Nov. 19, 1881.-No. 498.]

result is somewhat of a muddle, which, where there is no lack of graceful and attractive things, might as well have been omitted from the portfolio. At Kew Bridge might be said to be wanting in gradation, were it not that the effect sought to be represented is just that of vivid or violent sunshine in which gradations are absent and there is abrupt transition from strongest light to deepest and most unrelieved shadow. In giving attractiveness to the representation in art of such an effect, colour is no doubt successful oftener than black and white; but an artist in black and white is not to be reproached for the limitations of his material. There is more than one etching in the present series which will enhance the reputation of Dr. Evershed.

BOTH the Queen and the Prince of Wales have been pleased to accept a copy of English Etchings for November, which contains a portrait of the late Dean of Westminster, by Mr. Percy Thomas.

MR. J. P. HESELTINE contributes an etching to the present number of the Art Journal simple, skilful, and refined; and, among other good things, the part contains the first portion of an interesting account of Mr. Ruskin's home at Brantwood by one who is evidently well qualified

to write about it.

THE extraordinary vigour which characterises the direction of our contemporary L'Art has new surprises for us with almost every number. Now it is the publication of a separate Chronique, which, announced but yesterday, is already an accomplished fact; now the publica

tion of a series of works in connection with it as

Price 4d. (postage d.); interleaved, 6d. (postage 1d.); cloth, 10d.; roan tuck, 2s.

THE CHURCHMAN'S DIARY: an Almanack for the Year of Grace 1882, and Directory for the Celebration of the Service of the Church.

Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.

the PRESENT KINGDOM of HEAVEN upon EARTH. By the Rev. J. R. WEST, M.A., Vicar of Wrawby.

Just published, crown 8vo, cloth, 5s., with Illustrations. NORTON HALL: a Tale. By Mrs. E. H.

MITCHELL, Author of "The Beautiful Face," &c.

Just published, small 8vo, cloth, 3s. KINGSWORTH; or, the Aim of a Life. By C. R. COLERIDGE, Author of "Lady Betty," "Hugh Crichton's Romance," &c.

ways, since he was appointed conductor in PUBLISHED BY J. MASTERS & CO.
1876, great tact and judgment in the choice of
programmes. He has brought forward not only
standard works, but many interesting novelties.
He does not confine himself to any particular
school, but seems rather to aim at making his
programmes as catholic and comprehensive as
possible. There are, however, two great com-
posers who (if we are not mistaken) have not
yet appeared in any of the programmes-Bach
and Cherubini. There can be no doubt that they
will be represented; it is only a question of time. ON the NATURE and CONSTITUTION of
Mr. Prout has done much for English art. We
cannot here enumerate the list of works pro-
duced, but we can venture to say that, each
season, the performance of works by living
English composers has formed a marked feature
of the scheme. Expressly for this association
Mr. Prout wrote Hereward, and has announced
another cantata, Alfred, for the last concert
this season. We mention these facts, because
(apart from the recognised merit of the former
work) they show the interest taken by the con-
ductor in the welfare of the society. The excel-
lency both of choir and band, and the efficiency
of the conductor, have been universally acknow-
ledged, and hence we repeat that this society
deserves all possible support and encouragement. GREAT-GRANDMOTHER'S SHOES: a
On Monday evening the programme included
Arthur Sullivan's Martyr of Antioch and Men-
The soloists an-
delssohn's Walpurgisnacht.
nounced for the former work were Miss H.
Beebe, Miss Hope Glenn, and Messrs. Boyle,
Miss Beebe was
Oswald, and Forington.
unable to appear, and Mdme. Clara West
undertook, at only a few hours' notice, to sing
the difficult and important part of Margarita.
Under these circumstances, we have only to
say that the lady passed bravely through the
trying ordeal. Miss Glenn gave a good render-
ing of the part of Julia. Mr. Boyle was not
The performance was an excel-
in good voice.
lent one as regards chorus and band. We would WILLIAM RATHBONE GREG.
Evening Song of
particularly notice the "
the Maidens," and the steady singing of the
choir in the unaccompanied Funeral Anthem,

the "Bibliothèque national de l'Art," the first
volume of which, Le Surintendant Foucquet, by
M. Edmond Bonnaffé, will make its appearance
on December 1. This interesting study, which
is now running its course in L'Art, will be
followed by Les Précurseurs de la Renaissance,
by M. Eugène Müntz; Claude Lorraine, by
Mrs. Pattison; and other interesting and finely
illustrated volumes. Among the more inter-
Brother, thou art goue before us."
esting papers which have recently appeared
in L'Art may be mentioned a study on the Walpurgisnacht was performed with great spirit;
works of Benozzo Gozzoli at Gemignano, and and the "Come with torches," taken at a rapid,
a description of the fine monument recently but legitimate, rate, produced great effect. The
executed by M. Barrias, and erected at St-second concert will be given on January 23,
Quentin to record the gallant defence of that 1882.
place against the Germans in 1870.

THE STAGE.

WE hear that Mr. Davenport Adams has
undertaken to write that which has long been
needed-a Dictionary of the Drama. It is
intended to take account of the theatre in
English-speaking countries-that is, practically;
as far as the drama is concerned, in England
and America. Beginning with the earliest-
known events of our stage, the matter will be
continued to include the events of to-day; and
scenic
plays, players, famous parts, managers,
artists, writers for the theatre, and writers on
the theatre will in turn receive attention. In
Mr. Davenport Adams's hands, we can but wish
success to the comprehensive scheme. In its
execution, festina lente should be the motto of
the writer, for the theme is a big one.

MUSIC.

RECENT CONCERTS. THE first concert for the present season of the Borough of Hackney Choral Association took place at the Shoreditch Town Hall last Monday evening. This society deserves the hearty support of the public, for in no other suburban institution of a similar kind do we find such enterprise and zeal in the cause and progress of music. Mr. E. Prout has shown in many

The

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Rocks Ahead and Harbours of Refuge.

Foreign Policy of Great Britain.
The Echo of the Antipodes.

A Grave Perplexity Before Us.

Obligations of the Soil.

The Right Use of a Surplus.

The Great Twin Brothers: Louis Napoleon and Benjamin

Disraeli.

Is the Popular Judgment in Politics more Just than that of the Higher Orders?

Harriet Martineau.
Verify your Compass.

The Prophetic Element in the Gospels.

Mr. Frederic Harrison on the Future Life.

Can Truths be Apprehended which could not have been
Discovered?

THE CREED of CHRISTENDOM.

ENIGMAS of LIFE. Thirteenth Edition.
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ROCKS AHEAD; or, the Warnings of

Cassandra. Crown 8vo, pp. xliv and 236, cloth, 9s. POLITICAL PROBLEMS for our AGE and COUNTRY. Demy 8vo, pp. 312, cloth, 10s. 6d.

At the Crystal Palace last Saturday Mr. W. Bache played Chopin's concerto in F minor. The "Klindworth The version was used. reviser has completely remodelled the orchestral accompaniment, and, in consequence of this, has altered certain passages in the solo part. A change in the pianoforte writing may possibly be regarded as sacrilege against Chopin's genius; but any change (if at all for the better) in the orchestral part is welcome, for Berlioz was right when he said, "L'orchestre de ses concertos n'est rien qu'un froid et presque inutile accompagnement." It is, of course, a bold and dangerous matter to meddle with masterpieces; but Herr Klindworth, as far as the instrumentation is concerned, has done nothing of the kind; he has merely tried-and, in the opinion of many competent musicians, successfully-to render LITERARY and SOCIAL JUDGMENTS. a weak orchestral part more interesting and effective. "G.," in the analytical programmebook, disapproves of the whole thing; but such an attempt should, we think, stand or fall on its own merits, and not at once be set down as "unlawful and a sin." The change should, of course, be properly announced; this was done at last Saturday's concert, and hence we see no just reason for complaint. In conclusion, we would mention the excellent interpretation of the work by Mr. Bache; at the close he was received with loud and well-deserved applause.

J. S. SHEDLOCK.

Fourth Edition. 2 vols., crown 8vo, pp. 310 and 288 cloth, 158. MISTAKEN AIMS and ATTAINABLE IDEALS of the ARTISAN CLASS. Crown 8vo, pp. vi and 332, cloth, 10s. 6d.

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TRUTH versus EDIFICATION.

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THE GREAT DUEL: its True Meaning

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SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1881.

No. 499, New Series.

THE EDITOR Cannot undertake to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscript.

It is particularly requested that all business letters regarding the supply of the paper, &c., may be addressed to the PUBLISHER,

and not to the EDITOR.

LITERATURE.

The Visions of England. By Francis T.
Palgrave. (Macmillan.)

THE title given by Mr. Palgrave to this
volume of poems is perfectly appropriate;
but perhaps the reviewer may be allowed to
give the reader some idea of their general
character by describing them as a series of
reflections in verse on leading events and
characters in English history. If Words-
worth had been the author of these poems,
he would have classified them among his
"Poems of Sentiment and Reflection," and
would probably have headed them in his
literal, matter-of-fact way with such titles as
"Reflections on the Roman Camp at Garian-
onum," "Upon seeing a Danish Barrow on
the Devon Coast," "Reflections on Oliver
Cromwell and the Restoration," "Lines sug-
gested by Reynolds's Picture of Simplicity,"
and so forth. Mr. Palgrave's aim is to carry
us in vision over memorable moments in our
history-social and artistic, as well as political
-from the time of the Roman occupation
down to the Indian Mutiny. He claims for
his work that it is "a new departure" in the
poetic treatment of history. There is cer-
tainly much that is new, strikingly new, in
Mr. Palgrave's conception; his treatment of
history as he points out in a Preface which
saves the critic from all risk of mistake as to
bis intentions-is very different from the
treatment of the metrical chronicler or
annalist. But the novelty belongs to the
scope of the poems as a whole, and not
to the character of the separate "visions."
Drayton's "Agincourt" and Mr. Tennyson's
"Revenge" are as much "visions" in Mr.
Palgrave's use of the word, if he means this
-which I do not suppose as a new form
of poetry, as his own "Battle of Hastings."
The poetry of this century, particularly of the
earlier parts of this century, furnishes many
examples of isolated historical" visions" like
Mr. Palgrave's in kind. Where Mr. Pal-
grave has made an innovation-an important
innovation, as I believe-is in conceiving the
idea of giving a panorama of our national
history in the form of a series of "visions."

I must confess that I do not quite see, comparing the poems with the intention expressed, what Mr. Palgrave means when he says that his endeavour has been "to enter in each case within the atmosphere of the age to penetrate and be penetrated by the passion of the moment." That this endeavour has been accomplished in the case of his visions of "Hastings," of "Trafalgar," of "Torres Vedras," of "The Valley of Death" -the Khyber Pass-of "After Cawnpore,"

may be arguable. But in the greater number of the visions he gives expression not to the sentiment of the historical moment, but to the sentiment of a spectator from the most highly enlightened point of view of the nineteenth century. This is as it should be. The search after the atmosphere of any age is one of the vainest of quests. We may flatter ourselves that we see things as they were seen by our forefathers two hundred or twelve hundred years ago, but the diversity of opinion among persons who have done their utmost to steep themselves in the atmosphere of any bygone generation should be sufficient to convince us that in so thinking we are the victims of self-delusion. The atmosphere that influences our thoughts and sentiments is the atmosphere of our own time, though the influence may be as imperceptible as the pressure of our material atmosphere. In his reflections upon the ruins of Garianonum, Mr. Palgrave is led naturally, through the permanence of the Roman mason-work after the many things that have disappeared in successive centuries, to speculate on the future of our planet itself. Garianonum suggests to him the theories of Helmholtz and Sir W. Thomson as to the probable future of the Earth, and he puts these theories supreme material for a great poet-in verse. In other visions he shows himself the pupil of Hallam, Mr. Stubbs, Mr. Freeman, or Mr. Gardiner. He carries their torches about with him in his travels through the centuries, making no secret whatever of the fact that he is using their light, and that it enables him to see things in their true proportions more clearly than was possible for contemporaries. If Mr. Palgrave had not told us that his endeavour had been "to penetrate and be penetrated by the passion of the moment," one would have been inclined to remark, as a characteristic of these visions, that they hold us aloof from the passions of the moment. They are essentially, speaking of them as a whole, meditative poems. Even in the battle-pieces we are not allowed to look on with absorbed zest at the game of war, to admire the sturdy strokes dealt, and to applaud the heroes; we are called away to the contemplation of far-reaching consequences, and to just judgment of the principal figures in the fray. In the more modern visions, "Trafalgar," "The Death of Sir John Moore," "Torres Vedras," "The Valley of Death," this is not so apparent; yet even in these, with the exception, perhaps, of "Trafalgar," there are touches which remind us that he who has our imagination in guiding is a thinker and a scholar. The ruling passions throughout Mr. Palgrave's Visions are not the passions of the moment, but that "devoted love of justice, truth, and England" which he rightly ascribes to Henry Hallam and Sir Francis Palgrave in his Dedication.

in his choice of metrical forms. He attempts a great variety of lines and staves. "There is, doubtless," he remarks in his Preface, "could we find it, some one system which will most naturally clothe every subject-be its authentic outward voice." Without knowing that Mr. Palgrave had acted on this principle, one could not have failed to remark in many of his poems a close harmony between the metrical movement and the dominant feeling. But with all this the expression given to the feeling is not adequate. Again and again, as we follow our conductor through the past, and fill our minds with his visions of woful and heroic figures, we find emotions stirred in us that seek in vain for satisfying expression in his verse.

This is one's general impression, without entering into the casuistry of defective stanzas. Minute analysis confirms the impression, carefully as each single poem is compacted. One of the most striking of them-they are all fine poems in conception-is the vision of the Arctic explorer, Sir Hugh Willoughby, and his men as the ice closed in upon them, and day after day passed without any prospect of relief. The stave chosen by Mr. Palgrave is six-lined, the first four lines rhyming alternately, as in our elegiac stave. Each line has five accents, except the last, which has six.

"Two ships upon the steel-blue Arctic seas

When day was long and night itself was day,
Forged heavily before the south-west breeze

As to the steadfast star they held their way;
Where with all breathing things white' Death
Two specks of man, two only signs of life,
keeps endless strife.'

This, as far as I know, is an original stave,
and, whether or not, it is in admirable keep-
ing with the "vision." It may be individual
fancy, but the long line at the end recurs
upon my ear like the toll of a funeral bell.
To keep up this impression, however, it is
necessary that the last line should be weighted
with feeling as well as with sound; it should
be more impressive in every way than the
preceding. Now in most of the staves Mr.
Palgrave complies with this requirement;
but in two or three, and ruinously in the
following, he does not:—

"O King Hyperion, o'er the Delphic dale

Reigning meanwhile in glory, Ocean knew
Thine absence, and outstretched an icy veil,
A marble pavement, o'er his waters blue ;
Past the Varangian fiord and Zembla hoar,

And from Petsora north to dark Arzina's shore."
A refrain in the last line of such a stave
would be effective, though the invention of a
refrain sufficiently impressive, and at the
same time capable of being inwoven in
thought with each stave, would be no easy
thing for the greatest master of verse.

An expression in the Preface perhaps accounts for Mr. Palgrave's frequent failures with the triple rhythm, which he employs in many of his Visions, especially in the warlike The poems are interpenetrated with noble pieces. "We," he says-meaning by "we" and touching sentiment, and our first and English poets as contrasted with Greek and last word of disappointment is that they are Latin poets-"satisfy the requirements of not written by a master of verse. Mr. Pal-liberty with necessity' in the field of metre grave gives evidence here of every gift but far more by terminal than by structural conthat for adding to the masterpieces of our trivance and arrangement." Mr. Palgrave literature. His historical moments, the points is obviously an accomplished student of verse, of view for his Visions, are chosen with fine but let him look again at Guest's great instinct; and an equally fine sense is shown work on English rhythms, and then go over

Mr. Tennyson's earliest poems, and he will probably see reason to alter this opinion. Our laws of structural arrangement are as rigid as the laws of any method of scansion by quantity, and Mr. Palgrave frequently breaks them. In such a line, for example, as the one italicised in the following, he offends the ear by placing the middle pause in the middle of a word :

"From Cadiz the enemy sallied: they knew not

Nelson was there;

His name a navy to us, but to them a flag of
despair.
From Ayamonte to Algesiras he guarded the coast,

the book.

Till he bore from Tavira south.
Such a line is doggerel. Again, the line-
"For as when the waves ebb in the strait beneathments which show that Prof. Shairp is not so
Etna and Scylla betrays
The monster below-

can be scanned only by putting an accent on "when;" and in English verse a poet has no more right to a false accent than in Greek verse a poet had to a false quantity. Mr. Tennyson often uses the triple rhythm, and he never used it with greater effect than in his "Ballad of the Fleet;" but his lines do not require us to have recourse to arbitrary accents.

Mr. Palgrave's rhythms do not bear minute examination; but, without resorting to analysis for an explanation, one cannot help feeling that his powers of expression are far from being adequate to his fertility of imagination and fineness of taste.

WILLIAM MINTO.

We

Exquisitely beautiful as it is; it is, however, beautiful as the mirage is beautiful, and as unsubstantial. There is nothing in the reality of things answering to Asia. She is not human, she is not divine; there is nothing moral in her. No will, no power to subdue evil; only an exquisite essence, a melting loveliness. There is in her no law, no rigorousness; something that may enervate, nothing which can brace the soul."

raison d'être of his chair. But, as in the five It may be said that this analysis of isolated essays already referred to Prof. Shairp has expressions is not fair; nor would it be if really indulged in a good deal of the abstract Prof. Shairp had given us that definition criticism he seems to deprecate, we shall pay precedent of poetry which he has declined to principal attention to these. The others, give. After such a definition, expressions though valuable and interesting as good such as the two quoted would, of course, have review articles, do not seem to have the same to be taken with regard to it as allowable interest, regarded as the utterances of the exaggerations of particular sides of the subonly official exponent in England of the ject, capable of correction by reference to the science of poetical criticism. They are, how-Haupt-Idee. But when we are turned loose ever, useful as exhibiting that science in the into the jungle of isolated criticisms, with no applied, instead of in the pure, condition; general clue to guide us, it is impossible to and in this sense they may be said to complete say what the author means to be taken seriously and what he does not. The truth is It is not very long before we get to state- that we miss, not merely the expression, but the presence of any general view of poetry in independent of a general definition of poetry these lectures. They had better have been as he would like to be thought. He some- named "Aspects of Poets" than "Aspects of where, we think, speaks of Wordsworth and Poetry." It is not that there are not in them Scott as the two greatest English poets of their many admirable things. Prof. Shairp has time; and it is everywhere clear that he regards the truest enthusiasm for what commends them as such. Now we can imagine nothing itself to him as poetical, but he seems to have more interesting from the point of view of a remarkable number of blind sides. abstract criticism than the task of construct- turn, for instance, from the general essays to ing a definition of poetry which would bear the particular applications, and we find this out this view. We are not contesting à propos of the incomparable " My soul is an the view itself; we think quite as well enchanted boat" of the Prometheus Unbound. as Prof. Shairp does of Scott, and not much If there is a passage out of Shakspere in the less well than he does of Wordsworth-that is, whole poetical literature of the world known when Wordsworth is at his best. But then to us which tests a theory of poetry it is this. our definition of poetry would put several Let us see what Prof. Shairp has to say about other contemporaries of the two as high or it. higher, though in different ways. It becomes exceedingly important, therefore, to know what the definition can be which gives an unshared primacy to those whom we should Aspects of Poetry. By J. C. Shairp. (Ox-regard as possessing each (Ox- regard as possessing each a share of a ford: Clarendon Press.) primacy put into rather extensive comPROF. SHAIRP points out with reason in mission. But Prof. Shairp refuses us that his Preface that the arrangement which definition, and only gives some tantalising the statutes of the University of Oxford contributions towards it. "Above all," he direct is not very easily compatible with says, "a great poet must have a hold of the the delivery of "a systematic theory of great central truth of things." It is not easy It requires a good many years' apprenticeship poetry" in a "consecutive course of lectures." to attach a very definite meaning to state to the business of criticism to take this outThe lectures included in this book, to which ments of this kind, but, in any sense in which rageous peráßaois és aλo yévos patiently. are joined a few review essays of not dis- we can understand it, it seems to exclude Is Prof. Shairp criticising Bourdaloue, similar character, are accordingly somewhat Scott. We do not exclude Scott, let it be Burke, or Prof. Huxley? Is he finding fault desultory. Yet the first five of them, if they understood-very much the contrary-but with a man of science for producing somedo not exactly constitute a consecutive course, we should say that, if anything which can thing not answering to the reality of things, and if they are very far from putting forward justly be called a hold on the great central or with a preacher for not being moral, or a systematic theory of poetry, still deal with truth of things is a sine qua non of greatness with a practical reformer for having no power the subject in its general aspects. It is, in poetry, Scott misses that position. In fact, to subdue evil? If so, let us give him his perhaps, not improper to infer from them we know several other great poets, to whom case at once. Judgment goes by default. that the awkward requirements of the statutes the Professor elsewhere seems to decree the But if he is criticising a poet, of whom he has are not the sole reason for the Professor's primacy, who have not got the "note." himself said that, if any single word expresses declining to engage in the construction of a Shakspere and Dante have, but not, perhaps, his peculiar domain, beauty is the word, he systematic theory of poetry. "I might," he another. It would seem that we must is simply ignoring the point to be proved. says in his first lecture, "following an look elsewhere for what, after all, is Prof. That so enormous a deflection from the approved and time-honoured custom, ask what Shairp's canon of poetical greatness. So we right way be possible to a is poetry and try to answer the question. try again. "The true end," he says in whose feet so often keep it simply shows But," he continues, "you are all, no doubt, another place, that he is walking without a guide without, more or less acquainted with the definitions that is to say, that very definition of poetry and theories of the past, and have not found which he thinks superfluous, and a mere idle much profit in them." Prof. Shairp, it seems, addition to the failures of the past. is not in the heroic mood of Childe Roland; the memory of his predecessors' failure does not spur him on to the Dark Tower. He even questions the value of definitions and analyses of poetry, quoting with approval Dr. John Brown's comparison of poetry to a lily, which it is a good thing to know botanically, but a better thing to enjoy by looking at the flowers themselves. A mischievous person might say that a professor of poetry who takes this view strikes rather heavily at the

"is to awaken men to the divine side of things,
to bear witness to the beauty that clothes the
outer world, the nobility that lies hid, often
obscured in human souls, to call forth sympathy
for neglected truths, for noble but oppressed
persons, for down-trodden causes, and to make
men feel that through all outward beauty and
ing them."

all

pure

inward affection God himself is address

This is good in its way. Unluckily, it is as
much too wide as the other was too narrow.
The orator, the preacher, the higher sort of
politician even, will answer to this definition.
Our poet still escapes us.

can

or

man

We have left ourselves no space to speak of the many interesting instances in which Prof. Shairp has, guide or no guide, kept the path. But it may be repeated, if only to show that we have criticised him from no narrow view of the domains swayed by "The Rector of the Holy Hill," that his occasional references to Scott and his special essay on "The Homeric Spirit in Scott" are excellent. Sententiousness is allowable now and then; and if we say that any man who thinks meanly of

Nov. 26, 1881.-No. 499.]

Scott as a poet proves thereby that his own definition of poetry is hopelessly defective we shall have at least made one statement which Prof. Shairp will not refuse to endorse. He has given us a very interesting book, with very few of the positive statements of which it is necessary to disagree; while we cannot help thinking that if he would perform a Socratic process on himself, and clear up definitely in his own mind what he means by poetry and what he does not, he would see reason for rescinding much of the negative judgments to which we have principally to object. For you must, consciously or unconsciously, define the object before you can see it. GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

The Haigs of Bemersyde: a Family History. By John Russell. (Blackwood & Sons.) EVERYONE who is at all acquainted with the history of the Scottish Border will naturally turn to this book with considerable interest. The Haigs of Bemersyde never attained historical importance, and no individual member of the house appears prominently either in history or legend; but their name has been invested with a certain air of romance by the old prophecy of Thomas the Rymer, familiar to readers of Scott, that Tyde what may betide, Haig shall be Haig of Bemersyde. Even the bare fact that they have possessed their original inheritance by male descent for seven centuries is enough in itself to give them a somewhat unique place in Border tradition. For such a lengthened tenure of the original family possessions is very rare in Scotland, where the landed families enjoyed singular opportunities of extinction in earlier times by wars, feuds, and rebellions, and at a later period by the debts and legal processes which too often terminated the attempt to make their scanty incomes sustain their old dignity in a new fashion. One is, therefore, curious to see what kind of men they were, who, in that very part of the country which was most vexed by internal feuds and foreign invasions, kept so tenacious a hold of their possessions that they alone of all Border families still dwell in the house which was founded by the first settler of their race.

formation is John, who, during the imprison-
ment of James I., fell into a violent quarrel
about some lands with his neighbours, the
monks of Melrose. John was excommunicated
in the course of the dispute, which seems to
have produced little effect upon him; and the
matter was finally settled, after some trouble,
by the intervention of Archibald Earl of
Douglas, to whom both parties had appealed.
After this time we find the Haigs taking a
fair share in the Border life of the period.
The laird we have just mentioned was slain at
the Battle of Piperdean, and another fell at
Flodden; they took part in the battles of
Sauchieburn and Ancrum Moor, and had their
fortalice burned by Hertford. Nor did they
escape notice at the hands of the law, for we
find one of them emphatically enjoined by
the Lords of Council and Session to desist
troubling one of his neighbour's lairds; while
was convicted of three acts of
his son
"stouthreif," besides running no small risk
from the summary administration of justice
during the Border visitations of James V.

On the whole, the family seem to have come pretty well out of the period of violence; but in 1600 we find the indication of a new order of things, and a new class of perils, in a mortgage by Robert Haig over part of the lands of Bemersyde for 1,800 marks. The sons of this mortgagor are conspicuous in the James, the eldest, was a family history. fierce-tempered, foolish, intractable man, who would have wrecked the fortunes of the house had it not been for his brother William, who was a man of very different temper, and of some mark in his day. William went to the Scotch bar and seems to have prospered, for he was soon in a position to assist his brother, whose affairs had become deeply embarrassed. The result was that the title to the estate passed to William, and that a bitter feud sprang up between the brothers, which culminated in an odd information laid before the King by James, that William had prognosticated and brought about by astrology the death of Prince Henry. William was also a friend of Somerset, and had rashly written a discourse in his vindication, so it is needless to say that he fell into considerable trouble. Out of this, however, he extricated The name first occurs in several charters himself, and even held office as King's But he fell into belonging to the latter half of the twelfth Solicitor for Scotland. century, in which the name of Petrus de la trouble again when Charles I. began to press Haga appears as a witness. Mr. Russell his ecclesiastical changes. He had a ready conjectures with tolerable certainty that this pen, and was employed to draw up a supplicaPetrus was one of the numerous Normans tion or remonstrance to the King regarding who at that time settled on the borders, and an Act which was passed in 1633 about The result forms a wellwith at least some plausibility connects his Church vestments. name with that of Cape de la Hague, the known passage in the Scotch history of the north-western extremity of Cotentin. About time, and William Haig had to flee the beginning of the thirteenth century Holland, where he ended a busy and honouranother Petrus, probably the son of the pre-able life in exile. During this time the estate was passing through a complicated crisis of ceding, grants to the Abbey of Dryburgh two oxgates of land out of his Lordship of debts and embarrassments, and appears only Bemersyde; and henceforward we can trace the family clearly by the appearance of their name in charters and by their own grants to the Border abbeys. We know almost nothing, however, of the earlier Haigs except their names; but tradition relates that they fought at Stirling and Bannockburn, and that one of them fell at Halidon Hill and another at Otterburn. The first of the family about whose proceedings we have any certain in

to

to have been saved from forfeiture by being
held for a time in security by a friendly noble-
man; but William managed to transmit it
to a nephew, although in a sorely impaired
condition.

One of the most curious parts of the
history is the struggle for its extrication by
the subsequent lairds, who often enough had
hard times of it with their debts and lawsuits,
to say nothing of the evil days which fell on

395

But, on the Scotland, and especially on the borders, during the Cromwellian invasion. whole, notwithstanding some slips, they were cautious and frugal people, devotedly attached to their family, and determined to preserve their inheritance. The most interesting of them is Anthony, who held the estate from 1654 to 1712, and whose character presents In early a strange and thoroughly Scotch mixture of parsimony and narrowness in daily life, with aims of a half-romantic character. life he was one of the tolerably numerous Border converts to Quakerism, and was imprisoned for four years in Edinburgh. But the Quakerism seems to have died away, its disappearance being curiously marked by the change in his children's names; and the rest of his long life was devoted to the restoration of his family and the recovery of the "Mother House," as he affectionately calls the family mansion, which for some time had been out of their possession. He succeeded touching record of his success on the leaves in these aims, and leaves a curious and rather of the family Bible. From that time the course of the family was prosperous, though threatened by at least two grave dangers. Zerubbabel (born, as his name indicates, during Anthony's Quaker period) had no less than eleven daughters born to him in succession, and he, and the whole countryside with him, trembled for the reputation of Thomas the Rymer. Matters, indeed, looked desperate; so the laird went to Clackmannanshire, where a branch of his family was settled, and tried so to arrange matters that, without wholly sacrificing the interest of his eleven But the attempt failed, and daughters, a Haig should still be laird of Bemersyde. then the prophecy asserted itself by the birth men. During the lifetime of this son also of a son, and gained renewed credit with all the family were in no little danger, for he held the estate in 1745, and, being a Jacobite, was minded to join the Pretender after his man, he first went to seek help among his victory at Prestonpans; but, being a prudent Clackmannanshire relations-a very hopeless errand, apparently-and was there detained was in full retreat from Derby, by which by a storm, or other causes, until the Prince time, of course, no reasonable man could be expected to declare himself in his favour. This line of the family terminated in quite recent years, the succession passing to a group of unmarried daughters. But these ladies remained true to the traditions of their family, and sought an heir among the Clackmannanshire Haigs, who had migrated from Bemersyde The book is an excellent specimen of family in the beginning of the seventeenth century. history. So far as the sources are concerned, Mr. Russell has been thoroughly careful to separate fact from tradition, and he has in a very admirable manner kept the history of the family in relation to the social and political history of the time, without dragging in too much of the latter. New matter of but at almost every period we find facts importance could not, of course, be expected; which serve as illustrations to the current history, and the whole narrative conducts us very pleasantly and instructively through the ALEXANDER GIBSON. long period with which Mr. Russell has to deal.