The Press.
London, England, 1856-05-31 00:00:00

JAMES I. (OF ENGLAND.)

Mach consequence has been attached to race. and the
tenacity with which it has been supposed to implant its
idiosyncracies in members of the same family, and yet, if
we except his passion for favorites, there was nothing in
the character of the King of Sens to connect him with the
Stuarts. His forefathers, improvident often and luckless
ever had been distinguished for theirpersonal prowess and
their passion for military adventure ; James hated alike
the amusements of the tilt-yard and the more perilous en-
terprises of real warfare. His father, Darnley, and his
mother, the unfortunate Mary, were not only refined in
manners, but bad [peen to the lust degree vain of their
persons and fond of dresses calculated to display them to
advantage; James, on the contrary, was almost filthy in
his habits, and had such an aversion to a change of rai-
ment that even in the palmy days of his future kingdom
he could hardly be persuaded to resign his worn-out ap-
parel, even when its rents and patches made the wearing
it inconsistent with decency. His grandfather, James V.,
was active in civil government, and economical if not
penurious in expenditure. His grandmother, Mary of
Guise, stands conspicuous among the female sovereigns of
the age for her personal energy and mmtal powers. James
hal nothing of all this. He was educated without being
intellectual ; and education but reproduces the thoughts
of others—intellectuality creates its own. Without any
apparent object beyond the mere pleasure of expenditure,
he was profligately extravagant: and was always speaking
of the rights of the Crown without ever really exerting
them. The habits of the age demanded in the high-born
great personal dignity, but James, in defiance alike of
public opinion and what the inherent pride of his family
might have led us to expect, indulged in a familiarity pf

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intercourse with his domestics, and a coarseness of intona-
tion and phraseology, probably scarcely exceeded by the
lowest of his subjects. . . . . The graces of the early
Stuarts reappeared in Charles I.; but in his father their
courtliness, their gallantry, their pride existed not.

ANNE OF DENMARK.
Nature had cast her in its happiest mould. The lofty
forehead, the nose slightly arched, the large dark brown
eyes—dangerous alike when melting with tenderness or
hashing with anger,—the pouting mouth, the short curled
upper lip, the tall, graceful, and well-rounded figure, the
neck, the bust, the waist, each faultless, made her beyond
comparison the handsomest princess of her time. Nor
was the mind inferior to the person. Like most of the
women of high rank of the period, she was an admirable
linguist ; learned in Latin, not unacquainted wi►h German,
intimate with French, and speaking Italian with the same
purity and facility as the language of her own northern
land. To these accomplishments were to be added quick-
nesss of perception, knowledge of character, and felicity of
language. Such was the girl who at sixteen, in all
the brilliancy of her young beauty, had been consigned
to the arms of the dirtiest specimen of humanity in
Christendom.

History of Greece under Othoman and Venetian
Domination, 1453 to 1821. By George
Finlay, LL.D. London: Blackwoods.
MR. FINLAY completes in this volume his
history of Greece under foreign domination.
His subject is extensive, his previous three
volumes being occupied with-1, Greece under
the Romans ; 2, The Byzantine and Greek
Empires ; 3, Medieval Greece and its Con•
quests by the Crusaders and the Turks. In
this fourth division of the work we have a
rapid consecutive sketch of Greece under
Othoman and Venetian domination —so
that the entire work bridges over the space
between the subjugation of Greece two
thousand years ago and the commencement of
the revolution in 1821, by which Greece
finally obtained her independence. The whole
work was originally intended only as an intro-
duetion to a history of the Greek Revolution ;
but the author found his materials grow
on his hands, and as he wrote he became con-
vinced that " in history there is no present "
no present, that is, which can be dissociated
from the past. We are not inclined to criticise
adversely the process which has given to the
public a valuable historical work. Authors are
often mastered by their own designs ; but as
Mr. Finlay is from circumstances peculiarly
fitted to write a history of the Greek Revolu-
tion, we hope he will not forego his inttn-
tion through his introduction having grown
into the proportion of a separate historical
work.

We have previously expressed a high
opinion of the research, the scholarship, and
the literary talent of the author His plan led
him to follow steadily the stream of history,
not to linger by its banks, and hence his narra-
tive is concerned only with events of real
historic importance, and avoids those episodes
which make the histories of particular epochs
so attractive. In the present volume the first
chapter is on that organisation of the Otho•
man empire by which the Greeks were re
tained in subjection ; the tribute of children
exacted from the Christian provinces—one
male out of every twelve—was at once a
source of strength to the governing power and
of weakness to the subjugated countries. The
second chapter relates the naval conquests of
the Turks in Greece, and affords a favorable
example of the author's narrative power.
N•;ver had the Hellenic race fallen so low in
the social scale as while these conquests were
in progress ; the people declined both in
civilisation and numbers. The third chapter,
en the social condition of the Greeks (1453-
1676), shows the degradation resulting from
their bondage :

The darkest night of ignorance covered Greece in the
10th and 17th centuries, and it was then almost as much
forgotten in Christendom as it was neglected by the
Othoman Government.
The unfortunate people were solely solicitous
to save their children from the tribute and
their scanty substance from the exactions of
their conquerors. "At last, poverty, depopu-
" lation, and insecurity of property seemed to
" threaten the Greeks with utter ruin." It
speaks strongly for the vitality of their race
that they were able to survive, and to pre-
serve their nationality through this time of
terrible trial. Their sufferings were in the end
relieved by the extinction of the tribute of

SATURDAY,

children, a concession made not to humanity,
but to an a . prehension that the country would
return to waste through depopulation. The
last recorded exaction of this tribute was in
1676 Chapter four (16841718) relates the
war between Venice and the Porte (during
which the Parthenon was destroyed), and the
period of Venetian domination in Greece. In
chapter five and last (1718-1821) the long
night of Greek distress is relieved by gleams
of light. The people grew out of serfdom ;
they acquired property in the land ; their
numbers increased ; they engaged in commer-
cial enterprise ; their character rose with their
improved condition ; the desire for national
independence became a passion. Mr. Finlay
writes :

The career of the Othoman conquerors in Greece was
now terminated. They were themselves involved in a
struggle to maintain their national existence against poli-
tical anarchy and external attacks. But their domination
in Greece had not been without its use : it had accom-
plished a task which neither the Roman power nor the
Orthodox Church had effected; it had nationalised the
Greeks, and compressed their various communities into
one body. A great cycle in the history of Greece was
completed. The tribe of Othoman had fulfilled its mission
in Hellas, and it was now to depart from the land like the
Romans, the Crusaders, and the Venetians.

'NMI

On many accounts we think this volume the
most valuable Mr. Finlay has yet produced.
It arches over the chasm between the fall of
the Greek empire and the assertion of Greek
nationality on its own proper soil, and collects
all the notices that have been preserved of the
state of the people during the three centuries
and a half that they languished under the
barbarous rule of their conquerors. This
volume has therefore more pretensions to
originality than those previously issued ; the
materials are well arranged, and if it stood
alone as a history of Greece under Othoman
domination, it would be a contribution of un-
doubted worth to historic literature. Mr.
Finlay appears to regard the future of Greece
with hope. The literary progress of the
people is encouraging. They have rescued
their tongue from the confusion in which so
many political mutations had plunged it, and
have thus laid a foundation for intellectual
growth

They have made their spoken and written language an
instrument of national centralisation, distinct from all
provincial dialects, yet intelligible and harmonious to
every Greek.

The whole of Mr. Finlay's last chapter is so
good that we wish he had entered more largely
on the topics it suggests. He is now on the
threshold of modern Greek history; we
hopo he ivill not stop there.

Ismeer ; or, Smyrna and its British Hospital its
1855. By a Lady. London : Madden.

Tins lady volunteer was one of the party who left
London early in March, 1855, for the British
Hospital at Smyrna. She has briefly set down in
this volume the results of her experience, commencing
with her first day's duty on March 20, 1855, and end-
ing with the breakup of the hospital, and her depar-
ture from Smyrna on Ist September following.
There is not much positive novelty in her narrative,
the greater part of it being taken up with mamas
ex:raneous to hospital duties, as the social life of
the Turks and Greeks, but it agreeably confirms all
tat we have previously heard respecting the happy
influence of the ladies' efforts, and the moral power
they exercised over the minds of the sick soldiery.
Here, as in all previous accounts, we find testimony
borne to the necessity of a distinction between the
professional nurses and the ladies. The regulation
costume was abandoned as positively injurious ; it
was throtuli the recognition of the social position of
the ladies that they were enabled to command so
much respect both within and without the hospitll.

•
On the first arrival of the nurses the hospital was
in much confusion, but order was soon attained.
Miss N—, who had one nurse under her charge,
had a division assigned her. At once, and without a
struggle, all feelings of fear, false delicacy, alid
repugnance were vanquished by her womanly sym-
pathy :
The one [divisionl which fell to my lot had from sixty
to eighty patients; and I must say I felt a little strange
just at first on finding myself the only female, save my
nurse, among so many sick soldiers. But how soon self is
forgotten when you are in the midst of sickness and suffer-
ing, and know that people are depending on you for relief.
The fear, horror, and disgust, which would probably affect
an inactive spectator, have not the smallest place in your
mind, and you have but one feeling left—pity, and a desire
to alleviate pain.

MAY 31, 1856.

The nature of the services done by the ladies is
well put in the passage we annex :
I believe we were of use. N:it in the way many people
had a vague idea of at first, i.e. ah it we were to be con-
stantly going about with a pocket full of lint and plaister,
sad a case of surgical instruments, perpetually dressing
w punds (and before that I had a faint vision of this
myself I went to Smyrna), but in seeing the
kind
doctor's orders carried out with discretion, in the spirit as
well as the letter, that nothing was done out of time, over-
done, or neglected, in keeping systematic regularity,
and above all in exercising a marvellous moral influence
over the soldiers. That nurses, people from their own
.lass, should be sent out to attend to them seemed natural
enough ; but that " ladies, real ladies," as they used to say,
should " really " come to see that they were taken good
care of, filled them with surprise: and (for we are all more
or less influenced by these things) the more external indi-
cations of our position were kept up, the more influence
we had with them.

Many touching instances are given of the poor
patients' gratitude. One, while dying, could not bear
to let go the hand of a lady he had elapsed.
" I believe," said a sick boy who had watched the
nurses feeding other patients, "if I had something
" ►rom the hand of a woman, J would get well." One
of the soldiers, Cotterill, was in a fearfully emaciated
state. To the nurse who first attended him he
said, " I believe you're not a human being, but an
angel." The authoress tended him for a time :
One day something had detained me later than usual ;
he beckoned me to him the moment he saw me, and when
I went up he burst into tears and said, " I thought you
were never coming more."

When she was placed in another [division of the
hospital—

He heard it in some way, and cried and sobbed as if his
heart would break. Nothing would ratify him, "he was
going to lose his mother and the lady," and he refused to
be comforted; in two hours afterwards the fountain of his
tears was dried for ever.

The most distressing duties of the hospital were dis-
charged with great cheerfulness. Indeed the ladies
were never so well satisfied as when they had their
bands lull, as may be judged by many passages
like the following :

Our sixty-one patients were now increased by the arrival,
without the slightest intimation, of a transport containing
a hundred and sixty-one sick, on the '•29th of October ; they
were landed at two o'clock in the afternoon. Great was
every one's eagerness and alacrity at the news; we all
hastened down to the hospital in hopes of having our hands
fill

Again we read, " We were all quite pleased at having
"plenty to do." Such expressions read oddly, though
the warm humanity which dictated them is not t be
misunderstood. When the hospital was in admirable
working condition, it Was ordered to be abandoned,
that it might be converted into barracks for the Swiss
Legion, to the great dissatisfaction of patients,
orderlies, nurses, medical officers, and all others
concerned. No one can read this simple narrative
without recognising the value of the ladies' services,
especially in promoting order, in cheering the spirits
of the patients, in soothing the bed of suffering and
death, and in diffusing through the wards of the hos-
pital a spiritual and chastening influence. The women
who voluntarily undertook this charitaole mission
must have been of a nature best fitted to inspire
respect and confidence. The influence of character
is soon felt, snd hence perhaps one main cause of
their success.

Nomos : an Attempt to Demonstrate a Central Phy-
sical Law in Nature. London : Longmans.
THIS essay is of extremely speculative character.
From the known affinities of imponderable agencies
of the universe—as heat, light, electricity, and mag-
netism—the author is led to believe that there is a
law behind these agencies of which they are but
partial manifestations. To this central law may be
due, he thinks, those irregularities in the action of
natural forces of which no satisfactory explanation
has yet been given. The essayist's latitudinarian
reach of thought is supported by much scientific
instanca and eccentric reasoning. As speculation
often precedes discovery, his guessing may be worth
examination by the pioneers of philosophy. At one
time it was thought a bold speculation of physicists
that our solar system and stellar universe were
moving round an 'indistinguishable and unknown
centre. The author's speculation is of a like kind.
The primary laws of one age are the secondary laws
of another; and perhaps, as this essayist supposes,
we may be on the edge of discoveries undreamt of by
sewton, and be able to resolve his law of gravity
into a law of more universal application.

Songs of the Brave. London: Sampson Low.
Ntwz poetic pieces, printed on tinted paper, and il-
lustrated by wood engravings from drawings by
Birket Foster, E. Duncan, and other artists, make
up a pretty "in honorem " book. Three of the
poems are by Campbell, and one each by Burns,
Collins, Byron, Wolfe, and Tennyson. The " Joy
Bell," by Mr. Mackay, seems to have crept in by