WALFORD'S TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.*
MR. WALFOBD is well known as an industrious compiler of works on the history of our leading families, and any book from his pen is likely on this account to recommend itself to the notice of a large class of readers. We cannot say, however, that the present work will add to his reputation, either for accuracy or intelli- gence. In the former point, the book is very slipshod, and the style is so loose, if not positively ungrammatical, as on several occasions to leave us in doubt whether the impression conveyed by the reading of a sentence is inaccurate in point of fact or the result of imperfect grammar on the part of the writer. Nor are the reflections interspersed throughout the volumes of a particularly edifying or instructive character. We say nothing of the tone of the politics. We do not object in any literary work to the most opaque views on that subject, provided they are con- veyed in tolerably modest and appropriate terms, and with some admission of the right of the other classes of society to hold a different opinion. But the arrogant and ignorant abuse, amount- ing in some instances to an exaggeration of the worst style of the old " Blackwoods "in dealing with political adversaries, is quite in- tolerable in these days. The choice of subjects made by Mr. Walford is in itself peculiar, and can hardly be said to realise the expectations raised by the general title of his book. A consider- able proportion of the families respecting whom the Tales are told can hardly, by any legitimate stretch of the word, be included in the designation "great." Who, for instance, would expect to meet under that description with separate chapters of gossip, drawn, for the most part, from the familiar pages of Horace Walpole, and other equally high historical authorities, respecting "The Two Fair Gunnings," "The Thellussons," the great "Laurence, Earl Ferrers," who was celebrated for being hanged ; "The Three Miss Walpoles," "Benjamin, Lord Bloomfield," "George Hanger, Lord Coleraine," "Sir F. Dashwood and the Franciscans," "Colonel Chartres," or " The Dymokes of Scrivelsby." Perhaps, however, Mr. Walford was wise in filling his volumes to so large an extent with general gossip respecting insignificant persons, since when he deals with more purely historical matter he is not very reliable or very consistent. Thus in his chapter on "Lady Blanche Arundell," he writes concerning the early his- tory of the Castle of Wardour, the scene of her exploit :—" The Castle appears to have been built in the reign of Richard II., the last of the Plantagenets, by John, Lord Lovel of Tichmarsh. The Lovels inhabited it for only three generations, as it was sold on the death of the last-named nobleman's grandson in 1494, the next heir to the estate finding himself involved in great difficulties by his adherence to the failing cause of the Red Rose of Lan- caster." It is difficult to say how far the errors in this paragraph are due to the printer and how far to the author, but as it stands, it is certainly untrue. The Lord Lovel of Tichmarsh of the reign of Richard II. was John, who succeeded his brother in 1375, and died in 1408 ; and his grandson, William, the seventh Baron, who succeeded in 1425, died in 1454 ; and a little further on, we find it said of the castle "that its next owners were the Touchets, Lords Audley (afterwards Earls of Castlehaven), to whom it was given by Edward IV., in reward of their adherence to the White Rose of York." The date 1494 must, therefore, be a blunder, on the author's own showing, particularly as the representative of the Lovels of Tiehmarsh, in the early part of the reign of Henry VII., was the celebrated favourite of Richard ITT. This may have originated, as we said, in the printer's error, and we suppose we must in charity attribute to the same cause the two conflict- Tales of Our great Families. By Edward Walford, MA., and late Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, Author of the " County Families," Sc. 2 vole. London : Hurst and Blackett. 1877.
We ought, perhaps, to give a specimen also of the amenities of our author's style. In speaking of the surrender of the Castle of Wardour by the Lady Arundell to the Parliamentarians and the terms of surrender, it is stated that,—
"Finding themselves, however, in possession of the castle walls, these saints of the Lord' did not feel bound to observe any of their promises except the first. 'Faith is not to be kept with heretics,' it woald appear, is a principle current in society at large, and acted on by many others besides those whom the world calls Romish bigots.' It is true that they spared the lives of the gallant defenders of the Castle, though the latter had used their guns and cross-bows so well as to kin above sixty of the besieging force. The ladies and the children were at once led off as prisoners of war to Shaftesbury, just over the Dorsetshire border, where they had the mortification of seeing five cart-loads of the spoils of Wardour driven in triumph through the streets of the town on their way to Dorchester, which was then in the hands of the Parlia- mentary Army. After a time, considering, or pretending to con- sider, that the captive ladies and children were not safe at Shaftes- bury, the rebels proposed to remove them to Bath, where the plague was then raging, and where the 'saints' probably hoped that death would do the work which they dared not try with their own hands. But here the high spirit of Lady Arundell was fully roused, and as she lay at the time in bed, worn out with fatigue and anxiety, she refused to be removed unless she was dragged by actual main force. Dreading the unpopularity which such severity would draw down upon their cause in the Western Counties, where the name of Arundell was held in high esteem, at length the 'saints' abandoned their design ; so they contented themselves with wresting from Cicely Arundell her two little boys, aged nine and seven respectively, whom they considered such objects of alarm, that they sent them under a strong guard to Dorchester."
We need make no critical comment on the argument implied in these passages ; we quote them merely as examples of the taste of the writer. In conclusion, we may say that while many of the anec- dotes contained in these volumes, even though most of them old, are amusing enough in themselves, and as such may serve to occupy some very "idle hour," they are not particularly well told, are encumbered with much foolish verbiage, and are quite inappro- priate to any work of the stamp which we should have expected from a man of the information and literary experience of Mr. Watford.
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