THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, JANUARY, 1869. No. CCLXIII. ART. I.-1. Mémoires de la Cour d'Espagne sous le Règne de Charles II, 1678-1682. Par le Marquis de VILLARS. London: 1861. [Printed for the Philobiblon Society.] 2. Lettres de Madame de Villars à Madame de Coulanges, (1679-1681). Nouvelle édition, avec Introduction et Notes par ALFRED DE COURTOIS. Paris: 1868. THIS HIS volume is published under circumstances sufficiently curious to merit notice. The MS. from which it was printed was purchased some years ago at a sale in London by Sir William Stirling Maxwell, then Mr. Stirling of Keir. It was evidently in the handwriting of the eighteenth century, and on examination it proved to be an interesting report on the state of the Spanish monarchy under Charles II., drawn up by the Marquis de Villars (father of the celebrated general of that name), who was French ambassador at the Court of Madrid in the reign of Charles II. Mr. Stirling, himself profoundly acquainted with the historical annals of Spain, could find no evidence that the document in question had ever been printed before; Sir Frederick Madden and Mr. Panizzi, of the British Museum, on being consulted, were of opinion that the MS. had never been made public. The work was therefore printed at Mr. Stirling's expense, and presented by him to the Philobiblon Society. Subsequently, however, it appeared that these Mémoires had already passed through the press and been given to the world, in 1733, in Paris in an anonymous form; and thus the Marquis de Villars has had the honour of publication in England nearly two centuries after the composition of his work, entirely from the oblivion into which it had fallen. The document, however, is in itself VOL. CXXIX. NO. CCLXIII. B |