The Press.
London, England, 1854-01-14 00:00:00

JAIMARY 14, 1854.

tion is not directly made of the occupation of
" George and Robert Seeleye," and the form
of the genitive in that age was mostly used
with a preposition, as " Church of Saint Dun
stans." There is further bad imitation of the
old spelling in the introduction, which we may
cite as being explanatory of the contents of

the volume :
Courteous Reader,
My good Aunte Mistress Marian, late deceased, having
at her Peth bequeathed to me this her Diane, or Booke
wherein she was wont manic Times to set down her
Thoughtes, with other Matter relating to those troublous
Tapes in which she lived, I, desireing the Comforte of all
Podlie Women thereby, bane caused the same to be prynted,
in that Forme wherein she writ it, heartilye beseeching
Him who did guide her by some roughs Wayes, yett with
marvellous Peece and Assurance thorough this trouble-
some Worlde, soe to make her Ensample of Protitt to
others as shat seeme good unto Him.
Maye the btb, x D XCII. RICHARD FAULEXBRIDGE.
The affectedly antique spelling of this passage
would not bear critical dissection. Several of
the words suggest a modern manufacturer.
Upon the titlepage we read "Imprinted," and
on the next leaf we find the word " prynted ";
and similar diversities might be noted through
the volume.
But, while the mere imitative execution
does not satisfy our bibliographical percep-
tions, we may record a favourable verdict of
the substance of the diary. Its author has
powers that do not require the aid of fantastic
typographical tricks. Many passages are
written with the delicate sweetness of a re-
fined nature, accustomed to dwell habitually
in high and holy thoughts, and its authoress
has considerable pathos of manner. We may
doubt whether she be capable of planning out
a dramatic story with a complicated plot, but
she has sufficient subtlety to analyse charac-
ter, and she has a natural vein of fancy.
Some of the koetical passages interspersed in
the " Diary have much sentimental grace.
We will extract one on a child's baptism :
This days was the lytell babe chrystened, to whom was
green the name of Gerald. I was his gossyp, and dvd
carry him in myne armes to the fonts. Eftsoones were
broght wafers and hypocrass, and we did all drynk to his
helth. Poore lytell babe, he did crie lamentably and be-
wayl ; and I wryt this poor verse for the nonce.

Nay, lytell babe, thou sholdest not wepe so sore,
We bryng thee unto One,
Who on the Crosse thy spines and trespasse bore
Long synce, for thee to attone ;
And praye to Him to kepe thee evermore,
Nay, lytell babe, thou needst not weep so sore.
We bryng thee unto Him who once dyd call
The ehyldren to his knee,
Fulle smalwere they, but he dyd take them all,
And blesse them lovyuglye ;
And in his arms the tender lambes he bore,
Nay, lytell babe, thou sholdest not wepe so sore.
Post wepe, poore babe, to see what euill case
By nature we are in,
Foule and uncleano afore oure Maker's face,
For father Adam's synne ?
But thou shalt heare Bowe loue bath opal a doore,
Hush, lytell babe, and doe not wepe so sore.
Dost wepe to loke upon the dreadefull pytte
Where we are Tyke to fall,
If by the Savyour's grace we be not quitte,
That gaue His lyfe for all :
That where dyd syn abund, grace myght m ache more,
Nay, lytell babe,thou needst not wepe so sore.
I trowe He wyll oure feeble voyses catch,
And to oure worries gene hede,
He sayeth, To whom shal knocke I lyft the latch,
And byd goe in wyth spade ;
He cries, Whatso thou wylt, I grannt thee more,
Then, lytell babe, thou needst not wepe so sore.
The flow of the rhythm and the tone of
thinking in these verses belong to a later age,
and suggest that the author must be familiar
with the poems of George Herbert and Her-
rick. As a specimen of the style of the prose,
we will extract the description of the death of
the little child

Dayly we watch besydo the chylde, sorowcing to see him
suffre anie doloure ; yett as goode Master Frenche who was
here but nowe, sayeth, We be wel perswaded he is in a
Londe marvellous tender, and more louynge than we be,
and we nede not to feare that He wyll handle him anie sorer
than shal make for his goode. And so Joan is conforted
therby, and desyreth to leaue her carefulnesse and over
pensyvenesse of herte, and to wayt mekely upon Him that
)(meth her lytell one, and chastyseth onelye for mire proitt.
The babe is gone! and so all oure fearer and watchynges
are over, for no"ht, shal nowe berme nor yett afilyet hym.
fester e'en I prated Joan to take her reste, and kept vigyl by
him whyleas he slept. Verie tranquill dyd he lye, his pale
prettie face preaced upon his ryghte arme, and his lytell
'mule stretched forthe upon the pyllowe. The fayre lyddes
drooped downe over his awete ems, lyke to the leauea of
floures that close up theyr prettie golden heames. i sate
a goode space in meditacyon, harkenyng to his heavie
tbyeke breathe as it came and went. Anon it grew more

THE PRESS.

hushed, and methoght he slept peaceftillye, but abought
two of the clocks I was myntled to luke at hym, so
takyng a lyghte, I came close, and bowed myne heads
towarde him. He was eerie styll, yea so styli, that myne
herte beat ouer faste as I lystened for his breathe. It
came not. I toke his lytell honde, it was growyng colde,
and it fell agayn from myne, as a deade wayght that bath
none power of lyfe. I called to Joan in hest. She came
and Joked wyth me, but it was all too late;—too late for
him to hears ours voyses thogh neuer so luwd, for swete
babe, he was harkenyng to the angellicsll softe musyck of
heauen, and the dulcet voyses of fayre spotlesse creatures,
and the swete murmurs of the crystall ryver of (1011, and
methoght he heard One speakyng and sayeing, " Of suche
is the Kyngedome of heauen."
So he has shortlye entred into his rests, after a lytell
space of payn and doloures, whych nowe he remembereth
not, for suche thynges I wet are passed awaye. Smal know-
ledge had he of this erthly lyfe and its vanyties, and fulle
none bath he begun the heveuly lyfe. But we are left be-
hynd, still tossyng to and fro. lett we luke to reach the
same safe harborough, for He who kenneth ours frayltye
wyll not suffre us to fayle, and we are marvellouslye by
Hym euer holpen and couforted. The poore mother
loketh fondlye to the tame whenas she mays beholde her
lytell one in glorye. She bath some bytternesse of apyritt
truelye for her onelye sonne, but she maketh no murmurs,
and syth he be her bests and metteet, desyreth to gene him
up a lytell sacryfyce unto her Ood, and rejoyceth to
thynke that uowe he prayseth Him in His house for euer-
moe.

There are many other passages in the vo-
lume which testify to the pathetic power of
the writer. " Ephemeris" will please readers
who are of a serious and sentimental turn of
mind; and its composer is fitr above the ave-
rage of the fictionists who write for " cir-
culating
_libraries." In its piety there is no
gloom ; in its religious musings there is no-
thing mawkish ; and its eloquence is often
tender and impressive.

Memoirs of the Princess Palatine, Princess of
Bolumht. By the Baroness Blaze de Bury.

London : Bentley.
THE late Professor Smyth, of Cambridge, in
teaching his class the practical method of
arriving at the value of historical works,
recommended careful examination of the foot-
notes, and intimated that where these are
deficient the research of the author might
not be relied on. The notes to this volume
are " angelical " in being "few and far between,"
and we find no proofs that the compiler has
added in the slightest degree to what is already
known upon the subject. The volume is com-
posed of old matter, treated without novelty of
manner, and the work will only be found
interesting by those who are not versed in
modern history. The authoress gets out of
her depth in introducing a sketch of Descartes
and his philosophy, and she fails to indicate
his influence on the French mind, as well as
over the understanding of Pascal. Few of the
softer sex, like a Racier, a De Staa, or a
Somerville, are fitted for abstruse research or
profound investigation ; and we think that the
Baroness Blaze de Bury might better employ
her powers on less difficult themes than meta-
physical disquisition or historical inquiries.

On the State of Man subsequent to the Promulga
tion of Christianity. Part IV. London

J. W. Parker and Son.
(Small Books ou Great Subjects. No. 22.)

Wz have long regretted the absence from our
literature of some single work which should
comprise within reasonable compass the re-
sults at least of the great contributions made
by recent writers to the social and religious
history of Europe during the middle ages.
The profound and invaluable researches of
Guizot, Hallam, Sismondi, Bunke, and others,
are naturally, from their wide extent, inacces-
sible to a large class of readers, who are de-
terred by want either of leisure time, or of
special bias for the pursuit, from entering
upon a study so vast, and involving so great a
mastery of details. The little work before us,
without claiming to be considered as a manual
of the subject in the strict sense, or present-
ing a dry, technical summary of events in de-
tail, is to be recommended as a clear, vigorous,
and graphic sketch of the whole period of
which it treats ; a character, drawn only in
outline, but full of truthfulness and point,—of
the progress of European society, as influenced
by, and itself reacting upon, the religion of
Christ. Passing rapidly over the leading
events and changes of the time, it traces their

41

causes, their connection, and their results,

with the eye and hand of a religious philoso-
pher. It is a history of Christianity, not as a
system of doctrinal truths, but as the belief
and practice of living masses of mankind.
The present volume forms but a fourth part
of the entire work, and treats of the social
state of Europe from the beginning of the
twelfth to the end of the fourteenth century.
One object of the author has been to supply a
fair and correct estimate of the institutions of
the age, so unjustly regarded in general from
our modern point of view :

There has been a very general misapprehension of the
institutions of medileval times ; some decrying them
as mere contrivances of a restless and grasping ambition ;
others looking back with blind fondness to a period which
can never return, and would be a curse if it could.—p. 21.
The leading idea and scope of the work may
best perhaps be illustrated by the following
passage, which is a good example of the au•
they's style:—

The action and reaction of Christianity on the age, and
of the age on Christianity, has been going on from the
first, and still continues: every century gives its own ver-
sion, more or less pure, of the faith of Christ; and every
century pronounces confidently that now its institutions
are perfect, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
them. The next finds many of the institutions unsuited
to its needs, and the dogmata taught aro mixed up with
an antiquated phraseology not always intelligible : tt pro-
bably, with the accustomed versatility of human nature,
cries out aloud that Christianity is a worn-out system, and
that something fresh must be devised : a great convulsion
follows, rivers of blood flow, and what then? Mau sits
wofully in the midst of the desolation he has made; he
has set up' idols, and they have not helped him; he retunis
at last to his God, and finds that the Christianity which he
had thought antiquated and worn out is in fact intertwined
in the very substance of his nature, that he must love, and
hope, and do, as Christ did ; and that in the attempt to
tear away Christianity he must tear away also all that is
good and great in humanity. He will then discover what
he would have done better to have discovered sooner, that
he has been complaining only of the institutions of
men, and that the real truths of the gospel tymain the
striver, yesterday, to-day, and for erer.—p. ;13.
The gradual steps which prepared the way
for the Reformation are well delineated ; and
we trust, through the diffusion of sounder
views by means of books like the present, to
see the end of that narrow and unphilosophic
temper which could busy itself in assigning
one single specific cause to every important
event in history seeing in so widely-spread-
ing an event as Le Reformation, for instance,
only the result of a tyrant's caprices or the in-
trigues of a maid of honour :
It would be a k,freat mistake to suppose that these causes
were purely religious. No doubt the indignation and dia•
gust excited by the vices of the clergy, the exactions and
ambitions of the popes, and the falsification of gospel
doctrines which with the increasing knowledge became
every day more apparent, hail their share in causing the
general upheaving of the middle and lower orders which
took place at this period; but this would hardly have pro-
duced so general a movement had not political wrongs
created a large sum of discontent with the existing order
of things.... .The humbling the ecclesiastical body and
the spoliation of its rich endowments were iu fact the aim
of the aristocracy, and probably of the King also ; while
the people in their turn saw in the preaching of their
reformers the dawn of better times for them; and then,
mingled with occasional passionate yearnings for a doc-
trine which might satisfy the heart and understanding,
worldly and political interests played their part.—
pp. 2b7-9.
We are reminded, with much regret, that
with the next and final portion of this work
the series of" Small Books on Great Subjects"
will be brought to an cnd,—a series for which
we have heartily to thank both projectors and
editors. Their interest and value may be truly
said to be in the ratio of their subject, not of
their size.

One Word for Ruisia, and Two for Ourselves. By
I'acificus. London : Murray.
_

- -
WE remember that in the days of his yrnth on the
Pacifico debate Lord Aberdeen played very happily
on the word Sapienza, which was the name of one of
the islets to which the Lord High Commissioner of
the lonian Islands had then recently laid claim on
behalf of Great Britain. His lordship will there-
fore perhaps pardon us if we suggest that Pacificu.s
may afford some clue to the" Athenian " author of
the pamphlet before us. The title, also, is suggestive,
but the internal evidence is conclusive, that this pro-
duction is the composition of a coalition, for each
proposition in it diametrically contradicts Rome other
that either precedes or follows it.. The whole pre-
sents just such a heterogeneous conglomerate as
would result from any compound to which each of
ber Majesty's servants had contributed a part. The
author is astonished that English journals should

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