Christian and eight Englishmen, who remained in the 'Bounty,' went to Pitcairn Island, taking with them some Tahitian women, and founded a colony there. After some dissensions and violence, in which Christian, Edward Young, and others, lost their lives, the colony, under the rule and teaching of John Adams, became singularly peaceful and virtuous. They were not discovered for many years; and were permitted to remain unmolested; one or two adventurers joined them, and the colony remains to this day. It outgrew the small island, however, and a few years since the entire population was transferred, under the auspices of Sir William Dennison, to Norfolk Island; a few of them returned, and were last visited by Sir W. Dilke, who gives an account of them in his 'Greater Britain.'
No wonder that so romantic a narrative, and so picturesque a community, fascinated the muse of Byron, and elicited 'The Island' from his pen.
Lady Belcher has told a plain unvarnished tale, but it is one hardly to be paralleled in the romance of the seas.
European History, narrated in a Series of Historical Selections from the best Authorities. By E. M. Sewell and S. M. Yonge. Macmillan and Co.
This is the second volume of an attempt to render history attractive and popular with young readers, and there is much to be said in its favour. The era of which it treats is from 1088 to 1228. The characters foremost on the scene are Henry II., Frederick Barbarossa, Richard I., Philip Augustus, John, St. Bernard and Abelard, Becket, Longchamp, and Langton. According to the design, we have a set of pictures by hands of very unequal power. Gibbon and Capefigue are side by side with Milman and James, while from Mr. Stubbs's masterly analysis of Henry II.'s character we pass to a portrait of Longchamp by Lord Campbell, and one of Langton by Dean Hook. The result is rather like a mosaic, but of course it could not well be otherwise. The editorial introductions are admirably done; the first, which describes the position and character of our Angevin kings, is a sketch both brilliant and accurate. The chief objection to this method of teaching history is, that writers of historical monographs are too apt to become amorous of their theme, and to indulge in much fine writing in consequence; and this objection specially applies to Mr. Morrison's account of St. Bernard, which is painfully verbose and magniloquent. Undoubtedly the best chapter in the book, and the one that will most severely tax the young student's mental energy, is that which contains Mr. Stubbs's account of Henry II.
On the Trail of the War. By Alexander James Shand, Occasional Correspondent of The Times. Smith, Elder and Co.
This little volume purports to be nothing more than a full and true account of the ordinary incidents in an extraordinary state of things which occur on the trail of the war. To this position the author strictly confines himself, leaving the more stirring events of the front to be described by others. Some of the papers are reprints from The Times, but the greater portion of them are original, and may be supposed to be a veracious account of the progress of the armies as beheld from the rear. The author's departure from London is told with a picturesque dash, which predisposes the reader for the hacking, hewing, and slashing he has subsequently to go through; while the last chapter resumes the situation, as the French say, in a warm outburst of dread, and admiration of the strength of new-born Germany. Mr. Shand evidently sees amid all this ponderous power, the stumbling-block over which she must one day totter and fall. To the paramount passion of nationality from which this gigantic Germany has been created, will likewise be owing her quick decay and sudden dissolution. This feeling makes the wisest of Germans lose his head when speaking of united Germany, and proclaim himself proud to belong to God's chosen people. To this we can only answer from our own personal experience, that if the impatience created by the restless variety and overweening self-laudation of the French, are to be exchanged for the cold pedantry and haughty arrogance of the Prussians, Europe will have made but a sorry bargain. We cannot agree with Mr. Carlyle in his opinion that we may be greatly benefited by this sudden transfer of moral power from light satirical France to heavy overbearing Prussia. We can only pray to be preserved from both.
The Revolt of the Protestants of the Cevennes; with some Account of the Huguenots in the Seventeenth Century. By Mrs. Bray, Author of 'The Good St. Louis and his Times,' 'The White Hoods,' &c. John Murray.
Of all the stirring romances hitherto published by Mrs. Bray, the true history before us is assuredly the most stirring and the most romantic. The single story of Jean Cavalier, the baker's boy of Anduze, contains the elements of a dozen romances. From his first appearance on the stage of history to do his allotted work, to his final sinking into honourable obscurity when his work was done, Jean Cavalier shines out as the true and gallant soldier of the cross, the faithful defender of the right, the constant avenger of the wrong. He was a youth of seventeen, the eldest of three sons of a shepherd of Anduze. 'Altogether,' says Mrs. Bray, 'he was such as we may fancy him to have been, who, armed with the shepherd's sling in the cause of the Lord, overcame the giant Philistine.' None could have thought that such a one could have been chosen to avenge the iniquitous Edict of Nantes, issued by the greatest monarch of Europe, at the instigation of the wisest woman of her day. The boy had been apprenticed to a baker at Anduze, and this circumstance was in itself a fund of amusement at the court of Versailles, where the 'Petit Maître' and the 'Garçon Boulanger' served as whetstones to the wit of the courtiers at the petit lever and grand coucher of the king. But the baker's boy had been endowed by heaven with the strangest and most mysterious of gifts—a military genius untaught, and frank as nature's self—which ere long caused the boldest of the Great Monarch's generals to tremble and turn pale at even the mention of his name. No other account of this extraordinary talent has been given than that during his shepherd life he would love to spend whole hours on the Garden watching the manœuvres of the soldiers, who at that time were stationed in the country in order to force the Protestants into adoption of the Catholic faith. No other lesson in military science had he ever taken, and yet he defeated the boldest troops and ablest generals of the proudest army in the world! The mysterious nature of his mission, reminds one strongly of Joan of Arc. At nineteen years of age he quitted France for ever, leaving behind him the memory of his glory and the grateful affection of the Protestants of the Cevennes, by whom his name is revered and cherished to this very day.
Mrs. Bray has performed her task of biographer of Jean Cavalier in the most satisfactory and conscientious manner, with all the stedfastness of the historian and the enthusiasm of the romance writer. 'The Revolt in the Cevennes' is a charming book, and should be placed in the hands of every Protestant boy and girl throughout the world.