38 Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature. that an hereditary right to a writ of summons was not admitted by the sovereign, for King Edw. I. out of his wisdom, somoned always those of auncyent familyes to his parliaments, that were most wise; but he omitted theyre sonnes after theyre death, if they were not answerable to their parents in understanding." As Mr. Baker (Northamptonshire, i. 524) speaking of the barony of Warden, says, that omission of writs of summons to Parliament to certain of the Barons Latimer is inexplicable, this quotation furnishes at least one reason for omissions of the writs; though often perhaps mere pretence, through suspicion of disaffection or intractability. V. Indication of an insititious Latin term in the Hellenistic Greek, which has been inveterately mistaken for a genuine Greek word. By Glanville Penn, Esq. Every body knows that, according to St. Matthew, Judas hanged himself, but that St. Peter (Acts i. 18,) adverting to the traitor's death, says falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst." To reconcile these apparent contradictions, Mr. Penn, with infinite ingenuity, shows that the term used by St. Peter for "burst asunder," is EAAKHE, a Greek first aorist, formed from the Latin word laqueo, by mere adoption; the Greek verb Xaxew having no existence in the language of European Greece in the age of St. Luke (p. 47). To prove the conformity between the two Evangelists, as to Judas hanging himself, and then falling headlong and bursting asunder, Mr. Penn says "Those who have been in the southern countries of Europe, know that the operation in question, as exercised on a criminal, is performed with a great length of cord, with which the criminal is precipitated from a high beam, and is thus violently laqueated, or snared in a noose midway." Now Judas, as being a very corpu- Laqueo tenaci corpus ; et quanto magis HIPFOLYTUS, A. iv. 1086. [July, Thus Mr. Penn. He notes that the Greek λaxew properly signifies to crack, or make a noise, but from Mr. Valpy's explanation of λaxis (Fundamental Words of the Greek Language) it does not, we think, simply mean "making a noise," but that noise which accompanies a burst or rent. Mr. V. adds that lacero, lacerate, is derived from this word. At all events, the two Evangelists are completely re conciled in sense. VI. On the Cartulary of Flaxley Abbey in Gloucestershire. By Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart. This cartulary is in the peculiar form of a roll (see vol. xcvii. i. 624). Besides the usual contents of such documents, a grant of lands by an Abbot says that he has not affixed the conventual seal, "propter perfidiam Judæorum,” from which passage Sir Thomas presumes, that the Jews were in the habit of forging seals, for the purpose of affixing them to pretended grants; but he has not been able to find any direct proof of their having so done, and Peter de Blois, in his work De Perfidia Judæorum, i. e. of the unbelief of the Jews, for such with him is the meaning of perfidia, mentions no such practice. Our interpretation of the Abbot's meaning is this. The seals of charters were pensile; and by the law or custom of England, if a seal was annexed even to a forged charter, it ratified, notwithstanding the injustice, the contents of such supposititious charter. The Abbot therefore, in our opinion, was afraid that such an abuse might be made by the Jews, of the conventional seal, which opinion he formed from its having been a trick in his æra not uncommon. Our authority for this construction of the Abbot's words is the following paragraph of that capital work, the "Nouvelle Diplomatique." "En Angleterre quelqu'un avoit il reconnu son sceau en justice, il etoit obligé de tenir les conventions portées dans l'acte, qui en etoit scellé, et il ne pouvoit alleguer la perte de ce sceau, ne l'interception qu'on aurait pu en faire pour sceller frauduleusement l'acte produit en jugement.' VII. Transcript of a Manuscript relating to Henry the Fifth of England, preserved in the King's Library at Paris; with Prefatory and Supplementary Notes. By John Gordon Smith, M.D. M.R.S.L. 1829.] Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature. AGINCOURT (as it is called) is a field of battle, upon which the sun of England always shines in summer brilliancy, and we are sure that the following extract will be interesting.* Dr. Sunith, who was, we presume, a physician to the Forces, says "Perhaps I may be pardoned for relating that I had the honour to receive a Waterloo medal on the field of Azincourt: or rather, that I had the fortune to belong to one of the British regiments that signalized themselves in the campaign of 1815, and which afterwards was invested with the abovementioned mark of their sovereign's approbation, on the very spot which, nearly four hundred years before, was the scene of the scarce less glorious triumph of Harry the Fifth of England. By a singular coincidence, a portion of the British army was, in 1816, cantoned in the immediate neighbourhood of this celebrated field, and the corps in which I then served, made use of it, during several months, as their ordinary drill ground. "To several of my intelligent brother officers, as well as to myself, the place naturally imparted the interest which an acquaintance with its history could not fail to excite; and we consequently amused ourselves with reconnoitring excursions, comparing the actual state of the localities with authentic accounts of the transactions of 1415. The changes that have taken place have been singularly few; and an attentive explorer would be able to trace with considerable accuracy, the greater part of the route pursued by the English army in their retreat out of Normandy towards Calais. The field of Azincour reinains sufficiently in statu quo, to render every account of the battle perfectly intelligible; nor are those wanting near the spot, whose traditionary information enables them to heighten the interest with oral description, accom panied by a sort of ocular demonstration. 66 Through an error in certain books professing to be Travellers' Guides, persons have been misdirected to a single house, named Azincour, near Bouchain, in French Flanders, which is not less than sixty miles from the real site of the action; but those who travel to Paris viâ St. Omer and Abbeville, pass over the field of battle, which skirts the high road (on the left, in the direction just mentioned) about sixteen miles beyond St. Omer; two on the Paris side of a considerable village or bourg, named Fruges; about eight north of the fortified town of Hesden; and thirty or thereabout, in the same direction from Abbeville. All accounts of the battle mention the hamlet of Ruisseauville, through which very place *We have incorporated the text and notes together. 39 the high road to Paris now passes. This is the great post road or chaussée, the old road (which is now degenerated into a carttrack) from Abbeville to the once celebrated city of Therouanne, passes over the scene of action, and must have been that by which the French army reached the ground before the English, who had been compelled to make a great circuit. AZINCOUR is a commune or parish, consisting of a most uninteresting collection of 'slobbery dirty farms,' or rather 'farmers' residences,' and cottages, such as, in that part of the country, are met with in all directions; once, however, distinguished by a castle, of which nothing now remains but the foundation. la Picardy, the population of each commune is uniformly collected into one spot, forming a crowded and very filthy village, between which and the next place of the same description the fields lie open, and for the most part undivided. As to the castle, Azincour never was a place of note prior to the battle, and the castle, or chateau (as all gentleman's seats are called in France), was probably nothing more than the residence of the Seigneur of the village, which happened to catch the eye of Henry after the fight was over. Shakspeare, with historical accuracy, introduces (act iv. sc. 7.) the following question and answerKing. What is this castle called that stands hard by? Mountjoy. They call it Agincourt. "Topographical accuracy is not respected in naming a field of battle. The rule was certainly departed from in the instance of Waterloo, and if my recollection does not deceive me, the field of Azincour' is within the commune of Tramecour, where there is still a gentleman's residence, a distinction that can no longer be claimed by its more renowned neighbour. Azincour, not Agincour, seems to be the proper orthography of the word. * "Between Tramecour and Azincour the distance is small; and in this interval lay the scene of the contest. Through the scantiness of the space, the English army was enabled to have a narrow front of not more than two or three furlongs, which gave them a great advantage over the enemy, whose superiority of numbers led in great measure to their disaster. The right wing of the English rested on the wood of Tramecour, in which the King concealed those archers whose prowess and vigour contributed so eminently to the glorious result. Part of this wood still remains; though, if I remember rightly, at the time of our visits, the corner into which the * Why so? It is Agincourt in the French contemporary narrative, p. 62. 40 Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature. bowmen were thrown, had been materially thinned, if indeed the original timber had not been entirely cut down, and its place but scantily supplied by brush or underwood. Some of the trees, however, in the wood of Tramecour, were very old in 1816. The left wing of the English was flanked by the inclosures of Azincour, through which part of the French endeavoured to escape after the battle, several being killed in the village; the inhabitants of which point out spots where a few distinguished personages fell." We have before met with testimonies of Henry's want of uprightness towards his prisoners of war, whom he treated as a pecuniary dentist, a Jew, or a usurer, does an unfortunate debtor -i. e. practises every mode of extortion. The original paper here printed, shows that, after most flattering promises made to a certain Sieur de Gaucourt, upon surrender of Harfleur, Henry squeezed out of them by torture other grievous conditions, such as procuring the liberation of several English prisoners, the restoration of some jewels which he had lost on the field of Azincour (among them his crown and great seal), and transmission to him of two hundred casks of Beaune wine. This part we shall further extract, because the most minute incidents connected with this celebrated battle are interesting: "As for my own part, I was by no means cured of my severe complaint; he gave me leave to return to France, in order to arrange about the liberation of these prisoners. But, besides this, he mentioned that he had lost some of his jewels at the battle of Azincour [read Agincourt; the z for and g, the omission of the final t being only accommodations to French pronunciation. REV.], which it would be a great matter for us, if we could recover; and then he insisted that we should furnish him with two hundred casks of Beaune wine, at London, which should also be taken into account on our behalf. "Upon which assurance, I returned to France, and incurred great loss, as well as trouble in the liberation of from six to seven score prisoners, gentlemen, merchants, and soldiers; advancing [a deposit], so that upon paying the surplus, they might be set at liberty by a certain day. I exerted myself to the utmost to recover the jewels, which were already dispersed, and in different hands, and did all in my power to recover the King of England's crown, which was in his coffers, as well as a cross of gold, and very rich stones, containing a piece of the true cross, half a foot in length, and the cross piece [July, more than a good inch wide, with the [globe] used at the Coronation of the King of England, as well as several other things, which he was very anxious to recover; in particular, the seals of the said King's Chancery. "Before my departure, I also purchased and paid for the two hundred casks of Beaune wine, and then returned to England, bringing back and presenting the seals." P. 63. Persons able and willing to lose so many teeth, Henry thought might be likely to lose more; and he tried to extract more; nor were they, though he continued to cajole them, liberated during his life. A list of the treasure above-men tioned, which was stolen by the French just before the battle, is preserved in Rymer's Fœdera. After Mr. Nicolas's complete volume on the subject of this great event, little additional information can be expected; but the Sieur de Gaucourt's statement was not known to that indefatigable author, and any fresh document on Agincourt must always be acceptable. VIII. On the meaning which is most usually and most correctly attached to the term "Value of a Commodity." By the Rev. T. R. Malthus, Royal Associate. We are among those who think that Political Economy is, in the main, theory only, unphilosophically founded upon ifs, and a pre-assumption of circumstances, as actually though not necessarily existing; and we are sure that the very work upon Population, which generated for Mr. Malthus his truly merited and eminent credit, was founded upon premises directly contradictory to the tenets of preceding political economists; for they made "lots of people" national summum. bonums. Indeed, we have given an opinion that his, Mr. Malthus's own basis, Population, is the sole one, upon which a business "Political Economy" can be deemed worthy the notice of a practical political economist. But to the purpose. To establish a barometer of value, independent of circumstances, is the object of the present Essay. Mr. Malthus, by way of affixing a definite measure of value, says, that "the ordinary quantity of labour, which the precious metals will command in any country, is the measure of their natural and ordinary value in that country." P. 81. This is very equivocal language, and amounts substantially to this-that, if 1829.] Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature. you go to an attorney, six shillings and eightpence is the cost of the ordinary quantity of labour which he bestows only in looking at you; but that you may expect two days hard work from a peasant, or one from a mechanic for the same sum. In short, value is and must ever be a relative and indefinable term. It is strictly a word limited to the particular subjects of its application, and all controversy about it in one universal and fixed acceptation is and must be a logomachy. In what manner would Mr. Malthus dispose of the enormous value of wooden legs and crutches, to the maimed and lame, by an estimate formed upon his theorem of what they cost? IX. Some remarks on part of the first book of Appian's Civil Wars of Rome (cap. 40 et seq.) together with an attempt to give a more accurate genealogy of the Julian or Cæsarian family. By the Right Hon. C. Yorke, M.R.S. L. We cannot speak in too high terms of this article, in its elaborate and tasteful form, the latter being an uncommon appendage to the dry productions of scholars. If we recollect rightly, there is a pedigree of the Julian family in the folio edition of Tacitus by Lipsius, and we think in other writers; but they are far less copious and satisfactory than this. There are matters very painful in this pedigree, viz. (i.) that Pompey was allied to Cæsar by marriage with Julia, daughter of the mighty "Dictator perpetuus," and an unnatural bellum interneciorum was waged between them; and (ii.) that uncontrolled wealth and power may produce such monstrous degeneracy that the worldly-omnipotent and almost deified Julian line, terminated by a Circæan transformation-in a hogin Nero. X. On the date of some of the coins of Zancle, or Messana in Sicily. By James Millingen, Esq. Royal Associate. Coins are to books what flints are to steels. Sparks are struck out which inflame tinder, light matches, and illuminate candles. They illustrate chronology, supply desiderata, and show the state of the arts, which is no small benefit to history; for taste is a late production, and always a test of the intellectual character. For instance, green plaister parrots are seen in our cottages, and Grecian statues in our GENT. MAG. July, 1829. 41 country seats; chalked schoolboy profiles on our walls, and perfect ones (setting aside a paper thinness) on our coins. Such things show that one class is refined, the other not, as plainly as by words. We regret that Mr. Millingen has condescended to correct errors in Pollux. His works are gardens full of weeds, and the toil is what Swift calls" weeding in rain." XI. On the Portland Vase. By James Millingen, Esq. Royal Associate. The most fanciful illustrations of this celebrated vase have been given by men totally unacquainted with ancient monuments. Winckelmann thought that the subject was the marriage of Thetis and Peleus, and he has been supported by Visconti, Zoega, and Mr. Millingen, in this disquisition, which in our opinion sets the question at rest. XII. On the Religion and Divination of Socrates. By Archdeacon Nares. The Archdeacon contends, that by the το δαιμονιον, Socrates meant the Deity, the one true God. XIII. On the Demi of Attica. By William Martin Leake, Esq. This is a most valuable paper. The po part of it relating to the battle of Marathon we shall use in our review of Mr. Taylor's Herodotus. We particularize the plates, illustrative of the sition of the Greek and Persian fleets at the battle of Salamis, so poetically described by schylus, the curious theatre of Thoricus (p. 153), and the fortress of Phyle, the approaches to which obliged the enemy to expose the right or uncovered side of the body (see p. 205), and assimilate the side long entrances of our British camps. We congratulate the Society upon the high value and erudition of the elaborate Essays published in this volume. New Models of Christian Missions to Popish, Mahometan, and Pagan Nations, explained in Four Letters to a Friend. By the Author of Natural History of Enthusiasm. 8vo. pp. 124. view from schism to sedition, and men IT is a single step in a statesman's of the world are not ignorant of the uses which have been made of enthusiasm. Seditious placards have been published in the West Indies by flaming pseudo-missionaries, and schism has begun to germinate in the East, whither (as the serpent was brought o 42 REVIEW.-Coxe's Memoirs of Hon, H. Pelham. Cleopatra) they have carried under Cover of leaves of the Bible. Our author (and he is a warm friend to Missions) says, "We have gone out, carrying the torch of divine truth in one hand, forgetful that we have in the other the smouldering brand of theological strife. Should the nations of India receive from us the religion of the Scriptures, but receive it under the system we are now pursuing, it is much more than we have any right to hope for, that the very worst evils will not in time spring up from are the seeds of theological discord which we so unadvisedly scattering in the East." p. 67. He therefore recommends the different sects to put the whole business of the missions into the hands of the established clergy (p. 122), who would manage it well, and with safety to the state. We cordially agree with this clever author, but we have not the smallest hope of the success of his proposition. It serves no private purposes; and religion is a pie, in which rogues will always have a finger. Memoirs of the Administration of the Right Honourable Henry Pelham, collected from the Family Papers, and other authentic documents. By William Coxe, M.A. Rector of Bemerton. 2 vols. 4to. Longman & Co. FROM the nature of its subject, and the approved ability and experience of its author, this book offers strong claims to our attention. Commencing with the close of the Walpole administration of 1740, and extending to the death of Mr. Pelham in 1754, it embraces a portion of our history which is comparatively little known, though peculiarly interesting, whether we contemplate the transactions by which it was marked, or the individuals engaged in them; a period, respecting which more full and accurate information has been long desired than can be gleaned from the crude compilations of our annalist Smollett, the composi tion of his better instructed contemporary, the continuator of Rapin, or the statements of an eye-witness, so completely swayed by partiality and prejudice, as Horatio Lord Orford. It challenges our confidence, also, as the production of a writer, who by his long and successful labours in the field of history, had established a title to public respect and private esteem, which, while it gave him access to the highest and most authentic sources, afforded the best guarantee for the ju * Printed at large in Barclay on Slavery. [July, dicious, appropriate, and candid application of the materials placed at his disposal. It has, however, another and more endearing claim to our regard. It is the posthumous work of a veteran in literature, who, at the advanced age of fourscore years and upwards, and under the affliction of total blindness, still continued to direct the energies and resources of a well-stored and vigorous mind to the liberal purpose of illustrating the history of his country, from the official and confidential correspondence of her most eminent statesmen. With respect to documentary evidence, indeed, the present may be said to surpass any of the fordeacon; and from the variety and mer productions of the venerable Archabundance, as well as from the intrin sic value of the materials from which they are drawn, these Memoirs of the Pelham Administration may be regarded as the last portion of genuine cabinet history, which for some years the British public is destined to pos sess. As the work has appeared so recently, we must defer to our next number the result of that deliberate examination which it merits, and content ourselves with selecting a passage that affords a striking proof of the felicity with which the author has rendered his rich stores of epistolary correspondence subservient to the illustration and interest of his narrative. It relates to the sudden revolution and counter-revolution in the cabinet, at the very crisis of the Rebellion in 1745. "Hitherto the ministers deemed themselves secure of the king's approbation, and felt confident that he would sanction their system of foreign policy, in conformity with his declaration to both Houses of Parlia ment. "A change, however, was effected in the royal mind, by the strong remonstrances of the Dutch; by the urgent representations of Lord Granville; and, at the same time, by the importunities of the ministers themselves for the appointment of Mr. Pitt to the office of secretary at war. Indignant at being controlled by persons whom he disliked, and disdaining to be restricted to what he considered a weak and inefficient prosecution of the war, he resolved, even in the course of the session, and in the midst of the rebellion, to reinstate Lord Granville in the office of secretary of state, with the hope that such a ministry might be formed as would assist in relieving him from his offi cial thraldom. "The course, however, which his Ma |