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## p. 491 (#371) ############################################

No. 4410, MAY 4, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
491
was
ROBERT BROWNING
PITT AND NAPOLEON
MADAME STRINHEIL'S MEMORIES
PAGR
491
492
LANGUAGE
496
AUTOGRAPH SALE
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS
FORTHCOMING BOOKS
LITERARY GOSSIP
497
498
503
504
>
MEETINGS NEXT
505--507
507--509
PERFORMANCES NEXT WEEK
509510
. .
511-512
512
a
came
6
born in Scotland. Doubtless it • The Ring and the Book,' with its
SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1912.
from her that he derived his love of music. exquisite invocation to his wife :-
He was, we are told, when an infant,
CONTENTS.
O lyric Love, half angel and half bird,
hushed to sleep by his father to the
And all a wonder and a wild desire.
words of an ode by Anacreon; as a child
of five, he was interested in the tale of Just before its publication Messrs. Smith
493 Troy.
His schooldays were
unsatis- & Elder issued a uniform edition of the
ENOLISH MEDIEVAL LITERATURE AND THE ENGLISH factory, and were soon over. It is sig- poems to that date. This may be said,
nificant, just at this period in the history with the appearance of his masterpiece, to
THE CANON LAW IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
of the University of London, to note that mark Browning's full public recognition
FLERT STREET AND THE STRAND
496 497
the elder Browning was one of the early as a poet. The Athenceum, which had
shareholders who subscribed 1001. towards not hesitated to criticise some of his work
the foundation of University College. severely, rendered unstinted praise to
Robert's name was among the first entered · The Ring and the Book. ' In a sense,
SCIENCE-THE DOCTOR AND THE PEOPLE; NOTICES on the register of students, but he left Browning's genius had sprung early to
OF NEW BOOKS; SOCIETIES;
WEEK; GOSSIP
with what must have been disconcerting maturity. Some passages in ‘Paracelsus
FINE ARTS-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS; MR. WALTER abruptness. It was in the home, in his are as fine as anything he ever wrote,
SICKERT AT THE CARFAX GALLERY; THE ROYAL
father's library, that he received his but the dramatic treatment of the story
ACADEMY ; SALES ; GOSSIP
true education, and he speaks of
of Pompilia marks it out as supreme.
Music-BROWNING AS THE POET OF Music; GOSSIP ;
In attempting to estimate the genius
My first dawn of life,
DRAMA - SHAKESPEARE AND SOME ACTORS; GOSSIP
Which passed alone with wisest ancient books,
of Browning, it is useless to ignore the
All halo-girt with fancies of my own.
much-vexed question about which
INDEX TO ADVERTISERS.
In the spring of 1829, when
great deal of nonsense has been talked
he
left college, Robert Browning definitely of poetry that would separate the sub-
and written. It is altogether a false view
chose poetry as his vocation. In 1833
stance and the form. A philosopher may
LITERATURE
Pauline' was published, of which the
Athenæum remarked that “fine things
be hailed as great because of his ideas,
abound; there is no difficulty in finding placed before the student be crabbed
although the mode in which they are
passages to vindicate our praise. . . . To and halting. But in true poetry thought
ROBERT BROWNING.
one who sings so naturally, poetry must
be as easy as music is to a bird. ” Para-
and its expression cannot be thus severed.
The century which has elapsed since celsus,'
which followed, caused the judg-evitable form, and neither can be con-
The content moulds for itself the in-
Robert Browning's birth probably owes ment of the latter sentence to be some-
as much to his influence as to that of any what revised, and we can hardly wonder separable substance,” to quote Dr. A. C.
sidered separately. The "heresy of the
other modern poet. This is not because at this; but there was much that was
admiration for his work can, as yet, be splendid in the poem. Next
Bradley's Oxford Lectures on Poetry,
is untenable. It is therefore beside the
called general; but the intensity of the Strafford,' Sordello,' due to the study
appreciation, in his case, may be said of Dante, and series after series of Bells mark to plead, in defence of the art of
to make up for its lack of extent. In and Pomegranates. '
Browning, that although the expression
his character, triple and indivisible, of
may be clumsy and repellent, the ideas
prophet, philosopher, and singer, he has Meanwhile a Miss Barrett had been are admirable. He satirized this criticism
laid such hold upon those who love him, writing in The Athenceum a series of himself in 'The Inn Album':
that their devotion amounts to something
articles on the early Greek Christian poets,
That bard 's a Browning; he neglects the form :
like a religion.
and it is interesting to note that it was But ah, the sense, ye gods, the weighty sense !
The oft-quoted sentence of Hegel that into touch with Browning, who was,
through these that she was first brought
The Saturday Review of November 24th,
A great man condemns the world to
a set purpose to
the task of explaining him,” has been
she writes to Mr. Boyd, “not behind in 1855, accused him of
repeated once again with regard to is said to be learned in Greek, especi jingle of Hudibrastic rhyme. " "If this
approbation. ” Moreover, " Mr. Browning be obscure, and an idiot captivity to the
Browning. And when was“ task. more ally in the dramatists. " Everyone
sort of thing be true of anything that he
conscientiously undertaken ? Critical,
knows the wonderful details of the romance
has written, it is out of accord with the
metaphysical, biographical volumes of
that followed. Life in Italy after the
root conception of poetry. In all his
Browning apologetics” constitute
literature in themselves. A society, re-
marriage in 1846 had a deep influence work, but especially in later years, the
garded with half - humorous recognition and Easter - Day' appeared in 1850,
on the poet's genius. Christmas-Eve love of dialectic, 'intellectual analysis,
by the poet, was founded in his lifetime
and Easter - Day' appeared in 1850. and brutal frankness sometimes got the
better of him.
to elucidate his works. The very phrase Mrs. Browning's appointment to
In the same year The Athenæum urged
No author who put forth such a vast
the
“ Browning student,” is significant. Who Laureateship,
then vacant through the quantity, of work as Browning did,
talks about a Tennyson student,” a
“ Matthew Arnold student” ?
death of Wordsworth. It was suggested writing for upwards of fifty years on all
Accord
that the choice of a woman would be a manner of subjects, can invariably be at
ingly his genealogy and youthful environ-
his best. But one feels occasionally that
ment have been scrutinised with the graceful compliment to Queen Victoria.
he did not want to be at his best ; that
view of explaining his individuality.
The two volumes of' Men and Women
he was disdainful of the beauty which is
Camberwell - Dissent - Middle Class ! were Browning's next achievement, and part of the ultimate secret of all true
This “study of origins
sounds more
the last poem here is · One Word More
poetry; that he gloried in the harshness
unpromising than it is. In 1812 Camber- to E. B. B.
to E. B. B. In 1861 Mrs. Browning died. and obscurity which tend to destroy it.
well
virtually in the
the country,
The Athenæum, with which she had long
The Athenæum spoke of the “ music”
and from Southampton Street, where
been intimately connected, and which
of Pauline,' and it seems extraordinary
Browning lived as a child, he could hear
was the indirect means of introducing that the poem should long have been
the nightingales call one to another.
her and her husband to one another, 1 excluded by its author from the collection
The religious influences of his home happened to be almost the last printed of his works. Crude, boyish, unequal,
made for earnestness and independence page she looked upon.
it may be ; but the mystical description
of thought. As to his parentage, his It was characteristic of Browning that of music itself, for example, is beautiful.
father was a clerk in the Bank of England; | in his deep anguish he resolved still to We deal elsewhere to-day with that
his mother, “a divine woman " to her live and work and write. " After the special feeling for music which is so
son, was of German extraction, though 'publication of Dramatis Personæ'came strong in Browning's work.
a
was
66


## p. 492 (#372) ############################################

492
THE ATHENÆUM
No. 4410, MAY 4, 1912
a
Wherein lies the compelling splendour
Paracelsus, the model of intellectual
of Browning's art? First, in his dra- egotism, is misled by vain confidence, Pitt and Napoleon : Essays and Letters.
matic power, and secondly in his idealism. but in the end he discerns the truth. By J. Holland Rose. (Bell & Sons. )
“ My stress lay on the incidents in the Bishop Blougram, worldly and selfish The title of this volume—“Pitt and
development of a soul; little else is materialist, says :-
Napoleon'— may mislead. It suggests
worth study,” he says in the introduc- Just when we are safest, there 's a sunset-touch, an exposition of the policy of the British
tion to Sordello. '
A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death,
A chorus-ending from Euripides,--
minister with regard to Bonaparte, but the
Since Shakespeare, there has been no
And that 's enough for fifty hopes and fears book contains nothing of the sort. It is
such dramatic poet; no one, that is, as old and new at once as nature's self, composed of nine essays and of several
with so much of the stuff of drama in To rap and knock and enter in our soul.
his work.
collections of correspondence and other
Shakespeare revealed his Browning's steadily optimistic concep-documents of the period, regarding either
characters by action; Browning reveals tion of the world, as Sir Henry Jones says, Pitt or Napoleon; but very few pages
them chiefly by the study of motive. infused new vigour into English ethical in the volume touch upon 'Pitt's policy
The greater part of what he discerned thought. Men felt they could reasonably with respect to Napoleon, or juxtapose
in man was not adapted for action behind trust him. It is the poet who must take the two great names in any relation what-
the footlights. In his Dramatic Lyrics the leap forward ; the philosopher must
ever. Indeed, most of those concerning
and in The Ring and the Book,' follow. Intuition and perception must Pitt belong to the time when Bonaparte
he places himself at the heart of his come first ; but Browning loved to argue, was only a general of the Republic, whose
characters, and endeavours to think to justify his own conclusions, as in
military qualities alone interested Euro-
their thoughts, to look through their · Rabbi Ben Ezra' and ' A Grammarian's
pean statesmen; while those in which
eyes. This it is which makes him, not Funeral. '
Napoleon is the chief figure are of the
only a religious poet, but also the greatest In 'Pauline' he avows himself
period long after the death of Pitt. This
poetic apologist for Christianity that the disciple of Plato. In his noblest work will be seen from an analysis of the con-
age has known.
the conviction appears that there exists a
tents of the volume. Of its 340 pages
To turn from this aspect of Browning's world of invisible realities, of which the the essays occupy 160. In the first, on
art, the learning shown in the selection of consummate expression on earth must be The
Oratory of Pitt,' there is only one
recondite corners of history, and out-of-the- inadequate.
way personages for dramatic treatment, is He has made a firm faith in the ultimate one repite and a smart Fitzwilliam Wand mon
simply bewildering, while technical know- spiritual destiny of mankind seem reason-
The Quiberon Disaster,' Napoleon is
ledge of one subject after another
con- able, enabling his disciples to do more not mentioned. In the fourth, entitled
stantly appears in their delineation. than “ trust
British Rule in Corsica,' an interesting
Browning himself was anything but un-
that somehow good
essay of 19 pages, there are not 30 lines
conventional in his
appearance and habits.
Will be the final goal of ill.
relating to the great Corsican. The
He was sturdy and outspoken, it is true. This is no light thing for any writer fifth, on the 'Relief of the Poor,' treats
“I was ever a fighter,” he says truthfully, to accomplish. His method of achieving of a domestic question. In the sixth,
and there is significance in the furious his aim may, to many, appear open to the longest in the book, entitled Did
lines he fired off to The Athenaeum on criticism. But it has strengthened men Napoleon intend to Invade England ? ' the
reading a thoughtless expression published for the battle of life, and encouraged all name of Pitt appears on five only of its 33
in Edward FitzGerald's Letters' re- brave and noble virtues.
pages.
In the three other essays, on
garding his wife's work.
Next Tuesday the centenary of the The True Significance of Trafalgar,' on
But the greatest hold that Browning poet is to be celebrated in Westminster Marbot's Memoirs,' and on Napoleon's
has upon the present age undoubtedly Abbey. Another tribute to the occasion Conception of the Battle of Waterloo,
comes from his idealism. His view of the is the handsome Centenary Edition of Pitt is not mentioned.
universal scheme of things, illustrated Browning's Works which has just been There are two other papers printed
from human life rather than from nature, begun. The volume before us is well among the essays. One is a reprint of an
is optimistic. Man's sense of the incom- printed in a bold and pleasant type, and Interview with Napoleon in Elba,' pub--
pleteness of the present is taken as a fore the text is the latest supervised by the lished in 1839, in which naturally there
shadowing of the future. The note is poet. A few short poems which have is no reference to Pitt, and the other is a
sounded in ‘Pauline' that vibrates with not hitherto figured in the collected collection of 'Some New Letters of Pitt'
solemn triumph in the epilogue to ' Aso- editions are to appear, but we are glad with some notes. The latter ought to have
lando,' and
to learn that some extant verses been printed in Part II. of the volume,
The heavy and the weary weight
deliberately excluded which, it is thought, which is made up of a large number of
Of all this unintelligible world
Browning would not have reprinted. letters, nearly all of which are to or from.
is lightened to those who follow him as The Introductions by Dr. F. G. Kenyon Pitt, some being of the highest interest.
their master. It is too often taken for do not include explanations of hard words Altogether there are 265 letters in this
granted that the girl's song in Pippa or difficult references. They show the volume entitled Pitt and Napoleon,'
Passes sums up an easy acquiescence in position of each poem in Browning's and it would have been difficult to select
the pain of life
life, the circumstances of its composition, another equal quantity of Pitt's corre-
God 's in his heaven,
and any bibliographical details worth spondence so destitute of references to
All 's right with the world.
mentioning, such as the issue of a reprint Napoleon. For there are only 11 among
of the original Pauline' by Mr. T. J. the 265 in which the name of Bonaparte
This was the glad overflowing of a
child's heart on her one holiday. The Wise in 1886.
or Napoleon is mentioned. Of these one is
poet himself knew that there was very this volume, which has also an interesting ferring to “ the French Usurper,” five are
Dr. Kenyon has done his work well in from Grenville, one from George III. , re-
much wrong with the world ; witness
portrait of Browning at 43 by D. G. from Canning, and four from Pitt himself.
the terrible tragedies he depicts. But
through all pain and stress, even in the Rossetti. A careful selection of such
The book may be described as a collec-
soul of the worst of criminals, there is a
portraits is to be a feature of this edition, tion of interesting and sometimes very
foreshadowing of ultimate redemption which is likely to be taken up rapidly valuable matter, unsystematically ar-
As a philosopher, Browning is in accord | Indeed, we should have thought that a ranged and inadequately annotated. It
with Hegel, that good is positive, and larger issue than 500 copies for sale in is therefore not so attractive as it might
must conquer in the end. His supreme
the British Isles would have been amply easily have been made for the general
idea of good is love. The world is tending
justified.
reader, and not very serviceable for the
slowly, through conflict, towards perfec- The Works of Robert Browning.
Centenary ought to have been taken in the notes,
student. For the latter, greater care
tion, and man upon his way is guided by Edition in 10 vols. With Introductions by
August anticipations, symbols, types
F. G. Kenyon. -Vol. I. Pauline, Para- which are for the most part meagre, and
Of a dim splendour ever on before.
celsus, Sordello. (Smith & Elder. )
not always accurate.
6
are


## p. 493 (#373) ############################################

No. 4410, MAY 4, 1912
THE AT HENÆUM
493
6
a
or as
name
was
Artois"
or
The following will indicate the character has not that intimate acquaintance Waterloo. '
intimate acquaintance Waterloo. ' They are so full of facts that
of some of the inaccuracies we have noted with the persons referred to, which one they would be much more useful for the
in this volume. On May 9th, 1804, has the right to expect in a specialist. student if they were each prefaced with
Canning writes to Pitt: I have men- For instance, in the monograph on
The
a résumé of the contents, as was formerly
tioned what passed between us to three Quiberon Disaster' the sentence “In customary in historical works. This
persons only, Leveson, Morpeth and Brittany a royalist leader, Cormatin, remark also applies to the essay on
Borrington. . . . not to Lord Stafford. " reluctantly observed the peace," does not Quiberon. In it the author uses language
Borrington is an obvious misspelling which inform the student as to the identity of of needless violence in describing the
might have been corrected. Dr. Rose this person, in spite of a foot-note referring criticisms of the disaster by Fox and
adds the explanatory note : “Leveson- to a MS. in the British Museum, which Sheridan as “ disgraceful display of
Gower was third son of Lord Stafford. ” perhaps misled the author. Cormatin reckless ignorance
“ slanders so
He was his stepbrother. Lord Granville could hardly be described as “ a royalist diabolical. " One has to take into con-
Leveson - Gower, afterwards first Earl leader. ". He was a soldier of fortune sideration the general attitude of the
Granville, was the second-not the third- whose opinions frequently changed during Opposition at that period.
son of the previous Lord Stafford, who the Revolution. His real
This volume, containing as it does much
died in 1803. The Lord Stafford from Désotteux, and he was not a royalist material of the highest value and interest,
whom the confidential news was to be leader in the sense that others mentioned bears signs of having been thrown to-
withheld was his son, the future first Duke on the same page with him were-Charette, gether without sufficient revision, although
of Sutherland, who, as Lord Gower, had Stofflet, or even Puisaye, he being a some of the matter was printed in
been British Ambassador under Pitt to staff officer of the last named.
magazines six or seven years ago. The
Louis XVI. in the final days of the is an unusual designation of the future author has passed on his book a criticism
monarchy. It is the knowledge of the Charles X. It is as though one called,
as though one called, more severe than any of ours in publishing
identity of the people mentioned in at this period, the future George IV. it without an index, which is indispen-
these old letters which makes the cor- Wales. The correct style is given in sable to the utility of a work of this
respondence live again.
some of the letters of the period—“ Comte kind. He quotes the 'Dropmore Papers,'
In the essay on Pitt and Fitzwilliam d'Artois" Monsieur. ” There is a and we would commend to his example
we are told that part of the “unique perplexing note, repeated several times, the excellent index to that collection
claim to
supremacy in the
Whig See The Quarterly Review for 1912. ” | compiled by Miss M. H. Roberts.
phalanx” possessed by Fitzwilliam was When the book was published only one
that he was “the husband of Lady number of The Quarterly for 1912 had
Dorothy Cavendish. ” Without accepting appeared, and it contained nothing to
the suggestion of the “ supremacy
of which the note seemed to refer.
My Memoirs. By Marguerite Steinheil.
Fitzwilliam either within or without the The correspondence printed in the (Eveleigh Nash. )
“phalanx," we may point out that his volume is all worth reading, and though
lady's name was neither Dorothy_nor little of it relates to Napoleon, some of This unedifying work has not all the
Cavendish. She was Lady Charlotte Pon- the letters, on a large variety of other political importance which some of our
sonby, daughter of Lord Bessborough, subjects, are of great interest as throwing contemporaries have attributed to it.
and, though her mother was a Cavendish, a light on the atmosphere of the Court The first quarter of the book, which
she was not called Dorothy either. An and of the political world in Pitt's time. includes the chapters relating to the
essential quality for an expert in the Such is a letter of 1791 from Pitt to the author's connexion with the President of
political history of the reign of George III. owner of a pocket borough in Cornwall, the French Republic, Félix Faure, con-
is familiarity with Whig pedigrees, worth- recommending “an East Indian of good tains very little which is not familiar to
less though similar knowledge is in the fortune and character” who was willing those who were acquainted with the
history of politics in our own time. to pay 3,0001. for the seat. Such are inner movement of political life in France
The memoirs of Marbot supply a facile letters from George III. to Pitt, com- at the close of the last century. Never-
opportunity for criticism to a writer who plaining in 1786 that his six daughters theless, some of the pages in this part of
knows his First Empire. One of the have not enough money to dress upon-the_volume are of considerable interest
periods of Napoleon's life in which we can not so much as George II. 's " princesses ” to English readers. The rest of the book
follow his occupations day by day is in 1737, “ when every article of life was deals with the murder of her husband and
that of the “ Séjour à Bayonne ” in 1808. cheaper than now”; or, in 1787, about her mother, for which the author was tried
If our author had minutely studied it, the debts of the Prince of Wales, deploring and acquitted.
he would not have accepted one of his association with such“ a fellow as There cannot be many readers who will
Marbot's most glaring inventions. Dr. Mr. Sheridan. ” Pitt's controversy with have the patience or the curiosity to wade
the King, in 1794, about relieving the through the twenty-two later chapters for
Duke of York from his command of the the sake of the unpleasant details of the
“At the end of his [Marbot's] ride from forces, displays some of the difficulties crime. Yet they have a certain value for
Madrid to Bayonne, when he bore the news the minister had to contend with in the students of comparative procedure. They
men of Madrid on 2nd May, 1808, he was early period of the war. Another inter- not only give a complete
description of a
privileged to hear".
esting letter is from Windham to Pitt, French criminal trial in all its stages, but,
showing the pressure put upon the latter what is almost unknown in an English
and then he goes on to satirize Marbot's to help the French Royalists, in 1799, just book, they also furnish an official, verbatim
narrative of the private conversations before the coup d'état of Brumaire, which report of parts of the long interrogatory
he professed to have overheard. But changed the whole situation in France and undergone by a prisoner during the
Dr. Rose misses the chief point of Marbot's in Europe.
“instruction,' or private examination,
gasconading. He accepts his most
Of the essays, the most valuable is, in before committal to the assizes. Although
audacious fabrication, namely, that it our opinion, that on Pitt and the Relief the prisoner, before committal, has less
was he (Marbot) who“ bore the news of the Poor,' relating to distress prevalent fair-play than in England, it will be seen
of the suppression ” of the insurrection in England at the close of the eighteenth here that, under our new rule admitting
at Madrid. The officer who carried century. In these days of State Socialism the evidence of an accused person, he or
the dispatch which decided the destiny it is interesting to study the attempts she has a better chance before a French
of the Spanish royal family was Capt. made to remedy the Elizabethan system of than before an English jury, the inter-
Danencourt, and any other fictions with poor relief and to see that in Pitt's time a rogatory by the French presiding judge
which Marbot embroidered this story are contributory scheme of Old-Age Pensions being usually less severe than the cross-
of relatively small importance.
was proposed. Of the other essays, the best examination by an English counsel for
Certain passages or incidental allusions are, we think, ‘ British Rule in Corsica 'and the prosecution. Other advantages en-
in the book suggest that the author Napoleon's Conception of the Battle of joyed by the French prisoner, as shown
Rose says :


## p. 494 (#374) ############################################

494
No. 4410, May 4, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
66
“ The
here, are that there is no judge's summing- as “impudent. ” She replied,
up, and that the jury retire with the Marquess of Dufferin was a different man ENGLISH LITERATURE AND
eloquent pleading of the counsel for the though that quality had not spared him
LANGUAGE.
defence ringing in their ears. These pages a maladroit affront from the President in
also show how personal are the relations 1896. After Lord Dufferin had resigned The art of popularization and condensing
between an advocate and his client in the Embassy, and before the arrival of is one extensively practised to-day, but
France. On the other hand, the treat- his successor, Queen Victoria asked him not achieved, as a rule, with any par.
ment of an untried prisoner is much to be in Paris during the visit of the Tsar. ticular skill. The ready writer is turned
harsher in France than in England. The President refrained from recognizing on to the popular summary, and when,
Madame Steinheil was kept for a year his presence, and the Tsar showed his as often, he has no claims to be expert
in prison before her trial, and her un- sense of the proceeding by administering in the subject chosen, produces a work
exaggerated description of the horrors of a tactful and humorous rebuke to the satisfactory at first sight, yet all but
St. Lazare may be compared with the com- Chief of the State. The incident is too useless to the real student, because it
plaints of discomforts suffered by women long to relate, and it is not referred to in does not give him what he wants, or even
prisoners in England. The outrages in the book, though the author says: “The afford a clear conception of what he may
Alicted on the author before her arrest by Tsar struck me as more unassuming than expect to find.
representatives of the new journalism in the President. "
In several cases the “Home University
search of “sensational copy” show that In her account of the end of Félix Faure, Library” has achieved unusual success,
the Parisian press, notwithstanding its she says that she left him before he died, because the work has been allotted to an
great literary tradition, or at all events a and that, after he had seen a priest, he expert who can write, and retains enough
section of it, has nothing to learn from the handed a locket to his secretary to be sense of what others do not know to
worst American models.
given to her. This does not agree with emphasize the right points. This is, in
The earlier chapters, concerning the the report current in Paris that the itself, a feat more difficult than might be
author's relations with Félix Faure, de priest, casually passing along the Faubourg supposed. No average sailor, for instance,
scribe a curious phase of the politics of St. Honoré, was hurried into the Élysée speaks of the things that a landsman
the Third Republic, when France was by an affrighted servant and found the wants to know; he cannot conceive of a
divided by the Dreyfus affair and united President dead. Whoever was with him world ignorant of the A B C of his craft.
only in its enthusiasm for the Russian at the last moment, it is certain that the
alliance. Félix Faure was of a type not Parisian press treated the tragedy with
Prof. Ker has long proved his worth
uncommon in democratic governments— remarkable restraint. Political feeling
as one of the soundest scholars in English
we have, and he is the very man to put
the parvenu whose head is turned by was very bitter, political controversy was
political elevation, and who assumes violent and scurrilous, yet the President's rature before the uninstructed public.
an outline of English Mediæval Lite-
aristocratic or even royal pretensions in opponents, with few exceptions, respected His knowledge and taste are unimpeach-
his prerogatives, both of power and of his death-chamber at a time when nothing able, and his style is effective, simple,
pleasure. The President of the Republic, was sacred to polemical writers.
though Madame Steinheil does not tell the The book is written and compiled with breaks out ever and anon; unlike some
yet never dry. He has a sly humour which
story, once, when entertaining a grand ability worthy of a better theme. The of the learned, he can hear the singing
duchess at the Élysée, had himself served parts which are obviously taken from the voice” in a ballad ; and he goes behind
before the princess, on the ground that French are not badly translated, though details of word and rhythm to the mind
Louis XIV. was always served before attorney-general is not the equivalent of and temper of the people which produced
If he had confined his “ avocat-général,” and “hall of the lost them. Thus he tells us that the story of
mimicry of kings to such-like follies, he steps ” for salle des pas perdus suggests Orpheus as distilled by popular tradition
might have been alive now, and Madame Thackeray's “new street of the little into Sir Orfeo' has a happy ending,
Steinheil's ‘Memoirs’ would not have fields. ”. . . Whether the narrative portion nothing having been said of the injunction
been written. But he killed himself by was originally written in English or French not to look back :-
taking to irregular courses late in life, we cannot teil. It contains few Gallicisms,
after bringing France to the brink of a but many un-English expressions, such
“It was probably left out when Orpheus
revolution. Madame Steinheil confirms
sculpture, noblewoman,"
was turned into a fairy-tale, on account of
what we already knew-that he contem- entrained
the power of music ; the heart of the people
(of a person getting into a
felt that Orpheus the good harper ought not
my valet," meaning footmanto be subjected to the common plot [. . e. , the
by a coup d'état. “ Félix Faure has not Good taste is not to be looked for in a story founded on some act of forgetfulness).
the necessary qualities is her comment in work of this kind, and it is useless to so now the heart of the people insists
a passage supposed to be taken from her inquire if, in publishing a signed photo on a happy ending, and the purveyors of
diary of October, 1898.
graph of M. Bonnat, the portrait-painter, popular fiction would never venture to
This was on the eve of the Fashoda on a larger scale even than that of Presi- indulge in tragedy and ruin their sales.
incident. It was a moment when French dent Faure, the author obtained the per-
The Introduction examines the various
patriots,” of whom the President was mission of the artist. The historical motives which draw people to study
the chief, were all Anglophobes, partly mistakes are fewer than might be antici- mediæval literature. Among these per-
from their love of Russia, partly because pated. Thiers was not Prime Minister haps the most frequent is the study of some
the English press was aggressively Drey- when the second funeral of Napoleon took particular author, who, taken up at first
of fashion placeThe palace where Queen Victoria
was unanimously hostile to Dreyfus, in- stayed in 1855 was that of St. Cloud. lation of a new world. ” To master tho-
casually, captures attention by his “reve-
cluding even certain Jews. As Madame “ An eminent English personage. . . . who roughly one great romance or poem is
Steinheil says: The strangest phe- told lively anecdotes about the ravishing the best way of approach to a period,
nomenon in that strange time was the sister of Napoleon” would surely have and we hope that no one who has read
anti-Dreyfusard attitude of the Jewish ascertained that Pauline Borghese never
this little book will feel that he knows
élite. ” So Félix Faure, as became a man
courtisan. ” In
of fashion, “was absolutely sincere in his the list of ministerial offices held by Félix it will be an excellent foundation for study,
enough about the subject. Properly used,
conviction of Dreyfus's guilt ”-and also Faure some of the dates are wrong, and but there are no short cuts to learning,
in his Anglophobia, which was not a creed the author omits to mention that his first and summaries are apt to produce pre-
confined to anti-Dreyfusards. Never- post was a minor office in Gambetta's tentious sciolists. In so difficult a subject
theless, the two countries were not so * Grand Ministère,” of which he was very
nearly at war as Madame Steinheil sug. proud.
Home University Library. --English Lite-
gests. But feeling was very bitter, and
Mediæval. By W. P. Kor.
Félix Faure denounced to his friend a
The English Language. By Logan Pearsall
speech by our ambassador, Sir E. Monson,
Smith. (Williams & Norgate. )
cs to
as
66
wore a crown even as a
rature :


## p. 495 (#375) ############################################

No. 4410, May 4, 1912
THE ATHENÆUM
495
romance :-
are
rare.
are
as mediæval lore the positive results, always to go together) are aptly mingled on 'Language and History,' and two on
which naturally figure chiefly in hand in this summary of the Middle English Language and Thought,' express admir-
books, are as nothing compared with the attitude towards French
French models inably the vivid interest of the subject.
things that we do not know for certain,
Our only criticism is that he is too much
the gaps which must be filled in by guess-
“The English in the reign of Edward I. given to making catalogues of words.
work. The reader, for instance, who
or Edward III. had often much difficulty in A smaller selection with fuller explanation
goes from Tennyson back to Malory and understanding what the French romantic would have been much more effective,
the origins of the Arthurian stories may well school was driving, at-particularly when and all the words explained might then
get lost in a Serbonian bog of conjecture it seemed to be driving round and round, have been introduced into the Index,
which he did not expect.
spinning long monologues of afflicted damsels, which now only gives a few.
There is, naturally, in volumes of the between the knight and his lady. The diffi.
or elegant conversations full of phrases
We have frequently advocated the
scope of the “Home University Library
culty was not unreasonable. If the French addition of derivations, as fixing words
no room to deal with any poem or romance authors had been content to write about in the memory, and in the present age
in full detail ; but Prof. Ker has extracted nothing but sentimental conversations and they may even serve the purpose of per-
the essence of all the important things languishing lovers, then one would have suading people that the commonplaces
apart from drama, which is deliberately known what to do. The man who is look; of philology are not idle fictions. Ame-
left untouched
and the trend of the time ing at the railway bookstall for a good thyst, for instance, is simply duétvotos
,
is neatly hit off in discussing romances,
detective story knows at once what to say
“not drunk," the stone being supposed
when he is offered the Diary of a Soul.
ballads, comic poetry and allegory, sermons But the successful French novelists of the to preserve its possessor from intoxica-
and histories. The writer knows that twelfth century appealed to both tastes, tion, but we could not persuade a seeker
opinions expressed or implied on human and dealt equally in sensation and sentiment; after truth of this philological fact until
conduct are of deeper import than diffi- they did not often limit themselves to what we produced a Greek lexicon. Mr. Smith
culties of grammar or disputes about
was always their chief interest, the moods gives the superstition on p. 171, and tells
origins. He brings before us here and of lovers. They worked these into plots
us ten pages later that the word is Greek.
there quotations to illustrate the actual adventures were too good to be lost ; so
of adventure, mystery, fairy magic; the It is fair to say, however, that such separ
language, and due warnings as to rash the less refined English readers, who were
ations of things which might be said
judgments. Thus we learn that Danish puzzled or wearied by sentimental con completely once
The reader
pirates were not restricted to the profes- versations, were not able to do without the cannot fail to be struck with the frequency
sion of harrying, but were respectable and elegant romances. They read them; and of the prefix al- in Arabian words. Its
beneficent gentlemen at home; and that they skipped. The skipping was done for simple meaning might have been added.
“ Sumer is icumen in,” the song that them, generally, when the romances were "Enthusiasm and enthusiastic
figures at the beginning of English sions are shorter than the French in most rightly described as becoming in the
anthologies, is not a free outburst of
cases where comparison is possible. As a eighteenth century abusive terms for
melody, but governed alike by music and general rule, the English took the adven religious fanaticism and religious fanatics,
a Latin original. The English of these turous sensational part of the French but we should have gone further than this
earlier days seem to have been keener romances, and let the language of the heart to explain that in that century the Estab-
linguists and musicians than their de- alone. ”
lished Church was notoriously torpid, if
scendants.
What a contrast is such writing to the not a refrigerating machine. Pros-
The scholar, immersed in his special aridity of earlier instructors in literature !