The Press. — London, England, 1856-03-08 00:00:00

234 arrested, it seems, on a charge of high treason, and detained in prison for a considerable period while the Dutch judges pretended to examine his case. As tar as we can tell, he might have been there till now, had he not at length contrived to escape in the disguise of a Dutchman. The great fault of the narrative is this extreme confusedness. It seems to have neither beginning, middle, nor end ; and from the account of his prison life it is totally impossible to glean anything to lay before our readers succinctly. We have an account of an execution, and an accouneof a flogging, both sufficiently brutal; and these are really the only two salient points that have remained in our mind. ‘Ve are pleased to find that our author does full justice to the two Englishmen whose names are now so famous throughout the Sunda Islands—Sir Stamford Raffles and Sir James Brooke, who are both objects of great dislike to the Dutch. The latter seem to stand in dread of English and American inter ference ; and it is quite possible that they may regard with jealousy and suspicion the results of Sir Stamford Raffles' endeavour to ameli orate the condition of the Malays. When gaming, cock fighting, and duelling occupied all their attention, they were not so likely to question the policy of their governors ; while, on the other hand, piracy may perhaps afford a vent for turbulent spirits not wholly disagree• able to the ruling minority. One of the most spirited scenes in the book is the account of a capture by pirates; but it is too long fur an extract, and too good to be curtailed. William Penn. An Historical Biography. New Edition. With a New Preface, in Reply to the Accusation of . Mr. Macaulay. By Hepworth Dixon. London : Chapman and Hall. MR. MACAULAY is an excellent judge of human nature, and knows that mankind are great believers in general statements when advanced in a solemn and confident manner. He often takes advantage of this credulity to give to actions and events of a perfectly neutral cha racter the colouring that suits his purpose— knowing that a far larger class of minds will be likely to question the fact itself, which will probably be true, than to investigate the cha racter he gives to it, which will most likely be false. Among many others who have been caught in the same trap is Mr. Hepworth Dixon. Mr. Macaulay is too shrewd a tac tician to commit the blunders which Mr. Dixon attributes to him neither his facts nor his reasoning admit of that complete reversal which this gentleman imagines himself to have achieved. Really to expose him we must search for the general principle involved in his charges, and discover the absurdity of that. There is, however, one accusation in favour of which we must make an exception. Mr. Macaulay has charged Penn with having extorted money from the Taunton girls fur the benefit of the Maids of Honour. This particular calumny Mr. Dixon has, it seems, triumphantly refuted. The man so employed was one tieorge Penne, a notorious pardon broker ; and we certainly think that Mr. Macaulay was bound in honour, either to with draw his own assertion, or to rebut his oppo nest's. The historian has allowed judgment to go by default, and thereby stands convicted of a most, grass and culpable error. • The only other serious charge in the whole list is that of his having "told Lord Sidney something very " like a lie, and confirmed it with something " very like an oath." The truth of this charge depends completely on one construction of certain very equivocal sentences in Lord Sid ney's letter to King William. Penn protested, " before God," that he knew of no plot. Sidney then goes on to say : To the letters that were found with my Lord Preston, and the paper of the conference, he would not give any positive answer, but said if he could have the honour to see the King, and that he would be pleased to believe the sincerity of what he saith, and pardon the ingenuity of what he confessed, he would freely tell everything he knew of himself, and other things that would be much for his Majesty's service and interest to know, but if he cannot obtain this favour he must be obliged to quit the kingdom ; which he is very unwilling to do. THE PRESS. Mr. Macaulay says, " He [Sidney] asked how, " if there were no plot, the letters and minutes " which were found upon Ashton, were to be " explained ? This question Penn evaded." Mr. Dixon says, " Sidney does not say that he " asked how the letters and minutes found on " Ashton were to be explained." Surely this is trifling. Lord Sidney certainly does not use those words, but he as certainly implies that he asked the question in some shape. " He would not give any positive answer." To what? How does Mr. Dixon explain these words, except on the hypothesis that some such question had been put? But even if it had not been asked—and we have every reason to suppose that it was—the charge of perjury would not have been touched. The question is, did a knowledge of Preston's and Ashton's papers necessitate a knowledge of the plot? And had Penn that knowledge of their papers ? Neither of these two points are decided ; but until they are, Mr. Macaulay's accusation is as groundless as Mr. Dixon's defence is feeble. The other six charges are in our opinion utterly frivolous. Mr. Dixon labours hard to make them formidable : Among the persons whom he wished to conciliate was William Kitfin, a pious and good man, a leader among his sect, and a controversialist, with whom Penn had debated in public the most subtle dogmas in theology. James offered a city magistracy to Kittin ; but two of his grand sons had fallen in the western rebellion : their death had wounded the old man's heart ; and it was doubtful whether he would accept the proffered honours. At this point Mr. Macaulay introduces Penn:— The heartless and veunl sycophants of Whitehall, judging by themselves, thought that the old man would be easily propitiated by an alderman's gown, and by some compensation in money fur the property which his grandsons had forfeited. Penn was employed in the work of seduction, but to no purpose. In his autobiography, lately published from the original manuscript, Kiffin says : In a little after, a great temptation attended me, which was a commission from the King to be one of the aldermen of the City of Londoc • which, as soon as I heard of it, I used all the diligence 1 could to be excused, both by some lords near the King, and also by Sir Nicholas Butler and Mr. Penn. But it was all in vain. Penn did not go to Kiffin ; Kiffin went to Penn. Instead of being employed by the King or by the Court in the work of seduction, he was engaged at the instance of Kiffin himself in the task of intercession. Mr. Macaulay makes Kiffin refuse the magistracy ; Kittin says he accepted it. What does all this amount to ? James wished to conciliate the Dissenters, and many of the Dissenters doubtless believed in the sincerity of his professions. Penn was sent to treat with one of their leaders. Why not? But Mr. Macaulay entitles it a work of seduction ; and his commentator, at once swallowing the phrase, proceeds to disprove the fact. He is not very successful, for it by no means follows, because Kiffin asked Penn to get him excused the gown, that Penn might not first have asked Kiffin to accept it. The charge of his having been employed to " terrify, bribe, or caress the fellows of Mag " dalene " is of the same description, and answered by Mr. Dixon in a similar fashion. Mr. Dixon's comments on Penn's reputed Jacobitism are of a piece with the rest. Here is an extract from a letter which Avaux, Louis the Fourteenth's agent at Dublin, wrote to his master : Le commencement des nonvelles datees d'Angleterre, est la copie d'une lettre de M. Pen que j'ay veue en ori ginal. On pent juger pars tout ces ►nemoires que si Sa Maieste Britannique estoit en estst d'entrer en Angleterre elle recouvreroit bientost cette courunne, mais it ne le peut sans la protection de vostre Maieste, que verra mieux que moy par ces relations cy, ce qu'il y sunlit a faire, pour le Roy d'Angleterre, si neantmoins vostre Ma►este me permet de luy diro mon sentiment, je trouve qu'un secours d'argent avec un bon corps de troupes Francoises, est le plus court moyen qu'il y ait de remettre le Roy &Angle terra en estst de se restablir sur le throsne, et cet effort qu'onferoit a cette heure, delivreroit vostre Maieste dans la suitte d'une plus grands despense qu'elle sera peutestre obligee de faire. A Frenchman employed in the Jacobite cause, writing to his own Court, says that he has received a letter which has induced him to make certain reflections. The letter must have contained something to give rise to them : it can hardly have been a dissuasion from the measure indicated. For Penn was a man of ability, and all King James's adherents pos sessed of the least common sense had only one conviction on the subject. But, suppose we admit the accusation that Penn " did his " best to bring a foreign army into the heart " of his country," is this necessarily a crime ? Mr. Dixon, led away as usual by an imposing SATURDAY, generality, taxes his ingenuity to wrest their obvious meaning from the words of Avaux's letter. A readier answer was at hand. IN not the Whigs themselves bring a foreign army into the heart of their country? Was not the hero of Mr. Macaulay's epic at the head of it? Did not the French Legitimists—who, whatever we may think of their cause, were individually men of honour and spirit—bring a foreign army into the heart of their country ; Did not the Spanish Liberals, with the sane tion of the English Whigs, introduce a foreign army into the heart of their country? Alr. Macaulay must know very well, if Mr. Dixon does not, that his words are mere high -sound. ing nonsense, that cannot be seriously main. tained for a moment. We have left ourselves no space for criticism of the life of Penn. It is, however, now well known to the public, and we have much plea sure in recording our sense of its value. It is well written, and the narrative interesting and not too long. PERIODICAL LITERATURE. Blackwood this month contains less light literature than usual. The opening article is on Liddell's " History of Rome,"—not a very remarkable paper. " Monteil " is an interesting antiquarian article, being a review of a work entitled " History of the French of Various Conditions," by Amens Alexis Monteil, written in the beginning of the present century. The work extends over the five last cen turies, and is a curious repository of old feudal customs. " Biography Run Mad "is a well merited flagellation of the two recent biographies of Horace Greely and James Gordon Bennet. The peculiari ties of modern biography generally are exposed with much ingenuity. The two next articles relate to two subjects of paramount interest in the Eastern and Western hemispheres—the Greek Church, and Nicaragua. The [first is well written, though we could wish important questions of doctrine and prac tice had been less summarily treated. The second accepts the filibustering settlement in Central America as an unalterable fact, and one likely to prove beneficial to the whole region. But certainly, as far as the violation of treaties is concerned, :he Americans must hold their tongues if they even tacitly sanction Colonel Walker's proceedings. The article on Sydney Smith is the best which has yet appeared on the subject. The writer determines that he was rather the man of letters than the clergy man—more full of fua than of wit—a more powerful expounder of the practical and the expedient than of the right. The following sentences exactly express the character of his reasoning : The Plyruley Letters, for instance, never touch upon the soul of the question they discuss. So far as they go, they are admirably clear and pointed—a distinct and powerful exposition of all the phases of expediency; but there they pause, and go no farther. The argument touches only things external, inducements and consequences. These are stated so forcibly and clearly that we tio not wonder at their immediate effect and popularity; fur the common mind is easily swayed by reasoning of this practical and tangible description, and it is impossible to misunderstand so undeniable a statement of advantage and disadvantage. But the grand principles on either side of the question — the old lofty notion of a Christian nation, and the unty it owed to God, on the one hand, and the rights of conscience and individual belief upon the other—fiud no place in the plea. And again : The argumentuin ad hontinem is the soul of Sydney s philosophy. You are sure ot' a Imme•thrust, positive and unevadable, when you enter into discussion with this most practical of understandings. Perhaps you do not agree with him ; very probably to your thinking there are prin. ciples involved of more importance than these obvious safeties or dangers ; but the nature of his implements gives him force and precision; he never strikes vaguely: his sword is no visionary sword, but a most English and most evident weapon—sheer steel. The article on Scottish fisheries will be perused with interest, even by non-professional readers ; and the two concluding essays on Life Peerages, though not going very deeply into the subject, yet discuss it in a right spirit, and with legal precision. Eraser opens with an elaborate comparison be tween Sir B. Lytton's " Caxtons," and Stems _ "Tristram Shandy." The article is a good deal talked of, but contains nothing that was not sa id years ago when the " Caxtons " was first published. " Kate Coventry" is good, of course. But the fox hunt is rather too mere a repetition of the same thing in " Digby Grand," and the declaration of the shy man, Squire Haycock, strikes one as slightly premature. Kate is also, we are afraid, becoming little too "'tray." There is an interesting article on. "Hudibras," with some specimens of French an d Latin translations; and a sensible essay on the Conferences, from which we extract the following remarks