The Press. — London, England, 1854-09-16 00:00:00

SEPTEMBER 16 - , 1854. The Queens Before the Conquest. By Mrs. Matthew Hall. London: Hurst and Black ett. THE success of Miss Strickland's highly-popular serial work evidently suggested the present publication. Within the space of two octavo volumes the authoress has here reviewed (rather than narrated) the lives of those Bri tish ladies who were called " Queens " at a period when our island was divided into seve ral petty states. Not representing any national unity, nor figuring as landmarks in history, these "female Sovereigns" form, nevertheless, an interesting gallery of characters. The names of some of them, like Boadicea, live in the immortal pages of Tacitus ; and those of others, like Elfrida, aro familiarised to us by romantic incidents. The legends of Arthur and the Round Table, the unfading glories of Alfred the Great, the incursions of the Danes, and the struggles between the Saxons and the Ancient Britons, give to the subject of these volumes the interest arising from far descended names and important (though remote) histori cal changes. The method of composition, however, fol lowed by the learned authoress is not the best calculated to interest. Miss Strickland pro duced her results by excessive expansion, and by tesselating her pages with quaint and rare extracts from forgotten works or original ma nuscripts. She realised her figures on the canvas by minute touches, while Mrs. Matthew Hall presents her subjects rather as silhouettes. She has read much, and has command over the numerous works throwing light upon the times before the Conquest, but she epitomises rather than portrays, and criticises where a more practised literary artist would create. With considerable talent, she seems defi cient in vividness of historical conception, and she does not sufficiently discriminate be tween the legendary and the genuine materials on which her volumes are composed. The time treated of in this work still wants its English Thierry. Libraries, indeed, of works illustrating it may be enumerated, but with few exceptions they are composed in an antiquarian spirit, as distinguished from true historic art. Yet we have a grateful recollec tion of the literary labours of Sharon Turner, Lingard, Mr. John Kemble, and others of our own time who have treated of English history before the Conquest. It was in most respects a semi-historic period, in which the modern explorer has to proceed with caution. Its facts and f a bles are curiously interwoven, and the charming poetical myths of Tintagel must be carefully separated from the tragic realities at Corfe Castle. Mrs. M. Hall too often relies on authorities that can only be accepted as " legendary," and we observe that she mixes together in her footnotes names of the most opposite merit, just as if they were equally trustworthy. It is a great defect in the value of her citations that she does not quote ex actly, and only gives the name of her authority without reference to the page or volume. Such a practice always provokes the suspicion of mere affectation of research. Of the whole series of lives, we have read with most interest that of Boadicea. The story of Elfrida is of course more interesting, but it is too familiar, while that of Boadicea has perhaps never had adequate justice done to all its features. Mrs. Hall writes This princess has the highest claims on British sym pathy, from the fact of her having been born, nursed, and bred among her countrymen. She had no leaning to the Homan invaders of the soil ; Britain alone had her heart ; and the freedom of her country, for which women, as well as men, in her time lived and died, was her ambition. Her mother's country was the southern portion of Scot land, now known as the Lowlands ; consequently the habits and manners of those people governed her education and character, and the sentiments displayed throughout her after-life were caught from those associations. The Scotch Lowlanders have produced a number of celebrities, and their contributing some of their blood to Boadicea is not one of their least honourable boasts. Recollecting the splendid impersonations of Norma exhi bited by Pasta and Grisi, one cannot help re gretting that the story of Boadicea was not taken by some great musical composer for a theme. Mrs. Hall observes : The disastrous fortunes of Boadicea have furnished a theme for many an historian and poet ; and a more dra- Matic subject could seemly be discovered- throughout the whole of our British annals: as a wife, a queen, a patriot, and a mother, Boadicea was for her heroism in misfortunes unequalled. Spenser, commenting upon the surname of " Victorious," bestowed upon this ill fated Queen by the Britons, says she was one "Who, whiles good-fortune favoured her might, Triumphed oft against her enemies ; And yet, though overeome in hapiesse fight, She triumphed o'er death in tsunamis despight." Forrie Queene. Little indeed in accordance with the actual history of Boadicea was that triumphant title : her misfortunes might rather, like Priam's, have given her a right to the sad distinction he claimed— " The first of men in sovereign misery." Who has not felt sympathy for "the British warrior-queen Bleeding from the f; < oman rods ;" and with tears of commiseration followed her, when she " Sought, with an indignant mien, Counsel of her country's gods!" Commentators on our Constitution have remarked that nearly all the great questions in English politics have turned, in one form or other, upon taxation. It is curious to observe that the story of Boadicea's wrongs may be said to commence with the penalties imposed by the officers of Nero. After nar ratiug the confiscations of Catus Decianus, the Roman procurator, the authoress pro ceeds:— The unfortunate Queen, a widow, in the hands of merci less creditors and unrelenting enemies, vainly remonstrated against the injustice of their proceedings ; at length, in furiated by her reproaches, and unrestrained by any feeling of humanity, the brutal soldiery to whom sbe was given up, encouraged by their more brutal leaders, subjected the ill-fated I3oadicea to the common punishment of the scourge, while the fate of her unhappy daughters was even more hideous than her own. Their immortal wrongs blacken the page of history, which has no record so atrocious. The tide of accumulated injuries was now at its height, and the fury of a whole nation burst forth in one overwhelming current, to overflow the land with the blood of enemies whom no laws had restrained. Agee have passed by, yet the heart still bleeds at the record of this noble woman's wrongs. From the moment of this outrage, the heart of the Queen was deadened to all feelings but those of vengeance, stung with shame, crushed with unmerited disgrace, and bowed by agonies that found no name ; while Boadicea resolved still to endure life, hateful as it had become to her, in the sole hope of wreaking a fearful vengeance which should atone for her unheard-of injuries. - - The narration of her story then becomes too general, and there is wanted a sufficiency of personal details to give it strongly individual• ised interest. Mrs. Hall gives at full length the speech of Boadicea (taking it from Dion Cassius), and thus describes her personal ap pearance : In person Boadicea was of the largest size ; her face was beautiful, but fierce and stern ; some annalists say " terrible of aspect, savage of countenance." Her complexion was brilliantly fair, and her yellow locks, which were spread all over her shoulders, reached down to her hips. She wore a plaited tunic of several colours, drawn close about her bosom, and over that a vestment made of some stuff of British manufacture, fastened by a clasp, and adopted in compliment to the southern natives; the chequered robe beneath being the produce of the north of Britain. About her neck she wore a thick collar or chain of gold, esteemed a mark of the highest command, and expressive of the dignified quality of the wearer. We pass over the speech as translated by the authoress with the remark that it seems to have been imitated by Sheridan in Rolla's address in Pizarro. The fight at Battle-bridge, and the subse quent suicide of Boadicea, are well told by the authoress. Throughout her volumes she has copiously interspersed passages from the old chronicles, and though often fragmentary, and like an antiquarian olla podrida, still her pages instruct and entertain. In recording the his tory of the wives of King Arthur, Mrs. Hall follows the chronicles. With respect to the famous " Round Table " she says The date of these second nuptials of Arthur is given as 511 ; the battle of Bannesdown-hill, which overlooks the vale of Bath, having been fought immediately before. As this, the twelfth battle fought by Arthuragainst the Saxons, was crowned with victory, the King, desirous of comme morating the occasion, had established that famous order of knighthood whose members were designated Knights of the Round Table. The motto assigned to the order was characteristic of an Ancient Briton : " Spread be my board, round as the horizon, and ample as my heart, that there may be no first or last; for odious is distinction, where merit is equal." The number of these knights was limited to twenty-four, the King himself making the twenty-fifth. Lothaire, husband of Queen Anna, Arthur's sister, was the first knight created by Arthur ; a great compliment to his brother-in-law, who is described as " a worthy prince, hardy, bounteous, manly, and right chivalrous." The crea tion of similar orders, on occasions of public rejoining, had been customary from the earliest periods of our history; and several cities, among which may be mentioned Windsor, have laid claim to being the scene of the earliest investi ture of this order. At Winchester, which disputes the 883 point with Windsor, there may yet, says Evans, be seen " King Arthur's Round Table, hanging in the great hall, where the Saxon kings were subsequently accustomed to hold their feasts ; this hall is supported by marble pillars, and is in the King's House, on the west side of the city of Winchester. The table, which bears the name of the monarch, is formed of one solid pieee of wood, round which are cut several names in the Saxon characters, though only one, that of Lancelot, is legible—a knight who takes a pro minent part in the history of cluenever, the third of Arthur's queens. - • - At Peurith a large circle may still be seen, which, after the lapse of centuries, retains the Hanle of King Arthur's Round Table. It is supposed that this monarch introduced the fashion of round tables afterwards into Gaul, as they became very prevalent in that country, where every knight had at Isis back a squire with his armour in waiting. And she copies curious passages from the chronicle of Tysilis, translated by the Rev. Mr. Roberts. The life of Elswitha, the wife of Alfred the Great, is not so inte resting as might have been anticipated, and it is told here in too bald a style. Perhaps the most readable story in the volumes, next to those of Boadicea and Elfrida, is that of Emma " the Pearl," wife of Canute the Great. We have only space to extract the description of the Queen's trial by the ordeal of the burning ploughshares Emma passed the night previous to her fiery trial in the Cathedral Church, where, at the tomb of St. Swithin, she remained in fervent prayer : she implored the aid of the saint, and falling asleep was comforted by a dream, or vision, in which that holy prelate appeared to her, saying, " Be thou firm, daughter ; I am Swithin, whom thou hast enriched ; fear nut ; when thou pastiest through the fire it shall not hurt thee, fur thy sou bath done evil in this." Emma arose refreshed and comforted, and, all the pre parations being completed, was led into the church, and thus addressed the King :—" 0 lord and son, I, that Emma, who bore anl brought thee forth, and Alfred my son, I invoke God to bear witness in my person this day, may I perish if what has been charged against we ever even entered my mind." The King, the bishops, and an immense multitude of persons of all descriptions were assembled in the cathedral to be spectators of the event. The pavement of the nave having been swept, nine ploughshares, red with heat, were placed in a line upon it, " and now Emma," say the chroniclers, " having again invoked the Almighty to deal with her accordingly as she is innocent or guilty of the crimes laid to her charge, prepares herself for the trial by laying aside her robes and baring her feet. She is then conducted by two bishops, one having hold of each of her hands, to the glowing metal. In the meantime the vaults of the church thunder with the voices of the assembled multitude, who, in loud shouts, call upon the Almighty to save the royal sufferer, and their cries are echoed through the whole city by the crowds who were unable to gain admittance into the church. She, herself, raising up her eyes to Heaven, and slowly walking on, thus makes her prayer:—' 0 God, who didst save Susannah from the malice of the wicked elders, and the three children from the furnace of fire, save mo for the sake of thy holy servant Swithin from the tire prepared for me.' In a word, she is seen to tread upon each of the burning irons, and is not even sensible that she had touched them, but addressing herself to the bishops, ' When shall I come to the ploughshares?' they turn round, and show her that she has already passed them. The lamentations of the multitude then ceasing, the air resounds with acclamations of joy and thanksgiving still louder than their former prayers had been. The King alone is found overwhelmed with kf rief and bathed in tears, lying upon the ground beside his chair, to whom Emma being conducted, he begs her forgiveness in terms of the utmost humility and sorrow for the injurious suspicions he had entertained concerning her and the rigour with which he had treated her. Not content with this, lie re quires of her and the bishops then present to strike him with a wand, which he presents to them. She accordingly gave her son three blows ; when, having embraced him, both she and Bishop Alwyn were put into full possession of their limner rights and property, and ever after enjoyed the royal favour and respect in the degree they merited." Modern writers have refuted this story, which may be dismissed as a myth ; and the great defect of this work is, that no attempt is made to sift accurately the evidence on which certain statements appear in its pages. An ordinary reader would be puzzled between its blending of facts and fancies. There is, also, for the most part a prosaic dryness of style in the composition which would deceive a care less peruser of its pages into the notion that its contents might be accepted as verities. A preliminary dissertation on the old litera ture of England, and a critical estimate of our various antiquarian writers whose names are so frequently involved, ought to have been prefixed. But these defects are compensated by the curious variety of matter brought together in a small space, and general readers will find the volumes both instructive and entertaining. They are taken into remote times, and a sense of novelty is produced in contemplating the manners of our remote British ancestors. 1111M , P=•••.1.. ,. THE PRESS. 4