SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

The Life of Henry the Fourth, Ring of France and Navarre. By 0. P. It. James, Esq.; Author of " The Life and Times of Louis the Fourteenth," "The History of Charlemagne," &c. In three volumes Boons, Ammo-Saxon LITERATURE, Layamon's Brut, or Chronicle of Britain ; a Poetical Semi-Saxon Paraphrase of the " Brat " of Waco, Now first pi lidished from. the Cottonian MSS. in the British; Museum; accompanied by a literal Translation, Notes, and a Grammatical aloe- aary. By Sir Frederick Madden, K.H. 'Published by Me Society of Antiquaries.

THEOLOGY,

Discourses by the late Archibald Bennie, D.D., F.R.S.E., Minister of Lady Yestees Church; Edinburgh. and one of the Deans of the Chapel Royal. To which is pre- fixed a Merhoir of the Atithor Biarkwood and BONS. Popery Subversive of Christianity. Six Sermons, by the Reverend W. G. Cookesley, M.A., one of the Assistant Masters of Eton College Richard and Son. The Unify of God's Moral Law, as Revealed In the Old and New Testament. By the Reverend Arthur John Maclean, B.A., Trinity College, Cambridge; Trioelpal of Brighton College Bell.

STATISTICS,

Commercial Statistics. A Digest of the Productive Resources, Commercial LegHla, tion, Customs Tariffs, Navigation, Port and Quarantine Laws and Charges, Ship- ping, Imports and Exports, and the Monies, Wei_hts, and Measurei of all Nations. Including all British Commercial Treaties with Foreign States. Collected from Authentic Records, and Consolidated with especial reference to British and Foreign Products, Trade, and Navigation. By John Macgregor, Author of " British America," and one of the Joint Secretaries of the Board of Trade. to four vo- lumes. Vol. III Whittaker and tb.

JAMES'S LIFE OF HENRY THE FOURTH OF PRANCE. Tins work is less a life of Henry the Fourth than a history of Frame from the death of Francis the First to the assassination of Henry by the fanatic Ravaillac. The subject is not a bad one, if properly treated. The period was a critical point in French history ; the principal characters were striking; the social and civil condition of the country exhibited a shocking state of corruption and anarchy, carious to consider, and with a fearful interest in its exhibition; there were also remarkable if not great events,—as the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the murder of Guise, and some of the campaigns of the League and Henry of Navarre.

Till the age of Charles the Seventh, or more truly perhaps of his son Louis the Eleventh, France was lees a feudal kingdom than a sort of federalty of princes, where the monarch was powerless, unless he haps pened to be a man of great abilities and assisted by fortune as well as the weakness of his enemies. After the final expulsion of the English, the union of Burgundy to the French crown on the death of its last Duke, and the acquisition of Brittany by the marriage of Charles the Eighth, the territorial character of the kingdom was consolidated. The power of the nobility and gentry, however, was still great, and France was by no means united into one people. Under the paternal and popular reign of Louis the Twelfth, and the warlike, vigorous, and splendidly French cha- racter of Francis the First, the feudal evils did not develop themselves; but they burst out with violence under the reigns of the last three feeble and vicious princes of the house of Valois; • while religious differences added virulenee to._ political•cionteation, and furnished an excuse for the most horrilste eritnes. The- contests for power between the families of Guise and Aottunorenci, the endeavours of Catherine of Medicis to trim the balance• between the Romanists and Huguenots, the subsequent ap- pearauce.of Henry of Navarre and the Catholic League upon the scene, with various leeser factions, reduced France to a condition of anarchy and wretchedness which it is wonderful how she survived. The vices of .the Monarchs, the Queen-mother, and the courtiers, seem enough to have dis- solved society itself;; as they doubtless laid the foundation of that licenti- ousness which continued unchecked till the close of the old regime, and is now perhaps rather covered than at an end. The death of Henry the Third, the unquestionable hereditary right of Henry of Navarre to the throne, his activity as a general, and his conversion to. Rornanism, enabled him to restore peace and government to the kingdom ; assisted, no doubt, by the exhaustion of the previous civil wars, and the want of any rallying- cry for the remains of the League. But the power of the great nobility was not finally destroyed till Richelieu, or rather till Mazarin and Louis the Fourteenth; when the government of the crown •sas firmly estab- lished over noble's, parliarnehta, arol nitinicipatitios,—a triumph that might have been regretted had those bodies ever used their powers for the general good, or to establish any well-regulafed system of constitutional liberty.

In some points of view, the period which Mr. James has chosen is not equal to the cycle of Luis the Eleventh, or the administrations of Richelieu and Masashi. The factions, intrigues, and interminable skirmishes of the parties, want distinctness and unity, just as the objects of the leaders want purpose, or at least that successful ability which can give to purposes a real effect. Still, the very vices of the individuals, and the strong French feudal or nobility character in the Guises and some of the other leaders, together with the crimes and cruelties of both parties, redeem the subject from anything like insipidity. In composing history, three schools may be followed, either of which is adapted to the stlbject before us. First., the philosophical ; which extracts the very essence of its subjects, and estimates things in the scale of the man of the world or practical statesman, but expands and elevates particular circumstances by a larger comprehension and a more universal spirit. This species of history is popular from its breadth and rapidity and the lessons it. inculcates, but by reducing all ages to one common quality as it were, it is very apt to allow manner* and customs to evaporate, and may leave an incorrect impression of other times upon the mind, unless the reader comes to the perusal with some previous preparation : and of this style Hume may be con- sidered the head. The second class is the epic or narrative ; in which characters are presented and events described so as to exhibit the manners and indicate the social condition of the period, the entertainment of the reader rather than accuracy or instruction being the primary object of the author. Of this school Livy is the great master; though his classical brevity is not altogether favourable to mere exhibition of manners. The late Dr. Arnold; in the History of Rome, brought the early ages dramatically before the mind, and cast a sort of antique atm- sphere over his narrative. But perhaps some modern French writers are the best specimens of this school; though too Frenchified in manner, prone to over-detail, and too anxious to exhibit their own cleverness to

observe the canon "ars celare artem." The third or critical style chiefly differs from the first by being less direct in its narrative, and more ab-

stract and exacting in its estimates. Persons and events are presented

to the reader's mind, because without a knowledge of them the judgments cannot be understood ; but the case is stated rather than the story

told. Criticism—everything to the test—is the characteristic of this class ; which is clear, and may be sarcastic or cynical, but is hard, if not dry. Of this school Mill is one of the greatest masters. Practically none of these styles are ever exhibited in their purity ; every history

combining a portion of all three, and taking its character from the pre- dominant mode. There is perhaps a fourth style, whose characteristic is

gossip. It depends upon the courtly character of the period and the existence of original memoirs : it is often mere compilation, and figures under the title of " Life and Times."

To what class this work of Mr. James belongs, it is difficult to say. A total want of character and distinctness is its great defect, except du- ring the actual reign of Henry the Fourth ; which, however, only occu- pies part of the third volume. The author seems neither to have digested his materials, nor considered his plan, nor taken any pains with his com- position ; so that the reading, though easy enough, is flat, with a feeling of the unprofitable, unless when some remarkable action or strong cha- racter excites an interest by sheer inherent force, or the writer here and there rises to a momentary elevation. It may be said that this is owing to the confused character of the intrigues and wars of the period : but if the subject cannot be exhibited in detail or told in story, it is the his- torian's business to present the narrative in large masses, or, throwing aside narrative altogether, to exhibit the spirit of the age, by exposition and anecdotical instances. We do not, however, believe that the subject- matter is so much in fault as the manufacturing mind. The author's reading for former historical works or for his novels must have made him acquainted with the principal authorities, and he may have read the re- mainder for the nonce ; but he does not seem to have given to them time and study. He has not reconnoitered the age again and again, through the glasses of original writers, till he thoroughly understood it in its facts and spirit. The peculiar difference of French Fendality from the Prin- cipalities of the German empire and the Baronial system of England, as well as the national character of the Gauls and Franks, seem to have es- caped him altogether ; well as the age and the events were calculated to illustrate them. The work is not such a book-making affair as the unfinished Life of Occur de Lion ; but we suspect that the book- making spirit is at the bottom of its one great defect—the absence

of character. From the title, preface, and opening, it seems evident that the life and reign of Henry the Fourth was Mr. James's subject and study : but he had to read a good deal more relative to the preceding reigns ; and as he would not waste this, he "talks it off" for the public, without sufficient mastery or consideration. Hence a crudity, or a want of distinct presentment of the history, throughout the whole introductory part (two thirds of the whole) ; hence a pervading jogtrot sort of style—plain, and not ill expressed, but devoid of closeness, energy, and strength ; hence two octavo volumes to the reign of the last of the Valois race, and only one volume to the professed theme; which one volume, with a condensed introduction and some curtailment, would have been quite sufficient. The view we have taken of the cause of the defective character of the work seems confirmed by the fact that the reign of Henry is the best part of the whole, though rather too mixed ; not com- prehensive enough for history, yet too historical for biography. With such a subject and so large a field, there must of course be good parts in the volumes ; but excellencies are dependent upon some ac- cident—a lucky moment in Mr. James, or the intrinsic character of the subject. Among the former may be placed his character of Catherine de Medicis. It is rather the exhibition of certain qualities than a portrait, but it contains profound truth.

"From this period to the end of her life Catherine de Medicis continued to ex- ercise greater power over the councils of France than any other person, leading rather than ruling, guiding rather than commanding. She was at this time in the forty-first year of her age; retaining great traces of that beauty which had dis- tinguished her in youth, tall, well formed, and graceful, with a countenance full of intelligence and variety. Her powers of enduring fatigue were great, and she de- lighted in exercise carried even to excess. Fond of pleasures, and restrained by no moral principles, she sought enjoyment withont scruple, and only covered her licentiousness with a thin veil of grace and wit. From her native country she brought to France a taste for the fine arts and the elegancies of life; but amongst the small courts of Italy she had received that education in a cunning and deceit- ful policy which affected in a lamentable manner the whole course of her career. Shrewd, penetrating, and dexterous, she displayed neither great scope of intellect nor profundity of thought. She was always ready to seize and to employ the best means of overcoming existing difficulties or obtaining an immediate object; but the operations of her mind were always confined within a narrow limit, and ex- tended themselves unwillingly to things future or remote. The chief character- istic of her mind was levity, which tends to every sort of vice in private indi- viduals, and to all shades of crime in princes: to it is to be attributed her disre- gard of moral restraint, and her indifference to human suffering, the narrowness of her political views, the frequent changes of her plans, her insincerity towards her friends, even when they were serving her zealously, and her levity towards her enemies whenever the struggle with them was absolutely over. She could feel nothing deeply,—neither love nor hate, remorse nor shame, compassion nor rage. When she slew, it was as much to deliver herself from a difficulty as when she flattered and seduced; and it was her habitual inaptitude to receive any strong impression, rather than an inherent narrowness of intellect, which appears to have prevented her from forming any general plan of action or conceiving any vast design. Her chief passion would seem to have been ambition, but even that was greatly effected by circumstances; and we may reasonably doubt, notwith- standing the criminal means which she employed to retain power, whether it was very violent within her; for the existence of strong passions less frequently pro- duces great excesses than the want of just principles. Passion injures the moral sense but in few points; levity of character extinguishes it altogether."

The following sketch of the state of morals and society under Henry the Third may be taken as a favourable sample of the more historical

style of the work; though, perhaps, the condensation has too much of a cut and dry manner about it.

" The state of France at this period presents a curious but frightful picture. Civil war was raging in most of the provinces; no such thing as law orjustice existed; the passions of the monarch, his mother, or his minions, decided the life or death of all persons brought to trial even for ordinary crimes; private assassi- nation was so common that scarcely a day passed without the chroniclers of the time having to record some new tragedy amongst the nobles of the land; poison was employed on the slightest occasion; prisoners were strangled in their dun- geons fur the purpose of bestowing their estates upon the favourites of the Court; the King and his brother meditated the destruction of each other with very little secrecy; Catherine de Medicis entertained designs against the life of her son-in- law, the King of Navarre; the monarch and his mother took pleasure in witness- ing the execution of criminals; female chastity was almost unknown; every sort of immorality was tolerated and practised; and, with all these horrors, was mingled the external signs of devotion and piety—processions, vows, fasts, prayers, and sacraments. The King himself set the example, by running barefoot through the streets reciting his orisons, and by murmuring paternosters at his table, and in the very midst of the most frightful debaucheries; while, to render the scene more disgusting, jests, merriment, ant repartee, not only enlivened the dullest

i

sensuality, but interrupted the proceedings of the council-table, disturbed the gravity of the court of justice, and hovered round the scaffold and the block. The human heart when it revolts entirely to the side of vice has no other arms against virtue than a laugh."