The Press. — London, England, 1858-01-09 00:00:00

St. Simon admits that though the King dived into the secrets of other persons, yet that he kept them faithfully. He then tells the fol lowing most romantic story : We know, amongst many others, the famous story of a woman of quality, who, alter having been separated a year from her husband, found herself in the family-way just as lie was on the point of returning from the army, and who, not knowing what else to do, in the most urgent manner begged a private interview of the King. Show obtained it, and confided to him her position, as to the worthiest man in hisrealtn, as she said. The King counselled her to profit by her distress, and live more wisely for thetlutnre, and immediately promised to retain her husband on the frontier as loug as was necessary, and to forbid his return under any pretext, and in fact he gave orders the same day to Lou. vole, and prohibited the husband not only all leave of absence, but forbade him to quit for a single day the post he was to command all the winter. The officer, who was distinguished, and who had neither wished nor asked to be employed all the winter upon the frontier, and Louvoie, who had in no way thought of it, were equally surprised and vexed. They were obliged, however, to obey to the letter, and without asking why ; and the King never mentioned the circumstance until many years afterwards, when he was quite sure nobody could find out either husband or wife, se in fact they never could, or even obtain the most vague or the most uncertain suspicion. The fourth volume is not so interesting as the third. In the latter portion of it St. Simon describes his journey to Spain, and his resi dence at the Spanish Court. A reader would expect more from the author's opportunities in Spain, but the descriptions and incidents are rather wanting in vivacity. The romantic c h ar acter of the country, of its inhabitants and its buildings, did not profoundly touch St. Simon, who was intensely French in his way of looking at life. Neither is Alberoni's cha racter drawn with the vigour that one might expect. Alberoni was a being quite out of " routine ;" his vehement impulses and his bold designs were not to be appreciated by a matt like St. Simon ; and yet it must be con fessed that there was a strong dash of origin ality in Alberoni. On the other hand, the Regent Duke of Orleans is depicted in the most vivid colours, and the man stands out on the canvas in all the force of teal life. He is shown in his cabinet and in every-day life just as history, by memorable pens, has painted him ; but there is a freshness and an ease in St. Simon's accounts of that remark able person which are wanted in other accounts of him. On the whole, these new volumes (which complete the work) are most instructive and entertaining, and Mr. St. John deserves well of the public for this performance. They have been published simultaneously with his work on Montaigne, but we conjecture that a vast majority of readers will prefer St. Simon. A Woman's Thoughts about Women. By the Author of " John Halifax, Gentleman." London: Hurst and Blackett. THE authoress of " John Halifax," a novel which in nobility of purpose and skill of exe cution has not been recently surpassed, has been tempted to quit the path of fiction, and assume the severity of the moralist -we re gret to state with only indifferent success. To her presev volume the old hackneyed antithesis applies with singular closeness,—What is true in it is not new, and what is new is not true. It contains a good deal of good sense and useful advice, and kindly feeling, but still nothing more than, thank God, may very commonly be met with in English society. If every English lady who has thought these thoughts were to make a book of them, the " Row " could not contain the works that. should be written. In fiction a commonplace truth receives as it were a new setting—is brought out into bolder relief, or placed in its most striking light. We do not require, there fore, that all our novelists should be philoso phers, though some of our philosophers make very good novelists. But in the regular essay we do require either sense or satire of a more than average depth; and in the present essays we do not get it. We observed that what was new in this volume was not true ; but the converse is not good. The errors do nut all possess the merit of novelty. We shall, however, present our readers with a few specimens of statements calculated, in our opinion, to mar the useful ness which these " Thoughts " are otherwise undoubtedly suited to exercise. For instance, THE rilESg, JANUARY 9,1858. at pages 70 and 84, the lady writes as follows : And here comes in the old warfare, which began worthily enough, in the respect due to mind over matter, headwork over handwork, bat has deteriorated by custom into a ridiculous and contemptible tvranny—the battle between professions and trades. I shah not enter into it here. Happily, men are now waking up—women more slowly still—to a perception of the truth, that honour is an in trinsic and not extrinsic profession ; that one means of livelihood is not of itself one whit more " respectable " than another; that credit or discredit can attach in no degree to the work done, but to the manner of doing it, and to the individual who does it. And then, p. 84, the " line between tradesfolk and gentlefolk now fast vanishing." Now, we beg to inform ourauthoress that this is a line which cannot vanish ; for it is not a social distinction, hut a natural one. Aslong as certain different occupations exercise certain different influ ences upon the human mind and character, so long will that distinction last. And they will continue to exercise those influences until He who made human nature what it is shall see fit in His wisdom to alter it. If the lady, however, only means that we do not despise men on account of their occupations, tahe is only tilting at an error into which none but vulgar-minded people ever fell, and merely repeating with unnecessary circumlocution the famous couplet of Pope, " Honour and shame," &c. Again, we presume by way of carrying out the same idea, she asks at page 131 : Would you be less amiable in your husband's eyes by the discovery that it was you yourself who cooked, and then taught Betty to cook, his comfortable dinner? We reply that undoubtedly "you" would. Our authoress allows nothing for the force of ima gination. Cobbet's celebrated comparison between a duchess and a cottager is not so true to human nature as Dr. Johnson's on a similar subject. We can do no more than allude to this question, but we assure the lady that she has made a grand mistake. On the subject of prudent and imprudent marriages, the authoress writes so well that we could wish she had not stopped short just where her observations would begin to be of use. That the objections of the world to early marriages bring about much wretched ness, in the shape of pining old maids and selfish old bachelors, we very readily admit ; but they entail consequences far more serious than these. And as the present writer has thought it her duty to go into the subject of " lost women," we shall take the opportunity of carrying her own suggestions a little further ; and as she advocates plain speaking, we will speak a little more plainly than is the custom concerning this great social cancer, whereof she has touched only the mitigation, not the origin or the prevention. In this country, in the present day, the pro vocatives to passion and the means of grati fying it legitimately progress in an inverse ratio. The more luxury increases the more are our animal propensities stimulated, and the more is the possibility of early marriages diminished. By luxury we do not mean simply fine clothes, rich food, and expensive pleasures—all these have ere now coexisted with hardy and comparatively rude habits of life. It is the cat-like comfort which is so studied at the present day—the soft, warm railway-carriage—the delicious easy-chair — the effeminacy which has even crept into our manliest sports—the carriage to the cover side—the sportsman's hot lunch, &c.—and a hundred other such indulgences to which the frame of mind and body we allude to is spe cially attributable. This kind of life is calcu lated to despiritualiso our natures and stimu late the sensual emotions far more than all the rough-riding, hard swearing, deep p'ay, and three-bottle bouts of our ancestors. In fact it is notorious, as was lately acknowledged by the Times, that this latter vice casts out the other one ; and we do not hesitate to assert that the comparative temperance of the pro sent ago is one additional reason why that worse vice is so prevalent We cannot have unmixed good in this world, and half the mis takes that are made arise from people sup posing that we can. But luxury grows with commerce—from Commerce springs competi tion—and with competition comes that state of society which is fatal to early marriages. Like the hero in Mr. Trollope's excellent 41 new novel, every class cries to itself " excel sior ;" no man will endure the thought of his children beginning life in a lower position than he has attained when he leaves it. Mar riages without money are therefore impos sible; and if a young man does not marry, nine times out of ten he does worse. As a natural consequence of this state of things, aggravated, perhaps, by increased intercourse with the Continent, it is undeniable that the sin of " unl'twful connections" is not regarded by the public with the same horror as it was only five-and-twenty years ago. And lastly, we would add that the spread of superficial education among the female sex has done much to give them tastes above their rank in life, and to expose them more readily to the temptations of a wealthy lover. This opinion is indeed corroborated by our present autho ress, who tells us " she has heard it affirmel "by more than one lady—by one in particular, " whose experience is as large as her benevo " lenee—that some of her most promising vit. " lage girls were the first to come to harm ;" and the same lady thinks it quite possible that " their very superiority makes them dissatis " fled with their own rank." Why, here is the whole pith and marrow of the question. If chastity is to women what truth is to men, it is very probable that the same conditions will affect them both; and if a jealousy of social distinctions and excessive anxiety to be rich has of late years under mined our national honesty, may we not fear that they will exercise a similar influence upon an analogous virtue ? In times of great excitement we do not stop to calculate. This is an age of great excitement, and nobody stops to calculate. It is not until we frankly and fairly acknow ledge that p rogress, however beneficial in the long run, has dangers peculiar to itself—ot which a laxity of public morals is one—that we shall be in a position either to deal with this terrible evil, or to draw all the good we otherwise might from this " wondrous mother age." With one more specimen of this lady's faulty ways of expressing her views we must conclude. At p. 344 she writes—" Every girl " ought to be taught that a hasty, loveless " union stamps upon her as foul dishonour as " one of those connections which omit the legal " ceremony altogether." Now this is truly a most mischievous sentence. It confounds the distinction between transgression of a natural law and transgression of a positive law, and the moment we do this we open the door to license of every description. It is saying, in fact, that a good concubine is no worse than a bad wife—and we need not tell the authoress the use to which such implied sanction can be converted. As we believe the author of " John Halifax" to be an earnest and conscientious person, we sincerely itrust that the above observations will be taken in good part. We have not in tended them to be bitter, and we hope they will not be so felt. But a writer so calculated to be useful in her generation will be watched with peculiar solicitude--any false step will be clamorously exposed—any symptoms of decline most grievously deplored; and such must be our excuse for having written of so gifted an authoress in terms we would give much to be able to modify. The Boscobel Tracts, relating to the Escape of Charles 11. after the Battle of Worcester. Edited by J. Hughes, Esq., A.M. Second Edition. London : Blackwoods. BURKE was too severe, perhaps, when he said " that Charles IL had no qualities whatever ex• " cept an easy temper and the pleasant man " ners of a gentleman." It is admitted certainly that he had the " manners" of a gentleman : ho was easy, affable, and courteous, with much superficial good nature ; he presumed little on his station, and he was familiar with his com panions and dependants ; but he had no self respect—no sense of the a dignity of' King of E ng land—and, unlike Henry IV. and other celebrated men of pleasure, Charles 11. made no amends for his excesses ; his friendship could not be relied on, and his enmity was not ' lofty or heroic.