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to the 'canny Lowlander,' who is really of a stock allied to that of the Yorkshiremen, but to a race which is consanguineous with the Irish and the Welsh. In like manner we are apt, looking only to things as they are, to restrict Wales to the present principality. A glance at Mr. Freeman's maps will show that, in the old sense of the word, Wales' extended southwards below the Bristol Channel, and in a northerly direction, if we include Strathclyde, even to the river from which that district took its

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'It was then to be expected that Lothian, when once granted to the King of Scots, should gradually be merged in the kingdom of Scotland. But the peculiar and singular destiny of this country could hardly have been looked for. Neither Eadgar nor Kenneth could dream that this purely English or Danish province would become the historical Scotland. The different tenures of Scotland and Lothian got confounded; the kings of Scots, from the end of the eleventh century, became English in manners and language; they were not without some pretensions and some hopes of winning the crown of England for themselves; they learned to attach more and more value to the English part of their dominions, and they laboured to spread its language and manners over their original Celtic territory. They retained their ancient title of kings of Scots, but they became in truth kings of English Lothian and of Anglicized Fife. state was thus formed, politically distinct from England, and which political circumstances gradually made bitterly hostile to England; a state which indeed retained a dark and mysterious Celtic background, but which, as it appears in history, is English in laws, language, and manners; more truly English, indeed, in many respects, than England itself remained after the Norman Conquest. As in so many other cases, the people took the name of their sovereign; the English subjects of the King of Scots learned to call themselves Scots and their country Scotland. Meanwhile, the true Scots to the north of them, the original subjects of the Scottish dynasty, forsaken as it were by their natural princes, became the standing difficulty of their government. The true Scots are known in history only as a mass of turbulent tribes, alien in customs, language, and feeling from those who had assumed their name-tribes which the Kings of Dunfermline and Edinburgh had much ado to keep in even nominal subjection. The history of Scotland is in many respects strikingly analogous to the history of Switzerland. I pass by the singular likeness in the national character of the two peoples, a likeness to be traced alike in the virtues and defects of each. I speak only of the outward facts of their history. In the case of Switzerland, portions of the German, Burgundian, and Italian nations were, through a variety of political causes, detached from the main body of their respective countrymen, and became united by a close political tie to each other. They thus formed an artificial nation, a political and historical nation, but not a nation of common blood and speech. In the case of Scotland, portions of the English, Welsh, and Irish nations were in like manner detached from the main body of their own people; they became in the same way politically connected, and formed in the same way an artificial nation. In both cases it is sometimes amusing to hear men claim as their forefathers those who were the bitterest enemies of their real forefathers. But in both cases it is more important to mark what the history both of Switzerland and of Scotland abundantly proves, that an artificial nation of this kind is capable of as true and honourable national feeling as any nation of the most unmixed blood and

language. The history both of Switzerland and of Scotland presents so many materials for honest pride, that it is a pity that exaggerations and perversions of history should have ever been allowed to step in in either case. And, to cite one point more of likeness, each people has drawn its national name from a very small portion of its territory and population. Switzerland-German, Burgundian, and Italian-has derived its common name from the single small canton of Schwyz. Scotland-English, Welsh, and Gallic-has derived its common name from the original small colony of Irish Scots who settled on the coast of Argyllshire.'-P. 140.

The sources of this history are, we need hardly say, very different from such as satisfied historians like Hume and Smollett. The art of telling this story well was with them the primary thing; exactitude and laboriousness in research were of less account in their estimation. An historian, nowadays, has ampler opportunities of investigation, and is bound to use them thoroughly. Faithful and diligent study of ancient records is recognised as the only way to lay a sure foundation of truth. It would be well if this great principle were applied, as in fairness it should be, to sacred history as well as to secular. While it is allowed on all hands that ancient documents are of the first importance to the historian of the Norman Conquest, it is inconsistent to set their testimony aside as a thing of little value when they relate to the life and death of the Founder of Christianity. And yet neologians like Strauss or Renan, who, in matters of secular history, would appeal from popular misconceptions to the incontrovertible evidence of ancient documents, are apt to substitute their own crude fancies of what is probable for the facts recorded by the Evangelists. We are not, of course, speaking now with any reference to Mr. Freeman. We only claim that the principles of historic criticism which he enforces and illustrates so ably, should be applied fairly and consistently to other subjects of a cognate nature. We would, however, suggest to him that, where the evidence is otherwise adequate, the mere fact of resemblance to something which happened previously is really no presumption of falsity in the narrative. He seems to distrust, though not, indeed, to reject altogether, the account of the alliance between Olaf and Richard the Good (p. 511), because in many particulars it looks like a repetition of the alliance between Richard the Fearless and Harold Blaatand. And yet we need not go beyond his own pages to find unexceptionable instances to show that history frequently repeats itself. The narrative of Ethelred the Unready, for instance, finds its counterpart in the reign of James the Second. We are glad to see that Mr. Freeman, after expressing some scepticism as to the tale of Olaf and Richard, lays down (p. 512) a canon, wisely and temperately, which we recommend

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to commentators on Holy Scripture. Still, we are hardly justi'fied in rejecting stories which we cannot disprove, and which rest on authority, certainly not first-rate, but still such as we are content generally to accept for statements, which have 'no inherent improbability about them.' Biblical critics have objected, on this principle, to some of the events recorded in the life of the Hebrew Patriarch Isaac, forgetting that, especially in a rude and uncivilized age, human nature is essentially imitative.

And here we must take leave, for the present, of this' History of the Norman Conquest,' of which this first volume is an instalment. We have felt it incumbent to notice blemishes and defects, sometimes, indeed, of a microscopic nature, in the hope that they may not recur. We have expressed unhesitatingly our admiration of the book, as a valuable contribution to the history of our own country. If it were not, as we have ventured to predict it will be, a standard book on its subject, and if the name of its author did not stand so high as it does in the world of letters, there would be less need to say anything which detracts from unqualified praise. We welcome the History of the Conquest' as a proof that earnest and laborious concentration of thought, and solid accuracy of information, are not lost among us, notwithstanding the distractions of an age which awards its praise too often to superficial acquirements. Dr. Arnold used to say, when writing the early history of Rome, that no man can move gracefully when feeling his way in the dark. Mr. Freeman has shown that, even amid the obscurity which overhangs the commencement of his subject, he can step boldly and with vigour, and that closeness of research is not incompatible with an animated and vigorous style. We shall look with interest for what we trust will be the prosperous continuation and conclusion of this great work.

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1 The notes are sometimes, like those in Mr. Grote's 'Greece,' inconveniently long. A good alphabetical index, and some genealogical tables-for instance, of Cnut and Ethelred-would be an improvement. It is to be hoped also that, as the work goes on, Mr. Freeman will supply some information as to the manners and customs, social and domestic, of his period.

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ART. IV.—1. Hymnographie de l'Église Grecque; Dissertation accompagnie des Offices du xvi Janvier, des xxiv et xxv Juin, en l'honneur de S. Pierre et des Apôtres. Publiée par le CARDINAL J. B. PITRA, du titre de S. Callixte. Rome: Imprimerie de la Civiltà Cattolicà. 1867.

2. Hymns of the Eastern Church. Translated, with Notes and an Introduction, by J. M. NEALE, D.D. Warden of Sackville College. London: Hayes.

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IN Lockhart's singularly touching account of the last days of Walter Scott, at the end of the painful struggle to die an honest man by paying his creditors, it will be recollected what comfort he derived from the old Latin hymns. Commonly, whatever 'we could follow him in was a fragment of the Bible (especially the prophecies of Isaiah and the Book of Job) or some petition in the Litany-or a verse of some Psalm (in the old Scotch 'metrical version)—or of some of the magnificent hymns of the Romish ritual, in which he had always delighted, but which probably hung on his memory now in connexion with the Church services he had attended when in Italy. We very

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' often heard distinctly the cadence of the "Dies Iræ;" and I ' think the very last stanza that we could make out was the first ' of a still greater favourite-

"Stabat mater dolorosa,

Juxta crucem lachrymosa,

Dum pendebat Filius."—Life of Scott, vii. 391.

Since those days the Latin hymns have become extensively studied. At the beginning of the Oxford movement, a beautiful little volume, 'Hymns from the Roman Breviary,' was put forth with the initials J. H. N., which was speedily followed by a similar publication of 'Hymns from the Parisian Breviary,' which gave to the English public a collection of the pretty hymns of Santolius and others, who, during the palmy days of the Gallican Church, recast some of the old hymns, and in many cases substituted new ones. This was followed by the earlier fasciculi of the 'Thesaurus Hymnologicus' of the learned Lutheran, Herman Adalbert Daniel, and by a valuable collection by Mone, who, from palimpsests, has recovered the ancient Ephesine Liturgy of the West of Europe-a liturgy so ancient that it was obsolete in the days of Charlemagne. Rambacher and Mohnike have further handled the subject. The late Dr. Neale, whose essays on liturgiology and Church history contain

a great deal of curious learning, edited more than one volume of Sequences; and the labours of the accomplished Archbishop of Dublin have tended more than those of any one else to popularise these effusions of the Christian muse.

Meanwhile, translations were freely made from them. A Mr. Wackerbarth led the way. Mr. Copeland rendered into very classical English some of the strains of Prudentius and S. Ambrose, as well as some rhythms of medieval authors. Dr. Newman, for devotional purposes, translated some of the hymns used at the Canonical Hours. They began to find their way into the hymn-books of the English Church. The first collection was made for the use of the well-known church of S. Saviour, at Leeds. A new vein had been struck. The exhausted hymnology of England received a fresh stimulus. Men, wearied with the subjectivity of the Olney and Wesleyan collections, found what they wanted in the dogmatic precise statements of the pre-Reformation poetry. Since that time it has been becoming more and more popular, and the unprecedented run of Hymns, Ancient and Modern,' which consists mainly of a somewhat diluted rendering of the old Latin hymns, indicates, by the enormous issue of two millions and a half copies, how fully they have met a want of the day. It must be remembered, also, that the demand is by no means confined to the Church of England. The Independent collections owe some of their choicest gems to S. Bernard and Thomas Aquinas.1

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But, while the hymnography of the Western Church has thus been recalled to men's attention, little has been done in the way of the study of that of the East, notwithstanding the existence of Matranga's 'Spicilegium Romanum,' and Fasciculi by the monks of Grotta Ferrata. Few are aware of the existence of a literature of Greek Church-poetry extending to the enormous size of eighteen quarto volumes now in actual use. Few have studied the collections of Canons and Odes, which, extending from before the fourth or fifth down to the eleventh centuries, have been powerful integers in the preservation of the national life of the Greeks; for it must never be forgotten that, amid the ruins of Christian civilization, the ancient liturgy of the Church, which has hardly changed a gesture since the days of S. Chrysostom, has been almost the sole literature of the race, the bond of union of the people, nay, the principle of family life. Crushed down by the slavery of the Moslem, the traditional rites and the ancient prayers and hymns have helped to main

1 See the New Congregational Hymn Book, prepared by the Committee appointed at the Annual Meeting in 1855. London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder. In it Hymns 329, 404, 443, 405, 714, 744, 878, are from ancient exemplars. The last is a translation of the Pange Lingua.'

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