Thomas Pery Knox,[1] his most important work, in two volumes 8vo, entitled “An Essay upon National Character, being an inquiry into some of the principal causes which contribute to form and modify the characters of nations in the state of civilisation.” Mr. Chcnevix does not treat of the nations separately, but different faculties and qualities are brought forward, one by one, in separate chapters, and in each chapter all the nations march past for review. In the chapter on Morality he finds occasion to remark —
“The nation that has retained the largest share of ferocity, which once was common among its barbarous ancestors, is that whose vanity is the most active — France. The cruelty of the French differs from everything that has hitherto been related; or could it be compared to any other, it must be to the cruelty of the Jews. French cruelty flourishes amid the most advanced progress of the social arts. It rages amid great urbanity, much apparent amenity, and a thoughtlessness which seems to bid defiance to deep-seated benevolence French cruelties have always been committed by one part of the nation upon the other, when both the contending parties were of course equal in civilisation. A humane and civilised nation, struggling with ferocious barbarians, may be so exasperated as to forget its natural moderation, and to become as cruel as its antagonists; but when it fights within itself it has no ferocity to excite its vengeance but its own. It is thus, pure and unalloyed by foreign inhumanity, that the cruelty of nations ought to be judged. (Chap. vi. 190-2.)”
“It has been asserted that the British nation has shed more blood upon the scaffold than any in modern, or perhaps in ancient history; but this charge is quite unfounded. . . . . The horror which such executions excite is the reason why the historian dwells upon them. . . . . When the Duke of Alva boasted at Madrid[2] that, during his administration of the Low Countries, eighteen thousand persons had been executed on the scaffold by his order, one sweeping phrase includes the whole transaction, together with thirty thousand more who perished for religion by other means; but when the reign of Mary is described by English writers, every particular which can excite compassion for the victims and indignation against the murderers is told. . . . . The cruelty of the British has, with as much regularity as can accompany human concerns, diminished progressively, and its diminution has kept due pace with the development of social improvement. . . . . At the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, six thousand three hundred French Protestant families were provided for in England. At the Revolution of France, 1789, more than one hundred thousand French emigrants, most of whom had lent their aid to the independence of the United States, were relieved here more than twenty years, at the expense of near six millions sterling (194-7).”
Thomas George Fonnereau (born 1789, died 1850), was a gentleman of fine literary culture, in whose conversation the best literati and connoisseurs greatly delighted. Some of his thoughts on matters of fact, of taste, and of politics, he gave to the public anonymously, and under a fictitious description of the author, in under the title of “The Diary of a Dutiful Son, by H.E.O. mdcccxlix.”[3] [H.E.O. are the second letters of his name.] He represents himself as a merchant’s son, frequenting the dinner-parties of the learned and the influential. The merchant extorts from the youth a promise to make notes of the profitable table-talk, in order that the time expended at table, viewed commercially, may not be lost. The son pretends to have compiled the diary, which he produces entirely out of a sense of filial duty; but upon receiving paternal commendations, he confesses, “I invented the whole myself.” This avowal is true; but as the author was a posthumous son, the very preamble is only a jeu d’ esprit. The book which is written with combined vigour and grace consists of 104 miscellaneous sections; it was highly praised by Lockhart. Mr. Fonnereau’s fortune was made by his ancestors in the linen trade; he had some very beautiful table linen with the Fonnereau arms, a present from Saxony — from correspondents in the trade. He was descended from the same refugee ancestor as the family of Fonnereau of Christ’s Church Park; and he had a portrait of the noble refugee. This, with other heirlooms, came into the possession of his residuary legatee, Nathaniel Hibbert.
From memoranda among Mr. T. G. Fonnereau’s papers it appears that he represented Zachary-Philip Fonnereau, the fourth son of the senior Claude. The following is the descent:—
- ↑ Mr. Knox (born in 1805) is the eldest son of the Right Hon. George Knox, D.C.L., and grandson of Thomas, first Viscount Northland; he is a first cousin of the late Thomas, first Earl of Ranfurly.
- ↑ [Alva was on the borders of Germany (on his way back to Spain) when he made this boast to Count Louis van Koningstein, maternal uncle of the Prince of Orange, December 1572. Brandt, vol. i. book 10.]
- ↑ The first edition was for private circulation (see the Quarterly Review for March 1S50). The author left a corrected copy for publication, which did not appear till 1864. (London, John Murray.)
