tered into with the United States by Lord Ashburton. After a long discussion, the debate was adjourned.

March 22.-Mr. Smith, the Attorney-general for Ireland, took his seat for Ripon. The debate on Lord Palmerston's motion was resumed, but the House being counted out, it could not be entertained.

March 23.-The Oxford Railway Bill was read a third time and passed. The South Eastern and London and Croydon Railways Bill was read a second time. The Manchester Corporation Bill was also read a second time.-Mr. Hogg brought up the Report of the Committee of the Nottingham Election Petition, which was, that John Walters, Esq., was not duly elected a burgess to serve in the present Parliament for the Borough of Nottingham; that the last election for the said borough was a void election; that the Committee had come to the following resolution:-That John Walter, Esq., was, through his agents, guilty of bribery, and treating at the last election for the borough of Nottingham, but that it was not proved that such bribery was committed with the knowledge or consent of the said John Walter, Esq.

March 24. The Aerial Transit Bill was read a first time, and ordered to be read a second time.-The Factory Bill went through a second reading.

March 25.-No House.

March 27.-Mr. F. Kelly took the oaths and his seat for Cambridge.-The Liverpool Docks Bill, the Anderton Carrying Company Bill, the Aberdeen Harbour Bill, the Bercot and Oxford Navigation Bill, the Berwick-upon-Tweed Corporation Bill, and the Schoolmasters' Widows' Fund (Scotland) Bill, were all read a second time, and ordered to be committed.-The House then went into a Committee of Supply.

March 28.-Mr. T. Duncombe moved for a select Committee, to inquire into, and report upon the petitions of several Chartists to that House, which gave rise to a long debate ending in a division, when there appeared against the motion, 196; for it, 32.

March 29.-No House.

March 30.-The Berkenhead Cemetery Bill, the Berkenhead Improvement Bill, the Grafton Inclosure Bill, the Carmarthen Markets Bill, the Sheffield Ashton-Under-Lyne, and Manchester Railway Bill, the Chepstow Water-works Bill, were all read a third time and passed.—Mr. Elphinstone brought forward his measure for establishing a court for marriage and divorce, which was read a first time.

March 31.-The House went into Committee of Supply-The Bankrupt (Ireland) Bill and the Attorneys and Solicitors Bill were both read a second time.

April 3.-The Ipswich Dock Bill was passed.-On the motion for the recommitment of the Registration of Voters Bill, Lord John Russell objected to the new clauses proposed by Sir J. Graham; the House went into Committee on the Bill, and after several divisions all the clauses were agreed to, and the bill ordered to be reported.

April 4.-Lord Ashley brought forward his motion on the opium trade, which caused a long discussion, ending in the withdrawal of the Bill.

April 5.-The Players of Interludes Bill was read a second time.-The Admiralty Lands Bill was also read a second time.-The Sudbury disfranchisement Bill was read a third time and passed.

April 6.-The Northern and Eastern Railway Bill was read a third time and passed.

April 7.-Viscount Dungannon took the oaths and his seat for the city of Durham. The Bill to amend the Irish Poor Relief Act was read a first time. The House went into a Committee of Supply.

April 8.-No House.

April 10.--Mr. Gisborne took the oaths and his seat for Nottingham.-Mr. Collett took the oaths and his seat for the Borough of Athlone.-The Ecclesiastical Court Bill was read a second time. The Registration of Voters Bill was read a third time and passed.

THE

METROPOLITAN.

JUNE, 1843.

LITERATURE.

NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

A History of the Life of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, King of England. By G. P. R. JAMES, Esq., author of "The History of Charlemagne,' "Life of Edward the Black Prince," "Life of Louis XIV.," &c. &c. Vol. III.

THE third volume of this erudite and interesting work will be received with the warmest satisfaction by every one capable of appreciating the labours of an author as much distinguished for taste and fancy as for scholar-like acumen and deep research; powers and faculties which could have no higher field of developement than in the history of the life of Richard Coeur-de-Lion: a prince whose chivalric character conjured up around him such a dazzle of confusing splendour, so bewildering tradition with its glare, that, while the presence of imagination in his historian is eminently needed to receive and to transmit the meteoric lustre, the soundest accompanying judgment is equally all-important to correct the ideal; and these rare and opposite qualities Mr. James possesses in an almost singular degree. The riches of his fertile fancy have been abundantly proved by the stores which his genius has added to our imaginative literature, and his powers as an historiographer are equally established by those grave works which have deservedly taken their stand among the highest productions of history: and thus, both on the grounds of genius and learning, Mr. James has abundantly evidenced the right of fitness to become the historian of the chivalric Coeur-de-Lion. This fitness of sympathy, perception, and assimilation between an June 1843.-VOL. XXXVII.-NO. CXLVI.

F

author and his subject, is the highest guarantee for an elevated production. The historian's mind must not only be capable of faithfully transcribing and recording certain events which are to find a place within his pages, but he must be competent to embrace a host instead of a solitary action; he must comprehend remotest bearings, watch the operations of secret influences, combine contingencies, and connect the links of the most broken and entangled chains of events. His eye must not rest upon a point-it must take in a space. It is not enough that he tells honestly what he does see, but he must survey to the widest and most remote extent of possible vision. In history, more perhaps than in any other province, the paradox of truth contradicting itself may be most verified, since telling an unconnected fact may be the readiest mode of making a false impression. Again: the mind of the historian must not only possess this extensiveness, this expansiveness, but he must command that rare and really intuitive insight into motives which, instead of looking at them without light, if we may be allowed the expression, and which is strictly fact in ordinary men and ordinary cases, places them in the blaze of truth, at once dissects with a glance, and penetrates the labyrinth and the subtleties of the heart, tracing the action to the parent motive, and, in short, of unravelling the mysteries of that greatest of all mysteries-man.

And thus it is that Nature must do her part, and that the largest part, in the production of one worthy to be ranked as a true and dignified historian; but when she has thus furnished her part, he must do something-much, for himself: he must have industry-industry, without which every other faculty must run to waste, like weeds in an uncultivated wilderness, where the very abundance of the soil produces but a wilder disorder-industry, which is precisely that one thing left in a man's own power-that sort of freewill of the mind, by which his faculties are made available, and his efforts valuable to some given end.

That these are qualities which Mr. James most eminently possesses it would now be as needless to advance as it would be idle to deny, since the numerous volumes which adorn our shelves from his pen attest at once his varied powers and his industry, while the two preceding volumes of the very work before us have made the present one more anxiously expected.

And, in truth, the life of Coeur-de-Lion partakes so much of the nature of a glowing romance, that, in other hands, the splendour of its colouring might have been dimmed and tarnished in the handling. Undoubtedly, the world is as much undergoing a change of character as individuals. At one time it is pastoral, at another warlike, at another poetical, at another religious, at another scientific, utilitarian, and scholastic. Sometimes, too, it is occupied by great passions, torn by great convulsions, insane with the frenzy of wild desires. In short, we might almost look upon the history of the world as that of some stupendous sentient creature, agitated at intervals by some fresh spirit of desire. In the days of Coeur-de-Lion, the Holy Wars were the moving frenzy, and perhaps, nay, certainly, religious enthusiasm is just that passion which most stimulates the spirit of man, taking the form of celestial inspiration to stimulate the passions of

hell! Most mighty motive on the one hand to energise the most mighty power on the other! Had this fearful stimulant operated only on the mind of one party, its intensity might have overwhelmed its opponent, but, instead of this, it was met by its counterpart. On the one hand, to win back the sepulchre of the Saviour from the polluting grasp of the Infidel took the form of the holiest Christian zeal, and, to do this, the land where his meek and merciful footsteps trod was deluged with the blood of the creatures for whom he had died on the other, Islamism promised paradise to the true believer who should die with his sword in his hand; and thus enthusiasm waged war upon enthusiasm, and such a fire of zeal raged on the plains of Palestine as the world never witnessed in intensity, because the passion on either hand was that of religious enthusiasm. Into this field of war, waged under the banners of chivalry and religion, the present volume of "The Life of Richard Coeur-de-Lion" carries us. It will, of course, be seen that here is a noble, a brilliant field for the exercise of Mr. James's genius, and the pages of this portion of his work are chiefly devoted to Palestine. Divested of all enthusiasm, we cannot, even in thought, tread the birthplace of the Redeemer without emotion. We cannot see the banners of war unfurled and reeking with blood over Gaza, Ascalon, and Jerusalem, without thoughts of Him who came to preach peace and good will, and we cannot look upon the lofty towers of the Holy City without remembering that we behold witnesses alike of His life and death. And it is into these scenes that Mr. James carries us-scenes not only full of the holy awe of sacred associations, but crowded by the world's great actors. All Christendom had poured forth its mightiest and its greatest, stimulated by the war cry of the Church. On the one side hung the banner of the red cross, nay, the very wood of the real crucifix was there, blazing with gold and jewellery, and borne in the hands of apostolic bishops into the midst of the battle, while the insignia of kings and kingdoms floated beneath, with monarchs crowding under them, careless of home crowns, and simply there as soldiers of the Cross; on the other, phalanxes marshalled beneath the waving Crescent, and a turbaned multitude stood zealous for the Impostor Prophet and his heaven of houris. These are the scenes into which Mr. James carries us, with a sort of realizing power that is only second to actual vision.

The volume takes up the history after the battle of Antioch, and follows the course of conquest in the Holy Land throughout the monarchies of Christendom, until, at last, Jerusalem, in the midst of unspeakable horrors, fell into the hands of the victorious Saladin. This period of time is replete with interest which it would be difficult to find surpassed in the history of the world. The arena is that which Divinity had consecrated by bodily presence: the actors are crowned heads, mitred prelates, and the hosts of chivalry. The Cross and the Crescent, stimulating the adverse hosts, alike inspire them with the fire of religious zeal, and thus the greatest conceivable motives issued in the greatest conceivable effects.

But however powerful the leading passion, yet, whilst men are constituted as they are, the mass will ever be susceptible of vacillating

purposes, and swayed by vacillating passions, and Mr. James has had no easy task in following out the effects of these ever-changeful influences, manifesting themselves in endless fluctuations, like the advancing and retiring waves of the sea. Constantly forgetting the great motive of the Crusade, the soldiers of the Cross continually forfeited their allegiance, and fell into all the feuds of partisanship and selfishness, and this with a frequency that neutralized their powers and negatived their purposes, until the very feebleness to which they were reduced forced upon them the necessity of renewed coalition, and a return to their original oneness of purpose. Ambition, avarice, revenge-all the bad passions of the human heart worked their full scope of evil under the Christian banner, and we cannot but express our admiration of the masterly precision of mind with which Mr. James has traced out the operation of these dissensions and divisions, accurately defining both their causes and their effects, and manifesting as much his clear-sighted penetration as his most extraordinary power of accurate delineation.

The life of Richard Coeur-de-Lion offered many most brilliant phases to his historian, and this third volume presents us with a deeply interesting aspect: and yet, it is not so strictly the life of Coeur-de-Lion himself that we have been perusing as that opening of the vista of his times into which we have been allowed to gaze. Without it we could not have understood the position of the English monarch; and while it both gratifies, dazzles, and instructs the mind, it fitly opens out those scenes in the Holy Land in which Coeur-deLion so greatly signalized himself. Highly gratified as we are with the present volume, it has only made us look for another with increased interest; and we are bold to say, that when this work shall have reached its conclusion, it will take its stand not only as one of the most interesting portions of the world's history, but as one of the most powerful, truthful, and comprehensive of its records, whilst Mr. James's justly-earned fame must be enhanced as a faithful, a lucid, and a brilliant historian.

We regret that we can only make room for a part of Mr. James's powerful description of the capture of Jerusalem under the victorious arm of Saladin.

"At the time when the defeat of Tiberiad became known in the Holy City, it contained few, if any, military defenders, and no leader of renown. But Balian of Ibelin, whose wife had taken refuge there, hastened from Tyre to convey her to a place of security, having obtained a safe conduct from Saladin for that purpose. He had given his promise, it would seem, not to remain in Jerusalem above one night, but the people of the city, rejoicing in the presence of so famous a commander, would not permit him to execute his engagement. The patriarch absolved him from his vow, and the citizens watched him so closely that it was impossible for him to quit the place. His high and chivalrous qualities had excited the admiration and won the friendship of Saladin, and when the Christian Knight sent messengers to the Sultan, then under the walls of Ascalon, to explain his situation, and to entreat that his wife and children might be permitted to pass in safety to Tripoli, while he remained to defend Jerusalem, the Syrian monarch received his excuses as valid, and sent an emir with a party of cavalry to escort the lady and her family to a place of safety.