his notes, Mr. Bruce has collected together the principal authorities on the manner of the deaths of Prince Edward and King Henry, and we think that his opinion founded on them is deserving of attention. See the editor's concluding observation at p. 47.

2. A play by John Bale, entitled "Kynge Johan," edited by Mr. Collier. This is printed from a manuscript in the library of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire. The design of the play was to promote and confirm the Reformation, of which, after his conversion, Bale was one of the most strenuous and unscrupulous supporters. This design he executed in a manner until then unknown. He took some of the leading and popular events of the reign of King John,-his disputes with the Pope; the suffering of his kingdom under the interdict; his subsequent submission to Rome, and his imputed death by poison from the hands of a monk of Swinstead Abbey, and applied them to the circumstances of the country in the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII.

3. The next publication of the Camden Society consists of a contemporary alliterative poem on the deposition of King Richard the Second, in English, together with the Latin poem of Richard de Maydeston, on the same subject, edited by Mr. Wright. The first is exceedingly curious as a specimen of composition, and was discovered by Mr. Wright in a manuscript in the Public Library of Cambridge, where it had long remained unknown. The second, a Latin poem of little value, is taken from a manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

4. THE PLUMPTON CORRESPONDENCE: a series of letters from the reign of Edward IV. to that of Henry VIII., edited by Mr. Stapleton. This volume is taken from a manuscript placed at the disposal of the Camden Society by Peregrine Edward Townley, Esq. The letters it contains are exceedingly curious and valuable, but throw very little light on the history of the period.

5. Anecdotes and Traditions, illustrative of early English History and Literature; edited by Mr. Thoms. This volume consists of a very interesting collection of anecdotes, derived from three manuscripts in the British Museum, and very ably edited by a gentleman who has greatly distinguished himself in the history of fiction. The portion containing notices of traditions is most intensely interesting, and altogether the work is exceedingly honorable both to the society and editor. Nor must we omit to remark the "Notices of Sir Nicholas Lestrange's Family" prefixed, from the pen of J. G. Nichols, Esq., one of the most distinguished topographers and genealogists of the day: this little memoir adds highly to his reputation, and by the extraordinary power of re

search displayed at every turn, excites the admiration of the

reader.

6. A contemporary Chronicle of the first Thirteen Years of the Reign of King Edward the Fourth, by John Warkworth; edited by Mr. Halliwell. Considered in an historical point of view, this is the most valuable of all the publications of the Camden Society, and it certainly yields to none in depth of research and carefulness of editing. John Warkworth was master of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and this document is now for the first time edited from the original manuscript still preserved in the library of the college. In the introduction, Mr. Halliwell has arranged a great mass of evidence in favour of the murder of Henry the Sixth, and we think that no one can now reasonably entertain a doubt of the fact. The notes are full of most valuable matter; we regret that our limits will not permit us to enter into even a slight notice of any of them suffice it to say, that they contain new and important facts, chiefly taken from manuscripts in local libraries, and consequently not easy of general access.

7. The last publication of the Camden Society is a collection of English Political Songs, from the reign of John to that of Edward the Second, edited and translated by Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A. This is a most singularly interesting volume, whether we regard the light it throws on history, or its extreme curiosity. The editor remarks in his introduction that "few historical documents are more interesting or important than the contemporary songs in which the political partisan satirized his opponents, and stirred up the courage of his friends, or in which the people exulted over victories gained abroad against their enemies, or at home against their oppressors, or lamented over evil counsels and national calamities. Yet, though a few specimens have been published from time to time in collections of miscellaneous poetry, such as those of Percy and Ritson, and have never failed to attract attention, no book specially devoted to ancient political songs has yet appeared." An appendix contains some extracts from the French version of Peter Langtoft's chronicle.

When we turn to the intended publications of the Camden Society, we find very inferior documents creeping in, and it would be well if some of them were sent adrift at once, and not allowed to stain the pages of the Society's circular. For instance, Hayward's "Annals of the first Four Years of the Reign of Elizabeth" cannot be worth publishing. Do they contain new facts? Again, we perceive the narratives of Two Pilgrimages to the Holy Land proposed for publication, one of them undertaken in the year 1458, and the other in the year 1517: we question if

either of these can contain anything worth paper and print; but, at all events, itineraries of that late date ought to be very different from the generality of such documents to be worth much. The following selection will, however, show that our censure is not extended to all:

1. A brief History of the Bishoprick of Somerset, from its foundation to the year 1174. Edited by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A.

2. The Egerton Papers; consisting of public and private documents formerly belonging to Sir Thomas Egerton, Baron Ellesmere, and Viscount Brackley; and now preserved among the manuscripts the property of Lord Francis Egerton, President of the Camden Society. Edited by John Payne Collier, Esq.,

F.S.A.

1

3. The Chronicle of Josceline de Brakelond, Monk of St. Edmundsbury, from A.D. 1157 to 1211. Edited by John Gage Rokewode, Esq., F.R.S., Director S.A.

4. The Doctrine of the Lollards: a manuscript attributed to Wickliffe. Edited by the Rev. James Henthorn Todd, B.D.

5. The Rutland Papers: documents relating to the Coronation of Henry VIII., the regulation of his Household, the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and his Interviews with the Emperor, selected from the MS. collections of His Grace the Duke of Rutland. Edited by William Jerdan, Esq., F.S.A.

6. The Chronicle of Bartholomew de Cotton, a Monk of Norwich, from the earliest period to the year of our Lord 1298. Edited by John Bruce, Esq., F.S.A.

7. The History of the Barons' Wars in the Reign of Henry III., by William de Rishanger. Edited by J. O. Halliwell, Esq. F.R.S.

We e are, however, much more confined in our historical views than our continental neighbours. The French have their Historical Committee of Sciences, and make it a branch of their Record Commission, but what English ministry would not scorn the idea of undergoing the expense of printing middle-age scientific documents, however valuable they may be in the history of the sciences? It is on this account that even the works of our earliest and greatest genius, ROGER BACON, the Aristotle of the middle-ages, are actually in the course of publication under the direction of the French government! If government is found wanting, is there no patron of science-is there no one ready to come forth in the spirit of an Arundel, and claim the glory of such a work as our own?

We look and hope for better things, but we look and hope in vain so long as a mercantile spirit fetters literature, and measures

its effects by mammon. Real learning must necessarily be at a discount when authors rely upon their pens for support, and when the most frivolous nonsense is certain of meeting with the best reward. Where is either honour or emolument waiting for the historian? If he turns to the court, is it there? If he trusts to the public, is it there? No! he must be contented in present life with the probability of a future generation producing a few who will be able to appreciate his labours. Such a prospect is not, we think, very inviting, especially in the present age of utilitarianism.

ART. IV.-Reise des kaiserlich Russischen Flotten Lieutenants Ferdinand v. Wrangel, längs der Nordküste von Siberien und auf dem Eismeere, in dem Jahren 1820 bis 1824. (Survey of the North Eastern Coast of Siberia, by order of the Russian Government.) Berlin, 1839.

THE publication of the work now before us has been unaccountably delayed for more than ten years, and appears at length in the form of a translation, while the original Russian manuscript is still allowed idly to repose in the archives of the Admiralty at St. Petersburg. The distinguished author has in the mean time been advancing from the rank of lieutenant to that of admiral; his services, therefore, have been fully estimated by his government, a circumstance that makes the suppression of his attractive narrative the more surprising. The consequence has been, that though to the scientific world the name of von Wrangel has long been advantageously known, through some fragmentary communications made by Professor Parrot, yet the public generally have hitherto remained in perfect ignorance of the meritorious and persevering exertions of the Russian seaman, to complete the geographical survey of the north of Asia. Our maps have long borne the corrections which the labours of our gallant author enabled him to effect; it is right that we should at length learn something of the personal sufferings and privations by which those labours were accompanied. Before proceeding, however, to an examination of Admiral von Wrangel's own expedition, we will place before our readers a brief abstract of the earlier discoveries made in Siberian geography.

The earliest discoverers of the Siberian coast were the Rus sian fur traders, whom, towards the middle of the 16th century, we find engaged in an active commerce with the population dwelling at the mouths of the Ob and Yennissei rivers. They seldom attempted to sail round the peninsula which divides the Gulf of

57

Russian Survey of the North Eastern Coast of Siberia. Ob from the Carian sea, preferring to ascend the rivers of the one great maritime inlet, and, after drawing their light vessels over a small intervening tract, to descend again by the streams that pour their waters into the opposite bay. From such navigators none but the most vague accounts could be expected of the regions they visited.

Early in the 17th century the Russian provincial governors appear to have taken a pride in sending small parties of Cossacks into the unexplored recesses of Siberia, for the purpose of imposing a tribute upon the wandering inhabitants, and annexing additional territories to the already vast empire of their sovereign. In most instances little or no resistance was offered to these conquering discoverers. Sometimes, however, the roving tribes that tended their herds on the frozen heaths of Northern Asia offered the most determined opposition to those who invited them to surrender their wild independence; sanguinary wars then ensued, attended by the same melancholy result which has ever followed the collision of ill-armed and uncivilized nations with the disciplined troops of European powers. Many warlike tribes, whom their discoverers found in the possession of numerous herds of rein-deer, have all dwindled away to a few wretched fishermen scattered along the banks of the majestic rivers that flow in stately solitude through the icy soil of Northern Asia; while nations, of whom Siberian tradition still relates that "their fire hearths were once as numerous as the stars of heaven," have now been either absorbed by some of the neighbouring tribes, or have wholly vanished from the soil over which their ancestors once held unquestioned sway. Yet there is an evident solicitude on the part of the Russian government to let its yoke weigh as lightly as possible on these northern tribes, whom nature has so scantily endowed with her gifts. The tribute imposed on them is light; they are wholly exempt from the law of recruitment, and every encouragement appears to be given to their commerce; but the benevolent designs of the imperial government are often very ineffectually seconded by its local agents, who by their arbitrary measures, and yet more frequently by well-meant but injudicious interference, oppose almost insurmountable obstacles to the social improvement of the much-enduring natives. One nation only, the Tshuktshi (Tsheskoes* is the name by which they are

No

*The Russian nomenclature, like that of the East, is variable and uncertain. set of globes or maps agree even in terms of as close affinity as these now before our consideration. This uncertainty in the names of places, more particularly, however, in their orthography, arises partly from the custom of travellers of endeavouring to describe the articulation of the natives. The natural consequence is, that an English, a French, and a German traveller will almost always vary in their orthography, when writing of half-civilized nations.