In his last tenement.-1704. Even when grieving survivors in this country aim at being succinct, they are apt to be tautological, as in the case of the husband who recorded on his wife's tomb (p. 30), "She was-what? What a Wife should voted son" who, putting up a monumental stone to his father in Highgate Cemetery, could invite him to look down from the spirit land, and "watch over and direct" this child's" frail mortal actions." The "Commercial's" note at this epitaph is very much to the point. "Which is better," he asks, "to rely on the Spirit of a Father, or the Father of Spirits?" It would seem, indeed, that a doubly keen perception of the ludicrous had need to befriend any one who essays epitaph-writing, lest he should be led to perorations like that which concludes an in memoriam to certain deceased members of the Ball family, in Nuneaton churchyard :· : For you will be like to these poor Balls. When death shall strike, great will be your falls, No doubt a great deal must depend upon When the first wild thrill is past And think "my child is there": This yield the heart relief, O'ercomes the parent's grief. Be. She was that!" More commonly they exhaust the catalogue of human and divine gifts, graces, and virtues, and, fearing that they have underdone their work, bid the reader refer to "the last six verses of the last chapter of Proverbs, to know her worth." We are ourselves cognizant of a case where all that could be said of the deceased having been set forth in a mural inscription - the tomb in the churchyard was inscribed with name and date, and the words" for further particulars, see monument in the Church." It is fair to add that in this case the fault lay with the engraver, who read his instructions too literally. As a rule, however, it cannot be doubted that long and laboured epitaphs are as great a solecism against good taste as the elaborate and excessive sculpture of the monument of Miss Trewbody, of which Southey said, in reference to the two Cupids with marble tears which supported the shield bearing her epitaph, that "these were the only tears which her death occasioned, and the only Cupids with whom she had any concern." Lengthy epitaphs, as may be shown from the book before us, as well as from Weever, Le It reached the haven ere it met the storm. Neve, and other more important contribu- One of this class of epitaphs in the book tions to the subject, are apt to be a snare before us, taken from Aston churchyard, to composers, if imperfectly acquainted near Birmingham, constitutes as concise with the boundary line between the sub- and telling an answer to the heathen's lime and the ridiculous. Few would cred-doubt of a resurrection, by a comparison it, if it were not transcribed in the fifth of human with vegetable life, as any that page of the collection under review, from a tombstone in Bury St. Edmund's churchyard, that a widow, however sad the circumstances of her husband's death by the bursting of a blood-vessel, could have failed to see the revolting incongruity of this one of four couplets: A sudden death's a shocking thing to see, On life's wild ocean, tempest-tost and pained, we have found in more elaborate and aspiring poetry:— She died It bloomed to die she died to bloom, It lays hold of the "sure and certain Within this urne an infant nine months old and its programme of meals. "The oldest one but sups and goes to bed" represents one of its six lines, which end with the moral" He that goes soonest has the least to pay." We are persuaded that at this point the epitaph ought to end, and that, ending here, it marked the "private sleeping-chamber of Richard Hislop, Islington," as it is said to do in p. 41. The two couplets which we have seen added in other collections My debts are paid: my grave you see: It is hard to see the cogency of the first Not to tarry longer on the epitaphs to children- though from Ben Jonson's day, and even much farther back, until the present, there has been no lack of touching and natural poetry poured forth in them we have only to express a wonder that the compiler of this collection should have thought so obvious a piracy as the epitaph Death is the waiter: some few run a tick, in p. 74 worth a place amidst his often And some, alas! must pay the Bill to Nick: well-chosen samples. It is in reality only Though I owed much, I hope that trust is given, a re-cooking of the pretty epitaph to And truly hope to pay all debts in Heaven. Frances Soane, with which every one is familiar, and which begins, "The cup of strike us as an afterthought, vulgarly exlife just with her lips she pressed." We pressed, and exhibiting a somewhat shaky must add, too, that not one of the epitaphs theology. The payment of debts, by the on children in this collection can compare way, in a literal acceptation, is a by no for pathos with one which Mr. Pettigrew means infrequent point in rural epitaphs. has borrowed, in his capital collection In Llanthony Church, Monmouthshire, we published by Bohn, from an Irish country came recently on at least three or four churchyard. It might be said to sin slabs on which one couplet ran :against the prime essentials of epitaphwriting-brevity and terseness; but we defy any one with a heart to apply strict rules to the fourteen tender lines of a mother to her child, to which we refer. In the case of those who have died at a riper age we are perhaps naturally more Enough perhaps has been said of the intolerant of sentimentalism. There is contents of this collection to show that it something that goes against the grain in is, as far as it goes, creditable to its author! In a the maudlin epitaph to the memory of "Little Jane," from Brading church-fashion he has set down in order the epiyard, as to which the compiler refers taphs which have arrested his eye. And us to Legh Richmond's "Annals of the the result has been that he has preserved Poor"; and we get no sense of aught a fair amount of matter of diverse interest. save tedium from the long string of heroics in another churchyard in the Isle of Wight to the memory of the "Dairyman's Daughter." It is a consolation to live in the days of a reaction against twaddle; and if there were but the type to which we have just referred, and the more matter-of-fact and homely and comparative type of two hundred years ago to choose from, we should close at once with the latter. Of this sort our author gives us a good specimen in the epitaph on Rebecca Rogers of Folkestone, who died August 22, 1688: A house she hath, it's made of such good fashion, consummation. matter-of-fact businesslike Thus, for the curious on the topic of cen- 66 our admiral Christ," he has a military pendant in memory of "a soldier of Jesus," Samuel Bates, who from the tomb gives out, I am billeted here by death, I shall rise and march again. He has a garden-suggested epitaph on three children; the famous "blacksmith' epitaph from Aston churchyard (p. 50); and the "parish clerk "epitaph from Rugby (p. 51), with one or two arithmetical epi taphs in which the composer put into verse derstands nor disputes our facts, but he little calculations of the children, grand- has somewhat misunderstood our object in children, and great grandchildren left be- bringing forward those facts. He tells his hind by the deceased. There are also epi- readers: taphs devoted to the particular manner of death; none, however, so good as that said to be found in Thetford churchyard which accounts for the deaths of a whole family, of which The father died of a mortification in his thighs, This indeed is such "a norrible tale that, if the compiler has not seen the gravestone we refer to, we cannot blame him for declining to accept it on faith. But the fault which we should say pervades his volume is the undisguised lack of all literary skill and arrangement. These epitaphs, which we have briefly attempted to class, are unclassified by the "Commercial," who might have immensely added to the value of his book by a little pains and systematizing. He might have marshalled a host of little detachments under the heads of epitaphs suggested by name, calling, cause of death, habits of life, and half a dozen other features. He might have traced home to their first occurrence such favourite epitaphs as that which might well have been given in p. 77, as a parallel case to the quick following deaths of James Lawrance and Jane his wife, and which was written by Sir Henry Wootton on the monument of Sir Albertus Morton and his wife: She first departed. He for one day tried A learned writer who has made his doctrines familiar to the readers of the Saturday Review emphasis that France is only a name for the terimpresses on us week after week with exceeding ritories which were from time to time governed by the successors of Hugues Capet It seems to us that the corresponding assertion is true of all the States of Europe, except those of which the prehensive definition conld be given of the Germonarchy was elective; and, indeed, what commany now victorious over France, except that it is the assemblage of communities which follow the militray leadership of the King of Prussia? The inference, however, which we are intended to draw is that the bond of union implied in past subjection to the same Royal family is somehow weaker and less respectable than that which combines the Germans, whether this last tie be language, or race, or membership in the Holy Roman Empire. had in view has not been to point a conNow the object which we have all along trast between the origin of Germany or England and that of any other State, still less to show that the tie which binds together the different parts of France as it now stands is "weaker or less respectable than that which binds together the different parts of Germany or any other State. Our object in taking up the subject, one which we took up years before the present war began, was simply to correct popular historical misconceptions, especially when false political inferences have been drawn from these misconceptions. The great misconception with which we have been fighting is the tendency to assume that France, in the modern sense of the wo d, has existed from the beginning of recorded history, and that wherever Francia is spoken of, France, in the modern sense of the word, is intended. We have tried to show that the name France is a name of the same class as the names of Burgundy, Saxony, and Austria, names which have shifted their places on the map, and which, in different ages- sometimes in the same age have meant very different things. Francia in one use of the word means a region very much larger than modern France and of which modern France is A THOUGHTFUL article in the Pall Mall only one part. In another use it means a Gazette, with many things in which we region much smaller than modern France, thoroughly go along, has glanced at some being in fact a small part of modern of our efforts to correct popular errors France. In a third sense, it means a with regard to the origin of the exist- country wholly beyond the bounds of moding French State. If we rightly un- ern France. The two former usages are derstand the writer, he neither misun- obsolete; the latter may be said still to But the "Commercial" has plainly not felt himself equal to the task: and therefore, although his labour (or rather perhaps his recreation) in collecting extant epitaphs will be of use, in its way, to supplement and vary the collections of others in the same field, it cannot lay the faintest claim to the rank of even such a volume as Mr. Booth's Epitaphs, much less to that of the exhaustive work on the subject which we hope will some day be written. From The Saturday Review. with exactly the same amount of reason as the French claim to the natural frontier of the Rhine. exist; only for convenience sake we distinguish in common speech France or Frankreich from Franconia or Franken. Our object has been to guard against the These errors, as being not only great confusions and errors which have arisen historical blunders but errors which are from these ambiguous uses of the same really dangerous as regards present poliword. As a matter of past history, to tics, we have done our best to strive confound the different uses of the name against. If we have insisted on our "docFrance is an error of exactly the same trines" "week after week," it is because kind as to confound the different uses of the hydra has many heads, because "week the names Saxony or Burgundy. If a man after week" we have seen the same errors fancies that the Saxony subdued by springing up again, here in books, there in Charles the Great was the same as the articles. We have striven to show what modern Kingdom of Saxony, if he fancies the real origin of modern France is; that St. Hugh of Burgundy must needs namely, the Duchy of France or Paris have come from Dijon or the coasts there- granted by Charles the Bald to Robert the of, he makes a gross historical blunder, but Strong, enlarged by all the territory his historical blunder is not likely to lead which, by fair means or foul, its successive to any bad practical consequences. But Dukes, Kings, Commonwealths, and Tyif a man confounds the Francia of the Car- rants have contrived to add to it. We olingian Emperors with the France of have argued that a State so formed modern times, the historical blunder is has no right to identify itself either very likely to lead to bad practical conse- with the Gallia of Cæsar or with the quences. It is hardly too much to say Francia of Charles, but that it is simply that, but for this kind of blunder, but for one State out of several which has babble about the Rhine, babble about "the arisen within their limits. We argued France of Clovis and Charlemagne," the therefore that France has no more right present war could never have taken place. to claim the frontier of the Rhine than There is a sense, following the usage of a Belgium has to claim the frontier of the particular age, in which Köln, Aachen, and Seine, or possibly of the Pyrenees. But Mainz may be said to be in Francia. we have never said that this origin of There is another sense, following the France was anything peculiar to France, usage of another age, in which Köln, or that it was an origin peculiarly discredAachen, and Mainz, and moreover Rheims, itable. On the other hand we have often Châlons, and Metz, may all be said to be insisted on the close parallelism between in Austria. But from the latter fact no the growth of France and the growth of one is likely to draw any wrong political the other chief modern States. In most inferences; no one is likely to argue from cases, at some age or another, a number it that those cities ought to form, or ever of States, more or less akin to or connected did form, part of the dominions of the with one another, but not under the same present King of Hungary and Archduke Government, have been formed within of Austria. But from the former fact, the some geographical area roughly or clearly fact that certain German cities are said to defined. Gaul, Germany, Italy, Spain, be in Francia, people have constantly drawn | Scandinavia, England — in all these cases most dangerous and destructive political some one State has, in one age or another, inferences. Or we may take another case. taken a start; it has grown greater and There is a sense, that is, according to the greater, and it has in the end swallowed usage of a particular age, in which Verona up all or most of its neighbours. In our and Padua may be rightly said to be in own country this process may be said to Austria. This last fact has remained have gone on twice; Wessex grew into harmless, because nobody has ever made England, and England thus formed grew any use of it. But if Austrian ingenuity into the United Kingdom. The history of had been as keen as French ingenuity, Castile in Spain, of Sweden in Scandinavia, this bit of ambiguous and obsolete geogra- of Piedmont in Italy, of Prussia in Gerphy might have been turned to as good many, has been very much of the same purpose as the other bit of ambiguous and kind. And we have constantly striven to obsolete geography. Verona and Padua point out that the history of France in might have been claimed as inherently Gaul is really a history of the same kind. Austrian cities, just as Köln and Mainz In all these cases, sometimes earlier, somehave been claimed as inherently French times later, sometimes quicker, sometimes cities. The Austrian claim to the natural slower, one State among several has risen frontier of the Po might have been pressed to a predominance over the rest, and has to a great extent incorporated the rest. If we go into the details of each acquisition in each case, we shall no doubt find that the means used were sometimes honourable, sometimes dishonourable, but the historical result was the same in all cases. But then it is hard to make people understand that the case of France in Gaul really is analogous to that of Piedmont in Italy or of Prussia in Germany. For they assume that France must from all time have been at least conterminous with old Gaul, if not greater still. A France which is not Gaul but only a part of Gaul, just as Prussia (more accurately Brandenburg) is not Germany but only a part of Germany, is an idea which most people find hard to take in. We do not wish to prove the position of France to be different from that of Prussia; we wish to prove that it is the same, while other people fancy that it is different. From The Spectator. THE EMPEROR'S CONFESSION. SAINTE BEUVE's wonderful criticism on the manufactured type of Cæsar will occur to everyone who reads that strange confession which the ex-Emperor of the French somehow regards as his apology for the crime and disaster of the War. "We see them," said that great critic, "perhaps without a drop of hereditary blood in their veins, without a single primitive trait of the founding genius of their race, seem to become by force of application, study, culture, its worthy and legitimate inheritors. As the cranium of a child is changed in form under a continued pressure, so they make up their character in the mould of their inflexible vocation. They are in some sort deformed into sovereigns, into emperors. Everything is pushed in one direction, and they come out from the mould in unvarying similitude. By long habit Another source of confusion which we changed in nature, they really acquire have had to fight against is the fact that, something of the high qualities of their ofthrough assuming France to be the same fice the love of greatness, and the semas Gaul, people fail to understand the dif- blance of greatness, an imposing assurance, ferent processes by which the French a sang-froid, a tranquillity, a presence of Kings acquired the different countries mind which nothing disturbs, and which which have been joined together to make sometimes wears the aspect of genius itmodern France. Few people can see the self, a feeling of superiority to all who surdistinction between the position of Nor- round them which is justified when it mandy, of Aquitaine, and of Provence. makes itself accepted. We must ask of The truth is that there were two utterly them, however, none of those diversities distinct processes (either of which might of genius which distinguish the first, the be just or unjust in particular cases) by divine Cæsar. In war, placed face to face which the Kings of the French acquired with difficulties, obstacles, quadrilatères. their dominions. Some of the old prov- they are at a stand, at their wits' end. In inces were fiefs of the Western Crown, peace, obliged to face problems of State over which the Dukes of the French, when where the spontaneous force of genius is they became Kings, had a feudal superior- required, they hesitate, vacillate, are irresity. Such were Normandy and Aquitaine. olute. "We must do something great," But there was this difference between they say; but this deed of power, of which them, that when Philip Augustus annexed they never cease to dream, they know not Normandy, he was annexing territory how to perform, even how to imitate. It which his remote forefathers had really held as their own; but that when Philip the Fair momentarily, and Charles the Seventh permanently, annexed Aquitaine, they were annexing territory over which they had never had more than an external, and indeed nominal, superiority. But when Louis the Eleventh annexed Provence, he was annexing a territory as foreign to the French crown as Elsass. This again people do not understand. When Philip the Fair seized Lyons, when Louis the Fourteenth seized Strasburg, when the elder Bunoaparte seized Lübeck, the process was in all three cases the same; only people do not understand this, because they assume that Lyons and Provence must always have been parts of France. must be prepared for them, brought to them already shaped and in order, and they accept it, often without too much discrimination, without distinguishing the semblance from the reality." If Sainte Beuve had wished to describe the Emperor in his last phase, he could not have described better, not only what he really is, but what he himself ostentatiously asserts himself to be. Frank is not the word for the Emperor's confession; we have in it almost the flagrant realism of a literary preRaphaelite artist describing his own incompetence, vacillation, and imbecility, and describing it with point, one might say, ardour. Such a document almost raises our conception of what human sincerity under certain conditions is capable of, while it |