Alexander William Kinglake - Eothen; with an Introduction and Notes

This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler

By
A. W. KINGLAKE

WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
By ANON

WITH A FRONTISPIECE
FROM A PAINTING
By the AUTHOR

LONDON
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
MDCCCC

. Herod . vii. 58.

Eothen is the earliest work of Alexander William Kinglake, best known as the historian of the Crimean War. It is an account of a touror rather of selected adventures which occurred during a tourundertaken in the Levant in 1834, but was not published until ten years later. The biographical notices of the Author are somewhat meagre, as by his dying directions all his papers were destroyed. He was born near Taunton in 1809, and educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, at which latter he is said to have been the friend of Thackeray and Tennyson. On leaving college he started on his Oriental tour with Lord Pollington (the Methley of Eothen), and on returning to England was called to the Bar at Lincolns Inn, and obtained a lucrative practice. But the life was too tame to suit his taste. In 1845 he visited Algeria, and went through a campaign with the flying column of St. Arnaud; and in 1854 went to the Crimea with Lord Raglan, and was present at the battle of Alma. On returning to England he decided to go into politics, and was elected for Bridgewater in 1857 in the Liberal interest. He seems to have been a poor speaker, and to have exercised little parliamentary influence; but we are told that in 1859 he was strongly opposed to the Conspiracy Bill, which was introduced after Orsinis attempt to murder Napoleon III., and that in 1860 he denounced the cession of Nice and Savoy to France. In both cases he was apparently actuated by his personal dislike of Napoleon, which is evident in his historical works. In 1868 he was again returned for Bridgewater, but unseated on petition, for bribery. One might have supposed that he had acquired this habit in the East, but his biographers assert that he knew nothing of the irregularities which were committed by his agents. But the chief business of his later life was the composition of the History of the War in the Crimea, of which the first two volumes appeared in 1863, and the seventh and eighth (completing the work) in 1887. He died in 1891.

His earlier and less ambitious, though perhaps more charming, book was rejected by several publishers, but proved an immense success. It caught the popular fancy at once, and after the lapse of more than fifty years still maintains an honourable position. In the year after its first appearance it passed through three editions, containing several variations from the editio princeps which have attracted the attention of those who are interested in bibliography. It is only fair to reprint the book with these corrections, which seem mostly due to the authors laudable desire for greater accuracy. For instance, he was apparently seized with qualms as to his assertion (end of chap. xiii.) that when he emerged from the Dead Sea after bathing therein his skin was thickly encrusted with sulphate of magnesia, and cautiously substituted salts for the more chemical expression. Yet I observe that the most recent Encyclopdia states that the water of the Dead Sea is characterised by the presence of a large quantity of magnesian salts, so perhaps his first statement was not so wrong after all. He also found that he had talked of Jove when he should have said Neptune in his account of the Troad, and, conceiving a mistrust of the former deity, removed his name not only from this passage but also from chap. xviii., in which he altered That touch was worthy of Jove into In that touch was true hospitality. I confess that I think this regard for truth might have moved him to expunge his account of the advances made to him by the young ladies of Bethlehem (end of chap. xvi.); I cannot believe that narrative to be even probable, but anyone may retort that my scepticism is due to the absence of those attractive qualities which Kinglake possessed.

In chap. xvi. he says that shrouds are dipped in the holy water of the Jordan and preserved as a burial dress which shall inure (later editions enure) for salvation in the realms of death. Some critical scholar of eminence should be called upon to emend or explain this mysterious passage. At least, if people are allowed to print such things in the nineteenth century what right have we to emend the classical authors when they choose to be unintelligible?

The truth is that Eothen, despite its great literary merits, is often comfortably slipshod. And very properly so, for if there is to be any correspondence between subject and style, it must be inappropriate for a traveller recounting confidentially his diversions and mishaps to adopt the phraseology of Gibbon. Matthew Arnold, in his Essay on the Literary Influence of Academies, selected the History of the Crimean War as an example of what he called the Corinthian style. Eothen certainly presents specimens of this manner, but they are hardly characteristic; it is often urbane, and has the warm glow, blithe movement, and pliancy of life, which, according to the critics definition, Corinthians lack. It is not devoid of unity, but it is many sided and kaleidoscopic. The author varies from the trivial to the solemn, from boisterous exuberance to careful austerity, from flippancy to rhapsody, and is perhaps never quite serious. One wonders whether one is reading a clever but somewhat slangy letter, or a long-meditated essay polished and repolished by incessant