Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 346, August, 1844

At Buxton, Thurlow lodged with a surgeon, opposite to a butcher's shop.

He asked his landlord whether he or his neighbour killed the most.

Thurlow, on being asked, how he got through all his business as a chancellor, answered—"Just as a pickpocket gets through a horse-pond. He must get through." Dunning, when a similar question was put to him, answered in much the same spirit, though in a more professional style. "I divide my business into three parts: one part I do; another does itself; and the third I leave undone."

In 1807, Lord Eldon purchased the estate of Encombe in the Isle of Purbeck, for which he paid between £52,000 and £53,000, comprising a mansion with 2000 acres, a fertile valley, with a fine sea view.

In 1809, the charges brought by Colonel Wardle against the Duke of York excited great public interest. The very sound of malversation in high employments excites all the feelings of a nation with whom character is the first requisite; and the rumour that the Duke had been a party to the sale of commissions in the army by Mrs Clarke, with whom he had formed an unfortunate connexion, produced a public uproar. After discussions and examination of witnesses, which lasted six weeks, and brought infinite obloquy on the Duke and his defenders, the House of Commons resolved, by 278 to 196, that the charge of corruption, or even of connivance, against the Duke, was wholly without foundation. Upon this clearance of his character, the Duke resigned the command of the army; a subsequent motion for a censure on his conduct, was negatived without a division. The Duke of York was, beyond all question, clear of any knowledge of the practices of the very ingenious person with whom he associated, but few men have ever paid more dearly for their offence. The storm of public abuse which poured on him for months, must have been torture; and his resignation of office must have stung every feeling; and even his pecuniary sacrifice during the three years of his retirement, must have been severely felt by a prince with a narrow income for his rank. That loss could not have been less than £50,000. In 1811 he resumed the command. We must hasten to the conclusion. Lord Eldon, after witnessing the two great changes of the constitution, the Popish bill of 1829—which he calls the "fatal bill," and which he had resisted with all his vigour and learning for a long succession of years—and the Reform bill of 1832, at length found that period coming to him which comes to all. Retiring from public life, he devoted himself to his study, the society of a few old friends, and those considerations of a higher kind which he had cultivated from early life, and which returned to him, as they return to all who reverence them, with additional force when their presence was more consolatory and essential. But old age naturally strips us of those who gave an especial value to life; and after seeing his brother Lord Stowell, and Lady Eldon—his Elizabeth, for whom he seems to have always retained the tenderness of their early years—taken from him, he quietly sank into the grave, dying in 1838, January 13th, aged 87. He deserved to rest in peace—for he had lived in patriotism, integrity, and honour.

The three volumes exhibit a research which does much credit to the intelligence and industry of Mr Twiss, their author. They abound in capital anecdotes, but a few of which we have been able to give—possess passages of very effective writing—and form a work which ought to be in the library of every lawyer, statesman, and English gentleman.

1

A Great Country's Little Wars. By HENRY LUSHINGTON. London: Parker, 1844.

2

"Heads," we say, because it is one amongst the grievous neglects of the military writers, that they have made it impossible for us to describe the Affghan soldiery under any better representative term, by giving no circumstantial account of the arms or discipline prevailing through the Affghan forces, the tenure of their service, &c. Many had matchlocks; but many, we presume, had only swords; and artillery the Affghans had none, but what they had been suffered to steal in Cabool.

3

"Miserable Russian superstition."—This is now, we believe, decaying. But why? Not from sounder politics, but from more accurate geography. The Affghan campaigns, with the affairs of Bokhara, of Khiva, and Khoondooz, have lighted up as with torches those worlds of wilderness and obstruction; so that, in any practical sense, people are ashamed now to talk of St Petersburg as threatening Delhi or Calcutta.

4

History of the War in Affghanistan. Brookes: London. 1843. We cite this work, as one of respectable appearance and composition; but unaccountably to us, from page 269 for a very considerable space, (in fact, from the outbreak of the Cabool insurrection to the end of General Elphinstone's retreat,) we find a literatim reprint of Lieutenant Eyre's work. How is that?

5

But afterwards, at page 166, there is a dreadful insinuation that such a necessity might have founded itself on the danger of taking prisoners "in a camp already subsisting on half and quarter rations." Now we, in a paper on Casuistry, (long since published by this journal,) anticipated this shocking plea, contending that Napoleon's massacre of 4000 young Albanians at Jaffa, could draw no palliation from the alleged shortness of provisions, whether true or false; and on the ground that a civilized army, consciously under circumstances which will not allow it to take prisoners, has no right to proceed. Napoleon's condition had not changed from the time of leaving Cairo. We little expected to see a Jaffa plea urged, even hypothetically, for a British army.

6

"Dillecrout."—This is the traditional dish of royalty at our English coronation banquet in Westminster Hall.

7

Smaller sum.—L.20,000 a-year. There was, however, a separate allowance, we believe, to Zemaun, the king's blind brother.

8

For modern information, we refer our readers to the Reports on Steam Navigation with India. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed. 14th July 1834, and 15th July 1837.

9

Meteorologica, i. 14.

10

Chap. iii. § iii. and iv. p. 60 of the Mémoire.

11

On this point D'Anville, Gosselin, and Major Rennell agree.

12

Genesis, xlvi. 34.

13

Genesis, xlvii. 18-26.

14

Exodus, i. 8, 9.

15

Exodus, xii. 40.

16

Compare Genesis, xlvii. 11, Exodus, i. 11, and xii. 37.

17

Vol. iii. p. 2.

18

Josephus, Antiquit. Jud. ii. 15, 2; Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, i. 297.

19

Arist. Meteorol. i. 14. Strabo, lib. i. c. 2, vol. i. p. 60; lib. xvii. c. 1, vol. iii. 443.—Ed. Tauch. Plinii Natur. Hist., lib. vi. 33.

20

Mémoire sur la communication de la Mer des Indes à la Méditerranée, par la Mer Rouge et l'Isthme de Soueys, par M.J.M. Le Père.

21

I Kings, ix. 26; 2 Chronicles, viii. 17.

22

I Kings, xiv. 27; 2 Chronicles, xii. 2.

23

Herod. book ii. § 158. Beloe's Translation, vol. i. p. 411.

24

Diodorus Siculus, i. 33. Nekos reigned B.C. 616 to 601. See also 2 Kings, chap. xxiii. ver. 29.

25

Strabo, xvii. c. 1. Vol. iii. p. 444.—Ed. Tauch.

26

P. 46, and note xvii.

27

Alexander, 44.

28

Compare Strabo, xii. c. 5, vol. i. p. 187, ed. Tauch.; xviii. i. vol. iii. p. 461. Plinii Hist. Nat. vi. 23; xii. 18. Arriani Perip. maris Erythr. in Hudson's Geog. min. Tom. i. 32. Athenaeus, v. p. 201.

29

The height of the Parisian obelisk is 76 feet 6 inches, that of the Lateran, 105 feet 6 inches; of the Piazza del Popolo, 87 feet 6 inches; of the Piazza San Pietro, 83 feet. Only about 50 feet of the obelisk in the Atmeidan at Constantinople is now in existence, but its proportions indicate that it must originally have exceeded 80 feet. We have two obelisks in the British Museum, but we cannot boast much of our mechanical or naval skill in transporting them, as they are only eight feet each in length.

30

The war lasted twenty-three years, from B.C. 264 to 241.—POLYBIUS, i. 63.

31

A modern first-rate is about 205 feet long, 54 feet broad, and draws 25 feet water. Its weight is about 4600 tons, when the guns and provisions are on board. Of course, the weight even of Ptolemy's immense ship could not have approached this. Athen. Deipnosophistae, lib. v. § 37, (p. 203.) Our skill in transporting large blocks of marble is so small, that we have been compelled to cut in two some of the Lycian monuments of no great size.

32

Plinii Natur. Hist. lib. vi. § 33.

33

Mémoire sur l'Isthme de Suez, dans la Revue des deux Mondes, tom. xxvii. 223.

34

Plutarch in Anton., § 81.—Langhorn's Translation, in 1 vol., p. 656.

35

Plutarch in Anton., § 69.—Translation, p. 652.

36

Babylon was near Cairo.

37

Ptolemy, lib. iv. 5.

38

Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. ii.

39

Plinii Natur. Hist. xxxvi. 11.

40

Eusebius, lib viii. c. 8.

41

Pauli Silentianii Descripto Magnae Ecclesiae Sanctae Sophiae, v. 379, 620.

42

Acts of the Martyrs; Metaphrast. Ap. Sur. tom v. p. 1042.

43

Edict xiii., Lex de Alexandrinis et Egyptiaciis provinciis.

44

Transport, in some states of civilization, is cheaper by caravan than by sea.

45

Ebn-A'bdoul-Hokin.

46

See the extracts of Makrizy in the work on Egypt, and in the Notice par Langlès dans les notices et extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque du Roi, vi. 334.

47

Enquiry into the Means of Establishing a Ship Navigation between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, with a Map. By Captain Veitch, R.E., F.R.S. Communications with India, China, &c.; Observations on the Practicability and Utility of Opening a Communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, by a Ship Canal through the Isthmus of Suez, with Two Maps. By Arthur Anderson.

48

Aristotolis Politic, lib. v. cap. 10, § 22, p. 193.—Ed. Tauch.

49

A collection of the classic authorities for the different attempts at cutting the canal through the isthmus of Corinth, may be interesting to some of our readers. PERIANDER'S Diogenes Laertius, i. 99—DEMETRIUS POLIORCETES, Strabo, vol. i. p. 86, ed. Tauch.—JULIUS CAESAR, Dion Cassius, xliv. 5. Plutarch in Caesar, lviii. Suetonius in Caesar. xliv.—CALIGULA, Suetonius in Calig. xxi.—NERO, Plinii, N.H. iv. 4. Lucian, Nero. Philostratus in vit. Apollon. Tyan. iv. 24. Zonaras, i. 570, ed. Paris.—HERODES ATTICUS, Philostratus in vit. Sophist. ii. 26.

50

Herodotus, vii. 21. Thucydides, iv. 109

51

Leake's Travels in Northern Greece. Vol. iii. p. 143.

52

The more ancient village houses have still, for the most part, before the house door, a kind of lattice, upon which the beggar taps, by way of announcing himself to the dwellers.

53

The churchwardens go about the church during the service, and collect alms from the congregation in a purse with a bell.—TRANSLATOR.

54

] In the few extracts we shall have occasion to make, we would have willingly had recourse at once to an English translation, if such had been within our reach. That not being the case, the reader must accept our own attempts at translation.

55

Part II., p. 183.

56

It is thus that Hume concludes his account of her:—"This admirable heroine, to whom the more generous superstition of the ancients would have erected altars, was, on pretence of heresy and magic, delivered over alive to the flames, and expiated by that dreadful punishment the signal services she had rendered to her prince and her native country."

57

The local name for large tree-trunks which get partially buried in the mud, one end sticking, up just below the surface of the water. They cause frequent accidents to the steam-boats on the Mississippi.

58

Various particulars of the above incident may be found in the Mississippi newspapers, of the years 1825-6.

59

Cours de Littérature Dramatique; ou de l'Usage des Passions dans le Drame. Par M. SAINT-MARC GIRARDIN, Professeur à la Faculté des Lettres de Paris, &c. &c.