438 REVIEW.-Godwin's Thoughts on Man. his own thoughts; and the conduct he pursues has in general far less reference to his real situation, than to some imaginary one in which he conceives himself placed in consequence of which, while he appears to himself to be acting with the most perfect wisdom and consistency, he may frequently exhibit to others all the appearances of folly." Thus Stuart, who here clearly illustrates the moral causes of most of those particularities of character which Theophrastus describes as obtaining in Greece in his day, and which mutatis mutandis may be substantially found in our own. The valuable part of this work is however the light which it throws upon Greek manners and customs, and modes of thinking. If the notes of Casaubon are much valued by us, who use his edition, those of the present translation are better suited to an English public. The book is embellished with curious caricatures; and all the matter is novel and curious. Thoughts on Man, his Nature, Productions, Mr. Godwin is a necessarian, because he says (p. 226), that as every event requires a cause, the human will is guided by motives, and therefore is not free. Now the question is not whether the acts are free, only whether the motives are so; but it is certain that one motive may be made to supersede another, as e. g. a man does not commit a robbery, because he is afraid of being hanged for it. Wherever there are passions, there must be impulses; wherever there is reason, there must be choice. It is utterly inconsistent with the existence of an animal [May, like man, that there should not be both impulses and motives, and neither Liberty or Necessity, properly speaking, apply to the case. Suppose, as in that before us, a man inclined to commit a robbery, but not doing it from fear, it is plain that there exists a collision of motives; and that there must be a power of choosing between these motives is also plain, from one man committing theft, and another avoiding it. Admitting then, that there must be a motive, it is not a necessary one, because necessity admits of no choice whatever; if it did, it is no longer necessity, and the dispute, in ourjudgment is, as to man, a mere inapplicable logomachy. Besides, we doubt, with Dr. Wheeler,* whether a rational being can be otherwise than so constituted as to have a will to choose right or wrong; and if he does so by one motive superseding another, that is a question merely implying a mode of agency. Another passage (by the way without acknowledgment from Voltaire) is this: "Either God, according to our ideas of henevolence, would remove evil out of the world, and cannot; or he can, and will not. If he has the will, and not the power, this argues weakness; if he has the power and not the will, this seems to be malevolence." -p. 417. That God can, if he will, is a postulate not to be disputed; but arguments drawn from power, can never be conclusive, because there may be reasons why that power is not thought fit to be exercised. Matter, as matter, can have only communicated properties. According to Scripture, and analogous testimony, man had originally the utmost moral perfectibility of which his conformation was susceptible, was a guileless adult infant, and if there be particular conformations, the communicated properties must be adapted to them, a rule which nature seems to have observed in regard to all beings whatever. And can malevolence exist in God? Certainly not, because there is no such thing as evil; and the blunder of Voltaire originated in his ignorance that evil is merely a privative of good, and that privatives have only a nominal being. The inattention to a like distinction, that life may undergo different material exhibitions, but can * Theologic. Lectures, i. 126. 1831.] REVIEW.-Godwin's Thoughts on Man. not be extinguished, and that death is only the privative, seems to have led Mr. Godwin into a manifest error in p. 419, viz that the immortality of the soul, and the doctrine of future retribution, is mere assumption. To relieve these unpleasant differences of opinion, we extract the following philosophical and beautiful illustration of the effects of "Chivalry;" as the best known to us. "Its principle was built upon a theory of the sexes giving to each a relative importance, and assigning to both functions full of honour and grace. The Knights (and every gentleman during that period in due time became a Knight) were taught, as the main features of their vocation, the 'love of God and the ladies.' The ladies, in return, were regarded as the genuine censors of the deeds of Knighthood. From these principles arose a thousand lessons of humanity. The ladies regarded it as their glory to assist their champions to arm and to disarm, to perform for them even menial services, to attend them in sickness, and to dress their wounds. They bestowed on them their colours, and sent them forth to the field hallowed with their benedictions. The Knights, on the other hand, considered any slight towards the fair sex as an indelible stain to their order; they contemplated the graceful patronesses of their valour with a feeling that partook of religious homage and veneration, and esteemed it as perhaps the first duty of their profession, to relieve the wrongs and avenge the injuries of the less powerful sex. "This simple outline, as to the relative position of the one sex and the other, gave a new face to the whole scheme and arrangements of civil society. It is like those admirable principles in the order of the material universe, or those grand discoveries brought to light from time to time by superior genius, so obvious and simple, that we wonder the most common understanding could have missed them, yet so pregnant with results, that they seem at once to put a new life, and inspire a new character into every part of a mighty and all-comprehen sive mass. "The passion between the sexes, in its grosser sense, is a momentary impulse merely; and there was danger that, when the fit and violence of the passion was over, the whole would subside into inconstancy and a roving disposition, or at least into indifference and almost brutal neglect. But the institutions of chivalry immediately gave a new face to this. Either sex conceived a deep and permanent interest in the other. In the unsettled state of society, which characterized the period when these institutions arose, the defenceless were liable to assaults of multiplied kinds, and the fair perpetually 439 stood in need of a protector and champion. The Knights, on the other hand, were taught to derive their fame and their honour from the suffrages of the ladies. Each sex stood in need of the other, and the basis of their union was mutual esteem. "The effect of this was to give a tone of imagination to all their intercourse. A man was no longer merely a man, nor a woman deference. The woman regarded her promerely a woman. They were taught mutual tector as something illustrious and admirable; and the man considered the smiles and approbation of beauty as the adequate reward of his toils and his dangers. These modes of thinking introduced a nameless grace into all the commerce of society. It was the poetry of life. Hence originated the delightful narratives and fictions of romance; and human existence was no longer the bare naked train of vulgar incidents, which for so many ages of the world it had been accustomed to be. It was clothed in resplendent hues, and wore all the tints of the rainbow. Equality fled and was no more; and love, almighty, and perdurable Love, came to supply its place. 66 It By means of this state of things, the vulgar impulse of the sexes towards each other, which alone was known to the former ages of the world, was transformed into somewhat of a totally different nature. became a kind of worship. The fair sex looked upon their protectors, their fathers, their husbands, and the whole train of their chivalry, as something more than human. There was a grace in their motions, a gallantry in their bearing, and a generosity in their spirit of enterprise, that the softness of the female heart found irresistible. less, on the other hand, did the Knights regard the sex, to whose service and defence they were sworn as the objects of their perpetual deference. They approached them with a sort of gallant timidity, listened to their behests with submission, and thought the longest courtship and devotion nobly recompensed by the final acceptance of the fair. Nor "The romance and exaggeration characteristic of these modes of thinking, have gradually worn away in modern times; but much of what was most valuable in them has remained. Love has in later ages never been divested of the tenderness and consideration which were thus rendered some of its most estimable features. A certain desire in each party to exalt the other, and regard it as worthy of admiration, became inextricably interwoven with the simple passion. A sense of the honour that was borne by the one to the other, had the happiest effect in qualifying the familiarity and unreserve in the communion of feelings and sentiments, without which the attachment of the sexes cannot subsist. It is something like what the mystic divines describe of the 440 REVIEW.-State Papers, Vol. I. beatific visions, where entire wonder and adoration are not judged to be incompatible with the most ardent affection, and all meaner and selfish regards are annihilated." THIS is the first publication of the Commissioners appointed in 1825 to edit such of the documents deposited in the State Paper Office, as they should consider "may be fitly printed and published, with advantage to the Public, and without prejudice to the Royal service." It is very evident that the latter condition can only apply to papers of recent date; the sole requisites therefore with regard to early periods of our history, are judgment in the selection, accuracy in the transcription, and skill in the arrangement. The professional merits of Mr. Lemon, the Deputy Keeper of State Papers, and editor of the present volume, are perfectly well known; and we have only to regret that State-paper work, like Church work, moves on so slowly. In the preface the history of the State Paper Office is concisely detailed, including that of the post of Secretary of State, to whose control it has naturally devolved. The Secretaryship was formerly not a patent office, but conferred by the mere delivery of the King's signet; the names of the persons who filled it are therefore only to be incidentally gleaned among our ancient records. There was only one Secretary of State until the disgrace of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex; when Henry the Eighth, whose royal power had been almost merged in the influence of that minister and his great predecessor Wolsey, appears to have considered that he should ensure more independence for the future, by appointing two Secretaries. In 1708 a third was established for the affairs of Scotland; but was discontinued in 1746. In 1768 a third was again appointed as Secretary for the Colonies; but was suppressed by Mr. Burke's Act in 1782. In 1794 the Duke of Portland became a third Secretary; and the arrangement then established has since been undisturbed. From an early period to 1782, the two departments were denominated the Northern and Southern ; and subsequently to that year the Home and Foreign; but the powers of each Se [May, cretary are co-ordinate, and the division of duty is merely matter of arrangement, for the more convenient despatch of business. "It will be readily conceived how rapidly the mass of correspondence must have accumulated in the office of the Secretary of State, after the revival of letters in the sixteenth century; yet no provision was, for some time, made, for its being received into any certain depository. Each succeeding Secretary had it in his own custody; the apartments provided for him were extremely confined; and the future destination of his official papers depended, in great measure, upon accident, upon the care or the negligence of the individual, or his clerks, and, above all, upon the good or evil fate which awaited the Secretary when he resigned his seals. Even in the office of the Privy Council (the office, in which, in those days, and until the Revolution, all the affairs of the realm were debated and resolved on), no written record of the proceedings was preserved until 1540, when it was ordered that a regular register should be kept, and two clerks (Paget and Petre) were appointed to keep it. This register commences on the 18th of August in that year. The necessity of a repository for State Papers, began soon afterwards to be felt; and, in 1579, an office for keeping papers and records concerning matters of state and council, was established, and Dr. Thomas Wilson (who was then master of requests, and afterwards became one of the Secretaries of State), was appointed the keeper and register of those papers. Before this establishment was formed, it is not surprising that numerous papers of great importance should have been entirely lost, and others have fallen into the possession of private persons. Sir Robert Cotton, in the reign of James the First, and Sir Joseph Williamson, in that of Charles the Second, were most assi duous and successful collectors of those scattered papers. The collections of the the British Museum. former now form a portion of the library of Sir Joseph Williamson placed his collections in the State Paper Office, where they still remain. Another mass of papers, consisting principally of letters addressed to Cardinal Wolsey, and to Cromwell Earl of Essex, remained in the custody of the Crown; but, instead of being deposited in the proper place, found its way into the Chapter House at Westminster, and is there preserved. The three great receptacles, therefore, of State Papers, antecedent to the year 1540, and partially down to the year 1578, are the State Paper Office, brary. And so entirely accidental seems to the Chapter House, and the Cottonian Lihave been the preservation of many of the papers, that, of a series relative to the same subject, a part will frequently be found in each of these three libraries. Nay, of two 1831.] REVIEW.-State Papers, Vol. I. letters, written by the same person, to the same correspondent, on the same day, one will be discovered in one of these receptacles, the other in another, and the answer in the third; and several instances will be seen, where one portion of a letter is found in one part, and the residue in another part of the same collection. A few are to be met with in the Lambeth Library, the Harleian Collection, the University Library of Cambridge, and in private hands." It appears that there are no documents in the State Paper Office of an earlier age than those of the reign of Henry the Eighth, with which this publication is commenced. These, in order that the continuity of series might not be broken, have been arranged in the following classes : I. The correspondence between the King and Cardinal Wolsey. II. That between the Kiug and his other Ministers at Home. III. That between the Governments of England and Ireland. IV. That between the Government and the King's Representatives on the Scot tish Border. The present volume embraces the two first of these classes. The first consists of one hundred and two documents, nearly one half of which are letters from Wolsey to his Royal master; and the remainder either addressed by Wolsey to other persons, or addressed to him; among the latter are several of Sir Thomas More and of Cromwell. The papers illustrative of the Cardinal's splendid Embassy to France in 1527, are particularly complete. In one of them Wolsey gives a long description of his reception by the French King at Amiens. "Within a myle and a half of the cite, the French King, riding upon a grey jenet, apparelled in a cote of blak velvet, cut in diverse places for shewing of the lynyng thereof, which was white satyn, accompanyed with the King of Navarre, the Cardinal of Burbon, the Duke of Vandome, the Counte Saintpole, Mons" de Gize, Mons Vandamont, the Grete Mastre, the Seneshall of Normandy, with diverse Archbishops, Bishops, and other noble men, avaunced him self towards me; to whose person GENT. MAG. May, 1831. 441 (assone as I had the sight therof) deviding my company on bothe handes, in most reverent maner, sole and alone, I did accelerate my repaire and accesse; and His Grace doing the semblable for his parte, being dis-covered, with his bonnet in his hande, encountred and with most herty, kinde, loving countenance and maner, embraced me." After many compliments passed on both sides, the Cardinal was conducted in triumph through the city, in the principal places whereof were pageants expressing the great desire the people had for peace; and was accompanied to his lodging by the King. The Cardinal of Lorraine conducted the English Cardinal "into my lodging, which I founde richely and pomposely apparelled with the Frenche Kinges own stuff; as the utter chamber with riche clothe of tyssue and sylver, paned, embrodered with freres [friars'] knottes, wherin was a grete and large clothe of astate of the same stuff and sorte. The record chamber was apparelled with crymyson velvet, embroderd, and replenished with large letters of gold, of F and A* crowned, with an other veray large clothe of astate, of fyne And the third chamber, being my bedd chamber, was apparelled with riche clothe of tyssue, raised, and a great sparver and counterpointe to the same. And the 4th, being as a closet, was hanged with clothe of bawdikyn, wherunto was annexed a litle gallary, hanged with crymyson velvet. aras. "And after a litle pawse, and shifting of my self, ther was sent into my lodging the Cardinall of Burbon, the Duke of Vandome, with many other prelates and noble men, to conduc'e me to my Ladies presence, who was lodged in the Bishops palaies; in the hall wherof, being large and spacious, richely hanged and apparelled with aras, was placed and set in right good order, on bothe sydes the Frenche Kinges garde, my Lady his moder, the Quene of Navarre [his sister], Madam Reynet [Renata, daughter of Louis XII.], the Duchess of Vandom, the King of Navarre's sister, with a greate nomber of other ladies and gentlewomen, stonding in the myddes, to whose presence I sum what approaching and drawing nigh, my said Lady [the Queen] also avauncing her self forwardes, in most loving and pleasant maner, encountred, welcomed, and embraced me, and likewise saluted my Lord of London [Bishop Tunstall], my Lord Chamberlain [Lord Sandys], Master Comptroller [Sir Henry Guildford], the Chaunceler of the Duchy [Sir Thomas More], and most parte 442 REVIEW.-State Papers, Vol. I. of suche gentlemen as came with me, and most specially thErle of Derbye, whom it liked Her Grace to kisse, and right lovingly to welcome." After this lively description of the royal salutations, the writer proceeds to describe the more weighty transactions of the embassy, the whole dispatch extending to nineteen quarto pages, being written in the name of Wolsey, but with all the verbose minuteness characteristic of the chroniclers of that age. In p. 328 we have a striking instance of the unparalleled rapacity and presumption of Wolsey. It is a letter written the very hour he heard of the death of Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester; in which he not only asks the King for that rich see, but requests to be allowed to transfer Durham, which he then held in commendam with the Archbishopric of York, to "my poore scoler the Deane of Welles," -who was Thomas Winter, his natu ral son. In the former part of his petition, after some months delay, he prevailed; but Durham was given to Tunstall. In pp. 462 et seq. is comprised an important series of papers relative to the rebellion in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, called the Pilgrimage of Grace. It appears that the popular leader known as Captain Cobler, was not Dr. Makerel the Abbot of Barlings, as it has been generally supposed, but a distinct person named Melton. Regarding the Yorkshire leader, Robert Aske, there is a curious Report from Thomas Miller, the herald who was dispatched to the rebels' head quarters at Pontefract, and who because he was considered to have encouraged them by his craven demeanour, subsequently suffered the extreme penalty of a traitor. It is not surprising that the natural firmness of character which enabled the rebel captain to assume the command over a band comprising many individuals of superior rank and wealth, should have succeeded in intimidating the unfortunate herald. "The sayd Haske sentt for me in to his chamber, and theyr kepynge his porte and countenance, as thowgh he hade bene a greatt prynce, with great regor and lyke a tyrant; who was accompanyd with the Archebeshop of Yourke, the Lord Darcy, Sir Robert Counstable, Mr. Magnus, Sir Crystofer Danby, and dyvers other. And, as my dewte was, I saluted the Archebyshop of Yorke and my Lord Darcy, showynge to [May, them the cawse I came thether for. And then the sayd Robert Aske, with a crewell and a inestemable prowde countenance, stretched hym self, and toke the herynge of my tale; whiche I openyd to hym at large, in as moche honor to our Soverayne Lord the Kyng as my reason wold serve me; wiche the sayd capetayne Aske gave no reverence to, and superstyciusly* demandyd the seyght of my proclamacion. And then I take yt owt of my purse, and delyvered yt to hym, and then he redd yt openly, with out reverence to anny person, and sayd yt shold nott ned to calle no counsell for the answar of the same, for he wold of his howne whyt gave me thanswar, wiche was thys;-he, standynge in the heghest place of the chamber, takeyug the hygh astatte upon hym, sayd, Herald, as a messynger you ar wellcome to me, and all my company, intendynge as I doo. And as for this proclamacion sent frome the Lordes, from whens you com, shall nott be redde at the market crosse, nor in no place amongest my peple, wiche be all onder my gydyng; nor for feare of losse of landes, lyffe, and goodes, not for the power wiche ys agenste us, dothe not enter in to owr herttes with feare, bott ar all of on accorde, with the poynttes of our artecles, clerly intendynge to se a reformacion, or ells to dye yn thoys cawses.' -p. 486. After some further parley, the herald had recourse to intreaty, and "fell down on his knee" before the Captain, beseeching him for permission to read the proclamation; and this appears to have been Miller's great crime that he knellid downe on his knees, beffore Robert Aske and the other treators, with the Kynges most honorable Cote of Armys on his bak; whyche comforted, coraged, and made them in suche pryde and arragoncye, to see the Kynges Cote of Armys so humble used beffore them, that they stode the more styflyer and lengor in ther detestable and cursed wyllies and pretenses." There are several letters on the exhilarating occasion of the birth of Prince Edward, and the consequent misfortune of the Queen's death. It is proved, however, that there was an interval of at least twelve days between those two events; and that the story of the Cæsarian operation having been performed is a mere invention. It was first propagated by the Jesuit Nicolas Sanders. In a despatch to the Ambassadors in France, the calamity is ascribed to the Queen having been suffered to take cold, and to eat improper food. It appears to have been by an accidental Qu. superciliously? |