The Great Duel. By W. R. Greg. Trübner and Co.
When the history of the war of 1870 comes to be written, it will furnish scope for genius the most various and the most profound. A greater Jomini will be needed to elucidate the tactics that decided greater battles than Borodino or Austerlitz; to unweave for us the intricate web of the great strategist's plans; to solve for us the problem whether he is a superstition and a fetish, reaping the glory sown by the organization and morale of his troops, or the silent centre from which was directed the regulated play of such tremendous forces. But though the time for the military critic or the philosophical historian has not yet come, the events and scenes of the war, as they photographed themselves in the eye of the spectator, are full of immediate interest, and demand for their adequate description the highest order of picturesque power. Probably no accounts of the recent campaign so amply satisfied our modern thirst for the picturesque as the letters written to the Daily News. The moving panorama of the battle-field, the scientific deploying of vast masses, the heroism of attack or repulse, were brought close to our eyes. The description of the battle of Gravelotte reads like a page torn out of Tacitus, and for awful vividness might stand by the side of Thucydides' narrative of the plague. So swiftly have events passed out of chronicle into history, that the accounts of the early battles of the war—Weissenburg, Wörth, Forbach, will even now bear reperusal, and contain much that in our hungry desire for the salient facts was omitted at the first reading. Till a spectator of the entire course of the war shall fuse his impressions of the moment with his mature reflections, and produce a continuous living narrative of the whole, these letters will probably remain the best compendium of the history of the last eight months. We may add that the republication comprises many of the letters of the veracious 'Besieged Resident.' They are at least amusing, and give the proper seasoning of farce to the tragedy.
The 'Besieged Resident' remained in Paris during the siege 'to enjoy a new sensation.' He had new sensations in abundance; and generously gave the British public, through the medium of the Daily News, the benefit of his experiences. They were sufficiently varied, for he went in search of them—grotesque, for fidelity to fact is not his strong point—and amusing, for he is the liveliest of persifleurs. The personal element in these letters was unquestionably that which gave them their charm; the siege as it affected the 'Besieged Resident,' rather than the 'Besieged Resident' reporting on the siege, seemed to be the subject of them. How his clothes were held together by an infinity of pins, how his boots had burst in half-a-dozen places, and how horse did not assimilate with his inner man, were facts which made the Philistine's breakfast an interesting meal during the siege. Now that the letters have been published in a complete form, these important facts seem less prominent, and we are able to recognize the real value of the narrative as a history of opinion—journalistic, Bellevilleite, and bourgeois, during the four months of the investment. The description is not flattering. The 'Besieged' plays the part of valet to the Parisian heroes, and sees very little of heroism but a great deal of braggadocio. A somewhat cynical temper perhaps lends some exaggeration to mere common-place folly; but it seems certain that the despicable traits and unworthy actions of which the 'Besieged' is the chronicler will have to be taken into account in any truthful narrative of the great siege. On the whole, it does not seem likely that the 'Besieged' will be superseded in his self-assumed function by any subsequent chronicler.
Captain Bingham is a more prosaic narrator than the 'Besieged Resident,' but there was so much to be seen that he has many incidents to relate without touching on ground already occupied. His book is a consecutive narrative of facts, which are all the more trustworthy that they take no colouring from the individuality of the writer.
The 'Letters on the War' are of no evanescent interest, but are a permanent contribution to the literature of the subject. The writers of them are the Titans of the Teutonic race, whose clear duty it is to speak out, as the prophets of old spoke out, in a great crisis of history. Those of Dr. Strauss and Mr. Carlyle are the most important historically, as they are also the most interesting. Mr. Carlyle's historic retrospect reaches back to Louis XI., and is meant to show what a terribly bad neighbour France has been to Germany for the last 400 years. He describes the grand 'plunderings and incendiarisms of Europe' by the French, and he believes that Germany would be a 'foolish nation not to think of raising up a secure boundary fence against such a neighbour.' And why should not Alsace and Lorraine be restored to their original owners? The only titles of France to them are the 'cunning of Richelieu and the grandiose long-sword of Louis XIV.' He has pity for France but no sympathy; acknowledges her services to civilization and the grandeur of her 'Insurrection against shams,' in 1789; but believes that the German race is now to be protagonist in the 'immense world-drama.' Dr. Strauss's argument is, like Mr. Carlyle's, historical, but with diminished perspective, and from a different point of view. He traces the history of the movement towards national unity, travailing towards birth through the obstructions of the reactionary despotisms, planted by the diplomacy of Vienna, the abortive revolution of 1848, and the apathy or despair of all but the enthusiasts. He accepts the creed of Bismark; unity could only be obtained through force, as Hegel saw seventy years ago.
In Mr. Greg's pamphlet and letters we admire the dexterity of the practised swordsman, whose convictions are chiefly a matter of logic.
Her Majesty's Tower. By William Hepworth Dixon. Vols. III. and IV. Hurst and Blackett.
We might as well surrender at discretion to Mr. Dixon. He is as confirmed in his ways as we in our critical canons. What the late lamented George Robins was among auctioneers—what M. Jullien was among musicians—what Dumas père was among novelists—what the 'besieged resident' is among newspaper correspondents—Mr. Dixon is among historians; what it is not easy to say. He alike provokes and interests us. Our taste is offended; our critical conscience protests. Murdered Clio, like Banquo's ghost, sits in Mr. Dixon's place and 'shakes his gory locks.' The meretricious style—the superb magniloquence—the broad statements—the highly coloured pictures—the irrepressible affinities for what is coarse, make us fume with impatience and exclaim with anger: but we must read on; in spite of ourselves we are interested, although with the uneasy pleasure of a sin. We must, however, be just. Whether it be that our taste has adapted itself, or that Mr. Dixon has improved, we are bound to say that in reading these volumes our pleasure has been less alloyed, and has secured a larger measure of our good conscience than in reading any of his previous works. Some of his descriptions are well toned in their brilliancy, there are fewer catapult sentences, good taste is less frequently violated, extravagances of assertion are less daring, and altogether he inspires greater historic confidence, and excites more literary pleasure. Happily, however, we are released from all reasonable obligation to apply historic tests. Mr. Dixon tells us that he has not 'cared to fret the reader by a dozen references in every page to pipe-rolls, doquets, warrant-books, and council registers.' Such things, we admit, are encumbering; they are vulgar, moreover, and altogether unworthy the dignity of history, and are only temptations to irreverent readers. It is pleasant to read a well-printed page, undisfigured by a single reference, to be unable to distinguish too nicely between a 'doquet' and 'the caricatures' which Miss Burdett Coutts has lent him. We read 'Her Majesty's Tower' as we read 'Kenilworth' or 'Richard III.' If it be neither history nor fiction, it is something better than either, and it is well by the absence of all references to be released from the responsibility of determining which. Mr. Dixon certainly does possess considerable narrative and descriptive ability. His literary art is great. He cannot be dull. Whether he also possesses patient power of historical research, and a judicial faculty of exact presentation, we have no means of judging; but it is conceivable that with these, combined with adequate scholarship, he might have trodden not unworthily in the footsteps of Macaulay. We regret that he has chosen to write after the fashion of the Daily Telegraph—to lay himself out for sensations—the result of which is a series of volumes which might have been brilliant history, but which are only sensational articles.
In the range of these volumes Mr. Dixon is essentially a free lance. The first of the two is almost entirely occupied with George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the infamous favourite of our British Solomon, and with the base intrigues and dirty scandals of his court,—why it is impossible to say, inasmuch as, except that some of his victims were imprisoned in it, Villiers had no more to do with her Majesty's Tower than Macedon had with Monmouth, nor so much, for Villiers does not begin with a T. It is, in fact, a romance of Whitehall, of which Villiers is the hero. And it is by no means a clean one; that under any circumstances it could hardly be, but, as Mr. Dixon tells it, it is like a bad dream. Throughout we feel the evil suggestion. Mr. Dixon seems to delight in keeping us on the verge of nastiness, and to have peculiar unction in reiterating such offensive epithets as the one he applies to Dean Williams. We think that the dirty intrigues and unsavoury stories with which the author of 'Spiritual Wives' has filled this section of his work might, without much detriment to our knowledge of either history or social manners, have been left in the obscure records from which they have been culled. The career of Villiers, the son of a poor knight, who began life as an amateur comedian, and in that character pleased the pedantic voluptuary James, and was rapidly elevated through a succession of offices and dignities until, when he fell beneath Felton's knife, he was Duke of Buckingham and the most potent courtier in England, is an inseparable part of the history of England; and the shameless corruption and profligacy of James's court, of women like the 'parent,' as Mr. Dixon chooses to label the mother of Villiers, and indeed of almost every circle of fashionable life, are as vitally connected with the convulsions that followed, as the Courts of Louis XIV. and XV. are with the French Revolution. But what connection there is between the details of Buckingham's rascality and of his mad escapade into Spain with Prince Charles, and the Tower of London, passes our comprehension. The only pretence of a connection is, that on the safe arrival at home of Buckingham and the Prince certain prisoners in the Tower were liberated. Williams, who was first a Welsh curate, and then, as the reward of being a hateful pander, was exalted to be first Dean of Westminster, and ultimately Archbishop of York, is a despicable character, and history will not qualify Mr. Dixon's portrait of him. 'Little Laud' was made use of by 'the parent' as his successful rival. He was destined to play a part in the tragedy which followed that he little dreamed of.
In Eliot, Mr. Dixon has a genuine hero of the Tower. His account of him is almost unexceptionable, only, one remembers that here he had the advantage of the previous labours of Mr. Forster. Eliot, for his fearless and incorruptible patriotism, endured a long imprisonment in the Tower. He died in it—one of its noble army of martyrs. For seven years after his death, as is well known, no Parliament was called in England. Mr. Dixon in trying to be magniloquent is almost profane when he tells us that of this period 'Wentworth was the State, Laud was the Church, and Charles was God.'