would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could
bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself,
he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and
predestinated criminals a memorable example to mankind. He resolved,
in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave
the whole Carnatick an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to
put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those against
whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together,
was no protection. He became at length so confident of his force so
collected in his might, that he made no secret whatsoever of his
dreadful resolution. Having terminated his disputes with every enemy
and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common
detestation against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from
every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments
in the arts of destruction; and, compounding all the materials of fury,
havock, and desolation into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the
declivities of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all these evils
were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened
all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of
its contents upon the plains of the Carnatick. Then ensued a scene of
woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which
no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war, before known
or heard of, were mercy to that new havock. A storm of universal fire
blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The
miserable inhabitants, flying from their flaming villages, in part were
slaughtered; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of
rank, or sacredness of function, fathers torn from children, husbands
from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading
spears of drivers and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept
into captivity, in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to
evade this tempest fled to the walled cities; but, escaping from fire,
sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine. The alms of the
settlement, in this dreadful exigency, were certainly liberal; and all
was done by charity that private charity could do; but it was a people
in beggary; it was a nation which stretched out its hands for food. For
months together those creatures of sufferance, whose very excess and
luxury in their most plenteous days had fallen short of the allowance
of our austerest fasts, silent, patient, resigned, without sedition or
disturbance, almost without complaint, perished by a hundred a day in
the streets of Madras. Every day seventy at least laid their bodies
in the streets, or on the glacis of Tanjore, and expired of famine in
the granary of India. I was going to awake your justice towards this
unhappy part of our fellow citizens, by bringing before you some of the
circumstances of this plague of hunger. Of all the calamities which
beset and waylay the life of man, this comes the nearest to our heart,
and is that wherein the proudest of us all feels himself to be nothing
more than he is: but I find myself unable to manage it with decorum;
these details are of a species of horror so nauseous and disgusting,
they are so degrading to the sufferers and to the hearers, they are
so humiliating to human nature itself, that, on better thoughts, I
find it more advisable to throw a pall over this hideous object, and
to leave it to your general conceptions. For eighteen months, without
intermission, this destruction raged from the gates of Madras to the
gates of Tanjore; and so completely did these masters in their art,
Hyder Ali, and his more ferocious son, absolve themselves of their
impious vow, that when the British armies traversed, as they did, the
Carnatick for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole
line of their march they did not see one man, not one woman, not one
child, not one four-footed beast of any description whatever. One dead,
uniform silence reigned over the whole region. With the inconsiderable
exceptions of the narrow vicinage of some few forts, (I wish to be
understood as speaking literally; I mean to produce to you more than
three witnesses, above all exception, who will support this assertion
in its full extent) that hurricane of war passed through every part of
the central provinces of the Carnatick. Six or seven districts to the
North and to the South (and these not wholly untouched) escaped the
general ravage.
❦
[Sidenote: The Seal.]
The _Seal_ displays a taste for music. They will long follow a boat in
which any musical instrument is played, and even a tune whistled has
attraction for them.
❦
[Sidenote: Thought.]
There is perhaps no pang so acute, no sentiment so humiliating to the
heart of woman, as the consciousness of awakening distrust, when she
most deserved to have inspired confidence.
❦
[Sidenote: Pride of Birth.]
It is the present fashion to consider the pride of descent as an
empty pretension, but it cannot be denied that it is a pretension
which has been regarded in every country, in all ages. There are many
sound philosophical arguments in favour of a regard to birth, which
pretenders to deeper reasoning do not appear to be aware of. It is a
counteraction to the undue influence of wealth and mere brutal power.
It is impossible to prevent the accumulation of wealth in the basest of
the people, at least in a free country! The easiest paths to wealth are
the meanest and least virtuous. However, the most current opinion is
that _wealth is wealth_, and that he who can spend the most is the most
important man; and that it is idle and childish to pay any attention as
to how and whence he got it. But true aristocracy knows its own place,
and holds firm to it; and various are the effects it has on the mind
which cannot be analysed by language. It has a tendency to create a
lofty sort of sentiment, rather than a low and selfish gratification,
as the guide of the thoughts and the conduct. It would find a thousand
ideal comforts in adversity and obscurity, which new families, thrown
back into poverty, cannot command.
❦
[Sidenote: The Pretender.]
James II. of England married the Princess Maria d’Este, the sister of
Francis, Duke of Modena, who was as beautiful as she was unfortunate.
The Queen having been married some time without having children, when
this event did take place, malice, falsehood, envy, and intrigue were
active in declaring the heir thus born to be “a supposititious Prince
of Wales.” This tissue of forgery and falsehood still farther tended
to affect the popularity of the king, and bring his person and throne
into disrepute. However, upon the whole mass and evidence of history
that is presented, the only conclusion to be drawn was this, and only
this, that the Prince of Wales, so far from being “supposititious,” was
royally and legally born the lawful successor of his father’s throne
and realms.
❦
“That prattling Cloe fibs,” forsooth,
Demure and silent Cynthia cries;
But falsely! for can aught but truth
Flow from a tongue that _never lies_.
❦
[Sidenote: Thought.]
Ah! how can a wife, she who bears his name, and shares, or ought
to share, his lot, how can she ever be entirely effaced from the
recollection of an honest man?
❦
[Sidenote: Duke of Buckingham.]
George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, the dissolute favourite
of Charles II. is thus described by Dryden in his poem of Absalom and
Achitophel.
“A man so various, that he seem’d to be,
Not one, but all mankind’s epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
His every thing by starts, and nothing long:
But in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art,
Nothing went unrewarded, but desert:
Beggar’d by fools, when still he found too late,
He had his jest, and they--had his estate.”
At the time of King Charles’s death, he went into the country, and
on the 16th of April, 1688, he died at a servant’s house at Rickby
Meerside, from a cold caught by sitting on the ground after fox-hunting.
Pope in his Epistle to Lord Bathurst, thus alludes to his death.
“In the worst inn’s worst room, with mat half hung,
The floors of plaister, and the walls of dung;
On once a flock bed, but repaired with straw,
With tape tied curtains, never meant to draw;
The George and Garter dangling from that bed,
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies. Alas! how chang’d from him,
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim.”
❦
[Sidenote: A Portrait.]
Strong intellect, perception quick and clear,
Talents more prone to dazzle than to warm,
Virtues which serve those talents to endear,
Feelings which lend a fascinating charm;
A winning countenance and glowing soul,
Insinuating manners soft and mild,
Genius, submitting to the proud control
Of Judgment, Reason’s best and favourite child:
Nature design’d this creature to be great,
But _Vanity_ behind the matron stole,
And ere she closed the volume of his fate,
Wrote her own name, and propertied the whole.
❦
[Sidenote: Churchyards in Denmark.]
It is customary in Denmark to surround each grave with doleful or
cheerful shrubs, at the fancy of the survivors: thus alternate thickets
of roses and of cypress, of lilacs and of juniper, give the air of a
garden to every churchyard.
❦
_Machiavelli._
Machiavelli naquit à Florence le 9 Mai 1469, d’une noble famille
Italienne. Il entra aux affaires en 1494, à 24 ans. En 1498 il était
Secrétaire du Conseil des Dix, et pendant 14 ans employé dans les plus
graves négociations. Machiavelli a acquis une grande réputation parmi
les hommes, surtout comme auteur du _Prince_, ouvrage qu’il écrivit
après la chute de la république de Florence. Il mourut en 1527, le
22 Juin, de douleur d’entrailles. Le Grand Duc Leopold a fait placer
cette épitaphe très remarquable sur son tombeau: _Tanto nomini, nullum
par elogium_. Machiavelli était doué d’une incroyable perspicacité. Il
était tout esprit, et tout étude; le plus grand observateur des faits;
il a prodigieusement travaillé et pratiqué le mécanisme social, et le
caractère humain.
❦
[Sidenote: Dante.]
This famous Italian poet of the thirteenth century lived at Verona, on
a pension from Prince Scaliger,[9] but so moderate, that poor as he
was, he could scarcely exist.
[9] From whom Julius Cæsar Scaliger, the great critic, pretended to be
descended, and from the princes of Verona of the same name. He had been
a Cordelier, but left his monkish habit for the world. To conceal his
real origin he sojourned in France.
❦
Translation of the petition sent by the wife of Almas Ali Cawn, who was
lately seized and put to death for political purposes in India.
To the High and Mighty Servant of the most powerful Prince George,
King of Great Britain, his most lowly and humble slave comes praying
for mercy for the father of her children.
Most mighty Sir,
May the blessing of thy God ever await thee!
May the sun of glory shine round thy head!
May the gates of plenty, honour, and happiness be always open to thee
and thine!
May no sorrows distress thy days!
May no grief disturb thy nights!
May the pillow of peace kiss thy cheek!
The pleasures of imagination attend thy dreams!
And when length of time makes thee tired of earthly joys, and the
curtain of death gently closes round the last sleep of human existence,
May the angels of thy God attend thy bed, and take care that thy
expiring lamp of life shall not receive one wide blast to hasten its
extinction.
O! hearken to the voice of distress,
And grant the petition of thy servant:
Spare, oh! spare the father of my children, the partner of my bed, my
husband, my all that’s dear.
Consider, oh! consider, he did not become what he is by iniquity,
and that what he possesses was the inheritance of a long line of
flourishing ancestors,
Who, in those smiling days, when the intruders of Great Britain were
not heard of in the fertile plains of Indostan, reaped their harvest in
quiet, and enjoyed their patrimony unmolested.
Think, oh! think, that the God whom thou worshippest delighteth not in
the blood of the innocent; remember thy own commandment, “_Thou shalt
not kill_,” and obey the order of Heaven.
Give me back my Almas Ali Cawn, and take all our wealth.
Strip us of our jewels and precious stones, of our gold and silver, but
take not away the life of my husband.
Innocence is sealed on his brow,
And the milk of human kindness flows round his heart.
Let us wander through the deserts, let us become tillers and labourers
on the delightful spot of which he was once the master:
But spare, oh! mighty Sir, spare his life!
Let not the instrument of death be lifted against him, for he has
committed _no crime_.
Accept those treasures from gratitude, which at present thou takest by
force; we will remember thee in our prayer, and forget we were once
rich and powerful.
My children, the children of my Almas Ali, send up their petitions for
the life of him who gave them life.
They beseech from thee the author of their existence.
By that humanity we are told glows in the breasts of Europeans;
By the tender mercy of enlightened souls of Englishmen;
By the honour, virtue, and maternal affection of thy great Queen,
Whose numerous offspring are so dear to her; the miserable wife of thy
prisoner beseeches thee to save her husband’s life, and restore him to
her arms.
Thy God will reward thee:
_They_ will thank thee:
And the now petitioning, will pray for thee, if thou grantest the
prayer of thy humble vassal
ALMASSA ALI CAWN.
It is painful to reflect that such an appeal was vain. The petition of
the wretched Almassa was presented to the great man in power. It was
disregarded, and her husband met his fate.
❦
[Sidenote: Volcanos.]
There is great probability that Mount Vesuvius near Naples, and Mount
Etna in Sicily, are the different parts of the same continuation of one
chain of mountains, which passes under the sea, and the Isle of Lipari;
for every time that one of these mountains breaks forth in flames, the
other is seen on fire, and the volcano in the Isle of Lipari burns more
fiercely than usual.
❦
[Sidenote: Saint George.]
Saint George, a soldier saint of great eminence, both in the
Eastern and Western churches, known also by the particular name of
Tropheophorus, suffered martyrdom at Lyddea in Palestine, under the
persecution of Dioclesian, A. D. 302. He is supposed to have been
interred at Lyddea, or Diospulia.
❦
’Tis is a sweet flower, the late, late rose,
That decks the sallow autumn;
And those, the dearest beams of joy,
That burst when least we sought ’em.
❦
_On Lady Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia._[10]
_By Sir Henry Wootton._
You meaner beauties of the night
That weaklie satisfie our eies,
More by your number than your lighte,
Like common people of the skies,
What are yee, when the moone doth rise?
Ye violettes that first appeare,
Your pride in purple garments showne,
Takeing possession of the yeere
As if the spring were all your owne,
What are you when the rose is blowne?
Ye glorious trifles of the East,
Whose lustres estimations raise,
Pearles, rubies, saphires and the rest,
Of precious caskets, what’s your praise
When the diamond shows his rayes?
Ye warblinge chanters of the wood,
That fill the eares with nature’s laies,
Thinkinge your passions understood
By weaker accents, what’s your praise
When Philomell her voice doth raise?
Soe when my princesse shall bee seene,
In sweetness of her lookes and mynde,
By vertue first, then choice a queene,
Tell mee if shee were not design’d
The eclipsinge glorie of her kynde?
The rose, the violettes, the whole springe,
For sweetness to her breath must runne;
The diamond’s darken’d in the ringe;
If shee appeare the moon’s undonne,
As with the presence of the sunne.
[10] This amiable daughter of Charles I. supported her unhappy
situation with great dignity, and showed, amidst the most distressing
poverty, an illustrious example of magnanimity. In bequeathing her
portrait to her nephew, Sir Henry Wootton thus expresses himself:
“I leave to the most hopeful prince, the picture of the elected and
crowned Queen of Bohemia, his aunt, of clear and resplendent virtues
through the clouds of her fortune.”
Sir Henry Wootton died Dec. 1639, aged seventy-two. He retained the
Provostship of Eton to his death, and was buried in the chapel of the
college.
❦
[Sidenote: Thought.]
As a material of human happiness or misery, temper is infinitely
more important, because so much oftener brought into use, than
high-mindedness; opportunity for a generous action may occur perhaps
once in a year, while temper is actively at work for good or evil
during every hour of our existence.
❦
In 1623 fire fell from heaven, which threw all Germany into
consternation.
❦
[Sidenote: Origin of Coats of Arms.]
Their origin is not prior to the twelfth century, that is to say, the
time of the crusades. As noblemen from all the various nations of
Europe were collected in the Holy Land, and as they had no names but
their baptismal ones, they agreed, in order to distinguish each other,
to assume armorial ensigns, which in general expressed the name and
title of the bearer, as John de la Tour, by a tower, &c.
❦
[Sidenote: Lord Bacon.]
The Lord Chancellor of England was the greatest genius of his age, and
endued with extraordinary talents and inclination to promote the cause
of literature. He died at the age of sixty-six, and so poor, that there
remains a letter of his to the king, praying his bounty, “lest he, who
had only wished to live to study, might be obliged now to study to
live.” He was born to instruct others, and to set them in the right way
to be teachers themselves.
❦
[Sidenote: Bells.]
Bells were first brought into use by St. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, in
the Campania of Rome: hence a bell was called Nola, or Campagna.[11] At
first they were called saints: hence toc-saint, or tocsin.
[11] In the Italian language.
❦
[Sidenote: Arthur’s Round Table.]
Arthur, King of the Britons, who flourished about 516 A. D. whose
valour was so great that the accounts of it appear fabulous rather than
real, having vanquished the Saxons and effectually driven them out of
his kingdom after twelve successive battles (in one of which, fought
at Caerbadon in Berkshire, it is asserted he killed no less than 440
of the enemy with his own hand), and also conquered Norway, Sweden,
the principal part of France, was crowned at Paris. On his return home
in great splendour, a vast concourse of foreign princes and valiant
knights flocked from all parts of the world to his court; the king,
unwilling to create controversies amongst his noble guests, by seeming
to give precedence to one more than another, caused an immense round
table to be erected in the great hall at Winchester, where he then held
his court, at which it was so managed that no person could take place
of another. He selected a fraternity of four and twenty, and elected
it into an order of knighthood, dignifying the knights whom he chose
companions with the title of “Knights of King Arthur’s round table,”
himself to be their chief. These princely meetings were annually held
with great pomp at Winchester.
❦
_By Sir Walter Raleigh, in the unquiett rest of his last sickness._[12]
Eternal Mover, whose diffused glory
To shew our groveling reason what thou art,
Infoldes itself in cloudes of restless story,
Where man (the proudest creature) acts his parte;
Whom yett, alas! I know not why, we call
The world’s contracted sunn, the little all.
For what are wee, but lumpes of walking clay?
What are our vaunts? whence should our spirits rise?
Are not brute beasts as strong, and birds as gay;
Trees longer liv’d, and creeping thinges as wise?
Onlie our Soules recieve more inward light,
To feel our weakness, and confess thy might.
Lett these pure noates ascend unto thie throne,
Where majestie doth sitt with mercy crown’d;
Where my redeemer lives, in whome alone
The errors of my wandringe life are drown’d.
Where all the quire of heaven resound thi fame,
That none but thine, thine is the saving name.
Therefore my Soule, Joye in the midst of paine,
That Christ, that conquer’d Hell, shall from above
With greater triumphs yett returne againe,
And conquer his own justice with his love;
Commandinge earth and Seas to render those
Unto his bliss, for whome hee pay’d his woes.
Nowe have I doune, now are my joies at peace,
And now my joies are stronger than my griefe;
I feele those comforts that shall never cease,
Future in hopes, but present in reliefe.
Thy words are true, thy promises are just,
And thou wilt knowe thy marked flock in dust.
[12] Raleigh was born in 1552, and executed 29th October, 1618, to the
eternal disgrace of the reign of James I.
❦
The Emperor Sigismund, of Germany, made a solemn offering of the _holy
heart_ of St. George, the tutelary Saint of England, upon the altar of
St. George’s chapel at Windsor, during his visit in 1416 to Henry V.
❦
[Sidenote: Duelling.]
At Malta, duelling is permitted by _law_, but under this curious
restriction; the duellists are enjoined on the severest penalties, to
desist and put up their swords at the desire of a _priest_, a _woman_,
or a _knight_.
❦
_Delight in disorder._
A sweet disorder in the dresse,
Kindles in cloaths a wantonesse,
A lawne about the shoulders throwne,
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there,
Enthral the crimson stomacher;
A cuffe neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to fly confusedly:
A winning wave (deserving note)
In the tempestuous petticoat:
A careless shoe-string, in whose tye,
I see a wilde civility,
Does more bewitche me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.
❦
_Lord Strafford’s Meditations in the Tower. MSS. (Harl.)_
Go, empty joys,
With all your noise,
And leave me here alone,
In sad sweet silence to bemoan
The fickle worldly height,
Whose danger none can see aright
Whilst your false splendors dim the sight.
Go, and ensnare,
With your trim ware,
Some other worldly wight,
And cheat him with your flattering sight!
Rain on his head a shower
Of honour, greatness, wealth, and power,
Then snatch it from him in an hour.
Fill his big mind
With gallant wind
Of insolent applause;
Let him not fear the curbing laws,
Nor king, nor people’s frown;
But dream on something like a crown,
Then, climbing upwards, tumble down!
Let him appear
In his bright sphere
Like Cynthia in her pride,
With star-like troops on every side;
For number and clear light,
Such as may soon o’erwhelm him quite,
And blind them both in one dead night!
Welcome, sad night,
Grief’s sole delight!
Thy mourning best agrees
With honor’s funeral obsequies.
In Thetis’ lap he lies,
Mantled with soft securities,
When too much sun light dims his eyes.
Was he too bold
Who needs would hold
With curbing reins to sway,
And make Sol’s fiery steeds obey?
Therefore as rash was I,
Who with ambitious wings did fly
In _Charles’s Waine_ too hastily!
I fall! I fall!
Whom shall I call?
Alas! shall I be heard,
Who now am neither lov’d nor fear’d?
You, who have vow’d the ground
To kiss, where my blest steps were found,
Come, catch me at my last rebound!
Now each admires
Heaven’s twinkling fires,
Whilst from their glorious seat,
Their influence gives light and heat.
But oh! how few there are,
(Though danger from the act be far,)
Will run to catch a falling star!
O! wer’t our fate
To imitate
Those lights, whose pallidness
Argues no inward quietness!
Their course is one way bent,
Which is the course, there’s no dissent
In Heaven’s High Court of Parliament.
❦
[Sidenote: Time.]
Every year steals away something from us. In one we lose a relation,
in the next a friend; health grows more precarious, and pleasure less
alluring, till by degrees the whole little mass of happiness we had
been gathering drops from us insensibly, and that grave, which we had
once looked on with so much horror, becomes at last our refuge and
shelter.
❦
[Sidenote: Selfish to lament.]
When fate relentless makes the good man die,
Why flows the bitter tear, why heaves the sigh?
Short is his passage to the realms of rest,
O! then, how selfish ’tis to mourn the blest!
Lamented _father_! how few can truly feel
The ardent charity, the friendly zeal
That strove in thee, through life, with active power:
And more--that hope, which cheer’d thy parting hour.
To know thee thus, we dry the falling tear,
And ill-timed sorrow were unseemly here:
The mortal yields to God his parting breath;
The Christian’s soul’s great triumph is in death.
❦
Pour ceux qui pensent, il n’y a point de langue étrangère.
❦
_From the Spanish of George de Montemayor._
Here on the cold clear Egla’s breezy side
My hand amid her ringlets wont to rove,
She proffered now the lock, and now denied,
With all the baby playfulness of love.
Here the false maid with many an artful tear,
Made me each rising thought of doubt discover;
And vowed, and wept, till hope had ceased to fear,
Ah me! beguiling like a child her lover.
One evening, on the river’s pleasant strand,
The maid, too well beloved, sat with me,
And with her finger traced upon the sand
Death for Diana--not inconstancy.
And Love beheld us from his secret stand,
And marked his triumph, laughing to behold me;
To see me trust a writing traced in sand;
To see me credit what a woman told me.
❦
[Sidenote: Phrenology.]