Althorpe, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, on Mr. Ward's complaint, made in the House of Commons a satisfactory explanation on that point; but the doom of the place was final. Yet certainly it seems to have been not a useless one, if we may judge by one of Mr. Ward's reports of the abuses he was called upon to correct in the Royal Household, which is worth preserving as a curiosity equal to any extracts from the Northumberland or any other household book.

The excess in the Lord Steward's department seems neither more nor less than the most scandalous waste. I cannot better exemplify this than by the instance of an allowance of 500l. a year to the lower servants in lieu of small beer. The history is, that, when allowed small beer in kind, they were all allowed access ad libitum to the cellar, and often would not take the trouble to turn the cock after having drawn their quantity, but let hogsheads run off from very wantonness. The then officers in power, instead of punishing them, thought it right to turn the beer into money (the servants having ale and porter besides fully sufficient); and hence this 500l. a year compensation for not being permitted to continue this wasteful extravagance. The above is to be sure an extreme case, but the prodigality of the steward's room and the servants' hall is almost as bad. Every person belonging to either seems allowed to carry away as much provision as he can scramble for, after being himself satisfied. If a bottle of wine or porter is opened for a glass, the rest is carried off-the meat in a napkin, which seldom finds its way back again; and, in addition to this, scores of persons who have no connexion with the domestic establishment appear to run riot upon the unlimited allowance for these tables. The footmen and maids, moreover, have been allowed charwomen and helpers (in fact, to allow them to be idle), and the reduction of these will save 4007. or 500l. a year more. The calculation of meat per day, for each individual of the family, has been 2lbs., which the principal cooks allow is too much by 4lb.: this alone will save 500l. a year; and an allowance of what is called bread money, which I could not get explained . . because the allowance in money does not preclude the supply of bread in kind, over and above the allowance.'-vol. ii. pp. 176-178.

On the death of his daughters and of his wife (who left to her third husband the estate and residence of Gilston Park, which had been left to her absolute disposal by the first of the series)—the editor remarks,—

'It would be no part of the intention of this work to dilate on the grievous private afflictions with which he was visited at this period. Their influence will be traced in the more sober character of the works he composed between the publication of De Vere [1827] and De Clifford [1841], in which, as in Illustrations of Human Life [1837] and Pictures of the World [1838], the narrative form is less maintained, and more room is given to philosophical disquisitions.'—vol. ii. p. 185.

This

This is oddly worded: it seems to imply that there were some other works between De Vere and De Clifford, besides the Illustrations and the Pictures. We know of none. Perhaps 'as in' should have been namely,' or some such expression-though we confess we cannot see in those works any peculiar traces of the sorrows to which the editor alludes, nor can we reconcile the respective dates of the events and the publications with his hypothesis; and his observation is the more remarkable, because the very next page informs us that Mr. Ward had recourse to a more effectual, as well as more immediate, source of consolation for the Loss of his second lady than that of writing 'philosophical disquisitions'-namely, by contracting in the following year a third matrimonial alliance with another widow, Mrs. Okeover (daughter of Sir George Anson), which, adds the editor, furnished sunshine for his remaining years upon earth' (ii. 186); and it must have been under the benignant influence of this sunshine that were written the words which the editor fancies to have been impregnated with the widower's sorrow. It is a curious coincidence that in De Vere (1827) a favourite character is the Master of Okeover Hall-a name taken by chance from the Roadbook; and that the author should, so many years after, 'see himself, in right of his wife, as the guardian of her only son, Master of Okeover Hall' (ii. 187). We cannot help observing, as another curious coincidence, that as Mrs. Plumer Ward had had three husbands within six years, Mr. Ward had had three wives within ten, and that his two last bonnes fortunes should have been achieved at the ages of sixty-three and sixtyseven! But he was always popular with the ladies, had abundance of small talk and lively conversation, with a prodigious untaught musical talent;* and all through life, and even to the last--though reduced to an ear-trumpet-he had a jaunty air, and appeared, both in countenance and figure, very much younger than he really was.

Our limits will not allow us to say more of his later works, than that he published, in 1841, an essay on the Revolution of 1688; in which, with great political courage, much constitutional learning, and some very cogent logic, he subjects that great event to a very severe examination. In some respects, no doubt, his censures may be just; but he has too much overlooked the cardinal point of the whole case: was there any other possible expedient for securing the liberties and religion of England? We

A lady writes thus on his debut in London society in 1795:- Mr. Ward's playing is astonishing; he cannot read a note of music, but plays airs and variations in the most masterly and capital style.'-vol. i. p. 28. He kept up this accomplishment constantly.

have not much more of either love or respect for William than Mr. Ward; but he was a necessary, and at that crisis the only available instrument, for an indispensable object.

In 1841 Mr. Ward also published another novel, in four volumes- De Clifford,' already often mentioned. In a letter from Okeover, 24th January, 1841, he announces its approaching publication with a spirit and confidence enviable at his age.

Think of a gentleman of seventy-six writing a love story! and yet I shall not be afraid to hazard it, for all Colburn's critics say it is as good as Tremaine and De Vere. Succeed or fail, it has already repaid me a high price in the absorbing and pleasing interest it has shed over this my last retreat, where I have so forgotten all worldly pursuits, that I never was so independent, and never more happy. To be sure I have a powerful aid in my dear companion, whose own apparent happiness forms a very principal part of mine.'--vol. ii. p. 207.

Without altogether agreeing with Colburn's critics,' we can, at least, say that De Clifford is a very agreeable and clever novel, and really wonderful as the work of a man of seventy-six.

But Okeover was not to be his last retreat.' His wife's father, Sir George Anson, was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Chelsea Hospital, and to his apartments in that institution, 'being,' says Mr. Ward, not willing to part company when we have all been so happy together,' Mr. Ward and his lady, with a library of between 3000 and 4000 volumes, removed in March, 1846.

Think,' he writes, of my boldness in adventuring this at eightyone, when there is little chance of my ever opening a book again.'— ii. 227.

And here, amidst friends so strangely and recently acquired, and who proved themselves so worthy of his choice, he closed his long, respectable, and, it seems, happy life, on the 13th of August, 1846, in his eighty-first year.

We cannot better conclude our remarks on this amiable and clever man than by his own words on reading a favourable review of his last work:

Let me confess, that to one particular critique (that in the "Britannia" of last Saturday) I am anything but dead. On the contrary, I am most sensitively alive to it, and was even much affected by its concluding paragraph, where, alluding to the little probability, from. my age, of my appearing again as an author, it takes leave of me in terms which, if true, must cheer even my last hour. Must it not do so to be told that I have done much to counteract the vicious tendencies of an immoral school, and shown that a novel may not be the less interesting for breathing a spirit of pure and exalted sentiment? If I have done this, and deserve half of what this evidently enlightened writer (whoever he is) is pleased to say, then the old

T 2

gentleman

gentleman of seventy-six may hope that, though he has lived so long, he has not lived in vain.'—vol. ii. p. 209.

With respect to the volumes now before us, we hope we have said and quoted enough to satisfy our readers that they abound in amusing, and are not scanty of instructive matter; and we congratulate Mr. Phipps on the general discretion, delicacy, and neatness of literary execution which he has brought to his dutiful labour as editor and biographer.

ART. X.-1. Départ de Louis-Philippe au 24 Février. Relation authentique de ce qui est arrivé au Roi et à sa Famille depuis leur départ des Tuileries jusqu'à leur débarquement en Angleterre. Extrait de la Revue Britannique. Pp. 86. Paris, 1850. 2. Le Conseiller du Peuple. Journal par M. A. de Lamartine. Réfutation de quelques Calomnies contre la République. Paris. Avril, 1850.

A TRANSLATION of the article of our last number on the French Revolution, and especially on the escape of the Royal Family, soon appeared in the Revue Britannique, and was by and bye published also as a separate pamphlet. It has had, as the importance and authenticity of its facts well deserve, a considerable circulation in France-retentissement immense,' says M. Lamartine -and has given rise to what M. Lamartine is pleased to call a 'Refutation of our charges against him-as well as to some more amicable observations and reclamations, of which, for the sake of historic truth, we think ourselves bound to take some notice. The editor of the Revue, Dr. Amadée Pichot, though he thought our article worthy of reproduction, accompanied it with a preamble intended to attenuate in some degree its effects, and upon which, as to both its tone and its statements, we should be entitled to offer a few animadversions; but we can make allowance for the Doctor's peculiar position, both with regard to the Quarterly Review (see vol. xxxii. p. 342, 1820) and as the private friend of M. Lamartine, and shall content ourselves with the more agreeable duty of thanking M. Pichot for the general fidelity and candour with which he has reproduced our Essay. He tells us the translation was made by two hands, and we think we can see that some passages are rendered with a very peculiar felicity; but it is generally accurate, and always fair. There is, however, one point of fact which, in justice to both King Louis-Philippe and ourselves, as well as for the sake of historical accuracy, we think it worth while to set right. The editor chooses to see in our last number an altered

altered tone towards Louis-Philippe, and to attribute the alteration to the influence of some recent intercourse with the Comte de Neuilly. That is a mistake. No one, we believe, ever saw that great person, either in his zenith or his mild decline,' without being struck with the amiability of his private life, the frankness of his manners, and the vigour of his conversation; but our readers know that we always did ample justice to all his personal and many of his political qualities; and that our articles of March and June, 1848-on the evidence furnished by the revolutionists themselves-treated the ex-King and his family in exactly the same spirit as our last. We have always given the same praise and made the same reserves as to different points of his character and policy; and our last number differs in that respect from its predecessors only in the authenticity which personal evidence gives to a narrative of personal adventures-the opinions on the persons and facts were, as we took care to say, all our own, and are the same which, in pari materiâ, we have always held.

Before we enter the lists with M. Lamartine we shall dispose of a few other less serious observations which have been made on our article.

At p. 550 it is said that the Duke of Nemours was 'in nominal command of the troops on the Carrousel.' This has been thought obscure by nominal command,' however, we meant, and thought we had sufficiently expressed, that the command was made merely nominal by the prohibition issued by the new ministry against the troops using their arms. But we must also add what we were not at first aware of, that the Duke's command was, moreover, spontaneous and accidental-assumed by him, on his own responsibility, in the exigency of the moment, when all the superior military authorities had disappeared. The assumption of the disarmed and hopeless command at this crisis was an act not only of private duty and dévouement towards the personal safety of his family, but of high political courage-it probably saved the Tuileries from a new 10th of August, and France from a catastrophe still more terrible.

Among the names of the officers (see Quar. Rev. p. 553) who happened to be in immediate and active attendance on the Royal Family at their departure from the Tuileries, a gentleman of the name of Perrot de Chazelles has written to the Paris Journals to claim a place. So also has Comte Friant-one of the King's aides-de-camp. Their names did not appear in any of the works we had quoted, and had escaped the memory of our informants, but we are willing to do justice to their well-authenticated loyalty and zeal.

A more important omission (from page 555) was that of the

name