■ I wi ■y>v # V ■ 8** ■ ■ :'Vm Class '"Phi 0> _a^J Book MA |So7 • ♦ A NEW VOLUME iouttger'0 Commonplace Hook; COHTAINrNG ONE HUNDRED ARTICLES, NONE OF WHICH HAVE BEEN PRINTED IN ANY OF THE FORMER VOLUMES. TANTIS SI NUGIS POPULUS GAUDET.UR INEPTIS, QUID VET AT ET NOSMET? J67 ° HonUon : Printed by Henry JReynell, 21, Piccadilly, FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, 39, PATERNOSTER-ROW, AND C. CHAPPLE, 66 } PALL-MALL. 1807. LC Control ^.- mber tmp96 031324 PREFACE. To those who have not seen the preceding parts of this alphabetical Miscellany, perhaps it may be necessary to ob- serve, that learned research, profound reflection, and acute criticism, are not its characteristic features. The object in view is, to catch ere it perish the trifle of the minute ; to select whatever appeared curious, amusing, or applicable to the purposes of human life ; in a word, to make a hook which maybe perused without injuring our morals or corrupting our taste. The Collection here presented to the public is not wholly a com- pilation ; at the same time, it cannot be denied that its pretensions to originality are slender : it may however afford to common readers a few hours, salutary relaxation from the toil of dissipation, the pres» sure of care, and the fatigues of business. The Editor embraces the present opportunity, having no other, of thanking some anonymous friend, he has reason to think a female friend, for a valuable literary present ; the books of which it con- sists, although he had long and ardently wished for them, neither money nor diligent enquiry could procure. En ilia ilia quam scepe > diu, sedfrustra optavu Each of the former volumes having been dedicated, the present work is inscribed to the Inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland $ whom the Editor warmly congratulates on still retaining our exalted position as an independant kingdom, which has so long defied and still successfully defies the power of France, Whilst PREFACE. Whilst the insatiable ambition of the Emperor Napoleon is so artfully extending the feudal system of military tenures over the European continent, and lavishing on tributary kings crowns, scep- tres and dominions, we have not lost one inch or a single iota of our hereditary territory, or our ancient renown. The Editor looks forward with confident hope that the Almighty will continue to inspire us with the same good sense to see our true interest, the same fortitude and public spirit, to continue our glorious and triumphant career; firmly convinced that however perplexed, complicated and unpropitious continental prospects may appear, every thing must yitld to resolution animated by proper motives, and that ultimately all things will tend to justify the ways of Providence, the safety and honour of Great Britain \ that stripped of ships, seamen, colonies, commerce and naval supplies, the Gallic Monarch perceiving his laurels rapidly withering and his sworcl unproductive, will ulti- mately listen to moderate counsels and liberal policy, and never imagine that the descendants of the heroes of Agincourt and Cressy, who proudly demolished the universal monarchy of Lewis the Four- teenth, will ever submit to that meditated degradation in the founder of a new dynasty. MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS* AGNODICE, an Athenian female, who appears to have been endued with a con- siderable portion of keen sen- sibility towards the afflictions and calamities of others : with this amiable disposition she united qualities, which persons of that laudable description do not always possess ; good sense to direct^ and consummate reso- lution for carrying into execu- tion, the singular efforts she made to alleviate the sufferings of her fellow creatures i for in the path chosen by her, benevo- lence could not be exercised with- out difficulty and danger. This excellent woman saw with concern numbers of her own sex dying or undergoing extreme and frequently unneces- sary risk and protracted pain in child-birth, because they dreaded calling in professional assistance, or resorted to it when too late : for at the period to which I VOL. IV. refer, there was a positive law in Athens, that men only should study and practice this or any other branch of the medical art, Agnodice could not rest con- tented till she found a remedy for this evil, which struck at the root of population, laid a cruel tax on the first great law of na- ture, and overwhelmed with tor- ture, agony, and death, the fair** est, the most modest, and often the worthiest of women; whilst Certain help was loudly called for and readily administered to vicious audacity and callous un- concern. Inspired by the importance of her object and animated by the humanity of her purpose, she alledged a call from a sick friend at a considerable distance to account for her absence, and procuring the dress of a man, at- tended as a pupil at the schools where the knowledge she wished for was dispensed, b A* AGNODICE. As improvement is generally rapid when the desire for it is ardent, Agnodice soon acquired the requisite qualifications, and in the assumed character and dress of a man afforded substan- tial relief to many women, who had been deterred by modesty, by fear, and other motives, from applying to male professors ; the secret of her being a woman having been previously imparted to those, who£> situation ren- dered her assistance necessary. But the gratitude of her pa- tients or the selfishness of her opponents, who found they were losing business, led to a dis- covery of this meritorious impos- ture. They circulated reports injuri- ous to the character of the young practitioner, and ignorant of the truth, insisted that he was fre- quently called in when in fact no medical aid was necessary; and that a dangerous and illicit intercourse was carried on under the convenient plea of asking advice. Agnodice was tried before the Areopagus, a court so called from their assembling on a hill of that name near Athens ; and by a party of jealous husbands and envious rivals this excellent and intrepid woman was con- demned to die; an unjust and inhuman sentence, which would have been carried into execution, if the prisoner had not convinced her judges, in a way I will not describe, that it was impossible she could be guilty of the crime alledged against her. Disappointed in their purpose, her adversaries next endeavoured to destroy her, for having violated an express law, mentioned at the beginning of this article, which prohibited her sex from studying any branch of the medical pro- fession. On this charge, the law being positive, her judges paused, when the court was im- mediately filled with a crowd of women, many of whom had re- ceived comfort andmanyof them life from her well-timed aid. They boldly and loudly ap- pealed to the feelings, the reason, and the interest of the persons they addressed. After a short debate, Agnodice was honour- ably acquitted and the obnox- ious law revoked. Such was the salutary triumph of merit and good sense over selfishness and absurd prejudice. Since the period at which the transaction I have related took place, the opinions of the world on this subject appear to have taken an opposite direction; the art, which Agnodice took so • generous and effectual a in'"*Y>d of acquiring, is now almost uni- versally practised by men. ALEXANDER DE MEDICIS. Yet it has been doubted, whether in nine cases out often — 50 kind a guardian have we in the superintending providence of God — whether in nine cases out of ten, Nature, with trifling aid, does not conduct the business with safety ; but the fear, perhaps a natural one in the breast of each woman, that she may be that unfortunate tenth, has se- cured, and still secures to the modern accoucheur a large and profitable proportion of patients. This subject, at a certain time, laid the foundation of a long, a violent, but not a very edifying or delicate controversy; and when the passion for collecting, like all my passions, raged uncon- trouled by prudence and com- mon sense, I remember the table on which I am writing groaning under the load of vi- rulence, invective, and misrepre- sentation, poured forth on the occasion ; abuse supplied the place of reasoning, and declama- tion that of argument. The point in dispute is now gone by; much that was written and much that was said has escaped my memory; the little that remains impressed on my mind is, that their adversaries accused professional men of a want of patience, of doing too much, and of sometimes taking improper advantage of their in- B 2 tercourse with women. In the indiscriminate audacity of anony- mous licentiousness, three of the most eminent men of that day were fc branded with the indecorous names of Doctor Pocus, Doctor Maulus, and Doctor Macgripus. The enemies of the accou- cheurs did not forget an instance, recorded I fear in Doctor's Com- mons and a court of justice, which had recently excited pub- lic notice and sympathy, in which an eminent man had se- duced a gentleman's wife from the arms of her husband. This and much more was al- ledged : it only proves that every confidential trust has been, and at fatal moments un propitious to human resolution and integrity, will be again abused. This, as I have frequently had occasion to observe, is an argument, which may be advanced against every thing pleasant and every thing useful in life. ALEXANDER DE ME- DICIS, first duke of Flo. rehce, descended from a wealthy commercial family long esta- blished in that city, whose his- tory has been, elaborately illus- trated and ingeniously adorned in the present day by an English provincial attorney. Alexander having been created a sovereign prince by the em- peror ALEXANDER DE MEDICIS. peror Charles the fifth, whose natural daughter he married, at the earnest request of his fellow citizens was accused of abusing the power and misapplying the wealth and influence he pos- sessed. Yet his crimes or his errors have been exaggerated by the malignity of those, who expected that the man, in whose elevation they had assisted, would become an humble instrument in the hands of ambitious and mer- cenary partizans. Finding themselves mistaken, estranged friendship, as is not uncommon in other contentions^ quickly verged to deadly hate; nocturnal meetings were held, a conspiracy was foimed, and the malcontents found means to corrupt and detach from his in- terests part of the duke's family. One of the conspirators, Phi- lip Strozzi, a native of Florence, rich and well born, is described as having acted on this occasion upon the purest principles of re- publican patriotism. As God only can read the human heart, I will not pretend to decide on the nature of the motives by which he was im- pelled ; but however ardent his zeal, firm his resolution, or dis- interested his views, the bloody means he tried did not produce the wished for purpose; they only served to introduce a more unrelenting despotism, and ul- timately overwhelmed his friends and himself in irrecoverable ruin and disgrace. . Indignant at seeing the place of his birth under the yoke of absolute power, he resolved to remove the duke. Taking advantage of his in- ordinate passion for women, under the pretence of an assig- nation from a female, whom he had long and vainly attempted to seduce, he enticed the prince to a sequestered spot, and stabbed him to the heart. The city immediately became a scene of confusion and warfare; but Alexander, with all his faults, having secured the at- tachment of a considerable num- ber of adherents, the conspirators were driven forth, and collect- ing in force near the suburbs^ an engagement took place, in which the friends of Strozzi were defeated. This unhappy man was not so fortunate as to meet with death in battle, that last con- solation of the wretched; he be- came the prisoner of a party exasperated by his recent assassi- nation of their sovereign. Perceiving the desperate cir- cumstances of his situation, -^d fearing that secrets prejudicial to his party might be forced from ALEXANDER DE MEDICIS. from human infirmity by torture, he resolved to elude the ven- geance of his enemies by suicide. Previous to inflicting on him- self the fatal stroke, Strozzi gave directions for the disposal of that portion of his effects which escaped the shipwreck of his fortune. The particulars of a will which he wrote in prison are related by Babzac, who saw it among the cabinet papers of the Frangi- pani family. " As it is probable,'* says the defeated republican in his last testament, " as it is probable that my remains will be ignomi- niously buried in the city of Florence, it is my last and earn- est request, that my children will find means of disinterring my body and procuring its con- veyance to Venice. " As it was not my happiness to live and die in a free city, I hope they will not refuse me the comfortable assurance at the hour of death, that my bones shall hereafter repose undisturbed in a land of liberty and beyond the reach and malice of my enemies." Strozzi little imagined, that what he-called the land of liberty, would in little more than two centuries from the time of his death be over- run and plundered by republican desperadoes, and finally be delivered over ly the heroes of liberty to an absolute monarch. The will concludes with the writer's throwing himself on the mercy of God, to pardon the crime of suicide, which he felt himself compelled to commit, in order to preserve his honor in- violate ; he trusts his life will be considered as sacrificed, however ineffectually, in defending the freedom of his country. . It is observed by a modern writer, who flourished at {he com- mencement of the French revo- lution, that if Brutus should meet with Strozzi in the Elysian fields, he would assuredly em- brace him as a genuine patriot and an honest republican, stimu- lated by motives similar to those, which induced the stern reformer of Rome to plant his dagger in the dictator's heart. The cordiality of their meet- ing I am not disposed to doubt; but if the murderer of Julius Csesar and the assassin of De Medicis could be informed how very little the crimes they com- mitted added to the liberty or the happiness of their country, but rather to the misery and oppres- sion of their fellow citizens, the Roman and the Florentine would probably confess their mistaken and inexpedient zeal, and own, that in their endeavours to re- move 6 ANDREW BORDE. move petty evil and imaginary grievance, they had introduced enormous and incurable mis- chief. Like the enchanter in fairy land, who to forward the private purposes of selfishness* ambition, pleasure, sensuality, or revenge, brought down on a de- voted country war, famine, pest, volcano, storm, and fire. ANDREW BORDE, or as he chose to write his name, ANDREAS PERFORATUS,by the same rule that plenum sed is latin for faU butt. This singular man, who, to use his own words, had travelled through and round about Christ- etidom and out of Christendom^ was born at Pevensey and educated at Winchester, where he practised as a physician in the middle part of the sixteenth cen- tury ; but extending his fame either by professional success, the strange books he published, or the eccentric habits of his life, he removed to London, be- came a fellow of the college and was appointed physician to king Henry the eighth. Having been a Carthusian monk in the early part of his life, he observed many of the severities and mortifications of that order after he had quitted it ; drinking water, wearing a shirt of hair- cloth, and placing his coffin and shroud on tressels at the foot of his bed. He more particularly set his face against marriage, insisting that celibacy was an indispen- sable duty in all who were or had been connected with any religious order. Acting under these convictions, he not only abstained from marriage himself, but coarsely attacked such of the clergy, dignified or others^ who presumed to marry. These and other acts of im- prudence drew on him the no- tice and censure of John Ponet, bishop of Winchester, who, consistently with his Calvinistic principles, had taken to himself a wife : after carefully watching the proceedings of the physician, the prelate at last imagined that he had laid himself open to an attack on the score of morals, for which he had so much valued himself, and this intermedler with other mens matters was served with a cita- tion from the ecclesiastical court and examined strictly before several justices of the peace. The enemies of Andrew, ex- asperated by the rudeness of his attacks, insisted that he con- verted his dwelling into a brothel and made his medical profession a cloak for lewdness and de- bauchery, enticing to his house many weak and many wicked women. ANDREW BORDE. women, under pretence of medi- cal consultation. This was touching the doctor ' in a tender place, for he valued himself on chastity, and as a Carthtfsian, had assumed the name of, or been called by others, the virgin priest. Insisting that his accusers should confront and meet him face to face, he required of them to produce the persons with whom he was accused of carrying on this unhallowed intercourse; they readily named Magdalen Lambe, Alice Bowyer, and other noto- rious prostitutes. The persons named were di- rectly sent for, when Borde proved to the satisfaction of the magistrates, as well by ocular proof as their own confession, that these loose women had in^ deed visited him at secret hours, not for unlawful purposes, but to seek relief for certain loath- some diseases, by which their lives were not only endangered, but their countenances disfigured. The physician further appealed to the bishop, the magistrates, and all present, if it was pro- bable, that a man of common sense, taste, or discernment, who had a professional repu- tation, and ivho had already more than half disarmed his passions hy never having indulged them, he asked if it was likely, that such a person would risk his credit, the salvation of his soul, and the health of his body, by an illicit intercourse with ob- jects so miserable, so very un- likely to excite or gratify the passions. Having established his innocence by this convincing species of internal evidence, his enemies retired in confusion. The works of Borde are scarce and curious, not wholly void of amusement and information: of this description is An Introduction to Universal Knowledge; which teacheth a man to speak all languages, and know the fashion of all countries; written partly in verse and partly in prose, with wooden cuts ; one at the beginning exhibits a naked man with a piece of cloth lying on his arm and a pair of scissars in his hand, with a copy of verses underneath, beginning with the two following: — • I am an Englishman , and naked I stand here, Musing in my mind ivhat rai- ment I shall wear. London, 1542. The Breviary of Health; wherein a/e remedies for all diseases, and in which obscure" Greek, Latin, and other bar- barous terms are explained. London, 154". Next followed "The Merry Tales of the Madmen of Go- tham;" ANGUS FOY FLETCHER. thani;" this was accounted a mirthful and witty book. A right, pleasant, and merry History of the Miller of Abing- don. He also wrote on Prog- nostics and Urines. At length, after all his peregri- nations, he was imprisoned in the Fleet, where he died in 1549; having exposed himself to this penalty by persevering in his unruly attacks on married clergy- men ; apparently forgetting, that those who have no wives of their own are very apt to make use of the wives of other people. ANGUS FOY FLETCHER, an inhabitant of Glenor- chay, in the highlands of Scot- land, of whom a sketch has been given by a minister of that re- mote district, who united easy manners with piety and learning, but could pardon and pity a want of correct conduct and uni- form orthodoxy in others : I speak in the past tense, because seas and continents separating us prevent my ascertaining whether he is now living, and because at a certain time some of his neighbours thought and acted a little differently. Angus, with the particulars of whose birth, parentage, and education, we are not made ac- quainted, discovering an early relish, for solitude and a dis- taste for social intercourse, de- voted the whole of his time and attention to fishing and shooting, as well for the purpose of in- dulging bis favourite propensity, as for exercise, amusement, and procuring the means of subsist- ence. At a distance from any neigh- bourhood, with his dog and gun, a dirk and spear, a belted plaid and hrogs, he built his hut and resided in the wildest and most mountainous parts of Glenorchay and Rannoch. Depending wholly for food on what he caught or killed, and the produce of a few goats, he ranged over hill, heath, and forest, and returning to his little flock in the evening, drove them into his hut, feasted on the pro- duce of the day, then stretching himself at length on a little dry grass with his humble com- panions, he slept undisturbed till the approach of morn, when he again sallied forth, drove his cattle to a spot of fresh herbage, and after a hasty morsel, plunged into the wilderness. He associated neither with man nor woman ; and if accident or necessity threw a human creature in his way, he felt evi- dent pain, which he C .. ays en- deavoured to remove by getting away. If, after erecting his hut, he discovered ANGUS FOY FLETCHER. discovered that it was built near a sequestered hamlet, or the out- lying grounds of any remote farm which had escaped his notice, or if he found himself often interrupted by visitors, he instantly moved house, (with him, no very burthensome or tedious business) and pro- ceeded to build another in a situation less frequented, and sometimes apparently inacces- sible. Thus occupied and so situ- ated, spring, summer, autumn, and part of winter passed away ; but when the benumbing cold- ness of December came on, the bitterness of which in that coun- try a South Briton scarcely can conceive, Angus descended with reluctance from his solitary den on the mountain, and submitted unwillingly to the necessity of residing among his fellow crea- tures; but here, from habit, or design, he rose at break of day, was absent till night, and gene- rally retired to rest without be- ing spoken to or speaking, heard or seen. This singular character is de- scribed as attentive to and neat in his dress ; his looks, deport- ment, and attitude, as dignified and lofty; his pace, excepting when he avoided meeting com- pany, slow, measured, and some- what stately. VOL. IV o Such was the stubborn inde- s pendence of his spirit and such his unbending pride, (we want a little of this right sort of pride to the south of the Tweed) that he would have perished rather than ask a favour of any one: yet the same man killed, prepared, and cooked the whole of his food; made his bed, washed his shirt, and performed every spe- cies of domestic drudgery with his own hands. Such was Angus Foy, haughty under the most humiliating cir- cumstances; and at a period, and in a country civilized and christian, exhibiting himself in the original state of man, when just emerged from barbarism and savage manners ; a hunter, a fisher, and a herdsman, wholly unacquainted with religion, read- ing, w r riting, or the English lan« guage. His meritorious conduct, in two respects, ought not to pass, unnoticed. He once rescued a female from robbery, violation, and probably from murder, who never knew or saw the face of her benefactor, as after her de- liverance, he accompanied her in silence through the midnight gloom to the door of her dwel- ling, and suddenly disappeared: without uttering a word. The hero of this action would never have been guessed at, but from 10 ANGUS FOY FLETCHER. from the circumstance of there having been found on the spot where he chastised the ruffian a peculiar ribbon, party-coloured like his plaid, with which he tied his hair; to this I forgot to say he was carefully attentive and had a large quantity, which separated below the part which was tied, and spreading in lux- uriant curls over his back and shoulders, gave him a singular but not ungraceful air. This circumstance and another part of his conduct prove, that his habits of seclusion were not founded on misanthropy. If at any time a benighted traveller or way-worn stranger wandered near his walks, he en- tertained them with unaffected hospitality, gave them the best entertainment and bed his hut afforded, and chearfully put them into their right road in the morning; on such occasions he was truly hospitable, he wel- comed the coming, sped the part- ing guest; but the visits of prying curiosity, wanton intru- sion, or ignorant impudence, he always avoided or repelled. Three causes have been as- signed to account for the extra- ordinary life which he led : that his reason was partially clouded by insanity; that he had been early in life the victim of dis- appointed love; or, lastly, that he was guilty of some enormous but secret crime. The first I will not enter on, as every deviation from right reason and the established cus- toms of mankind may be at- tributed to the same origin. It is observed by the ingenious gentleman to whom I am in- debted for this article, that as Angus, equally avoiding both sexes, never discovered any par- tiality for women, the second supposition is improbable. With submission to better judgments I think very differ- ently. A person invited to a public dinner, and disposed to treat his palate with dainties not to be met with every day at private tables, sees something which answers this description, and bringing with him two commo- dities not always found at such places, patience and good man- ners, he waits with composure till he finds with surprise the dexterous knife- a rid -fork men have demolished the whole of his favourite dish; and at last a plate of what no one else will eat is placed before him. Naturally irritated by such treatment, he quits the room dinnerless and disgusted, prefer- ring, like a man of good taste, fasting to foul feeding; and solitude rather than the com- pany ANGUS FOY FLETCHER. 11 pany of these worthy characters, who make it a rule to eat till the seventh button of their waistcoat rubs hard against the edge of the table. Actuated by similar motives of resentment or distaste, our solitary mountaineer in his youth- ful days might have felt the fascination of female charms : a fascination often experienced by the editor of these pages, from the interesting manners and cul- tivated minds of Scotch women, although generally inferior in personal beauty to the roses and lilies of England. Angus might have lost his heart in contemplating some fe- male exalted by education, rank, and fortune, far beyond his reach; the lady also might probably have fixed her affections on a person in the only neighbour- hood where Fletcher could as- sociate ; she might perhaps have given the happy man her hand and heart, and have exhibited a striking example of nuptial hap- piness. What lover would not wish to turn his eyes from a sight like this ; a spectacle, to which in the perverted optics of disap- pointed passion, a desert, soli- tude, or even hell would be pre- ferred ; for although it has been often said that the happiness of the woman he loves is the first wish of a lover, I am of opinion that it is always understood that he is to be a party concerned. In supposing this to be the cause of the secession of Angus, it is possible we may also be mistaken. Perhaps his nervous system was not calculated to resist the wear and tear of society; he might have inherited a diseased irritability, which incapacitated him for enduring the bustle and elbow of common life. The proud man's insults, the oppres- sion of wealthy superiority, the frauds of whining hypocrisy, the misrepresentations of ignorance, and the swaggerings of impu- dence, which other men laugh at, retaliate or defy, to him might be insufferable agony. To be ridiculed by. folly and disturbed by pert absurdity, to be censured by the prudent, in- structed by the fortunate, and even to be pitied by the good, might be more than he could patiently bear. But if Fletcher by necessity or by choice was deprived of the soothing aspect and endear- ing attention of friends, relations, and neighbours, he was not without pleasures, and some of them of the sublimest kind; his was unrestrained liberty, and a will uncontrouled, which the courtier does not deserve and c 2 the ANGUS FOY FLETCHER. the monarch cannot bestow, nor himself always enjoy ; ' the wild was all before him where to chuse his place of rest, and Pro- vidence his guide;* nature, rude and unspoiled by art ; rocks, torrents, mountains, and vales, were alternately before his eyes ; an unbounded nocturnal view of the ethereal concave studded with millions of worlds, (in high northern positions, remarkably clear and beautiful) the silver moon bursting from separated clouds, and all the dread mag- nificence of Heaven, must have frequently attracted notice, pro- duced admiration, and at times have enforced reverence. In solitude and silence he might triumphantly contemplate the extent of his own powers, which, without beino; obliged to an injurious world, enabled him to procure with his own hands, cloathing, occupation, fuel, and food. On his supposed criminality, on his being tortured by com- punction, and driven by a guilty conscience to solitude and grief, who but the great reader of all hearts shall pretend to decide. At all events, if he felt him- self vnequal to the battle of human life, the war of interests and the struggle of passions; if the shield of fortitude and the sword of persevering energy to resist the world, the flesh, and that worst of all daemons which a man carries in his own bosom, if these were denied him, or if granted, had dropped from his hand, he did right to retire, rather than expose an unguarded temper, a generous disposition, and an open heart, a weak un- derstanding or a wounded spirit, to the cruel attacks of perfidy, selfishness, ridicule, malevolence, and fraud. " A life of solitude" it is true are sacrificed to frivolous fashion; where rudeness and unfeeling persiflage are called easy man- ners ; where ignorance and an uncultivated intellect pass cur- rent ANTHONY DE CORRO. 13 rent under the smooth varnish of simpering insipidity ?" ANTHONY DE CORRO, a learned Spaniard, born and educated at Seville, and de- signed for a Carthusian, but misled by common sense, or ter- rified at the hardships and pri- vations of a monastic life, he would not believe that man making himself miserable could be any gratification to the Al- mighty, Being censured for these and other heterodox opinions, he was threatened with punish- ment, and in a country where at that period (1570) super- stition was bloody and terrific, would in all probability have been more than threatened, but fortunately he had not finished his noviciate. Disgusted by such treatment, and apprehending what be might expect when once he had made his profession, he fled from Spain. It is worthy of remark, that at the moment De Corro was driven from his country by per- secution, Henry the third, king of Navarre, (afterwards Henry the fourth of France) separated from Seville only by Castile and Arragon, openly professed Cal- vinism. The fugitive repaired to Eng- land, where he was introduced to Dr. Sandys, bishop of London, who enquiring into the truth of the tale he told, and finding it authentic, became his patron. Having prpved himself worthy of protection, by the joint in- terest of that prelate, and Robert earl of Leicester, their Chancel- lor, he was recommended to the university of Oxford, with a request, that at the next public act they would permit the Spaniard to proceed doctor of divinity without expence; and at the same time dispense with any previous degree. This proceeding was meant as a preliminary step to his being appointed a reader of the divinity lectures; Doctor Sandys being of opinion that a man educated like De Corro, in a foreign seminary, was well qualified to detect and guard the students against the errors of popery. But the proposal occasioned great fear and jealousy in a re- spectable and numerous party, at that time powerful, and to whom, from their pretensions to superior purity in faith and morals, the sarcastic appellation of puritans had been given. With many faults on the points of morose temper, un- accommodating zeal, and re- publican propensity, it can- not be denied that a large portion 14 ANTHONY DE CORRO. portion of the individuals coming under their description pos- sessed strong minds, disinterested views, and the unshaken, but in modern times the inexpedient spirit of martyrdom. Their correct lives and unde- viating submission to the prin- ciples and practice of primitive Christianity cannot be praised too much ; but it is not possible 1o read their favourite, their able historian Neale, without re- marking his want of candour, moderation, and sometimes ac- curacy, in his statement of facts; but where alas is the man to be found, who having enlisted un- der an oppressed and obnoxious sect can avoid dipping his pen in the bitter gall of resentment. The opposers of the dispensa- tion for which the refugee pe- titioned, insisted that settling a foreigner and a new convert from popery in one or' the uni- versities of England, which had suffered so much from the fraud and violence of the church of Rome, was a dangerous project and likely to inflame men's minds already greatly prejudiced against the old superstition. They further observed, that although De Corro had abjured the Catholic faith he was strongly suspected of being tainted with the Pelagian heresy; of enter- taining heterodox opinions on predestination, and justification by faith, two grand and indis- pensable requisites in the creed of every real and sincere christian ; and further, that it was not known for a certainty, whether he had been actually called to the gospel ministry, either by episcopal ordination in this realm, or by any church beyond the seas. These and other considerations produced a smart debate ; but when a motion was made for granting a dispensation to the Spanish refugee, the house out of respect to their chancellor passed the vote, with the follow- ing words tacked to it; the said Anthony first purging himself of heretical opinions. After a little outcry, De Corro was permitted to perform the proposed functions of a reader of the divinity lectures, con- ducted himself with prudence, and acquired the esteem of many of his former opponents. He was a large contributor to the press ; the following are a few of his works : — An Admonition to the Fle- mish Church at Antwerp. Lon- don, 8vo. 1570. An Explanation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. L ^ldon, Svo. 1574. A Supplication addressed to the King of Spain, (Philip the second) APPARITIONS. 15 second) in behalf of the perse- cuted protestants in the Low Countries. London, Svo. 1577. A Grammar, containing cer- tain rules for acquiring the' French and Spanish languages. London, 1590. After having subdued or mi- tigated his sectarian disturbers, De Corro died at a ripe old age ; but his domestic life is said to have been far from tranquil. The Catholics, probably ir- ritated by his desertion, insisted that this was a punishment in- flicted by Heaven for his heresy, and in kind, " The «first step the renegado took," said his enemies, " after he had plunged into the mire of heresy, was taking a wife, who proved unfaithful, and like the daughter he had by her, was neither pure nor peaceable." , If the enemies of the Spaniard were right in the origin from which they deduced his connu- bial misfortune, we have in modern times witnessed with regret, but I fear without edi- fication, a great number of such celestial punishments. A PPARITIONS.-AVhen -*-J*- Doctor Johnson was ral- lied for his faith in ghosts, he used to call over the names of the various eminent characters, who at different periods had been of his opinion : among these he generally mentioned Doctor Fowler, bishop of Glou- cester in the early part of the eighteenth century; of that pre- late the following conversation withjudge Powell is recorded. on good authority : — ei Since I saw you," said the lawyer, a humourist as well as a worthy man, who had often attacked the opinions of the pre- late, il since I saw you I have had ocular demonstration of the existence of nocturnal ap- paritions." 66 I am glad, Mr. Justice, you are become a convert to truth ; but do you say actual ocular demonstration ? Pray let me know the particulars of the story at large." " My lord, I will. It was, let me see, last Thursday night, be- tween the hours of eleven and twelve, but nearer the latter than the former, as I lay sleeping in my bed, I was suddenly awaken- ed by an uncommon noise, and heard something coming up stairs and stalking directly towards my room ; the door flying open, I drew back my curtain, and saw a faint glim- mering light enter my chamber." " Of a blue colour no doubt." " The light was of a pale blue, my lord, and followed by a tall meagre personage, his locks hoary 16 AVARICE. hoary with age, and cloathed in a long loose gown, a leathern girdle was about his loins, his beard thick and grizly, a large fur cap on his head, and a long- staff' in his hand. Struck with astonishment, I remained for some time motionless and silent ; the figure advanced, staring me full in the face : 1 then said ' Whence and what art thou;' the following was the answer I received — (l I am watchman of the night, an't please your honour, and made bold to come up stairs to inform the family of their street door being left open, and that if it was not soon shut they would probably be robbed before morn- ing." Doctor Fowler seized his hat and departed. AVARICE, called by a late writer, and in a way pe- culiarly his own, a damned ill-natured hateful vice, which it certainly is ; but while we ac- knowledge this truism, let us take care to be correct in our ap- plication of it, let us b,e sure that the cases in which, and the persons on whom, we bestow harsh and degrading epithets, actually deserve them. More than one reason occurs for introducing the present ar- ticle; the editor having lately frequented a circle graced with beauty and enlivened by wit, which sometimes sparkled at the expence of good nature: maiden aunts and batchelor uncles with ghastly disinheriting countenan- ces, were often the subject of loud laughter and satirical raillery. After joining in the laugh, for at Rome we must do as the Romans do, and silently ac- knowledging the self-evident proposition, that a father or an uncle who does not give up his own comforts and the soothers of declining age to a jolly fellow who understands the true art to live at Bath, Newmarket, and St. James's-street, must be a miserly dog, a dry flinty-hearted old rascal, and like a certain quadruped good only when dead ; after listening alternately to coarse abuse and unfounded as- sertion, the writer of this article retired to a favourite path pre- served almost in the face of im- possibility from the sea. He reflected on what he had heard and seen, and whilst his heart, heavy laden, performed its office with difficulty, the spirit (I mean of perverted truth and tongue-tied common sense) the spirit gave him utterance, and he poured forth in his us-d tone and emphasis the language of Young, Otway, Shakespear, and though last not least, the pathetic and BAYLE. 17 and impressive Cowper, occa- sionally interposing the masterly- felicities of Horace, and the tierce satire of Juvenal ; the roaring wind, stupendous waves, and a lofty cliff with projecting rocks, and broken fragments, formed at the same time a scene perfectly in unison with the state of his mind. But to quit this poetry, or prose run mad; a slight sketch of the private history of two of the persons, who formed part of the joyous circle he had quitted, will elucidate the truths meant to be enforced. The principal female who led the chorus, considering a stroke of the palsy with which her father had been just smitten as a sig- nal for departure, had chosen the moment for travelling across the country to make a distant visit, and left a parent, who had put himself to pecuniary difficul- ties to finish Iter education and contribute to her pleasures, in the hands of servants and mer- cenaries. The hero who performed the principal part, as gentleman, in the piece, having dissipated his paternal inheritance, subsisted wholly on the bounty of a ma- ternal uncle, who after passing the best part of his life in an unhealthy climate had returned to his native country to die, vol. IV. with a fortune the produce of honest industry, and little more than sufficient to administer to the comfort and tranquillity of declining age. The crime, the never to be forgiven crime this unnatural unclehad committed, was making it a condition annexed to the allowance he made the gentle- 7nan, that he should not visit London, Bath, or Newmarket; well aware that his nephew had formed connections and con- tracted habits in those places, wholly incompatible with a small income, and which had already involved the gentleman in two uncreditable embarrass- ments : for this abominable con- duct, of course the unnatural uncle with his d d disinherit- ing visage, was a surly old dog, a miserly flinty-hearted old ras- cal, and the sooner he was dead the better. In one respect I agree that the uncle was highly culpable, as I have often told , him, for making the gentleman any al- lowance at all ; in such case he would have persisted in his high- way frolics, have been hanged, and the world as well as his family have been rid of an in- tolerable nuisance. EAYLE, a French refugee, author of the critical and x> historical 18 BAYLE. historical dictionary, a work overflowing with learning and information, but not without a large portion of matter highly ex- ceptionable and repugnant to morality, religion and taste. I address the present article to those private gentlemen and public bodies in various parts of Great Britain and Ireland, who possess libraries and large col- lections of books 3 I earnestly request of them, if Bayle and other books of a similar de- scription must have a shelf, I request that they would let them be kept under lock and key. I have at different times been permitted, and in various parts of the kingdom, to visit many libraries, and at an early hour of the day, when the greater part of the family had not quitted their beds; but I have repeatedly found children, servants and young women, perusing with avidity books, which no good father or prudent man would put into the hands of his children. The English translation of Bayle was in general the favour- ite, and in every iibrary I have yet seen, the leaves of this work, particularly those where the ob- noxious and indecorous articles occurred, bore evident marks of having been often turned over by fingers like the imagination of that singular writer, not very clean. It is by no means my wish to restore that old papistic tyranny in literature, an index expur- gatorious ; but I appeal to pa- rents, guardians, and the many worthy persons engaged in edu- cating the rising generation, whether it is right, safe, or expe- dient to display to young minds and fervid imaginations in gaudy colours and seducing language, loose infidelity and lascivious description, which I am con- vinced (and I speak from experi- rience) have done considerable and irreparable mischief; because paper once blotted, whatever pains we take never can be re- stored to its original whiteness, nor will a mind depraved in early life by bad company and improper books, ever recover its first purity. The theory of Mr. Bayle, with all his great powers and exten- sive reading, cannot be defended on any ground of philosophical indifference, toleration, utility, or expedience. His opinion in one point is evident, from a favourite quota- tion which he makes more than once from Minucius Felix, cas- titas enim tutior, sedimpudicitia, felicior. He who is persuad~ J to march in the path of duty from no other motive than its safety, but is at the same time told that an ex- cursion from the right road is pleasanter, BOARDING SCHOOLS. 19 pleasanter, will in all human pro- bability soon try the experiment. In a word, the Dictionary of Bayle is amusing, and on subjects of general criticism, instructive; but his metaphysic disquisitions are dangerous, and his work communicates none of that true wisdom which makes us better here and happier hereafter. BLUSHING HONORS— It was observed in a late reign of a gentleman, on whom a minor dignity had been con- ferred, that his chairs, spoons, harness, and every implement and domestic utensil, to which it could be attached by the painter or the engraver, had received this additional decoration, only a few hours after he had himself been embellished. On this occasion, a wicked wit applied an epigram written by a modern Latin poet, with a few alterations, but I think in -vitiated measure. Judcei nostri florentis nomen honoris Indicat in clypei f route cruenta manus. No'n quod scevus aliquid, aut stric to for titer ense, Hostibus occisis ducebat iste co- hortem : Terrorem infantum madidum et sanguine cultrem Prceputio exciso rulelat dextra parentis. The father or grandfather of the person satirized had been a Jewish priest. BOARDING SCHOOLS. It is the observation of a writer who says many good things, but carries them gene- rally too far, "that the in- numerable places of this de- scription for both sexes are among the greatest abuses of the age; this he thinks obvious" from the little improvement children make, and the vices they acquire. " The manners of young women, who have been educated at a boarding school, are so strongly marked, as to prevent our mistaking them in any com- pany, or any situation of life ; indeed they require not a com- ment, they speak loudly for themselves daily and hourly, and as loudly call for a different mode of education. " The rearing and instruction of boys, though not carried off with so muck assurance, equally tend to perverted morals and ruin. "There is one argument, ir- resistible to parents who wish their sons to make afgure, which school-masters never forget; it d 2 is 20 B0LINGBR0KE, VISCOUNT. is this, that their children will never shine at the bar, in the senate, or the pulpit, unless the whole of their time from youth to manhood is devoted to erudi- tion. e( It is not easy to conceive a greater or a more fatal mistake ; with how much more credit, profit, and happiness, would a large portion of this period be passed under the paternal roof, where without excluding oc- casional literary employment their minds and habits would be formed to the business of human life, early vicious tendencies re- strained, and what is of no small importance, salutary oc- cupation be afforded for the pa-r rents. u Alas, they have other and more important objects of pur- suit, dress, whist, the fox chace, public spectacles, &c &c. &c. ; but when the ruinous youthful career of vicious extravagance hath been run, when that most important of our duties, domestic superintendance, hath been neg- lected or trusted to unfaithful hands, the astonished father wakes from his vain dream of in- fatuation and affects to be sur- prised at a train of vipers, fos- tered alas too often to sting his bosom in old age. " Fathers of families in the wildness of a fond imagination forget that no education will in general elevate a man of common talents above that rank in life in which he has been born. "A shop-bill, written by David Hume, who is said to have written many behind a counter, will be no better prized than one written by a blockhead, if the latter sells his goods a farthing a pound cheaper. " On the other hand, genius and superior abilities will dis- tinguish themselves without be- ing kept so long in trammels; they require not such assistance ; they smooth all difficulties and surmount every obstacle." OLINGBROKE, VIS- COUNT, for a short time the prime minister of Queen Anne. My collection has been coarsely censured by a warm admirer of this noble lord, who is, if I mis- take not, descended from the il- legitimate offspring of one of his lordship's humble amours; this miscellany has been cen- sured as partially inveterate against the right honourable sceptic. My opponent, who like his ancestor, thinks freely hut not deeply, and whom I once called a connoisseur without taste, and a pedant without learning, — this feeble amateur accuses me of having BOLINGBROKE, VISCOUNT. having quoted invective verses against Lord Bolingbroke with- out producing the panegyric which occasioned them. As in some cases we may re- ceive useful instruction from an adversary, I present to my read- ers what must have been a sugared treat to the ex-minister, premising that in consonance with my own feelings and con- victions I shall add the answer, some part of which has ap- peared in a former volume : — 5 Tis sung, that exil'd by tyran- nic Jove, Apollo, from the starry realms above, To sylvan scenes, to grots and streams retir'd, And rural scenes and rural sports admir'd; .Adiiiir'd, but found with plea- sure and surprize, Himself the same on earth as in the skies, The wond'ring swains and nymphs where'er he trod,- With transport gaz'd and re- cogniz'd the God. The tale's now verified, what here we view In Bolingbroke, has made the fiction true. See, emblem of himself, his villa stand, Politely finish'd, regularly grand ; No gaudy colours stain the well- siz'd hall, Blank light and shade discrimi- nate the wall : He lightly thinks of what must all men charm, A noble palace, simply calls a farm. No glaring trophies here, no spoils of war Attract the eye — ■ But rustic implements to till the fields, And the wild flower luxuriant nature yields. Thus noble St. John in his sweet recess, By those made greater who wou'd make him less ; Thus free of heart and eloquent of tongue, With speech harmonious as a heavenly song, Suspends in rapture each atten- tive guest, Ungrateful Britain, what a fault is thine, This well-schooPd statesman's counsels to decline ! In scenes retir'd the vet'ran patriot lives, And for his ruin'd country vainly grieves. These verses were answered in the following manner : — . Base sycophant beneath a poet's fame, Who daub'st with praise an execrable name. Scandal BOUTHILLIER DE RANGE. Scandal to truth, thy verse is like thy cause, And as thy patron's honour, thy applause; Thou hast wrap't St. John in a God's disguise, And styls't dread Jove the ty- rant of the skies. With whom can such abusive lies prevail? Or who believes the fabricated tale? If George is Jove, then every one must own St. John,- the traitor, who at- tack 'd his throne: But baffled in his schemes so wild and vain, The thund'rer hurPd him down to earth again ; Then kindly heard him groaning for reprieve* Forgot his wrongs and bade the monster live. Releas'd and pardon'd, still the rebel tries His former arts in patriot dis- guise, Reviews the rancour of a tory mind, And studies mischief to undo mankind. This is the hero whom thy verse describM The virtuous man, so cruelly proserin 'd. Wou'd truth and painting lend their mutual aid, And Dawley's walls confess the faithful shade, What scenes of lust, deceit, and fraud, would rise, Heroes in exile and betray'd al- lies. The British lion hunted from the field, &c. &c. &c. BOUTHILLIER DE RANCE, a French noble- man and a man of pleasure, who had long been the successful but illicit lover of a lady of fashion and beauty in Paris, her hus- band being absent on military duty. From a routine of frivolous pursuits and criminal gratifica- tions, the subject of our pre- sent article was suddenly called to a distant province, where he was detained several months without any possibility of carry- ing on an epistolary correspon- dence. Having at length obtained the object of his journey and re- moved every impediment and delay, he flew on the wings of love to the French metropolis, which he did not reach till mid- night. By means of a passe par tout he traversed the garden and en- tered the house of his mistress without seeing or being seen by- any domestic; he rushes to that chamber JBOUTHILLIER DE RANCE. 23 chamber which had been often the scene of unhallowed bliss ; he draws back the curtain which inclosed all he values on earth, hoping to surprise with a rap- turous kiss the sleeping beauty, and to compensate for the pangs of absence by taking still deeper draughts of unmeasured delight. He starts back with horror and astonishment on discovering the dear object of his fondest wishes extended on the bed life- less, disfigured, and loathsome. In a word, his mistress during his absence had been seized with a most malignant species of small pox, and had fallen a sacrifice to that pestilential scourge. Deprived of the treasure of his heart and under circum- stances so shocking to an ardent lover, Ranee quits the house with difficulty ; despair and dis- appointment having paralyzed his body and mind, he secludes ^imself at once from society, devotes his days and nights to sorrow, repentance, and religious contemplation, and finally be- came the founder of the monas- tery of La Trappe. Such is the romantic tale re- lated with credulous confidence by a modern writer; but the visionary ' fabrication will not bear the touchstone of critical examination, and vanishes from the magic talisman of truth and historical fact. The convent of La Trappe had existed for two centuries before the birth of Bouthillier; he was indeed Abbe and a con- siderable reformer of that religi- ous institution so remarkable for its fasts, its vigils, and that stilt more painful vow of eternal si- lence. The original founder was Rotrou, Count de Perche, so early as the twelfth century; being overtaken at sea by a furi- ous tempest, the ship he sailed in after being the sport of winds and waves for several days was at length driven on a rock, and the Count after many dangers was the only individual who escaped. In the moment of peril and distress he called for aid on the Almighty, accompanying his prayer with a vow of building and endowing a convent in case he reached the shore; this pro- mise he religiously performed. La Trappe, like every human institution, having degenerated from the austerities originally enjoined by its founder, was re- stored by the zeal of De Ranee, improved and armed with new horrors. To rise at midnight from the short unrefreshing repose of abed of BOUTHILLIER DE RANCE. of board; to pass the tedious hours till day-light approached in repeating Ave Marias, mise- reres and scourgings ; to sub- sist on food of the most tasteless kind ; to devote the day to the most laborious drudgery, and never to speak, was the discipline laid down by the founder, rigo- rously exemplified and enforced by the Abbe De Ranee, and con- sidered by them both as the most likely means of rendering, themselves and their disciples acceptable to the kind and omni- potent Creator of the world. But the credulous writer men- tioned at the beginning of this article is incorrect in the state- ment of other important particu- lars : Bouthillier was not the pro- miscuous lover, the invader of nuptial peace, the unprincipled debauchee before described. He was nephew to Bouthillier De Chavigny, superintendant of the French finances in the reign of Louis the thirteenth ; devoted to literature and science, mode- rate in his pleasures, correct in his manners, and a canon of the church of Notre Dame. He was editor of an edition of Anacreon with notes, and the bishopric of Laon being offered to him he declined ac- cepting it, fearing that such an exalted post would interrupt him in the literary life he loved, and separate him from the connec- tions and habits of his early days. The easy tenor of a life thus agreeably passed in literary pur- suits, friendly intercourse, and professional avocation, was sud- denly interrupted by his nar- rowly escaping a violent death from the hand of an assassin raised against another. This appears to have made an indelible impression on a ner- vous system remarkably sus- ceptible ; he never recovered his spirits, and in the opinion of the editor of this collection his in- tellects were partially deranged. This supposition I confess depends only on internal evi- dence, for he instantly quitted a circle of friends in which he was useful, pleasant and beloved, for the impenetrable gloom, the si- lence, the austerities and ir- rational self denials of La Trappe, dragging on an existence in my humble opinion displeasing to God, and certainly useless to man. In this retreat his literary pro- pensity at intervals returned, and his pen, though confined to Saints and monastic studies, pro- duced many works during the hours he could snatch from re- ligious exercises and repose. Many of his works are extant, particularly a collection of the lives CALAS, JOHN. 25 lives and deaths of the various monks, who have existed in the monastery of La Trappe. For this short account of an extraordinary foundation, stripped of error and romance, the public is indebted to an able and judi- cious anonymous critic, the accuracy of whose statement is supported by the respectable tes- timony of Maupeon, Marsollier, and Le Nain. CALAS, JOHN, a reputable tradesman, or as he was called in France, a merchant of the city of Thoulouse, in the, eighteenth century, whose mis- fortunes excited general atten- tion. Galas, his wife, and five sons, had been born and educated in the Protestant religion 5 but Lewis, the second of his children, • only a few months before the present narrative commences, renouncing the tenets he had professed, embraced the Catholic faith. It was supposed, that the young man had been persuaded to this change by an old female servant, who had lived many years in the family, and by whom he had been originally nursed. His parents lamented this apostacy, but being remarkable for affection towards their off- vol. IV, spring, it was not observed to diminish the kindness of their behaviour either to Lewis or the old domestic ; as they were con- vinced, however erroneous the proceeding, that it originated from amiable motives and a be- nevolent mind. Their eldest son, Anthony, had been bred to the law, but found that his dissenting from the established religion of his coun- try was an insuperable bar to his being admitted to practice. This disappointment was ob- served to have a strong effect on his mind and health ; he became melancholy, peevish and soli- tary; procured and perused many reprehensible books, and often repeated passages from them in defence of suicide. In this state of things, An- thony received an accidental visit from an old school -fellow, the son of Mr. Lavaisse, an avocat, or as we should term it, an attorney of Thoulouse. Young Lavaisse having been absent for several weeks at Bourdeaux, on his return found that his father bad been for several days at a little villa to which he occasionally retired, eight miles from the city. Having endeavoured to pro- cure a horse at several places, without effect, as he was coming out of the stable-yard of one of B the 26 CALAS, JOHN. the persons to whom he had ap- plied, he met Anthony and his father, who congratulated him on his arrival, and hearing that none of his family were at home, invited him to pass his evening at their house, to which he agreed. Mrs. Calas received Lavaisse, as the friend of her son, with great cordiality, and after sitting in conversation about half an hour, Anthony being the gene- ral market-man of the family, was sent to purchase some cheese ; soon after, Lavaisse went again to the keeper of a livery stable to see if any of his horses were returned, and to bespeak one for his use in the morn- ing. They both came back in a short time, and at seven o'clock sat down to supper in a room up one pair of stairs j the com- pany consisting of Calas, his wife, Anthony, Peter, one of his brothers, and Mr. Lavaisse. Before the meal was con- cluded, Anthony, without any apparent reason, rose from table in an evident state of mental perturbation ; this, as it was a circumstance which had often occurred since his indisposition, was not noticed : he passed into the kitchen which was on the same floor, and being asked by the servant if he was cold, said to her, " quite the contrary, I am in a burning heat;" he soon after went down stairs. It ought to have been ob- served, that the whole of the ground floor of the house was occupied by the shop and a warehouse behind it, which were separated by folding doors. The party whom Anthony had quitted, continued convers- ing till half past nine, when Lavaisse took his leave, and Peter, who fatigued by his at- tendance in the shop, had fallen asleep, was roused to attend him with a lantern. It is easier to conceive than describe their horror and asto- nishment on reaching the foot of the stairs; the first object pre- senting itself was the unhappy Anthony, stripped to his shirt, and hanging from a bar which he had laid across the top of , the folding doors, having half opened them for that purpose. Their exclamation brought Mr. Calas down stairs, who, the moment he saw what had taken place, rushed forwards, and rais- ing the body in his arms, moved the rope by which it was sus- pended, and the bar fell down ; for the two y were set at liberty. This melancholy and disgrace- ful transaction, which took place in the year 1761} naturally at- tracted the notice and commissera- tionof all well-disposed, humane and liberal persons, particularly of Mr. Voltaire, the advocate of toleration; who, like other ad- vocates, was ultimately carried further in his reforming career than he originally expected or designed. But in rescuing the family of Calas from obloquy and dis- grace, he was commended by all parties. His applications to men in power were so effectual, that the judicial proceedings were sent to Paris, and revised ; Calas and the whole of the family were de- clared innocent, the sentence was annulled; the attorney- ge- neral of the province was di- rected to prosecute the infamous Capitoul, David, and every pos- sible satisfaction was made to the widow, to Mr. Lavaisse, and the survivors. But although every thing that could be done was done, all could not call up from the grave the mangled corpse of the un- fortunate father, who at the mo- ment he was suffering unutter- able distress of mind for a suicide child, was loaded with disgrace and chains, and committed to a loathsome dungeon, accused, tried, and condemned, as the ex- ecutioner of his own offspring, suffered a cruel death, and finally was insulted on the scaffold in his last agonies by the cruel David. "Wretch," said this infernal monster to the poor old man, while in a state of torture, (i IVretch, confess your crime, , behold 30 CALAS, JOHN. lehold the faggots which are to consume your body to ashes." The melancholy impressions made by this article would have been somewhat alleviated, had it been in the editor's power to relate with truth, that the vile Capitoul, a Franciscan, and two or three White Penitents, had been hanged. Where and when have I seen, and by what artist, a painting in which a groupe of persons are exhibited as contemplating a picture of the tragedy which forms the subject of my present article, and exemplifying its ef- fect, on different tempers and dispositions? The man of violent passions, with fury in his countenance, and an extended arm. is pouring forth execrations against the re- morseless bigots; another gen- tleman of exquisite sensibility is silently wiping the tear from his cheek ; a connoisseur seems to be admiring the painter's per- formance, without being ap- parently affected by the subject of it; and a jolly fellow, who appears to have understood and practised the pleasures of the table, sits undisturbed before the picture, buried in fat, indolence, and stupidity. Various have been the efforts of human wisdom to correct the excesses of intolerant supersti- tion; in many instances these efforts have been successful, but like a race horse, pushing for the goal, they have often been carried further than was intended. The zealous, and perhaps at first and before his passions are inflamed, the well-meaning Ca- tholic, who would punish a man's body for the salvation of his soul, ultimately degenerates into that bloodiest and most cruel of all tyrannies, a tyranny over the mind. On the contrary, the liberal- minded man of feeling and phi- lanthropy, unless guided by pru- dence and expediency, becomes a latitudinarian, and a sceptic, and would ultimately introduce the most irrational and unfeeling of all despotisms. The following letter addressed to Mr. Voltaire from the late empress of Russia, during his spirited conduct in favour of the . family of Calas, must have highly gratified that ingenious French- The brightness of the northern star is a mere .Aurora Borealis; but the private man, who is an advocate fx the rights of nature, and a defender of oppressed innocence, will im- mortalize his name. You have attacked the great enemies CALAS, JOHN. 31 enemies of true religion and sci- ence, fanaticism, ignorance, and chicane : may your victory be complete. You desire some small relief for the family ; I should be bet- ter pleased if my inclosed bill of exchange could pass unknown; but if you think my name, un- harmonious as it is, may "be of use to the cause, I leave it to your discretion. Catharine. It is a melancholy truth, that while this disgraceful tragedy was performing, another instance of superstitious intolerance, and like this, ending in the death of two innocent persons, was ex- hibited in the same province at Castres, little more than forty miles from Thoulouse. Adjoining to that city, on a little farm which they owned and occupied themselves, lived the family ofSirven, consisting of the farmer, his wife, and three daughters, of whom one was married and pregnant, her hus- band by his employment being called to a distant province. Although of the Protestant religion, the youngest of his single daughters had been taken by force from her father's house, put into a convent and " told that she must conform to the Catholic faith, which was the only true religion. Finding the poor girl naturally attached to the tenets in which she had been educated, her in- structors told her it was the high road to hell, and insisti?ig that it was necessary to punish the body to save the soul, they taught her their better catechism, whipped her severely, and shut her up in a solitary cell. In a few weeks, in conse- quence of their persevering in what they called wholesome dis- cipline, the poor creature lost her senses, and escaping from her keepers, threw herself headlong into a well. It was immediately insisted on by the Catholics, and passed currrent, that her own family had destroyed her, it being an established rule with Protestants to murder every one who is sus- pected of any inclination to the Catholic Jail h. The populace was inflamed, Sirven did not dare to make his appearance, and having heard of the transaction at Thoulouse, was anxious to avoid similar treatment, as his house had been twice at- tacked. Expecting to be torn to pieces, he took an opportunity, when his infuriate enemies were retired to rest from their persecutions, to leave his house with his family. At the dead of night, on foot, in the severity of winter, and with a deep snow on the ground, the\< 32 CALAS, JOHN. they fled from their savage neighbours, and took the road to Switzerland, though scarcely knowing u hither to go. To add to Sirven's afflictions, his daughter was delivered of a dead child during the journey, evidently killed by the over-fatigue and horrors of its parent; urged for- ward by their remorseless hunt- ers, the frantic mother could not be persuaded that her child was dead, and travelled on, closely embracing the clay -cold infant in her arms. It is not easy to describe the exasperated fury of the zealots at Castres, when they found their intended victims had escaped, thev reproached each other for not having kept a guard during the night; to prove what they wished to do, the whole family were burnt in effigy; a pro- cess was issued against Sirven, his goods seized, his property confiscated, and the memory of an industrious, harmless, and x much injured family, loaded with infamy and reproach. The fugitives travelling by night, and concealing themselves in the day time, fortunately escaped the tygers, but did not " consider themselves as safe till they reached Switzerland. In another respect they were not less fortunate ; the benevo- lent friend and advocate of the family of Calas heard of Sirven's misfortunes, and powerfully in- terfered in their favour, but was shocked on being told that their cause should be re-heard, and that possibly they might be par" cloned; a virtuous, decent, in- nocent family reduced to beg- gary and ruin, with two indi- viduals of it murdered, for so in fact it was, is told it may he pardoned ! But the active benevolence of Voltaire did not rest satisfied with this answer, which seemed to be adding injury to insult; Mr. de Beaumont, who nobly and successfully defended the Calas family, also strongly in- terested himself, and tardy jus- tice ultimately took place. Perhaps the editor of this collection may be asked, as he formerly .was, why introduce stale narratives of popish perse- cution at a period when the Catholics, at least the majority of them, are tolerant, liberal, and disavow many of the obnox- ious, political and ecclesiastical maxims of the old superstition ? My reply then was and now is, that from the persons so de- scribed there is nothing to fear, but with the majority of the lower classes the case »s far otherwise ; the seeds of bigotry, intolerance, and rancour, are deeplv sown, and if the eman- cipation so much talked of and so ardently desired in our sister kingdom was granted, I have not a doubt, that in a few years a sub- CALVIN. 33 a subversion of protestant power, a revolution, and if we may judge by the late rebellion, another massacre would be the consequence. At the same time I am con- vinced, that the proceedings of the petitioners arise from the best, the purest, and the most patriotic motives ; honest them- selves, they think better of their fellow-men than they deserve ; differing widely in opinion with me as to the effects of the object of their hopes, they expect from a gratification of them the hap- piest consequences. But the experience and wisdom of ages is against them, as well as expediency and the present perverted and debauched state of men's minds. Independently of the proposed liberation being expressly con- trary to the king's coronation oath, no sincere, hearty, honest Catholic can in his heart agree, that professors and preachers of the true religion of the holy Catholic church should be subor- dinate in power, profit and emolument to hereticks, hateful to God and man, particularly when the hereticks are the mi- nority, in the proportion I believe of one to fifteen. ^pALVIN— I am accused of ^-^ having treated this cele- VOL. IV. brated theologian and eminent divine with harshness and inde- corum, and have received a long* an anonymous, but a well written letter on the subject, from the country in which his doctrines first predominated. I am told by the writer, and in latin which would not have discredited the correct and fluent pen of Calvin, whose Institutes and the dedication of them exhibit some of the best modern Latin I ever perused ; I am told that the Geneva re- former, when establishing the everlasting foundations of bis faith, knew well what he was doing, and proved himself not only an orthodox theologist treading closely in the footsteps of the evangelists, but a* re 1 philosopher, well acquainted with the deep-seated motives of action, master of the human heart, and well skilled in con- ducting that wild beast - called man (I copy or rathei 1 soften my learned correspondent's words, homines naturd omnium lellua- rumferocissimosj through aland of temptation, to a tribunal which is to determine on his happiness or misery for all eternity. " But it is not merely on his unanswerable arguments and his undeviating coincidence with scripture, that I rest the claim of Calvin, fmagistri nostri claris- f simi) 34 CHATTERTON, THOMAS. simi) to superior excellence and sagacity (continues this energetic writer) \ I appeal with- out fear and without wishing to offend, to stubborn facts which present themselves on all sides, and to every day's experience in human life. " In the immense metropolis of Great Britain, in your popu- lous cities, and in your wealthy provincial towns, where let me ask is primitive Christianity, where are correct morals to be found ? I answer, in those socie- ties and in those communities where the doctrines of Calvin, unweakened and unsophisticated, are regularly preached, vigorously enforced, and implicitly believed. ( f Where is the religious education of the rising generation so unceasingly attended to? where in general do children's entrance into life compensate for the pains bestowed ? where do they in general prove a solace and a comfort to their parents? — I an- swer, in p2/r£ v calvinistic societies, against which Arius, Socinius, and Hell, have leagued in vain. u With 2/5 as with you, in proportion as we depart from the unaccommodating orthodoxy of our immortal reformer, we lapse into Lixity of morals, and impurity of life. " Be assured Angle (my very pen itches, but I must not put in the adjective) nam collectanea cui titulus,. &c. &c* et prosunt et oblectant \ be as- sured that no discipline but the rigid one our master enjoins, will be found effectual in keeping a creature like man (" cui sto- machus vesani leonis^J steady in the path of duty ; in restraining his vicious appetites, in raising up and supporting fallen man." With this extract I close the article, for such reasoning, if supported ly fact, who can answer ? It is not the least of the sin- gularities in this fervent letter, that the pious writer should quote Lucretius, and apply to the reforming, the persecuting Calvin, a panegyric pronounced by the Roman poet on a brother philosopher, to whom an article is assigned in the present volume, Gentibus humanis Nil tamen hoc habuisse viro praeclarius. Nee sanctum magis, et mirum, carumque videtur. Carmina quinetiam divini pec- toris ejus Vociferantur, et exponunt prce- clara reperta, Ut vix humana videatu. stirpe creatus. CHATTERTGN, THO- MAS, the son of a school- master at Bristol, who died be- fore the birth of his son. In his childhood he was re- marked CHATTERTON, THOMAS: 35 marked for dullness in acquir- ing, or capricious unwillingness to learn, and at an age when most boys can read, he could not be prevailed on to tell the letters of his alphabet, till they were displayed before his eyes in the ornamented pages of an illumi- nated manuscript on vellum. This circumstance, when we become acquainted with his fu- ture conduct, is well authenti- cated, and may be considered as a remarkable fact. After this period, making the customary progress, he was educated in a charity-school at Bristol, and at the age of fourteen, placed as a writer in the office of an attorney in that city. In this place he devoted every moment he could snatch from business to general reading, antient poetry, and old romances. His paternal uncle having been sexton to the fine old church of St. Mary RedclifFe, had with gross impropriety, not to say dishonesty, taken a num- ber of old deeds, written on parchment, from a chest, which had for time immemorial been in a loft over a chapel adjoining to that church. Ignorantly conceiving them to be of no use, although they were in fact, deeds, conveyances, leases, and charters, connected with the endowment of the school and other charitable foun- dations, he had given them to Chatterton's father, who con- verted many of them to covers of copy and other books for the chil- dren who attended his school ; those which remained, were care- lessly thrown into the bottom of a large box, when Mrs. Chatter- ton, on the death of her husband, was under the necessity of re* 1 moving to a cheap lodging* These parchments at an early period had engaged the attention of Thomas, and as collaterally connected with his business ot engrossing, he selected and copied those letters which dif- fered from the modern form of writing : having acquired a taste for heraldry and emblazoning, he also made Jac similes of many of the signatures, at the same time Copying the devices and arms on the old seals. Pleased with his new pursuit, and seeming already to have an idea floating in his mind that it might in some way be applied to purposes of fame or profit, he diligently practised it, and at length attained the art of copy- ing such documents on parch- ment, to which, and the ink with which they were written, he found means of communicating that peculiar discoloured appear- ance, mouldiness and smell, which with a common super- f 2 ficial 36 CHATTERTON, THOMAS. iicial observer might make them pass for writings executed many centuries past. This was a singular employ- ment and turn of mind in a youth scarcely sixteen, with a mind absorbed in literary pursuits, and as it afterwards proved over- flowing with poetical imagina- tion : although slightly ac- quainted with the learned lan- guages, he was observed not to ' be deficient in classic imagery, for which he must have been indebted to the translations and other books he occasionally bor- rowed, or to the magic store- house of sterling genius. He had also commenced a correspondence with the propri- etors of several periodical pub- lications, in which were printed many poems and tales in verse, imitating the spelling and words of former times. Find- ing the confinement of an office unfavourable to his literary pur- suits, he hinted a wish to his London patrons, that they would procure for him employment in his favourite pursuits in the metropolis, and they promised to engage him. But previously to this fatal journey, which threw him loose on society, destroyed his peace, and shortened his life, he made trial of his skill, and produced -an old parchment, on which was written in antique spelling and obsolete words and letters, an ac- count of certain ceremonies made use of on opening a bridge at Bristol, also several fragments of black letter poetry ; but being closely questioned as to when and where he found them, and perhaps fearful of its interfering with his future projects, he con- fessed they were of his own fa- brication, and laughed at the persons on whom he had thus imposed. Meditating greater exploits, and impatient to realize his visions of aggrandizement, he flew on the wings of ardent hope and eager expectations to the fountain head of literature, science, wealth, and informa- tion. He was immediately employed by the publishers of several magazines, but finding his re- ceipt utterly inadequate to the necessary expences and super- fluous dissipation of London, his flattering prospects were soon clouded, and pecuniary embar- rassment awoke him from his infatuating dream. In the urgency of want he appliad to Mr. Horace ~ v alpole, who, in an age like the present, teeming with imposture and false pretence, received his ap- plications with doubt, distrust, and neglect ; although much CHATTERTON, THOMAS. 37 has been said and written on the subject, I see nothing in the transaction uncreditable to that pleasant writer and worthy man; that Chatterton was to be pitied cannot be denied, but is Mr. Walpole to be blamed for making use of his eyes, and exerting common sense ? Hopeless and forlorn, dejected and cast down, precisely in the same proportion that his hopes had before been unreasonably elevated, lost and forgotten in the unceasing bustle and con- fusion of an immense metropo- iis, despairing of God and de- testing man, this miserable youth, who might have been the ornament and comfort of his family, swallowed a dose of poison, scarcely at the dreadful moment eighteen years old, and less than three months after his arrival in the English capital! The poems produced by this young man, as written by Tho- mas Rowlie, a secular priest of the fifteenth century, and pub- lished with an engraved speci- men (London, Payne, 1777) produced a long controversy. Doctor Mills, dean of Exeter, and many respectable characters, insisted on their authenticity, and although it has been long decided by the scrupulous pre- cision of modern criticism, that these effusions of fancy were fabricated by Chatterton him- self, individuals are not want- ing, who are still of a different opinion. At a moment when the pub- lic mind was wavering, and the press hourly groaning with pub- lications on the subjects the question was introduced as col- laterally connected with his sub- ject, into the voluminous work of a gentleman, possessing in a high degree that intuitive rapid perception, superior to study, surer than reasoning, and cot- recter than reflection, called taste ; and uniting with it a large portion of minute informa- tion as an antiquary. " The whole," says this acute investigator of antient literature, Ci the whole is evidently a forgery, and not skilfully ma- naged : the letters, although of antiquated form, differ essen- tially from the alphabet in use at the period to which they are attributed; I have compared them with several authentic manuscripts written in the reign of king Edward the fourth, and they are wholly unlike. " The characters in the same piece are not uniform ; some shaped like the modern round- hand, others, like the antient text and court hands; it is true, that the parchment has an old appearance, but it has been evi- dently 38 CHATTERTON, THOMAS. dently stained with some colour- ing substance, which come s off on rubbing; the ink of the manuscript has also undergone a similar process. " As to the internal evidence, and the impossibility of a boy of sixteen so educated, being able to produce such poems, I re- ply in the first place, that the forgery is performed by a work- man only superficially acquainted with the nature of the task he had undertaken, the obsolete words and mode of expression which he has adopted were not in use in that early unpolished state of the English language; the structure of the sentences and diction, though interwoven with a patchwork of old spelling, and uncouth words, are palpa- bly and precisely the phraseology of modern times. 6C I appeal to my readers if the following compositions in which I have slightly modern- ized a few expressions, could possibly have been written in the fifteenth century ; at a period, when without a single exception, the style and language of the English verse-makers, I will not call them poets, was harsh, prosaic, obscure, and frequently unintelligible. SONG TO iELLA, LORD OF THE CASTtE OF BPISTOL. O thou, or what remains of thee, iElla, the darling of futurity, Let this my song bold as thy courage be, As everlasting to posterity. O thou, where'er thy bones do rest, Or spirit bold delighteth best; Whether in the bloody plain, On aheap of bodies slain; Or prancing o'er some flowery mead, Upon thy cole-black fav'rite steed ; Or fiery round the Minster glare, Be Bristol still thy constant care; Like Avon's stream encircle it around, From force and fraud protect thy native ground, Guard it from foes and all con- suming fire, 'Till in one general blaze, the universe expire. CHORUS, IN THE TRAGEDY OF JELL A. ROBIN. Alice, gentle Alice, stay, Tell me why so quick away; Turn thee to thy shepherd swain, Turn thee, Alice, back again. ALICE. No, deceiver, I will go, Like the silver-footed do^ Lightly tripping o'er the lees, Seeking shelter 'mongst the trees. ROBIN'. See the grassy daisied ground, And the streamlet gurgling round, See CHATTERTON, THOMAS. 39 See the sun-beam gliit'ring low, Turn thee, Alice, do not go. ALICE. No, I've heard my grandame say , In this wanton month of May, Her All-: never should be seen Sitting with Rubin on the green. ROBIN. Sit thee, sweetheart, sit and hear, The blackbird's notes so loud and' clear; High o'er thy head the wood- bines civep, None can see but harmless sheep ; It any come my dog will tell, The wether too will shake his bell. ALICE. Do you not the woodlark hear ? He twitters glutly in my ear, In a soft melodious cry, Mischief's near when Robin's nigh ! ROBIN. Round the oak is ivy twin'd, Like that, to me thou shalt be join'd; Come, and do not skittish be, Sit with Robin 'neath the tree. ALICE. Let go my gown, you boist'rous lout, Leave me, or quickly I'll cry out; Out upon you, let me go, Robin, my mother this shall know; Such a thing shall n'eer be done, Till the priest hath made us one. ROBIN. I agree, and thus I plight My faith, the priest shall do thee right ; Hand and heart and all that's mine, At the altar shall be thine. MINSTRELS SOXG, PREVIOUSLY TO DB.OWNINC HERSELF. O sing for me a roundelay, Dance no more at holy-dav, Drop the briny tear for me, My love lies dead In death's cold bed, All under the willow tree. Black his hair as winter's night, Ruddy his face as morning light, White his skin as new- tall 'n snow, Cold he lies in earth below : Soon upon his grave, new made, Shall my clay-cold corpse be laid. Is there not one saint to save A hapless, grief-worn, lonely maid ? My love lies dead In death's cold bed, All under the willow tree. Water-witches, bear me straight, Do not make my true love wait; Soon oblivion's stream shall close Over me and all my woes : My 40 CHATTERTON, THOMAS. My love lies dead In death's cold bed, All under the willow tree. •' I appeal to my readers," says the author I have before quoted, " if the cast of thought, senti- ments, and structure of these and other passages I could pro- duce, are antient ; I am grossly mistaken if they are not exactly the poetry of modern times, thinly and ineffectually dis- guised in obsolete spelling and antique words. " Chatterton, from his child- hood, was fond of reading and scribbling, and many pieces which he produced before he was fifteen years old, without any motive or interest that could induce him to deceive, were con- sidered as surprizing productions; the periodic publications to which he contribu'ed, exhibit a num- ber of similar pieces, acknow- ledged by himself to be his own, equal in brilliancy and smooth- ness, and the majority of them pretending to be effusions of and descriptions of remote times. " Persons in the habit of reading the works of our old poets must have observed, that their great characteristic is in- equality; animated descriptions, splendid similes, poetical images, and striking thoughts, do not often occur, and when they do, are always succeeded by long, tedious, prosaic, and uninterest- ing passages; the poems attri- buted to Row lie on the contrary are every where well supported, they never exhibit dullness or insipidity in style or sentiment, " In the Battle of Hast- ings, said to be translated from the Saxon of Turgot, who died fijty ijears before it was fought ; a writer who lived at the time would have related some cir- cumstance not generally known, his narrative would have been minute and circumstantial ; but the description in the piece produced by Chatterton is gene- ral, and the management pro- bably taken from Pope's Homer. Ci This piece would have de- tected itself, if Chatterton had not, as T find he did, owned that the first part was spurious; he who could perform the first part of this forgery, proved him- self fullv able to write every line in the whole collection. " It has been triumphantly remarked by the supporters of the authenticity of Rowlie's po- ems, that the names of the chiefs who fought in this battle correspond with the roll of Bat- tle Abbey; they seem to forget that this record is copied in Hol- lingsheed's Chronicle, which we know Chatterton had perused. "To CHEEK, SIR JOHN. 41 14 To conclude, it may be ob- served, that the qualifications of the Bristol artist for the task he undertook, and his inducements to forge, naturally arose from his character and the mode of life he adopted ; he was an ad- venturer full of project and in- vention, professedly engaging in the business of literature to get money, and compelled to sub- sist by expedients. « From what he had seen and heard, he must have been fully aware that any genuine re- mains of English poetry rescued from long oblivion, would be received with fond enthusiasm and strong interest, and secure a profitable sale; but although we are deprived of some pleasure by the force of irresistible con- viction, the solid satisfaction remains of having detected and guarded the public against ar- tifice and imposture." This satisfaction it must be confessed is considerably di- minished by the regret every humane person must feel for talents so perverted,, powers so misapplied, and the untimely fate of the juvenile fabricator, who, patronized and supported, might have reflected honour on his country, and have been a comfort to his aged parent. CHEEK, SIR JOHN, a na- tive of Cambridge, edu- vol. IV. cated at St. John's college, and considered as a good Greek scholar, at a period when to read and perfectly understand that language was no common attainment. Qualified with superior learn- ing, he presumed to differ in opinion with Bishop Gardiner, chancellor of the university, on certain apparently unimportant points relating to etymology and verbal pronunciation; this roused the indignation of that haughty churchman, who considered his power equally absolute on gram- matical questions, as he wished it to be in ecclesiastical matters. On this occasion, a singular mandate was officially issued, in which minute and precise rules were laid down for declining, pronouncing, and spelling words; diphthongs were also a source of no small vexation to the imperi- ous prelate of Winchester. The subject of this article was appointed tutor to prince Ed- ward, and became gentleman of his chamber, when that amiable vouth ascended the throne ; but on the accession of the intolerant Mary, he was committed to pri- son for avowing the tenets of Luther. By the connivance or corrup- tion of his keepers, having escaped from confinement, he fled to the Continent, visited the principal cities of Germany, g and 42 CHIVALRY. and wrote a defence of his literary opinions against the magisterial edict of his unrelenting enemy, Gardiner. The manuscript falling into the hands of Coelius Curio, a learned man, mentioned in the article Olympia; he was so much pleased with the good sense and unassuming love of truth in the Englishman's pro- duction, that he printed it with- out the author's knowledge ; this proceeding greatly irritated the bishop of Winchester, who eagerly watched for and soon found an opportunity of grati- fying his revenge. Sir John being naturally de- sirous of seeing his wife, from whom he had been long se- parated, appointed a meeting at Antwerp; this intelligence reach- ing the ears of Gardiner, by the permission and authority-of Phi- lip, king of Spain, and husband to queen Mary, the unfortunate fugitive was seized and conveyed a prisoner to England. Gardiner w T as delighted with the prospect of what appears to have been with him a supreme pleasure, the putting to death his political and religious oppo- nents; but his cruel purpose was defeated by a want of firmness in the object of his vengeance. Soon after his arrival in En- gland, Lady Cheek presented a petition to her majesty, in which her husband avowed a detesta- tion of his religious errors, and submitted himself to the queen's mercy, who granted him a par- don : having thus saved himself from death by abjuring the re- ligious faith he had professed, he was restored to liberty, but never to peace of mind. Compunction and sorrow for the dishonourable and retrograde step he had taken, embittered the remainder of his life; on this occasion his sufferings must have been rendered still more acute, by beholding daily and hourly before his eyes so many saints, martyrs, and holy men, suffering with exemplary firm- ness in the devouring flames ; he felt the anguish of a wounded spirit, and in a few months died of a broken heart. CHIVALRY, a military in- stitution, whose downfall Mr. Burke so eloquently la- mented in the characteristic lan- guage of romance. Whether the advantages of commerce abroad, and a general spirit of agricultural industry at home, are not ample equiva- lents, is a point not to be dis- cussed in this place. This enthusiastic passion in which courtesy and violence, love and religion, bravery and submission, CHIVALRY. 43 submission, were so remarkably- blended, seems to have attained its highest pitch in England, during the fourteenth century, and principally in the brilliant reign of Edward the third, when a romantic nation was governed by a romantic king. As remarkably illustrating the spirit of those times, a trans- action has been preserved, which took place soon after the death of that victorious monarch, when his grandson and succes- sor, that unfortunate or rather that imprudent prince, Richard the second, sat on the English throne. The affair of which I wish to speak was a personal alterca- tion which took place between the dukes of Hereford and Nor- folk; the former accusing the latter of having- uttered many seditious expressions against the king in a private conversation. This charge, winch in modern times would have been officially conducted by the king's attorney- general in a court of justice, was long and warmly contested in council, and no third person be- ing present to corroborate the evidence of Hereford, it was de- termined, that the point at issue should be decided by single combat. At the time and place ap- pointed, the parties met; Here- ford, the challenger, first ap- peared on a white charger, sump- tuously caparisoned and armed at all points; as he approached the lists, the marshal demanded of him who he was, to which he answered " I am Henry of Lancaster, duke of Hereford, and according to my duty ap- pear this day to make good my charge against Thomas Mow- bray, duke of Norfolk, who i's a false traitor to God, the king, this realm, and me." Then taking' the oath that his quarrel was just, he desired to enter the lists; his request be- ing granted, he sheathed his sword, lowered his beaver, and crossing himself on the forehead, seized his lance, passed the bar- rier, alighted, and sat down on a chair of green velvet placed at one end of the lists. Hereford had scarcely taken his seat, when the king entered the field with great pomp and ceremony, splendidly attired, at- tended by a long train of peers, courtiers, and noble personages, who had repaired to England from France and other foreign courts to view the spectacle; the royal procession closed with ten thousand men at arms, who were properly disposed and ar- ranged to prevent tumult and preserve order. His majesty being seated in G2 his 44 CHIVALRY. his chair of state, canopied and richly ornamented, a king at arms proclaimed that none but such as were appointed to marshal the field should pre- sume to touch the lists, on pain of death; each matter thus declared by proclamation, being preceded and followed by a flourish of trumpets, after a pause of silence and attention. A herald gorgeously and somewhat heavily arrayed in the ensigns of his office next ad- vanced, and made proclamation in the following form of words, and in a loud voice : — Cl Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk," which he pro- nounced three times slowly and distinctly, " Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, behold here Henry of Lancaster, duke of Hereford, who hath this day ap- peared and is now entered the lists to perform his devoir against thee, on pain of being counted false and recreant/' The duke of Norfolk immedi- ately rode to the barrier, mounted on a barb ; his coat of arms was of crimson velvet, embroidered with lions of silver and golden mulberry trees; having taken his oath before the constable and marshal, the barrier was raised and his grace entered the field, exclaiming, in an elevated and firm tone of voice, God DEFEND THE RIGHT. Norfolk now alighted from his horse, and was conducted to a chair of crimson velvet, on which he seated himself, facing his antagonist, but at the op- posite end of the lists. A marshal next advanced, and having measured their lances, delivered one to the challenger, and sent the other by a knight to the duke of Norfolk ; procla- mation was then made that they should prepare for the combat. The horses being each led forth by a page, suitably and richly apparelled, they both mounted at the same time, closed their beavers, fixed their lances, and a charge being sounded, the duke of Hereford began his career with violence and ap- parent animosity, but before he could meet his antagonist, the king threw down his warder, and the heralds interposing and seizing their lances prevented further proceeding on the part of the dukes. Richard ordered both parties to be taken into custody, an^ a few days after banished Hereford for ten years, and the duke of Norfolk for life. The king's conduct on this occasion has been condemned by a modern writer, as unjust, absurd, CHIVALRY. 45 absurd, and consistent with the characteristic folly of his life. Yet in any other king or any other man it might have been accounted a wise and philoso- phical interposition to stop so cruel and irrational a mode of settling disputes, in which gene- ral equity or individual justice could have no sort of influence; a method of decision by which strong muscular powers, a met- tlesome steed, or a well-tempered lance, might prostrate an inno- cent and injured man at the feet of an unprincipled and cruel des- perado, v\ho relying on a ner- vous arm, or superior dexterity in military equitation, might thus set at defiance the laws of God and man. But although the laws of chivalry had many evils and some imperfections, it cannot be denied, that in the precise state of society and manners, when they were most prevalent, their influence was in many res- pects desirable and salutary ; they produced a mild species of liberty and equality, the equality of honour and the liberty which did not degrade a gentleman; they humbled proud independ- ence, and coerced savage ferocity. The different kingdoms of modern Europe were then, in form or in effect, divided into petty sovereignties, and each lord or baron exercised over the vassals of his district almost royal pre- rogatives ; exacting personal ser- vice, maintaining a military force, and considering himself as fully justified and legally au- thorized to lead them in hostile array against his neighbours, on any call of avarice, ambition, or revenge. Under this state of things the feudal system would naturally degenerate into a system of feuds, and afford apt occasion for indulging malignant pas- sions ; but fortunately for man- kind, the evil in some degree produced a remedy, the enthu- siasm of chivalry suddenly blazed forth, checked with a gentle but irresistible power the haughty lord or the successful warrior in his impetuous career, and arrested ambition, avarice, lust, insolence, and revenge, by the salutary restraints of religion, gallantry, and courtesy, that cheap defence of nations, " that unbought grace of life/' After a revolution of five hundred years, duelling, evi- dently founded on the laws of chi- valry, maintains despotic sway: though condemned by moralists and divines, and pregnant with domestic calamity, legislators, statesmen, philosophers, and warriors, submissively yielding to its mandates, have confirmed its 46 CHURCHYARD, THOMAS. its utility, if not by actual open avowal, at least by tacit acknow- ledgment, and the mild sen- tences pronounced by our courts of justice against the survivors of those, who have fallen in these more than civil wars. CHURCHYARD, THO- MAS, a native of Shrews- bury, in the reign of king Henry the eighth, "addicted to letters from his youth, and taught by his father to sweeten-* the labour of grammatical stud- ies by playing at intervals on a lute." Some method of attaching him, although he possessed quick parts, seems to have been neces- sary, "for at the age of seven- teen it became matter of doubt whether his head or his heels were most restless ." At this period, a fond mother imprudently furnishing him with money, that great relaxer of juvenile exertion, he laid aside his books and took a journey to London, where he became a *requente/ of the court and other places of gay resort, was sought after as a facetious companion, and acquired the character of a roistering fellow. Meeting with those who assisted him in emptying his purse, his head soon became cool; his pa- rents, who quickly saw the mater* nalerror, refused a remittance, and Thomas entered into the service of the celebrated earl of Surrey, whose muse was inspired by the charms of Gerald ine, the en- chanting daughter of Fitzgerald, earl of Kildare. He was the confidential page between the lover and his mis- tress, to whom several sonnets, addressed by the earl, are still ex- tant; but the amiable and in- teresting Surrey did not live to gain his mistress, or to afford effectual patronage to Church- yard. He had however collected a little coin, when his 6i old vaga- ries" returned and again set him rambling; for the purpose of indulging this propensity, he em- braced the military line, and trailed a pike for three cam- paigns in Scotland and Flanders : he was taken prisoner, and un- derwent many difficulties and hardships, from which he was at length delivered by virtue of the vivacity of his discourse, and the graces of his person, which procuring him general favour with the wives and daughters of his enemies, they furnished him with the means of escape. He returned to England sickly and pennyless; prudence, the hard-nursed parish child of poverty. CHURCHYARD, THOMAS. 47 poverty, once more returned, and he became part of the househe'd of Robert, earl of Leicester. Churchyard appears to have been disappointed at not finding his new master thoughtless like himself, dissipated and extrava- gant; he complained of the dif- ference between the prudent Leicester and the generous Sur- rey; forgetting, as men of his stamp generally do, that previ- ous to generosity, we ought to be just. •He occasionally visited his friends in Shrewsbury, where he soothed chagrin by his pen and frequent draughts of Shrop- shire ale, which the editor has found potent, but stupefying. Perhaps it was from too free a use of this fluid that he was accounted a rhymer rather than a poet. Churchyard was a copious writer; of his productions the majority are departed to the land of oblivion, some of them are extant in a collection famous in its day, called the myrrour FOR MAGISTRATES, of which three editions, 1559, 1587, and 1610, have been printed; he also contributed to another poetical compilation, once in great repute, called The Paradise of Dainty Devises ; three Epis- tles of Ovid's Tristria were done by Churchyard into English verse. The following are the titles of some other of his works : — A Chip from the Old Block —1575. The Spider and the Gout. The Unhappy Life of Sir Simon Burley. The Friar and Shoemaker's Wife. A Light Bundle of Lively Discourses — 1 580. A Description of a Paper Mill, built near Darthford, by a High German. Churchyard, who is said to have been a fond or a despairing lover during his whole life, to use the words of his biographer, .to whom I am indebted for al- most the whole of this article, visited his namesake, in other words, was buried in 1602. A lady, who has occasionally seen, but sometimes finds it difficult to read my productions in manuscript, objects strongly to the word roystering, intro- duced at the beginning of this article; I alledge in vain that it is actually and precisely the word of the author from whom I compile; this does not sa- tisfy, and I am required at my peril to produce au instance, in which any good English writer has used it. A few days after meeting my fair critic, I repeated to her -the following 48 COCONAS. following lines of Swift, who with all his defects of temper and wrong political opinions, was a correct composer; they are in one of his squibs against Wood and his halfpence : — " Salmoneus, as the Grecian tale is, Was a mad coppersmith at Elis : Up before day at morning peep, No creature in the lane could sleep : Among a set of roystering fellows, Would spend whole evenings at the ale-house." COCONAS, a favourite and confidential friend of the duke of Alencon, who was bro- ther to Charles the ninth, king of France : against this mo- narch, the subject of our present article was accused of entertain- ing treasonable designs, and prac- tising unlawful arts. At the moment of suspicion he was seized, and with several of his companions put to the torture, for the purpose of pro- curing further information. Certain little images formed of wax, found in their possession, excited considerable attention in an age devoted to the opposite extremes of superstition and in- fidelity; an age which gave credit to tales of magic, and dreaded the operations of witch- craft. The adversaries of these un- happy men insisted, that the waxen images, particularly one with needles driven through its breast in the direction of the heart, were representations of the king, over which they had read magic incantations, and practised infernal mysteries ; in the hope of gradually under- mining his majesty's health, and paving the way for their patron, the duke of Alencpn, to the Gallic throne. It was in vain that the prison- ers protested their innocence of the crimes alledged against them, and their attachment to the king, by whose favour they had been placed in the service of his brother; they proved that the images in question had been purchased of an astrologer, whom they had consulted on the best method of softening the heart of an obdurate mistress. In proof of the truth of this allegation, they referred without scruple to the images which were found in every instance to represent women. Their defence was thought insufficient, and as it was more important at that period to im- press terror than examine mi- nutelv, they suffered an ignomi- nious death. The artist who furnished the waxen images (imaghinculas cere as' COCONAS. 49 cereas) exciting fear or awaken- ing resentment, was also taken into custody, and sentenced to the gallies, but he found means of evading punishment by fa- vour of the queen ; his story is short, and sufficiently remark- able. The name of this dealer in supernatural gifts was Cosmo Rugieri, a native of Florence, who finding the Italian soil not sufficiently productive of follies or of crimes, emigrated to France, and settling in Paris, drew large sums from the purses of the nobility, gentry and others, by casting their nativities, and an- swering lawful questions. On these occasions, the re* plies made to his credulous fol- fowers were favourable or un- favourable, exactly in propor- tion to the price they paid. Previously to the transaction which is here related, he had been applied to by her majesty, concerning the future conduct of Henry the fourth, when king of Navarre, and of the prince of Conde ; his reply, after due con- sideration, was that their de- meanour would be loyal and pacific. It is remarkable, and con- firmed by collateral evidence, that this prediction of a judicial astrologer, actually saved the lives of those eminent persons, VOL. IV. as it had been previously re* solved to put them both to death ; on this occasion, the professor gave a hint to the par- ties, earnestly requesting that they would not by their conduct falsify what he had foretold; for, that the answer given was founded rather on his hopes and the affection he entertained for them, than on any certain fore- knowledge he possessed; such questions being leyond the reach of his art to tamper with, or re» solve. These words prove^ that like another studier of the occult sciences, to whom an article is assigned in this collection, Ru- gieri did not believe in what he taught; yet such was the gene- ral infatuation, he amassed con- siderable wealth, and though frequently interrupted by the interposition of the magistrate, lived to extreme old age. But although he was sur- rounded by absurd credulity and childish superstition, he is said to have exhibited in himself a shocking instance of scepticism and atheistic depravity. In his last moments, those awful moments which generally strip from human vanity all its disguises, a minister of the gos- pel was introduced by a well- meaning friend ; but the dying man obstinately refused to con- st vers* 30 COMMON-PLACE JOKES. verse with the friendly divine, declaring, almost with his last breath, that prudence, that golden art of taming every in- cident of human life to good ac- count, was the 6nly God he adored ; that malignant pas- sions, folly, and vice, were the only daemons whose existence he would ever acknowledge. With these daring words, and under these unpropitious impres- sions, he boldly ventured on a world unknown ; forgetting that his system of theology converted the Creator of the universe into an undescribable something, an abstracted quality of mind, a sort of non-entity; when reason and nature without the solacing aid of revelation clearly point out the Divine Artificer of the world, as A being of infinite POWER, WISDOM, AND MERCY. COMMON-PLACE JOKES, on religion, law, war, physic, and marriage. More than one example has been given in this collection, to prove that deists, infidels, and freethinkers, do not exactly hold all the tenets they profess. To make lawyers and their profession a source of satire, invective, misrepresentation, and reproach, is common in most jovial companies; this charge has also been . alledged against the editor of the present page; if well founded, he is and must be an ungrateful and unreason- able man, for he has found in special attornies and barristers, some of the most agreeable and useful of his associates. Indeed, when our persons and property are invaded, we make a sorry figure without them. To abuse the medical tribe, to laugh at the family apothecary, and to ridicule pills, potions and gally-pots, has been thought fair from the days of Dryden and Garth ; yet in the hour of danger, sickness, and distress, we send for them with anxious haste. The military spirit has been for ages the subject of declama- tion to philosophers, historians, moralists, and poets; one author has not scrupled to call them the plague and reproach of man- kind; yet under our present circumstances, and while man continues to be a singularly con- trasted compound of vice and virtue, weakness and magnani- mity, how and where should we have been without our present patriotic and well disciplined army ? The correct manners, and in many instances the laudable con- duct of quakers in private life, merit approbation, but they would be crushed or annihilated by the first troop of unprincipled dec- CONCANNEN, MATTHEW. 51 desperadoes, who might chuse to attack them ; and does not the general conduct of mankind in the mass afford a strong proof, that they would be at- tacked ? To ridicule marriage and en- courage nuptial infidelity was once the burthen of their song, with play-writers, novelists, and poets; yet of those who write and those who read their per- formances with such applause, how very few could be named, who at some period of their lives have not entered into the marriage state, or ardently de- sired it ? In reply, it may be observed and has been said by a lady, who has often contributed to the amusement of my readers, that all this is very true, but Mr. Common-Place Book, would you deprive us of an innocent laugh ? By no means, I only wish merry folks to recollect, that ridicule is not the test of truth, that we may laugh at our best friends, and our best interests, till we cease to value and almost despise them. A case in point is upon record 4 } a well known profligate, who repented as others have done, when it was too late, was visited in his last hours by a neighbour- ing clergyman, intimate for many years with his family, and in the days of uncorrupted youth an associate of the dying man $ a short but interesting conver- sation took place, which con- cluded with the ecclesiastics of- fering up ardent prayers for his recovery or his repentance. The sinking sinner repeatedly suggesting doubts if it was pos- sible for the Almighty to accept and admit so foul an offender into the realms of everlasting bliss, the minister proceeded to quote several passages from the New Testament, strongly in favour of mercy and forgiveness. He was suddenly amazed and interrupted in this rational and humane work by the offender's exclaiming, and apparently in great agitation, "My dear sir, let me intreat you to forbear, every word you repeat from that much injured book, plants new daggers in my heart ; there is scarcely a passage in it, which I and my profane companions have not reviled and made a joke of in our hours of revelry and carousing, by which means I have poisoned what would otherwise at this terrible moment be an inestimable source of comfort ! Y* CONCANNEN, MAT- THEW, one of the mem- h 2 be rs 52 CONCANNEN, MATTHEW. bers of a literary club, who excited the satirical vengeance of Pope. Concannen would long since have been forgotten, except in the Dunciad, had not a singular circumstance brought his name again before the public; Dr.* Knight, librarian to the British Museum, having in the year 1750 taken a house in Crane- court; while it was repairing* the persons employed informed him, that in a recess by the fire- side of an upper room, covered with canvas and papered, but which had once been a closet, they had discovered a number of dusty papers. They were deposited by his direction in a place of safety, and when the doctor took pos- session, to examine his treasure was the occasional employment of a leisure hour; covered by a heap of old bills, receipts, and other uninteresting documents, he found an original letter from doctor Warburton, who, at the time of writing it, was an attor- ney at Newark, in Nottingham- shire; it was addressed to the subject of our present article, who at a certain time probably lodged in the house, which had formerly been let in separate apartments. Although not, strictly speak- ing, his property, Dr. Knight considering it as an aliquot part of his dwelling, preserved the paper ; it afterwards came into the possession of Dr. Mark Akenside, an eminent whig- poet, and author of "The Plea- sures of the Imagination ;" and ultimately passed into the hands of the acute and indefatigable Mr. Malone, by whom it was laid before the public. The circumstance though tri- fling was curious, that the future editor and panegyrist of Pope should have been actually in* troduced to a society of persons, who had grossly reviled him ; that he should thankfully ac- knowledge this introduction as an honour and a favour ; that he should join with them in abusing his future patron, accuse him of plagiarism and a want of genius ; and finally, that he should write notes to a malignant personal satire, in which his old friends were virulently attacked. Little accidents sometimes are productive of important changes ; had the letter in question been ever seen or heard of by the irritable and easily exasperated translator of Homer, Warburton would himself have been handed down to everlasting ridicule in the Dunciad, he would never have defended the Essay on Man, against Crousaz ; his introduc- tion to the wealthy niece of Mr. Allen CONCANNEN, MATTHEW. ,53 Allen would not have taken place, and the humble Notting- hamshire attorney would never have ascended an ecclesiastic throne, in the cathedral of Glou- cester : the letter has been talked of so much, that I had almost forgotten to transcribe it. Newark^ Jan, 3d, 1726. DEAR sib, Having had no more regard for those papers which I spoke of and promised to Mr. Theobald than just what they deserved, I in vain sought for them through a number of loose papers that had the same kind of abortive birth. I used to make it one good part of my amusement in read- ing the English poets, those of them I mean whose vein flows regularly as well as clearly, to trace them to their sources, and to observe what ore, as well as dirt, they brought down with them. Dryden, I have often had oc- casion to observe, borrows for want of leisure, and Pope for want of genius, Milton from pride, and Addison through modesty. And now I am speaking of the latter, that you and Mr. Theobald may see of what kind those idle collections are, and to g?ve you my notion of what we may safely pronounce an imita- tion ; for it is not I presume the same train of ideas that follow in the same description of an antient and a modern, where nature, when attended to, always supplies the same stores, which will authorize us to pronounce the latter an imitation, for as Terence has observed, nihil est dictum, quod non sit prius dic- tum : for these reasons I say, I give myself the pleasure of set- ting down some imitations I ob- served in the Cato of Addison : — A day, an hour of virtuous liberty Is worth a whole eternity of bondage. ,,_,. ° Addison, Quod si immortalitas conse^ queretur praesentis periculi fu- gam, tamen eo magis ea fugienda esse videretur, quo diuturnior esset servitus. Tullii Philippica. Bid him disband his legions, Restore the commonwealth to liberty, Submit his actions to the public censure, And stand the judgment of a Roman senate; Bid him do this, and Cato is his friend. Addison. Pacem vult? arma deponat, roget, 54 CONCANNEN, MATTHEW. roget, deprecetur. Neminem equiorem reperiet quam me. Tullii Philippica. But what is life ? 'Tis not to stalk about and draw fresh air From time to time ; — — 'Tis to be free. When liberty is gone, Life^ grows insipid and has lost its relish. Addison. Non enim in spiritu vita est; sed ea nulla est omnino servienti. Tullii Philippica. Remember, O ! my friends, the laws, the rights, The gen'rous plan of power de- livered down From age to age by your re- nown'd forefathers : O ! never let it perish in your hands - Addison. Hanc libertatem retinete, quaeso, Ouirites, quam vobis, tanquam hereditatem, majores nostri reliquerunt. Tullii Philippica. This mistress of the world, this seat of empire, The nurse of heroes, the delight of Gods. Addison. . Roma domus virtutis, imperii et dignitatis ; domicilium glorise. lux orbis terrarum. Tullius de Oratore, Half of the fifth scene of the third act is copied from the ninth book of Lucan, between the three hundredth and the seven hundredth line. You see by this the exactness of Mr. Addison's judgment, who wanting sentiments worthy the Roman Cato, sought for them in Tully and Lucan. When he would wish to give his subject a terrible, grace, he borrows from Shakespear. O think what anxious moments pass between The birth of plots and their last fatal periods : O ! 'tis a dreadful interval of time Filled up with horror all, and big with death. AJJ . Addison. Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the int'rim is Like a phantasma or a hideous dream ; The genius and the mortal instru- ments Are then in council; and the state of man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection. Shakespear" 's Julius Ccesar* You may justly complain of my so long deferring my thanks for all your favors during my stay CONCINI. 55 in town, hut more particularly for introducing me to those worthy and ingenious gentlemen with whom we passed our last evening. I am, Sir, with all esteem, Your most obliged friend, And humble servant, W. Wareurton. For Mr. M Concannen, at Mr. Woodward's, at the Half-moon, inFleet- street, Ldndon. CONCINI, or as he was called by his own countrymen, Conchini, and by the French, Conchine, the son of a clerk in a public office at Florence, who, entering into the domestic ser- vice of Mary de Medicis, previ- ously to her marriage with Henry the fourth, King of France, ac- companied that princess to Paris. By the graces of his person, and a pleasing address, having secured the queen's favor, and won the affections of Leonora Galligai, a daughter of her ma- jesty's nurse, he became her hus- band, and by this connection added considerably to his influ- ence with the royal widow, who wasof the same age with Leonora, and had been inordinately fond of her from their earliest infancy. The attachment of Concini, on this occasion, must have been founded on motives of political interest, or intellectual esteem, for his wife was grossly deficient in personal beauty. Their patroness being appoint- ed Oueen Regent, during the mi- nority of Lewis the thirteenth, Concini became in fact, if not in form, Mairede Palais* an of- fice so hatefully administered in the earlier ages of the French monarchy, in a word, governor of the palace as well as the per- son of the young king; he was ennobled, the dignity of Marshal of France was conferred upon him, and he accumulated enor- mous wealth, securing for him- self, his family, and dependants, the highest and most lucrative appointments. But the vain and ambitious Flo- rentine was not satisfied with pos- sessing these advantages; he could not be content without an osten- tatious display of them in every- place, and on every occasion ; this weakness, which a court fa- vorite more than any man ought always to avoid, this weakness appeared in the splendor of his dress, the magnificence of his houses, the profusion of his table, and the costly liveries of three hundred attendants. Such conduct was unpardon- able in a man, who on other oc- casions, discovered no want of acuteness and good sense ; it can only 66 CONCINI. only be attributed to his sudden elevation, and an unexpected tide of wealth and prosperity sudden- ly flowing in upon him ; these are often found to weaken the head, and corrupt the heart. Brutus confessed, that after frequently wavering he was irre- vocably fixed in his purpose of as- sassination, by Caesar's receiving the senate sitting ; we may judge of its effect on a stern republican, when an ancient writer and a moderate man mentions this cir- cumstance in the following strong terms; — prcecipuam et inexpi- abilem invidiam. The death of Concini is said to have been determined on, by his appearing with his head co- vered in the king's presence. Thrs imprudent folly, more than real crimes, proved his ruin ; it excited the king's jealousy, and provoked the hatred of the people, whose prejudices against foreign favorites were soon con- verted into malignity, abhorrence, and detestation. These expressions may appear too strong, but they scarcely convey an adequate idea of the sentiments of rancour and aversi- on universally entertained against him ; this I believe will be the opinion of most readers, when informed of certain extraordinary proceedings, which I mean pre- sently to relate. Another circumstance hasten- ed his destruction ; the king was now approaching to manhood, and indignant at the dishonorable state of vassalage in which he had been long confined, which had deprived him of improving intercourse, customary amuse- ments, and necessary exercise. Although little more than sixteen years old, the king quickly saw that in the present exasperated state of the public mind, to dis- miss and to punish Concini would be acceptable to the majority of his subjects ; but he knew at the same time, that a numerous and powerful party were attached to him by blood, by gratitude, and interest. The sovereign in this instance conspired against the minister*, private meetings were held, and after mature consideration it was resolved to remove the pre- sumptuous Italian, who, though a stranger of obscure birth, thus arrogantly presumed to establish an uncontrouled ascendency over king, nobles, and people. Tfais disgraceful business was undertaken by one of those tools who are ready on most occasions to execute the purposes of des- potism and vengeance ; the un- popular favorite was way-laid as he passed to the Louvre, and re- ceived the contents of a pistol in his heart. Ade-. CONCINI. 57 A detachment of soldiers was sent to seize the wife of the mur- dered man ; it being the dead hour of night, Leonora was found in her bed, from which the mis- creants dragged her with many circumstances of brutality and indecorum. After plundering the apartments of her papers, her money, and jewels, they conveyed her to the Bastile; a prosecu- tion was commenced against her for practising Jewish mysteries and other crimes, w hich it is not easy to read or to relate without a smile or a sigh. The prisoner was accused of rising before dayrbreak at every return of the Jewish festivals, and of chaunting select passages from the Psalms of David; of sacri- ficing a cock, as is a custom with Jews on the day of the feast of reconciliation ; of consulting magicians and astrologers, who professed judicial mathematics, particularly the beldame Isabel, a sorceress by trade, to know, whether by virtue of her art any information could be procured concerning the future events of Leonora's life, or any of her fa- mily. It was further added in aggra- vation of the charges, that a crucifix, generally kept in Galli- gai's room, was always removed during the celebration of the un- lawful ceremonies, which the of- VOL. IV. fender and her associates practised; and that the parties concerned had prepared themselves by previous diet ; the witnesses being asked of what this consisted, replied " The combs of white cocks, carefully chosen, and the kidnies of young rams/ 3 It was also proved in evidence against her, that a book of strange characters was found in the apart- ment, by which she was enabled to influence the thoughts and in- clinations of persons of quality ; that philacteries, periapts, amu- lets, and ligatures, for suspending strange substances to her neck, were discovered in her cabinet, ancj that, little images of wax were concealed in a coffin lined with black velvet. These and other charges of a similar kind seem inconsistent with the character given of the favorite and confident of Mary de Medicis by a grave historian, who relates an answer given by the unhappy woman to one of her judges. Being afked by what arts she had attained and preserved so irresistible an influence over the queen, Leonora replied- — ec By that power, which strong under- standings always exercise over weak minds." These words, if actually spoken, prove that the charges brought against Leonora were malicious- i lv 5-8 CONCINI. \y fabricated, or^that it is possi- ble and perhaps frequent for the same persons to exhibit in their conduct and conversation sur- prising contrasts of wisdom and of folly. The offender being found guil- ty was beheaded in the early part of the seventeenth century, and her body burnt to ashes. Such was the fate of Concini and his wife; yet I have some- times doubted whether the crimes (their Judaizing and ivitchciaft out of the question; whether the crimes they committed, were in any respect greater than those of their predecessors and successors in similar situations ; they were favorites at court, they grati- fied their ambition, oppressed their opponents, and accumulated wealth, as most favorites in all ages have done ; but Concini, as I have before observed, wanted prudence, moderation, and good sense, in the enjoyment of those advantages he possessed, and ap- pears to have treated with neg- lect the woman to whom he was indebted for his prosperous ele- vation. When Leonora was told what had happened to her husband by the officers who carried her to prison, she replied^" Qu'il me- ritoittout) qu*iletoit un mechant homme, qui n'avoit pas couclie avec elle pour trois ans." The life and death of Concini are familiar to most general read- ers, and I have two reasons for repeating a well known story: first, that I might have an op- portunity of proving, as I have endeavoured to do, that he was not that tyrannical and hateful monster which he has been some- times described ; and secondly, to shew that the treacherous me- thod of dispatching an opponent, adopted in his case, and which scarcely any circumstance or si- tuation can palliate, might clearly have been avoided by Lewis the thirteenth. This opinion is confirmed by the almost universal hatred with which Concini was regarded, and is remarkably evinced by certain movements I promised to relate, and which took place the day after he was murdered. The body had been privately interred by his friends in the church of St. Germaine d'Aux- erre ; but the instant his death was generally known, the po- pulace hurried in crowds to the spot where he was buried, and disinterred the corpse ; after ex- ecrations, yellings, and various abominable mutilations, they dragged it through the streets, and finally concluded their savage triumph by cutting the object of their impotent vengeance into a thousand pieces. This CONCLAVE. 59 This scene, almost equal to the modern revolutionary horrors of Paris, Lyons, and Versailles, was attended with other circumstan- ces too shocking to relate in English. " Un autre," . says a French writer, speaking of the persons who had violated Concini's tomb, (i un autre mit sa main dans le corps, la retira toute sang/ante, et la porta dans sa louche pour succer le sang ; an autre eut moyen de lui arracher le caeur, et V aller cuire sur les char ions, et manger publiquemeni avec du vinaigre." Cardinal Richlieu, who- after- wards guided the councils of France, and exerted a despotism far greater and more unrelenting, but conducted with dexterity and management, was introduced at court, and patronized by Con- cini : sharing in the Florentine's disgrace, lie retired for a short time, but being soort recalled, lived and died undisturbed in the sunshine of royal favor. Yet y at a certain period of his administration, when a crowd, I forget on what occasion, were huzzaing as the carriage of his eminence was passing, an enemy of the cardinal's observed — rt lis ont apparemment ouble, que c'eloit un des coquins (Tun Juif excom- mune" " They seem to have forgot that he was one of the varlets of an excommunicated Jew." CONCLAVE, a part of the palace of the Vatican, con- sisting of several large anti-cham- bers made use of for electing a Pope, and divided by nmnerous temporary partitions into small rooms, called cells \ each cardinal being allowed two ; one for his own use, furnished with a bed, a few chairs and a table ; and another for his conclavist, or se- cretary. The right of chusing a supreme head of the Catholic church has been exercised for almost time immemorial by the college of cardinals : their number was li- mited to seventy, at the council of Basil, by Pope Sixtus the fifth. In the middle of the eighteenth century they amounted to sixty- eight; of whom fifty were Italians, six French, four Germans, three Spaniards, three Portuguese, one a Fleming, and one a Polander ; it is a standing law of the sacred college, that every pope must be a native of Italy. To the dignity of cardinal there is no revenue attached, but they are stiled eminent issimi, and ge- nerally hold considerable offices, civil as well as ecclesiastical; they consider themselves on an equa- lity with princes, and as such have been treated, i 9 Twelve 66 CONCLAVE. Twelve or fourteen clays are generally occupied in performing the funeral obsequies of a de- ceased pontiff: during this time, the cammerlingo, or great cham- berlain, who is always a cardi- nal, acts as regent, is attended by the pope's guards, and issues circular letters to the sacred col- lege for holding a conclave. The body of his holiness, in the mean time, lies in state in a magnificent bed raised in St. Peter's churchy which is illumi- nated with torchesand wax lights} cardinals in black copes, at in- tervals, bestowing absolution, and sprinkling incense and holy water. These and other ceremonies being concluded, and the depart- ed pope interred, a discourse is generally pronounced by some eminent churchman, or high officer of the palace, de eligendo pbntifice, followed by prayer and exhortation. A governor of the co p. (lave being next chosea and sworn to perform the duties of his appointment with justice and impartiality, the cardinals, after celebrating mass in St. Peter's church, and hearing an appro- priate sermon, retire in proces- sion, two and two, into the con- clave, which is then shut up by the governor, and no one let out or admitted^ except in cases of dangerous illness, till the new sovereign of Rome is elected. Refreshments, as occasion may require, are brought to the door and deposited in boxes, which turn round like those usually placed in convents, so that what- ever they contain may be received by the persons in the interior, without their seeing or speaking to those on the outside ; in this manner are the cardinals subsist- ed, and provisions conveyed to them, till the business for which they assembled is concluded. Each cardinal orders his con- clavist to write down on a slip of paper the name of the can- didate to whom he gives his vote ; these pieces of paper are deposited in a chalice, which stands on a long table covered with green cloth in the chapel of the conclave. Two cardinals, appointed by the governor, successively read aloud the contents of these de- tached notes ; he who has two- thirds of the suffrages is declared pope, but till this takes place, the scrutiny must be repeated. Sometimes parties are so exactly balanced, that the election be- comes a long and tedious process ; and a person is frequently chosen indifferent, and sometimes dis- agreeable to both sides, merely on account of his old age and in- firmities, CONCLAVE. 61 firmities, and because the elec- tors cannot agree fa opinion con- cerning the original object of their choice : an instance of this kind may be. seen by referring to .the article "Perelli, in this volume. On some occasions, when the votes for a popular candidate have been numerous, so as to be within three or four of the ne- cessary number, they who con- sider themselves as possessing the majority come out as it were by inspiration (from which this me- thod takvs its name) but previ- ously agreed on, and calling to each other with a loud voice, mention the name of the cardi- nal ihey fix on for pope; when the minority, taken as it were by surprize, and fearing to incur the displeasure of a new pontiff, join in the cry, and thus the election is concluded. The cardinals immediately do homage on their knees to the holy father, who in his turn be- stows on them a short benedic- tion, prays for divine assistance in the great charge to which he has been called, and mentions the future name he will bear. A cardinal then announces the new pope from a lofty balcony to the people, who on these occasions assemble in crowds, are particu- larly licentious and irritable, and profess wonderful impatience if the cardinals in the conclave are tedious in their deliberations. In their acclamations, after the name of the pontiff and santo padre, they frequently add e grosse pagnolle (and large loaves.) The coronation of the pope with the triple crowns generally takes place in the course of a week : a discharge of cannon from the Moles Adriana, now called the castle of St. Angelo, and an universal jail delivery- through the ecclesiastical states, with a magnificent cavalcade called the possessio, when his holiness goes to take possession of the church of St. John Laterally conclude the election. " I was a spectator/' says an agreeable and well-informed tra- veller, " I was a spectator of the possessio which took place when Clement the thirteenth, Charles Rezzonico, a native of Venice, was advanced to the chair of St. Peter in July 17.58; it extend- ed for full three miles, from the palace of the Vatican through the whole extent of the city of Rome. ~ antiquary ; is perhaps an agreeable friend and a pleasant companion ; in a word, every thing but what he ought to be ; a useful magistrate, a father of a family, and a good christian. On these points, he is utterly dis- qualified for filjmg that place in which Pro\idence has placed him: adorned with the accomplish- ments and manners of a refined age, the charities oj domestic life are discarded, defiled, or forgotten. " With such examples before their eyes, can we wonder that the rising generation prtrer a life of celibacy, i ndolence, and disease, to utility, activity, and health ? there is a radical decay, not only of morals and exertion, but of consistency and perception ; our great traders affect Superiority in magnificence, luxury, and ex- pence; our nobility emulate their grooms; while all appearance of the lucidus or do, the gradual pro- gression of intermediate ranks, is buried and concealed by costly dress, parade, and affectation. To these and other causes may be attributed a large portion of our infelicity ; and although so MUCH HAS BEEN SAID OF THE FAULTS OF OUR CONSTITUTION, AND THE OBLIQUITIES OF THOSE WHO GOVERN US ; IT WILL BE FOUND THAT OUR MOST SERIOtiS EVILS CUNNING AS SERPENTS, &c. 65 EVILS AND THE BITTEREST OF OUR GRIEVANCES ORiGINATE FROM OURSELVES." CUNNING AS SERPENTS, HARMLESS AS DOVES. A schoolfellow and early friend of the editor of this miscellany, religiously educated, and till within a few years, of sober life and conversation, having, to the surprize and regret of his associates, suddenly seceded from the religious faith of his fore- fathers, and entirely absented himself from public worship 5 after frequent mild reprehensions and amicable exhortations, pro- duced the words which stand 'at the head of my present article, as the cause of his unwarrantable secession ; insisting, that a cha- racter formed upon, and acted up to this maxim, was an unpleasant and dangerous companion. His friends, two of them wor- thy divines of the church of Eng- land, considering it as a matter of some importance to reclaim a lost sheep, after many long and interesting expostulations, found their attempts unsuccessful. In the course of these con- versations, the unbeliever fre- quently observed, " that in the course of a long and busy life, he had occasionally mixed with a number of serious and apparent- ly devout christians, whose con- VOL. IV. duct, so far as related to gross indulgence and carnal sensuality, was exemplary and correct ; bul that he never had carried on any transaction, commercial, legal, or political with them, without be- ing over-reached by subtlety, craft, or finesse." This charge, if brought home and proved, a very heavy one, he more particularly applied to Quakers and Dissenters ; insist- ing that the more correct and christian-like their doctrines and general deportment, the more he dreaded having any intercourse with them as neighbours, and members of society. When pressed by incontro- vertible arguments on the unfair- ness of taking up prejudices against religion from the errone- ous conduct of a few individuals who professed it, when told there was nothing in the christian dis- pensation which could legalize fraudulent hypocrisy, and that there was no reason why a good man should not by all fair means promote the interest of his family, he usually seized his hat and quitted the room with one of those ironical smiles, which those who remember the late Mr. Gib- bon during such contests, may recollect, usually played on the extraordinary countenance of the sceptic ; a countenance indeed so particular, that a coarse and k indecorous 66 DISPENSATIONS. indecorous polemic in the irrita- tion of zeal, and losing sight of politeness, actually compared it to a child's This delicate and curious com- parison, when repeated to the historian, for he never read the pamphlet, created a hearty laugh ; and he has often been heard- to mention this attack on his poor double chin, as he used to call it, at the same time stroking it be- tween his finger and thumb, with considerable merriment and glee. ^EATH.— Is it in Mon- taigne, that the following sentence occurs } ff Death is a sort of meat whichmust be swallowed without chewing." If he meant, that the last scene of our lives is a subject which should not be reflected on, his sentiment is unwarrantable in theory, and mischievous in prac- tice; a man who often thought of death, could not live very in- correctly. DISPENSATIONS.— A cu- rious conversation on this subject, which would afford good materials for a casuist. In the year 1712, Queen Anne, on the presentation of Sir Jacob Astley, granted a cler- gyman a dispensation to hold the rectory of Foulsham in the county of Norfolk together with the rectory of Market Deeping in Lincolnshire ; the parishes in this instance being considera- bly beyond the distance from each other allowed by an arch- bishop's presentation. On this occasion, the baronet waited on Dr. Tennison, at that time archbishop of Canter- bury, with the clergyman to whom he had presented the living, when the following con- versation took place. Soon after they were an- nounced at Lambeth, the pri- mate entered : — Sir Jacob A. — My lord, I wait on your grace in behalf of this clergyman, Mr. , to whom I have given the presenta- tion of Foulsham in Norfolk, -to desire your dispensation, that he may hold that ljving together ' with Market Deeping in Lin- colnshire, of which he is now rector. Dr. Tennison. — Sir, you come at a bad time, for my wife is ill, and I am myself much indis- posed. Sir Jacob A. — I am sorry to disturb you, my lord, but the oc- casion was urgent, and my au- thority is the queen's warrant. Dr. Tennison. — The queen's warrant ? Pray what do you mean, sir ? Sir DISPENSATIONS. 67 Sir Jacob A. — Being informed that your grace's dispensing power was limited to thirty miles, we applied for a royal dis- pensation. Dr. Tennison. — This is a very wicked thing, and I wonder you would undertake it. Sir Jacob A. — The power of dispensing without limitation of distance was given to the crown by the same parliament, that gave the archbishop of Canterbury power to dispense for thirty miles. Dr. Tennison. — 'Tis a very wicked thing. Sir Jacob A. — Your grace frequently makes use of your dispensing power, and why may not the queen, on similar occa- sions, exert a prerogative placed in her hands by the constitution? But, my lord, will you permit the gentleman to speak for him- self? He has the queen's warrant directed to your grace. Dr. Tennison. — Warrant! I had rather he would come and cudgel me. But I am resolved not to agree to it ; let the queen do what she pleases ; I will go to prison first. Sir Jacob A.— If your grace would but permit the gentleman to speak. Dr. Tennison. — Well. Clergyman . — I have the queen's warrant; would your grace please to see it? (Archbishop reads the war- rant) — I will never suffer it. Well, things are come to a fine pace ; this is what king William would never have done ; he pro- mised me he would not, for 'tis unreasonable, and not lawful. Sir Jacob A. — What is con- firmed by act of parliament can- not be unlawful ; it is an un- doubted prerogative of her ma- jesty, which may be exercised at her royal pleasure Dr. Tennison. — The queen may do her pleasure ; I will write to my Lord Bohngbroke about it, but will never consent, let them do what they will ; for if I once surfer them to break in upon me, I know not where they will stop. But hark you, sir, (addressing himself to the cler- gyman) how can you as one man supply these two livings ? Clergyman. — One I will serve myself, and provide a sufficient curate for the other. Dr. Tennison. — I tell you it is unlawful ; how far distant are the places apart ? Clergyman. — Between forty and fifty miles, my lord. Dr. Tennison. — Abominable! How dare you ask . so wicked a thing ? it was what good king William abhorred. I tell you, sir, I never will do it. Clergyman. — If it be not un- reasonable for your grace to K 2 grant 68 DISPENSATIONS. grant dispensations for thirty miles, why may not the queen do it for greater distances ? since it is equally impossible in both cases for the same person to serve the two livings. Dr. Tennison.- — I tell you I NEVER DID IT IN ALL MY life, and never will. Clergyman. — I am informed, and on good authority, my lord, that King William granted his warrant in a similar case, and that it was obeyed. Dr. Tennison. — Who told you that ? I am sure King William was too good a man to do so wicked a thing. Sir Jacob A. — I can assure your grace, there was a royal dispensation granted in the reign of King William. Dr. Tennison. — Pray urge me no longer, for I will never do it. Sir Jacob A. — I take your grace's refusal very unkindly, it being a thing warranted by law, and there is no precedent for its having been .refused before. Dr. Tennison. — Pluralities were designed to reward men of extraordinary merit ; here was the other day the son of my in- timate friend, Dr. B., a man of extraordinary talents and fault- less character, he came to me to get a living; and here you, who are so much his junior, have got- ten two. This is ve/yfine. Clergyman. — Your grace's ar- gument will hold equally good against all pluralities; but it is hard that an exception should be made against what is become almost a general rule, only in my case; I know the gentleman your lordship mentions very well, we were schoolfellows, but at the university I was his senior. Dr. Tennison. — Well, well $ Vis all one; I will not do it. Pray let me have your name, that of your college, and the de- grees you have taken. Clergyman. — My name is — , my degree is batchelor of law, and I resided about seven years ago in Jesus college, Cam- bridge. Dr. Tennison.— I wonder people do not understand bet- ter than to trouble me when my wife is so ill ; but we are come to a fine pace. Sir Jacob A. — I considered the queen's warrant as a suf- ficient reason for calling on your grace, and I might have men- tioned another claim I had on your gratitude; this is the living I gave your grace's uncle, arch- deacon Tennison. Dr. Tennison. — I remember it, but I cannot allow this gen- tleman to have it. Sir Jacob A. — Your grace's humble servant. Dr. DISPENSATIONS. 6» Dr. Tennison. — God bless you, Sir Jacob ; let us hear no more of this wicked thine;. This conversation has been thought worth preserving, and for several reasons; it proves that in his own mind, Dr. Ten- nison disapproved of pluralities, although as archbishop ot Can- terbury, he frequently granted dispensations for them. It may also be observed, that if a clergyman's holding two livings forty or fifty miles dis- tant from each other was a very wicked thing, a dispensation for holding them thirty miles asun- der could not be very good. Persons better acquainted with the sources of ecclesiastical in- formation than the editor of this collection can soon determine, whether the primate was after- wards prevailed on to alter his mind. The colloquial incorrectness of Dr. Tennison's language, which I have marked with the silent censure of italics, perhaps was excusable in a very old man. The following cause, which after a long hearing at the Court of Arches in Doctor's Com- mons was decided thirty years ago, seems to be a proper addU tion to this article, and excited at the time considerable interest with clergymen in general :— - Mr. Blundel, patron of the rectory of Costard D'Arcey, cited the Reverend Mr. Green, rector of that parish, to show cause, why that rectory should not be declared void, in conse- quence of Mr. Green having ac- cepted without dispensation two perpetual curacies id the county of Berks and diocese of Salis- bury, both more than thirty- miles distant, on the appoint- ment of and by licence from the dean of Salisbury. It was contended on the part of Mr. Blundel, that such cu- racies were now in fact benefi- ces with cure of souls, as they had both been augmented with perpetual stipends by the act of the twenty-ninth of Charles the second, which gives to the hold- ers of such curacies a right of distress on the tythes, or an ac- tion for debt ; that by a deter- mination of the council of La- teran held under pope Inno- cent the third in 1215, which in such matters is allowed to be the law of the realm, the hold- ing such benefices makes void the holding others with cure of souls. The arguments produced by Dr. Marriott anc( Dr. Calvert, who on this occasion exhibited extensive reading and most skil- fully applied it, the arguments of these gentlemen on behalf of Mr. 70 EAST INDIA VOYAGE. Mr. Green were, that perpetual curacies, such as those of Hurst and Ruscombe in the present case, were merely stipendiary of- fices with cure of souls by dele- gation, in ecclesiastical law a most important distinction; that the holders of such curacies were not parsons, imparsonmees, or, incumbents, but serve the cure in the name and as representa- tives of the impropriator. They further observed, that when the impropriator of such a curacy is an ecclesiastic, the cure is in him originally, but if a layman, in the ordinary, who if the impropriator neglects, may appoint a curate; that in certain cases the ordinary or licenser may remove on cause shewn in due course of law, but only for such cause as would occasion deprivation. That the curate in these in- stances possesses no freehold in the church, chancel, church- yard, or glebe, or in any par- ticular portion of tythesj that he is neither instituted nor in- ducted, all of which requisites, or the major part of them, are ab- solutely requisite to create" a per- fect benefice ; it was finally in- sisted by Mr. Green's learned advocates, that papal councils, legative decrees, episcopal and provincial constitutions, have no force further than as they agree with the usage of the realm, the king's prerogative, and parlia- mentary statutes. Sir George Hay, dean of the court, decreed against Mr. Blun- ders prayer without giving costs on either side, declaring at the same time, that perpetual curates are removable on good cause shewn to the proper jurisdiction by impropriators ; and that having a large benefice, at a very great distance, in the present case more than ninety miles, might be a good and sufficient cause for vacating a perpetual curacy ; but that in the case before him, it lay with the impropriator of the curacy, and not the patron of the rectory. 'AST INDIA VOYAGE.— I can scarcely enter a house either in town or coun- try, but I see clouded brows and female tears produced by the crimes or follies of some of the younger branches, who after having exhausted paternal pa- tience and maternal tenderness, tried different situations, and emptied their fathers pocket of fees, premiums, &c. are as a last resort, shipped off to the East Indies. Of these the majority previ- ously injured in health by evil habits, anxiety, despair, and a long voyage, fall a sacrifice to the fiery atmosphere of that country, in which a poor fellow who EAST INDIA VOYAGE. 71 who perished there, once told me, only the devil or a salaman- der could exist. In the mean time the expence of fating out, in large families a serious sum, is thrown away ; for I never yet met with any in- stance of an account of effects being sent to their friends in England, and a voung, perhaps, excepting as before excepted, an amiable man, who might have been reclaimed and pre- served to comfort his family, is lost to his relatives and the world, and dispatched as ef- fectually as Buonaparte's for- mer associates to Cavenne. I wish some public-spirited member of parliament to put an end to this expensive and afflict- ing method of deportation, for surely it is of more importance to restore a diseased limb than to cut it off, to amend than to destroy. For these and other reasons, I humbly propose that penitenti- ary houses for the middle and more elevated classes of society, one in each county, be immedi- ately erected ; that a power, for I will not mince the matter, of issuing LETTERS DE CACHET be granted to the magistrates, previous permission being ob- tained from a secretary of state, grounded on affidavits from pa- rents and guardians. In these receptacles for crimi- nal infatuation, I would, consi- dering them as mad, shut up for a certain time, and keep on bread, water, and hard labour; undutiful children, spendthrifts, gamblers, and all young men and "even women notoriously and flagrantly (deficient in duty, practice, and profession. Under strict coercion, religi- ous discipline, low diet, and so- litude, rebellious passions might be restrained, bad habits broken, and salutary compunction take place. As reason and religion re- turned, they mi^ht be restored gradualiy to society ; but in case of relapse, should be again shut up under circumstances of augmented severity. This crude plan, loudly called for by imperious circumstances, I submit to clearer heads and abler hands, to digest, organize, and put into execution. That the power I" wished to grant might be abused I do not deny, but even its abuse I con- ' sider as a less evil than the srie- vance I wish to remedy, which poisons domestic bliss and places parents in a cruel situation; they are compelled either to destroy their offspring, or submit to the exhausting inroads of vice, ca- price, and profusion. EMPE„ 72 EMPEDOCLES. TT^MPEDOCLES, a citizen -&-* of Agrigentum in the island of Sicily, who lived nearly five hundred years before the commencement of the christian sera. This Pythagorean philosopher was eminent in his day as a poet and historian, he also stu- died medicine, and is said to have been deeply skilled in the mysterious theology originally taught by the Egyptian priests ; this last attainment and his turning his attention to astro- nomy, subjected him to the ac- cusation of being a magician, of producing many of the phe- nomena of nature and the celes- tial bodies, which he seemed so clearly to understand and so readily to explain. Ilium ma- gum vulgus nominahaty quasi fecit quod fieri sciebat. But Empedocles was not a man of learning and science only ; he attempted to apply what he knew to the purposes of human life, and endeavoured to turn the attention of his fel- low citizens to his favourite pursuits, and what was a more difficult task, to improve their morals: for at the time he re- turned to his native city, having travelled into various and remote -countries, he found the Agri- gentines devoted to luxury and vicious pleasure. Possessing the vine and the olive, blessed with a fine climate and a fruitful soil, they had long carried on a considerable com- merce, which augmenting their population and wealth, brought with them their usual accompa- niments, excess, sensuality, and voluptuousness. The city was ornamented with temples, public buildings, and private houses, remarkable for' magnificence and bulky solidity ; this circumstance and their pro- fuse mode of living gave occa- sion to Empedocles to observe, that the Agrigentines built as if they were to exist for ever, but wasted their substance, as if they had only a single day to live. We may judge how highly they valued the luxuries of their table, and their ability and industry in procuring them, when a private citizen, having fixed a day for a public entertain- ment, was disappointed by con- trary winds and tempestuous weather of a supply of fish and wild-fowl, he ordered a wide and deep excavation to be di- rectly made, extending more than a mile, and twenty feet in depth, near the city ; by means of a river or the sea, it was quickly EMPEDOCLES. 73 quickly filled and converted into a store pond for fish and fowl. B^ these means a similar mis- fortune was prevented. Another wealthy Agrigentine, having won a prize in the Olym- pic games, is described by Diodorus the Sicilian, as making a public entry into the city, mounted on a lofty car, fol- lowed by three hundred others in a similar equipage, and every one drawn by white horses. Most general readers are ac- quainted with the story told by Athenaeus concerning a gay party of young men of this city, who continued drinking wine, 'till in the madness of in- toxication they fancied the house they were in was a ship, tossed about by a furious tempest ; and that the vessel, unless lightened, would inevitably sink : for this purpose they proceeded to throw the tables, chairs, and other moveables out of the window, 'till they had emptied the house of its furniture. This anecdote is well related by a modern traveller and a plea- sant writer, who humourously asks whether the English phrase of turning a house out at win- dow might not have derived its origin from this incident. Another author in the spirit of raillery or exaggeration re- lates, that on a certain occasion., VOL. IV. when Agrigentum was besieged by the Carthaginians, it was given out in public orders, that no soldier who kept guard du- ring the night, should be allowed more than one camel skin, one tent bed, one woollen coverlet, and two piUows; this, he adds, was thought a hard and un- reasonable law. In a city so wealthy and lux- urious, it is difficult to account for the voice of philosophy and moderation being listened to, or even heard ; yet Empedocles is said to have been extremely po- pular, and ta have .gained a wonderful ascendancy over his fellow citizens; he reduced their intemperate habits within the bounds of rational enjoyment, and pointed out more legitimate channels for the expenditure of superfluous wealth ; he taught them a lesson which it were to be wished all philosophers had taught, to afford shelter to age and sickness, to protect v the fatherless, the "* way-worn stran- ger, and the widow ; and they confessed, after exhausting the resources of art and imagination, that this was the greatest of pleasures. The grateful Agrigentines of- fered to make Empedocles their king, but having acquired by personal worth and strong at- tachment a firmer and more h desirable n fcMPEDOCLES. desirable sovereignty, he declined the offer ; advising them not to trust a power, which might be so much abused, in the hands of any one man. His being a Pythagorean is a circumstance which renders the general good-will he maintained with his neighbours still more sur- prising, as persons of that sect, from the unaccommodating sin- gularity of their dress, tenets, and manners, were generally dis- liked, had been frequently per- secuted, and sometimes put to death. The inhabitants of Agrigen- tum, when they recollected the eminent services, he had rendered them, probably over- looked this defect in the cha- racter of their favourite. An in- stance is recorded in which a peculiar indulgence was granted him. Having gained an Olympic prize, it was the custom for every victorious candidate to sacrifice an ox to the gods, but a law of Pythagoras expressly forbad the killing any animal, he was therefore permitted to offer an artificial bullock made of pre- cious gums and other fragrant substances. Empedocles was well ac- quainted with the theory and practice of music, and is said, on good authority, to have applied his knowledge of the doctrine of harmony and sounds to the cure of diseases, particularly of in- sanityj and succeeded in many desperate cases. On another occasion, being alarmed as he passed the street by loud expressions of sorrow, which seemed to proceed from a house near which many persons were assembled apparently over- whelmed with sorrow, he de- manded the cause, and was told, that an excellent woman, the mother of a large family, and doated on by her distracted hus- band, had been just quitted as dead by her physician. Prompted by curiosity, or a wish to know if the matron was actually dead, he entered the house, but could neither feel any pulse nor observe any respira- tion ; in his endeavours to find if there was any pulsation of the vital organ remaining, for at that time physicians felt the pulse of their patients by apply- ing the back of their hands on the left side near the seat of the heart, he perceived a warmth. Considering this circumstance as a sufficient reason for doing something, he employed power- ful means, the almost extin- guished spark of life brightening up expanded into a flame, gen- tleness and perseverance gave new powers to skill, and the happy EMPEDOCLES. 75 happy physician at length re^ stored the expiring female to the arms of her family. This is one of the few instances, in which a physician receives something more than his fee. On another occasion, the in- habitants of a district in the neighbourhood of Agrigentum complained, that in the spring season for many years their olives had been blighted, and their crops on the ground mil- dewed and blasted : as he walked over their lands, Empedocles ob- served the geographical position of the place, and soon disco- vered, that it was particularly exposed to the north-east wind by an opening between two lofty mountains; he also re- marked a more than common number of wild asses sufficient to eat up all the produce, dis- figuring the landscape by their ragged ugly forms, and distracts ing every one's ears by their odious braying. He directly prdered a large slaughter of these animals, their skins to be dried, and on lofty poles driven firmly into the ground to be sewn together and extended across the valley be- tween the hills; by these means the crops of the fields were shel- tered, and the evils they con> plained of ceased. These, and other important benefits produced by the know- ledge and sagacity of the philo- sopher, were cried out against by certain deep thinkers, as magic arts produced by unlaw- ful intercourse and infernal aid ; his friends and fellow citizens, equally extravagant in the oppo*- site extreme of praise and exag- geration, magnified into the acts of a god what was evidently the effect of superior capacity and good sense, and insisted on pay- ing him divine honors. It is at this period of the life of Empedocles, that critics and historians have not agreed ; the general conclusion of the history is, that his head was turned by their flattery, that he yielded to the delusion, confessed himself a deity, and declared, that he should quickly be taken up into Heaven, and quaff nectar with the Gods. In order to make his adorers believe that this ascension actu- ally took place, and to prevent any discovery of his remains, the commonly received story proceeds to relate, that he threw himself into the flaming crater of Mount iEtna, where his body was consumed to ashes, but that the force of the fire threw out his iron sandals, which were af- terwards found, accounted for j, 3 his 78 ENGLISH WOMEN. his absence, and led to a dis- covery of the manner in which he had voluntarily died. The contrary opinion, sup- ported bv internal evidence, and a reference to the general cha- racter and life of Empedocles, and the usual manner in which men treat their benefactors, — the contrary opinion is, that Empe- docles, finding his popularity declining, and his efforts to im- prove the citizens of Agrigentum opposed by selfishness and vice, observing, that if he conferred favors on a hundred persons he created ninety-nine monsters of ingratitude,, wearied with un- requited labour, and mortified by malignant misrepresentation, he retired with silent indigna- tion to a distant country, and closed his days among strangers, who having never experienced his kindness did not attempt to interrupt the tranquillity of his last moments. * Of the writings of Empedo- cles little that is certainly his re- mains ; he was author of a long poem, consisting of many thou- sand verses, on Nature; some- what similar to the Philosophi- cal Chimeras of Lucretius, who praises, and probably had read the book ; he also wrote on Me- dicine in verse and on the Persian War j of the three pro- ductions here mentioned only fragments remain : a Treatise on Astronomy, which passes un- der his name, is of doubtful origin. He was a cotemporary with Sophocles and Zeno. ENGLISH WOMEN — The following panegyric in verse was written on them nearly four-score years ago ; a satirical veteran, who occasion- ally honors this collection with a perusal, insists, that it is no longer applicable. In search of true beauty I was led a long dance, And travellM through Italy, Germany, France ; On the banks of the Seine I was pleas'd to survey A crowd of fair charmers all merry and gay, But their mirth it. was pertness, their joy in extremes, No delicate softness like the nymphs of the Thames. The Alps I next crossed to see if perchance, The Italians possess'd what I found not in France ; Neither Venice, nor Rome, nor Florence could boast A girl to compare with our Somerset toast ; Who modest and mild, wins our hearts with a sigh, And pleases the most by not seeming to try. But ENTHUSIASTIC ATTACHMENTS. 77 But fair Italy's dames, to give them their due, Instead of retreating, they seem to pursue. Like a rose that's full blown, they expand all their charms, They dance, sing, and leer, and fly into your arms. The true English rose-bud on Britain's fam'd shore, Scarce disclosing its beauties, in- flames us the more. Returning through Germany, I was struck with surprise, What the belles want in beauty they make up in size : If charms cou'd bemeasur'd like Heidelberg wine, For a quart on the Thames you've a tun on the Rhine. Convinc'd of my error, no further I'll roam, Whilst we've modesty, beauty, and good sense at home. ■ NTHUSIASTIC AT- TACH lMENTS. We have all our favourite sub- jects and favorite characters, on which we love to dwell, and it is with difficulty we can be persuad- ed to allow they have any faults ; we may say of them as the lover somewhere observes to his mis- tress: — ' c You are all faultless, or quite blind am I." Passing, not many years since, an edifice which exhibited over the door of it, the following in- scription : — DEO OPTIMO MAXIMO SANCTO ET N1COLAO SACRUM. S( Aye," said a person who ac- companied me, and a frequenter of such places, " he was some- thing like a saint." iC Who?" I demanded. " JVhy, St. Ni- cholas, to he sure", he was none of your trumpery sort like Jana- rus, whose blood they puts into a bottle; or what d'ye call 'um, who carries his head under his arm* " Our priest read his life cut of a book he brought, which tells us that he was a saint even in swadling clothes, and was ob- served never to suck on Wednes- days or Fridays." This trait in biography, men- tioned by a modern writer as an instance of ridiculous absurdity, was considered as gospel by the person I was conversing with, a countryman, whom I had hired as a guide to conduct me across an intricate country. , What the author laughed at my worthy associate verily and indeed believed ; and if I had pre- sumed to differ from him in opi-. nion, I am convinced, ivouldhave left the heretic in the lurch, I ventured to say," How could an infant know any thing of feast* 78 ENTHUSIASTIC ATTACHMENTS. feasts or fasts, or even distinguish one day of the week from ano- ther ?" " Why a meeracle to be sure, and no greater wonderment to he made at it, than/' &c. &c. Here the rustic entered on some well-put arguments on the Eucharist, and other subjects; which, when I recollected his uncouth dialect, the state of his cloathing, and his position in life, very much surprised me. Though not exactly agreeing in our tenets, I was pleased with his frankness, and when we part- ed, gave him a double fee, and an exhortation to be honest and sober. ic I hope, Measter, I shall, or I should expect that St. Nicholas would dra back my curtain at night." Some months after writing this article, accident threw me into company with the priest who superintends the devotions of the persons who assemble where I read the inscription ; I found him a learned, affable, well-informed, and pious man, who takes considerable pains to perform his parochial duties con- scientiously : this accounts for the moral rectitude, as well as the implicit confidence of his parishioner. Thus a biographic sketch of a saint, which confirmed a religious Iatitudinarian in his scepticism, strengthened the faith, and im- proved the moral conduct of an humble believer; what one thought an incontestible beauty, the other viewed as a preposterous deformity. " What do you think of that lady in the side box, who is rest- ing her arm against the pillar }" said a doating lover, wishing to sound his friend concerning the object of his affections, to whom he had not yet introduced him. (i Do you mean the woman with a bandeau round her car- ratty hair,, and who squints so abominably ?" was the reply. The fond admirer was so dis- gusted, that he instantly stifled the subject, and endeavoured to conceal his chagrin; the com- panions soon separated, and a friendship of long standing be- came cold as charity. The red hair, was a beautiful auburn in the lover's imagina- tion, and the squint (abominable wretch for giving it such a name) was one of those enchanting looks which had robbed him of his heart. He who pronounced the au- burn tresses carrots, and the fas- cinating leer a squint, neither conscious of, nor meaning to give offence, was surprised at the future coldness of his friend, and wonders EPITAPHS. 79 wonders at his unfeeling capaci- ousness. The other gentleman, now married to his nymph of the au- burn locks and love-darting eyes, calls his old associate arudeman, and pities his want of taste. EPILOGUE, part of one, to a modern comedy, and spoken by a lady : Man's social happiness still rests on us Through all life's drama: whether damn'd or not, Love gilds the scene, and woman guides the plot : The cit, well skill'd to shun do- mestic strife, Will sup abroad, hut firSt he'll ask his wife : John Trot, his friend, for once will do the same, But then he'll just step home to tell his dame. The surly 'squire, resolv'd his wife to rule, Thinking each woman half the day a fool ; At night, how chang'd ! the soften'd tyrant says, ie Ah Kate, you women have such winning ways." The statesman too, with such a sapient air, Is often govern'd by a favWite fair, And as the courtiers watch his lady's face, She smiles preferment, or she frowns disgrace. If we descend to scenes of humble life, The poor man's only treasure is his wife ; The smile of love still lightens all his woes, And gives a zest to every joy he knows. In distant climes, and tost by wave and wind, The sailor thinks of her he left behind ; Through the long watch, however far remov'd, He hums the ballad which his Susan lov'd. / EPITAPHS.— The following satirical one on Joshua Barnes, the translator of Eu- ripides, and author of a bulky Life of Edward the third, king of England. It ought to be premised, that Barnes was a helluo librorum, an uni- versal and voracious reader of every thing, which he accurately retained; but he wanted the taste and discretion of a judicious se- lector. HIC JACET JOSHUA BARNES FELICIS MEMORISE, JUDICIUM EXPECTANS. Joshua, 80 EVANS, JOHN, Joshua in some way offended Dr. BentU-y, who had at first patronized him; the doctor, like a Scotch thistle, was not to be made angry without making his assailant smart for it, and laid his critical staff with a heavy hand on the offender's shoulders. Barnes soothed his literary dis- appointments with the comfort- able consolation of a wealthy wife. The following epitaph was written on a married pair v ho lived in strife, but were now ob- served to lie quiet enmigh : — VIATOR, NIL ADMIRERIS *. VIR ET UXOR H1C CONJACENT ET NON LITIGANT. EUDOXIA F^DEROW- NA, empress of Russia, and the first wife of Peter the Great. For a short account of the splendid commencement, but melancholy conclusion of her life, see the article unqualified praise, in this volume. EVANS, JOHN, a native of the principality of Wales, and curate of Enfield in Stafford- shire ; an account of whose life has been given by a voluminous and learned writer, in the grave language of truth, and with all the minute circumstantiality of matter of fact ; ret notwithstand- ing this internal evidence, it is not possible the author in ques- tion could believe all that he relates. During the first year of his residence at Enfield, Evans per- formed his duties with credit and satisfaction, but not being able or willing to suppress his love of ale, which he had at first resisted, it gradually returned, and led the way to drunkenness and other vices; he became debauched in manners., noisy and quarrelsome in conversation, frequently fight- ing with the low companions which an ale-house generally in- troduces; he was often seen in the pulpit marked with bruises, and disfigured by black eyes; these could not escape the notice of his congregation, although his unfortunate wife, by means of chalk, flour, and other con- trivances, endeavoured to con- ceal such disgraceful badges ; yet the efforts of her industry were, on most occasions, partially ef- faced during the summer months, by heat and perspiration, which rendered the drunkard's counte- nance still more ghastly, a dis- gusting and ridiculous appear- ance dishonorable to any one pretending to be a gentleman, but highly scandalous and unbe- coming in a clergyman perform- ing his duty in the house of God. A* EVANS, JOHN. 81 As preaching is generally use- less, and seldom attended to without a corresponding practice, Evans was gradually hated or despised, and exciting jealousy or indignation in the married part of his hearers by the lascivious looks and impudent familiarity with which he addressed their wives, he found it necessary to decamp privately in the night. His departure was hastened by the parish officers, who were clamorous in their demands that he would contribute to the sup- port of several illegitimate chil- dren; for he was inordinately given to women, and with fe- males of a certain description was said to be a wonderful fa- vorite. This perhaps may be ranked among the numerous instances of what I have called, in another part of this work, unaccountable attachment, as the form and face of this favored lover were re- markably unsymmetrical and dis- pleasing ; his complexion is de- scribed as saturnine, his stature short, his proportions clumsy; he was beetle-browed, thick- lipped, and splay-footed. Thus driven from home, and banished from creditable society by folly and vice, he was /or some time an unsettled wanderer; and his family, but for the be- nevolence of former neighbours, VOL. IV, would have wanted the means of subsistence. He endeavoured to support himself by teaching " English, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, in half the time generally wasted in acquiring them ; also arithmetic, mathematics, and the following hands, — the running secretary, the set secretary, the Roman, Italian, and court hands/' But the same unpropitious tendencies, whichhad ruined him as a curate, arrested his progress as a school- master; relying on other arts, and stimulated by an empty purse, he repaired with his fa- mily to London. It is at this period of his life, that the miraculous singularity of Evans's history commences, which his biographer relates with tbe unaffected coolness of an every day's occurrence. " He now applied the powers of his mind to astrology, and gave judgment upon things lost, that chief est shame of this ab- struse science; yet, to give him his right, he had a piercing judg- ment, and was a most under- standing man on a figure &f theft ; he also prepared antimo- nial cups, and drew a tolerable profit from selling them. In 1613 he published almanacks and prognostications; but the principal means of his subsist- ence was. astrology, in which he M had EVANS, JOHN. had done some acts seemingly above and beyond that wonder- ful art. " He was well versed in the nature of spirits, but more par- ticularly in the circular way of invoking them" Whether thev came when Evans invoked must be determined by the degree of faith we place in the following story : — (( There was a young woman in Staffordshire, who, as is ge- nerally the case in such bargains, had married an old man for the sake of his money; surviving her husband, she applied to a friend in whose hands the title deeds of his estate, now her pro- perty, had been deposited ; but this unfaithful and fraudulent confident could not be persuaded to give them up. (c Recollecting her former neighbour, the curate of Enfield, and understanding by report his adroitness in difficult matters, she repaired with all speed to London, and applied to Evans i^or advice : after due consider- ation he engaged to recover the parchments, if she would give hiai forty pounds. * c So strong w r as her reliance, >ot so complete the delusion, that our young widow immediately counted out forty pieces of gold on the table, telling the artist that she should not grudge that, ' and much more, if the deeds in 'question could be restored; he. then directed her to withdraw, first informing him, where she was to be found in case he sent for her. . " Evans then commenced his preparations ; he abstained for fourteen days from women, wine, animal food, and all disorderly passions; he read daily, at select hours and cloathed in his sur- plice, passages from the scrip- tures and portions of the church Liturgy. " At length, when the night, the hour, and themoment arrived, he powerfully, audibly, and with customary gesture, invoked the angel Salmon, who forthwith appearing demanded of the astrologer e what he would have }' which when Evans had describ- ed, he disappeared, and in a little time returning with the wished - for deed, laid it gently upon a table on which a white cloth had been previously spread; then, having performed his office, in- stantly vanished. {( On another occasion, when the dwelling-house of Evans was in the Minories, he was applied to by Sir Kenelm Digby, and ano- ther honorable person, to shew them a spirit, which he promised them to do ; and proceeding out of hand to the circular way of in- vocation, Evans was suddenly, and EVANS, JOHN. 83 and in spite of himself, lifted out of the room, and carried into the common field abutting against Battersea causeway, on the banks of the Thames, and near Chelsea reach. " A countryman passing the road, which is a foot- way from Lambeth to Battersea, espied a man in black cloaths apparently sleeping, and awakened him ; Evans not sleeping, but swooning and astounded, now understood his condition, and for the tra- veller's satisfaction said he had been late over-night at Batter- sea, somewhat overtaken with liquor, and in that condition had been left by his friends, them- selves no what the better. " The gentlemen somewhat amazed, but without injury, quitted Evans's house; repairing thither the next morning to ask what was become of thus super- natural operator, they weie sur- prised when they reached the door, to see a messenger just ar- rived, desiring Mrs. Evans to fetch her husband, %v ho was fa- tigued and dispirited with the spiritual wrestling he had under- gone, a more than mortal strife ; the good woman going to a cot- tage near where h'er husband was found, conveyed him safely home. " Being asked if he could ac- count for this unusual violence and deportation, Evans made answer, that at the time of in- vocation, he was not wholly free from sensual impurity, and that he had moreover neglected sif- fumigation, at which the spirits were vexed." Such is the tale, related more at large, and more circumstanti- ally, with respect to names and places, by two authors, who seem to believe the story they tell ; yet in the first instance I think it very possible, that in recovering the writings, if the man who de- tained them lelieved in super- natural arts, and in the circular method of invoking spirits, I think it very possible for Evans to have got them from him by threats of legal process, or of exercising on him magic inean- tations ; being a man famous for quoting the Classics, he might have addressed him in the words of Virgil :-r- Flectere si nequeo super os, Ache- ronta movebo. The appearance of the angel Salmon, the napkin on the ta- ble, &c. might be managed with a moderate share of dexterity. As to the aerial journey to Battersea field, a trap-door pro- perly constructed might afford the conjurer apt means of disap- pearance, and the flame, smoke, and stench of two-penny-worth of powdered rosin, would suf- m 2 ficiently / 64 FERRAR, NICHOLAS. ficiently blind and affright a cre- dulous man like Sir Kenelm Digby, and prevent any minute and critical observation of the manoeuvres going on. The circumstance of Evans being found in the condition de- scribed is not very difficult to account for, when we consider his character, and recollect that a drunken man falling into a .ditch, or sleeping under a hedge, is no very uncommon occur- rence. If in modern times the many gentle pairs, who not far from the place where Evans took a nap, drink oblivion to the toils of their counters, and the shrill voice of domestic strife, if they could satisfy their wives or their masters, and persuade them that they were carried thither against their wills by evil spirits, they might consider themselves as very fortunate. The subject of our present ar- ticle is said, when half drunk, to have exhibited many sallies of droll humour and laughable vivacity ; but like the liquor he was so fond of, it did not always flow clear, nor was it on every occasion of the most delicate flavor; some of his effusions have survived worthier productions, and a few months only have passed, since a gross but witty impromptu, originally uttered bv Evans, was facetiously spoken, and with extravagant applause, by a three-bottle man; two peo- ple might think alike, but I had seen the book in which it is re- corded on the wit's table, a few- days before, with leaves folded down, when good things occurred. Quid domini facient, audent cum talia pures? FERRAR, NICHOLAS, the son of a London mer- chant, at the conclusion of the sixteenth century, who inherit- ing from his mother a delicate constitution, but a vigorous mind, eagerly devoted his early life to literary application. Religious books being first put into his hand made an im- pression on the boy's mind, which never was removed, and when only six years old, he was, able to repeat hy heart a con- siderable portion of the Old and New Testament, the English Chronicle, and Fox's Book of Martyrs. At the age of eight, he was placed under the tuition of a worthy clergyman, near New- bury, in Berkshire, whose dis- cipline was so successful, or the aptness of his scholar so great, that being considered as qualified for an university, he was sent when thirteen years old to Clare Hall in Cambridge, where Dr. Linselh FERRAR, NICHOLAS. 85 Linsell, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, became his tutor. To use the words of Mr. Ferrar's right reverend biogra- pher, for he was not only in- structed, but his life has been written by a bishop,- — to use the prelate's words,— it was soon ob-* served, that Ferrar's candle was the first lighted and the last ex- tinguished in that college. This sedentary drudgery was not likely to improve a tender habit, and being under the ne- cessity of applying for medical ad- vice, his physician recommended travelling, in the hope of calling ofFforatime his unceasing ap- plication to books. The princess Elizabeth, one of the daughters of King James the first, who had marred the count Palatine, being at the moment on her way to Ger- many, Mr. Ferrar was permitted to join the suite of her highness, and accompanied them part of the way; they landed in Hol- land, and after accompanying his countrymen to the borders of Germany, as he proposed going considerably to the north of the Palatinate, he took his leave 5 visiting Munster, Ha- nover, and Cassel, leaving no place till all that was to be seen or heard had been explored; at Leipsic, finding his health better, he remained several months, again applied to his books, and to qualify himself for making further progress as well as pro- fit in travelling, improved him- self in the modern languages. He now resolved to see Italy, not indeed by the direct road, but visiting such places as were likely to gratify his curiosity, or afford opportunities for improv- ing his mind, and adding to his knowledge. He continued a few days at Dresden, and made a considerable deviation for the purpose of visit- ing Prague, Ratisbon, Augs- bourg, Munich, Saltzbourg, In- spruck, and Trent. At that period Europe was under considerable dread of that awful scourge, the plague, and Mr. Ferrar was obliged near the Italian frontier to undergo a precautionary secession, some- thing similar to quarantine. It was at the time, that sea- son of the year when the Chris- tian church enjoins for a certain period fasting and prayer, as a salutary and impressive memo- rial of the patience, trials, and forbearance of Jesus Christ. Our pious traveller passed the greater part of the forty days du- ring Lent in abstinence and de- vout meditation, onamountain al- most covered with rosemary and wild 86 FERRAR, NICHOLAS. wild thyme, descending regu- larly every evening to make a moderate meal on fish. This temporary solitude first gave Mr. Ferrar a relish for men- tal abstraction, and contemplative devotion, imparted peculiar tinc- ture to his faith, his conduct. and his manners, and ultimately decided the singular manner in which he passed the after part of his life. These impressions were also further confirmed, by his nar- .rowly escaping a sudden and violent death ; this mercy he never forgot, but indelibly fixed it on his mind by an anniversary practice of fasting, prayer, and thanksgiving. Flaving sufficiently guarded against the clangers of pestilen- tial infection to himself, or com- municating it to others, a pre- caution in many respects trou- blesome, tedious, and vexatious, but against which no man ought to object, and whose evasion should be punished with death, as it is better that one man should die, than thousands perish', Mr. Ferrar passed on to the once renowned, but decayed univer- sity of Padua. He here attended a course of medical lectures, which quali- fied him to be useful afterwards to his country neighbours. After a stay of four months, he quitted Padua precipitately, terrified by real or imaginary dangers from certain Jesuits, who, with the pope, the devil, and the pretender, were once the bugbears, the raw-head and bloody-bones of England, and probably not without reason. He repaired without delay to Rome, which then contained such stores of amusement and . information for the antiquary and man of taste; after seeing whatever was worthy of notice in the ecclesiastical metropolis, or its environs, he made a retro- grade movement to the mercan- tile sea-port of Leghorn, and in a few days embarking in a fe- lucca, crossed that part of the Mediterranean which is called the sea of Genoa, and landed at Marseilles. After remaining in that city three weeks, he re-embarked in an English vessel for the Spanish port of Saint Sebastian ; being disappointed in his expectation of a pecuniary remittance at' this place, he walked to Madrid, wher^e he heard that his mother, now a widow, was involved in trouble. In the eagerness of filial af- fection, he took the earliest op- portunity of sailing for England, and after a five vears absence from his native country landed at Dover with a constitution considerably FERRAR, NICHOLAS. fi7 considerably amended, and large additions of information, learn- ing, and science. He could not restrain the pious gratitude, and patriotic rapture he felt; the instant he jumped on shore, he fell on his knees upon the beach, returned thanks to the Almighty for that protecting providence which had sheltered him from perils by land and perils by sea^ and then kissed his native soil. By the established goodness of his character, and a large share of natural sagacity, he was en- abled to extricate his family from their difficulties, which had been produced or aug- mented by a litigious attorney. In 1624, Mr. Ferrar was chosen a member of the House of Commons, and in this ca- pacity took an active part against the treasurer, Sir Lionel Cran- field, who, from the humble station of a Custom-house of- ficer, had by his fiscal projects so ingratiated himself with King James, that he gave him a lord treasurer's staff, and created him a. peer of the realm. Sir Lionel had been accused by his ene- mies, I know not how justly, of corruptly conniving at certain injurious monopolies. But Mr. Ferrar, in parliament or on his travels, in his closet or the world, never lost sight of what appears to have been at a very early period the favourite wish and purpose of his. heart, religious retirement, and the de- voting himself wholly to -God ; forgetting, as too many of his predecessors in the same path have done, that those exertions should seem to be most pleasing to our Almighty Creator, which imitate his attributes, and are productive of social utility. In this plan of retirement, he was powerfully aided by his mo- ther, who felt and indulged si- milar propensities, and being possessed of the house and manor of Little Gedding, in Huntingdonshire, had apt means in her hands of putting into execution this favourite purpose. As the first step, Mr. Ferrar procured himself to be ordained by Dr. Laud ; then taking leave of his London friends, and finally adjusting every affair likely to require his presence in the me- tropolis, he prepared to depart, with his mother, his elder brother, his sister, her husband, a Mr. Colet, and their fifteen children, of whom six sons and three daughters were married. This religious colony, con- sisting with the servants of up- wards of forty persons, quitted London, and by easy journies repaired to Little Gedding. The house,' which had for many 68 FERRAR, NICHOLAS. many years been in the occupa- tion of a farmer, they found in a ruinous and neglected state, the garden a wilderness, pigs had been kept in a pleasure house, and the ' church was converted to a barn. Provoked at what he consi- dered as profane misapplication, Mr. Ferrar would not sleep till he saw the house of God clean- sed of its contents, and actually performed divine service in it by candle light, before the family retired to rest : it was afterwards completely repaired within and without. To make a large roomy man- sion, which had been so long left to decay, a fit habitation for a very large, and respectable family, was a work of time, labour, and expence; even to subsist them, required some skill, effort, and contrivance. For this purpose, the land, which in those days produced an anniral rent of five hundred pounds, was kept in hand, and agricultural superintendance was assigned to such individuals of the family as were qualified for the task by knowledge, health, age, and inclination. Timber in the mean time was cut down, and other necessary materials procured ; capacious barns, outhouses, and buildings, were erected, and the whole of the premises neatly arid substan- tially repaired; additional house- hold stuff was purchased, and a stock of fuel and other stores laid in, adequate to a large consump- tion. But no occupation was per- mitted to interfere with the pur- pose of Mr. Ferrar's retirement, every individual of the family was expected to attend public worship morning and evening ; , in this religious exercise he offici- ated himself; and to prevent this important duty interfering with domestic and other employments in the farm, the hour of rising:, for all, was five in the morning, during the winter season, and four o'clock in the summer. Part of the house was appro- priated to the purposes of a school, for which proper mas- ters were provided, and here the children of the family, and such others of the neighbouring pa- rishes, who would conform to rule, were taught to read and write, grammar and arithmetic; religious instruction was con- sidered as an essential part of their education ; occasional amusements were not prohibited for the rising generation, little prizes being occasionally dis- tributed to those who excelled in learning ; also to those, who could run, jump, swim, and drive an arrow the nearest to the mark. The FERRAR, NICHOLAS. 89 The young women of the house were cloathed alike in black stuff, and such time as was not employed at church and in domestic duty, was dedicated in affording assistance to age, infir- mity, and disease; for which purposes medicines and con- veniences for dispensing them were at hand, Mr. Ferrar being qualified by the medical know- ledge he had acquired to give advice and directions in ad- ministering the remedies em- ployed. The female part of the family employed themselves at the proper season, in drilling cor- dial Waters and working carpets and cushions for the church and the parlours. As a hint to strangers and others, who occasionally visited Little Gedding, the following inscription in large letters was placed in the great hall at which every one entered : — " He, who by gentle reproof and kind remonstrance strives to make us better, is welcome ; but he who goeth about to dis- turb us in that, which ought to be the chief business of every christian, is a burthen while he stays, and his own conscience shall witness against him when he departs." On another conspicuous pan- nel appeared these words :-— VOL. XV. " He, who is willing to be a cheerful participator with us in that which is good, confirms us. in the same, and acts as a friend; but he, who bitterly censures us when absent, and makes a show of approbation when in our pre- sence, incurs the double guilt of flattery and slander, and violates the bond of christian charity." The laws of courtesy and hospitality -were not forgotten by Mrs. Ferrar or her son, many of the nobility, clergy, and other travellers, calling on them; King Charles the first, on his march to the north, honoured them with a visit, and Dr. Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, was some- times their guest. JVatching, that species of dis- cipline so antient in the chris- tian chureh, if not cotemporary with its rise, watching was considered by Mr. Ferrar as an indispensable part of his religious exercises j for this purpose, he had different oratories for the sexes, in which, from the hour of nine till past midnight, he and different individuals took their turns of repeating psalms, select passages of scripture, and occasionally singing to the or- gan, \vhich was set in a low stop, that notice might not be excited, nor the house disturbed. Thus for many years lived this singular character, and in it his FLOOD, HENRY. his last moments, elevated by hope or deranged by debility, he insisted on having experienced celestial communication. By his relations he was called seraphic, and accounted little less than a saint; by a late writer he is termed an useless en- thusiast, and Little Geddins: an Armiman nunnery, the Papists said he was a Puritan, and the Puritans abused him as a Papist. To make Mr. Ferrar's exam- ple the universal rule of life would be inexpedient, irrational, and absurd, at the same time it were to be wished, that in the lives of the majority of persons of his rank, fortune, and abili- ties, .so much could be found of that piety pleasing to God, and so little of that depravity which brings misery and degradation to man. In another point of view Mr. Ferrar was milch to be praised, although he practiced ceremo- nies, endured fastings, and per- severed in nocturnal watchings and other observances, which some may consider as not abso- lutely enjoined by the christian dispensation, he did not regard them in the light of what have been called by the old con- troversialists luorks of supererro- gation, which might authorize or wipe away practical trans- gression ; he did not relax in one jot or one tittle in his en- deavours to be, what in fact he was, a man pure in morals and of strict integrity : a dutiful son, an affectionate brother, a kind neighbour, and an honest man. Happy would it be -for the world, if all, who like him have fasted, and like him have prayed, would imitate the correctness of his life; and still happier if those, who ridicule and set at nought all ritual observance, would prove by an exemplary discharge of their social duties, that human virtue stands in need of no aid f f m revelation to sti- mulate us by hope and fear to salutary exertion. FLOOD, HENRY, the son of a chief justice in Ireland, originally of Trinity college, Dublin, and remarkable for ele- gant accomplishment, gay man- ners, and a beautiful person. Removing in 1749 to Christ- church, Oxford, Dr. Markham, now Archbishop of York, be- came his tutor; he was also in- troduced to the learned and ingenious Mr. Tyrrwhitt, as a youth of whom something might be made. These gentlemen saw with concern the loose habits of their young friend, and his total neg- lect FLOOD, HENRY, iect of every attainment for which men are generally sent to an university. Aware of the inefficacy of ad- vising or reproving a boy of seventeen, who was heir to an estate of five thousand pounds a year, they operated on their pupil in a more scientific way. Observing in Mr. JFlood a considerable share of vanity and pride, they selected these foibles as the means of snatching from folly and vice a valuable youth, of strong parts, and though mis- led by headstrong appetites, of an amiable disposition. The constitutional warmth and .fine spirits of Mr. Flood rendering his company highly desirable, he received numerous invitations^ Dr. Markham and Mr. Tyrrwhitt indulged this pro- pensity, taking care at the same time to introduce and solicit for the association of the young Hi- bernian men of literary emi- nence, and to make the subjects on which they particularly ex- celled the leading points of conversation. On these occasions, the high- spirited Irishman, who in his pwn circles had been looked up to as the enlivener of every party, and the king of his com- panions,— on these occasions, feeling his insignificance and in- feriority, he sat in silent morti- fication. This compunction of neglected or misapplied powers produced a salutary change ; he gradually dropped his graceless and unpro- fitable companions, devoted that precious, and if once lost, that irrecoverable portion of a young man's day, his mornings, to literature and science, and at the end of six months had qualified himself for joining those superior societies which he was after- wards so well qualified to im- prove and to enjoy. The archbishop and Mr. Tyrr- whitt have often been heard to speak with honest pride con- cerning this successful effort of judicious superintendance* But it was in parliament, and as an assertor of Irish parliamen- tary independence, that Mr. Flood's character became pro- minent and popular. The law of Sir Edward Poy- ning, who was deputy-lieutenant of Ireland under an infant vice- roy in the reign of King Henry the seventh, — this obnoxious law, which submitted all acts of the Irish legislator to the con- troul of an English privy coun- cil, he made it the business of his life to oppose ; after a long and steady struggle under various administrations, he ultimately N 2 succeeded 32 FLOOD, HENRY, succeeded in procuring its re- peal, I believe during the period that Lord Townshend presided at the castle. For this important measure, and the octennial bill (parlia- ment, previous to that alteration, having generally subsisted du- ring the king's life) for these ad- vantages, should Ireland ever he in a temper to estimate and pro- perly apply them, for these ad- vantages his country is evi- dently indebted to the perse- verance of Mr. Flood. In the^ civil and political storms which for the last thirty years have agitated the now united ■ kingdom, he appears to jhave taken an honest and inde- pendent part, acting with or against the ministers of the crown, as he thought would be most advantageous to his native land. But this mode of conducting himself, this opposing measures rather than men, which thorough paced politicians laugh at, and borough partizans always dis- approve, occasionally involved him in heat and animosity. In a memorable debate intro- duced fey a motion of Sir Henry Cavendish to enforce the neces- sity of retrenchment in the ex- pences of government, Mr. Flood was hurried into a most virulent and personal altercation with the celebrated Mr. Grattan. (i Oppressed with disease,?' said the subject of my present ar- ticle, ec and little expecting such a question to be debated, sir, at this late hour of the night, much less that any opposition would be made to it, I feel myself un- able and little inclined to tres- pass on the time of the house ; but the words of the honorable baronet which point out economy, so Jar as is consistent with the safety and honor of government, allow too great a latitude for pub- lic profession, many persons con- sidering their own welfare and support as an essential and im- portant part of our national esta- blishment. f c I thank God I am no po- litical partizan, in or out of ad- ministration ; the good of my country has, I hope, ever been my paramount motive and pre- vailing sentiment; but if we mean to practice economy, let our retrenchments be effectual, let us not amuse the people with fine-spun theories of frugality within these walls, and the mo- ment we retire practice corrupt and unnecessary expenditure in every department with which we are connected." Mr. Grattan evidently, irri- tated and disturbed, although there FLOOD, HENRY. there seemed nothing said per- sonally applicable to him, except as a furious politician once ob- served, that Mr. Flood looked at his friend,— Mr. Grattan arose in haste with the follow- ing words :— « I will not take up the time of the house with apologies for bodily infirmities, or the affec- tation of them, I will not enter into a defence of my character, for I never apostatized. " The honorable reward which a grateful nation has bestowed, binds me to make every return in my power, and more particu- larly to oppose all unnecessary ex- pence, but I am not sure that this is just the time for re- trenching national expenditure \n tine army. "At a moment, sir, when England has acted justly, I will not say generously, at a moment when she has lost an important branch of her empire, and is bleeding under the wounds of a war with all the world, at such a moment, I would not by a hasty measure even seem to deprive her of her only comfort, the friendship and cordial co-opera- tion of Ireland." " I appeal to the feelings of the house," replied Mr. Flood, " if any thing could be more uncandidand harsh than the gen- tleman's allusion to my infirm state of health, and the un- founded charge he brings against me of affecting complaints I do not labour under; the very pre- carious state of my health is known to many honorable mem- bers of this house, and if neces- sary, can be verified by profes- sional evidence. « € But I trust that neither my character nor that of those with whom I act, requires any col- lateral help when placed in com- petition with that of the right honorable member ; we do' not fear his nocturnal attacks, I am ready to meet hl^ai any where, on any ground, by night or by day. " T do not come here, sir, to delude the people by promises I never mean to perform; I never threatened to impeach a judge, and then shrunk from the busi- ness; I never called the Irish House of Commons, a parlia- ment of prostitutes, and then subsisted on their vote; I am not the mendicant patriot who was purchased by the people for a sum of money, and then sold them for prompt payment. "The gentleman talks of never having been an apostate, but I defy him to produce a single instance in which, whe- ther in or out of place, I ever changed my principles; a pa- triot out of office^ if he accepts a place 94 FLOOD, HENRY. a place on that elevated ground and with that unbending spirit with which a patriot always may and ought to serve the crown, may render the most im- portant services to his country ; I appeal to you, sir, to declare, whether I did not resign the mo- ment I saw measures recom- mended contrary to the system I had laid down. " I impute the whole of the gentleman's virulence and vio- lence to disappointment ; he finds he cannot support his fame and fill his purse; it is the groan of an expiring reputation; we can all remember when the glo- ries of the great Duke of Marl- borough ghrunk and withered before those of the right honor- able gentleman; palaces, supe- rior to Blenheim, were to be built for his reception; pyramids and pillars, emblems and pane- gyrics cut in marble, were pre- paring ; but the fabric is crum- bled into dust, the dream of im- position and infatuation are vanished. " But the gentleman founds his claim to national gratitude on the prodigious merits of his simple repeal, a measure, per- mit me to say, sir, scouted by •every able politician on both sides of the water ; his gross ignorance was pleaded at the time as his only excuse; this be- trayed a defect in the head, but to persist after his error was ex- posed proved a badness of heart." Mr. Grattan observed in re- (i I would wish to avoid per- sonality, but am forced into it by the envenomed froth of a foul tongue; it is not however the slander of a bad character that can tarnish my fame; the honor- able gentleman affected to des- pise making any comparison of our merits, yet indelicately and unfairly dwelt on the subject* " I will suppose a public man, not now in this house, but who might once have been in it, who abused every man who differed from him, and be- trayed every one who trusted him. ce I will begin from his cra- dle, and divide his life into three stages; in the first he was in- temperate; in the second, cor- rupt; and in the third, sediti- ous; when such a man was wasting the time of the house with the wearisome flourishes of egotism and self-approbation, I would stop him in his fulsome career with the following words (fixing his eyes on Mr, Flood) :- T r- (e Your talents are great, but your life is infamous ; you were silent for years, and were silent for money: when affairs of con- sequence FLOOD, HENRY. 05 sequence to the state were de- bating, you were seen passing by these doors like a guilty spi- rit, just waiting for the moment of putting the question, that you might step in and give your venal vote; or you might be seen hovering over the dome like an ill-omened bird of night, with sepulchral notes, a cadaverous aspect, and a broken beak, ready to stoop and pounce upon your prey. " You can be trusted by no man ; the people cannot trust you, ministers cannot trust you; you tell the nation it is ruined by others, while it is sold by you; you fled from the em- bargo ; you fled from the mutiny bill; you fled from the sugar bill ; I therefore tell you, in the face of your country, before all the world, and to your face, that you are not an honest man." Mr. Flood. " A most ex- traordinary and unwarrantable harangue has been heard; the right honorable gentleman set out with disavowing personality, but could any thing more grossly so, or more venomously have been poured forth; I trust my public as well as my private cha- racter is beyond the reach of base, illiberal, and false insinuations ; for the first, I can safely, appeal to four-and-twenty years spent in the service of my country; for the last, to my friends, my tenants, and my family. " I am an apostate forsooth, because I accepted a place, but I rendered td the full as essential services to Ireland with the first office of state on my shoulders, as ever the right honorable gen- tleman did with his pack of mendicancy on his lack." Mr. Flood was proceeding to defend himself, but being ad- dressed by the speaker, who in the kindest and politest manner intreated him to forbear, and the whole house joining in the wish, he retired considerably agitated; but being anxious to repel the torrent of obloquy which had been poured forth against him, he was permitted a few days, af- ter to address the speaker in words to the following effect : — '* Having been interrupted on Tuesday last, when I was de- fending myself against a most furious attack, I proceed to make use of the liberty which has been granted me of con- cluding what I had to say, and to thank the house for this in- dulgence! " It may be recollected that my life was divided into three parts by the right honorable- gentleman, and dispatched by three epithets ; the first, as in- temperate ; the second, as venal ; the third, as seditious; it is not by FLOOD, HENRY. by epithets the point at issue can be settled, I appeal to facts which are upon record, and can- not be controverted : for this reason, sir, I must trespass a lit- tle on your patience. u My political life, for I ap- prehend it is that only the gen- tleman meant to speak of, my political life includes the differ- ent administrations of the Duke of Bedford, Lord Halifax, the Duke of Northumberland, Lord Hertford, and Lord Townshend, all of whom I at different times supported and opposed,* this drew down upon me from sel- fish, malevolent, and superfi- cial observers, the charge of tergiversation and inconsistency. " I had at an early period fixed on three great objects as essentially necessary for the welfare of Ireland ; a repeal of Poyning's act; the establish- ment of a constitutional militia; and an act for limiting the du- ration of parliament. <( I will not deny that I pur- sued these great and salutary points with ardor ; spirit, and energy are the faults of my nature, and said to be the cha- racteristic features of my country. " Every Viceroy, who ap- peared friendly to these neces- sary measures, I aided with my vote and influence, but those, who appeared averse to granting them, I opposed*- and I thank God, I ultimately succeeded. " This is a plain tale, and ac- counts satisfactorily for a con- duct which has been called in- temperate and venal ; the indis- criminate abuse of declamatory invective, however cloathed in flowery diction, cannot stand the test of-an unvarnished narra- tion of facts. " I come next to the crying, and in the right honorable gen- tleman's eyes, the unpardonable sin of accepting an appoint- ment; this was offered and ac- cepted in a way I trust not dis- honorable to any of the parties concerned, I was made a mi- nister FOR THE BENEFIT OF MT COUNTRY. " Having stated my princi- ples and opinions, from which I neither could or would depart a single iota, I observed, that if T could with those principles for my guide, assist his Majesty's government, I was ready to do it; even after the grant of the office had arrived, I appeal to two gentlemen who now hear me, whether I did not, to make all safe and prevent all possibi- lity of mistake, again state my conditions in writing, and trans- mit them to the lord lieutenant. <( My . opposition to Lord Townshend has been mentioned, but I had good and sufficient grounds ; FLOOD, HENRY. 97 grounds; he violated the privi- lege of parliament with regard to money-bill?, and unnecessarily divided the commissioners of the revenue into two boards; I was the humble means of reduc- ing the number from twelve to seven, and two boards into one; this saved the nation twenty thousand pounds a year. if I have been accused, in the figurative and poetic language of the right honorable gentle- man, with hovering over the dome of this house like a bird of night; my decayed teeth and wan countenance produced by a severe bilious attack might have been spared. " I accepted an ostensible post under lord Harcourt, for which I am stigmatized as venal ; I supported his administration, and would again support it, be- cause he gave me influence in his councils and consented to my favorite measures, on [which, in my opinion, the salvation of Ireland depended; I felt my consequence, I served my coun- try, I was independent, I was free. " In matters of importance, and when he was clearly right, I voted for him; but in mat- ters of importance, and when in my own and the public opinion he was evidently wrong, I op- posed him; on points of small VOL. IV. moment, to prove that I was not a mere place-man, the tool of a salary, I did not vote at all; this gave the right honorable gentle- man an opportunity to accuse me of absconding, and for his favorite poetic flight up to the corridor in poetry and fiction, he is in his element, but plain matter of fact soon brings him wing-broken to the ground. " Under the Earls of Buck- inghamshire and Carlisle, I am accused of having been seditious : I told the former without cere- mony that I would not attend the cabinet councils of the sage Mr. Heron; it was during the administration of the latter, that I was dismissed from office for delivering my sentiments with- out reserve. " The day on which I spoke I shall not easily forget, nor the occasion; they are engraved up- on my heart by an incident which does not occur every day; an honorable and worthy man, since dead, with a train of pa- triots and excellent individuals for. ever to be revered by their country, this worthy character, whose name is dear to every dis- interested Irishman, Walter Hus- sey Burgh, crossed the house, congratulated me on my con- duct, eagerly seized my hand in open parliament, and said in the eye of the world that I Was a o patriot 98 GOSSON, STEPHEN. patriot and an honest man, whom no considerations could tempt from duty. "It was I confess a proud, a triumphant day; such a testi- mony, from such a man, and in such a place, I consider as an ample reward for all my exer- tions. " He was a senator in whom the scrutinizing eye of party malignity could not find a ble- mish; though not ennobled by patent he was of a noble nature, he wished ardently to serve his country, but did not wish to monopolize that service, he was willing to share and to commu- nicate a portion of the credit and reputation he enjoyed. ce I could mention other tes- timonies, if it were not for tres- passing on the time of the house, some of which have been re- ceived, sir, since I entered your doors; but I appeal to those who have known me from my childhood, at our own univer- sity, at Oxford, and in the world, whether I deserve the character of a seditious man and an incendiary. u It is necessary for the ho- nor of this assembly to enquire and to determine whether the description of me be correct ; if it is, you ought to expel so un- worlhv a member." COOD MOTHERS AND MAIDEN AUNTS.— To worthy females of this descrip- tion, the world, but more par- ticularly the literary world is highly indebted; incessant ma- ternal care stimulated and im- proved to such various acquire- ments and the fine imagination of Sir William Jones; the honest patriotism and poetical talents of Mr. Hayley ; and but for the tender superintendance of his aunt, the modern historian Gib- bon would have sunk under the preponderancy of, early disease, and a tender constitution. /pfOSSON, STEPHEN, a ^J* man of Kent, a scholar of Christchurch college, Oxford, and a cotemporary. of Spencer and Sir Philip Sidney, whom he imitated, and as the opinion of some was, excelled in pas- toral poetry. Soon after his ordination, he accepted the curacy of Wigbo- row in Essex, and afterwards officiated at the church of St. Botolph in the city of London. There was nothing either in the matter or the manner of his dis- courses deserving of praise or of censure; their prominent feature, and indeed the burthen of his daily conversation, was to cry out against and preach down dra- matic GOSSON, STEPHEN. 99 matic performances of all kinds; the chief business of his pen as well as his tongue, appears to have been to deter his congrega- tions, and all persons he could influence, from frequenting play- houses, and all other places where interludes and such like unchristian performances were exhibited. Not satisfied with assailing the poor players in a parish pul- pit, he bellowed forth a vocife- rous Philippic against them from Paul's cross, and thinking his triumph not complete, 'till he had attacked them from the press, he published in 1579, " The School of Abuse, a plea- sant invective against pipers, players, jesters, and such like caterpillars of the state. " Yet I suspect, that Gosson,, like other declaimers against .luxurious enjoyments of other kinds, had frequently visited the spots he vilified so much; the following picture, copied from the book just mentioned, must have, been taken from the life. " In these places," says Gosson, speaking of playhouses, st in these places you shall see such pushing, shoving, and shouldering to get at the women, such care for their garments that they be not trod on, such eyes to their laps, that no chips light in them, such pil- lows to their backs, that they take no hurt, such nuzzling in their ears to say I know not what, such presenting of pip- pins, such toying, such licking, such smiling and smirking, such winking, such rivalship and out-generalling in settling who shall man them home, that in good truth it is no small part of the comedie to mark their behaviour." This painting, were the ex- pressions modernized, and a few additional portraits of fruit wo- men and drunken box-lobby heroes introduced, he might pass for a hasty sketch taken off-hand behind the boxes of Covent or Drury. G RATTAN, Mr.— The fol- lowing animated sketch is said to be from the pen of this gentleman. " The secretary (Mr. Pitt's father) stood alone ; modern de- generacy had not reached him ; original and unaccommodating, he was a patriot of the old school, with whom Scipio and Camillus would not have blushed to rank. " Overbearing, impracticable, haughty, and impatient of con- troul, crooked policy and deceit he despised, too proud to flatter, o 2 and 100 GRILLON. and too sincere for falsehood, he never sunk to the level of common state chicanery. "The interest and glory of England were his great objects; honest fame his chief reward. ie His talents and integrity paralysed party, and without corruption made a venal age unanimous; his influence as a public speaker was like that of a magician, imperceptible, but ir- resistible, his eloquence was sometimes the thunder and sometimes the music of the spheres ; the subtle arguments of Murray, and the ready inven- tion of Townshend, were con- founded by the electric flash of conviction, with which Mr. Pitt struck down all before him: his plans were not merely for Great Britain and the present age, but for Europe and distant posterity : such was the strength of his mental optics, so adequate, and so powerful the means he employed, and in their effects so rapid, that he was not only adored by the people as a great minister, but almost worshipped as a prophet ; they would not believe, that any measure advised by Pitt could fail of success ; the good fortune of his adminis- tration in a great measure justi- fied their flattery. " Still, quiet, domestic life, had few charms in his eve ; bu- ried at intervals from his family and the world, he occasionally visited our system ; not to con- sult, but to direct ; not to ad- vise, but to decide. "A venal treasury, and a long train of ministerial under- lings, trembled at a character so exalted and predominating; they saw with terror and surprise, the cloud of difficulty and dis- aster, in which they had involved the country, dispelled; their eyes were dazzled by the fiery rays of that glory which burnt forth; crouching to the earth, they looked up to him as one of a superior class of beings, who could in a moment create or subvert, who could establish, or overwhelm, and strike a blow which should resound through^ out the universe. " After he retired, the malig- nant tools of corruption affected to whisper something, they scarce knew what, of his title and his pension ; the history of our country and the wounds in- flicted on her enemies best prove how well he had earned and how richly he deserved much more than ever he re- ceived." (T^ RILLON, a worthy and in T ^J* trepid French captain, a co- temporary with D'Aubigny, who is the subject of a long, and I fear a dry GRILLON. 101 a dry article, in the first volume of this collection. Grillon was a staunch Catho- lic, and possessed like that emi- nent Hugonot, considerable spi- rit and incorruptible integrity; they were accompanied by a gentleness of conduct and suavity of manners, in which D'Aubigny was grossly deficient. This perhaps in some degree may be accounted for, when we recollect, that the cause of one was declining, while the friends and faith of the other were pre- dominant and triumphant. In the sea-fight of Lepanto Grillon rendered essential ser- vices to Don John of Austria ; and in the war of the League, under the banners of the duke of Guise, distinguished himself by many heroic atchievements ; a subject of Henry the third, king of France, he deserved a better master and a better cause. Jealous of the growing power and reputation of the duke, this abominable king was so unfeel- ing, as to ask Grillon to put him to~death. Shocked at the baseness and inhumanity of a man, or rather a monster, who could ask a sol- dier to murder his patron and companion in arms, he pre- tended at first to understand, that the king meant he should chal- lenge the duke to single combat. Professing his readiness to avenge the cause of his sovereign in any honorable way, he asked what crime the duke had com- mitted : " He is become too great por a suejecT," re- plied the king, with that malig- nant spirit in which little-minded rascals always regard superior merit ; " he is too intimately connected with the duke of Savoy, and I can never forget the terrible day of the barri- cades. " But remember, Grillon, that it is not my intention for you to fight with the duke of Guise; the life of a man so sincerely at- tached to me as. you are, your valuable life is not to be risqued by such encounters." " If the duke" said Grillon, " has been faithless to his God, his king, or his country, let him be arraigned before a competent tribunal, and undergo the punish- ment of his crimes in due form of law, and by the hands of an executioner." " It is impossible" said the king, a for me to proceed against the chief of the League in such a manner, it would raise half the kingdom in arms agau jt me ; a more private and secure method of removing him must he tried-, this service I expect from you, and the reward shall be proportionate to the value I set on 102 GRILLON. on its being performed; the staff of Constable of France shall be placed in your hands." Overwhelmed with grief and surprise, it was some time before Grillon could speak; after a long pause he replied. " Permit me, sire, to depart; it is impossible that your majesty can value or esteem a person to whom you make such a propo- sal; a soldier never dreads to meethis enemy in the field, but he is not an assassin, he never stabs a man in the dark, a man, in the present instance, from whom I have received many favors, and under whose command I have conquered your most inveterate foes, I will instantly depart from your court, and retire to the bosom of my family, a family, whose reputation has never yet been tarnished bv a base or unworthy action." When the king found, that he could. not prevail on him to com- mit murder, he pressed him no longer. Grillon, as I have before ob- served, was a cotemporary with D'Aubigny, but strictly per- formed his duty without imita- ting the violence of that haughty dissenter; he also served the same monarch, and fought in many battles with Tavanes, to whom an article in this collec- tion is assigned; but more scru- pulously delicate in his notions than the zealous marshal, be taught his employers the differ- ence between the honorable ser- vices of a military commander and the disgraceful compliances of a servant of all work. In the last scene of life, having considerably exceeded the age of man, the incurable evils of that state, pain, languor, and a general failure of his powers, in- tellectual as well as corporeal, pressed heavily upon him. Yet a few hours only before his death, while his nephew was weeping over him, Grillon felt one of those momentary inter- vals of energy and correctness, which sometimes precede the stroke of death. . Seeing the. young man in tears, the dying soldier ex- claimed. i( Why, mv friend, do you weep? what rational CAUSE FOR GRIEF CAN THERE BE IN DEATH, WHEN WE HAVE OUTLIVED THE POWER OF BEING USEFUL OR agreeable; LIFE CANNOT BE DESIRABLE TO A MAN, WHO IS LITTLE BETTER THAN A BURTHEN TO HIxMSELF AND A MELANCHOLY INCUM- BRANCE TO OTHERS." The duke de Crillon, who at- tacked Minorca in the year 1 78 1, is said to be a descendant from the subject of this article, but strangely forgot himself on that HASTINGS, Mr. 103 that occasion, when he addressed a letter to the governor, in which he offered him one hun- dred thousand pounds, and the most lucrative office in the ser- vice of France or Spain, if he would deliver into the duke's hands Fort St. Philip. The general's answer to this dishonorable proposal has been thought worth preserving. "When your brave ancestor was desired by his sovereign to assassinate the duke of Guise; he returned such an answer as you ought to have done, when the king of Spain directed you to make an attempt on the honour of a man, whose birth is as il- lustrious as your own. Instead of practising the dis- graceful arts of corruption, at- tendto humanity, and send cloath- ing for the unfortunate prison- ers in my possession ; let it be placed at a distance, where the out-posts may take it, as I will admit of no contact in future, but such as is hostile and in- veterate.' ' Strong attachments to parti- cular names and sir-names oc- cur every day in private life, and dislikes equally strong against others ; in one instance, I believe in suppressing- the Rameof the husband of the wor- thy but unfortunate Olympia Fulvia Morato, the editor raised a laugh against himself, by what was called by a satirical critic prudish affectation. Yet such conduct has been ' imitated by exalted characters; the immediate ancestor of the nobleman who made the indeco- rous offer to the English general, is said to have changed his title from Grillon to Crillon, because the former was the French term for a troublesome and filthy do- mestic reptile. HASTINGS, Mr. a coun- try gentleman, of Wood- lands near Cranbpurn in Dor- setshire, a sketch of whose .life has been given by his v neighbour, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the literary earl of Shaftesbury, and the second no- ble lord who bore that title. Mr. Hastings was the son, the brother, and the uncle of an earl of Huntingdon, but feeling an early inclination for the amusements and occupation of a country life, chose for his abode the spot mentioned at the begin- ning of this article, and devoted himself wholly to field' sports. His house, a large, old-fash- ioned building, stood in the midst of an extensive park, well stocked with deer, rabbits, fish ponds and venerable oaks. His kennel was plentifully far-* nished with dogs of all descrip- tions, 104 HASTINGS, Mr. tions : buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger hounds; hawks, long and short winged ; rods, lines, and nets of every kind for fishing and fowling; a walk in the new forest, and the manor of Christchurch, supplied him with ample means of enjoying his favorite amusements in their highest perfection. In such pursuits, his time was wholly occupied, except a" few intervals which he snatched for his amours; there being no woman (I fear, married or sin- gle) in his neighbourhood, with whom it was her own fault if he was not intimately acquainted. •In the mean time he was po- pular, and generally accepted by their husbands, their brothers, and their fathers, who always found a hearty welcome at his house, in beef, pudding, and mild ale. No visitor had reason to fear he should dirt the house, for the great hall was strewed with mar- row bones, and full of hawk's patches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers ; the upper side hung with fox skins, of this and the last year's killing, with here and there a pole-cat's intermixed; gins and huntsman's poles in abundance. The parlour was furnished in a similar way ; on a large brick hearth lav two or three favorite dogs and cats, with litters of puppies and kittens in several of the chairs ; these were not to be disturbed. The windows, which were large, served for arrows, cross-bows, and such like ac- coutrements; the corners of the room were stocked with hunting and hawking poles. At the lower end of the par- lour stood an oyster table, which was of constant use, twice a day, all the year round, for he never failed eating oysters before din- ner and supper, at all seasons; these were supplied from Poole, a neighbouring sea-port. In another part of the room were two small tables and a desk ; on one was a church Bible, on the other Fox's Book of Martyrs ; upon these, and al- most covering them, were a curious collection of hawks hoods, bells, and old green hats with their crowns thrust in, so as to hold pheasants eggs ; a bird he highly valued and fed himself; a backgammon table found its place beneath. At one end of the room was the door of a closet, wherein stood the wine and the strong beer; in the distribution of which moderation and economy were observed; not being intemperate himself, he would never suffer it in others. On the other side was a door into HIGHWAYMAN. ios into ah antieht chapel no longer used for devotion, the pulpit was never without a cold chine of beef, venison pasty, gammon of bacon, and a large apple-pie with the crust well baked. His table, though good to eat at, cost him but little more than for beef and mutton, as the field- Sporting amply supplied the rest, except indeed on Fridays, when he had the best of sea and other fish; on this day the neighbouring gentry would oc- casionally dine with Mr. Has- tings; he drank a glass or two of wine after his meals, but of- tener sack, sweetened with syrup of July flowers; with his dinner, he took a pint of table beer, which he would occasionally stir With a sprig of rosemary. He was naturally cheerful and of a good temper, but unhandi- ness or inattention soon made him angry, when he would call his servants bastards and cuck- oldy knaves, in one of which, and sometimes in both, he spoke truth to his own know- ledge. Mr. Hastings was short of stature, but strong, moderately plump, and active ; his hair was flaxen j and his clothes always green; in this respect, though neat, he was not extravagant, the whole of his covering from head to foot not costing, when vol. iy. new, five pounds ; he lived to be an hundred years old, and never used spectacles; he mounted his horse to the last without help, and when past fourscore was in at the death of a hare as soon as any. HIGHWAYMAN; addi- tion to that article in my second volume. In the hurry of my last publi- cation I omitted mentioning a well authenticated circumstance, which is probably in the recol- lection of many of my readers. , A certain popular minister of the gospel, who was preaching the funeral sermon of his de- ceased servant^ took occasion to exhort the congregation in a& earnest and impressive manner against yielding to despair; " However sunk in the depths of wickedness, however polluted by vicious enormity," said the preacher, " no sinner is out of the reach of God's mercy, if properly sought after ly repent- ance, and followed ly positive amendment. " Our departed friend, whose death has now brought us to- gether, was once a man of vi- olence, an abandoned profligate, and the circumstance which first led to my acquaintance with him was his presenting a pistol to my breast, as a robber and a highwayman. p "Yet 106 HUMANITY REWARDED. ce Yet from his subsequent contrition and melioration, and his reliance on the intercession of a redeemer, I trust he is now in the realms of everlasting bliss." HUMANITY REWARD- ED, and in a singular way. A spirited opposer of the slave-trade, whose evils it will be found more politically right to alleviate, than wholly to abolish the traffic, — this energetic writer compares all parties concerned in carrying it on to the ,worst species of highwaymen, because the marauder only invades the rights of society, but the slave- merchant those of nature. This writer makes an excep- tion in favor of a few individuals, and produces an example in the commander of a fort in Africa, who by his humane exertions considerably diminished the hor- rors of an odious species of com- merce, which he was deputed by his employers to superintend. In every instance where the loss of liberty was augmented by the probable separation of a husband from a wife, or children from their parents, he purchased such prisoners of the dealers, - and gave them permission to retire if they were so inclined, for it frequently happened, that in -the warmth of grateful trans- port to their benefactor, they shewed no desire of returning ; this circumstance probably arose from their country being the seat of war, and their dread of falling into the hands of new tyrants. On one occasion, this benevo- lent man, whose name was Schilderop, a native of Den- mark, on one occasion he was eminently fortunate and suc- cessful; observing among the captives brought down for sale a female, whose manners and appearance interested him in an extraordinary manner, and ob- serving that she was accompa- nied by a little boy, whom she occasionally pressed to her arms, while tears, sighs, and distracted looks, decisively marked her as an agonizing mother, dreading every moment to be torn from her beloved child, he instantly purchased them both, and ex- erted himself so effectually, that in a few weeks the two liberated Africans were safely conducted to their home and restored to the arms of a family, which could scarcely believe so glorious an action could be performed by Europe- ans, whom they had hitherto considered as the betrayers and tyrants of the world. The female he had thus re- stored to liberty was the wife of a prince in the interior part of the IDEA OF A HORSE. 107 the country, who had been taken by surprize while her husband and elder sons were engaged in a distant warfare ; the acuteness of his distress at rinding when he returned his habitation smok- ing in ruins and his wife and darling son carried into captivity, need not be described; or the transports he felt, when after having considered them as for ever lost and devoted to violence and violation, they were again presented to him uninjured, and rushed into his arms. But the generous African was not of a temperament to suffer so benevolent an action to pass unrewarded; he made it his busi- ness to communicate to the wor- thy Dane his wish, that on a certain day he would send a small party of men from the fort to conduct with safety a person he meant to send to him on an important mission. When the detachment ar- rived at the appointed place, they found a young woman elabo- rately adorned in the fashion of the country, and surrounded by attendants laden with treasure and with such articles as he knew would be highly acceptable to Schilderop, his humane bene- factor. They were protected to the fort, and after depositing their presents at his feet, one of the female attendants somewhat ad- vanced in years, approached the commander and gave him to understand that the 5 oung wo- man who accompanied them was the prince's eldest child, a virgin of eighteen, the only daughter of her mother ; that deeply impressed with his gene- rous proceeding, so gloriously opposite to that of most Europe- ans, her parents were anxious so good a man should give them a grandson. I am not enabled to say how the Dane acted on this singular occasion ; a refusal of any of the presents would have been con- strued into ungrateful con- tempt and a violation of their laws of hospitality, while yield- ing to the intreaties of the prince would have been a direliction of integrity and nuptial duty, as he was a married man and the father of a family; whether human virtue on this occasion received any help from the colour of the lady's skin is a point I cannot decide ; yet a connoisseur in these commodities informs me, that in. such latitudes he prefers the sable beauties of Africa to our snow white beauties of the north. IDEA OF A HOKSE writ- ten by a modern veterinary professor, which a connois- seur insists on my inserting at the peril of his displeasure; a p 2 threat 108 IDEA OF A HORSE. threat from a quarter so formi- dable what can I do but obey ? " His head (I mean the horse's not the connoisseur's) should be without flesh, and proportionate in length and size to the body and ljmbs ; his eyes rather prominent, but the lids of them thin and dry. "The ears should be thin, narrow, erect, of middling length, and not distant from each other; the forehead flat, not large and square, but running almost in a straight line to the muzzle, which should be small and fine, yet the nostrils sufficiently di- lated. " His mouth should be deep; the tongue not large, nor should he be apt to let it appear as if it were hanging out, which is some- times the case with old horses; the jaw bones ought to be wide at top, where they join to the neck, which should meet the head, not too abruptly, but ta- peringly, and with a moderate curve. "The neck should be of a moderate length, not too thick on the upper part, nor too large and deep, but rising from the withers or forehand, and after- wards declining at the extremity form a segment of a circle ; un- derneath the neck should be straight from the chest, and by no means convex or bellying out. "The shoulders of a good horse are capacious and of large extent, so as to appear the most conspicuous part of the animal ; but they ought not to be fleshy ; they should rise fairly to the top of the withers, which must be well raised ; the chest should be full, not coming to an edge, narrow, and pinched. " His body is required to be deep and substantial ; his back a plane of good width but hand- somely rounded; the back-bone straight or with a slight bend, it ought not to be short; loins wide, and the muscles of the reins or fillets full, and swelling moderately on each side of the back-bone. " There ought to be a suffici- ent space between the ribs and hip-bones; the hip-bones should be round ; the buttocks deep and oval ; the rump level with the heighth of the withers, the croup must have reasonable space and not sink too suddenly ; the tail should not be set on too low, but ought to be nearly on a level with the back. " The hind quarters should spread to a greater extent than the fore parts ; and the hind feet stand further asunder than those before. "The thighs ought to be straight, large, long, and mus- cular ; IMPARTIAL JUSTICE. 109 cular; the hock wide and clean; the shank flat, but not too long, yet of sufficient substance; its sinew large and distinct, and the fetlocks long: the hocks should form an angle of such extent, as to place the feet im- mediately under the flanks. " The fore arms, like the thighs, should be large, muscu- lar, and long, the elbows not turning outwards; the knees lean and large; the cannon- bone flat, strong, but not dis- proportionately long; the ten- don large. (C The fore arm and shank ought to form nearly a straight line; the fetlock joints must be large and clean; the pasterns moderately sloping, but not too long, and their largeness propor- tionate to their length ; the co- ronary rings neither thick nor swelled, but clean, dry, and hairy. " The feet should not be too high nor too flat, but form a base sufficient for the weight they have to sustain ; the hoofs dark, shining, and without seams or wrinkles, tough and strong (but not hard) like oak; the foot internally concave ; the sole hard but not shrunk; the heels wide and of middling height; a tough and sound frog, but not fleshy, or too large; the feet, equal in size, should stand ex- actly parallel, so that the front or foe incline neither inward nor point outwards; the fore feet should stand perpendicular to the chest, not too much un- der it; they should be less wide apart than the fore arms." IMPARTIAL JUSTICE, or the dishonest servant paid as knaves ought always to be paid. " While I was visiting this nobleman, 5 * (an Italian mar- quis) says a modern writer, "he gave an entertainment to the neighbouring gentry; part of the company had already ar- rived, when an upper servant came into the room evidently- embarrassed to inform his lord- ship, that a fisherman had brought the finest fish he had ever seen, but asked a very ex- traordinary price. " Give him whatever he asks," replied the marquis, anx- ious to shew his respect for the company who were to dine with him. " It is not money, my lord, that he demands; the fellow- swears that he will not part with his fish, till he has received a hundred strokes on his bare shoulders." This singular demand excit- ing general curiosity; the whole party 110 ITINERANT PASTRY COOK. party accompanied the marquis into the court yard to see this unaccountable fisherman. (e Is it true what I hear," said the marquis, addressing him, 4i that you will not sell your fish, unless you receive the stra- pado on your back ?" " I will not abate a single stroke of the hundred, my lord/' " It is the largest of the kind I ever saw," said the marquis and every person present ; " if the man insists on it, he must be humoured. " The fish was delivered without delay to the cook ; the fisher- man took off his jacket, and the groom, who was to pay him, rolled his shirt up to his neck. The operation commenced, and when fifty strokes had been administered, the fisherman cried, " Hold 1 I have received my share." " Your share!" said the mar- quis, " what do you mean ?" " You must know, my lord, I have a partner ; it is the porter at the outer gate of your palace ; he would not permit me to enter, unless I would promise to give him half of whatever I got for mv fish." " O ho!" exclaimed the mar- quis, comprehending at once the humour and just resentments of the poor man, " he shall certainly be paid." The porter was sent for, strip- ped, tied up, and severely flogged; the fisherman liberally paid, and the marquis, dinner being by this time ready, sat down with his guests to a sumptuous and laughable repast. ITINERANT PASTRY COOK.— One of those dam- ned good-natured friends, which few men are without, was sooth- ing the editor with complaints and expostulations, because he persisted in publishing what most people could elsewhere read; a byestander, not a friend, related a Parisian anecdote. A dealer in pastry on the Pont Neuf, whose stock and shop were both portable, was observed to sell his puffs smaller and much dearer than other people; to the remonstrances of a surly customer he made the following reply : — "My tartlets are undoubt- edly small, and I confess that I ask a good price, but my wife fancies she has a knack at making paste lighter, and of communi- cating to her pates a poignancy, which our rivals cannot equal." The complainer continued to grumble and to eat, and was ob- served regularly to visit the same dealer. JUSTUM JUSTUM ET TENACEM. Ill JUSTUM ET TENACEM, an ode of Horace begin- ning with those words, and imi- tated in the following stanzas by a modern poet : — The man, who, resolute and just, Firm to his principles and trust, Nor hopes nor fears can bind,' No passions his designs controul, Not love, that tyfant of the soul, Can shake his steady mind. Not parties for revenge engag'd, Nor threat'nings of a court en- rag'd, Nor storms where fleets despair; Not thunder pointed at his head,^- The shatter' d world may strike him dead, Nor touch his soul with fear. From this the Grecian glory rose, By this the Romans~ aw'd their foes, Of this their poets sing; These were the paths their he- roes trod, These acts made Hercules a And great Nassau a king. Firm on the rolling deck he stood, Unmov'd beheld the raging flood With furious blasts combine ; " Virtue,' ' heery'd, "will make its way, " Thunder and storm can but delay, Not alter our design," Yes, Britons, yes, with ardent zeal, 1 come domestic wounds to healj And bigot chains unbind; The tools of arbitrary sway Shall soon like locusts scout away Before the western wind. Law shall again its reign resume, Religion clear'd from clouds of Rome, With brighter rays advance; The British flag shall rule the deep, And Britain's sons arouz'd from sleep, Strike terror into France. But know, these promises are given, These great rewards all gracious Heaven Does on these terms decree; That, strictly punishing mis- deeds, You let mens 9 consciences mankind, Let bloody Rome compassion find, Who ne'er compassion knew ; Bv lis JUVENILE ABILITIES. By nobler actions her's condemn ; For what in others you contemn Can ne'er be right in you. This spirited production is censured by a modern critic as frigid and flimsy; yet Walsh, the author of it> was the cotemporary and friend of Pope, who frequently acknowledged the advantages he derived from his advice, which related prin- cipally to correctness, a particu- lar in which Dryden and all his predecessors had been grossly deficient. The composition which forms the subject of our present arti- cle, cannot either with truth or justice be called frigid and fiimsy\ the only cause to be as- signed for this unjust sentence of condemnation, passed by a man, on other points not deficient in acuteness, is, that he suffered his principles as a tory, to warp his impartiality as a critic. Walsh was a staunch, honest, and consistent whig, who valued his own opinions, but did not wish to controul the opinion of others; he was not without a portion of the wholesome and at that period the necessary Pro- testant prejudices against the" Catholic faith, and when we recollect what the supporters of popery had done, and still medi- tated doing, can we blame or be surprized at such antipathies, or at modern writers endeavour- ing to keep mens* attention awake on the subject ? It may also be recorded among the singularities of literary pa- tronage, that Walsh with such tendencies and such principles should be the early friend and adviser of one, who afterwards confessed himself a submissive and humble son of the Roman church ; and further, that a man, doomed in future times to reach the highest degree of poetical excellence, should have been instructed and told that he could write by a minor poet. The present times have not been without similar peculiari- ties; David Mallet was the first. patron of Gibbon the historian ; Dr. Johnson was amused and afterwards neglected by Lord Chesterfield ; and the editor of a certain collection was more than once advised to take orders by a worthy prelate not long since deceased ; advice from a primate always understood to mean more than is expressed. JUVENILE ABILITIES.— Public attention has been occasionally raised by the pre- mature exertions of puerile in- tellect, which in some instances have outstripped veterans in professional pursuits, though qualified KELLY, EDWARD. 313 qualified by long study, and im- proved by the experience of many years. The writer of the present ar- ticle was surpized, a few months since, by the ready and appa- rently the unpremeditated reply of a child, so young, that he hesitated in asking him to open a gate, being himself unable to dismount without assistance in consequence of a severe lum- bago. The business was however performed with sufficient dex- terity, and as the old mare' gently paced on, her rider be- stowed the common and cheap acknowledgement of, " that's a good child," unaccompanied by any pecuniary compen- sation. " If I am a good child" re- plied the infant wit without hesitation, and probably irri- tated by .unrequited trouble of- ten repeated, " why don't you give me a halfpenny V s The editor, immediately pul- ling in, gave the petitioner or rather the remonstrant a little more than the sum mentioned : this answer had the additional recommendation of being wholly free from pertness or rudeness in manner and in tone of voice. In this instance the reply was rather more apt, than one raid to have been made on a similar VOL. IV. application from a crowned head, and recorded, if I mistake not, in the famous collection or Mr. Joseph Miller, deceased, of fa* cetious memory. ard, be- fore his servants, and in the pre- sence of all companies. Though criminal and incx* disable, perceiving that dom; siiq happiness was destroyed, he re- solved to separate, and seek a quiet home. Having a large farm-house on the side of the Cotswold hills, he retired to it with Molly and his two eldest sons ; the situation was fine, nature having been lavish of wood, water, and hang- ing hills, with a picturesque pros- pect of the delightful vale of Evesham : bnt what are these, or indeed any gifts of fortune without domestic peace ? To shew his fondness for the favorite, KYTE, SIR WILLIAM. 117 favorite, he took down the old house and built a handsome mansion, with extensive pleasure- grounds and garden ; betore it was completed, two expensive side fronts wete added, Incuse Molly, who was a wit as well as a beauty, happened to sav — " IVhat is a Kite without wings.!?* Tins building, which cost mote than ten thousand pounds, ad- ded to the baronet's pecuniary embarrassments and Ins do- mestic indiscretion, threw him occasionally into melancholy and dejection, tor uhich he had re- course to the bottle, deep play, and a continual round of male visitors. But the time approached when Molly, in htr turn, was to be supplanted. There had been taken into the house, to assist in the dairy, a fresh coloured country girl, whose cheeks, bosom, and hands were described by one of Sir William's drinking companions, as hard as the milking- stool on which she sat. With no other attractions, Sir William, at the age or fifty- two, became enamoured of a girl of nineteen; Molly soon observed the growing passion, and either from resentment, contempt, or a dread of ill usage, immediately quitted the house. Sir William thus seemed left in the undisturbed possession of his humble flame, but soon found the degrading and delusive nature of indulging vicious passions ; he f 'It. also the absence of Molly, who, excepting her disgrace in yielding to the licentious solicita- tions of her master, had many good qualities and useful domes- tic qualifications. When his appetite for coarse vulgarity was satiated, he could not hdp making a comparison between the wife, and even the misti ess he had deserted, and the present companion he had chosen ; these reflections cooled his ardor, neglect and disagreement fol- lowed, and the ruddv miik-maid who thought herself meat fur her master and on a perfect equa- lity, disgusted at his treatment or terrified by the fuiy of his looks and his frantic conduct, decamped in the night. Thus left as it were alone in the magnificent but fatal man- sion he had reared, his flis of melancholy returned with aug- mented depressions; despair, death, and hell haunted his ima- gination ; short intervals of relief were procured by intoxication ; his creditors were urgent, and at length, in a moment of hopeless perplexity, considering himself as hateful to and deserted by God and man, and with the hor- rorsof eternal punishmentblazing in 118 LABIENUS, TITUS. in his imagination and crowding his heart, he set fiie to the house, and was himself, with all it con- tained burnt to ashes. Such were the deplorable effects of licentiousness and vice — Im probe cupidn, quid non mor- talia peitnra cngis! fuisti ante Helfuam belli Uterrima causa. Many years after this check- ing catastrophe, Molly Jones was recognized bv one, who had known her in her days of crimi- nal elevation on the Coteswold hills; she was r as the mistress of a little school tor chil- dren at Camuden, a market town in an adjoining county. Having by her correct conduct and mild manners in some mea- sure atoned tor her former crimes, she was encouraged, pitied, and respected by all the neighbours ; her last days were spent in pious and useful occupation ; relying on the intercession of a redeem- ing Saviour, and proving the sincere emcacv of her repent- ance bv a meliorated life, she died in the calm comfort of hope. LABIENUS, TITUS, a na- tive of Cingulum, or as it is now called. Gingulp, in the march of Ancona, who as one of the lieutenants under Julius Caesar in his conquest of G In this post he deserved and secured the confidence of that consummate general, having con- tributed essentially to his splen- did victories ; but the moment he perceived, that Caspar aimed at supreme power and disobeyed the orders , of the senate, he avowed his submission to the Lit u ted authorities of the re- public, and retired ai the mo- meat the dictator's army tra- versed the Rubicon, which he considered as the signal of re- volt. The Roman commander felt considerable regret at the of so useful and honest a man, and to shew the sense he enter- tained of his worth, sent his equipage, baggage, and ai of pav, to Labienus, accompa- nied" with a letter, in which he acknowledged his merits, and ' lamented the fatal necessity which separated them. The republican was received with open arms by Pompev his friends, and was warmly praised bv Cicero ; yet in pro- secuting Rabirius, whom the Roman orator defended in an ited oration, part of which is still extant, he became an ob- ject of the lawyer's invective. Rabirius, many years before, in one of those sti .veen the Patricians and PLebc which perpetua'i : re- publican Rome, had assisted the ser LABIENUS, TITUS. 119 senate and consuls, and killed Satuminus, a tribune of the people, who with a collection of seditious malcontents had taken possession of the capital. Rabirius was tried before two commissioners from the senate and found guilty of the crime, but appealed to a general assem- bly of the people. It was on this occasion that the oration of Cicero for Rabi- rius, of which a part only re- mains, was spoken ; but in spite of all his efforts, Labienus was on the point of again succeeding against Rabirius, when Quintus Metellus Celer, who presided at the meeting, assuming a real or- pretended power, and pro- bably seeing there was no other method of saving Rabirius, or- dered the standard of the republic, which Was always displayed on such occasions, to be immedi- ately lowered, and stopped fur- ther proceedings by declaring the assembly dissolved. Labienus and the enemies of the accused man, aware of the danger of agitating party ques- tions, and probably convinced that the person slain was a rebel- lious insurgent, relaxed their zeal, the question was permitted to rest, and Rabirius ultimately escaped. There was nothing peculiarly prominent or highly interesting in the conduct of Labienus- and in my opinion, tried on the un- erring touchstone of expediency, he did wrong to throw himself at once into the arms of the enemies of his old commander and associate; but he appears TO HAVE MEANT WELL, a most important feature in any charac- ter, and fully sufficient to hide or excuse a multitude of faults. Selfishness appears to have been no part of his character; he was evidently actuated by public spirit, and glowed with -* patriotic zeal as the citizen of a democratic republic, which he considered as the acme of poli- tical perfection, the established constitution of his country. Stimulated by this honest impulse, and feeling powerfully such convictions, he tore him- self from a commander to whom he was attached by the double ties of interest and gratitude, under whose auspices he had attained wealth and renown and planted the Roman eagle on the banks of the Rhine. In the high tide of fortune, fame, and preferment, he joined a sinking party, became an ex- ile from that country whose bat- tles he had been fighting, and joining Pompey in Spain was slain in an engagement on a spot now occupied by the city of Ossuna in the province of Andalusia. LAND- 120 LANDSCAPE GARDENER. LANDSCAPE GARDEN- ER, a term given to or assumed by a class of surveyors, who undertake to lay out that portion of ground, — which more immediately surrounds a modern mansion house. This subject has produced a paper war between certain con- noisseurs in picturesque scene- ry and professional improvers. The amateurs complain, that in making a place, rough ground and surfaces, irregularly but of- ten exquisitely broken by acci- dental circumstances or peculi- arity of situation, are sacrificed ic by walk makers, shrub plant- ers, turf cleaners, and rural per- fumers ; to trim spruceness, shaved lawns, serpentine paths, and the unvaried tameness of unceasing undulation-." These advocates for the pictu- resque further alledge, that in arguing, and frequently in work- ing, the persons they describe apply the theory of sight to the touch, and mistake perception for sensation ; for that in forests and other spots, where nature is unspoiled by art, many objects may be and are externally un- equal, coarse, and shaggy to the finger, which, when connected and blended with appropriate scenery, and mellowed by the mossy hand of time, communi- cate to a spectator's eye soft and delightful sensations. The difference between sen- sation and perception, insisted on by one of the parties in this dispute, has been doubted by a learned critic, and technically investigated by a practical ana- tomist. The last of these gentlemen thinks them both the same, be r cause the pupil of the eye is evi- dently contracted or relaxed by muscular fibres, which like other muscles producing involuntary motion, are thrown into action, by the irritation of light and shade acting on the retina, so that in fact, intelligence con- veyed to the mind by the eye, is as much semation as the ef- fect of a thorn applied to the finger. But whatever the mistakes, or on whatever side the merits of the question preponderate, the pub- lic has been a considerable gain- er by this animated and well conducted controversy; for in justice to the disputants it ought to be observed, that in the en- thusiasm of a favorite pursuit, they have not forgot they were gentlemen. I take this opportunity, having no other, of thanking Mr. Rep- ton, Mr. Uvedale Price, and Mr. Knight, for the pleasure and instruction I have received. To the last of these writers we are indebted for " The Landscape," a poem, at once pleasing LANDSCAPE GARDENER. 121 pleasing and scientific, creditable to the taste of its author, and enriched with notes which may be perused with advantage by the painter, the improver, the critic, the philosopher, and poli- tician. I can plead no other apology for stealing from it, than a wish to communicate to my readers, the fame pleasure I received in perusing it myself. „ fC - Let the approach and entrance to your place, Display no glitter, and affect no grace; But still tu careless easy curves proceed Through the rough thicket or the flow'ry mead ; 'Till bursting from some deep embow'ring shade, Some narrow valley or some opening glade, Well mixed and blended in pro- portion due, The stately mansion rises into view. But see alas, a vain fantastic band, With charts, pedometors, and rules in hand, Advance triumphant, and alike lay waste, The forms of nature and the works of taste ; VOL. IV, To improve, adorn, and polish, they profess. But shave the goddess whom they come to dress. They level all; — The pollard oak with ivy over- grown, The root fantastic, and the mossy stone ; The ascent abrupt, the dell, the shaggy mound, All, all they smooth to one un- varied round: Trimm'd to the brink, our brooks are taught to flow, While clumps and cradles dot the vale below; Each secret haunt and deep re- cess display'd, And intricacy banish'd from each shade. Hence, hence ye haggard fiends, however call'd, Ye meagre genii of the bare and bald; — ye rural nymphs oppose, Nature's and art's confederated foes ; The axe and hook that would such scenes deform, Dash from their hands ; • Teach silly man his labor to employ, To form and decorate, but not destroy a To 122 LANDSCAPE GARDENER. To break, not level the slow rising ground, And guard, not cut the fern that shades the ground. Paternal shades ! to me for ever dear, May no improvers ever visit here : Protected long from sacrilegious waste, From false refinement, and pre- tended taste: From trim, spruce despots, keep my villa free ; Nature for me the treillage shall spread, And the wild woodbine dangle o'er my head ; Entangled thickets and imper- vious woods, Shall hang reflected o'er my murm'ring floods. Still uncorrupted, still near my demesne, May antient forests hold their savage reign; The brook high bank'd, the rock, the spreading tree, Proclaim the seat of sylvan liberty : From these how different the poor formal lump By moderns planted, which they call a clump ; Or the dull shrubbery's insipid scene, A tawdry fringe encircling va- pid green; Prim gravel walks, through which we winding go, In endless serpentines that no- thing shew ; Till tir'd, I ask, why this eternal round P And the pert gard'ner says, 'tis pleasure ground ; This pleasure ground ! O waft me hence to some neg- lected vale, Where I unbroil'd may court the western gale ; And 'midst the shades which native thickets shed, Hide from the noon-tide beam my aching head ; For tho' in British woods no myrtles blow, Nor rip'ning. citrons in our i forests glow ; Nor clust'ring vines extend their long festoon, Nor spicy odors from our mountains breathe Their rich perfume o'er fertile plains beneath : Woodbine and eglantine our copses grace,. Hollies and thorns o'erhang and deck our steeps, And o'er our banks the clust'- ring ivy creeps. Mr. Knight proceeds with considerable spirit, but not with- out occasionally overcharging his LANDSCAPE GARDENER. 123 his picture, a licence enjoy'd for time immemorial, by poets, orators, and painters, he proceeds to censure the common method of surrounding parks and coun- try seats with what is called A belt, a practice, it is true, not always absolutely necessary, but frequently rendered so by cir- cumstance and situation; his opinion is also against planting the sides and summits of lofty hills with trees; on this point many have thought differently. should, rough with broken crags, Some distant mountain over all arise, And mix its azure colours with the skies; Never attempt, presumptuous, to o'erspread With starv'd plantations, its bleak, barren head. The following lines must have been written by a man of taste as well as science : — Harsh and cold, the builder's work appears, 'Till soften'd down by long re- volving years; 'Till time and weather have'con- jointly spread, Their mould'ring hues and mos- ses o'er his head. Blefs'd is the man in whose se- questered glade Some ancient abbey's walls dif- fuse their shade ; With mould'ring windows pier- ced, and turrets crown'd, And pinnacles with clinging ivy bound. Bless'd too is he, who 'midst his tufted trees, Some ruin'd castle's lofty towers sees, Imbosom'd high upon the mountain's brow : Nor yet unenvied, to whose hum- bler lot Falls the retired and antiquated cot; Its roof with weeds and mosses cover'd o'er, And honey - suckles climbing round the door. Still happier he, if conscious of his prize, Who sees some temple's broken columns rise; Where ev'ry beauty of correct design, And varied elegance of art com- bine With nature's softest tints, ma- tur'd by time, And the warm influence of a genial clime. As collaterally connected with his subject, Mr. Knight gene- rously and in some respects justly attempts to rescue the Huns, the Goths, and the Van- dals, from a charge, for ages brought against them, that of being the only destroyers and defacers of the productions of human art; yet in those in- R 2 stances 124 LANDSCAPE GARDENER. stances where the materials were formed of the precious metals, the accusation seems to have been correct; but Mr. Knight must not be interrupted. Much injured Vandals and long slander'd Huns ! How are you wronged by your too thankless sons; Of others actions you sustain the blame, For fame and plunder your bold myriads fought, Nor deign'd on art to cast one transient thought; They, with cold contempt »• The works of Glycon and Apel- les view'd Merely as blocks of stone, or planks of wood. But gloomy bigotry, with pry- ing eye Saw lurking fiends in every figure lie; Books blaz'd in piles, and sta- tues shiv'ring fell, Such was the language of a warm advocate for picturesque scenery; but landscape garden- ing was not without an able de- fender, Mr. Repton, who ap- pears to unite practical precision with technical ingenuity. Without rhyme, but with a considerable portion of reason, he enters a strong protest " against converting this beauti- ful kingdom into a huge forest, calls the theory of his opponents, a system of improving by neg- lect and accident, and insists that propriety and convenience are not less objects of taste than picturesque effect; he in some measure agrees with his oppo- nents on belts and clump*, but adds, that the first are often highly useful in concealing dead fences and other disagreeable objects, and the latter absolutely neces^ sary as nurseries for single trees, which planted single seldom flourish. In the present, as in many other instances, art and science have received considerable as- sistance, and many new lights from the collision of controver- sy ; in places made by Mr, Rep- ton, he has evidently recollected some of the hints of his antago- nists; neither have Mr. Price and Mr. Knight been backward in acknowledging the eminent professional qualifications of Mr. Repton, even on points to which they once thought him not sufficiently attentive. In a word, were the editor of this collection to chuse a place for his residence, he would with- out a moments hesitation, fix on a spot which had shaied the su- perintendance of Mr. Repton, as evidently uniting convenience, comfort, LIEBERKHUN. 125 comfort, and well disposed de- coration. For a ride, a drive, or a walk; for solitary wandering or social excursion, he would undoubt- edly prefer wilder and more pic- turesque scenes, such as Mr. Price imagines, and I am told actually possesses, and such as Mr. Knight has described. LIBERTY OF PROPHE- CYING, a dissertation so entitled, in the folio edition of Bishop Taylor's Polemical Dis- courses. A passage from this work has been produced by a modern writer, as the evident but unac- knowledged source of Dr. Frank- lin's pleasing scriptural tale of Abraham and the Angel; pro- duced by the shrewd American as an argument in favor of tole- ration. " I conclude" says the learned prelate, '* with a story which occurs in one of the Rabbi's books. " When Abraham sat at the door of his tent, he 'spied a stran- ger passing on his way, leaning on his staff, worn down with old age, and weary with travelling; he received him kindly, washed his feet, and provided a supper for him. " But observing that the old man proceeded to eat without thanksgiving or praying for a blessing of the Almighty, on that which was laid before him, he demanded of him why he did not worship the God of Heaven ? t( I adore fire only, and ac- knowledge no other God," re- plied the stranger. At these words Abraham's anger was kindled, he rose from his seat and thrust the old man out of his tent ; thus exposing him to danger, hunger, and cold. Then God called umo Abra- ham, saying, 1748. REVEREND SIR, I who a! ways loved peace and have a natural aver- sion to disputes, cannot see but with regret a disturbance -in my government which it is not easy to pacify, unless I act in direct contradiction to the spirit and principles of the English con- stitution, which cannot be de- parted from in any part of the dominions of that sovereign I have the honour to serve. But to convince you that I wish to act according to the strict rules of reason and jus- tice, as well as from strong con- viction, I request of you, laying aside passion and the prejudices of education, to place yourself in my situation, and to view the affair, — not as it appears to you, a dignified Catholic, warm with zeal, and animated I doubt not by good intentions, — but as it must appear to me a Protestant, placed in an office of high trust and responsibility, and the repre- sentative of a great king, whose family were placed on the British throne as the professed preservers of civil and religious liberty. Three young ladies have escaped from a nunnery, of their own free will and accord, with- out force or violence; at their own desire they are sheltered in an English gentleman's house, and treated according to the strictest rules of honor. On being asked their reason? for quitting the society of which they formed a part, their reply is, that they were tired of a life per- MINORCA. 139 perpetually spent in confinement, prayer, and mortification, and in consequence of a vow extorted from them by threatenings and severe punishments, they con- clude with professing an ardent desire to embrace the Protestant religion. On being fully informed of this affair, I was fearful that the ladies changing their religion might appear a hasty, rash, and unpremeditated step, I therefore ordered th?.t such of the clergy of your church as their friends approved, might have the liberty of conversing with them, but that no force but that of reason- ing and argument should be made use of. This liberty you know was , grossly and dishonourably abused by the parents of one of the. parties, who by manual violence carried away and concealed the terrified nun; had not the young lady been happily found, I should have been under the ne- cessity of severely punishing the " perpetrators of -this outrage and their abettors. Terrified by this proceeding they loudly call for my pro- tection, and demand admission into our Protestant church. As a member of that commu- nion and a christian, can I pre- vent the doors of everlasting life being opened unto them; as a citizen of the land of liberty, which it is my -pride and boast to have been born and bred in, can I blame them for having fled from a cruel, unnatural, and de- grading bondage ? There is also another reason against my granting your re- quest ; Maria Gomela and Isa- bella Sintos are both married to English officers, and how can I separate those whom God has joined together? It is indeed what I have no authority to do, and would subject me to the penalties of our laws, which are no respecters of persons : as to the single lady, she is at pre- sent in a family of honor and distinction, and perhaps will soon wish to be married herself, and if so inclined, I apprehend it is neither in my power, sir, nor your's, to prevent it. I assure you this busines has occasioned me great uneasiness, and I hope you are convinced, that I could neither prevent nor remedy it in the manner you point out, without failing in duty to my sovereign, and dis- obeying the dictates of my own conscience. I have taken good care that nothing of the kind shall happen again, and it shall be represented as necessary for the peace of T 2 this 140 NAMES AND SURNAMES. this island to confirm and ratify what I have done by proper legal penalties. Assure yourself of my readi- ness to oblige you on all lawful occasions, and that I am, rever- end sir, your's, W. Blakeney. NAMES and SURNAMES. A subject occasionally men- tioned in different parts of this miscellany, and to which some persons attach an import- ance greater than it may seem to deserve; yet the names we bestow on men and things merit their degree of consideration. I can easily conceive a nervous hypochondriacal patient thrown into fainting fits on being told that Dr. Death, actually the name of a medical man in Lon- don, within fifty years, and pro- bably related to a respectable Kentifh family, but who spell it with a diphthong, that Dr. Death was coming up stairs ; and the freeholders of a county would pro- bably put on forbidding looks, were they told that Tom Long and Big Ben solicited their votes and interests as parliamentary candidates attheensuing election. Yet the Doctor might be no friend to his name-sake, Tom Long no longer a carrier, and Big Ben, in spite of inveterate prejudice, might he a respectable member of society. Many years ago I remember a street in the vicinity of London, but now, by theincessantlaborsof masons, carpenters and ground landlords, buried in and form- ing a part of our enormous me- tropolis. Two of the houses in it were occupied by surgeons, Mr. Bigg, and Mr. Little; the name of each was Alexander. As any passenger approached, A. Bigg, surgeon, first caught his eye, and a few paces further, A Little, surgeon: this accidental assemblage was thought ludi- crous, and produced a laugh, but it also produced wisdom; for the professional men soon remo- ved the plates from their doors, as they found that the circumstance, though trifling, injured their prac- tice, and for this reason ; him whom we are long in the habit of laughing at, from whatever cause, we shall soon cease to respect. The opinions of a writer, at a certain time a great favorite with the public, were strongly in favor of the theory here attempted to be established. " It was his opinion," says Sterne, speaking of uncle Toby, (C that there was a strange kind of magic bias impressed on our characters and conduct by good or bad names : * how many Caesars and Pompeys,' would he say, ' have been inspired into worthy actions by exalted names, and NAMES AND SURNAMES. 14! and how many good men, on the contrary, have been depressed by degrading appellations, and Nicodemised into nothing P y " I see that you do not sub- scribe to my opinion, but I ap- peal to your good sense and can- dour, if any motive could have prevailed on you to consent that your son should have been christened Judas Iscariot. " Had a Jew made you the offer, with a very large sum of money in case you complied, I am sure you would have turned from the tempter with abhor- rence; convinced, that the name accompanying him, like his sha- dow, through life would affect his moral qualities, and make him a miserly treacherous rascal. (i I have no patience with people affecting an indifference about the surname of a child, and debating for hours whether a dog or a horse shall be called Ponto, Cupid, Sweetlips, Pota- toes, or King Fergus." Nick-names have also ex- ercised the talents of commenta- tors and critics : from these sin- gular efforts of humour, malice, envy, or revenge, the most pow- erful monarchs, legislators, he- roes, conquerors, and statesmen, have not escaped. They have been occasionally applied to the worst, and often to the best of men ; have been au- thenticated by statues and inscrip- tions, repeated by poets and historians, and ultimately im- mortalized on coins. Generally deducingtheir origin from some defect of body or of mind, from some singularity in dress, speech, or manners, these appellative additions are founded on that irresistible tendency in mankind which has appeared at all ages, to raise a laugh at the expence of their superiors It cannot be denied, that this prerogative of satirical buffoonery has often been usefully exercised in lashing vice and irrational sin- gularity ; but it appears to have been sometimes misapplied by vulgar malignity, which, des- pairing to attain legitimate supe- riority and honest fame, diligently hunts for and elaborately pub- limes the errors and obliquities from which no sublunary being is exempt, hoping by these means to bring down worth and talent to its own level. Justice and common sense should seem to impel us to bestow, undiminished praise on Sergius, a Roman pontiff, and the fourth of that name, at the commence- ment of the eleventh century ; he was eminent for learning, con- sidering the period at which he lived, of correct manners, zea- lous 142 NAMES AND SURNAMES. lous in the cause of religion, and remarkable for charitable bene- volence to the poor. But the Pope's countenance exhibited an unfortunate combination of features, which could not escape the mockery of those who were fed by his bounty; while eat- ing his bread, these worthy cha- racters could not resist the pre- ponderating impulse of humour. They observed that old hog's- snout, to which the lower part of the pontiff's face bore a strik- ing resemblance, that (C old hog's-snout was a good sort of jellow" This filthy addition has adhered to the name of Sergius for almost 800 years, and proba- bly will be attached to it so long as ecclesiastical chronology con- tinues to be an object of literary investigation. It is impossible to doubt, that the soldiers of Julius Caesar were warmly attached to their commander; his generosity, suc- cess, and the manner in which they fought for him, are strong collateral proofs; yet when the victor entered Rome in triumph- ant procession, they were heard to say as they marched along, and in the dictator's hearing, " Ro- mans, take care of your wives and daughters, bald-pate is come again." In this mode of bestowing titles, to borrow them, and from animals, has been a favorite re- source, particularly if the resem- blance in name as well as quality- admitted a pun. Verves, who hoped that his being a man of taste would excuse rapacity and oppression, Verres could not escape the allusion of his name to a boar- pig; Asinius Pollio joined in the laugh raised at his first denomination by his friend Horace. Voconius Vitulus might naturally expect to be called a calf; and Statilius Taurus, a de- scendant from the family of the Bulls. At an early period in Nero's reign, before he became an in- furiate monster stained with ma- ternal blood, a table companion ventured on an extemporary pun ; one of his names being-Tiberius, he called him Biberius Nero, from his- inordinate love of wine. It has not been decided whether the family name of Cicero was produced by a wen on the face of the man who first bore it, or from one of the orator's ances. tors having been a successful cul- tivator of vetches. The name of Caligula was given to that emperor because he always wore a species of foot- harness so called, and generally used by the legionary soldiers only. In a similar way the fourth of the Antonines was called Ca- racal I a, NAMES AND SURNAMES. 14a racalla, the name of a favorite dress in which he generally ap- peared. The Greek lampooners named Socrates flat nose, an internal evidence in favor of his correct conduct ; had Mr. Cumber- land's censure been well-founded, they would have bestowed some epithet more grossly appropriate on a man they so much hated and feared . The satirical Syrians named their King Antiochus, griffin head. Michael the fifth, em- peror of Constantinople, was humiliated on hearing the term calaphates, repeated by the crowd as he passed the streets, his good subjects having dis- covered that the father of their . sovereign had been as hip- caulker* It is well known that Leo was called iconoclastes from his opposition to image- worship 3 one of the Egyptian Ptolomies EIG-EELLIED from his unsym- metrical form, and another, au- letes, from his fondness for and dexterity in playing on a flute; no small misfortune for his subjects, if it prevented his minding his business as a king. The Emperor Frederick the first, from the colour of his beard, was distinguished by the Word BARBAROSSA. It has been observed 'bv a modern writer, and before him by Horace, that coarse and de- grading names adhere to the memory more tenaciously, than titles of honor and panegyric. Discit enim citius meminitque libentius Mud Quod quis deridet, quam quod probat et veneratur. They also in another respect are preferable to mere numeri- cal additions, as being shortly descriptive, they impress on young minds particular aeras, dynasties, and periods, with ac- curacy, which in chronology is always desirable. In one instance, an epithet bestowed by Constantine on the excellent Trajan, and meant as a satirical reflection, augments the fame of the man he meant to ridicule ; he called him pareta- rius, from the circumstance of his seeing on every side as he passed the streets of Rome and elsewhere inscriptions to the honor of Trajan ; a circumstance which appears to have excited envy in the founder of Con- stantinople. Of two Pofcsh princes, one was called club-foot, and the other CURL-PATE. An illustrious French captain of the 14th century, instead of acquiring an appellation by his personal 144 NAMES AND SURNAMES. personal prowess and great mili- tary success, was known gene- rally by the name of gnaw- CRUST. On many of our English kings these additions have been bestowed: on Alfred, who re- covered us from barbarism to civilization, and whom no En- glishman should ever forget, the well-earned and appropri- ate epithet of great has been universally bestowed ; Edgar was the peaceaele; his suc- cessor, the martyr; and Ed- mund, from his matchless cou- rage, his muscular form, or his constantly wearing armour in his unceasing battles with Ca- nute, was called ironside. Harold the first was hake- foot; our third Edward, the confessor; William the first, before conquest had effaced ille- gitimacy, was always styled the bastard; and his unfortunate son, who fell by Tyrrell's arrow in the New Forest, Rufus, from his red hair: of his bro- thers, Henry bore an epithet for his learning, and Robert, from the shortness of his small-cloaths. On Henry the second and a considerable number of noble personages the singular appel- lation of Plantagenet was be- stowed; this literally means a Iroom-stick, and is said to have derived its origin from one of their ancestors, an Earl of Anjou, who doing penance for his crimes by a pilgrimage toJerusalem, was scourged with a rod of broom twigs at the holy sepulchre. Why Richard the first was called Coeur de Lion, is ob- vious to every general reader, and to every one who has heard Ro- manzini sing: to John his bro- ther the name of Lackland was given by his own father, and in his will, in which bequeath- ing him neither lands nor here- ditaments, he meant him to re- main dependent on the bounty of his eldest son. The military glory of Edward the first, King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aqui- taine, could not shelter him from the coarse nick-name of long-shanks; Henry the fourth, that canker Bullingbrook, was so called from an obscure village ' in Lincolnshire, the place of his birth ; for the same reason his truant son, but after- wards that illustrious warrior our fifth Henry, the pride of En- gland and the scourge of France, was surnamed Monmouth. The life and reign of Richard the third, however plausibly de- fended by Buck, and ingeniously handled by the pleasant Horace Walpoie, seem to afford abun- dant materials for abusive epi- thet and declamatory invective; but NATURAL ENEMIES. J45 but his enemies could not be content, unless the arrow of hostility was poisoned by the bitterness of gross personality: they called him crook-back, a mal- formation in which the tyrant could not be instru- mental; but for which he was probably indebted to his mother's fondness of a slender waist, to a rash, impatient accoucheur, or to an hereditary scrophula. The correct taste of later times abstains from this vulgar propensity; yet in several in- stances nick-names are expres- sive, and inflict an incurable wound on a class of persons, who placed by power above law, are sometimes retained within the path of duty and decorum, by a fear of being laughed at and rendered contemptible to all posterity. The appropriate epithet Moody has I believe been generally ap- plied to Mary, the Catholic Queen of England, and the bi- gotted wife of Philip, King of Spain ; but it is to be lamented that no disgraceful term has been attached to her abominable father, which humouring our English taste for significant ab- breviation, would describe an expeller of ecclesiastic tyranny, though himself the greatest of all tyrants, an unfeeling invader of the rights of private opinion. VOL. IV. It is also to be wished that, to the name of Charles the second, a verbal badge of infamy had been attached, expressive of flagitious folly, a label of igno- miny to a king very far from deficient in acuteness, but who with the bloody impressions of a royal father murdered before his eyes, devoted his life to corruptive fraud, enslaving max- ims and gross debauchery. For his successor James, I want a word strongly significant of superstitious insanity, to ac- company his name through fu- ture ages. NATURAL ENEMIES.— The compiler of this col- lection has been censured for ap- plying these words to the inha- bitants of France; yet after a long and cool consideration, he cannot persuade himself to think them inapplicable. To be the natural enemy of any man or society of men, is to be born under circumstances which render us inevitably, and as it were, against our will, seekers of the same exclusive ad- \antages; to be placed in a si- tuation where it is impossible for both parties to be powerful, prosperous, and happy. In this instance, Sallust's de- finition of Friendship, is strictly proper in describing the sources v of 146 NATURAL ENEMIES. of that enmity which has con- tinued unimpaired for so many ages, between England and France: idem velle atque idem nolle. So placed, the two countries bear a close resemblance to shipwrecked seamen, swimming to a short plank, or a broken spar, capable of saving one and only one. In such a position, I fear that poor human nature would not hesitate long in determining how to act. My readers will readily apply this simile to Great Britain and France; the plank on which one and only one can safely float, the life-preserving plank, is the commercial sovereignty of the sea. On this the eyes of our rest- less neighbours have been for ages, and under every form of government, invariably fixed, from the proud boast of univer- sal dominion uttered in the victorious extacies of Louis le lien aime, to the more subtle and malignant policy of the sub- verter of his throne. As Frenchmen, they cannot be blamed, for could this inesti- mable object be once added to the other advantages thev pos- sess, our colonies in the east and west, Europe and the tworld, would in a few years be subject to Gallic oppression. But as Britons, with English blood circulating in our veins, and descended from those war- riors and heroes, who made thousands of the subjects of Charles the sixth bite the dust of Agincourt and Cressy, who literally and without figurative language, bound their kings IN CHAINS, AND THEIR NOBLES IN fetters of iron : in the descendants of such men, and possessing power, wealth, popu- lation, industry, skill, and cou- rage, we should be ideots and fools to drop the marine sceptre for a single moment from our hands, or to lose sight of the in- calculable benefit it confers. If once on French decks, shouts of victory roar, The crown's a red night-cap, and Britain's no more. Under these undeniable and imperious circumstances, which no argument or chicanery can explain away, our neighbours must be content to be called our natural enemies', for such on every occasion they have proved the Antigallican spirit must on every occasion and by every means, be nourished and invigo- rated ; an Englishman should never see a Frenchman without a feeling NELSON, LORD. 147 a feeling somewhat similar to that excited by an adder or a mad dog. The ridiculous dream of libe- rality and fraternization which once deluded so many of us, the dream is passed away; we ought to be convinced by the experi- ence of five hundred years, that nothing but humiliation and de- feat will make them behave with common decency, moderation, good manners, or honesty. There is a strong mixture of resiliency, overweening vanity, extravagant insolence, and sel- fishness, in the French character, which nothing can controul or remedy but a certain admirable English sedative, so frequently and so successfully administered many years ago by Sir Edward Hawke, called a good drubbing; this never failing remedy hath also been given in very respecta- ble doses in latter days, by Lord Rodney, Earl St. Vin- cent, Viscount Duncan, Lord Nelson, Sir Sidney Smith, Sir John Borlase Warren, and a long train of able practitioners, the enumera- tion of whom would convert this book into a nautical alma- nack. After the exterminating vic- tories of Lord Nelson, and the heroic though unsuccessful ex- ertions of our magnanimous ally, Alexander, emperor of Rus- sia, should an English com- mander have occasion to address his men previous to an engage- ment, he might literally and precisely make use of the words attributed by an antient writer to the excellent Scipio. v Nee genus belli, nee hostem ignoramus) cum lis pugnandum est quos terra manque priore hello vicimus; a quibus capta belli prcsmia habemus; et nunc non hostes, sed reliquias hostium pugnamus ; homines, fame, fri- gore, squaiore, enecti, contusi et debilitati, inter saxa rupesque, " We are neither ignorant of the species of war, nor the kind of enemy with whom we en- gage ; our contest is with those whom in the last war we de- feated by sea and land ; ships, prisoners, and treasure, the reward of victory, are in our possession. " NELSON LORD, the Hero of the Nile, the Destroyer of Fleets of our Enemies At a moment when Germany, Europe, and the world, are to be partitioned and parcelled out by French caprice; when the feudal system of holding terri- tories and domains by military tenures is restored by the predo- minating policy of the Emperor u 2 Napoleon* 148 NELSON, LORD. Napoleon, at such a moment of general interest and emotion, the death of our excellent admi- ral, by the hand of a previously instructed assassin in the shrouds, communicated an electric shock to the heart- strings of every Englishman, and diffused a me- lancholy cloud over the back- ground of his glorious victory. 3Ti>e gallant kelson \a no more ! A life, every hour of which has been marked by honorable effort, a glorious life is termi- nated, a career of uninterrupted victory is closed. But as Lord Nelson lived only for his country, so may his death be productive of impor- tant advantages, if ihe principle and theory on which he acted be properly considered and prac- tically enforced 3 they were plain, simple, uniform and in- telligible to all capacities. To take, to burn, to sink, and destroy the ships of our enemies, was the pride and business of his life; in accomplishing this purpose he suffered nothing to interfere, every consideration of personal safety was effaced by the blaze of inextinguishable courage, death or victory was his determined purpose, the certain- ty of instant destruction was in his eye as dust in the balance. By this uncompromising the- ory which he so gloriously illus- trated, he raised our English name to the highest pitch of renown ; the ships he took or destroyed would form a nume- rous fleet; remote countries be- held him with admiration, and at hearing his name, Napoleon has been seen to bite his quiver- ing lips, and tremble on his throne. Such are the glories of our naval pre-eminence, purchased by the blood of thousands, by the mingled tears of widows and of orphans, and if England is to support a superiority purchased at such a price, a superiority to which we evidently are indebt- ed for independence, domestic peace, and other invaluable bles- sings, the system of Lord Nel- son must be enforced, upheld, and improved. No difference of numbers, no superior weight of metal or number or men, must protect the squadrons or single ships of France, Holland, or Spain, from instant attack; at all ha- zards and under every circum- stance, like that worthy and courageous Englishman, the gallant captain of the Hindostan, naval men roust now remember that it is their duty to sacrifice themselves and ships to preserve their country. We must impress deeply and in characters of blood, on the mind NERVOUS AFFECTIONS. 149 mind of every French and Spa- nish sailor, the moment an En- glish ship appears in the offing, that whatever his force, hard blows will be his portion, and that death or captivity wnM be the inevitable lot of himself or his foe. No consideration must be allowed to explain away, weaken, or evade this paramount law ; if we once suffer a quarter deck to be converted into a school of logic for weighing in a trembling balance, the law of probabilities, if the great cabin is to be a bet- ting room for deciding on the doctrine of chances, and for looking after and hedging off all possible contingencies, the ques- tion with France is decided, fur- ther expence and toil are useless, and it remains only to dispatch an envoy at once to Mai Maison or St. Cloud, to receive condi- tions and submit to them ; — then indeed would the shade of Hawke complain, and Nel- son's ghost walk unrevenged amongst us : — sed ni fallor Di immortales nobis meliora parant. Although the frame of Lord Nelson is mouldering to dust, the conduct of Admiral Duck- worth proves, that the unembo- died spirit of the hero of Trafal- gar still animates our bosoms. NERVOUS AFFECTIONS, the terra incognita of hu- man knowledge. In a former volume of this work, an instance is related of a French lady of quality, who, during a long illness, either from delirium or broken sleep, was frequently heard to mutter a jargon unintelligible to all pre- sent : an additiv»nal nurse being engaged, this person immedi- ately understood the words, and pronounced them to be certain little songs or hvmns in a viti- ated dialect of the French lan- guage, spoken in Britanny, of which province both the nurse and the sick lady were natives; but of this gibberish, the lady on her recovery was found to be to- tally ignorant, and wholly un- acquainted with the words which she had so repeatedly been heard to sing or say. Of this unconscious but inde- lible impression of what we have seen and heard, another exam- ple has been recorded, and at- tested on the most respectable evidence. More than forty years ago, a gentleman of Reading, in Berkshire, discharged his foot- man, and having found great trouble with what are called com- plete servants, who are generally useful 150 NERVOUS AFFECTIONS. useful in their own department, but will not stir an inch out of it; he resolved to be satisfied x with a country lad, and form him to his own modes. For this purpose he took into bis service Joseph Payne, a boy fifteen years old, who had lived at Lamboume, in the same coun- ty, with a farmer, who was a quaker of regular life and con- versation. In the house of this person, reading the scriptures and dis- coursing on religious subjects was the employment of every leisure hour; on these occasions Joseph was frequently present, but this family duty did not pre- vent his regular attendance at the parish church, as had been previously agreed when he was hired, a necessary and useful precaution, as I know many sectaries who make a parade about liberality, and expect it in others, but refuse this reasonable liberty to their own domestics. Soon after his residence at Reading, his fellow servant was very much alarmed by Joseph's falling down in a fit; not used to such accidents the woman ran for assistance, and returning with several persons, they were struck with surprize to find him apparently recovered, sitting on the spot where he had fallen, and pronouncing a pertinent re- ligious discourse. Fixed in astonishment they waited to see the event ; at the end of half an hour he rose, as they expressed it, as from a trance y or like one awakened from sound sleep, and on being questioned, solemnly declared himself unconscious of what had passed, and that he did not know a word of what he had said. The affair being reported to the gentleman with whom he lived, he directed that the con- duct and conversation of the boy should be narrowly watched, and the persons with whom he had intercourse, as it was thought he might be made the tool of some wild enthusiast, a descrip- tion of men very much disliked by his master : no circumstance occurred to justify this suspicion, and Joseph continued at inter- vals to be seized in a similar way, and before he recovered to preach regularly at the con- clusion of every paroxysm. Dr. Hooper, at that time an eminent accoucheur, well known in London, was visiting his son at Reading, and their curiosity being raised by so extraordinary a circumstance, they requested to be sent for the next time Jo- seph had a fit. An opportunity soon NERVOUS AFFECTIONS. 151 soon offered for gratifying the doctor's wish, the boy fell down in his customary way, (appa- rently in what is called an epi- lepsy) and the two gentlemen in consequence of a message soon arrived. The patient was just recover- ing and commencing his dis- course, of which Dr. Hooper's son, being a writer of short-hand, took an accurate copy, not losing or adding a word. This singular sermon is pre- served ; and I was disposed to have presented it to my readers, but am told that sermons, ex- cept in a few instances, are con- sidered by the trade as a very unpromising speculation; yet a sermon pronounced under such circumstances, could not fail exciting general curiosity. While pronouncing it he sat up with great composure, his eyes open, but immoveably fixed, introducing his discourse by a sort of conversation with his former neighbours. " Will you go to church? it is Good Friday, I have asked my master to let me go, and though he do not held with Saints' days himself he has given me leave." After a few more uncon- nected but intelligible sentences, he commenced, and the text he chose when the doctor at- tended was — They led him away to crucify him. What he said on this occasion was sensible, well delivered and practical: occasionally holding forth his hand, a person present held a lighted candle so close as to raise a blister ; but he neither flinched nor discontinued speak- ing. As if every circumstance should tend to corroborate the authenticity of this surprising fact, only a few weeks had pas- sed, when the farmer with whom Joseph had lived, and the clergy- man whose church he had for- merly frequented, were called by business to Reading. The boy's new master acci- dentally meeting with them, he naturally mentioned what had happened to his servant ; and enquiring if any thing similar had ever taken place while he resided at Lambourn, was an- swered in the negative. The travellers mentioning in a cur- sory way the inn they were at, passed on ; but in the course of the evening the maid servant was dispatched to say, that if they wished to see Joseph's uncommon affection, he was now seized with a fit. They came and saw and heard ; after the boy had ceased holding forth and was recovered, they both took considerable pains to 152 PERETTI, FELIX. to examine him, and from iheir previous knowledge, as well of his moral character and general deportment as of other circum- stances, were convinced that he had no consciousness, either before or after, of what was taking place. The clergyman remarked, that some passages in Joseph's discourse nearly resembled in tendency and structure one of his sermons ; and the quaker ob- served that the text given out, had been frequently the subject of discussion with his own fa- mily, in the presence of the boy. This remarkable affair was attested by Dr. Hooper, who frequently spoke of it to persons now living, and its authenticity is further corroborated by the boy's master, Captain Fisher, for many years an inhabitant of Reading, generally respected, and probably in the memory of some of my readers. To remember passages in ser- mons and the subjects of con- versations, we have heard, in early life, with lads of tenacious memory, is not uncommon; but to utter repeatedly long and con- nected harangues, in which ar- gument is supported, and exhor- tation enforced by reference to various passages of scripture, to heaven, hell, death, and a future judgment, at a moment when the sensorium is evidently pa- ralysed, and the intellectual powers are apparently suspended, may afford matter of reflection to the minute observers of the phcenomena of that miraculous machine, called man. The article of a former vo- lume in which a case somewhat resembling this occurs, I could not at the commencement of my present subject recollect, it is Delavaj,; a rapid sketch drawn without ill design, but which in- volved the editor in a ridiculous embarrassment, that would if related, create a hearty laugh for my readers; but no man is fond of relating a story which tells against himself. The affair might however have ended profitably, had he chosen to have practiced what was once done in a certain work of rather more importance than his, cancelled a leaf; it was at a time too when one of Abraham Newland's billet-doux, though returnedy would have been very useful. "OERETTI, FELIX, the son jr of a peasant at Montaho, a village in the Papal territory of Ancona, who discovered at an early age quick pans and a re- tentive memory; but the po- verty of his parents obliged them PERETTI, FELIX. 153 to part with him when only nine years old, and he was placed in the service of a neighbouring farmer. In this situation Felix did not satisfy his employer; he was perpetually finding fault with the lad for his unhandiness in hus- bandry work, and observing that correction served only to aug- ment his apparent stupidity, he dismissed him from the house, the barn, and the stable, to what was considered as a more servile and degrading species of occu- pation ; taking care of a number of hogs on an adjoining com- mou. In this solitary place, deserted and forlorn, his back still smart- ing with repeated stripes, and his eyes overflowing with tears, he was surprized by a stranger at his elbow, enquiring which was the nearest road to Ascoli. - This person was a Franciscan, who travelling to that place had lost his way ; in fact, the poor boy was so absorbed in grief that he did not perceive any one approaching till he heard the voice of the friar, who had spoken to him several times before he could procure an answer. Affected by his melancholy appearance he naturally asked the cause, and received an ac- count of his hopeless condition related in a strain of good sense VOL. IV. and vivacity, (for on speaking to him he resumed his natural cheerfulnes) which surprized the holy father when he considered his age and wretched appearance. "But I must not forget that you are going to Ascoli,' ' said Felix, starting nimbly from the bank on which he was sitting) then pointing out the proper road, he accompanied the friar, who was charmed at finding so much untaught politeness in a little rustic. Considering himself as suf- ficiently informed he thanked the boy, and would have dismissed him with a small present, but he still continued running and skip- ping before him, till father Mi- chael asked in a jocose way, if he meant to go with him quite to the town. " Not only to Ascoli but to the end of the world," said Fe- lix , unwilling to quit his com- panion ; i( Ah, sir," continued the lad after a short pause, in a tone of voice and with one of those looks which make their way at once to our hearts, " Ah, sir, if you or any other worthy gentleman would but get me the place of an errand-boy or any other employment in a convent, however laborious, where I could procure a little learning and get away from those filthy hogs and the owner of them, x who 151 PERETTI, FELIX. who is little better, I would try to make myself useful, and should be bound to pray for and bless you as long as I live." " But you would not take the habit of a religious order ?" said the Franciscan, " Most willing- ly !" replied Felix. " You are little aware of the hardships, the fastings, the toil, the watchings, and the labor, you would undergo.' ' " I would endure the pains of purgatory to become a scholar," was the boy's singular reply. Finding him in earnest, and surprized at bis courage and resolution, he permitted the strip- ling to accompany him to As- coli, where he introduced him to the society of Cordeliers he was going to visit, informing them at the same time of the circum- stance which first introduced him to this new acquaintance. The superior sent for the boy, put many questions to him, and was so well pleased that he im- mediately admitted him ; he was invested with the habit of a lay- brother, and appointed to assist the Sacristan in sweeping the church and lighting the candles ; in return for these and other services, he was taught the re- sponses and instructed in gram- roar. In acquiring knowledge, the little stranger was found to unite a readiness of comprehension with unceasing application ; his pro- gress was so rapid, that in 1534, being then only fourteen years old, he entered on his noviciate, and after the usual time, was admitted to make his profession. On taking deacon's orders, he preached his first sermon to a numerous congregation ; it being the feast of the Annunciation, when he soon convinced his hear- ers, that the man who was in- structing them possessed no common share of abilities. The service being concluded, a prelate then present, thanked Felix publicly for his discourse, encouraged him to persist dili- gently in his studies, and con- gratulated him, as well as the society of which he was a mem- ber, on the fairness of his pros- pects. He was ordained a priest in 1545, took the degrees of ba- chelor and doctor with consider- able credit, and being chosen to keep a divinity-act before the whole chapter of his order, father Montalto (that being the name he now assumed) distinguished himself, that he secured the es- teem, and afterwards enjoyed the patronage and protection of two cardinals, Carpi and Alexandrino. The time indeed was come when a friend was necessary to defend him against the nume- rous PERETTI, FELIX. 154 rous enemies his- acrimonious violence had created ; for as Montalto advanced to notice and celebrity, impetuosity of tem- per and impatience of contra- diction became prominent fea- tures in his character; his air and manners were predominating and dictatorial. At this period of his life, he is described (by a contemporary, who I suspect had felt his reproof,) he is described as one of those troublesome people, often men- tioned in this collection, who pre- suming on what I have called the aristocracy of intellect and the insolence of good design, fancy they can set the world to rights, and consider themselves as au- thorized to censure without res- pect of persons, and to amend without regard to consequences, whatever they see amiss in church or state. It cannot be denied that, at the time of which I speak, the reins of government, ecclesias- tical as well as civil, were held with a careless and slackened hand ; that public and private morals were notoriously corrupt and profligate, through the whole extent of the Papal domi- nions; that Rome was a nest and a place of refuge for every thing base and villainous in Italy ; that the roads and even the streets of the great city could not be passed after night, without incurring the danger of robbery and murder. But men in public stations, however culpable their direlic- tion of duty, when they recol- lected that the present reformer of abuse less than twenty years before, was a poor peasant, an object cf charity and commise- ration, they could not prevail on themselves to submit to his cen- sures, without resistance and indignation. But the hour was rapidly approaching when Mon- talto possessed the power as well as inclination, not only to re- prove but to punish evil-doers. By the interest of Cardinal Alexandrino, who saw and un- derstood the unbending stern- ness of his disposition, he was appointed to an office which seemed congenial with such a temper; Inquisitor General at Venice. But the unqualified harshness of his manners, and the per- emptory violence with which he executed his duty soon raised a storm in that jealous republic, and he would have suffered per- sonal violence from the enraged Venetians, had he not saVe^ himself by a precipitate flight. A few months after, he visit- ed a country sensible of the value of such a character, and where such zeal was duly appre- x %, ciated : 156 PERETTI, FELIX. ciated : Cardinal Buon-Com- pagno, being appointed Legatus a latere, in plain English, Am- bassador from the Pope to his Catholic Majesty, Montalto ac- companied him into Spain as his chaplain and inquisitorial con- suiter. In this capacity he was re- ceived at Madrid with great cordiality, and gave such proofs of the warmth of his zeal, that on the Cardinal's recal, ecclesi- astical honors and preferment were repeatedly offered, if he would establish himself in that country 5 but the palace of the Vatican, the city on seven hills, ' Imperial Rome was the object, on which the Shepherd of An- cona had fixed an unaverted eye. The Legate Buon-Compagno had quitted Spain only a few hours, when he met a messenger dispatched from Rome with news of the Pope's death ; this was John de Medicis, who governed the church almost seven years under the title of Pius the Fourth. Montalto was strongly inte- rested in this intelligence, as he had every reason to expect that his patron Cardinal Alexandrino, would be elected Pontiff. In this hope he was not dis- appointed, and on his arrival at Rome, his friend now exalted to an ecclesiastic throne, under the name of Pius the Fifth, re- ceived him with kindness, and immediately appointed him ge- neral of his order, a post in which Montalto did not forget to punish those whom he had before admonished. In less than four years from the elevation of Cardinal Alex- andrino, he was made a bishop, received a competent pension, and was ultimately (1570) ad- mitted into the college of car- dinals, y Being now arrived within a short distance of the mountain- top, which for more than forty years he had been arduously and laboriously attempting to climb, he found a firm and safe resting-place on which to place his foot. It cannot be denied, that his reflections on this occasion must have been in the highest degree solacing and triumphant $ from poverty, contempt, and op- pression, from a life of labor unrequited, and with an ardent thirst for knowledge, which at a certain time it seemed im- possible for him ever to gratify, he was suddenly placed at the fountain head of learning and information ; the treasures of antient and modern literature were displayed before his eyes, he was raised to personal, and what was still more flattering, to aa PERETTI, FELIX. 157 an intellectual eminence, which was generally acknowledged and felt ; he was exalted to a post, which in those days placed him on an equality with kings. But with so many rational sources of exultation, with so much to hope, there still was much to fear; his new associ- ates generally speaking, were men of talents ; well educated, and with the proud blood of the Medici, the Caraffa, the Far- nese, the Colonna, and the Frangipani families, swelling their veins ; many of them not only of illustrious descent but endowed with a considerable share of deep political sagacity as statesmen; and all alike wishing for, yet anxiously con- cealing their wishes, to succeed to the chair of St. Peter. With competitors of this description it must be confessed that Montalto had a difficult and trying part to act. Being con- vinced that a severe assuming character was not likely to suc- ceed, he gradually suppressed every angry passion, and art- fully disguised the foibles and imperfections of his temper under a convenient mask of mildness, affability, and uncon- cern. One of his nephews, on a ourney to Rome to see his un- cle, being murdered, the cardi- nal, now a new man, in- stead of aiding in the prosecu- tion of the offender/ interceded for his pardon; he did not en- courage visits from his relations, several of whom hearing of his advancement, repaired to Rome, but lodged them at an inn, and dismissed them the day after their arrival, with an inconside- rable present ; strictly charging them to return to their families, and trouble him no more, for that he now found his spiritual cares increasing every day, that he was dead to his relations and the world; but as old age and infirmities came on, he perhaps might send for one of them to wait upon and nurse him. On the death of his friend Pius the Fifth, he entered the conclave with the rest of the cardinals, but did not appear to interest himself in the election; and on being applied to by any of the candidates or their friends replied, " that the sentiments of so obscure and insignificant a man as he was, could be of no importance; that having never before been in a conclave, he was fearful of making a false step, and left the affair to his brethren who were persons of great weight and experience, and all of them such worthy characters, that he was quite at a loss which to vote for, and wished 158 PERETTI, FELIX. wished only he had as many voices as there were members of the sacred college." Cardinal Buon-Compagno being elected, and having as- sumed the name of Gregory the Thirteenth, the subject of our present article did not forget to pay court to him, but soon found he was no favorite, hav- ing offended his holiness when Legate in Spain, by refusing to remain at Madrid as he desired. Montalto now became a pat- . tern of meekness, modesty, and humility; he lived frugally in a small house, without ostenta- tion ; this best species of pru- dence and oeconomy, which en- abled him to feed the hungry and cloath the naked by re- trenching his own superfluities, procured him the character of a friend to the poor 5 he also sub- mitted patiently to every species of injury or indignity, and was remarked for treating his worst enemies with tenderness, con- descension, and forgiveness. In the mean time he had so far deceived the majority of the cardinals, that they considered him, as a poor weak doating old fellow, incapable of doing either good or harm, and by way of ridicule they called him the Ass of La Marca; the district round Ancona, to a certain ex- tent being called, the March of Ancona^ An evident alteration also took place in the appear- ance of his health, he felt or affected to feel violent internal pains, which not being always accompanied with external ap- pearances, afford no positive proof of the existence of dis- ease to the senses, and we are generally obliged to take the word of those who say they feel them. He applied for advice to me- dical men in various quarters ot the city, describing what he felt, which, having secretly gathered the information from books, they described as alarming, symptoms produced by causey which in all probability would shorten his days ; public prayers were offered up for his recovery, and the intercession of all de- vout christians and good men earnestly requested. At intervals he would appear in a slate of convalescence, but considerably changed ; of a pale countenance, thin, bent-in body, and leaning painfully on his staff} by a few persons who suspected the duplicity of his conduct, these untoward ap- pearances were said to be pro- duced by the frequent use of nauseating medicines, noctur- nal watchings, and rigid absti- nence. But with all his apparent suf- ferings, PERETTI, FELIX. 159 ferings, and affected indiffe- rence to public men and public measures, his eyes and ears were open and intent oh every transaction, public as well as private ; by means of apt emis- saries, many of whom were do- mestics with cardinals and am- bassadors, he made himself ac- quainted with every event either directly or remotely connected with his ambitious views. Considering auricular confes- sion as a convenient instrument to forward political intrigue, and his reputation as a learned divine being firmly established, he attended whenever his health would pei'mit, to hear confes- sions, and was resorted to by crowds of all ranks. In this post he procured great help towards his aggrandize- ment, and is said to have ex- tr acted secrets, on which he afterwards grounded many ju- dicial punishments. At this propitious moment, (1585) and at a time when the college of cardinals was torn by opposite interests, and divided by contending factions, at this auspicious moment died Gre- gory the Thirteenth. Montalto accompanied the cardinals into the conclave, and immediately shutting himself in his chamber, was scarcely spo- ken to, or thought of 5 jf at any time it was necessary as a matter of form, or for the pur^ pose of calculating numbers to consult him ; his door was found fast, and a message was sent that he would wait on their eminent ces, the moment his coughing and violent pain were abated ; but earnestly intreated them to> proceed to business, as the pre- sence of so insignificant a person as himself could not be neces-" sary, and he hoped they would not disturb a man sinking under disease, whose thoughts were placed on another world. At the end of fourteen days, three powerful parties, each of whom had considered themselves as certain of choosing their own Pope, found their views defeated in consequence of the votes; being equally divided. Impatient of delay, and hop- ing that a vacancy would soon take place if they elected the old ass of La Marca, whom every man thought he could manage as he pleased, they unanimously concurred in elect- ing him. The moment he was chosen, Montalto threw away the staff on which he had hitherto sup- ported himself, then suddenly raising his head and expanding his chest, he surprized every one present by appearing at least a foot taller/, Coming 160 PERETTI, FELIX. Coming forward with a firm step, an erect: and dignified air, he thanked them for the high honor they had conferred upon him, the duties of which with God's good grace, he would to the utmost of his power consci- entiously perform. As he passed from the con- clave, the people exclaimed, " Long live the Pope; Plenty, holy Father, Plenty, Justice, and large Loaves." " Pray to God for plenty, and J will give you just- ice" was his answer. Impatient to exercise the rights of sovereignty, he ordered his triple crown to be immedi- ately produced, and placed it on a velvet cushion in the room where he sat; he was also desi- rous of being immediately crowned and enthroned ; but being informed that his authority and prerogatives were in every respect as firmly established and as extensive before as after the ceremony of coronation, he re- luctantly consented to a short de- lay for the necessary preparations. The humility and complais- ance he had for so many years assumed, immediately vanished ; those predominating passions which had been suppressed by interested views and political dissimulation, regained their as- cendency and burst forth with augmented fury. So great an alteration in his conduct and manners as well as health was a bitter disappointment to those cardinals, who, to serve their own purposes had assisted in the elevation of Montalto, who now assumed the name of Pope Sixtus the Fifth. It was not merely his refus- ing them the least share or ap- pearance of authority, it was not only the loss of patronage and influence they had to la- ment, but the mortification of being over-reached and defeated by the old man who for more than fourteen years had been the object of their ridicule and con- tempt; he had met them on their own ground, and con- quered them with their 'own weapons. If at any time they hesitated in concurring with the vigorous and salutary measures of his government, and ventured to expostulate and represent the in- consistence of his present acti- vity with his former conduct and professions, he instantly silenced them and observed t€ that feeling himself much improved in health and spirits, he was able by God's assistance, and would endeavour to govern the church without their help or advice ; that he was their sove- reign, and would be obeved." The PERETTI, FELIX. J6l The day before his coronation, the governor of Rome and the keeper of the castle of St. An- gelo waited on Sixtus to in- form him, that it had been the custom for every new Pope to grant an universal jail delivery, and a free pardon to all offend- ers ; they wished to know his pleasure. He eagerly asked far a list of the malefactors in custody ; they gave him a paper filled with names, as on these occasions, expecting what would take place ; the prisons were crowded with a number of miscreants, wh© in consequence of murder, rob- bery, and other crimes, had the sword' of the law hanging over their heads. By surrendering themselves they all hoped and expected, ac- cording to long established cus- tom, to procure indemnity for past offences, • and security, on being released, for persevering in their criminal courses. " Mercy on us," exclaimed his holiness, " what a nest of villains have we here; but are you not aware, Mr. Governor, and you, Mr. Jailer, of the glar- ing impropriety of your conduct in pretending to talk of pardons and acts of grace ; leave such matters to your sovereign. De- pending on your never repeating this impertinent interfeiUnce VOL. IV. with my powers and preroga- tives, I for once will pardon it, but instantly go back to your charge, and see that good care be taken of those you have in prison, for as I hold my trust from God, if one of your pri- soners escape, I will hang you on the highest gibbet I can procure. " It was not to protect de- linquents, and encourage sin- ners that Divine Providence placed me in the chair of St. Peter; to pardon men noto- riously AND FLAGRANTLY WICKED, WHO GLORY IN THEIR CRIMES, AND ONLY WAIT FOR LIBERTY THAT THEY MAY AGAIN PRACTISE THEIR ENOR- MITIES, WOULD BE TO SHARE THEIR GUILT. " I see you have four crimi- nals under sentence of death for abominable crimes, and in whose favor I have applications and pe- titions from all quarters ; their friends I have no doubt think they are doing right, but I must not forget my duty. " It is therefore my pleasure/' continued Sixtus, in an -elevated tone, and with a severe look, " it is my will and pleasure that to-morrow, at the hour of my coronation, two of them suffer by the ax, and two by the halter, in different quarters of the city; we shall then do an act of jus - Y tice 162 PERETTI, FELIX. tice pleasing to the Almighty, and take off many of those idle and disorderly people who at public ceremonies, generally oc- casion so much riot and con- fusion." His orders on this occasion were literally obeyed. The day after the ceremony, many of the nobility and gentry waited on the Pope, to congra- tulate him, but he said, " his was a post of toil and duty, that he had not time for compliment" and with these words he was on the point of retiring, but a mas- ter of the ceremonies informed him that a crowd of cardinals, nobles, ambassadors, senators and wealthy citizens demanded an audience. The greater part of them hav- ing relations, friends or depen- dents, who, in consequence of their crimes, had fled from jus- tice, and joined banditti, but had lately surrendered them- selves on the prospect and pro- bability of a general and univer- sal liberation ; • their expecta- tions in this respect were disap- pointed, as the Pope had posi- tively declared, that not a single offender should be pardoned. The deputation represented to Sixtus- in strong language the indecency of so sanguinary a proceeding, at a season which had been generally devoted to mirth and rejoicing, and were proceeding to produce further ar- guments, in the hope of prevailing on him to retract his resolution. But the person they addressed could restrain himself no longer ; commanding silence on pain of his displeasure, he thus addres- sed them with angry looks and in a loud voice : " I am surprized at the inso- lence of your representations, and your apparent ignorance of the obedience which ought in all cases to be paid to the orders of a sovereign prince. When the government of our holy church was committed to Saint Peter by Christ, it surely was not his design that the succes- sors of the holy apostle should be tutored and directed by their subjects. " But, if you do not or will not know your duty, I am resolved to practice mine ; I hope and trust that I shall not, like my prede- cessors, suffer law and justice to sleep : by which means the ec- clesiastical states have been ren- dered, and are notoriously be- come the most debauched, and in every respect the wickedest spot on the surface of the globe ; a by-word to the scorner and the heretic, a reproach to the faith we profess. " Retire, (raising his arm and voice as he repeated the word, seeing PERETTI, FELIX. 163 seeing that the cardinals did not appear to move,) retire, and instead of wishing to obstruct law and justice, endeavour to co-operate with me in cleansing this filthy Augean stable ; for, as to the criminals in question, no motive of any kind shall ever induce me to pardon one of them : each offender shall un- dergo without fear, favour, par- tiality, or resentment, the pu- nishment attached by law to the crime he has committed, and I shall make ftrict enquiry after all those who have patronised and encouraged them, whom I can- not but consider as participators in their guilt, and will also pu- nish. The different prisoners suffered* the sentence of the law ; they departed in silent dismay, and a few months after, as his Holiness was repairing to St. Peter's, on the day of a public festival, a crowd, as was custo- mary, assembled, to see him pass; the people on this occa- sion were so numerous and pres- sed so closely that the Swiss Guards, who always attend the Pope were under the necessity of making way with their halberds. Among the multitude, there happened unfortunately to be the son of a Spanish Grandee, who having arrived only that morn- , ing at Rome, had not time nor opportunity to secure an unmo- lested spot for viewing the pro- cession. This gentleman, standing fore- most, was pushed back some- what rudely; the enraged Spa- niard, following the poor Swiss into the church, murdered him as he fell on his knees at the foot of the altar, and endeavoured to fly for refuge to the house of the Spanish ambassador; he was pursued by two comrades of the deceased and taken into cus- tody. Intelligence of this barbarous and sacrilegious act quickly reached the ears of Sixtus. Afc- ter the service of the day was concluded, the governor of Rome also waited on his Holiness, as he was going to his coach, to know his pleasure, and wait for instructions how to proceed. " Well/ Sir," said Sixtus, " and what do you think ought to be done in a case of flagrant murder, thus committed before my face, and in the house of God? iC I have given orders" said the officer, " for informa- tions being taken, and a process being commenced." i( A pro- cess" replied the Pope, " what occasion can there be for process, in a crime like this committed before hundreds of witnesses? " I thought your . Holiness would choose to observe due orm of law" answered the go- y 2 vernor, 164 PERETTI, FELIX. vernor, ee particularly in this in- stance^ as the criminal is the only son of a person of conside- ration, in high favour with his Catholic Majesty, and under the protection of his ambassador" (e Say not a word to me of consideration and protection ; CRIME LEVELS EVERY DIS- TINCTION, his rank and educa- tion should have taught him bet- ter, It is our pleasure that he shall be hanged before we sit down to dinner." The trial of the prisoner being soon gone through, and a gal- lows erected in the interval, on. a spot where the Pope could see it from the saloon in which he was sitting, he did not quit the apart- ment till he saw the Spaniard brought forth and suspended; he then retired from the window and went to dinner, repeating with a loud voice a favorite pas- sage from the psalms 3 — -" I shall soon destroy all the un- godly in the land, and root out evil doers from the city of the Lord." Such was the conduct of the little peasant of Ancona when elevated to supreme power ; he became a rigid but impartial censor of public defaulters and private transgressors; he ordered the public functionaries through- out his dominions to send him, each of them, a list of every person in their neighbourhood who was notorious for debauch- ery, drunkenness, or other vicious habits; first, inquiring into the truth of their information, he sent for and privately reproved them ; but if this warning was not attend- ed to, he severely punished the offender. Having deeply impres- sed a conviction of his inexora- ble regard to justice, persons ex- ercising authority under him per- formed the duties with scrupu- lous exactness. The various remarkable in- stances in which this extraordi- nary man exerted his power in suppressing vicious enormity would, if introduced in this place, extend our present article to a length inconsistent with the nature of this collection. With respect to women, a violation of their chastity, by force or by fraud, with or against their consent, he never pardoned ; and even a slight deviation from public decorum did not go un- punished; a subsequent marriage, on either of thefe occasions, he did not consider as a satisfac- tion to justice. This delicacy so scrupulously severe, he carried to an excess in many instances, inconsistent with human infirmity ; the wishes and often the happiness of the injured woman ; who in Several instances had their husbands torn from PEREtTI, FELIX. 163 from their embraces and com- mitted to the gallies for follies and indiscretions committed be- fore marriage, in the furious licentiousness of stimulating passion. He determined to put a stop to a depraved custom then gene- rally prevalent in his dominions among the elevated and wealthy classes of society, that of mar- rying a mistress to a dependent, for the purpose of procuring an ostensible parent for their illegiti- mate offspring, and carrying on securely an adulterous intercourse. The first example of this kind was that of a person from whom his Holiness had ex- perienced many acts of kind- ness, before he was created a cardinal. After a momen- tary struggle, he sent for his former friend privately, and warmly censuring him for his conduct, he warned him of the consequence of persevering in the unlawful connexion ; and assured him that his duty as a magis- trate was paramouut to his feel- ings as a friend, and advised him either to remove the female, or to quit his dominions. A few months after, Sixtus ordered se- cret spies to watch the parties, and finding that the person he had reproved still "continued the criminal attachment, probably presuming on the indulgence of former friendship, he ordered the offender, the husband and wife to be hanged without de- lay ; three domestics acquainted with the illicit proceeding, he ordered to be publicly whipped, for not giving information. It had been usual for the peo- ple to exclaim (i Long live the Pope" whenever he passed, but finding that this mode of accla- mation prevented his dropping in unexpectedly, at the courts of justice, and public offices, he forbad the custom: on two un- lucky rogues who from obstinacy or inadvertency disobeyed this injunction, he ordered the stra- pado to be inflicted immediately on the spot : this effectually pre- vented a repetition. Assassinations and duels had disgraced the reigns of all his predecessors, and rendered Rome and Italy unsafe. To arrest, and if possible, re* move an evil productive of pub- lic danger and private distress, he published an edict, forbidding on pain of death, any persons whatever their rank, drawing a sword, or even having in their possession any instrument of death as they passed the streets, except his own magistrates and officers. By-standers who did not prevent, and seconds who encouraged duelling he sent in- ; stantly to the gallies. A few- instances 166 PERETTI, FELIX. instances of rigid severity effec- tually removed the grievance. Any thing like revenge or bearing malice he would not en- dure. A barber quarrelling with one of his neighbours, held up his hand in a threatening man- ner, and with a significant mo- tion of his head, had been heard to say, " If ever he comes under my hands, I will do his busi- ness" This being repeated to the Pontiff, he ordered the speaker of the obnoxious words to be taken into custody, then direct- ing all the barbers in Rome to be collected in one of the squares, the offender underwent a long and severe whipping be- fore them. His Holiness observing that tradesmen suffered seriously, and often became bankrupts in con- sequence of long credit and bad pay, to the great injury of com- merce, and frequently of the public revenue, he quickly pro- duced an important reformation on a point which loudly calls for amendment in Great Eritain and Ireland. A hint to his officers that he wished to collect information on the subject was sufficient. A tradesman in all probability pre- viously instructed made com- plaint that having applied to a person of distinction for payment of a debt which had been long due, and of which he stood in urgent need, the debtor had violently resented it, withdrawn his own custom from the poor man's shop, and persuaded many others to do the like, telling the person he injured in an insolent manner, that gentlemen paid their debts only when they pleased, Sixtus sent for both parties, ordered the money to be instantly paid, with interest from the time of its being due, and committed the fraudulent debtor to prison. At the same time, a procla- mation was issued, directing all the merchants and tradesmen to send his Holiness a list of their book debts, With the names of those from whom the money was due; he directly paid the whole, taking the debts on him- self, which in consequence of the general alarm, were quickly discharged. It is scarcely necessary to ob- serve that the subject of my pre- sent article exercised a rigid and inexorable despotism ; but ex- erting it in most instances with impartial justice, and for salu- tary purposes, his power was submitted to with less reluc- tance : he is called by a writer of that period a terror and a scourge; but it was to evil doers^ to the profligate, the incorri- gible, PERETTI, FELIX. 167 gible, and the corrupt. Most rational men I believe would pre- fer living under an absolute mo- narch of such a cast than under the easy sway of a lax moralist, a generous libertine, or one of those devilish good kind of fol- lows who are commonly described as no man's enemy but their own; a character which cannot exist ', as it is impossible he can be a friend to others who is in a state of constant hostility with himself At all events, the great interests of society, public happiness and private peace are most effectually preserved by a prince like Montalto. In his transactions with fo- reign princes, Sixtus uniformly preserved a dignified firmness, from which he never relaxed. Very early in his reign, he was involved in a dispute with Philip the Second, King of Spain ; who though the most superstitious of bigots to the Catholic faith, was a constant object of the Pope's hostility, while the heretic Eli- zabeth, Queen of England, was a character he warmly admired, and never mentioned without enthusiastic admiration. Speaking of her on a certain occasion, to an English Catholic who visited Rome, he observed, cc a Queen like your's deserves to reign ; she governs her king- dom with energy and wisdom ; respected abroad, and loved or feared at home, her subjects en- joy the benefits of a vigorous and successful administration. If such a woman were to become my wife, we might people the ' world with a race of Scipios, Caesars, and Alexanders. " Yet in his public capacity, as head of the Catholic Church, he found it necessary to publish a bull of excommunication against Elizabeth when Philip meditated an invasion of England with his invincible Spanish armada. At the same time, he pri- vately informed her of the pro- ceedings and intrigues of Philip against her, earnestly recom- mending her JV^ajesty to prepare for a vigorous defence. The subsequent defeat and disappointment of the Spanish King in this attempt commenced with so much threatening arro- gance and carried on at so enor- mous an expence is known to most readers, and was highly gratifying to Sixtus. The imprisonment and execu- tion of Mary Queen of Scots, an event which produced a strong and universal sensation through Europe, has in modern times excited a long and animated con- troversy. Various have been the opinions on the justice of Eliza- beth's proceeding: and the edi- tor of this collection by defend- ing 168 PERRTCT, FELIX. ing the Oueen of England on the plea of political necessity, has incurred the resentments of a venerable and patriotic Cale- donian, who occasionally ho- nors these pages with a perusal. As weak states in contests of a more important kind find it necessary sometimes to call in the aid of powerful allies, I may be permitted to observe that the Pontiff Sixtus was often heard to say " Had I been King of England, I would have acted precisely in the same manner." When he was first informed that the unfortunate Mary was beheaded, he rose suddenly from his seat, and traversed the apart- ment in much apparent agita- tion, but not the agitation of re- gret ; for throwing himself into his chair, he exclaimed, iS O happy Oueen of England, how much art thou to be envied, who hast been found worthy of seeing a crowned head prostrate at thy feet." These words were evidently spoken with reference to Philip, King of Spain, whose name was never mentioned in his presence without producing angry looks. Sixtus could never submit with patience to a ceremony an- nually performed by the Spanish ambassador; this was the pre- senting a Genet to his Holiness, by way of acknowledgment that his master held the kingdom of Naples of the Pope. On one of these occasions, rising hastily from his throne, he said, in a loud voice, to Count Olivarez, " our predecessors must certainly have been in a very complaisant mood, when they agreed to accept from your master's ancestors a poor pitiful hack, in return for a rich and flourishing kingdom. I hope soon to put an end to this mum- mery, and to visit the citizens of Naples as their lawful Sove- reign.' ' But circumstance and situa- tion were not favourable to his executing this purpose, which was the fond wish of his heart. Such was Sixtus the Fifth, who directed the officers of his palace to give audience on every occasion to the poorest man in his dominions; who listened with condescension to the un- fortunate, the widow, and the orphan, but punished with in- exorable severity criminal delin- quency, respecting neither per- son, rank, nor wealth; who was moderate in his enjoyments, of pure morals, and correct in pri- vate life. The revenues of the state almost annihilated by the rapacious anticipation of his pre- decessors, he restored to more than double their former nomi- nal amount. In the public trea- sury, PARTY POETRY. 16$ sury which was exhausted at th-? time of his election, his suc- cessor found five millions in gold ; his personal expenses were trifling, but his private charities amounted every year to a considerable sum ; on these occasions he sought for and ge- nerally found patient, meek, and unassuming merit, struggling with adversity ; the perverse im- portunate mendicant who begged by day and thieved at night, he ordered out of the city with re- proof and frequently with flripes ; so salutary were his edicts, and so undeviating and rigid the impartiality with which he inforced them, that his judges and police officers con- fessed that their places were be- come sinecures. Sich was Six- tus the fifth, who if the quali- ties I describe are the first and most indispensable duties of a monarch, deserves to be classed with the first and most glorious of kings, and to be numbered with the greatest benefactors of mankind. He was deficient it muft be confessed in the mild acts of gentle persuasion, he was a stranger to the suaviter in modo ; but to such a pitch was the wickedness and enormity of his subjects arrived, that a governor of a mild character would have been disobeyed and despised. VOL. IV. But he possessed a qualifica- tion more essential and exactly calculated for the times in which he lived, the fortiter in re ; an eagle-eyed acuteness to search after and to see criminality and fraud however concealed or dis- guised, together with unabating energy and unconquerable reso- lution to resist and punish them. I Conclude this hasty narrative, already too much extended, with one observation. In an article of this collection assigned to an eminent senator and an accomplished statesman, I observed, that if he had been a plough-boy or a shepherd, he would have turned the best fur- row, and have reared the best flock in his hamlet. But this observation will not apply to Felix Peretti, who if the Franciscan friar had not fortunately missed his road to Asioli, in all human probability, would either have been beaten into incorrigible stupidity and despair, have been driven to flight, evil courses, and an igno- minious death, or have lived and died in ignorance, indigence, and obscurity. PARTY POETRY, and Po- litical Misrepresentation. Most of my readers must recol- lect, that at the period of the French Revolution, or soon af- z ter, 170 PARTY POETRY. ter, a very wide difference in opinions was observed, on that subject among the principal gentlemen who at that period conducted opposition measures in the House of Commons ; more particularly between the late Mr. Edmund Burke and Mr. Sheridan. This occasion did not escape the notice of a certain quick- sighted man of rhyme, who wished the public to believe that offers were immediately made to the member for Stafford, in the hope of prevailing on him to join the servants of the crown ; the business of the poem was to describe the struggles which would naturally take place in Mr. Sheridan's breast, before he replied to the ministerial appli- cation. The person, supposed to be sent to try the powers of persua- sion, was a gentleman well known at that period, and no stranger to the business of gaining pro- selytes ; he had long enjoyed a profitable and confidential post under Lord North, but deserted him at an early period after that noble lord's retirement from office, and joined Mr. Pitt ; this was Mr. John, but better known by the more familiar appellation of Jack Robinson. A jackall he, by one and all agreed on, Who sought out prey for Lyon Pitt to feed on. In the present instance he proves unsuccessful, and return- ing with the unwelcome tidings to his employers, The loy was angry, Boggy felt surprize, For once Leeds frown'd, and Thurlow damn'd his eyes. An author, at that time, in habits of intimacy with Mr. Sheridan, is next sent to Bruton- street, where he then lived ; in his way, the great house at the opposite corner does not escape observation. The bard that passage tried with steps so light, Which, like Lord Lansdown's ways, is out of sight ; And as he pass'd, the ruling Marquis sees, Who thus address'd him from among his trees. " I'm vex'd for Burke, and Sheridan in troth, Pray when you see them, say I love 'em both, Or Ins or Outs none hostile me can call, I have a promise, nod, and smile for all ; With me and Jekyll you could snugly sit, Supreme PARTY POETRY. i7l Supreme in verse, law, politics, and wit." The poet bow'd, but keeping on his road, He soon arriv'd at Sheridan's abode. Far in a deep saloon he found him plac'd, So oft by worth, by wit and beauty grae'd : Care rough 'd his brow, and sor- row wrung his heart, While thus the bard made essay of his art. A conversation is now sup- posed to take place, during which little prospect of success appears; night approaches ; and the distinguished personages who had sent the messenger, feel so much anxiety, that the Premier and several members of Admi- nistration determine at length to repair to Bruton-street themselves. But as he spoke the blazing flambeaux glar'd, The porter wonderM and the footman star'd ; While through the hall, the thund'ring knockers roar, And Pitt's great name the liv'ned vassals bore. The Chancellor of the Exche- quer being introduced ; With looks important and a solemn bend, He thus began a speech he just had penn'd. pularity subsided, the faults of Rienzi were watched and aggra- vated by the scrutinizing eyes of envy and malignity : the stern severity of his justice was called cruelty, his liberality was deno- minated profusion and genero- sity at the expense of other peo- ple ; and the love of fame, which in all transactions, appeared the ruling passion of his soul, was ridiculed RIENZI. 197 ridiculed and satirized as igno- ble vanity, and unmanly osten- tation. The Tribune quickly perceived that he had lost the confidence of his original supporters, and that his inveterate enemies the nobles were intriguing and plot- ting against him. An insur- rection of his opponents attacked his authority under and almost within the walls of Rome ; the alarm bell was rung in vain; but the hour of enthusiasm and at- tachment were passed away, and after an ineffectual struggle, the once so popular and almost dei- fied and adored was obliged to fly from Rome. Alternately, a fugitive, an exile, and at last a prisoner in a papal dungeon at Avignon, Rienzi heard of the distracted state of his native city, and the return of its tyrants with pity and grief. After an absence of seven years, the reformer (zelator Ita- lic) was liberated, and sent with papal and senatorial authority to restore peace and tranquility to the city from which he had been driven. But the ardor of public spi- rit was cooled and repressed by adversity and experience. Cold distrust and hesitating doubt took the place of energy and un- bounded confidence. His vices had augmented in the same pro- portion that his integrity was diminished. His power and au- thority were resisted by a consi- derable number of his former adherents, aided by the profli- gate, the idle, and the poor, in- cited by the nobility, who de- tested Rienzi, and dreaded the restoration of the good old cause, ■ At length, after a four month's difficult administration, the Se- nator Rienzi was killed in a po- pular tumult. Such was the life and death of this extraordinary man; who seems to have pos- sessed talents admirably calcu- lated for reforming abuse, and concentrating the energies of the million to one fixed and settled purpose ; but^ he wanted self genial to resist the temptations which surround absolute power: and although Rienzi controuled and punished the oppressors of his country with spirit and ef- fect, he appears to have made a contemptible prince. After hav- ing- attained supreme power and driven out the destroyers, had he retired to his original private station, and committed his au- thority to pure and able hands, if any such at that unpropitious period could be found, his name would be handed down to pos- terity in a much more favorable point of view r . Major privatu dam pr w at us, et omnium consensu capax imperil, si non imperasset. For 196 RIPERDA. For the materials and a good part of this article, I am in- debted to Mjratori, to the com- pilation of two indefatigable Je- suits, Brumoy and Cerceau, and to Mr. Gibbon. The Memoirs by the two reverend fathers, a copy of which, now before me, and which appears to have been at a certain time the property of the English historian, are men- tioned in his notes; but Mura- tori's author, Fortifiocca, is ge- nerally referred to, in " The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." I IPERDA, a native of Gro- ningen, towards the close of the seventeenth century, for the materials of whose singular life and adventures we are in- debted to the late Dr. Campbell, and for many new facts to the ingenious rector of Bemerton. The last writer, admitted to sources of information which few private men can have any access to, has, in his apology for Sir Robert Walpole, per- formed the task committed to his care, in a dexterous and pleasing manner. It must be confessed that when the transactions of ministers and statesmen are to be delineated and laid before the public, a writer is placed in a situation peculiar and delicate ; more par- ticularly when those individuals, to whom he is indebted for im- portant papers, are immediate descendants from the illustrious persons whose history he writes. To investigate characters, and decide on measures, when party zeal, inflamed resentments, and family prejudice have not had time to cool, has been aptly com- pared by Horace, to treading on ashes, beneath which, unextin- guished fire is concealed : In such cases an author has a dim- cult part to act ; to avoid the bias of gratitude and private in- terest ; to speak not only truth but the whole truth ; to avoid exciting the malignity of power- ful enemies, but at the same time to preserve unblemished his integrity and literary reputation with the public. Riperda, the subject of my present page, inheriting from nature activity and acuteness, and uniting, to a warm imagi- nation, a more than moderate confidence in his own abilities, applied with indefatigable in- dustry to literature and sci- ence. After a well -planned and well- executed education, under the superintendance of his father, who was descended from a good familv in the province where he resided, the young man passed the earlier part of his life in the army, RIPERDA. army, in which he deserved and obtained promotion. His military progress, added a general knowledge of the world, and agreeable manners, to his more solid acquirements; but he suffered no pursuit either of business or of pleasure to inter- rupt the cultivation of his mind ; his morning hours were sacred, and while his associates in winter quarters were lost in the stupify- ing indolence of superfluous sleep, or in recovering from a nocturnal debauch, the more diligent Dutchman was trim- ming his early lamp. He exerted himself more pe- culiarly in procuring information on every subject directiy or re- motely connected with manu- factures and trade ; he made himself acquainted with the po- pulation and the wants of the different powers in Europe ; with the natural produce and raw materials each country yielded, and the various commo- dities which they were under the necessity of providing from their neighbours. Having formed himself pre- cisely for manag ^g the con- cerns of a mercantile country ; soon after the peace of Utrecht, he was appointed envoy from the United Provinces to the Court of Madrid, for the purpose of negociating a commercial treaty with the King of Spain. This complicated business he conducted with so much address, and turned his book knowledge, which men of business are so apt to think lightly of, to such good account, that he attracted the notice and procured the favor of Cardinal Alberoni, who from being a curate in the Dutchy of Parma, had by fortunate and well-improved incidents, gained the patronage of the Princess Ursini, and, was at the moment, Prime Minister of Spain. At Madrid he found Mr. Docidington, the subject of an article in a former volume of this, collection, who was sent on a fimilar business, by his master r the king of England. The English envoy better, skilled > in borough arrange- ments than the intricacies of foreign politics, derived so much benefit from the correct official statements and the authentic documents of Riperda, that he received many warm acknow- ledgments from Lord Towns- hend at that time a cabinet minister at the court of Lon- don, These flattering circumftances first occasioned the subject of our present article, to meditate establishing himself in Spain ; he was induced to this project by recollecting that it required no very consummate abilities to pass for a deep politician at Ma- drid, *00 RIPERDA. drid, where many foreigners had been advanced to high honours and confidential trusts, who had no other recommendation, than a good voice, a dextrous ringer, a pleasing countenance, or a handsome leg. Finding the protestant religion a considerable impediment to his advancement, he publicly abjured the faith in which he had been educated, and was ea- gerly admitted into the Catholic church. This change of opinion or of profession, so favorable to his political career, does not appear, to have improved his morals ; for in a pecuniary transaction Riperda was accused of impos- ing on Mr. Doddington ; this ill-timed incident lost him Al- berom's favor, and he was soon after dismissed from the lucrative post of superintendant of a royal manufactory to which he had been appointed. The Dutchman always re- pelled this degrading accusation with spirit, insisting that the money received, ten thousand pistoles, was no more than a moderate reward for the import- ant diplomatic benefits he had conferred by advice and com- munication on the infant states- man, that being the appellation he bestowed on Mr. Doddington, alluding I apprehend, rather to his want of experience than years ; he asserted that part of the cash had been actually ex- pended, in obtaining secret in- telligence for the Englishman : Who shall decide when states- men disagree ? Sometimes in these collusions, a spark of truth, useful to honest men is struck out. Riperda observed that on this occasion, he had acted towards the unfledg'd envoy, as a prudent phy- sician would treat an illiberal and parsimonious patient,- who insi- diously picked out his opinions and advice during accidental conversations, without offering a fee, he had paid himself . It is not easy now to decide on the positive criminality, or relative equity of this trans- action ; it must, however, be confessed, that internal evidence, deduced from the subsequent conduct of Riperda, and the left- handed, characteristic cunning of his countrymen, who generally over-reach themselves, tell rather against him, But this obliquity of conduct, does not appear to have retarded his political progress; he joined the enemies of Alberoni ; and, in the place from w T hich he had been dismissed, having been kindly noticed by the royal fa- mily he still retained their favor; was frequently consulted by the principal RIPERDA. 201 principal secretary Grimaldo, and, what in Spain is an object of the first importance, Riperda became a favorite with the king's confessor. In this advantageous position, he intrigued and caballed against the cardinal; contributed pow- erfully towards his dismission ; and dazzled by the bright pros- pect which opened before him, confiding in superior abilities, or his personal influence with the king, he was ambitious of suc- ceeding the ex-minister. But when his appointment was proposed in council, strong representations were made a- gainst placing at the head of his majesty's administration an alien and a new convert from heresy, whose integrity was already sus- pected. A further discussion was de- layed by Philip's abdicating, the Spanish throne ; but when the royal seceder resumed his crown, Riperda was still his confidential favorite, and ingratiated himself more particularly with the queen, by promoting a marriage between Don Carlos, and an arch-duchess of the House of Austria. On this occasion he was sent ambassador to the emperor of Germany, and duringhis mission to Vienna, acquired considerable popularity, as well by the un- qualified warmth of his declara- VOL. IV. tions in favor of German con- nections; by the hospitality of his table, the splendour of his retinue, and the punctuality of his payments. A new system of politics, different views, and, probably, the pecuniary embarras with Mr. Doddington, gradually es- tranged him from his former attachment to England, and he poured forth a foul stream of virulent invective against this country for hesitating to fulfil her engagements, one of which he positively insisted was an immediate and unqualified ces- sion of the important fortress of Gibraltar. In reply, it was acknowledged that the subject had been pressed by the Spanish minister, and a promise made to take it into consideration; but when the outrageous statesman was in- formed that in Great Britain the will of a sovereign, or the wishes of his minister, are impotent and ineffectual without parliamentary concurrence, he burst into pas- sionate, vehement and unbecom- ing expressions ; threatened that he would land twenty thousand men in Scotland, send home the elector of Hanover, and place the lawful sovereign, a legitimate descendant of king James the second on the English throne. Having concluded with the d d emperor 208 RIPERDA. emperor a treaty, by which the king and queen of Spain were highly gratified, he hastened to Madrid, where he was received with rapturous acknowledg- ments ; but he treated his friend Grimaldo with ungrateful cold- ness, and the day after his arri- val, was appointed to succeed him as principal secretary of state ; he transacted business at the council-board and with fo- reign ambassadors, thus enjoy- ing the uncontrouled authority of Alberoni, without the name of prime minister. But it was soon found with all his predominating address and eminent talents, that he was unfit for the high office he filled ; that he was vain, turbulent, and insolent ; without regularity, prudence, moderation, or con- sistency of conduct ; in a word, that he was .a character I have often had occasion to delineate and to lament in this collection ; possessing great powers and splendid attainments, but want- ing prudence and common sense. The king by more frequent intercourse soon saw the defici- ency of Riperda in these indis- pensible requisites, and in a short time he ceased to be a favorite. It is not improbable that the minister became giddy from the height to which he was ele- vated ; being hated by the offi- cers of state who were obliged to attend him, and detested by the people, his situation was awkward and perilous; vet at a crowded levee he had the folly or the assurance to exclaim, " I know that the whole kingdom is irritated against me, but their malice I defy ; safe under the protection of God, the blessed Virgin, and the goodness of my intentions." The general aversion every day increasing, and Riperda's imprudence keeping pace with his unpopularity, it was found necessary to remove him. His dismission, according to the usual court etiquette, being called a resignation, and his temper smoothed by a liberal pension. But this pacific treatment had no effect in quieting the exaspe- rated Dutchman ; his angry passions raged with unabated furv, and he vowed eternal ven- geance against a country so blind to his merits. Being possessed of secrets, which the English ministry were anxious to become acquainted with, he opened a clandestine intercourse with the English ambassador, Stanhope; his for- mer friend Doddington having been recalled. The curses of the people art- fully RIPERDA. 203 fully fomented by his enemies, were by this time not only deep but loud ; he was fearful of an attack on his person, and he fled to that gentleman's house. His intrigues with England, and other hostile designs being now discovered, he was dragged from his retreat, taken into cus- tody, and imprisoned in the cattle of Segovia. Taking advantage of the in- firmity or the neglect of his keepers, and assisted by a female domestic, who first pitying had then loved him, he bribed a nocturnal sentinel and by means of a rope ladder effected his escape. With these companions, and after a long, anxious, and fa- tiguing journey, he reached Oporto, and embarked without delay for England, where he was received with respect and atten- tion by the king's ministers. But when Sir Robert Wal- pole had gained from the fugitive every necessarv information, he was gradually neglected, and, as is the case with all betrayers of their trust, at last despised, even by those who had derived ad- vantage from his treachery. A man like Riperda who had directed national councils, and been listened to by kings, who abounded in pride, and swelled with indignation, could nst but feel this degraded situation most acutely; after two years passed in the English metropolis, in unavailing impatience, passion and regret, but with undimin- ished hatred against every thing- Spanish, he withdrew to Hol- land. In that republic he found an agent from Barbary, who, being acquainted with his story, con- ceived that his thirst for ven- geance might be made product- ive of important advantages to the sovereign by whom he was employed. This person was an envoy from that barbarian whom we condescend to call the emperor of Morocco; he assured Riperda, that all his efforts in Europe would be ineffectual, in conse- quence of the important changes which had recently taken place in continental politics ; but that on the borders of his master's territories in Africa, he might annoy his enemies, and gratify his revenge most effectually ; that he would there possess the advantage of a geographical po- sition, in which to defeat the Spaniards would be to extermi- nate them, and that he would receive ample rewards from a grateful ally stimulated by the hereditary impulse of eternal ha- tred and national antipathy. Riperda heard and was con- n d 2 vinced £0i RIPERDA. vinccd ; revenge the most in- fernal but most seducing of all our crimes, quickening all his meafures and smoothing every difficulty, with the two com- panions of his flight he sailed for Africa, and after a prosperous voyage announced his arrival and the object of his views to the emperor Muly Abdallah, who eagerly accepted his ser- vices. The Dutchman, who like his countrymen, for a productive cargo would have trod on the cross at Japan, embraced the Mahometan faith, adopted the dress, conformed to the manners and gained the esteem of that African chief. In less than two months, he was advanced to the post of prime minister, and shortly after appointed commander in chief of his forces, with unusual dis- cretionary powers. The new general animated by the spur of the occasion, lost no time in improving the army placed under his guidance, by every means in his power. He represented to Abdallah, the inefficiency of the desultory and irregular modes of attack generally practised by the Moors, by which although at their first onset, they sometimes break down all before them, are if they fail, generally productive of irrecoverable confusion, slaugh- ter, and defeat. With the emperor's permis- sion, Riperda, for so I continue to call him, although the rene- gado had assumed another name : with the emperor's permission he rigidly enforced the severe maxims of European tactics, silent and prompt obedience, irresistible energy, patient and cool dexterity ; which at the mouth of a cannon, the mount- ing a breach, or the springing of a mine, convert an otherwise unmanageable mob, into a com- pact magic machine various in form, but of tremendous power ; a widely spread line, a hollow square, a wedge, a column or a platoon. Thus improved and thus di- rected, the Barbarians attacked the Spaniards, and irrecoverably defeated them ; their leader was created a bashaw, and died at Tetuan, in extreme old age, some time in the year 1737. Such was Riperda, one of the numerous instances occurring in this book, and every day in that more important book, the world ; with a strong mind and talents improved by assiduous cultiva- tion, placed on elevated ground, and possessing a considerable share of book-learning, and no small portion of general and local information, he missed the high SEMIRAMIS. 205 high road to happiness ; all his parts, and all his acquirements, did not guard him against obli- quity and crooked policy, which in this as in most instances ge- nerally defeat their own purpose. He is one added to the many in- stances, which pointedly prove after all the contrivances of cun- ning and the deep stratagems of finesse, that Honesty is the best Policy ; that her ways are ways of pleasant- ness, and all her paths are PEACE. SEMIRAMIS, a tragedy, translated from the French by a military man to whom I have applied the term Ccerulean in a former volume, I mention it in this place to prove, that there were persons in the world who agreed with me in opinion concerning the person in question, as my mode of in- troducing him in the late Lord Lyttleton's article, has been termed cruel and unchristian. This dramatic performance afforded an opportunity to a satirical poet to lash the writer in that masterly but unjustifia- ble poem the Diaboliad. Among the various candidates who offer to fill the- vacant throne of hell, which forms the plan of the poem, the young peer of unhappy memory is in- troduced, and with him the well known individual whom I am accused of defaming. u Behind him came, in regi- mentals drest, The brazen gorget hanging at his breast, Th' officious captain, ready to obey, Whate'er might be the business of the day. With solemn look the conscious peer began, Thus to address the military man ; " Friend, cousin — . — — Together when we stray'd Through vice's public walk and private shade} I found thee apt in every artful wile, Proud to defame and eager to beguile ; When to give life to Sunday's tedious hour, We wish'd to make the pedant parson low'r, To make the simple stare, the virtuous sigh, Your tongue pour'd forth the ready blasphemy ; Whene'er I wanted falsehood to supply The place of truth, you found the ready lie Have 206 SHIPWRECK OF SAINT PAUL. Have we not done these ills and many more ? Swear sir — — — — By Egypt's queen th' obsequious captain swore ; The queen, who lur'd him to disgrace his cloth, And gave him bread; now serv'd him for an oath.'* This short extract with other reasons I could give, proves that I was not very much mistaken in my man ; so harsh a portrait in a poem at the time very gene- rally popular, and which went through many editions, if there had not been truth and justice in the outline, would have been formally contradicted. SHIPWRECK OF SAINT PAUL. The precise spot which was the scene of the dis- aster of this apostle, who was first a persecutor, and afterwards a convert to Christianity, has ex- ercised the critical powers -of modern writers and geographers ; the island of Malta, lately deliv- ered from the fraternal embraces of our French neighbours by the arms of England, has been con- sidered by the majority as the island on which the ship was stranded. But in the eighteenth century, an ingenious well written dis- sertation, and in Latin, worthy of the Augustan age, was pub- lished by a learned Benedictine, a native and inhabitant of the island of Meleda, situated in the Adriatic sea, and not far from Rag usa. In this work, the holy father insists that the place of his birth was the land on which the miraculous escapes of the chris- tian prisoner were exhibited; and it must be confessed that some of his arguments by which the hypothesis is supported, have considerable weight. He proves that Meleda, in the age of the apostles was called Melita; that the island of Malta, properly speaking is not in the Adriatic sea ; that the wind cal- led Euroclidon, a south east not a north east wind, as it has been sometimes described, could not have driven a bark, sailing from the coast of Palestine to Italy, on the rocky shores of Malta ; and lastly that the term Barba- rian, applied in the New Testa- ment to the inhabitants of the island where St. Paul was ship- wrecked, was and is perfectly- applicable to the inhabitants of the coast on which Meleda is situated, but could not in any sense be properly applied to the Greeks who inhabited Malta. This author further assert? that there are no quicksands, such as St. Paul describes, near Maka SIEGE OF A FORTRESS. 207 Malta, but that they are fre- quently met with, and occasion the loss of many ships, off the southerly point of Meleda. The apostle's being bit by a venomous serpent is another cir- cumstance produced against the possibility of Malta being the island in question ; as none ex- ist in it; and he observes, that the earth of this famous rock, with which it is so thinly covered, is a specific remedy for the hites of such reptiles in general. In Meleda, vipers of a malig- nant species abound, and their bite is often attended with fatal consequences. In answer to those who insist that Mai tabeing free from venom- ous reptiles was owing to the mira- culous interposition of St, Paul, it may be and is observed that a miracle of such importance, had it taken place, would surely have been recorded by Saint Luke, as well as the cure of Publius, and the minute circumstance of the flag borne by the ship. To conclude, in the words of this well-informed Benedictine, Ignatio Giorgi ; those who sup- port the commonlv received opi- nion that Malta is the spot, must allow the Adriatic Sea to extend to that island ; that a ship was driven to the south by a south- east wind ; that the inhabitants of a place inhabited by Greeks aud Romans were Barbarians; and that Saint Paul was bitten by a viper in an insulated coun- try where vipers never existed. SIEGE OF A FORTRESS. It has been lamented by a modern writer, that it costs as much to besiege a city as to found a colony ; yet when we recollect the destruction and bloodshed which generally take place on such occasions, this reflection should seem to be a source of consolation, rather than re- gret ; as heroes, whom no mo- tives of humanity can restrain, are often deterred from perse- vering in their career of ambi- tion by exhausted finances. The business of taking places indeed has been rendered by the skill of engineers a matter of arithmetical calculation, and has been thought a business of such certainty and mathematical de^ monstration, that a paper was said to be found in the cabinet of a modern general who died a few years ago, on which was written an alphabetical list of all the strong holds in Europe, ar- ranged in columns, similar to a military return, with spaces ap- propriate to each, in which the money, number of lives, and quantity of ammunition neces- sarv 208 SIEGE OF A FORTRESS. sary to be sacrificed, but which would certainly succeed, were mentioned. It was the opinion of this gen- tleman that there was no place, defile, or position however guard- ed by nature and art, which might not be carried by a gene- ral resolved to employ all possi- ble means in attaining his end ; who would beset a garrison so closely till their diseases or the death of his own men had pro- duced contagion ; who on being told that materials for advancing and forming lines of contra-val- lation, parapets, &c. could not be p;ocured, on account of the rocky nature of the soil, would coolly reply, years observation on his own constitution; their not being new cannot in any point of view diminish their importance. Ail sudden and great changes in diet, cloathing, exercise, and confirmed habits, whether of body or mind, are injurious. Contrary to general opinion, as well as to individual feeling, the head is found to resist the evils of fullness if followed with constant exercise, and a moist skin, much longer and with less inconvenience than the stomach can recover from the nauseating and debilitating effects of a vio- lent saline purge, or the inanition consequent on a long course of spoon meat, and a thin, atte- nuating diet. There is an intimate and in- separable connection between the passions of the mind and the digestive organs. Any violent impression on the sensor ium, in consequence of inordinate indul- gence, whether of anger, of love, of 514 STOMACH and HEAD. or intemperance, will be inevi- tably followed by a proportio- nate weakness of that system of vessels or of cords which has been robbed of its share of tone. A certain quantity of nervous energy seems to be measured out to every man, which is distri- buted by almighty ^wisdom in fair portions to every branch of the human body. But should one part consume, (if I may be allowed the term) if one part consumes more than its allotted share of this (Btherial fire, some other limb must be and is deprived of a proportionate quantity ; of course its functions in the human ma- chine must be and are in the same degree interrupted and dis- turbed : and this injury generally speaking is most felt by the di- gestive organs, and repaired with the greatest difficulty. The zea- lous devotees to Bacchus and to Venus, also persons who allow themselves in an habitual and unjustifiable indulgence of the angry and malignant passions to the utmost pitch of their bent, will do well to recollect and ap- ply this invariable law of the animal ceconomy, or they will pay a severe penalty. As exercise is the parent of health, and acts more particu- larly on the stomach and lungs, he is a wise man who though above the pressure of want places within his reach a constant source of manual labor, which he may commence at pleasure, and lay down when he chooses. To answer the purpose of sa- lutary incitement, the occupa- tion I recommend must be di- rectly or collaterally connected with profit, utility, convenience, or delight; it must be of a kind that requires a combination of actual toil, considerable difficul- ty, and moderate skill. The sports of the field seem to offer a fertile and unexcep- tionable fund of stimulating amusement and exhilirating ex- ercise; but to pursue or to enjoy them in perfection generally re- quires a strength of nerve and a flow of animal spirits seldom possessed or attainable by inva- lids ; they sometimes lead to riot and excess, and it is not every valetudinarian who can afford to keep a hunter, or carries a qua- lification in his pocket. The gestation of a carriage or a horse, the taking a ride or an airing for the mere purpose of health, although a most invalua- ble blessing, has been found not sufficient to rouze to salutary energy a mind languid with long application, or a body reduced by vicious excess. These desirable objects seem to be all comprehended in agri- culture. STOMACH and HEAD. 215 culture, now so usefully and ho- nourably patronised and practised by our nobility and gentry ; but I have known the wished for purposes defeated in consequence of angry passions being called forth by the irritating impositions of the subordinate instruments employed. The gentleman WHO CHOOSES TO FARM HIS OWN LAND MUST EXPECT AND QUIETLY SUBMIT TO A CERTAIN PORTION OF FRAUD, OR LET HIM NOT TAKE THE PLOUGH IN HAND. It is, I believe, generally agreed, that we all eat and perhaps frink too much ; I therefore propose to every man, who finds it diffi- cult to sit down to a well covered table without indulging too free- ly, I propose to such persons, more particularly to those subject to a fulness of the vessels of the head, with short necks, and whose digestion is a laborious process, I earnestly recommend to such persons on the faith of experience and good effect a fast or ban yan day once a week ; I mean an abstinence on the whole of that day from wine, spirits, fermented liquors, and animal food. By this occasional but whole- some self-denial, the mental as well as corporal functions will be greatly improved, and the hardship will be trifling when we recollect what a variety of materials the vegetable world af- fords to a skilful artist, particu- larly during the summer months, when abstemiousness in diet is more particularly necessary. I well remember once drop-* ping in, after a long summer's ride, at the house of a gentleman, the untimely death and funeral of whose son is mentioned in some part of this compilation ; the page and arricle I cannot now call to my recollection. Complaining of the excessive heat, the family acknowledged they had felt the same, and in- formed me that they had all agreed excepting the young man whose fate I then foresaw and afterwards lamented to make a vegetable dinner; after a momen- tary hesitation, I agreed, fared luxuriously, and had a composed and refreshing night's rest, which for certain reasons had not been my good fortune for a week be- fore. This is a circumstance which full feeders ought not to forget, that restless nights and disturbed sleep are the constant effect of eating too much. I cannot help mentioning the dinner of my school-fellow, who had been persuaded but in vain to take family fare. Observing that it was a broiling day in July, his repast commenced witfc a tolerable quantity of rich gravy soup; 216 STOMACH and HEAD. soup; this was followed by a plate not ill covered with fish; beet-steaks, accompanied with a bitter lamentation that he had no oyster sauce succeeded, and received ample justice from his knife and fork , with intermin- gled draughts ot spruce beer. The cork of this boisterous and unmanageable fluid he in- sisted should be drawn at his elbow, (or it would not be worth drinking J to the detriment of the cloaths of the company, the carpet, and the cieling of the eating room, which received a considerable share of the froth. He concluded with a large quan- tity of pudding and pastry, which to humour the vegetable dinner appeared in various deli- cious forms on the board. Alter the cloth was removed, andthe servants had retired, recol- lecting that the fruit tarts he had been eating would spoil his relish for port, he rung the bell violently, and ordered a devil, but was bribed not to eat it by a piece of Parmesan, and a promise that his mother and sis- ter would immediately accom- pany him to the kennel, to visit a litter or' puppies, born the day before : both ladies kept their words. But it is time to finish an ar- ticle, which mayp erhaps be cen- sured as ill-timed and ill-placed in a collection like this ; but as closely connected with the health and happiness of man, it surely becomes a legitimate object of discussion : I therefore conclude with a prescription written more than twenty- five years ago, by Dr. Fothergill, for the editor, upon the principle of not losing one drop of that immortal man, and as it was for a violent head- ache closely connected with a stomach complaint, both evi- dently produced by imprudently eating and drinking too much, and accompanied with two con- tradictory feelings, excessive ful- ness of the vessels, an unman- ning debility and relaxation of the whole frame. Take of prepared calomel ten grains, golden sulphur of anti- mony two scruples, Rufus's pill one drachm ; to be made into 20 pills. Two pills to be taken every night discretionally. This medicine operating as a mild purgative, without lower- ing, worked a cure, after a va- riety of applications and other physicians had been tried in vain. In the short visit I made as a patient in Harpur-street, for he could not afford time for long conversations, water - drinking was mentioned. On this sub-' ject, the good doctor observed, u THOSE WHO ARE ABLE AND WILLING STOMACH and HEAD. 217 WILLING TO DRINK WATER, AND WATER ONLY, SHOULD VALUE THE PRIVILEGE. " A medical gentleman whose stomach and head were seldom free from pain and distension, found so much relief from chew- ing rhubarb that he celebrated its praises in the following verses : For many nights I've prov'd the fate And various changes of a state; One. moment calm like April morn, The next with wars intestine torn. My stomach, urg'd by armed * force, Seem'd lab'ring like the Trojan horse. I rise in pain, and call for aid ; A legion comes ; but sore afraid. In general Jallap I've no hope, He's quick, 'tis true, but runs like Cope. Picra is staunch, but then he's slow, And flags like Wade intrench'd in sttow. Sena, if uncorrected, goes, And wounds his friends as well as foes. Rhubarb all hail, I've chosen you, T attack and rout the rebel crew : Whene'er he comes all foes must yield, VOL. IV. They own his power and quit the field. Noblest of roots all hail again, Thou sov'reign cure of all my pain ; But for thy helping, my abode Wou'd now be in the land of Nod. I quit the present subject, which some readers may think preposterous and absurd, in a work like this, with one obser- vation on the subject of spiri- tuous liquors. To pain, fulness, and uneasi- ness of the stomach, literary and of course, sedentary persons are of all men most subject ; to re- move oppression, stimulate lan-^ guor, and* rouze their energies, ardent spirits are often made use of, and, producing temporary re- lief, are considered by many as sovereign remedies. But I have felt by experience that their use long persevered in diminishes tone and producing relaxation, ultimately provokes - a return of the maladies they were designed to relieve. In every instance I recom- mend, the moment that certain unmanning something I cannot describe comes on, which al- ways accompanies affections of the stomach, instantly drop the pen, and quit the book-room, mount Rozinante, or a thick f f pair 3lf~ SURVEYORS OF ROADS, pair of travelling shoes, and with- out delay, or suffering wind and weather to interfere-) invigorate the frame by air and exercise out of doors. If custom or necessity seem to make it necessary to take something, instead of spirits, let the cordial be solid nutriment, well armed with spice, and as a principal ingredient, I recom- mend ginger, or that more pre- ferable English spice, mustard. I have felt more comfort and relief from a Welsh rabbit, smo- thered with mustard, pepper and salt, and succeeded by a ride than from all the apothecary or liqueur-cast could supply. SUBJECTS of CONTRO- VERSY.— These have been occasionally mentioned in this collection; a curious one pre- sents itself to the editor, tired and dusty with turning over a cargo of massy folios. Was LUTHEll's WIFE HANDSOME? No orthodox Catholic at a cer- tain time could possibly allow any share of beauty to a woman who pleased the gross taste of an odious Heretic A creat deal was said and writ ten on the subject ; I have some- where seen a print of the lady, who appears to have passed that irresistible period with it-males which has been described as just, between the woman and the child. Like several German ladies I know, the wife of this reformer appears to have been an arm-full This important subject gave rise to a curious book " De Ca- tharina Conjuge Lutheri Disser- tation" 4to. Hamburgh, I6Q8. Another subject once agitated the republic of -letters. liter dignior sit, doctor idriusque ju- ris, aut ecjues auratus. Which was the highest degree of ho- nour, a doctor of laws or a knffht ? For I apprehend the words ecjues auratus at that pe- riod did not mean exactly that species of title which modern latinity has given them. The pen, the press, and the pulpit were earnestly engaged in the question, till the Emperor Sigismund by a solemn public edict decided in favour of the learned doctors; observing that in half an hour, he could create a hundred knights; but to qua- lify a man for taking the degree of a doctor of law was the labo- rious effort of the best years of a student's life. SURVEYORS OF ROADS, a class of men to whom whatever they may themselves imagine a highly important trust SWADL1N, THOMAS. 219 is committed, and accompanied with a large share of responsibi- lity. In and near great cities and wealthy commercial towns, vigi- lant magistrates, and a well-re- gulated police, rouze the subjects of my present article to a sense of their duty ; but in two parts of this kingdom, not here to be named, their negligence is in the highest degree culpable, and often fatal. The editor of this compilation was a melancholy eye-witness of the father of a family thrown irom his horse, and carried riome lifeless to a pregnant wife. This accident was evidently, and by the confession of the parties con- cerned, produced by a careless and shameful custom of throw- ing out loose stones and other substances, on the road, at the time of preparing manure, which it is common in many parts of the kingdom to lay up in heaps by the way-side; a filthy cus- tom ; and in narrow lanes, where carriages meet, or what is worse, where women on horseback meet carts and waggons, highly dan- gerous and troublesome. This, and a train of other evils, might be prevented by land proprietors when they grant new leases, could they but persuade themselves oc- casionally to see their own es- tates and speak to their tenants. Many places, equally convex nient for dunghills, might be found without rendering our paths unsafe and offensive; te- nants should be bound by speci* fie covenants, not to do it on pain of forfeiting their lease; and if, at any future jime, an amend- ment should be thought neces* sary in our highway laws, * clause might be introduced, sub* jecting farmers who offended, in this respect, to a payment of ten pounds; the labourer actually employed, though ordered by his* master, should be whipped at the cart's tail ; the whip should also be exercised, subject to the dis- cretion of a magistrate, on the backs of those drivers who ride in their carts and waggons with- out a rein. The present law, in this respect, being ineffectual* I have reason to think that those who laugh at a pecuniary fine, which is generally mitigated, would dread the smart and shame of a public whipping;. It is neither reasonable- nor right that our lives and limb* should be every day endangered by drunkenness and indolence, or to save a farmer and his horses half a dozen days labour in a QWADLIN, THOMAS, a ^ native of Worcestershire, and a student of St. John's Col- pf 2 lege, 220 TAVERNER, RICHARD. lege, Oxford, who being a warm partizan and violent writer in fa- vour of the royalists, was impri- soned, and underwent great dif- ficulties during the usurpation. Having been eminently ser- viceable as a contriver and decy- pherer of secret confidential let- ters to Oueen Henrietta, after the restoration of King Charles the Second he was presented by Dr. Juxon, Archbishop of Can- terbury, to the vicarage of St. James, in Dover, and the neigh- bouring rectory of Houghham ; but finding the income of both not adequate to his support, for, united, they scarcely produced him fourscore pounds a year, he became melancholy and dejected ' with so poor a return for his past services, but afterwards recovered his health and spirits, on being further rewarded with preferment at Stamford, in Lincolnshire. Swadlin was a ready vvrjter ; and while his associates were opposing the parliamentary forces with sword and gun, he di- rected against them his artillery from the press, as a diurnal writer. He also engaged warmly in the popish controversy, and was thought to have completely over- set the reasoning and arguments of Cardinal Bellamire; his other writings were either political or on practical divinity. He was, as may be naturally expected, a zealous supporter of the rites of the Church of England, and wrote in a manner somewhat ec- centric on the marriage ceremo- ny. To his volume of Anniver- sary Sermons, the texts of many of which arewhimsically selected, the following Dedication is pre- fixed ; " To the King's Most Excellent Majesty, Charles the Second. " Great Sir, " That Your Majesty may vouchsafe to give these Anniver- saries a gracious reception ; that you may be blest with a long life, a quiet reign, faithful coun- sellors, a pious clergy, valiant soldiers, and a loyal people ; that you may be preserved from pres- byterians and independents, is the petition of Your Majesty's faithful subject, " Thomas Swadlin." He died in 1 669, desiring the following words to be placed over his grave : — Hie vixit temporibus quibus Carolum primum Britan- nice regem farino morte trucida- runt rebelles. Of the word fa- rino I do not clearly see the meaning. TAVERNER, RICHARD, a native of Brisley, in Nor- folk, in the beginning of the sixteenth century ; first a student of Strond-Inn, which stood on the TAVERNER, RICHARD. 221 the ground now occupied by Somerset House, and afterwards of the Inner Temple. His learning and diligence re- commended him to the notice and patronage of Thomas Crom- well, then a court-favourite, and Principal Secretary of State to King Henry the Eighth ; by the interest of his patron, Taverner was appointed one of the clerks of the Signet. From this place he was dis- missed at the accession of Queen Mary, in consequence of his avowed propensities to the doc- trines of Luther ; and during the greater part of that bloody reign, he lived retired at his seat called Norbiton Hall, in the county of Surry. When Queen Elizabeth as- cended the throne, Taverner has- tened to court, where he was graciously received, and ad- dressed Her Majesty in a long Latin speech, occasionally orna- mented with Greek. It ought to have been previ- ously observed, that, in 1552, the subject of our present article, though a layman, had obtained from King Edward the Sixth a special licence, written and sub- scribed by the Monarch himself, by which he was authorized to preach in any part of His Majesty 's dominions. The cause for grant- ing so uncommon a privilege beingat the same time mentioned, " because of the lamentable scar- city and laxity of ministers in preaching God's unadulterated word," a great number of the clergy still adhering to the errors of the church wf Rome; so that many of the royal chaplains were sent to ride circuit, for the pur- pose of diffusing the necessary information in different parts of the kingdom. When Taverner preached at court, he appeared with a round black velvet cap on his head, a damask gown, and his neck or- namented with a golden chain. But I return to the auspicious reign of Queen Elizabeth, who employed him in many confi- dential offices; he was elected a member of parliament, and is accused by the controversial writers, at that period, of shar- ing largely in the general plunder and demolition of religious houses in Oxfordshire, of which county he was High Sheriff in 1569. It was remarked, as a notable singularity, that while he exer- cised this civil office, he preached at St. Mary's church with a sword by his side, and his customary de- coration of a gold chain suspend- ed on his shoulders; the reluct- ance with which the clergy in general preached against popery, the necessity of enlightening the public mind, and Taverner, be- , sides, TAVERNER, RICHARD. sides, possessing a considerable portion of protestant zeal, being a Master of Arts, were probably considered as sufficient reasons for justifying the novelty of a man thus ascending a pulpit, with the appendages of a layman, and without epi-'jopal ordination. In his conduct and conversa- tion, Taverner somewhat resem- bled the modern Methodists; he walked the streets, followed by crowds of old and young, whom as place, opportunity, or incli- nation served, he would turn round and harangue, " in apt phrase, but with somewhat of a certain quaintness in conceit." The children he would at times examine and catechize on Christ- ian doctrines and scriptural his- tory, then not generally known, more particularly on points in which the disputed matters be- tween the two churches, and the corruptions of Rome, were in- volved ; to those who answered pertinently, and appeared to have received benefit from his former instructions, he distributed little gifts of money, fruit, wearing apparel, and little books con- taining extracts from the scrip- lures, with explanatory com- ments. These publications, in times when the treasures of everlasting life were locked up from common eves, in an unknown tongue, excited the vengeance of his ene- mies, and both printer and au- thor were committed to prison. " from whence he was speedily rescued from the malice of those Romanists, by H is Majesty's more especial favour." The following part of a ser- mon, preached at St. Mary's, before the University, by Ta- verner, is peculiar; and if the editor is not very much mistaken, he has heard it repeated, almost word for word, by some modern pupil of Whitfield, Wesley, or Hill: — " I am, at length, after a te- dious and perilous journey, ar- rived at St. Mary's Mount, and have secured a place in the rocky stage where I now stand ; but I did not forget to lay in a stock of comfortable good things for you and myself. " I have brought you some fine biscuits, baked in the oven of charity ; they were carefully preserved for the chickens of the church, the sparrows of the Spirit, and the sweet swallows of salvation." Such was the language, so un- befitting the place and occasion, of a gentleman of property and family, hisrh in office, and warm- ly and loudly praised by the learned congregation. The rocky stage of which the preacher spoke was the pulpit of St, TERMAGANT WIFE. 223 St. Mary's, which was then wholly of stone, curiously carv- ed, and placed against a pillar on the south side of the body of the -church. This venerable piece of anti- quity was- thought prejudicial to the health, or uncomfortable to the feelings of those who used it, an effect not improbable, but easily remedied by an internal casing of wood. Its removal produced long dis- cussion and considerable alterca- tion : the antiquaries of the old school exclaimed against its de- struction as a sacrilegious viola- tion of architectural unison and good taste; but the pulpit de- molishes, feeling that they had a majority on their side, it was ultimately taken down in 165-1, by order of Dr. John Owen, at that time Vice Chancellor, and its place supplied by one of wood, set on the same pedestal. npERMAGANT WIFE, one •*■ of the advantages of, ex- emplified in the case of Palseolo- gus, the second of that name, Emperor of Constantinople. This monarch having long la- boured under a painful disease, for which his physicians had prescribed various remedies in vain, his family and the court were waiting the issue with anx- iety, when a female, somewhat advanced in years', demanded a private audience of the Empress, and informed Her Majesty, in a few words, that she was too gentle in her treatment and mode of behaviour towards her hus- band ; that nothing was so likely to restore him to health as a little matrimonial discipline, duly and regularly administered \ in short, that if Her Majesty wished to preserve so valuable life, it must be her business to vex and irri- tate the Emperor by every means in fcer power. The imperial matron replied, that she was very far from being deficient in so essential and in- dispensible a part, of nuptial duty, but, like a good wife, she frankly confessed that, in administering this domestic medicine, she had somewhat relaxed her discipline since her husband's illness, lest it might exasperate his complaint. Of this the privy counsellor as- sured her there was no danger. Her Majesty followed the advice of this kind neighbour, and dis- pensed with liberality this re- medy, which, from the earliest ages of the world, has been so generally used. Whether, on all occasions, it has been attended with such ma- nifest and immediate advantage, is not certain ; but, in the case before us, the irritation produced by the well-meant efforts of the Empress, 224 THINKING ALIKE. Empress, brought on a copious perspiration, which, producing a salutary crisis, completely re- stored the royal patient, and he lived to a good old age. If the narrative here given may be relied on, and it is told by a contemporary historian, it will help to reconcile us to, and ex- plain an apparently contradictory paradox, which certain reasoners sometimes sporty that a husband may be killed with kindness,and a wife break her heart from want of contradiction. THINKING ALIKE. In- stances sometimes occur where this coincidence of idea presents itself without a possibi- lity of the author's having read, or heard of the thoughts of his predecessor. The following resemblance be- tween the lines of a late writer, and the Lady's Looking-glass, written by Matthew Prior, can- not be considered as coming un- der this description. I shall first recite the more recent performance, because the lines are confessedly well written, and, in my opinion, would have been faultless, but for their want, their unacknowledged want, of originality. When clouds that angel face de- form, Anxious I view the rising storm; When lightnings flash from that dark eye, And tell the gath'ring tempest nigh; I curse the sex, and bid adieu To female friendship, love, and you. But when soft passions rule that breast, And gentle tones, to me addrest ; When cloudless smiles around you play, 'Tis then with me love's holiday ; I bless the hour when first I knew Dear female friendship, love, and you. The words of Prior. Celia and I, the other day, Walk'd o'er the sand-hills to the sea: The setting sun adorn'd the coast ; His beams oblique, his fierceness lost. In Celia, like the pleasant scene, All was enchanting, soft, serene. Rapid the change ; the wind grew high, ' ' And heavy clouds obscur'd the sky. The lightnings flash, the thun- ders roar, And waves tremendous lash the shore. Struck with the horror of the sight, Poor frighten'd Celia takes her flight. J " Look THINKING ALIKE. 22* " Look back, my fair one, look/' said I, " Thyself in this wild scene descry ; When thou art in good humour drest, And gentle reason rules thy breast, The sun upon the calmest sea Appears not half so bright as thee. But when vain doubt and ground- less fear, Do that dear foolish bosom tear; When pouting lips, and wat'ry eye, Tell me the rising storm is nigh, 'Tis then thou art yon angry main, Deform'd by winds and dash'd by rain ; And the poor sailor that must try Its fury, labours less than I. Shipwreck'd, in vain to land I make, While fate and love both drive me back : Wretched when from thee, vex'd when nigh, i with thee or without thee DIE." I cannot quit this elegant trifle without remarking the contradic- tory praise, and, in my opinion, the unfounded censure, of a late respectable critic, pronounced on the poetry of Prior. After acknowledging his lan- guage to be familiar, smooth, VOL. IV, easy, sprightly, and apparently without care, he condemns his effusions of gallantry as wholly void of tenderness, nature, and passion ; as exhibiting the cold- ness of Cowley without his wit ; the dulness of a versifier, re- solved, at all events, to write something, and striving to be amorous by dint of study. Henry and Emma, so gene- rally read, and, with a few ex- ceptions, so universally admired, the same writer condemns as dull and tedious, and the compo- sition of one who does not talk like a man of this world. Did the learned writer consi- der Emma's being fond of a bad man, as a proof of Prior's ig- norance of the world ? Is such an incident, or is it not supported by every day's experience, in si- milar ' cases ? Besides, Henry might have been a fugitive, driven from his home by political perse- cution, without exhibiting any actual depravity of morals, or de- viating from individual integrity. " Whenever Prior succeeds, it is by effort, struggle, and toil ; his phrases, though generally ori- ginal,, are sometimes harsh : he has neither elegance nor ease." The little composition I have copied, written by this compa- nion of Swift, this friend of Bo- lingbroke and Harley, is confes- sedly an amorous effusion, and a g ought 9.1$ TOBACCO. ought to have been excepted from the heavy censure of our acute, and, in general, justly- deciding critic. I appeal to my readers, whether it is not, in every respect, the reverse of Dr. John- son's description. I conclude with a word on < ( the wisdom of Prior as a states-* man." If by wisdom our great moralist meant, in this instance, a prompt and submissive obe- dience to those who employed him, Prior indeed was wise. But as an ambassador, highly and confidentially employed in making peace with France, when her power might and ought to have been eternally and irreco- verably crushed, I consider Prior either short-sighted as a politic cian, or agreeing to measures de- rogatory to the glory and interest of his country, from a fear of being dismissed from a lucrative post.; in either case,' Dr. John- son's praise is misapplied. When made acquainted with the articles of the treaty, he af- terwards negociated. Had he told the Lord Treasurer, that the bu- siness he employed him in was neither creditable to himsejf nor honourable to his country, dis- mission would, in all probability, have followed ; yet, although de- prived of dignity and emolument, Prior might have retired to his college fellowship with a reputa- tion which no diplomatic envoy ever enjoyed, and for which he might have been envied by kings. TOBACCO, an Indian plant, called by the original na- tives of the American continent petun, and used by them, pre- viously to its introduction into Europe, as a procurer of sleep, of intoxication, and of a species of madness, by which they were enabled, as they imagined, to foretell future events, and to de- cide on the good or ill success of a battle before they attacked their enemies. At so early a period had that strange compound, man, resolved to deprive him- self of reason, God's best gift, before he undertook the most awful and important actions. These good, bad, or imaginary effects, were produced by burn- ing the leaves, over which the person, who wished for superna- tural intelligence, holding his head, inhaled the ascending smoke. The dexterous tobacconist of civilized Europe, catching the idea, and improving on it, dries the leaves by a scientific and ela- borate process, which provides employment for thousands 5 it is then placed in a pipe, set on fire, and the vapour conveyed, through a well-manufactured tube, to the operator's mouth, from TOBACCO. 297 from which he discharges vo- lumes of smoke. Concerning this singular, and to the man who first practised and first beheld it, this perilous and surprising operation, an anecdote is related of a domestic of Sir Walter Raleigh's, which I shall presently relate. The smoker, in the mean time, engaged in a placid, se- dentary, and with proper accom- paniments and fit posture, a somewhat dignified magisterial occupation, forgets his cares, lulls his mind into a calm obli- vion of all his cares, and com- municates a new relish to the li- quor he drinks. Not satisfied with this transitory enjoyment of a favourite vegetable, others make it the permanent and unsavoury companion of their palate, which he who first essayed must have possessed the firmness of a stoic, and the stomach of an ostrich or a horse. A third class of these multi- pliers of pleasure, more refined, and fancying themselves more cleanly, replenish the most pro- minent part of their face with pinches of this peculiar plant, after it has undergone another long and tedious process, and been reduced to an impalpable powder. To these, and other useful and medical purposes, do we apply this plant, so wonder- ful in every point of view, whe- ther considered as an instrument of commerce, a colonial produce or a productive source of national revenue, of general and indivi- dual labour. Under the title snufT, in one of my former vo- lumes, part of the laughable mock-heroic poem of a modern writer has been given, cloathed, as indeed it required, in its ori- ginal Latin. In the article Sheridan, part of that ingenious senator's speech, in one of the numerous debates on Mr. Pitt's tobacco bill, is in- troduced : it set the house in a roar of uncontrolable laughter ; but in spite of wit, humour, and misrepresentation, the act passed, and made an addition of one hun- dred thousand pounds a year to the public revenue, which, in this branch of it, had been gross- ly and notoriously injured. Previously to this salutary en- actment, so violently opposed, and against which the editor, like a blockhead, and misled by misre- presentation, joined in full cry, the excise laws had been perpe- tually evaded, and the King's officers, almost in every instance, imposed on or defied. Much has been said and writ- ten against tobacco, on the score of uncleanlyness, and its perni- cious effects on the teeth, the stomach, complexion, and gene- G g e ral 223 TOBACCO. ral health; that, as a producer of thirst, it encourages a habit of drinking in the lower classes of society, particularly unfortunate, and generally leading to idleness, vice, and rags. The use of it has also been called unnatural, because the va- rious arts of smoking, chewing, and snuff-taking, are always at- tended with considerable pain and difficulty at their first com- mencement, and, by some, can never be attained. The following exaggerated pic- ture of a smoker and chewer has been given by a modern writer. * c His tongue is foul, his breath pestilently offensive, his smell and taste gone for ever; his face is carbuncled, his habit cachectic, his liver dry, and ap- petite decayed \ the women loath him ; for his mouth like an ill- tapped ale barrel is perpetually dribbling ; so that she whom he kisses must taste him." King James the First is said to have been violently prejudiced and to have written against what he called a filthy Indian weed; and Stowe imitating the court language, terms it i( a stinking production, used to God's dis- honour; concerning which, at its first introducement, all men wondered what it meant. " But if we may believe a modern poet, his majesty altered his opinion, at the suggestion of one of his secretaries of state. Cecil did plainly make appear It brought ten thousand pounds a year. This assertion of the man of verse I doubt at so early a period after its introduction into Eng- land, which was only a few years before, by the seamen of Sir Francis Drake. But the general use of tobacco in this kingdom was established by Sir Walter Rajeigh ; who has been called the king of smokers. On this subject, the following anecdote of a domestic of that meritorious but unfortunate knight has been fabricated. Before smoking became gene- ral, Sir Walter occasionally en- joyed a pipe in his closet; but on a certain occasion, having ordered a servant to bring a jug of ale, he inadvertently forgot to lay the pipe aside, when the serving-man entered, who ter- rified at seeing smoke issue as he thought from the mouth, nose, and eyes of his master, in the agitation of terror, and scarce- ly knowing what he did, threw the liquor in his face, and ran furiously down stairs, crying fire as he went, and observing to his fellow servants, " Sir Walter has studied till his brains are on fire ; for I saw the smoke coming out of his nose and mouth/' The TOBACCO. 229 The French deduce their first possession of this commodity to Monsieur Nicot ; from whom its Latin name nicotrana is de- rived ; they further add, that he was a merchant of the island of Tobago, where this large rank plant thrives luxuriantly : and thus they account for its English name. The following prohibitory in- junction occurs in the will of Peter Campbell, a gentleman of Derbyshire, dated October the 20th, 1616. " Now for all such of my household goods, at Darley, whereof an inventory must be taken, by my executor, my will is, that my son Roger shall have them, on this express condition, that if at any time hereafter he shall be found taking of tobacco, sufficient proof thereof being made to the satisfaction of my executor, Roger shall forfeit the said goods, and they shall on such forfeiture become the pro- perty of and be equally divided between his brothers and sis- ters." But in spite of the opposition of prejudice, the ties of interest, the calls of health, and its incon- sistency with decorous manners and a correct taste, the use of this extraordinary Indian vege- table is general in all ages, ranks and sexes, not only on the con- tinent and in the islands of Eu- rope, but in Turkey, Russia, Si- beria, Tartary, China, Japan, Hindostan, Persia, Africa and America. The Chinese, appa- rently determined in every in- stance to perplex or set at de- fiance European chronology, that singular people insist that the smoking and chewing of tobacco has been common in that vast empire for more than six hund- red years. But although its general and indiscriminate use has been con- demned by medical men, parti- cularly in thin, hectic, irritable and feverish habits, " consider- able advantage is said to have been derived from it in corpu- lent, phlegmatic, gross habits, in persons of pendulous forms, great eaters and foul feeders, and in asthmatic affections originat- ing from infarctions of the lungs; in nervous pains of the head, and in certain tooth-aches, where the miserable patient has had half his teeth drawn, without ef- fect, snuff-taking has produced wonderful relief." With respect to the last men- tioned custom, persons who have long adopted it will do well to be cautious in desisting from its use abruptly, as some have im- prudently done, and have by this means produced irrecoverable blindness* Few 230 TRAVELLING IN A PARLOUR, Few themes have inspired poets more than the subject of our present article. The follow- ing lines appear to be written by a warm admirer. A smoker s address to his pipe. Tube I love thee as my life ; By thee I mean to choose a wife. Thy spotless colour let me find In her skin, her thoughts and mind. Let her have a shape as fine And a breath as sweet as thine. May she when her lips I kiss Burn like thee with mutual bliss. When to study I incline, Let her aid be such as thine ; Such as thine her pleasing pow'rs, To soothe my anxious waking hours. * Let her live to give delight ; Ever warm and ever bright. May her deeds whene'er she dies Mount like incense to the skies. By another author, on the same subject. Pleasing amusement, calm de- light, With thee, companion of the night, Life gently steals away ; Thou soother of my pensive hours, Whilst time's remorseless tooth devours This mould'ring mortal clay. Thou steady friend of social cheer, To me thou ever shalt be dear, Luxurious regale ! How pleasantly the minutes pass When with my bottle, friend and glass, Clean pipes and Taunton ale. O how enchanting to the soul Are the gay fumes that crown the bowl, And stimulate to fun, While laughter, song and harm- less joke Sport in the clouds of mingled smoke, With repartee and pun. TRAVELLING IN A PAR- LOUR. The preface of a modern tour- ist begins with the following words : — " A love of action is one of the most powerful principles in the human breast, and operates more or less upon us all. Those who by old age or disease are prevented from gratifying it in its full extent still delight in hear- ing related the dangers and ex- ploits of others. " The laziest of mortals and most idle of men must not be without his pastime, he regularly calls for and expects some real or artificial object to excite fri- volous exertion, and employ se- dentary TREES. 231 clentary activity : without such resources, leisure would be pain- ful, and idleness fatiguing. " We thus fluctuate between a desire for motion and a love of rest ; and although curiosity prompts us to visit unknown • countries, laziness deters us from undertaking long voyages. In such a state of the mind, books of travels enable us to take a middle course, at once to gratify our love of novelty and indulge our indolence. With such helps, we may be said to travel in our parlours, and to ride post in an easy chair." TREES, an important part of the property of country gentlemen, to which a conside- rable degree of attention has for many years been paid, but not more than it deserves ; for after a man has been stripped by assessors and attornies, by Oxford trades- men, men-milliners and mort- gagees, how often have the wounds of a lacerated rent roll been repaired by a salutary draft from the timber-merchant. But the design of my present article is to call the attention of land proprietors more imme- diately to avenues, plantations, ind clumps. When the trees of which they are formed have arrived at ma- turity, thev should without de- lay be cut down and replaced : thus would hope and expectation, so essential to human happiness, be kept alive, and independently of a handsome sum of money produced, the business by afford- ing salutary occupation to the owner, would prevent many a ruinous expedition to Newmar- ket, the gaming-house, Bath, or St. James's-street. How often has the editor of this article passed by thousands of noble trees, fit for carrying our floating thunders against the faithless Gaul, but for the sake of breaking an hard outline or compleating a picturesque view, mouldering in decay, while the owner forgetful of the treasure he possesed, and pressed for mo- ney, was in the hands of money- lenders and marauders. Trees which have furnished their dif- ferent masters with shade and shelter for two hundred years have performed that part of their duty, and as they can at any time put ten thousand pounds into the pocket of their present owner, it is as great a sin to suf- fer them to decay unused as it would be to cut an oak plant. If they could speak, I am con- vinced their words would be to the following effect : iC Sir, we have stood still long enough, and as every body else seems in motion, permit us to alter our position. S32 UNPROPITIOUS SLcJECTS. position. While all the world is in arms, let us as true natives of the English soil repair without delay to the dock-yards of our gracious Sovereign, and after due preparation, we will plunge at the word of command into the ocean, and teach these French bravoes better manners." A well known and well au- thenticated anecdote is related of a gentleman with several mar- riageable daughters, and who though possessing a good estate, was at a loss for ready money to give them portions. Having consulted a neigh- bouring attorney, a few days af- ter, he called, and they walked into the park, to discuss certain difficulties, which stood in their way, on the subject of raising money. During the conversa- tion, they paused under one of the venerable oaks which sur- rounded the place. It is not easy to pass by a fine woman or a handsome tree with- out feeling and sometimes ex- pressing our admiration. " A noble oak" involuntarily escaped the lawyer's lips. " Yes," re- plied his client, " and they tell me I have a thousand such in different parts of my grounds." A sudden thought presented it- self that they might be applied to the purpose of producing money* " Do you know what a tree like this is worth," said the solicitor. " I cannot even guess" was the reply. Knowing something of the mensuration oi solids, he bor* rowed the gentleman's handker- chief, which he tied corner-wise to his own, took the circumfe- rence of the oak, and guessing the height, said " I undervalue it at twenty-five pounds." To shorten my story, the pro- prietor of the mansion valued his trees, hut loved his daughters better. The saw and the axe went to work. Thirty thousand pounds were soon realized. The young ladies had husbands of their own choosing; and the gentleman afterwards confessed, that in cutting down, thinning, planting, arranging, and getting his daughters married was the occupation of some of the plea- santest years of his life. To add to his satisfaction, a celebrated layer-out of ground declared that so far from doing an injury, his place was considerably im- proved. UNPROPITIOUS SUB- JECTS for a ithors. My readers need not now be told that an ode is extant written in praise of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and that a cool de- fence of it was published by the abbe UNQUALIFIED PRAISE. 233 abbe Caveyrac. The humanity of the Spaniards in South America has also been insisted on by the abbeNuix. 12mo. Venice, 1781.' *At the moment I write; a gen- tleman is living who has elabo- rately defended the conduct of Cain, and apologized for the treachery -of Judas Iscariot. Only a few years have passed since a serious and pompous biographical panegyric was com- posed, soon after the death of the subject of it, who during the" whole of his life set at defiance the laws of God and man. This is attempting a man's life with a vengeance ; and if not at the instigation of the Devil, at the call of some malignant daemon not less inimical to the peace and purity of mankind. UNQUALIFIED PRAISE. A good wife and an ex- cellent mother, wbo sometimes reads this collection, and who expects in men the same correct conjugal fidelity which is so emi- nently exemplified in her own life, this worthy woman accuses the editor of having bestowed on Pe- ter the Great, Czar of Moscovy and Emperor of Russia a large and unqualified portion of pane- gyric, in different parts of the present work, although he is re- corded in history as a gross vio- lator of his duty, both as a hus- VOL, IV. band and as a father, in his harsh and unjustifiable treatment of his first wife, the Empress Eu- doxia Fcederowna, and her chil- dren. For this and other reasons, I give a short article to this un- fortunate and imprudent Prin- cess; previously observing that when I called Peter " the Great" in a former volume, I added the following words, " in spite of all his faults"" for it cannot be denied, however culpable his pri- vate life, that he was the father of his country, and the founder of the glory of the Russian em- pire. Soon 1 after ascending the throne, he resolved to marry, and ordered it to be publicly proclaimed through his extensive dominions that he would share his bed and crown with the most beautiful, deserving, and ac- complished woman in his empire. A day was fixed, the 19th of June, 1689? when such as chose to be candidates at this singular election, were to assemble in a large saloon of the palace at Moscow. On this occasion, more than three hundred ladies were col- lected, when Eudoxia Fcede- rowna, the daughter of a private gentleman of Novogorod, and in the nineteenth year of her age, won the imperial prize. h h On ,234 UNQUALIFIED PRAISE. On being informed of her good fortune, the future Empress ex- pressed her gratitude to the Czar for his condescension, and her surprize at his preference, when so many ladies in every respect her superiors filled the palace. Such humility and good sense was equalled only by her beauty; but all was not sufficient to re- tain the affection and regulate the inordinate appetites of the youthful Monarch. The marriage of Eudoxia was celebrated with considerable mag- nificence; but in less than three years, Peter was violently smit- ten with the charms of Ann Moensen, a woman of loose manners, and the daughter of a citizen of Moscow, whose fa- vours he easily procured. The moment this illicit attachment was discovered by Eudoxia, her jealousy and indignation got the better of her good sense, and procuring information of the place of meeting, she flew in the rage of neglected beauty to a house in the suburbs, which her husband had provided for his mistress. Having surprised the guilty pair, the Empress attacked Peter in gross language, reproach- ed him bitterly for his hypocrisy and broken vows, as well as his bad taste, pointing at the same time in a sarcastic way at the object of his present passion; who though very young, was full formed, rather coarse, and masculine in her person and manners, but possessed two qua- lities in women so frequently irresistible, youth and novelty. The affections of Peter, which' by gentle arts might have been regained, were estranged by such violence ; it was in vain that he endeavoured to arrest the torrent of abuse and virulence poured forth on this trying occasion by Eudoxia, whom he could scarcely prevent from offering personal indignity to her rival. Seizing the Empress some- what rudely and roughly in his arms, he dragged her out of the room ; for the angry passions in his own breast when rouzed were ungovernably ferocious* He then called loudly for his favourite Lefort, and ordered him to con- duct the mad woman, for so he called her, with a party of sol- diers to Saltusky. This was a solitary monas- tery, in a desolate situation, at a considerable distance from Mos- cow, where being obliged to take the veil as a member of a reli- gious society, but being in fact a close prisoner, she passed the remainder of her melancholy life. The cruelty of Peter, who ne- ver forgave his wife, was ex- tended to her descendants ; for the UNQUALIFIED PRAISE. 235 the unfortunate Empress had borne him two sons. Thus Eudoxia, whose birth, beauty and talents procured and qualified her for a throne, was without legal process degraded, expelled from her family and im- prisoned for life; while^ in less than two years, for the triumph of Ann Moensen was of short duration, in less than two years, Peter was fascinated by , the daughter of a Sclavonian peasant, educated by charity, the wife and it is said the virgin widow of a Swedish serjeant, a prisoner and in fact the slave and property of MenzikofF, who had succeeded Lefort as the Czar's favourite. Having excited desire, by her personal attractions,- she became his mistress ; but the extraordi- nary powers of her mind soon laid the foundation of a more lasting attachment. The fair Sclavonian, whose husband had been killed on the day of their marriage, at the storming of Marienbourg, by the Russians, became the wife of Peter, secured his affections dur- ing the remainder of his life, and became Empress, under the name of Catharine the First ; a name familiar to most readers. The conduct of Peter towards his first Empress was in the highest degree culpable, and can- not be defended \ but the beha- haviour of his royal consort was faulty and injudicious. Eudox- ia, who was far from defi- cient in good sense, ought to have recollected that an incont STANT HUSBAND WAS NEVER YET RECLAIMED BY REPROACH AND VIOLENCE. It is I confess a severe and humiliating lesson to preach gen- tleness and forbearance to those who have already been grossly and deeply injured ; but no other method will succeed : other means have been and every day ore resorted to, but they only exasperate and augm nt the evil. On these unfoi\..mate occa- sions, wives should endeavour to recall wandering affection, as a member of the Church of Eng- land mentioned in this collection advises his brethren to reclaim their congregations from Metho- / dists and sectaries ; they should try to excel their rival in their own arts. Not to be too scru- pulously watchful in arraigning conjugal indiscretion, and to re- double the efforts of kindness, attention and obedience, though a painful task, is the only pro- bable mode of calling back a husband worth having. There is no medium ; if good temper and gentleness of manners are once lost, the loves and graces instantly fly away. Hh 2 VALENTINE 236 VALENTINE GREATRAKES. VALENTINE GREAT- RAKES, a native of Ire- land, in the early part of the 17th century, and clerk of the peace for the county of Cork, during the reign of Cromwell. Having been dismissed at the restoration, he retired to a small farm he inherited from his father, at ArTane, in the county of Waterford | in this sequestered spot, which was the place of his birth, exchanging an active life and animating objects for solitude and books, he be- came melancholy, and devoted himself to the mysteries of reli- gious contemplation. After six years seclusion from the business and the amusements of human life, in a moment as he said of inspiration, but as his enemies asserted of crafty finesse and political leger-de-rnain, he felt a strong persuasion that he possessed the gift of curing many obstinate, dangerous and painful diseases, without the help of in- ternal medicines. His first attempts proving suc- cessful, gradually established and diffused his reputation, the coun- try people repaired to his house in crowds, and his time and at- tention were fully occupied in removing their complaints and visiting the wealthier classes of society, who required his assist- ance in different parts of Ireland. But his fame was not confined to that kingdom. Several emi- nent and noble persons earnestly requested his presence in Eng- land, and on his arrival in Lon- don, King Charles the Second sent for him several times, to en- quire concerning his method of cure, had many long conversa- tions with him, ana* being pleased with his manners , and deport- ment, made him an honourable present. Greatrakes was also patronized by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Dr. Whichcote, and Dr. Patrick. Cudworth, author of the Intellectual System, and Mr. Flamstead, the astro- nomer, were his patients. With these gentlemen he con- versed Unreservedly on the sub- ject of his gift of healing. No medicines as I have before ob- served were given internally, or externally applied. The only means he employed were gentle friction with the palm of his hand (which is said to have been remarkably white and soft,) and prayer. He succeeded in a great num- ber of cases, and differed in one respect from the common run of irregular medical practitioners ; he was diffident, modest and un- assuming, and owned without scruple that he was himself no more able to account for his suc- cess than others, but from super- natural VALENTINE GREATRAKES. 237 natural interposition. After practising several years with pro- fit and repute, he candidly con- fessed that his gift was departed. We are not now able to deter- mine whether independence had cooled his zeal. Perhaps some circumstance with which we are unacquainted or the caprice of public opinion had diminished the faith of his patients. A modern writer has com- pared the manual applications of Greatrakes to the flourishes of animal magnetism ; which a few years since excited considerable attention at Paris, and afterwards in the English metropolis. Although much more was made and said on this subject than was really true, one of the principles on which the theory depends, nervous susceptibility, as producing important effects on the animal ceconomy, cannot be denied : this also must have been powerfully assisted by the strong faith, the implicit confi- dence and enthusiastic zeal of its ardent votaries. With such powerful aid have not prepared toads, powder of post or of human scull, has not the touch of a dead man's hand hanging from a gallows actually wrought wonderful cures ? In a case where a desperate wound had been inflicted, did not Sir Kenelm Digby disbelieve the patient's death, when told that the weapon had been rubbed with his sympathetic powder? As to the susceptibility of the nervous system, many of my readers must recollect in the puerile ecstacy of their earlv sports, the powerful and often the distressing effect of being- threatened to be tickled, accom- panied by a correspondent mo- tion of the hand, often without being touched. This and much more we are willing to allow ; but what must be the feelings of a parent and where was the integrity of a friend who in a putrid fever could be prevailed on to delay means incontestibly useful, and to send for an operator, at eighty miles distance, to an only, a much loved child, expiring under a disease which the unhappy fa- ther was convinced, alas, when it was too late, might have been conquered by the timely exhibi- tion of Peruvian hark, and half a dozen bottles of port wine ! ! Pompous words, mysterious motions, wonderful tales, and shaded rooms may help to lighten the burthensome leisure of lan- guid amateurs and feeble valetu- dinarians ; but to rely on doubt- ful means in cases where a few hours delay is irrecoverably fatal, and where the instruments for restoring health are long estab- lished, 23 B VIRGIL. Iished, certain and precisely pointed out. To hold out a broken reed for sinking nature to rest against^ when a strong pil- lar of support is within our reach IS COMMITTING MURDER. VIRGIL was not author of the JEneis, Horace of the Odes ascribed to him ; and to descend somewhat in the literary scale, Garth did not write his own Dispensary. These and other singular assertions have at various times been seriously made and elaborately defended by modern critics. One of the arguments pro- duced for the purpose of depriv- ing the Mantuan bard of so im- portant apart of his poetic fame, . is, that a sufficient space of time did not occur between the finish- ing the Georgics, evidently first written, and Virgil's death. This was five years, a space of time surely long enough for a leisure man properly qualified to compose the poem in ques- tion . The second argument adduced is, that in the Georgics, the true Virgil supposed the Trojans to have been conducted into Italy by Tithonus, instead of ^Eneas, who is their leader in the fabri- cated poem ; thirdly, that in the former, the metempsychosis or translation of souls, as taught by Pythagoras, is rejected, but sup- ported in the sixth bootc of the iEneis. Fourthly, that the critics' great literary oracle Pliny is wholly- silent on the subject of any epic poem written by Virgil, but often quotes the Eclogues and Geor- gics^ This assailer of the authenti- city of a composition which has descended to us through a long vista of more than fifteen hun- dred years, and which to a mind endued with any portion of clas- sical taste bears internal evi- dence of the Augustan age, this clear-work critic will not allow any weight to the joint evidence of Ovid, Juvenal, Statiu3, Mar- tial and Tacitus ; all of whose supposed works he insists are the creation of modern artists. In a word, he asserts that its numerous faults, without any other evidence, prove it to be wholly unworthy of Virgil. The space of time occupied by the action of the poem, a whole year, is excessive beyond the duration of any of the great ancient epics; the Iliad and Odyssey occupying only forty days; the anachro- nism in Dido's story ; the ver- sification unequal ; unmeaning and often inapplicable epithets ; pious ^Eneas for instance de- bauching and then basely desert- ing the woman who had so hos- pitably VOTIVE SHIELD. £3$ pitably sheltered him and his companions ; solecisms, Galli- cisms and Italicisms without end, and absurd comparisons ; such are the charges alledged against Virgil, by a writer whose literary acrimony was sharpened and made the collateral instrument of religious rancour. The literary frauds so rashly produced and so confidently sup- ported, if we give any credit to the accuser, were contrived and carried on by Severus Archon- tius, a learned impostor of the twelfth century, whose existence has been frequently doubted. Should any rational enquirer demand what purpose could be answered by imposing on the world fabricated productions of prophane writers, the reply is, that ancient learning and eccle- siastical antiquities (I mean of the pure primitive ages of Chris- tianity) were found to be great obstructors of Popery and tradi- tional imposture. It was therefore thought im- portant to shake the credit of fa- thers, councils, ancient his- torians; but to prevent any- sus- picion of any particular enmity against ecclesiastic writers only, it was artfully resolved first to disgrace profane writers, and when a triumph was obtained over polite literature, to proceed in a similar way with other branches, and finally to substi- tute their own base dogmas for the pure sterling of the primitive Church. VOTIVE SHIELD; in a former volume, I have re- corded an instance in which a silver one was dragged by a fish- erman from the bottom of the Rhone. In the early part of the 19th century, another precious relict of antiquity and of a similar species was dislodged from the earth by a farmer of Dauphiny, in breaking up a waste, which had never been cultivated. Having frequently been admo- nished by the proprietor to pay- particular attention to subterra- neous articles, the rustic imme- diately carried what he had found to his landlord. ' This gentleman, after a little examination, saw the value of what was brought from his farm, and giving the man a receipt for half a year's rent, dismissed him, with strict injunctions of secresy. The tenant promised and kept his word, thinking himself richly paid for what he called a rusty old iron dish. The possessor of this treasure acting like the possessors of other treasures, locked it zip in his strong box, where it remained more than twenty years, when, in £40 VOTIVE SHIELD. in consequence of his death, the box being unlocked, his heirs found the shield carefully clean- ed, and accompanied with a writ- ten document, containing an account of the manner in which it was discovered, and his opinion concerning it. It was well preserved, twenty- seven inches in diameter, and weighed more than twenty pounds ; but the ornamental parts were neither so well executed nor so highly finished, nor the figures in relief so numerous as those on the shield which had been so long in the bed of the Rhone. A lion was seen reposing under a palm tree, with the lacerated limbs of wild boars, wolves and other animals lying scattered around him. ' A learned man to whom T am indebted for a considerable por- tion of the present article has. taken great pains to prove that this ancient votive relict was of- fered by Hannibal when he con- , ducted a Carthaginian army into Italy : this opinion he supports by the collateral evidence of me- dals, on which the lion and the palm tree are exhibited as nation- al symbols of Carthage ; and by similar devices, on a votive shield of one hundred and thirty-eight pounds weight, found among the >uoils of Asdrubal, deposited af- ter his defeat in the Capitol, and accurately described by an an- cient writer. We may further observe that the Carthaginian Lion was a common appellation bestowed on Hannibal, and that it had been the frequent boast of his father Hamilcar, during the child- hood of his son, that he was nou- rishing a lion, who would here- after destroy the Roman wolves ; alluding either to the fabulous origin or the sanguinary hostility of the foes of Carthage. Should the conjecture of this respectable writer prove well founded, the circumstances I re- late are not a little singular; that the production of an African ar- tist and a piece of Spanish plate, the one wrought for a victorious Carthaginian conqueror, and ano- ther for the destroyer of Car- thage, should both be buried, one in earth, and the other under water, in a remote province of Gaul; and that at the end of more than two thousand years, they should be fortunately reco- vered, in a state of excellent pre- servation, and both be placed in the same collection. The sub- ject of my little narrative being considered as interesting, ge- nuine and curious, it was pur- chased and placed in the cabinet of the King of France : whether it WHISTON, WILLIAM. 241 it exists amon£ the opima spolia of THE EMPEROR Napoleon I am not qualified to say. WE WERE DELIGHT- ED ! a characteristic and animated passage in the dis- patch of a gallant English Admi- ral, who sent home four French men of war at the moment this volume was preparing for the press. Indeed the whole of Sir Ri- chard Strachan's dispatch which conveyed intelligence of his vic- tory to the Admiralty is as an English seaman's language ought to be, strongly marked with un- extinguishable courage ; to meet with an enemy* whatever the superiority, his first object ; to take, burn, sink or destroy him, at all risqttes, his unconquerable resolution. To this may be add- ed the modest, unassuming lan- guage of real worth, so different from French gasconade, and that spirit of pious gratitude, the sai- lor's best companion. WHISTON, WILLIAM, a native of Leicester- shire, a staunch Unitarian, and mathematical professor at Cam- bridge. In this post, he had succeeded Sir Isaac Newton, and tilled the chair with credit and ability; but failing in religious orthodoxy, he was prosecuted, VOL, IV. and after many friendly attempts to prevail on him to conform to the established religion of his country, was ultimately dis- missed. " I have been called by my adversaries capricious and whim- sical" observes the subject of this article, " but I defy any one to prove that I ever preached any doctrine that was not warranted by Scripture. If I have at any time been capricious or fantas- tical, it was never against my conscience and from interested motives. If my conduct or ap- pearance has ever laid me open to this accusation, it must have originated from a tendency to nervous diseases, to which from my youth I was always subject. " For this class of complaints, medical men informed me, I was indebted to my unceasing appli- cation to study; but while under the roof of my worthy and ex- cellent father, he preserved me in a great measure by rouzing me early and obliging me to walk four or five miles on a frosty morning, before I sat down to my books. " I remember particularly be- ing greatly alarmed with a fear that I should lose my eve-sight : as after reading a little, my eyes became dazzled and discharged a thin, acrimonious water; mv seeing was also considerably im- i i paired. 24£ WHISTON, WILLIAM. paired. After consulting pro- fessional men, they recommended a relaxation from study, and ap- plied blisters behind my ears, but without effect. Blindness with all its horrors now presented itself to my imagination, and I sunk into the lowest state of ner- vous melancholy. " In this miserable condition, I fortunately recollected a cir- cumstance mentioned by Mr. Robert Boyle, of a person who had nearly lost his sight from reading by a glaring light and in a study newly white-washed, on which the sun shone strongly the greater part of the day. " He was advised to hang his book-room with green, and his eyes soon became better; pur- suing the same plan, I expe- rienced similar benefit. " At this time, mathematics took up eight hours of my day, but sick of the fictitious hypo- thesis of De Cartes, then all in vogue, I plunged at once into Newton's Prin^ipia, but was rouzed from my literary dream, the happiest period of my life, by the complaints of my poor mother, who was now left a wi- dow, w ith an income not equal to the support of herself and fa- mily. " I was persuaded to take or- ders, by Bishop Moor, Archbi- shop Tillotson and Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of Litchfield and Coven- try." Besides these prelates, he was favourably noticed by Mr. Locke, and associated with Dr. Hoadley, Bishop of Bangor and afterwards of Winchester. With such helps and a small share of prudence and common sen6e, he might have got on in the church; but religious scruples gradually arose in his mind, and he adopted an unrestrained mode of censur- ing public men and public mea- sures, which created him manv enemies, and deprived him of several of his friends. To Dr. Hoadley he once ob- served c( You have now received eight hundred pounds a year, for keeping primitive Christianity out of England ; this too for a period of six years, without hav- ing set foot in or seen your dio- cese; a scandalous and indecent example, more injurious to the cause of religion than the attacks of its most bitter enemies." If a man thought himself obliged by Christian sincerity to address such language to his old asso- ciates, we may guess in what style be would address his pro- , fessed adversaries. It is scarcely necessary to add that all friend- ship ceased between Whiston and the Bishop of Bangor. When Dr. Hoadley was after- wards advanced to the see of Winchester, his old friend did not WHISTON, WILLIAM. 243 not forget him. ** In direct con- tradiction of the laws of Christ, you left your first church, and though now advanced to a more lucrative bishopric, during a good part of the year, you abandon the duties or' your ecclesiastic office, to become a political member of our civil constitu- tion. " Though a very old man, and in express contradiction to the letter of the holy Scriptures, you have married a second time, a young woman. These notorious practices together with your in- judicious and unlearned Treatise on the Lord's Supper will hand you down in no very favourable light to posterity.' * ei You have no doubt heard" says the worthy Bishop, in a let- ter to a female correspondent, " you have heard of Mr. Whis- ton's bitterness against me ; ma- ny of his assertions are idle, all malignant, and many false. The whole of his conduct may be expressed in the words pious tit- tle-tattle. He is a mixture of illiberal censoriousness, fanatic pride and immoral zeal ; encou- raging himself as many wiser and better men do in actions which they condemn as inexcusable in others. I have since had a spi- ritual, satirical and recriminating conversation with him ; he was all humility, thankfulness and profession." This rude attack on the hero of the Bangorian controversy, whom we have generally been taught to consider as the great assertor of civil and religious liberty, did not diminish the out- cry Whiston had already raised by his paradoxes and his prophe- cies concerning the destruction of Rome and Antichrist, in which he was mistaken. He had also been an enthu- siastic admirer of Archbishop Potter, but became suddenly ex- asperated against him, for suffer- ing the Bishops to kneel before him when they received his bles- sing, at a meeting held for pro- pagating the Gospel. He after- wards criticised, and somewhat roughly, the forms of prayer pub- lished by his Grace, as mean and unedifying. These attacks the Primate bore and answered with moderation, imputing them to an old man's dotage. Whiston was the favourite scholar of Sir Isaac Newton, and his theory of the earth is praised and recommended by Mr. Locke. He was a learned and an honesty man, but wanted judgment; his zeal o'er -informed its tenement, and he knew little of the world. To these circumstances may be ascribed much of his unaccom- i i 2 modating 244 WHY DON'T YOU MARRY? modating spirit, even in non- essentials, and many of the diffi- culties he encountered. Whiston and his friend Dit- ton, who wrote on the longitude, could not escape the filthy muse of Swift ; he wrote on them some of the nastiest lines in the Eng- lish language, which I hope the good taste of future editors will suppress. WHY DON'T YOU MARRY > a question repeatedly asked of a middle- a£ed man, who occasionally pe- ruses my volumes, and whose celibacy originates rather from position and circumstance than From want of inclination. One of his reasons for continuing sin- gle my readers will agree is im- portant; he has fixed his affec- tions on a lady who unfortu- nately loves another. On a late occasion, and at a christening, being hard pressed on the usual subject, with a room full of mothers and daughters fit for mothers, he assumed more courage than he generally exhi- bits, and in reply to the question which stands at the head of th'rs article, sported in a chearful and humorous way the following song'. Whether the tune and the words were his own or the work of a near neighbour was not known ; he called it The Bachelor's Apology'. Each fool and each sage who of gallantry treats Says that love is like life, full of bitters and sweets. The matrons may blame, and the virgins may titter ; Let me have but some sweet, I won't mind the bitter. That wedlock's a pill one and all they cry out, Of digestion so hard they make a great rout ; On the subject abundance of ink has been 'spilt. I'll swallow the pill, if 'tis -pro- perly g$* Again, too, some cry that mar- riage is hanging, That who slips on the noose de- serves a good banging. To this I most humbly will ven- ture to speak. Let me choose my own gallows, Til venture my neck. It is scarcely necessary to add that in such a place and at such a time this vocal effusion was re- ceived with rapturous applause. The following are supposed to come from the same pen. The Maiden's Wish. May the man the Gods design To win this flutt'ring heart of mine Have OUTRAGEOUSLY VIRTUOUS. WHY DON'T YOU MARRY > 245 Have no strange whims, no fool- ish fancies f Fair Probability. No book-worm deep in old ro- j[ fj' lnt to Women. manccs ; The choice of a husband a part- No sage be he to seek a star ; ner for life I wish him not to look so far, Is no trifle indeed let me say. To read his fate in vonder skies, If vour days shall be happy or But find it rather in these eyes. embitter'd with strife Is the stake which in wedlock May all his thoughts in me you lay. combine Who means to keep this heart Let fair probability brighten the of mine. scene, Nor rush headlong with ruin be- On a Notorious CoauETTE, fore ye. The vile debauchee ne'er can happiness mean, Boast not ladies of your virtue ; Fraud and ruin have long been Keep it quiet, 'twill not hurt his glory. you ; But if some poor girl is un- The man who himself underva- d one lues so much Spare your railing, don't abuse As to scorn each decorum of ' her; life, Are all quite faultless who accuse Nor prudence can bind, nor con- her ; science can touch, In the trying scenes of London ? To value the peace of a wife. " Horrid creature/' cries Miss The Stock-Jobber, Clacket, A new Song9 Making in the box a racket ; ie Heaven defend me from the O the pleasure of stock -jobbing; vermin !" 'Tis a lawful way of robbing. Swell'd last August in her scant- Foes abuse and friends may rally. ling, What delight in roaring, fight- She says dropsy, we say bant- ing^ ling. Cheating, biting, Doctor Midnight shall determine. I" the purlieus of the alley ? You 246 WINDHAM, the Right Hon. William. Ycu may hunt if you please Among fields and green trees ; But here without bridle or sad- dling, You may chace bull and bear ; But then have a care They don't lame you and send you home waddling The unsuccessful Poet. I courted the Muses and thought they were kind ; But 'twas a delusion I verily find. Whilst I thought I was cropping the shrubs of Parnass, My verses were nought, and I look'd like an ass. I design'd to have sipp'd at the fountain of Pindar, But here too the Muses stepp'd in and did hinder: And since I'm deny'd to taste of such cheer, I'll comfort my heart with some Dorchester beer. I attempted to ride on Pegasus' back, But the rascal kick'd up, and I fell with a smack. Well, since 'tis refused on High- flyer to go, 1*11 trot my bay nag in fam'd Rotten Row. And since the nine virgins are deaf to my sighing, My spirits all flagging and my genius a dying, A jug of October shall give me fresh fury, And I'll seek a tenth muse in the lobbies of Drury. WINDHAM, the right HONOURABLE WlLLIAM, part of his speech in a debate on the motion of Mr. Lascelles, for voting public honours to Mr. Pitt, our late Chancellor of the Exchequer. " The question submitted to our consideration is peculiarly difficult and embarrassing. If we differ in opinion with the ho- nourable gentleman and with- hold the honours he proposes, under an impression that they have not been fairly earned, we shall be called penurious and illi- beral, we shall be accused of che- rishing old animosities and re- sentments, which in this, as in every other instance they ought to be, are I verily believe by all parties for ever buried in the grave. " If dazzled by the splendid talents of the deceased Right Ho- nourable Gentleman, by his un- compromising firmness, his sin- gular disinterestedness and unspot- ted integrity, stimulated by such feelings, we hurry to a precipitate vote, and fancy ourselves just when in fact we are only gene- rous, we shall incur the blame of scattering with a prodigal and unmetin& traitor to his King and coun- " Ah, Siff let us meet no more. I am sensible that to you I owe my honour, my life, and my kingdom; but I trem- ble when I reflect on the calami- ties, to which a departure from the imperious law of duty will expose you. " We must meet indeed no more. The weakness of human resolution and the struggles in my breast between gratitude and honour, in every interview with my conqueror and benefactor, who has treated me not only with generosity, but scrupulous deli- cacy and dignified decorum, point out the propriety of this resolution, so absolutely neces- sary for your preservation, and my peace. " Your honour and welfare shall be no longer endangered. Had there indeed been no impe- diment, I do not scruple con- fessing, that in a cottage or on a throne, my conqueror alone, of all the world, should have posses- sion of my hand and heart; but to enjoy them at the expence of purity and peace is a penalty we must not pay. " Let us now separate, and confirm the salutary resolution we have taken," continued Za- rine, wishing to persuade herself that Stryanges agreed with her in opinion.