Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 2

by Isaac Disraeli

FOOTNOTES:

The prince and duke travelled under the assumed names of John and Thomas Smith. King James wrote a poem on this expedition, of which the first and last verses are as follow. A copy is preserved among the Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library:—

"What sudden change hath darked of late
The glory of the Arcadian state?
The fleecy flocks refuse to feed,
The lambs to play, the ewes to breed;
The altars smoke, the offerings burn,
Till Jack and Tom do safe return.
"Kind shepherds that have loved them long,
Be not too rash in censuring wrong;
Correct your fears, leave off to mourn,
The heavens shall favour their return!
Commit the care to Royal Pan,
Of Jack his son, and Tom his man."

In MS. Harl., 6987, is preserved Buckingham's letter to James I, describing the first interview. Speaking of the prince, he says, "Baby Charles is himself so touched at the heart, that he confesses all he ever yet saw is nothing to her, and swears, that if he want her, there shall be blows."

Though Buckingham and Charles were exigeant of jewels for presents, the king was equally profuse in sending until he had exhausted his store. Considerably more than 150,000 l. worth were consigned to Spain. In a letter from Newmarket, March 17, 1623, preserved in Harleian MS. 6987, he enumerates a large quantity to be presented to the Infanta; and he is equally careful that Prince Charles should be well supplied; "As for thee, my sweet gossip, I send thee a fair table diamond for wearing in thy hat." The king ingeniously prompts them to present the Infanta with a small looking-glass to hang at her girdle, and to assure her that "by art magic, whensoever she shall be pleased to look in it, she shall see the fairest lady that either her brother's or your father's dominions can afford."

On his first coming to court he was made cup-bearer to the king, then Master of the Horse, then ennobled, made Lord High Admiral, Warden of the Cinque Ports, Constable of Windsor Castle, Ranger of Royal Parks, &c. &c. A list of the public plunderings of himself and family is given in Sloane MS. 826, amounting to more than 27,000 l. per annum in rents of manors, irrespective of 50,000 l. "paid to the duke by privie seale of free guifts, but alleged to be intended for the navie." Many pensions and customs were also made over to his use.

King James delighted in calling the Duke of Buckingham "Steenie," as has been already instanced in the letter quoted, p. 463, Vol. I. This was not the duke's Christian name, but was invented for him by his royal master, who fancied his features resembled those usually given to St. Stephen, and whose face was usually depicted in accordance with the description in Acts vi. 15, "as it had been the face of an angel."

The great exhibition of fireworks at Rome, at the castle of St. Angelo, during the festivities of the Holy Week, preserve the character of the displays of fireworks adopted on great occasions in the seventeenth century. An enormous explosion of squibs, crackers, and rockets was the tour de force in such celebrations. The volume describing the entry of Louis XIII. to Lyons in 1624, contains an engraving of the fireworks constructed on barges in the river on that occasion; a blazing crowned sun, surrounded by a wheel of stars, squibs, star-rockets, and water-serpents flying about it, composed the feu d'artifice. In the volume descriptive of the rejoicings in the same city on the ratification of peace between France and Spain in 1660, are several engravings in which fireworks are shown, but they exhibit no novelties, being restricted to rockets and pots of fire bursting into coloured stars. Henry Van Etten's "Mathematical Recreations," 1633, notes the principal "artificial fireworks" then in use, and gives engravings of several, and instructions to make them. Rockets, fire-balls, stars, golden-rain, serpents, and Catharine wheels are the principal noted. "Fierie dragons combatant" running on lines, and filled with fireworks, were the greatest stretch of invention at this time; and our author says they may be made "to meete one another, having lights placed in the concavity of their bodies, which will give great grace to the action."

Specimens of most of these modes of writing may be seen at the British Museum. No. 3478, in the Sloanian library, is a Nabob's letter, on a piece of bark, about two yards long, and richly ornamented with gold. No. 3207 is a book of Mexican hieroglyphics, painted on bark. In the same collection are various species, many from the Malabar coast and the East. The latter writings are chiefly on leaves. There are several copies of Bibles written on palm leaves. The ancients, doubtless, wrote on any leaves they found adapted for the purpose. Hence, the leaf of a book, alluding to that of a tree, seems to be derived. At the British Museum we have also Babylonian tiles, or broken pots, which the people used, and made their contracts of business on; a custom mentioned in the Scriptures.

This speech was made by Claudius (who was born at Lyons), when censor, A.D. 48, and was of the highest importance to the men of Lyons, inasmuch as it led to the grant of the privileges of Roman citizenship to them. This important inscription was discovered in 1528, on the heights of St. Sebastian above the town.

The paintings discovered at Pompeii give representations of these books and implements.

The use of the table-book was continued to the reign of James I. or later. Shakspeare frequently alludes to them—

"And therefore will he wipe his tables clean,
And keep no tell-tale to his memory."

They were in the form of a modern pocket-book, the leaves of asses' skin, or covered with a composition, upon which a silver or leaden style would inscribe memoranda capable of erasure.

A box containing such written rolls is represented in one of the pictures exhumed at Pompeii.

See note to Vol. I. p. 5.

The ink of old manuscripts is generally a thick solid substance, and sometimes stands in relief upon the paper. The red ink is generally a body-colour of great brilliancy.

This was, in fact, a realization of the traditional representations of the Flight into Egypt, in which the Virgin, having the Saviour in her lap, is always depicted seated on an ass, which is led by Joseph.

See Article Ancient and Modern Saturnalia, in this Volume.

In the romances and poems of the Middle Ages, the heroines are generally praised for the abundance and beauty of their "yellow hair"—

Her yellow haire was braided in a tresse
Behinde her backe, a yarde longe, I guesse.
CHAUCER'S Knight's Tale.

Queen Elizabeth had yellow hair, hence it became the fashion at her court, and ladies dyed their hair of the Royal colour. But this dyeing the hair yellow may be traced to the classic era. Galen tells us that in his time women suffered much from headaches, contracted by standing bare-headed in the sun to obtain this coveted tint, which others attempted by the use of saffron. Bulwer, in his "Artificiall Changeling," 1653, says—"The Venetian women at this day, and the Paduan, and those of Verona, and other parts of Italy, practice the same vanitie, and receive the same recompense for their affectation, there being in all those cities open and manifest examples of those who have undergone a kind of martyrdome, to render their haire yellow."

That is, carriages of the modern form, and such as became common toward the end of Elizabeth's reign; but waggons and chares, covered with tapestry, and used by ladies for journeys, may be seen in illuminated MSS. of the fourteenth century. There is a fine example in the Loutterell Psalter, published in "Vetusta Monumenta."

The use of censers or firepans to "sweeten" houses by burning coarse perfumes is noted by Shakespeare. His commentator, Steevens, points out a passage in a letter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who when keeping Mary Queen of Scots under his surveillance, notes "That her Majesty was to be removed for 5 or 6 dayes to clense her chamber, being kept very unclenly." That annoyances of a very disagreeable kind were constantly felt, he instances in a passage from the Memoir of Anne, Countess of Dorset, who relates that a noble party were infested with insects not now to be named, though named plainly by the lady, and all this "by sitting in Sir Thomas Erskine's chamber."

He gives this piece of autobiography in his first sermon preached before Edward VI., 1549:—"My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or foure pound by year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had a walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He kept me to school. He married my sisters with five pound, or twenty nobles a piece; so that he brought them up in godliness."

Lower's "English Surnames; an Essay on Family Nomenclature," may be profitably studied in connexion with this curious subject.

Fortunate names, the bona nomina of Cicero, were chiefly selected in accordance with the classic maxim, bonum nomen, bonum omen.

"Plautus thought it quite enough to damn a man that he bore the name of Lyco, which is said to signify a greedy-wolf; and Livy calls the name Atrius Umber abominandi ominis nomen, a name of horrible portent."—Nares' Heraldic Anomalies.

The names adopted by the Romans were very significant. The Nomen was indicative of the branch of the family distinguished by the Cognomen; while the Prenomen was invented to distinguish one from the rest. Thus, a man of family had three names, and even a fourth was added when it was won by great deeds.

Edgar Poe's account of the regular mode by which he designed and executed his best and most renowned poem, "The Raven," is an instance of the use of methodical rule successfully applied to what appears to be one of the most fanciful of mental works.

The old poet is the most fresh and powerful in his words. The passage is thus given in Wright's edition:—

The busy lark, messenger of day,
Saluteth in her song the morrow gray;
And fiery Phoebus riseth up so bright,
That all the orient laugheth of the light.

Leigh Hunt remarks with justice that "Dryden falls short of the freshness and feeling of the sentiment. His lines are beautiful, but they do not come home to us with so happy and cordial a face."

This use of what most persons would consider waste paper, obtained for the poet the designation of "paper-sparing Pope."

Dr. Johnson, in noticing the MSS. of Milton, preserved at Cambridge, has made, with his usual force of language, the following observation: "Such reliques show how excellence is acquired: what we hope ever to do with ease, we may learn first to do with diligence."

Silent in the MS. (observes a critical friend) is greatly superior to secret, as it appears in the printed work.

The great feature of the modern stage within the last twenty years has been the Classical Burlesque Drama, which, though originating in the last century in such plays as Midas, really reached its culmination under the auspices of Madame Vestris.

Motteux, whose translation Lord Woodhouselee distinguishes as the most curious, turns the passage thus: "I wish you well, good people: drive on to act your play, for in my very childhood I loved shows, and have been a great admirer of dramatic representations." Part II. c. xi. The other translators have nearly the same words. But in employing the generic term they lose the species, that is, the thing itself; but what is less tolerable, in the flatness of the style, they lose that delightfulness with which Cervantes conveys to us the recollected pleasures then busying the warm brain of his hero. An English reader, who often grows weary over his Quixote, appears not always sensible that one of the secret charms of Cervantes, like all great national authors, lies concealed in his idiom and style.

The author of the descriptive letter-press to George Cruikshank's illustrations of Punch says he "saw the late Mr. Wyndham, then one of the Secretaries of State, on his way from Downing-street to the House of Commons, on the night of an important debate, pause like a truant boy until the whole performance was concluded, to enjoy a hearty laugh at the whimsicalities of the 'motley hero.'"

Rich, in his "Companion to the Latin Diction," has an excellent illustration of this passage:—"This art was of very great antiquity, and much practised by the Greeks and Romans, both on the stage and in the tribune, induced by their habit of addressing large assemblies in the open air, where it would have been impossible for the majority to comprehend what was said without the assistance of some conventional signs, which enabled the speaker to address himself to the eye, as well as the ear of the audience. These were chiefly made by certain positions of the hands and fingers, the meaning of which was universally recognised and familiar to all classes, and the practice itself reduced to a regular system, as it remains at the present time amongst the populace of Naples, who will carry on a long conversation between themselves by mere gesticulation, and without pronouncing a word." That many of these signs are similar to those used by the ancients, is proved by the same author, who copies from an antique vase a scene which he explains by the action of the hands of the figures, adding, "A common lazzaroni, when shown one of these compositions, will at once explain the purport of the action, which a scholar with all his learning cannot divine." The gesture to signify love, employed by the ancients and modern Neapolitans, was joining the tips of the thumb and fore-finger of the left hand; an imputation or asseveration by holding forth the right hand; a denial by raising the same hand, extending the fingers. In mediæval works of art, a particular attitude of the fingers is adopted to exhibit malicious hate: it is done by crossing the fore-finger of each hand, and is generally seen in figures of Herod or Judas Iscariot.

Tacitus, Annals, lib. i. sect. 77, in Murphy's translation.

This measure of "restrictive policy," which gave to the patent theatres the sole right of performing the legitimate drama properly, led to the construction of plays for the minor theatres, entirely carried on by action, occasionally aided by inscriptions painted on scrolls, and unrolled and exhibited by the actor when his power of expressing such words failed. This led to the education of a series of pantomimists, who taught action conventionally to represent words. At the close of the last century, there were many such; and the reader who may be curious to see the nature of these dumb dramas, may do so in two volumes named "Circusiana," by J.C. Cross, the author of very many that were performed at the Royal Circus, in St. George's Fields. The whole action of the drama was performed to music composed expressly to aid the expression of the performers, among the best of whom were Bologna and D'Egville. It is a class of dramatic art which has now almost entirely passed away; or is seen, but in a minor degree, in the pantomimic action of a grand ballet at the opera.

L'Antiq. Exp. v. 63.

Louis Riccoboni, in his curious little treatise, "Du Théâtre Italien," illustrated by seventeen prints of the Italian pantomimic characters, has duly collected the authorities. I give them, in the order quoted above, for the satisfaction of more grave inquirers. Vossius, Instit. Poet, lib. ii. 32, § 4. The Mimi blackened their faces. Diomedes, de Orat. lib. iii. Apuleius, in Apolog. And further, the patched dress was used by the ancient peasants of Italy, as appears by a passage in Varro, De Re Rust, lib. i. c. 8; and Juvenal employs the term centunculus as a diminutive of cento, for a coat made up of patches. This was afterwards applied metaphorically to those well-known poems called centos, composed of shreds and patches of poetry, collected from all quarters. Goldoni considered Harlequin as a poor devil and dolt, whose coat is made up of rags patched together; his hat shows mendicity; and the hare's tail is still the dress of the peasantry of Bergamo. Quadrio, in his learned Storia d'ogni Poesia, has diffused his erudition on the ancient Mimi and their successors. Dr. Clarke has discovered the light lath sword of Harlequin, which had hitherto baffled my most painful researches, amidst the dark mysteries of the ancient mythology! We read with equal astonishment and novelty, that the prototypes of the modern pantomime are in the Pagan mysteries; that Harlequin is Mercury, with his short sword called herpe, or his rod the caduceus, to render himself invisible, and to transport himself from one end of the earth to the other; that the covering on his head was his petasus, or winged cap; that Columbine is Pysche, or the Soul; the Old Man in our pantomimes is Charon; the Clown is Momus, the buffoon of heaven, whose large gaping mouth is an imitation of the ancient masks. The subject of an ancient vase engraven in the volume represents Harlequin, Columbine, and the Clown, as we see them on the English stage. The dreams of the learned are amusing when we are not put to sleep. Dr. Clarke's Travels, vol. iv. p. 459. The Italian antiquaries never entertained any doubt of this remote origin. It may, however, be reasonably doubted. The chief appendage of the Vice or buffoon of the ancient moralities was a gilt wooden sword, and this also belonged to the old Clown or Fool, not only in England but abroad. "The wooden sword directly connects Harlequin with the ancient Vice and more modern Fool," says the author of the letter-press to Cruikshank's Punch, apparently with the justest derivation.

This statue, which is imagined to have thrown so much light on the genealogy of Punch, was discovered in 1727, and is engraved in Ficoroni's amusing work on Maschere sceniche e le figure coniche d'antichi Romani, p. 48. It is that of a Mime called Maccus by the Romans; the name indicates a simpleton. But the origin of the more modern name has occasioned a little difference, whether it be derived from the nose or its squeak. The learned Quadrio would draw the name Pullicinello from Pulliceno, which Spartianus uses for il pullo gallinaceo (I suppose this to be the turkey-cock) because Punch's hooked nose resembles its beak. But Baretti, in that strange book the "Tolondron," gives a derivation admirably descriptive of the peculiar squeaking nasal sound. He says, "Punchinello, or Punch, as you well know, speaks with a squeaking voice that seems to come out at his nose, because the fellow who in a puppet-show manages the puppet called Punchinello, or Punch, as the English folks abbreviate it, speaks with a tin whistle in his mouth, which makes him emit that comical kind of voice. But the English word Punchinello is in Italian Pulcinella, which means a hen-chicken. Chickens' voices are squeaking and nasal; and they are timid, and powerless, and for this reason my whimsical countrymen have given the name of Pulcinella, or hen-chicken, to that comic character, to convey the idea of a man that speaks with a squeaking voice through his nose, to express a timid and weak fellow, who is always thrashed by the other actors, and always boasts of victory after they are gone."—Tolondron, p. 324. In Italian, Policinello is a little flea, active and biting and skipping; and his mask puce-colour, the nose imitating in shape the flea's proboscis. This grotesque etymology was added by Mrs. Thrale. I cannot decide between "the hen-chicken" of the scholar and "the skipping flea" of the lady, who, however, was herself a scholar.

How the Latin Sannio became the Italian Zanni, was a whirl in the roundabout of etymology, which put Riccoboni very ill at his ease; for he, having discovered this classical origin of his favourite character, was alarmed at Menage giving it up with obsequious tameness to a Cruscan correspondent. The learned Quadrio, however, gives his vote for the Greek Sannos, from whence the Latins borrowed their Sannio. Riccoboni's derivation, therefore, now stands secure from all verbal disturbers of human quiet.

Sanna is in Latin, as Ainsworth elaborately explains, "a mocking by grimaces, mows, a flout, a frump, a gibe, a scoff, a banter;" and Sannio is "a fool in a play." The Italians change the S into Z, for they say Zmyrna and Zambuco, for Smyrna and Sambuco; and thus they turned Sannio into Zanno, and then into Zanni, and we caught the echo in our Zany.

Riccoboni, Histoire du Théàtre Italien, p. 53; Gimma, Italia Letterata, p. 196.

There is an earlier and equally whimsical series bearing the following title—"Mascarades recuillies et mises en taille douce par Robert Boissart, Valentianois, 1597," consisting of twenty-four plates of Carnival masquers.

Signorelli, Storia Critica de Teatri, tom. iii. 263.

Mem. of Goldoni, i. 281.

Mem. of Goldoni, ii. 284.

I am here but the translator of a grave historian. The Italian writes with all the feeling of one aware of the important narrative, and with a most curious accuracy in this genealogy of character: "Silvio Fiorillo, che appetter si facea il Capitano Matamoros, INVENTO il Pulcinella Napoletano, e collo studio e grazia molto AGGIUNSE Andrea Calcese dello Ciuccio por soprannome."—Gimma, Italia Letterata, p. 196. There is a very curious engraving by Bosse, representing the Italian comedians about 1633, as they performed the various characters on the Parisian stage. The cracked voice and peculiarities of this "great invention" are declared by Fiorillo and Signorelli to be imitations of the peculiarities of the peasants of Acerra, an ancient city in the neighbourhood of Naples. For a curious dissertation on this popular character, see the volume so admirably illustrated by Cruikshank, quoted on a previous page.

John Rich was the patentee of Covent Garden Theatre, and spent large sums over his favourite pantomimes. He was also the fortunate producer of the "Beggar's Opera," which was facetiously said to have made Rich gay, and Gay rich. He took so little interest in what is termed the "regular drama," that he is reported to have exclaimed, when peeping through the curtain at a full house to witness a tragedy—"What, you are there, you fools, are you!" He died wealthy, in 1761; and there is a costly tomb to his memory in Hillingdon churchyard, Middlesex.

Some of the ancient Scenarie were printed in 1661, by Flaminius Scala, one of their great actors. These, according to Riccoboni, consist of nothing more than the skeletons of Comedies; the canevas, as the French technically term a plot and its scenes. He says, "They are not so short as those we now use to fix at the back of the scenes, nor so full as to furnish any aid to the dialogue: they only explain what the actor did on the stage, and the action which forms the subject, nothing more."

The passage in Livy is, "Juventus, histrionibus fabellarum actu relicto, ipsa inter se, more antiquo, ridicula intexta versibus jactitare cæpit." Lib. vii. cap. 2.

As these Atellanæ Fabulæ were never written, they have not descended to us in any shape. It has, indeed, been conjectured that Horace, in the fifth Satire of his first Book, v. 51, has preserved a scene of this nature between two practised buffoons in the "Pugnam Sarmenti Scurræ," who challenges his brother Cicerrus, equally ludicrous and scurrilous. But surely these were rather the low humour of the Mimes, than of the Atellan Farcers.

Melmoth's Letters of Cicero, B. viii. lett. 20; in Grævius's edition, Lib. ix. ep. 16.

This passage also shows that our own custom of annexing a Farce, or petite pièce, or Pantomime, to a tragic Drama, existed among the Romans: the introduction of the practice in our country seems not to be ascertained; and it is conjectured not to have existed before the Restoration. Shakspeare and his contemporaries probably were spectators of only a single drama.

Storia Critica del Teatri de Signorelli, tom. iii. 258.—Baretti mentions a collection of four thousand dramas, made by Apostolo Zeno, of which the greater part were comedies. He allows that in tragedies his nation is inferior to the English and the French; but "no nation," he adds, "can be compared with us for pleasantry and humour in comedy." Some of the greatest names in Italian literature were writers of comedy. Ital. Lib. 119.

Altieri explains Formica as a crabbed fellow who acts the butt in a farce.

I refer the reader to Steevens's edition, 1793, vol. ii. p. 495, for a sight of these literary curiosities.

The commencement of the "Platt" of the "Seven Deadly Sinnes," believed to be a production of the famous Dick Tarleton, will sufficiently enlighten the reader as to the character of the whole. The original is preserved at Dulwich, and is written in two columns, on a pasteboard about fifteen inches high, and nine in breadth. We have modernised the spelling:—

"A tent being placed on the stage for Henry the Sixth; he in it asleep. To him the lieutenant, and a pursuivant (R. Cowley, Jo. Duke), and one warder (R. Pallant). To them Pride, Gluttony, Wrath, and Covetousness at one door; at another door Envy, Sloth, and Lechery. The three put back the four, and so exeunt.

"Henry awaking, enter a keeper (J. Sincler), to him a servant (T. Belt), to him Lidgate and the keeper. Exit, then enter again—then Envy passeth over the stage. Lidgate speakes."

Women were first introduced on the Italian stage about 1560—it was therefore an extraordinary novelty in Nash's time.

That this kind of drama was perfectly familiar to the play-goers of the era of Elizabeth, is clear from a passage in Meres' "Palladis Tamica," 1598; who speaks of Tarleton's extemporal power, adding a compliment to "our witty Wilson, who, for learning and extemporal wit, in this faculty is without compare or compeer; as to his great and eternal commendations, he manifested in his challenge at the Swan, on Bank-side." The Swan was one of the theatres so popular in the era of Elizabeth and James I., situated on the Bankside, Southwark.

Dr. Clarke's Travels, vol. iv. p. 56.

In the poem on the entrenchment of New Ross, in Ireland, in 1265 (Harl. MS., No. 913), is a similar account of the minstrelsy which accompanied the workers. The original is in Norman French; the translation we use is that by the late Miss Landon (L.E.L.):—

Monday they began their labours,
Gay with banners, flutes, and labours;
Soon as the noon hour was come,
These good people hastened home,
With their banners proudly borne.
Then the youth advanced in turn,
And the town, they make it ring,
With their merry carolling;
Singing loud, and full of mirth,
A way they go to shovel earth."

Deip. lib. xiv. cap. iii.

The Lords of the Admiralty a few years ago issued a revised edition of these songs, for the use of our navy. They embody so completely the idea "of a true British sailor," that they have developed and upheld the character.

In Durfey's whimsical collection of songs, "Wit and Mirth," 1682, are several trade songs. One on the blacksmiths begins:—

Of all the trades that ever I see,
There's none to a blacksmith compared may be,
With so many several tools works he;
Which nobody can deny!"

The London companies also chanted forth their own praises. Thus the Mercers' Company, in 1701, sang in their Lord Mayor's Show, alluding to their arms, "a demi-Virgin, crowned":—

"Advance the Virgin—lead the van—
Of all that are in London free,
The mercer is the foremost man
That founded a society;
Of all the trades that London grace,
We are the first in time and place."

Dr. Burney subsequently observed, that "this rogue Autolycus is the true ancient Minstrel in the old Fabliaux;" on which Steevens remarks, "Many will push the comparison a little further, and concur with me in thinking that our modern minstrels of the opera, like their predecessor Autolycus, are pickpockets as well as singers of nonsensical ballads."—Steevens's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 107, his own edition, 1793.

Mr. Roscoe has printed this very delightful song in the Life of Lorenzo, No. xli. App.

The late Rowland Hill constantly sang at the Surrey Chapel a hymn to the tune of "Rule Britannia," altered to "Rule Emmanuel." There was published in Dublin, in 1833, a series of "Hymns written to favourite tunes." They were the innocent work of one who wished to do good by a mode sufficiently startling to those who see impropriety in the conjunction of the sacred and the profane. Thus, one "pious chanson" is written to Gramachree, or "The Harp that once through Tara's Halls," of Moore. Another, describing the death of a believer, is set to "The Groves of Blarney."

The festival of St. Blaize is held on the 3rd of February. Percy notes it as "a custom in many parts of England to light up fires on the hills on St. Blaize's Night." Hone, in his "Every-day Book," Vol. I. p. 210, prints a detailed account of the woolcombers' celebration at Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1825, in which "Bishop Blaize" figured with the "bishop's chaplain," surrounded by "shepherds and shepherdesses," but personated by one John Smith, with "very becoming gravity."

The custom was made the subject of an Essay by Gregory, in illustration of the tomb of one of these functionaries at Salisbury. They were elected on St. Nicholas' Day, from the boys of the choir, and the chosen one officiated in pontificals, and received large donations, as the custom was exceedingly popular. Even royalty listened favourably to "the chylde-bishop's" sermon.

Alexander Necham, abbot of Cirencester (born 1157, died 1217), has left us his idea of a "noble garden," which should contain roses, lilies, sunflowers, violets, poppies, and the narcissus. A large variety of roses were introduced between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Provence rose is thought to have been introduced by Margaret of Anjou, wife to Henry VI. The periwinkle was common in mediæval gardens, and so was the gilly-flower or clove-pink. The late Mr. Hudson Turner contributed an interesting paper on the state of horticulture in England in early times to the fifth volume of the "Archæological Journal." Among other things, he notes the contents of the Earl of Lincoln's garden, in Holborn, from the bailiff's account, in the twenty-fourth year of Edward I.—"We learn from this curious document that apples, pears, nuts, and cherries were produced in sufficient quantities, not only to supply the earl's table, but also to yield a profit by their sale. The vegetables cultivated in this garden were beans, onions, garlic, leeks, and others." Vines were also grown, and their cuttings sold.

This is, however, an error. Mr. Turner, in the paper quoted, p. 154, says, "It may fairly be presumed that the cherry was well known at the period of the Conquest, and at every subsequent time. It is mentioned by Necham in the twelfth century, and was cultivated in the Earl of Lincoln's garden in the thirteenth."

The quince comes from Sydon, a town of Crete, we are told by Le Grand, in his Vie privée des François, vol. i. p. 143; where may be found a list of the origin of most of our fruits.

Peacham has here given a note. "The filbert, so named of Philibert, a king of France, who caused by arte sundry kinds to be brought forth: as did a gardener of Otranto in Italie by cloue-gilliflowers, and carnations of such colours as we now see them."

The queen-apple was probably thus distinguished in compliment to Elizabeth. In Moffet's "Health's Improvement," I find an account of apples which are said to have been "graffed upon a mulberry-stock, and then wax thorough red as our queen-apples, called by Ruellius, Rubelliana, and Claudiana by Pliny." I am told the race is not extinct; but though an apple of this description may yet be found, it seems to have sadly degenerated.

The Court of Wards was founded in the right accorded to the king from the earliest time, to act as guardian to all minors who were the children of his own tenants, or of those who did the sovereign knightly service. They were in the same position, consequently, as the Chancery Wards of the present day; but much complaint being made of the private management of themselves and their estates by the persons who acted as their guardians, and who were responsible only to the king's exchequer, King Henry VIII., in the thirty-second year of his reign, founded "the Court of Wards" in Westminster Hall, as an open court of trial or appeal, for all persons under its jurisdiction. In the following year, a court of "liveries" was added to it; and it was always afterwards known as the "Court of Wards and Liveries." By "liveries" is meant, in old legal phraseology, "the delivery of seisin to the heir of the king's tenant in ward, upon suing for it at full age," the investiture, in fact, of the ward in his legal right as heir to his parents' property. This court was under the conduct of a very few officers who enriched themselves; and one of the first acts of the House of Lords, when the great changes were made during the troubles of Charles I., was to suppress the court altogether. This was done in 1645, and confirmed by Cromwell in 1656. At the restoration of Charles II. it was again specially noted as entirely suppressed.

D'Ewes's father lost a manor, which was recovered by the widow of the person who had sold it to him. Old D'Ewes considered this loss as a punishment for the usurious loan of money; the fact is, that he had purchased that manor with the interests accumulating from the money lent on it. His son entreated him to give over "the practice of that controversial sin." This expression shows that even in that age there were rational political economists. Jeremy Bentham, in his little treatise on Usury, offers just views, cleared from the indistinct and partial ones so long prevalent. Jeremy Collier has an admirable Essay on Usury, vol. iii. It is a curious notion of Lord Bacon, that he would have interest at a lower rate in the country than in trading towns, because the merchant is best able to afford the highest.

In Rowley's "Search for Money," 1609, is an amusing description of the usurer, who binds his clients in "worse bonds and manacles than the Turk's galley-slaves." And in Decker's "Knights' Conjuring," 1607, we read of another who "cozen'd young gentlemen of their land, had acres mortgaged to him by wiseacres for three hundred pounds, payde in hobby-horses, dogges, bells, and lutestrings; which, if they had been sold by the drum, or at an outrop (public auction), with the cry of 'No man better,' would never have yielded £50."

"The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie, or the Walkes in Powles," 1603, is the title of a rare tract in the Malone collection, now in the Bodleian Library. It is a curious picture of the manners of the day.

Games with cards. Strutt says Primero is one of the most ancient games known to have been played in England, and he thus describes it:—"Each player had four cards dealt to him, the 7 was the highest card in point of number that he could avail himself of, which counted for 21; the 6 counted for 16, the 5 for 15, and the ace for the same; but the 2, the 3, and the 4 for their respective points only. The knave of hearts was commonly fixed upon for the quinola, which the player might make what card or suit he thought proper; if the cards were of different suits, the highest number won the primero; if they were all of one colour, he that held them won the flush." Gleek is described in "Memoirs of Gamesters," 1714, as "a game on the cards wherein the ace is called Tib, the knave Tom, the 4 of trumps Tiddy. Tib the ace is 15 in hand and 18 in play, because it wins a trick; Tom the knave is 9, and Tiddy is 4; the 5th Towser, the 6th Tumbler, which, if in hand, Towser is 5 and Tumbler 6, and so double if turned up; and the King or Queen of trumps is 3. Now, as there can neither more nor less than 3 persons play at this game, who have 12 cards a-piece dealt to them at 4 at a time, you are to note that 22 are your cards; if you win nothing but the cards that were dealt you, you lose 10; if you have neither Tib, Tom, Tiddy, King, Queen, Mournival, nor Gleek, you lose, because you count as many cards as you had in tricks, which must be few by reason of the badness of your hand; if you have Tib, Tom, King and Queen of trumps in your hand, you have 30 by honours, that is, 8 above your own cards, besides the cards you win by them in play. If you have Tom only, which is 9, and the King of trumps, which is 3, then you reckon from 12, 13, 14, 15, till you come to 22, and then every card wins so many pence, groats, or what else you play'd for; and if you are under 22, you lose as many."

A note to Singer's edition of "Hall's Satires," says the phrase originated from the popular belief that the tomb of Sir John Beauchamp, in old St. Paul's, was that of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester. Hence, to walk about the aisles dinnerless was termed dining with Duke Humphrey; and a poem by Speed, termed "The Legend of his Grace," &c., published 1674, details the popular idea—

Nor doth the duke his invitation send
To princes, or to those that on them tend,
But pays his kindness to a hungry maw;
His charity, his reason, and his law.
For, to say truth, Hunger hath hundreds brought
To dine with him, and all not worth a groat.

Let not the delicate female start from the revolting scene, nor censure the writer, since that writer is a woman—suppressing her own agony, as she supported on her lap the head of the miserable sufferer. This account was drawn up by Mrs. Elizabeth Willoughby, a Catholic lady, who, amidst the horrid execution, could still her own feelings in the attempt to soften those of the victim: she was a heroine, with a tender heart.

The subject was one of the executed Jesuits, Hugh Green, who often went by the name of Ferdinand Brooks, according to the custom of these people, who disguised themselves by double names: he suffered in 1642; and this narrative is taken from the curious and scarce folios of Dodd, a Roman Catholic Church History of England.

"The hangman, either through unskilfulness, or for want of sufficient presence of mind, had so ill-performed his first duty of hanging him, that when he was cut down he was perfectly sensible, and able to sit upright upon the ground, viewing the crowd that stood about him. The person who undertook to quarter him was one Barefoot, a barber, who, being very timorous when he found he was to attack a living man, it was near half an hour before the sufferer was rendered entirely insensible of pain. The mob pulled at the rope, and threw the Jesuit on his back. Then the barber immediately fell to work, ripped up his belly, and laid the flaps of skin on both sides; the poor gentleman being so present to himself as to make the sign of the cross with one hand. During this operation, Mrs. Elizabeth Willoughby (the writer of this) kneeled at the Jesuit's head, and held it fast beneath her hands. His face was covered with a thick sweat; the blood issued from his mouth, ears, and eyes, and his forehead burnt with so much heat, that she assures us she could scarce endure her hand upon it. The barber was still under a great consternation."—But I stop my pen amidst these circumstantial horrors.

Harl. MSS. 36. 50.

This pathetic poem has been printed in one of the old editions of Sir Walter Rawleigh's Poems, but could never have been written by him. In those times the collectors of the works of a celebrated writer would insert any fugitive pieces of merit, and pass them under a name which was certain of securing the reader's favour. The entire poem in every line echoes the feelings of Chidiock Titchbourne, who perished with all the blossoms of life and genius about him in the May time of his existence.

Foreign authors who had an intercourse with the English court seem to have been better informed, or at least found themselves under less restraint than our home-writers. In Bayle, note x. the reader will find this mysterious affair cleared up; and at length in one of our own writers, Whitaker, in his "Mary Queen of Scots Vindicated," vol. ii. p. 502. Elizabeth's Answer to the first Address of the Commons, on her marriage, in Hume, vol. v. p. 13, is now more intelligible: he has preserved her fanciful style.

A curious trait of the neglect Queen Mary experienced, whose life being considered very uncertain, sent all the intriguers of a court to Elizabeth, the next heir, although then in a kind of state imprisonment.

This despatch is a meagre account, written before the ambassador obtained all the information the present letter displays. The chief particulars I have preserved above.

By Sir Symonds D'Ewes's Journal it appears, that the French ambassador had mistaken the day, Wednesday the 16th, for Thursday the 17th of October. The ambassador is afterwards right in the other dates. The person who moved the house, whom he calls "Le Seindicque de la Royne," was Sir Edward Rogers, comptroller of her majesty's household. The motion was seconded by Sir William Cecil, who entered more largely into the particulars of the queen's charges, incurred in the defence of New-Haven, in France, the repairs of her navy, and the Irish war with O'Neil. In the present narrative we fully discover the spirit of the independent member; and, at its close, that part of the secret history of Elizabeth which so powerfully developes her majestic character.

The original says, "ung subside de quatre solz pour liure."

This gentleman's name does not appear in Sir Symonds D'Ewes's Journal. Mons. Le Mothe Fenelon has, however, the uncommon merit, contrary to the custom of his nation, of writing an English name somewhat recognisable; for Edward Basche was one of the general surveyors of the victualling of the queen's ships, 1573, as I find in the Lansdowne MSS., vol. xvi. art. 69.

In the original, "Ils avoient le nez si long qu'il s'estendoit despuis Londres jusques au pays d'West."

This term is remarkable. In the original, "La Royne ayant impetré," which in Congrave's Dictionary, a contemporary work, is explained by,—"To get by praier, obtain by suit, compass by intreaty, procure by request." This significant expression conveys the real notion of this venerable Whig, before Whiggism had received a denomination, and formed a party.

The French ambassador, no doubt, flattered himself and his master, that all this "parlance" could only close in insurrection and civil war.

In the original, "A ung tas de cerveaulx si legieres."

The word in the original is insistance; an expressive word as used by the French ambassador; but which Boyer, in his Dictionary, doubts whether it be French, although he gives a modern authority; the present is much more ancient.

The Duke of Norfolk was, "without comparison, the first subject in England; and the qualities of his mind corresponded with his high station," says Hume. He closed his career, at length, the victim of love and ambition, in his attempt to marry the Scottish Mary. So great and honourable a man could only be a criminal by halves; and, to such, the scaffold, and not the throne, is reserved, when they engage in enterprises, which, by their secrecy, in the eyes of a jealous sovereign, assume the form and the guilt of a conspiracy.

Hume, vol, v. c. 39; at the close of 1566.

Dr. Birch's Life of this Prince.

Harleian MS., 6391.

La Vie de Card. Richelieu, anonymous, but written by J. Le Clerc, 1695, vol. i. pp. 116-125.

"A Detection of the Court and State of England," vol. i. p. 13.

Stowe's Annals, p. 824.

I give the title of this rare volume. "Finetti Philoxensis: Some choice Observations of Sir John Finett, Knight, and Master of the Ceremonies to the two last Kings; touching the reception and precedence, the treatment and audience, the punctilios and contests of forren ambassadors in England. Legati ligant Mumdum. 1656." This very curious diary was published after the author's death by his friend James Howell, the well-known writer; and Oldys, whose literary curiosity scarcely anything in our domestic literature has escaped, has analysed the volume with his accustomed care. He mentions that there was a manuscript in being, more full than the one published, of which I have not been able to learn farther.—British Librarian, p. 163.

Charles I. had, however, adopted them, and long preserved the stateliness of his court with foreign powers, as appears by these extracts from manuscript letters of the time:

Mr. Mead writes to Sir M. Stuteville, July 25, 1629.

"His majesty was wont to answer the French ambassador in his own language; now he speaks in English, and by an interpreter. And so doth Sir Thomas Edmondes to the French king; contrary to the ancient custom: so that altho' of late we have not equalled them in arms, yet now we shall equal them in ceremonies."

Oct. 31, 1628.

"This day fortnight, the States' ambassador going to visit my lord treasurer about some business, whereas his lordship was wont always to bring them but to the stairs' head, he then, after a great deal of courteous resistance on the ambassador's part, attended him through the hall and court-yard, even to the very boot of his coach."—Sloane MSS. 4178.

Clarendon's Life, vol. ii. p. 160.

The Diary of William Raikes, Esq., has only recently been published: it relates to the first half of the present century, and proves that the race of diarists are not extinct among ourselves.

Ashmole noted every trifle, even to the paring of his nails; and being as believer in astrology, and a student in the occult sciences, occasionally mentions his own superstitious observances. Thus, April 11, 1681, he notes—"I took, early in the morning, a good dose of elixir, and hung three spiders about my neck, and they drove my ague away. Deo Gratias!"

This diary has been published since the above was written.

It is a thin book, simply lapped in parchment, and filled with brief memorandums written in a remarkably neat and minute hand.

This has also been published in a handsome quarto volume since the above was written. Roberta's collection of Anglo-Gallic coins are now in the British Museum.

Sir Thomas Crew's Collection of the Proceedings of the Parliament, 1628, p. 71.

The consequence of this prohibition was, that our own men of learning were at a loss to know what arms the enemies of England, and of her religion, were fabricating against us. This knowledge was absolutely necessary, as appears by a curious fact in Strype's Life of Whitgift. A license for the importation of foreign books was granted to an Italian merchant, with orders to collect abroad this sort of libels; but he was to deposit them with the archbishop and the privy council. A few, no doubt, were obtained by the curious, Catholic or Protestant.—Strype's "Life of Whitgift," p. 268.

The author, with his publisher, who had their right hands cut off, was John Stubbs of Lincoln's Inn, a hot-headed Puritan, whose sister was married to Thomas Cartwright, the head of that faction. This execution took place upon a scaffold, in the market-place at Westminster. After Stubbs had his right hand cut off, with his left he pulled off his hat, and cried with a loud voice, "God save the Queen!" the multitude standing deeply silent, either out of horror at this new and unwonted kind of punishment, or else out of commiseration of the undaunted man, whose character was unblemished. Camden, a witness to this transaction, has related it. The author, and the printer, and the publisher were condemned to this barbarous punishment, on an act of Philip and Mary, against the authors and publishers of seditious writings. Some lawyers were honest enough to assert that the sentence was erroneous, for that act was only a temporary one, and died with Queen Mary; but, of these honest lawyers, one was sent to the Tower, and another was so sharply reprimanded, that he resigned his place as a judge in the Common Pleas. Other lawyers, as the lord chief justice, who fawned on the prerogative far more then than afterwards in the Stuart reigns, asserted that Queen Mary was a king; and that an act made by any king, unless repealed, must always exist, because the King of England never dies!

A letter from J. Mead to Sir M. Stuteville, July 19, 1628. Sloane MSS. 4178.

See "Calamities of Authors," vol. ii. p. 116.

It is a quarto tract, entitled "Mr. John Milton's Character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines in 1641; omitted in his other works, and never before printed, and very seasonable for these times. 1681." It is inserted in the uncastrated edition of Milton's prose works in 1738. It is a retort on the Presbyterian Clement Walker's History of the Independents; and Warburton, in his admirable characters of the historians of this period, alluding to Clement Walker, says—"Milton was even with him in the fine and severe character he draws of the Presbyterian administration."

Southey, in his "Doctor," has a whimsical chapter on Anagrams, which, he says, "are not likely ever again to hold so high a place among the prevalent pursuits of literature as they did in the seventeenth century, when Louis XIII. appointed the Provençal, Thomas Billen, to be his royal anagrammatist, and granted him a salary of 12,000 livres."

Two of the luckiest hits which anagrammatists have made, were on the Attorney-General William Noy—"I moyl in law;" and Sir Edmundbury Godfrey—"I find murdered by rogues." But of unfitting anagrams, none were ever more curiously unfit than those which were discovered in Marguerite de Valois, the profligate Queen of Navarre—"Salve, Virgo Mater Dei; ou, de vertu royal image."—Southey's Doctor.

Drummond of Hawthornden speaks of anagrams as "most idle study; you may of one and the same name make both good and evil. So did my uncle find in Anna Regina, 'Ingannare,' as well of Anna Britannorum Regina, 'Anna regnantium arbor;' as he who in Charles de Valois found 'Chasse la dure loy," and after the massacre found 'Chasseur desloyal.' Often they are most false, as Henri de Bourbon 'Bonheur de Biron.' Of all the anagrammatists, and with least pain, he was the best who out of his own name, being Jaques de la Chamber, found 'La Chamber de Jaques,' and rested there: and next to him, here at home, a gentleman whose mistress's name being Anna Grame, he found it an 'Anagrame' already."

See ante, LITERARY FOLLIES, what is said on Pannard.

An allusion probably to Archibald Armstrong, the fool or privileged jester of Charles I., usually called Archy, who had a quarrel with Archbishop Laud, and of whom many arch things are on record. There is a little jest-book, very high priced, and of little worth, which bears the title of Archie's Jests.

The writer was Bancroft, who, in his Two Books of Epigrams, 1639, has the following addressed to the poet—

Thou hast so us'd thy pen, or shooke thy speare,
That poets startle, nor thy wit come neare.

There can be little doubt now, after a due consideration of evidence, that the proper way of spelling our great dramatist's name is Shakespeare, in accordance with its signification; but there is good proof that the pronunciation of the first syllable was short and sharp, and the Warwickshire patois gave it the sound of Shaxpere. In the earliest entries of the name in legal records, it is written Schakespere; the name of the great dramatist's father is entered in the Stratford corporation books in 1665 as John Shacksper. There are many varieties of spelling the name, but that is strictly in accordance with other instances of the looseness of spelling usual with writers of that era; as a general rule, the printed form of an author's name seldom varied, and may be accepted as the correct one.

The term seems to have been applied to the article from the pointed or peaked edges of the lace which surrounded the stiff pleated ruffs, and may be constantly seen in portraits of the era of Elizabeth and James.

Nat. Hist. lib. ix. 56. Snails are still a common dish in Vienna, and are eaten with eggs.

Dr. Lister published in the early part of the last century an amusing poem, "The Art of Cookery, in imitation of 'Horace's Art of Poetry.'"

Genial. Dierum, II. 283, Lug. 1673. The writer has collected in this chapter a variety of curious particulars on this subject.

The commentators have not been able always to assign known names to the great variety of fish, particularly sea-fish, the ancients used, many of which we should revolt at. One of their dainties was a shell-fish, prickly like a hedgehog, called Echinus. They ate the dog-fish, the star-fish, porpoises or sea-hogs, and even seals. In Dr. Moffet's "Regiment of Diet," an exceeding curious writer of the reign of Elizabeth, republished by Oldys, may be found an ample account of the "sea-fish" used by the ancients.—Whatever the Glociscus was, it seems to have been of great size, and a shell-fish, as we may infer from the following curious passage in Athenæus. A father, informed that his son is leading a dissolute life, enraged, remonstrates with his pedagogue:—"Knave! thou art the fault! hast thou ever known a philosopher yield himself so entirely to the pleasures thou tellest me of?" The pedagogue replies by a Yes! and that the sages of the Portico are great drunkards, and none know better than they how to attack a Glociscus.

Ben Jonson, in his "Staple of News," seems to have had these passages in view when he wrote:—

A master cook! Why, he's the man of men
For a professor, he designes, he drawes.
He paints, he carves, he builds, he fortifies;
Makes citadels of curious fowl and fish.
Some he dry-dishes, some moats round with broths,
Mounts marrow-bones, cuts fifty-angled custards,
Bears bulwark pies, and for his outerworks
He raiseth ramparts of immortal crust;
And teacheth all the tactics at one dinner:
What rankes, what files to put his dishes in;
The whole art military. Then he knows
The influence of the stars upon his meats,
And all their seasons, tempers, qualities;
And so to fit his relishes and sauces,
He has Nature in a pot, 'bove all the chemists,
Or airy brethren of the rosy-cross.
He is an architect, an ingineer,
A soldier, a physician, a philosopher,
A general mathematician!

Sat. iv. 140.

Miscellaneous Works, vol. v. 504.

Seneca, Ep. 18.

Horace, in his dialogue with his slave Davus, exhibits a lively picture of this circumstance. Lib. ii. Sat. 7.

A large volume might be composed on these grotesque, profane, and licentious feasts. Du Cange notices several under different terms in his Glossary—Festum Asinorum, Kaleudæ, Cervula. A curious collection has been made by the Abbé Artigny, in the fourth and seventh volumes of his "Mémoires d'Histoire," &c. Du Radier, in his "Récréations Historiques," vol. i. p. 109, has noticed several writers on the subject, and preserves one on the hunting of a man, called Adam, from Ash-Wednesday to Holy-Thursday, and treating him with a good supper at night, peculiar to a town in Saxony. See "Ancillon's Mélange Critique," &c., i. 39, where the passage from Raphael de Volterra is found at length. In my learned friend Mr. Turner's second volume of his "History of England," p. 367, will be found a copious and a curious note on this subject.

Thiers. Traite des Jeux, p. 449. The fête Dieu in this city of Aix, established by the famous Rene d'Anjou, the Troubadour king, was re markable for the absurd mixture of the sacred and profane. There is a curious little volume devoted to an explanation of those grotesque ceremonies, with engravings. It was printed at Aix in 1777.

The custom is now abolished.

Selden's "Table Talk."

It may save the trouble of a reference to give here a condensation of Stubbes' narrative. He says that the Lord of Misrule, on being selected takes twenty to sixty others "lyke hymself" to act as his guard, who are decorated with ribbons, scarfs, and bells on their legs. "Thus, all things set in order, they have their hobby-horses, their dragons, and other antiques, together with their gaudie pipers, and thunderyng drummers, to strike up the devill's dance withal." So they march to the church, invading it, even though service be performing, "with such a confused noyse that no man can heare his own voice." Then they adjourn to the churchyard, where booths are set up, and the rest of the day spent in dancing and drinking. The followers of "My Lord" go about to collect money for this, giving in return "badges and cognizances" to wear in the hat; and do not scruple to insult, or even "duck," such as will not contribute. But, adds Stubbes, "another sort of fantasticall fooles" are well pleased to bring all sorts of food and drink to furnish out the feast.

A rare quarto tract seems to give an authentic narrative of one of these grand Christmas keepings, exhibiting all their whimsicality and burlesque humour: it is entitled "Gesta Grayorum; or the History of the high and mighty Prince Henry, Prince of Purpoole, Arch-duke of Stapulia and Bernardia (Staple's and Bernard's Inns), Duke of High and Nether-Holborn, Marquess of St. Giles and Tottenham, Count Palatine of Bloomsbury and Clerkenwell, Great Lord of the Cantons of Islington, Kentish Town, &c., Knight and Sovereign of the most heroical Order of the Helmet, who reigned and died A.D. 1594." It is full of burlesque speeches and addresses. As it was printed in 1688, I suppose it was from some manuscript of the times; the preface gives no information. Hone, in his "Year-Book," has reprinted this tract, which abounds with curious details of the mock-dignity assumed by this pseudo-potentate, who was ultimately invited, with all his followers, to the court of Queen Elizabeth, and treated by her as nobly as if he had been a real sovereign.

On the last Revels held, see Gent. Mag. 1774, p. 273.

Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixote, by Edmund Gayton, Esq., folio, 1654, p. 24.

The universities indulged in similar festivities. An account of the Christmas Prince, elected by the University of Oxford in 1607, was published in 1816, from a manuscript preserved in St. John's College, where his court was held. His rule commenced by the issuing of, "an act for taxes and subsidies" toward the defrayment of expenses, and the appointment of a staff of officers. After this the revels opened with a banquet and a play. The whole of his brief reign was conducted in "right royal" style. His mandates were constructed in the manner of a king; he was entitled "Prince of Alba Fortunata, Lord of St. John's, Duke of St. Giles', Marquess of Magdalen's," &c. &c.; and his affairs were similarly dignified with burlesque honours. "His privy chamber was provided and furnished with a chair of state placed upon a carpet, with a cloth of state hang'd over it, newly made for the same purpose." At banquetings and all public occasions he was attended by his whole court. The whole of the sports occupied from the 21st of December until Shrove Tuesday, when the entertainments closed with a play, being one of eight performed at stated times during the festivities, which were paid for by the contributions of the collegians and heads of the house.

Foote's amusing farce has immortalised this popular piece of folly; but those who desire to know more of the peculiarities and eccentricities of the election, will find an excellent account in Hone's "Every-Day Book," vol. ii., with some engravings illustrative of the same, drawn by an artist who attended the great mock election of 1781.

Their "brevets," &c., are collected in a little volume, "Recueil des Pièces du Regiment de la Calotte; à Paris, chez Jaques Colombat, Imprimeur privilégié du Regiment. L'an de l'Ere Calotine 7726." From the date, we infer that the true calotine is as old as the creation.

The lady is buried at Hollingbourne, near Maidstone, Kent. The monument in Westminster Abbey is merely "in memoriam." She died 1697.

Was this thought, that strikes with a sudden effect, in the mind of Hawkesworth, when he so pathetically concluded his last paper?

The first edition was "printed for W. Taylor, at the Ship, in Paternoster Row," as an octavo volume, in the early part of the year 1719. The title runs thus:—"The Life, and strange surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner," and has a full-length picture of Crusoe, as a frontispiece, "Clarke and Pine, sc."; which is the type of all future representations of the hero, who is depicted in his skin-dress upon the desolate island. It is a very wretched work of art; the hook was brought out in a common manner, like all De Foe's works.

Eccl. Hist., book vii. p. 399.

Collier's "Annals of the Stage," i. 144.

Bale's play, God's Promises, and that called New Custome, reprinted in the first volume of Dodsley's collection, are examples of the great license these dramatists allowed themselves.

It has been preserved by Hawkins in his "Origin of the English Drama," vol. i.

Macrobius, Saturn., lib. iii. 1, 14.

Several of them have been reprinted by the Shakespeare Society since the above was written. Particularly the work of Gosson here alluded to.

The "Historica Histrionica" notes Stephen Hammerton as "a most noted and beautiful woman-actor," in the early part of the seventeenth century. Alexander Goffe, "the woman-actor at Blackfriars," is also mentioned as acting privately "in Oliver's time."

One actor, William Kynaston, continued to perform female characters in the reign of Charles II., and his performances were praised by Dryden, and preferred by many to that of the ladies themselves. He was so great a favourite with the fair sex, that the court ladies used to take him in their coaches for an airing in Hyde Park.

Ben Jonson was one of their hardest enemies; and his Zeal-of-the-Land-busy, Justice Over-doo, and Dame Pure-craft, have never been surpassed in masterly delineation of puritanic cant. The dramatists of that era certainly did their best to curb Puritanism by exposure.

The title of this collection is "THE WITS, or Sport upon Sport, in select pieces of Drollery, digested into scenes by way of Dialogue. Together with variety of Humours of several nations, fitted for the pleasure and content of all persons, either in Court, City, Country, or Camp. The like never before published. Printed for H. Marsh, 1662:" again printed for F. Kirkman, 1672. To Kirkman's edition is prefixed a curious print representing the inside of a Bartholomew-fair theatre (by some supposed to be the Red Bull Theatre in Clerkenwell). Several characters are introduced. In the middle of the stage, a figure peeps out of the curtain; on a label from his mouth is written "Tu quoque," it represents Bubble, a silly person in a comedy, played so excellently by an actor named Green, that it was called "Green's Tu-quoque." Then a changeling and a simpleton, from plays by Cox; a French dancing-master, from the Duke of Newcastle's "Variety;" Clause, from Beaumont and Fletcher's "Beggar's Bush;" and Sir John Falstaff and hostess. Our notion of Falstaff by this print seems very different from that of our ancestors: their Falstaff is in extravaganza of obesity, not requiring so much "stuffing" as ours does.

PYM was then at the head of the Commons, and was usually deputed to address personally the motley petitioners. We have a curious speech he made to the tradesmen's wives in Echard's "History of England," vol. ii. 290.

Prynne's tract entitled "Health's Sicknesse" is full of curious allusions to the drinking-customs of the era of Charles the First. His paradoxical title alludes to the sickness that results from too freely drinking "healths."

Camden's "History of Queen Elizabeth," Book III. Many statutes against drunkenness, by way of prevention, passed in the reign of James the First. Our law looks on this vice as an aggravation of any offence committed, not as an excuse for criminal misbehaviour. See "Blackstone," book iv. c. 2, sec. 3. In Mr. Gifford's "Massinger," vol. ii. 458, is a note to show that when we were young scholars, we soon equalled, if we did not surpass, our masters. Mr. Gilchrist there furnishes an extract from Sir Richard Baker's Chronicle, which traces the origin of this exotic custom to the source mentioned; but the whole passage from Baker is literally transcribed from Camden.

Nash's "Pierce Pennilesse," 1595, sig. F 2.

These barbarous phrases are Dutch, Danish, or German. The term skinker, a filler of wine, a butler or cup-bearer, according to Phillips; and in taverns, as appears by our dramatic poets, a drawer, is Dutch, or, according to Dr. Nott, purely Danish, from skenker.

Half-seas over, or nearly drunk, is likely to have been a proverbial phrase from the Dutch, applied to that state of ebriety by an idea familiar with those water-rats. Thus op-zee, Dutch, means literally over-sea. Mr. Gifford has recently told us in his "Jonson," that it was a name given to a stupifying beer introduced into England from the Low Countries; hence op-zee, or over-sea; and freezen in German, signifies to swallow greedily: from this vile alliance they compounded a harsh term, often used in our old plays. Thus Jonson:

I do not like the dulness of your eye,
It hath a heavy cast, 'tis upsee Dutch.
Alchemist, A. iv. S. 2.

And Fletcher has "upse-freeze;" which Dr. Nott explains in his edition of Decker's "Gull's Hornbook," as "a tipsy draught, or swallowing liquor till drunk." Mr. Gifford says it was the name of Friesland beer; the meaning, however, was "to drink swinishly like a Dutchman."

We are indebted to the Danes for many of our terms of jollity, such as a rouse and a carouse. Mr. Gifford has given not only a new but very distinct explanation of these classical terms in his "Massinger." "A rouse was a large glass, in which a health was given, the drinking of which by the rest of the company formed a carouse. Barnaby Rich notices the carouse as an invention for which the first founder merited hanging. It is necessary to add, that there could be no rouse or carouse, unless the glasses were emptied." Although we have lost the terms, we have not lost the practice, as those who have the honour of dining in public parties are still gratified by the animating cry of "Gentlemen, charge your glasses."

According to Blount's "Glossographia," carouse is a corruption of two old German words, gar signifying all, and ausz, out; so that to drink garauz is to drink all out: hence carouse.

"Pierce Pennilesse," sig. F 2, 1595.

When Christian IV. of Denmark was at the court of our James I. on a visit, drinking appears to have been carried to an excess; there is extant an account of a court masque, in which the actors were too tipsy to continue their parts; luckily, their majesties were not sufficiently sober to find fault.

These inventions for keeping every thirsty soul within bounds are alluded to by Tom Nash; I do not know that his authority will be great as an antiquary, but the things themselves he describes he had seen. He tells us, that "King Edgar, because his subjects should not offend in swilling and bibbing as they did, caused certain iron cups to be chained to every fountain and well-side, and at every vintner's door, with iron pins in them, to stint every man how much he should drink; and he who went beyond one of those pins forfeited a penny for every draught."

Pegge, in his "Anonymiana," has minutely described these peg-tankards, which confirms this account of Nash, and nearly the antiquity of the custom. "They have in the inside a row of eight pins one above another, from top to bottom; the tankard holds two quarts, so that there is a gill of ale, i.e., half a pint of Winchester measure between each pin. The first person that drank was to empty the tankard to the first peg or pin; the second was to empty to the next pin, &c.; by which means the pins were so many measures to the compotators, making them all drink alike, or the same quantity: and as the distance of the pins was such as to contain a large draught of liquor, the company would be very liable by this method to get drunk, especially when, if they drank short of the pin or beyond it, they were obliged to drink again. In Archbishop Anselm's Canons, made in the council at London in 1102, priests are enjoined not to go to drinking-bouts, nor to drink to pegs. The words are—"Ut Presbyteri non, eant ad potationes, nec AD PINNAS bibant." (Wilkins, vol. i. p. 388.) This shows the antiquity of this invention, which at least was as old as the Conquest.

And yet a drawer-on too; i.e. an incitement to appetite: the phrase is yet in use. This drawer-on was also technically termed a puller-on and a shoeing-horn in drink.

On "the Italian delicate oil'd mushrooms," still a favourite dish with the Italians, I have to communicate some curious knowledge. In an original manuscript letter dated Hereford, 15th November 1659, the name of the writer wanting, but evidently the composition of a physician who had travelled, I find that the dressing of MUSHROOMS was then a novelty. The learned writer laments his error that he "disdained to learn the cookery that occurred in my travels, by a sullen principle of mistaken devotion, and thus declined the great helps I had to enlarge and improve human diet." This was an age of medicine, when it was imagined that the health of mankind essentially depended on diet; and Moffet had written his curious book on this principle. Our writer, in noticing the passion of the Romans for mushrooms, which was called "an Imperial dish," says, "he had eaten it often at Sir Henry Wotton's table (our resident ambassador at Venice), always dressed by the inspection of his Dutch-Venetian Johanna, or of Nic. Oudart, and truly it did deserve the old applause as I found it at his table; it was far beyond our English food. Neither did any of us find it of hard digestion, for we did not eat like Adamites, but as modest men would eat of musk-melons. If it were now lawful to hold any kind of intelligence with Nic. Oudart, I would only ask him Sir Henry Wotton's art of dressing mushrooms, and I hope that is not high treason,"—Sloane MSS. 4292.

See Mr. Douce's curious "Illustrations of Shakspeare," vol. i. 457; a gentleman more intimately conversant with our ancient and domestic manners than, perhaps, any single individual in the country.

This term is used in Bancroft's "Two Books of Epigrams and Epitaphs," 1639. I take it to have been an accepted one of that day.

"A delicate Diet for daintie mouthed Dronkardes, wherin the fowle Abuse of common carowsing and quaffing with hartie Draughtes is honestlie admonished." By George Gascoigne, Esquier. 1576.

I shall preserve the story in the words of Whitelocke; it was something ludicrous, as well as terrific.

"From Berkshire (in May, 1650) that five drunkards agreed to drink the king's health in their blood, and that each of them should cut off a piece of his buttock, and fry it upon the gridiron, which was done by four of them, of whom one did bleed so exceedingly, that they were fain to send for a chirurgeon, and so were discovered. The wife of one of them hearing that her husband was amongst them, came to the room, and taking up a pair of tongs laid about her, and so saved the cutting of her husband's flesh."—Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 453, second edition.

Burnet's Life of Sir Matthew Hale.

Calamities of Authors, vol. ii. p. 313.

It first appeared in a review of his "Memoirs."

The words are, "Une derrière la scène." I am not sure of the-meaning, but an Act behind the scenes would be perfectly in character with this dramatic bard.

The exact reasoning of Sir Fretful, in the Critic, when Mrs. Dangle thought his piece "rather too long," while he proves his play was "a remarkably short play."—"The first evening you can spare me three hours and a half, I'll undertake to read you the whole, from beginning to end, with the prologue and epilogue, and allow time for the music between the acts. The watch here, you know, is the critic."

Again, Sir Fretful; when Dangle "ventures to suggest that the interest rather falls off in the fifth act;"—"Rises, I believe you mean, sir."—No, I don't, upon my word."—"Yes, yes, you do, upon my soul; it certainly don't fall off; no, no, it don't fall off."

See ante. vol. i. p. 71.

The plates of the original edition are in the quarto form; they have been poorly reduced in the common editions in twelves.

The establishment could originally accommodate no more than six lunatics. In 1644, the number had only increased to forty-four; and the building had nearly perished for want of funds, when the city raised a subscription and repaired it. After the great fire, it was re-established on a much larger scale in Moorfields.

Stowe's "Survey of London," Book i.

"The Academy of Armory," Book ii. c. 3, p. 161. This is a singular work, where the writer has contrived to turn the barren subjects of heraldry into an entertaining Encyclopædia, containing much curious knowledge on almost every subject; but this folio more particularly exhibits the most copious vocabulary of old English terms. It has been said that there are not more than twelve copies extant of this very rare work, which is probably not true. [It is certainly not correct; the work is, however, rare and valuable.]

In that curious source of our domestic history, the "English Villanies" of Decker, we find a lively description of the "Abram cove," or Abram man, the impostor who personated a Tom o' Bedlam. He was terribly disguised with his grotesque rags, his staff, his knotted hair, and with the more disgusting contrivances to excite pity, still practised among a class of our mendicants, who, in their cant language, are still said "to sham Abraham." This impostor was, therefore, as suited his purpose and the place, capable of working on the sympathy, by uttering a silly maunding, or demanding of charity, or terrifying the easy fears of women, children, and domestics, as he wandered up and down the country: they refused nothing to a being who was as terrific to them as "Robin Good-fellow," or "Raw-head and Bloody-bones." Thus, as Edgar expresses it, "sometimes with lunatic bans, sometimes with prayers," the gestures of this impostor were "a counterfeit puppet-play: they came with a hollow noise, whooping, leaping, gambolling, wildly dancing, with a fierce or distracted look." These sturdy mendicants were called "Tom of Bedlam's band of mad-caps," or "Poor Tom's flock of wild geese." Decker has preserved their "Maund," or begging—"Good worship master, bestow your reward on a poor man that hath been in Bedlam without Bishopsgate, three years, four months, and nine days, and bestow one piece of small silver towards his fees, which he is indebted there, of 3l. 13s. 7½d." (or to such effect).

Or, "Now dame, well and wisely, what will you give poor Tom? One pound of your sheep's-feathers to make poor Tom a blanket? or one cutting of your sow's side, no bigger than my arm; or one piece of your salt meat to make poor Tom a sharing-horn; or one cross of your small silver, towards a pair of shoes; well and wisely, give poor Tom an old sheet to keep him from the cold; or an old doublet and jerkin of my master's; well and wisely, God save the king and his council." Such is a history drawn from the very archives of mendicity and imposture; and written perhaps as far back as the reign of James the First: but which prevailed in that of Elizabeth, as Shakspeare has so finely shown in his Edgar. This Maund, and these assumed manners and costume, I should not have preserved from their utter penury, but such was the rude material which Shakspeare has worked up into that most fanciful and richest vein of native poetry, which pervades the character of the wandering Edgar, tormented by "the foul fiend" when he

—— bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast.

And the poet proceeds with a minute picture of "Bedlam beggars." See Lear, Act ii. Sc. 3.

Aubrey's information is perfectly correct; for those impostors who assumed the character of Tom o' Bedlams for their own nefarious purposes used to have a mark burnt in their arms, which they showed as the mark of Bedlam. "The English Villanies" of Decker, c 17. 1648.

I discovered the present in a very scarce collection, entitled "Wit and Drollery," 1661; an edition, however, which is not the earliest of this once fashionable miscellany.

Harman, in his curious "Caveat, a warning for Common Cursitors, vulgarly called Vagabones," 1566, describes the "Abraham Man" as a pretended lunatic, who wandered the country over, soliciting food or charity at farm-houses, or frightening and bullying the peasantry for the same. They described themselves as cruelly treated in Bedlam, and nearly in the words of Shakspeare's Edgar.

Dr. James, the translator of "Pauli's Treatise on Tea," 1746, says: "According to the Chinese, tea produces an appetite after hunger and thirst are satisfied; therefore, the drinking of it is to be abstained from." He concludes his treatise by saying: "As Hippocrates spared no pains to remove and root out the Athenian plague, so have I used the utmost of my endeavours to destroy the raging epidemical madness of importing tea into Europe from China."

Edinburgh Review, 1816, p. 117.

Modern collectors have gone beyond this, and exhibited "Elizabethan tea-pots," which are just as likely to be true. There is no clear proof of the use of tea in England before the middle of the seventeenth century. This ante-dating of curiosities is the weakness of collectors.

Aubrey, speaking of this house, then in other hands, says that Bowman's Coffee-house in St. Michael's Alley, established 1652, was the first opened in London. About four years afterwards, James Farr, a barber, opened another in Fleet-street, by the Inner Temple gate. Hatton, in his "New View of London," 1708, says it is "now the Rainbow," and he narrates how Farr "was presented by the Inquest of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, for making and selling a sort of liquor called coffee, as a great nuisance and prejudice to the neighbourhood." The words of the presentment are, that "in making the same he annoyeth his neighbours by evill smells." Hatton adds, with naïveté, "Who would then have thought London would ever have had near 3000 such nuisances, and that coffee would have been (as now) so much drank by the best of quality and physicians." It is, however, proper to note that coffee-houses had been opened in Oxford at an earlier date. Anthony Wood informs us that one Jacob, a Jew, opened a coffee-house in the parish of St. Peter-in-the-East, at Oxford, as early as 1650.

This witty poet was not without a degree of prescience; the luxury of eating spiders has never indeed become "modish," but Mons. Lalande, the French astronomer, and one or two humble imitators of the modern philosopher, have shown this triumph over vulgar prejudices, and were epicures of this stamp.

"Not only tea, which we have from the East, but also chocolate, which is imported from the West Indies, begins to be famous."—Dr. James's "Treatise on Tobacco, Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate." 1746.

Gerbier was in Antwerp at Rubens' death, and sent over an inventory of his pictures and effects for the king's selection.

Sloane MSS. 5176, letter 367.

See Gregorio Panzani's Memoirs of his agency in England. This work long lay in manuscript, and was only known to us in the Catholic Dodd's "Church History," by partial extracts. It was at length translated from the Italian MS. and published by the Rev. Joseph Berington; a curious piece of our own secret history.

Hume's "History of England," vii. 842. His authority is the "Parl. Hist." xix. 88.

Whitelocke's "Memorials."

Harl. MSS. 4898.

One of these pictures, "A Concert," is now in our National Gallery.

They were secured by Cromwell, who had intended to reproduce the designs at the tapestry-factory established in Mortlake, but the troubles of the kingdom hindered it. Charles II. very nearly sold them to France; Lord Danby intercepted the sale; when they were packed away in boxes, until the time of William III., who built the gallery at Hampton Court expressly for their exhibition.

This picture is now one of the ornaments of Windsor Castle.

These would appear to be copies of Andrea Mantegna's "Triumphs of Julius Cæsar," the cartoons of which are still in the galleries of Hampton Court.

Some may be curious to learn the price of gold and silver about 1650. It appears by this manuscript inventory that the silver sold at 4s. 11d. per oz. and gold at £3 10s.; so that the value of these metals has little varied during the last century and a half.

This poem is omitted in the great edition of the king's works, published after the Restoration; and was given by Burnet from a manuscript of his "Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton;" but it had been previously published in Perrenchief's "Life of Charles the First." It has been suspected that this poem is a pious fraud, and put forth in the king's name—as likewise was the "Eikon Basilike." One point I have since ascertained is, that Charles did write verses, as rugged as some of these. And in respect to the book, notwithstanding the artifice and the interpolations of Gauden, I believe that there are some passages which Charles only could have written.

This article was composed without any recollection that a part of the subject had been anticipated by Lord Orford. In the "Anecdotes of Painting in England," many curious particulars are noticed: the story of the king's diamond seal had reached his lordship, and Vertue had a mutilated transcript of the inventory of the king's pictures, &c., discovered in Moorfields; for, among others, more than thirty pages at the beginning relating to the plate and jewels were missing. The manuscript in the Harleian Collection is perfect. Lord Orford has also given an interesting anecdote to show the king's discernment in the knowledge of the hands of the painters, which confirms the little anecdote I have related from the Farrars. But for a more intimate knowledge of this monarch's intercourse with artists, I beg to refer to the third volume of my "Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles the First," chapter the sixth, on "The Private Life of Charles the First.—Love of the Arts."

Hume, vol. vi. p. 234. Charles seems, however, to have constantly consulted his favourite minister, the Duke of Buckingham, on the subject, though his letters express clearly his own determination. In Harleian MSS., 6988, is a letter written to Buckingham, dated Hampton Court, 20th November, 1625, he declares, "I thought I would have cause enough in short time to put away the Monsieurs," from the quarrels they would ferment between himself and his wife, or his subjects, and begs of him to acquaint "the queen-mother (Mary de Medicis) with my intention; for this being an action that may have a show of harshness, I thought it was fit to take this way, that she to whom I have had many obligations may not take it unkindly." In another long letter, preserved among the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library, he enters minutely into his domestic grievances—"What unkindnesses and distastes have fallen between my wife and me"—which he attributes to the "crafty counsels" of her servants. On 7th August, 1626, he writes a final letter to the duke, ordering him to send them all away, "if you can by fair means (but stick not long in disputing), otherwise force them away, driving them away like so many wild beasts, until ye have shipped them, and so the devil go with them."

Lord Hardwicke's State-papers, II. 2, 3.

Sloane MSS. 4176.

Harl. MSS. 646.

Ambassades du Maréchal de Bassompierre, vol. iii. p. 49.

A letter from Dr. Meddus to Mr. Mead, 17th Jan. 1625. Sloane MSS. 4177.

Sir S. D'Ewes's "Journal of his Life," Harl. MS. 646. We have seen our puritanic antiquary describing the person of the queen with some warmth; but "he could not abstain from deep-fetched sighs, to consider that she wanted the knowledge of true religion," a circumstance that Henrietta would have as zealously regretted for Sir Symonds himself!

A letter to Mr. Mead, July 1, 1625. Sloane MSS. 4177.

At Hampton Court there is a curious picture of Charles and Henrietta dining in the presence. This regal honour, after its interruption during the Civil Wars, was revived in 1667 by Charles the Second, as appears by "Evelyn's Diary." "Now did his majesty again dine in the presence, in ancient style, with music and all the court ceremonies."

The author of the Life of this Archbishop and Lord Keeper, a voluminous folio, but full of curious matters. Ambrose Phillips the poet abridged it.

A letter from Mr. Mead to Sir Martin Stuteville, October, 1625. Sloane MSS. 4177.

There is a very rare print, which has commemorated this circumstance.

Mr. Pory to Mr. Mead, July, 1626. Harl. MSS. No. 383. The answer of the king's council to the complaints of Bassompierre is both copious and detailed in vol. iii., p. 166, of the "Ambassades" of this marshal.

A letter from Mr. Pory to Mr. Mead contains a full account of this transaction. Harl. MSS. 383.

A letter among Tanner's MS. in the Bodleian Library notes—"When they were turned away from Somerset House the passage was somewhat rough;" and adds, "I know not what revilings took place betwixt them and the king's guard, but one of the soldiers told me that for furious speech, he would rather have taken common thieves to prison." A stanza of a popular song of the day testifies to the joy of the Commons of England on the event:—

Harke! I'll tell you news from court;
Marke, these things will make you good sport.
All the French that lately did prance
There, up and downe in bravery,
Now are all sent back to France,
King Charles hath smelt some knavery.

A letter from the Earl of Dorchester, 27th May, 1630. Harl. MSS. 7000 (160).

The letters he sent to Buckingham are full of tender respect for the queen, lamenting her (certainly unwarrantable) neglect of reciprocity of attention, and silly squabbles in favour of her servants.

Clarendon details the political coquetries of Monsieur La Ferté; his "notable familiarity with those who governed most in the two houses;" ii. 93.

Hume seems to have discovered in "Estrades' Memoirs" the real occasion of Richelieu's conduct. In 1639 the French and Dutch proposed dividing the Low Country provinces; England was to stand neuter. Charles replied to D'Estrades, that his army and fleet should instantly sail to prevent these projected conquests. From that moment the intolerant ambition of Richelieu swelled the venom of his heart, and he eagerly seized on the first opportunity of supplying the Covenanters in Scotland with arms and money. Hume observes, that Charles here expressed his mind with an imprudent candour; but it proves he had acquired a just idea of national interest, vi. 337. See on this a very curious passage in the Catholic Dodd's "Church History," iii. 22. He apologises for his cardinal by asserting that the same line of policy was pursued here in England "by Charles I. himself, who sent fleets and armies to assist the Huguenots, or French rebels, as he calls them; and that this was the constant practice of Queen Elizabeth's ministry, to foment differences in several neighbouring kingdoms, and support their rebellious subjects, as the forces she employed for that purpose both in France, Flanders, and Scotland, are an undeniable proof." The recriminations of politicians are the confessions of great sinners.

"Grotii Epistolæ," 375 and 380, fo. Ams. 1687. A volume which contains 2500 letters of this great man.

"La Vie du Cardinal Duc de Richelieu," anonymous, but written by Jean le Clerc, vol. i. 507. An impartial but heavy life of a great minister, of whom, between the panegyrics of his flatterers and the satires of his enemies, it was difficult to discover a just medium.

Mem. Rec. vol. vi. 131.

It is quoted in the "Remarques Critiques sur le Dictionnaire de Bayle," Paris, 1748. This anonymous folio volume was written by Le Sieur Joly, a canon of Dijon, and is full of curious researches, and many authentic discoveries. The writer is no philosopher, but he corrects and adds to the knowledge of Bayle. Here I found some original anecdotes of Hobbes, from MS. sources, during that philosopher's residence at Paris, which I have given in "Quarrels of Authors."

Montresor, attached to the Duke of Orleans, has left us some very curious memoirs, in two small volumes; the second preserving many historical documents of that active period. This spirited writer has not hesitated to detail his projects for the assassination of the tyrannical minister.

At page 154 of this work is a different view of the character of this extraordinary man: those anecdotes are of a lighter and satirical nature; they touch on "the follies of the wise."

In "The Disparity." to accompany "The Parallel" of Sir Henry Wotton; two exquisite cabinet-pictures, preserved in the Reliquiæ Wottonianæ; and at least equal to the finest "Parallels" of Plutarch.

The singular openness of his character was not statesmanlike. He was one of those whose ungovernable sincerity "cannot put all their passions in their pockets." He told the Count-Duke Olivarez, on quitting Spain, that "he would always cement the friendship between the two nations; but with regard to you, sir, in particular, you must not consider me as your friend, but must ever expect from me all possible enmity and opposition." The cardinal was willing enough, says Hume, "to accept what was proffered, and on these terms the favourites parted." Buckingham, desirous of accommodating the parties in the nation, once tried at the favour of the puritanic party, whose head was Dr. Preston, master of Emanuel College. The duke was his generous patron, and Dr. Preston his most servile adulator. The more zealous puritans were offended at this intimacy; and Dr. Preston, in a letter to some of his party, observed that it was true that the duke was a vile and profligate fellow, but that there was no other way to come at him but by the lowest flattery; that it was necessary for the glory of God that such instruments should be made use of; and more in this strain. Some officious hand conveyed this letter to the duke, who, when Dr. Preston came one morning as usual, asked him whether he had ever disobliged him, that he should describe him to his party in such black characters. The doctor, amazed, denied the fact; on which the duke instantly produced the letter, then turned from him, never to see him more. It is said that from this moment he abandoned the puritan party, and attached himself to Laud. This story was told by Thomas Baker to W. Wotton, as coming from one well versed in the secret history of that time.—Lansdowne MSS. 872, fo. 88.

A well-known tract against the Duke of Buckingham, by Dr. George Eglisham, physician to James the First, entitled "The Forerunner of Revenge," may be found in many of our collections. Gerbier, in his manuscript memoirs, gives a curious account of this political libeller, the model of that class of desperate scribblers. "The falseness of his libels," says Gerbier, "he hath since acknowledged, though too late. During my residence at Bruxelles, this Eglisham desired Sir William Chaloner, who then was at Liege, to bear a letter to me, which is still extant: he proposed, if the king would pardon and receive him into favour again, with some competent subsistence, that he would recant all that he had said or written to the disadvantage of any in the court of England, confessing that he had been urged thereunto by some combustious spirits, that for their malicious designs had set him on work." Buckingham would never notice these and similar libels. Eglisham flew to Holland after he had deposited his political venom in his native country, and found a fate which every villanous factionist who offers to recant for "a competent subsistence" does not always; he was found dead, assassinated in his walks by a companion. Yet this political libel, with many like it, are still authorities. "George Duke of Buckingham," says Oldys, "will not speedily outstrip Dr. Eglisham's 'Forerunner of Revenge.'"

The misery of prime ministers and favourites is a portion of their fate which has not always been noticed by their biographers; one must be conversant with secret history to discover the thorn in their pillow. Who could have imagined that Buckingham, possessing the entire affections of his sovereign, during his absence had reason to fear being supplanted? When his confidential secretary, Dr. Mason, slept in the same chamber with the duke, he would give way at night to those suppressed passions which his unaltered countenance concealed by day. In the absence of all other ears and eyes he would break out into the most querulous and impassioned language, declaring that "never his despatches to divers princes, nor the great business of a fleet, of an army, of a siege, of a treaty, of war and peace both on foot together, and all of them in his head at a time, did not so much break his repose as the idea that some at home under his majesty, of whom he had well deserved, were now content to forget him." So short-lived is the gratitude observed to an absent favourite, who is most likely to fall by the creatures his own hands have made.

Sloane MSS. 4181.

Gerbier gives a curious specimen of Grondomar's pleasant sort of impudence. When James expressed himself with great warmth on the Spaniards, under Spinola, taking the first town in the Palatinate, under the eyes of our ambassador, Gondomar, with Cervantic humour, attempted to give a new turn to the discussion, for he wished that Spinola had taken the whole Palatinate at once, for "then the generosity of my master would be shown in all its lustre, by restoring it all again to the English ambassador, who had witnessed the whole operations." James, however, at this moment was no longer pleased with the inexhaustible humour of his old friend, and set about trying what could be done.

Hacket's Life of Lord Keeper Williams, p. 115, pt. 1, fo.

The narrative furnished by Buckingham, and vouched by the prince to the parliament, agrees in the main with what the duke told Gerbier. It is curious to observe how the narrative seems to have perplexed Hume, who, from some preconceived system, condemns Buckingham "for the falsity of this long narrative, as calculated entirely to mislead the parliament." He has, however, in the note [T] of this very volume, sufficiently marked the difficulties which hung about the opinion he has given in the text. The curious may find the narrative in Frankland's Annals, p. 89, and in Rushworth's Hist. Col. I. 119. It has many entertaining particulars.

Letter from J. Mead to Sir M. Stuteville, June 5, 1628. Harl. MSS. 7000.

Memoirs of James II. vol. ii. p. 163.

This was afterwards reduced to the sum of 1500 marks, and was collected by an assessment and fine. The old account-books of the City companies afford many items of the monies thus paid to the general fund. The Carpenters' Company, for instance, have this entry in their books: "Paid in January, 1632, for an assessment imposed on our Companie, by reason of the death of Dr. Lambe ... V. li."

Rushworth has preserved a burthen of one of these songs:—

Let Charles and George do what they can,
The duke shall die like Doctor Lambe.

And on the assassination of the Duke, I find two lines in a MS. letter.—

The shepherd's struck, the sheep are fled!
For want of Lambe the wolf is dead!

There is a scarce tract entitled "A brief Description of the notorious Life of John Lambe, otherwise called Dr. Lambe," with a curious wood print of the mob pelting him in the street.

A series of these poems and songs, all remarkable for the strength of their expressions against Buckingham, were edited by F.W. Fairholt, F.S.A., for the Percy Society, and published by them in 1850. Here is a specimen from Sloane MS. No. 826.

Of British beasts the Buck is king,
His game and fame through Europe ring,
His home exalted keepes in awe
The lesser flocks; his will's a law.
Our Charlemaine takes much delight
In this great beast so fair in sight,
With his whole heart affects the same,
And loves too well Buck-King of Game.
When he is chased, then 'gins the sport;
When nigh his end, who's sorry for't?
And when he falls the hunter's glad,
The hounds are flesh'd, and few are sadd!

In the notes to a previous article on Buckingham in Vol. I. will be found an account of his offices and emoluments. An epitaph made after his murder thus expresses the popular sense of his position:—

This little grave embraces
One Duke and twenty places.

There is a picture of Buckingham, mounted on a charger by the sea-shore, crowded with Tritons, &c. As it reflects none of the graces or beauty of the original, and seems the work of some wretched apprentice of Rubens (perhaps Gerbier himself), these contradictory accompaniments increased the suspicion that the picture could not be the duke's: it was not recollected generally, that the favourite was both admiral and general; and that the duke was at once Neptune and Mars, ruling both sea and land.

This machine seems noticed in Le Mercure François, 2627, p. 803.

Gerbier, a foreigner, scarcely ever writes an English name correctly, while his orthography is not always intelligible. He means here Lady Davies, an extraordinary character and supposed prophetess. This Cassandra hit the time in her dark predictions, and was more persuaded than ever that she was a prophetess! See a remarkable anecdote of her in a preceding article, "Of Anagrams."

The correct title is "The copie of his Grace's most excellent Rotomontados, sent by his servant the Lord Grimes, in answer to the Lower House of Parliament, 1628." It is preserved in the Sloane MS. No. 826 (British Museum), and begins thus:—

Avaunt you giddy-headed multitude
And do your worst of spite; I never sued
To gain your votes, though well I know your ends
To ruin me, my fortune, and my friends.

The duke was buried among the royal personages in Henry the Seventh's chapel. His heart was placed in a monument erected in Portsmouth church, which, "greatly in contravention of religious decorum, usurped the place of the altar-piece," until a few years since, when it was very properly removed to one of the side aisles.

Sloane MSS. 4178, letter 519.

Harl. MSS. 646.

One of the poems written at the time begins:—

The Duke is dead!—and we are rid of strife
By Felton's hand that took away his life.

Another declares of his assassin:—

He shall sit next to Brutus!

The fine, fixed originally at £2000, was mitigated, and the corporal punishment remitted, at the desire of the Bishop of London.

The MS. letter giving this account observes, that the words concerning his majesty were not read in open court, but only those relating to the duke and Felton.

Clarendon notices that Felton was "of a gentleman's family in Suffolk, of good fortune and reputation." I find that during his confinement, the Earl and Countess of Arundel, and Lord Maltravers, their son, "he being of their blood," says the letter-writer, continually visited him, gave many proofs of their friendship, and brought his "winding-sheet," for to the last they attempted to save him from being hung in chains: they did not succeed.

Rushworth, vol. i. 638.

The original reads "It is for our sins our hearts are hardened."

Lansdowne MSS. No. 203, f. 147. The original paper above described was in the possession of the late William Upcott; he had it from Lady Evelyn, who found it among John Evelyn's papers at Wotton, in Surrey. Evelyn married the daughter of Sir Richard Browne, who had married the only daughter of Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State, and one of the persons before whom Felton was examined at Portsmouth. The words on this remarkable paper differ from the transcripts just given, and are exactly these:—"That man is cowardly, base, and deserveth not the name of a gentleman or souldier, that is not willinge to sacrifice his life for the honor of his God, his Kinge, and his countrie. Lett noe man commend me for doinge of it, but rather discommend themselves as the cause of it, for if God had not taken away our hearts for our sinnes, he would not have gone so longe unpunished."

Harl. MSS. 7000. J. Mead to Sir Matt. Stuteville, Sept. 27, 1628.

The rack, or brake, now in the Tower, was introduced by the Duke of Exeter in the reign of Henry VI., as an auxiliary to his project of establishing the civil law in this country; and in derision it was called his daughter.—Cowel's Interp. voc. Rack.

This remarkable document is preserved by Dalrymple: it is an indorsement in the handwriting of Secretary Winwood, respecting the examination of Peacham—a record whose graduated horrors might have charmed the speculative cruelty of a Domitian or a Nero. "Upon these interrogatories, Peacham this day was examined before torture, in torture, between torture, and after torture; notwithstanding, nothing could be drawn from him, he persisting still in his obstinate and insensible denials and former answer."—Dalrymple's "Memoirs and Letters of James I." p. 58.

Z. Townley, in 1624, made the Latin oration in memory of Camden, reprinted by Dr. Thomas Smith at the end of "Camden's Life."—Wood's "Fasti." I find his name also among the verses addressed to Ben Jonson prefixed to his works.

The allusion here is to Charles Townley, Esq., whose noble collection of antique marbles now enrich our British Museum. He was born 1737, and died January 3, 1805. The collection was purchased by a national grant of 28,200 l.; and a building being expressly erected for them, in connexion with Montague House, then converted into a national museum, was opened to the public in 1808.

This poem has been collated afresh from the original in the Sloane MS. No. 603. It concludes with the four lines forming the duke's epitaph, as printed in p. 369.

He has added in the Life the name of Burlington.

In the Life, Johnson gives Swift's complaint that Pope was never at leisure for conversation, because he had always some poetical scheme in his head.

Johnson, in the Life, has given Watts' opinion of Pope's poetical diction.

Ruffhead's "Life of Pope."

In the Life Johnson says, "Expletives he very early rejected from his verses; but he now and then admits an epithet rather commodious than important. Each of the six first lines of the "Iliad" might lose two syllables with very little diminution of the meaning; and sometimes, after all his art and labour, one verse seems to be made for the sake of another.

He has a few double rhymes, but always, I think, unsuccessfully, except one, in the Rape of the Lock.—"Life of Pope."

Mrs. Thrale, in a note on this passage, mentions the couplet Johnson meant, for she asked him: it is

The meeting points the fatal lock dissever
From the fair head—for ever and for ever.

Lanzi, Storia Pittorica, v. 85.

D'Argenville, Vies des Peintres, ii. 46.

The curious reader of taste may refer to Fuseli's Second Lecture for a diatribe against what he calls "the Electic School; which, by selecting the beauties, correcting the faults, supplying the defects, and avoiding the extremes of the different styles, attempted to form a perfect system." He acknowledges the greatness of the Caracci; yet he laughs at the mere copying the manners of various painters into one picture. But perhaps—I say it with all possible deference—our animated critic forgot for a moment that it was no mechanical imitation the Caracci inculcated: nature and art were to be equally studied, and secondo il nativo talento e la propria sua disposizione. Barry distinguishes with praise and warmth. "Whether," says he, "we may content ourselves with adopting the manly plan of art pursued by the Caracci and their school at Bologna, in uniting the perfections of all the other schools; or whether, which I rather hope, we look farther into the style of design upon our own studies after nature; whichever of these plans the nation might fix on," &c., ii. 518. Thus, three great names, Du Fresnoy, Fuseli, and Barry, restricted their notions of the Caracci plan to a mere imitation of the great masters; but Lanzi, in unfolding Lodovico's project, lays down as his first principle the observation of nature, and, secondly, the imitation of the great masters; and all modified by the natural disposition of the artist.

D'Argenville, Vies des Peintres, ii. 47-68.

Bellori, Le Vite de Pittori, &c.

Passeri, Vite de Pittori.

D'Argenville, ii. 26.

Fuseli describes the gallery of the Farnese palace as a work of uniform vigour of execution, which nothing can equal but its imbecility and incongruity of conception. This deficiency in Annibale was always readily supplied by the taste and learning of Agostino; the vigour of Annibale was deficient both in sensibility and correct invention.

Long after this article was composed, the Royal Society of Literature was projected. It was founded by King George IV., and is said to have originated in a conversation between Dr. Burgess, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and a member of the royal household, who reported its substance to the king. The bishop was again sent for, and the formation of the society commenced by the offer of premiums for an essay on Homer, the prize being one hundred guineas; a poem on Dartmoor, prize fifty guineas (awarded to Mrs. Hemans); and one of twenty-five guineas, for an essay on the Ancient and Modern Languages of Greece. In 1823 the king granted the society a charter, and placed the annual sum of eleven hundred guineas at its disposal, to be spent in endowing ten associates for life, who were to receive one hundred guineas each yearly (as a delicate mode of aiding needy literary men); the remaining one hundred guineas to be expended on two gold medals, to be also awarded to eminent men of letters. Coleridge, Dr. Jameson, Malthus, Roscoe, Todd, and Sharon Turner received annuities among other well-known literary characters; and Mitford, Southey, Scott, Crabbe, Hallam, and Washington Irving received medals. On the death of George IV., the grant was discontinued, and the society now exists by the subscriptions of its members.

See an article "On the ridiculous titles assumed by the Italian Academies," in a future page of this volume.

In J.T. Smith's "Historical and Literary Curiosities" is engraved a fac-simile of a series of designs for the arms of the Royal Society, drawn by Evelyn, but not used, because the king gave them the choice of using the Royal Arms in a canton. The first of Evelyn's designs exhibits a ship in full sail, with the motto Et Augebitur Scientia. The other are as follows:—A hand issuing from the clouds holding a plumb-line—motto, Omnia probate; two telescopes saltier-wise, the earth and planets above—motto, Quantum nescimus; the sun in splendour—motto, Ad majorem lumen; a terrestrial globe, with the human eye above—motto, Rerum cognoscere causas.

Evelyn notes in his Diary, August 20, 1662—"The king gave us the armes of England, to be borne in a canton in our armes; and sent us a mace of silver-gilt, of the same fashion and bigness as those carried before his majestie, to be borne before our president on meeting-days." This mace is still used.

It was revived in 1707, by Wanley, the librarian to the Earl of Oxford, who composed its rules; he was joined by Bagford, Elstob, Holmes (keeper of the Tower records), Maddox, Stukely, and Vertue the engraver. They met at the Devil Tavern, Fleet-street, and afterwards in rooms of their own in Chancery-lane. They ultimately removed to apartments granted them in Somerset House by George III., where they still remain.

It was said of Prynne, and his custom of quoting authorities by hundreds in the margins of his books to corroborate what he said in the text, that "he always had his wits beside him in the margin, to be beside his wits in the text." This jest is Milton's.

Southey says—"A quotation may be likened to a text on which a sermon is preached."

Hone had this faculty in a large degree, and one of his best political satires, the "Political Showman at Home," is entirely made out of quotations from older authors applicable to the real or fancied characteristics of the politicians he satirized.

In MS. Bib. Reg. inter lat. No. 2447, p. 134.

In the recent edition of Dante, by Romanis, in four volumes, quarto, the last preserves the "Vision of Alberico," and a strange correspondence on its publication; the resemblances in numerous passages are pointed out. It is curious to observe that the good Catholic Abbate Cancellieri, at first maintained the authenticity of the Vision, by alleging that similar revelations have not been unusual!—the Cavaliere Gherardi Rossi attacked the whole as the crude legend of a boy who was only made the instrument of the monks, and was either a liar or a parrot! We may express our astonishment that, at the present day, a subject of mere literary inquiry should have been involved with "the faith of the Roman church." Cancellieri becomes at length submissive to the lively attacks of Rossi; and the editor gravely adds his "conclusion," which had nearly concluded nothing! He discovers pictures, sculptures, and a mystery acted, as well as Visions in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, from which he imagines the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso owe their first conception. The originality of Dante, however, is maintained on a right principle; that the poet only employed the ideas and the materials which is found in his own country and his own times.

Michelet, in his "Life of Luther," says the Spanish soldiers mocked and loaded him with insults, on the evening of his last examination before the Diet at Worms, on his leaving the town-hall to return to his hostelry: he ceased to employ arguments after this, and when next day the archbishop of Treves wished to renew them, he replied in the language of Scripture, "If this work be of men, it will come to nought, but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it."

The miracles of Clovis consisted of a shield, which was picked up after having fallen from the skies; the anointing oil, conveyed from heaven by a white dove in a phial, which, till the reign of Louis XVI. consecrated the kings of France; and the oriflamme, or standard with golden flames, long suspended over the tomb of St. Denis, which the French kings only raised over the tomb when their crown was in imminent peril. No future king of France can be anointed with the sainte ampoule, or oil brought down to earth by a white dove; in 1794 it was broken by some profane hand, and antiquaries have since agreed that it was only an ancient lachrymatory!

This fact was probably quite unknown to us, till it was given in the "Quarterly Review," vol. xxix. However, the same event was going on in Italy.

One of the most absurd reports that ever frightened private society was that which prevailed in Paris at the end of the seventeenth century. It was, that the Jesuits used a poisoned snuff which they gave to their opponents, with the fashionable politeness of the day in "offering a pinch;" and which for a time deterred the custom.

It is now about thirty-seven years ago since I first published this anecdote; at the same time I received information that our female historian and dilapidator had acted in this manner more than once. At that distance of time this rumour, so notorious at the British Museum, it was impossible to authenticate. The Rev. William Graham, the surviving husband of Mrs. Macaulay, intemperately called on Dr. Morton, in a very advanced period of life, to declare that "it appeared to him that the note does not contain any evidence that the leaves were torn out by Mrs. Macaulay." It was more apparent to the unprejudiced that the doctor must have singularly lost the use of his memory, when he could not explain his own official note, which, perhaps, at the time he was compelled to insert. Dr. Morton was not unfriendly to Mrs. Macaulay's political party; he was the editor of Whitelocke's "Diary of his Embassy to the Queen of Sweden," and has, I believe, largely castrated the work. The original lies at the British Museum.

There was one passage he recollected:—

Just left my bed
A lifeless trunk, and scarce a dreaming head!

I have seen a transcript, by the favour of a gentleman who sent it to me, of Gray's "Directions for Heading History." It had its merit, at a time when our best histories had not been published, but it is entirely superseded by the admirable "Méthode" of Lenglet du Fresnoy.

Henry Stephen appears first to have started this subject of parody; his researches have been borrowed by the Abbé Sallier, to whom, in my turn, I am occasionally indebted. His little dissertation is in the French Academy's "Mémoires," tome vii. 398.

See a specimen in Aulus Gellius, where this parodist reproaches Plato for having given a high price for a book, whence he drew his noble dialogue of the Timæus. Lib. iii. c. 17.

See Spanheim Les Césars de L'Empéreur Julien in his "Preuves," Remarque 8. Sallier judiciously observes, "Il peut nous donner une juste idée de cette sorte d'ouvrage, mais nous ne savons pas précisement en quel tems il a été composé;" no more truly than the Iliad itself!

The first edition of this play is a solemn parody throughout. In the preface the author defends it from being, as "maliciously" reported, "a burlesque on the loftiest parts of Tragedy, and designed to banish what we generally call fine writing from the stage." When he afterwards quotes parallel passages from popular plays which he has parodied, he does so saying, "whether this sameness of thought and expression which I have quoted from them proceeded from an agreement in their way of thinking, or whether they have borrowed from our author, I leave the reader to determine!"

Les Parodies du Nouveau Théâtre Italien, 4 vols. 1738. Observations sur la Comédie et sur le Génie de Molière, par Louis Riccoboni. Liv. iv.

The Tailors; a Tragedy for Warm Weather, was originally brought out by Foote in 1767. There had been great disturbances between the master tailors and journeymen about wages at this time; and the author has amusingly worked out the disputes and their consequences in the heroic style of a blank verse tragedy.

Beattie on Poetry and Music, p. 111.

I have arranged many facts, connected with the present subject, in the fifth chapter of "The Literary Character," in the enlarged and fourth edition, 1828.

A physician of eminence has told us of the melancholy termination of the life of a gentleman who in a state of mental aberration cut his throat; the loss of blood restored his mind to a healthy condition; but the wound unfortunately proved fatal.

It would be polluting these pages with ribaldry, obscenity, and blasphemy, were I to give specimens of some hymns of the Moravians and the Methodists, and some of the still lower sects.

There is a rare tract, entitled "Singing of Psalmes, vindicated from the charge of Novelty," in answer to Dr. Russell, Mr. Marlow, &c., 1698. It furnishes numerous authorities to show that it was practised by the primitive Christians on almost every occasion. I shall directly quote a remarkable passage.

In the curious tract already referred to, the following quotation is remarkable; the scene the fancy of MAROT pictured to him, had anciently occurred. St. Jerome, in his seventeenth Epistle to Marcellus, thus describes it: "In Christian villages little else is to be heard but Psalms; for which way soever you turn yourself, either you have the ploughman at his plough singing Hallelujahs, the weary brewer refreshing himself with a psalm, or the vine-dresser chanting forth somewhat of David's."

Mr. Douce imagined that this alludes to a common practice at that time among the Puritans of burlesquing the plain chant of the Papists, by adapting vulgar and ludicrous music to psalms and pious compositions.—Illust. of Shakspeare, i. 355. Mr. Douce does not recollect his authority. My idea differs. May we not conjecture that the intention was the same which induced Sternhold to versify the Psalms, to be sung instead of lascivious ballads; and the most popular tunes came afterwards to be adopted, that the singer might practise his favourite one, as we find it occurred in France?

Ed. Philips in his "Satyr against Hypocrites," 1689, alludes to this custom of the pious citizens—

—— Singing with woful noise,
Like a cracked saint's bell jarring in the steeple,
Tom Sternhold's wretched prick-song to the people.

---

Crescembini, at the close of "La bellezza della Volgar Poesia." Roma, 1700.

History of the Middle Ages, ii. 584. See also Mr. Rose's Letters from the North of Italy, vol. i. 204. Mr. Hallam has observed, that "such an institution as the society degli Arcadi could at no time have endured public ridicule in England for a fortnight."

Niceron, vol. xliii., Art. Porta.

See Tiraboschi, vol. vii. cap. 4, Accademie, and Quadrio's Della Storia e della Ragione d'ogni Poesia. In the immense receptacle of these seven quarto volumes, printed with a small type, the curious may consult the voluminous Index, art. Accademia.

Ugo Foscolo was born in Padua, where he achieved an early success as an author. He entered the Italian army in 1805, but soon quitted it, and became Professor of Literature in the university of Pavia; but his lectures alarmed Napoleon by their boldness of speech, and he suppressed the professorship. He came to England in 1815, and was exceedingly well received; he wrote much in the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, besides publishing several books. He died in 1827, and is buried at Chiswick.

Edinburgh Review, No. 67-159, on Jacobite Relics.

In a pamphlet entitled "Mercurius Menippeus; the Loyal Satyrist, or Hudibras in Prose," published in 1682, and said to be "written by an unknown hand in the time of the late Rebellion, but never till now published," is the following curious notice of Sir Samuel, which certainly seems to point him out as the prototype of Hudibras;

Whose back, or rather burthen, show'd
As if it stoop'd with its own load.

The author is speaking of Cromwell, and says, "I wonder how Sir Samuel Luke and he should clash, for they are both cubs of the same ugly litter. This Urchin is as ill carved as that Goblin painted. The grandam bear sure had blistered her tongue, and so left him unlicked. He looks like a snail with his house upon his back, or the Spirit of the Militia with a natural snapsack, and may serve both for tinker and budget too. Nature intended him to play at bowls, and therefore clapt a bias upon him. One would think a mole had crept into his carcass before 'tis laid in the churchyard, and rooted in it. He looks like the visible tie of Æneas bolstering up his father, or some beggarwoman endorsed with her whole litter, and with a child behind."

Bavius and Mævius were Dr. Martyn, the well-known author of tha dissertation on the Æneid of Virgil, and Dr. Russel, another learned physician, as his publications attest. It does great credit to their taste, that they were the hebdomadal defenders of Pope from the attacks of the heroes of the Dunciad.

There is great reason to doubt the authenticity of this information concerning a Devonshire tutelar saint. Mr. Charles Butler has kindly communicated the researches of a Catholic clergyman, residing at Exeter, who having examined the voluminous registers of the See of Exeter, and numerous MSS. and records of the diocese, cannot trace that any such saint was particularly honoured in the county. It is lamentable that ingenious writers should invent fictions for authorities; but with the hope that the present authors have not done this, I have preserved this apocryphal tradition.

He was buried outside the church in the angle at the north-west corner, where the wall originally stood which bounded the churchyard.

A monument was put up in the church in 1786 by a subscription among the parishioners. It exhibits a bust of Butler and a rhyming inscription in very bad taste.

See Quarterly Review, vol. viii. p. 111, where I found this quotation justly reprobated.

This work, published in 1795, is curious for the materials the writer's reading has collected.

The case of King Charles the First truly stated against John Cook, Master of Gray's Inn, in Butler's "Remains."

"Prospectus and specimen of an intended national work by William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket, in Suffolk; harness and collar makers; intended to comprise the most interesting particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table." The real author of Mr. Whistlecraft's specimen was the Right Hon. J. Hookham Frere, who has the merit of having first introduced the Italian burlesque style into our literature. Lord Byron composed his "Beppo" confessedly after this example. "It is," he writes, "a humorous poem; in, and after, the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft;" who published this "specimen" only, which was little read.

The original edition was printed in 1757 without engravings. They occur only in that which is described in our text.

I have usually found the School-Mistress printed without numbering the stanzas; to enter into the present view it will be necessary for the reader to do this himself with a pencil-mark.

Long after this article was composed, Miss Aikin published her "Court of James the First." That agreeable writer has written her popular volumes without wasting the bloom of life in the dust of libraries; and our female historian has not occasioned me to alter a single sentence in these researches.

Morant in the "Biographia Britannica." This gross blunder has been detected by Mr. Lodge. The other I submit to the reader's judgment. A contemporary letter-writer, alluding to the flight of Arabella and Seymour, which alarmed the Scottish so much more than the English party, tells us, among other reasons of the little danger of the political influence of the parties themselves over the people, that not only their pretensions were far removed, but he adds, "They were UNGRACEFUL both in their persons and their houses." Morant takes the term UNGRACEFUL in its modern acceptation; but in the style of that day, I think UNGRACEFUL is opposed to GRACIOUS in the eyes of the people, meaning that their persons and their houses were not considerable to the multitude. Would it not be absurd to apply ungraceful in its modern sense to a family or house? And had any political danger been expected, assuredly it would not have been diminished by the want of personal grace in these lovers. I do not recollect any authority for the sense of ungraceful in opposition to gracious, but a critical and literary antiquary has sanctioned my opinion.

"She was the only child of Charles Stuart, fifth earl of Lennox, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Cavendish of Hardwick, in Derbyshire, and is supposed to have been born in 1577. Her father, unhappily for her, was of the royal blood both of England and Scotland; for he was a younger brother of King Henry, father of James the Sixth, and great-grandson through his mother, who was daughter of Margaret, Queen of Scots, to our Henry the Seventh." Such is Lodge's account of "this illustrious misfortune," which made the life of a worthy lady wretched.

A circumstance which we discover by a Spanish memorial, when our James the First was negotiating with the cabinet of Madrid. He complains of Elizabeth's treatment of him; that the queen refused to give him his father's estate in England, nor would deliver up his uncle's daughter, Arabella, to be married to the Duke of Lennox, at which time the queen uso palabras muy asperas y de mucho disprechia contra el dicho Rey de ascocia; she used harsh words, expressing much contempt of the king. Winwood's Mem. i. 4.

See a very curious letter, the CCXCIX. of Cardinal d'Ossat, vol. v. The catholic interest expected to facilitate the conquest of England by joining their armies with those of "Arbelle;" and the commentator writes that this English lady had a party, consisting of all those English who had been the judges or the avowed enemies of Mary of Scotland, the mother of James the First.

Winwood's Memorials, iii. 281.

This manuscript letter from William, Earl of Pembroke, to Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury, is dated from Hampton Court, October 3, 1604.—Sloane MSS. 4161.

Lodge's "Illustrations of British History," iii. 286. It is curious to observe, that this letter, by W. Fowler, is dated on the same day as the manuscript letter I have just quoted, and it is directed to the same Earl of Shrewsbury; so that the Earl must have received, in one day, accounts of two different projects of marriage for his niece! This shows how much Arabella engaged the designs of foreigners and natives. Will. Fowler was a rhyming and fantastical secretary to the queen of James the First.

Two letters of Arabella, on distress of money, are preserved by Ballard. The discovery of a pension I made in Sir Julius Cæsar's manuscripts; where one is mentioned of 1600l. to the Lady Arabella.—Sloane MSS. 4160. Mr. Lodge has shown that the king once granted her the duty on oats.

Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. 117-119.

Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. 119.

This evidently alludes to the gentleman whose name appears not, which occasioned Arabella to incur the king's displeasure before Christmas; the Lady Arabella, it is quite clear, was resolvedly bent on marrying herself!

Harl. MSS. 7003.

It is on record that at Long-leat, the seat of the Marquis of Bath, certain papers of Arabella are preserved. I leave to the noble owner the pleasure of the research.

Harl. MSS. 7003.

These particulars I derive from the manuscript letters among the papers of Arabella Stuart. Harl. MSS. 7003.

"This emphatic injunction," observed a friend, "would be effective when the messenger could read;" but in a letter written by the Earl of Essex about the year 1597, to the Lord High Admiral at Plymouth, I have seen added to the words "Hast, hast, hast, for lyfe!" the expressive symbol of a gallows prepared with a halter, which could not be well misunderstood by the most illiterate of Mercuries, thus

--------
} ¦
{ ¦
} ¦
¦ ¦
¦ ¦

Lodge says she "was remanded to the Tower, where she soon afterwards sank into helpless idiocy, surviving in that wretched state till September, 1615," when, with miserable mockery of state, she was buried in Westminster Abbey, beside the body of Henry Prince of Wales. Bishop Corbet wrote some lines on her death, very indicative of the poor lady's thoughts:—

How do I thank ye, death, and bless thy power,
That I have passed the guard, and 'scaped the Tower!
And now my pardon is my epitaph,
And a small coffin my poor carcass hath;
For at thy charge both soul and body were
Enlarged at last, secur'd from hope and fear.
That amongst saints, this amongst kings is laid;
And what my birth did claim, my death hath paid.

This conjecture may not be vain; since this has been written, I have heard that the papers of Sir Edward Coke are still preserved at Holkham, the seat of Mr. Coke; and I have also heard of others in the possession of a noble family. The late Mr. Roscoe told me that he was preparing a beautifully embellished catalogue of the Holkham library, in which the taste of the owner would rival his munificence.

A list of those manuscripts to which I allude may be discovered in the Lambeth MSS. No. 943, Art. 369, described in the catalogue as "A note of such things as were found in a trunk of Sir Edward Coke's by the king's command, 1634," but more particularly in Art. 371, "A Catalogue of Sir Edward Coke's Papers then seized and brought to Whitehall."

Lloyd's State Worthies, art. Sir Nicholas Bacon.

Miss Aikin's Court of James the First appeared two years after this article was written; it has occasioned no alteration. I refer the reader to her clear narrative, ii. p. 30, and p. 63; but secret history is rarely discovered in printed books.

These particulars I find in the manuscript letters of J. Chamberlain. Sloane MSS. 4172, (1616). In the quaint style of the times, the common speech ran, that Lord Coke had been overthrown by four P's—PRIDE, Prohibitions, Præmunire, and Prerogative. It is only with his moral quality, and not with his legal controversies, that his personal character is here concerned.

In the Lambeth manuscripts, 936, is a letter of Lord Bacon to the king, to prevent the match between Sir John Villiers and Mrs. Coke. Art. 63. Another, Art. 69. The spirited and copious letter of James, "to the Lord Keeper," is printed in "Letters, Speeches, Charges, &c., of Francis Bacon," by Dr. Birch, p. 133.

Stoke Pogis, in Buckinghamshire; the delightful seat of J. Penn, Esq. It was the scene of Gray's "Long Story," and the chimneys of the ancient house still remain, to mark the locality; a column on which is fixed a statue of Coke, erected by Mr. Penn, consecrates the former abode of its illustrious inhabitant.

A term then in use for base or mixed metal.

Lambeth MSS. 936, art. 69 and 73.

State Trials.

Prynne was condemned for his "Histriomastix," a book against actors and acting, in which he had indulged in severe remarks on female performers; and Henrietta Maria having frequently personated parts in Court Masques, the offensive words were declared to have been levelled at her. He was condemned to fine and imprisonment, was pilloried at Westminster and Cheapside, and had an ear cut off at each place.

Prynne, who ultimately quarrelled with the Puritans, was made Keeper of the Records of the Tower by Charles the Second, who was advised thereto by men who did not know how else to keep "busy Mr. Prynne" out of political pamphleteering. He went to the work of investigation with avidity, and it was while so employed that he followed the mode of life narrated in the preceding page.

I cannot subscribe to the opinion that Anthony Wood was a dull man, although he had no particular liking for works of imagination; and used ordinary poets scurvily! An author's personal character is often confounded with the nature of his work. Anthony has sallies at times to which a dull man could not be subject; without the ardour of this hermit of literature where would be our literary history?

These two catalogues have always been of extreme rarity and price. Dr. Lister, when at Paris, 1668, notices this circumstance. I have since met with them in the very curious collections of my friend, Mr. Douce, who has uniques, as well as rarities. The monograms of our old masters in one of these catalogues are more correct than in some later publications; and the whole plan and arrangement of these catalogues of prints are peculiar and interesting.