CONTENTS OF NO. (CLVIII. FOR MARCH, 1847. Page ART. I.-Memoir of the Life and Services of Vice-Admiral Sir Jahleel Brenton, Baronet, K.C.B. Edited by the Rev. Henry Raikes, Chancellor of the Diocese of Chester II.-1. The Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakspere. Edited by Charles 2. The Works of William Shakespeare. The text formed from an entirely 3. Remarks on Mr. J. P. Collier's and Mr. C. Knight's editions of Shake- III-1. Gallus, oder Römische Scenen aus der Zeit Augusts. Zur Erläuterung 2. Charikles: Bilder altgriechischer Sitte. Zur genaueren Kenntniss des 3. Gallus; or Roman Scenes in the Time of Augustus. With Notes and 4. Charicles; or Illustrations of the Private Life of the Ancient Greeks. IV-1. British Costume. A Complete History of the Dress of the Inhabitants 2. Costume in England. By F. W. Fairholt, F.S.A. With above six 3. The Book of Costume-or Annals of Fashion. By a Lady of Rank. V.-1. Correspondence relating to the Marriages of the Queen and Infanta of 2. Considerations respecting the Marriage of the Duke of Montpensier VI.-1. The Persian Cuneiform Inscription at Behistan, decyphered and trans- 2. Ueber die Keilinschriften der ersten und zweiten Gattung. Von Chr. 147 167 180 200 215 3. On the Decyphering of the second Achæmenian or Median species of Arrow-headed Writing. By N. L. Westergaard. 4. Beiträge zur Erklärung der Persischen Keilinschriften. Von Adolf 5. Die Grabschrift des Darius in Nakshi Rustam erläutert. Von Dr 6 Lettres de M. Botta sur les Découvertes à Khorsabad. Publiées par M. VIII.—1. The Winter of 1846-7 in Antrim ; with Remarks on Out-door Relief. 2. First Annual Report of the Board of Supervision for the Relief of the 3. Second Letter from an Irish Gentleman to an English Friend. 4. Minutes of Evidence taken before her Majesty's Commissioners appoint- ed to inquire into the Law and Practice in respect to the Occupation of IX.-The Life and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Henry Adding- ton, Viscount Sidmouth. By the Hon. and Rev. George Pellew. D.D., Page ART. I.-Memoir of the Life and Services of Vice-Admiral Sir Jahleel Brenton, Baronet, K.C.B. Edited by the Rev. Henry Raikes, Chancellor of the Diocese of Chester. Lond., Svo., pp. 652. 1846. THIS volume, as the editor himself confesses, is far from fulfilling the promise of its title-page. It by no means gives an adequate account of the 'services' of Sir Jahleel Brenton; which well deserved a separate record, more ample than could be expected from any general historian of the fleet. We may hope to see this defect supplied by some gentleman of the admiral's own cloth; but a valuable opportunity has been lost in consequence of the selection of Mr. Raikes for the editorship of his papers. A writer having the free command of these fresh materials, and also the ability and the inclination to do justice to his brilliant exploits, might have produced a biography of deep and varied interest, sure to command a station in every library on the same shelf with Lord Collingwood's Letters and the Life of Lord de Saumarez. The risk now is that while this compilation finds a warm reception among sober and thoughtful circles at home, the comparative poverty of its naval details may prove a grievous obstacle to its circulation among the classes most likely to be benefited by the whole example of such a life as Brenton's. It is much to be regretted that the task had not devolved upon some well-trained officer, proud of the hero, and yet not ashamed of the Christian. At the same time a few random dips into the chapters-not to mention the homily called a preface-may convey an exaggerated notion of the extent to which the work is really deficient-or, according to the modern phrase, one-sided. The truth is that, although whoever would study seafights and naval tactics must consult different authorities, we have here such a view of the admiral's professional progress as may probably satisfy most landsmen; and that, though such matters are throughout subordinated to the exposition of his moral and religious feelings and motives, that exposition is itself calculated to arrest by degrees the interest, the respect, the admiration of every candid mind. There is hardly a line from Sir Jahleel's own pen, or the survivors of his family, that any reader would wish to have been omitted. The misfortune is that the Chancellor of the Diocese of Chester seems to have been haunted from first to last with-not, what would have been very reasonable, a consciousness that no one ought to undertake the biography of a distinguished sailor unless he be capable of entering with full zest into details of martial achievement-but a sort of penitential misgiving that a dignified ecclesiastic can never be quite well employed on any literary task which is not expressly and exclusively theological; and the readiest device that occurred to him for easing his conscience, was to dock and pare away to the utmost every scene and transaction in which Brenton displayed no qualities but what might have shone out, under the like circumstances, in 'Nelson, Howe, or Jervis,' and to fill the va- fancy) to the same profession. It is pleasing cated space with reflections and speculations to see that his latter days were made comof his own, which it might have been more fortable by the appointment of Regulating judicious to reserve for a volume of Ser- Captain at Edinburgh, in which office he mons. But, happily, whenever the modest died about 1800. hero himself had recorded any scene of professional glory, reverence for the dead, or deference to the living, appears to have restrained the pruning hook: and there are perhaps three hundred pages in this corpulent octavo, for the sake of which we should tolerate the cost of the other 352. It would be interesting to have a catalogue of the eminent Americans whose more direct services to the old country were the result of their attachment to honour and the monarchy. It would include not a few illustrious names in various departments— some of them still living ones. Mr. Raikes owes to a surviving sister of Sir Jahleel's this anecdote of his first voyage-when he and his next brother accompanied their father in his escape from America to England Miss Brenton says:— The name Jahleel suggests a puritan pedigree; and the Brentons emigrated to America during the troubled period of Charles I.: but Mr. Raikes's narrative includes no distinct mention of their religious tenets. The first pilgrim must have carried some wealth My brother has often conversed with me on and consideration with him, for within a the subject of courage, and drawn the distinction year after his arrival he was named one of between moral and physical courage. He felt the 'select men' of Massachusetts; and, that his was not natural, but acquired. His first after filling various other public offices, he trial was at the age of seven, when he first went died Governor of Rhode Island in the latter to sea with his father. A supposed enemy came years of Charles II. His son, Jahleel II., brothers immediately sought a secure hiding-place, in sight, and the ship cleared for action. My two was collector of the customs in New Eng- but their father, discovering their intention, calied land under King William; and in the next them, and with a stern voice told them, that if generation Jahleel III., who seems to have they attempted to run from the enemy's guns he been one of the chief landowners in New- would immediately shoot them. The threat was England, married the daughter of Samuel believed, though it was totally in opposition to Cranstoun, governor of that colony, father's nature, and the greater and immediate my a younger son of the noble house of Cranstoun. danger superseded the one which had been antiBy this lady he had seven daughters and cipated. My brothers remained by the side of eight sons, one of whom, Jahleel IV., married Henrietta Cowley (of the Cowleys of Worcestershire), who brought him a large family. Their eldest son, Jahleel V., the subject of these memoirs,was born in August, 1770. their father on deck; but the threat was never forgotten, and the dread of disgrace soon became stronger with them than that of death.'-p. 401. The younger brother of this story was also in after life an officer of distinguished gallantry-the same Captain Edward PelThe fourth Jahleel in his youth entered ham Brenton known in literature by his the Royal Navy; but had attained only the Naval History, 5 vols., 8vo. But we must rank of lieutenant, and was living quietly on reject the date assigned to the incident. In the patrimonial estate in Rhode Island, the voyage of 1778 the father was himself when the fatal disturbances began. He was but a passenger, and though he would be a man of high character and respectable sure to prepare for taking a part in defendtalents, and had many attached friends ing the ship, we cannot imagine that he among the leaders of the revolutionary would have compelled, or even permitted, cause. Every effort was made to enlist him two passenger boys, the elder only seven on their side; he was offered at once the years of age, to expose themselves to the very highest rank in their naval armament; dangers of the deck. but no blandishments could shake his loyalty. It was not till 1780 that Mrs. Brenton Persecution was then tried, and with equal reached this country, and in 1781 Jahleel, success. He at last escaped to a British now aged eleven years, embarked as midcruiser off the coast. He seems to have had shipman in the Queen, of which his father his two elder sons with him, and some time had obtained the command. It was proafterwards his wife and younger children bably in the Queen that the incident just joined him in England. All but a small referred to occurred-and perhaps Mr. fragment of a liberal fortune was sacrificed Raikes has blundered eleven into seven. in consequence of this gentleman's adhesion the peace of 1783 the boy was placed in to his duty as a British subject. He served the Maritime School at Chelsea, where he with reputation in the years immediately spent two industrious and profitable years. ensuing rose to be a post captain, and In 1785 he joined his family, then resident brought up three sons (all that outlived in-lat St. Omer's, his father being anxious that At |