Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/385

 iv. OCT. 14,1995.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 319 Modern History.' Both are to be in twelve volumes, and are the result* of co-operative labour; both employ in their production the best historical talent of the day : and the two constitute a curious and significant innovation upon modern practice. Points of difference are at least as noteworthy as those of resemblance. Instead of extending over various countries and continents, as does the series earlier in its appearance, the present collection of histories is confined to Britain, and indeed, in a sense, to England. Devoting as it does one of its twelve volumes to history antecedent to 1066, the later series cannot call itself modern, and though manv writers participate in the entire work, each one has a volume to himself, and the work is less a compilation by various hands than a series of separate works attached to each other by no chain stronger than that of sequence. The earlier is, as its name signifies, an outcome of Cambridge; the present belongs mainly to Oxford. University College and King's College, London, Edinburgh University, the Victoria University of Manchester, and Yale University, New Haven, are all represented, but two-thirds of the contributors boast Oxford degrees. F9r particulars concerning a scheme promising in conception and propitious in commencement our readers must turn to the published announcements. We have but to commend the general plan, and •welcome the opening and, it may be supposed, typical specimen set before us. Three volumes are to be expected during the remaining quarter of the year, and the subsequent portions of the work will, it is hoped, appear in bi-monthly instalments. Each volume will, however, like the present, have an appendix describing the chief authorities, with some indication of their respective trustworthiness, together with a separate index and two or more maps. Vol. x. is the first to appear. It is by Dr. William Hnnt, joint editor with Dr. Reginald Lane Poole of the entire series, and gives, it may be supposed, a full idea of the system to be adopted throughout. On the period now dealt with Dr. Hunt is an acknow- ledged authority ; witness his lives of George III., Pitt, and others contributed to the ' D.N.B.' It may be supposed also to have been accepted by him on account of its difficulties and its unattractiveness, aiuce it comprises a period of extreme political corruption, and deals with the grievous mismanage- ment of our colonies, the loss of America, the •surrender of English armies to those who were regarded as rebels, continual outbreaks in Ireland, and, at the same time, terrible poverty and suffer- ing at home. We had, of course, a self-proclaimed Knglishman on the throne in place of aliens such &s were his two predecessors. George III. was, indeed, so far as his lights extended, a loyal, patriotic gentleman, distinguished for far more than that Household virtue most uncommon Of constancy to a bad ugly woman, frith which alone Byron would credit him. The description of George III. is the first of the brilliant pen-and-ink portraits with which Dr. Hunt's volume is charged. By the side of this must needs be studied the characters of his mother, by whom he was so strongly influenced, and of Bute, who shared h«r unpopularity, and was credited with being tier paramour. It is satisfactory, though not unex- pected, to find Dr. Hunt rejecting this accusation as ^ malicious scandal, and declaring that there ia no evidence for it. Bute, at any rate, contributed to harden George III. in that dogged resolution to rule which was to be responsible for so many calamities, individual and national. The king of Fanny Burney we do not see, but we hear of him, at least at the outset, as " a pure-minded and well- bred young man," whose political system was, it is said, largely based on Bolingbroke's essay ' On the Idea of a Patriot King.' As an instance of the corruption that prevailed, Dr. Hunt says that in 1761 " the new-rich bought seats as" openly a» they bought their horses," and states that the borough of Sudbury advertised itself as for sale. Of George IIL's queen it is succinctly said that "she did not meddle in affairs of State, she bore fifteen children, and had many domestic virtues." Her influence seems, none the less, to have been considerable and beneficial. Severe things are said about the circumstances attendant on Pitt's first resignation. A fajr amount of information is given anent Sir Francis Dashwood in the "childish mummery, the debauchery, and blasphemy of the ' Franciscans'" at Medmenham. Of Burke it is said that he had "little tact, an impatient temper, and often spoke with execrable taste." Many admirable thumbnail sketches strike us during perusal. Here is one of Graf ton: " A man of pleasure and of culture, in some points a true descendant of Charles II., he was out of his proper element in itolitical life. He grudged leaving his kennels at VV'akefield Lodge or the heath at New- market to transact public business in London, and preferred reading a play of Euripides at Euston to being bored by a debate at Westminster." It is staggering to hear of the corruption at the election of 1768, and to find the city of Oxford offering to return its two sitting members if they would pay the city's debts, 5,SiOl. Asevere judgment is passed upon Junius, who is accepted as Francis, possibly helped by Temple. Very interesting chanters are those devoted to Wilkes and Beckford. With the colonial rebellion we reach, naturally, the most important and stimulating portion of the book. Our author traces back to 1690 the influences which underlay the American rebellion, and regards- it as, sooner or later, inevitable. It is needless to say that in this, as in all parts of the work, he writes with complete temperance and impartiality. His book, which we cannot further follow, is in almost all respects ideal. There are partisans who will charge portions of it with Jingoism, and much of it is strongly influenced by what has been recently written on the command of the sea. In these matters we are with Dr. Hunt, and we regard the entire work with admiration. If continued with equal brilliancy the series will be invaluable, and we unhesitatingly pronounce the present volume statesmanlike, scholarly, and erudite. Reffixters of Burials at the Temple Church, 1628- 1853. With an Introduction by the Rev. H. G.. Woods, D.D. (Sotheran it. Co.) BY order of the Library Committee of the Inner Temple, and with the consent and support of the Society of the Middle Temple, the register of burials at the Temple Church, a portion of which has already appeared in the shape of appendixes- to Inderwick's 'Calendar of the Inner Temple Records,' has now been published separately and in its entirety, with an introduction by the Master of the Temple, many of whose predecessors have officiated at one or other of the interments recorded