The Press.
London, England, 1857-07-25 00:00:00

THE PRE S S, JULY 25, 1857.

desertion, and the violation of the conscience
of the Church, are all treated most ably, and,
as WA think, conclusively. One " point " is
made so admirably that we must quote the
passage. Of those who rely so exclusively on
the words of St. Matthew, the writer says :
Our second remark is, that the misinterpretation of
Scripture now before us betrays itself at every step by
new inconsistencies. For if it were tenable, the conae•
qnence would be that a woman justly divorced for adultery
might remarry, but that a woman improperly divorced,
without fault on her own part, could not. All the re•
marriages, therefore, of women who have been divorced
for adulteries have been innocent; but the remarriages of
those who had been innocent have been adulteries!

Another paper, which displays great power
and great elegance combined, is that entitled
" Homeric Characters in and out of Homer."
The aim of the writer is to show how com-
pletely the idea of these has been corrupted
by succeeding poets, instancing especially
Achilles, Ulysses, and Helen. On the whole,
no doubt, the reviewer is correct in his asser-
tions. But, as feu• as Helen is concerned, wo
must remember that Euripides was a pro-
fessed misogynist, and that Virgil was com-
pelled to place sentiments agreeable to the
occasion in the mouth of a Trojan hero. In
the very passage which the writer quotes from
the second dEneid, we find Venus at once
interfering to rebuke the fury which seized
iEncas at the sight of Helen, whom he could
not but regard at that moment of despair and
rage as the cause of his country's calamities :
Non :ibi Tyndaridte facies invisa Lactente
Culpatuave Paris. llivdm inclementia llivum
Has evertit opes,
Tt strikes us, however, that the author of this
paper has scarcely allowed sufficient weight
to the generally low opinion of the female sex
which prevailed even in the heroic ages, and
which has been blearly pointed out by Mr.
Goldwin Smith in his essay on the subject.
He has there, if we remember right, selected
the very fact of Helen's reacceptance by
Menelaus on her old faoting, without a
thought of her lost purity, as one of his
strongest examples. Again, the execration
of Ulysses in the third lEneid sounds per-
, feetly natural from the lips of the speaker ;
and we must not forget that in the second we
find a full tribute paid by Priam to the
generous character of Achilles. The pages
devoted to the elucidation of Hector's charac-
ter are, perhaps, the most interesting in the
whole article. The meaning of our word
" hectoring" is thus ingeniously explained :
So conspicuous is this quality, says Mure, that the
name of the Trojan chief is to this day synonymous in
our own tongue with "bluster " or "swagger." Ilut it is
remarkable that the very same thing has happened in the
case of the word rodomontade, which is derived from
Rodomonte, the most powerful, next to Ruggiero, of all
' the heroes of the Furioso. This circumstance seems to
make probable what, without it, world be only possible,
namely, that we misconstrue the phrases; and that
according to the true meaning, a rodomontader is a man
passing himself off fora Rodomonte ; and one who hectors
is a man falsely pretending to be a Hector.
The remaining articles are of average merit.
That on De Tocqueville would ha'e merited
warmer praise if it were not so late in the
field. We are glad, however, that it has ap-
peared, because it enables us to say a few
words on a point which we have always ex-
pected to see taken up by some one of the
numerous critics of " L'Ancien Regime et la
Revolution." We allude to the question of
M. de Tocqueville's originality. In the
Quarterly, us in all other reviews, he is
treated as the Columbus of pre-revolutionary
France; and the writer, in referring to the
chapter on centralisation as it existed previous
to 1789, says that M. de Tocqueville may be
held to have made a great political discovery.
Now, the fact is that M. de Tocqueville has
been anticipated in all the most important views
which his work contains, in an article entitled
" Political and Social Condition of France,"
signed " a," which appeared about twenty
years ago in an early number of the London
and Westminster Review, and which may be
found in v"l. iii. and xxv., p. 137, of the
conjoined series. The facts, that the French
peasantry had in 1789 become landed pro-
prietors—that administrative centralisation
was an invention of the ancient regime—that
it interfered with every part of social life and
supplanted all collateral methods of govern-
went—that Paris had absorbed France—that

all individuals were more equal and all classes
more separate—that the nobility had gradually
become eliminated from political power while
they retained every odious political privilege,
that they had lost the attachment of their
peasantry without having gained influence to
compensate for it in any other quarter—that
the Church was a political as well us a reli-
gious society—that the French had the taste
for liberty without knowing how to establish
popular institutions—may all be found stated
or proved in the article we have mentioned,
not, indeed, with the same fulness of detail or
the extreme elegance of style which distin-
guish the work of the French author, but with
equal precision, clearness, and method, and
with entire mastery of the subject. In making
these observations, we do not for a moment
intend to charge M. de Tocqueville with
plagiarism ; we have no doubt that he has
arrived by independent research at the same
conclusions as the Westminster reviewer.
We only wish to give every man his due, and
to claim for our countryman—if he is such—
the notice to which he seems justly entitled.
The article on Ireland is very well, but
contains a eulogy on " OH Whigs," which we
were rather surprised to see. They hate, we
are told, " Toryism, cliques, and jobbery."
They hate Toryism, doubtless ; but it is news
to us that a Russell hates cliques or a Fox
Maule jobbery. The ecclesiastical article is,
we think, strangely disingenuous. The other
two, on " China " and " The Manchester Exhi-
tion," will repay perusal by all who are inte-
rested in either good tea or high art.
The July number of the National is not
quite so good as usual. There is no tirst•rate
literary article like those upon Shelley and
Cowper; and the political article betrays too
clearly the hand of an outsider to interest the
practical British public, who don't care for
theorising, but look to a political review for
indications of coming events. We must say,
however, that the paper ou Mr. Lever's novels
evinces great sprightliness and humour, and
is written in a telling style. It', perhaps, a
little too hard on some of Mr. Lever's pecu-
liarities, the banter is always goodnatured,
and tempered by so much genuine eulogy as
to disarm even authorial irritation. The paper
on the new Parliament is entitled to no such
compensatory praise. The writes assumed
impartiality seems merely the result of having
nothing to say, and his attempts at argument
are, in one or two instances, distinguished by
a blindness to cause and effect which up•
proaches imbecility. For instance, in speak-
ing of the adjustment of the franchise he
says :

If Mr. Disraeli's system were adopted, the counties
might gain upon the provincial towns; but the metropo-
litan boroughs would be entitled to seventy or eighty
members instead of eighteen. Thu levelling class of
Liberals would not object to a change so destructive of all
local influences; but fi.teen members, representing the
Tower Hamlets alone, would be en alarming constitu-
tional innovation. It is the business of Conservatives to
show that good administration and progressive improve-
ments are compatible with the existing distribution of
power. Any attempt to readjust the system in favour of
their own power, is an inconsistency and a blunder.
But the simplest exertion of the reasoning
powers would be sufficient to show that all the
" fifteen members for the 'rower Hamlets "
would not be Liberals—probably not more
than a bare majority, which would not over-
come the advantage gained elsewhere ; and
we may be sure that, in proportion as the
Liberalism of Liberals becomes more pro-
nounced, the Conservatism of Conservatives
will become more pronounced too. His mis-
representations are numerous In the first
place, all that Mr. Disraeli ever said was that
if the constituencies were touched justice
must be done, but that he preferred not to
interfere. And again, the assertion that " the
" declarations of Conservative candidates, that
" a fair trial should be given to Lord Palmers-
" ton, indicate a general distrust in the per-
" manence of their own party," is a most un-
candid perversion of the rule by which the
Opposition has now for sonic time been guided
—namely, to throw no vexatious obstacles
in the way of her Majesty's Government.
The radical djea of most political disser-
tations at the present day is that they are
written by men wholly or to a great extent
unacquainted with English country life—Cock.

ney pedants, to whom an " editor's room" is
a sort of " holy of holies," or Cockney wits,
whose ideas of provincials are conceived with
much the same amount of truthfulness as the
Parisian's notion of John Bull. The articles
on Lord Brougham, London street-architec-
ture, and the Manchester Exhibition are all
well done, and exhibit great familiarity with
the subjects they respectively treat of.
The present is an excellent number of the
Westminster Review. The first article, on " An-
cient Political Economy," is very interesting,
though we scarcely see the practical drift of it ;
but the next three are all first-class articles.
" English Courts of Law" is a forcible and
lminorons exposition of the inconveniences
attending the ordinary sitting of the ordinary
courts. The passage concerning the treat-
ment of witnesses is especially valuable; also
the following on the defence of prisoners
Bat is thaE all ? Is it enough merely to allow a poverty-
stricken prisoner, put on his trial perhaps for his life, the
privilege of employing counsel ? Poverty is, to a great
extent, the cause cf crime, and prisoners generally come
from the most destitute class in the community. At the
cowing assizes at Liverpool, perhaps one hundred and
fifty prisoners will be collected from all parts of South
Lancashire ; of the one hundred and fifty, not fifty will be
defended by counsel. Amongst the others will be found
sick men, without strength or nerves—ignorant men,
without words—low men, who know not what confidence
is—young children, pethaps young girls, whose thoughts
and voices will be drowned in their tears—weak women,
palpitating with fear—and all varieties of poor, weak,
ignorant, and tremb'ing creatures. No doubt the majority
are guilty ; but that is not yet known, the law believes
them, for the present, to be otherwise. Yet all these will
be expected to expose perjury, partiality, or exaggeration
in the witnesses; to combat unfairness in the prosecuting
counsel, impatience in the judge; and then to address a
large assembly of their betters. They will not only have
to do this, but to do it after the weakening effects of cap-
tivity, cowering under the shame of accusation, and shrink-
ing from the reproachful glances of friends and relations
—perhaps their own children. But they must do it,
though they be deaf, or dumb, or stammer, and that in
the struggles of all their agonies. Can this be called
justice, or mercy to the accused? Of what service is the
Prisoner's Counsel Bill to them ? Will equal ignorance
be brought against them on the part of the Crown?
Nothing of the kind ; the Crown employs a man of ex-
perience to prepare the case against the indicted, and
another one, of a different, but not inferior ability, to
conduct it against him in court. Nor is this all; the
more complicated the case, and therefore the more difficult
the defence, the more legal ability will be brought to bear
upon it by the Crown. Even in the smallest cases, where
the prisoner is undefended, the scene is always a painful
one. _ .

It is a trying and confusing moment for the prisoner
when, the counsel for the prosecution having opened the
case and examined the first witness, the judge asks the
prisoner "if be has any questions to put to this witness."
If the prisoner is able to say anything, he generally com-
mences a statement of his case, and is immediately
stopped by the court, who iays—" Prisoner, your time to
speak will come presently, now you are only permitted to
ask the witness questions." The prisoner, who probably
has not understood the bearing of the evidence adduced
against him, then sullenly says he has nothing to ask.
With every fresh witness the same scene is repeated; and,
at last, when the case for the Crown is closed, and the
prisoner is asked if he has anything to say to the jury, lie
often says he has not,—he has said all he meant to say in
the course of the case, or he is wearied out or thoroughly
confounded by being often stopped by the court, and
finally makes no defence at all. This is a common scene :
the man is probably convicted, and leaves the dock em•
Littered by a feeling that he has not had a fair trial. Nor
does the injury to the prisoner rest only with his own
incapacity ; while every praise is due to the fairness and
consideration of prosecuting counsel, there cannot be a
doubt that the case is not so strictly conducted in mule-
fended cases as in defended cases. All objections to unfair
questions, at least to an unfair mode of putting questions,
must come from the accused or his counsel. If ho has
no counsel, lie knows not how to object, and does not
indeed know that an improper course is being used against
him. Leading questions are then freely put, hearsay
evidence is quietly let in, and the glib policeman is allowed
to tell his well•digested story unexamined. The case is
galloped through much to the satisfaction of judge and
jury, who like to see business dispatched rapidly. This
is not only unjust, but an abandonment of the very prin-
ciples on which justice is administered in England.
A man has committed a manslaughter, and is indicted
for murder. He appears at the bar, and it is found that
he has no counsel; the judge puts on a look of pity, and
glances round the bar. The seniors, who are busy, begin
to move off, leaving, perhaps, some old man at the law,
but one who has failed from the most patent inefficiency,
in the court. No junior is permitted to undertake the
case without his consent, which it would be thought im•
pertinent to ask for. The judge knows this, and at length
reluctantly asks this notoriously inefficient old man to
undertake the defence of a serious charge of blood at a
moment's notice, without any previous knowledge of the
facts—without any opportunity of ascertaining from the
prisoner his story, or any time for preliminary consulta-
tion. This is nearly the only instance in England in
which counsel is assigned to the prisoner, except at the
Old Bailey, where the sheriffs provide counsel out of their
own pockets.