found in great detail in the fifth edition of Sir Howard Douglas' invaluable work on Naval Gunnery' (Art. 167, et seq., and Art. 381). The proposal was also considered, but finally rejected by the United States' Government in 1852. It is not therefore from any want of attention to the subject, or from any puerile aversion to iron, that the Admiralty hesitated to adopt the new system of construction; but simply because throughout the long series of experiments which have been made, no iron-plate has yet been manufactured which effectually resists the impact of a 68pounder fired with a charge of sixteen pounds of powder. At the same time, for the reasons above given, though we do not believe the Gloire' or any other iron-plated ship to be invulnerable, (and it is well known in France that the inventor of the new artillery will undertake to make a gun and a projectile capable of piercing whatever can be built by the inventors of new ships); yet such ships are clearly less vulnerable than any others. They are not liable to be destroyed by hollow shot; and they may resist to a considerable extent the fire of land batteries, and of all smooth-bored ordnance.

6

The novelty and peculiar interest of this topic, and the vehemence with which it has been discussed on both sides, have induced us to dwell upon it more than we had intended, and to depart in some measure from the principal subject of the remarks. Our limits forbid us on the present occasion to advert to the important chapter in which this writer has shown, by a multitude of facts hitherto unknown, the deplorable waste of public money injudiciously spent on batteries that cannot mount guns, and harbours that cannot float ships; and also the actual state of our naval reserve, and the failure of the scheme hitherto proposed for manning the fleet. But we earnestly commend the work to the most serious consideration of all our readers. The question is one of incomparable moment to the country, and we are confident that the author of this book has touched the very seat of the disease. The fact that such books are written, shows as much as any thing, how deeply the malorganisation of the Admiralty has shaken the confidence of the naval profession and of the country in its administration. That in itself is a very great evil. Either the Admiralty is the most cruelly ill-used department in the State, or it is the most unsatisfactory. There is hardly one of its own officers, except those who are waiting upon the favour of the First Lord, or who tremble at the frown of a secretary, who does not denounce it; and the more a man knows by actual experience of the mode in which the business of the Admiralty is conducted, of the waste of money and labour in the dockyards, of the present

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state of discipline in ships' companies, and of the prospects of promotion in the navy list, the more disposed he is to regard this state of things as injurious, and even dangerous. This fact alone constitutes a case of grave suspicion. The publication which has elicited these remarks is evidently the work of a seaman, ardently attached to his profession,-probably of a man who has filled, or may fill, high commands, not hostile to the present Government,-devoted to the honour and safety of his country. He expresses, we will venture to say, the convictions of five-sixths of the independent members of his profession. When such men come forward to state such opinions of the system of administration under which they are serving, and of the probable results of the system, it is time for those who are responsible for the naval traditions of the country, and for Parliament itself, to look closely into the matter.

NOTE

ON MR. FERGUSSON'S THEORY OF THE SITE OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE AT JERUSALEM.

Ir is due to Mr. Fergusson to state that he has just published a pamphlet in answer to the criticism on his Essay on the 'Topography ' of Ancient Jerusalem,' contained in the last number of this Journal; and we invite those who may be desirous of seeing an able but intemperate recapitulation of Mr. Fergusson's peculiar opinions on this subject to peruse this production. For ourselves, having nothing to add to what we have already said, and nothing to alter in the opinion we then formed on the evidence before us, we shall not tax the patience of our readers by re-opening a topographical controversy; and we are content to leave the case where we placed it in October last. Mr. Fergusson, for whom and for whose other works we entertain the most sincere respect, appears to us to labour on this subject under a twofold delusion: he imagines that he made in 1846 a discovery so unquestionable, that no man can fail to agree with him who admits the evidence of his senses; and although this discovery has hitherto failed to convince most of those who have dispassionately examined the whole matter, he appears also to imagine that Dr. Robinson, Mr. Williams, Professor Willis, Count Vogué, the Puseyites, and the Edinburgh Reviewers, have all combined in a conspiracy against him, and have some sinister motive for rejecting his arguments. We assure him with perfect good humour that he is on both points equally mistaken. He acknowledges himself that his book on the Topography of Jerusalem' fell still-born from the press for fourteen years; and it is probable that if we had not recently directed public attention to his theory, it might still have failed to command the attention which in his own opinion it deserves. We are content, like Mr. Fergusson, to refer the final solution of the problem to time, and to a more accurate investigation of the buildings themselves.

No. CCXXX. will be published in April.

THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

APRIL, 1861.

No. CCXXX.

ART. I. — The Personal History of Lord Bacon. From unpublished MSS. By WM. HEPWORTH DIXON. London: 1861.

IT T is not the first time that the pages of this Journal have been devoted to an examination of the charges which weigh upon the character of Lord Bacon, and compel us to believe that the man who stands forth to all ages as the noblest representative of England's intellect, is not the noblest representative of her public virtue. The cause was argued at our assize long ago, when no less a man than Basil Montagu was the advocate of the great Chancellor, and no less a judge of historical evidence than Lord Macaulay rejected and refuted the defence of that enthusiastic biographer. It may well be that this great problem of the union of the highest intellectual powers with acts of incredible moral meanness and baseness, still exercises an irresistible attraction over the mind of many a student of history and of mankind; another generation has sprung up in the interval, and more accurate and extensive researches into the State Papers and the Council Registers of Elizabeth and James, have somewhat augmented the evidence bearing upon Bacon's life. Mr. Hepworth Dixon, with this evidence in his hands, calls upon the world to reject its former conclusions, and to reverse our former sentence. It would be an idle and a presumptuous attempt to rewrite those brilliant pages of our late illustrious contributor, which stand recorded in English literature as the most complete summary extant of the grandeur of Bacon's genius, and of the deplorable failings of his character. But in justice to Bacon himself, and to his most recent champion, we have carefully re-examined the whole of the evidence, both old

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