soon to you as you can receive it from any other private hand. I hope very soon to make my personal acknowledgments to you in a green coat, with all the elements of forest jurisdiction about me; and shall never lose the sense I have of the zeal and affection with which you have protected Your most obliged, &c. H. LEGGE. We quote another specimen of this spirited and accomplished letter-writer's correspondence: it is one of playfulness:— I rejoice extremely in the good account you send me of my playfellow, and congratulate your Grace and My Lady Dutchess upon the happy effects of your prudent courage [inoculation]. I can't help thinking myself greatly interested in the preservation of Lady Caroline's charms, as I think they will not fail hereafter to torment and mortify many of those saucy rascals who will have the insolence to be very young men at the time when I shall have the misfortune to be a very old one. It is an interest of a more generous nature which I take in Lord Tavistock's education, though perhaps a little selfish too, at bottom. I take it, one may relish applause long after beauty has lost all its effect; and when hereafter Lord Tavistock makes a good figure in the world, as I don't doubt but he will, your Grace will not grudge me the little comfortable vanity of supposing I have been in a small degree accessory to it. Though the soil and the cultivation is the work of others, yet it must be confessed I called aloud for the gardener, and may therefore pretend to a kind of merit, somewhat akin to that of a certain sexton recorded in metre "The sexton thus of preaching well Claimed half the praise-who rang the bell." It is well for your Grace that paper has bounds if nonsense has none, and that I can defer no longer to acknowledge myself, Yours, &c. H. LEGGE. Having given examples of manly solicitation, and also proofs of the high estimation in which the Duke was held, we may cite another illustration and also testimony of a kindred sort, coming too from one whose celebrity may be taken as a sufficient set-off to that of Junius: we mean the author of "Tom Jones!" which work, in fact, was dedicated to his Grace. Fielding thus writes with a modesty and becoming confidence, as well as hearty gratitude, befitting the man who gave to the world an "Allworthy:" Bow street, December 13, 1748. My Lord,-Such is my dependence on the goodness of your Grace, that before my gout will permit me to pay my duty to you personally, and to acknowledge your last kind favour to me, I have the presumption to solicit your Grace again. The business of justice of peace for Westminster is very inconsiderable without the addition of that for the county of Middlesex, and without this addition I cannot completely serve the government in that office; but this unfortunately requires a qualification which I want. Now there is a house belonging to your Grace, which stands in Bedford street, of 701 a year value. This hath been long untenanted, and will, I am informed require about 300l. to put in repair. If your Grace would have the goodness to let me have a lease of this house, with some other tenement worth 307. a year, for twenty-one years, it would be a complete qualification. I will give the full worth for this lease, according to the valuation which any person your Grace shall be pleased to appoint sets on it. The only favour I beg of your Grace is, that I be permitted to pay the money in two years, at four equal half-yearly payments. As I shall repair the house as soon as possible, it will be in reality an improvement of that small part of your Grace's estate, and will be certain to make my fortune. Mr. Butcher will acquaint your Grace more fully than perhaps I have been able to do; and if your Grace thinks proper to refer it to him, I and mine shall be eternally bound to pray for your Grace, though I sincerely hope you will not lose a farthing by doing so vast a service to, My Lord, your Grace's, &c. H. FIELDING. Lord John's Introduction presents, besides certain biographical notices of the Duke, a brief resumé of the public events during the period to which the volume refers. Something of a like nature is to be prefixed to each portion of the publication. The specimen here prefixed will be found useful, not only to explain the incidents of the time, but to connect the letters. It is also cleverly written, and conceived with marked liberality to persons of an opposite school of politics. He is very charitable to Walpole,-seeking for worthy motives where others would hardly think they could readily be discovered. We cite two passages. The first gives us Walpole's leading opponents: Pulteney, his most powerful assailant in the House of Commons, acted in conjunction with Carteret, the most able and accomplished debater in the House of Lords: both of these leaders were Whigs, both had held high situations under Walpole, and both had been alienated by his supremacy of power and influence, which threw their ambition into the shade. Pulteney was a quick and lively speaker; always ready with some apt illustration or diverting story, which went round the town, and turned the laugh against the Minister. Carteret was an excellent scholar: he had carried away from College, said Swift, more learning and information than became a man of his rank and fortune. When Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he showed his readiness by a retort upon Swift himself, in which the Viceroy excelled the wit. Swift having been kept a long time in the ante-room of Dublin Castle, left these lines: My very good Lord, 'tis a very hard task, For a man to wait here who has nothing to ask. To which Carteret replied, alluding to the pending prosecution of the Draper's Letters: My very Good Dean, there are few who come here, He excused himself classically for his strong measures against political libels, by quoting from Virgil: Res dura et regni novitas me talia cogunt Yet while these two disappointed and angry men had light to shine, and even scattered fire to brand and consume their opponents, it will be seen that neither had the firmness to pursue a consistent course, nor the qualities necessary to inspire confidence, nor the strength to hold the standard they had vigour sufficient to wrest from others. Pulteney was more avaricious than ambitious: Carteret was better fitted for social conviviality than for steady business: both were vain of the distinction of being thought capable of the highest place, rather than anxious to govern well. The fall of Walpole was a test of their capacity. The other specimen portrays the Duke of Newcastle : His chief fault in public affairs was a constant and universal jealousy. He was jealous of Walpole, jealous of Pitt, jealous of Carteret, jealous of the Duke of Bedford, and not less jealous of his own brother than of his own rivals. His best talent was his indefatigable industry: his mind was constantly employed in political affairs; and, from the highest concerns of peace and war to the lowest contention for an exciseman's office, he never relaxed his attention, or missed his opportunity. But, having no large capacity, or steady views of his own, this perpetual struggle to rule affairs, to which he was hardly equal, gave him an uneasy and fidgety manner. It was well said of him, that he always seemed to have lost half an hour in the morning, and to be running after it all the rest of the day." We have now merely to add that while Lord John properly cherishes a warm feeling in behalf of the reputation of his ancestor, the Correspondence promises to furnish a complete vindication of his Grace's character; at the same time that it will be a valuable contribution to the materials of history, and the already rich collections of our state papers. ART. VII.-Notices of the Reformation in the South-West Provinces of France. By R. E. JAMESON. Seeley and Burnside. THE title-page gives us for date 1839. We do not undertake to account for the discrepancy in regard to publication and authorship. One thing, however, is clear, that "the Reformation in the SouthWest Provinces of France," is a subject that does not lose its interest, or gain its importance, by the lapse of a few years; and therefore it may stand now as well as three years ago, for review. At once, therefore, we proceed to speak of the character and merits of the work in a few short sentences, and then to furnish samples. VOL. I. (1843) No. I. H Mr. Jameson appears to have travelled as well as to have read a good deal; and this at least must be said of him, he speaks his mind plainly and boldly. Nay, he thinks for himself; and cares not to march in the track traced by predecessors. He is at the same time a strong evangelist,-probably some would pronounce him to be a sectarian filled with the cant of methodism. However, we are not inclined to regard tendencies of a religiously flavoured sort with other than forgiving feelings; generally finding that what may be wrong in doctrine, or questionable in statement, is made amends for by sincerity and honesty of disquisition. Mr. Jameson made a stay of considerable endurance at Pau, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Navarre, a town now containing fourteen thousand inhabitants, and identified with much of the history of Henry the Fourth of France. Our author looked around him, and set to read the history of the ex-kingdom. The following statement gives us an account of his method and his opportunities. Having obtained an introduction to, he made use of the good offices of, the Reverend Doctor Don Juan de Herrando, the principal librarian of the extensive collection belonging to the town, preserved in the ancient monastery of the Cordeliers. "This worthy Spaniard (to whose courtesy and information I am much a debtor), has been for seven-and-twenty years the superintendant of this library, many curious works of which he has rescued from the ravages of time and revolution. By his kindness I was placed in one of the ancient cloisters, and provided with materials for attaining the object I desired. On one side of me were the works of the Protestant, on the other, those of the Romanist historians." These Mr. Jameson enumerates; and such were the sources whence he derived his minute knowledge of the local history of Bearn, being particularly struck, he tells us, "with the similarity between the history of Navarre, during the seventeenth century, and that of Ireland during the present." Such having been the mode and source of Mr. Jameson's researches with regard to the reformation in the south-west provinces of France, he has given us, as might be expected, notices that are pointed and interesting. It cannot be denied that he is a partisan, in as far as religious sentiments go. He does not even admire Henry IV., the friend and the pupil of Sully, and the monarch whose chivalrous history is so warmly cherished by the French people. All Mr. Jameson's sympathies are lavished on his sister, his mother, and Marguerite, in whom he discovers nothing but purity, consistency, and fidelity to the Protestant cause. His interpretation takes at times, if not fantastic, an advocate's air, and to the production of far-fetched, improbable conclusions. Hear how he varnishes the death-bed scene of Marguerite, whom he will not allow to have been the author of the Nouvelles : She retired to the little village of Tusson in Angouleme, joining a religious community of females, over whom she presided for a series of years. Subsequently she removed to the Chateau d'Odos, near Tarbes, where she died Dec. 21, 1549, from the effects of exposure in observing a comet which was then visible. Whilst gazing anxiously at the celestial stranger, she was seized with paralysis, and, being immediately removed to her bed, died in eight days after. Her senses do not appear to have entirely forsaken her, even under the influence of the distressing malady which had attacked her. On hearing it observed that she was going to felicity,— "Not yet," she exclaimed, “I must sleep a long time in the earth first." The Romish writers claim her as a re-convert, because, in her dying moments she kissed a crucifix which was placed before her. She, who had embraced the cross in early life, and had so long borne it typically by patient endurance, might surely, while in the agony of leaving one world, and in the earnest expectation of entering another, have clasped a crucifix without any superstitious feeling. The materialism of religion could have had but little influence over the dying senses of a Christian like the Queen of Navarre, who, while her paralytic hands grasped a crucifix, sufficiently declared the sort of feeling with which she viewed it, by thrice exclaiming, as she expired, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" Still, these notices will be perused with that sort of satisfaction that arises from novelty, sincerity, and fluent expression. We do not dislike Mr. Jameson's plain dealing, when, for example, he objects to the French word temple, as being neither significant nor Christian, when applied to a Protestant church or house of worship. The place of the kind at Pau, we are told, is merely a small room rented by the English visitants for their own use, and where the Protestants of the town assemble. The Duchess of Gordon, however, has purchased a site for a church and school-room, both of which are in great forwardness, says Mr. Jameson, but the finishing of which is now suspended for want of funds. It will suit to introduce here our author's account of Protestantism as it existed throughout France at the time he wrote. It will be seen that the conditiou and prospects of that branch of the reformed church do not offer to Mr. Jameson's mind a very fertile subject of congratulation or hope. He thus reports: At present there are scarcely five thousand nominal Protestants in this district (Bearn). Persecution and patronage having been removed, they have dropped, in the absence of excitement, into an apparent state of lukewarmness. Here and there a zealous minister "prophecies upon the bones," and “a shaking" is visible. But the French character is not disposed to be sectarian in its humbler sense, of separation and inferiority. The hubbub of concourse, or exterior distinction, are requisite to engage them. If a coup de religion" could be effected with sufficient notoriety in any part of France, the excitement of a spirit might possibly spread; or, if Protestant "temples" could be reared, like their stately prototype of Charenton, they 66 |