80' 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[JULY; 



of their safety either from the virtue of 

 the subject, or the vigilance of the. police. 

 It is however only iu the earlier periods 

 that he is so little scrupulous of receiving 

 things just as he fiuds them; but num- 

 bers at no period startle him and he can 

 coolly record, in the Crusades, the muster 

 on the shores of the Bosphorus of 100,000 

 caralry, and 600,000 infantry. 



But though we have been rather inte- 

 rested by Mr. Clarke's book, and think it 

 not wholly valueless, we can say nothing 

 for the mode i.u which he has chosen to 

 convey his communications. This mode 

 is that of dialogue, and surely never were 

 talkers more stupid and unawakening, and 

 destitute of character than the three gen- 

 tlemen, who sustain the part of dialogists, 

 under the names of Author, Friend, and 

 Pupil. The author makes the longest 

 speeches ; the friend, as behoves a friend, 

 comes occasionally in aid; and the pupil 

 puts questions, pertinent arid impertinent, 

 and draws conclusions sometimes cor- 

 rectly to spare the author, and sometimes 

 incorrectly to give him the cue for fresh 

 observation. But they might any of them 

 change places at any time. The induce- 

 ment to this round-about course was, it 

 seems the advantage of digressing an 

 advantage that might have been secured 

 in twenty more agreeable ways few wri- 

 ters find any difficulty in this respect. 



The whole period which he has sur- 

 veyed he has split into eleven divisions, 

 under the title of dissertations. In imita- 

 tion, or as he phrases it, in adherence to 

 a rule of the ancients, he plants the dia- 

 logists in some spot, calculated by its local 

 history, to give a natural introduction to 

 the discussion he contemplates. Thus, for 

 the Britons, we find the talkers standing 

 among the piles and ruins of Stonehenge ; 

 the origin and peculiarities of these con- 

 structions are minutely discussed ; and 

 after assigning them to the Britons, it 

 becomes, of course, the most obvious thing 

 in the world to talk of the Britons them- 

 selves. Dover Castle is a good position 

 for the Romans ; Barfreston Church, in 

 Kent, for the Saxons ; Canute's Tower, 

 St. Edmondsbury, for the Danes ; Colches- 

 ter Castle for the Normans; the Temple 

 Church, Salisbury Cathedra', Waltham 

 Cross, Windtor Castle, King's College, 

 and Crosby House, for successive pe- 

 riods of the history of the Plantagenets. 

 The style of these several buildings 

 enables the writer to speak of the changes 

 in the progress of English architecture 

 nothing however but what is of every- 

 day occurrence is to be looked for in this 

 matter. 



In the early account of the Saxons, we 

 are treated with the whole story of the 

 British Arthur, and Merlin, and Mor- 

 gana, gathered professedly from Nennius 



and Geoffery of Monmouth; with sundry 

 reasons for substantiating the actual ex- 

 istence of Arthur at least. 



In Athelston's reign, we meet with Guy 

 of Warwick, of whose existence, however, 

 Mr. Clarke is very doubtful ; but the 

 " pupil" concludes that, as some excava- 

 tions on the banks of the Avon are still 

 called Guy's Cliff, no argument could 

 invalidate, in that neighbourhood, the 

 truth of the story meaning, among other 

 things, Guy's killing a dragon, a wild 

 boar, the dun cow, and Colbraud the 

 Danish giant. For our parts, we never, 

 heard in that neighbourhood of any thing 

 but the cow and Col brand ; and of these 

 the relics still exhibited imperatively si- 

 lence incredulity itself. 



About the same period follows a long 

 account of St. Dunstan and the devil a 

 story which Hume delighted to particu- 

 larise, and which therefore required no 

 supplying; and Mr. Clarke has nothing 

 fresh to communicate about them. But 

 Mr. Clarke thinks very little of his en- 

 gagement to confine himself to the sup- 

 plying of what he terms Hume's defi- 

 ciencies. Of Edward the Confessor he 

 tells us, he was the first to touch for the 

 king's evil a fact mentioned by Hume. 

 Mr. Clarke states, indeed, from Aiired's 

 life of Edward, that the custom originated 

 in a young woman's dreaming that she 

 was cured of a scrofulous disease by the 

 king's touching her. Edward's succes- 

 sors, he adds, regarded this privilege as 

 a part of their estate, and went touching 

 on till William, who refused the office ; 

 it was resumed by Anne; but her succes- 

 sor finally dropped it. 



Speaking of Editha, Edward's wife, who 

 was a sister of Harold's, and a woman of 

 extraordinary vigour of intellect, one of 

 the dialogists quotes from Ingulph : 



I saw her, says Ingulph, many times in my child- 

 hood, when 1 went to visit my father, at that time 

 employed in the palace : if she met me returning 

 from school, she questioned me iu the progress I had 

 made in grammar and logic ; and when she had 

 entangled me by some subtle argument, she never 

 failed to bestow upon me three or four crowns, and 

 to order me some refreshment. 



Of William the Conqueror, Mr. Clarke 

 tells us, as Hume does, that he was the 

 son of Harlotta, the daughter of a tanner 

 at Falaise, whose name, he adds, on his 

 own authority, has since been , so invidious- 

 ly applied. What say the etymologists to 

 this? But William's courtship of the 

 daughter of the Count of Flanders is of a 

 very extraordinary description, and re- 

 minds us of Bennilong of New Holland : 



The lady at first refused William's addresses, 

 objecting that she would never marry a bastard ; 

 which giving great disgust to the lover, he lay wait 

 for Matilda as she returned from mass at Bruges, 

 and seizing her, tore her clothe?, and both beat and 



