Egbert. The superiority acquired by that prince over the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms escaped from the hands of his successors; and it was not till the complete subjugation of the Danish invaders, and coalition of the southern and northern states after the death of Edwy, that the whole of England was united in one monarchy. Nor was the union finally consolidated even then. It was dissolved for a time after the death of Canute, and can hardly be said to have had more than a nominal existence under the Confessor.

These facts are well known to Sir Francis Palgrave; and yet he talks as familiarly of the ancient dependence of the Scottish Regulus on the Anglo-Saxon Bretwalda, as if there had been always a Bretwalda in existence to enforce or to receive it. An imaginary being is created to substantiate an imaginary right. It is clear, that while there was no Bretwalda there could be no dependence on a Bretwalda; and from the preceding facts it appears that for 160 years there was no Bretwalda, and that a person might be styled Bretwalda who had no dominion north of the Humber. Elle, who is counted the first Bretwalda, so far from possessing the empire of Britain, seems never to have emerged from the east of Sussex, where he first landed; and his greatest achievement seems to have been the destruction of Andredceaster, a British town in the adjacent weald. The pompous title of Bretwalda, bestowed on so insignificant a personage, seems to indicate, that it meant nothing more than the chief of the Anglo-Saxon chieftains; and that it neither conveyed, nor was supposed to convey, any claim to the general dominion or sovereignty of the island.

Many attempts were made by the Normans and Plantagenets to extend their domination over Scotland, but though occasionally successful for a time, they were ultimately foiled; and, for a hundred years before the death of Alexander, their efforts were reduced to harmless protests in times of amity, and to empty menaces on any appearance of war.

Sir Francis Palgrave is severe in his animadversions on the conduct of the Scottish Bishops. As religious men we do not vindicate these prelates for submitting to oaths which it is manifest they intended to violate on the first opportunity. But as citizens of an independent state, we cannot blame them for acting on the maxim, that to keep an oath of slavery is a greater sin than perjury. They saw their countrymen oppressed by foreigners, and felt it to be their first duty to relieve them from the yoke that galled them. That the oaths these prelates took were voluntary, it would require more than Edward's memorials to the Pope to convince us.

Among the memoranda preserved by Sir Francis Palgrave, there is one which confirms, if further proof were necessary, the share taken by Sir John Menteith in the capture of Wallace. To the servant who spied Wallace a recompense is given of forty marks, and sixty marks to be divided among those who assisted in making him prisoner. Immediately following, is a grant of one hundred pounds in land to Sir John Menteith; which there can be little doubt was made to him for his services on that occasion. It is certain that Wallace was betrayed into the hands of the English by persons in whom he had confidence; but we agree with Lord Hailes, there is no evidence that Menteith was, or professed to be his friend. Menteith was at that time sheriff of Dunbartonshire and constable of Dunbarton castle, and so high in favour with the English monarch, that in the mock Parliament on Scottish affairs held in London, his name, as one of the Scotch Commissioners, was substituted by the express command of Edward, in the place of Earl Patrick, who could not attend. But though guiltless of treachery to Wallace, we must confess our concern that a person, rewarded for the sacrifice of one to whom his country is so greatly beholden, should have been ever admitted into favour by Robert the Bruce.

We cannot take leave of this volume without expressing our approbation of the clear and succinct analysis of its contents given in the introduction. In this, as in the former publications edited by Sir Francis Palgrave, he may be censured by his enemies and detractors for the large and extensive commentary he has annexed to the original papers he has printed. We feel, on the contrary, greatly obliged to him for the facilities he has afforded to his readers of profiting by the documents he has published. We are persuaded that nothing is more conducive to the progress of historical literature than such expositions of the materials of history as will attract, not mere antiquarians, but men of enlarged and cultivated minds to peruse them; and we are glad to see, that in the recent publications of the Record Commission, this practice has been very generally followed.

In his appendix, Sir Francis Palgrave has published, and in his introduction exposed, the forgeries of Harding, some of which seem to have deceived our most recent historians. These spurious documents appear to have been received by the English Government as authentic; and the falsifier was rewarded, though in his opinion inadequately, for his exertions. For what purpose he was countenanced, if not employed in this service, does not

*Ryley, 503. Parliamentary Writs, I. 160.

appear. James the First of Scotland was prisoner in England when Harding began his forgeries; and Henry V., to whom they were shown at Vincennes, seems to have been deceived into a belief that the deeds produced to him were genuine. Whatever may have been the original object of the English in the encouragement given to this impostor, they judged wisely, on reflection, that it was better to unite the royal families of England and Scotland by marriage, than to revive and prosecute obsolete claims which had been so often tried and defeated.

ART. III.-Henrietta Temple, a Love Story. By the Author of 'Vivian Grey.' 3 vols. 8vo. Second Edition. London:

1837.

Venetia. By the Author of Vivian Grey,' and 'Henrietta 'Temple.' 3 vols. 8vo. London: 1837.

THE

HESE are works of more than ordinary pretensions,—both dealing with difficult and elevated themes; the former professing to represent the passion of love in its most sudden and poetical form; the latter attempting, with scarcely even the shadow of disguise, to delineate the characters of Shelley and Lord Byron. Were we to say that in these bold attempts Mr D'Israeli (for we suppose it is now needless to treat the author as an anonymous novelist) has entirely failed, we should be doing injustice to the talent, liveliness, and eloquence which both works not unfrequently display: were we, on the other hand, to say that he has produced any very finished, striking, or original picture, either of passion or character, or realized in any high degree the ideal conception at which he seems to have aimed, we should be doing still greater injustice to the cause of good sense, consistency of character, and moderation of expression. The marks of crudity in the conception, and of haste in the execution, which are every where visible, are not indeed difficult to be accounted for, when it is kept in mind that both these novels, each consisting of the established number of three volumes, have made their appearance within a year; and, even if a more patient attention had been bestowed on the plan of the story, or the details of character and dialogue, we have the greatest doubt whether the result would have been such as to satisfy our idea of a good novel or romance. But unquestionably much which at present mars and impairs the effect of some of the best scenes many overwrought

incidents and improbable changes of conduct in the charactersmany redundancies, extravagances, and even vulgarities of expression, which seriously detract from the pleasure these volumes are calculated to afford,-might have been avoided by a more careful revision, and a little additional severity towards those dulcia vitia of style which seem to be the sin by which the author is most easily beset.

We have said that we doubt whether, even with all proper appliances, Mr D'Israeli could produce a really good work of fiction. He appears to us to want some of the most essential elements of a great novelist. The calm, the natural, the simply grand are not his field; the startling, the improbable, both in character and incident, have a dangerous charm for him; he moves forward, not with steady progression, but in hurried bursts, with strange impassioned movements; he does not possess, but is possessed by his imagination; excited himself, he involves the reader in the same atmosphere of turbulence ;-hurries him forward without repose, and leaves him often at the end of some of his most striking scenes with the feeling of exhaustion. There is also a want of directness and reality about his passion; if he feels strongly, he has not the power of communicating a corresponding feeling to his readers; we perceive rather the reflection or shadow of feeling than the thing itself; and even after his most laboured passages, can at the utmost go no farther than Othello's exclamation, O well painted passion!' At least we can say, in all candour, that, with every wish to abandon our feelings to the impulses of the story, we have not, in the perusal of these novels, felt that emotion that involuntary reciprocity of feeling of which every one is conscious in reading the works of the great masters of fictitious composition.

His passionate vein, too, such as it is, is not only too much prolonged, but is generally introduced too soon, and with too little preparation: ere we have time to get acquainted with the characters, we are expected to sympathize with the wildest bursts of excited feeling; and the natural consequence is, first, that our sympathies must, in the course of the three volumes, be more than once worn out; and next, that the writer, like a musician who commences in too high a key, and is unable to play up to his opening strain, often appears cold, languid, and unimpassioned towards his conclusion. Even the eloquence of these tales-for eloquence they do possess-is not so much the eloquence which springs from original thought or new illustration, as the eloquence of well-rounded sentences, and the dexterous applications of old imagery,-that eloquence, ' che spande di parlar si largo fiume ;'-the limbs and flourishes'

of oratory, rather than its soul. Their philosophy, too, we think, upon the whole, is either not very new, or not very true; and too often enveloped in a veil of words, through which its real shape and aspect are scarcely discernible. But we should except from this general remark, some of his observations on the philosophy of love; the moral phenomena of which he has certainly studied with great care, and on which many of his observations are distinguished by novelty and fineness of discrimination, and embellished by much grace and beauty of expression.

6

6

The truth is, that Mr D'Israeli, in his 'Vivian Grey,' chose at first, with very considerable tact and accuracy of perception, the precise department in which he was most fitted to excel-namely, the execution of rapid and dashing sketches of incident and character, unfettered by any close connexion or consistency; and that, though carrying into every thing he undertakes a portion of the same liveliness and cleverness of execution, he is obviously far less at home in the field of regular and systematic composition than in that fairy land of imagination, emancipated from all uneasy trammels of reality or probability, in which he chose in the outset to disport himself. He has himself characterised his 'Vivian Grey' -the earliest of his works, at least the earliest with which we are acquainted as a hot and hurried sketch as ever was penned; but like its subject—for what is youth but a sketch—a brief hour ' of principles unsettled-passions unrestrained, powers undeveloped, and purposes unexecuted ?' A hot and hurried sketch undoubtedly it was; but, springing as it did naturally from the mind of the author, it exhibited the first forms which the creations of his mind assumed.-Bold, unstudied, almost audacious, both in conception and execution; - always piquing curiosity, even where it provoked criticism or roused opposition by the singularity or heterodoxy of its opinions; and now and then startling the reader by a thought either new in itself, or presented with some novelty of illustration, we must fairly avow that, with all its faults, it appears to us to be a much more readable production than either of the more regular and imposing performances on which it would appear Mr D'Israeli would be rather inclined to peril his fame. It did not indeed aim at very high objects, but what it aimed at it accomplished with considerable success. Within the sphere which its author had selected for the extravagant excursions of his fancy, he dashed about with a rapid, reckless freedom of movement, in itself not ungraceful or unattractive, and leaving an impression of mental vigour not yet applied to the fittest ends, but likely to effect much when controlled by maturer judgment, and the influence of better models than those from which his mind appears to have taken its first tone in fictitious composition;