an interesting and suggestive volume, out of whose contents scores of novels might be made, in most cases with but moderate exertion of imagination in aid of truth, and in many in such mitigation of it as would induce a favourable reception of the works by the public who have no taste for tragedy. In his Vicissitudes of Families many of the dry bones are clothed with flesh, and how the mighty are fallen is set forth with impressive plainness. It is a melancholy book, but deeply interesting, with its tracing of individual figures through the press and the hurry of general history, its holding fast to their skirts through the shifting scenes of their career, its dogging them to disaster, death, defeat, insignificance, or oblivion.

and sister's standard of competence. Mr. Disraeli's and Sir Bernard Burke's notions of an ancient lineage would probably bear a somewhat analogous proportion. Ulster might be satisfied with Malachi, but Mr. Disraeli would insist on Maccabæus; so that they are both right, the one when he affirms that "the Peers are of ancient lineage," the other when he makes Mr. Millbank say, "a Peer with an ancient lineage is to me a novelty." Sir Bernard gives a long list, in support of his vindication of the Peerage from the charge of new blood, and from it takes a few names, of which he says:— "The sound of them is the echo of the war-trumpet of the middle ages." He gives due precedence to the "four centuries of ducal rank and eight centuries of unsullied ancestry associated with the name of Howard," with their frightful commentaries of royal alliances and violent deaths, their nineteen Knights of the Garter and their twenty distinct peerages, the results of "a spring from simple chivalry to ducal position," a history more grand and tragic than any other English house has to chronicle.

The Rise of Great Families is the other side of the romance of history, treated in a similar way, and though slighter in composition and less various in its interest, because it is concerned chiefly with the sunny side of the fortunes of its subjects, it is pleasant and curious reading. The herald king has been wandering among his records like Thomson among his peach trees, and has picked out bright and pros- Then comes the story of Douglas, the perous incidents as the sentimental epicure name which is to Scotland what Howard is picked out the sun-ripened bits of the to England, and Geraldine and Butler are rich fruit. They are strikingly put togeth- to Ireland, followed by some curious iner, and they furnish a chit-chat commen- stances of the influence which heiresses tary upon the contemporary history of have had on the rise of our great houses, many wearers of great names, which especially in the case of the ducal house appeals to curiosity, and even to a finer, of Athole, whose representative, in right more philosophical sentiment. of his descent from heiresses, has a shield Sir Bernard Burke is a capital raconteur, of more than a thousand quarterings. On though, like all specialists, he is apt to take the other hand, the Grahams have found it for granted that his readers know a no such favour, and the Duke of Montrose's great deal more than they do about the shield has no quartering. For two-thirds subject upon which he knows everything, of the 570 Peers and Peeresses now existand he is sometimes in consequence too ing Sir Bernard Burke claims ancient chary of explanation in matters purely lineage, illustrated by noble achievement. heraldic. In the present instance, though The roll, as he calls it over, has a grand too "magaziny," he has selected and sound, and many of the old stories conarranged his materials equally well, appor- nected with the old names are curious and tioning a fair share in the historic recol- interesting. The feuds of the great houses lections which he records to England, form a lively chapter, beginning with the Ireland, and Scotland respectively. He is celebrated strife between Scrope and indignant at the idea that the English Grosvenor, when Geoffery Chaucer was aristocracy should be supposed to be de- called before the Court of the Lord High ficient in antiquity of lineage, and proposes Constable as a witness; the more friendly to meet Mr. Disraeli on that issue, in a rivalry between Lord Spencer and the passage which reminds one of the charm- Marquis of Blandford for the possession ing discussion between Mrs. Dashwood of Boccaccio's Decamerone, which termiand her daughters, in Miss Austen's Sense nated in the purchase of the book by the and Sensibility. Mrs. Dashwood and Mari- Marquis for £2,300; and the controversy anne vehemently contend for the superior-between Edward, Lord Stafford, and Mr. ity of modest competence, Elinor prefers Bagot, of Blithfield, in the sixteenth cenwealth, and is much condemned until it is tury. Clan Chattan, O'Conor, and the discovered that her estimate of wealth Jones-Herbert controversies find mention falls considerably short of her mother's here, and their points of dispute being

naturally regarded by Ulster with a perfect brated Miss Ambrose, of this kingdom," seriousness, slightly comic to the unher- says the enthusiastic print, "has, to the aldic mind, the reader finds himself turn-much-envied happiness of one and the ing into a partisan during their perusal. grief of thousands, abdicated her maiden Here is a charming anecdote, which we do empire of beauty, and retreated to the not remember to have seen in print before: Temple of Hymen. Her husband is Ro-"Sir John Schaw, of Greenock, a Whig, ger Palmer, Esq., of Castle Jackson, Co. lost a hawk, supposed to have been shot Mayo, M. P." by Bruce, of Clackmannan, a Jacobite. In Sir John's absence, Lady Greenock sent Mr. Bruce a letter, with an offer of her intercession, on Mr. Bruce's signing a very strongly-worded apology. His reply was:- For the honoured hands of Dame Margaret Schaw, of Greenock: Madame, -I did not shoot the hawk. But sooner than have made such an apology as your Ladyship has had the consideration to dictate, I would have shot the hawk, Sir John Schaw, and your Ladyship. I am, Madame, your Ladyship's devoted servant to command, Clackmannan."

The perplexities of precedence furnish Sir Bernard with material for a pleasant chapter, but one which yields in attraction to a narrative of the ancient glories of Dublin Castle in the dead-and-gone days of Stanhope, Chesterfield, and Harrington, when "the Lady Lieutenant" had a prescribed etiquette of the most pretentious description, and the orders were strict as to the lighting of "a few candles only in the Presence Chamber, Privy Chamber, and Drawing Room, the remainder of the candles to be lighted up when the grooms find the ladies coming." Those were the days of dancing" high and disposedly," in the presence of their Excellencies" within the Bar,” and the solicitude displayed in an old MS. programme of private balls for the sacred preservation of the "Red Benches" is highly entertaining. "Before the Ball Room is opened for ladies, four Battleaxes are to be posted, with orders not to suffer any ladies on the Red Benches but such as shall be placed there by the Lady Lieutenant, Gentleman Usher, or Gentlemen at large. The Gentlemen at large are to attend the ladies from the Battleaxe Guard Room into the Ball Room, and place them, taking care not to let any but ladies of quality sit on the Red Benches." Those must have been fine times when Lord Chesterfield wrote home that the only "dangerous Papist" he had met in Ireland was Miss Ambrose, a sobriquet borne by that sparkling queen of beauty ever afterwards; and a Dublin newspaper announced her marriage in 1752, in terms in which we find the origin of one of the wittiest and most impertinent of well-known sayings:-" The cele

Fragments of Family and Personal History, and Historical Picture Galleries," are full of the interest which attaches to getting at the individuals who make_up the crowds of the great world. Sir Bernard Burke has not been able altogether to exclude the sad element from this book. It comes out strongly in the romance of the Aberdeen peerage, and the story of Pamela. In the latter case, we observe with pleasure that he passes over as beneath notice the slander which accused Lady Edward Fitzgerald of having betrayed the secret of her husband's retreat. That could not have been true, even of Egalité's daughter.

One of the moot points in modern history is the birth-place of the Duke of Wellington. Sir Bernard Burke has collected all the evidence, hearsay and documentary, which bears upon the subject, and decides, we think with reason, in favour of Mornington House, Upper Merrion Street, Dublin. A large number of celebrated persons, great in station or individually remarkable, flit before the reader in this book, which tacks itself on to the writer's graver works and to heavier history in an illustrative, suggestive, realistic way, both useful and amusing.

MRS. SOMERVILLE.

SIR HENRY HOLLAND has sent to the Times some very interesting recollections of Mrs. Somerville. He says that had she lived but a month longer she would have reached her ninety-third year. This fact, Sir Henry remarks, will interest all to whom it is welcome to see great faculties like hers maintained and actively exercised to this great age. "That they were so maintained, and this with little impairment of the senses, is attested by two or three striking facts. Three years only have elapsed since she published her two volumes on 'Molecular and Microscopic Science a work of great labour and research, accomplished under circumstances little favourable to its prosecution. I happen to know that within the last year of her life she desired to be sent to her at

Naples Professor Hamilton's Calculus of | Somerville, by which marriage she had three Quaternions,' a record of one of the most daughters, two of them now surviving her. . . . recent and remarkable attainments in the From these slight notices of her scientific career higher mathematics. It is interesting to I willingly pass to those other features of Mrs. associate this fact with one dating sixty Somerville's character and life which her long years before. In 1811 Mrs. Somerville re- absence from England (caused by motives of ceived a medal at Edinburgh as a prize hidden from general knowledge. She was a economy and the love of tranquil leisure) have for the solution of some mathematical woman not of science only, but of refined and problem." Sir Henry Holland proceeds :highly cultivated tastes. Her paintings and Mrs. Somerville's first great work, the "Me- musical talents might well have won admiration, chanism of the Heavens," based on the "Mé- even had there been nothing else beyond them. canique Céleste" of Laplace, established at once Her classical attainments were considerable, her repute as a mathematician, and in a branch derived probably from that early part of life of mathematics at that time little pursued or when the gentle Mary Fairfax-gentle she taught in England, though since cultivated with must ever have been was enriching her mind such admirable success, and so largely applied by quiet study in her Scotch home. It may to other departments of science. It is told, and surprise some of the readers of this letter to be I believe the anecdote to be well founded, that told that she was admirable in needlework also. Laplace himself, commenting on the English A rent in old lace she would so repair that the mathematical school of that period, said there new work could hardly be distinguished from were only two persons in England who thor- the old. A few words more on the moral part oughly understood his work, and these two were of Mrs. Somerville's character; and here too I Women- Mrs. Greig and Mrs. Somerville. The speak from intimate knowledge. She was the two thus named were, in fact, one. Mrs. Som- gentlest and kindest of human beings; qualities erville twice married. Her first husband was well attested even by her features and conversaCaptain Greig, son of High Admiral Greig, of tion, but expressed still more in all the habits the Russian navy, a distinguished officer under of her domestic and social life. Her modesty the Empress Catherine. Left a widow, with one and humility were as remarkable as those talson, Mr. Woronzow Greig (since deceased), she ents which they concealed from common obsersome years afterwards married her cousin, Dr. vation. Pall Mall Gazette.

orthodox Mussulmans, completely lost him the favour of the Sultan. On the 18th of October Midhat made an excursion by railway to Pandik, while the remaining ministers assembled in the palace to offer their congratulations to the Sultan on his birthday. His Majesty, however, refused to receive them, and in the evening he sent one of his aides-de-camp to request Midhat to give up the great seal to Mehemet Ruschdi Pasha. The latter has already twice been Grand Vizier in 1860 under Sultan Abdul_Medjid, and in 1867 under the present Sultan. In 1826, when Sultan Mahmoud ordered the massacre of the Janissaries, Ruschdi was made a sub-officer in the new Turkish army, in whose organization he played a prominent part. He is (says the correspondent) an honest, patriotic, and disinterested man, but he wants creative power and energy. He is accused of being an enemy of Europeans, but this is true only in part, as he is a warm admirer of German science, and especially of the military organization of Germany, and only dislikes the French notions which are held by some of his countrymen. During the late war the German victories were celebrated in his house with great rejoicings.

A LETTER from Pera in the Allgemeine Zei- | lic education in the face of the opposition of the tung purports to give a full account of the circumstances which led to the dismissal of Midhat Pasha from the post of Grand Vizier. Midhat's predecessor, says the correspondent, strove to retain the favour of the Sultan by facilitating in every way the Court expenditture; not only were all the alleged savings of the State Treasary placed at the Sultan's disposal, but the revenues from the provinces were sent direct to the Imperial palace. For this purpose the Sultan had organized a kind of police whose sole duty it was to look after the revenues in question. Immediately on the arrival of a steamer with cash from the provinces one of the Sultan's aides-de-camp used to go on board and present an Imperial order authorizing him to receive the money. When Midhat Pasha assumed office, he at once put a stop to this practice, and re-established the privilege, formerly enjoyed by the Banque Ottomane, of receiving all the State revenues, and making payments on account of the interest of the State debt, the pay of officials, the army, &c. Shortly after the Sultan asked for 10,000 lire, which were paid to him only by instalments. This was followed by a further demand for 50,000 lire, which Midhat Pasha flatly refused to pay. This, combined with his efforts to introduce a more liberal system of pub-|

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HOLT & WILLIAMS, 25 BOND STREET, NEW YORK. Contents of Number for Dec. 26.

Jay Gould's Restitution,

President,

Texas and Mexico,

The Alabama Quarrel,

The President's Salary,
The Debate on Dissolution,

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The Election of President and Vice

The Arkansas Election,

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Myths and Myth-Makers,

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Dr. Holland's Works,

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Literary Gossip, .

Canadian Government Officials,

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French Statesmen. - No. 5. M. Rouher,

Anecdotes of Mr. Forest,

Horace Greeley,

The Dead President,

The Fascination of Money,

Heidelberg, On the Terrace,
Japanese Glass Rope,"

44

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