to the theory of a mysterious wasting disease peculiar to the British Islands. The attribution of this malady- the mind's 'wrong bias,' as its laureate had called it-to inhabitants of this realm had long been admitted by the eighteenth century, but hardly to the exclusion of other claimants. We have not discovered an earlier source of the legend than Voltaire, who perhaps introduced the word, as well as the idea, into France from England, and who claimed the spleen as our national disease. Barbier, in a poem of great merit, describes it as a kind of mortal ennui, prince des scorpions,' scourge of our nation. He tells the inhabitants of this island that notwithstanding her boxers, her jockeys and her foxes, England is not really entertained by anything, and that the spleen, with its nine-fold lash, is whipping all her citizens to suicide. He makes a curious reference to the running of railways, which is early indeed when we reflect that the Great Western Bill had only just overcome the resistance of Eton and Oxford, and passed into law; he says that England has taken to running railway-trains in order to rouse her spirits, but they will have no other result than to hurry Englishmen faster down to hell. He regards the recent invention of the steamer with a no less jaundiced eye.

In another poem, after charging the English with a gross indifference to the beauties of nature, and with being ready to destroy all the amenities of landscape for the sake of making a few pounds, he hits on one of his violent images and presents to us the genius of machinery as a giant hippopotamus, 'insensible animal,' trampling and rolling upon the glory of the earth. This final poem, ' La Nature,' ends, however, with a passage of real beauty, where the poet foresees a radiant future for the unhappy Albion, when its present possessors have disappeared (mown down, perhaps, by 'le spleen') and Britain rejoices at last in the protection of those divine presences, the Eagle and Liberty. An Epilogue to 'Lazare' tells the reader that Barbier has polished these rhymes as a mirror in which the Mother of Sorrows may see her face reflected. His object has been to awaken terror and pity in the heart of Europe, and so he closes his strange book, with a sort of Ronsard-like hymn, half charming and half ridiculous.

The complete oblivion which immediately fell upon this

volume can be accounted for in several ways. Reaction against the exaggerated fame of the author of the Iambes' led at that moment to a no less excessive depreciation, so that, merely as poetry, Barbier's work failed to awaken interest. As an attack on English manners and the ruling class in Great Britain, the change in Parisian feeling caused by the death of William IV. and the interesting accession of the girlish Victoria made the diatribes which 'Lazare' contained tactless and ill-timed. Such satire was a kind of bad manners. It was therefore neglected in Paris, and the poet fell into great obscurity. In England, on the other hand, it is almost certain that the volume never came under the notice of any critic, nor perhaps of any reader. Now, after nearly eighty years, when England and France understand each other so perfectly, it may be presented as an amusing curiosity of literature which can do nothing but excite a smile on either side of the Channel.

EDMUND GOSSE.

IRISH VICEROYS BEFORE THE UNION

I. Correspondence and Manuscripts of James, First Earl of Charlemont. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 1891-94.

2. Manuscripts of the Marquis of Lothian. Wyman. 1905.

3. Manuscripts of Mrs. Stopford-Sackville. Vol. I. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 1904.

4. Manuscripts of J. B. Fortescue, Esq. Vols. I., II., III. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 1892-99.

5. Manuscripts of the Duke of Rutland. Vols. II., III. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 1889-94.

THE

HE reputation of the Earl of Chesterfield is still weighted by Dr. Johnson's famous letter, and his own epistles to his son are a further hindrance to an impartial appreciation of his genuine abilities. Philip Dormer Stanhope was emphatically not the callous patron of Johnson's imagination, nor was he solely either the mould of fashion or the high priest of immorality. That Chesterfield was a diplomatist of consummate finesse is proved by his mission to The Hague ; that he had the qualities of a great statesman needs no further demonstration than the phenomenal success of his Irish viceroyalty. His success at The Hague is well known; it is a less familiar fact that his lord-lieutenancy of Ireland was a kindly tradition in that country for many generations. Patriots and officials were united in his praise. The latter were always hoping for his return 'to quiet the minds of the people'; the former sadly confessed that such a viceroy as Lord Chesterfield 'is not often to be found.' Yet he had less than nine months in which to establish his reputation. Nor, in one sense, did he regard his task too seriously. On the eve of his departure for Dublin he expressed his delight at the prospect of leaving the busy and disagreeable scene' in London for one much better suited to his temper and inclination, 'where the Duke of Shrewsbury said that he had business enough to hinder him 'from falling asleep, and not enough to hinder him from sleep'ing, a pleasing description to a half-lazy man such as I am.' But his half-laziness was not carried to a dangerous extreme.

If he did not, like one of his zealous successors, deny himself exercise and sleep, or emulate that laborious viceroy by drawing on his boots at seven in the morning and sitting at business till near five in the evening, he neglected no duty essential to his office. For form's sake he duly appointed a secretary, but he informed that fortunate individual that his sole task would be to receive the emoluments of his position: 'I will do the 'business myself,' he added, 'being determined to have no 'first minister.' Chesterfield was equally resolved to be untrammelled by mistress or favourite. All this was a startling innovation for those nursing-fathers of previous viceroys who waited upon him on his arrival with long lists of the majorities they could command in the House of Commons. 'I should have been extremely glad to accept your services, ' gentlemen,' he remarked, but I have just bespoke a yard and a half of Parliament of the Speaker.' If, too, the official ring had hopes of the beauty of Miss Ambrose they were equally disappointed. Chesterfield turned her a poetic compliment, and described her as the only dangerous papist' he knew; but succumbed no farther.

No viceroy of the eighteenth century subscribed more completely to the doctrine of suaviter in modo, fortiter in re. To the alarmist who reported one morning that the people of Connaught were' rising,' he answered, taking out his watch, 'It is ' nine o'clock, and certainly time for them to rise'; to the busybody who assured him that one of his coachmen was a Roman Catholic and went to mass, he rejoined Well, I will take care ' he shall never drive me there'; but to a suspected agitator he roundly declared he would be worse than Cromwell ' in dealing with all disturbers of the peace. As usual, everybody wanted to govern, whereas he had reserved that function for himself. Jobbery he repressed with a relentless hand; intolerance, whether to Catholics or Protestants, was as firmly restrained; and, on the positive side, every encouragement was given to legislation calculated to improve the educational and commercial conditions of the country. But the man was more than his measures. The 'great arts' of government, such as providing jobs for favourites and sops for enemies, were above him; he was contented, he confessed, with the more modest rôle of wishing Ireland all possible good, and desired to be remembered as 'the Irish Lord Lieutenant'

rather than as 'the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.' If Lady Chesterfield placated national sentiment by wearing the dress material of the country, and if the viceroy's Castle banquets were so generous as to account for his £5000 deficit on his term of office, it was Chesterfield's lenient yet firm personality which contributed most to his success.

Yet the moral of his administration was wasted on his successors. If some of them were his equals in conviviality, none of them possessed or were able to cultivate his gift for managing men. Consequently the power of the undertakers' waxed stronger with each new viceroy. That was inevitable in view of the form of government favoured by the English Cabinet. Prior to the term of Lord Townshend, the Lord Lieutenant resided in Ireland only during a part of the year, his powers while absent being wielded by a commission of Lords Justices, who, in turn, were in league with a small group of landowners and borough proprietors. As these undertakers,' so called because they guaranteed-on terms-to carry on the government, were constantly resident in Ireland, their power was naturally greater than that of the viceroy, who, on his arrival, was consigned to their care and given to understand that they and they alone could make or mar his administration. If the newcomer declined to buy a yard and a half of Parlia'ment' on the usual terms, his position was made unbearable.

But America and George III. changed all that. When the colonists across the Atlantic half-masted their flags and rang peals of muffled bells for the passing of the Stamp Act they were also commemorating the demise of the Irish undertakers, for the new spirit in America convinced English statesmen that what the colonists did to-day the Irish might do to-morrow. It was that fear, the fear of a scouting of central authority, plus the determination of George III. to make all power depend upon the Crown, which instigated a memorable innovation in Irish government.

Such a task would have been congenial to Chesterfield; unfortunately the peer to whom it was entrusted-Lord Townshend-was unequal to its execution. Certainly the difficulties were appalling.

'It must have been evident to many' (wrote an impartial Dublin observer) that fixed Lords-Justices so frequent and long in power, to whom the Irish looked up for their preferment, so far attached