PART I. CHAP. I.

Transcriber's note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.

*** depicts an asterism.

* * * * *

BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCLXXIV. DECEMBER, 1846. VOL. LX.

CONTENTS.

KOHL IN DENMARK AND IN THE MARSHES, 645

LORD METCALFE'S GOVERNMENT OF JAMAICA, 662

ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES OF LONDON, 673

MARLBOROUGH'S DISPATCHES. 1711-1712, 690

MILDRED. A TALE. PART I., 709

THE LAW AND ITS PUNISHMENTS, 721

LEGENDS OF THE THAMES, 729

RECENT ROYAL MARRIAGES, 740

ST MAGNUS', KIRKWALL, 753

THE GAME LAWS, 754

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BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCLXXIV. DECEMBER, 1846. VOL. LX.

KOHL IN DENMARK AND IN THE MARSHES.

_Die Marschen und Inseln der Herzogthümer Schleswig und

Holstein. Reisen in Dänemark und den Herzogthümer Schleswig und

Holstein._

Mr. Kohl, the most prolific of modern German writers, the most

indefatigable of travellers, is already well known to the English

public by his "Sketches of the English," "Travels in Ireland," and

many other publications too numerous to remember. He is a gentleman

of marvellous facility in travelling over foreign ground--of

extraordinary capabilities in the manufacturing of books. Within

five years he has given to the world, hostages for fame, some

thirty or forty volumes; and explored, socially, politically,

scientifically, and æsthetically, North and South Russia, Poland,

Moravia, Hungary, Bavaria, Great Britain, France, Denmark, and we

know not how many other countries besides. It is as difficult to

stop his pen as his feet. He is always trotting, and writing whilst

he trots, and evidently without the smallest fatigue from either

occupation. He plays on earth the part assigned to the lark above it

by the poet: he,

"Singing, still doth soar; and soaring, ever singeth."

He has already announced a scheme that has occurred to him for

a commercial map, which shall contain, in various colours, the

productions and raw materials of every country in the world, with

lines appended, marking the course they take to their several ports

of embarkation. We shrewdly suspect that this gigantic scheme has

grown out of another, more personal and profitable, and already

put in practice. We could almost swear that Mr Kohl had drawn up a

literary map on the very same principle, with dots for the countries

and districts to be visited and worked up, and lines to mark the

course for the conveyance of that very raw material, which he is

eternally digging up on the way, in the shape of disquisitions about

nothing, and moral reflections on every thing. Denmark occupies him

to-day. We will wager that he is already intent upon working out an

article or book from neighbouring Norway or adjacent Sweden.

It was remarked the other day by a writer, that one great literary

fault of the present day is a desire to be "so priggishly curt and

epigrammatic," that almost every lucubration comes from the furnace

with a coating of "small impertinence," perfectly intolerable to

the sober reader. If any writer is anxious to correct this fault,

let him take our advice gratis, and sit down at once to a course

of Kohl. So admirable a spinner of long yarns from the smallest

threads, never flourished. We have most honestly and perseveringly

waded through his eleven or twelve hundred pages of close print,

and we unhesitatingly confess that we have never before perused

so much, of which we have retained so little. Does not every man,

woman, and child, in these days of cheap fares and everlasting

steamers, know by heart all that can be said or sung about "tones

from the sea?" Are they not to be summoned, at any given moment,

under any given circumstances, by your fire at twilight, on your

pillow at midnight? Mr Kohl proses about these eternal "_tones_,"

till salt water becomes odious--about storms, till they calm you

to sleep--about calms, till they drive you to fury--about winds

and waves, till your head aches with their motion. We will not

pretend to tell you, reader, all the differences that exist between

high marsh-land and low marsh-land, broad dikes and narrow dikes,

or to describe the downs and embankments which we have seen, go

whithersoever we may, ever since we have risen from the perusal of

Mr Kohl's book. We will not, because Mr Kohl has dealt hardly by

us, have our revenge upon you. Nay, we could not, if we would. The

picture is jumbled in our critical head, as it lies confused in

the author's work, which is as disjointed a labour as ever puzzled

science seeking in chaos for a system. Backwards and forwards he

goes--now up to his head in the marshes, now lighting upon an

island, disdaining geography, giving the go-by to history, dragging

us recklessly through digressions, repudiating any thing like order,

and utterly oblivious of that beautiful scheme so dear to his heart,

by which we are to trace the natural course of every thing under the

sun but the narrative of Mr Kohl's very tedious adventures.

Mr Kohl knows very well what is the duty of a faithful delineator of

foreign countries and manners. He acknowledges in his preface, that

his work is rather a make-up of simple remarks than a comprehensive

description of the countries named in the titlepage. This confession

is not--as is often the case--a modest appreciation of great merits,

but a true estimate of small achievements. It is the simple fact.

As for the consolatory reflections of the author, that he has at

all events proved that he knows more of the lands he describes than

his countrymen who stay at home, it is of so lowly a character that

we are by no means disposed to discuss it. When he adds, however,

that he has already earned a kind reception from the world, and

trusts to be reckoned amongst the men who have been useful, we may

be permitted to hint, that neither a kind reception nor the quality

of usefulness will long be vouchsafed to the individual who leads

confiding but unfortunate readers a Will-o'-the-Wisp chase over bogs

and moors that have no end, and compels them to swallow, diluted in

bottles three, the draught which might easily have found its way

into an ordinary phial.

That there are gems in the volumes cannot be denied: that they

are not of the first water, is equally beyond a doubt. Scattered

over a prodigious surface, they have not been gained without some

difficulty. Those who are not able or disposed to turn to the

original, will be glad to learn from us something of the sturdy

Frieslanders and Ditmarschers. They who have energy and patience

enough to overcome the prolixity of the author, will at least give

us credit for some perseverance, and appreciate the difficulties of

our task.

Mr Kohl commences his work with a description of the _Islands_.

We will follow the order of the titlepage, and begin with the

"Marshes" and their brave and hardy inhabitants. The author informs

us, with pardonable exultation, that, upon asking a German of

ordinary education whether he knew who the Ditmarschers are, he

was most satisfactorily answered, "_Ja wohl!_ are they not the

famous peasants of Denmark who would not surrender to the king?"

We question whether many Englishmen, of even an extraordinary

education, would have answered at once so glibly or correctly. To

enable them to meet the question of any future Kohl with promptness

and success, we will introduce them at once to this singular race,

and give a rapid sketch of their country and political existence.

The territory inhabited by the Ditmarschers is a small district of

flat country, stretching along the Elbe and the Eyder, and is about

a hundred miles in length. Its maritime frontier was originally

defended by lofty mounds, which opposed the encroachments of the

sea; whilst inland it found protection in an almost impenetrable

barrier of thick wood, bogs, lakes, and morass. This barrier

constitutes the marshes so minutely described by our author. The

Ditmarschers are a people of Friesic origin; the name, according

to Mr Kohl, being derived from _Marsch_, _Meeresland_, sea-land,

and _Dith_, _Thit_, or _Teut_, _Deutsch_, German. In the time

of Charlemagne, or his immediate successors, the district was

included in the department of the Mouth of the Elbe, and was known

as the Countship of Stade. It was bestowed by the Emperor Henry

IV., in 1602, upon the archbishops of Bremen, to be held by them

in fief. The Ditmarschers, however, were but slippery subjects;

and, maintaining an actual independence within their embankments,

cared little who governed them, provided sufficient advantages were

offered by the prince or prelate who demanded their allegiance. In

1186, we find them claiming the protection of Bishop Valdemar of

Sleswig, the uncle and guardian of Prince Valdemar, afterwards known

as Valdemar the conqueror; for, "being grievously worried by the

oppressions of the bailiffs of their spiritual Lord," they declared

a perfect indifference as to "whether they paid tribute to Saint

Peter of Bremen, or Saint Peter of Sleswig." They passed from the

rule of Bishop Valdemar, who was subsequently excommunicated, to

that respectively of the Duke of Holstein, the Bishop of Bremen,

and Valdemar II., King of Denmark. When the last-named monarch gave

battle to his revolted subjects at Bornhöved in Holstein, in the

year 1227, the Ditmarschers suddenly united their bands with those

of the enemy, and decided the fate of the day against the king. They

then returned to the rule of the bishops of Bremen, stipulating for

many rights and privileges, which they enjoyed unmolested during

300 years; that is to say, up to the year 1559, whilst they yielded

little more than a nominal obedience to their spiritual lords, and

evinced no great alacrity in assisting them in times of need.

During their long period of practical independence and freedom,

the Ditmarschers governed themselves like stanch republicans.

Their grand assembly was the _Meende_, to which all citizens were

eligible above the age of eighteen. It met in extraordinary cases at

Meldorf, the capital: but commonly seventy or eighty _Radgewere_,

or councillors, decided upon all questions of national policy

propounded to them by the _Schlüter_, or overseers of the various

parishes into which the district was divided, who generally managed

the affairs of their own little municipality independently of their

neighbours. This simple institution underwent some modifications

about the middle of the fifteenth century, when, in consequence of

internal dissensions, eight-and-forty men were chosen as supreme

judges for life. These "_achtundveertig_" had, however, but little

real power. They met weekly; but on great emergencies they summoned

a general assembly, amounting to about 1500 persons, and consisting

of the various councillors and _schlüter_. This assembly held forth

in the market-place of the capital. The masses closely watched the

proceedings, and when it was deemed necessary, called upon one of

their own number to address the meeting on behalf of the rest.

The peace enjoyed by the Ditmarschers from without, contrasted

strongly with the tumults that were often experienced within. The

annals of these people inform us, that whole families and races

were from time to time swept away by the hand of the foe, and by

the violence of party spirit. The Ditmarschers celebrate several

days as anniversaries of victories. One, the _Hare_ day, dates as

far back as 1288, when a party of Holsteiners made an incursion

into the marshes, but were speedily opposed by the natives. For

a time the two hostile bands watched each other, neither willing

to attack, when a hare suddenly started up between them. Some of

the Ditmarschers, pursuing the frightened animal, exclaimed _Löp,

löp!_--"Run, run!" The foremost Holsteiners, seeing the enemy

approaching at full speed, were thrown into confusion; whilst those

behind them, hearing the cry of "run, run!" took to their heels,

and a general rout ensued. The day of "melting lead" is another

joyful anniversary. Gerard VII. of Holstein, endeavouring in 1390[1]

to subjugate the country of the Ditmarschen, drove the people at the

crisis of an assault to such extremities, that they were obliged to

take refuge in a church, which they obstinately defended against

the Duke's troops, until Gerard, infuriated, ordered the leaden

roof of the building to be heated. The melted lead trickled down on

the heads of the Ditmarschers, who, finding themselves reduced to

a choice of deaths, desperately fought their way out, engaged the

Holsteiners, whom they overcame, and who, ignorant of the country,

were either lost in the intricacies of the marshes or drowned in

the dikes. The forces of a count, a duke, and a king, were in turns

routed by the brave Ditmarschers, who have not yet forgotten the

glory of their ancient peasantry. In 1559, however, they ceased to

gain victories for celebration. In that year Denmark and the Duchies

united to subdue the small but very valiant nation. They marshalled

an army of twenty-five thousand picked men, whilst the Ditmarschers

could with difficulty collect seven thousand. John Rantzan commanded

the allied army. He captured Meldorf, set fire to the town, pursued

the inhabitants in all directions and destroyed the greater number

whilst they were nobly fighting for their liberties. Utterly beaten,

the Ditmarschers submitted to their conquerors. Three of the

clergy proceeded to the enemy, bearing a letter addressed to the

princes as "The Lords of Ditmarschen," and offering to surrender

their arms and ammunitions, together with all the trophies they

had ever won. A general capitulation followed: not wholly to the

disadvantage of the people, since it was stipulated that none but

a native of the country should hold immediate authority over it.

At first the land was divided amongst the sovereigns of Denmark,

Holstein, and Sleswig; but in 1773 it was finally ceded in full to

the Danish monarch, together with part of Holstein, by the Duke of

Schleswig-Holstein, (afterwards Grand-Duke of Russia,) in exchange

for Oldenburg and Delmenhorst. The Ditmarschers, at the present

hour enjoy many of their former privileges: they acknowledge no

distinctions of rank; they have their forty-eight Supreme Judges

(the ancient _schlüter_) under the name of _Vögte_ or overseers,

and may, in fact, be regarded as one of the best samples of

republicanism now existing in the world.

[1] Mr Kohl fixes the date of the "melted lead" day at 1319,

forgetting that Margaret, the Semiramis of the North, in whose reign

the event occurred, did not reign in Denmark until about 1375. She

died in 1412.

Thus much for their history. Of their far-farmed dikes and sluices,

of the marsh-lands and downs which their embankments inclosed,

much more may be said, for Mr Kohl devotes half his work to their

consideration. We will not fatigue the indulgent reader by engaging

him for a survey. The land is distinguished by the inhabitants by

the terms _grest_ and _marsch_; the former being the hilly district,

the latter the deposits from the sea:--the one is woody in parts,

having heath and sand, springs and brooks: the other is flat,

treeless, heathless, with no sand or spring, but one rich series of

meadows, intersected in every direction by canals and dikes. Far as

the eye can reach, it rests upon broad and fertile meads covered

with grazing cattle; whilst from the teeming plain stand forth

farm-houses innumerable, raised upon _wurten_, or little hillocks,

some ten or twelve feet above the level of the land, for security

against constantly recurring inundation. All external appliances

needful for the establishment are elevated upon these heights, whose

sides are, for the most part, covered with vegetable gardens, and

here and there with flowers and shrubs. The houses have but one

story; they are long, and built of brick. For protection against

the unsteady soil, they are often supported by large iron posts

projecting from the sides, and looking like huge anchors. There are

few villages or hamlets in the marshes. The inhabitants are not

gregarious, but prefer the independence of a perfectly insulated

abode. The "threshold right" is still so strictly maintained amongst

them, that no officer of police dare enter, unpermitted, the house

of a Ditmarscher, or arrest him within his own doors.

The roads in the marshes, as may be supposed, are, at times, almost

impassable; riding is therefore more frequent than driving or

walking, although many of the more active marshers accelerate their

passage across the fens by leaping-poles, which they employ with

wonderful dexterity. The women ride always behind the men, on a seat

fastened to the crupper. As the dikes lie higher than the meadows,

they prove the driest road for carriages and passengers; but they

are not always open to the traveller, lest too constant a traffic

should injure the foundations. The carriages chiefly used are a

species of land canoe. They are called _Körwagen_, and are long,

narrow, and awkward. On either side of the vehicle, chairs or seats

swing loosely. No one chair is large enough for the two who occupy

it, and who sit with their knees closely pressed against the seat

which is before them.

The process of gradually reclaiming new land from the waves is

somewhat curious. As soon as a sufficient amount of deposit has been

thrown up from the sea, outguards, or breakwaters, called _höfter_

are immediately erected. Within the breakwater there remains a pool

of still water, which by degrees fills up with a rich slime or mud

called _slick_. As soon as the slick has attained an elevation

sufficient to be above the regular level of the high waves, plants

styled "_Queller_" appear, and are soon succeeded by others termed

_Drücknieder_, from the tendency of their interlaced roots and

tendrils to keep down the soft mud. In the course of years, the soil

rises, and a meadow takes the place of the former stagnant pool.

As these new lands are extremely productive, often yielding three

hundred-fold on the first crop of rape-seed, sixty to eighty fold

on barley, and from thirty to forty on wheat, their possession is

ever a subject of great dispute. Formerly the diking and embankments

were undertaken by companies; but at present they are in the hands

of the Danish government, which makes all necessary outlay in the

beginning, and appropriates whatever surplus may remain upon the

original cost to future repairs and to the aid of the general

poor fund. Some slight idea may be formed of the enormous expense

incurred in the construction and maintenance of these dikes, when we

state that the _Dagebieller_ dike alone cost ten thousand dollars

for one recent repair. Ninety thousand dollars were one summer

spent in building embankments around reclaimed land, now valued at

one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, thus showing a clear gain

of sixty thousand dollars by the undertaking. The embankments are

generally from fifteen to twenty feet high. When the nature of the

soil upon which they are raised is considered, together with the

scarcity of wood on these low lands, it will not be difficult to

understand that constant labour is needed to prevent the land from

being undermined by the sea, and that it is only by unremitting

industry, and constant attention to the condition of the breakwaters

and dikes, that the enemy can at all be kept at bay.

The dangers that are to be encountered, and the laborious efforts

that must be made for subsistence at home, train the Frieslander of

the marshes and islands for the perils of the deep, which we find

him encountering with a brave and dogged resolution. The islanders,

especially, are constantly engaged in the whale and other fisheries.

In the islands visited by Mr Kohl, the greater number of the men

were far away on the seas, and their wives and daughters conducting

the business of their several callings; some tending cattle, some

spinning, others manufacturing gloves. Seals abound upon the coast,

and are caught by sundry ingenious devices. A fisher disguises

himself in a seal-skin, and travels up to a troop of these sea

monsters, imitating, as far as he is able, their singular movements

and contortions. When, fairly amongst them, he lifts the gun which

has been concealed beneath his body, and shoots amongst the herd.

If discovered asleep a seal is sure to be caught, for his slumbers

are sound. Conscious of his weakness, _Phoca_ stations a patrol at

some little distance from his couch, and an alarm is given as soon

as any man appears. At certain seasons of the year vast flocks of

ducks light upon the islands, and are caught chiefly by the aid of

tame decoy-birds, who mislead the others into extensive nets spread

for the visitors. One duck-decoyer will catch twenty thousand birds

in the course of a summer; the soft down obtained from the breast of

one species is the _eider down_. The season begins in September and

lasts till Christmas. Hamburg beef is due to the localities we speak

of. One of the large meadow districts already mentioned, is said

to fatten eight thousand head of oxen yearly, who, at their death,

bequeath to the world the far-famed dainty.

The islands visited by our author are those lying in that part

of the North Sea which the Danes call _Vesterhafet_, or the

western harbour, and which extends close to the shores from the

mouth of the Elbe to Jutland. Of these the most noted are Syltoe,

Foehr, Amrum, Romoe, and Pelvorn. Around them lie many excellent

oyster-beds--royal property, and yielding an annual income of twenty

thousand dollars. The people inhabiting these islands are said to be

of Friesic origin: they certainly were colonists from Holland, and

they still exhibit many peculiarities of the ancient Friesic stock.

They are clean, neat, simple, honest, and moral. Few establishments

for the punishment of culprits are to be found either in the islands

or on the marshes. As late as the fifteenth and sixteenth century,

in cases of homicide the accused was doomed to walk over twelve

burning ploughshares. Great crimes seem unknown to-day; and the

practice of leaving house-doors unbarred and unlocked upon the wide

and desolate marshes, testifies not a little to the general honesty

of the people.

Mr Kohl talks a whole boxfull of balaam about the identity of the

islanders and the English. In the first place, he insists that

_Hengist_ and _Horsa_ were gentlemen of Friesic extraction; and

secondly, he compares them to a spirituous liquor: thirdly, he

argues on the topic like a musty German bookworm, who has travelled

no further than round his own room, and seen no more humanity than

the grubby specimen his looking-glass once a-week, at shaving

time, presents to him. What authority has Mr Kohl for this Friesic

origin of Hengist and Horsa? Is there a port along the Elbe and

the Weser, or on the coasts of Jutland and Holstein, which does

not claim the honour of having sent the brothers out? Is not the

question as difficult to decide, the fact as impossible to arrive

at, as Homer's birthplace? But supposing the hypothesis of Mr Kohl

to be true, he surely cannot be serious when he asserts, that

the handful of men who landed with the brothers in Britain, have

transmitted their Friesic characteristics through every succeeding

age, and that these are discernible now in all their pristine vigour

and integrity. Can he mean what he says? Is he not joking when he

puts forward the "rum" argument? A little of that liquor, he says,

flavours a bowl of punch. Why shouldn't a little Friesic season the

entire English nation with the masculine force of the old Teutonic

Frieslanders? Why should it? If Hengist and Horsa supplied the rum,

who, we are justified in asking, came down with the sugar and lemon?

If the beverage be milk-punch, who was the dairyman? These are

questions quite as apt as Mr Kohl's, not a whit more curious than

his illustrations. The points of identity between the Frieslander

and the Englishman are marvellous, if you can but see them. The

inhabitants of the marshes and islands are grave, reserved, and

thoughtful; so are the English; so, for that matter, are the Upper

Lusatians, if we are to believe Ernst Willkomm; so are a good many

other people. The marshers have an eye to their own interests; so

have the English. This is a feature quite peculiar to the marshers

and the English. It may be called the _right_ eye, every other

nation possessing only the left. Of course, Mr Kohl is perfectly

blind to his interests, in publishing the present work: yet he is

Friesic too! From the Frieslanders we have inherited our "English

spleen." How many years have we been attributing it to the much

maligned climate? We are starched and stiff; so are the islanders.

The marshers dress a May king and queen at a spring festival. We

know something about a May queen at the same blessed season. If

these were the only instances of kindred resemblance, our readers

might fail to be convinced, after all, of the truth of the Friesic

theory. These doubts, if any linger, shall be removed at once. One

morning a Frieslander carefully opened Mr Kohl's door, and said, "_I

am afraid_ there is a house on fire." Kohl rushed forth and found

the building in flames; which incident immediately reminded him--he

being a German and a philosopher--of the excessive caution of the

Englishman, which, under the most alarming circumstances, forbids

his saying any thing stronger than "I believe," "I am afraid," "I

dare say." Verily we "believe," we are "afraid," we "dare say,"

that Mr. Kohl is a most incorrigible twaddler. One more peculiarity

remains to be told. They keep gigs in the marshes. There are

"gentlemen" there as well as in England. Are there none elsewhere?

The customs of the Ditmarschers could not fail to be interesting.

That of the _Fenstern_ or _Windowing_ is romantic, and perilous

to boot. At dead of night, when all good people are asleep, young

gallants cross the marshes and downs for miles to visit the girls

of their acquaintance, or it may be _the_ girl of fairest form

and most attractions. Arrived at the house, they scale the walls,

enter a window, and drop into the chamber of the lady, who lies

muffled up to the chin on a bed of down, having taken care to

leave a burning lamp on the table, and fire in the stove, that

her nocturnal callers may have both light and warmth. Upon the

entrance of her visitor, she politely asks him to be seated--his

chair being placed at the distance of a few feet from the bed. They

converse, and the conversation being brought to an end, the gallant

takes his departure either by the door or window. Some opposition

has been shown of late to this custom by a few over-scrupulous

parents; but the fathers who are bold enough to put bolts on their

doors or windows, are certain of meeting with reprisals from the

gallants of the district. The _Fenstern_ is subject to certain

laws and regulations, by which those who practise it are bound to

abide. Another curious custom, and derived like the former from the

heathen, was the dance performed at the churching of women up to the

close of the last century--the woman herself wearing a green and a

red stocking, and hopping upon one leg to church. The Friesic women

are small and delicately formed: their skin, beautifully soft and

white, is protected most carefully against the rough atmosphere by a

mantle, which so completely covers the face, that both in winter and

summer little can be seen beyond the eyes of the women encountered

in the open streets. The generally sombre hue of the garments

renders this muffling the more remarkable; for it is customary for

the relatives of those who are at sea to wear mourning until the

return of the adventurers. Skirt, boddice, apron, and kerchief, all

are dark; and the cloth which so jealously screens the head and face

from the sun and storm, is of the same melancholy hue.

The churchyards testify to the fact, that a comparatively small

number of those who, year after year, proceed on their perilous

expeditions, return to die at home. The monuments almost exclusively

record the names of women--a blank being left for that of the absent

husband, father, or brother, whose remains are possibly mouldering

in another hemisphere. Every device and symbol sculptured in the

churchyard has reference to the maritime life, with which they are

all so familiar. A ship at anchor, dismasted, with broken tackle, is

a favourite image, whilst the inscription quaintly corresponds with

the sculptured metaphor. It is usual for the people to erect their

monuments during life, and to have the full inscriptions written,

leaving room only for the _date_ of the decease. In the island of

Foehr and elsewhere, the custom still prevails of hiring women to

make loud lamentations over the body, as it is carried homewards

and deposited in the earth. The churches are plain to rudeness, and

disfigured with the most barbarous wood carvings of our Saviour, of

saints, and popes. These rough buildings are, for the most part, of

great antiquity, and traditions tell of their having been brought

from England. There can be no doubt that British missionaries were

here in former days. At the time of the Reformation, the islanders

refused to change their faith; but once converted to Lutheranism,

they have remained stanch Protestants ever since, and maintain a

becoming veneration for their pastors. The clergy are natives of the

islands, and therefore well acquainted with the Friesic dialect, in

which they preach. Their pay is necessarily small, and is mostly

raised by the voluntary contributions of the parishioners. As

may be supposed, the clergy have much influence over the people,

especially on the smaller islands, where the inhabitants have but

little intercourse with strangers. Temperance societies have been

established by the pastors. Brandy, tea, and coffee, came into

general use throughout the islands about a century ago, and ardent

drinking was in vogue until the interference of the clergy. The

Ditmarschers especially, who are allowed to distil without paying

excise duties, carried the vice of drunkenness to excess; but they

are much improved.

The greatest diversity of languages, or rather of dialects, exists

in the islands, arising probably from the fact of Friesic not being

a written language. The dialect of the furthest west approaches

nearer to English than any other. The people of _Amrum_ are proud

of the similarity. They retain the _th_ of the old Icelandic, and

have a number of words in which the resemblance of their ancient

form of speech to the old Anglo-Saxon English is more apparent than

in even the Danish of the present day; as, for instance, _Hu mani

mile?_ How many miles? _Bradgrum_, bridegroom; _theenk_, think, &c.

In many of the words advanced by Mr Kohl, that gentleman evidently

betrays an unconsciousness of their being synonymous with the modern

Danish; and, therefore, strikingly inimical to his favourite theory

of the especial Friesic descent of the English people and language.

Little or nothing is known of the actual geographical propagation

of the old Friesic. At present it is yielding to the Danish and the

Low German in the duchies of Sleswig and Holstein. Many names are

still common amongst the people, which seem to have descended from

the heathen epoch, and which are, in fact, more frequently heard

than the names in the "Roman Calendar," met with elsewhere. _Des_,

_Edo_, _Haje_, _Pave_, _Tete_, are the names of men; _Ehle_, _Tat_,

_Mantje_, _Ode_, _Sieg_, are those of women. None of them are known

amongst any other people. Much confusion exists with respect to the

patronymic, there being no surnames in use in many of the islands.

If a man were called _Tete_, his son _Edo_ would be _Edo Tetes_;

and then, again, _Tat_, the wife of the _Edo_, would be _Tat Edos_,

and his son _Des_, _Des Edos_; whilst _Des's_ son _Tete_ would be

_Tete Des's_, and so on in the most troublesome and perplexing

combinations.

The Frieslanders, like other northern nations, are superstitious,

and they have a multitude of traditions or sagas, some of them

very curious and interesting. We must pass over these instructive

myths--always the rarest and most striking portion of a people's

history--more cursorily than we could wish, and cite a few only of

the most peculiar. The island of _Sylt_, which is the richest in

remains of _höogen_, the celts of heathen heroes, &c., lays claim

to the largest number of Märchen. The most characteristic of all

is that of _de Mannigfuel_, the "colossal ship," (or world,) which

was so large that the commander was obliged to ride about the deck

in order to give his orders: the sailors that went aloft as boys

came down greyheaded, so long a time having elapsed whilst they

were rigging the sails. Once, when the ship was in great peril,

and the waters were running high, the sailors, disheartened by

their protracted watching and labour, threw out ballast in order to

lighten the vessel, when, lo! an island arose, and then another,

and another still, till land was formed--the earth being, according

to the sailors' notion, the secondary formation. Once--many ages

afterwards--when the _Mannigfuel_ was endeavouring to pass through

the Straits of Dover, the captain ingeniously thought to have the

side of the vessel, nearest Dover, rubbed with white soap, and

hence the whiteness of the cliffs at Dover. The achievements

recounted of _de Mannigfuel_ are endless. The following explanation

of the formation of the Straits of Dover is found in a Friesic

saga:--Once upon a time, a queen of England, the land to the west

of the North Sea, and a king of Denmark, the land to the east of

the North Sea, loved each other, and plighted troth; but, as it

happened, the king proved faithless, and left the poor queen to

wear the willow. England was then joined to the Continent by a

chain of hills called _Höneden_; and the queen, desiring to wreak

vengeance on her false wooer and his subjects, summoned her people

around her, and setting them to work for seven years in digging

away these hills, at the end of the seventh year the waves pushed

furiously through the channel that had been dug, and swept along the

coasts of Friesland and Jutland, drowning and carrying away 100,000

persons. To this very hour the Jutland shores yearly tremble before

the fatal vengeance of the slighted queen. The Frieslanders are so

wedded to this marvellous geological myth, that they insist upon

its historical foundation. In some versions 700, in others 7000, in

others again, even 700,000 men are said to have been employed in

this gigantic undertaking.

Another allegorical saga is the narrative of the share taken by the

man in the moon in the matter of the daily ebbing and flowing of

the sea. His chief, or indeed only occupation, seems to be to pour

water from a huge bucket. Being somewhat lazy, the old gentleman

soon grows weary of the employment, and then he lies down to rest.

Of course whilst he is napping, the water avails itself of the

opportunity to return to its ordinary level.

The constellation of the Great Bear, or Charles's Wain, is,

according to the Frieslanders, the chariot in which Elias and many

other great prophets ascended into heaven. There being now-a-days

no individual sufficiently pious for such a mode of transit, it has

been put aside, with other heavenly curiosities, its only office

being to carry the angels in their nocturnal excursions throughout

the year. The angel who acts as driver for the night, fixes his eye

steadily upon the centre point of the heavenly arch, (the polar

star,) in order that the two stars of the shaft of the chariot

may keep in a straight line with the celestial focus. The rising

and setting of the sun is thus explained:--A host of beautiful

nymphs receive the sun beneath the earth in the western hemisphere,

and cutting it into a thousand parts, they make of it little air

balloons, which they sportively throw at the heavenly youths,

who keep guard at the eastern horizon of the earth. The gallant

band, not to be outdone by their fair antagonists, mount a high

ladder, and when night has veiled the earth in darkness, toss back

the golden balls, which, careering rapidly through the vault of

heaven, fall in glittering showers upon the heads of the celestial

virgins of the west. The children of the sky, having thus diverted

themselves through the night, they hasten at dawn of day to collect

the scattered balls, and joining them into one huge mass, they bear

it upon their shoulders, mid singing and dancing, to the eastern

gates of heaven. The enchanting rosy light which hovers round the

rising orb is the reflection of the virgins' lovely forms, who,

beholding their charge safely launched upon its course, retire, and

leave it, as we see it, to traverse the sky alone.

The following exquisite tradition connects itself with that brief

season when, in the summer of the far north, the sun tarries night

and day above the horizon. _All-fader_ had two faithful servants,

of the race of those who enjoyed eternal youth, and when the sun

had done its first day's course, he called to him _Demmarik_, and

said, "To thy watchful care, my daughter, I confide the setting sun

that I have newly created; extinguish its light carefully, and guard

the precious flame that no evil approach it." And the next morning,

when the sun was again about to begin its course, he said to his

servant _Koite_, "My son, to thy trusty hand I remit the charge

of kindling the light of the sun I have created, and of leading

it forth on its way." Faithfully did the children discharge the

duties assigned to them. In the winter they carefully guarded the

precious light, and laid it early to rest, and awakened it to life

again only at a late hour; but, as the spring and summer advanced,

they suffered the glorious flame to linger longer in the vault of

heaven, and to rejoice the hearts of men by the brightness of its

aspect. At length the time arrived when, in our northern world, the

sun enjoys but brief rest. It must be up betimes in the morning to

awaken the flowers and fruit to life and light, and it must cast

its glowing beams across the mantle of night, and lose no time in

idle slumber. Then it was that _Demmarik_, for the first time, met

_Koite_ face to face as she stood upon the western edge of heaven,

and received from the hands of her brother-servant the orb of light.

As the fading lamp passed from one to the other, their eyes met, and

a gentle pressure of their hands sent a thrill of holy love through

their hearts. No eye was there save that of the _All-fader_, who

called his servants before him, and said, "Ye have done well; and as

recompense, I permit ye to fulfil your respective charges conjointly

as man and wife." Then, _Demmarik_ and _Koite_, looking at each

other, replied--"No, All-fader! disturb not our joy; let us remain

everlastingly in our present bridal state; wedded joy cannot equal

what we feel now as betrothed!" And the mighty _All-fader_ granted

their prayer, and from that time they have met but once in the year,

when, during four weeks, they greet each other night after night;

and then, as the lamp passes from one to the other, a pressure of

the hand and a kiss calls forth a rosy blush on the fair cheek of

_Demmarik_ which sheds its mantling glow over all the heavens,

_Koite's_ heart the while thrilling with purest joy. And should they

tarry too long, the gentle nightingales of the _All-fader_ have but

to warble _Laisk tudrück, laisk tudrück! öpik!_ "Giddy ones, giddy

ones! take heed!" to chide them forward on their duty.

With a lovelier vision, reader! we could not leave you dwelling upon

the rugged but, to the heart's core, thoroughly poetic Frieslander.

Let us leave the gentle Demmarik and devoted Koite to their chaste

and heavenly mission, and with a bound leap into Denmark, whither Mr

Kohl, in his forty-fourth volume of travels, summons us, and whither

we must follow him, although the prosaic gentleman is somewhat

of the earth, earthy, after the blessed imitations we have had,

reader--you and we--of the eternal summer's day faintly embodied in

the vision of that long bright day of the far north!

Should any adventurous youth sit down to Mr Kohl's volume on

Denmark, and, half an hour afterwards, throw the book in sheer

disgust and weariness out of the window, swearing never to look

into it again, let him be advised to ring the bell, and to request

Mary to bring it back again with the least possible delay. Having

received it from the maid of all work's horny hand, let the said

youth begin the book again, but, as he would a Hebrew Bible, at the

other end. He may take our word for it there is good stuff there,

in spite of the twaddle that encountered him erewhile at Hamburg.

Mr Kohl has been won by aldermanic dinners in the chief city of

the Hanseatic League, as Louis Philippe was touched by aldermanic

eloquence and wit in the chief city of the world, and he babbles of

mercantile operations and commercial enterprise, until the heart

grows sick with fatigue, and is only made happy by the regrets which

the author expresses--just one hour after the right time--respecting

his inability to enlarge further upon the fruitful and noble

theme of the monetary speculations of one of the richest and most

disagreeable communities of Europe.

Before putting foot on Danish ground, Mr Kohl is careful to make

a kind of solemn protest touching Germanic patriotism, lest, we

presume, he should be suspected of taking a heretical view of the

question at issue at the present moment between the Sleswig-Holstein

provinces and the mother-country Denmark. It is not for us to

enter into any political discussions here, concerning matters of

internal government which are no more business of ours than of his

Majesty Muda Hassim, of the island of Borneo; but we must confess

our inability to understand why such a terrific storm of patriotic

ardour has so suddenly burst forth in Germany, respecting provinces

which, until recently, certainly up to the time when the late

king gave his people the unasked-for boon of a constitution, were

perfectly happy and contented under the Danish rule, to which they

had been accustomed some five or six hundred years.[2] It is only

since the assembly of the states was constituted, that the Sleswig

Holsteiners have been seized with the Germanic _furor_--a malady

not a little increased by the inflammatory harangues of needy

demagogues, and the pedantic outpourings of a handful of professors

stark-mad on the subject of German liberty. If there is one thing

more absurd than another, upon this globe of absurdity, it is the

cant of "nationality," "freedom," "fatherland," "brotherhood," &c.

&c., which is dinned into your ears from one end of Germany to the

other; but which, like all other cants, is nothing but so much

wind and froth, utterly without reason, stamina, or foundation. We

should like to ask any mustached and bearded youth of Heidelberg

or Bonn, at any one sober moment of his existence, to point out

to us any single spot where this boasted "nationality" is to be

seen and scanned. Will the red-capped, long-haired _Bursch_ tell

us when and where we may behold that "vaterland" of which he is

eternally dreaming, singing, and drinking? Why, is it not a fact

that, to a Prussian, an Austrian or a Swabian is an alien? Does

not a Saxe-Coburger, a Hessian, and any other subject of any small

duchy or principality, insist, in his intense hatred of Prussia,

that the Prussians are no Germans at all; that they have interests

of their own, opposed to those of the true German people; and that

they are as distinct as they are selfish? You cannot travel over the

various countries and districts included under the name of Germany,

without learning the thorough insulation of the component parts.

The fact is forced upon you at every step. Mr Kohl himself belongs

to none of the states mentioned. He is a native of Bremen--one of

the cities of that proud Hanseatic League which certainly has never

shown an enlarged or patriotic spirit with reference to this same

universal "vaterland." Arrogant and lordly republics care little

for abstractions. They have a keen instinct for their own material

interests, but a small appreciation of the glorious ideal. We ask,

again, where is this all pervading German patriotism?

[2] In the year 1660, the different estates of Denmark made a

voluntary surrender of their rights into the hands of their

sovereign, who became by that act _absolute_: it is a fact

unparalleled in the history of any other country. Up to the year

1834, this unlimited power was exercised by the kings, who, it must

be said to their honour, never abused it by seeking to oppress or

enslave their subjects. In the year 1834, however, Frederic VI.,

of his own free will and choice, established a representative

government. The gift was by no means conferred in consequence of

any discontent exhibited under the hitherto restrictive system.

The intentions of the monarch were highly praiseworthy; their

wisdom is not so clear, as, under the new law, the kingdom is

divided into four parts--1. The Islands; 2. Sleswig; 3. Jutland;

4. Holstein; each having its own provincial assembly. The number

of representatives for the whole country amounts to 1217. Each

representative receives four rix-dollars a-day (a rix-dollar is 2s.

2-1/2d.) for his services, besides his travelling expenses. The

communication between the sovereign and the assembly is through a

royal commissioner, who is allowed to vote, but not to speak.--See

_Wheaton's History of Scandinavia_.

We have said that Mr Kohl is a great traveller. We withdraw the

accusation. He has written forty odd volumes, but they have been

composed, every one of them, in his snug _stube_, at Bremen, or

wheresoever else he puts up, under the influence of German stoves,

German pipes, and German beer. A great traveller is a great

catholic. His mind grows more capacious, his heart more generous,

as he makes his pilgrimages along this troubled earth, and learns

the mightiness of Heaven, the mutability and smallness of things

temporal. Prejudice cannot stand up against the knowledge that pours

in upon him; bigotry cannot exist in the wide temple he explores.

The wanderer "feels himself new-born," as he learns, with his

eyes, the living history of every new people, and compares, in his

judgment, the lessons of his ripe manhood with the instruction

imparted in his confined and straitened youth. If it may be said

that to learn a new language is to acquire a new mind, what is

it to become acquainted, intimately and face to face, with a new

people, new institutions, new faiths, new habits of thought and

feeling? There never existed a great traveller who, at the end of

his wanderings, did not find himself, as if by magic, released of

all the rust of prejudice, vanity, self-conceit, and pride, which

a narrow experience engenders, and a small field of action so

fatally heaps up. We will venture to assert that there is not a

monkey now caged up in the zoological gardens, who would not--if

permitted by the honourable Society--return to his native woods

a better and a wiser beast for the one long journey he has made.

Should Mr Kohl, we ask, behave worse than an imprisoned monkey? We

pardon M. Michelet when he rants about _la belle France_, because

we know that the excited gentleman--eloquent and scholarly as he

is--is reposing eternally in Paris, under the _drapeau_, which

fans nothing but glory into his smiling and complacent visage.

When John Bull, sitting in the parlour of the "Queen's Head,"

smoking his clay and swallowing his heavy, with Bob Yokel from the

country, manfully exclaims, striking Bob heartily and jollily on the

shoulder, "D--n it, Bob, an Englishman will whop three Frenchmen

any day!" we smile, but we are not angry. We feel it is the beer,

and that, like the valiant Michelet, the good man knows no better.

Send the two on their travels, and talk to them when they come

back. Well, Mr Kohl has travelled, and has come back; and he tells

us, in the year of grace 1846, that the crown-jewel in the diadem

of France is Alsace, and that the Alsatians are the pearls amongst

her provincialists--the Alsatians, be it understood, being a German

people, and, as far as report goes, the heaviest and stupidest that

"vaterland" can claim. The only true gems in the Autocrat's crown

are, according to the enlightened Kohl, the German provinces of

Liefland, Esthonia, and Courland. All the industry and enterprise of

the Belgians come simply from their Teutonic blood; the treasures

of the Danish king must be looked for in the German provinces of

Sleswig and Holstein. This is not all. German literature and the

German tongue enjoy advantages possessed by no other literature

and language. English universities are "Stockenglisch," downright

English; the French are quite Frenchy; the Spanish are solely

Spanish; but German schools have taken root in every part of the

earth. At Dorpat, says Mr Kohl, German is taught, written, and

printed; and therefore the German spirit is diffused throughout all

the Russias. At Kiel the same process is going forward on behalf of

Scandinavia. The Slavonians, the Italians, and Greeks, are likewise

submitting, _nolens volens_, to the same irresistible influence.

The very same words may be found in M. Michelet's book of "The

People,"--only for _German_ spirit, read _French_.

Mr Kohl proceeds in the same easy style to announce the rapid giving

way of the Danish language in Denmark and the eager substitution of

his own. He asserts this in the teeth of all those Danish writers

who have started up within the last fifty years, and who have

boldly and wisely discarded the pernicious practice (originating in

the German character of the reigning family) of expressing Danish

notions in a foreign tongue. He asserts it in the teeth of Mrs

Howitt and of the German translators, whom this lady calls to her

aid, but who have very feebly represented that rich diction and

flexible style so remarkable in the Danish compositions referred

to, and so much surpassing the power of any other northern tongue.

We should do Mr Kohl injustice if we did not give his reason for

regarding the Danish language as a thing doomed. He was credibly

informed that many fathers of families were in the habit of

promising rewards to their children if they would converse in German

and not in Danish! Hear this, Lord Palmerston! and if, on hearing

it, you still allow the rising generation, at our seminaries, to ask

for _du pang_ and _du bur_, and to receive them with, it may be, a

silver medal for proficiency, the consequences be on your devoted

head!

Denmark has been comparatively but little visited by the stranger.

She offers, nevertheless, to the antiquary, the poet, and the

artist, materials of interest which cannot be exceeded in any other

district of the same extent. Every wood, lake, heath, and down, is

rich in historical legends or mythical sagas; every copse and hill,

every cave and mound, has been peopled by past superstition with

the elf and the sprite, the _ellefolk_ and _nissen_. Her history,

blending with that of her Scandinavian sisters, Norway and Sweden,

is romantic in the extreme--whether she is traced to the days of

her fabulous sea-kings, or is read of in the records of those who

have chronicled the lives of her sovereigns in the middle ages.

The country itself, although flat, is picturesque, being thickly

interspersed with lakes, skirted by, and embosomed in, luxuriant

beech woods; whilst ever and anon the traveller lights upon some

ancient ruin of church or tower, palace or hermitage, affecting, if

only by reason of the associations it awakens with an age far more

prosperous than the present. The existence of the Danish people,

as a nation, has been pronounced a miracle. It is hardly less.

Small and feeble, and surrounded by the foreigner on every side,

Denmark has never been ruled by a conqueror. Amid the rise and fall

of other states, she has maintained her independence--now powerful

and victorious, now depressed and poor, but never succumbing,

never submitting to the stranger's yoke. Her present dynasty is

the oldest reigning European family. It dates back to Christian

I.--himself descended in a direct female line from the old kings

of Scandinavia--who, as Duke of Oldenburg, was chosen king by the

states in 1448.

A good account of Denmark and the Danes is yet wanting. It may be

collected by any honest writer, moderately conversant with the

language and history of the country. We fear that Mr. Kohl will not

supply the literary void, if we are to judge from the one volume

before us. Others are, however, to follow; and as our author is

immethodical, he may haply return to make good imperfections, and to

fill up his hasty sketches. We cannot but regret that he should have

passed so rapidly through the Duchy of Holstein. Had he followed

the highways and byways of the province, instead of flitting like

a swallow--to use his own words--over the ground by means of the

newly-opened railroad through Kiel, his "Travels" would surely have

been the better for his trouble. Instead of pausing where the most

volatile would have been detained, our author satisfies himself

with simply expressing his unfeigned regret at being obliged to

pursue his journey, consoling his readers and himself with the very

paradoxical assertion that we are most struck by the places of

which we see least; since, being all of us more or less poetically

disposed, we permit the imagination to supply the deficiencies of

experience;--an argument which, we need scarcely say, if carried

to its fullest limits, brings us to the conviction, that he who

stays at home is best fitted to describe the countries the furthest

distant from his fireside. Surely, Mr Kohl, you do not speak from

knowledge of the fact!

In his present volumes, Mr Kohl refers only passingly to the subject

of education in Denmark. He remarks that the national schools far

surpassed his expectations. He might have said more. For the last

thirty or forty years, we believe, it has been rare to meet with

the commonest peasant who could not read and write; a fact proving,

at least, that Denmark is rather in advance than otherwise of her

richer neighbours in carrying out the educational measures which, of

late years, have so largely occupied the attention of the various

governments of Europe. No one in Denmark can enter the army or navy

who has not previously received his education at one or other of

the military academies of the country. The course of study is well

arranged. It embraces, besides the classics, modern languages,

drawing, and exercises both equestrian and gymnastic. The academies

themselves are under the immediate direction of the best military

and naval officers in the service. For the education of the people,

two or three schools are provided in every village, the masters

receiving a small salary, with a house and certain perquisites. In

1822 the system of Bell was introduced in the elementary public

schools, and since that period it has been generally adhered to.

Our author speaks with natural surprise of the small number of

Roman Catholics he encountered in the Danish States. The Papists

have no church or chapel throughout the kingdom; indeed, with the

exception of the private chapel of the Austrian minister, no place

of worship. We were aware that such was the fact a few years ago;

we were scarcely prepared to find that Rome, who has been so busy

in planting new shoots of her faith in every nook of the known

world, is still content to have no recognition in Denmark. Heavy

penalties are incurred by all who secede to the Romish church. In

Sweden a change to Roman Catholicism is followed by banishment.

This severity, we presume, must be ascribed to state policy rather

than to a spirit of intolerance, for Jews and Christians of every

denomination are permitted the freest exercise of their faith.

Since the year 1521, the era of the Reformation in Denmark, the

religion of the country has been Lutheran. The Danish church is

divided into five dioceses, of which the bishop of Zealand is the

metropolitan. His income is about a thousand a-year, whilst that

of the other prelates varies from four to six hundred. The funds

of the clergy are derived principally from tithes; but the parish

ministers receive part of their stipend in the form of offerings

at the three great annual festivals. Until lately, there existed

much lukewarmness on all religious questions. Within the last ten

or fifteen years, however, a new impulse has been given to the

spiritual mind by the writing and preaching of several Calvinistic

ministers, who have migrated from Switzerland and established

themselves in Copenhagen. Their object has been to stop the

recreations which, until their arrival, enlivened the Sabbath-day.

They have met with more success in the higher classes than amongst

the people, who now, as formerly, assemble on the green in front of

the village church at the close of service, and pursue their several

pastimes.

Mention is made in Mr Kohl's volume, of the churchyards and

cemetries he visited in his hasty progress. Compared with those of

his own northern Germany, the Scandinavian places of burial are

indeed very beautiful. The government has long since forbidden any

new interments to be made within the churches, and many picturesque

spots have, in consequence, been converted into cemetries. In

the immediate vicinity of Copenhagen there are several; but the

essence of Mr Kohl's plan being want of arrangement, he makes

no mention of them for the present. One of these cemetries, the

_Assistenskirkegaard_, outside the city, has an unusual number of

fine monuments, with no exhibitions of that glaring want of taste so

frequently met with elsewhere. The village churchyards are bright,

happy-looking spots, which, by their cheerful aspect, seem to rob

the homes of the dead of all their natural gloom and desolation.

Every peasant's grave is a bed of flowers, planted, watched, and

cherished by a sorrowing friend. At either end of the seven or

eight feet of mound rises a wooden cross, on which fresh wreaths

of flowers appear throughout the summer, giving place only to the

"eternals" which adorn the grave when snow mantles its surface. A

narrow walk, marked by a line of box, incloses every mound; or,

not unfrequently, a trellis-work, tastefully entwined of twigs and

boughs. The resting-places of the middle classes are surmounted

by a tablet, not, as in our churchyards, rigidly inclosed within

impassable palisades, but standing in a little garden, where the

fresh-blown flowers, the neatly trimmed beds, and generally the

garden-bench, mark that the spot is visited and tended by the

friends of those who sleep below. Hither widowed mothers lead their

children, on the anniversary of their father's death, to strew

flowers on his grave, to hang up the wreaths which they have wound;

but, above all, to collect the choicest flowers that have bloomed

around him, which must henceforth deck, until they perish, the

portrait of the departed, or some relic dear for his sake. We have

watched the rough work-worn peasant, leading by the hand his little

grandchild, laden with flowers and green twigs to freshen the grave

of a long-absent helpmate; and as we have remarked, we confess not

without emotion, feeble infancy and feeble age uniting their weak

efforts to preserve, in cleanliness and beauty, the one sacred patch

of earth--we have believed, undoubtingly, that whilst customs such

as these prevail, happiness and morality must be the people's lot;

and that very fearful must be the responsibility of those who shall

sow the first seeds of discord and dissension amongst the simple

peasantry of so fair a land!

The cathedrals of Denmark are of great antiquity. Those of Ribe, of

Viboig in Jutland, of Lard, Ringsted, and Roeskilde, in Zealand,

all date from the end of the eleventh, or the beginning of the

twelfth century; since which remote period, in fact, no churches

of any magnitude have been erected. Roeskilde is one of the oldest

cities in the kingdom. In the tenth century it was the capital.

Canute the Great may be considered as the originator and founder of

its existing cathedral, which was completed in the year 1054. It

has occasionally undergone slight repairs, but never any material

alteration. The edifice is full of monuments of the queens and

kings of the ancient race of Valdemar, as well as of those of the

present dynasty. Some of the earliest sovereigns are inclosed within

the shafts of the pillars, or in the walls themselves; a mode of

sepulture, it would appear, as honourable as it is singular, since

we find amongst the immured the great _Svend Etridsen_, and other

renowned and pious benefactors of the church. In front of the

altar is the simple sarcophagus of Margaret, the great queen of

Scandinavia, erected by her successor, Eric the Pomeranian. The

queen is represented lying at full length, with her hands devoutly

folded on her breast. At this sarcophagus our author lingers for a

moment to express sentiments which would have brought down upon him

the anathemas of the good John Knox, could that pious queen-hater

but have heard them. Mr Kohl defies you to produce, from the number

of royal ladies who have held supreme power in the world, one

instance of inadequacy and feebleness. Every where, he insists,

examples of female nobility and strength of character are found

linked with the destinies of kings who have earned for themselves no

better titles than those of the _fainéant_ and the simple. The style

of Roeskilde cathedral is pure Gothic; but in consequence of the

additions which the _interior_ has received from time to time from

kings and prelates, that portion of the edifice is more remarkable

for historical interest than for purity of style or architectural

beauty. One incident in connexion with this building must not

be omitted. When Mr Kohl quitted the cathedral, he offered his

cicerone a gratuity. The man respectfully declined accepting even

the customary fees. The reason being asked of a Danish gentleman,

the latter answered, that the man was a patriot, and proud of the

historical monuments of his country; it would be degradation to take

reward from a stranger who seemed so deeply interested in them.

One would almost suspect that this honest fellow was _a verger of

Westminster Abbey_!

The church of St Kund, at Odense, was erected in honour of King

Kund, murdered in the year 1100 in the church of St Alben, at

Odense. The bones of the canonised were immured in the wall over

the altar. Many sovereigns have been interred here. Indeed, it is a

singular fact that the respective burial-places of every Christian

king of Denmark, from the earliest times up to the present day,

are traced without the slightest difficulty; whilst every heathen

sovereign, of whom any historical record remains, lies buried

beneath a mound within sight of Seire, the old heathen capital of

the country. St Kund's church is of Gothic architecture. Amongst the

many paintings that decorate its walls is one of a female, known as

_Dandserinden_, or "The Dancer." She is the heroine of a tradition,

met with under slightly modified forms in various parts of Denmark.

It is to the following effect:--A young lady, of noble family, went

accompanied by her mother to a ball; and being an indefatigable

dancer, she declared to her parent, who bade her take rest, that she

would not refuse to dance even though a certain gentleman himself

should ask her as a partner. The words were scarcely uttered before

a finely dressed youth made his appearance, held out his hand, and,

with a profound obeisance, said, "Fair maiden, let us not tarry."

The enthusiastic dancer accepted the proffered hand, and in an

instant was with the moving throng. The music, at that moment,

seemed inspired by some invisible power--the dancers whiled round

and round, on and on, one after the other, whilst the standing

guests looked upon all with dread horror. At length, the young

lady grew pale--blood gushed from her mouth--she fell on the floor

a corpse. But her partner, (we need not say who _he_ was,) first

with a ghastly smile, then with a ringing laugh, seized her in his

arms, and vanished with her through the floor. From that time she

has been doomed to dance through the midnight hours, until she can

find a knight bold enough to tread a measure with her. Regarding the

sequel, however, there are a number of versions.

Mr Kohl's volume adverts cursorily to the many institutions still

existing in Denmark, which owe their origin to the days of Roman

Catholicism, and have been formed upon the model of Catholic

establishments. Several _Frökenstifts_, or lay nunneries, are

still in being. They are either qualifications of some ancient

monastic foundation, or they have been endowed from time to time

by royal or private munificence. Each house has a lady superior,

who is either chosen by the king or queen, or succeeds to the

office by right of birth--some noble families having, in return

for large endowments, a perpetual advowson for a daughter of the

house. At these _Frökenstifts_, none but ladies of noble birth

can obtain fellowships. As a large number of such noble ladies

are far from wealthy, a comfortable home and a moderate salary

are no small advantages. A constant residence within the cloister

is not incumbent upon the "fellows;" but a requisition, generally

attached to each presentation, obliges them to live in their _stift_

for a certain number of weeks annually. The practice of founding

institutions for ladies of noble birth has risen naturally in a

country where _family_ is every thing, and wealth is comparatively

small: where it is esteemed less degrading to live on royal bounty

than to enter upon an occupation not derogatory to any but noble

blood. The system of _pensioning_ in Denmark is a barrier to real

national prosperity. Independence, self-respect, every consideration

is lost sight of in the monstrous notion, that it is beneath a

high-born man to earn his living by an honourable profession.

Diplomacy, the army, and navy, are the three limited careers open

to the aristocracy of Denmark; and since the country is poor, and

the nobility, in their pride, rarely or never enrich themselves by

plebeian alliances, it follows, of course, that a whole host of

younger brothers, and a countless array of married and unmarried

patricians, must fall back upon the bounty of the sovereign,

administered in one shape or another. The Church and Law are made

over to the middle classes. To such an extent is pride of birth

carried, that without a title no one can be received at Court. In

order, therefore, to admit such as are excluded by the want of

hereditary rank, honorary but the most absurd titles are created.

"_Glatsraad_," "_Conferenceraad_," Councillor of State, Councillor

of Conference, carry with them no duties or responsibilities, but

they obtain for their possessors the right of _entrée_, otherwise

unattainable. In Germany, the titles of the people, from the

under-turnpike-keeper's-assistant's lady, up to the wife of the

lord with a hundred tails, are amusing enough. They have been

sufficiently ridiculed by Kotzebue; but the distinctions of Denmark

go far beyond them. A lady, whose husband holds the rank of major

(and upwards) in the army, or of captain (and upwards) in the navy,

or is of noble birth, is styled a _Frue_; her daughter is born a

_Fröken_: but the wife of a private individual, with no blood worth

the naming in her veins, is simply _Madame_, and her daughter's

_Jomfrue_. You might as easily pull down Gibraltar as the prejudice

which maintains those petty and frivolous distinctions. It is highly

diverting to witness the painful distress of Mr Kohl at hearing

ladies of noble birth addressed as _Frue Brahe_, _Frue Rosenkrands_,

instead of by the sublime title of _Gnädige Frau_, eternally in the

mouths of his own title-loving countrymen. It is singular, however,

that whilst the Danes are so tenacious of honorary appellations,

they are without those constant quantities, the _von_ and _de_

of Germany and France. The _Sture_, the _Axe_, the _Trolle_, and

the other nobles who, for ages, lived like kings in Denmark, were

without a prefix to their names. _Greve_ and _Baron_ are words of

comparatively modern introduction.

There are about twenty high fiefs in Denmark--the title to hold one

of these lordships, which bring with them many important privileges,

being the possession of a certain amount of land, rated at the

value of the corn it will produce. The owners are exempt from all

payment of taxes, not only on their fiefs, but on their other

lands: they have the supervision of officials in the district:

are exempted from arrest or summons before an inferior court, to

which the lesser nobility are liable; and they enjoy the right of

appropriating to their own use all treasures found under the earth

in their lordships. Next to these come the baronial fiefs; then

the _stammehuser_, or houses of noble stock, all rated according

to various measures of corn as the supposed amount of the land's

produce; all other seats or estates are called _Gaarde_, Courts,

or _Godser_, estates. The country residences of the nobility are

strikingly elegant and tasteful. They are surrounded by lawns and

parks in the English fashion, and often contain large collections

of paintings and extensive libraries. Along the upper corridors

of the country residences of the nobility are ranged large wooden

chests, (termed _Kister_,) containing the household linen, kept in

the most scrupulous order. Many of these _Kister_ are extremely

ancient, and richly carved in oak. Every peasant family, too, has

its _Kiste_, which holds the chief place in the sitting-room, and

is filled with all the treasure, as well as all the linen, of

the household. Amongst other lordly structures, Mr Kohl visited

_Gysselfelt_,[3] near Nestned in Zealand. It was built in 1540

by Peter Oxe, and still stands a perfect representation of the

fortresses of the time. Its fosses yet surround it--the drawbridges

are unaltered: and, round the roof, at equal distances, are the

solid stone pipes from which boiling water or pitch has often been

poured upon the heads of the assailants below. In the vicinity

of this castle is _Bregentned_, the princely residence of the

Counts _Moltke_. The _Moltke_ are esteemed the richest family in

Denmark. Their ancestors having munificently endowed several lay

nunneries, the eldest daughter of the house is born abbess-elect

of the convent of _Gysselfelt_: the eldest son is addressed always

as "His Excellence." The splendid garden, the fine collection of

antiquities, the costly furniture and appointments that distinguish

the abode at _Bregentned_ send Mr Kohl into ecstasies. He is equally

charmed by the sight of a few cottages actually erected by the fair

hands of the noble daughters of the House of Moltke. The truth is,

Mr Kohl, republican as he is, is unequal to the sight of any thing

connected with nobility. The work of a noble hand, the poor daub

representing a royal individual, throws him immediately into a fever

of excitement, and dooms his reader to whole pages of the most

prosaic eloquence.

[3] Whilst in this neighbourhood, Mr Kohl should have explored

the Gunderler Wood, where stone circles and earth mounds are yet

carefully preserved, marking the site of one of the principal places

of sacrifice in heathen times. At _Gysselfelt_, a lay nunnery

exists, founded as recently as the year 1799.

The condition of the peasantry of Denmark is described as much

better--as indeed it is--than that of the labourers of any other

country. If there is no superabundance of wealth in Denmark, there

is likewise no evidence of abject poverty. The terms upon which the

peasants hold their farms from the landed proprietors are by no

means heavy; and their houses, their manner of dressing, and their

merry-makings, of themselves certify that their position is easy,

and may well bear a comparison with that of their brethren of other

countries. Within the last twenty years, great improvements have

been effected in agriculture, and the best English machines are now

in common use amongst the labourers.

Upon the moral and political condition of the Danish people at

large, we will postpone all reflections, until the appearance of

Mr Kohl's remaining volumes. We take leave of volume one, with

the hope that the sequel of the work will faithfully furnish such

interesting particulars as the readers of Mr Kohl have a right to

demand, and he, if he be an intelligent traveller, has it in his

power to supply. We do not say that this first instalment is without

interest. It contains by far too much desultory digression; it has

more than a sprinkling of German prosing and egotism: but many of

its pages may be read with advantage and instruction. If the work is

ever translated, the translator, if he hope to please the English

reader, must take his pen in one hand and his shears in the other.

LORD METCALFE'S GOVERNMENT OF JAMAICA.

The death of Lord Metcalfe excited one universal feeling--that his

country had lost a statesman whom she regarded with the highest

admiration, and the warmest gratitude. The _Times_, and the other

public journals, in expressing that feeling, could only give a

general and abridged memoir of this great and good man. Every part

of his public life--and that life commencing at an unusually early

period--stamps him with the reputation of a statesman endowed in

an eminent degree with all the qualities which would enable him

to discharge the most arduous and responsible duties. Every part

of it presents an example, and abounds in materials, from which

public men may derive lessons of the most practical wisdom, and

the soundest rules for their political conduct. His whole life

should be portrayed by a faithful biographer, who had an intimate

acquaintance with all the peculiar circumstances which constituted

the critical, arduous, and responsible character of the trusts

committed to him, and which called for the most active exercise of

the great qualities which he possessed. That part of it which was

passed in administering the government of Jamaica, is alone selected

for comment in the following pages. It is a part, short indeed as

to its space, but of sufficient duration to have justly entitled

him, if he had distinguished himself by no other public service, to

rank amongst the most eminent of those, who have regarded their high

intellectual and moral endowments as bestowed for the purpose of

enabling them to confer the greatest and most enduring benefits on

their country, and who have actively and successfully devoted those

qualities to that noble purpose.

No just estimate of the nature, extent, and value of that service,

and of those endowments, can be formed, without recalling the

peculiar difficulties with which Lord Metcalfe had to contend, and

which he so successfully surmounted, in administering the government

of Jamaica.

The only part of colonial society known in England, consisted of

those West Indian proprietors who were resident here. They were

highly educated--their stations were elevated--their wealth was

great, attracting attention, and sometimes offending, by its

display. It was a very prevalent supposition, that they constituted

the whole of what was valuable, or wealthy, or respectable in

West Indian colonial society; that those who were resident in the

colonies could have no claim to either of these descriptions; and

that they were the mere hired managers of the properties of the

West Indians resident in England. This notion was entertained by

the government. The hospitable invitations from the West Indians

in England, which a Governor on the eve of his departure for

his colony accepted, served to impress it strongly on his mind.

He proceeded to his government with too low an estimate of the

character, attainments, respectability, and property of those who

composed the community over whom he was to preside. The nobleman or

general officer on whom the government had been bestowed, entered on

his administration, familiar, indeed, with the Parliament of Great

Britain, and with what Mr Burke calls "her imperial character, and

her imperial rights," but little acquainted with, and still less

disposed to recognise, the rights and privileges of the Colonial

Assemblies, although those assemblies, in the estimation of the same

great authority, so exceedingly resembled a parliament in all their

forms, functions, and powers, that it was impossible they should

not imbibe some idea of a similar authority. "Things could not be

otherwise," he adds; "and English colonies must be had on those

terms, or not had at all." He could not, as Mr Burke did, "look

upon the imperial rights of Great Britain, and the privileges which

the colonies ought to enjoy under these rights, to be just the most

reconcilable things in the world."

The colonists, whose Legislative Assemblies had from the

earliest period of their history, in all which regarded their

internal legislation, exercised the most valuable privileges of

a representative government, would, on their part, feel that the

preservation of those privileges not only constituted their security

for the enjoyment of their civil and political rights as Englishmen,

but must confer on them importance, and procure them respect in the

estimation of the government of the parent state. Thus, on the one

hand, a governor, in his zeal to maintain the imperial rights, from

the jealousy with which he watched every proceeding of the Assembly,

and his ignorance of their constitution and privileges, not

unfrequently either invaded these privileges, or deemed an assertion

of them to be an infringement of the rights of the Imperial

Parliament. On the other hand, the Colonists, with no less jealousy,

watched every proceeding of the governor which seemed to menace any

invasion of the privileges of their Assemblies, and with no less

zeal were prepared to vindicate and maintain them. The Governor and

the Colonial Assembly regarded each other with feelings which not

only prevented him from justly appreciating the motives and conduct

of the resident colonists, but confirmed, and even increased the

unfavourable impressions he had first entertained. His official

communications enabled him to impart to and induce the government

to adopt the same impressions. The influence of these feelings, in

like manner, on Colonial Assemblies and colonists too frequently

prevented them from justly appreciating the motives of the Governor,

from making some allowance for his errors, and too readily brought

them into collision with him.

It cannot be denied that those impressions exercised on both sides

of the Atlantic an influence so strong, as to betray itself in the

communications and recommendations, and indeed in the whole policy

of the government, as well as in the legislation of the colonies.

This imperfect acquaintance with the character of the resident

colonists, and the unfavourable impression with which the

proceedings and motives of their Legislative Assemblies were

regarded, prevailed amongst the public in Great Britain.

The colonial proprietors resident in Great Britain felt little

sympathy, either with the colonial legislatures, or with those

resident in the colonies. This want of sympathy may be attributed

to a peculiarity which distinguished the planters of British from

those of other European colonies. The latter considered the colony

in which they resided as their home. The former regarded their

residence in it as temporary. They looked to the parent state as

their only home, and all their acquisitions were made with a view to

enjoyment in that home. This feeling accompanied them to England.

It was imbibed by their families and their descendants. The colony,

which had been the source of their wealth and rank, was not, as

she ought to have been, the object of their grateful affection.

They regarded with indifference her institutions, her legislature,

her resident community. From this want of sympathy, or from the

want of requisite information, they made no effort to remove the

unfavourable impressions with which the executive Government and

the Assemblies regarded each other, or to promote the establishment

of their relations in mutual conciliation and confidence.

Another cause operated very powerfully in exciting a strong

prejudice against the inhabitants of our West Indian colonies. The

feeling which was naturally entertained against the slave trade and

slave colonies was transferred to the resident colonists, and almost

exclusively to them. By a numerous and powerful party, slavery had

been contemplated in itself, and in the relations and interests

which it had created, and its abolition had been endeavoured to be

effected as if it were the crime of the colonies _exclusively_. It

was forgotten "that it was," to use the language of Lord Stowel,

"in a peculiar manner the crime of England, where it had been

instituted, fostered, and encouraged, even to an excess which some

of the colonies in vain endeavoured to restrain." Besides the acts

passed by the legislatures of Pennsylvania and South Carolina, when

those were British colonies, we find that when the Assembly of

Jamaica, in 1765, was passing an act to restrain the importation

of slaves into the colony, the governor of Jamaica informed the

Assembly of that island, that, consistently with his instructions,

he could not give his assent to a bill for that purpose, which had

then been read twice. In 1774, the Jamaica Assembly attempted to

prevent the further importation, by an increase of duties thereon,

and for this purpose passed two acts. The merchants of Bristol and

Liverpool petitioned against their allowance. The Board of Trade

made a report against them. The agent of Jamaica was heard against

that report; but, upon the recommendation of the Privy Council,

the acts were disallowed, and the disallowance was accompanied

by an instruction to the governor, dated 28th February 1775, by

which he was prohibited, "upon pain of being removed from his

government," from giving his assent to any act by which the duties

on the importation of slaves should be augmented--"on the ground,"

as the instruction states, "that such duties were to the injury and

oppression of the merchants of this kingdom and the obstruction of

its commerce."

The opposition to the abolition of the slave trade was that of

the merchants and planters resident in England, and to their

influence on the members of the colonial legislature must be

attributed whatever opposition was offered by the latter. In

the interval between the abolition of the slave trade and that

of slavery, the feelings of prejudice against them grew still

stronger. Every specific measure by which this party proposed to

ameliorate the condition of the slaves, was accompanied by some

degrading and disqualifying remarks on the conduct of the resident

inhabitants. An act of individual guilt was treated as a proof of

the general depravity of the whole community. In consequence of

the enthusiastic ardour with which the abolition of slavery was

pursued, all the proposed schemes of amelioration proceeded on the

erroneous assumption, that the progress of civilisation and of

moral and religious advancement ought to have been as rapid amongst

the slave population of the colonies, as it had been in England

and other parts of Europe. It was forgotten, that until the slave

trade was abolished, the inherent iniquity of which was aggravated

by the obstacle it afforded to the progress of civilisation, every

attempt to diffuse moral and religious instruction was impeded and

counteracted by the superstitions and vices which were constantly

imported from Africa. Thus, instead of the conciliation which

would have rendered the colonists as active and zealous, as they

must always be the _only efficient_, promoters of amelioration,

irritation was excited, and they were almost proscribed, and placed

without the pale of all the generous and candid, and just and

liberal feelings which characterise Englishmen.

This state of public feeling operated most injuriously in retarding

and preventing many measures of amelioration which would have been

made in the slave codes of the several colonies.

Jamaica experienced, in a greater degree than any other colony, the

effects of those unfavourable impressions with which the motives

and proceedings of her legislature were regarded, and of those

feelings of distrust and suspicion which influenced the relations

of the executive government and the Assembly. Her Assembly was more

sensitive, more zealous, more tenacious than any other colony in

vindicating the privileges of her legislature, whenever an attempt

was made to violate them. The people of Jamaica, when that colony

first formed part of the British empire, did not become subjects

of England by conquest--they were by birth Englishmen, who, by

the invitation and encouragement of their sovereign, retained

possession of a country which its former inhabitants had abandoned.

They carried with them to Jamaica all the rights and privileges

of British-born subjects. The proclamation of Charles II. is not

a grant, but a declaration, confirmation, and guarantee of those

rights and privileges. The constitution of Jamaica is based on those

rights and privileges. It is, to use the emphatic language of Mr

Burke, in speaking of our North American colonies, "a constitution

which, with the exception of the commercial restraints, has every

characteristic of a free government. She has the express image of

the British constitution. She has the substance. She has the right

of taxing herself through her representatives in her Assembly. She

has, in effect, the sole internal government of the colony."

The history of the colony records many attempts of the governor and

of the government to deprive her of that constitution, by violating

the privileges of her Assembly; but it records also the success

with which those attempts were resisted, and the full recognition

of those privileges by the ample reparation which was made for

their violation. That very success rendered the people of Jamaica

still more jealous of those privileges, and more determined in the

uncompromising firmness with which they maintained them. But it did

not render the governors or the home government less jealous or

less distrustful of the motives and proceedings of the Assembly.

As the whole expense of her civil, military, and ecclesiastical

establishment was defrayed by the colony, with the exception of the

salaries of the bishop, archdeacon, and certain stipendiary curates;

and as that expense, amounting to nearly £400,000, was annually

raised by the Assembly, it might have been supposed that the power

of stopping the supplies would have had its effect in creating more

confidence and conciliation, but it may be doubted whether it did

not produce a contrary effect.

The feelings entertained by the government towards the colonies,

were invoked by the intemperate advocates for the immediate

abolition of slavery, as the justification of their unfounded

representations of the tyranny and oppression with which the

planters treated their slaves. Happily, that great act of atonement

to humanity, the abolition of slavery, has been accomplished; but

the faithful historian of our colonies, great as his detestation

of slavery may and ought to be, will yet give a very different

representation of the relation which subsisted between master and

slave. He will represent the negroes on an estate to have considered

themselves, and to have been considered by the proprietor, as

part of his family; that this self-constituted relationship was

accompanied by all the kindly feelings which dependence on the one

hand, and protection on the other, could create; and that such was

the confidence with which both classes regarded each other, that,

with fearless security, the white man and his family retired to

their beds, leaving the doors and windows of their houses unclosed.

These kindly feelings, and that confidence, were at length impaired

by the increasing attempts to render the employers the objects

of hatred. At the latter end of 1831, a rebellion of the most

appalling nature broke out amongst the slave population. A district

of country, not less than forty miles in extent, was laid waste.

Buildings and other property, to the amount of more than a million

in value, exclusive of the crops, were destroyed.

In 1833, the act for the abolition of slavery was passed; and

it cannot be denied, that the feelings of distrust and jealousy

with which government had so long regarded the Assembly and their

constituents, accompanied its introduction, progress, and details.

They accompanied also the legislative measures adopted by the

Assembly for carrying into effect its provisions, and especially

those for establishing and regulating the apprenticeship. The

manner in which the relative rights and duties of master and

apprentices were discharged, was watched and examined with the same

unfavourable feelings as if there had existed a design to make

the apprenticeship a cover for the revival of slavery--an object

which, even had there been persons wicked enough to have desired it,

could never have been accomplished. There were persons in Jamaica

exercising a powerful influence over the minds of the apprentices,

who proclaimed to them their belief, that it was the design of their

masters to reduce them to slavery, and who appealed to the suspicion

and jealousy of the government as justifying and confirming that

belief. Such was the influence of those feelings, that two attempts

were made in Parliament to abolish the apprenticeship. They were

unsuccessful; but enough had been said and done to fill the minds

of the apprentices with the greatest distrust and suspicion of

their masters. In June 1838, the Assembly was especially convened

for the purpose of abolishing it. The governor, as the organ of

her Majesty's government, distinctly told the Assembly that it was

impossible to continue the apprenticeship. "I pronounce it," he

says, "physically impossible to maintain the apprenticeship, with

any hope of successful agriculture." The state to which the colony

had been reduced, is told in the answer of the Assembly to this

address: "Jamaica does, indeed, require repose; and we anxiously

hope, that should we determine to remove an unnatural servitude,

we shall be left in the exercise of our constitutional privileges,

without interference." The colony was thus compelled to abolish

the apprenticeship, although it had formed part of the plan of

emancipation--not only that it might contribute to the compensation

awarded for the abolition of slavery, but that it might become that

intermediate state which might prepare the apprentices for absolute

and unrestricted freedom, and afford the aid of experience in such

legislation as was adapted to their altered condition. It was again

and again described by the Secretary of State for the colonies, in

moving his resolutions, "to be necessary not only for the security

of the master, but for the welfare of the slave." The apprenticeship

was thus abruptly terminated two years before the expiration of the

period fixed by the act of the Imperial Parliament for its duration,

before any new system of legislation had been adopted, and when the

emancipated population had been taught to regard the planters with

far less kindly feelings than those which they entertained in their

state of slavery.

The difficulties and dangers with which the colony was now

threatened were such as would have appalled any prudent man, and

would render it no less his interest than his duty to assist the

Assembly in surmounting them. It was, however, the misfortune of

Jamaica that her governor, from infirmity of body and of temper,

far from endeavouring to surmount or lessen, so greatly increased

these difficulties and dangers, that it appeared scarcely possible

to extricate the colony from them. His conduct in the session of

November 1838 was so gross a violation of the rights and privileges

of the Assembly, as to leave that body no other alternative but that

of passing a resolution, by which they refused to proceed to any

other business, except that of providing the supplies to maintain

the faith of the island towards the public creditor, until they had

obtained reparation for this violation.

This course had obtained the sanction, not only of long usage and

practice, but of the government of the parent state. The history

of Jamaica abounds in numerous instances where governors, who had

by their conduct given occasion for its adoption, had been either

recalled, or ordered by the Executive Government to make such

communication to the Assembly as had the character of being an

atonement for the violation of their privileges, and an express

recognition of them. Upon this resolution being passed, the governor

prorogued the Assembly. On being re-assembled, they adhered to their

former resolution. The governor dissolved the Assembly. A general

election took place, when the same members who had composed the

large majority concurring on that resolution, were re-elected, and

even an addition made to their majority. The Assembly, as might be

expected, on being convened, adhered to their former resolution. It

was then prorogued until the 10th of July 1839. The government, upon

the urgent recommendation of the governor, and influenced by his

misrepresentations, proposed to Parliament a measure for suspending

the functions of the Legislative Assembly. Unjustifiable and

reprehensible as this measure was, yet it is only an act of justice

to the government of that day to remember that it originated, not

only in the recommendation of the governor, supported also by that

of the two preceding governors of Jamaica, but was sanctioned, and

indeed urged on it, by several influential Jamaica proprietors and

merchants, resident in London. Indeed, until the bill had been some

time in the House of Commons, it was doubtful whether it would be

opposed by Sir Robert Peel and his adherents. The determination of

several members who usually supported the government, to oppose a

measure destructive of the representative part of the constitution

of this great colony, enabled him and his party to defeat the

bill on the second reading. The government being thus left in a

minority, resigned; but the attempt of Sir Robert Peel to form a

ministry having failed, the former government was restored, and they

introduced another bill, equally objectionable in its principles,

and equally destructive of the representative branch of the

Jamaica constitution. An amendment was proposed on the part of Sir

Robert Peel, by the party then considered Conservative; but as the

amendment would leave the bill still inconsistent with the rights of

this popular branch of the constitution, they were deprived of the

support of those who had before united with them in their opposition

to the first bill, and they were therefore left in a minority.

The bill passed the House of Commons. The amendment, which had

been rejected, was adopted by the House of Lords, and the bill was

passed. The powerful speeches of Lords Lyndhurst and Brougham, and

those of the other noble lords by whom the amendment was supported,

afford abundant evidence that they disapproved of the principles of

the bill, and were unanswered and unanswerable arguments for its

rejection.

Lord John Russell, and other members of the government, might well

believe, and express their prediction, that such a bill would not

satisfy the Assembly, but that they would still refuse to resume

their legislation; and that in the next session the House must adopt

the original measure.

It was in the power of the ministry, without resorting to any

measure of undue interference which could have furnished their

opponents with any ground of censure, by passively leaving the

administration of the government of the colony to its ordinary

course, and adopting the ordinary means of selecting a governor,

to have fulfilled their own prediction. They might thus have

saved themselves from the taunt with which Sir Robert Peel, in

the debate on the 16th January 1840, attributed the satisfactory

manner in which the Assembly of Jamaica had resumed their

legislative proceedings, to "the opinion of the ministers having

been overruled." But the conduct of Lord John Russell, who had then

accepted the seals of secretary for the colonies, was influenced

by higher motives. He immediately applied himself to secure, by

confidence, the cordial co-operation of the Assembly of Jamaica,

in that legislation which should promote the best interests of all

classes of the community. For the accomplishment of this object,

he anxiously sought for a governor who united the discretion,

the judgment, the temper and firmness, which would promote that

confidence, and obtain that co-operation, and, at the same time,

maintain the dignity of the executive, and the supremacy of

Parliament.

From no consideration of personal or political connexion, but purely

from the conviction that Lord Metcalfe was eminently distinguished

by these qualities, Lord John Russell offered to him the Government

of Jamaica. He had just returned from the East Indies, where he

had displayed the greatest ability, and met with almost unexampled

success. He had scarcely tasted the sweets of the repose which

he had promised himself. His acceptance of the Government was a

sacrifice of that repose to his high sense of duty, and to the noble

desire of rendering a great public service to his country.

But to little purpose would such a character have been selected,

and to little purpose would he have possessed those eminent

qualities, if he had been sent to Jamaica with instructions which

would have controled their exercise. A more wise, just, and liberal

policy was adopted by the government. Lord Metcalfe was left with

the full, free, unfettered power of accomplishing, in his own

manner, and according to his own discretion, the great object of

his administration. Of the spirit of his instructions, and of the

discretion and powers confided to him, he gives his own description

in his answer to an address which, on his return to England, was

presented him by the Jamaica proprietors resident in London, "I was

charged by her Majesty's government with a mission of peace and

reconciliation."

It is scarcely possible to conceive a public trust so full of

difficulties, and requiring the possession and exercise of so

many high and rare qualities for its successful discharge, as

the Government of Jamaica at the time it was undertaken by Lord

Metcalfe. Some account has been given of the difficulties which

attended the government of every West Indian colony, and of those

which were peculiar to that of Jamaica. It should be added, that the

office of Governor, independently of the difficulties occasioned by

any particular event, is itself of so peculiar a character as to

require no inconsiderable share of temper and address as well as

judgment. He is the representative of his Sovereign, invested with

many of the executive powers of sovereignty. He must constantly

by his conduct maintain the dignity of his Sovereign. He cannot,

consistently with either the usages of his office or the habits of

society, detach himself from the community over which he presides

as the representative of his Sovereign. It is necessary for him to

guard against a possibility of his frequent and familiar intercourse

with individuals, impairing their respect for him and his authority,

and, at the same time, not deprive himself of the friendly

disposition and confidence on their part which that intercourse may

enable him to obtain. Especially must he prevent any knowledge of

the motives and views of individuals with which this intercourse

may supply him, from exercising too great, or, indeed, any apparent

influence on his public conduct. It will be seen how well qualified

Lord Metcalfe was to surmount, and how successfully he did surmount,

all these difficulties.

It has been stated, that the bill, even with the amendment it

received in the House of Lords, was so inconsistent with the

constitutional rights of Jamaica, that it was apprehended there

would be great reluctance on the part of the Assembly to resume

the exercise of its legislative functions. Considerations, which

did honour to the character of that body, induced the members to

overcome that reluctance, even before they had practical experience

of the judicious and conciliatory conduct of Lord Metcalfe, and of

the spirit in which he intended to administer his government. There

was a party of noblemen and gentlemen, possessing considerable

property in Jamaica, and of great influence in England, at the head

of whom was that excellent man, the late Earl of Harewood, who had

given their most cordial support, in and out of Parliament, to the

agent of the colony in his opposition to the measure for suspending

the legislative functions of the Assembly. They had thus acquired

strong claims on the grateful attention of the legislature of

Jamaica. In an earnest and affectionate appeal to the Assembly,

they urged that body to resume its legislation. The Assembly and

its constituents, with the generosity which has ever distinguished

them, and with a grateful sense of the powerful support they had

received from this party, felt the full force of their appeal.

Lord Metcalfe, by his judicious conduct in relation to the bill,

by the conciliatory spirit which his whole conduct on his arrival

in Jamaica, and first meeting the Assembly, evinced, and by his

success in impressing the members with the belief that her Majesty's

government was influenced by the same spirit, inspired them with

such confidence in the principles on which his government would be

administered, that they did not insist on their objections to the

bill, but resolved on resuming their legislation. They did resume

it. "They gave him," to use his own language, "their hearty support

and active co-operation in adopting and carrying into effect the

views of her Majesty's government, and in passing laws adapted to

the change which had taken place in the social relations of the

inhabitants of Jamaica."

Before we state the principles on which he so successfully conducted

the government of Jamaica, and endeavour to represent the value

of those services which, by its administration, he rendered to

his country, we would select some of those qualities essential to

constitute a great statesman, with which he was most richly endowed.

He was entrusted with public duties of great responsibility at a

very early period of life. Impressed with a deep sense of that

responsibility, he felt that the faculties of his mind ought to

be not only dedicated to the discharge of those duties, but that

he ought to bestow on them that cultivation and improvement which

could enable his country to derive the greatest benefit from them.

He acquired the power of taking an enlarged and comprehensive view

of all the bearings of every question which engaged his attention,

and he exercised that power with great promptitude. He distinguished

and separated with great facility and with great accuracy what was

material from what was not in forming his judgment. He kept his

mind always so well regulated, and its powers so entirely under

his control--he preserved his temper so calm and unruffled--he

resisted so successfully the approach of prejudice, that he was

enabled to penetrate into the recesses of human conduct and motives,

and to acquire the most intimate knowledge and the most practical

experience of mankind.

The acquisition of that experience is calculated to impress the

statesman with an unfavourable opinion of his species, and to

excite too general a feeling of distrust. This impression, unless

its progress and effects are controlled, may exercise so great an

influence as effectually to disable the judgment, frustrate the

best intentions, and oppose so many obstacles as to render the

noble character of a great and good statesman wholly unattainable.

It is the part of wisdom no less than of benevolence, so far

to control it, that it shall have no other effect than that of

inducing caution, prudence, and circumspection. He will regard it

as reminding him that those for whom he thinks and acts, are beings

with the infirmities of our fallen nature; as teaching him to appeal

to, and avail himself of the better feelings and motives of our

nature; and, whenever it is practicable, to render those even of an

opposite character the means of effecting good, and if that be not

practicable, to correct and control them so as to deprive them of

their baneful effects.

Lord Metcalfe followed the dictates of his natural benevolence, no

less than those of his excellent judgment, in applying to those

purposes, and in this manner, his great knowledge and experience

of mankind. Burke, who has been most truly called "the greatest

philosopher in practice whom the world ever saw," has said, "that

in the world we live in, distrust is but too necessary; some of

old called it the very sinews of discretion. But what signify

common-places, that always run parallel and equal? Distrust is

good, or it is bad, according to our position and our purpose."

Again, "there is a confidence necessary to human intercourse, and

without which men are often more injured by their own suspicions,

than they would be by the perfidy of others." No man knew better or

made a more wise and judicious and successful application of these

maxims of wisdom and benevolence than Lord Metcalfe. The grateful

attachment of the community in which he lived abundantly proved that

distrust, when it was required by his judgment, never impaired the

kindness of his own disposition, or alienated from him the esteem

and affection of others.

The rock on which too often a governor has made shipwreck of his

administration has been the selection of individuals or families on

whom he bestowed his exclusive confidence. The jealousy and envy

which this preference excited in others did not constitute the

only or even the greatest part of the evil. The selected few were

desirous of making themselves of importance, and inducing him to

value their support as essential to the success of his government.

With this view they attributed to others unfriendly feelings

towards the governor which they never entertained, and endeavoured

to persuade him that they themselves were the only persons on whom

he could rely. Their professions betrayed him into the great error

of too soon and too freely making them acquainted with the views

and designs of his government. Lord Metcalfe was too wise and too

just to have any favourites; towards all, he acted with a frankness,

sincerity, and kindness which made all equally his friends. Lord

Metcalfe united with singular equanimity of temper, an extraordinary

degree of self-possession. He never was betrayed into an intimation

of his opinions or intentions, if prudence required that they should

not be known. The time when, and the extent to which such intimation

should be given, were always the result of his previous deliberate

judgment. But this reserve was accompanied with so much kindness

and gentleness of manner, that it silenced any disappointment or

mortification in not attaining that insight into his views which was

sought. A short intercourse with Lord Metcalfe could not fail to

satisfy the mind that any attempt to elicit from him opinions which

he did not desire to impart, would be wholly fruitless.

Another evil, no less injurious to the government than to the

colony, was the hasty and imperfect estimate which governors formed

of the motives and conduct of colonial legislatures. It had then

been too frequent to represent those bodies as influenced by a

hostile feeling, where no such feeling existed, and to exaggerate

their difficulties in administering their government. Lord

Metcalfe's administration was characterised by the candour with

which he appreciated, the fidelity with which in his communications

to her Majesty's government he represented, and the uncompromising

honesty and firmness with which he vindicated the motives and

acts of the Jamaica legislature, and repelled the prejudices, the

misrepresentations, and calumnies by which it had been assailed.

He brought to his administration, and never failed to evince, a

constitutional respect for the institutions of the colony, and the

strictest impartiality in maintaining the just rights of all classes

of the community. Her Majesty's government continued to him that

unlimited confidence he so well deserved, and left him to carry

out his wise and beneficent principles of government. To cheer

him in his noble undertaking, to bestow on the Assembly the most

gratifying reward for their conduct, and to give them the highest

assurance of the confidence of the government, the royal speech

on the prorogation of Parliament contained her Majesty's gracious

approbation of the disposition and proceedings of the legislature.

So sound were the principles on which he administered the

government--so firm and lasting was the confidence reposed in him

by the assembly, that during his administration there was not the

slightest interruption of the most perfect harmony between him and

the different branches of the legislature. He had the satisfaction

of witnessing a most beneficent change in the manner, the care,

and spirit in which the acts of the colonial legislature were

examined, objections to them treated, and amendments required, by

the government. The acts were not, as before, at once disallowed;

but the proposed amendments were made the subjects of recommendation

by communications to the legislature from the governor. The Assembly

felt this change, and met it in a corresponding spirit, which

readily disposed them to adopt the recommendations of the government.

Having fully and effectually accomplished the noble and Christian

purpose with which he undertook the arduous duties of the

government, he resigned it in June 1842. The state in which he left

Jamaica, contrasted with that in which he found the colony on the

commencement of his administration, was his rich reward. He came

to Jamaica at a time when her legislation was suspended, mutual

feelings of distrust and jealousy disturbing not only the relation

between the governor and the legislature, but all the social

relations in the colony; when laws were required for the altered

state of society, and when the tranquillity and existence of the

colony were placed in the greatest jeopardy. When he resigned the

government, there had been effected a perfect reconciliation of the

colony and the mother country; order and harmony, and good feeling

amongst all classes had been restored; legislation had been resumed,

laws had been passed adapted to the change which had taken place in

the social relations of the inhabitants; and the cordial and active

co-operation of the legislature had been afforded, notwithstanding

the financial difficulties of the colony, in extending at a great

cost the means of religious and moral instruction, and in making

the most valuable improvements in the judicial system. He quitted

the shores of Jamaica beloved, respected, and revered, with a

gratitude and real attachment which few public men ever experienced.

The inhabitants of Jamaica raised to him a monument which might

mark their grateful homage to his memory. But there is engraven

on the hearts of the public of Jamaica another memorial, in the

affectionate gratitude and esteem with which they will feel the

enduring blessings of his government, and recall his Christian

charity, ever largely exercised in alleviating individual distress;

his kindness and condescension in private life; and his munificent

support of all their religious and charitable institutions, and of

every undertaking which could promote the prosperity and happiness

of the colony.

On Lord Metcalfe's arrival in England, a numerous meeting of the

Jamaica proprietors and merchants was held, and an address presented

to him, in which they offered him the tribute of their warmest

and sincerest gratitude for the benefits which he had conferred

on the colony "by the eminent talents, the wise, and just, and

liberal principles which made his administration of the government

a blessing to the colony, and had secured him the affection of all

classes of the inhabitants, as well as the high approbation of his

sovereign."

His answer to that address was a beautiful illustration of

the unaffected modesty, of the kindness and benevolence of

his disposition, and of the principles which influenced his

administration. "Charged by her Majesty's government with a mission

of peace and reconciliation, I was received in Jamaica with open

arms. The duties which I had to perform were obvious; my first

proceedings were naturally watched with anxiety; but as they

indicated good-will and a fair spirit, I obtained hearty support and

co-operation. My task in acting along with the spirit which animated

the colony was easy. Internal differences were adjusted--either by

being left to the natural progress of affairs, during which the

respective parties were enabled to apprehend their real interests;

or by mild endeavours to promote harmony, and discourage dissension.

The loyalty, the good sense, and good feeling of the colony did

every thing."

The beneficial effects of his administration did not cease on his

resignation. The principles on which he had conducted it, were

such, that an adherence to them could not fail to secure similar

effects in every succeeding government. It was his great object

to cultivate such mutual confidence and good feeling between her

Majesty's government and the legislature, and all classes of the

colony, as would influence and be apparent in the views and measures

of the government, and as would secure the cordial co-operation

of the legislature in adopting them. In promoting that object, he

was ever anxious to supply the government with those means, which

his local information and experience could alone furnish, of fully

understanding and justly appreciating the views and measures of

the Assembly. He was sensibly alive to whatever might impair the

confidence of the government in that body. It was his desire to

convey the most faithful representations himself, and to correct

any misrepresentations conveyed by others. In a word, it was his

constant object to keep the government fully and faithfully informed

of all which would enable it to render justice to the colony.

Until Lord Metcalfe's administration, her Majesty's government

never understood, and never rightly appreciated, the motives and

conduct of the legislature of Jamaica, and never did they know

the confidence which might be bestowed on that legislature, and

the all-powerful influence which, by means of that confidence,

could be exercised on its legislation. The foundation for the

most successful, because the most beneficial, government was thus

permanently laid by Lord Metcalfe.

Lord Elgin succeeded Lord Metcalfe as the governor of Jamaica. He

had the wisdom to follow the example of his predecessor, and adopt

his principles of government, and pursue the path which he had

opened. His administration was uninterrupted by any misunderstanding

between the executive government and the Assembly. It merited and

received the approbation of his sovereign, and the gratitude of the

colony.

More than six years have elapsed since Lord Metcalfe entered on

the government of Jamaica. During that space of time, in the

former history of the colony, there were frequent dissolutions or

prorogations caused by some dispute between the government and the

Assembly, or between the different branches of the legislature.

Since the appointment of Lord Metcalfe, no misunderstanding has

arisen, but perfect harmony has prevailed amongst them. The

principles of Lord Metcalfe, which established the relations between

the government of the parent state and the various branches of the

legislature of Jamaica, and between all classes of society there,

in perfect confidence and good feeling, and entirely excluded

distrust and suspicion, were so strongly recommended by the enduring

success of his administration, that it is not possible to anticipate

that they will ever be forgotten or abandoned. There can be no

difficulties which may not be surmounted, and confidence can never

be supplanted by distrust: there can be no governor of Jamaica whose

administration will not have merited and received the approbation

of his sovereign, and the gratitude of the colony, so long as he

religiously follows the example, and adheres to the principles

of Lord Metcalfe. By such an adherence to these principles,

Jamaica will retain, not the remembrance alone of the wisdom, the

justice, the benevolence of his administration, and the blessings

it conferred, but she will enjoy, in every succeeding generation,

the same administration, for although directed by another hand,

it will be characterised by the sane wisdom, the same justice and

beneficence, and confer on her the same blessings.

But as the beneficent effects of his government are not limited in

their duration to the time, so neither are they confined to the

colony, in which it was administered. The same experience of its

success, and the same considerations no less of interest than of

duty, recommend and secure the adoption of its principles in the

administration of the government of every other colony, as well as

of Jamaica. Such was the impression with which the other British

colonies regarded his administration in Jamaica. They considered

that the same principles on which the government of Jamaica had

been administered, would be adopted in the administration of their

governments. Shortly after Lord Metcalfe's return from Jamaica, a

numerous and influential body, interested in the other colonies,

presented him with an address, expressing "the sentiments of

gratitude and admiration with which they appreciated the ability,

the impartiality, and the success of his administration of the

government of Jamaica. They gratefully acknowledged his undeviating

adherence to those just and liberal principles by which alone

the relations between the parent state and the colonies can be

maintained with the feelings essential to their mutual honour

and welfare; and they expressed their conviction, that, as his

administration must be the unerring guide for that of every other

colony, so its benefits will extend to the whole colonial empire

of Great Britain." Thus, by his administration of the government

of one colony, during only the short space of two years, he laid

the foundation for that permanent union of this and all the other

colonies with the parent state, which would secure the welfare and

happiness of the millions by whom they are inhabited, and add to the

strength, the power, and splendour of the British empire.

Such is a faint record of only two years of the distinguished

public life of this great and good man. How few statesmen have ever

furnished materials for such a record? What greater good can be

desired for our country, than that the example of Lord Metcalfe,

and his administration of Jamaica, may ever be "the guide-post and

land-mark" in her councils for the government of all her colonies,

and may ever exercise a predominant influence in the relations

between them and the parent state?

ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES OF LONDON.

_An Antiquarian Ramble in the Streets of London; with Anecdotes

of their more celebrated Residents._ By J. T. SMITH, late Keeper

of the Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Author of

_Nollekins and his Times_, &c.

What is London? Walk into Lombard Street, and ask the Merchant;

he will tell you at once--the Docks and the Custom-House, Lloyd's

and the Bank, the Exchange, Royal or Stock. Drive your cab to

the Carlton, and learn that it is Pall-mall and the Clubs, St

James's and the Parks, Almack's and the Opera. Carry your question

and your fee together to legal chambers, and be told that it is

Westminster and Chancery Lane, Lincoln's Inn and the Temple. All

that remains of mankind, that is not to be numbered in these several

categories, will tell you it is a huge agglomeration of houses and

shops, churches and theatres, markets and monuments, gas-pipes and

paving-stones. Believe none--Yes, believe them all! We make our

London, as we make our World, out of what attracts and interests

ourselves. Few are they who behold in this vast metropolis a

many-paged volume, abounding in instruction, offering to historian

and philosopher, poet and antiquary, a luxuriant harvest and

never-failing theme. We consider London, with reference to what

it is and may become, not to what it has been. The present and

the future occupy us to the exclusion of the past. We perambulate

the great arteries of the Monster City, from Tyburn to Cornhill,

from Whitechapel to the Wellington statue, and our minds receive

no impression, save what is directly conveyed through our eyes; we

pass, unheeding, a thousand places and objects rich in memories of

bygone days, of strange and stirring events--great men long since

deceased, and customs now long obsolete. We care not to dive into

the narrow lanes and filthy alleys, where, in former centuries, sons

of Genius and the Muses dwelt and starved; we seek not the dingy

old taverns where the wit of our ancestors sparkled; upon the spot

where a hero fell or a martyr perished, we pause not to gaze and

to recall the memories of departed virtue and greatness. We are a

matter-of-fact generation, too busy in money-getting to speculate

upon the past. So crowded has the world become, that there is scarce

standing-room; and even the lingering ghosts of olden times are

elbowed and jostled aside. It is the triumph of the tangible and

positive over the shadowy and poetical.

Things which men will not seek, they often thankfully accept when

brought to them in an attractive form and without trouble. Upon this

calculation has the book before us been written. It is an attempt

to convey, in amusing narrative, the history, ancient, mediæval,

and modern, of the streets and houses of London. For such a work,

which necessarily partakes largely of the nature of a compilation,

it is obvious that industry is more essential than talent--extensive

reading than a brilliant pen. Both of industry and reading Mr Smith

makes a respectable display, and therefore we shall not cavil at

any minor deficiencies. His subject would have been better treated

in a lighter and more detached form; and, in this respect, he

might have taken a hint from an existing French work of a similar

nature, relating to Paris. But his materials are too sterling and

interesting to be spoiled by any slight mistake in the handling. He

has accumulated a large mass of information, quotation, and extract;

and although few persons may read his book continuously from

beginning to end, very many, we are sure, will dip with pleasure and

interest into its pages.

West and East would have been no inappropriate title for Mr Smith's

twin volumes. In the first, he keeps on the Court side of Temple

Bar; the second he devotes to the City. As may be supposed, the

former is the more sprightly and piquant chronicle; but the latter

does not yield to it in striking records and interesting historical

facts. Let us accompany the antiquarian on his first ramble, from

Hyde Park Corner to Charing Cross, starting from Apsley House, of

which, although scarcely included in the design of his work, as

announced on the title-page, he gives, as of various other modern

buildings, a concise account.

How few individuals of the human tide that daily flows and ebbs

along Piccadilly are aware, that within a century that aristocratic

quarter was a most disreputable outlet from London. The ground now

covered with ranges of palaces, the snug and select district of

May Fair, dear to opulent dowagers and luxurious _célibataires_,

was occupied, but a short hundred years since, by a few detached

dwellings in extensive gardens, and by a far larger number of low

taverns. Some of these, as the White Horse and Half Moon, have

given their names to the streets to which their bowling-greens and

skittle-alleys tardily gave way. The Sunday excursions of the lower

orders were then more circumscribed than at present; and these

Piccadilly publics were much resorted to on the Sabbath, in the

manner of a country excursion; for Piccadilly was then the country.

"Among the advertisements of sales by auction in the original

edition of the _Spectator_, in folio, published in 1711, the mansion

of Streater, jun., is advertised as _his country house_, being near

Bolton Row, in Piccadilly; his town residence was in Gerrard Street,

Soho." The taverns nearest to Hyde Park were chiefly patronised by

the soldiers, particularly, we are informed, on review days, when

they sat in rows upon wooden benches, placed in the street for their

accommodation, combing, soaping, and powdering each other's hair.

The bad character of the neighbourhood, and perhaps, also, the

nuisance of May Fair, which lasted for fifteen days, and was not

abolished till 1708, prevented the ground from increasing in value;

and accordingly we find that Mr Shepherd, after whom Shepherd's

Market was named, offered for sale, as late as the year 1750,

his freehold mansion in Curzon Street, and its adjacent gardens,

for five hundred pounds. At that price it was subsequently sold.

Houses there were, however, in the then despised neighbourhood

of Piccadilly, of high value; but it arose from their intrinsic

magnificence, which counterbalanced the disadvantages of situation.

Evelyn mentions having visited Lord John Berkeley at his stately

new house, which was said to have cost thirty thousand pounds, and

had a cedar staircase. He greatly commends the gardens, and says

that he advised the planting of certain holly-hedges on the terrace.

Stratton Street was built on the Berkeley estate, and so named in

compliment to the Stratton line of that family. At what is now

the south end of Albemarle Street, stood Clarendon House, built,

as Bishop Burnet tells us, on a piece of ground granted to Lord

Clarendon by Charles II. The Earl wished to have a plain ordinary

house, but those he employed preferred erecting a palace, whose

total cost amounted to fifty thousand pounds.

"During the war," says the Bishop, "and in the plague year, he had

about three hundred men at work, which he thought would have been an

acceptable thing, when so many men were kept at work, and so much

money, as was duly paid, circulated about. But it had a contrary

effect: it raised a great outcry against him." The sale of Dunkirk

to the French for four hundred thousand pounds, had taken place only

three years before, and was still fresh in men's minds. The odium of

this transaction fell chiefly on Lord Clarendon, who was accused of

pocketing a share of its profits; and the people gave the name of

Dunkirk House to his new mansion. Others called it Holland House,

thereby insinuating that it was built with bribes received from the

Dutch, with whom this country then waged a disastrous war. In spite

of popular outcry, however, the house was completed in 1667, the

year of Clarendon's disgrace and banishment. Fifteen years later,

after his death, his heir sold the place to the Duke of Albemarle

for twenty-five thousand pounds, just half what it cost; and the

Duke parted with it for ten thousand more. Finally, it was pulled

down to make room for Albemarle and Stafford Streets; of which

latter, as appears from old plans of London, the centre of Clarendon

House occupied the entire site.

Piccadilly was formerly the headquarters of the makers of leaden

figures. The first yard for this worthless description of statues

was founded by John Van Nost, one of the numerous train of Dutchmen

who followed William III. to England. His establishment soon had

imitators and rivals; and, in 1740, there were four of these

figure-yards in Piccadilly, all driving a flourishing trade in

their leaden lumber. The statues were as large as life, and often

painted. "They consisted of Punch, Harlequin, Columbine, and other

pantomimical characters; mowers whetting their scythes, haymakers

resting on their rakes, gamekeepers in the act of shooting, and

_Roman_ soldiers with _firelocks_; but, above all, that of a

kneeling African with a sundial upon his head, found the most

extensive sale." Copies from the antique were also there, and had

many admirers; but the unsuitableness of the heavy and pliable

material was soon discovered, and, after a brief existence, the

figure-yards died a natural death.

On the etymology of the word Piccadilly, Mr Smith expends much

erudite research, without, as it appears to us, arriving at a

very definite or satisfactory conclusion. A pickadill is defined

by Blount, in his _Glossography_, as "the round hem of a garment,

or other thing; also a kinde of stiff collar, made in fashion of

a band." Hence Mr Smith infers, that the famous ordinary near St

James's, which first bore the name of Piccadilly, may have received

it because at that time it was the outmost or skirt-house of the

suburb. The derivation is ingenious, but rather far-fetched. Another

notion is, that a certain Higgin, a tailor, who built the house,

had acquired his money by the manufacture of pickadills, then in

great vogue. The orthography of the name has varied considerably.

Evelyn mentions in his memoirs, that, as one of the commissioners

for reforming the buildings and streets of London, he ordered the

paving of the road from St James's North, "which was a quagmire,"

and likewise of the Haymarket about "Pigudello." In the same year,

however, 1662, it is found inscribed in tradesmen's tokens as

Pickadilla; and this appears to be the most ancient mode of spelling

it. In _Gerard's Herbal_, published in the reign of Queen Elizabeth,

(1596,) the author, talking of the "small wild buglosse," says

that this little flower "growes upon the drie ditch bankes about

Pickadilla."

Where Bennet and Arlington Streets now stand, was formerly the

celebrated mulberry gardens, referred to by Malone as a favourite

haunt of Dryden, who loved to eat tarts there with his mistress,

Anne Reeve. To the polite ears of the nineteenth century, the

very name of a public garden is a sound of horror; and to see

the cream of _the ton_ taking their evening lounge at Cremorne,

or the "Royal Property," and battening upon mulberry tarts and

sweetened wine, would excite as much astonishment as if we read in

the _Moniteur_ that the Duchess of Orleans had led a _galop_ at

Musard's masquerade. In the easy-going days of the second Charles,

things were very different, and a fashionable company was wont to

collect at the Mulberry Garden, to sit in its pleasant arbours,

and feast upon cheesecakes and syllabubs. The ladies frequently

went in masks, which was a great mode at that time, and one often

adopted by the court dames to escape detection in the intrigues

and mad pranks they so liberally permitted themselves. "In _The

Humorous Lovers_, a comedy written by the Duke of Newcastle,[4] and

published in 1677, the third scene of Act I. is in the Mulberry

Garden. Baldman observes to Courtly, ''Tis a delicate plump wench;

now, a blessing on the hearts of them that were the contrivers of

this garden; this wilderness is the prettiest convenient place to

woo a widow, Courtly.'" One can hardly fancy a wilderness in the

heart of St James's, except of houses; but the one mentioned in the

above passage had ceased to exist at the time the play appeared, at

least as a place of public resort. Five years previously, the King

had granted to Henry Earl of Arlington, "that whole piece or parcel

of ground called the Mulberry Gardens, together with eight houses,

with their appurtenances thereon," at a rent of twenty shillings per

annum. Goring House, in which Mr Secretary Bennet, afterwards Earl

of Arlington, resided, was probably one of these eight houses. Two

years subsequently to the grant, it was burnt down, and the earl

removed to Arlington House, which stood on the site of Buckingham

Palace. Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, bought the former, pulled it

down in 1703, and erected a new mansion, which was sold to the crown

by his son, and allotted, in 1775, as a residence for the Queen,

instead of Somerset House.

[4] It was by the Duchess of Newcastle, according to Pepys, that

this play was written. In his Diary he says, under date of the

11th April 1667:--"To Whitehall, thinking there to have seen the

Duchess of Newcastle coming this night to court to make a visit to

the Queen. The whole story of this lady is a romance, and all she

does is romantic. Her footmen in velvet coats, and herself in an

antique dress, as they say; and was the other day at her own play,

_The Humorous Lovers_, the most ridiculous thing that ever was

wrote, but yet she and her lord mightily pleased with it; and she

at the end made her respects to the players from her box, and did

give them thanks." This was the eccentric dame who kept a maid of

honour sitting up all night, to write down any bright idea or happy

inspiration by which she might be visited.

We are glad to learn from Mr Smith, that there is a plan on foot

for the removal of the confined, dirty, and unwholesome district

between Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey, now one of the

vilest parts of the metropolis, the favourite abode of thieves,

beggars, pawnbrokers, and gin-sellers. The streets adjacent to the

palace have at no time been of the most spacious or respectable

description, although Pimlico is vastly improved from what it was

in the days of Ben Jonson, who uses the name to express all that

was lowest and most disreputable. In his play of _The Alchymist_,

he says, "Gallants, men and women, and of all sorts, tag-rag and

bob-tail, have been seen to flock here in threaves, these ten

weeks, as to a second Hoxton or Pimlico." And again, "besides

other gallants, oysterwomen, sailors' wives, tobacco-men--another

Pimlico." _Apropos_ of the gin-palaces which have replaced the

old-fashioned public-houses that abounded some twenty years ago

in Westminster, Mr Smith makes a digression on the subject of

drunkenness, and quotes some curious particulars from an old

treatise, called _The London and Country Brewer_. "Our drunkenness,

as a national vice," says the writer, "takes its date from the

restoration of Charles the Second, or a few years later." It may

be questioned whether drunkenness was not pretty well established

as an English vice long before the period here referred to. We

have the authority of various writers, however, for its having

greatly increased about the time of the Stuarts' restoration. "A

spirit of extravagant joy," says Burnet, in his _History of his

own Times_, "spread over the nation. All ended in entertainments

and drunkenness, which overrun the three kingdoms to such a

degree, that it very much corrupted all their morals. Under the

colour of drinking the King's health, there were great disorders,

and much riot every where." This was no unnatural reaction after

the stern austerity of the Protectorate. "As to the materials,

(of drunkenness,") continues _The Brewer_, "beer and ale were

considerable articles; they went a great way in the work at first,

but were far from being sufficient; and then strong waters came into

play. The occasion was this: In the Dutch wars it had been observed

that the captains of the Hollanders' men-of-war, when they were

about to engage with our ships, usually set a hogshead of brandy

abroach afore the mast, and bid the men drink _sustick_, that they

might fight _lustick_; and our poor seamen felt the force of the

brandy to their cost. We were not long behind them; but suddenly

after the war we began to abound in strong-water shops." Even

the chandlers and the barber-surgeons kept stores of spirituous

compounds, for the most part of exceeding bad quality, but sweetened

and spiced, and temptingly displayed in rows of glass bottles, under

Latin names of imposing sound. Aniseed-water was the favourite

dram; until the French, finding out the newly-acquired taste of

their old enemies, deluged the English markets with brandy, which

was recommended by the physicians, and soon acquired universal

popularity. It was sold about the streets in small measures, at a

halfpenny and a penny each; and the consumption was prodigious,

until a war broke out with France, when the supply of course

stopped, and the poor were compelled to return to their _aqua vitæ_

and _aqua mirabilis_, or, better than either, to the ale-glass.

When speaking of the royal cockpit at Whitehall, Mr Smith tells

us of "Admiral M'Bride, a brave sailor of the old school, who

constantly kept game-cocks on board his ship, and on the morning of

an action, endeavoured, and that successfully, to animate his men by

the spectacle of a cock-fight between decks." This, if not a very

humane expedient, according to modern notions, was at any rate an

improvement upon Dutch courage, with which British seamen of the

present day would scorn to fortify themselves.

St James's Park, originally a swamp, was first inclosed by Harry

the Eighth, but little was done towards its improvement and

embellishment until after the Restoration. It was within its

precincts, that in July 1626 Lord Conway assembled the numerous

and troublesome French retinue of Queen Henrietta Maria, and

communicated to them the king's pleasure that they should

immediately quit the country. The legion of hungry foreigners,

including several priests and a boy bishop, scarcely of age, had

hoped long to fatten upon English soil, and they received their

dismissal with furious outcry and loud remonstrance. Their royal

mistress also was greatly incensed, and broke several panes of glass

with her fists, in no very queenly style. But Charles for once was

resolute; the Frenchmen had, to use his own expressions, so dallied

with his patience, and so highly affronted him, that he could no

longer endure it. They found, however, all sorts of pretexts to

delay their departure, claiming wages and perquisites which were

not due, and alleging that they had debts in London, and could not

go away till these were discharged. L'Estrange, in his Life of

Charles I., and D'Israeli in his _Commentaries_, gives many curious

particulars of the proceedings of this troop of bloodsuckers.

Under pretence of perquisites, they pillaged the queen's wardrobe

and jewel-case, not leaving her even a change of linen. The king

accorded them a reasonable delay for their preparations, but

at last he lost all patience, as will be seen by the following

characteristic letter to the Duke of Buckingham, dated from Oaking,

the 7th of August 1626:

"STEENIE,--I have received your letter by Dic Greame, (Sir

Richard Graham.) This is my answer: I command you to send all

the French away to-morrow out of the towne, if you can by fair

means, (but stike not long in disputing,) otherways force them

away, dryving them away lyke so manie wilde beastes, until ye

have shipped them, and so the devil goe with them. Let me heare

no answer, but of the performance of my command. So I rest your

faithful, constant, loving friend, C. R."

Thereupon the debts of the obnoxious French were paid, their claims,

both just and unjust, satisfied, presents given to some of them,

and they set out for Dover, nearly forty coaches full. "As Madame

St George, whose vivacity is always described as extremely French,

was stepping into the boat, one of the mob could not resist the

satisfaction of flinging a stone at her French cap. An English

courtier, who was conducting her, instantly quitted his charge, ran

the fellow through the body, and quietly returned to the boat. The

man died on the spot, but no further notice appears to have been

taken of the inconsiderate gallantry of the English courtier."

The Stuarts were commonly plagued with the foreign attendants

of their wives. When Charles the Second's spouse, Catherine of

Braganza, arrived in England, she was escorted by a train of

Portuguese ladies, who highly disgusted the king and his court,

less, however, by their Papistry and greediness, than by their

surpassing ugliness and obstinate adherence to the fashions of

their country. "Six frights," says Anthony Hamilton in his memoirs

of Count Grammont, "who called themselves maids of honour, and a

duenna, another monster, who took the title of governess to these

extraordinary beauties. Among the men were Francisco de Melo, and

one Tauravedez, who called himself Don Pedro Francisco Correo

de Silva, extremely handsome, but a greater fool than all the

Portuguese put together; he was more vain of his names than his

person; but the Duke of Buckingham, a still greater fool than he,

though more addicted to raillery, gave him the name of Peter of

the Wood. He was so enraged at this, that, after many fruitless

complaints and ineffectual menaces, poor Pedro de Silva was

obliged to leave England; while the happy duke kept possession of

a Portuguese nymph more hideous than the queen's maids of honour,

whom he had taken from him, as well as two of his names. Besides

these, there were six chaplains, four bakers, a Jew perfumer, and a

certain officer, probably without an office, who called himself her

highness's barber." Evelyn also tells us, that "the queen arrived

with a train of Portuguese ladies in their monstrous fardingals

or guard-infantas, their complexions olivader, and sufficiently

unagreeable;" and Lord Clarendon talks of "a numerous family of men

and women, that were sent from Portugal"--the women "old and ugly

and proud, incapable of any conversation with persons of quality and

a liberal education; and they desired, and indeed had conspired so

far to possess the queen herself, that she should neither learn the

English language, nor use their habit, nor depart from the manners

and fashions of her own country in any particulars." Although the

Infanta herself was by no means ill-looking, her charms did not

come up to those of the flattered portrait which her mother, the

old Queen of Portugal, had sent to Charles; and it is possible that

the selection of plain women for her retinue had been intentional,

that their ugliness might serve as a foil to her moderate amount of

beauty. After a short time, however, the majority of these uncomely

Lusitanians were sent back to their native country.

To return to Mr Smith and St James's Park. After his Restoration,

Charles the Second, who, as worthy Thomas Blount says in his

Boscobel, had been hunted to and fro like a "partridge upon the

mountains," became very _casanier_, decidedly stay-at-home, in

his habits, and cared little to absent himself from London and

its vicinity. He had had buffeting and wandering enough in his

youth, and, on ascending the throne of his unfortunate father,

he thought of little besides making himself comfortable in his

capital, careless of expense, which, even in his greatest need, he

seems never to have calculated. He planted the avenues of the park,

made a canal and an aviary for rare birds, which gave the name to

Bird-Cage Walk. Amongst other freaks, and to provide for a witty

Frenchman who amused him, he erected Duck Island into a government.

Charles de St Denis, seigneur of St Evremond, who had been banished

from France for a satire on Cardinal Mazarine, was the first and,

it is believed, the last governor. He drew the salary attached

to the appointment, which was certainly a more lucrative than

honourable one for a man of his talents and reputation. According

to Evelyn, Charles stored the park with "numerous flocks of fowle.

There were also deer of several countries--white, spotted like

leopards; antelopes, as elk, red deer, roebucks, staggs, Guinea

grates, Arabian sheep," &c. In the Mall, also made by him, Charles

played at ball and took his daily walk. "Here," says Colley Cibber,

"Charles was often seen amid crowds of spectators, feeding his

ducks and playing with his dogs, affable even with the meanest of

his subjects." Mr Smith regrets the diminished affability and less

accessible mood of sovereigns of the nineteenth century, although he

admits that the populace of France and England are at the present

day too rude for it to be advisable that kings and queens should

walk amongst them with the easy familiarity of the second Charles.

Of that there can be very little doubt. Even Charles, whose dislike

of ceremony and restraint, and love of gossip and new faces, were

cause, at least as much as any desire for popularity, that he thus

mingled with the mob, occasionally experienced the disagreeables

of his undignified manner of life. Aubrey the credulous, Mr Smith

tells us, relates in his Miscellanies the following anecdote of

an incident that occurred in the Park. "Avise Evans had a fungous

nose, and said that it was revealed to him that the king's hand

would cure him: and at the first coming of King Charles II. into St

James's Park, he kissed the king's hand, and rubbed his nose with

it, which disturbed the king, but cured him." It was whilst walking

on the Mall that the pretended Popish plot of Oates and Bedloe was

announced to Charles. "On the 12th of August 1678," says Hume,

"one Kirby, a chemist, accosted the king as he was walking in the

Park. 'Sir,' said he, 'keep within the company; your enemies have

a design upon your life, and you may be shot in this very walk.'

Being asked the reason of these strange speeches, he said that two

men, called Grove and Pickering, had engaged to shoot the king, and

Sir George Wakeman, the queen's physician, to poison him." Charles,

unlike his grandfather, the timid James, was little apprehensive

of assassination, and, when sauntering in the Park, preferred the

society of two or three intimates to the attendance of a retinue.

On one occasion, however, as a biographer has recorded, an impudent

barber startled him from his usual happy _insouciance_. Accustomed

to chat familiarly with his good-humoured master, the chin-scraper

ventured to observe, whilst operating upon that of the king, that

he considered no officer of the court had a more important trust

than himself. "Why so, friend?" inquired the king. "Why," replied

the barber, "I could cut your majesty's throat whenever I chose."

Charles started up in consternation, swore that the very thought

was treason, and the indiscreet man of razors was deprived of his

delicate charge.

In the _Daily Post_ for October 31st, 1728, is an order of the Board

of Green Cloth for clearing St James's Park of the shoe-cleaners

and other vagrants, and sending them to the House of Correction.

This reminds us of what has often excited our surprise, the absence

from the streets of London of an humble but very useful class of

professionals, who abound in many continental towns, in all French

ones of any size. Abundant ingenuity is displayed in London in the

discovery and invention of strange and out-of-the-way employments.

Men convert themselves into "animated sandwiches" by back and

breastplates of board, encase themselves in gigantic bottles to

set forth the merits of some famed specific or potent elixir, or

walk about with advertisements printed on their coats, peripatetic

fly-sheets, extolling the comfort and economy of halfpenny steamers,

and of omnibuses at a penny a mile. Some sweep crossings, others

hold horses; but none of the vast number of needy _industrials_

who strain their wits to devise new means of obtaining their daily

ration and nightly shelter, have as yet taken pattern by the French

_décrotteur_ and German _stiefel-wichser_, and provided themselves

for stock in trade with a three-legged stool, a brace of brushes,

and a bottle of blacking. No one has been at Paris without finding

the great convenience of the _ateliers de décrottage_ which abound

in the passages and in the more frequented of the streets, where,

for three or four _sous_, the lounger who has had boots and

trousers bemired by rapid cab or lumbering _diligence_, is brushed

and polished with unparalleled rapidity and dexterity. But a very

moderate capital is required for the establishment of these temples

of cleanliness, and we recommend the subject to the consideration of

decayed railway "stags."

"Duke Street Chapel, with a flight of steps leading to the Park,

formed originally a wing of the mansion of the notorious Judge

Jeffries. The house was built by him, and James the Second, as a

mark of especial favour, allowed him to make an entry to the Park by

the steps alluded to. The son of Jeffries inhabited it for a short

time." It was this son and successor of the infamous Jeffries, who,

with a party of rakes and debauchees, mohocks as they were at that

time called, insulted the remains of the poet Dryden, and the grief

of his widow. They happened to pass through Gerrard Street, Soho,

when Dryden's remains were about to be conveyed from his house, No.

43, in that street, to Westminster Abbey. Although it was in the

daytime, Jeffries was drunk; he swore that Dryden should not be

buried in so shabby a manner, (eighteen mourning coaches waited to

form the procession,) and that he would see due honour done to his

remains. After frightening Lady Elizabeth, who was ill in bed, into

a fainting fit, these aristocratic ruffians stopped the funeral,

and sent the body to an undertaker in Cheapside. The bishop waited

several hours in Westminster Abbey, and at last went away. When

Jeffries became sober, he had forgotten all about the matter, and

refused to have any thing to do with the interment. The corpse lay

unburied for three weeks. At last the benevolent Dr Garth had it

taken to the College of Physicians, got up a subscription for the

expenses of the funeral, and followed the body to Westminster Abbey.

The poet's son challenged Jeffries, but Jeffries showed the white

feather, and, to avoid personal chastisement, kept carefully out

of the way for three years, when Charles Dryden was drowned near

Windsor.

Mr Smith is most indulgent to the blunders and blockheadism of our

modern architects and monument-makers, far too much so, indeed,

when he speaks approvingly of Trafalgar Square and its handsome

fountains, and without positive disapprobation of the vile

collection of clumsy buildings and ill-executed ornament defacing

that site. There has been a deal of ink spilt upon this subject, and

we have no intention of adding to the quantity, especially as there

is no chance that any flow of fluid, however unlimited, shall blot

out the square and its absurdities. But we defy any Englishman, with

the smallest pretensions to taste, to pass Charing Cross without

feelings of shame and disgust at the mismanagement and ignorance

there manifest. Such an accumulation of clumsiness was surely never

before witnessed. The wretched National Gallery with its absurd

dome, crushed beneath the tall and symmetrical proportions of St

Martin's portico, overtopped even by the private dwelling-houses

in its vicinity; the dirty, ill-devised, and worse-executed

fountains, with their would-be-gracefully curved basins, the steps

and parapets, which give the whole place the appearance of an

exaggerated child's toy. Well may foreigners shrug their shoulders,

and smile at the public buildings of the great capital of Britain.

A fatality attends all our efforts in that way. In regard to

architecture and ornament, we pay more and are worse served than

any body else. So habituated are we to failure in this respect,

that when a public building is completed, scaffolding removed, and

a fair view obtained, we wonder and exult if it is found free from

glaring defects, and in no way particularly obnoxious to censure. As

to its proving a thing to be proud of, to be gazed at and admired,

and to be spoken of out of England, or even in England, after the

fuss and ceremony of its inauguration is over, we never dream of

such a thing. The negative merit of having avoided the ridiculous

and the grotesque, is subject for satisfaction, almost for pride.

Assuredly we love not to exalt other countries at the expense of our

own, to draw invidious comparisons between things English and things

foreign. But the difference between public buildings of modern

erection in London and in Paris is so immense, that it can escape no

one. Take, for instance, the Paris _Bourse_ and the London Exchange.

The former, it has been objected, is out of character; a Greek

temple is no fitting rendezvous for the sons of commerce; a less

classic fane were more appropriate for the discussion of exchanges,

for sales of cotton and muscovado. The objection, according to us,

is flimsy and absurd, and must have originated with some Vandalic

and prejudiced booby, with whom consistency was a monomania.

Nevertheless we will, for argument's sake, admit its validity. Is

that a reason that the traders and capitalists of London should meet

in a building which, for heaviness and exaggerated solidity, rivals

a South American Inquisition? Do the Barings and the Rothschilds

anticipate an attack upon their strong boxes, and intend to stand a

siege within the massive walls of the Royal Exchange? Assuredly the

narrow doorways may easily be defended; for a time, at least, the

ponderous walls will mock the cannonade. The curse of heaviness is

upon our architects. There is total want of grace, and lightness,

and airiness in all their works. Behold our new Senate House! Do

its florid beauties and overdone decorations, unsparingly as they

have been lavished, and convenient as they will doubtless be found

as receptacles for bird's nests, contrast favourably with the

elegant and dignified simplicity of the Chamber of Deputies? The

two, it will be said, cannot be assimilated: the vast difference

of size precludes a comparison. We reply, that the buildings are

for the same purpose; but were they not, proportion at least should

be observed. The Parliament House is far too low for its length.

Want of elevation is the common fault, both in the ideas and in the

productions of our architects.

Are we more successful in statues than in buildings? Mr Smith has

some sensible remarks on this score. Speaking of the equestrian

statue of George III. in Cockspur Street, he says, that "critics

object to the cocked hat and tie-wig in the royal figure; but,

some ages hence, these abused parts will be the most valuable in

the whole statue. It may very reasonably be asked, why an English

gentleman should be represented in the dress of a Roman tribune?

Let the man appear, even in a statue, in his habit as he lived; and

whatever _we_ may say, posterity will be grateful to us. We should

like to know exactly the ordinary walking-dress of Cæsar or Brutus,

and how they wore their hair; and we should not complain if they

had cocked hats or periwigs, if we knew them to be exact copies of

nature." It is certain that modern physiognomy rarely harmonises

with ancient costume. What is to be said of the aspect of the "first

gentleman of Europe," wrapped in his horsecloth, and astride on his

bare-backed steed, in the aforesaid Square of Trafalgar? Assuredly

nothing in commendation. There are portraits of Napoleon in classic

drapery, and, even with his classically correct countenance, he

looks a very ordinary, under-sized Roman. But, in his grey _capote_

and small cocked hat, the characteristic is preserved, and we at

once think of, and wonder at, the hero of Austerlitz and Marengo.

Leicester Square, as Mr Smith justly observes, has more the

appearance of the _Grande Place_ of some continental city than of

a London square. The headquarters and chief rendezvous of aliens,

especially of Frenchmen, it bears numerous and unmistakeable marks

of its foreign occupancy. French hotels and restaurants replace

taverns and chop-houses. French names are seen above shops;

promises of French, German, and Spanish conversation, are read in

the windows; and grimy-visaged, hirsute individuals, in plaited

pantaloons and garments of eccentric cut, saunter, cigar in mouth,

over the shabby pavement. It is curious to remark the different

tone and station taken by English in Paris and French in London.

In the former capital, nothing is too good for the intruding

islanders. In the best and most expensive season, they throng

thither, and strut about like lords of the soil, perfectly at home,

and careless of the opinions of the people amongst whom they have

condescended to come. The best houses are for their use; the most

expensive shops are favoured with their custom; and if occasionally

tormented by a troublesome consciousness of paying dearly for

their importance, they easily console themselves by a malediction

on the French _voleurs_, who thus take advantage of their long

purses and open hands. How different is it with the Frenchman in

London! He comes over, for the most part, at the dullest time of

the year, in the autumn, when the town is foggy, and dreary, and

empty; when the Parks are deserted, shutters shut, the theatres

dull, and exhibitions closed. He has certain vague apprehensions of

the tremendous expense entailed by a visit to the English capital.

To avoid this, he makes a toil of a pleasure; wearies himself with

economical calculations; and creeps into some inferior hotel or dull

lodging-house, tempted by low prices and foreign announcements.

We find French deputies abiding in Cranbourn Street, and counts

contenting themselves with a garret at Pagliano's. Thence they

perambulate westwards; and ignorant, or not choosing to remember,

that London is out of town, and that they have selected the very

worst possible season to visit it, they greatly marvel at the

paucity of equipages, at the abundance of omnibuses and hack-cabs,

and the scarcity of sunbeams; and return home to inform their

friends that London is a _ville monstre_, with spacious streets,

small houses, few amusements; very great, but very gloomy; and

where the nearest approach to sunshine resembles the twinkling of a

rushlight through a plate of blue earthenware.

"The foreign appearance of Leicester Square is not of recent growth.

It seems to have been the favourite resort of strangers and exiles

ever since the place was built. Maitland, who wrote more than a

hundred years ago, describing the parish of St Anne's, in which

it is situate, says--'The fields in these parts being but lately

converted into buildings, I have not discovered any thing of great

antiquity in this parish. Many parts of it so greatly abound with

French, that it is an easy matter for a stranger to imagine himself

in France.'"

Sydney Alley is named after the Earls of Leicester, who had their

town-house on the north side of the square, where Leicester Place

has since been opened. Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, daughter of

James I., occupied, for some years, this residence of the Sydneys.

She also inhabited a house in Drury Place, where Craven Street

now stands, which was built for her by Lord Craven. It was called

Bohemia House for many years afterwards, and at last became a

tavern, at the sign of the Queen of Bohemia. "The Earl of Craven

was thought to have been privately married to the queen, a woman of

great sweetness of temper and amiability of manners--a universal

favourite both in this country and Bohemia, where her gentleness

acquired her the title of 'The Queen of Hearts.' By right of their

descent from her, the House of Hanover ascended the throne of this

kingdom." Lord Craven was the eldest son of Sir William Craven,

lord-mayor of London in 1611. He fought under Gustavus Adolphus with

great distinction, and returned to England at the Restoration, when

Charles II. made him viscount and earl. He commanded a regiment of

the guards until within three or four years of his death, which

occurred in 1697, at the advanced age of eighty-five. "He was an

excellent soldier," says the advertisement of his decease in No.

301 of the _Postman_, "and served in the wars under Palsgrave of

the Rhine, and also under the great Gustavus Adolphus, where he

performed sundry warlike exploits to admiration; and, in a word, he

was then in great renowne."

However indifferently Leicester Square may at present be inhabited,

and notwithstanding its long-standing reputation as a foreign

colony, it has been the chosen abode of many distinguished men.

Hogarth and Reynolds lived and died there. Hogarth's house is now

part of the Sablonière Hotel. Sir Joshua's was on the opposite side

of the square; and both of them, especially the latter, were much

resorted to by the wits and wise men of the day. Johnson, Boswell,

and, at times, Goldsmith, were constant visitors to Reynolds. John

Hunter, the anatomist, lived next-door to Hogarth's house; and in

1725, Lords North and Grey, and Arthur Onslow, the Speaker, also

inhabited this square. Leicester House, where the Queen of Bohemia

lived, is called by Pennant the "pouting-place of princes." George

II. retired thither when he quarrelled with his father; and his son

Frederick, the father of George III., did the same thing for the

same reason. Whilst Prince Frederick and the Princess of Wales lived

there, they received the wedding visit of the Hon. John Spencer,

ancestor of the present Earl Spencer, and of his bride, Miss Poyntz.

Contrary to established etiquette, the bridal party went to visit

the Prince before paying their respects to the King. They came in

two carriages and a sedan chair; the latter, which was lined with

white satin, contained the bride, and was preceded by a black page,

and followed by three footmen in splendid liveries. The diamonds

presented to Mr Spencer, on occasion of his marriage, by Sarah,

Duchess of Marlborough, were worth one hundred thousand pounds. The

bridegroom's shoe-buckles alone cost thirty thousand pounds. An old

gentleman, born more than a century ago, from whom Mr Smith obtained

some of these particulars, informed him, that about that time the

neighbourhood was so thinly built, that when the heads of two men,

executed for participation in the Scotch rebellion, were placed on

Temple Bar, a man stood in Leicester Fields with a telescope, to

give the boys a sight of them for a penny a-piece.

A house in Leicester Fields was the scene of some of the

eccentricities of that semi-civilised hero, Peter the Great of

Russia. It belonged to the Earl of Aylesbury, and was inhabited,

during the Czar's visit to this country, by the Marquis of

Carmarthen, who gave a grand ball there, on the 2d April 1698, in

honour of the imperial stranger. The Marquis was Peter's particular

chum and boon companion, and the Czar preferred his society to

all the gaieties and visitors that beset him during his residence

in England. Peter was very shy of strangers, and when William the

Third gave him a magnificent entertainment at St James's, he would

not mix with the company, but begged to be put into a cupboard,

whence he could see without being seen. He drank tremendously, and

made Lord Carmathen do the same. Hot brandy, seasoned with pepper,

was his favourite drink. Something strong he certainly required

to digest his diet of train-oil and raw meats. On one occasion,

when staying in Leicester Fields with the Marquis, he is said to

have drunk a pint of brandy and a bottle of sherry before dinner,

and eight bottles of sack after it, and then to have gone to the

play, seemingly no whit the worse. He lodged in York Buildings, in

a house overlooking the river, supposed by some to be that at the

left-hand corner of Buckingham Street. A house in Norfolk Street

also had the honour of sheltering him. "On Monday night," says No.

411 of the _Postman_ "the Czar of Muscovy arrived from Holland, and

went directly to the house prepared for him in Norfolk Street." His

principal amusement was being rowed on the Thames between London

and Deptford; and at last, in order to live quietly and avoid the

hosts of visitors who poured in upon him, he took Admiral Benbow's

house at the latter place. It stood on the ground now occupied by

the Victualling Office, and was the property of the well-known John

Evelyn.

"Horne Tooke," says Mr Smith, "in his _Diversions of Purley_,

derives the word Charing from the Saxon _Charan_, to turn; and the

situation of the original village, on the bend or turning of the

Thames, gives probability to this etymology." Every body knows that

Charing, now so central a point, was once a little hamlet on the

rural high-road between London and Westminster, and that the "Cross"

was added to it by Edward the First, who, when escorting his wife's

remains from Lincolnshire to Westminster Abbey, erected one at each

place where the beloved corpse rested. The first cross, which was

of wood, and probably of rude enough manufacture, gave way to one

of stone, designed by Cavalini. About the middle of the seventeenth

century, that period of puritanical intolerance, this was removed by

order of the Commons' House, an order which the royalists took care

to ridicule by song and lampoon. According to Lilly the astrologer

and quack, the workmen were three months pulling it down, and some

of the stones were used for the pavement before Whitehall. Others

were made into knife-handles, and Lilly saw some of them which were

polished and looked like marble. Those were days in which kingly

memorials found as little favour as popish emblems; and after the

death of Charles the First, the statue that now stands at Charing

Cross, and which had been cast by Le Sueur in 1633 for the Earl of

Arundel, was sold and ordered to be broken up. It was bought by one

Rivet, a brazier, who, instead of breaking, buried it. This did not

prevent the ingenious mechanic from making a large and immediate

profit by the effigy of the martyred monarch; for he melted down

old brass into knife and fork-handles, and sold them as proceeding

from the King's statue. Roundheads and cavaliers all flocked to buy;

the former desiring a trophy of their triumph, the latter eager to

possess a memento of their lamented sovereign. In 1678, £70,000

was voted by Parliament for the obsequies of Charles I., and for a

monument to his memory, and with a portion of this sum, how large a

one is not known, the statue was repurchased.

The historian of the streets and houses of a great and ancient

city, has, in many ways, a most difficult task to perform. Not only

must he read much, observe closely, and diligently inquire, display

ingenuity in deduction and judgment in selection, but he must be

steadfast to resist temptation. For, assuredly, to the lover of

antiquarian and historical lore, the temptation is immense, whilst

culling materials from quaint old diaries, black-letter pamphlets,

and venerable newspapers, to expatiate and extract at a length

wholly inconsistent with the necessary limits of his work. Some

writers are at pains to dilate their matter--his chief care must

be to compress. What would fairly fill a sheet must be packed into

a page--the pith and substance of a volume must be squeezed into a

chapter. The diligent compiler should not be slightly considered by

the creative and aspiring genius. Like the bee, he forms his small,

rich store, from the fragrance of a thousand flowers--adopting the

sweet, rejecting the nauseous and insipid. Nor must he dwell too

long on any pet and particular blossom, lest what would please

in due proportion should cloy by too large an admixture. To vary

the metaphor, the writer of such a work as this _Antiquarian

Ramble_, should be a sort of literary Soyer, mixing his materials

so skilfully that the flavour of each is preserved, whilst not one

unduly predominates. He must not prance off on a hobby, whether

architectural, historical, social, or romantic, but relieve his

cattle and his readers by jumping lightly and frequently from one

saddle to another.

How many books might be written upon the themes briefly glanced at

in Mr Smith's book! Let us take, for instance, the places of public

executions in London. Charing Cross was for centuries one of them,

and its pillory was the most illustrious amongst the many that

formerly graced the capital--illustrious by reason of the remarkable

evil-doers who underwent ignominy in its wooden and unfriendly

embrace. The notorious Titus Oates, and Parsons, the chief contriver

of the Cock-Lane Ghost, were exposed in it. To the rough treatment

which, in former days, sometimes succeeded exposure in the pillory,

the following paragraph, from the _Daily Advertiser_ of the 11th

June 1731, abundantly testifies:--"Yesterday Japhet Crook, _alias_

Sir Peter Stranger, stood on the pillory for the space of one hour;

after which he was seated in an elbow-chair, and the common hangman

cut both his ears off with an incision knife, and showed them to

the spectators, afterwards delivered them to Mr Watson, a sheriff's

officer; then slit both his nostrils with a pair of scissors, and

sear'd them with a hot iron, pursuant to his sentence. He had a

surgeon to attend him to the pillory, who immediately applied things

necessary to prevent the effusion of blood. He underwent it all with

undaunted courage; afterwards went to the Ship tavern at Charing

Cross, where he stayed some time; then was carried to the King's

Bench Prison, to be confined there for life. During the time he

was on the pillory he laughed, and denied the fact to the last."

Petty punishments these, although barbarous enough, inflicted for

paltry crimes upon mean malefactors. Criminals of a far higher grade

had, previously to that, paid the penalty of their offences at the

Cross of Charing. Hugh Peters, Cromwell's chaplain, was there hung,

as were Scrope, Jones, Harrison, and others of the king-killers.

Long had been their impunity; but vengeance at last overtook them.

To the end they showed the stern fanatical resolution of Oliver's

iron followers. "Where is your GOOD OLD CAUSE?" cried a scoffer

to Harrison, as he was led to the scaffold. "Here!" he replied,

clapping hand on breast; "I go to seal it with my blood." At the

foot of the ladder, which he approached with undaunted mien, his

limbs were observed to tremble, and some amongst the mob made a

mockery of this weakness. "I judge," said Harrison, "that some do

think I am afraid to die, by the shaking I have in my hands and

knees. _I_ tell you NO! but it is by reason of much blood that I

have lost in the wars, and many wounds I have received in my body,

which caused this shaking and weakness in my nerves." And he spoke

further, and told the populace how he gloried in that he had done,

and how, had he ten thousand lives, he would cheerfully lay them

down in the same cause. "After he was hanged, a horrible scene took

place. In conformity to the barbarous sentence then, and for many

years afterwards, executed upon persons convicted of treason, he

was cut down alive and stripped, his belly was cut open, his bowels

taken out and burned before his eyes. Harrison, in the madness of

his agony, rose up wildly, it is said, and gave the executioner

a box on the ear, and then fell down insensible. It was the last

effort of matter over mind, and for the time it conquered." The

other regicides died with the same firmness and contempt of death.

"Their grave and graceful demeanour," says the account in the state

trials, "accompanied with courage and cheerfulness, caused great

admiration and compassion in the spectators." So much so, and so

strong was the sympathy excited, that the government gave orders

that no more of them should be executed in the heart of London.

Accordingly the remainder suffered at Tyburn.

Upon the old Westminster market-place a most barbarous event

occurred in the time of that tyrannical, acetous old virgin, Queen

Bess, who assuredly owes her renown and the sort of halo of respect

that surrounds her memory, far less to any good qualities of her

own, than to the galaxy of great men who flourished during her

reign. The glory that encircles her brow is formed of such stars as

Cecil, Burleigh and Bacon, Drake and Raleigh, Spencer, Shakspeare,

and Sydney. Touching this barbarity, however, enacted by order of

good Queen Bess. At the mature age of forty-eight, her majesty took

it into her very ordinary-looking old head to negotiate a marriage

with the Duke of Anjou. Commissioners came from France to discuss

the interesting subject, and were entertained by pageants and

tournaments, in which Elizabeth enacted the Queen of Beauty; and

subsequently the duke came over himself, as a private gentleman, to

pay his court to the last of the Tudors. The duke being a papist,

the proposed alliance was very unpopular in England, and one John

Stubbs, a barrister of Lincoln's-Inn, wrote a pamphlet against it,

entitled, "The Discoverye of a gaping gulphe, whereinto England is

like to be swallowed by another French marriage, if the Lord forbid

not the banns, by letting her Majestye see the sin and punishment

thereof." Certain expressions in this imprudent publication greatly

angered the Queen; Stubbs and his servant, Page, were brought to

trial, and condemned to lose their right hands. This cruel and

unusual sentence was carried into effect on the market-place at

Westminster, and witnessed by Camden, who gives an account of it.

Both sufferers behaved with great fortitude and courage. Their hands

were cut off with a butcher's cleaver and mallet, and as soon as

Stubbs had lost his, he pulled off his cap with his left, waved it

in the air, and cried--"God save the Queen!" He then fainted away.

It took two blows to sever Page's hand, but he flinched not, and

pointing to the block where it lay, he exclaimed--"I have left there

the hand of a true Englishman!" And so he went from the scaffold,

says the account, "stoutlie and with great courage."

Amongst spots of sanguinary notoriety, Smithfield, of course, stands

prominent. The majority of the two hundred and seventy-seven persons

burned for heresy during Mary's short reign, suffered there; and

here also, upon two occasions, the horrible punishment of boiling

to death, formerly inflicted on poisoners, was witnessed. In France

this was the punishment of coiners, and there is still a street

at Paris known as the _Rue de l'Echaudé_. In Stow's _Annals_ it

is recorded, that on the fifth of April 1531, "one Richard Rose,

a cook, was boiled in Smithfield for poisoning of divers persons,

to the number of sixteen or more." Two only of the sixteen died,

but the others were never restored to health. If any thing could

reconcile us to torture, as a punishment to be inflicted by man on

his offending brother, it is such a crime as this.

If the punishments of our ancestors were cruel, if trials were

sometimes over hasty, and small offences often too severely

chastised, on the other hand, culprits formerly had facilities of

escape now refused to them. The right of sanctuary was enjoyed by

various districts and buildings in London. Pennant and many other

writers have stigmatised this practice as absurd; Mr Smith defends

it upon very reasonable grounds. "In times when every man went

armed, when feuds were of hourly occurrence in the streets, when the

age had not yet learned the true superiority of right over might,

and when private revenge too often usurped the functions of justice,

it was essential that there should be places whither the homicide

might flee, and find refuge and protection until the violence of

angry passions had subsided, and there was a chance of a fair trial

for him." Not all sanctuaries, however, gave protection to the

murderer, at least in later times. Whitefriars, for instance, once a

refuge for all criminals, except traitors, afforded shelter, after

the fifteenth century, to debtors only. In 1697 this sanctuary was

abolished entirely, at the same time with a dozen others. It is not

well ascertained how it acquired the slang name of Alsatia, which

is first found in a play of Shadwell's, _The Squire of Alsatia_.

Immortalised by the genius of Scott, no sanctuary will longer be

remembered than Whitefriars. It was one of the largest; many others

of the privileged districts being limited to a court or alley, a

few houses or a church. Thus Ram Alley and Mitre Court in Fleet

Street, and Baldwin's Gardens in Gray's Inn Lane, were amongst these

refugees of roguery and crime. Whitefriars was much resorted to by

poets and players, dancing and fencing masters, and persons of the

like vagabond and uncertain professions. The poets and players were

attracted by the vicinity of the theatre in Dorset Gardens, built

after the fire of London, by Sir Christopher Wren, upon the site

of Dorset House, the residence of the Sackvilles. Here Sir William

Davenant's company of comedians--the Duke of York's servants, as

they were called--performed for a considerable time. It appears,

however, that even before the great fire, there was a theatre in

that neighbourhood. Malone, in his _Prologomena_ to Shakspeare,

quotes a memorandum from the manuscript book of Sir Henry Herbert,

master of the revels to King Charles I. It runs thus:--"I committed

Cromes, a broker in Long Lane, the 16th of February 1634, to the

Marshalsey, for lending a church robe with the name of Jesus upon it

_to the players in Salisbury Court_, to represent a Flamen, a priest

of the heathens. Upon his petition of submission and acknowledgement

of his faults, I released him the 17th of February 1634."

The ancient sanctuary at Westminster is of historical and

Shaksperian celebrity, as the place where Elizabeth Grey, Queen of

Edward the Fourth, took refuge, when Warwick the king-maker marched

to London to dethrone her husband, and set Henry the Sixth on the

throne. It was a stone church, built in the form of a cross, and

so strongly, that its demolition, in 1750, was a matter of great

difficulty. The precinct of St Martin's-le-Grand was also sanctuary.

Many curious particulars respecting it are to be found in Kempe's

_Historical Notices of the Collegiate Church, or Royal Free Chapel

and Sanctuary of St Martin's-le-Grand, London_, published in 1825.

In the reign of Henry the Fifth, this right of sanctuary gave rise

to a great dispute between the Dean of St Martin's and the city

authorities. "A soldier, confined in Newgate, was on his way to

Guildhall, in charge of an officer of the city, when on passing

the south gate of St Martin's, opposite to Newgate Street, five

of his comrades rushed out of Panyer Alley, with daggers drawn,

rescued him, and fled with him to the holy ground." The sheriff had

the sanctuary forced, and sent rescued and rescuers to Newgate.

The Dean of St Martin's, indignant at this violation of privilege,

complained to the king, who ordered the prisoners to be liberated.

Thereat the citizens, ever sticklers for their rights, demurred,

and at last it was made a Star-Chamber matter. The dean pleaded his

own cause, and that right skilfully and wittily. He denied that

the chapel of St Martin's formed any part of the city of London,

as claimed by the corporation; quoted a statute of Edward III.

constituting St Martin's and Westminster Abbey places of privilege

for treason, felony, and debt; and mentioned the curious fact,

that "when the King's justices held their sittings in St Martin's

Gate, for the trial of prisoners for treason or felony, the accused

were placed before them, _on the other side of the street_, and

carefully guarded from advancing forward; for if they ever passed

the water-channel which divided the middle of the street, they

might claim the saving franchise of the sacred precinct, and the

proceedings against them would be immediately annulled." The dean

also expressed his wonder that the citizens of London should be the

men to impugn his church's liberties, since more than three hundred

worshipful members of the corporation had within a few years been

glad to claim its privilege. The Star-Chamber decided against the

city, and the prisoners were restored to sanctuary. The Savoy was

another sanctuary; and it was the custom of the inhabitants to tar

and feather those who ventured to follow their debtors thither.

In the theatrical district of London, Mr Smith lingers long

and fondly; for there each house, almost every brick, is rich

in reminiscences, not only of players and playhouses, but of

wits, poets, and artists. In the burial-ground of St Paul's,

Covent-Garden, repose not a few of those who in their lifetime

inhabited or frequented the neighbourhood. There lies the author of

Hudibras. "Mr Longueville, of the Temple, Butler's steady friend,

and who mainly supported him in his latter days, when the ungrateful

Stuart upon the throne, whose cause he had so greatly served, had

deserted him, was anxious to have buried the poet in Westminster

Abbey. He solicited for that purpose the contributions of those

wealthy persons, his friends, whom he had heard speak admiringly of

Butler's genius, and respectfully of his character, but none would

contribute, although he offered to head the list with a considerable

sum." So poor Butler was buried in Covent-Garden, privately but

decently. He is in good company. Sir Peter Lely, the painter of

dames, the man who seemed created on purpose to limn the languishing

and voluptuous beauties of Charles the Second's court, is also

buried in St Paul's; as are also Wycherley and Southerne, the

dramatists; Haines and Macklin, the comedians; Arne, the musician;

Strange, the engraver; and Walcot, _alias_ Peter Pindar. Sir Peter

Lely lived in Covent-Garden, in very great style. "The original name

of the family was Vandervaes; but Sir Peter's father, a gallant

fellow, and an officer in the army, having been born at a perfumer's

shop, the sign of the Lily, was commonly known by the name of

Captain Lily, a name which his son thought to be more euphonious

to English ears than Vandervaes, and which he retained when he

settled here, slightly altering the spelling." Wycherley, a dandy

and a courtier, as well as an author, had lodgings in Bow Street,

where Charles II. once visited him when he was ill, and gave him

five hundred pounds to go a journey to the south of France for the

benefit of his health. When he afterwards married the Countess of

Drogheda, a young, rich, and beautiful widow, she went to live with

him in Bow Street. She was very jealous, and when he went over to

the "Cock" tavern, opposite to his house, he was obliged to make the

drawer open the windows, that his lady might see there was no woman

in the company. This "Cock" tavern was the great resort of the rakes

and mohocks of that day; of Buckhurst, Sedley, Killigrew, and others

of the same kidney. In fact, Bow Street was then the Bond Street of

London; and the "Cock," its "Long's" or "Clarendon." Dryden, in an

epilogue, talks of the "Bow Street beaux," and several contemporary

writers have similar allusions. Like most places where the rich

congregate, this fashionable quarter was a fine field for the

ingenuity of pick-pockets, and especially of wig and sword-stealers,

a class of thieves that appeared with full-bottomed periwigs and

silver-hilted rapiers. In those days, to keep a man's head decently

covered, cost nearly as much as it now does to fill his belly and

clothe his back. Wigs were sometimes of the value of forty or fifty

pounds. Ten or fifteen pounds was an exceeding "low figure" for

these modish incumbrances. Out of respect to such costly head-dress,

hats were never put on, but carried under the arm. The wig-stealers

could demand no more. Mr Smith quotes a passage from Gay, describing

their manoeuvres:--

"Nor is thy flaxen wig with safety worn:

High on the shoulder, in a basket borne,

Lurks the sly boy, whose hand, to rapine bred,

Plucks off the curling honours of thy head."

Will's coffeehouse was in Bow Street, and "being the grand resort

of wits and critics, it is not surprising," says Mr Smith, "that

it should become also the headquarters of envy, slander, and

detraction." There was then a lack of printed vehicles for the

venting of the evil passions of rival _literati_; lampoons were

circulated in manuscript, and read at Will's. As the acknowledgment

of the authorship might sometimes have had disagreeable consequences

for the author, a fellow of the name of Julian, who styled himself

"Secretary to the Muses," became the mouthpiece of libeller and

satirist. He read aloud in the coffee-room the pasquinades that were

brought to him, and distributed written copies to all who desired

them. Concerning this base fellow, Sir Walter Scott gives some

curious particulars in his edition of Dryden's works. There is no

record of cudgelings bestowed upon Julian, though it is presumed

that he did not escape them. "He is described," says Malone, "as

a very drunken fellow, and at one time was confined for a libel."

Dryden was a great sufferer from these violent and slanderous

attacks--a sufferer, indeed, in more senses than one; for, besides

being himself made the subject of venomous lampoons, he was

suspected unjustly of having written one, and was waylaid and beaten

on his way from Will's to his house in Gerrard Street. A reward of

fifty pounds was offered for the apprehension of his assailants, but

they remained undiscovered. Lord Rochester was their employer: Lord

Mulgrave the real author of the libel.

In James Street, Covent-Garden, where Garrick lodged, there

resided, from 1714 to 1720, a mysterious lady, who excited great

interest and curiosity. Malcolm, in his _Anecdotes of London

during the Eighteenth Century_, gives some account of her. She

was middle-sized, dark-haired, beautiful and accomplished, and

apparently between thirty and forty years old. She was wealthy,

and possessed very valuable jewels. Her death was sudden, and

occurred after a masquerade, where she said she had conversed with

the King. It was remembered that she had been seen in the private

apartments of Queen Anne; but after that Queen's death, she lived

in obscurity. "She frequently said that her father was a nobleman,

but that, her elder brother dying unmarried, the title was extinct;

adding, that she had an uncle then living, whose title was his least

recommendation. It seems likely enough that she was connected in

some way with the Stuart family, and with their pretensions to the

throne."

Dr Arne was born in King Street. His father, an honest upholsterer,

at the sign of the "Two Crowns and Cushions," is said to have been

the original of Murphy's farce of _The Upholsterer_. He did not

countenance his son's musical propensities; and young Arne had to

get up in the night, and practise by stealth on a muffled spinet.

The first intimation received by the worthy mattress-maker of his

son's proficiency in music, was one evening at a concert, where he

quite unexpectedly saw him officiating as leader of the orchestra.

Voltaire, when in England, after his release from the Bastille,

whither he had been sent for libel, lodged in Maiden Lane, at the

White Peruke, a wigmaker's shop. When walking out, he was often

annoyed by the mob, who beheld, in his spare person, polite manners,

and satirical countenance, the personification of their notion of

a Frenchman. "One day he was beset by so great a crowd that he

was forced to shelter himself against a doorway, where, mounting

the steps, he made a flaming speech in English in praise of the

magnanimity of the English nation, and their love of freedom.

With this the people were so delighted, that their jeers were

turned into applauses, and he was carried in triumph to Maiden

Lane on the shoulders of the mob." From which temporary elevation

the arch-scoffer doubtless looked down upon his dupes with glee,

suppressed, but immeasurable.

Quitting the abodes of wit and the drama for those of legal

learning, we pass from Covent-Garden to Lincoln's Inn Fields,

through Great Queen Street, in the Stuarts' day one of the most

fashionable in London. Here dwelt Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and

here he wrote the greater part of his treatise _De Veritate_,

concerning the publication of which he believed himself, according

to his own marvellous account, to have had a special revelation

from heaven. A strange weakness, or rather madness, on the part of

a man who disbelieved, or at least doubted, of general revelation.

For himself, he thought an exception possible. Insanity alone could

explain and excuse such illogical vanity. Near to this singular

enthusiast lived Sir Godfrey Kneller, whose next-door neighbour

and friend was Radcliffe the physician. "Kneller," says Horace

Walpole, in his Anecdotes of Painting, "was fond of flowers, and had

a fine collection. As there was great intimacy between him and the

physician, he permitted the latter to have a door into his gardens;

but Radcliffe's servants gathering and destroying the flowers,

Kneller sent him word he must shut up the door. Radcliffe replied

peevishly, "Tell him he may do any thing with it but paint it." "And

I," answered Godfrey, "can take any thing from him but his physic."

Pope and Gay were frequent visitors at the painter's studio. At the

wall of Lincoln's Inn Garden, Ben Jonson is by some asserted to have

laboured as a bricklayer. "He helped," says Fuller, "in the building

of the new structure of Lincoln's Inn, where, having a trowel in his

hand, he had a book in his pocket." Aubrey tells the same story,

which is discredited by Mr Gifford, who denies that the poet ever

was a bricklayer. Lord William Russell was executed in Lincoln's

Inn Fields, it being, Pennant tells us, the nearest open space from

Newgate, where he was confined.

Passing through Duke Street, where Benjamin Franklin lodged, when

working as a journeyman printer in the adjacent Great Wyld Street,

into Clare Market, the scene of Orator Henley's holdings-forth, we

thence, by Drury-Lane, the residence of Nell Gwynne and Nan Clarges

before they became respectively the King's mistress and a Duke's

wife, get back to the Strand and move Citywards. But to refer,

although merely nominally, to one half the subjects of interest

met with on the way, and suggested by Mr Smith, would be to write

an index, not a review. Here, therefore, we pause, believing that

enough has been said to convince the reader of the vast amount of

information and amusement derivable from the bricks and stones of

London, and able to recommend to him, should he himself set out

on a street pilgrimage, an excellent guide and companion in the

_Antiquarian Ramble_.

MARLBOROUGH'S DISPATCHES.

1711-1712.

After the reduction of Bouchain, Marlborough was anxious to

commence without delay the siege of Quesnoy, the capture of which

would, in that quarter, have entirely broken through the French

barrier. He vigorously stimulated his own government accordingly,

as well as that at the Hague, to prepare the necessary supplies

and magazines, and expressed a sanguine hope that the capture of

this last stronghold would be the means of bringing about the grand

object of his ambition, and a general peace.[5] The ministry, to

appearance, went with alacrity into his projects, and every thing

bore the aspect of another great success closing the campaign with

honour, and probably leading to a glorious and lasting peace. Mr

Secretary St John, in particular, wrote in the warmest style of

cordiality, approving the project in his own name as well as in that

of the Queen, and reiterating the assurances that the strongest

representations had been made to the Dutch, with a view to their

hearty concurrence. But all this was a mere cover to conceal what

the Tories had really been doing to overturn Marlborough, and

abandon the main objects of the war. Unknown to him, the secret

negotiation with the French Cabinet, through Torcy and the British

ministers, through the agency of Mesnager, had been making rapid

progress. No representations were made to the Dutch, who were fully

in the secret of the pending negotiation, about providing supplies;

and on the 27th September, preliminaries of peace, on the basis of

the seven articles proposed by Louis, were signed by Mesnager on

the part of France, and by the two English secretaries of state, in

virtue of a special warrant from the Queen.[6]

[5] "The siege, so far as it depends on me, shall be pushed with

all possible vigour, and I do not altogether despair but that, from

the success of this campaign, we may hear of some advances made

towards that which we so much desire. And I shall esteem it much the

happiest part of my life, if I can be instrumental in putting a good

end to the war, which grows so burdensome to our country, as well as

to our allies."--_Marlborough to Lord Oxford_, Aug. 20, 1711; Coxe,

vi. 92.

[6] Coxe, vi. 93.

The conditions of these preliminaries, which were afterwards

embodied in the Treaty of Utrecht, were the acknowledgement of the

Queen's title to the throne, and the Protestant succession, by

Louis; an engagement to take all just and reasonable measures that

the crowns of France and Spain should never be united on the same

head,--the providing a sufficient barrier to the Dutch, the empire,

and the house of Austria; and the demolition of Dunkirk, or a proper

equivalent. But the crown of Spain was left to the Duke of Anjou,

and no provision whatever made to exclude a Bourbon prince from

succeeding to it. Thus the main object of the contest--the excluding

the Bourbon family from the throne of Spain, was abandoned: and

at the close of the most important, successful, and glorious war

ever waged by England, terms were agreed to, which left to France

advantages which could scarcely have been hoped by the Cabinet of

Versailles as the fruit of a long series of victories.

Marlborough felt deeply this clandestine negotiation, which not

only deprived him of the main object for which, during his great

career, he had been contending, but evinced a duplicity and want of

confidence on the part of his own government at its close, which

was a melancholy return for such inappreciable public services.[7]

But it was of no avail; the secession of England proved, as he

had foreseen from the outset, a deathblow to the confederacy.

Finding that nothing more was to be done, either at the head of the

army, or in direction of the negotiations, he returned home by the

Brille, after putting his army into winter-quarters, and landed at

Greenwich on the 17th November. Though well aware of the private

envy, as well as political hostility of which he was the object, he

did nothing that could lower or compromise his high character and

lofty position; but in an interview with the Queen, fully expressed

his opinion on the impolicy of the course which ministers were

now adopting.[8] He adopted the same manly course in the noble

speech which he made in his place in Parliament, in the debate on

the address. Ministers had put into the royal speech the unworthy

expression--"I am glad to tell you, that notwithstanding _the arts

of those who delight in war_, both place and time are appointed for

opening the treaty of a general peace." Lord Anglesea followed this

up, by declaring, in the course of the debate, that the country

might have enjoyed the blessing of peace soon after the battle of

Ramilies, if it had not been deferred by some person whose interest

it was to prolong the war.

[7] "As you have given me encouragement to enter into the strictest

confidence with you, I beg your friendly advice in what manner I am

to conduct myself. You cannot but imagine it would be a terrible

mortification for me to pass by the Hague when our plenipotentiaries

are there, and myself a stranger to their transactions; and what

hopes can I have of any countenance at home if I am not thought fit

to be trusted abroad?"--_Marlborough to the Lord Treasurer_, 21st

Oct. 1711.

[8] I hear, that in his conversation with the Queen, the Duke of

Marlborough has spoken against what we are doing; in short, his fate

hangs heavy upon him, and he has of late pursued every counsel which

was worst for him.--_Bolingbroke's Letters_, i. 480. Nov. 24, 1711.

Rising upon this, with inexpressible dignity, and turning to where

the Queen sat, Marlborough said, "I appeal to the Queen, whether I

did not constantly, while I was plenipotentiary, give her Majesty

and her Council an account of all the propositions which were made;

and whether I did not desire instruction for my conduct on this

subject. I can declare with a good conscience, in the presence of

her Majesty, of this illustrious assembly, and of God himself, who

is infinitely superior to all the powers of the earth, and before

whom, by the ordinary course of nature, I shall soon appear to

render account of my actions, that I was very desirous of a safe,

honourable, and lasting peace, and was very far from wishing to

prolong the war for my own private advantage, as several libels

and discourses have most falsely insinuated. My great age, and my

numerous fatigues in war, make me ardently wish for the power to

enjoy a quiet repose, in order to think of eternity. As to other

matters, I have not the least inducement, on any account, to desire

the continuance of the war for my own interest, since my services

have been so generously rewarded by her Majesty and her parliament;

but I think myself obliged to make such an acknowledgment to her

Majesty and my country, that I am always ready to serve them,

whenever my duty may require, to obtain an honourable and lasting

peace. Yet I can by no means acquiesce in the measures that have

been taken to enter into a negotiation of peace with France, upon

the foot of some pretended preliminaries, which are now circulated;

since my opinion is the same as that of most of the Allies, that _to

leave Spain and the West Indies to the House of Bourbon, will be the

entire ruin of Europe_, which I have with all fidelity and humility

declared to her Majesty, when I had the honour to wait upon her

after my arrival from Holland."[9]

[9] _Parl. Hist._, 10th December 1711.

This manly declaration, delivered in the most emphatic manner,

produced a great impression; and a resolution against ministers

was carried in the House of Peers by a majority of twelve. In the

Commons, however, they had large majority, and an address containing

expressions similar to those used by Lord Anglesea, reflecting on

Marlborough, was introduced and carried there. The Whig majority,

however, continued firm in the Upper House; and the leaders of that

party began to entertain sanguine hopes of success. The Queen had

let fall some peevish expressions in regard to her ministers. She

had given her hand, in retiring from the House of Peers on the

15th December, to the Duke of Somerset, instead of her own Lord

Treasurer; it was apprehended her old partiality for Marlborough was

about to return; Mrs Masham was in the greatest alarm; and St John

declared to Swift that the Queen was false.[10] The ministers of

the whole alliance seconded the efforts of the Whigs, and strongly

represented the injurious effects which would ensue to the cause of

European independence in general, and the interests of England in

particular, if the preliminaries which had been agreed to should

be made the basis of a general peace. The Dutch made strong and

repeated representations on the subject; and the Elector of Hanover

delivered a memorial strongly urging the danger which would ensue

if Spain and the Indies were allowed to remain in the hands of a

Bourbon prince.

[10] SWIFT'S _Journal to Stella_, Dec. 8, 1711.--Swift said to the

Lord Treasurer, in his usual ironical style, "If there is no remedy,

your lordship will lose your head; but I shall only be hung, and so

carry my body entire to the grave."--Coxe, vi. 148, 157.

Deeming themselves pushed to extremities, and having failed in

all attempts to detach Marlborough from the Whigs, Bolingbroke

and the ministers resolved on the desperate measure of bringing

forward the accusation against him, of fraud and peculation in

the management of the public monies entrusted to his management

in the Flemish campaign. The charges were founded on the report

of certain commissioners to whom the matter had been remitted;

and which charged the Duke with having appropriated L.63,319 of

the public monies destined for the use of the English troops,

and L.282,366, as a per-centage of two per cent on the sum paid

to foreign ambassadors during the ten years of the war. In reply

to these abominable insinuations, the letter of the Duke to the

commissioners was published on the 27th December, in which he

entirely refuted the charges, and showed that he had never received

any sums or perquisites, not sanctioned by previous and uniform

usage, and far less than had been received by the general in the

reign of William III. And in regard to the L.282,000 of per-centage

on foreign subsidies, this was proved to have been a voluntary

gift from those powers to the English general, authorised by their

signatures and sanctioned by warrants from the Queen. This answer

made a great impression; but ministers had gone too far to retreat,

and they ventured on a step which, for the honour of the country,

has never, even in the worst times, been since repeated. Trusting

to their majority in the Commons, they dismissed the Duke from all

his situations on the 31st December; and in order to stifle the

voice of justice in the Upper House, on the following day patents

were issued calling _twelve_ new peers to the Upper House. On the

following day they were introduced amidst the groans of the House:

the Whig noblemen, says a contemporary annalist, "cast their eyes

on the ground as if they had been invited to the funeral of the

peerage."[11]

[11] Cunningham, ii. 367.

Unbounded was the joy diffused among the enemies of England by these

unparalleled measures. On hearing of Marlborough's fall, Louis XIV.

said with triumph, "The dismission of Marlborough will do all we can

desire." The Court of St Germains was in exultation; and the general

joy of the Jacobites, both at home and abroad, was sufficient to

demonstrate how formidable an enemy to their cause they regarded the

Duke; and how destitute of truth were the attempts to show that he

had been engaged in a secret design to restore the exiled family.

Marlborough disdained to make any defence of himself in Parliament;

but an able answer on his part was prepared and circulated, which

entirely refuted the whole charges against the illustrious general.

So convinced were ministers of this, that, contenting themselves

with resolutions against him in the House of Commons, where their

influence was predominant, they declined to prefer any impeachment

or accusation, even in the Upper House swamped by their recent

creations. In the midst of this disgraceful scene of passion,

envy, and ingratitude, Prince Eugene arrived in London to endeavour

to stem the torrent and, if possible, prevent the secession of

England from the confederacy. He was lodged with the Lord Treasurer;

and the generous prince omitted no opportunity of testifying his

undiminished respect for his illustrious rival in the day of his

tribulation. The Treasurer having said to him at a great dinner,

"I consider this day as the happiest of my life, since I have the

honour to see in my house the greatest captain of the age." "If it

be so," replied Eugene, "I owe it to your lordship;" alluding to

his dismissal of Marlborough. On another occasion, some one having

pointed out a passage in one of the libels against Marlborough, in

which he was said to have been "perhaps once fortunate." "It is

true," said Eugene; "he was _once_ fortunate; and it is the greatest

praise which can be bestowed on him; for, as he was _always_

successful--that implies that all his other successes were owing to

his own conduct."[12]

[12] BURNET'S _History of his Own Times_, vi. 116.

Alarmed at the weight which Marlborough might derive from the

presence and support of so great a commander, and the natural

sympathy of all generous minds with the cordial admiration which

these two great men entertained for each other, the ministers had

recourse to a pretended conspiracy, which it was alleged had been

discovered on the part of Marlborough and Eugene to seize the

government and dethrone the Queen, on the 17th November. St John and

Oxford had too much sense to publish such a ridiculous statement;

but it was made the subject of several secret examinations before

the Privy Council, in order to augment the apprehensions and

secure the concurrence of the Queen in their measures. Such as it

was, the tale was treated as a mere malicious invention, even by

the contemporary foreign annalists,[13] though it has since been

repeated as true by more than one party native historian.[14] This

ridiculous calumny, and the atrocious libels as to the embezzlement

of the public money, however, produced the desired effect. They

inflamed the mind of the Queen, and removed that vacillation in

regard to the measures of government, from which so much danger was

apprehended by the Tory administration. Having answered the desired

end, they were allowed quietly to go to sleep. No proceedings in

the House of Peers, or elsewhere, followed the resolutions of the

Commons condemnatory of Marlborough's financial administration in

the Low Countries. His defence, published in the newspapers, though

abundantly vigorous, was neither answered nor prosecuted as a libel

on the Commissioners or House of Commons; and the alleged Stuart

conspiracy was never more heard of, till it was long after drawn

from its slumber by the malice of English party spirit.

[13] _Mém. de Torcy_, iii. 268, 269.

[14] SWIFT'S _Four Last Years of Queen Anne_, 59; _Continuation of_

RAPIN, xviii. 468. 8vo edit.

Meanwhile the negotiations at Utrecht for a general peace continued,

and St John and Oxford soon found themselves embarrassed by the

extravagant pretensions which their own conduct had revived in the

plenipotentiaries of Louis. So great was the general indignation

excited by the publication of the preliminaries at Utrecht, that St

John felt the necessity of discontinuing any general negotiation,

and converting it into a private correspondence between the

plenipotentiaries of the English and French crowns.[15] Great

difficulty was experienced in coming to an accommodation, in

consequence of the rising demands of the French plenipotentiaries,

who, deeming themselves secure of support from the English ministry,

not only positively refused to abandon Spain and the Indies, but

now demanded the Netherlands for the Elector of Bavaria, and the

cession of Lille and Tournay in return for the seizure of Dunkirk.

The sudden death, however, first of the Dauphiness of France,

and then of the Dauphin, the former of whom was carried off by

a malignant fever on the 12th, the latter on the 18th February

1712, followed by the death of their eldest son on the 23d,

produced feelings of commiseration for the aged monarch, now in his

seventy-third year and broken down by misfortunes, which rendered

the progress of the separate negotiation more easy. England agreed

to abandon its allies, and the main object of the war, on condition

that a guarantee should be obtained against the crowns of France

and Spain being united on the same head. On this frail security,

the English ministry agreed to withdraw their contingent from the

Allied army; and to induce the Dutch to follow their example, Ipres

was offered to them on the same terms as Dunkirk had been to Great

Britain.[16]

[15] "The French will see that there is a possibility of reviving

the love of war in our people, by the indignation that has been

expressed at the plan given in at Utrecht."--_Mr Secretary St

John to British Plenipotentiary_, Dec. 28, 1711.--BOLINGBROKE'S

_Correspondence_, ii. 93.

[16] Coxe, vi. 189, 184.

The disastrous effects of this secret and dishonourable secession,

on the part of England, from the confederacy, were soon apparent.

Great had been the preparations of the continental Allies for

continuing the contest; and while the English contingent remained

with them, their force was irresistible. Prince Eugene was at the

head of the army in Flanders, and, including the British forces

under the Duke of Ormond, it amounted to the immense force of

122,000 effective men, with 120 guns, sixteen howitzers, and an

ample pontoon train. To oppose this, by far the largest army he had

yet had to confront in the Low Countries, Villars had scarcely at

his command 100,000 men, and they were ill equipped, imperfectly

supplied with artillery, and grievously depressed in spirit by

their long series of disasters. Eugene commanded the army of the

confederates; for although the English ministry had been lavish

in their promises of unqualified support, the Dutch had begun to

entertain serious suspicions of their sincerity, and bestowed the

command on that tried officer instead of the Duke of Ormond, who

had succeeded Marlborough in the command of the English contingent.

But Marlborough's soul still directed the movements of the army;

and Eugene's plan of the campaign was precisely that which that

great commander had chalked out at the close of the preceding one.

This was to besiege Quesnoy and Landrecies, _the last_ of the iron

barrier of France which in this quarter protected the frontier,

and immediately after to inundate the open country, and advance as

rapidly as possible to Paris. It was calculated they might reach

it in _ten_ marches from Landrecies; and it was well known that

there was neither a defensible position nor fortress of any sort to

arrest the invaders' march. The Court of Versailles were in despair:

the general opinion was, that the King should leave Paris, and

retire to Blois; and although the proud spirit of Louis recoiled

at such a proposal, yet, in taking leave of Marshal Villars, he

declared--"Should a disaster occur, I will go to Peronne or St

Quentin, collect all my troops, and with you risk a last effort,

determined to perish, or save the State."[17]

[17] _Mém. de Villars_, ii. 197.

But the French monarch was spared this last desperate alternative.

The defection of the British Cabinet saved his throne, when all his

means of defence were exhausted. Eugene, on opening the campaign on

the 1st May, anxiously inquired of the Duke of Ormond whether he

had authority to act vigorously in the campaign, and received an

answer that he had the same authority as the Duke of Marlborough,

and was prepared to join in attacking the enemy. Preparations were

immediately made for forcing the enemy's lines, which covered

Quesnoy, previous to an attack on that fortress. But, at the very

time that this was going on, the work of perfidious defection

was consummated. On May 10, Mr Secretary St John sent positive

orders to Ormond to take no part in any general engagement, as the

questions at issue between the contending parties were on the

point of adjustment.[18] Intimation of this secret order was sent

to the Court of France, but it was directed to be kept a positive

secret from the Allied generals. Ormond, upon the receipt of these

orders, opened a private correspondence with Villars, informing

him that their troops were no longer enemies, and that the future

movements of the troops under his command were only to get forage

and provisions. This correspondence was unknown to Eugene; but

circumstances soon brought the defection of England to light. In

the middle of it, the Allied forces had passed the Scheldt, and

taken post between Noyeller and the Boiase, close to Villars's

position. To bring the sincerity of the English to a test, Eugene

proposed a general attack on the enemy's line, which was open and

exposed, on the 28th May. _But Ormond declined_, requesting the

operation might be delayed for a few days. The defection was now

apparent, and the Dutch deputies loudly condemned such dishonorable

conduct; but Eugene, anxious to make the most of the presence of the

British troops, though their co-operation could no longer be relied

on, proposed to besiege Quesnoy, which was laid open by Villars's

retreat. Ormond, who felt acutely the painful and discreditable

situation in which, without any fault of his own, he was placed,

could not refuse, and the investment took place that very day. The

operations were conducted by _the Dutch and Imperial troops alone_;

and the town was taken, after a siege of six weeks, on the 10th

July.[19]

[18] "Her Majesty, my lord, has reason to believe that we shall

come to an agreement upon the great article of the union of the

monarchies, as soon as a courier sent from Versailles to Madrid can

return. It is, therefore, the Queen's _positive command_ to your

Grace that _you avoid engaging in any siege, or hazarding a battle_,

till you have further orders from her Majesty. I am, at the same

time, directed to let your Grace know, that you are _to disguise

the receipt of this order_; and her Majesty thinks you cannot want

pretences for conducting yourself, without owning that which might

at present have an ill effect if it was publicly known. _P.S._ I

had almost forgot to tell your Grace that communication is made

of this order _to the Court of France_, so that if the Marshal de

Villars takes, in any private way, notice of it to you, your Grace

will answer it accordingly."--_Mr Secretary St John to the Duke of

Ormond_, May 10, 1712. BOLINGBROKE'S _Correspondence_, ii. 320.

[19] Eugene to Marlborough, June 9, 1712.--Coxe vi. 199.

This disgraceful defection on the part of the English government

excited, as well it might, the utmost indignation among the Allies,

and produced mingled feelings of shame and mortification among all

real patriots or men of honour in this country. By abandoning the

contest in this manner, when it was on the very point of being

crowned with success, the English lost the fruit of TEN costly

and bloody campaigns, and suffered the war to terminate without

attaining the main object for which it had been undertaken. Louis

XIV., defeated, and all but ruined, was permitted to retain for his

grandson the Spanish succession; and England, victorious, and within

sight, as it were, of Paris, was content to halt in the career

of victory, and lost the opportunity, never to be regained for a

century to come, of permanently restraining the ambition of France.

It was the same as if, a few days after the battle of Waterloo,

England had concluded a separate peace, guaranteeing the throne of

Spain to Joseph Buonaparte, and providing only for its not being

held also by the Emperor of France. Lord Halifax gave vent to the

general indignation of all generous and patriotic men, when he said,

in the debate on the address, on 28th May, after enumerating the

proud list of victories which, since the commencement of the war,

had attended the arms of England,--"But all this pleasing prospect

is totally effaced by the orders given to the Queen's general, not

to act offensively against the enemy. I pity that heroic and gallant

general, who, on other occasions, took delight to charge the most

formidable corps and strongest squadrons, and cannot but be uneasy

at his being fettered with shackles, and thereby prevented from

reaping the glory which he might well expect from leading on troops

so long accustomed to conquer. I pity the Allies, who have relied

upon the aid and friendship of the British nation, perceiving that

what they had done at so great an expense of blood and treasure is

of no effect, as they will be exposed to the revenge of that power

against whom they have been so active. I pity the Queen, her royal

successors, and the present and future generations of Britain, when

they shall find the nation deeply involved in debt, and that the

common enemy who occasioned it, though once near being sufficiently

humbled, does still triumph, and design their ruin; and are informed

that this proceeds from the conduct of the British cabinet, in

neglecting to make a right use of those advantages and happy

occasions which their own courage and God's blessing had put into

their hands."[20]

[20] _Parl. Hist._, May 28, 1712. _Lockhart Papers_, i, 392

Marlborough seconded the motion of Halifax, in a speech of peculiar

interest, as the last which he made on the conduct of this eventful

war. "Although," said he, "the negotiations for peace may be far

advanced, yet I can see no reason which should induce the Allies

or ourselves to remain inactive, and not push on the war with the

utmost vigour, as we have incurred the expense of recruiting the

army for the service of another year. That army is now in the

field; and it has often occurred that a victory or a siege produced

good effects and manifold advantages, when treaties were still

further advanced than in the present negotiation. And as I am of

opinion that we should make the most we can for ourselves, the

only infallible way to force France to an entire submission, is

to besiege and occupy Cambray or Arras, and to carry the war into

the heart of the kingdom. But as the troops of the enemy are now

encamped, it is impossible to execute that design, unless they are

withdrawn from their position; and as they cannot be reduced to

retire for want of provisions, they must be attacked and forced. For

the truth of what I say I appeal to a noble duke (Argyle) whom I

rejoice to see in this house, because he knows the country, and is

as good a judge of these matters as any person now alive." Argyle,

though a bitter personal enemy of Marlborough, thus appealed to,

said,--"I do indeed know that country, and the situation of the

enemy in their present camp, and I agree with the noble duke, that

it is impossible to remove them without attacking and driving them

away; and, until that is effected, neither of the two sieges alluded

to can be undertaken. I likewise agree that the capture of these two

towns is the most effectual way to carry on the war with advantage,

and would be a fatal blow to France."[21]

[21] _Coxe_, vi. 192, 193.

Notwithstanding the creation of twelve peers to swamp the Upper

House, it is doubtful how the division would have gone, had not

Lord Strafford, a cabinet minister, observed, in reply to the

charge, that the British government was about to conclude a separate

peace,--"Nothing of that nature has ever been intended; for such

a peace would be so _foolish, villanous, and knavish_, that every

servant of the Queen must answer for it with his head to the nation.

The Allies _are acquainted with our proceedings, and satisfied with

our terms_." This statement was made by a British minister, in his

place in Parliament, on the 28th May, eighteen days _after_ the

private letter from Mr Secretary St John to the Duke of Ormond,

already quoted, mentioning the private treaty with Louis, enjoining

him to keep it secret from the Allies, and communicate clandestinely

with Villars. But such a declaration, coming from an accredited

minister of the crown, produced a great impression, and ministers

prevailed by a majority of sixty-eight to forty. In the course of

the debate, Earl Poulett let fall such cutting expressions against

Marlborough for having, as he alleged, led his troops to certain

destruction, in order to profit by the sale of the officers'

commissions,[22] that the Duke, without deigning a reply, sent him a

challenge on leaving the house. The agitation, however, of the Earl,

who was less cool than the iron veteran on the prospect of such a

meeting, revealed what was going forward, and by an order of the

Queen, the affair was terminated without bloodshed.[23]

[22] "No one can doubt the Duke of Ormond's bravery; but he is not

like a certain general who led troops to the slaughter, to cause a

great number of officers to be knocked on the head in a battle, or

against stone walls, in order to fill his pockets by the sale of

their commissions."--Coxe, vi. 196.

[23] _Lockhart Papers_, i. 392; Coxe, vi. 196, 199.

It soon appeared how much foundation there was for the assertion

of the Queen's ministers, that England was engaged in no separate

negotiation for a peace. On the 6th June were promulgated the

outlines of the treaty which afterwards became so famous as the

PEACE OF UTRECHT. The Duke of Anjou was to renounce for ever, for

himself and his descendants, all claim to the French crown; and the

crown of Spain was to descend, by _the male line_ only, to the Duke

of Anjou, and failing them to certain princes of the Bourbon line

by _male_ descent, always excluding him who was possessed of the

French crown.[24] Gibraltar and Minorca remained to England; Dunkirk

was to be demolished; the Spanish Netherlands were to be ceded to

Austria, with Naples, Milan, and Sardinia; the barrier towns were

to be ceded to the Dutch, as required in 1709, with the exception

of two or three places. Spain and her Indian colonies remained

with the Duke of Anjou and his male heirs, as King of Spain. And

thus, at the conclusion of the most glorious and successful war

recorded in English history, did the English cabinet leave to

France the great object of the contest,--the crown of Spain, and

its magnificent Indian colonies, placed on the head of a prince of

the Bourbon race. With truth did Marlborough observe, in the debate

on the preliminaries--"The measures pursued in England for the last

year are directly contrary to her Majesty's engagements with the

Allies, sully the triumphs and glories of her reign, and will render

the English name odious to all other nations."[25] It was all in

vain. The people loudly clamoured for peace; the Tory ministry was

seconded by a vast numerical majority throughout the country. The

peace was approved of by large majorities in both houses. Parliament

was soon after prorogued; and Marlborough, seeing his public career

terminated, solicited and obtained passports to go abroad, which he

soon afterwards did.

[24] The words of the treaty, which subsequent events have rendered

of importance, on this point, were these:--Philippe V. King of

Spain renounced "à toutes pretentions, droits, et tîtres que lui et

sa postérité avaient ou pourraient avoir à l'avenir à la couronne

de France. Il consentit pour lui et sa postérité que ce droit fût

tenu et considéré comme passé au Duc de Berry son frère et à ses

descendans et postérité _male_; et en defaut de ce prince, et de sa

postérité _male_, au Duc de Bourbon son cousin et _à ses héritiers_,

et aussi successivement à tous les princes du sang de France." The

Duke of Saxony and his _male_ heirs were called to the succession,

failing Philippe V. and his male heirs. This act of renunciation

and entail of the crown of Spain on _male_ heirs, was ratified by

the Cortes of Castile and Arragon; by the parliament of Paris,

by Great Britain and France in the sixth article of the Treaty

of Utrecht.--_Vide_ SCHOELL, _Hist. de Trait._, ii. 99, 105, and

DUMONT, _Corp. Dipl._, tom. viii. p. 1. p. 339.

[25] Coxe, vi. 205.

Great was the mourning, and loud the lamentations, both in the

British and Allied troops, when the fatal day arrived that the

former were to separate from their old companions in arms. On the

10th July, the very day on which Quesnoy surrendered, the last of

their long line of triumphs, Ormond, having exhausted every sort of

procrastination to postpone the dreaded hour, was compelled to order

the English troops to march. He in vain, however, gave a similar

order to the auxiliaries in British pay; the hereditary Prince of

Cassel replied--"The Hessians would gladly march, if it were to

fight the French." Another, "We do not serve for pay, but fame."

The native British, however, were compelled to obey the order of

their sovereign, and they set out, twelve thousand strong, from

the camp at Cambresis. Of all the Germans in British pay, only one

battalion of Holstein men, and a regiment of dragoons from Liege,

accompanied them. Silent and dejected they took their way; the men

kept their eyes on the ground, the officers did not venture to

return the parting salute of the comrades who had so long fought

and conquered by their side. Not a word was spoken on either side,

the hearts of all were too big for utterance; but the averted eye,

the mournful air, the tear often trickling down the cheek, told

the deep dejection which was every where felt. It seemed as if the

Allies were following to the grave, with profound affection, the

whole body of their British comrades. But when the troops reached

their resting-place for the night, and the suspension of arms was

proclaimed at the head of each regiment, the general indignation

became so vehement, that even the bonds of military discipline were

unable to restrain it. A universal cry, succeeded by a loud murmur,

was heard through the camp. The British soldiers were seen tearing

their hair, casting their muskets on the ground, and rending their

clothes, uttering all the while furious exclamations against the

government which had so shamefully betrayed them. The officers were

so overwhelmed with vexation, that they sat apart in their tents

looking on the ground, through very shame; and for several days

shrunk from the sight even of their fellow-soldiers. Many left their

colours to serve with the Allies, others withdrew, and whenever they

thought of Marlborough and their days of glory, tears filled their

eyes.[26]

[26] Cunningham, ii. 432; Milner, 356.

It soon appeared that it was not without reason that these gloomy

presentiments prevailed on both sides, as to the consequences of the

British withdrawing from the contest. So elated were the French by

their secession, that they speedily lost all sense of gratitude and

even honesty, and refused to give up Dunkirk to the British, which

was only effected with great difficulty on the earnest entreaties

of the British government. So great were the difficulties which

beset the negotiation, that St John was obliged to repair in person

to Paris, where he remained _incognito_ for a considerable time,

and effected a compromise of the objects still in dispute between

the parties. The secession of England from the confederacy was

now openly announced; and, as the Allies refused to abide by her

preliminaries, the separate negotiation continued between the two

countries, and lingered on for nearly a year after the suspension of

arms.

Meanwhile Eugene, after the departure of the British, continued his

operations, and laid siege to Landrecies, the last of the barrier

fortresses on the road to Paris, in the end of July. But it soon

appeared that England had been the soul of the confederacy; and that

it was the tutelary arm of Marlborough which had so long averted

disaster, and chained victory to its standard. Nothing but defeat

and misfortune attended the Allies after her secession. Even the

great and tried abilities of Eugene were inadequate to procure for

them one single success, after the colours of England no longer

waved in their ranks. During the investment of Landrecies, Villars

drew together the garrisons from the neighbouring towns, no longer

threatened by the English troops, and surprised at Denain a body of

eight thousand men, stationed there for the purpose of facilitating

the passage of convoys to the besieging army. This disaster

rendered it necessary to raise the siege of Landrecies, and Villars

immediately resumed the offensive. Douay was speedily invested: a

fruitless effort of Eugene to retain it only exposed him to the

mortification of witnessing its surrender. Not expecting so sudden a

reverse of fortune, the fortresses recently taken were not provided

with provisions or ammunition, and were in no condition to make

any effectual resistance. Quesnoy soon fell from this cause; and

Bouchain, the last trophy of Marlborough's victories, opened its

gates on the 10th October. The coalition was paralysed; and Louis,

who so lately trembled for his capital, found his armies advancing

from conquest to conquest, and tearing from the Allies the fruits of

all their victories.[27]

[27] _Mém. de Villars_, ii. 396, 421.

These disasters, and the evident inability of the Allied armies,

without the aid of the English, to keep their ground in Flanders,

in a manner compelled the Dutch, how unwilling soever, to follow

the example of Great Britain, in treating separately with France.

They became parties, accordingly, to the pacification at Utrecht;

and Savoy also concluded peace there. But the barrier for which

they had so ardently contended was, by the desertion of England,

so much reduced, that it ceased to afford any effectual security

against the encroachments of France. That power held the most

important fortresses in Flanders which had been conquered by Louis

XIV.--Cambray, Valenciennes, and Arras. Lille, the conquest on

which Marlborough most prided himself, was restored by the Allies,

and with it Bethune, Aire, St Venant, and many other places. The

Dutch felt, in the strongest manner, the evil consequences of a

treaty which thus, in a manner, left the enemy at their gates;

and the irritation consequently produced against England was so

violent that it continued through the greater part of the eighteenth

century. Austria, indignant at being thus deserted by all her

Allies, continued the contest alone through another campaign. But

she was overmatched in the contest; her resources were exhausted;

and, by the advice of Eugene, conferences were opened at Rastadt,

from which, as a just reward for her perfidy, England was excluded.

A treaty was soon concluded on the basis of the Treaty of Ryswick.

It left Charles the Low Countries, and all the Spanish territories

in Italy, except Sicily; but, with Sardinia, Bavaria was restored.

France retained Landau, but restored New Brisach, Fribourg, and

Kehl. Thus was that great power left in possession of the whole

conquests ceded to Louis XIV. by the treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle,

Nimeguen, and Ryswick, with the vast addition of the family alliance

with a Bourbon prince, possessing Spain and the Indies. A century

of repeated wars on the part of England and the European powers,

with France, followed by the dreadful struggle of the Revolutionary

contest, and the costly campaigns of Wellington, were the legacy

bequeathed to the nation by Bolingbroke and Harley, in arresting

the course of Marlborough's victories, and restoring France to

preponderance, when it was on the eve of being reduced to a level

consistent with the independence of other states. Well might Mr Pitt

style the Treaty of Utrecht "the indelible reproach of the age!"[28]

[28] Mr Pitt to Sir Benjamin Keene.--_Memoirs of the Spanish Kings_,

c. 57.

Marlborough's public career was now terminated; and the dissensions

which had cast him down from power had so completely extinguished

his political influence, that during the remaining years of his

life, he rarely appeared at all in public life. On landing on

the Continent, at Brille, on the 24th November, he was received

with such demonstrations of gratitude and respect, as showed how

deeply his public services had sunk into the hearts of men, and how

warmly they appreciated his efforts to avert from England and the

Coalition, the evils likely to flow from the Treaty of Utrecht. At

Maestricht he was welcomed with the honours usually reserved for

sovereign princes; and although he did his utmost, on the journey to

Aix-la-Chapelle, to avoid attracting the public attention, and to

slip unobserved through byways, yet the eagerness of the public, or

the gratitude of his old soldiers, discovered him wherever he went.

Wherever he passed, crowds of all ranks were waiting to see him,

could they only get a glimpse of the hero who had saved the empire,

and filled the world with his renown. All were struck with his noble

air and demeanour, softened, though not weakened, by the approach

of age. They declared that his appearance was not less conquering

than his sword. Many burst into tears when they recollected what he

had been, and what he was, and how unaccountably the great nation

to which he belonged had fallen from the height of glory to such

degradation. Yet was the manner of Marlborough so courteous and yet

animated, his conversation so simple and yet cheerful, that it was

commonly said at the time, "that the only things he had forgotten

were his own deeds, and the only things he remembered were the

misfortunes of others." Crowds of all ranks, from the highest to

the lowest, hastened to attend his levee at Aix-la-Chapelle on the

17th January 1713, and the Duke de Lesdeguières, on leaving it,

said, with equal justice and felicity,--"I can now say that I have

seen the man who is equal to the Maréchal de Turenne in conduct,

to the Prince of Condé in courage, and superior to the Maréchal de

Luxembourg in success."[29]

[29] _Life of Marlborough_, 175.

But if the veteran hero found some compensation, in the unanimous

admiration of foreign nations, for the ingratitude with which he

had been treated by the government of his own, he was soon destined

to find that gratitude for past services was not to be looked

for among foreign nations any more than his own countrymen. Upon

the restoration of the Elector, by the treaty of Rastadt, the

principality of Mendleheim, which had been bestowed upon Marlborough

after the battle of Blenheim by the Emperor Joseph, was resumed

by the Elector. No stipulation in his favour was made either by

the British government or the Imperial court, and therefore the

estate, which yielded a clear revenue of £2000 a-year, was lost to

Marlborough. He transmitted, through Prince Eugene, a memorial to

the Emperor, claiming an indemnity for his loss; but though it was

earnestly supported by that generous prince, yet being unaided by

any efforts on the part of the English ministry, it was allowed to

fall asleep. An indemnity was often promised, even by the Emperor

in writing,[30] but performance of the promise was always evaded.

The Duke was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire, but obtained

nothing but empty honours for his services; and at this moment,

these high-sounding titles are all that remain in the Marlborough

family to testify the gratitude of the Cæsars to the hero who saved

their Imperial and Royal thrones.[31]

[30] "At the future congress, his Imperial Majesty will do all

that is possible to sustain my Lord Duke in the principality

of Mendleheim, but if it should so happen that any invincible

difficulty should occur in that affair, his Imperial Highness

will give his Highness an equivalent out of his own hereditary

dominions."--_Emperor Charles VI. to Duchess of Marlborough_, August

8, 1712.--Coxe, vi. 248.

[31] Coxe, vi. 249, 251.

The same oblivion of past and inappreciable services, when they

were no longer required, pursued the illustrious general in his

declining years, on the part of his own countrymen. The got-up

stories about embezzlement and dilapidation of the public money, in

Flanders, were allowed to go to sleep, when they had answered their

destined purpose of bringing about his fall from political power.

No grounds were found for a prosecution which could afford a chance

of success, even in the swamped and now subservient House of Peers.

But every thing that malice could suggest, or party bitterness

effect, was done to fill the last days of the immortal hero with

anxiety and disquiet. Additional charges were brought against him

by the commissioners, founded on the allegation that he had drawn

a pistole per troop, and ten shillings a company, for mustering

the soldiers, though, in the foreign auxiliaries, it was often not

done. Marlborough at once transmitted a refutation of those fresh

charges, so clear and decisive, that it entirely silenced those

accusations.[32] But his enemies, though driven from this ground,

still persecuted him with unrelenting malice. The noble pile of

Blenheim, standing, as it did, an enduring monument at once of the

Duke's services and the nation's gratitude, was a grievous eyesore

to the dominant majority in England, and they did all in their

power to prevent its completion.

[32] Duke of Marlborough's Answer, June 2, 1713.

Orders were first given to the Treasury, on June 1, 1712, to suspend

any further payments from the royal exchequer; and commissioners

were appointed to investigate the claims of the creditors and

expense of the work. They recommended the payment of a third to each

claimant, which was accordingly made; but as many years elapsed, and

no further payments to account were made, the principal creditors

brought an action in the Court of Exchequer against the Duke, as

personally liable for the amount, and the court pronounced decree

in favour of the plaintiffs, which was affirmed, after a long

litigation, in the House of Lords. Meanwhile the works, for want

of any paymaster, were at a stand; and this noble pile, this proud

monument of a nation's gratitude, would have remained a modern ruin

to this day, had it not been completed from the private funds of the

hero whose services it was intended to commemorate. But the Duke

of Marlborough, as well as the Duchess, were too much interested

in the work to allow it to remain unfinished. He left by his will

fifty thousand pounds to complete the building, which was still in

very unfinished state at the time of his death, and the duty was

faithfully performed by the Duchess after his decease. From the

accounts of the total expense, preserved at Blenheim, it appears,

that out of three hundred thousand pounds, which the whole edifice

cost, no less than sixty thousand pounds was provided from the

private funds of the Duke of Marlborough.[33]

[33] Coxe, vi. 369, 373.

It may readily be believed that so long-continued and unrelenting a

persecution of so great a man and distinguished benefactor of his

country, proceeded from something more than mere envy at greatness,

powerful as that principle ever is in little minds. In truth, it was

part of the deep-laid plan for the restoration of the Stuart line,

which the declining state of the Queen's health, and the probable

unpopularity of the Hanover family, now revived in greater vigour

than ever. During this critical period, Marlborough, who was still

on the Continent, remained perfectly firm to the Act of Settlement,

and the Protestant cause. Convinced that England was threatened

with a counter-revolution, he used his endeavours to secure the

fidelity of the garrison of Dunkirk, and offered to embark at its

head in support of the Protestant succession. He sent General

Cadogan to make the necessary arrangements with General Stanhope

for transporting troops to England, to support the Hanoverian

succession, and offered to lend the Elector of Hanover £20,000 to

aid him in his endeavour to secure the succession. So sensible was

the Electoral house of the magnitude of his services, and his zeal

in their behalf, that the Electress Sophia entrusted him with a

blank warrant, appointing him commander-in-chief of her troops and

garrisons, on her accession to the crown.[34]

[34] Coxe, vi. 263.

On the death of Queen Anne, on August 1, 1714, Marlborough

returned to England, and was soon after appointed captain-general

and master-general of the ordnance. Bolingbroke and Oxford were

shortly after impeached, and the former then threw off the mask, by

flying to France, where he openly entered into the service of the

Pretender at St Germains. Marlborough's great popularity with the

army was soon after the means of enabling him to appease a mutiny

in the guards, which at first threatened to be alarming. During the

rebellion in 1715, he directed, in a great degree, the operations

against the rebels, though he did not actually take the field; and

to his exertions, its rapid suppression was in a great measure to be

ascribed.

But the period had now arrived when the usual fate of mortality

awaited this illustrious man. Severe domestic bereavements preceded

his dissolution, and in a manner weaned him from a world which

he had passed through with so much glory. His daughter, Lady

Bridgewater, died in March 1714; and this was soon followed by

the death of his favourite daughter, Anne Countess of Sunderland,

who united uncommon elegance and beauty to unaffected piety and

exemplary virtue. Marlborough himself was not long of following

his beloved relatives to the grave. On the 28th May 1716, he was

seized with a fit of palsy, so severe that it deprived him, for a

time, alike of speech and recollection. He recovered, however, to

a certain degree, and went to Bath, for the benefit of the waters;

and a gleam of returning light shone upon his mind when he visited

Blenheim on the 18th October. He expressed great satisfaction at the

survey of the plan; which reminded him of his great achievements;

but when he saw, in one of the few rooms which were finished, a

picture of himself at the battle of Blenheim, he turned away with

a mournful air, with the words--"Something then, but now----" On

November 18th he was attacked by another stroke, more severe than

the former, and his family hastened to pay the last duties, as

they conceived, to their departing parent. The strength of his

constitution, however, triumphed for a time even over this violent

attack; but though he continued contrary to his own wishes, in

conformity with those of his friends, who needed the support of

his great reputation, to hold office, and occasionally appeared in

parliament, yet his public career was at an end. A considerable

addition was made to his fortune by the sagacity of the Duchess,

who persuaded him to embark part of his funds in the South Sea

scheme; and foreseeing the crash which was approaching, sold out so

opportunely, that, instead of losing, she gained £100,000 by the

transaction. On the 27th November 1721, he made his last appearance

in the House of Lords; but in June 1722, he was again attacked with

paralysis so violently, that he lay for some days nearly motionless,

though in perfect possession of his faculties. To a question from

the Duchess, whether he heard the prayers read as usual at night, on

the 15th June, in his apartment; he replied, "Yes; and I joined in

them." These were his last words. On the morning of the 16th he sunk

rapidly, and, at four o'clock, calmly breathed his last, in the 72d

year of his age.[35]

[35] Lediard, 496. Coxe, vi. 384, 385.

Envy is generally extinguished by death, because the object of it

has ceased to stand in the way of those who feel it. Marlborough's

funeral obsequies were celebrated with uncommon magnificence, and

all ranks and parties joined in doing him honour. His body lay in

state for several days at Marlborough House, and crowds flocked

together from all the three kingdoms to witness the imposing

ceremony of his funeral, which was performed with the utmost

magnificence, on the 28th June. The procession was opened by a

long array of military, among whom were General, now Lord Cadogan,

and many other officers who had suffered and bled in his cause.

Long files of heralds, officers-at-arms, and pursuivants followed,

bearing banners emblazoned with his armorial achievements, among

which appeared, in uncommon lustre, the standard of Woodstock,

exhibiting the arms of France on the Cross of St George. In the

centre of the cavalcade was a lofty car, drawn by eight horses,

which bore the mortal remains of the Hero, under a splendid canopy

adorned by plumes, military trophies, and heraldic devices of

conquest. Shields were affixed to the sides, bearing the names of

the towns he had taken, and the fields he had won. Blenheim was

there, and Oudenarde, Ramilies and Malplaquet; Lille and Tournay;

Bethune, Douay, and Ruremonde; Bouchain and Mons, Maestricht and

Ghent. This array of names made the English blush for the manner

in which they had treated their hero. On either side were five

generals in military mourning, bearing aloft banderoles, on which

were emblazoned the arms of the family. Eight dukes supported

the pall; besides the relatives of the deceased, the noblest and

proudest of England's nobility joined in the procession. Yet the

most moving part of the ceremony was the number of old soldiers who

had combated with the hero on his fields of fame, and who might now

be known, in the dense crowds which thronged the streets, by their

uncovered heads, grey hairs, and the tears which trickled down their

cheeks. The body was deposited, with great solemnity, in Westminster

Abbey, at the east end of the tomb of Henry VII.; but this was not

its final resting-place in this world. It was soon after removed

to the chapel at Blenheim, where it was deposited in a magnificent

mausoleum; and there it still remains, surmounted by the noble pile

which the genius of Vanbrugh had conceived to express a nation's

gratitude.[36]

[36] Coxe, vi. 384-387.

The extraordinary merit of Marlborough's military talents will not

be duly appreciated, unless the peculiar nature of the contest he

was called on to direct, and the character which he assumed in his

time, is taken into consideration.

The feudal times had ceased--at least so far as the raising of

a military force by its machinery was concerned. Louis XIV.,

indeed, when pressed for men, more than once summoned the ban

and arrière-ban of France to his standards, and he always had a

gallant array of feudal nobility in his antechambers, or around his

headquarters. But war, both on his part and that of his antagonists,

was carried on, generally speaking, with standing armies, supported

by the belligerent state. The vast, though generally tumultuary

array which the Plantagenet or Valois sovereigns summoned to their

support, but which, bound only to serve for forty days, generally

disappeared before a few months of hostilities were over, could no

longer be relied on. The modern system invented by revolutionary

France, of making war maintain war, and sending forth starving

multitudes with arms in their hands, to subsist by the plunder

of the adjoining states, was unknown. The national passions had

not been roused, which alone would bring it into operation. The

decline of the feudal system forbade the hope that contests could

be maintained by the chivalrous attachment of a faithful nobility:

the democratic spirit had not been so aroused as to supply its place

by popular fervour. Religious passions, indeed, had been strongly

excited; but they had prompted men rather to suffer than to act: the

disputations of the pulpit were their natural arena: in the last

extremity they were more allied to the resignation of the martyr,

than the heroism of the soldier. Between the two, there extended a

long period of above a century and a half, during which governments

had acquired the force, and mainly relied on the power, of standing

armies; but the resources at their disposal for their support were

so limited, that the greatest economy in the husbanding both of men

and money was indispensable.

Richard Coeur de Lion, Edward III., and Henry V., were the models

of feudal leaders, and their wars were a faithful mirror of the

feudal contests. Setting forth at the head of a force, which, if

not formidable in point of numbers, was generally extremely so

from equipment and the use of arms, the nobles around them were

generally too proud and high-spirited to decline a combat, even

on any possible terms of disadvantage. They took the field as

the knights went to a _champ clos_, to engage their adversaries

in single conflict; and it was deemed equally dishonourable to

retire without fighting from the one as the other. But they had no

permanent force at their disposal to secure a lasting fruit even

from the greatest victories. The conquest of a petty province,

a diminutive fortress, was often their only result. Hence the

desperate battles, so memorable in warlike annals, which they

fought, and hence the miserable and almost nugatory results which

almost invariably followed their greatest triumphs. Cressy,

Poictiers, and Azincour, followed by the expulsion of the English

from France; Methven and Dunbar, by their ignominious retreat from

Scotland; Ascalon and Ptolemais, by their being driven from the

Holy Land, must immediately occur to every reader. This state of

war necessarily imprinted a corresponding character on the feudal

generals. They were high-spirited and daring in action--often

skilful in tactics--generally ignorant of strategy--covetous of

military renown, but careless of national advancement--and often

more solicitous to conquer an adversary in single conflict, than

reduce a fortress, or win a province.

But when armies were raised at the expense, not of nobles, but of

kings--when their cost became a lasting and heavy drain on the royal

exchequer--sovereigns grew desirous of a more durable and profitable

result from their victories. Standing armies, though commonly

powerful, often irresistible when accumulated in large bodies--were

yet extremely expensive. They were felt the more from the great

difficulty of getting the people in every country, at that period,

to submit to any considerable amount of direct taxation. More

than one flourishing province had been lost, or powerful monarchy

overturned, in the attempt to increase such burdens; witness the

loss of Holland to Spain, the execution of Charles I. in England.

In this dilemma, arising from the experienced necessity of raising

standing armies on the one hand, and the extreme difficulty of

permanently providing for them on the other, the only resource was

to spare both the blood of the soldiers and the expenses of the

government as much as possible. Durable conquests, acquisitions of

towns and provinces which could yield revenues and furnish men,

became the great object of ambition. The point of feudal honour was

forgot in the inanity of its consequences; the benefits of modern

conquests were felt in the reality of their results. A methodical

cautious system of war was thus impressed upon generals by the

necessities of their situation, and the objects expected from them

by their respective governments. To risk little and gain much,

became the great object: skill and stratagem gradually took the

place of reckless daring; and the reputation of a general came to be

measured rather by the permanent addition which his successes had

made to the revenues of his sovereign, than the note with which the

trumpet of Fame had proclaimed his own exploits.

Turenne was the first, and, in his day, the greatest general in this

new and scientific system of war. He first applied to the military

art the resources of prudent foresight, deep thought, and profound

combination; and the results of his successes completely justified

the discernment which had prompted Louis XIV. to place him at the

head of his armies. His methodical and far-seeing campaigns in

Flanders, Franche Comté, Alsace, and Lorraine, in the early part of

the reign of that monarch, added these valuable provinces to France,

which have never since been lost. They have proved more durable than

the conquests of Napoleon, which all perished in the lifetime of

their author. Napoleon's legions passed like a desolating whirlwind

over Europe, but they gave only fleeting celebrity, and entailed

lasting wounds on France. Turenne's slow, or more methodical and

more cautious conquests, have proved lasting acquisitions to the

monarchy. Nancy still owns the French allegiance; Besançon and

Strasbourg are two of its frontier fortresses; Lille yet is a

leading stronghold in its iron barrier. Napoleon, it is well known,

had the highest possible opinion of that great commander. He was

disposed to place him at the head of modern generals; and his very

interesting analysis of his campaigns is not the least important

part of his invaluable memoirs.

Condé, though living in the same age, and alternately the enemy

and comrade of Turenne, belonged to a totally different class of

generals, and, indeed, seemed to belong to another age of the

world. He was warmed in his heart by the spirit of chivalry; he

bore its terrors on his sword's point. Heart and soul he was

heroic. Like Clive or Alexander, he was consumed by that thirst for

fame, that ardent passion for glorious achievements, which is the

invariable characteristic of elevated, and the most inconceivable

quality to ordinary, minds. In the prosecution of this object, no

difficulties could deter, no dangers daunt him. Though his spirit

was chivalrous--though cavalry was the arm which suited his genius,

and in which he chiefly delighted, he brought to the military art

the power of genius and the resources of art; and no man could make

better use of the power which the expiring spirit of feudality

bequeathed to its scientific successors. He destroyed the Spanish

infantry at Rocroy and Lens, not by mere desultory charges of the

French cavalry, but by efforts of that gallant body as skilfully

directed as those by which Hannibal overthrew the Roman legions at

Thrasymene and Cannæ. His genius was animated by the spirit of the

fourteenth, but it was guided by the knowledge of the seventeenth,

century.

Bred in the school of Turenne, placed, like him, at the head of a

force raised with difficulty, maintained with still greater trouble,

Marlborough was the greatest general of the methodical or scientific

school which modern Europe has produced. No man knew better the

importance of deeds which fascinate the minds of men; none could

decide quicker, or strike harder, when the proper time for action

arrived. None, when the decisive crisis of the struggle approached,

could expose his person more fearlessly, or lead his reserves

more gallantly into the very hottest of the enemy's fire. To his

combined intrepidity and quickness, in thus bringing the reserves,

at the decisive moment, into action, all his wonderful victories,

in particular Ramilies and Malplaquet, are to be ascribed. But, in

the ordinary case, he preferred the bloodless methods of skill and

arrangement. Combination was his great _forte_, and there he was not

exceeded by Napoleon himself. To deceive the enemy as to the real

point of attack--to perplex him by marches and countermarches--to

assume and constantly maintain the initiative--to win by skill

what could not be achieved by force, was his great delight; and in

that, the highest branch of the military art, he was unrivalled

in modern times. He did not despise stratagem. Like Hannibal, he

resorted to that arm frequently, and with never-failing success.

His campaigns, in that respect, bear a closer resemblance to those

of the illustrious Carthaginian than those of any general in modern

Europe. Like him, too, his administrative and diplomatic qualities

were equal to his military powers. By his address, he retained in

unwilling, but still effective union, an alliance, unwieldy from its

magnitude, and discordant by its jealousies; and kept, in willing

multitudes, around his standards, a _colluvies omnium gentium_, of

various languages, habits, and religions--held in subjection by no

other bond but the strong one of admiration for their general, and a

desire to share in his triumphs.

Consummate address and never-failing prudence were the great

characteristics of the English commander. With such judgment did he

measure his strength with those of his adversary--so skilfully did

he choose the points of attack, whether in strategy or tactics--so

well weighed were all his enterprises, so admirably prepared the

means of carrying them into execution, that none of them ever

miscarried. It was a common saying at the time, which the preceding

narrative amply justifies, that he never fought a battle which he

did not gain, nor laid siege to a town which he did not take. This

extraordinary and unbroken success extended to all his manoeuvres,

however trivial; and it has been already noticed, that the first

disaster of any moment which occurred to his arms during _nine_

successive and active campaigns, was the destruction of a convoy

destined for the siege of St Venant, in October 1710, by one of

Villars' detachments.[37] It was the admirable powers of arrangement

and combination which he brought to bear on all parts of his army,

equally from the highest to the lowest parts, which was the cause of

this extraordinary and uninterrupted success.

[37] Marlborough's Dispatches. _Blackwood's Magazine_, Nov. 1846, p.

He was often outnumbered by the enemy, always opposed by a

homogeneous army, animated by one strong national and military

spirit; while he was at the head of a discordant array of many

different nations, some of them with little turn for warlike

exploit, others lukewarm, or even treacherous in the cause. But

notwithstanding this, he never lost the ascendant. From the time

when he first began the war on the banks of the Maese in 1702, till

his military career was closed in 1711, within the iron barrier

of France, by the intrigues of his political opponents at home, he

never abandoned the initiative. He was constantly on the offensive.

When inferior in force, as he often was, he supplied the defect of

military strength by skill and combination; when his position was

endangered by the faults or treachery of others, as was still more

frequently the case, he waited till a false move on the part of his

adversaries enabled him to retrieve his affairs by some brilliant

and decisive stroke. It was thus that he restored the war in

Germany, after the affairs of the Emperor had been wellnigh ruined,

by the brilliant cross march into Bavaria, and splendid victory at

Blenheim; and regained Flanders for the Archduke by the stroke at

Ramilies, after the imperial cause in that quarter had been all but

lost by the treacherous surrender of Ghent and Bruges, in the very

centre of his water communications.

Lord Chesterfield, who knew him well, said that he was a man of

excellent parts, and strong good sense, but of no very shining

genius. The uninterrupted success of his campaigns, however, joined

to the unexampled address with which he allayed the jealousies

and stilled the discords of the confederacy whose armies he led,

decisively demonstrates that the polished earl's opinion was not

just; and that his partiality for the graces led him to ascribe

an undue influence in the great duke's career to the inimitable

suavity and courtesy of his manner. His enterprises and stratagems,

his devices to deceive the enemy, and counterbalance inferiority

of force by superiority of conduct; the eagle eye which, in the

decisive moment, he brought to bear on the field of battle, and the

rapidity with which in person he struck the final blow from which

the enemy never recovered, bespeak the intuitive genius of war. It

was the admirable _balance_ of his mental qualities which caused his

originality to be under-valued;--no one power stood out in such bold

relief as to overshadow all the others, and rivet the eye by the

magnitude of its proportions. Thus his consummate judgment made the

world overlook his invention; his uniform prudence caused his daring

to be forgotten; his incomparable combinations often concealed

the capacious mind which had put the whole in motion. He was so

uniformly successful, that men forgot how difficult it is always to

succeed in war. It was not till he was withdrawn from the conduct

of the campaign, and disaster immediately attended the Allied arms,

and France resumed the ascendant over the coalition, that Europe

became sensible who had been the soul of the war, and how much had

been lost when his mighty understanding was no longer at the head of

affairs.

A most inadequate opinion would be formed of Marlborough's

mental character, if his military exploits alone were taken into

consideration. Like all other intellects of the first order, he was

equally capable of great achievements in peace as in war, and shone

forth with not less lustre in the deliberations of the cabinet, or

the correspondence of diplomacy, than in directing columns on the

field of battle, or tracing out the line of approaches in the attack

of fortified towns. Nothing could exceed the judgment and address

with which he reconciled the jarring interests, and smoothed down

the rival pretensions, of the coalesced cabinets. The danger was not

so pressing as to unite their rival governments, as it afterwards

did those of the Grand Alliance in 1813, for the overthrow of

Napoleon; and incessant exertions, joined to the highest possible

diplomatic address, judgment of conduct, and suavity of manner, were

required to prevent the coalition, on various occasions during the

course of the war, from falling to pieces. As it was, the intrigues

of Bolingbroke and the Tories in England, and the ascendency of Mrs

Masham in the Queen's bedchamber councils, at last counterbalanced

all his achievements, and led to a peace which abandoned the most

important objects of the war, and was fraught, as the event has

proved, with serious danger to the independence and even existence

of England. His winter campaign at the Allied courts, as he himself

said, always equalled in duration, and often exceeded in importance

and difficulty, that in summer with the enemy; and nothing is more

certain, than that if a man of less capacity had been entrusted

with the direction of its diplomatic relations, the coalition would

have soon broken up without having accomplished any of the objects

for which the war had been undertaken, from the mere selfishness and

dissensions of the cabinets by whom it was conducted.

With one blot, for which neither the justice of history, nor the

partiality of biography either can or should attempt to make

any apology, Marlborough's private character seems to have been

unexceptionable, and was evidently distinguished by several noble

and amiable qualities. That he was bred a courtier, and owed his

first elevation to the favour with which he was regarded by one

of the King's mistresses, was not his fault:--It arose, perhaps,

necessarily from his situation, and the graces and beauty with which

he had been so prodigally endowed by nature. The young officer of

the Guards, who in the army of Louis XIV. passed by the name of the

"handsome Englishman," could hardly be expected to be free from the

consequences of female partiality at the court of Charles II. But

in maturer years, his conduct in public, after William had been

seated on the throne, was uniformly consistent, straightforward,

and honourable. He was a sincere patriot, and ardently attached

both to his country and the principles of freedom, at a time when

both were wellnigh forgotten in the struggles of party, and the

fierce contests for royal or popular favour. Though bred up in a

licentious court, and early exposed to the most entrancing of its

seductions, he was in mature life strictly correct, both in his

conduct and conversation. He resisted every temptation to which his

undiminished beauty exposed him after his marriage, and was never

known either to utter, or permit to be uttered in his presence, a

light or indecent expression. He discouraged to the utmost degree

any instances of intemperance or licentiousness in his soldiers, and

constantly laboured to impress upon his men a sense of moral duty

and Supreme superintendence. Divine service was regularly performed

in all his camps, both morning and evening; previous to a battle,

prayers were read at the head of every regiment, and the first act,

after a victory, was a solemn thanksgiving. "By those means," says a

contemporary biographer, who served in his army, "his camp resembled

a quiet, well-governed city. Cursing and swearing were seldom heard

among the officers; a drunkard was the object of scorn: and even the

soldiers, many of them the refuse and dregs of the nation, became,

at the close of one or two campaigns, tractable, civil, sensible,

and clean, and had an air and spirit above the vulgar."

In political life, during his career after that event, he was

consistent and firm; faithful to his party, but more faithful still

to his country. He was a generous friend, an attached, perhaps too

fond a husband. During the whole of his active career, he retained a

constant sense of the superintendence and direction of the Supreme

Being, and was ever the first to ascribe the successes which he had

gained, to Divine protection; a disposition which appeared with

peculiar grace amidst the din of arms, and the flourish of trumpets

for his own mighty achievements. Even the one occasion on which,

like David, he fell from his high principles, will be regarded by

the equitable observer with charitable, if not forgiving eyes. He

will recollect, that perfection never yet belonged to a child of

Adam; he will measure the dreadful nature of the struggle which

awaits an upright and generous mind when loyalty and gratitude impel

one way, and religion and patriotism another. Without attempting to

justify an officer who employs the power bestowed by one government

to elevate another on its ruins, he will yet reflect, that in such

a crisis, even the firmest heads and the best hearts may be led

astray. If he is wise, he will ascribe the fault--for fault it

was--not so much to the individual, as the time in which he lived;

and feel a deeper thankfulness that his own lot has been cast in a

happier age, when the great moving passions of the human heart act

in the same direction, and a public man need not fear that he is

wanting in his duty to his sovereign, because he is performing that

to his country.

Marlborough was often accused of avarice: but his conduct through

life sufficiently demonstrated that in him the natural desire

to accumulate a fortune, which belongs to every rational mind,

was kept in subjection to more elevated principles. His repeated

refusal of the government of the Netherlands, with its magnificent

appointment of L.60,000 a-year, was a sufficient proof how much he

despised money when it interfered with public duty; his splendid

edifices, both in London and Blenheim, attest how little he valued

it for any other sake but as it might be applied to noble and worthy

objects.[38] He possessed the magnanimity in every thing which is

the invariable characteristic of real greatness. Envy was unknown,

suspicion loathsome, to him. He often suffered by the generous

confidence with which he trusted his enemies. He was patient

under contradiction; placid and courteous both in his manners and

demeanour; and owed great part of his success, both in the field and

in the cabinet, to the invariable suavity and charm of his manner.

His humanity was uniformly conspicuous. Not only his own soldiers,

but his enemies never failed to experience it. Like Wellington,

his attention to the health and comforts of his men was incessant;

and, with his daring in the field and uniform success in strategy,

endeared him in the highest degree to the men. Troops of all nations

equally trusted him; and the common saying, when they were in any

difficulty, "Never mind--'Corporal John' will get us out of it,"

was heard as frequently in the Dutch, Danish, or German, as in the

English language. He frequently gave the weary soldiers a place in

his carriage, and got out himself to accommodate more; and his first

care, after an engagement, invariably was to visit the field of

battle, and do his utmost to assuage the sufferings of the wounded,

both among his own men and those of the enemy.

[38] Marlborough House in London cost about L.100,000.--Coxe, vi.

399.

The character of this illustrious man has been thus portrayed by two

of the greatest writers in the English language, the latter of whom

will not be accused of undue partiality to his political enemy. "It

is a characteristic," says Adam Smith, "almost peculiar to the great

Duke of Marlborough, that ten years of such uninterrupted and such

splendid successes as scarce any other general could boast of, never

betrayed him into a single rash action, scarce into a single rash

word or expression. The same temperate coolness and self-command

cannot, I think, be ascribed to any other great warrior of later

times--not to Prince Eugene, nor to the late King of Prussia, nor to

the great Prince of Condé, not even to Gustavus Adolphus. Turenne

seems to have approached the nearest to it: but several actions of

his life demonstrate that it was in him by no means so perfect as

in the great Duke of Marlborough."[39] "By King William's death,"

says Bolingbroke, "the Duke of Marlborough was raised to the head

of the army, and indeed of the confederacy, where he, a private

man, a subject, obtained by merit and by management a more decided

influence than high birth, confirmed authority, and even the crown

of Great Britain, had given to King William. Not only all the parts

of that vast machine, the Grand Alliance, were kept more compact and

entire, but a more rapid and vigorous motion was given to the whole;

and instead of languishing or disastrous campaigns, we saw every

scene of the war full of action. All those wherein he appeared,

and many of those wherein he was not then an actor, but abettor,

however, of their actions, were crowned with the most triumphant

success. I take with pleasure this opportunity of doing justice to

that great man, whose faults I know, whose virtues I admire, and

whose memory, _as the greatest general and greatest minister that

our country or any other has produced_, I honour."[40]

[39] SMITH'S _Moral Sentiments_, ii. 158.

[40] BOLINGBROKE'S _Letters on the Study of History_, ii. 172.

MILDRED;

A TALE.

PART I. CHAP. I.

The town of Wimborne, in Dorsetshire, boasts the possession of

a very ancient cathedral-like church, dignified with the title

of Minster, but, with this exception, is as utterly devoid, we

believe, of all interest to the traveller, as any of the numerous

country-towns which he rapidly passes through, and so gladly quits,

wondering for the moment how it is that any one can possibly consent

to be left behind in them. He who has journeyed from Southampton

to Poole will remember the town, from the circumstance that he

quitted by the same narrow streets by which he entered it, his road

not passing directly through, but forming an angle at this point.

He will call to mind what appeared an unaccountable turning and

twisting about of the coach, whilst the horses were being changed,

and a momentary alarm at finding that he was retracing his steps;

he will remember the two massive square towers of the old church,

peering above the roofs of the houses; and this is all that he will

know, or have the least desire to know, of the town of Wimborne.

If, however, the traveller should be set down in this quiet place,

and be compelled to wait there half a day for the arrival of some

other coach to carry him to his destination, he will probably wile

away his time by a visit to its antique and venerable church; and

after climbing, by the dark and narrow staircase, to the top of one

of its towers, he will be somewhat surprised to find himself--in

a library! A small square room is fitted up with shelves, whereon

a number of books are deposited, and the centre is occupied by a

large reading-desk, and a massive oak table, apparently coeval

with the tower itself, and which was probably placed there before

the roof was put on, since it never could have been introduced by

the stairs or through the window. It is no modern library, be it

understood--no vestry reading-room connected with the Sunday school

of the place; they are old books, black-letter quartos, illuminated

missals, now dark and mouldy, and whose parchment has acquired no

pleasant odour from age. By no means is it a circulating library,

for some of the books are still chained to the reading-desk; and

many more have their rusty iron chain twisted about them, by which

they, in their turn, were bound to the desk. If the traveller should

not be favoured with that antiquarian taste which finds a charm in

decyphering, out of mouldy and black-letter volumes, what would not

be worth his perusal in the most luxurious type of modern days, he

will at least derive some pleasure from opening the little windows

of the tower, and inhaling the fresh breeze that will blow in upon

him, and in looking over an extensive prospect of green meadows,

with their little river meandering about in them. It must have

formed a pleasant retreat at one time to the two or three learned

clerks, or minor canons, or neighbouring monks or friars--we may be

sure there were never many of such students--who used to climb this

turret for their morning or their evening lucubrations.

The only student who had, perhaps for some centuries, frequented

it--and she brought her own books with her, and was very unlike

either learned clerk, or monk, or friar--was Mildred Willoughby. She

used to delight--a taste savouring of extreme youth--to bring the

book she was perusing from her own comfortable parlour, to climb

up with it to this solitary height, and there read it alone. She

had no difficulty in obtaining from the parish-clerk permission to

be left in this chosen solitude--to draw the one wooden chair it

possessed to the window, and there to sit, and read, or muse, or

look upon the landscape, just as long as she pleased. It did not

very frequently happen that this functionary was called upon to

exhibit the old tower to the curiosity of strangers; but if this

occurred whilst she was thus occupied, she would rise from her seat,

and for a moment put on the air of a visitor also--walk slowly round

the room, looking at the backs of the books, or out of the window at

the prospect, as if she saw them for the first time! and when the

company had retreated, (and there was little to detain them long,)

would quietly return to her chair, her study, or her reverie.

One reason she might have given, beside the romantic and pensive

mood it inspired, for her choice of this retreat--the charm of being

alone. Nothing could be more quiet--to look at the exterior--than

the house she called her home. It stood at the extremity of the

town, protected from the road by its own neat inclosure of turf and

gravel-walk--surely as remote from every species of disturbance or

excitement as the most devoted student could desire. We question

even whether a barrel-organ or a hurdy-gurdy was ever known to

commit an outrage upon its tranquillity; and for its interior, were

not Mr and Miss Bloomfield (they were brother and sister, uncle and

aunt of Mildred) the most staid, orderly, methodical persons in the

world? Did not the bachelor uncle cover every part of the house,

and the kitchen stairs in particular, with thick carpet, in order

that the footsteps of John and the maid should not disquiet him? The

very appearance of the garden, both before and behind the house, was

sufficient to show how orderly a genius presided over it. Could box

be cut more neatly? or gravel-walks be kept cleaner? You saw a tall

lance-like instrument standing by the steps of the back-door, its

constant place. With this Mr Bloomfield frequently made the circuit

of his garden, but with no hostile purpose: he merely transfixed

with it the dry leaves or the splinters of wood that had strayed

upon his gravel, carrying them off in triumph to a neat wooden

receptacle, where they were both imprisoned and preserved. And Miss

Bloomfield, she also was one of the most amiable of women, and as

attached to a quiet and orderly house as her brother. Neither could

any two persons be more kind, or more fond of their niece, than

they were. But it was from this very kindness, this very fondness,

that Mildred found it so pleasant at times to escape. Her aunt,

especially, was willing to grant her any indulgence but that of

being alone. This her love for her niece, and her love of talking,

would rarely permit. Neither could Mildred very graciously petition

for this unsocial privilege. In youth, nothing is so delightful

as solitude, especially when it is procured by stealth, by some

subtle contrivance, some fiction or pretence; and many a time did

her aunt find it necessary to pursue Mildred to her own chamber,

and many a time did she bring her down into the parlour, repeating,

with unfeigned surprise, and a tone of gentle complaint, the always

unanswerable question--what she _could_ be doing so long in her own

room? Therefore it was that she was fain to steal out alone--take

her walk through the churchyard, ascend the tower, enter its little

library, and plant herself in its old arm-chair for an hour of

solitary reading or thinking.

Mildred Willoughby was born in India, and her parents (the greatest

misery attendant upon a residence in that climate) were compelled

to send her to England to be reared, as well as educated. She had

been placed under the care of her uncle and aunt. These had always

continued to live together--bachelor and spinster. As their united

incomes enabled them to surround themselves with every comfort and

personal luxury, and as they were now of a very mature age, it was

no longer considered to be in the chapter of probabilities that

either of them would change their condition. Miss Bloomfield, in

her youth, was accounted a beauty--the _belle_ of Wimborne; and we

may be sure that personal charms, a very amiable disposition, and a

considerable fortune, could not fail to bring her numerous admirers

and suitors. But her extreme placidity of temper no passion seems

ever to have ruffled; and it did so happen, that though her hand had

often been solicited, no opportunity of marriage had been offered to

her which would not have put in jeopardy some of those comforts and

indulgences to which she was habituated. She was pleased with the

attentions of gentlemen, and was studious to attract them; but there

was nothing in that word _love_ which could have compensated for the

loss of her favourite attendants, or of that pretty little carriage

that drew her about the country.

As for Mr Bloomfield, it was generally supposed that he had

suffered from more than one tender disappointment, having always

had the misfortune to fix his affections just where they could not

be returned. But those who knew him well would say, that Josiah

Bloomfield was, in fact, too timid and irresolute a man ever to have

married--that being himself conscious of this, yet courting, at the

same time, the excitement of a tender passion, he invariably made

love where he was sure to be rejected. Many a fascinating girl came

before him, whom he might have won, from whose society, for this

very reason, he quietly withdrew, to carry his sighs to some quarter

where a previous engagement, or some other obstacle, was sure to

procure him a denial. He thus had all the pleasing pains of wooing,

and earned the credit for great sensibility, whilst he hugged

himself in the safe felicity of a single life. By this time, a more

confirmed or obdurate bachelor did not exist; yet he was pleased

to be thought to wear the willow, and would, from time to time,

endeavour to extort compassion by remote hints at the sufferings he

had endured from unreturned affection.

Two such persons, it will be supposed, were at first somewhat

alarmed at the idea of taking into their establishment a little

girl about four or five years old. Indeed, they had, in the first

instance, only so far agreed to take charge of her as to find her

a fit school--to receive her at the holidays--and, in this distant

manner, superintend her education. But Mildred proved so quiet, so

tractable, and withal so cheerful a child, that they soon resolved

to depart from this plan. She had not been long in the house before

it would have been a great distress to both of them to have parted

with her. It was determined that she should reside perpetually

with them, and that the remittances received from India should be

employed in obtaining the very best masters that could be procured

from Bath or Exeter. Mr Bloomfield found, in the superintendence of

Mildred's education, an employment which made the day half as short

as it had ever been before. He was himself a man fond of reading;

and if he had not a very large store of thoughts, he had at least an

excellent library, into which Mildred, who had now arrived at the

age of fifteen, had already begun to penetrate.

And books--her music--&c., a few friends, more distinguished by

good-breeding and good-nature than by any vivacity of mind, were

all the world of Mildred Willoughby, and it was a world that there

seemed little probability of her getting beyond. It had been

expected that about this time she would have returned to India to

her parents; but her mother had died, and her father had expressed

no wish that she should be sent out to him. On the contrary, beyond

certain pecuniary remittances, and these came through an agent's

hands, there was nothing to testify that he bore any remembrance

of his daughter. Of her father, very contradictory reports had

reached her; some said that he had married again, and had formed

an engagement of which he was not very proud; others that he had

quitted the service, and was now travelling, no one knew where,

about the world. At all events, he appeared to have forgotten that

he had a daughter in England; and Mildred was almost justified in

considering herself--as she did in her more melancholy moments--as

in fact an orphan, thrown upon the care of an uncle and aunt, and

dependent almost entirely upon them.

One fine summer's day, as she was enjoying her lofty solitude in

the minster tower, a visitor had been allowed to grope up his way

unattended into its antique library. On entering, he was not a

little startled to see before him in this depository of mouldering

literature a blooming girl in all the freshness and beauty of

extreme youth. He hesitated a moment whether to approach and

disturb so charming a vision. But, indeed, the vision was very soon

disturbed. For Mildred, on her side, was still more startled at this

entrance, alone and suddenly, of a very handsome young man--for

such the stranger was--and blushed deeply as she rose from her

chair and attempted to play as usual the part of casual visitor. He

bowed--what could he less?--and made some apology for his having

startled her by his abrupt entrance.

The stranger's manner was so quiet and unpresuming, that the

timidity of Mildred soon disappeared, and before she had time to

think what was most _proper_ to do, she found herself in a very

interesting conversation with one who evidently was as intelligent

as he was well-bred and good-looking. She had let fall her book in

her hurry to rise. He picked it up, and as he held the elegantly

bound volume in his hand, which ludicrously contrasted with the

mouldy and black-letter quartos that surrounded them, he asked with

a smile, on which shelf he was to deposit it. "This fruit," said

he, "came from another orchard." And seeing the title at the back,

he added, "Italian I might have expected to find in a young lady's

hand, but I should have looked for a Tasso, not an Alfieri."

"Yes," she replied gaily, "a damsel discovered reading in this old

turret ought to have book of chivalry in her hand. I have read

Tasso, but I do not prefer him. Alfieri presents me quite as much as

Tasso with a new world to live in, and it is a more real world. I

seem to be learning from him the real feelings of men."

The stranger was manifestly struck by this kind of observation

from one so young, and still more by the simple and unpretending

manner in which it was uttered. Mildred had not the remotest idea

of talking criticism, she was merely expressing her own unaffected

partialities. He would have been happy to prolong the conversation,

but the clerk, or verger, who had missed his visitor--as well he

might, for his visitor had purposely given him the slip, as all wise

men invariably do to all cicerones of whatever description--had at

length tracked his fugitive up the tower, and into the library. His

entrance interrupted their dialogue, and compelled the stranger very

soon afterwards to retreat. He made his bow to the fair lady of the

tower and descended.

Mildred read very little more that day, and if she lingered somewhat

longer in meditation, her thoughts had less connexion than ever

with antiquities of any kind. She descended, and took her way

home. The probability that she might meet the stranger in passing

through the town--albeit there was nothing, disagreeable in the

thought--made her walk with unusual rapidity, and bend her eyes

pertinaciously upon the ground. The consequence of which was, that

in turning the corner of a street which she passed almost every day

of her life, she contrived to entangle her dress in some of the

interesting hardware of the principal ironmonger of the place, who,

for the greater convenience of the inhabitants, was accustomed to

advance his array of stoves and shovels far upon the pavement, and

almost before their feet. As she turned and stooped to disengage

her dress, she found that relief and rescue were already at hand.

The stranger knight, who had come an age too late to release her

as a captive from the tower, was affording the best assistance he

could to extricate her from entanglement with a kitchen-range. Some

ludicrous idea of this kind occurred to both at the same time--their

eyes met with a smile--and their hands had very nearly encountered

as they both bent over the tenacious muslin. The task, however,

was achieved, and a very gracious "thank you" from one of the most

musical of voices repaid the stranger for his gallantry.

That evening Mildred happened to be sitting near the window--it

must have been by merest hazard, for she very rarely occupied that

part of the room--as the Bath coach passed their gates. A gentleman

seated on the roof appeared to recognise her--at least, he took

his hat off as he passed. Was it the same?--and what if it were?

Evidently he was a mere passer-by, who had been detained in the town

a few hours, waiting for this coach. Would he ever even think again

of the town of Wimborne--of its old minster--or its tower--and the

girl he surprised sitting there, in its little antique library?