Alas! this was for some time impossible! Off went helmets, and down went pistols! one hero got a foot out of his own stirrup, while a neighbour's intruded into it; some strayed to the vicinity of their horses' necks and not a few wandered to the less honorable neighbourhood of the tail! But at last all was right, and then they enjoyed the shouting, and helped to shout too, but whether from having liked the spectacle, or being rejoiced at its conclusion, seemed a little uncertain: - then, the ladies swung their handkerchiefs, which were as white as those articles generally are on public occasions; then, the soldiers bowed and looked pleased for they had done their duty, as His Majesty's soldiers and they were sound in "lith and limb"-and their swords were in their scabbards (rattling like knives in a knife-box) and they were going to have a good dinner, and hear long speeches after it. - So I came home, and I thought their not having injured themselves was one good thing, but their not having injured any one else was a better. And every body who had seen them thought so too.' ART. V. The History of the Conquest of England by the Normans with its Causes from the earliest Period, and its Consequences to the present Time. Translated from the French of A. Thierry. 3 Vols. 8vo. 8vo. Whittaker. 1825. OF Mr. Hume's History we have always some reluctance to speak with the severity which it deserves; for such is the fascinating elegance of its composition, that it must ever be read with admiration and delight. But that its meagre and defective information - particularly on our early annalscould longer satisfy the inquisitive spirit of these times was impossible; and not even the incomparable graces of Mr. Hume's easy diction, and the occasional felicity of his reflections, could blind a studious and enlightened age to his indolent negligence in consulting original authority, his unworthy support of arbitrary principles, and his unfair perversion of fact and argument to political prejudice. Among other writers who had preceded or followed him in the same track, Carte was chargeable with his worst defects, without any of his beauties of style; Rapin, with more honest diligence, was only rivalled by Carte in dulness and wearisome verbosity; and Dr. Henry, whose peculiar arrangement of materials has been so often praised, and whose historical fidelity and diligence really deserve praise, had cast his information into a shape which was fitted rather for occasional reference than continuous perusal. The The defects and wants of our Anglo-Norman historyhave been, within the last few years, generally felt, and to repair them several laudable efforts have been made. Mr. Sharon Turner, continuing the connection of his labours, though in a course less difficult and novel, has given to the world a History of England, from the Norman Conquest to the Close of the Middle Ages, which emulates his first work in learning, care, and fidelity. So also Dr. Lingard has, in the first volume of his History of England, traversed the same ground with the same original research, and with a temperate spirit which does him honour. And, lastly, Mr. Hallam has traced our constitution, from its Saxon origin, and through its AngloNorman progress, with the skill, the lucid felicity, the philosophical spirit, and the manly attachment to freedom, which so eminently distinguish his View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages. After this enumeration of the valuable improvements which our native historical literature has lately received, there may appear to have been little necessity for the work of the industrious Frenchman before us. Nor, in truth, can the student of English history now be reduced to consult the pages of any foreign writer to supply the insufficiency of our own authorities. Moreover, considering M. Thierry's work merely as a view of the Norman conquest, its causes and consequences, we should not hesitate to conclude, that the particulars of that great event itself, the circumstances that prepared it, and the whole train of its effects, must be much more clearly displayed and easily comprehended in the regular course of English history, than they can possibly be in any detached and isolated essay. For in such an essay the due proportions of history must often be violated; the links of chronological narration must be imperfectly preserved, and even sometimes broken in their series; and, while a few facts are enlarged far beyond their natural scale and importance, the general features of the historical picture must be curtailed, and sacrificed to a single object. To all these objections against the selection of particular portions of history for prominent exhibition, M. Thierry's work is especially open. For example, forgetting his own assertion that it is in this age no longer allowable to write history for the sake of a single idea,' his sole care after the Conquest is to observe the relation in which the Anglo-Norman and the Anglo-Saxon populations, the victors and the vanquished, stood with each other. For this purpose he gives the reigns of our first six Norman monarchs pretty fully, but avowedly to show, not the the general history of the kingdom, political, civil, and military, but merely the condition of one portion of its population, the conquered Anglo-Saxons. He considers that their authentic fortunes as a distinct people cease with the execution of the Saxon Londoner, William Longbeard, in the reign of Richard I., and therefore he closes the regular history of the Conquest with this inconsequential occurrence. But in the subsequent portion of his work, we are presented with rapid sketch' of the ulterior destiny of the Anglo-Saxons, until their complete amalgamation with their Norman conquerors; and thus we have an abstract of English history for three centuries more, wholly devoted to a single point of enquiry to the exclusion of all collateral information. a But in doubting the extensive utility of the historical fragment which M. Thierry has composed, we are very far from denying him considerable merit. He is evidently a man of some learning and of extraordinary patience and research. He appears to have examined, in the originals, most of the monkish, Saxon, and Norman chroniclers with scrupulous care; and we can even discover some instances in which, by refraining from consulting lest he should be thought to copy our modern historians, he has fallen into palpable errors and encountered useless labour. As a foreigner, M. Thierry deserves. more unqualified praise for his very singular and accurate acquaintance with the minute geography of England, not only in its present divisions and localities, but in connection with all our antiquities. As a curious proof of this we may observe that, throughout his three volumes, we have discovered only one solitary inaccuracy even in the orthography of proper names, that most fruitful of all sources of mistake to a foreigner. The instance of error is in itself so trivial, that we should be ashamed to notice it, but for its singularity as being the only one of the kind which we could detect. In vol. i. p. 222., he has mis-spelt Suthwerk for Southwark, as the modern name of the suburb of London, which was the Sathweorc of the Saxons.' The style of M. Thierry's work deserves equal commendation: it is simple, terse, and energetic, and altogether free from the meretricious ornament and extravagant rhapsody, in which his countrymen are too often fond of disfiguring their meaning. How much of all this praise M. Thierry must divide with his English editor we know not; but in any case the work must have been admirably translated. These recommendations of style would, however, confer little value upon M. Thierry's researches, regarding his book merely, as we said before, as a narrative of the Norman con quest. But the peculiar plan upon which the author has constructed his work renders it very distinct from all previous views of the subject; and he has thrown a novelty and originality into his enquiries, which will give them a curious interest, not so much, perhaps, for the general reader, as for the more laborious student who desires to contemplate history in all its bearings. - The work opens with the settlement of the Keltic tribes in Britain; and M. Thierry rapidly conducts the narrative of his first book from this obscure source to the end of the ninth century. In this period, of course, are shortly comprised the Roman dominion over the Britons to its close, the Saxon conquest of the island, the foundation of the octarchy,and the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Of all this book we have only two remarks to make that the reader who is familiar with Mr. Turner's researches will find nothing new in so meagre an abridgment; and that M. Thierry has far too implicitly relied on the apocryphal traditions of the Welsh. Forgetting that an immeasurable belief in all their antiquarian questions is a point of honour with that people, and that an extravagant passion for verifying their wildest legends is the strongest national characteristic of the "ancient Britons" of our days, M. Thierry bows to the authority of the triads in the Archæology of Wales, and to all the farrago of absurdities in the Cambro-Briton and the Cambrian Register, with the same unsuspicious confidence that he might repose on the Annals of Thucydides, or the Commentaries of Cæsar. Nothing can be more ridiculous than to mistake these wild Welsh traditions for authentic history. When they stand alone, they are utterly worthless as historical records, and in no degree to be depended upon: it is only when they happen to coincide with better documents that we may be permitted to remember them. The second book continues the Anglo-Saxon history to the middle of the eleventh century; that is, to the accession of Edward the Confessor. This period, therefore, describes the first invasion of the Danes, or North-men, their continued ravages, and, finally, their evanescent supremacy in our island; and, contemporary with this course of events, the gradual union of the octarchy into a single kingdom, and the reigns of the intermingled Saxon and Danish monarchs of England. The third book continues the Anglo-Saxon annals to the battle of Hastings inclusively, and embraces the reigns of Edward the Confessor and Harold. This is beyond all question the best executed portion of the narrative; and the transactions of the whole of its interesting period are given given from the old chroniclers with more fulness than in any other modern work. M. Thierry's version of its circumstances is, however, open to one serious objection. Anticipating his hatred of Norman oppression, and his sympathy with the Saxon cause after its fall, he has related all the events of the reign of the Confessor with the zeal of a partisan. Because Earl Godwin and his family were opposed to the Norman favourites of the Confessor, the character of that ambitious nobleman here appears in far other colours than those in which former historians have seen cause to invest it. Godwin and all his party are painted white: the foreign favourites and their adherents black. As Mr. Turner has justly remarked, there is no great event in all our annals in which the truth is more difficult to be elucidated than in this transaction between William and Harold. Even the partisans of Harold are not agreed in their two accounts of it; and that of his enemies is absolutely at variance with both. M. Thierry has followed principally the Chronicle of Eadmer, which only partially coincides with the story delineated on the Bayeux tapestry, and with the version of Matthew Paris, Matthew of Westminster, and William of Malmsbury; while it differs most materially from the account of the contemporary Ingulf of Croyland, and from that of William of Poitiers, and a host of later MS. Norman chroniclers. For all these last contend, that Harold was sent expressly by the Confessor to announce his intention of appointing William his successor. That the testimony of these men against Harold of his voluntary oath of fidelity to William, his treacherous ambition, and his wilful perjury,is at least not impartial, we are ready to allow; and we know that the aspersions with which the creatures of a conquering chieftain are ever ready to assail a fallen cause, should always be received with suspicion and distrust. But M. Thierry is not contented with weighing the probabilities between the opposite versions of this remarkable and perplexing_transaction. He relates it throughout in the manner most favourable to Harold; and he never even breathes a hint that his narrative is directly at variance with that of the majority of the original chroniclers. This is not performing the highest duty of the historian. M. Thierry's fourth book is devoted to the details of what he calls the territorial conquest of England, from the battle of Hastings to the submission of the whole Saxon kingdom to the Normans in the year 1070. The fifth book proceeds to describe what M. Thierry denominates the political conquest: the successful measures of William to disorganise, 15 crush, |