7

I may here, without, I think, any flagrant divergence from my original subject, which specially embraced the oversights of great men, offer a few additional remarks on Lord Brougham's representations of French history, and the memorable events which made so deep an impression on the mind of Gibbon. In his article on Carnot, the learned Peer extenuates that remarkable man's vote on the King's trial, and vindicates his apparent participation in the acts of the Committee of Public Safety; but, not even his lordship's sophistry, ingeniously exerted as it is, can, I conceive, efface the double stain, particularly the former, even on the noble advocate's recital of the circumstances. These points, however, may be viewed as matters of opinion, and entitled, consequently, to that liberty of adoption which we cannot extend to statements opposed to historical facts; such as, that "the Revolutionary Tribunal was altogether the creation, and generally the creature of the Convention," rather than of the Committee of Public Safety; while it is perfectly ascertained, that the whole machinery of government, or, more truly, misgovernment, was conducted by the Committee; and from that centre radiated all the administrative departments of state. "But even that hateful tribunal," his lordship adds, "acquitted more than it condemned; and as each cause was defended, so it is well known that no advocate ever suffered for the freedom of his defence." These assertions, I own, surprize me, for the truth is, that the Défenseur Officieux was always named by the Tribunal; completely its creature; and, if none (read few) suffered for the freedom of his defence, it was because that freedom was scarcely ever exercised. His lordship, however, is in no sense justified in this broad averment; for, perhaps, the sole instance

that could be adduced of the advocates daring to defend a prisoner, though most guardedly, evinces the contrary. I advert to the trial of the devoted Queen, whose two Défenseurs Officieux, M. Chaveau Lagarde, and M. Tronzon Ducoudroy, who had been appointed by the Tribunal, and not by the Queen, but, actuated by an honourable feeling not wholly to abandon the august victim, or the duty which they had undertaken, had urged some obvious arguments in her favour, though in the most submissive and cautious language, were quickly made sensible of the danger they had incurred. "Le danger de leurs fonctions se découvre au moment où elles cessent; l'un et l'autre sont arrêtés à l'audience," are the words of Montgaillard, by no means an ultra-royal Annalist.* (Hist. de France, tom. iv. page 127.) The next day, it is true, they were, on a remonstrance, liberated from prison, but not from their terror, and no lawyer, subsequently, ventured to encounter a similar peril ; for it must be borne in mind that the duty was not of their choice, while they durst not decline it. They, consequently, never interfered, unless to express their assent, rather than opposition, to the penal sentence, which, by a special decree, could be no other than death; nor was any material evidence required, the moral or personal conviction of the tribunal being quite sufficient. Thus, in the metropolis, the functions of the advocate were utterly illusive; but, in the departments, the victims were spared at least this insult, for they had no defenders. How often have I heard the voice of the prejudged prisoner arrested at his first attempt of defence, by the awful denunciation of the president Fouquier Tinville-" Citoyen, le tribunal est fixé sur ton compte ;" and bold, or insane, would have been the

...

advocate who interposed. Nor do I believe that the number acquitted exceeded that of the condemned,—certainly not during the last months, for I could easily prove the reverse.

The trial of Louis did not, indeed, take place before the Revolutionary Tribunal; but the fate of his defenders, at least of the senior, M. De Malesherbes, le vertueux Malesherbes, as he was emphatically designated, was an impressive lesson and ample warning, which could not fail of effect; for one of the heads of accusation brought against him at the close of a long in carceration was the defence of the Tyrant, though expressly authorized by the Convention to undertake that dangerous duty. But the existence of such a man was equally hateful and fearful to the Committee of Public Safety as that of Poetus Thrasea was to Nero“ Νέρων......τὸν Θρασέαν μάλιστα μισῶν καὶ φοβούμενος,” are the words of Plutarch (Heρì πоλɩтiкŵν πaрayyeλμárov, cap. 33, Oper. Moral.) and, in those of Tacitus, the Committee, like Nero, "virtutem ipsam exscindere cupivit." (Annal. xvi. 21.) Accordingly, the following year, this excellent citi

zen,

at the age of seventy-two, after an outrage on justice, misnamed a trial, was condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal, and executed, together with his sister, daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter, and her husband! a holocaust, not without example in those terrific days. The other royal advocate, M. De Séze, with whose family I had the advantage of being acquainted, avoided the destiny of his colleague by a total seclusion in the country, but, in after years, was raised to deserved professional honours.

Whence Lord Brougham derived the statements that I have assumed the right, on better information, to controvert, I cannot discover; I could cite innumerable authorities in contradiction to his Lordship; and my own recollection-"quæque ipse miserrima vidi," (Æneid. ii.) is in distinct opposition to him. His Lordship's ardour

as an advocate surpasses his patience of research, "Ουτως αταλαίπωρος τοις πολλοις ἡ ζήτησις τῆς αληθείας, καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ ἑτοιμα μᾶλλον τρέπονται, (Thucyd. A. X.) and all-informed, ó πávσopos, as he is, I would presume to address him in words familiar, I imagine, to his remembrance; for the book that contains them appears a favourite, "Enrico, lascia l'istoria, e studia la matamatica, (which, it seems, was his Lordship's earliest pursuit,) o la rettorica."

In respect to Carnot, Lord Brougham particularly refers to the " Eloge Historique de Carnot, "by M. Arago, which, however, from its professed purpose, can hardly be an impartial record. Yet, with the exception of the two circumstances, which, like Nelson's abberrations at Naples, are indelible spots on his life, he was fully entitled to the high praise bestowed on him by the distinguished academician who, like Fontenelle and Bailly, accumulates and so ably executes such a variety of scientific functions. Of this eminent man, whom I have heard, both at the Chamber of Deputies, and the Institute, I recollect a saying, generally allusive to those who write and do not publish, but especially pointed at his colleague, M. Royer Collard, the chief of the Doctrinaires, who has seldom appeared in print, though known to have composed much, "Je n'aime point les auteurs en poche." His recent "Eloge Historique" of Watts is an admirable homage to our great countryman, while he does not appear quite so equitable in adjudicating the respective claims of England and France to the photographic discovery, as his Report to the Chamber of Deputies in support of a demand for pensions to M. Daguerre and M. Niepce, may show. At an after period, Carnot published his own defence :-Réponse de L. N. M. Carnot au Rapport de J. C. Dallieul. Paris, an. 6 (1798).*

Lord Brougham, I perceive, always places a circumflex over the name of

Carnôt, but it is never so written; and he equally errs in the name of Necker, which he makes Neckar. His Lordship is not less inaccurate in ascribing to a French Cardinal, (page 5,) the oft-repeated saying, "that language was given to man for the concealment of his thoughts," of which the parent certainly wasTalleyrand-an unworthy bishop indeed, but never raised to the purple. To him, however, I am aware that every good thing that was uttered was indiscriminately attributed, (see Gentleman's Magazine for February 1838,) as Cicero says happened to himself" Ais enim," he writes to Volumnius, in an interesting and characteristic letter, "omnia omnium dicta in me conferri,"-(ad Familiares, lib. vii. Ep. 32); but this expression is, beyond doubt, the genuine offspring of Talleyrand. I marvel, to employ a very favourite verb of his Lordship, in defiance of Horace's “Nihil admirari,” or of the abavμaría of Democritus-I marvel much at these inadvertencies. And when, at page 9, he states, in relation to Mrs. Fitz Herbert, the penalty attached to the marriage of the possessor or inheritor of the crown with a Catholic, he should have added that the prohibition includes not only a professed, but a recantant Catholic, one who had ever been of that persuasion, however long it may have been renounced; a bad encouragement, it must be admitted, for conversion from presumed error.

*

His Lordship's frequency of classical quotations, has, I perceive, attracted censure; but even he can say little new, and when a thought is borrowed, the obligation, in justice and gratitude, should surely be acknowledged. The example of such men as Bacon and Montaigne, so truly original and rich

in their native stores, still copiously drinking at the great fountains of antiquity, is his Lordship's all-sufficient warrant. We borrow, and the reader applauds, an illustrative quotation from Shakspere, Milton, or Spenser; but we fear the imputation of pedantry if we follow their example and borrow from their predecessors.

I cannot conclude without directing the attention of Gibbon's learned Editor to the accumulation of faults in the biographical volume which furnished the grounds of this article. That they are not far remote from one hundred, I think not improbablethat they exceed fifty, I am quite sure, and several, too, not imputable to the compositor, such as the date of Hume's letter, page 241, and the misnomer of Rétif de la Bretorme, at page 291, for Bretonne, copied, I find, from preceding editions. The historical volumes are less defective, though by no means of correctness commensurate with their importance.

I trust that, in reference to such men as Gibbon and Lord Brougham, I need not attempt an excuse for this length of discussion. The love of truth, from which I deprecate the slightest deviation, (and the more exalted the individuals, the more necessary is reproof,) has dictated frequent appeals, Mr. Urban, to your columns, where, from a consonance of feeling, and from "that sound judgment which never disdains the most trifling details, and holds nothing trivial connected with an important subject,"† they have ever found that indulgent reception, which I may hope will not be withheld from me on the present occasion. Yet, I must not trespass too far, lest I should justify the rough interrogatory, perhaps already not un

...

GENT. MAG. VOL. XII.

3 Q

TWO or three parting notes are only necessary in reply to MR. CORNEY'S communication on the subject of the Bayeux Tapestry, inserted in your last Number.

The matter can hardly now be said to constitute a controversy, for MR. CORNEY himself admits that, the forms of the letters, the architecture, armour, weapons, dress represented, and style of execution," are the points to be considered in appropriating the period of the Tapestry.-In short, that the internal evidence must be the guide to a correct conclusion. No recapitulation of circumstances is necessary, I trust, on my part, to shew that the internal evidence has already decided the matter, and fixed the execution of the Tapestry within a short period after the Norman Conquest.

My purpose is not therefore to weary myself or your readers by retracing the arguments, but to refute a palpable sophism which is now adduced against me. I challenged MR. BOLTON CORNEY to produce a single instance in which the costume and style of ornament in a work of art of the middle age did not indicate the period of its execution. He now produces an instance, as he says, in close connexion with the subject of the Tapestry, by which he considers my assertion is overthrown. What, Mr. Urban, is this notable example? why, that the effigy commemorating Robert Duke of Normandy in Gloucester cathedral, is not in the costume of the period in which he died, but in that of a somewhat later date. "His body, by command of King Henry I., was reverently interred in the cathedral of Gloucester, before the high altar: a chest or shrine of oak bearing his effigy was some time after erected

* P. 371.

for him; probably early in the following century."+ Now, surely, I am to thank my adversary for a most striking example in favour of the rule to which I have referred; for the sculptors of the effigy of Duke Robert made no effort to represent him in the military dress of his period, but were contented to clothe him in the armour which they saw employed in their own. The armorial bearings which Mr. Corney mentions are still later additions to the tomb.

There is, Mr. Urban, in the British Museum, a statue of Shakspeare, by Roubiliac, I believe, formerly in the possession of Garrick. This figure is clothed by the sculptor in a fanciful dress, in which some of the peculiarities of his own period may be detected, and it is altogether very unlike that which Shakspeare must actually have

worn.

Now, if I were to bring this figure forward as an instance that the artists of the Elizabethan age varied from the costume of their period in producing effigies of eminent men who flourished in the sixteenth century, I should deservedly be condemned for a position so false, absurd, and illogical. Yet this is the exact parallel of the sophism advanced to refute me. think, therefore, Mr. Urban, Duke Robert should be dismissed from the service of my opponent, in mercy to himself.

I

I readily admit that Poitou might have been more correctly written Poitiers, in speaking of the writer usually styled in the monkish age Gulielmus Pictaviensis: yet, Poitou being Latinized Pictavia, and Poitiers being a town of that district, I trust it was a very natural and venial deviation to construe Pictaviensis" of Poi tou" in writing "currente calamo." I have no desire to adopt the pedantry of departing tenaciously from the nomenclature established as current among the more modern of English historians. Neither had I any intention of throwing a general imputation on the writings of Pictaviensis. I did not garble the passage, nor, I find, affirm that he was its author. I said that

+ Stothard's Monumental Effigies, folio 25, where a front and profile view of the effigy will be found.

an exaggerated statement relative to the army of Harold was found in William of Poitou, I beg pardon, of Poitiers. Let us render that writer's paragraph into plain English. "One of the ancient (writers) describing the army of Harold, records, that on its march whole rivers were drunk up, forests reduced to open plains, for indeed* on all sides, from every district, very numerous forces of English had assembled." The words in italics are those of William of Poitiers speaking in his own person; and I cannot think that Mr. Corney is justified in saying that "he is exercising his pleasantry at an imaginary ancient:" the obvious conclusion is, that he adopts the statement, at the least, so far as to represent the army of Harold as exceedingly numerous. Now, William of Poitiers was a writer of good authority; but as a Norman, and Chaplain of the Conqueror, when speaking of the deeds of his countrymen, he may naturally be supposed to place them in the most heroic light; and this is just the exception which is taken to the substance of his statement by William of Malmsbury, who says that, after the defeat of the Norwegians at Stanford Bridge, Harold, "elated by his successful enterprise, vouchsafed no part of the spoil to his soldiers. Wherefore many, as they found opportunity, stealing away, deserted the King as he was proceeding to the battle of Hastings. For, with the exception of his stipendiary and mercenary soldiers, he had very few of the people with him, on which account, circumvented by a stratagem of William's, he was routed. .... Those persons appear to err, who augment the numbers of the English, and underrate their courage."+

And in a note on this passage, the judicious translator of Malmsbury adds, that "what he relates was highly

* The force of the conjunction enim in the original Latin must be here observed, and my author evidently uses it in the sense of verily, indeed. See Ainsworth, in voce Enim.

Sharpe's Transl. of Will. of Malmsbury. The Saxon Chronicle corroborates the opinion of Malmsbury, telling us that Harold gave battle to the Normans before all his forces had come up. Sax. Chron. sub ann. 1066.

probable, from the shortness of time which elapsed from William's landing to the battle of Hastings, only fifteen days. In this period, therefore, the intelligence was to be conveyed to York, and Harold's march into Sussex to be completed; of course, few could accompany him but such as were mounted. William Pictaviensis [sic] to whom he (Malmsbury) seems here to allude, asserts, that Harold had collected immense forces from all parts of England, and that Denmark had supplied him with auxiliaries also; but the circumstances mentioned shew the absurdity of his statement."

I am not sorry to be able to support my opinion of the accounts rendered by the Scriptores Normanni of the battle of Hastings, both in my text and margin, by reference to the venerable Malmsbury and his editor. Such auxiliaries, when they have a real connexion with the subject in discussion, no one can reasonably condemn. I will not extend this letter by giving the description at length by William of Poitiers of the battle of Hastings; but let any one of your readers place that narrative by the side of the details given in the legend of the Bayeux Tapestry,-"the Worsted Chronicle," as it was happily styled by the late Mr. Edgar Taylor,—and he must allow that, although the account of the Norman chaplain is nervous and spirited, the Tapestry far exceeds it in the minuteness and verisimilitude of its details. There is a discrepancy between Pictaviensis and the Tapestry which may be worth notice. The Norman infantry are described as supported by what may be reckoned a formidable artillery, in the strict derivative acceptation of the word;† by archers using the bow, afterwards the national weapon of England; and by baliste throwing huge stones. The Tapestry represents the archers, but

*Notes by the Rev. J. Sharpe in translation of Will. of Malms.

† Ars Telaria, meaning bows, arrows, machines for projecting missiles. See Du Cange, Fosbroke, &c. The statutes of Edward the Second for the office of Seneschal of Aquitain prescribe that he should maintain one artilleryman (Artillator), for making baliste, quarrels, bows, arrows, lances, darts, &c. &c.