GLEIG 2 S, LORD ELLESMERE'S, AND R. A. VAUGHAN'S COLLECTED ESSAYS. * WHEN

Macaulay first published his articles in a collected form, he pleaded as an apology that it was against his will, but he could not help himself. American pirates had printed what were re- ported to be his contributions to the Edinburgh Review ; the British proprietors had determined on a correct edition; he had no choice but to revise and improve his essays, or to concede that privilege to the Americans. When Sydney Smith and Jeffrey followed Macaulay's example, there was still a tone of apology grounded. upon the unfitness of papers written with a temporary purpose for perusal after the occasion had passed—an objection too frequently well founded. Of late years, hesitation on this ground has well-nigh ceased, though we are not aware that this has pro- ceeded from any increased merit in the reviews rescued from ob- livion. Various selections have lately appeared, and, besides the three before us, more are advertized to appear shortly. The " Essays " published by the members of Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh Universities furnish additional proof, if proof be wanting, that a large portion of the literary and scientific intel- lect of the age is directed towards fugitive writing. Whether this fashion is likely to encourage the production of great works may be doubted ; but be it good or be it evil we can- not help ourselves. The world wants essays, and probably the demand will be supplied. Nor is the practice nnini -rect. evil. Some men have special or floating knowledge enough to furnish an ar- ticle, though not to fill a book ; and if this knowledge be not realized at once in the form of a paper it may possibly be lost al- together. Others have not only the power of condensing and re- producing another man's matter, but in addition to criticism can furnish further information. Many men will undertake to write an essay who would eschew writing a volume. The sum of the question seems to be that we gain width at the expense of depth; the stream expands and shoals.

The three collections before us are varied and agreeable, su- perior to the usual style of reprinted papers, though not equal to

• Essays Biographical, Historical, and Miscellaneous. Contributed chiefly to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Review. By the Rev. G. R. Gleig, M.A., Chaplain- General to her Majesty's Forces, and Prebendary of Et. Paul's. In two volumes. Published by Longmans and Co. Essays on History, Biography, Geography, Engineering, 4v. Contributed to the Quarterly Review. By the late Earl of Ellesmere. Published by Murray.

Bungs and Remains of the Reverend Robert Alfred Vaughan. Edited, with a Memoir, by the Reverend Robert Vaughan, D.D. In two volumes. Published by Parker and Bon. the three greatest names in the modern art of essay-writing. Neither Lord Ellesmere, Mr. Gleig, nor Mr. Vaughan, make any pretensions to the artistic management, brilliant word-painting, and powerful paradox of Macaulay. They have not the pungent wit and searching scrutiny—the direct grasp of the root of a question—which distinguished Sydney Smith ; and little if any of the buoyancy, persiflage, and refined criticism of Jeffrey. Perhaps, too, they are deficient in the close solidity that marked John Foster's contributions to the Eclectic Review' and gave them their distinct individuality. It is this want of specific ifijo. syncracy which is the main deficiency in the three collections before us. Character of course they possess, and quite distinct enough to separate them one from another, but they are not stamped with that well-marked individuality which identifies a 'writer and causes his hand to be detected and his productions distinguished at a glance.

In one point of view indeed Mr. Gleig's Biographical, Histori- cal, and Miscellaneous Essays are distinct enough, at least when considered collectedly ; they have remarkable shrewdness and li- terary cleverness. Very extraordinary is the dexterity with which he uses the materials and knowledge of his author and by the addition of his own experience and commentary with informa- tion derived from other sources, makes it all appear fresh, and in a measure his own ; for he acknowledges his obligations by his quotations. This is especially the case in his notice of Sir How- ard Douglas's work on Military Bridges and the Passages of Rivers, a paper on Military Education, and two articles relating to India,—one on the War in the Punjaub, the other on the Indian Army. This cleverness is further shown in a very important feature, the choice of his subjects. They are connected either with his first profession or his second, the Army or the Church ; and consequently he treats them with a special knowledge which imparts life and distinctness. The subjects themselves are mostly attractive ; possessing some permanent interest—as the Life of Chalmers, the History of the Puritans, Natural Theology, and the Defences of the Country ; for this last is a subject whose true interest can never be obsolete while Europe remains as it is, and almost every year adds to the rapidity of movements in war, and. to the destructive force of missiles. Other articles are of a still more telling nature as bearing on current topics ; such as the papers on India and Military Education already alluded to.

The last indeed is of immediate interest frem the attention

which the subject is now exciting, and though the author's most valuable information is drawn from the "Report of the Com- missioners appointed to consider the best mode of Reorganizing the system for training officers for the Scientific Corps" as well as from some foreign works, that borrowed matter is tested by a man who has given great attention to the subject, and can furnish additional knowledge of his own. The conclusion to be drawn from the survey of Military Education in France' Austria, Prussia, and Piedmont seems to be that the English military' officer is the worst trained of any nation. The scientific corps-- the Artillery, and. Engineers—cannot compete, at least (we should say) as regards state education, with that of the officers of any of the principal nations of Europe. In what is officially called the Army—that is the Cavalry and Infantry, there is no state educa- tion at all, or any real means of ascertaining that the candidate for a commission or promotion has educated himself. "It would be an impertinent interference with our readers' time if under circumstances like these, we were to bore them with a detailed ac- count of the Royal Military College ; we shall have said enough about it, in both its departments, when we observe that it neither exercises, nor, in the nature of things can exercise, any beneficial influence whatever in giving a tone to the Army. . We obtain from it neither our staff nor our regimental officers. The former come to us at random, as aides-de-camp, through the good-will of general officers to their own sons, or to the sons of their connexions as military secretaries, brigade-majors, adjutant and quar- termaster-generals, through the kindness of the Commander-in-chief to per- sonal friends, or to the relatives of ladies or gentlemen possessing political

i or other influence. The latter owe the sword-knots, in a large majority of cases, to the length of their own or their fathers' purses—in a minority, to the merits of their relatives, social or professional, or to their own. But all alike, up to the present hour, have entered upon the discharge of their duties without the smallest care taken to ascertain whether they be quali- fied, either physically or morally, to bear the burden which military rank imposes upon them ; and all alike win their way from step to step, by dint of money and what is called interest at the Horse Guards."

It may be added that Mr. Gleig considers the East India College at Addiscombe, though admitting of much improvement, to be superior to the Government institutions both in educational sys- tem and discipline. But while severe upon the actual methods of education for the

British Army, and requiring in a scheme of his own for a military institution an extent and variety of learning which no average youth could profitably acquire in two years, or in any reasonable time except by cramming, Mr. Gleig is a decided upholder of the present system of patronage and purchase. His remarks on this subject betray his customary fault; an angry violence of opinion, and a tendency to take an unfair advantage ; though the one- sided character of the reasoning is sufficiently obvious to defeat itself. The purchase question is undoubtedly not so clear as its opponents assume, at least in a practical point of view : latent elements exist which enable "much to be said on both sides." In a constitutional country, especially where such a jealousy of military power prevails as in England, some inferiority in pro-

in fesonal attainments at the outset of a war, and even some hard- ship if not injustice may have to be borne with in order to render the army a politically safe institution. If you look to nothing la

your soldiery but military efficiency, by all means throw open everything to military merit, making your touchstones of promo- tion and selection animal vigour, scientific acquirements, experi- ence and services in the field. Such has been the practice of all conquerors from Marius, who first broke down the exclusive system of the Romans, to Napoleon. In a purely military point of view the result is excellent ; as a machine the army becomes perfect ; but often as dangerous to the State which supports it as to the enemy; and not always to be depended upon by its own leaders, as we may see by looking no further than France during the pre- sent century. In this country at least great military efficiency- is subordinate to other conditions of which political safety is the first. One method of effecting this is by closely connecting the army with the substantial civil interests of the country, and this seems to be accomplished by having a number of officers who do not look to their sword as their sole means of subsistence or ad- vancement in life but are independent in their fortunes, their connexions, and if needs be in their conduct. This subject might be pursued, and to great length if the arguments in opposition were reviewed and considered. And this ground is clearly common to the supporters and opponents of the purchase system, that the State has a perfect right to demand qualification from those who enter its service, and purchase might be limited both as to grade and the number of purchases. The most zealous advocate of the existing system need not, as Mr. Gleig does, use such terms as "clever vagabond," "sharpest rogue of the lot," "state paupers," to describe the class of men who, in his opinion, would probably attain commissions under the open system, or put forth such nota- ble reasoning as this. "Adopt the competitive system, and carry it to the extent to which it is carried in France, with bourses and demi-bourses, and outfits, and so forth, and what will follow ? No doubt you may secure for the military service of the country as great a share of aggregate ability, with more extensive in- formation and habits of study, than are now to be found among the officers of the Army. But you will find these things among young men taken from a totally different class; the clever and industrious sons of tradesmen and artisans, ushers at schools, poor students at Trinity College' Dublin, servi- tors at Cambridge, and such like, to whom the prospect of 68. 3d a day is the prospect of wealth, and who will work hard in order to realize it. And to this you will speedily be brought, if, as in France, you make your test mainly a mathematical one. For our own parts we should deeply lament such a state of things, which, we regret to learn, has followed to a consider- able extent on the adoption of the competitive system at Woolwich, and which, if it prevailed throughout other branches of the service could not Tail of effecting such a moral and social revolution as would disconnect the Army, in a very short time, from the general sympathies of the country."

Surely this is the style of an angry polemic rather than that of an inquirer after truth. Mr. Gleig may dismiss his apprehen- sions. A_poor and friendless youth who could carry off a prize against all the advantage which money (whether of the aristo- cratic or middle class) gives to the preparation of a competing student, would in this country find some better mode of acquiring the "wealth" of " 5s. 3d. a day," than the unprofitable position of a subaltern officer.

The rank of the late Earl of Ellesmere, coupled with his great respectability and kindliness of character, might bestow upon his productions an adventitious repute to which they were not intrin- sically entitled. It may be doubted whether his wealth and posi- tion were of much advantage to his literary pursuits. They pro- cured him an elegant cultivation he might not under other cir- cumstances so readily have obtained ; they afforded him leisure and opportunity to acquire modern and at the time unfashionable languages and employ his taste on various branches of literature as well as art ; they supplied him with knowledge of a special and even technical kind he would not otherwise have attained, and secured to his writings (when he put his name to them) an attention they might not otherwise have received. On the other hand, the mollities of his life had its drawbacks. He wanted the spur of necessity; literature, politics, art, became to him pursuits rather than occupations, and he had his duties as a great pro- prietor to attend to in addition.

These inevitable distractions not only prevented that energetic steadiness of application which is necessary to excellence, but gave a sort of superficial air to many of his writings. If, as num- bers will readily credit, his property and peerage inflicted upon him the gout, their operation was decidedly injurious. Disease unquestionably broke his health and shortened his life. By re- laxing his physical system, it might conduce to that want of in- tellectual strength which forms, we think, a leading characteristic of his works. Poetical feeling, a wide and genial sympathy, habitual elegance of thought and style, pervaded by a wellbred reticence, even when the theme might bear a little passion, will all be found in Lord Ellesmere. More of mark and force, some- thing that indicates leadership, is, however, felt to be wanting, both in his poetry and prose.

This volume of Essays contributed to the Quarterly Review is stamped with the leading characteristics of his genius. There is a wide range of subjects ; the reader having painting, architec- tural engineering, geography and adventure, in the form of voyages, internal communication and water supply, under the head of aqueducts and canals, military biographies, in the Lives of Blucher and Wallenstein, war in various forms. All the papers are informing and readatde, and one proof of their value is that they can be reread with pleasure when the freshness of a first appearance is past ; for many of the articles possess a per- manent interest in their subjects. It cannot, however, be said that they penetrate to the depth of a subject, or that any of them very forcibly impress themselves on the mind except when dealing with facts, or the characters of men.

The most striking papers are those connected with military matters. When it is considered that Lord Ellesmere had no more practical acquaintance with war than what he acquired as a Lieutenant-Colonel of Yeomanry, and knew nothing more of the internal economy of an army than he might learn as Secretary- at-War, his partiality for military subjects is curious. Propor-

tionately they predominate in the collection ; they are treated with evident bonsto. Perhaps this taste may be ascribed to his friendship with the Duke of Wellington, in whose defence he was always ready to take up the cudgels, whether against

Marmont as to facts, or Sir Archibald Alison as to facts and opinions. It is evident too that the Duke furnished information, possibly even " views "; while men very intimate with the Duke contributed anecdotes. The different minute traits in this account of the great captain at Quatre Bras must have been drawn from living information.

"If we look back through the preceding acts we shall see that no passage of the Duke's campaigns is more pregnant with evidence of the omnipresent, indefatigable, personal activity, and imperturbable coolness, which distin- guiahed him, than the period which has come under our notice. We have seen that on the morning of the 16th, while Ney was preparing his attack and closing up his columns, which, when he took their command, extended for some twelve miles to his rear, the Duke 'found time for an interview with the Prussian General at Ligny. He returned to Quatre Bras in time for the opening of that conflict. He reconnoitered in person the wood of Bossu and was indeed the first to discover that the attack was about to be made 'by a very large body of troops. A straggling fire had been going on since morning, but the officers whom he found on the spot still doubted whether a serious attack was impending. The Duke's quick eye, however, detected an officer of high rank reviewing a strong body, and his ear caught the sound, familiar to it as the precursor of such scenes, L'Empereur recompensera celui qui s'avancera.' He instantly recommended the Prince of Orange to withdraw his advanced parties, and the few Belgian guns, which were in an advanced and exposed position. The attack instantly ensued, not to cease to nightfall. According to his uniform practice, and certainly with not less than his usual care, the Duke posted all the troops himself and no movement was made but by his order. He was on the field till after dark, as long as any contest lasted. When at the close of that weary day others were sinking to rest on the ground they had so bravely maintained, and while the chain of British outposts was being formed for the night, far in advance of the ground originally occupied, one of the cavalry regiments, which were then arriving in rapid succession, reached the spot where the Duke was sitting. It was commanded by an in- timate friend of the Duke—by one of the gentlest, the bravest, and most accomplished soldiers who ever sat in an English saddle, the late General Sir Frederick Ponsonby. He found the Duke reading some English newspapers which had just reached him, joking over their contents, and making merry with the lucubrations of London politicians and speculators on events."

As natural bias and private friendship might have their in- fluence in directing the author's attention to soldiering, a family feeling would naturally prompt his notice of canals, as family knowledge might supply this account of the primal cause of England's internal water communication.

"If Sir Isaac Newton had been born to an earldom and a rent-roll, his parents or guardians might have warned him that Euclid was very well, but that fluxions did not become a gentleman; and the sacred fire within him might have burnt out in the calculations of political finance, or more unprofitably, on the course of Newmarket or at the gaming-table. The self- exile from the circle we are ticketed from birth to enter, the brooding over one design, the indomitable perseverance which can alone master success in such objects as those of the Duke of Bridgewater's manhood, can, in the nature of things, seldom be exhibited by the nobles by inheritance of any country. It is well known that they were conspicuously exhibited by the Duke of Bridgewater. Perseverance was in his nature, but we believe that accident had a share in its development—that a disappointment in love first alienated him from what is called the world—and that this affair of the heart was the cardinal passage of his existence. We mention it not merely as having influenced his destiny, but also as having afforded a signal illus- tration of that determination of character and resolute will which after- wards carried him through all his difficulties.

"Deeply smitten with the charms of one of two sisters famous for their beauty, he had sued and been accepted ; and the preliminaries of the mar- riage were in progress when an obstacle occurred. The reputation of the other sister, more renowned for beauty of the two—though hardly with justice, if the engravings of the day be Lithful—but undoubtedly more fair than wise, had suffered from evil reports. The Duke, who had heard and (as men of the world usually do where female reputation is concerned) be- lieved, announced to his intended bride his resolution against a continuance of intimacy : we know not whether the prohibition extended to intercourse. Sisterly affection revolted at this condition, but he persevered to the extent of breaking off the marriage. Such scruples in an age not remarkable for rigid aristocratic morality, and on the part of a pupil of Wood, might be suspected to indicate want of ardour in the attachment. The circumstances, however, refute this suspicion. The charms of the lady alone had attracted the suitor—charms which had, previously to the Duke's suit, placed one ducal coronet on her brow, and speedily replaced the one she now sacrificed to sisterly affection by another.

"Their impression was in this instance so deep, and the sacrifice so pain- ful, that he who made it to a great extent abandoned society, and is said never to have spoken to another woman in the language of gallantry. A Roman Catholic might have built a monastery, tenanted a cell, and died a saint. The Duke at the age of twenty-two, betook himself to his Lan- cashire estates, made Brindley his confessor, and died a benefactor to com- merce, manufactures, and mankind."

Somethin.7 more than the character of a collection of fugitive papers attaches to the Essays and Remains of the Reverend R. A. Vaughan. They are the memorial of a distinguished father to a promising son who was cut off in the early prime of manhood, when the exuberant flowerage of poetical youth was changing into the more solid fruit of a later season, and the expectations seemed about to be realized, which success in poetry, pulpit dis- courses, miscellaneous literature, and theological essays of a somewhat new type, as shown more particularly in his Hours with the Mystics, had naturally raised. Unceasing activity in study, composition, and, when he undertook the ministerial office, in the labours of the pulpit and of the pastoral charge, coupled probably with some morbid tendency, brought on con- sumption, which carried him off in the autumn of 1857. So early as the September of the previous year the medical account was gloomy ; but the father truly read it as fatal.

"The day when this medical report first reached me was the darkest day in my. history. This stroke came not on the branch only, it seemed to de- scend to the centre of the root. I felt that the severance threatened left any very nature poor. It was not so much an outward object as myself, my better self, which seemed to be passing away from me. Hopes cherished through half a life fell like a faded flower. Untruthfulness seemed to have come into the memories of the past. The visions of the future vanished. The void produced a heart-sickness such as men do not put into words. But the son did not charge God foolishly, and I trust the father did not. We had both been made to know in whom we had believed."

The collection formed under the circumstances indicated mainly consists of articles contributed to the British Quarterly Review, which Dr. Vaughan amid his multifarious literary and other la- bours, founded and edited. These are followed by shorter tills- tellaneous papers, "fragments" of criticisms, and unpublished "thoughts on religion," alight in themselves but showing that the luxuriance of words which injured his first production, The Witch of Endor,* was yielding to time. A few early poems com- plete the work.

The essays, to which we confine our remarks, are various, but not so opposite in their themes perhaps as those of Lord Ellesmere, or even of Mr. Gleig's. Religion, as might be expected, predomi- nates, or rather theology treated in a more learned and livelier way than is customary with the Independents, among whom (had such a thing been possible) the author's father might be said to have held episcopal authority-. These religious papers are five. One article is historical—the German Courts ; two papers are bio- graphical, on Goethe and Sydney Smith, and two are of the na- ture of literary reviews—" Hypatia," and the French Romances of the thirteenth century. We have alluded to the poetically florid and exuberant style of Mr. Vaughan, and beyond all question his earlier language was very, luxuriant. If his productions be examined together, it would seem that he was as fertile in imagination as copious of words ; he overlaid his subject as well as expanded his ideas. Thus in the article on Origen he gives a notice of Alexandria, its inhabitants, its libraries, and its intellectual feuds, before he comes to the life and character of his hero ; and that not being very full of ascertained incidents is rather eked out by notice of his contemporaries. In Savonarola the reviewer takes Lenan's poem for his basis ; which is an incongruity, when his object was the life and times of the great preacher and martyr. In reality, there is much more than the life of Savonarola,—a picture of Italy and Italians during his century, a summary review of the Pope- clom and the condition of Catholicism, with the French invasion under Charles the Eighth, its causes and results. This exube- rance is less visible in Mr. Vaughan's latex papers; and in the case of subjects of a personal or worldly character, he infuses into his writings a more substantial spirit: his notices of Sydney Smith and Goethe are kindly impartial and catholic ; his "Ger- man Courts," a rapid and forcible summary of Austrian history from Charles the Fifth to the present day. Still his poetical tem- perament, the tendency to reiterate which training for the pulpit imparts, and a system of composition he had formed for himself— "to detain the reader over an idea or illustration, giving it in a succession of sentences," might have ever caused diffusion and fancy to prevail over that closeness and force which are necessary to support the interest of fugitive papers very long beyond the time of their first publication. The Essays, however, are remark- able productions for their variety and extent of reading in so young a man, for their copiousness of language and fertility of ideas, and very often for their justness or freshness of thought.

.4gec1ator for 1844, page 76L