Notwithstanding some slight tendency in two or three of these sketches to attempt a story when there is no story to tell, this is as charming a book of its class as we remember to have read. A single ballad sometimes gives fame, as, for example, the 'Werena my Heart Licht' of Lady Grisell Baillie; but then all that we care to know about its author may be told in a paragraph. With others, however, it is different. Song-writers like Mrs. Cockburn, Lady Ann Barnard, and the Countess of Nairn, are so much more than song-writers that they amply deserve the separate biography which has already been produced of the latter, and which, we are glad to learn, is being prepared of the former. Scotch ballads, like Scotch whisky, have their own peculiar flavour, and it has a special charm for Englishmen. We should be ashamed to have to confess how many mediocre verses in poetry, and dialogues in novels, delight us simply in virtue of their Scottish dialect. There are Scotch ballads, however, that, in virtue of their intrinsic merits, will live for aye. The biographies which the industry and skill of Miss Tytler and Miss Watson have here supplied are those of Lady Grisell Baillie (1665–1746), author of 'Werena my Heart Licht,' immortal chiefly in virtue of its single refrain, 'And werena my heart licht I wad dee;' Jean Adam (1710–1765), author of 'There is nae Luck about the House,' who was a pedlar; Mrs. Cockburn (1712–1794), author of 'The Flowers of the Forest;' Miss Jean Elliot (1727–1805), author of another 'The Flowers of the Forest;' Miss Susanna Blamire (1747–1794), author of 'What ails this Heart of Mine,' and 'Ye shall walk in silk attire,' &c.; Jean Glover (1758–1801), author of 'O'er the Muir among the Heather;' Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton (1758–1816), author of 'My ain Fireside;' Lady Ann Barnard (1750–1825), author of 'Auld Robin Gray;' Baroness Nairne (1762–1851), author of 'The Land o' the Leal,' 'Caller Herring,' 'The Laird o' Cockpen,' &c.; and Joanna Baillie (1762–1851), author of 'Woo'd and Married and a',' 'Saw ye Johnny Comin,' &c. A more charming miscellany of gentle thought and lyric sweetness it would be difficult to find. As might be expected with woman's songs, there is but little of the national and political fierceness that inspires so many of the Scotch ballads of the other sex. Even the Jacobite songs of Lady Nairne are so gentle and winsome that the stoutest old Hanoverian Whig might easily sing them. But the chief charm of the book is the sketch of the delicious old lady, Mrs. Cockburn, the friend of Allan Ramsay, Burns, and Scott, and surely the most vivacious, witty, and optimist octogenarian that ever lived. She was one of the queens of Edinburgh society, and the authoresses have had access to her letters, which Walter Scott so highly prized, and which for gossiping fulness, vivacious interest, intellectual sparkle, and versatile cleverness, can hardly be surpassed. She was the life and soul of the social life which she helped to mould. We are glad to learn that a biography of this clever and beautiful old lady is in preparation. Meanwhile we commend the 'Songstresses of Scotland' as a delightful book. Everything that Miss Tytler touches she adorns, and she has here hit upon a genial and interesting theme.
Arber's English. Reprints.—Tottel's Miscellany, 1550; Thomas Lever's Sermons, 1550; William Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie, 1587; The First Printed English New Testament. Translated by William Tyndale. Photo-lithographed from the Unique Fragment now in the Grenville Collection, British Museum. London: 5 Queen-square, Bloomsbury.
Mr. Arber continues his munificent and inestimable work with increasing efficiency, and we infer with increasing encouragement. Certainly no attempt to bring the curiosities and treasures of our early English literature within the reach of the very poorest student and the common reader is at all comparable to it. For a shilling may be purchased copies of precious treasures which wealth could not buy.
'Tottel's Miscellany' is the first known collection of English verse, the progenitor of the countless volumes which now load our drawing-room tables, and defy criticism. Tottel's collection includes poems by the Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Nicholas Grimald, and ninety-five by 'uncertain authors.' Either our forefathers three centuries ago had very contracted ideas about literature, or it was more affluent than we suppose—for we find William Webbe, in his 'Discourse of English Poetrie,' thus complaining of a tribulation which we thought was peculiar to modern reviewers. 'Among the innumerable sortes of Englyshe bookes, and infinite fardles of printed pamphlets, wherewith thys Countrey is pestered, all shoppes stuffed, and euery study furnished; the greatest part, I thinke in any one kinde, are such as are either meere Poeticall, or which tende in some respecte (as either in matter or forme) to Poetry.' Mr. Arber has the genuine bibliophilist's afflatus: the patience with which he picks up bits of bibliographical information, and the caution and skill with which he uses it, are perfect. 'Tottel's Miscellany' was very popular in its day.
Lever was Fellow, Preacher, and Master of St. John's College, Cambridge; Pastor in exile of the English Church at Aarau; Prebend of Durham Cathedral, and Master of Sherburn Hospital. He was, as Mr. Arber terms him, one of the 'spiritual children' of the Reformation, the associate of Latimer, Bradford, and Knox. These three sermons, after the manner of the times, deal with public and passing topics, manners, and customs, and are valuable not only as part of the religious but as part of the domestic history of their day. Lever was a man of Latimer's type—superlatively faithful and fearless.
Webbe's 'Discourse of English Poetrie' is a reprint of a very rare book, only two copies of it being known to exist. Webbe was a Cambridge graduate, and a very accomplished, modest, and able man. Singularly his critique on English poetry was almost synchronous with the greater work of Puttenham, on 'the Arte of English Poesie,' which Mr. Arber has already reprinted in this series. Webbe's discourse contains a good deal of shrewd penetrating criticism. He was well acquainted with the classical poets, and made experiments in translation, with a view of naturalizing classical feet.
The facsimile of the fragment of Tyndale's 'First Printed English New Testament' is a great literary, as well as religious curiosity. Well may Mr. Arber speak of the reverence, almost the awe, with which he offers the 'photographic likeness of a priceless gem in English literature,' the progenitor of the millions of English Scriptures. Mr. Arber accompanies the work with a very extensive and multifarious bibliography, giving an account of Tyndale and Roy, and of the first two editions of the English New Testament; and discussing the question whether Tyndale's quarto was a translation of Luther's German version. It is a perfect luxury to read the scholarly, modest, and painstaking bibliography of Mr. Arber. We earnestly direct attention to his invaluable labours.
The Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century. By William Forsyth, M.A., Q.C. John Murray.
Mr. Forsyth's book hardly falls within the scope of criticism. Gossip is scarcely amenable to the laws of art, and Mr. Forsyth's research is not wide enough, nor are his reflections profound enough to deserve any other description. It is, however, very pleasant gossip, and will both amuse and instruct, even if it amuses rather more than it instructs. The eighteenth century has now passed into the region of history, and we study it with the same merely historical interest with which we study the fifteenth. We read the books of the eighteenth century as we read the classics—not as we read the authors who reflect our own ideas, and manners. Fielding is perhaps now less read than at any other time, and chiefly by literary men in the way of their profession, or by historical students. We would forgive Mr. Forsyth the admitted defects of his book, if it did anything to arrest the progress of this classical oblivion. That, however, does not seem to be Mr. Forsyth's intention. He seems to have been a good deal surprised when he found, in the course of his studies, that he had got into such disreputable company, and was correspondingly disgusted. Much of the book is accordingly occupied with criticism, in which the author is very hard on the immoral novelists, who only aimed at describing the times as they were. Mr. Forsyth does not maintain that they were unfaithful to the reality, and therefore criticises the age rather than the books which mirrored it. But that kind of criticism belongs to an almost extinct school.
The Life and Writings of Joseph Mazzini. Vol. VI. Critical and Literary. Smith, Elder, and Co.