The Press.
London, England, 1855-03-10 00:00:00

MARCH 10, 1855.

should not have had the much-contested ques-
tion about the Wandsworth churchwardens of
" What is an Esquire? " The compiler of the
handbook says that the last proceedings of
this court " are supposed to have been taken
" in 1631, though there is a case reported in
" the reign of Anne of an attempt to revive
" the functions of the court." We do not
know of any such futile attempt; and the
petitioner in the reign of Anne must have
been very badly advised not to know that the
court was abolished in the second Parliament
of Charles 1., on the motion of Edward Hyde,
the famous Clarendon, who was then a popular
law-reforming barrister.
The " Heralds College" is dismissed, and
properly, with a few lines. Such an institu-
tion was once of service in the tracing of
descents and the decision of rank, but who-
ever wishes to see its present mysterious dis-
pensations of arms need only glance at the
armorial bearings of some of " the coming
" aristocracy," as blazoned on their carriage-
panels at a horticultural fête in the Regent's-
park, and he needs no better illustration of
Horace's dolphin swimming in the woods.
Old Gwillim, the Herald, would have died
of the exhibition.
W e can hardly agree with the classification
which places the peerage with the " Baronet
" age, Orders of Knighthood, and other Hono-
" racy Distinctions." The institution is only
like those with which it is classed in the pos-
session of title—the others were not created
with the same end or purpose, and the legisla-
tive functions of the peerage are the
very essence of its existence. The on
guild power of the House of Lords in
the Legislature is traceable by record no
farther than the origin of the entire Legisla-
ture, which seems essentially to have existed
almost in its present condition--namely, with
the assistance of the Commons. The earliest
statute is the 15th Edw. 11., where it is
declared as law that " the matters to be estab-
" fished for the estate of the realm and of the
" people should be treated, established, and
" accorded in Parliament by the King, and by
" assent of the prelates, earls, and barons, and
" the commonalty of the realm, according as
" had been before accustomed." There is cer-
t tinly nothing here to point out the difference
of a taxing power between the two estates.
We can hardly think that much useful in-
formation can be found in mere theories
as to the duties of the various branches
of the Legislature. That assigned here
to the House of Commons would be as
little admitted by the Chartists, as the
Peers would admit it as applied to the Long
Parliament : " It's province is to maintain
" the liberties of the people." It would seem
that the " Commonalty," generally supposed to
be the origin of the present House of Commons,
had little right to interfere in legislation, other
than by petition, in an earlier history. The
old statutes begin " Prayen the Commons,"
and go on to enact, as though the statute came
rather by suggestion from the Commons than
with legislative force. The theory that both
houses sat together is sufficiently disproved
by the fact, that when, in 1283, Edward I.
held his Parliament at Shrewsbury, the Lords
sat in a castle and the Commons in. a ba rn—
an arrangement much more suggestive of the
Commons being petitioners than legislators.
It is certain that the first writ of summons for
knights and burgesses, of which we have even
a suggestion, is in the forty-ninth year of
Henry III.; and that the true greatness
of the House of Commons began to ap-
pear with the decline of the Tudors, was
greatly damaged in progress by the excesses
of the Long Parliament, revived again by the
fear of popery which pervaded the country
after the Restoration, and was finally estab-
lished at the accession of William 111. Its
power and position, and the consequent. cur-
tailment of the prerogative, make th.e title of
" Venetian Constitution" more applicable to
the nature of our Government than me re names
could seem at first to express. There is one cu-
rious fact incident to the House of Commons ,
that the clerk of the house who reads their
acts, and the sergeant-at-arms who eff
Crown
the ectuates
their orders, are both appointed by
—a remnant of the same ancient royal power

THE PRESS.

which once made the approval of the Spoiler
more than a mere ceremony.
Some useful information will be found in
the ecclesiastical portion of this handbook,
especially on the much-misrepresented sub-
ject of the enormous wealth of the Church.
We doubt whether, properly, the duties of
a bishop can find a place in an official hand-
book, but we must accord to the ecclesiastical
division very sincere praise as a well-condensed
account of the Church constitution. The state
of the Ecclesiastical Courts is useless to our ju-
risprudence, expensive and inconvenient to the
Church,oppressive to the people, and the fruitful
source of scandal in the mouths of those who
have no . scruple in representing a state of
affairs which is truly the fault of the House of
Commove, as the very nature of the Church
itself. In one portion of this subject at least
an attempt was made in Lord Derby's short
Administration to ameliorate the present state
of these courts, but by the resignation of the
Cabinet it fell to the ground, and since then
nothing of importance has been done in the
matter. In this department we are favored with
the form of the conga (retire, the reading of
which certainly justifies Dr. Johnson's de-
scription, that it is " throwing a man out of a
" second-floor window, and giving him permis-
" sion to fall softly."
The origin of the " Cabinet Council" is
clearly traceable to Sir William Temple's pro-
ject submitted to Charles 11. on the fall of
Danby, and about which Sir William so pathe
tically complains, that a plan devised to ex-
clude Shaftesbury should have failed so sadly
that it added to his power and importance. It
is curious to read that the project at the time
was denounced as the creation of a new estate
of the realm, and was recommended to Charles
by the fact that members of the new Council
should be of " such substance," that " on a
" pinch" they could lend the King 200,0001.,
which " pinch" Charles no doubt anticipated
would very speedily arise.
The catalogue raisonnhe of the Chief Minis-
ter of State is generally accurate and satisfac-
tory, though the badly-defined limits of duty
in the English executive leads to the para-
doxical result that the various departments
are perpetually both interfering and refusing
to interfere in the province of each other. The
title of " Prime Minister" is one rather col-
loqually given than actually existing. Lord
North, as his daughter wrote to Lord Brougham,
would never permit it to be applied to him,
declaring that it was unknown to our Consti-
tution, in which all Ministers were equally re-
sponsible for their advice to the Crown. In
fact, however, the statesman commissioned by
the sovereign is held responsible for his ap-
pointees, and is as much a Prime Minister as
though he had the office expressed in a
patent.
The " Irish Government," now reduced to
only a few officials, affords a chapter in which,
by the way, there is a slight misapprehension
as to the viceroyalty. The title of " Lord
" Deputy," was only applied to the person
appointed deputy to the "Lord Lieutenant-
" General, and General Governor." It was not
an office granted except when a Lord Lieute-
nant also existed. With respect to the Irish
Viceroy's power of conferring knighthood, we
believe that it arose when the Lords Lieute
nant and Deputy took the field and exercised
it, like other commanders, to make bannerets
iu time of war, a power exercised so lately as
by Montrose almost as represented in Sir
Walter's " Legend."
A very valuable part of this work relates to
the minor public offices—as the State Paper-
office, the Record-office, &c., to which persons
find it difficult to obtain access. There is also
a full account of the Colonial Department,
the Government of Scotland, and even the
Isle of Man. On the whole, " Murray's Offi-
cial Handbook" is a work much needed, and
well executed, fully redeeming the promise of
the titlepage. All persons in public life, or
who wish to have a correct knowledge of
English politics, can resort to it with con
fidence and satisfaction.

Every Man his Own Printer; or, Lithography Made
Easy. London : Waterlow and Sons.
A useful handbook to the acquirement of the art of
lithography by means of the autographic press, an

invention similar but more simple than the litho-
graphic press. The whole art of lithography is here
explained in a few pages and made thoroughly easy to
the artist or the amateur. Specimens of pen and ►nk
and chalk drawings and engrav►ngs upon stone speak
highly for the powers of the autographic press. The
chalk drawing is particularly soft and the tints are
well rendered, but the line drawings are certainly
not equal to those produced by the lithographic press.

The Alpha; or, the First Principle of the Hunan
Mind. Second Edition. By E. N. Dennys.
Loudon : Clarke and Beeton.
Is this work strange doctrines are appropriately set
forth in startling type, and eccentricities of principle
and printing lend mutual assistance to each other.
The author attempts to establish the old theory that
" Ignorance " is the sole cause of " vice," abolishing
in large capitals, and to his own satisfaction, the very
inconvenient distinction between crime and error,
and removing by the simple machinery of vision
(which reveals the doctrines), and a reverie (which
confirms them), the great landmarks which
moralists and legislators have set up for the
safety and protection of mankind. As a specimen
of Mr. Dennys' logic, we may quote the assertion
that " the number of those crimes committed
"in pure despite of right convictions are (sic)
" very insignificant in their amount," made in the
very teeth of the principle which his work has been
written to establish. His metaphysics are fairly
represented by the two incidental remarks that" an
" inadequacy of knowledge is vice—namely, the
" cause of it," in which he inconceivably confounds
cause and effect, hitherto pretty generally held to
be distinguished, at least, by a difference of time;
and that " übiquity, omnipotence, omniscience,
" eternity, are not mysteries," meaning, we suppose,
that these forms of the infinite are capable of being
adequately conceived or imagined. As a sample of
his acquaintance with philosophical terminology, he
confounds by implication the definitions with the
axioms of geometry, and makes " all truths neces-
sary." Among minor absurdities he gives as a reason
for our preference of curves to straight lines, from
an iesthetic point of view, the fact, " that man can-
" not comprehend infinity" (this fact being, by the
way, in contradiction to his peculiar views of eter-
nity, &c.), apparently having no idea of the exist-
ence of any curve but a " closed" one. Did Mr.
Dennys ever hear of a " parabola?" The hook is only
of use as affording to the reader a mental gymnastic
in the detection and refutation of its numerous
, errors and absurdities.

A Beginning Without an End. An Allegory. By M.
A. E. C. Robert. London : liardwicke.
WE were not sorry to discover the end to this begin-
ning within the moderate compass of 144 large•typed
pages. We tear that the earnestness of the writer
is after all wasted upon an allegory to prove the im-
mortality of the soul.

Soldiers and Sailors in Peace and as in War. By
Herbert Byng Hall, K.S.F. London: Chapman
and Hall.
SOME pleasant little stories of the two services. The
story of the "Bivouac " is evidently written with the
purpose of showing how much the man from the
ranks appreciates a commission as a reward for his
bravery. The stories are well told, and the scenes
graphically described, but we are rather surprised
that a military man should repeat that old story about
" Up, Guards, and at them," which the Duke was
heard to deny more than once. The proceeds of the
sale are to be given to the Patriotic Fund.

Landmarks of the History of England. By the Rev.
James White. " The Useful Library." London:
Routledge.
Mn. WHITE'S " Landmarks," originally given as
a series of lectures at the Mechanics' Institute at
Bonchurch, are more sketches of persons than
periods, written in an easy colloquial style. As en-
tertaining illustrations of the history of England from
the Roman invasion to our own times, Mr. White's
volume has fair claims to public favour.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
!woad.
Nature and Human Nature. Hurst and 111ftekett.
IVorlds beyond the Earth. M. L. Philips.
Annotated Edition of the English Poets, 'Chaucer -
..
W. Parker and Soo.
Vol. J
Military Forces of Great Britain. H. B. Thomson.
Smith and Elder.
Stratford Shakepere. Vol. VI. C. Knight. Hodge n.
History of the War. Sampson Low and Co.
Discourses on Lost Things. Rev. J. Cochrane.
Hall, Virtue, and Co.

Clytemnestra, and other Poenu. 0. Meredith.
Chapman and Hall.
&outl
Our Heroes in the Crimea. et::
Wo(fert'.. Boost. W. Irving.
The Oakkn Colony. U. H. Wathen. Longman and Co.