The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-22 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Henry tite Third, _King of France, his Court and
Times. By Martha Walker reer, author of
" The Life of Marguerite D'Angouleme," &c.
3 vols. Hurst and Blackett.
Miss Freer has before now honourably distin-
guished herself in that department of litera-
ture which feminine writers seem of late ,to
have especially appropriated. Miss Strickland's
labours have obtained for her a lasting reputa-
tion, while her example has been worthily fol-
lowed by Miss Pardoe Mrs; Everett Green, and
other fair writers of historical
biography. Miss
Freer has devoted herself to the royal histories
of our continental neighbours, and has selected
the eventful sixteenth century for the time
chronicled. She commenced her series some time
back, with the life of Marguerite D'Angouleme,
Queen of Navarre, the beautiful and virtuous sister
of the chivalrous Francis I. Her affection for her
brother, her cultivated tastes, and the encourage-
ment she secretly afforded to the reformed doctrines,
were described by Miss Freer with great success.
The memoir of her heroic daughter, Jeanne
D'Albret, also Queen of Navarre, followed, and
told of more troubled times and sterner characters.
The authoress then stepped aside from the direct
course of French history to give us the memoirs of
Elizabeth de Valois, eldest daughter of Henry 11.,
who was the third wife of the cruel and bigoted
Philip 11. of Spain. All historians agree in de-
scribing her as a fair and gentle princess, Init she
does riot appear to have possessed much character.
It was at the tournament held in honour of her
marriage that Henry 11. received his death-blow.
Miss Freer has now returned to• French soil, and
in this, her longest and most ambitious work, she
has given us a history of the life and times of
Henry the Third, the earlier part of whose career
includes that of his brother, Charles IX. The reign
of Henry, as Miss Freer observes, was " one of the
most effete and inglorious in French history." Never-
theless the times were rife with great characters.
and stirring events. It would afford scope to the
powers of the ablest historian, the most skilful
analyser of the motives and passions of mankind, to
describe the gradual decline of the royal power, the
rise of the Guises, the indolent and effemmate, yet
vindictive, character of the king, the influence of
the temporising policy of the queen-mother, the
formation of the League, and its struggles with
Henry of Navarre. All these varying elements of
strife and discord, and their influence upon society
and the masses of the people ; the country tom by
faction and convulsed by civil war, with the fiercest
religious intolerance I-Aging son both sides, might
afford ample opportunity to the philosopher or the
moralist, to marvel at the shortsightedness and
weakness of human nature, or to deplore the
lengths to which it is carried by its ambition, its
intolerice, and its evil passions. Miss Freer does
not attempt to deduce a moral of this kind. She
contents herself with narrating with straightfor-
ward simplicity the events of the time ; with paint-
inr, the varying characters more by their actions
than by words, though she shows some skill in
tracing the effects of their different dispositions.
Her volumes evidence the labour she, has under-
gone in study and research. The notes are nume-
rous, and. the constant references to her authority
testify the authenticity of her work. The history
is compiled "from numerous unpublished sources,
including MS. documents in the Bibliotheque Im-
periale and the archives of France and Italy." The
pains which she has taken to trace the parentage
and relationship of the chief characters also deserve
commendation. She possesses, too, the chief re-
quisite of an historian, a strict impartiality, and
the fact of her indulging little m reflection or com-
ment helps her to preserve her freedom from bias.
Her remarks,when they are incidentally introduced,
are generally sensible and comprehensiVe in spirit.-
Her present work is more ambitious in its aim than
any of her former ones, both from its greater
length and the more troubled times it chro-
nicles, and also from the> subject of the
biography being a king and not a queen, the prin-
ciples of his government, and the political aspects
of his reign having to be discussed. The first volume
is chiefly occupied with the narrative of the closing
years of Charles the Ninth's reign and Henry's
brief and inglorious rule in Poland. The second is
full of the details of the intrigues and factions, the
extravagant luxury of the court, and the strife and
turmoil m the Southern provinces. The third volume
narrates the increasing power of the Duke de Guise,
the tyranny of the League, the barricades of Paris,
the subsequent events, the tragedy at Blois, and
terminates with the knife of the assassin, who so
soon avenged the murder of the Guises. It now
remains to Miss Freer to trace the story of the
troubled times that followed, and the career of that
good and great Henri Quatre, who was also destined,
like so many of the good and great of those days,
to perish by the hand of a murderer. The picture
of the frivolous and dissipated court, swayed by the
cabals of favourites, and disturbed by their animo-
sities, is sketched with skill and vigour. We must
not omit to mention that three fine portraits are
affixed to the volumes, Henry the Third, Catherine
de Medicis, and Louise of Lorraine, Henry's queen.
The countenance of the king shows the compound
of weakness and ferocity which formed his charac-
ter, while the calm smooth features of his mother
have a treacherous and cunning look, which accords
with the mind that could plan and execute the
tragedy. of St. Bartholomew. The portrait of
Queen Louise is mild and melancholy, but does not
evidence much intellect or character. We con-
gratulate Miss Freer on having successfully accom-
plished a very arduous task. Her powers are well
adapted to render good and efficient service to his-
torical literature, by her faithful and searching in-
vestigation of those minor portions which great
historians are apt to slight or hasten over ; as of
old the pupils of the great painters would carefully
finish the subordinate yet indispensable figures,
leaving the central groups to be sketched by the
master's hand.

Historic Notes on the Books of the Old and New
Testaments. By Samuel Sharpe. Smith and

Elder.

This is the second edition of this work, which
testifies the public approval. The author states in
his preface that its object is neither theological nor
devotional, but is an attempt to explain by means
of the history, the circumstances under which the
several books and portions of books were written,
and the times when the writers lived. Such know-
ledge must always be useful and acceptable to
readers of Scripture, enabling them to understand
and appreciate much that would otherwise be diffi-
cult and obscure.

NEW POEMS.
Poems. By Henry Cecil. Smith and Elder.
lonica. Smith and Elder.

Poems. By Ada Trevanion. Smith and Elder.
Verse. By Charles Boner. Chapman and Hall.
An Hour Ago—A Mystery. By J. F. Cockran
Longman.

It is universally admitted, we believe, by the
critics of the present day, that the poets of our
time are far inferior to their predecessors. The
volumes before us, whatever their recommendations,
will not, we fear, reverse this decision. Some of
them, however, show traces of poetic feeling, and
we are glad to see less of that mysticism and in-
version of phrase which render many of the new
school so formidable to read, much more to compre-
hend. " Poems," by Henry Cecil, have some pleas-
ing and flowing verses, and some graceful passages,
but the resemblance to the writings of the Laureate
often strikes the reader. Subject and style so often
correspond to some of Tennyson's earlier pieces that
one is inclined to question whether Mr. Cecil would
have written poems had he not read Tennyson.
We occasionally meet also with a strong rezem-
blance to the ballads of Professor Aytoun, which
is the more to be regretted as the author can cer-
tainly write pleasing and flowing verses, if not
capable of reaching any lofty altitude of the poetic
art. He should carefully avoid this similarity I
whether intentional or accidental, and concentrate
his powers on simple descriptive pieces, where he
may attain greater success than in his present
endeavour.
" lonica" has more originality, and the verse
runs smoothly and flowingly. The thoughts, how-
ever, are not so good as the expression of them,
and there is neither sufficient depth of philosophical
hhitcael
thought or sympathetic feeling to constitute
eampoet.
by Ada areTrevanion,
graceful and
tendwriteriere. in feeling, and unexceptionable in moral
purpose, but the copying from Mr. Tennyson and
Mrs. Hemans is painfully apparent. From the
former especially, the unacknowledged borrowing
must strike every reader of theth Laureate. Indeed,
passedw onde
irtf wonderful
over.h o
is
haveon l only
instance,authore we
ehehrsaevlef
it
could
" Spring and its Return," two scenes from a young
how
re
girl's deathbed, in which she says—
" Not yet—glad tones of merriment,
Come from the village green,
This May they'll give no thought to me,
But choose another Queen."
And again—

t( Not yet—an aged pastor kneels,
And strives with holy words
To rouse the light of faith and touch
My wayward's spirits' chords."
If the words are not identical, the Idea is pre-
cisely the same as in Tennyson's popular " May
Queen." In another part of the book the likeness
to a few lines of the same poem is still stronger,