Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/552

 458 NOTES AND QUERIES. iw s. iv. DEC. 2, im. yitttHacstimt. NOTES ON BOOKS, Ac. Mrs. Fitzherbert and George IV. By W. H. Wil- kina, M.A. 2 vols. (Longmans & Co.) 1% the rather inadequate and grudging memoir of Mrs. Fitzherbert contributed to the ' Dictionary of National Biography' it is said that the papers vindicating the fair fame of that lady, placed under the seals of the Duke of Wellington, Lord Albe- marie, and Lord Stourton in the hands of Messrs. Coutts, had not been given to the public. These papers, now in the private archives at Windsor Castle, have, by permission of King Edward, been seen by Mr. Wilkins, the self-constituted bio- grapher of Hanoverian princesses, and their con- tents have now for the first time been rendered accessible. Thanks to the advantages thus obtained, and to a style which, though still lacking in per- fect limpidity, has gained in strength and direct- ness, Mr. Wilkins has been able to give us what we consider the book of the season. Little is told us but what we were prepared to accept. In many cases authority is substituted for surmise, and the feeling is conveyed that we are now in pos- session of absolute facts, and are able to draw clear and defensible conclusions. The length at •which the book has been reviewed in all the prin- cipal periodicals enables us to dispense with giving in full particulars of discovery. It is pleasant, however, to be able to state that the work supplies a bright and animated description of social life in a period of absorbing interest, and may be read from the first page to the last with pleasure and delight. It is not entirely the result of Mr. Wilkins'sart that his heroine stands out the worthiest of the crowd of royal and noble personages to whom we are intro- duced. If we except her initial folly—a folly few women would, perhaps, be able to resist—her con- duct seems to have been decorous and, at times, almost noble, and there is none else of whom the same can be said. Weak, indulgent, and uncertain sentimentalist as he is, George IV. nevertheless rises, on the whole, in our estimation. Many of the royal dukes are presented in an amiable light, and even the Duke of York makes a step in advance. George III. and his queen, meanwhile, are all unlike the creatures we see in the memoirs of Madame D'Arblay, though the princesses preserve the pleasing traits there assigned them. Sheridan's part in the proceedings appears almost wholly contemptible, and the difficulties in the way of finding any acceptable excuse for the tergiversation or mendacity of Fox seem aug- mented. For a display of extreme servility in the dealings of legislators with monarchs and princes the philosophical student must ever be prepared. Unworthy is, however, a weak and inadequate term to apply to the proceedings on either side of the Houses of Parliament. Very animated is the account now given of the wooing by the Prince of Wales of M rs. Fitzherbert, the one woman, it must be said, that that uncertain, volatile, and, in the main, contemptible being seems really to have loved. A contrast on which Mr. Wilkins does not insist is suggested between the prince's courtship of her and his earlier wooing of "Perdita" Robin- son. Whether the future king really stabbed himself or made believe so to do remains where it was. Little in his ordinary life bears out the idea that he was capable of the action. It is difficult, however, to question that he had brief period* of sincerity, and his will is eminently touching. If what ia said therein is simulation, he was indeed an arch-dissembler. Grey's share in the parlia- mentary denials of the marriage is, of course, less censurable than that of Sheridan; but he, even, does not come off with flying colours. That Thackeray's condemnation of George IV. is in some respects disingenuous is known. The fact is nowhere more clearly shown than in his implied vindication of the Duke of Norfolk—" Jockey of Norfolk"—an occasional participator in the orgies in Brighton. Mr. Wilkins s praise of his heroine we may swallow with a slight grimace; his attempted rehabilitation—for to such it amounts—of her royal consort is less successful, and we are disposed to resent the application to him, with a slight altera- tion, of Shelley's noble lines from ' Adonais,' beginning He has outgrown the shadow of our night. Mr. Wilkins has, however, written a deeply in- teresting and absorbing book, to which we should like to devote more space. It is well got up and abundantly illustrated, and is destined to enjoy something more than a temporary popularity. The Cambridge Uninrxitij Calendar for the Ttar 1905-im. (Cambridge, Deighton, Bell & Co.; London, Bell & Sons.) WE notice with pleasure the latest of a long sen-? of volumes. The 'Calendar' is indispensable to the university man, and a valuable book of refer- ence to any editor, presenting as it does in little the varied energies and rewards of a famous seat of learning. It contains well over 1,200 page> of information, not the least useful part of which is an alphabetical list of the members of the Univer- sity, with the year of their first degree. The admirable printing of the whole deserves special note. We have never detected any serious mistake in the 'Calendar,' often as we have used it. On p. 768 there is a prize for " General earning," which should obviously be " General learning," though in these utilitarian days some people seem to think that the two processes should be simultaneous. We have before us also, from our own library, a ' Calendar' for 1819, which provides an interesting contrast with its latest follower. It reaches some 360 pages only, ending with a list of coaches. Tlir London ones appear to regard the " White Horse,' Fetter Lane, as the regular stopping-place. Trinity and St. John's then were far ahead in numbers oi the other colleges. Now the first retains its pre eminence, but St. John's has fallen, and is about equal in undergraduates to Caius and Pembroke. the advance of the latter being one of the feature* of modern Cambridge. There is no item no gay in the modern 'Calendar' as "Stotirbridge Fair UW out" and "Proclamation of Stonrbridge Fair. Scarlet Day " in 1819. The "Christian Advocate'1 no longer exiau; indeed, the benefaction was hedged about with rules too tedious for any one to perform by th* extraordinary Hulse, whose will is one of (be- longest on record. The Professor of Casuistry ha* now turned to Moral Philosophy, which it, »F presume less Jesuitical: there are Professor* oi Agriculture and Anglo-Saxon, but there an v> disputations for degrees supported and refuted it> the Senate House. Gunnowder Plot did not, »* fear, produce this year a Latin speech in