On entering the chamber where they were arranged, which was a small room, on the first floor, of a small apartment in a secondary quarter of Rome, he found the walls to a great height literally covered with piles of paper of every size and quality. They were packed so close, had been so long unopened, and had so much suffered from the humidity, that each packet was found to contain, on examination, a very much larger quantity than had at first been expected. They were arranged in the most perfect order, and classed according to the age, country, or writer. Several were autographs, and copies, where they existed, were in the best preservation, and generally under the eye, and by the order of the first authority. The series commenced about the period of the king’s arrival in France, and were continued down, with scarcely any interruption or hiatus, to the demise of the last direct heir, the cardinal de York. They embraced not only every document connected with political matters, but entered into the most minute details on the domestic and personal affairs of the illustrious individuals, to whom they related, and threw a very singular light on transactions which have been long concealed, or viewed under very partial bearings, by the British public. Not only the private and confidential correspondence between the different members of the royal family, but references to the most trivial circumstances connected with the interior of the royal household, and various other matters of similar interest, were everywhere observable. The revenues, the expenditure, were regularly noted; a large volume or ledger, almost completely filled with items of this kind, gave no bad scale of the gradation or diminution of expense, calculated on country, time, and situation, and therefore a very fair estimate of their means under the successive fortunes to which they had been exposed. But by far the most interesting documents of the collection referred to the important political transactions of that memorable epoch. James II. occupies a considerable, and, indeed, a principal portion of this interest. His letters to his son, written and corrected in his own hand, give a very flattering portrait, and perhaps a very authentic one, of his character in almost all his domestic relations, without much claim, but also without much pretension, to style—the sin of that age, and not less of the succeeding: they are not without a certain tinge of the elegance of manner, which, though by no means his apanage, had more or less been contracted in those dissolute circles which had inspired Hamilton. But there were other qualities with which they abounded, of much higher value and importance, greater depth of feeling than what usually exists in courts, paternal affection in all the bitterness of an unrequited fondness, and a settled and unavailing despair (he died, indeed, of a lethargy) of the future destinies of his house, grounded on the frail support he could anticipate from the depraved habits of his son. The reproaches addressed to him are frequent, and fraught with the overflowing waters of fatherly disappointment; the brouillon, or rough draft of the letter, which was sometimes preserved, was often blotted, and the wavering and agitation of his mind betrayed itself very visibly in his very hand. The general view which they give is favourable, and presents a kindlier aspect of his character than what we are habituated to meet with in the generality of the Whig writers.[213]
[212] His Royal Highness the Cardinal de York, or as he was sometimes called, “Your Majesty,” reposes in the subterraneous church of St. Peter, under a plain sarcophagus, which bears the name of Hen. IX. No one will dispute the title of a few handfuls of dust, but it is worth observing that something very similar reappears on the monument in St. Peter’s itself. This is consistent in a Roman: legitimacy, like the priesthood, is indelible, and cannot be rubbed out by misfortune or wrong. The sketch in Forsyth is interesting and delicate, though rather Jacobite and Scotch. I met many persons who retained recollections of him at Rome, but none of these recollections are worth noticing. He seems to have rendered himself more remarkable by petty peculiarities, than any great quality of heart or head. He was supposed to be the quickest driver for a cardinal of the whole college, and sometimes came in from Frascati, (his bishopric and habitual residence,) a distance of about fourteen miles, in an hour and a quarter. This was thought in the first instance marvellous, and in the next indecorous. The only honours he retained were his titles great and little, and the privilege of mounting the Vatican in a sedan-chair.
[213] New Monthly Magazine.
THE PLANETS.
Their Comparative Sizes and Positions.
To assist the mind in framing a conception of the magnitude and relative distances of the primary planets, let us have recourse to the following method. The dome of St. Paul’s is 145 feet in diameter. Suppose a globe of this size to represent the Sun; then a globe of 97⁄10 inches will represent Mercury; one of 179⁄10 inches, Venus; one of 18 inches, the Earth; one of 5 inches diameter, the Moon, (whose distance from the earth is 240,000 miles;) one of 10 inches, Mars; one of 15 feet, Jupiter; and one of 111⁄2 feet, Saturn, with his ring four feet broad, and at the same distance from his body all round.
In this proportion, suppose the Sun to be at St. Paul’s, then
☿ Mercury might be at the Tower of London,