The Press.
London, England, 1854-09-16 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

which the Ottoman army had been weakened
by its disorders, and relieved Europe from all
fear of its further conquests. From that date
Turkey, though often fighting desperately, and
gaining partial successes, has continually lost
ground 'when pressed on the side of Germany
or of Russia.

The beginning of the last century marks a
change in the policy of the Turkish Govern-
ment. Previously to the peace of Carlowitz,

• Turks had isolated themselves from European diplo-
ma. , tad regarded the changing politics of Christendom
as mutters of perfect indifference. They had also refused
to recognise the civil existence of their Christian subjects,
and treated them as slaves destitute of civil rights ; but
their recent reverses had abated their pride, and they now
sought diplomatic relations with the European powers as
eagerly as they had before avoided them, and they granted
many important privileges to the various Christian com-
munities subject to their dominion. Ambassadors from
Austria, Poland, and Russia arrived in Constantinople to
ratify the treaty of Carlowitz, and to arrange such addi-
tional articles as were necessary to complete the negotia-
tions ; they were received with unusual honours, and their
additional demands were conceded without debate.

At the same time internal reforms and amelio-
rations were earnestly prosecuted by the
Vizier Koeprilii

His first care was to alleviate the burdens imposed upon
the Christian subjects of the Porte ; he remitted the capi-
tation tax imposed upon them in Servia, and the arrears
of the contribution to the war which had been required
from those of Greece and Syria ; he inquired into the
abuses in the enrolment of the janissaries, and struck off
the lists several who received pay without performing
any military service; finally, he introduced a more effi-
cient system of naval discipline, and made promotion de-
pendent on merit. But in the midst of his career an
unforeseen misfortune led him to resign his office. His
nephew Alibeg fell in love with one of the ladies of the
harem, and made her acquainted with his passion; the
secret was discovered by some enemies of the Vizier, who
revealed it to the Sultan ; the lovers were immediately
put to death, and Koeprilii, equally grieved and indignant,
solicited permission to retire. His resignation was ac-
cepted, but he did not long survive ; he died in a few
weeks, leaving behind him a reputation for wisdom and
integrity which has not since been rivalled by any Turkish
statesman.

Turkey has since often paused in the work
of improvement, but the spirit has never been
totally lost, and the decisive measures of
Mahinud 11., cruelly as they were carried out,
have removed the great obstacles which for-
merly existed to all good government.
It is as a warlike race only that the Turks
have existed. Their vitality consists in their
courage, and their power is the power of the
sword. The late campaign on the Danube
shows that their hereditary valour is in no
degree impaired by change of arms and disci-
pline. Their industrial vitality is more ques-
tionable. As a dominant race they might
subsist long, could they hold in subjugation
the different populations of their empire ; but,
if ascendancy is to be determined, not by arms,
but by industry and commerce—by supple-
ness of wit, dexterity of hand, and liveliness
of invention—it would seem that they must
gradually yield to the races they have been
accustomed to despise, and grow continually
weaker and poorer (a sad destiny) in the land
they proudly call their own.

Fashion and Famine ; or, Contrasts in Society.
By Mrs. Ann S. Stephens. London : Bent-
ley.
IT is evident that Mrs. Stephens has studied
Eugene Sue diligently, as she has here done
her best to transplant his style of romance
across the Atlantic. With the general fate of
imitation, she has caught his extravagance but
missed his poetry. " The Mysteries of New
York" would have been the most appropriate
title for her fiction, as its aim is to show that
the crimes and splendours which have place
in the capitals of the Old World may prevail
equally in the metropolis of the New. The
wonders to be wrought by wealth and the
atrocities to be perpetrated by guilt are repre-
sented in the broadest style of that kind of
melodrama which alternates between a dark-
ened stage for its horrors and a brilliant
illumination by red and blue fire for its
triumphs Throughout the story there are
the most violent contrasts and unnatural
motives. The seductive villain whose thrilling
tones no woman's heart can resist goes about
with a revolver concealed under his cambric
shirt; and the heroine—after the fashion, of

SATURDAY,'

Monte Christo—calls up a palace in the su-
burbs of New York that she may confound the
scamp who has cast her off by a display of her
magnificence. We give a few specimens of
the writer's descriptive style, as she has evi-
dently laboured it with great care. First for
the house :

This dwelling, so graceful in its architecture, so fairylike
in its grounds, had risen, as if by magic, among those old
trees. Lavish was the cost bestowed upon it; rich and
faultless was the furniture that arrived from day to day
after the masons and artists had completed their work,
Statues of Parkin marble, rich bronzes, antique carvings
in wood, and the most sumptuous upholstery, were arranged
by the architect who had superintended the building, and
who acted under directions from some person abroad.
When all was arranged--drawing-rooms, library, ladies'
boudoir and sleeping chambers that might have sheltered
the repose of an Eastern princess—the house was closed.
• • * • • Then, in the first golden flush of autumn,
the house was flung open. Carriages came to and fro
almost every hour. Saddle-horses, light phaetons, and au
equipage yet more stately, drove ipt and out of the stables.
The windows, with all their wealth of gorgeously-tinted
glass, were open to the hazy atmosphere. Grooms hung
around the stables ; footmen glided over the tesselated
marble of the entrance-hall.

The interior is described to match. In the
dressing-room is

a toilet richly draped with lace and littered with jewels;
a standiug•glass, set in frosted silver, was lighted ou each
side by a small alabaster lamp, which hung against the
exquisite chasing like two great pearls, each with perfumed
flame breaking up from its heart.

A " bed of coal burns in a silver grate,"
with the hearth covered by "an ermine rug."
A little further on we read :

Splendid beyond anything hitherto known in American
life was the bull, of which our readers have obtained but
partial glimpses. At least a dozen rooms, some of them
palatial in dimensions, others bijoux of elegance., were
thrown open to the brilliant throng.

The conservatory was " one of Dunlap's
masterpieces," but the lady herself who called
all this splendour into existence is tho most
striking figure in the scene. She had married
an old Southern planter while her first hus-
band was living, and returns from Europe to
reign supreme at Saratoga Springs, and
astonish the world of fashion at New York.
Her jewels, we are told, had " just been re-
set at Ball and Black's," and, covering her
person, "flash rainbow light" as she moves :
Her over-skirt of fine Brussels point was gathered up in
soft clouds from the amber satin dress by clusters of fruit,
grass, and leaves, all of precious stones. Cherries, the
size of life, cut from glowing carbuncles; grapes in ame-
thyst clusters, or amber-hued, from the Oriental topaz ;
stems of ruby currants ; crab-appples, cut from the red
coral of Naples; with wheat-ears, barbed with gold, and
set thick with diamond grain; all mingled with leaves and
bending grass, lighted with emeralds, were grouped among
the gossamer lace, whence the light came darting forth
with a thousand sunset glories.
Her fair round arms were exposed al most to the shoulder,
where a quantity of soft lace, that fell like a mist across
her bosom, was gathered up with clusters of fruit-like
jewels. Her hair, arranged after the fashion of a Greek
statue, flowed back from the head in waves and nnglets,
and was crowned by a garland of jewels that shot rays of
tinted light through all her golden tresses. The choicest
jewels she possessed had been reserved for this garland,
wreathed in both fruit and flowers. Here diamond fuchsias,
veined with rubies, and forget-me-nots of turquoise, each
with a yellow pearl at the heart, were grouped with dia-
mond wheat-ears and stems of currants, some heavy with
ruby fruit, others beset with yellow diamonds. The grape-
leaves that fell around her temples were green with
emeralds, and a single cluster of cherries, formed from
carbuncles, that seemed to have a drop of wine floating at
the heart, drooped over her white forehead. Great dia-
mond drops were scattered like dew over these dazzling
clusters, and fell away down the ringlets of her hair.
Ada stood beneath the blaze of a chandelier that poured
its light over the singular wreath, and struck the jewels of
her girdle till they sent it back in broken flashes.
A footman approaches this superb lady at
the commencement of the fete and exclaims :

" Madam, the company are arriving; two carriages
hare set down their loads already"—
a style of announcement better suited to the
shooting of coals, or the unlading of any
other vile commodity, than to the arrival
of the elite of New York society. In fact there
is a vein of vulgarity pervading the book
which contrasts oddly with its finery. It
belongs to a class of fiction which we hope
soon to see superseded even at railway stalls
by works of a better, or at least more modest,
class, and which we doubt not will become ob-
solete as the taste of that multitude of readers
recently called into existence by the extensive
production of cheap literature improves.

.......

SEPTEMBER 16-, 1854.

The Queens Before the Conquest. By Mrs.
Matthew Hall. London: Hurst and Black-
ett.

THE success of Miss Strickland's highly-popular
serial work evidently suggested the present
publication. Within the space of two octavo
volumes the authoress has here reviewed
(rather than narrated) the lives of those Bri
tish ladies who were called " Queens " at a
period when our island was divided into seve-
ral petty states. Not representing any national
unity, nor figuring as landmarks in history,
these "female Sovereigns" form, nevertheless,
an interesting gallery of characters. The names
of some of them, like Boadicea, live in the
immortal pages of Tacitus ; and those of
others, like Elfrida, aro familiarised to us by
romantic incidents. The legends of Arthur
and the Round Table, the unfading glories of
Alfred the Great, the incursions of the Danes,
and the struggles between the Saxons and the
Ancient Britons, give to the subject of these
volumes the interest arising from far descended
names and important (though remote) histori-
cal changes.
The method of composition, however, fol-
lowed by the learned authoress is not the best
calculated to interest. Miss Strickland pro-
duced her results by excessive expansion, and
by tesselating her pages with quaint and rare
extracts from forgotten works or original ma-
nuscripts. She realised her figures on the
canvas by minute touches, while Mrs. Matthew
Hall presents her subjects rather as silhouettes.
She has read much, and has command over
the numerous works throwing light upon the
times before the Conquest, but she epitomises
rather than portrays, and criticises where a
more practised literary artist would create.
With considerable talent, she seems defi-
cient in vividness of historical conception,
and she does not sufficiently discriminate be-
tween the legendary and the genuine materials
on which her volumes are composed.
The time treated of in this work still wants
its English Thierry. Libraries, indeed, of
works illustrating it may be enumerated, but
with few exceptions they are composed in an
antiquarian spirit, as distinguished from true
historic art. Yet we have a grateful recollec-
tion of the literary labours of Sharon Turner,
Lingard, Mr. John Kemble, and others of our
own time who have treated of English history
before the Conquest. It was in most respects
a semi-historic period, in which the modern
explorer has to proceed with caution. Its
facts and fables are curiously interwoven, and
the charming poetical myths of Tintagel must
be carefully separated from the tragic realities
at Corfe Castle. Mrs. M. Hall too often relies
on authorities that can only be accepted as
" legendary," and we observe that she mixes
together in her footnotes names of the most
opposite merit, just as if they were equally
trustworthy. It is a great defect in the value
of her citations that she does not quote ex-
actly, and only gives the name of her authority
without reference to the page or volume. Such
a practice always provokes the suspicion of
mere affectation of research.
Of the whole series of lives, we have read
with most interest that of Boadicea. The
story of Elfrida is of course more interesting,
but it is too familiar, while that of Boadicea
has perhaps never had adequate justice done
to all its features. Mrs. Hall writes
This princess has the highest claims on British sym-
pathy, from the fact of her having been born, nursed, and
bred among her countrymen. She had no leaning to the
Homan invaders of the soil ; Britain alone had her heart ;
and the freedom of her country, for which women, as well
as men, in her time lived and died, was her ambition.
Her mother's country was the southern portion of Scot-
land, now known as the Lowlands ; consequently the habits
and manners of those people governed her education and
character, and the sentiments displayed throughout her
after-life were caught from those associations.
The Scotch Lowlanders have produced a
number of celebrities, and their contributing
some of their blood to Boadicea is not one of
their least honourable boasts. Recollecting
the splendid impersonations of Norma exhi
bited by Pasta and Grisi, one cannot help re
gretting that the story of Boadicea was not
taken by some great musical composer for a
theme. Mrs. Hall observes :
The disastrous fortunes of Boadicea have furnished a
theme for many an historian and poet ; and a more dra-
Matic subject could seemly be discovered- throughout the

whole of our British annals: as a wife, a queen, a patriot,
and a mother, Boadicea was for her heroism in misfortunes
unequalled. Spenser, commenting upon the surname of
" Victorious," bestowed upon this ill fated Queen by the
Britons, says she was one

"Who, whiles good-fortune favoured her might,
Triumphed oft against her enemies ;
And yet, though overeome in hapiesse fight,
She triumphed o'er death in tsunamis despight."
Forrie Queene.

Little indeed in accordance with the actual history of
Boadicea was that triumphant title : her misfortunes
might rather, like Priam's, have given her a right to the
sad distinction he claimed—
" The first of men in sovereign misery."
Who has not felt sympathy for

"the British warrior-queen
Bleeding from the f;<oman rods ;"

and with tears of commiseration followed her, when she
" Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods!"

Commentators on our Constitution have
remarked that nearly all the great questions
in English politics have turned, in one form
or other, upon taxation. It is curious to
observe that the story of Boadicea's wrongs
may be said to commence with the penalties
imposed by the officers of Nero. After nar-
ratiug the confiscations of Catus Decianus,
the Roman procurator, the authoress pro-
ceeds:—

The unfortunate Queen, a widow, in the hands of merci-
less creditors and unrelenting enemies, vainly remonstrated
against the injustice of their proceedings ; at length, in-
furiated by her reproaches, and unrestrained by any feeling
of humanity, the brutal soldiery to whom sbe was given
up, encouraged by their more brutal leaders, subjected the
ill-fated I3oadicea to the common punishment of the
scourge, while the fate of her unhappy daughters was even
more hideous than her own. Their immortal wrongs
blacken the page of history, which has no record so
atrocious. The tide of accumulated injuries was now at
its height, and the fury of a whole nation burst forth in
one overwhelming current, to overflow the land with the
blood of enemies whom no laws had restrained.
Agee have passed by, yet the heart still bleeds at the
record of this noble woman's wrongs. From the moment
of this outrage, the heart of the Queen was deadened to all
feelings but those of vengeance, stung with shame, crushed
with unmerited disgrace, and bowed by agonies that
found no name ; while Boadicea resolved still to endure
life, hateful as it had become to her, in the sole hope of
wreaking a fearful vengeance which should atone for her
unheard-of injuries.
- -

The narration of her story then becomes too
general, and there is wanted a sufficiency of
personal details to give it strongly individual•
ised interest. Mrs. Hall gives at full length
the speech of Boadicea (taking it from Dion
Cassius), and thus describes her personal ap-
pearance :
In person Boadicea was of the largest size ; her face was
beautiful, but fierce and stern ; some annalists say " terrible
of aspect, savage of countenance." Her complexion was
brilliantly fair, and her yellow locks, which were spread all
over her shoulders, reached down to her hips. She wore a
plaited tunic of several colours, drawn close about her
bosom, and over that a vestment made of some stuff of
British manufacture, fastened by a clasp, and adopted in
compliment to the southern natives; the chequered robe
beneath being the produce of the north of Britain. About
her neck she wore a thick collar or chain of gold, esteemed
a mark of the highest command, and expressive of the
dignified quality of the wearer.
We pass over the speech as translated by
the authoress with the remark that it seems
to have been imitated by Sheridan in Rolla's
address in Pizarro.
The fight at Battle-bridge, and the subse-
quent suicide of Boadicea, are well told by the
authoress. Throughout her volumes she has
copiously interspersed passages from the old
chronicles, and though often fragmentary, and
like an antiquarian olla podrida, still her pages
instruct and entertain. In recording the his-
tory of the wives of King Arthur, Mrs. Hall
follows the chronicles. With respect to the
famous " Round Table " she says
The date of these second nuptials of Arthur is given as
511 ; the battle of Bannesdown-hill, which overlooks the
vale of Bath, having been fought immediately before. As
this, the twelfth battle fought by Arthuragainst the Saxons,
was crowned with victory, the King, desirous of comme-
morating the occasion, had established that famous order
of knighthood whose members were designated Knights of
the Round Table. The motto assigned to the order was
characteristic of an Ancient Briton : " Spread be my board,
round as the horizon, and ample as my heart, that there
may be no first or last; for odious is distinction, where
merit is equal." The number of these knights was limited
to twenty-four, the King himself making the twenty-fifth.
Lothaire, husband of Queen Anna, Arthur's sister, was
the first knight created by Arthur ; a great compliment to
his brother-in-law, who is described as " a worthy prince,
hardy, bounteous, manly, and right chivalrous." The crea-
tion of similar orders, on occasions of public rejoining, had
been customary from the earliest periods of our history;
and several cities, among which may be mentioned Windsor,
have laid claim to being the scene of the earliest investi-
ture of this order. At Winchester, which disputes the

883

point with Windsor, there may yet, says Evans, be seen
" King Arthur's Round Table, hanging in the great hall,
where the Saxon kings were subsequently accustomed to
hold their feasts ; this hall is supported by marble pillars,
and is in the King's House, on the west side of the city of
Winchester. The table, which bears the name of the
monarch, is formed of one solid pieee of wood, round which
are cut several names in the Saxon characters, though only
one, that of Lancelot, is legible—a knight who takes a pro-
minent part in the history of cluenever, the third of
Arthur's queens.
- • -

At Peurith a large circle may still be seen, which, after
the lapse of centuries, retains the Hanle of King Arthur's
Round Table. It is supposed that this monarch introduced
the fashion of round tables afterwards into Gaul, as they
became very prevalent in that country, where every knight
had at Isis back a squire with his armour in waiting.

And she copies curious passages from
the chronicle of Tysilis, translated by the
Rev. Mr. Roberts. The life of Elswitha, the
wife of Alfred the Great, is not so inte-
resting as might have been anticipated, and
it is told here in too bald a style. Perhaps
the most readable story in the volumes,
next to those of Boadicea and Elfrida, is
that of Emma " the Pearl," wife of Canute
the Great. We have only space to extract the
description of the Queen's trial by the ordeal of
the burning ploughshares
Emma passed the night previous to her fiery trial in
the Cathedral Church, where, at the tomb of St. Swithin,
she remained in fervent prayer : she implored the aid of
the saint, and falling asleep was comforted by a dream, or
vision, in which that holy prelate appeared to her, saying,
" Be thou firm, daughter ; I am Swithin, whom thou hast
enriched ; fear nut ; when thou pastiest through the fire it
shall not hurt thee, fur thy sou bath done evil in this."
Emma arose refreshed and comforted, and, all the pre-
parations being completed, was led into the church, and
thus addressed the King :—" 0 lord and son, I, that
Emma, who bore anl brought thee forth, and Alfred my
son, I invoke God to bear witness in my person this day,
may I perish if what has been charged against we
ever even entered my mind." The King, the bishops,
and an immense multitude of persons of all descriptions
were assembled in the cathedral to be spectators of the
event. The pavement of the nave having been swept,
nine ploughshares, red with heat, were placed in a line
upon it, " and now Emma," say the chroniclers, " having
again invoked the Almighty to deal with her accordingly as
she is innocent or guilty of the crimes laid to her charge,
prepares herself for the trial by laying aside her robes and
baring her feet. She is then conducted by two bishops,
one having hold of each of her hands, to the glowing
metal. In the meantime the vaults of the church thunder
with the voices of the assembled multitude, who, in loud
shouts, call upon the Almighty to save the royal sufferer,
and their cries are echoed through the whole city by the
crowds who were unable to gain admittance into the
church. She, herself, raising up her eyes to Heaven,
and slowly walking on, thus makes her prayer:—' 0 God,
who didst save Susannah from the malice of the wicked
elders, and the three children from the furnace of fire, save
mo for the sake of thy holy servant Swithin from the tire
prepared for me.' In a word, she is seen to tread upon
each of the burning irons, and is not even sensible that she
had touched them, but addressing herself to the bishops,
' When shall I come to the ploughshares?' they turn
round, and show her that she has already passed them.
The lamentations of the multitude then ceasing, the air
resounds with acclamations of joy and thanksgiving still
louder than their former prayers had been. The King
alone is found overwhelmed with kfrief and bathed in tears,
lying upon the ground beside his chair, to whom Emma
being conducted, he begs her forgiveness in terms of the
utmost humility and sorrow for the injurious suspicions
he had entertained concerning her and the rigour with
which he had treated her. Not content with this, lie re-
quires of her and the bishops then present to strike him
with a wand, which he presents to them. She accordingly
gave her son three blows ; when, having embraced him,
both she and Bishop Alwyn were put into full possession
of their limner rights and property, and ever after
enjoyed the royal favour and respect in the degree they
merited."

Modern writers have refuted this story,
which may be dismissed as a myth ; and the
great defect of this work is, that no attempt is
made to sift accurately the evidence on which
certain statements appear in its pages. An
ordinary reader would be puzzled between its
blending of facts and fancies. There is, also,
for the most part a prosaic dryness of style in
the composition which would deceive a care-
less peruser of its pages into the notion that
its contents might be accepted as verities.
A preliminary dissertation on the old litera-
ture of England, and a critical estimate of our
various antiquarian writers whose names are
so frequently involved, ought to have been
prefixed. But these defects are compensated
by the curious variety of matter brought
together in a small space, and general readers
will find the volumes both instructive and
entertaining. They are taken into remote
times, and a sense of novelty is produced in
contemplating the manners of our remote
British ancestors.

1111M,P=•••.1..,.