I said there was something in his air and manner, which I thought not
only agreeable, but enchanting, and that he seemed to me to be one of
the best of men; a sentiment in which both their Majesties heartily
joined. “They say that Lord Dartmouth is an enthusiast,” said the king,
“but surely he says nothing on the subject of religion, but what every
Christian may, and ought to say.” He asked whether I did not think the
English language on the decline at present; I answered in the
affirmative; and the king agreed, and named the “Spectator” as one of
the best standards of the language. When I told him that the Scots
clergy sometimes prayed a quarter, or even half an hour at a time, he
asked, whether that did not lead them into repetitions? I said it often
did. “That” said he, “I don’t like in prayers; and excellent as our
liturgy is, I think it somewhat faulty in that respect.” “Your Majesty
knows,” said I, “that three services are joined in one, in the ordinary
church service, which is one cause of those repetitions.” “True,” he
replied, “and that circumstance also makes the service too long.” From
this he took occasion to speak of the composition of the church liturgy;
on which he very justly bestowed the highest commendation. “Observe,”
his Majesty said, “how flat those occasional prayers are, that are now
composed, in comparison with the old ones.” When I mentioned the
smallness of the church livings in Scotland, he said, “he wondered how
men of liberal education would chuse to become clergymen there,” and
asked, “whether in the remote parts of the country, the clergy, in
general were not very ignorant?” I answered, no, for that education was
very cheap in Scotland, and that the clergy, in general, were men of
good sense, and competent learning. He asked whether we had any good
preachers at Aberdeen? I said, yes, and named Campbell and Gerard, with
whose names, however, I did not find that he was acquainted. Dr.
Majendie mentioned Dr. Oswald’s “Appeal,” with commendation; I praised
it too and the queen took down the name, with a view to send for it. I
was asked, whether I knew Dr. Oswald? I answered, I did not; and said
that my book was published before I read his; that Dr. Oswald was well
known to Lord Kinnoul, who had often proposed to make us acquainted. We
discussed a great many other topics; for the conversation, as before
observed, lasted for upwards of an hour, without any intermission. The
queen bore a large share in it. Both the king and her Majesty showed a
great deal of good sense, acuteness, and knowledge, as well as of good
nature and affability. At last, the king took out his watch (for it was
now almost three o’clock, his hour of dinner) which Dr. Majendie and I
took as a signal to withdraw. We accordingly bowed to their Majesties,
and I addressed the king in these words: “I hope, Sir, your Majesty will
pardon me, if I take this opportunity to return you my humble and most
grateful acknowledgments for the honour you have been pleased to confer
upon me.” He immediately answered, “I think I could do no less for a
man, who has done so much service to the cause of Christianity. I shall
always be glad of an opportunity to show the good opinion I have of
you.” The queen sate all the while, and the king stood, sometimes
walking about a little. Her Majesty speaks the English language with
surprising elegance, and little or nothing of a foreign accent. There is
something wonderfully captivating in her manner; so that if she were
only of the rank of a private gentlewoman, one could not help taking
notice of her as one of the most agreeable women in the world. Her face
is much more pleasing than any of her pictures; and in the expression of
her eyes, and in her smile, there is something peculiarly engaging.
When the Doctor and I came out, “Pray,” said I, “how did I behave? Tell
me honestly, for I am not accustomed to conversations of this kind.”
“Why perfectly well,” answered he, “and just as you ought to do.”—“Are
you sure of that?” said I.—“As sure,” he replied, “as of my own
existence; and you may be assured of it too, when I tell you, that if
there had been any thing in your manner or conversation, which was not
perfectly agreeable, your conference would have been at an end in eight
or ten minutes at most.” The Doctor afterwards told me that it was a
most uncommon thing for a private man, and a commoner, to be honoured
with so long an audience. I dined with Dr. and Mrs. Majendie and their
family, and returned to town in the evening, very much pleased with the
occurrences of the day.
SACRED GARDENS.
The origin of sacred gardens among the heathen nations may be traced up
to the garden of Eden. The gardens of the Hesperides, of Adonis, of
Flora, were famous among the Greeks and Romans. “The garden of Flora,”
says Mr. Spence, (Polymetis, p. 251) “I take to have been the Paradise
in the Roman Mythology. The traditions and traces of Paradise among the
ancients must be expected to have grown fainter and fainter in every
transfusion from one people to another. The Romans probably derived
their notions of it from the Greeks, among whom this idea seems to have
been shadowed out under the stories of the gardens of Alcinous. In
Africa they had the gardens of the Hesperides, and in the East those of
Adonis, or the _Horti Adonis_, as Pliny calls them. The term _Horti
Adonides_ was used by the ancients to signify _gardens of pleasure_,
which answers to the very name of Paradise, or the garden of Eden, as
_Horti Adonis_ does to the _garden of the LORD_.”
SIR THOMAS WYAT.
[DIED 1541.]
The story of this eminent person, probably one of the principal
ornaments of an age unable to discern his merits, or unwilling to record
them, has been very imperfectly related. He was born at Allington
Castle, in Kent, the ancient seat of his family, in 1503, and was the
son of Sir Henry Wyat. He may be said to have finished his education in
the society of that eminent character Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, with
whom he travelled abroad, and with whom he “tasted in Italy,” says Wood,
“the sweet and stately measures of the Italian poesy.” These, as far as
the rude state of our language, and the still ruder taste of the times,
would allow, he applied to English verse. His poems were printed at
London in 1565, and have since been frequently republished, in
conjunction with those of his noble friend; but here, as in other points
of view, we have but glimpses of him; for through the ignorance or
carelessness of the original editor, his pieces are so confusedly
blended with the Earl’s, that not many of them can be positively
ascertained.[32]
Having been introduced at Court, where his endowments both of body and
mind, recommended him to the favour of king Henry the Eighth, he was
employed in several foreign embassies, which he discharged with great
ability. His influence with the king was proverbial. Lloyd tells us that
“when a man was newly preferred, they said he had been in Sir Thomas
Wyat’s closet.”
We are informed by Wood (_Athen. Oxon._) that Sir Thomas was sent by the
king to Falmouth, for the purpose of conducting a Spanish Minister from
thence to London. Being desirous of making great expedition, he fatigued
himself so much that he was thrown into a fever, and was obliged to stop
at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, where he died a few days after, in the
38th year of his age, “to the great reluctancy,” says Wood, “of the
king, kingdom, his friends, and all that knew the great worth and
virtues of the person.” He was buried in Sherborne Church.[33]
He left behind him a son of the same name, who lost his head for
exciting a rebellion in the reign of queen Mary, from whom our poet is
commonly distinguished by the appellation of Sir Thomas Wyat the elder.
Footnote 32:
There is an engraving of Sir Thomas in the collection of Holbein
Heads, published by Mr. Chamberlaine.
An original picture of him, which has been frequently copied, is in
the collection of the Earl of Romney. It is nearly a profile, and
bears a strong resemblance to Holbein’s drawing.
There is a print of Sir Thomas Wyat, from an engraving on wood, after
a painting by Holbein; it is the frontispiece to the book of verses,
written on his death, by Leland, entitled “Næniæ in Mortem Thomæ Viati
Equitis incomparabilis,” an Elegy on the death of Sir Thomas Wyat,
Knt. London, 1542, _quarto_. This book was reprinted by Hearne, at the
beginning of the second volume of Leland’s Itinerary. Under the head
is the following inscription:—
“Holbenus nitida pingendi maximus arte,
”Effigiem expressit graphice, sed nullus Apelles
“Exprimet ingenium felix, animumque Viati.”
This print has been copied by Michael Burghers and Mr. Tyson.
_Granger_ i. 110.
Footnote 33:
The first printed Poetical Miscellany, in the English language, is the
Collection of Poems, edited and published by Tottel, entitled “Songes
and Sonnettes of Surrey, Wyat, and of uncertain Auctors, London,
1557.”—Another edition, 1565—others in 1574, 1585, 1587. The last
edition was edited by Dr. George Sewell, in 1717.—This Dr. Sewell was
a physician in London; he received his early education at Eton, which
he afterwards completed at Cambridge, where he took the degree of
Bachelor of Physic in 1709. From thence he went to Leyden, where he
studied under the celebrated Boerhaave. Not being successful in the
metropolis, he removed to Hampstead, where he died on the 8th of
February, 1726. As an author he possessed a considerable share of
genius, and wrote in concert with several of his contemporaries,
particularly in the Spectator and Tatler; he was principally concerned
in the ninth volume of the former, and in the fifth of the latter, as
he was also in a translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and an edition
of Shakespeare’s Poems. He was the author of a Tragedy, entitled “Sir
Walter Raleigh,” published at London in 1719, and also of another,
which he left unfinished, entitled “King Richard the First,” the
fragments of which were printed in 1728.
THE HAND A SYMBOL OF POWER.
In Parkhurst’s Hebrew Lexicon we have the following remarks on the Hand
as an emblem of strength and power. “The hand was used by the Jews, as a
trophy or monument of victory, and placed on the top of a pillar. Thus
Saul, after smiting the Amalekites, in the pride of his heart erected to
or for himself (not for Jehovah) a hand, 1 Samuel xv. 12. And David
smote Hadadezer, king of Zobah, when he was going to erect his hand or
trophy, by the river Euphrates, 2 Sam. viii. 3, and 1 Chronicles, xviii.
3.—And this appears to be the most ancient use of these memorial hands;
whence Absalom seems to have taken the hint of erecting one, merely to
keep his name in remembrance, 2 Sam. xviii. 18, where it may be observed
that this monument is expressly called not only a _hand_, but _a
pillar_, which shews that the hand was wont to be put on a pillar.
“Neibuhr (Voyage in Arabia, tom. 2. p. 211. French edition) speaking of
Ali’s mosque at Mesched Ali, says, that ‘at the top of the dome’ where
one generally sees on the Turkish mosques a crescent, or only a pole,
there is here _a hand stretched out_, to represent that of Ali.” And
another writer informs us, that at the Alhambra, or red palace of the
Moorish kings in Granada, “on the key-stone of the outward arch [of the
present principal entrance] is sculptured the figure of an _arm_, the
symbol of strength and dominion.”
“It may not be amiss to observe, that to this day in the East Indies the
picture of a _hand_ is the emblem of power or authority. Thus I am
assured, says Parkhurst, by a gentleman of undoubted veracity, who
resided many years on the coast of Coromandel, that when the Nabob of
Arcot, who in his time was governor of _five provinces_, appeared on
public occasions, several small flags, with each _a hand_ painted upon
them, and one of a large size with _five hands_, were solemnly carried
before him.”
The hand was used as an ensign of royalty by the kings of France and
England. In Sandford’s Genealogical History, there is the following note
on the counter-seal of king Edward the third: “In the margin of this
counter-seal, near the point of the king’s sword, is represented the
_hand of justice_, being an ensign of royalty peculiar only to the kings
of France, for though they in common with other princes carry in their
right hand a sceptre of gold, yet in the other they bear the _hand of
justice_, being a short rod, and having on the top of it a _left hand_,
wide open, made of ivory, on account of the elephant being the only
quadruped observable for his devotion, love of his governors, and for
his equity. The left hand it is said, is preferred to the right for this
purpose, because not being employed in working so many wicked actions as
the right, it became more proper than the other to represent the symbol
of justice. This hand is also placed in the counter-seals of his
successors Richard the second, and Henry the fourth; king Henry the
fifth omitted it in his seal, and conquering France both placed that
crown on the head, and the French sceptre and _hand of justice_ in the
hands of his son, king Henry the sixth.”
Queen Elizabeth used the hand as one of her mint marks.
HENRIETTA MARIA,
QUEEN OF CHARLES THE FIRST.
“Our royal martyr,” says Dr. Kennet, “by taking a consort from the
Bourbon family, did apparently bring over some evils and mischiefs that
disturbed his whole reign. For within less than one year, the French
servants of that queen grew so imperious and insolent, that the king was
forced to discharge them, and to humble them by a return into their own
country.”
“A very sad doom it was certainly to the French,” says L’Estrange in his
annals of king Charles, “but as the animadversion was extremely severe,
so their offences were in like degree heinous. The bishop of Mende, the
queen’s almoner, stood charged for putting intolerable scorn upon, and
making religion itself do penance, by enjoining her Majesty, under the
notion of penance, to go barefoot, to spin, and to wait upon her family
servants at their ordinary repasts, to walk on foot in the mire on a
rainy morning, from Somerset House to St. James’s; her confessor, mean
while, like Lucifer himself, riding by her in his coach; but, which is
worst of all, to make a progress to Tyburn, there to present her
devotions for the departed souls of the Papists, who had been executed
at that place, on account of the Gunpowder Treason, and other enormous
crimes. A most impious piaculary, whereof the king said acutely, that
the action can have no greater invective than the relation. The other
sex were accused of crimes of another nature, whereof Madam St. George
was, as in dignity of office, so in guilt, the principal; culpable she
was in many particulars, but her most notorious and unpardonable fault
was, her being an accursed instrument of some unkindness between the
king and queen. These incendiaries were cashiered, the queen, who
formerly shewed so much waspish protervity, soon fell into a mode of
loving compliance. But though this renvoy of her Majesty’s servants,
imported domestic peace, yet was it attended with an ill aspect from
France, though our king, studying to preserve fair correspondence with
his brother, sent the Lord Carleton with instructions to represent a
true account of the action, with all the motives to it; but his
reception was very coarse, being never admitted to audience. Louis
despatched Monsieur the Marshal de Bassompierre, as Extraordinary
Ambassador to our king, to demand the restitution of the queen’s
domesticks: which he at last obtained for most of them.”
“It was this match,” adds Dr. Kennet, “that began to corrupt our nation
with French modes and vanities; which gave occasion to Mr. Prynne to
write that severe invective, called Histriomastix, against stage plays;
to betray our councils to the French court; to weaken the poor
Protestants in France, by rendering ineffectual the relief of Rochelle;
nay, and to lessen our own trade and navigation. These ill effects,
beyond the king’s intention, raised such a jealousy, and spread such a
damp upon the English subjects, that it was unhappily turned into one of
the unjust occasions of civil war, which indeed began more out of hatred
to that party, than out of any disaffection to the king. The people
thought themselves too much under French counsels, and a French
ministry, or else, they could never have been drawn aside into that
great rebellion. This interest when suspected to prevail, brought the
king into urgent difficulties; and in the midst of them the aid and
assistance, which that interest offered him, did but the more
effectually weaken him. On this side the water the French services
betrayed him; and on the other side, the French policies were at work to
betray him.”
And, indeed, as queen Henrietta had a mighty, if not a supreme sway over
King Charles’s councils, so did her mother, Mary de Medicis, who came
over by her invitation, administer great cause of jealousy to this
nation. “The people,” says L’Estrange, “were generally malecontent at
her coming, and wished her farther off. For they did not like her train
and followers, which had often been observed to be the sword of
pestilence, so that she was beheld as some meteor of evil signification.
Nor was one of these calamities thought more the effect of her fortune
than inclination; for her restless and unconstant spirit was prone to
embroil all wheresoever she came. And besides, as queen Henrietta was
extraordinary active in raising money among the Roman Catholics of this
kingdom, to enable King Charles to make war against his subjects of
Scotland, so was she extreme busy in fomenting the unhappy differences
between his Majesty and his English Parliament.”
Sir John Reresby, in his Memoirs, asserts that queen Henrietta Maria was
married after the king’s death to Lord St. Alban’s. “The abbess of an
English college in Paris, whither the queen used to retire, would tell
me,” says Sir John, “that Lord Jermyn, since St. Alban’s, had the queen
greatly in awe of him, and indeed it was obvious that he had great
interest with her concerns; but that he was married to her, or _had
children by her, as some have reported_, I did not then believe, _though
the thing was certainly so_.”
Madame Baviere, in her letters, says, “Charles the First’s widow made a
clandestine marriage, with her _Chevalier d’ Honneur_, Lord St. Alban’s,
who treated her extremely ill, so that whilst she had not a faggot to
warm herself, he had in his apartment a good fire, and a sumptuous
table. He never gave the queen a kind word, and when she spoke to him,
he used to say, _Que me veut cette femme?_”
To what a miserable state the queen was reduced may be seen in the
following extract from De Retz’s Memoirs, (vol. 1. p. 261.) “Four or
five days before the king removed from Paris, I went to visit the queen
of England, whom I found in her daughter’s chamber, who hath been since
Duchess of Orleans. At my coming in she said, ‘You see I am come to keep
Henrietta company. The poor child could not rise to-day for want of a
fire.’ The truth is, that the cardinal for six months together had not
ordered her any money towards her pension; that no trades-people would
trust her for any thing; and that there was not at her lodgings in the
Louvre one single billet. You will do me the justice to suppose that the
princess of England did not keep her bed the next day for want of a
faggot; but it was not this which the Princess of Conde meant in her
letter. What she spoke about was, that some days after my visiting the
queen of England, I remembered the condition I had found her in, and had
strongly represented the shame of abandoning her in that manner, which
caused the Parliament to send 40,000 livres to her Majesty. Posterity
will hardly believe that a Princess of England, grand-daughter of Henry
the Great, hath wanted a faggot in the month of January, to get out of
bed in the Louvre, and in the eyes of a French court. We read in
histories, with horror, of baseness less monstrous than this; and the
little concern I have met with about it in most people’s minds, has
obliged me to make, I believe, a thousand times this reflection—that
examples of times past move men beyond comparison more than those of
their own times. We accustom ourselves to what we see; and I have
sometimes told you, that I doubted whether Caligula’s horse being made a
consul would have surprized us so much as we imagine.”
As for the relative situations of the king (Charles II.) and Lord
Jermyn, (afterwards St. Alban’s) Lord Clarendon (Hist. of the Rebellion,
vol. 3. p. 2) says that the “Marquis of Ormond was compelled to put
himself in prison, with other gentlemen, at a pistole a week for his
diet, and to walk the streets a-foot, which was no honourable custom in
Paris, whilst the Lord Jermyn kept an excellent table for those who
courted him, and had a coach of his own, and all other accommodations
incident to the most full fortune; and if the king had the most urgent
occasion for the use but of twenty pistoles, as sometimes he had, he
could not find credit to borrow it, which he often had experiment of.”
The Lord St. Alban’s above mentioned was Henry Jermyn, second son of
Thomas Jermyn, of Rushbrooke, near Bury St. Edmund’s, in Suffolk. In
1644 he was created Lord Jermyn, with limitation of the honour to the
heirs male of his elder brother Thomas. In 1660 he was further advanced
to the dignity of Earl of St. Alban’s, and Baron of St. Edmund’s Bury,
but on his death in 1683, the earldom became extinct. The barony of
Jermyn devolved on Thomas (son of his elder brother Thomas) who became
second Lord Jermyn: he died unmarried in 1703.—Lord St. Alban’s was
master of the horse to Queen Henrietta Maria, and one of the privy
council to Charles the second. In July 1660 he was sent ambassador to
the court of France, and in 1671 was made Lord Chamberlain of his
majesty’s household.—“He was a man of no great genius,” says Grammont,
“he raised himself a considerable fortune from nothing, and by losing at
play, and keeping a great table, made it appear greater than it was.”
“It is well known what a table the good man kept at Paris, while the
king his master was starving at Brussels, and the queen dowager his
mistress, lived not over well in France.”
This earl lived in London at _Jermyn house_, which stood at the head of
St. Alban’s-street, Pallmall, which street and Jermyn-street had their
names from him.
LAST MOMENTS OF PHILIP MELANCTHON.[34]
The nineteenth of April, 1560, was the last day of the mortal existence
of this great reformer and pious christian. After the usual medical
inquiries of the morning, he adverted to the calamitous state of the
church of Christ, but intimated his hope that the genuine doctrine of
the gospel would ultimately prevail, exclaiming, “If GOD be for us who
can be against us.” After this he presented fervent supplications to
heaven for the welfare of the church, and in the intervals of sleep
conversed principally upon this subject with several of his visiting
friends.
Soon after eight in the morning awaking from a tranquil sleep, he
distinctly, though with a feeble voice, repeated a form of prayer which
he had written for his own daily use. An interval of repose having
elapsed after repeating this prayer, he lifted up his eyes to heaven,
and turning to his son-in-law, he said, “I have been in the power of
death, but the LORD has graciously delivered me.” This was supposed to
refer to some deep conflicts of mind, as he repeated the expression to
others. When one of the persons who visited him said, “There is now no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus,” he soon added, “Christ
is made to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.”
“Let him that glorieth glory in the LORD.”
The coldness of death was now creeping over him, but his mental
faculties continued unimpaired to the very last breath of mortal
existence. Having expressed a wish to hear some passages from the Old
and New Testaments, his ministerial attendants read the 24th, 25th and
26th Psalms: the 53d chapter of Isaiah; the 7th chapter of John, the 5th
of the Romans, and many other passages. The saying of John respecting
the son of God, he said was perpetually in his mind, “the world knew him
not ... but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the
sons of GOD, even to them that believe on his name.”
Upon being asked by his son-in-law if he would have any thing else, he
replied in these emphatic Words, “NOTHING ELSE—BUT HEAVEN!” and
requested that he might not be any further interrupted. Soon afterwards
he made a similar request, begging those around him, who were
endeavouring with officious kindness to adjust his clothes, “not to
disturb his delightful repose.” After some time his friends united with
the Minister present in solemn prayer, and several passages of
scripture, in which he was known always to have expressed peculiar
pleasure were read, such as “Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe
in GOD, believe also in me.”—“In my Father’s house are many
mansions.”—“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow
me;” particularly the fifth chapter of Romans, and the triumphant close
of the eighth chapter, commencing “If GOD be for us, who can be against
us?” Many other parts of scripture were recited, and the last word he
uttered was the German particle of affirmation, _Ia_, in reply to one of
his friends, who had inquired if he understood him while reading. The
last motion which his friends who surrounded him to the number of at
least twenty, could discern, was a slight motion of the countenance
which was peculiar to him when deeply affected with religious joy!—“Mark
the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end of that man is
peace!”
At length, “in the midst of solemn vows and supplications,” at a quarter
before seven, in the evening, at the age of sixty-three, he gently
breathed his last. No distractions of mind, no foreboding terrors of
conscience agitated this attractive scene. His chamber was “privileged
beyond the common walks of virtuous life—quite in the verge of
heaven”—and he expired, like a wave scarcely undulating to the evening
zephyr of an unclouded summer sky. It was a “DEPARTURE”—a “SLEEP”—“the
earthly house of this tabernacle was dissolved.”
Footnote 34: