The Press.
London, England, 1857-05-23 00:00:00

ELECTION PETITIONS.

THE Globe of last night publishes the following as a
correct list of all the petitions, and by whom pre-
sented, with reference to the general election of
1857 :

MAYO—Lieutenant Colonel Higgins. CAMBRIDGE,
BOROUGH—Robert A. Shafto Adair, Esq. ATHLONE—
Hon. H. Handcock. HUNTINGDON, COUNTY—Edward Fel-
lowes, Esq. ROCHDALE—EIectors. SLlGo—Right Hon.
J. A. Wynne. PONTEFRACT—Benjamin Oliveira. WARE.
HAM—J. S. W. S. Erie Drax, Esq. MARLBOROUGH—W.
D. Lewis, Esq. GREAT YARMOUTH—EIectors. WARE.
SlAM—Electors. MAIDSTONE—EIectors. SUNDERLAND—
Electors. MALDON—G. M. W. Peacocke. OxFoan—
Electors. ATHLONE—Electors. TEWKESBURY—EIectors.
Smoo—Electors. LANARK—George Were Irving. TOT-
NESS—J. Thompson Mackenzie, Esq. BURY—Electors.
LElTRlM—Electors. BEVERLEY William Wells, Esq.
TAUNTON—Electors. FINSBURY —Electors. LAMBETH--
Electors. IlonmlN—Electors. DovEH—Electors.
MOUTH—G. M. Butt, Esq. GALWAY—Electors. BATH—
Arthur Edwin Way. CAsHEL—Electors. MALDON—
Stephen Clarke and others. LANARK—Alexander Dundas
Ross Wishart Baiilia Cochrane. WEYMOUTH—EIectors.
BRIDPORT—WiIIiam Unwin Heygate, Esq. IPSWICH—
Henry John Selwyn, and Henry Oxford and others. FAL-
KIRK—WiIIiam Forbes, Esq., and James Russell, jun.,
Esq. CLARE—Sir John Forster Fitzgerald. DitoottEDA
—Francis Brodigan, Esq., and Henry Bagnell and others.
SLIGO, COUNTY—Electors. HUNTINGDON—CharIes Lewin,
Jonathan Rogers, and John Moyer Heatbcote, Esq. ATH-
LONE—John PETEnnoaocoH—aeorge Ham-
mond Whalley, Esq. BEVERLEY—Thomas Southwick and
John Ramahaw. SLloo—Thomas Cowan and Patrick Far-
mil. QUEEN'S COUNTY—Electors. PORTSMOUTH—Thomas
Ellis Owen and Electors. TAUNTON—Electors. Ipswicir
—Electors. CHATHAM—Electors. LYMlNoToN—Electors.
SANDWICH—EIectors. BIM-WORT—Electors. GLOUCESTER,
—Thomas Eycott and James Haines, and Electors. NEw-
CASTLE•UNDER-LYNE --Electors and John Riley, Esq.
STAFFORD, COUNTY—(Northern Division)—Electors.

" Bribery" and " Treating" are the principal
grounds alleged iu most cases.
The Beverley petition against the return of Mr.
Glover (printed yesterday morning) alleges that he
had not the requisite qualifications at the time of his
election. The petition recites that Mr. Glover was
an insolvent debtor in Ireland in 1849, and that sny
property he might be entitled to is vested in the
officer of the Insolvent Court.

Mr. Tile's seat for Bath is claimed by Mr. Way,
who says that the majority of three against him was
colourable only, and was brought about by disquali-
fied persons being permitted to vote. lie also alleges
bribery and treating against the sitting member.

MAY 23, 1857.

:iEi.ttratitrt.

The Memoirs of the Duke of Saint Simon on the
Reign of Louis XI V. and the Regency.
Abridged from the French by Baylo St.
John. First Series. In Two Volumes.
London) Chapman and Hall.

Sr. SIMON is an author oftener quoted than
read in England. His works are voluminous,
and they have been freely used by all the
writers who wished to make a case against the
old French monarchy. Allowing him the
great merit which must always be conceded
to authenticity, and to the privilege of access
to direct sources of information, still we have
been always convinced that St. Simon, us a
writer of memoirs, is overrated. lie did not
write with a classical style, and few passages
of masterly delineation can be selected from
his numerous tomes. He was often too trivial
even for a gossip, and he was prosy as a story-
teller. He had none of the airy delicate fancy
which so charmingly embroiders the graceful
prose of some of the best French memoir-
writers. To philosophy, or the sagacious
thinking of a man of the world, he had little
pretensions. No gleaming rants came from his
tongue or pen; no spirited apostrophes ever
show that there was a genuine human heart
under his court suit ; no pathetic unction, or
stream of 'French sentiment, gives emotion to
his cumbrous and repeatedly involved prose.
Sully's memoirs arc grave and magisterially
dignified, with the tone of high history
stamped upon their pages. The style of the
life of Cardinal de Betz shows unflagging
spirit and the force of audacious genius ; out
St. Simon's performances—garrulous and pon-
derous—are frequently overborne by triviali-
ties. These are great defects, but consider-
able merits more than counterbalance them.

Undoubtedly, St. Simon has as good claims
to being accepted for an authentic witness as
any diarist that we can remember. Ile was
not, like Horace Walpole, a capricious being,
played upon by vanity, personal animosity,
and party feeling; and yet much of that pro-
fusion of detail which is so justly valued in
Walpole is displayed iu St. Simon to the
greatest degree. If he had not the poetry of a
sentimentalist, neither had he the malice of a
satirist. He had too great an awe of the Court
Chamberlain ever to become a censorious
critic, and he had that wholesome and reverent
prejudice in favour of Le Grand Monarque that
an English tradesman has for social " respec-
tability." He was neither a wit nor a thinker,
but a thoroughly conventional courtier of the
ordinary type of his time. He was neither
below nor above his company ; he was of the
Court as well as in it, and we have seen cases
where this distinction has been overlooked.
The reality of his memoirs is, after all, their
highest value.
Yet we must be cautious how, as some
authors have done, we place entire credence
in the picture given by St. Simon of the Court
and Monarchy of France. The lady who has
had no partners will give a sombre account of
the most brilliant ball; the coughed-down
orator will never dilate with fervour on the
oratorical powers of a Disraeli or a Gladstone.
St. Simon did not shine in the army, and in
his days the camp was thronged to excess with
all the gallants of the joyous land of France.
There were, it is vain to deny it, a romantic
passion, a chivalry, a personal heroism, a wor-
ship of the sex, and an admiration for all that
was vivid, passionate, and soaring in that gor-
geous mob of heroes, men of genius, and
women of dazzling grace who surrounded
Louis XIV. The genius of France as it was
then pei sonified, its high society distracted
with ambition and love of pleasure, the vivacity
of its intellect and the polish of its manners,
are to be inferred from St. Simon's pages, but
they are not stamped ou his style nor in-
grained in his records. The picture is cloudy ;
several bright hues of the original were not
even perceived by the artist; his descriptions
do not rise to the first rank of portraiture,
in which the intensity of time individual
expression must be seized. St Simon was
but a small man, though a great Court
chronicler. His knowledge, as far as it went,