The Press.
London, England, 1857-12-05 00:00:00

THE PRESS, DECEMBER 5, 1857.

this has not been done so completely as we
could wish.

We have not room here to enter into a long
list of misstatements in the way of facts.
We may mention, however, that we hap-
pen to know that the sketch of Mr. G. 11.
Lewes is incorrect in several particulars.
It is not true that Lord Dalhousie retained
his post at the Board of Trade only till the
accession of Lord John Russell to power in
18-in ; his lordship was too valuable a public
servant for the Whigs to lose, and they were
only too glad to find him willing to labour on
under them. We are sorry to see that no
notice is taken of many interesting facts in
Dean Close's early career which have more
than once appeared in print; and we cannot
but lament the want of judgment on the part
of the editor, who has allowed Lord Cardigan
six pages, and Mr. A. A. Watts three pages, to
tell the story of their respective careers, inclu-
ding many facts of no interest whatever to the
public, while he despatches in a summary para-
graph of from twelve to twenty lines such men
as Sir Benjamin Brodie, Sir H. Holland, Mr. H.
Hallam, and the Bishop of Exeter. Neither
can we imagine on what principle of selection
the editor can have been proceeding in giving
us the lives of some nine or ten of the judges—
Channell, Wighttnan, Crompton, Willes, Wat-
son, Coleridge, Williams, Martin, and Bram-
well ; whilst he has excluded such men as
Judge Patteson, Judge Maule, Baron Platt,
Vice-Chancellor Wigram, and Sir W. Page
Wood.

But our gravest accusation against " Men
of the Time" is on the score of omission.
What can we say of a work which, among the
Lords Lieutenant of Ireland, inserts Lord
Eglinton and omits Lords Fortescue and St.
Germans which says not a word about
such naturalists as Sir R. Schomburgh, Sir W.
J. Hooker, and Charles Waterton—such di-
plomatists as Earl Cowley and Sir Gore Ouse-
ley—such clergymen as "S. G. O." (Sidney
Godolphin Osborne), Archdeacon Manning,
Canon Moseley, Dean Dawes, Professors
Stanley and Jowett, Bishop Selwyn of New
Zealand, Dr. Vaughan of Harrow, and John
Henry Newman, in whom, much as we differ
from him, posterity will recognise a man of
genius, and one who, to say the least, has had
a large influence upon the present age ?
India, too, has sad reason to complain of a
studied omission—being represented only by
Lords Canning, Dalhousie, and Ellenborough,
and General Havelock. Why is Lord Harris
omitted—a man who has done for Madras
what no previous commander had done since
the days of Sir T. Munro? Why has the
editor said nothing of the Lawrences, par
nobile frotrum—men who have founded for
themselves a lasting name in the settlement of
the Purijaub? Why has he omitted all men-
tion of Outram, of Sir Patrick Grant, of Mr.
Colvin, of Sir George Pollock (the hero of the
Affghan campaign), of Sir F. Currie, Major
Vincent Eyre, and of such men as Sir William
Brooke O'Shaughnessy, Sir Macdonald Ste-
phenson, and Sir George Russell Clerk ; and,
the greatest perhaps of all, Mountstuart El•
phinstone, who enjoys perhaps the highest
reputation of all living Indian administrators?
Again, is there any reason why Mr. John Stuart
Mill should have been omitted, beyond his
own modest nature, which would probably
have rendered him unwilling to write a puff of
his own great abilities and his vast insight
into modern philosophy, political science, and
Indian affairs alike ? Again, we ought
not to look in vain for such men as
Lord Seaton, Sir Henry Rawlin son, Sir Charles
Fellows, Sir Francis Palgrave, Sir Bernard
Burke, Mr. Kenelm Digby. Sir Thomas Phil-
lipps, Sir Alan M'Nab, Sir Emerson Tennent,
Sir G. Nicholls, Sir J. P. Kay-Shuttleworth
and his successor, Mr. Lingen, Sir Charles
Trevelyan, the Right Hon. Stephen Lushing-
ton, Sir Baldwin Walker, Sir Charles Elliot,
Sir William Snow Harris, Sir Henry Ward of
Ceylon, Sir George Grey (our Governer at the
Cape), or Sir Henry Barkly, the most able of
all our colonial administrators. Again, it
occurs to us to remark it as straryte that,
while Lord Dunfermline. and Mr. Denison
(the new Speaker) are both inserted, there is
no mention of the late Sneaker, Mr. Shaw Le-
fevre, now Lord Eversley, one of the best and