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THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

NO. CCCXXIV. APRIL, 1886. VOL. CLXII.




CONTENTS:


I. Matthew Parish

II. The Christian Brothers.--Religious Schools in France and England.

III. Archives of the Venetian Republic.

IV. Yeomen Farmers in Norway.

V. Oliver Cromwell: his character illustrated by himself.

VI. Travels in the British Empire.

VII. The Bishop of Durham on the Ignatian Epistles.

VIII. Books and Reading.

IX. Characteristics of Democracy.

X. The Gladstone-Morley Administration.


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CONTENTS OF NO. 324.


Art.                                                              Page

I.--Matthaei Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica
Majora. Edited by Henry Richards Luard, D.D., Fellow of
Trinity College, Registrary of the University, and Vicar of
Great St. Mary's Cambridge. Published by the Authority of
the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the
direction of the Master of the Rolls. 7 vols. 8vo. London,
Vol I. 1872--Vol. VII. 1883.                                       293


II.--1. The Christian Brothers, their Origin and Work, with
a sketch of the Life of their Founder, The Venerable Jean
Baptiste de la Salle. By Mrs. R. F. Wilson. London, 1883.

2. La Premiere Annee d'Instruction Morale et Civique:
notions de droit et d'economie politique (Textes et Recits)
pour repondre a la loi du 28 Mars 1882 sur l'enseignement
primaire obligatoire: ouvrage accompagne de Resume, de
Questionnaires, de Devoirs, et d'un Lexique des mots
difficiles. Par Pierre Laloi. Quatorzieme Edition. Paris,
1885.

3. Report of the Committee of Council on Education (England
and Wales). 1884-85.

4. Seventy-fourth Annual Report of the Incorporated National
Society. 1885.                                                     325


III.--The State Papers of the Venetian Republic; namely,
Cancelleria Inferiore, Cancelleria Ducale, Cancelleria
Secreta, preserved in the Convent of the Frari, at Venice.
                                                                   356


IV.--1. Journal of a Residence in Norway during the years
1834, 1835, and 1836. By Samuel Laing, Esq. London, 1837.

2. Le Royaume de Norvege et le Peuple Norvegien. Par le Dr.
O. I. Broch. Christiania, 1878.

3. Official Reports of Prefects on the Economic Condition of
the Provinces of Norway in 1876-80. Christiania, 1884.

4. Publications of the Statistical Bureau Christiania.             384


V.--A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe, Esq.;
Secretary, first to the Council of State, and afterwards to
the Two Protectors, Oliver and Richard Cromwell. In Seven
Volumes, containing authentic Memorials of the English
affairs from the year 1638 to the Restoration of King
Charles II. Vol. III. London, 1742.                                414


VI.--1. Oceana, or England and her Colonies. By James
Anthony Froude. London, 1886.

2. Through the British Empire. By Baron von Huebner. 2. vols.
London, 1886.

3. The Western Pacific and New Guinea. By Hugh Hastings
Romilly, Deputy Commissioner of the Western Pacific. London,
1886.                                                              443


VII.--The Apostolic Fathers: S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp.
Revised Texts, with Introductions, Notes, Dissertations, and
Translations. By J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D.,
Bishop of Durham. London, 1885. 2 vols.                            467


VIII.--1. An Address delivered to the Students of Edinburgh
University on Nov. 3, 1885. By the Earl of Iddesleigh, Lord
Rector of the University of Edinburgh.

2. Hearing, Reading and Thinking: an address to the Students
attending the Lectures of the London Society for the
Extension of University Teaching. By the Rt. Hon. G. J.
Goschen, M.P.

3. The Choice of Books and other Literary Pieces. By
Frederic Harrison. London, 1886.                                   501


IX.--1. Popular Government. Four Essays. By Sir Henry Sumner
Maine. Second Edition. London, 1886.

2. Democracy in America. By Alexis de Tocqueville.
Translated by Henry Reeve. New Edition. London, 1862.

3. On the State of Society in France before the Revolution
of 1789. Translated by Henry Reeve. Second Edition. London,
1873.                                                              518

And other Works.


X.--1. Fourth Midlothian Campaign. Political Speeches
delivered, November, 1885, by the Right Hon. W. E.
Gladstone, M.P. Edinburgh, 1886.

2. John Morley: The Irish Record of the New Chief Secretary,
1886.

3. Ireland: A Book of Light on the Irish Problem. Edited by
Andrew Reid. London, 1886.                                         544

And other Works.




ART. I.--_Matthaei Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora._
Edited by Henry Richards Luard, D.D., Fellow of Trinity College,
Registrary of the University, and Vicar of Great St. Mary's, Cambridge.
Published by the Authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's
Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. 7 vols. 8vo.
London, Vol. I. 1872--Vol. VII. 1883.


Some of our readers are not likely yet to have forgotten the remarkable
essay which the late Professor Brewer contributed to our pages in 1871,
and which has since been reprinted in the volume of 'English Studies,'
published shortly after the author's death in 1879. English History owes
a larger debt to few men of our time than it owes to Mr. Brewer. As a
teacher whose pupils were always eager to listen to all that fell from
his lips, and whose enthusiasm never failed to awake a kindred spark in
the minds of those who looked to him for light in dark places and
guidance along tortuous paths of research, Mr. Brewer has had few
equals, and perhaps has left no successor who can compare with him. As a
writer he was always brilliant, lucid, and vigorous, and his unrivalled
'Introductions' to the Calendars of Letters and Papers, concerned with
the reign of Henry VIII., will long continue to be read by all students
of our History, as necessary and indispensable interpreters of the vast
storehouses of original documents which he did so much to rescue from
the oblivion or obscurity to which they had previously been consigned.
But it was as an organizer of research that Mr. Brewer earned his
greatest fame and achieved his greatest success, and it was to him more
than to any one man, to his immense persistence in urging upon the
powers that be a more generous freedom of access to our Records, and to
his prodigious powers of work in arranging and tabulating the enormous
masses of documents of all kinds which constitute the _Apparatus_ of
English History, that this country stands indebted, and will remain
indebted as long as our literature lasts.

In the Essay on 'New Sources of English History' the learned author has
given us a startling account of the deplorable condition into which some
of the most precious of our national manuscripts had been allowed to
fall--of the utterly chaotic state of our depositories--of the
hopelessness, the despair which must needs have come upon one student
after another who might be fortunate enough to be turned loose into the
various prison-houses of our muniments--and of the efforts made, and
happily at last made with splendid success, to cleanse the Augean
stable, and to let the world know something of the wealth it contained.
With characteristic modesty Mr. Brewer said nothing of his own part in
all that laborious and sagacious organization which resulted in our
obtaining the magnificent _Calendars_, which have opened out to us all
'that new world which is the old' that had become almost forgotten or
unknown. He was not the man to assert himself, he knew that posterity
would give him his due, but with a simple desire to stimulate research,
and to show how much remained to be done, and how much to be discovered
and made known, he drew the attention of his readers chiefly and
primarily to the value of the Calendars, and to the important results
which those Calendars had already produced, and were destined to produce
hereafter. He had quite enough to say upon this point, and if his life
had been spared, it is probable that he would eventually have given us a
more comprehensive account of the series of volumes which, though now
issuing from the press _pari passu_ with the Calendars, were originally
undertaken a little later. Such an Essay by such a master would indeed
have been an important aid to the student, but at the time of Mr.
Brewer's lamented death the day had hardly come for such a _resume_; and
even now, though so much has been achieved, so much and so well, the
hour has hardly arrived nor the man for taking a comprehensive survey,
and giving to the public an intelligent and intelligible account of that
other Library of Chronicles, and biographies, and letters, and
cartularies, and those other memorials of the Middle Ages in England,
which it is to be feared are hardly as well known as they ought to be,
nor as widely studied as they deserve.

Meanwhile it is high time that attention should be drawn to that noble
series of volumes now issuing from the press under the editorship of
scholars whose reputation is assured, and whose work continues to
enhance their reputation--high time that we should begin to do something
like justice to the labourers, who have deserved so well at the hands
of such Englishmen as have any sentiment of loyalty to the great
thoughts, the great doings, and the noble lives of their forefathers.
The philosopher, who 'holds the mirror up to nature,' has not of late,
as a rule, missed his reward. The historian, who in his dogged, patient,
toilsome fashion holds the mirror up to the life of bygone ages, has
received among us scant recognition, and generally is rewarded with but
barren honour. What has been done and still is doing will be best
understood by briefly reviewing the progress of that movement, which has
brought about the great revival of English Historical study, and under
the influence of which the opinions and convictions of educated men have
passed through a very decided change, one destined to produce still
greater and more unlooked for changes of sentiment and belief before the
present century shall have closed.

It is just fifty years since 'the Father of Record Reform,' as he has
been justly called, received his patent creating him Master of the
Rolls. Although as far back as the year 1800 a Commission was issued for
the methodizing and digesting the National Records, and for printing
such calendars and indexes as should be thought advisable; and though
during the next twenty-seven years many works of supreme interest and
importance were printed at the public expense, the enormous extent of
our National Records were known to few, and the difficulty of consulting
them, (dispersed as they were through a score of different depositories)
was enough to deter all but the most resolute enquirers. It was Lord
Langdale who first set himself to reduce the chaos of our archives into
something like order. When the old Record Commission expired in 1837, it
was by Lord Langdale's influence that the Public Record Act was passed
on the 14th of August, 1838, whereby the Records named therein were
placed under the custody of the Master of the Rolls for the time being,
and hereupon a new era began. Nevertheless it was not till July 1850
that a vote was obtained from the Treasury for the erection of a
national depository, wherein our vast archives should be assembled under
a single roof, and not till 1855 that the magnificent _Tabularium_ in
Fetter Lane was opened for the reception of our muniments.

Lord Langdale died in April 1851;[1] he was succeeded in the Mastership
of the Rolls by Lord Romilly, then Sir John. A happier choice could not
have been made. To Lord Langdale belongs the credit of carrying out the
grand scheme for consolidating the various collections of documents,
which, as we have said, had up to this time been widely dispersed, and
the very existence of the larger mass of which was known only to a few
experts. To Lord Romilly we owe it that the great original sources of
English History so assembled have been rendered accessible to any
student who desires to consult them; and it is to him, too, that we are
indebted for the issue of that unrivalled series of 'Chronicles and
Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland, from the Invasion of the Romans
to the Reign of Henry VIII.,' which has laid the foundation for a
science of history firmer and deeper and wider than before was believed
to be even attainable.

Great men are at once the leaders and the product of their age. When
Lord Langdale set himself to his task he was only attempting that which
had been talked of since the reign of Edward II. For five centuries the
unification of our National Records had been recommended and advised by
lawyers, statesmen, and scholars from generation to generation, but no
practical scheme had ever been suggested, and the difficulties in the
way of reform were supposed to be insuperable. It was a Herculean task,
and one that grew ever more arduous the longer it was postponed. During
the first quarter of the present century profound dissatisfaction had
begun to be felt at the condition of our historical literature. The
ordinary text-books were full of fables, more than suspected to be
fables, and which yet it was extremely difficult to disprove
satisfactorily. Theories which had long passed current were being rudely
assailed, and yet--in the face of the obstacles that hindered
research--stubbornly held their ground, or were repeated with peremptory
dogmatism. A deep distrust of the old methods and the old assumptions
had given rise to a widespread desire to drag forth from their
hiding-places any documents, however dry or recondite, which might throw
some clear light upon our national life and manners, and not only upon
mere events of national importance during Medieval times. A desire to
know the truth was _in the air_. The science of history had passed out
of its infancy, and the stirrings of a new craving--the passion of
Research--were making themselves felt in that mysterious restlessness
which indicates that the old smooth-faced docility, the old childish
submission to tutelage, the old unquestioning acceptance of authority,
has gone for ever, and a new life has begun. The year before Lord
Langdale received his appointment as Master of the Rolls, the Surtees
Society had been founded for the printing of unedited MSS. illustrative
of the history of the northern counties; and in the same year that the
old Record Commission expired, the English Historical Society was
started, a society which numbered amongst its promoters such men as the
late Mr. Kemble, Mr. H. O. Coxe, Sir T. Duffus Hardy, and Mr.
Stevenson--the leaders and teachers of that school of younger men who
have so ably followed in the steps of their seniors, and who, mounting
on the shoulders of the giants, have gained a wider view than it was
given to those others to attain. The five years that followed saw the
foundation of the Camden, the Percy, and the Chetham Societies, not to
mention many another that has done useful work in its way. The labours
of these pioneers soon made it quite apparent that the sources of our
national history--social, ecclesiastical, and political--were quite too
voluminous for private enterprise to deal with, and would demand the
co-operation of a body of trained scholars and the resources of the
public exchequer to make them available as apparatus for the teachers of
the future.

On the 26th of January, 1857, Sir John Romilly submitted to the Treasury
his memorable proposal for the publication of certain materials for the
History of England;[2] and on the 9th of February a Treasury Minute was
put forth approving of the plan that had been drawn up as one 'well
calculated for the accomplishment of this important national object in
an effectual and satisfactory manner within a reasonable time.'
Forthwith arrangements were made for the issue of that series of works
which is now known as the 'Rolls Series,' a collection which has already
extended to upwards of 200 volumes.

The lines laid down by Sir John Romilly were almost exactly those which
had been followed by the English Historical Society. Every editor was to
'give an account of the MSS. employed by him, of their age and their
peculiarities;' he was to add 'a brief account of the life and times of
the author, and any remarks necessary to explain the chronology; _but no
other note or comment_ was to be allowed, except what might be necessary
to establish the correctness of the text.' The restriction was
absolutely necessary if only for this, that when the 'Rolls Series' was
first commenced even the most accomplished of its editors were mere
learners. The time had not yet arrived for comments. The text was wanted
first in its completeness and integrity.

Looking back to this period--little more than a quarter of a century
ago--it is difficult for us to realize the deplorable condition into
which our historical literature had been allowed to fall. Kemble's great
work, the 'Codex Diplomaticus aevi Saxonici,' the first volume of which
appeared in 1839, and his 'History of the Saxons in England,' published
in 1849, came upon the great body of intelligent men as the revelation
of new things. It is sufficient to turn to the chapter on the
Constitutional History of England before the Conquest, in Hallam's
'History of the Middle Ages,' to be assured how meagre and superficial
even Hallam's knowledge was of everything before the Norman invasion. It
was no fault of his; he made good use of all such materials as were then
accessible to the student--that is, all such as had been printed; for
that incomparably larger _apparatus_ which since Hallam's days has been
published to the world, it was for all practical purposes as if it had
never existed at all. Even men of culture and learning were persuaded
that all that was ever likely to be known about the religious houses had
been collected in the new edition of Dugdale's 'Monasticon.' It is
hardly too much to say that of the history of English monasticism Hallam
knew nothing. Dr. Lingard himself had very little more to say of the
great Abbeys than his predecessors, and had a very inadequate conception
of the part they played in the development of our institutions; and when
Dr. Maitland wrote his brilliant 'Essays on the Dark Ages,' he hardly
names St. Edmundsbury or St. Alban's, and though one of his most
fascinating chapters is concerned with the early days of Croyland, his
only authority for the beautiful story, which he has handled so
skilfully, is a romantic narrative attributed to Ingulphus, which has
been demonstrated to be a somewhat clumsy though a clever forgery. Of
the Mendicant Orders--of the work they did, of the influence they
exercised, and of the attitude adopted towards them in the 13th century
by the parochial clergy on the one hand, and by the monks on the
other--even less was known, if less were possible, than of their
wealthier rivals.

Two years had scarcely elapsed since the issue of the Treasury Minute of
February, 1857, before it began to be said that the history of England
would have to be written anew. In the single year 1858 _eleven_ works of
the highest importance were printed, and it was evident that neither
original materials nor scholarly editors would be wanting to make the
'Rolls Series' all that it was desired it should become. The 'Chronicles
of the Monasteries of Abingdon and of St. Augustine at Canterbury,' the
contemporary 'Life of Edward the Confessor,' and the priceless
'Monumenta Franciscana,' telling the wonderful story of the settlement
of the Minorites among us, were printed from unique MSS. Next year the
'Chronicle of John of Oxnedes' was brought out by Sir Henry Ellis, and
the 'Historia Anglicana' of Bartholomew Cotton, by Dr. Luard, neither
work having ever before been printed. Volume followed volume in rapid
succession, a steady improvement becoming observable in the style of
editing, as the several editors became more familiar with the results of
their predecessors' labours.

It was while working at Bartholomew Cotton that Dr. Luard was brought
into intimate relations with the 13th century. Hitherto the _composite_
character of such chronicles as had been published had indeed been
perceived, but no attempt had been made to trace the original authority
for statements repeated in the same words by one writer after another.
Dr. Luard opened out a new line of enquiry, and in his edition of
Cotton's Chronicle he endeavoured to distinguish in every instance the
material which might fairly be called original from that which his
author had borrowed from older writers and incorporated into his text.
The borrowed matter was printed in smaller type, and the sources from
which it had been derived were indicated by references given at the foot
of the page. Cottons' own additions were printed in a bolder type, so as
at once to catch the eye. While conducting the laborious researches
necessitated by this new method of editing his text, it became clear to
Dr. Luard that Cotton had borrowed largely from Matthew Paris--who had
lived just a generation before him--and that he had also borrowed from a
mysterious writer much read in the 14th and 15th centuries, who went by
the name of Matthew of Westminster. As to this Matthew of Westminster,
Dr. Luard postponed dealing with him till some future time. He might
prove a mere mythic personage, and it was suspected he would; but
Matthew Paris was certainly no shadow, but a very real man, whose
greatness seemed to grow greater the more he was studied and the better
he was known. Yet as Dr. Luard became more familiar with the text of
Paris, he was soon convinced that in its printed form it was bristling
with the grossest inaccuracies of all kinds. Originally it had been
published under the authority of Archbishop Parker in 1571; and though
other editions had appeared, in this country and on the Continent,
several times since then, Paris's great work had remained exactly in the
same state as Parker (or whoever his agent was) had left it three
centuries ago. That is to say, that by far the most important work on
English history during the 13th century--not to mention European
affairs--and by far the most minute and trustworthy picture of English
life and manners during the reign of Henry III.--a record, too, drawn
up by a contemporary writer of rare genius and literary skill--was
defaced by blunders, audacious tampering with the text and gross
inaccuracies, to such an extent that no conscientious student could
allow himself to quote the printed work without first referring to one
of the very MSS. which the Archbishop professed to have used.

Nevertheless, the task of bringing out a critical edition of the
'Chronica Majora' did not appear less formidable as fresh sources of
information cropped up; and Dr. Luard shrank from the immense labour
that such an edition involved, it was because he had formed a correct
notion of its magnitude. In 1861 he brought out in the same series the
'Letters of Robert Grosseteste,' the heroic and magnanimous Bishop of
Lincoln; and while working at this volume, the England of the 13th
century became more and more alive and present to the mind of the
student.

But distinctly and grandly as one noble character after another revealed
itself, there was a strange mist that required to be dispelled before
even the importance of great events could be rightly estimated. The
inner life of the monasteries, great and small, must be enquired into,
so far as it was possible to get any information on so obscure a
subject; and, above all, the paramount influence which so magnificent an
institution as the Abbey of St. Alban's exercised upon the intellectual
life of the country must be studied with patient impartiality. Before a
scholar with so lofty an ideal of an editor's duty could venture upon
his _magnum opus_, there was indeed an enormous mass of preliminary work
to get through. The horizon seemed to widen everywhere as the years of
historical discovery went on. It was left to Mr. Riley to attack that
wonderful collection of documents to which he gave the title of
'Chronica Monasterii Sancti Albani'--a series occupying twelve thick
volumes, and which furnish us not