704 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[DEC. 



*' to the first bold utterer of it. To 

 Peter the Hermit, is attributed the ho- 

 nour of the first crusade," &c. 



To consolidate and legalize the royal 

 authority, which Philip Augustus and 

 his son had strengthened and extended, 

 was the task of St. Louis, and his chief 

 resource was to balance the lawyers 

 against the nobles. The nobles had 

 need of men of study and business to aid 

 them. 



Legists were thus introduced into the Parlia- 

 ment, and tliese soon engrossed all its authority 

 and power. They became almost a fourth order 

 in the state. Raised from the lower or middling 

 classes, they were jealous of the aristocracy, and 

 more so of the priesthood; and they laboured 

 with inveterate diligence to raise royalty, to which 

 they owed their own elevation and honours, on 

 the ruin of those two estates. The ensuing hun- 

 dred years of French history might be called the 

 age of lawyers, so universally did they dominate 

 and bend every power and institution to their 

 will. It was their teachings and maxims that 

 gave to Kings that divine right which the church 

 at that time claimed for itself. That devotion to 

 royalty, which in romance is considered to be the 

 characteristic of the high-born, was in reality first 

 lield and forced upon them by the plebeian lawyer- 

 This profession, which in later times has given 

 to the cause of liberty its ablest advocates, laid, 

 in the_ 13th century, the firmest foundations of 

 absolute power. 



The princes of the house of Valois 

 are well known in English history. The 

 throne came to them by the operation 

 of the Salique law, then, in Mr. C.'s judg- 

 ment, recently established. Louis X. 

 left a daughter, but Philip, his brother, 

 succeeded, and was the first that so suc- 

 ceeded. This maxim was by no means 

 previously established, known, or under- 

 stood. Chance, the mature age of Phi- 

 lip, the friendless state of Louis' daugh- 

 ter, together with the circumstance of 

 her mother's infidelity, were the true 

 origin of a rule so unique and so impor- 

 tant! The Salique law was confirmed 

 by a decree of the States General, which 

 the new King summoned for the pur- 

 pose. Philip left only daughters. A 

 son of Philip the Fair succeeded : he 

 died without children, and the crown 

 thus passed to the Valois branch. Our 

 Edward's claim was not, therefore, so 

 utterly unreasonable as Hume affirms. 

 Hume is wrong in stating that his claim 

 was not entertained by any in France, 

 and wrong too in stating that the Salique 

 law was an old established opinion. 



It is not till the reign of Francis the 

 First that Mr. C.'s history enters much 

 into detail. 



That period (he says) may be called the frontier 

 line of modern history; it is the horizon which 

 bounds our histoiical view ; all within it stretch- 

 ing in continuance up to the very present, sepa- 

 rated only by three centuries an interval which, 

 however great it may seem to us, is in reality no 



very extended portion of time. To this epoch may 

 be traced the ditt'ereut political systems and for- 

 tunes of the European states. They had then, 

 each of them, attained their national limits. 

 Nations, like men, when they arrive at maturity 

 of growth, seek to exert their force externally. 

 To encroach upon, to conquer, to reduce their 

 neighbours, is the natural impulse of the many 

 as of the few. Laws and civilization have re- 

 strained the frowardness of man ; it is to be hoped 

 that a still greater degree of enlightenment may 

 yet equally tame the envious and ambitious spirit 

 of nations ; and that man in the aggregate may 

 at length be taught the moral wisdom snd for- 

 bearance which have been forced upon the indi- 

 vidual. 



The extract closes with a hope, which 

 takes the form of a moral aphorism, and 

 one that is beginning to be generally 

 tasted. Mr. Crowe's volume terminates 

 with the reign of Henry IV. and as a 

 mere narrative is remarkable for neat- 

 ness in the sketching of events ; but it 

 has higher merits. 



Encyclopaedia Britannica. Part VIII. 

 This very superior edition of the most 

 popular of our Encyclopaedias continues 

 to keep the word of promise ; it is true 

 to the periods of publication, and many 

 of the articles shew proof of the editor's 

 promptitude. The greater portion of 

 the part before us is occupied with Play- 

 fair's well executed dissertation, and the 

 treatise of Algebra, neither of which 

 required addition or correction ; but 

 Alyiers is brought up to the latest mo- 

 ment, and Allahabad and Almorah, in the 

 east, have the benefit of Heber's re- 

 marks. Almanack commemorates the 

 improvements wrought in this essential 

 article of life by the exertions of the 

 Diffusion Society, though we see not 

 why the editor should adopt the term 

 blasphemy, which the society has chosen 

 to apply to Moore's nonsense. The 

 Nautical Almanack is noticed without 

 any allusion to recent occurrences. So 

 long as Maskelyne superintended it the 

 publication might be safely relied upon 

 it now smacks of the indolence of 

 establishments. It is notoriously incor- 

 rect. Considerable sums are expended 

 on the calculations ; we are glad to see 

 Sir James South keeping a sharp look- 

 out. In the Life of Alleyn the player 

 and master of King James's Bear-garden, 

 and founder of Dulwich College, is a 

 letter containing an anecdote which 

 brings together Alleyn, Shakspeare, and 

 Jonson. The letter is from George 

 Peale, the dramatist, to a friend of 

 Shakspeare's. Alleyn, it seems, had 

 charged Shakspeare with stealing the 

 speech to the players in Hamlet, from 

 his occasional conversations, which Shak- 

 speare did not " take in good sorte." 

 Jonson put an end to the strife " This 

 affair," says he, " needeth no conten- 

 tion ; you stole it from Ned, no doubt ; 



