Glass. J . - 1 ' •" - Book -er- / 5 S. C. HALL . 130 MAllY, QUEEN OF SCOTS . 136 LADY MOEGAN . 160 COUNTESS OF BUCKINGHAMSHII IE 163 , LADY GEIZEL BAILLIE 166 JANE SEYMOUE 179 MES. PIOZZI . 185 THE COUNTESS OP COVENTEY 193 CHAELOTTE SMITH . 196 QUEEN CAEOLINE . 208 LADY EACHAEL EUaSELL . 217 LADY GEOEGIANA EUSSELL 247 LADY HUNTINGDON . 250 » MES. HEMANS 265 // MES. BUNYAN 274 LADY A. GOWEE . . 288 KATHEEINE PA^E . 290 i?l3 P E E F A C E. In uncivilized nations, and in the early ages of society, tte position wliicli woman occupied was that of absolute slavery. On her devolved the hardest labour, and the most degrading toil; she carried wood, drew water, planted, and reaped, without intermission, and without hope. Man, the most powerful, employed his strength in warlike exercise when fighting was the order of the day ; and when he had no busi- ness of that kind on hand, he passed his time in idleness or sport. Even among the Jewish people, the practice of poly- gamy, and the facility of divorce, became the bane of domes- tic happiness, and Malaclii remonstrated with them for dealing treacherously with the wives of their youth. Women, by the ancient world, were not regarded as a part of polite society. Greece with all its wisdom — Eome with all its glory, con- ferred no blessing upon woman. The wife might be discarded or retained at pleasure. Cicero dismissed his wife, after thirty years of wedded life, on the ground that she was peevish and expensive. As a daughter, a wife, and a mother, woman was doomed to incessant drudgery, and a state of rigorous tutelage. But from the beginning it was not so. The past history of the world abounds with instances of woman's heroism, intelligence, and perseverance. Her in- fluence, whether for good or evil, cannot be over estimated. VI ' PREFACE. In forming the minds of the young, the destiny of the future is involved ; and to a mother's teachings and a mother's love this important work is committed. Her influence is now felt and acknowledged. But to Christianity alone the change is to be attributed. The light " which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," has shone with peculiar brilliancy upon woman, exhibiting her character in its truest dignity, and adding fresh lustre to her wisdom and her worth. From the numerous array of distinguished females which adorn the history of our country, some few have been selected as specimens of the whole ; and in the following pages an attempt has been made to present to the reader the most in- teresting and instructive memoirs of eminent British women. From all ranks of life selections have been made. Not alone beneath the gilded ceilings of a palace, have true virtue, noble daring, high-souled excellence, been sought — there they have been sought successfully ; but in the humble cottage, beneath the lowly roof of penuiy, the same great principles have been found. Like the air which circulates, free, pure, and health- ful, in stately mansions, and in cotters' homes — that in its great catholicity belongs to all, to peer and peasant — virtue and excellence are a common prize which all may strive for, and which all may win. And in the selection that has been made, nothing of party creed in politics or in religion has been permitted to sway the balance. An effort has been made to look impartially at the great ones whose lives are here recorded, and by the power of a sympathetic imagination to feel as they felt, to see as they saw, and to bear in mind the grand leading activities of their time. And the characters chosen are those which are chiefly of a representative charac- ter, or those which bring out the distinguishing features of woman in various stations of life or fortune. PREFACE. VU Our gracious Majesty, tlie Queen, uniting in her person the amiable qualities of wife and mother, with the profound policy which should ever characterise a potent sovereign, teaches us how regal splendour is untarnished by domestic sympathy ; and how the virtues which do honour to the peasant can add new glory to a queen. Elizabeth, the good Queen Bess, the masculine heroine, wdth " the heart and stomach of a king," is the type of another class ; a class we trust that has passed away for ever. Lady Jane, the twelve-days' monarch, the sacrifice offered on the altar of ambition, — Anne Boleyn, the gentle Lady Anne, so loved, so hated, — Jane Seymour, so wise, and so discreet, but so short lived, — Mary, the Queen ^^ 0^.. %. of Scots, the beautiful Mary, so happy in the court of France, , : '- . so wretched in her northern country, and caged, and . .. * , doomed, and killed, in Engiand, — and Katherine Parr, the ■^r^. discreet Kate, who saw the last of the six-wived monarch, all queens, but all unlike each other ; not more unlike in outward form, than in their hearts and minds. Among the noble of ^^(^vk^^^^^ > the land, doubly noble, noble by birth and character, the history is traced of Lady Eussell, who pleaded for her lord as only wife could plead ; and Lady Huntingdon, the founder /mJLM^"*'^ ^/^ of the sect which still bears her name, and attests the excel- RcJtCq * lence of this noble woman ; and the witty, somewhat tuft- — -^ — ^ hunted Lady Morgan, who dearly loved this Yanity Eair of ours ; and Lady Grizel Baillie, heroic in her highland home — heroic amid calumny and reproach — and heroic in her poverty; and ladies of high birth, and higher excellence, whose private virtues give glory to their glory — the lives of these are told. In plain Quaker garb, Mrs. Ery pursues her course of chris- tian benevolence — a female Howard, and Joanna Baillie, and Hannah More, and Mrs. Hemans, and other writers of distinguished merit have their places ; and the simple stoi7 Vlll PREFACE. of Mrs. Bunyan is not forgotten ; she who pleaded, nobly as my Lady Eussell, that her husband might be free, and cheered him in his prison-house, as he tagged laces for bread. So with these few words of preface, the book is commended to the reader, with the hope, that while the mind is interested, the heart may be improved, and that the " foot-prints in the sands," which the eminent of past time have left, may sug- gest, encourage, quicken, console, and cheer, and lead onward to that goal which is starred and luminous. J, TILLOTSON. QUEEN VICTORIA. There is a certain sort of language which is commonly applied to all sovereigns. This is the phraseology of adula- tion. There are no spots on the sun of the royal firmament. The one-eyed princes are always to be painted in profile. There is a divinity doth hedge a king that makes it a species of sacrilege to criticise defects. But these words of eulogy very often subside into unmeaning commonplace, and become as worthless as the old eastern salutation, " king, live for ever !" The censor speaks with bated breath, and Charles II. — a graceless libertine, as candid folk are wont to call him — becomes our *'most religious king." The vices of royalty are compensated by its graces, — the language of flattery only may fall on the regal tympanum ; all cynicism is banished from palace precincts to dwell with Diogenes in his tub. But wholesale praise, undiscriminating eulogy, stereotyped glori- fications, lose their value, and thus the true homage of true hearts to true worthiness is sometimes mistaken. When the voice of praise is but the voice of truth, the truth is regarded as simple compliment. In the illustrious lady, a sketch of whose past history we purpose giving here, this is especially the case. " A thousand claims to reverence close In her, as mother, wife, and queen." But in employing the language of respect, esteem, and homage, we do so, not because royalty can elevate and dignify virtue, B 2 QUEEN VICTORIA. but because virtue of the highest character dignifies royalty in the person of our most gracious sovereign lady, Queen Victoria. Her reign has not been remarkable for stirring incidents. In her career there has been nothing of the marvellous. Sunny skies have been over her, flowers have decked her path ; the affection of her people has been her best safeguard, and never v^ras the homage of a nation rendered to one more worthy of all praise. Never did the royal diadem rest on a fairer brow ; never was enthroned in England so much that commends itself to the hearts of all ; never was monarch more entitled to all honour ; never was the love of a people so universal and so great. Too often royalty is but another name for trouble and disquiet. " Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." Too often the adulations of a multitude are but a hollow mockery, and the hand that holds the sceptre sometimes shakes and trembles when the plaudits are the loudest, and palace walls re-echo to the shout. Elizabeth enjoyed no real and solid happiness, Mary died heart-broken, but Victoria dwells in a region of purity, of love, and joy. Never was throne more radiant with truth and justice ; never were such light and happiness shed over palace courts. Victoria is not alone the queen of England, she is the queen of English hearts. Her sympathies are not confined to peering nobles, but extend to the toiling craftsman and the humblest peasant, and never had country a brighter or more perfect example of all home duties, and all social virtues, than is to be found in the private life of her Majesty. Far away stretches a long line of ancestry, eminent for wisdom, policy, and courage. Clearly and distinctly it QUEEN VICTORIA. 3 reaches to "William the Norman conqueror, and further still in England's earlier history, before the feet of Norman soldiery had pressed her shores, and the people of our happy isle were swayed by the mild government of the Saxon kings. His Majesty George III. was blessed with a numerous family. He was the father of fourteen children. His eldest son George, Prince of Wales, who, in consequence of a severe mental affliction in his royal parent, had for a long time reigned as Prince .Regent, succeeded to the throne in 1820. By his marriage with Queen Caroline he had one daughter, the Princess Charlotte, who, about a year after her union to Prince Leopold, died, with her infant child. George IV. had therefore no heir to succeed to his honours, and on his death his brother William, Duke of Clarence, was proclaimed king. William died childless. The next heir was the Duke of Kent ; but he had died about eighteen years before the death of William, leaving one child, an infant daughter only a few months old, the heir to all his honours. This was Alexandrina Victoria. She was born on the 24th of May, 1819. The childhood of the princess, who, on the death of her father was immediately recognised as the future queen, was passed under the guardianship of her mother, the Duchess of Kent. To her devoted maternal solicitude England owes much. A mother's influence and a mother's teachings have fitted Victoria for that high position which she so ably occupies. The governess selected for the princess was the Baroness Lehzen, a friend and companion of the duchess, and one better fitted for the important duties of her position could hardly have been found. In her early years Victoria was a frail and delicate child ; and yet extremely active in all her habits, of an inquiring mind, a joyous temperament, fond of all sports and games. She was an ardent lover of nature. When 4 QUEEN VICTORIA, scarcely able to articulate she called her uncle Clarence to the window, to notice the beauties of an autumnal sunset. Young as she was, she saw in those varied tinted clouds that, like some fairy land, stretched out in red and gold and purple, a something grand and holy ; for it is true, as the good German says, " the sublime is the temple step of devotion." The excitement of the public mind was very great, when the news was made known that the young princess had narrowly escaped a serious accident, if not death. Some boys, who were shooting birds in the neighbourhood of the royal residence, broke the windows of the nursery, and a shot passed directly over the head of the princess. God saved the queen. What a wondrous change for England if the young princess had perished ! How strangely different would have been the aspect of all things at this present day ; but the providence of One, who never slumbers, preserved to us the princess, and with her the peace and happiness we enjoy. Care was taken from the very first that the royal infant should he trained for her future greatness. Her cheeks bedewed with tears, the Duchess of Kent had mournfully received the Committee of the House of Commons, who, after the death of her husband, had presented an address of condo- lence. To them she had presented the unconscious babe, and assured them of her determination to consecrate all her energies to prepare her child for the distinguished situation she was destined to fill. And nobly the duchess fulfilled her promise. To educate the young princess would seem to be by no means an easy matter. If we are rightly informed, the chief feature in that education was to make her natural. She was not taught to be artificial, but real ; she was not brought up as a petted favourite, on whom no wind of heaven must breathe, who must be unacquainted with disappointment, QUEEN VICTORIA. 5 and behold all things under a sunlit aspect, whose life the fates had spun — " Out of their softest and their whitest wool ;" but so that she might be prepared to encounter the trials to which all are exposed, whether they dwell beneath gilded ceilings or thatched roofs. Much attention was paid to her physical culture, and she was inured to hard study, and habituated to constant industry. She was not secluded from the gaze of the public, but was accustomed to take her walks and rides where she could be seen, and where she could see. The Bishop of Salisbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of Lincoln, aided in the education of the future queen. At the age of nine years the princess had made considerable progress in the ordinary branches of polite education. She could understand the French, Italian, and German languages. But her penchant was evidently for the fine arts, more particularly music, for which she displayed considerable taste from her earliest childhood. We are told, on one occasion, the first we believe of the kind, when Beetho- ven's celebrated " Hallelujah to the Father" was performed before her royal highness, when that beautiful passage, " The exalted Son of God," burst upon her astonished ear, she manifested very great emotion. For several minutes after the conclusion of the chorus, her royal highness seemed spell-bound, as though a new theory had suddenly been propounded to her imagination ; and it was not till the expiration of some minutes, during which she seemed insensi- ble to all around her, that she was able to give expression to her feelings of delight. But though people may love music, they may grow very weary of the dull monotony of acquiring its practical use. So B 2 QUEEN VICTORIA. it was with the princess. When she first commenced taking lessons upon the pianoforte, she was under the necessity of devoting much time, many very long and very weary hours, to acquire the art of fingering. To cheer her in this dreary work — and any body who has tried it must know very well how dreary it is — she was told that all her future success, and all chance of becoming mistress of the piano, depended on her assiduity in this department, in strict and close application to these rudimental principles, "Then I am to become mistress of my piano, am I?" asked the princess. "Undoubtedly, your royal highness." " Then why cannot I become mistress at once ?" " Your royal highness must be aware that there is no royal road to music. Experience and great practice are essential." " Oh ! there is no royal road to music, eh ! No royal road ? And I am not mistress of my pianoforte ? But I will be, I assure you; and the royal road is this I" So saying, she closed the instrument, locked it, and took the key. " There ! that is being mistress of the piano ! And the royal road to learn it, is never to take a lesson till you feel disposed." Those who were present laughed at the ingenuity of the princess, in which she herself heartily joined, and resumed the lesson in a few minutes. This, and a number of other anecdotes which are related of her, evince that she was a sprightly and interesting child. At Wentworth House she was once visiting with the Duchess of Kent, and strolled through the beautiful gardens, admiring the elegant arrangement of the shrubbery, and the rainbow hues of the flowers. The little princess was actively running on in advance of the rest of the party. As she turned to go down a particular walk, a gardener cautioned her against it. QUEEN VICTORIA. 7 " Please your royal highness, the ground is damp and slape," said he. "Slape! slape!" repeated the little princess. "And, pray, what is slape ?" "Very slippery, miss — your royal highness — ma'am." *' Oh, is that all?" So, regardless of the caution, she went skipping over the treacherous path. Before she had proceeded far, her foot slipped, and she rolled down the declivity. She arose immediately, and the noble owner of the grounds, perceiving that she was unhurt, laughed heartily. "Now your royal highness," he said, "has "received an explanation of the word slape, both theoretically and practically." " Indeed I have, my lord," replied the princess, joining in the laugh, " and I think that I shall never forget the meaning of the word slape. '^ In quiet and retirement the princess learned the true secret of domestic comfort. Happy for her that her mother was so judicious a teacher ; happy for the nation that the development of Victoria's character was thus carefully watched. A mother's tenderness, and a mother's solicitude were ever about the future queen. Victoria, as she was to be queen of England, was educated as an Englishwoman. She was thoroughly instructed in the history of her own country ; its laws, its literature, and science. Its philosophers and poets soon became familiar to her ; and she wrote with ease and elegance. In Latin she made sufficient progress as to be able to read Horace with considerable fluency ; and in drawing she was very successful. Her constitution was in itself good, and every care was taken that it should so continue. She took much exer- cise in the open air, and soon became even a daring equestrian. All was unaffected simplicity, all natural, graceful, and free. 8 QUEEN VICTORIA. And, v/ithal, there was much of heart-felt piety. In a letter describing the confirmation of her majesty, dated July 30th, 1833, the writer says, " I witnessed a beautiful touching scene „ the day before yesterday, at the Chapel Royal, St. James's — the confirmation of the Princess- Victoria by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The royal family only was present. The cere- mony was very affecting : the beautiful, pathetic, and parental exhortation of the Archbishop, on the duties she was called on to fulfil, the great responsibility that her high station imposed on her, the struggles she must prepare for between the allure- ments of the world and the dictates and claims of religion and justice, and the necessity of her looking up for counsel to her Maker in all the trying scenes that awaited her, most impressive. She was led up by the king, and knelt before the altar. Her mother stood by her side weeping audibly, as did indeed the queen and the other ladies present. The old king frequently shed tears, nodding his head at each impressive part of the discourse. The little princess herself was drowned in tears. The ceremony over, the king led her up to salute the queen and royal duchesses present." There was one on whom, in all probability, "Victoria had already looked with something more than friendship. Her little cousin, Albert, from Germany, a handsome, noble-hearted boy, had become the visitor of the Duchess of Kent, and the fellow-student of the young princess. Doubtless at an early age had been sown the seeds of their future attachment, — attachment, which should make their after union unlike the generality of royal marriages, where the heart has little to do with the matter. Albert had now returned to Germany to complete his studies ; and, stretching out, before the beautiful girl he so well remembered, lay a glorious regal future. Kensington palace was her home. A. home possessing no QUEEN VICTORIA. 9 architectural beauty, no grand display, but that was to her a very happy place. There it stands, at the extreme west of London, surrounded by the mansions of the nobility, parks, and gardens, and far removed from the din and turmoil of business. In its bare and rigid aspect it seems to protest against the advance of taste. George II. and his wife displayed a great predilection for this mansion. There it was, unconscious that he himself was ruled by his good wife, that monarch is reputed to have said : — " Charles I. was governed by his wife ; Charles II. by his favourites ; James II. by his priests ; "William by his partizans : Anne by her women ; my father (George I.) by every body who came near him — but who, but I, can be said -to govern now-a~ddys." From the fact that there her majesty was educated, and that there the greater part of her childhood was spent, Kensington Palace will undoubtedly possess unfading interest for all future generations of Englishmen. On the 24th of May, 1837, the princess attained her legal majority, and the brazen voices of the bells proclaimed the happy fact, and shouted it into the world's ear. Victoria was then eighteen years old. The great, the wise, the good, thronged the halls of the palace. Intellect and beauty did homage to the youthful heir of England's crown ; and thither came her own dear cousin, Albert — perhaps, and who can doubt it ? already all-and-all to Britain's future majesty. Pleasant it is to watch the ripening of affection anywhere, but still more pleasant when it is seen in those spheres from which, in com- mon, affection is forgotten in formality, and congeniality of sentiment in the policy of state. The splendour of the court, on the occasion referred to, was rarely equalled, perhaps never surpassed ; it was the prelude to the reign of England's Victoria, and fitting splendour welcomed in that reign. Soon 10 QUEEN VICTORIA. the bells, that rang so merrily, uttered another sound, and at every twist of the fibrous ropes the death-knell of the king^ was heard : — " Hear the tolling of the bells — Iron bells ; What a world of solemn thought their monody compels !" On the 20th of June, 1837, William IV. died, and his niece, Victoria, ascended the throne. At five o'clock in the morning the Archbishop of Canterbury, with the chief nobility, arrived at Kensington Palace to communicate the important tidings to the young queen. The Premier, Lord Brougham, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Lord Mayor, and other official dignitaries, soon followed ; and within the old walls of the Palace, Victoria held her first privy council. What a flood of mingled thoughts and feelings must have rushed upon her in that hour, — how must that gentle heart have beat at the shout " Long live Victoria," — how many varying emotions must have contended in her breast as she stood as queen among one hundred of the highest persons in the realm. A recent writer says : — " Painting has depicted it, poetry has described it, and history will record it ; but neither painting, poetry, nor history can do it justice. In the midst of the scarred veterans of war, grey-haired statesmen, judges of the courts, dignitaries of the church, and chancellors of the universities, stood this youthful maiden, with an eye moistened with tears, in view of the death of her beloved uncle, the king, and with a heart throbbing with emotion, as she f*^''t the responsibilities thus suddenly thrown upon her. All e^ v'ere rivetted upon the fragile and fairy form, the pale and pensive countenance of the modest girl, as she appeared before them, graceful and queenly in her child-like loveliness. aUEEN VICTORIA. 11 And when the herald announced, ' We publish and proclaim that the high and mighty Princess Mexandrina Victoria, is the only lawful and rightful liege lady, and by the grace of God, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith,' the timid and lovely maiden, over- whelmed by the scene, threw herself into her mother's arms, and wept with uncontrollable emotion. Her favourite uncle, the Duke of Sussex, drew near to her, and falling upon his knee, took her right hand to kiss it, and to take the oath of allegiance to his new sovereign. Victoria again burst into tears, and throwing her arms around his neck, imprinted a kiss upon his cheek, and sobbed out, ' Do not kneel to me, my uncle ; am I not still Victoria, your niece V All in the room were wholly overcome by this touching scene." Death-bells were now no longer to be heard, — " the king is dead." Says the witty Frenchman, " Long live the king!" Joy-notes were sounded forth from all the steeples ; a very flood of metal harmony ; ring, tug, strain ; louder, louder, quicker, quicker ; a great chorus of sound, shrill, sharp, clear, little bells, and big bells, all united for the one great end of doing honour to England's youthful queen. " Oh, from out the sounding cells, What a gust of euphony vohiminously wells : How it swells ! How it dwells ! . j On the future how it tells, Of the rapture that impels, To the swinging, And the ringing, Of the bells, bells, bells !" - i . ' Thousands and thousands of people thronged the streets,— a great ocean of life ; for the queen was to be proclaimed in city- 12 - ' QUEEN VICTORIA. Streets, with all tlie pomp befitting the occasion. Troops upon troops of soldiers, with their bright helmets shining in the light; and heralds, in all the curious costume of a bygone day, and black crape for the monarch dead, and white bows, white as innocence, for the monarch living, gratified the gathered throng, and mighty shouts were heard, that drowned the sound of parish bells, high up in lofty steeples, — " Long live the queen." But, surrounded by the splendours of the court, her majesty never forgot the teaching of her early years. She quitted the dear home she had loved so well ; she entered on the osten- tatious magnificence of the regal palaces, but it was with tears in her eyes, tears which could not be suppressed by the brilliant prospect of the outstretching future. The following authentic fact exhibits a most gratifying feature in the character of her majesty. A man, named Killham, who served in the capacity of porter to the late Duke of Kent, had a daughter much afflicted and confined to her bed. On the evening of the king's funeral, the young woman received from Queen Victoria, a present of the Psalms of David, with a marker worked by herself, having a dove, the emblem of peace, in the centre, placed at the forty-first psalm, with a request that she would read it, and the hope that from it she might derive the consolation it was intended to convey. The queen is said to be passionately fond of children. The following anecdote went the round of the newspapers some few years since as an illustration. Her majesty commanded Lady Barham, one of the ladies in waiting, to bring her family of lovely children to the palace. They were greatly admired and fondly caressed by the queen, when a beautiful little boy, about three years of age, artlessly said, " I do not see the queen — I want to see the queen ;" upon which her majesty, smiling, said, " I am the queen," and, taking her little guest QUEEN VICTORIA, 13 into her arms, repeatedly kissed the astonished and delighted child. The religious feeling of her majesty was evidenced in the case of a certain noble lord. Soon after she ascended the throne, at a late hour one Saturday night, a nobleman, occupying an important post in the government, arrived at Windsor with some state-papers. ** I have brought," said he, '' for your majesty's inspection, some documents of great importance ; but, as I shall be obliged to trouble you to examine them in detail, I will not encroach upon the time of your majesty to-night, but will request your attention to-morrow morning.'" " To-morrow morning," repeated the queen, " to-morrow is Sunday, my lord." ** True, your majesty, but business of the state will not admit of delay." " I am aware of that," replied the queen, " and as of course your lordship could not have arrived earlier at the palace to- night, I will, if these papers are of such pressing importance, attend to their contents after church to-morrow morning." In the morning the queen and her court went to church, and, much to the surprise of the noble lord, the subject of the discourse was on the sacredness of the Christian Sabbath. "How did your lordship like the sermon?" said the queen. "Very much, indeed, your majesty," replied the nobleman. " Well then, " added her majesty, " I will not conceal from you that last night I sent the clergyman the text from which he preached. I hope we shall all be improved by the sermon," Not another word was said about the state papers during the day, but at night, when Victoria was about to retire, she said : — " To-morrow morning, my lord, at any hour you please, as early as seven if you like, we will look into the papers." c 14 QUEEN VICTORIA^ *' I cannot think," was the reply, " of intruding upon yo^ur majesty at so early an hour : nine o'clock will be quite early enough." " No, no, my lord, as the papers are of importance, I wish them to be attended to very early ; however, if you wish it to be nine, be it so." At nine o'clock the next morning the queen was seated at her table, ready to receive the nobleman and his papers. In 1838 her majesty was crowned. The splendour of that coronation will not readily be forgotten. It may be that this was far surpassed, and indeed it was, by George IV., who spent months in arranging the appropriate jewels for his crown, and the becoming shoe-ties for the royal footmen — but there was something in it that rendered it a far more memorable, and a far more gracious, spectacle. No white horse pranced in West- minster Hall, no herald rung out his defiance, no knight flung down his gage, but it needed no Dymoke to fight for the queen, for all hearts were her own already. It was a grand and solemn spectacle in that grand and solemn abbey, that has seen the beginning and the ending of so many monarchs, when, on the coronation day, the peers and peeresses of Eng- land were thronged within its ancient walls. The great officers of state, the prelates and high dignitaries assembled in the Jerusalem chamber (where Henry IV. died), and from thence adjourned to the deanery. There the regalia was committed to the charge of those whose noble names and high estate en- titled them to that high honour. , And through the crowded streets, all beautifully decorated, all grand and gay with flags and flowers, came the queen in solemn state, with all the splendour of a monarch, and accompanied by the representatives of foreign powers. Robed in queenly vestments, and gorgeously attended, her majesty proceeded to the choir, and grand and solemn truly QUEEN VICTORIA. 15 was it as the strains of music, glory to the God of heaven, rose up from the assembly. We need not here detail the coronation ceremony — how the queen was seated on the chair of recog- nition, the bishops standing on each side, the peers bearing the four swords, the sword of state being next to the royal person, how the bishops carried the Bible, the chalice and patina, while the archbishop proclaimed aloud, " I here pre- sent unto you Queen Victoria, the undoubted queen of this realm ; wherefore all you who are come to do her homage, are you willing this day to do the same ?" how loud acclaims replied to this demand, and how the sovereign presented the requisite offerings, the altar-cloth and ingot of gold ; how the regalia was placed on the altar, and the litany read by two bishops ; how the oaths were administered, and the full swell of the choir burst upon the ear in the anthem, " Zadoc the priest, and Nathan the prophet, anointed Solomon king ;" how the queen duly attended to the other ceremonies, and sat in the chair of the Confessor ; how the swords were then pre- sented, her majesty invested with the Dalmatian robe, the oath delivered, the ruby ring put on the right hand, and the sceptre given ; how the crown was then consecrated and placed on the monarch's head, while the trumpets sounded, the guns fired, the people shouted ; how the sacrament of the Lord's supper was then administered, and allegiance offered by the assembly,; suffice it that the queen was crowned, and that as the crown of England rested on the youthful brow of Vic- toria, the cry " God save the queen " was heard within the abbey, within — without, a cry caught up and echoed far and wide ! Mr. Dyraoke, as champion of England, claimed his gold cup and cover, and his claim was granted, though the piece of ancient etiquette was dispensed with. The privilege of the 16 QUEEN VICTORIA. championship was instituted by Eichard II., and a Dymoke has figured at every coronation since excepting the last two, and excepting also that of Edward IV. Present at the coronation was Prince Albert. He and his illustrious sire were perhaps the most popular of those who were gathered upon that occasion. It is more than probable that the marriage of the prince with her who was doubly his queen, was already in contemplation. When the prince re- turned from his Italian tour to the home of his father, the first thing that met his eye was a portrait of her majesty, which during his absence had been sent over for his acceptance by the queen. Then the matter began to get public. Special correspondents were dropping special hints, and the queen at last assembled her councillors and announced her intention to ally herself in marriage with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The magic circle of a wedding ring has charms even for royalty. "Deeply impressed," said the queen, "with the solemnity of the engagement I am about to contract, I have not come to this decision without mature consideration, nor without feeling a strong assurance that, with the blessing of Almighty God, it will at once secure my domestic felicity, and subserve to the interests of my crown and people." So in February, 1840, the queen was married. The ceremony was conducted in the Chapel Eoyal, St. James's ; the Archbishop of Canterbury officiating on the occasion, assisted by the Bishop of London. Amid the nation's joy the marriage was performed, and long be it ere the tie be dissolved at the bidding of one mightier than mailed baron or crowned king! When we think of white gloves all in a flutter, and orange blossoms tremulous with the excitement of the wearer, we are apt to associate them with something far different from royal dignity, but such things 'S^ QtEEN VICTORIA. If \^ill happen even in queen's palaces, and human hearts will learn to love even in royal courts. " Hear the mellow wedding bells — Golden bells ! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells ! Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight ; From the molten golden notes, And all in tune, What a liquid diity floats To the turtle dove that listens while she gloats, On the moon! " And the mellow wedding bells that rang for the queen's mar- riage never rang for a happier union ; they had foretold a world of happiness, and in many, many cases, where the happiness was never found, for youth married to age, for union between May and December, between gold and poverty, between cold hearts that never throbbed in fond delight at one another's presence ; but here they rang for something that was real, and true, and good, and lasting ! Their liquid ditty was no idle love song, no perishable promise, but as true as fond affection. His Serene Highness Prince Albert was born on the 26th of August, 1819, and received the first rudiments of his education in the castle of Erenburg. His father was one of the nume- rous honorary princes with which Germany abounds. Before the French invasion there were three hundred of these princi- palities. At the congress of Vienna, however, their number was reduced to thirty-eight. Besides its separation into states, Germany was divided by Winceslaus in 1307, and by Maxi- milian, in 1500, into nine grand sections, called circles. Of these two are comprised in Saxony, Upper and Lower. In Lower Saxony we find Coburg Gotha, a territory not very c 2 18 ' aUEEN VICTORIA. large, but very mucli improved since the accession of Prince Albert's family. It is the most southern of the Saxoii independent states, and is surrounded by Schwartzburg, Meiningen, Hildeburghausen, and Bavaria. The valley of the Itz forms the greatest part of its territory. The Thu- ringian mountains stretch along the northern boundary of Coburg, which is only about one-fourth larger than Eutland- shire, having an area of not quite 200 square miles in extent. Joined, however, to Gotha, the territory of the duke equals in size the county of Dorsetshire, having a surface of 1000 square miles. Much of this is covered by mountains and forest land. As to Prince Albert's family, we may briefly state that some of his ancestors were noticeable men. In the dimness that overhangs the days of Charlemagne we faintly perceive a Saxon chief named Wittekind, who for thirty years • defied that prince's power. From him sprang the race of which Prince Albert is a younger son. All readers of Luther's life know how he was befriended by the Electors of Saxony, Frederick '* the wise," John '*the constant," and John Fred- erick, " the magnanimous." Prince Albert boasts these men as his ancestors. Their blood floats in his veins ; still he is true to the faith they held. Not very long after the marriage of the queen to this illus- trious prince an attempt was made upon the life of her majesty. A young man named Oxford fired a pistol at the royal lady, being incited thereto by some political motives. Happily the queen escaped unhurt. The culprit was immediately arrested. Other attempts were afterwards at some interval made upon her life by Francis and Bean, and it is especially worthy of remark, that although the intention of the criminals could not be mistaken, and England's majesty was well beloved by all — mercy tempered justice. In the old time attempts upon the QTJEEN VICTORIA. 19 life of the sovereign brought down swift destruction on the oflfender. In other lands men were broken on the wheel, burnt at the stake, or torn to pieces by wild horses, and here in England a traitor's doom was terrible to contemplate. A word, a hint, an idle boast, in the days when good King George was king, would send a man to Tyburn in the Newgate cart, and make that most ominous of all abbreviated Latin — sus. per, col., a very direful reality ; aye, more than this, it would cut oflf the head, and quarter the carcase, and burn the heart, and make the most brutalizing display which legal sagacity well could make. But though there could be no doubt at all about the murderous intentions of those misguided men, in the case of Queen Victoria no blood was shed, and surely this tends highly to enhance the love of the people for her majesty. The popularity of the qaeen is very great, and the utmost enthusiasm has ever been exhibited wherever she has made her royal progress. To France, to Germany, to Scotland, to Ireland her majesty has gone amid the heartiest m^anifestations of applause and good feeling. A portion of nearly every year has been spent in the royal yacht, *' as beautiful a miniature a palace as ever floated on the ocean." During one of the royal visits to Scotland a little incident occurred which is worth re- lating. The graceful " Fairy," bearing the queen and the royal family, floated upon the bosom of a little bay, perfectly surrounded by innumerable boats of every kind from both sides of the strait, crowded with the inhabitants, eager to obtain a glance of the queen. Her majesty appeared deeply gratified with the spectacle, and responded in the most gracious manner to the enthusiastic plaudits of the people. One of the boats nearer to the royal yacht than the others was crowded with a gay company, and a gentleman arising addressed Lord Fitz- clarence, who had the command of her majesty's yacht, stating 20 atTEEN VICTORIA. that it would an inexpressible source of gratification to tlie assembled multitude could they be permitted to see the Prince of Wales. The desire being communicated to the queen, she arose, and taking her little boy by the hand led him to the side of the vessel. Lord Fitzclarence lifted the youthful Prince of Wales on to a side seat in full view of the assemblage. A tre- mendous cheering ensued. The little prince dressed in the attire of a British sailor, with blue jacket, white trousers, and nor'-wester, doffed his glazed hat and bowed his acknow- The queen never appears so happy as when, forgetting the dignities of royalty, and the cares of state, she is the loving wife and mother, the very model of an English matron, surrounded by her lovely offspring. Her family consists of eight children. This gives to the nation the pledge of a long succession, and security and permanence to the present dynasty. But far distant be the day when England shall need another monarch, far distant be the day when it shall be neces- sary for a successor to Victoria to occupy the British throne ! One event will ever give tone and character to the reign of the queen. The short reign of the first Mary is marked with blood, blood shed in the name of Christ; the period during which Elizabeth swayed the sceptre is memorable for great men and great deeds, great poets, philosophers, dramatists, divines, great warriors, politicians, senators and lawyers, great victories, and great discoveries — that time is known to all as the golden days of Good Queen Bess ; Mary II. is associated with the protestant liberties of England, and with the event so well known as the revolution of 1688 ; the glory of victory, battle after battle, triumph after triumph, rests on the days of Queen Anne. Every reign has a character of its own. That of Victoria is the brightest in all England's annals. Future QUEEN VICTORIA. 21 historians will have to tell in prose what the Laureate has already told so ably in poetry :— " Her court was pure ; her life serene ; God gave her peace ; her land reposed ; A thousand claims to reverence closed In her as mother, wife, and queen. She brought a vast design to pass. When Europe and the scattered ends Of our fierce world were mixed as friends And brethren in her halls of glass. And statesmen at her council met, Who knew the seasons when to take Occasion by the hand, and make The bounds of freedom broader yet, By shaping some august decree Which kept her throne unshaken still, Broad-based upon her people's will. And compassed by the inviolate sea." The Great Industrial Exhibition is the grandest event of modern times. It would almost seem as if the father of our English poetry, old GeofFry Chaucer, had foretold its coming in his " House of Fame." But for the real origin and realization of the magnificent undertaking we are indebted to the. noble consort of our gracious queen. Other exhibitions of industry had been held, but they were chiefly of a local, or at all events of a national character. A world-wide scheme was something nobler than these. It is no small thing to say that the note of preparation sounded first within the palace- walls of England, no small evidence of trustfulness in England's security the fact, that east and west, and north and south, responded to the invitation ; no small matter, that 22 QUEEN VICTORIA. inventive genius and untiring industry were set in motion by that invitation ; and no insignificant testimony to the peaceful progress of our age that the Crystal Palace should be thronged with the world's wealth. A great deal of opposition was occasioned by the scheme. All sorts of evils were freely prognosticated. One looked for a plague, another for a famine, a third for a rebellion, and a fourth for the establishment of Roman Catholicism. But, notwithstanding all opposition, the committee went on with their labour. Prince Albert, and Her Majesty, were deeply interested in its success. Paxton planned, builders built, till :— " A palace, as for fairy prince, A rare pavilion, such as man Saw never since mankind began, To build and glaze — " uprose on Rotten Row. The queen had watched the progress of the work. She had been present as iron girders, and the mighty net-work spread over the green sward ; she had been there when arrival after arrival came pouring in, and the palace began to present the bright and glorious appearance which it afterwards fully assumed ; and when all was ready, and expectation was on tiptoe, and every body asked every body what every body thought of the great glass hive, and newspapers were full of on diis about the coming show, and books about the Olympiad of labour were advertised in every imaginable shape, and in bright prismatic colours caught the eye from afar ; then it was announced that Queen Victoria would in person open the Crystal Palace. It was a grand day when Elizabeth, with all the fire of her father Henry, addressed the troops at Tilbury ; it was a grand and solemn sight when, every year, Queen Anne went to St. Paul's Cathedral, to render QUEEN VICT0R14. 28 tiianks for the victories of Marlborough ; but these occasions fade into insignificance when compared with Victoria in the Crystal Palace. Between the occasions a wondrous difference existed — not the difference of time and place alone, but the manifestation of a different spirit. Elizabeth and Anne alike represented the genius of war. In the great fiery words of Queen Bess there was something that seemed to make men count their manhood cheap, if they were not disposed to wield a lance or grasp a falchion's hilt ; and in the prayers and praises of Queen Anne for the victories of the great duke, there is nothing very holy, pure, or estimable. Victoria, in the world's great gathering, indicated another spirit — the spirit of peace, of progress, of prosperity, the spirit of homage to labour and to the hands that labour, and to the God who hath decreed that man shall eat bread in the sweat of his face. There was in it the promise of a new era, of a good time coining, of a period when the rose and the lily should be bound together with the silken cord of love ; when the olive branch should be upraised above the laurel, when, in the words of the Book, the sword should be beaten into a plough-share, and the spear into a pruning hook. A grand day it was when the palace was opened. A glorious first of May. The sun came out in more than May-day splendour ; and everybody that could possibly doit, so it seemed, hied away to Hyde park, to see the queen and her well-loved husband ride to the opening of the world's fair. How crowded were the streets, how thronged each avenue that led westtvard ; what hundreds and hundreds of carriages, what crowds upon crowds, colours upon colours, in endless variety and unceasing continuance ; what joyous shouts, rending the air and mingling with the joyous sounds of the bells that wagged and wavered like the world below. And yet it was not alone a grand ^4 QtTEEX VICTORIA. pageant ; it was not alone a grand spectacle ; it was not alone the splendour of the carriages that bore her majesty and suite to the Crystal Palace — it was something more than display that had brought the throng together. It was something higher, nobler, better than this. For a queen to open the Crystal Palace was a high and noble tribute to industry. Within the walls of glass, where all was bright and beautiful, every thing told of the workman's skill — here in ores dug from the earth, treasures brought out of the dusky mine ; here in great glass fountains, here in masses of rainbow- coloured silks, here in precious stoneSjhere in Canadian timber, here in exquisitely-proportioned statues, and here in dyes and pigments, salts and acids. Amid all this, teaching the truth that labour is paramount to every thing, the royal party appeared, and at noon, on the same ^rst of May, the great organs in the galleries swelled out the anthem " God save the Queen." With the voice of prayer and praise the Crystal Palace was opened, and the Exhibition was then proclaimed by sound of trumpet. To describe the scene is no easy task. " The occasion was entirely novel. Its whole character was unique. The first feeling was that of being overwhelmed with a sense of vastness ; our next an unusual ruffle of delight at being surrounded with such radiations of dazzling beauty, and such masses of artistic grandeur ; then came a dizzy admiration of the fairy-like enchantment, which seemed to endow one with a power familiar to our dreams, of gliding smoothly and rapidly over continents, islands, mountains, seas, blending in fantastic groups the ages of the past with the day that was passing, and mingling the spirit of the times gone by with the higher and nobler hopes of the times that are rapidly drawing on. The perfect solitude of whole regions of the building was in almost petrifying con- trast with the marvellous crowds of both sexes, and of remote A-^ J}ra;vyn.^ -En^nxyed' ^ Jt^Jto^^ik-- ip:e:ih€1SS ji©TAi QUEEN VICTORIA. 25 nations that were pressing and thronging near the transept, ancf down the front of the nave, to witness the inauguration and the royal procession. As the hour of noon approached, the whole multitudinous assembly appeared to have settled down into a quiet but intense consciousness of being about to see something, for the first and for the last time in the heat and crisis of the world's civilization. Then the distant hum of hundreds of thousands of good-humoured people forming a larger company outside ; the boom of the cannon ; the blast of the trumpets ; the full swell of pealing organs, and a thou- sand voices in sweet yet thundering harmony. Then a hush — a solemn prayer. Then the queen leaning on the arm of Prince Albert, each of them leading a blooming child ; and the gentle and courteous loyalty with which the endless rows of elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen smiled and wept, and waved their hats and handkerchiefs as the beautiful pageant passed before them, while organ after organ took up the national anthem. We scarcely think there was one person in that wonderful congregation who did not feel, for a while, that he was in a temple rather than a palace — the opening of the Exhibition was worthy of the Exhibition itself." We have said that before the success of the Great Exhibition was certain the queen felt a deep interest in the attempt, and anxiously observed the progress made with iron pillars and glass walls. As soon as it was opened, and the success was no longer doubtful, her majesty commenced a careful examination of its contents. She visited the Crystal Palace nearly every day. Freely conversing with the exhibitors themselves she heard the explanations they had to offer concerning their various productions. Again and again she passed through the multitudes when the glass hive was thronged, — a thing that raonarchs have not always dared to do — but Victoria, D 26 ' QUEEN VICTORIi\. beloved by all, knows no fear, and needs no guards. In the gallery, on the first shilling day, with pleasurable emotion she watched her people, as they flowed into the broad transept, and long narrow nave. On the 9th of July, 1851, there were great doings in the city of London. A splendid entertainment was given by the Lord Mayor, in the Guildhall, in honour of the world's fair, and the queen was present. Never was queen so universally beloved. The vivas which attend her progress, are not the simulated plaudits of a people ruled by fear and force. Peer and peasant alike do homage to the virtue which is clothed in the royal purple ; and her majesty is the same ji^racious lady in the noble mansion of her proudest lord, and the humble cottage of some labouring peasant. In her journeying -through her empire the queen Very often visits the poor residents in the neighbourhood where she for a time remains. Many anecdotes are told of her charity and goodness, and many a prayer has been offered for the gracious lady, when her royal dignity was altogether unknown. An amusing story is told of her majesty, with her royal husband, and one or two of the nobility, rambling in the highlands, delighted with the grandeur of the mountain scenery, and wandering so far that at last they were glad to rest in a neat cottage by the way side. After partaking of some milk and oaten cake, and sitting for about half an hour, they arose to depart, but not one of them had wherewithal to pay the reckoning ; the queen directed one of the gentlemen to give the gude wife a pound ; but he had none with him, and so it was with the rest ; the queen burst into a laugh, saying it was truly a strange royal party, they had not one sovereign among the whole. The queen evinces upon all occasions the utmost firmness of THE PRINCESS ROYAL. 27 character. She attends to the various busmess of the day with the strictest regularity. When the fire broke out at "Windsor Castle she exhibited no alarm, but remained close at hand till all danger was over. In the domestic bearing of her majesty, all may see, what Britons love to see, that their sovereign is not only their queen, but the first lady and matron in the land.' We must seek for the reason of the popularity of the queen in the manifestation of those virtues and attain- ments, and powers, which win no mean place for the pos- sessors of them in private life. THE PRINCESS EOYIL Has already given evidence of the same character and disposition which have made her royal mother at once so much respected and esteemed. She is the eldest of the family, and was born on the 21st of November, 1840. Her royal highness was baptized under the name of Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa. We cannot doubt that an education superintended as it is by one herself so well instructed as her majesty, should end in the formation of a character at once pure, dignified, and amiable ; and we have every reason to expect that the princess royal, and the other royal children, will become a great blessing and happiness to England. Blessed is the court where virtue dwells, and immoveable is that throne which is established in righteousness. MKS, ELIZABETH FEY. THE FEMALE HOWARD. The name of Mrs. Elizabeth Fry is one which demands uni- versal respect and esteem. Her useful labours and untiring per- severance, her unaffected gentleness and constancy ; her unpre- tending piety, and zeal, need no eulogy, but commend them- slves to all right thinking minds. We proceed at once to tell the story of her life. She was the third daughter of the late John Gurney, of Earl- ham Hall, near Norwich, and was born in the year 1780. When very young she was deprived by death of her mother, and was thus, at an early age, left, in a great degree, to her own guid- ance. Her education included the chief branches of useful learn- ing, and the tenets of the Society of Friends became her religious principles. Her mind was remarkably emotional. She wept with those that wept, and rejoiced with those that rejoiced ; the strength of her affections and the vivacity of her manners, en- hanced the pleasure and soothed the cares of those about her. Philanthropy was the distinguishing feature of her character, and she soon found out that the secret of being happy one's-self is to make others happy, that there is a luxury in doing good, and that virtue brings its own reward. As yet she was a stranger to real religion. She was bene- volent, but it was not the love of Christ that constrained her. She was still attached to the pleasures of the world, and in the centre of some gay and sprightly circle appeared to discover the utmost enjoyment. Her attractive person, her amiable disposition, MRS. ELIZABETH FRY. 29 her well educated mind, lier tenderness and affability, rendered Ler universally beloved, so that her society was courted and her companionship sought. But sickness came, and in the silent chamber, in the long, long v;eary hours, Elizabeth Fry underwent a great change. She saw the instability of all created good ; how the soul, made in God's image, required something more than earth could give, and it was then that she became deeply serious, and v/hen her recovery permitted it, and she listened to the persuasive ministry of William Savery, her affections were taught to flow in a new direction, and far above all love of human kind she learned to love the Friend that sticketh closer than a brother, and with those same affec- tions sanctified, and given fresh impulse by love to Christ, en- gaged more actively than ever in every work of faith, and every labour of love. In more senses than one there are thousands and thousands in the world who are dead while they live. We measure life by life's employment. It is possible to make a very short life of an existence extended to the duration of Methuselah's, and to crowd a long, long life into a few fleeting years. Those who exist without a purpose may be said rather to vegetate than live. We live when our life is spent for something, some mark to which we press, some object which we seek, some great design we contemplate. And what can be a nobler occu- pation than that of raising the fallen, comforting the wretched, saving the lost ? To sucli a purpose Elizabeth Fry devoted her energies. She united herself to the Society of Friends, adopted their plain dress, and simple mode of speech. She was now more than ever the comfort of the home circle ; reli- gion did not, as some shallow thinking people say it does, dis- qualify for the endearments of life. At the age of twenty she married Joseph Fry, of London, and settled in a coramo- D 2 30 MRS. ELIZABETH FRY. dious house connected with her husband's business in the heart of the metropolis. The good daughter, the loving sister, makes the best wife and mother. To her widowed father, and ten beloved brothers and sisters, Mrs. Fry had been the source of unspeakable happiness, and in her new domestic relations she exhibited the same gentleness and tender care. New scenes of interest and duty awaited her. She became the mother of a numerous family. But she was still assiduous in her efforts to ameliorate the condition of her fellow-creatures. She was eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, and the case which she knew not she searched out. In the Society of Friends females are permitted to become speakers or preachers. Those who minister, say they, do so under the immediate influence of the spirit of God. That spirit, as the wind, bloweih where it listeth, and women are thus often led to proclaim the word of the Lord. Miriam responded to the song of Moses, Deborah uttered her psalm of praise, Hannah, in the temple, poured forth her thanksgivings, Hul- dah prophesied to King Josiah, Hannah spoke of Christ to all that looked for redemption in Israel, the daughters of Philip prophesied or preached, to Priscilla all the churches gave thanks, women were fellow-labourers with the apostle Paul, and when at the Pentecost, the spirit was poured forth on the disciples, men and women were collected together and were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and spake as the Spirit gave them utterance, so fulfilling the old prediction that in the latter days the sons and the daughters should prophesy. Right or wrong, and the objections urged from the language of the apostle are certainly strong, language that requires women to keep silence in the churches, and sufi'ers not a woman to teach — such is the doctrine of Quakers, and holding such doctrine, Mrs. Elizabeth Fry became a minister of the Society of Friends. MRS. ELIZABETH FRY. 31 The funeral of her father was the first occasion when she pub- licly addressed an assembly, and those who heard her were greatly affected and edified. But her labours were not to be confined to the meeting-house, she had another way of preach- ing the gospel ; she loved the gospel, and her earnest faithful devotion to the cause of true charity, her self-denying exer- tions for the benefit of those who were this world's castaways, spoke more forcibly than any platform eloquence. She was often engaged in gospel missions to various parts of England, and subsequently to a large extent, in Scotland, Ireland, and on the Continent of Europe. Hospitals, prisons, and lunatic asylums were always visited by her when engaged in these missions. She possessed re- markable skill in adapting her words to the capacity of all. For the children at the school-house she had so pleasant and kind a way that their hearts leapt up with gladness ; she carried consolation to the sufferer stretched on the sick bed, and the corrupt and hardened criminal would hang her head and weep when the gentle tones and loving words of her who came in the name of a gentle and a loving master, fell on the ear. The leading object of Mrs. Fry, however, was the ame- lioration of the condition of the prisoners in our goals. Busy, bustling traffic was outside Newgate walls, people passed and repassed, each man and woman on their own errand, with hopes and fears, and joys and sorrows, and none thought of those who languished within the walls. The condition of the female prisoners in Newgate was frightful. That portion of the pri- son which was allotted to them, presented a scene of the wild- est disorder. Mrs. Fry heard of it. They were wretched, miserable, and poor, they were sunken in sin and pollution, all the better feelings of their nature dead within them, gam- bling, lying, drinking, swearing, fighting, surrounded by filth 32 MRS. ELIZABETH FRY. and corruption ; but they were women. Mrs. Fry resolved to visit them. She was not to be turned from her purpose. She was not one of those whose charity must always be scented with rose water. The turnkey warned her that her purse, her watch, even her life would be endangered, but she resolved to go and to go alone. So she entered the goal, and was locked up with the disorganized multitude. She spoke in her dignified, gentle, powerful way, and as she spoke their fury was calmed and their attention fixed. Her visits were again and again repeated. She pointed out the sin and folly of their course, but it was not done in the spirit of fault finding ; she proposed to them a variety of rules for the regulation of their conduct, and to these they gave their hearty consent, for Mrs. Fry never assumed the character of patron or censor ; she was content to earn the name of Friend. Her first visit was remarkably interesting. She was shewn into an apartment containing about 160 unhappy women, all gazing upon her with the utmost amazement. "You seem unhappy," said Mrs. Fry, '' you are in want of clothes : would you be pleased if some one were to come and relieve your misery ?" " Certainly," they replied, " but nobody cares for us, and where can we expect to find a friend?" " I am come with a wish to serve you," she resumed, " and I think if you second my endeavours, I may be of use to you." She spoke the language of peace, and when she was about to de- part the women thronged around her. "You will never, never come again !" said they. " I will come again," she answered, and kept her word. The condition of the prisoners was truly deplorable. In two wards and two cells, comprising about one hundred and ninety superficial square yards, three hundred females were at that time confined- — the tried and the untried — in the eye of MRS. ELIZABETH FRY. 33 the law the guilty and the guiltless were thus thronged toge- ther, some to pass out on a verdict of acquittal, some to die a felon's death. They were associated together without distinc- tion or classification. In these confined precincts they saw their friends, and kept their multitudes of children ; and they had no other place for cooking, washing, or sleeping. They slept on the floor without so much as a mat to cover them. The women were chiefly engaged in playing at cards or reading improper books, or begging at the gratings, others busily era- ployed in the mysteries of fortune telling, and others still more busy in the art and mystery of pilfering. They complained that they had nothing to do, and that idle- ness led them to sin, so that almost the first effort of Mrs. Fry was to provide for them employment. But great obstacles presented themselves. At her second visit she proposed to es- tablish a school for the benefit of their children. In this they heartily concurred ; they were wretched abandoned women ; but they had still something of maternal love. Mrs. Fry requested that they should appoint a schoolmistress. This she left en- tirely to them. At her next visit they had selected an intelli- gent young female, who behaved with signal propriety. Her conduct did credit to their discernment. The next was to obtain a place appropriate for the school. Upon the application of Mrs. Fry the authorities stated that they could not find any vacant spot suitable for her purpose, but at last an unused cell was discovered in which the school was commenced. A com- mittee of ladies was appointed, who united very earnestly in the benevolent exertions of the founder. All this could not be accomplished without great opposition. No great or good work ever was done without a struggle. There are always stumbling-blocks in the way of progress. When it was pro- posed to introduce some description of work, the idea was re- 34 MRS. El^IZABETH FRY. garded as visionary and unpromising. Many objections were urged, many shook their heads and said it would inevitably fail, but the zealous expunge impossible from their vocabulary, and can do all things strengthened from on high. Mrs. Fry proposed to establish certain rules ; the women gave the most positive assurances that they would implicitly obey, and at last a meeting was held in one of the wards, at which the rules were read and put to the vote, and those of the prisoners who had any disinclination to any particular rule were requested freely to state their opinions. The rules appointed a matron, and engaged that the women should be employed in knitting, needlework, or other suitable occupation ; that everything conducive to immorality or profanity should be banished, that the prisoners should be divided into classes, and a monitor appointed to each class. That the greatest cleanliness and re- gularity should be observed ; that twice a day the Scriptures should be read. The rules were agreed to, and the experiment succeeded beyond all expectation. The Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs, and the Aldermen attended, and were astonished at the change which had taken place. What had been described as a " hell upon earth," now presented the appearance of an industrious manufactory or a well-regulated family. Mrs. Fry was loaded with praise, but it was not praise she sought, and perhaps the best eulogium that was ever passed upon her was the saying of a hardened criminal won to virtue by the power of love. — " God bless her and the day she came to Newgate ; she has done us all good, and we have, and shall always have, reason to bless her." But Mrs. Fry's labours extended beyond Newgate. An extensive correspondence was carried on between her and many benevolent persons in various parts of the United Kingdom. She sought the happiness of the unhappy, and MRS. ELIZABETH FRY. 35 exerted herself to communicate that knowledge which sets the spirit free. Although unable to undertake the office of missionary to all prisons, she visited many, and personally originated philanthropic institutions similar to that of the British Ladies' Society in London. In Scotland the condition of the prisons was very deplorable. At the gaol in Glasgow she requested permission to speak to the female prisoners, and after some delay was allowed to do so. She was shewn into a large room where about a hundred had assembled, and taking off her bonnet, sat down in the front of the women. Every eye was fixed upon her. " I had better just tell you," she said, in her mild persuasive voice, " what we are come about." So she told them she had had to deal with a great number of poor women, sadly wicked, more wicked than any who were there, and how they had been recovered from evil, and brought back into the paths of rectitude. She read to them the rules, asking them if they approved to hold up their hands. Every hand was upheld. Tears were shed. Visible emotion was on every countenance ; and the whole fairly wept when Mrs. Fry read the parable of the lost sheep. Then, in her peculiarly sweet tones, like the voice of a mother to a suffering child, she prayed that the good shepherd might bring home his wander- ing sheep. Great success attended the labours of Mrs. Fry in Scotland, and her tour in Ireland was likewise highly beneficial. Cases of individual reform might be stated, being both interesting and numerous, but we shall not here dwell upon them. Christianity, the basis of all the reform which Mrs. Fry designed in prison discipline, is tlfe only true source of a radical renovation of character. In its practical and vital power it was brought to bear upon the minds of the prisoners. 36 MRS. ElIZABETH FRY. Order, cleanliness, and industry, although positively insisted upon, were only regarded as the auxiliaries of the religious instruction communicated, and results of the happiest kind were repeatedly witnessed. Another department of usefulness to which Mrs. Fry directed her attention was that of the convict ships. The condition of those vessels was known to be bad, but inquiry brought to light appalling facts in connection with them. Under the kind and judicious suggestions of Mrs. Fry and her associates admirable regulations were introduced. The good resulting from their introduction was acknowledged again and again by the colonial authorities. Care was now taken that the women should be removed as humanely as possible, and not heavily ironed as had heretofore been the case ; that mothers should not be separated from their children, until those children were old enough to be weaned ; that proper air and exercise should be permitted on board ship ; that a schoolmistress should be provided to instruct the untaught, and that a chaplain should be appointed to see to the religious welfare of the convicts. They were allowed to take with them those little articles which are so necessary and useful for the voyage, and the result of it all was that the conduct of the women was greatly improved, and that their behaviour in the settlements afforded evidence of the benefit which they had derived therefrom. Mrs. Fry in these efforts was enunciating a great principle, which the English law-makers appeared to have forgotten, namely, that all punishment should have a correctional character, and should never partake of vengeance. Her efforts were directed to the prisoners as those who were morally diseased ; she regarded the prison as a hospital ; and to effect a cure instead of inflicting penalties was the great aim of her life. The system of assignment, Painted ^y \T. DoiaH ^-2/ MRS. ELIZABETH FRY. 37 a system near akin to slavery, and calculated to plunge tlie convicts deeper and deeper into disgrace and criminality, was discontinued. Penitentiaries were erected, where the women remained for six months under moral and religious instruction, and were then placed in service, with their own consent, and under certain regulations, designed to secure them as far as possible from falling into the hands of those who might lead them astray. *' Charity," saith the proverb, "begins at home." But it does not end there. The philanthropy of Mrs. Fry was not circumscribed by the British dominions. Foreign prisons were included in her benevolent regard. Bad as English prisons were, foreign prisons were far worse. Here there was indifference, there direct cruelty was practised. We give one or two instances. In the prisons of one of the ancient castles of Transylvania, the prisoners were laid on their backs every night, with their legs in the stocks, so that they could not turn. The instruments of torture consisted of rods, whips, sticks for bastinadoing the feet, and a heavy wooden collar for women. The state prison at Munich was for political offenders only. Tiiere one prisoner had been in a cell by himself six years. If a charge was made to which the accused could not, or would not reply, or give any expla- nation, they were whipped after the fashion of the torture question in the old Spanish inquisition. Women were fre- quently submitted to this cruelty. And all this before trial. Alas ! throughout the Austrian dominions the same unjust and brutalising practices are to a great extent still continued, but elsewhere the labours of Mrs. Fry were attended with much usefulness. At Paris an association of ladies was formed to visit the prison of St Lazare, a very large establishment were women only were confined. Throughout France the diligent E 38 MRS. ELIZABETH FRY, exertions of the benevolent English lady brought about a great reform, and the whole system of management was vastly improved. At Gonda, near Rotterdam, and at Amster- dam, committees of ladies were formed, and the prisons regu- larly visited. In Germany, prison discipline underwent extensive alteration, and at Geneva the most important changes were effected. Russian prisons were not forgotten, and Russian philanthropy was excited and much good done, much that ameliorated the condition of the convicts, and made punishment to possess much more of a reform- atory character than it previously had done. The work of mercy was carried on in America, and the zeal of those who first responded to the appeal from England was heartily seconded by the co-operation of the authorities. When Mrs. Fry visited Denmark, in 1841, the prisons were in a very wretched condition. In one of them, the only portion of a Bible which could be found, was part of the Old Testament in Hebrew, belonging to a Jew. The countenances of the prisoners seemed Jto have become brutalized. The women were locked up in solitary cells under the care of soldiers. Soon, however, a change was effected. The prisons were enlarged, the prisoners classified, and women took care of their own sex. A minister was devoted to the charge of the spiritual care of the prisoners, and religious books were furnished for their instruction. At Paris, a refuge was formed for those who sought to leave a life of crime and shame. It was visited by Mrs. Fry in the spring of 1842, when the number of penitents, as the poor women were styled, amounted to fifteen. They were received from all parts of France, and the time fixed for their continuance in the institution was two years. The benevolent mind of Mrs. Fry was ever actively em- MRS. ELIZABETH FRY. 39 ployed. In visiting transport ships she had been led to con- sider the arduous and self- denying labours of the coast-guard, and the condition of British seamen. She visited with peculiar pleasure the great establishments in our sea-ports. The naval hospitals, at Plymouth and Haslar, deeply interested her, but she judged those noble institutions to be incomplete, as they possessed no books for the use of the invalids. She at once sought to supply what she considered wanting, and to establish libraries for the use of the inmates. Her efforts met v/ith opposition. It was urged that the books were not only unnecessary but calculated to be injurious. But Mrs. Fry persisted in her original intention, and at last the Admiralty gave their consent, and books were supplied. The coast-guard, a noble but sadly-neglected class of men, attracted her attention and aroused her sympathy. She formed the magnificent design of supplying every station with a choice library of entertaining and religious books. The question of funds was serious. It would cost <£ 1,500 to supply five hundred stations. But it must be done. The government granted £500 ; subscriptions were obtained, and ere long the cherished desire of the noble-hearted lady was accomplished. But the matter did not end here. Books became essential, they were regarded as necessary to the good order and well-being of British seamen, and after a grave deliberation the Lords of the Admiralty resolved that a library should be provided for every ship of war. In the summer of 1843 Mrs. Fry spent a few weeks in Paris for the last time. Soon after her return home her health became enfeebled, and she grew so alarmingly ill that the solicitude of all who loved her was painfully awakened. In the following year she had so far recovered as to visit Bath, in the hope of deriving relief from its far-famed hot springs. 40 MRS. ELIZABETH FRY. But the end was at hand. Her labours were still continued, so far as her failing health would allow, and no opportunity was permitted to escape her of doing good or speaking peace. When in 1845 she resided at Ramsgate, she was repeatedly engaged in acceptable religious service at the Friends' meeting-house. She took great pains in disseminating bibles and tracts among the crews of foreign and other vessels which frequented the harbour. " We must work," said she, " while it is called to-day." Daily her health declined, and it became more and more evident that her pilgrimage was nearly ended. On the 11th of October, after a day or two of considerable suffering and debility, she was attacked with pressure on the brain. She sank under the stroke. Falling into a deep slumber, she became totally unconscious, which state, notwithstanding some severe convulsions, continued almost without inter- mission until the 13th, when she quietly drew her last breath. She died in her sixty-sixth year. Her decease produced an extraordinary sensation. A great public loss had been sustained. The flags were lowered half- mast high. The funeral took place on Monday, October the 20th, in the Friends' burying ground at Barking in Essex. Though she could not be numbered with the very aged, hers was a LONG LIFE. Her philanthropic labours were acknow- ledged on all hands. She was a warm and steady friend of the oppressed ; earnest in every good word and work. The law of love was on her lips ; she was a kind friend, an affectionate mother, a loving wife, an ardent admirer of nature, a rare specimen of renovated and sanctified humanity, and one of whom the joyful assurance may be entertained that at last it shall be said, " Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. I was in prison, and ye visited Me." QUEEN ELIZABETH. Wonderful days were those of Queen Elizabeth. Herreign was the era of great organic changes. Old things were passing away, all things were becoming new. The Elizabethan period forms the centre of a wide circumference. Political and eccle- siastical institutions were assuming a novel character, science and literature were developing their hidden resources, and while navigators discovered new lands, and philosophers uttered new truths, poetry came with a new and bewitching enchant- ment, adding fresh lustre to the golden times of the good Queen Bess. " Good Queen Bess !" echoes a crabbed philosopher ; *' and in what did her benignity consist ? Was not her rule a rule absolute ? did she not pour out the treasure of her country and the blood of her people ? were not her laws arbitrary, and their enforcement severe ? did she not shackle men's souls as well as men's bodies ? and did not they of other creeds roast at the stake and swing at Tyburn ? was she not as fickle as the wind, uncertain, coy, and hard to please ? did not the German traveller count on the bridge gate, London, thirty human heads blackening and rotting in the sun? and has he not recorded it, that all future ages may know of the tender mercies of the virgin queen ?" '* Golden times ! " saith another ; " why not iron, lead, or, better still, brazen times, than the purest metal that the earth can give? Was not the gold alloyed with baser stuff? was there any gold in it at all ? was it not as fanciful a gold as that E 2 42 QUEEN ELIZABETH. of alchemical inquiry ? had it the^ true ring of metal ? was it not the currency of a doubtful coinage ? As to religion, were not wandering sheep driven into the fold of the church with violence and force, like sheep into the pens at Smithfield mar- ket ? Did not legal sagacity recognize a right divine of kings ? Was not literature sacrificed on the altar of patronage ? Were not the most extravagant stories related and believed of far- oif countries ? and was it not stated by the renowned author of the ' Novum Organum,' that a basin of moonbeans would cure warts ?" True, quite true, most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors ; but in all these objections there is a great principle involved, an hypothesis as wrong as bigotry, and something that it were well to challenge at once. Rightly to understand the charac- ters of those whom history has immortalized, it is essentially necessary that we be in imagination transported to the period at which they lived, in order that we study their biography with a sympathetic mind. We are too apt to regard the people of the past, as we do the people of the present ; to translate distant ages into the dialect of our own ; to measure antiquity by a modern standard, and to judge of characters by the morality and religion of the nineteenth century ; to ascribe motives and designs to ancient characters, which have no more fitness than to represent their persons in our costume. Gar- rick played Macbeth in a court suit with a bag wig and ruffles, but this could not possibly convey any idea of the Thane of Glamis. A Dutch painter presents us with a painting of the offering up of Isaac, and places pistols in the girdle of the patriarch, but every body knows it to be a great blunder. Just so it is with heroes and heroines of history, we make them think as we think, and feel as we feel — as Shakespeare makes people talk about cannon in the days of Edward the QUEEN ELIZABETH. 43 Confessor ; or we condemn tliera because they did not think and feel then as doubtless they would now have done. Instead of this, we should cast ourselves into the midst of their period, should enter into its passions and excitements, should take into consideration all the surrounding circumstances, and notice the grand governing activities of their time. Thus viewed, the reign of Elizabeth, and the golden days which made up that period, present a new aspect. It was a period of transition. Society was entering on the race of intellectual and social im- provement. Mind was bursting its fetters. Religion was rising from the grave. It had been argued that an antipodes was impossible, that if so the people must walk with their heels upwards and their heads hanging down, that everything must be topsy-turvy, trees with their branches growing down- wards, rain, hail, and snow rising upward — but navigation had exploded these follies. Theologians had been attempting to solve the problem of how many angels could stand on a needle's point; moral philosophers were discussing the question whether a lie, under certain circumstances, was not truth ; chemical investigations were carried on to discover the water of immortality, and that miraculous stone which should trans- mute all baser metals into gold. All these things clouded the intellectual horizon, but they were the precursors of the morn- ing. We do not complain that it is not always noon-day ; we do not sigh over saplings, nor shed tears over buds ; we do not condemn the butterfly because it was once a grub, nor sneer at the strong man because he was once a feeble child ; but we have a way of condemning the past because that past was not so wise as the present ; we know more, we see fur- ther, we understand more fully ; a dwarf standing on a giant's shoulder sees further than the giant. We have said enough by way of vindication, and so begin our brief sketch of " the fair vestal throned in the west." 44 QUEEN ELIZABETH. A gay and splendid court was tliat of Henry YIIT., and a gay and splendid man was that monarch; half priest, half sol- dier, but priest and soldier merged in the lover. His first marriage continued for a long, long season, until the sovereign heart was smitten with the charms of the gentle Anne Boleyn, a lady in waiting at the court, with whom he resolved to share his crown and dignity. There were great obstacles in his way, barriers that seemed almost insurmountable ; but what is there that can overcome a lover's ardent passion, especially when that lover sways a sceptre and wears a crown ? His first marriage was annulled. Catherine of Arragon was no longer queen, but then England was no longer catholic ; that matrimonial separation had brought about another separation, namely, that of England from Rome, and whereas the king had been employing his scholastic skill to put down the noisy monk of Wittenberg, he now himself began to recognize the teachings of the new faith. Anne Boleyn was a protestant ; Henry united himself to her and her faith. In 1533 a daugh- ter was born to him and named Elizabeth. He had another daughter by his former marriage, named Mary, a daughter who was trained and taught in Rome's discipline, as Elizabeth was in that of the Reformers. The birth of Elizabeth is thus quaintly recorded by the contemporary historian. Hall : — " On the 7th day of Septem- ter, being Sunday between three and four o'clock in the after- noon, the queen was delivered of a faire ladye, on which day the' Duke of Norfolk came home to the christening." The room in which the young princess first saw the light, was hung with tapestry, depicting the history of the holy virgins, and was on this account called the Chamber of the Virgins. "When the queen her mother, who had eagerly anticipated a son, was told that she had given birth to a daughter, she endeavoured QUEEN ELIZABETH. 45 with ready tact to attach adventitious importance to her infant, by saying to the ladies in attendance: — "They may now with reason call this room, the Chamber of the Virgins, for a virgin is now born in it on the vigil of that auspicious day on which the church commemorates the nativity of the Virgin Mary." Heywood also, a zealous protestant by the way, intimates that the young princess was under the special protection of the Virgin from the hour of her birth, and for that cause devoted to a maiden life : — " The Lady Elizabeth," says he, " was bora on the eve of the Virgin's nativity, and died on the eve of the Virgin's annunciation, — even that she is now in heaven, with all those blessed virgins that had oil in their lamps." Jewelled crowns sometimes turn out no better than crowns of thorns. It was so with Anne Boleyn. A fairer than she, or one whose beauty seemed more fair to the royal suitor, eclipsed the gentle woman altogether. Anne was accused of the highest crimes. Adversity came upon her like a Russian winter. There was no hope. Courtiers, and priests, and lawyers, were so many marionettes in the hands of the king. She was tried, and condemned to be burnt or beheaded, as the king thought fit. He chose the latter, and the unhappy woman was executed in the Tower green, and sleeps the sleep of death in the Tower chapel. Elizabeth was educated in the principles of the reformed faith, the faith her father held, the faith in which her mother died. Henry united himself to Jane Seymour ; by her he had a son, named Edward, who afterwards succeeded to the throne. The numerous marriages of King Henry involved his subjects in great perplexity and danger, for while by one statute it was declared treason to assert the validity of the king's marriage either with Catherine of Arragon or Anne Boleyn ; by another it was treason to say anything to the disparagement or slander 46 QUEEN ELIZABETH. of the princesses Mary and Elizabeth ; and to call them spu- rious, would consequently have been construed to their slander. Nor would even a profound silence with regard to these delicate points, excuse a person from such penalties. For by the for- mer statute, v/hoever refused to answer upon oath to any point contained in that act, incurred the penalties of treason, so that in fact every body was liable to a traitor's death ; to say any- thing, would give occasion for a long cord and a short shrift ; to say nothing, would place him in the same uncomfortable circumstances. When Henry the Eighth made his will, he bequeathed the crown first to Edward, then to the Lady Mary, then to Elizabeth ; and the two princesses were obliged, under the penalty of forfeiting their rights to the throne, not to marry without the consent of the privy council. Throughout the protestant reign of Edward, the boy who perished in his prime, Mary continued to adhere to the Church of Rome, and absolutely refused to observe the established form of worship. On this account Edward burst into tears ; but tears would not melt the stern lady, and as he was not suffered by his coun- cillors to resort to extremities, his sister still enjoyed her liberty of conscience. On the death of Edward, Lady Jane Grey, whose sad story we have to tell, was proclaimed, but ere many days had passed resigned the crown to Mary. Then came the period of persecution. Fires blazed in Smithfield, — fires fed by earnest-minded men who died for their faith. Amid all the scenes of that short and terrible reign, the Lady Elizabeth maintained her zealous attachment to the protestant religion. Mary conceived for her the most implacable hatred, and persecuted her with the most unrelenting cruelty. She had always disliked that princess on account of the ancient quarrel between their mothers ; and now, as the parliament QUEEN ELIZABETH. 47^ had declared in favour of Henry's first marriage, she was furnished with a plausible pretence for representing^her sister as illegitimate. Elizabeth was subjected to a great many insults and indignities. These required a considerable amount of patience to endure. She was ordered to take place at court after the Lady Lennox, and the Duchess of Sussex, as if she was not the legitimate issue of the royal blood ; her friends were neglected and discouraged on every occasion ; and her many eminent virtues and endowments, while they recommended her to the esteem and affection of the people, tended only to inflame the jealousy and envy of Mary, who treated her with so much cruelty that she resolved to retire into the country. She was a king's daughter, but the finger of scorn was pointed at her ; she possessed rare talents, but they could not disarm prejudice and distrust ; and while Mary only sought an opportunity to bring upon her utter desolation, circumstances occurred which gave occasion for open accusation. The queen was about to form a matrimonial alliance with Philip of Spain. English hearts were filled with dread. The liberty and independence of the nation were at stake, and the most terrible apprehensions were entertained. Rumour was busy. Stories were afloat of coming evil ; stories that, like a rolling snowball, gathered as they rolled. What would words avail ; what the opposition of the tongue ? Could notliing be done to preserve England ? The country was preparing for a general insurrection. Men talked of Longbeard, Lord of London, of Wat Tyler, and of Jack Cade. It was not the first time the English had revolted. Sir Thom.as Wyatt engaged to assemble the men of Kent ; Sir Peter Carew undertook to raise the inhabitants of Devonshire ; and the Duke of Suffolk promised to raise the Midland Counties. 48 QUEEN ELIZABETH. Before the day appointed, Carew commenced the insurrection, was subdued, beaten, and compelled to fly ; Suffolk attempted to fulfil his agreement, but utterly failed ; Sir Thomas Wyatt was more successful. At Maidstone he issued an address against the queen's councillors, and condemning the Spanish union. The people began to flock to his standard. Many of those who were sent against him revolted and united with him ; and encouraged by these accessions he marched for London. It was not long ere he reached Southwark, a pleasant spot in those old times, with many a green and shady lane, and wide-extending field. To reach London he must cross the bridge, the one bridge, which was the boast and pride of all the city. The heavy gates of the bridge were closed, and troops were stationed there to bar his progress. .To cross was impossible. He directed his march to Kingston, and approached London on the north side ; but his troops were dispirited, but few additions v/ere made to their number, and those who were the boldest and the most rash and daring shrunk away from the little band. Unopposed he passed through Westminster, and down the Strand to Temple Bar. There the fighting began, a strange spot for a battle-field, and there the rebels were defeated, and Sir Thomas Wyatt taken prisoner. He was tried, condemned, and executed. But on his trial, so said report, he impeached the Lady Elizabeth ; and Mary, anxious to effect her ruin, caused her to be arrested and conveyed to the Tower. To be sent to the Tower in those old days was no light matter. Many high and noble ones passed under Traitor's Gate, and never left that.Tower again but for the gibbet or the axe. Or, perhaps, to linger through a long, long series of years in lone- some captivity, or, perhaps, within those Tower walls, to end a wretched life by murder. QUEEN ELIZABETH. 49 " The Tower of Julius, London's lasting shame, By many a foul and midnight murder stained." There, ever since the Normans had pressed the English soil, black deeds and huge wrong doing had gone on. Before councils, whose will was law, the innocent had pleaded in vain, and died unpitied. There, prisoners had groaned in cold dark chambers, still to be seen, and known no human sympathy or care ; and there, the legal scribes recorded answers shrieked upon the rack. Doubtless Mary would have been well satisfied to have rid herself of her sister, as Richard did himself of troublesome nephews, or Edward IV. of a rebel- lious brother. But she dared not do it. No evidence could be obtained that could be at all relied upon ; the princess defended herself with the utmost calmness, and public sympathy was aroused. This effort having failed, it was proposed that Elizabeth should be united in marriage to the Duke of Savoy, so that she might be compelled to leave the country ; but Elizabeth at once refused. So, under a strong escort, she was conveyed to Woodstock, and there closely confined. At Woodstock, instead of being placed in the royal apart- ments, she was lodged in the gate -house, which long afterwards retained the name of the Princess Elizabeth's chamber. There, with a diamond, on a pane of glass she wrote : — " Much suspected of the Nothing proved can be, Quoth Elizabeth, prisoner.*' Sixty soldiers were on guard all day, both within and without that quarter of the palace where she was in ward. So sad was her fate that she often said a milkmaid's life was merrier than hers. With a piece of charcoal she wrote upon a shutter, the touching lines which have been preserved by Hentzner : — 50 atJEEN ELIZABETH, " Oil, Fortune, how thy restlsss wavering st&te Hath fraught with cares my troubled wit. Witness this present prison, whither fate Could bear me, and the joys I quit. Thou caus'destthe guilty to be loosed From bands wherein are innocents enclosed j Causing the guiltless to be strait reserved, And freeing those that death had well deserved ? But by her envy can be nothing wrought. So God send to my foes all they have wrought, Quoth Elizabeth, prisoner," Another attempt was likewise made to ensnare the princess^^« Her attachment to protestantism was well known. To he ss protestant, as a witty bishop observed, v/as to savour of the frying-pan. Many and many a goodly show had there been of obstinate heretics, burning alive in Sraithfield ; and many a crafty means had been employed to take the unwary in the net. The common net at that time for catching protestants was the real presence ; and this net was employed to catch the Lady Elizaheth. She was asked what she thought of those words of Christ, " This is my body," and whether she believed that the true body was in the sacrament. It was a terrible question, but after a short pause she gave the following enigmatical answer ;— " Christ was the word that spake it ; He took the bread and brake it ; And what the word did make it. That I believe and take it." An answer which, however slight and superficial in appearance, contains much good sense and judgment, and enabled her to escape the snare which was laid for her, and into which a direct and positive reply would certainly have betrayed her. QUEEN ELIZABETH. 51 It has been urged that as Elizabeth was a protestant, and did not believe the doctrine of the real presence, she ought at once to have said so ; to have let her yea be yea, and her nay nay, even though her nay should have sent her to the scaffold. But One there was in the old time who replied to the questionings of persecutors in the same fashion, when a direct reply must have brought an instant overthrow. It is , not always wise nor right to utter all your mind. You may have your whole hand full of truth, and yet only open your little finger. On this principle Elizabeth acted, and in doing so she was justified both by Scripture and reason. Gloomy days for England were those of the first Mary, Happily that reign was short. The life of the queen was wretched. "The consciousness of being hated by her subjects, the prospect of Elizabeth's succession, apprehensions of the danger to which the catholic religion stood exposed, dejection for the loss of Calais, concern for the ill state of her affairs, and, above all, anxiety for the absence of her husband, who she knew intended soon to depart for Spain, and to settle there for the remainder of his life ; all these melancholy reflections preyed upon her mind, and threw her into a lingering fever, of which she died." She died, and the privy council conveyed intelligence of her death to the House of Lords ; the chancellor addressed the members, and as he ended, the house resounded with the joyful acclamations, " God save Queen Elizabeth I long and happy may she reign !" The news spread, and every where was received with demonstrations of joy. Courtiers, gallant knights, and haughty nobles, set out for Hadfield, where the princess then resided, and soon that quiet place was the scene of the greatest splendour. Thither flocked the nobility, all eager to do homage to the maiden queen, and there 53 QUEEN ELIZABETH. councils of state were held for several successive days. At length she entered London, and was greeted with the utmost enthusiasm. From walls and house-tops waved clouds of banners and ensigns, and ships in the river were dressed with flags, from stem to stern. Cannon roared, and bells rang out their joy-notes. After continuing some days at Lord North's, her majesty removed to the Tower. With what different sensations did she enter that strange old fortress : the cir- cumstances of her imprisonment, so short a period before, so wrought upon her feelings that she fell upon her knees, and poured forth her grateful acknowledgements to heaven for the almost miraculous change in her condition, which she com- pared to the deliverance of Daniel from the lions' den. Thus auspiciously began the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Thus broke the morning of those golden days. The queen remained in the Tower till the 5th of December, holding councils of state. She was present at her .sister's funeral, and listened attentively to the oration delivered by Dr. White. This oration is styled a black sermon, and was written in Latin ; being a biographical sketch of the late sovereign. Toward the conclusion he said the queen had left a sister, a lady of great worth, whom they were bound to obey, for that a living dog was better than a dead lion ! Elizabeth fired at this inelegant simile, and felt sorely displeased with the orator, who roundly asserted that the dead deserved more praise than the living, for " Mary had chosen the better part." Elizabeth ordered the bishop to be arrested, and the bishop threatened to excommunicate the queen ; " for which," one says, '* she cared not a rush." At first the queen conformed to the formula of the church of Rome, proceeding very cautiously in her attempt to re-establish protestant ascendancy. At last, finding the public mind pre- QUEEN ELIZABETH. 53 pared for the change, she withdrew from mass, and began to assert her right to supremacy. As yet she was an uncrowned queen. That important ceremony of crowning must shortly take place, and who so fit as Dr. Dee, the pet conjurer and royal astrologer, to fix the day ! Robert Dudley was sent to concert with this man about the matter — for astrology then prevailed in England, and nearly every body believed in lucky and unlucky days — and it was agreed that no day would be so auspicious as the 15th of January. On the day preceding, in high state and glory, in a royal chariot, covered with crimson velvet, and attended by a most splendid retinue, Elizabeth passed through London, from the Tower to West- minster. Wonderfully gracious was the royal lady, and when the roar of a thousand voices broke out into " God save your grace," her grace replied, "God save you all." Next day the queen was crowned, the coronation oath was administered ; the champion, in complete armour, cast down his gauntlet, and offered to do battle for the queen's right — and Garter King-at-arras proclaimed that all allegiance was due to " the most high and mighty princess, our dread sovereign. Lady Elizabeth, by the grace of God, Queen of England, France, Ireland, defender of the true ancient and catholic faith, most worthy empress from the Orcade Isles to the mountains Pyrenee." The morning after her coronation she went to chapel, and it was then the custom on such occasions to release prisoners. One of the courtiers presented a petition, praying that five prisoners might be released — their names were Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, and they were no others than the four evangelists, and great apostle, shut up in an unknown tongue. It was an important petition, and the queen answered, very gravely, that she must first enquire of them F 2 54 QUEEN ELIZABETH. whether they approved of being released. It seems they did, or rather the church convocation did for them, for a trans- lation of the Scriptures was soon afterwards published. To reform the church, and to re-establish the doctrines the reformers taught, was a work of difficulty and danger. And we must not cast a slur on the caution of her who guided the affairs of the realm, and had to pilot her bark amid shoals and quick-sands. The vessel of the church was in troubled waters ; there were storms without, and want of unity within. It needed a skilful hand to escape the dangers that beset the roadstead to the peaceful haven ; there were lofty heights of proud defiance, and sunken rocks of secret enmity, and shoals of prejudice. We must not blame the queen for acting as she did. Her course seemed zig-zag, and so it was ; but there was actual progress on the whole. And with regard to her intolerance, for doubtless she was intolerant, it must be attributed to the effects of her education, to the former period of her life, and to the circumstances in which she now found herself. When, after years of labour, she found the reformed church established in her land, she adopted, or rather began to express the spirit of all true conservatism — the thing that is, is the thing that ought to be, and the thing that ought to be is the thing that must be maintained. And she maintained it, by sending non-content ministers to rusticate in gaol, suppressing all dissenters' meetings, and hanging, and even in one or two cases, burning for conscience sake. It was a huge wrong, and an unmistakeable error, but the error arose from want of knowledge ; she did not understand the true spirit of Christianity, and there were very many good and earnest people then in the same state. Calvin burnt Ser- vetus, and once upon a time, John the beloved, wanted to call down fire from heaven, to burn up the enemies of Christ. QUEEN ELIZABETH. 55 When Queen Elizabeth said to the bishops, " As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord," she really meant what she said. Besides the religious agitations of the reign, the question of the queen's marriage attracted a great deal of interest. She had refused the proffered hand of her sister's widower, Philip II. of Spain. Bishop Jewel tells his Zurich correspondent that " Nothing is yet talked about the queen's marriage ; yet there are now courting her, the King of Sweden, the Saxon, (son of John Frederick, Duke of Saxony) and Charles, the son of the emperor, Ferdinand, to say nothing of the Englishman, Sir William Pickering." Jewel is the first who mentions Pickering among the aspirants for Elizabeth's hand. Henry Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, also sought the queen's favour. She had lovers enough and to spare, but the most conspicuous was Robert Dudley, a married man ! The story of this love forms the groundwork of one of Sir Walter Scott's most pleasing fictions ; and the sad tale of Amy Robsart attaches melancholy interest to Kenilvvorth ; but, alas for the fiction, Amy Robsart was dead fifteen years before the pageant took place at the castle. Elizabeth encouraged the suit of her courtier Dudley, the Earl of Leicester ; he was continued in close attendance on her person. One of his political rivals gave him a blow at the council board, whereupon Queen Elizabeth informed the pug- nacious statesman that he must lose his hand, in obedi- ence to the law, which imposed that penalty for the commission of such an outrage ; but the matter was hushed up on Dudley's interceding for the nobleman, with his royal mistress. Reports, indeed, went abroad, scandalous to majesty, and like ill weeds, which, as the proverb tells us, grow apace, were multiplied with wondrous prodigality. But in the mind of Queen 56 QUEEN ELIZABETH. Elizabeth there was but small attention pain to these matters ; they who uttered them did so at their peril, for lynx-eyed law was watching, and would eke be dov/n upon them, slitting the nostrils, or cropping the ears, as the good old law was wont to do — but as for the queen herself, she was untroubled about what report might say. With respect to marriage, she had solemnly bound herself in marriage to the realm, and had declared that it would be quite sufficient for the memorial of her name and for her glory, if, when she died, an inscription were engraved on marble, saying, " Here lieth Queen Elizabeth, who reigned and died a virgin." Again and again the Roman pontiff sought to bring her back to the fold of the catholic church ; but Elizabeth was unalterable in her determination, and despite loving letters, friendly greetings, bright promises, black threatenings, and the rest of it, remained true to the protestant church. She loved her people, and her policy, both in church and state, was of an elevated and enlightened character. The English currency was in a very bad condition ; to restore it to sterling value was one glorious measure of her reign. Edward YI., nor Mary, had dared to attempt it; Henry VIII. had caused copper to be mingled with the silver ; a great disgrace to the kingdom, a damage to his successors, and a cruel wrong to the people ; Elizabeth had all the old money called in, and every person received the nominal value of the base coin in new sterling money, the government standing at the loss. The reformation of the currency was even extended to unhappy Ireland ; a reformation it liked a thousand fold better than the reformation of its old faith. Sang the people ; — QUEEN ELIZABETH. 57 " Let bonfires shine in every place, Sing and ring the bells, apace ; And pray that long may live her grace, To be the good Queen of Ireland. The gold and silver which was so base, That no man could endure it scarce. Is now new- coined with her own face, And made to go current in Ireland." Still went on all sorts of proposed matrimonial alliances. To marry Elizabeth of England was the high ambition of princes ; hut her majesty still continued to lead a life of celibacy, her determination had been expressed to Leicester in thememorable words," I will have here but one mistress, AND NO master." She was entreated in an earnest address from both houses of parliament, to enter into wedlock ; but nothing could induce her to step over the magic circle of a wedding ring ! She took on herself all the duties and responsibilities of government, at a moment of deep interest in the history of England. One great cause of trouble was the Queen of Scots, whose story we have yet to tell : the domestic administration of Elizabeth was further disturbed by the agitation and the faction of religious parties. Fear was awakened in the court from catholic confederations. A re- bellion broke out, and threatened the stability of the throne : — " It was the time when England's queen. Twelve years had reign'd a sovereign dread, Nor yet the restless crown had been Disturbed upon her virgin head ; But now the inly working north, Was ripe to send its thousands forth, A potent vassalage to fight, In Percy's and in Neville's right: Two earls fast leagued in discontent, Who gave their wishes open vent, 58 QUEEN ELIZABETH. And boldly urged a general plea, The rites of ancient piety, To be triumphantly restored, By the dread justice of the sword." The rebels entered Durham in warlike array, and burnt as many bibles as they could find, but the queen's troops sup- pressed the insurrection, and the leaders gave up their lives at the block and the gibbet. The pope excommunicated the queen, and catholics styled her the Pretender, Attempts were made upon her life, but God saved the queen. The royal progresses of Queen Elizabeth are a very romance in themselves. From mansion to mansion went her majesty, every where greeted with loyal enthusiasm, and received with the warmest welcome. Elizabeth, at Kenilworth, is a type of the whole ; and some few facts regarding her stay at that princely residence, may not be out of place. The queen was welcomed at Ichington, a town about seven miles from KeniW worth, and dined under an immense tent, and " as a diversion at the desert, was shewn two of the rarities of the country,-— a fat boy, of six years old, nearly five feet high, but very stupid ; and, to match this prodigy, a monstrous sheep of the Leicestershire breed." In the afternoon, the queen fol- lowed the chase, and hunted towards Kenilworth, where she arrived at about eight in the evening, and was welcomed by a continual series of pageants to the gate of the castle, and thence duly received by the porter, representing Hercules, " tall of person, big of limb, and stern of countenance, wrapt in a pall of silk, with a club and keys ; he had a rough speech full of passions in metre :" — '* What stir, what wit is here ? come back, hold ! whither now ? Not one so stout to stir — what harrying have we here ? My friends, a porter I, no puppet here am placed. QUEEN ELIZABETH, 59 By leave, perhaps, else not, while club and limbs do last A garboil this indeed ! what, yea, fair dames, what yea ! What dainty darling 's here ? 'Fore heaven, a precious pearl !" The queen and her train passed through the gate, accom- panied by the poetical porter, and arrived on the bridge over the moat. There a lady, with two nymphs, came to her all across the pool, as if she walked in the water, and again burst out into a metrical welcome. The grand pageant, however, was a temporary bridge, over the base court, all decked with mythological emblems. On her arrival all the clocks in the castle were stopped, that none might take note of time while the queen lingered; and as she entered her chamber "peals of great guns were shot off," which continued, with a profusion of fireworks, for two hours : and the noise and flame were heard and seen for twenty miles around. On Sunday the queen went to church, and in the afternoon of the day, had music and dancing with *' lively agility ;" and at night, fireworks, which made old Laneham " vengeably afraid." Monday came more pageants, more wild men grown poetical, more gods and goddesses, in cerulean garments, more Ladies of the Lake, and Sylvanus all wreathed and girdled with oak leaves. Then on the Wednesday came a hunt, more pageants, fireworks, and feasting, and more than all a tumbler from Italy, who turned and twisted in a manner marvellous to behold. On the next Sunday the queen was again at church, and heard a *'fruitful sermon," and in the afternoon had a comely quintain set up in the tilt yard, and much pleasant sport thereat. Among other entertainments was Arion, on a dolphin of vast dimensions, who came swimming across the lake to do her homage ; but Arion, alas, had tasted too freely of Lord Leicester's wine, and when he came opposite the queen, pulled off his mask and swore that he was none of Arion, not 60 QUEEN ELIZABETH. he ; but honest Henry Goldingham. A proceeding which, it is said, pleased the queen more than all the rest of the per- formance. Pageants, such as those we have described, were every where prepared to greet her majesty. In Latin hexameters, or in plain Saxon rhymes, strangely-decked deities of a bygone heathenism, addressed the queen. There was a curious admixture of Christianity and the mythology of ancient Greece and Bome. " Sylvanus " tendered the produce of the forest, and "Truth" presented an English Bible. We have not space, neither have we the inclination, to record the gay doings of royalty. Sterner business called away her thoughts from frivolities, and Elizabeth knew well how to be the unbending monarch when danger was nigh. Carpenters and shipbuilders were hard at work in the dock- yards of Spain. A dark cloud was gathering over England. Danger threatened. He who had been refused as a husband was about to land as an invader, and dethrone her whose throne he sought to share. The Invincible Armada was approaching in one " fell swoop." The land forces of England exceeded the enemy in point of number, but greatly inferior in discipline, reputation, and experience. An army of twenty thousand men was posted in different parts of the southern coast, under a strict injunction, that if they could not prevent the landing of the Spaniards, they should retire backwards, ravage the country around, and wait for a reinforcement from the neigh- bouring counties, before they ventured to approach the enemy. A body of twenty-two thousand infantry, and one thousand cavalry, under the command of the Earl of Leicester, was encamped at Tilbury, in order to protect the capital. In order to arouse the martial spirit of the nation, the queen appeared on horseback in the camp, and, riding through the lines of QUEEN ELIZABETH. 61 armed men, exhorted the soldiers to the performance of their duty. Her heroic spirit communicated itself to the army, and every man felt himself a host by the words she uttered. It is said that Napoleon had words in him like Austerlitz battles : Elizabeth's oratory was of the same description. She aroused the war spirit, and she sought to arouse it ; but it was not aggressive warfare ; it was that battling for our native land, which is of a totally opposite character — a battle for home and happiness, for the churches where our fathers worshipped, and the grave-yards where our loved ones sleep. Thus spoke Queen Elizabeth : — " My loving people : we have been persuaded by some, that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery ; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear ; I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects, and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all ; to lay down for ray God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood even in the dust. I know that I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, aye, and of a king of England, too : and think foul scorn that Parma, or Spain,? or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm : to which, rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms : I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, for your forwardness, you have deserved rewards and crowns, and we assure you, on the word of a G 62 QUEEN ELIZABETH. prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the meantime ray lieutenant-general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject, not doubting, but by your obedience to my general, by your con- cord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdoms, and of my people." The end of the aggression upon England is well known. It failed. The stars in their courses fought against Sisera. Every thing conspired to the destruction of the vast armament, and the purposes of the Armada was entirely frustrated. Not one half of the fleet returned to Spain, and a still smaller portion of the soldiers and seamen. Yet Philip, whose com- mand of temper was equal to his ambition, received with . an air of tranquillity the news of so humiliating a disaster. " I sent my fleet," said he, " to combat the English, not the elements. God be praised that the calamity is not greater." Another attempt of the Spanish king to invade England failed, and the loss to Spain was estimated at twenty millions of ducats. Never was a nation so despised as Spain, by the English, in the days of Queen Bess. Elizabeth was at the height of her fame : — " Girt with many a baron bold, Sublime their starry fronts they rear : And gorgeous dames, and fltatesmen old, In bearded maj esty appear. In the midst a form doth shine, Her eye proclaims her of the British line ; Her Hon port, her awe-commanding face, Attempered sweet to virgin grace." Raleigh, Drake, Burleigh, Shakespeare, Bacon, Leicester^ Walsingham, what great and mighty names are these ! and these are they that formed the court of good Queen Bess,. QUEEN ELIZABETH. CS The latter years of her life were troubled. Her favourites deceived and betrayed her. Essex, on whom she relied, fell under her displeasure, and died for his offence, but the blow was a severe one to Elizabeth. She had grown old and weary. She walked much in her privy chamber, stamping with her foot at ill-news, and thrusting a rusty sword into the arras in great rage. She spent much of her time in sighing and groaning, and sitting alone, with her heart sad and heavy. Those she once loved were gone ; she had now none to trust in. She felt alone in all her regal splendour. " I am not sick," she said, " I feel no pain, yet I pine away." She died on the 24th of March, 1603, having lived nearly to the age of seventy; and with her ended the dynasty of the House of Tudor. The wise ministers and brave warriors who flourished under her reign, share the praise of her success ; but instead of lessening the applause due to her, they made great addition to it. They owed, all of them, their advancement to her choice : they were supported by her constancy, and with all their abilities they were never able to acquire any undue ascen- dancy over her. In her family, in her court, in her kingdom, she remained equally mistress. The force of the tender passions was great over her, but the force of her mind was still superior ; and the combat which her victory visibly cost her, serves only to display the firmness of her resolution, and the loftiness of her ambitious sentiments.* The fame of this princess, though it has surmounted the prejudices both of faction and bigotry, yet lies still exposed to another prejudice, which is more durable, because more natural, and which, according to the different views in which we survey her, is capable either of exalting beyond measure, or * Hume. 64 QUEEN ELIZABETH. diminishing the lustre of her character. This prejudice is founded on the consideration of her sex. When we contem- plate her as a woman, we are apt to be struck with the highest admiration of her great qualities and extensive capacity ; but we are also apt to require some more softness of disposition, some greater lenity of temper, some of those amiable weak- nesses by which her sex is distinguished. But the true method of estimating her merit, is to lay aside all these con- siderations, and consider her merely as a rational being, placed in authority, and intrusted with the government of mankind. "We may find it difficult to reconcile our fancy to her as a wife or a mistress ; but her qualities as a sovereign, though with some considerable exceptions, are the object of undisputed applause and approbation. JOANNA BAILLIE. Joanna Baillie was tlie daughter of a Scottish clergyman, and numbered many men eminent for position and attainments amongst her family connections. The birthplace of the poetess was the Manse of Bothwell, near the river Clyde. She was early distinguished for peculiar ability, and succeeded while still a girl, in securing for her writings, at that time published anonymously, a high place among the great names which theii presided in the world of letters. In 1798 she published an important addition to the written drama, under the title of "A Series of Plays ; in which it is attempted to delineate the stronger passions of the mind, each being the subject of a tragedy and a comedy." This book at once marked its authoress as one of superior intelligence. But it was evident that the writer was not practically acquainted with the stage. Her plays were more adapted for perusal in the family or the study, than representing in the theatre. In character and construction they were essentially poems, poems of a very high order, and as such enjoy a reputation for grace, beauty, and true poetic inspiration, which no lapse of time can effect. Only one of her dramas has been performed on the London stage. Kemble brought out " De Montfort," and it was acted eleven nights. Of this play it has been said that too much importance is attached to the development of single passions in single tragedies. For the stage more stirring incidents are required to justify the passions of her characters, and to give them that air of fatality, which though peculiarly predominant G 2 66 JOANNA BATLLIE. in the Greek drama, is found, to a certain extent, in all suc- cessful tragedies. Instead of this, she contrived to make all the passions of her main characters proceed from the wilful nature of the beings themselves. Their feelings were not pre- cipitated by circumstances, like a stream down a declivity, that leaps from rock to rock ; but for want of incident they seem often like water on a level without a propelling impulse. But though all this may be critically true, there is an inde- scribable charm over the whole which bids defiance to the critic's power. In the description of Jane de Montfort, which by the way, has been pronounced to be a perfect picture of Mrs. Siddons, the tragic actress, there is great for«e and power : — Page. —Madam, there is a lady ia your hall Who begs to be admitted to your presence. Lady. — Is it one of our invited friends ? Page. — No, far unlike to them, it is a stranger. Lady. — How looks her countenance ? Page. — So queenl)'^, so commanding, and so noble, I shrunk at first in awe ; but when she smiled, Methought I would have compassed sea and land To do her bidding. Lady. — Is she old or young ? Page. — Neither, if right I guess, but she is fair. For time hath laid his hand so gently on her, As he, too, had been awed. Lady. — The foolish stripling! She has bewitched thee ; is she large in stature 1 Page. — So stately and so graceful in her form, I thought at first her nature was gigantic ; But on a near approach I found in truth, She scarcely does surpass the middle size. Lady. — What is her garb ? Page. — I cannot well describe the fashion of it: She is nrt decked in any gallant trim, But seems to me clad in her usual weeds JOANNA BAILLIE. 67 Of high habitual state ; for as she moves "Wide flows her robe in many a waving fold, As I have seen unfurled banners play "With the soft breeze. Lady. — Thine eyes deceive thee, boy ; It is an apparition thou hast seen. Freherg. — {^Starting from his seat, where he has been sitting, during the conversation between the Lady and the Page.) It is an apparition he has seen, Or, it is Jane de Montfort. To Joanna Baillie's series of plays, a long and interesting introductory discourse was prefixed. In these prefatory re- marks, the authoress discussed the subject of the drama in all its bearings, and asserted the supremacy of simple nature over all decoration and refinement. "Let one simple trait of the human heart, one expression of passion, genuine and true to nature, be introduced, and it will stand forth alone in the boldness of reality, while the false and unnatural around it fades away upon every side, like the rising exhalations of the morning." The style of her poems is simple and masculine, free from all the insipid sentimentalisra of which the world has had too much ; and equally free from that florid decora- tive style which so often obscures the thought in a multiplicity of illustration, which cultivates the foliage at the expense of the fruit. In 1810 was published the ^'Family Legend,;'' a tragedy founded on a highland tradition, which met with the high ap- proval of Sir Walter Scott, and was brought out with some success at the Edinburgh theatre. But like her other works, it was unnecessarily and unwisely restrained. Her notion of unity made her sacrifice effect, and every other theatrical attraction, to it ; thus circumscribing the business of the piece, and excluding the interest arising from varied and conflicting 68 JOANNA BAILLIE. emotions. They seem to breathe .of the study more than the noise and business of life, when hope and fear, and pride and humility, and revenge, and pity, and love, and hatred, are con- tending for the mastery. Touchingly beautiful is the speech of Prince Edward in his dungeon : — Doth the bright sun from the bigh arch of heaven, In all his beauteous robes of fleckered clouds, And ruddy vapours and deep glowing flames, And softly varied shades, look gloriously ? Do the green woods dance to the wind? the lakes Cast up their sparkling waters to the light ? Do the sweet hamlets in their bushy dells Send winding up to heaven their curling smoke On the soft morning air ? Do the flocks bleat, and the wild creatures bound In antic happiness ? and mazy birds Wing the mid air in lightly skimming bands'? Aye, all this is-^men do behold all this — The poorest man. Even in this lonely vault, My dark and narrow world, oft do I bear The crowing of the cock so near my walls, And sadly think, how small a space divides me From all this fair creation." In 1836 Joanna Baillie published three more volumes of plays ; her career as a dramatic writer thus extending over thirty-eight years. Of her other writings, the principal is the " Birthday," addressed to a maiden sister, who was her companion during the greater part of her life. This poem is enriched with beautiful pictures of the child-life of the writer, and abounds in records of the associations and affections of home :' — JOANNA BAILLIE. 69 '* Even now methinks Each little cottage of my native vale Swells out its earthen sides, upheaves its roof, Like to a hillock moved hy labouring mole, And with green trail-weeds clambering up its walls, Roses and every gay and fragrant plant, Before my fancy stands, a fairy bower. Aye, and within it, too, do fairies dwell. Peep through its wreathed window, if indeed The flowers grow not too close ; and there within Thou'lt see some half a dozen rosy brats, Eating from wooden bowls their dainty milk — These are my mountain elves." The character indeed of this gifted lady received its truest development in the simple and unostentatious incidents of domestic life. Though she wrote of human passions, she loved not to mingle with the great world ; the noise and bustle of the world astir. She loved to hear from afar, not to join in the busiest scenes of its display. She was one of the last surviving literary contemporaries of the age in which Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Burke, and Reynolds flourished. But though she enjoyed an extensive popularity, and an acquaint- ance with the most illustrious people of the day, she could never be lured from her loved seclusion. Her ear never thirsted to drink in the plaudits of society ; and she knew not the little ambition of being gazed at and lionized. Observing the unobtrusive duties and charities of private life ; loved by the few who personally knew her, and admired and respected by the thousands without, who knew her as the gifted writer, the talented authoress, she lived to reach the patriarchal age of eighty-nine. She died on Sunday evening, the 23rd of February, 1851. LADY JANE GREY. "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." In ancient Kome they sometimes cast crimi- nals from a lofty rock, and the fall was certain death. That craggy cliff was but a fitting symbol of a haughty spirit ; its highest elevation was the turning point of destruction. His- tory abounds with instances of this truth. Wolsey arose from a humble position to a place of high dignity ; his proud spirit grew prouder as he advanced ; but the last step was fatal. " This is the state of man ; to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope ; to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him ; The third day comes a frost, a killing frost ; And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a ripening, nips his root, And then he falls." No man liveth to himself. Every man is the centre of a cir- cle. The influence which one man exerts over the destinies of others is incalculable. None know where it ends. The proud man, bearing his full honours, draws upward with him others, and when he falls, they fall. The destruction of one very often involves the ruin of others. The innocent suffer with the guilty. Of this we have not a more powerful illus- tration, or a more melancholy instance, than the story of Lady Jane Grey. LADY JANE GREY. 71 Lady Jane Grey was the daughter of Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, by Lady Frances Brandon, daughter of the Dulce of Suffolk, and was royally descended on both sides. She was born in 1537, at Bradgate, her father's seat in Leicestershire. She worked admirably with her needle, wrote an incomparable hand, played well on different instruments, and acquired a knowledge of the Greek and Latin, as well as of the French and Italian languages. She was not more distinguished by the beauty of her person, than the endowments of her mind. She was strongly attatched to the protestant religion. Roger Ascham, preceptor to the Princess Elizabeth, having once paid her a visit, found her engaged in reading the Phaedo of Plato, while the rest of the family were hunting in the park ; and on his expressing his surprise at the singularity of her choice, she assured him that she received more pleasure from the works of that author, than the others could derive from all their splendid sports and pastimes. A quiet happy life was that of the Lady Jane. Surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery in England, enjoying the society of those she loved, untroubled by care, unrestrained by anxiety, her early days passed away like a gentle dream. Her passions were lulled, and her mind awakened. She loved to question past ages, and to unravel their dark wisdom. The book which Ascham found her reading was a fair sample of her character. The Phaedo is an accurate account of the last hours of Socrates, and contains the opinions of the wisest of the ancients respecting the immortality of the soul. To her the study of the unseen, the world beyond the grave, was a delightful pursuit. Then it was that she seemed to spring up on the wings of a pangless and seraphic life. Thus she would linger for hours over the pages of that strange old book, and talked admiringly of the undaunted gaze of Socrates, as he 72 LADY JANE GREY. took the fatal draught ; and how, when he felt his limbs grow heavy, he laid himself down to die. In these melancholy musings, there seemed a premonition of her coming doom ; something that indicated that the gentle woman had learned already with how many garlands we can hang the tomb. In 1551, her father was created Duke of Suffolk; but ducal coronets do not insure happiness. Jane was called away from her beloved pursuits to the atmosphere of a royal court, and the society of those who had but little sympathy for the thoughtful, loving woman. How often, when surrounded by gay groups of flattering courtiers, did she long for the re- tirement of her old home I how often, when engaged in the royal pageants, did she sigh for the quietude of Bradgate ! Placentia might charm Leland to exclaim : — " How bright the lofty seat appears, Like Jove's great palace crowned with stars, What roofs, what windows charm the eye, What turrets, rivals of the sky ! " — But to Jane they were stale, flat, and unprofitable. At court the Duke of Northumberland noticed Lady Jane. Northumberland was ambitious and crafty. He projected a marriage between the scholarly daughter of Suffolk, and his own son. Lord Guildford Dudley. It was a period of great changes. A disputed succession is the very time for the am- bitious. Edward VI., the boy king, was not long for this world, and the Ladies Elizabeth and Mary, his sisters, were placed in most perplexing circumstances. Northumberland ruled the land with despotic power. The parliament was com- posed of his partizans, all submissive to his will. As appre- hensions were entertained of Edward's health and life, it be- came necessary to provide for the succession. On the principle LADY JANE GREY. 73 of hereditary right, the crown would descend first to the imme- diate issue of Henry ; then to the children of Margaret Tudor, queen of the Scots ; and then to Mary Tudor, queen of France. Mary and Elizabeth were by act of parliament declared ille- gitimate. He had also passed by the descendants of Mar- garet, his eldest sister, and fixed on the issue of Mary, queen of France. This lady by her second marriage with the Duke of Suffolk, had two daughters ; one of them was wedded to Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, created Duke of Suffolk. The hand of Lady Jane, their eldest daughter, had been ob- tained for Lord Guilford Dudley, and the right of succession claimed by the House of Suffolk, devolved on this excellent woman. The Duke of Northumberland had prepared his plans. Were his daughter-in-law queen, he would surely be the high- est man in the realm, and rule with power despotic. Who but he could influence so ably the mind of the young King Edward ? At the palace of Greenwich he was ever in attend- ance on that monarch ; to all others, he was the proud lord, but to the king, the humble and submissive subject. He in- sinuated, in his own careful way, how both Mary and Elizabeth were incapacitated from ascending the throne ; how, if Mary reigned, protestantism would soon be on the wane, and the re- formed church entirely overthrown ; but how the Lady Jane was in every way deserving of a throne, and in every way fitted for that high dignity. Even if her title by blood were doubtful, which there was no reason to suppose, the king was invested with the same power which his father enjoyed, and might leave her the crown by letters patent. A fatal legacy ! The arguments of Northumberland had their full weight with the young king. He knew the Lady Jane, admired her excellence, respected her talents, and, more than all, knew her H 74 LADY JANE GREY. to love the cause he loved, and to be as firm a protestant as he. His feeble hand must soon resign the sceptre of autho- rity ; why should not that sceptre be held by the Lady Jane ; the crown which rested on his throbbing temples, must soon be worn by another — could the diadem rest on a fairer brow than on that of the Lady Jane ? Alas, that gentle woman knew not what was going on. She was the unconscious victim of the plot, she had but to act her part in that grand pageant which was to end in a direful tragedy. The dying boy, who was com- pletely under the tutelage of Northumberland, at length acqui- esced in the force of his arguments, and assuming to himself the powers which had been exercised by his father Henry, he determined upon having a new entail of the crown executed to the effect the duke had proposed. This document he sketched with his own hand, and a fair copy having been made, signed it with his own name, above, and below, and on each margin. The privy council was then assembled at Placentia, at least so many of them as Northumberland felt disposed to admit ; for he had a strong guard without who did his bidding, and whose law was the legality of the strong hand — a jurisprudence there is no disputing. Assembled in the council-chamber, the young king stated to the peers, what he had done, and his purpose in so doing. The councillors objected ; pleaded the act of parliament legitimatising the prin- cesses, and stated that such a law could not be abrogated ; so they separated in some confusion, and when they again met, declared that for them to unite in dispossessing Mary of the crown, and placing that crown on the head of the Lady Jane, they would subject themselves to the penalties of treason. Northumberland became furious with rage, called the Lord Montague a traitor, and threatened him and the rest ; so that, as an old author says, " they thought he would have beaten LADY JANE GREY. 75 them." He said he was ready to fight any man in so just a quarrel. So the council was angrily dismissed, and presently, after much " brow-beating and bullying," suffered themselves to become parties in the transaction, and agreed to the change in the order of succession. So the document was duly signed and sealed, and the crown was bestowed on the Lady Jane. Poor blighted woman ; her fond dream of domestic happiness was soon to end ; for her no peace and happiness was in store ; the hapless one was being forced up yonder towering height to be cast headlong down ! The young king was rapidly sinking ; and after the deed was signed lingered but a few days, and then died : — " Child in age, and child in heart, Thy magnificent array, Could not joy or peace impart, — Thou had' St treasure more than they. More than courtiers kneeling low. More than flattery's ready smile, More than conquest o'er the foe. More, e'en more, than England isle. Treasures in which mind hath part, Joys that teach the soul to rise, Hopes that can sustain the heart, When the body droops and dies." The life of the king had troubled Northumberland, but his death troubled him still more. It seems to have taken iiim by surprise. His plans were not completed. Alas I for him, his talent and decision were not equal to his ambition. In order to gain a little time, he determined to conceal the king's death. He did so, and despatched letters to the Princess Mary, summoning her to the death-bed of her brother. Could 76 LADY JANE GREY. he but bring the heir to London, the very stronghold of her enemies, then all were well. The towers of Julius had been the scene of many a strange sight ; and once within those walls, who could know aught of the Lady Mary ? Ambition can do all things. It can put on all shapes, and wear all cos- tumes, this or that side out. Ambition has sometimes been the twin brother of murder. The royal diadem has sometimes been stained with that same precious flood that dashed the naked feet of Cain. A crown in prospect, a visionary crown, but true as the dagger, and more eagerly to be clutched, brought about the dark destiny of Macbeth. It might be a somewhat similar purpose that induced Northumberland to seek the capture of the princess ; but, whatever might induce him so to act, he failed. Word was sent to Mary that her brother was dead ; and that Northumberland, who was plotting to place the Lady Jane on the throne, only wanted to make her a pri- soner. Elizabeth was also warned of the real state of affairs, and remained in Hertfordshire. Two days elapsed, and the death of the king was still kept secret. Northumberland consulted with his friends and de- pendents as to the best method of managing this great affair. Terrible risks were involved : it was the scaffold or the crown. The lord mayor of London, six aldermen, and twelve other citizens, who were only half of them merchants of the staple, and the other half merchant-adventurers, were summoned to Greenwich, where the dead body of the king was lying ; and where Northumberland, and some of the council, declared to them, under an oath of secresy, the death of the king ; as also how, by his last will and royal letters patent, he had appointed and ordained, that the Lady Jane should be his successor in the throne and sovereignty. Then the deputation were sworn to do allegiance to Lady Jane, and were bound, under a greai LADY JANE GREY. "7 penalty, not to divulge these secret passages until they should receive orders from the council. Higher and higher up the hill of difficulty went Northum- berland and his party ; surely, from the summit, he antici- pated a view of all the kingdoms of the earth in a moment, and surely he expected that they would be his. It seemed as if no hazard was too great, no cost too large ; but the aspiring blood of Dudley would have to sink in the ground. News reached him that Mary was aware of her brother's death, and was preparing for a struggle. Time was short, the neces- sity was urgent. The instrument of his ambition, the hapless one with whom he played, must be brought forth ; so with his few faithful attendants, faithful as long as it were wise to be faithful, but wise enough to be faithless, when faithfulness brought danger, he set out for Sion House, where the Lady Jane resided. She was not seventeen years old, and her husband, Lord Dudley, was as young as herself. They were happy, very happy, for they loved each other fondly, and delighted in one another's society. Little thought they of the proud am- bition of Northumberland, and little of the danger which his ambition brought. They walked on a sun-lit beach, but forgot that the tide was advancing. When Northumberland stated his errand, Jane was overcome with terror and surprise, — she trembled and grew pale. As the duke proceeded, and stated the reasons for the rejection of Mary from the throne, Jane interrupted him : — " But Elizabeth is a good Protestant, my lord !" Nothing could turn Northumberland from his purpose. In his entreaties that Jane should accept the crown, he was aided by her father and brother, both of whom urged upon her, for her own sake and for theirs, no less than for that of the pro- H 2 78 LADY JANE GREY. testant faith and the liberties of England, to ascend the throne. Jane, at last, consented ; but it was with tears, and with a heavy heart, that she stepped into the royal barge and was conveyed to the Tower. Within the Tower, she became little better than the prisoner of Northumberland, who straightway set about completing his schemes, and taking the last step, and reaching the highest elevation of his dangerous rock. The death of Edward was then made known, and Queen Jane was proclaimed in the city with somewhat less than the usual formalities. As the proclamation was made, and crowds of citizens and 'prentices collected in the Chepe, no voice was raised in honour of the new-made monarch, — none cried, '' God save her," not a shout was heard ; but, in a gloomy silence, men listened to the news. At Ludgate, indeed, that silence was broken, and the crowd heard the rough jests of a vintner's drawer, who was pleased to make merry at the new queen's cost ; and who, for his jibes, was handsomely re- warded by being set in the pillory, and having both his ears cropped off. This first public act of authority, on the part of Northumberland, gave promise but of tyrannous usage under the new regime. - In the provinces, many of the chief nobility were declaring in favour of Mary. Forces raised to serve Queen Jane went over to the rightful monarch : a small fleet which was sent down to the coast to intercept her, in case she should attempt to quit England, declared against the usurpation, and hoisted her- flag. Mary was proclaimed in Norwich, and wrote to the members of the privy council, demanding the throne which belonged to her by right. As Northumberland looked out from his high elevation, it was no beautiful landscape that stretched before him, but a grim and rocky defile, a threatening prospect that made him tremble as he gazed. The Lady Jane would, at LADY JANE GREY. 79 once, have resigned, had she been permitted to do so, but this was not allowed. It were impossible to descend v/ith safety, —they must stand on the cliff, and bide their time. In reply to the missive of the queen, the council replied that her claims were opposed by the invalidity of her mother's marriage, by custom, by the last will of King Edward, and by the general voice of the people ! News of fresh accessions to the party of Mary arrived each day, and each day the prospect became more alarming. It was an easy matter to put the vintner's drawer in the pillory and crop his ears, but one could not serve all England so. Northumberland was in a dilemma ; an army must be sent against Mary. None could lead that army but himself, and if he quitted the council for the camp, the council would out-plot him. He wanted to place the Duke of SuflPolk, Lady Jane's father, at the head of the forces, which were to fall upon Mary before she could gain more strength, and bring her as a captive to the Tov/er. But Lady Jane pleaded so earnestly and took the matter so heavily, and with sighs and tears requested that her dear father might tarry at home in her company, that the council persuaded Northumberland himself to head the troops, saying, that no man was so fit as he, — had he not once achieved a victory in Norfolk ? And was he not so feared that none dare lift up arms against him ? Besides, they argued, he was the best man of war- in the realm, as well for ordering of his camp and soldiers, both in battle and in their tents ; as also, by experience, knowledge and wisdom, he could animate his army with witty persuasions, and also pacify and allay his enemies' pride with his stout courage, or else dissuade them if need were, from their enterprize, " Finally," said they, " this is the short and long, the queen will in no wise grant that her father shall take the command upon him."* * Stow. 80 LADY JAITE GREY, So the Duke prepared to depart, but ere lie left he sum- moned the council and told them that he and the noble per- sonages that were about to go with him, were freely going to adventure their lives and bodies in the good cause, and reminded them that they left their children and families at home committed to their truth and fidelity. He called upon them to remember their recent oaths of allegiance to the queen's highness, the virtuous Lady Jane, *' who," said he, " by your and our enticement is rather of force placed on the throne than by her own seeking and request." If Noa^thumberland never uttered another word of truth, this at least was a verity. Jane had not sought the crown. She had not achieved greatness. She had not been born great ; she had had the greatness thrust upon her. The Duke called upon the council to remember this, and to stand by the young queen. All promised, but nearly all had made up their minds to declare for Queen Mary. So the proud man in his steel harness marched through the city streets with his army of six thousand men. Throngs gathered about him, multitudes rushed forth to see him pass, but no man wished him " God speed." On the following Sunday, Ridley preached at Paul's Cross, and stoutly maintained the right and title of the Lady Jane, inveighing earnestly against both Mary and Elizabeth. The crowd listened in silence ; they had no faith in his argument. On that very afternoon the Lord Treasurer stole out of the Tower, and began to make preparations for the council going over in a body to Mary, He returned in the night, and others joined in the plot. They persuaded Suffolk that in order to levy fresh forces, it would be necessary to hold their meetings at Baynard Castle and no longer v/ithin the Tower walls ; and he, imbecile that he was, consented. When the council met at Baynard Castle, they at LADY JANE GREY. 81 once declared for Queen Mary. Members of their body were dismissed to tender their submission, and express their exceeding great loyalty. Then the Lord Mayor and the council, and the Herald at Arms rode into Chepe, and sound- ing trumpets, proclaimed the Lady Mary, daughter to Henry VIIL and Queen Catherine, to be Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and supreme head of the Church ! and then, to add to the solemnity of the scene, they went in procession to St. Paul's, singing Te Deum. The rejoicings were very great, and the sounds of those rejoicings fell heavily on the ears of Queen Jane's party ; and the unfortu- nate lady, after wearing the crown twelve days, fell back into the ranks of private life. This she did with no common satisfaction, for when her father exhorted her to bear her fall with fortitude, she replied, *' This is a more welcome summons than that which forced me against my will to an elevation to which I was not entitled, and for which I was not qualified. In obedience to you, my lord, and to my mother, T did violence to myself — the present is my own act, and I wil- lingly resign." Northumberland was arrested. The last step had been taken, and the last step was fatal. From the height he had attained he was hurled down to death. He was beheaded as a traitor ; but the ambition of the man had involved others in ruin. Jane Grey and Guilford Dudley were tried, and con- demned to die. But execution was deferred. Their youth, their innocence, pleaded for life. Lady Jane had the liberty of the Tower granted her, and was allowed to walk in the queen's garden and on the hill. Lord Guilford Dudley was also leniently dealt with ; and so five months passed on. Then came the end. Wyatt's ill-judged riot brought down the vengeance of the queen on all who had dared to dispute her 82 LADY JANE GREY. right, and among the rest on Lady Jane and her husband. A messenger was despatched desiring her to prepare for immediate death, a doom which she had long expected, and which her humble faith and the long train of calamities she had suffered, made her consider as no unwelcome tidings. She had early learnt to regard death as a friendly visitant. Lingering over the pages of the Phsedo, she had learnt the aspiration of the sage, that death is only another name for immortality ; and from God's book of wisdom she had received a nobler intuition of what " eye hath not seen nor ear heard." The queen, under a pretence of compassion for the prisoner's soul, sent Fakenham, Dean of St. Paul's, and other divines, to the unfortunate lady, with directions to aim at her con- version to the catholic church. By the sophistry of the priests she was harassed with continual disputations, and was even J lulf^ed with a reprieve of three days in hopes that she would be . .^ ^-uced during that time to return to the fold of Rome. The Lp.dy Jane in these sad and mournful circum- stances, had preseUv.. A mind sufficient not only to defend her religion with equal learning and eloquence, but also to write a letter to her sister Catherine in the Greek language, in which, besides sending her a copy of the New Testament in that tongue, she exhorted her to maintain in every condition a like steady and unshaken perseverance. It had been intended to execute Lady Jane and Lord Guilford Dudley together on the same scaffold at Tower hill, but the council fearing the compassion of the people for their youth, beauty, innocence, and noble birth, might excite some dan- gerous commotion, thought proper to alter their resolution, and gave orders that she should be beheaded within the verge of the Tower. On the morning of her execution. Lord Guil- ford requested a final interview with her, but she declined a LADY JANE GREY. 83 scene which she thought would too strongly excite the feelings of hoth, and intimated to him hy message, that the fortitude and tranquillity of mind which should disarm their approach- ing fate of its sting, would rather be shaken than confirmed by that interview which he so affectionately desired. It would rather, she said, foment their grief than be a comfort in death, and that they would shortly meet in a better place and happier estate. Lord Guilford acquiesced in the propriety of her observations, and as he passed near the window of her apart- ment in his way to Tower hill, she gave him a farewell look of ineffable complacency and dignity. In a short time she witnessed the melancholy spectacle of his headless body, which the executioners were bringing back for interment.* Sir John Gage, constable of the Tower, when he led her to execution, requested her to favour him with some small present, which he might preserve as a perpetual memorial " ^^^.' She gave him her table-book in which she had jus' k>atten three sentences on seeing her husband's de"'^ ^ody' ; one in Greek, another in Latin, and a third in EngiiSli. The meaning of them was that human justice militated against his body, but the divine mercy would be propitious to his soul ; that if her fault merited punishment, her youth, at least, and her impru- dence, might plead her excuse ; and that God and posterity, she hoped, would shew her favour. When conducted to the scaffold she respectfully addressed the spectators, who were all dissolved in tears at the depressing spectacle. Her crime, she said, was not the having seized a crown, but the not refusing it with sufficient resolution : that her error was less the effect of ambition, than of reverence and duty to her parents, whom she had always been taught to honour and obey ; that she willingly submitted to death, as the * Lyttleton. 84 LADY JANE GREY. only compensatien she could make to the injured state ; and though her violation of the laws had been only the effect of compulsion and force, she would shew by her voluntary sub- mission to their sentence, that she was desirous of expiating the crime, into which too much filial piety had betrayed her : that she justly merited this punishment, for having been made the instrument, though the unwilling instrument, of the am- bitious views of others ; and that the story of her life, she hoped, might at least be productive of advantage, that it would serve as a lasting memorial to prove that even innocence can be no excuse for those actions which tend to the prejudice of the public. In countenance she was nothing cast down ;* neither her eyes moistened any-way with tears, although her gentlewo- men, Elizabeth Tilney, and Mistress Helen, " wonderfully wept." She, with astonishing firmness and composure caused herself to be disrobed, and having bound a handkerchief over her eyes, knelt down and laid her head upon the block. The axe gleamed for a moment in the sunshine, there was a dull heavy blow, and the life of Lady Jane had ended. " Never was more innocent blood shed ; never was purer virtue sacri- ficed ; never was eternal justice more wounded or violated." Such is the story of Lady Jane Grey, the twelve-days' queen. A short hapless life was hers. Not yet seventeen when she submitted her neck to the stroke of the executioner ; she had seen strange vicissitudes of fortune. Happy for her had she never quitted Bradgate ; happy for her had her lot been cast in a humbler sphere of life ; happy for her had she never entered kings' palaces. If all the world's a stage, and all the men and women in it players, what a dismal tragedy was that in which this unfortunate woman played chief character! * De Thou. .■i.'yyxyy-y.y/y ,-y, y/.^^ FRANCES BUENEY. It sometimes happens that a whole family becomes famous for distinguished abilities. But this is the exception, not the rule. In most cases one is the bright particular star, and the other members of the family receive reflected glory, and are not themselves a galaxy of brightness ; but still the literary firmament is not without its clusters, and such an one is aflPorded in the case of the Burneys. Dr. Burney was the organist at Lynn, and had written a history of music. He was the friend and companion of the great men of his time ; and among his distinguished visitorswere David Garrick, Sir Robert Strange, Mason and Armstrong the poets, and Barry the painter. One of the Doctor's sons rose to be an admiral, accompanied Captain Cook in two of his voyages, and was the author of a history of voyages of dis- covery, in five volumes quarto, and also an account of the Russian eastern voyages. Another son, Charles, became a celebrated Greek scholar, and wrote several critical works on the Greek classics ; he was a Prebendary of Lincoln, and one of the king's chaplains. Both of the daughters were novelists. But even in a galaxy one star may differ from another star in glory ; and brighter than all the rest shone the fame of Frances Burney. The history of music may be supplanted by a more external and more detailed chronicle ; discoveries and voyages of a more entertaining character may be written than the five volumes quarto of Admiral James Burney ; more criti- cally critical books may be made on the Greek classics than I 86 FRANCES BURNEY. those of his brother, but the works of Frances Burney will never cease to be the delight of all lovers of fiction. Frances Burney was born on the 13th of June, 1752 — one hundred and one years ago, at Lynn Regis, in the county of Norfolk. When she was eight years old her father removed to London, and became, as we have said, the friend and com- panion of the great men of the time. Fanny soon began to exhibit a shrewdness and intelligence beyond her years. She was an infant prodigy. Now in most cases infant prodigies turn out adult dunces. Prematurely wise, they fall into pre- mature decay, and, like forced flowers, bloom when none others bloom, but fade when others blossom. This was not the case with Frances Burney. She early became an authoress ; im- mortalised herself in printer's ink at fifteen, had written several tales, was a great reader, and even a critic. But it v/as all done in secret. Miss Burney did not shout into the world's ear that she was a weilder of the goose quill ; she did not stand before an admiring throng, and say, " Look at me, all leo- hunters, I am an authoress, I wrote the fiction that made you smile and weep, I stirred up the torpid passions of your nature ; I, Frances Burney, miss in her teens !" She kept the matter quiet, even the good doctor knew nothing about it, and little supposed that his own quiet modest daughter was writing herself into public favour ; that little Fanny was already highly popular. In this way, it is said, she composed " Evelina" when she was only seventeen. Of this she has furnished an amusing account, in her interview with George III. She tells us how she went to see that mon- arch, with a Mrs. Delaney, and what took place is sufficiently entertaining to merit a place here. *' The king went up to the table and looked at a book of prints, from Claude Lorraine, which had been brought down FRANCES BURNEY. 87 for Miss Dewes, but Mrs. Delaney told him they were for me. He turned over a leaf or two, and then said ; — " ' Pray does Miss Burney draw, too V " This too was pronounced very civilly. " * I believe not, sir,' answered Mrs. Delaney, * at least she does not tell.' " ' Oh !' cried the king, ' that is nothing, she is not apt to tell, she never does tell, you know, her father told me that himself. He told me the whole history of her " Evelina," and I shall never forget his face, when he spoke of his feelings at first taking up the book ; he looked quite frightened, just as if he was doing it that moment. I never can forget his face while I live.' " Then coming up close to me he said, ' but what ! what ! how was it ? ' " * Sir,' cried I, not well understanding him. " * How came you, how happened it — what — what ? ' *' ' I — I only wrote, sir, for my own amusement — only in some odd idle hours.' " * But your publishing — your printing — how was that ? ' " ' That was only, sir, — only because — ' " I hesitated most abominably, not knowing how to tell him a long story, and growing terribly confused at these questions. Besides, to say the truth, his own what ! what ! so reminded me of those vile probationary odes, that in the midst of all my flutter, I was really hardly able to keep my countenance. " The what was then repeated with so earnest a look, that forced me to say something ; I stammeringly answered, ' I thought sir, it would look very well in print.' " I do really flatter myself this is the silliest speech I ever made ; I am quite provoked with myself for it, but a fear of laughing made me eager to utter anything, and by no means conscious, till I had spoken, what I was saying. OO FRANCES BURNEY. " He laughed very heartily himself — well he might- — and walked away to enjoy it, crying out, ' very fair indeed ; that's heing very fair and honest.' " Then returning to me again, he said, * hut your father — - how came you not to show him what you wrote ? ' " ' I was too much ashamed of it, sir, seriously.' *' ' And how did he find it out ? ' '* ' I do not know myself, sir ; he never would tell me.' " ' But how did you get it printed ? ' " ' I sent it, sir, to a bookseller my father never employed, and that I never had seen myself — Mr. Lowndes, in full hopes that by that means, he never would hear of it.' " ' But how could you manage that ? ' " ' By means of a brother, sir.' *' ' Oh, you confided in a brother, then ? ' " * Yes sir — that is for the publication.' '* ' What entertainment you must have had from hearing peo- ple's conjectures before you were known ! Do you remember any of them ? ' " ' Yes sir, many.' " * And what ?' " ' I heard that Mr. Baretty laid a wager it was written by a man, for no woman, he said, could have kept her own coun- sel.' " This diverted him extremely. *' ' But how was it,' he continued, *you thought it most likely for your father to discover you ? ' " ' Sometimes, sir, I have supposed I must have dropped some of the manuscript ; sometimes that one of ray sisters be- trayed me.' " ' Oh, your sister ? what ! not your brother 1 ' " * No, sir, he could not for — ' FRANCES BURNEY. 89 " I was going on, but he laughed so much, I could not be heard, exclaiming — " ' Vastly well ! I see you are of Mr. Baretty's mind, and think your brother could keep your secret, and not your sister. Well but,' cried he presently, ' how was it first known to you, you were betrayed ? ' " ' By a letter, sir, from another sister. I was very ill, and in the country, and she wrote me word, my father had taken up a review, in which the book was mentioned, and put his finger upon its name, and said, Contrive to get that book for me.' " ' And when he got it,' cried the king, * he told me he was afraid of looking at it ; and never can I forget his face, when he mentioned his first opening it. But you have not kept your pen unemployed all this time ? ' " ' Indeed I have, sir.' " * But why ? ' " ' I — I believe I have exhausted myself, sir.' " He laughed aloud at this, and went and told it to Mrs. Delaney, civilly treating a plain fact, as a mere hon mot.'' *' Then returning to me again, he said more seriously, ' but you have not determined against writing any more ? ' '' ' N 0, sir.' ** 'You have made no vow — no real resolution of that sort ? ' " * No, sir.' " ' You only wait for inclination ? ' " *No, sir.' "A very little bow spoke him pleased with this answer ; and he went again to the middle of the room, where he chiefly stood, and addressing us in general, talked upon the different motives of writing, concluding with, ' I believe there is no constraint put upon real genius ; nothing hut inclination can I 2 90 FRANCES BURKEY. set it to work ; But Miss Burney, however, knows best ;' and then hastily returning to me, he cried, ' what ! what!' " ' No, sir, I — I believe not, certainly,' quoth I very awk- wardly, for I seemed taking a violent compliment only as my due, but I knew not how to put him off, as I could another person." Little Fanny's novel created quite a sensation. The work had been offered to Dodsley, but had been rejected, as he de- clined looking at anything anonymous. Lowndes had agreed to publish it, and had given £20 for the manuscript. It was the talk of the town. Evelina ; or, a Young Lady's entrance into the World, was the topic of the day ; whether the au- thoress went to London, Bath, or Tunbridge, she still listened to her own praises ; and even Leonine Johnson protested that there were passages in the book which might do honour to Richardson. In 1782 came out " Cecilia," Miss Burney's second work. This work has more of the artist about it. It is not so humo- rous ; perhaps not quite so natural, either in character, inci- dent, or dialogue, but it is far more highly finished than Eve- lina. Miss Burney, shortly after the publication of her second work, paid a visit to Mr. Delaney, an intimate of the Dean of St. Patrick's, and a favourite of their majesties. Thus it was that our authoress was introduced to the king, and became a visitor at Windsor Castle. Their majesties were highly pleased with her. She was subsequently appointed second keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte, with a salary of .£200 per annum, a footman, and a carriage between herself and colleague, a colleague by the way, with whom she had no sym- pathy. The duties of keeper of the robes would appear to be but light and easy. But appearances are often deceptive. Life r i ;,:,i liT FRANCES BURNEY. 91 in the palace seems an enviable destiny ; but the seeming is hugely erroneous. The first duty of Miss Burney was, to mix the queen's snuff; a post worthy of the authoress of " Evelina ;" a high favour this, to judiciously mix the tobacco which should tickle the nostrils of majesty ; but her duties afterwards became more onerous. She had to remain in con- stant attendance upon Charlotte, from six in the morning, till twelve at night ; ready at any moment to assist her in arrang- ing her dress. High preferment, this ! noble duty, this ! to leave the quiet home, and the well-loved labour, for the cham- ber of the palace ; and to quit book making, for the arrange- ment of boddices and skirts, and hooks and eyes, and snuff mixing ! The situation of robe-keeper was only a sort of splendid slavery. Chains are chains, though they be golden. It was a grinding and intolerable destiny for one who had been courted and flattered ; for though the queen was a kind mis- tress, the duties were irksome, and the stiff etiquette of the court banished all comfort. At last, a French refugee officer wooed and won the fair authoress, and Miss Burney became Madame D'Arblay. In 1793, she produced a tradegy, taken from the old Saxon re- cord, and called, "Edwin and Elgitha." They say it is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and deep tradegy may become broad farce : in the death-scene of the queen in Madame D'Arblay's tradegy, the heroine is brought from be- hind a hedge to expire, and then carried back again to lie still till the play is over. The house was convulsed with laughter ! At the peace of Amiens, Madame D'Arblay went with her husband to Paris, and, he having joined the army of Napoleon, remained there through the greater part of the subsequent war. In 1812, she returned to England, and purchased a 92 FRANCES ^BURNEY. villa, which she christened Camilla Cottage ; even as Mrs. StQwe has christened her new little mansion by the name of the " Cabin I" In 1814, came out the " Wanderer,'* a wan- derer through five whole volumes ! By this work alone, the authoress realised £1500. In 1832, she published the me- moirs of her father, Dr. Burney, a very interesting book. Madame D'Arblay pictured the life of the last century. She was a terrible foe to vulgarly-genteel people ; and though her characters rusticated at Brightelmstone, and mingled with the world of fashion, at Ranelagh and Mary-le-bone Gardens, there is enough of reality about them to commend them to posterity. Madame D'Arblay lived to a good old age — eighty- eight, — and died in the year 1840, ANNE BOLETN, Once upon a time, as the old stories begin, there was a brave leader, and a gallant soldier, wise in the council, valiant in the field, — named, Sir Thomas Boleyn. Some called him Bullen, or, as it was originally written, Boulen, for he was of French descent ; but call him by what name you would, a truer man never wore golden spurs. His wife was the Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Earl of Surrey. This brought Sir Thomas into close connexion with royalty, for his wife's brother married the sister of Henry the seventh's queen. He was a favourite with Henry VIII., who bestowed upon him many preferments. To the knight was born a daughter ; and at Blickling Hall, in Norfolk, Anne Boleyn first saw light. There are strange superstitions still hanging about the place, and one room, called Old Bullen's study, was long shut up on account of a domestic spectre. The early life of Anne Boleyn was spent at Blickling. The family afterwards removed to Hever Castle, Kent. In the year 1512, Anne lost her mother, whom she dearly loved, and Sir Thomas afterwards married a Norfolk woman, of humble origin. The education of Anne Boleyn was superintended by a French governess ; and she early became a maid of honour in the retinue of Princess Mary Tudor, youngest sister of Henry VIII., when that princess was affianced to Louis XIL, of France. She afterwards entered the service of the consort of Francis I., a sober-minded queen, little assimilating to the manners of her volatile maid. Chateaubriant has left a 94 ANNE BOLEYN. description of the characteristics of Anne Boleyn, and they are strangely different from those of the queen, who marched her maids to mass each day, and kept them afterwards, in holy conversation, at the spinning-wheel. *' She possessed," he says, " a great talent for poetry ; and when she sung, like a second Orpheus, she would have made bears and wolves attentive. She likewise danced the English dances, leaping and jumping with infinite grace and agility. Moreover, she invented many new figures and steps, which are yet known by her name, or by those of the gallant partners with whom she danced them. She was well-skilled in all games fashionable at courts. Besides singing like a syren, accompanying herself on the lute, she harped better than King David, and handled cleverly both flute and rebec. She dressed with marvellous taste, and devised new modes, which were followed by the fairest ladies of the French court ; but none wore them with her gracefulness, in which she rivalled Venus." Anne Boleyn afterwards exchanged the sober service of the queen of Francis I. for the gay splendours of the court of Margaret of Alen^on, and in 1522 returned to England. At Hever Castle the real drama of her life began. She was beau- tiful in person, graceful in demeanour, and accustomed to the society of the great. As she walked in the gardens of her father's mansion, she accidentally encountered the king. He en- tered into conversation with her, was charmed with her sprightly wit, and, on his return to Westminster, told Wolsey that he had been discoursing with a young lady who had the wit of an angel, and was worthy of a crown. And never from the mind of Henry departed the image of his new love ; her tall and slender figure, her oval face and black hair, the glow of health on her cheek, the brightness in her eyes, the smile upon her ANNE BOLEYN. 95 lips he could never forget. She was soon engaged in the suite of Queen Catherine, when she became the cynosure of all eyes, the envy of the one sex, and the admiration of the other. Suitors pressed around her ; but one there was who watched with a jealous eye. Lord Percy was the favoured one, and the king hated him with a deadly hatred. Percy was affianced to Anne Boleyn ; but what of that to the monarch. He sent for Wolsey, and commanded him to put an end to the engagement. It was a hard matter, but it was done ; the contract was dis- solved, and Percy became the husband of Mary Talbot. Anne Boleyn was dismissed from the court, for which she vowed to be revenged on the cardinal. So she dwelt in privacy at Hever Castle, moodily brooding over her wrongs : and when the king paid an unexpected visit, was so indignant, that she took to her bed, and refused to see him. This, of course, in- creased the passion of the royal lover. Henry had flattered himself, that he had only to signal his favour to obtain a con- quest ; and he found that, in love, kings are but men, and must seek favour with their lady-loves like others. He began to do this, by elevating Sir Thomas Boleyn to the peerage, by the style and title of Viscount Rochford ; and bestowed upon him, the high office of treasurer of the royal household. But Anne refused to be reinstated In the post of maid of honour ; she still manifested a persevering resentment ; and not till 1527, did she again appear at court. Then Henry presented her with jewels, and then made an avowal of his passion, but the proposals of the king were rejected with abhorrence ; and when the monarch ventured to say, he should still continue to hope, Anne answered : — *' I understand not, most mighty king, how you should retain such hope ; your wife I cannot be, both in respect of my unworthiness, and also, because you have a queen already. — Your mistress I will not be !" 96 ANNE BOLEYN. This only served further to inflame the passion of the mo- narch ; so long letters were written to mollify her ruffled spirit, — letters, which are still preserved for the world to look at. Thus assured of the king's favour, and deep in the king's secrets, she began to look very haughty, for the time seemed coming, when she should have her revenge on her old enemy, the cardinal. As Anne began to exhibit this temper, the courtiers adopted the same course, and Wolsey, shrewd, cunning as he was, saw the black cloud no bigger than a man's hand, that threatened to shut out his sunshine, and bring adversity's storm upon him. A question was being secretly agitated, and in myste- rious whispers men began to talk about the king's secret matter. This was the question of his divorce from Catherine. Every day his love for Anne increased ; every day fresh mani- festations were given of how she ruled his heart. At the grand masque at Greenwich, on the 5th of May, 1527, he selected her for his partner, and so clear and evident became his attachment to the maid of honour, that Catherine upbraided him with his perfidy. While Wolsey was in Fiance the influence of Anne became still greater. The courtiers thronged around her, and worshipped the rising sun. Anne felt the charm of power. In the glory of the throne she saw not the dark prospect that lay beyond. She trifled with the gallants of the court, but not as she had done with the Lord Percy ; she toyed with them, and encouraged just far enough to awaken the rivalry of the monarch, but not far enough to bring down his vengeance. Meanwhile the secret matter became a public matter. The king sought to divorce his wife. Catherine had been the wife of his brother, was it lawful for him to have his brother's wife ? He never thought of that till the light of Boleyn's eyes shone on the matter, and ANNE BOLEYN. 97 in their lustre he saw his error. Henry wrote a treatise on the illegality of his present union, and in his pride of heart shewed it to Sir Thomas More, who said he could not give any opinion on its merits, seeing he did not understand theology. So the king sent it to the pope. It was about this period that a horrible disease broke out, called the sweating sickness. Thousands and thousands perished, and men thought they heard in it the voice of God thundering against the monarch who was about to deny the wife of his youth. Henry himself imagined this to be the case, and effecting a temporary reconciliation with Catherine, attended certain penitential services, and sent Anne Boleyn home to her father at Hever Castle. But his amatory corres- pondence was still continued. From the chapel, with its burning tapers, and dim religious light, he stole away to his own private rooms, and wrote loving letters to the gentle Anne. Here is one of them : — *' My Mistress and my Friend, " My heart and I surrender ourselves into your hands, and we supplicate to be commended to your good graces, and that by absence your affections may not be diminished to us. For that would be to augment our pain, which would be a great pity, since absence gives enough, and more than I ever thought could be felt. This brings to my mind a fact in Astronomy, which is, that the further the poles are from the sun, notwithstanding the more scorching is his heat. Thus is it with our love ; absence has placed distance between us, nevertheless fervour increases, at least on my part. I hope the same from you ; assuring you that in my case the anguish of absence is so great, that it would be intolerable, were it not for the firm hope I have of your indissoluble affection towards K 98 ANNE BOLEYN. me. In order to remind you of it, and because I cannot in person be in your presence, I send you the thing which comes nearest that is possible, that is to say, my picture, and the whole device, which you already know of, set in bracelets, wishing myself in their places when it pleases you. This is from the hand of " Your servant and friend, The king became alarmed for her health, and she was indeed seized with the epidemic, when Henry sent his own physician. Dr. Butts, to attend her ; and the shadow of death passed over her, but left her for a still darker destiny. Meanwhile the love of Henry for Anne increased, and when the epidemic passed away, he renewed his application for a divorce ; and so wroth was he with Wolsey for the long delay, that he is said to have employed "terrible terms*' to him. At last the monarch declared to Anne Boleyn that it was his intention to make her his queen, as soon as he was released from his present marriage. The room at Hever Castle, where the declaration was made, is still shewn. She appeared again at court, and the French ambassador notes in his report, — " Mademoiselle de Boleyn has at last returned to court, and I believe the king to be so infatuated with her, that God alone can stay his madness." Catherine was sent to Greenwich, and Anne installed in a gorgeous suite of apartments contigu- ous to those of the king. So the process of divorce was carried on ; but law's delays are tedious. The pope sent his legates, and the Legatine court was established at Bridewell. The residence of Anne at the court was a cause of great scandal, and the king procured for her a splendid mansion, apart from his own ; but when, at ANNE BOLEYN. 99 Christmas time, he went to Greenwich, Anne went with him, and while in one part of the palace Catherine held her court, Anne in another part gave masques and revels to the courtiers. In 1529, Bishop Gardiner was dispatched to Eome to plead for the divorce, for the king was becoming every day more impatient. It was about this time that Cranmer was brought forward. His eloquence and learning had attracted the notice of Gardiner, he spake so strongly on the subject of the divorce, that Gardiner communicated the same to the king ; saying, the young man proposed appealing from Rome to the most learned of the universities in Europe, to test thereby the validity of the marriage. "Ah," quoth Henry, " thou hast gotten the right sow by the ear." Cranmer became a great favourite with Anne Boleyn, and his gentle mistress — for she took him into her service — was induced to read an English Bible. That book she lent to one of her maids of honour ; that maid of honour in a " love trick" lost the book, and her lover retaining it by force, was reading it one day in the royal chapel ; a fellow-courtier, wondering to see him thus employed, snatched it from his hands, and lo ! the rank heresy was apparent — it was God's word in mother tongue. The courtier carried the book to the cardinal, who kept it by him to serve his purpose in the coming struggle ; but Anne, hearing what had occurred, went to the king, and told him all. He commanded the churchman to give up the book, a request with which he was forced to comply; and Anne, once more in possession of her treasure, entreated the king to examine it. Anne was a protestant ; or, at least, she was becoming heretical to her own church, and the king loved her, and her faith for her sake. Anne was now in open hostility with the cardinal. The courtiers flowed with the tide of favour. Sacerdotal vestments 100 ANNE BOLEYN. and scarlet hats could not save liim. His proud spirit must bow: "Begot by butchers, but by bishops bred, How haughtily his highness holds his head." But his haughty highness was on the verge of a downfall. The cardinal fell into disgrace. A rival power had crossed his star ; and the end came on. Higher and higher arose Anne Boleyn, and lower and lower sank the churchman ; he to a grave, she to a crown ; he to rest, she to disquiet ; his dream of glory was over, her dream of glory just beginning, a dream of glory that ended in a direful night-mare. The •cardinal was arrested, and died a prisoner; and Anne kept Christmas with the splendour of a queen. It was about this period, however, that a strange incident occurred. One night Anne found in her chamber a book, professing to be of a prophetic character. She glanced at the oracular hieroglyphic, and saw by the letters attached to the various figures, that her own destiny was marked out. Those initials meant something. H. K. A. might stand for Henry, Katherine, Anne. She called her principal attendant. " Come hither. Nan," said she, " see here is a book of prophecies. This is the king ; this is the queen wringing her hands and mourning ; and this is myself, with ray head cut off." *'If I thought the prophecy were true," said Nan, "I would not have him, if he were an emperor." " Tut, Nan, the book is but a bauble, and I am resolved to have him, that my issue may be royal, whatever may become of me." So the matter of the divorce went on. All England was in an uproar ; all Europe was shaken. Some folk declared for the gentle Anne ; some for the sober-minded Catherine ; some ANNE BOLEYN. 101 for both. Luther himself declared that he would rather allow the king to have two wives, than dissolve his first union. Wherever went the king, thither went Anne. The dazzling prospect of a crown was before her, and shut out the scaf- fold that lay beyond. The royal lover was continually be- stowing upon her rich presents, as we find from his privy purse expenses. Among the rest the following : — £ s. d. Item, paid to John Maiti, for twelve yards of black satin, for a cloak for my Lady Anne, at 8s. per yard 4 16 For making the same cloak . . . . ,050 A yard of black velvet for edging the same . . 13 4 Three yards and three quarters of black velvet, to line the collar and arm holes 1 16 Two yards of black satin, to line the sleeves of the same cloak, at 8s. the yard 16 Eleven yards of Bruges satin, to line the rest of the cloak, at 2s. 4d, the yard 15 8 Tv/o yards of buckram, to line the upper sleeves of the same cloak 2 The whole cost of the cloak is . . . . £9 14 The monarch not only bestowed upon her such marks as this of his royal favour, but he did what never monarch yet had done, created his lady-love a peeress in her own right, under the title of Marchioness of Pembroke. In the architec- tural buildings then in progress, the initial cyphers of Anne and Henry were introduced, entwined with a true-lover's knot= He also bestowed upon her a grant of certain lands in Wales, and in the entries of the privy purse are £12,000 for jewels^ supposed to be for my Lady Anne. Together they sojourned at Calais in high state, playing *' right royally" at cards and dice, for Anne was a lover of play and a fortunate gamester.^ 102 A1«NE BOLEYN. Thus in a single-handed game of cards with her royal lover, she won £11. 13s. 4d., duly entered in the king's expenses, as lost at play to my Lady Anne. At length the king was privately married to Anne Boleyn. The time and place are disputed points. The new queen remained in great retirement, for as yet the public mind was not prepared for the change. When matters had been arranged, and Henry had determined to cast off the Roman yoke, Cranmer publicly pronounced sentence in the divorce case so long pending, a sentence which declared the marriage with Catherine to be null and void, and five days after gave a judicial confirmation to the second union of the king. Preparations were immediately made for her coronation as queen. The Lord Mayor and civic dignitaries were sum- moned to Greenwich to fetch the queen to the Tower, and the broad bosom of the Thames became the scene of her public triumph. The pageant we need not describe, nor tell of the goodly harmony which was made, nor how marvellous peals of guns were shot ofi" in honour of the new queen. With her royal attendants she took part in that gay procession on the water, and at the Tower-stairs was met by Henry himself, who kissed her tenderly before the court. For some days Anne Boleyn remained in the Tower, during which time seventeen young noblemen were made Knights of the Bath, and appointed as attendants at her coronation. Then city streets were gravelled from the Tower to Temple Bar, and railed on one side so that the people should not be hurt by the horses ; Cornhill and Gracechurch-street were brave in scarlet cloth and velvet hangings, and Stephen Peacock, Mayor of London, went to receive the queen at the Tower. What a gorgeous show it was ! how 'prentice boys cast up their caps and shouted for Queen Anne ; how in ANNE BOLEYN. 103 Gracechurch-street the E-henisli wine ran all day long ; how every conduit ran with wine, and the air was made melodious \vith sweet sounds ; and how in her litter of state came Anne all bright and beautiful ; how splendid was the coronation that followed — chroniclers have told, and we need not here recount. The Pope fulminated his interdicts, and summoned Henry to Rome, but Henry had married a wife, and could not come. So there were jousts and tournaments and great gay doings, and the court continued to be one scene of festivity. What of the prophecy book now ? The initial of Anne was on the gold and silver coinage, and she reigned as a queen. At length she became a mother. But to the great disappointment of Henry a daughter was born. This child was afterwards Queen Elizabeth. So confident had the king been of a son, that in the circular which had been previously prepared to send round to the nobility, the word prince was written, and when the event occurred an s was added. Then came the question of the king's supremacy. The courtiers were required totake the oath ; and, for nonconformity, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, died on the scaffold. The queen liked not Sir Thomas More, and when Margaret Roper visited the good old man in prison, and he asked her " How Queen Anne did ?" " In faith, father, never better," she replied, " never better. There is nothing else in the court but dancing and sporting." " Never better," said he, " alas ! Meg, alas ! it pitieth me to think into what misery, poor soul, she will shortly come. These dances of hers will prove such dances that she will spurn our heads off like foot balls ; but it will not be long ere her head will dance the like dance." A tragedy sometimes begins with a wedding. But a change came over the mind of the queen. She 104 ANNE BOLEYN. forgot her vivacity. She grew serious and sedate. The words of Latimer, the reformation preacher, had entered her heart. She espoused the cause of protestantism, and became eminent for her christian zeal. Yet pride and vengeance were not dead, but sleeping. She was at the summit of glory. Wolsey was dead, Catherine uncrowned, herself triumphant. When she heard of the death of the queen, she clapped her hands for joy, and handsomely rewarded the messenger ; and when Henry commanded royal mourning, she disobeyed the order and appeared in yellow. But fortune's wheel was turning. With the measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again. Jane Seymour, one of the maids of honour, had attracted the king's attention. The play was beginning afresh. Anne saw it, felt it ; her grief and indignation knew no bounds. Her agitation was so great that the king was troubled. She was again a mother, but the mother of a dead son. The rage of the king was terrible ; he burst into the apartment of his consort, and upbraided her with the loss of the boy. Anne saw it all. Her star of glory was eclipsed. Her dream of glory was fast ending. In secluded spots, in Greenwich Park, she wandered all alone ; deep melancholy settled on her spirits, and she had no relish for the gaieties of the court. Then rumour whispered to the king that Anne was inconstant. Inconstant ! who so inconstant and fickle as he ? Doubt and sus- picion were aroused ; doubt and suspicion, two arrant knaves, that only sought an opportunity to hurl the gentle woman down to death and infamy. She loved others, so it was said, she con- versed freely with the gentlemen of the king's household ; all the petty spite and idle scandal of the court was poured into the ear of Henry. A plot was being formed. Every circumstance told in its favour. A secret committee of the House of Peers was employed to examine evidence against the queen. She ANNE BOLEYN. 105 knew it not. On the first of May she appeared with her royal consort, at the jousts at Greenwich. There the sports were suddenly broken up ; her brother, Lord Rochford, and others, were arrested. That day, as the queen sat at dinner, the Duke of Norfolk, with Audley, Cromwell, and others of the council entered. She asked them why they came, and they answered, that they came, by the king's command, to conduct her to the Tower, there to remain during his highness's pleasure. The broad bosom of the Thames was the scene of her disgrace ; and as the boat floated under the dark entrance of the old fortress, Anne fell on her knees, " Lord, help me, as I am guiltless of that whereof I am accused." She wept and laughed, a laugh more terrible than the weeping, and cried in her agony, *' Jesus, have mercy on me !" A sad, sad change for the new queen, these lodgings in the Tower. They were the same that she had dwelt in previous to her coronation ; but oh, how changed. There she passed the weary days, and wearier nights, guarded, watched, betrayed; now laughing, now weeping, now moody, now gay and talka- tive ; but always subsiding into deep grief. Then came her trial. What the evidence was is unknown. That it was con- flicting and unsatisfactory, is certain ; but it ended in the con- demnation of Anne Boleyn. She was pronounced guilty ; required to lay aside her crown, which she did, and then heard the sentence, that she be burnt or beheaded as the king thought fit. But there was a higher tribunal, and to that tribunal Anne Boleyn appealed — " Father, Creator, Thou art the way, the truth, and the life, Thou knowest I have not deserved this death !" The next scene of the tragedy is a certain low chapel or crypt, in Cranmer's house, at Lambeth. There Anne appeared, in obedience to a summons, and admitted a pre-contract of 106 ANNE BOLEYN. her marriage with my Lord Percy ; this was taken to prove that the king's marriage with her was, in consequence, null and void, and that the Princess Elizabeth was illegitimate. Cranmer sat in judraent on the occasion, and Anne submitted to the degradation to save herself from burning, which his highness, the king, proposed. Then Anne sat in her prison waiting for death. She had hoped that the king would pardon her ; that he would com- mute her sentence ; but her hope was vain. So the Lady Anne sung her own dirge in strange old stanzas of her own composing : — " Oh death, rock me asleep, Bring on my quiet rest, Let pass my very guiltless ghost Out of my careful breast. Ring out the doleful knell, Let its sound my death tell ; For I must die, There is no remedy, For now I die ! My pains who can express, Alas ! they are so strong ! My dolour will not suffer strength, My life for to prolong. Alone, in prison strange ! I wait my destiny ; Woe worth this curel hap that I Should taste this misery. Farewell my pleasures past, "Welcome my present pain, I feel my torments so increase, That life cannot remain. ANNE BOLEYN. 107 Sound now the passing bell : Rung is my doleful knell, For its sound my death doth tell. Death doth draw nigh ! Sound the knell dolefully, For now I die. On the 19 til of May the execution took place. The queen protested her innocence to the moment of her death. She sent a message to the king, but it was not to sue for mercy. ** Tell him," said she, " that he hath been ever constant in his career of advancing me ; from a private getlewoman he made me a marchioness ; from a marchioness a queen, and now he hath left no higher degree of honour, he gives my innocence the crown of martyrdom." At twelve at noon the queen appeared. Never had she looked so beautiful. She was dressed in mourning, and was led by the lieutenant of the Tower, and attended by four maids of honour. She was con- ducted to the scaffold, which had been erected in the green. There was a very host of enemies, come to see her die. Anne addressed the people : — " I am come hither to die, according to law, for by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak any thing of that whereof I am accused, as I know full well that aught that I could say in my defence doth not appear unto you, and that I could draw no hope of life from the same. But I come here only to die, and thus to yield myself humbly unto the will of my lord, the king. I pray God to save the king, and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler or more merciful prince was there never. To me he was ever a good and gracious sovereign. If any person will meddle with my cause, I pray them to judge the best. Thus I take leave of the world and of you, and I 108 ' ANNE BOLEYN. heartily desire you all to pray for me." She prepared herself for the block, for her women were overcome with grief, and then in pathetic words took leave of them most lovingly. It is said that Anne refused to have her eyes bandaged, and that every time the headsman drew near, he was prevented from doing his office by their keen bright glance. At last he beckoned to one of his assistants to advance softly on one side, while he, with his shoes off, approached on the other. The queen was deceived by the sound, she turned her head in the direction from whence the sound proceeded, and, while for a moment she gazed on the assistant, the headsman lifted his Calais sword, and struck off her head at a blow ! Mlgm m®^AE. IHIl£©IHIM2Sgi TMIE W'WQlSLmBB ©IF MHiM^ THE DUCHESS OF KENT. **The fate of a child," said Napoleon, "is always the work of its mother." How much truth there is in this statement ! How much we all owe to a mother's teachings and a mother's care ! In admiring and esteeming the amiable qualities of our beloved sovereign, we are naturally led to think of her who has so faithfully discharged a mother's duties to our royal lady. The Duchess of Kent is worthy of all honour and respect, and some few particulars regarding her history may not be deemed inappropriate. She comes of an illustrious family, one of the oldest and noblest in Europe. Far back in the gloom of past ages we dis- cern the line of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg — ere Charlemagne had maide himself immortal. Victoria Maria Louisa is the daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and sister to Leopold, the King of the Belgians. She was born on the 17th of August, 1786. When Victoria Maria was sixteen years of age she was married to the Prince Leiningen. It was not a love-match. The union was one of policy. She had beauty, high birth, a liberal education, a cultivated taste. He possessed no recom- mendations but wealth and rank. He was forty-four years old, with no redeeming quality to compensate for dissolute habits, and an absolutely hateful mind and heart. Those that sow the wind reap the whirlwind. Gold could not make amends for goodness — wealth is a poor equivalent ht wisdom, and money is a bad exchange for merit. The youthful princess L 110 THE DUCHESS OF KENT. found herself united to a man whose habits and conduct were alike distasteful to her, whose principles and practices she utterly abhorred. Every day the estrangement between them became greater. She felt that she had been sacrificed to an unfeeling debauchee ; — he, careless and indifferent, abandoned her to entire neglect, and rendered her the victim of his un- ceasing petulance and cruelty. Her life was one of bitterness. Years of unspeakable sorrow passed over her head. Her sufferings were very great. " Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage ;" neither do palaces make happy homes, nor gilded roofs shut out discomfort. Surrounded by splendour, the affection- ate heart of the young wife was crushed. She had no hope, she found no sympathy ; she was alone. He who should have loved and cherished her was incapable of any kindly emotion. So fifteen years passed away, and then the wife was widowed. In that which commonly brings with it the deepest desolation she found consolation. How great must have been her grief when widowhood became a solace ! Two years after this, his late Royal Highness the Duke of Kent was brought into the society of the lovely widow. In her he found all he had ever sought in woman. She was beautiful in person, cultivated in understanding, and between them there existed a congeniality of taste, which made him seek her as his bride. The Duke of Kent was one of those princes whose characters are great with simplicity ; uniting all the dignity of royal rank with the grace and ease of domes- tic life ; a clear solid judgment which sees its proper end, and pursues it by direct means ; a mind too generous for intrigue; a temper open, ardent, and benevolent ; in one word, one of THE DUCHESS OF KENT. Ill those men whose singular merit rendered his rank a disad- vantage, inasmuch as it withdrew his private virtues from that light and pubhcity which are only wanting to ensure them their due homage. The Duke of Kent had early distinguished himself in his career as a soldier. He had lived in times of peculiar peril and diflficulty, and had entered upon the course of duty with a spirit proportionate to his rank. He personally engaged against the enemies of his country. In the field of battle he had exhibited his courage. His courage was passive, as well as active. He knew how to lead on his troops, and he knew how to bide his time. '' He is the best soldier," said the witty Marshal Saxe, " who continues a good soldier after a shower of rain," There is a great deal of truth in this saying. The difficulties and privations of a soldier's life, are more serious hardships than actual conflict. How great must those hardships be to one accustomed to the ease and luxury of a palace. Yet the long life of the Duke of Kent as a meritorious officer, afford us a fine instance of how princely rank can be laid aside at the call of duty. He cheerfully incurred all the perils and inconveniences of long and hazardous service, the vicissitudes of climates, the pestilential heats of the torrid zone, and the no less noxious colds and damps of the American woods and lakes. Nobly he stood forth among our British princes. No one better preserved the necessary decorums of rank, where the order of society, and the publicity of his appearance re- quired them ; no one more gracefully laid them aside — more unostentatiously sunk into the ease and grace of private friend- ship and domestic confidence, when, after the discharge of his public duties, he returned to the circle of his friends. The German lady attracted his attention, and the English prince was an accepted suitor. They were married, and the 112 THE DUCHESS OF KENT. widow of Prince Leiningen became Duchess of Kent. She accompanied her husband to England. Here she found warm friends. Here she began to understand the happiness of home. The domestic habits, the ardent affection, and the literary taste of the duke were appreciated by the new duchess. So a year of happiness sped on swift wings ; and their joy was increased by the birth of a daughter, Alexan- drina Victoria — our gracious queen. This event added considerably to the public importance of the duke and duchess. Their child was immediately recog- nized as heiress to the throne. But a sad change was at hand. A dark cloud was rising. The happiness of the duchess was too great to last. Just eight months after the birth of Vic- toria, her father was suddenly taken ill. It was a season of intense anxiety. The duchess was assiduous in her atten- tions, and affectionately watched beside the couch of her hus- band. The end was at hand. Death laid his icy hand upon him, and he breathed his last. For some time it was doubted whether the duchess would survive the shock ; so severely did she feel the blow. The House of Commons deputed a committee to present an address of condolence to the bereaved widow. It was a deeply- affecting sight. The duchess held in her arms the infant Victoria ; and with weeping eyes and bursting heart, listened to the address of the deputation. Then she presented to them the unconscious child, and assured them of her determination to consecrate all her energies to prepare the child for the dis- tinguished situation she seemed destined to fill. All eyes were suffused with tears ; all sympathized with the widowed mother ; all respected her sincere grief, and esteemed her noble character. The duchess well performed the promise she then made. THE DUCHESS OF KENT. 113 From that hour she consecrated herself to the education of the young princess. In the sketch we have given of the life of her majesty, we have related some particulars of that edu- cation. We need not detail them afresh. With the duchess, nothing has interrupted the even tenor of her way. She is universally and deservedly respected; her public and her pri- vate virtues are well known ; and in doing honour to the Duchess of Kent, we esteem her own high and noble character, far above the fact, which, in itself, would demand our homage and respect — that she is the mother of our queen. L 2 HANNAH MOEE. Hannah More was born in the memorable year 1745, at Stapleton, in Gloucestershire. Her father kept a respectable school for boys. Hannah was the eldest of five sisters. After residing some years at Stapleton, her father removed to Bristol, but he did not long survive, and Hannah was left to struggle for herself and sisters, the youngest of whom was not ten years old. Friends came forward to assist her ; among them, the Eev. Dr. Stonhouse ; Dr. Tucker, Dean of Gloucester ; and Mrs. Gwatkin, a lady of extensive connexions, and considerable fortune. Through their friendly patronage, Hannah More and her sisters established a boarding-school in Park Street. This was about the year 1766. Each of the sisters, who were of sufficient age, took their share in the management of the school, but the chief duty naturally devolved on Hannah. All acted in perfect unison, and on a regular plan. Hannah had always been distinguished for studious habits, and exemplary piety. At an early age she evinced a taste for literature. For the entertainment of Mrs. Gwatkin's family, she composed the pastoral drama of the Search after Happi- ness ; and before her twentieth year, wrote one or two of her sacred dramas : but not till long afterwards, did she appear before the public as an authoress. She had often been re- quested to publish^ but her modesty had resisted every impor- tunity. At length, however, her consent was given, and her " Pastoral," with a few miscellaneous pieces, passed through three editions in a few months. HANNAH MORE. 115 While Hannah More was residing for a few weeks at Uphill, Somersetshire, for the benefit of her health, she happened to encounter Dr. Langhorne. Langhorne was a poet, and loved poetry. He had heard of Hannah More, and was rejoiced to see her. They walked together on the beach, and Langhorne, with his cane, wrote the following lines on the sand : — " Along the shore Walk'd Hannah More, Waves, let the record last ; Sooner shall ye. Proud earth and sea, Than what she writes, be past. John Langhorne." With a surprising readiness, Miss More immediately scratched the following answer : — " Some firmer basis, polish' d Langhorne, choose, To write the dictates of thy charming muse ; Her strains in solid characters rehearse, And be thy tablet lasting as thy verse. Hannah More." In the following year, Miss More published two poems, " Sir Eldred of the Bower," and " The Bleeding Rock." Con- cerning these publications, Garrick wrote to his friend, Dr. Stonhouse : — " Notwithstanding the great sale and reputation of Lord Chesterfield's Letters, it is but lately, that I had time, or indeed inclination, to peruse them : when I was told, that his lordship, as a part of polite education, forbids his son to laugh, (for I am vulgar enough to take all opportunities to show that distinction between us and the brutes,) I was not so eager as the rest of 116 HANNAH MORE. the world, to be taught politeness at the expense of my plea= sure : however, his Letters came in my way, and by reading them, 1 have learned what I hope soon to forget ; namely, that laughter is a sure sign of ill-breeding, and that women have no genius. Very luckily, a full answer to his lordship's as- sertion was recommended to me ; I mean Miss H. More's poem, — Sir Eldred of the Bower ^ the real pleasure I received in reading that, and the Bleeding Rock, a legendary tale, by the same author, was to me so point blank against his lord- ship's doctrine, that I could not help showing my gratitude to the lady, and ray disapprobation of the lord, in the follow- ing lines :— " Far from the reach of mortal grief, Well, Stanhope, art thou fled ! Nor could' st thou, lord, now gain belief Tho' rising from the dead. Thy wit, di female champion braves, And blasts thy critic power, She comes — and in her hand she waves, * Sir Eldred of the Bower.' The victor's palm aloft she bears, And sullen foes submit, The laurel crown from man she tears, And routs each lordly wit. * A female work, if this should prove,' Cries out the beaten foe, * 'Tis Pallas, from the head of Jove, Complete from top to toe. * With feeling, elegance and force Unite their matchless power. And prove that from a heavenly source Springs " Eldred of the Bower. '^ ' HANNAH MORE. 117 * True,' cries the god of verse, * 'tis mine, And now the farce is o'er, To vex proud man, I wrote each line, And gave them Hannah More !' " This, from Garrick, was no small praise, and he testified his friendship in another way, by writing the epilogue to the first dramatic piece of our authoress which was placed upon the stage, namely, " The Inflexible Captive." Dr. Langhorne wrote the prologue, and the play was performed at the Bath Theatre. In her next literary ejffort, she adopted prose ; and, in " Essays to Young Ladies," communicated most excellent advice and caution. In 1778, she produced the tradegy of " Percy," which was performed at Drury Lane Theatre ; Garrick ex- erting himself so much for the success of the piece, that one of the greatest actresses of the day, observed, " his nursing had enabled the bantling to go alone in a month ; while Cum- berland's tradegy of the ' Battle of Hastings,' which came out just after, for want of such fostership, died of the rickets I" The success of the play was complete. This encouraged the authoress to try again. She did so, under the friendly criticism of Garrick, and in 1779, the tradegy of " Fatal Falsehood," was brought out. Garrick did not live to wit- ness its reception : and from that time, Hannah More ceased to write for the stage ; and never afterwards, so it is said, attended a dramatic entertainment. Garrick's widow held Hannah More in the highest estima- tion. For a long time they continued to reside together, and Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, says, that Mrs. Garrick was accustomed to call Miss More her " domestic chaplain," and the doctor himself mentions her as the confidential friend of 118 ' HANNAH MORE. Mrs. Garrick, for wkom she wrote and transacted business. Not long before his death Johnson appeared one evening at the club in Essex Street, in high spirits, and said, '* I dined yesterday at Mrs. Garrick's, with Miss Carter, Hannah More, and Fanny Burney. Three such women are not to be found. I know not where I could find a fourth, except Miss Lennox, who is superior to them all." An anecdote is related of Miss More having once said to the doctor, that she felt some surprise that the author of Paradise Lost should write such poor sonnets, to which John- son replied, *' Milton, madam, was a genius that could cut Colossus from rock, but he could not carve heads upon cherry stones." In 1782 appeared a volume of sacred dramas from the pen of Hannah More. This was recommendation enough. The book was dedicated to the Duchess of Beaufort, and contained "The Finding of Moses," "David and Goliath," " Belshaz- zar," and " Daniel." The work went through many editions, and was an universal favourite. Shortly after the publication of this volume, a copy of verses was shewn to Miss More, said to be written by a poor, illiterate woman. The verses breathed the very spirit of true poetry, and were rendered still more interesting by a certain natural and strong impression of misery which seemed to fill the mind and heart of the author. On making inquiries Hannah More found that the poor woman had been born and bred in her present humble occupation, that of selling milk. She had not received the least educa- tion, except that her brother had taught her to read and write. " Her mother," says Miss More, in a letter to Mrs. Montagu, " appears to have had sense and piety, and to have given an early tincture of religion to this poor woman's mind. She is about eight and twenty, was married very young to a man HANNAH MORE. 119 who is said to be honest and sober, but of a turn of mind very different from her own. Eepeated losses, and a numerous family (for they had six children in seven years) reduced them very low, and the rigours of the last severe winter sunk them to the extremity of distress. For your sake, dear madam, and for my own, I wish I could entirely pass over this part of the story ; but some of her most affecting verses would be unintelligible without it. Her aged mother, her six little infants and herself, were actually on the point of perishing, and had given up every hope of human assistance, when the gentleman, so gratefully mentioned in her poem to Stella, came to their relief. The poor woman and her children were preserved, but (imagine, dear madam, a scene which will not bear detail) for the unhappy mother all assistance came too late ; she had the joy to see it arrive, but it was a joy she was no longer able to bear, and it was more fatal to her than famine had been." The young woman had preserved a perfect simplicity in her manners. She had carefully studied our English poets, and though it was denied to her to " drink at the pure well-head of pagan poesy," yet, from the fountain of Divine wisdom her mind appeared to have been wonderfully nourished and enriched. Under the kind |care of Hannah More, this talented but unfortunate woman was comfortably settled in her native place. We have alluded to this episode in the life of Hannah More as an instance of her benevolent exertion for the amelioration of the condition of the wretched, and her keen appreciation of genius wherever it was found. In 1786 appeared two poems by our authoress — " Florio, a Tale for Fine Gentlemen and Fine Ladies," and " Bas Bleu, or Conversation : addressed to Mrs. Vesey." Her next publication was a poem on "The Slave Trade," then carried on with all its horrors by enlightened 120 HANNAH MORE. christian Englishmen. That subject was then beginning to arrest public attention, and men were beginning to question whether *' God's image cut in ebony" was really justifiably held in bondage by '* the devil's image cut in ivory." The slave-dealer and the slave-holder were beginning to tremble : their " peculiar institution" was doomed to die. On the cruel and stupid argument that the negroes did not feel the infliction on them as the Europeans would, our fair authoress observes : — " "When the fierce sun darts vertical his beams, And thirst and hunger mix their wild extremes ; When the sharp iron wounds his inmost soul, And his slrain'd eyes in burning anguish roll : "Will the parch' d negro own, ere he expire, No pain in hunger, and no heat in fire ?" But Hannah More saw before her a goal starred and lumi- nous. She felt that Christ came to give liberty to the captive, in another besides a spiritual sense : she saw in the genius of Christianity a giant power that would burst the bonds of the slave ; she felt that no curse of God was on the race of Africa, but that the curse must descend on those who held their black brethren in bondage ; faith enough had she to see beyond the present, and her prediction she lived long enough to see fulfilled :— " And now her high commission from above, Stamp' d with the holy character of love, The meek-eyed spirit, waving in her hand, Breathed manumission o'er the rescued land. She tears the banner stain' d with blood and tears, And Liberty ! thy shining standard rears : As the bright ensign's glory she displays, See pale oppression faints beneath the blaze. HANNAH MORE. 121 The giant dies ! no more his frown appals, The chain untouch'd, drops off; the fetter falls: Astonish' d echo tells the vocal shore — Oppression's fallen, and slavery is no more ! The dusky myriads crowd the sultry plain, And hail that mercy long invok'd in vain. Victori.ous power ! she bursts their twofold bands, And faith and freedom spring from Britain's hands." Would that freedom the wide world over reigned : would that slavery were dead in every land as well as Britain — that millions of slaves into men were new-born, and that no man- stealing iniquity disgraced the banner of the stars and stripes ! In 1778, Hannah More produced a moral tract, entitled "Thoughts on the Manners of the Great." Nobody could complain that the authoress thought unfairly. She judged impartially, and her thoughts on the manners of the great were thoughts that set the mental machinery in motion. Having now realized a competence, Miss 3Iore and her sisters gave up the school at Bristol, and settled in a romantic spot in Somersetshire, to which they gave the name of Cowslip Green. There in her own peaceful home Hannah More continued her literary occupations. In 1791 sh?published a small volume, entitled *' An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashianable World." She saw and she deplored the decline of vital Christianity. She saw that even they who professedly called themselves Christians denied their faith in practice, and betrayed their Master with a kiss. Religion was at that period attacked from without, and rent from within. Paine was hurling scurrilous impiety at what he neither felt nor understood : free-thinking was in vogue, and people were hailing the advent of an age of reason ; reason which went stark raving mad. France was the scene of anarchy and 122 HANISTAH MORE. confusion. Revolutionary leaders had sworn to trample Christianity in the dust; they had doomed the faith, con- demned religion, and confounding it with fanaticism and superstition, had crucified it between two thieves ! And here in England, our countrymen were forgetting the faith for which heroes fought and martyrs bled. It was a fitting time for an appeal on behalf of religion ; and Hannah More made that appeal, and honour be to her for it. Then came her " Village Politics ;" an admirably written tract, in the form of a dialogue between two mechanics ; one a loyal and religious subject, and the other, a half proselyte to republicanism and infidelity. By plain and home arguments, level to the meanest capacity, the former succeeded in bring- ing his neighbour back to the way of truth and sobriety, and is the means of building him up in the faith which teaches us to fear God, and honour the king. Then came the " Cheap Repoisitory ; " a monthly publication for the people. It con- tained many well written tales ; among them, — " The Shep- herd of Salisbury Plain," " The Two Wealthy Farmers," *' The Two Shoemakers," " Betty Brown the Orange Girl," " Black Giles the Poacher," " Mr. Fantom the Infidel, and his Servant," " Hester Wilmot," and the "Allegories." Seven hundred thousands of this publication were sold. They could not be printed fast enough to supply the demand. " Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, with a view of the principles and conduct prevalent among women of rank and fortune," was a capital work, meeting with the high approbation of the Bishop of London. It was originally published in 1799, in two volumes. One there was v*rho lifted his voice against it, and this was no other person than a venerable archdeacon. For him the book was too reli- gious. Doubtless the favourite text of the good archdeacon, HANNAH MORE. 123 was that mystical one out of the book of Ecclesiastes : — " Be not righteous over much." The clergyman published letters to Mrs. H. More, to counteract the obnoxious doctrines. Mrs. H. More did not reply; the flame of controversy waxed dim ; the proscribed treatise became a household word ; and the '' remonstrance " found its way to the trunk makers. Mrs. More took an active part in every benevolent exer- tion. She did not only sit on a chair and make verses ; she lent her valuable aid where she possessed any influence for good. Sunday schools were being projected, and she assisted in their formation. One was established in her own imme- diate neighbourhood. She saw the wretchedness and misery which pervaded the land ; she did what she could to better the condition of the adult population, but the rising generation especially elicited her sympathy. The young are the hope of the church, and the hope of the world ; for the youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity. A collection edition of Mrs. More's Works was brought out in 1801. Besides the general preface to this Collection, she gives a particular one to the volume containing her three tra- gedies ; her object being to explain her change of sentiment v.ith regard to the lawfulness of christian professors attending theatrical exhibitions. Passing over comedy as wholly inde- fensible, she confines her objections to tragedy, the acting of which, she represents as tending to produce impressions irre- concileable with the christian temper. Of course she applies this to the acting of plays, not to the closet reading of dra- matic works. In 1805 appeared " Hints towards forming the Character of a Young Princess." This book was dedicated to the Bishop of Exeter. Four years later came out a tale in two volumes — " Ccelebs in Search of a Wife." The object of the 124 HANNAH MORE. work will appear from the opening, where the pious mother of Coelebs describes what sort of person a wife should be : — " I am so firmly persuaded, Charles," she would kindly say, " of the justice of your taste, and the rectitude of your prin- ciples, that I am not much afraid of your being misled by the captivating exterior of any woman who is greatly deficient either in sense or conduct ; but remember, my son, that there are many women, against whose character there may be nothing very objectionable, who are yet little calculated to taste or to communicate rational happiness. Do not indulge romantic ideas of superhuman excellence. Eemember that the' fairest creature is a fallen creature. Yet let not your standard be low. If it be absurd to expect perfection, it is not unreason- able to expect consistency. Do not suffer yourself to be caught by a shining quality, till you know it is not counter- acted by the opposite defect. Be not taken in by strictness at one point, till you are assured there is no laxity in others. In character, as in architecture, proportion is beauty. The education of the present race of females is not very favourable to domestic happiness. For my own part, I call education, not that which smothers a woman with accomplishments, but that which tends to consolidate a firm and regular system of character — that which tends to form a friend, a companion, a wife. I call education not that which is made up of the shreds and patches of useful arts, but that which inculcates principles, polishes tastes, regulates temper, cultivates reason, subdues the passions, directs the feelings, habituates to re- flection, trains to self-denial, and more especially that which refers all actions, feelings, sentiments, tastes, and passions, to the love and fear of God." The love and fear of God ruled the heart and life of Hannah More. In 1811 she wrote a book called '* Practical Piety," HANNAH MORE. 125 but her life was a treatise on that important theme. She brought her religion practically to bear on every affair of common life ; her faith was no closet theology. In what we have said, it is evident that she was a voluminous writer. Her books followed one another in quick succession. They were always favourably received. When age and sickness secluded her from the world, she was not unmindful of the world's interests. Nothing damped her zeal ; nothing weak- ened her mental energy ; — not the weight of years ; not the loss of friends, nor long and painful suffering ; — she still laboured as in early life; and in 1815 published an essay on the " Character and Practical Writings of St. Paul." From this time to the end of her pilgrimage, there is little to arrest the attention. To the last she felt interested in all that belonged to man. Hannah More died on the 7th of September, 1833, aged eighty-eight. She had made about £30,000 by her writings, and she left by her will legacies to charitable institutions amounting to £10,000. The funeral, in conformity to her own wishes, was devoid of pomp and show. QUEExN ADELAIDE. The name of Queen Adelaide will ever be beloved. She commended herself to the esteem of all by her unaffected goodness. As Duchess of Clarence she began to exhibit excellent qualities of mind and heart ; as queen consort these qualities shone out more brightly, and when her husband passed away and another monarch occupied the throne, the Queen Dowager was still the admiration of the people. She lived in their love ; she died universally regretted, and her memory is embalmed in their affections. The Princess Adelaide was born on the 13th of August, 1792. She was the eldest daughter of the Duke of Saxe Coburg Meiningen. It was a period of great political con- vulsion. Crowns were in the dust, thrones were overturned, ancient systems were giving way before the onward march of revolution. Those who wore the diadem had cause for fear. The bonnet row^e usurped the place of the white lily of St. Louis. All Germany was in an uproar. In 1803 the father of the Princess Adelaide expired. The princess was then but eleven years old. She was confided to the care of her mother, and her early life was passed partly in the ducal palace at Meiningen and partly at the Castle of Alstengtein. It is said that Queen Charlotte ever felt a deep interest in the welfare of the young princess, whose education was conducted with the greatest care, the affections as well as the intellect being trained by judicious teachers ; teaching which fitted her for the high station she was afterwards called to occupy. •-^" # ]L ATE QUEEN ADELAIDE. 127 The circumstances which led to her union with the Duke of Clarence are simply told. The nation looked with love and interest upon the daughter of the unfortunate Caroline, the Princess Charlotte. The people saw in her their future queen. But their expectations were disappointed ; she married, but in giving birth to a child perished, and mother and child slept together in the tomb. Who was to be heir to the crown ? The Prince Regent was now childless ; the royal dukes were in a similar position. But the Dukes of Kent and Clarence were still unmarried. Matrimonial alliances were immediately formed. With regard to the Duke of Kent, his affections were already engaged, and of this we have spoken before, but Clarence was still unengaged. There is indeed a melancholy story about Mrs. Jordan, which we shall not here relate. The Duke of Clarence was a popular favourite. He entered the navy in the twelfth year of his age, under the care of Eear-Admiral Digby, a brave and distinguished officer, and was actively engaged during the whole course of the war. He was distinguished for his bravery, his fidelity, his humanity. He afterwards held the rank of Lord High Admiral, which since the death of Prince George of Denmark, husband of Queen Anne, had been held on commission. During the period which he filled this office, he visited every naval depot, freely conversed with every officer and commander, based every promotion on pure merit and actual service, and thus endeared himself to the whole British navy. Between this noble-hearted prince and Adelaide of Saxe Coburg a matrimonial alliance was formed. Pictures were exchanged and letters written, but not such letters as Henry VIII. has left behind him for the teaching of all royal lovers ; they were cool, solemn, sedate, for the matter was political. 128 QUEEN ADELAIDE. The Duke of Clarence was fifty-three, the Princess Adelaide but twenty-six. On the 4th of July, 1818, she arrived in England, and took up her abode at Grillon's Hotel. The intelligence was immediately conveyed to the Duke, v;ho although it was ten o'clock at night, waited upon her to pay his respects, and welcome her on her safe arrival in England. On the ]Oth of the same month she was presented to Queen Charlotte, who gave the young princess a very gracious reception. On the 18th she was married, and at the same time the marriage of the Duke of Kent was re-solemnized, as the ceremony had been previously performed abroad. During the years which intervened between this event and the accession of the Duke of Clarence to the crown, Adelaide continued to exhibit rare excellence and virtue. Surrounded by the pomp and vanity of the world, she did not forget to estimate these things at their right value ; surrounded by temptation and allurement, she remained constant to her own right principles ; her character had been formed before she arrived in England, and nothing ever changed it. In 1830 George IV. died, and the Duke of Clarence was proclaimed king under the title of William IV., and Adelaide became queen. They were crowned at Westminster, but without the usual pomp and splendour. The love which the people had for the Duchess of Clarence deepened and strength- ened when the duchess became queen ; and she, instead of withdrawing from her benevolent exertions or lessening in her zeal for the public good, redoubled all her energies, and was still the same active, earnest woman, that she had ever been. In 1837 the wife became a widow. Her grief was very great and unaffected. It is not always we find tenderness and sympathy, and love and kindness, in palaces. Sometimes sceptres sweep away all tender emotion, and the man or the QUEEN ADELAIDE. 129 woman are forgotten in the monarch, but it was not so with William or with Adelaide, it is not so with our beloved queen ; let us hope that those things have passed away with the " good old times," and have been buried in the tomb of all abuses. The joy of the nation at the accession of Victoria was chastened and subdued by the loss of the king. Adelaide felt it deeply, nat because she lost the diadem, but because she was a widow. Her remaining days were spent in doing good. She dispensed her charities with no niggard hand. Letters of those who were in great necessity were read to her and brought relief; the indigent who appealed to her never appealed in vain. Her private charities far exceeded her public gifts. She did not let her right hand know what her left hand did. She was no ostentatious giver. Yet this never prevented her rendering help when help was needed, to public institutions. She was a liberal contributor to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts ; a kind patron to that noble institution, The Sons of the Clergy. She gave freely to the churches in Nova Scotia and New- foundland : to the Christian Knowledge Society, to the Church Missionary Society, to the Eagged Schools, and to the Emi- gration Funds. A great number of other societies' found in her a liberal friend. The cathedral at Adelaide was chiefly built at her expense. Her health was bad, and she travelled much for the benefit of change of air. She visited the islands of Madeira and Malta, and the church of Valetta was founded by her ; but wherever she went she preserved the strictest privacy, and was known not as the Queen Dowager, but as the Duchess of Lancaster. Queen Adelaide died on the 2nd of December, 1849. lES. S. C. HALL, Fielding is a name well known to English readers. There are certain popular novels that, taking their interest from no adventitious circumstances, are the novels for all time, which one cannot readily forget, and it may be interesting to know that the maiden name of Mrs. S. C. Hall was Fielding ; not, however, that we intend to intimate thereby that this illustrious lady is descended from her still more illustrious namesake ; but there is something in the coincidence. Mrs. Hall is a favourite, and unlike some favourites we could mention, really deserves the place she holds in public estimation. Her family originally came from Switzerland, and settled in Ireland long ago. Mrs. Hall is a native of Wexford. But while she was yet in her teens she quitted Ireland, and settled with her mother in England. Happy thing for her that such was the case. She remained long enough in Ireland to have its scenery, its leading characteris- ticSj the honest kindness of the people, the mirth and misery, the dancing and distress, the singing and sighing, vividly impressed upon her ; long enough to see its desolation and its danger, its happiness and hope ; not long enough to learn enmity to the Saxon, and by the resuscitation of old wrongs to awaken the spirit of vengeance. Her books are what Charles Lamb called " healthy books ;" exhibiting a faithful picture of Ireland and the Irish, they are free from all party bias, Mrs. Hall looks at things as they are, never permits her predilections to distort facts, nor her passions to get the better MRS. S. C. HALL. IBl of her reason, and all her books are written in that calm, just, honest spirit that recommends itself to all impartial readers. Mrs. Hall's first work appeared in 1829, and was entitled, *' Sketches of Irish Character." These stories are far different from those of most Irish novelists : there is not much of wild romance — there is not a constant succession of blunders, understood to- be Irishisms — there is the same quaint and beautifully-descriptive powers of the human heart and of natural scenery, which so eminently distinguish the writings of Miss Mitford. Mrs. Hall did not imagine Irish society, and write her imaginations in a rose-coloured boudoir ; she found her models and her subjects in the world astir, and the rich vein of humour which glistens here and there like fine Australian gold, and breaks out sometimes into a perfect nugget of wit, is the genuine article, and not mere tinsel- work that looks like it. Her descriptions of rural scenery are delightful. She is an ardent admirer of nature. The French painters of the last century severely criticised this world of ours, its forests, hills, and vales. Boucher complained that nature wanted harmony, and Lancret that it was too green. Now-a-days, there are painters and writers who hold thes'^ doctrires in their hearts, though they dare not avow them ; and on their page and on their canvass they represent not nature as it is, but a sort of improved nature, touched up with artificiality. Mrs. Hall is not of this class. In 1830 our authoress issued a little volume for children, consisting of a series of tales, simple, natural, and easy, full of home-truths and moral remarks. They were called " Chroni- cles of a School-room," and are admirably adapted for the purpose she had in view. A second series of "Irish Sketches" appeared in 1831. These were as favourably received as the first ; and this is saying much. A second series sometimes 132 MRS. S. C. HALL. turns out a failure, for when a writer begins to repeat herself or himselfj and to manufacture corresponding stories after an antecedent model, the repetition cramps and utterly destroys that freshness and vigour which recommended the first work. But this second series abounded with excellences, reflecting credit on the heart and judgment of the writer. The " Rap- paree" is perhaps the best of the whole : it is thoroughly good. Her next work was one of higher aim. It was a historical romance, ^of the legitimate length — three volumes. This was entitled the " Buccaneer." A historical romance is the loftiest description of prose fiction : it is by no means an easy matter to transfer our thoughts and feelings to another epoch, to cast ourselves into the fashion of another age, to delineate successfully the great men of the past, and placing them in new and surprising circumstances, preserve the identity of their characters, and make them think and feel, and speak and act as under those circumstances they would have done. All this is very difficult ; and yet our Circulating Libraries abound with this description of fiction. The days of Henry VIII., and his daughter Elizabeth, the civil wars of Charles's time, the Young Pretender, the French Revolution, and the rest of it, have given occasion to a very host of historical fic- tions. The great mass of them materially injure the true study of history ; it were impossible to doubt it. They mis- represent facts ; crowd in events that never occurred ; make mitred prelates and stern warriors talk the most silly sen ti- mentalisra, and destroy that reverence for truth which should be most carefully fostered. This is not the case with all — there are great and glorious exceptions ; and Mrs. Hall's romance is of this number. The tale is laid in England at the time of the Protectorate, and Oliver himself is among the characters. MRS. S. C. HALL. 133 About the year 1834 came out the ''Tales of Woman's Trials," and in 1835, a novel, entitled '* Uncle Horace." A series of papers, under the title of " Lights and Shadows of Irish Life," had been contributed to the New Monthly Maga- zine, and were in 1838 collected and published in three volumes. They enjoyed a good share of popularity, and " The Groves of Blarney," one of the narratives, was played on the stage with considerable effect. In 1840 Mrs. Hall issued another novel, more popular than the Buccaneer, more interesting than Uncle Horace, and, perhaps, the best of her fictions — " Marian ; or a Young Maid's Fortune." It is justly celebrated for its skilful portraiture and delicate description. Katty Macane, an Irish servant, watches over the foundling Marian with all a mother's care. We give a specimen : — ''I'll be a governess," said Marian, triumphantly ; "great women have been teachers, I have heard Miss Kitty say — great and good women. Kings must have teachers ; queens must have governesses." Katty Macane compressed her lips, and elevated her brows. " To go a-governessing is looking at the world through the back windows. I never heard such folly ! To be, as a body may say, between hawk and buzzard ; too low for the drawing- room, too high for the kitchen ; belonging neither to the earth beneath nor the heavens above ; slighted by the mistress ; insulted by the servants ; winked at by the gentlemen visitors, and shook off by the lady ones ; blamed for the faults of the children ; barked at by the dogs, scratched by the cats ; a thing without a place ; a free woman, treated as a born slave. Listen to me, avourneen. I have known at home and abroad, big and little, thirteen governesses in my time ; twelve were born miserable, and were always kept so ; the thirteenth was 134 MRS. S. C. HALL. lucky, for she died in her first 'place. Och, alanna ! God break bard fortune before any woman's child — I'd raytber, or as soon, see you in yer grave, as going a-governessing." " Better tban living a dependent," said Marian, still more proudly ; " anything better than that." " Now listen to me. Ye're too young yet to dream of such a thing, for if ye war a rock o' sense, and a tree o' wisdom, which I never knew gentle or simple to be at your age, my precious darling, stately as ye're looking — setting a case you war all I say, did you ever know a governess, who, if she worked the brain out of her head, let alone her fingers to the bone, wasn't considered a dependent?" " She earns her income," persisted Marian ; " she gives her talents for her employer's money; one could not do without the other." "Och, good-morrow to ye, my lady;" exclaimed Katty, with the bitterness of a woman who knows the world ; " ye've read that in some romance. Look in the newspapers — though, indeed, it's better ye didn't. I, that have been a camp fol- lower for many a year — sarved under the duke (God keep him in health, and strength, and happiness, and glory, which he can't fail to be in, to the end of his days, and longer, seeing he's taken the shine out of Bonyparte and Marlboro', whose line place is close to where the big boys goes to school — Oxford they call it) — well, I never looks at a paper on account of the wakeness in my eyes, and the pot-boy not lending me the loan of one, barrin' on Sundays, on account of the small drop of beer I take ; and then I see so much badness in it, that I'm glad it's a Sunday I see it, for it can't be so bad that day as any other ; and, indeed, there's nothing in a paper much worse than advertisements for teachers, where they are expected to be the most edieated and wonderful of God's MRS. S. C. HALL. 135 crayturs — with every quality of angels — French and Latin, and algebra, and music, and to have the charge of only five or six children, and needle-work, and hard-work, and wardrobe work, and nobody knows what — and then, at the heel of the hunt comes in, that^ as ifs a comfortable situation, no salary the first 7/ ear.'' Marian laughed at her nurse's picture ; but she had built her own castle, and resolved, poor girl, to inhabit it the first opportunity. To Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Mrs. Hall contributed a series of " Stories of the Irish Peasantry," which were after- wards published in a collected form ; but her great work is that which she undertook in conjunction with her husband, *' Ireland, its Scenery, Character," &c. This book, embel- lished by some of the first artists, is deservedly popular, and may be ranked among our standard works. MAET, QUEEN OF SCOTS. Mary, Queen of Scots, was the daughter of James V., king" of Scotland. At eight days old, on the death of her father she became heiress to the throne, and while yet an infant, was unconsciously the cause of a war with England ; the regency having refused the political offer of Henry VIII. to unite both kingdoms by the marriage of his son Edward to the Scottish queen. At six years of age she was affianced to the dauphin of France, and resided at Paris till the marriage was solemnized in 1548. Educated in France, she excelled in the freedom of her address, the politeness of her manners, and the play of her genius. She embodied the very perfection of elegance and refinement. She was skilled in various languages, ancient and modern, and proficient in several of the fine arts. She had been crowned at the age of nine months by Cardinal Beatoun, archbishop of St. Andrew's, and was immediately afterwards shut up in Stirling Castle by her mother, but as this fortress was not considered safe enough, she was conveyed to an island in the middle of Lake Monteith, where was a monastery, the only habitation in the place, with four other little girls, Mary Livingstone, Mary Fleming, Mary Seaton, and Mary Beatoun, who, as they never quitted her either in good or bad fortune, were called the four Maries of the queen. On her voyage to France, the vessel in which she was con- veyed was closely pressed by an English cruiser, and the young queen rarely escaped captivity. Besides the four MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 137 Maries of the queen, the vessel also carried to France three of her natural brothers, among whom was James Stuart, Prior of Saint Andrew's, who, at a later period, abjured the Catholic religion, and, with the title of regent of the kingdom, and under the name of the Earl of Murray, became so fatal to ,,^ ^l cape. From being a sad and helpless captive in a lonely tower, n'-L "■-/■'"' - . she was now at the head of a powerful confederation ; but the -■ , ^' X ^ battle of Langside ended the struggle, for there the queen was completely defeated, and compelled to seek refuge in England.. ^> . - , On arriving in England, the Queen of Scots encountered ,, li^ messengers from Elizabeth. They expressed on behalf of the queen, how much she regretted that circumstances prevented her receiving her royal sister in a manner befitting her rank and station. Circumstances of a peculiar character prevented her doing this. She could not welcome her as a queen ; she could not receive her to her presence until the unfortunate death of Lord Darnley was thoroughly cleared up. It was absolutely necessary, so the messengers argued, that Mary should justify herself with respect to that event before she could properly claim friendship or protection. Mary Stuart instantly offered to plead her innocence to the satisfaction of her sister Elizabeth ; but scarcely had Eliza- beth received her letter, when from an arbitrator she made herself judge, and naming commissioners to hear the parties, she summoned Murray to appear and accuse his sister. In answer to the summons Murray appeared, bringing with him a casket of letters, which contained evidence against the queen. These letters were declared to be forgeries. After an inquiry of live months, the queen of England informed the parties, that not being able, by their proceedings, to discover anything against the honour of either the accused or accuser, everything would remain in the same state until one or the other should be able to furnish fresh proofs. MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. . 151 So with this unsatisfactory decision, the Regent Murray returned to Scotland ; but Mary, instead of being permitted to enjoy her liberty, was conveyed as a prisoner to Carlisle Cas- tle, from the terrace of which she could perceive the blue mountains of her own land. As for Murray, he was shot in the streets of Linlithgow. Mary remained in confinement for nearly twenty years. In 1586 she was removed to Fotheringay Castle. A correspondence was kept up between the two queens. Mary sought to excite the sympathy of Elizabeth. In this she failed. Mary felt that she was oppressed. Oppression will drive even a wise man mad. She grew impatient. Her religious enthusiasm was aroused. Friendly foes whispered that Elizabeth usurped her right ; that England's crown should belong to the Scot- tish queen. Had not the pope excommunicated Elizabeth ? had he not declared her illegitimate ? was it not worth a struggle — a crown of royalty, or a crown of mariyrdom ? An attempt was made to dethrone Elizabeth. It failed. Mary was implicated. And her fate was sealed. On the trial of the conspirators it appeared, that the Queen of Scots, who had held a correspondence with one Babington, had encouraged him in treasonable enterprizes, and it was re- solved by Elizabeth and her ministers, to bring Mary to a public trial, as being accessory to the conspiracy. Her papers were accordingly seized, her principal domestics arrested, and her two secretaries sent prisoners to London. After the necessary information had been obtained, forty com- missioners were appointed under the Great Seal, together with five of the judges, and were sent to Fotheringay Castle, to hear and decide the singular cause. An idea so repugnant to majesty as that of being arraigned for treason, had not once entered the mind of the Queen of 152 MAllY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. Scots, though she no longer doulfted but that her destruction was determined on, nor had the strange resolution yet reached her ears in the solitude of her prison. She received the in- telligence, however, without emotion or astonishment, and she protested in the most solemn manner, that she had never countenanced any attempt against the life of Elizabeth, though at the same time she refused to acknowledge the authority of her commissioners. " I came into England," said she, " an independent sovereign, to implore the queen's assistance, not to subject myself to her authority ; nor is my spirit so broken by past misfortunes, or so intimidated by present dangers, as to stoop to anything unbecoming the majesty of a crowned head, or that will disgrace the ancestors from whom I am des- cended, and the son to whom I shall bequeath my throne. If I must be tried, princes alone can be my peers. The Queen of England's subjects, however noble their birth, are of a rank inferior to mine. Ever since my arrival in this kingdom, I have been confined as a prisoner. Its laws never afforded me protection. Let them not be perverted in order to take away my life." Mary was, however, at last persuaded to appear before the commissioners, " to hear and to give answer to the accusations which should be brought against her ;" though she still re- fused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court. The chan- cellor endeavoured to vindicate its authority by pleading the supreme jurisdiction of the English laws over every one that resided in England. The lawyers of the crown opened the charges against the Queen of Scots ; the chief evidence against her arose from the declaration of her secretaries ; but what was the testimony of these men worth when they were confined in dungeons, and threatened with the torture ? The evidence was such as would not now affect the life of the meanest cul- MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 155 prit ; but notwithstanding this, she was pronounced guilty, a verdict which was approved by the parliament of England. Sentence of death was passed. There was a long delay. Elizabeth feared to put the sen- tence into execution. Dark stories are told of proposed assassinations ; but at length the warrant was signed by the hand of Elizabeth, and the Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury were sent to acquaint the prisoner with the fact. The Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury, and Sir E. Beale, sent word to the queen that they wished to speak to her. She was at that time ill, and sent a reply stating that she was then in bed, but that if the matter would not admit of delay, she would get up. The noblemen requested her to do so, and she rising from her bed, and slipping on a dressing gown, sat down at a small table, and awaited their coming. Bareheaded the noblemen entered, followed by the domestics weeping bitterly. Mary knew their mission. They stated their fatal errand, produced their warrant, signed with the queen's name, and sealed with the Great Seal in yellow wax. Sir Robert Beale was requested by Mary to read the document, which he did with evident emotion. " Elizabeth, by the grace of God, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, &c., to our trusty and well-beloved cousins, George, Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl Marshal of England ; Henry, Earl of Kent ; Henry, Earl of Derby ; George, Earl of Cumber- land ; Henry, Earl of Pembroke ; greeting : " Considering the sentence passed by us, and others of our council, nobility, and judges, on the late Queen of Scotland, named Mary, daughter and heiress of James V., King of Scotland, commonly called Queen of Scotland and Dowager of France ; which sentence all the estates of our kingdom, assembled in our last parliament, not only confirmed, but, 1 54 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. after mature deliberation, ratified, as being just and reasonable ; considering, also, the earnest prayer and request of our sub- jects, who solicit and urge us to proceed to the publication of the same, and to carry it into execution on her person, as they adjudge her to have justly merited, and* that the delaying of the same has, and will, daily bring certain and evident danger not only on ourself, but also on themselves and their posterity, as well as on the public welfare of this kingdom, and would also endanger the church and the true religion of Christ, with the peace and tranquillity of this state, though the said sentence has been delayed by our proclamation, and though we have still, up to the present time, abstained from granting a war- rant for the execution of it ; nevertheless, for the full satisfac- tion of the said requests made by the estates of our parliament, from which we daily hear that all our well-beloved subjects, as well as the nobility, our most wise, great, and religious councillors, and even those of the lower orders, with all humility and care for our life, and, consequently, from fear they entertain of the ruin of the present most excellent and happy state of the kingdom, if we refrain from the final execu- tion, while they consent to, and desire the said execution ; and although the general and continual requests, prayers, councils, and advice, are in this matter contrary to our natural incli- nation ; nevertheless, being convinced of the urgent weight of their continual entreaties, tending towards the safety of our person, as well as to that of the public and private w^elfare of our kingdom, we have at last consented and permitted that justice shall take its course ; and for the execution of the same, considering the great confidence we have in your fidelity and loyalty, together with the love and affection which you bear for our person and our country, of which you are the most noble and principal members, we inform, and for the MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 155 discharge of the same we order you, that, on seeing this, you repair to Fotheringay Castle, where the late Queen of Scot- land now is, in custody of our friend and loyal servant and counsellor, Sir Araias Paulet, and there you shall take into your charge, and see that, in compliance with our commands, execution be done upon her person, in presence of yourselves and of the said Sir Amias Paulet, and of all other officers of justice whom you shall command to be present ; wherefore, to this effect, and that the said execution be performed in such manner and form, and in such time and place, and by such persons as you five, four, three, or two shall, in your discretion find expedient, notwithstanding any laws, statutes, and ordi- nances whatsoever, contrary to these presents sealed with our Great Seal of England, let them serve to every one of you, and to all those who shall be present, or who shall do any- thing by your commands, in reference to the above-mentioned execution, as a full and sufficient discharge from all respon- sibility for ever. " Given and done at our palace of Greenwich, on the first day of February (10th February, new style), in the twenty-ninth year of our reign." Mary listened to the reading of the document with the greatest calmness, saying, the soul was undeserving the joys of heaven which would shrink from the blow of an executioner. She immediately began to prepare for her end. She asked for a priest, but this was cruelly denied her ; the services of a protestant minister were offered, but these she declined. With a calmness and self-possession, rarely witnessed in such cir- cumstances, she set her house in order as she must surely die. *' My children," said she, as the domestics wept around her, " this is not the moment for weeping ; for if you love me, 156 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. you ought to rejoice that the Lord, by letting me die for His cause, removes me from the tortures which I have suffered for nineteen years : as for me, I thank Him that He allows me to die for the glory of His religion, and of His church. So have patience ; while the men prepare supper we wull pray." After supper she had the whole of her property, dresses, jewels, rings, money, and other valuables brought into her room, and having made an inventory of the whole, she then proceeded to make her will, and wrote off as quickly as she could move her pen, almost without raising it from the paper, two large sheets, containing numerous items, in which every- body at all connected with her, whether present or absent, was remembered. We present a specimen : — " I wish the two thousand four hundred franks which I give Jane Kennedy to be paid her in money as was formerly stated. I also give Fontenay Douglas's pension, which has reverted to me, for his services and expenses. And I wish the four thousand crowns of that banker, whose name I forget, to be obtained and paid ; the Bishop of Glas- gow will remember ; but if this cannot be effected by the usual means, it is my desire that the money be taken out of the first receipts. The ten thousand franks which the ambassador of France received from me, are to be distributed, as follows, among my servants : — Two thousand franks to my physician. Two thousand to Elizabeth Courle. Two thousand to Sebastian Page. , Two thousand to Mary Page, my goddaughter, A thousand franks to Beauregard, A thousand to Gorjon. i MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 157 A thousand to Gervais. Iloreover, I wish five thousand franks to be taken out of the other moneys of my revenue and surplus from Secondat, to be distributed among the children of Eheims. To my school girls I leave two thousand franks. To four beggars I leave such sums as my executors shall think fit, and as means will allow. I also leave five hundred franks to the hospitals. I give a thousand franks to Martin, my head cook. A thousand to Annibal, and beg my cousin, de Guise, his godfather, to find a place for him in his service for life. I leave five hundred franks to Nicholas, and five hundred franks for his daughters, when they marry." Her will being finished, she wrote a letter to the King of France, telling him she was about to die, and requesting him to attend to certain provisions in her will. It was the practice of Mary to have the history of some saint read to her after evening prayer, and on this occasion, she was unwilling to depart from her custom. But she was troubled which to select. At length she fixed upon that of the penitent thief. She listened to the story of his reviling ; listened with interest as they read of his wonderful change, his rebuking his fellow-culprit, his prayer to dying Jesus, and the words of comfort that the Master spoke. Said she — '* Great sinner as he was, he had still sinned less than I have." Mary lay down, but she did not sleep — there was a long, long sleep for her on the morrow ! At length that mor- row came. Mary was at prayer when the commissioners arrived, and the sheriff of Northampton summoned her to execution. Some few of her domestics were allowed to fol- low her, but the request that they might be permitted to do p '^-^,MJ^ 158 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. SO, was at first sternly refused. In the great hall of the castle a scafFold had been erected. It was a platform of planks, standing about two feet high, twelve feet broad, and was sur- rounded by a railing ; it was covered with black serge. A small stool, a cushion to kneel on, and a block, covered like the scaffold with black cloth, were placed in the middle. The hall was filled with lords, knights, and gentlemen, and when the queen had ascended the scaffold, the sentence of death was read. When Beale had finished, and cried '' God save Queen Elizabeth," no voice echoed the cry, and Mary crossed herself. Then the queen spoke : — " My lords, I was born a queen and a sovereign princess, and am not, therefore, subject to the laws ; a near relative am I, too, of the Queen of England, and the lawful heiress to her crown. I have been a prisoner here for a long time, and have ^' endured much suffering and trouble, which no one had any >C^ ^*'**¥' right to inflict upon me, and now, by way of crowning all, I f'iAr ^^t^i ^"^ about to be deprived of life. My lords, be you all wit- nesses that I die in the catholic faith, thanking the Almighty^ that He has vouchsafed to me the power of dying in His holy cause ; and I protest now, as I have ever done, both in public and in private, that I have never conspired for, consented to, or desired the death of the queen ; nor have I contrived aught against her person ; but have, on the contrary, always loved her, and have always offered just and reasonable terms, on which to put an end to the troubles of the kingdom, and to deliver me from ray captivity ; and you well know, my lords, that I have none all this, without ever having been honoured with a reply from her. At last, then, my enemies have at- tained their object, which was to put me to death ; but I par- don them all, as I pardon all who have attempted aught t^ MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 159 against myself. After my death it will be known who these enemies were ; but I die without accusing anybody, for fear the Lord should hear and avenge me." On the scaffold the Dean of Peterborough offered his ser- vices, and strove to convince Mary that her religion was a false one. But the queen steadily refused to listen, saying, she would die in the faith in which she had lived. Then the dean prayed aloud, and the eyes of Mary were bandaged by one of her women. She, supposing that her head would be stricken off with a sword, after the French fashion, sat still, perfectly erect, waiting for the fatal blow, but at last she was made to understand that she must kneel, and lay her head on the block ; she did so, and at three blows her head was stricken from her body. The axe used upon the occasion, was simply a wood cutter's hatchet. The executioner held up the head, repeating the words, " God save Queen Elizabeth." Thus perished Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, the most lovely of women, the most unhappy of sovereigns. Brantome says: — " Those who wish to write on this illustrious queen, have two very copious subjects — her life, and her death." Her numerous misfortunesf the length and severity of her confinement, and the cruel persecutions to which she had been subjected on account of her religion, had rivetted in her mind an extreme degree of biogtry ; and such was the violent spirit and principles of that age, that it is less a matter of astonish- ment that her zeal, her resentment, and her inter«st concur- ring, induced her to give her consent to a design, which so many gentlemen of rank and fortune, prompted only by the first of these motives, had planned against Elizabeth. LADY MOEGAN, A LIGHT agreeable writer is Lady Morgan. Nothing lias come amiss to her in the department of literature. Travelling, she has noted down in her own peculiar manner, glimpses of scenery and touches of character which would, by a common observer, have been passed unnoticed. Her poetry is by no means contemptible, and her novels are very charming productions. She was born in Ireland, where her father, Mr. Owenson, was a respectable actor, a hero of sock and buskin, who had collected around him a circle of admiring friends. He had distinguished himself in another way beside that of the stage,, for he had written some very popular Irish songs, good old Irish melodies, that Brian Boru might have sung. Miss Owenson inherited her father's love of minstrelsy. Very early in life she published a small volume of poetical effusions, and certain Irish melodies, which became at once established favourites. Among them is the sweet song of" Kate Kearney." Like Frances Burney, Miss Owenson became a novelist while still in her teens. The " Novice of St. Dominick," " St. Clair," and " The Wild Irish Girl," were successively published. The last was the favourite ; it passed through seven editions in two years. Her novels were far different from the ordinary run of such productions. The Minerva press was issuing its peculiar literature, and novel readers were beguiled with subterranean passages, robbers, murders, unexpected denoumens, and the rest of it. Miss Owenson LADY MORGAN. 161 endeavoured to depict natural manners, to hold the mirror up to nature. And surely, if we are to derive any advantage from fiction, if moral lessons are to be taught in the way of story-telling, there should be something like life in the characters and in the plot. The novels at the beginning of the present century were caricatures of nature. The stream of letter-press that ran through meadows of margin, never fairly mirrored the world, but distorted it by its own peculiar ripples. One class of novelists wrote only to excite ; another^ alas, the heaviest, wrote to teach, but made every character a mere machine for the grinding of morals. Johnson had done the latter in his Rasselas ; Mrs. Shelley was doing the former in her Frankenstein. Miss Owenson endeavoured to be natural. Her men and women were not : — " Lifeless, but life-hke, and awful to view, Like the figures in arras that gloomily glare, Stirr'd by the breath of the midnight air ;" but real resemblances of the people in the world about us. She had a hard fight to gain distinction. A Cerberus of raillery, sarcasm, and vituperation, seemed to bar her progress. But she triumphed. The reputation of her writings did the office of a blue ribbon and a coach and six, and she was admitted into the presence of th& great. She avowed liberal principles, and was bold and careless in the avowal. But it was said, that, with all her wit and brilliancy, she worshipped the fashions and the follies of the great. Her politics some- times brought her into collision with those whom she least intended to offend, but her strong national enthusiasm, which had been aroused in childhood, never died out. In her pre- face to O'Donnell, she says : — "After all, however, if I became that reviled but now very ■ p2 162 LADY MORGAN, very fashionable personage, a female politician, it was much in the same way as the Bourgeois Gentilhomme spoke prose without knowing it, a circumstance, perhaps, not uncommon with Irish writers. * * * For myself, at least, born and dwelling in Ireland, amidst ray countrymen and their suffer- ings, I saw, and I described, I felt, and I pleaded, and if a political bias was ultimately taken, it originated in the natural condition of things, and not in ' malice aforethought' of the writer." Sir Walter Scott has given high praise to the writings of Lady Morgan. It has been justly said, that whether it is a review in the Phoenix Park, or a party at the Castle, or a masquerade, a meeting of United Irishmen, a riot in Dublin, or a Jug-day at Bog-Moy, in every change of scene and situ- ation, the authoress wielded the pen of a ready writer. But over it all there is the atmosphere of the boudoir and the drawing-room ; her love for great people and fashionable quarters does peep out ; withal she was somewhat of the tuft- hunter, both before and after she became Lady Morgan. Talent, genius, wit, humour, could not keep her from this. Ah me, what a Vanity Fair we live in ! iiji >i ( it COUNTESS OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. In the days of good King George 11. , many old titles be- came extinct and many new titles were created. For years a struggle had been going on between two regimes. The dynasty of the Stuarts and the dynasty of Hanover contended for the mastery. There were many high-born noble-hearted men, who were willing to risk all, and to suffer the loss of all, in that severe and long-continued contest. Allied to the house of Stuart, there were many whose names stand high in the records of history. But they were allied to a falling house. The glory of the Stuarts had departed. Like the Henries of France, the Stuarts of Scotland were a doomed race. One after another, they had passed away by grief or violent death — the monarch who united the English and the Scottish . ■ crown, was himself the son of a murdered mother, and the ^.t father of a murdered son. After James II. had been driven V ' from the throne, after the decisive battle at Boyne water, the struggle, so far as he was concerned, was permitted to subside, but his sou and his son's son kept up the fight ; the young Pretender and " bonnie prince Charlie" engaged in the "■ Jj^v warfare, and fought for the crown. Drinking Gaelic toasts ';[ and mixing freely with his plaided and kilted adherents, this young man began his wild and perilous adventure, and to the W shrill music of the pibroch advanced to Derby. The begin- ning and the ending of the struggle w^e need not here recapi- * 1^ tulate, nor tell how hewas compelled to retreat, was victorious e**^ ^,. at Falkirk, but completely defeated in the short and bloody 164 COUNTESS OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. battle of Culloden, a final battle ; final in a double sense, for with it perished the last hope of the Stuarts. *' Culloden, still the angry blast Is singing o'er thy desert waste : Nor bee is here, nor beast is nigh, Nor wild bird with her wailing cry. Ben-Nevis, with his stormy face, Still frowns upoq his giant race — Still fitful from his icy crown The desert blast comes howling down ; It sweeps along the blasted heath, And here upon this bed of death It chills my blood — Human hearts by glory led — This, this is honour's gory bed. Yet, o'er the dark heath all around, To you no monument is found, Save, fertilised by blood of men. The green turf marks the ranks of slain. Where, underneath, the bones still lie Of those who wandered here to die ; — Human hearts by glory led. This, this is honour's gory bed ! And still, and thus beneath the sun, Are kingdoms lost and kingdoms won. Still men and midges dance and play, And thus they spend their little day ; And thus, and thus the cold wind moans And whistles o'er their moulder'd bones." Shortly after this battle, when honours were being conferred on those who had distinguished themselves in the struggle, distinguished of course on the side of the ruling power, the title of Earl of Buckinghamshire was created. So the title is not an old one, but true nobility does not depend on a long line of ancestry. COUNTESS OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, 165 The present Earl is the sixth that has borne the title. The Countess of Buckinghamshire, a lady for whom the greatest respect and admiration must ever be entertained, has distinguished herself by her private virtue and exemplary con- duct. Coronets can never ennoble base passions or vicious inclinations, but virtue and intelligence add fresh lustre to the crown. It is a pleasant thing to find among those whose high position places them more especially in the path of temptation, those virtues and excellences which adorn the character in whatever position that character is found. LADY GEIZEL BAILLIE. On the 25th of December, in the year of the great plague, 1665, Grizel Hume was born, at Eedbraes Castle, Berwickshire. Her father was Sir Patrick Hume, of Polwarth, and her mother, Grizel Ker, daughter of Sir Thomas Ker of Cavers. Both parents were zealously attached to the Presbyterian forms of worship, and church government, in which all their children were educated. Of her early childhood but little is known, except that she always evinced the utmost piety and prudence. It was a melancholy period of Scottish history ; a time that called for a constitutional resistance to the arbitrary measures of the monarch. But they who resisted placed themselves in a very dangerous position. To love the country better than the king, and law better than loyalty, was likely to end in imprisonment and death. The scaffold and the field had streamed with noble blood, and covenanting worshippers had been scattered by the charge of the king's dragoons. All England had been shaken. Tht king had been executed. The parliament had ruled instead cf the prince. Oliver Cromwell had beaten down old structures, and built up new edifices. But Oliver was dead. New edifices had been levelled, and old structures re-erected — the good old laws, the good old sports, the good old customs, the good old morality had come back, and unhappy Scotland felt the change. As the tyrannical measures of the court, and the un- constitutional conduct of the monarch became more and more LADY GRIZEL BAILLIE. 167 apparent, a faithful band of patriots, under the Duke of Ham- ilton, began to offer some resistance. Resistance brought down the penalties of law. An arbitrary imprisonment of two years, so far from repressing, seemed only to lend new ardour to the spirit of Sir Patrick Hume, and he became more and more deeply connected with the secret councils, by which efforts were being made to exclude the Duke of York from the succession. These doings brought him into jeopardy, and it was then that the heroism and devotedness of his daughter was first evinced. In the summer of 1684, Sir Patrick was warned, by the fate of several of his associates, that he could no longer safely appear in public ; and he accordingly left his house of Redbraes, and, while most of the family supposed him to have gone upon a distant journey, took up his residence in the sepulchral vault of his family, underneath the neighbouring parish church of Polwarth. His wife, his eldest daughter, and one James Winter, a carpenter, alone knew of his retreat, to which the last-mentioned individual was employed to convey, by night, a bed and bed-clothes, while Grizel, now in her nineteenth year, undertook the duty of supplying him every night with food and other necessaries. The only light which he enjoyed in this dismal abode was by a slit in the wall, through which no one could see any thing within. Grizel, 'though at first full of those fears for the places and objects of mortality which are usually inspired into children, soon so far mastered her ordinary sensations, as to be able to stumble through the churchyard at darkest midnight, afraid of nothing but the possibility of leading to the discovery of her father. The minister's house was as usual near the church : at her first visit, his dogs kept up such a barking, as put her in the utmost fear of a discovery. This difficulty was immediately 168 LADY GRIZEL BAILLIE. set aside by the ingenuity of Lady Hume, who, under the pretence of a rabid animal having been seen in the neighbour- iiood, prevailed on the minister next day to hang every dog he had. There was another difficulty in secreting victuals without exciting suspicions among the domestics and younger children. The unfortunate gentleman was fond of sheep's head, and Grizel one day took an opportunity, without being observed by her brothers and sisters, to turn one nearly entire into her lap, with the design of carrying it that night to her father. When her brother Sandy (afterwards second Earl of Marchmont) again looked on the dish, and saw that it was empty, he exclaimed, "Mother, will ye look at Grizel? — while we have been supping our broth, she has eaten up the whole sheep's head ?" The incident only served that night as an amusing story for Sir Patrick, who good-naturedly requested that Sandy might have a share of the dish on the next occasion. It was Grizel's custom every night to remain as long with her father as she supposed to be prudent, in order to enliven him by her company ; and it would appear that more cheerfulness generally prevailed at these meetings, than is sometimes to be found in scenes of the greatest secu- rity and comfort. During the day, his chief amusement consisted in reading Buchanan's version of the psalms, which he thus impressed io thoroughly on his memory, that, forty years after, when considerably above eighty years of age, he could repeat any one at bidding, without omitting a word. History records many affecting instances of devoted atten- tion and assiduity from man to man, from son to father, from father to son, but there is a gentler and mightier influence exercised by woman. Says Sir Walter Scott :— • " O woman, in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and bard to please, LADY GRIZEL BAILLIE. 169 And variable as the shade, By the light quiv'ring aspen made. But when affliction wrings the brow, A ministering angel thou." During the time he spent in the vault, Lady Hume and Jamie Winter had been contriving a more agreeable place of concealment in his own house. In one of the rooms on the ground floor, underneath a place usually occupied by a bed, Grizel and Winter dug a hole in the earth, using their fingers alone, to prevent noise, and carrying out the earth in sheets to the garden. The severity of this task may be judged of from the fact, that, at its conclusion, the young lady had not a nail upon her fingers. In the hole thus excavated, Winter placed a box large enough to contain a bed, boring the boards above it with holes for the admission of air. Sir Patrick seems to have occupied the room, of which his daughter kept the key, the box being esteemed as a place to which he could resort, in the event of any government party coming to search the house. This heroic service required no small amount of courage. In danger every hour of discovery, and the consequent penal- ties for treason, this devoted lady must have led a strange and fearful life. But she knew no fear ; she braved all things : and thus in every age, and under every circumstance, has the female character shone out with peculiar brilliancy. Man may grow weary ; more impetuous but less enduring, he may give way — " But she of gentler nature, softer, dearer, Of daily life, the active, kindly cheerer ; With gen'rous bosom, age, or childhood shielding. And in the storms of life, though mov'd, unyielding ; 170 LADY GRIZEL BAILLIE, Strength in her gentleness, hope in her sorrow, Whose darkest hours some ray of brightness borrow From better days to come, whose meek devotion Calms every wayward passion's wild commotion ; In want and suffering, soothing, useful, sprightly, Bearing the press of evil hap so lightly, 'Till evil's self seems its stronghold betraying. To the sweet witchery of such winsome playing ; Bold from affection, if from nature fearful ; With varying brow, sad, tender, anxious, cheerful — This is meet partner for the loftiest mind. With crown or helmet grac'd ; yea, this is womankind !" Another of the heroic services of Grizel Hume, at this period of her life, was the carrying of a letter from her father to his friend Kobert Baillie, of Jerviswood, then imprisoned on a charge of treason in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. Baillie had been an associate of Sir Patrick in the designs which terminated so unfortunately for the Whig party, and it was of the utmost importance to both, that an interchange of intelligence should take place between them. The heroic girl readily undertook this difficult and dangerous business, and managed it with great dexterity, and perfect success. The son of Mr. Baillie, a youth about her own age, had been recalled from his education in Holland to attend his father's trial. In the gloom of a jail these two young persons met, and formed an attachment, destined to lead to a happy union. But all contemplation of such an event was for the present clouded. On the 24th of December, in the year just men- tioned, Baillie suffered the award of an unrighteous sentence upon the scaffold, and Sir Patrick Hume, too much alarmed to remain any longer in Scotland, proceeded in disguise to Loudon, and finally, by France, into Holland, where a num- ber of other patriots had found refuge. In the ensuing year LADY GRIZEL BAILLIE. 171 be acted as one of the two seconds in command in the unfortu- nate expedition of the Earl of Argyle, and once more with great difficulty made an escape to Holland, while his pro- perty was forfeited by the government. He now established himself at Utrecht, with his family, and commenced a life of penury, forming a remarkable contrast to his former circum- stances. One child, named Juliana, had been left in Scotland on account of bad health. Some months after settling in Holland, it was thought necessary that this girl should be sent for, and Grizel was commissioned to return in order to bring her away. She was entrusted, at the same time, with the management of some business of her father's, and directed to collect what she could of the money that was due to them. All this she performed with her usual discretion and success, though not without encountering adventures that would have completely overwhelmed the greater part of her sex. After enduring a storm at sea, the terrors of which were aggravated by the barbarity of a brutal shipmaster, the two girls were landed at Brill ; and from thence they set out the same night for Rotterdam, in company with a Scotch gentleman whom they accidentally met with. It was a cold, wet night ; and Juliana Hume, who was hardly able to walk, soon lost her shoes in the mud, Grizel then took the ailing child on her back, and carried h^r all the way to Rotterdam, while the gentleman, a sympathizing fellow exile, bore their small baggage. All these distresses were forgotten when she once more found herself in the bosom of her family. Holland was the refuge for poor driven out Englishmen,' It was the wanderer's home. Thither went the early Non- conformists in their good ship Mayflower, and from thence they sailed to form a little colony in the far west, a colony which afterwards became one of the mightiest powers in the 172 LADY GRIZEL BAILLIE. world. In Holland, Sir Patrick spent three years and a half. His income was small ; and more than that, it was precarious. A fourth part of it was required for house rent. He was unable to keep any domestics except a girl to wash clothes, but nothing daunted by poverty, his heroic daughter performed the greater part of the drudgery. It is an easy matter to play the hero before an admiring world, and under the bright sunshine, but not so easy to be heroic in common life ; yet there the truest heroism is oftentimes exerted. According to the simple and affecting narrative of her daughter. Lady Murray of Stanhope, this amiable and virtuous woman was often up more than two nights in the week. " She went to the market, went to the mill to have their corn ground, which, it seems is the way with good managers there — dressed the linen, cleaned the house, made ready dinner, mended the children's stockings and other clothes, made what she could for them, and, in short, did every thing* Her sister Christian, who was a year or two younger, diverted her father and mother and the rest, who were fond of music : out of their small income they bought a harpsichord for little money. My aunt played and sung well, and had a great deal of life and humour, but no turn for busi- ness. Though my mother had the same qualifications, and liked it as well as she did, she was forced to drudge : and many jokes used to pass between the sisters about their different occupations. Every morning before six, my mother lighted her father's fire in his study, then waked him, and got what he usually took as soon as he got up, warm small beer with a spoonful of bitters in it ; then took up the children, and brought them all to his room, where he taught them everything that was fit for their age ; some Latin, others French, Dutch, geography, writing, reading, English, &c., and my grand- mother taught them what was necessary on her part. Thus LADY GRIZEL BAILLIE. 173 he employed and diverted himself all tLe time he ^as there, not being able to afford putting them to school ; and my mother, when she had a moment, took a lesson with the rest in French and Dutch, and also diverted herself with music. I have now a book of songs, of her writing when she was there ; many of them interrupted, half-writ, some broke off in the middle of a sentence : she had no less a turn for mirth and society than any of the family, when she could come at it without neglecting what she thought more necessary." One of these songs has been preserved, and as a beautiful pastoral composition deserves all praise. We present it in its old Scottish dress. "There ance was a may, and she lo'ed na men, She biggit her bonnie bower down in yon glen ; But now she cries dool and a-well-a-day ! Come down the green gate, and come here away. But now she cries, &c. "When bonnie young Johnie came over the sea, He said he saw naething sae lovely as me ; He hecht me baith rings and mony braw things ; And were na my heart licht, I wad die. He had a wee sister that lo'ed na me, Because I was twice as bonnie as she ; She raised such a pother 'twixt him and his mother, That were na my heart licht, I wad die. The day it was set, and the bridal to be. The wife took a dwam, and lay down to die ; She raained and she graned out of dolour and pain. That he vowed he never wad see me again. His kin was for ane of a higher degree, Said, what had he to do wi' the likes of me I Albeit I was bonnie, I was na for Johnie : And were na my heart licht, I wad die. q2 174 LADY GRIZEL EATLLIE^ His sister she was baith wylie and slie, She spied me as I came o'er the lea ; And then she ran in and made a loud din : Believe your ain een an ye trow na me. His bonnet stood ay fu' round on his brow, His auld ane looks aye as weel as some's new j Bur now he lets't wear ony gate it will hing, And casts hirasell dowie upon the corn-bing. And now he gaes daundering about the dykes. And a' he dow do is to hund the tykes ; The live-lang night he ne'er steeks his ee ; And were na my heart licht, I wad die. Were I young for thee, as I hae been, We should have been galloping down on yon green, And linking it blythe on the lily-white lea; And wow gin I were but young for thee !" It is not an easy matter to keep the heart " licht" when poverty and suiFering are within the dwelling, when we know the misery of being very poor, and when united to that poverty there is the recollection of better and happier times. Her eldest brother, Patrick, and her lover, Mr. Baillie, who suffered under the consequences of his father's attainder, went together into the guards of the Prince of Orange, till such time as they could be better provided for. " Her constant attention," continues Lady Murray, " was to have her brother appear right in his linen and dress ; they wore little point cravats and cuffs, which many a night she sat up to have in as good order for him as any in the place : and one of their greatest expenses was in dressing him as he ought to be. As their house was always full of the unfortunate banished people like themselves, they seldom went to dinner without three or four or five of them to share with them." It used to excite their surprise, that LADY GRIZEL BAILLIE. 175 notwithstanding this hospitality their limited resources were sufficient except on rare occasions to supply their wants. When subsequently invested with title, and the wife of a wealthy gentleman, the subject of our memoir used to declare that these years of privation and drudgery had been the most delightful of her whole life ; a circumstance not surpri- sing, when We consider the gratification which high moral feelings like hers could not fail to derive from exercise of so peculiar a nature. Some of the distresses of the exiled family only served to supply them with amusement. Andrew, a boy, afterwards a judge of the Court of Session, was one day sent down to the cellar for a glass of alabast beer, the only liquor with which Sir Patrick could entertain his friends. On his returning with the beer, Sir Patrick said, " Andrew, what is that in your other hand ?" It was the spigot, which the youth had forgot to replace, and the want of which had already lost them the whole of their stock of alabast. This occasioned them much mirth, though they perhaps did not know where to get more. It was the custom at Utrecht to gather money for the poor, by going from house to house with a hand bell. One night the bell came, and there was nothing in the house but a single orkey, the smallest coin then used in Holland. They were so much ashamed of their poverty, that no one would go out with the money, till Sir Patrick himself at last undertook this troublesome little duty, observing philosophi- cally, " We can give no more than all we have." Their want of money often obliged them to pawn the small quantity of plate which they had brought from Scotland ; but they were ultimately able to take it all back with them, leaving no debt in the country of their exile. The evident leaning of James II. toward the Roman Catho- lic faith, had filled the minds of his people with fear and trem- 176 LADY GRIZEL BAILLIE. bling ; at last his open avowal of attachment to Rome was the sign for open hostility. His cruelty and injustice had created disaffection in the hearts of Englishmen ; his attempt to rule absolute, and to carry out into practice " The right divine of kings to govern wrong," brought about the Revolution. Judge Jefferies was for giving every dissentient " a lick with the wrong side of the tongue." Men trembled for their lives and liberties. Colonel Kirke and his *' lambs" were busy. It was when things had arrived at this crisis, that the Prince of Orange, the son-in-law of James, began to lend an attentive ear to the earnest wish which had been expressed by some of the noblest men in all England, that he would come over and help them in establishing their protestant faith, and in asserting the rights and the liberties of the people. "When the Prince of Orange formed the resolution of inva- ding England, Sir Patrick Hume entered warmly into his views, and, by a letter which he addressed to the Scottish presbyterians, in which he passed a warm encomium on the personal character of the prince, was in no small degree in- strumental in gaining for him the friendship of that party. He accompanied the expedition, shared in its difficulties, and never left the prince's side till he was established in London. High honours, proportioned to his services and venerated character, now opened upon Sir Patrick. His attainder was reversed, his lands restored, and himself soon after created a peer, by the title of Lord Polwarth, and invested with the chief state office of his native country, that of Lord Chancellor. When the new system of things was settled, the younger part of the family were sent home under the care of a friend, and Lady Hume and Grizel came over with the Princess of Orange. The princess, now to become queen, wished to retain Grizel LADY GRIZEL BAILLIE. 177 near her person, as one of her maids of honour ; but, though well qualified for that envied situation, this simple-hearted girl had the magnanimity to decline the appointment, and pre- ferred returning with her friends to Scotland — to the scenes and innocent affections of her childhood. Ever since her meeting with Mr. Bailliein the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, she had cherished an affection for him, which was warmly returned by him, though, in the days of their exile, it had been concealed from her parents. It was now declared, and Mr. Baillie having also regained his estates, there was no longer any ob- stacle to their union. They were married about two years after the Revolution, and their felicity during forty-eight years of wedded life seems to have been not disproportioned to their uncommon virtues and endowments. Lady Grizel — for to this designation she became entitled on the elevation of her father in 1697 to the rank of Earl of Marchmont — amidst all the glare and grandeur of high life, retained the same disin- terested singleness of heart, and simplicity of manners, which in youth had gained her universal regard, and graced her in every station. Her husband seems to have been worthy of her and of his name. He filled with great honour several important offices under government, and was not more distin- guished for his eminent abilities than for his high-toned in- tegrity. They had two children — Grizel, married to Sir Alexander Murray, of Stanhope, and the author of the narra- tive to which we are indebted for the materials of this memoir ; and Rachel, the common ancestress of the present Earl of Haddington, and the present Mr. Baillie, of Jervis- wood. Lady Grizel is thus described by her daughter : — *' Her actions showed what her mind was, and her outward appearance was no less singular. She was middle-sized, clever in her person, very handsome, with a life and sweetness in 178 LADY GRIZEL BAILLIE. her eyes very uncommon, and gre*^at delicacy in all her features : her hair was chesnut, and to the last she had the finest com- plexion, with the clearest red in her cheeks and lips, that could be seen in one of fifteen, which, added to her natural consti- tution, might be owing to the great moderation she observed in her diet throughout her whole life. Porridge and milk was her greatest feast, and she by choice preferred them to every thing, though nothing came wrong to her that others could eat : water she preferred to any liquor : though often obliged to take a glass of wine, she always did it unwillingly, thinking it hurt her, and did not like it." Lady Grizel Baillie died on the sixth of December, 1746, in the eighty-first year of her age, having survived her hus- band about eight years. JANE SETMOUE. "The deed is done ! up, and let us follow the hunt," So spake King Henry VIII., as with his royal companions he halted under a wide-spreading tree in Epping forest. It was a bright, clear, beautiful day ; the sun shone pleasantly on trees and fields, and far away into forest depths, making a path of golden light along the stems and branches in its range, and on the soft and stealthy moss about the trunks of the old trees. Vistas of beauty opened everywhere into the heart and inner- most recesses of the wood ; and on the gnarled trunks, and twisted boughs, and ivy-covered stems, and trembling leaves, and bark-stripped bodies of ancient trees, the sunshine fell in all its glorious beauty. It was a gay group that had assembled in the forest. There was the king, and there were the courtiers in the rich and picturesque costume of the time, their slashed doublets, all bright and beautiful with jewels ; their velvet caps decora- ted with nodding plumes, and here and there a love- knot, the gift of some fair hand. They were there to cha'se the stag, and the day promised fair sport ; the huntsmen, with the hounds, stood ready to obey the king's behest. But they waited — the monarch himself sat moodily listening. Not a word was spoken, not a breath of wind was stirring. Sud- denly the heavy booming of a signal gun was heard ; the king doffed his bonnet, and with a flushed face, cried out the words we have before mentioned: "The deed is done! up, and let us follow the hunt !" 180 JANE SEYMOUR. Yes, the deed was done. The gentle lady, Anne Boleyn, had suffered death. In the cold gloom of the Tower she had passed the last few days, and on that bright and beautiful morning had taken her farewell of nature, and on the Tower Green had submitted her neck to the stroke of the executioner. It was a strange matter for rejoicing. Henry had loved Anne Boleyn ; loved her as his ardent temperament alone could love, but that love was short and fitful. Once she had been the joy and pride of his heart ; for her he had resigned the wife of his youth — for her he had risked his popularity — for her he had become antagonistic to Rome and Rome's discipline ; but the harmony of their love had been disturbed — short as a love-song, it was over now, and while Anne languished away, the heart of the king was given to another, and Jane Seymour supplan- ted Anne Boleyn, as Anne had supplanted the patient Catherine, The headsman had lifted his Calais sword, and struck off her head at a blow. The signal gun from the Tower ramparts was fired. The sound was heard by all ; but upon none did it make less impression than on Henry. To him it was only the voice of deliverance, and he hailed it as good news. A new scene of his life was opening. Hurrah for the chase ! Jane Seymour was the eldest daughter of Sir John Seymour, of Wolf Hall, "Wiltshire. Like Anne Boleyn, she had passed much of her early life in France, both in the retinue of Mary Tudor and in that of Queen Claude. She was beautiful in person and talented in mind. She possessed both virtue and refinement. Anne Boleyn received her as an old friend, and she formed a part of her retinue, when that ill-starred woman ascended to her dangerous elevation. Henry noticed her. Her merit and beauty entirely captivated the heart of the in- constant monarch, and he resolved to sacrifice everything to the gratification of his new passion. JANE SEYMOUR. 181 Anne little suspected treachery. The first intimation she received of the passion which Henry had conceived for the maiJ of honour, was by a most singular and unforeseen occur- rence. One day Anne came suddenly into the room, and found Jane Seymour contemplating attentively a portrait ; she stepped lightly, hastily towards her, and looked upon the picture. It was Henry VIII. "What followed, we have told already in the story of Anne Boleyn. On the day after the execution of Anne, Jane Seymour be- came the wife of the king. Jane is said to have been the fairest, the discreetest, and the most meritorious of all Henry's wives. But what opinion must we form of a woman who united herself to a man who was still, as it were, wet with the blood of an innocent and murdered wife? The Princess Mary, who had been treated by her father with great severity on account of her attachment to her mother, and her refusal to assent to the statutes which had been lately enacted, was persuaded by her friends to attempt a reconcilia- tion with the king at this juncture, when her sister Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. She therefore sent him a very sub- missive letter, imploring his forgiveness for her former dis- obedience, and promising to comply with all his injunctions for the future. Henry refused to receive her into his favour, unless she would sign the act of supremacy, the renunciation of the Bishop of Rome, and the nullity of her mother's mar- riage. Mary exerted her utmost address to elude the king's demand, but finding him inflexible, she was at last obliged to submit, and accordingly subscribed the articles. Elizabeth, who was now in the fourth year of her age, was divested of the title of Princess of Wales, which she had hitherto enjoyed ; but Henry gave her an excellent education, an.i treated her on all occasions with the greatest tenderness an'l R 182 JANE SEYMOUR. affection. A new parliament, meeting in the month of Junej enacted a statute by which they repealed the former act of succession, declared the children of the king's first two mar- riages illegitimate, and excluded them from the inheritance of the crown ; confirmed the sentence of Anne Boleyn, adjudged the crown, after the king's death, to his issue by Queen Jane, or any other wife he might afterwards marry ; empowered his majesty to settle the manner in which they should succeed, either by will, or letters patent under the Great Seal ; and pro- nounced all those who should maintain the validity of his first two marriages, guilty of high treason. Pope Paul III. was no sooner apprised of Anne's fate, than he began to entertain hopes of seeing all that had been done to abridge the papal power in England revoked, and in these sentiments made some proposals to Cassali, the English agent at Kome. But in these hopes Pope Paul III. was doomed to disappointment. Instead of lessening the desire of the great '* Defender of the Faith" to be supreme of priest and bishop, the events which had occurred seemed only to have inflamed his desire for power and glory. The destruction of monasteries was rapidly advancing, and the rents and riches of the religious houses bulked out an end- less heap of wealth. Meanwhile the Lady Jane led a quiet life ; but it was the life of a slave. She had before her the fate of Catherine and the fate of Anne, and a constant fear was on her ; she knew not how soon the monarch might become the murderer. She feared his glance ; she was cold, solemn, reserved to all, sub- mitted to his wishes in every particular, and knew no will but his. Henry was attentive and kind, but he had not for her the same deep love that he had for Anne. She was raised to a high pinnacle of power, but she felt that she was but the wife JANE SEYMOUR. 183 of the king, and not Queen Jane. She exerted no aathority. Unlike Queen AnnCj the sceptre was to her an idle bauble. There is but one instance of her employing her regal power, and this was to bestow upon some kind friend, a buck from the royal forest. At length an event of an important nature took place at Hampton Court. This was the birth of a prince. For weeks the king had resided at the palace, fearing that his absence might be the occasion of any concern to the queen, and when it was announced to him that a prince was born, his joy knew no bounds. There were strange rumours at the time, which have since been reissued again and again as historical facts about the birth of Prince Edward, It was said that one of the attendants repaired to the monarch, and stated that it would be impossible to save the lives of both the queen and the prince, that one must be sacrificed for the preservation of the other, and that in reply the king cried, '* Save the child ; queens are plentiful enough !" The story is related in a " woful ballad" of the period. *' A lady to him did repair, And said ' king shew us thy will, The queen's sweet life to save or spill ;' 'Then, as you can't save both,' said he, ' O save the flower and not the tree,' ' O mourn, mourn, mourn fair ladies, Your queen, the flower of England's dead !" But alas for courtly gossip, and "woful ballads," there ap- pears to be no truth in the story. The queen did not die for nearly a fortnight after the birth of the prince. Her death was caused by over excitement and over exertion. The joy of the king^'could not be restrained, and the palace became a 184 JANE SEYMOUR. constant scene of revelry. The queen's chamber became a very room of state reception, and lords and ladies flocked thither to do honour to the queen and the young prince. The christening was on the grandest and most extensive scale. Processions of solemn grandeur were made from the queen's chamber to the chapel, and from the chapel to the queen's chamber, at which the chroniclers tell us loud fanfares were sounded upon trumpets without the door, fanfares which made the very rafters ring. The queen was laid upon a couch of golden cloth, to receive the child after it had been christened, by the name of Edward, and to bestow upon it the maternal blessing ; and all this splendid etiquette was too much for the poor queen. The day after the ceremony she became alarm- ingly ill — delirium came on — and at last she died, and the monarch was again a widower. She was buried with great pomp, and a curious epitaph was written ; — " Here a phoenix lieth, whose death To another phoenix gave birth : It is to be lamented much, The world at once ne'er knew two sueh." MRS. PIOZZI. There is sufficient personal interest in the life ofMrs.Piozzi to render her history worthy of perusal. She possessed merit enough to commend herself to posterity. But independently of this, her name, character, and fortune, are so intimately connected with the literary world of her period, that on this account the story of her life becomes doubly interesting. She was born in 1740, and was the daughter of John Salusbury, Esq., of Bodville, in Caernarvonshire. Under the learned Dr. Collyer, she received an excellent classical education. Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, were among her acquisitions in this department. In every branch of learning she made ex- tensive advances, and it was this that in after years so com- mended her to the great elephantine LL.D., Samuel Johnson, In her twenty-fourth year. Miss Salusbury married Henry Thrale, Esq., an eminent brewer, in Southwark, and a man of education and talent. He was acquainted with the well- known critic and dramatist, Arthur Murphy, by whom he was introduced, soon after his marriage, to Dr. Samuel Johnson, then in the full blow of his fame. The decided literary tastes, both of Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, led to a mutual attrac- tion between them and Dr. Johnson, and he was their frequent guest from the first hour of their acquaintance. Ere long, the connexion grew closer, Johnson being invited in 1766, to take up his residence with them at Streatham altogether — an invitation which he willingly accepted. Boswell represents this as a happy event for the great lexicographer. *' He had R 2 l86 MRS. PIOZZI. at Mr. Thrale's all the comforts and luxuries of life ; his melancholy was diverted, and his irregular habits lessened, by association with an agreeable and well-ordered family." Thus we think of Johnson : — huge, burly, stout-hearted, clear-headed, independent, upright, prejudiced, rough and ready Johnson ; settling every argument as with sledge-ham- mer force ; making- his "Sir" more powerful than a syllo- gism, speaking in that peculiar dialect of his which made Goldsmith say that if ever Johnson wrote a fable about little fishes, he would make the little fishes talk like whales. For fifteen years Johnson resided with the Thrales, with mutual satisfaction to the guest and entertainers. For Mr. Thrale, even leonine Johnson entertained a deep respect, and his presence always kept the doctor in check, but when after the death of Mr. Thrale the doctor continued to reside with the widow, the case was altered. He now attempted to rule the house, and his bearish rudeness was insupportable. As an illustration of this, Mrs. Thrale relates in her "Anecdotes," that one day two quiet respectable gentlemen came to dine with her at Streatham ; one of them, a Quaker, chanced to tell an anecdote respecting the red-hot balls thrown at the siege of Gibraltar, which had just taken place. When he had done, " I would advise you, sir," said Johnson, with a cold sneer, " never to relate this story again. You can scarce imagine how very poor a figure you make in the telling of it." The abashed and unassuming Quaker never again ventured to open his mouth but in a whisper throughout the evening, and even then, he spoke only to his friend who had come with him. When the two visitors departed, and Johnson was left alone with Mrs. Thrale, " I did not quarrel with those fellows," said he, with a satisfied sense of his own forbearance. " They gave you no cause of offence," replied Mrs. Thrale. " No MRS. PIOZZI. 187 offence !" returned the doctor, with an altered voice ; "and is it nothing to sit whispering together when I am present, without even directing their discourse towards me, or offering me a share in the conversation ?" At the sale of Mr. Thrale's property, for Johnson was ap- pointed one of the executors, he was seen bustling about with an inkhorn in his button-hole, like an exciseman. On being asked what he supposed to be the value of the properly to be disposed of, he answered with his usual pomp, " Sir, we are not here to-day to sell vats and boilers, but to study the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice." The story of the Quaker is a sufficient illustration of the manner in which Johnson conducted himself. He was the heau ideal of Captain Absolute. The connexion which the doctor had maintained for so lengthened a period, could not endure long after Mr. Thrale's death. To the honour of Mrs. Thrale, however, be it spoken, she did not hurriedly or rudely part with a man possessed of virtues so great and numerous, and so far transcending, on the whole, his failings. Three years after the death of her husband, she went to Bath, for the advantage, partly, of her health, and partly that she might be for a time freed from the yoke which had become so heavy. At Bath she met a music-master, named Piozzi, an Italian by birth, and a man of respectability, though not the equal, cer- tainly, in fortune, or station, of herself. However, she mar- ried him, and Johnson and she parted for ever. The fact of Piozzi being a foreigner and a musician, as well as the con- sciousness, no doubt, of the altered position in which the mar- riage would place himself with respect to the Thrale family — all this conspired to make the match odious to the doctor, and some have asserted (what others deny), that in a letter to herself, he called it a " most ignominious business." But the 188 MRS. PIOZZI. lady's mind was made up. Johnson took leave of her mildly, and, indeed, afFectingly, after all was concluded. "What you have done," he said, " however I may lament it, I have no pretence to resent, as it has not been injurious to me ; I therefore breathe out one sigh more of tenderness, perhaps useless, but at least sincere. I wish that God may grant you every blessing." After all, the doctor was a sincere man ; not a sugar-plum mortal ; not one who alone could dwell in scented rooms and wash his hands in rose-water; not one who "prophesied smooth things ;" butwho was honest, thoroughly true, in whom there was no cant. Mrs. Thrale was already known to fame. She had written much, and she had written well. In those days literary circles abounded with a host of wit-mongers, like gnats in the sun- shine. These immediately began to exert themselves to utter sharp things about Mrs. Thrale becoming Mrs. Piozzi. There was certainly nothing very wonderful in the re-marriage of a woman of forty, even with a person a little below her in rank. Peter Pindar treats this marriage-matter in a very humorous way, in his piece called "Bozzy and Piozzi," where he paints a contention between James Boswell and the lady, as rival can- didates for the honour of biographising Dr. Johnson. The lady is made to defend her escape from widowhood thus em- phatically : — What was my marriage, sir, to you, or him ? He tell me what to do ! a pretty whim ! He to propriety (the beast !) exhort I As well might elephants preside at court ! ****** Tell me, James Boswell, what's the world to me ? MRS. PIOZZI. 189 The folks who paid respects to Mrs. Thrale, Fed on her pork, poor souls ! and swilled her ale, May sicken at Piozzi ; nine in ten Turn up the nose of scorn ; — what then ? They keep their company, and I my meat. It was true, as the satirist hints, that the world, guided or biassed by regard for Johnson, did very generally condemn the match. Mrs. Piozzi freed herself from their immediate sneers, by going abroad with her husband. At the close of 1784, they visited France, and subsequently passed through Germany and Italy. They settled ultimately, for a time, at Florence. Here Mrs. Piozzi's fixed literary tastes led to the congregation of a congenial knot of English gentlemen and ladies, who, chiefly for their own amusement, published a volume, called the " Florence Miscellany," to which they all contributed. Mrs. Piozzi was a leader in the business, and many pieces, of no slight merit, appeared at this time from her pen. One in particular may be adverted to, as worthy of notice, namely, the '* Three Warnings," a pointed allegorical piece, which has found a place in almost all subsequent collec- tions of poetry. The contributions to this miscellany consti- tuted Mrs. Piozzi's first appearance in print. She had for a coadjutor at Florence, the famous Delia Crusca (Mr. Merry), "on whose coming over to England," says Mr. GifFord, "a poetical amatory fever spread through the land, and its perio- dicals — Laura, Maria, Carlos, Orlando, Adelaide, and a thou- sand other nameless names, caught the infection ; and from one end of the kingdom to the other, all was nonsense and Delia Crusca." Mrs. Piozzi was of a grade superior to these scirbblers, and ought never to have been accounted of their number. No one who has ever read the works of Mrs, Piozzi can 190 MRS. PIOZ^I. doubt her talent. Here we do not so much speak of her prose compositions, as her poetical genius. Her poem enti- tled, " Duty and Pleasure," is a master-piece : — " Duty and Pleasure long at strife, Met in the common walks of life. * Pray don't disturb me — get you gone !' Cries Duty in a serious tone. Then with a smile, ' Keep off, my dear, Nor force me to be thus severe.' * Dear sir,' cries Pleasure, ' you're so grave ; You make yourself a perfect slave. I can't think why we disagree : You may turn Methodist for me. But if you'll neither laugh nor play. At least don't stop me in my way. Yet sure one moment you may steal, To see the lovely Miss O'Neill. One hour to relaxation give : lend one hour from life to live ! And here's a bird and there's a flower — Dear Duty, walk a little slower !' * My morning's task is not half done,' Cries Duty, with an inward groan ; ' False colours on each object spread ; 1 know not where or how I'm led : Your bragg'd enjoyments mount the wind, And leave their venom' d stings behind. "Where are you flown ?'— Voices around Cry, ' Pleasure long hath left the ground.' Old age advances ; haste away, Nor lose the light of parting day ! See sickness follows, sorrow threats ; Waste no more time in vain regrets. Oh, Duty ! one more eff()rt given, May reach, perhaps, the gates of Heaven, Where only, each with each delighted, Pleasure and duty live united." MRS. PIOZZI. 191 After visiting every part of Italy, Mrs. Piozzi returned with her husband to England. In a fanciful moment, she imitated Dean Swift, by composing some light verses at Dover, of which the merit is the rhyming. They run thus : — " He whom fan- winds have wafted over, First hails his native land at Dover, And doubts not but he shall discover Pleasure in every path round Dover ; Envies the happy crows which hover About old Shakespeare's cliff at Dover; From this fond dream he'll soon recover, When debts shall drive him back to Dover ; Hopipg, though poor, to live in clover, Once safely past the straits at Dover ;" &c. Mrs. Piozzi was a shrewd observer of nature. Her pictures from Italy became deservedly popular. Books of travels have always been rather overdone, and the two volumes of journeying obtained no permanent place in English literature. "We do not always want to know how authors felt when they first saw the Prado, or first walked the Rialto ; or how they were stricken with astonishment at St. Peters, or grew poetical or sentimental on the canals of Venice. We have heard these things again and again, and without there is some novelty in the telling, theyb ecome rather tasteless and unin- teresting. Another work of Mrs. Piozzi's was and is a great favourite. A recent writer says : — " In 1787, Mrs. Piozzi published her well-known volume of 'Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson.' The great interest of the subject would alone have made this book a favourite, but the authoress ought not to be deprived of the share of merit justly due to her, as a narrator of much acuteness of observation and liveliness of fancy. Smarting as she then was under the 192 MRS. PIOZZI. neglect which Johnson's open disapproval of her marriage had hrought upon her from the circles in which she had previously shone, it is scarcely to be wondered at that she should have allowed the shades of her former friend's character to come out pretty broadly on her canvass ; but we believe she cannot be proved to have told any untruths, and she over and over again admits the greatness of his virtues. In the year 1778, she published a second work relating to Johnson, being a series of Letters which had passed between herself and him. These are very interesting ; and had not Boswell's unique production given us a view so wonderfully minute of the doctor's character, would have been held as a most important contribution to literary history. Boswell, however, super- seded and threw into the shade all other works upon the subject of which he treated. But Mrs. Piozzi has still the merit of having produced a pleasing record of many incidents in the life of a remarkable man." In 1794, Mrs. Piozzi published a work entitled, " British Synonyms ; or an attempt to regulate the choice of words in familiar conversation." Upon this work a very bitter criti- cism was passed by Gifford, harsher than justice called for, though withal, the title of the book was high-sounding, and the attempt beyond the power of our authoress. Her volume on " Retrospection, or a review of the most striking events of the last eighteen hundred years," succeeded far better. She lost her second husband in 1809, and from that period to the close of her life, in 1823, resided chiefly at Clifton. i "^'-i^ ■%-- Q^/i^^ h^?^^^6^. ^c?^^. ■^-Z^y^z THE COUNTESS OF COTENTEY. To their praise be it spoken, the English nobility have a higher and better claim upon the homage and respect of the people than that which rank can give. Honour to whom honour is due. We are not of the number of those who would decry all that is connected with aristocracy. There is a class to whom the very name of peer is but the synonym for something which calls for reproach. We are proud of our nobility. We acknowledge it without shame. We are no despisers of posthumous honours, and we can do honour to the posterity of those whose wisdom and valour have made our country what it is. But with the majority in this country there exists a prestige in favour of rank which no amount of theoretical democracy has been able to destroy. Of old the followers of Longbeard cried, " No haughty lords," and chanted in Wat Tyler's riot, " When Adam delved, and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman ?" Burns may tell us — " The rank is but the guinea stamp, A man's a man for a' that :" Still, the truth is, we respect rank. And such respect is not a senseless thing. " Rank represents ancient institutions. 194 THE COUNTESS OF COVENTRY. It is redolent of deeds deemed noble at the time of doing, however contrary to the advanced public opinion of our day. It tracks its origin to heroes. It preserves the idea of honour. By means of it national identity is kept alive. Our titles are rich in meaning. Apsley House and Blenheim speak volumes." We have small patience with the bickerings of those who would look upon our titled aristocracy as a dead weight on the community. Wealth and rank are powerful instruments for good, and, when rightly employed, are of the utmost utility. In the Countess of Coventry none could recognise aught but what would dignify and elevate human character in any situation of life. To her it might have been said in the words of Coleridge — " Oh, lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure, Where learnt you that heroic measure?" For she was ever the friend of the friendless, exerting her energies for the practical good of those about her, and if <( > Tis noble only to be good," the Countess of Coventry would still hold a high degree in the aristocracy of benevolence and virtue. But except to her own immediate friends, the record of her life would be uninteresting. The lives of those who exert the influence of a good example, and who bow to the high behests of love to God and man, do not, in the majority of instances, make the most amusing and attractive biographies. Yet a life well-spent is better than a life spent in intense excitement. The silent workers of the world are some of its noblest reno- vators. What we need is not so much an accession to the mighty ones whose light and lightning rejoice or alarm the THE COUNTESS OF COVENTRY. 195 world, but what we need in cottage homes and under palace roofs, is the recognition of those principles which elevate all who receive them, and the practical application of those principles to the affairs of common life. And happy is it to find the high and noble, they who wear the ermine and the coronet, actuated by those rules of life, and learning the deep and solemn lesson, that high and low, rich and poor, the rude and most refined, should bear each other's burden, and strive to bring about the glorious advent of the golden future that must come at last. Born of a noble and ancient family, the Countess of Coventry was endowed with all that could make life happy. Beautiful in person, intelligent in understanding, and posses- sing high-toned virtue, she mingled with the great ones of the world as an elevating power. Receiving an education befit- ting her rank, her mind was easily enriched with all that was calculated to form and dignify her character. And the instruction she received was well repaid. Her friends loved, honoured, and admired her, and of foes she had none. Many a grateful heart blesses her name, though, perchance, when the good deed, so well remembered, so fondly cherished, was done, the giver was a stranger to those whom she relieved, and who only afterwards learned to recognize in their benefactress and their friend, the Countess of Coventry. CHARLOTTE SMITH. The name of this talented and unfortunate lady is well known ; and in visiting Stoke one cannot look upon her neat monument executed by Bacon without melancholy reflections. The story of her life possesses painful interest, and her devo- tion to literature throughout many years of trial and sorrow cannot be read without feelings of emotion. She was born on the fourth of May, 1749, and was the eldest daughter of Nicholas Turner, Esq., of Stoke House^ in Surrey. Her faculties were of so lively a nature that she learned to read at a period earlier than she could afterwards remember, and was taught to dance when so mere a baby, that she re- ceived her firibt steps upon a dining-room table. While still at the boarding-school, her conversation was remarkable for intelligence, wit, and imagination ; while she excelled all her companions at once in music, in drawing, and in dancing. She also distinguished herself at this early period by her per- formances in some private theatricals got up at school, and by writing verses. It would appear, however, that her edu- cation was of a superficial kind, and that the formation of her character and habits was in some measure injured by the in- dulgence in whicli she was reared by an aunt, to whose charge she had been chiefly entrusted after the early loss of her mother. At twelve she was introduced to the gaieties of fashionable life in the metropolis, and allowed to enter much too freely into them ; by which she was less prepared than CHARLOTTE SMITH. 197 she might have been for the sad reverses and distresses which clouded her latter years. The " world," as it is sometimes called, is not the best place for the formation of habits of prudence and virtue. Routs, and balls, and plays, and masquerades are not scenes the best calculated for reflection and study ; and when, as in Miss Turner's case, a liveliness of disposition, a keen wit, and a beautiful face and figure, are the portion of the debutante^ great risk is run, and it requires skilful pilotage to escape the shoals and quicksands, which, though hidden, lie in dangerous proximity. When Miss Turner was not more than fifteen, her aunt begun to make serious attempts to hurry her into a matrimo- nial engagement. She did it for the best. Mr. Turner had resolved upon a second marriage. The aunt trembled for the comfort of her niece, when a new wife and mother should be brought home to the hitherto happy mansion. The gentleman selected for Miss Turner, was a Mr. Smith, son of a West India merchant in the city, who had taken him into partnership. He was brought into Miss Turner's society for the express purpose of forming an attachment to her, and the event justified the expectations which had been formed. On the other hand, it was no difficult matter to talk the young lady into a reciprocal feeling. Too young to be able to judge for herself respecting either her own afi'ections, or the charac- ter of her suitor, she was hurried by injudicious friends into an union with one who was destined to prove the bane of her happiness. The marriage took place in February, 1765, v/hile the subject of our memoir as yet wanted three months to complete her sixteenth year. It was the beginning of sorrows. Love is proverbially blind :— " Thou art all beauty, or all blindness I !" s s 2 198 CHARLOTTE SMITH. is the language of the lover ; but marriage performs miracles, and the blind receive their sight. When it was too late the young wife found out the error of the step she had taken. Young, gay, and inexperienced, she was placed in apartments connected with the mercantile establishment of her husband, in one of the narrowest and darkest lanes of the city. There, amidst other annoyances, to which as heretofore she had been a stranger, she was exposed to the illiberal remarks of a father- in-law and mother- in-law, whose ideas were of an entirely diffe- rent character from her own. From the account furnished by her sister, we are made acquainted with the facts of the case. Old Mr. Smith usually took his chocolate in his daughter-in- law's dressing-room, and his approach was the signal for hur- rying away every trace of elegant study, and the dismissal of every congenial visitor. The old lady at the same time ex- acted an almost constant attendance on account of her health, and made use of the opportunities thus obtained to lecture the young wife upon household maxims in the highest degree re- pugnant to her. It was like immuring an antelope in a stable. Nothing can be more clear than that the introduction of a being constituted and educated as she was, into a scene like what has been described, was calculated to occasion distress both to herself and to others. Her own low health, and the loss of her first child by a malignant illness, led to her being removed to a country lodging, where she was more at her own disposal, and had leisure to pursue the studies in which she delighted. Yet every advance which her mind made towards maturity only enabled her to feel more acutely the irrecon- cileable difference between her own character and those of her new friends, more especially of her husband, who speedily proved to be a frivolous and fickle young man, unfit for either business or society. To use her own emphatic words, " The CHARLOTTE SMITH. 199 move I cultivated and improved my understanding, the more clearly I saw the horror of the abyss into which I had uncon- sciously plunged." But it is to be related to her honour, that, while suffering deeply under a growing sense of this great and irremediable calamity, she never suffered a complaint to escape her lips, even in the presence of her most confidential friends. Her husband w^as a gay and dissipated character, ruining both his health and prospects, by his careless and extravagant course of conduct. At length, the time which he could not be prevailed upon to bestow upon business, being chiefly spent in costly follies, she, in 1774, prevailed upon her father-in-law to allow of his retiring with his family to a small estate called Lys Farm, in Hampshire, where she hoped by having him con- stantly under her eye, to check his extravagant course. This laudable desire met with the approval of her father-in-law, but the old gentleman parted v/ith her with extreme regret, for he had found more benefit from her occasional services in the business than he had ever experienced from those of his son. So sensible was he of her usefulness and dexterity, as to offer her a fixed allowance if she tvould remain. But she steadily maintained the course she had proposed. Two years passed away, when the death of the elder Mr. Smith occasioned a considerable alteration in their fortunes. He died leaving a large property confusedly distributed by a will of his own composition, amongst his numerous descendants ; a will which was speedily torn to pieces amidst legal contentions. While the will case was going on in the law courts, Mr. Smith was enabled by a lucrative contract with government, to realize a considerable income. But his old habits of prodigality were too firmly rooted to be easily destroyed, and at last he had to exchange the brilliant theatre and the gay saloon, for the cold, dark, dreary prison-house, and the society of the witty and 200 CHARLOTTE SMITH. intelligent, of the rich and the powerful, for that of the broken- hearted debtors, iro mured within Newgate walls. The conduct of Mrs. Smith was never so deserving of admi- ration as at this time. When suffering from the calamities which her husband had brought on himself, and in which he had in- extricably involved her and her children, she made herself the companion of his confinement, amidst scenes of vice, of misery, and even of terror — for, while she was in prison, two attempts were made by the inmates to obtain their liberation by blowing up the walls of the house. Throughout one of the nights ap- pointed for this dreadful enterprise, she remained at a window, dressed, and expecting every moment to witness contention and bloodshed, and perhaps to be overwhelmed by the projected explosion. She also made herself mistress of her husband's affairs, and submitted to many humiliating applications on his behalf, by which her best feelings were occasionally outraged. Perhaps the severest of her trials was the necessity of employ- ing her superior abilities in defending a conduct she could not approve of. At the end of seven months, by a resignation of his property into the hands of trustees, she had the satisfaction of procuring her husband's liberation, and accompanying hira to a house in Sussex, where her children had for some time remained, under the care of their maternal uncle. " After such scenes and such apprehensions," says she, in reference to the dangers she encountered in prison, " how deliciously soothing to my wearied spirits was the soft pure air of the summer's morning, breathing over the dewy grass, as (having slept one night upon the road) we passed over the heaths of Surrey ! My native hills at length burst upon my view. I beheld once more the fields where I passed my happiest days, and, amidst the perfumed turf with which one of those fields was strewn, perceived with delight the beloved group from CHARLOTTE SMITH. 201 whom I had been so long divided, and for whose fate ray affec- tions were ever anxious. The transports of this meeting were too much for my exhausted spirits. After all my sufferings, I began to hope that I might taste content, or experience at least a respite from calamity." It had been some relief to her during the many sorrowful years which she had passed since her marriage, to soothe her feelings by the composition of sonnets. She did not write for applause. They were not the tinselled sentimentality of the would-be poetess — they were the natural utterance of an overburdened heart. These sonnets were sacred things. She had never shown them to her friends, but now that poverty was pressing hard upon herself and husband, she mentioned these sonnets, and allowed them to be published. They formed a thin quarto volume, and the mild tenderness which they breathed procured them admiration in the literary world. They were so natural, so easy, so unconstrained, so truthful, that they awakened sympathy in the breasts of those who read them. They were established favourites at once. A short time after the publication of this work, she retired, with her husband and family, to an ancient chateau in Nor- mandy, and while in this seclusion, amused her leisure by translating a French novel into English. Cadell the publisher issued this book in 1785, but it did not add to the reputation of the translator. They had retired to France with the idea that there stricter economy could be observed than in England, and that they would be better able to live upon their scanty means. Two years satisfied them that this was a mistake, so they returned to England, and took up their residence at Woolbeding House, Midhurst. Their eldest surviving son was also fortunate enough to obtain a writership in Bengal. An increasing incompatibility of temper now determined 202 CHARLOTTE SMITH. Charlotte Smith upon a step which she had better have taken many years before — a separation from her husband. This she unfortunately eiFected without terms respecting her own fortune, but was accompanied by the whole of her children. A small house in the neighbourhood of Chichester now became her home, and then began her true literary history — she had resolved to trust to her pen for the support of herself and her children. Mrs. Dormer says with respect to her, during this period of her life : — " Those who have formed their ideas of her from her works, and even from what she says, in her moments of despondency, of herself, have naturally concluded that she was of a melancholy disposition ; but nothing could be more erroneous. Cheerfulness and gaiety were the natural charac- teristics of her mind ; and though circumstances of the most depressing nature at times weighed down her spirit to the earth, yet such was its buoyancy, that it quickly returned to its level. " Notwithstanding her constant literary occupations, she never adopted the aflPectations, the inflated language, and exag- gerated expressions, which literary ladies are often distinguished by, but always expressed herself with the utmost simplicity. She composed with greater facility than others could transcribe, and never would avail herself of an amanuensis, always asserting that it was more trouble to find them in comprehen- sion than to execute the business herself ; in fact, the quick- ness of her conception was such, that she made no allowance for the slower faculties of others, and her impetuosity seldom allowed her time to explain herself with the precision required by less ardent minds. This hastiness of temper was one of the greatest shades in her character, and one of her greatest misfortunes. CHARLOTTE SMITH. 203 ** She was always the friend of the unfortunate, and spared neither her time, her talents, nor even her purse, in the cause of those she endeavoured to serve ; and with a heart so warm, it may easily be believed, she was frequently the dupe of her benevolence. The poor always found in her a kind protectress, and she never left any place of residence without bearing with her their prayers and regrets. " No woman had greater trials as a wife ; very few could have acquitted themselves so well. But her conduct for twenty-three years speaks for itself. She was a most tender and anxious mother, and if she carried her indulgence to her children too far, it is an error too general to be very severely reprobated. To shield them as much as possible from the mortifying consequences of loss of fortune, was the object of her indefatigable exertions. Her reward was in their affection and gratitude, and in the approval of her own heart." Soon after the separation, Mr. Smith, finding himself involved in fresh difficulties, retired again to the continent, but not without making strenuous efforts to be re-united to his wife. Sometimes, indeed, they met, and always cordially, but the authoress found it better to maintain herself and children by indefatigable industry, than share the hazardous and wretched life to which she had so long been condemned. She constantly corresponded with her husband, and endea- voured to render him every assistance in bringing the family affairs to an issue, but they never afterwards resided together. The period ?.t which Mrs. Smith wrote was not a reading age. The schoolmaster was not abroad. Cheap books and pamphlets were not pouring forth incessantly from an ever- teeming press. Huge placards of forthcoming publications did not catch the eye from afar. The might of the press was not thoroughly understood, and though great books were 204 CHARLOTTE SMITH. written and appreciated, it was a different class, that reading public, than that which bears the name now-a-days. Yet the works of Charlotte Smith were favourably received, and as novel after novel added to her fame, the profits enabled her to maintain a respectable standing in the world. All labour is honourable. Brow-sweat and brain-sweat are not to be despised. In every department of society they are the most honourable who earn their own living by their ov/n labour. The summer of 1787, saw Mrs. Smith established in a cottage at Wyke, pursuing her literary occupations with much assiduity and delight, and supplying to her children the duties of both parents. Here she began and completed, in the short space of eight months, her first and perhaps most pleasing novel of " Emmeline," which was published in 1788, and met with brilliant success. The first edition of fifteen hundred sold so rapidly that a second was immediately called for ; and Mr. Cadell found his profits so considerable, that he had the liberality, voluntarily, to augment the price he had agreed to give for it. The continued success of her volume of sonnets was equally gratifying, and, exclusive of profit and reputation, procured her many valuable friends and estimable acquaintances, and some in the most exalted ranks in life ; and it was not the least pleasing circumstance to a mother's heart, that her son in Bengal owed his promotion in the civil service to her talents. "Etheliride," " Celestina," *' Desmond," and "The Old English Manor House," were other novels published in suc- cession by Mrs. Smith, and all of which, but particularly the last, were well received by the public. They display great inventive powers, great knowledge of the human bosom, very high powers of natural description, and a singular combination of wit and satire, with that delicacy and pathos in which the CHARLOTTE SMITH. 205 female pen so often excels. *' Desmond " has the peculiarity of being tinged with the notions of the French revolutionists, which she had contracted from some accidental friendships, and was the more disposed to entertain through that bitterness against all fortunate things and persons which the unhappy spirit is but too readily disposed to cherish. This circum- stance lost her some of her exalted friends, and contributed additional distress to a mind already sufficiently afflicted. In 1793, her third son, who was serving as an ensign in the 14th regiment of infantry, lost his leg at Dunkirk, and her own health began to sink under the pressure of so many afflictions, and the continual harassing circumstances in which the family property was involved, in the arrangement of which her exertions were incessant. She removed to Bath, but received no benefit from the use of the waters. An attack of the gout had fixed itself on her hands, probably increased by the constant use of the pen, which nevertheless she continued to employ, though some of her fingers were become contracted. Her second daughter had been married to a gentleman of Normandy, who had emigrated at the beginning of the "Revo- lution. This young lady fell into a decline after her first confinement, and died at Clifton in the spring of 1794, It would be impossible to describe an affliction which mothers only can either experience or comprehend. From this time she became more than ever unsettled, moving from place to place in search of that tranquillity she was not destined ever to enjoy, yet continuing her literary occupation with astonishing application. Her life was one of trouble and anxiety. Happiness was the spirit that ever hovered before her and yet eluded her grasp. The life of man is a search after happiness. And, with regard to many the Persian epitome of universal history T 206 CHARLOTTE-^ SMITH. applies ; — they were born, they were wretched, they died ! Yet we are, in most cases, the makers of our own happiness or misery. We do not sufficiently study tlie consequences of our conduct. But every thing has its results. We despise trifles, but trifles are the turning points of our existence, and, viewed in all its relations, a trifle becomes a most momentous matter. Some of those events which must necessarily involve important consequences, are not sufficiently regarded with serious interest. There is no relation by which so much is compromised as that of man and wife. Marriage, imprudently contracted, embitters a whole life. It was so in the case of Charlotte Smith : and it is so in the case of thousands. The match, so easily formed, was the beginning of her misery — the evils consequent thereupon were with her to her dying day. The end of her life was harassed by long delay in the settle- ment of the property, " which," says her sister and biographer, " was equally embarrassing to all parties, and at length in- duced one of them to propose a compromise ; so that by the assistance of a noble friend, an adjustment of the respective claims was eff'ected, but not without considerable loss on all sides. Still she derived great satisfaction that her family would be relieved from the difficulties she had so long con- tended with, although she was personally but little benefited l)y it. So many years of mental anxiety and exertion had completely undermined a constitution, which nature seemed to have formed to endure unimpaired to old age ; and con- vinced that her exhausted frame was sinking under increasing infirmity, she determined on removing into Surrey, from a desire that her mortal remains might be laid with those of her mother, and many of her father's family, in Stoke Churchy near Guildford. In 1803, she removed from Frans, near CHARLOTTE SMITH. 207 Tunbridge, to the village of Elsted, in the neighbourhood of Godalraing. In the winter of 1804, I spent some time with her, when she was occupied in composing her charming little work for the use of young persons, entitled * Conversations,' which she occasionally wrote in the common sitting-room of the family, with two or three lively grandchildren playing about her, and conversing with great cheerfulness and plea- sure, though nearly confined to her sofa, in great bodily pain, and in a mortifying state of dependence on the services of others, but in the full possession of all her faculties ; a bless- ing of which she was most justly sensible, and for which she frequently expressed her gratitude to the Almighty, " In the following year she removed to Tilford,near Farnham, where her long sufferings were finally closed, on the 28th of October 1806, in her 58th year. Mr. Smith's death took place the preceding March. She was buried at Stoke, in compliance with her wishes, where a neat monument, exe- cuted by Bacon, is erected to her memory, and that of two of her sons, Charles and George, both of whom perished in the West Indies, in the service of their country. It is impossible, in concluding the melancholy retrospection of a life so pecu- liarly and so invariably marked by adversity, not to express the keenest regret, that a being with a mind so highly gifted, a heart so alive to every warm and generous feeling, with beauty to delight, and virtues to attach all hearts, so formed herself for happiness, and so eminently qualified to dispense it to others, should have been, from her early youth, the de- voted victim of folly, vice, and injustice." QUEEN CAROLINE. There is not a more touching episode in the annals of modern history, than the story of the ill-fated Queen Caroline. An event so well known as the trial of the queen, needs no long detail here. It is, comparatively speaking, but an occurrence of yesterday, and the echo of the shout which told of her acquittal has scarcely died away. An act of the reign of George III., rendered illegal the marriage of a prince of the royal blood with a British subject. To the sagacious law makers, it seemed a desirable thing to prevent all jealousy and all family feuds with regard to royal matrimonial alliances, by act of parliament. It was a harsh and wrong restriction in the eyes of many, but the wisdom of parliament saw nothing for the peace of England, nothing that could secure it from another war of red and white roses, but looking abroad for far-off mates in German principalities. The king had determined that his children should not marry among his subjects. Some said that the monarch considered it derogatory ; and others that this could hardly be the case, seeing that the petty German potentates were far inferior to the old English nobility ; but whatever might be the reason, whatever might actuate prince and peers, the law was made ; and badly enough it acted. The Prince of Wales was a young man of gaiety, extravagance and dissipation. He was the foremost man of his time, but the circle in which he figured was the giddy III QUEEN CAROLINE. 209 round of pleasure. Gaining, horse-racing, and still wider deviations from the right rule of life, marked his conduct ; but in the eyes of sycophant courtiers, the royal purple, like charity, covereth a multitude of sins ; and these deviations were looked upon as the mere natural embellish- ments of his rank and fortune. The prince was one of the handsorbest men in Europe, but fair exteriors are not the sure signs of well-regulated minds. His countenance was open and manly ; his figure tall and strikingly propor- tioned ; his address remarkable for easy elegance, and his whole air singularly noble. His contemporaries still describe him as the model of a man of fashion. In any other position than that which Prince George occupied, he must inevitably have been ruined. Gaiety, extravagance, and dissipation, commonly end in bankruptcy. Bankrupt in morals the prince was ; bankrupt in money he could not be, while a grateful country had the inexpressi- ble satisfaction of paying his bills. But of this high favour and noble privilege, the country at length grew weary. The house of parliament began to debate the matter in serious earnest. It was a question of pounds, shillings, and pence ; a solemn question at any time, but especially so when the mass of the people were growing weary of the burden, when John Bull, ever a taxed animal, was being pressed to the earth beneath the weight of direct and indi- rect taxation which he had to bear. The " first gentleman in Europe," the model man, who had such an irresistible way of tying his neckcloth, was an expensive pleasure. It was conceived that the most likely method of withdrawing him from a course, which was destroying himself and distressing the nation, would be to advise him to form a matrimonial alliance. He was to get married ; and then live happy T 2 210; QUEEN CAROLINE. and comfortable, similar to the hero of every nursery story. But English policy had settled the question with regard to royal marriages. He could not marry an English subject. He must set his heart's affections on some foreign princess, on somebody, most likely, whom he had never seen, and did not care at all about. The main object of parliament was to get him married ; the main object of the prince was to get his debts paid. So the matter was settled. At first the lady upon whom the royal hand was to be bestowed, was Louisa of Mecklenberg, niece of the queen ; but the king decided for his own niece, Caroline, daughter of the Duke of Brunswick. For this estimable lady formed to be the life, grace, and ornament of polished society, the prince had no affection, but the law of the land was stronger than passion, and indifference answered the end of love. Lord Malmesbury was sent to conclude the match towards the close of 1794. The preliminaries were soon settled, but the negociator declared it to be his opinion that the Princess Caroline was an uneducated, frivolous woman — the creature of impulse, not pleasing in person, and careless in her dress and habits ; yet good-natured, and not difficult to manage, so that in the hands of a steady and sensible man, she would turn out well; but if she found in that man faults analogous to her own, she would fail. Such testimony as this could not but preposess the mind of the prince against the union. He felt no inclination for it. But the whole of the arrangements were speedily concluded, and Caroline left her father's house, — and left therewith all happiness, all joy, all peace, all comfort, entering inexperi- enced on a treacherous world, and committing herself to the kind keeping of a man who had not the smallest spark of QUEEN CAROLINE. ^11 affection for her, and was prejudiced against her before she cantie. Her journey to England was attended with consider- able trouble. Difficulties and dangers crowded her path. She had to leave the direct route, and, after some delay, to go round by Hamburgh, in order to avoid the advancing armies of the French. On the 5th of April, 1795, she arrived in Eng- land. Of ail the women in England, Lady Jersey was selected to meet the princess, and conduct her towards the capital. It was a reception full of premonition. With coolness and indifference the prince met her for the first time. He barely uttered a word, turned round and withdrew. But still the matrimonial engagement must be fulfilled. The nation expected it. There were debts unpaid, and bills discredited ; the prince saw but one course, and he took it, and, before the altar, swore to love and cherish her for whom he had neither respect nor affection ! No sooner was the marriage solemnized, than the " first gentleman in Europe " began to treat his newly-wedded wife with every slight that could be given, every outrage which could be offered to a delicate and sensitive woman. One child, the Princess Charlotte, was the fruit of this unhappy union ; and no sooner had the ill-fated woman given birth to an heir to the crown, than the " most amiable prince of his time," intimated to her that it was no longer his pleasure that they should reside together. From that moment she became an object of pity, but not of respect. She was insulted by her husband, scorned by his paramours, forsaken by false friends, and left to fight her own battles, without understanding the difficulties of her position, and destitute of the requisite qualities to meet them. Queen Charlotte became the partizan of her son ; and the king was almost the only advocate who stood by the unfortunate Caroline. Soon after, a separation 212 QUEEN CAROLINE. took place. Says one, " Unhappy couple ! Victims of defective education, mismanagement, and the dangers and temptations of an exalted station. Surrounded by all the glorious things of earth : possessed of every thing virhich the mean man envies, and the poor man longs and struggles for, they were two of the most pitiable, miserable beings in the world." After the separation of Caroline from Prince George, she retired to the continent, and passed several years among the friends and associates of her former years. What occurred during that period is but little known ; and even that little has been the subject of much controversy — we shall not stop to detail all that has been detailed so often. While the wife of the prince was absent, the affections of the people centred in her child. The Princess Charlotte was universally beloved. Grown to womanhood, she became the wife of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a young officer, who had won her heart's pure love, when attending the allied sovereigns, at the court of England. In her the people recognized their future queen, in her the nation saw its fairest and brightest hopes ; but hopes were blighted, and fond aifection chilled. She sought to be brought into the society of her mother, but this was sternly denied. The unhappy Caroline could but hear of her child's prosperity, and that child could only listen to the tale of her mother's adversity. In November, 1817, the princess was delivered of a still-born child, and she herself almost immediately expired. Says an eloquent writer : — " Born to inherit the most illustrious monarchy in the world, and united at an early period to the object of her choice, whose virtues amply justified her preference, she enjoyed — what is not always the privilege of that rank — the highest connubial felicity, and had the prospect of combining all the tranquil enjoyments of QUEEN CAROLINE. 213 private life with the splendour of a royal station. Placed on the summit of society, to her every eye was turned — in her every hope was centred; and'nothing was wanting to complete her felicity except perpetuity. To a grandeur of mind, suited to her royal birth and lofty distinction, she joined an exquisite taste for the beauties of nature, and the charms of retirement, where, far from the gaze of the multitude, and the frivolous agitations of fashionable life, she employed her hours in visiting, with her distinguished consort, the cottages of the poor, in improving her virtues, in perfecting her reason, and acquiring the knowledge best adapted to qualify her for the possession of power and the cares of empire. One thing only was wanting to render our satisfaction complete in the prospect of the accession of such a princess — it was that she might become the living mother of children. * * * * But alas ! what do we now behold but the funeral pall and shroud ; a palace in mourning, a nation in tears, and the shadow of death settled over both like a cloud !" Never, perhaps, did the death of a human being produce so deep, so universal a sensation. From the princess the eyes of the nation were turned towards the unhappy Caroline ; and the interest which was thus re- awakened in her fate, prepared the public in some degree so deeply to sympathise in her sub- sequent misfortune. While she was yet beneath the sunny sky of Italy, intelligence reached her that George III. was dead, and that her husband had ascended the throne. She demanded that a vessel of state should be sent to conduct her home ; but her demand met with no attention, and in a vessel fitted out for her safe conduct, by a private gentleman, the queen returned to England. Her arrival had been foreseen and provided for. When her feet pressed English soil it was the signal for the commence- 214 QUEEN CAROLINE. ment of her prosecution. If the monarch had been king absolute he would have had a ready means of disposing of a troublesome spirit. In the wonderful East they have a rapid mode of settling all connubial difficulties. Casting a wife into the Bosphorous is a sure and satisfactory mode of dissolving an union ; but a scarlet sack, with a queen inside, would have caused some disagreeable enquiries, when picked up, by a meddlesome public. But if the king could not make use of a scarlet sack, he could make use of a green bag, with a some- what similar design. A green bag containing charges against the moral conduct of the queen, and the fruit of inquiries previously made by a commission at Milan, was sent down to the Houses of Parliament, while a bill of pains and penalties was preparing for the queen's destruction. A secret committee was appointed. Foreign witnesses were brought over to blast the character of the hapless queen. Public indignation rose high, and addresses of condolence and congratulation were forwarded to her majesty. But all this was done in defiance of the king ; for the monarch forbad public prayer for his wife, and lodged one contumacious preacher in gaol, for daring to ask God's blessing on the queen. At length the trial came on and lasted five and forty days. Henry VIII. would have made shorter work of it! But things had changed since the Tudor reign, and his majesty the public had become stronger than his majesty the king. Brougham, Denman, and others acted as the queen's counsel. A noble defence they made. The forensic eloquence employed, was rarely if ever equalled. Says her transcendently eloquent counsel: — " By what title shall a husband, who, after swearing on the altar to Icve, protect, and cherish his wife, casts her away from him, and throws her into whatever society may beset her QUEEN CAROLINE. 215 in a strange country, pretend to complain of incorrect demea- nour, when it is no fault of his that there remains in the bosom of his victim one vestige of honesty, of purity, or of honour? It is not denied, it cannot be denied, that levities little suited to her high station marked the conduct of the princess ; that unworthy associates sometimes found admittance to her presence ; that in the hands of intriguing women she became a tool of their silly, senseless plots ; that surrounded by crafty politicians, she suffered her wrongs to be used as a means of gratifying a place-hunting ambition which rather crawled than climbed : and that a character naturally only distinguished by mere heedless openness, and a frankness that common prudence seems to justify in those who dwell in palaces, became shaded, if not tarnished, by a disposition to join in unjustifiable con- trivances for self-defence. But the heavy charges of guilt brought against her in two several investigations, were tri- umphantly repelled, and by the universal assent of mankind, scattered on the winds amidst their universal indignation ; and from the blame of lesser faults and indiscretions into which she is admitted to have been betrayed, the least regard to the treatment she met with must in the contemplation of all candid minds altogether set her free." The prosecution was abandoned, and the queen was acquitted. But her troubles were not over. Forsaken, and broken-hearted, the health of the princess rapidly declined. For her there seemed no resting place, no peace in store. But there was quietness in the grave — there the wicked cease from troubling, there the weary are at rest, there the persecuted repose and hear not the voice of the oppressor. Public sympathy was with her. Her life was fast ebbing. She still asserted her rights as wife and queen. She still struggled for the crown which was truly her portion. 216 QUEEN CAROLINE. The coronation was at hand. Expectation was on tip-toe. Great things were to be done. Unrivalled glories were approach- ing. Westminster Abbey was to present a scene of un- equalled splendour ; Westminster Hall was to echo to the challenge of the champion. George superintended the whole of the preparations with the greatest possible attention. His taste suggested the colour of the royal hangings, and the, width of the footmen's shoe ties. On the 5th of July, 1821, the queen's memorial was pre- sented to the king, formally preferring her claim to be crowned as queen consort. On the 1 0th of the same month the privy council rejected her claim to participate in the coronation. On the 19th, George the Fourth was crowned in Westminster Abbey. The queen attempted to gain admittance, ■but was repulsed. Her application for admission to the hall was similarly rejected. It was the last blow, and from that day her failing health began more rapidly to decline. On the 30th the queen was suddenly taken ill in Drury Lane Theatre. She grew worse. Her danger became immi- nent, and on the 7th of August she expired at Hammersmith. Seven days later the remains of the queen were removed from Hammersmith on their route to Brunswick. Great tumults took place in London on this occasion, the procession being ordered by the government not to pass through the city, and the populace being resolved that it should pass by no other route. After several conflicts in which two men were shot by the military, the procession at length passed through London, and from thence to Harwich for embarkation. On the 24th the body of the unhappy queen was interred in the family vault at Brunswick. The inscription which she had dictated for her coffin was : — *' Caroline of Brunswick, the murdered Queen of England." oayW^U: The poet whispers to his muse, " Posterity shall know thee." And it is not only poets who have to look to the future, to generations yet unhorn, for a fair impartial criticism. Public men, politicians, preachers, and others are often mis- judged by their contemporaries. Never was man more mis- judged than John Bunyan. He was a tinker, and the son of a tinker, originally of gipsy origin, associating with the lowest of the people, in an age of gross popular ignorance, and connected with a sect exclusively exclusive ; and which thought but lightly of all human learning. Yet he is the author of a book for all people and for all time ; a book more lasting than the story of the wars of Troy. Of Bunyan how truly may it be said, *' Though thou hast lain amongst the pots, yet shalt thou be as the wings of a dove, covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." But for a long, long season, Bunyan was a bye-word. Cowper found it necessary to suppress his name while passing a high eulogium on his work. " Ingenious dreamer, in whose well-told tale Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail, I name thee not, lest so despised a name Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame !' Yet over all obstacles the genius of Bunyan has prevailed ; it has risen higher than mountains of ignorance, and walked MRS. BUNYAN. 275 upon the troubled waters of contumely, till the mountains have become as the plain, and the troubled waters still. And now men look at his book as it deserves to be looked at, and regard his genius as it should be regarded, — albeit the man was once a travelling tinker. Of the " Pilgrim's Progress," Coleridge says, " This won- derful book, is one of the very few books which may be read over repeatedly, at different times, and each time with a new and different pleasure. I read it once as a theologian ; and let me assure you that there is great theological acumen in the work ; — once with devotional feelings ; — and once as a poet : I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colours. I know of no book, the Bible excepted, as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgment and experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth, according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the * Pilgrim's Progress.' It is, in my conviction, incomparably the best summa theologice evangelicce ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired. ... I hold John Bunyan to be a man of incomparably greater genius than any of them (the Divines), and to have given a far truer and more edify- ing picture of Christianity. His ' Pilgrim's Progress' seems to be a complete reflection of Scripture, with none of the rub- bish of theologians mixed up with it. ... I have been always struck by its piety ; I am now, having read it through again, after a long interval, struck equally, or even more, by its profound wisdom." Lord Campbell, in his " Lives of ihe Chief Justices," says, referring to the imprisonment of Bunyan ; " Being cut off from the external world, he communed with bis own soul, and inspired by Him who touched Elijah's hallowed lips with fire. 276 MRS. BUNYAN. he composed the noblest of allegories, the merit of which was first discovered by the lowly, but which is now lauded by the most refined critics ; and which has done more to awaken piety, and to enforce the precepts of Christian morality, than all the sermons which have been published by all the prelates of the Anglican Church." ** The happy idea," says Montgomery, " of representing his story under the similitude of a dream, enabled him to pourtray, with all the liveliness of reality, scenes which passed before him. It makes the reader himself, like the author, a spectator of all that occurs ; thus giving him a personal interest in the events, an individual sympathy for the actors and sufferers." In Macaulay's review of Southey's life of Bunyan, that distinguished man says :* — " The characteristic peculiarity of the ' Pilgrim's Progress' is, that it is the only work of its kind which possesses a strong human interest. Other alle- gories only amuse the fancy. It is not so with the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it. In the wildest parts of Scotland it is the delight of the peasantry. In every nursery the ' Pilgrim's Progress' is a greater favourite than ' Jack the Giant Killer.' J^very reader knows the straight and narrow path as well as he knows the road in which he has gone backward and forward a hundred times. This is the highest miracle of genius, — that things which are not should be as though they were, — that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another, — and this miracle the tinker has wrought The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader, and invaluable, as a study, to every person who wishes to obtain a wide command over the English language. The ~_i MRS. BUNYAN. 277 vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common people For magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely dialect, the dialect of plain work- ing men, was perfectly sufficient Though there were many clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century, there were only two great creative minds : one of those minds produced the ' Paradise Lost,' the other the * Pilgrim's Progress !' " Dr. Eadcliffe termed the book a Phcenix in a cage. Lord Kaimes declared, that it was composed in a style enlivened like that of Homer, by a mixture of the dramatic and nar- rative. Johnson took the little daughter of Bishop Percy upon his knee, and asked her how she liked the Pilgrim's Progress, and on her saying that she had not read it, the doctor rejoined, " Then I would not give one farthing for you." Mr. Grainger says, it is one of the most ingenious books in the language ; and passing over a host of distinguished names we add last the words of an American critic : "This extraor- dinary work is like a painting exhibited by fire-light. The common reader sees it by day. To the christian (the actual pilgrim) it is a glorious transparency ; and the light that shines through it, and gives its incidents such life, its colours such depth, and the whole scene such a surpassing glory — is light from eternity — the message from heaven." So justice has at length been done to John Bunyan and his book. But justice has not been rendered to his wives. His first wife was a woman of great excellence, and the second, of whom we have now to speak, has been described as worthy of the first. Some few things, however, about his first wife may not be out of place, as she is taken as the standard by which the second is compared. B B 278 MRS. BUNYAN. When John Bunyan was still young, not more than eighteen or nineteen years old, a wild, reckless, scape-grace fellow, it was thought by the few friends that he had, that by changing his condition to the married state, he might be induced to reform, and they therefore urged him to take the step " as a seasonable and comfortable advantage." Tupper ^ays : — " Marriage is a figure and an earnest of holier things unseen, And reverence well becometh the symbol of dignity and glory." / And this is true. But marriage in many cases is only the beginning of sorrows. Marriage is a great lottery, and too often blanks are drawn, or something worse than blanks. But John Bunyan drew a prize, a veritable prize, a valuable prize, a worthy prize, — a good wife. It was a happy thing for him, a high and noble privilege. She was very virtuous, loving, obedient, and obliging, a keeper-at-home ; one who had been born of good, honest, godly parents, who had instructed her, as well as they were able, in the ways of truth and holiness. Now some good-intentioned people would have rated at John's folly and mischievous habits, but his quiet. God-fearing wife, did nothing of the sort. She did not constitute herself his censor ; she felt that it would be wrong to do so, but with the winsome lovingness of her own loving heart she strove to win him from the path of sin. She had a dower. No costly robes, no current coin, no stately mansion, no broad acres, no flocks nor herds, but two plain books, simple books, worth more than all the rest together. These were the " Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven," and *' The Practice of Early Piety." Sometimes on a winter's night when in their cottage home the fire roared and blazed and crackled br'ght and loud, she would induce John to sit MRS. BUNYAN. 279 beside the fire and spend the evening at home instead of in the ale-house, *and to beguile the time would read to him out of those old books. And as he hearkened to her voice his spirit was stirred within him. Moodily John would listen, and there was a combat going on in his breast, like %ne of the fierce struggles in the Roman games. John had learned to read in his early years, but dissipation had driven learning far away. Once he had an inclination for the beautiful, the good and the true, but evil communications had corrupted his good manners. There was something loveable in John, some- thing Idveable in his wife, and he became her pupil, as if he had been a child. Strange it was that the ringleader of sports and impiety should be thus subdued. It was the conquest of Jove ; a triumph which none but a wife, and that a wife com- bining prudence and sweetness, could have achieved. It must have been no easy matter to keep John Bunyan by her side, #hile the roysterers on the village green were playing at'^trap, and his own bat and ball were lying dry in the chimney corner ; no easy matter to detain him there when the shouts went up, and the loud laugh, and the game went on so merrily, when the bright sunshine fell on the group, and the bells of Elstow rang a merry peal. Something there was in the smile of his wife better to John Bunyan than the loud laugh of the roysterers, something in the tones of her voice sweeter than the bells of Elstow, some- thing more entertaining in the " Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven" than in the merriest game of trap-ball that ever man yet played. Under the benign influence of her teaching, the character of the man was changed. It was a long struggle, and a very hard one — like the throes of a dying gladiator — before John Bunyan became an altered man ; but it was done at last ; and then the struggle within was changed for a struggle 280 MRS. BTJNYAN. without. At this time we lose sight of his first wife, and his second wife stands beside him in his days of calumny and reproach. It was an union of two believers ; they had one hope, one faith, one desire, one course of life, one service of God, in common the one with the other. To say that this second wife was worthy of the first is saying much ; to say that she fell not short of Lady Eussell, and this has been said, is saying still more, yet saying nothing but the truth. Bunyan was charged with neglecting his parish church ; once indeed, he had entertained a superstitious reverence for all that belonged to the church ; the very stones were holy, and he venerated the priest and the clerk, and all that per- tained to the place ; but those days were gone by, and he had now set about the business of his life. It was urged that he had attended private meetings, and, alas for the tinker, that he had preached ! He was accused of this at Bedford, and owned it ; dared in the presence of the judges to confess that he, poor, simple, un-ordained layman-tinker as he was, had dared to whisper the gospel message ; dared, unauthorised, to preach Christ ! More than this, he even defended his conduct as fearlessly as John and Peter of old. Mrs. Bunyan loved her lord, not as the first had loved him. There was a deeper and sincerer trust in him ; for to her he had ever been the Christian and the Evangelist, to her he had spoken of the deep things of God, and with her love there was mingled the strongest esteem. With no common interest had she listened to hira, at these private meetings, when he had expounded the word of God ; deeply had she felt the earnest impassioned appeals which he made ; never had the Gospel seemed such good news to her as when it flowed from the lips of John Bunyan ; upon him she rested, to him she looked, -:.i MRS. BUNYAN. 281 and every blow that fell on him, fell with double force on her. She was young but not inexperienced, simple but not untaught, and there was within her a deep and intense love. She was to him a faithful wife, and to his motherless little ones became a mother. "With indignation she listened to the coarse jests of the Judges, as Bunyan defended the cause he had adopted. "Who is your God," asked one, "is it Beelzebub ?" " Surely," said another, " he is possessed with a devil." She heard him sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and listened to the threat — " At the three months' end, if you do not submit to go to church, and hear divine service, and leave your preaching, you must be banished the realm ; and if you be found to come over again, without special leave from the king, you must be stretched by the neck for it." To stretch a man by the neck for preaching the Gospel seems rather a hard case ; but it was characteristic of the " good old times." From that day, Mrs. Bunyan determined to employ every means for the purposes of obtaining her husband's release. Undaunted by " principalities and powers," she presented a petition to the judges at the assizes, that he might be tried, and that his case might be taken impartially into consideration. Judge Hale was the first to whom she presented it, and he received it very mildly, telling her that he was willing to do her and her husband all the good he could, but he feared that would be none. Next day she threw another petition into the carriage of Justice Twisden, who, when he saw her, " snapt her up," saying that there was nothing for her husband but continued imprisonment, except he would promise to preach no more. At the coronation she hoped that he would be released, but the judges gave it as their opinion that it were better he should B B 2 I' H I 282 MRS. BUNYAN. remain in gaol, unless he recanted, So again Mrs. Banyan appealed to Judge Hale, as he sat on the bench, and who, as it seemed, was willing to give her audience ; but just as she began, ^Justice Chester stepped up, and interrupted her, so the case seemed hopeless. The manner in which the judges conducted themselves, with regard to Bunyan, strangely resembles that of the jury who convicted Faithful, in Vanity Fair. But though Mrs. Bunyan felt that appealing to them was almost useless ; there was still one chance, and the high-sheriff encouraged her to try it. She was to venture again into the presence of the judges, like the poor widow before the unjust judge, to make another effort for her husband's liberty. At the Swan Chamber, the two judges, the three justices, and the gentry of the county, were collected ; and to meet them, to appeal to them, required no ordinary courage. Many would have trembled, many would have shrunk from the interview. It might be the signal for vengeance to fall upon herself ; it might involve her in greater trouble than she was in already ; it might cause her husband, whom she liked better than herself, to be sent out of the country — but there was strong occasion for the appeal — her love for her husband, her love for his children, her love for civil and religious liberty, all prompted her to make the appeal ; so leaving her humble dwelling, with a sad heart, she betook herself to the Swan Chamber, and entered the presence of the judges. It was to Judge Hale that she first spoke : — " My Lord, I make bold to come to you again, to know what may be done with my husband ?" Judge Hale. — '* Woman, I told thee before I could do thee no good, because they have taken that for a conviction which thy husband spoke at the sessions ; and unless there be some- thing done to undo that, I can do thee no good." '"I MRS. BUNYAN. 5?oO Mrs. J9.— " My lord, he is kept unlawfully in prison ; they clapped him up before there were any proclamations against the meetings. The indictment, also, is false ; besides, they never asked him whether he was guilty or no ; neither did he confess the indictment." One of the justices that stood by, whom she knew not, said : " My lord, he was lawfully convicted." Mrs. B. — " It is false ; for when they said to him, do you confess the indictment ? be said only this, that he had been at several meetings, both where there were preaching the word and prayer, and that they had God's presence among them." Judge Twisden now answered very angrily, saying : — " What ! you think we can do what we list ! your husband is a breaker of the peace, and is convicted by law." On this Judge Hale called for the statute-book. Mrs. B. — " But, my lord, he was not lawfully convicted." Justice Cheater now said — " My lord, he was lawfully con- victed.'* Mrs. B. — '• It is false ; it was but a word of discourse that they took for a conviction (as you heard before)." Chester. — '* But it is recorded, woman : it is recorded." These words he repeated again and again. Mrs. B. — " I was a while since at London, to see if I could get my husband's liberty, and there I spoke with my Lord Backwood, one of the House of Lords, to whom I deli- vered a petition, who took it of me and presented it to some of the rest of the House of Lords, for my husband's release- ment ; who, when they had seen it, said that they could not release him, but had committed his releasement to the judges at the next assizes. This he told me, and now I am come to you to see if anything may be done in this business, and you give neither releasement nor relief." 284 MRS. BUNYAN. Again Justice Chester said, " He is convicted. It is recorded." Mrs. B.—" If it be, it is false." Chester. — '* My lord, he is a pestilent fellow ; there is not such a fellow in the country again." Twisden. — " What, will your husband leave preaching ? If he will do so, then send for him." Mrs. B. — " My lord, he dares not leave off preaching as long as he can speak." Twisden. — " See here ; what should we talk any more about such a fellow ? Must he do what he lists ? He is a breaker of the peace." Mrs. B. — " He desires to live peaceably, and to follow his calling, that his family may be maintained ; and, moreover, my lord, I have four small children that cannot help them- selves, one of which is blind, and we have nothing to live upon but the charity of good people." Hale now asked, " Hast thou four children ? Thou art but a young woman to have four children." Mrs. B. — " My lord, I am but mother-in-law to them, having not been married to him full two years." Hale, looking very soberly, said, *' Alas, poor woman !" but Judge Twisden told her she made poverty her cloak ; and said, he understood that Bunyan was maintained better by running up and down preaching, than by following his calling. On Hale asking, *' What is his calling ?" some of those who stood near, answered, " A tinker, my lord." Mrs. B. — *' Yes ; and because he is a tinker, and a poor man, therefore he is despised, and cannot have justice." Hale (speaking very mildly) — " I tell thee, woman, seeing it is so ; that they have taken what thy husband spake for a MRS. BUNYAN. 285 conviction, thou must either apply thyself to the king, or sue out his pardon, or get a writ of error." On Chester hearing this, he chafed, and seemed to be very much ojQfended, saying, " My lord, he will preach, and do what he lists." Mrs, B. — " He preacheth nothing but the word of God." Twisden. — " He preach the word of God !" (and withal she thought he would have struck her) '* he runneth up and down, and doth harm." Mrs. B. — " No, my lord, it is not so. God hath owned him, and done much good by him." Twisden — " God ! and his doctrine is the doctrine of the devil!" Mrs. B. — " My lord, when the righteous Judge shall appear, it will be known that his doctrine is not the doctrine of the devil." Twisden (addressing Judge Hale) — " My lord, do not mind her, but send her away." Hale — " I am very sorry, woman, that I can do thee no good ; thou must do one of the things aforesaid, but a writ of error will be the cheapest." Mrs. Bunyan adds, " At which Chester again seemed to be chafed, and put off his hat, and scratched his head for anger. But when I saw that there was no prevailing to have my hus- band sent for, though I often desired that they would send for him, that he might speak for himself, telling them that he could give them better satisfaction than I could in what they demanded of him, with several other things which I now forgot ; only this I remember, that though I was somewhat timorous at ray first entrance into the chamber, yet, before I went out, I could not but break forth into tears ; not so much because they were so hard-hearted against me and ray hus- 286 MRS. BtNYAN. band, but to think what a sad account such creatures will have to give at the coming of the Lord ; when they shall there answer for all things whatsoever they have done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be bad. So when I departed from them, the book of statutes was brought, but what they said of it, I know nothing at all, neither did I hear any more from them." So John Bunyan was left in Bedford gaol, to be punished for nonconformity. Yea, rather to be weaned from the world, and to soar, on the wings of a powerful imagination, to the regions of the spiritual and the supernatural. The freedom of his mind found vent in words : — " For though men keep my outward form Within their locks and bars, Yet, by the faith of Christ, I can Mount higher than the stars." Stretching far away into measureless eternity, his spirit rejoiced in a foretaste of that happy home of bright and holy beings, who in unsullied purity, and in immortal youth, bow down before the face of the Holy One ; and as the flood of splendour fell upon him, as of old apocalyptic glory fell on John, at Patmos, the man of lowly origin, condemned, despised, rejected, gave form and colour to the creatures of his imagina- tion, and, in his wakeful dream, shadowed forth the progress of the pilgrims from the city of destruction to Zion's heavenly hill. And so we look upon John Bunyan in that prison home, ' — his tender loving wife beside him ; he, working bravely at the making of tagged thread lace ; his children are about him, a little blind girl sitting by his knee, and we feel that there are human chords pulling at his heart, and that the present life, with its own endearments and wondrous sympathy, still MRS. BUNYAN. 287 binds him to the earth. Among the Meccas and Medinas of departed genius, none is more holy than Bedford gaol, — we people it again, as it was peopled nigh two centuries ago, and think of the noble-hearted woman, the brave champion of the brave confessor, think of her as she listened to his voice, as she anticipated every wish, and, with joy unutterable, saw him a free man at last. Martin Luther said, " One of the greatest gifts of God is a pious, amiable, God-fearing wife, fond of home ; with whom a man might spend his days in peace, and unbosom all his cares." John Bunyan found such an one ; and even when a prison was their home, the music of her conjugal love gave forth sweet notes, but how many chords of the lyre were dumb to the world's ear ? LADY A. GOWER. Born of a noble family, this lady is truly noble in every sense of the word. Noble in birth, noble in rank, noble in position, noble in her own true nobleness of refinement, excellence and worth ; which, after all, is the best sort of nobility, the most revered, the most admired, and the most lasting. ^ Of a naturally intelligent and rapid perception, her studies, close, connected, and systematic, only served to develop that genius and talent which she already possessed. Education in her case, led forth. — its primary meaning, and its great end — and when the time came that she should make her debut in the " world," she did so with a mind and heart prepared for all that lay before her. It is no easy matter to be circumspect and studious, when suddenly the trammels of tutelage are over, and the active business of life begins. Especially is this the case when the business of life seems little more than a round of gaiety ; but Lady A. Gower entered the world of fashion as one who knew its proper worth ; estimating all she saw and heard at their real value, and not supposing that her days of instruction were all over when she kissed the royal hand, and saw her name conspicuous in the " Morning Post." There is no royal road to learning — no king's highway to Parnassus — and neither is there any royal road to honour and renown. These are not chameleon terms, and will not, never did, and never do, and never can, while the sun posteth, and Paintea "bT' J. Be ^n^iaT^l-bTH, I. St ^/ II II IIIIJ IMLII.III.lUIJH8Wi— I— Bl— W^^W^— BPI i LADY A. GOWER. 289 the sand runs, belong to any but to those who fairly win them. We do not respect a coronet, and thirty thousand a year, if these be connected with debasing passions, or wrong principles ; and we do respect an elevated tone of high morality, con- sistent conduct, and an unimpeachable character, even though their owner be as poor as Lazarus. The mind, and heart, the intellect and the emotions of Lady A. Gower had been duly trained, and called for respect and admiration. With talents of no mean order, she united that purity of motive which dignifies and ennobles their use ; and, called to move in the high circle of life, amid the rich, the gay, and the powerful, she never forgot the higher rules of the higher and the better life. c c -^i-M-W^MUJUJlLSI KATHEEINE PAEE, Katherine is derived from the Greek, Katharos, and signifies pure and limpid. It has been said, that in this sen.-=ie, it beautifully indicated the character of her, the story of whose life we have to tell. She was the daughter of Sir Thomas Parr, and the family boasted an ancient and a noble ancestry. Saxon blood flowed in their veins. Her father was a favourite with the Eighth Henry, to whom he was related ; and, as a token of royal favour, the king had presented to him a gold chain, and bestowed upon him high offices at court. Katherine was born in the Castle of Kendal, Westmoreland, time out of memory the residence of her ancestors, but now a gray and crumbling ruin, crowning the green hills of Kendal. While Katherine was yet very young, five years old or thereabouts, her father died, and she was left to the care of her mother. By her father's will, she was entitled to a marriage portion of four hundred pounds, eight hundred pounds being left for that purpose between her and her sister Anne, while her brother William was to rest content with the gold chain before named. Katherine was instructed in the various branches of a learned education, and was of a keen and ready wit. Her nativity was duly cast, for Lady Parr believed that in the cold and melancholy orbs of night our destinies are writ ; and who, in that age did not ? And the prognosti- cation was peculiar in its character, and remarkable in its fulfilment. Said the seer, " She is born to sit in high places, even in the seat of imperial majesty." This fancy haunted the KATHERINE PARR. 291 mind of the child, and when called, by her mother, to the embroidery frame, she would say, — " My hands were ordained to touch crowns and sceptres, and not spindles and needles." But Lady Parr was too wise to allow this dream of royalty — a very dream of dreams, slighter, it seemed, than the dream of the shadow of smoke — from keeping her child from the ordinary pursuits of life, and notwithstanding that her hands were made to handle sceptres, she learned so well to handle the needle, that her embroidery was superior to that of the far-famed stitching of the sister of King Athelstan. A wonder- ful workwoman was Katherine Parr ; sparing no pains, fearing no trouble, counting no time wasted that was employed in such feminine employment. As trophies of her industry, a magnifi- cent counterpane and toilet-cover, are shewn at one of our ola castles, and splendid enough they are. The counterpane and toilet-cover are of white satin, worked with twisted silks and bullion, a very marvel to behold. It seems that about the year 1524, a matrimonial engage- ment began to be negociated between Lord Dacre and Katherine Parr ; but, as Lord Dacre had but a slender and scantily furnished purse, and wanted to marry an heiress, and the lady had but little in the way of this world's goods, the match was broken off, and not very long afterwards Katherine was given in marriage to her first husband, Edward, Lord Borough, of Gainsborough. It was a strange out-of-the-way match, for the man was a mature widower, with children grown to man's estate, and the lady was scarcely fifteen. The marriage did not last a year, and Katherine was a widow at sixteen, — a lovely, noble, wealthy widow, regarded by King Henry, as a " pretty cousin," from whom he was graciously pleased to accept a coat of Kendal cloth. i 292 - KATHERINE PARR. Before she was out of her teens, the lovely widow was again a wife ; and as before, the wife of a matured widower, and for the second' time became a step-mother. Her new husband was John Neville, Lord Latimer, and with him she resided at Snape Hall, in Yorkshire, — *' a goodly castle in a valley with two or three good parks about it." * During the first years of her married life she attended strictly to her domestic cares, and but little occurred to dis- turb the even tenour of her way ; but when the Reformation had begun in England, and the destruction of monasteries was going on, for the axe which wanted a handle had found one, and was levelling the whole fair Lebanon, Lord Latimer be- came one of the leaders of the Northern insurrection, and perilled life and property in " the Pilgrimage of Grace." He joined the army of forty thousand rustics, who had come forth in defence of the monasteries, and headed the domestic cru- sade against the enemies of the olden faith. Delegates were sent to the king, and among them My Lord Latimer, to demand the restoration of monastic establishments, papal supremacy, and the rest of it. The king was greatly offended, " that ignorant people should go about to instruct him in matters of theology;" so he rejected all their proposals, bid them lay down their arms, and accept the royal clemency. The pilgrims, incensed at the king's reply, refused to receive his pardon, and made them ready for the struggle ; they must have perished, for there was not the smallest hope of success ; the Duke of Norfolk, who headed the king's forces, saw this, felt, and understood it, and employed all his efforts to prevent a collision. So the people were, at length, induced to lay down their arms, and the king went on with * Leland. KATHERINE PARR. 29^ the destruction of the monasteries, for which, as a zealous priest remarked, with more bigotry than sense, he would certainly hang in hell. The general pardon, which the monarch granted, was dated December 9th, 1536 ; and in the February of the following year an insurrection again broke out. By the prudent coun- sels of his wife. Lord Latimer was, however, induced to take no part in it. Some of the nobility who did so soon lay headless in their graves. We have seen that Katherine Parr possessed some influ- ence over the mind of the king. The " pretty cousin" was not altogether forgotten by the royal swain ; and when he looked on his Kendal coat he would think of her. the lovely widow, and still lovelier wife. Sir George Throckmorton, the hus- band of Katherine Parr's aunt, was accused of having denied the king's supremacy. The charge was peculiarly alarming. But Katherine's was the heart that felt for his distress, and hers the voice that pleaded for his life. In the metrical chronicle of the Throckmorton family we find the following : — « " While flocking foes to our bane were bent ; While thunder claps of angry Jove did last — Then to Lord Parr my mother saw me sent ; So with her brother I was safely placed : Of alms he kept me in extremity ; Who did misdoubt a worse calamity ? Oh, lucky folks that fawned on Katherine Parr ! A woman rare like her but seldom seen ; To Borough first, and then to Latimer, She widow was, and then became a queen : My mother prayed her niece with watery eyes, To rid both her and hers from endless cries. She willing of herself to do us good, Sought out the means her uncle's life to save ; ^ c c 2 ^^^nB««i** 294 KATHERINE PARR. And when the king was in his pleasing mood. She humbly then her suit began to crave 5 With wooing times denials disagree ; She spake and sped — my father was set free." The poet rather confuses the chronology of the transaction^ by introducing her marriage with the king : in the prose docu- ments of the time, we read that Sir George was released through the influence of his kinswoman, the Lady Katherine Parr, 1540. Not long after this, Lord Latimer was gathered to the tomb of all the Latimers, and, for a second time, the lovely wife became the lovely widow, all the more beautiful for her weeds and her tears. It happened that her royal cousin was a widower — he had lost his fifth spouse — lost her by the axe of the executioner, and was looking about him — a very Blue- beard of a suitor, for another gentle Fatima. Katherine Parr was at that period beginning her desertion of the church of Rome, and espousing the reformed religion. She listened to the impassioned eloquence of the apostles of protestantism ; Coverdale, Latimer, and Parkhurst, became her friends ; to them she gave heed ; her heart was touched, and she adopted their creed for her own. To her dwelling-place came suitors not a few. For not only was she learned and passing fair, but possessed of great wealth — two ample jointures, and connected with the royal family of England. Gold is marvellously magnetic. It is a suggestive thought, that the calf, before which the Israelites bowed down, was a golden calf; and that the image which the King of Babylon set up, was a golden image. Among the gay courtiers who sought the hand of Katherine Parr, was Sir Thomas Seymour, brother of Queen Jane ; a very gallant gentleman, the model of fashion, the cynosure of all eyes. KATHERINE PARR. 295 To him the Lady Katherine listened ; his scented love-note§ were gracefully received, and she determined to become his wife, " If," as she said afterwards, " her will had not, for wise purposes, been overruled by a higher power." At last came another proposal — for the third time, the proposal of a widower — that she should become his wife, and the step- mother of his children. Surely the offer could not be refused ; it came from the king ; from Henry ; inflexible, gentle, cruel, loving Henry ; whose heart was always on fire with love or revenge. " When the king's wife had lost her head, Yet he mislikes the life to live alone, And once resolved the sixth time for to wed, He sought outright to make his choice of one — That choice was chance, right happy for us all, It brewed our bliss and rid us quite from thrall." But Katherine when first apprised of the high honour intended her, flatly told the monarch it were better to be his mistress than his queen, and resisted all his overtures ; but this only rendered him the more desirous of obtaining the prize ; it awakened all his old ardour, made him young again in his old age, and rendered him ten-fold more anxious to enter again the state matrimonial. He was seeking a wife when he should have sought a nurse ; but he must needs be a gallant gentleman to the end — a hero till the dove-notes of passion were changed to the requiem raven-shriek of death. Katherine loved Seymour, but when Seymour found that he should have to contest the matter with one who held a man's head as cheaply as a tennis ball, he gave up, and vanished from the scene ; and the lady, with what grace she might, assumed the glittering fetter which her monarch offered. Cranmer granted a license '' for the marriage of ^■■»iWWi^^^^^"^"**""'"'B«ii^iippi 296 KATHERINE PARR. his Sovereign Lord Henry, with Katherine Latimer, late the wife of the Lord de Latimer, deceased, in whatever church, chapel, or oratory he may please, without publication of banns, dispensing with all ordinances to the contrary, for reasons concerning the honour and advancement of the whole realm." The ceremony was performed by the Bishop of Winchester in the queen's closet at Hampton Court. Her destiny was fulfilled — her hand touched crown and sceptre. Did she not tremble when the royal bridegroom swore to love and cherish her? Did she not think of headless queens asleep in the Tower chapel ? Did not the white plumes assume a sable hue ? Did not the nuptial song sound like funeral accents ? In the old Arabian story the fair Scheherazade marries the Sultan Schviar, though knowing all the while that it is his wont to marry a fresh wife every day, and cut off her head in the morning. A marriage with the eighth Henry was some- what after the same fashion, and they who swore to love, honour, and obey, signed, in two instances, their own death- warrant. It now became the object of Katherine to connect the links of the royal family. Her noble bearing, her mental accomplishments, and more than all, her christian zeal, fitted her to play the queen. She made it the business of her life to reconcile the rival interests of the family. She had deep concern for her step-children, she pitied their desolate con- dition. Mary, the daughter of a wronged and broken- Jiearted mother ; Elizabeth, the child of a murdered queen ; Edward, the offspring of Jane Seymour, had never known a mother's teaching or a mother's care ; — to them she was an angel visitant, a wise, a firm, a loving friend. But her first bridal month — her honeymoon — was em- KATHERINE PARR. 297 bittered by tbe cruel tortures inflicted on those who refused to obey the bill of Six Articles, " Turn or burn" was the justice of the day. There was no appeal, no help for the contumacious. Martyr-fires blazed in the immediate vicinity of Windsor Castle, and holy men were burned alive for having in their possession a book, which above all other books, Katherine most highly prized. Her position was one of difficulty and danger, and her enemies were ever on the watch to gather up unguarded words, that they might accuse her to the king — the stern defender of the faith ! Katherine was deeply read, she was celebrated both as a scholar and theologian. Eoger Ascham thanks her for her royal benefactions to Cambridge, and also for the suavity of her letters. Prince Edward, in a letter still extant, notices the beauty of her penmanship, and the excellence of her genius. From her, Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey imbibed their taste for classic literature. Yet, withal, she never lost her queenly dignity in her scholarship. Unlike King James, she never sacrificed royalty on the altar of the pedant. She was every inch a queen. The dignity of her manner com- manded respect, and she held her royal state with more splendour than any queen consort who had gone before her. Pedro de Gante describes her dress with court circular accuracy. When he saw her at Westminster Palace, she wore a kirtle of brocade, and an open robe of cloth of gold, the sleeves lined with crimson satin, and trimmed with three- piled crimson velvet, the train more than two yards long suspended from the neck with two crosses, and a jewel of very rich diamonds, and in her head-dress many rich and beautiful gems. Her girdle was of gold, with very long pendants. Katherine Parr was an authoress. Her writings were, VH^SM^im 298 KATHERINE PARR. next to those of Sir Thomas More, the finest specimens of English composition of that era. Her celebrated work, written after her marriage, is the "Lamentations of a Sinner." Here are two specimens from the book : — " Thanks be given to the Lord, that He hath now sent us such a godly and learned king, in these latter days, to reign over us ; that with the force of God's word hath taken away the veils and mists of error, and brought us to the knowledge of the truth by the light of God's word, which was so long hid and kept under, that the people were well-nigh famished and hungered for lack of spiritual food, — such was the charity of the spiritual curates and shepherds. But our Moses, and most godly-wise governor and king, that hath de- livered us out of captivity and spiritual bondage of Pharaoh, — I mean by this Moses, King Henry VIII., my most sovereign favourable lord and husband, one — (if Moses had figured any more than Christ), through the excellent grace of God, meet to be another expressed variety of Moses' conquest over Pharaoh, (and I mean by this Pharaoh, the bishop of Rome), who hath been, and is, a greater persecutor of all true Chris- tians than ever was Pharaoh of the children of Israel." Again : — " Now I will speak with great dolour and heaviness of heart of a sort of people which be in the world, that be called professors of the Gospel ; and by their words do declare and shew that they be much affected to the same. But I am afraid some of them do build on the sand, as Simon Magus did, making a weak foundation ; I mean, they make not Christ their chiefest foundation. But either they will be called Gospellers, and procure some credit and good opinion of the true and very favourers of Christ's doctrines, either to KATHERINE PARR. 299 find out some carnal liberties, either to be contentious dis- putevs, finders, or rebukers of other men's faults, or else finally to please and flatter the world. Such Gospellers be an offence and a slander to the word of God, and make the wicked to rejoice and laugh, saying, — ' Behold, I pray you, their fair fruits.' What charity, what discretion, what goodness, holi- ness, and purity of life is amongst them ? Be they not grave avengers, foul gluttons, backbiters, adulterers, swearers, and blasphemers ? Yea, do they not wallow and tumble in all manner of sins ? These be the fruits of their doctrine, and yet the word of God is all holy, sincere, and godly, being the doctrine and occasion of all pure living." Henry loved to be regarded, as the most learned prince, by a woman of no ordinary ability, and she discovering his weak point, satisfied his vanity by her adulation, and thus attained over his mind a considerable influence. When the king went to France, he made his wife Queen Regent of England and Ireland. She entered on her high office with a feeling of deep devotion : and there is a prayer extant, which Katherine com- posed for the occasion, imploring the divine protection for her royal husband and the realm : — " 0, Almighty King and Lord of Hosts ; which by thy angels thereunto appointed dost minister both war and peace, who didst give unto David both courage and strength, being but a little one, unversed and inexpert in feats of war, with his sling to set upon and overthrow the great huge Goliath, our cause now being just, and being enforced to enter into war and battail, we most humbly beseech thee, Lord God of Hosts, so to turn the hearts of our enemies to the desire of peace, that no christian blood be spilt. Or else grant, Lord, that with small effusion of blood and little damage of innocence, we may to thy glory obtain victory, and that the war being ■SWPIllP 300 KATHERINE PARR. soon ended, we may all, with one heart and mind, knit toge- ther in concord and amity, laud and praise Thee, who livest and reignest, world without end. —Amen." A woman of rare talent and energy, Katherine ruled with moderation and even-handed justice, and, when Henry returned, willingly resigned her authority. It was a great and a hard trial to her to have her former lover, Seymour, almost con- stantly at court. When the king fell ill, and his bloated and swollen body could only be removed to un upper chamber by aid of machinery, Katherine became the most skilful and patient of nurses. It is recorded of her, that she would remain for hours on her knees beside him, applying fomenta- tions and other palliatives to his ulcerated leg. She cheered his ennui by interesting him in the education of his child, Prince Edward, a lovely and precocious student. But danger hovered around the path of the queen ; her known ascendancy over the mind of the king, and her avowed attachment to the doctrines of the Reformation, made her an object of suspicion and distrust to the Roman Catholic party. Henry had constituted himself infallible judge in all church matters. Terrible penalties awaited every dissentient from his opinion. He was weary of the polemical squabbles continually going on, and sought by the strong hand to enforce obedience to his will. Several whom the queen dearly loved were committed to the Tower, tortured, and burnt alive ; among them the gentle Lady Anne Askew. Gardiner was wrath that any but himself should exercise influence over the monarch. Sir John Blagge, one of the privy council, was seized and condemned without the king's knowledge. Blagge was an intimate friend of the king, and was commonly addressed as " my pig " by his majesty. When the king heard of his danger, he immediately ordered his release, and KATHERINE PARR. 301 rated the chancellor for coming so near him, even to his privy chamber. Blagge flew to thank his royal master, who upon seeing him, cried out, "Ah ! my pig, are you here safe again ?" " Yes, sire," said he, " and if your majesty had not been better than your bishops, your pig would have been roasted by this time." But though the king had rated his councillors for approach- ing so near to his person as his privy chamber, Gardiner, in the words of a contemporary, had " bent his bow to bring down some of the royal deer," even the queen herself. The queen had been in the habit of conversing with the king on theological subjects. They held different opinions, but always conducted their arguments with care and delicacy. On one occasion, however, the queen ventured, in the pre- sence of Gardiner, to remonstrate with him about forbidding the use of the English bible. The king grew angry, and cut the matter short, but when Katherine left the room broke out into a great rage. " A good hearing it is," quoth he, " when women become such clerks ; and much to my comfort, to come in mine old age, to be taught by my wife !" Gardiner added fuel to the fire, praised the king's theology, and condemned the interference of Katherine as " malapert " and " discourteous !" The king listened, his pride was grati- fied, his revenge was aroused, and at Gardiner's suggestion ho had bills of indictment prepared against the queen, on the charge of heresy. Poor unconscious woman, she saw no change, she feared no evil, when suddenly, after days had passed, one of her waiting maids picked up a packet in the royal corridor and brought it to her. The secret was out. There, in legal parchment, with her husband's name attached, was the indictment. She saw it all. Her fate was sealed. D D ^v 302 KATHERINE PARR. Her chamber adjoined that of the king ; and when she fell into violent hysterics, the monarch heard her cries, and won- dered at their cause — wondered still more as they continued, and learnt at last that Katherine was dying ! He immediately bid his attendants carry him to her room, for he was now a bloated ton of disease, unable to move without assistance, and so was borne into her chamber. He found her heavy and melancholy, and apparently at the point of death. He began to evidence some sympathy. If he lost his wife he lost the best nurse that ever a man yet had. Katherine testified a proper degree of gratitude for the honour of his visit, which she assured him had greatly revived and rejoiced her. Henry encouraged her with expressions of his good will, and she behaved in so humble a manner, that Henry, in a burst of confidence, betrayed to her physician the secret of the plot against her life. Next evening the queen herself visited the apartment of the king, Lady Jane Grey carrying the candles. Henry wel- comed her as h& was wont to do, with a sort of rough kind- ness, and took her attention in good part ; but by and bye turned the conversation on religious topics. Vainly is the net spread in the sight of any bird. She avoided the ques- tions, and when her royal husband pressed them upon her, she said : — " 0, my lord, I am but a woman, and have all the imper- fections of my sex ; in all these hard and subtle points, I must refer myself to your majesty, for thou art my lord and my head : God hath so appointed it — thou art the supreme head of us all." " Nay, by St. Mary," said the king, " thou art a gospel doctor, Kate ; better able to instruct us than we are to teach thee." KATHERINE PARR. 303 " Indeed," said Katherine, " if your majesty conceiveth so, from aught that I have said, my meaning has been greatly mistaken. I have always held it preposterous for a woman to instruct her lord ; and if I have ever presumed to differ with your highness on religion, it was partly to obtain information for my own comfort, regarding certain nice points, on which I stand in doubt ; and sometimes because I perceived, that, in talking, you were better able to pass away the pain and weari- ness of your present infirmity, which encouraged me to the boldness, in the hope of profiting withal by your majesty's learned discourse." "And is it so Kate ?" cried the monarch ; " then are we perfect friends, sweetheart, from this time forth." So stooping down, he kissed her with tenderness. The day following was that which had been appointed for her arrest. The king, supported by a thick crutch-stick, walked a few paces in the garden with his " Sweet Kate." As they turned the corner of the avenue, they were met by Gar- diner, armed with royal authority for the queen's arrest, and attended by forty of the guards. The rage of the king knew no bounds. Chroniclers tell us, that he uttered such epithets, as "Beast," "Fool," "Knave;" and bid the bishop "avaunt." Afterwards he struck his name from the council book ; and forbade him his presence. After this narrow escape, Katherine was more than ever watchful over herself. The king shewed many marks of peculiar favour for her, and called her " Sweetheart" to his dying day. That dying day was not far off. Slowly he sunk to the grave ; a huge mass of moral and physical corruption — his last acts, acts of tyranny ; his last words, those of utter despair- — "All is lost !" A very handsome legacy was left to Katherine Parr ; and e- II 304 KATHERINE PARR. she received all the honours due to a queen dowager. She took up her residence at a beautiful mansion at Chelsea, occu- pying the pleasant spot now called Cheyne Pier. There she was sought in marriage by her former lover, Sir Thomas Sey- mour, now raised to the dignity of Lord Sudley. So still young, still beautiful, rich, and noble, she became the wife of her old love, after having been united to three mature widowers, and ruled England as queen regent. Edward VI. highly approved of the match ; but the Protector, and many of the leading nobility, were greatly enraged, and did all they could to occasion the queen unhappiness. But her life was happy — happy in the man she loved : alas, that it lasted so brief a time, and that within a short period of becoming a mother, she should taste of death ! On the 30th of August, 1548, Katherine Parr gave birth, at Sudley Castle, to a girl. Sey- mour, in a transport of pride, wrote an eloquent description to his brother, the Duke of Somerset. But a gloomy cloud settled over the picture ; and seven days after the birth of the child, Katherine expired. A strange eventful life was hers— a life that lasted little more than six and thirty years. W. J. AND J. SEARS, PRINTERS, IVY LANE, ST. PAUL S. LRpFe'15