British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIII
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Title: British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIII
Author: Various
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Language: English
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The January Journal has no Article VIII.
THE
BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW.
JANUARY AND APRIL, 1871.
VOLUME LIII.
AMERICAN EDITION.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE LEONARD SCOTT PUBLISHING COMPANY
340 FULTON STREET, BETWEEN BROADWAY AND NASSAU STREET.
1871.
S. W. GREEN.
PRINTER, STEREOTYPER, AND BINDER
16 and 18 Jacob St., N.Y.
INDEX TO VOL. LIII.
Abbott, Rev. Edwin A., Bible Lessons, Part II., 154.
Abbs, Rev. John, Twenty-two Years' Missionary Experience in
Travancore, 297.
Ainger, Rev. Alfred, Sermons preached in the Temple Church,
316.
Alcott, L. M., Little Women, 157.
Alford, Henry, D.D., Truth and Trust: Lessons of the War,
318.
American Press, The,;
Influence of the Press on Civilization, 1, 2;
Raymond's Life, 3;
The Newspaper in America, ib.;
Reviews, 5;
Want of a Comic Periodical, ib.;
Roman Catholic Organs, 6;
Religious Journalism, 7;
The Princeton Review, 8;
Superiority of the Independents and Presbyterians in
Theological Authorship, 9;
General Criticism of the American Press, ib.;
Inferiority to that of England, 10;
Corruption of the English Language, ib.;
Scurrility and Personality, 10, 11;
Absence of Anonymous Editorship, 11, 12;
Low scale of Morality, though improved of late, 12;
Great Power of the Press, and the responsibility which
each power involves, 13.
Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vols. XVII. and XVIII., 151.
Attwell, Henry, A Book of Golden Thoughts, 140.
Barham, Life and Letters of Rev. R. H., by his Son, 209.
Baring-Gould, S., The Origin and Development of Religious
Belief--Part II., 142.
Barlowe, Master John, The Bruce, 140.
Barnes in Defence of the Berde, 140.
---- Albert, The Evidences of Christianity in the Nineteenth
Century, 147.
Barni, Jules, Napoléon 1er, et son Historien, M. Thiers,
218.
Barrett, G. S., The Revision of the New Testament, a Lecture,
320.
Beauvoir, The Marquis de, a Voyage round the World, 123.
Beecher, Henry Ward, The Plymouth Pulpit, 320.
Belcher, Lady, The Mutineers of the 'Bounty' and their
descendants, 115.
Bennet, Rev. James, The Wisdom of the King, 320.
Bentley Ballads, The, 209.
Berkeley's Works, Professor Fraser's Edition of, 256;
England's Neglect of her Philosophers, ib.;
Berkeley's Historical Position not sufficiently recognised,
257;
Mr. Fraser's Picture of him at College, 258;
Two earliest books, 259;
Berkeley at Court, ib.;
Interest in Social Morality, 259, 260;
Rapid Church Preferment, 260;
He starts for the Bermudas to found a College, ib.;
Stops at Rhode Island, and remains there some years, ib.;
Writes his 'Alciphron,' 261;
Dr. Johnson, ib.;
Close of Berkeley's active life, 262;
Founds a Scholarship at Yale College, 263;
His life as Bishop of Cloyne, ib.;
Belief in Tar-water, ib.;
Removal to Oxford, 264; Death, ib.;
Berkeley's Philosophy, ib.;
Views of two classes of his Critics, 265;
Too much founded on his Early Writings, ib.;
The true Key to his Philosophy, 266;
Its relations to Locke and the English Mystics, 266, 267;
Three Stages of Development, 268;
'New Theory of Vision,' ib.;
'Principles of Human Knowledge,' 269;
The Abstract Idea of Matter, 270;
Something more than mere Sensations, ib.;
Associations, 271;
Deficient Perception of Ethical Relations, 272;
The 'Siris,' ib.
Bingham, Hon. Cap., Journal of the Siege of Paris, 291.
Bible, The Holy, arranged in Paragraphs and Sections, 154.
Blackburn, Henry, Art in the Mountains, 129.
Blackmore, R. D., Lorna Doone, 139.
Blunt, Rev. J. H., A Dictionary of Doctrinal and
Historical Theology, 146.
Bonapartism, The Downfall of, 218;
Analogy between the Imperialism of 1804 and that of 1852, 219;
The latter hopelessly collapsed, 220;
The Strange Revolution in Literature, 221;
The Mutual Hatred of French and Prussians in the Emperor's
Favour, 222;
His Relations, real and supposed, to Religion, 222, 223;
The Second Empire rendered possible by the strength of the
Napoleonic Idea, 224;
Causes of the Empire's Decay, ib.;
Reaction against the Despotism of the Capital, 226;
Rottenness of Paris Life, ib.;
Ignorance of itself and of other Nations, 227;
M. Leclercq's Views, 228;
'Papiers Secrets,' 229;
Management of Money, 229, 230;
'Cabinet Noir,' 230;
The Emperor warned by Persigny, ib.;
Lanfrey's account of Napoleon I., 231;
The Erckmann-Châtrian Novels, 232;
General political knowledge assumed in them, and with
reason, 233;
Impossibility of Predicting the Future of France, 234.
Bonar, Horatius, D.D., Life and Truth, 317.
Boorde, Andrewe, The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of
Knowledge, 140.
Braund, J. H., History and Revelation, 152.
Bray, Mrs., The Revolt of the Protestants of the Cevennes,
116.
Brevia, Short Essays and Aphorisms, by the author of
'Friends in Council,' 310.
Broadus, J, A., D.D., A Treatise on the Preparation and
Delivery of Sermons, 148.
Brougham, Life and Times of Lord, 297.
Brown, J. B., First Principles of Ecclesiastical Truth, 314.
---- ---- Misread Passages of Scripture--Second Series, 319.
Brunel, Isambard, The Life of I. K. Brunel, 294.
Buchanan, Robert, Napoleon Fallen, 303.
Bulwer, E. (Lord Lytton), King Arthur, 304.
Bungener, F., St. Paul: his Life, Lectures, and Epistles,
152.
Bunting, Memorials of the Rev. W. M., 120.
Burn, R., Rome and the Campagna, 127.
Burton's History of Scotland, Vols. V., VI. and VII., 161;
Important place held by Scotland in English History, ib.;
Character of Mr. Burton's Books, 162;
Period treated of in the Present Work, ib.;
Mary Stuart, ib.;
Elizabeth's Policy, 163;
Murray, 164;
James 1st, 165;
The Reformation in Scotland, 166;
James as King of the three Kingdoms, 168;
Effects of the Union in Scotland, 169;
Restoration of Prelacy, ib.;
Policy of Charles I., 170;
The Covenant, 171;
Outbreak of Civil War, 172;
Westminster Assembly, 174;
Execution of Charles, 175;
The Scotch overcome by Cromwell, ib.;
The General Assembly Dissolved, ib.;
Masterly Policy of Cromwell, ib.;
Subsequent History, 176;
Estimate of the Book, ib.
Capper, John, The Duke of Edinburgh in Ceylon, 298.
Chamberlayne, T., The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis;
and other Poems, 133.
Clarke, C. C., The Riches of Chaucer, &c., 141.
---- ---- Tales from Chaucer in Prose, 141.
Coinage, Report from the Royal Commission on International,
14;
Nature of the Question, 14, 15;
Mr. Jevons's Investigations, 15, 16;
Convention entered into by Four Countries, 16;
Importance of England's joining in it, 17;
Plan proposed to facilitate this, 17, 18;
Comparison of the Amount of Gold Coinage in different
Countries, 19;
Charges at the Different Mints, 20;
Precedent for Change in English Coinage, 21;
Small proportion of the Gold brought into the Country
Coined, ib.;
Summing-up, 22.
Colborne, P., The Measure of Faith; and other Sermons, 319.
Collins, Mortimer, Marquis and Merchant, 309.
Conder, G. W., Tender Herbs, 317.
Cordery, J. G., The Iliad of Homer, Translated, 304.
Cotton, Memoir of Bishop, 295.
Courthope, W. J., The Paradise of Birds, 133.
Cowper, Poetical Works of, Edited by W. Benham, 134.
Creasy, Sir E. S., History of England, Vol. II., 113.
Crowfoot, J. R., Fragmenta Evangelica, 93.
Cubitt, James, Church Design for Congregations, 129.
Cunningham, General, The Ancient Geography of India, 302.
Dale, R. W., The Jewish Temple and the Christian Church,
318.
Darwin, C., The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation
to Sex, 299.
Deane, Life of General, 118.
Diary of a Novelist, 136.
---- of the French Campaign of 1870, 273.
---- of the Besieged Resident in Paris. 291.
Dixon, W. H., Her Majesty's Tower, Vols. III. and IV., 292.
Duncan, P. M., The Transformation of Insects, 126.
Duplessis, G., The Wonders of Engraving, 128.
Early English Texts, 176; Importance of Studying the Early
English Language and Literature,176, 177;
Efforts made to Facilitate and Promote such Study, 177;
Early English Text Society and its Publications, 178;
Theological Works, 179;
Romances, 180;
Fourteenth Century Texts, ib.;
The 'Vision of Piers Plowman,' ib.;
Mr. Toulmin Smith's edition of 'English Gilds,' 182;
'Early English Alliterative Poems,' ib,;
Arthurian Romances, 182-185;
The 'Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry,' 186;
'The Wright's Chaste Wife,' ib.;
Furnivall's 'Babees Book,' 187;
'Book of Quinte Essence,' ib.;
Religions Books, ib.;
Condition of the Society, ib.;
Its Important Objects, 189.
Eiloart, Mrs., From Thistles--Grapes? 137.
Episcopal Church, Parties in the, 189;
Diversities in Opinion and Practice existing in the
Church, 189, 190;
Dr. Hook's Representation of High Church Views, 190, 191;
Those of the Evangelicals, 191;
Broad Churchmen the only Men who maintain Clerical Liberty,
192;
What Stanley says, ib.;
General Spread of a Measure of High Church Feeling, 193;
Some little Influence Acquired by Convocation, ib.;
Alleged Catholic Revival, 194;
Boldness of the Ritualists, 195;
Youthful Energy of the Party, ib.;
Their Practical Wisdom, 196;
The 'Twelve Days' Mission,' 197;
The Power of Individuals Utilized, 198;
The Advance of the Party Favoured by Circumstances, ib.;
Also, by Controversies, 199;
By the Fear of a Separation between Church and State, 200;
Almost entire Extinction of the 'High and Dry' School,
201;
The Anglican Clergyman of To-day, ib.;
Contempt for Law, 203;
Decline of the Evangelical Party, 204;
Causes of that Decline, 206;
Approaching Crisis in the Establishment, 209.
Episodes in an Obscure Life, 306.
Erckmann-Châtrian, Romans Nationaux, 218.
Established Church in Wales, The, 72;
Principles involved in the Disestablishment of the Irish
Church, ib.;
Mr. Gladstone's Attempt to escape from applying these
Principles to Wales, 73;
Influence of England on the Religious History of Wales,
74;
The Church Establishment since the Reformation, 75;
Its Failure, 77;
The Appointments of Englishmen to Welsh Bishoprics, 79;
Testimony of two Welsh Clergymen on the subject, 79, 80;
Fathers of Welsh Methodism, 80;
Effect of the New Movement on the Church, 81;
Primary Cause of all the Evils, 84;
Comparison of the Established Church with Nonconformists
during this Century, ib.;
Church Accommodation, 85;
Number of Attendants, 87;
Schools, 89;
Preponderance of Nonconformists in Welsh Literature, 92;
The Eisteddfod, ib.;
Exceptional Scarcity of Crime in Wales, 93.
Fair France, 125.
Foreign Protestant Pulpit, 318.
France, Alsace and Lorraine, 273.
Francillon, R. E., Earl's Dene, 306.
Fraser, A. C., The Works of Bishop Berkeley, 256.
Fraser-Tytler, C. C., Jasmine Leigh, 309.
French, The late F. W., Things Above, 320.
Froude, J. A., History of England, Vols. VIII.-XII., 126.
Future of Europe, The, 273;
The Progress of the Race Interrupted, 274;
The Fault not all on One Side, ib.;
Prussia's openly avowed Desire of Domination, 275;
Excuses made for her Conduct; ib.;
Bismark's Ground that of Political Expediency, 276;
His False Reasoning, ib.;
Prussia will not stop short in her aggressive Career, 277;
Her want of Money, ib.;
National Character, 278;
Prussia's Absorption of all Germany into Herself, 279;
The King made Emperor, 280;
Despotic Constitution of the Empire, ib.;
Austria must also be Absorbed, 281;
Holland in Danger, 282;
Relations between Prussia and Russia, ib.;
What Prussia may do in Turkey, 283;
Change of Proportion in the Powers of Europe, 284;
Decrepitude of Austria, ib.;
Ruined State of France, 285;
Effects of her Prostration upon Europe, 286;
Isolation of England, 287;
Difficulties to be encountered by her, ib.;
Duties of her Government, 287, 288.
Gilbert, W., Martha, 307.
Gledstone, J. P., The Life and Travels of George Whitefield,
297.
Gogerly, Rev. G., The Pioneers, 297.
Greg, W. R., The Great Duel, 292.
Hamilton, The late James, D.D., Moses, the Man of God, 153.
Hampden, Some Memorials of Bishop, 296.
Hare, A. J. C., Walks in Rome, 302.
Harold Erle, 307.
Heraud, J. A., The In-Gathering, 134.
Hinton, J., Thoughts on Health and some of its Conditions,
301.
Hood, E. Paxton, the World of Moral and Religious Anecdote,
140.
Hoole, C. H., The Shepherd of Hermas, Translated, 151.
Hoppin, Professor, the Office and Work of the Christian
Ministry, 316.
Hutton, R. H., Essays, Theological and Literary, 311.
Ingoldsby, 209;
Value of this kind of Writing, 209, 210;
Barham's Clerical Life little touched on, 210;
Character of his Humour, and his Superiority to others in
this Respect, 212;
His attacks on Superstition, 213;
The 'Ingoldsby Legends' adapted to Young Readers, 214;
Deficiency of Poetry in Them, ib.;
Hook, 215;
Anecdotes, 216.
Interests of Europe in the Conditions of Peace, The, 273.
Jacox, F., Secular Annotations on Scripture Texts, 150.
Jeafferson, J. C., Annals of Oxford, 294.
Juvenile Literature, 154, 309.
Kaye, J. W., The Essays of an Optimist, 140.
Kay Spen, The Green-Eyed Monster, 309.
Keshub Chunder Sen, The Brahmo Somaj, 148.
Landels, Rev. W., D.D., Beacons and Patterns, 318.
Lanfrey, P., Histoire de Napoléon 1er, 218.
Leathes, Rev. S., The Witness of St. John to Christ, The
Boyle Lecture for 1870, 149.
Leclercq, Emile, La Guerre de 1870, 218.
Letters on the War, 291.
Lewis, Rev. W. H., D.D., Sermons for the Christian Year,
319.
Louis's own Account of the Fight, 409.
Low, Lieut. C. R., The Land of the Sun, 125.
M'Combie, The late W., Sermons and Lectures, 320.
MacDonald, G., The Miracles of our Lord, 152.
Macduff, J. R., D.D., Memories of Patmos, 153.
Mackennal, A., Christ's Healing Touch, and other Sermons,
319.
MacLeod, A., D.D., Christus Consolator, 148.
Macmillan, Rev., H., The True Vine, 318.
Malmesbury Papers, The, 23;
Importance of the Period Comprised, ib.;
The Father of the First Earl, 25;
Friendship with Handel, ib.;
Almack's Rooms Designed, 26;
Fashionable Amusements, ib.;
Court Dress, 28;
The Pantheon, 30;
England a Hundred Years Ago, 31;
Old London, 32;
Paris, ib.;
The First Earl, 34;
His Diplomatic Embassies, ib.;
The Editor of the Books, 35.
Malmesbury, Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris,
first Earl of, 23.
---- ---- Letters of the first Earl of, his Family and
Friends, 23.
March, Rev. D., D.D., Night unto Night, 154.
Mariette, 138.
Martin, Samuel, Rain upon the Mown Grass, and other Sermons,
150.
Mateer, Rev. S., The Land of Charity, 297.
Matson, W. T., Poems, 134.
Maverick, A., Henry J. Raymond and the New York Press, for
Thirty Years, 1.
Meade, Lieut. the Hon. H., A Ride through the Disturbed
Districts of New Zealand, 299.
Melville, Henry, Sermons, 318.
Michelet, Jules, La France devant l'Europe, 273.
Mourin, E., Les Comtes de Paris, 54.
Muller, F. Max, Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. III.,
139.
Murray, Rev. J., The Prophet's Mantle, 318.
My Little Lady, 307.
Newman, Professor F. W., Europe of the near Future, 273.
O'Flanagan, J. R., The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and
Keepers of the Great Seal of Ireland, 288.
Oliphant, Mrs. John, 136.
Oosterzee, Rev. J. J. Van, D.D., The Theology of the New
Testament, 145.
Palestine, Explorations in, 36;
Purposes and Plans of the Exploration Society, ib.;
Early Operations, 36, 37;
The site of Capernaum Decided, 37;
Ai and Cana, ib.;
Synagogues Examined, 38;
Tombs, ib.;
Temples, 39;
Topography of Jerusalem, 40;
The old Walls, 44;
Site of the Temple, 45;
Jewish Archæology, 49;
A Museum for the Antiquities Discovered, ib.;
Inscriptions, 50;
The Moabite Stone, 51;
Light thrown by it on Early Writing, 51, 52;
Natural History and Geology, 53;
Importance of continuing and Encouraging the Society's
Work, 53, 54.
Paley, F. A., Religious Tests and National Universities,
235.
Parker, Joseph, D.D., Ad Clerum, 148.
---- ---- The City Temple Sermons, 316.
Parr, Louisa, Dorothy Fox, 308.
Pope, The Works of Alexander, 303.
Porter, Noah, D.D., The American Colleges and the American
Public, 302.
Present Day Papers on Prominent Questions in Theology, 144.
Prussian Aggrandisement and English Policy, 273.
Pulpit Analyst, The, 154.
Rae, W. F., Westward by Rail, the New Route to the East,
123.
Rees, T., D.D., History of Nonconformity in Wales, 72.
---- Rev. W., The Church of England in Wales, 72.
Religious Tests and National Universities, 235;
Why Disabilities have so long been Retained at the
Universities, ib.;
Desires on different sides for their removal, 237;
Objections brought against it, ib.;
Ineffectiveness of Tests, 239;
Needless in connection with Sinecures, ib.;
Principles recently adopted regarding Education, 240;
Importance of the connection between the Universities
and Elementary Education, 240, 241;
Clerical Fellowships and the effects they Produce, 241;
Evidence given before the House of Lords, 242, 243.
Richardson, F., The Iliad of the East, 136.
Robinson, Wade, Loveland., and other Poems, chiefly
concerning Love, 133.
Rothschild, C. and A. de, The History and Literature of
the Israelites, 143.
Rowlands, Rev. D., Sermons on Historical Subjects, 317.
Ruskin, John, Fors Clavigera, 310.
Schmid, C. F., D.D., Biblical Theology of the New Testament,
145.
Schmidt, A., Elsass und Lothringen, Nachweise wie diese
provenzen dem deutschen Reiche verloren gingen, 273.
Scrutator, Who is responsible for the War?, 273.
Seeley, Professor, Lectures and Essays, 114.
Sermons, 316.
Sewell, E. M. and S. M., Yonge, European History, 116.
Shairp, J. C., Culture and Religion in some of their
Relations, 149.
Shalders, E. W., Sermons for the Times, 320.
Shand, A. J., On the Trail of the War, 116.
---- A. I., Against Time, 135.
Sieges of Paris, The Early, 54;
Comparison of Paris with other Capitals, 55;
Its History, 56;
Sudden rise in importance, 57;
Attacks by the Northmen, 58;
Rivalry with Laon, 59;
Great Siege of Paris by the Northmen, 60;
Abbo's account of it, 61;
The Siege Raised, 65;
Further Ravages, 66;
Second German Invasion, 67;
Its Results, 69;
Analogies with the War in our Time, 71;
Future Fate of Paris, 72.
Six Months Hence, 137.
Stanford, Charles, Symbols of Christ, 317.
Stapleton, A. G., The French Case truly Stated, 273.
Strauss, D. F., Krieg und Friede, 273.
Stubbs, W., Select Charters and other Illustrations of
English Constitutional History, 291.
Swainson, C. A., D.D., The Athanasian Creed, and its usage
in the English Church--A Letter to Dean Hook, 143.
Tappan, The Life of Arthur, 120.
Taylor, Rev. W. M., The Lost Found and the Wanderer Welcomed,
317.
Tennyson, A., and Arthur Sullivan, The Window; or, the Loves
of the Wrens, 130.
Thistleton, Rev. A. C., The Story of Job, 319.
Tholuck, A., D.D., Hours of Christian Devotion, 153.
Thompson, J. P., The Theology of Christ from His own Words,
145.
Tourguéneff, Ivan, S., On the Eve, 308.
Tregelles, S. P., The Greek New Testament, 93;
Value of the Work, ib.;
The Author's previous Writings, 94;
The MSS. he has followed, 95;
His Text Compared with Alford's, 97;
His Labours interrupted by Illness, 98.
Trench, W. Stewart, Ierne, 305.
Trollope, J. Adolphus. A Syren, 135.
----, Anthony, The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson, 138.
Two Months in Palestine, 125.
Tyerman, Rev. L., Life and Times of Wesley, 119.
Vaughan, C. J., D.D., Christ satisfying the Instincts of
Humanity, 316;
Half-Hours in the Temple Church, 317;
Counsels to Young Students, ib.
Vera, 305.
Victor Hugo, Napoléon le petit, 218.
Victory of the Vanquished. The, 139.
Vince, Charles, Lights and Shadows in the Life of King David,
319.
Wadsworth, Charles, Sermons, 318.
War Correspondence of the Daily News, 291.
War of 1870, The, 98;
Possible Results of the War, 98, 99;
Its Causes, 99;
Sketch of its History, 100;
French Scheme and Movements, ib.;
Speedy Organization of the Germans, 101;
First Battle, 102;
Woerth and Forbach, 103, 104;
Gravelotte, 105;
Insane scheme made for MacMahon, 107;
Sedan, 109;
Surrender of Metz, 110;
Revival of the French Spirit under Trochu and Gambetta,
ib.;
Wonderful Defence of Paris, 111;
Blame attaching to Prussia, 112;
Lessons of the War, ib.
War of 1870-1, 243;
The Last Half of the Great Drama, 244;
Proceedings after the Disaster of Sedan, ib.;
Investment of Paris, 245;
Trochu's Scheme of Defence, 245, 246;
Gambetta's Balloon Journey and Efforts in Collecting
Troops, 246;
Doings of the Germans, 246, 247;
Effects of the Fall of Metz, 247;
The promising movements of D'Aurelles de Paladines, ib.;
His Failure and its Causes, 248;
Change in the German Plans, 249;
Their Superiority in Generalship, 250;
Was Trochu Incompetent? 251;
Chanzy's Brilliant Actions, ib.;
Reinforcements obtained on Both Sides, 252;
Bourbaki's rash Scheme, 252, 253;
Chanzy's Defeat, 253;
Bourbaki's attempt at Suicide, 254;
Progress of the Siege, 255;
Famine, ib.;
The War Ended by the Fall of Paris, ib.;
The Future of France; ib.
Wardlaw, Gilbert, The Leading Christian Evidences, 147.
Watson, Albert, Cicero, 118.
Wedgewood, Julia, John Wesley and the Evangelical Reaction
of the Eighteenth Century, 119.
Wesley, The Poetical Works of John and Charles, 135.
White, John, Sketches from America, 126.
Wickham, The Correspondence of the Right Hon. W., 117.
Williamson, Rev. A, Journeys in North China, Manchuria,
and Eastern Mongolia, 121.
Wylie, Rev. J. A., Daybreak in Spain, 125.
THE
BRITISH QUARTERLY
JANUARY 1871
ART. I.--_Henry J. Raymond and the New York Press, for Thirty Years._
Progress of American Journalism, from 1840 to 1870. By AUGUSTUS
MAVERICK. Hartford, Connecticut: A. S. Hale. 1870.
There is no country in the world which so finely illustrates the
diffusive spirit of modern civilization as America; for, though in other
lands human nature seems to rise to a greater height in individual
instances, and to stand out in more picturesque relief, it is the nation
which has excelled them all in equalizing the rights, the enjoyments,
and the intelligence of man. Many circumstances have contributed to this
happy result. America has been clogged by none of the mischievous
remains of feudal institutions, and but little affected by those
violations of political economy, older than the age of reason, which
have checked the free and natural development of European communities.
Its provisions for popular education were from the first singularly
wise, liberal, and ample; there was no legislation to restrict all civil
and social advantages to the members of a single religious sect; and no
taxes on knowledge or artificial monopolies of any kind, to prevent the
people from having access to that full variety of opinions, inquiries,
and statements of fact, which is necessary to intellectual advancement.
Above all, it was born old, with all the elements of European
civilization to start with, and equipped with a complete literature, in
which it would seem almost impossible to find place for any great
genius, and with the best English works placed within every man's reach,
at less than a tenth of their original cost. Taking these things in
connection with the boundless material resources of the country, it is
not by any means difficult to explain the magical rapidity of its
advances in wealth and population, the signal prosperity it has already
enjoyed, and the extraordinary power and greatness to which it is
evidently destined.
The development of the press, like the improvement of the means of
civilization, is a certain sign of the relative advancement of a nation.
We use the term civilization here to signify not so much the development
of some elevated and delicate parts of human nature, such as art,
philosophy, or politeness, as that of political liberty and social
progress; and in this sense the progress of the press becomes
historically the most constant and faithful indication of the general
progress of a nation. The truth of this proposition becomes evident,
from the close connection that exists between the press and the public,
from the action and reaction, the efflux and reflux, from the true
corporate unity which brings into the press the life-blood of the
country. We depend upon the newspaper for distributing knowledge, as
well as creating it; it is an instrument by which the opinions and
feelings of the people may be guided and developed, as well as
communicated and ascertained. It is in fact an essential element in the
peculiar spirit and tendency which characterizes our modern
civilization. Still we are far from holding that it is a perfect
instrument, or free from very serious drawbacks. Eminent men like
Lamartine speak of it in terms of extravagant eulogy, predicting that
before the century shall have run out journalism will be the whole
press, the whole human thought, and that the only book possible from day
to day will be the newspaper; a great English novelist speaks of it as a
link in the great chain of miracles which prove our national greatness;
and Bulwer Lytton calls it the chronicle of civilization, the great
mental camera which throws a picture of the whole world upon a single
sheet of paper. These somewhat rhetorical representations are very
common, but they are far from exact or truthful. We suspect that the
newspaper tends in all countries to ignore, more or less, all knowledge
that will not render its teaching popular; that its chief figures are
often the wicked, the worthless, and the shallow; and that its pictures,
though generally faithful, are often false, distorted, and narrow. De
Tocqueville liked the liberty of the press, rather from the evils it
prevented, than from the advantages it created; and Montalembert
represents Liberty as saying to the Press, like the unhappy swain--'_Nec
cum te nec sine te vivere possum_.' John Stuart Mill has two objects of
hatred; Puritanism, with its positive creed and aggressive zeal, and the
ascendancy of the middle classes, through the newspaper press, with all
their mediocrity and bigotry. He has always protested, in the interests
of his great idol, individuality, against 'the _régime_ of public
opinion,' against the various 'usurpations upon the liberty of private
life,' against the moral intolerance of society, carried on through, the
newspapers. Amidst these various estimates of the press we are disposed
to take a middle course. It may sometimes be wielded by unworthy hands,
for unworthy purposes; its liberty may run into licence, and the rules
of good taste and propriety be violated; its policy on public questions
may be unscrupulous and unprincipled; but we remember that modern
progress would have been impossible without it; that the people are not
its slaves, but its patrons and critics; and we would lay no other
restraint upon it than the invisible fetters imposed by the intelligence
and good feeling of its readers. Whether, then, we consider the amount
and quality of intellectual force put forth in it, the character of mind
acted on by it, and the wide area over which it operates, especially in
England and America, where it has the greatest expansion, we cannot but
regard it as a subject for sincere congratulation that its influence has
been exercised so uniformly on the side of public safety and public
morals, that there has been a gradual improvement of late years in the
moral tone of newspaper management, and that it has succeeded in
creating and fostering a healthy and independent public opinion on all
the questions of the age.
The great development of the American press has taken place during the
last thirty years, keeping pace exactly with the advancing prosperity of
the country. A large number of new and powerful processes, as well as
influences of a more general kind, were converging towards this result.
The education of the people, the progress of legislation, the
discoveries of science, the inventions of art, conspired to make
literature, especially in the newspaper form, a prime necessity of
American life, and to place it within every man's reach on easy terms;
while every improvement made in the art of communication and travel
still farther contributed to its growth, and increased its utility. So
it has come to pass that America is the 'classic soil of newspapers;'
everybody is reading; every class is writing; literature is permeating
everywhere; publicity is sought for every interest and every order; no
political party, no religious sect, no theological school, no literary
or benevolent association, is without its particular organ; there is a
universality of print; the soldiers fighting in Mexico or in the
Southern states are printing the journal of their exploits on the
battle-field; the press is seizing on the whole public life and upon so
much of private life as through social irregularity, or individual force
of character, or national taste, necessarily emerges into publicity;
fostering on the one hand the worship of the almighty dollar, but
establishing a strong and wholesome counterpoise, by stimulating that
zeal for public education, that enthusiastic spirit of philanthropy, and
that truly munificent liberality by which the American people have been
always distinguished. As we have already intimated, the modern
development of the press is just thirty years old. There was no
telegraph before 1843; no fast ocean-steamer to carry news from the old
world for some years later; and no Associated Press to organize the
supply of intelligence. The first American newspaper was printed at
Boston, in 1690, fifty years after the appearance of the first English
newspaper; in 1775 there were only 34 newspapers; in 1800, 200; in 1830,
1,000; and the latest statistics give no less than 5,244 as the total
number of journals published in the United States, of which 542 are
daily, 4,425 are weekly, and 127 are monthly.
Our common idea of the American newspaper is that of a print published
by a literary Barnum, whose type, paper, talents, morality, and taste
are all equally wretched and inferior; who is certain to give us
flippancy for wit, personality for principle, bombast for eloquence,
malignity without satire, and news without truth or reliability; whose
paper is prolific of all kinds of sensational headings; and who is
obliged, in the service of his advertising customers, to become
enthusiastic on the subject of hams, exuberant in the praises of
hardware, and highly imaginative in the matter of dry-goods. Perhaps
this representation might apply, with some degree of correctness, to a
portion of the newspaper press, especially that published in the country
towns and villages; but we shall immediately see that American literary
enterprise, especially in the great cities, is not to be judged by such
unworthy examples. The work of Mr. Maverick, which appears at the head
of this article, supplies a large amount of information concerning
American journalism, connecting its more recent development with the
name of Henry J. Raymond, a well-known Republican politician, who
founded the _New York Times_, one of the most respectable and powerful
newspapers in the States. We cannot say much for the book, on literary
grounds: it exhibits nearly all the worst qualities of Transatlantic
journalism itself--flimsiness, personality, and haste; but its
information is very interesting and acceptable to European readers. The
facts of Raymond's life may be supplied in a few sentences. He was born
in 1820, at Lima, in the state of New York; he graduated at the
University of Vermont; he went to New York city in 1840, and was
introduced to newspaper life by Horace Greeley; he passed ten laborious
years on the _Tribune_, and the _Courier_ and _Inquirer_; and in the
year 1851 he may be justly said to have opened a new era in American
journalism, by establishing the _Times_, a daily paper, which carried
temperance and dignity into political discussion, banishing all
personalities, and maintaining a high critical and moral tone, which was
all but unknown before that period. Like most American journalists, he
engaged actively in politics, becoming in 1849 a member of the New York
Legislature, and afterwards speaker of the House of Representatives, and
Lieutenant-Governor of the State; and in 1864, member of Congress. He
was a sincere and upright politician, who always staunchly opposed the
slave party in the United States, but lost popularity and credit, by his
exceedingly foolish and unfortunate championship of President Johnson,
through all his remarkable freaks of obstinacy and eccentricity. On
returning home from his office, on the night of the 18th June, 1869, he
dropped down in the hall of his house, in a fit of apoplexy, and died
five hours afterwards, without recovering consciousness. He was in his
fiftieth year. Henry Ward Beecher said, in the funeral oration at his
grave, that Raymond 'was a man without hate, and, he might almost say,
without animosity; his whole career had been free from bitterness;' and
Horace Greeley bore this high testimony to his professional ability;--'I
doubt whether this country has known a journalist superior to Henry J.
Raymond. He was unquestionably a very clever and versatile, but not
powerful writer; and excelled especially in newspaper management.' We
shall have occasion to refer again to his services as a journalist.
In proposing to give some account of the American press, both secular
and religious, we have to remark that the first great stimulus given to
newspaper enterprise in America was by James Gordon Bennett, the
well-known editor of the _New York Herald_, which was established in the
year 1834. This able journalist was born in 1800, at Newmill, Keith,
Banffshire, of Roman Catholic parents. He was originally designed for
the priesthood, and had passed through a portion of his preliminary
training in the Roman Catholic College of Blairs, near Aberdeen, but
ultimately abandoned the prospects of a clerical life, and emigrated to
America, in his nineteenth year--as he said himself--'to see the country
where Franklin was born.' There he formed an early connection with the
press, but it was not, as we have said, till 1834 that he founded the
_Herald_. We are all more or less familiar with the moral and
intellectual characteristics of this newspaper--unsparing personality,
intolerable egotism, and sleepless hatred of England; but we are not so
foolish as to imagine that the _Herald_ became popular and successful
because Americans are fond of personal abuse, or private scandal, or of
the ceaseless denunciation of this country. These offences against good
taste and right feeling existed long before the publication of the
_Herald_. The secret of its remarkable success lay in the vigour and
tact with which Bennett laboured day and night to furnish ample and
early intelligence of events in all parts of the world, without regard
to cost and labour. Mr. Maverick tells us that 'all the old and
heavy-weighted journals, which lazily got themselves before the New York
public, day by day, thirty years ago, were undeniably sleepy,' and that
'the ruthless Bennett shocked the staid propriety of his time by
introducing the rivalries and the spirit of enterprise which have ever
since been distinguishing characteristics of New York newspaper life.'
The _Herald_ was successful, then, because Bennett made it his business
to present his readers with fresh, ample, and correct news. No editorial
eloquence, no skilful flattery of national prejudice or party feeling,
could have atoned for any shortcoming in this respect. The other
newspaper managers were soon compelled to imitate his energy and skill
in the supply of news, and Mr. Maverick has informed us how effectively
his example was sometimes followed, by his rivals. On one occasion,
before the days of the telegraph, the leading New York journals
despatched reporters to Boston, to obtain an early account of a speech
by Daniel Webster, who was then in the plenitude of his fame. Two
reporters represented each journal; but Raymond alone represented the
_Tribune_. On their return home by the steamer the other reporters
passed the night in convivial pleasantries; but Raymond was busily
engaged all the time, in a retired part of the vessel, writing off his
report for a batch of printers who were on board with their 'cases' of
type; so that the entire report, making several columns of the
_Tribune_, was prepared for being printed on the arrival of the steamer
at New York, at five o'clock in the morning. The feat was a remarkable
instance of newspaper enterprise. The Hudson River steamboats afterwards
regularly carried corps of printers with types, from Albany to New York,
to prepare the speeches of legislators for next morning's journals.
Carrier-pigeons were employed to convey the latest European news from
Halifax or Boston to Wall-street; and pilot-boats made long voyages, in
stormy weather, to meet Atlantic steamers in search of early news. In
election times pony-expresses were appointed by rival journals to carry
early intelligence of results; as, in railway times, 'locomotive engines
were raced on rival lines of railroad in the interest of papers which
had paid high prices for the right of way.' Sometimes a little of that
'smartness,' which is so popular in America, was displayed in these
newspaper rivalries, as when, on one occasion, the _Tribune_ reporter
ran off to New York on a special engine, hired expressly for the
_Herald_, and thus succeeded in publishing an early and exclusive
edition of some important news.
The success of the _Herald_ led Horace Greeley to found the _Tribune_,
in 1841. We can see at once that, like Bennett and Raymond, he was
greatly endowed with that species of sagacity which divines at a glance
the capabilities of a new project or speculation. Greeley was the son of
a New England farmer, and came to New York a poor penniless boy. His
earlier essays in newspaper management were total failures; but the
_Tribune_ was remarkably successful from its very commencement. It
eschewed the coarse and violent style of the _Herald_, and pursued a far
more generous and enlightened policy on public questions, while it
almost rivalled the business-like energy of its earlier contemporary;
but it ultimately injured itself by its championship of socialism, and
a host of other secular heresies. For, though Greeley was of a
remarkably practical turn of mind, at least in the management of his own
business, he was a great theorist, committed to every _recherché_
novelty in faith and life, a moral philosopher, after a fashion of his
own, sincere and liberal in his ideas, with deep sympathies for the
working classes, advocating their rights, and seeking their elevation,
while he did not fear to expose their follies and their faults. The
_Tribune_ became, under his management, the organ of socialism and
spirit-rapping, woman's rights, vegetarianism, temperance, and peace
principles. It seemed, in fact, the premature harbinger of the 'good
time coming,' adept in all the cant of reform, and familiar with the
whole philosophy of progress, a very clear vein of sense being
perceptible to critical minds, in the elegant sophistry with which it
vindicated its own course, and tried to overwhelm all objectors. It
attempted, in fact, to turn to account the remarkable tremour of the
public mind, which arose from what was seen or said between 1845 and
1855 of mesmerism, electro-biology, spirit-rapping, Swedenborgianism,
and psychology; but we are glad to know that the _Tribune_ has greatly
improved in its general views, and comes more into accord with common
ideas on these curious subjects.
It was the disgust and disappointment of the public with the socialistic
heresies of the _Tribune_, as well as with the shameless and indecent
personalities of the _Herald_, that led to the establishment of the
_Times_, in the year 1851. It took rank at once as a dignified and able
journal. Its influence was exercised from the first on the side of
morality, industry, education, and religion; and to use the words of an
eminent English journalist, now at the American press, 'it encouraged
truthfulness, carried decency, temperance, and courtesy into discussion,
and helped to abate the greatest nuisance of the age, the coarseness,
violence, and calumny, which does so much to drive sensible and
high-minded and competent men out of public life, or keep them from
entering it.' No one, certainly, has ever done more than Henry J.
Raymond for the elevation of the American newspaper. We cannot justly
overlook the substantial services done in the same department by the
_New York Evening Post_, under the management of its veteran editor,
William Cullen Bryant, the poet; by the _New York World_, a new paper
distinguished by the talent, incisiveness, and dignity of its articles;
and by the _Nation_, managed by Mr. Godkin, an Irishman, once connected
with the London press, and which stands upon the intellectual level of
the best European periodicals.
We are indebted to Mr. Maverick for a tolerably full account of the
present position of New York journalism. There are 150 newspapers
published in that city, of which 24 are daily papers, two of them
published in the French language, and three in the German. The remainder
are weekly journals, of which eighteen are in German, one in Italian,
and two in Spanish. There are no less than 258 German newspapers in all
America, the largest number being published in Pennsylvania. There are
eighteen religious newspapers published in New York. We have the
following information in reference to the literary and mechanical
arrangements of the daily press:
'Each of the great daily papers of New York to-day employs
more than a hundred men, in different departments, and
expends half a million of dollars annually, with less
concern to the proprietors than an outlay of one-quarter of
that sum would have occasioned in 1840. The editorial corps
of the papers issued in New York on the first day of the
present year numbered at least half a score of persons; the
reporters were in equal force; sixty printers and eight or
ten pressmen were employed to put in type and to print the
contents of each issue of the paper; twenty carriers
conveyed the printed sheets to its readers, and a dozen
mailing clerks and bookkeepers managed the business details
of each establishment. Editorial salaries now range from
twenty-five to sixty dollars a week; reporters receive from
twenty to thirty dollars a week; and the gross receipts of
a great daily paper for a year often reach the sum of one
million of dollars, of which an average of one third is
clear profit. These statistics are applicable to four or
five of the daily morning journals of New York.'
There is much literary ability displayed in the daily and weekly
journals of Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, and other leading cities.
The _Boston Post_ is a leading paper in that city. It is answerable for
all the paradoxical absurdities of the famous Mrs. Partington. The
_Washington National Era_, like the _National Intelligencer_, of the
same capital, has a high position, as a literary and political journal.
It was through its columns that Mrs. Stowe first gave to the world her
'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' just as Judge Haliburton first published 'Sam
Slick, the Clockmaker,' in the pages of a Nova Scotian weekly newspaper.
It is a remarkable fact that the Americans have never produced a
Quarterly worthy of the name, except the 'North American Review,' which
is certainly below the intellectual level of the four or five English
reviews which are reprinted in New York every quarter within a
fortnight of their publication in England. It was said, in explanation
of the fact that the French had never succeeded in maintaining a review
on the plan of the English Quarterlies, that their opinions and parties
change so often, and the nation was so volatile, that they could not
wait a quarter of a year upon anybody. But this explanation will not
apply to the Americans. The 'North American Review' has always had on
its list of contributors the very best names in native literature, such
as Longfellow, Everett, J. R. Lowell, Motley, Jared Sparks, Caleb
Cushing, George Bancroft, and others. Yet its success has been very
partial. Its literary position ought to have been far more decided. The
'Atlantic Monthly' holds a deservedly high place in American letters,
with such authors as Emerson, Holmes, and Mrs. Stowe among its principal
contributors; but its influence has always been thrown into the scale
against Evangelical Christianity. 'Harper's Magazine,' published in New
York, is an illustrated monthly for the fashionable world, with a
circulation of 150,000 copies. 'Bonner's Ledger' has pushed its way into
the front rank of weekly magazines, by its romances, its essays, and its
poetry, from such writers as Parton, Beecher, Everett, Saxe, Bryant, and
many others. The sporting world has its _Wilkes' Spirit of the Times_;
the advocates of woman's rights have the _Revolution_, in the hands of
Susan B. Anthony and E. C. Stanton; the grocers have a _Grocers'
Journal_; the merchants a _Dry Goods Reporter_; the billiard-players, a
_Billiard-cue_; and the dealers in tobacco, a _Tobacco Leaf_. The
advocates of Spiritualism and Socialism have a large number of journals
in their service. But, strange to relate, the Americans have not a
single comic periodical like our 'Punch.' Mr. Maverick says that, in the
course of a dozen years, many attempts have been made to establish such
a print, but without success. 'Vanity Fair' was the best of the class,
but its wit and its pictorial illustrations were equally poor and
trivial. All the comic papers that flourished for a few years were only
remarkable for the immense amount of bad wit they contained, for a
wilderness of worthlessness, for an endless process of tickling and
laughter; with only an occasional gleam of genuine humour and
imagination. If the Americans have failed in producing such a
periodical, it is not from the want of literary men possessed of the
_vis comica_, for Oliver Wendell Holmes, James R. Lowell, Shelton,
Butler, and Saxe are first-rate humourists. The English comic papers can
command all the abounding talent of men like Douglas Jerrold, Albert
Smith, W. M. Thackeray, Mark Lemon, Shirley Brooks, Thomas Hood, F.
Burnand, and a host of other satirists. The Americans, however, have
never had a Tenniel, a Doyle, a Leech, a Du Maurier, or a Keene, to
throw off, week after week, the most amusing and instructive of
pictorial satires. All they have hitherto done in this department is to
copy with tolerable taste and skill the best cartoons and wood-cuts of
'Punch' and our illustrated magazines. Perhaps America has yet to find
its Bradbury and Evans. It is evidently most in want of a publisher.
After all, there is hardly anything the Americans need more than a good
comic paper, to moderate the intensity of their politics, to laugh down
the extravagant follies of American society, to measure the strength of
their public men, to register their blunders, and expose their
hollowness, to watch over the caprices of fashion, to criticize the
press itself, with its coarseness and scurrility, its disgraceful
advertisements, and its downright fabrications; taking good care to keep
free from those sins which so easily beset satirists, rancour,
obscenity, and attacks on private character. They need a satirical
journal, just to apply to all things the good old test of common sense;
and when uncommon wit is allied with common sense in branding any custom
or habit as evil, it must be very deeply rooted if it cannot be
overturned or modified. Besides, the Americans, as a hard-working race,
need a refreshing humour to relieve the strain upon their mental and
physical energies. Emerson remarked of Abraham Lincoln, that humour
refreshed him like sleep or wine; and a nation so eager in all kinds of
work deserves the innocent relaxation that comes from literature in its
most sparkling and pleasing form.
The volume of Mr. Maverick makes almost no allusion to an important
department of the American press, which demands some notice at our
hands, viz., that which ministers to the intellectual and moral wants of
the Irish Roman Catholic immigrants. There is no city of any magnitude
which does not possess its Catholic organ. New York city is the proper
centre of the Catholic press, but Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati,
Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Boston, Charleston, and St.
Louis have each their weekly paper for the Irish population.
Intellectually, these papers are very inferior, and so illiberal that
almost every question is viewed from the single standpoint of creed,
race, or country. The liberal policy of a free and progressive state has
hardly produced the slightest effect upon them. It is a very remarkable
fact that in America, as in other countries, journalism is not wielded
in the service of Romanism with any freshness and power, except by
converts from Protestantism. We find _Brownson's Review_, the _Freeman's
Journal_, the _Shepherd of the Valley_ (now discontinued), and the
_Catholic Herald_, in the hands of perverts, just as in Europe the
_Tablet_ was founded by a convert from Quakerism, the _Dublin Review_ is
in the hands of an Oxford pervert, and the _Historisch-politische
Blätter_ of Munich was founded by Professor Phillips, and maintained in
great scientific efficiency by Yarke, both converts from Lutheranism.
The Irish press in America is very ultramontane. It seems drunk with the
very spirit of religious servility, mad with the hatred of liberty, and
adopts the strictest Roman Catholic doctrines, following them out to
their extremest consequences, with a rudeness and arrogance of style,
approaching to vulgarity. Orestes Brownson says that the Pope is nowhere
so truly Pope, and finds nowhere, so far as Catholics are concerned, so
little resistance in the full exercise of his authority as in the United
States. No European editor, except Veuillot, ever wrote in the style of
Brownson himself, who is intellectually without a peer among Romish
editors; for he takes the strongest and most unpopular ground as the
very foundation of his ecclesiastical and political theories. Veuillot
shocked the good sense and liberal feeling of Europe, by defending the
Inquisition and the St. Bartholomew massacre; but Brownson despises all
prudential considerations, in claiming for his church the right to put
heretics to death, for he holds that this is punishment, and not
persecution. The _Shepherd of the Valley_ held that the question of
punishing heretics was one of mere expediency, and declared that in the
event of his church gaining the ascendancy in America, there would be an
end of religious toleration. The _Pittsburgh Catholic_ censured these
outspoken utterances; but the _Boston Pilot_ rebuked its Pittsburgh
contemporary for its censures, declaring that the _Shepherd of the
Valley_ said nothing that was not true; yet saying itself, with marked
inconsistency, 'No Catholic wishes to abridge the religious rights of
Protestants.' It is in perfect consistency with such ultramontane ideas
that these Irish newspapers uniformly take the side of royal despots in
great national struggles, and deny all sympathy to revolutionary leaders
except those of Ireland. Though they usually cry out lustily when any
step in American legislation or any popular combination manifests even
an appearance of hostility to Catholic interests, they actually had the
audacity, in 1859, to defend those royal miscreants of Italy, who rioted
in the misery of their subjects, and of whom it was truly said, 'They
kept one-half of their people in prison and the other half in fear of
it.' They sympathised with the Poles in their last insurrection, because
their oppressor was a schismatic; they had no sympathy with Hungarians,
or Italians, or Spaniards, because their oppressors were Catholics. The
_Boston Pilot_--the most popular journal of the Irish--forgot its _rôle_
so far in 1848, as to take a liberal view of the European revolutions.
The result was that the _Univers_, in giving an account of Catholic
journalism in America, excluded the _Pilot_ from its list of the
orthodox; the clergy, moreover, condemned it; and it was obliged to
express its penitence for such an error of judgment. The _Pilot_, after
all, is more reasonable and less fanatical than most of the Catholic
papers, and is specially copious in its reports of Catholic news. All
these Irish newspapers are, without exception, bitterly anti-English in
their tone and spirit. One might suppose that having escaped from misery
and poverty, and launched upon a new career of prosperity and
contentment, the Irish could afford to forget England; but, like their
teachers at the press, they are strong in historical grudges, and their
hatred to this country is as much theological as political. The
Irish-American journalist delights in copying into his paper the abuse
of England, collected from all quarters of the world, and in times of
war or rebellion depreciates our triumphs and magnifies our misfortunes.
The Catholic clergy have found it hard to control the opinions of a
portion of their Irish countrymen, who, though sufficiently submissive
in spiritual concerns, have shown a disposition to assert an
independence of clerical control in matters affecting the interests of
Ireland. Sometimes, indeed, the clergy have been led to humour this
national feeling, as when they were in the habit of attending the 'Tom
Moore Club,' at Boston, though it had been more than suspected that the
favourite poet had died out of the pale of the church. At length the
_Shepherd of the Valley_ pointedly condemned their appearance at the
annual banquet, on the ground that the poet was ashamed of his country's
religion during life, and that English preachers performed the obsequies
at his grave. The appearance of Thomas Francis Meagher in America, after
his escape from penal servitude in Australia, greatly perplexed the
bishops and clergy; but the _mot d'ordre_ went forth, and all the
Catholic newspapers in America, with a single exception, assailed him
with the greatest bitterness, for his enlightened opinions upon
religious liberty, and upon the relation between Church and State.
Thousands of the Irish, notwithstanding, rallied round Meagher; and the
_Irish-American_ was established, for the vindication and enforcement of
his principles. There are a few other organs of Irish nationality,
including the _Irish People_, of John Mitchell, published in America,
but, with the exception of the _People_, they are all contemptible, in
every point of view. You find in their pages column after column of
windy jargon and tawdry rhetoric, which would consign an English editor
to a madhouse. This gaudy and ornate style, with a profusion of florid
imagery and Oriental hyperbole quite overpowering, seems to characterise
every Nationalist journal. It is these papers that have inflated the
Fenian bubble. We pity the deplorable ignorance of the Irish masses,
their misguided enthusiasm, and their preposterous pertinacity in the
pursuit of visionary ends; but we have no language too severe to apply
to their intellectual leaders who pursue their ignoble calling from a
mercenary calculation of the profits to be derived from bottomless
credulity. We fear that the Irish press generally has succeeded in
imparting an education to the _emigrés_ that can serve only to nurture
hatreds, which, like curses, too often come home to roost, and that some
considerable time may be expected to elapse before all the appliances of
American civilization and Christianity shall succeed, as they most
certainly will, in the assimilation of such intractable materials.
Our notice of the American press would be incomplete without some
account of that ample supply of religious literature which is furnished
by thousands of weekly, monthly, and quarterly periodicals. The
religious newspaper is almost peculiar to America, and is far superior
to any similar publication in England. The English paper is more
ecclesiastical and less religious; the American, while equally strenuous
and careful in the advocacy of denominational claims, supplies much of
what we usually obtain here from the _Sunday Magazine_ and the _Family
Treasury_. The literary superiority of the religious press over the
secular in America arises mainly from the fact that its conductors and
contributors are mostly clergymen who have been graduates of colleges,
and are possessed of a considerable amount of classical culture and
training. Every denomination has a large number of weekly organs. The
two leading newspapers of the class are the _New York Independent_ and
the _New York Observer_, the former an organ of the Congregationalists,
and the latter of the Presbyterians. The _Independent_ was originally
conducted by the Rev. Dr. Bacon, the Rev. Dr. Thompson, and the Rev.
Richard Storrs, jun.; it afterwards passed into the hands of the Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher, who wielded it with great power and efficiency in
the anti-slavery cause; and it is now managed by Theodore Tilton in
company with several others. It contains a great variety of religious,
political, and general news, devotional and literary pieces of great
merit, together with foreign and domestic correspondence, written with
an excellent spirit. Mr. Beecher has established, and conducts, the
_Christian Union_, another religious paper, which is rapidly rising to
popularity and power. _The Advance_, a religious paper published in
Chicago, and conducted by Dr. Patten, is one of the best of the
religious papers of America. The _Observer_ is one of the oldest and
best established papers, once exceedingly Conservative in its views of
slavery, but always distinguished by sound judgment, good taste, and
fair culture. The Methodists are well represented by the _Christian
Advocate and Journal_, and the Baptists by the _Examiner and Chronicle_.
The monthly organ of the American Tract Society has a circulation of
about 200,000, which it owes to its catholic character and its
extraordinary cheapness. The quarterly literature of the American
churches is of a very high character. The _Bibliotheca Sacra_ is the
great organ of New England theology, and the _Biblical Repertory and
Princeton Review_ is the leading representative of the Calvinism of the
Westminster standards. These are the two most powerful reviews. The
_Bibliotheca Sacra_ is published at Andover, the scene of the learned
labours of Moses Stuart, the biblical expositor, and was established
twenty-seven years ago. It differs from the _Princeton Review_ and all
British reviews in publishing the names of its contributors, and it has
succeeded in gathering to its pages a vast amount of the most versatile
talent from nearly all the Congregational Colleges of America. Its most
original contributor in the domain of metaphysical theology is Professor
Austin Phelps, of Andover, whose articles on 'The Instrumentality of the
Truth in Regeneration,' and 'Human Responsibility as related to Divine
Agency in Conversion,' published within the last two or three years,
prove that much of the genius and spirit of Jonathan Edwards still
exists in New England theology. Another eminent contributor, Professor
Park, of Andover, who is also its principal editor, has been frequently
in collision with Dr. Hodge, of the _Princeton Review_, on points of
Calvinistic divinity. Professor Bascom has been recently publishing in
its pages a series of articles on 'The Natural Theology of Social
Science'--a subject hitherto left too much in the hands of
secularists--and has succeeded in lifting it with advantage into the
higher sphere of theology. The articles of this review are generally
marked by a high style of ability and a scientific thoroughness: and
are, many of them, worthy of being reproduced, as they have been, from
time to time, in the _British and Foreign Evangelical Review_. The
spirit of its management is exceedingly liberal. We observe, for
example, that it recently published an article on 'Christian Baptism,'
from the professor of a Baptist College, in conformity with a plan
adopted by the conductors of securing from representative men of
different sects and schools of thought, articles unfolding distinctive,
theological opinions, and exhibiting with something like scientific
precision the exact peculiarities of meaning attached to the terminology
of the respective schools. The _Princeton Review_ is the oldest
quarterly in the United States. It was established in 1825 by Dr.
Charles Hodge, the well-known commentator on the Epistle to the Romans,
who was then, and still is, a Professor in the Princeton Theological
Seminary; but it was not till 1829 that it ceased to be a mere repertory
of selections from foreign works in the department of biblical
literature. It is, beyond all question, the greatest purely theological
review that has ever been published in the English tongue, and has waged
war in defence of the Westminster standards for a period of forty years,
with a polemic vigour and unity of design without any parallel in the
history of religious journalism. If we were called to name any living
writer who, to Calvin's exegetical tact, unites a large measure of
Calvin's grasp of mind and transparent clearness in the department of
systematic theology, we should point to this Princeton Professor. He
possesses, to use the words of an English critic, the power of seizing
and retaining with a rare vigour and tenacity, the great doctrinal
turning-points in a controversy, while he is able to expose with
triumphant dexterity the various subterfuges under which it has been
sought to elude them. His articles furnish a remarkably full and exact
repository of historic and polemic theology; especially those on
'Theories of the Church,' 'The Idea of the Church,' 'The Visibility of
the Church,' 'The Perpetuity of the Church,' all of which have been
reproduced in English reviews. The great characteristic of his mind is
the polemic element; accordingly we find him in collision with Moses
Stuart, of Andover, in 1833, and with Albert Barnes in 1835, on the
doctrine of Imputation; with Professor Park, in 1851, on 'The Theology
of the Intellect and the Theology of the Feelings;' with Dr. Niven, of
the _Mercersburg Review_, in 1848, on the subject of the 'Mystical
Presence,' the title of an article which attempted to apply the modern
German philosophy to the explanation and subversion of Christian
doctrines; with Professor Schaff, in 1854, on the doctrine of historical
development; and with Horace Bushnell, in 1866, on vicarious sacrifice.
In fact, a theological duel has been going on between Andover and
Princeton for nearly forty years, the leading controversialists of
Andover being Stuart, Park, Edward Beecher, Baird, and Fisher, and those
of Princeton, Hodge, the Alexanders, and Atwater.[1] Hodge has
contributed one hundred and thirty-five articles to the _Review_ since
its commencement; Dr. Archibald Alexander--a venerable divine, who
resembled John Brown, of Haddington, in many respects--contributed
seventy-seven; his son, Dr. James Waddel Alexander, twice a Princeton
Professor, and afterwards pastor of the wealthiest congregation in New
York, contributed one hundred and one articles; another son, Dr. Joseph
Addison Alexander, the well-known commentator on Isaiah, contributed
ninety-two, mostly on classical and Oriental subjects; and Dr. Atwater,
another Princeton professor of great learning and versatility,
contributed sixty-four on theological and metaphysical subjects. The
articles in the _Princeton_ on science, philosophy, literature, and
history, have generally displayed large culture and research. The review
of Cousin's Philosophy, in 1839, by Professor Dod, was one of the most
remarkable papers that appeared on the subject in America, and was
afterwards reprinted separately on both sides of the Atlantic. Another
theological quarterly of America, is the _New Englander_, published at
Newhaven, Connecticut, and representative principally of Yale
scholarship. Nearly all the leading names in New England theology, such
as Bellamy, Hopkins, Emmons, Dwight, Griffin, Tyler, and Taylor, among
the dead, and Bushnell, Beecher, and Bacon, among the living, are
associated with the venerable University of Yale. Tryon Edwards (the
great-grandson of Jonathan Edwards) is one of the contributors to the
_New Englander_. The professors and graduates of the college are its
principal contributors. Among them are to be found the distinguished
names of Dr. Noah Porter and President Woolsey. The former has recently
contributed to the _New Englander_, a series of valuable articles, just
reprinted in a small volume, on 'The American Colleges and the American
Public;' an able discussion of the fundamental principles of University
education. The _Mercersburg Review_ is the quarterly organ of the German
Reformed Church, and has been conducted, from its commencement, by Dr.
Niven and Professor Schaff, the well-known historian. The Baptists have
their _Christian Review_, the Methodists their _Methodist Quarterly
Review_, the Lutherans their _Evangelical Review_, the Episcopalians
their _Protestant Episcopal Quarterly Review_, and the Unitarians their
_Christian Examiner_, which reflects from time to time the vicissitudes
of Unitarian opinion. There is one fact suggested by this review of the
American religious press, viz., that Episcopacy holds a very inferior
place beside Independency and Presbyterianism in theological authorship.
We all know how greatly things are changed, even in England, since Dr.
Arnold deplored, and all but despised, the culture of Dissenters, for we
have Dean Alford, but the other day, confessing in the _Contemporary
Review_, 'Already the Nonconformists have passed us by in Biblical
scholarship, and ministerial training.' But in the United States, the
palm of theological scholarship has always rested in the hands of
Congregational and Presbyterian divines. The best theological
seminaries, the ablest theological reviews, and the most original as
well as extensive authorship in the various branches of theology, belong
to the two denominations referred to.
We shall now proceed, as briefly as possible, to make some observations
of a critical nature upon the intellectual and moral character of the
American press generally. It is not, certainly, in any spirit of
national superiority that we point to the undoubted fact that,
notwithstanding the great expansion of newspaper literature in the
States, the wide diffusion of popular education, and the circulation of
English books of the best kind at a mere nominal cost, the Americans
have as yet produced nothing representatively like our London _Times_,
or _Punch_, or the _Athenæum_, or the _Illustrated London News_, or the
_Saturday Review_, or the _Art Journal_, or the _Edinburgh_ and
_Quarterly_. They have not even produced a single great newspaper writer
like Captain Stirling, of the _Times_, Albany Fonblanque, sen., of the
_Examiner_, or Hugh Miller, of the _Edinburgh Witness_, for Bennett,
Greeley, and Raymond, though capital editors, are all greatly inferior
to these men in that art of scholarly, dignified, and tasteful
leader-writing, which gives such a power and charm to London journalism.
Newspaper writing is, perhaps, the most difficult of all writing; there
is none at least in which excellence is so rarely attained. The capacity
of bringing widely-scattered information into a focus, of drawing just
conclusions from well-selected facts, of amplifying, compressing,
illustrating a succession of topics, all on the spur of the moment,
without a moment's stay to examine or revise, argues great intellectual
cultivation. The articles may not be of a lofty order, or demand for
their execution the very highest kind of talent, but the power of
accomplishing it with success is very uncommon, and of all the varieties
of ways in which incompetency is manifested, an irrepressible tendency
to fine writing is associated with the greater number of them. De
Tocqueville says that democratic journalism has a strong tendency to be
virulent in spirit and bombastic in style. It certainly runs the risk of
lawlessness, inaccuracy, and irreverence, with much of vehemence, and
with little taste, imagination, or profundity. One serious charge we
have to bring against the American newspapers is, that they have sorely
vulgarized and vitiated the English language. We are aware that many of
them imagine the language of their country to be the standard as to
idiom, pronunciation, and spelling, and any English variation from their
golden rule as erroneous and heterodox; but such critics are entitled to
no consideration whatever. If men of education at the American press
refuse to study the style of the great authors who fixed and purified
the language of our common forefathers, so that we may have one and not
two languages spoken on opposite sides of the Atlantic, let them at
least imitate such writers of their own as Washington Irving, Horace
Bushnell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose pure and
native English is wholly free from all the corruptions and affectations
of phrase which overrun American newspapers, simply because it is
beautifully modelled upon the most elegant and polished writers of
English literature. In fact, the Americans have always been greatly in
need of a critical organ, like the old _Edinburgh Review_, to purify the
literary atmosphere from the clouds and mists of false taste which
deface it, to stand censor on books and newspapers, a recognized
authority in the literary republic, for whose quarterly judgments
readers might look with interest, and authors with trembling. The
_North American Review_, though written with great spirit, learning, and
ability, and abounding in profound and original discussions on the most
interesting subjects, has never filled the place of the _Edinburgh_,
and, indeed, its own style is not free from the common sin of
affectation. It is pleasant to think of William Cullen Bryant, the poet,
hanging up in the office of his newspaper--the _New York Evening
Post_--a catalogue of words that no editor or reporter is ever to be
allowed to use.[2] Let us hope that the literary men of America, of all
classes, will seriously aim at the formation of a purer, chaster, and
juster style of writing, for what they have hitherto produced has been
defective in taste rather than in talent.
Another great sin of American journalism is its intolerable personality,
violence, and exaggeration. This was the disgrace of our own English
press at no distant period. Cobbett was a great sinner in this respect,
He had much to do with raising the intellectual, and lowering the moral,
reputation of the modern newspaper. The wide diffusion of enlightened
views on politics and religion is attested, however, in a remarkable
manner among ourselves, by the moderation of tone which we now see in
journals which, about twenty years ago, were remarkable for their
scurrility and violence. It is no longer a recommendation to an English
newspaper to be known as an assailant of the Royal Family, the
aristocracy, the bench of bishops, or parsons. Several publications
that, a few years since, professed atheism and secularism, have become
extinct, and the _quondam_ organs of Chartism and fierce democracy have
been obliged to become respectable. But many of the American newspapers
are much worse than the English were a quarter of a century ago. With
us, faction has become less mischievous and shameless; unfounded
accusations less common and less malignant; invectives more measured and
decorous; not merely because the evil passions which required to be fed
with the abuse of individuals have calmed down, but because the British
press is now guided by the principle of attacking public opinion, not
private characters, measures, not men; and its quarrels are usually
governed by the laws of honour and chivalry, which proscribe all base
advantages. But an American newspaper cannot assail another newspaper
without mentioning the editor's name, and calling him coward or rascal.
If you cannot answer your opponent's objections, you caricature his
appearance, or dress, or diet, or accent, as Bennett is in the habit of
treating Greeley; and if you are foiled by his wit, you recover your
advantage by stabbing his character. No allusions become too indecorous
for your taste; no sarcasms too bitter for your savage spite; and no
character pure enough to be sacred from your charges and insinuations.
The American editor pursues his antagonist as if he were a criminal. The
_New York World_ lately devoted four columns of its space to illustrate
by quotations the amenities of American journalism. The majority of the
papers seem to subsist on the great staple of falsehood and personality,
and enjoy all the advantages which spring from an utter contempt for the
restraints of decency and candour; and we are strongly of opinion that
this work of cruel intimidation is pursued with unrelenting eagerness,
not from the influence of angry passions or furious prejudices, but in
the cold-blooded calculation of the profits which idle curiosity or the
vulgar appetite for slander may enable its authors to derive from it. We
are not prepared to endorse all the strong statements made by infuriated
rivals concerning the proprietor of the _New York Herald_; but he leaves
us, in no doubt, himself, as to the light in which he regarded his own
frequent chastisements. Immediately after James Watson Webb had severely
whipped him in the streets of New York, the whole affair was recounted,
in the _Herald_ with a sensational circumstantiality that had an evident
eye to business, though we cannot overlook the remarkable good humour
with which Bennett treated the whole affair:--
'The fellow,' he says, 'no doubt wanted to let out the
never-failing supply of good humour and wit which have
created such a reputation for the _Herald_, and appropriate
the contents to supply the emptiness of his own skull. He
didn't succeed, however, in rifling me of my ideas. My
ideas in a few days will flow as freshly as ever, and he
will find it to his cost.'
Imagine the London _Times_ degraded to the condition of its responsible
editor rejoicing in his own personal chastisement! American journalists
fight like their French brethren. They never dream of explanations.
Bullets and bowie-knives are the natural sequel of such recriminations
as disgrace their newspapers. This extreme violence is part of the loose
political morality so common there. Americans seem to be taught almost
from their infancy to hate one-half of the nation, and so contract all
the virulence and passion of party before they have come to the age of
reason; but before their newspapers can be said to enter upon the course
of real usefulness which is open to them, they must have come to believe
that political differences may exist without their opponents being
either rogues or fools. Jefferson said in his day that the scurrility of
the press drove away the best men from public life, and would certainly
have driven away Washington had he lived to suffer from its growing
excesses. James Fenimore Cooper, the celebrated novelist, had a horror
of newspapers, and instituted actions at law against a host of them for
literary libels. He once remarked, 'The press of this country tyrannizes
over public men of letters, the arts, the stage, and even private life.
Under the semblance of maintaining liberty, it is gradually establishing
a despotism as ruthless and grasping and one that is quite as vulgar as
that of any Christian state known.' This view of the case is certainly
serious and suggestive. Party violence may be carried to a length that
defeats itself, for it may harden public men against all newspaper
criticism whatever, to the great injury of public affairs, and thus
lower the estimation and disturb the course of public opinion. Nowhere
are fools more dogmatic than in politics, and nowhere are wise men more
doubtful and silent; but American party writers have no respect for the
Horatian maxim, 'in medio tutissimus'--the secret of that moderation of
opinion which has distinguished the most genial and sagacious men in our
political world. They must really learn to cultivate a love of truth and
justice; they should seek to attain the power of holding the scales
steadily, while the advantages or disadvantages of every question are
fairly weighed; they should stamp upon their professional life the
impress of personal rectitude and honour, and not wait--to copy the tone
of the old apologies--till a higher standard of public morals, and a
more intelligent cultivation of political and literary inquiries, shall
have raised for them a new class of readers. It is the prerogative of
genius to create the light by which it is to be understood and
appreciated; but the working talents of a country, which are identified
with its immediate interests, ought at least to rise a little above the
surrounding level.
We are led, from this point, to notice another defect in American
journalism,--the absence of the anonymous usage, which is, indeed,
mainly answerable for the scurrility and violence already referred to.
The British editor is usually unknown to the public; the French
journalist subscribes his name at the foot of his articles; but the
American editor publishes his name and address boldly at the top of his
newspaper. The effect of this custom is to identify the authority of the
journal with the personal influence of the editor; it tends to a habit
of deciding questions on personal grounds, and to a far too marked
superfluity of the _tu quoque_ argument. The object of the American
journalist is not so much the instruction of the public as the political
advancement of himself, for journalism usually forms the first stage in
the course of an ambitious politician, or a rising statesman; and the
American usage is certainly very well adapted to this end. Our anonymous
habit limits the discussions of the press and abolishes egotism, while
it certainly tends to debar personalities. It has been remarked, as a
suggestive fact, that personality is the common vice of the only free
press in the world, which ignores the anonymous principle; and that in
England, under a contrary usage, personality is little known, always
reprobated, and, indeed, in cases of flagrant personal attacks, the
authorship is usually but thinly disguised. It is absurd to defend the
American habits as manly and ours as cowardly; for their habit tends to
make writers far from circumspect or considerate of the feelings of
others. But, in fact, the publicity in which American journalists
delight is only akin to the publicity of American life generally. The
British public would not tolerate the intrusion of the press into
private or family concerns; yet one New York paper published, in the
panic, of 1857, the name of every gentleman who bought a silk dress for
his wife, or gave a dinner-party to his friends. Other newspapers
criticize the dress and appearance of ladies at balls and cricket
parties, the personality of their praise being almost as offensive as at
other times the coarseness of their vituperation.
We confess that we do not entertain a very high opinion of the morality
of the American press, though we admit there has been a sensible
improvement within the last thirty years. Emerson made the remark, in
his 'English Traits,' that the London _Times_ was an 'immoral
institution,' on the ground we presume, of its frequent changes of
opinion. We are far from defending the leading journal in its policy of
tergiversation--for there can be no doubt it ever fights on the stronger
side, upholds no falling cause, and advocates no great principle--but it
was never yet bought with bribes or cowed by intimidation. It has
sometimes shown that it is conducted on principles superior to mere
money considerations, for, during the Railway mania of 1845, when its
advertising sheet was overrun with projected lines of railway, realizing
to the proprietors the enormous sum of from £2,839 to £6,687 per week,
the Thunderer turned its fire on these projects, and lost nearly £3,000
in a single week. We do not charge the American press with any flagrant
changes of policy or principle, for we believe it is, in these respects,
sufficiently consistent. But we deplore the absence of high moral
purpose, as well as independence in its discussions of public questions.
The American people demand a large amount of flattery; they have come
almost to loathe the wholesome truth; they must be pampered with
constant adulations, so that no one will venture to tell them their
faults, and, neither at home nor abroad, dare moralists venture a
whisper to their prejudice. This is a serious drawback. America wants
more writers of the class who are said to prefer their country's good to
its favour, and more anxious to reform its vices than cherish the pride
of its virtues. Besides, we strongly suspect that the American
journalist is very careless about the truth. We mean the truth of fact,
which is part of the historic disposition of the age, as opposed to all
that is sensational. He resembles the French rather than the English
journalist in the tendency to regard good news as more important than
correct news. The English journals make it their business to present
their readers with news and not advice, with facts and not opinions, so
that they can form opinions for themselves, and the power of our press
is thus enormously increased, but only on conditions that effectually
prevent the arbitrary exercise of it. The American writers for the press
have followed our example in some degree, but their disposition to
provide startling and sensational intelligence is too often manifested
at the expense of truth. Mr. Maverick gives an account of a number of
disreputable hoaxes played by the newspapers upon the public of America,
which were justified, we presume, to the consciences of the authors by
the observation of Lord Bacon--'A mixture of lies doth ever add
pleasure; doth any man doubt that if there were taken from men's minds
vain opinions, nattering hopes, false valuations, and the like, it would
leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things?' The 'Moon
Hoax,' which was published in the New York _Sun_ in 1835, was one of the
most skilful and successful of these literary frauds. Successive numbers
of that paper contained a pretended extract from the pages of a
supplement to the _Edinburgh Journal of Science_, under the title of
'Great Astronomical Discoveries latterly made by Sir John Herschel,
LL.D., F.R.S., at the Cape of Good Hope.' The paper had a remarkable air
of scientific research, such as might deceive all but the most learned
and wary. The Herschel telescope was represented as affording a distinct
view of lunar roads, rocks, seas, cascades, forests, houses, people, and
monsters of various shapes. The 'Roorback Hoax' was a shameless attempt
to injure the character of J. K. Polk, when he was a candidate for the
Presidency, by representing him as possessing forty-three slaves who had
his initials branded into their flesh. The deception was wrought by
simply adding to a sentence in Featherstonehaugh's Travels in America
four lines of the hoaxer's own, recording the disgraceful lie referred
to. We confess that we cannot recognise the morality of a transaction
which Mr. Maverick records in the history of the _New York Times_,
without apparently the slightest suspicion of its dishonesty. When the
_New York Herald_ got hold of the single survivor of the ill-fated
Atlantic steamer, _Arctic_, which was lost in September, 1854, an
assistant on the _Times_ succeeded, by means of an adroit pressman, in
purloining an early copy from the _Herald_ press-rooms, and actually
published the _Herald's_ report an hour earlier than that journal. We
cannot understand what Mr. Maverick means by representing the _Herald_
as 'playing a trick to keep the news from the other papers,' unless the
_Herald_ was actually bound to supply its contemporaries gratuitously
with the exclusive news it had obtained from the survivor at its own
sole expense. The transaction seems to us merely a clever specimen of
American 'smartness.'
But we must draw these observations to a close. We cannot but admit that
the press of America, with all its defects, is an engine of great power.
It is on this ground we desire for it a close approximation to those
intellectual and moral qualities which have given British journalism
such an influence over the affairs of the whole world. In fact, two such
nations as America and Britain, working in the same language, should be
always learning from each other; for the eager energy of the one should
push forward the occasionally lagging progress of the other, and our
matured caution restrain their hasty inexperience. America is great in
all that leads to immediate and available results. She has given us
several of the greatest mechanical inventions of the age; she has far
excelled us in the theory and practice of religious liberty, as well as
in the more liberal recognition of denominational brotherhood among the
religious sects; while she has furnished a noble example of public
spirit in the support of religion, missions, and education. Let us hope
that in time she will equal, if not surpass us in a periodical
literature, which, if even still more intensely political than ours,
will display a breadth and strength of thought, together with a wisdom
and dignity, which will add immensely to its power. There is one aspect
of Transatlantic literature which already contrasts favourably with our
own, and that is its generally cordial recognition of Evangelical
Christianity. With the exception of the German and French newspapers,
which chafe under the restraints of a Christian country, and scoff at
Judaic sabbaths, Pharisaic church-going, and tyrannical priestcraft,
there are no newspapers of any position in the States that are avowedly
anti-Christian; and there is less disposition than formerly, on the part
of the American press generally, to exclude all reference to distinctive
Christianity. It was considered a remarkable circumstance at the time of
the American revival that several newspapers, notorious for a thinly
disguised infidelity, and for a most undisguised enmity to Evangelical
religion, should not only publish the most ample reports of the
movement, but commend it in a way that has had no parallel in English
journalism, even before the tide of public opinion had turned decisively
in its favour. It is the common custom still for American newspapers to
print the sermons of popular preachers, and to publish a large amount of
religious intelligence. The press is also intensely Protestant, and has
contributed to the growth of that enormous assimilating power by which
American Protestantism has absorbed generation after generation of the
Roman Catholic emigrants. The statistics of the Propaganda declare that
one half of the whole number has been lost to the Church of Rome; and
the explanation is, that they can no more escape from the influence of
American ideas than from the effects of the atmosphere and climate.
It becomes, therefore, a matter of the greatest consequence that the
literary guides of a nation with such a destiny as America, should
understand the responsibilities under which their power is exercised.
They should take care, above all things, to use their influence not to
materialize the mind of society, by obtruding material concerns too much
upon the attention, to the neglect of those moral and spiritual
interests which constitute the very foundations of its greatness. This
is a real danger, for, as De Tocqueville remarks, the tendency of modern
democracy is to concentrate the passions of men upon the acquisition of
comforts and wealth. They cannot be ignorant that the most clearly
marked line of social progress over the whole world is coincident with
the line of the Christian faith; that wherever true religion has had
free access to the centres of human action, a palpable advance has been
made in knowledge, liberty, and refinement; while poverty, injustice,
and licentiousness, which are the ulcers of a depraved society, have in
that degree been checked and healed. They must understand that honesty
is the grand necessity of the world at this time, in its politics as
well as its theology, in its commerce as well as its science. Let these
things be understood by the leaders of American thought, and we cannot
but anticipate a proud future for their country. It is a subject of just
congratulation to England that her children have stamped their character
on a vast continent, and, that instead of discontented colonies
subjected to her caprice, she can now point to a great people, with all
the best life of the ancient nations throbbing in their veins,
flourishing exactly in proportion to their freedom, and trained, through
all their bloody disasters which almost threatened to ruin their work,
to build a stronger rampart, and to reclaim a broader shore for
posterity. The interests of humanity demand that a nation so strong in
all the material elements of civilization, and manifesting such an
impetuous disregard of limit and degree in all its enterprises, should
be equally strong in its intelligence and its Christianity.
ART. II.--_Report from the Royal Commission on International Coinage.
1868._
Although during the deplorable struggle between Germany and France
public attention has been of necessity mainly directed to the conflict,
yet it is impossible, for many reasons, to do otherwise than regret this
concentration of interest. The last session of our Parliament was
fertile to an unusual degree in measures of public utility and
importance; but it is not too much to say that the difficulties incurred
by several of these measures in their passage through both Houses would
have been greatly enhanced had the engrossing events which have recently
agitated all Europe occurred at the time. The only satisfaction which
can be obtained in contemplating, even from a distance, the misery
inflicted on such countless thousands, arises from the hope that when
the last echoes of the strife have faded away, a peace, firm and
durable--durable because based on sound principles--may link together
those nations who are now suffering from the effects of the struggle.
Till this is the case, the evils arising from the war will not be
confined to those actually engaged in it. Meanwhile, it is really no
slight misfortune that many subjects, not unimportant to the country,
should fail to obtain the attention which they would otherwise have
received, in consequence of the superior interest of the central
European crisis.
Professor Jevons' remarks at the late meeting of the British Association
at Liverpool, on the manner in which points of importance were thus
swamped, will not readily be forgotten by those who heard them. Among
other subjects, the Professor instanced that of an international
coinage, which, after having received considerable and careful
attention, had receded for a time from that prominence which it
deserved.
In this country, the question has been considered from two points of
view--the one taken by those who are desirous to adopt a universal
system of coinage, as well as a universal system of weights and
measures; the other, by those who are aware of the present and
increasing deterioration of the gold coinage of the country, arising
from the number of coins deficient in full weight which are now in
circulation.
Neither of these points have escaped the notice of the active mind of
the present Chancellor of the Exchequer (Right Hon. R. Lowe). He has
become aware that many of the gold coins now in circulation are below
the legal tender weight; that the opportunity of a considerable
re-coinage might be made use of to assimilate the weight of gold in the
sovereign to that contained in twenty-five francs, and that in doing
this the expense incurred in the coinage of gold might, by means of a
seigniorage, be spared to the country.
To explain these points, it will be well, in the first place, to refer
to a report of the then Master of the Mint, and Colonel Smith, late
Master of the Calcutta Mint, in reply to the question put by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer--
'What would it cost, first to manufacture a sovereign, and
afterwards to keep it in good condition for all time? The
coin is always losing weight by wear, while it passes from
hand to hand, and ends by becoming light (after
three-quarters of a grain of gold have been lost), and is
no longer current. The individual piece has thus a limited
existence, and must be withdrawn and replaced by a new
sovereign of full weight; that, again, by another in due
time; and so on. Now, for what present payment could this
succession be maintained? What is the contract price to
cover the first construction, and all future
restoration?'[3]
To put it in another shape. The person who thinks it worth his while to
convert his gold bullion into coin, according to this plan, is to pay
for the expense of manufacture, and is also called upon to contribute to
a reserve fund, by means of which the natural deterioration of the coin
he has caused to be put into circulation is to be provided for.
The coinage of gold in this country is--and it is well to explain this
point at the outset--entirely gratuitous as far as the Government is
concerned. That is to say, any person possessing gold bullion of the
required purity of standard, may, if he chooses, take that bullion to
the Mint. And, in due time, the officers of the Mint will return
him--weight for weight--an equal quantity of gold coin. _In due time_,
however, means in practice, a considerable delay; and delay in money
matters means loss of interest. Hence, it arises, that in the natural
course of events, no private person takes gold bullion to be coined,
himself. But he carries it to the Bank of England. Now, that great
corporation, among other duties to the State, has this particular
charge. It is bound to buy all gold bullion of standard fineness offered
to it, at the rate of £3 17s. 9d. per oz. These payments are made in
bank notes; and as bank notes are immediately exchangeable for
sovereigns, the result is, that any one possessing gold bullion of the
Mint standard, can at once and immediately turn that bullion into gold
coins for the slight cost of 1½d. per oz., or something less than ½d.
for every sovereign. This is really buying a sovereign at cost price,
for the mere manufacture of a sovereign costs fully a ½d., as will be
mentioned further on. What is more, the payment, small as it is, does
not accrue to the Government, but is retained by the Bank of England,
and is considered as being only sufficient to compensate that
institution for the trouble and expense of the operation, including the
loss of time, and consequent loss of interest incurred. No provision is
made to include the loss by wear, which, though imperceptible at the
moment, accumulates in process of time to a large amount. Investigation
shows that 100 sovereigns lose 8d. a year by fair usage. If the amount
of British gold coin in circulation amounts, as it is supposed to do, to
eighty millions, sixty-eight being whole sovereigns, and twelve millions
in halves, the annual loss would amount to £35,000 from deterioration
due to wear alone. The charge for manufacturing sovereigns is not high
when all that has to be done is taken into consideration. Great
precautions have to be taken in the process to secure the needful
quality. Each bar has to be brought to the required standard. Careful
assays are made, and great exactness in the weight of each coin is, of
course, essential. All these points cannot be attended to without
considerable expense. Again, the great amount of valuable property in
the shape of coin and bullion necessitates vigilant watching. The total
charge is estimated at ½d. each sovereign. Half sovereigns are, in
proportion to value, more expensive to strike than sovereigns. They also
wear more rapidly. This arises from greater rapidity of circulation, and
also from the fact that, weight for weight, each half sovereign presents
a greater surface for abrasion than a sovereign. After making careful
calculations, the Master of the Mint and Colonel Smith arrived at the
conclusion that a charge of £1 13s. 6d. for every £100 coined would be
sufficient to cover all expenses. That is to say, that if an arrangement
were made with a contractor to undertake to manage the Mint, and to keep
the gold coinage in good repair, he would require, to hold him harmless
from loss, to be paid about £1 13s. 6d. for every £100 in the average
proportion of sovereigns and half sovereigns put into circulation. And
this sum is at the present time lost to the community.
It is characteristic of the manner in which public questions are handled
in this country, that throughout the report, to which is attached the
name of an official in such high place as that of the late Master of the
Mint, continual reference is made to the investigations, not of a public
officer, but of Mr. Jevons, Professor of Political Economy in Owen's
College, Manchester. Mr. Jevons, being desirous of ascertaining the
condition of the gold currency, made inquiries of bankers and other
suitable persons in all parts of the United Kingdom, requesting them
'to take one or two hundred pounds in sovereigns, and half
the amount in half-sovereigns, from gold received in the
ordinary course of business, and to cause the number of
coins of each date to be counted and stated. The aid thus
requested was furnished with a readiness which I had no
right to expect, and which I cannot sufficiently
acknowledge. Not a few gentlemen, on becoming acquainted
with my purpose, procured very extensive returns, and the
final result was, that this kind of census of the gold
coinage was extended over one-sixth of a million of coins,
thus composed:
Number of sovereigns enumerated 90,474
Number of half-sovereigns enumerated 75,036
------
Total number 165,510
'At least one gold coin in every hundred now existing in
this country was, on the average, enumerated; and, as there
were 321 separate returns received from 213 distinct towns
or localities, including almost every place of commercial
importance, it may be allowed, I think, that sufficient
data were acquired for determining the average character of
the circulation.'--_Journal of the Statistical Society_,
vol. xxxi., p. 439.
Mr. Jevons' inquiry was, as he describes it, made in a private manner,
but it was, beyond question, conducted most efficiently and thoroughly.
And there is no reason to doubt that he has rather under-estimated than
over-estimated the case when he states, that about 45 per cent. of the
sovereigns and 62 per cent. of the half-sovereigns now in circulation in
the country are lighter than the legal standard. If this statement
appears excessive to any one, he can easily verify it for himself. He
has only to go to his banker, in whatever part of the United Kingdom he
may reside, and ask him to provide out of the gold in his till--out of
the ordinary circulation of the locality--100 sovereigns of _full_
weight. Then, if he inquires how many sovereigns have been picked over
to obtain this number, he will--within those reasonable limits of
variation which every similar calculation is liable to--find that Mr.
Jevons' statement gives a correct idea of the ordinary circulation.
But Mr. Lowe, as will have been observed, did not confine himself to the
actual deterioration of the existing British gold circulation. His
thoughts took a wider range--'a coin which would have the advantage of
an international circulation' occurred to him as a possible thing--and,
further, that the British sovereign, reduced to an exact equation with
twenty-five francs of gold coin of France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland,
&c., might be such a coin. The question of the desirability of an
international coinage has frequently been discussed. From some of the
remarks which have been made on Mr. Lowe's speech, it might have been
imagined to be only a recent idea. But this is far from being the case.
Much attention was drawn to the point in 1851. The difficulty then
experienced in comparing the value of the articles produced in different
countries and shown at the Great Exhibition, naturally suggested the
idea of a coinage common to all nations. The International Statistical
Congress then took the matter up at their meetings at Brussels, in 1853,
and at Paris, in 1855, and at London, in 1860. This last-named meeting
was held under the presidency of the late Prince Consort, and his
address on its opening was the last public speech delivered by him. In
it are to be found these words, which show that the importance of the
question of international coinage had not escaped the notice of the
Prince:--'The different weights, measures, and currencies, in which
different statistics are expressed, cause further difficulties and
impediments. Suggestions with regard to the removal of these have been
made at former meetings, and will, no doubt, be renewed.' Before this
meeting separated, an international commission was formed to report on
the question. Further consideration was given to it at Berlin, in 1863.
In December, 1865, the idea was put into practice. A formal convention
was entered into by France, Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland; and those
four countries established an international currency among themselves.
The French Government followed up the subject by giving official notice
of this convention, inviting this country, with many others, to send
commissioners to attend a conference 'for the purpose of deliberating
upon the best means of securing a common basis for the adoption of a
general international coinage.'
'The Conference was attended by thirty-three delegates,
representing twenty different countries, viz.:--Austria,
Baden, Bavaria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain,
Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, Russia,
Spain, Sweden and Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, United
States, Wurtemburg.'
'The delegates were not authorized in any way to bind their
respective countries, but they voted according to their own
opinions.'
* * * * *
'Great value seems to be attached to the cooperation of
England in any measure of this description. England has
been forward in urging the policy of free trade upon
Continental nations; and while her joining in any movement
originated abroad for promoting and facilitating commercial
intercourse would be most favourably received, and would
increase her influence among them, her declining altogether
to enter upon it might appear to be inconsistent with her
general conduct upon such questions.'
'The recommendations of the Conference may be shortly
stated to be:
'I. The adoption of a single gold standard.
'II. The adoption of 9/10 as the proportion of fine gold in
the coins.
'III. That all gold coins hereafter struck in any of the
countries which are parties to the Convention, should be
either of the value of five francs or multiples of that
sum.
'IV. That a gold coin of the value of twenty-five francs
should be struck by such countries as prefer it, and be
admitted as an international coin.
'In other countries steps have been taken with a view to
promote a general international coinage.
* * * * *
'A Bill has been introduced into the Congress of the United
States for altering the value of the American coinage, so
as to assimilate it to that of the Convention of 1865; and
we have received the report of the Finance Committee of the
Senate of the United States, recommending the adoption of
the measure, with certain amendments; together with a
report also presented to the Senate, adverse to the passing
of the Bill.
'A Bill has been introduced into the Canadian Parliament
for the regulation of the currency of that country, in
which provision is made for the adoption by Canada of the
system of the Convention, in the event of the measure above
referred to becoming law in the United States.
'Another Bill has been introduced into the Congress of the
United States, in order to assimilate the coinage to that
of this country, making the half eagle equal to our
sovereign.
'The Federal Parliament of the North German Confederation
has passed a resolution declaring necessary the adoption of
a decimal monetary system.
'Finally, we have received a communication from the Foreign
Office, by which it appears that the Government of Sweden
have proposed to strike a gold coin equivalent to ten
francs, and further to coin pieces of twenty-five francs as
soon as such a coin shall be struck in France.'--_Report
from the Royal Commission on International Coinage_, 1868.
The Spanish Government has recently given notice of being willing to
join the Convention (Nov., 1869), and the pattern pieces of the
twenty-five franc coin have already been struck at the Paris mint.
This brief _résumé_ of what has actually been done by several other
nations, suffices of itself to show that the question deserves, as Mr.
Lowe has stated in Parliament, very careful consideration.
Four nations, with more than sixty-six millions of inhabitants, already
possess an international coinage. That is to say, any merchant in the
furthest point to which the Convention extends knows at once, if he
takes up a paper with the prices current at Paris, Marseilles, Bordeaux,
or any of the great centres of commerce, what those prices mean, and how
nearly they correspond with his own. Other nations besides France,
Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, are prepared to join in this uniform
coinage. It is not unlikely that the sixty-six millions may be more than
doubled shortly. Will it not be a great disadvantage to the thirty or
thirty-two millions inhabiting these islands to be outside this great
confederation?
The values of the gold in the pound sterling and in twenty-five francs
approximate very closely. To enable this country to join the
confederation, it would be needful for the values to be equalized. This
must be done in one of two ways.
Either the amount of gold contained in the proposed coin of twenty-five
francs must be increased by twenty centimes to make it the equivalent of
the English full-weight sovereign. Or, the weight of gold in the English
sovereign must be diminished to make it equal to that contained in the
25-franc piece. The Royal Commissioners on International Coinage appear
to have entertained an aspiration--it can hardly be termed a hope--that
the former plan would be adopted; but it can scarcely be looked for. The
inconvenience to the nations who have already joined the Convention
would be so great as to preclude the idea. The other alternative alone
practically has to be considered. It amounts to this: that 2d. in value
should be taken out of every sovereign. But to do this without due
compensation would be to alter every existing contract. A seigniorage to
be charged on all bullion taken to the mint to be coined, is proposed as
a method of bridging over this difficulty. To effect this such a charge
or seigniorage would have to be proportionate to the amount of bullion
subtracted from each sovereign.
It is desirable to trace out what effect such a charge would have. It
would be--
'tantamount to an enhancement of the purchasing value of
the coinage in the country of its currency. It immediately
augments the value of the coinage as expressed in its
exchange value for bullion, unless the weight of pure metal
in the coinage be simultaneously reduced to the same extent
as the amount of the seigniorage. The following may serve
as a test example, and avoid the necessity for the use of
fractions:--"What would be the effect of a seigniorage of 1
per cent, in a country where it is imposed for the first
time?" It would be this: that whilst the pieces of current
coin before the imposition of the seigniorage were exactly
worth their weight in uncoined bullion of the same
intrinsic fineness, they would, after its imposition, be
worth 1 per cent, more than their weight in bullion of the
like standard.'--_Mr. Hendriks' Evidence, Royal Commission
on International Coinage_, p. 142.
The sovereign, thus diminished in weight, would still possess exactly
the same purchasing power--within the limits of the country--as it
previously had. Beyond those limits, as shown by the practice of the
French mint authorities, it would still retain its value. It would not
be, as the present sovereign now is, undervalued in consequence of the
mint charges of other nations.
An objection may be, and has already been, made to the alteration--that
such a change would be unfair to all those creditors who had made
contracts in the old coin, and would be repaid in the new. This
objection is sufficiently disposed of by the fact that, as mentioned
before, the purchasing power of the new coin will be equal to that of
the old.
If any doubt existed, a further security might be given under all
circumstances, by adopting the plan recommended by Colonel Smith, the
late Master of the Calcutta Mint. His proposal is, 'that the new
sovereign shall be changeable for gold bullion at the present price.'
This would cause the value of the new coin to remain equal with that of
the present coin, exactly as the value of the existing silver coinage is
maintained. The present shilling, even when of full weight, is by no
means worth its weight in the metal of which it is made. The pound troy
of standard silver is, and has been in England, since 1817, coined into
sixty-six shillings. The value of the shilling, thus debased, is
maintained at the proper level by the coin being limited, as a legal
tender, to 42s. by tale. The result is obvious. Silver of the value of
something like 18s. does service for 20s. What is more, this has been
the case for years, and no one has ever been injured by it. And the same
effect would surely follow if Colonel Smith's plan were carried out. If
the holder of 100 sovereigns were to desire to convert them into gold,
he would take them to the Bank of England, who would give, as now, a
certain quantity of bar gold of standard fineness, at £3 17s. 10½d. per
oz. The sovereign would, to a certain extent, become a 'token' coin;
that is to say, each sovereign would, as the shilling is now, be worth
something less than the stamped value. But it would, within the limits
of the convention, that is, within the limits of the civilized world, be
current exactly to the extent of its nominal value; and any one desiring
to employ it beyond the limits of the Convention would be placed in
exactly the position in which he is now, by simply taking his gold coins
to the Bank of England and exchanging them for bar gold. A further
advantage would arise from this diminution in weight of the sovereign.
As the sovereign is worth a fraction over ten rupees in India, it
follows that the internationalization of the English sovereign, and the
reducing it by about twopence, to make it equal with twenty-five francs
or five dollars, would immediately rectify the present difference
between the British sovereign and the 10-rupee piece; and the rupee, the
British florin, and the Australian florin would, in the international
scheme of coinage, ultimately become absolutely identical, so far at
least as gold coinage is concerned.[4]
Any alteration of coin in so backward a country as India would have to
be introduced with great caution; but the advantage of assimilating the
currency to that of this country cannot be doubted. There are great
disadvantages in allowing coins, nearly identical in value, to circulate
together; and if the 'sovereign' remains at the present value, what Mr.
Jevons anticipates may not be unlikely to happen.
'It is only necessary for the Continental nations and the
United States to issue, as is already proposed, a piece of
twenty-five francs in order to supplant the sovereign; for,
as the new coin would have the value of a well-worn
sovereign, it would soon be accepted equally with the
sovereign in all foreign countries and our colonies, if not
at home. At the same time, the difference of value being
about 2d. in the pound, would ensure the melting of all new
sovereigns in preference. Thus, however many sovereigns are
coined, we should never succeed in dislodging the 25-franc
piece from circulation. More even than at present our
British Mints would perform the labours of the Danaïdes,
ever pouring forth new and beautiful coin, at once to
disappear into the bullion dealer's crucible. The sovereign
would be an evanescent coin, constantly liable to be
recoined with the permanent impress of a foreign mint.
Common sense, as well as invariable experience, tells us
that we must be worsted in this contest of the heavier and
the lighter coin.'--_Professor Jevons' Paper in the Journal
of the Statistical Society_, vol. xxxi., p. 429.
The extent of the populations employing the 20-franc piece as their
principal gold coin, has already been mentioned. Some persons may say,
'It is true these nations more than double in number the persons whose
basis of accounts is the pound sterling; but still there may be more
"sovereigns" in existence than 20-franc pieces.' Now, it is by no means
as easy to enumerate the coins in a country as to make a census of the
inhabitants. You may count the dwellers in the poorest hovel. But you
cannot count the coins hidden under the hearth, or in the end of the
stocking. It is, however, by no means clear that the amount of British
gold coin in existence is as much as that circulated by several other
nations. Sovereigns, so far from preponderating, appear to be in an
absolute minority. At the Paris Conference of 1867, the amounts of the
gold coinage of Great Britain, France, and the United States were stated
as follows:--
France, from 1793 to 1866, of the value of £262,444,160
Great Britain, 1816 to 1866 187,068,290
United States, 1792 to 1866 169,107,318[5]
It is, of course, impossible to state with certainty what proportion of
coins struck at any mint at any time remain in existence afterwards.
Some coins are called in, some are lost, others find their way to the
melting-pot: it is impossible to say how many continue to circulate. One
thing, however, is certain, that whatever casualties of this nature any
coins are exposed to, British coins feel to the fullest extent. The
rapidity of circulation in Great Britain tends to great deterioration
from wear and tear. The absence of seigniorage causes our coinage to be
relatively undervalued in proportion to other gold coins.[6] Even
supposing British coins to remain current as long as those of other
nations, they are certainly less numerous. They are probably far less
frequently hoarded. The coinage returns from 1851 to 1866 inclusive show
the relative proportions even more clearly than the earlier statements.
Our Mint was less fertile during that time, than either the Mints of
France or the United States.
YEARS 1851 TO 1866.
Great Britain struck in gold coins £91,000,000
The United States 131,600,000
France 197,400,000
-----------
420,000,000
The amount of gold coin in a country is very far from being an
indication, either of its wealth or of its business transactions; but
these figures suffice to show that the sovereign does not hold the
pre-eminence frequently ascribed to it. Even if the proceeds of the
Sydney Mint are added in, the sovereign will still be found in the
minority. The Sydney Mint was established in 1855. The coinage has been
as follows:--
Average
Years. Coinage. per annum.
7 years 1855 to 1861 £ 8,438,162 £1,205,451
5 " 1862 to 1866 11,889,838 2,377,967
-----------
£20,328,000
And it must not be assumed that all these Australian sovereigns are in
circulation now. An imperfection in the process of refining incident on
carrying on that operation in a new country, left a certain portion of
silver at all events in the earlier mintages, and this circumstance is
believed to have made these coins favourites with the 'melters.' Sir A.
Donaldson, formerly Colonial Secretary, and Colonial Treasurer to the
Government of New South Wales, gave evidence before the Select Committee
of the House of Commons on the Sydney Branch Mint, appointed in 1862;
and, after stating that he believed that a considerable number of the
Australian sovereigns have reached England, added, 'as a matter of fact,
I think they all find their way to the refiner.' Mr. W. Miller, of the
Bank of England, when examined before the same Committee, 'understood
that upwards of 2,000,000 were sent to this country some time ago, and
that they have been melted.' This was before the proclamation making
these coins legal tender in this country. They have probably been less
frequently melted since that proclamation. But it cannot be assumed that
the whole twenty millions are still in circulation. Even including all
of them, the sovereign would not be the preponderating coin as far as
number is concerned.
Mr. Hendriks, a very eminent statistician, who has paid much attention
to questions connected with the coinage (_vide Journal of the Society of
Arts_, February 14, 1868), has given to the public the grounds upon
which he bases his opinion that, although the sovereign and the dollar
may be more widely diffused than the Napoleon, there are now current in
the world twice as many Napoleons as sovereigns, four times as many as
half-eagle or five-dollar pieces, and about one-third more than
sovereigns and half-eagle pieces together. This writer has also made the
following calculations, showing the relative importance of the United
States, England, and France, as the chief manufacturing countries of
coinage since 1792. The object of the division of the results into
separate periods is to show the altered condition since the gold
discoveries in California and Australia.
PERCENTAGE OF THE COINAGE OF THE THREE
NATIONS TO THEIR TOTAL COINAGE.
Years Years Years
1792 to 1851. 1861 to 1866. 1792 to 1866
United States 18-1/3 31-1/2 27-1/3
England 43-2/3 21-1/2 30-1/3
France 33 47 42-1/3
------ ------ ------
100 100 100
In further commenting, in the pages of the _Economist_, on these
statistics, Mr. Hendriks observes:--
'It thus appears that whilst England coined 48-2/3 per
cent., or nearly one-half, of the grand total from 1792 to
1851, her proportion has fallen from the first place to the
last, in the subsequent period 1851 to 1866, her fresh
coinage having therein sunk to 21-1/2 per cent., or a
little more than one-fifth of the total. The proportion for
France was 33 per cent. in the first period, and 47 per
cent. in the second. From the second place she thus moved
to the first. But the advance of the United States was
equally marked, and from the smallest proportion, 18-1/3
per cent, in the period 1792 to 1851, there was an increase
to 31-1/2 per cent., or to the second place, in the period
1851 to 1866.
'The report from the Secretary of the American Treasury for
1868 gives more recent statistics, namely, for the years
ended 30th June, 1867 and 1868. These show a gold coinage
of about forty million dollars in 1867, and of about
twenty-four million dollars in 1868. But in England, in
1867, the gold coined was actually less than half a million
sterling, or under two and a half million dollars' worth in
American coin. And in 1868 the English Mint turned out only
£1,653,384 sterling, or about eight million dollars' worth
in American coin. The gold coinage of France has also
declined below the rate of fresh production in America.
Thus America is rapidly attaining the first place as a gold
coining country. And it will be a question for future time
to solve, whether the English and Australian Mints, in
their united working, will exceed the manufacture by the
United States' Mints at Philadelphia, San Francisco, and
Denver.'
As some persons may say, 'Other nations need a larger gold coinage than
we do, because their paper money and banking systems are not like ours;
but their coinage is no proof of the extent of their business
transactions,' it is best to mention that the united export and import
trade of the European countries alone, who have already joined the
Monetary Convention, or have signed preliminary treaties of adherence
thereto, amounts to no less than five hundred million pounds sterling
per annum at the present time, or to nearly one-fourth more than the
aggregate exports and imports of the United Kingdom. It will now be
desirable to mention the charges made for coining, or seigniorage, at
the principal mints. In England no charge is made; but the 1½d paid
to the Bank on each ounce of standard gold bullion, amounts to about
0·1605 (say 3s. 2½d.) per cent. In France it is different. When gold
is carried to the mint there, coin is returned for it, with a certain
deduction. This deduction is about ¼ per cent. Beyond this there is
some delay, practically, before the coin is returned. On an average the
loss of interest on the money, caused by this delay, amounts to about
¾ per cent. Altogether, the charge is about 1 per cent., or more than
six times the charge now made in England. In Prussia the charge is ½
per cent., and the delay is about the same as in Paris. In America and
India it is about the same.[7]
It appears from these statements that there is nearly a universal
consensus of practice in charging a seigniorage. There is also a nearly
universal consensus of opinion on the part of the leading authorities in
political economy (such as Adam Smith and J. S. Mill) that such a
seigniorage, when moderate, really enhances the value of the coin to the
extent of the charge. If, therefore, this opinion is correct, it follows
that the gold coinage of England, where no charge is made, will be
depreciated--that is, will not obtain its real value in those countries
where a charge is made. It is not difficult to show that this is the
case in France; and if in one country where a seigniorage is charged, it
follows, of course, in all of them.
A British sovereign of full weight contains about equal intrinsic
quantities of pure gold with twenty-five francs twenty centimes.
'But it does not follow that even a full-weight sovereign
is more valuable, either in a mathematical or in a
commercial sense, than twenty-five francs of gold coin,
when it is conveyed to a country within the operation of
the Monetary Convention of December, 1865. There the
sovereign ceases to be coin, and is nothing more than
bullion; and, as bullion, is subject to a seigniorage or
mint-charge, when converted into coin. And as, in the
countries in question, twenty-five francs twenty centimes
of bullion are, on the average, equal to only twenty-five
francs of coin, the sovereign is practically "valuable"
only as twenty-five francs.'--_Royal Commission on
International Coinage. Evidence of Mr. Hendriks_, p. 145.
The reason for this must be that the British coinage is gratuitous. A
sovereign may be regarded from two points of view--as a certain weight
of gold of a known fineness, manufactured into a uniform shape by the
officials of the mint, and as the current coin of the realm. At present
no charge is made for the process of manufacture. The question to be
decided is this, Is the coin, _plus_ the process of manufacture, worth
more than the same weight of gold before that process is performed? It
appears that it is even worth less in France.
'The French Mint publishes a tariff giving a schedule of
the coinage of each country, the legal weight and fineness
in the country of its mintage, and a comparative estimate
of fineness, according to the French Mint tariff of
purchase, stating the value of each coin per kilogramme and
per single piece.'
If the intrinsic value of the pure gold contained in the sovereign is
considered, it is equal to 25·2079 at par; but the Mint tariff giving
the price of purchase makes it only 25·12 at par, a deduction of about
nine centimes on each sovereign. In estimating it thus,
'The French Mint Commission and M. Durand, its
Commissioner-General, practically admit that current gold
coin in France is equal in exchange to its full legal
weight of bullion, _plus_ seigniorage. In order to test
this with mathematical exactness, we must observe that a
kilogramme, _i.e._, 1,000 grammes of absolutely pure gold
without deduction for seigniorage or mint charges, is worth
3444·4444 francs; or, _with_ deduction at the rate of 6
francs 70 centimes, on 3,100 francs, 9/10 fine, the 1,000
grammes of absolutely pure gold, 10/10 fine, are worth
3,437 francs. Then, at ·916 fine, _i.e._, at the French
Mint tariff of English gold coin treated as bullion, the
proportionate value of the kilogramme of sovereigns,
allowing for seigniorage or mint charge, comes out as given
in the tariff, 3148·29 francs. And thus, doubtless, the
French Mint arrives at its present equation of 25·12 francs
= 1 sovereign. For the proportion is, 1,000 _grammes_ :
3148·29 francs :: 7·98085 grammes : x = 25·12602
francs.'--_Royal Commission on International Coinage. Mr.
Hendriks' Evidence_, p. 146.
It appears by this that the pound sterling is practically undervalued
2d. in France; one penny about in the intrinsic worth of the gold; and
another, the cost of coining the metal, including the loss for delay in
so doing.
Any alteration in the standard of the coinage is, beyond doubt, a
measure which should not be carelessly undertaken. Those opposed to such
a measure have stated that the standard had remained unchanged in this
country for more than a century and a half. Great weight has also been
attributed by some persons to the resolution of the House of Commons of
20th October, 1696, and passed again in the same words on the 12th June,
1822, 'That this House will not alter the standard of the gold and
silver coins of this kingdom, in fineness, weight, or denomination.' A
solemn declaration beyond doubt; but notwithstanding this, several
changes have at various times been made in the currency of the realm.
In 1696, the year of the 'Resolution' silver was the sole legal tender.
In 1717, silver ceased to be the sole standard, and the double, or
alternative standard of gold or silver, was adopted. This change was
made under the advice of Sir Isaac Newton.
In 1774, silver was restricted, as a legal tender, to sums under £25 by
tale, and above £25 by weight, but gold remained a legal tender without
restriction.
In 1783, both gold and silver, without any restriction, became legal
tender.
In 1797, bank notes were made legal tender. The effect of this change is
well known.
In 1798, silver was made legal tender as in 1774.
In 1817, gold alone was made legal tender, silver being debased and
restricted as mentioned before.
In the face of these alterations it is impossible to appeal to history
for a proof that it is not lawful to make any desirable change.
But some objectors say, If the British Mint no longer coins gratis, gold
bullion will no longer make its way to this country as freely as it now
does. At the present time England is the great bullion exchange of the
world, because it is the country where the mint charges are lowest.
Deprive this country of this advantage, and the stream of bullion will
be directed elsewhere. If this argument is of any validity, of course
all, or at least the greater part, of the bullion which has already
reached this country, must have found its way to the Mint. But what is
the real fact? That not so much as the ninth part of the gold bullion
imported into this country within the last four years, has been coined
into British money.
The following figures are taken from the Statistical Abstract for
1869:--
COMPUTED REAL VALUE OF THE REGISTERED IMPORTS
OF GOLD AND SILVER BULLION, AND SPECIE, INTO
THE UNITED KINGDOM.
Gold. Silver. Total.
1865 £14,485,570 £6,976,641 £21,462,211
1866 23,509,641 10,777,498 34,287,139
1867 15,800,159 8,020,888 23,821,047
1868 17,136,177 7,716,418 24,852,595
_____________
£104,422,992
AMOUNT OF GOLD AND SILVER MONEYS COINED AT THE
ROYAL MINT.
Gold. Silver. Total.
1865 £2,367,614 £501,732 £2,869,346
1866 5,076,676 493,416 5,570,092
1867 496,397 193,842 690,239
1868 1,653,384 301,356 1,954,740
___________
£11,084,417
Looking at these figures, it will scarcely be argued that the fact of
gratuitous coinage at the Royal Mint is of any power in attracting gold
bullion to this country.
The charges made on coining in other countries amount to large sums in
the aggregate. It is desirable to show what these sums are.
It has been calculated that, upon each million pounds sterling worth of
gold coin delivered, the charge (including adjustment for loss of
interest in the fixed delays for delivery) amounts in all
England to £ 1,605
France 10,490
United States 15,000
Australia 13,330
India 13,330[8]
It is of itself a sufficient answer to those who think that the
imposition of a seigniorage might prevent bullion from being brought to
this country for coinage, to note what has taken place where such a
charge is made. Both France and the United States have coined
considerably more gold during the sixteen years mentioned above than
this country. Yet the charge in the United States is nearly ten times
that in Great Britain. The coinage at the Mint of Sydney has nearly
doubled, yet the charge in Sydney is nearly as high as in the United
States. The returns for the years 1867-1868 have not, as far as we are
aware, yet reached this country. But considering the great and
progressive increase in the Sydney coinages, it is highly probable that
the coins struck in Australia during those years have greatly exceeded
those minted in London.
To sum up:
It is at present open to this country to join the International Monetary
Convention already in force between several of the principal European
States.
It is probable that this Convention will shortly include the most
important powers of the civilized world.
The population of the countries which have already given in their
adherence to this Convention, greatly exceed in number the inhabitants
of the British Islands. Their trade is more important in value than our
own.
The disadvantages of being outside such a Convention are very great.
In joining it, a seigniorage would have to be charged on all British
gold coinages.
A similar seigniorage is always charged on the coinages at the Sydney
Mint; and the coinage at the Sydney Mint is now large and increasing--in
the last two years probably more than that of the English Mint.
This seigniorage is no disadvantage to anyone. On the contrary, it
possesses several advantages. At present, the last holder of a light
sovereign is exposed to loss. This is unfair, as probably the last
holder has done nothing to cause the coin to be light.
Were a seigniorage imposed, the first holder, the man who thinks he can
gain something by causing the coin to be minted, would have--as is
fair--to provide against the depreciation. Further, the first holder
would have to pay for the work he has done; _i.e._, the manufacture of
the coin--a charge now defrayed by the country.
It is clear that the absence of a seigniorage is not the cause which
attracts gold to England, as barely the ninth part of the bullion
imported finds its way to the Mint.
It is also clear that alterations, one at least of far more importance
than the imposition of a seigniorage, have at former times been made in
the status of the currency of the country.
To conclude, in the words of an early pioneer of British commerce, 'The
exchanges practised in England, and principally in London, are confined
within a narrow scantling, being but as a rivolet issuing out of the
great streame of those exchanges that are used beyond the seas.'
Thus wrote 'that eminently deserving author,' Mr. Lewes Roberts, the
'delineator' of the Merchant's Mappe of Commerce in 1638. The 'true
dimensions of our English traffique' even then excited his limited
admiration and wonder. He could only imagine either that this commerce
was 'at its full perfection, or that it aymes higher than can hitherto,
by my weake sight, be either seen or discerned.' To us, 'the full
streame' of that trade seems but 'a petty rivolet,' and we only wonder
how, with the complicated and varying systems of money then in practice,
with measures of length and quantity differing in almost every place of
importance in Europe, any commerce could be kept up between differing
nations. It is no longer needful to note now, as it was then, that
different weights and measures were to be found in the principal cities
even of the same country. It is no longer needful to bear in mind, as it
was then, that there was a difference of exchange between places close
to each other, and within the same territories. Commerce now would not
bear such fetters. The vigour of the early days of trade surmounted
those obstacles as the rush of a mountain stream drives it unhindered
over rocks that vainly bar its course. In these times affairs approach
what has been termed the stationary state. As the stream expands, the
current becomes more gentle. As facilities for trade become greater, a
smaller obstacle suffices to turn that trade from its course. It is now
far more easy to give a vessel the option of discharging her cargo in
one port or another, in one country or another, than it was then.
Increased opportunities of intercourse render any change of the line of
traffic far less difficult now than at any previous time. A smaller
difference in profit renders such alterations of destination more
desirable and more necessary. The course of commerce has just been
compared to that of a stream--as dashing rapidly down the mountain glen,
or slowly moving through the rich and level plain. Is it permissible to
carry on the simile still further?--to watch how, as in Holland, a
trifling artificially-produced change of level is sufficient to divert
the scarcely perceptible flow of the almost stagnant flood--to add the
waters of the Rhine to the Yssel, or of the Waal to the Lech? So as a
general extension of wealth brings all countries more closely to one
uniform condition, is it not needful to remove those obstacles which may
cause similar diversions of our trade? Is it not needful to take a step
onward, and to supply our own people with those advantages which are now
possessed by many--will soon be possessed by almost all civilized
nations? Among such advantages, to provide a coinage which, while
entailing no expense on the country, either at its creation or for its
maintenance, may be truly international in character, and aid the
streams of our commerce to maintain their course around the globe.
ART. III.--(1.) _Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, first Earl
of Malmesbury._ Edited by his Grandson, the Third Earl. 4 vols. Second
edition. London: 1845.
(2.) _Letters of the first Earl of Malmesbury, his Family, and Friends,
from 1745 to 1820_. Edited, with Notes, &c., by his Grandson, the Right
Hon. the EARL OF MALMESBURY, G.C.B. 2 vols. London: 1870.
From 1745 to 1820--this was the lifetime of James Harris, afterwards first
Earl of Malmesbury; and such is the period over which the subject-matter
of these two works extends. A more memorable period is not to be found
in the annals of this country, or even in the long and more momentous
history of Europe. It bridges the chasm which separates the old world of
Europe from the new. It shows us that elder world in its last stage; it
also shows us the beginning of that new and better order of things
amongst which we now live. In the earlier period of those seventy-five
years, we see the thrones of Louis the Fifteenth, of Frederick the
Great, and Catherine of Russia, standing high above the heads of a
crushed and miserable people, who counted for nothing either in their
policy or in their pleasures. The simple facts of that old _régime_ of
royal absolutism now read like a monstrous dream. Vice and despotism in
the palace, license and intrigue at the Court, penury in the cottage,
and degradation everywhere, such is hardly an exaggeration of the
general condition of the Continent at that time, and simple truth as
regards France, who then, as since, boasted her leadership of
civilization. As is always the case in analogous periods, the people
themselves had sunk into a moral torpor. There were no national
movements or aspirations. Religion, freedom, and the thirst for military
conquest, are the three great motive powers of humanity. But all of
these were then dead or in abeyance. Humanity had settled on its lees.
Even mental philosophy, which so often flourishes in such dead times of
a nation's history, threw its teachings into the scale in favour of an
ignoble life; and while a pitiless Scepticism robbed men of heaven and
all their religious beliefs, Materialism bade them "eat, drink, and be
merry, for to-morrow ye die" _for ever_, like the trees of the wood and
the beasts of the fields. While Philosophy robbed man of his moral
freedom and a future life, Royalty denied him his personal and political
liberty and plundered his pockets. In truth, the whole upper crust of
society had become heartless, debased, and corrupt, while beneath was a
seething mass of suffering, ignorance, and savagery. And so the upper
crust, with king, priests, and nobles--crowns, croziers, and
coronets--gave way and fell into an abyss of devouring fire, like that
which burst up of yore beneath Sodom and Gomorrah, devastating the
corrupt Cities of the Plain. The old world of Europe was cast into the
furnace, and all things became new--Providence overruling the wrath of
man to its own wise and merciful ends.
All history is an ennobling study, alike in its events and its examples;
but life is short, and it is the French Revolution that commences the
period of history of deepest importance to the present age. Beyond that
chasm, so rudely severing the old world of Europe from the new, lies the
realm of the historian; on this side begins a drama of opinions and
events constituting by far the most useful field of study in secular and
political knowledge. Changed since then, and still changing, as are the
territorial arrangements of Europe, the conquests of Napoleon
contributed greatly to the rise of the principle of Nationality which is
now the great power at work in the alteration of boundaries and the
shaping of kingdoms. It is true, Napoleon meant to conquer only for
himself and for France. He sought to found a vast empire, with vassal
kingdoms under the rule of his brothers and relatives. But in
establishing this empire, he swept away a great deal of the obstructive
rubbish of the former time. By expelling the Germans from Italy, and
also by creating a titular King of Rome, he paved the way for the
subsequent aspirations and movement of the Italians in favour of
nationality and independence, which have at length borne their full
fruits in the establishment of a free and united Italy. In like manner,
by sweeping away a whole host of petty princedoms in Germany, he
simplified the subsequent course of events towards a unification of
Germany; while the iron despotism which he exercised in that country
first compelled all Germans to feel the tie of brotherhood, in the
glorious uprising of the Fatherland in 1813 against the foreign foe.
Poland, too, during the ascendancy of Napoleon, temporarily (but only
for the great conqueror's own purposes) regained in part its old
existence, thereby keeping alive the hope for renewed independence; a
hope which, improbable as our expectations may seem, we think will yet
be realized amid the great trouble, and changes impending over the
Continent. But still more memorable, and worthy of thoughtful study, are
the times of the French Revolution, from the influence which they have
produced upon the current of political, social, and religious thought,
in subsequent times. A whole flood of new ideas, principles, and
opinions was then poured upon the world. Some of these were wise and
good, others were detestable, but nearly all of them were given to the
world in so crude a form and in so savage or ruthless a spirit, as to
make them as a whole so repulsive that even yet some of their
excellencies are but little known or acknowledged. Every one recognises,
however, the vast influence which that grand and terrible Revolution has
exercised upon the whole current of subsequent thought; and if Europe
has yet to undergo one more great upheaving of democratic revolution (as
we believe it has), we may rely upon it that some of the more extreme
and, at present, all but forgotten dogmas of the first revolution will
again appear on the scene; including, we regret to say, that terrible
development of infidelity and materialism, against which even
Robespierre himself, with his firm belief in the Supreme Being and a
future life, was unable successfully to contend. That storm of blasphemy
and utter scepticism, in its worst features at least, soon blew
over--and let us trust that such will be the case again; but any one
who has watched the turn of thought on the Continent, and in Germany
even more than in France, must expect any new outburst of democratic
revolution to be accompanied by a manifesto of infidelity and an attempt
to banish religion from the fabric and principles of society, in a
manner only too similar to that which formed the worst feature of the
first French Revolution.
The first Earl of Malmesbury was in public life, for the greater part of
the time holding the highest diplomatic appointments abroad, during the
whole course of these momentous events. From a vantage-ground enjoyed by
few men either of this or any other country, he beheld the Courts and
peoples of Europe both before the deluge and after it; and although he
withdrew from public office before the termination of the great war with
France, he continued to the end to be confidentially consulted by the
Ministers of the time. The first of the two works whose titles are
prefixed is by far the most valuable and important. All the leading men
of the day--monarchs, statesmen, and generals--figure constantly in the
diaries and correspondence. The work has been quoted with advantage to
history by some of our ablest writers, and not least so by Lord
Stanhope, in his 'Life of Pitt.' It constitutes a mine of historical and
political facts; and though published too late to be made use of by our
chief historians of the French war and of the immediately preceding
times of the Empress Catherine and Frederick the Great, its value is
fully recognised by the writers of the personal and political memoirs
which have recently issued from the press. The second of the works on
our list is of a lighter character, in which the incidents of
fashionable life mingle largely with matters of State and Parliamentary
politics. The one work shows us the grand movements of the time, the
other gives us the bye-play. The latter, to which we chiefly confine our
remarks, is a selection from private letters received by three
generations of the Harris family. They are confidential exchanges of
intelligence and ideas, in which the hopes and fears, the expectations,
disappointments, and impressions of our ancestors are given in the very
words in which they were described. The noble editor of these letters
calls them 'waifs of the past,' but they possess a twofold interest,
firstly, as illustrating the opinions and social habits of that past
time; and secondly, they are reliable indications of what public feeling
was at their date with regard to politics, society, and the general
condition of our own and foreign countries:--
'And how eventful those years were,' says the editor:
'They saw the Highland rebellion; the American war; the
despotic Courts of the Bourbons, of Catherine, and of
Frederick; the great French revolution, and its subsequent
phases of a bloody republic, an aggressive empire, an
ephemeral restoration, and again of a short empire and a
second restoration. They witnessed the struggles of our
English people for greater freedom, even from the
privileges claimed by their own House of Commons; and
lastly, a far fiercer contest to save their own country
from the subjugation under which for a time Napoleon held
every nation in Europe except theirs.'
The chief recipient of the earlier letters in this collection was Mr.
James Harris, the father of the first Earl of Malmesbury. The Harris
family had lived quietly on an estate in Wiltshire from the middle of
the 16th century; and Mr. James Harris first broke through the
hereditary sameness of existence by becoming one of the most
distinguished scholars of his day. Besides 'Philosophical Treatises,' he
published a work on grammar, called 'Hermes,' which the accomplished
Bishop Lowth styled 'the most beautiful example of analysis produced
since the days of Aristotle,' and which obtained so high a reputation
that it was afterwards translated and published by command of the French
Directory in 1796. He was member of Parliament for Christchurch, which
seat he held till his death, in 1780; was made a Lord of the Treasury in
1763, and in 1744 he became Secretary and Comptroller of the Queen's
Household. When he first took his seat in the House of Commons, John
Townshend asked who he was, and on being told that he had written on
grammar and harmony, replied 'Why does he come here, where he will hear
neither?' His literary talent and high personal character procured for
Mr. Harris a wide circle of friends and acquaintances among the leading
men of the times; and owing to the influence he thus acquired he was
enabled to launch his son, afterwards the first Lord, early into public
life. The present Earl (who edits these letters), speaking of the
'_fêtes_ and social intercourse in the venerable city of Sarum,' where
his great-grandfather resided, observes regretfully 'how much less of
cliques and class categories then existed among the nobility and their
neighbours than in the present day.'
Mr. Harris was passionately fond of music and art, and wrote treatises
upon them, which indicate a more lively and sympathetic nature than
would he inferred from the dry philosophy of his other works. His wife
moved much in society, and appears to have possessed a similar taste for
the fine arts. The best artists of the day were visitors at their house
in Salisbury. The family went frequently to the theatre, and in the
letters we find critical observations on most of the new dramas of the
time. There are two letters from David Garrick, asking permission to
bring out at Drury Lane a musical pastoral, called 'Damo and Amyrillis,'
which, the editor says, 'was in Mr. Harris's hands,' but which, there
seems to us reason to believe, was actually composed by him. As might be
expected of a musical family, they attended the concerts and the opera,
and by-and-by we read of 'the great house in the Haymarket,' and Italian
singers come to the front. Then, as now, the Opera was a perilous
venture, and both the managers and singers occasionally came to grief.
Of one of the favourite singers of the day we read as follows:--
'All Manzolini's clothes and finery are seized, and carried
to the Custom House, so he has sent a petition to the Lords
of the Treasury to have them redeemed. This event diverts
Lord North, as he says not one of the Treasury know a note
of music, nor care one farthing what becomes of Manzolini,
_except Mr. Harris_. He says your father has told so moving
a story to Mr. Grenville about it, that he thinks it may
affect him.'
A close friendship existed between Mr. Harris and Handel, who left him,
by will, his portrait, and all his operas in manuscript. The very first
letter in this collection has a touching allusion to the great musician,
whose intellect had been affected by his labours, and who had become
very eccentric. The Countess of Salisbury, a relative of Mr. Harris,
writes to him thus (in 1745):--
'My constancy to poor Handel got the better of my indolence
and my propensity to stay at home, and I went last Friday
to see the 'Alexander's Feast;' but it was such a
melancholy pleasure as drew tears of sorrow, great though
unhappy Handel, dejected, wan, and dark, sitting by, not
playing on the harpsichord, and to think how his light has
been spent by being _overplied in music's cause_. I was
sorry, too, to find the audience so insipid and tasteless
(I may add unkind) as not to give the poor man the comfort
of applause; but affectation and conceit cannot discern or
attend to merit.'
In the next letter, the Rev. W. Harris writes to Mrs. Harris thus:--
'I met Mr. Handel a few days since in the street, and
stopped and put him in mind who I was; upon which, I am
sure it would have diverted you to have seen his antic
motions. He seemed highly pleased, and was full of inquiry
after you. I told him I was very confident that you
expected a visit from him this summer (at Salisbury). He
talked much of his precarious state of health, yet he looks
well enough.'
Handel recovered from the mental affection; and five years later (1750)
we find the Earl of Shaftesbury writing of him as follows:--
'I have seen Handel several times since I came hither (to
London), and I think I never saw him so cool and well. He
is quite easy in his behaviour, and has been pleasing
himself in the purchase of several fine pictures,
particularly a large Rembrandt, which is indeed excellent.
We have scarce talked at all about musical subjects, though
enough to find that his performances will go off
incomparably.'
Music appears to have held a more prominent place in public amusements a
century ago than is generally imagined; and when Giardini undertook the
management of the Opera 'at the great house in the Haymarket' in 1764,
Mrs. Harris opines that he will meet with no small difficulty, because
the 'greatest part of the orchestra, and almost all the dancers, are
engaged at the _play-houses_.' Giardini--a Piedmontese violinist and
composer, who, after residing thirty years in England, went to Russia,
where he died in 1793--came to grief in this operatic venture, and
afterwards started an Opera in 'Mrs. Cornely's' rooms. Indeed, the
Haymarket house, great as its celebrity became in the present century,
was by no means a famous place in those times. In the same year (1764)
we read in one of the letters, 'Almack is going to build some most
magnificent rooms behind his house--one much larger than that at
Carlisle House,' _i.e._, Mrs. Cornely's. This latter was the favourite
place of resort at that time, and for many years afterwards. It was a
place where subscription-concerts were held (one series mentioned in
1764, consisted of twenty-one concerts, of Bach's music, Cocchi's, and
Abel's, for five guineas), where the Opera for some time had its seat;
and also where masquerade parties and other fashionable entertainments
were held. In 1770, we read of 'fifteen or sixteen young men of fashion
and fortune giving a masquerade at Cornely's, to 800 people;' and in the
following year we have a full account of a masquerade given at the same
place by 'the gentlemen of the Tuesday Nights' Club.' Mrs. Harris,
writing to her son (the future Earl) at Madrid, says: 'Mr. Charles Fox
has offered to supply us with tickets. Your sisters and I mean to go;
'tis the only masquerade I wish them to go to. I shall try my utmost to
persuade Mr. Harris (her husband) to accompany us. One difficulty is in
the way; that is, no gentlemen are admitted in dominos.' Mr. Harris
could not be persuaded to join the fashionable assembly, but Mr.
Fox--who had just commenced his official career, as a Lord of the
Admiralty--was, at that time, more at home in such parties than in
Parliament. Mrs. Harris was greatly delighted with it. The following is
part of her account of it:--
'Gertrude (Miss Harris) was dressed as the Pythian, that
is, priestess to the temple of Apollo, a dress which she
wore in one of the private plays. Louisa was an Indian
Princess; Mr. Cambridge borrowed a dress for her which was
pretty and fine--the habit, muslin with green and gold
sprigs, with a turban and veil. I never saw anybody enter
so strongly into the spirit of a masquerade as she did. She
talked to numbers all in French, and had disguised her
voice so well that even some of her friends did not
discover her. Towards the end, she said she was frightened
by the Devil speaking to her sister. Mine was a white
domino, with a Mary Queen of Scots cap and ruff.
'Lord Edgecombe was a shepherdess, with a little lamb under
his arm, and a most excellent figure he was. Mr. Banbury
was a most excellent _friseur_; Lord Berkeley, a charlatan.
Mrs. Crewe[9] looked beautiful as a nun with a yellow veil.
Several gentlemen in women's clothes, not as old women....
'On the whole we are greatly entertained, for it was the
first masked ball I ever saw. We supped soon after one; and
then everybody unmasked, and a number of acquaintances we
found, though we had found out many before. We got home
soon after five; and, old as I may be, I never left a
public place with more regret.'
Mrs. Cornely's rooms soon became the object of a jealous, and let us
hope unfounded, attack. Giardini had opened an Opera there, which was
'greatly injuring that of Mr. Hobart's in the Haymarket;' and the latter
gentleman 'informed against them' as an unlicensed house. There was a
strong party on either side, 'harmoniacs' and 'anti-harmoniacs,' and the
latter party brought forward scandalous charges. Only a week after the
above-mentioned masquerade, Mrs. Harris writes thus:--
'The Harmoniac is over, and, what is worse, they threaten
hard to indict Mrs. Cornely's as a house of ill-fame, and
say that forty beds are made and unmade every day, which is
hard, for a friend of ours says it is never more than
_twenty_. But, joking apart, if they choose to demolish
Mrs. Cornely, all elegance and spectacle will end in this
town; for she never yet had her equal in these things, and
I believe got but little, as all she undertakes is clever
to a degree.'
There is a wonderful want of logical sequence in these few lines; and as
to whether the scandalous charge was true or false, Mrs. Harris apparently
was as little in a position to judge as we are now. Mrs. Cornely was
originally Mademoiselle Pompeiati, a singer. She hired Carlisle House,
in Soho-square, and established balls and assemblies by subscription.
This place of fashionable resort, however, as well as its mistress,
quickly thereafter declined in reputation. In 1774, we find Mrs. Harris
writing:--'I went to Carlysle House, which Bach has taken for his
concerts; the furniture, like Mrs. Cornely, is much on the decline; but,
in my opinion, the place is better for the concert than Almack's.' Bach
soon left these rooms, and opened a place of his own, splendidly fitted
up. But even he was not allowed to carry on his performances without
opposition, although of a different kind from that which proved fatal to
Mrs. Cornely. 'Lord Hillsborough, Sir James Porter, and some others
(writes Mrs. Harris) have entered into a subscription to prosecute Bach
for a nuisance, and I was told the jury had found a bill against him.
One would scarce imagine his house could molest either of these men, for
Bach's is at the corner of Hanover-street.'
Amateur theatrical performances were in those days in great vogue among
the upper classes, and usually took place in the country residences of
the nobility and gentry in the winter months--during the Parliamentary
recess, when even members of the Ministry (notably Mr. Fox) took part in
them. Winterslow House was the famous place for these amateur
performances. The ordinary audience consisted of the servants of the
house and the neighbouring townspeople, as well as a select circle of
visitors, which on one occasion included the Duke and Duchess of
Queensberry, the Duchess of Bedford, Lord and Lady Pembroke, Lady
Charles and Lord Robert Spencer, Lord Dunkellin, Lady Louisa
Fitzpatrick, &c. At the close of one of those performances at Winterslow
House (in January, 1774), in which Mr. Fox and another member of his
family acted, a lamentable accident occurred, which destroyed the
greater part of the mansion. Mrs. Harris writes of it next day as
follows:--
'We got home in whole bones [an allusion apparently to the
bad roads] soon after one, and in high spirits; but our joy
is now turned to sorrow, for this morning, at five, a fire
broke out in the new building at Winterslow House, and
entirely consumed that and also the old house, except the
kitchen and laundry. Though the house was full of company,
fortunately no life was lost. The fire was discovered by
some Salisbury chairmen, who, for want of a bed, were
deposited on a carpet under the great stairs; they alarmed
the house, and probably, thereby, saved some lives. Lady
Pembroke, Lady Mary Fox and her children, were carried to
King's House; Miss Herbert, Mrs. Hodges, and the other
ladies stayed in the laundry; all the gentlemen stood by.
As they had no engines, and little or no water but violent
rain, they in a manner gave up all hopes of the house; but
their object was to save the furniture, in which they have
succeeded, though 'tis greatly damaged by dirt and rain.
'Tis thought, but not certain, that the fire was owing to
some timber near a chimney in the new building. I think of
the contrast: we left that house this morning between
twelve and one, all mirth and jollity, and by seven it was
consumed; it really hurts me when I think how many
agreeable days I have spent in those rooms.
'Some say that, during the flames, Stephen and Charles Fox
and Fitzpatrick got to a proper distance, and laid bets as
to which beam would fall in first. The friends of the
house, who resort to Almack's and White's, say they are
sorry they were not at Winterslow that night, as "they
might have had an opportunity of seeing the family in a
_new light_. I could mention profane things uttered at the
very time, but they are too bad."
Amateur dramatic and operatic performances were a frequent amusement at
Mr. Harris's house in Salisbury. Miss Gertrude, the elder daughter, was
an adept in such performances, and, moreover, retained this taste
throughout the whole of her long life. This lady afterwards became the
wife of Mr. Robinson, younger son of Lord Grantham. She lived, in the
London world, to the age of eighty-five, preserving to the last her
faculties and cheerful character. She used to give private theatricals
at her house, in which Lord de Grey, Mr. F. Robinson, Hugh Elliott, and
Canning were the chief actors--Canning writing the prologues and
epilogues, which are still extant. In the letters we find frequent
allusions to the performances in Mr. Harris's family residence; but we
shall content ourselves with mentioning one of them, which aroused the
satirical ire of some provincial Juvenal, whose poetic outburst serves
to show the great, indeed too great, change between the notions on such
subjects then and now. Mrs. Harris, in a letter to her son, thus alludes
to a rehearsal of the piece, which a few days afterwards was performed,
as usual, to an audience of the townsfolk and the visitors at the
house:--
'I have but little to send from hence; we are so totally
taken up with our own theatrical business that nothing else
is thought of. The ladies acted last night in their dresses
to all their servants, and a most crowded house they had.
Although I was not admitted to the performance, I saw all
the ladies. Their dresses are fine and elegant. Miss
Townshend makes an excellent Spanish ambassador, a fine
figure and richly dressed; she had a prodigious long sword,
and not being accustomed to wear one, she contrived, as she
walked, to run it up through a scene, and damaged it
greatly. Louisa has taken a sword you left her [here?], and
manages it right well. She is very fine in a purple Spanish
dress, all the buttons Irish diamonds, a handsome button
and loop to her hat, and your King of Spain's picture
hanging from her neck. The Queen, Miss Hussey, was dressed
in blue and silver, with a number of diamonds; Miss
Wyndham, who is Elvira, in white, trimmed with pearls;
Gertrude, the Princess, in a black Spanish dress, trimmed
with red and silver, and a great quantity of diamonds; it
becomes her much.
'Lord Pembroke [the tenth Earl] sent a note to your father,
which was as follows:--"I can snuff candles, I can scrape
on the violoncello; if either of these sciences will
entitle me to a place in your theatre, I will perform
gratis. P.S. My wife says she can thrum the harpsichord or
viol-de-gamba."
'We have sent them and the Amesbury House tickets for
Saturday. Everybody is making interest to get in. The
ladies mean to perform five times, so I hope everybody will
see it.'
The satirical verses which this lady performance called forth appeared
in the _Bath Journal_ (Nov. 17, 1774), entitled 'On the Ladies at the
Close of Salisbury, now acting _Elvira_;' and Mrs. Harris opines that
'they were sent from some _vinegar_ merchant in Salisbury who could not
get admitted to the performance. The verses are as follows:--
'In good Queen Elizabeth's reign,
In a decent and virtuous age,
That they ne'er might give modesty pain,
No female appeared on the stage.
But lo, what a change time affords!
The ladies, 'mong many strange things,
Call for helmets, for breeches and swords,
And act Senators, Hervos, and Kings.'
If the anonymous 'vinegar merchant' could have been transported into the
present time, how much more would he have been shocked by the 'change
which time affords!' Could he now take a trip to London (so serious a
matter a century ago, but made so quickly and cheaply now by means of a
return ticket by rail), what would he think of the state of matters in
our theatres? It was only in private theatricals that ladies donned the
male costume a century ago, and they were always draped with the
strictest propriety. But what do we see in London theatres now? Not only
in the so-called 'burlesques' does the main 'fun,' such as it is,
consist in the transposition of the sexes--men taking female
characters, and women the part of males--but the costumes of the female
performers, rich and picturesque as they usually are, are devised
expressly to make a prodigal display of the person, a minimum of clothes
apparently being the acme of perfection kept in view by the theatrical
costumiers, and by the ladies themselves. The female figure is now so
prodigally displayed that a handsome girl, especially if she has
well-turned legs, is sought after on that account alone. 'My _shape_ is
my fortune, sir, she said!' would now be the burden of the song of these
demi-nude demoiselles of the stage. To such a pitch has this new method
of attracting audiences been carried, that this class of performances,
or rather exhibitions, are now known in theatrical parlance as
'leg-pieces.' It is impossible not to see what a demoralising influence
such performances must have upon the rising generation, indeed upon the
whole audience. It is a lamentable sign of the times: it is a symptom of
degeneration, of corruption, of a fatal laxity of manners. The relation
between the sexes is becoming seriously deteriorated; and woman, instead
of being peculiarly an object of respectful regard or chivalrous
admiration, tends to become simply an object of pleasure, seeking to
please at any cost. Most rightly did the Lord Chamberlain recently issue
his fiat against the short skirts of the ballet-dancers: but the fiat
has been vain, as all such injunctions in this 'free' country must be
when public opinion refuses to support it, or at last allows itself to
be overpowered by the crowd of playgoers who delight in such spectacles.
A gangrene of selfish and demoralising pleasure is now eating into the
heart of this country; and we fear the social malady will not be checked
save by the advent of some terrible national calamity--let us hope not
so terrible as that by which our neighbour France is now being purged as
by fire.
Before quitting the lighter and gossipy items to be found in these
letters, let us say a word or two about the rich Court costumes of the
period. We need not speak of the dresses of the ladies; for although the
fashion of those dresses has changed, indeed is ceaselessly changing, in
richness and costliness female attire at the present time is quite on a
par with what it was when George the Second was king. But a notable
change has taken place in the full dress of the men. Probably only a
minority of our readers can remember the time when colour disappeared
from the evening costume of gentlemen: it is nearly forty years since
coloured coats, with white or coloured silk or velvet waistcoats
vanished from the private dinner-party and ball-room--though the taste
for colour is now reviving. Warren, in _Ten Thousand a Year_, dresses
his hero Gammon for the evening in blue coat with metal buttons, white
waistcoat, and black trousers--and such was a quiet evening dress of
that time. In the long interval since then, there has been a monotonous
reign of simple black cloth. The change in the Court or gala dress has
been still more striking. Apropos of this change, a philosophic writer
has remarked, that whenever any class abandons its distinctive costume,
it is a sign of decadence and coming extinction. There is some truth in
the remark, but it is partial truth only. It ignores the fact that the
peculiar source of distinction for each class, and especially with the
nobility, who are or ought to be the leaders of the nation, varies from
age to age with the spirit of the times. It might as well be said that
our nobility verged on extinction three centuries ago, when they ceased
to wear mail and to lead their retainers to the field. No doubt the
French Revolution, with its levelling doctrines, and the principle of
social equality (not new in this country), tended to abolish the
'bravery' of dress previously distinctive of the nobility; but the
change was far more due to the gravity of the times, the sober spirit
natural during a most critical period of the country, and of the economy
rendered necessary throughout the community at large by the heavy costs
of the great war with France. Indeed, the fact that a corresponding
change took place in the gala dress of the middle classes serves to show
that there was nothing exceptional or peculiar in the diminished finery
of the aristocratic costume. All classes alike felt the sobering
influence of the time, and then, as in all such cases, a corresponding
change took place in costume.
Firstly, then, as to the gala costume of the Prince of Wales, afterwards
George III., who certainly cannot be suspected of too great a devotion
to fashion or the frivolities of dress. In a Drawing-room in St. James's
in 1745, the Prince of Wales wore a light-blue velvet coat, laced with
silver, and the sleeves of it brocade--as was also his waistcoat. On
another occasion he 'had on a crimson damask laced with silver, very
rich and handsome.' Again, the Countess of Shaftesbury, writing to her
cousin, Mr. Harris, in December, 1754, 'enlivening her epistle with a
detail of the birthday finery' at Court, says: 'The Prince of Wales
looked as blooming as his clothes; they were a blossom-coloured velvet,
with gold and lace down before; the waistcoat and cuffs a rich
white-and-gold stuff. Prince Edward's was a yellow and silver velvet,
with a silver lace before, turned up with white and silver cuffs, and
the waistcoat the same.' She adds: 'My lord's clothes and mine were both
admired. His was a very rich scarlet and gold velvet coat--waistcoat and
breeches the same; and mine a gold stuff with purple spots on the
ground, and coloured sprigs of flowers that looked like embroidery.' On
a similar occasion, 'Lord Kildare was unexceptionably the finest of any
gentleman there: his coat was a light-blue silk, embroidered all over
with gold and silver in a very curious manner, turned up with white
satin, embroidered as the other; the waistcoat the same as his sleeves.'
His Majesty (George II.), however, by no means set the fashion in gala
dress. Even at Drawing-rooms, we read, 'he dressed in his usual way,
without aiming at finery of any sort;' his usual costume being a
deep-blue cloth coat, trimmed with silver lace, and waistcoat the same.
At another Birthday Drawing-room, 'the King was dressed in black velvet;
the sleeves of his coat and his waistcoat were red, embroidered with
gold.' The last time his Majesty's costume at Drawing-rooms is mentioned
is in 1754, six years before his death, when we find the following
curious statement, that 'his Majesty had told Mr. Shutz [the fashionable
German tailor of the day] he would have him bespeak him a very handsome
suit, but not to make a boy or a fop of him;' and as the result of this
consultation with his tailor, his Majesty appeared in brown, very richly
laced with silver, and turned up with a blue cuff laced, and a blue and
silver waistcoat.' We read of 'very mortifying disasters' happening at
some of these Birthday Drawing-rooms. On one such occasion, the Countess
of Salisbury writes:--
'Miss Young, in making her curtsey to his Majesty,
entangled the heel of her shoe [there were high heels in
those days] in her train, so that she fell quite backwards,
with her legs up. The laugh was so general that nobody
thought of helping the poor young creature, until his
Majesty, though as well diverted as the rest, said he would
go himself; but, as you may imagine, was prevented. Lady
Young was not in less confusion than her daughter.
'The second hustle was about Miss Corke, whose hoop, in
climbing over the Foreigner's box, caught in such a manner
that all her petticoats flew up, to the undermost flannel.
Lady Arvon, in endeavouring to help her, was caught in the
hoop, which pulled off her fine diamond sprig and
head-dress.'
As might be expected, there were flirtations, runaway matches, and
_mésalliances_ in those days, as they are still. One of the beauties
immortalized by the pencil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and whose portrait
is preserved at Holland House, gave rise to much gossip by marrying a
'player:'--
'The Court and assembly's talk yesterday was all of the
match of Lady Susan Strangeways and O'Brien, the player. It
is said she went out on Saturday with a servant, whom,
under pretext of having forgotten something, she sent back,
and said she would wait in the street till her return.
O'Brien was waiting in a hackney coach, which she got into;
and they went to Covent Garden Church, and were married.
'Tis a most surprising event, as Lady Susan was everything
that was good and amiable; and how she ever got acquainted
with this man is not to be accounted for. They say she sent
him £200 a little time since. She is of age.'
Gretna Green, on the Scottish borders, although it has now relapsed into
the obscurity natural to such a poor little hamlet (although it still
gives name to a railway station), was a famous place in those days in
connection with runaway matches; indeed, it was so even within the
memory of the present generation. A century ago, we often read of lovers
having 'gone to Scotland.' Among others--
'Lady Jane Tollemache, daughter to Lord Dysart, is gone to
Scotland with a Captain Halliday of the Light Horse: his
father is a man of fortune. The captain was just going to
to be married to Miss Byron; the coach and clothes were
bought; but he saw Lady Jane twice at the Richmond
assembly, was captivated, wrote a letter to Miss Byron, to
inform her he had changed his mind, and had set out for
Scotland.' [The gay captain would have had to pay heavy
damages for so cavalier a proceeding now-a-days.]
Whatever amount of what is commonly called 'scandal,' and which merits a
worse name, there may have been in our aristocratic circles in the
latter half of last century, there is but little trace of it to be found
in these letters. But in one of Mrs. Harris's letters to her son, giving
him the talk and gossip of the town, there is a mysterious-looking
allusion to some such matrimonial scandal, which reads as
follows:--'Lady S---- B---- is in lodgings at Knightsbridge. She says
her husband [whom doubtless she had deserted] is a most angelic man; but
her attachment for the other is so great, she must live with him.'
What was the 'Pantheon' in those days? Whatever else it was, it appears
to have been a sort of assembly-rooms for balls and dances; and, though
frequented by persons of rank and of the highest respectability, its
doors were not impregnable against the entrance of 'soiled doves' and
doubtful reputations--whose presence, however, was against the rules of
the place, for, as the following embarrassing incident to one of Mrs.
Harris's daughters shows, they were liable to be turned out. Mrs. Harris
thus writes of it to her son:--
'Wednesday your two sisters, Molly Cambridge, and I, went
to the Pantheon. It is undoubtedly the finest and most
complete thing ever seen in England. Such mixture of
company never assembled before under the same roof. Lord
Mansfield, Mrs. Baddeley, Lord Chief Baron Parker, Mrs.
Abbingdon, Sir James Porter, Madlle. Heinell, Lords Hyde
and Camden, with many other serious men, and most of the
gay ladies in town, and ladies of the best rank and
character--and, by appearance, some very low people. Louisa
is thought very like Mrs. Baddeley [one of the gay ladies];
and Gertrude and I had our doubts whether our characters
might not suffer by walking with her [_i.e._, Louisa]; but
had they offered to turn her out, we depended upon Mr.
Hanger's protection. [George Hanger, of the Guards, was one
of the great beaux of his day.] None of the fashion dance
country-dances or minuets in the great room, though there
were a number of minuets and a large set of dancers. I saw
Miss Wilks dance a minuet; some young ladies danced
cotillons in the cotillon gallery.... The spectacle at
first strikes one greatly, but then it becomes stupid.'
The domain of personal incident crops up richly and interestingly
throughout these volumes, and comes freshly and truthfully upon us in
the correspondence of the hour. Whether we read of Lady ----, who ran
away with her footman John, and sent back her fine clothes, 'because she
would no longer have any need for them;' or of the deep gambling and
other queer affairs of Charles Fox in his dissipated youth; or of the
sayings and doings of the notorious Wilkes, who so shocked society, or
of his duel, in which he bore himself so honourably, the epistolary
narrative is full of _naïveté_ and interest. The second marriage of Lord
Coventry (whose first wife was the elder of the beautiful Miss Gunnings)
must have been what is now called 'good fun.' The marriage party was all
assembled in stately magnificence; but his Grace of Canterbury was from
home, and the licence did not arrive! But the party was equal to the
emergency--'so it was agreed that they should eat the dinner, rather
than it should be spoiled. So to dinner they went [at the early hour
then in fashion], and sat all the afternoon, dressed in their white and
silver, expecting every moment the express from Lambeth, but nothing
came. The same reason held good for eating a supper as for eating the
dinner; and in short they supped and sat till after two, and then, by
mutual consent, dismissed the parson, and all retired.' Two hours
afterwards (4 a.m.) the express with the licence arrived, and the
ceremony went off with due _éclat_ in the forenoon. We may remark that
it is comforting to find in these letters of the day a guarantee for the
genuineness of many of the excellent bonmots and repartees which have
taken their place in our anecdotical literature in connection with the
more or less famous men of that period, and which sparkle pleasantly
across the pages of these volumes.
But quitting the domain of purely personal incident, let us glance at
some passages in the letters which throw curious light upon the England
of our forefathers in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Here is
a picture of Cambridgeshire which looks strange now, and which indeed
startled the writer thereof, Mrs. Harris, when she and her husband went
on a visit to their friend the Dean of Sarum's parsonage in that
locality. She says that the country is the most disagreeable she ever
saw; and talking of the Fens, says that the herds of cattle which feed
on them in the summer months are up to their bellies in water even in
the dry season:--
'The natives dry the cowdung for firing in the winter; so
'tis kept in heaps about the fields, as is also the dung of
their yards; so when you walk, the stink is inconceivable.
Mr. Harris took a ride to survey these fens, and he says
nothing can be so detestable. He talked with the natives,
who told him that during the winter the water was
constantly above the ancles in their houses.'
'The Dean's parsonage is surrounded with fens, and you are
teased beyond expression by the gnats. When we got here,
the Dean's butler came to your father with a pair of
leather stockings [the dress of that day was breeches and
silk stockings] to draw on so as to protect his legs, which
in hot weather [it was the month of June] is dreadful.
Besides this, the beds have a machine covered with a silk
net, which lets down after you are in bed, and covers you
all over. Without this, there could be no sleeping; for,
notwithstanding these precautions, we were most miserably
stung.'
Were anyone to light upon this passage in an isolated form nowadays, he
would conclude without hesitation that it was an extract from some
Indian diary--the use of the word 'natives' completing the resemblance.
Here we have the Indian plague of mosquitoes existing in full severity
in England, and also the use of mosquito-nets around the beds at night,
exactly as in India. Nay, there is still another point of
resemblance--namely, in the use which the Cambridgeshire 'natives' made
of the cow-dung: drying and using it as fuel, as is the common practice
of the natives of our Eastern Empire.
In the letters which relate to the events of the Rebellion of 1745, and
the march of the rebels into the heart of England, we have ample proof
alike of the general ignorance of places now well known to every one,
and of a want of the means of information in regard even to the great
events taking place in other parts of the kingdom, which read strangely
in these times when every morning we can know from the newspapers the
very way the wind is blowing in every quarter of our island. The
Highland army marches to and fro in its daring enterprise, although
several separate armies (Wade's, Ligonier's, the Duke of Cumberland's,
&c.) are on foot to meet or catch them: indeed, as we read in these
letters, 'more troops are in England than ever was known before,' yet
notwithstanding, the hardy light-moving Highlanders get through them all
into the heart of England, and quite as easily back again. We cannot
help thinking that the English generals had not much stomach for their
work. They were astonished and something more by the sudden and total
rout of Sir John Cope's army, and by the daring and marvellous rapidity
of the rebels' march; and it must be allowed that even in their retreat,
the Highlanders gave a good account of any force that tried to bar their
passage. As the noble editor incidentally observes, General Wade (who
was posted in the north of England to stop the southward march of the
rebels) only became famous after the rebellion was over; and his
marching and counter-marching to catch the rebels was of a very helpless
character indeed.
Smuggling, as well as rebellion, profited greatly by the roadless
character of England in those days. Mr. and Mrs. Harris, on returning
home one night from Heron Court, then the property of their friend Mr.
Hooper, had great difficulty in getting over Ringwood Heath, an
adjoining waste land, about five miles in length--'the vile heath,' as
Mrs. Harris calls it--even with 'the assistance of two servants riding
before.' Heron Court now belongs to the Malmesbury family; and the
editor, in a foot-note, states that until the beginning of the present
century there were no roads but smugglers' tracks across those heaths.
They were a favourite place for contraband transit from the south coast;
and he mentions that all classes aided in carrying on this traffic. 'The
farmers lent their teams and labourers, and the gentry openly connived
at the practice, and dealt with the smugglers. The cargoes, chiefly of
brandy, were easily concealed in the furze bushes, that extended from
Ringwood to Poole, and in the New Forest for thirty miles.' We suspect
that the impossibility of carrying on such operations nowadays has had
much more to do with their cessation than the improvement in the
morality of the age. Look at the customary frauds in making returns to
the income-tax, and then say whether the middle-classes are a whit more
honest in fiscal matters now than they used to be when smuggling was
rife.
How vastly London has changed and grown since the last century need not
be said, and the contrast between then and now, meets one almost in
every page of these lively letters. There was no Rotten-row, or the
fashionable rides in the Park, which make so gay a sight now in the
summer afternoons; and the whole district north of the Park knew nothing
of the noble streets and terraces which now occupy the space. Mrs.
Harris speaks with delight, almost rapture, of the sweet rural beauty of
a 'ride to Paddington of a July morning.' But with all our knowledge of
the change which has come over the British metropolis since that time,
it is startling to find that some nameless Dick Turpin or Claude Duval
could ply his trade with impunity even within the courtly precincts of
St. James's. In February, 1773, Mrs. Harris writes that 'a most
audacious fellow robbed Sir Francis Holburne and his sisters in their
coach, in St. James's Square, coming from the Opera. He was on
horseback, and held a pistol close to the breast of one of the Miss
Holburnes for a considerable time. She had left her purse at home--which
he would not believe. He has since robbed a coach in Park Lane.' In
these letters, too, there is the earliest mention which we have met with
of the tiny member of the finny tribe which now confers a greater
popular renown upon Greenwich than even its world-famous Observatory or
its magnificent Hospital, and which for a generation has caused that
place to be the honoured scene of the annual Ministerial banquet at
which our rulers meet together to congratulate one another upon the
approaching close of the Parliamentary session,--the famous 'whitebait
dinner,' which within the last two years has fallen into abeyance,
perhaps never to be revived. Mr. Harris, the founder of the family and
father of the first Earl Malmesbury, was then (1763) a Lord of the
Admiralty; and Mrs. Harris describes a 'most agreeable expedition on the
Thames,' which she had with a party in the 'Admiralty barge.' After
seeing Woolwich and all its military wonders, the lady says:--
'We got back to Greenwich to dine. We had the smallest fish
I ever saw, called whitebait: they are only to be eat at
Greenwich, and are held in high estimation by the
epicures; they are not so large as the smallest of minnows,
but are really very good eating. We dined in a charming
place in the open air, which commanded a fine view of the
Thames; but were obliged to leave it at six o'clock, as the
tide was so cruel as not to stay for us--and they never
venture to shoot the bridge [old London bridge] with the
Admiralty barge at low water. We had a beastly walk through
the Borough after we landed.'
Let us now quit old England for a moment to take a passing glance at the
Continent. As we have already said, the 'Diaries and Correspondence' of
the first Earl of Malmesbury are a rich mine of political information
and personal anecdote concerning the leading Courts of Europe; but we
must here confine our few gleanings of this kind from the newly
published 'Letters,' and content ourselves with some sketches of the
state of matters in France, in the period of decay and rottenness which
preceded the outburst of the terrible but life-reviving Revolution.
Young Mr. Harris (afterwards the first Earl), then only in his
twenty-second year, is passing through Paris in November, 1768, on his
way to assume a diplomatic post at Madrid, and thus he writes of the
French capital:--
'I see no new improvements since I was last here; and,
except a few new fashions for caps and muffs, I believe
nothing has changed materially. On such subjects alone do
this lively people exercise their inventive faculties,
since the decease of Louis le Grand. They have now no
capital painters, few good sculptors, and still fewer good
authors; for the modern set of French writers are either
totally devoid of talents, or else employ them in such a
manner, and on such subjects, as to render their works of
very little use to the community. To pass for an _esprit
fort_ is all their ambition; and when a man has written
down all religions, without distinction, they cry, "_Pardi!
c'est un grand homme: il pense hardiment!_"'
Turning from fashion and infidelity, the young diplomatist in another
letter describes the political aspect of affairs; remarking, _inter
alia_, that the Government 'are now expending the revenues of the year
1771 [three years in advance!] at the same time that the people are
labouring under the greatest necessity; garden stuff and bread, the
chief nourishment of the lower class in this country, being raised in
price one-third since last winter, and the greatest appearance also that
there will not be a sufficient quantity of either to supply the winter.'
But Court life and pageantry went on _quand même_. Seven years later,
a Dr. Jean takes up the correspondence from Paris. Speaking of the
Anglomania then prevalent, and which mingled with the Court gaieties, he
writes that the 'young Queen' (Marie Antoinette) has made herself
unpopular by 'a little misunderstanding in etiquette' between her and
the princes of the blood, and also by her great predilection for
everything that is English. And he describes a horse race, 'which is now
become a very frequent and frequented amusement.' Most of the cavaliers
in the concourse were 'badly imitating the English mode of riding;' also
'ladies of fashion, clad in boots and leather breeches, _astride_ on
their horses!' The Queen, with all her court, were upon the stand at the
starting post; and the race was 'managed by English grooms (_jackés_ as
they call them) and English horses.' The same correspondent also gives a
description of a _bal paré_ in 'the most decorated room perhaps in the
world,' the Opera House at Versailles. He says that Lord Clive, who was
present, 'declared that Asiatic display of riches appeared but as tinsel
to the brilliancy of the French court on that occasion.' 'The room,'
says Dr. Jean 'was filled by between three and four thousand people,
dressed in the richest, and at the same time the most fancied, taste
imaginable. The show which French ladies always make above those of
other nations added much to the spectacle. The ornaments of their
head-dress, and their robes, so disposed and varied, composed a most
beautiful _tout ensemble_. In regard to their persons, to be sure, they
seemed to be almost all of the same family, from the similarity of their
_complexions_, and the unity of their dress. It appeared to me an
assembly of houris.' He describes the Queen as 'very majestic, and at a
distance very handsome,' also with a remarkably fine hand and arm; and
he adds that she gives life to almost all public amusements, and 'is
very familiar with those who are in favour,'--an amiable though perhaps
not dignified _trait_ which brought her sad woe in the end, in
consequence of the calumnies set on foot against her by her base and
contemptible relative, the Duke of Orleans, _Philippe Egalité_.
A romantic incident connected with the French Revolution happened to
Lord Malmesbury in 1793, when the French nobility and clergy were flying
from the sanguinary proscriptions of the Reign of Terror. He was walking
one day on the pier at Brighton (not then the scene of gaiety and
fashion which it is now), when a French fishing-boat approached the
pier, and one of the crew jumped out with a baby in his arms, and
addressed him. The poor fisherman said that a lady, known and beloved
by himself and his comrades, had thrown the baby into their boat,
entreating them to save its life by carrying it to England, whither, she
said, if she were spared, she would follow it. They had accordingly
stood over for Brighton, to entrust the infant, as the lady desired, to
the first Englishman they met. Lord Malmesbury at once took charge of
the helpless little exile, and had it conveyed to Lady Malmesbury at his
house. In a few weeks, the mother, after many hair-breadth escapes,
found her way to England, and knowing where the child had been landed,
soon discovered its place of refuge. The baby became a handsome and
fascinating woman, and, as Madame Alfred de Noailles, was for many years
a leader of fashion in the first circles of Paris. When Lady Malmesbury
was at Paris in 1816, we find her writing of Madame Alfred as 'our
daughter;' and his quondam _protégé_, in all her letters to Lord
Malmesbury, used to sign herself 'Leontine Harris.'
Although tempted to linger longer over these interesting letters, our
narrowing limits warn us that we must leave untrod a large portion of
the field which they present, alike for gossiping and for sage
historical reflection. But ere we close, we must say a few words as to
the leading members of the family whose correspondence has now been
given to the world. Of Mr. James Harris, who, though not himself
ennobled, may justly be regarded as the founder of the Malmesbury
family, we have already spoken. He was a literary man of fine tastes, a
member of Parliament, and a subordinate member of several
Administrations. He does not appear to have had the brilliant abilities
of his son, the first Earl; but he had a pleasant and healthy
temperament, a perfect rectitude of nature, and a sound sagacity, which
qualities have since been hereditary in the family. There are only a few
letters of his in this collection, but in almost every one of these,
brief though they are, there is some remark or other which shows his
shrewd and healthy common sense, whether in great matters or little
ones. When a motion was made in the House (1770), to restrain revenue
officers from voting at elections (a disfranchisement only recently
removed), Mr. Harris writes that it was 'a rather tedious debate, full
of that patriotic commonplace which nobody believes that talks it, nor
anyone else but a few dupes in the provinces.' When we were on the eve
of
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