SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

BIOGRAPHY,

An Autobiographical Memoir of Sir John Barrow, Bart., late of the Admiralty ; in- cluding Reflections, Observations, and Reminiscences at Home and Abroad, from

early Life to advanced Age Murray.

POSTRY,

Robin Hood; a Fragment. By the late Robert Southey, and Caroline Southey.

With other Fragments and Poems. By R. S. and C. S Blackwood and Sons.

MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE,

Friends in Council ; a Series of Readings and Discourse thereon. Book the First.

Pickering.

SIR JOHN BARROW'S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR.

Argna a life of industry, adventure, and incessant activity, from beyond the Indus to the Pole, Sir John Barrow sat himself down at the age of eighty- two to write the story of his own career ; mingling with personal narrative reminiscences of foreign scenes, public events, and public men. As the worthy baronet differs from most of us in never having had a serious illness, or his pulse felt but once, and that by a Chinese doctor, when he had been tempted to eat of strange dishes, so he seems to set the laws of human nature at defiance. All that Juvenal declaimed or Horace directed touching the " multa senem circumveniunt incommoda," is falsified in favour of the veteran. Beyond a not unpleasing garrulity, and a little pardonable exhibition of self, there is nothing in this ample volume that; hints of age, unless it be the variety and length of time over which the reminiscences extend: for the occasional introduction of subjects not strictly biographical, in an account of the Chinese expedition and the sojourn at the Cape of Good Hope, with a little too much of Admiralty detail, are errors of judgment by no means confined to one time of life, but often much more visible in green youth or ripe maturity than they are here.

Sir John Barrow is a remarkable man in many points of view. As a traveller, he occupies a conspicuous place for his account of China and his explorations at the Cape of Good Hope. As a literary man, be can show his Lives of Lords Macartney, Anson, and Howe, besides several works in connexion with Arctic discovery, some compilations for the

Family Library, and nearly two hundred articles in the Quarterly Review. Repute, nay, something more than repute-positive fact- points to him as a zealous promoter of the expeditions that for the last

thirty years have been undertaken to survey the Polar regions ; and for forty years he filled the laborious office of Second Secretary to the Ad- miralty under successive and opposite Administrations. Perhaps the most remarkable feature about his character is his success, and the lesson it affords as to the use of any knowledge, and the influence of energy, perse- verance, and probably some personal qualities that do not appear in his

biography. Sir John Barrow is a sort of civil Duke of Wellington, with- out so large a sphere of action, or any advantages from birth or con- nexion.

The father of our hero appears to have been a small farmer, at Drag- leybeck, near Ulverstone in Lancashire; where the future Sir John was born, in 1764. The only education he received was at the common grammar school of a country town ; and he never had any regular busi- ness or profession : but he had an incessant zeal for acquiring knowledge, and an indefatigable energy in doing whatever there was to be done. With occasional assistance from a perambulating tutor, he acquired seve- ral branches of mathematics; and soon had an opportunity of turning his knowledge to account. "Just as I was about to leave the school, a gentleman who had the manage- ment of Colonel Braddyll's estates in Yorkshire, Mr. Cottam, well known in that county, tilled on the master of Town Bank to know if he could recommend two

of the youths, best-informed in arithmetic and geometrical calculations, to assist him in taking an.acenrate and complete survey of the Colonel's very extensive estate

of Conished Priory, near Ulverstone. He immediately named Zaccheus Walker, his nephew, and myself. We were accordingly sent for, and received explanations of what would be required of us: but as neither of us felt qualified to go alone, we consented on the understanding that all should be done entirely under his as- sistance and supervision.

" We remained at the Priory, as well as I now can recollect, about two months; in which time we completed the survey, to the satisfaction, as I was afterwards

informed, of Colonel Braddyll ; and, I may add for my own part, to my incalea- little benefit derived from witnessing the practised methods of conducting a sur- vey of the various descriptions of surface, for it contained all-level, hilly, wood-

land, and water; and it was not the less useful to me from the practical know« ledge acquired of the theodolite, and of the several mathematical instruments in the possession of Mr. Cottarm "In fact, during our sojourn at the Priory, I so far availed myself of the saves ral applications of these instruments, that, on arriving in London some years afterwards, I extended my knowledge of them, so as to draw up and publish a small treatise to explain the practical use of a ease of mathematical instruments: being my first introduction to the press, fur which I obtained twenty pounds; and was not a little delighted to send my first fruits to my mother."

In like manner he acquired a knowledge of astronomy. A young naval officer who had lost an arm, and thought of studying for the Church, came to live in the neighbourhood; and from him Barrow acquired some

knowledge of navigation, while he assisted the nautical divinity student in the classics. In his fifteenth year be was employed as a sort of clerk-super-

intendent of a small iron-foundry at Liverpool, and gave such satisfaction that in a few years a partnership was talked of: but the proprietor died; his widow sold the business ; and young Barrow, not anticipating so much comfort and free action under the successor, declined to remain. Not to be idle, however, he made a voyage to the Arctic Sea, in a whaler, with a captain whose acquaintance he had made ; and, besides becoming a competent seaman in everything save heaving the lead, laid the founda- tion of that interest in the Northern regions which many years after he turned to public account. There then lived in the neighbourhood of

Ulverstone a farmer named Gibson, one of those men who pursue some abstruse study from an innatus amor, without any thought beyond the pleasure of its acquisition : to him young Barrow had several times been indebted for advice in mathematics ; and on his return from his Arctic voyap, Mr. Gibson was the means of opening to him a career in life. A son of the old gentleman held a situation in the Bank, and was applied to by a celebrated schoolmaster at Greenwich to recommend a " North country " young man as mathematical teacher. Mr. Gibson wrote to his father ; his father named young Barrow; who in due time was inducted to his post. The pupils were of superior station ; young Mr. Barrow pleased them ; he was invited to their houses in vacation-time, gave them private lessons at those seasons, and gradually got some other pupils, till he settled as a mathematical teacher in London. Among others, he was applied to by the late Sir George Staunton to teach the present Sir George; and made so favourable an impression, that when Macartney's embassy to China was planned, "John Barrow, Esq." was appointed " Comptroller of the Household," at the instance of Sir George Staunton. On the re- turn of the expedition, Lord Macartney was appointed Governor of the recently-conquered colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and took Barrow with him as ope of his private secretaries. His enormous power of work was fully employed there : when Macartney left the Cape, he turned his former secretary over to his successor, General Dundas, as a sort of" right- hand man"; and Barrow made himself so useful to the nephew of Henry Lord Melville, that when the colony was given up to the Batavian Repub- lic after the peace of Amiens, and the whole Colonial staff returned to Eng- land, Lord Melville invited him to meet Mr. Pitt at dinner; and on the overthrow of the Addington Ministry, made him Second Secretary of the Admiralty. This office he held for forty years, without reckoning an in- terregnum of eight months in the time of "All the Talents" : and they, on removing him, gave him a pension of 1,0001. a year.

Sir John Barrow has judiciously divided his Memoirs into sections. The first section relates to his career up to the time of his connexion with Macartney's embassy : it is the most directly biographical portion, and in this point of view the most interesting, because it has greater unity of subject. Two other sections are devoted to China and the Cape ; and, 'though abounding with autobiographical passages, probably travel pre- dominates rather too much. Another division, and the largest, is called " The Admiralty " : it is treated under thirteen sub-sections, relating to as many First Lords ; and contains Sir John Barrow's reminiscences of their rule, with many things relating to himself. Though not properly biographical, with a few exceptions, and dealing too much in official busi- ness matters, it is interesting for its anecdotes of celebrated men, its sketches of Admiralty doings, and the manner in which it lets the reader behind the scenes. What the author calls a Supplementary Chapter, is a sketch of his employments, feelings, and condition, since his retirement in 1845 ; and some anecdotes about Gifford, the foundation of the Quarterly Review, and the author's own connexion with it.

The interest of the work is rather in its matter and spirit than its literature ; for the structure is somewhat loose, the diversions from the main subject are frequent, and the style approaches the garrulous. These critical defects, however, are quite overbalanced by the reality and va- riety of the subject-matter, the interest felt in following the author's early life, the views of men in different and remote climates presented in the second part, and the well-known names, the political anec- dotes, and the views we get of the Admiralty dressing and green-rooms during his later career. Some of the vigour which carried Sir John Barrow so successfully through life, which sustained him at the Ad- miralty till turned of eighty, and has since enabled him to produce a volume a year, is visible in his style; and though evidently of a firm and straightforward character, he seems to possess a natural bonhommie, which generally pervades the book. The exception is when politics are in question ; not so much the polities of the day, as of the first decade of the century. Sir John Barrow seems to have some of the narrow viru- lence whieh distinguished the politicians of that time, except the very lof- tiest. Be has not the currish ferocity of Gifford; but, strange to say, he exhibits a little of the vulgarity of the farceur Hook. Wroth with the impeachment of Melville, be speaks of Whitbread, inter alia, as a "wealthy plebeian brewer, who had aspired to become a senator "; and he talks of those who supported him as his " political accomplices." A little reflection might have shown him, that whatever Parliamentary motives might prompt the action, far worse can fairly be charged against Pitt and Dundas for furthering the impeachment of Hastings, with the stigma of inconsistency for personal motives superadded. The parts of the book relating to China and Africa have, as we already intimated, too much of the air of travels, and travels that have been already read. Some of the good things relating to men have also been recorded, either by our author or by others ; but the following, from China, seems new in form, if not in the substance.

"I had some difficulty in explaining to the Mandarins the names, titles, and offices of a collection of portraits, which Lord Macartney had presented to the Emperor at Gebel, and which hia Majesty had despatched to Yuen-min-Yuen, to be translated into the Mantchoo and Chinese languages. We got over the names pretty well; that of the Duke of Marlborough being written down Too-Awe Ma- ul-pa-10o; of Bedford, Pe-te fo-ut-te, &c.; but the portrait of the latter having been taken in his boyhood, when I desired the Chinese secretary to write him down as a to-gin, or great man of the second order, he immediately said, sup- pose you mean his fattier was a to-gin.' I explained to him, that with us neither age, nor superior talents, nor great acquirements, were necessary to obtain the appellation of to-gin, to which many of our legislators were entitled by birth: he also exclaimed hai-ya! laughed heartily at the idea of a man being born a legis- lator, when so many years of close application were required to enable one of their countrymen to pass his examination even for the very lowest order of statessffi- °era. But as the Emperor can confer a sort of nominal reek on the descendants of Confucius, but not such as to entitle to office, einolument, or exclusive privi- lege, they agreed to put down his Grace as one of that description; positively re- fusing to give him the title of ta-gin' alleging that the Emperor was not so stupid as to believe that a little boy could have attained the rank of a great man."

Passing over the Cape, and some social as well as political anecdotes, we have seen many points for remark in the Admiralty ; but space limits US to two or three.

A SENIOR FIRST LORD, AND PITT "SETTLING" Tire JUNIORS.

One of the first points of knowledge to which the attention of a new First Lord is uhually drawn, is the number of vacancies to be filled up; a statement of the available fleet, and of the number of seamen borne; what ships are required to be put into commission; what civil or military vacant appointments exist, or are likely to occur; and to find some fault in the arrangements made by his predeces- sor, if it be only to change them, in order to show his own superior discerning. Lord Barham, however, at the advanced period of his life, was satisfied to let things. go on in their usual course, to remain quiet in his own room, to make few inquiries, and to let the Board consider and settle the current affairs of the Navy among themselves. In fact, he never attended the Board; but when any doubt- ful question arose, one of the Lords or the Secretaries took his decision on it in his own room. An instance occurred, however, which called for his speedy inter- ference: but, instead of settling it at once whenI told him of it, as be might easily have done, he actually wrote off to Mr. Pitt, stating the case, and requesting his interference on a personal question. The case was this. One morning, as Captain Gambier entered the Board-room, the only persons there being Lord Garlies and myself, Captain Gambier had no sooner taken his seat than Lord Gerlies, in a loud and angry tone, burst forth at once, saying, "I despise the man who can say one thing to your face and another thing out of doors behind your back." " Do you mean to apply that to me?" asked Gambier. "Yes, I do," said Lord Garliea, Not a word more was spoken; but the Captain took his hat, and said to me, " Yon have heard how I have been insulted, and I never enter this room again without a suitable apology." I told the whole to Lord Barham; and he immediatelywrote to Mr. Pitt, who speedily came to the Admiralty, and I was sent for. Mr. Pitt asked me to let him know precisely what had taken place; and having told him, he said, "Have you any doubt which of the two is the aggrieved party ?" I said that, "being in utter ignorance of what had previously taken place between them, I can only speak of what occurred in my presence, and I can have no hesitation in giving it as my opinion that Lord Gathers was the first and only aggressor." He then said, "I will soon settle this matter"; and I left the room. The next morning I found Lord Garlie,s sitting at the Board.. He took no no- tice to me of what had happened, and in a little time Captain Gambier made his appearance; upon which Lord Genies rose, and, meeting him, held out his hand, and asked pardon for the hasty and outrageous manner in whieli he had incau- tiously and in anger spoken, and hoped his forgiveness. Mr. Pitt, it appeared, on leaving Lord Barham, had written to both. The dispute had arisen from some difference of opinion about warrant-officers.

A CRITIC IN THE CABINET.

Lord Mulgrave possessed wit and humour in a considerable degree, and was al- ways most agreeable at his own table; he was also an acute critic. A friend of Mr. Pitt once asked that Minister, how he could be so incautious as to let into the Cabinet one so very much disposed to criticise what others said or did ? "For that very reason," Pitt replied, " that we may be told of and enabled to correct our many blunders. The two Administrations which occupy the largest space are those of the Duke of Clarence and Sir James Graham. The first is mainly dis- tinguished by personal anecdote : the second exhibits Sir James in a very favourable light; as an active man of business, a bold but cautious administrative reformer, with great firmness and determination to carry his intentions into effect. Sir John Barrow seems to feel something of uneasiness or soreness that the connexion, though not exactly dropped, is not continued ; and he publishes some letters, indicating their more than official intimacy, which, though very creditable to Sir James Gra- ham, seem rather of a private nature. The whole section is valuable and curious : but we can only find room for one extract.

How WHIGS RAKE SECRETARIES.

I should have mentioned that the new Secretary, Captain the Honourable George Elliot, had accompanied Sir Thomas Hardy, but remained outside. I went out to him;. and he very candidly and with great condescension said, that he Was not exactly fit for the situation of Secretary, as his lite had been mostly spent at sea, and he was not at all conversant with the civil affairs of the Navy; besides, he knew not, he said, who had recommended him to Lord Grey. However, 1 hap- pened to know; for, on my usual Sunday afternoon visits to Lady Spencer, I met Captain Elliot coming out of Spencer House; and her Ladyship said, "I suppose you met your new Secretary?" I saw Captain Elliot; but I knew not of his ap- pointment, nor at that time even who was to be the First Lord. She then told me that Lord Spencer had been consulted; and that the Captain had always been so civil and accommodating when they were down at their place in the Isle of Wight, and when be was flag-captain at Portsmouth, that, entertaining a good opinion of him, his LoOdship had recommended him for the situation. I was not sorry for it, as I knew him to be a very correct, excellent, and fine-tempered man • and not myself being, or ever intending to be, in the House of Commons, it was oinoconse- goalies to me, as I had finally excluded myself from ever becoming the First Se- cretary of the Admiralty.

In the course of our reading we observed a few errors in matters of fact, scarcely to have been expected from so old an official. They are pro- bably owing to rapid writing from memory, and without correction of the proofs, which it seems Sir John dislikes, and assigns to his daughter. One of these errors is a strange one : he ascrilfes the Duke of Clarence's appointment as Lord High Admiral to the Duke of Wellington, though the whole narrative indirectly corrects the error.