1892.7 REVIEW.-Dr. Whitaker's History of Yorkshire. tlemen who have taken up the execution or support of County Histories, have thrown out, that they shall do so upon a plan which is perfectly infallible, and most superior; and through which, we old performers of the company of Dugdale will be degraded from actors to candle-snuffers. Such gentlemen must allow us to state our opinion, that no improvement is wanting in Topography but to render it pleasant reading, which is best done by intermixing it with archæological science. We now come to the more pleasant task of extracting from the work before us, in which extracts Dr. Whitaker will appear in his real light, as a Philosophical Antiquary of very masterly character. The first extract will show the effects of luxury in humble life. Dr. Whitaker is endeavouring to account for the magnificence of many parish churches. Of the men of antient times, he says, "Their fare was probably more sparing, and therefore they had some superfluity of labour to bestow, where our farmers and peasantry have none. The former did not then drink each their bottle of port at every market ordinary, nor the latter spend half his weekly earnings at the ale-house. Then again, rents were out of all comparison lower (lower I mean with reference to the produce, than at present), and therefore church-work might reasonably be called for by the parish priest, as well as military or rustic services by the lord. On the other hand, throughout the whole of society at that day, and long after, there was a careless uneconomical kind of plenty, from which, as soon as the principle of zeal began to operate, much might always be extracted. The lords themselves, with the same dispositions, were usually in the same easy circumstances. They had vast tracks of land in demesne; crowds of labourers but half employed, and teams of lazy horses and oxen that enjoyed all the repose and plenty of their masters. A little superfluous exertion, therefore, on the fabrick of a parish church, to them was unfelt. Then again, if oak were wanted for a roof, wood was considered at that time rather as an incumbrance than an ornament to a great estate, so that instead of planting, a regular process of 'essarting' was uniformly carried on." P. 7. The subject is further pursued in page 429, thus, We shall shortly have to notice this point in a review of the new Dugdale's Mo nasticon. 139 'Day wages were then extremely low; au opinion which is not to be negatived by urging that human wants must always keep pace with human demands and expectations; and that the difference in this respect between different periods is merely in terms of The wants of these men were the wants of money. For, after all, the fact is not true. nature; those of modern artisans are unnatural and vicious; they must be paid for the labour of half the week, high enough to supply the other half with the means of idleness." Now it is manifest, that the respective modes of subsistence do most materially affect the commercial interests of a State. Let A and B be respec tively two workmen, who earn each ten in tea and spirits, B nothing. The twenty shillings per week. A spends export of manufactures or money necessary to supply the wants of A, and with which he replaces the capital of the vender, is a stimulus for higher wages, through which he augments the price of labour, and, of course, of commodities. By these means, he diminishes both the foreign and home. consumption, and occasions that resort to unconsuming machinery, of which he so grievously complains. B, on the contrary, lays out nearly all his money in home productions, and drinks no spirits. This is mostly the case with agricultural labourers; and hence, lower as their wages are, they appear more healthy and in better circumstances than the manufacturing poor. In page 31, we find an Elias Talairandus (of the same family as Prime Minister Talleyrand), Archdeacon of Richmond in 1322. "In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, mankind do not appear to have understood that they could live where grain could not be grown." P. 52. It seems that they did not think that it could be brought to any place by roads, a subject of which they were so ignorant, that the road into Richmond was for seven centuries up and down precipices, though there was a short rectilinear and level approach. (p. 97.) It can only be vindicated, in our opinion, by fortification views of the subject; as there was a castle at Richmond. From Domesday Book it appears that the proportion of tillage to pasture, common and meadow (of the latter but little), was as one to four and a fraction. (p. 53.) From 140 REVIEW.-Dr. Whitaker's History of Yorkshire. From p. 120, we find that no Greek was to be taught in grammar schools; because, we presume, that the Testament should not be read in the original. In page 142, we have the disputed fact of coins being halved and quartered for currency, undeniably confirmed. In page 149, an unknown station at Rokeby is very ably elucidated. At Eggleston Church (p. 151) there is the singular deformity of a steep descent to the high altar. In p. 235, we have the extraordinary fact, mondshire mountains decline to the East, they become at once more slender, and change to copper. How would such a phænomenon have been rapturously hailed by our antient alchymists. In p. 244, we find that a cure of souls was deemed the most that as the veins of lead in the Rich proper provision for a man, after he had become, by age and infirmities, unfit for any thing else. In p. 255, upon a rude bas-relief at Danby Whiske Church, we see that unsightly and curious costume of the twelfth century, the pocketing sleeves of Strutt, pl. 40. As to the intrenched lines of Stanwick and Forcett, we have no hesitation in affirming that they are neither British, Roman, Danish, or Anglo-Saxon fortifications, but merely boundaries; " perhaps (as Dr. Whitaker conjectures, p. 207) enclosures of a British city, of unknown antiquity:" we say merely such, for it is to be recollected, that before acquaintance with the Romans, the Gauls (see Polybius, B. ii. c. 2) had no walled towns, nor, of course, the Britons. We shall here leave this costly work, with its beautiful plates, after the inimitable drawings of Turner, under the hopes that it will long be esteemed a fine monument of its good, its learned, and its ingenious Author; and that he may continue to do good after his decease, we shall present to public notice his judicious observations concerning the disgraceful modern manner of repairing churches: "Strip off all the lead from the nave, choir, and side-ailes (this will pay for the following improvements); next take away the battlements, clerestory, with the East end of the wall of the nave, and cut off the East end of the choir at the square, so as to remove all the fantastic tracery of the East window, and leave five plain round headed lights. Next construct a roof, of which, to save the expence of a plan, the [Aug. scheme may be taken from the next hare, much of the ruin of our fine old such Copy enough is left prepared by its lamented Author to complete the History of Richmondshire. 19. The History of Stamford, in the County of Lincoln; comprising its antient, progressive, and modern state; with an Account of St. Martin's, Stamford Baron, and Great and Little Wothorpe, Northamptonshire. 8vo. pp. 621. Stamford, J. Drakard; London, Nichols and Son. THIS Work commences with a regular sifting of the antient history during the British and Roman æra; and we think that the Author has well separated the chaff from the grain. It seems that there was a ford (stean or stone ford, whence Stamford) close by a Roman road; and whatever may have been the actual history of the town in the early periods alluded to, we have little doubt but that it grew out of the ford, upon the decay of Casterton, only two miles distant, in the same manner as Hereford sprung from Kenchester. In both the towns mentioned, Stamford and Hereford, the ford was probably guarded by a detachment, and some sort of settlement made, which, from superior convenience of site, became the town, upon the Ro man evacuation of Britain. As to the objection of the Author (p. 33, seq.) concerning the castle built here by Elfleda, 1829.] REVIEW.-The History of Stamford. Elfleda, we beg to observe, that her fortresses were in the main, mere hills of earth (like that at Buckingham), and that there is reason (notwithstanding Gough, Camden, II. p. 225) to dispate the artificial mount near St. Peter's Hill being the castle in question, though subsequently enlarged by the Normans. In page 51, we find that the soul of John Warren, Earl of Surrey, who died in 1303, was ordered to be prayed for throughout the kingdom by the 141 King's orders, " an honour now never paid to a subject." Academical lectures and exercises were formerly read at Stamford by the Carmelites; and the Friary here was particularly eminent, and the house large and magnificent. It was certainly in existence during the reign of Edward I. and further benefactioned by Edward III. whose arms are over this venerable Gateway; a view of which we have been permitted to copy from this publication. William Bruges, first Garter King of Arms, about 1450, rebuilt the Church of St. George; and in his will is the following curious item: "Item, I bequethe to the seyd chirch of Seynt George, a solempnitie of array for the fest of Corpus Christi, oon partie wrought in the plate of sylver and over-gilt; and that other in tymbre to be born between the Decon and Sub-decon; the tymbre is peynted and over-gilt with fyne gold. And for every sign of the passion, an aungel berynge the sign of the crosse, and of the crowne of thorne; another aungel beyryng the pillar and the scourges; another aungel beyrynge the spere and the sponges; another aungel beyryng the remnant of the signs of the passion; and in the middle of the feretorye, a gret round black cower; and one peynted with gold and azure, and peynted with blok, for a gret coupe of sylver, and oversterres of gold in the middel of that round gilt, to stand on, upon a pynne of tre. And in the seyd couple [coupe], a litel box of silver and over-gilt; to put in the Sacrament. This gret coupe and the litle together, first to be set upon the gret blok of tre, with a gret croun of over-gilt, garnished with stones, clepid dublets, redde, blue, grene, and yellowe, garnished wyth counterfeyt perles made of silver; the croun of the cocight of C. S. This croun fyrst to be set upon the gret round blok of tre, and thanne upon the pynne standyng in the seyd blok. The seyd coupe to be crouned withoute wyth a small croune, ordeyned redy therefore. Item, I bequethe to the seyd feretorye a tabernacle wele ywrought of sylver and over-gilt, of the wight of one marc, 142 REVIEW-History of Stamford. marc, or thereabouts, goyng with a byll to be set on high, upon the coupe. And above, upon the poynt of the seyd tabernacle, a litel crosse of sylver and over-gilt, goyng also by a vyce." P. 253. In 1558, Alderman John Haughton built the Town-hall upon the bridge. Chapels on bridges may be traced to the Roman era; but we never before heard of Town-halls. The book before us contains full and copious accounts of every thing appertaining to the town; and the plates are good. Of the archæological investigations in the notes, some are unsound; nor do we join in the depreciating accounts of the justlyfamous William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, Elizabeth's Prime Minister, and his family. Upon Religion and Politicks people will quarrel ad infinitum. The influence of property cannot be destroyed but by military despotism, a remedy worse than the disease (if it really be so), which we do not, generally speaking, admit; and we regret that the work is so full of political hostility, because we think that such commixtures may do unmerited injury to an able compilation. Why not have made a separate pamphlet of the grievances? 20. Napoleon in Exile, &c. (Continued from p. 44.) WE resume our notice of these Volumes, and, abstaining from any lengthened commentary on the extracts we purpose to select, we shall leave our Readers to their own opinions, admitting, however, the impossibility within our assigned limits, of giving any thing like a digested analysis of their multifarious contents. We recognize in Mr. O'Meara much of the laborious and patient industry of the Biographer of Johnson,-the same veneration for his idol, and an increased portion of Boswell's credulity. Of this latter weakness, Buonaparte seems to have taken most undue advantage; and aware that he was inditing to an amanuensis, he has foisted upon his listener many as improbable stories, as fiction aided by malice ever attempted to devise. Much of the odium of this rhodomontade, this hyperbolical exaggeration, will doubtless rest upon the narrator; and as Mr. O'Meara never ventures upon a qualifying remark of his own, as he never hints a doubt, [Aug nor hesitates distrust of any anecdote he communicates, we fear he must occasionally choose between the dupe and the fabricator, and render suspected either the soundness of his judg ment or the strength of his moral principles. As craniologists, our own opi nion is, that the organ of invention be longs to Buonaparte,—that of credu lity to the Journalist. To such of our readers as may have perused this Work, the assertion of Buonaparte that the Emperor Alexander employed as his Aid-de-Camp the assassin of his (the Emperor's) father, will fully explain our meaning. Of the men of talent, by whom the Ex-Emperor was once surrounded; of those who shared his confidence, who divided the peril, and partook the danger, the companions of his fame, and the partners of his glory; of each we have a moral portrait, and first of Talleyrand, by no means flattering: "Talleyrand (said he), le plus vil des agioteurs, bas flatteur. C'est un homme_cor rompu, who has betrayed all parties and per sons. Wary and circumspect; always traitor, but always in conspiracy with fortune, Talleyrand treats his enemies as if they were one day to become his friends, and his friends, as if they were to become his enemies. He is a man of talent, but venal in every thing. Nothing could be done with him but by means of bribery. The Kings of Wirtemberg and Bavaria made so many complaints of his rapacity and extortion, that I took his portfeuille from him: moreover I found that he had divulged, to some intrigants, a most important secret which I had confided to him alone. He hates the Bourbons in his heart. When I returned from Elba, Talleyrand wrote to me from Vienna, offering his services, and to betray the Bourbons, provided I would pardon and restore him to favour." Of Fouché he speaks thus: way "Fouché is a miscreant of all colours, a priest, a terrorist, and one who took an active part in many bloody scenes in the Revolution. He is a man who can worm all your secrets out of you with an air of calmness and of unconcern. He is very rich," added he, "but his riches were badly acquired. There was a tax upon gambling houses in Paris, but, as it was an infamous it, and therefore ordered, that the amount gaining money, I did not like to profit by of the tax should be appropriated to an hospital for the poor. It amounted to some millions, but Fouché, who had the collecting of the impost, put many of them into his own pockets, and it was impossible for me to discover the real yearly sum total." Το 1892.] REVIEW.-Napoleon in Exile. To the fate of a traitor, the unhappy Ney must submit to the shame of his master's reproaches,-on hearing of his death, Buonaparte observed, "He was a brave man, nobody more so; ut he was a madman. He has died without having the esteem of mankind. He betrayd me at Fontainebleau: the proclamation gainst the Bourbons which he said in his lefence I caused to be given him, was writen by himself, and I never knew any thing sbont that document until it was read to the roops." Soult is described as "an excellent Minister at War or Major General of an ariny, one who knows much better the arrangement of an army than to command in chief."-Of Marechal Jourdan's military talents he had a poor opinion; and Massena was a greater favourite, though with a considerable drawback: "Massena (said he) was a man of superior talent. He generally, however, made bad dispositions previous to a battle; and it was not until the dead began to fall about him that he began to act with that judgment which he ought to have displayed before. In the midst of the dying and the dead, of balls sweeping away those who encircled him, then Massena was himself; gave his orders, and made his dispositions with the greatest sang froid and judgment. This is, la vera nobilità di sangue*. It was truly said of Massena, that he never began to act with judgment until the battle was going against him. He was, however, un valeur. He went halves along with the con tractors and commissaries of the army. I signified to him often, that if he would discontinue his peculations, I would make him present of eight hundred thousand, or a million of francs; but he had acquired such a habit, that he could not keep his hands from money. On this account he was hated by the soldiers, who mutinied against him three or four times. However, considering the circumstances of the times, he was precious; and had not his bright parts been soiled with the vice of avarice, he would have been a great man.” Marmont is "a traitor whose name will never be mentioned in France without horror, reserved for the fate of Judas; and Bernadotte is an ingrate." Prince Leopold appears to have narTowly escaped a military connexion with Buonaparte: "Prince Leopold (continued he) was one of the handsomest and finest young men in Paris, at the time he was there. At a mas True nobleness of blood. 143 querade given by the Queen of Naples, Leopold made a conspicuous and elegant figure. The Princess Charlotte must doubtless be very contented and very fond of him. He was near being one of my Aid-de-camps, to obtain which he had made interest and even applied; but by some means, very fortunately for himself, it did not succeed, as probably if he had, he would not have been chosen to be a future King of England. Most of the young princes in Germany (continued he) solicited to be my aid-decamps, and Leopold was then about eighteen or nineteen years of age." The following is an amusing specithe facetious. After describing Mamen of the Ex-Emperor's talent for dame Talleyrand as a very fine woman English or East Indian, but sotte and grossly ignorant, he proceeds: "I sometimes asked Denon, whose works I suppose you have read, to breakfast with tion, and conversed very freely with him. me, as I took a pleasure in his conversaNow all the intriguers and speculators paid their court to Denon, with a view of inducing him to mention their projects or themselves in the course of his conversations with me, thinking that even being mentioned by such a man as Denon, for rially serve them. Talleyrand, who was a whom I had a great esteem, might mategreat speculator, invited Denon to dinner. When he went home to his wife, he said, . He is a great traveller, and you must say My dear, I have invited Denon to dine. something handsome to him about his travels, as he may be useful to us with the Emperor. His wife being extremely ignorant, and probably never having read any other book of travels than that of Robinson Crusoe, concluded that Denon could be nobody else than Robinson. Wishing to be very civil to him, she, before a large company, asked him divers questions about his know what to think at first, but at length man Friday! Denon, astonished, did not discovered by her questions that she really imagined him to be Robinson Crusoe. His astonishment and that of the company cannot be described, nor the peals of laughter which it excited in Paris, as the story flew like wildfire through the city, and even Talleyrand himself was ashamed of it." Our Readers, we are presuaded, will readily forgive us the length of our next extract, which gives an interesting and not unimportant account of the intercourse and communication kept up with this country by means of the Smugglers: "During the war with you (said he), all the intelligence I received from England came through the Smugglers. They are terrible |