The Press.
London, England, 1858-11-27 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 27, 1858.

.iter has conceived the highest opinion of
conduct in Algeria. Nothing struck him
,ngly as the skill and rapidity with which
constructed roads and kept their line of
ications open with an only half-subdued
their rear. Of the politeness and
ity which he experienced from the
officers, as well as of their popularity in
;try, he speaks in the highest terms. And
we arc sure, can lay down his volume
a feeling of increased respect for the
/ talents of our ally, and a less sparing
cled.,;ment of his fitness for colonization
hitherto been accorded. The following
for instance, are not exactly at one with
ailing English ideas :
steamers run along the coasts, and lumbering
diligences, which look as if they had been sent
a cure for consumption, tumble along every
road. Pretty little French villages dot the
. solitary cottages peep out here and there, half
their clumps of orange, lemon, fig, or almond
seem to glance merrily and cheerfully in the
, as they speak of the French colonist's home.
'rench and the natives get on remarkably well
the latter seeming to have a perfect confidence
Icit reliance on the laws and justice of the former.
is sure of protection, and though the bigotry of
. definite and insuperable barrier to complete
;gamation, yet they rub on happily and contentedly,
'les the native seem like a member of a conquered
The French certainly have the knack of this kind
and I was much struck, during my first days
lgeria, by seeing the contrast between our occu-
. Turkey during the war, and the present occupa•
conquered Algeria by the French.
may say, in conclusion, that Colonel
;ley fully confirms the character given
'na by the guide-book noticed in these
a few weeks since. It possesses a
Is climate, plenty of good society, and
irtunities of both town and country amuse-
The Governor, Marshal ltandon, is an
specimen of the French soldier and
ttleman. And indeed it is difficult to detect
absence of any desirable feature in that new
which is now being so rapidly developed
not less favoured than the old one.

IL, King of France and Poland ; his
and Times. From Numerous Unpub-
Sources, including MS. Documents in

ibliotheque Imp4riale, and the Archives
France and Italy, &c. By Martha Walker
Three Vols. London : llurst and
:ett.

iw of no better antidote against the ima-
a religious sentimentalism which, in the
day, delights in holding up the Church
as the embodiment of all that is true,
beautiful, and holy, than a picture, taken
. real life, of the character stamped upon
kingdoms and nations by the influence of the
-- in its palmiest days. Such a picture is that
ited to us in these volumes, exhibiting the
ition and history of " the Most Christian
loft" during the eventful period which
the promulgation of the doctrines
Reformation. 'lVhat were the notions
religion and morality with which the
t Church had imbued the hearts of
ithful sons and daughters—what were
tethods which she employed to keep them
the pale of orthodoxy, and to preserve
An the taint of heresy—what the weapons
. she taught them to wield for the defiance
maintenance of " the true faith "—no portion
history of that epoch of transition which
medieval from modern Europe, more
illustrates than the reign of the last of
as over the kingdom of France. At the
; of his career we find the ill-fated Prince,
tin it is hard to say whether the crimes
tted against him or those committed by
have left the limier blots on the page of
country's history,—at that time a youth of
- just emerging into life,—engaged in plot-
th his own mother, the too famous Cathe-
. Medici, an act of assassination against a
led servant and favourite, whom unjust
!tit had converted into a personal and poll-
'. Within two years atter we behold him,
concert with the Queen Mother, whose
to son he was, a principal instigator
an active accomplice of the wholesale
qbsacre of St. Bartholomew, which—whether
premeditated, or, as our author, on

grounds that appear to us insufficient, thinks
more probable, suddenly resolved upon—was
avowedly undertaken as a signal act of service to
" Holy Mother Church," and was publicly ap-
plauded, hailed with exultation, as a glorious
triumph by the Head of that Church. That mas-
sacre—the number of whose victims has never
been ascertained, but which, upon the lowest
computation, slaughtered them by thousands in
the capital alone, and by tens of thousands over
the face ofthe whole country—while it embittered
the closing years of Charles IX., became, during
the next and following reigns, the fruitful prece-
dent for a succession of deeds f violence and blood •
shed, perpetrated with unparalleled perfidy and
atrocity in the desecrated name of religion. From
this revolting &but to the closing scene, when he
himself fell, immolated by the deadly steel which
the Church of Rome had whetted for the sacrifice,
and placed in the hands of one of her fanatical
devotees, the history of Henry 111. consists of
an uninterrupted series of intrigues, broils,
outrages, and murders, of which the King and
other members of the Royal family, men and
women of noblest lineage, Bishops and Princes of
the Church, became in turns the perpetrators and
the victims; while the tone of public morals had
sunk to a degree of depravity not surpassed in
heathen Rome in the days of Juvenal, and what
was called religion resolved itself into a system
of superstitious observances and practices as de-
grading as the vices, and as repulsive as the
crimes, for which the Roman Church, in the ex-
ercise of her pretended universal guardianship of
souls, enjoined and accepted them by way of ex-
piation and compensation. How a Church holding
the souls! of her members, by means of the con-
fessional, in a state of permanent surveillance and
of abject thraldom, not only tolerated, but, by
the example of her ecclesiastics, both high and
low, encouraged, every excess of lust and cruelty ;
connived at the habitual and undisguised viola-
tion of the most sacred ties and obligations of
society ; and so effectually extinguished in the
heart of woman every natural sense of modesty,
that ladies of the highest rank, conspicuous for
their devotion and fanatical zeal, the chosen and
acknowledged patronesses of her cause, hesitated
not publicly to exhibit themselves, and that in re-
ligious processions, in a state of semi-nudity
from which the very courtezans of our streets
would shrink ;—how the same Church, after
goading a Prince singled out by her discerning
eye as a fit instrument for the accomplishment of
her designs, distinguished by her as one of her
most hopeful champions, to imbrue his hands,
while heir presumptive, in the blood of his bro-
ther's lieges, after his accession to the throne kept
him in an attitude of deadly hostility towards a large
portion of his subjects, first by the direct influence
of her counsels and the arts of flattery, and, when
those proved insufficient, by a widespread mid-
night conspiracy, utterly subversive of the royal
authority ;—how, when weary of fifteen years of
civil war and sanguinary rule he emancipated
himself, by one of those highhanded deeds of
blood, into which he had been initiated under her
tuition, from the grasp of that conspiracy, and
attempted to govern his kingdom upon the
principle of religious toleration, the same Church
hurled her anathemas at his head, absolved his
subjects from their allegiance, and openly insti-
gated them to regicide ;—how, when the curses
fulminated from the Vatican,and the pulpit-denun-
ciations of an infuriated priesthood, had produced
their legitimate effect, the "infallible Head" of
that Church proclaimed in a public allocution
the assassination of the King to have been
" a holy, glorious, and pious act," attributing it
to the immediate inspiration of Almighty God,
and blasphemously mingled with his thanks-
givings and ascriptions of glory to the Most High
his " tribute of veneration " to the assassin, " the
" sainted martyr, Clement,"—all this, and much
more of the same character, will be found re-
corded, and that upon the most irrefragable tes-
timony—the evidence of authentic State papers
and other public documents, of the private
,jour-
nals and the correspondence of the chief actors
themselves, as well as of eye-witnesses--in Miss
Freer's deeply-instructive narrative of the history
of henry de Valois. We recommend the perusal of
these volumes—the author of which abundantly
compensates by the careful industry of her his-
torical research for occasional negligences of style
I —to the perusal of all who desire to become ac-
quainted with the true genius of Popery, and to

ascertain the effects produced by its influence
upon public and private morals, upon the pro-
sperity of nations and the stability of kingdoms.

ON OVER-PRODUCTION IN FICTION.
The Laird of Norlaw. A Scottish Story. By
the Author of "Margaret Maitland." Three
Vols. London: Hurst and Blackett.
Ir was once humorously, though rather too
severely, written of a distinguished female
novelist of our times, " This lady began by
making an excellent pot of tea, which she
" dispensed liberally, but her misfortune has been
" that she has continued ever since pouring out,
" and pouring out, though she seems quite un-
" conscious that while she has been infusing fresh
" water, she has totally omitted to put in fresh
" tea." The remark applies, we must say, to
other female writers besides the eminent lady at
whom it was aimed. Male novelists arc not to
be freed from the imputation of writing them-
selves out, but of the two sexes the fair one is
perhaps most obnoxious to the accusation of
trespassing in literature too often, and presuming
too much on the memory of former triumphs.
Yet, surely, it must be obvious to any reflective
mind that a female novel writer, let her advan-
tages of society be what they may, must be much
more likely to write herself out than a man. A
woman leads a more secluded and monotonous
life. She cannot study character as much as a
man. She is compelled to draw upon her
imagination repeatedly, and to pretend to describe
types of human nature that she has only fancied,
though in her craft as an authoress she affects to
have observed them. A woman cannot belong to
a university or a learned profession. She cannot
go circuit, and see the strange contrasts of life
and character open to a lawyer's observation;
she cannot be a member of the Temple, or of the
Athenzeum, or of the Garrick Clubs. Her social
resources are infinitely more restricted than those
of her male companion and rival. It is true that
her sphere allows her to see much of some phases
of human nature. Domestic lite, births, mar-
riages, and deaths, are all within the sight of
the thinking woman ; but her stock of observation
soon is exhausted, and if she continues to write
much there comes upon her that repetition of
herself which amounts to a sort of nierasmas of

the mind. The true novelist, like the great
dramatist, should be both objective and subjective,
but a woman's life naturally throws her into the
former; and if we attend to the history of novel-
ists, we shall see that great female novelists have
won their laurels chiefly upon one or two works,
and that in most cases they write themselves out.
Mrs. Inchbald's fame rests upon " The Simple
Story" ; Miss Burney wrote at best only two
successful novels (and highly creditable they
were to her talents); Mrs. Radcliffe played on
one string—that of producing romantic horror
in scenes of extraordinary natural beauty. She
exhausted herself when she had written " The
Mysteries of Udolpho," and she had not inven-
tive variety enough to strike out a new line.
Lady Morgan was highly effective as an Irish
novelist of the sort hovering between caricature
and reality, and she was chiefly successful in
depicting the second-hand fashionable life of
Dublin city. Of Miss Edgeworth, we may say
that we have always regretted that she did not
live more in England, and we are sorry that she
did not know English character as well as she
understood that of her own country. She had
admirable humour, and it' she had been more
domesticated in England she would have given
a variety to her characters that is wanted.
Some phases of English life she understood
thoroughly, but it was only the average and
commonplace features of our social character.
We will exemplify what we mean by illustra-
tions. Lord Chatham and Lord Liverpool were
both Englishmen in their integrity, their love of
country, their contempt for money, their desire
of honourable fame, and in their devotion to the
public cause. But Lord Chatham was a genius,
and was a romantic character; Lord Liverpool
was only a man of talent, without any romance,
and with no originality. Miss Edgeworth, if she
were to attempt to draw a character of the
Chatham type would colour it so as to make it a
cosmopolite, and she would fitil in seizing some
of its distinctively English features, but she would
paint a Liverpool exactly. Miss Edgeworth of
visited London in the season, and her notions