Gentleman's Magazine: And Historical Chronicle

We have received Mr. H. L. B.'s communication, and have only to observe that the book, to which he alludes, was sent to the Magazine for review, and not sought for by the reviewer, who neither himself suspected, nor ever received any information of its want of authenticity; consequently he was bound to consider it the bona fide work of a Dissenting Minister. How could he take upon himself to proclaim, or even to utter a suspicion, that it was fabricated for a base and unworthy purpose; or how could he have supported that opinion, if challenged by the author? It may or may not be an authentic work. The reviewer has never heard its authenticity contradicted on any authority. If it is what Mr. H. L. B. suspects it to be, the reviewer will be among the first to censure the dishonest and disreputable zeal of the author. The reviewer thinks that there are no remarks of his own liable to Mr. H. L. B.'s censure; he joins most willingly in bearing his testimony to the learning, the piety, and the high character of Dr. P. Smith and Mr. Kenrick; and though he is himself a most decided and devoted Churchman, yet he would wish that Church to disown him, if, in speaking of those who have separated from her, his feelings were illiberal, his statements erroneous, or his censures unjust; and he most deeply deplores the present unfriendly feelings existing between the Church and the Dissenters:-Sit Pax in templo Dei!

In reference to the remarks of our Reviewer (p. 182) Dr. CARD requests us to state that he is not responsible for the insertion of the word " ROMAN" under the lithograph, which was added by the printer unauthorised by himself, and of which he was unconscious until after the volume was published, when it was pointed out in a slip of Errata.

We are authorised to state, that the article respecting Mrs. Thring, of Clifton, which appeared in our last Obituary, p. 212, was communicated to us without the knowledge, as it would have been without the sanction or approval, of the nearest relatives and connexions of that lady and her family.

We have received H. Y.'s letter on Geology. We are sure that he will be highly gratified by Professor Buckland's chapter on the same points in his forthcoming Bridgewater Treatise.

We are obliged by R. R.'s poem; but we have little room for Poetry in our Magazine, and it is only occasionally admitted. We should advise him to reserve it for an Annual.

E. I. C. expresses his regret that in his communication on the subterranean passages at Eltham Palace, in our Decem

ber Magazine, p. 594, he unintentionally did Mr. J. C. BUCKLER an injustice, in omitting to notice the fact, that he had fully described the vaults in question in his very able publication (Historical and Descriptive Account of Eltham Palace, p. 58) which shows that the vaults are not an entirely new discovery, and but at the same time affords a very accurate and comprehensive description of a beautiful work of antiquity.

In the Gent. Mag. for September 1833 (Vol. c. ii. p. 200), is inserted a note from "W. of Oxford," stating that among the privileges granted to the Abbey of Waltham, temp. Ric. I., and also among those granted to the Priory of Pulton, temp. Edw. III., he finds the right of oreste mentioned, and requests an explanation of the meaning of the term. Other instances have occurred, which, in the absence of this word from the existing Glossaries, it may not be unimportant to insert. Amongst the Cart. Antiq. in the Tower, fol. 23, is a charter granted by Henry the Second to the Austin Canons of Chichester,* in which he confirms to them the privileges of ordel and oreste. F. 24 is a confirmation by Richard the First, in which the same terms are employed. Edward the First confirms to the Church of St. Peter's, York, amongst other privileges, those of ordel and orest, by a charter in the 33d year of his reign, which may be seen in Prynne's Records, vol. iii. p. 1104.

the Placita de quo Warranto, pp. 18 and 19, it appears that Henry the Third granted to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem the privileges of ordel and oreste. So much for the instances; the meaning and etymology now demand notice. Orest is synonymous with battle, a privilege which was frequently granted to ecclesiastical establishments. Excepting in charters, the only instance in which this term has been found is in the Saxon Chronicle under the year 1096, where it is said that Goffrei Bainard accused William of Ore, " and hit him on gefeaht, and hine on orreste ofercorn." As no examples of its use are known in pure Saxon, and as we know that it is common in the Scandinavian tongues (Ihre, vol. ii. p. 295), it is probable that the Northmen carried the name and custom with them from Denmark into Normandy, and thence into our own island.

* Dugdale, in the Monast. Anglic. tom. 1, p. 183 (first edition), prints the greater portion of this Charter from an inspeximus in Rot. Cart. 2 Edw. II. n. 31, omitting the clause in which these terms are inserted.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY, TIMES, OPINIONS, AND CONTEMPORARIES OF SIR EGERTON BRYDGES, PER LEGEM TERRÆ, BARON CHANDOS OF SUDELEY, &c. 2 vols. 8vo.

WE have no hesitation in saying, that we consider this to be one of the most singular books of confessions, which modern literature, since the days of Rousseau, has produced. In the case of Sir Egerton Brydges, age has not brought its usual reserve; but the writer has thrown open his heart and mind to the reader's gaze; has emptied his long-hoarded stores of sorrows and joys, hopes and disappointments, his likings and his antipathies, his high ambition and his weak resolve, his failure and his success; -and all this in language so spontaneously flowing from the fullness of the spirit and the feelings, so unstudied and unreserved, as to render it impossible to be read without a deep and melancholy interest. Many years, the very best of our life have passed, since we first became acquainted with the name and works of our present biographer; and deeply have we been indebted to him for very valuable accessions to our knowledge of antiquity-for fine and just trains of poetical criticism, for well-reasoned and eloquent productions, on important inquiries connected with the prosperity of our institutions, for some touching and elegant poetry, and for a few ingenious and interesting tales of fiction; but had we been totally ignorant of his name till this his latest work appeared, we should at once have been surprised by its singular and glowing eloquence, its extensive and refined literature, its eccentric opinions, its bold and artless confessions, its wild and lofty flights of enthusiasm, and its singular defects in judgment, in temper, and in prudence. "I have written," says the author, "in all humours, and with every sort of rapidity, in deep grief, in overwhelming misfortune, in indignant rage, in disappointment, in danger, and in destitution; I have written with harassed powers and in mere despair." Such is the mingled yarn of which this work is composed, that it would be an easy task for any one who had made himself conversant with it, to present, by judiciously selected extracts, two characters of the author, very different indeed from each other. Look upon this picture and on this.' He might either describe him in his own words, and on his own authority, as one who, though grey in years, and visited heavily with scorns and injuries and afflictions, possessed in his heart and feelings all the bloom, and beauty, and freshness of unsullied and unsuspecting youth; as one 'who still delighted to gaze upon the glories of Creation with increasing, vivid, and rapturous delight-beholding the sun rising over the Alps, with inconceivable pleasure; as one never found sleeping after the dawn, but drawing in inspiration from the splendour and sublimity around him, and pouring forth his unpremeditated lays.

While I re-wander o'er this wood-crown'd steep,
Yon sheep-clad lawn, and this secluded dell,
Yon mansion and yon holy tower, that peep
From the thick trees, where in their silent cell

The hallowed relics of my fathers sleep;
I strive in vain the tumults to repel

That force mine eyes with sad regret to weep,
Since my sweet childhood's lost delights they tell.
Here my loved parent passed his happy days,

In rural peace with every virtue warm'd,
While the wild country round that rang his praise,
His house denoted and his goodness charm'd.

But I, alas! to genuine pleasures blind,

Toss'd on the world's wide waves, no comfort find.

-Or he might say, what a noble mind is this, that proclaims, "of all gratifying convictions what is more exalting than that of having earned the approbation of high minds? The dignity of intellect is the only proud dominion worthy the dignity of our nature; riches, and rank, and office, are comparative baubles." Again, " I always loved the ideal better than the real. Reality never satisfied me, the imagination commonly did so. The intense delight with which I read romances and fairy tales from the earliest age, is incredible. My mother had a trunk full of them, and I almost got them by heart. Not one of them did I omit to read many, many times. My grandmother Egerton first taught me to read before Í was four years old, but at that age I was a refractory scholar. At six I began to delight in books; during these years I knew the aspect of every field and wood about Wootton, under the varying lights and tints of the varying seasons-every tree, and hedge, and path-and the trees were magnificent there, and there was hill and valley, and abundance of underwood, richly interposed. At an early age Buchanan's Latin Poetry was a great and intimate favourite with me, and I got Milton's juvenile poems almost by heart. I generally carried these little volumes (the Elzevir of Buchanan) in my pocket. I read them on stiles, on banks, under hedges, when the season allowed, as well as by the winter fire, when the weather kept me indoors: Collins also was one of the earliest objects of my enthusiastic ambition. Thus then nature made me imaginative, contemplative, literary-sensitive even to morbidness, abundant in moral reflections-irritable but soon relenting, forgetful of injuries, grave yet with an indestructible elasticity of hope; shy, yet frank and communicative after the first address; grateful for civilities, and enthusiastically seeking honourable fame." These are strains of a high mood, that find their echo in every pure and generous heart, such as-"The Swan of bright Apollo's brood doth sing "—but if we were to form our selection from the other column of the page, we should find all those bright and goodly visions scared away by a crowd of feelings of a far less elevated nature; we should find the beautiful tapestry reversed, and all the fine proportions, and purple colours, in shapelessness and confusion; the tuneful strings out of unison, and jarring discord. We should find one brooding with a wild, and moody, and unmanly sorrow, over the misfortunes and evils of a long and checquered life, hoarding up the remembrance of his fierce and fatal animosities; with a heart rankling with the fires of hatred and scorn, and for ever gazing, with an infatuated and grim delight, over the burning cauldron of his wrongs; we should find one grieving, and for ever proclaiming his grief, that his high and vaulting ambition had not been satisfied; and looking back with a most unwise and even unchristian regret, on what he believes he might have performed under happier auspices, and in a more genial situation. Sir Egerton laments that he has teen ignobly skimming the surface of the ground, when he ought to have launched with a bold pinion into the azure depth of air in short, he

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