The Press.
London, England, 1857-05-09 00:00:00

craturt.

A Concise History of the English Constitution.
By Edward Howley, Esq., of the Middle
Temple, Barriqer-at•Law. (Dedicated by
his Lordship's permission to the Earl of
Clarendon.) London : Longinans.
WE have had comic histories of England,
and there is no reason why we should not
have comical commentators on the Constitu-
tion. The remark occurred to us on reading
the following passage :
While the Marquis Wellesley was Governor-General, his
son Wellesley, afterwards Duke of %Wellington, fought in a
subordinate rank with the army that stormed Seringapa-
tam, during the assault of which the fanatic Tippo Saib
was killed, leaving his kingdom, Mysore, the stronghold of
Southern India, to be annexed to the British possessions,
A.n. 1799. Four years afterwards young Wellesley,
holding an independent command, at the battle of Assaye,
broke the power of the Mahrattas, and presaged the glory
of waterloo.
His " son " Wellesley ! Where was the author
horn, or reared, not to know that the Duke of
Wellington was brother to the Marquis
Wellesley ? We might suppose that the author
had written " son " inadvertently for " brother,"
but the phrase " young Wellesley " is used at
the end of the passage, and in the corrigenda
of the volume no reference whatever is made
to this ridiculous blunder.
This work is dedicated, " by his lordship's
permission," to no less a personage than her
Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, the Earl of Clarendon. We do not
know whether Lord Clarendon will ap-
prove of Mr. Howley's account of our proceed-
ings in India :
The mull course of proceeding has been to quarter
troops on the territory of an ally who ostensibly desires
secnrty against foreign or domestic aggression, and gra-
dually to compel the unfortunate ally to resign all military
power. The next step is to require him to abdicate his
civil power, and become the humble recipient of a per.sion.
Or whether his lordship will like the style of
the following passage :
The Ameers of Scinde having displayed a hostile feel-
ing towards England during the Affghan war, Sir Charles
Napier, oblitering the memory of an English general
having retreated through the Koord pass, defeated and
banished the Ameers, and added their territory to the
dominions of the Company. Undeterred by the fate of the
Ameers of Scinde, the Seikh chieftains, whose territorial
acquisitions bordered the western frontier of Affghanistan,
attacked the possessions of the Company, but an army
under Lord Gough routed them at the battle of Chillian-
wallah, acd maintained the supremacy of the British set•
tlements in India.
" Obliterating the memory." We can assure
the author of this work that the tummy of
the disasters in India for which the Melbourne
Ministry was responsible has not been oblite
rated even by Sir C. Napier's exploits. The
grammar of the author is often as obscure as
his political conception. He says :
Most European Governments control the courts of jus-
tice, and despise the reclamations of the people, bnt can
be purified if they give sufficient play to the elective or
representative system, which attunes the actions of sove-
reignty in harmony with the wishes of the community.
His notions, also, often clash with each other.
He says :
The advantage of English over native rule arises from
an English tnbunal being able to chastise the highest
officials, from a superior race exercising the check of par-
liamentary discussion, and from an interested Home Go-
vernment being ready to dismiss any public set rant who
is guilty of misconduct.
Elsewhere (as above) the author sneered at
"the usual course followed," • and then he
places the "advantage of English rule" upon
" superior race" (by which everything could
be justified), and upon " an interested Home
" Government." Observing these incongruous
passages, we call to mind a part of the passage
from Horace, cited on the titlepage
si
Caecns iter monstrare velit.
There is a portentous solemnity of tone,
ushering in a superficiality of matter in this
volume, which makes us think of the sergeants
immortalised by Pope :
Both had a gravity would make you split,
And shook their heads at Murray as a wit.
The benign patronage which the author is
pleased to extend towards Bacon and Lord
Mansfield does credit to him. He also exer•
vises great self-control in refraining from