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old ideas. Thus, the failure to discover the judicial trial by battle in Saxon England, as in other Germanic countries, is accounted for by the persistence of extra-judicial fighting. Only in those lands where a central power was strong enough to forbid the latter could the judicial duel have place, "thus combining the physical joy of battle with the intellectual luxury of strictly formal procedure." Scutage, which many think of as introduced in 1159, is probably of much earlier date, and even under Edward I. the tenant-in-chief who failed to attend would be rated, after the campaign ended, in a levy which included, not only the traditional scutage, but a heavy fine. It "seems clear that the tenant-in-chief's duty of providing an armed force is not commuted into a duty of paying scutage." So, again, in the chapter on Tenure, it is shown in regard to alienation that "we must start not from the absolute inalienability of the fief,' nor from the absolute alienability of the fee simple,' but from. . . an indeterminate right of the lord to prevent alienations which would seriously impair his interests." The Gordian knot that has been tangled out of free men holding by unfree tenure is thus resolved, while we wonder that it was not done long ago.

“The tenure is unfree, not because the tenant ‹ holds at the will of the lord' in the sense of being removable at a moment's notice, but because his services, though in many respects minutely defined by custom, cannot be altogether defined without constant reference to the lord's will. . . . The man who on going to bed knows that he must spend the morrow in working for his lord, and does not know to what kind of work he may be put, though he may be legally a free man, free to fling up his tenement and go away, is in fact for the time being bound by his tenure to live the same life that is led by the great mass of unfree men; custom sets many limits to his labours, custom sets many limits to theirs; the idea

of abandoning his home never enters his head; the lord's will plays a large part in shaping his life."

One finds in the discussion of the County, as is expected, a fuller presentation of the view of the suitors in the county court, first brought forward by Mr. Maitland in Volume III. of the "English Historical Review." This is, in brief, that attendance at court was a burden, and not a privilege, and that it fell, not on freeholders as such, but upon certain units of land, by no means equal in area. When this apportionment was made he does not pretend to say, although in the review article he guessed at the reign of Henry I., but he maintains his main thesis with force.

So vast an achievement can be only touched in a review. The charm of the whole work

lies in the absence of any dogmatism, and in the continual presentation of the variety and irregularity of medieval life. Here are no beautifully symmetrical theories to maintain, but only a careful collocation of an immense body of facts, and an attempt to discern in them the lines of movement toward the England of to-day. The work has been grandly done, once for all, we surmise, as to the substance of it, although new discoveries may alter details of the picture. The whole work is a great credit to the publishing houses that put it forth. Our only criticism is on the inadequate index, of which we have already spoken. Additional omissions noted are Droitural Actions, II., 379; and as citations under topics already entered, Barns' Part, II., 375; Bastard, II., 373376; Possessory Actions, II., 378. The references for Bond should be to Volume II. JOHN J. HALSEY.

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THE STORY OF THE 66 ALABAMA.”* A surviving officer of the Confederate cruiser "Alabama," Lieutenant Arthur Sinclair, has prepared, chiefly from his own recollections, an account of the career of that famous vessel, and this is now published in a substantial illustrated volume of some three hundred and fifty pages. It is essentially a personal narrative, readable though not literate in style, good-tempered though one-sided; yet, with its many faults, a distinct contribution to the permanent literature of the Civil War. For it is the statement of an eye-witness of and active participant in some of the more stirring and memorable sea episodes of that eventful period.

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It is, of course, hardly to be expected that a strictly impartial statement of the "Alabama's character and position, or of her adventures and achievements, should come from one of her

own officers. Lieutenant Sinclair naturally believed in the vessel and in her mission; and that is enough for the purposes of his narrative. It is told with an attractive frankness, and apparently with a desire to write fairly and truthfully as to disputed points. These, however, appear but incidentally; the chief portions of the work are given to an account of the vessel's career and to descriptions of life on board.

The "Alabama" began her work of destruc

*Two YEARS ON THE ALABAMA. By Arthur Sinclair, Lieutenant in the Confederate Navy. With portraits and illustrations. Boston: Lee & Shepard.

tion in the summer of 1862. The Confederate cruisers had already, in their raids in the North Atlantic, demonstrated their capacity for mischief to the commerce of the United States, and it was decided to build larger and more formidable vessels and extend the field of their operation. In pursuance of this plan, secret agents of the Confederate government, acting as private purchasers, negotiated with the Lairds of Liverpool for the vessel which was first known as the "290" and soon became the "Alabama." She made her trial trip and escape from the Mersey barely in time to avoid detention, the agents of the United States having obtained evidence of her true character and laid the same before the British government. Sailing as a simple despatch boat, under the British flag and an English master, she soon reached her rendezvous at the Azores, where she was transferred to the command of Captain Semmes and his officers, and received her armament and stores. The question of a crew became a pressing one, as the men on board had been shipped simply for a trip to the Azores, and were ignorant of the true character and purposes of the vessel. The test of their readiness to enlist under the new flag was soon made. Our author thus describes the scene:

"The officers are all in full uniform of an attractive shade of gray, with a redundancy of gold lace shockingly inappropriate to marine traditions. . . . The men are mustered aft to 'call' of boatswain, and Semmes, mounting a gun-carriage, reads his commission from the President of the Confederate States as commander. ... The 'stops' to the halliards at the peak and mainmast head are broken, and the flag and pennant of the young nation float to the breeze... Our Captain addresses the men in a few curt but eloquent and persuasive words, making known the character of the vessel and the purpose of the cruise. The paymaster has brought amidships his shipping list, and, like the rest of us, awaits the result of our gallant commander's speech. But the suspense is easing. One by one the groups dissolve, and Jack, hat in hand, presents himself at the capstan and signs the articles, till eighty-five men have been secured."

Thus began the memorable two-years cruise of the "Alabama," during which she sailed 75,000 miles and visited almost every quarter of the globe — the West Indies, Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, Cape of Good Hope, China Seas, Ceylon, Cape Town, and the English Channel,

-shifting rapidly from place to place so as to do the utmost damage and inspire the utmost terror by the unexpectedness of her attacks upon our merchant ships. She overhauled and examined several hundred vessels; those belonging to neutrals received an apology and went on their way, those having neutral cargo

were released on ransom-bond, and those of the United States were plundered and burnt. There were fifty-seven of the latter, for which Great Britain paid, according to the terms of the Geneva award, $6,750,000.

The author gives some very interesting pictures of life on shipboard, which decidedly lacked the monotony of the ordinary humdrum sea-life. The seamen all had double pay and a double allowance of daily grog, and seem to have been on the whole a hearty and efficient lot of fellows. Some good anecdotes are told of Semmes, the commander, who was usually referred to by the under officers as "Old Beeswax❞— an appellation probably bestowed on account of his tenacity in holding fast to a chase. He had, it seems, a sardonic sort of humor, which often showed itself in a rather rough "guying" of the captured Yankee skippers who had vainly tried to outsail him. All the officers were, it appears, exceptionally fine and amiable men- as mild-mannered, in fact, "as ever scuttled ship." It was the custom, on sighting a Yankee merchantman, to approach under cover of the United States or English colors. If the prey became suspicious and attempted to escape, a blank shot, or, that failing, a solid one, usually brought her to. She was boarded, night or day, in all weathers; the crew and available stores, and always the chronometer and flag, were brought off; and then the vessel was fired. If near land, the captured crews were put ashore. Lieutenant Sinclair takes some little credit to the "Alabama" for materially increasing in this way the population of the Azores. It often happened, however, that the cruiser found it necessary to play the host to so many involuntary guests that she became uncomfortably crowded, and the opportunity to strike a bargain with some foreign ship to take them off was a welcome one. The strange crews slept on the open deck, but were protected by awnings from sun and rain; the author says they were invariably well treated, their officers being accommodated as far as possible at the officers' mess of the "Alabama.' Not infrequently the pleasing prospect of double wages and grog twice a day tempted the prisoners into the "Alabama's" service. As for the chronometers, they accumulated so rapidly that Lieutenant Sinclair soon had to give up his daily task of winding them.

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The justification offered for the "Alabama" is, of course, that by damaging and threatening Northern commerce she drew off the United States war vessels from their work of block

ading Southern ports, and thus materially aided the prospects of the Confederacy. She was often pursued by United States cruisers, but usually evaded them, sometimes running into neutral ports and escaping by her superior speed. She was a very swift vessel, having both steam and sail power. Her armament was considered a powerful one, and our author is evidently proud of her fighting qualities. "She was a fighting ship," he says, " and under no circumstances, within reasonable odds, contemplated avoiding battle." Yet the truth is that the only real fight in which she engaged

was the one in which she was sent to the bottom. A similar fate had been visited by her, it is true, upon the United States gunboat "Hatteras " the year before in the Gulf of Mexico; but this affair can hardly be classed as a fight. The "Alabama" lured the "Hatteras" to her side in the night, while purporting to be, and announcing herself to be, a British ship; and suddenly, while the small boats of the "Hatteras were being lowered to come on board the "Alabama," the latter opened her broadside in the darkness, sinking the gunboat in thirteen minutes. The entire career of the "Alabama" was, in fact, that of a sea-rover rather than a battle-ship, and her commander's fame as a sea-fighter must rest upon the one engagement in which he was defeated.

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Lieutenant Sinclair's descriptions of the two affairs referred to are worth quoting, as being the report of an eye-witness. The first relates to the sinking of the "Hatteras."

"It is dark, the enemy being but indistinctly seen. The enemy has now come up. She hails us: What ship is that?' This is her Britannic Majesty's steamer Petrel,' is the reply. . . . Our crew have lock-strings in hand, keeping the guns trained on her, and awaiting the

command to fire. The two vessels are so near that conversation in ordinary tones can be easily heard from one to the other. For a time the Hatteras' people seem to be consulting. Finally they hailed again: If you please, I'll send a boat on board of you,' to which our executive officer replied, Certainly, we shall be pleased to receive your boat.' When the boat is about half-way between the two vessels, the signal is given, and sky and water are lighted up by our broadside . . . About six broadsides were fired by us. The enemy replied irregularly. Then she fired a lee gun, and we heard the quick, sharp hail of surrender, accompanied by the request that our boats be sent to her immediately, as she was sinking. The whole thing had passed so quickly that it seemed to us like a dream."

In June, 1864, the "Alabama" put in at the harbor of Cherbourg, France. The ship was to undergo repairs, and officers and men were to have a leave of absence. Three days later, the United States war steamer "Kear

sarge," under command of Captain Winslow, entered the harbor. Immediately on the arrival of the "Kearsarge" Commander Semmes forwarded to Winslow, through the United States Consul, a challenge to fight the " Alabama ” outside the harbor and beyond the limit of French waters. The news was flashed over cables and wires, and on Sunday, the 11th, Cherbourg was filled to overflowing with sightseers, while throughout the world people awaited eagerly the result of the naval duel.

“Our ship, as she steams off shore for her antagonist,

hull down in the distance and waiting for us, presents a

brave

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The decks and brass-work shine in appearance. the bright morning sunlight, from recent holystoning and polishing. The crew are all in muster uniform, as though awaiting Sunday inspection. They are ordered to lie down at their quarters for rest, while we approach the enemy. A beautiful sight the divisions stripped to the waist, and with bare arms and breasts looking the athletes they are. The decks have been sanded down, tubs of water placed along the spar-deck, and all is ready for the fray. The pipe of the boatswain and mates at length summons all hands aft; and Semmes, mounting a gun-carriage, delivers a stirring address." The two vessels steamed some eight miles off shore, and, approaching within a mile of each other, the "Alabama" delivered a broadside from her starboard batteries. The battle was carried on with the contestants circling round a common centre. A hundred-pound percussion shell was early lodged in the "Kearsarge' near her screw, but failed to explode. Soon after the vessels closed to point-blank range the "Alabama was pierced by a shell at the water line. Seeing that his ship was sinking, Semmes struck his flag. The officers and crew were picked up by the "Kearsarge" and by the English yacht " Deerhound," as the "Alabama" settled under water.

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"The Alabama's' final plunge was a remarkable freak, as witnessed by the writer about one hundred yards off. She shot up out of the water bow first, and descended on the same line, carrying away with her plunge two of her masts, and making a whirlpool of considerable size and strength."

Two of the author's best chapters are given to the incidents of this memorable sea-fight, and will not be overlooked by the reader of this interesting volume. The illustrations include pictures of the "Alabama" and "Kearsarge, ," and portraits of Semmes and his officers. That of the famous commander, taken the day after the Cherbourg fight, shows a striking face, thin, careworn, but bold and crafty, almost sinister, in expression. The appendix contains biographical sketches of all the officers, and a general muster-roll of the ship's crew. CHARLES H. PALMER.

More of the Napoleonic revival.

BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.

The literature of the "Napoleonic revival" seems destined to show us the Emperor from every conceivable standpoint, ere the movement completes its course. His career has been discussed by historians, moralists, and military critics; and his portrait has been drawn, or redrawn, by memoirists of every shade and variety of opinion and bias, from the heroworshippers down to the malignant Barras. In Constant's account of "The Private Life of Napoleon" (Scribner), we are permitted to see the great man through the eyes of his valet de chambre an opportunity that will be eagerly grasped by the large class of American readers whose biographical cravings and standards are reflected in the newspapers. We do not mean to impliedly underrate the uses and merits of Constant's book, or of the class of books to which it belongs. Constant contributes to our knowledge of his master very much as men like Pepys and Boswell and the virtuoso of Strawberry Hill contribute to our knowledge of their times; and the hardiest wiseacre will scarcely impeach the historical services of that immortal trio of gossips. Constant's book is a rich repository of the sort of information that helps us to see the Emperor as his daily associates saw him. The author was for fourteen consecutive years, from the opening of the Marengo campaign to the departure from Fontainebleau, in constant attendance upon his master, “as inseparable from him as his shadow"; and the portrait he draws is vivid, human, and incontestably accurate. The vogue of these Memoirs when they first appeared, in 1830, was very great; and the recent reprint in France has been favorably received. The present translation, admirably done by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin, and published in four shapely volumes by Messrs. Scribner's Sons, is, we believe, the first English version; and the reader will find it decidedly one of the most entertaining and graphic of Napoleonic works. Constant brings us perhaps nearer to Bonaparte the man than any other memoirist of the period has done. A readable introduction is furnished by M. Imbert de SaintAmand, who, as usual, is quite unable to deny himself a passing allusion to his "Martyr Queen," as he is pleased to style her. Marie Antoinette's sufferings in the Temple, her high bearing in adversity, and the stoicism with which she met her fate, have blinded romantic and chivalrous minds to the ugly fact that this "Martyr Queen" was the centre of the vile court ring whose sins previous to the Revolution, and whose selfish and insensate policy during the Revolution, are as fairly chargeable with the excesses of the Terror as the fanaticism and blind devotion of the Terrorists themselves. The world has so long been accustomed to hold up its hands in execration of the political cruelties and drastic expedients of that intrepid band of patriots, that it has well-nigh lost sight of its services — of

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An olive-branch from England.

The Anglomania which has so long disquieted patriotic souls in this country has at last fairly given way before the tidal wave of Anglophobia evoked by the "sturdy Americanism" of a recent state paper. Despite this widespread change in the national sentiment, however, there seems to be a class of our countrymen who still perversely decline to recognize hostility to England as a test of patriotism, and who even doubt the wisdom of injecting into our foreign policy an infusion of the temper of Donnybrook Fair. To such peace-loving souls the little olive-branch wafted to us over the troubled waters in the shape of a book on America by that genial Briton, Dean Hole, should prove a welcome and timely token. The book is the outcome of the author's recent lecturing tour in the States in aid of the fund for the restoration of Rochester Cathedral; and we are glad to learn that the pecuniary result of the mission was the reverse of disappointing. Replying to his English critics who had questioned the propriety of "sending round the hat" in America for an object that should be regarded as a "national duty" at home, the Dean concludes pretty forcibly: "We had done what we could (at home), and I saw no signs of 'national duty' coming forward to complete our unfinished work. . . . In preferring to spend the surplus of five hundred pounds which I brought home upon the cathedral, rather than in appropriating it to myself, I fail to apprehend that I have acted hardly in consonance with the dignity of the nation and of the national church."" The Dean writes in his usual chatty, facetious vein, skimming lightly over a variety of subjects: our clubs, hotels, railways, theatres, churches, horticulture, our cities and their various forms and degrees of misgovernment, etc., treating us and our ways with unfailing good-humor-save, indeed, when he comes to consider our newspapers. "All who love America," he says, "must protest against these degradations. . . . There is no excuse for the piling up of the agony, for the proclamations in huge and hideous type of the most abominable crimes, for a procession of bad men and bad women on the front of the stage, as though these actors were of all the most important, and as though this rogues' march' down the hill to perdition were much more interesting to the public than the march of intellect, the progress of industry, the advancements of science, the ascents of religion and of truth." That the Dean's book will be widely read in this country goes without saying, and it will repay reading-if only for the novel pleasure of seeing ourselves fairly, and for the most part gratifyingly, reflected in a mirror held up to us by an English hand.

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The journal of a Polish countess.

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A journal- especially if it be a woman's is usually an artificial and often a morbid piece of writing. Such is not the character, however, of "The Journal of Countess Françoise Krasinska," just translated from the Polish by Kasimir Driekonska, and published by Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Co. This Polish Countess-the great-grandmother of Victor Emmanuel is the most artless and unsophisticated of creatures. Beginning her journal at sixteen and keeping it up for two years, she discourses of herself and of things about her with the utmost freedom from bias. She says that she has heard more than once that she is pretty, and adds: "Sometimes, looking in the mirror, I think so myself." There are four daughters in the household, and all, when they reach the age of sixteen, are taught to add to their daily prayers the request for a "good husband "—a very natural supplication, they think, since the husband must take the place of the parents, and it is "very right to ask God that he shall be good." Not until she is sixteen does this eighteenth-century young woman ever have any money to spend, or ever receive a letter through the postoffice addressed directly to herself. The latter event makes the day "forever memorable," and the letter and its envelope are preserved as an "eternal souvenir." When she is about eighteen, the Countess meets Duke Charles, favorite son of the King of Poland. It is a case of love at first sight on both sides; and the Countess having no reserves from her journal, we get a very pretty story of the wooing and wedding. The last words of the journal are: "I am sure of my husband's faith and love." Alas, that this confidence should have been so shaken by years of inconstancy! Continual sorrows took away her strength and her wish to write any more; after a time, however, the old affection returned, and the lady's life ended, not in the splendor once dreamed of, but in a happy home. Both the King and Queen of Italy are the great-great-grandchildren of Françoise Krasinska.

Memories of Paris.

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Mr. F. Adolphus's "Memories of Paris (Holt), is an exceedingly readable book. In the opening chapter the writer describes the Paris of forty years ago, before the Haussmann reconstruction; and he passes thence to a recital of his recollections of the city under the Empire, and during and immediately after the siege by the Germans. The entry of the latter is graphically described, as are the later scenes incident to the rise and fall of the Commune this chapter making one realize how perfectly capable modern Paris is of repeating, under due conditions, the revolutionary excesses of a century ago. The Communards of 1871 were, in capacity for evil and the brute instinct of destructiveness, plainly no whit behind the ferocious rabble by means of which the Jacobin extremists swayed, saved, and dishonored the great Revolution. Among other dramatic episodes of the time,

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the author witnessed the pulling down of the Vendôme Column-one of the many insensate performances of the latter-day Sans Culottes. The first attempt had failed, the great structure steadily resisting the strain of rope and windlass. But after an hour's delay, says the author, "I had become conscious, after a particularly savage jerk on the ropes, that the line between the chimney and the statue was no longer exactly straight. Slowlyvery slowly the statue swerved past the chimney; slowly the great column bowed towards me did anyone receive so superb a salutation; slowly it descended, so slowly that it almost seemed to hesitate in a great haze of spurting dust it fell. . . . With a wild rush and frantic shouts, the people dashed past the sentries into the Place Vendôme, leaped upon the dislocated fragments, and howled coarse insults at them." Allowing for a rather pronounced tendency to overcolor in his more dramatic passages, we think Mr. Adolphus (who was evidently at Paris as a press correspondent) may be accepted as a trustworthy narrator. An amusing chapter is devoted to Mr. Worth, and another to General Boulanger.

A remarkable performance of genius.

Whoever buys "Macaire, a Melodramatic Farce" (Stone & Kimball) because it is by Robert Louis Stevenson and William Ernest Henley, will be apt to wonder a little, after he has read it, how those distinguished men of letters happened to bring it to pass. The work may perhaps have had peculiar antecedents it may have been written for the stage and been refused; it may possibly have been written for a wager; it may have been written for the "ChapBook," in which we believe it has appeared; it may even have been written only for fun. These matters, however, are not before the general reading public (curiously enough, too, in these days of the omniscient literary gossip), and the average reader will take the book for whatever he finds between its covers. Thus regarded, without adventitious props, "Macaire" is a remarkable performance of genius. In a book written in collaboration, there is usually some curiosity as to what was written by which. In this case we note a comparison that came out of one of Mr. Henley's poems, and a curiously un-English use of the word "one" which was kindly lent by Mr. Attwater of "Ebb Tide" fame; otherwise it is hard to say which author was most responsible. If Mr. Gilbert had never written, it would probably have been different. The traditional Macaire is certainly a character with opportunities; it would seem on the face of things that Stevenson at least might have incarnated him once more, might have given us a new reading of the character, might have put in a form to be remembered that vague conception of intellect, effrontery, and un-morality. But it was not to be; and all that can now be done by the reader if he be, as we are, a lover of Stevenson and an admirer of Henley is to drop the book silently into the river of oblivion, trusting that no Astolpho will ever find it necessary to rescue it.

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