thanke Hym as He hath deserved to yowe; and leveth nought that ye ne come for no man that may counsaille yowe the contrarie; for, by the trouth that I schal be to yowe yet, this day the Walshmen supposen and trusten that ye schulle nought come there, and there fore, for Goddeslove, make them fals men. And that hit plese yowe of your hegh lordeship for to have me excused of my comynge to yowe, for, yn god fey, I have nought ylaft with me over two men, that they beon sende oute with Sherref and other gentils of oure schire, for to with stande the malice of the rebelles this day. "Most excellent, most mighty, and most dread Lord, I know nothing besides at present. I pray the Blessed Trinity to give you good life, with complete good health, very long to endure, and sende yowe sone to ows in help and prosperitee; for, in god fey, I hope to Almighty God that, if ye come youre owne persone, je schulle have the victorie of alle youre enemyes. "And for salvation of youre schire and marches al aboute, treste ye nought to no leutenaunt. “Written at Hereford, in very great haste, at three of the clock after noon, the third day of September. Your humble creature and continual orator, On the "Henry," Mr. Hingeston shows, "reached Worcester on the 8th, and remained there till the 10th of September, or perhaps later. 14th we find him at Hereford, and thus the good archdeacon had his wish; but the results of the royal presence must have sadly disappointed his too sanguine expectations. Glyndwr was not to be crushed so easily." We can imagine the king crushing the letter into a pigeonhole in his travelling-box, and thinking what he would do to the rebel chief, if he could catch him! The reader will not fail to observe in the above epistle the humble style in which the subject addresses the sovereign. Such was the manner of the times; but there are exceptions to every rule, and Mr. Hingeston's volume contains many exceptions to this. A man's politeness, even towards a king, is apt to wear thin when his pocket is concerned; and Henry IV.'s great difficulty all through his reign was to provide the wherewithal to pay his servants. A more cruel case can hardly be conceived than that of poor De Ryssheton and his fellow-ambassadors to Flanders and France, "who were left for months without any supplies from England, and without their stipends, to conduct an arduous and expensive business. It is curious"-we quote Mr. Hingeston's preface"to note how at first they modestly ask in four words for the moneys due to them, and gradually lose all patience, as their just demands continue to be disregarded; till they are reduced to beggary, and write to declare their intention of throwing up the negotiations altogether and returning to England unless they are paid at once. "On the 24th of July [1404], De Ryssheton wrote to the king on this subject, detailing the work and the reward: From the 14th day of November [1403] even to the day of writing this letter, for my arrears of stipend, I have been able to obtain not a single penny.' "Again, on the 19th of September, growing bolder, he wrote to the council: The commissaries named in your commissions, being without stipends or remuneration, justifiably refuse to undertake labours, forasmuch as no one is compelled to go to war at his own cost; and from the 14th day of November to the present time, for arrears of stipend and future pay, I, Nicholas, have received only sixty pounds sterling.' Two hundred pounds had been promised him by the council, and the balance which was then due he begged might be paid at once, 'for otherwise, through lack thereof, I shall not be able any longer to continue my labours; but, leaving the negotiations incomplete, shall return into England, to offer my excuses before our lord the king and the parliament.' "Again, in a postscript to his letter of the 26th of September, he wrote: Unless I am paid the balance of the two hundred pounds over and above the sixty pounds already paid, you must ordain for yourselves some other clerk in my place, to carry on these negotiations; for by reason of poverty and want I shall not be able to sustain any further labour. Therefore, otherwise, I shall return into England to the parliament.' 66 Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," indeed! Here was a humiliating, mortifying, and annoying little heap of letters for the royal desk! How Harry of Lancaster must have winced every time he looked at that provoking corner. And he had, alas! many other such in his desk. For a debt of a few hundreds of pounds he had turned the Percys, who had been his firmest friends, into enemies as bitter as they were powerful. We would fain extend our quotations from this most interesting volume, but space forbids.* Our readers will, no doubt, satisfy themselves by procuring the work itself. We cannot, however, refrain from giving them Mr. Hingeston's résumé of the long and valuable correspondence relating to France and Flanders: "The whole correspondence, taken together, and considered in all its details, exhibits a new and striking illustration of one of those numerous perils and distractions, which rendered uneasy indeed the early years of the first monarch of the House of Lancaster, affording yet another proof * The French invasion of Wales, in support of Owen Glyndwr, took place in 1405, but the country was in a panic for fear of it during great part of 1404. The English ambassadors continually wrote to the king and council on the necessity of preparation being made, in terms which are not without their significance in the present day. A few extracts will be read with interest: Sept. 19, 1404. "A notable and mighty naval armament has been prepared in France, which in the present month, as is professed, is to effect a landing in the parts of Wales, or in some other parts of England; therefore, for full security, it is expedient that the sea should be strongly guarded with all possible speed, and defended in every port, because the French dispose themselves rather to the sword than to the observance of a truce." Again: "If the sea, especially in the parts of Wales, be both powerfully guarded and also be put in a state of defence, we take it that we shall very shortly receive a peaceable answer from the French; otherwise they will do their worst, in conjunction with their allies, to the no small injury and depression of your kingdom." Here, then, was discovered, more than four hundred years ago, the true way of warding off French aggression, that we in the nineteenth century have shown ourselves so slow to learn. of the vigour of the mind of the man who could pass safely through so many troubles, and at last obtain success; and certainly not exhibiting his character in an unfavourable light beside that of neighbouring princes in his day. The year 1404 closed in darkness and in doubt; rebellion was successful in Wales, and the great armament of the French was on the sea: the threatened invasion came with the new year, but the firmness and personal courage and activity of Henry encouraged and strengthened all for the contest; and the end, as we shall see, was that he was victorious finally, and able to establish himself and his family more firmly than ever on the throne." In conclusion, we must congratulate the Master of the Rolls on the sagacity and judgment which have led him to select, or at least sanction, the publication of such works as the one under review, as well as on the manner in which the editors whom he has chosen continue to carry out their respective tasks. We venture again to express a hope that he will continue to recognise the great importance of letters and similar original documents over all other kinds of material for historical purposes, and will make it his main object to secure in the first instance the fullest and most complete publication possible of all that are now extant and have not been published hitherto. THE REMAINS OF WILLIAM CALDWELL ROSCOE.* BESIDES an interesting and carefully-written Memoir-a variety of minor poems-and his two tragedies, "Eliduke, Count of Yveloc," and "Violenzia," the latter of which (notwithstanding its painful subject) is one of the few modern instances of the poetical drama which clearly deserve reprinting and invite reperusal, these volumes comprise the cream of Mr. Roscoe's contributions to the National Review. Not unadvisedly do we use that word cream. For the critical essays in question are none of your skim-milk stuff. They are not the thin watery wash that is meet only to be cast before swine. There is body in them, and nutriment, and a full creamy flavour at times, that makes them desirable food for every one that can relish such fare. We need only name a few of the leading subjects of these refined criticisms to indicate the attraction of the mere subjects themselves. How attractively they are treated-with what thoughtfulness and breadth of view, as well as genial temper and lively sympathy-the reader who has seen them in their original form, cannot be unaware; the reader who is hitherto unacquainted with them, may now gladly learn. Tennyson leads the tuneful choir-as the most modern of poets-whose mind is in exact harmony with the times in which he lives-and who is here said, more than any other, to echo back the complexities, the subtleties, the difficulties of the more advanced stages of the world's history, and who *Poems and Essays by the late William Caldwell Roscoe. Edited, with a Prefatory Memoir, by his Brother-in-law, Richard Holt Hutton. Two Vols. London: Chapman and Hall. 1860. "treads with closer footsteps than any other on the heels of those whisperings of the unseen that never cease to haunt us." To him succeeds the Classical School of English Poetry, as represented by Matthew Arnold, who is incidentally declared to owe part of his charm to the very absence of deep and engrossing feelings in his nature. Mrs. Browning follows-whose poetry "is isolated and sedentary; not isolated in its sympathies, which are as warm and tender as poet's need to be; but her voice comes as the voice of one who has always dwelt apart, and felt for men and admired Nature at a distance, rather than walked familiarly in the common pathways." Then we have the Conversation and Poetry of Rogers-who is pronounced deficient in power of really observing mencurious in the husks of things-provided with plenty of nuts through life, and spending it in cracking them, dilating upon and preserving the shells, instead of eating and digesting the kernels. Thomas Moore, again, is rated considerably below the Holland House standard. Gray is made the text for a discourse on the Theory of Poetic Expression; Crabbe for another on Unideal Poetry; and De Foe for a third on Unideal Fiction. Then we come to an exposition of Mr. Thackeray's characteristics, as Artist and Moralist; and presently to one of Sir E. B. Lytton's achievements, first and last, in the threefold capacity of Novelist, Philosopher, and Poet. The Bronté sisters-we could almost style them the weird sisters-are feelingly and eloquently discussed. Add to these more than one essay on story-books for children-a topic sure to be handled with sense and spirit by a man so fond of children, and so conversant with their ways, and studious of their likings and latent powers, as was the gifted author whose early loss we have, in the reliques now before us, good reason to lament. His brother-in-law enlivens the Prefatory Memoir with a few-too few -pleasant specimens of Mr. Roscoe's correspondence, the manner of which is often as piquant as it is easy. There is occasionally an almost Elia touch of humour in the writer's epistolary exaggerations. As where he thus describes-two years before his death, and that occurred before he was five-and-thirty-his feelings of old age and decaying memory; feelings, it would appear, not altogether fictitious or fanciful, as Mr. Hutton expressly takes note of the "very rapidly increasing indications of age in his face and bearing which all his friends observed during the last few years of his life," and which bore token to the frailty of a constitution sadly undermined by asthma in an aggravated form. "As for me," writes this young man of thirty-three, "I have all the sensations of an old man of sixty; I know all he feels. My mind is a chaos as far as knowledge goes. I confound Agamemnon and Achilles in my own mind, believe that Priam was found sitting in the ruins of Carthage and said something to a slave. A dagger is mixed up with it. I believe, and do not believe, that Montesquieu and Nestor were two French prelates, famous, the one for sanctity, the other for funeral sermons. I know Robespierre was a little man, and broke his jawbone with a pistol-shot. I know they took the Bastille, and this is what I know of the French Revolution. I see all the papers are full of India now: I remember about India. There's a story of the Black Hole of Bombay, and Lord Clive was tried in Westminster Hall about some old Indian ladies' jewellery. There was Warren Hastings too; he was out in India. It was after he came back, I suppose, that that curious scene took place with Richard III. You remember about his 'baring his shrivelled arm.' He was executed, I think; but perhaps there is some confusion." And so on. That last peut-être qualification clause is impayable. One might think the writer was fresh from studying the candidates' papers at some Civil Service Examination. But how Charles Lamb would have "tasted" a correspondent of this sort and have delighted to outdo his confessions by avowing a degree of ignorance incomparably greater.-Elsewhere Mr. Roscoe reminds us, in the matter of irony, of the Opium-eater and his Esthetics of Murder; as where he upholds his favourite dogma that very distinguished professional tact and mental capacity are required for excellence in the pursuit of pocket-picking and housebreaking; maintaining that, "pursued in a scientific and serious spirit," it is not without its strong recommendations; and that, could he himself but have accepted the moral assumptions of that vocation, he should have greatly excelled as a general practitioner. "I should make a very good pickpocket," he writes to Mr. Smith Osler, "and should be sure when transported to be distinguished for my good behaviour. What a splendid convert I should make according to the new plan, and how I should flourish on it!" Pocket-picking, he said, was intellectually the higher branch of the profession, because success in it required so much finer an insight into the mind and countenance of your victims. "Before you can enter into a gentleman's pocket, you must be able to enter into his feelings." There is an amusing letter to Mr. Langton Sanford, on the gross incapacity of ordinary burglars, which is quite instinct with the spirit of the celebrated jeu d'esprit, already referred to, on Murder as one of the Fine Arts. His biographer writes with fond and natural partiality, but not without solid ground for it, and good cause to show for it, on Mr. Roscoe's rich humour, his singular harmony of character, his social ease and insight, the ideal depth and patient meditativeness of his judgment, his public spirit and manly political interests, the sincerity and trustfulness of his friendship, the refined humanity of his tastes, the perfect veracity and light fresh beauty of his imagination, and the true humility of his faith. These were qualities to make a man loved and lamented. And in various degrees they are manifest in his Remains—with the like effect. It is an enviable destiny, that; even though a poor seven lustres see the destiny wrought out. We can find space for but one brief illustration of the poet. The following Sonnet, dated "Richmond, 1852," is addressed to his Motherand there is a tranquil charm about it that attracts us to them both: As winter, in some mild autumnal days, Breathes such an air as youngest spring discloses, A way to fix her here, bound by our filial loves, June-VOL. CXIX. NO. CCCCLXXIV. |