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est "of the "Nouvelle Héloïse " has faded into that of an historical document, like "The Conduct of the Allies."

But, to persons who prefer their literary sack and bread in the proportion which, personally, I do not prefer, I would sug

meant to prove certain points. Thus, if it deals with a momentary stage of religious discussion, to which the criticism of the Old Testament is indispensable, it inevitably becomes a tract, and unfair, like other controversial treatises. Thus, no sooner have Messieurs Kuenen and Wel-gest a charming theme for an Historical hausen reached a given resting-place in Biblical criticism, and afforded what seems foothold for a romance of Doubt, than M. Havet, or some other innovator, comes with a fresh theory, and, I fear, you need a new novel to do it justice. Romance toils after Biblical critics in vain.

All these like a sea shall go by, like a fish
shall they pass and be past,
They are Dons, and behold they shall die, and

the New be upon them at last.

Romance of Doubt. This is the Life and Death of Thomas Aikenhead. Thomas was born when, in scepticism, there were both peril and romance. He died (on the gallows) in 1697. A Scotch student of eighteen, he made a great Biblical discov ery. The Pentateuch was post-exilian! With the haste of a discoverer, rather than with minute critical discrimination, he assigned the authorship of the whole Pentateuch (or perhaps of the Hextateuch) to Esdras. However, he was decidedly advanced and interesting. He said that Christianity would not last till 1800. The Edinburgh ministers insisted that he should instantly be hanged; and hanged Thomas Aikenhead was, "abjuring his errors," his errors, poor boy! He was only a forerunner of M. Havet.

Moreover, in a novel of such discussion, no author can be fair. He bowls over the unresisting Christian as the preacher bowls over the unreplying atheist, or he never gives the doubter a chance. I might write a novel on the Homeric controversy; according to the principles here set forth, there is no law of the literary Now, is there any genuine literary taboo game against it. I might take a Sepa- against a novel on the Life and Adventures ratist don of Trinity as my hero, and make of Thomas Aikenhead? If Thomas had my fair Girtonian heroine a believer in run away to sea, and gone a-pirating, if Homeric Unity. One of them must he had been concerned in the discovery of convert the other. "Nitzsch, Nützhorn, a treasure, if he had been mixed up in Sir Monro, Mure," ejaculates my believing heroine. "Bergk, Wolf, Lachmann, Fick, Leaf, Jebb," shouts my sceptical hero, and adds the weighty authority of Peppmüller. But naturally, as the author, I make that controversialist win who espouses my side in this secular dispute. The lady would win, of course, and as, after all, I like a happy ending, the pair would be left editing the Cyclic Fragments in a Bower of Bliss on the Cam. But I should have written a tract, I fear, rather than a novel. I do not intend to produce this romance, from a dread that the public mind is not ripe for the enterprise; but I do maintain that there is no literary law against such an essay, and I believe that it would keenly interest Mr. Gladstone.

John Fenwick's conspiracy, every one would admit that Thomas was an appropriate hero of romance. But theology was to Thomas, as to many souls, what adventure was to Mr. David Balfour of Shaws. It was the great central interest of a brief and singularly misspent existence. Why should this interest be tabooed? The taboo is arbitrary and absurd. To a vast number of honorable persons the date of the Pentateuch is a thing infinitely more important and absorbing than the discovery of a whole island of gold, or the glorious restoration of James VII., matters with which Thomas might have concerned himself. No critic has a right to say that serious people shall not have a novel to their liking.

In short, as to barring any field of mor- I see the novel from here. Thomas is tal interest against the novelist, it seems the son of one of the lovely yet scattered to me, as it seemed to Molière, a proceed- Remnant, a Cameronian farmer. He is ing quite arbitrary. Can you make people brought up on the sermons of Mr. Peden, read you? That is the practical question. on the Bible, the Shorter and Longer CateBut they will not read you very long, re- chisms. He does not care for them; he is member, if your discussions are "topical," a child of nature. He plays truant from if being "topical "makes their main inter-church, he conceives a youthful scepticism est. About 1840-50 many novels of Protestant, Anglican, and Catholic controversy flourished vastly. They were "topical," and they have faded, as the "novel inter

about Jonah, or Balaam's ass; he is flogged by his father, he is preached at by the minister, he goes to college; he makes, in a moment of inspiration, the dazzling dis

how that amateur proved too much for the rustic and untutored valor of Harry? Then, the tales from the classics were artistically introduced. The didactic element, in Mr. Barlowe, was kept in due subordination, as I do insist it should be, to the romantic interest. A romance should not be all Barlowe. Some romances are. The book had, perhaps has still, a vast and deserved popularity. It was a muscular and sinewy romance, and, even if it stood alone, would burst asunder the superstitious taboo of the Edinburgh and the Quarterly.

covery that the Pentateuch is not what a vain people supposes; he talks about his discovery, he is informed on, goes into hiding where his Cameronian father had hidden long ago in peril for a different creed; is detected by that stern and Roman parent, is given up to justice and the lord advocate, is hanged, but first prophesies concerning Jean Astruc, M. Renan, Kuenen, Welhausen, and a golden age in which every one shall be quite sure that the Pentateuch is post-exilian. The reviewers in the Edinburgh and the Quarterly may condemn this scenario, they may taboo it, they may say that romance Were another instance wanted, take has no call to deal with religion; but I" Don Quixote," or take "Uncle Tom's shall still maintain that my subject is Cabin." Cervantes, according to popular thrilling and legitimate. Perhaps Mr. belief, wanted to "reform the world" by Louis Stevenson might try his hand at it? laughing Spain's chivalry away. He The early struggles of Thomas with the Shorter Carritch on Effectual Calling would receive every justice from Mr. Stevenson. The more I look at the idea the more I like it. It is a double-barrelled kind of plot; it would bring down at once the modern serious inquirer and the mere lover of "Kidnapped," as with a right and-left. The young would learn to be early inquirers, and precocious Biblical critics. The old would have some fun for their money. I feel inclined to write "Thomas Aikenhead "myself. And then, if it were popular, as it ought to be, the critics would loom all round, pronouncing a taboo on my Thomas's bright-eyed young researches into the literary supercheries of Esdras. If they were popular, "Hippocleides doesn't care," as that artist remarked when unfavorably criticised.

laughed it away. He reformed his world, as far as that went. He wrote a novel with a purpose. So did Mrs. Henry Beecher Stowe, with what success we all remember, or have heard. A young and flippant critic, like Miss Agnes Repplier, may mock at "Uncle Tom's Cabin," may say that, if it proves anything, it proves the excellencies of negro slavery, which bred such heroes as she no longer finds in Africa's dusky children. But there must be some answer to so unexpected a paradox. Certainly, though a novel with a purpose," Uncle Tom was a wonderfully readable novel.

The mere possession of a purpose does not, by itself, make a novel a consummate work of art; so far I do not mind going I can even conceive such a thing as a dull and dismal novei with a purpose. But, on I have succeeded in convincing myself, the other hand, its possession of a purpose and, I hope, the reader (if any), that the does not thrust a novel beyond the pale, Didactic Romance, the Novel with a Pur- does not make it taboo, does not entitle us pose, is in a perfectly legitimate genre. to say, "It's pretty; but is it art?" I feel inclined to embrace Mr. Howells, These are the taboos which critics invent figuratively speaking, and to throw up my when they simply happen not to like a bonnet and shout for a more serious and book, when, as we said, there is a preimproving class of novel. Arguments, ex- established discord between their tastes amples, crowd around me. Think of that and the author's taste. Let us try to be epoch-making fiction, "Sandford and Mer- more honorable and sportsmanlike in critton"! A foolish contempt for Mr. Bar-icism. Let us record our impressions. lowe prevails in priggish æsthetic circles." This book bores me." "This book I have never shared it. Tommy, Harry, amuses me." Nothing else is genuine. and their instructor charmed my boyhood, charm me still. There is life, "go," and humor in the book, with delightful pictures of society. There is adventure. Do you remember Harry being flogged because he would not say where the hare had gone? Harry was quite right in his dislike of harriers. Do you remember the negro and the bull? Do you remember the fight with Master Masham, and

From Blackwood's Magazine. THE JACOBITE LORD AILESBURY. How little a man may look on the vast plain and perspective of history, and how large he bulks, what a space he fills, in his own sight' Pepys is hardly more than

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mentioned in the annals of the Restora- was in twelve small quarto volumes of a tion, but fortunately we possess the mas- hundred pages each. The original manusive volumes in which Pepys gives the script was begun by Lord Ailesbury, “at annals of himself. So, in Macaulay's the earnest request of my dear son, the "History of England," Thomas, Lord Lord Bruce," about Christmas, 1728. Ailesbury, has but a passing notice; and Lord Ailesbury was then at Brussels, havnow after two centuries we are able to ing been in exile for thirty years. "It read Lord Ailesbury's story as he told it was a' for his rightfu' king he left fair for his descendants. It is printed for the England's strand." "The same began Roxburghe Club, "The Memoirs of forty years complete after my royal masThomas, Earl of Ailesbury, written by ter's being walked out of his kingdom." Himself," and of course there are but few" Walked out" is good, and exactly decopies of the book. In the last of his scribes the manner of James's undignified critical writings, Sir Walter Scott discusses the usefulness of book-clubs, such as the Bannatyne and the Roxburghe. He decides in their favor. True, they print extremely limited editions; but then they rescue works which merit preservation, though they can never be popular. One of the Scottish clubs - the Maitland, we think found that there was no sale for extra copies of their publications. It is certain that volumes of the Bannatyne books, picked up in auctions, or from catalogues, are usually "quite uncut; " their leaves have never even been opened by the paper-cutter. Thus it is plain that the limited editions of the book-clubs are not generally too small. The Roxburghe, especially, preserves rather than publishes works. But, in the case of Lord Ailesbury's memoirs, we may regret that the book was not published in the ordinary way. It is so rich in anecdote, in curious revelations of character, in materials for history, that it could not, as Constable found to be the common case with such publications, have "spelled ruin." General Marbot's memoirs might almost as Let us now see what history, as repre well have been printed to the extent of only sented by Macaulay, has to say of Lord one hundred examples. Not unfrequently Ailesbury. He is mentioned as having we have to deplore this scarcity of Rox- written a letter on the death of Charles burghe books. Lord Stanhope's collection II., of which a fragment was printed in of Stuart Papers" is now introuvable; the European Magazine of April, 1795. and Mr. Ewald, in writing the biography" Ailesbury calls Burnet an impostor." of Charles Edward, was obliged to borrow the editor's own copy.

We must first give the history of the manuscript, before examining Lord Ailesbury's confessions. In 1885 the Marquis of Ailesbury, at the request of Lord Powis, then president of the Roxburghe Club, sent copies of his ancestors' papers to the late Rev. Mr. Buckley, who filled, very admirably, the seat of old Dr. Dibdin as secretary. The manuscript thus copied

"Uncut," technically used, means that the binder has not shaved down the margins; it does not mean that the paper-cutter has not been employed. Strangely enough, a bibliophile so eminent as Scott was unaware, as he shows, of this distinction.

retreat. Lord Ailesbury "renounces the name of a historian, as being ignorant and illiterate," and writes "all out of the strength of memory.' "I write for my own satisfaction, and let this pass for a sort of diary and nothing else. ... I make up for defects in some measure by bring. ing to light what else you would never know, because historians flatter, and most often write for bread." "The best title I can give is a DOMESTIC DIARY; for the sincere part, I answer." As Mr. Buckley, the editor, says, Lord Ailesbury was “a thoroughly honest, fearless, and truthful man," with a passion, now singular, for a king as a king, but with a mind and temper naturally frank and impartial. He died abroad, in 1741, at the age of ninety. three; he was therefore eighty years of age when he began his memoirs. His heart is buried in an urn at Maulden, in Bedfordshire. By his second wife, the Comtesse de Sannu, he was the great grandfather of Louisa Maximiliana, wife of Charles Edward Stuart, and queen of England, sed non voluntate hominum.

"'Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call me knave," quoth Sir Andrew Aguecheek.t "Yet his own narrative," Macaulay goes on, "and Burnet's, will not, to any candid and sensible reader, appear to contradict each other." Macaulay next remarks (iii. 33) that "Ailesbury and Dartmouth, though vehement Jacobites, had as little scruple about taking the oath of allegiance as they afterwards had about breaking it." In 1690

• Edition of 1855, i. 439, note. Ailesbury says, "That Dr. Burnet had learning and wit I knew but too well. As to the History of his Own Times,' I could give him the lie as often as there are pages in his book."

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(iii. 586), the historian observes that gangs" of conspirators, who previously distrusted each other, had drawn into a confederacy, when William of Orange was about to leave the country for a while. "Clarendon, who had refused the oaths, and Ailesbury, who had dishonestly taken them, were among the chief traitors." Ailesbury, it may be remarked, had a very low opinion of "the noble historian," Clarendon. Again, in 1692 (iv. 343), Ailesbury appears as violent and intolerant, and as "narrowly escaping the block" for conspiracy against William. The latest mention of Ailesbury, in connection with Porter and Sir John Fenwick's affair, will be compared, in the proper place, with Ailesbury's own narrative.

Lord Ailesbury begins his confessions by averring that his education had been neglected. He was neither sent to school nor to college, and after a visit to Paris, was married early. Then "my chief study was to examine myself what I could ever be good for, and what not, which made me resolve to be assiduous at court, where learning was not in any lustre, and young men are inclined to vanity more or less, and I thought a court the finest way of living possible; but I was, in some course of years after, much of a contrary opinion." He was fond of Charles, "the good king," and Charles of him; “but on his death all my joy in a court was cut off." Lord Ailesbury is strong on the duty of self-examination as to fitness for appointments. In one year he saw a lord high admiral whom seasickness kept off the sea, a stupid and "stuttering "president of the Council, a first commissioner of the treasury who could not "tell ten," and "a secretary of state that could neither read nor write, by way of speaking." He resolved, then, to accept no office for which he was not competent. He next turns to a theory of "Whigism," "which really sprung by degrees from the discontent of noble families;" and gentry, "whose ancestors were sequestered, decimated, and what not, on account of their steadfast loyalties," unrewarded by Charles, and unchronicled by Clarendon. Clarendon always gave the good king bad advice, to favor his foes, and to neglect his friends. He chose for the king as a wife Catherine of Braganza, "a virtuous princess, but so disagreeable in many respects not fit to mention, who then had attained to twenty-five years, which, for a Portuguese, is equal to one of forty in our climate." Clarendon was anxious that Charles should have no legitimate child,

for "the historian's daughter was married to the heir-presumptive of the crown, and his ambition was to have the crown on the head of his grandchildren." Charles "was of an amorous inclination, chiefly owing to" the ill choice of his consort. He could endure a gentle remonstrance, but informed Dr. Hampton, his chaplain, "that I am not angry for to be told of my faults, but I would have it done in a gentlemanlike manner." Burnet has misrepresented all this: "I know but too well what my two good kings and masters told me relating to him and his character." Lord Ailesbury then gives his reflections on the politics of Charles's later years. Of the Cabal, Lord Ailesbury speaks in bitter terms: "The Duke of Buckingham was flashy and vain, and would rather lose his friend-nay, his king than his jest. He turned all serious matters into ridicule, and 'twas he that fetched that French lady over"- namely, the Duchess of Portsmouth.

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As to Lauderdale, Lord Ailesbury avenges the Covenanters on his memory. Like Claverhouse, in "Old Mortality," he recalls Lauderdale's part in the rebellion. Lauderdale "was as disagreeable in his conversation as was his person; his head was towards that of a Saracen, fiery face, and his tongue too big for his mouth, and his pronunciation high Scots- no Highlander like him; uttering bald jests for wit, and repeating good ones of others, and ever spoiled them in relating them, which delighted the good king much.... He was continually putting his fingers into the king's snuff-box, which obliged him to order one to be made which he wore with a string on his wrist, and did not open, but the snuff came out by shaking." The trick which the king played on Lauderdale with a double sillabub-glass was too coarse to be repeated here. Lauderdale

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was most pernicious to the king and kingdoms, and to his native country in a most especial manner. . . . At last, by the arbitrary conduct of those that had the management of affairs in that unhappy country, a small and short rebellion broke out, but it was soon quashed, they being totally routed and dispersed at Bothwell Bridge." As for Ashley, he, with Monmouth, had approached Lord Ailesbury's father with treasonable proposals, as early as twelve years before Charles's death.

Lord Ailesbury thinks that, just before Charles died, his affairs were prosperous. "I will have no more Parliaments," he said; "for, God be praised, my affairs are in so good a posture that I have no occa

natives of the county from which they come; and never safe when 'tis otherwise," as in our happy age of wandering "carpet. baggers." Even in his own day, country gentlemen were ousted by "purse-proud Cockneys."

sion to ask for supplies. . . . A king of England that is not a slave to five hundred kings, is great enough." "His heart was set to live at ease, and that his subjects might live under their own vine and figtree." "I will have by me a hundred thousand guineas in my strong-box," the Lord Ailesbury now roams into Monking used to say; and Lord Ailesbury mouth's affairs, beginning at his intrigue heard that "there was found there at his with Lady Henrietta Wentworth. "The death about sixty thousand pounds." poor duke alleged a pretext, very airy and Concerning this Burnet says, "He left absurd, that he was married so very young behind him about ninety thousand guineas, that he did not know what he was adoing, which he had gathered either out of the and that my poor Lady Henrietta Wentprivy purse, or out of the money which worth he regarded as his wife before God; was sent him from France, or by other and she was as visionary as he was.* I methods, and which he had kept so se- respect her memory so, that I am sorry I cretly that no person whatsoever knew cannot justify these unheard-of steps, but anything of it." Lord Ailesbury shows on the contrary." In fact, Lord Ailesbury that the king made no secret of the matter. had once been in love, it seems, with Lady Lord Ailesbury, as he admits, rambles Henrietta, but his father opposed the a good deal. He strays into the Popish marriage, and "the lover sighed, the son Plot, and tells how the Countess of Shaftes- obeyed," as in Gibbon's case. "This unbury "had always in her muff little pocket- fortunate lady I cannot forget," he adds pistols loaden, to defend her from the pathetically. Monmouth was in hiding Papists, being instructed by her lord and for his share in the Whig plot at Lady master; and most timorous ladies fol- Wentworth's, and Lord Ailesbury, when lowed her fashion" a very dangerous fashion. As for the Popish Plot, the good king that had a penetrating judgment never believed one word of all their plot, but dissembled it, and some think too much; but when that audacious villain, Oates, would have brought the queen into their plot, that roused the king out of a sort of state lethargy." Lord Ailesbury thinks that the inventors of the plot probably murdered Sir Edmundsbury Godfrey themselves. Of the new Privy Council of 1679, Charles said to Lord Ailesbury, "God's fish! they have put a set of men about me, but they shall know nothing; and this keep to yourself." "Our most solitary sovereign" was thus left among persons nearly as hostile to himself as to his brother, later James II. But he, who knew men to a hair," said, "Give them but rope enough and they will hang themselves." When the king dissolved at Oxford the Parliament, which was set on excluding James from the succession, Lord Ailesbury saw "the dreadful faces of the members, and heard their loud sighs." As for Charles, while putting off his robes, he touched Lord Ailesbury on the shoulder, saying, "with a most pleasing and cheerful countenance, 'I am now a better man than you were a quarter of an hour since; you had better have one king than five hundred.'" "Tis my opinion," adds Lord Ailesbury, "that the nation is ever safe when the counties, cities, etc., are represented by men of substance, and child." - Macaulay.

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hunting near Toddington, chanced to pursue a stag into her ladyship's park. The stag swam the ponds. "I was acciden tally thrown out, and, in a lane beyond the park, I saw a tall man in a country habit, opening a gate for me. I took no notice, but, casting my eye, perceived it was the Duke of Monmouth, who was so indis creetly mingled with the crowd at the death of the stag very soon after." Lord Ailesbury, to keep his father from seeing the duke, whom he must, in duty, have arrested, detained his parent with a flood of talk, "that he might not look about, insomuch that he told me I had taken a large morning's draught." It is a curious and dramatic scene. The child of Charles, accused of conspiracy against his father, lurking in the house of his mistress's mother, is attracted into the park by the music of the hounds, and there recognized, and is saved by the very man who had wished to marry the lady with whom Monmouth was living in sin-the lady whom the narrator, though so happy in his married life, "can never forget," not after all these many years.

Monmouth easily made his peace with Charles. He was conveyed into the rooms of his old governess, Mrs. Croft, at Whitehall. There he "prostrated himself at the king's feet, and melted his tender heart." He was to prostrate himself at

"While a child he had been married to another

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