Originally published in Bentley's Miscellany (Richard Bentley) vol.28 #163 (Jul 1850).
"Let us now and then praise famous men," says a shrewd old Jewish writer; "men renowned for their power, such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, leaders of the people by their counsels, and by their knowledge of learning meet for the people; wise and eloquent in their instructions; such as found out musical tunes and recited verses in writing; rich men furnished with ability, who were honoured in their generation, and were the glory of their times, whose bodies are buried in peace, and whose name liveth for evermore." No other description do we need, and none perhaps could be found, that, from its force and truth, its distinctness and comprehensiveness, would better apply to those very eminent men, eminent in every rank of life, in every profession, in every department of literature and science, who added to their other honours this, which they did not probably esteem as the least, the title of Etonian.
Great and honoured names in consequence appear in these volumes, of warriors and statesmen, of bishops and archbishops, of faithful martyrs and learned divines ;of historians, poets, musicians, judges, orators, and philosophers; of men of all parties, and of some few isms; all of some note in their day, and of many of whom the memory will never fail.
To the many thousands of the Alumni Etonenses, this volume must, of very necessity, from its subject, be highly acceptable; since the very illustrious names that figure on its pages, and that owe their chief renown to their early connection with Eton, make it more than desirable to an Etonian, that he should know something of the men who have gone before him, and who have each contributed, perhaps, in some little measure, to the fame of their celebrated college. It warms one's heart, indeed, to read these memoirs of the good and great, as it delights one to see these many proofs collected together, of the powerful influence for good which Eton has been exercising through so many generations throughout the whole of England.
Of the many public men of historical celebrity, who are noticed in these pages, the memoirs are necessarily, in most cases, brief; and indeed but little could be said of the many, where so many come under observation; that little is, however, well put together, and all that it really imports us to know of such characters, is brought before us. In the notices of the scholars of the sixteenth century. there is information that will be new to many, and equally novel as amusing: but the seventeenth century brings out such men as the Earl of Essex, the parliamentary general; Dr. Hammond; Bishops Pearson and Sherlock; Sir Robert Walpole; Lord Bolingbrook, and many others of scarcely less note. In the next century appears names of still greater celebrity; Lords Chatham, and North, and Howe; the Marquisses Cornwallis and Wellesley; the writers Fielding and Gray; the statesmen Fox and Canning, and others of whom it was difficult to say little, nor was it an easy matter to select what was best to be said;and this applies especially to such men as Earl Grey, Lords Holland and Melbourne, whose political and other opinions have so lately provoked such fierce contentions amongst us, and of whom no notice could be taken that would be alike acceptable to all parties, during, at least, the present generation.
Mr. Creasy has, we judge, admirably acquitted himself of the by no means easy task he had uadertaken; his notices, though brief, are quite to the purpose: they are memoirs and not lives; and where he has been more liberal of his notes and observations, it is upon such characters as Lord Chatham, Lord Camden, Charles Fox, the Marquis Wellesley and Canning, the history of whose lives would be the political and social history of England while they lived.
The volume is indeed an admirable beginning of a probable series of volumes on the same subject, through years yet to come; and when most of us who were mingled with the past will be resting in our graves, the eminent Etonians now living will hereafter supply matter for a volume or two; and some of these at the present moment are found in the highest and most important offices in the state; such as the Duke of Wellington, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Denman, and with these may be numbered Lord Stanley, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Lyttleton, Sir Stratford Canning, Gladstone, Hallam, Milman, and a host besides. But our concern at present is with the men who are bodily lost to us—with the great men who were before us—with the giants of other days; and certainly the more we look upon them, and the more we are reminded of them, the more manifestly is it seen that in this our year of grace, 1850, there is a sad lack of such first-rate public men in this country as were to be found in it on the opening of the present century. In the rising generation nothing literally is to be discerned of either talent or energy, in either of the Houses of Parliament; or nothing sufficiently of either to denote that we have one rising great man among them. Eton must look to this, and be prompt to send into the political arena such men as she did there send with the Wellesleys, the Windhams, and the Cannings.
Not the least pleasing portions of these memoirs are the instances they give of the strong and enduring attachment which men, public and busy men, retain throughout their life for the subjects that so occupied their thoughts and attention in youth. Thirty or forty years passed in the fiercest political contentions, or in the most active employments, as prime ministers, members of the administration, leaders of the Opposition, governors of India, we still find them, on their return into private life, resuming, with great eagerness, their old readings and pursuits. Thus the Marquis Wellesley, at nearly eighty, could amuse himself by writing, and delight others by reading, a volume of poems, entitled "Primitiæ et Reliquiæ," one of which, the Salix Babylona, is given in the Memoirs.
Of the composition and arrangement of the work we can speak most favourably; it is prefaced by a short history of the life and character of the founder of Eton College, and the writer does but common justice to Henry VI., who was one of the most amiable and pious men that ever lived, equally as one of the most ill-used and unfortunate.
1.* Memoirs of Eminent Etonians; with Notices of the Early History of Eton College. By E.S. Creasy, M.A. Bentley, London.