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Books of the Quarter suitable for Reading-Societies. 245

Autobiographical Recollections. By the late Charles Robert Leslie, R.A. Edited, with a Prefatory Essay on Leslie as an Artist, and Selections from his Correspondence, by Tom Taylor, Esq. 2 vols. Murray.

[A very amusing book, full of point and anecdote.]

Life of Sir Martin Archer Shee, President of the Royal Academy. By his Son, M. A. Shee, Esq. 2 vols. Longmans.

Sketch of the Life and Character of Sir Robert Peel. By Sir Lawrence Peel.

Longmans.

[Not excellent, though both the eminence of the writer and his relationship to the subject of the biography will ensure it a certain measure of attention.]

Filippo Strozzi: a History of the Last Days of Old Italian Liberty. By T. Adolphus Trollope. Chapman and Hall.

Robert Owen and his Social Philosophy. By William Lucas Sargant. Smith and Elder.

[A respectable book on a subject of more than ordinary capabilities.] The Arrest of the Five Members. By John Forster. Murray.

[A book of sterling value, containing much new detail, and rich illustrations from D'Ewes' Journal and the public records in the State-Paper Office, though bringing out no new feature of any great importance.. The inaccuracies of Clarendon are examined and exposed. In form the book is too discontinuous, and too much encumbered with notes.] The History of Italy from the Abdication of Napoleon I.; with Introductory References to that of Earlier Times. By Isaac Butt, M.P. 2 vols. Chapman and Hall.

Wycliffe and the Huguenots; or, Sketches of the Rise of the Reformation in England, and of the early History of Protestantism in France. By the Rev. W. Hanna, LL.D. Constable.

Rights of Nations; or, the New Law of European States applied to the Affairs of Italy. By Count Mamiani. Translated and edited by Roger Acton. Jeffs.

[A work well worthy of the careful translation it has here obtained.] The Lake Regions of Central Africa. By Captain Richard F. Burton. With Map and Illustrations. 2 vols. Longmans.

A Summer Ramble in the Himalayas; with Sporting Adventures in the Vale of Cashmere. Edited by Mountaineer. Hurst and Blackett.

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The Hunting Grounds of the Old World. By the Old Shekarry. Saunders and Otley.

An Arctic Boat-Journey in the Autumn of 1854. By Isaac Hayes. Bentley.

[Full of interest, in consequence both of the light cast on the character of the Esquimaux and of the Arctic adventure.]

246

Books of the Quarter suitable for Reading-Societies.

The Travels and Adventures of Dr. Wolff, the Bokhara Missionary. Second edition. Vol. I. Saunders and Otley.

Travels, Researches, and Missionary Labours in East Africa. By the Rev. Dr. J. Lewis Krapf. With Portrait and coloured Illustrations of Scenery and Costume. Trübner.

Wild Sports of India. By Captain Henry Shakespear. Smith and Elder.

[An unaffected and interesting account of perilous sports.]

A Sketch of the History of Flemish Literature and its celebrated Authors from the 12th century down to the present time. By Octave Delepierre, LL.D. Compiled from Flemish sources. Murray.

Town and Forest. By the Author of "Mary Powell." Bentley. [Contains a pleasant and fresh account of missionary labours among the gipsies of Hainault Forest.]

Scarsdale; or, Life on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Border Thirty Years ago. Smith and Elder.

Stories from the Sandhills of Jutland. By Hans Christian Andersen. Bentley.

[One of Mr. Andersen's most charming collections of tales.]

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Castle Richmond. By Anthony Trollope. 3 vols. Chapman and Hall.

[Not one of Mr. Trollope's most highly-finished novels, but interesting, lively, and vigorous.]

A Lady in her own Right. By Westland Marston. Macmillan. The Mill on the Floss. By George Eliot. 3 vols. Blackwood. [Noticed in Article X.]

THE NATIONAL REVIEW.

OCTOBER 1860.

ART. I.-THE FRANKS AND THE GAULS.

The Franks, from their first Appearance in History to the Death of King Pepin. By Walter C. Perry. London, 1857.

The History of France. By Eyre Evans Crowe. Vols. I. and II. London, 1858-60.

The History of France. By Parke Godwin. Vol. I.: Ancient Gaul. London and New York, 1860.

WE think it right, at the beginning of this Article, to tell our readers exactly what we are going to talk about, and what we are not. Though we have transcribed the names of three books as the beginning of our task, we are not going minutely to criticise any one of the three. We are not going to plunge into any antiquarian minutiæ about the settlement of the Franks in Gaul, or to perplex ourselves and our readers with any questions as to Leudes, Antrustions, and Scabini. Still less are we about to enter on the disputed ground of Gaulish or British ethnology, to trace out the exact line of demarcation between the Gael and the Cymry, or to decide the exact relations of the Belgæ either to them or to their Teutonic neighbours. Both these subjects possess an interest and an importance which we should be the last to depreciate. And of the books which stand at the head of this Article, two at least might be well worthy of a formal review. The volumes both of Mr. Perry and Mr. Godwin have considerable merit; Mr. Godwin, especially, displays no small amount of the true historic power, though his book is throughout strangely disfigured by errors in detail. But neither the subjects nor the books form our imme

No. XXII. OCTOBER 1860.

8

diate business; our present object is to pass rapidly through the whole history of Gaul and France, from the earliest period down to our own day. We wish to take a general survey of Gaulish and Frankish history from a point of view which we think is not commonly understood, but which strikes us as well suited to throw a very important light alike upon the history of remote ages and upon the most recent events of our own day. The past and the present are for ever connected; but the mode of connection which exists between them differs widely in different cases. Past history and modern politics are always influencing one another; but the forms which their mutual influence takes are infinitely various. Sometimes the business of the historian is to point out real connections and real analogies which the world at large does not perceive. This is most conspicuously his duty in dealing with what is called the "ancient" history of Greece and Italy, and, to a large extent also, in dealing with the early and mediaval history of our own island. Sometimes, on the other hand, it is his duty to upset false connections and false analogies, which have not only misled historical students, but have often exercised a most baneful influence upon public affairs. This is his primary duty when dealing with the history of Gaul and France. It is something to show that the old history of Athens and of Rome is no assemblage of lifeless chronicles, but the truest text-book for the real statesman of every age. It is something to show that the England of our own times is in every important respect identical with the England of our earliest being. But it is something no less valuable to break down false assumptions which pervert the truth of history, and enable designing men to throw a false colour over unprincipled aggressions. If it is worth our while to show that Queen Victoria is in every sense the true successor of Cerdic and Alfred and Edward I., it is no less worth our while to show that Louis Napoléon Buonaparte is in no conceivable sense the successor of Clovis and of Charles the Great.

There is perhaps nothing which people in general find more difficult to master than the science of historical geography. Few men indeed there are who fully realise the way in which nations have changed their places, and countries have changed their boundaries. We say "fully realise" because the facts are continually known in a kind of way, when there is no sort of living realisation of them. People know things and, so to speak, do not act upon their knowledge. Almost every body has heard, for instance, of the succession of "the Britons" and "the Saxons" in this island. A man knows in a kind of way that "the Saxons" are his own forefathers, and that they drove "the Britons" into a corner; but he does

not fully take in the fact that these "Britons" and "Saxons" are simply Welshmen and Englishmen. When Dr. Guest, like a good and accurate scholar, talks of "the English" in the fifth and sixth centuries, to most ears it sounds like a paradox. In the mean while, the most unmistakable Teutons will talk glibly about "our British ancestors," and see no absurdity in the title of Haydon's picture of " Alfred and the first British Jury." Similarly men have a sort of notion that Gaul is the "ancient name" of France, and France the "modern name" of Gaul. A man sees "Charlemagne" called "King of France," and he thinks that the France of Charlemagne is the same as the France of Lewis XIV. or of Louis Napoléon. One cause of the evil is, of course, the want of proper historical maps. Every household, nay every university, does not boast a copy of Spruner's Hand-Atlas. People are set to read the history of the world with two sets of maps. One is to serve from Adam to Theodoric or to Charles V.-we are not quite sure which; the other, from Theodoric or Charles V. to the year 1860. They sit down to read about John and Philip Augustus either with a map of Roman Gaul, or with a map of Napoleonic France. Now, if you want to find the homes of the Twelve Peers of France, it is no light matter to do so when you have to choose between a map showing you only Lugdunensis and Germania Prima, and a map showing you only the departments of Gironde and of Ille and Vilaine. People read of the return of Richard Coeur-de-Lion from the East, how he falls into the hands of the Duke of Austria, and is presently passed over into those of the "Emperor of Germany." This duke and this emperor are persons not a little mysterious to those whose only idea of " Austria" is something which takes in Venetia at the one end and Transylvania at the other. If a man in this state of mind came across a copy of Eginhard, and found Mainz, Köln, and Trier spoken of as cities of "Francia," he would think that he had hit upon an irrefragable argument in favour of the claims of Paris to the frontier of the Rhine. "King of France" once reigned upon the Elbe, the Danube, the Tiber, and the Ebro! A patriotic Frenchman will trumpet the discovery abroad as the greatest of triumphs; a patriotic Englishman might perhaps be inclined to hide so dangerous a light under the first bushel. Our business just now is to show that the fact tells quite the other way, so far as it tells any way at all. If any inference in modern politics is to be drawn from the phenomena of medieval geography, they would certainly rather prove the right of Maximilian of Bavaria to the frontier of the Atlantic, than the right of Napoleon of Paris to the frontier of the Rhine.

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