Chapter XXX: Part 30

It is not a matter of much consequence whether Fitton was only 'one Fitton,' as Hume calls him, or a descendant of one of the most aristocratic families of Cheshire, as Mr. O'Flanagan, on undoubted evidence, assures us. Neither does anyone dispute the fact that he was convicted of the crime of forgery, and lay several years in prison. The question is, was he guilty of the crime? Our author says--'There is some doubt whether he was chargeable with the guilt which has been so unsparingly imputed to him;' but he cannot deny that a jury of twelve men had no hesitation on their oath in attaching forgery to his name. What, then, are the facts of the case? These are recounted at some length by Mr. O'Flanagan, following the admirable and now rare 'County History of Cheshire,' by Ormerod; but he has not fairly followed his authority, as his narrative omits passage after passage that bears most hardly against Fitton. We are also to remember that Ormerod's own authority was a tract written in Fitton's own justification, under the following title:--'A True Account of the Proceedings in the several suits in Law that have been between the Right Honorable Charles Lord Gerard of Brandon and Alexander Fitton, Esq. Published for general satisfaction by a lover of truth. Hague: Printed MDCLXIII. Small 4to, 49 pp.' There was also another tract published, which, perhaps, Ormerod never saw, under the title--'A Reply to a Paper intituled, A New Account of the Unreasonableness of Mr. Fitton's pretences against the Earl of Macclesfield.' (British Museum, Parl. Law Cases, vol. v., p. 117.) The facts of the case as narrated in these tracts by Fitton's friends, may be briefly described. Sir Edward Fitton, who was childless, resolved in 1641, after paying his debts and bequeathing legacies to his sisters' children, to restore the ancient entail of the Gawsworth estates, and sealed it by indenture dated 9th Nov., 17 Car., on William Fitton, his next male kinsman, the father of Alexander Fitton, the Irish Lord Chancellor. In this settlement there was a power of revocation. It is said to have been confirmed by deed-poll, dated April 3, 18 Car., by Sir Edward Fitton, who died two years after at Bristol. The allegation is that this deed-poll was forged by Alexander Fitton, or, at his instance, by Alexander Grainger. After Sir Edward's death, his widow, Lady Fitton, retained possession of Gawsworth as her jointure; but on her death, after a series of lawsuits instituted against the sisters of Sir Edward Fitton, who were determined to retain the estate, William Fitton succeeded in getting Gawsworth into his possession, and his son, Alexander, afterwards succeeded upon his marriage in getting hold of all the property by paying off a number of mortgages against it. But nineteen years after Sir Edward Fitton's death, as this tract states, his nephew, Lord Gerard, produced a will bequeathing the estates to himself, as the son of one of Sir Edward's sisters; though it was stated, on the other side, that immediately before his death, Sir Edward said 'he would rather settle his estate on Ned Fitton, the bonny beggar, than on any one of his sisters' children.' The parties then went to law, Alexander Fitton relying on the deed-poll, and Lord Gerard maintaining that it was not genuine. The High Court of Chancery directed a trial at law to be had at Westminster upon this special issue, whether the deed-poll was the act of Sir Edward Fitton or not; for it had been rumoured that Lord Gerard's solicitor had prevailed upon Abraham Grainger to swear that he had forged Sir Edward's hand to the deed. The question came on for trial; the deed was substantiated--to use Ormerod's words--by the evidence of Mr. Richard Davenport, Mr. Edmund Barwick, and Mr. Thomas Smallwoods, whose deposition was taken on his deathbed by Mr. Edge, a clergyman; but the forgery was, on the other hand, fully acknowledged by Grainger himself, corroborated by the evidence of Gifford and Wheeler; and it was also deposed by Colonel R. Ashton,--Webb, Esq., Thomas Adams, Thomas Cotton, Captain Holland, and others, that they had heard Mr. Fitton confess that Grainger had forged a deed for him for £40. Depositions to Mr. Fitton's character were taken, and three witnesses not named are said to have sworn they had seen the deed-poll before the time alleged for the forgery. It was objected to Fitton that he could not prove where he had the deed, or who engrossed it; that it had not been mentioned at the former trials or at Fitton's marriage; and that the witnesses could not remember where it was executed. The jury found that the deed was forged. Now, let it be remembered that this narration comes from the Fitton party; and yet Mr. O'Flanagan holds Fitton guiltless in the teeth of the verdict of an independent jury in London, who heard both sides of the case. But the narrative does not end here. Processes were issued commanding several of Fitton's witnesses to appear before the King's Bench on an information of perjury. Then, says Mr. O'Flanagan, 'Grainger, conscience-stricken, declared his prevarication in a written document, stating that he had not forged the deed; that this document was signed in the presence of twelve or thirteen gentlemen.' Our author's version of Ormerod's history is singularly defective and one-sided. Ormerod says that Grainger--according to the tract--begged earnestly for an opportunity of acknowledging his guilt to Fitton; and, farther, did so before a citizen of London, not named, and a kinsman of Fitton's, not named; and then wrote a narrative which he read before twelve or thirteen gentlemen. But Ormerod says that these 'gentlemen' 'were all most probably in low situations, and are in no way identified.' The narration itself relates the most improbable circumstances, as, for example, that in March, 1661, Grainger, the narrator, was pulled off his horse, taken before Sir Allen Aspley, who committed him to the Gatehouse without examination; that he was in danger of being murdered in his bed by one Rowe; that he was threatened with hanging, and with getting his hands cut off, if he would not forge the will. Was there ever such an improbable story? And yet Mr. O'Flanagan passes over this statement in silence, without referring to Ormerod's honest judgment, that even the inference from Grainger's facts is in favour of Lord Gerard, and that the evidence of a perjured witness was of no value unless corroborated by independent testimony. We have good reason, then, to believe that not only did Fitton secure the forgery of the deed in the first instance, but that he induced Grainger to issue his recantation in the shape of the narration referred to. For the House of Lords, immediately after its publication, ordered two copies of it to be burned, one at Westminster and another at Chester, 'at such time as Lord Gerard should appoint,' and inflicted the following severe punishment on Fitton and three others:--'That Alexander Fitton should be fined to his Majestie in the summe of £500; and should be committed close prisoner to the King's Bench Prison until he should produce Grainger, and should find sureties for his good behaviour during life; and that Edward Floyd, John Cade, and John Wright (three of the witnesses), should be committed to the Fleet during the King's pleasure, and should, before their enlargement, find sureties for their good behaviour during life.' It is evident from this very stringent proceeding of the House of Lords that they connected Fitton very directly with the disappearance of Grainger, and that Grainger was either unable or unwilling to come forward to stand the ordeal of a public examination upon the circumstances of his recantation.

We submit, then, that Archbishop King--'with all his hatred of Catholicity'--was perfectly warranted in saying that Sir Alexander Fitton was 'a person detected of forgery, not only at Westminster and Chester, but likewise fined by the House of Lords in Parliament' (p. 65). Mr. O'Flanagan has no evidence to offer against Dr. King's further statement that he was an inefficient and partial judge, for the mere negative evidence that the Irish bar did not express any dissatisfaction with his decisions is not worth the slightest consideration. He admits that Fitton did consult one Dr. Stafford, a Popish priest, before giving some of his decisions; but then Stafford was made a Master in Chancery by the same power that placed Fitton at the head of Irish law; for, as King remarks, the Chancellor 'was forced to make many needless references to the Masters in causes that had no difficulty in them.' Stafford, 'the learned and _loyal_,' Mr. O'Flanagan calls him, may have been 'an eminent doctor of the civil law,' but the Reverend Master in Chancery who perished at Aughrim in cheering on the courage of the Irish troops was not exactly the person best fitted to dispense justice in such critical times--side by side, be it remembered, with Felix O'Neal, another Master, son of Turlogh O'Neal, the bloody rebel and murderer of 1641. We do not believe, then, that Mr. O'Flanagan has succeeded in the slightest degree in 'removing the stain' upon the character of Fitton.

_Select Charters and other Illustrations of English Constitutional History, from the earliest times to the reign of Edward the First_, arranged and edited by WILLIAM STUBBS, M.A., Regius Professor of Modern History. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1870. Pp. xii. 531.

This volume is intended to be, primarily, a 'treasury of references; an easily handled repertory of the _Origines_ of English Constitutional history; and, secondarily, a manual for teachers and scholars, with a view to the first purpose.' Professor Stubbs has collected 'in it every constitutional document of importance during the period which it covers;' and with a view to the second, he has also 'pointed out the bearings of the several documents on one another, and on the national polity,' in his prefatory remarks to each of them, 'supplying in the introductory sketch, a string of connexion and a continuous theory of the development of the system.'

As 'the first traces of our national history must be sought for, not in Britain, but in Germany--in the reports given by Cæsar and Tacitus of the tribes which they knew;' reports in which we have indeed a 'somewhat indistinct picture,' yet 'one which when interpreted by the clearer history of the later stages of the institutions which are common to the Teutonic race, does give a probable and consistent representation' of them. The Professor's first extracts are taken from the 'Commentarii' of one of these authors, and the 'Germania' of the other. These are followed by others taken from Mr. Thorp's translation of the 'Ancient Laws and Institutes of the Anglo-Saxons.' The remainder of the volume consists of 'Select Charters and Excerpts,' illustrated by carefully selected passages from the chronicles of the several periods, as well as by other historical documents not easily accessible to any who have not the command of a public library, and some of which are to be read only in MS., all bearing upon the 'long struggle of the constitution for existence,' which terminated only with the reign of Edward I. There are only two documents of a later date given--the 'Petition of Eight,' of 1628, and the 'Bill of Rights' of 1689; both of which are printed in an appendix.

Mr. Stubbs thus states his reasons for closing his labours with the reign of the first Edward. It is 'the period of time at which the nation may be regarded as reaching its full stature. It has not yet learned its strength, nor accustomed itself to economise its power. Its first vagaries are those of a people grown up, but not disciplined. To trace the process by which it learned the full strength of its organism,--by which it learned to use its powers and forces with discrimination and effect,--to act easily, effectually, and economically,--or, to use another metaphor, to trace the gradual wear of the various parts of the machinery, until all roughnesses were smoothed, and all that was superfluous, entangling, and confusing was got rid of, and the balance of forces adjusted, and their action made manageable and intelligible, and the power of adaptation to change of circumstances fully realized, is the story of later politics--of a process that is still going on, and must go on as the age advances, and men are educated into, wider views of government, national unity, and political responsibility. We stop, however, with Edward I., because the machinery is now completed, the people are at full growth. The system is raw, and untrained, and awkward, but it is complete. The attaining of this point is to be attributed to the defining genius, the political wisdom, and the honesty of Edward I., building on the immemorial foundation of national custom; fitting together all that Henry I. had planned, Henry II. organized, and the heroes of the thirteenth century had inspired with fresh life and energy'--(pp. 50, 51).

The value of the volume is considerably enhanced by a glossary that might be extended with great advantage, and especially so if made to include the French and Anglo-Saxon words, as well as the Latin ones, which are employed in the body of the work. It would also be well if in some cases the definitions were to be accompanied by references and quotations after the manner of Ducange. The learned Professor would, moreover, render good service to students and teachers alike, if he were to add such explanatory notes to some of his excerpts as he well knows how to compile. The volume ought to be no stranger in any of our colleges, and well deserves a place in the 'curricula' of our public schools. It will not be without its interest and its value also to the general reader.

_The War Correspondence of the 'Daily News.'_ 2 vols., Macmillan and Co.

_Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris._ Hurst and Blackett.

_Journal of the Siege of Paris._ By the Hon. CAPTAIN BINGHAM. Smith, Elder, and Co.

_Letters on the War._ By T. MOMMSEN, D.F.

STRAUSS, F. MAX MÜLLER, and T. CARLYLE. Trübner and Co.

_The Great Duel._ By W. R. GREG. Trübner and Co.

When the history of the war of 1870 comes to be written, it will furnish scope for genius the most various and the most profound. A greater Jomini will be needed to elucidate the tactics that decided greater battles than Borodino or Austerlitz; to unweave for us the intricate web of the great strategist's plans; to solve for us the problem whether he is a superstition and a fetish, reaping the glory sown by the organization and _morale_ of his troops, or the silent centre from which was directed the regulated play of such tremendous forces. But though the time for the military critic or the philosophical historian has not yet come, the events and scenes of the war, as they photographed themselves in the eye of the spectator, are full of immediate interest, and demand for their adequate description the highest order of picturesque power. Probably no accounts of the recent campaign so amply satisfied our modern thirst for the picturesque as the letters written to the _Daily News_. The moving panorama of the battle-field, the scientific deploying of vast masses, the heroism of attack or repulse, were brought close to our eyes. The description of the battle of Gravelotte reads like a page torn out of Tacitus, and for awful vividness might stand by the side of Thucydides' narrative of the plague. So swiftly have events passed out of chronicle into history, that the accounts of the early battles of the war--Weissenburg, Wörth, Forbach, will even now bear reperusal, and contain much that in our hungry desire for the salient facts was omitted at the first reading. Till a spectator of the entire course of the war shall fuse his impressions of the moment with his mature reflections, and produce a continuous living narrative of the whole, these letters will probably remain the best compendium of the history of the last eight months. We may add that the republication comprises many of the letters of the veracious 'Besieged Resident.' They are at least amusing, and give the proper seasoning of farce to the tragedy.

The 'Besieged Resident' remained in Paris during the siege 'to enjoy a new sensation.' He had new sensations in abundance; and generously gave the British public, through the medium of the _Daily News_, the benefit of his experiences. They were sufficiently varied, for he went in search of them--grotesque, for fidelity to fact is not his strong point--and amusing, for he is the liveliest of _persifleurs_. The personal element in these letters was unquestionably that which gave them their charm; the siege as it affected the 'Besieged Resident,' rather than the 'Besieged Resident' reporting on the siege, seemed to be the subject of them. How his clothes were held together by an infinity of pins, how his boots had burst in half-a-dozen places, and how horse did not assimilate with his inner man, were facts which made the Philistine's breakfast an interesting meal during the siege. Now that the letters have been published in a complete form, these important facts seem less prominent, and we are able to recognize the real value of the narrative as a history of opinion--journalistic, Bellevilleite, and _bourgeois_, during the four months of the investment. The description is not flattering. The 'Besieged' plays the part of valet to the Parisian heroes, and sees very little of heroism but a great deal of braggadocio. A somewhat cynical temper perhaps lends some exaggeration to mere common-place folly; but it seems certain that the despicable traits and unworthy actions of which the 'Besieged' is the chronicler will have to be taken into account in any truthful narrative of the great siege. On the whole, it does not seem likely that the 'Besieged' will be superseded in his self-assumed function by any subsequent chronicler.

Captain Bingham is a more prosaic narrator than the 'Besieged Resident,' but there was so much to be seen that he has many incidents to relate without touching on ground already occupied. His book is a consecutive narrative of facts, which are all the more trustworthy that they take no colouring from the individuality of the writer.

The 'Letters on the War' are of no evanescent interest, but are a permanent contribution to the literature of the subject. The writers of them are the Titans of the Teutonic race, whose clear duty it is to speak out, as the prophets of old spoke out, in a great crisis of history. Those of Dr. Strauss and Mr. Carlyle are the most important historically, as they are also the most interesting. Mr. Carlyle's historic retrospect reaches back to Louis XI., and is meant to show what a terribly bad neighbour France has been to Germany for the last 400 years. He describes the grand 'plunderings and incendiarisms of Europe' by the French, and he believes that Germany would be a 'foolish nation not to think of raising up a secure boundary fence against such a neighbour.' And why should not Alsace and Lorraine be restored to their original owners? The only titles of France to them are the 'cunning of Richelieu and the grandiose long-sword of Louis XIV.' He has pity for France but no sympathy; acknowledges her services to civilization and the grandeur of her 'Insurrection against shams,' in 1789; but believes that the German race is now to be protagonist in the 'immense world-drama.' Dr. Strauss's argument is, like Mr. Carlyle's, historical, but with diminished perspective, and from a different point of view. He traces the history of the movement towards national unity, travailing towards birth through the obstructions of the reactionary despotisms, planted by the diplomacy of Vienna, the abortive revolution of 1848, and the apathy or despair of all but the enthusiasts. He accepts the creed of Bismark; unity could only be obtained through force, as Hegel saw seventy years ago.

In Mr. Greg's pamphlet and letters we admire the dexterity of the practised swordsman, whose convictions are chiefly a matter of logic.

_Her Majesty's Tower._ By WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON. Vols. III. and IV. Hurst and Blackett.

We might as well surrender at discretion to Mr. Dixon. He is as confirmed in his ways as we in our critical canons. What the late lamented George Robins was among auctioneers--what M. Jullien was among musicians--what Dumas _père_ was among novelists--what the 'besieged resident' is among newspaper correspondents--Mr. Dixon is among historians; _what_ it is not easy to say. He alike provokes and interests us. Our taste is offended; our critical conscience protests. Murdered Clio, like Banquo's ghost, sits in Mr. Dixon's place and 'shakes his gory locks.' The meretricious style--the superb magniloquence--the broad statements--the highly coloured pictures--the irrepressible affinities for what is coarse, make us fume with impatience and exclaim with anger: but we must read on; in spite of ourselves we are interested, although with the uneasy pleasure of a sin. We must, however, be just. Whether it be that our taste has adapted itself, or that Mr. Dixon has improved, we are bound to say that in reading these volumes our pleasure has been less alloyed, and has secured a larger measure of our good conscience than in reading any of his previous works. Some of his descriptions are well toned in their brilliancy, there are fewer catapult sentences, good taste is less frequently violated, extravagances of assertion are less daring, and altogether he inspires greater historic confidence, and excites more literary pleasure. Happily, however, we are released from all reasonable obligation to apply historic tests. Mr. Dixon tells us that he has not 'cared to fret the reader by a dozen references in every page to pipe-rolls, doquets, warrant-books, and council registers.' Such things, we admit, are encumbering; they are vulgar, moreover, and altogether unworthy the dignity of history, and are only temptations to irreverent readers. It is pleasant to read a well-printed page, undisfigured by a single reference, to be unable to distinguish too nicely between a 'doquet' and 'the caricatures' which Miss Burdett Coutts has lent him. We read 'Her Majesty's Tower' as we read 'Kenilworth' or 'Richard III.' If it be neither history nor fiction, it is something better than either, and it is well by the absence of all references to be released from the responsibility of determining which. Mr. Dixon certainly does possess considerable narrative and descriptive ability. His literary art is great. He cannot be dull. Whether he also possesses patient power of historical research, and a judicial faculty of exact presentation, we have no means of judging; but it is conceivable that with these, combined with adequate scholarship, he might have trodden not unworthily in the footsteps of Macaulay. We regret that he has chosen to write after the fashion of the _Daily Telegraph_--to lay himself out for sensations--the result of which is a series of volumes which might have been brilliant history, but which are only sensational articles.

In the range of these volumes Mr. Dixon is essentially a free lance. The first of the two is almost entirely occupied with George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the infamous favourite of our British Solomon, and with the base intrigues and dirty scandals of his court,--why it is impossible to say, inasmuch as, except that some of his victims were imprisoned in it, Villiers had no more to do with her Majesty's Tower than Macedon had with Monmouth, nor so much, for Villiers does not begin with a T. It is, in fact, a romance of Whitehall, of which Villiers is the hero. And it is by no means a clean one; that under any circumstances it could hardly be, but, as Mr. Dixon tells it, it is like a bad dream. Throughout we feel the evil suggestion. Mr. Dixon seems to delight in keeping us on the verge of nastiness, and to have peculiar unction in reiterating such offensive epithets as the one he applies to Dean Williams. We think that the dirty intrigues and unsavoury stories with which the author of 'Spiritual Wives' has filled this section of his work might, without much detriment to our knowledge of either history or social manners, have been left in the obscure records from which they have been culled. The career of Villiers, the son of a poor knight, who began life as an amateur comedian, and in that character pleased the pedantic voluptuary James, and was rapidly elevated through a succession of offices and dignities until, when he fell beneath Felton's knife, he was Duke of Buckingham and the most potent courtier in England, is an inseparable part of the history of England; and the shameless corruption and profligacy of James's court, of women like the 'parent,' as Mr. Dixon chooses to label the mother of Villiers, and indeed of almost every circle of fashionable life, are as vitally connected with the convulsions that followed, as the Courts of Louis XIV. and XV. are with the French Revolution. But what connection there is between the details of Buckingham's rascality and of his mad escapade into Spain with Prince Charles, and the Tower of London, passes our comprehension. The only pretence of a connection is, that on the safe arrival at home of Buckingham and the Prince certain prisoners in the Tower were liberated. Williams, who was first a Welsh curate, and then, as the reward of being a hateful pander, was exalted to be first Dean of Westminster, and ultimately Archbishop of York, is a despicable character, and history will not qualify Mr. Dixon's portrait of him. 'Little Laud' was made use of by 'the parent' as his successful rival. He was destined to play a part in the tragedy which followed that he little dreamed of.

In Eliot, Mr. Dixon has a genuine hero of the Tower. His account of him is almost unexceptionable, only, one remembers that here he had the advantage of the previous labours of Mr. Forster. Eliot, for his fearless and incorruptible patriotism, endured a long imprisonment in the Tower. He died in it--one of its noble army of martyrs. For seven years after his death, as is well known, no Parliament was called in England. Mr. Dixon in trying to be magniloquent is almost profane when he tells us that of this period 'Wentworth was the State, Laud was the Church, and Charles was God.'

The fourth volume is much more relevant to Mr. Dixon's theme. We could have spared the catalogue of names with which, after the manner of Homer's list of ships, it opens, and which is an amusing instance of the sonorous effects which Mr. Dixon delights to produce; but the volume is, on the whole, satisfactory. The instances are well selected. The dramatic skill with which his heroes are presented is great. The interest is legitimately sustained, and we are really gratified to be able to speak highly of the whole. We cannot follow him in detail. Our sympathies are most interested in the visionary politico-philosopher James Harrington, the author of 'Oceana,' the sorrowful victim of idiotic fears, whose political prevision, Mr. Forster's Ballot Bill, after two centuries, is just about to realize. Mr. Dixon rapidly sketches, as heroes of the Tower, the second Buckingham--the Duke of Richmond, who was guilty of falling in love and eloping with the king's mistress--the Earl of Castlemaine, who connived at the unfaithfulness of his wife, and died a monk--the two Penns--the romantic story of Colonel Blood--the mysterious tragedy of the Earl of Essex--the martyrdom of Lord Russell, and of Algernon Sydney--the execution of the Duke of Monmouth--the lurid tragedy of Judge Jeffreys--the death of Laud--the fate of the Scottish Jacobites--the romantic escape of Lord Nithsdale--the imprisonment of Sir Francis Burdett--and the finis to the prison history of the Tower in the anti-climax of the Cato street conspirators.

We wish Mr. Dixon had treated his really great epical subject with more dignity and with better taste. His powers of picturesque narration and of vivid portraiture are great: is it too late to ask him to employ them upon better themes, and to subdue them to great purposes?

_Annals of Oxford._ By J. C. JEAFFERSON. 2 vols. Hurst and Blackett.

There is, perhaps, no subject on which a book of pleasanter and more instructive gossip could be compiled than the English universities. Their origin and early constitution are excessively vague and uncertain, and are therefore a source of perpetual interest to the antiquary. It is known that they came into existence as part of that intellectual revival which is coupled with such names as Anselm and Abelard, and that the first notices of their activity represent them as vigorous institutions. As soon as the colleges, which are special characteristics of English academical history, are founded, information as to the domestic life of these ancient corporations begins, and is continued uninterruptedly to our own time. The materials for the annals of Oxford and Cambridge are copious, and such annals, were the facts carefully selected and well arranged, would be an exceedingly valuable addition to the social history of this country. Few people, for example, are aware of the very important part which Oxford played in the incipient reformation of Wyckliffe in the fourteenth, and in the revival of tithes under Erasmus, More, and Colet at the conclusion of the fifteenth, centuries; or of the refuge which both Universities, but especially Cambridge, afforded to the leaders of Puritanism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nor are there many persons who are alive to the fact that the legislation of the Restoration, which tied both these great institutions down to a political system, under which the Established Church was made the slave of the State and the gaoler of the mind, degraded and demoralized both Oxford and Cambridge.

Mr. C. Jeafferson has some pretensions to the reputation of a good gossip. He has compiled certain amusing books about the professions of law, physic, and divinity. In an evil hour he was tempted to risk this reputation, and to write a book about Oxford. He has succeeded in producing one of the worst specimens of book-making which has ever been put before the public. To call these two volumes the 'Annals of Oxford' is a gross abuse of words, for they are not annals in any sense whatever. A few facts are culled from very familiar authors, such as Anthony Wood and Gutch, and are diluted with a prodigality of verbiage to which no experience of ours can find a parallel. The most important parts of academical history are omitted, as for example the contest between the University and the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which Oxford supported Wyckliffe against prelate and pope, and succumbed only when she was threatened with the loss of her franchises. The reader is treated to an account of the origin of the University, for which there is neither authority nor probability, for throughout the two volumes the author is utterly without any information of what the University has been or is, notwithstanding his boast that he 'knows nearly everything about Oxford in the dark ages.'

But the most serious offence which the book commits is not its omission of important facts, or its intolerable dilution of unimportant ones, or its misapprehension of the whole subject, but its incessant vulgarity. There is hardly a page in the two volumes where we do not find examples of that slangy familiarity of expression which passes with some people for wit or humour, and which in pretending to avoid dulness is the dullest of all sins against good taste. Mr. C. Jeafferson's contribution to the history of Oxford is wholly without value, and for the sake of the writer's reputation as a collector of gossip and anecdote, the kindest wish which a reviewer can make him is that the 'Annals of Oxford' may be speedily forgotten.

_The Life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer._ By ISAMBARD BRUNEL, B.C.L. Longmans. 1870. pp. 568.

Very few men in the history of the world have at the same time said so little and done so much as Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He was eminently the worker as distinguished from the talker. Not that he had, as was the case with the illustrious Hunter, a difficulty as to expressing his thoughts in appropriate language. His mode of expression, on the rare occasions when he did speak, was pointed and happy. His reports and professional correspondence were models of clear perspicuous terseness. But he felt that his works were the true witnesses as to his character; and to their silent and enduring testimony he was content to commit his fame. Though he was made as often as any public man of his day the object of frequent and unsparing attack, he rarely offered any verbal reply, restrained by that proper pride in his own profession which forbade him to appear before the irresponsible and uneducated tribunal of the political press.

What those works were on which rests a reputation that will increase while the fame of many others fades and disappears, his son, in a modest volume, brings briefly to the notice of the public. There is evidence that Mr. Isambard Brunel has been a pupil in his father's school. He has confined his work within limits only too narrow for the actual magnitude of the subject. Very often, by the simple form of abstracted chronicle which he uses, as in describing the launch of the _Great Eastern_, he does more to silence slander and to terminate controversy, than could have been effected by the most eloquent advocacy. Still, we could wish he had allowed his pen fuller scope. We should like to have heard more of the inner life of so remarkable a man, to have had the taste gratified by illustrations of his refined and graceful fancy, and to have had the magnitude of his works brought into fuller relief by a more minute description of his unsleeping toil, his unflagging and audacious originality, and his conscientious effort to bring all his designs and every detail of their execution to the sternest test.

It is easy for those who have a mere newspaper acquaintance with Mr. Brunel to sneer at the education attained by the engineer at the expense of his shareholders. At the commencement of the railway system in this country something of the kind was inevitable in the case of every leading engineer. The great features on which the success of the railway system mainly hinged were not arrived at by scientific deduction. The speed which George Stephenson estimated at sixteen miles an hour--viz., the velocity attained by some of the most rapid coaches of the period--was raised to from twenty to thirty miles an hour, in the first instance, by Captain Ericsson (the inventor of the Monitor), in conjunction with the late Mr. John Braithwaite. During the experimental trials on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the Novelty, the engine built by these engineers, passed by the Rocket, that of the Messrs. Stephenson, like a shot. The ill-constructed four-wheel engines of Mr. Bary, with which the London and Birmingham line was opened, were constructed for a moderate rate of speed. From those which, of his own design, Mr. Brunel put on the Great Western Railway, he obtained a speed equal to that of the flight of the swallow--from sixty to seventy miles an hour. A level portion of line between London and Slough was daily traversed by the express trains at this high speed.

While the forethought of Mr. Brunel--which added fifty per cent. to the accommodation afforded by his lines of railway for the future traffic of the country--doubled the speed of his own trains, it further compelled the narrow-gauge lines, by the use of the long six-wheeled engines, materially to increase theirs. The sagacious genius of the engineer was evinced yet more splendidly in the services he rendered to navigation. Of oceanic steam traffic Mr. Brunel may justly be called the father. In July, 1837, the _Great Western_ steamship was launched at Bristol, and in April of the following year she arrived at New York, after a journey of nine days, with a fourth of her coal unconsumed. The _Sirius_ was built by the St. George's Steam Packet Company expressly to anticipate the _Great Western_, so that by sea as well as by land Mr. Brunel effected almost as much by the emulation he awoke as by his own energy and toil. The _Sirius_ arrived at New York a few hours only before the _Great Western_, having consumed every combustible on board, down to a child's doll! The measured tonnage of the _Great Western_ was 1,340 tons; that of the _Great Britain_, launched at Bristol in July, 1843, was 3,443 tons; that of the _Great Eastern_, launched in the Thames on 31st January, 1858, was 13,343 tons. It was thus that the cautious shipwright felt his way before developing the full magnitude of his conceptions.

For the account of his further works--his docks and harbours, his bridges and viaducts, his investigation of projectiles and of screw propulsion, his admirable military hospital for the Crimean expedition, his general professional practice--we must refer our readers to the volume now before us. All those who regard the civil engineer as a sort of typical or central workman, and who therefore are prepared to measure our future progress in applied science and industrial art by the scale afforded by the condition of this profession in England, will do well to read with care this very interesting book.

_Memoir of George Edward Lynch Cotton, D.D., Bishop of Calcutta; with Selections from his Journals and Correspondence._ Edited by Mrs. COTTON. Longmans, Green, and Co. 1871.

In this volume Mrs. Cotton has given to the world a memorial of the late Bishop of Calcutta, which by those who personally knew him, and also knew English life in India, will be read with peculiar interest. The scattered nature of their dioceses, the varieties of claims which they have to meet, the consecration of churches, and the confirmation of candidates, compel the dignitaries of the English Church in India to travel frequently and far; and, as metropolitans over the entire empire, the Bishops of Calcutta journey more frequently and to greater distances than their colleagues. A large portion of this memoir is devoted to the details of such journeys; and the descriptions of places, persons, and incidents, coming fresh from the ripe, scholarly, and cheerful mind of one who saw Indian scenes and manners for the first time, give to it a peculiar charm. The extracts from the Bishop's journals and letters are numerous, perhaps too numerous and extended; and the connecting links, now detailing important facts, and at another time discussing the bearings of some great question, are written with clearness and power.

The vein of humour which ran through Bishop Cotton's mind enabled him to discern the lively and especially the burlesque aspect of the scenes through which he passed, whether in school and college days, or amid the serious labours which closed his life. At Rugby he named the fat denizen of his sty Vitellius; at Cambridge he would class his personal friends in an imaginary _tripos_, and award them medals and honours which expressed his estimate of their worth; and his letters to his children and old friends are full of the amusing side of native life.

With many things to interest him, the reader cannot but be disappointed at the book. It is almost entirely confined to the few years of Bishop Cotton's episcopate. At page 68 he has already left England for his Eastern diocese at the age of forty-nine; and the story of the next eight years occupies five hundred pages. All we can learn of the mental and moral growth of his English life, of his distinguished career as an educator, and of the remarkable position which he early attained among the foremost clergy of the English Church, is contained in the first three chapters of the memoir by Dean Stanley, with the beautiful notices of his work and influence by Professor Shairp and the late Professor Conington. Yet his early career deserves to be described as fully as that of Dr. Arnold, who loved him so well, whom he so greatly resembled, and to whose position as an educator he practically succeeded. These early years made him what he was--a careful scholar, a man of active, earnest piety, an intense lover of truth, a man of large mind and broad sympathies.

We took occasion, soon after the bishop's death in October, 1866, to express in these pages our high estimate of his worth and usefulness, and his views on the important questions with which in his brief episcopate he had to deal are fully set forth in Mrs. Cotton's narrative. His long but most interesting travels; his concern for the isolated English communities in India; his care for the spiritual interests of the English soldiery; his opening the consecrated Episcopal Churches to the use of the Presbyterian regiments; his charges to the clergy; his deep interest in the Episcopal missions, in the raising up of a native ministry, and in measures for the relief of native converts, such as their _Re-marriage Act_; his efforts to establish schools for East Indian children, are fully and carefully discussed. But while illustrating in many ways Bishop Cotton's large-hearted sympathies and the broad views which he took of men and things, the memoir fails to show how in religious matters he looked with deep interest on other Christian communities than his own, was prepared to do them full justice, and held the most kindly and unpatronizing intercourse with prominent members among them. A man of deep, sterling piety, an evangelical preacher, a faithful minister and bishop of his Church, a lover of good men, he well deserves the high position now accorded to his name by the members of the Church of England; and long will he be remembered with esteem and regard by men of many communions who outside her own pale are striving to evangelize India.

_Some Memorials of Renn Dickson Hampden, Bishop of Hereford._ Edited by his daughter, HENRIETTA HAMPDEN. Longmans, Green, and Co.

Time brings its revenges, but not always repentance or wisdom. The Dissenters are to be admitted to the University, and the intelligence and good sense of the country--the dogmatic intolerance of such men as made Dr. Hampden a martyr alone excepted--heartily approve. He is justified as a man more foresighted and just than many of his contemporaries, and his persecutors are relegated to that limbo of conscientious intolerance into which all claimants of arrogant prerogative and all obstinate conservatives are cast. Dante should have devised a retribution for non-jurors, or Vathek should have represented them as melancholy ghosts with their hands upon their hearts and ceasing not to sigh out their _non possumus_. Opponents of every liberal advance in Church and State rudely swept into eddies by the stream of time, their characters are most heterogeneous and their labour very great. The forty bullet-headed Protectionists of the Free-trade reform, the Bourbons who 'forgot nothing and learned nothing,' the bereaved patrons of rotten boroughs--to say nothing of Laud and his school of divine right, of the good old times of the Star Chamber, of the Five-mile Act, of the Test and Corporation Acts, of Roman Catholic disabilities, of Church-rates, and the Irish establishment--must surely bemoan themselves very bitterly either because they maintained right in vain, or because they opposed it in vain. And yet inherent Toryism will not learn wisdom. The opponents of the Test Repeal Act are, in the present Parliament, repeating as blindly and as fatuously the follies of their predecessors. Miss Hampden tells the story of her father's noble testimony, for really while his actual life was much more than this, there is little more about it to tell. Learned, pious, candid, orthodox, conservative, reverently, and, as we should now say, almost timidly jealous for revealed truth, anything but a man of advanced opinions generally, Bishop Hampden was the object of a virulent and most unscrupulous persecution, such as must ever be the dark reproach of any Church or party whose polemical passions can make them capable of it. His sin was that he was strongly opposed to the Tractarian movement. He was too honest and honourable to be moved by this hostility from his position, although his scholarly and benevolent and sensitive life was embittered by it. He lived to see himself vindicated, and now the public opinion of England is about to endorse the clear-sightedness, candour, and justice of his advocacy. Of his great theological learning and catholic heartedness, there is no need to speak. The memoir, although not very skilfully put together, is an interesting and touching memoir of a very noble man.

_The Life and Times of Lord Brougham._ (Written by himself.) Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons.

Though the space of time covered by this first volume of Lord Brougham's Memoirs was one of the most interesting in his own life, and one of the stormiest in European history, the narrative is languid, and contains no facts that are at once new and important. Indeed, his Lordship had been already forestalled by notable contemporaries, who had been seized more or less strongly with the autobiographical passion, and also by the fact that the earlier portion of his life had long passed into the region of history. What novelty the volume possesses it derives chiefly from musty journals of travel and political correspondence of evanescent interest. To be admitted to the spectacle of Opposition wire-pulling three-quarters of a century ago, and to be favoured with the rapid observations on transitory things of a hasty traveller, are benefits that were perhaps overrated by Lord Brougham. Had he been a philosophical observer, or possessed the power of picturesque description, he might have left behind him an enduring record of great and historical events, _quorum pars magna fuit_, which he had the double advantage of seeing, as it were, in the making, and also after they were reduced to their natural proportions by the perspective of many added years. That, however, we have no right to expect from Lord Brougham. As it is, there are some minute personal touches in the narrative which are at least curious. He attributes his enormous energy and success to the Celtic blood in his veins; very probably it accounts for his instability. He gives a shocking account of his grandfather's funeral, as an instance of the barbarous manners of the time, though, unhappily, it is far from having died out. He redescribes the origin of the _Edinburgh Review_, declaring that Sydney Smith's account of it is entirely imaginary, although he substantially confirms it; and he gives as his own, a satirical tale, which, it has been pointed out, is translated from the 'Candide' of Voltaire. We shall have more to say about both the autobiography and the man when the publication is complete.

_The Life and Travels of George Whitefield, M.A._ By JAMES PATERSON GLEDSTONE. Longmans and Co.

The character and power of Whitefield must ever be a study of interest to persons who either as religious men or as historical students attach importance to the evangelical revival of the last century; and in proportion as it recedes into the past, as contemporary passions and their inspirations die out, and especially as the arrogant assumptions of a dominant Church are discredited, the study will have increased interest and recognised importance.

Several lives of Whitefield have been attempted, some of which we would rather not characterize. Mr. J. P. Gledstone is generously reticent concerning them. He makes no allusion to the labours of his predecessors, but simply tells his story with all the lights that are available. Nothing in Whitefield's character or history or work turns upon the discoveries of the antiquarian. The broad facts are adequately known, and the work of the biographer is to recite and interpret them. Mr. J. P. Gledstone has produced what, we think, will prove the standard life of Whitefield. His sympathies are catholic, and he does justice to the noble soul of Whitefield, who was the 'brother of all who in every place, and under every denomination, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have striven to put the man rather than his creed upon the pages of this book.' Whitefield was no theologian; he was simply a great preacher. His Calvinism was passionate rather than dogged, and in an inappreciable degree influenced his preaching. His great soul yearned for the salvation of men, and the more arduous the service the more attractive to him it was.

Into the merit of his great preaching power, however, we cannot now enter, and yet both now and at all times it is a study of the most vital moment to the Church. Mr. J. P. Gledstone's book throws upon it all the light that circumstance and fact can furnish, and intelligently suggests most of the deeper psychological and spiritual causes. We very cordially commend this carefully-studied and admirably-written life of the Chrysostom of England.

_Twenty-two Year's Missionary Experience in Travancore._ By Rev. JOHN ABBS, of the London Missionary Society. John Snow and Co.

_The Land of Charity; a Descriptive Account of Travancore and its People, with especial reference to Missionary Labour._ By the Rev. SAMUEL MATEER, F.L.S., of the London Missionary Society. John Snow and Co. 1871.

_The Pioneers; a Narrative of Facts connected with early Christian Missions in Bengal._ By the Rev. GEORGE GOGERLY, late Missionary in Calcutta. John Snow and Co. 1871.

Here are three more of the numerous and excellent works which in recent years have sought to illustrate in full detail the course and the fruits of missionary labour in India. They are valuable additions to the missionary library, and each will occupy a position of its own. Instead of dealing with the Indian empire at large, both Mr. Abbs and Mr. Mateer restrict themselves to the single province of Travancore. The work of Mr. Abbs recounts the missionary experience of twenty-two years, and is characterized by sound sense, extreme modesty, and deep religious feeling. Much valuable information is given on the relations between the mission in Travancore and the native government, and some fresh light is thrown on the whole question of caste as encountered by Christian missionaries in Travancore. In the same region Mr. Mateer spent nine years, and endeavours to render his little work a complete handbook of all necessary information respecting that district and its people. This information has been drawn in part from authoritative records, and in part embodies the results of the writer's own observation and inquiry during the period of his daily life within the province. The book is written in a simple unpretending style, and will amply repay perusal.

Travancore, called by the Brahmins the Land of Charity, or Piety, is a secluded province in South-western India, peculiarly devoted to Hinduism. Though occupied to a very large extent by aboriginal tribes, some of which must be of very ancient origin, many centuries ago it was religiously conquered by some prominent members of the Brahminical caste, and they have ever since retained the firmest hold upon its rulers and its people. All the wealth and prosperity of this well-watered and fertile corner of India have been poured into their lap, and the lower castes and aboriginal races have been their devoted serfs. Closely walled in by mountains and by the sea, it has had comparatively little intercourse with its immediate neighbours, and scarcely any with the more distant districts of South India. Its reigning family has long been seated on the throne; and Mr. Mateer describes the religious position occupied by its princes, and the strange ceremonies which both establish their sanctity and secure to the priests and Brahmins abundant rewards. Mr. Mateer also pictures the numerous races and classes which make up its million and a half of inhabitants, and explains the immoral causes and condition of things under which, in one caste especially, all property is made to descend to nephews and not to sons.

While describing fully the physical features and productions of the province, he dwells especially upon its religious aspects, and gives much information concerning the life and customs of the Shanar and Ilavar races, who in religion are devil-worshippers. It is amongst them that Christianity has made special progress during the present century. While the princes and nobles have been growing in knowledge and experience of their English rulers, the lower tribes have in great numbers accepted the Gospel. The story of the mission planted among them is given at length, and illustrations are presented of the fruits which they have produced in individual converts, in strong and liberal churches, and an indigenous native ministry. The Gospel has also leavened the population generally, and introduced many remarkable innovations among the hard and cruel customs of former days. The Brahmins have fought hard for their supremacy, but it is steadily passing away. 'Sir,' said a Sudra one day to a Brahmin, 'have you directed your attention to a wonder of the present age? Listen: the Brahmin has become a dealer in oil and fish, while the Shanar or pariah goes about as a Brahmin or teacher of the country. The Brahmin woman spends her day in cooking, eating, and sleeping; while the Shanar or pariah women are found in the streets with their Scriptures in their hands, pretending to teach their neighbours. Is not this a wonder? Verily the world is turning upside down.'