The Press. — London, England, 1858-03-13 00:00:00

yittraturt. The Descendants of the Stuarts. An Unchro nicled Page iu England's History. By William Townend. Loudon : Lon ;mans. WHAT is the secret of that romantic interest which has for ever clung around the House of Stuart? Other banished races have struggled and fallen, and sank into insignificance or contempt. But the Stuarts were never con temptible, and will never while the English nation endures fail to awaken in many an English heart emotions of sympathy and affec tion. Something, no doubt, is attributable to the rare fidelity and highminded devotion of their adherents, which we cannot believe to have been wasted on wholly unworthy objects —something to the fact that the rise, decline, and fall of the Stuart dynasty are all embraced within that period of modern history when the sentiment of loyalty was at its height—and that in the lingering attachment to the royal exiles we witness the last protest against the materialism of the eighteenth century. But the two most powerful elements in influencing our estimate of the Stuarts are to be found in the personal characteristics of themselves and their successors. The Stuarts possessed just those qualities which help to make misfortune interesting, and the Guelphs possessed just those qualities which render prosperity odious. On the one hand were personal beauty and courage, dignified courtesy of demeanour, and elegant and accomplished minds ; on the other were physical grossness, unkingly seclu sion, awkwardness and dulnt , s. The Stuarts were more dangerous bl)vereig . ls than the Bour bons, and George I. a inure meficial substi tute than Napoleon; yet the English people would have exchanged George for James with much more alacrity than France displayed in the exchange of Napoleon for Luis. The rea son is that both Napoleon and James were kings, and, with all their faults, possessed those qualities which appeal to the popular imagination. For these reasons Mr. Townend's volume is sure of a welcome from the public, though it is perhaps too purely genealogical to become widely popular. Its pages are not filled with those hairbreadth escapes and thrilling adven tures which we are wont to associate with the family whose history it relates ; nor are we entertained by any profusion of anecdote and intrigue with which the career of the Stuarts is rife. One perplexing passage in the life of " James III." we had long wished to see un ravelled. We mean his life at Paris during the first days of the Regency. Frequent allu sions to this period are to be found in Boling broke, and piquant glimpses of petticoat influence flit across his pages, and are lost again in darkness. " The little house in the Bois de Boulogne " ! Mrs. Olivia Trant, Margery Fielding, and Fanny Oglethorpe, whose fair, false smiles may have changed the fate of these kingdoms! What and who were they ? Stat nominis umbra. But •we know that the Regent himself, not unaccompanied of Abbe, was a constant visitor to these ladies, and that James himself was not deficient in the hereditary wit of his race. St. John, also, in the zenith of his great powers, would be there, we may he sure, to mingle business with Burgundy, and teach the ladies how, if they played their cards well, they might yet be the ornaments of Whitehall. Oh the dalliance and the wit, The flattery and the strife. Could Mr. Townend have restored us such scenes as these his volume would not only have earned a place in the front rank of litera ture, but have formed a valuable contribution to the secret history of the eighteenth century. But these things are not in Mr. Townend's way. His work is careful and useful, and we are very glad it has been executed. He pos sesses many qualifications for the task. He is Impartial, he is a good Protestant, and in poli tics inclines to be liberal. His testimony, therefore, to the merits of the Stuart kings is, to say the least of it, unprejudiced ; and we shall presently present our readers with some specimens of his reasoning on this subject. But liis styte ls heavy, and his whole work THE PRESS, MARCH 13, 1858, bears the impress rather of earnest research than of literary ability. "The Descendants of the Stuarts" may be divided into three branches. The first, or most remote, coming down from Elizabeth of Bo hemia, daughter of James 1., is represented by her Majesty Queen Victoria. The third, or most direct, became extinct in the person of Cardinal York, younger brother of Prince Charles Edward, who died at Rome 1807. And the second, descending from Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, daughter of Charles 1., is now represented by Francis, Duke of Modena, who is thus, in the high legitimist sense, the head of the House of Stuart, and King dejure of England. It was a rather curious combination of cir cumstances under which the Electorate of ' Hanover became a portion of the British do minions. Elizabeth of Bohemia had thirteen children, of whom Sophia was the youngest. Sophia's husband, Ernest Augustus, Bishop of Osnabruck, was the youngest brother of the Duke of Hanover, and had three brothers betw sen himself and the succession. The chances that all these four should die without issue on the one hand, and that the twelve brothers and sisters of Sophia should either die or be disqualified for the English crown on the other, were too small to enter into the calculations of any but a madman. Yet so it was. All the surviving children of Elizabeth, except Sophia, became Roman Catholics, which left the English Parliament no choice but the youngest; and the brothers of the Bishop dropping off oue after another, left him at last in possession of the Duchy, which in 1692 was couverted into an Elec torate. Sophia had a narrow escape of being Queen of England, a glory of which she was particularly ambitious, and often declared " that could she live to have ' Sophia, Queen " of England,' inscribed on her coffin, she " should die content." She died only six weeks before Queen Anne, whilst walking in the gardens of her palace at Herenhausen : It was a stormy day, and the Electress being caught in a shower of rain, hastened to retrace her homeward steps, when on entering the palace she was observed to stagger and suddenly fall forwards ; her attendants hastened to her aid, but in vain ; her spirit had fled its earthly mansion, almost before, her retainers were aware she was attacked ; her advanced age, for she was eighty-four, renders it less surprising she should never have rallied. We must here take the opportunity of pointing out that Mr. Townend has not done full justice to the character of Charles Louis, the Elector Palatine, and brother of Sophia. He was a great patron of learning, was sufficiently in advance of his age to set a high value upon Grotius, and founded a professorship at Heidelburg for the study of international law, making Puffendorf his first professor. Henrietta, the clever and beautiful sister of Charles H., born at Exeter in 1644, and smuggled into France by the help of her governess, Lady Dalkeith, was married at the age of sixteen to the Duke of Orleans, only brother of Louis XIV. Her end was tragic. She was poisoned by one of her husband's friends, whose banishment was attributed to her influence, and expired on the 29th of June, 1670 : The English ambassador, Sir Ralph Montagne, being admitted, she desired the moat loving messages to her brother Charles IL, saying, " Yon see the sad condition I am in, I am going to die ; how I pity the king, my brother, for I am sure he loses the person in the world that loves him best." That the fair sufferer had evinced this affec tion by presenting the object of it with one of the prettiest of her maids of honour as a mistress, is perhaps only attributable to the manners of the period, and requires no further comment. Henrietta left only two children, both daughters, of whom the elder died childless and the younger married (April 10, 1684) Vic tor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, and first King of Sardinia. Thus the direct representation of the House of Stuart passed into that famous House which has exhibited for six hundred years an unbroken line of able and heroic princes. The Kings of Sardinia continued to be the heads of the House of Stuart till 1831, when the last male heir of Victor Amadeus died without male issue, and the Crown re verted to a junior branch of the House of Savoy. But a daughter of that Emanuel who died in 1824 married IV., Duke of Modena. Her eldc 1819) is now Francis V., Duke has at present no children; son, Victor, who died in 1849, daughter, born in the same year. Theresa, presumptive heiress Modena and to the represent House of Stuart—an admirable Prince of Wales if the religious be surmounted. The followin L the House of Modena are very interesting : The richness of the Duke of Modena's pretensions is unrivalled by any other which will be perceived when we state, Modena himself is the representative niece, Mary Theresa, the next in succession, heiress; while his elder sister, Theresa, a • V. (Comte de Chambord), is titular Queen his younger, Mary, married to Don John of Charles VI. (Conde de Montemolin) tensions of tha► prince to the Spanish sions which, if recent occurrences may will shortly be changed into realities. Ii serve that the lineal heirs to the three f in Europe, Great Britain, France, and found in the House of Modena ; but it to note, tbat had not the Stuarts and spect!vely superseded in England countries would probably have been under the sway of the Count and Countess (the latter being ' heiress to her brother niece, the Princess Mary Theresa) ; and the latter without issue, England and have been united under the regality of 1 Mary. It can excite no surprise that, lineal pretensions, the Duke of Modena almost the only European potentate who nise the sovereignty of Louis Philippe: family depending more on their lofty sullied descent, than the position they sovereigns of a petty Italian Duchy. In Mr. Townend's general Revolution of 1688, extending to page 85, we fully concur. Sol pressions may be overstrained, his eulogies excessive ; but his the !main are sound, though quiring qualification—as for instance, ho says:—" The truth is, the " were infinitely in advance of " ideas; they acted more 'in " the received maxims of the " those of their own day. They . " with their neighbours, and left " unsaddled with debt." No _ misfortune was that, while ahead in the science of politics, they in the art of governing—that did not comprehend the political the period—they did not see narchy was to be succeeded by a constitutional, and not, tinent, by an absolute regime. to them that they did not see was the case. And the consequent their advanced maxims of policy their destruction more certain. plunged energetically into cons they might have governed as home. That much is admitted But they knew the true interests better ; and it is most remarkable, Townend observes, how completely ' of the present day—i.e., peace alliance—justifies the system Stuarts have been so much condemned. We had intended to give a from this portion of the work, is drawing to a close, and we to add that, in his refutation lay's calumnies, and in the mendacious panegyrics, Mr. done good service to history, and self an independent thinker as rious inquirer. The Life of Mahoniet and History to the Era of the Hegira. Muir, Esq , Bombay Civil Service. Smith and Elder. THIS work is not of a " popular' and it is addressed chiefly to and professed Orientalists. II good matter, and the author fully some branches of his important subje, the work, as far as it has yet proceeded , more like an inquiry upon the li than a. complete exhibition of ighter of that King Victor l in 1824 married Francis ma. Her eldest son (bora 3iB V., Duke of Modena, who children; but her younger died in 1849, has left a the same year, named Maria ive heiress to the Duchy of the representation of the an admirable match for the the religious difficulty could The following remarks on Jena are very curious and )uke of Modena's family in lineal 11 by any other dynasty in Europe, when we state, that the Duke of representative of Charles f., his he next in succession, being his r sister, Theresa, married to Henry d), is titular Queen of France ; and rried to Don John of Spain, brother de Montemolin), inherits the pre. to the Spanish monarchy, preten. occurrences may be judged from, into realities. It is curious to ob- irs to the three greatest kingdoms lin, France, and Spain, are to be Modena ; but it is still more curious le Stuarts and Bourbons been re- in England and France, these bly have been temporarily united Count and Conntess of Chambord as to her brother after her little ry Theresa) ; and on the decease of England and Spain would then r the regality of her younger sister, lo surprise that, with these high Duke of Modena should have been tan potentate who refused to recag- Louis Philippe ; the grandeur of his on their lofty pedigree and nn• e position they actually inherit as Alien Duchy. d's general estimate of the 18, extending from page 40 y concur. Some of his ex- overstrained, and some of sive ; but his conclusions in nd, though occasionally re- on—as for instance, page 80, ruth is, the Stuart princes n advance of the age in their 3d more `in consonance with Biros of the present era than rn day. They lived in amity tbours, and left the country debt." No doubt; but the tat, while ahead of their age politics, they were behind it rning—that is to say, they nd the political situation of lid not see that feudal mo- succeeded in this country 1, and not, as on the Con- Ante regime. Small blame did not see it. But such I the consequence was that elites of policy only rendered more certain. Had they - Ally into continental war, governed as they pleased at h is admitted by Dr. Arnold. e true interests of England most remarkable, as Mr. s, how completely the policy r —i.e., peace and the French the system for which the so much condemned. ed to give a longer extract of the work, but our space )se, and we have only room refutation of Lord Macau- Ind in the exposure of his gyrics, Mr. Townend has to history, and proved him- it thinker as well as a labo• met and History of Islam, the Hegira. By William ;bay Civil Service. London pr. of a " popular" character, I chiefly to general scholars ?.ntalists. It contains much the author is fully equal to his important subject. But it has yet proceeded, reads ry upon the life of Mahoraet exhibition of We duo-actor 256