_buried in the yeare of our Lord [1687.]_
_April ye 17._
_Gorges uiluas Lord dooke of bookingam, etc._
This vulgar entry is the only public memorial of the death of a
nobleman, whose abuse of faculties of the highest order, subjected him
to public contempt, and the neglect of his associates in his deepest
distress. If any lesson can reach the sensualist he may read it in the
duke’s fate and repentant letter.
* * * * *
The publication of such a tract as Mr. Cole’s, from a provincial press,
is an agreeable surprise. It is in octavo, and bears the quaint title of
the “Antiquarian Trio,” because it describes, 1. The house wherein the
duke of Buckingham died. 2. Rudston church and obelisk. 3. A monumental
effigy in the old town-hall, Scarborough, with a communication to Mr.
Cole from the Rev. J. L. Lisson, expressing his opinion, that it
represents John de Mowbray, who was constable of Scarborough castle in
the reign of Edward II. Engravings illustrate these descriptions, and
there is another on wood of the church of Hunmanby, with a poem, for
which Mr. Cole is indebted to the pen of “the present incumbent, the
Rev. Archdeacon Wrangham, M. A. F. R. S.”
[138] The _Every-Day Book_.
* * * * *
~Literature.~
“SERVIAN POPULAR POETRY, translated by JOHN BOWRING,” 1827.
It is an item of “Foreign Occurrences,” in the “Gentleman’s Magazine,”
July, 1807, that a firman of the grand signior sentenced the whole
Servian nation to extermination, without distinction of age or sex; if
any escaped the sword, they were to be reduced to slavery. Every plain
matter-of-fact man knew from his Gazetteer that Servia was a province of
Turkey in Europe, bounded on the north by the Danube and Save, which
separate it from Hungary, on the east by Bulgaria, on the west by
Bosnia, and on the south by Albania and Macedonia; of course, he
presumed that fire and sword had passed upon the country within these
boundaries, and that the remaining natives had been deported; and
consequently, to render the map of Turkey in Europe perfectly correct,
he took his pen, and blotted out “Servia.” It appears, however, that by
one of those accidents, which defeat _certain_ purposes of state policy,
and which are quite as common to inhuman affairs, in “sublime” as in
Christian cabinets, there was a change of heads in the Turkish
administration. The Janizaries becoming displeased with their new
uniforms, and with the ministers of Selim, the best of grand signiors,
his sublime majesty was graciously pleased to mistake the objects of
their displeasure, and send them the heads of Mahmud Effendi, and a few
ex-ministers, who were obnoxious to himself, instead of the heads of
Achmet Effendi, and others of his household; the discontented therefore
immediately decapitated the latter themselves; and, further, presumed to
depose Selim, and elevate Mustapha to the Turkish throne. According to
an ancient custom, the deposed despot threw himself at the feet of his
successor, kissed the border of his garment, retired to that department
of the seraglio occupied by the princes of the blood who cease to reign,
and Mustapha, girded with the sword of the prophet, was the best of
grand signiors in his stead. This state of affairs at the court of
Constantinople rendered it inconvenient to divert the energies of the
faithful to so inconsiderable an object as the extinction of the Servian
nation; and thus Servia owes its existence to the Janizaries’ dislike of
innovation on their dress; and we are consequently indebted to that
respectable prejudice for the volume of “Servian popular Poetry,”
published by Mr. Bowring. We might otherwise have read, as a dry matter
of history, that the Servian people were exterminated A. D. 1807, and
have passed to our graves without suspecting that they had songs and
bards, and were quite as respectable as their ferocious and powerful
destroyers.
Mr. Bowring’s “Introduction” to his specimens of “Servian popular
Poetry,” is a rapid sketch of the political and literary history of
Servia.
“The Servians must be reckoned among those races who vibrated between
the north and the east; possessing to-day, dispossessed to-morrow; now
fixed, and now wandering: having their head-quarters in Sarmatia for
many generations, in Macedonia for following ones, and settling in
Servia at last. But to trace their history, as to trace their course, is
impossible. At last the eye fixes them between the Sava and the Danube,
and Belgrade grows up as the central point round which the power of
Servia gathers itself together, and stretches itself along the right
bank of the former river, southwards to the range of mountains which
spread to the Adriatic and to the verge of Montengro. Looking yet
closer, we observe the influence of the Venetians and the Hungarians on
the character and the literature of the Servians. We track their
connection now as allies, and now as masters; once the receivers of
tribute from, and anon as tributaries to, the Grecian empire; and in
more modern times the slaves of the Turkish yoke. Every species of
vicissitude marks the Servian annals--annals represented only by those
poetical productions of which these are specimens. The question of their
veracity is a far more interesting one than that of their antiquity. Few
of them narrate events previous to the invasion of Europe by the Turks
in 1355, but some refer to facts coeval with the Mussulman empire in
Adrianople. More numerous are the records of the struggle between the
Moslem and the Christian parties at a later period; and last of all,
they represent the quiet and friendly intercourse between the two
religions, if not blended in social affections, at least associated in
constant communion.”