits of rude nations in all parts of the globe. 4. The ex-
ternal area in front of the stone door was no doubt the scene
of feasts succeeding the funerals, and includes not a single
human bone. No trace of fire or of the teeth-marks of wild
animals are found within the chamber, and there also the bones
are not split up for the marrow. 5. According to M. Lartet
the evidence from fossils gives to this tomb an antiquity at
least as great as (if not greater than) that of the Amiens and
Abbeville deposits.*

* There are many analogous features in the Cave of Aurignac
and that of Paviland in South Wales, described long since by Dr.
Buck land. (Beliq. Diluv. pp. 82-98.) The female skeleton
found in the latter, accompanied by numerous ivory rods and rings,
and a skewer of wolf- bone, was associated with the bones of extinct
animals of species almost exactly coinciding with those of Aurignac,
also with ashes and apparent culinary remains. All these things, as
well as the general position of the cave on the sea-shore, seem to
point to a somewhat similar antiquity. No doubt Dr. Buckland
refused to entertain the idea of the contemporaneity of the human
with the elephantine remains, but he gives no convincing proof to
the contrary. The remains at Paviland appear, however, to have
been previously disturbed.

1 863. Lyell an the AiMquity of Man. 285

Sir Charles Lyell gives an apt citation from a ballad of
Schiller, translated by Buhver, describing the faneral rites of
North American Indians in terms which correspond closely
with the phenomena of Aurignac. We are sorry not to make
room for the lines, but quote some concluding remarks of our
author in a tone of sentiment which his writings rarely
display: —

* The Aurignac isave adds no new species to the list of extinct
quadrupeds which we have elsewhere and by independent evidence
ascertained to have once flourished contemporaneously with Man.
But if the fossil memorials have been correctly interpreted — if we
have here before us at the northern base of the Pyrenees a sepulchral
vault, with skeletons of human beings, consigned by friends and
relatives to their last resting-place — if we have also at the portal of
the tomb the relics of funeral feasts, and within it indications of
viands destined for the use of the departed on their way to the land
of spirits ; while among the funeral gifts are weapons wherewith in
other fields to chase the gigantic deer, the cave-lion, cave-bear, and
woolly rhinoceros — we have at last succeeded in tracing back the
sacred rites of burial, and, more interesting still, a belief in a future
state, to times long anterior to those of history and tradition.'
{Lyell, pp. 192, 193.)

Assuming all the conclusions from the observations of M.
Lartet to be correct (and from the great majority of them
we see no cause to dissent), it appears to be almost incontest-'
able that the result is unfavourable to the idea of assigning an
almost measureless antiquity to those numerous deposits which
are proved to be coeval with extinct mammaliaj and of which
we nave treated in this article. It goes a long way to con-
vince us that the existence in Europe of the cave-bear,
cave-lion, rhinoceros, and mammoth must be approximated
much more towards recent times, rather than that the creation
of Man must be drawn back into a region of quite hypothe-
tical remoteness, on account of his association with extinct
species. But Sir C. Lyell and M. Lartet (who appears to be
a tliorough disciple of his school) try to persuade us that
absence of any mark of important change in the physical
condition of the surface of the country about Aurignac, is no
proof that the antiquity of the tomb may not be indefinitely
great. Great no doubt it must be : but every fact connected
with its position and discovery seems to show that it belongs to
what we may (somewhat vaguely, no doubt) call the present age
of the world. There is nothing unreasonable in assuming that
these mammals survived to a later period of the world's history
than geologists have usually allowed. Even the evidence of
change of climate which they were once considered to establish

286 Ljell an the Antiquity of Man. Julj,

has disappeared as a difficulty. In a word, it seems to us to
be repugnant to all rules of probable inference^ to suppose that
we have before us intact relics of sepultures which occurred
tens of thousands of years ago.

The length to which this article has already extended, warns
us to abridge within the shortest compass the consideration of
the evidence adduced by Sir Charles Lyell for the antiquity
of Man in connexion with volcanic deposits, and with * Becent'
formations, especially the deltas and other mud deposits of
rivers.

In 1828, our countryman. Dr. Hibbert, had the merit of
discovering near Langeac the first fossil bones connected with
the volcanic formations of Central France, and unquestionably
antecedent to the latest eruptions of that wonderful country.*
They belonged to animals of the class of rhinoceros, hyena,
and cervus, probably coincident with those of the post-pliocene
period. L^ter, the number of these remains has been gready
increased.! In 1844, at the Montague de Denise, quite near to
the town of Le Puy, remains of two human beings were found,
including a skull in tufa, believed by many geologists to be oJf
the same age with the last basaltic eruption of that volcana
The genuineness of these remains has been very thoroughly
investigated by Messrs. Scrope, Pictet, Lartet, Sir C. Lyell, and
others. It seems quite reasonable to believe that the specimens
originally found were genuine, whatever may be the case with
some alleged to have been discovered since the notoriety of
the first specimens became general. The certainty of their
anteriority to the last basaltic outbreak of the Mont Denise is,
however, questioned by some geologists. Admitting that the
fact is so, it confirms the testimony of the Abbeville beds as to
the age of Man, and was so accepted whilst the researches of
M. Boucher de Perthes were comparatively unknown or dis-
credited. Such a discovery can hardly surprise those who have
visited the volcanoes of Auvergne and the Vivarais, The wonder
has always been that of phenomena so apparently recent and
stupendous, no record or even tradition should have reached
modem times.

We need hardly dwell upon the fossil man of Natchez, nor
upon some others referred to in Sir Charles Lyell's eleventh and
sixteenth chapters. These human remains were found in a clayey
dcjjosit which appeared to have fallen from old alluvial cliffi of

• Edinburgh Journal of Science, 1830. New series, ii. 276.
t Scrope's 'Volcanoes of Central France;' edition of 1858,
p. 223, &c.

1868. LyeU an Hie AaHquky of Man. 287

great heigbt adjoimng the modern deltii of the Mifleissippi,
«nd, as Sir C. lijell believes, more anoient than it It is need-
lees to go into tiie proofs of the exact geological position of the
human bones, of which no one was really a witness ; and the
determination appeared to Sir C. Lyell in 1846, when he saw
the specimen in a collection, to be so unsatisfactory, that after
investigating the circumstances on the spot, he thought it quile
possible that it might have ^ been dislodged out of some old
^ Indian grave,' near the top of the cliff in question, and had
fidlen to its base, though he also gives the alternative of assign-
ing to it the same antiquity as the remains of the Mastodon
occurring in the lower beds of this old alluvium.* In the latter
case. Sir C. Lydl infers that it ought to be considered as of
an age anterior to the formation of the entire modem delta of
Ae Missisnppi, a mud deposit of great thickness, and extending
over 12,000 to 14,000 square miles. He supposes (both in his
earlier and later writings) that this depont may have required
100,000 years for its formation.

The age of deltas (those of the Nile, the Po, and the
Granges, for example) has been a matter of speculation, not
only since phenomenal geology became a science, but even as
£Eir back as the days of Herodotus. That shrewd though
often credulous historian ascribed the delta of the Nile to its
true cause, the deposit of river mud; and went so far as to
estimate that it would suffice in from 10,000 to 20,000 years
to fill up the Erythnean Sea. But during the last sixty or
eighty years, since the period^ of Deluc, Dolomieu, and Hutton,
the accumulation of data on this subject has been very con*
eiderable, although, perhaps, little certainty has been given to
the attempts to affix a chronological value to the progress or
age of these deposits. The results, it may be briefly said, vary
80 widely as to prevent us from placing great reliance on any
of the estimates. We have the high authorities of Playfair
and Lyell, on the side of almost indefinite antiquity, to set
against the more moderate estimates of not less eminent
naturalists, such as Dolomieu, Cuvier, and Elie de Beaumont.
The three last-named authors have emphatically given it as
their opinion, that, so far as maybe reasonably judged from
the rate of encroachment of river deltas into the sea, and
especially from the well-known instances of the Po, the Nile,
and the Mississippi, the period when they began to transgress
the natural pre-existing margin of the coast is to be reckoned
at a few t/iouf and years only. The evidence has been discussed

/ See • Lyell's Second Visit to the United States,' ii. 197.

288 Ijyeh on the AfUiquity of Man. July*

with great fulness and iDgenuity, and from the best sources of
information then extant, by M. Elie de Beaumont, in his un*
finished and too little known work, 'Lecons de Geologic
^Pratique.' He arrives distinctly and aeoidvely at the
general result which we have just noted as to the age of river
alluvia, and also of that of downs of moving sand thrown up
on many coasts, which he considers to give coincident evidence
on this point. Misled, we believe, by an erroneous measure-
ment (350 metres) of the present annual growth of the delta of
the Mississippi, he deduces a period for its growth so short
(1,300 years) as manifestly to show (as M. de Beapmont him-
self remarks) that little dependence can be placed in any
estimate involving the uniform progress and great periods of
time of such changes. According to the latest observers the
advance of the principal mouths of that great river toward
the ocean is not more than a fourth of that above stated
This allowance would give a period of growth for the delta
between 5,000 and 6,000 years. The prodigious contrast J
the estimate even when thus enlarged, with the 100,000 y b
of Sir C. Lyell, illustrates the caution with which such e u-
lations are to be received.

Intimately connected with this subject, and liable t/ .ven
greater uncertainties, are the calculations by Mr. Horn as to
the age of the alluvial deposits of the banks of the Nil tvhich
have covered more or less many ancient buildings, and which
at great depths certun works of man, particularly po .t.jry, are
said to have been disinterred^f This occurred, it ia stated, at

* See Dana's < Manual of Geology' (1863), p. 647 . This work
contains the latest measurements of the enlargement of the delta,
and of the amount of solid matter carried down by ' \ Mississippi
annuaUy into the Gulf of Mexico. The latter is e: nnted to be
equivalent to a cake of solid matter a mile square and ' ■ ^ feet thick.
This includes what the river carries in suspension, ai^ \lso what it
pushes before it. The amount is between three and four ' 3es greater
than it was estimated by Sur C. Lyell (* Second Visit,' \ 250.), and
consequently diminishes the alleged antiquity of the delta \ the same
proportion.

t ' Philosophical Transactions' for 1855 and 1858. In tl instance
principally dwelt on by Mr. Horner as the best authenticai a frag-
ment of pottery was brought by the boring implements of the . **'wtir
engineers from a depth of 39 feet ; so that allowing the ac .aiu-
lation of Nile mud to have been effected at the rate of 3^ inches per
century (which is Mr. Horner's estimate), this fragment is presumed
by him to be a record of the existence of Man 13,371 years before
A.D. 1854, or 11.517 years before the Christian era. {Philosophical
Transactions, 1858, p. 57.)

1863. Ijjell on the Antiquity of Man. < 289

depths of even sixty and seventy feet^ indicating an antiquity of
at least twice as many centuries^ on the allowance (which Mr.
Homer considers to be much too liberal) of six inches of deposit
per century. Very serious doubts have been thrown upon these
calculations : as, for example, from the uncertainty of the alleged
works of art having redly been found at those depths, their
excavation having been witnessed by no European ; from the
hesitation of antiquaries to admit that burnt brick or pottery
was employed in any circumstances under the old Egyptian
dynasties ; from the anomalies which occur in the beds of all
rivers from frequent changes in their course, and the filling up
of some channels and opening of new ones ; and from the great
uncertainty universally admitted to prevail in the estimates of
the Nilotic accumulations within distinctly historic times. But
we are absolved from the task of analysing these considerations
by the frank avowal of Sir Charles Lyell (f Antiq. of Man,*
p. 38.), that ' the experiments instituted by Mr. Homer, in the

* hope of obtaining an accurate chronometric scale for testing

* the age of a given thickness of Nile sediment, are not con-
' sidered by experienced Egyptologists to have been satis-

* factory.'

The consideration of deltas and river deposits brings us to the
period strictly called 'Recent,' in which all geologists have
allowed that relics of Man are frequently found, though even
here comparatively rarely, in the form of bones or skeletons.
To such relics peculiar interest attaches, and will more and
more continue to attach, as it serves to connect the geological
or unrecorded history of the globe with its strictly human and
in part recorded history.

The technical distinction of deposits belonging to geolc^cal
and historical periods of time has, we have seen, been held to
be, that in the last no remains of extinct species of animals are
found. The mammals, as well as the shell-fish, are those of
our own age of the world. Into this wide and interesting field
it is quite impossible that we should here enter. As treated by
Sir Charles Lyell, it includes two chief classes of facts — those
connected with modem * raised beaches ' undoubtedly marine,
and those connected with lake deposits, peat mosses, and the
like, as well as all casually interred traces of Man, evidently
anterior to the period of recorded history. Each of these classes
of facts furnishes our author with a species of chronology based
on the principle of ' uniformity,' and subject to all the doubts
and difficulties of that hazardous principle of computation.

The r^sed beaches, or marine terraces, or sea margins denoting
the former presence of the ocean, at levels relative more or less

VOL. CXVIir. NO. CCXLI. u

290 Itjdl an the AnHqtdty of Man. Jolj^

above the present one, belong to widely different periods, all, how-
ever, included within 'the extensive limits of Newer Pliocene,
Post^Pliocene, and Recent deposits: to the first belong the
marine part of the boulder days of Scotland and the South-East
of England ; to the second, the lower flint implement beds of
the Somme, and probably many of the marine deposits both of
Scotland and Scandinavia'; to the last, the ' twenty-five feet,'
and possibly the 'forty feet' terraces of Scotland, and the
lower marine beds of Sweden* The old coast-lines imder the
second and third head are now well known from the accurate
description of Sir C. Lyell (for Sweden)^ and of Mr. Smith of
Jordan Hill*, the late Mr. Bald and Professor Edward Forbes,
of Mr. Chambers, Mr. Geikie, and many others (for Scotland).
They are in many instances shown to be coeval, not only with
Man, but with Man advanced beyond the ruder or savage stage,
including relics of the ' bronze ' or even the ' iron' period. The
most frequent and notable relics of the less elevated beaches are
canoes, usually cut out of the solid, of which, as an instance, no
less than seventeen have been found within the last eighty yeavs
on the site of the city of Glasgow. {Lyell, p. 48.) These
canoes give evidence of having been formed by tools of metaLf
Opinion is divided as to whether this latest sojourn of the
sea at a higher level can be traced to within the period of
written history. Mr. Geikie and Sir Charles Lyell incline to
the opinion tl^t the last rise has partly or chiefly occurred by
a gradual elevation since the Boman occupation of Britain ; and
relying on this somewhat contestable datum, Sir C. Lyell
(^ Antiq. of Man,' p. 55.) attempts to establish a chronometric
scale amounting to about 1^ foot of rise in a century ; and
forthwith applies it to assign the age of a rude ornament of
cannel coal, described by Mr. Smith as found 50 feet above the
sea associated with marine shells. This by an easy piece of
arithmetic he finds to be 3,400 years old, or contemporary with
the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt No doubt Sir C.
Lyell excuses himself from being committed to this estimate

* To Mr. Smith belongs the merit of pointing cat the partially
Arctic cbaracter of a considerable per-centage of the shells found in
the raised beaches. Though all of existing species^ many must be
sought for as living in high latitudes. This deduction was the more
interesting because it preceded the geological developement of the
Glacial theory, with which it remarkably harmonizes. Mr. Smith
has collected in a small work his papers on this subject. {Researches
in Newer Pliocene and Poet-Tertiarjf Geology, 1862.)

t See also Wilson's ' Prehistoric Han/ vd. i., and Chambers'
^ Sea Margins,' p. d03., he.

1868. Ljell on the Antiquity of Man. 291

of age by the following immediately succeeding paragraph
{Antiquity y p. 55.) : — ^But all such estimates must be con-
' sideredj in the present state of soiencci as tentative and
' conjectural, since the rate of movement of the land may not
^ have been uniform, and its direction not always upwards ; and
' there may have been long stationary periods, one of which, of
' more than usual duration, seems indicated by the 40-foot
^ raised beach, which has bc^n traced for vast distances along

* the western coast of Scotland.' But if the argument be thus
worthless, to adduce it at all seems to be not only unnecessary
but calculated to mislead. Besides, the alleged rise of the coast
since the time of the Romans, upon which the chronometric
scale is based, is seriously entertained by few geologists.

Here we must enter a firm but respectful protest against
this the most favourite of all Sir Charles LyelPs scales of geolo-
gical time — a specific rate of the elevation of continents,
doubtless going on at present in some cases, but assumed to have
regulated in all, or many other cases, the process of the emer-
gence of .land from the deep, and applied to the evaluation of
almost indefinite ages of past geological change of level.

We cannot state how often in the present and in former
writings of Sir Charles Lyell we find the particular amount of
rise of continents at the rate of two and a half feet in a century ^
assumed as a basis of calculation of the age of marine deposits
lodged at different levels over existing continents. It is ex-
pressly based on his own investigations, and those of his
predecessors, on the rise during historic times of the Scandi-
navian peninsula, of which the results are to be found in the

* Philosophical Transactions' for 1835, and in the ' Principles
' of Geology.'* As a sort of average from data by no means
certain or consistent, he adopts three feet for the secular rise of
Norway and Sweden as a whole. But admitting this average,
it appears to afford not even the slightest clue to the laws of
subterraneous energy acting at othor epochs, and in remote
parts of the globe. When, therefore, we find Sir C. Lyell
applying his Scandinavian chronometer to the age of the most
ancient alluvial deposits of the Mississippi t^ to raised beaches in
Sardinia, including pottery (to which on this ground only the
author assigns an antiquity of 12,000 years):^, to the possible
obliteration of Behring's Straits by elevation §, as well as attri-

* Ninth edition, p. 519.

t Second Visit to the United Butes, iL 259, 263.

Antiquity of Man, p. 178.

Ibid.y p. 368.

292 LyeU on the Antiquity of Man. Jttly>

buting an antiquity of 24^000 years to the post-tertiary strata of
Norway *, we feel bound to say that the author is giving a numeri-
cal value to periods of time calculated upon vague and inappli-
cable analogies. For amongst other objections to these estimates^
it is evident, (1.) that the phenomenon of the changing level of
the Baltic has now for a century and a half attracted attention as
an exceptional fact, and not as the normal condition of the sorfkce
of the globe, or of even any one of its continents ; (2.) that in
some localities subsidence of the land seems to be the well
established law of actual change, as on the Italian shore of the
Adriatic, at Disco in Greenland, and in the case of some of the
Coral Islands of the Pacific; (3.) that, according to Sir C.
LyeU himself, the measure of rise even within the limits of
Scandinavia varies from five feet per century at the North
Cape, to zero to the south of Stockholm ; and in the extreme
south of Sweden it becomes negative, for there the land has
been sinking for at least 800 years. The movement is, there-
fore, rather one of tiUing than of simple vertical change. (4.) In
Sweden, in Scotiand, and we may add generally, we have no
ground for asserting that it has been uniform even in historic
times; while we are certain from geological evidence, that
in remote times the movement of the land was interrupted
by long periods, which are marked by the formation of ter-
races and beaches, and by succesnve submersions and eleva-
tions of land, such as geolo^ts have traced along the coast of
Norfolk, the mouth of the Somme, and in many other places.
(5.) Even could we venture to assume that one prevalent cause
is at this period of our globe's existence elevating the land of
continents unifomdy, and in all directions suffering the sea to
subside into its bed (which is contradicted by history and
analogy), it would be most illo^cal to apply the same chrono-
metric sode to long past periods of the earth's unknown history.
The longer we msd^e the periods, in conformity with the
Lyellian doctrines, the more does the excessive improbabili^ of
such an assumption appear. To carry back arithmetically the
deductions of 100 or 200 years' experience to the condition of
the globe 200,000 or 300,000 years agot> seems an abuse of
logic and of the rules of evidence. As one of Sir C. LyelTs
numerous critics happily suggests, it is ' pretty much the same
* as if a man finding that an individual nearly dx feet in height

* Antiquity of Man, p. 58.

f Mr. Darwin has had the temerity to estimate on similar princi-
ples a period of 306.662,400 years ! (Philip Address to Geological
Society, 1860.)

1863. Lyell on the Antiquity of Man. 293

' had grown only half an inch last year^ we were to conclude
* that he must be 140 years old.' (6.) On the other hand,
numerous evidences go to prove (as our author is himself occa-
sionally constrained to admit) that there are independent
grounds for thinking that our earth has gradually been passing
om a condition of more violent change to one of comparative
tranquillity ; and that during the pliocene and anterior times,
upheavals, depressions, and fractures of every kind, with con-
comitant waves of disastrous energy, were more frequent and
far more intense than now.

It makes it a somewhat provoking task to argue against Sir
Charles Lyell's defence of his peculiar uniformitarian views,
that he every now and then makes admissions in general terms
which simply negative the particular conclusions at which he
has almost in the same sentence arrived. It would be easy to
show from his writings that there is not one of the six objec-
tions just stated to his chronological scale which he has not
somewhere or other, in language more or less guarded, ad-
mitted to have a real foundation, or to be an accurate expression
of the truth. Yet he manages to leave the reader always im-
pressed with the arguments on the side to which his own con-
victions lean. * Definite and numerical statements will ever
leave an impression of greater conviction than vague admissions
of the uncertainty of the data will serve to undo. Beds of peat
30,000 years in forming, shells or pottery found at elevations
or at depths hinted to measure thousands of years anterior to
the reputed date of the creation of Man — these are inferences
which fix themselves in the memory, and cannot be obliterated
by feeble and reluctant qualifying clauses.

Sir Charles Lyell skilfully commences his work on the
^ Antiquity of Man* by tracing archaeological monuments back-
wards beyond the limits of historic annals, and thus familiaris-
ing the mind with unquestionably long periods of unrecorded
human history. On those remote times the researches of
Danish and of Swiss antiquarians have thrown considerable
light. The age of iron, the age of bronze, and the age of stone
peem to indicate the receding stages of civilisation as we grope
our way backwards through those obscure periods of human
existence. The lake habitations of Switzerltmd and the shell-
mounds or refuse heaps of the Danish islands, unquestionably
reveal, with surprising distinctness, the way of life of the rude
primitive inhabitants of those countries. But we have so
recently devoted an entire article to these Lacustrine remains
(Ed. Bev., vol. cxvi. p. 153.) that it is needless to revert to
this part of the subject.

294 JjjeXl an the Antiquity of Man. Joly^

In the absence of archaeological grounds for measuring the
antiquity of the remains of the ancient inhabitants of Switser-
land and Denmark, we turn to geological or at least pby*
sical evidences. We have both there and in the New World
probable proof that successive generations of forests may have
flourished over the graves of ^e men of the Stone Age. There
is a probability al80«(perhaps nothing more) that in Denmark
the surface was then cloth^ with pine> next replaced by oak,
and finally by the now prevailing beech; corresponding pre*
sumably to an amelioration of climate, which again fits in with
the sul>-arctic character of some of the fossil shells of the driflL
Again, we are told that the oyster shells of the Danish mounds
have a more oceanic character than those inhabiting the some*
what brackish waters of the Cattegat ; and hence an inference
that Jutland may then have been an island — indicating of
course a considerable though not necessarily remote antiquity.
But the numerical estimates of the date of the stone and bronze
periods are usually based on the thickness of lacustrine depoeits
or of peat, under which they are often imbedded, and on the
distances IVom the ancient shores of the lakes at which the
remains of 'lake dwellings' are found contrasted with their
present margins. There are so ofiany assumptions —indepen-
dently of the general assumption of the uniformity of these
encroachments over long periods of time — that they convey, to
us at least, scarcely any conviction of even approximate accuracy.
They are liable to more than all the doubts which we have seen
to attach to the chronology of the Nile deposits, and of the delta
of the Mississippi.

We have now considered, to the best of our ability within
the limits of our space, those portions of Sir Charles Lyell's
work which bear most directly on the subject of its title, the
* Antiquity of Man.' There are two other topics discussed in
this volume only slenderly connected with the main question.
These we have designedly omitted, or but slightly touched
upon : the one is the state of the world in the Newer Pliocene,
or as it is now often called the Glacial Epoch, into the detmls
of which Sir C. Lyell enters at considerable length ; but as no
trace of Man has ever been even suspected in that formation,
they seem to us to be hero a little out of place. The other
topic is the Darwinian Theory of Species, which, if true, car-
ried Man's existence back to a time when he was not man ; but
this has been so recently and so fully discussed in this Review,
that we feel the more at liberty to pass it over.

Glancing at the work of Sir C. Lyell as a whole, it leaves the
impression on our mind that we have been reading an ingenious

1863. Lyell on the Antiquity of Man. 296

academical Theme, rather than a work of demonstration by an
original writer who is firmly and of his own knowledge con-
vinoed of what he maintfdns. He seems eTer to aim at inducing
the reader to draw an inference for himself, which the author is
unwilling to state in definite terms, or to commit himself by
entirely and ex animo affirming. This is the case with reference
to the age of the Human Race, which is nowhere in this book
stated with the slightest precision^ but, as we have said, is rather
insinuated than proved. We should have felt more satisfaction,
whether in agreeing or in difiering with the author, had he
given us to understand what his own conviction is on this
subject : — whether, for example, he reckons the human period
by hundreds^ or thousands, or tens of thousands of centuries.
On this point, notwithstanding an occasional array of figures,
we can draw no clear conclusion. Agun, his belief in Darwin-
ism, so significantly to be inferred from almost every part of the
volume, is, we believe, nowhere positively stated ; and in what
regards the men ^f the cave period we have seen that the de-
ductions are vacillating and incomplete. The argument from
the analogy between th^ time required to introduce a new word
into a language, and a new species into the chain of being,
is rather rhetorical than apposite, and is not, we believe, even
new. Lastly, even the doctrine of the uniformity of natural
agencies, which forms the basis of anything approaching to a
chronology in these pages, is never litersdly and definitely
avowed ; on the contrary, as we have already shown, its uncer-
tainty is being continually allowed, whenever a difficulty in its
application arises.

The ' Antiquity of Man ' cannot be considered, and does not
claim, to be an original work. There is no argument in it, and
only a few facts which have not been stated elsewhere by Sir
C. Liyell himself (sometimes in the same words), or by others.
By combining the whole in a consecutive and popular form, the
author has opened the discussion to a wider circle of readers than
were likely to seek for information in the scattered volumes of
the * Philosophical Transactions,' the * Geological Society's Jour-
^ nal,' or the works of foreign naturalists and antiquarians. In
doing this Sir Charles Lyell has done a service both to his
readers and to science — to his readers, because he has placed in
their hands a very pleasing and instructive volume; and to
science, because, though open to the criticisms we have already
made, it marshals in orderly array the elements of a subject
which must henceforth occupy a great deal of attention, —
the pre-historic yet comparatively recent annals of the globe.

Niatural curiosity is justly excited by the attempt to de-

284

In

land

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proli

tk>ui''>

is a I

the .-

and

sum:

the-^

Agn

nav<

wh

tha-

1863. Lyell an the Antiquity of Man. 297

Roderick Murchison has done for the Silurian and other palieozoic
rocks, by establishing the subordination of the members of each
series, and the number and order of succession of the beds bj the
^d of zoological classification, — all this is but just commencing
for the newest formations, beginning with the boulder day. It
must be phun to the reader even of the condensed view of the
more recent deposits given in Sir C. LyelFs volume, and still
more when he turns to the numerous memoirs of which a few
only have been referred to in the course of this paper, that anyone
who should know only what was done respecting them twenty-five
years ago will have to reconsider the whole. In the vague term
of * drift ' have been included formations widely differing in age,
material, circumstances of deposition, and imbedded organic
remains. These have still in a great measure to be classified
and distinguished, their order of superposition definitely fixed,
their relations to tiie rising or sinking of continents established,
and, perhaps above all, the fossils which characterise them
properly distinguished and recorded. All these legitimate
directions of geological and palseontological investigation are
now fairly open. The patience and acumen which elsewhere
have overcome so many similar difficulties are certain in time
to be rewarded witii success. We shall have an accurately
defined succession of beds, marine or fluviatile, subdividing the
boulder clay from the recent formations. These will be dis-
tinguished, some by the character of the shells which they
contain, which will also lead to certain inferences as to pro-
gressive change of climate, if such there was : the still ques-
tionable evidence of the relative age of ' beaches ' at different
levels, and the changes of sea-level in historic times will, with
increasing opportunities of observation, be reduced to something
like consistency : the finer gradations of mammalian species or
varieties, which in the case of the elephant are yielding to Dr.
Falconer appanentiy trustworthy proofe of successive chronologies
of the beds in which these varieties occur, promise perhaps more
than any other recent discovery to aid in the subdivision of the
quaternary beds*, and in the distinction of casually inter-

* Bet^^^l et species Elephas primigenius and Mctstodon

J^orxnni^^^ has already enumerated ^twenty-six species,

' 6 as far back in time as the miocene period,

< ) the Indian and African forms. He has dis-

bban four species of elephants were formerly

under the title of Elephas prtmigeniuSy

ubiquity in post-pliocene times, or its wide

habitable globe.' (See Antiquity ofMan^ pp.

298 Lyell on the AntiquUy of Man. Jnly^

mixed materials from strata of properly defined age. That the
existing fmidamental opposition should have arisen oetween such
eminent geolo^sts as M. Elie de Beaumont on the one hand,
and Sir C. Lyell and Mr. Prestwich on the other, as to the nge
of the Abbeville ' drift/ is sufficient evidence that the very
grammar of this part of geology requires yet, if not to be
written, at least to receive an adequate sanction. It is plain
enough that this question (one example out of many which
must be expected to arise) cannot be dedded brm manu^ still
less by a mere appeal to authority. Till M. Elie de Beaumont
has an opportunity of displaying his proofs in detail of the
^ recent ' character of the flint drift containing tools and fossil
bones, judgment must be suspended. Whilst hesitating, bow*
ever, we incline to think that the more probable result will be
to confirm the contemporaneity of Man with the mammoth and
rhinoceros. Evidence pointing in one direction from so many
quarters seldom fails in possessing some reliable basis. Chrono-
logically speaking, the result will probably be that the current
vague prepossession as to the excessive antiquity of these
extinct quadrupeds will on the one hand be much diminished,
while on the other the age of Man will be carried farther back.
Secondly, these discussions will necessarily bring to a more
distinct issue than hitherto the hypothesis of Qeological Unio
formity. On the admission or otherwise of the principle that
the rate of change observable on the existing surface of the
globe — whether in the way of atmospheric waste, marine and
fluvial degradation, volcanic deposition, or continental elevation,
— is to be considered to be applicable to all the periods of past
time, and all the changes which have occurred on its sur&ce,
however vast ; on this principle, we say, wholly depends our
power of estimating in years or in centuries the probable dura*
tion of geological and zoological revolutions; and amongst
others, the date of the appearance of Man upon the globe. We
have given some reasons in the course of this article for believ-
ing that the hypothesis of geological uniformity must ere
long be wholly abandoned. We have even shown that
Sir Charles Lyell himself is not unfrequently compelled to
dissent from his own principles as leading to absurd results.
Geological phenomena, so fkr as they depend on mechanical
agencies, require for their manifestation and accomplishment
hoth force and time. They depend on the ^combined effect of
both. If a laige effect is to be accounted for^ the time may be
supposed short it* the force be great ; if the forces ore small, the
period of their continuance must be long. In the pr^pant
language of Dr. Whewell, * Time inexhaustible, and ever aoou-

863. JjjeXL on the Antiquity of Man. 299

* mnlatiiig hk efficacy, can undoubtedly do much for the theorist
' ia geology ; but Force, whose limits we cannot measure, and
' whose nature we cannot fathom, is also a power never to be

* slighted ; and to call in the one to protect us from the other, is
' equally presumptuous, to whichever of the two our superstition
' l^ns.'* In G^logy there are certainly many fiicts which can-
not, without extravagant improbability, be supposed to have
been accomplished without the lapse of immense periods of
time. Such are the deposition of the coal measures, taking into
account the time requisite for the growth and mineralisation of
their vegetable contents ; and the formation of highly fossili-
ferous coralline limestones. Generally, the element of organic
life introduces into geology the necessity of long periods and
occasional catastrc^hes. On the other hand, the truly gigantic
revolutions indicated by the faults, elevations, marvellous plica-
tions and contortions, and even complete inversions of the strata
which compose the vastest mountain chains of our globe, betoken
subterranean forces quite unexampled in history. They also
bear evidence to ha^ng been effected with considerable rapi-
dity, and towards their accomplishment an eternity of dura-
tion allowed to existing forces could make no approximation.
Even in the more intelligible field of the denudation caused
by water, with its subsequent deposition of alluvia, the
Coryphteus of the uniformitarian school of Geology is him-
self forced to admit that rivers, such as the Thames for
example, ^ could never, not even in millions of years, have
^excavated the valleys through which they flow.'f Now
all these things are standing evidences that natural causes
have, during the vast epochs of geological operations, had fre-
quent remissions and exacerbations of intensity. Only a little
consideration is necessary to show that the uniformity of the
planetary motions offers no true analogy to the case of the far
different agencies concerned in geological dynamics.^ With
reference to the newest formations which in this article we
have chiefly had to consider, there seems little or no ground for
maintaining a uniform scale of dynamic eneigy.

We should have been glad, had our already exhausted space
permitted us, to refer fully to a very able and striking paper by
Sir Roderick Murchison, on the * Drift of the South-east of

* History of Inductive Sciences, book xviii. chap. viii.

t Lyell's Principles, edit 1884, vol. i. p. 500.

I ^ We find in the analogy of the sciences no confirmation of the
'doctrine of uniformity, as it has been maintained in geology/
( WheweU, « Hutwry,' ^c, book xviii. chap, viii.)

300 Lyell on the Antiquity of Man* July,

'England '* — a formation geographically and geologicalb^ (as it
seems to us), the counterpart of that of tiie valley of the Somine.
In the valleys of Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire, we
find the same denudations of the chalk, the same angular flint
terrace accumulations, accompanied by and enclosing remains
of the same species of extinct animak, and which we can
hardly doubt will on further search yield specimens of flint
weapons or tools. Now in this district Sir R. Murchison per-
ceived in 1851 evidence that the 'flint-drift' was not the linger-
ing deposit of ages of comparative repose, but bore witness to
short though turbulent agencies, performing, we may imagine,
in a few years, the work for which the uniformitarian demands
his hundreds or even thousands of centuries. In the first place
he points out that the denudation of the vast area of the Weald
of Sussex and the neighbouring counties must have been the
result of upheavals, fractures, and accompanying denudations, to
the intensity of which existiii^ nature offers little or no analogy.
He shows that the configuration of the steep slopes of the North
and South Downs facing the Wealden Valley cannot possibly
have been formed, as some theorists suppose, oy ordinary diur-
nal action prolonged through countless ages. He next recog-
nises the results of an agency of vast intensity, and clear proofs
of a great force that drifted the flinty materials to the flanks
of the denuded country in this district He speaks of ' ancient
' mounds of drift arranged irregularly and at different altitudes
' upon their banks from twenty to a hundred feet above the
'present rivers' — the counterparts, therefore, of the Menche-
court and Motilin-Quignon beds at Abbeville. And, he adds,
' a glance at any of these materials at once bespeaks the tumul-
'tuary nature of their origin, for none of them contained
' waterwom or rounded pebbles. At Peppering, about eighty
' feet above the Arun, bones of an elephant were found ' (p.
360.). And to quote but one sentence more from this very in-
structive paper, ' By no imaginable process of the longest con-
' tinned diurnal action could any portion of this detritus have
' been gradually derived during ages from the low chalk hills '(p.
368.).t

The advocates of uniformity also are too apt to forget

* Journal of Geological Society, vii. pp. 349-398 (1851).

f We must make room for one passage out of many in Sir R.
Murchison's memoir, bearing upon M. Elie de Beaumont's idea of the
casual deposition of elephantine remains from an older formation
amidst the gravels of the Somme (which we take to be incontestably
the equivalent of the drift-beds of Kent here spoken of). ' With the
' fact before us that these fossil bones [near Folkestone at 80 to 110

1863. lijell on the Antiquity of Man. 301

that ancient physical changes are admitted by them, which,
though less tumultuary than gigantic earthquakes or great
oceanic waves, are, through the wonderftil sympathy of the
powers of nature, capable of producing enormous mechanical
effects. A depression of temperature of 20"^ of Fahrenheit
seems to them to be a deviation from the existing state of
things to be readily conceded. But if this resulted in clothing
the sur&ce of France and England with glaciers, we have a
new mechanism of vast power introduced to wUch they readily
appeal as the cause of the transport of enormous blocks of stone,
for which 'existing causes' are in the same districts wholly
inadequate. Indeed, far less changes of temperature would
suffice to produce a condition of sur&ce very different from the
present one ; and it seems impossible to maintain that the mete-
orology of the globe has endured as it is for hundreds of
thousands of years. An increased rain-fall and a depressed
temperature, followed by a rise sufficient to melt the ice-cover-
ing of the table-lands, might produce local floods of any re-
quired amount without violating the existing analogies of the
globe. Indeed, if the geologists of the unuormitarian school
will only compare the ideas of the present day with those of
twenty-five years since, they will find that in the single word
' ice,' which forms the text of one-third of Sir C. Lyell's present
volume, there has been added a vast armoury of Force to that
which they previously could command. Its discovery has
really metamorphosed pliocene and post-pliocene geology ; and
can it be conceded that no such farther agencies remain to be
discovered consistent with existing analogies but throwing
light upon the more gigantic and rapid operations of nature

' and even 222 feet above the sea] lie at once upon the bare rock in situ

* without any deposit between it and the drift in which they are com-
' mingled, it seems impossible to explain their collocation. ... by
^ supposing that they were tranquilly buried under d lake or fell from

* the banks of any former stream To my mind the circum-

' stances of the same drift being placed at such different levels at
' Folkestone, and of its sloping up from the sea-board to a height of
^222 feet inland, are good evidences that these creatures were

* destroyed by violent oscillations of the land, and were swept by

:^nts of water from their feeding grounds into the hollows where
now find them, and where the argillaceous materials which
sred them have favoured their conservation.' (Murchison,
36.) At no time does a doubt seem to have entered the mind
lis distinguished geologist that the elephantine bones were other-
) than contemporary and characteristic fossils of the fiint drift in
ich they are found.

302 Lyell on the Antiquity of Man. July, 1863.

in the later as well aa older geological epochs? It would
appear to us pedantic and illiberal in a high degree to disallow
that such are not onlj conceivable, but far more intrinsicallj
probable than a monotony of physical operation, the evidence
for which seems to us to exist principally in the turn of thought
of those who advocate it. These very glacial agencies have,
even now, as we think, been too much relied on by the
youngest school of our geologists, and we are not prepared to
say, with Mr. Geikie, that Mt is superfluous at the present
^ day to raise the ghosts of old floods and debacles, which after
' playing so active a part in geology have now for a good
* many years been quietly consigned to oblivion.' * All these,
with glaciers, may have acted in succession, and in con-
gruous relations to one another, producing the alternations of
effect to which the strata of the globe bear such clear evidence.
And inasmuch as these agencies were all apparently intensified
modifications of the present ones, they diminish m the same
ratio the periods of time requisite for filling up the intervals of
the geological calendar ; and amongst other such intervals, the
duration of Man's existence upon the globe. Professor Phillips,
a writer of singular moderation, and perhaps even excessive
caution with reference to geological controversy, has in one of
his addresses from the chair of the Geological Society expressed
the views which yre hold with such predsion and firmness that
we willingly close our article by citing his words : —

^ Do not geologists sometimes speak with needless freedom of the
ages that have gone ? Such expressions as that " time costs Nature
'< nothing" appear to me no better than the phrase which ascribes to
Nature ** the horror of a vacuum.^ Are we to regard as information
of value the assertion that millions on millions of ages have passed
since the epoch of life in some of the earlier strata ? Is not this
abuse of arithmetic likely to lead to a low estimate of the evidence in
support of such random conclusions, and of the uncritical judgment
which so readily accepts them ? * f

* On the Glacial Drift of Scotland, p. 73. ( Trans. *Geol SocUiy
of Glasgow, 1863.)

t PhiUips* Address to the Geological Society, I7th Feb., 1860,

p. 111.

MB. KINGLAKE'S INVASION OP THE CRIMEA-

(Note to No. CCXL.)

Mb. Eingulke, coDceiviog that the note in page 309. of our last
Number implies that his services were professionally retained in the
defence of Sir Richard Airey before the Chelsea Board of Enquiry in
1855, wishes us to state that this was not the case, and that the part
he took in that defence was gratuitous.

He also informs us that access to the unpublished political cor-
respondence relating to the causes of the war was not refused to
him by the Foreign Office (as we had been led to believe), in as
much as he made no application to obtain it

As Mr. Kinglake has expressed to us his desire that these two
points should be explained we readily comply with his request. The
anonymous strictures, which have appeared in several forms, but
apparently from the same pen, upon the criticisms of Mr. Kinglake's
History, do not appear to us to require any notice.

No* CCXLIL vnll be published in October.

THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

OCTOBER, 1863.

JVo' €€XL1I.

Abt. L — 1. Queensland — a highly eligible Field for Emigra"
tian, and the future Cotton-field of Great Britain. By John
DuNMOBE Lang, D.D., Bepresentative of the City of
Sydney in the Parliament of New South Wales. London :
1861.

2. JPugKs Queensland Almanac, Directory, and Law Calendar
for 1863. Brisbane : 1862.

3. Statistical Register of Queensland for the Years 1860-61-62.
Compiled in l£e Office of the Begistrar-GeneraL Brisbane :
1861-62-63.

nr^E Royal Botanic Gturdens at Kew are chiefly indebted for
•^ their Australian flora to the researches of Alan Cun-
ningham, a gentleman sent to Sydney by the British Govern-
ment for the purpose of procuring specimens of the various
productions of the Australian Continent, who so endeared
himself to the inhabitants of that city by his amiable qualities,
and his indefatigable zeal in the cause of geograpliical discovery,
then of vital importance to its mountain-locked population, that
his virtues and early death are commemorated by a public
statue adorning their own very beautiM public gardens. In
1828, Mr. Cunningham, returning to Sydney from a botanical
exploration conducted in the previous year, brought to its
inhabitants the very welcome intelligence that upon an immense
plateau, situated fdmost within the tropic, he had found the
boundless waving pastures, the perennial streams, and the cool
breezes so long sighed for by the flock-owners of New South
Wales. He proposed to call this region the Darling Downs,

VOL. CXVni. NO. CCXLII. X

306 Queensland. Oct.

in honour of General Darling, then Governor of the vast and,
as yet, undivided British territories of the Western Pacific
Dr. Leichhardt, whose fate is still involved in inscrutable mys-
tery, pushed discovery with equally happy results still further
to the north only a few months previous to that expedition of
which all trace has been so strangely obliterated. Subse-
quently, Sir Thomas Mitchell, then Surveyor-General of New
South Wales, reached the Fitaoroy Downs, the MaatuaB Downs,
the Peak Downs, and various other portions of this vast table-
land — advancing everywhere through a network of cool streams,
and finding ' delicious breeMS weleomiog us to the Torrid
^ Zone.' And in 1845, Dr. Lang, whose work we have placed
at the head of this artide, visited for the first time these newly-
discovered territories, and was chiefly instrumental in procuring
their more direct settlement from the mother-country by three
shiploads of emigrants. The eeene of these discoveries, passing
for several years under the name of the Moreton Bay District^
is now known as the Colony of Queensland.

This latest addition to our Colonial Empire, and the fifth of
the offshoots which the vast and vaguely defined colony of New
South Wales ha«, from time to time, reluctantly suffered to
assume an independent form of government, differs so materially
in soil, climate, and capabilities from all the other Australasian
settlements, that it may not be uninteresting if we devote to it
some separate consideration — without, however, entirely losing
sight of its Australian sisteriiood, with whidi it must needs
possess many common institutions and characteristics. It might,
indeed, at first sight appear that the vast slopes and table-lands
which constitute Queensland would most closely resemble thote
districts of the cokmies of New South Wales and Victoria,
through which the Great Coast iUstge of Eastern Australia
continues its course. In reality, however, they have scarcely
a natural feature in common. The hilly districts of Victoria,
without soil or stream, and worthless if they did not yield gold,
as well as the oontorted, broken, and impassable ranges of New
South Wales*, offer« each in its way, a strange contrast to this
more tropical extension of the Australian CordlUera, as it ex-
pands into richly-clothed and well-watered table-lands^ plains,
and downs.

In availing ourselves of the researches and considerable oolo-

* A Government surveyor, sent to examine a portion of
moontainoos district of New South Wales, concluded his report to
the Grovernor of the colony by * thanking God that he had got out of
' it with his life.'

1863. QueenskuuL 307

nial ezperienee of Dr. Lang, as we propoee to do in tbe oounse
of the present article, we must do that .gentleiaaQ the justice to
acknowledge the ki^e share of merit to which he is entitled in
the fonnatioa of the new colony. While Aian Cunningham
must be ooosidered as the disco¥er«r of Queentlaud, Dr. Lang
may claim the credit of having wrested it from the tenacious
gctt^) of New South Wales, as will be seen irom the following
sesolution, unanimously adopted in the new Parliament of the
colony: —

^ (1.) That tbe thanira of thk House be given to the Bev. John
Doamore Lang, D.D., for his able and sncoessfol efforts for tbe sepa-
ration of MoteU>n l^iy ^m New fiooth Walea, and to found the
odony of Queewdand. (2.) Thut this resokition be transmitted to
His EzceUeocy the Governor, with a request that he ivjill be pleased
to forward a copy of the same to Dr. IahqJ

Hitherto^ fortunatdy, the graduid disintegration of the vast
territories comprised within the lioiits of tbe Boyal Commission
iesoed to Captain Phittip in 1787, as first GovemcMr of New
Bonth Wales, has been accompltsbed wil^ut any more violent
commotion than the demolition of a few election hustings,
and an occasional shower of stones directed against the daring
candidate venturing to represent hk somewhat neglected
province in the distant Parliament of New Soath Wales. The
extreme reluctance, however, wiih which the parent colony has
eoneented to the erection of each independent State, and more
especial^ the impediments placed in the way of the Port
Phillip Dirtrict in establishing its independence as the colony
of Yiotoria, have left an amount of intercolonial jealousy which
18 Tcry little understood in Europe, -and wbich still retards the
formation of that bond of union which should unite the Austra-
Uaa provinces. Indeed, grudgingly as Queensland has been per-
mitted to assume her rights as ODe of these independent States,
we must think that she has not yet come into the full enjoy-
noent of them« The due administration of Australian afl^irs
would certainly seem to favour the claun of her settlers — ^and,
more e^cially, of a large body of settlers now excluded from
her boundariee — to a further extension of territory towards the
south from her niggard parent.

The case of QneenslaQd against the parent colony of New
South Wales iq>pear8 to stand thus. In an Act of the Imperial
Parliament, passed in 1850, * ior the better government of the
' Australian Colonies,' 4i^attse had been ins^ted, reserving to
Her Majesty the r^t to eeparate from New South Wales, and
to erect into an independent colony, the territory situated to the
north of the thirtieth parallel of south latitude — ^that parallel

308 Queensland. Oct.

being indicated bj some very marked natural features^ extend-
ing from the sea-sfaore to the western boundary of New Soatli
Wales, and the country along its whole line being of so broken
a character as to impede all overland communication between
that colony and what was then the Moreton Bay District In
accordance with the terms of this clause^ numerous petitions^
extending over several years, were forwarded for presentation
to Her Majesty bv the settlers throughout the Moreton Bay
District, praying for separation at the specufied parallel ; BXko,
more especially, one petition, dating so far back as the 30th of
December, 1850, from the settlers in the Clarence and Rich-
mond Bivers District, the territory now in dispute.* Owing
to some representations — or, as the later petitions boldly state,
misrepresentations — from New South Wales, which never will-
ingly parted with a foot of her vast territories (the old Com-
mission of 1787 extending over Van Diemen's Land, New Zea-
land, and more generally uxe whole of the Western and Southern
Pacific waters and islands), this reserved right of Her Majesty
to fix the boundary line between the parent colony and the new
ofishoot was not exercised, and the matter was referred to the
decision of the Governor of New South Wales. By him a
line was chosen coinciding with the twenty-eighth parallel from
the coast to the culminating table-land of the Great Bange, and^
from thence to the west, with the twenty-ninth paralleL In
this manner, the whole of the Clarence and Bichmond Biven
District now remains within the colony of New South Wales.
It is well watered by these two navigable streams and by
several smaller ones. Settlement, too, having grown from
the south northwards, its pastures contain more numerous
flocks and herds, and bear evidence, in public and private
improvements, of a longer occupancy than more northern
tracts. These, and other considerations, render its poasfwion
of considerable importance to either colony. Indeed, thoo^
small in comparison with the huge territories with wUdi we
are now dealing, the district itself is larger than En^and» and
contains some of the most fruitful land in the world. Omiltiag,
however, the rival claims of the two colonies — if, indeed. New
South Wales has any better claim than possession — omitting,
too, all consideration of the natural features of the coontiT, the
mere element of distance would appear to be strongly in ummr
of the Clarence and Bichmond settlers in their deaxe to aancx

• Hei4 lAtc»f IVlUion to the Oueen, from the inhabttaate ef the
Ctaronce tttitl Hl^hmo*^ annexation to

Septvttib^r^ 10<^>

1863. Queensland. 309

themselves to Queensland. Grafton, their central town, is 470
nules firom Sjdney, while it is only 180 miles from Brisbane,
the capital of the new colony. Indeed, these settlers now
transact all their private aflfairs with Brisbane, though, in the
case of the public improvements of their district, they exhibit a
woful balance-sheet agunst the Sydney Exchequer, into which
their custom duties, assessment on stock, and the proceeds of
their land-sales necessarily go. The annexation of this district
to Queensland would place Sydney in the middle of a seaboard
of 600 miles in extent, as the crow flies, while she would still
remain the capital of a territory three times as large as Great
Britain. Unless, therefore, it should be thought desirable that
a new colony should insert itself between Queensland and New
South Wales — an event which, in the extremely unsatisfactory
position of Australian land tenure, and the difficulty of fairly
apportioning the expenditure on public works among the more
outlying districts, is almost certain to occur unless some such
proposition as the Clarence and Richmond settlers suggest
should be adopted — ^it would seem more generally advantageous
to the settlers of this great eastern seaboard of the continent
that the Imperial Act of 1850 should be more strictly inter-
preted.

But though we are of opinion that the internal administration
and improvement of the Australian group of colonies demand
the annexation of the Clarence and Bichmond Rivers settlers
to Queensland, yet the colony of Queensland itself is at present
of gigantic proportions, and must be prepared, in its turn, to
throw off large and early northern o&hoots. According to the
present Parliamentary boundaries of the new colony. Queens*
land extends from the termination of the Clarence and Rich-
mond Rivers District to the extreme northern point of Australia,
and from the shores of the Pacific to the 138th meridian of
east longitude. She thus possesses a length of 1,300 miles,
and a mean breadth of 900 miles, with a Pacific and Torres
Stndt seaboard of, as the crow 'flies, 2,250 miles. In other
words, she is somewhat larger than Great Britain and Ireland,
France, Spain and Portugal, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland,
and the new Kingdom of Italy, all put together. And yet such
is the rapidity of Australian squatter settlement, that our latest
information leads us to expect its extension to the shores of the
Gulf of Carpentaria ere these pages have passed through the
^ress.

Indeed, as it may be very shortly necessary to bring the new
cdony within more reasonable bounds, we shall here briefly
point out what we conceive her permanent, limits ought to be.

310 QueenslafuL 0<st,

They were suggested so eariy as 1846 by Sir Tbomas MitdieH,
BO incompetent anthorityy in the course of his exploration
within tropical Australia. Advancing beyond the twenty^fiftti
parallel of latitude, he found the broad, fdmest terel table^landB
of the Grreat Range interrupted by a natural barrier, running
at right angles to its nudn axis, and, in other xespeets, similar
to the broken line of countty we have already mentioned a»
crossing die same Range to the soudi of the Clarence and
Richmond Rivers District. The territory to tiie north of Aw
Batumi barrier he proposed to ereet into a new and indepentfent
colony, under the n»ne of * Capricomia — to express the country
' under the tropics, from the parallel of 25^ south, where Mature
^ haB' set up her own landmarks not to be disputed.' This broken
tract of country quickly terminates towfords the north, and the
table-lands again reonme their broad and undulating character*
Dr. Leichhanh, however, who pushed discovery ertiU furth^ to
the north, found anotiher and a similar break crossing the Range
at the eighteenth parallel, after which the country again opens
into Captain Stokes-' Plaine of Ihromise, round the shores of the
Gulf. Thus, giving * Capricomia ' an extent of seven degrees
of latitude — ^that is, close on 500 miles of Pacifie seaboard — there
would still be abundant material for a third new colony on the
iboree of the Gvtlf. Aocording to tfaifr arrangement, coineiding
witli strongly-marked natural features, the Great Coast Range
and its P^fic seaboard would be divided into the fbHowmg
sections : — New South Wales, 6^ or 5^ degrees of latitude, a^^
cording as her preeent hold of the Clar^ice and Bichmend
Rivers settlers is confirmed or otherwise; .Queensland, 5
or 4 degrees of latitude, according to ^tte same condition ;
^ Capricomii^' 7 degrees; and a new colony on the Gulf,
10 degrees. Such an arrangement would certainly aUot to
Queensland a lese extended seaboard than her neighbours ; but
this would be more than compensated by her much greater
breadth inland, while it would place her capital and chief seB-*
port in the middle of her maritime district. Indeed, it would
still leavo her a territory quite aa large as the parent colony of
New South Walea This arrangement would, however, be
strongly opposed by Queensland herself, rince it would deprive
her of the Fitzroy River and the Port Curtis District ; and
young colonies are quite as tenacious of their unexjrfored terri-
torial privileges as the oklest States of Europe.

As we have so far postponed our examination of the gencraP
resotirces of the new settlement, in considering its poiHfcal
boundaries, perhaps we may be excused if we take a pamng
ghmce at the relative positions of the other membera of the

1963. QueewfSxnii 311

group. TSew South Wales, even sfaotdd sht? lose the CJlarence
and xticfamond' Rivers District, would still possess an extent of
upwards of 300,000 square miles; though whether she shall
continue to preserve these very ample territories must mainly
depend upon her skill in managing her outlying districts. At
the present moment the settlers dwelling Between the rivers
Darling and Murrumbidgce, both in New South Wales and
Tictoria, are desirous of separation, on the old plea of neglect,
and have already forwarded petitions to the Imperial Parliament,
prayin^for recognition of their claims. We cannot, however,
r^ard very hopeftilly the prospects of a new crfony some 300
mueff removed firom the seaboard in a country so deficient in
internal water communication ; and^ in the interest of the setders
themselves, we should prefer an extension of those powers of
local self-government which have been sm^cessfully introduced
ind estabfished in the gold-fields of Victoria.* . Should the
Murray and Mmrumbidgee settlers adopt this view of the
matter, we may fairiy infer that the colony of New South
Wales has now arrived at its Ikst stage of dismemberment, and
tlrat its present territories will be left intact — unless, indeed,
under some more violent disruption of the cotmtry. The colony
of Victoria, the wealthiest and most compact, though far the
smallest of the group, contains 86,831 square miles — an extent,
however, which, notwithstanding her diminutive appearance
among her sisterhood, closely coincides with the area of Great
Britain. Her next neighbour, however, the colony of South
Australia, again expands into giant proportions. Its present
area is about 300,000 square miles; and, in all probability, it
win shortly*receive a further accession of territory from a neutral
strip of the continent lying to the north of it, between the
138th meridian, or western boundary of Queensland, and the
I^l^t meridian, or eastern boundary of the colony of Western
Australia, Much of this area, however, consists of trackless
dtesert; and though recent explorations have shown it to be

• By later intdlfgence, we perceive that the colony of Victoria is
extending a somewhat simiiar principle^of local self-government to
her vanous other outlying districts, includrng her alHoveHoaentioiied
texvitories- between the Murray and Murrumbidgee. By her new
Local Gt^nemment Aet, each dista^et bMomes entitled to 2L ftoim
the State Eevenue for each 1/. raiaod by taxation under its Local
Board, with the further addition of 200/. for each mile of main road.
The more general extension of some such measure throughout the
whole of the Australian Colonies would, most probably, check any
too minute disintegration, to which at present there appears a
tendency.

312 Queensland. Oct,

interspersed with large tracts of pastoral and even agricultural
country, the isolated position of these oases, and thdr depen-
dence on the Port of Adelaide for imports and exports, will in
all probabilitj avert any dismemberment of this colony for very
many years to come. But the palm of size must faie awarded
to the colony of Western Australia. Its present area exceeds
a million of square miles — an extent whidi its population, not-
withstanding the extraordinarily expansive powers of squatter
occupancy, is wholly unable to overrun. The time, however^
cannot be very far distant when the excellent soil and tbe broad
navigable rivers of its north-west portion, and, above all, its
propinquity to China, India, and the Indian Archipelago, will
attract settlement thither, destined to a more rapid progress
than has attended the Swan Biver colonists. Indeed, a project
is now on foot throughout the more eastern Australian colonies
to form a British settlement round Cambridge Gulf and ita
streams ; and other equally favourable tracts along this vast
north-west coast have more than once attracted the attention of
both home and colonial enterprise. With the execution of these
schemes will commence a disintegration of the vast territories
over which the Grovemor of the Swan Biver settlement now
nominally holds sway.

This breaking up of a whole continent into distinct States,
independent of each other, but under the light and delicate rule
of one Imperial Government, is an exceedingly curious movement
in the history of civilisation. It is essayed under singularly
favourable circumstances ; and though the nature of our subject
will oblige us to lay bare some of the minor difficulties of
Australian colonisation, yet there would certainly appear to be
no inherent defect to mar the success of the experiment upon
which the Australian people are now entering.

One blemish, indeed, now ahnost erased by the very great
efforts of the colonists of the eastern group, it is proposed by a
late Boyal Commission to perpetuate on Australian soil; and we
cannot proceed to the more immediate subject of this article with-
out here recording our strong protest against the recommenda-
tion to continue and extend transportation to Western Australia.
The views of the Convict Commission on this subject have, we
believe, taken wholly by surprise everyone who has watched
the progress of Australian settlement and the singular promise
which that portion of our colonial empire gives of a great and
glorious ftiture. Nor can the willingness of the colonists of its
western quarter to receive convicts afford the least pretext
for so wide a departure from the principles of justice and

1863. Queeniland. 313

the common weal. These coIonistSi nambering but a few
thousand, have hitherto earned little pretension to fix the
fate of the vast regions which they still leave an untrod
wilderness; nor, whatever may be the undeveloped resources of
that portion of the continent, have its settlers as yet made it
sufficiently attractive to retdn among them the convict after his
term of penal servitude has expired. Transportation to Western
Australia amounts practically to transportation to Eastern Aus-
tralia, with the very unconsdonable addition that the eastern
colonists must treat as free men the cutthroats whom their
own feirly-eamed prosperily draws to their shores. Indeed,
how the past expenence of some of those eastern colonies could
have been so wholly overlooked in an inquiry of this nature,
we are at a loss to understand. The most wealthy of them,
the colony of Victoria, was never a convict settlement. The
Acts of its Legislature to restrain convicts from landing on its
shores exhibit perhaps the utmost violation of the liberty of
the subject whicm a British Parliament could be found to assent
to. They condenmed to penal servitude every person unable
to ffive proofs of possessing lawful means of support. They
condenmed to penal servitude for life every ticket-of-leave
person entering within its territories. Yet, notwithstanding
these and other exceptional acts of legislation, it is matter of
world-wide notoriety that the colony of Victoria became the
resort of the most daring desperadoes of Norfolk Island, Van
Diemen's Land, and Botanv Bay, and that its gold-fields,
public roads, and even the leading streets of Melbourne were
for some years the scenes of their lawless and appalling deeds.
By the construction of costly prisons — by the organisation of a
large and enormously expensive police system, the colonists of
Victoria have now succeeded in rendering innocuous the vast
number of tiiese trespassers on their fair domains, and in
making them as safe as any portion of the British Islands. The
task we may well take to nave been no light one for a young
State possessed of no superabundant supply of labour, and
engagM in the various public improvements of a new land.
Indeed, its colonists received their chief encouragement to its
accomplishment in the closing of the various neighbouring
penal depSts we have just enumerated, and the belief that
the supply from these sources had finally ceased. We cannot
wonder, therefore, if the contemplated opening of a. fresh source
of supply should fill this colony with ' the utmost alarm,' and if
' it would be disheartening beyond endurance were she again
* forced to combat the same dangera from which she has been

' rescned at snob a oost.'^ Indeed, lest by any meoiw tbese
most iramerited oalamaties of thk^ and other free neigfabofiru^
oolomcsy. should h»re esosped the recotteotion of the late Com-
miseioa, they aire again brought before tiieu> notiee in the
strong but ctignified piotest from whieh we have just quoted ;
and we would earaestly seeomoMind ite eoosidenitimi) aad that
of the ehint portion' of Austndian history to whicb it mkam^
before Parliament prDoeede to leeiskte oit< the subject A go-
^emoient whidi shodd deliberately leselve to eoaeign the fUwa
of En^and to the diores of Australia^ agfrinst the will of tfa«
AnstraJians themselToa^ would deserve to rank with that govern*
ment whioh attempted to tar the Noi^ AHsman ooloniea
without their consent: and we do not doub^ that the restftt
would be eidMF a hnmliating defewt to ourselves, or a de-
plorable ruptace between the coloni9t» and Qreat Britain.

With thra glance at the relative position of ike whole of the
Australkn group of colonies^ we shall now confine ourselves to
the colony of Qaeensland, a» eontaiaed between ite present
Parliamentary boundaries.

The 'natural fbiture» of this tmci of Auetraliatt soil are
strongly masked. They consist (!•) o^ a^seaboaivd from 06' to
100 miles broad ; (2.) an elevated tiftble^ftnd^ (nr, more striotly
speaking, a succession of undulating downs or plains^ situated
some 2^000 feet above the sea-level, and stretdiing back to
the west for 400 or 500 miles^ wi^ut continuous rise or Mi ;
and (3.) a succession of terraces descending, generally with
sapidity, but in some places less perceptibly, until the more
extended level of the interior of Ae eoniiBent is reaehedL
There are tfavs three poitimM-of territory, widely diffaing' in
their peculiar cnpahilities^ which it may^be of interests to examine
ft little nior» closely.

This seaboard owes its origin tee th» action of a network of
streams^ issuing fitmt the more elevated table-4and, and bringing
down with them the disintegrated' particles firom the flanks of die
Great Bonge. Indeed, the ptoeess- may be still seen going- on
in, the immediate neighbourhood of the sea-shore, and on a series
of muddy and sandy ishnds lying off the eoai^, which are thus
yearly growing in size. The more uphind' portions^ howerver,
nearer the Ghneat Kange, have long ceased to derive any addition
from this source^ and now form most excellent chetriets for the
growth of wheat, moiae, and other eereale, whioh they prudvm
in great luxuriance^ yielding geneially two crops in the year,

♦ Address to the Queen by the Legislative Assembly of Victoria,
March 25, 1863.

1M3. QlMMMfafUf. Slfl

and at mweh as 80 and 100 binbek ta tkftaora*^ lailaed) tin
de^ aUaTial obavaeter of the 8<h1 aad tiMt pWntifQl supfiyoi
warm ehowets^ oaused by the influenee ef tke Great Range,
« oombine to prodnce a yerj remarkable degree of fertility^ while
the well-sustained slope of the whole seaboard prevents diat
aeenmulatioa of stagnant waten wluob oonmumQates so- nn-
keakby a feature to many niMlariy luxuriant regions within the
tropies* . The aoeneiy throu^^ut thisi whale tract, and move
especially ^^ng the cesrse of it* munerous streaoH, is of tka
■seat d^ghtful diacacter.

^'Glese to the water's ee^^e rises a complete wafi of hixiiriant
fcAimgeL Fig^tress^ bsan^trees, pinei* and a variety of other tre^
aland thickly set and overhang with a riek daapsry of ersepersy pre-
sentiDg the forms of turrets, buttresses, festeeB% aad stalaciiteiv in
endless variety, and bespangled with flowers and fruit. There is a
purple convolvulus, wild roses, tulips, and some yellow, flowers, sca^
tered high and low ; and, close to the water's edge, a pure white lily.
Cherries, figs,, and mulberries overhang the water.' {Langj p. 43.5

More often, however, the course of these streams lies through
a succession of tEinly-treed plains.

^ The principal featase of this day's journey is at series ef beaatifol
flatsy or plains ^ lionied extent, each sariiounded with aa amphi-
theatre of bills, with the river, flunked with tall trees, and occasion-
ally with lofty cedars, stealing silently along in its deep bed. When
the country gets settled with an agricultural population, each of these
flats or plains will doubtless have its smiling cottage, farmyard, and
eomfertabie gardeo, where the pine-apple, the sugar-cane, and the
bamana will be fsimd in willing aiseciation with all the frotts of
Northern Baropeb- For there is nothing mors remarkable ia this
part of our ookMiaal territory than the way in wMeh the firuits ef the
temperate and torrid aoBssigrowharmooiaasly togather in the- same
garden<j)kty and fboetify and eeme to matmnty each in its proper
season.' (Lam^ p. 47.)

Not, however, to dwell longer on the luxuriance of a region
to which we shall have ecoasion to retnm in examining the
gpnoral fitness of Qoeendand for the production of ootton^
sugar, and tobacco, we shall here eonlent ourselves by mentaeii»
ing the following almost incredible example of healthy and
rapid growth^ as reported by the same writer :< —

. ^ I may also mention, as a remarkable instance ef the extraanUnary
fertility of the distriet^.that a young peaeh*tvee, ahonl eight feet Ugh,

* In the neighbeuihood of Adelaide, colony of South Australia,
the ordinary crop attains to 45 bushels per acre. The English
crop, in the best wheat counties, averages 26| bushels; that of
Canada seldom attains to 15. Australian wheat is probably the best
in the world.

316 Queensland. Oct.

and oovered with blossoms, happened to attract my notice in the
garden of the Rev. James Collins, Tyrone Villa, near Grafton ; and
Mr. Collins informed me that the peach-stone, from which that tree
had grown, had been planted by himself in the month of January
preceding, only eight months before/

As we descend this slope, boweyer, to the immediate borders
of the sea-coast^ much of the land assumes a more dreary
aspect, consisting chiefly of mangrove-swamps, sand-banks,
and 'drowned land,' in actual process of formation. Bul^
though less refreshing to the eye, there is reason to suppose
that these tracts will prove highly valuable for the cultivation
of those varieties of the cotton plant which love ' salt swamp.'

The shore is well supplied with bays, some of very consider-
able extent, as Moreton Bay, Wide Bay, Port Curtis, and
numerous others. These bays, however, are not so much in-
dentations of the coast-line as enclosures formed by the islands
we have already mentioned. Moreton Bay itself is some 60
miles long and 20 wide ; and they are all supplied with rivers,
navigable for 50, 60, and 100 miles inland. Moreton Bay
possesses no less than five such valuable rivers, besides some
smaller ones. One of these, the Brisbane, gives its name to
the capital city of the colony, situated 22 miles from its mouth.
At this distance, however, the mangrove-swamps are entirely
passed, and the dty stands upon a scene of surprising beauty.

' The noble river, which winds almost under foot, and appears
and disappears, and appears again, as it pursues its tortuous course
through the dark forest to the bay, or is traced upwards to its
sources, presents, ever and anon, points of view surpassingly beauti-
ful ; the thick brushes on its banks, with the majestic Moreton Bay
pine overtopping all the other giants of the forest, merely indicating
the spots of extraordinary fertili^ where the hand of man is perhaps
erecting hb future dwelling, and transforming the wilderness into
smiling farms and fruitful fields.'

The river here is a quarter of a mile wide — a width which
it preserves for several miles upwards : indeed, the Brisbane is
navigable for 150 miles inland, and steamers now daily ply up
its course. The population of the city amounts to 8,000,
and numerous handsome villas are rapidly rising on a succession
of terraces overlooking the town and commanding splend^
views of the surrounding country. The city itself stands con-
siderably above sea-level, and has, up to the present, been dis-
tinguished for its very healthy climate, both during the summer
and winter months. Indeed, excepting the neighbourhood of
Sydney, which is perhaps the most beautiM city-site in the
world, it would be difficult to select a more charming scene

1863. Queensland. 317

than that which has been chosen as the chief shipping port of a
vast and wonderfully productive region, destined doubtless to
supply the Old World with most of its wool, if not also of its
cotton and other commodities hitherto slave-grown. As these
bays, too, abound with fish, turtle* (o^ an excellence long
known throughout the neighbouring colonies), and crabs of
three and four pounds' weight and very superior quality, and as
the deep fisheries off the coast teem with several varieties of
large fifiui of peculiar and most delicate flavour, it is difficult to
assign bounds to the great natural resources of this whole line
of seaboard.

From it we shall now ask the reader to accompany us to the
great table-land constituting the flat back of the Great Coast
Kanffe.

This Range, as we have already stated, attains to its mean
elevation, or almost to its mean elevation, at a distance of from
50 to 100 miles from the sea-shore. .Nor does it b^n to
descend into the interior, with any marked or continuous de-
pression, until the sources of Mitchell's Victoria Biver, about
the 147^ meridian, are passed. We have thus, commencing from
the southern bounds of the colony, an elevated r^on some
400 or 500 miles broad, stretching away thence to the shores
of the Gulf of Carpentaria— a distance of over l/KK) miles,
giving an area of more than 400,000 square miles. The whole
of this area, with the exception of the two partial interruptions
we have already mentioned, may be described as a succession of
wide open downs, enclosed each within small subsidiary basaltic
ranges traversing the great plateau. These downs are each of
immense extent, and^contam deep and most excellent agri-
cultural soil, at present clothed with the richest grasses, grow-
ing in wonderful luxuriance. They are in a great measure
destitute of trees, but the bases of their enclosing ranges are
iumished with a very handsome and stately description of pine,
behind which, and retiring into their recesses, are found some
very valuable cedar-trees. These recesses are very plentifully
supplied with numerous springs and rills, which, trickling down
the slopes of the ranges, and traversing the enclosed plains,
unite, and form the abundant networx of rivers by which
this immense plateau is watered.* Some of these rivers — as
the Clarence, the Richmond, the Brisbane, the Fitzroy, the
Burdekin, the Maranoa, the Balonne, the Warrego, the Victoria
— are of considerable extent, and traverse in their windings,
peculiar to all Australian watercourses, immense tracts of
country. Indeed, the Victoria, without taking into considera-
tion its windings at all, possesses a curiously protracted length

318 QueemUmi. Oek

of 0ome 1,SOO miles, «t which it may net be iraiiitefvetiiig to
take a glanee when conBiderin^ the third or westera portion of
the colony. These streams, according as their main coarse
tends to the east or ^he west, discharge themeelres into the
Pacific or the interior of the continent, and hence the term of
^ the Great Dividing Range ' whidi has been applied to this
yast tableland, as parting the eastern and western waters of
the continent ; though, as the Range is entirely confined to tiie
eastern seaboard, the term itself is somewhat misleading. Qf
course, we m?^ look in yain throughout Australia for anything
approaching to the stupendous water system of America, bot
it is difficult to exaggerate the importance of these streams to
settlers dwelling on, and even within, the tropic Indeed^
they draw from Dr. Lang the following somewhat indignant
protest: —

' In short, notwithstanding the generally received calumny to
which the great " South Land •* has hitherto been subjected in Europe,
as being destitute of ** springs of water," and to a vast extent hope-
lessly barren and unavailable for the purposes of man, it would per-
haps be difficult to point to any tract of country of equal extent, and
within the same parallris of latitude in either hemisphere, in whtoii
there is a greats number either of atoeams of water or of rivers
available for navigation.*

Travellers throughout these vast plains all concur in their
admiration of the luxuriance of the soil, the coolness and
salubrity of the climate, and the loveliness of the entire
landscape. We could fill pages with descriptions of count-
less rills issuing cool and limpid from their pine-clad slopes — of
deep rivers stealing through waving meadows — of the golden
sunlight, the rosy atmosphere, and the songs of imramerable
birds which give an additional charm to each scene. We shall
content ourselves, however, with a more late extract, in which
it will be seen how rapidly the hand of man ie turning to
advantage these bounties of Providence. We take the following
from a speech of the new Governor of Queensland, Sir Greorge
Bowen, delivered to the inhabitants of the town of Drayton on
the occasion of His Excellency's visit to the Dariing Downs,
amid which the township has been recently erected : —

* I wish to avail myself of this opportunity to state publicly that
my recent journey over the Darling Downs has filled me with surprise
and admiration. Even before I left England, I knew by report the
rich natural resources and the picturesque beauty of this district, the
scenery of which vividly recalls to my mind the general aspect of the
classic plains of Thessaly. But I confess that I was not fully
prepared for so wonderfully rapid an advance in idl that can promote

IMS. Qitemtimd. 319

and adorn civilitaUon — an adyanoe wbich hat taken place dnrtn^ the
foartb part of an average lifetime. Not oslj have I seen vast herds
of horses and oattle, and countless flocks of sheep, overspreading thq
valleys and forests, which, within the memory of persons who have
yet scarcely attained to the age of manhood, were tenanted only by
wild animals and by a few wandering tribes of savages, — not only
have I travelled over roads beyondi all compai'isofi superior to the
means of communication which existed less than a century ago in
many parts of the United £ingdom,^-not only have I b^eld
flourishing towns arising an apots where, hardly twenty years baek,
the foot of a white luan had never yet trodden the primeval wildeor-
ness, — ^not only have I admired these and other proofs of material
progress^ — but I have also found, in the houses of the long chain of
settlers who have entertained me with such cordial hospitality, all the
comforts and most of the luxuries and refinements of the houses of
country gentlemen in England. The wonderful advance of this por-
tion of 'tiiG colony during the last ten years is due to no sudden and
fartuitooa disoovery of the preMons metals ; it is derived wholly from
the blessing of Providence on the skill and energy of its inhabitants
in subduing and xeplenishiBg the earth. Assur^y, I have observed
during the past week very remarkable illustrations of the proverbial
genius of the Anglo-Saxon race for the noble and truly imperial art
of colonisation.'

The whole of this Almost boundless plateau— extending
within the tropica^ but elevated 2,000 feet above aea-level — is
peculiarly fitted for a wide range of crops. Indeed, as vegetation
IS continued during the whole year, the farmer has only to ohooae
his various seasona for bringing most of the productions of the
temperate and tropical zones to maturity. Thus, wheat, oats,
barley, miuze, potatoes (and more eapecmllj the sweet potato,
which here grows to the immense weight of twenty and even
thirty pounds), arrow-root, indigo, md, more generally, all
the productions of the kitchen garden, have already been
cultivated with great suooess. At present, however, with the
exception of some half-dozen inqipient townships and their sur*
rounding &rms, l^ese tablelands are clothed throughout their
vaat extent with the rich and luxuriant natural grasses of the
country, and are roamed over by the fiooks and herds of some
widely scattered sheep and cattle owners. And here, indeed,
for many years to come, the squatter — ^that peculiar feature of
AuBtralian settlement — will find a secure and ample stronghold,
if forced to retire before the growing wave of more crowded
centres of population. Nor can we conduct the reader to still
more western regions, forming the third and last portion of our
geographical sketch, without dwelling for a while on this marked
and powerful characteristic of antipodean ooloniaation, pro-
mising, as it now^ does, to contribute vast stores of wealth to the

320 Queensland. Oct.

colony of Queensland as a wool-growing country, and, more
generally, lying at the very root of that most all-absorbing of
colonial topics, the tenure of land. If the reader would seek
some explanation of that strange cry of a mere handful of
people, tninly sprinkled on the borders of a vast continent, for
a little land to grow cabbages and potatoes, he must seek it in
the hbtory of the Australian Squatter.

The term is indeed to be found in the United States of
America. Nor is the humble pioneer of American settlement,
yielding to the ever-advancing tide of population, and con-
structing some more distant ' dearing ' in the deeper depths of
the primeval forest, without his influence in the peopling of
those vast western regions. Yet the contrast is indeed
curious between the American squatter and his Australian
namesake. The former is poor and illiterate : the Australian
squatter is wealthy, and, in nine cases out of ten, a scholar and
a gentleman. The law scarcely deigns to recc^ise the small
patch on which the American squatter raises com and vege-
tables for the support of his family : the Australian squatter holds
tracts as large as English counties, but is forbidden to break the
sod. The very negro of the Southern States affects to despise
the ' mean whites ' who ' locate,' in sufferance, on the borders
of his master's vast domains. The Australian squatters com-
pose the aristocracy of the land ; they have for years convulsed
the whole structure of colonial society, they have driven ship-
loads of fellow-colonists to seek more distant homes in climes
far less favoured by nature, and they have continued, almost
from their origin, to overawe the very Representative of the
Crown. It the reader would trace the introduction of that
curious American institution,' the stump-orator, into our
Colonial Empire, — ^if he would inquire into the strange insecurity
of Australian Treasury Benches, — ^if he wonders why each
successive Ministry and each successive Parliament should so
hopelessly toil over that Sisyphean stone, a * Land Bill,' — if he
asks the meaning of those indignant demands, ' Unlock the
' lands,' — he may find them all in the fierce strife which has
now for some years been waged between the squatters and their
fellow-colonists throughout the Australian settlements. How
a few gentlemen, many of whom had passed from the Bucolics
of Yirgil to the more practical, though equally peaceful, clipping
of sheep, could effect all this, may be no uninteresting inquiry
in connexion with those vast tracts of pastoral country to which
our task has conducted us.

That impure stream which flowed into Botany Bay from its
opening as a convict depdt, continued, for several years, to deter

1863. Queensland. 321

any more eligible source of colonising its sunny shores. Each
GK)yemor» indeed, generally succeeded in bringing out in his
own ship a few of his family adherents or more humble fellow-
townsmen. Yet, though a free passage and various other en-
couragements were offered to all such persons, and though those
who availed themselves of them rapidly rose to affluence, still the
distance, then immense — a ship seldom making the voyage in
less tlian six months — ^and, above all, the black pall of crime
which hung over the new settlement in European eyes, made the
number of these free settlers exceedingly limited. About the
year 1821, however, Australian society began to be supplied
from a widely different source. Unexpect^ discoveries in ex-
ploration were then opening lai^ tracts in the more inland
districts, scantily supplied with trees, but bearing natural crops
of luxuriant ana most nutritious grasses. On these, sheep were
fonnd to thrive wonderfully, and even to improve in their wooL
The great salubrity of the climate, with, perhaps, the Arcadian
beauty of the scenery — the failure in inducing agricultural
labourers to emigrate to Australia — and the little prospect there
was of a near market for perishable agricultural produce, pointed
out these plains as natundly suitable for sheepwalks ; and into
sheepwalks the Colonial Executive, under the guidance of
Governor Brisbane, made an effort to turn them. A statement
of their advantages was drawn up and sent home, free use of
lands, proportioned in extent to the amounts of real and available
capital to be used in stocking them, being offered to all intending
sheep-farmers. The minimum sum was fixed at 5002., suffi-'
dent proof of the possession of which was to be the sole condi-
tion of the transfer of ' a run,' or sheep-station. Small as the
sum was, it fixed, at an early period, the respectability of the
dass which availed itself of the offer. Officers retirinc: from
the army and navy, younger sons of wealthy and even titled fami-
lies, university graduates who had not yet selected professions,
with a sprinkling of those already dissatisfied with the professions
they had selected, flocked into Sydney^ and began to compose
chiefly the new Pastoral Tenants of the Crown — the term
Squatter being then wholly unknown.* The Colonial Government

* The term squatter was originally applied to a class of men —
Donald Beans of the antipodes — who, chiefly escaped convicts and
outlaws, dwelt on the outskirts of the runs of the more legitimate
pastoral tenants of the Crowni and committed depredations on their
sheep and cattle, thus accumulating flocks and herds of their own.
When these tenants of the Crown lost their early popularity, the
term was transferred to themselves, and gradually crept into tho
phraseology of colonial legislative enactments.

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLII. Y

322 QueensloHd. Oct

made no <lediioti(m fnTin ikm capital fSur tbe use of Ike land*^
nor was any leai charged until a later period; but tbe faaiib
were still to be Crown lands, merely placed in the temporary
possesGRon of ^e tenant, nntil needed for other public pvrpoeea.
In other words, the Colonial Executive * kt the grase/ and made
no chaise for tbe use of it

A few years afterwards, this movement received a great and
somewhat novel necession ^ strength. Among the pieiUiful osop
of jointHstock companies which distinguished tbe first 4fKurttr ef
the present century, there was one started in 1'825, under the name
of the Australian Agricultural and Wool^growtng Company,
which received a gmnt of a million of acres, in the immediate
neighbeudiood of Sydney, from the imperial Govemment, add
commenced opemtims under other and very attractive <mum-
Btance& These operations necessitated, in the firat instance,
the purchase of a large quantity of stock ; and tiie demand,
arising unexpectedly among a small oommunity, faroed up the
price of oattte and sheep to a most preposterous amount obeep
which, in ordinary years — euch was the rapidity of their ninlti-
plication — were worth little more thim the couple of pounds of
wool on their backs*, suddenly rose to five guineas a head, and
the pricesof horses and working ballocks xecerved a pwyortionaL
increase. Nevertheless, the raana<]:er and his agents, undaunted
by such difficulti^, purchased all that came in their way.
Though settlement ia the interior was still slow, the stapoit cff
Sydney had already risen to the pnqx>rtions ef a large and
' flourishing city, and the calculations put ferwaid by the new
company were now more minutely examined by its ifftbabitanpts.
If shareholders, residing at the other side of the globe, could
find profit from an outlay at first appearance so extravagant, it
was not vareasonable to svqppose that a private capitidist, snpen-
intending bis own afiairs, might obtiiia equally favourable
retuma A sheep and cattle mania seined the whdie popnlation
of New South Wales. The citizens of Sydney walked about
with their pockets stuffed with samfdes of odonial wools.
Barristers, doctors, and even clergymen, fought in Ibe cattle-
markets for the possession of a tottering calf or a broken-^need
horse. Sheep became as valuable as Dutch tuUps, and sheep^
fiirming took the position of Boman usury. To possess ^ a run '

* The fleece of an Australian sheep weighs from two to three
pounds, or little more than one-third that of the English Southdown.
Whfle, however, the English fleece averages about one shilling per
pound, that of Australia ranges from two shillings and sizpenoe to
three shillings.

1863. Qtteenslcmd. 323

became the essential qtralification of every one aspiring to the
rank of an Australian Gentleman. Kor, owing to the over-
whelming pressure upon him, was the Governor long able to
mamt^n the proposed condition of 500/. From 500f. it gra-
dually dwindled to the more vague condition of ^sufficient
•capital ; ' from sufficient capital it fell to the still more vague
^eondition of 'Tespect ability.* It was loudly complained that
<TOvemment officers and the personal friends of the Governor
each possessed several runs in various separate districts ; wh3e
the Govcmer himself Tvta subjected to insult and even violence,
yn the public streets, from rejected daim^its for land. The
gambling, too, quickly esctended from the sheep and cattle to
tfie runs. Every available territory was soon appropriated, and
the scene of each new discovery in exploration was overrun as
quickly as it became known.

With occasional interruptions from drought, disease, over-
trading in paper currency, &c, the new sheep-farmers met with
a success scarcely to be expected from the early rashness of
their speculations. Sheep multiplied wonderfully ; their wool
wtis eagerly sought in Europe, and fetched the highest price in
the market ; and the nature of the country rendered necessary
no preliminary, and very little current, expense. Indeed, we
may learn somewhat of the profits of this pursuit from one
of the earliest debates in the new Parliament of Queent»land.
On a motion to raise the Govemor^s salary from 2,500f., as
originally proposed by the Secretary of State, to 4,000?., a
member observed that * 2,500£. a year was only equal to the
^ income of a second-rate squatter.' The new class, too, which
tfnis so rajwdly overran the Australian colonies, was composed
erf' men of considerable energy and intelligence, untiring in their
efforts to forward their interests, and ever ready and wiHing
to fight their own battles against the landless classes which were
now beginning to grow on Anstratian soil. But, above all,
their education naturally brought tliem to form an overwhelming
portion, if not the whole, of each of the various * nominee*
councils and legislative assembfies which assisted the Colonial
Governors up to the formation of Australian representative
constitutions in later years. The rapid growth of so powerful
a class, practically holding every known territory, necessitated
the issue of various * squatting regulations' from time to time.
By these, the squatter was to hold his run under a yearly
licence ; he was to be limited to the possession of one single
nan, proportifoiied in extent to the number of his stock — a
regulation, however, which was notoriously set at nought,
many persons holding several runs in various districts, and all

324 Queensland. OcL

«

runs being vastly larger than the anoiount of stock on them
absolutely required. He was also to pay a yearly licence-fee
of 10/. — a merely nominal sum, as, in many instances, it did
not amount to the tithe of a farthing per acre. Indeed, the
liberality with which the public domain was appropriated to
this, the only landholding class, was extravagant in the extreme.
It was asserted that ten acres were necessary to the support of
each sheep ; and, though it has since been abundantly demon*
strated that sheep can thrive on less than one acre per head,
yet instances were rare indeed in which the squatter, had not
a very agiple margin for the future multiplication of his flocks.
When it is borne in mind that the squatter numbers his sheep
by fifties and even hundreds of thousands, some idea may be
formed of the vast principalities passing under the humble
appellation of ' runs.'

let the squatters were by no means satisfied with their many
advantages, and their efforts with the Imperial Government to
obtain more firm possession of the public domain were unceas-
ing. They complained that their tenure was insecure — that
they were denied the ordinary advantages of traders and
capitalists in pledging their holdings as security in the purchase
of stock, the raising of loans, and other means of improving the
position of themselves and the Australian colonies — that they
had no inducement to execute various desirable improvements on
their runs — and that they were even debarred from developing
the agricultural and mineral resources of the land.* These argu-
ments, skilfully and persistently urged, were not without their
effect on the Home Grovemment, and at length, in 1846, resulted,
to the astonishment of the Australian Colonies, and somewhat
to the surprbe of the squatters themselves, in the famous Orders
in Council. These Orders may be summed up in two most
important concessions to the squatters. Their tenure from year
to year was to be changed into Crown leases of fourteen years*
duration, renewable at the option of the Colonial Governors
— which meant, of course, their own option ; and they were
to possess a Pre-emptive Bight entitling them to purchase
the fee-simple of the whole or any portion of their runs at the
fixed price o£ \L per acre. It is almost imnecessary to draw
attention to the immense importance of these changes. Vir-
tually, they handed over the Australian Colonies to a mere
handful of gentlemen farmers. Yet the Home Government

* For a more detailed enumeration of the arguments of the
squatters, see * Petition to Queen and Parliament of Pastoral Asso-
* ciation of New South Wales 1844.'

1863. Queensland. 325

was not without its show of argument against the charge of a
too ready compliance. Wool had become the staple commodity
of the Australian Colonies^ and wool-growers were^ beyond dis-
pute, the leading and most successful class of colonists. Commis-
sions (unfortunately for the argument, appointed by squatters
and composed of squatters) had pronounced the Australian lands
unfit for any other purpose, ' and not worth the smallest coin
' in the realm per acre.' It was, too, carefully kept from the
knowledge of the British Ministers that the claims of the squat-
ters had already begun to excite strong indignation among their
fellow-colonists, whom they hemmed in within a few towns, and
whose want of success they turned into a very plausible argu-
ment in their own favour. But, aboye all, the gold, which was
to mark a new era in the world's settlement, still lay imdis-
turbed in the Califomian millstream.

Yet we cannot but think that even then the Australian
Colonies promised a brigh'ter future than the Home Govern-
ment thus marked out for them. So certainly it appeared to
the Australian Governors, who received these Orders in Council
with dismay, and hesitated from month to month ere they issued
the fourteen years' leases which their tenor imposed upon
them. Indeed, these leases have never been issued up to the
present day, though the terms of the Orders leave no doubt but
that the squatters were legally entitled to them. More mature
reflection and personal inquiry convinced the Governors that
their issue, without any sufficient provision for the growing
wants of the agricultural and small-farmer class, would raise a
storm of opposition, if not an actual rebellion, throughout their
vice-royalties ; and while they temporised with the squatters,
and expostulated, in a necessarily tedious correspondence, with
the Home Government, the Califomian discoveries of 1849
took place, and were followed by Mr. Hargreave's announce-
ment of gold on Bathurst Plains. Of the thousands who daily
poured into the ports of Sydney and Melbourne — most, indeea,
to dig for gold, but all with some ulterior hope of obtiuning
tiiat desire of iJie human breast, a freehold home —few were
prepared for the astounding discovery that the whole of the
Australian Colonies were held in firm possession by the squat-
ters and their flocks. The discovery, when it was made, was
not without imminent danger to the peace and order of that
portion of the British Empire; though it is no small proof of
the fitness of the Australian colonists for their most liberal
powers of self-government, that the long and tedious struggle
on which they then entered has been conducted on strictly
oonstitutional principles. Gt>ld-digging, though not unprofit*

a26 Qfuensland. OcL

able during its earlier years, was soon ibnnd to be a laborious
and peculiarlj comfortless eoyployraent. Thousands of di^ersy
who had saved some two or three hundred pounds apiece at the
mines, sought to purchase farms and to become permanent colo-
nist& But there was no land to be had* Many left the shores
of Australia, and obtained what they sought under the more
fortunate land-laws of the United States of America. Many
drank themselves to death. Many listened to the windy orators
who harangued them from every stump and market-{^ace, and
overlooked bad grammar and worse logic in a keen sense of
their own injury. The efforta of the various new represents-
tive Colonial Parliaments were incessant to remedy so un-
satisfactory a state of things. Laad Bill after Land Bill was
introduced, discussed, and q^uashed. Ministry after Ministry
took the helm, and abandoned it in despair. The ^s^uattixig
' members ' in the House (whose constituencies consisted of
little nK>re than themselves and theiif shepherds) uwsted on the
fulfilment of ^ their rights;^ the anti-squatters insisted that
hanging was too good for t^em. It is almost incBedible that
the fourteen years originally named in the Orders in Council
dragged their slow length along without one single Land Bill for
the sale and settlement of the waste lands of the colonies making
its way successfully through any one of the new Colonial Par-
liaments. In the meanthne the varioue Executives did almost
nothing, hoping that each proposed measure would confer ^n
them more ample powers. The original land regulations did,
indeed, enable the Governor to enter on a squatter's vnufor
public purposes ; and this provision was made use of in the coi^
struction of roads and townships, and, though to a much mom
limited extent ^ in the proclamation of building and suburban allot-
ments opened for public salt. Miserable as was the driblet of
land which this occasionally brought into the market, its benefits
were much restricted. The squatter could tdways avail himself
of his pre-emptive right, if he had the money. And, where
the land came into the market, the Government were strictly
obliged to sell by auction, at an upset price not lower than \L
per aere. Practically^ tl)ere£bre> pre-emptive right, competition,
and the extseme hesitation with which Government availtd
itself of a provision by no means clearly worded (and, indeed,,
pressing most nnequally on individual squatters), raised the
price of building and suburban allotments to extravagant
amounts, and aU but excluded snudl farms and country kome«^
steads from the soiL The position of the Australian colonists
during those years, more especially as regards the great oentres
of population assembled on the vsvious gold-fields of New South

1S«3. ^ietndamd. 327

Wdes and Vietoris, was most unsstisiactory. In a conntry
praetieally bounifleee in its snpply of exeelleiit land, the gold-
field'b digger, shopkeeper, or mechanic could not obtain the
smdlest patch to cultivate a few vegetables for himself or his
familj ; and if his horse strayed a few yards from his tent, it was
impounded by the neighbouring squatter.

But» indeed, these evils were not by any means restricted to
more crowded localities, but spread tfiemselves throughout th^
whole of the Austndian Colonies. And, to cosfine ourselves
more perticulariy to the colony of Queensland, we extract the
following remarks of Dr. Lang, suggested during a visit made
to some of its districts most &vouied by nature, no longer ago
than 1856. They will serve to show that these evils had already
extended themselves to territories whose vast extent would seem
to set all land difficulties at defiance.

* One should have theagbt that^ with so numereos a population as
there has been for so many years past on the Lower Richmond aiMi
Nor^ Ann, some interest would have been .taken by a paternal
Grovemment [that of New South Wales, Queensland b^ng then its
Moreton Bay dependeney] in their welfare, and some effc^s made for
their social advancement. Here were hundreds of people, many of
them earniDg for years together from 5L to 7/. a week, and not a
few of them with wives and children, leading a sort of vagabond
Irfe, like gipsies, in this naturally rich district. Surely, in such cir-
cmnstHBces, the first duty of a government would have been to
provide these people with the first requisite of civilisation — a home
— by laying off townships f(»r them in suitable locaHtics, and holding
out to them the opportuoity of purchasing town and suburban allots
ments, and of thereby settling themselves as reputable and industrious
citiaens, bringing up their families like a civilised and Christian people.
A surveyor might have done aU this in a few months, and his
surveys of particular towns and villages might easily have been
wrought into a more general survey at any time thereafter. What,
then, will be thought of the absentee Government of the Richmond
Biver District wh^i I state it as a positive fact that up to the
period of my visit to the Richmond Rtver, in the month of August
1656, there had never been one town or suburban allotment sold on
the rivor ? Land for purehase had been applied for, both by squattevs
under their pre-emptive r^lits, and bf tiia better class of cedar*
cutters, for many years past ; but to no purpose. Not one town
allotment was sold, not one acre of land was measured, for years and
years in succession ! And what has been the consequence ? Why,
hundreds of people who would gladly have purchased town allo^
ments and bailt good houses for their families if they could, and
hundreds of others who would have purchased small portions of land
to rear a few head of cattls or a horse w two for their househelds,
were dkaied every opportunity of doing ao^ and, as their oaly resoorae
ia the eiroumstaaces, were dri/ren perfime to the p«blie4ioa0e, to

328 Queensland. Oct.

expend their earnings there in riotous dissipation, and to reduce
their wiTes and families to misery and ruin. Cases of this kind — of
cedar-cutters who had saved up one, two, three, and even five hun-
dred pounds, and who in a fit of desperation had spent the whole
of it in the public-house — were mentioned to me as having been of
frequent occurrence ; and a respectable inhabitant of the district
mentioned to me the case of a person who had saved up eight hundred
pounds in this way, and had spent the whole of it at one bout of
frenzied dissipation, simply because he could get no opportunity of
purchasing even a town allotment in the district, and because the
squatter on whose run he had erected his hut had been threatening
to dispossess him as a trespasser/

We are happy to state that, owing to more improved land
regulations, to which we shall presently revert, no less than four
townships have been thrown open within this district on the Lower
Richmond, and, under a more healthy system, we may naturally
expect it to assume those evidences of progress so favourably
described by Sir George Bowen in his late visit to the Dariing
Downs, as already transferred to our pages. Indeed, more
generally, our task in thus sketching this curious episode in the
history of Australian colonisation would be but an ungracious
one were we not also able to add the steps which are now
being taken to bring the squatter element within more moderate
bounds, and to facilitate the more permanent settlement of all
classes on the lands. To the new Parliament of Queensland is
due the merit of having first carried a Land Bill successfully
through its several stages. The new Land Act of Queensland, or
rather Acts (for the whole subject affecting the occupation and
purchase of Crown lands is dealt with in four separate measures),
received the royal assent in September, 1860. And, as the
example of Queensland was soon followed by similar measures of
the other Australian Parliaments, it may not be uninteresting to
examine the position of ' the Land Question,' at the present mo-
ment, throughout the Australian continent. It will be borne in
mind that aU Acts of the parent colony of New South Wales are
in force throughout each Australian colony until repealed by its
own Parliament; and also that, under the Constitution granted to
each of these colonies, the Crown transferred all ownership in the
soil to the colonists themselves. In using the term * Crown lands,'
therefore, we apply the shortest, as hitherto the more general
name, to all Australian soil undiscovered, lying absolutely waste,
or occupied by squatters, in contradistinction to all portions of
the public domain already sold, or otherwise alienated, to private
individuals. We may also state that, while the extreme squatter
party demanded the complete fulfilment of the Orders in Council,
the extreme opposite party of anti-squatters insisted on the

1863. Queensland. 329

right of all oolonistfi to free selection from Crown lands prior
to their actual sarvey hj the Government, at a fixed price per
acre. These remarks may enable the reader to see with what
success the several colonies have now endeavoured to steer a
mean course between two parties which, for some years, com-
prehended almost every Australian colonist.

The chief features of the Queensland Acts may be thus
summed up. The Orders in Council are repealed. All land
open for purchase must be previously surveyed, and delineated
on the public maps of the colony. The auction system, with
its upset price of 1/. per acre, is still allowed to be in force.
But — and here is the distinguishing feature of these regula-
tions— from the auction system are excluded certfun agri-
cultural reserves, which the Grovemment is to proclaim in all
suitable places, at its discretion — with a guarantee, however,
that half the extent of each reserve shall be continuously kept
in excess of the demand ; such reserves being, of course, pro-
claimed over runs, waste lands, and generally wheresoever
population may show a tendency to' extend itself. On these
reserves the intending settler may purchase farms of from 40
to 320 acres, at a fixed price of 1/. per acre; the purchaser of
each farm being allowed to rent a contiguous allotment of three
times its extent at 6d. per acre, with right to purchase such
allotment, at 1/. per acre, within five years. In general, there-
fore, the agricultural farmer can rent land at something equiva-
lent to 5s, per acre, and purchase it at IL per acre. Subject to
these chances of dispossession, the squatters are thus dealt with.
Squatters actually in occupation shall obtain leases of five years'
duration, at a yearly rent to be fixed by valuation. Where
such valuation is objected to, the vacated run is to be let to the
highest bidder at public auction, the new lessee paying over
(through the medium of the Treasury) to the outgoing occupant
the value of all actual and real improvements, under Govern-
ment appraisement. Squatters taking up new runs, in outlying
or unexplored districts, are to be allowed leases of fourteen
years' duration. These new runs are not to be less than
25 square miles, nor greater than 100 square miles in extent,
and they are to be subjected to the yearly rent of lOs, per square
mile (640 acres) fbr the first four years, with a slight increase
during the succeeding years. As a strong counterbalance, how-
ever, the squatters lose all power of pre-emptive right, which is
now wholly abolished within the colony of Queensland. Besides
these provisions for the agricultural classes, each immigrant,
unless arriving at the expense of the colony, receives a land
order entitling him to a free grant of 30 acres. British scddiers

and 8ailo» ase also entitled to land •Mkra of 50 aeies apieee ;
and cemfniRaioaed officers of tlie British amy and navj coo^
tiDue ta receive the same renyaeioA (one-third) of purchaae«^
money originally established under the <M colony of New Sooth
Wales^ but sinoe abolished in it and its other offahootsu

The neighbouring cdLooies of New South Wales and VictoriA
succeeded in passing nearly similar Acts shortly afterwaids. The
colony of South Australia had, with her foundation, introduced
a somewhat more liberal land system ; while the exodus whick
took place from her territories during the earlier period of the
g(»ld discoveries relieved her from aU pressure for some years.
More lately, the large tracts tfasown open within her boundaries
by recent ezploratieiis have given a very eoesiderable impetus
to squatting pursuits; and the South Australian squatter still
continues, to a great extent, to enjoy, with the free consent of
his fellow-colonists^ the easy regulations of the old colony of
New South Walesycre 'Free Selection before Survey' came
to be ag^ted by its landless cksses. The colony of Weetem
Australia, however, stands alone for its rigid maintenance of
the squatting syuitm in all its early arrogance, and this huge
wilderness^ with an area of a miUion square miles, and its
handiiil of squatters and their convict stockmen, still oontinnes
to be locked up to all intending purchasers.

To sum up, then, the present position of the land question
throughout the whde of these colonies. The vpset price of
land has been maintained at 1/. per aere throughout the whole
continent* The auction system has been abolished throughout
New South Wales^ Victoria, and, practically, in Queenfibnd ;
and the intendmg purchaser is subject to no competition. In
these colonies, a supply of agricultural land, probably sufficient
for several years to come, is now fJaeed in the market. The
tendency of legislation has been (1.) to exact from the squatters
aretum, in the shape of rent, or assessment on stock, more com-
mensunate with the value of their rune; and (2) to confer on. them
a security of tenure incieasing with their distaaee firom the chief
centres of population. Both tiiese elements are conducing to
the ocmipancy of large tracts of more distant and nnezpkured
country by this dass of settlers ; and, genemlly, the termination
of this long strife appease to have given a very eonaiderable
stimulus to squatting pursiuts, while relieving the more crowded
dbtriets of their pressiurcL Thus a method of relief while
donbtless pressing with great and unequal sefrerity on indrvid&al

• In the United States it is a ^llar ; in Canada from two to six
aUlBiga; in New /laaland ten sinllings.

1£63. Qu^mslaakL SSI

sqpiatters whose runs happen to oome wilhiit the oompMs ef
lands proclaimed for sale^ ia not wkha«kl Us advantage in giTiag
increased attraction to outlying di«trieiii and jb thus eonducing
to interior coloniaatioa by theae pioneani of Auatralian settle-
oaent. •

Descending now from these Taat tabk*Iand8» we dntt
endeavour briefly to place before the reader the veauks of kte
explorations within the tract lyiag between the western ^pe
of this elevated plateau and the I^th neridian (the western
boundary of the colony )» forming the third aad last portion of
Queensland territory. Our late review of Australian ExpUcatioiL*
will have enabled our readers to follow in the course of the inceB«
sant efforts — under Sturt, Mitchell^ Leiohhardt^aiid Gregory —
of which this and the more w^est^m regtona, formtng Central
Australia^ have been the field, coaeluding with theaimoltaneoiHi
expeditions of Mr. Stuart and Messrs. Burke and Wills* Imme-
diately after the return of Mr. Stuart, tho three colonies of flotrth
Aubtndia, Victoria, and QueenshuicC alarmed for tba mfety of
Messrs. Burke and Wills, despatohed three independent expe*
ditione in search of them. Mr. Wsdker's p«rty started from
Port Curtisj and, creasing ov«r the Great OMist Bange, enteved
the tract we are now examining, and sncceMfully crossed
through to the shores of the Gulf i^' Carpentania. Ab:. Landfr-
borough, about the same time, left the akoree of the Gnlf, and,
descending through the whole of the tract, reached its southern
boundary in June, 1862. And Mr. McKinlay, Btartiog from
the north of the Torrena Basin, entered it from the south-
west, and was equally successful in effecting a northern passage,
returning in the following August. Thus, strangdy enough, a
region which for years had de£ed the attacks of such pevsisten^
and daring explorers as Sturt, MiteheU, and Leichhardt, was
crossed, almost simultaneously, by no lets tkan five sepande
and wholly independent routes. More straingefy, and omre
lamentably, ere any of the aearehing parties had left their starts
ing-points, Messrs. Barke and Wills had alreadj solved the
great problem of crossing the ccmtinent, and had returned te
their depot to find it abandoned by those thej had left in charge
of it The informatioh collected by these thsee searchmg par-
ties will, of course, need nuioh further addition eve we can learn
the more full capabilkies of this bage tract of country; but
there iaaloeady sufficient to guide us to a rough sketch. It is
certain that Stmrt'^ desert does, not exi«id much further than
his extreme point ia 1845 (lat. 26°), and that 'm ks iamediate

• Edinburgh Review, No. ccxxxv., July, 1862.

332 Queefuland. Oct.

yidnity there are numeroos and apparently permanent fresh-
water lakes. And though worthless tracts of country occa-
sionally recur — in far smaller, however, and less rude patches
—yet the whole territory promises to be a valuable addition to
the pastoral r^ons of the continent, interspersed even with
excellent agricultural districts. None of it would appear to
attain to the elevation of the table-lands on the summit of the
Coast Range, though the mean depression of the interior is
by no means so low as had been previously supposed, and is
considerably relieved by the occurrence of short, and apparently
imconnected, ranges of hills. If a conjecture might be hazardea,
in the present supply of information, we should attribute the
gradual formation of this whole tract of country to the action
of the numerous streams descending down the western slope of
the Oreat Coast Range, and depositing portions of its detached
soil on an original foundation of sandy desert. Indeed, Sturt
himself regarded his Stony Desert as the vast bed of some
watercourse, filled at certain seasons of the year with a torrent
so strong as to carry all detritus over its natural pavement, and
to deposit it further in the interior. The Mud and Clay Plains,
and tracts .'resembling boundless ploughed fields on which floods
' had settled and subsided,' would seem to indicate portions of
this territory more slow in their formation. Each stream and
rivulet, too, when followed down, was found to expend itself on
wide grassy plains, while its banks, raised high above the sur-
rounding country, served to show its method of protruding itself
through the soil. Indeed, the distance to which some of those
streams have crept into the interior is wonderful, considering how
frequently they exhibit every indication of exhaustion. The
Victoria, or Cooper's Creek, has been followed for 1,500 miles ;
and though it reaches at length within a few miles of the sea, it
does not effect any junction with it ; and some of the fertilised
districts which it leaves behind it in its course are of very cond-
deraUe extent. As an immense network of streams descends
into the interior down the slopes of the Coast Bange, and
as no outlet has hitherto been discovered, the evaporation must
be enormous. But, indeed, the whole of this extensive tract
presents many subjects of curious inquirv. At present, we must
rest satisfied with the assurance that it contains many lai^e
districts suitable for the pasturing of sheep and cattle ; and that,
should the squatter ever nave to retire from the vast table-lands
of the Great Coast Range, we may here calculate on new
and extensive fields for the growth of wool With which, we
may here conclude our geographical sketch of Queensland
territory.

1863. Queef island, 333

With these numerouB and varied advantages of soil and climate,
we should feel fully justified in anticipating for this young
colony a great and distinguished position among the new settle-
ments of the globe. They combine, indeed, almost every natural
facility that is to be found within the temperate and tropical
zones with a fertility and readiness of adaptation which seem
peculiar to the Australian continent But we have not yet
brought the account to a close. It is not at all improbable but
that Queensland may, in addition, help us to the solution' of a
social problem of great and pressing importance. It is asserted
that Sugar, Tobacco, and Cotton, the three great slave-
grown articles of commerce, can be safely and proS;ably culti-
vated by Europeans on these shores of the Pacific ; and when
we consider the very lai^e extent of territory lying within the
influence of the Great Coast Range, said to be free from the
evils of other tropical and semi-tropical climates, the statement
is not unworthy of careful examination.

With respect to salubrity, the case would appear to stand
greatiy in favour of Queensland. Queensland and Egypt oc-
cupy similar positions respectively on the southern and northern
tropics ; but while the Valley of the Nile necessarilv presents a
concave surface, the whole eastern coast of Austraha id convex
throughout its extent, the greater portion of territory lying
some 2,000 feet above sea-level. This elevation greatiy moderates
the heat of the tropical sun, while the surface of the soil is
further cooled by a very large rainfall, reaching as high as
forty-three inches annuaUy (or nearly double that of London),
and by the prevalence of cool sea-breezes during the night.
Notwithstanding these advantages, however, the midday heat of
the sun is somewhat unpleasantly warm, during the summer
months, for field labour. No injurious effects, however, have as
yet been traced to it. Indeed, the entire work of the colony —
almost wholly, of course, out-of-door work — and of the Moreton
Bay settiement while for many years it was a dependency of
New South Wales, has been carried on by Europeans without
the least appearance of unhealthy results. On this subject.
Dr. Lang writes: —

'In regard to the ability of Europeans generally to stand field
labour of any kind with impunity in the climate of Queensland, I
was enabled, from having visited Moreton Bay repeatedly in the
months of November and December, the hottest season of the year,
to form a pretty correct judgment on the subject from my own feel-
ings and observation. At that season, therefore, I found European
carpenters, bricklayersi and other handicraftsmen, whose occupations
required them to be much in the sun, pursuing their accustomed

Queenshmd. Oct

labonrs just as tiiey-do kt- ^imej. On con^6r0isg*w{t1i some df^hem
wIm had been £»r ^wavs in Ntw Sou^ Wales, tb«y told roe tbey^ knew
no difference in the cliraale, aa fer a» their abiiily to {nirsue their
usual occupations was coneemed, from that ef Sjrdnej and Hmter^e
Elver ; while others admitted that thej felt it hot at first, but soon
got used to it, and the heat did them no harm. I found a vespeotaUe
^rmer's sons regularly at the plough, whenever the weather, which
was very much broken at the time from the commencement of the
rains, permtited tbera, in l^e middle of December ; and they told me
they eoukl work as freely aed with quite as Cttie risk in the open
air at their station, m iatitode 27^, «e they eoald in any part of the
old colony.'

To whklh we may add the following testimony of Dr* Bartoa,
House- Surgeon of the Brisbane Hospital and Metearologicai
Observer to the Queensland Govemotenti —

' The dimate of this colony Is salvbriotis and very favoarable to
the European constitution. Peraona, particaku-ly, who have arrived
at or passed the middle age in the mane tshospitaMe climate of
Britain, often have their health aad vigour aurprtsingiy renewed ia
this genial climate. Instances of persons arriving at great age are
common, persons nearly or quite one hundred years eld being not
unfrequently met with, and these generally retauning an amooni of
strewgth and activity to the last.*

Indeed) aa a move general testisony of the aaiobrity of the
Australian CohHiieB^ we give the adbjobied illuetratioo of the
mean average mortality of bodiea of nsen eubjeet to the eame
duties, discipline, and jregulations. The mean avenge mortality '
of British troofps has now atood for several years at 10 per cent,
in Bome of the West India IsbHsde; in Jaitoaica, it reaches as
high as 14? per 1,000; wktte^ throu^ovt the AuetraKaii
etalions, it fi^as low as 15 per 1,000. While, tlierefore, field
work is not mnacoompanied with aeme personal incoovenieBce
during midday of the summer mentfas, eapeeially to immigrantB
more newly arrived within the eolony,tliere would appear to be
an entire absence of any mere aeriena or detrimental efiecta on
the European frames aick tax on the conatitntion being amply
compensated for by cool nights, and the dry and braoing
character of the atmosphere.

Nor are the soil and climate of the colony leaa &vonjrabIe to
the growth of these articles of eommeitte than to hmaan lifia*
Indeed, tobacco is aa indigeooiaa prodoot ef ike Anstraiian
oontineat. plant, ef gr«ai ru»»i«oe fceiog feand aknj? the
banks of a(une of the New South Wales rivers, as also in
Queendand. Its cofciTation has already been tried to aome
extent in Queenslattd^ and the manufactured product has been

18S3. Quemdmtd. 335

pronounoed s^Msrior to the American artide. Similar «xperi-
menta h%vm been tried 00 tbe sogar-eaae^ on a eomewhat more
extended scaler On the Clarenoe Bivet, two degrees souA of
Brisbane, tbe canes have yielded four ions of sugar to tbe acre.
At Bric^ane itself^ three tons have been fN^ooared from the aicve;
■and at Ckv^and, a x«j^ar sagar phmtatien, eontainiag 'fifteen
acres, is now oa tiie point of raalnrHy. But as eettlememt will
advance to Wide Bajr, Pert Cwrtis, and Boekbampton^ it <is
aonticipated that tliese more tropical reg^s will be rottnd eiMm
better adapted to its suoceBsiM e«lti^«tioa, far which llanf
possess extensive traeto of suitable eeil.

6ef<M%, he^^ever, examiniog the fitness of Qoeensland for the
cnltav^ition of the third and meet important product of eoknired
labour, it may be as well to say a few worids on ihe generd
ooDipetition of white kbour with coloured labour, as bean-
ing OB the profitable o^ivaition of sugar and tobaooo. Doubt-
le^, at first view, the impression nriees that the employer of
wiiite laboor is unfairly matched agjtinst negro or coolie ooi»-
potition. Hitherto it has been exceedingly difficult to bring
the matter to a practical test In colder ktitudes, it is tttie,
BO description of Afriean or Astatic labour has ever been able
to maintain ground against European competition; but then, it
may be argued, these races are unable to withstand the rigofmr
of the North. CVa the other hand, a Eoropean out«of-door
labourer in the Scmthem States of America, the West Indies^
tiie Mauritius, Ceylon, or India, woaid be worth little <yr
nothing to his employer, and w^ould most certakily undermine
his own health. Perhaps t^ gold^mining Austndian eolotties
ofier the nearest example of a hk test There are now about
100,000 Chinese on tiie gold-fields of Victoria and New Sooth
Wales, all qvite wUKng to hire themselves out as labourera at
wages far below the E^aropean rate. Yet, though the Ekiropeaa
sate is as high as 3iL and 4/. per week, and though minii^
operations are, of late years, almost adi oonducted by tiveans -of
hired lateur, it is a most rare occurrence to fad a Chyiese in
European employment, and then only in seme l^fat and eubsi-
diary occupation. They are to some greater extent enployed
by the Yiotorian and New Soadi Wales farmers and squattem
fi^r shephofds and farm-eeivants, though this arises chiefly from
the scarcity of European labour in the coaatry dietriels ; and at
harvest-*time Enn^Mane are procured at any price. These Ohi-
aese are abort, stout, aotrre neo, temperate in their habks^
intelligent, and greedy of English money. They are capable
of a much greater amount of sostnned bbour than either nqproes
or coolies, yet their infiuence on the European labour-market

336 Queensland. Oct.

is scarcely appreciable. These and other instances afford a
strong presumption that free, well-fed, high-priced English
labour is, under fair circumstances of competition, more profit-
able to the employer than nominally cheap African and Asiatic
labour.* It is certain, too, that coloured labour has been un-
favourable to the introduction and developement of machinery,
the most profitable of all labour. Indeed, this receives a curious
illustration in the case of the sugar-cane. No two processes
could be kept more perfectly distinct than those of cane-grow-
ing and sugar-making. Excluding the requirements of coloured
labour, there is no more necessity for combining them than for
combining on one farm the business of the wheat-grower, the
miller, and the baker. The economy resulting from a division
of labour in this case has been repeatedly urged on the planters
of the West Indies and the Mauritius ; but as coloured labour,
to be rendered available, must be kept iminterruptedly employed,
the sugar-grower is still obliged to be alternately a farmer and
a manufacturer. In the Brazils, too, the process of sugar-
making has not advanced beyond the rudest application of the
water-wheel and hand-labour, though a more economical system
of steam machinery is quite as applicable to cane-crushing and
sugar-refining as to corn-grinding and sifting. Queensland
seems peculiarly fitted for the production of this ^reat article
of commerce on more advantageous principles. The cane has
been found to thrive excellently in the immense tract lying
between the Pacific and the Coast Range : indeed, a lai^er
and, it is asserted, a more profitable description of cane is indi-
genous to some of the islands off the coast, and can be procured
with little difficulty. The small farmer can grow his 'cane
'patch' with less outlay of time and money than is expended on
a similar plot of wheat or potatoes, the roots lasting for several
years, and nothing being necessary beyond an occasional hoeing
until the shoots are cut in October. Here it is possible, as it is
certainly desirable, that his labours should cease as a sugar-maker
— the. uninterrupted succession of the seasons, as the various
productions of temperate and tropical zones come to maturity,
enabling him to combine cane-growing with other agricultural
pursuits. With a sufficient supply of such cane-growers, pri-

• The reader, too, who would more generally follow out the sturdy,
dogged, beef-eating English labourer in his competition with other
European labour, will find much to interest him in Mr. Senior's ex-
cellent treatise on Political Economy, under the heading of * ATerage
* Bates of Wages/ and more especially in the evidence collected by
Parliamentary committees and quoted there.

1863. Queensland. 337

yate enterprise would quicklj establish supcar-mills ; the Aus-
tralian colonist being no whit behind the Yankee in his love of
' speculation/ and the quantity of money lying in the Austra-
lian banks, and awaiting 'openings/ being unprecedentedly large
in proportion to the population. Not to talk of the immense
European trade in this article, the 1,200,000 Australians —
themselves great consumers of sugar — would afford no bad
market at starting. The ordinary ' rations/ issued to all shep-
herds, stockmen, and * Bush hands,' throughout these colonies,
includes three pounds of sugar per week ; and if we suppose it
to be not much above the ordinary consumption, which affluence
has made somewhat extravagant, there is already a local demand
of close on 100,000 tons annually. The reader will find some
further information on this subject in Dr. Lang's work ; and
we shall here conclude with his remark on the separate erection
of sugar-mills as a profitable undertaking: — 'In short, I am

* quite confident there is no speculation which at this moment
' would be attended with less risk, or would offer a more certain

* prospect of success, than the one of which I have thus sketched

* out the details.'

Nearly similar remarks will apply to indigo (also indigenous
to the soil*), arrow-root, tea, coffee, ginger, all of which have
been already tried in Queensland, and found to thrive re-
markably well. Indeed, with regard to almost all the pro-
ductions of slave labour, and those from which the nature of
tropical climates has hitherto excluded Europeans, it may be
confidently asserted that an opportunity is now offered in
Queensland of bringing white labour into competition for the
markets of Europe, under peculiarly promising, and, indeed,
elsewhere unattainable, conditions. With regard to tea, the
Director of the Queensland Botanical Gardens, in his Annual
Report, dated July, 1862, writes: — * This experiment, in con-
' nexion with the tea plant, is the largest which has been made
* in any of the Australian Colonies. The result proves the per-
' feet adaptation of our soil and climate to the successful culti-
' vation of this product.'

But curiosity with regard to this very important experiment

• Indeed, the indigo plant would have furnished us with an
equally curious illustration of the rude and elementary state in which
coloured labour keeps machinery, and mechanical appliances in
general. The Indian coolie still descends up to his neck in the
indigo vat, and triturates and stirs up the heavier portions from the
bottom by the action of bis feet, though there can scarcely be a doubt
but that, under white labour, steam machinery could be brought to
bear on the process in a quicker and cheaper manner.

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLII. Z

338 QueensiancL Oct.

will, at the present momentj naturally centre itedf in Cottov.
And it may not be uninterestiog to the reader to lay before'
him the actual pnospeots of Que^island asta £eld for its pvodiM-
tion. It had been ascertioned for several years that a variety
of the cotton plant, known as the Sea Island cotton, was
a^Ule of being ocdtivated with great auocess in the Mcnreton
Bay settlement : indeed, this variety of cotton, if not indigo-*
nous to the Australian continent, as there is reason to suppose,
is fixind in great luxuriance on some of the islands adjoining the
mainland. It was also^ascertained that the shrubs contiimed to
imfMrove up to their third and fburih year after planting, therebj
effecting a considerable saving ever the American plantationa,
where they are obliged to be renewed every year. Sam|^ of
tills cotton were, from time to time, and as eariy as 1846, ssb-
mitted to Manchester firms, and were most highly spoken of,
their market value betng esddnated at from Is. to Is. 3d, and
even 2s. per pound — the common 'New Orleans' variety then
fetching about 6d. But it was not until 1858 that Anstialian
cotton made its appearance in Liverpool as an artide of com-
merce. It then realised }s. 9d. per pound.

* I saw at once,' says Mr. Bazley, M.P. for Manchester, in a speech
delivered on the ' subject of cotton-growth, * that, with such vastly
superior cotton, jwm could be prodaced €ner than any that could be
manufactured in India or (xreat Britain. I bought that cotton,
carried it to Maaekester, and span it into exquisitely fine yarn. I
found that the weavers of Laneashire oould not produce a fhhnc
from it, it was so exceedingly delicate; the weavers of Scotland
could not weave it; nor could even the manufacturers of France weave
this yarn into fine muslin. It occurred to me to send it to Calcutta,
and in due time I had the happiness of receiving from India some
of the finest muslin ever manufactured, the product of the skill of
the Hindoos with this delicate Australian cotton.'

Small consignments of this cotton continued during succeed-
ing years to arrive in England ; and at the International Exhi-
bition of 1862^ no less than seven medals were awarded to
Queensland growers, while the distinction of ^ honourable men-
^tion' was conferred on five more. In a Report of the Man-
chester Chamber of Commerce on these exhibited samples, it is
remarked — * The samples of Sea Island cotton from the Austra-
* Han colonies are (mt superior to cotton from any other part of
^ the world.'

Incited by such testimonies as to the excellence of Queens-
land cotton, the colonists have taken vigorous steps to place a
large quantity of land under cotton, and the Colonial Govern-
ment have further encouraged its growth by oSering a bonus

1863. QwMMkmd. M9

of 102. (i88«ied as a kmdK>rder) on ewerj\kBle o{ Sea Island
oottco> wd^uDg 300 lbs., grown wiAmrAbe^Dolony^ and of 6L
'OH the coarser Tajrieties. The follom^gvisy^As searly as ean
he astimaiedy the total quantity of kod^filafed under cotton
«rop, down totheSlstof December, ISS&z — The Cabulture
Cotton Company, 4m the Cabnlture ffiirer, <L50 A^es under
orop ; on the Liogan, 1,280 acres poepated, i of which ISO
.are under crop; the English Company (Mr. Badey's), on
^enmg Creek, 2,000 acres, of which 100 just sown ; eevecal
^amaller companies on the Logan Kiver, Mwirmnt planted not
^stated ; Victorian Company, on the Hotham Biver, 3,000 acres,
.1,000 ready for sowing ; Ipswich Cotton Company, IM acres
ttnder crop ; the Maryborough Cotton-growing Aasociation, 35
Acres under crap ; several small private growers around Ipswieh,
300 acres under x^rop ; at Port Curtis, scMme pluilations under
C0Dp, amount not stated. In addition to these, a large number
of oompaniea are mow forming, and several private farmers Are
adding a few acres of cotton to their ordinary crops.

Of these new plantations, the first bales have already reached
Xiiverpool from the Ipswich cotton-growers, and will naturally
give increased activity to the movement. The cotton has
raised 3^. per pound, and produced 323 lbs. to the acre.
The result, indadMig sale of cotton, cotton-seed, and land-
orders, shows a clear profit of 437^ 11^ 6d. on ten acres of
land, accor^ng to a return published in tho Queensland news-
papers. Mr. Panton, the chief of these Ipswich eotton-grow^srs,
ostimates that llie total expenses may be brought within
10/. per acre. One a)[de4>odied man can keep ten acres in
cultivation, and, with the assistance of some of the junior
members of his family, can gather in the crop. The picking
season ranges between May, June, and July (the Australian
winter), whm the weather is almost invariably fine, and the
climate cool. Under present circumstances, the return we have
just given, showing a clear profit of over ML per acre, and
enabling an ordinary labouring man to realise an income of
437/. lis. 6d, does not appear an exceptional one. There are,
however, some material deductions to be made for future years.
The local demand for cotton seed, wjiich is produced in the
ratio of 11 oz. of seed to 4 oz. of cotton, may be expected to
decline. The 10/. land-orders on each bale of cotton will be
reduced to half that amount at the end of three years, and cease
jdtogether at the ^id of five. And the present high price of
cotton is exceptional i though ni)t to such an amount in the
case of this *Sea Uand variety as might at first sight be thought.
The Sea Island cotton, as grown in the S(mthem States, has

340 Queensland. Oct.

hitherto^ before the outbreak of the American civil war, com-
manded prices ranging from Is, 6d. to 2s, per pound; while all
testimony goes to prove the superior excellence of the Queens-
land growth. Indeed, some of the samples we have already
mentioned as shown at the London Exhibition were valued as
high as 4s. 6d. per pound, though what share the present ab-
normal state of the cotton market had in this calculation we
are not aware. Even at this price, its annual consumption, in
normal years, amounts to about 47,150 bags, or, at 400 lbs. to
the bag, 18,860,000 lbs. In America, however, as well as in
Egypt, it has been found not nearly so prolific as the coarser
descriptions, to which it has greatly given place — ^New
' Orleans' cotton, at 6d. per pound, being considered a more re-
munerative crop than * Sea Island' at Is. 6d., or even 2s., unless
under peculiarly favourable circumstances. This defect in the
Sea Island cotton is, it is stated, on authority which we have
no reason to doubt, in a great degree obviated in Queensland,
where it is said to be capable of a production little, if at all,
inferior to the coarser descriptions of America. Indeed, the
return we have just given, exhibiting a return of 323 lbs. per
acre, fully bears out these anticipations — the produce of the
Sea Island variety in America seldom averaging higher than
225 lbs., and this only on particular plantations; while Mr.
Panton, and other Queensland growers, speak confidently of
raising the produce to 400 lbs. Its superior excellence, more-
over, will enable it to command the market.

Doubtless our readers will have already seen that Queens-
land cotton-growing, in its present phase, promises no solu-
tion of the Lancashire problem — cotton at 3«., or even
1^., affording little hope of taking the place of the hitherto
all but universal sixpenny ^ short staple;' though, under
the data we have just sketched, the colonists and their
Government have, in their own interests, given no undue
preference to the Sea Island variety. However, even on the
extreme — though, to all appearance, not unlikely — supposition
that Queensland should wholly displace the finer varieties of
cotton hitherto in the market, the comparatively small amount
of 50,000 acres under crop would oblige her to resort to new
tactics — an amount which, in the continuance of the present
rapidly increasing movement, may shortly be expected. In the
meantime, her prospects of engaging in the coarser descriptions
are by no means unfavourable. So early as 1852, Queensland
samples of the New Orleans variety were submitted to the
Manchester Chamber of Commerce, and after careful examina-
tion by its President — the present member for Manchester —

1863. Queensland. 341

were valued at 5Jrf, — a trifle over the ruling price of 'short
' staple ' American cotton of similar kind. Some of the sam-
ples, too5 shown at the late International Exhibition were of
the New Orleans variety, and in the Beport to the Manchester
Chamber of Commerce^ drawn up by Mr. Wanklyn, we find
the following remark on them : — ' I do not desire in the least
^ to discourage the cultivation of Sea Island cotton, but the
^ samples of New Orleans are so particularly good, that I would

• recommend the Queensland people to try both the New Orleans

* and the Egyptian, for it is quite possible that the return per
'acre of those sorts may be even more profitable than Sea
' Island.' From the few specimens of the coarser varieties
already grown in the colony, the more experienced planters
anticipate a yield of 600 lbs. per acre, which is somewhat in
excess of the ordinary American crop. And, indeed, considering
the wonderful luxuriance which almost all introduced plants
and shrubs have attained to under Queensland soil and climate,
it is not unreasonable to suppose that other and coarser varieties
of the cotton-tree may be found to exhibit a fertility corre-
sponding to that which has brought into favour the Sea Island
cotton. The latter and finer species would then be speedily dis-
placed by the kinds for which there is the largest demand, as has
already happened in the Southern States of America, Egypt,
and other long-established cotton countries.

On every account, from its vast extent, from its fertile soil,
from its delicious climate, from its extensive seaboard and
abundant watercourses, from its judicious institutions, and from
the wise and teimperate spirit which has hitherto prevailed in its
administration, Queensland deserves to be regarded as one of
the most interesting and promising of those youthful States with
which the maritime and colonial genius of England has studded
the globe. Seven years have not yet elapsed since the province
of Moreton Bay assumed the rank of an independent colony.
The terms of service of its first Governor, Sir George Bowen,
and of its first Minister, Mr. Herbert, have not yet expired :
but these accomplished and fortunate rulers have already founded .
a State which cannot fail to rank amongst the freest and most
prosperous communities on the face of the earth.

342 GregorovioB' Medimval Borne. Oct*

Akt. II. — Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelaltery vom
fanften Jahrhundert bis zum sechzehnten Jahrhundert Von
Ferdinand Gkegokovius. Vols. L — IV. Stuttgart: 1859
—1862.

Tn a wdl-known passage of bis «iitobiograpIi7> Gibbon bas re->

covded to as boir the first idea oi bis immortal w(Mic presented

itself to his mikd as ba sai ' muting amdst the ruins of the

* Capitol^ while the barefooted friars were raiging vespers in the

* Temple of Jupiter.' But his original pbu^ asfae himself addsf

* was cifoomscribed to the decay of the city rather than of th»

* empire^' and it was -only by degrees thai bis views expanded s»
as to comprise the whole extent of the more important sttbjeet*
No one certainly will regret the change^ to which we are i**-
dsbted for the greatest historical work of modera times. But
there are soooe readers who will ' have fdt that the original
ohject of his aspirations has been too much lest «ght of in the
progress of the more extensive plan ; or rather that the pio*
portions to which the history of the city was necessarily reduced
in order to keep it in due subordination to the main design, did
not allow of its receiving so full a developement as it deserved*
The condttdiBg chapter of Gibbon's history contains indeed a
masterly sketch of the decay of the city itself and the cansoo
which gradually reduced it to the condition in which it is de»
scribed to us by Poggio Braecidini in the fifteenth centnry^;
while the revolutions and fortunes of Borne, though occupying
bni a smaU place in the more extended {Hctiure after the fall of
the Western Em{»re, are traced out in b<dd and vigoroua oolv
liaes from the time of Alaric^ to that oi Nicholas V.

It is not too mnch to say that whateiver may be sleaned bgr
the industry of later students in this field wUl do little more
tlian fill up the outlines already dtawn by the ma^er-hand of
(ribbon ; but the task is not the less a desirdble (me, and one
that has remained toe long unfulfilled* Every oae wIkv like
Gibbon himself, has visited the ruins of Beme and mused over
their vicissitudes — and who is there at the present day that has
not been at Borne? — must have felt that there was a great
chasm in his associations with the scenes around him — that be*
tween the period of their imperial splendour, and that of their ^
renewed ma^ficence under the Popes of the sixteenth century,
there was a lon^ interval with which he was comparatively tm-
familiar : he wiU have desired to trace in more detail the progress

1863* Gregoroyins' Mtdicsval Rome. 343

of tbe varied cbanges that swept over the city in the couree of
a thousand years^ that gradually raised up a new Borne in the
place of the old one, and established the ' barefooted friars ' on
the roiiiB of the CapitoL

To supply the deficieney thus existing in historical literature
is the task thai M. Gr^orovius has proposed to himself in the
volumes now before us, a task whioh a long-eontiHued residence
aft Rome, with free access to the valuable stores of materials
aecauHilated in the libraries there, has enalded him to execute
i» a satisfactory manner* The task was indeed one that re**
quired in no ordinary degree that minute and searching diligence
for which the histerical writers of Grermany are so eminently
diBtingoiehed. The materials were often scanty and imperfect,
and tlra few meagre notiees that have been transmitted to us
are scattered through ammnber of different writers, or have to
be gleaned from the barbaroue charters and documents of the
laost obscure period of history. It is but justice to add that
while M. Grc^;oraviu8 has shown the most praiseworthy industry
in aecumulaling his materials from aU available sources, he has
besftcmed more pains than is commonr with his countrymen upoif
the form in which he Ims ppcsented them to the reader, and has*
produced net only a 'woric of vakie to the antiquarian student,
bat a readable and inAereetkig book*

It is obviously impossible to* draw any marked line of separa-
tion between the bistery of the Bomnn city in the more*
restricted sense in which alone M. Gregorovius has undertaken
to write it, and that of the Papal power of which it was the
centre. The revolutions of the Papacy were intimately con-
iieeted with the fortunes of Borne itself ; the rise of the temporal
power of the Popes, their long contests with the Emperors of
Germai^, and still more their internal struggles with the Romans
nobles and popubce, ate essential portions of the history of the
city ; and it is impossible to* write a connected narrative of the
Utter that does not involve to a considerable extent the history
of Latin Christianity. M. Gregorovius has, however, en**
d^avonred^ and in general with success, to steer between the
two extremes, and while- relating the history of the Popes, so
far as this was immediately connected with, or directly in^
fluoiced, the local history of Bome^ to avoid digressing too
widely into^ the general ecclesiastical or political history of
Western Europe. In the foUowing pages we shalf confine
ourselves almost eKelnrively to those portions of his work
which relate more immediately to thet local and (if* we may
venture- to- use the term) maiterial history of Rome. The eccle-
riastical and political revolntioiis of the cify wfll idready be

344 Gregorovius' Medicsval Rome. Oct.

familiar to most of our readers from the works of Gibbon and
Milman.

It is not very easy to determine the exact period when the
ancient city may be considered as haying reached the highest
point of greatness and splendpur^ Even after the glorious
works of Trajan and Hadrian, great additions were made to its
architectural magnificence, and many of the most remarkable
edifices belong to a time when the empire was already in a de-
clining condition. Severus and his son Caracalla were among
the emperors who contributed the most to the adornment of the
city ; the Septizonium continued throughout the middle ages to
bear testimony to the magnificence of the former, as the gigantic
ruins of his Therms still do to that of the latter. Again at a
much later period, after the empire had been shaken by a long
series of wars, of revolutions, and disorders of every kind, its
political restoration under Diocletian and Constantine saw the
imperial city once more enriched with important additions to
its splendour. The Thermse of Diocletian surpassed in vast-
ness and extent, if they did not equal in magnificence, those of
Caracalla ; the Baths of Constantine were on a scale hardly
inferior to them; while the Basilica dedicated by the same
monarch, though in fact the work of his rival Maxentius, still
attests the grandeur of its conception by the imposing character
of its existing remains — the three gigantic arches or vaults which
are familiar to all visitors to Rome under the misnomer of the
Temple of Peace.

The removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople must
have given a severe, as well as a permanent, shock to the ma-
terial prosperity of Rome ; but it would naturally be some time
before its effects were apparent in the external aspect of the
city, and there can be no doubt that the architectural magnifi-
cence of Rome was little, if at all, impaired when it was visited
by the Emperor Constantius in A.D. 35Z. The contemporary
historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, has left us a striking, though
pompous, description of the efiect produced on the imperial
visitor by his first progress through the city — a description the
more interesting, as it may naturally be supposed to reflect the
impressions of Ammianus himself, a Greek native of Antioch,
who had visited Rome for the first time much about the same
period. With every allowance for rhetorical exaggeration, it is
evident from this account that all the more important buildings
of the city were still standing in all their original magnificence ;
and we may well sympathise with the sentiment attributed to
the emperor, that, as he passed through the splendid series, each
successive edifice appeared to him to surpass all others, until be

1863. G]:egoroviu8'' Mediaval Rome. 345

ft

came to the Forum of Tngan : * a work,' says the historian,
'without a parallel in the whole' world, which surpasses all
< description, and will never again be rivalled by mortals.'*

Less than fifty years after this time (a.d. 403), the Emperor
Honorius made his solemn entrance into the city, which now
for the last time witnessed the spectacle of an imperial triumph.
Claudian has celebrated the event, as well as the victories of
Stilicho which it was designed to commemorate, with the usual
amount of courtly panegyric ; and it is evident from the terms
in which he extols the glories of the Capitol, the Imperial
Palace, and the Forum, that these still retained all their orna-
mental decorations substantially unimpaired.f A great change
had indeed come over the city in the interval since the visit of
Constantius; the temples of the heathen gods had been finally
closed and their worship interdicted by Theodosius, but these
measures were too recent to have as yet produced any efiect on
the external appearance of the capitaL The shrine of the
Capitoline Jupiter was deserted, but the ^ded roof of his
temple still gleamed in all its brightness; the statues that
crowded the Forum and the adjacent buildings were as yet
imtouched ; and the adherents of the ancient religion might still
delude themselves with the belief that the gods of Home had not
yet abandoned the city. But a few years later a fresh edict of
Honorius himself (in 408), commanding the destruction of all
images within the temples, may be considered as giving the
deaSi-blow to the pagan idolatry. Yet even this edict did not
apply to any other than the idols consecrated in temples, while
it was expressly prescribed that the buildings themselves should
be preserved and placed under the charge of the imperial officers,
in order to be applied to useful purposes.

There can be little doubt that the zeal of many of the new
converts to Christianity would outstrip the injunctions of the
imperial edict ; the internal administration of the city was feeble
and inefficient ; and there is every reason to believe that a
considerable amount of damage had been already done to the
pagan temples and shrines before the capture of the city by the
Gothe. The triumphant terms in which St. Jerome and St.
Aueustine exult over the downiall of the heathen monuments are
doubtless strongly tinged with exaggeration, but we cannot sup-
pose them to be altogether without foundation. The partial demo-
lition of ancient bmldings had indeed begun long before. The
edifices of Constantine himself were decorated with the spoils

* Ammian. Marcellin. lib. xvi. cap. x. §§ 14, 15.
f Claudian de YI. Cons. Honorii, vv. 35--58.

346 Gr^osoviuft' Mtdimval Ramf. Oct.

of those of earlier emperors ; and though a series of edicts under
his sons imd their soccessers prohibited such acts of spoliation^
the yerj repetition of these decrees shows the contiMuaiice of
the practioe^ It is probable, indeed, that it was as yet confined
to the less conspicoous edifices and the remoter quarters of the
city. It was here only that the signs of incipient decay could
as yet be mamfest ; ajid it was only in such quarters that
the Christian, churches were beginning to raise their heads im
riralry with the ancient temples. All the celebrated basilicas
and churches erected by Conalaniine and his immediate'
successors were situated either in the suburbs of Borne,
without the walls, as St- Peter's, St. Paul's, St. Lorenzo^ and
Sta» Agnese, or, if within the limits of the city, still on its
extreme vei^, as the Basilica of the Lateran and Sta. Crooe
in Gernsalemme. Already, indeedy before the time of HonociuSy
they had crept on tewavds the interior of the city ; but the
pagan temples stiH held undisputed sway over the Forum and
the Capitol ; no Christian church had yet ventured to obtrude
iteelf upon; the Sacred Way ; and as Honorius looked down
from the* palace of the Caraars upcm the ancient. heart and
centre of the life of Borne, there would have been little, if
anything, to remind him that it was not stiU a pi^aa city.

A very few years only elapsed after the triumfrfiant entry of
Honorius, befi)re the Bonums beheld their city and themselves
at the mercy of a foreign invader. The capture of Borne by
Alarie, in 410, is chosen by M. Gr^orovius as the inwaodiate
starting-point of his history ; and the selectioa is undoubtedly
a judicious one. As fSur as the history of the city is concerned,
that event marks an era of far more consequence than the finid
extinction of the We^ern Empire. It was the ficst of thai
long series of cakmities- which was destined to bring down the
imperial cafntal from its * pride of place ' to the lowest depths
of desolation. It waa the first startling proof to the world
that the Eternal City was yet mortal, and revealed to saeceediiig
swarms of iavadcro the secret at once of her weakness and her
wealth. They were not slow in piK>fiting by the lesson.

The actual amount of damage done to the buildingB of Borne
by the Geths under Alacic hae been indeed the subject of much
controversy, and the diseussioa has no doubt been coloured by
partialiiy and prejudice. L<Nrd Byron has enumerated im one
pregnant line the chief of the destructive agents that have
ooneummated the rutn of ancieiit Bome —

* The Goth, the Chrislian, Time, War, FTood, and Fire;'

but the respective proportions to be assigned to the two classes

1863. Gregorovhif' MedicBwtl Ihwm. 347

first enumerated have been vehementlj diaputed. 'The ex->~

* culpalion of the Grothe and Vandals' (says the oomwentater oo
the noble poet) * has been thought prejudioial t& the. Christians,
' and the praise of the latter regarded as an injustiee to the

* barbarians.' An able and diqMisaooate reyiew of the whole
question will be found in the work just oited ; and we think-
that everj unprejudiced reader will aequiesee in the conchisioa
that 'both the one and. the other have been moce actiyef

* despoilers than has been confessed by their nyutual apolo--
*gists.'»'

M. Gr^oroTius has espoused the caiase of the- Gothsy the
Yandab, and odier German race? of barbariani invadersj with all*
the zeal oi patriotism* But Ins concfaKions wit& respect to tiie
capture by Alaric do not differ materially from those of Gibbon,*
who says briefly : ' The edifices of Bocne, though the damage
baa been much exa^erarted, recdTed some inpiry from thei
^ violence of the Godn.'t It is indeed certain tha4 they co«dd ne^h
hare attempted any systematic dsstructiont of the massive build-
ings and monuments during the very short peciod ihey remained
in possession of the city— only three days^ according to naost
of the contemporary writers, though one chromder prdongs it
to six. Even fire itself would . have had little effect on the
massive structures of stone and brass with which the city
abounded ; but it is certain that there was no ext^isive con-
flagration. The Goths^ indeed, on first entering 1;be city by the
SaJ^rian gate, set fire to the adjoining houses, and a portion o£
tiie neighbouring quarter was thus destroyed. The palace and
gardens of Sallust, whicb had become a favourite imperial villay
perished on this occaaon,.and thehr blackened ruins were seen
by the historian Prooopius a hundred and forty yeavs after-
wards. X But there is notUng to lead us to suppose that any
other public buildiDgs of importance shared the same fate*.

The indirect eflfoct of the first capture of Borne was, however^
far greater than its imme(Hate results^ in< a material as w^ as
a moral pom*' of view«. Had such an event been an isolated
catastrophe!, like the sado of Borne by the Constable of Bomrbon
in 1527, the damage would doubtless have beea soon repaired
Bat Borne was at thia period already in a state of constant^
though as yet silent and uaperceived, decay ; and all the caneea
which contriJ»«ted to the decline of its material pvoeperily were

• Hobhouse's Historical IHustrations of the Fourth Canto of
Childe Harold, p. 59.'
t Gibbon, vol. iv. ch. xzxL p. 105.
X Procop. de BcM. Vand. lib. i. c ii.

348 Gregorovius' MeditBval Rome. Oct.

from thenceforth left to act with accelerated force. The
general dispersion of the Roman nobles, many of whom on
this occasion quitted the city never to return, left their di&serted
palaces and villas to sink gradually into ruin. With them
departed also the last influential supporters of the ancient
religion ; and it has been justly remarked by Dean Milman
that the Gothic invasion gave the final blow to paganism. The
funds destined for the repair and support of the hei^then temples
had been already withdrawn by Theodosius, and henceforward
there was none to protect them. ' The deserted buildings had
' now neither public authority nor private zeal and munificence
' to maintain them against the encroachments of time or

* accident — ^to support the tottering roof, or repair the broken

* column.'*

Some attempt was indeed made to repair the damages of the
Goths ; and the poet Kutilius, who visited the city seven years
after the catastrophe, might delude himself with the poetic fancy
that Rome was rising again after her misfortunes with even
increased magnificenccf But the fatal blow was struck ; the
progress of decay was never again arrested ; and, however little
apparent might be the immediate effects of the Gothic invasion
a few years afterwards, it is certain that Rome never recovered
its plunder by Alaric.

There is no reason to suppose that the sack of the city by the
Vandals under Genseric (a.d. 455) was more destructive than
that of the Goths, so lar as the mere edifices were con-
cerned. We are indeed expressly told that the barbarian
leader vielded to the representations of the Pope — Leo I., the
same wno had already averted the threatened invasion of Attila —
so far as to promise to protect the buildings from fire, to
spare the lives of the unresisting multitude, and to exempt the
captives from torture; and though it is probable that these
conditions would be imperfectly observed, we may reasonably
believe that the barbarians in general inflicted no injury upon
the public edifices, beyond such wanton mischief as would
naturally arise in a period of indiscriminate licence and rapine.
But the pillage of the city was far more complete than on the
previous occasion : during the space of fourteen days the Vandals
ransacked alike the temples of the gods, the Christian churches,
the public buildings, and the private palaces, in search of booty,

* Milman's History of Christianity, voL iii. p. 181*
f 'Llud te reparat quod csetera regna resolvit:
Ordo renascendi est crescere posse mails.'

{Rum, Itinerar. lib. i. v. 140.)

f^'

1863. Gr^oroyins' Mediceval Rome. 349

and whatever objects attracted their cupidity were carried off
without distinction. A great portion of the vast wealth pre-
viously accumulated in the city^ especially in the precious metab,
had been carried ai^ay by the Goths, and could have been but
partially replaced ; yet the Yandals are said to have still found
immense stores of gold and silver. All the treasures of the im-
perial palace fell into their hands ; but, not content with this,
they are said to have carried off the ornaments, and even the
vessels, of bronze. The temple of the Capitoline Jove, which
had been spared by the Goths, was plundered of all its statues,
and halfot its celebrated roof, which was covered with bronze
thickly overlaid with gold, was stripped off and carried away to
Carthage.* The historian does not explain why the whole was
not taken.

When we remember that, in addition to all this wealth, many
thousand Romans of both sexes — many of them persons of the
highest rank — were carried off' into captivity, it is difficult to
estimate too hishly the effect produced by such a calamity upon
the declining city. There can be no doubt that the population
of Rome must have already greatly diminished: the occupation
of the rich provinces of Africa by the Vandals had cut off one
of its chief sources of supply and of revenue ; the impoverished
nobles were unable to repair their losses, or restore their crumb-
ling palaces; and if the splendid monuments of her former
greatness still towered proudly over the decaying city, it is
certain that in many parts of Rome they already looked down
upon deserted streets and ruined habitations.

Under such circumstances it was in vain that a fresh edict of
Majorian — an emperor worthy of better times, whose name
sheds a temporary lustre on the last miserable years of the
Roman Empire — endeavoured with praiseworthy zeal to check
the continuiJly increasing practice of demolishing ancient edifices
in order to apply their materials to the repair or the construc-
tion of recent ones. The evil was one that was inherent in the
existing state of things ; and whatever efforts to arrest its pro-
gress may have been made from time to time by an enlightened
ruler like Majorian or Theodoric, it continued to operate, more
or less openly, during a period of ten centuries. It is no doubt
with justice that Gibbon ascribes to the slow and silent operation
of this practice the gradual destruction of those massive struc-
tures which * the Goths and Vandals had neither lebure nor
* power, nor perhaps inclination, to overthrow.' f

* Frocopius, Bell. Vand. i. c. v.

I Gibbon, eh. xxxvi. p. 269. ed. Smith.

3d0 Grr^gonmae' MedicBval Rome. Oct

The anaroby fnkd oonCiiaion of the last £ew jean of the
Western Emfore, in the couiise of which Some was for the
third time taken laad okindered 1^ Ridraer . (juD, 472), was
followed bj an interval of tranquiUitj and repoee under tbe
Gothic king Theodoric During his long reign of thirty-three
years Italy enjoyed absolute freedom, firom all foreign invasion,
while the mild, jtnd at the -same time vigorous, adninistxation
of her barbarian ruler restored her in some measure to lier
former prosperity. Nor can it be doubted that Borne partici-
pated to a OQOsiderable extent in the i^eneralimproyem^it. It
was no mere flattery that dictated the phrase of ^ Felix Homa,'
which is found on linseriptious addressed to Theodoric If,
indeed, we may reour to the wellnknown expression of the
satirist, and believe that the wants of the Roman people were
still confined to the ^ panem et ci^censes ' of an earlier period,
these were fully auppiied under the Gbthic Idiig. The public
distributions of br^d, wine, and bacon among the populaee
of Home were renewed with tbe return of plenty ; and the
games of the Cioeuswere agwi exhibited amid the general en-
thusiasm of the multatikie. Theodoric liimself, Uke the later
Roman emperors, took up his permanent residence at Ravenna,
and only once viated the ancient capital ; bnt his e^try into
Rome upon this occasion was celebrated with a pomp and
magnificence that called forth from a pious African monk, who
was present, the wondering exdamation, 'TVliat must be the
' gl^es of the heavenly Jerusalem if they surpass those of the
' earthly Rome I' Such was the impression stUl made upon the
stranger by the imperial city, even after the ravages of Alaric
and Genseric

Great care was bestowed by Theod<»ic and his enlightened
minister, Cassiodorus, upcm the maintenance and restoration of
the public edifices in the city. An architect was specially
appointed to superintend their repairs, and funds assigned htm
for tike purpose ; the prefect of the city was charged to watch
with vigilance over the ancient monmnents; while separate
officers were appointed, the one to the care of the aqueducts,
which still poured their abundant streams of water into the city,
the other to protect from wanton injury and violence the
numerous statues of bronze and marble that still adorned the
streets and open places of Rome. It is evident, therefore, that
neither the zeal of the Christians nor .the cupidity of the
Vandals had done more than diminish the numbers of that
' vast population ' of statues * which had long formed one of the

* 'Populus copiosissimus statuaram.' (Cassiodor. Var, lib. vii. 13.)

1803. Gbregorovnis' MeditBval Rome. 351

ifioet coBspicuous and cbanteteristio onuimenis of the aaieient
city.

We must not^ bowever^ fonn to ourselves an exaggerated
estimate of the actual condition of Borne voder Theodoric.
Thirty years of peace and good order may liave done much for
the material wdfare of the population, but^they undoubtedly
did very little towards the restoration of the city. Even from
the epistles of Cassiodorus himself^ we may glean Jibundaat
evidence of its decayed and dilapidated condition. All the most
conspicuous monuments -were indeed still standing, if not un-
injured, at least substantially entire ; but of these, ^e imperial
pidace -and the massive Theatre of P<»ipey~-^<me of the most solid
wad imposing structures at Rome — ^were in need of considerate
repairs. On the other hand, we' hear inoideiitally of buildings
faUing into decay for want of inhabitants, of masses of stone and
marble lying scattered about from neighbouring ruins ; and even
Theodoric himself took advantage of the rained state of 'a palace
on die Pineian hill to provide materials for his own palaoe at
Ravenna. We have already seen that tiie mischief done to the
Villa of Sallust by Alaiic was nev^r repaired. There is indeed
no doubt tiiat wlule the more conspicuous monuments in the
centre of the city would be the first objects of the care of the
imperial officers, many buildings in the ontsldrts must have been
left to the natural progress of decay, or to the depredations of
unscrupulous neighbours.

But even if the reign of Theodoric had produced far more
beneficial effects upon the city of Rone t&an we can safely
ascribe to it, all such improvement was much more than com-
pensated by the destructive period that followed. It is to the
wars of the Gothic kings with Belisarius and Narses that we
must attribute the final ruin of Rome. During a period of
seventeen years (536-553), almost all the evils wmtdi it is pos-
sible for war to inflict were accumulated on the devoted city.
Twice did ^e hold out against the Gh)thic armies with despairing
energy, until her inhabitants had suffered the last extremities of
famine, and thousimds had perished of hunger ; twice did she
see her almost deserted streets occupied by the loctorious bar-
barians, and all her remaining wealth at the mercy of their
ravages. On the first of these occasions, indeed, we are told
by the contemporary historian that Totila had actuaUy deter-
mined to level the city to the ground, and ' convert Rome into
' a sheep walk ;' but the more generous feelings of the barbarian
hero were awakened by the remonstrances of Belisarius : he
abandoned the project, and contented himself with destroying

352 GregoTOviua' Mtdiaval Rome, Oct

a confflderable portion of tlie external walle.* Partial con^a-
gratione, however, had already laid waste several quarters of
the city ; and bo complete was its desolation that (if we can
believe the express statement of Procopiue, who bimeelf visited
Rome in the following year) when Totila entered the city, he
found but ^e hundred innabitaots remaning, all the reA
having either perished by famine or made their escape bv
flight. Of this miserable remnant, some were put to the bwot^
ouiers led away into captivity, while the rest were driven out
into the neighbouring country; so that we are assured that
when Totila finally quitted Ilome in the spring of 547, be left
not a living soul within its walls It However much we may
Buspeot this statement of exaggeration, the very fact that bucd
a report should have been current shortly after the event is
suffituent proof to what an extremity of misery the Romans bad
been reduced.

When Belisarius recovered possession of Rome, he hastened
to restore its fortifications, by rebuilding the portion of ibe
walla that had been destroyed by Totila ; and some parts of
the still existing circuit hear evidence of their hasty recon-
struction at this period. But we have no account of his
attempting the restoration of the city itself, which he bad
doubtless neither time nor means to undertake. Totila him-
self is said to have endeavoured, after his second capture oi
Rome, to repair in some measure the evils inflicted during hi*
former siege, and to have collected together the fugitive and
scattered population of the city once more witbin its nails.
But it was impossible for him to do much within the fevr
months that he remained master of Rome ; and the games tbat
he exhibited for the last time in the Circus Maximus must have

nrRRRnfprl a mplnnr-linlv nnnr.miit trt thf. mii1t!tndpji that once

1863. Gregorovius' Medmval Rome. 353

by the Gothic wars, the most serious and irreparable was the
destruction of the aqueducts, which were broken down by
Vitiges during the first siege, and never again restored. 'A
comparatively small supply of water would indeed have sufficed
for the diminished population of .Rome during the middle ages ;
and it appears that three out of the fourteen aqueducts were at
some later period partially repaired, and continued to furnish a
scanty supply even as late as the ninth and tenth centuries.
But die noble arches that still stretch in long lines across the
Campagna have been continually mouldering into ruin ever
since they were first broken by the Gothic king.

The last capture of Rome by Totila may be considered as
terminating the series of the barbarian invasions. From that
time for nearly three centuries and a half her walls were not
entered by a foreign enemy; for although the Lombards re-
peatedly ravaged iJae surrounding country, their attacks on the
city itself were always unsuccessful. But from the brief view
which we have been able to eive of the actual results of the
barbarian ravages, it will sufficiently appear how enormous was
the injury really inflicted. The Goths and Vandals undoubt-
edlv d^d not, as asserted by the earlier Italian historians, and
believed by popular tradition, deliberately destroy the public
buildings and monuments of the city, or involve them in one
common conflagration; but the calamities entailed upon the
unhappy city by their means were such as to reduce it from a
fforgeous and opulent capital to a scene of ruin and desolation,
m the midst of which the magnificent monuments of former
greatness were become altogether things of the past, which the
scanty and decaying population had neither the spirit nor the
means to repiur.

The half-century which followed the recoverv of Rome by
Narses was a period of manifold suffering and misery ; and the
accession of Gregory the Great in 590 may perhaps be taken as
the point at which the unhappy city had sunk to the lowest
state of degradation. An old prophecy, ascribed to Benedict
of Nursia, at the time when Totila was thundering at the gates
of Rome, had foretold that the city would not be destroyed by
the barbarians, but would crumble away by gradual decay and
the destructive influence of natural causes, of tempests and
lightning, of whirlwinds and earthquakes ; and when the first
of the Gregories ascended the pontifical throne, he himself
believed that the prophecy was on the point of fulfilment.
While the feeble rule of the exarchs of Ravenna and the
supine negligence of the Byzantine emperors opposed scarcely
any barrier to the ravages of the Lombards, it seemed as if all

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLII. A A

354 Gregoroviue' Medimval Rome. Oct.

'O

the natural causes of destmction were oombining their efforts
against the devoted city. An extraordinary inundation of the
Tiber, during which the waters rose to an unprecedented
height, is expressly said to have caused the ruin of many-
ancient buildings; and this was immediately followed by a
pestilence, whidi threatened to sweep off the whole of the
scanty population that had again gathered within the walls.
St. Gregory has himself left us a fearful picture of the ravages
caused by this plague, during which the excited imagination of
the Bomans fimcied they saw the arrows of destrtieticm shot
down from heaven, as they had before seen gigantic dragons
floating down the stream of the Tiber dimng the recent
floods.

To the same state of feeling we are indebted for one of the
most striking and picturesque of the medieval legends of
Borne. It was while the plague of 590 was still raging that
Gregory, then just elected Pope, ordered a general processioD
of «all the clergy and inhabitants of the city. Three days long
did the whole population of Rome, in the gaib and attitude of
penitents and supfdiants — the nnmerons clergy and still more
numerous monks and nuns at their head — deflle in solemn pro-
cession through the silent and half-deserted streets ; <uid such
was the unabated virulence of the plague that eighty persons
(we are told) dropped down dead as they were thus moving
along. But as the head of the long train was crossing the
.^ian Bridge, on its way to St. Peter's, the figure of the
Archangel Michadi was seen to hover in the air over the
monument of Hadrian, brandishing in his hand a flaming sword,
which he returned to its sheath as the procession drew near — a
sign that the Divine wrath was appeased and the pestilence was
at an end. The memory of this celebrated vision was preserved
by the erection of a small church dedicated to the Archangel on
the summit of the mausoleum itself, which has ever since borne
the name of the Castle of St Angelo.

The age of Belisarius and Nsirses may be considered as
closing the history of Imperial Kome ; with that of Ghregory
the Great begins the history of the Papal city. To the energy
and ability of that remarkable man may undoubtedly be ascribed
the foundation of the Papal power, and indeed of the Papacy
itself, in the modem sense of the term. To him also was Rome
indebted for all its subsequent greatness. Seizing with a firm
and vigorous grasp the reins of government, which had been
allowed to drop from the listless hands of the exarchs of Ra-
venna, he raised up on the banks of the Tiber the standard of
a power around which other nations might cluster ; and Rome

;i863. Gr^gorovius' Medlmval Rome. 355

waa once more elevated from a provincial city of the Byzantine
Empire to be the capital of the Western world. Yet there is
hardly any memorable name throughout the long series of the
Koman pontifia which is associated with so few material monu-
ments of his greatness : Gregory devoted all his energies to the
political and ecclesiastical interests of the pontificate^ and the
iimes were sueh as to leave him little leisure for other occupations.
He was content to leave it to succeeding Popes to adorn the
city with churches and mosaics worthy of the capitid of Chris-
tianity ; it was enough for him to have raised it to that proud
position.

It is scarcely necessary to say that there is no foundation for
the popular tradition wluch ascribed to Gregory the Great the
deliberate destruction of the ancient monuments, any more than
for the similar story of his having wilfully burned the still
extant remains of ancient litemture. But there is no doubt
that his austere and monastic spirit would regard both the one
and the other with indifference, if not contempt ; and the purely
ecclesiastical character henceforth imparted to the government
of Rome could not fail to prove detrimental to the remains of
antiquity. Nowhere was this tendency more strongly shown'
than in the increased number and impcortance of the churches
with which Borne was adorned during the seventh and the two
ibllowing centuries. Honorius I., who ascended the Papal
throne lees than twenty years after the death of Gregory, was
one of the most active of the pontiffs in this respect. During
a reign of thirteen y^ars, besides large additions to the deco-
ration of the Basilica of St. Peter's, be rebuilt or restored the
ancient church of Sta. Agnese without the walls, that of the
Quattro Santi Coronati,and of Sta. Lucia in Selce; and erected
for the first time that of St. Adriano, remarkable as being the
jEu*8t Christian church of any importance that occu{ued a position
inunediately on the Boman Forum.

Whether from some remnant of respect for ancient memories^
or 0im{dy from the solidity and perfection of their original con-
struction, it is certain that the pagan edifices which clustered
around the Forum were long spared from destruction ; and it
was only by slow degrees that the Christian churches established
themselves in its immediate precincts. Honorius himself de-
serves the reproach of being the first to strip the gilded roof
irom the splendid temple of Venus and Borne, m ordir to adorn
the Barilioa of St. Peter's — an act of spoliation ibr which he
with difficulty extorted the necessary permission from the
Emperor Heraclius. The Byzantine emperors, indeed, still
(daimed a shadow of authority at Bome, and appear to have

356 Gregorovius* Medicsval Rome. Oct.

been still recognised as the guardians of the public buildings.
Hence we find them^ in 609, granting a similar permission to
Pope Boniface IV., for the more laudable purpose of conse*
crating the Pantheon of Agrippa as a Christian church — a
measure to which we are indebted for the matchless preservation
of that noble monument.

But the cases of such direct transformations were few. Far
more frequently it happened that a Christian church arose on
the site of some half-ruined temple, and was built in great part
out of the materials of the pagan edifice. Not less than fifty-
six churches in the modern city are supposed to have thus suc-
ceeded to ancient temples on the same sites, and though this
number is probably exaggerated, there can be no doubt of the
frequency of the practice. In all such cases it was sought, as
far as possible, to conciliate the pagan feelings, which still
lingered among the lower orders of the populace, by adapting
the choice of the sunts to whom the new churches were conse-
crated to the old traditions connected with the sites. Thus the
twin-brothers St Cosmas and St Damianus succeeded to the
twin-heroes Romulus and Remus. The two warlike saints,
St Sebastian and St George, took the place of Mars himself;
and the Temple of Romulus at the foot of the Palatine hill
was dedicated to St. Theodore, a foundling and a warrior like
the Roman king, who has succeeded also to the reputation
enjoyed by his royal predecessor as a healer of sickly infants,
which are now brought by Roman nurses and mothers to the
shrine of the Christian saint, as they were in the days of
Augustus to that of the warrior-king.

It is obvious that the stimulus thus imparted to the building
of churches must have operated, in the great majority of cases,
to the injury, if not the destruction, of the ancient monuments.
Not a church was erected at Rome during the whole course of
the middle ages that was not adorned with columns of granite
or precious marbles, or paved with porphyry and serpentine ;
ana as these costly materiab had long ceas^ to be imported
into Rome, it may safely be assumed that, in every such in-
stance, they were derived from some ancient building. Many
of them, indeed, may have been supplied by the rums of the
numerous private palaces that had covered the Seven Hills with
their stately courts and porticoes ; but it is certain that the

Eublic edifices and temples were not spared, as indeed it was
ttle likely that they should be. In many cases these had
already passed into tne hands of private persons, whose piety
would often deem that they could not be better employed than
in the adornment of the sacred edifices. The wholesale manner

1863. Gregorovius' MeduBval Rome. 357

in which this conversion of ancient materials to the con-
struction of ecclesiastical buildings was carried on^ is nowhere
better seen than in the celebrated Basilica of St. Lorenzo
without the walls of Rome, the more ancient portion of which,
erected by Pope Felagius II. towards the end of the sixth
century, is put together wholly of ancient fragments — friezes,
columns, capitals, and cornices, of the most heterogeneous cha-
racter, but all alike bearing evidence of their being derived
from previously existing buildings of a far purer style of
architecture.

Nor was the destruction confined to these ornamental mate-
rials, though it is here only that we can trace it. The massive
blocks of hewn stone would no doubt be used up as they were
required ; and even lime for cement was not to be obtained,
either in Home itself or its immediate neighbourhood, except
by the consumption of ancient materials. Probably, of all the
causes of destruction, this was one of the most active. Even in
the fifteenth century, Poggio Bracciolini tells us that he had
himself s^en the marDle columns of the Temple of Concord con-
verted into lime ; and we find repeated mention during the
darker ages of the establishment of ' lime-works ' by successive
pontiff), either for the supply of their own constructions, or for
the repair of the walls of the city. All such ' calcaria ' were
undoubtedly supplied in great part with the spoils of ancient
edifices and the fragments of mutilated statues. When the
buildings were thus stripped of their marble casings, and the
columns which had adorned or supported them, there would
still remain the nucleus of stone or brickwork, which would be
too solid to be destroyed without deliberate violence. Even this
was not wanting. In one instance, we are expressly told that
Pope Hadrian I., in order to enlarge the church of Sta. Maria
in Cosmedin, destroyed ' by fire and the united labours of a vast
' multitude of people for the space of a whole year a massive
* structure (maximum ihonumentum) of travertine.' But such
laborious Vandalism must have been rare ; and there is little
doubt that during the seventh and eighth centuries the whole
city presented the aspect of a vast wilderness of ruins, inter-
spersed as at the present day with gardens and orchards, in the
midst of which the churches and convents alone bore witness to
the first rising dawn of a new civilisation.

In a few instances only have the meagre biographies of the
Popes, which are almost our only authorities for the greater
part of this period, preserved to us any record of particular
acts of spoliation. The plunder of the golden roof of the
Temple of Venus and Borne by Pope Honorius L has been

358 Gregoroyius' Mediceval Borne. Oct.

already mentioned ; a more extensive devastation of the same
kind is recorded of the Greek Emperor, Constans 11., the kit
of the Byrantine emperors who set foot within the walls of
Home, and who signalised his visit to the capital of the West-
em world (in 663) by the display of a mpacity worthy of
Genseric himself. Even after tfie ravages of the Vandal king
and the long period of suiFering that had followed, it appeara
that the city still retained many statues' and other omamental
works of bronze, the whole of which were carried away by the
Greek Emperor, who even stripped the Pantheon, notwith-
standing its recent consecration as a church, of ihe bronze
plates that formed its roof. Yet neither he nor the Vandal
king had the courage to remove the beams of gilt bronze that
supported the roof of the portico, which were reserved for the
rapacity of an Italian Pope in the seventeenth century I *

The visit of Constans to Rome involuntarily recalls that of
his predecessor Constantius, so dtiT^rent in its circumstances and
results ; and it would be interesting to compare the state of the
city as it presented itself to the eyes of tfce one and of the
other, but the materials are unfortunately Wanting. Constans
had no Ammianus to describe his entry. But about a century
and a half later, a visitant of a far humbler class has left ns a
record which serves to throw a ray of light upon the darkness
that so long shrouds the remains of the Eternal City.

During the seventh and eighth centuries Rome had become
the resort of innumerable pilgrims, who flocked from all parts
of Western Europe to see the Holy City, and to worship at the
tombs and shrines of her saints and martyrs. None were more
prominent in this pious duty than our Anglo-Saxon forefathers,
so recently converted to Christianity ; and there even came to
be a street or quarter in the immediate neighbourhood of St.
Peter^s, known as the * Vicus Saxonum,' and inhabited exclu-
sively by Anglo-Saxon pilgrims and settlers. The worship of
relics, which had already commenced at a much earlier period,
had attained, under the auspices of Gregory the Great and his^
immediate successors, to its highest developement The posses-
sion of them became a fertile source of wealth to the churches
and convents of Rome, while they were eageriy coveted by the
more wealthy and powerful devotees. Happy were those who
could carry away with them from the Holy City the smidlest
fragment of these sacred objects ; and any means were thought
justifiable for the attainment of so holy an end. While the

* It was this act of Vandalism by Urban VIIT. (Barbarini) that
ghre occasion to the well-known, and well-deserved, pasquinade,

* Quod non fecere barbari, fecere Barbarini.'

1863. Gregorovhia' Jbdittoal Borne. 350

liombard king Astolpbus was besiegiog Rome and laying walBte
the Campagna with fire and sword, his fierce soldiers were
employed in the intenrals of their ravages in ransacking the
cconeteries withoat the walk, and plundering the catacombs of
the bodies of supposed saints and martyrs, wnich were conyeyed
with the utmost care and reverence to the cities of Lombard^,
to become the pride and treasure of their numerous church^
Even the enl%btened Eginhart, the secretary of Charlemagne,
boasts of the ULilful manner in which his agents had contriv^ to
steal the bodies of two saints — St. Marcellinus and St Peter,
not the aposde — firetn the vault where they were deposited at
Borne, and transport them to Aix-la-Chapelle.

Among the numerous jHlgrims thus attracted to Rome there
must have been some who were not insensible to the more
ancient assoeiafeions of the place, and even the most ignorant of
devotees could not fail to be struck with the grandeur of l^e
still existing monuments. The effect produced upon the minds
of the Anglo-Saxon pUgrims by the most imposing of them
all — the ccdossal amphi^eatre which still rose in unimpah^
grandeur and perfection in the midst of the ruined city — is
recorded in the well-known saying, preserved to us by the
Venerable Bede : ' While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall
'stand; when £alls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall ; and when
* Rome falls, the world.' Doubtless there was no want of
dceronij who would guide the pilgrims from church to church
and from shrine to shrine, and would point out to them,
in passing, the temples and mouldering ruins, already designated
by many a strange misnomer, and the spots with which were
associated traditions still more strangely perverted. In one
instance, at least, there was found a pilgrim, from the remote
convent of Einsiedeln in Switzerland, who had the curiosity
to note down in their order the more remarkable of the build-
ings which he saw, as well as the inscriptions still legible on
the ancient monuments, many of which have long since dis-
appeared. A fortunate accident has preserved to us this
earliest * Handbook of Rome,' and has thus enabled us to form
some idea of the aspect of the city as it presented itself to the'
eyes of a pilgrim in the days of Charlemagne.

The Roman Forum is even at the present day by far the
most striking fspot in the imperial city, not merely for its
associations with the past, but from the numerous ruins which
are still grouped luround it, and which, broken and mutilated
as they are, impress the mind of the visitor with the idea of
ancient magnificence even more strongly than the most perfect
of the isolated edifices. But far more powerful must have
been this impression at the period which we are now consider-

360 Gregorovius' Medieval Rome. Oct.

ing> The ancient temples were then most of them still stand-
ing ; and though they must probably have been already in a
state of decay^ and some at least partially in ruins, we know
that the splendid Temple of Venus and Borne, so recently
stripped of its gorgeous roof, must have been otherwise nearly
entire; the three temples of Concord, of Vespasian, and of
Saturn, at the foot of the Capitoline hill, were also nearly
perfect, so that the pilgrim was able to read the entire inscrip-
tions on their architraves ; the extensive ruins of the Basilica
Julia were known as ' the Palace of Catiline ; ' while near the
Arch of Septimius Severus stood a sanctuary connected by
Roman tradition with the very earliest ages of the city — the
little Temple of Janus, the ' index of peace and war.' This
celebrated temple is described to us by Procopius in the sixth
century (precisely as we see it represented on coins of the
Emperor Nero) as a small shrine or chapel of bronze, with
room only for the statue of the deity, and with two doors —
those famous doors, which were closed only when Home was at
peace with all the world. The preservation of such a relic
aown to the days of our anonymous guide, and even to a later
period of the middle ages*, shows bow little, in comparison
with other parts of the city, the Forum had yet suffered. Nor
was the onginal character of the place yet destroyed by the
accumulation of d^ris and rubbish. The open space or em--
placement of the Forum itself still retained its original level,
and though partially encumbered by the huge unsightly base of
the barbarous column of Phocas — that last degrading monument
of Roman servility — was still occasionally used as a place of
assembly for public purposes. As late as the year 768 we find
the assembled clergy and people of Rome proceeding to the
election of a Pope, Stephen III., on the very spot where the

Eatricians of ancient Rome had met for the election of their
ings and consuls.
By a strange accident, while the Forum had retained so much
of its ancient aspect and character, its name was totally lost in
popular usage ; and the locality was commonly known as the
' Tria Fata,' from three bronze statues supposed by. popular
superstition to represent the three Fates, but which there is good
reason to identify with the statues of the three Sibyls, mentioned
by Pliny as among the most ancient works of their class extant
in his day f, and believed to have been dedicated by the elder

♦ It is mentioned under the name of * Templum Fatale * in the
twelfth century, when it appears to have been still standing,
t Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 5. § 22.

1863. GresoroYius^ MeditBval Rome. 361

'O

Tarquin. The statues themselves, which were still standing in
the days of Procopins, had apparently disappeared in the ninth
century; but the name still clung to the locality, and the
popular assemblies are described by contemporary cluroniclers as
being held ' in tribus Fatis.'

The Sacred Way, with its ancient pavement, was still un-
covered, and the solemn ecclesiastical processions of the ninth
and tenth centuries, as they defiled along its hallowed course, still
descended from the ^ Arch of the Seven Candlesticks,' as the Arch
of Titus was commonly called, to the open space of the Forum
beneath, by the same steep slope down which the triumphant
Boman generals had led the captive Britons and Germans. On
their left hand the palace of the Csesars must have presented a
very difierent aspect from that wilderness of ruins which now
covers the Palatine hill. A part of it was still habitable, and
was occasionally occupied by the ezarchs of Kavenna and
* dukes' of Bome as late as the beginning of the eighth
century ; but from this time we find no similar notices, and it
is probable (as M. Gregorovius observes) that it was already
given up to the owls and bats in the days of Charlemagne,
who, during his repeated visits to Kome, took up his residence
in the neighbourhood of St* Peter's. But the greater part of
the vast complex of structures which had occupied the whole
Palatine hill must have been long before in a ruinous
condition. The Septizonium of Severus, which stood at the
south-western comer of the hill, was indeed still perfect, and
firom its massive construction had at an early period been occu-
pied as a fortress ; but this was evidently wholly detached from
the ' Palatium ' itself, and parts of the intervening space were
probablv already occupied, as at the present day, by gardens
and orchards. Only two small chmrches had as yet arisen on
the site ; and from the time that the palace was finally deserted
the Imperial Mount itself appears to have been uninhabited.
The Aventine, on the contrary, now one of the most desolate
quarters of Some, was in the ninth and tenth centuries well
peopled ; and, what appears to us more strange, its air was
reckoned particularly healthy. The Circus Maximus was still
comparatively perfect, and retained at least its general form.
Two triumphal arches still adorned its two extremities, *but the
obelisks were already fallen.

It is a singular fact that we are almost wholly in the dark as
to the condition of the Capitol at this period. From the days
of Cassiodorus, when the glories of the * lofty Capitol ' are
spoken of as something surpassing the conception of man, for a
space of more than five centuries its name is never mentioned

362 Gregorovtus' Medusved Rome* Oct.

ia history ; and our ancmjmoiis guide contents himself with m
bare mention of the ' Cajntolium ' thai throws no light upon
its condition. We know^ indeed, that there had arisen on the
eastern summit of the hill a convent called Sta. Maria in
Capitolio, the first mention of which is found in the year 880,
tJbougfa it was probably more ancient ; but the date of its ongi-
nal construction, as well as that of the adjoining church (now
called Sta. Maria in Araceli), is unknown. In the eleYenth
century, on the contrary, the Capitol assumes once more an
iaiportant part in the history of the city. Its strong and
isolated position rendered it a post of importance in the civil
contests by which the Romans were then distracted, and it was
for some time occupied by the powerful family of the
who fortified it with towers; but it was wrested from
hands, and their fi^rtresses destroyed, by the Emperor Henry IY«,
in 1084. It is more remarkable liiat it became at this period
the scene of numerous popular assemblies ; and the open qtaoe
between the two summits — the present Piazza del Campid^^lio
-^ which in ordinary times served as a market-place, was now
the spot usually selected by the leaders of the nobles, or the
populace, of whichever faction was for the moment triumphant^
to assemble their adhevsnts and promulgate decrees in the name
of the Romm people. Hence it is not uncommon to &id
public documents of this period conclude with the formula^
^ actum civitate Bomana apud CajntoHum.' But the hill could
have been very partially inhabited. A bull of the anli-pc^
Anadete II. (between 1130 and 1134), by which he grants to
the monastery of Sta. Maria ' the whole hill of the Ci^itd, with
^ its cottages, crypts, cellars, ffordens, fruit'treeSy • • . u>all$f
* stones, and columns,^ shows that it was at this time already
approaching the aspect that it had assumed in the days of
Pf^gio Braociolini, when he tells us that the * aurea Capitolia'
were once more become, as they had been in the days of Evander,
^ silvestribus horrida dumis.'

Of the imperial Fora we learn nothing ; how and at what
period this splendid series of monuments disappeared, we know
not. The only one of which we find any notice after the fall
of the Western Empire is the Forum of Trajan — the most
magnificent of them all — which appears to have retained at
least some portion of its splendour in the days of Gregory the
Great; but from that time we hear no more of it, except the
passing mention of its name by our anonymons guide, till the
twelfth century, when it was altogether in ruins. A chundi of
St Nicholas, ' ad columnam Trajanam,' had been built on the
site, and doubtless out of the anci^it materials; and the mention

1863. Grr^oroviuft" MedUsmd Borne* 36S

of houses and gardens among its appurtenances shows that the
surrounding space most have been in a state of complete neglectj
and was doubtless dready to a considerable extent filled up
with soil. The column alone owed its preservation to the
church thus attached to it, under the safeguard of which it was
placed ; that of Marcus Aurelius was in like manner protected
bj a small chapel at its foot dedicated to St. Andrew ; and the
monks of the neighbouring convent of St. ^Iveeter derived an
addition to tbehr reveikues from the offerings of the pilgrima
that visited and ascended the column.

Very different must have been the s(Mie which met their eyes^
as they looked from thence towards St Peter's and the Castle of
St. Angelo, from that which is now presented by the Campus
Martiua The brood plain that extends from the Pinoian hill to
the Tiber, now oocupied by the churches and palaces of the modem.
oity, and crowded with a numerous population, then offered to the
view ' the imposing aspect of a mighty city lying in nyns.^ The
gigantic remains of tiw Thermal of Agrippa and of Alexander
Severus, the Stadium of Domitian, the Odeum, the Ciroua
Agonalis (now converted into the Pia»sa Navona), the Theatre
of Pompey and that of Marcellus, the Portico of Ootavia, and
numerous other edifices, foimed a aeries unsurpassed in grandeur ;
and though most if not all of these imposing structures were
by this time in a state of ruin and decay, there was still enough
I^t in their 'diqecta membra' to enable even the feeblest
imagination to rise to a conception of their original magnifi^
oence. The Pantheon alone still rose in the midst of these
multifarious ruins in almost unimpaired perfisction, ^simple^
^ erect, severe ; ' its simplicity and severity not yet interfered
* with by the belfiriee with which it was disfigured by Urban Y III.
The Mausoleum of Hadrian, on the other side of the Tiber^
still retained its camng of white marble, and even its doors and
other ornaments of bronze ; but its statues had long since dis«
appeared, and the little chapel of St Michael, on the summit,
gave a mediaaval aspect to the whole building.

When we compare the state of the Campus Martins at this
period with that of the older quarters of Borne, we cannot fail
to perceive that the reconstruction of the moderu <aty has been
far more destructive than the desolation of the old. In the one
case almost all the monuments enumerated by the pilgrim of
ti)e ninth cefitury have made way for modem structures, and
their very foundations have been buried under the houses and
palaces of the new city ; in the other it is remarkable how
large a portion of the edifices existing at the earlier period have
survived to the present <biy, or left ruins mfficient to identify

364 Grregorovius* Medicsval Rome. Oct.

their original position. So many of these monuments (observes
Sir J. Hobhouse) have been partially preserved to this day, that
one is led to suspect that those of a slighter construction had
already yielded to violence or time, and those only had remained
which were to continue the wonder of a thousand years. We
must remember, however, that our guide would naturally
enumerate only the more conspicuous and striking of the
monuments: the Seven Hills were doubtless crowded with
obscure and nameless ruins, which would have afforded inex-
haustible subjects of interest and controversy to modem anti-
quarians, but were passed by without a thought by the pilgrim
of the middle ages.

The same destructive agencies continued in operation after
the period which we have been now considering, some of them
at least with increased intensity. The shadowy restoration of
the Western Empire under Charlemagne brought with it no
restoring influences for the imperial city. On the other hand,
the great accession to the wealth and power of the Papacy,
resulting from the donations of Pepin, of Charlemagne, and of
his son Louis, while it undoubtedly contributed to the wealth
and importance of the Papal capital, could have no other than
an injurious effect upon the preservation of the still surviving
relics of ancient Rome. The building of new churches was
carried on with increased activity (there are no names in the
long list of pontiffs more prominent in this respect than those
of Hadrian I. and Leo XII«9 the two contemporaries of Charle-
magne), and the increasing splendour of the decorations and
architecture of the new ecclesiastical structures had still to be
supplied from the same inexhaustible quarry — the remains of
the pagan city. The numerous monasteries, too, which had
arisen in every quarter of Rome, must have contributed to the
same end. More than forty of these are known to us by name
from their incidental mention in writers of the time ; and the
catalogue is doubtless far from complete. It was thus that the
external aspect of Rome was gradually assuming a predominant
ecclesiastical character ; the ruins, as well as the traditions, of
the ancient city giving way more and more to the rising spirit
of the Papacy.

But if the temporal power of the Popes had undoubtedly
a tendency to promote the material prosperity of the city, it is
not the less certain that it brought with it a long train of
attendant evils. From the moment that the Papal tiara became
the symbol of temporal sovereignty, it became also the object
of worldly ambition. The most wealthy and powerful families
of Rome disputed with one another the possession of a prize

1863. Gregorovius' Mediceval Rome. 365

'O

which conferred not only a vague and ill-defined ecclesiastical
supremacy^ but the possession of broad lands and castles, as
well as the title, at least, to the dominion of extensive provinces.
The election to the Papal throne still rested with the Boman
people — that is to say, with the assembled clergy, nobles, and
people of Borne. The German Emperors of the West claimed,
indeed, to have a right of confirmation, and often attempted to
set aside an election that had been made without their concur-
rence or that of their deputy ; but this right, like most others
in these troubled times, depended, in fact, upon the power of
those who claimed to exercise it : it was upheld an^ admitted
when asserted by a Charlemagne or an Otho, but it fell into
disuse or was trampled under foot in the case of their feeble
successors. Throughout the ninth and tenth centuries — until
just before the close of the latter — the Popes were exclusively
of Roman origin. Not less than forty-four pontiffs occupied the
chair of St Peter within the space of two hundred years, with-
out reckoning those who are rejected by ecclesiastical historians
as irregularly elected ; and it may be said with little exa^e-
ration that through this whole period there was scarcely an elec-
tion that was not marked by scenes of tumult and violence.

Assuredly no other history in the world presents so long and
continuous a series of revolutions and disorders as that of the
Papal State, from the moment of its constitution as a temporal
power to the present day. And yet the Papal power has risen
triumphant mm them alL Through ages of anarchy and con-
fusion, battling by turns with popular retolutions in the city,
with the fierce and sanguinary barons of the Campagna, with
the powerful and unscrupulous Emperors of Germany ; often
sunk apparently to the last extremity of weakness ; degraded at
times to the very last dregs of degradation; polluted by every
crime that can sully a throne, — the temporal sovereignty of the
Popes has survived all its dangers, and baffled all its enemies.

While Bome was thus distracted by civil commotions, and
torn to pieces by factions within her walls, she saw her terri-
tories and all the surrounding provinces exposed to the depre*
dations of an enemy far more assiduous and unsparing than
the Goths or the Lombards. It is to the ravages of the
Saracens in the eighth and ninth centuries that we must
mainly ascribe the desolation of the Campagna and the pro-
vinces north of the Tiber, now known as the Patrimony of St.
Peter. Their piratical squadrons had already begun to infest
the coasts of Italy before the death of Charlemagne, and gave
occasion to the first erection of those watch-towers which have
ever since formed so prominent and picturesque a characteristic

366 Gregorovius' Mediceval Rome. Oct.

'C»

of the maritime scenery of Italy. But it was not till after their
conquest of Sicily in 831 that their expeditions assumed a more
formidable character. The port of Centumcellffi^ now Civiti
Vecchia*, fell into their hands ; and Ostia was hastily fortified
by Gregory lY. in order to prevent its sharing the same fate.
The precaution was however useless, so far as the protection of
Rome itself was concerned. In 846 a numerous Saracen fleet
entered the mouths of the Tiber, and a force landing from the
ships advanced almost without opposition to the very gates of
Rome. The walls of the city, indeed, might defy the efforts of
invaders who came without any preparations for a regular si^e;
but their object was plunder, and not conquest, and without the
walls, unprotected as yet by any fortifications, lay the two great
sanctuaries of the Roman world, the basilicas of St. Peter and
St. Paul, rich with the accumulated offerings of five centuries,
which had been spared by the Goths, the Vandals, and the
Lombards, but now fell a prey to a predatory band of Mussul*
mans. A few days sujficed to carry off all the treasures that
had been presented to these hallowed shrines by emperors and
popes, by prelates and nobles, from the days of Constantine to
those of Charlemagne, which were hastily deposited in the
ships of the Saracens and carried off to Africa. The Mark-
grave Guide of Spoleto, summoned in all haste by the Pope to
his assistance, arrived in time to pursue the invaders to their
ships, but too late to recover any portion of their booty.

Great indeed must have been the consternation of the Romans
at such a catastrophe* The mischief done was irr^nediable, but
it was necessary to guard against its repetition ; and with this
view Pope Leo IV. — a pontiff of more than common energy
and ability — hastened to enclose the sacred precincts of St
Peter's within the fortifications of the city. Around the great
basilica itself there had clustered many smaller churches and
convents, and an extensive suburb had gradually grown up,
peopled for the most part by foreigners — Saxons, Lombards,
Frisians, Franks and others — ^who had come to Rome as pilr
grims, and established themselves permanently in the neigh-
bourhood of the holy places. The whole of this new quarter —
hitherto known only as ' the suburb,' ^ il Borgo,' a term familiar

* The inhabitants retired to the interior, and lived scattered
over the country for forty years, till they were gathered together
by Leo IV., who settled them in a new city to which he gave the
name of Leopolis. Bat the new colony did not prosper, and
before long the inhabitants determined to return to their original
home, which has been called * the old city * (Civit^ Vecchia) ever
since.

1863. Gregorovius' MedioBiml Rome. 367

to all lovers of art from the title of RaflEaelle'B celebrated fresco
— was now snrrounded with a wall by Leo, and the pious work,
assisted by contributions from all parts of Italy, was carried on
wHh such activity that the new fortifications were completed
within four years (848-852). It was the first permanent
addition made to the city since the wi^s of Rome were first
erected by Anrelian ; and the new quarter deservedly bore the
name of its founder, and continued to be known throughout the
middle ages as ^ the Leonine City ' (Civitas Leonina).

The immediate object of the addition thus made to the for-
tifications of Rome was, doubtless, no other than the protection
of the tomb of St. Peter and the surrounding churches and
monasteries ; but the new quarter soon assun^ a prominent
place in the history of the city for other reasons. The Leonine
City continued to be separated from the adjoining parts of Rome
by the old walls, which were not destroyed. The Castle of
St Angelo, which had already been converted into a strong
fortress, with flanking walls down to the river, commanded the
approach to the bridge, and could cut off all communication
between the new suburb and the portions of the city on the
other side of the Tiber. Hence the Pope, if established at
St. Peter's, could maintain the new city as a separate fortress ;
<m the other hand, the Roman people could shut against him
the gates of their own city, and confine him to the isolated
quarter in which he found himself; and whenever a hostile
&ction succeeded in making itself master of the fortress of
St. Angelo, it rendered it impossible for the Pope to proceed
from one of the great basilicas to the other, or from the palace
of the Lateran to that of the Vatican.

Among the numerous unsatisfactory suggestions that have
i>een proposed, at the present day, for the solution of that diffi-
cult problem — ^the establishment of the Pope at Rome in an
independent ecclesiastical position, when shorn of his temporal
sovereignty — a favourite idea has been that of confining him
to the Leonine City, leaving him uncontrolled jariediction over
this quarter, similar to that of an abbot over the precincts of
his abbey, but with no other power in the rest of Rome than
the ecdesiastical supremacy he would enjoy over the rest of the
Catholic world. That which has been proposed in modern
times as a pacific solution of a difficulty, was repeatedly brought
about in the middle ages b^ the contests of rival factions.
More than once did the Pope maintain himself in the posses-
sion of the Leonine City, when all the other quarters of Rome
were held against him by hostile nobles or the insurgent popu-
lace ; sometimes, on the other hand, the Leonine City itself

368 Gr^orovius' MedicRval Rome. Oct.

fell into the hands of his enemies, who debarred him from all
access to the tomb of St Peter. Hadrian IV. went so far as
to lay all the rest of Borne under an interdict, while he himself
was confined within the walls of the Papal quarter — a spectacle
we might possibly see renewed in our own day, if the ingenious
expedient just suggested were carried into effect.

The efforts of Leo IV. were not confined to the fortification
of the city. He concluded a league with the maritime re-
publics of Naples, Amalfi, and Graeta, which were just begin-
ning to rise into importance, and with their asdstance obtained
a decisive victory over the Saracen fleet in the neighbourhood
of Ostia — a success which M. Gregorovius does not hesitate to
compare to the battle of Lepanto, but which owes its chief
celebrity at the present day to its having been made the subject
of one of Raffaelle's famous frescoes in the Stanze of the
Vatican. But neither this victory, nor that obtained by
Pope John VIII. in person over the Saracen fleet off Cape
Circeo, was able to check the depredations of these formidable
pirates. The maritime republics found it safer and more pro-
fitable to conclude treaties with the infidels; they afforded
shelter to their fleets, and even united their forces with them as
allies. But the dangers from the Saracens were not confined
to the sea. Their prepress by land was even more alarming.
After making themselves masters of some of the fairest pro-
vinces in the south of Italy, they established themselves per-
manently on the banks of the Grarigliano, and laid waste, with
fire and sword, the whole of the Boman Campagna from one
extremity to the other. The two most celebrated monasteries
in Italy — that of Monte Casino in the valley of the Liris,
and that of Faria on the Sabine lulls — alike fell victims to
their fury. Numerous minor convents shared the same fate ;
and Kome was crowded with priests and monks flying fi^m
their desolated abodes. The walls of the city afforded them a
secure asylum, but they looked down from thence on nothing
but smoking ruins and an unpeopled waste. * Tlie towns, the
' castles, the villages '(wrote the unhappy pontiff, John VIIL),
'all are gone, together with their inhabitants. Outside the

* walls all is waste and desolate ; the whole Campagna is depo-

* pulated ; nothing remains for our support, or that of the con-

* vents and holy places ; all around the city, wherever the eye
'can reach, not a man, not a child, is to be seen.' One is
tempted to suspect such compliunts of exaggeration ; but there
remains sufficient evidence now complete was the devastation
of the Campagna at this period. The ravages of the Saracens
on the Garigliano were no passing incursion, no hasty storm

1863. Gregorovius* Medimval Rome. 369

sweeping over the land^ and then leaving the inhabitants to
return to their homes and resume their agricultural labours.
They were continued almost incessantly for a period of more
than forty years, during which they rendered all cultivation
impossible. Natural causes soon contributed to aid in the work
of destruction : malaria took permanent possession of the deso-
lated plains, and converted the Roman Campagna into the
fever-stricken waste which it has continued to this day.

This mysterious scourge, which was far from unknown even
in the most flourishing ages of Rome, had made itself felt with
iaoreasing power as the prosperity and population of the city
declined ; and the neighbouring country became unhealthy in
proportion as it became unsafe. Even during the Gothic wars
the army of Yitjges suffered severely from its encampment
without the walls in the unhealthy Campagna; and on many
occasions through the middle ages the ravages of fever in the
invader's camp were among the most efficient auxiliaries in the
defence of Rome. The em>rts of some of the more enlightened
pontiffs, in periods of comparative tranquillity, were repeatedly
devoted to the restoration of the population and culture of the
neighbouring provinces ; and numerous agricultural settlements
had been made with this view under the name of * domus cult»,'
which appear to have resembled very much those established in
the last century by Pius VI. with the same object But all
these were swept away by the destructive ravages of the Sara-
cens ; and their very sites are, in many instances, as uncertain
as those of the petty cities of Latium.

The devastations of the Saracens were carried up to the very
foot of the walls of Rome, but they never penetrated within
that barrier; and during the ninth and tenth centuries the city
itself was left to the silent and gradual operation of the various
destructive as well as renovating agencies which have been
already indicated. The next great catastrophe which changed
the aspect of Rome, and stamped its impress on the city for all
future time, was brought about by the arms of a Uhristian
potentate, who appeared as the ally and defender of the pontifical
throne. The capture of Rome by Robert Guiscard, in 1085,
renders the eventful reign of Gregory VII. as important
an epoch in the material history of the city as it constitutes in
the ecdeiuastical history of Europe. All the historians of the
city are agreed in estimating that more damage was done to the
monuments and edifices of Rome by the Norman prince than
by all former invaders. «

This is no place to dwell upon the memorable career of
Gregory VII., or the history of his long-protracted contest

VOL. CXVIII. KO. CCXLII. B B

870 Gregorovius' Mediaval Jtame, Oct.

with the Emperor Henry IV. ; but the events which marked
the dose of that struggle bad so cUrect and iii4>ortant an
influence upon the fortunes of the city, that ikej claim a
brief notice. For a lime fortune appeared to &your the side of
the German emperor, who was burning to avenge his humiliation
at CanoBsa hj inflicting similar disgrace upon the Boman
pontiff. Nothing can afford a stronger evidence of the indo-
mitable energy of Hildebrand than the inflexible resolution with
which he maintained the defence of Bome agunst ibe emperor
through a siege of nearly three years' duratioa ; and the as-
cendancy of his powerful spirit is shown in the devotion with
whidii the Boman people, usually so little disposed in favour ct
their spiritual lords, dung to his standard for so long a period
with unprecedented firmness. After a si^e of seven months
Henry succeeded in surprising the walls o£ the Leonine City,
and after a sanguinary combat made himself mastar of SL
Peter's; but Crregory made his escape to the Castle o£ St. Angdo,
from whence he continued to defy the arms of Ins enesues.
The Bomans still remained faithful to him, but in vain en-
deavoured to induce the stem pontiff to listen to terms of
conciliation. Bepeated negotiations were opened, but all without
effect. At length the patience of the Bomans was exhausted ;
they oonduded a tre^y with Henry, and admitted him witiun
their walls. Many of the nobles, however, still adhered to the
Papal cause ; and tiiiey hdd sqwrate strongholds within the ci^,
which they had fortified with care. Two of the strongest of
these were the Septizonium at the southern angle of the Palatine,
and the still more celebrated CiqiitdL But one by one aU these
s^Murate fortresses fell before the arms of Henry : the Castle <^
St. Angelo al(»ie held out, in which Gregory had shut himself
up, determined not to yield, though now amiled by the combined
arms of the Bomans uid the Germans.

His resolution was not the mere energy of despair; he bad
already repeatedly invdked the assistance of Bob^ Guiacard,
who at length hastened to his relief with a fimnidable army,
with which that of the emperor was wholly unequal to contend.
No sooner were the lances of the Normans seen to glitter on
the heights near Palestrina, than Henry hastened to evacuate
Bome ; and his troops had scarcely ceased to defile through the
Flaminian gate> when Ghiiscard had established has camp at that
of the Laieran. The Bomans f(a a time made a gallant resirt-
ance; but treachery opened (me of the gates to uie Normansj
who soon made theinselvc^ masters of the whole dty. For
three days long w^re the streets of Bome the soene of every
description of rapine and violence; a despairing outbreak of the

1868. Gfegorovim' Medimmd Borne. 371

wretched inhabttaats on the third day could only be repressed
by the most violent exertions on the part of the invadm, who
set fire to the houses and thm gave rise to a general oonflagratioa.
The whole of the extensive quarter from the Lateran to the
Coliseum, at that time one of tiie most thickly peopled in
Bome, was reduoed to ashes; aad the cdebrated daurohes of
San Clemente and the Quattro Sanii Coronati, besides ouoy
of inferior »rte, were involved in tite geneial ruin. Another
destrootive conflagration^ though apparently lees extensivey had
arisen in the Campus Martms immediatdy after the fivst
entrance of the Normans. It is diffiooh indeed to estimate the
predse amount of damage inflicted. Very few details are pre-
served to us by the contemporary chroniclers, but they all i^ree
m the l»road and general statement that ^ great part of the
dty' was burned and destroyed; and tradition preserved the
memory of the catastnmhe down to the fifteenth centoryy wkeia
Fkvio Biondo, the earliest writer on the antiquities of Borne,
soms up its results in the conclusion that the city was then
first rednoed to the miseraUe conditioii in which he himsdf
beheld it

The injury inflicted by Guisoard was never repaired. It is
certain that from this penod we may trace Ae gradual abandon^
ment of the southern quarters of the city, and the removd of
the population from ^e lulls to the plain of the Campus
Martius. The Coelian and the Aventtne, both of which had be^i
among the most thickly peopled portions of the city, became
almost deserted, a few old dinrches only continuing to raise
llieir heads in Ihe midst of ruins. The desolate spaces were
gradually occupied by gard^is and vineyards, which served to
veil th^ dreariness, and, as at the present day, contributed to
the picturesque aspect of the ruins which uiey sorrounded,
while they silently and slowly co-<^perated in the work of tbefar
destmctioa. The Palatine appears never to have been occu^ed
by any conriderable population ; probably the gigantic masses
of ruins with which it was still enoumbeted prevented, it from
bong selected as a convenient site for frerii habitatioiis. The
Formn must have been by this time in a state of great decay,
thoQ^ perhaps still retaining its andent form and diatacter;
and it is generally supposed i^ antiquarians, though on no Tery
condusive evidence, tiiat the accumulation of the vast manses of
mbbirii, with which it is now filled up to eo great a depth, is
derived in great measure from this period. It is very protadile
tiiat it may then have commemcedf bat the recent exoavatbns
hflpredeariy shown that Ae suooesstve aocmnnlatioM of oentsries
ha^veeontEibuted to the formation of the tUeketnUomaf^t^im

372 Gregorovios' Medusval Rome. Oct.

that has serred as the floor of the modem Campo Vaccino. The
enormous extent of such accumulations in other places is well
. seen at the back of the so-called Temple of Peace, where they
support an extensive garden at a height above half-way up the
gigantic arches of the Duilding. Another remarkable instance
may be observed in the celebrated church of San Clemente,
which appears to have been rebuilt by Paschal IL about the
year 1 100, when it was found expedient to raise the level of the
new church to such an extent that the remains of the ancient
edifice, with its columns still standing, were buried to a depth
of more than twelve feet beneath the floor of the modem church,
where they have only been brought to light within the last few
years.

But however great was the damage done to the surviving
monuments of antiquity by the Norman prince and his followers,
it would be unjust to ascribe to them a greater share than they
really bore in the work of ruin. We have no doubt that Gibbon
has formed a just estimate when he reckons the domestic
hostilities of the Romans themselves as ' the most potent and
* fonuble ' of all the causes of destruction. And this cause was
never in more active operation than during the two centuries
which followed the sack of the city by Guiscard. The custom,
which had originated at a much earlier period, of occupying as
strongholds and fortifying with additional defences the ancient
edifices, whose masdve construction might bid defiance to the
feeble engines of attack employed in those days, attained to its
greatest height in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The
rival fiunilies, by whose turbulence and ambition Rome was dis-
tracted throughout that period — the Pierleoni and Frangipani,
the Graetani.and Savelli, the Orsini and Colonnas — had each
their separate fortress within the city, and in almost every
instance had established themselves in some one or other of the
andent monuments. Thus we find the Coliseum occupied
alternately by the Annibaldi and the Frangipani ; the Theatre of
Marcellus by the Pierleoni, and, after their extinction or decline,
by the ^velli ; that of Pompey, of which extensive ruins still
remained, by the Orsini ; the Mausoleum of Augustus became
the stronghold of the Colonnas, while that of Hadrian con-
tinued to be the citadel, and often the main bulwark, of the
Papal Government

Nor was the practice confined to these more extensive edifices.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the construction of
strong and lofty towers for defence was an expedient resorted
to by the nobles in almost all the cities of Italy, and nowh«:e
did this practice prevail more than at Bome. ^ To this mis-

1863. Gregorovius' Medkmai Rome. 373

' ohievous purpose/ observea GKbbon^ ' tlie remains of antiquity

* were most readily adapted ; the temples and arches afforded a

* broad and solid basis for the new structures of brick and stone/
Almost every ancient building in the neighbourhood of the
Fornm seems to have been thus appropriated. The Arch of Titus
was surmounted by a tower called the Turris Cartularia, which
became the nucleus of a more extensiye fortress, one of the
chief strongholds of the Frangipani ; the Temple of Janus, in
the Forum of Nerva, was occupied by a tower belonging to
another member of the same powerful family ; the Arch of Con*
stantine had been employed as a fortress as early as the tenth
century ; that of Severus underwent a still more perilous ordea!,
for half of it was occupied by one proprietor who erected his
tower upon it, while the other half was dwned by another owner,
and seems to have been connected with other buildings.

To such an extent had this practice been carried in the thir*
teenth century, that in 1257, when a general demolition of the
towers of the nobility was ordered by the senator Brancaleone,
not less than a hundred and forty of them were destroyed at
one time ; and notwithstanding this sweeping demolition, they
speedily multiplied again, and became abnost equally numerous,
so that in the fifteenth century we are told that forty-four
towers were standing in one re^on of the city alone. The
damage done by this means to the ancient monuments is incal-
culable. The materials for the new constructions would often
be taken without scruple from some neighbourhig ruin; and
even where the ancient structure was for a time preserved by
being incorporated in the massive tower, it would always be
liable to share its fate and be involved in one common destruc**
tion. Almost every revolution in the city was accompanied
with the overthrow of the strongholds of the defeated faction ;
and the excited victors would be little likely to regard the
difference between the ancient basement and the more recent
superstructure.

When Brancaleone, on the occasion already mentioned,
endeavoured to restore peace and good order to the city by the
extirpation of these nests of lawless robbers, we are told by a
contemporary chronicler that he destroyed *all the ancient
' palaces that were still standing, the tbermie, the temples, and
^ vast numbers of columns.'* Doubtless this statement is
greatly exaggerated, but it cannot have been without foundation ;
and in several other instances we have distinct mention of the

* Albertino Mussato in Muratori. Rer. RaL SeriptoreSf torn. x.
p. 508.

S74 Gx^QMyfrai' MMmoml Bonu. Got

doUbenitedestnietionofaDdentiiioaiiineiita. TknwelMndbil
the Mantoleom of Hadrian, which had still retained its aaeieat
fonn asd (diaractar, netwitbatuding tiiie Bumeroiia siegea that
it bad snataiDed, was at length foroibly stripped of its naxfafe
casing, after it had been takea by assault by the popvlaoe ia
1378; tbey were only jMreyented from effecting its total d»»
strucdon by the masttye solidity of the central building itself,
which dsfied all their efforts. The Septisoniom of Sevvns bad
in like manner suffered severely wbra it was besiegsd by the
Emperor Henry IV. ; and though the engines of atteok m the
middle ages were fortunately &r less destmetiYe than our
modem artillery, it is difficult to look bade iKKm the perpetnal
series of assaults to which every building of importance
exposed ia those days without wondering that sa many
vived.

There can be no doubt that the centuries which ioDowed the
great catastrophe of 1084 produced a complete change m the
aspect of Borne, and that, as it slowly rose again from its asbas,
, k would gradually assume the diaraeter and ur of a mediflvil
city, bristling with towers and studded with dmrches ud
monasteries; its population, so scanty when compared widi
the extent of its walls, crowded into particular quarters, whese
they dwelt in lofty houses, with narrow and winding stsesia
When Sixtus IV., in the fifteenth century, first turned hit at*
tentbn to the embellishment and improvement of die modcn
<uty, the streets were extronely cnxdced and irregular, often
so narrow that two horaemen could not pass one another, aid
encumbered moreover with heavy balconies projecting firom the
housea on both sides, which became a formidable msouroe ia
time of civil tumults, wJien heavy household ntensila and
missiles of all kinds were show^ed down from diem upon the
heada of the combatants bdow. Hence the Pope is said to
have been actuated in part by the same motive mich has hsd
so large an influence in the recent improvements of Paris the
desire to render the streets accessible to the operations e£ troops,
without which he could never foel that he was really msstnr of
the city-

But we are here antieipating a mudi latur period in the
history of the city, and one for which we have net yet the
advantage of our author's guidance. In the volumee now before
us, M. Gregorovins has bronght down the history of me<U«nl
Bome to the dose of the twelfth century; it will prckMj
require at least two nuNre volumes to trace the vicissitudes of
the city through the period whidi still separates him from the
allotted term of his labours — the capture of Bome by the

1868. Gregororins* Medksval Borne. 375

Bourbon in 1627. The interral is one belli erentful and in-
ter^ting; and we look forward with pleasure to the period
when we ehall b^m, in company wim our able guide, to
emei^ from the darkness Of the middle ages, and to hail the
first dawn of an awakened interest in the great relics of anti-
quitv ; to take our seat with Poggio Braoeiolini on the summit
of the CapitoUne hill, and survey the ruins around us ; and to
trace step bj step with Flaino !Biondo the enumeration of the
monuments that still survived when Borne had passed dirough
the lonff ordeal of the middle ages.

Thekter potions of the work already published are occupied
to a much greater extent than the earUer volumes with Ihe
political and civil history of Bome; and there are probably
many of our readers for whom these historical narratnres will
have more attraction than the archsoological topics to which
we have confined our attrition. M. Gregorovius has related
the revolutions of the city with clearness and vigour. But the
medisBval history of Bome, though not without many striking
episodes and romantic incidents, is far from possessing the
enduring interest which attaches to lliat of Florence, of Genoa,
or of Venice. There is something at once wearisome and
painful in the spectacle which it presents, of a perpetual suc-
cession of revolutions without any permanent result, of a
people for ever struggling for the appearance of freedom
without ever attaining to the reality, and continually seeking
in a change of masters that security for good government which
they always ikiled to obtun by their own exertions. It was in
Tain that the Boman people rose in insurrection by turns
agunst the Pope and against the Emperor; in vain that they
dirove out alternately their ecclesiastiod rulers and their feudal
^rrants ; in vain that they planted the standard of liberty on
the Capitol, and attempted to restore the forms of the ancient
commonwealth. For a time, indeed, it seemed as if a brighter
prospect had opened before them under the auspices of Arnold
of Brescia, by fiur the most meere and upright of the popular
leaders who at different periods proclaimed the freedom of the
Boman people. But it has been remarked, with as much truth
as bitterness, tliat of the reforms which he attempted to intro-
duce 'some were no more than ideas, others no more than
'words.' After the execution of. the noble-minded Arnold
himself^ who had been basely abandoned by the unworthy
Bomans, the republic soon sank into anarchy and confusion in
the hands of a factious and avaricious nobtlity, of a corrupt
and servile people. The involution of the twelfth century,
which for a brief interval seemed destined to restore the Boman

376 Gregorovius' MedkevcU Rome. Oct

republic^ has transmitted nothing to posterity beyond the tide
of Senator, which is still borne by the civil ffovemor of
Borne under the Papal authority, and the *Pwu» of the
Senator/ which has ever since occupied the brow of the
CapitoL

If we pause to inquire why the Romans never attained to
permanent freedom — why those republican institutions whidi
in the very same century produced such brilliant results in the
cities of Lombardy, which flourished so long in Tosoaoy, at
Gknoa, and at Venice, proved so ephemeral and 8hort4i?ed in
the Papal city — the answer is not hard to find. The Boman
people were unworthy to enjoy a liberty which they had not
earned, and for which they had done nouing to qualify them.
It was the progress of industry that had produced, as well as
enriched, the Italian republics. When the cities of Lombardy
raised the standard of freedom against Frederic Baibaroesi,
they were already amongst the most opulent and thriving towns
in Europe ; and they continued throughout the middle ages to
be active seats of manufacturing industry. . Pisa and Florence,
Genoa and Venice, rose to freedom as well as power by thdr
commercial energy and ability. It is only from industry, and
that, feeling of independence which industry alone confers, that
a people can derive the strength to be free. But tbe B(xnaiis
never were an industrious people. As early as the seventh and
eighth centuries they began to depend upon foreigners, and the
influx of pilgrims had already come to be essential to the pro*
sperity of the Holy City. The pilgrims of those days, among
whom were wealthy prelates and barons as well as poor
peasants and barefooted friars, were as important to the
Bomans as are the Bussian princes or English * milordi ' at the
present time ; and foreigners flocked thither to purchase rosariee
and relics, as they do in our own days mosaics and cameoi.
The same characteristic is found again at a later period ; ud
the institution of the jubilee by Boniface VIII., in the year
1300, had the effect of attracting enormous numbers rf
stranffers to Bome, and for a time enriched the inhaUtants of
the cily, while it poured vast sums into the Papal treasury.
But all such * casual riches ' will speedily disappear whoi not
recruited by trade or industry ; and the translation of the Holy
See from Bome to Avignon, only a few years after the celebrt-
tion of the first jubilee, revealed but too plainly the secret of
the poverty of Bome. During the absence of the Papal Court
the oity declined so rapidly that the population is said to have
sunk to 17,000 inhabitants ; the streets were half deserted, and
even many of the churches were given up to the bats and

1863. Ghregorovius' Medieval Rome. 377

owIgu The Bomans found that they might drive awaj the
Popes, but they could not live without them.

A people 80 devoid of resources in itself could never hope
to be free. The character of the Roman populace in the
middle ages is drawn by contemporary chroniclers in the darkest
eolouiB, and, with every allowance for the clerical bias by which
these writers were actuated, there is abundant evidence to
support their charges. A people without industry will neces-
sarily be poor and dependent, and a poor and dependent people
will ever be venal and corrupt. Tfa« astounding rapidity and
suddenness with which their ratemal revolutions succeeded one
another was due in great measure to the fact that the populace
were always ready to desert the standard of one leader for that
of another who promised them greater gain or distributed his
laigesses more liberally. Turbuknt and seditious among them-
selves, but envious of their neighbours, they were actuated by
a hatred of the rival cities of Tivcdi and Tusculum even more
bitter than that which they entertained for their priestly
governors. But their petty wars with these neighbouring
towns, whidi remind us of the early struggles of the infant
Boman republic, could boast of no triumphs, and were re-
peatedly marked by sanguinary and disgraceful defeats. The
CMittles oi Monte Porzio and Viterbo were as calamitous, in
proportion to the relative state of the Bomans of those days, as
had been those of Thrasymene and Cannte. The ferocious
hostility with which they destroyed Tusculum and Albano, when
drcumstanees, rather than the force of arms, had at length
thrown these places into their power, and the implacable fury
with which they sought to inflict the same fate upon Tivolij
have impressed as dark a stain upon their annals as the shame
of their previous discomfitures. It was not without reason
that St Bernard inveighed against them as for ever talking
gieat things, though their de^s were little. The Bomans of
the present day, for whom we fain would hope that time has
better thines in %tore, may look back with pride to the glories
of ancient days, but assuredly they will derive little encourage-
ment from the example, and little satisfaction from the recollec-
tion, of what their fordTathers did in the middle ages.

378 Cadattral Survey of Cheat Britain. Oet.

Abt. IIL — 1. Account of the Principal Triangulation of Great
Britain.. London: 1858.

2. Eatensian of the Triangulation of the Ordnance Survey into
France and Belgium^ By Cobml Sir Hekrt Jaubs,
B.E. F.K& London: 1802.

3. An Account of the Operations carried on for AcconqfUehtny a
Trigmwrnetrieal Survey of England and Wales; from Hte
Commencement, in the Year 1784, to the End (fthe Year 1794.
By Ci^tain William Mudob and Mr. Isaac Dalbt.
L(mdon: 1799.

4. Report of tlie Select Committee on the Cadastral Survey,
ordered by the House of Commons to be printed. 1862.

AGOHTBOYEXST has for many years been g(Mng on respecting
tiie Snnrey of Great Britain. The one-inch Ordnance
Map, and its nnmerom inaccoracies, must be familiar to oar
readers. Erery year these inaceoracies increase* Changes axe
made in the face of the conntry with a rapidity that leaves the
revisions of the Survey Department hopelessly in arrear. The
map^ when first published^ was not correct ; and, although by
continual care some errors have been eliminated^ it is generally
agreed that the map is not sufficiently accurate for the require-
ments of die country.

The question of accuracy has of late years been compKeated
by a dispute as to the scale on which the Gt>vemment Survey
should be published. One inch to a mile was found too small
for anything but a travelling or general map. In 182S, a tene-
ment survey was required m Irdand. The scale of six inches
to a mile was somewhat hastily seleeted. The advantages of
the six-inch over the one-inch scale soon became evident ; but
many sdentific men were of opinion that even nx inches was
not hurge enough. It was then proposed to survey the whole of
QtteoX Britain on what is called a Cadastral scale. Twenty-five
inches to a mHe^ or *0004 of the lineal measure of the gnrnnd^
the scale upon which Government jrians are drawn in France,
was that wnich found most advocates. But its opponents were
neither few nor silent Men eminent in science can be ap-
pealed to by both sides, and, until now, no Government has
ventured to throw the weight of its authority into the balance.
It may be presumed that hesitation is at length at an end.
A committee of the House of Commons investigated the subject
in 1862, and the late Sir George Comewall Lewis stated^ during

1863. Cenlastral Survey of Great Brikdtu 379

the eariy part of last Sesnon, that the Cabinet had decided on
reoommeztding Partisraent to adc^t its recommendaticms.

We propose to dinntertiie subject from the mass of Blue-books
which haye accumulated over it^ and to state in plain words
what is to be done. No subject can become popular while its
details are not easily accessible. The Ordnance Survey has
been unusually unfortunate in this respect It has been in
progress nearly eighty years. The department intrusted with
its conduct has presented an annual report to Parliament;
but these reports offer little to attract the attention of the
general reader, and were spee^ly consigned to the limbo of
roigotten Blue-books. They were usually honoured, on their
appearance, by a paragrapn in the daily newspapers, and
afforded an opportunity, when the Ordnance estimates were
under consideration, for a select band of experts to express
opinions in the House of Commons, which other members
neither understood nor cared to understand. The public
had a vague idea that a few country gentlemen wished their
estates to be surveyed at the public expense, on such a scale
that an English county would cover the floor of Westminster
Hall. The opponents of a cadastral survey took advantage
of the popular impression ; and, as it is more easy to cavil
than to argue, and tak» less time to make an assertion than
to disprove it, the opponents often got the best of the debate.
Graduidly, the question became involved in a mist of doou>*
mentary evidence. Select Committees were appointed; and,
as every member of a committee can call his own witnesses,
no member found it difficult to elicit evidence in ftvour of his
own theory, to which he might triumphantly refer hereafter.
Between 1851 and 1663, fourteen Blue-books ware presented
to Parliament. Among them were the reports of three Select
Committees, and one "Rorpl Commission, besides two ponderous
volumes of correspondence, and Treasury minutes, papers,
and progress reports innumerable. The Committee of 1861
and 1862 succeeded to this rich harvest of Blue-books. The
reports of former investigations were submitted to them, and
tiiey received oral evidence to fiU up any hiatus which they
might discover. Their inquiries were limited by the instruc-
tions of the House to the single question, whether or not a
cadastral survey of Great Britam should be made.

The French term * cadastral,' from cadrer^ to square, has of
late years been generally adopted on the Continent, and is
now used in England to denote a survey on a large scale. A
cadastral as closed to a topographical map may be defined
to be one on which the objects represented, agree, as to thek

380 Cadastral Survey of Great Britain. Oct

relative positions and dimensions, wiUi the objects on the £Eboe
of the country ; while a topographical map, drawn on a small
scale, exaggerates, for the sake of distinctness, the dimensions of
houses, and the breadth of roads and streams; and is, owin^ to
its smaller size, necessarily less correct than a cadastral pLuL
The Survey of the United Kingdom^ is in ftiture to be made
sufficiently large to admit of its being drawn, or as it is techni-
cally called < plotted,' on the sode of *0004, or ^h^ ^^ ^
linear measure of the ground. This scale has been generally
adopted throughout those parts of Europe in which a Cadastnd
Survey is in progress. It corresponds so nearly to twenty-five
inches to one mile, that it is usually spoken of as the 25-inch
scale. It has the further advantage of bearing within a very
small fraction, the proportion of one inch to an acre.

In former days, every survey required by the Government
was made separate and independent. Each miriit be accurate
in itself, and the objects represented in each might be placed in
their proper relative position; but no place was represented in
its exact position with reference to distant objects beyond the
limits of the plan which contained it. The country was
surveyed piece-meal, like a series of private estates. The first
publi^ed Ordnance plans of Kent and Essex were drawn with
reference to the meridian of Greenwich, those of Devon and
Cornwall with reference to the meridian of Butterton Bill,
those of Dorsetshire with reference to the meridian of Black
Down. It is obvious that a national survey, to be of any
value, must be referable to one uniform system of triangula*
tion — in other words, that the survey of the whole kingdom,
if put together, should accurately fit, one sheet into another,
and represent the actual bearing of every object noted to every
other, nowever distant.

The principal triangulation of the United Kingdom, which
was commenced in 1763, was comfdeted only in 1858. It was
originally undertaken by Greneral Boy, for the purpose of deter-
mining with accuracy the relative positions of Greenwich and
Paris. The present energetic director of the Survey Office,
Sir Henry James, B.E., enjoys the crowning honour of having
connected, in 1862, the triangulation of the United Kingdom
with those of France and Belgium. The completion of this
work has conferred great benefits on astronomical andgeodetical
science. It has now been found possible to measure an arc of
parallel extending from Yalentia, in the w^t, to the town of Orak,
on the extrenie east of European Russia — probably, as the
Astronomer Boyal has remarked, the longest that will ever be
measured by man.

1863. Cadastral Survey of Great Britain. 381

Conndering the inacoessibility of the Highlands of Scotland
in the early part of the eiffhteenth century, it is curious that
the first operations of mihtary surveying ever undertaken in
this country were commenced at Fort Augustus. The Rebel-
lion of 1745, which terminated in the following year at the
battle of Culloden, convinced the Grovemment of the day
how infinitely important it would be to explore and lay open
a country so difficult of access. It was determined to carry
roads of communication to the remotest parts of the Higlib-
lands, and to establish military posts in their inmost re-
cesses. A body of infantry was encamped, in 1747, at Fort
Augustus ; and General Watson, then Quartermaster*6eneral
to Lord Blakeney, conceived the idea of making a map of the
Highlands. The survey was afterwards carried out by General
Boy. The original intention was to confine the work to the
Highlands; it was extended to the Lowlands, and ultimately
comprised nearly all the mainland of Scotland. It was never
finisned; and, owing to the inferiority of the instruments
employed, must ratl^, as General Boy himself observed, be
considered a magnificent military sketch than a very accu-
rate map. The oreaking out of the war, in 1755, prevented
its compieticm, and diverted to other services tHose who had
been engaged upion it.

In 1763, the Government for the first time entertained the
idea of making a survey of the whole island at the public
cost. Many years elapsed before the plan was seriously
undertaken. The American war furnished employment to the
engineers who would have been intrusted with the work. The
authorities waited for the return of peace to commence it. But
General Boy had acquired a taste for surveying, and its con-
comitant arrays of interminable figures and heart-breaking
equations, not altogether intelligible to the uninitiated. When-
ever he could snatch a moment from his military duties, he
occupied his leisure by observing such places as might hereafter
prove adapted to the measurement of bases, for the great trian-
gles of a future survey*

So<m after the peace of 1783, General Boy was as usual
occujned, en amateur, in ' measuring a base of 7,744*3 feet, across
^ the fields between the Jewsharp near Marybone, and Black
• ^ Lane near Fancras, as a foundation for a series of triangles
* carried on at the same time for determining the relative situa-
' tions of the most remarkable steeples, and other places in and
' about the capital, with r^ard to each other and the Boyal
' Observatory at Greenwich. While thus engaged, a message
from the King called him to employment more lucrative and

882 Cadastral Survey pf Qfot BriUdiu Oct

not less coDgeniaL A correi^ndeDee had been for Bome time in
progress between the Count d' Adh^nar^ the Frendi ambassador,
and Mr. Fox, in which the former had insisted on the great
advantage which would acenie to astronomical seienoe by car^
^Dg a series of triangles from the neighbourhood of Lfondoo
to Dover, there to be connected with the triangulation already
OKecuted in France. The King had approved of the design,
and agreed to bear a part of the necessary expenses. The re-
maining moiety was to be defrayed by the Boyal Sooie^.

Gen^rad Boy comm^iced his (q)eration8 by measuring a baae
on Hounslow Heath. So careful were his measurements, that
they need little c(»rection even when submitted to the rigid
scrutiny of modem anrveyors. The Hounslow Heath base
never became the starting point of a oomplete system of tri-
angulaticm ; although the survey was gradually eiLtended 0ver
the whole isknd, without system or regularity.

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to remind omr readen of Ae
theory of the process by which a single measured base is made
to supply data for calculating unkaown distaBBces. K &e
distance between two given points is aocuiately known, all
that is necessary, in order to ascertain the distance of any point
that can be seen from both of them, is to observe suceesMvely
from each end of the known base the angle subtmded by
the other end of the base, and the point to be determined. The
length of the unknown sides mi^ then be calculated by the
formuke of plane trigonometry, and the distances so determined
becomein their turn bases for die determination of fresh unknown
distances. By constantly constructing new triangles on the ndes
successivdiy determined, the whole country is at last covered
by staticms, the positions of which are known witk the nieest
accuracy. The whole of the principal triangulation which has
consumed so many years of anxious toil has been simply m aeries
of repetiticms of this i»ooeeding. The simjdest instraments
would suffice to do this work roughly; the levels, the screws,
the verniers, the reading microscopes of the theodolite, are only
inventions to secure precision otherwise unattainable. To
secure approximate accuracy would be easy enough, but to do
it in suchawaythat in the whde area of Great Britain — neariy
122,000 square miles — no pmnt fixed by the triuiguktion shall
be more tiian three, or at most four inches out of its true •
poation, involved an amount of care and calculation not easy to
be imagined. The spreatest inaocuTacy which can possibly be
laid to the ohai^ of one of tho nrndem Ordnance surveys is
far smaller than the brttMUk of the mest line diat ^ ennaver
can make npon the oepper^plale smaBer even than the cUsore-

1863. CadaMtrcd Survey ^ Great BrUain. S8S

pancj discoverable in two meaBuremeiits on the same map on
two BuccesBive days, when some yariation of temperature has
stretched or contracted the pap^ on which it is printed.

The principal triangulation of Great Britain is just completed.
The measured bases are on Salisbury Phun, and at Lough Foyle
in Ireland ; bases for verification have also been measured at
Misterton Carr in Nottinghamshire, at Bhuddlam Marsh in
North Wales, and at Belhelvie in Aberdeenshire. The two
first-named are those from which all the distances in the trian-
gulation have been computed ; and such is the accnnu^ with
which the (^ration has been conducted, that when 500 feet
of the Lough Foyle base were remeasured, in the presence of
Mr. Babbage and Sir John Herschel, it was necessary to use
a microscope to d^;ect the discrepaa^ between the ori^oal
measurement and the verification. The actual error demon*
strated proved to be one third of the finest dot that could be
made with the point of a needle.

The mind is filled with wonder while considering details such
as this. The volumes relating to the survey abound with them.
It might at first si^t appear unnecessary to fill a separate volume
with a series of comparisons made between two rival standard
yards, especially as the amount of difference ultimately mfoved
to exist IS in the ratio of *067 of an inch (about the Sickness
of half-a-crown) to one mile.

The computed hd^ht of the mountain Ben Macdui was
4295*60 feet. The height determined by spirit-levelling up the
western side was 4295*70, and by levelling down the eastern side
4295*76 feet Thus the height arrived at by three independent
modes of calculation did not differ in measuring (me of the
highest mountains in Scotland by more than the thickness of an
ordinary boot-heel.

One of the main difiSculties (^ the survey has been to make
the triangulation all over the kingdcmi consistent with itself —
that is to say, that the sum of the three angles in every triai^le
should be 180% and the sum of all the angles round every station
360% A moderate appetite for figures might have contented
itself with approximations, and considered three unknown
quantities in an equadon likelv to produce a result sufficiently
near the truth. The intrepid calculatoffs of our Ordnance
Survey, bent upon correcting any discrepancies by the theory of
probabilities, have habitually fSu^ the sdkitian of equations with
thirty-six unknown quantities. We might multiply these
instances of minute attention almo^ ad inftrntunu Many similar
to those we have just cited are to be found scattered through
the volumes detailing the pcogress of the survey.

384 Cadatiral Hurvey of Great Britain. Oct.

The vigilant care of the surveyors appears never to be thrown
off its gufurd from the first setting up of the theodolite at an ob*
serving station to the final publication of the map of which that
station forms a part ; the same patient and toilsome elimination
of. error, sometimes by the simplest, sometimes by the most
ingenious means, goes on. The very setting up of a theodolite
previous to the commencement of operations is by no means the
simple process that might be imagined. In some instances
many feet of bog or sand have to be excavated before a suffi*
ciently firm foundation is reached. Then the firm earth is
levelled and rammed. Two sets of scaffolding are built, one
inside the other, and carefully isolated; the inner for the
reception of the instrument, the outer for the observers to
walk on without caunng vibration. Similar precautions are
taken even on a solid mountain top. At Ben Hutig, in Suther-
landshire, as you may read in the observation-book of the
station —

* Four holes were snnk in the rock, about six inches deep and five
inches by three in length and breadth, at eqoal distances of 1*76 feet
from the centre mark of the station, to receive four pieces of wood
scantling, upon the heads of which the feet of the table for the
instrument were to be screwed. These holes were ran with lead, the
tops of the scantling cut off and levelled accurately, and farther
secured against shaking by four horizontal braces nailed near the
tops, and also two diagonal ones. Their tops were cut off at the
level of the highest piece of rock on which a corner of the observatoiy
rested. ... A space was left in the centre of the fiooring, by which
the instrument and its stand were insulated, and not liable to be
shaken by any motion above or below it. A batten of wood was
nailed upon the extremity of the flooring round the centre space, to
keep the feet of the observer fh>m toodiing the legs of the table of
the theodolite.'

Sometimes the theodolite was placed over the top of church
steeples, as al Norwich, where it rested over the top stone of
the cathedral spire, 315 feet from the ground, and at St. Paul's,
where the theodolite rested over the centre of the cross. In all
such instances, two separate scaffoldings were erected one within
the other: on the outer the observers moved, and the instru-
ment rested on the inner, so that no possible vibration should
disturb its deUcate adjustment.

Manv of the instruments employed are of great age. The
great three-foot theodolite, which was principdly used in con-
necting the triangulation of Endand with that of the Continent
in 1862, and which figured as die frontispiece to the published
account of the principal triangulation, was made for Gkneral
Boy, in 1767, by the celebrated Bamsden. It is now in as

1863. Cadastral Survey of Great Britain. 385

perfect order as when it left the hands of its maker. Consi-
dering that this instrument has been in use for seventy-five
yearsy that it has been placed on many of our highest mountains,
on our most distant islands, and over the pinnacles of our loftiest
diurches, the care with which it has been preserved, and the
perfection with which it was constructed, are truly remarkable.
Mr. Bamsden also made the steel chains, with which three out
of the five bases of the triangulation were measured.

We have said enough to show that upon the accurate mea-
surement of a base depends the value of the whole subsequent
operations, inasmuch as the most accurate triangulation can
only determine that the measured base is contained so many
times and parts of a time in a ^en distance. Any error
in the base would, therefore, be repeated in every measurement
It may not, therefore, be out of jdaoe to devote a paragraph to
describe the mode of procedure.

Deal rods, glass tubes and steel chains, have been successively
employed ; and although great accuracy was attained by eadi of
these metiiods, the expansion and contraction both of metals
and glass were too great for the delicate nicety required by our
surveyors. The rate of expansion of a given bar of metal can
be ascertained and allowed for, provided the actual temperature
of the bar at the time of observation can be ascertained. But
in out-of-door work this cannot, be done. The whole mass of
the bar is not always of the same temperature throughout, and
error, though minute, still exists. A very simple and ingenious
invention by Colonel Colby has obviated the difficulty. The
rates of expansion of different metals always maintain the
same proportion. If a brass rod expands one-^fifth more than a
rod of iron at a given temperature, the two rods will always
maintain the same ratio of four to five, whatever may be the tem-
perature to which they are exposed. A bar of iron and a bar
of brass, which are of the same length at a given temperature,'
are placed parallel to eaoh other, clamped together at their
centres, and connected at their ends by small transverse bars,
moveable on pivots like the brass transverse pieces on a parallel
ruler. There are points in the transverse bars which never
move, however much the temperature of the bars and their con-
sequent* expansion may alter. At these points, silver plates
are let into the transverse bars, and minute dots made to mark
the immoveable points.

The modem bases have been measured with compensation
bars constructed on this principle. The direction of the base
being selected, and the ground levelled, the bars are laid along

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLII. C. C

3M CadaUtal Smv^ ^ Great Britain. OeL

it on tresselsidaced perfcotfy horizontal by means of qmit Irrds,
and perfectly etnught by means of directing sights and a tranatt
instrument; An ingnuous expedient has been adopted to lay
fresh bam without disturbing those whidi are abready in their
places* Two microscopes are fiirtened together with theb foci
ttcactly six inches apart» like a double opera^^ass. The micro-
scopes are placed over the bar about to be hud, in sndi a poo-
tion that the cross wire of one bisects the dot on the immoveable
point, while l^e other projects six inches beyond it The bar
is then cautiously pushed forward by means of screws until
the cross wire of the other mioroscope bisects the dot on the
immoveable point of the bar already laid. The base is thus
measured in ahemate lengths of ten feet by the compensation
burs, and six inches by the double mioro8ocqpc& The baxa
already laid are by this {dan protected from subsequent disturb-
ance.

The length of the sides in the principal trianguhtion is
from 60 to 100 miles. This principal or primary triattgl^-
lation is broken up into smaller trian^es, which form what is
called the secondary triangulation. These, agun, are divided
into minor triangles, whi<£ form the actual roundation of the
survey* The length of each side in the tertiary triangulatiiM
is usually about a mile.

In some instances, however, sides even longer than 100 miles
were measured. These were usually acoomplisbed by the
' heUostat,' a revolving mirror which reflects the sun from the

2)ex of some distant hill to the observatory. Weeks sometinoes
apse before the wished-for gleam comes to make an observatioa
possible. There must be no intervening cloud between the two
points ; the sun must be shining on die point to be observed,
and the watchers who have been anxiously looking for the pro-
pitious moment must be on the look-out, unwearied by past
days of unsuccess. In this manner Berule, in the Isle of Man,
was observed from Snowdon, in Wales, and from Kippure and
Slieve Donard, on the Irish shore ; and thus, from St Peter's
Church and Fairlight, in Kent and Sussex, triangles were
thrown into France and Belgium. The last observations to
St. Peter's from Montalembert, in France, were taken in a
dense fog. ' This fog,' says the account of the extension of the
triangulation, ' which was passing in heavy continuous clouds
' from the north-east, was seen to break slightly in the direction
^ of St. Peter's, and the heliostat coming out brightly for about
* twenty-five minutes, was observed upon two arcs.' There is
something almost heroic in the utter simplicity with which

1863. Cadastral Survey of Great Britain. 387

stontfaB of hard and sdentifio work are diemiaeed in such a
sentence.

The severest test whioh could possibly be applied to the
aconracy of the fiiangnlation would, of course, be to start from
one of the measured bases, and to trayel dnrough the inters
venii^ networic of triangles to another measured base at a
distance, and then to compare the measured with the computed
distance ; to see what the length of the distant base ought to
be, supposing no errors had been committed throughout the
whole triangulation, and then to see how far the actual mea-
sured distance differs irom the distance computed on the hypo-
thesis that the survey was accurate. If the two i^ree, the
work may be considered perfect; if they differ, there must be
error somewhere ; and the amount of that diflference must be
the measure of the accuracy of the work. This crucial test
was applied to the triangulation a few years ago. Calculations
were begun at the Lough Foyle base, and tracked across the
country to determine what ought to be the length of the base
on SaUsbury Plain. The value of half a century of toil, says
an observer, hung on the issue of the work ; and one can with
difficulty imagine the eagerness with whioh the issue of the
trial was looked finr. The result was a genuine triumph ; the
discrepancy amounted only to about four indies and a hsli in a
distance of over 400 miles.

The triangulation of the whole country having been thus com-
pleted, and the ends of each line resting on a church steeple, a
remarkable rock, tree, or other object, whose position is noted
with the delicate accuracy we have already described, the country
is covered, from John o'Groat's House to the Land's End, and
from Gkdway to Yarmouth, with a network of imaginary lines,
each of which has been measured, and its position recorded,
with the utmost possible minuteness. It is obvious that the
triangulation, when completed, is a work done for good and all;
that, in order to obtain a map of any portion of the country,
any one of these triangles, or any series of them, could be
easily filled up by a detailed survey, on whatever scale, lai^e or
small, might be desired ; and that every object noted in such
survey would be in its proper place relatively to every other
object, throughout the whole country*

Having, then, the materials for a survey on any scale that
may be considered advisable, the question that remained to be
considered is the kind of survey to be undertaken. The one-
inch map finds few defenders ; it is inaccurate, many of the
plates are nearly worn our, all are behindhand when compared
with the high scientific standard of the present time. It was.

388 Cadastral Survey of Great Britain. Oct

many years ago^ used as a corpus vik, upon which young officen
of Engineers tried their 'prentice hands, and learnt surveyiDg in
the field by actual experiment. The plan was advantageous
for the young officers, but did not increase the value of the
map. At the peace of 1815, the survey, which was considered
solely in the light of a military work, was abandoned ; but the
gentlemen of Rutlandshire, who wished for a good hunting map,
subscribed a considerable sum towards the expense of continuing
the survey, and persuaded the Government once more to under-
take it The military staff was, however, no longer available.
It was handed over to private surveyors, each of whcwi was
paid by the piece, and consequently had a direct interest in
making his work appear as large as possible. There was in
those days no uniform system of triangulation, by which errors
of individual surveyors could at once be checked. It was
found that, when the work was put together, the trianglee
overlapped each other in the most absurd ma^nner. In additi(m
to all these drawbacks, there is the inherent objection, which
may be advanced against all small topographical mBps, that, finr
the sake of distinctness, it is necessary to omit many details and
distort others. Roads and streams are widened, and their
course only approximately noted. This, unimportant in a mere
travelling map, destroys its value as a record of property. Tbe
wayfarer would not much care whether the stream he crossed
was depicted a quarter of a mile to the right or left of its true
position ; but the squire, whose property is bounded by the
stream, would be less indulgent when he found in the Grovenn
ment map a practical illustration of Hotspur's angry exdama-
tion : —

* See how yon river comes me cranking in,
And cuts me from the best of all my land
A huge half-moon, a monstrous can tie out.'

The organisation of the Survey Department is a beautiful
specimen of order evolved out of chaos. Colonel Colby when
he took charge of it in 1820 found all in confusion. The
contract plans were of no use, and the officers of tbe
department which he proceeded to organise had not only to
insert additions, but to revise and correct the plans themselves,
before they could be published. Colonel Colby, writing in
1840, twenty years after the commencement of his labours,
stated that this part of the work was not then completed, and
that its progress had been slow, laborious, and unsatisfactory
in its Insults. In 1863, forty-three years from the commence*
ment of the revision, and the formation of the Survey Depart-
ment, tlie last sheets of the revised one-inch map are still

1863. Cadastral Survey of Great Britairu 389

unpublished, though the re-survey is complete. During those
forty years the face of the country has undergone innumerable
changes — hardly a square mile remains the same as it was in
the days of the military pupil surveyors and the contract sur-
veyors; our readers may therefore judge whether the plans
which, according to Colonel Colby, *in very few instances

* possessed the original accuracy which would have fitted them

* to form the kind of map which was required by the country,'
are now, even with the help of indastrious patching, in any
degree satisfactory.

In 1825 a survey of Ireland became necessary. Colonel
Colby, taught by the mistakes which were still embarrassing the
English survey, strongly urged the Government to have Ireland
surveyed on a large scale. It was a new thing in the history
of surveying. A general survey of a country so large as Ireland,
every part of which should be as accurate as the detail plans of a
small estate, had never yet been attempted. The ordinary pro-
cesses of surveying were wholly inadequate for the purpose.
Colonel Colby's first labour was to devise a system for its exe-
cution, and to obtain the necessary authority for carrying the
work into effect. The Duke of Wellington afforded every
assistance; a portion of the corps of Royal Engineers was
detailed for the service, and, as it was found impossible to
procure ready-trained surveyors. Colonel Colby set about the
formation of a staff to carry out his views. The military officers,
who were unaccustomed to the valuation of land, failed to com-
prehend the importance of fastidious proofs of accuracy, such as
Colonel Colby's instructions enjoined. They had been taught
military surveying. They knew that such accuracy could not
be required for any military purpose. They had the severe
personal labour of training all their assistants. Besides the
Sappers and Miners, they had under them many civilians who
had been surveyors, and who all objected to the severe tests their
work had to undergo. The work proceeded, to use Colonel
Colby's own expression, * with appdling slowness, while the

* country was demanding unattainable celerity.' The officers im-
portuned the director-general to relax the severity of his instruc-
tions, and to allow them to proceed with the work to satisfy the
country. There was difficulty in maintaining the discipline of
the soldiers ; assistants left them half trained. The labour of
teaching them seemed endless and unprofitable. An appeal was
made from Colonel Colby to the Master- general, an investigation
was ordered. Colonel Colby's instructions were partly rescinded,
and the plans advanced with more rapidity. The land-valuers
under the Irish Government commenced their valuation, using

390 CadaHral Survey of Great Briimu Oct.

the Ordnance plans; but they eoon began to eomjdain of
errors and to ask for additional details. A costly revisioii of tlie
plans was now unavoidable. Colonel Colby's original instmo-
tions were again considered^ and restored to complete operatioii.
Some time naturally elapsed before the surveyors could be
induced to forego their erroneous method of work, and be
trained to habits of ri^ accuracy. But here the advantages of
military oi^anisation became evident. The ofiBcers of fioyal
Engineers, and the non-commissioned officers and men of the
Sappers and Miners, laboured to carry the instructions into
effect with unflinching determination. The zeal and resolutioa
of the head of the survey were at last rewarded, for the map
produced on a scale of six inches to the mile is admitted by
competent judges to be the finest work of topographical art
ever seen in any country.

The one-inch survey of England was begun in the south.
It had reached the southern boundaries of Lancashire and
Yorkshire, when the Irish survey was commenced. The
immense advantage of the 6-inch over the 1-inch map
caused a considerable pressure to be put on the Government,
to induce them to extend the advantages of the large scale
survey to ^Scotland, and to those parts of England which yet
remained unsurveyed on any scale.

The survey was therefore continued in Yorkshire, Lan-
cashire, and part of Scotland, on the same scale as in Iidand.
But as the tenement survey in Ireland approached comph
tion, practical men expressed an opinion that even the ^-^nch
scale was not sufficiently krge. They argued that the 6-inch
juan was too large for a mere map, and too small for the
purposes to which a cadastral plan can be iqiplied. Sir Charles
Trevelyan, who was then at the Treasury, decided on inintiiig
sdentific gentlemen interested in the subject, to express th^
opinions as to the scale upon which a national surv^ ought to
be carried on.

About this time a statistical conference was held in Brussels
under the authority of the Belgian Government. The pnndpsl
states of Europe sent delegates, and the question of national
maps or cadastres formed one of the principal subjects of discus-
sion. Mr. Farr was iq»pointed to attend the coidSerence by the
Begistrar-GeneraL The unanimous opinion of the statists who
attended the congress was in favour of the scale of K)004 or
vtW ^f ^ i^^ 9 t^<l ^y <^ recommended that the laige
cadastre or plan should be accompanied by a more general miqi,
under the title of a ^ tableau d'aasemblage,' on a somethiiig like
that of our Irish survey.

1663. Cadastral Survey i^ Great Britain. 891

The opinions of the statistical congress in no degree in-
flnenced Sir Charles Trevelyan's correspondents^ for, although
letters poured in from all quarters^ the opinions they conyeyed
were widely divei^nt. Sir Charles, as it would appear, became
frightened at the monster he had created, and requested Sir
John Burgoyne, Mr. Blamire, and Mr. B^ndel to read and re-
port upon the communications which had been addressed to him.
The committee publidied all the letters in an enormous Blue-
book, to which we direct the attention of any students who
may possess a taste for tough reading and for a pleasing conflict
of opinions. The committee declared the weight of evidence
contained in the correspondence to be decidedly in favour of a
scale of g^o^ths of the lin^r measure of the ground. This was
the first time that the 25-inch scale, upon which our future
cadastral survey is to be constructed, obtained any official re-
commendation. The question was, however, by no means
settled as yet. It is true that the survey of Scotlai^ was at
once commenced, and it was decided Ihat tiie result i^ould be
drawn on the 25-inoh scale for the cultivated districts, and 6
inches for the imcultivated district It was also arranged that
a topographical map should be made on a scale of one inch to
a mile. But these decisions were several times suspended, and
were more than once reversed by the special interventicm of
Parliament. Mr. Edward Ellice in 1856 moved a reduction
of the vote for the Ordnance Survey, on the ground of his
objection to the 25-inch scale. The motion was rejected on a
division. But in the following year Sir Denham Norreys
brought forward and carried a resolution, in Conunittee of
Supply, with the same object, but in such a form as utterly
to paialyse the survey, and contradict die resolution come to by
the House in the previous year.

Sir Denham Ncnrreys, in making his motion, put a series of
amendments on the notice paper, explaining its object. When
the debate was oyer, the question, in consequence of the
peculiar forms of the House, tiien in Committee of Supply^
could only be put, and the division taken, in the following form :
^That the wmis 151,7442. be left out, and 115,744/. inserted
^instead thereo£' The resolution in this unezplanatory form
was carried, and the vote for the cadastral survey struck out;
but no plan of procedure was substituted for that which was
rejected. As far as the journals of Parliament are concerned,
it appeared that the House had sanctioned the 25Hndi scale
by rejecting Mr. Ellice's resdution, but had refused the monqr
necessary for carrying on the work. The department was in-
volved in a dilemma ; ti»e only 4Dur«e which could be pvnsued.

392 Cadastral Survey of Great Britain. Oct.

was to dismiss the working parties. A large sum of public
money was wasted by the change. When Lord Elcho*8 Com-
mittee reported against the 6-inch scale, the working parties
were broken up, and set to work on the 1-inch map. Wlien
the large scale was re-established, the 1-inch map was thrown
aside. When Sir Denham Norreys's resolutions were carried,
the working parties were again withdrawn. It appears in the
evidence given by Sir Henry James before Lord Bury's Com-
mittee in 1862, that 30,000£ has been wasted in the last thirty
years, owing to the perpetual changes that had been made firom
one scale to another.

The Grovernment in this embarrassment determined to issue a
Royal Commission, ^for the purpose of inqairing into the
' subject of the Ordnance Survey, and the scale or scales upon
* which the maps and plans of the United Kingdcun should be
'drawn and published.' Lord Wrottesley was in the chair,
and it was anticipated that the high authority of the individuals
composing the commission would set the question at rest for
ever.

The Report of the Royal Commission contained recom-
mendations that the one-inch map of the United Kingdom
should be forthwith completed, engraved, and published, and
that the question of surveying the whole kingdom should be
again brought immediately under the notice of Parliament,
and left to its discretion. At the same time the Commis-
sioners amassed a considerable amount of information bearing on
the subject, and the evident bent of their minds was towards
the resumption of the cadastral scale. Li consequence of the
recommendation of the Royal Commisaon, a committee of the
House of Commons was appointed, in 1861, for the express
purpose of deciding whether the cadastral or large scale survey
should or should not be extended over the whole of the United
Kingdom. The committee reported in 1862 : firstly, That it was
desirable that the cadastral survey should be extended over
those portions of the United Kingdom which are now surveyed
on the scale of one inch to a mile only ; and, secondly, that it
was most advisable that a steady annual grant should be made
for the purposes of the survey, which should not vary from year
to year. The announcement made by Sir George Lewis, that
in future years the survey will be conducted in accordance with
the report of the committee of 1862, gives us reason to hope
that the conclusion arrived at after so many years of delibera-
tion, and such constant changes, will not again be disturbed.

The cost of a survey, such as is recommended by Lord
Bury's Committee, is stated to be 1,400,000^ This appears,

1863. Cadastral Survey of Great Britain. 393

even for such a work as a national survey, a lar^e sum. We
therefore examine with some curiosity the grounds upon which
the committee report their belief ^ that large as may be the cost
' of a cadastral survey, the national advantages of such a survey
' are so great that to complete it would be a judicious outlay of
' pubUc money*'

We shall probably make this more intelligible if we trace the
various processes which are performed before a map can be
placed in the hands of the public The reader will remember
that the triangulation determines accurately the position of any
plot of ground with reference to all other parts of the kingdom.
We will suppose that a part of Norfolk is to be surveyed, and
published on the three scales recommended by the committee.
The position of the district to be mapped is first found and marked
off on the principal triangulation. The surveyor on his arrival
finds the position of some of the principal objects, such as steeples,
and remarkable trees or rocks, dready determined, and their dis«
tances from each other recorded with absolute precision, any
one of the lines of the principal triangulation affords him a base
line for his survey, and all he has to do is to fill up the minor
or tertiary triangles with an accurate description of the country
which they contain. The men chain along the sides of the
minor triangles, leaving piquets in the ground as they proceed,
in such positions as they think most convenient for taking the
details of the survey. They note in their field-books every
fence, stream, or other object they may cross. They then
measure cross lines from one side of the triangle to the other,
and by taking ofisets from the measured lines to every object on
the faee of the country, they obtain in their field-books the data
for plotting accurate plans of the country upon any scale
that may be required. The length of every measured side of a
triangle is thus checked by the computed trigonometrical
distance, and the accuracy of the lines within each triangle is
checked by plotting. The distances being computed from the
base line, the authorities know to the fraction of an inch the
length of each side, and can therefore at once, when the field-
books come in, ascertain whether the chaining of the surveyors
is accurate ; and when the field-work is fitted on to the plan of
the triangulation, previously prepared in the office, the slightest
inaccuracy is at once detected, as the cross lines would not
fit into their places unless they were exactly of the proper
dimensions. It follows, therefore, that although the surveyors
are not actually watched, a thorough check is obtained upon
the quality as well as the quantity of the work.

The surveyor's field-books are sent* to the head office at

394 Cadastral ^ervey of Great BrUain. Oct.

Southampton^ where tiiey are examined and checked, and the
work at once paid for by the director of the sarvey. The
materials are now at hand for a map of the district just snr-
yeyed on any scale that may be required. Here we may
note one of the errors into which the oppcments of a large
scale survey often fall. ^ No doubt,' they say, ' a krge soue
^ survey is a useful thing ; but wait until you Imve completed the
^ 1-inch map before you talk of beginning it. Your hage
^ Bcale survey will take twenty years ; do not throw aside your
* 1-inch map in order to grasp at a magnificent thou^ some-
< what chimerical result.' The argument results from a confaaoQ
between the survey itself, which is made on the ground, and
the plotting of the survey, or map-making, whidi is done in the
office. When once a survey is made, when once the actual
distances of objects from each other, and their relative pontion,
are noted down, a map can be made, embodying the &ct8 eo
obtained on any scale, provided the original survey has been
sufficiently accurate to i^ord the necessary data. ^ A Parent
^ survey,' says tiie committee of 1862 in their report, ^ can be
' diminished, but cannot be increased.' A survey made for
the express purpose of being plotted on ^e 1-inch scale
could not with any advantage be plotted on the 25-inch acale,
not because the information actually contained woald be in-
accurate, but because it would not be sufficiently detailed — on
the other hand, a survey made for the purpose of beii^' pub-
lished on the scale of twenty-five inches to a mile, could with
ease and propriety be published on the scale of twdve, or six,
or even one inch to a mile, merdy leaving out, £ar the sake of
distinctness, nuure and more of *the minor details, as the scale
on which it was reproduced diminished.

The surveyor's life among the hills and streams is not
without its romance and its dangers. The tourist and the
sportsman often come, in some out-of-the-way qiot in the
Highlands, on the little campe of a surveying party, or some
solitary sapper, patiently turning his lootang-glass, to ^ fladi '
his portion to observers on some 'far distant hilL Few,
however, would ima^e the amount of patient toil whidi has
produced the scientmc result of whidi England is eo proiri.
The whole survey force consists of about 1500 men, in wUcfa
four companies of Boyal En^eere are employed, fbrming a
military nudeus which keeps all in order. The non-eoHmiaa-
8i<med officers of this force are men of most tmstworlhy oha-
xaoter, and, indeed, often of very oonsideraUe eoaentific attain-
ments. The private journal of one of them, pait of which we
have been penmtted to peruse, bean evidence of neinconaider-

1863. Cadattral Survey of Great Britam. 395

able literary and deeoriptive power, and the keenest appreoia-
tion of the natural beauti^ which lay in rich profusion around
his nomade camp. Occasionally the mountain winds raise storms
so yiol^it as to subordinate the admiration of the most enthu-
siastic lover of the picturesque to a sense of personal insecurity.
The party on Ben Auler, in 1840, sustained repeated loss from
camp wrecks. Wooden houses were erected instead of tents ;
but in vain, for the strongest of them was carried away by the
wind, and the pieces, together with its inmate, Serjeant Steel,
ecattered over the hillside. On another occasion, at Sleeve
Donard, in Ireland, Corporal Forsyth was blown out of the
observatory by the wind, and dashed against the rocks.
Fortunately he recovered firom his wounds. More tragical is
the story of Sapper Pemble, a man noted many years for his
endurance in mountain marches. His own touching prophecy,
that he ' must die on the trig,' was literally fulfilled, for on lus
way back to camp, after building a cairn on one of the Feeble-
shire hills, he lay down to rest be£de a mountain stream, and
perished.

The corps might almost in some cases borrow ihe motto of
the Boyal Marines — ^ Per mare per terras' — for the diaries give
accounts of * strange adventures happed by land and sea ' among
the islands of the north-west of Scotland. Many of these islands
are omitted from all maps, and appear to have been unknown
or unregarded by our geographers. Bona and Salusker, for
instance, though possessing a considerable quantity of land fit
for cultivation, are so precipitous and inhospitaUe, that no living
thing abides there but a few slieep who run wild over the
rocks. A surveying party was sent there a few J^^ Ago to
complete a series of observations for latitude. They set sdl
from the Scilly Islands in a fishing-8ma(^, and after putting
into Stomoway for provisions, were landed on Bona, in a little
more than a fortnight. The weather became suddenly unsettled,
the vessel, with the camp and the heavy instruments on board,
was forced to return to Storaoway, leaving the party on the
island with no shelter but their wearing apparel and a boat-*sail.
Eight days and nights of perpetual storm were spent by the
castaways on that ro(dc before another landing could be effected.
The zenith sector was at last got into position, and a camp-^hut
formed. By midnight on the sixteenth day, 173 observations
had been recorded, and the astronomical part of the expedition
was corofdeted. The topographical survey still r^UMned to be
made ; the astrwiomioal instruments were re-shipped and sent off
for Stomoway, while the surveyors proceeded with their trian-
gulotion. No sooner was the vessel out of sight thsn it wi^

396 Cadastral Survey of Chreai Britain. Oct.

found that the stock of proyiaions was insufficient. Tempestuous
weather kept the party prisoners for more than a month from
the time of their landing ; and had it not been for the sheep, to
which they resorted when hard pressed by hunger, the unfortunate
surveyors would have starved within sight of the Scottish coast.

As soon as the surveyor's work has been examined and
approved, it is plotted^ or drawn on paper, upon the 25-inch
scale. The plan is traced with lithographic ink upon tracing
paper, which is thinly coated with starch or paste. Subdivision
of labour has been introduced to such an extent that the outlines
are traced by boys, who pass the plan on from room to room,
where successive boys put in the woods and figures with stamps
of various sizes and descriptions. Only the writing and a few
details requiring some taste in drawing are traced by draftsmen.
The tracing when completed is laid &ce downwards on a zinc
plate, which, owing to die cheapness and lightness of the metal,
is now usually substituted for lithographic stones, and is passed
through the printing press. The tracing paper is then peeled
ofi^, and the ink adheres to the plate, to which the drawing has
been thus transferred. The plate is etched and printed, as in
ordinary lithography. It b found cheaper and more convenient
*to erase the drawing when the required number of copies has
been printed, and to reproduce it by the anastatic process when
a fresh demand arises, than to keep the plates in store. The
anastatic process is a patent invention by which any point
originally made with greasy ink can be repnoduced. Any copy
of the original map can thus be transferred to zinc, and print^
from in the same way as was done with the original tracing.

The 25-inch plan is now completed ; but it is also to be pub-
lished upon the 6-inch and 1-inch scales. Here comes into
play a new and beautiful invention, which appears likely to
present enormous advantages to the reproduction of prints,
deeds, rare books, and such-like matters— namely, Photoanco-
graphy, which was invented by Sir Henry James, the director
of the survey. By Photozincography a photographic negative
is transferred to a metal plate, and printed. When it was
first proposed to introduce three scales into the national
survey. Sir Henry James became convinced, that unless some
more expeditious and less expensive method of reducing plans
were invented than that by the pentagraph — the only method
then in use — the work would proceed far too slowly, and be
too expensive to satisfy the public. Experiments were insti-
tuted in Paris in 1855 by Sir Henry James, to ascertain whether
^otography could not be successfully applied for the purpose.
The result was satisfactory. Two sappers were instructed in

1863. Cadastral Survey of Great Britain. 397

the art of photography^ and this branch of the work was placed,
on Sir Henry's return to Southampton^ in the hands of Major
Elphinstone^ B.E., Y.C.j who soon brought it to great perfec-
tion*

A copy, on the 25-inch scale, of the plan to be reduced is
attached to a board, and the camera is placed on a table which
runs on a small tramway laid down on the floor of the photo-
graphic room. The table is then moved till a rectangle on the
reduced scale, traced on the ground^lass on the camera, conre-
sponds exactly to the rectangle of the plan to be reduced. The
curvature of the image is obviated by reducing the diaphragm
in front of the lens to a small aperture. The ordinary collodion
process is employed in taking the negative, which is then
treated as in ordinary photographs. Sir Henry James's inven-
tion consists in transferring the photograph itself to a anno
plate, for the guidance of the engraver ; instead of tracing it,
as was done at first, and then transferring it to the zinc by
the anastatic process. Sir Henry James gives full details of
the invention, and specimens of the purposes to which it
can be applied, in his recent work on Photozincography.
The plans thus reduced and transferred to copper are etched
and engraved, in the ordinary way. Copper plates are always
used for maps on the 6-inch scale, as the beautiful lines
traced by the graver cannot conveniently be produced on the
rougher surface of the zinc plate. A considerable saving in
the cost of engraving the Ordnance maps is effected by using
steel punches to cut the wood figures and rocks on the copper
plates ; the work is done much more quickly, and much more
neatly, than by hand, and boys are employed at it in the place
of skilled engravers. The writing is put in by a patent madiine,
and the parks and sands ruled by machine with a steel dotting
wheel ; the proportion of skilled labour in the actual production
of the work, when once the thing to be produced has been set-
tled, is thus reduced to a minimum.

The 1-inch map is reduced by photography from the engraved
copy of the 6-inch map, in the same way that the former is
reduced from the 25-inch, the only difference being that for the
1-inch map the hill features are shaded in by a draftsman
upon a copy of the 6-inch map, and reduced for the engraver
by photography.

The plates, at different stages of their progress, and also
when completed, are electrotyped. By this means, not only
duplicate and absolutely facsimile copies of the plates unworn
and perfect are kept in the oflice, but copies of them being
taken at different stages of progress, different classes of informa-

398 Cadastral Survey of Ghnat Britaifu OcL

tion can be engraved upon a map the same in all other respects.
One map is completed with contoor lines, another with the hill
features engraved, another with the geological lines. Two or
more plates can aJso be joined together, and when reproduced
by the dectrotype form a single plate to print from* In this
way, maps of several counties in Scotland have been formed, to
serve as indexes to the 6-inch maps. In one instance, no leas
than seven plates were so joined. It would not, of course, be
possible to join the plaies of the original one-indi Englidi
map, as the survey was not laid down on any one prelection,
but by the method of parallels and perpendiculars to £ff<n«nt
mericQonal lines in different parts. Electrotyping is also apfdied
with good effect to the correction of faulty maps. When onoe
the lines have been cut by the engraver in intaglio on the eap^
per, it is a long and tedious process to burnish out the peccant
lines without injuring the rest of the work. An electrotype
copy presents every line on the original in relief, in^ead
of in intaglio; and it is thus quite easy to scrape away
the lines which are to be erased. Another electrotype is then
taken, which presents the lines as before in intaglio, and upim
this the ei^rayer works as upon the original plate.

We thus see that, provided only the original field-books are
suflbuently aocurate wd detailed in their iDformation, you have
in one operation' materials for maps on every scale and of every
kind« The question is merely this, whether the inereaaed
expense of making the first survey absolutely aocuiate and
ample in detail, counterbalances the dis^vantages of having to
make a special survey whenever a map of any kind is required ?
The committee, as we have seen, contend that even on the
ground of economy a cadastral survey is desirable. If the high
authorities who gave evidenoe before them are to be tmstedy
sums of public money have already been uselessly expended in
imperfect surveys which would have paid for a cadastral plan
twice over. Nor have we any assurance that similar waste
will not take place in future. Such must of necessity be the
case unless the work is at once done thoroughly once for alL
We will cite a couple of instances. In 1842, the Tithe Com-
mutation Commissioners, being under the necessity of making
maps for tithe purposes, wrote to the Government, strongly
urging that the plans which were necessary for their operations
ought to be made referable to a uniform system of triangula-
tion, and be drawn in such a manner as to form part of a
national work. Their advice was disregarded, and plans were
drawn to meet the immediate requirements of the commie-
sionera The result has been that the same commission, having

1863. CadoMtral Survey qf Cheat Britain. 399

had its^ operatiaBB exteoded ta oihet purposes oooiMOted with
the land, sueh as supermtending the applieatioii of the drains-
age loans, the enfrandiisement of copyhoids, the exchange
of lands, and the reapportionment of tithes, endeavoured,
but without success, to adapt the tithe maps, whidi had oost
about two millions of money, to their new requirements, YreA
sonreyshad to be made. These, having the same radical defect,
are as useless for general purposes as the tithe maps. Only
one-sixth of the 12,000 maps which exist in the office of the
Tithe Commissioners have any pretensions to accuracy. Even
these, not being referable to any uniform triangulation, are not
available as part of a national survey. Many districts which
were surveyed by the Tithe Commissioners had shortly aiW-
wards to incur the expense of a second survey for the Enclosure
Commissioners. Colonel Dawson, one of the commissioners,
stated that at the time when he gave his evidence the Enclosure
Commissioners had only just begun their labours, and that even
then 40,000/. had been expended, which would have been saved
if the tithe maps had been part of a general survey. He
expected a much larger expenditure in the same way. In
1845, the great railway year, there was a large demand for
the tithe maps for railway purposes. They were, however,
found quite useless. ^ Hundreds of thousands,' says Colonel
Dawson, — ^ I might almost say millions — were expended, inde-

* pendentlj of the lines that were carried out, on surveys for

* lines that were got up in a hurry, and abandoned for want of

* proper maps.' The Hydrographer to the Navy states that a
proper cadastral survey would save in many cases one-half, and
m all cases two-fifths, of the expense of the hydrographical
survey. These are instances in which it is possible to adduce
direct evidence of public money being actually spent which would
have been saved if a cadastral map had existed.

The amount of money thus actually wasted cannot at the
most moderate computation be set down at less than three mil-
lions and a half; and it is idle to speculate on the enormous
sums which have been spent on useless surveys not mentioned
to the committee. Colonel Dawson told the committee that
many localities which had been taxed for the tithe maps, and
again taxed for the Enclosure Commissioners' maps, had almost
immediately afterwards to be resurveyed by private persons, in
consequence of the inaccuracy of both maps, when the property
contained in them changed hands.

In Ireland the Ordnance Survey has been used as the basis of
the valuation according to which all local assessments and taxes
are levied. The income*tax has been levied by it, and with so

400 Cadastral Survey of Great Britain. OeL

much advantage to the public parse, that Sir Richard Griffithy
in a letter to toe Bojal Commissioners of 1858, before the Irish
survey had been completed in the northern counties, writes as
follows : —

* The income tax is at present collected by it except in five of the
northern counties, the valuation of which, in tenements, has not jet
be^n completed by me, and in those counties the tax is still collected
according to the Poor Law valuation. Had the tenement valuation
been completed in those five counties, the receipts by the public,
for income tax alone (calculated at the rate of 7d. in the pound),
would have exceeded the amount collected under the Poor Law
valuation by about 48,000i a year.'

It is surely impossible to bring more direct evidence than
this to prove the advisability in an economical point of view of
a cadastral survey.

The principal expense and trouble has been in the triangula-
tion. That once completed, the additional expense of a survey
fit to be plotted on a cadastral scale is comparatively trifling.
Indeed, the expenses of publication on the 25-inch and the
6-inch scales is the same for an equal area. One sheet or plan
on the 25-inch scale contains 960 acres. It is produced inex-
pensively, by simply reversing a tracing on to a adnc plate.
The sale of twenty-five impressions pays for its cost, which is
about 4/. One sheet on the 6-inch scede contains 24 square
miles — that is, sixteen times as much as one sheet on the
25-inch scale — ^its cost is 64Zi, or sixteen times as much as the
other. The cost for an equal area of the survey is, therefore,
the same on one scale and on the other.

One of the greatest obstacles to the successful completion
of the survey has always been the uncertainty under which the
director remained as to the funds which in any one year
would be at his dbposaL One year he had a grant of 122,000iL,
the next it was reduced to QAflOOL The consequence of course
was that large numbers of draftsmen were suspended, field-
surveyors were disbanded, working parties were recalled, and
the whole establishment placed on a reduced footing. The
skilled labour of the surveyors' department cannot be obtuned
in a moment. The surveyors must be trained by a con-
siderable course of practical instruction. Nothing can be
promised with certainty as to the time in which the survey
would be completed, or the sum it would cost, unless the
director were assured that the sum to be placed at his disposal
should not vary in amount from year to year. One of the
principal recommendations of the committee of 1862 was, that
the amount to be expended on the survey from year to year

1863. Cadastral Survey cf Great Britain. 401

ahoold not vary, but should renuun in each year steadily the
same. It was found that, taking the average of the last ten
years, 90,0007. was the annual amount whioi had been voted.
The committee, therefore^ recommended that the vote diould be
in future 90,000/. a year. With that sum at his disposal. Sir
Henry James has undertaken to complete the north ot England
and Scotland on the scale now in progress, and the south of
England on the 25-inch scale, — in other words, to extend the
cadastral survey over the whole of the British Islands — ^in
twenty-one years. He has further stated that the survey could
be completed in twelve years if the annual grant were increased
to 150,0002. *

A public map ought to give accurate information on matters
relating to the transfer of land, the registration of titles, the
valuation of property for local taxation, transactions affecting
land as between landlord and tenant, improvement or reclama-
tion of waste lands, engineering woiks, such as military plans,
bydrographical, geological, and railway surveys, the construc-
tion of roads and canals, and great systems of drainage. All
these impcHTtant public objects are attainable to the fufi extent
only when the plans on which they are based are sufficientiy
large to allow of accurate measurements being made upon the
map itself, and sufficientiy detailed to afford all the data for
estimating or carrying on the necessary works.

With r^ard, first, to the transfer of property. The difficulties
which now surround the subject, apart from tiie question of
re^stration of titie, arise fn>m the uncertainty which exists
' as to the accuracy of the boundaries and acreage of the pro-
perly to be sold. With an authentic GK>vemment survey, on
which every man's property is shown, and the acreage exactiy
known, the expense of spedal surveys for the purpose of the
sale is avoided. The most eminent lawyeito of the day appear to
be tmanimous in their opinion that a well-digested system of
r^;istration of tiie titie to property is required. Many gentle-
men, practically conversant with the subject, consider that the
use of public maps is a sine qud non of any such system, and is
the only effectual way of lessening the expense of the investiga-
tion of titie, and promoting conciseness and precision in con-
veyancing. Both Lord Langdale's Committee on this subject,
in 1846, and Mr. Walpole's Commisuon in 1857, affirm this
opinion in their reports. Minute descriptions of parcels of
land, in tiie deed of conveyance, would be unnecessary ; and
thus all tiiat part of conveyancing which consists of the
descriptions of boundaries would be avoided. The advantage
of a government over a private map would consist not only in

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLII. D D

402 CadaUral Survey ef Great Britam. Oet.

its aoooHMgr* bat ia its impartiality. It would be & ybik
record, on ihe impartiality of wbich all men would agree, and
mxtdk litigation would be saved* The govemment map woold,
moreoveTf be a general surveyy and not a record of uie m^e
fields or parcels conveyed. There is a field A, a field B, and
a field C. In course of tiase^ they are all thrown into one. If
these three fields had been conveyed by a deed deseribiag the
botmdaries, <h^ even by a private map containing only those
fields, there might, in course of time, when the hedges were
obliterated, be confusion. But a public map would show net'
only those fields, but all the fields^ hills, and riven around ; and
the area of the three fields conveyed would at once be open t»
identifieation. We may mention a ease exactly in point. A
Northumbrian proiMrietor left 500 sBtes to the Grammar School
at Morpeth. J3ut as tibe 500 acres remained in the poMsnonr
of the Buccesdve owners of the estate, yrhk paid some acknoir^
lodgement to the school^ all traoe ^ the boondaries became
los^ and the school lands BMTged in the estate. The eonseqwoea-
was a lawsuit, which lasted more than a Imndred years.- AS
this, would have beea prevented, if a large survey Iiad btev m
existeace at the time the grant was mode, becaose t&e 50O
acres might at any time have been identified by meaeuz^ment
on the map» Eccknaetieid lawyBSs say that ecdenastkai cor*
Derations lose more than others by want of flood nmp§^ A
MBXgt amooai of th^ lands is bdd on oopjmoU; and the
peculiar {duraseolognr of conveyanciBg, which usually omits to
define what part of the estate conveyed is freehold, and wfant ^
copyhold, is particularly prodaetive of litigation^ The maoner *
in which it is regarded on the Continent mi^ be gathsKed ham
the words of M. Avila te the Statistical Congresr of
Brussels: —

* Nous propesens tDstanent que Is cadastre soit fait^ maaiire Ikes

Su'il puisse avee le temps et en vne des r^les de la proecription,
evenir le titre probaut de la propri^td; car boob ne vowbos pas qne
le cadastre soit seulement un instroment fiscal : noos voulons que sa
mission soit plus ^lev^e; nous voulons qne le cadastre soil
rinventaire de la propri^t^ fondire da pays, le grand livie
o& chaque propri^tdre puisse trouver les titres de sa pr<»ri6t6;
nous voulons qne le cadastre soit la base de la statistique du ter-
ritoire, de la statistique agricole, du syst^e hypoth^caire^ du crMit
fbneier, et, en un mot, de toutes les questions qui concement la
propri^ Nous entendons que sons ce point de vue, rorganiaatien
du cadastre est un des pins grands bienfaits que Ton pmsse rendre li
un pays.'

It hardly needs the authority of the kte Duke of Wellington
to prove the advantages which wodd accrue in a militaiy point

1 863. Cadastral Sutrvey of Great BrUain. 403

of yiew from the publication of large-sized plans of tfie country.
He pronounced six inches to the mile to be the smallest uze
which would give any really useM informalioa* The National
Defence Commission has lately ordered a conmderable nu»b^
of smreys for the purposes of that commission ; these are all
conducted on the 25-inch scale, and being baaed on the [Mrincipal
triangulation, will fit into az^ future cadastral plan of the
country.. About 672,500 aores in England have been resur^
yeyed on this scale; they comprise surveys of the environs
of London, the Thames and Medway, the Ide of Wi^t»
Plymouth, Pembroke, Portsmouth, Aldetrihot, Harwich, Dover,
Sajidhunit, and many other military stations. It is also
obvieoB that for fortifications, kydrographical surreys, geolo-
gical surveys, railwi^ surv^s and drainage^ the cadastral
pkms afford immense advantagesi These advantages are, how-
ever, technical in their nature, and we need not dwell upon
timn. Since the pasrine of the provisions of the Drainage
Act in 1846, several milUonfr of publie money have beenlmt
for drainage purposes, and the land improved under tfae» Landed
Property Improvement Act, ixx whush so kng ago as 1856
1,490,000^ bad been issued in 3,000 separate loans, has ail
been carefully laid down on the Ordnanee plans. In the
hydrographical surveya eepecialty they are of inestimable value,
^ey supply such minute and accurate data, that the surveycuc
in his offshore soundings is often able to make use of a white-
washed house or mill to fix his position, and thus accomplish a
good day's work, when, from the trigonometric points being
covered up by clouds, or partially obscured by mists, it would
otherwise be lost. The hydrographer to the Admiralty re-
ported officially that his ten years' labours on the lochs and
soimds of Scotland would have been done in five if a cadastral
survey had existed there.

It is impossible to reprobate too strongly the illo^eal dis«>
taste whidi some members of Parliament have always exhibited
to the formatbn of a cadastral survey. Had they opposed the
oompletbn of the triaagulation, their opporition would at least
have beoi intelligible. But the triaagulation haa been com-
pleted wilJioiut remonstrance, and almost without notiee. With
it the meet important part of the work is at an end. The
triangles (mee laid down remain for ever — they can be filled up,
as we have shown, on any or every scale. The cost now of a
large and accurate survey would be within a fraction as great
as that of one smaller but equally accurate^ It is not to be
suj^osed that any one would advocate the publication of any
map drawn with less than the extreme attainable amount of

404 Macknight'6 Life of Lord SoUnffbroke. Oct

accuracy. If so^ it were better to put up with the present
1-inch map, disband the surveyors, send the sappers to their
duty, and dismiss to other employments the most scientific staff
of officers that the world has ever seen assembled together.
France and Sweden, Austria, Bavaria, Russia, Belgium, Hol-
land, Denmark, Prussia, Sardinia, and Spain, all have their
cadastral surveys in different stages of advancement. Let
England, who now has by common consent the palm of
scientific accuracy, remain content, like Tuscany, Hesse Darm«
stadt, and Hanover, with small and inaccurate maps, and leave
to future generations the care of filling in the details of our
unequalled triangulation. Having commenced our tower, it
would be disgraceful and absurd to sit down and decline to
finish it, not 'because wc are unable to afford the cost, but be-
cause we cannot appreciate the value of the completed structure.
It cannot be too often repeated that the really expenave
part of the work has been done and paid for, and that a sum
'Cqual to the average annual sum which has actually been
expended during the last ten years — ^voted steadily by Parlia-
ment, and applied as Sir Henry James well knows how to
•apply it — will in the course of a few years give us a set of
K^adastral plans and topographical maps of the British Islandt
more perfect in accuracy and finish than any that have yet been
seen in Europe.

Art. lY.— The Life of Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke,
Secretary of State in the Reign of Queen Anne. By
Thomas Macknight. l4ondon: 1863.

Tf Henry St. John, Viscount Bolinebroke, cannot be named
"^ amongst the worthies of England, he stands in the front
rank of her celebrities. The influence he exercised in govern-
ment and philosophy was more for evil than for good; his
course was meteorlike, * with fear of change perplexing nations ;*
the light he shed was lurid ; but his name is so indissolubly
blended with a momentous period of our history, so intimately
associated with our Augustan age of literature, that we hail with
pleasure every renewed attempt to form an impartial estimate of
his genius and character as a statesman, an orator, an author,
and a man.

Mr. Macknight is creditably known as a political writer, and
his capacity for handling weighty subjects boldly and compre-
hensively may be inferred firom his book on Burke ; although

1 863. Macknight's Life of Lord Bolingbrohe. 405

we do not preoiAely understand why (as he states to have been
the fact) that work should have led to the one before us ; no two
men who have played equally conspicuous parts being less like
each other than the author of the ^ Patriot King ' and the author
of the ^ Essay on the French Revolution/ — the moral and reli-

S'ous friend of Johnson, and the philosophic prompter of Pope,
either of them, it is true, has been the subject of a work so
written as to preclude rivalry ; and Mr. Macknight probably
thought that, having contended on equal terms wim Aur. Prior,
he might without presumption challenge comparison with Mr.
Wingrove Cooke, the best and most complete of the previous
biographers of Bolingbroke. With evident reference to this
competitor, he states that * the narrative has not been based on
^ any former work ;' that ^ it will be found to differ materially
^ from evexT other publication of the kind in the estimate of
^ Bolingbroke himself, in the representation of the most im«

* portant facts of his life and the motives of his actions, as well

* as in the view of his cotemporaries in relation to himself.'

Mr. Macknight is certainly not an imitator ; he chooses his
own path, and treads it firmly and confidentlv. We are also
disposed to rely fuUv on his assurance that he has consulted
every accessible book and manuscript on the subject, for his
diligence in this direction is proved by the results. But his
execution is hardly on a par with his conception : we cannot
say of his book materiem superabat opru : the contrary would
be a nearer approximation to the truth; and in so practised
a writer we are not unArequently at a loss to account for the
slovenliness of the style, as well as for the perfunctory
manner in which valuable documentary evidence has been sifted
and employed. Between him and Mr. Wingrove Cooke, how-
ever, the career of their common hero may now be regarded as
completely unrolled and emblazoned for the inspection and
edification of posterity.

Claiming descent, paternally or maternally, from William
St. John, who held a high command in the Norman army at
the battle of Hastings, and Adam de Port, a Saxon magnate,
Bolingbroke used to boast that he united in his person the
noblest blood of both races — the conquering and the conquered.
He was born heir to a baronetcy and a good estate; although,
in consequence of the long life of his father, he giuned nothing
by inheritance till his career was verging to its dose. The
precise day of his birth is uncertain; that of his baptism is
October 10th, 1678; and writing on New Year's Day, 1738,
he says : * Some months hence f shall be three score.' We
hear nothing of his mother^ ft daughter of the Earl of Warwick ;

406 M.SLoknight^B Life of Lard BoUnffbroke. Oct.

and hiB father, who died an unreohdrnj^d rake at nmety, gladly
abandoned the care of his education to his grandmother, Ladj
St. John, who professed puritanical opinions, and (as the phrase
goes) sate nnder Daniel Burgess. Mr. Wingrove CTooke ac-
cuses this divine of downr^t fanaticism; whilst Mr. Mackmight,
with, we think, better reason, insists that his many smart say-
ings should be admitted in mitigation, if not refutation, ^f the
charge. Thus he defined thorou^-paced doctrine to be UiAt
whidh comes in at one ear, passes straight through the head^
and goes out at the other ; and said Uiat the children €£ Jacob
were called Israelite because the Almighty had always hated
Jacobites. These gentlemen are also at issue on the degree of
wdght to be attached to a sentence in one of Bolingoroke's
letters to Pope : — * It puts me in mind of a puritanical pazBon,
' Dr. Manton, who, if I mistake not — for I have never looked
' into the folio since I was a boy, and condemned sometimes to
^ read in it — ^made a hundred and nineteen sermons on the favn-
* dred and nineteenth Psalm.' Lord Stanhope's version is^
that ^ his (St. John's) eariy education was directed by a puri-
' tanical mother, whose im^Hident zeal conpdied him painfiilfy
' to peruse large tomes of controversial divinity when ikr too
^ young to understand their value, and thus perh»s implanted
^ m his mind the first seeds of his aversion to the truths of
** revelatioD.'

Still we i^ree with Mr. Maokmght, that, if an ascolio
mtem of education was over meditatM or commenoad, it was
iu continued by sending the lad to Eton, where the habits,
manners, and mode of tuition were -(as now) essentially of
a mundane character. In his * Memoirs of the Last T«a
^ Years of George the Second,' Horace Walpole states that Us
fadierand Bolingbroke ' had set out rivals at schod ;' and Coxe,
in his ^Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpcrte,' relying probaUy oa
this authority, says that ' during his continuance at Eton he
' (Sir Robert) had been the rival of St. Jdro, who was three
< years older than himself.' An obvious error in dns passage is
afterwards corrected by a note, showing that St« John was in
Atct two years younger instead of three years older. The in-
ference of age either waiy, as well as the respective habits nmd
characters of the lad, preclude the notion of any narified
rivalry at that time; and the contemptuous surprise subse-
quently expressed by the younger of the two at the othei^s
rising influence in the House of Commons^ seems to show that
he had not been regarded as a serious competilor in boyhood.

On leavine Eton, St. John was entered of Christohurch
College, Oxford, where he speedily attracted notice by his

1863. Madcnigbt's lAfe of Lord BoUngbroke. 407

vivadtj and versatility, his remaikable quickness of perception,
and the varietj of knowledge which his prodigious strength of
iBemorj enabled him to accumulate by fits and starts during a
course of study of the most desultory kind. The late Lord
IVfacanhiy used to complain that he could not forget the very
exercises he had learnt at school ; and St John playfully allesed
a flimifaEr tenacity of memory as an excuse for not cumbering
hSa mind with too much book4eaming. Under every disad-
'vantage he learned so much that he was suspected of the not
uncommosi affectation of pretencKng an unreal idleness. His
dissipation, however, was certainly not pretended ; it was con-
-roicuoufl in times wUdi had witnessed the wild excesses of the
Wilmots and Sedleys. An -old gentleman told Gt)ldsmith that
lie lumself had eeen St. John and some of his boon companions
mnniiig naked through the park, and his conneaion with
Mim Oomley, the most dashing woman of the day, was noto-
Tioue -before he was well quit of the University. Fortunately,
it was !then lAie iashion for men of wit and pleasure about town
to oulttrate the society of men of letters, aind his intimacy with
Dryden is illustrated by an anecdote in ''The Lives of the
^ Poets.' On one ocoaMon, when 6t Stkm was sitting with the
poet, a visitor was announced. ' This,' said ]>ryden, ' is Tonson.
' You (wiU take care not to depart before lie goes away, for I have
' not Qompleted the sheet which I promised him ; and if you
* leave me unprotected I «mnst sufifer all 1%e rudeness to which
^ his xesentment can prompt his tongue.' Johnson must have
had a peeufiar pleasunre in telUngthe story, for this was the self-
same ToDson whom he beat, or (as some said) knodced down
-with a folio, for impertinence.

A ocpy of eulogistic 'verses by St. J'Ohn is prefixed -to tfaefrst
'edition of Diyden'a trandation of Yirgil, and this is eupposed
to be the embryo etatesman's first puUic f^pearance in print.
It is not B favourable 4)ne, and (witii perhaps one exception)
Hb aubeequent attempts in verse are •equallhr devoid of poetic
mmst. They were fortunately iimitad to ^ Ahnahide, an Ode/
produced in 1700, a vapid and laboured affiiir, in which the
'writer intimates tlat after a vain search for the abode of Wis-
*dom and Philosophy, he bad returned to the Muses ^md to
love ; a iprologue to the Earl of Orrery's tragedy of ^ Ahemira,'
4ind two or tlvee copies of verses to 4iis mistresses. The best
of these was addressed to a nymph named Clara, who sold
-oranges in the lobby of the Court of Requests, which (as -may
be learnt from the * Journal to &leila ') was then ihe populiur
Jbui^ing^^ee. Like Manon Lescaut and La Traviata, she
iwa9 inoevrigible in the vagrancy of her attacdunents ; no

I

408 MacknighVa Lift of Lord BoHngbroke. Oct.

amount of kindness or liberality could keep her faithful to a
single lover, and the inevitable consequences are pressed upon
her in lines which, in Lord Stanhope's opinion, ' seem to prove
^ that had he (St. John) applied himself to poetry, he would have
* excelled in it' In our judgment, the exquisite comparison by
which Lord Macaulay illustrates Montague's poetical talents
will exactly fit St John : — ' His genius may be compared to
' that pinion which, though it is too weak to lift the ostrich into
' the ur, enables her, while she remains on the earth, to outrun
' hound, horse, and dromedary. As a poet Montague would
' never have soared above the crowd.'

Li the interval between leaving Oxford and entering the
House of Commons, St John piwsed the best part of two
years on the Continent; but little is* known of his places of
sojourn or manner of life there, except that he spent some time
at Milan, and acquired in Parisian society that perfect know-
ledge of the French language which afterwards led to his
havii^ the prindpal conduct of the negotiations endinz in
the Peace of Utrecht Soon after his return, when wont
twenty-two, he married one of the daughters and coheiresses of
Sir Henry Wincheoomb, Bart, with whom he obtained pro-
pertv enough to support the station at which he aimed, inde-
pendently of his grandfather and father, whose estates, however,
were included in the settlement The marriage was not a
happy one ; for St John, like his unreclaimed Ckra, could not
be induced to forswear any of his favourite vices so long as
he had health, strength, or money for their indulgence; and
among his other titles to fashionable fame, he boasted of being
able to swallow, without any perceptible effect on his brain, an
almost unlimited quantity of burgundy or champagne. It
will be seen that he persevered in l£e frequent display of this
accomplishment at seasons when his full powers of mind and
body were tasked to the uttermost by state affairs. ' His youth
(says Lord Chesterfield) * was distiuffuiahed by all the tumult

* and ^torm of pleasures, in which he licentiously triumphed,

* disdaining all decorum ; and his convivial joys were pushed
' to all the extravagancy of frantic bacchanals. These passions
^ were never interrupted but by a stronger ambition.' That
stronger ambition first came into operatbn in February 1701,
when he entered the House of Commons as membar for
Wootton Basset.

Faction never ran higher than during his first Session, which
was also the last of the troubled reign of William. The Tories
were in the ascendant, and used their strength without mercy
or moderation. They passed resolution after resolutionj in

1863. Macknigbt's Life qf Lord BoKngbroh. 409

open defiance of their own established creed, to restrict the
prerogatives of the Crown, because they disliked the dynasty
on which it was about to devolve ; and they impeached in a lump
the whole of the Whig leaders, beginning with the illustrious
Somers, the chief author of the great constitutional settlement
of 1688-9. St John forced his way at once into the front
rank of the majority, and took the lead in advocating the
most violent of their measures ; little thinking that the time
would come when he would bitterly rue the precedents of a
political persecution which he was setting up. When the
tables were turned, and his own attainder was under dis-
cussion, the course he pursued towards Somers, Montague,
and Russell was painfully and spitefully recalled to him; nor
did he in his calmer moments attempt to justify what had been
done. 'But, my lord, I own it with some shame, because
^ in truth nothing could be more absurd than the conduct we
' held.' Such was his avowal, at a long subsequent period, to
Lord Combury. That a man of two or three and twenty, chiefly
celebrated for his excesses, should take up so commanding a

C»sition at starting, can only be explained by supposing that
s eloquence, bemg of that kind which depends more on
natural gifts than on practice or study, was already of the
highest order when he b^;an to test its powers. All accounts
agree that his voice and person were eminently adapted for
oratorical display ; and his writings abound in incUcations of the
rhetorical qualities by which he won his admitted supremacy in
debate. Take, for example, a passage from * The Idea of a

• Patriot King.*

* If a people is growing corrupt, there is no need of capacity to
contrive, nor of insinuation to gain, nor of plausibility to seduce, nor
of eloquence to persuade, nor of authority to impose, nor of courage
to attempt The most incapable, awkward, uogracious, shocking,
profligate, and timorous wretches, invested with power, and masters
of the purse, will be sufficient for the work, when the people are
complices in it. Luxury is rapacious ; let them feed it : the more it
is fed, the more profuse it vriU grow. Want is the consequence of
profusion, venality of want, and dependence of venality. By this
progression, the first men of a nation will become the pensioners of
the least ; and he who has talents, the most implicit tool to him who
has none. The distemper will soon descend, not indeed to make a
deposit behw^ and to remain there, but to pervade the whole body.'

Or the following, which Lord Brougham calls ^a noble

* passage,' from the * Dissertation on Parties : ' —

*If King Charles had found the nation plunged in corruption ; the
people choosing their representatives for money, without any other

410 Mackiiight^B L^t cf Lord BaHmybr^. Oct.

regard; and these repreaentativfis of the people, as well ai the
nobility, reduced bj luxury to beg the m^allowed abas of a cattrt ;
or to receive, like miserable hirelings, the wages of iniquity from a
minister ; if he had found the nation, I say, in this condition (which
extravagant supposition one cannot make without horror), he might
have dishonoured her abroad, and impoverished and oppressed her at
home, though he had been the weakest prince on earth, and his
ministers the most odious and contemptible men that ever presumed
to be ambitious. Our faf^rs might have fallen into drcuantaneefl^
which compose the very quinteesenoe of polidcal misery* They
might have ''sold their birthright for porridge," whidi was their
own. They might have been bubbled by the foolish, bullied by ^Ae
fearful, and insiUted by those whom they despised. Th^ would hMim
deserved to be slaves, and they might have been treated as such.
When a free people crouch, like camels, to be loaded, the ncoct at
hand, no matter who, mounts them, and they soon feel the whip, and
the spur of their tyrant ; for a tyrant, whether prince or minister,
resembles the devil in many respects ; particularly in this. He is
often both the tempter and tormentor. He makes the criminal, and
he punishes the csime.'

After reading these passages, we can readily believe the
tradition tiiat he dictated his compositions to an amanuensis*
His periods swell and amplify, as if he was in the fiill
fervour of declamation ; and, so far as mere readers are con-
cerned, his writings might be improved by a judicious retrench-
ment of their redundancies. The fnlness and richness of St.
John's printed language, however, leave no doubt that he amply
fulfilled in his own person what he desiderates in the genuine
orator, when he lays down that * eloquence must Aow like a
' stream that is fed by an abundant spring, and not spout forth

* a little frothy water on some gaudy ^ay, and revndn dry the

* rest of the year.*

He was by lib means a sdEtary instance, in the last cen-
tury, of a very young man becoming the mouthpiece -of a
party, or taking the lead in the conduct of affiurs, at his first
entrance into public life. The Pitts, father and son, ace re-
markable examples of this descriptioii of furecooity ; and ibe
phenomenon ceases to inspire ^wonder, if we lefleot on Ae
very different sort of trainai^ required finr mblic life in
their day ; when politieal economy ^was in its inmney, asd Ibe
multifarious social problems based on it, or on our complex
system of commercial arrangements and internal administration,
were unknown. To be at home in English lusftoiry and the
Latin classics ^ — to be familiarly versed in the :common[Aace8
of civil and religious liberty, prerogative, toleration, standing
acmies, the Protestant succession, and the balance of power —
to have a copious and well-chosen vocabulary — to be well bom

1863. Macknigfaf B Life of Lord Botingbrahe. ^ 411

or well connected — to be fluent^ animated, and bold — was
enpngfa, and more than enough^ to raise the hopes of an Opposi-
tioD^ or make a Minister look about him ; as when Wal^pide,
startled by the dihvt of the ^ great Commoner/ fdt the necessity
of muzzling ^ that terriUe comet of Horse/

A modem debater addresses the entire nation through the
Parliamentary reporters^ and his repstation depends in a great
measure on the estimate they may found on the substance of his
speeches. St. John had onty to satisfy tiiose who were present
when he sp<^ and who were naturally much influenced by form
and manner. In his ' Spirit of Patriotism' he labours hard to proye
from the examples of Demosthenes and Cicero^ that idl the p^^feers
of eloquence^ unaided by study and experience^ will prove un-
availing in the long run ; and if he means that they will not make
a statesman^ a patriot, an enlightened reformer or bene&ctor of
his country, he may be right. But lie has shown in another
jdaee how great and how baneAil an influence might be
acquired in the House c^ G<Hnmons by arts, aequkements, and
expedients which ^have no apparent affinity to knowledge or
judgment, comprehensiveness or solidity. 'You know the
' nature of that assembly,' he wrote to Windham ; * they grow,
' l&e hounds, fond of the man who shows them grane, and by
^ whose halloa they are used to be encoun^ed.' The Tory squures
grew fond of St. John, much as their successors grew fond of
Mr. Disraeli in our time, for giving voice to their antipathies,
and bunting down the most respectable of their opponents. In
serious argument, and whenever an appeal could be made to
reason, justice, or constitutional doctrine, he was invariably
worsted by Somers ; l>ut fab dadiing oratory carried all before
it in debate ; and it was by slow degrees, and by dint of moral
courage and unflinching energy, rather than by power of words,
that Walpole suoeeeded in establishing a partial counterpoise.
Sir Robert's m^den speedi was a failure : fab manner was
xmgraceful, and fae stammered for want of words. Another
maiden speedb, made the same evening, was a success; but
Arthur Mainwaring b reported to have remarked : * You may
' applaud tfae one, and ridicule the other, as much as you please ;

* but the sprace gentleman who made the set speech will never
' improve, while Mr. Walpole will, in tdme, become an exceUent

* speaker.' If tlus prophecy was only half fulfilled, it was a
happier hit than the one hazarded on Pitt's first appearance,
'that Billy's painted galley would go down before Charley's
^ black collier.'

Although St. John played, tkejnore conspicuous part in the
vident proceedings of fats 4rst '^ssion, the real leader of the

412 Macknigbt's life of Lord BoUngbroke^ Oct.

majority was Harley^ who filled, at the same time, what would
now be deemed the incompatible office of Speaker of the House
of Commons. This man's character and career are utterly
inexplicable upon any ordinary or consistent hypothesis. He
managed a powerful party, which originally had every motiTe
for distrusting him ; he led the Queen blindfold for a season ;
he became an Earl, Eoiigbt of the Garter, and Prime Minister;
he counted the haughty St. John amongst his followers, and
the cynic Swift amongst his friends ; yet we are required to
believe that he had no one sterling quality of head or heart,
and that his successes of all kind were exclusively owing to his
plausibility, dissimulation, and hypocrisy. Both Lord Maoaulay
and Lord Stanhope speak of his rise as a social and political
anomaly in this respect ; and St. John substantially confirms
their judgment, without satisfactorily explaining why the
truth never broke upon him till the tenth or eleventh year
of their alliance. Their onlv point of contact, independently
of interest or ambition, was tne bottle. Harley is described as
constantly flustered with claret, and gave grave offence to the
Queen by frequently appearing before her in that condiUoo.
But this weakness — from which the chief moralist of the age,
Addison, was not exempt — deducted little from his reputed
respectability; and decorous people shrugged their shoulders
at his association with a profligate who made no scruide of
aggravating licentious indulgence by profanity. At all events,
it answered their common purpose to co-operate; and their
contrasted habits gave them a double hold on the heterogeneous
phalanx which they led. Whilst the grave and religious section
relied on Harley, the gay and young were fascinated by St.
John.

The self-seeking nature of their policy is betrayed by the
manner in which they acquired power. It was by no means as
uncompromising assertors of Tory or any other doctrines that
they joined the Ministry in 1804. Godolphin and Marlbo-
rough, finding the war unpopular with the high Tories, were
induced to make approaches towards the Whigs, which led to the
retirement of the Tory Secretary of State (the Earl of Not-
tingham) and two other Tory officials. The vacant seals were
given to Harley, and St John was appointed Secretary at War.
A question has been raised by die biogn^hers whether he
owed his appointment to Harley or Marll^rough. Mr. Cooke
thinks that he was carried forwards bv Harley ; whilst Mr.
Macknight contends that Marlborough bad an immediate inte*
rest in securing the Secretaryship of War for an adherent, and
relies on one of St. John's letters as amounting to a specific

1863. Macknight'B Ufe of Lard BoKnghroke. 413

acknowledgement of the obligation. St* John^ in a subsequent
defence of his own conduct, denies that he was indebted to
either of them, and appeals with reason to his parliamentary
position as furnishing a suiBdent reason for the choice. He
certainlj co-operated cordially with his illustrious military
friend, paid the utmost deference to his wishes, and, in the
offidal correspondence between them, used the terms best
calculated to conciliate his favour, by exalting his sendees and
deyating his fame. Hie Duchess fk Marlbcmugh endorsed on
a letter of St John that Gt>dolphin said in h» Tthe Duke's)
presence that he never reproached himsdf so mucn with any-
thing whilst he was in office under Queen Anne as in granting
unreasonable sums of money to St John, at the request of
Marlborough ; and there is extant a letter from him to Godd-
phin, from the camp at Mildert, which partially confirms the
statement of his wife.

But the letter on which the charge mainly rests is a prior
one, of November 1706, from the Secretary, in which he alludes
to the intrigues of ' some restless q>irits,' and appeals to the
^gratitude and duty' which have ^tied him for ever' to his
Grace. If the writer of this letter was privy to the intrigues
of Hariey, and prepared to profit by them in due season, his
baseness stands oonfiMsed. But there is no solid ffround for
supposing that he was so ; and a well-considered view of his
own interests would have kept him true, for Mariborough's
star was still in the ascendant, and nearly a year afterwards we
find Hariey still amongst its worshippers. This consummate
dissembler, who contrived to impose on such a master of Court-
oraft as the Duke, was not likely to have made the reckless and
indiscreet St John privy to his immature and half-formed designs
so long as he could do without him. These, however, spite of
every precaution, became at loigth so notorious that the Lord
Treasurer as weU as the Commander-in-Chief refiised to sit in
council with him any longer; and on the 11th of February
1708 he resigned. St John and Harcourt (the Attorney-
General) resigned along with them, not strictly as friends or
followers of Hariey, but as finding their continuance in office
incompatible with their Tory professions. The Gt>dolphin
Ministry, whilst it lasted, was thenceforth essentially, if not
exclusively. Whig. That the change was not purely personal
is proved by the appointment of Walpole, now the rising hope
of the Whig party, to the Secretaryship of War; and the
temporary predominance of the rivsd faction, rendering com-
petition hopeless, was probably St. John's main motive in giving
up his seat in the House of Commons, as well as his office, and

414 Macknigfai'a Lifi of Lard BoHtifbroke. Oct.

retiring into the country, to forswear ambiticm and derofe
self heart and soul to Iherature umd phUoeophy.

The chosen place of retirement was BocUesbory, where Si.
John, whose love of boc^ was genuine, tamed lue leianre to
good account, leotdng up occanonaUy from the claasie, histocioy
or philosophic page to indite a congratuktovy epistle to Marl*
bcMTOUgh, or answer a confidential commuBifialion from Hariijv
' And who are these,' writes Mr& Freenttm to Mrs. Moriey,

< that you told me you had somewhere, bat a few ineensidsraUe
* men, that haive uad^rtaken to carty Mrs» Masham up to &
' pitch of greatness from which she woidd be thtown. dens-
' with infamy in a fertaightP What did some people hi y«ar
^ ser?ioe ride lately aboiit firmn h^ to Mr. EUudey at Trtndenj
' and thence to Mr. Sik John's in the oovntry, md then badi

< agEun to her, and so agnia ta L(mdon, aa if they rid poet aU
' the while, but about some notable scheme^ wfaidi, I dava
^ swear, would make the world ^eiy marry if it were known?'

It will be remembered that, whea the Duchess of Marl-
boroi;^ was in the height of her favour with Qpeen Anne^
it was settled that all rdies of etifuette irafdying iaeymKty
of statiea should be laid aside, and that the two finends should
oorrespoDd as Mrs». Ereenum and Mm Moiley^ Tho IKioliesa
presumed upon the intima^, grew imperious^ beeame JBtoler
abk, and was erentuaUy undermined by asuppler fawoonteef
her own sex.

In Scribe's derer play, ^ Un Terre d'Eini,' &e fate oC
miaistiies and the peaee <^ Europe are made to turn on tba
OTent of a Court intrigue, in whkdi the Daehess^ and her poor
relative and onoe humUe dependant, Abigail HiU, oootoad for
the £uro«r of the Quaeiu Abigail coMpMsrs, tba Gadetphia
admiaistratioA is upeet, and Mulberough ia checked ia hia
career of victory by a hasiity-eanoeded peace. TUs plat ia
histerieally tracf in its main features; and the pattinesaof the
meana and incidenta 1^ which the diange was. orouglii about ia
not exaggerated by the dramatbt^ although namy of his detuls
are of purely Frendi maanfactnre on tba face of them. Anne,
like most ddL woaaea ctf rank, was fond of goesip and mystery ;
and from the moment she consented to be present at a private
marriage between Abigml Hill and Masham, the Btrug^
was practically at an end. The mistress of the rches was oooa-'
polled to give way to the woman of the bedchamber ; and her
Grraoe's discomfiture invotved that of the greatest general and
the greatest statesmen of the age— of Marlborough, GK>d<dphiB,
Walpole, and Somers. B«t it must not be supposed that the
expulsion of the Whig leaders was entirely owing to lemak

1863. Mockniglrt'fe Life of Lwd BM^oke. 415

tanper or d^pvice^ It wovld iMve been diffionlt to explode
the Biine unless they had prepared the train. The war had
been prolonged unaeoessarily^ till the nation had grown tired of
k; aikd the trial of Sadieverel was a political blunder of the
fij»t wi^r. ' Yon had a sermon to condemn and a parson to
' roaet — £br tkftt (writes St. John, addresong Walpole)^ I

* think, was llie deeent lanenage of the time — but, to carry ov
' the aU^ecy^ you loatted hnn at so fierce a fire that you

* bnmed yourselv^.'

In her letters, and in the formal Apology for her conduct,
the Duchess of Marlborongh dwells with pleasure on the
apprehensions with whidi she had inspired the Queen, and
complacently enumerates the degrading shifts and devices to
which Her Majesty was reduced in order to obtain priyate
iatofievfg with tbe servants in whom she trusted. The result
wiv that tbe Queen compressed her anger tit) it fairly boiled
0rer, and she conmved with the plotters to make the dismissal of
CFodolpfain as mortifying and compromising as she could.
St. John and Harley are described as 'roaring with laughter' in
Mrs. Maskam'ft pnvate apartments at the way in wnich the
Queen made a oupe of Somers by intimating that she might
possibly require his services to form an administration, and
theieby ptevented the Whigs from resigniBg in a body.
Wbm tb» final bk>w could be dsiajred no Imkgefr, the oommand
to Ood<dpldn to give up his treasurer's staff was brought him
by a* Hvery servant; a slight which so irritated him that he
brod:e the staff contemptuously in the man's presence, and flung
the pieces into the fire.

It would seem that the false hopes held out to some of the
outgoing statesmen were not altogether insidious or ill-meant so
far as Harley was concerned; for he intimated to the Lord
Chancellor (Cowper) and Walpole that^ if they would retain
their places^ St. J ohn and Harcourt should only be admitted to
the subordinate offices which they formerly held. Cowper and
Walpole refused ; a complete sweep was made of their party,
and St. John (not over pleased at the del^) became Secretary
of State. At that time there were two Secretaries of State ;
but his colleague^ Lord Dartmouth, was of so little account, that
St. John was universally regarded as the Secretary and the
second o£ the two Ministers who were understood to be in fact
the Government. Indeed, he could scarcely be caUed the
second; for although Harley enjoyed the Queen's confidence
and filled nominally the higher place, St. John managed the
entire foreign relations of the country, and was the mainstay
of tiie Ministry in the House of Conamons.

416 Macknight'fl Lift cfLord BoUngbroke. Oct.

Although he had written eamestlj and eloqnentlj on the
stock of wisdom and virtue to be laid up in retirement,
he returned to political and social life identically the same
man^ or rather with the selfH9ame aspirations and appetites
raised and sharpened bj abstinence. He was once again at
everythins in the ring — wine^ women^ literature, philosophy,
tides, weiuth, power — eager as erer to assert the part of the
modem Aldbiades, ^to shine a Tullj and a Wilmot too;' or,
as his friend Swift wrote : —

' And yet some care of St. John should be had,
Nothing so mean for which he can't run mad ;
' His wit confirms him but a dave the more.'

Mrs. Delany's recollections, also, refer to this epoch : — •

'Mrs. Delany said 9Ke remembered Lord Bdiugbroke's penon;
that be was handsome, had a fine address, but be was a great drinker
and swore terribly. She remembered his ocmiing over to her unde^
Sir John Stanley's, at Northend, his being very drunk, and gdng to
the greenhouse, where he threw himself upon a couch : a message
arrived to say he was waited for at the Council: he roused himself,
snatched up his green bag of papers, and flew to business.'*

The political position has been lucidly exposed by himself: —

< I am afraid that we came to court in the same dispositions as all
parties hare done ; that the principal spring of our actions was to
have the government of the state in our hands ; that our principal
views were the conservation of tins power, great employm«its to
ourselves, and great opportunities of rewarding those who had helped
to raise us, and of hurting those who stood in opposition to us. It is
however true, that with these considerations of private and party
interest there were others intermingled, which had for their object
the public good of the nation, at least what we took to be such.*

Their paramount object was to withdraw from the war, which
had entuled great sacrifices on England without corresponding
advantages. To discredit tiie war policy, moreover, was to dis-
credit Marlborough and the Whigs, and bar their return ^ to
power. It therefore became necessary to mould public opinion
to their purposes through the instrumentality of the press. By
a combination of (urcumstances which would form a good and
ample subject for a treatise, pamphleteers and periodical writers
had acquired, at the commencement of the eighteenth century,
an extent of influence which no class of English journalists has
enjoyed since. The only parallel for it is to be found in the

• Miss Hamilton's diary in Lady Uanover's * Diary and Corre-
« spondence of Mrs. Delany,' vol. vi. p. 168. Mrs. Delany remembered
sitting when a child on Lord Bolingbroke's knee at a puppet-show.

1863. Macknight's Life of Lord BoUnffbroke. 417

French press for a limited period before and after the Bevolu-
tion of July. One obvious cause was the amount of varied
talent engaged ; including manjr names which are imperishablj
associated with our choicest literature. But what induced
men like Swift, Addison, Steele, Prior, and De Foe, to lavish
their genius on ephemeral objects, to give up to party what
was meant for mankind? Leaving this problem for future
solution, we will simply draw attention to the fact that quite as
much was then thought to depend on the paper war as on the
parliamentary, and that Swift's aid was deemed indispensable
by statesmen who had the Queen and both Houses of Parlia-
ment at their beck. The price of his co-operation was un-
reserved intimacy and confidence. He was accox^inely humoured,
wheedled, and flattered to the top of his bent by both St John
and Harley. All their hopes, wishes, designs, projects, and
measures were made known to him ; and the 'Journal to Stella,'
in which evervthing that passed between him and his great
friends is familiarly set down, forms consequently one of the
most remarkable aids to history that exists in any language.

His estimate of St. John was Tery high from the commence-
ment of their acquaintance, and grew higher with time.

Thus, November 11, 1710 :—

'I am thinking what a veneration we used to have for Sir William
Temple, because he might have been Secretary of State at fifty ; and
here is a young fellow, hardly thirty, in that emplcnrment. His
father is a man of pleasure, that walks the Mall, and urequents St.
James's Coffee-house, and the chocolate-houses, and the young son is
principal Secretary of State. Is there not something very odd in
that?^

A year later, November 3, 1711 :—

* Yes, I think Mr. St. John the greatest young man I ever knew ;
wit, capacity, beauty, quickness of apprehension, good learning, and
an excellent taste; the best orator in the House of Commons,
admirable conversation, good nature, and good manners; generous,
and a despiser of money. His only fault is talking to his friends in
way of complaint of too great a load of business, which looks a little
like affectation ; and he endeavours too much to mix the fine gentle-
man, and man of pleasure, with the man of business.'

Swift's peculiar humour was sometimes indulged in a way
which in any other man would be regarded as ludicrous affecta-
tion or vulgarity : —

* I dined to-day with Mr. Secretary St John : I went to the Court
of Bequests at noon, and sent Mr. Harley into the House to call the
Secretary, to let him know I would not dine with him if he dined

VOL. CXYIII. NO. CCXLII. B £

418 Macknight'B Life of Lord BoUngbrohe. Oct.

late. By good luck the Doke of Argyle was at the lobby of the
House too, and I kept him in talk till ^e Secretary came out.'

The Dean delighted in ^fling, and it may be thought that
St. John would haye proyed a more congenial companion than
Harley. But the contrary waa the ease : —

^ 'T is (let me see) three years and more,
October next it will be four,
Since Harley bid me first attend.
And chose me for an humble fiiend ;
Would take me in his coach to chat,
And question me of this and that,
Or gravely try to read the lines
Writ underneath the country signs.*

Warton relates that another of dieir amnsem^its in these
excursions consisted in counting the poultry on the road, and
which ever reached thirty*(»ie firsts or saw a cat, or an old
woman, won the game. Bolingbroke overtaking them one day
in tbeir road to Windsor^ got into Oxford's coach, and began
some political conversation* Oxford said, ^ Swift, I am up ;
^ there is a cat I ' Bolbgbroke was disgusted with this levity,
and went again into his own carriage.

The first duty imposed on Swift was ta undertake the chief
conduct of a weekly paper, the * Examiner ; ' his oontributioDs
to which, from November 1710 to June 1711, fill an octavo
volume of his works. The first twdve papers were written by
Atterbury, Prior, Frend, St John, and other persons of note.
One, which went by the name of Mr. St. John's Letter to the
* Examiner,' attracted great attention— greater, we agree with
Scott, than its intrinsic merits warranted — and provoked an able
reply from Lord Cowper. Its principal topic was the impolicy
of the war. The argument was eflfectively followed up by Swift,
in hie ^ Conduct of the Allies ; ' and at length the Ministry were
emboldened to open those nogotiations witn France which ended
in the famous Peace of Utrecht. This peace was too impera-
tively demanded by the position of the Ministry to be conducted
with becoming consideration for the complicated interests at
stake. The most important steps were taken with suspicious
secrecy ; and our Allies were studiously kept in the danc con-
cerning them, till it was too late to dissent or protest. St John's
order to the Duke of Oimond, the English commander in the
Netherlands, not to engage in any active operation, may be
taken as a sample ; his Grace being instructed to keep this
order a secret from the allied general, Prince Eugene. The
postscript, resembling the proverbial one to a woman's letter,
contiuns this startling announcement, which it is difiScuIt to

IMS. Maoknigfat'B lift of Lard Bohngbrcke. 419

dtttingniA from an overt act of treason, no'saspenslon of arms
having yet been settled : ' I had almost forgotten to tell your

* Grace that ccmimnnication is given of this order to the Court

* of France.' Whatever the Secretary's faults and weaknesses^
he was not the man to shrink from personal responsibility, for
no council was held upon this conimunicatiiMi, and the voo^misf
of his colleagues, including the Poemiery were kqpt in ignoDance
of it. .

Whilst these negotiations were pending, many important
events occurred beaaring upon the fortunes of St. John. The
abortive attempt of Gubcard gave Hadey so marked an
accesdon of favour and popularity as to rouse the jealousy of
St. John, who tried hard to inculcate a belief, not altogether
devoid of foundation, that the assassin's stid) was really in*
tended for himself. Advantage was taken of liie adventure to
create Harley Earl of Oxford and Mortimer ; and St. John,
left undisputed leader of the Conunons, was now at the cul'^
minating point of his career, at the very aeme of prosperity, if
he could have been induced to think so. It was about this time
that he originated the club, of which we read so much in the
'Journal to Stella.' Writing to Lord Orrery, he siqrs: —

' The first regulation proposed, and that which must be most in-
violably kept, is decency. None of the extravagance of the £it Cat,
none of the drunkenness of the Beefsteak, i^ to be endured. The
improvement of friendship and the encouragement of letters are to be
tiie two great ends of our society.'

Oxford and his friends were members^ and the two rivals, as
they must henceforth be deemed, also met on friendly terms at
what Swift calls his best night-house. Lady Masham's, where
the coterie consisted of the Mashams, St. John, Oxfoid,- Ar-
buthnot, and Mrs. Hill of the bedchamber, sister of Lady
Masham. We catch frequent glimpses of St. John's domestic
life in the * Journal to Stella' : —

April?, 1711:—

* I called this evening to see Mr. Secretary, who had been very ill
with the gravel and pain in his back, by burgundy and champagne,
added to the sitting up all night at business; I found hnn drinking
tea, while the rest were at champagne, and waa very glad of iL I
have chid him so severely, that I hardly knew whether he would
take it well : then I went and sat an hoiHr with Mrs. St John, who
is growing a great favourite of mine; she goes to the Bath on Wed-
nesday, for she is much out of health, and has begged me to take care
of tiie Seeretaiy.*

Aognrt 4 and 5, 1711 : —

' Idined yesterday at Buckleberry (^), where we lay two nights, and

422 TdBckaif^BL^qfl^ndai^^ OtL

'One Bojtt^ % Fr&Btch. 6og,haB abnaei »e in « pajnphkl; aoid I
have got him np in a messenger's hands : the Secretary promises me
to swinge him. Lord-Treasurer told me last night, that he had the
honour to be abused with me in a pamphlet. I must make that
rogue an example, for warning to others.'

The only semblanoe of an excuse is to be found in die till-
pervading spirit, of party, which is amusingly illnatrated by the
periodic^ writers and essagqsts. Thus Swift, in 'The Examiner,^
Na 31, writes: —

'The Whig ladies put on their patches in a different manaer fipom
the Tories. They have made sdusms in the playhouses, and each
have their particular sides at the opera ; and, wlien a man changes
his party, he must infallibly count upon the loss of his mistress. I
asked a gentleman the other day how he liked such a lady ; but he
would not give me his opinion till I had answered him wlUther she
were a WWg or a Tory.*

The same subject is admirably treated in the 'Spectator^
(No. 81.), by Addison, wbo states, by way of illustration, that
in a draught of marriage articles a laay had stipulated with her
husband that, whatever his opinions are, she snail be at liberty
to patch on which side she pleases : that a famous Whig partisan
had most unfortunately a beautiful mole on the Tory part of her
forehead, which had given a handle to her enemies to misreproaeat
her &ce as though it had revolted to the Whig interest; and
tiiat an equally fiunous Toir was unfortunate in a pimple, wbicii
forced her against her inchnations to patch on the Whig side.

The hoetiEty of fection found an appropriate field of display
in the first representation of Addison's play of * Cata' The
event is succinctiy narrated by Johnson : —

'The whole nation was at that time on fire with faction. The
Whigs applauded every line in which liberty was mentioned as a
satire on the Tories ; and the Tbries edioed every dap to shov that
the satire was unfelt. The story of Bolingbroke is well known. He
called Booth to his box and gave him fifty guineas for defending the
cause of liberty so well against a perpetuiS dictator. The Whigs,
says Pope, design a second present when tiiey can accompany it with
as good a sentence.'

The vear before this occurrenoe St John had become Yiaceiuit
Bolingbroke, a promotion which he eagerly solicited, althoQgfa
there is a passage in his Letter to WincUiam hinting tiiat it was
forced upon him. He could not bear to see Oxford exalted so
far over his head, and fully expected to take his plaoe alongside
him as an earl, the earldom of Bolingbroke having been formerly
held by a branch of his fisunily. As some sdace to hiswoonded
pride, he was charged with a special mission to Paris for tlie

1863. MAcbught's Lije x^f Lord BoUnffbroie. 423

pnipoaeof acoeleratiag the nego&itions, snd his reoeption there
was siieh as is oommoiily giyen to national heroes or deliverers.
The French editor of his letters says diat ' he was received as
' an angel of he$i9&u Whenever he entered the theatre the
' qMctat<»s rose to mark their respect' His stay in the Frendi
eapital was short — litde mote than a week — bnt long enon^
to^ create a highly favooraUe impression of his manners and
address^ as well as 16 lay the foundation of two or three scandals
which have never been cleared up. Thns Mr. Maoknight un-
hesitatingly accepts and amplifies uie stoory of his Blieg&iliaiaon
with Madame de Tencb, known to history by various jpirofli-

fate intrigues, personal and political, in concert with her
rother, the Abb^ de Tendn, as well as by giving Virth to an
illegitimate chUd, who, unluekily for her fame, lived to be a
very eel^rated man. She was the reputed mother of
D'Alembert, who was found by a glaaer's wife on ihe steps of
a church one cold November mondng and brought up by her.
Coxe, on the authority of Horace Wdpole, states that Madame
de Tencin coaxed some valuable secrets out of Bolingbroke
and stole some of his papers. But he was no novice ; and pro-
fligate as the lady and her brother may have been, the Abb^
afterwards became a cardinal, whilst she held and retained a
distinguished position amongst those ' wmnen of brilliant talents
* who violated idl the duties of life, and gave very pleasant
' little suppers.' There was nd^nng at all remarkable, therefore,
in Boling1:»t>ke's intimacy with them ; and we agree with Mr.
Wingrove Cooke that the honour of inventing the rest of the
story may, without much danger, be divided beween the Parisians
and Horace Walpole.

Another scandal of a much more serions Idnd was that
Bolingbroke had secretly communicated with the Pretender;
but the sole foimdation for it seems to be^ that they were once
at the same opera, which was not denied by Bolingbroke %r
his friends. * He protested to me (writes Swift to Archbishop
' Eang), that he never saw him but once, and that was at a great
^ distance in pubKc, at the opera.' To suppose that Bolingbroke,
the observed of all observers, would have chosen such a plaee
for an interview, is preposterous. Besides, he had no fixed
Jacobite views at that time, and no known motive for
seeking an interview with the Pretender,* during his Frendi
mission. That he formed relations abroad of a nature to excite
jealousy, is clear from Oxford's * Brief Account ; * and soon after
his 9itum, the oflScial correspondence with France was taken
from him and transferred to Lord Dartmouth, to the serious
detriment of the negotiations and the confusion of Prior, who.

424 Macknight's Life of Lard BoUngbroke. Oct.

left as a kind of plenipotentiary in Paris, > exdaams, ^ I have
' neither powers, commission, title, instructions, appointments,
^ or secretary.' The want of all had been supplied by the
unreserred confidence with which he was treated by the Secre-
tary. They address each other as Mat and Harry, and on such
unrestrained terms that the editor of the correspondence has
thought fit to suppress some passages on the score of pnq)riety.
The Pjeace of Utrecht was signed April 11, 1713, and might
fairly have been expected to strengthen the Ministry. But the
nation was not long in discovering that neither its honours
nor its interests had been consulted so much as the pressing
wants of the negotiators. BoUngbroke admits that the terma
were not such as the Allies were entitled to inmst upon;
and his abandonment of the Catalans, in particular, has caused
his memory to be perpetuated among that gallant people muck
as that of Castlereagh is perpetuated among the Qenoese. In
his formal Vindication he tries hard to throw the principal
blame of the ensuing disappointment on Oxford : —

' Instead of gathering strength, either as a' ministry or as a party,
we grew weaker every day. The peace had been judged with reason
to be the only solid foundation whereupon we coold erect a Tory
system : and yet when it was made we found ourselves at a fuU
stand. Nay the very work, which ought to have been the basis of
our strength, was in part demolished before our eyes, and we were
stoned with the ruins of it. Whilst this was doing, Oxford looked
on, as if he had not been a party to all which had passed ; broke now
and then a jest, which savoured of the inhs of court and the bad
company in which he had been bred : and on those occasions, where
his station obliged him to speak of business, was absolutely unin-
telligible/

He goes on to show that he was obliged to undermine
Oxford, to prevent Oxford from underminine him. It was
ditmond cut diamond; and Oxford, who I^ risen through
Mrs. ^now Lady) Masham, like the engineer hoisted by his own

Setara, was summarily flung down by her. He had baulked
er hope of pecuniary gain on two occasions : so she told the
Lord Treasurer to his foce, ' You have never done the Queen
' any service, nor are you capable of doing her any.'

Whilst the crisis was preparing, Bolmgbroke pursued his
ordinary course of alife, mixing relaxation with business, and
gallantr7 with politics. A letter to the Earl of Strafibrd, dated
Ashdown Park, October 8, 1713, begins: * l^red as I am with
' foxhunting, since the messenger is to return immediat^y to
^ London, Icannot neglect,' &c. One to the Due d* Aumont, the
French ambassador, is dated ^ De man Ecurie, ce 2V^ Octabre,

1 863. Macknight's Life of Lord BoKngbrohe. 425

* 1713i' find begins, * Parmi les chiens et les chevaux, au miUeu de

* la plus prof tmde retraite* On December ITld, writing to Sir
John Stanley^ he excuses the delay of General Evans in setting
out for his command on the plea that ' Young Havrley, his Lieu-
' tenant-colonel, had the misfortune to bre» his bones in fox-

* hunting with me.* When Prior announces that M. de Torcy
has promised to sit for his picture, Bolingbroke (Sept 29.)
replies : ' Assure him, dear Matt, that I will place it among

* tlie Jennys and the Mollys, and that I will prefer it to all of
' them. • . For 6od*s sake, Matthew, say half a score pretty
' things to Madame de Torcy and Madame de Noailles, and

* father them upon me. I have really in my life done as much
^ for several friends, that shall be nameless.'' He had despatched
a cargo of honey-water, sack, and Barbadoes-water to be dis-
tributed between his fair friends at Paris, and Prior, Oct. 6,
1713, writes: —

' I am now upon the greatest piece of negotiation that I ever had
in mv life, the distribution of your cargo : upon which the Noailles
and the Croissys are in an uproar, but Imving wherewithal to appease
them, I b^n the great work this afternoon, and shall give you a full
account of my actions by the next: both at Fontainebleau and Croissy,
we have all remembered le cher Henri in the friendliest manner
imaginable ; and on my side, I have and will continue to lie most
strenuously for you.'

* Adieu, my dear Lord ; if at my return I may help you any way
in your drudgery, the youngest clerk you have is not more at your
command ; and if at the old hour of midnight, after your drudgery,
a cold blade-bone of mutton, in Duke Street, will go down eicut olim,
it, with all that belongs to the master of the house (except Nanny), is
entirely yours.'

Swift accuses Bolingbroke of affectation in talking of the
load of affairs flung upon him ; but the printed correspondence
proves their variety and midtiplicity. With half continental
JEurope on his hands, he was obliged to undertake the virtual
guidance of the Irish Yiceroyalty ; a task far from facilitated
by the high and independent character of the Lord Lieutenant,
the Duke of Shrewsbury, whom he tried to conciliate by flat-
tery:—

'It bdongs only to those of your Grace's standard, not to let slip
the minutest affairs, while they roll in their minds the fate of king-
doms, and the government of the world/

Bolingbroke was also obliged to be in assiduous attendance
on Lady Masham and the Queen. He had calculated on
passing the Christmas 6f 1713 with them undisturbed by the
presence of Oxford ; but on arriving at Windsor, he found the

^6 Maduiigbf 8 Life of Lord Balingbrohe. OoL

Queen aUrmingly ill^ and during tba wbola of die .ensoiag
months the pubKo miad was in a state of feverish Bfif^B^umtma
of her death. Steele seized the ocoasioa for the pubUcation of
his &mou3 pamphlet^ * The Crisis,' one of the poorest of hia
poUtioal productionB; yet its reception was such as to amto
the envy of Swift, who answered it in ^ The Public S[nrit of
' the Whigs.' It is a cvrions feature of the period that both
these eminent writers wene jHrosecated for these prodaadoas
respectively with the most unrdentiag hostility* Steele was
expelled the House of Conmions for his share in the contro-
versy, and Swift was with difficulty .rescued by Oxford (who
protested in his place as a Peer of .the realm that he knew
nothing of the pamphlet) from the vepgeanee of the Lord% at
whose instigation a reward of 300/. was offered for the disoov^y
(tf the author. The crisis was indeed immisient ; for ahhoqga
the Queen's recovery was officially notified prior to the opening
of the new Parliament^ she was not expected to outlive the

Sr, and a counter-revolution was obviously on the cards,
w far Oxford and BoUngbroke^ one or both, aimed or
laboured at it, has been vehemently and laboriously dieeussed-
Whether, like Qod(dphin and Marlborough, they were in oott-
munication with the exiled fiunily, is hiffdly worth dispating;
but specific plane and overt sots are much more serious things,
and we see no reason to distrust Bolingbn^e when be saye,
' As to what might happen afterwards, on the death of the
' Queen^ to speak truly, none of us had any settled resolution.^
Or, again : ^ One side was united in a common view, and acted
' upon a uniform plan ; the other had really none at alL'

He was disposed to run greater risks than Oxford* And
greater expectations were based upon his adhesion to the
Jacobite cause; for the Duke of Berwick expressly states
in his Memoirs, that the Pretender's friends were directed
to throw all their influence into the scale agunst the Lead
Treasurer. Had Queen Anne lived long enough for BoUng-
broke to get firm hold of the reins, their speculation might
have answered. As things turned out, it is clear that he
was taken by surprise ; and the violence with which he acted
apunst the friends of the Protestant Succession, especially in
his support of the Schism Act, may be explained by his wish
to outshine Oxford in the eyes dl the more intolerant and
bigoted of the Tories, the noisy and obstreperous members of
the October Club. He will not receive credit for having been
hurried on by the strength of his convictions, by his devotion
to the Church Establishment or hereditary right ; and, to do
lum justice, he afiected no enthusiasm of the sort. Whilst

1863. Maoknigirii^s Life tf Lord BoHnffbrohe, 427

waaaj doubted wbetfacr be was a beUener in Proridfiiioe^ he was
a waiter on it; and be &iled firom causes which no human
poliey couhl have contooUed.

In an article attributed to the kte Lord Macaulay which ap-
peared in this Journal in October, 1635 (Ed. Rev. vol. hnL
p. 1.), we took occasion to discuss iike evidenee of liae com-
plkaty ci BoUngbndce as well as Oxford in the plot for Hie
restoration of ^ Pretender, from .the eorrespondaice of the
Abb^ Gwdtier in the Mac^todb pliers. These papeos have
since been more fully examined by M. Ghnmblot, who published
the resolts of hie invest^ation in the ' Kevae J^onvelle.'
M. Grimblot's opimon is oonaiderably less unfavourable to
Bolingbroloe than that of Lord Macaulay. Iberville's report of
his first conversation with Lord BoIiDgbroke on the 28th
December, 1713, proves how little the English Jdinister was
disposed to oommk himself, and that he was convinced that
nothing could be done for the Chevalier as long as he remained
a Soman Catholic. But whatever may have been the extent
of BoUngbroke's incomplete negotiations with the Jacobites,
there is no doubt of the subtiety and passion with which he
•ought to overthrow his former ally, Harley.

'The Dragon (Oxford) holds £ut with a dead grasp the little
^ UMchine ' (the Treasurer's staff), wrote Arbui£jM>t to Swifit,
in the height of the stmggle. He held it so hst that ihe effort
to wrest it from him won oat and broke down his adversary.
The Council in which he was dismissed presented one of the
most extraordinary scenes ever acted on any stage. He gave
T^t to a burst of impotent rage, reviled Lady Maahom, and
vowed vengeance on the male and female authors of his dis-
grace. When he left the room, die choice of the Commissioners
by whom he was to be replaced was anxiously discussed, and
ihe sitting lasted till two in die momiog. The Queen remained
-till the dose ; but the agitation was too much for her; she with-
drew, exclaiming that she had received her deaih-blow, and
was carried io her bed, from which she nev^ rose agun. This
Coundl was held on Tuesday, July 27tlu On die morning of
Friday, the 36th, she was struck ^eeehless by a fit of apoplexy.
The Council hastily re-«issemblea ; and BoUngbroke, who at-
-tended it as Prime Minister expectant, left it a biffled intriguer,
with utter ruin staring him in the face. On a hint of what was
likely to happen from Shrewsbury, the Dukes of Somerset and
Argyll, who were not of the Cabinet or governing Junto and
had not been summcmed, took their places at the Board, moved
(they said) by the giave nature of the emergency. They
proposed that the physicians should be examined ; and, learning

428 Maoknight's Life of Lord BoUngbroke. Oct.

that the Qaeen*8 consciousnesB was retarned, ArsjU moved and
carried an address^ requesting her to deliyer uie Treasorei^a
staff to Shrewsbury. She gave it to him, tdling him to use it
for the good of her people. On the next day but one ( Aogoat
Ist) she died. ' The Earl of Oxford was removed on Tuesday :
' the Queen died on Sunday. What a world is this I and how
^ does Fortune banter usT So wrote Bolingbroke to Swift,
two days after the catastrophe. A dashing attempt to reverse
the current of events was proposed by Atterbury, who offered
to go in his lawn-sleeves with a troop of Life Guards, and
prodaim James III. at Charinff Crosa But, far from con-
curring in the scheme, BoUngbroke attended the proclamation
of King Greorge at the Guildhall, and was well received by the
populace, who hooted Oxford.

Strange to say, both Oxford and Bolingbroke entertained
hopes of a favourable reception frcMoi the new sovereign ; and
Oxford, who foolishly intruded himself on the royal presence,
at Greenwich, was received (as recorded by his rivtd) ' with the
' most undisguised contempt' Bolingbroke imderwent the
mortification of receiving no answer to a letter which he had
addressed in his capacity of Minister to George I., and about
a fortnight after the accession he was formally dismissed.*
His papers were sealed up, a pretty clear intimation of what he
had to expect ; and, as he afterwards owned, ' he could ^^^^^

* no quarter firom the Whics, for he deserved none.' xet
instead of taking measures of precaution, or meditatii^ flight,
he retired into ^e country, where he spent the winter receivii^
all the solace he was capable of deriving from his hounds and
horses, his farmyard, his neighbours, and his wife, who, with
true womanly feeling, had merged all her own wrongs and suf-
ferings in sympathy for his. The calm was superficial and
shortlived. A pamphlet, written by De Foe at Oxford's insti-
gation, artfully suggested that the ex-Treasurer had been difr-
missed by Queen Anne for counteracting the Jacobite designs
of the ex-Secretary. A proclamation from the Preten^^
confirmed the general belief in those designs; and the new

* In a very curious Diary kept by Lady Cowper (wife of tlie
Chancellor Earl Cowper) firom 1714 to 1720 (both indosiveX about
to be published under the editorship of the Honourable Spencer
Cowper, it is said : * At the coronation, my Lord Bolingbroke for the

* first time saw the Eaog. He bad attempted it before without suc-

* cess. The King, seeing a face be did not know, asked his name

* when he did him homage, and he (Lord B.) hearing it, as he went

* down the steps of the throne, turned round and bowed three times

* down to the very ground.*

1 863. Macknighf 6 Life of Lord Bolingbrohe. 429

elections had gone so much in faToor of the Whigs as to free
them from restrainti and frastrate all attempts to make head
agabst them. The addreases in both Houses were ominoas and
menacing.

* It was dear, then (says Mr. Macknight), that a prosecution was im-
pending over both Oxford and Bolingbroke. Oxford conducted himself
with his characteristic caution. He came from the country to town, and
went back from town to the country several times in a mysterious, un-
certain way, speaking little, and that little quite unintelligible, seldom
appearing in public, and neyer putting himself prominently forward
in oppoution. Bolingbroke assumed quite a bold and defiant air.
His speech on the first day of the session was almost a challenge to
his opponents ; he showed himself everywhere ; spoke confidenUy of
his innocence ; and seemed as though be cared nothing for what his
enemies might do. This was, however, all acting. He was at heart
much more alarmed than Oxford. After showing himself at the
theatre, on the evening of the 25th of March, complimenting the
actors, and bespeaking a play for the next night, he suddenly, with
all the ready money he could raise on his property, left town in the
disguise of a valet to the French messenger, I^ Vigne, who was just
going over to Paris. He wrote from Dover a letter to his friend,
George Granville, then Lord Lansdowne, and was then conveyed
quietly over to Calais.'

The purport of the letter was, that his flight had been
hurried oy sure information that his blood was to be ' the
^ cement of a new alliance ;' and the warning, despite of his
sabseqaent denial, was supposed to have come from Marl-
borough. Another motive alleged by him for refusing to abide
a trial was, that he must have made common cause with Oxford.
' A sense of honour wonld not have permitted me to dlstin-
' guish his case and mine own, and it was worse than death to

* lie under the necessity of making them the same, and of
' taking measures in concert with him.' This would have
been foolish had it been true; and it was clearly untrue;
for their cases were essentially distinct, and were carefully
kept distinct by Oxford and his friends. The distinction
between them, indeed, is the best excuse that can be made
for Bolingbroke% conduct in flying from the danger which
was confronted by his hated partner in persecution. There
is another statement in his Letter to Windham t\ hich cannot
be reconciled with the facts. He tries to make out that
he joined the Pretender in consequence of a representa-
tion that he would serve his Jacobite friends in England by
so doing, and when the ' smart of a bill of attainder tingled

* in every vein.* It may be true that, on arriving at Paris, he
promised Lord Stw*, the English ambassador, to keep free of

430 Macknight's life of Lord BaSngbroke. Oct.

Jacobite engagements ; bat one of tbe first persons he saw on
arriving there was tbe Duke of Berwiek^ with whom he ait
ODce established an understanding ; and a letter of his to JamoBy
dated the 23rd July, proves that he was doing duty as Jaoolnte
Secretary of State some weeks before he was impeached at the
bar of the House of Lords. The bill of attainder was passed
in September.

A well-Kshosen seleetion from tbe ocnrre^ondenoe whioh he
conducted in this new capacity has been printed by Lotd
Stanhope (Mahon) in the appendix to the first volume ef faia
Historv ; and we should infer fix>m it that Bolingbroke acted
throughout with zeal, ability, and ffood faith. Such was not
the Inretender's opinion, nor that of his confidential advisers,
especially the priests and Irishmen, who were jealous of Boling-
broke, and felt rebuked by his superiority. Soon after James's
return from his abortive expedition to Scotland, in Febmaiy,
1716, Bolingbroke was summarily and insultingly dismissed, the
principal of the tdleged ^unds being ^t he had omitted the
proper means of procuring men and money from Frsnee. In
reference to this charge, Berwick says, in his * Memoirs ': —

^ As I have been partly witness of what Boliogbroke did for ■
(the Pretender), whilst he had the direction of his affairs, I owe him
the justice to declare that he omitted nothing that was in his power
to do. He stirred heaven and earth to obtain success, but the Court
of France did nothing but amuse him.*

One of their modes of amusing him was to throw Madame
de Tencin in his way, who, according to Mr. Macknight, was
still a divinity in his eyes* She was so much the contrary that
in the letter to James of August 15th, he says: —

' I have been in commerce with a woman for some time who has
as nradi ambition and cunning as any woman I ever knew — ^periiaps
as any man. Since my return to Paris, she has, under pretence of
personal concern for me, frequently endeavoured to sound how far I
was engaged in your serrice, and whether any enterprise was on
foot.'

This is not the language of a lover deifying.his mistress ; and
afler stating the use that might be made of her 'private
* but strict conunerce ' with the Duke of Orleans, he oonclodee
with self-sacrificing loyalty :-^

' Your Majesty will excuse this detail, if you judge it impertinent,
and 3rou will give me your orders if you thmk any use may be made
of such an intrigue. / would have even the pteasuret ef mj^ We
eybservient to your Majett^e eermot^ as the labours of it shdi be
always.'

1863. Macknighfa Life of L&rd BoUngbrohe. 431

Bolingbroke was now at the lowest depth of his fortunes.
Of the two great parties between which his countrymen were
divided^ the one calumniated and revUed him; the other did
worse, they laughed at or pitied him. Lord Staif writes from
Paris to Hoiace Walpole, March 3, 1716 : —

' And so poor Harry is turned ont from being Secretary of State,
and the seals are given to Mar ; and they use poor Harry most
unmercifully, and call him knave, and traitor, and God knows what.
I believe all poor Harry's fault was that he could not play his part
with a grave enough face : he could not help*laughing now and tiien
ai such kings and queens. He had a mistress here at Paris ; and got
drunk now and then ; and he spent the money upon his mistress that
he should have bought powder with, and neglected buying and
sending the powder and arms, and never went near the Queen ; and
in one word told Lord Stair all their designs, and was had out of
England for that purpose. I would not have you laugh, Mr. Walpole,
for all this is very serious.'

* May my arm rot off if I ever use my sword or my pen in
* their service again/ was bis very natural exclamation on
receiving a ccmciliatory messi^ from Mary of Modena. He
lost no time in taking steps to make his peace with the English
Government, and hopes were held out to him through Lord
Stair of a speedy reversal of his attainder. But although the
Eling was favourably disposed, it was found impossible to over-
come the well-founded resentment of the Wings, and he was
doomed for many a long year to feel the sickening pang of hope
deferred in all its bitterness. It was about this time (1716-
1718), that he sought relief in the composition of ' [Reflections
^ on Exile,' in which he rings the changes on those very maxims
of pseudo-philosophy which were most at variance with his own
state of mind. The reflection of Brutus that exiles could not
be prevented from carrying their own virtue along vfith him,
was ludicrous in the mouth of one who had no virtue to carry ;
and although, when the Grrecian sage was asked where bis
country was situated, he pointed to the heavens, the English
recluse would have found a closer parallel in the Frenchman,
who, when asked at the extremity of Europe where a road led,
replied that it led to the Palais BoyaL The country on which
Bolingbroke's thoughts were fixed was the House of Lords and
the King's closet.

The Letter to Windham, also composed (or principally so) in
1717, is a production of a very different ord^. It is a masterly
review of his conduct from the formation of the Harley Minis-
try in 1710. Mr. Wii^ove Cooke speaks of the publicity im-
mediately obtained by this letter, in contradistinotion to the

432 Macknight's Life of Lard BoUngbroke. Oot.

formal and posthumous publication in 1753. Mr. Macknight
insbts that it obtained no immediate publicity, and doubts
whether it was ever sent to Sir William Windham at alL It
would require more space than we can afford to go into this
question, or into several other questions of literary and politi-
cal interest raised by these biographies.

Bolingbroke's first wife died in November, 1718, two years
after the commencement of his intimacy with the lady^ the
Marquise de Yillette, who became his second in May, 1720.
He had a rival in Miusdonald, a Scotch Jacobite, who, one dav
at dinner at the lady's, exasperated his jealousy to such a pit<m
that he started up with the view of inflicting personal chastise*
ment Unluckily, or luckily, his foot slipped, he tumbled
against the table, upset it, and fell upon the floor amongst the
plates and dishes. Grimoard, who records the incident in Us
' Essai Historique,' states that Bolingbroke's gallantries were
not diminished either by his love for this lady or his marria^
But he failed to rouse her jealousy by recounting them, or by
dwelling, as was his wont, on his amatory exploits. ' Ah,*
was her remark, * as I look at you, methinks I see the ruins of
' a fine old Roman aqueduct, but the water has ceased to flow.'
She was a widow, two years older than himself. A difliculty
arose after the marriage relating to a portion of her fortune
intrusted to Sir Matthew Decker, who refused to pay it, on
the ground of its coming within the attainder. To obtain the
indemnity which he insisted upon, she came over to England by
her husband's wish, and, failing with the Ministers, induced the
King's mistress, the Duchess of Kendal, by a bribe of 11,000^
to procure an Act to free Bolingbroke from all penalties and
disabilities, so far as holding property or residing in England
was concerned. This was in 1725. He had received a pardon
under the Great Seal in 1723. Further the Ministers, under
her and the King's direct instigation, refused to go; their
supporters, they urged, were unmanageable ; but it cannot be
supposed that Walpole and Xownshend really wished to rein-
state Bolingbroke in a position where he could become a candi-
date for power. He afterwards asserted that the death of
George I. was nearly as fatal to his political prospects as
.that of Anne; and Horace Walpole is at some pains to dis-
credit the rumour that his father was in danger of being displaced
to make room for his enemy. The Duchess of £[endal, it
seems, secretly delivered a memorial from Bolingbroke request*
ing an interview. The Eong handed it over to Walpole, who
recommended his royal master to grant the request. The
interview took place; and when the Minister inquired the

1863. ^nxAan^i's Life of Lord BoKngbrohe. 433

purport of the promised communication, the Eong exclaimed
with a laugh, ^ Bagatelks, Bagatelles J

By speculating in the famous Mississippi scheme, Bolingbroke
made money enoiLgh to purchase a house and small estate called
La Source, near Orleans ; a spot which his temporary residence
has made classical. He was here visited by Voltaire, who
wrote to Teriot : —

'H faat que je vous fasse part de I'enchantement oii je sais du
voyage que j*ai fait h La Source, chez Milord Bolingbroke et cbez
Madame de Villette. J'ai trouv6 dans cet illustre Anglais toute
r&udition de son pays et toute la politesse du ndtre.*

But the place which, through him, became richest in literary
associations, was Dawley, near Uzbridge, which he purchased
of Lord Tankerville about 1726. It was here that Pope, Gray,
and Swift were his guests. His mode of life may be collected
from their correspondence. In a letter dated Dawley, June 28th,
1728, Pope writes to Swift:—

* I now bold the pen for my Lord Bolingbroke, who is reading
your letter between two haycocks, but bis attention is somewhat
diverted by casting his eyes on the cloudy not in admiration of what
you say, but for fear of a shower. • • • As to the return of his
health and vigour, were you here you might inquire of his haymakers ;
but, as to his temperance, I can answer that (for one whole day) we
have had nothing for dinner but mutton broth, beans and bacon, and
a barn-door fowl. Now his lordship is run after his cart, I have a
moment left to myself to tell you that I overheard him yesterday
agree with a painter for 200/. to paint his country hall with trophies
of ricks, spades, prongs, &c., and other ornaments, merely to
countenance his calling this place a farm.'

Bolingbroke anxious for his hay, may be paralleled by Fox
in the Louvre considering whether the weather was favourable
for his turnips at St Ann's HilL Dawley was a handsome
country-house, with park, gardens, stables, fancy farm, &c.,
and cost him, sooner or later, 23,000/. * I never (writes Swift)
^ knew him live so grandly and expensively as he has done
' since his return from exile. Such mortals have resources
' that others are not able to comprehend.'

On his being thrown in fox-hunting. Pope writes to Swift :
^ Lord B. had not the least harm by his falL I wish he had
^ received no more by his other falL' He also occupied a large
house in Pall Mall, with the view of watdune or taking part
in the political game, from which he never could hold aloof long,
although pretty sure to rise a loser. Hatred of Walpole hm
become his ruling passion ; and the features of his arch-foe may
be traced in most of his historical portraits of bad ministers,

VOL. CXVUL NO. CCXLII. F ?

434 MacknigWs Life of Lord BoRmgbrohe. Oot»

induding those of Riohaid IL and Charles L He was eter-
nally racking his invention for new modes of attack and new
forms of inye^stive ; yet, somehow or other, his weapons did so
mueh harm on the recoil, or when they were flnng back, that
more than onoe he was requested by his own dde to hold his
hand and absent himself. BUs devions career had laid faifla
terribly open to telling retorts; and, eloquent as were his
printed diatribes, his friends w^e not always able to bear up
against the pitiless storm of obloquy which they provoked* A
remarkable example occurred in 1735, in a debate on the
Septennial Bill, when Sir William Windham (Bolingbroke'a
Parliamentary double), having drawn a fancy picture of a
oorrupt minister, meaning Walpole^ was anewco^d in his own
stram:— -

* But now, Sir, let me too suppose, and the House being cleared^
I am sure no person that bears me can come within the description
of the person I am to suppose. Let us suppose, in this or in some
other unfortunate country, an anti-minister who thinks himself a
person of so great and extensive parts, and of so many eminent
qualifications, that he looks upon himself as the only person in the
kingdom capable to conduct the public affairs of tiie nation, and
therefore christening every other gentleman who has the honour to
be employed in the administration by the name of blunderer. Sup*
pose this fine gentleman lucky enough to have gained over to lua
party some persons really of fine parts, of aneient families and of
great fortunes, and others of desperate views arising from disap-
pointed and malicious hearts ; all these gentlemen, with respect to
their political behaviour, moved by him and by him solely — idl th^
say, either in private or public, being only a repetition oi the words
he has put into their mouths, and a spitting out that venom which
he has infused into them ; and yet we may suppose this leader not
really liked by ai^ even of those who so blindly follow him^ and
hated by all the rest of mankind.'

'Let us further suppose this anti-ministar to have travelled, and at
every court where he was thinking himself the greatest minister, and
making it his trade to betray the secrets of every master he has ever
served. I could carry my suppositions a great deal further, and I
may say I mean no person now in being ; but if we can suppose such
a one, can there be imagined a greater disgrace to htunan nature
than such a wretch as this V

There is a good deal more of the same pungent quality ; and
turning round to the Opposition^ Walpole asked them how they
liked the picture. Bolingbroke put a bold face on the matter,
but left England soon afterwards ; and in a letter to Windham,
July 23, 1739, we find: *I hear he (Pulteney^ has talked of
* something he expects from me ; but I desire ne may be told

1868. Macknigbt^s Life efLord Bolinffbrohe. 435

' I will write nothing. He thought my very name and pre-
' sence in England did hurt.'

Three pamphlets of his, under the title of * The Occasional
•Writer,' gave rise to a sharp controversy. Walpole, ever
ready for the encounter with tongue or pen^ wrote most of the
answer, coaiduding with this advice: ^Your retirement is
'pleasant; ^oy it. The public is ungrateful; patronise it no
^more. Build, plant, read, drink, sport, pun, or make solemn
' engagements ; do anything but protect us, and we are safe.'
Bolmgbroke's principal organ was * The Craftsman,' a weekly

Gper, established under me auspices of Fulteney and other
iders of the Opposition, in December, 1725. His contri-
butions extend over a period of eight or ten years, and are
easily distinguishable. His ^ Letters on the History of England,'
ander tte signature of Humphrey Oldcastle, originally appeared
in this paper ; as did his * L^ssertation on Parties.' To each of
these publications in its collected shape was prefixed a Dedioa-
tion to Walpole, in which all the author's powers of irony and
satire were put forth. In 1736 he published an * Essay on the

* Spirit of Patriotism,' in the form of a letter to Lord Com-
buiy; and after his retirement to France, a letter to Lord
Bathurst on ^ The True Use of Betirement and Study.' His

* Letters on History ' (also addressed to Lord Combury) were
first printed for private circulatiozL; and a copy having been
lent by Pope to Warburton, elicited a criticism from the divine
which gave lasting offence to the author. The ^ Idea of a
' Patriot ^Klne' was composed in 1739 with especial reference
to Frederick rrince of W ales ; the moral being tiiat a patriot
prince shoidd begin by emancipating himself from the contnd
of party, u e. of Walpole and the Wmiro. It is full of pre^ant
and ported aeDtenoeTwhiah have notVet lost their wefht or
applicability. In one of his momenta of expansion with a
British statesman. Napoleon UL lamented that, under his
tigimey by a lamentable necessity, all that France had learnt of
refMresentative institiitions or self-government m^ht be lost
This very result of despotism was anticipated by Bolingbrokei
' Old men wiU outlive the shame of losing liberty ; and young
'men will arise who know not that it ever existed.' It is the
mark of genius to say thii^ which are both particular and
general, — which serve the purpose of the hour, and survive it.

The ' Patriot King ' is said to have been the text-book of
Greorge HI., whom it strengtiiened in his mischievous obstinacy
when holding out against the recognition of American Inde*
pendence and Cathdic Emancipation. A very disagreeable
oiseovery led to the publication of this work. Pope had been

436 Mackmght*B Life of Lord Bolinffbrohe. Oct.

intrusted with the manuscript, in order to get five or six
copies printed for private circulation. On his death, the
printer wrote to say that 1500 copies had been printed and
kept in reserve for the poet, who had, moreover, taken the
liberty of altering and suppressing passages. Bolingbroke,
more irritated, probably, by the liberty taken with his com-
position than by the fraud, burnt the whole 1500 on the terrace
of his house at Battersea, himself setting fire to the heap ; and
afterwards (1749) published the essav, with a Preface, com-
menting severely and (it was thought^ ungenerously on Pope.
But we reserve for a future opportunity what we may have to
say touching their literary and personal relations, wmch exer-
cised the most momentous influence on the genius and repu-
tation of the poet We may also safely throw aside the
philosophical speculations, on which Bolingbroke confidently
relied for obtaining the highest niche in the temple of Fame.
Their character and posthumous publication have been made
notorious by Dr. Johnson's memorable sentence : — * Sir, he was
' a scoundrel and a coward : a scoimdrel for charging a blunder-
' buss against religion and morality — a coward because he had
' not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half-a-crown to a
' beggarly! Scotchman (Mallet) to draw the trigger after his

* deaUL* The freedom and boldness of sundiy comments on
religious subjects, printed by Bolingbroke in his lifetime — in
his * Letters on History,' for example — repel the {charge of
cowardice; and when Bumey afterwards asked the sturdy
moralist if he had seen Warburton's book against Boling-
broke's philosophy, he replied, * No, Sir ; I have never read
' Bolingbroke's impiety, and therefore am not interested about
' its confutation.' It hardly required confutation, being self-
contradictory as well as shallow ; and the blunderbuss, ever since
its first loud and innocuous discharge, has been laid on the
shelf, like a clumsy and obsolete weapon in a curiosity shop.

It was Bolingbroke's unhappy destiny to survive his second
wife and most of his circle of admiring friends, whose places
the new generation were little anxious to supply. He grew
angry and bitter at not receiving from Pitt the same deference
he was wont to receive from Windham. He died, after much
suffering, of cancer in the face, on the 12th of December, 1751 ;
having taken leave of Lord Chesterfield a few days before his
death, saying, ' God, who placed me here, will do what He
' pleases with me hereafter, and He knows best what to do.

* May He bless you.'

Assuming ' great ' to be a term for expressing the extent of
influence, good or bad, that has been exercised by an individual

1 863. Macknight's Life of Lord BoUnffbroke. 437

on thought and action^ or the space he has occupied in men's
minds, a plausible daim to it may be advanced for Bolingbroke,
who falls little short of the received standard. He was pre-
eminentlj gifted with the qualities that lead mankind captive.
He was facile princeps in the senate, the council-chamber, and
the saloon. He maintained the same ascendancy amongst states-
men, orators, courtiers, fine gentlemen, and wits. His name
may be tracked in history by a luminous streak, such as a
shootinff-star leaves behind it in its glancing and glittering dash
across uie sky. He swayed the course of events to and fro in
the crma of a nation's destiny : he organised and breathed life
into parties: he set up and pulled down governments: he
elevated and depressed dynasties. Not a scrap or relic of his
speeches has been preserved ; yet the tradition of their excel-
lence is as sure in its way as that of Chatham's action (in
the Demosthenic sense), of Sheridan's first Begum speech, of
Ghirrick's dramatic art, or of many other stock objects of
admiration which no one dreams of questioning. Nay, it is
much surer; for, as already intimated, tiie same combination of
thoughts, words, apd images — the same vis vivida — by which
(delivery apart) Bolingbroke swayed assemblies, are found in
bis writmgs; and these are the very qualities which still con-
stitute their principal attraction.

Oddly enough, it is his happiest imitator, Burke, who is made
to ask, 'Who now reads Boungbroke?' The answer is, that
few read him for his political opinions which are out of date,
for bis principles which may prove unsound, or for his statements
which are often one-sided; but all lovers of English literature
read him as one of the masters of our tongue ; and to students
of rhetoric he is, or ought to be, a text-book. The highest
living authority on this point. Lord Brougham, declares that
* if Bolingbroke spoke as he wrote, he must have been the
' greatest of modem orators, so far as composition goes,' having
already pronounced his assemblage of purely personal qualifica-
tions— face, figure, voice, presence, manner — to be unequalled.
Boldness, rapidity, vigour, lucid clearness of expression be-
tokening perfect precision of thought and correct rhythmical
sentences constructed of short Saxon words, are amongst his
charms ; but what is absolutely inimitable is his imagery, which
is as rich and varied as Dryden's, and more chaste. We are
tempted to give one more example : —

* It is evident that a Minister, in every circnmstance of life, stands
in as much need of us public writers as we of him ; in his prosperity
he can no more subsist without daily praise, than we without daily
bread ; and the farther he extends his views^ the more necessary are

438 Macknight*8 Life cf Lord BoUngbrohe. Oct.

we to his support Let him speak as contemptuoudj of ns as he
peases, for that is frequently the manner of those, who employ ps
most, and pay us beat; yet will it fare with hia ambition as wUh a
lofty tree, whieh cannot shoot its branches into the clouds, unless ite
root work into the dirt, from which it rose, on which it stands^ and
by which it is nourished*'

We, of coarse, limit onrhighest praise to his best works, such
as t^e ' Lettere on History/ the ' Dissertation on Parties,' the
^ Letter to Windham,' or the * Idea of a Patriot £ing,' of whidi
Lord Chesterfield says, * 'Till I read that work, I eonfeas I did
^-not know all the extent and powers of tiie English laxtgnage.'
Either of these might have helped to oo»8(^ Pitt, who (as the
cnrrent story goes), when the company were q>eculating en
what lost or missing production was moat to be regpt^tted, and
one was namhig the lost books of Livy, and another dioae'of
Tacitus, at once declared fbr * a speedi of Bolingbioke.'

The moral of his career lies upon the sur&oe for those who
ran to read^ It is, that honesty is emphatically the beat
policy : that themost splendid talents, without prudence, prin^
ciple, religion, or - mcmility, are as nought. In theory, hia gyand
object was his country — ^in practice, it was himself; his senti-
ments were uniformly noble, his conduct was frequ^itly mean;
his passions always got the better of his resolutions, or (as ooe
of his friends toM him in early youth), whilst his soul was all
virtue, his body was all vice. A Stoic in the library, he waa
an Epicurean at tiie supper-table and in tiie boudoir. In^-
numeraUe writers have tried their hands at him, analyaiiig,
efifiting, comparing, balancing, and counteF*balanoing his merits
and defects ; yet all of them bring us bade to the crowning
reflection of a congenial and ^rmpathittng spirit. Lord Chester-
field : ' Upon the whole of this extraardmary character, where
^ good and ill were perpetually jostling each other, what can we
^ say but alas ! poor human nature !*

;k868. Auatia tfm Jurij^rudmc^. 439

Art. V. — 1- Lectures en Jurisprudence ; beinff the Sequel to
* 77ie 'Province of Jurhprudence Determined* To which are
added Nates and Frofftnents^ now first published from theOrwinal
Manuscripts. Bythe late John Austin, Esq., of the ramst
Temple, 6arri8ter-at-Law. Two vols. 8vo. London : 1868.

2. On the Uses of the Study cf Jurisprudence. By the late
John Austin, Esq., of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law.
Beprlnted from the Third Volume of * Lectures on Juris-
' prudence.' London : 1863.

nPHSBB Leetureft and EragBientey widi the vokune on * Tha
^ 'Brepnneeof Juiiapnideiioe,' of whioh they «re the eon*
itnuation, and a yery few though y«tj efaibonite estsays on
miicellAneeas aobjectB, pifkliriied at loag lateralis, mostly in
fieviewe^ are all that imbbuui of the intdleetual life of a moat
mtt«rkable minL Mr. Auatii^ name and wtitings are littiio
known, exoept to students of llie soicnee wfaioh, though only
«f .tkose on whioh his writings pvovehim to haye refleoted,
iMM the subject on whidi he priacipelly wrots. But in tiwi
soiefioe, erea the limited portum of his ldi>ours which was
hsfoFe the woild had plaoed hiai, in the estimatiott of all oom*
potent judges, in the yery hi^est rank ; and if such judges ajre
■ow ipneatly more numerous than when he began to write, the
isct is in no small degvee owing to his intelleetual influenee*
He has been in nothing more useful than in forming the minds
Iqr whidihe is,aad^wiU horealier be, judged. ITo writer whom
we kao^w had nraro of the qualities needed for initiating and
disoipHning other minds in the difficult art of precise thoughts
Though the merit and worth of his writings as a contribution
to the philoBophy of juri^rudenee are coospiQuouSj their educa-
tional value, as a training school £sr the* higher ekss of inteileGts,
will be found, we think, to be still greater. Considered in that
aspect, there is not extant any other book which can do for the
thinker I exaetly what this. does. Independently of tho' demands
which its subject makes upon the attention, not merely of a
pactioular profession, but of all liberal and aultivated minds»
we do not hesitate to say that as a mere organon for certain
fluultiesof the intellect, a practical logic for some of the higher
department of thought, those Tolumes have a claim to a place
in the education of statesmen, puUicists, and students of the
human mind*

It is not, of course, intended to claim for Mr. Austin a
pisition inithe {diiloeophy of law dthsr. equal or similar to that

440 Aastin on Jurisprudence. Oct.

which posterity will assign to his great predecessor, Bentham.
That illustrious thinker has done, for this importantdepartment
o£ human affairs, what can only be done once. But though the
work which Mr. Austin did, neither would nor could have been
done if Bentham had not given the impulse and pointed out the
way, it was of a different character from Bentham's work, and
not less indispensable. In the confidence of private friendship,
Mr. Austin once said of himself, that if he had any special
intellectual vocation, it was that of ' untying knots.' In this
judgment he estimated his own qualifications very correctly.
The untying of intellectual knots ; the clearing iip of the puzzles
arising from complex combinations of ideas coirfusediy appre-
hended, and not analysed into their elements ; the building up
of definite conceptions where only indefinite ones existed, and
where the current phrases disgmsed and perpetuated the in-
definiteness; the disentangling of the classifications and dia«
tinctions grounded on differences in tiiinffs themselves, from those
arising out of the mere accidents of &eir history, and, when
disentangled, applying the distinctions (often for the first time)
dearly, consistently, and uniformly — ^these were, of the many
admirable characteristics of Mr. Austin's work as a jurist, those
which most espedally distinguished him. This untying of
knots was not particulariy characteristic of Bentham. He cat
them rather. He preferred to draw his pen through the whole
of the past, and b^in anew at the b<^nnii^. Neither his
tastes nor his mentfll habits were adapted to the other kind of
work : but, though his neglect of it led him not unfirequently
into errors^ yet, all things considered, success has justified his
choice. EQs effect on the world has been greater, and therefore
more benefidal, by means of it The battering ram was of
more importance, in Bentham's time, than the builder's troweL
He had to conquer an inveterate superstition. He found an
incondite mass of barbarian conceits, obsolete technicalities, and
contrivances which had lost their meaning, bound together by
sophistical ingenuity into a semblance of 1^^ scienoe,^ and heU
up triumphantiy to the admiration and applause of mankind.
The urgent thing for Bentham was to assault and demolish this
casUe of unreason, and to try if a fi)undation could not be laid
for a rational science of law by direct consideration of the
facts of human life. To rescue from amoi^ the ruins sudi
valuable materials as had been built in among rubbish, and give
them the new and workmanlike shape which fitted them for a
better edifice ; to hunt among the irrationalities of law for helps
to its rationale, was work for which, even if it had been oppor-
tune in his day, Bentham had not time. For Bentham's subject

1863. Austin on Jurisprudence. 441

had a wider range than Mr. Anstin^s. It was the whole, of
whidi the latter is but a part The one inquiry was ultimate, the
other instrumentaL Mr. Austin's subject was Jurisprudence,
Bentham's was Legislation.

The puxpose of Bentham was to investigate principles from
wluch to aeoide what laws ought to exist — what legal rights
ana legal duties or obligations are fit to be established among
mankind. Tins was wo the ultimate end of Mr. Austin's
speculations ; but the subject of his special labours was theore-
tically distinct, though subsidiary, and practically indispensable,
to the former. It was what may be owed the logic of law, as
distinguished firom its morality or expediency. Its purpose was
that of clearing up and defining the notions which the human
mind is compelled to form, and the distinctions which it is
necessitated to make, by the mere existence of a body of law of
any kind, or of a body of law taking cognisance of the concerns
of a civilised and complicated state of sodety. . A dear and firm
possession of these notions and distinctions is as important to
practice as it is to science. For only by means of it can the
legislator know how to give effect to his own ideas and his
own purposes. Without it, however capable the l^islator might
be of conceiving good laws in the aibstract, he could not possibly
so word them, imd so combine and arrange them, that they
should really do the work intended and expSsted.

These notions and distinctions form the science of jurispru-
dence as Mr. Austin conceiTed it The readers of what we must
now call his first volume, 'Tfie Province of Jurisprudence
^ Determined,' have probably often r^retted, that though it
discussed in a most elaborate and searching manner the
^province' (in other words the subject-matter and limits) of
jurisprudence, the nature and uses of tibe study itself were rather
taken for granted than expressly set forth. This, which was a
real defect in the former volume, considered as a separate work,
is now supplied by a dissertation on the study of jurisprudence,
formed out of the introductory lectures to the two courses
which Mr. Austin delivered, at University College and at the
Inner Temple. This instructive paper, besides being included
in the larger work, has, in order to recommend the study to a
more numerous body of readers, been judiciously published
separately as a pamphlet

We have already, in reviewing * tiie second edition of Mr.
Austin's < Province of Jurisprudence,' republished by his widow
in 1861, compared and contrasted the metiiod of Mr. Austin with

* Ed. Rev. vol. cxiv. p. 474.

442 Auatixk<m.Juri3prtuU$m6m QaL

that of another ^3aiii€ait philoeophieal lawyer^ Ms. Maine. The
8ubjeGt*maAter of both writere is positive Uw — the: legal inetite*
tions which exist, or have existed^ amoi^ mankind, eonsidered aa
actual facts. The aim of both is to let m the lighlof philoso^qf
on these £ftcts; and both do this withgreot SHooeeSb NeiAer
writer treate ex pr^^kMo of lawB as they <Ni^t-to be ; thnnA
m treating of them as they aie and as.Uiey have been, it is Vam
dedared aim of both to faciii1»te their impio^Kmoit. Biit.thej
puzsue this end. for the most part thuaagh diffegent iateUeolaal
media. Mr. Maine V operation is essantidlyhiotQiioaL^iiot osljr
in the mode of proseoutuig his iaquiry, but/in the nature of the
inquiry itsel£ HeiaveatigateS) not propedy the phUoaophy ef
law» bat the {dnbsopby of the bistoy of law« In tlie variosi
l^gal institutions which obtidny or have formerly obtuned, he
studieB principally thecMUes that prodiiced thrak His haok
may he called a treatise^on the aotiou and/raaotum between tka
ideas prevalent among mankind, and their positive inatitnliqna>
Under each of the .principal cltiosofl of &cts with which law ia
aooiyersant — family, property,. contraet, and delict or ofienoc'
he historically investigates the primitive ideas of mankind, tsaeas
the customa and institutions which h»f e pfevoiled ever since te
their origin in those primitive ideas,.aad shews how institntioM
which were modelled on the rude notions of an eatfly state of
society, have influenced tiie l^oughts ofisabaequent genecakioos
dawn to the* present time. Speculi^ns like moBOp when
directed, as Mr. Maine!s are, by a true historical gemtn, poena
in a preeminent degree all the uses which: can betong to histocy.
IhfilawB and institotioas of primitive mankind aie the riohast
indications available for reading their thou^tst, entering isto
their feelings^ and understanding their general mode of existence.
But the histaxiQal value of these stud& is the smallest pait.of
thei^ utility. They teac^ us tiie hi^y praotioal lesson, that
institutions which, with. move or less of medifieation, still exist,
originated in ideas now universally eoqdoded ; and convenely,
that ideas and. modes of thought which have not lost their hM,
even on our own tkne, are often the artificial, and in some sort
acmdental product of laws and inetitutions which exist no
longer, and of which no one would now iqaprove the revivaL

It is not in this manner, except incidentally and oecasionally,
that Mr. Austin's treatise contributes to the improvement of
law ; thouj^ there is a place allotted to sach speculations in his
comprehentive coneeption of the etudy of juiisprudence. He
does not specially contemplate legal syetoms in seferenoe to
their origin, and.to the psychologi^ causes of their existence*
He considers them in respect of what may be called their

1:86S. AuBfiii tmJm^qtnuimei. 41S

oxganic atmctiiML £very bedj of law has certain pointo of
agcasment lotfa ^rsry olher; and betvreen thoee whieh have
prerailed in oiiltiTai«l and civiliied aooieties^ theve is a still
geaater nmmhar of ieatnrea in eonuiM»i. Independently of the
seaemUaneea wtii^ raitnratty exiat in thek eubatantiye piovi-
aiona (deajgned aa^eae.aie for the same wtold^ and for theaama
human ziatufie)^ ibeoe ia ako a certain oammon groundwork of
gmiesal eoncqptkms as notione, each in itaelf ¥^ wide» ^and
aonifi of them Tory eomplex, wJiieh oan be -traeed through
evezj body of law, and. aceithe aame in all Theae.ooaoepriom
$tte not preexistent; H^ are a result of abstrHction, and
emefge as mom as the.attenspt ia made to look. at any body q£
Ibwb as a whob, or to oonqpase one part of it with another, or
to regard pencma^and the &Gtaof life^fhuna legal point of view*
Xhere are certain mmhingtionaof faets andof iaeaa which eveiy
sysiein of law mnatxeaognise, ajad o^stain modes of regarding
faota which eiaqy ewak agratem requires. The proof is, that aU
Ifigal systems require a variety of names, which are not in uae
&r any otiier pnrpeaeA Whoever has appneheaded the full mean-
ing of iJiese namia»--4iMit is, whoever perfectly understands the
&ota and .the oemfaiiiatieiu of thoughts whi<di they denote-^is a
master of juiiatiaal. knowledge ; ai^ m wdl-made leiioon of the
logal tenns'of all arj^vlems would be a complete sinenoe of juris*
pEodeaoe : for the ebjeets, whether natm»l or artificial, with
which law has ix> dQ,>miiat be. the same objects which, it aleo-has
cficasion to.nam&

But to coneevie distinctly a great mass of dbjeds, partly re^
ounbling and partly differing firom one another, they must he
alaaaed ; and to make any set of practical provisions, which
covejr a large fieU, definite and intelligible, tbey must be pre-
sented to the mind on. some principle of ansang^nent, grounded
on the* degree of their eomiezion and ailianoe with one another*
The details of different li^ systems are different, but there is
no reason why the main classifications and beads of arrange*
ment should not be in a great meaaui^ the same. The facts
of which law takes cognisance, tbouffh far from being identical
in all civilked societie8,.are suffioiendy analogous to enable them
to-be arrangfidiQitbe<same eadresm The more general of the terms
employed ibr legal .pujqposes might stand for the same ideas, and
be expounded by the same definitions, in systems otherwise
difforent* The same tenninolo^, nomenclature, and principle
of anr angement, which would render one system c^ law definite,
dear, and (in Bentbam's language) cogaoscible, would s^ve,
with additions and variations in minor details, to render the
same office for another.

444 Austin <m JuriMprudence. Oot«

Soch a result, however, has not been attained by the mode
in which existing bodies of kw liave been formed. Laws
having in genenu been made sinffly, and their mass having
grown by mere aggregation, there has usually been no authori-
tative arrangement but the chronological one, and no unifcmn
or predetermined phraseology, even in the case of statute law ;
wmle in many countries, and preeminently in England, the
greater portion of the law, the part which serves as the basis for
all the rest, does not exist at all in the form of general language,
but lies imbedded in judicial decisions ; of which even the gene-
ral principle has to be evolved by abstraction, and made the
subject of forensic disputation, when the time comes for apply-
ing it Whatever definiteness in detail, and whatever order
or consistency as a ^ole, has been attained by any established
system, has in almost all countries been nven by private writers
on law. All the generalisations of legu ideas, and all ezpUoit
statements of the meaning of the principal legsl terms, have,
speaking generally, been the work of these unauthorised
persons — have pained from their writings into {urofesaooal
usage, and have ended by being, either expessly, or oftener by
implication, adopted by governments and l^;islatures. So fiur
as any great body of law has been systeiratisod, this is the
mode in which the work has been done ; and being done piece-
meal, by persons often ill*prepared for the task, and who had
seldom any other object in view than the convenience of profes-
nonal practice, it has been, as a general rule, done very ilL
Instead of classing objects together which agree in their main
features, or in the points which are of chief importance to the
ends of law, the classes formed consist of things which have
rither no common qualities, or none but sudi as are common to
them with other tilings. When tiie bond of connexion is leal,
it seldom lies in the wings themselves, but usually in the histo-
rical accidents of the particular body of laws. In actual
systems of law * most of the leading terms ' (it is truly said by
Mr. Austin*) < are not names of a definite class of objects, but
' of a heap of heterogeneous objects.'

The only mode of correcting this evil, is to free firom oonfii-
rion and set in a clear light those necessary resemblances and
differences, which, if not brought into distinct apprehension by
all svstems of law, are latent in all, and do not depend on the
accidental history of any. These resemblances and differences,
while they are the key to all others, are evidentiy those which, in
a scientific point of view, are alone worth understanding in them-

* Province of Jarisprudence, p. 14.

1863. Austin on Jurisprudence, 445

selves. They are also those which are alone fit to be made use
of as the groundwork of a scientific arrangement. The fact that
they exist in all legal systems, proves that they go deeper down
into the roots of law than any of those which are peculiar to some
one system. That the main dividons of the subject should be
grounded on these> follows from the first prindple of classifica*
tion, that the general should take precedence of the special:
and as they are common to all systems, or to all which are of
any scientific importance, the parts of any given system which
are peculiar to it will still find, in this arrangement, a proper
place in which to lodge themselves ; which would not happen if
the main arrangement were itself grounded on distinctions purely
historical, and belonging only to a particular system.

To clear up these general notions is, therefore, the direct object
of the science of jurisprudence, as conceived by Mr. Austin.
And the practical result of the science, if carried to the greatest
perfection of which it is susceptible, would be to provide, first,
such a legal terminology (with a strict and precise meaning
attached to every word and phrase) that any system whatever
o^ law might be expressed in it; and next, such a general
scheme of arrangement, that any system whatever of law
might be distributed according to it ; and that when so expressed
and distributed, every part of it would be distinctly intelligible,
and each part would assist the comprehension of all the rest.
Jturisprudence, thus understood, is not so much a science of
law, as of the application of logic to law. But by affording a
dear and connected view of the whole field of law — illuminating
it by large, comprehensive, and exactly discriminated concep-
tions— and enabling every legal part to be classed at once with
those with which it has the nearest alliance, it bestows on the
student either of the philosophy of law, or of any existing legal
system, a command over the subject such as no other course of
study would have made attainable.

In the attempt to investigate, and bring out into scientific
deamess, the conceptions and distinctions of general jurispru-
dence, Mr. Austin nas built chiefly on the ^undation of the
Boman law. This has been a cause of disappointment to some
earnest students, who ejected, and would have preferred, some-
thing more decidedly onginaL The course, however, which Mr.
Austin deliberately adopted, admits, we conceive, of full justi-
fication. If the conceptions and distinctions which he sought
belong to law in general, they must exist in all bodies of law^
either explidtly or latency, and might, in strictness, be evolved
from any. By strippmg off what belongs to the acddental or
historical peculiarities of the given system, the elements which

446 Aoftin on Jmisprudoiee* OoL

are universal will be more snreljand oampletelj arrtred at, tbaa
by any process of ocmstmotion i priori ; and with the addi-
tional advantage of a knowle^e not eonfined to pBttiecala, bat
including under each generalisation a large aoquaintanoe with
the concrete particulars contained in it. H this be 80» the 1^^
mtem which has been moulded into the diape it possesses by
me greatest number of exact and kgieal minas, will neoessarily
be the best adapted for Ae purpose; for, though the elemente
sought exist in all systems, this is the one in which tfaa
greatest number of them are likely to have been bconghi oafc
into distinot expression, and liie ieweet to remain latent. And
this superiority b possessed, beyond questran, by die Bemaft
law. The eminent syttemalising gemus of the Boman jurisl^
and not any ovep-estimote of the Bmnan law oonndered in itself,
determined Mr. Austin to make it tiie baras of his owa investi^
gations ; as is evident from many passages^ aEodifiom the fbUov^
ing especiaUy:-

* Much has been talked of the philosopfay of the Bbman fiistitatioBal
writers. Of ftmiliarity with Ghredan pblk>so{ihy there are few traoes
in their writings, and the little that tbey birre borrowed from that
source is the veriest foehshness : for ^uun^e^ their accoiint of Jmo
Naturals^ in which ^bey oonfoimd Law with animal instincts — ^Law,
with all those wants and necessities of mankind which are causes of
its institutioas.

' Nor is the Homan law to be resorted to as a magazine of legishu*
tire wisdom. The great Boman Lawyers are, in truth, expositors of
a positive or technical system. Not Lord Coke himself is more
purely technical. Their real merits lie in thdr thorough nwstery
of that system ; in their oommand of its principles ; in the readinesB
with which theyreeall, and the facility and certainty with wUdi
they apply theau

* In consequence of this mastery of principles, of their perfect coi|«-
fiisteney (ekgantia), and of the cleameas of the method in which
they are arranged, there is no positive system of law which it is so
easy to seize as a whole. The smallness of its volume tends to the
same end.

* The principles themselves, many of them being derived from
barbarous ages, are indeed ill fitted to the ends of law, and the concln*-
sions at which they arrive being logical consequences of their inper*
fbct principles, necessarily partake of the same deftot' {Stmfyof

Jurisprudene9y pp. IT-ld.*)

■ I I ■ ■ ■ I ■■■■-III ■ I I ■■ I *

* In the outline of his Course of Leeturea, prefixed to ' The Pro*
* vince of Jurisprudence,' Mr. Austin seems to rest the logical
superiority of the Boman over the English legal system mainly on
the absence of the darkening distinction between real and personal
property — a distinction which has no foundation in the philosophy of
law, but solely in its history, and which he emphatically characterises

1863. AvstiB OS Jwrisprudmce. 447

Mr. Ansdiij therefore, was justified in seeking for the con-
stituent elements of universal jurispradence where they were
certain to be found, and where (from "Ae superior quality of the
minds which had been employed on the system) more of those
elements had been explicitly recognised, and adopted into the
scientific arrangement of tiie law itself, than in koj odier legal
system. There remaine, it is true, a questk>n belonging to a
latter stage of the inquiry : did the Roman jurists select as the
foundation of tiirir technology and arrangement those among
the conceptions and distinctions of law universal which were
best fitted for the purpose? Mr. Austin seems to think that
Hiey did ; since his own arrangement is merely theirs in an im^
proved form. We shall presently give our reasons for thinking
that, with great merits, the arrangement of the Soman jurists has
great faults ; that, in taking a» tlie ground of their entire system
the classification of rights, they adopted a principle suited only
to what Bentham called the substantive bw, and only to the
civil branch of lliat, and, in so domg, revmed the order of
fllia^n of juristical conoeptions, and missed the true aim of
scientific dassifieation. But tiiis, though a vary important, ie
still a secondary conuderatiofi. To find the absolutely best
systematic order fbr a body of law, would be the ultimate
leeult of a complete scteace of junsprudence ; but its main

as ' a cause of complexness, disorder, and darkness^ which nothing
« but the extirpation of tbe distinction can thoDoughly cure.' (P. xciv.)
The following passage (vol. ii. pp. 163-4.) shows at onoe bis opinion
of the English law, considered as a system, and of the reasons for
preferring the Boman law to it, as a guide to general juris*
prudence :^—

* I win venture to affirm that no other body of law, obtaining in a
civilised community, has so little of consistency and symmetry as
OTur own. Hence its enormous bulk, and (what is infinitely worse
than its mere bulk) the utter impossibility of conceiving it with
distinctness and prednon. If yon would know the English law,
you must know all the detdls wbidi make tqi the mass. For it has
none of ^uom large eokermU principles which are a sure index to
details; and, since details are infinite, it is manifest that no man
(let his industry be what it may) can compass the whole system.

' Consequendy, the knowledge of an English lawyer is nothing
but a beggarly account of scraps and fragments. His memory may
be stored with numerons particulars, but of the law as a whole,
and of the mutual relations of its parts, he has not a conception.

* Compare the best of our English treatises with the writings of
the classical jurists, and of the modem civilians^ and you will
instantly admit that there is no exaggeration in what I have ven-
tured to state*'

448 Austin on Jurisprudence. Oct.

problem is to give clearaess, precision^ and consistency to the
juristical conceptions themselves. Wluit Mr, Austin has done
towards this object, constitutes the great permanent worth of
his speculations, considered as substantive results of thought.
No one thoroughly versed in these volumes need ever again
miss his way amidst the obscurity and confusion of legal
language. He will not' only have been made sensible of the
absence of meaning in many of the phrases and dogmas of
writers on law, but will have been put in the way to detect
the true meaning, for which those phrases are the empty sub-
stitute. He will have seen this done for him in the Liectures,
with rare completeness, in regard to a great number of the
leading ideas of jurisprudence ; and will have served an ap-
prenticeship, enabling him with comparative ease to practise
the same operation upon the remiunder.

I

The Course of Lectures, which occupies the greatest part of
these volumes, was never completed. The first eleven lectures,
condensed (or rather enlai^ed) into six, form the original
volume, lately republished. The remainder have never before
appeared in print, but left an indelible impression on the minds
of those who heard them delivered, among whom were an
unusual number of persons since distinguished as among the
foremost minds of the time. Though the Lectures do not con-
elude the subject, yet, with the loose and unfinished but rich
and suggestive memoranda which have been very properly sub-
joined to them, they fill up the greatest part of the outline
^ven in the first volume ; so that, when taken in conjunction
with that outline, and with the important and elaborate notes
appended to the tables which Mr. Austin prepared of the
various known arrangements of the field of law, the^ give
something like an adequate idea of the mode in which he
would have treated the entire subject. We may add that, not-
withstanding the fragmentary nature of the latter part of these
volumes, they will be found, on the whole, easier reading (if
that epithet can be applied to anything worth reading on such
a subject) than the work already so highly prized by those for
whom it was intended. This is an effect of that peculiarity
of Mr. Austin's mind, which made his first drafts always more
fitted for popularity than his finished performances. For in
deliberate sdentific exposition he was so rigid in his demands
on himself, so intolerant of anything short of absolute com-
pleteness, so impatient while the slightest shadow rested upon
any part of the field he surveyed, that he was apt to overlay his
work with excess of matter, and by the elaboration whidi he

1863. Austin on Jurisprudence. 449

bestowed on minor points^ weakened the general effect of his
elucidation of those which were greater. But this, while it neces*
aarily diminished the popularity of his writings, added to their
intrinsic value. Where most men would have permitted them-
selves to pass lightly over some detail or difficulty, he developed
it at full length ; but it was because he well knew that unless
the point were cleared up, the matter in hand could not be
imderstood thoroughly. Those who pass on their way leaving
dark comers unexplored, and concern themselves only with as
much of the subject as lies straight before them, often through
that n^lect miss the very key of the position. Absence of
light and shade, and uniformity of distance, bringing all objects
ahJce into the foreground, 'are fatal defects in describing things
for merely artistic purposes ; but Mr. Austin's delineations are
like geometrical line-drawing, not intended to exhibit objects in
their most impressive aspect, but to show exactly what they
are. Whetlier it would have been possible, by greater artifice
of composition, to have somewhat relieved the tension of mind
required by the length and intricacy of the fifth and sixth
chapters of * The Province of Jurisprudence ; ' whether some-
what more of rhetoric, in the elevated sense in which the word
was understood by Aristotle, might have conciliated an easier
reception for their severe logic — those who have best learnt
from experience the extreme difficulty of such a task will be
the most backward to decide. But we feel certain that any
competent student of the subject who reads those chapters
once, will read them repeatedly, and that each reading will
raise higher his estimate of their substance, and reconcile him
more, if he ever needed reconciliation, with their manner.

In the very summary view which can alone be taken of the
contents of the work, a few words must be premised on the
introductory portion, although reviewed only two years ago in
our own pages ; the rather, as it affords an apt exemplification of
what we have said concerning the object and character of the
entire treatise. The in^^uiry into the * Province of Jurispru-
dence' may be correctly characterised as being from one end to
the other an analysis and explanation of a word. It is an exami-
nation of what is meant by a law, in the political or juristical
sense of the term. And yet it is as far from being a merely
verbal discussion, as the inquiry into the meaning of justice,
which is the foundation of the greatest and most renowned of
the writings of Plato. For the meaning of a name must
always be sought in the distinctive qmuities of the thing
named ; and these are only to be detected by an accurate study

VOL. CXVin. NO. CCXLII. Q o

450 Austin an Jkrispmdemee, Oat

of the thing itself^ and of every oiber thii^ from wfakh iC
requires to be distingnished.

A law is a command* A command is an expression of desire,
issuing from a superior^ and enforced Yyy a sanction^ -Aat is, fay
something of the nature of a punishment. Law, however,
does not mean every command, but only comraands whidi
oblige generally — which obfige to acts or fbibeoranoes of a
class, not to an act or forbearance individuaHy deteranttad.
These several notions having been duly analysed and illnsitnitod,
various objects are brought to view, which do Bot poeseae wH
the attributes of a law, but which, bearing a oertain analogy tD
laws, require to be distinguished from them. And even wiiiiin
the limits of the strict meaning of th^ term, the laws which ase
the subject of jinrisprudenoe require to be distingnidied from
laws in the same lo^cal sense but of a diffiBreatspeotes — luanely,
divine laws, or the laws of Ood. The r^ion wUch diem
different inquiries travd over is large and important, includaig
the following as its principal parts : —

First, the laws of God. Of the six lectures, ^ chaptavi
composing the volume, three- are occupied in the inquixy, by
what means the will of God, concerning the rules of condnot
to be observed by his rational creatures, is to be aacertaiaed —
ascertained, that is, so far as it has not been revealed, or, if
revealed, requires ulterior inquiry respecting die sense in-
tended by the revelation. The author discusses at conadeir*
able length the two rival theories on this subject, that of
utility, and that of the moral sense ; of the finmer of which he
is an earnest supporter, and has given a most able and instnu^
tive defence. His treatment is sometimes such as might 01^
gest the idea that he regarded the binding force of the morals
of utility as depending altogether upon the 'express or impGed
commands of God. This, however, is a mere appeanmee^
arising from the particular point of view to which he was
limited by the nature of his subject What is called the moral
law, was only related to the Law of which Mr. Austin was
treating, in so far as it might be considered to possess ^bm
distinctive character of laws proper, that of b^g the com*
mand of a superior. If he could have been 8uq)ected of ear
couraging a mere worship of power, by representing the
distinction of right and wrong as constituted by the Divine
will, instead of merely recognised and sanctioned by it, tiie
supposition would have been conclusively rebutted by a passage
at page 116. : * If the laws set by the Deity' were not geoeralhf

* useful, or if they did not promote the general hq>piness of his

* creatures, or if their great Author were not wise and benevo-

1£68. AoBtia an Jun»prvdme$* 451

* lent^ they would not be good, or wcHsihy of pxaiae^ bat wece
^ devUidh and worthy of ezeoration.'

The laws mth which jurisprudence is converaaat, haying
been distingnished &om divine laws, have next to be dis-
criminated from what are called laws only by way of analogy —
rules prescribed and sanctioned only by opinion : to which Mr.
Austin^ by a .happy extension of the term Positive as appUed
to law, gives the name of Positive Morality, meaning the moral
<ipiBicMis and seniiments actually prevaili^ in any given society,
as distinguished from Deontok^y, or morality as it ought to bk
Of this character is much that is commonly (to the great con*
fusicm of the minds of students) called by the name of Law.
What is termed Constitutional Law is in part only maxims of
mcHrality, considered proper to be observed towards one another
by the component members of the sovereign body. But the
strongest case is that of International Law, which, as independent
nations are not sulject to any common political superior, ought
not to be termed Law, but Positive Intematicmal Morality. It
is law only in as far as effect is given to its maxims by the
tribunals oi any particular country ; and in that capacity it is
not international law, but a part of the particular law of that
country.

Lastly, laws properly so called have to be distinguished firom
laws which are such oidy in a metaphorical sense — the laws of
nature, as the ex{M?eBsion is understood by physical inquirers^
meaning the uniformities of co-existence or succession in the
phenomena of the universe. That an ambiguity like this should
ever have mided anyone — that what are laws only by a meta-
phor, should be su{^sed to be laws in the same sense as those
which are really the commands of a superior — would hardly a
priori have appeared probable ; yet this confusion is total in the
majority of modem writers, among whom Mr. Austin mentions
Hooker, Blaekstosie, and Montesquieu in his celebrated first
chapter, which is even now regarded by most French thinkers
as profound philosophy. In our own country, we are frequentiy
warned by a certain class of writers against disobeying or
violating the physical laws of organic life, as if it were not the
very meaning of a physical law that it may be unknown or
disregarded, but cannot possibly be violated.

These distinctions, with the many important considerations
into which they branch out, bring us to the end of the fifth
chapter. The sixth is employed in giving precision to the
remainder of the conceptions involved m a law in the positive
sense (a law emanating from a sovereign or political superior),
by clearing up the meaning of sovereignty, and independent

452 Austin on Jurisprudence. Oct.

political society : involving incidentally the whole suliject of
constitutional organisation, and the division of the sovereignty
among several members ; also that of subordinate governments,
of federations, and all the various relations in which one political
society can stand to another.

In the Lectures newly published, the first, subject treated is
the most general of all those which come within the scope of
jurisprudence — the nature and meaning of Rights (understanding
thereby legal rights), and of legal Duties or Obligations. In
order to treat of this subject, it was necessary to define certiJii
notions, which are involved in all cases of rights and duties —
the notions of person, thing, act, and forbearance. These,
accordingly, are the first matters with which the author* deals;
and he criticises various cases of confusion of thought or mis-
use of language on thes^ subjects, in the writings of jurists.

All rights, as he observes, are rights to acts or forbearances,
either on the part of persons generally or of particular persons.
When we talk of our right to a thing, we mean, if the thing is
in our possession, a right to the forbearance of all persons from
taking it, or disturbing us in its enjoyment. If it is in the
possession of some other person, we mean a right to an act or
forbearance of that person — the act of delivering it to us, or
forbearance on his part from detaining it. It is by commanding
these acts and forbearances that the law confers the right ; and
the right, therefore, is essentially and directly a right to them,
and only indirectly to the thing itself,

Kight is correlative with legal duty or obligation. But
though every right supposes a correlative obligation — though the
obligation properly constitutes the right — every obligation does
not create a right correlative to it. There are duties or obliga-
tions which are not relative, but (as the phrase is^ absolute.
The act commanded is not to be done, or the n>rbearance
observed, towards or in respect to a determinate person ; or, if
any, not a person distinct from the agent himself. Such
absolute duties comprise, first, what are ^led duties towards
oneself. The law may forbid suicide or drunkenness ; but it
would not be said, by so doin^, to give me a right to my life or
health as against myself. Secondly, duties towards persons
indefinitely, or towards the sovereign or state ; such as the
political duties of a citizen, which do not correspond to any
right vested in determinate individuals. Lastly, duties which
do not regard persons — the duty, for instance, of abstaining
from cruelty to the lower animals ; and religious duties, as such,
if the law, most improperly, thinks fit to enforce them.

1863. Austin on Jurisprudence. 45^

From a compaiison between duties which correspond to
rights^ and duties which have no* corresponding rights, and also
from a brief review of the different kinds of nghts^ Mr. Austin
endeavours to collect a general definition of a legal right. He
rejects the definitions usually given^ as not applicable to all
cases. He is of opinion that rights have very few properties
In common^ and that ' all that can be affirmed of rights^ con-
* sidered universally, amounts to a brief and barren generality.'*
The only definition of a right which he finds himself able to
give, is, that whenever a legal duty is to be performed towards
or in respect of some determinate person, that person is invested
with a right. The idea of a legal right involves, in his opinion,
nothiog more.

This is one of the points Cextremely few, considering the
extent and intricacy of the subject) on which we cannot help
thinking that Mr. Austin's analysis falls short of perfect
exhaustiveness.

Mr. Austin always recognises, as entitled to great considera*
tion, the custom of language — the associations which mankind
already have with terms : insomuch that, when a name already
stands for a particular notion (provided that, when brought out
into distiuct consciousness, the notion is not found to be self-
contradictory), the definition should rather aim at fixing that
notion, and rendering it determinate, than attempt to substitute
another notion for it. A definition of right, so wide and general
1^ that of Mr. Austin, does not, as it appears to us, stand this
test It does not satisfy the conception which is in everyone's
mind, of the meaning of the word right. Almost everyone will
feel that there is, somehow, an element left out ; an element
which is approximately, though perhaps imperfectly, expressed
by saying that the person who has the right is the person who
is meant to be benefited by the imposition of the duty.

In the Lectures as delivered Twhich included much extem-
poraneous matter, not preserved m the publication) Mr. Austin
anticipated this obvious objection, and combated it. The
notion of a right as having necessarily for its purpose the benefit
of the person invested with it, is contradicted, he said, by the
case of fiduciary rights. To these he might have added (and
probably did add) the rights of public functionaries — the judge,
for instance, or the policeman ; which are ifot created for the
benefit of the judge or policeman themselves. These examples
are conclusive agiunst the terms of the particular definition

* Yd. ii. (first of the new volumes), p. 56.

4*54 Attsthi on Jurisprudence, Oct.

contended against ; but it will appear, from two considerations^
diat they do not fully dispose of the subject*

In the first place, Mr. Austin's own definition is amenable to
a similar, though contrary, criticism. If the definition whi^
he rejected does not comprise all rights, his own comprises more
tSmn rights. It includes cases of obligation to which he him-
self must have admitted that there were no rights corresponding.
For example, the legal duties of jailers. It is a jailcr^s doty to
feed the prisoners in his custody, and to this duty corresponds a
correlative right in the prisoners. But it ra also his legal doty
to keep them in confinement, periiaps in bo^ly fetters. Th^
case is strictly of the kind contemplated in Mr. Austin's defini-
tion of a right ; there is a duty to be performed, towards, or in
respect to, a determinate person or persons ; but would it be
said that a corresponding right resided in those persons, or, in
other words, that they had a right to be imprisoned, and ihat
their right would be violated by setting them at liberty?
Again, it is the duty of the hangman to inflict capital punish-
ment upon all persons lawfully delivered to him for that purpose ;
but would the culprit himself be spoken of as having a right to
be hanged ? Certainly not. And the reason is one which Mr.
Atistin fully recognises. He says, in one place*, that ' a right

* in a condition which is purely burthensome is hardly con-
^ ceivable ;'t and, in another, that *a right to a burthen, or to

* vindicate the enjoyment of a* burthen ' is * an absurdity.'
He also, with writers in general, speaks^ of many obli^tions
as existing for the sake of the correlative rights. If tnis is a
correct expression, there is more in the idea of a righ^ than an
obligation towards or in respect to a given person; since an
obligation cannot ^dst merely in order that there may be a
person towards or in respect to whom it exists.

The truth is, that it is not customary to speak of a person
as having a right to anything which is not, in the eon-
templation of the legislator, a desirable thing; and it is
always assinned that the person possessing the right is the
person specially interested in enforcing the duty which corre-
sponds to it. Mr. Austin, no less %an others, makes this
supposition, when, in the common language of jurists, he siiys,
IJiat when a duty is violated, the person who has the right »
wronged or injured by the violation. This denrableness of the
right, and this especial vocation on the part of the possessor to
defend it, do not necessarily suppose that the right is established
for his particular advantage. But it must eiSier be given to

♦ VoL ii. p. ^2. t ^- P- 395. % lb. p. 423.

1 8€3. ^uflti& on Jkruprudenee. 466

him for that reason, or because it is needfiil for the performance
of his own l^al duties. It is consistent with the meaning
of words to caU that desirable to us, which is raquired for the
folfiknent of our duties. The alternative covers the case of
fiduciary rights, the rights of magistrates, and we think
every case in which a person can, consistently with custom and
with the ends of language, be said to have a tight. And, in-
cluding all such cases, and no others, it seems to supply what
is wanting to Mr. Austin's definition. We submit it therefore
to^ the consideration cf his readers. •

•

The analysis of right and duty is not complete without an

analysis of wrong or injury — the violation of a duty or of a

right. And in order to clear up all that is included in the

notion of wronir or injury, it is necessary ^ to settle the meaning

< of the followi^ per^le^ terms-vi/, will, motive, iateatioS;

< and negligence, indudmg in the term negligence those
' modes of the corresponding complex notion which are styled
* temerity or rashness, imprudence or heedleasness.' * These
tc^ncs comprise the whole theory of the grounds of im-

Eotation ; in oth^ words, the generdlia of criminal or penal
iw. How much bad law, and bad philosophy of law, have
ansen from imperfect oomprehension of them, may be seen in
tiie nonsense of English law writers concerning malice. The
fiill elucidation of them by our author occupies a considerable
space, and our limits are inconsistent with even the briefest
abstract of it. Mr. Austin's special vocation for ^ untying knots,'
which would have .fitted him as well for the problems of induc-
tive psychology as for those of jurisprudence, is nowheare called
into more successful exercise. Without a single metaphysical
subtlety, there cannot be a more happy example than he here
afibrds of metophysioal analysis.

With the idea of wrong, that of sanction b inseparably bound
up ; and after settling the meaning of sanction in its largest
sense, Mr. Austin examines the two kinds into which sanctions
ave divided — ^namely, civil and criminal ; or, as they are some-
times called, private and public. Whoever has even the most
superficial aoquaintanoe with the writings of criminalists, .knows
whi^ a mass of vague and confusing speculation this distinctiq^
has given birth to ; though, as pointed out by Mr. Austin, the
teal difference between civil injuries and crimes consists only in
this, that in |rroDgs of the former class the sanction is enforced
at the inatence and discretion of the injured party, who has

"'■■ ..■III.PII.I. I .» ,.IM l.l..

• Vol iL p. 79.

456 Austin on Jurispmdsnce^ Oct

the power of remitting the liability incurred by the wrongdoer ;
while, when the offence is called a crime (which only means
that the procedure is of the kind called criminal), the sanction
is enforced at the discretion of the sovereign or state, by whom
alone the liability of the wrongdoer can be remitted. This
case is an instance of the mode in which a confused appre-
hension of juristical ideas in themselves not at all difficult of
comprehension, reacts mischievously on practical legislation.
The unhappy idea of classifying wrongs according to a difference
which exists only in the \nodes appointed for redressing them,
has raised up a notion in English lawyers that there is a dis-
tinction between civil injuries and crimes considered per se,
which makes damages the proper remedy for the one» and
punishment for the other. And hence that serious defect in
English law, by which punishment eo nomine^ and damages to
the injured party, cannot both be awarded in the same cause;
while in France, on the contrary, the sufferers by the crime
can always be admitted as parties civiles^ and compensation to
them is habitually a part of the sentence. In England, when-
ever the wrong is of so grave a character as to require punidi-
ment over and above the obligation of making amends, the
injured party loses the indemnity which he wpuld have been
able to exact for a less heinous injury ; and the penalty on the
criminal is deprived of one of its uses, that of being instru-
mental to the redress of the particular evil which the crime has
inflicted upon an individual.

With the twenty-eighth lecture Mr. Austin conmiences a
new subject — Law considered with reference to its sources,
and to the modes in which it begins and ends ; involving the
distinction between written and what is called unwritten law,
the theory of customary law, the meaning of what is
called equity, and the false metaphysical distinction drawn by
the Roman lawyers and by nearly all modem jurists, between
law natural and positive. These theoretical considerations
involve, among other important consequences, the hi^ily
practical question of codification, or the induction of the laws
of any country into a compact body, expressed in fixed woids^
and conforming to a systematic arrangement. Whether we
regard the importance of these subjects, or the mass of illogiofll,
unphilosophical, and practically misleading speculation in which
they have been enveloped, there is no part of th^eld of juris-
prudence on which the value of precise and logical thought is
more conspicuous. Mr. Austin was eminently fitted to snpply
it, both by the general quality of his intellect, and by that

1863. Austin on Jurisprudence* 457

accurate spedal knowledge of the history of institutions and of
juristical ideas which he had in common with Mr. Maine ; of
whose masterly treatise also a great part of the value has refer-
ence to this cluster of subjects.

Even such apparently simple phrases as ^written' and
^ unwritten ' law, have their full share of the ambiguity which
infects nearly the whole vocabulary of legal science. They
are employed to express no less than three di£Perent distinctions.
^ Written law ' is used, first, in its literal sense, to denote law
which is put into writing at the time of its origin, as dbtin-
guished from ' law originating in custom, or floating tradition-
* ally amongst lawyers.' But this last so-caUed law is not
really law until re-enacted by the legislature, or enforced
judicially by the tribunals.

Secondly, written law, in what is called its juridical sense,
means law made directly by the sovereign le^lature, as dis*
tinguished from that which is made by subordinate legislatures,
or by judicial tribunals. In this sense of the term, laws made
by provincial or colonial legislatures are unwritten laws, as
were also the edicts of the Boman prsetors. But the laws
made by the Koman emperors, not as legislators by their
imperial constitutions, but as supreme judges by their rescripts,
would be styled written law, because made directly by the
sovereign,

Thii^ly (and this is the most important distinction) written
law is synonymous with statute law, or law made (whether by
supreme or subordinate authorities) in the way of direct legis-
lation. Unwritten law is judiciary law, or law made indirectly,
in the way of judicial decision, either by the sovereign in a
judicial capacity, or by a subordinate judge. The terms
statutory law and judiciary law, being unambiguous, should be
exclusively employed where this really fundamental distinction
is to be expressed.

Mr. Austin next deals with the strange notion which has
prevailed among the Roman and the majority of modem jurists,
that customary law exists as law merely by being custom ; that
it is law not by the will of the l^islature, but by the spon-
taneous act of those who practise it. He exposes the absurdities
involved in this notion, and shows that custom in itself belongs
not to law, but at most to positive morality, binding only
by moral sanctions — by the penalties of opinion. What was
originally cnstCHn may become law, when either the legislature
(supreme or subordinate) enacts a statute in conformity to the
custom, or the tribunals recognise it, and enforce it by l^al
sanctions. In both these ways, custom, in all countries, is con-

458 . AxsstaBk^niJbamfrudmce.

tmoallj pasnng into law. But it has fivce as hnr eoldy by
liie authority of the sovereign legislatar, who either shi^ee hw
direct oomnuinds in accordance with the costom, or lends his
sanctions to the tribunals, which, in the discretion allowed theniy
annex those sanctions to the particular pnctioe, and render
obligatorj what before was only voluntary.

The notion of writers on law ^ that Aere are poutive laws

* which exist -as positive laws indepei^ntly of a sovereign

* authority/ is not limited to customary laws. It extends to
die laws which, in the Soman system avowedly, and in aH
others really, are modelled on liie cqnmons and practices of
mivate lawyers. The Bespansa PruderUum^ and Ae treatises of
mstitntional writers, gave birth to the whole body of law con-
tained in the Pandects ; and in England ^ much of the law of
' real property is notoriously taken from opinions and practices
^ which have grown up, and are daily growing up, amsngst ooa*
^ veyancers.' The English tribunals (by wfa!at, when fint em-
ployed, was an entirely indispensable artifice) keep up what
Mr. Austin, with reference to present circumstances, justfy
calls the ^ puerile fiction,' that these opinioiie and praeticea are
mere evidence of law already estaUished by custom. Bat ^ey
well know, and every lawyer knows, that the kw tiios intxo-
duced is really new, and, in the case which creates tiie first
precedent, is even ex post facto ; though not generally liable to
the condemnation implied in that term, being oonmionly shaped
for the purpose of fulfilling, not frustrating, the ei^ectationfl
presum^ to have been entertained by the parties ooncemed.

The fact that there is law which the legislature has never
expressly announced, but which is, witii its tacit ooaseat, mads
by tribunals which are not regulariy authorised to enact law^
but only to declare it, has tiurown a vagueness over the whole
idea of law, which has contributed greatly to obscure the die*
tinction between it and positive mondity. The enroxv that law
exists as su^ independently of legal sanctions, appears in an
aggravated shape in the notion that there exists a natural law —
a law known by the light of nature, which does not emanate
from legislators, but is nevertheless binding on tribunals, and
may and ought to be by them enforced by reason of its natural
obUgation only. This Au Nciturale has, as Mr. Austin ob-
serves*, ^thoroughly perj^exed and obscured the sdenoes of
' jurisprudence and ethics.' As the notion admits only of an
historical explanation, Mr. Austin deals with it substantially in
the same manner as Mr. Maine.

• VoL U. p. 24L

1863. Aiiitiii 9f» Jurisprmdmce. 459

He expomida the ori^ti of the Jiu Gentium of the early
Somaa law7ei»; a difibrent thing not only from intematioiuil
hiWy to winch the term has be^ perWaely tzanfiferred by
modem jurists, but also from the N«timd Law of modem writers
on jmisprudenoe, though of tins last it is the real progenitor.
The jus gentium took its rise from the necessity in whidn the
BomaDB found themselves^ throngh the growth of their dominion,
«f admioisteriDg justice to penons who w«re not BomanB-to
whom the laws provided for Boman citizefls were not apphoable,
and who, belonging to different nations and communities, had
originally different laws. Provinoiak of the same proraioe
rstained, as between themselves, their old laws ; but bc^een a
proerincial and a Romam Gitizen, or between provincials. of one
province and those of another, it was ndther convenient, nor
would in most oases have been just, to deoide disputes by a law
which was not the law of both parties. The prsBtors, whose
^oision in such cases was prob^y at first arbitrary, were able
to find many legal principles and provisions which w^e not
peculiar to either people (as so much of the early Bioman law
was pectxlifflr to the Romans) but were common to the laws of
all or of many different communities. These principles and
prorisions, there seemed no hardship in applying to cases
between persons of what would now be called di&rent na-
tionalities. And where these did not furnish a rule exactly
applicable to tiie case, the prsetors were led to supply the
&ficiency by rules eitiber derived from them by analogy, or
suggested by a sense of substantial jiKtioe oar espediency. In
this manner arose the idea of a body of law not peculiar
to one but common to all nations, on which the pnetors were
8UfqK>sed, and suf^KMsed themselves, to have fashioned the
body of positive law which grew up under their hands. This
law^ being ^straoted from the peculiarities both of the Jus
Quirititmi and of all other local and speoiid bodies of law or
custom, was, as might naturally be expected, of a more liberal
(^araeter. It was less charged with technical and circuitous
modes of proceeding, invented to evade conflict with local or
accidental preju(fice. It was less infected by the freaks of
fancy which, as Mr. Austin observes, are ' onmipotent with
' barbarians,' but in which one barbarous people is not likely to
agree with another. It might be said, by comparison, to repre-
sent that portion of all systems which arose from the wants and
feeBngs of human nature genemlLy* Being, for this reason, as
well as from its originating in a more civilised period, far
preferable to Ae old Roman law, it became the model on which
the prsBtors, by their edicts, gradually ^modified the old law

.;

460 Austin on Jurisprudence. Oct.

itself ; and finally (though not till after many centuries),
almost entirely substituted itself for the original Soman
law. The provisions of the more liberal jus gentium^ ap*
plied by the praetors as modifying principles to the old law,
obtained the name of JEquUas^ or equity ; an appellation which
became extended to the somewhat similar process by which the
Court of Chancery for ages employed itself in supplying the
omissions and mitigating the barbarities of the feudal laws of
England. The explanation and elucidation of this one word
Equity, in the many senses in which it is used by jurists, forms
the subject of several of Mr. Austin's lectures. Both histori-
cally and philosophically they are among the most interesting
parts of the Course : though much of the matter they contun,
when once stated^ appears so obvious, that one is apt to forget
how often and by what esteemed authorities it has been mis-
understood.*

Now it was this Boman idea of a jus gentium^ or portion of
law common to all nations, which grew insensibly into the modem
idea of Natural Law. * The Jtis NaturaUy or law of nature,' as
Mr. Maine observes f, ^ is simply the jus gentium scjen in the
^ light of a peculiar theory.' That theory, as both he and
Mr. Austin remark, was derived from the precept ' Live accord*
^ ing to Nature ' of the Greek philosophical schools. * After
' Nature had become a household word in the mouths of the
^ Somans, the belief gradually prevailed among the Soman

* lawyers that the old jus gentium was in fact the lost code of
' Nature, and that the prsetor, in framing an Edictal Juris-

* prudence on the principles of the jus gentium^ was gradually
' restoring a type from which law had only departed to de-
^ teriorate.' % Being observed or recognised xmiversally, these
principles were supposed to have a higher origin than human
design, and to be (we quote Mr. Austin §) * not so properly
^ rules of human position or establishment, as rules prooe^ing

* ' I could point,' says Mr. Austin (voL ii. p. 273.), * at books and
< speeches, by living lawyers of name, wherein the nature of the
*' £quity administered by the Chancellor, or the nature of the juris-

* diction (styled extraordinary) which the Chancellor exercises, is
^ thoroughly misunderstood : — wherein the anomalous distinction

* between Law and Equity is supposed to redt upon principles neces-
' sary or universal ; or (what is scarcely credible) wherein the

* functions of the Chancellor, as exercising his extraordinary juris-
^ diction, are compared to the arbitrium boni vtrt, or to the functions

* of an arbiter released from the observance of rides.'

t Ancient Law, p. 52. | Maine, p. 66.

§ 7oLii. p. 261.

1863. Austin &n Jurisprudence. 461

* immediately from the Deity himself, or the intelligent and
^ rational Nature which animates and directs the universe.' This
notion, once formed^ was, by an obvious process, so enlarged as
to include merely moral, or merely customary rules which had
obtained general acceptance ; ' every rule, in short, which is
^ common to all societies, though the rule may not obtain as
^ positive law in all political communities, or in any political

* community.' * In this manner the Natural Law of modern
writers was extended to those international usages, and those
rules of international morality, which obtuned generally among
nations. And by a similar process each writer was led to in-
clude in his scheme of Natural Law, whatever maxims of justice
or utility approved themselves to him as an individual moralist,
provided they appeared to be at once self-evident and universal.
The writings which profess to treat of the Law of Nature and
Nations are a chaos of all these materials. * In studying these
^ writers,' says Mr. Maine f, the great difficulty is always to
' discover whether they are discussing law or morality — whether

* the state of international relations they describe is actual or

* ideal — whether they lay down that which is, or that which in

* their opinion ought to be.' This arose from the confused
apprehension of the very meaning of law, engendered by their
notion of a Law of Nature according to which what in their
opinion ought to be law, was conceived as being, in some strange
manner, law already. By this confusion they have spread a
thick fog over the distinctions and demarcations which separate
the three different notions, positive law, positive morality, and
deontology, or morality as it ought to be.

The influence of the imaginary Law of Nature over modem
thought has been all-pervading; on the whole, however, still
greater on the Continent than in England. Mr. Maine very
truly affirms^ , that * the theory of natural law is the source of
' almost all the special ideas as to law, politics, and society,

* which France during the last hundred years has been the

* instrument of diffusing over the western world. The part '
(he continues) * played by jurists in French history, and the

* sphere of jural conceptions in French thought, have always
^ been remarkably large ; ' and in the latter half of the last
century, when other old modes of thought were breaking up,
the calamitous influence of Rousseau (calamitous at least in this
respect) became powerfully operative in strengthening this
particular delusion. Coleridge, in the ^ Friend,' has maintained.

• Vol. ii. p. 260. t Ancient Law, p. 97.

I Maine, p. 80.

462 Aastift rni Jurmpmdence, Oet

with much ibroe of acgmneiit, that the thrufiting of uBmntaUe
priaciples of moralitj into the pcorince of law, and awwiming
them as the -aiAj Intimate baeis of politicB, is the ease&oe <^
Jacobininn. It is tiie easeftee not speoially of that, bat of a
general mode of thought which prevails among French tbtnlietB
of all political opinions. As a general role, Prench speoulataon
knows no distinction or barrier between the province of morals
and that of poKtics or kgislatien. While^ on the one haad, it
tends to impose on morals {tov this, however, Catholic thought
and the inflnenoe of the Canonists are partly responsible) all the
formality and literalness of joridicid rules ; on the other, k in-
Tests the creations of pwve le^ institntion — the* law of propesty
for example — ^with the saoreckiess and indefSeasibility of tM
fimdamental doctrines of morals; and cannot bear to ^scas
Booh a qaestion, for instance, as copyidght, on grounds of general
expediency, but insists on clenching it by affirming or denyii^
an assumed absolute right in authors to hold the produce <x
their brain, by themselves or their represBntatives, as perm»-
nent property to the end of time.

The inflaence, for good and for evil, of the theory of a
Law of Nature is ddineated by Mr. Maine more fully than was
compatible with Mr. Austin's more extensive design. There
is np doubt that for a long period the good side of the influence
predominated. It assisted mankind in disencumbering them-
selves from a siq^rstidous reverence for the institutions which
had historically grown up in their several countries. It
accustomed them to test pairtioular laws by general principles
of some sort, and gave them a type of excellence of which
simplicity and synnnetry were among the supposed character-
istics. Finally, it disregarded all distinctions between man and
man, between citizen and foreigner, noble and burgess, burgess
and peasant; and Mr. Maine is of opinion ^that to the
^ assumption oS a Law Natural we owe the doctrine of the
^ fundamental equality of human beings.' When almost
everything which was artificial was oppressive, the reaction in
favour of what was supposed to be natural had a healthy
tendency; though we now know that the real natural state
(if natural means primitive), instead of b^ng the reign of
justice and freedom, is a condition of more universal tyranny
than any form whatever of civilised life. But whatever
power of liberalising men's minds may once have belonged to
the doctrine of Natural Law, that power is now exhausted ; the
doctrine has done all it can do in that direction, and its re-
maining influence serves only to make men greater bigots, not
indeed to the peculiar vices of any given system, but to what*

18€3. JkM&OL on Jutrkprudmux. 443

ever vioeB ha^e erotcd fvom 4he beguumig in tli€in alL Mttm^
while, the theoory of hvw nrast be a mass of eoDtradicticfn as
long 88 the imaginary Natural Law retains any authority in it ;
for as every actual system of law has been shaped out by
conflicting instincts, a theory generalised from what they have
in common is necessarily full of conflicting principles, and
afibrds, on both sides of every controverted point, arguments
which, if the theory be granted, are all equally unanswerable.

In the tiristjF-seyenth lecture Mr. Austin ooBMnences die-
cussing tbe diTOFences which dtBtinguish statute from judiciavy
law ; tiie advantages and disadvantages of judicial legislation,
and the possibility and desirableness of excluding it for the
fiiture, and converting all judiciary law into statute — in other
words, codification. From this excellent discussion we shall
permit ourselves, in consideration of its great practical mom^it,
to give a longer quotation than we have veattnred to make from
any other porticm* of the Course. It is taken from the place in
wluch, after vemaddng on some disadvantages erconeoualy
attributed to judiciaiy law, Mr. Austin points out the evils
which are really inherent in it.

' First : A judiciary law (or a rule of judiciary law) exists nowhere
in fixed or determinate expressions. It lies in concreto : or it is
implicated with the peculiarities of the particular case or cases, by
the decision or decidons whereon, the law or rule was established
Before we can arrive at the rule, we must abstract the ratio deci^
dendi (which really constitutes the rule) from all that is peculiar to
the case through which the rule was introduced, mr to the resolutioa
of which the rule was oidginally applied. And in trying to arrive
at the rule by this process of abstraction and induction, we must not
confine oar attention to the general positions or expressions which
the judicial legislator actually employed. We must look at the whole
case which it was his business to decide, and to the whole of the
discourse by which he signified his decision. And from the whole
of his discourse, combined with the whole of the case,* we must ex-
tract that ratio deeid^ndi^ or that general principle or ground, which
truly constitutes the law that the particular decision established.

^ But the process of abstraction and induction to which I now have
alluded, is not uncommonly a delicate and difficult process ; its diffi-
culty being proportioned to the number and the intricacy of the cases
from which the rule that is sought must be abstracted and induced.
Consequently, a rule of judiciary law is less accessible and knowable
than a statute law. . • . And it must be recollected^ that whether it
be performed by judges applying the rule to subsequent cases, or by
private persons in the course of extra-judicial business, this delicate
and difficult process is commonly performed in haste. Lisomuch that
judges in the exercise of their judicial functions, and private persons

464 Austin on Jurisprudence. Oct.

in their extra-jndicial transactions, must often mistake the import of
the rule which they are trying to ascertain and apply.

' And this naturally conducts me to a second objection : namely,
that judiciary law (generally speaking) is not only applied in haste,
but is also made in haste. It is made (generally speaking) in the
hurry of judicial business, and not with the mature deliberation
which legislation requires, and with which statute law is or might be
constructed. . . .

* There is more of stability and coherency in judiciary law than
might, at the first blush, be imagined. But though it be nerer so
stable and never so coherent, every system of judiciary law has all
the evils of a system which is really vague and inconsistent This
arises mainly from two causes : the enormous bulk of the documents
in which the law must be sought, and the difficulty of extracting the
law (supposing the decisions known) from the particular decided
cases in which it lies imbedded.

'By consequence, a system of judiciary law (as every candid man
will readily admit) is nearly unknown to the bulk of the community,
although they are bound to adjust their conduct to the rules or prin-
ciples of which it consists. Nay, it is known imperfectly to the
mass of lawyers, and even to the most experienced of the legal pro-
fession. A man of Lord Eldon's legal learning, and of Lord £ldon*a
acuteness and comprehension, may know where to find the documents
in which the law is preserved, and may be able to extract from the
documents the rule for which he is seeking. To a man, therefore, of
Lord Eldon's learning, and of Lord £ldon's acuteness, the law might
really serve as a guide of conduct. But by the great body of the
legal profession (when engaged in advising those who resort to them
for counsel), the law (generally speaking) is divined rather than
ascertained: And whoever has seen opinions even of celebrated
lawyers, must know that they are oflen worded with a discreet and
studied ambiguity, which, whilst it saves the credit of the uncertain
and perplexed adviser, thickens the doubts of the party who is
seeking instruction and guidance. And as to the bulk of the com-
munity— the simple-minded liuty (to whom, by reason of their sim-
plicity, the law is so benign) — they might as well be subject to the
mere arbitrium of the tribunals, as to a system of law made by
judicial decisions. A few of its rules or principles are extremely
simple, and are also exemplified practically in the ordinary course of
affairs: Such, for example, are the rules which relate to certain
crimes, and to contracts of frequent occurrence. And of these rules
or principles, the bulk of the community have some notion. But
those portions of the law which are somewhat complex, and are not
daily and hourly exemplified in practice, are by the mass of the com-
munity utterly unknown, and are by the mass of the community
utterly unknowable. Of those, for example, who marry, or of those
who purchase land, not one in a hundred (I will venture to affirm)
has a distitact notion of the consequences which the law annexes to
the transaction.

' Consequently, although judiciary law be really certain and cohe-

1863. Austin on Jurisprudence^ 465

rent, it has all the mischievotis effect (in regard to the bulk of the
community) of ex post facto legislation. Unable to obtain profes-
sional advice, or unable to obtain advice which is sound and safe,
men enter into transactions of which they know not the consequences,
and then (to their surprise and dismay) find themselves saddled with
duties which they never contemplated.

* The ordinary course is this : —

* A man enters into some transaction (say, for example, a contract)
either without advice, or with the advice of an incompetent attorney.

* By consequence, he gets into a scrape.

* Finding himself in a scrape, he submits a case^ through his
attorney, to counseL

* And, for the fee to attorney and counsel, he has the exquisite
satisfaction of learning with certainty that the mischief is irreme*
diable.

S* I am far from . thinking, that the law ever can be so condensed
simplified, that any considerable portion of the community may
know* the whole or much of it,

* But I think that it may be so condensed and simplified, that
lawyers may know it : and that at a moderate expense, the rest of
the community may learn from lawyers beforehand the legal eflfect of
transactions in which they are about to engage.

* Not to mention (as I shall show, when I come to the rationale of
the distinction between Law of Things and Law of Persons) that the
law may be so arranged, that each of the different classes of persons
may know something of the part of it with which they are particu-
larly concerned.

* Forms, too, for the more usual transactions might be made out
by the legislature.]

* The evil, upon which I am insisting is certainly not peculiar to
judiciary law. Statute law badly expressed, and made bit by bit,
may be just as bulky and just as inaccessible as law of the opposite
kind. But there is this essential difference between the kinds of
law. The evil is inherent in judiciary law, although it be as well
constructed as judiciary law can be. But statute law (though it
often is bulky and obscure) may be compact and perspicuous, if con-
structed with care and skill. ...

' Fifthly : 1 am not aware that there is any test by which the
validity of a rule made judicially can be ascertained.

' Is it the number of decisions in which a rule has been followed,
that makes it law binding on future judges ? Or is it the elegantia
of the rule (to borrow the language of the Roman lawyers), or its
consiiitency and harmony with the bulk of the legal system? Or is
it the reputation of the judge or judges by whom the case or cases
introducing the rule was decided? . . .

* We never can be absolutely certain (so far as I know) that any
judiciary rule is good or valid law, and will certainly be followed by
future judges in cases resembling the cases by which it has been
introduced.

' Here, then, is a cause of uncertainty which seems to be of the
VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXtll. H H

466 AudtijQ on Jnrisprudenoe. Oct.

essence oi judiciary law. For I am not aware of any contrivance by
which the inconvenience could be obviated. . • •

' Sixthly : In consequence of the implication of the ratio decidendi
with the peculiarities of the decided case, the rule established by the
decision (or the ratioy or the general principle of the decision) is
never or rarely comprehensive. It is almost neoesaarily confined
to such future cases as closely resemble the caae actually decided :
fUthough other cases more remotely. resembling may need the care of
the legislator. In other words, the rule is necessarily luailed to a
narrow species or sort, although the genus or kind, which includes
that species or sort, ought to be provided for at the agaa time by one
comprehensive law.

^ This is excellently explained by Sir Samuel BomiUy :•*—

* *' Not only is the judge, who at the very moment when he is
making law, is bound to profess that it is his province only to declare
it ; not only is he thus confined to technical doctrines and to artificial
reasoning — ^he is further compelled to take the nairewest view poe*
sible of every subject on which he legislates. The law he nuikee is
necessarily restricted k> the particular case which gimea ocoaeiomfor
Us promulgation. Often when he is providing for that partaonler
case or, according to the fiction of our Uonstitution, is declaring how
the ancient and long-forgotten law has provided for it, he represente
to himself other cases which probably may arise, though there is no
record of their ever having yet occurred, which will as urgently call for
a remedy as that which it is his duty to decide. It would be a prudent
part to provide, by one comprehensive rule, as well lor these possible
events, as for the actual case that is in dispute, and, while termiMH
ting the existing litigation, to obviate and prevent all future contests.
This, however, is, to the judicial legislator, strictly ibrbidden ; and
if, in illustrating the grounds of his judgment, he adverts to other
and analogous cases, and presumes to anticipate how they should be
decided, he is considered as exceeding his province ; and the opinions
thus delivered are treated by succeeding judges as extrfjudimal, and
as entitled to no authority."

' [Hence, exigencies of society provided for bit by bit, and therefore
slowly.

' Hence, further, immense volume of the doeumeats in which the
law is recorded. For in lieu of one comprehensive role determining
a genus of cases, we have many several and narrow mles severally
determining the species which that genus includes*]

* And this inconvenience (for a reason which I have noticed above)
is probably of the essence of judiciary law. So delicate and difficult
is the task of legislation, that any comprehensive rule, made in haste,
and under a pressure of business, would probably be ill adapted to
meet the contemplated purpose. It is certain that the most expe*
riencedy and the most learned and able of our judges, have conomonly
abstained the most scrupulously from throwing out general proposi-
tions which were not as proximate as possibk» to the case awailinf^
solution : though the ratio decidendi (or ground or principle of
decision) is necessarily a general position applying to a dass of oases,
and does not concern exclusively the particuhir case in question. • . .

1B63. Austin on Jurisprudence. 467

* SeTetithly : WhereTer macli of the law is judiciary law, the
statute law which coexists with it, is imperfect, unsystematic, and
bulky.

. ' For ihe judiciary low is, as it were, the nucleus ftround which
the statute law is formed. The judiciary law contains the legai
dictionary, or the definitions and expoaitioss (in so far as such exist)
of the leading technical terms of the entire leigal system. The statute
law is not a whole of itself, but is formed or fashioned on the judi*
ciary law, and tacitly refers throughout to those leading terms And
prindplles which are expounded by the judiciary. . . •

* Whererer, therefore, much of ^e law consists of judiciary
law, the statute larw is not of itself complete, but is merely a partid
and irregular supplement to ikM judiciary law which is the mass and
bulk of the ^st^. The statute law is not of itself an edifice, but is
merely a set of irre^ilar unsystematic patches stuck fsom time to
time upon the edifice reared byjudges* . . .

^ Wherever, therefore, much of ^e law consists of judiciary lawj
the entire legal system, or the entire corpus juris^ is necessarily a
monstrous chaos : partly consisting of judiciary law, introduced bit
by bit, and imbedded in a measureless heap of particular judicial
^isicms, snd partly of kgislatiye hm stuck by patches oa the judi-
ciary law, and imbedded in a measur^ss heap of oeoasienal and
supplemental statutes.' (YoL iL pp. d.59~d70.)

^ Since such ^ (continues Mr. Austin) * are the monstrous

* evils of judicial legislation, it would seem that the expediency
^ of a Code, or of a complete or exclusive body of statute law,
^ will hardly admit of a doubt Nor would it, provided that the
' chaos of judiciary law and of the statute law stuck patch-
' wise oa the judioiary could be superseded by VLOOod code. For
' when tire contrast the chaos with a positive co^^ we must not
' contrast it with the yerj best of possible or conceivable codes,

* but with the code which, under the given circumstances of the

* given community, would probably be the result of an attempt

* to codify.' The expediency of codification at a particular
time and place depends on the question, * Are there men» then

* and there, competent to the task of successful codificatiou ? '
The difficulty of the work no one feels more strongly, or baa
stated more enphatieally, than Mr. Austin. He considers ^ the
^ technical part of legislation incomparably more difficult than
^ what may be styled the ethical ;' holding it * far easier to
' conceive justly what would be useful law, than so to construct
^ that same law that it may accomplish the design of the law-
' giver : ^ an opinion which, in its full breadth of statement, we
should hesitate to endorse. But it will readily be admitted
that the two qualifications are di£Perent, that the one is no

• Vol. ii. p. 371.

468 Austin on Jurisprudence. Oct.

suarantee for the other, and that the talent which is merely
instrumental is, in an j high degree of perfection, nearly if not
quite as rare as that to which it is subordinate.

The expediency, therefore, of codificadon in England and
at the present time, Mr. Austin does not discuss; but he
shows * the futility of the leading or principal arguments which
^ are advanced against codification, considered generally or in
* abstract.' Unhappily a great part of the matter which he
delivered on this subject is missing from the manuscript. But its
place is partly supplied by the abundant notes and memoranda
relating to the subject, which have been found among his papers,
and of which the * Notes on Codification,' appended to the third
volume, are but a part. We shall quote only one passage,
which belongs to the Lectures, and is reproduced in the pam-
phlet on the * Study of Jurisprudence.' It is a reply to the
common objection that statute law cannot include all cases.
Mr. Austin shows that it can at least include all those which
are covered by judiciary law.

* The current objection to codification, is the necessary incomplete*
ness of a code. It is said that the individual cases which may arise
in fact or practice are infinite, and that, therefore, thej cannot be
anticipated, and provided for, bj a body of general rules. The
objection (as applied to statute law generally) is thus put by Lord
Mansfield in the case of Omichund and Barker. (He was then
Solicitor-GrcneraL) ^ Cases of Law depend upon occasions which
give rise to them. All occasions do not arise at once. A statute
very seldom can take in all cases. Therefore the common law that
works itself pure hj rules drawn from the fountains of justice, is
superior to an act of parliament."

* M7 answer to this objection is, that it is equally applicable to all
law; and that it implies in the partisans of judiciary law (who are
pleased to insist upon it) a profound ignorance, or a complete
forgetfulness, of the nature of the law which is established by judicial
decisions.

* Judiciary law consists of rules, or it is merely a heap of particular
decisions inapplicable to the solution of future cases. On the last
supposition, it is not law at all: and the judges who apply decided
cases to the resolution of other cases, are not resolving the latter by
any determinate law, but are deciding them arbitrarily.

*' The truth, however, is, that the general grounds or principles of
judicial decisions are as completely law as statute law itself; though
they differ considerably from statutes in the manner and form of
expression. And being law, it is clear that they are liable to the
very imperfection which is objected to statute law. Be the law
statute or judiciary, it cannot anticipate all the cases which may
possibly ariiie in practice.

'The objection implies, that all judicial decisions which are not
applications of statutes are merely arbitrary. It therefore involves a

1863. Austin on Jurisprudence* 469

double mistake. It mistakes the nature of judiciary law, and it con*
founds law with the arbitrium of the judge. Deciding arbitrarily,
the judge, no doubt, may provide for all possible cases. But whether
providing for them thus be providing for them by law, I leave it to
the judicious to consider.

* If law, as reduced into a code, would be incomplete, so is it in-
complete as not so reduced. For codification is the re-expression of
existing law. It is true that the code might be incomplete, owing
to an oversight of redactors. But this is an objection to codification
in particular • . •

' Repetition and inconsistency are far more likely, where rules are
formed one by one (and, perhaps, without concert, by many distinct
tribunals), than where all are made at once by a single individual or
body, who are trying to embrace the whole field of law, and so to
construct every rule as that it may harmonise with the rest

* And here I would make a remark which the objection in question
suggests, and which to my understanding is quite conclusive.

'Rules of judiciary law are not decided cases, but the general
grounds or principles (or the rationes decidendi) whereon the cases
are decided. Now, by the practical admission of those who apply
these grounds or principles, they may be codified, or turned into
statute laws. For what is that process of induction by wliich the
principle is gathered before it is applied, but this very process of
codifying such principles, performed on a particular occasion, and
performed on a small scale ? If it be possible to extract from a case,
or from a few cases, the ratio decidendi^ or general principle of
decision, it is possible to extract from all decided cases their respec-
tive grounds of decisions, and to turn them into a body of law,
abstract in its form, and therefore compact and accessible. Assuming
that judiciary law is really law, it clearly may be codified.

* I admit that no code can be complete or perfect But it may be
less incomplete than judge-made law, and (if well constructed) free
from the great defects which I have pointed out in the latter. It
may be brief, compact, systematic, and therefore knowable as f ar aa
it goes.* (Vol. ii. pp. 374-377.)

The * Notes on Codification ' contain, in substance, all that
is required to meet any of the objections against codification
generally, or in the abstract* ; but their form is too completely

* The most popular, though one of the most superficial, of the
objections, is the supposed failure of existing codes, especially the
French and the Prussian. To this Mr. Austin answers, substan-
tially, two things: First, that the failure of the French and
Prussian codes has been greatly exaggerated, and that, with all
their defects, they are still vastly superior to the state of things
which preceded them. Secondly, that in so far as those codes do
fall short of what is required in a code, it is owing to defects which
are obvious and avoidable and, above all, because i^et/ are not really
codes ; for the Code Napoleon is without a single definition, and the

1

470 Au&tm on Jurisprudence* Oct*'

that of a mere syllabus^ to be acceptable to the general reader.
We shall quote, however, as a spedmen, and for its practical
importance, one excellent passage, containing the author's iriew
of the real difficulties of codification, and tiie conditions neces-
sary for rendering it advisable.

* The great difficul^^ is, the impossibility that any one man should
perform the whole. But if done by several^ it would be incoherent^
unless all were imbued with the same principles, and aU versed io
the power of applying them. The great difficulty, therefore, is U>
get a sufficient number of competent men, versed in common studies
and modes of reasoning. This being given, codification is practicable
and expedient.

^ Peculiarly technical and partial knowledge of English lavyeru
No English lawyer is master even of English law, and has, ther^bre^
no notion of that interdependency of parts of a system, on which its
successful codification must depend.

' A code must be the work of many minds. The project must be
the work of one, and revised by a commission. The general outline^
the work of one, might be filled up by divers.

' All-importance in codification of the first intention. Till mindi
are trained, it will scarcely succeed. How the difficulty is te be
surmounted. Necessity for men versed in theory, and equally verasd
in practice ; or rather, of a combination of Uieorists and practi-
tioners. Necessity for preliminary digests; or for waiting till
successful jurists and jurisprudence are formed through effectual
legal education.* (VoL iii. p. 278.)

Having concluded the subject of Law in ffeaenJ, rraavded
under its difiTerent aspects, Abr. Austin pvoceacb to consiikr the
parts of which a corpus juris is necessarily oompesed, and the
mutual relations of those parts. As already observed, be aAeres
in the uMon, though with some not unimportant improvements^
to the classification and arrangement of the Boman law; or
rather of its modem expositors, who have carried out the ideas
of the classical jurists with a precision still greater than theirs.

Mr. Austin gives excellent reasons for rejecting their primaxj
division, followed by most modem vrriters, into public and
private law, and she^s how the various parts irlncfa oompose
the former at these should be disposed of.^ This being set

Ihussian Code has none that are adequate, so that the nwaaing of all
the law terms had either to be fixed by judiciary law, or ascetfainrf
by referring back to the old law which was supposed to ha^e beea
superseded. Far from being any evidenoe agunst a code, Ikosa
compilations are a most satisfactory proof of the gseat amnnat of
good which can be done even by the mtrest djgest
• Lecture 44.

1863. Austin on Jnrisprudenee. 471

aside, the leading division is into what are termed by the
Boman lawyers, Law of Persons and Law of Things-^M* /?er-
sonamm and jus rerunij strangely mistranslated by Hale and
Biflckstone into rights of persons and rights of things. The
original expressions are extremely ill-chosen, and have been an
igmsfatuus to law writers, both in ancient and modem times.
The Law of Persons (agreeably to one of the meanings of the
word persona) is the law of Status or conditions— of tne rights
«Dd obligations peculiar to certain classes of persons, on whom a
peculiar legal stamp has been set And, in contradistinction, the
Law of Things is the law common to all persons, together with the
peeulimr laws relating to other classes of persons not so specially
marked out from the rest. But this has seldom been properly
understood by law writers. They have imagined that persons
(persona), m this acceptation, meant persons in the ordinary
sense — human beings ; and forgetting that in this sense all law,
and all rights and obligations, relate to persons, they supposed
thst the Law of Persons, as distinguished from that of Things,
ought to contain all law which deals with those interests of

grsons which have no (or but slight) reference to things,
ence Bkckstone places in the Law of Persons what he calls
Absolute Bights, being those which belong to all persons without
exception, such as the right to life, to personal security, to repu-
tation— ^rights which, looked at from the point of view of the
Roman lawyeirs, belong even more pre-eminently than any
others to the Law of Things.

Those jurists who have understood the meaning of the
Bomim lawyers more correctly than Blackstone, have exhausted
their ingenuity in search of metaphysical reasons why some
peculiarities of legal position have been accounted Status, and
mcluded in Jus personamm, while others, equally marked and
equally important, have been retained in the Law of Thingfl.
Mr. Austin minutely examines and criticises these subtleties,
and, after a full review of them, decides that the division has
no logical or metaphysical bans at all. It rests solely on con-
venience. Executors, heirs, trustees, proprietors, contractors,
&o., are as much classes of persons as parents, guardians,^
infants, magistrates, and the like ; yet they are never accounted
status, and the laws which concern them are always included in
the Law of Things. No reason can be given why the one group
should, and the other should not, be detached from the general
body of the law and placed apart, except that the laws relating
to the one ^ have no necessary coherency with the bulk of the
* legal system,' and need not, geueradly speaking, be taken into
Consideration in order to underataod the law as a whole } while

472 Austin on Jurisprudenee. Oct.

•

the others ' have such a coherency with the bulk of the I^al
' system, that if they were detached from it the requisite con-
' tinuity in the statement or exposition of it would be lost.'*

As much of the law, then, as relates to certain peculiar legal
positions, is remanded to a separate branch, which naturally
should be placed after the general law, or jus rerum. The
Koman institutional writers, by placing the Law of Persons first,
gave one among several proofs that even they had not a perfectly
clear conception of the distinction which they had themselves
drawn.

In proceeding to subdivide the Law of Things, Mr. Austin
adopts from the Roman lawyers their principle of grounding
the general division of the corpus juris upon a classification of
rights. But he selects as his primary division of rights (and
of the correspondmg duties) a distinction not specially recognised
by those writers.

The Boman lawyers primarily divided rights into jura in
rem, or rights availing against all the world, and^ura in personam,
or rights availing agunst determinate persons only.f Of the
former, the right of dominion or property is the roost familiar
instance. My right of ownership in a thing, is constituted by a
duty or obligation imposed on all persons not to deprive me of
the thing, or molest me in its enjoyment Of rights in personam,
the most prominent example is a right by virtue of a contract
If B has contracted with A to deliver certain goods, A has a
right, answering to the legal obligation on B, but the right is
against B alone. Until they are delivered, A has acquired no
right to the goods as against other persons. If the goods came
into the possession of a third partv, through (for example) a
wrongful resale by B, A would still have his original right as
against B, and might have a right to damages besides, but he
could not by process of law recover the goods themselves from
the new possessor. A's right, therefore, is not in rem, but in
persoiiam, meaning in personam determinatam. The distinction
between these two classes of rights belongs to universal juris-
prudence, for every system of law must establish rights of both
kinds ; and the difference between them is connected with prac-
tical differences in the legal remedies. Among rights in rem
must be reckoned the right to life, to reputation, to the free

* Vol. ii. p. 413.

f These phrases were devised by the modem civilians. The clas-
sical jurists expressed the same distinction by the ambiguous terms
dominium (in the largest sense in which that word was employed)
and ohligatiOy a name which, in the Roman law,* is unfortunately
given to rights as well as to obligations.

1863. Austin on Jurisprudence. 473

disposal of one's person and faculties^ to exemption from bodily
harm or indignity, and to any externnl thing of which one is
the legal owner. To these must be added the limited right in
a thing owned by some one else, which is called servitus or
easement, such as a right of way over another person's land.

Kights in personam, or availing against a determinate person
or persons, are divided by Koman jurists into rights (in their
unhappy phraseology ohligationea) ex contractu^ and rights (or
obliffotiones) exdelictOy with two miscellaneous appendages, rights
quasi ex contractu and quasi ex delicto. By quasi-contracts are
not to be understood implied contracts, differing from express
ones only in that the engagement is signified by conduct instead
of words. Such tacit engagements are real contracts, and are
placed in the law of contract The term quasi-contract applies
to cases in which there has not been, and is known not to have
been, any engagement, either express or tacit, but in which the
ends of legislation require that the same legal obligations shall
be imposed as if the party had entered into an engagement.
The case commonly used as an illustration is solutio indebiti —
the obligation of a person to whom a payment has been made
under a mistake, to refund the amount. Obligations quasi ex
contractu are, therefore, simply miscellaneous obligations which
cannot be reduced to any of the other classes. The third class,
obligations (or rights) arising from offences, is, we venture to
say, a stumblingblock to all clear-headed persons when they
begin the study of the Roman law. Mr. Austin retains it, but
suppresses the fourth class, quasi ex delicto^ it being quite need-
less to have two repositories for merely miscellaneous obliga-
tions without any positive feature in common. The term quasi-
contracts, rightly understood, includes them all. As Mr. Austin
expresses it *, * one fiction suffices.' * The terms ftre merely a
^ sink into which such obligatory incidents as are not contracts,
^ or not delicts, but beget an obligation as if^ &c., are thrown

* without discrimination. And this is the rational view which

* Gaius has taken of the subject'

Though Mr. Austin retains the class of rights ex delicto, it is
here that his classification most materially deviates from that of
the Roman jurists. Instead of making rights ex delicto a
secondary, he makes them a primary class. Instead of co-
ordinating them with rights from contract and from quasi-con-
tract, as species otjura in personam, be opposes them to all
other rights, in rem and in personam taken together. Bis divi-
sion of rights in general, is into Primary, and what he terms

♦ Vol. iii. p. 134.

474 Austin ^n Jurisprudence. Oct.

Sanctioning, Bights. The chairaeteristie of these le, that they
exist onlj for the sake of the primary. Primary rights and
duties have a legal existence only by virtue of their sanctions.
But in order that the sanctions may be applied, l^al pro-
visions are necessary, by which other rights are created and
duties imposed. These secondary rights and duties are the
subject-matter of Penal Law and of the Law of Procedore.
They correspond partly (though, as we shall see, not entirely)
with the obUgationei ex delicto of the Romans, and «^Btt of
being classed as rights and duties arising out of offences. As
such, they are again divided by Mr. Austin into ^ Rights and
^ Duties arising from Civil Lijuries,' and ^ Duties and otiier Conse-
' quences arising from Crimes.' The basis whidi the Roman
jurists assumed for their division of rights in general — the dis-
tinction between rights in rem and in personam — is retained by
Mr. Austin only for primary rights. The following table,
abridged from one annexed to the author's Outline, will serve aa
a rough ground-plan of his distribution of the field of law : —

Law

Law of Things Law of Persons or Status

ramary rights Sanctioning rights (and daties)

(and duties) y ■■■ ■ — . . ^ ■ ^

Rightt and duties DotieB and

«rfA*a«»^Ai**^^

Bights Rights Combinations of derired from Ciril other coft-

Ml Ttm in perwnam, rights in rtm and Injuries seqaences

I rights in permmam arising froai

^ Bights ^ Bi^ ^^^^^™^

9X contraoH puui $x

contraetu.

The remsuning lectures are devoted to the examinstion and
ducidation of the particulars included under these heads. And,
with all their incompleteness (which, as with the broken arches
in Addison's Vision^ becomes greater as we approach the point
where they cease altogether), their value to the student will be
found to be very great. We would particularly durect attention
to the treatment of Dominium or Property, in its various senses,
with the contrasted conception of servkus or easement The
nature and boundaries of these two kinds of rights are made so
tran^)arendy clear, that it requires some acquaintance with the
speculations of jurists to be able to believe tJmt any one could
ever have misunderstood the ssbject.

But is the division and arrangement of law in general, ex-'
pressed in the table, wholly unimpeachable ? We do not mean
in point of mere oorreetnees. It satisfies the fundamental rules
of logical division. It covers the whole subject, and no one
part overlaps another. It affords an arrangement in which it is at

1863. -AMtin on Jurispmdmoc* 475

least poBsiUe to lay out perspioaoaslj the whole of the matter ;
and if the proper mode of ordering and setting out a body of
law is to ground it npon a classification of rights^ no better one
for the purpose eould probably be made.

But the purely logical requisites are not* the only qualities
desirable in a scientific classifiottion. There is a fiirther requisite
— that the division should turn upon the most important features
of the things classified ; in order that these and not points of
minor importaace, may be the points on which attention is
concentrated. A classification Which does this, is what men of
science mean when they speak of a Natural Classification. To
fulfil this condition may require, according to «iroDtMtanees,
difierent principles of division; since the most important
properties may either be those which are most important prac-
tically, by their bearing on human interests, or tbcMO which are
most important scientifically, as rendering it easiest to under-
stand the subject — which will generally be the most ehmeniary
properties.

in the case now under consideration, both these indications
coincide. They both point to the same princifde of division.
Law is a system of means for the attainment of ends. The
different ends for which diflSsrent portions of the law are
designed, are consequently the best foundation for the division
of it. They are at once what is most practically importm*
in the laws, and the fundamental element in the conception of
them — the one which must be clearly understood to make
anything else intelligible. Is, tiien, this requirement, of dia-
tinguifihisg the parts of the arrpus ^ris from one anotiier
according to l^e ends which they subserve, fulfflled by a division
which turns entirely upon a daUification of rights ?

It would be so, if the ends of diffin*ent portions of the
law diffisred only in rsspeet of the different kinds of Bights
which they create. But this is not the fiKt. The rights
created by a law are scrmetimes ^ end or purpose of the law^
but are not always sa

In the case of what Mr. Austin terms Primary Bights, the
richts created are the very reason and purpose of the law
which creates them. That these riffhts may be enjoyed is die
end for which the law is enacted, t^ duties imposed, aad the
sanctions established.

In that part of the hvw, however, which presupposes and
grows out of wrongs — ^the taw of ci^ injuries, of crimes, and
of civil and criminal procedure — the case is quite otherwise*
There are, it is true, rights (called, by Mr. Austin, Sanctioning
Bights) created by tikis portion of the law, and necessary to its

476 Austin on Jurisprudence. Oct»

existence. But the laws do not exist for the sake of these
rights ; the rights^ on the contrary, exist for the sake of the
laws. They are a portion of the means by which those laws
effect their end. The purpose of this part of the law is not
the creation of rights, but the application of sanctions, to give
effect to the rights created by the law in its other departments.
The sanctioning rights are merely instrumeAtal to the sanctions ;
but the sanctions are themselves instrumental to the primary
rights. The filiation of the ideas, proceeding from the simple
to the more complex, is as follows : —

1. Primary Bights, with the correlative Duties.

2. Sanctions.

3. Laws determining the mode of applying the Sanctions.

4. Kights and Duties established by those laws, for the sake
of, and as being necessary to, the application of the Sanctions.

It appears from these considerations, that however suitable
a groundwork the classificati<Hi of rights may be for the arrange-
ment of that portion of the law which treats of Primary Sights
rcommonly called the Civil Code) — in the Penal Code and
Code of Procedure the rights thereby created are but a
secondary consideration, on which it is not well to bestow the
prominence which is given to them by cdrrying out into those
branches the same principle of classification. We do not
mean that rights ex delicto can be left out of the classification
of rights for the purposes of the Civil Code. They are rights,
and being so, cannot be omitted in the catalogue. But they
should, we apprehend, be merely mentioned tnere, and their
enumeration and definition reserved for a separate department,
of which the subject should be, not Bights, but Sanctions. If
this view be correct, the primary division of the body of law
should be into two parts. First, the Civil Law, containing the
definition and classification of rights and duties: Secondly,
the law of Wrongs and Bemedies. This last would be sub-
divided into Penal Law, which treats of offences and pumsh-
ments, and the Law of Procedure. If this were a mere opinion
of our own, we should hesitate to assert it against a judge in
all respects so much more competent as Mr. Austin ; but if
his great authority is agunst us, we have with us that of
Bentham, James Mill, and the authors of, we believe, all
modem codes.

Not only does this more commonplace distribution and
arrangement of the corpus juris appear to us more scientific
than Mr. Austin's ; we apprehend that it is also more con-
venient. Mr. Austin, in fact, has been driven, by the plan he
adopted, to the introduction of a logical anomaly, which be

1863. Austin an Jurisprudence. 477

himself acknowledges. There are^ as he rightly holds, legal
duties which are absolute, that is, which have not only for their
ultimate but for their immediate and direct object the general
good, and not the good of any determinate person or persons, and
to which, therefore, there are no correlative rights. Now, in a
classification grounded wholly on rights, there is no place for
duties which do not correspond to any rights. It being im-

Sssible to class these duties with jura in rem or in personam,
r. Austin treats of them under the head of Sanctioning
Bights. The difficulty, however, is not in knowing under
what kind of rights to place them, but in placing them under
rights at all. Duties which answer to no rights, have no more
natural affinity with Sanctioning than they have with Primary
rights. Why then is this, as it undoubtedly is, their proper
place in the classification ? Because, though the duties have no
affinity with rights, the wrongs which are violations of those
duties have an affinity with the wrongs which are violations of
rights. Violations of absolute duties are Crimes; many
violations of rights are also Crimes ; and between crimes of
these two sorts there is no generic difierence which it is
necessary that either penal law or criminal procedure should
recognise. Now, if the second great division of the ]aw is re-
garded (which we think it ought to be) as conversant not directly
with Rights, but with Wrongs, the wrongs in question, which
are violations of absolute duties, take their place among other
wrongs as a matter of course. But in a classification grounded
on Rights, they are altogether an anomaly and a blot. There
is no place marked out for them by the principle of the classifi-
cation ; and to include them in it, recourse must be had to a
second principle, which, except for that purpose, the classification
does not recognise. It has been seen in the table, that, in the
second division of Mr. Austin's Sanctioning Rights, he drops
rights altogether, and speaks of * duties and other conse*
* quences.'

But this is not the only nor the greatest objection which
may be made, botli on the ground of scientific symmetry and
of practical convenience, against the place assigned by Mr.
Austin to the law of Wrongs and Remedies. A still stronger
objection is manifest from a mere inspection of the table.
It interpolates the entire subjects of Penal Law and Procedure
between the general Civil Law of Things and the Law of
Status ; that is, between two subjects so closely allied, that after
a strenuous application of his powerful intellect to the subject,
Mr. Austin was unable to draw a definite line, or find any
essential or scientific difference between them ; and was induced

478 Ajoatia am J^sprudemct. Oet;

to separate them lat all^ only by the convenience of treatiilg
the genus firstj and a few of its more oomplex species afle^
wards. As be bimself says*^ tbe law of any and of all Statue is
' indissolubly connected with that more general matter which
^ is contained in the Iaw of Things.' These two portiosa of
law are conversani with tbe sane general idieas — namely, rights
and their detnitions (to a great degree even with the mme laadb
of rights) : Mad one •of &em is biitt a kind of appendix or
extension of the other, so that there is often a doubt in wbieh
compartment a particular chapter or title of the law may best
be placed ; yet the one is put at the beginning ef the coi'jpm
jttrii^ the other at the end, and beiween tbttn lies aU that gieat
portion of the law which has to do with the subsequent eon*
aiderations of Offences, Punishments, Judicature, and Judieial
Procedure. We cannot think thai; this le a mode of arran^-
ment which would have approved ilsdf to Mr. Austin's, on
such 8ul:^t8, almost infallible judgment, had he ever oohh*
jdeted his Course.

It may be remarked that, though the arrangement which we
have criticised was founded on that of the dasncal Boman
jurists, the criticism is not fairly af^icable to those jurists
themselves. According to the plan cf their treatises, they had
no alternative. They could not treat of delicts under any
other form than that of ^ obUgaUanea ftie ex delicto fuucmniharj
For, as Mr. Austin himself ol^erves, their institutional writings
were solely on private law. Public law was, it is uncertain for
what reason, excluded. But crimes, and criminal {Npooeduic^
belonged to their conception of Public law. Of these, tb^-e-
fore, they had not to treatf Civil procedure they did treat of;
but they placed it in a branch apart, whicii was neither /us
rerum nor personarum,^}mt a third division coordinate with
them, called Jus' Actionum* There remained only the law of
civil injuries. Now, the specific character which distinguishes
civil injuries from crimes is that, though the sanction is in both
cases the leading idea, the mode in which, in the case of civil
injuries, the sanction is applied, is by giving to the injured party
a right to compensation or redress, which, like his other rights,
he may exercise or forego at his pleasure. It is evident that
there is not in this case the same impropriety as in the case of
crimes or of procedure^ in considering the right created as the

♦ Vol. ii. p. 439.

f The single title appended to Justinian's Institutes, De PuhUcis
JudicOs, is supposed to have been an afterthought, and to have had
no chapter corresponding to it in the institutional treatises of the
classical jurists.

1883. AusfJB on Jmrisprudence. 479

real purpose of the law. It is true tkat, eren in this case,
another purpose of the law is punishment ; but tiie law is
willing to forege Aat object^ provided the injured person con-
sents to waive it The right, therefore, of the injured person,
in this particular class of injuries, might without absurdity be
treated as the porino^Md object. Being a right availing onlj
against deliermiamte persons^-^namely, the offender or his repre*
sentatives^t is a right in personam, or, in the language of the
olasrical jurists, an cbUffaUo ; and its partieular nature affbrded
no reason why it should not, in an arrangement in all other
respects dictated by the exigencies of the erril code, take its
place whei*e alone, in such an arrangement, a place could be
assigned to it — namely^ under the general head of Jura in
JPertomam, as a enb-speciesw Bui this, thoi^h it accounts for
the place asengned in the Boman law to ' obUfftxHoneB qum ex
* delii^o noMcuntUTy forms do reason fcnr applying the same
arrangement to the whole lanr of wrongs and x^medies, and
making it the basis of a division including the entire field of
tilie coTfUM juris — crimes, puni^ments, civil and criminal
proceduse among the rest.

Aflter treating oi dominium in die narrower s^ue in which it
is opposed to «artA«s**-a right to use or deal with a thing in a
manner which, though not unlimited, is indefinite, as distin-'
guished from a right to use or deid with a thing in a manner
not only limited but definite-*-Mr. Austin proceeds to treat of
rights limited or unliauted as to duration ; of rights vested and
oontingent ; and of domkmtm or j>roperty in l^e more emphatic
sense in which it denotes the Wgest right which the law
recognises over a thing — a right not only indefinite in extent
and unlimited in dvration, but including the power of aliening
the thing from the person who would otherwise take it by suc-
cession. The Lectures finally break off, where they were inter-
rupted by ill health, in the middle of the important subject of
Titk. There is no finer specimen of analytical criticism in
these volumes than th^ comment (in the Notes to the Tables)
on the erroneous and confused notions which the Roman jurists
connected with their distinction between Titulus and Modus
Acqmrendi.

It cannot be too deeply regretted that, through the combined
effeot of frequently-recurring attacks of depressing illness, and
feelings of discouragement which are vividly reproduced in the
touehing preface of the editor, Mr. Austin did not complete
his Lectures in the form of a ^stematic treatise. We are fully
persuaded that, had he done so, the result would have prov^

480 Austin on Jurisprudence. Oct.

those feelings of discouragement to be ill grounded. The
success of the first volume, by no means the most attractive part
of the Course, is a proof that even then there was in the more
enlightened part of the legal profession a public prepared for
such speculations; a public not numerous, but intellectually
competent — the only one which Mr. Austin desired. Had he
produced a complete work on jurisprudence, such as he, and

Eerhaps only he in his generation, was capable of accomplishing,
e would have attracted to the study every young student of
law who had a soul above that of a mere trader in legal learn-
ing ; and many non-professional students of Social and politicid
philosophy (a class now numerous, and eager for an instruction
which unhappilv for the most part does not yet exist) would
have been delighted to acquire that insight into the rationale of
all. legal systems, without which the scientific study of politics
can scarcely be pursued with profit, since juristical ideas meet,
and, if ill understood, confuse the student at every turning and
winding in that intricate subject. Before the end of the period
to which Mr. Austin's life was prolonged, he might have stood at
the head of a school of scientific jurists, such as England has
now littie chance of soon possessing. But the remains which
he has left, fragmentary though much of them be, are a mine of
material for the future. He has shown the way, solved many
of the leading problems, and made the path comparatively
smooth for those who follow. Amonff the younger lawyers of
the present time, there must surely be several (independently
of the brilliant example of Mr. Maine) who possess the capacity
and can acquire the knowledge required for following up a
work so well begun; and whoever does so will find, in the
notes and miscellimeous papers which compose the latter part of
the third volume, a perfect storehouse of helps and suggestions.

It remains to say a few words on the question of execution.
A work left unfinished, and never really composed as a book,
however mature and well-digested its thoughts, is not a proper
subject for literary criticism. It is from the first volume only
that we are able to judge what, in point of composition, Mr.
Austin would have made it. But all the merits of expression
which were found in that volume reappear in quite an equal
degree in the remainder, and even, as far as the case admitted,
in the looser memoranda. The language is pure and clast»ical
English, though here and there with something of an archaic
tinge. In expression as in thought, precision is always his first
object. It would probably have been so, whatever had been
the subject treated ; but on one in which the great and fatal

1863. Austin on Jurisprudence. 481

hindrance to rational, thought is vague and indefinite phrases,
this was especially imperative. Next after precision^ clearness
is his paramount aim ; clearness alike in his phraseology and in
the structure of his sentences. His preeminent regard to this
requisite gives to hie style a peculiarity the reverse of agree-
able to many readers, since he prefers^ on system, the repeti*
tion of a noun substantive, or even of an entire clause, in order
to dispense with the employment of the little words it and
tkem^ which he is quite right in regarding as one of the most
frequent sources of ambiguity and obscurity in composition. If
there be some excess here, it is the excess of a good quality^
and is a scarcely appreciable evil, while a fault in the contrary
direction would have been a serious one. In other respects
Mr. Austin's style deserves to be placed very high. His
command of apt and vigorous expression is remarkable, and
when the subject permits, there is an epigrammatic force in
the turn of his sentences which makes them highly effective.

Some readers may be offended at the harsh words which he
now and then uses, not towards persons, to whom he is always,
at the lowest, respectful, but towards phrases and modes of
thought which he considers to have a mischievous tendency.
He frequently calls them ^ absurd,' and applies to them such
epithets as 'jargon,' * fustian,' and the like. But it would be a
great injustice to attribute these vehement expressions to dog-
matism, in any bad sense of the word — to unaue confidence in
himself, or disdain of opponents. They flowed from the very
finest part of his character. He was emphatically one who
hated the darkness and loved the light. He regarded unmean-
ing phrases and confused habits of thinking as the greatest
hindrance to human intellect, and through it to human virtue
and happiness. And, thinking this, he expressed the thought
with correspondiDg warmth, for it was one of his noble qualities
that while, whatever he thought, he thought strongly, his feel-
ings always went along with his thoughts. The same ferfer^
vidum ingenxum made him apply the same strong expressions to
any mistake which he detected in himself. In a passage of the
Lectures*, he says, referring to a former lecture, * I said so and
' so. But that remark was absurd ; for it would prove,' &c
And in an extemporaneous passage, which some of his hearers
may remember, he rated himself soundly for an erroneous opi-
nion which he had expressed, and conjectured, as he might have
done respecting a complete stranger to him, what might have
been the causes that led him into so gross a misapprehension.

♦ Vol. m. p. 24.

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLII. I I

482 Austia on Jurisprudence. Oct.

That the occasional strength of his denundations had ita toiiroe
in a naturally enthusiastic character, combined in him with tm
habitually calm and delibemte judgment, is shown by the cov<-
responding warmth which marks his expreeeions of eulogium.
He was one in whom the fe^ngs of admiration and veneration
towards persons and things that deserve it, existed in a strength
far too rarely met with among mankind. It is from such fed*
ings that he speaks of * the godlike Turgot ; ' that, in OMDtioninc
Locke*, he commemorates ^ that matcUass power of precise aai
' just thinking, with that religious regard for general utility and
' truth, which marked the incomparable man who emancipated
* human reason from the yoke of mystery and jargon ; ' that lie
does homage, in many passages of the Lectures, to the great in*
tellectual powers of Thibaut and Yon Savigny, and that, in a
note at page 248. of his first volume, he devotes to Hobbes
perhaps the noblest vindication which that great but unpopular
thinker has ever received. That Mr. Austin was capable of
similar admiration for the great quidities of those from whose
main scheme of thought. he dissents, and whose authority be is
oftener obliged to thrust aside than enabled to follow, is shown
in many passages, and in none more than in some remarka on
Elant's ^Metaphysical Principles of the Science of Law.'f
We may add that his {Hraisea are not only wann, but (probably
without exception) just; that such severity as is d^own, is
shown towards doctrines, very rarely indeed towards persons^
imd is never, as with vulgar controversialists, a substitute for
refutation, but always and everywhere a consequence of it.

* Province of Jurisprudence, vol. i. p. 150.

f * A treatise darkened by a philosophy which, I own, is my aver*
sioT), but abounding, I must needs admit, with traces of rare saf aoitj.
He has seized a number of notions, complex and difficult m the
extreme, with distinctness and precision which are marvellous con-
sidering the scantiness of his means. For, of positive systems of law
he had scarcely the ^ghtest tincture, and the knowledge of the
principles of jurisprudence which he borrowed from other writers^
was drawn, for the most part, from the muddiest sources ; from books
about the fustian which is styled the ** Law of Nature.** ' (Vol. ilL
p. 167.)

1803. 7^ B^at Academy. 483

Art. VL — !• The History of the Royal Academy of Arts from
its Foundation in 1768 to the Present Time, with Biographical
Notices of all its Members. By WxIjLIAh Sa^dbx. la
two volumes. London : 1862.

2. Report from the Council of the Royat Academy ta the General
Assembly of Academicians^ 1860.

3. Report of the Royal Commission appointed to enquire into the
Present Position of the Royal Academy in relation to the Fine
ArtSy together with Minutes of Evidence, Sfc. Presented to
both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty.
1863.

IV/Tb. Sandby's History of the Royal Academy was published
under an unlucky star. It contains a large quantity of
curious and instruotive materials^ not always employed with the
taste and skill the subject required, but abundant enough to fill
a great deficiency in the annals of British Art It directed
attention to the services which the Boyal Academy has rendered
to the arts and to artists in this country, at a time when some
merited censure had been combined with a vast deal of un*
merited unpopularity to disparage the most important of our
art-institutions. It anticipated to a considerable extent the
inquiry which has since been carried on under the auspices of
a Boyal Commission. Such a work was certainly needed to
satisfy and inform the public, and to do justice to the Academy
itself. Mr. Sandby bears a name which has been connected
with the institution from its foundation, for Paul Sandby (we
presume his grandfather) was one of the oniginal Academicians
named in 1768 by Eang George III., and Thomas Sandby the
architect was also a member of the body. But, unluckily, in.
his desire to render the biographical notices of living Academic
dans as complete as possible, this writer was supposed to have
committed a literary trespass on the rights of others who had
laboured in the same field ; and as it appeared that some
portions of the work might be made the subject of proceedings
m a court of equity, the whole impression was withdrawn from
circulation as soon as this discovery was made, and it is probable
that few copies of the work in its original form are in existence.
The book, therefore, may be said to have passed out of the sphere
of criticism : like the new^-bom martyr of the Boman poet;,

*VitlB

Hoc habuit taatam, possii «t ille morL'
The historical fkcts that it contEu&ed must be sought for in

484 The Royal Academy. Oct.

other forms ; and the details it might have furnished as to the
present condition of the Academy will be found with greater
completeness and authority in the reports of the Academy itself^
which are now accessible to the public, and in the highly inte-
resting evidence taken before the Royal Commission of last
spring. From these sources we shall endeavour to make our
readers acquainted with the leading points in several questions
which are now agitated among artists and the friends of art,
and which will probably be deeded by Parliament in the course
of the next Session.

There is one class of objectors and opponents of the existing
Boyal Academy, to whom it may be well to advert at the
outset of these remarks, because they must be considered as
entirely beyond the reach of any argument we can address
to them — we mean, those persons wno think that academies
are mischievous and injurious to the culture of the arts, and
who would sweep them away altogether. It is true that like
all other human institutions they have their defects — sometimes
they have been distracted by professional cabals, sometimes
they have been used for purposes of professional iniustice —
£requently they have encouraged and perpetuated that man*
nerism of the schools which is destructive to talent and re-
pugnant to genius. Hogarth, who took a very desponding
view of the future destinies of English art, and held that
portrait-painting was the only branch of it which was likely to
succeed, recorded his opinion that ' it would be vwi to force
' what can never be accomplished, at least by such institutions
^ as Royal Academies : ' and that * hereafter ' if the times altered,
the ^ arts like water would find their leveL' Fuseli, in one of
his bursts of scornful sarcasm, exclaimed, that * all schools of

* painters, whether public or private, supported by patronage or
^ individual contributions, were, and are, symptoms of art in

* distress, — monuments of public dereliction and decay of taste :'
but he added a moment afterwards, in a Idndlier and truer spirit,

< yet they are, at the same time, the asylum of the student, the

< theatre of his exercises, the repositories of the materials, the
^ archives of the documents of our art, whose principles their
' oflScers are bound now to maintain, and for the preservation
' of which they are responsible to posterity.'

To these charges the history of the Royal Academy in Eng-
land gives, we think, an effectual answer, and we shall presently
endeavour to show what it has actually done, with no direct
assbtance' of the State. But it would be strange if in this
country, where such important results are continually obtained
by association — where every science has its society, and every

1863. The Royal Academy. 485

profession its organised system of self-government, the artists
alone should be left to their individual exertions. No class of
persons stands so much in need of corporate action. Artists are
men who commonly owe their social position entirely to the
genius and skill they have displayed in their profession. They
are not often possessed of wide general attainments : many of
them have not received a liberal education ; they are not men
of the world; they are peculiarly sensitive, and peculiarly
dependent on the taste or even the caprice of the public Many
of the greatest artists have belonged to the humbler classes of
society by their origin, but have risen by their gifts to the
highest intellectual and social rank. They form, by the refine-
ment of their taste and the beauty of their pnxluctions, a
sort of natural aristocracy ; and, like the members of a political
aristocracy, much of their strength lies in their cohesion.
Their works are commonlv produced in retirement, but they
seek for exhibition the full glare of publicity. The painter's
studio is a cell of retreat : the painter's works belong to the
palaces of the nation. To such a man the means of mtimate
professional combination for certain purposes with his brother
artists is of the highest value : and no amount of public favour
or success can outweigh with him the consideration he derives
from those who are engaged in the same task, and contending
for the same prizes. In all the greatest periods of art, these
fraternities of artists have exercised a most beneficial influence :
and in our own times the problem to be solved by the Royal
Academy of Arts is to combine the largest amount of these
social advantages with the greatest degree of personal freedom
and independence to the genius of the individual artist. We
contend, therefore, that a well-governed Academy of the Fine
Arts ought to supply to the youthful artist those opportunities
of study and that sound instruction in the common principles
and practice of art which is the basis of all excellence ; to the
mature artist the means of union and co-operation with the
most distinguished members of his profession, and of submitting
his works to the judgment of the public ; and to the aged artist
those honours which he may have earned, and in some
cases that assistance which he may require. In the original
memorial addressed by the artists to the King in November,
1768, when they solicited his avowed patronage and protection,
the following modest passage occurs : —

' We only beg leave to inform Your Majesty that the two principal
objects we have in view are, the establishing a well-regulated School
or Academy of Design, for the use of Students in the Arts, and an
annual exhibition, open to all artists of distinguished meri^ where

486 The Bi^l Academy^ Oct

they may offer their performancea to public inspectioD, and acqmre
that degree of reputation and encouragement which tbej shaU be
deemed to deserve.

^ We apprehend that the profits arising from the last of these insti-
tutions will ftillj answer all the expenses of the first ; we even flatter
ourselves thej will be more than necessary for that purpose, and thai
we shall be enabled annually to distribute somewhat in useful
d^arities.'

In other words, the schools, the exhibitions, and some prorisioii
for declining life or for the families of artists, are the three leading
objects to be secured by such institutions. To this may be added
the influence which a body comprising the most eminent professors
of the arts ought to exercise on the taste of the nation. The
Academy ought to be the link of connexion between the body
of artists and those social and political interests which are closely
related to the Arts. It ought to be the centre of art*education,
directing, stimulating, rewarding, and aiding the progress of
thought on these subjects. It ought to assist the State in the
designs of public works and monuments, as the Royal Society
assists the State on questions of public scientific interest*
Of these various objects, the former, bearing on the personal
interests and instruction of artists as a private corporation, have
to a certain extent been pursued and attained by the present
Boyal Academy : it is, perhaps, no reflection on* that body to
say that, constituted as it now is, it has never sought to
extend its sphere of action. Its structure is that of a private
society, but it is lodged by the nation, and great public services
are expected of it Less has been done in England than in
any other European country to foster the arts by the direct
patronage of the State : the greater has been the need of an
independent sodety of artists, capable of perpetuating the
honourable traditions of the British school, and of rendering
those services to the culture of the Fine Arts, which, down to a
very recent period, were so singularly neglected by the Grovem*
ment.

The first design of founding an Academy of Art in England
may be traced back to King Charles I., who granted a patent
in 1636 to what he termed his Museum Minervce — probably on
the suggestion of Bubens and of Gerbier, who had made the
King acquainted with the results of that great school of
Antwerp which threw lustre over his own reign. But the
civil wars put an end to the undertaking. It was resumed soon
after the Bestoration by John Evelyn, who has left in his
^ Sculptura ' the scheme of a promoted Academy, resembling
in many points that which was adopted one hundred years later.
Professors were to be appointed ; ' living models provided to

1863. The Boyal Aemdemy. 487

^ atand five nights in tlieweek ; ' ^eaeli ProfeMogr irns to present
' the Aeademy with a piece of his performance at admission ; *
graduated schoob were to be established^ medals to be given^
aad a provinon made for sending the Fellows to Borne to com-
plete Uieir studies. Art schools were also to be founded^ with
drawing masters appointed under the seal of the Academy, to
instmet students in ornamental designs, ' which are of great use
^ in our manufactories.' Had the judicious plan of ETclyn been
adopted, the Boyal Academy would have been coeval with the
Boyal Society, and might have done for art as much as that
learned body has done for science. In the early part of the
fcJlowing century some attempts were made by Sir Godfrey
KneUer and Sir James Thornhill to establish private schools,
bnt with small success. In 1755, another spontaneous effort
was made by the artists to found an Academy^ and the Com*-
mittee endeavoured to place the plan under the patronage of the
Society of Dilettanti by proposing that the [President of the
Royal Academy should be annually chosen from that body : the
Dilettanti, however, declined the compliment, and the scheme
was abandoned. Meanwhile, however, the Society of Arts
(which still flourishes at the Adelphi) had come into existence ;
and it was there that the first exhibition of British painters,
took place in 1760. No less than 6,582 catalogues were sold,
and the artists bought 100/. stock out cf the proceeds of the
exhibition. The King was soon afterwards solicited to incor-
porate by royal charter the * Society of Artists ; * and the roll
of the assocuition was signed by no less than 211 professional
candidates. Some discord, however, ensued, which was termi-
nated by a declaration of the King that be considered the
culture of the arts as a national concern* and should, thereforot.
lake the nasoent AiOademy under his espeaial protection* Sir
Joshua Seynolds, who had hitherto stood aloof, and was no
favourite at Court, was unanimously hailed 'President ' by his
brother artiste; and on December 10, 176^, the King signed
that ^ Instrument,' which has remained to this day the basis of
the constitution of the Royal Academy. Its character and
provisions (which are said to have been prepared by Lord
Camden) are peculiar ; for it has none of the distinctive features
of a public charter, and it may be difficult to determine what
18 its legal character. It is under no seal ; it is not counter-
signed by any Minister; George III. ratified it by simply
adding these words to the proposed regulations : —

' I approve of this plan ; let it be put in execution.

<G£0BGB R.'

488 Hie Royal Academy. OoL

The existiDg Academy has no other oonstitution ; and although
it seems that the present law officers of the Crown ^consulted
by the Royal Commissioners) have given an opinion oi its suffi-
ciency for the protection of the funds of the Society, it is clear
that a body thus constituted retains more of a private than a

Eublic character. One of the objects of the Royal Commission
as been to put an end to this anomalous condition ; and in this
they have acted upon the opinion of the President of the Aca-
demy itself, and of several of its most eminent members. Sir
Charles Eastlake stated, in answer to Question 797. : —

^ The management of the affairs of the institution has been hitherto
understood to be uncontrolled, except by the will of the Sovereign,
and the Academy, I think, have some ground for stipulating that that
understanding should continue. I repeat that they are quite ame-
nable to the Government and the House of Commons for the manage-
ment of their affairs^ and they would rather desire than shrink £rom
such inquiries as the present.

* 798. {Mr, Beeve,)-—1 observe that you rest the case which you have
just laid before the Commission on what you very properly call an
understanding. Do you not think that the independence and the
interests of the Royal Academy would be more effectually protected
by a more precise definition of its true position ? — I quite agree with
that view.

* 799. Do you not think that to obtain a more precise definition of its
true position in relation both to the Crown and the public, it might
be expedient (perhaps as the result of this inquiry) to substitute for
the vague instrument of 1768 a Royal Charter in which the interests
and rights of the Academy should be fully considered, in short, to
revise the deed of foundation in that way, and to give it a more
formal character ? — It would be very desirable to consider that point
carefully. Certainly a clear understanding, such as you suggest, in
some form or other, would be most desirable*

* 800. {Mr. Seymour,) — You stated in your former examination that
the Academy was a national institution? — Yes, inasmuch as its
objects are nationaL

* 801. Only inasmuch as its objects are national ? — The mode in
which it is supported is not national, it is in that sense private, it
would be absolutely national if it were supported by the State.

* 802. You only meant by calling it a national institution that it
was instituted for the public good? — Undoubtedly. Any strictly
private society would not be debarred from dividing amongst its
members the profits of an exhibition, and the Academy very properly
consider that they have a duty to perform to the public In that
sense they are a public and national body.

* 803. Do you know whether the instrument which the Academy
accepted in 1768 would have any weight in determining their position
in a court of law, as to whether they were a private or a public
society? — ^No. That is a question rather for this Commission to

1863. The Royal Academy. 489

determine, but I should imagine that the yery fact of their being
self- supported coincides with the view of those who consider them a
private society. But their most important functions are undoubtedly
public and national in their objects ; and it may be fair to express
the opinion that the fact of their attending to those national objects,
independently of the Grovemment, is to the praise of the Academy.

' 804. If the Academy took a charter, that would make it a public
body ? — Yes, in a certain sense.

' 805. But at present some maintain that it is a private body with
the Sovereign merely as its patron ? — From the reasons which I have
already stated that is hardly a fair view, because its objects are
nationally useful.'

This brings us to the consideration of what the Boyal
Academy has done and what are its deserts; and on these
grounds we assert with confidence that its services and merits
have been strangely underrated by the public. In the first
place> in the whole course of its existence it has not received
one penny of the public money. George III. undertook to
meet any pecuniary deficiencies which might occur, and in the
earlier years of the institution about 6,000Z. were paid to it as
a donation from the King's privy purse. The King also
assigned to the Academy rooms in Somerset House, which
bad recently been exchanged for Buckingham House, and had
become public property. These rooms, to which it is admitted
that the Academy have a moral though not a legal cldm, were
afterwards exchanged for a portion of the building erected in
Trafalgar Square. Beyond this, the Academy owes everything
it possesses, and everything it has done, to the proceeds of its
own exhibitions, augmented by benefactions from one or two of
its own members. Whatever, therefore, the shortcomings of
the Academy may be in other respects, it cannot be denied that
the financed management of its aflnurs has been most creditable.
It appears from the general abstract of the accounts of the
Academy from 1769 to 1859, annexed to the Report of the
Council for 1860, that the total sums received from the exhibi-
tions of these ninety years have amounted (deducting expenses)
to 267,583/. 155. 5d, ; to this must be added for interest on ac-
cumulations of stock 96,683/. lO^. 9d. Out of these receipts
the Academy has expended 218,469/. 5^. Od. on the gratuitous
instruction of students and in the genen^ management of the
institution; it has also spent 61,511/. 65. dc/. in pensions and
assistance to distressed or superannuated artists and their fanii-
fies; and it held in 1860 a balance of 104,499/. I9s.%d.
^eluding 20,000/. from the Turner Fund). This sum has
since been considerably increased, and now amounts to about
141,382/. 65. \d. three per cent, stock. The average income of

490 2%f R&yal Academy. Oct.

the Academy exceeds 10,000/. a year ; the annual expenditure
on the schools and general outlay of the institution from 1853
to 1859 averaged 6,135/. 65. 4ef. ; the expenditure on pensions
and donations averaged 1,209Z. 8^. 8d ; so that the Academy
increased its revenue fund in the same period by savings to the
amount of it2i9L 9<. OoL a jrean

It must be observed that the whole of this kfge sum is the
result of the public exhibition of the works of artists ; «k1 in
this respect the Academy of England differs essentially from
all similar institutions abroad. They are all more or less
pensioners of the State ; they have, as in France, no control
over the exhibition of modem works of art, cr they derive no
profit from Aat source ; but in the same degre% they lose that
independence which is the glory of an En^idi eommantty.
Every artist, be he an Academician or not, iriio exhibits a
woric of merit in the rooms allotted to the Academy contributes
to this fimd ; he may derive £une from it ; he may sell it to
advantage ; bat the specific profit to be derived from the exH
hibition of his work he gives to the Academy. This profit ma^
be, and is in some cases, very large ««* as nmoh as 4,000il has
been realised in one year by the exhibition of a single piotuie
in Britain. Had that picture been sent to the Academy, the
artist would have ceded to that body whatever profit might
accrue from inviting the public to view his work.* The fuinds
of the Academy are the accumulation of profits derivad from
this source.

In return, it must be added, that although the Academy has
it in its power to confer distinction and to enhance repotatioa
when it is deserved, yet the artist has nothing whatever to
expect from it in the nature of peeuniary advantages, unless,
indeed, be &Us into indigence. Even the offioers of the

♦ For example, Mr. Frith's popular picture of the * Derby Day *
was exhibited at the Royal Academy ; Mr. Frith's not less popular
picture of the * Railway Station * has been privately and separately
exhibited in London and elsewhere. A very large sum has doubtless
been realised by this private exhibition : in the case of the former
picture, this profit was virtually ceded by the artist to the Academy*

Take again the case of the exhibitions of the two societies of
water*colour painters. They are private property. Henoe the
advantage of exhibiting there is limited to the actual members of
these societies, and the proceeds of these exhibitions are the property
of the exhibitors. It is for this reason that the leading water-colour
painters are by no means disposed to transfer their works from the
private rooms of their own societies to the public galleries of the
Boyal Academy, which bring no direct emolument to the exhibiting
artist.

1868. The JRoyal Academy, 491

Aoademj are miaerablj paid* The fee to one of the first
painters or sculptors in the oouDtry aa Visitor in the schook is
a guinea for two hours' work ; the President receives a modicum
of 300/1 a year. The large accumulated funds of the Boyal
Academyi then, represent personal sacrifices made by the artists
of England for nearly a century to the common stock of their
capuft ; and it is highly to their honour that such a fund should
have been so accumulated by ih^ independent exertions, to be
devoted to no private objects but to the advancement of art and
the maintenance of their Society in dignity and independence.

Perhaps, indeed, this desire to increase the common stock
has been carried too far. Greater liberality would have pro-
duced better schools, better teacheno, and more consfncuous
results. An Academy of Art does not exist for the purpose of
laying by so many thousands a year.

To tUs the Academy refdies :*^Our tenure is uncertain.
We have firequ^tly been reminded that we hold our apart<-
ments on something like sufferance. It is possible that we may
have to provide a building for ourselves. We have prepared,
for that contingenoy ; but from the moment that Parliament
will relieve us from this apprehensi<Mi, by the permanent pro*
vision of an edifice suited to our wants (which the portion of
the building now assigned to us is not), we desire no better
than liberally to spend our whole income in the promotion and
encouragement of 1i» mUl

. From this state of laots two obvious infenuices may be drawn.
It is greatly for the interest of the arts and of the public not
to allow this fund to be broken up fi>r mere building purposes,
but to respect it as the self-eamea endowment of a magnificent
corporation ; but it is the duty and the n^ of the State, in
making a suitable provision for the abode of the Boyal Academy^
with its soho^ said its exhibitions, to impose such conditions
as may be be«t adapted to secure and perpetuate its national
character, and to make it the centre and representative of the
arts of this country. To these purposes the members of the
Academy have declared that they are ready to devote their
funds, as was contemplated by their founder; and to these
purposes, under a good administration, they would be devoted.

Thus far we have had in view the golden side of the shield ;
but it is not denied by the most nealous friends of the Aeademy^
that with all these advantages, and with the prestige arising
from a prosperous and glorious existence of nearly a century,
the Boyal Academy is very far below the standard to which
its accomplished President, its most eminent members, and the
public at large would wish to raise it. The evidence of the

492 The Royal Academy. Oct

Academicians themselves taken^ in no unftiendly spirit, by the
RoTal Commission, and now published with tiie Report,
demonstrates, beyond the possibility of doubt, that most serious
defects exist in the constitution and management of the whole
body. At the head of all these gravamina stands the incurable
evil of all self- elected bodies, that they are jealous of all par-
ticipation in their power, yet timid and reluctant to use it
themselves. Various enlightened attempts at reform made by
the President, and seconded by such men as Cope, Boberts,
Maclise, and Westmacott, have fallen to the ground before the
inertia of the general assembly. Petty and personal motives
have, it is obvious, been allowed too often to prevail over a
broad and spirited conception of the duties and interests of Art.
It may be true that there are very few instances in which
artists of a high rank have been deliberately excluded from the
Academy ; and indeed it is the obvious interest of the Academy
to incorporate with itself every man who has earned a large
share of the public favour. Haydon and Martin are the most
conspicuous examples of these unfortunate omissions in former
times ; in our own, Linnell and Watts. But this apparent ex-
clusion is mainly due to a pedantic adherence to forms, which
tend to repel rather than to attract some of the moat desirable
candidates.

The state of the schools is frankly admitted to be lamentable.
They are, in fact, but little frequented, in spite of the attraction
of gratuitous instruction and very accomplished Visitors.
Mr. Maclise stated that * he never saw such a bad set of draw-
' ings and other studies as were placed before us last year*
{A. 1450.). Mr. Westmacott admitted that ^ the schools are
^ badly attended, and that the teaching of the schools is very
< inferior.' Sir Edwin Landseer desired more attention to
anatomical study ; and there is ample testimony to the same
effect. The system of Visitors has been much canvassed, and
the weight of opinion seems to preponderate in favour of a
well-paid permanent Director of the schools. But what is
certain is, that the present Keeper (who teaches in the Antique
school) has allowed the standard of instruction to sink to the
lowest level ; and that the other Professors of the Academy
(with the exception of Mr. Partridge, who is not a painter or
an Academician, but an anatomist) have utterly failed to give
life and energy to the students. The Academy has now to
compete with schools of design in all parts of the country.
These schools of design afford easy and effectual means of
mastering the rudiments of the art ; they do not, however, pre-
tend to form artists. The Koyal Academy ought to take up

1863. The Royal Academy. 493

the most promising of these students where the schools of design
leave them^ and by afifording more liberal encouragement and a
higher class of instruction^ complete their education, as far as
the education of an artist can be completed, for as Sir Edward
Landseer answered, ' We are students all our lives ; when I
' have been in the Life academy, I have always drawn like the
* other students* Students teach themselves. You cannot
' teach a man beyond giving hun a preliminary education.'

Since the completion of the Commissioners' inquiry the
Academy has sustained an irreparable loss by the death of Mr.
Mulready, who was the most constant and able oT all the Visitors
in the schools, and has not as a master of the art of drawing
left his equal behind him. His single-hearted, genial nature,
joined to a profound knowledge and feeling of the principles of
iiis art, may be traced in the evidence he gave before the Com-
mission. For sixty-two years, boy and man, he had laboured
in and for the Academy, for he entered its walls as a student
with the century ; and the English schools have never had a
more devoted or honourable representative than William Mul-
ready. The following answer is striking and characteristic.
When asked by Lord Hardinge whether he had

* Any suggestions to make for the improvement of the schools, or
do you think them in so satisfactory a state as to be incapable of
improvement ? — ^I have none to make here. I have a very strong
sense of obligation to the Academy, having received my education
there, and having the Academy alone almost to thank for mj educa-
tion in Art. The obligation which I have signed to support the
honour of the Academy, as long as I remain a member of it, is never
forgotten by me, and I think the proper place for suggesting im«
provements in the Academy is as an Academician in my place there.
It is not that I would hesitate a moment in answering a direct ques-
tion upon any point, but I would decidedly prefer doing my duty
there in stating what I might consider an improvement to stating it
here, if you will forgive me for saying so. I think it my duty con-
stantly to think what would benefit the Academy, not to forget any-
thing that would seem to amend it, even in a point in which I might
think it perfect, to consider it again and again, and let the Academy
have the benefit of my opinion upon it.'

In rewards to students the Academy has done less than is
desirable. Only twenty-three travelling studentships have been
granted in the whole duration of the school, and no pecuniary
assistance is afforded to promising students at home : it is evi-
dent that purses, or temporary annuities, to young men engaged
in the stuay of Art would be the most useful form of assistance
and encouragement to those who have shown themselves capable
of great progress.

494 The Royal Academy . Oct.

The unpopularity of the Boyal Academy amongst the gr^
hulk of those artists who do not belong to it^ and amongst some
of those who do belong to it, is attributed by Sir Charles Eaat^
lake mainly to the invidious duty of selection which the Academy
is compelled to discharge. They select candidates for tlie honours
of the profession ; they select pictures for exhibition ; and it
follows that the rejected class abuses those by whom they sop-
pose themselves to suffer: this recrimination ii^aencestfae prcfis*,
and, through the press, the public. We cannot wholly agree
with the amiable President Men in office are every day cidled
upon to select candidates for honours and for place, and to rdect
tnany more than j;hey can select : the question is whether their
motives are dear and above suspicion, and whether the result is
ratified by the enlightened opinion of the country. The
Academy would have nothing whatever to fear from the
itincour of disappointed candidates, if those candidates were not
sometimes of nur higher account in Art than some of the men
who enjoy and confer its honours.

On the score of fhe arrangement of the Eichibition, the
Academy has been frequently denounced — w^ think, unjnstly.
The inquiry before the Royal Commission proves that the
whole Council take so active a part in these arrangements, that
it would be almost impossible for any wilful act of favouritism
or malice to pass unnoticed ; and we cannot assent to the dela*^
sion of one dissatisfied witness who conceived that liie whole
Academy were conspiring ' to prevent him firom getting on too

* fast.' The real grievance of the Exhibition is the want of
space in the present building, which causes some pictures of
merit to be returned and many more to be ill-hung.* We do
not desire to see the Exhibition enlarged by the admission of
more inferior works ; quite the reverse ; but in a suitable edifice
tiie pictures ought to be displayed to far greater advantage^
The privileges of members of the Academy to send their pio
tures as of right, and to occupy the best places, are invidious

* It appears from Appendix 11. annexed to the Report of the
Conmiission, that the total number of works of art of all kinds sent
in for exhildtion varies from 2,000 to 2,600, of wkioh about 1150
are placed ; the remainder are sent back, either because they are

* crossed ' (that is rejected), or because no suitable space can be found
for them in the rooms. One feels compassion for this hecatomb of
rejected works^-each the child of imagination and of hope ; yet we
doubt not that with few exceptions they deserve their fate, and the
experiment of an exhibition of rejected pictures, which was tried
this year in Paris bv order of the Emperor Napoleon, was a severer
punishment than rejection to the disappointed artists.

1863. The Roycd Aoademy. 406

and useless, for if their works are really of tbe highest quality
they must of course command the best plaoes ; the privilege of
the 'line/ therefore, only serves to render^ more conspicuous
some painful example of academic mediocrity. This punctilio
of the 'line' is, however, inherent in Academies. Gains-
borough himself ceased to exhibit after 1784, because in that
year one of his full-length portraits was not hung so low as he
desired.

In this statement of grievances charged agidnst the Academy,
its sins of omission seem to weigh more heavily than its sins of
commission. We entirely discredit the absurd imputations of
base and interested motives which have sometimes been at-
tributed to it. But we think that it ought to have done far
more for the arts than it has yet attempted to effect ; and if it
had performed these public duties with greater energy, it would
in return have enjoyed a much larger share of public confidence
and esteem. To use the forcible expression of our excellent
David KobertSy ' I think we are in such a sleepy state, that it
' would be desirable to have recourse to anything to awake u&'
{A. 1191.)

The duty imposed upon the Koyal Commission by Her
Majesty's warrant was, amongst other things, to suggest such
measures as may be required to render the Academy more
useful in promoting art and in improving and developing public
taste. Without further recrimination as to the past, we shall
now follow the Commissioners over this portion of their labours.

It is obvious that the root of the whole matter lies in the
constitution and government of the Koyal Academy itsel£
Suggestions of detail may no doubt be made, and some of them
are made in this Keport, for the improvement of tbe schools
and of the Exhibition ; but if the body charged with the ad-
ministration of the affairs of the Academy were all that could
be desired, these reforms would follow as a matter of course.
Here, as elsewhere, the organic question of the form and eleo^
tion of government comprehends everything else.

The whole executive power of the Academy is now vested by
the * instrument ' of Georce III. in a Council of eight Acade-
micians, to whom are added the President and Secretary. This
Council is formed by simple rotation, four members going out
every year, and being succeeded by the four next in turn. A
new Academician is, however, always placed at once on the
Council to learn his business. It is evident that this system

Erevents the selection of those members of the body who are
est qualified to conduct its affairs, and in truth reduces the
composition of the executive power to an accident.

496 The Royal Academy. Oct.

As the vacancies in the rank of Academician are rare — about
If per annum in the last twenty years — and the competitors
numerous, it seldom happens that an artist attains the highest
object of professional ambition before middle life, when his
reputation is made, but when the fire and energy of his beet
years is already somewhat exhausted* As he retains the honour
and position for life, it necessarily follows that a large propor-
tion of the Academicians, in whom alone all power is vested,
are men in the declining period of their careen At the com-
mencement of this year, ten of the Boyal Academicians were
bom in the last century — eight were above 70 years of age ;
the last piunter elected was 61, the last sculptor 54; the
youngest Academician is 43. Our Academicians are as old as
our admirals and our generals were before the Crimean war,
and for the same reason :. promotion by seniority is slow ; and
when men reach the highest step, they are no longer so com-
petent to perform its duties as they would have been ten or
even twenty years earlier. It is as true of art as of war, that
nothing can be more injurious than to throw the chief direction
of it into the hands of old men, and to exclude those artists
who are in the prime of life and in the full vigour of productive
power. This we hold to be the true cause of the unpopularity
and want of energy of the Academy ; inside its walls, you
have a Council of veterans, who have accomplished their task
and secured their own position ; outside, you have the whole
mass of young, eager, aspiring artists, who are excluded by the
present constitution from having any voice in the conduct of its
afiairs, although it is their contributions to the Exhibition
which chiefly give novelty, life, and interest to its annual dis-
play. If the Exhibition were limited for a single year to the
works of the Academicians themselves, it would find itself
exposed to a very formidable competition by the works of those
whom it has not yet admitted to any participation in its affairs.
Nothing can be more undesirable, in the true interest of art
and artists, than to keep up this severance between the elder
and the younger members of the profession ; everything ought,
on the contrary, to be done to unite them. To whom does the
public look, at the present time, for the chief interest of the
Exhibition? To Millais, Cooke, Ansdell, Sidney Cooper,
Faed, 0*Neil, Bichmond — every one of these are Associates ;
or, again, to Calderon, Holman Hunt, Leic^hton, Watts,
Weigall, the Linnells, Maccallum, Jutsum, Martineau, and
many others — but these are not even Associates. In sculpture
it is still worse. Behnes, Bell, Macdonald, Munro, Noble,
Theed, Mr. and Mrs. Thomycroft, and Woolner, are all

1863. The Royal Academy. 497

outside the Academy. How can an Academy perform its
duties to Art and to the Public when many of the most rising
members of the profession do not belong to it» and those who
do belong to it are elderly men, who have long ago obtained the
rewards to which they were jastly entitled ?

The class of Associates was doubtless added to the Academy
by George III., to include the junior class of artists; but the
manner in which this was done defeated the object and pro-
duced dissatisfaction and ill-blood. Twenty Associates were
added, consisting of course of younger men, from whom the
Academicians are chosen ; and as an artist rarely remains for
life in the subordinate rank, the promotion is more rapid than
in the higher grade. Since the foundation of the Academy in
1768, there have been but 156 Il.A.'s, including those now
liying; but there have been 194 A.KA.'s, although the number
at any given time is but half as large. But these Associates
are mere expectant Academicians. They have but a small
share in the privileges of the body. They have no votes in the
election of members, or in the General Assembly. They are
not represented in the arrangement of the Exhibition, to which
they frequently contribute the finest performances. Yet they
are afraid to make their grievances known, because their ad-
vancement to the higher rank depends on the good pleasure of
their superiors ; and a grumbling artist runs a good chance of
remaining at the side-table of the Associates for life.

This is the master-abuse to which the Royal Commissioners
appear to have directed their attention, when they agreed to
recommend that the class of Associates should not be abolished
or reduced, as had been recommended by some witnesses, but
enlarged at once to fifty, with power to make a still further
increase, for the purpose ' of introducing a large amount of
' youthful talent into the Academy, of connecting that instltu-
' tion more thoroughly than is the case at present with the
* whole body of artists beyond its walls.' {Report, p. 10.)
These Associates would, conjointly with the Academicians
themselves, form a General Assembly of about 100 members,
a number sufficient to include at the present time all the
artists in this country who have established a claim to such a
distinction ; and every member of this body would enjoy the
privilege of a vote. This General Assembly of the whole
Academy would meet at least twice a year, for the purpose of
electing to vacancies and approving the acts of the Council;
.and as the Commission recommend that all voting on elections
should be open, and not, as heretofore, by ballot, the choice of
candidates would rest on the ground of acknowledged merit,

VOL. CXVIII. NO. GCXLII. K K

498 The Mo^l Atademy. Oct

^ther than on that of seniority or preference. This important
change would put an end to the invidious position in whi<A the
Associates now stand. It would ^ye them a fair share of
power in the managemeDt ^of the wb<de body, and it would
combine the voices and opinions of the rising members of the
profession with those of its most experienced chiefik

The list of the eziating members of the Academy which is
to be found in Appendix IV. of the Sqport^ Aows that the
Painters have encroached to a consideraUe extent on the sister
arts and on the design of Gkorge III. The reason given
is that painters supply by far the most^attracttve and lucrative
portion of the annual Exhibition ; and to eome extent this n
fxue. There are at this time in the Academy but four Acade-
micians and one Associate sculptors, and tbee architects. The
original selection made by Geoige IIL was &r mere liberally
varied. The King's list contained but twenty«>foiir pain^ns
against five sculptors and six architects; and of these membors
two, Angelica Kauffinann and Mary Moser, were<womai; Cipri-
aiu» Bartolozad, Caclini,.Zoffimy> Dominic Serres^ and 2uecarellt
were foreigners. It also included Moser, the gold«chafl«r, as
one of the original members, to whom we owe the exquisite
snuff-boxes and watch-eases of the last century ; a proof that
the Academy was intended to embrace whatever was excellent
in art It is discreditable that men like Pistrucci, who was the
first, we might say the only real, gem engraver of his .age, and
Yechte, of matchless excellence in gold and silver chasing,
should have obtained no honours, and no recognition whatever,
from the Academy. On every account we are convinced that
greater breadth of choice is to be desired. The professors of
one art living much together, and constantly looking to the
same object, full into the monotony of a caste. They need ia
the highest degree the action of other minds upon their own.
It is this isolation in professional life which inters so many
accomplished fellows of coHeges in cloisters, and so many aoote
lawyers in their chambers. The pretension of some of tiie
artists that they alone lure qualified to judge of the merit of
each other's wcurks — that they alone possess anything of ihe
real traditions of Art — is, we say it wiA deference, an unfor-
tunate delusion. Artists paint, not for themselves, or for one
another, but for. the public ; and their fate would be deplorable
if the public taste were not sufficiently ednei^ed to appreciate
what is good in their works. Whatever the taste of the public
may be, they are compelled* to adapt themselves to it ; and that .
is their best excuse at the present day for a large class jof ipro-
ductions, which, though not entirely devoid of merit, have huie

1863. The Ra^al Academy. 499

ckim to an exalted position in Art It would be absard to
dispute that a man who pdnts has more practieal knowledge of
tiie art of painting than a man who does not. But these teeh*
nical aoqmrem^its are widely distinot from a true knowledge of
Art. The late Mr. Phillips used to relate that, on finding him*
eelf in pres^ice of Titian's ^ Peter Martjr ' at Yenice, with
a brother Aeademioian, that distinguish^ person turned to
kirn, irfter a loi^ pause of achniration, with the remark, ^iHow
^ wonderfcdly those fellows ground their colours !'

Mr. Ck^ remarked, in lus evidence before the Bojal Com-

fil»»OB —

' An artist, when be exhibits in the Academy, does not exhibit to
please its members, but to please some part of the public outside, and
in that way his works are influenced. The majority of pictures on
commission now are painted for merchants in Lancashhre. They
like a particular class of Art, and they select the painter whom they
most approve of, and with whose works they kaye the greatest sym-
pathy ; but it does not follow that therefore they would be flt to be
uty members of the Academy because they euoourage Art, and are
very much interested in Art.

' lt99. Your olyection to this non-professional element, so far as
the election of artists goes, rests upon the fact that commissions are
given for special paintings upon special subjects. There are many
worics on the walls of the Academy which have been so specially
commissioned. There is no such thing, is there, as catholicity of Art
on the part of painters or of the patrons of Art ; that is to say, it is
seldom that works are painted or ordered without having a reference
to seme special technioal detail either of subject or of treatment ?->-
^efj seldom indeed.

' 180a Do you think that a healthy state of Art?— No; but I
think that it is owing to a want of employment of a higher order of
subjects, such as the decoration of churches or other public buildings.
The Italians were all influenced by high feeling ; in fact they were
considered, and they considered themselves, as in some degree spread-
ing religion. That it is which promotes High Art At present there
is nothing of the sort ; but the Academy is not to blame for that*

But Mr. Copeappears in these answer& to oonfound the vulgar
patrtmage of monied men, whose taste is more likely to lower
than to ndse the practice of the arts, with the just co-operation
of enlightened and disciiminating criticism. It is the greatest
ttHsfortune for the arts that they should be too dependent on
men of long purees and neffleoted minds. No one dreams
of placing any such men in the Academy at all. The * catho-
^ lioity ' We spoken of is the result of the free . and liberal
interchange of tfaeught^ not of pmnting commissions for Lianr
cashire tradesmen. Moreover, that class of purchasers will

500 The Royal Academy. Oct.

buy what they are led to believe on higher authority to be
excellent and valuable. Nothing, a few years ago, was more
inscrutable to them than the works of Turner; yet they will
now give any price for a Turner drawing. In a word, they
have been educated up to the higher leveL

We shall venture to go one step further. We will even assert
that the services rendered to Art by enlightened criticism deserve
to stand immediatelv after the services rendered by creative
genius itself. To the Knowledge and feeling of Art in tUs country
Sir Joshua Reynolds's immortal Discourses have, perhaps, oontri«>
buted even more than Sir Joshua Reynolds's paintings ; and it ia
certain that they will remain, eternally fresh and true, when all
the finest touches of his pencil have faded into night It was
fortunate that Sir Joshua was a painter ; it was fortunate that
he presided over the birth of the Royal Academy; but the
merit of his literary services to Art is not indisaolubly connected
with his performances as an artist.

There is some proof that Sir Joshua himself, with the wisdom
of an enlarged and well-stored mind, felt tJbat the youthful
Academy would be incomplete if it did not include some repre*
sentntives of the class of thinkers, writers, orators, and his-
torians, who are not less essential to perfection in the arts than
painters and sculptors. Hence he prevailed on the King to
include in the Academy a class of honoranr members, under
the title of Professors. These titles have been conferred, on
men who did honour to the Academy by accepting them. In
history. Gibbon, Mitford, Hallam, Grote, and Milman ; in
letters. Goldsmith, Johnson, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Maoaulay,
and Lord Stanhope — we name only the most illustrious. But,
most unfortunately, these .ofiBcers have borne no part whatever
in the business of the Academy. They were never asked to read
a lecture. They were never allowed to register a vote. The
most eloquent of prelates is the Academy chaplain — but he is
only allowed to say grace once a year after dinner.

This is a reductio ad absurdum of such honorary memberships;
and it is impossible not to feel that if men of this high cultiva-
tion and distinction could be induced to take some part in the
affairs of the Academy, it would tend to give it something
more of that enlarged influence on the public taste which it
does not possess. They would not of course paint pictures or
exhibit statues ; between them and their professional colleagues
no rivalry could exist. But they would feel, perhaps more
than the painters themselves, that there are things to be done
for the encouragement and improvement of Art of even greater

1863. The Royal Academy. 501

moment than the exhibition of paintings or the sapervision of
schools.

This lay influence has, indeed, been exercised ever since the
foundation of the Academy by one eminent person, with great
and paramount authority ; and to the direct intervention of this
lay authority the Academicians themselves rightly attach great
value. The eminent person who enjoys this distinction and
exercises this power is the Sovereign for the time being:
within the walls of the Academy the pleasure of the King or
Queen who fills the throne is well-nigh absolute. It may
happen — it has happened — that, as in the case of Her
Majesty, especially when aided by the Prince whose loss,
grievous on all accounts, was especially grievous to the arts,
the Sovereign may possess considerable knowledge and a cor-
rect taste in Art. But that is a happy accident. The Boyal
Academicians will hardly carry their loyalty to the length of
applauding George IV. for his taste in architecture, or
William IV. for his knowledge of painting. Yet these princes
exercised during their reigns a degree of power over the
Academy which was wholly denied to the most accomplished
men in the kingdom, enjoying the titular distinction of honorary
membership.

The selection of the Royal Commission by which these in-
quiries have recently been carried on, with the assistance of
the leading members of the Academy, may be quoted as another
example of this principle. It was not composed of artists ; it
was not composed of men in political office ; it consisted simply
of half a dozen gentlemen, well-known for an intelligent in-
terest in the welfare of artists and the progress of Art Yet it
does not appear to have occurred to any artist to suggest that
they were wholly incompetent to deal with the subject The
late Fine Arts Ciommission, presided over by the Prince Consort,
was entirely composed of noblemen and gentlemen known for
their enlightened sympathy with the arts. They had the Pre-
sident of the Royal Academy for their Secretary. To this
Commission' artists owe the most important efforts which have
been made in England to revive a great historical school of
painting. In like manner, the Commissions named to judge of
the Cartoon Exhibition in Westminster Hall, and of the de-
signs for some great public buildings, have been wiselji composed
partly of artists and partly of the patrons and judges of Art

The admixture of a small proportion of the non-professional
element in the councils of professional men has been tried
with success in several other instances. No profession is more
exclusive than that of military engineering ; yet Mr. Fergusson

502 The Bwfal Academy. Oot.

has sat upon the Defence and Fortification Commisttons with adt^
vantage. The practice of medicine is strictly confined to its
own graduates ; yet in the medical committees of the London
Uniyersity laymen have been introduced^ and provi»on has
been made by Parliament for the admission of laymen to the
General Medionl CounciL On naming the Select Commission of
die House of Commons on the Transfer of Land, it was thought
essential that the lawyers should not be left to deal exclusively
with the mysteries of conveyancing. Even in Convocation^ i£
ever a reform be attempted^ it is obvious that the first step will
be the admission of lay representatives. Every profession
weakens itself when it sets up a pretension to be regarded as a
caste, and to entrench itself in its own irresponsibility. We all^
in our several pursuits, are subject to the control and judgment
of the public ; and it is the interest of every corporation to
conneet itself with the representatives of enlightened publlo
opinion.

For example, no provision whatever has been made in ibe
Academy for the connexion between the arts and soienee^.
Yet that connexion is real, essential, and direct. The whcde
mystery of colour is only to be solved by chemistry and optics..
The composition of colours is of such moment, that it has beea'
well suggested that a laboratory ought to be maintained by the
Academy for tiie express purpose of making experiments om
this subject ; and lectures of great utility to painters m%ht be
^en by a distinguished man of science, who> Uke Dr. ^eroyv
has gtven his attention to the vehicles and pigments used in
tbe arts. The following valuable communication was addresseil
by Dr. Percy to a member of the Boyal Comrnission :— ^

* The durability of colours is a matter of the highest interest, both
to artists and the public ; but it is one, nevertheless, which require*
much more attention than it now receives. I think the Royal Academj
should without further delay undertake an extensive series of expe»*
riments to determine c(mclusivcly what cokmcs are permaneot and
wbat are fugitive.

* In the course of a few years, or possibly less, reliable infonnados^
would be accumulated of inesHmable practical valua The record of
the observations should be accessible to all artists, and it might be
desirable to publish the results for general circulation. I have often
talked this scheme over with many Academicians, and they have
mvariably expressed their approval of it. I have more than once
been on the point of addressing a communication to the President of
the Boyal Academy to urge this proposal; Had our artists been in
possession of facts such as would thcoreby be aeeurauiated, we shonld
not have to deplore the sad changes' which have taken place- in wmttj
important paintings.

IdG3. The Rgycd Academy. 506

^ It would obviously be desirable that instmctioil shonld be con^
vejed by lectures^ or otherwise, to artiste, conoeming the nature and
oomposittoii of pigments. The lectures should be copiously illus-
trated by ezperimenti^ denK}n8tration, such as a chemical lecturer
presents.'

What could be more useful than to have a man of science^
conversant with these matters, in the Council of the Academy?

The Academy^ as it is now constituted, has not arrived at
anything higher than an elementary school of design and
painting, and its influence in this school is confined to a
very limited number of admitted students. The Discourses
of Sir Joshua Reynolds were delivered not as lectures,
but on the distribution of pnzes at the anniversary of the
foundation on the 10th December. This excellent practice
has fallen info desuetude, and was finally abandoned by Sir
Martin Shee. The lectures of the Professors have degenerated
into a monotonous repetition of a few written papers, utterly
without intescst to the students and the publtQ. Yet what a
field is open to men who are called upon to lecture on the
"vi^iole range of Art, in connexion with history, biography, and
literature, as well as in the stricter sphere of criticism I And
if such lectures were delivered at the Academy by men of the
first ability, and thrown open on easy terms to the publio^
would they be less attractive than the lectures of the Boyal
Institution or of other public bodies? On the contrary, it
rests with the Council of the Academy to assume the rank
and position of a University of Art The following answers
of SiLr. B«dgraye, hknself at once a Boyal Academician and
the Director of the Government Schools of Deagn at South
Kensington, show that a large portion of these functions of an
Academy of Art has been assumed by the Government at a
very large expense to the public : —

* 1079. {Mr. Reeve*) Do any students of the South Kensington
Schools attend the lectures of the Academy ? — Some few, not many*

* 1080* Are any lectures on snl^eots connected with Att given in
your sohoots at South Kensington ? — Yesy we have had various lee*
tures J we have always lectures on anatomy going on ; we have
lectures, and usually more art lectures than they have at the Boyal
Academy.

M081. Are they well attended ?—Yery well attended; our stu-
dents know that they must attend them in order to pass at the
examinations.

* 1082. Do you think that if lectures were given at the R<>yal
Academy on subjects connected with Art, by men of talent and
tminenee, they could be rendered attractive to persons in the metro^
pd^ takhig an interest in Art ?— I should hope s<k My own feeling

504 The Rtyal Academy. Oot»

is, that those lectures should not be giren to the students of Art
only, but tliat thej should be given to everybody appreciating tbenu

* 1083. Do jou not think that it would raise the character and
increase the utility of the Academy if it were known that it was aa
institution in which lectures of that character were to be heard ? — I
think it would, and I think that it is almost the duty of the Royal
Academy to instruct the general public in Art as well as its own
students.

* 1084. The South Kensington Schools of Design are connected
with the Committee of the Privy Council, which manages the funds
devoted to educational purposes ? — Yes.

' lOSo. What amount of public money does the Conumttee of
Council on Education appropriate to the objects of the Schools of
Design ? — In the last year they appropriated about 38,5502., but I
should add that that includes every outlay connected with 90 schools,
and about 90,000 pupils, and all the objects bought for the South
Kensington Museum ; thus it will be found that our students cost
the Government about 8«. Sd^ per head per annum.

* 10H6. In fact, the money appropriated to those purposes by the
Government is not confined to the purpose of Art instruction ? — Not
merely to teaching the executive of Art.

' \6b>7. It is difficult, is it not, to say how much goes to purposes
of instruction in Art? — Our instruction in Art is not considered to
consist wholly in the teaching of painting, drawing, and modelling,
but also instruction in ornament as applied to manufactures ; there-
fore we consider the museum a part of our instruction in Art ; that
circulates through the whole kingdom. Part of our museum is
always travelling through the kingdom. If new purchases are made
they are sent to those schools to which they would be most usefuL
All the money spent upon objects of Art, upon Art instruction, upon
prizes and rewards, and upon training masters, summed together,
comes to 38,550^ for the past year*

* 1088. {Mr, Seymour,) Out of that how much is spent on the
museum P—About l2fiO0L or 13,000/.'

We have very great doubts whether it is expedient that a
department of Gtivernment should thus be called upon to iiiterfere
with a particular branch of the public education, and we think it
is to be regretted that any portion of the National collections of
art are placed, as they are at South Kensington, at the mercy of
the Minister or Under- Secretary of the day* We had much rather
see all that relates to the arts in the hands of persons selected
for no political motive, but really qualified to deal with the
subject, and chosen by those whom it concerns. But this inter-
vention of the Government is doubtless the result of the supine-
ness of the Royal Academy.

It must be admitted that the suggestion put by the Boyal
Commissioners to the witnesses in favour of the admisrion of
a non-professional element to the Academy, was met with dis-

1863. The Royal Academy. 505

approval hj many eminent artists ; although, on the other hand,
it was gladly accepted by others. We question whether the
Academicians fully realised the nature of the project. They
have accustomed themselves to look upon the Academy almost
entirely as an institution for carrying on an annual exhibition of
paintings, and for managing a small school of artists. In these
two objects, it is evident that non-professional men would have
little reason to intervene. But the whole question at issue
between the Academy and the public is, whether a great
national institution has no other and higher objects than these.
We think it has. We think it miffht render the greatest
services by seeking to counteract the effects of the vulgar
patronage of the monied classes, and by giving a higher im-
pulse to the exertions of our artists. It is in devising and
promoting these objects, and not merely in the Exhibition or
the schools, that the assistance of educated laymen might be
valuable to the Academy. The proof that no such objects will
be attained by the class of artists alone, is, that they have
never even attempted to employ their ample resources both of
funds and of talent in that direction.

There is, however, one point on which all the members of
the Royal Academy and all its critics are agreed, and that is,
that it is utterly impossible for the Society to carry on its
operations upon the scale which is now required, within the
narrow limits now assigned to it. Want of space is the plea
urged ngainst every proposal of reform, and not untruly. The
schools are almost entirely closed for the five best months of the
year, because the Exhibition occupies the halls and lecture-rooms.
Sculpture has been driven from the Academy by the vile re*
ceptacle allotted to it. School of Architecture there is none,
because there is no room for it The diploma pictures of the
Academicians, and some other fine works, cannot be seen by
the public, for want of a gallery to hang them in. The
Academy itself bears the blame of many things, which are the
inevitable result of inadequate accommodation.

We are satisfied, from the evidence, that these averments are
true, and we conceive, with the Koyal Commissioners, that it
would be a wise and just policy to deal liberally with the Aca-
demy on the question of space, by putting them in possession
of a public building amply sufficient for all their wants ; pro*
vided the Academy, on the other hand, frankly accepted the
obligations and modifications which would attend so oistinct a
recognition of its public character. This is the spirit of the
Report of the Royal Commission ; and for this purpose it re-
commends that a Charter be granted to the Academy, that the

506 Thi Boyal Academy. Oot.

claflB of AssociateB be extended in nnmber, and invested with
aehltd power in the corporation, and that ten non-professional
men be added to the body by the choioe of the Academy itaelf.
These are the principal changes suggested, and on these terms
we presume that the Government, if it think fit to ad<^ them,
may engage in negotiation with the Academy.

In proposing to relinquish to the Academy the whole of the
building in Trafalgar Square, it must be- borne in mind that
winle it is perfectly adi^ted to the objects of the Academy, it
is singularly ill-adapted for any other public purpose. In par-
tieular, it is ill-adapted for the purpose of a Nati<Mial Gallery*
The site is so smaU (only about 1 1,500 square feet) that it is
impossible to erect imposing galleries or halls upon it, withovk
absorbing, at an enormous expense, the adjacent ground. The
present buildii^ wants the very &st ccmdition of such an edi-
fioe^— security ; for it is declared by high authority to be in no
degree fire-proof. Nc»r is the lighting by any noeans satisfactory^
For'all the purposes of a National Gallery the site of Burlington
Gardens is qmte equal, if not superior, to Trafidgar Square.
It is equally central ; and the space has no less tiian ekven iime$
the area of the present building. Both the National Gallery
and the Royal Academy urgently require this separation.; and
it is highly reasonable that the laiger and more important site
should be assigned to the great national collections of the old
masters^ to which we should gladly see united the strength of
the English scfao<d.

This> then, is the. point to which the questions now pending
between the Boyal Academy and the Goveenment, on behalf <^
the public, have been brought by the labours of the kte- Com^
mission^ It is admitted on all haods-that th^ callifor a prompt
and equitaUe solutien. Soppoeing that the Govenmient adopt
the reeommendmtionS'Of the Commission, and make proposals. to
the Academy in confonnity with them, it will be for the present
menders of the Academy to decide whether they will accept
the offer of a public building, admirably suited to their wants,
on the conditions suggested^ viz., that th^ assume the character
and responsibility of a public body, chartered by the Crown;
that they accept a reform of their constitaticA; that they admit
the junior members of th^ own profession to a share of pow€r
in the General Assembly; and that they also accept the partis
oipation of a small number of honorary memb^ns in their aflyx&
On the other hand, it will rest with Padiam^t to determine
whether they will give effect to the plan^ by providing funds
for the erection of a National Grallery, on a new eitS) adapted
to the importance. of our pcesent coUeo^ns, and to their future
extension.

18<S. Chinchana ChMbmtion in India. 589

We hope these sdbjeots will be ooniudei^ in the course of
the recess, withoat party-spirit and without prejudice* There
IB but one rational object^ common to all thoee who have takea
a part in these discussions, namely, to do what is best for the
advancement of the arts, for the welfare of artists, and for the
honour of the country. The Hoyal Academy has a great op-»
portunity of assuming a nobler and higher position among ouc
national institutions than it has yet enjoyed. We hope that,
acting under the enlightened advice of its President and its
leading mmnberSi it w3l show itself equal to the occasion. Fop
the alternative appears to us to be, that retaining its private
character, it will renounce its public utility ; other rival socie-
ties of artists will spring up; it will lose its hold on the profes-
i^n and the public, aod disappoint the expectation of its beet
friends. The choice is n^w^ before it ; and we ciAfidefntly awMt
a favousable deeisi<»u

Abt. VII. — 1. l\av€h in JPsru and India, whik superintend*
ing the Collection of Ckinchona Fliinte and Seeds in South
Ameiiea, and their Introduction into India^ By Clbmekm
E. Markham, F.S.A., F.R.G.S. 1862.

2. Notes on the Propagation and Cultivation of the Medical
Chinchonas or Peruvian Bark Trees. (Printed and pub-
lished by order of the Government of Madras.) By
William Graham M'lvoR. Madras: 1863.

3. Tioo Letters from W* G. M'lvor, Esq.^ to J. I}, Siaij Esq.,
Secretary to Government. Madras : 1863.

4* Report on the Bark and Leaves of Ch^ndunut Suaciruba,
grown in Indian By J. E. HowiARD, £^ 1863.

5. Memorandum on the Indigenous Cotton Plant of the Coetst
of Peru, and on the Proposed Introduction of its Cultivation
into India. By Clemektb R. Markham, Esq. 1862.

6. Memorandum by Dr. Wight on the Introduction of the Cotton
Plants of the Peruvian Coast Valleys into the Madras I^esi^
dency. 1862.

n^o transplant afegetable or a tree* from the soS where it
"^ is iadigenona to some other region fitted to reoeive it, is to
extend the realm of Natuce herself, and to produce by a very
simple process incalculable results on the eccmomy of the world.
Agriculture, trade, fortune, food, population, heidth, may all be
powerfully aflbcted by the transfer of a little packet of seeds, or

508 Chinchona Cultivation in India. Oct.

bj those modern contrivances known as * Ward^s cases,' which
have 60 much facilitated the interchange of the vegetable pro-
dnctions of the globe. It is almost incredible how many of the
commonest and most essential elements of daily life and daily
food are due to the acclimatisation of plants in countries where
they were once unknown ; and how large a share human in*
dustry and enterprise have had in replenishing our forests^ our
gardens^ and our hot-houses with ^ grass^ the herb yielding seed,
^ and the tree yielding fruity whose seed was in itself, after its

* kind.' It is hardly too much to say that successive leras in
the history of our species might be traced by the wider diffusion
of those plants which are most serviceable to the wants of man.
And however little we may desire the intervention of govern-
ment9 in regulating the ordinary and natural course of trade,
there can be no doubt that the introduction of new and useful
plants to be employed in the industrial arts, for purposes of
food, or for medicinal objects, is a most laudable use of the
money and power of States. Without some such intervention
it would have been totally impossible for Mr. Markham to ac-
complish the arduous task which he has described in the volume
we have placed at the head of this paper ; and assuredly the
zeal, courage, and skill displayed by this gentleman in trans-
planting the Chinchona tree from the Peruvian Andes to the
Highlands of India, entitle him to a dbtinguished place among
the benefactors of mankind. The success of the experiment is
now happily beyond question, and we owe to this enterprise the
certainty that the supply of one of the most important remedies
known to medicine is now placed under the protection of
sdentific culture and commercial interests, within the depen-
dencies of the British Crown.

It is now more than two centuries since the invaluable
febrifuge properties of a genus of plants indigenous to immense
mountainous tracts of the South American continent, yet
strictly limited to particular districts, were first made Imown
to the physicians of Europe. That the virtues of the bark of
certain species of Chinchona were known long before this
period to the people of the districts in which they grew is,
indeed, highly probable, whatever countenance may be given
to a contrary opinion by the absence of this ' sovereign remedy
^ in the wallets of itinerant native doctors, who have plied

* their trade from father to son since the time of the Incas.'
' It seems probable,' says Mr. Markham, ' that the Indiana
' were aware of the virtues of Peruvian bajrk in the neighbonr-
^ hood of Loxa, 230 miles south of Quito, where its use was
^ first made known to Europeans ; and the Indian name fin:

1863. Chinchona Cultivation in India. 509

' the tree^ Quina^ina^ '^bark of bark^" indicates that it was
^ believed to possess speoial medicinal properties.' To what
extent this knowledge may have prevailed it is impossible to
saj) and the discussion would be unprofitable ; but the impor-
tant fact of its introduction into Europe, its gradual apprecia-
tion by the physicians of that portion of the globe, and its
consequent distribution over the whole civilised world, proving
as it has done, one of the greatest boons ever bestowed upon
man, deserve a more particular notice.

The name of Ana, Countess of Chinchon, is immortalised
by its having been applied by the great author of system-
atic botany to this priceless genus of plants. This lady,
the wife of the Count of Chindion the Viceroy of Peru, was
in 1638 attacked with fever at Lima. 'The corregidor of
' Loxa, Don Juan Lopez de Canixares, sent a parcel of powdered
' quinquina bark to her physician, Juan de Vega, assuring him
' that it was a soverekrn and never-fdling remedy for ** tertiana."
* It was administered to the Countess and effected a complete
' cure.' Betuming to Spain with her husband in 1640, and
bringing with her a quantity of the healing .bark, she was thus
the first person to introduce this invaluable medicine into
Europe. In memory of this great service Liinneus named the
genus which yielded the remedy Cinchona ; omitting the h from
the first syllable, which, however, is now by conunon consent
restored.

The districts where the trees grew which yielded the bark
were for a long time comparatively little known to European
geographers, and still less were botanbts acquainted with the
various species of Chinchona from which the new drug was
procured. It was, however, a matter of ursent interest that a
more accurate knowledge should be obtained of all the circum-
stances connected with a material of such growing importance.
The attention of men of science no less than of commercial
men was directed to these objects, and the botanists attached
to various expediUons were charged with the duty of ascertain-
ing the localities, characters, and properties of the different
varieties of the now famous 'Peruvian bark.' The French
expedition of 1735, the primary object of which was, however^
rather geodetic than either botanical or commercial, possesses a
double interest, inasmuch as to it we owe the first description
of the ' quinquina ' tree, and that the first attempt to transport
plants of it to Europe was made by De la Condamine, who
was a member of the expedition. In this attempt he failed, as
the box of young plants which he had secured was unfortunately
washed overboard, after he had preserved them for eight months.

^10 Chinckona Cultivtztian in Indku Oct*

It was Conchiniine^ too, who first described the Cfainchona tree
of Loxa in the ^M^moires de I'Acad^mie/ This expedition
possesses a sad interest also with regard to the fate of Joseph
de Jussiea ; a family name immortalised by the distinguisfaed
scientific labours of three successive generations. ' After fifteen
' years of laborious work, he was robbed of his large collection
^ of plants by a servant at Buenos Ayres, who iKelieved that
* the boxes contained money. This loss had a disastrous efiSsct
^ on poor Jussieuy who, in 1771, returned to France deprived
^ of reason after an absence of thirtynnx years.'

It is unnecessaiT to follow the gradual steps by which tiie
prejudices, which tor some time interfered with the genend
adoption of the medicine, were overcome, and its great impor-
tance ultimately recognised. The interest which it has ever
since excited, and the -value universally attached to it, cannot be
more strikingly shown than by the number of distinct treatises
of which these products have formed the subject. Van Bergen,
in his valuable MonoCTaphie, gives a catalome of these works,
amounting to 637 publications, and occupying 72 pages in his
book. In 1777, the well-known botanical expedition under
MM. Ruiz and Pavon, was sent to Peru by the Spanish Qt>-
vemment. The srientific results of this important expeditton
were embodied in the * Flora Peruviana et Chilensis ' of Ruis
and Pavon, published at Madrid in 1798-1802, in the 'Quino-
'logia' of Buiz in 1792, and in the supplement to that work by
the two colleagues conjointly in 1801. Dr. Weddell's great
work, ' Histoire Naturelle des Quinquinas,' was published in
1849, and contains a series of plates figuring the different
species, and consisting of perhaps the most beautifal and effe^
tive outline engraving ever devoted to botanical illustration.^

In Mr. Howard's recently publbhed ^Nueva quindogia'of
Pavon, no fewer than thirty-nine species of Chinchona are
enumerated and named, of which, however, several are, in all
probability, varieties only produced by climate, situation, and
other ordinary causes of vegetable variation. No person living
is more competent than Mr. Howard at once to produce a
critical botanical exposition of the genus, and to estimate the
comparative therapeutic vahie of each species. The ifinstan

* The inferiority of our English engravers in this peculiar depart*
ment of illustrative art cannot be denied. The character which Ia
given to every leaf and flower by the perfect accuracy of the drawing,
and by the tasteful and effective introduction of the dark line^ bj
several of the Qerman and French engravers, is, with perhaps one
exception, scarcely attained by any of our own artists.

1863. O/nnchona Cultivation in India. 511

tions^ too, are from the masterly pencil of Mr. Fitch^ whieb is
tantamount to saying that they are unequaUed excepting by
smne of has own productions.

Modem chemistry, by the discovery of tiie vegetable alkaloids
in which the virtues of many of the most important medicinal
plants are found to reside, has rendered the administration of
such remedies at once more certain and more easy ; and in the
ease t>f the present article of the Materia Medica, every other
means of its administration has almost entirely ^en place to
this modification ^f its essential remedial elements. It is now
ascertained that no fewer than four distinct alkaloids, having
more or less simHar qualities, exist in different proportions in
the species of Chinohona. ^ The final discovery of quinine is
« due to the French chemists Pelletier and Oaventon, in 1820.
' They considered that a vegetable alkidoid, analogous to mor-

* phine and strychmne, existed in quinquina bark ; and they
^ afterwards discovered that the febrifugal principle was seated
^ in two alkaloids, separate or tc^ether, in the different kinds
' of 'bark,'caUed quinine and cfnnehomne, with the same virtues,

* *whieh, however, were more powerful in quinine.** Two other
alkaloids were discovered in 1852 by M. Pasteur, named ^ttm-
idine and chinchonidine ; these are found principally in the bariu
of New Granada, and the latter is considered as second only to
quinine in its medicinal virtues.

The obvious importance of keeping up the supply t)f so
precious a material appears to have been long lost sight of, and
the most reckless extravagance, and an utter disregard of future
requirements, characterised the conduct of the bark collectors.
The Government of Spain made but iew and unsatisfactory
efforts to supply by cultivation the waste which was daily
increasing, and the total destruction of the trees appeared
imminent. The testimony of Dr. Weddell shows that in many
cases it was the custom to bark the trees while they were
standing, which, of course, ensured their death ; or if they were
felled, the collectors took the bark from that side of the tree
only which was uppermost, to save themselves the ^trouble of
turning over the trunk. No extent of country on which the

* Some discussion has recently taken place respecting the com-
parative merits of these two alkaloids. Dr. Daniel of Jamaica states
that his experience in the treatment of febrile diseases in Western
Africa was unfavourable to cbinchonine, as prodacing cerebral dis-
tm-bances. Dr. Macpherson of Calcutta, and Mr. Howard, have
both come to a contrary eonolasion, but consider it as aboat one^tbird
less powerlol than quinine. (JPAorm. /oicryt., vol iv^ p.*Wl.)

512 Chinchona Cultivation in India. Oct.

trees grew oould suffice to counterbalance such wanton impro-
yidenoe as this, and yet the Spanish Government^ and subse-
quently the revolutionary Governments, appear to have been
equally careless of the future.

The attempt of Condamine, in connexion with the Frendi
expedition of 1739, and subsequent explorations by whom-
soever undertaken, had for their object rather to acquire '^a
knowledge of the diflferent species of Chinchona and their
relative value, and to ascertain their geographical distribution,
than to procure their transportation to ouier places of growth.
The mission of Dr. Wedddl, under the orders of the Frendi
Government, commenced during the reign of Louis-Philippe,
was by far the most important expedition undertaken before
that of Mr. Markham. Dr. Weddell, whose scientific know-
ledge perfectly qualified him for the task, made two voyages to
South America with the primary object of obtaining mforma-
tion respecting the Chinchona trees, and he thoroughly inves-
tigated the districts in which th^ grew, both in Southern Peru
and Bolivia. His great work before alluded to contains the
results of these investigations, and, together with his subsequent
account of his travels, affords a vast amount of information
both scientific and practical. He also brought seeds of one of
the most important species, C Calisayay to Paris, from which
plants were ridsed in the Jardin des Plantes, in 1848. Many
of these were distributed, and some were sent by the Dutra
Government to Java. Nothing further i^pears to have been
attempted by the Government of France; and the Dutch, who
possess in the island of Java a range of forest-covered mountains
admirably adapted for Chinchona cultivation, were the first to
take active steps for its introduction into the Eastern hemi-
sphere. Praiseworthy as were these early attempts, they were»
however, from various causes, followed by very kmited success.
The plants collected for transportation proved, with few excep-
tions, to belong to almost worthless species ; and of those which
were of the better sorts, many perisned for want of due care
and of a sufficient practical knowledge of the proper mode of
cultivation.*

* It does not appear to us that this statement is materially im-
pugned by the fac^ as stated by Dr. de Vry, that the Dutch Govern-
meat, at the instance of the late Lord Canning, presented the Indian
Government with a supply of 106 Calisaja plants grown from Java
seeds, before our own success had rendered us wholly independent
of extrinsic assistance ; since, up to the end of the year 1860, afiter
six years' cultivation, the number of plants of that vduable species
in Java amounted to only 7,800, whilst those of comparativelj

1863. Chinchona Cultivation in India. 513

Without dwelling upon the difficulties and comparative failure
of the Dutch proceedings, it is more interesting now to trace
our own nlore successful career in this important undertaking*
The credit of the first suggestion of the transplantation of
Chinchona trees into our own dependencies is due to Dr. Boyle,
whose acute and sagacious mind had thoroughly appreciated
the importance of such a measure, and whose residence in
India had conyinced him of its practicability. In 1839 Dr.
Boyle, in his ^ Illustrations of Hinudayan Botany,' recom-
mended the introduction of Chinchona plants into India, pointing
out the Neilgherry and Silhet Hills as suitable sites for the
experiment. One urgent appeal after another was made to the
Government, without, however, receiving the attention which
the subject deserved, or producing any practical results.

* The proposal,* says Mr. Markham^ ^ to introduce the Chinchona
plants into India was first made officially in a dispatch from the
Oovemor-General dated March 27, 1862. It was referred to the
late Dr. Royle, as reporter on Indian products to the East India
Company, who drew up an able memorandum on the subject^ dated
June, 1852: **To the Indian Grovemment," he said, "the home
'^ supply of a drug which already cost 7,000/.* a year would be ad-
*' vantaeeouB in an economical point of view, and invaluable as
** afibrdmg means of employing a drug which is indispensable in the
** treatment of Indian fevers. I have no hesitation in saying that,
"** after the Chinese teas, no more important plant could be introduced
*' into India." The only result of this application from India was,
that the Foreign Office was requested to obtain a supply of plants
and ^eeds from the consuls in South America.' (Markhamy p. 62.)

The excuses and indifierence of some of these genUemen,
and the total failure of success in the only case of a meri-
torious concurrence on the part of Mr. Cope the consul-
general at Quito, who transmitted plants and seeds to England
— the loss of some plants and seeos transmitted by Dr. Wed-
dell, and of others again procured through Mr. Pentland,
did not deter Dr. Koyle from . making further efibrts. * In
^ May, 1853, he drew up a second long and valuable but
^fruitless report upon the subject;' and in March, 1856, he

worthless species are almost to be reckoned by millions. The dis-
cussion of this subject does not come within the scope of our object
in this review, and we must refer to the statements of Mr. Markham
(Travels, p. 47.)> and to Dr. de Vry's communication and Mr. Mark-
ham's reply in the Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. iv. p. 439.

* So great was the subsequent increase in the demand for bark
and quinine in India, that in the year 1857-8, upon a moderate com-
putation, the expenditure amounted to about 54,500/.

VOL. CXYIII. NO. CCXLII. L L

514 Chinchona Cultivation in India. Oct

made a final attempt to induce the Indian Government to take
the necessary steps. The death of this excellent botanist and
estimable man^ whose useful labours were cut short at a moment
when they had become fully appreciated, and when his influence
wonld probably have gradually cnrried out this his favourite
project, put a stop for a time to all the interest whidi Govern*
ment appeared to have taken in it. The stimulus had, how-
ever, been given, and in 1659 efficient measures were taken
which resulted in the present complete success, to the great
credit of Lord Stanley and of the able agents whom he sent out.
It is at this juncture that we have to take up the mission of
Mr. Markham, who appears to have possessed aU the reqoirite
qualifications for efi^ectually accomplishing its design. His
previous acquaintance with a considerable part of the Chia*
chona districts of Peru, where however his former pursuits
had no reference to the object which he was destined after-
wards to execute with so much perseverance and success,
gave him a considerable advantage. It is evident throughout
the whole of his narrative that Mr. Maridiam posocssos
a remarkable aptitude for selecting and acquiring exactly
the kind of knowledge required for his purpose, and no
less judgment in applying it. His steady perseverance, his
untiring energy, his courage and endurance, and the tact with
which he met and overcame the most perplexing difliculties,
could alone have enabled him to bring his labours to so suc-
cessful an issue. In 1859 he was * authorised by Lord Stanley,
' then Secretary of State for India, to make such arrangements
' as should best ensure the success of an enterprise the results

* of which were expected to add materially to the resources of

* our Indian empire.' Profiting by the failure of the Dutch
proceedings in Java, which have been alluded to, Mr. Markham
determined to direct his efforts to procuring those species which
were the most valuable in their therapeutic qualities : but here
it was necessary to have the assistance of able botanists and
of judicious practical men, and to employ persons to collect in
the different districts to which the best species are indigenous.
' On December 17, 1859,* he says, *we sailed from England,
' and, crossing the Isthmus of Panama, arrived at Lima, the

* capital of Peru, on January 26, 1860. Thirty Wardian cases
^ for the plants had been sent out round Cape Horn, and I

* forwarded fifteen to Guayaquil for Mr. Spruce's collection, and

* fifteen to the Port of Islay, in Southern Peru, to await my
' return from the Chinchona forests.'

It was on March 2nd that the expedition landed at Islay^
and on the 6th they started on their long and perilous journey.

1863. Chinchona Cultivation in India, 615

We cannot follow step by step the progress of the expedition ;
but the details given by Mr. Markham are exceedingly interest-
ing, and his remarks on the present and future of the vast
country to which his researches were principally directed, are
of great importance : indeed the whole record of his jonrn^
forms one of the most captivating books of travels of the present
day* After loi^, laborious, and dangerous joumeyings, in
which hunger, illness, and the enmity of those who were
interested, or fancied themselves so, in preventing the ac-
o^nplisbment of the object of the mission, Mr. Markham and
bis indefatigable associates succeeded in procuring a considerable
number of plants of the most valuable species of Chinchona.
The collection of Caravayan plants amounted to 529.

* On May 1 1th, Mr. Weir completed the packing of the plants, and
we were preparing for the journey up into the pajonales on the follow-
ing day, having previously fixed on the Calasaya trees from which
we intended to obtain a sopply of seeds in August, when Oironda
(his hitherto friendly host) received an ominous letter from Don
Jos£ Mariano Bobadilla, the Alcade Municipal of Quiaca, ordering
him to prevent me from taking away a single plant, to arrest both
myself and the person who had acted as my guide, and send us to
Quiaca. I found that an outcry against my proceedings had been
raised . . . and that the people of Sandia and Quiaca had been
excitod by assertions that the exportation of Cascariila seeds would
prove the ruin of themselves and their descendants.'

Taking leave therefore of Gironda, after writing a strong
protest to the Alcalde of Quiaca, the party proceeded on
their hasty journey to Sandia, where they arrived on the 15 th,
and found things there in a very alarming state. With ex-
treme difficulty, and by no small amount of ingenuity, the
danger was avoided, and on June Ist the plants were safely
deposited in the Wardian cases at the port of Islay.

In the meantime Mr. Spruce had been successfully following
out the objects of his especial mis^on in the Republic of Ecuador,
the seat of Chinchona $uccirubra, the most valuable of all the
species, as affording the largest proportion of the febrifuml
alkaloids. This pursuit was not unaccompanied by difficulty
KoA danger, which it required all the seal and perseverance
of this enterprising traveller and botanist to overcome. Mr.
Cross had conveyed the fifteen Wardian cases already men-
tioned, as destined for Mr. Spruce, to Ventanas, in the neigh-
bourhood of Limon, after his arrival at which place the col-
lection of plants ^ commenced in earnest. A piece of ^ound
^ was fenced in, and Mr. Cross made a pit and prepared the soil
^ to receive the cuttings, of which he put in above a thousandi'

516 Chinchona Cultivation in India, Oct.

beside layers. In addition to these proceedings, Mr. Spruce
went to the southward to collect the seeds of the same precious
species, which were now ripe, and the result was the acquisi-
tion of at least 100,000 well ripened and dried seeds. Con-
ducting the precious freight from Yentanas on a raft to
Guayaquil, ' Mr. Cross arrived with the plants from Limon on
' December 13, and established them in the Wardian cases to
^ the number of 637.' The opposition of the government was too
tardy to prevent the successful transportation of the treasure^
which was safe on the Neilgherry Hills, at the very time when
the le^lature of Ecuador issued a prohibition to all poraona^
whether native or foreign, to make collections of plants, cot^gs,
or seeds of the Quina tree.

The Grey barks, Chinchona nitida, mieranthat &c, were the
particular object of Mr. Pritchett*8 mission to the Huanooo
district in Northern Peru, and he appears to have executed h
with much success. Plants and seeds of the species yielding
this variety of bark were obtained and sent to Lima.

A second expedition of Mr. Cross to Loxa, for the especial
purpose of obtaining the seeds of Chinchona Condaminea, com-
pleted the various operations undertaken for the important
purpose of procuring and transporting to India the most
valuable species of the bark-producing trees ; and whilst they
reflect the greatest credit on Mr. Markham, by whom tM
various operations were organised, and by whose personal efforts
a large portion of them were carried out, warm praise is also
due to his coadjutors, Mr. Spruce, Dr. Taylor, Mr. Pritchett,
Mr. Cross, and Mr. Weir, by whose zealous and indefatigable
co-operation the great object of the mission was effected. We
have already stated that the Neilgherry Hills were considered
by Dr. Royle as the locality most favourable for the successfiil
cultivation of Chinchona. Mr. Markham's acquaintance with
the climate, soil, and other attributes of the native country of
the genus, led him to the same conclusion ; and it was to this

Eart of India that the plants and seeds obtained by him and
is coadjutors were now to be transported.

' Here are to be found/ says Mr. Markham, * a dimate, an amount
of moisture, a vegetation, and an elevation above the sea, more
analogous to those of Chinchona forests in Soath America than can
be met with in any other part of India. In the Grovemment Gardens
at Ootacamund on the Neilgherries, there were the necessary con-
veniences for propagating plants and raising seedlings ; and in Mr.
William 6. M'lvor, the superintendent, was to be found a sealous,
intelligent, practical gardener, who had carefully studied the botany
of the Chinchona genus, and nnder whose care the coltivation would

1863. Chinehona Cultivation in India* 517

be commenced with the best possible guarantees for its success. • . •
With this object in view, we landed at the port of Calicut on the
coast of Malabar, on October 7, 1861.' (P. 339.)

The Neilgherries are acknowledged to be the most aala-
brioos district in the whole of India* Its stations^ Ootaeamund,
Kotageri, and Coonoor, are the favourite resorts of invalids^
and the varied climates which are produced by their dif-
ferent elevations afford every degree of bracing or of soft air
which can be desired, with a clearness and purity which are
most healthful not only to the human constitution, but to vege-
tation. To Ootaoamund, then, the principal of these stations,
the plants and seeds, destined in all probability to be the parents
of millions of future denizens of this delightful region, were now
to be transmitted.

In selecting the sites suited to the different species, it was
necessary to assimilate them as nearly as possible to those
in which they flourish best amongst their native mountains;
and this not only with respect to ■ elevation, but to soil, tem-
perature, humidity, and other important elements in successful
cultivation. The practical experience and judgment of Mr.
M^Ivor were here of the greatest value. He had, previously
to Mr. Markham's arrival, selected a site for the highest
plantation in a wooded ravine or skola at the back of the hills
which rise above the Government Grardens.

^ The Dodabetta site, being four or five degrees warmer than
Ootacamund, throughout the year, has a temperature, on the whole,
somewhat warmer than the lofty regions where those species of Chin-
ehona grow for the cultivation of which this position is selected.
The elevation above the sea exactly corresponds, and the amount of
humidity is about the same. . • . The character of the scenery
and vegetation very closely resembles that of the Pajonal country
between the valleys of Sandia and Tampota in Garavaya, where the
shrub Calisaya flourishes. The site is protected by rising grounds
from the cold northerly winds, and the temperature became warmer
as we ascended through the wood.'

These circumstances, and the analogous character of the Flora
of the Dodabetta ravine to that of the loftier parts of the native
Chinehona region, determined the choice of this site for the
species which require such conditions. Similar considerations
led to the selection of stations for other species ; but the site
above mentioned may be considered as the most important, as
it will be used as an experimental and central plantation by
Mr. M'lvor, who is there successfully raising plants for future
distribution over various parts of India and elsewhere. In an-
ticipation of this great object being carried out by private spe-

518 Ckinchona Cultivation in India, Oot.

dilation^ Mr. M*Ivor has recently published a very usefiil
pamphlet, the title of which is at the head of this article. Its
object is ^ to place in the hands of all who are interested in the
^ extension and increase of this vahiable product, a knowledge of
' the management of the plants in their earlier stages, or up to
^ the period to which our experience in their cultivation extenda.
* The Government of Madras has already placed the Chinchona
^ within the reach of the general public by authorising the dis-
^ tribution of the plants at four annas eacii ; ' and Mr. M^Ivor
proceeds to show, by clear praotical directions for their cultiya^
tion and management, how to obviate disappointment in tbcae
important speculations. The selection of sites for plantatioiiB
with reference to aspect, rainfall, elevation, the transportation
of the plants in Wardian cases, the various nKxIes of {»opsga^
tion, the formation of nurseries, and all points conneeted with
cultivation, are given with the greatest plaiiiness, and with an
amount of information which is remarkable, considering how
recently the experiments upon which the directions are founded
have been commenced.

It is, then, to the judicious management of Mr. M'Ivcht that
we have now to look for the solution of the great problem q£
our becoming independent, for the supply of one of the most im»
portant articles in the whole Materia Medica, of a country wheie
a wasteful improvidence threatens the extermination of the
trees which produce it, and where the difficulties of procuring
it, and its increasing scarcity, must render its acquisition more
and more expensive and precarious. It is a triumph which
must always reflect the greatest credit upon the persevering and
courageous men to whose labours we are indebted for obtaining
and transporting the precious treasures, and to him who has
already commenced, with the certainty of success, their propp-

Stion and dispersion. The progress of this work under
r. M*Ivor's able management forms the subject of a very in-
teresting chapter in Mr. Markham's book. Of this it would
exceed our limits to give even an abstract; but the present
state of the Chinchona operations in India has been reported
upon in monthly official letters from Mr. M^Ivor to the Grovem-
ment Secretary, three of which are now before us, the substance
of which will be read with great interest They contain reports
on the number, distribution, and condition of Chinchona plants
on the Neilgherries, to the dates respectively of March 31,
April 10, and May 9, 1863. It appears from the latest of these
reports that the total number of plants of eleven species of
Chinchona amounts to 157,704. < The number of plants planted
^ out during last month being 5,647, making a total of 41,397

1863. ' Chinchona CuUhmtion in India, 519

* permanently piomted out in the plantations. The increase by

* propagation during tbe month is 12^565.' It appears from
the same document that the distribution of plants to other
localities has aLready commenced, the numbers sent out being
^628, while ib» interest which this object of commercial
adventure has already excited is strikingly shown by tbe fact
that about 50,000 plants are already bespoken ; * and when it is
^ remembered,' says Mr. M^Ivor, ^ that no public advertisement
' has been made of the intention of the Government to dispose

* of the plants, this isuat clearly establishes that Chinchona cul-
^ tivatkm will be extensively taken up by private enterprise.'

It is always interesting to record the first successful results of
jm important and beneficial enterprise. Mr. Howard, who has
made the practical working of this subject as much his own as
the scientific knowledge upon which it is based, transmitted in
J^une last to the Under Secretary of State for India, a report on
the bark and leaves of Chinchona succirubra grown in India,
which had been forwarded to him for examination and analysis.
In this highly interesting report, which is now before us, Mr.
Howard states that ^ the powder resembles that of good Peru-
^ vian bark.' Proceeding with his analysis, he says, * I com-
^ menced with 500 grains of that of the second y^ur's growth,
^ and was able to obtain therefrom a first and second crystallisa-

* tion of white sulphate of quinine. . • . The crystallisations
^ I obtained were mixed with some sulphate of Chinconidine.
^ . . . I also obtained some Chinconine and other usual
^ products of the process as from South American bark. • • •
' I found the total contents 3*30 to 3*40. . . . This result
^ must be considered extremely favourable.' Mr. Howard con-
cludes by the important statement that Hhe*structure of tbe
' barks, as shown by the microsoope, makes it evident that
' the plants had grown vigorously, and under] circumstances
■* favourable to their full development' On the 18th of
the same month, at the last meeting of the session of the Jjin-
nean Society, Mr. Howard exhibited, to the great satisfaction
of the members present, specimens of this, the first Chinchona
bark sent to this country from India, together with some of the
alkidoids in ethereal solution obtained from the leaves, and two
smalt phials of sulphate of quinine obtained from the bark.
Tbe production of these precious alkaloids from bark grown in
our own possessions is now, therefore, an accomplished fact.

But it was not to India atone that the transplantation of
Chinchona was to be confined. On Mr. Markham's departure
^n his mission, a depot was formed at Kew, under the direction

520 Chinchona CulHoation m India. Oct.

of Sir William Hooker^ with a new propagating house and
every other requisite for the safe keeping and propagation of the
plants, and their distribution to various parts ot our coloniesL
From thence, besides India and Ceylon, they have, we believe,
been sent to Jamaica, Trinidad, Dominica, Queensland, Natal,
Algiers, and Western Afirica. From some of these parts
favourable accounts of their progress have been received ; and
the report of Mr. Wilson, the curator of the Botanic Gardens,
at Bath, in Jamaica, and that from Mn Crugor, in Trinidad,
are highly promising. The climate and other essential requi-
sites for the cultivation of Chinchona in the former island are
found to be perfectly suitable, and several hundred plants have
already been raised from seeds furnished from that source.

The cultivation of Chinchona in Ceylon deserves a sqoarate
mention from the success which has already attended its mtro-
duction into that country.

' The hill districts of the island of Ceylon, which have the necessary
elevation, and are within the region of both monsoons, offer peculiarly
favourable conditions for the cultivation of Chinchona plants, pro-
bably equal to the best localities on the peninsala of India. Mr.
Thwaites, the director of the Royal Botanical Grardens at Peradenia,
takes a deep interest in this important measure, and under his
auspices there can be no doubt of its ultimate success. It was from
the first determined to send a portion of the Chinchona seeds to
Ceylon, although the whole expense of the undertaking has been borne
by the revenues of India, and no assistance whatever has been given by
those colonies which will thus profit by its success.* (Markham^ p. 509.)

Already the cultivation has been conmienced, and with the
best prospects. Besides plants which have been raised from
cuttings, and two flourishing ones previously transmitted firom
Eew, six Wardian cases were sent in March, 1862, from the
depot at that place, and 800 plants of different kinds had in
September last been nused from seed. ' Chinchona cultivation

* in Ceylon has thus been fairly started. It is,' adds Mr. Mark-
ham, * exceedingly gratifying to hear that many coffee-planters

* will be glad to try the experiment upon their estates ; and that

* Mr. Thwaites will shortly be in a position to distribute plants
^ from the Hakgalle Garden.'

It is not within the scope of our present object to dweU upon
the narrative of Mr. Markham's joumeyings, nor upon the
interesting accounts he pives of the history and antiquities, the
customs and mode of bfe, the scenery, soil, natural products,
cultivation and other points of importance, which he has shown
himself well able to discuss in a practical and philosophic spirit.
The careful perusal of his work will amply repay the reader by

1863, Chinchona Cultivation in India* 521

the amount of economic information it contains, no leas than by
the interest which attaches to a great country, emerging from
its struggles for independence, and beginning to fe3 the con-
sciousness of its own power and resources*

There is, however, one subject of present absorbing interest
which appears collaterally to call for a short notice from us as
having nad much light thrown upon it from Mr. Markham's
observations, and from the reports which are placed at the head
of this article. The cotton of Peru, a different species from that
of North America, possesses qualities which would appear, from
the testimony of competent authorities, to be more available for
Indian cultivation, at least in many extensive districts, than
that of the North American species. Even from Peru itself
no small amount of supply, additional to that already derived
from that source, may probably be obtained ; and there appears
to be a disposition in that country to encourage its cultivation.
The attention of Mr. Markham was called to this object, and
the following statement is not without its present interest : —

'It has been calculated that in the cotton-growing districts of
Lambayeqne, Chichago, and Tmxillo alone, uter leaving a fifth
of the available land for crops to supply provisions for the inhabitants,
as many as 140,000 Janegadas (about 1,200,000 acres) might be
brought under cotton cultivation. Allowing four feet for each plant,
and that each plant yields four pounds a year, this extent of land would
produce 580,000,000 lbs. of cotton annually, worth 12 dollars the
cwt. at the port of shipment, or 69,600,000 dollars. Deducting
22,400,000 for expenses, this would leave 47,200,000 doUars* profit.
But these provinces contain but a small portion of the fertile coast
valleys of Peru ; and it is clear that, if the speculations of 1860 jrield
a reasonably profitable return, the cultivation of cotton may^ in all
probability, be undertaken over a vast area, and render I^em an
important source of supply for Manchester.' (Markham^ p. 303.)

StiU it is on the extensive cultivation of cotton in India that
the hopes of this country must mainlv rest for future supply;
and the inquiries which have recently been set on foot have
been replied to in reports and memoranda from men in every
respect qualified to form a correct and practical judgment. The
direction to which they all point is the substitution of the Peru-
vian spedes for the native Indian, or the North American varie-
ties, as possessing great advantages for cultivation in extensive
tracts of country, which assimilate in their physical characters
to the Peruvian cotton districts. The true Peruvian cotton
possesses a much longer staple than the indigenous Indian, and
is, therefore, much better calculated for the Manchester market.

522 Chinchona Cultmaiion in India. Oct*

whilst it will grow well in those districts which are unsaited to
the North American species. *It is very important/ says
Mr. Markham^ in his memorandum to the Indian Grovemment
dated Aprils 1862> ^ to introduce a cotton with a longer staple
^ than that of the indigenous plant of India^ and^ therefore,
^ better suited to the demand of Manchester, which will thrive
^ in the exceedingly dry climate of the collectorates on the
^ eastern side of the Madras Presidency. . • • The staple of

* this Peruvian cotton is longer than that of " Uplands " Per-
^ nambuco, and much longer than any indigenous Indian cotton*'
An elaborate comparison between the analogous regions in Pern
and In£a. occupies the greater part of Mr. Markham's memo-
randum, by which it is clearly shown that the Peruvian cotton,
which now commands a high price in the Manchester market,
may be cultivated to almost any extent in thoee parts of India
which are unsuited for the growth of the North American kinds.
Dr. Wight, whose long residence and official position in India,
and his well-known practical acquaintance with the applied
botanical science of that country, give great weight to his
opinion, gives a similar testimony in a short memorandum dated
July, 1862. He says : ^ I think that it is in every way desirable
' that the Peruviui plant should be extensively and perseveringly

* tried in the Carnatic, especially along the wide sandy flats
^ bounding nearly all the larger rivers and streams which inter-
^ sect the country between the central range of hills and the
^ coast ; ' and he concludes with the hope that his suggestions
may prove useful in securing success to this very promising plan
for adding another and superior variety of cotton to those alr^tdy
in cultivation in India. Mr. Spruce, in his official notes on
cotton cultivation, says : ^ A good deal of cotton of great length
^ and strength of fibre is grown at Maynas, at Torapoto and
^ Lamas, from 1,200 up to 2,500 feet elevation. . • • The
^ cotton,' he adds, * grown at Torapoto is the strongest I have
' seen anywhere in the world. Of its excellence there can be
^ no doubt ; I have seen no finer cotton, and for length and

* strength of fibre it is unequalled.' The whole of the three
memoranda from which these extracts are taken are well worth
attention. Their concurrent recommendation appears to us to
point to India as our future certain source of cotton supply, and
to the Peruvian species as likely to supersede, with immense
advantage, the inferior native kinds now cultivated in extensive
districts, which it clearly appears may be increased to an almost
unlimited extent.

1863. Phillimore's Beiffn of Geargt III. 523

Art. VIII. — History of England during the Reign of George
the Third. By John Geobge Phillimobe. London:
1863.

'T^HB author of this strange volume Is Reader of Consti-
tutional Law and History at the Inns of Court under the
present system of Legal Education. If his lectures correspond
with his book^ Mr. Phillimore's appointment warrants in some
degree his repeated sneers at the heads of our law as wanting
in common sense and discernment. It is certainly strange that a
learned society^ which till lately boasted among its members the
honoured names of Macaulay and Hallam> should have chosen
as a commentator on our Polity a writer whose turn for rant
and railing, and utter want of sober thought, would appear to
disentitle him to the office. For ourselves, we shall only
approve the selection and commend this specimen of the * His-

* tory of England,' when ridiculous theories put recklessly for-
ward, unsound, superficial, and conceited views, a judgment
singularly paradoxical and partial, an incapacity to present faets
in their true light, a habit of indiscriminate abuse, a narrative
at once prolix and obscure, and a style tawdry, jerkiog, and
shrewish, shall be esteemed the proper qualifications for an
historian. Meanwhile, although the only object of Mr. Philli-*
more is to ^ search for truth,' as in his own opinion ^ the period

* of George III.'s reign has never yet been fairly described,' we
hope, in the interest of good sense, that this performance will
not be repeated, and whisper audibly to the author —

Oepvlr* aKpirofivde Xiyvc rrep itjy ayoprjfrjit

After a preface in which Mr« Phillimore tells us ^that he
^ follows in the path which was trodden by him who said im>-»

* phetically that be wrote for all time»' this volume opens with
a long dissertation on the genius and character of the History
of England. The views he has expressed ' await the equitable

* verdict of posterity,' and may await it for ever, for if his
own appreciation of our times be correct, ^contemporaries'
will assuredly * neglect ' them ^ in the total extinction of taste '
among us. For instance, it is a prevalent notion that the
people of England throughout their history have given dis-
tinctive proofs of the qualities which deserve the appellation
of greatness. Heroic energy, capacity for government, innate
reverence of law and authority, and a strong and enduring

524 Phillimore's Reign of George IIL Oct.

seDse of nationality, have been usually ascribed to the island
race which has reared the edifice of the British Empire.
It has been thought that the great revolutions through which
we can trace our gradual progress from Norman tyranny to
modem civilisation — the establishment of our equal general
law, the reformation of our medissval church, and the settle-
ment of our political rights, afford some evidence that mode-
ration and justice pervade widely the British nation. Nay,
though our polity owes its existence in some degree to peculiar
circumstances, it has been supposed that it never could have
grown up amon^ a people of inferior character. If the firm
monarchy planted bv the Conqueror was the cause that England
was comparatively n*ee from die anarchy of extreme feudalism,
and, possibly, that the English nobility was never a distinct and
exclusive caste ; and if at the crisis of the sixteenth century our
insular situation protected the Constitution by rendering a
standing army unnecessary, it was the sturdy strength of the
Saxon nature that rescued the yeomen and peasantry of Eng-
land ftt>m a state of perpetual thraldom and wretchedness ; it
was the practical wisdom of the English middle classes that
matured the influence of the House of Commons ; it was the
mixed respect for authority and self-government, ingnuned
deeply in the English character, that secured the ascendancy
of the Common Law; it was the peculiar tendency of the
national genius that established as checks on a Central Executive
that mass^of locally powerful institutions to which we owe so
much of our liberties. Without ^flattering the coarseness of
^ our nature or indulging in boisterous panegyrics on ourselves,'
we may say that only a great nation could have filled the parts
in the majestic drama which connects the England of the Flan-
tagenets and Tudors with the England of our kingly Conmion-
wealth.

Such opinions as these are, however, too trite for this Novum
Organum of Historical Philosophy. That we have reached
greatness it is impossible to deny, but then we have not achieved
it ourselves, it has been thrust on us by 'a few eminent
' citizens,' who devised for us a ' form of government ' that has
^ made us glorious in spite of ourselves ' and * saved us from
' lethargic servitude.' Like inferior plants, the English people
have been placed in a kind of moral hotbed by three or four
political Paxtons, and the process has given them ' a constitution
* which alone has vivified ' the brute mass and * gained for them
' a place in history.' To this secret of a few regenerators it
is due exclusively that the British race are not a mere inert
I>opulace untrained to freedom and incapable of empire. For,

1863, Phillimore'fl Beiffti of George III. 525

as Mr. PhiUimore soberly observes^ the essential character of
the English nation is a compound of Boeotian stolidity and of
the coarse vileness of the Romans of JuvenaL They possess,
indeed, ^ many useful qualities ; ' they are ' brave, perseverine,

* patient, and enterprising; ' but they are a ' thoroughly selfiA

* and rude people,' witli * the servile genius of the Teutons,' who

* wallow in the mire of practical life,' and ' degenerate rapidly

* from a high standard.' They have always ^ £own a singular

* incapacity for the government of other races and countries;'

* public spirit has never been their characteristic ; ' and ' no great

* nation has ever been so implicit to surrender the reality ' of all
that they should prize, ' provided they see certain forms observed,

* and hear certain sounds repeated.' Intellectually, moreover,
' they have no idea of grandeur ; ' ' their genius is neither pene-
^ trating nor comprehensive ; no taste has been allotted to

* them ; ' and they are remarkable for ' a delight in microscopic
' detail and a total absence of anything like the power of gene-

* ralisadon.' It was certunly a wonderful forcing machine
that out of such unpromising materials produced the country-
men of Wolsey and Chatham, of Clive and WeUesley, of Bacon
and Shakspeare.

That a form of government made Englishmen, and that
Englishmen did not make their form of government, will
remind the reader of the Laputan architecture, which began a
house from the roof downwards* We wish, however, that Mr.
PhiUimore had told us who were * the eminent few' that achieved
the metamorphosis he has described, and what was the * form
'of government' that has rescued the English nation firom
brutishness. If our history teaches any lesson, it is that our
empire, and our actual civilisation, have been the result of
national efforts, continued through successive centuries, and
gradually raising us to our present fortune. That individuals
nave become conspicuous in this achievement is a mere truism ;
but England, like the Roman Republic, owes less to isolated
men of mark than any communitv, equally celebrated. Had
Langton and Pembroke never existed. Magna Charta would
have been certainly won ; our common law would have been
created without the patronage of Edward L; our national
Church would have been reformed whether Henry YIII. had
reigned or not ; and the Long Parliament would have done its
work, though Pym and Hampden had never sat in it. Indeed,
except the mythical Alfred, no individual emerges in our history
who can be said to have fixed its course; and there is no
English Hannibal or Napoleon, nor even an English Sully or
Richelieu. As for our ^ iotm of government,' we venture to

5lt6 Phillimore^s Reiffn of George IIL Oct.

think that^ except in a few organic principles, it has been in a
state of continual change, and has gone through a series of
revolutions that have made it vary at different periods. In the
fourteenth century it was a feudal sovereignty ; in the seven-
teenth, it inclined to absolutism ; in the eighteenth, it was a
kingly oligarchy ; and in the present age it is a constitutional
monarchy. And yet this n^obine — however altered, and
apparently fitted for different uses at different stipes of its
existence — ^invariaUy turns out the same work; that is, through
a long succession of ages, regenerates the degraded English
nature! An agency whose forces are ever <dianging, yet
always produce the same effect, is certainly a very ioteresting
marvel, adapted, no doubt, to the understandings of a people
who, as Mr. Phillimore remarks, feel pleasure ' in ^travagant
^ commonplaces, and take on trust much silly scepticism/

In truth, it is odd that even * the form of our government *
should receive the approbation of Mr. Phillimore. For if;
according to his theory, the structure is so wonderful as a
whole, its separate parts, he evidently thinks, are detrimental
to the body politic For instance, he condemns monarchy
as an institution, and raves hysterically at our kings, though
he condescends to praise Queen Victoria. In his view,
monarchy has been a cause of the ' abject servitude ' of so
many of our Peers, of the sycophancy of our Church, and
the corruption of our Parliaments ; and its social effects have
been very mischievous in creating a taste for ^rattles and
^ playthings,' and even, it would seem, for hoops and lappets—
' a display very difierent from that of Cornelia.' As for our
House of Lords, it has 'too often betrayed an obseqiuoue

* complaisance that could hardly have been exceeded ; ' and
some ' exceptions only can be made to the gross corruptions^
' the dark prejudice, and the flagrant servility of the House of
' Commons.' Witii regard to our Church, Mr. Phillimore
assures us not only tha^ it illustrates ' the alli^ice between
' priest and king, cemented by the blood and tortures of the
' noUest of our species ' — that ' it has been content to receive
' pay and titles as die price of insignificance and insincerity ' —
but that nowadays ' its clergy have learnt to reconcile thmr

* pecuniary interests with their vanity, and at the same time to

* be paid for faith and admired for incredulity.' And as for oar
law, and ' its gang of judges,' we are told—- in oertainly a hundred
pkces, in every mood and tense of abuse — that, at least untii
the other day, the one was *a bottomless magazine of absurdity/
^ an anarchy of chicane and chance,' an ' art to obstruct truth,
' and make the triumph of sabstantial justice as nearly imposflitile

1863. Phillimore's Retgn of George HI. 527

' as was consistent with the very existence of society 5' and that
the others were a set of dastards and harpies, whose charac^
teristics were ^ narrowness, an antipathy to all that bore any
^ mark of elevation and refinement, and an ignorance of all but
' the merest routine/ together * with an indifference to the
* welfare of others, a slovenly neglect of all. that was important,
^ a sordid respect for wealth, and an abject deference for authority.'
If our cardinal institutions have had such mischievous effects,
what is that residuum of 'a form of government ' that accomplishes
Mr. Fhillimore's miracle ?

Having set out with these trifling paradoxes, Mr. Phillimore
sketches our history rapidly from the Conquest to the Kevolution
of 1688. The sketch attests the justice of his observation, that
' a mind may stagger under the weight of accumulated facts,
' which it has neither strength to grasp nor sagacity to methodise.^
The only tolerable parts of this review have been borrowed
from Lord Macaulay — as, for instance, the remarks on the
character of oui' arbtocracy, on the nature of the Tudor
monarchy, and of the crisis of the sixteenth century — and
they have been a good deal injured in the process. In fact,
even when consciously copying, Mr. Phillimore cannot avoid
exaggeration, and his imitations remind the reader of the valet
who dresses after his master. An utter want of philosophic
insight, and of the power of arranging facts, combined with
characteristic extravagance, are, however, his principal de-
fects; and the result is, that his treatment of the subject is
exceedingly shallow, meagre, and pretentious. For example, it
would have been more satisfactory to have learned something
of our mediseval institutions, and of their relation with our
present history, than to find the whole matter summarily dis-
missed * as a dreadful period of servitude and oppression, which
' has branded on modern Europe scars that, even now, in this
^ favoured country, are deep and visible.' Instead of reading
that, in the fourteenth century, ^ the law became more intricate
^ and warped,' we should like to have had some account of the
changes to which that law undoubtedly contributed in relieving
England from the curse of villeinage. If there was no space
for a full picture of the great moral and social revolution which
England witnessed during the Tudor period, it was hardly
philosophical to characterise our lieformation as the work * of
* the most perfectly wicked and detestable of all modem tyrants/
or to describe the ritual of Henry V UL as a * blasphemous
^medley of ludicrous * contradictions.' If the Church of
England in the seventeenth century was not firee from the
chaise of persecution, it would have been more just to contrast

628 Phillimore's Beign of George IIL Oct.

her intolerance with that of the Chnrch of Alva and Bichelieu
than to proclaim her prelates^ ^ from Parker to Shelden, as the
'most odious characters in modem history.' Nor will the
readers of the present generation^ who have been reminded hj
a mighty voice of the treason of James II. against their rights,
believe that in the Revolution of 1688 ' there is almost as much
' to blush for as to admire/ or that Hhe confinement of seven
^ bishops for a few days in the Tower, without the slightest
< danger to their persons, and very little to their property/ was
the sole cause of that memorable deliverance.

From a Header of Constitutional History we nu^ht have
expected a clear account of the eiTects of the Bevolution of
1688, in establishing the ascendancy of Parliamentary Govern-
ment, and settling finally our political liberties. No writer,
moreover, in reviewing this period, should omit to notice the
marked advance which England made in a few years, the influ-
ence she suddenly acquired in Europe, the rapid expansion of her
commercial wealth, and the development *of her maritime
superiority. All this Mr. Phillimore ignores, and hurries on to
an elaborate caricature of the state of the nation in general at
the time of the first sovereigns of the House of Brunswick.
At this period there is no doubt that, compared with an ideal
standard, or even with our actual civilisation, there were many
abuses in our social system, and even in some of our institutions ;
that the tone of nationfll morality was low, and that our
manners were rude and devoid of refinement. By giving
supreme powers to Houses of Parliament not then responsible to
popular censure, by overthrowing an ancient dynas^, and by
striking at the pretensions of the Church, the Revolution, with
many blessings, had brought with it political corruption, a decay
of loyalty, and latitudinarian ideas, and it had stopped short, so
to speak, in reforming a large mass of social anomalies and evils.
Moreover, in an age when public opinion had as yet compara-
tively little force, and education hardly existed except for the
higher classes of the realm, the type of morality was inevitably
had, and this tendency was not a littie promoted by the example
of a dissolute Court, and of an aristocracy uncontrolled by the
I)eople. Accordingly, during the eighteenth century, while the
Constitution had permanently placed our chief rights in complete
safety, and the result was seen in the extraordinary progress of
England in power and material wealth, the nation appears as if
it had declined in public spirit and lofty thought ; a number of
gross defects existed in tiie law, in the Church, and in our
subordinate institutions ; and the satirist and the moralist found
an ample field to ridicule or denounce our manners and yioes.

1863. Phillimore's Reign of George III. 529

A discriminatiiig review of this period^ however^ is not to be
expected from Mr. Phillimore. His account not only keeps out
of sight the general state of contemporary civilisation^ but sup-
presses all that is worthy of admiration, and magnifies all that
is of an opposite kind in the England of our great-grand&thers.
His picture is simply all wrinkles, and is about as like the
origind as that drawn by Junius of the Duke of Bedford. He
informs us that, *^ with the exception of some few among the
' more educated classes, the nation was sunk into a degree of

* brutality almost inconceivable.' * In this respect there was a
' great contrast in the condition of most European countries; '
as for instance, in France, where the peasants ate nettles and
were hanged summarily if they made any objection. * Our
' annals are a record of murders, robberies, and wanton acts of
' fiendish cruelty, not exceeded by those which have been
^ transmitted to us as having taken place under the Merovingiim

* dynasty, together with the frauds, chicane, and meanness
' which are the evils of a more advanced civilisation.' ^ It is
^ difficult to find in the history of the most despotic countries in
^ the darkest ages ppoofs of more stupid and revolting iniquity,'
than were seen in the administration of justice by Willes and
Byder, by Holt and Lord Raymond. Our law was ^ the worst

* for its effects upon the temper and morals of the community in

* civilised Europe,' — worse doubtless than that which tortured
Damiens, broke Galas and Sirven on the wheel, and, in the
caustic words of Voltaire, was too Christian to have any
humanity. ^ No institution ever tended more d'u*ectly to social
' degradation than the poor laws ' of this period — not even the
serfdom and tallies of France ; and the labouring poor in the
last century ' were looked upon as the Norman considered the
^ native serf.' Can we wonder that, this being the state of the
nation, * the worst fiiults of an aristocracy pervaded the upper

* classes ; ' that corruption tainted all public men ; and that ^ the
^ immorality of men and women of condition was so gross and
^ undisguised as to demand all the proofs from various sources
' in which the evidence of it is established before we can give it
' credit ' ? A dissertation on the enormities of the slave trade,
which it would seem at this time was confined to England, and
on our ignorant treatment of lunatics, completes this sober and
candid summary.

We may test the truth of these extravagances by referring to
Mr. Phillimore*s assertions respecting the state of England at
present. Accor4ing to him, we have only improved superficially
since the last century ; we are still the same coarse and cor-»
rupted race, with a little false lacquer over our deformities ;

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLII. M IC

530 PbilKinore'B Reign &f George IlL Oct.

and in some particulars we have positivelj retrograded. ' The
^ present age is only great and respectable oompared witli tlie

* period of the Begency^ when the tone and hi^it of the public
' mind was most vulgar and degraded, when the higher elMsep

* were most contemptible, the middle most obseqoioiis, and the
' feeKn<;8 of the lower blackest and most nloerated — ^the most
^ humiUating period of English story.' Nowadays, peihapsy
the method of government is more decorous and subject to
opinion than it was in the time of Walpcrfe aod Pelham, bat
^ the leprosy of corruption is at this hour the blot and sooorge
^ of commercial England ; ' and, as it woidd seem, * direct
^ bribery ' has ^ since the Reform Bill ' reappeared in die Hooee
of Commons. Our institutions have in part been reformed,
but the Churdi is more timeHserving and hypocritical iJian
ever. ^ The immediate object of Lord Mansield's aacoesaors
' has been to restore the pettifogging tone and miserable quibbles

* of our law,' which is still well-nigh as absnrd as of old ; and
even down to 1835, ' the egotism and want of forerigfat for
' which our legislation is so conspicuous, were never written in

* more conspicuous characters.' As for the relations between
tiie orders of society, the lower classes have no doubt improved
and are more humanely treated than they were, but the upper
have as certainly declined, having ^ exchanged the old frank

' * outspoken vices of a plain manly generation for tliose of
' priests and courtiers, for superstition and hypocrisy.' And
as for the tone of our social life, it is one of anngled ostenta-
tion, frivolity, and corruption ; respecting virtue, yet worship-
ping wealthy intensely servile, thoughtiess, and sdfish, and
tainted with vice, though dreading opinion.

No doubt Mr. Phillimore would deny that, as Burke wrote of
George Grenvillo's pamphlet, * the apparent intention of this

* author has been to draw tiie most aggravated, hideous, and de-
' formed picture of the state of the country which querulooe elo-

*^ quence, aided by an arbitrary dominion over fact, was capable

* of exhibiting ! ' Intellectually, moreover, we must reooUect that
we have declined since the last century, sAid this set-off must be
taken into account against any other questionable improvement.
A comparison drawn by Mr. Phillimore between the England
of Anne and G^eorge I. and the En^nd of the last two gene-
rations, in point of mental eminence and culture, will show how
implicitly we should follow his judgment. ^ ^th Pope, the
< luminary of its twilight, ceased the age of Englidi poetry for

* ever,' and that of Byron, Wordsworth, and Tennyson is
simply one of poetic nothingness. < Meti^j^mcs, the queen of
' soienoes, the mistress and architect of materials out of whioh

1863. PhilliiiKM's B^ qf Gtwge III. 531

< the adamantiae IwM of morality must be oonstrncted/ was
unknown to Coleridge and Sir W. Hamilton, and found its
highest exponent in Hume, ^ the greatest man bom in this
* island during the kat century.' The age of * the eloquenoe of
^ Walpoleend St John hi^ been ^cceeded by a period without
'it/ — as those who have heard a Brougham, a Macaulay,
and a Gladstone will at onee acknowledge. Our litera-
ture ' is trash which pours like & deluge fTom> the press in eyery
' shi^e,' — -as has been exemplified by several of the most
important historical woiks in the language. ' The worst

< of the pamjdilets of the eighteenth eentuiy,' — say those
of Sh^beare, Oldmixon, and Cibber^^' are far -superior to. any*
' thing the present age has pcoduced/^*-4ay the dull letters of
Peter Plymley. No wonder, indeed, the decline has been
great, for at the Oxford of Aikm Smith and <^ Gibbon, ' tiioee
•* who ¥rere uuiructed with the education ot youth' 'taught

' them to road Homer and Virgil, and Cicero and Euripides, as
' they were read by Milton and Dryden, by Addison and
' Barrow, and Atterbury and Fox ; ' whereas now ' they cram
' them for examinations, and brii^ down every mind to the
' dead tutor's level,' — as Professors G. Smith and Arnold will
acknowledge. Nevertheless, thou^ we doubt if this be 'a
' period in which railways, theologioal disputes worthy of' the
' ByzantijEie empire, second*hand scepticism, and schemes for
' fattening cattle,' have usurped ' the place of those studies
' which formerly trained some few Englishmen in all times to
' be most skilful and magnanimous,' Ve readily admit that ^ it
' has witnessed an impostor who, in spite of iacorrect and
' ludicrous blunders — not master of eyem « tolerable style —
^ean assume the chair of a critic and dictate maffisterially.'

An historical review of the main events of the reign of
(jpeorge L, and Georee IL completes the series of preliimaary
essays which fill near^ half of this volume. In thi^ as in the
work throughout, we find the want of insight and dq»th, and
the extravagant Mid intemperate views of whidi we have had
oocatton to complain ; and the narrative is <duflisy and discon-
nected, with, htace and there, some gross inaccuracies. A
thinker, treating this important period, would, probably, dwell
espeeiallv on the causes which, on the one hand, secured
1 ultimately the triumph of the settlement of the Bevoiution, and,
on the other, retarded for years the extinetimi of the Jacobite
faction. We remember to have heard M. Guisot remark that
there is no passage in English history more worthy of note
than* those reigns, during which the naticm submitted to be
governed by princes, equally devoid of every taoeomplishment

532 PhilUmore's Reiffn of Gtorge IIL Oct.

and every feeling of EnglishmeDy provided only it saved in
their persons the great principles of constitutional govern-'
ment. Mr^ Phillimore, however, disdains to take a phi-
losophical view of any subject, and hurries his readers into
mazes of facts, connected only by a commentary of invective,
amidst which we lose sight of the real character and tendencies
of the period. He may be right in describing George I. as
^ ill-educated and narrow-minded ' and George II. as an un-
' natural parent, an unreasonable master, and a selfish man ; ' he
is fully justified in saying what he pleases of the Duchess of
Kendal and the Countess of Darlington ; but what shall we
think of the sage remark, ^ that the effect of the Revolution was

* to give us a German instead of a French concubine ' ? We
shall not cavil at such violent phrases as * the venal and in-

* terested aristocracy ' of the day, — ^that Walpole * bribed the
' nation with its own money to be free,' — and that ' corruption
' became the mainspring of his government,' but we might have
expected that an historian would have pointed out the reason
of these phenomena. Nor can we allow that the wise vigour
which possibly saved the Hanoverian succession by checking the
designs of Alberoni ' was a measure wholly indefensible,' that
' Walpole deserved to be the almost sole counsellor of the

* House of Brunswick,' that Queen Caroline's * posterity owe to
' her the throne of England,' or that the war of 1739 'began in

* wickedness and ended in disgrace,' — expressions which are
quite in keeping with Mr. Phillimore's most sober moments.

The special fault of this chapter, however, is the abuse
Mr. PhiUimore lavishes on the character and administration
of Stanhope, and the way he contrasts that statesman with
Walpole. It may well be that ' the noble flame ' of the brave
soldier and brilliant diplomatist was not so suited to the
meridian of that time as the calm sagacity of his fortunate
successor. But the minister who thwarted the schemes of
Alberoni, and secured the alliance of France with England
during the first years of the reign of George I., cannot * be said

* to have acquired power to bring the nation to the verge of
' ruin,' unless indeed Mr. PhiUimore believes that the cause
of Jacobitism was that of England. The thinker who tried
to anticipate his age by a liberal measure of religious toleration
did not ' brand his administration with lasting infamy,' or,
perhaps, in the judgment of this generation, * employ power to

* assail the Constitution.' As for the ' baseness and dishonesty '
of Stanhope's conduct, in intriguing to 'disgrace' Walfiole^
Mr. PhiUimore, blindly following Coxe, appears not to have
read the evidence collected by Stanhope's accomplished successor

1863. PhilUmore's Reign of George III. 533

in a work very different from that before us. The Peerage
Bill, brought in by Stanhope, and opposed by Walpole for party
purposes, was, doubtless, a very short-sighted measure, and pos-
sibly ' at no distant time might have brought about a reWution;'
but when Mr. Phillimore makes it the ground for denouncing
its author and lauding its antagonist, he might have mentionea
the reason of its introduction — the sudden creation of the
twelve peers — and the real character of Walpole's oj^sition.
As for the ' South Sea scheme,' it is idle to lay a misfortune
to the chaige of Stanhope which was really a national and
Parliamentary folly; and it is very remarkable that though
Walpole opposed it — as he had opposed every measure of the
administration — he had actually, before the bubble burst, ac-
cepted a subordinate office from Stanhope, thus, tacitly at least,
acquiescing in the project. Nor should it be forgotten in com-
paring these statesmen, that if Walpole's wise and provident
policy assured the throne to the House of Brunswick, it was,
especially in its foreign alliances, the same in the main as that
which his predecessor had inaugurated at a most critical junc-
ture. It reaUy is as correct to say that Stanhope's adminis-
tration was 'base and treacherous,' as it is to assert the
extraordinary 'fact,' which we learn for the first time from
Mr. Phillimore, that the treaty of Hanover, made in 1725,
was ^ an alliance between Russia, France, and England.'

' Lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters, his evasions
' have ears thus long,' we exclaim, as we reach the preface of
the narrative proper of this history. In a sentence which takes
up five pfi^es, Mr. Phillimore gives us a rapid sketch of the
reign of George III. as a whole, in which his pessimism
becomes a rhapsody of despair. Having made up his mind
that this period was one of national disgrace and decline, Mr.
Phillimore weaves the facts of the case into a ^ preestablished
' harmony' of nonsense, from which truth and reason are learn-
edly excluded. This method consists in huddling together and
placing in the worst possible light every circumstance which
bears out the theory; in drawing upon a distempered imagi-
nation ; and in sedulously keeping out of view the facts which
tell on the opposite side of the question.

A just review of this momentous era would probably con-
clude that though its course was in parts dark, chequered, and
troubled, it was one, on the whole, of glory to the empire, of pro-
gress among large classes of the nation, and of happy augury for
the coming generation. We lost America by folly and oppression,
but we consolidated our rule over three fourths of India, and
laid the foundations of a stiU more extended colonial Empire.

534 Phaiimore'» Beiffn qf Georye IlL Oct

If we engaged in perilous wars whieb m^^ hove been anrerted
by- wisdom, we emerged unscathed or victors irom them. If the
opening of the reign of George IIL behdd the* last eft»t of
unoonstitutioiMd pr^ogative^ and, during the kmg reaetionaty
pmod which followed the outbreak of the French -Bevolutioa,
the Govemmeot of England was haxsh and uneidl^tened, asd
reform was slopped in all parts of the State, our polity and our
cardinal institutions proved sound under the severest trials, and
when restored to their normal state, showed readily bow they
could be improved, and quickly again became popular. Though
under the sttfftin of internecine war the burdeos of the people
were enormous, and there were many occasions of loeal distrese,
the wealth of the nation increased on a scale to which histoty
affords no pandlel, except during our own ffen^ration. And
though, undoubtedly, this period was not free from disaflPection
and rebellion, and Pow^, during a part of its course, was in
oj^position to growing intdUgence, and entrenched itself in
sullen Conservatism, still the nation, on the whde, was loyal
and contented, and in all the spheres of mental activity ex-
hil^ted fruitful and splendid effects. If we compare the
England of 1760 with the England of 1820, we shall haErdly^
doubt that, although she passed through a crisis of tremendous
peril, her fortunes were still in the ascendant:; that in grandeur^
wealth, institutions, government, and in the achievements of the
mind of man, the nation had made a mariced advance, and was
giving a glorious promise for the future.

Mr. Phillimore, however^ lifts up his voice to protest a^dnst
these oonolusionsw * The reign of Geoige III./ he informs
us, ^ was overcast with clouds and beset with darkness ;
^ it was a scene of gloom, discontent, and confusion.' The
increase of our empire he describes as * the East won by fraud:
^ and violence,' omitting quietly our colonial acquisitions; and
our struggle with Napoleon is characterised as * triumphs by
' sea— by land^ calamities.' Not a Mrord is said' of the terrible
emerg^cy which so long established Toryism in the State, and
checked ^)olitical and social reform, though we hear a good
deal about ^ the decay of public spirit,' the ^ servility of the
^ senate,' and the ^ lUiberality of government.' It may be true
that in parts of this reign there were 'prerogative judges, un-
' justifiable prosecutions, iniquitous verdicts, and cmd sentences^'
that Hhe Church returned to her ancient intolerance,' that- there
was ' mutiny in our fleet and revolt in our dependencies ; ' but
it might have been added that the Frendi Revolution inevitably
caused a reaction against all change, and that, after all, the
institutions of Great Britain alone survived the shocd: c^ the

1863. Phillimore'd Be^n oj George IIL 585

tempest. We bear that * taxes inoreased beyond example/ and
that ' the transition from an agrioultural to a merely coiamereial
^ and manufactunng people became every year more marked/
bttt we find nothing aboat the augm^atation of the wealth that
made inoreased taxation bearable, nor yet of the wonderful ex^
paasion of industry which carried us through our mortal struggle.
It is undoubtedly true that ^rebellion in Ireland was provoked

* by opi^ression and avenged by cruelty^' and ' that the Unum
^was purchased by corruption/ but Mr. Phillimore omits to
notice the benefits the Union has conferred upon the empire,
and the still more liberal and enlightened views with which it
was conceived by Mr. Pitt. As for the social and intelleo-
toal life of the period of Burke and Johnson, of Scott and:
Byron, as for the philosophical and scientific triumphs of the age
of Coleridge and Horner, of Black and Davy, and as for the
tone of the House of Commons of Pitt and Fox, of Brougham
and Bomilly, it is novel, doubtless, to be informed ^ that all

* sense of iJiin^ moral and intellectual diminished rapidly/
that ^ taste and literature fell into decay,' that there was ^ little
^ manliness of character and independence of lliought,' that *• the
^pursuit of wealth was almost the only indication that any
' power of thought remained among us,' and ^ that the intellect

* employed in public life dwindled into mediocrity and s^vility/
But novelty will not make nonsense interesting. In short,
between suppression and exaggeration, one-sided views and
rh^orical bombast, this sketch of the whole subject is one of
the most offensive and unreadable parts of this history.

Mr. Phillimore's narrative of the reign of George IIL embraees
•only the brief period from the accession of the King to 1 766, when
Chatham forxned his secocnd Administration. Like every other
part of the volume, it is full of extravagance and ^Uy vehemence,
and it is quite devoid of the life and skill which reflect and
reproduce the spirit of an epodi. As is well known, the diaraeter
and tendencies of this interesting yet disagreeable time have
been depleted by two great masters, by Burke in his ^ Thoughts
' on the present Discontents,' and by Lord Macaulay in this
JToumaL Without presuming to repeat their lessons, we may
:8ay that the outset of the reign of George IIL was marked by
two peculiar phenomena — the attempt of a subtle and sinister
prerogative to overthrow the balance of the Constitution, and
the ultimate failure of that attempt, though not without a
•disi»trou8 struggle, and under very uniavoux^ble circumstances.
Asoending the throne amidst a fervour of loyalty which had not
been witnessed since the days of Queen Anne, and trained in
periloiis lessons of king*craft> unfitted to a limited monarchy.

536 Phillimore's Reign of George IIL Oct.

George III. persistently made use of his pomtion to reconcile
the predominance of his rule with the action of constitutional
government, and to arrogate to himself the substance of
power without violently assailing our polity. How, with this
illegitimate end in view, he struggled to emasculate the inde-
pendence of Parliament by sapping the bonds of party con-
nexion, to deprive the House of Commons of the control it
possesises over the executive directly by vesting in an irrespon-
sible Camarilla the power that is due to responsible Ministers,
and, through extravagant and skilful corruption, to convert into'
an instrument of the Crown the assembly which should.be its
principal regulator, must be known to our readers generally.
Undoubtedly, to a certain extent, these evil designs were carried
out by the King; and we see their operation in the feeble
governments, upheld by the sovereign against the people, and
depending upon distracted Parliaments, which mariced the
opening years of this reign, in the ascenduicy of Lord Bute
and ^ the King's friends,' and in the sudden and perilous de-
velopment of the influence of the royal will upon the destiny
and policy of England. The results were the Peace of Paris,
the Stamp Act, the prosecution of Wilkes, the Middlesex
election, the 's»va indignatio' of a people expressed in the
^ Letters of Junius,' the American war, and the dismember-
ment of the empire*

The king-craft, however, of Greorge IIL, and his attempt at
compassing illegitimate power, were only very partially succeea-
fuL Even in that age of unreformed parliaments, and when public
opinion was very weak, the institutions and temper of the nation
were strong enough to withstand the influences of the new mode
of oblique despotism. This, we venture to think, is the real lesson
to be derived from the study of that time — a lesson which shows
that while the Revolution had placed our polity beyond a direct
attack, the exercise of the rights it had conferred had secured
that polity from indirect invasion, and, under very unfavourable
conditions, had made it dear to the hearts of Englishmen.
George IIL, before he had reigned three years, had found that
a Ministry of his exclusive choice would not be tolerated even
by the Parliament which had been corrupted by Henry Fox,
and from the first the influence of the * King*8 friends ' was
odious to all ranks of the nation. Shortly after he.had heard
that he was * really a king,' he was forced to sanction the mea^
sures of men whom he hated with an insane hatred ; and though
throughout his long reign he was often able to thwart the policy
of statesmen superior to his own views, this never happen^
unless he had a strong ally in popular prejudices. His attempt

1863. Phillimore's Reiffn of George III. 537

to break up the party ties which form the strongest of our Par-
liamentary seourities, only ended in the victory of the oppo-
sition which overthrew Lord North with disgrace, and in the
dominant government of Mr. Pitt, in whom he found a par-
liamentary master. As for the cabal of ^ Eang's friends,' it soon
disappeared as a force in politics ; and though by corrupting
the House of Commons he was enabled powerfully to affect
our policy and to appropriate by far too much power, the
national representation even in that age obeyed ultimately the
national voice, and declared against him when enjoined to do
80. Indeed, had not the French Revolution produced a strong
reaction in England, it is probable that the efforts of George III.
to increase the influence of the Crown in the State would have
led to a sweeping Beform Bill, and assuredly made the ' King's
* Government ' more amenable than before to the will of the
people. In short, the last struggle of prerogative in England,
though not without calamitous efiects, was impotent against the
steady forces which the Constitution had arrayed against it,
even when they were comparatively weak and ill-organised.

The features of this period, however, do not appear in this
wild narrative. Mr. Phillimore cannot arrange his facts in ac-
cordance with their real relations ; he invariably jumbles them
crudely together, their only connexion being continuous invec-
tive. Thus no prominence is given to the causes which, at the
accession of George III., extended suddenly the influence of the
Crown, though a writer who understood this juncture would,
assuredly, dwell especially on this subject. We read plainly
enough that the King was ^ an ignorant, dishonest, obstinate,
' and narrow-minded boy,' and that he would have contented
himself ' with strict and absolute submission to his wiU in
^ Church and State ; ' but we obtain no insight into the subtle
means by which this end was to be accomplished. There is
much scandal about the Princess Dowager and Liord Bute,
who, it seems, had a rival in Lord Talbot — an assertion resting
on the merest gossip ; but no stress is laid on the imconsti-
tutional error of abusing the authority of the Crown in making
a worthless favourite Minister. Encomiums of Pitt, denuncia-
tions of the ^King's friends,' condemnations of the Peace of
Paris and the Stamp Act, and vituperation of the packed Par-
liaments which lent themselves to these unfortunate measures,
are crowded thickly enough in these pages ; but the reader is
never afforded a view of the peculiar policy which effected
these results, and of the circumstances that made it successful.
That Bute was forced to resign for Grenville, that Grenville
dictated his terms to the King, that the Bockingham Cabinet

538 Fhillimare'ft Seign of George UL Oct.

sucoeeded Grenviile and was replaced by iht Miaistiy of
ChathatD, that the King was ail through pursiiing his game of
frequently changing his rfauniBtrations, and tb«t tbe mtkn
was suspieioas and irritated, and the House of Commons not
always obsequious, is of course chronicled in fiery language ;
but the real significaoce of these facts as indicating a struggle
between prerogative and the Constitution, the importance of
which can hardly be overrated, is hardly brought out, or indeed
appreciated. Mr. Phillimore, no doubt, while ^is drama is
going on, is ever, in his wonted Pistol vein, abusing the King
and everybody else; but it would have been better had he
described the tendencies of tliis period clearly, and gravely
censured the author of its perils, than to have taken vengeance
on George III. by describing his bride as ^ repulsive in her
^ aspect, groveUing in her instincts^ and sordid in h^ habits' —
ezpreseious hardly worthy of a political history.

Mr. Phillimore, however, is most true to lumiself in his account
of the legal proceedings in the case of Wilkes and the general
warrants. These trials, we think, attest. signally the impartial
character of our juri^udenee, and the pure administration of
British justice. Wilkes, in£useus libeUer as. he was, and the
special object of the hatred of the Hong, {tfoved nevertheless, in
the l^al contest wfai<di he waged with the Crown in Weeti'
minster Hall^ tliat our law and its ministers could stand in*
different between Royalty and the vilest of its subjeets. When
arrested for libel under a general warrant, Wilkes was at onoe
discharged without bail, though the law on the point was not
perfectly clear, and the Court must have known that his incar-
ceration would have given the greatest pleasure to the Gt)vem«
ment Having brought an action for false imprisonment agjunst
one of the Kii^s messengers, he recovered a thousand pounds
damages, and Lord Camden went even out of his way to jno-
tect the verdict from further criticism. Other persons who^
like Wilkes, had been imprisoned, obtained damages in the
Court of King's Bench, and on solemn orguoEient the Court
expressed an opinion against the legality of the arrest, and of
the warrant on which it was founded, though it was well known
that the King took the deepest personal interest in the issue.
It is true that Wilkes, having been outlawed for not appearii^
to two criminal informations, was disabled from prosecuting an
action against Lord Halifax, the Secretary of State who si^ied
the warrant ; but this was strictly in accordance with law — and
founded upon the rational principle that the suitor who seeks
must submit to justice ; — and it should be added, that shortly
afterwards the self-iuiposed impediment was removed, the out*

1863. Fhillimor^s R^ of Gwgt III. 589

lawry having beem reversed upon the inereBl tecbnioal infoiv
mality. The historian who desoribes these proceedings might
surely ascribe some merit to the law which was- so equals and
fairly administered; and mi^t point out how fortunate was
the country whose ' comtitution/ in Lord Mansfield's words,
^ allowed no reasons of State whatever to influence the judg-
* ment ' of its tribunals^

Mr. Phillimore, however^ takes no notice of the moral a^et
of these trials ; indeed he steadily puts it out of view ; and ' he
^ dwells at length ' on the case of Wilkes for the sole purpose of
coining invectives against ' our slovenly and short-sighted juris-
^prudence'! Omitting^ or pasmng rapidly over, the lesson
taught by the remai^able specUde of WiUaea's repeated triumphs
over the Crown, and actually insiniiating that the conduct of the
House of Commons contrasted favourably with that of the
judges^ as regards the persecution of Wilkes^ he fastens upon
the solitaiy fact that Wilkes was disabled from suing Lord
Halifax, in consequence of the outlawry^ against him, and be
summarily denounces the entire proceedings as ' a jargon of
' nonsense ' and cruel oppression I We quote bis review of the
whole subject, as a specimen of his criticism : —

' Such was English jostice, snob was the boasted impartiality of its
proceedings towards rich and poor ; sueh was the state to which the
law had been brought by the venality, ignorance, and incorrigible
pedantry of those to whom the EngBsb blmdly assigned the making
of it ; and while— in spite, literidly speaking, of the evideiK^ Si
their senses— the inhabitants of this island, alwaya the ready slaves
of trivial phrases, vaunted on all occasions the wisdom and humanity
of the shapeless heap of fbrocious rules and absurd customs, expressed,
as the note in the preceding page shows, in a most hideous and
brutish jargon ; to which so long as certain sounds were repeated in
their ears by men dressed in a certain manner, they were content,
like irrational animals, bHndly to submit'

This tirade is a fair example of Mn Phillimore in his best
moments :

' Verba devolvit, nnmerisqpe fertur
Lege solutis.'

In the same strain Mr. Phillimore devotes two long episodes
to Irebadd and to India which might have been written, as far
as any British feeling is concerned, by Mr« Smith 0*Brien and
by Nana Sahib. Mr. Phillimore's view of the Irish question is
based upon the two false assumptions that the English race are
incapable of empire, and have been actuated by a blind hatred of
the Irish in all their relations with them, — an hypothesis which, it
has been judidonsly remarked, 'is morally absurd and historically

540 PhiUimore's Reiffti of George IlL Oct.

^ untenable.^ As these principles are made to explain the whole
history of Ireland from its conquest, it is needless to say that
Mr. Phillimore's view is a mere perversion of truth and reality.
No allowance is made for the peculiar circumstances under which
Ireland was conquered and colonised, and for the consequences
of the unfortunate severance of the two nations at the crisis of
the Reformation ; no account, in weighing the tale of wrong, is
taken of provocations given to the conqueror, or of the effects
of national passion ; all is set down to the dull stupidity and
' shameless oppression ' of the Englit>h nation. The tyrannical
statutes of the Conventions of the Pale, which separated the
Irishry from the Norman noblesse, are proofe of English in-
capacity for government I The religious wars of the sixteenth
century, which identified Ireland with the Catholic cause, were
simply the result of English atrocities ! The Penal Code, the
work of Irish Protestants, enacted in a moment of terror, is
made a proof ' of English infatuation' ! No candid writer would
wish to dispute the wrongs done by England to Ireland, any
more than he should try to conceid the circumstances whidi
unfortunately produced them; but history will hardly agree
with Mr. Phillimore, that ^ oppression, exhibited in a form more
^ shamekss than it has ever displaj/ed among European nations,*
is the whole truth respecting the relations between this country
and her Celtic sister.

As regards India, Mr. Phillimore's review is quite as absurd
and unworthy of an historian. It is borrowed, in part, from
French writers — not unnaturally jealous of our supremacy and
eager to exaggerate our misdeeds — and, in part, from the rhetoric
of Burke ; but it oversows with original bombast and vehemence.
As in Ireland the English nature was * oppressive,' so in India
it has been ' incessantly treacherous ; ' and Mr. Phillimore, who
refuses to ' shout with the herd in the train of prosperous in-
^justice,' constructs his chapter upon this theory. Here, again, no
consideration is taken of the circumstances of our Indian con-
quests— of the dangers incurred by Asiatic guile and the neces-
sary severity of a new domination ; — we hear nothing of the
barbarous anarchy in which India had sunk when it came into
our hands ; the picture before us is that of an empire of antique
civilisation and wealth overrun by a horde of crafty plunderers.
Quite in keeping with this rational view, Dupleix is always
^generous and profound;' Surajah Dowlah was not guilty of
the tragedy of the Blackhole at Calcutta; Omichund was simply
an injured innocent ; in founding an empire at the battle of
Plassey Clive * was influenced mainly by disgusting rapacity,'
and, as a climax, * the protection of the Englishman has been

1863. Phillimore's Reign of George III. 541

' worse than the pillage of the Mahratta' ! In fact, before the
English name had been heard of ^ in the Italy of the East,' the
^ ancient govemraent of Hindostan was a model of beauty,

* purity, piety, regularity, and equity,' where tyranny and misery,
idolatry and crime, had not defaced ^ the golden age,' and peace
and plenty covered the land ; but a change came over this region
of delights with the advent of ^ the ravenous and wolfish race ; '
and now India is half a desert ^ under the savage government

* of iron-hearted monopolists ; ' and * the ryot in the land of
' his fathers has only just been emancipated from the yoke of
' the most contracted, ignoble, and sordidly aelfish rulers that

* ever disregarded the happiness of their subjects' 1 We wonder
the Company was not charged with the customs of caste and
of Indian tenures, with Indian justice and Indian taxation,
with the rite of Suttee and the worship of Juggernaut.

We had intended to cite a few more illustrations of the extra-
vagance and inaccuracies of this book, — as, for instance, that ^ the
' aristocracy ' of our day * make the employments of grooms,
' gamekeepers, and watermen and drill-serjeants, the serious
' and almost the sole objects of their children's education ; '
that * Charles the First directly fomented the Irish rebellion ; '
that * Grenville in his decrepitude played the game of Bute ; '
and that 'general warrants made no attempt to define the
^ offence ; ' but probably our readers will have had enough of
this tissue of weak impetuosity and exaggeration. As for its
style and language, though Mr. Phillimore professes to write
Hhe sound idiomatic English of which so few traces now
^ remain,' the vicious taste of contemporary critics who * have
' forgotten the art of composition and exchanged classical taste

* for mere philology and a laborious erudition,' will probably
agree that florid impotence was never more amusingly clothed
' in harsh, rugged, and inaccurate idioms.' It is not only that
the arrangement is bad, that the diction is wild, inharmonious,
and flashy — that many sentences baffle the reader from their
leno:th — that false metaphors, disagreeable conceits, and
strained expressions occur repeatedly — but occasionally periods
are so involved that grammar seems to be bravely neglected.
Some passages, indeed, irresistibly remind us of the conversation
of the Squire in * Paul Clifford,' whose ' parenthetical habit of
'speech 'made such chasms in .his broken sentences that the
initiated only could understand them.

In conclusion, we must acknowledge that we can find no
merit whatever in this book to set off against its faults and
absurdities. Except two or three little bits of gossip, which
are hardly worthy of a place in history, we have not met

542 Tara: a MahraUa Tale. Oct.

with any new facta as we t6iled along the stranffe region of
wild views and uncouth sights into which Mr. Phillimore has
led us. Perbi^ in collecting a medlej of paradoxes, which not
only assail the deliberate judgment of all who have used the
same evidence, but wanton in indiscriminate abuse of much
that the nation loves and reveres, Mr. PhilliiBore may have
thought, with Tacitus, 'that detpaction and spite are always
'listened to;' and may have hoped that these arts at least
would make this singular prodqction popular. But we have
no doubt that his estimate of hn own {>owera will turn out
to be as inaccurate as the judgments he has passed on his
coontry are unsound.

Abt. IX. — TijLra: A Mahratta Tale. By Captidn Meadows
Taylor. Author of ' The Confessions of a Thug.' 3 vols.
Edinburgh: 1863.

A QUABXEB of a century and a generation of novel-readers
'^ have almost passed away, since we have had the pleasure
of meeting the author of 'The Confessions of a Thug' in
the field of Indian adventure ; yet, we may venture to assume
that his first hook is not forgotten, and that his last book will
take rank beside it Both of them belong to that class of works
in which there is more of reality than of imagination, and the
structure of these tales serves chiefly to introduce the reader
to life-like pictures of the manners and character of the people
of India. This long interval of time has been spent by Captain
Taylor in the service of that people, as one of the Conunissioners
of the Western ceded districts of the Deccan. Few English*
men have left bdiind them in India a more honourable reputa-
tion; for in addition to the not uncomnu^n merit of successful
administration in a large territory, it has been.Ciqptain Taylor's
good fortune to endear himself to the popuktioo, to penetrate
the native character in all its phases and to live amongst the
mingled races of Southern India as one of themsdives. In this
respect his career has widely differed from the dominant cha-
racter of Indian, civilians— ^a class to which he did not bdeng :
and it is probably due to this cause that he writes/^ India, and
the natives of India, with a. degree of spirit, truth, and g^Miwe
sympathy hardly to be met with in any other English author.

It is, no doubt, a difficult task for a novelist to overoooM the
indifference or repulsicm which are apt to diill the description
of manners and occurrences unlike any^ing in our own expe-

1863. Tara: a Makratta Tale. 543

rience. The interest of fictitious eharaeters, or even of the
real personages of hi8tor7, depends mainly on the sympathy
they exoite in ourselT^s. It is not enough dmt they should
gratify our curiosity, if they fail to touch our hearts. The dif-
ficulty of exciting these feelings of interest is enormously in-
creased, when the incidents which occur, and the feelings they
excite, are extrem^ foreign to our own liyes. But Captain
Taylor baa a sii^ular power of tranqportinc his reader to tiie
scenes he wishes to deecribe; and like the scenery of the
theatre, the decorations of his tale powerfully contribute to the
general illusion* In spite, therefore, of the remoteness of the
scene, and the peculiarity of many of the inoidente, * Tara' is
not wanting in human interest, imd we hare great pleasure in
introducing her to our readers. Take, for example, the follow-
ing simple passage, which ccmyeys a sentiment everyone has
often experienced, yet throws it upon an Indian background^
skilfully indicated by little details of country life in a strange
land: —

* There is nothing, perhaps, more effectual to deaden, if not to
relieve recent misery, than the sensation of rapid motion. Leaning
back in the palankeen, with the doors now diet, and the fresh breeze
blowing refreshingly through liie open blinds, Tara felt herself
harried swiftly and smoothly along, while her attention was at once
occupied and distracted by the occurrences of the joumej. Sindpbul,
its temple and trees : the lane which was the bed of the rivulet^
through which the bearers plashed rapidly : the village gate now
shut, and its bastions manned with men to keep out marauders : the
long shady narrow lane, overhung with trees; — ^then, beyond, the
plain, covered with rich crops of grain now ripening : the shouts of
the men and boys, perched upon their stages in the fields, slinging
stones at birds : the song, drawling and monotcmons, of the bullock-
drivers at the wells — 'were all familiar objects BMd sounds to the
desolate girl being carried rapidly by them. Would she ever see
them again ? ' (Vol. iii. p. 1.)

Captain Taylor excels in the introduction of these small
touches of manners and habits of life, which give the stamp
of reality to his narrative. This is precisely the faculty which
places Defoe and Lesage at the heaid of all writers of fiction :
had the art been invented in their time, they might have been
called the photographers of romance : nothing is so small as to
escape their nice observation ; nothing so strange as not to fall
naturally into its place. To approach at all to this mirror-like
reflection of truth is the highest aim of such ^composition ; even
tiie structure of the tale is of secondary importance, at least
upon a second reading. We have been extremely struck, upon
a minute and critical examination, with the multitude of varied

544 Tar a: a MahraUa Tale. Oct.

impressions and allusions to be found in these pages — the more
remarkable as they refer respectively to two entirely different
races and different creeds^ which are never confounded though
perpetually mixed.

The native aspect of India is like a ^ shot' stuff, the warp
and woof bemg of different colours.^ Wide over the realm still
spread the ancient race, the ancient superstition, the ancient
tongues, which were, as far as we can tell, the same as now
they are, at the dawn of history. If there be anything immu-
table on earth, it is the law of caste, which has for so many
a^es bound this large section of mankind in its bonds of iron.
Over this broad surface, Mahomedan conquest and British
dominion have successively borne sway ; and as the descendants
of the Mahomedan conquerors are not less genuine natives of
India than the Hindoos themselves, the juxtaposition of the
two religions gives rise to the most singular combinations,
destined as they are to coexist in one political community,
though eternally divided by laws, manners, traditions, and
faith. The romance of Indian history is comparatively absent
from the vast plains and enervating climate of Bengal, where
nature herself seems to have prepared men to obey, rather than
to rule. But it is otherwise in the mountain districts of
Southern India, extending to the Western coast, and through
the whole of Maharashtra — the Mahratta country. The
Deccan was the seat of those splendid viceroyaltles which bore
an imperfect allegiance to the Mogul at DelhL The dominant
race was the Mohammedan, but even the Hindoo people were
warlike ; and it was there that the Mahratta Empire of Sivajee
(if so it can be called) took its origin, and the fanaticism and
treachery of the followers of the goddess Bhowanee triumphed
over the far more enlightened faith and the far more civilised
administration of the followers of the Prophet. As 1857 was
the date of the great Indian mutiny, and 1757 was the date of
the origin of the British Indian rule, so 1657 was the year
which saw the rise of the Mahratta power. Sivajee had then
matured the schemes which he had long been plotting against
the King of Beejapoor, and even against the authority of
Aurungzebe ; the rising was accompanied by mysterious marks
of the favour of the savage divinity of the Mahratta creed ;
and the old war-cry of the Mahrattas was once more heard, and
not heard in vain : — * Hur, Hur, Mahadeo, Donguras lavil€
D6va,* • Oh I Mahadeo ! the fire has lit the hilU:

This is the epoch at which Captain Taylor has placed the
action of his tale. The events he has woven into it with
fidelity may be traced in Duff's < History of the Mahrattas/ <Mr

1863. Tara: a MahraUa Tale. 545

in the garrulous pages of Orme ; but the history of the native
Indian States is apt to leave so little trace upon the memory,
that the course of these occurrences, sanguinary and romantic
as they were, will probably be new to the great majority of
English readers. Moro Trimmul, Tannajee Maloosray, who
are amongst the chief personages of this tale, still live in
Mahratta tradition as the leading followers of Sivajee Bhoslay
— and the fame of Pahar Singh, the robber chief who topk
service in the Mahratta cause, is borne in memory to this day
by his descendants. This freebooter is one of the best drawn
characters in the book, and in spite of his lawless life and
numerous crimes, he does good service to the young King of
Beejapoor, who has reason, in a memorable adventure,' to grant
him a free pardon. Captain Taylor affirms that a descendant
of the original Pahar oingh figured in the Mahratta war of
1818-19, and subsequently took to highway robbery. Ten
years later the family were found to be engaged in Dacoity and
Thuggee, and it was not till 1850 that the gang was hunted
down, and the last six of them brought to justice by the writer
of this tale. It is thus that in India, where nothing perishes or
fades entirely from sight, the ingenious author has evidently
traced, from types familiar to himself, the personages of a by*
gone time. The same might, till recently, have been done in
Spain — for Spain is semi-Oriental: in Northern Europe each
generation effaces the track of its precursors.

Tara, the heroine of the tale, is at once presented to the
reader in circumstances of great singularity — a maiden of the
highest caste, sole daughter of Yyas Shastree, one of the most
accomplished pundits of the great Temple of Bhowanee at
Tooljiapoon but at the same time a widow, by reason of the
death of the child-husband to whom she had been betrothed in
infancy. The law of caste consigns women in that predicament
either to a life of asceticism, or to the priesthood, — which is too
often a life of infamy, — for they cannot marry again, and even
the Suttee was in some cases a merciful termination of their
miserable and forlorn existence. Tara, in a paroxysm of religious
enthusiasm, supposed to be inspired by the goddess Kalee her-
self, becomes a priestess or Morlee : but she sustains the purity
of her sacred vocation ; and her adventures form the ostensible
subject of these volumes. We say, ostensible, because, graceful
and interesting as she is, upon the whole we prefer the varied
scenes of native life, in which she does not always play a
part ; and the utmost ingenuity cannot entirely surmount the
difficulties of the extraordinary position in which she stands.
It is obvious that when, to the ordinary contingencies of love

TOL. CXVIII. NO. CCXLII. N N

54/6 Tara: a MahraUa Tale. OtU

a&d war^ the old sbofie of romanoe writers in aU hmda, «re
added the perplexities arising out of the laws and obHgatioos of
caste, a series of questions arises which would puzzle the eaaaistiy
of a Jesuit. Tara is die child of her faith until she becomes its
Yietim : and on the brink of the most fi^htful sacrifice, she ia
snatched away to pass without violence, but rather by neoessitj^
into a purer creed* It is impossible to read thb book, in which
th^ native heallienism of India is portrayed side by side with
the institutions of Mohaumedan society in the Deceon, witfaoni
feeling that Mohammedaiiism was an enormons advanee on the
foul superstition which staiaed the altars ef Tooljapear with
Uood, and sanctioned every act of perfidy ai^ crime. The
ontbreak of the Mahrattae in the seventeenth century destroyed
what was then the existing (uvilisation of India : and the penod
which elapsed fivnn tiie decline of the En^nre of Auningzebe
to the rise of the British power, is the dadcest ara in the
modem annals of Hindostan.

We shaU not attempt to trace the fiite of Captain Taylor^s
heroine, and we purposely abstain horn marring the interest
which attends tiie met perusal of so attractive a tal& We
select rather as a specimen of the work a remarkable episode,
complete in itself^ and admirably described ; though the events
tiiemselves are, we think, strictly Ukeu £rom £e Mahmtta
chronicles. The ^te of things is this. The young Eling of
Beejapoor, Ali Adil Shah, apprised of the maohinatioas o£
Sivajee and of his preparations for revolt, sends a consider-
aUe army to invest the foi^ess of Pertabmribi, then the chief
atronghold of the Mafaratta prince. The first act of the
campaign had been to desecrate and destroy the shrine ef
Bhowanee at Tooljapoor, an act of Mohanunedan intoleraace
which had kindled to madness the passions of the Hahrattas.
This force is commanded by Afzool Khan, one of the ablestand
most faithful servants of tiie Mohammedan court Sivi^s aware
tiiat he had no means of oj^iosing the advance of l^e n)yal troops,
Bssorts to artifice. He fe^s entire submission to the will of
tiw king, whilst in his own fastnesses he inflames to iMidnreo
tiie passions ef the Hindu people. A&ool Khan is drawn cm.
by qMcioas pBomises, and at length a confevenoe between him-
self and Sivajee is proposed — eadi to be unarmed and unat-
tended save by one fi^lower — at which ' Bajah Siviyee is to
^ throw himself at the feet of the envoy of the long of king^
^ and receive the pardon he desires.' Toe Mahommedan geaend
aocedet to the treacherous request, and the following chapter
relates what befell in that memorable interview : —

1863. T4xm: a Makraita Tale. S47

< The momiiig broke, otlm aad beftalifaL Long before the highest
peaks of the moostaiBe blnehed mnder the roey Hght which pre^^ded
the simrisey the Khan and Faiily with Zyna [kia ion aad daughter],
had risen and performed their morning prayer. Tke deep boenung
sound of the kettle-drums woke the c^oes around, reverberated
from side to side of the Tallej, retiring to recesses among the glens,
and murmuring sofUj as it died away among the distant peaks and
preeipices. As yet, the Tall^ was partially fiBed with mists, which
dung to its wooded sides ; but as tke sun rose, a slight wind sprang
op with it, whieh, breaking tiuroi^h these mists, drove them up the
mountain, and displayed i£e aeeneFy in i^ its firesh morning beauty,
as though a eurtain had been sudd^y drawn hem before it.

* Behind them were tke stupendoils moaBtaiBS of -^ Mahabuleshwur
range ; before, at a short distance, and divided from them by a chain
of smaller hills, rose up the precipices of Bertabgurfa, glittering
in the morning light, and crowned by the walls and bastions of the
fortress.

* Long befove daylight the lady Lurlee had risen, and, careful for
her husband, had, in oonjonetion with Kurreema, cooked Us fiivourite
didi of kicked and kabobs. <* It was a light breakfiist,'' she said,
« and would agree with them better than a heavier repast, and dinner
would be ready when they returned.'' So Af sool Klmn, his son, and
the priest, ate their early meal, not only in jorfnl anticipation of a
epeedy return, but of accomplishing what would result in honour to
all eonceisked,

' They remembered afterwards, that as an attendant brought before
the Khan the usual mail shirt he wore, and the mail cap, with its
brigl^ steel ehaoHi, over iv^ich his turban was usually tied when
fully accoutred, he laughingly declined both. ^ They will be very
hot and uneemfbrtable," he said, ''«nd we are not going to fight.
Ne, give me a muslin dress," whkh he piU on. A few words about
ordinary household matters to Luriee, a &w dieering seatenoes to
Zyaa, as he passed firom the inner and pwate cncfesure of the tent,
and he went out among the men.

' Fasil fdbwed, fully armed and accoutred for riding. Hiere had
been a good-humoured strife between Faail and ^e* priest the night
before, as to who should be the one armed follower to accompany his
iiM^er, and he had chosen the priest *' Faail was too young yet," he
said, ** to enter into gvatie politieal disonssioas vrith wily Mahrattas,
and would be better with the escort." So the soldier-priest, like tke
Khan, discarding the steel cap, g^mnUets^ and quilted armour in
which he iisuaUy aeeoutied himself ^mred, like Afaool Khan, in
the plain muslin dress of his order ; and having tied up his waist
with a shawl, and thrown another over hie shoulders, stuck a light
court sword into his waistband, which he pressed down on his hips
with a jaunty air, and called merrily to Fasil, to see how peacefully
he was attired.

'The eseort awaited them in camp, and the spirited horses of fifteen
hundred gallant cavaliers were neighing and tossing their heads as
Afaool Khan, Fazil, and the priest rode up. ^ Forward ! " cried the

548 Tara: a Mahratta Tale. Oct-

Khan cLeerilj ; and as the ketUe-drums beat a march, the seTeral
officers saluted their commander, and, wheeling up their men, led
them by the road pointed out by the Bramhuna and guides in the
direction of Pertabgarh.

'At that time, single men, who looked like shepherds tending
sheep, and who were standing on crests of the hills, or crouching so
as not to be seen, passed a si^al that the Khan and his party had
set out It was still early, and the time when, of all others perhaps,
armies such as the Khan's were most defenceless. Many, roased for
a while by the assemUy and departure of the escort, had gone to
sleep again; others, sitting over embers of fires, were smoking,
preparing to cook their morning repast, or were attending to their
horses, or in the bazar purchasing the materials for their day's meal.
The camp was watched from the woods around by^ thousands of armed
men, who, silently and utterly unobserved, crept over the crests
of the hills, and lay down in the thick brushwood which fringed the
plain.

'As the Khan's retinue neared the fort, parties of armed men,
apparently stationed by the roadside to salute him as he passed, closed
up in rear of the escort ; and others, moving parallel to them in the
thickets, joined with them unseen. Quickly, too, men with axes
felled large trees, which were thrown down so as to cross the road,
and interlace their branches so as to be utterly impassable M hOTse-
men ; and all these preparations went on in both places silently,
methodically, and with a grim surety of success, imparting a con-
fidence which all who remembered it afterwards attributed to the
direction of the Goddess whom they worshipped. As it was sMd
then, as it is still said, and sung in many a ballad, '' not a man's
hand failed, not a foot stumbled."

* At the gate of the fort the Khan dismounted from his horse, and
entered his palankeen. Before he did so, however, he embraced hia
son, and bid him be careful of the men, and that no one entered the
town or gave offence. He could see, looking up, the thatched
pavilion on the little level shoulder of the mountain, and pointed to
it cheerfully. ''It is not far to go, Huarut,'' he said to the Peer, " I
may as well walk with these good friends," and he pointed to the
Bramhuns who attended him. But Fazil would not allow it, nor the
Peer either. " You must go in state," they said, " as the representa-
tive of the King ought to do," and he then took his seat in the
litter.

' " Khoda Hafiz — ^may God protect you, father I" said Fazil, as he
bent his head into the palankeen, when the bearers took it up ;
" come back happily, and do not delay!"

' " Inshalla !" said the Khan smilingly, " fear not, I will not dday,
and thou canst watch me up yonder.*' So he went on, the priest^s
hand leaning upon the edge of the litter as he walked by its side.

' On through the town, from the terraced houses of which, crowds
of women looked down on the little procession, and men, mostly
unarmed, or unremarkable in any case, sainted them, or regarded
them with clownish curiosity. No one could see that the court of

1863. Taraz a Mahratta Tale. 549

every house behind, was filled with armed men thirsting for - blood,
and awaiting the signal to attack.

^ The Khan's agent, Puntojee Gopinath, being a fat man, had left
word at the gate which defended the entrance of the road to the fort,
that he had preceded the Khan, and would await him at the pavilion.
He had seen no one since the night before, and he knew only that
the Khan would come to meet the Rajah. That was all he had
stipulated for, and his part was performed. He believed that Sivaji
would seize Afzool Khan, and hold him a hostage for the fulfilment
of all his demands ; and the line of argument in his own mind was,
that if the Khan resisted, and was hurt in the fray which might
ensue, it was no concern of his. But he did not know the Rigah*s
intention, nor did the Rajah's two Bramhuns who had ascended with
him ; and they all three now sat down together upon the knoll,
waiting the coming of Afzool Khan from below, and the R^ah from
above.

' As the agreement had specified, except one each, there were to
be no armed men : no other people were present but one, who seemed
to be a labourer, who was tying up a rough mat to *the side of the
pavilion to keep out the wind and sun. Gopinath looked from time
to time up the mountain-road, and again down to the town, speculat-
ing upon the cause of delay in the Rajah's (;oming ; and the others
told him he would not leave the fort till the Khan had arrived
below^ and showed him a figure standing upon the edge of the large
bastion which overhung the precipice above, relieved sharply against
the clear sky, which was fronting towards the quarter by which the
Khan's retinue should come, and apparently giving signals to others
behind him.

* '' Your master is coming," said the Secretary, " they see him from
above;" and, almost as he spoke, the bright glinting of steel caps
and lanceheads, with a confused mass of horsemen, appeared on the
road to the fort, among the trees, and they sat and watched them
come on. Then the f<^ce halted in the open space before the outer
gate, where the Khan's little procession formed, and entered the
town. Ailer that, the houses and the trees of the mountain-side
concealed them. How beautiful was the scene!

^ The wind had died away, and the sun shone with a blaze of heat
unknown elsewhere, striking down among those moist narrow valleys
with a power which would have been painful, but f6r the cool refresh-
ing air by which it was tempered. The distant mountains glowed under
the efiect of the trembling exhalations, which, rising now unseen, tem-
pered the ooloors of the distance to that tender blue and grey which
melts into the tint of t^e sky. The rugged precipices above were
softened in effect; and the heavy masses of foUage, festoons of
creepers, and the dense woods, rich in colour, combined to enhance
the wonderful beauty of the spot* There was perfect silence, except
the occasional monotonous drumming notes of woodpeckers in the
glens, and the shrill chirrup of teee-crickets which occasionally broke
out and was again silent.

^In a few minutes, the shouts of the Kha;n's palankeen-bearers were

550 Tara: a Makratta TaU. Oot.

heard below, and the litter suddenly emerged ircm. a tom in Ae
road, being pushed on by the combined efforts of tiie men. The
Bramhun's heart bounded when he saw the figure of the priest
beside the Htter, holding to it, and pressing up the asoeat TigoroiiidT;.
'< Will he escape?" he said mentally; "^the Mother forbid it,— let
her take him V A few more steps, and the palankeen w«b at the
knoll ; it was set down, and the Khan's shoes being placed fibr hina
by a bearer, he put his feet into them and got out, speaking to tlie
priest, who was panting with his exertion.

< <'Is he not here, Puntojee ?" oried the Khan to the Braiahna,
who saluted him respectfully.

<''No, my lord, not yet Ahl look,** he continued, as he turned
towards the pass, '^ there are two men on the path, and that one» tiie
smallest, is he."

*• The men coming down i^peared to hesitate^ ami wATed tWr
hands, as if warning off some one.

' <' It is the bearers," said <me of SiTigi's Seoretariea. "^ The Bajah
is timid, and fisars the crowd he sees."

< The Khan laughed. 'M^ood," he said to the men. ""Go away ^
ait down yonder in the shade. You will be called when I want yom \^
and as they got up and retired, the two men advanced slowly aad
cautiously down the pathway.

' Afkool Khan went forward a hm paees as Sivaji and Maloosi^
came up. '* You are welocMne, B^ah Sahib. &ibraoe me^" he said
to Sivaji. <<Let there be no doubt between na;" and be atntehad
forth his arms in the usual manner.

* Sivigi stooped to the emlnraee ; and as the Khan's acms were kid
upon his shoulders, and he was thus unprotected, struck the abarp
deadly tiger's-claw dagger deeply into his bowels, seconding tiie blow
with one from the oth^ dagger which he had eoneealed in his kft
hand.

< Afkool Khan reeled and staggered under the deadly woondm.
^* Dog of a Kafir ! " he cried, pressing one hand to tiM wound, while
he drow the sword he were witii the otiwr, and eoieammred to atiaek
the Biyah. AlasI what use now were those fideUe blewa agaioet
concealed armour ? Faint and sick, the Kben: reeled hsiher aod
thither, striking vainly against the Bi^afa, whc^ with, the terrible
sword now in his hand, and crying the national shoot of '' Hnr, Haiv
Mahadeo !" rained blow upon blow on hiadefeiioeleasenemy^ It wee
an unequal strife, soon finished. Falling heannly, Afieeol Khaa died
almost as he reached the eacth.

' Meanwhile, Malooaray had attacked tiie priest with all his fiocee
and skill, but the Peer waa a good swordani^ andfor a short tiae
held his ground., Neither sp<^e, except in mattered curses, aa Uewe
were struck ; bmt Tanujee Maloearay had no eqeal in hia weapon^
and as he cried to the Bijah, who was advancing to hia aid, to keep
back — ^the priest, distracted by the aasaniti^ asodier enemy, xeoeiiwd
his death-blow, and sank to the ground.

<'*Jey Kalee!'' shouted both. *<Now blow lend and sfanll
Grunnoo, for thy life," continued the Biyah, ^^ and tiura dmlt have a
eoUar of gold."

1863. Tara: a MakraUa Tale. 551

* The man who had appeared to be a labourer, seized his horn,
which had been concealed in the grass, and blew a long note, with a
shrill quivering flourish at the close, which resounded through Ae
air, and echoed among the moumtains ; and thrioe repeated the signal.

* Then a great puff of smoke, followed bj a report which thundered
through the vallej, burst from the bastion above. Those who were
looking from the fort, and the Kajah himself who ran to the edge of
the knoll, saw the wreaths of fire which burst from the thickets about
the plain where the Mahotnedan cavalrj stood^ and a sharp irregular
crash of matchh)ck abots oamA up from below, and continued. Hun-
dreds died at every volley, and there were writhing, struggling
masses of horses and men on the plain — ^loose horses careering about ;
and some men still mounted, strove to pierce the barriers which had
been made on every side, crowded on each other, and, falling fast,
became inextricable. Sooo, too, the Mawullees, under Nettajee
Palkur^ emerged sword in hand from their ambush, and attacked
those who survived. Some escaped ; but of the fifteen hundred men
who had ridden there in their pride that morning, few lived to tell
the tale.' (Vol. iii. pp. 153-^.)

We have selected this passage, not because it is the most
interesting or graphic in the book, but because it appears to be
more easily detached than any other within the limits we can
assign to it But we think the scene will not easily be fooc-
gotten by any one who has once read it in the impressive and
picturesque language of this tale. No one» as far as we can
remember, faaa written of the natives of India in this spirit.
Persia and Turkey have in turn been faithfully delineated by
the pens of a Morier and a Hope. But India^ in which we
have a far deeper interest than, in any other part of Asia, is still
but imperfect^ known to England — perhaps, we might even
add, to many of the English who have inhabited and governed
it. To inspire his oountiymen with a deeper interest in the past
annals of the people of India is, we are informed by Captain
Taylor,, one of die objects he had in view in his work, and we
think he has suooeeded in it to a very remarkable degree.

552 The Colonial EpUeopate. Oct*

Art. X. — 1. Report of the Incorporated Society for the PrtH
pagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. 1863.

2. Documents relative to the Erection and Endowment of addi"
tional Bishoprics in the Colonies^ with an Historical Preface.
By the Eev. Ebnest Hawkins. Fourth Edition. 1855.

3. Judgment of the Lords of the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council on the Appeal of the Rev. W. Long v. the
Right Rev. Robert Gray^ D.D.^ Bishop of Cape Townyfnnn
the Supreme Court of the Cape of Good Hope. 1863.

l^^E are anxious on the present occasion to deal with a
^ * subject of serious interest to members of the Church of
England in a practical manner, and so as to excite as little as
possible the various controversial feelings which its discussion
is calculated to arouse. The present condition of that Church
in our colonies, and in particular of the colonial episcopate, has
furnished the occasion of a great deal of honest triumph to
that class of devout minds which is satisfied with statistical
results, detailed in religious publications ; and it has been, on
the other hand, a good deal misunderstood by that hostile party,
diminishing but still numerous, which looks on the spread of
Episcopacy as if it portended a return to the old days of eccle-
siastical tyranny. Possibly a little quiet examination of the
facts, and of the principles which govern them, may tend at
once to damp the too triumphant aspirations of friends, and to
abate the strong traditional enmity of opponents.

It is, however, a subject which cannot be discussed at all,
with any prospect of a satisfactory issue, between persons who
differ in opinion on the essential topics of the nature and neces-
sity of episcopal government. The Church of England holds
many adherents — and we speak of them with the sincerest
respect — to whom the government of bishops, priests, and
deacons is matter of divine right. To such persons the expe-
diency of constituting a bishopric in this or that locality must
always be matter of secondary interest. The maxim of 'no
* church without a bishop ' draws with it the necessary coroUary,
that the presumption is always in favour of the establishment
of a see in every place of which the population is either so fiur
separate from others, or so numerous, as to render ministration
by a distant bishop in the slightest degree inconvenient. No
evils, in the eyes of those who think thus, can be really so great
as the absence or precariousness of episcopal controL We know
that the excessive multiplication of colonial sees of later years

1863. The Colonial Episcopate. 553

has in point of fact originated with this party, though sup-
ported by others of less decided views. And it is obvious that
the employment with these of arguments and considerations
derived from mere expediency is wholly out of place. To
them^ therefore, our observations are not addressed.

But with the vast majority of the laity of that Church, the
question of Episcopacy is one of expediency only. They be-
lieve a church, governed without bishops, to be just as truly
and essentially a church as one governed by them. They love
.Episcopacy, simply as most men love Monarchy; believing
Dr. Candlish to have just as much divine right as the Archbishop
of Canterbury, and President Lincoln as much as Queen
Victoria, but greatly preferring the rule of the latter. Nor
are they (for the most part) carried away even by the more
modest ailment, that Episcopacy, though not of absolute right,
is 'nearest to the apostolical pattern. They know very well
that Episcopacy, in this country and in most of the greater
European countries whether of the Roman or Greek persuasion,
is very far indeed from the apostolical pattern in everything but
mere name. They know that many a Reformed community,
which has no r^ular episcopal government, is in externals a
good deal nearer the kind of moHdel which existed in the early
churches of apostolic origin, than is an English or a French
diocese ; which proposition, indeed, only adapts to modem times
an opinion which St. Jerome had expressed in the fourth
century. But they do not believe that the apostles, or their
Master, intended either to impose a model of government on
the future Church, or even to leave a model for imitation. They
believe that mankind were left free to adapt spiritual as well
as civil government to the requirements of altered times and
circumstances. Their preference for Episcopacy is, therefore,
simply rationalistic, or, if stricter truth must be spoken,
founded partly on reasonable argument, partly on traditional
reverence and a deep dislike to innovation in sacred things.

With thinkers of this class the whole question of the expe«
diency of establishing and maintaining colonial bishoprics, and
the relation to the State under which it is advisable to place
them, becomes arguable on the same grounds on which ordinary
political topics may be discussed. J3ut until the ground is
cleared by a full admission of this principle, there is little ad-
vantage in controversies in which the rc^ ' stand-point ' is^ at
least on one side, not the avowed one. Extreme opinions (on
any side of church questions) are not generally popular with
the mass of educated thinkers in this country. Those, there-
fore^ who have not the sli^test hesitation in acting on them,

554 T%e Cokmal EpMcopate. OcL

aire apt neverthdeBs ta feel ft Qertatn ahyneat m profiasmg aod
maintaining them* Consequently wich men are always teoqited
to shift the ground of discussioBt and to put forwiaid aigvmeBis
of expediency in &YOur of measuree wfaioh they are in
reality resolved on Bu^dortiag as presoibed by DiTuie com-
mand. Thece is^ theoefore^ something hollow and unreal in
their reasoning. They persoade themselveB^ no doubt (as it is
iiery easy for human natune to do), that the ai^gument finm
expediency is^ in confcMnaity with the anperaatuHd aig«-
ment But it is the latter of which they are really thinkings
wheu tiiey are putting fovwaxd the former. Aiid the cyponflut^
who fiEmcieathat he baa accumulated irresistible proofii in Covoar
of thia or that "view fouaded on mere p^ey, or what is
called conunon sense, is disappointed to find that be has pio-
daced ao effect at all — that the mfdy is always a aieve r^etb-
tioa of the original assertion* The tcatb is, that a man
thomugbly imbued with a diedegieal principle oonU not be
persuaded even by the mathematical refutation of any eondiaiy
which he thinks propor tadmw fimn diat primtiple.

To take an instance familiar to all of usl The ^ Sunday*
question is probably regaoded as a very diffieult one by all x^

g'ous minds which approadt it as one of expediency, not ef
ivine right. The advantages of a more gcmial aoul Hbeial
mode of observance than tibat which Puritaniam baa left oaaae
abvioua. But,. Ofa the other hand, the danger of aay kzity
which should open the way to geneial deseorataasi is quite as
evident. On grounds ef human wisdom, therefore, the openiiig
for discussion is very gneat To theee who* believe tlmt the
Puritan dbservanee is of Divine ooounand, there ia ef ooHae
no opening for discnssion at all. But diey do not l&e to £m»
the enemy with a simple avowal of this broad prinriplfij aad
meet the conaequeneee^ of demion or of heaiilttfi,^ to wUdk
they would be thus exposed* They are coaatandjr, themfoPB^
tempted to put forwud arguments of pdiey or aomal a
which are not tbsir real, or at least not their Buhstaatsai
Theso argumrata (aa is commonly the ease with what ia unifai)
are exaggerated, loose, even puerile; eonstandy and easily
refoted^ but refilled, in vain,. heoMBse the SaffCKnatasal liaa in
the background*

To take another instanee^ and one wUdb no kas pbdnly fllna*
tratea our meaning. There Duy be some social ermoral otgea-
tions to the liberty ef marriage with a deoeaaed wife's aistar;
diai is Bot a question whiah we are ooncerned with diaanasiB^
But one thing is perfectly oectaia — ^whatever those obyaeftieoa
may be^ they are not euch. as wealdi in any country, or at any

0

ISeS. The Colonial EjMcopato. 555

time, have indaoed sooiety to prohibit saoh marriage^) had not
religioua consideratioiis been involved. These unions cannot do
anything like the amotmt of harm which is done by other dasseB
of marrif^es^ against which no one ever tiiooght of legislating
— marriages^ for instance, between persons of very unequfd
ages. But, if this be so, then all the mass of arguments against
such unions ah inconvenienti — all the efforts to turn it into a
' women of England question * — are, in reality, 8ham& It
does not at all follow that those who use them are eonscious that
diey are diams. Thehr eyes are Uinded by zeal for a fiivourite
religious principle. They believe that the Chuipch, as they
understand it, has condemned these unions. Comdsoed of this,
aII other considerations with them are as nothing in the balance.
But they know thai the avowal of thie snaple rale of action is
unpopular with the world. Consequently they ace driven to
use that almost inevitable artifiee of wUeh we have qwken —
to put forward, as principal^ argwments which ace subsidiary at
best, or rather iUusocy^^ — ^the scriptural aa^ument, which never
pecBuaded any^ one oxoq»t some zeidous stttdei^ in his closet —
I the ' social ' axgument, which assuredly never persuaded any-

one except swm as were detenmBed to be peraoaded ; instead
of bddly relying on tfadr esoteric ooniviGtien, tfaait/ the Chuooh
* *• has spoken.'^

t If our iUnstimtions be accepted, ihefj wiU perhi^ make move

evident to the reader the diffienlt^ whioh those who regard
diuroh government as a matter only of human anthority have
0 in deaiio^ with iSsker argnaents ami statementa of those aeabus

^ mm, who, m die pttbfiisalBeDe ^ the Society for the Propagation

■ 0 of the Gospel and elsewhere, have advocated the eztenmn of

\ 2 • the Colonial l^nscopate to the eztnaordinary dimensions which it

g^ has of late attained. They pcopound, on the low ground of ex-
g pediency, meaansea to whidi t^ey Imve evidently themselves
^ been led by the *'high.prieii road ' whieh abandons the bye-ways
^ of expediency alteg^er. When the late exceUent Bidu^p of
^ London (a name never to be mentioiied without honour, for
^^ whatever may be thongM of hoa opinions or hb juc^ea^ Ins
^^ heart waa in aU he did^ and hie mnnifieenee wns almoat as un-
limited as his industry), in that letter to ABsU)i^p Howley
(April 24, 1840) which laid the fouwlation of that schema
of extension, informs ua that the Church of England in the
colonies waa at tbat dato ^ not enshrined in the sanctuary of
* a rightly oonatitnted cdmndi ; ' and that ' am epiaeopal cbiroh
^ without a biriiop is acontsadJbtion in tenns,' he (or those who
inspired tiie language, for his own notions on snch subjects
were rather wavering) did in truth lay- down dc^mas, foom which.

556 The Colonial EpiscDpate. Oct

if you admit the prenuses, there is no manner of appeal. Why
then did the Bishop proceed to argue the case on the speciil
grounds of the utility of episcopal control over clergy, and
similar common topics ? Merely, we suppose, in that ordiDary
spirit of concession to the lower view which, as we have said, is
so constantly adopted by those who are in reality actuated by
the higher.

Adopting, however, as our basis of argument the lower vieir
only, let us see what are the real purposes for which bishops
are required in the distant dependencies of the British Grown.
These are of two classes — functional (if we may use the term),
and administratiTC.

There are (in the words of Bishop BlomfiekT) certain ' ordi-
* nances which can be received only at the hands of the highest
' order of the ministry.' We need not here specify the few
ritual functions which by the law of our Church are purely
episcopal. Suffice it to say, that there is only one of them in
which the bishop performs, in sober reality, any other than a
mere mechanical part — namely, ordination. Of the very high
impoiiaoce of that function, and the responsibility which it
throws on a bishop, no question can be entertained. But its
importance varies eiitirely according to the extent of the com-
munity administered and the multitude of candidates. A duty
which is almost too serious to be intrusted to an individual in
London or Winchester, is in truth quite inconsiderable in a colo-
nial diocese with twenty or thirty clergy. Leaving therefore
spiritual dogmas apart, what is wanted for the practical pur-
poses of the churches of our scattered Empire is, not a bbhop
for every islet, but a modification of the law of the Church to
enable these functional duties, in cases of necessity, to be
executed by inferior officers. The fabric of the Church would
not fall in ruin, if other than bishops were to coofirm— presbyters
did so in some old oriental churches, and even the cautious
Hooker admits the precedent — or even to ordain, in extreme
cases. We are quite aware of the practical difficmlties which
impede legislation for our Church; but we can only say, that
to appoint a bishop for every nook over which the English flag
floats, merely because none but bishops can ordain or confirm,
does realise Lamb's famous parable of burning the house to
roast the pig more than any other existing device of human
ingenuity with which we are acquainted. And yet such is the
power of form, that this is the miun reason on which the foun^
dation of colonial bishoprics was urged bv Archbishop Seeker
a century ago ; and ursed in a letter to that eminent friend of
the Church, Horace Walpole —

1863. The Colonial Episcopate. 557

' Confirmation is an office of our Church, derived from the primitive
ages ; and> when administered with due care, a very useful one.
Am our people in America see the appointment of it in their prayer-
books, just before the Catechism ; and if they are denied it unless
they come over to England for it, they are^ in fact, prohibited the
exercise of one part of their religion 'I*

The real ground which justifies the creation of a new bishopric
is a certain amount, not of formal, but of administrative work
to be done : the government of a diocese, and superintendence
of its clergy. With regard to these, it is quite unnecessary, in
writing for churchmen, to dilate on the great value of a consti-
tuted episcopacy in regions with a large and increasing settled
population of English descent, such as Australia and North
America; or with numerous and scattered posts of English
soldiers and ofiScials, and a vast heathen multitude outside the
Church, as in our great Indian dioceses. But our colonial
episcopates comprehend every gradation between engrossing
work and absolute idleness. There are dioceses (such as some of
those alluded to) in which the Anglican population already
exceeds that superintended by the Bishops of Hereford or
Carliale, of Llandafif or St. Asaph's, and is at the same time
rapidly on the increase and scattered over vast tracts of
country. There are dioceses like Nassau (the Bahamas), with
30,000 inhabitants of all persuasions, or St Helena, with 6000,
and without any possibility of expansion. They vary, in

^ The Archbishop, a man of sagacity and good sense, took, how-
ever, better ground in his argument with Dr. Mayhew on this
subject (see Forteus* 'Life of Seeker'). But it is curious to see the
' bated breath ' with which the chief functionary of our Church
disclaimed all encroachment on the rights of dissenting bodies in
America — at a time when penal laws flourished in Ireland, and Test
and Corporation Acts in England. * All members of every Christian

* church are, according to the principles of liberty, entitled to every
' part of what they conceive to be the benefits of it, entire and com-
^ plete, so far as consistent with the welfare of civil government.
' Yet the members of our Church in America do not th^re enjoy its
< benefits, having no Protestant bishop within 8,000 miles of them^-
' a case which never had its parallel before in the Christian world.
' Therefore it is desired that two or three bishops be appointed for
' them, to reside where His Majesty may think most convenient ;

* that they may have no concern in the least with any persons who

* do not profess themselves to be of the Church of England, but may
' ordain ministers for such as do, may con6rm their children, and take

* such oversight of the episcopal clergy as the Bishop of London's

* commissaries in those parts have been empowered to take, and have
* * taken, without offence.'

558 The Ckhnud JE^riteapaiB. OcL

respect of ^ number of clergy, from Toronto wMi npinrda of
a hundred, ^dney and Melbomne with eightj'&ve a pieee (we
quote from the Clergy List), down to Bahamas aforesaid with
twelve, and St Helena which rejoices in eight. They yary
widely in respect of their lay element In the parts of Briti^
North America peopled from these islands, the Anglicans may
amount to about a fourth of the population ckseified according to
sects. In Australia, periiaps to two-fifths. In the old Engiidi
West JEndies a ccmsiderable proportimi of Ihe odoured people
seems to be at least nominally attached tothe Church. J«bewbere
the Anglican oommnnify is small indeed. In flome of our oob-
guered colonies there are scarcely any dmrebmen, eoooept a few
officials and a few of the richer trading families. There are
dioceses in winch a bishop's life is one df toil and responsibility.
There are others wljich had not the slightest occasion for a
bishop at all, and in which the only sublunair reason for i^
pointing one was, that their remote dioeesaiD disliked ihe duty
of visiting them.

Lastly, berides their services in governing the ohurohee planted
in the foreign dependencies of the Crown, tnshops are new
especially designated as the promoters and controllers o£ the
missionary work to be accomplished by our Churdi among the
heathen. The bishopric of Hong Kong, and still more that of
Labuan, are in truth established for tms purpose, rather than
for the performance of episcopal duty among British subjects.
But, besides tiiese, we have within the few last yean witneesed
the phenomenon of the orearlion of ao-oalled ^miasionsry
* bishoprics,' without any Bntkh seat at all. The iaierior eif
Africa, the Weston Ijslands of the Pacific, the Sandwioli
Islands, are each committed, for the superintendence of the
Church's work among the heathen, to the care of a ^ misdonaiy
^ bishop.' We do not deny that we r^ard the .innovation with
very little expectation of good^ and wiui .some apprehension of
eviL Every assun^tion of power however trifiiag or im*
aginary, evei^ ostentation of digputy however £riv<doafl, is in
our-view ^ hindnuwe to thftt great werk of oonvenion wUeh
is only to be aeoomplished, if at all, 1^ the arms of humili^,
simplicity, and 8elf-«bnegation. To speak merely ef wevdiy
opposition thus caused : it is said ^that the estabUshment
of our 'missionary bishopric' in Africa has already excited
to the highest de^ee the jealousy of the Portuguese clergy,
nominally the spiritual lords of the region, and has in this way
strengthened the hands of that confederacy of slave-traders who
form the great obstacle in the way of our mission and of civili*
sation itself. And, besides this, the controlling power oT

1863. The Cohmal Episcopate. 559

bishojis tQ^eriBiisienaries is of ^ery doubtfol adTantage. There
is somethiiig eweutially free, and repagnaHt to external direction,
in the troe rawaieBary spirit. Mr. Yenn, in his reeeirt Ufe of
Fnmcis Xavier, x^ntions us with reason agunst —

'A notion, too much countenanced at the present day, that an
ecclesiastical head of a mission is needed to secure efficiency by
uniformity of action, and to counteract the evils which may arise
wfiMn a mission from the contrariety of individual ophricMis. Sndh
ablate power may consist with the government ef a setfled Christian
chnn^ where tbe relataeo between eoolesiaslicBl mnl^mity and ite
paatoiral fonotien has been defined by eanons, and by experience.
But no caaens 4a aegnlations have been laid down lor missions to
the heathen. That work is so varied, and its emergeneies so sudden,
that the evangelist must be left to act mainly on his own responsi-
bility and judgment. It preeminently requires independence of
mind, fertility of resource, a quick observance of the footsteps of
Divine Providence, a readiness to push forward in that direction, an
abiding sense in the mind of the missionary of personal responsibility
to extend the kingdom of Christ, and a liveiy conviotion that the
Lord is at his right hand. These quallfieations are, like all the finer
sentiments of Chrtstiaiiily, of delioate teiztore ; tiiey are often united
with a natural sensitiveness ; they are to be chmabed and conaseUed
rather than ruled; they are easily checked and discouraged if
** headed " by authority. Yet these are the qualities which have ever
distinguished the missionaries who win the richest trophies, and
advance the borders of tbe Redeemer's kingdom.'

The lessona of lustory are att hand to testify to the si^acity
of the venerable writer of these woudk If Bonian CatholicB
and ProteetaatB oould leave off diluting about the comparative
soeoefle of their muisionary eadeawnrs, and look ealmly al; the
remits in both instaaeeSy they would i»e driven to confess haw
lameatal^ these fidl short of what seemed the best-gnDimded
ea^eotatians ; tbey would own, that» for 'whatever reason (and
obvious reaflons am not &r to seek) JPnoyidence has not eeen fit,
in these later days^ to crown their wdlnmeant efforts with its
Uessiaj^ Kevertheless, there are exoeptiops ;• aeme great
achievemeots have been accomplished by both« But these kavie
been, in aewdy every iMtaace, the ccmqueste ei devoted nsen
unfettered l^ eodesiastical superintendeBoe. It was by the
efibrts cf Protestant miseiimaries of manydenomiBations, long
before Protestant miesionary Btshops were dreamt <^, Ibat a
Ohristian church was raised in Polynesia which, under all its
discouragements, has more nearly brought back to us the
image of the primitive ages than any other society reared
in modem Christendom. And, on the other hand, our
explorers, as they now penetrate into the secluded interior

560 The Colonial Episcopate. Oct.

of China^ are constantly surprised hj the discoyerj of large
and well-conducted congregations of Catholic ChristianSy
all but utterly unknown to the Western world, desoended
from those whom the successors of Xavier converted. Bat
those conversions were not effected under the modem system
of the Congregation de Propaganda; they were the work of
solitary enthusiasts, uncontrolled save by the general ties of
their religious orders ; the first ' Vicars Apostolic ' with epis-
copal authority were only sent to China (we believe) in I648,
and the Roman Catholic Chureh in China has been stationary
or declining for two centuries. There is no greater name
in missionary annab than that of Francis Xavier himself; and
Xavier not only dispensed with episcopal control for his own part,
but was in constant mutiny against the Portuguese ecclesiastical
authority, and was driven by what he deemed its sins of omia-
8ion and commission into the strange measure of counselling the
kings of that country to place the work of conversion exclu-
sively in the hands of the civil governor. ' In cHrder that diere
^ may be no mistake about this declaration, I should wish you
^ to mention each of us who are in these parts by name, dedar-
^ ing that you do not lay upon us, either individually or coUee-
^ tively, the duty which conscience demands of you ; but that,

* wherever there is an opportunity of spreading Christianity, it

* rests upon the Viceroy or Governor of the place, and upon

* him alone.^*

To return to our more immecUate subject, Nova Scotia in
1787, Quebec in 1793, were the first episcopal sees created in
the colonial possessions of Great Britain. British India was
placed under a bishop shortly after the renewal of the Company's
charter in 1813. The West Indies (Jamaica and Barbados)
in 1824. There are now forty, and the number is almost
annually increasing. We cannot find space on the present occa-
sion for tracing the various subdivisions of these dioceses, and
creations of new ones, which have subsequently taken place,
although the -subject is an interesting one: it will be found
summed up in a very convenient tabular form in Mr. Ernest
Hawkins's publication, under the heading * Progress of the

* We quote from Mr. Venn's ' llissionary life and Labours of

* Francis Xavier,* p. 160. A curious instance of the saint's in-
dependent ways, as regards the Bishop of Goa, occurs at p. 215.
He sends a priest from Japan to Goa. * Camerte was to take the
' priest to the Bishop, and to tell the Bishop that Emanuel was no
' longer a Jesuit, as Xavier had expelled him from the community :
' and that he now, therefore, belonged to the jurisdiction of the

* Bishop, who might deal with him as he pleased!*

1863. The Colonial Episcopate. 561

* Episcopate in the Colonies.' We must add, in order to
complete our sketch of the framework of that Episcopate, that
the Crown has since been advised to confer metropolitan rights,
involving control over suffragan bishops, on three sees — Sydney,
New Zealand, and Cape Town. But whether these rights are
more than shadows is a question which may possibly receive a
solution whenever Bishop Gray descends into the arena against
Bishop Colenso.

The advance of episcopacy was slow at first, and was pro-
bably retarded rather than accelerated by the notions which
still prevailed respecting the maintenance of an endowed State
Church in the colonies on the model of that existing at home.
All the earlier colonial bishoprics were endowed out of the
public revenues; either those of the colonies themselves, or
of the , mother country. They were consequently by no
means popular in8titutions,'either with the colonists, the mass
of ^hom were generally dissenters, or with Parliamentary
econonusts at home. It is due to Bishop Blomfield, and to
those who acted alone with him, to say that they were perhaps
the first who distinctly perceived not only the causes and pro-
gress of this unpopularity, but the infinite elasticity which would
be given to the Colonial Churoh^through the removal of that State
connexion in matters of finance by which they found it op-
mressed. They did not, of course, voluntarily renounce existing
State endowments ; but they prepared for their inevitable
abandonment: they did not, for obvious reasons, leave the
foundation andmuntenance of bishoprics to the unaided ^ volun-
' tary principle; but witli great sagacity tiiey provided a substi-
tute, which should combine the grace and efficacy of the freewill
offering with the permanency of public contributions. The two
great Societies, for promoting Christian Knowledge and for the
Propagation of the u-ospel in Foreign Parts, voted in 1840 sums
amounting in all to 15,000/., and subsequently increased, to
form a special fund, placed at the disposal of the English bbhops,
for the endowment of colonial bishoprics. This fiind has since
been supplemented by private munificence to a large extent
We find in Mr. Hawkins's publication (as long ago as 1855)
the ^invested capital' of the fund alone estimated at 158,000/.,
the dividend on it at 6,400^ ; independent, of course, of annual
subscriptions, and of donations eitner towards the general fund
or towards particular bishoprics. The business of the fund is
conducted by^ a * special committee of bishops, ' whose head-
quarters are at the office of the Propagation of the Gospel
Society at Pall MalL When a new bishopric is to be created^
or a new bishop appointed to a former see, it is not for us to

VOL. CXVIII. KG. CCXLIL 0 0

all
froi
tho
of
Eoli
tbei

but'

' tive
' ntti

To
1787,
the a
plaoetj
charte

in 1824. There »re now fo,;
agniullyincreaiiiig. We cannot
8ion for tracing the venous eubd
creationa of new onee, which h,.
although theeubjeot i» an inlen
■uoimed up in a very convenient
aawkina'a publication, under the

. «L^? ''°°'" '"" "'• ^"">'» 'Mif

Ho aend, a prie.1 from Japan „, Go,. .

pn.,1 10 the Bi,hop, and ^tcU tho Bi.],
• S',t '.■'?""• " ^''™' '•■< »P«"M -
•K,!, i' °?"" 'l»"for«, belonged to

Buhop, who might deal with him as he pk

■V

1863. The Colonial Epucopate. 565

rank ; — these aie mattera to which we are accustomed, which
run contnuy to the prejudices of but few> and (thanks in great
measure to the tempenince and good sense, as well as the higher
qualities, which have disUnguiahed in later times the majority
of our ecclefflastical satboritiea,) have certidnl; less unpopu-
huity to encounter now than they met with a few years ago.

It was foigotten, or rather it was ignored, that the position of

Uc Church m England in the colomea was wholly destitute of

i:^c advantages. It had no hold on the affections of the mass,

historical hfe, no body of poor communicants, no dignity, no

nues ; the feeble attempt to create such having been foiled

1- a storm of unpopularity. Indeed, political change in

[natters has been so rapid, that the ' clei^ reserves * of

I, the subject of so much discussion hardly a generation

m almost as much out of date as King John's donation

lid to the Pope. Men of English birth constituted the

of the settlers in all our colonies, except the Austra-

among the English* Dissenters either predominated

.1 strong minority. The poorer claasea, instead of

he Church with a kind of traditional reverence as

iig themselves left absolutely to choose, are apt on

.'Icct some more exciting or imposing form of re-

mism is emphatically the religion of the well-to-

il class, the class which aims at social position,

lid in justice), which is most highly educated,

t of the coarse and vague assumptions by

nresoriptive authority seek to maintain them-

-cmbraciag religion of the people it is, abso-

spite of ^e enorta made in recent times to

lie hombler classes of society.

562* The Colonial EpUcopate. Oct.

trace the early channels through which the appointment actually
permeates; but the final designation rests wMi the Cokmiai
Minister, who guards sedulously this relic of the ccdonial prero-
gatives of the Crown, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, whoee
advice the Minister usually takes. It has been the ordinary
practice of the Colonial Office to refuse consent to the creotioii
of a new see, unless on assurance that a certain moderate en-
dowment has been set apart for it, commonly out of the Fund,
in conjunction with land or other provision contr%uted by cdonial
munificence. By these simple means, burdensome to none
except to the inexhaustible strength of British charity, wfaick
feels no burden, the colonial episcopate has advanced at a rate
which Bishop Blomfield would certainly not have dreamt of,
and new sees are constantly created with a fistdfity wYoA
threatens, unless the church community itself increases at a far
greater rate than seems likely, to render episcopacy bomceopathic
And at the same time the dependence of the bishops (and of the
Colonial Church in general) on the public revenue has been
gradually got rid of, without loss to holders or <fifltufbance of
arrangements. There are now, we think, no payments left to
to be made by Parliament towards the Church in the colonies ;
none from colonial revenues, except in the East and West Indies,
and one or two other exceptionsJ cases. When we remember
that this great establishment has been created within these few
years by the exclusive efibrts of private munificence ; that the
expenditure on bishoprics forms a part only, and a small one, of
what has been expended on Church-of-England purposes; and
the whole of this again only a portion of the vast sums which have
been contributed hyvSi denominations in the same period to-
wards colonial and missionary objects ; we are surely warranted
in holding that the ancient spirit of Christian munificence bums
no less brightly in our modem and Protestant times than in those
of old, whatever changes may have taken place in the mode of
its action.

So far the picture is an agreeable one ; and before we turn
to the less satisfactory side of it, we may dwell for a moment
on the solid advantaged which have attended the establish-
ment of bishops in English colonies, wherever there existed
a real Church to preside over, a substantial body of buty, and a
clergy sufficiently numerous to need the government of one in
authority. The mere social good arising in a colonial commu-
nity from the presence of a fiinctionary whose office commands
so much- of old-fashioned respect and attention, whenever he is
personally qualified to improve these advantages, is of no trifling
order. Armed as he is with no coercive jurisdiction^ he becomes

1863. The Colonial Episcopate. 563

naturally ft kind of standing authority^ not the less respected
from the absence of legal powers. To liken him to the
prelates of apostolic ages^ as is commonly done in the some-
what fulsome style of oratory which prevails at public meetings
on ecclesiastical subjects, is absurd. But he may, if he will, be
a very valuable and respected head of a Christian community,
such as our very imapostolic times will admit of. His educa-
tion in a country where few are highly educated, his position
wholly independent of lucrative or ambitious pursuits, in a
country where there is no idle class, and fortune-making is
the only employment (as is commonly the ease in colonies), add
to the weight which the dignity of his office naturally gives him.

On the more immediately professional benefits (so to speak)
arising from the established superintendence of a bishop, we
need not dilate, as they are pidn enough in practice as wdl as
in theory. But one point of importance is worth mentioning.
The Church in the colonies svflfers from no evil more eonspi-
cuous than die paucity of ministers, and extreme difficulty of
recruiting their ranks. Now> we believe it has been uniformly
found that when an important province has been erected into a
see, the result has been, at least at the outset, the securing at
once a more numerous and a better supply of clergy.

But, unfortunately as we believe for the cause of the Church
of England, if not for religion itself, the originators and pro-
moters of the movement which we have recorded had other
objects in view besides the mere supply of the actual wants of
dioceses in which there was substantial work to do. Their
ideal was an episcopate in which, as we have siud, every com-
munity which oould not be ranged with perfect convenience
within a larger diocese should have a bishop of its own. Nor
was this ideal adopted without a side view towards what, in
truth, interested many of them £Eir more tiban the nrogress of
the Church in the colonies — namely, the politics of the Church
at home. It has been a favourite purpose with many to alter
fuadam^itally the character and distribution of our English
episcopate — to have a much larger number of sees constituted,
with bishops of inferior social and political pretensions to the
small and distinguished hierarchy which now exists, but cal-
culated to give the Church (in their view) an aspect more re-
sembling that of the apostolical ages. The needs of the colonies
(as has often been the case in other matters) were turned to some
account in order to answer a domestic purpose. A numerous
colonial hierarchy, of poor and zealous successors of the apostles,
was to serve as a sort of precedent, hereafter as a model, for a
new repartition of dioceses at home. Add to this notion, not very

564 The Colonial Episcopate. Oct.

prominent, but always preyailing, the other natural causes
which led to the multiplication of bishops : the loye of exercisiDg
patronage among a few busy managers at home ; the love of
title and power which led many a clergyman, who had scarcely
any experience of parish life at all, to wish to commence h^
labours at once in the highest position ; and we shall find reasons
enough for the macadamisation of the ecclesiastical sur&ce of
the Queen's foreign dominions into little sees which has lately
taken place, independently of those which we have described
as arising from special views of episcopal authority.

The evils which arise from the insignificance, statistically
speaking, of the greater part of the colomal episcopacy, are very
seriously ag^avated by the false position in which these bishops
have been placed, through the mistaken attempt to preserve the
analogy in temporal matters between them, with their extremely
limited means and functions, and their brethren in this country.
And here, we cannot but think, the founders of the colonial
episcopate had much to answer for. They erred knowingly,
with a full view of the difficulties into which they would surely
plunge their colonial clients, because they had not the moral
courage to adopt an alternative which misht react unfavourably
(as they feared) on the Establishment at home.

For the Church of England is, for good or evil^ an establish-
ment to this day. Its clergy enjoy by freehold tenure that
proportion of the annual increase of the land which was set
apart for purposes of religious worship ages before the oldest
family in the realm had acquired a title to its estates. It has
lost, it is true, one by one, those exclusive poUtical rights
which its members at one time enjoyed. But that loss is so
recent, historically speaking, that the outward characteristics of
supremacy stiU hang about it. Dissenters, unless of the more
violent class, are all apt to recognise it as entitled at least to a
kind of elder brother's precedence. And, which is periiaps the
most important circumstance of all in its present position, its
enjovment of independent revenue makes it the natural teacher
of the poor throughout the realm, and must inevitably (so long
as it exists) give it great numerical preponderance. Its bishops
retain the territorial titles of their dioceses, bavin? inherited these
titles by direct descent from the first preachers of Christianity in
Britain ; and have just right, on constitutional and historical
grounds, to regard as interlopers any other hierarchy which may
seek to establish itself on the same soiL This title, involving the
semblance of ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the whole local com*
munity ; the fraction of power still retained by our bishops in the
House of Lords ; the further title of lordship, appropriate to that

1863. The Colonial Episcopate. 565

rank ; — ^these are matters to which we are accustomed, which
run contrary to the prejudices of but few, and (thanks in great
measure to the temperance and good sense, as well as the higher
qualities, which have distinguished in later times the majority
of our ecclesiastical authorities,) have certainly less unpopu-
larity to encounter now than they met with a few years ago.

It was forgotten^ or rather it was i^ored, that the position of
the Church of England in the colomes was wholly destitute of
these advantages. It had no hold on the affections of the mass,
no historical kfe, no body of poor communicants, no dignity, no
reyenues ; the feeble attempt to create such having been foiled
under a storm of unpopularity. Indeed, 'political change in
these matters has been so rapid, that the ' clergy reserves ' of
Canada, the subject of so much discussion hardly a generation
aso, seem almost as much out of date as Eong John's donation
of England to the Pope. Men of English birth constituted the
minority of the settlers in all our colonies, except the Austra-
lian : and among the English^ Dissenters either predominated
or formed a strong minority. The poorer classes, instead of
clin^ng to the Church with a kind of traditional reverence as
at home, feeling themselves left absolutely to choose, are apt on
the whole to select some more exciting or imposing form of re-
ligion. Anglicanism is emphatically the religion of the well-to-
do ; of the official class, the class which ums at social position,
the class (let us add in justice), which is most highly educated,
and least tolerant of the coarse and vague assumptions by
which sects of less prescriptive authority seek to maintain them-
selves. But the all-embracing rel^on of the people it is, abso-
lutely, nowhere; in spite of Sie efforts made in recent times to
extend its offices to the humbler classes of society.

It was the bounden duty of those who constituted the colo-
nial episcopacy to have taken notice of this broad distinction,
and to have framed their platform in the manner best cal-
culated to support the weight which was actually imposed
on it Territorial titles in such a case were absurd, and should
have been omitted, not only as superfluous but as really mis-
chievous from the false ideas they create. The highest church
authority in a colony or part of it should have been simply
Bishop A or B, the recognised head of the Anglican commu-
nity therein established — ^not the bishop of a diocese, that is,
the ecclesiastical overseer of the community of Christians within
that diocese ; which, emphatically, he is not. His title is an
anomaly and an anachronism, and provocative (not unnaturally)
of opposition and jealousy. Such pretensions are for Rome, not
for us. Still less (it is scarcely necessary to add) should this.

666 The Colonial Episcopate. Oct.

modest ftractionary have been decorated wMi the fociish titic of
lordship, or with outward trappings of rank and precedence asso*
ciated with that title. So great was the prcjtidiee at first excited
by this idle concession to vanity or misteken policy, that it was
publicly stated by the late MT.EUice(a8 reported in tiie debates on
the Colonial Church Act of 1854), that the legislature of Canada,
on hearing of the appointment of the first lord bishop, took up
the matter seriously, and resolved, by a majority of thirty-«x to
four, that ' the Church of England, as established by law in the
' mother country, is not the religion of the minority of the
< people of Canada.' But the truth is that the dignity of the
colonial episcopate was fixed, not with Teferenoe to the aetual
wants of the colonies, but partly to high churdi transcendental
notions respecting the office, pjurtly (and we believe far more)
to State Church notions connected with the motlier oountry.
If the territorial designation and the lordly title ceased hi the
colonies, they would no longer be regarded by the multitude as
inseparable accidents of the office : a class t)f inferior bishops,
quasi-bishops, would be constituted in the Church ; and who
could tell how so dangerous an experiment mi^t react on the
Church at home? Therefore, the colonial bishops must be
constituted, after the domestic pattern, sole governors of the
Christian community within certain geographic limits; and in
the documents by which their authority is conveyed, and tiie
formal ecclesiastical language which is used respecting tfaem^
there must not be one word to convey the idea that any religiooii
persuasion except their own exists within those limits at aSL
The colonial bishop must occupy in all titular and external
matters exactiy the same position as the English; akhougfa the
bishop of the smallest English diocese has real work to do, and
dignity to maintain, while if the bishop of Quebec, or Cape
Town, or Colombo, were to leave his colony with the whole of
his adherents, it would not make an appreciaUe difference in the
next census.*

* Everyone is probably aware of the neat fiction by which the
Churoh of Rome has avoided the apparent presomptioii of eoostitiitang
new dioceses without substantial communities, and at the same tine
maintained the fanciful rule that every bishop must have a territorial
designation. Dioceses in heretical or heathen lands were commonly
governed by vicars apostolic, bearing the title of some ancient and no
longer existing diocese— Bishops in partibus infidelium, as they
are styled. An arrangement which seems to have been first adopted
with reference to India and the East, and probably with the object
of evading the extravagant claims of the kings of Portugal to eode-
siastical jurisdiction there. We know not whether it is a sign

IS6Z. 'The Colanial JEpiseapaie. 567

But it must be added, tliat those who are in^ressed with a
full sense of the consideration due to other Chnstlan commu-
nities than our own ; those who cannot but see with reluctance
any assumption on the part of our Church of a position other
thatt that which reason and her own principles assign her^ that
of an ' ass^nbly ' of Christiana^ strong as we beheve in the
purity of her faith and in her adherence to ancient ways, but
an assembly only among other assemblies, a commonwealth
aiftong other oonunonW'ealths ; — to those who thus thinks there
is something peculiarly imtoward in the manner in which she,
in her quality of State Church, arrogated to herself the right of
eneating territorial diooeaes in lands not heathen, but conquered
from powers of other Christian persuasions. It was a practice
whioh set aside at once all that there is of liberty and brother-
hoodj and of the courtesies by whidi these are maintained
between di£fer^t,oommanions, and substituted the hard formulas
of ottt*of-date supremacy. What right had we to constitute a
* Bishop of Cape Town ' with a territorial diocese extending
over the colony? The Cape Colony was conquered from the
Bntob. The Dutch settler^ in possession of the soil, belonged
almost entirely to an established Protestant community, the
' Dutdb Beformed Church,' which has its own traditions and its
own rites, ooBsecrated by long usage, and esteems itself, no
deubt, purer and more apostolic than our own. Anglicans
i^ere were none in the colony, except a few officials and a few
traders, and a qprinkling of English emigrants in the eastern
division, which has since been formed' into a separate diocese;
so that the Bishop of Cape Town is very nearly (from no fault
of his own) a sinecure functionary, or would be so, were it not
for the duty whioh seems to haye devolyed on him of fighting
the Churoh's battle against obstinate presbyters and heredcid
suffiragana.

Now we wish very much to know, in what respect the act of
our Government, in constituting a * diocese of Cape Town ' in a
colonial community, diffisred from the act of the Roman See
which excited among us such loud and indignant complaints
only a few years ago, when it parcelled out Protestant England
into territo!nal di^aeses ? Surely we shall not be answered,
tiwt the Queen has civil rule a»t the Cape, the Pope none
in England. Such an answer wonld but open afredi the

of increasing strength, or of increasing ostentation, that this
machinery seems to be getting out of use, and territorial bishops
succeeding vioars-general over great part of the Romanist missionary
field.

668 The Colonial Episcopate. Ock

door of that chamber of horrors, tiie old state diurch temple,
now so happily closed with the assent even of those who
cherished the longest their traditional Erastianism. The
Church of Christ knows nothbg of conquerors and conquered^
governors or governed. Nor does the modem church pdity
of this British monarchy. Whatever the merits and demerits,
the rights, claims, and pontion of any sect in its foreign
dominions may be, they are absolutely and wholly irrespective
of political circumstances ; they involve not only no disaUlities,
but no inferiority. On such prindples alone, in the opinion of
all, can our vast empire be governed : on such principles abne
is it worth governing, in the opinion of those whose notions of
Christian liberty are fixed. Of course the Anglo-Catholic has
in this instance the ready answer that the Reformed Dutch
Church at the Cape and in Guiana is in reality no church at
aU, that it is only termed so by courtesy, and that a land in
which it prevails is, for iecdesiastical purposes, in the san^
position as a heathen land. But this argument would fail even
him in other case& How, for instance, justify the establishitent
of a Bishopric of the Mauritius, a Soman Catiiolic colony und^r
regular papal government?*

In the earnr stage of tiie movement so little attention was
paid to scruples of this description, that Bishop Blomfidd
regarded Yaletta as the proper ^ station of a Inshop,' and it was
intended to appoint a Bishop of Malta, where episcopal
succession is believed to have existed ever once Saint FauL
This error was avoided, and the title * Bishop of Gibraltar '
given to the dignitary appointed to exercise the episcopal offioe
among our mixed population of traders and idlers scattered
along the Mediterranean. But the diange was a very in-
complete evasion of the difficulty, as Gibraltar, though it happens
not to be the seat of a Spanish bishop, is imder regular
hierarchical government, and a Protestant bishop of Gibndtar
is just as much a stone of offence to fastidious Komanists as a
Bomanist bishop of Southwark to orthodox Anglicans.t

* The ' Bishopric of Quebec ' might seem a stronger case of abuse
still. This, however, is Dot quite the fact. Although the title waa
unfortunate, the see was constituted for the whole of Canada, which
then consisted of a stationary French community in the east, and an
increasing British conmimiity in the west Since then the parts of
Canada in which there is a substantial Anglican population have
been constituted into other dioceses, and the Bishop of Quebec — ^like
him of Cape Town^eft, in truth, a sinecurist

f It was reported (we do not know how truly) that the late
Bishop, in the first elation of his appointment, appeared in the streets

1863. l%e Colonial Episcopate^ 569

It may, however, be argued^ that these obiections to the
system of our colonial episcopate are snperfidal only ; that the
sul^tance is achieved if om* churches are pkced under
regular government ; that the small dimensions of some of the
sees, the over-pretenrion of some of the titles, are trifling blots
which do not really aflPect tiie efficacy of the institution. We
fear, however, that this is not the case. These nustakes, if
trifling, are of that class of trifles which lead to serious eidls.
The share which feding, sentiment, * prest%e,' have in eccle*
mastical matters is too great to allow of this violation without
entailing consequ^M^es beyond what may seem at first sight to
be warranted. The Anglican bishop, placed in a community
hostile or indifierent to him with uie outward pretension of

Sveming it, is in a false position from the beginning. If he
S5 as is commonly the case, very high notions of episcopal
autiiority, so much the worse. He fills two distinet chaiac-
ters. In his own ima^nation, in the language of his letters
patent, in the rank which is allotted him when he visits the old
country, in the formal documents of his great constituents, the
Propaganda of Pall Mall, he is the successor of the aposties^
the functionary having power to bind and to loose over a region
equal in extent to an European kingdom. In the general
society of his own diocese, he is simply the head officer of a
single communion, often by no means the most numerous;
obheed either to meet with his brethren, the governing au-
tiionties of other persuanons, on terms of mere equalitv, or to
keep aloof from them in very unprofitable isolation. He may
advance to his own clergy, or in correspondence with the
societies at home, the most orthodox chdms of spiritual
supremacy; but if he is to take any joint action with his msXeAf
the Presbyterian moderator, and the Wesleyan superintendent^
he can but address them as one of thonselves —

^ Je suis oiseau, voici mes ailes ;
Je sais sonris, vivent les rats ! '

We have heard of an excellent colonial bishop, who used to
perambulate his diocese with a staff which was an artistic com-
promise between a crozier and a walking-stick. Even such a
compromise must the life of the colonial bishop himself to a
great degree impersonate.

This is the case even where dioceses are of sufficient im-

of Rome with some kind of episcopal insignia. Zealoas people were
affronted, and brought the rumour under the notice of the Pope
(Gregory XVI.). * Better let him alone/ said the shrewd old man.
' But I never knew before, that Borne was in the diocese of Malta.'

.0^70 The Cabmal Episcopate. Got;

portance to gm ihair ocoapants some title-to ^the cfaaraeter of
working bisbopa; maeh more so, where, &Aet from tbe tafin*
teshnol KnaUoess o£ die diocese itself, or die very small iramber
of AnglicaiiB, there is really no wori^ to perfisrm* We entei^
tflin great pity for tbe dergyman, of ardeat ckaraotor po^ifaly
and high anddpationB, who has been seduood into the Ufe-lonp
mistadke of assuming a post of this desoription. What is he to
do ? Clergy he has ecaroely any to gorem, and no oonstitntinitl
power (as we shall presently see) to gorem timee« He has

ErobaMy had visions floating before him of misBionory exertioA %,
ut (omitting the Indian dioceses), diere acre only eight or mae
colonial inwhiek theveisanymtssionaryworiEto perform, and ia
aofne of ^these very tofling. Hjs duties resolve themselves int^ a
narrofw aad dreary roomd of &iiotiom| inasmall, m(»iey-getiug>
liitle-edhicatedy indifferent society. He mary naiBe what ap-
parent work be cani out cf confirmation ionm aoMl other formal-
operations; but tins is not substurinal bosiness, nor does it
ooeupy the mind as such. It has been often eaggested that ha
Aould imite tiie ftnwtions of parish pneet with those of bishop ;
and to a certain extest we believe this is done ; but tiMvo ans
obvions objections to llie voion. The Udiop, whose great
fiHictiom is to superwteod others, cannot, widiovt difficulty,
place himself on the level of the superintended. He has to
correct irregularitieB^ to repair omission^ as bishop, to tiie
oommisiTOn or sunncion of whidi as priest he is Umself duljr
exposed* He will foUow^^lmi own views jrespediug the condadb
of divine swviee, and the government of a parish ; but he
cannot legally impose these on others : be oi^t not to do sOy
if he could : he has therefore the amoyance or seeing, and sub-
mitting to see, his autibunsty hdbitaaily disregarded by those
over whom he presides, through neglect or disrndinatioM to
follow the modd which be sets up.

And it is in this forced inactivity that we find the main
secret of that pecaliarify whidi has of late years caused the
greatest amount <^ popular scandal with respect to colonial
bishops— their constant absence from their dioceses, and repeated
visits to England. There is something very locomotive and
restless in the habits of the episcopacy over great part of the
world in these latter days. The same phenomenon is noticed in
ecclesiastioal history, just at the period when the early ages of
Christian persecution ceased, and a sort of joyous super-
abundance of activity took possession of the emancipated
Church. The bishops of the fourth and fifth centuries seem
to have been almost always on their travels from synod to
synod, or to and from the presence of some noted theological

1863. Tb0 jCohmial EpiicofaU. &7 1

chief, whose TOioe wm infiueiittial as the ipegfoi omoles. Aad
80 in our timea, ia the Church of B^me^ any opportunity, anuJL
OS great — the canoniaation of some Japanese martyrs, the
meeting of a Catholic Council at Malines — seems sufficient to^
draw together flocks of migratory bishops^ who have little or
nothing to do with the q^ial occasion, fix)in all quarters of the.
world. But we have never heard thai, either v^ ancient or
modem tknes, their dioceses wtf« much the bett^ for thia
licensed vagrancy, though no doubt the soujree of much engoy-*
ment to themselves. Our oelonial bishops— we i^)eak of cousse:
with the proper exceptions — have a muah better ejEcuse for yicM**,
ing to this habit of pilgnmage. They aboadcm no duty, &ft
they have really none to perfonn which may not be quite as>
weU executed by the commissaries whom thay leave beb]nd^
them. The temptation to * oome hooie ' is so very stroof^ Ji.
is like emexgiig from darkness to day^ firom prison to fipeedom«
They leave behind them the performance of insignificant and
thanklfis functUwM^ and the oonataat nuurtificatioas which beset
position without powei» Heee, ihey aee brought in oantaot
with all that is enlivening and iaqnriting in the circumstanoee
of their profession : they meet with the respect which e{NbKM)f>al
dignity in any shape commands^ fiom a lai|^ and influential
portion of our oommnnity : they paetioipate in the little re<-
ligious ovations which are the lot of interesting strangers both
in London and vx the provinces. And, as seli-indulgence has
always its ezouseS) they have ^ satis&etion of alleging (not
without the show at least ef reason), that they are serving the
cause of their dioceses more effectually h«^ by calling the atten^
tion of the mother country to their i^iritual wants, recruiting
clergy, and coUec^ng money, than they would be if locally
engaged in their unexciting vocation. And so the scandal seeme
annually to increase — a scandal doubtless, Imt perhaps anappurent
rather than a real evil We believe, indeed, that there is no-
authority whatever, either in the Colonial Grovemments or in*
the Government of the motiier country, to compel these home--
sick prelates to reside in their dioceses ; and they f4ppear to be
fiilly aware of the liberty they enjoy. Nothing could more
eflectually demonstrate the fact that they are subject to no
authority on the one hand and that they exercise no authority
(but by consent) on the other. They have no more coercive
powers of any land than a Boman Catholic bishop in England
or an Anglican bishop in Scotland ; and we very much question
whether there be any coercive authority over them.

This extremely indeterminate character of the authority of
colonial bishops over the subordinate clergy is a point of so

572 The Colonial Episcopate. Oct

much importanoe, particiilarlj since the recent deoirion of the
Judicial Committee of the Friyy Council in the case of * Liong
' versus the Bishop of Cape Town/ that we consider it necessary
to deyote some space to its inyestigation.

In this country, the yarious dissenting communities haye, it
is scarcely necessary to say, no legal existence as suck They
are simply yoluntary assodations, on which the law has no
direct hold. They are self-goyemed, each according to its own
usages, on a system strictly yoluntary. If a minister (or other
member of one of these associationB) disobey the laws of the
society, there is no legal mode of yisiting the offence upon him.
The only step which could be taken is to expel him from the
society, in the same manner as in the case of an ordinary
dub. But the possession of jfropertj by the different rel^ious
communities has gradually brought them in contact with the
law of the country, and taken them indirectly out of this cate-
gory, namely, of rimply yoluntary associations. Property in
chapels, dwelling-houses, charitable foundations, and the like,
is held, under restrictions on which we need not dwell, by
trustees : subject to the condition, that those who enjoy the use
of such property conduct themsdyes acoorcUng to the usages,
preach the doctrine and maintain the discipline, of this or
that religious body. And the high authority which controls
this property, and settles disputes as to its enjoyment, is the
Court of Chancery. And that Court must therefore, in the
last resort, pronounce on questions of religious doctrine
as well as discipline, and has occanonally done so. But,
as a general rule, it will respect the decbions of the con-
stituted authorities of the body itself on sudi questions. To
use the language employed in a leading case on this subject
(that of Dr. Warren), 'where an association of men haye

* agreed upon the terms of their union, and haye constituted a
' tribunal to determine whether those htws haye been yiolated

* or not, then, if a tribunal so constituted has dedded, in the
' due exercise of the authority intrusted to it, that an offence
' has been committed, a Court of Equity would not interfere.'

These legal doctrines are in truth the Magna Charta of non-
conformity ; and, on the whole, the yarious dissenting commu-
nities of this country may be considered to be administered
under that umon of sefr-goyemment with necessary l^al
protection which is most conduciye to their well-being and
free action. Very different is the lot of the Church of Eng-
land. The creature of the State (in a political sense), she is at
once protected in her discipline, and controlled in all her moye-
ments, by a system of strict law, based on Act of Parliament,
canon, or precedent. If a clerk misconducts himself in an

1863. The Cohnial Episcopate. 573

ecclesiastical sensC) the law is open, and can be put in force by
the bishop who goyerns him, and through the ecclesiastical
courts. If that law is defective — if questions arise as to its
application which are practically beyond the power of the
Courts to determine — ^the only real resource is to Parliament
For the authorities of the Church of England cannot even meet
to discuss changes without the license of the Crown ; and what
power they would haye to effect changes, even with that
license, is one of the many awful problems which remain for
the present m grendo legis^ and of which great lawyers look
grim when they speak. Convocation, in theory, may be a body
of vast power ; but no one with history open before him can
seriously contend that the two Synods so oidled have ever con-
stituted in practice the governing body of the reformed Church
of England.

It will be seen at once on what very different ground the
Church of England and the various dissenting bodies met^
when they were transplanted to the colonies. The latter expe-
rienced from the beginning no difficulty at all in continuing in
the Crown's foreign dominions the system of government under
which they had prospered at home. All that they needed was
to have such property as they might possess or acquire brought
within the fair jurisdiction of the colonial courts of law, and to
have their separate codes of usage, sanctioped by habitual
acquiescence, recognised by these courts as the rule for ad-
ministering ^eir property. And this they easily obtained. In
some colonies (as in Australia, while under Crown govern-
ment), well-concQived and impartial Acts were passed, to facili-
tate the management of property by the several communities ;
and remain at this time, for theur limited purpose, the organic
law of the Churches.

The Church of England, on the other hand, when trans-
planted to the colonies, was violently torn away from that
State support on which it had hitherto leant. It had neither
the liabit nor the very principles of self-government ; for it had
none such at home. It could not even ayail itself, in such a
way as to avoid litigation, of those laws which secured to reli-
gious communities their property; for it had no constituted
authorities to which those laws might apply. It had no legis-
lature; for Parhament is the legislature of the Church of
England, and Parliament will not legislate for the colonies.
It had no executive government ; for it is governed at home
by ecdenastical law, and that law, as we shall presently see, is
not supposed to exist in the colonies. For a long time it had,
as we have seen, no bishops; and the episcopal power is, of
course, in our Church the foundation of discipline. And this

674 The Colonial Episcopate. Oct-

WHS one of the substantial reasons fbr Ae zeal with which the
project of Colonial Episcopacy was at first nrf>ed. But when
the bishops were appointed, tiiey found, to llieir utter diecom^
fiture, that it was questionable whether aoiy shred of that legal
authority which attaches itself to bishops in England attadie^
itself to their brethren in the colonies, and this doubt is now
considerably strengtihened by the reoent decimn of the Privy
CounciL

The case appears to stand thus. But we must prenuse that
we are laying down Iflie law chiefly on the geneml hnpresmn
conveyed through the iBota of judges and^ opinaoos of emiaeni
lawyers. Acts of ParHament thelie are none to refer tow
Decisions directly bearing on the subject thmre ace seapoelj
any, until the important recent juc^ment to wfaioh we ka^a
adverted. It is, then, a principle established in theory — though
of the vaguest possible application — liiat English colonists
carry with them to a new country whi<A they nuLy occupy so
much of the law of England as is- appUeabie to their new poei^
tion, and no more. It is anol&er principle, that the power of
adding to or modifying that law — the power of legiaktion^ im
short — ^belongs to the colonists only ; they oairy widi them the
English Constitution. The Crown cannot l^Uate fbr thena.
But again : in colonies which are not settled by Engliahraen,
but have been conquered by die Crown from fbreign Powen,
the Crown retains the power of legislation. I^ould, however,
the Crown think fit to constitute an elective legislature in any
such colony, from that moment the Crown's abscJute power oi
legislation has departed, and is superseded by the new authority,
usually of Assembly, Council, and Crown.

Such, we say, is the theory of colonicd government — a dieory
so well founded in English instincts that it may be considered
as established, although in pmnt of fact it rests on the slightest

Cible authority — having neither statute nor distinct common
as its basis, and having been merely elaborated oot of the
brains of two men of creative genius in tbeir limited ^here^ —
Chief Justice Coke and Lord Mansfield. This being so, die
question of course naturaUy arose in men's minds : Is
astical law part of that law which the settler carries with
Can a bishop erect a court, try and punish offending clerks^
and (by way of corollary) compel the attendance of witnesses and
administer legal oaths, as part of the fundamental law of the
colony? Or, if he cannot, then can the Crown, either by
letters patent constitutmg a court with ecclesia^kal juris-
diction, or by letters patent giving a bishop power to comet
his clerks, introduce that law or the appropriate portion of it?

1863. The C^lomai Episcopaia. ^75

The answer to the first question has ne^eor been aolhraitically
given. The case hae never been direetly submitted to saoj
tribonal* We auijr, for our parts, fimcy tint a very reasonable
argument mi^rt be addressed to such » tmbunal on the affirma**
tive side of die aignment. But any one who is aiware of the
rehttrve positions of the champions of Britbh and eanon law
ever since the Constitations of Ckrendoo^

^ Litora litoribus contraria, ductibus undas,'

might well fear the result of an appeal to the onthorities of the
former on such an issue. To the second question the answer
could not be doubtiuL Tb introduce ecclesiastical law, where
it does not exist, is an act of legislation. Therefore the Crown
cannot, either by letters patent or otherwise, either expressly
or by implication, give a bishop the sfightest power, in any
colony having an independent legislature, to control his clergy.
If such power exists at all, it is only in colonies stall governed
absolutely by the Crown, or where the Acts of Parliament con-
stituting the government have left sudi power in the Crown.*

The bishop, therefore, on his appointment, found himself
destitute of legal or constitutional powers. HRs real power,
indeed, might be no trifle. According to the law of some colonies,
he had the right (with the consent of the Governor) to revoke
an officiating clergyman's license, to remove clergy from their
posts, or to transfer them from one to another. And, frequently,
control was expressly given him in deeds creating charitable
endowments for the benefit of the Church. But with all this
authority, he had no legitimate method of exercising it ; no courts,
no recognised counsellors. As the Bishop of Oxford expressed
it on one occasion, * The system forces the bishops, in spite of
* themselves, to act in cases of drocipline as absolute autocrats,
' without the form of law.* The mere possession of such power,
not to say its exercise, is distasteful enough to an English
gentleman and clergyman, accustomed himself to be governed
by law ; and we need not remark, in addition, how lavishly
public opinion and its organ, the press, would be apt to pour

* It is, perhaps, necessary to say that these observations on the
absence of regular Church government in the colonies apply but
partially — 1. To the East Indian possessions of the Crown, which are
left by Parliament tmder Crown legislation, teehnicaHy speaking, and
where episcopal letters patent have due f<»>ee ; 2. To the old West
Indian colonies, where the Church of Eagland has been far along time
established on a legal basis, and where we at least have not heard of
any difficulty arising from imperfect legal control over the clergy.

576 The Colonial EpUcopaie. Oct.

•
forth its wrath on any fiinctionary who Bbouldy in an indiscreet
moment^ have recourse to them in a questionable case.

The position was^ indeed (or rather is), a most embarrBsdng
one ; for it must be added that the absence of regular govern-
ment is almost as injurious to the Colonial Church, in respect of
the management of its means and distribution of its income,
as in respect to internal discipline. The ablest among her
leaders saw that the only practical way of rescuing her from
this state of impotence was by establishing some sort of
munidpal organisationt under which she might govern herself
(for minor and ordinary purposes) in the same manner as
branches of the several Protestant dissenting communitiefl»
planted in the colonies, govern themselves. And the modd
of the Episcopalian Church in the United States naturally
presented itseu to their minds. Movements, therefore, began
within the last ten years, in certain colonial dioceses, towarda
the establishment of mixed synods of clergy and laity, such as
subsist in America. And (unfortunately for the colonies)
these movements were seconded by a good many influential
and zealous friends of the Church in England, under leaders
who were, in truth, far more anuous to accomplish their
favourite object of synodical action at home, and to break
asunder what they esteem the fetters of the State connexion,
than merely to supply the modest and practical wants (^ the
Anglican body in the colonies. This over-clevemes^ which
seeks to attain an ulterior purpose through a primary one, and
seems never to be consdous that the deugn is penetrable by
all the world, has impeded or frustrated many a meritorious
enterprise in ecdesiasticid as well as other matters ; and so it
p^v^ in this instance.

It appeared, at first sight, as if the same voluntary impulse
which created in 1789 the constitution of the Episcopal Church
of the United States, with its Convention, and synods of mixed
clergy and laity, might have effected the same object in the
colonies, when the Church, unaided by the State, was placed on
the same footing, fiut it was soon found that^ in a l^al viewj
the two cases were essentially different.

The American Episcopal Church was in truth never, even in
colonial times, a branch of the State Church of England. Bishop
Gibson's attempt to make it so by order in Council was an
admitted failure. Even in Virginia, which boasted in old davs
of a kind of Anglican establ^hment of its own, the slight
authority exercised by the commissary of the Bishop of London
was (as Archbishop Seeker himself observes) submitted to only
by consent. In point of fact, the Church governed itself, in an

1863. The Colonial Episcopate. 577

anomalous \axA of way. As the Bishop of Oxford shows in
his very carious volume on the history of the Episcopal Church
in America, ^the proper check on clerical imfitness ' (episcopal
government) ^ being thus wanting, the people began to sub-
' stitute another/ Vestries arrogated to themselves the
deficient disdpUnary authority. When, therefore, the Revolu-
tion came, somethmg like self-government was alreadj esta-
blished, and the ^General Convention' was but an expansion of
the old rough system, adapted to the republican character of
American institutions. But, in the next place, as regards the
enforcement of its discipline and management of its property,
the Church in the Unit^ States by no means rests on voluntary
obedience. The courts of law to which she has to appeal for
protection are guided by Acts, passed by the L^islature of
New York, and, as we bdieve, of most of tne states, ' providing
^ generally,' in ChanceUor Kent's language, ^ for the incoi^
' poration of religious societies, in an easy and pc^ular manner,
' and for the purpose of managing with more faculity and ad-
^ vantage the temporalities belonging to the church or congre-
< gation.'

Neglecting die real warning conveyed by these precedents,
the colonial church reformers endeavomred at first to constitute
governing bodies by mere voluntary agreement, without the
aid of law. Whv, it may be asked and has often been asked,
should they not? In the first place, because it is an open
question, and a doubtful one, how far the courts of law in a
colony would recognise as binding the decisions of any such body,
a voluntary and in a sense usurping authority, not known to
the mother church, and not resting, like the governments of
dissenting communities, on recognised usase. But before arriving
at this difficulty, a preliminary one had to be surmounted. Coula
the members of the Church meet at all, to constitute anv new
form of government by consent, without violating the law in
the attempt ?

Nothing could be more vehement — ^nothing, certainly, more-
startling — to those simple-minded people who were engaged
bond fide in the endeavour to establish some kind of mumcipal
administration in the colonial churches, than the sudden and
awful denunciations with which the proposal to create synods,
with purely voluntary or ^ consensmd ' authority, was met by
the l€^ing lawyers and politicians of England. It was then
all at once discovered, that though, as we have seen, spiritual
law has not been transplanted to the Colonies — though their
communities have not among them a single shred of eccle-
siastical authority, nor can the Crown confer it — yet all the

VOL. CXVIII. NO. CGXLII. P P

578 The Colonial Episcopate. Oct.

fences and safeguards with which common and statate law have
circumscribed the action of the Ohureh in this coontry sub*
sist^ by some strange and galvanised vitality, in these distaiit
regions. An Englishman, settling beyond the Pacific, shakes off
altogether all spiritual government. Nevertheleas^ he carries with
him (snch at least w^e the notions loudly expresaed) the Ae^
of Supremacy, Submission, Uniformity — the law of Prvununire
— the Articles, the Prayer Book, and the Rubric All these
are ' parts of the law of Engknd suited to lus condition ' whioh
follow him into unsettled regions as inseparably as the right of
self-taxation or trial by jury. He cannot meet with hia neigh-
bour to discuss the rules under which their new log chordi is
to be served and managed, without the risk of some strange
and formidable contravention of law. The Crown may, pos-
sibly, though that is doubtful, authorise his dergy to meet and
talk over their necessities, without absolute disobecfience ; but it
cannot give them the slightest power to remedy any one of
those necessities, and if they call in laymen to assist their
deliberations, this is little short of an act of rebellion.

Such irrational notions as these, so utterly unfounded on ooy^
intelligible principle, could not possibly have found currency in
any nation but our own. The practical absurdity, to whioh
they unavoidably led, would be treated, in oommunities leas
precedent-ridden, as amounting to refutation. But no amount
of consequent absurdity is received as the refutation of a
doctrine by a thorough English lawyer. It is sufficient for
him that this or that principle has been laid down by competent
authority, or may be collected by ingenious deductions firom
what has been laid down. Such a principle is thenoef(»rwanl
established, either as a certainty or a formidable probability^
although it be demonstrable in the plainest way that those who
laid it down, or laid down the data on which it is founded, bad
not, nor could have, the slightest conception of that new state
of things to which it is now sought to adapt it. Or, if no
principle be establbhed, sufficient suspicion of illegality is at all
events engendered to render all movement in a givmi directkm
impossible. The phantoms raised by legal ooniuriag ore, un-
fortunately, no shadows; they rather resemble those gndy
vampires of Northern legend, which used to get out of their
graves and do battle with living men. No effort at voluntary
oi^anisation could be safely made bv a colonial church, when
any discontented person might put the movers to the expense
of defending at law their right even to meet together for the
purpose. The only way which appeared open to the friends of
the proposed reform was to have recourse to Parliament for

1863. The Cdofdal Episcopate. 579

enabling Act. We need not recapitulate the enormous amount
of previous objection which they had to get over, arising merely
from the honest prejudices entertained by legal minds agiunst
an innoyation whieh ^m%ht lead no one knew where.' Mr.
Gladstone, however, urged on no doubt by his ecclesiastical
friends, so tkr prevailed as to introduce a bill for the purpose in
1852; but it was conceived on rather too ambitious a scale, and
perhaps deservedly failed to command support. In 1854 the
attempt was renewed by the present Lord Chancellor, who had
the advantage of having thoroughly weighed the subject, of
fully comprehending the real nature and extent of its legal
difficulties, and of being biassed by no theological passion; aud
the bill which he framed was of the simplest enabling character^
empowering the colonial clergy and laity to meet for the pur-
pose of framing regulations for internal government without
incurring legal d^^er, but earefully guarding the ri^ts of
other sects, of the colonial legislatures, and of the CTrown, and
the inviolability of the Prayer Book and Articles. The bill
had scarcely progressed beyond a second reading in the Com-
mons when it was assailed by one of those typhoons of
Parliamentary violence in which the wind seems to blow from
all quarters at once, in which reason and common sense cannot
make themselves heard, and in which the weatherwise can
only shake their heads, and observe that this kind of opposition
is usually directed not against what is before the House, but
against some concealed cause of unpopularity which lies in the
background. Every section of the House— except the few High
Churchmen — ^bad its fling at the measure. Dissenters saw in
it an attempt to create a State Chnrch. * Erastians ' saw in it
an attempt to deprive the Church of the fostering care of the
State. Irish Churchmen could not see why the Colonies should
want what Ireland can do without Roman Catholics could
not refrain from a decent exultation over the anarchy into
which the rival communion seemed to have fallen. Non-lawyers
avowed that they could not understand the bill — a measure on
a subject of some intricacy, at which they had looked for five
minutes — and they were therefore satisfied that the Solicitor-
general did not understand it himself. Lawyers could not help
enjoying the perplexity of a distinguished brother^ baited by- an
angry pack of laymen who preferred their law to his. Some more
refined objectors (not quite without reason, as we have already
said) thought that ^ Convocation was the real object of the
' measure, and that we should be met some years hence by a
' demand to place the Church at home upon the same footing
* as the Church of England in the Colonies.' In short, the

560 The Colonial Episcopate. Oct.

measure was withdrawn^ having encountered sucli a tumult of
disapproval as to show but too plainly, not that the purpose
itself was really objected to, but that the general subject was
one on which no prudent Minister could risk a Parliamentary
engagement

Defeated in this attempt, the friends of the movement were
driven to another resource. It was resolved to try what might
be done through the colonial legislatures. The recognised au*
thority and importance of these bodies had been long on the
increase. Lawyers were more and more disposed to regard
with respect their powers of legislation, and to relax those very
impracticable doctrines of former days which placed it out of
their power to enact anything contrary to Acts of Parlia-
ment, or to the ^ law of England ' generally. It was, there-
fore, at last conceded by English legal opinion, — ^though re*
luctantly, and as if ^ frustrate of its will,' — ^that the Act of a
colonial legislature, with the assent of the Crown, might con-
stitute on a firm basis a synod of mixed clergy and laity, with
powers to regulate the affairs of the Church of England in a
diocese, in the way both of discipline and the management of
property, even to the extent of controlling the appointment
and removal of the highest functionaries. This movement was
commenced at the same time at the two ends of the world — in
Victoria, where a law for the purpose was passed by the pro-
vincial legislature at the instance of the popular and able
bishop of the diocese ; in Canada, where the field was larger
and the difficulties greater, and overcome only by good manage-
ment on the part of the promoters of the bill, and by the
liberality and good sense of the Canadian legislature — a little
contrasted, we are sorry to say, with the temper exhibited by
the British. The Canadian Act received the Crown's assent
some years ago, after a lengthened argument before the Judi-
cial Committee of the Privy Council, which affirmed its vali-
dity. A similar measure has since been passed by the l^islatnie
of Tasmania. All these seem to be framed as nearly as may
be on the model of that which was hissed off the boards at
Westminster.

In South Australia, the bishop, with the clergy and laity of
his persuasion, adopted a different course. Instead of applying
to tne legislature of the colony for an enactment in order to get
rid of vxtiT supposed legal difficulties, they endeavoured to
effect the same piupose by a 'consensual compact.' That is to
say, certain 'nmoamental provisions and regulations' were
incorporated in an instrument adopted and signea by the bishop,
the priests, and 'lay communicating members representing the

1863. The Colonial Episcopate. 581

^ respective churches mentioned opposite their signatures and
< seais.' And by a synod, constituted under these regulations,
the Church of England in that colony has been administered
since 1855. It is of course obvious how much of real
difficulty and of apparent anomaly would be saved by such a
scheme, in which a plan of ecclesiastical government, essentially
voluntary in its character, is constituted by voluntary act and
not by law. But the misfortune is, that any arrangement
which has no more substantial foundation than this can really
endure only while the consent on which it is founded endures.
A troublesome minority — a single recalcitrant — may at any
time endanger the peace and unity of a body resting on no
legal warrant Such appears to have been the conviction of the
churchmen of South Australia ; for they have recently applied
to the legislature of the province to ratify their ' consensual
^ compact ' by a law. But that legislature, the child of Moles*
worth and of Wakefield, the very purest embodiment of philoso-
phical radicalism, took the alarm at once. The colony was
founded on * Anti-State-Church ' principles. To recognise the
existence of any Church at all, — even in the recital of an Act —
might not this be tampering with the evil thing? The result
seems to be, that the consideration of the subject is adjourned,
after a curious, but by no means ill-tempered, discussion be-
tween the chairman of the committee on the bill, and the bishop
as a witness before it ; in which, however, we must confess that
the bishop does not exactly make clear to our minds the precise
purpose for which he wants the measure, nor the chairman the
exact reasons of his opposition.

In these various ways, however, synods have been created
for purposes of government in some of our more important
colonial possessions. Although the subject of their proceedings
and success is one of great interest, we do not propose to enter
on it now. Nor, indeed, have they as yet been long enough in
active existence to allow of any fair judgment being passed on
their performances. There may be those among us who have
pretty strong opinions agsunst the expediency of synodical
government m any shape ; or, at all events, except for matters
of exceptional gravity. It friay be doubted whether the more
civilised communities of the world are not approaching an {^e
in which speech must be subordinate to the press ; in which the
advantages of public debate in popular bodies, even for purposes
of legislation, are more questionable than heretofore, it multo
fortiori for purposes of administration. It may be thought,
especially in ecclesiastical afiairs, that such assemblies furnish
rather a play-around for the noisier and more demonstrative

582 The Colonial Episcopate. Oct.

spirits^ while the real bnsineee is done by more influential mon
elsewhere. And it is certainly a disagreeable reflection, that
the real energy and spirit of such bo£es seems rarely to be
called out, except when the business before them is of a judicial
nature — to pronounce on the conduct of a man, or the contents
of a book — functions for which, from their partisanship, they are
peculiarly ill-adapted. Nor are we, for our own part, reassured
on these heads by the history of the synodical contests which
have occurred from time to time in the Episcopal Churches of
America and of Scotland. But be these things as they may^
synodical government, by bodies composed botih of clergy and
laity, is obviously the only alternative in our colonial churches
for episcopal autocracy or mere anarchy. We have to make
the best of it, and in ^s, as in other matters, we have to place
our confidence in that sound Anglo-Saxon spirit of the majority,
the spirit of organisation, of mutual compromise and ef tolerance^
which in other departments of adminbtration carries us ood-
tinually in safety through greater difficulties than tJiese.

Recently, however, the questions of law to which we have
alluded in thb article, respecting the legal status of the Churdi
of England in the Colonies^ have been brought more prominently
than ever before the public eye, by the judgment of the Judiciai
Committee of the !Privy Council in the remarkable case of
^ Long versus the Bishop of Cape Town.' The point actually
and necessarily decided in that case is perhaps, as we shall see,
one of comparatively small importance. But if the views re^
garding the general law which are expressed in the oouree of that
judgment be finally upheld — and they have all the authority
which the highest names in our existing judicature can give
them — then it will be clearly seen that the impediments under
which our Church labours in the Colonies are of no fanciful or
unsubstantial nature, and that comm(HL justice cries aloud for
their removal.

The Bishop of Cape Town, like so many of his bretbreo^
was anxious to establisn 'synodical government' on the Americaa
pattern in his diocese. We have said that this diocese was
constituted (very erroneously in our opinion) in a community
almost wholly belonging to the Dutch Keformed Church, and
in which the Anglican laity are very few» and form (if suoh a
description might be used without conveying offence) almost a
caste apart in the poptdation. Not quite unnaturally, the
Church of England is the object of little love in the colony, and
of some suspicion. It has been found impracticable (if we are
rightly informed) to induce the popular legislature to frame
any law on the Canadian pattern to authorise her self**goveni*

1863. The Cohnial Efi$copate. 583

ment. Under these drcumstanees^ the bishop resolved to
attempt to constitute synods bj voluntarj oi^anisation. He
relied for this purpose on the simple exercise of his episcopal
authority. He summoned his clergy to attend certain meetings.
And he directed them to give notice in their churches of these
intended meetings. Now the Bishop of Cape Town is no in*
experienced or over*zealous be^nner in the field of eode^
fliastical peptics. He is one of the (ddest colonial bishops in
date of appointment, a man of ability, and accustomed to
consider the legal questions which his office involves. He
could not but be awaro of the kind of opposition which such a
movement on his part was calculated to provoke : we are there-
fore doing him no injustice in conjecturing that he did so
voluntarily, determined to risk the chance of the collision in his
own person, and thus attaining, at all events, the end of demoi^-
stratmg the state of legal impotence under which he and his
fellows labour* So, of course, it turned out. The Kev»
Mr. Long, styled ^ incumbent of tiie parish of Mowbray,' re*
fused to obey either order. His reasons for the refund we
need not recapitulate hare : suffice it that they were grounded
on objections both to the legality and religious expediency of
the bishop's prooeediDgs. The bishop, after due* remonstrance,
summoned Mr. Long before himself (aided by assessors named
by himself), to show cause why he should not be suspended for
disobedience. Mr. Long appeared, but under protest. He
was suspended. He treated the sentence as a nullity, and con^
tinued to offidate. On this a further soitence of deprivation
wns pronounced by l^e bishop against him. Mr. Long applied
for protection to the Supreme Court of the colony, presided over
by two British lawyers and one colonial jurist. The proceeding
took the form of a suit, ^ according to the Roman-Dutch law,^
with the details of which we need not trouble our readers, l^e
bishop's counsel rested his right to convene synods, and to
require the attendance of his clergy at such synods, on his
general authority as a bishop of the Universal Church ; on his
special powi^s aaa bishop of the Church of England, conveyed
to him by his letters patent: and, lastly, on the supposed
consent of Mr. Long to be governed by his bishop according to
the usage of the Churdi of England. The Court (by a majority
of two judges to one), decided in favour of the bbhop (on tli^
16th February, 1862). They gave, indeed, but slight attention
to the supposed claim from the abstract rights of the epscopate.
They were of opinion that the right to ffovem his clergy con-
veyed to the bishop by his letters patent had no force inthecolony,
because the date of those letters patent was subsequent to the

584 The Colonial Episcopate. Oct

grant of a popular constitution to the Cape, by which all power
in the Crown to establish ecclesiastical law there, if it ever
existed, was virtually abrogated. But they, or at least the
majority, were convinced by the concluding argument of the
bishop, grounded as it is on one of those poetic fictions so wel*
come to the British lawyer, that the Rev. Mr. Long had in truth
^ven the bishop full ecclesiastical jurisdiction over himself by
* consent' That is to say, that because Mr. Long hM taken the
oath of canonical obedience to his bishop, and accepted an appoint-
ment to a cure 'under a deed which expressly contemplates
' as one means of avoidance the removal of the incumbent for
' any lawful cause, ' therefore he had, by consent, introduced into
the colony, as against himself, a large portion of Bums' Eccle-
siastical Law. Upon this singular mode of reasoning, Mr.
Long was held to have disobeyed the lawful orders of his
bishop, which he, personally, had contracted to obey, although
it was acknowledged by the Colonial Court that the bishop
derived from his Tetters patent no power to issue such orders :
and judgment went in the bishop's favour accordingly.

Mr. Long appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council. And here, as constantly happens on appeals, die
general questions having been well 'ventilated' as the lawyers
phrase it, and disposed of, in the proceedings before the Court
below, tlie really weak special point in the bishop's case,
which had previously been rather overlaid in the wider contro-
versy, came prominently forward. Admitting every other
point decided in favour of the bishop, was his order to attend
a synod of mixed clergy and laity (or to give notice thereof) a
' lawful ' order ? Mr. Long has suomitted (by implication) to be
deprived of his cure * for any cause which (having regard to any
' difierence which may arise from the circumstances of the
' colony) would authorise the deprivation of a clergyman by his
' bbhop in England.' Was refusal to attend or give notice
of a mixed synod such a cause ? Obviously not When the
case came to be thus sifted, the bishop had really no ground
whatever to stand on. No bishop in England could convdke
such a synod, much less punish a clergyman for refusing to
.itttend it Neither, then, could the bishop of Ciq>e Town.
Assuming either of his main positions* in his fitvour — assuming
that his letters patent did give him the power of an En^ish
bishop — assuming that Mr. Long had consented to be subject
to the powers of an English bishop, — this was an order tran*
scending the powers of an English bishop, and Mr. Long was
therefore justified in his resistance.

This, we say, was the point really at issue before the Jndidal

1863. Tlie Colonial Episcopate. 585

Committee. The Court, however (possibly from a sense of the
importance of the subject) went farther than the issue in Mr.
Long's case absolutely required. They recited the conclu-
sion of the Court below, that under the circumstances of the
case the Bishop possessed no jurisdiction, ecclesiastical or civil,
by virtue of his letters patent : and declared that in this con-
clusion they agreed. How far this strong declaration of
opinion may be ultimately regarded as conclusive, time will
show ; but it derives much additional force from the eminence
of the names attached to the judgment in question. Lord
Kingsdown, Dr. Lushington, and Sir John Coleridge, who
heard the case and concurred in the judgment, are beyond
doubt the three judges best qualified to decide such a question
in its relations to equity, to the law of the Church, and to the
common law. The result is the reinstatement of Mr. Long
in his cure: a result against which it appears the Bishop
protests as an invasion of his spiritual rights. For in the
singularly ill-judged paper which Dr. Gray has addressed
to the churchwardens of St. Peter's, Mowbray, since the
judgment of the Privy Council reached the Cape of Oood
Hope, he treats the case throughout as if it were an appeal
from his ecclesiastical jurisdiction to the Queen in Council,
whereas the judgment under review was the judgment
of the Supreme Court — a purely civil tribunal — and the
question really was whether the Bishop had any authority in
dealing with ms clergy to override the law of the land. It is
important that it shoidd be understood by such bishops as Dr.
Gray, that they have no authority whatever but what the law
gives them, and that the appellate jurisdiction of the Queen,
which condemned him, was not ecclesiastical, but simply a
review of the decision of a colonial Civil Court, to which as a
resident at the Cape of GxmkI Hope he was subject

Such appear to be the legal disabilities, or difficulties, which
at present impede the free action of the Church of England in
the greater part of the dominions of the Crown. We have no
wish to exaggerate them. If that Church has real vitality — if
she possesses those qualities of the higher order which fit her
to go forth conquering and to conquer — it is not by the fetters
of mere chicanery that her triumphant progress will be impeded.
But regarded from a lower point of view, the perplexity is
considerable, and the way to escape from it not easily to be con-
jectured. If, indeed, the doctrine of consent, on which the
Supreme Court of the Cape relied, and which the Judicial
Committee r^arded with no disfavour, may be considered as
established, it would i^pear at first sight that the most pressing-

586 The Colonial JEpitcopate. Oet

part of the diffiouUj vms overcome. If the odonial clergj, by
merely taking the oath of canonical obedience to a bishop, baye
it fact subjected themselves to the entire body of eeclesiastieal
law, then it can no longer be said that the condition of the
Church is one of anarchy. The bishop mn^ then be tak^i
to be vested with episcopal authority in spiritual matters, to
which authority all the clergy who acknowledge obedience to
him are oanonically bound to submit, as long as such authority is
lawfully exercised. But this definition of his powers evidently
leaves a wide margin for discussion, and for the ultimate inters
vention of the Civil Courts; and every one knows, in practice,
how impossible it is to rest so enormous a superstructure on so
narrow a basis. The attempt would only produce more litiga**
tion than it would extinguish. And, even if this were other-
wise, the establishment of ecclesiastical law is not what is
wanted, but the power to form a government and a legislature
which shall suit themselves to the altered wants of our tim6&
This, it seems, can hardly be done except by calling in the aid
of the law in the shape of some enactment^ eitlier colonial or
parliamentary. It may be the due Nemesis for past centuries
of oppression, but we confess there is to us something of humili-
ation in the spectacle now too often witnessed of whole commu-
nities of our brethren, members of the Church of England in
the colonies, vainly besieging the dooro of local l^slatures,
composed of men o£ other persuasions^ and either indifferent or
actuated by the lingering spirit of ancient hostility, not to aak
for exclusive rights or privileges, but merely for power to
govern themselves. And even if this road to justice were lees
obstructed, it behoves us as churchmen to have our eyes open
to another danger.. If the Church of England, in every colony^
is to have her synodical government constituted according to
the will of the legislature of that colony, uniformity of govern-
ment will be difficult to maintain, and yet on this uniformity
of doctrine and discipline will be found mainly to depend* Far
better would it be for the Church — far better, in truth, for all
parties concerned*— if Parliament would do what it was invited
to do in 1854, and pass, once for all, an organic law, enabling
the Anglicans of every colony to frame for themselves the
polity under which then: church is to subsist. Whether the
governing body so to be constituted should, or should not, have
power to alter the fundamental laws of our Churdi as estab-
lished by the Act of Uniformity — should have power, in other
words, to break off' communion with the Church at home if
it pleased — is a serious question, on which we will not now
enter. Not the slightest encroachment on the independence

1863. The Colonial Episcopate, 587

of the colonial legislatures need be effected hj such enactment^
for it should be carefully provided that every such legislature
should have the amplest power to alter^ or^ if necessary, to
repeal^ the enactment itself. No one wishes to force the con-
sent of those local legislatures. All that is desired is, to set
the machine in motion. But we fear that all such suggestions
are in truth unavailing. The broad maxim, that Parliament is
not to legislate for the colonies, will override all exceptional
projects, however reasonable in themselves. It will override
them, partly dirough a righteous deference to constitutional prin-
ciples, much more because no British Government^ constituted
as governments now are, will dare to con&ont possible enmi-
ties for the sake of so remote and unpractical an interest as that
of ecclesiastical administration. Meanwhile the episcopal au-
thorities can but struggle on to the best of their ability, substi-
tuting the machinery of persuasion and consent for that of esta-
blished jurisdiction. And if it is abundantly necessary that
they should remember how unfitting arrogant pretensions or
rash attempts to extend their sphere of action are in the case
of functionaries so slenderly armed with power as themselves,
much more should their subordinates be on their guard against
allowing the spirit of opposition, or the pride of independence,
or self-will in things indifferent, to set them in hostility to rulers
who so peculiarly stand in need of affectionate support and
encouragement.

No. CCXLIIL will be published in January^ 1864.

r

[ 589 ]

INDEX.

A

Antiquity of Man^ 254. See Lyell.

Architecturey Modem Styles of 71 — Mr. Fergnsson's history, 71.

Austin^ John, his Lectares on Jurisprudence) reyiewed, 439.

B

Blancy M. L., Histoire de la Revolution Fran9d8e, reyiewed, 101.

Bolingbrokey Lord, Life o^ 404 — ^his first session, 408 — Harlej and
St John, 412 — ^Marlborough, 414— Swift's writings, 418 — ^nego-
tiations with France, 418 — mission to Paris, 423 — peace of
Utrecht, 424— Bolingbroke and Oxford, 424— death of the Queen,
427 — ^Bolingbroke attainted, 430— compositions in exile, 431—
Pope*s letters, 433— Bolingbroke*s ' Patriot King,* 435.

C

Chinehonoy Cultivation o^ in India, 507 — ^Peruvian bark, 509 —
vegetable alkaloids, 511 — ^Dr. Boyle, 513— Mr. Markham's mission,
514 — Mr. Spruce's collection, 515 — Mr. McIvor*s plantation at
Dodabetta, 517 — Mr. Howard's Report, 519— cultivation in Cey-
l<Hi, 520— cotton of Peru, 521.

Claverhousey Memorialt of, 1 — Sharpe's, Mr., 3 — daverhouse's first
campaign, 8 — ^letters to the Duke of Queensbeny, 11 — doings in
1679, 11— Scotland in 1684, 14— John Brown, 15— Wigton
martyrs, 17 — Mr. Napier's opinion, 20-— evidence against him, 26
— history of Claverhouse, 34— Napier's literary merits, 38.

Coles, Capt, his Iron-clad sea-going Shield Ships^ reviewed, 166.

D

Druids and Bards, 40 — ^Druidical hierarchy, 45— Higgins' specula-
tions, 48 — Ogham Alphabet, 50 — ^Druidic contact with primitive
Christianity, 53 — Scandinavian Sagas, 65 — Stonehenge, 58 —
Welsh bard^ 62— Gildas, 64—' Brut y Tywysogion,' 69.

E

Episcopate, Colonial, the, 552 — question of Episcopacy, 553^
functional and administrative purposes of bishops, 556--^nissionary
bishoprics, 558— endowment of colonial bishoprics, 561 — position
of the Church of England in the colonies, 565— objections to our
colonial episcopate, 567 — ^theory of colonial government, 574 —
government of the colonial church, 576 — ^voluntary organisation,
577 — synodical government, 581— 4egal status of the church in
the colonies, 582— Bishop of Cape Town and Mr. Long, 582.

F
Fergusson, James, his Modern Styles of Architecture, reviewed, 71 —
renaissance, 72 — new Houses of Parliament^ 73— Grothic and
classical ornamentation, 74— northern architecture, 78— renais-

H^

592 Index.

Q

Queensland^ 305 — ^Dr. Lang^s services, 306 — Clarence and Rich-
mond Rivers, 308 — extent of Queensland, 309— ' Capricomia^'
310 — ^Aastralian transportation, 312 — ^natural features of Queens-
land, 314 — ^its sea-boaixl, 314 — ^Brisbane, 316 — Great Coast Range,
317 — rivers, 317 — ^Darling Downs, 318 — crops, 319 — ^Australian
squatters^ 320 — sheep-farmers, 323— discovery of gold, 325 — I^nd
Bills, 326— late explorations, 331— Sturt's Stony Desert, 331—
sugar and tobacco, 334 — ^indigo, 337 — cotton, 338.

R

Raymondy Xavier, Marines de la France et de I'Angleterre, reviewed,
166.

Royal Aeademyt the, 483 — Mr. Sandby's History, 483— constitution of
the Royal Academy, 487 — ^its services, 489— state of the schools, 249
— ^the Exhibition, 494 — ^Report of Royal Commission, 495— Aca-
demicians and Associates, 496 — ^Mr. Cope's evidence^ 499 — ^hono-
rary members, 500 — connexion between the arts and sciences,
502 — ^lectures, 503 — ^the Academy and the National Grallery, 506.

S

Sandby^ W., his History of the Royal Academy, reviewed, 483.

SeoU in France— French in Scotland, 230~M. Michel's work, 230—
Scottish mercenaries, 234 — Scotch colonies, 238— continent^ trade,
239 — Scotch educational establishments, 243— Scotchmen absorbed
by France, 248 — French ecclesiastical preferments, 249.

Speke, Captain, his Memoirs communicated to the Royal Geogra-
phical Socie^, reviewed, 207.

StoHsHcal Register of Queensland for 1860-^2, reviewed, 305.

Survey, Cadastral, of Great Britain, 378— General Roy, 380 —

. triangulation of Gk'eat Britain, 382 — survey of Ireland, 389—
Colonel Colby, 389 — the scale, 390 — report of the royal commission,
392— errors of the opponents of a large scale, 394— 25-inch scale,
396 — ^Photozincography, 396 — Sir Henry James's invention, 397
— plates electro^^»ed, 397 — ^tithe commissioners' maps, 398.

T

Tara : a Mahratta Tale, 542 — its interest, 543 — ^native aspect of
India, 544— empire of Siviyee, 545 — chief personages of the tale,
545— the heroine, 545-^Afzool Khan and Sivajee, 546.

W

Wight, Dr., his Introduction of the Cotton Plants of the Peruvian

Coast Valleys into the Madras Presidency, reviewed, 507.
Williams ab Ithel, Rev. J., his Brut y Tywysogion, reviewed, 40.
Wilson, Dr., his Prehistoric Man, reviewed, 254.

THE END OP VOL. CXVIII.

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