this insidious mode of proceeding when it was applied to herself, when Louis XVI. allowed Covert succours to the American insurgents to sail from the French harbours, and the Americans sent some thousand sympathisers to aid the Canadian revolt in 1837. She loudly denounced it when the Americans allowed an expedition to sail from New Orleans, in 1852, to revolutionize Cuba; and she exclaimed against the Irish democrats who permitted the French Revolutionary Government, in 1848, to recognise a Hibernian Re public in the Emerald Isle. But what were the two last, but following her example ?"-P. 740. ment. But when we come to Sir A. Alison's monarchies of Spain and Portugal were overturned, and a revolutionary dynasty of Queens placed upon their thrones, in direct violation of the Treaty of Utrecht; while in the east of Europe the last remains of Polish nationality were extinguished on the banks of the Vistula. Durable interests were overlooked, ancient alliances broken, long-established rivalries forgotten, in the fleeting passions of the moment."-P. 8. We have no concern with any but the Spanish Question; and shall turn from the other instances with the remark, that so far When the author passes from a legal pro- the aggregate loss of freedom resulting from as they bear upon Sir Archibald's theory of position to a moral grievance-and from a revolution, the author presents us in this looking upon a government and an individual as essentially the same, to dealing picture (independently of Spain and Portuwith the feelings and sentiments of an in- gal) with two monarchical states which terested nation he of course entirely revolutions of 1830, as a set-off against one gained constitutional government under the changes his ground. There is no doubt that which lost it, and whose population barely Spain, not alive probably to the extent of reached one-sixth of the combined populaher colonial misrule, had a fair pretext to tion of France and Belgium. Perhaps, feel aggrieved that her misfortunes did not gain sympathy from the British Govern- latter state may now be allowed to form moreover, the constitutional history of the some evidence of the foundation of its govprecedents, by which the extent of the griev-ernment in a "durability of interest." ance is to be tested, we find the obliquity of the author's reasoning such as could sion the tender care with which Sir A. But, with regard to the Spanish succeshardly escape a school-boy. As he speaks Alison handles the work of Mr. Harley and of the "two last" illustrations as his paral- Lord Bolingbroke, in the altered relations lels, we imagine he designs to exempt the of the State, is sometimes amusing. That two former from the ordeal of analysis. We the champion of kingly freedom and conwill content ourselves, therefore, with what servative tradition should characterise in is given us. With regard to Cuba, is he such glowing terms that stipulation of the aware, either that the American expedition Treaty of Utrecht which introduced a direct to that island was a spontaneous aggression, innovation into the constitutional law of not proceeding from any antecedent fact of Spain, and offered a slight to the national revolt upon the part of the Cuban subjects independence, was hardly to have been antiof Spain; or that the object of that expedi- cipated. Yet such is the fact. It is far from tion was avowedly one, not of delivering and making free, but of subjugating and in- vision in this treaty which excluded from our design to criticise the policy of the procorporating into the state of the invading the throne the female descendants of Philip people? With regard to Ireland, does he v. When Sunderland and Godolphin had imagine it to be the same thing (waiving withdrawn, and St. John and Harley had all distinction between good and bad go- resolved to compromise the question of the vernment) for the Spanish Crown to com- succession in Spain, such an exclusion was plain that subjects of the British Crown necessary to prevent a repetition of the exhave aided the disaffection of its colonists, that it is for the British Crown to denounce the disloyalty of its own subjects? Sir A. Alison's remarks upon the existing principle of succession to the Spanish Crown are still more inconsiderate and indiscriminative. We revert to his view of the re sults of the Anglo-French alliance of 1830, in reference to Spain. He tells us in the first volume : pedient under which Louis XIV. had gained the virtual dominion of the Peninsula. This provision, dictated by expediency, was, therefore, a violation of the most cherished traditions of Spain, and a slur upon its independence. pected such a revolutionary provision long Why, then, Sir Archibald should have exto survive the exigency that could alone have given it birth, we can no more imagine than why he should cherish the memory of a constitutional innovation and a national "The Orleans family continued firmly, and to all appearances permanently, settled upon the throne of France. Belgium was revolutionized, slight, which, had he but lived a century ago, torn from the monarchy of the Netherlands, and would surely have been the theme of his the Cobourg family seated on its throne; the most vehement invective. If he would refer to our own constitutional records three cen- questions at length; and public opinion is turies ago, he would see that it was made nearly agreed that Sir Archibald's history of high treason to declare that the Queen and the German campaigns of Napoleon is, upon Parliament could not alter the succession to the whole, tolerably accurate, especially as the throne of England. So far as the con- it advances. The author has had access to duct of the Spanish court is concerned, it German documents of authority. This incimay be presumed that we should ourselves dent of advantage over some other writers, have resented, on the death of William IV., is, however, qualified by the apprehension any provision, previously enforced upon us that an author, who in his new work quotes by a congress of belligerents, which excluded statistics in the slap-dash sort of way that from the throne the female descendants of we have evinced-and quotes them, too, the Princess Sophia of Hanover. And, so with a truly laudable impartiality, in the far as the Anglo-French alliance of 1830 is face of his own directly opposite theoriesconcerned, when the last exercise of kingly may nevertheless not be precluded from fallpower in Spain repudiated the stipulation of ing into grave error. In proportion as the the Congress of Utrecht, under a manifest drama of Napoleon's wars advances, the difference in the circumstances of the succes- contemporary records appear to increase in sion (whatever were the intrigue by which authenticity as well as in number. The the change was immediately brought about), public are therefore more critical and more it is hard to suppose that any moral obliga- exacting as the period proceeds. With retion for the maintenance of the stipulation ference to the German campaign of 1813, of 1713 remained in force, on the part of the the most reliable statement, so far as the two great Powers which had been most di- Allies are concerned, is the history of that rectly interested in the settlement of that campaign by the late Marquess of Londonyear, when there was a clear presumption derry, then Sir Charles Stuart. Lord Lonthat this change in the succession consulted donderry was alternately at the camp and the national benefit. And although the at the court; and he had better opportunihopes entertained of Spain, on the cessation ties, not simply than any other writer, but of the civil war, have unfortunately not been than any other general or diplomatist in realised, perhaps even Sir A. Alison himself, Germany, of knowing what happened at all who glosses over the medieval atrocities of points. His narrative, too, is written with the reign of Ferdinand VII., will not have a succinctness, and an absence of theorising, the hardihood to affirm that the subsequent which Sir A. Alison would have done well sufferings of Spain are to be compared with to imitate. Between it and Sir Archibald's the military and sacerdotal tyranny which there are, however, important discrepancies, Don Carlos was ready to uphold. He will especially in the worthy baronet's favourite acknowledge, too, that of those subsequent domain of figures. We will not go so far as sufferings, since the civil war was ended, nearly all have been experienced, not from the legitimate Queenites, but under the shadow of the Carlist power, and in the specious title of a Moderado policy. He will acknowledge also that that ecclesiastical spoliation, which he may justly deplore, was introduced, not by the Progresista party, but by the Moderado or semi-Carlist chiefs, during the existence of the Estatuto Real. to say that he sees double on these points; but he frequently over-rates the forces engaged on either side. This observation holds true, not only as against Lord Londonderry's history, but as against several other authorities. To speak generally, however, it may be assumed that where Sir A. Alison quotes the German authorities on the German side of the questions at issue, or quotes such English authorities as Sir Robert Adair for 1806, or Lord Londonderry for 1813, he may be relied on, if exact accuracy be not required. It has already been observed, that Sir A. Alison's narrative of the Revolutionary War, in his previous work, is by much to be preferred to his politics of the Peace in But it is singular that where he deals the subsequent history. There is in the for- with our own share in the military annals mer, very happily, less room for political of this period, so much cannot be said. For reflections. "So many conquerors' cars the Peniusular War, Sir William Napier's were daily driven," that the narrative, either history is, and we suspect always will be, of negotiation or of military events, kept our standard, even if a future generation of the writer's pen pretty well occupied in Frenchmen do not accept his testimony as sublunary subjects. His histories of the implicitly as ourselves. That much of Sir German and Peninsular campaigns have A. Alison's account of the Peninsular War been nearly as much criticised as his narra- not only contradicts that by Sir W. Napier, tive of the campaign of 1815. It would but that it contradicts even the Wellington hardly serve any purpose to revert to these dispatches, which Colonel Gurwood had published at all events before Sir Archibald | he asserts facts on the basis of theories. had arrived at the era of the Peninsular He makes the most unfounded and extraWar, is too well known to require any il-vagant misstatements in general history, lustration. That his narrative of 1815, which are not to be submitted to question, though patched up and ingeniously defend- because they conform to the GREAT DOGMA ed in each successive edition, remains an with which his argument has set out. Thus essential fiction, is equally notorious. We he asserts that war is only increased by deshall not attempt to drag our readers mocratic ascendancy; and thenceforth he through a detailed criticism of Sir A. Ali- sweeps down the cardinal facts of European son's narrative of the campaigns of Vimiera, history into conformity with his proposiOporto, Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes d'Onoro, tion. Let us take a few examples. Of the Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse, and Water- affairs of 1848 we read,— loo. The mistakes which pervade the de- "And the first effect of the French Revotail of each campaign are the result some- lution of 1848 was to light up the flames of times of carelessness, and sometimes of en-warto arm the Muscovite against tire misconception. Occasionally they are the Magyar, and drench Europe in blood, absolutely absurd; and that an annalist of to be stayed only by the triumph of the aris the Peninsular War should gravely assert, tocratic principle, at least in the first stage as Sir Archibald does in the very title of of the contest."-P. 265. chap. 68, vol. x., that the British campaign As we have no right to question the sinof Salamanca, in 1812, was the Duke of cerity of any man, we can but say that this Wellington's first campaign in Spain, will is one of many passages which stamp Sir hardly be believed by any one who does Archibald Alison as the most ill-informed not refer to his work for a corroboration of person of the events of which he writes that our statement. The edition of his history we ever met with. Can it, however, be of the French Revolutionary War from possible that he is ignorant that the Magyar which we have quoted, dates from 1850; cause was the aristocratic cause at issue in and it is, we believe, the latest. Even in the Hungarian war ?-that nearly the whole this edition but a small proportion of the titled nobility, and the whole untitled noerrors which had been before the public bility, were ranged upon its side?—that the during ten or fifteen years have been re- judicial murders of the Austrian Governtrieved; and we are almost forced to sup- ment were the murders, not of democrats, pose that one who is so indifferent to accu- but of ancient magnates?-that its constiracy, is also indifferent to reputation. In tution was the purest aristocracy which this this respect, Sir A. Alison reminds us of a century has seen?-that the "Muscovite" saying quoted by Blackstone, "that a man differed from the "Magyar," as a modern may keep poisons in his closet, but that he despotism differs from an ancient oligarchy? may not publicly vend them as cordials." -that, so far as the difference of "demoThis, however, is a restriction which Sir cratic" and aristocratic triumph" was Archibald has the hardihood to break concerned, the triumph (a negative one, to through. His adherence to the most mani- be sure) was that of the Sclavonian demofest errors, in fact, is as tenacious and as cratic peasantry? dogged, as is his assertion of disproved and exploded opinions in his new history. But there are some matters of political philosophy discussed in the author's former history, and especially in the fourteenth volume, which bear a closer relation to his new work. These, we take it, are his most finished and erudite thoughts; for they are to be found in chapters ninety-five and ninety-six, which bear the mark of a wide revision that is not condoned to chapters involving the lustre of our military arms. But more. In the third volume of the later history, the author tells us (p. 238) that "it is a markworthy circumstance, that all the serious wars in Europe, between 1815 and 1830, have been wars between the Christians and the Mohammedans." In order to make out this proposition, he is under the unfortunate necessity of raking up all our wars in India during this period, which he has himself, with a rare infelicity, determined prior by two years to "the popular revolution!" The recounting of all these wars in India, in his sixth volume, is nearly interminable. Finally, it is a somewhat novel theory to class the pacific coloIt nization of territories-such as Australia, which we already possessed-among the instances of "aggressive propensities,” p. 264. It seems scarcely discriminative to institute this close comparison between this colo Sir Archibald has a theory, which is propounded at great length in Vol. XIV.," of the final cause of war," and which is asserted to be "the purification of mankind." is an idiosyncrasy in the philosophy of the author, that all his theories are, as it were, self-existent in his own mind: that is to say, he does not draw theories from facts; but nization-which, by the way, is elsewhere | Our allotted space is already exceeded; described as a "Divine" means of the dif- but it would be unjust to overlook Sir A. fusion of civilization-and the irruptions of Alison's gallery of political portraits. If the French revolutionary armies! this have not the merit of discrimination, it It occurred to us, as we were reading has that, at least, of generosity. There is these luminous reasonings, that the perpe- no grudging of merit in any of these chatual warfare of the oligarchical Italian repub-racterizations. Sir Archibald will speak as lics would be hard of subordination to the well of his political opponents as of the above theory; and we began to wonder leaders of his own party. This is certainly how this difficulty would be surmounted. a very fine trait in a writer gifted with such Our curiosity was soon satisfied. A few ineradicable prepossessions. It is, no doubt, pages further on we read, that "in modern an inconsistency; for the author has already times the marvels of this expansive (demo- described the shortsightedness of his oppocratic) power have not been less conspicu- nents, in a manner which renders the praise ous. From the Republics of Genoa and somewhat inexplicable. But he has forgotVenice the democratic spirit again pene- ten all that, as he has forgotten a good many trated," etc. The oligarchical constitution other things that he has written in the of the Venetian Commonwealth presumed to stand in opposition to the GREAT DOGMA: accordingly, the Venetian Republic was transformed into a "Poligarchy!” We pass to the general relations of Europe with Asia; and in the later history, vol. IV., p. 608, we find the following astonishing assertion: "Unity renders Asia formidable: diversity constitutes the strength of Europe." In vol. XIV. of the former history, p. 262, we find the following commentary upon this axiom : course of his bulky volumes; and, when he begins to describe the characters of public men of his day, he acts on the principle of de mortuis, etc.,-makes his portraits all very attractive, though singularly like each other. It is true that he says of Lord Brougham, in respect of his speeches, that he has "an overwhelming deluge of words," and that "his verbose habit is much to be regretted."-(Vol. IV., p. 287.) Lord Brougham might perhaps think that the critic had put himself out of court, and was disqualified, by his own example, from pro"In Asia, the vigour of the chief who nouncing the censure. But Sir A. Alison seizes the diadem rarely descends to his has a high opinion of "his merits as an successor who inherits it; and even the har- equity lawyer,"-a judgment, at all events, dihood of a new race of northern conquer- from which he was not precluded by any ors is found, after a few generations, to be positive demerits of his own. Sir Archibald irrecoverably merged in the effeminacy of pays a handsome tribute to the late Lord their subjects. Hence the extraordinary fa- Grey (notwithstanding the "fatal mistake," cility with which they are overturned, and to which he again alludes), and says, that the perpetual alternation of external conquest" he was, beyond all doubt, a most remarkand internal corruption which marks every able man."-P. 280. The observation will age of Asiatic history." (!) not probably be gainsaid. He falls, howWith reference to "Europe and Asia," ever, into two singular mistakes. He has we are told that Asiatic sovereigns are more the hardihood to assert that "Lord Paldespotic than Europeans. The remark is merston has been a member of every Adjust, though hardly original; but we have ministration, with the single exception of immersed ourselves into a portion of Sir A. the short one of Lord Derby in 1852, for Alison's works, in which we treasure up the last fifty years" (p. 288); whereas any just observation, be it ever so trite. every one else is aware that, during both But when Sir Archibald proceeds, on the the Administrations of Sir Robert Peel, strength of this assertion, to his favourite Lord Palmerston was one of the leading topic of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, we are members of the opposition; and that, "fifty obliged to differ with him again. Assuming years" before this volume was written, that these patriarchs respectively peopled Lord Palmerston had not entered political Asia, Africa, and Europe, he illustrates the life. He speaks of Lord John Russell's milder sovereignty of the Japetic race (iv., "conduct as the leader of the House of 608) from Homer's description of Agamem- Commons in 1831;" whereas every one else non. Does he not know that the earliest is no less aware, that it was a peculiarity in accounts of Greece that we possess, and Lord John Russell's political position, during which are quite as reliable as the exploits the whole struggle of the Reform Bill, that of Agamemnon, distinctly refer the founda- he had taken the office of Paymaster-Gention of Greek Commonwealths to Egyptian eral without a seat in the Cabinet. Why and Asiatic emigrators? Sir James Graham should be applauded, and Mr. Gladstone (the master-mind of his | taken. Similar expressions are stored up party) should not be noticed, is not appa- for our sorrows, to those which indicate our rent. Neither is Lord Althorp mentioned; joys. Thus, we continually read of “unand we are reduced to the solution, that Sir bounded alarm," and "appalling distress." A. Alison was not aware that he had been But our national temperament-and that, Leader of the House of Commons during indeed, of all the races of "Japhet "-is so the four most stormy sessions of its exist- happily elastic, that these sentiments quickly ence. But, as we have said, there is no dis- pass away; and, a few lines further on, we position to injustice; and we are told of are sure to recur to a condition of "prodieach of the prominent statesmen of our day, gious enthusiasm," and "universal transhe has "administrative abilities of a very ports." high order." This is at least gratifying, if it be not discriminative. We may fairly presume that an author who places himself in deliberate opposition to Any detailed criticism on the subject of every statesman, and to every other political style would be superfluous. It is certain, writer, is nearly indifferent to any criticism however, that any three of Sir A. Alison's of his work. To depict Sir A. Alison's volumes might be very advantageously com- character as a reasoner or, as a writer of pressed into one. The author's aversion to fact, is what no one can do so well as himmonosyllables is fatal to the force of his dic- self; and he has described it-in a delineation; and we have roughly calculated that tion of Napoleon, which seems as though it the omission of useless adjectives would had been designed for autobiography-with alone reduce the work by some twenty or a fidelity which exhausts our own powers. thirty pages a volume. Nearly all his sub-It shall be transcribed :— stantives end in "ation;" a peculiarity Unconquerable adherence to error, in which ensures them, on an average, an inor- point of fact, in the face of the clearest evidinate length. His affection towards the dence, is, in like manner, often so characterword superadd," not seldom costs the istic of his writings, where any of his marked simple sense of his passage; and his perpetu- prepossessions is concerned, that one is apt to al introduction of the epithet "human imagine that the account of the peculiarity ex. gr., "human affairs,' "human emanci- given by his panegyrists is the true one, pation," etc., with studied distinctiveness, that his imagination was so ardent that his suggests the notion that he had been writing wishes were, literally speaking, father to his a political history (if such there could be) thoughts, and that what he desired, he really of zoology in general. But the wearisome believed to be true."* iteration of trite ideas, exploded theories, and false reasoning, is what chiefly swells | his second history to its present dimensions.* We cannot help noticing also the appalling of Man. Edited by REGINALD STUART POOLE, M.R.S.L., etc. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black. 1856. epithets which are coupled with the expres- ART. II.-1. The Genesis of the Earth and sion of almost every idea in the analysis of chapters that stand at the beginning of each volume. We are perpetually referred to sections entitled astonishing success," 2. "prodigious enthusiasm," 66 universal trans ports," etc. We had a vague notion, on first reading the latter expression, that "universal transports" were transport ships on a vast scale, somewhat after the fashion of the "Great Eastern;" but we were mis * Sir Archibald favours us with numerous Latin quotations--some of which he goes out of his way to translate; and does it in a manner which eliminates the whole epigrammatic collocation of the original. These quotations are commonly of a very hackneyed kind; wo find such as "Coelum non animum mutant," etc.; "didicisse fideliter artes," etc.-(the verb in the last instance being mis-spelt, and the qualifying adjective forgotten)--and many others which, through the dim vista of some ten long years, we remember, in our old Harrow days, to have perused in a little book called "Wordsworth's Latin Grammar!" 3. 4. The Testimony of the Rocks, or Geology 1857. The Mosaic Record in Harmony with the Geological. By JAMES SIME, M. A. Edinburgh Thomas Constable & Co. 1854. *Sir A. Alison's Character of Napoleon, vol. iii., p. 628. |