56

VOYAGE OF THE RESOLUTE.

after which he became the attacking party, tained the character it had obtained during and in less than a minute the imprudent her first voyage in 1850 under Captain lemming disappeared between the jaws of the Austin as "a happy ship." Throughout Tartar he had attempted to catch. this volume we feel that the Master is quite "My own experience of those industrious little warriors tended to prove they possessed right in his opinion, and we perceive that, a strange combination of sociality and com- although he never magnifies an office of his bativeness. Industrious they most certainly own, he contributed his full share of good are, as is proved by the complicated excava- work and good feeling towards making the tion of their subterranean cities: besides ship a happy one. We close our notice with which, every feather and hair, of bird and this sketch of the crew of the "Resolute " animal, found in the vicinity of their dwell- towards the conclusion of its second winter ings is made to contribute its iota of warmth in the frozen deep. and comfort to the interior of their winter quarters.

"I think I have never yet observed such a "I had many opportunities of watching studious body of men as are now on board their movements during my detention in the Resolute.' I have frequently walked Winter Harbor. My tent happened to be round the deck of an evening for the express pitched immediately over one of their large purpose of ascertaining their occupations, towns, causing its inhabitants to issue forth and have as frequently been gratified to find from its thousand gates to catch a view of all employed; most of them reading or the strangers. Frequently, on waking, we writing (for many keep journals), whilst the have found the little animals, rolled up in a minority are repairing clothes, and listening ball-like form, snugly ensconced within the to one of their messmates, reading aloud folds of our blanket bags; nor would they from a library book, stumbling over the hard be expelled from such a warm and desirable position without showing fight. On several Occasions I observed Naps (the dog) fast asleep, with one or two lemmings huddled away between his legs, like so many pups." Mr. M'Dougall says that, thanks to Captain Kellett and his officers, the "Resolute under all rigors of the Pole perfectly main

THE OLD HUNDREDTH TUNE.-A good history of congregational singing would be very interesting and amusing. About the close of the seventeenth century there were great doubts as to the propriety of singing in divine worship on the Lord's day, to clear up which Benj. Keach wrote his book called The Breach Repaired; or Singing an Holy Ordinance In my boyish days it was never questioned that the Old Hundredth was a composition of Luther's now this is denied; but it is certain this tune was used by the Reformers from his time. The first printed copy of it, in my possession, is in the French-German Psalter the preface to which says:

"Touchant la melodie, il a semblé le meilleur, qu'elle fust moderée, en la sorte que nous l'avons mise, pour emporter peids et majesté convenable au sujet : Et mesme pour estre propre à chanter en l'Eglise, selon qu'il a esté dit. De Genebe, ce 10 de Juin, 1548.'

This preface was written by Calvin. See Marsh's Works. The Old Hundredth is put

In the royal patent to print this Psalter in France granted 19 Oct. 1561, to Antoine Vincent of Lyons it is described as having "bonne musique comme a esté bien vne et cognue par gens doctes

words, or leaving them out altogether to be filled up by the imagination of his hearers. Navigation, music, and even drawing, have their votaries, and it would indeed be difficult to recognize, in the studious features of our ship's company, the British sailor of the present day with that described by Dibdin, or imitated by the T. P. Cooke school."

to Psalm CXXXIIII, and so continued in subsequent editions, of which I have those of Crespin, 1555; Vincent, 1562; Le Bas, 1567, and Estienne, 1567 and 1568. In the early Scotch Service books, Edinb. 1615 and 1685; Aberdeen, 1638, the Old Hundredth is placed to the 100th psalm, "All people that on earth do dwell," &c. It will also be so found appended to the early Genevan English Bibles from 1576, and to the Jubilate (Ps. 100) in that printed at Geneva by Crespin, 1568, "with apt notes to sing withall."

[The Marlowe and Keach controversy touching Psalm-singing is of all curiosities the most remarkable. It runs through about thirty little volumes. The arguments of Hanserd Knollys and Isanc Marlowe took this course: "The church (Baptist) never sang until Mr. Keach came among us, There is no such thing in the Old Testament that the Church of God, minister and people, men and women, did ever vocally sing together in church worship." Richard Allen came out in defence of Keach, and his Singing of Psalms a Christian Duty deserves to be reprinted.]-Notes and Queries. en l'art de musique." There is no mention of the composers.

if a rejoinder were offered he always showed a determination to have the last word. He was more of a pamphleteer than of a public censor-more of a reviewer than of a critic or essayist-and more of a debater than an orator. There was a certain malign asperity

He

From The Press, August 15. tremely difficult, in the presence of his unTHE Right Hon. John Wilson Croker died buried remains, to offer a strict examination at Sir William Wightman's villa, St. of Mr. Croker's stormy literary career. To Alban's-bank, Hampton, at ten o'clock on use a favorite illustration of his own, Mr. Monday night. The right hon. gentleman Croker was "the foul weather Jack" of had been in declining health for some periodical literature. He was bitter and months past, and had removed from Ken- boisterous in his galling derision of an adsington Palace to Judge Wightman's villa versary; rapid and unceremonious in attack, within the last week to see if change of air and scene would have any beneficial effect on his health. The deceased was son of Mr. John Croker, Surveyor-General of Ireland, and was born in December, 1780, in County Galway, Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he greatly of mind and fierce propensity to energetic distinguished himself, and in 1802 called to disparagement of individuals in Mr. Croker the Irish bar. Mr. Croker entered the which raised him a swarm of enemies. House of Commons in 1807, for Down- left upon numbers the impression that he patrick. He sat in eight successive Parlia- was one of the pamphleteers of the eighteenth ments, having represented the University of century who came into the world fifty years Dublin, Yarmouth, Athlone, and Bodmin in too late. He had a vast stock of personal the Lower House of the Legislature. Mr. and defamatory gossip, more or less auCroker retired after the election of 1832, thentic; he had a prodigious command of when he sat with the Marquis of Douro damaging personal allusions; he had an (now Duke of Wellington) for the disfran- innate propensity to sarcasm, accompanied chised borough of Aldebrough, Suffolk. It with literary finish in forging his truculent will be remembered that Mr. Croker was, from his introduction into public life, a great friend of the Duke of York, In 1809, he was appointed Secretary of the Admiralty, which appointment he held until 1830, having in June, 1828, been made a Privy Councillor. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society (1810), D.C.L., LL.D., a Fellow of the Asiatic Society, and of other learned institutions. By his death a pension of £1,500 on the Consolidated Fund ceases, which the right hon. gentleman had enjoyed ever since his retirement from the Admiralty in 1830. The deceased gentleman married, in 1806, Miss Pennell, daughter of Mr. Wm. Pennell, for many years Consul-General at the Brazils, who survives her husband.

In

discharges; he had fluent lips, a mordant tongue, and a front of brass. To "put him down" was out of the question; he existed in being attacked; he liked having a public quarrel on his hands; and he had justifiable confidence in his unfailing stock of vituperation, and corrosive virulence of reply. literature his best performance was an admirably penned "Sketch of Ireland-Past and Present-1808)," which was acute and clear in thinking, and curiously neat in its elaborate imitation of Tacitus. But we think his highest and worthiest mental efforts were in the debate on the Reform Bill in 1831 and 1832, when, after many years of comparative Parliamentary inactivity, he shone forth a brilliant debater, eloquent in The death of the late Right Honorable statement, and ready in reply. It can be John Wilson Croker has come without sur- said with truth that neither his political prise. For the last few years Mr. Croker friends nor foes anticipated the extent of labored under a singular complication of Mr. Croker's Parliamentary resources until bodily infirmities, and it was a wonder he he appeared in Opposition. During his lived so long. Born at Galway in 1780, long tenure of the Secretaryship of the AdMr. Croker early came before the public, miralty he had been looked upon as only one and in activity of work he was second to of the subalterns of the old Tory party, and none amongst the literary men of his gene- as not being well fitted for playing a leading ration. About the value of his writings, part in the House of Commons. The quesand upon the estimate of his character, tion on which he had been used to speak in opinions (even amongst Conservatives) are early years was "Catholic Emancipation," various and opposite, and it would be ex-and it was said (we cannot say with what

accuracy) that the Chief of the Tory party a jaundiced o observer, and the gall-bladder

His

did not wish that Mr. Croker should put was too active in his atrabilious composition. himself forward too much in debate. In Although sarcasm was his favorite weapon, those times etiquette was stricter than now in its employment he was far surpassed by about official subordinates not often appear- difficult, even for his best friends, to say in some of his adversaries; and it would be ing on their legs." Mr. Croker was what Mr. Croker ever was first-rate Yet, never a popular man at any time in his con- undoubtedly he had a mind of extraordinary nection. He was too habitually censorious, activity; he was quick in acquiring knowland he did not comport himself with suffi- edge, tenacious in retaining it; he was cient respect towards his rivals, or his allies. polemical by instinct, and controversial by His conception of a critic was that of a profession; rarely profound in his views, his standard for measuring right and wrong was literary lictor. Authors of the opposite purely conventional, but his affectation of party, occasionally of the weaker sex, were aristocratic prejudices, and echoing the tied up by him; and Mr. Croker was never fashionable cant of the great and high-born, happier than when (figuratively) he broke was ridiculous and out of place. On the his bundle of rods on the blistered backs of whole, Mr. Croker was a literary man whose his tortured victims. He, himself, seemed powers were more active than original, and, callous to ridicule and reproof. If he was even allowing their full force to his acuteknocked down in argument, he got up again that the defects of his mind counter-balanced ness and prompt command of details, we fear with the temperament of an Irishman at a his merits. For several years his connection fair, who thinks that bumps and blows are with the Quarterly Review had ceased, and only compliments to be returned. We fear he did not at the close of his career enjoy that incriticism" (as the literary pam- much of the confidence of many of the phleteering of the quarterly organs was leaders of the Conservative connection. The called) Mr. Croker gave more needless pain that he was never chivalrous in dealing with heaviest charges against him probably are to individuals than any reviewer that could be named. If he had the pleasure, he had opponents, and that he never helped the rising talents of his own connection. also the pains of a controversialist. As a self-sufficiency, his jealousy, and his spleen political writer he was surpassed by some of were too often apparent. He did not agree his contemporaries. His style had a fatal well with the literary supporters of the mannerism, which was happily ridiculed in Conservative party, and one of them (now the remark that "his articles seemed drawn no more) wrote the coarsest and cleverest up from the briefs of an Old Bailey attor- Croker's intimate connection with the late epigram since the days of Swift upon Mr. ney." On the "French Revolution" Mr. Marquis of Hertford. His biographer (if he Croker set up for being especially strong, have one) will have a most difficult task to but his mockery of the supposition that a perform, and he should be cautious how he Napoleon dynasty could ever stand, or be lays himself or his principal open to replies; accepted by the French, was not very dis- for, judging by what already has appeared criminative; and, on the whole, even on from political adversaries towards one who in print, we fear little mercy can be expected English affairs, he cannot be praised for exceeded all living journalists and periodical practical sagacity or clear foresight. The gloomy view which he always took of the national prospects was described by the late Marquis Wellesley as emanating from a spirit of sanguine despondency.' He never discerned the corrective causes which counterbalanced some of the effects of the Reform Bill, and his lugubrious efforts as the Conservative Cassandra in the Quarterly Review were so monotonous as to invite bad punsters to play upon their writer's ominous name. It has always been supposed that Mr. Croker was a careful preserver of all his papers, and that he employed much of his leisure on his "Life and Times." His statements must, we fear, be accepted with caution, as he was

contributors in the excessive license of dis-
paragement which he claimed. But it is
only fair to recollect that the times in which
Mr. Croker was reared were more passionate
than our quieter days, and that the tone of
"Liberal" writers was extremely abusive-
would not have been adequate.
so that a rose-water school of reviewing
On the
whole, however, it is to be regretted that
Mr. Croker did not remain in Parliament,
where his ready powers of argument, and his
valued after the Reform Bill.
political knowledge, would have been much
He might
then have gained a higher meed of fame than
even the partiality of friendship or com-
munity of political feelings can venture to
assign him now.

From The Athenæum.

Chasot. A Contribution to the History of
Frederick the Great and his Times
[Chasot. Zur Gescichte Friedrichs des
Grossen und seiner Zeit]. By Kurd von
Schlözer. (Berlin, Hertz; London, Wil-
liams & Norgate.)

THE volume before us is one of the ablest and best written historical monographies which have come under our notice from Germany.

fancy to the buoyant, jovial, and highspirited young Frenchman,-made him his friend and companion, the partaker of his frolics, his studies, and his battles,-and though, after a lapse of eighteen years, their friendly intercourse, by some misunderstanding, was interrupted for a considerable length of time, yet in after life it was taken up again; and Frederick, when looking back to the days gone by, was never weary of repeating, with fond recollection," Chasot, c'est le matador de ma jeunesse."

Isaac Francis Egmont, Count de Chasot, the scion of an old and noble French family, originally residing in Burgundy, but later After the "military promenade" of 1734 settling itself in Normandy, was born, on we meet Chasot as one of the most conthe 18th of February, 1716, in the town of spicuous members of that gay and witty Caen. He dedicated himself to a military circle with which Frederick had surrounded career, and as early as 1734, when France himself in his castle of Rheinsberg, that picin order to maintain the succession of Stan-turesque asylum on the border of the Lake islaus Lescynski to the throne of Poland- of Grienerick, near Neu-Ruppin, where the was waging war with Austria, Prussia, and Crown-Prince, during the last year before some other powers of the German Empire, his accession, prepared himself, in a retirewe find him, as a promising young officer, in ment entirely dedicated to literature, art, the suite of the Duke of Berwick, com- and the elegant pleasures of a refined court mander-in-chief of the French army then life, for the struggles that were near at hand beleaguering the fortress of Philippsburg, on for him. The chapter dedicated to the the Upper Rhine. Here (after the Duke, description of these things is one of the most while inspecting the trenches, had been attractive of the book. We see the castle killed at his side by a cannon-ball,-the which, when it was bought for Frederick, fortress being taken a month afterwards by almost resembled a ruin, rebuilt and decothe Marquis d'Asfeld, Berwick's successor,) rated,-we look down from its windows on Chasot, as it seems, being himself the pro- the quiet mirror of the wood-encircled lake voked party, was involved in a duel, in beneath,-the park full of vases and statues, which he was unlucky enough to kill his invites us to its walks and recesses,-"lords adversary, a relative of the Duke of Boufflers, and ladies gay" wander about in its shades, one of the most influential persons at the-hunting parties ride forth into the adjoinCourt of Versailles, and commander of the ing forests,-balls and masquerades are folregiment Bourbonnais, in which Chasot held lowed by theatrical representations,-pican appointment. All the young man's tures of Voltaire are hanging on the walls, prospects of military promotion were thus while his works, together with those of blighted, and, moreover, a most severe Racine, Corneille, Diderot, and the other punishment awaited him. To escape this, representatives of French literature, are he resolved on flight. Provided with bril- glistening on the shelves of the library, or liant testimonials respecting his bravery lying about on tables and couches, and the signed by almost all the officers of his regi- concerts of Graun and Benda, (and somement, he rode into the Imperial camp, and times, too, in the stillness of midnight, the placed himself under the protection of the rich and meow tones of a solitary flute,) enemy's Generalissimo, old Prince Eugene, inform us that we are at the court of a of Savoy. The veteran received him with prince who, with all his other accomplishkindness,-made him a daily guest in his ments, combines an enthusiastic love for tent and at his table,-and, by introducing music, and is an excellent performer himhim to the Crown-Prince of Prussia, after-self. Chasot, as may be imagined, did not wards King Frederick the Great (then a play the least important part in this brilstudent of the art of war under the guidance liant and elevated circle. Young, handof the warrior of Blenheim), gave a decisive some, clever, and full of animal spirits, he turn to his whole future. Frederick took a was one of its first ornaments; and Fred

erick, in his humorous poems to Jordan, | Dreadful forebodings filled his soul, and they speaks more than once of the shining qualities and gay ways of Chasot, that "fin Normand, qui se plaît dans la chasse et le bruit, et qui sert par semestrer